FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]Published in two volumes, 4to.[2]It is almost unnecessary to apprise the reader that the paragraph at the bottom of p. 222. vol. iv. was writtenbeforethe appearance of this extraordinary paper.[3]From p. 4. to 11. vol. v. inclusive.[4]In p. 232. vol. iv. however, the reader will find it alluded to, and in terms such as conduct so disinterested deserves.[5]June 12, 1828.[6]"In the park of Horseley," says Thoroton, "there was a castle, some of the ruins whereof are yet visible, called Horestan Castle, which was the chief mansion of his (Ralph de Burun's) successors."[7]The priory of Newstead had been founded and dedicated to God and the Virgin, by Henry II.; and its monks, who were canons regular of the order of St. Augustine, appear to have been peculiarly the objects of royal favour, no less in spiritual than in temporal concerns. During the lifetime of the fifth Lord Byron, there was found in the lake at Newstead,—where it is supposed to have been thrown for concealment by the monks,—a large brass eagle, in the body of which, on its being sent to be cleaned, was discovered a secret aperture, concealing within it a number of old legal papers connected with the rights and privileges of the foundation. At the sale of the old lord's effects in 1776-7, this eagle, together with three candelabra, found at the same time, was purchased by a watch-maker of Nottingham (by whom the concealed manuscripts were discovered), and having from his hands passed into those of Sir Richard Kaye, a prebendary of Southwell, forms at present a very remarkable ornament of the cathedral of that place. A curious document, said to have been among those found in the eagle, is now in the possession of Colonel Wildman, containing a grant of full pardon from Henry V. of every possible crime (and there is a tolerably long catalogue enumerated) which the monks might have committed previous to the 8th of December preceding:—"Murdris, per ipsospost decimum nonum diem Novembris, ultimo præteritum perpetratis, si quæ fuerint,exceptis."[8]The Earl of Shrewsbury.[9]Afterwards Admiral.[10]The following particulars respecting the amount of Mrs. Byron's fortune before marriage, and its rapid disappearance afterwards, are, I have every reason to think, from the authentic source to which I am indebted for them, strictly correct:—"At the time of the marriage, Miss Gordon was possessed of about 3000l.in money, two shares of the Aberdeen Banking Company, the estates of Gight and Monkshill, and the superiority of two salmon fishings on Dee. Soon after the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Byron Gordon in Scotland, it appeared that Mr. Byron had involved himself very deeply in debt, and his creditors commenced legal proceedings for the recovery of their money. The cash in hand was soon paid away,—the bank shares were disposed of at 600l.(now worth 5000l.)—timber on the estate was cut down and sold to the amount of 1500l.—the farm of Monkshill and superiority of the fishings, affording a freehold qualification, were disposed of at 480l.; and, in addition to these sales, within a year after the marriage, 8000l.was borrowed upon a mortgage on the estate, granted by Mrs. Byron Gordon to the person who lent the money."In March, 1786, a contract of marriage in the Scotch form was drawn up and signed by the parties. In the course of the summer of that year, Mr. and Mrs. Byron left Gight, and never returned to it; the estate being, in the following year, sold to Lord Haddo for the sum of 17,850l., the whole of which was applied to the payment of Mr. Byron's debts, with the exception of 1122l., which remained as a burden on the estate, (the interest to be applied to paying a jointure of 55l.11s. 1d. to Mrs. Byron's grandmother, the principal reverting, at her death, to Mrs. Byron,) and 3000l.vested in trustees for Mrs. Byron's separate use, which was lent to Mr. Carsewell of Ratharllet, in Fifeshire.""A strange occurrence," says another of my informants, "took place previous to the sale of the lands. All the doves left the house of Gight and came to Lord Haddo's, and so did a number of herons, which had built their nests for many years in a wood on the banks of a large loch, called the Hagberry Pot. When this was told to Lord Haddo, he pertinently replied, 'Let the birds come, and do them no harm, for the land will soon follow;' which it actually did."[11]It appears that she several times changed her residence during her stay at Aberdeen, as there are two other houses pointed out, where she lodged for some time; one situated in Virginia Street, and the other, the house of a Mr. Leslie, I think, in Broad Street.[12]By her advances of money to Mr. Byron (says an authority I have already cited) on the two occasions when he visited Aberdeen, as well as by the expenses incurred in furnishing the floor occupied by her, after his death, in Broad Street, she got in debt to the amount of 300l., by paying the interest on which her income was reduced to 135l.On this, however, she contrived to live without increasing her debt; and on the death of her grandmother, when she received the 122l.set apart for that lady's annuity, discharged the whole.[13]In Long Acre. The present master of this school is Mr. David Grant, the ingenious editor of a collection of "Battles and War Pieces," and of a work of much utility, entitled "Class Book of Modern Poetry."[14]The old porter, too, at the College, "minds weel" the little boy, with the red jacket and nankeen trowsers, whom he has so often turned out of the College court-yard.[15]"He was," says one of my informants, "a good hand at marbles, and could drive one farther than most boys. He also excelled at 'Bases,' a game which requires considerable swiftness of foot."[16]On examining the quarterly lists kept at the grammar-school of Aberdeen, in which the names of the boys are set down according to the station each holds in his class, it appears that in April of the year 1794, the name of Byron, then in the second class, stands twenty-third in a list of thirty-eight boys. In the April of 1798, however, he had risen to be fifth in the fourth class, consisting of twenty-seven boys, and had got ahead of several of his contemporaries, who had previously always stood before him.[17]Notwithstanding the lively recollections expressed in this poem, it is pretty certain, from the testimony of his nurse, that he never was at the mountain itself, which stood some miles distant from his residence, more than twice.[18]The Island.[19]Dante, we know, was but nine years old when, at a May-day festival, he saw and fell in love with Beatrice; and Alfieri, who was himself a precocious lover, considers such early sensibility to be an unerring sign of a soul formed for the fine arts:—"Effetti," he says, in describing the feelings of his own first love, "che poche persone intendono, e pochissime provano: ma a quei soli pochissimi è concesso l' uscir dalla folla volgare in tutte le umane arti." Canova used to say, that he perfectly well remembered having been in love when but five years old.[20]To this Lord Byron used to add, on the authority of old servants of the family, that on the day of their patron's death, these crickets all left the house simultaneously, and in such numbers, that it was impossible to cross the hall without treading on them.[21]The correct reading of this legend is, I understand, as follows:—"Brig o' Balgounie,wight(strong) is thy wa';Wi' a wife's ae son on a mare's ae foal,Down shall thou fa'."[22]In a letter addressed lately by Mr. Sheldrake to the editor of a Medical Journal, it is stated that the person of the same name who attended Lord Byron at Dulwich owed the honour of being called in to a mistake, and effected nothing towards the remedy of the limb. The writer of the letter adds that he was himself consulted by Lord Byron four or five years afterwards, and though unable to undertake the cure of the defect, from the unwillingness of his noble patient to submit to restraint or confinement, was successful in constructing a sort of shoe for the foot, which in some degree alleviated the inconvenience under which he laboured.[23]"Quoique," says Alfieri, speaking of his school-days, "je fusse le plus petit de tons lesgrandsqui se trouvaient au second appartement où j'étais descendu, e'était précisement mon inferiorité de taille, d'age, et de force, qui me donnait plus de courage, et m'engageait à me distinguer."[24]The following is Lord Byron's version of this touching narrative; and it will be felt, I think, by every reader, that this is one of the instances in which poetry must be content to yield the palm to prose. There is a pathos in the last sentences of the seaman's recital, which the artifices of metre and rhyme were sure to disturb, and which, indeed, no verses, however beautiful, could half so naturally and powerfully express:—"There were two fathers in this ghastly crew,And with them their two sons, of whom the oneWas more robust and hardy to the view,But he died early; and when he was gone,His nearest messmate told his sire, who threwOne glance on him, and said, 'Heaven's will be done,I can do nothing,' and he saw him thrownInto the deep without a tear or groan."The other father had a weaklier child,Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate;But the boy bore up long, and with a mildAnd patient spirit held aloof his fate;Little be said, and now and then he smiled,As if to win a part from off the weightHe saw increasing on his father's heart,With the deep, deadly thought, that they must part."And o'er him bent his sire, and never raisedHis eyes from off his face, but wiped the foamFrom his pale lips, and ever on him gazed,And when the wish'd-for shower at length was come,And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed,Brighten'd, and for a moment seem'd to roam,He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rainInto his dying child's mouth—but in vain."The boy expired—the father held the clay,And look'd upon it long, and when at lastDeath left no doubt, and the dead burden layStiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past,He watch'd it wistfully, until away'Twas borne by the rude wave wherein 'twas cast:Then he himself sunk down all dumb and shivering,And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering."Don Juan, Canto ii.In the collection of "Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea," to which Lord Byron so skilfully had recourse for the technical knowledge and facts out of which he has composed his own powerful description, the reader will find the account of the loss of the Juno here referred to.[25]This elegy is in his first (unpublished) volume.[26]Seepage 25.[27]For the display of his declamatory powers, on the speech-days, he selected always the most vehement passages,—such as the speech of Zanga over the body of Alonzo, and Lear's address to the storm. On one of these public occasions, when it was arranged that he should take the part of Drances, and young Peel that of Turnus, Lord Byron suddenly changed his mind, and preferred the speech of Latinus,—fearing, it was supposed, some ridicule from the inappropriate taunt of Turnus, "Ventosâ in linguâ,pedibusque fugacibus istis."[28]His letters to Mr. Sinclair, in return, are unluckily lost,—one of them, as this gentleman tells me, having been highly characteristic of the jealous sensitiveness of his noble schoolfellow, being written under the impression of some ideal slight, and beginning, angrily, "Sir."[29]On a leaf of one of his note-books, dated 1808, I find the following passage from Marmontel, which no doubt struck him as applicable to the enthusiasm of his own youthful friendships:—"L'amitié, qui dans le monde est à peine un sentiment, est une passion dans les cloîtres."—Contes Moraux.[30]Mr. D'Israeli, in his ingenious work "On the Literary Character," has given it as his opinion, that a disinclination to athletic sports and exercises will be, in general, found among the peculiarities which mark a youthful genius. In support of this notion he quotes Beattie, who thus describes his ideal minstrel:—"Concourse, and noise, and toil, he ever fled,Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous frayOf squabbling imps, but to the forest sped."His highest authority, however, is Milton, who says of himself,"When I was yet a child, no childish playTo me was pleasing."Such general rules, however, are as little applicable to the dispositions of men of genius as to their powers. If, in the instances which Mr. D'Israeli adduces an indisposition to bodily exertion was manifested, as many others may be cited in which the directly opposite propensity was remarkable. In war, the most turbulent of exercises, Æschylus, Dante, Camoens, and a long list of other poets, distinguished themselves; and, though it may be granted that Horace was a bad rider, and Virgil no tennis-player, yet, on the other hand, Dante was, we know, a falconer as well as swordsman; Tasso, expert both as swordsman and dancer; Alfieri, a great rider; Klopstock, a skaiter; Cowper, famous, in his youth, at cricket and foot-ball; and Lord Byron, pre-eminent in all sorts of exercises.[31]"At eight or nine years of age the boy goes to school. From that moment he becomes a stranger in his father's house. The course of parental kindness is interrupted. The smiles of his mother, those tender admonitions, and the solicitous care of both his parents, are no longer before his eyes—year after year he feels himself more detached from them, till at last he is so effectually weaned from the connection, as to find himself happier anywhere than in their company."—Cowper, Letters.[32]Even previously to any of these school friendships, he had formed the same sort of romantic attachment to a boy of his own age, the son of one of his tenants at Newstead; and there are two or three of his most juvenile poems, in which he dwells no less upon the inequality than the warmth of this friendship. Thus:—"Let Folly smile, to view the namesOf thee and me in friendship twined;Yet Virtue will have greater claimsTo love, than rank with Vice combined."And though unequal is thy fate,Since title deck'd my higher birth,Yet envy not this gaudy state,Thine is the pride of modest worth."Our souls at least congenial meet,Nor can thy lot my rank disgrace;Our intercourse is not less sweetSince worth of rank supplies the place."November, 1802."[33]There are, in other letters of the same writer, some curious proofs of the passionate and jealous sensibility of Byron. From one of them, for instance, we collect that he had taken offence at his young friend's addressing him "my dear Byron," instead of "my dearest;" and from another, that his jealousy had been awakened by some expressions of regret which his correspondent had expressed at the departure of Lord John Russell for Spain:—"You tell me," says the young letter-writer, "that you never knew me in such an agitation as I was when I wrote my last letter; and do you not think I had reason to be so? I received a letter from you on Saturday, telling me you were going abroad for six years in March, and on Sunday John Russell set off for Spain. Was not that sufficient to make me rather melancholy? But how can you possibly imagine that I was more agitated on John Russell's account, who is gone for a few months, and from whom I shall hear constantly, than at your going for six years to travel over most part of the world, when I shall hardly ever hear from you, and perhaps may never see you again?"It has very much hurt me your telling me that you might be excused if you felt rather jealous at my expressing more sorrow for the departure of the friend who was with me, than of that one who was absent. It is quite impossible you can think I am more sorry for John's absence than I shall be for yours;—I shall therefore finish the subject."[34]To this tomb he thus refers in the "Childish Recollections," as printed in his first unpublished volume:—"Oft when, oppress'd with sad, foreboding gloom,I sat reclined upon our favourite tomb."[35]I find this circumstance, of his having occasionally slept at the Hut, though asserted by one of the old servants, much doubted by others.[36]It may possibly have been the recollection of these pictures that suggested to him the following lines in the Siege of Corinth:—"Like the figures on arras that gloomily glare,Stirr'd by the breath of the wintry air,So seen by the dying lamp's fitful light,Lifeless, but life-like and awful to sight;As they seem, through the dimness, about to come downFrom the shadowy wall where their images frown."[37]Among the unpublished verses of his in my possession, I find the following fragment, written not long after this period:—"Hills of Annesley, bleak and barren,Where my thoughtless childhood stray'd,How the northern tempests, warring,Howl above thy tufted shade!"Now no more, the hours beguiling,Former favourite haunts I see;Now no more my Mary smiling,Makes ye seem a heaven to me."[38]The lady's husband, for some time, took her family name.[39]These stanzas, I have since found, are not Lord Byron's, but the production of Lady Tuite, and are contained in a volume published by her Ladyship in the year 1795.—(Second edition.)[40]Gibbon, in speaking of public schools, says—"The mimic scene of a rebellion has displayed, in their true colours, the ministers and patriots of the rising generation." Such prognostics, however, are not always to be relied on;—the mild, peaceful Addison was, when at school, the successful leader of abarring-out.[41]This anecdote, which I have given on the testimony of one of Lord Byron's schoolfellows, Doctor Butler himself assures me has but very little foundation in fact.—(Second Edition.)[42]"It is deplorable to consider the loss which children make of their time at most schools, employing, or rather casting away, six or seven years in the learning of words only, and that very imperfectly."—Cowley, Essays."Would not a Chinese, who took notice of our way of breeding, be apt to imagine that all our young gentlemen were designed to be teachers and professors of the dead languages of foreign countries, and not to be men of business in their own?"—Locke on Education.[43]"A finished scholar may emerge from the head of Westminster or Eton in total ignorance of the business and conversation of English gentlemen in the latter end of the eighteenth century."—Gibbon.[44]"Byron, Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, Alumnus Scholæ; Lyonensis primus in anno Domini 1801, Ellison Duce.""Monitors, 1801.—Ellison, Royston, Hunxman, Rashleigh, Rokeby, Leigh."[45]"Drury's Pupils, 1804.—Byron, Drury, Sinclair, Hoare, Bolder, Annesley, Calvert, Strong, Acland, Gordon, Drummond."[46]During one of the Harrow vacations, he passed some time in the house of the Abbé de Roufigny, in Took's-court, for the purpose of studying the French language; but he was, according to the Abbé's account, very little given to study, and spent most of his time in boxing, fencing, &c. to the no small disturbance of the reverend teacher and his establishment.[47]Between superior and inferior, "whose fortunes (as he expresses it) comprehend the one and the other."[48]A gentleman who has since honourably distinguished himself by his philanthropic plans and suggestions for that most important object, the amelioration of the condition of the poor.[49]In a suit undertaken for the recovery of the Rochdale property.[50]This precious pencilling is still, of course, preserved.[51]The verses "To a beautiful Quaker," in his first volume, were written at Harrowgate.[52]A horse of Lord Byron's:—the other horse that he had with him at this time was called Sultan.[53]The favourite dog, on which Lord Byron afterwards wrote the well-known epitaph.[54]Lord Byron and Dr. Pigot continued to be correspondents for some time, but, after their parting this autumn, they never met again.[55]Of this edition, which was in quarto, and consisted but of a few sheets, there are but two, or, at the utmost, three copies in existence.[56]His valet, Frank.[57]Of this "Mary," who is not to be confounded either with the heiress of Annesley, or "Mary" of Aberdeen, all I can record is, that she was of an humble, if not equivocal, station in life,—that she had long, light golden hair, of which he used to show a lock, as well as her picture, among his friends; and that the verses in his "Hours of Idleness," entitled "To Mary, on receiving her Picture," were addressed to her.[58]Here the imperfect sheet ends.[59]Though always fond of music, he had very little skill in the performance of it. "It is very odd," he said, one day, to this lady,—"I sing much better to your playing than to any one else's."—"That is," she answered, "because I play to your singing."—In which few words, by the way, the whole secret of a skilful accompanier lies.[60]Cricketing, too, was one of his most favourite sports; and it was wonderful, considering his lameness, with what speed he could run. "Lord Byron (says Miss ——, in a letter, to her brother, from Southwell) is just gone past the window with his bat on his shoulder to cricket, which he is as fond of as ever."[61]In one of Miss ——'s letters, the following notice of these canine feuds occurs:—"Boatswain has had another battle with Tippoo at the House of Correction, and came off conqueror. Lord B. brought Bo'sen to our window this morning, when Gilpin, who is almost always here, got into an amazing fury with him."[62]"It was the custom of Burns," says Mr. Lockhart, in his Life of that poet, "to read at table."[63]"I took to reading by myself," says Pope, "for which I had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm;... I followed every where, as my fancy led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the fields and woods, just as they fell in his way. These five or six years I still look upon as the happiest part of my life." It appears, too, that he was himself aware of the advantages which this free course of study brought with it:—"Mr. Pope," says Spence, "thought himself the better, in some respects, for not having had a regular education. He (as he observed in particular) read originally for the sense, whereas we are taught, for so many years, to read only for words."[64]Before Chatterton was twelve years old, he wrote a catalogue, in the same manner as Lord Byron, of the books he had already read, to the number of seventy. Of these the chief subjects were history and divinity.[65]The perfect purity with which the Greeks wrote their own language, was, with justice, perhaps, attributed by themselves to their entire abstinence from the study of any other. "If they became learned," says Ferguson, "it was only by studying what they themselves had produced."[66]The only circumstance I know, that bears even remotely on the subject of this poem, is the following. About a year or two before the date affixed to it, he wrote to his mother, from Harrow (as I have been told by a person to whom Mrs. Byron herself communicated the circumstance), to say, that he had lately had a good deal of uneasiness on account of a young woman, whom he knew to have been a favourite of his late friend, Curzon, and who, finding herself, after his death, in a state of progress towards maternity, had declared Lord Byron was the father of her child. This, he positively assured his mother, was not the case; but, believing, as he did firmly, that the child belonged to Curzon, it was his wish that it should be brought up with all possible care, and he, therefore, entreated that his mother would have the kindness to take charge of it. Though such a request might well (as my informant expresses it) have discomposed a temper more mild than Mrs. Byron's, she notwithstanding answered her son in the kindest terms, saying that she would willingly receive the child as soon as it was born, and bring it up in whatever manner he desired. Happily, however, the infant died almost immediately, and was thus spared the being a tax on the good nature of any body.[67]In this practice of dating his juvenile poems he followed the example of Milton, who (says Johnson), "by affixing the dates to his first compositions, a boast of which the learned Politian had given him an example, seems to commend the earliness of his own compositions to the notice of posterity."The following trifle, written also by him in 1807, has never, as far as I know, appeared in print:—"EPITAPH ON JOHN ADAMS, OF SOUTHWELL, A CARRIER,"WHO DIED OF DRUNKENNESS."John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell,ACarrier, whocarriedhis can to his mouth well;Hecarriedso much, and hecarriedso fast,He couldcarryno more—so wascarriedat last;For, the liquor he drank being too much for one,He could notcarryoff,—so he 's nowcarri-on."B——, Sept. 1807."[68]Annesley is, of course, not forgotten among the number:—"And shall I here forget the scene,Still nearest to my breast?Rocks rise and rivers roll betweenThe rural spot which passion blest;Yet, Mary, all thy beauties seemFresh as in Love's bewitching dream," &c. &c.[69]It appears from a passage in one of Miss ——'s letters to her brother, that Lord Byron sent, through this gentleman, a copy of his poems to Mr. Mackenzie, the author of the Man of Feeling:—"I am glad you mentioned Mr. Mackenzie's having got a copy of Lord B.'s poems, and what he thought of them—Lord B. was somuchpleased!"In another letter, the fair writer says,—"Lord Byron desired me to tell you that the reason you did not hear from him was because his publication was not so forward as he had flattered himself it would have been. I told him, 'he was no more to be depended on than a woman,' which instantly brought the softness of that sex into his countenance, for he blushed exceedingly."[70]He was, indeed, a thorough boy, at this period, in every respect:—"Next Monday" (says Miss ——) "is our great fair. Lord Byron talks of it with as much pleasure as little Henry, and declares he will ride in the round-about,—but I think he will change his mind."[71]He here alludes to an odd fancy or trick of his own;—whenever he was at a loss for something to say, he used always to gabble over "1 2 3 4 5 6 7."[72]Notwithstanding the abuse which, evidently more in sport than seriousness, he lavishes, in the course of these letters, upon Southwell, he was, in after days, taught to feel that the hours which he had passed in this place were far more happy than any he had known afterwards. In a letter written not long since to his servant, Fletcher, by a lady who had been intimate with him, in his young days, at Southwell, there are the following words:—"Your poor, good master always called me 'Old Piety,' when I preached to him. When he paid me his last visit, he said, 'Well, good friend, I shall never be so happy again as I was in old Southwell.'" His real opinion of the advantages of this town, as a place of residence, will be seen in a subsequent letter, where he most strenuously recommends it, in that point of view, to Mr. Dallas.[73]It may be as well to mention here the sequel of this enthusiastic attachment. In the year 1811 young Edleston died of a consumption, and the following letter, addressed by Lord Byron to the mother of his fair Southwell correspondent, will show with what melancholy faithfulness, among the many his heart had then to mourn for, he still dwelt on the memory of his young college friend:—"Cambridge, Oct. 28. 1811."Dear Madam,"I am about to write to you on a silly subject, and yet I cannot well do otherwise. You may remember acornelian, which some years ago I consigned to Miss ——, indeedgaveto her, and now I am going to make the most selfish and rude of requests. The person who gave it to me, when I was very young, isdead, and though a long time has elapsed since we met, as it was the only memorial I possessed of that person (in whom I was very much interested), it has acquired a value by this event I could have wished it never to have borne in my eyes. If, therefore, Miss —— should have preserved it, I must, under these circumstances, beg her to excuse my requesting it to be transmitted to me at No. 8. St. James's Street, London, and I will replace it by something she may remember me by equally well. As she was always so kind as to feel interested in the fate of him that formed the subject of our conversation, you may tell her that the giver of that cornelian died in May last of a consumption, at the age of twenty-one, making the sixth, within four months, of friends and relatives that I have lost between May and the end of August."Believe me, dear Madam, yours very sincerely,"Byron."P.S. I go to London to-morrow."The cornelian heart was, of course, returned, and Lord Byron, at the same time, reminded that he had left it with Miss ——[74]In the Collection of his Poems printed for private circulation, he had inserted some severe verses on Dr. Butler, which he omitted in the subsequent publication,—at the same time explaining why he did so, in a note little less severe than the verses.[75]This first attempt of Lord Byron at reviewing (for it will be seen that he, once or twice afterwards, tried his hand at this least poetical of employments) is remarkable only as showing how plausibly he could assume the established tone and phraseology of these minor judgment-seats of criticism. For instance:—"The volumes before us are by the author of Lyrical Ballads, a collection which has not undeservedly met with a considerable share of public applause. The characteristics of Mr. Wordsworth's muse are simple and flowing, though occasionally inharmonious, verse,—strong and sometimes irresistible appeals to the feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments. Though the present work may not equal his former efforts, many of the poems possess a native elegance," &c. &c. &c. If Mr. Wordsworth ever chanced to cast his eye over this article, how little could he have suspected that under that dull prosaic mask lurked one who, in five short years from thence, would rival evenhimin poetry.[76]This plan (which he never put in practice) had been talked of by him before he left Southwell, and is thus noticed in a letter of his fair correspondent to her brother:—"How can you ask if Lord B. is going to visit the Highlands in the summer? Why, don'tyouknow that he never knows his own mind for ten minutes together? I tellhimhe is as fickle as the winds, and as uncertain as the waves."[77]We observe here, as in other parts of his early letters, that sort of display and boast of rakishness which is but too common a folly at this period of life, when the young aspirant to manhood persuades himself that to be profligate is to be manly. Unluckily, this boyish desire of being thought worse than he really was, remained with Lord Byron, as did some other feelings and foibles of his boyhood, long after the period when, with others, they are past and forgotten; and his mind, indeed, was but beginning to outgrow them, when he was snatched away.[78]The poem afterwards enlarged and published under the title of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." It appears from this that the ground-work of that satire had been laid some time before the appearance of the article in the Edinburgh Review.[79]Sept. 1807. This Review, in pronouncing upon the young author's future career, showed itself somewhat more "prophet-like" than the great oracle of the North. In noticing the Elegy on Newstead Abbey, the writer says, "We could not but hail, with something of prophetic rapture, the hope conveyed in the closing stanza:—"Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine,Thee to irradiate with meridian ray," &c. &c.[80]The first number of a monthly publication called "The Satirist," in which there appeared afterwards some low and personal attacks upon him.[81]"Look out for a people entirely destitute of religion: if you find them at all, be assured that they are but few degrees removed from brutes."—HUME.The reader will find this avowal of Hume turned eloquently to the advantage of religion in a Collection of Sermons, entitled, "The Connexion of Christianity with Human Happiness," written by one of Lord Byron's earliest and most valued friends, the Rev. William Harness.[82]The only thing remarkable about Walsh's preface is, that Dr. Johnson praises it as "very judicious," but is, at the same time, silent respecting the poems to which it is prefixed.[83]Characters in the novel calledPercival.[84]This appeal to the imagination of his correspondent was not altogether without effect.—"I considered," says Mr. Dallas, "these letters,though evidently grounded on some occurrences in the still earlier part of his life, rather asjeux d'espritthan as a true portrait."[85]He appears to have had in his memory Voltaire's lively account of Zadig's learning: "Il savait de la métaphysique ce qu'on en a su dans tous les âges,—c'est à dire, fort peu de chose," &c.[86]The doctrine of Hume, who resolves all virtue into sentiment.—See his "Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals."[87]See his Letter to Anthony Collins, 1703-4, where he speaks of "those sharp heads, which were for damning his book, because of its discouraging the staple commodity of the place, which in his time was calledhogs' shearing."[88]Hard, "Discourses on Poetical Imitation."[89]Prologue to the University of Oxford.[90]"'Tis a quality very observable in human nature, that any opposition which does not entirely discourage and intimidate us, has rather a contrary effect, and inspires us with a more than ordinary grandeur and magnanimity. In collecting our force to overcome the opposition, we invigorate the soul, and give it an elevation with which otherwise it would never have been acquainted."—Hume,Treatise of Human Nature.[91]"The colour of our whole life is generally such as the three or four first years in which we are our own masters make it."—Cowper.[92]"I refer to my old friend and corporeal pastor and master, John Jackson, Esq., Professor of Pugilism, who I trust still retains the strength and symmetry of his model of a form, together with his good humour and athletic, as well as mental, accomplishments."—Note on Don Juan, Canto II.[93]Thus addressed always by Lord Byron, but without any right to the distinction.[94]The Journal entitled by himself "Detached Thoughts."[95]Few philosophers, however, have been so indulgent to the pride of birth as Rousseau.—"S'il est un orgueil pardonnable (he says) après celui qui se tire du mérite personnel, c'est celui qui se tire de la naissance."—Confess.[96]This gentleman, who took orders in the year 1814, is the author of a spirited translation of Juvenal, and of other works of distinguished merit. He was long in correspondence with Lord Byron, and to him I am indebted for some interesting letters of his noble friend, which will be given in the course of the following pages.[97]He had also, at one time, as appears from an anecdote preserved by Spence, some thoughts of burying this dog in his garden, and placing a monument over him, with the inscription, "Oh, rare Bounce!"In speaking of the members of Rousseau's domestic establishment, Hume says, "She (Therése) governs him as absolutely as a nurse does a child. In her absence, his dog has acquired that ascendant. His affection for that creature is beyond all expression or conception."—Private Correspondence.See an instance which he gives of this dog's influence over the philosopher, p. 143.In Burns's elegy on the death of his favourite Mailie, we find the friendship even of a sheep set on a level with that of man:—"Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,She ran wi' speed:A friend mair faithful ne'er came nigh him,Than Mailie dead."In speaking of the favourite dogs of great poets, we must not forget Cowper's little spaniel "Beau;" nor will posterity fail to add to the list the name of Sir Walter Scott's "Maida."[98]In the epitaph, as first printed in his friend's Miscellany, this line runs thus:—"I knew but one unchanged—and here he lies."[99]We are told that Wieland used to have his works printed thus for the purpose of correction, and said that he found great advantage in it. The practice is, it appears, not unusual in Germany.[100]See his lines on Major Howard, the son of Lord Carlisle, who was killed at Waterloo:—"Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine;Yet one I would select from that proud throng,Partly because they blend me with his line,Andpartly that I did his sire some wrong."Childe Harold, canto iii.[101]In the fifth edition of the Satire (suppressed by him in 1812) he again changed his mind respecting this gentleman, and altered the line to"I leave topography torapidGell;"explaining his reasons for the change in the following note:—"'Rapid,' indeed;—he topographised and typographised King Priam's dominions in three days. I called him 'classic' before I saw the Troad, but since have learned better than to tack to his name what don't belong to it."He is not, however, the only satirist who has been thus capricious and changeable in his judgments. The variations of this nature in Pope's Dunciad are well known; and the Abbé Cotin, it is said, owed the "painful pre-eminence" of his station in Boileau's Satires to the unlucky convenience of his name as a rhyme. Of the generous change from censure to praise, the poet Dante had already set an example; having, in his "Convito," lauded some of those persons whom, in his Commedia, he had most severely lashed.[102]In another letter to Mr. Harness, dated February, 1809, he says, "I do not know how you and Alma Mater agree. I was but an untoward child myself, and I believe the good lady and her brat were equally rejoiced when I was weaned; and if I obtained her benediction at parting, it was, at best, equivocal."[103]The poem, in the first edition, began at the line,"Time was ere yet, in these degenerate days."[104]Lady Byron, then Miss Milbank.[105]In the MS. remarks on his Satire, to which I have already referred, he says, on this passage—"Yea, and a pretty dance they have led me."[106]"Fool then, and but little wiser now."—MS. ibid.[107]Dated, in his original copy, Nov. 2. 1808.[108]Entitled, in his original manuscript, "To Mrs. ——, on being asked my reason for quitting England in the spring." The date subjoined is Dec. 2. 1808.[109]In his first copy, "Thus, Mary."[110]Thus corrected by himself in a copy of the Miscellany now in my possession;—the two last lines being, originally, as follows:—"Though wheresoe'er my bark may run,I love but thee, I love but one."[111]I give the words as Johnson has reported them;—in Swift's own letter they are, if I recollect right, rather different.[112]There is, at least, one striking point of similarity between their characters in the disposition which Johnson has thus attributed to Swift:—"The suspicions of Swift's irreligion," he says, "proceeded, in a great measure, from his dread of hypocrisy;instead of wishing to seem better, he delighted in seeming worse than he was."[113]Another use to which he appropriated one of the skulls found in digging at Newstead was the having it mounted in silver, and converted into a drinking-cup. This whim has been commemorated in some well-known verses of his own; and the cup itself, which, apart from any revolting ideas it may excite, forms by no means an inelegant object to the eye, is, with many other interesting relics of Lord Byron, in the possession of the present proprietor of Newstead Abbey, Colonel Wildman.[114]Rousseau appears to have been conscious of a similar sort of change in his own nature:—"They have laboured without intermission," he says, in a letter to Madame de Boufflers, "to give to my heart, and, perhaps, at the same time to my genius, a spring and stimulus of action, which they have not inherited from nature. I was born weak,—ill treatment has made me strong."—Hume'sPrivate Correspondence.[115]"It was bitterness that they mistook for frolic."—Johnson's account of himself at the university, in Boswell.[116]The poet Cowper, it is well known, produced that masterpiece of humour, John Gilpin, during one of his fits of morbid dejection; and he himself says, "Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood, and but for that saddest mood, perhaps, had never been written at all."[117]The reconciliation which took place between him and Dr. Butler, before his departure, is one of those instances of placability and pliableness with which his life abounded. We have seen, too, from the manner in which he mentions the circumstance in one of his note-books, that the reconcilement was of that generously retrospective kind, in which not only the feeling of hostility is renounced in future, but a strong regret expressed that it had been ever entertained.Not content with this private atonement to Dr. Butler, it was his intention, had he published another edition of the Hours of Idleness, to substitute for the offensive verses against that gentleman, a frank avowal of the wrong he had been guilty of in giving vent to them. This fact, so creditable to the candour of his nature, I learn from a loose sheet in his handwriting, containing the following corrections. In place of the passage beginning "Or if my Muse a pedant's portrait drew," he meant to insert—"If once my Muse a harsher portrait drew,Warm with her wrongs, and deem'd the likeness true,By cooler judgment taught, her fault she owns,—With noble minds a fault, confess'd, atones."And to the passage immediately succeeding his warm praise of Dr. Drury—"Pomposus fills his magisterial chair," it was his intention to give the following turn:—"Another fills his magisterial chair;Reluctant Ida owns a stranger's care;Oh may like honours crown his future name,—If such his virtues, such shall be his fame."[118]Lord Byron used sometimes to mention a strange story, which the commander of the packet, Captain Kidd, related to him on the passage. This officer stated that, being asleep one night in his berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something heavy on his limbs, and, there being a faint light in the room, could see, as he thought, distinctly, the figure of his brother, who was at that time in the naval service in the East Indies, dressed in his uniform, and stretched across the bed. Concluding it to be an illusion of the senses, he shut his eyes and made an effort to sleep. But still the same pressure continued, and still, as often as he ventured to take another look, he saw the figure lying across him in the same position. To add to the wonder, on putting his hand forth to touch this form, he found the uniform, in which it appeared to be dressed, dripping wet. On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom he called out in alarm, the apparition vanished; but in a few months after he received the startling intelligence that on that night his brother had been drowned in the Indian seas. Of the supernatural character of this appearance, Captain Kidd himself did not appear to have the slightest doubt.[119]The baggage and part of the servants were sent by sea to Gibraltar.[120]"This sort of passage," says Mr. Hodgson, in a note on his copy of this letter, "constantly occurs in his correspondence. Nor was his interest confined to mere remembrances and enquiries after health. Were it possible to stateallhe has done for numerous friends, he would appear amiable indeed. For myself, I am bound to acknowledge, in the fullest and warmest manner, his most generous and well-timed aid; and, were my poor friend Bland alive, he would as gladly bear the like testimony;—though I have most reason, of all men, to do so."[121]The filthiness of Lisbon and its inhabitants.[122]Colonel Napier, in a note in his able History of the Peninsular War, notices the mistake into which Lord Byron and others were led on this subject;—the signature of the Convention, as well as all the other proceedings connected with it, having taken place at a distance of thirty miles from Cintra.[123]We find an allusion to this incident in Don Juan:—"'Tis pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongueBy female lips and eyes—that is, I mean,When both the teacher and the taught are young,As was the case, at least, where I have been," &c. &c.[124]The postscript to this letter is as follows:—P.S. "So Lord G. is married to a rustic! Well done! If I wed, I will bring you home a sultana, with half a dozen cities for a dowry, and reconcile you to an Ottoman daughter-in-law with a bushel of pearls, not larger than ostrich eggs, or smaller than walnuts."[125]The following stanzas from this little poem have a music in them, which, independently of all meaning, is enchanting:—"And since I now remember theeIn darkness and in dread,As in those hours of revelry,Which mirth and music sped;"Do thou, amidst the fair white walls,If Cadiz yet be free,At times, from out her latticed halls,Look o'er the dark blue sea;"Then think upon Calypso's isles,Endear'd by days gone by;To others give a thousand smiles,To me a single sigh," &c. &c.[126]The following is Mr. Hobhouse's loss embellished description of this scene;—"The court at Tepellene, which was enclosed on two sides by the palace, and on the other two sides by a high wall, presented us, at our first entrance, with a sight something like what we might have, perhaps, beheld some hundred years ago in the castle-yard of a great feudal lord. Soldiers, with their arms piled against the wall near them, were assembled in different parts of the square: some of them pacing slowly backwards and forwards, and others sitting on the ground in groups. Several horses, completely caparisoned, were leading about, whilst others were neighing under the hands of the grooms. In the part farthest from the dwelling, preparations were making for the feast of the night; and several kids and sheep were being dressed by cooks who were themselves half armed. Every thing wore a most martial look, though not exactly in the style of the head-quarters of a Christian general; for many of the soldiers were in the most common dress, without shoes, and having more wildness in their air and manner than the Albanians we had before seen."On comparing this description, which is itself sufficiently striking, with those which Lord Byron has given of the same scene, both in the letter to his mother, and in the second Canto of Childe Harold, we gain some insight into the process by which imagination elevates, without falsifying, reality, and facts become brightened and refined into poetry. Ascending from the representation drawn faithfully on the spot by the traveller, to the more fanciful arrangement of the same materials in the letter of the poet, we at length, by one step more, arrive at that consummate, idealised picture, the result of both memory and invention combined, which in the following splendid stanzas is presented to us:—Amidst no common pomp the despot sate,While busy preparations shook the court,Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons wait;Within, a palace, and without, a fort:Here men of every clime appear to make resort."Richly caparison'd, a ready rowOf armed horse, and many a warlike store,Circled the wide-extending court below;Above, strange groups adorn'd the corridore;And oft-times through the area's echoing doorSome high-capp'd Tartar spurr'd his steed away:The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor,Here mingled in their many-hued array,While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close of day."The wild Albanian, kirtled to his knee,With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun,And gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see;The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon;The Delhi, with his cap of terror on,And crooked glaive; the lively, supple Greek;And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son;The bearded Turk that rarely deigns to speak,Master of all around—too potent to be meek,"Are mix'd, conspicuous: some recline in groups,Scanning the motley scene that varies round;There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops,And some that smoke, and some that play, are found;Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground;Half whispering there the Greek is heard to prate;Hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound,The Muezzin's call doth shake the minaret,There is no god but God!—to prayer—lo! God is great!'"Childe Harold, Canto II.[127]In the shape of the hands, as a mark of high birth, Lord Byron himself had as implicit faith as the Pacha: see his note on the line, "Though on morethorough-bredor fairer fingers," in Don Juan.[128]A few sentences are here and elsewhere omitted, as having no reference to Lord Byron himself, but merely containing some particulars relating to Ali and his grandsons, which may be found in various books of travels.Ali had not forgotten his noble guest when Dr. Holland, a few years after, visited Albania:—"I mentioned to him, generally (says this intelligent traveller), Lord Byron's poetical description of Albania, the interest it had excited in England, and Mr. Hobhouse's intended publication of his travels in the same country. He seemed pleased with these circumstances, and stated his recollections of Lord Byron."[129]I have heard the poet's fellow-traveller describe this remarkable instance of his coolness and courage even still more strikingly than it is here stated by himself. Finding that, from his lameness, he was unable to be of any service in the exertions which their very serious danger called for, after a laugh or two at the panic of his valet, he not only wrapped himself up and lay down, in the manner here mentioned, but, when their difficulties were surmounted, was found fast asleep.[130]In the route from Ioannina to Zitza, Mr. Hobhouse and the secretary of Ali, accompanied by one of the servants, had rode on before the rest of the party, and arrived at the village just as the evening set in. After describing the sort of hovel in which they were to take up their quarters for the night, Mr. Hobhouse thus continues:—"Vasilly was despatched into the village to procure eggs and fowls, that would be ready, as we thought, by the arrival of the second party. But an hour passed away and no one appeared. It was seven o'clock, and the storm had increased to a fury I had never before, and, indeed, have never since, seen equalled. The roof of our hovel shook under the clattering torrents and gusts of wind. The thunder roared, as it seemed, without any intermission; for the echoes of one peal had not ceased to roll in the mountains, before another tremendous crash burst over our heads; whilst the plains and the distant hills (visible through the cracks of the cabin) appeared in a perpetual blaze. The tempest was altogether terrific, and worthy of the Grecian Jove; and the peasants, no less religious than their ancestors, confessed their alarm. The women wept, and the men, calling on the name of God, crossed themselves at every repeated peal."We were very uneasy that the party did not arrive; but the secretary assured me that the guides knew every part of the country, as did also his own servant, who was with them, and that they had certainly taken shelter in a village at an hour's distance. Not being satisfied with the conjecture, I ordered fires to be lighted on the hill above the village, and some muskets to be discharged: this was at eleven o'clock, and the storm had not abated. I lay down in my great coat; but all sleeping was out of the question, as any pauses in the tempest were filled up by the barking of the dogs, and the shouting of the shepherds in the neighbouring mountains."A little after midnight, a man, panting and pale, and drenched with rain, rushed into the room, and, between crying and roaring, with a profusion of action, communicated something to the secretary, of which I understood only—that they had all fallen down. I learnt, however, that no accident had happened, except the falling of the luggage horses, and losing their way, and that they were now waiting for fresh horses and guides. Ten were immediately sent to them, together with several men with pine-torches; but it was not till two o'clock in the morning that we heard they were approaching, and my friend, with the priest and the servants, did not enter our hut before three."I now learnt from him that they had lost their way from the commencement of the storm, when not above three miles from the village; and that, after wandering up and down in total ignorance of their position, they had, at last, stopped near some Turkish tombstones and a torrent, which they saw by the flashes of lightning. They had been thus exposed for nine hours; and the guides, so far from assisting them, only augmented the confusion, by running away, after being threatened with death by George the dragoman, who, in an agony of rage and fear, and without giving any warning, fired off both his pistols, and drew from the English servant an involuntary scream of horror, for he fancied they were beset by robbers."I had not, as you have seen, witnessed the distressing part of this adventure myself; but from the lively picture drawn of it by my friend, and from the exaggerated descriptions of George, I fancied myself a good judge of the whole situation, and should consider this to have been one of the most considerable of the few adventures that befell either of us during our tour in Turkey. It was long before we ceased to talk of the thunder-storm in the plain of Zitza."[131]Mr. Hobhouse. I think, makes the number of this guard but thirty-seven, and Lord Byron, in a subsequent letter, rates them at forty.[132]"Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey,Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye,Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky,In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!"Childe Harold, Canto I.[133]The passage of Harris, indeed, contains the pith of the whole stanza:—"Notwithstanding the various fortune of Athens, as a city, Attica is still famous for olives, and Mount Hymettus for honey. Human institutions perish, but Nature is permanent."—Philolog. Inquiries.—I recollect having once pointed out this coincidence to Lord Byron, but he assured me that he had never even seen this work of Harris.[134]Travels in Italy, Greece, &c., by H. W. Williams, Esq.[135]The Miscellany, to which I have more than once referred.[136]He has adopted this name in his description of the Seraglio in Don Juan, Canto VI. It was, if I recollect right, in making love to one of these girls that he had recourse to an act of courtship often practised in that country,—namely, giving himself a wound across the breast with his dagger. The young Athenian, by his own account, looked on very coolly during the operation, considering it a fit tribute to her beauty, but in no degree moved to gratitude.[137]Among others, he mentions his passage of the Tagus in 1809, which is thus described by Mr. Hobhouse:—"My companion had before made a more perilous, but less celebrated, passage; for I recollect that, when we were in Portugal, he swam from old Lisbon to Belem Castle, and having to contend with a tide and counter current, the wind blowing freshly, was but little less than two hours in crossing the river." In swimming from Sestos to Abydos, he was one hour and ten minutes in the water.In the year 1808, he had been nearly drowned, while swimming at Brighton with Mr. L. Stanhope. His friend Mr. Hobhouse, and other bystanders, sent in some boatmen, with ropes tied round them, who at last succeeded in dragging Lord Byron and Mr. Stanhope from the surf and thus saved their lives.[138]Alluding to his having swum across the Thames with Mr. H. Drury, after the Montem, to see how many times they could perform the passage backwards and forwards without touching land. In this trial (which took place at night, after supper, when both were heated with drinking,) Lord Byron was the conqueror.[139]New Monthly Magazine.[140]In a note upon the Advertisement prefixed to his Siege of Corinth, he says,—"I visited all three (Tripolitza, Napoli, and Argos,) in 1810-11, and in the course of journeying through the country, from my first arrival in 1809, crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains, or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto."[141]Given afterwards to Sir Walter Scott.[142]At present in the possession of Mr. Murray.

[1]Published in two volumes, 4to.

[2]It is almost unnecessary to apprise the reader that the paragraph at the bottom of p. 222. vol. iv. was writtenbeforethe appearance of this extraordinary paper.

[3]From p. 4. to 11. vol. v. inclusive.

[4]In p. 232. vol. iv. however, the reader will find it alluded to, and in terms such as conduct so disinterested deserves.

[5]June 12, 1828.

[6]"In the park of Horseley," says Thoroton, "there was a castle, some of the ruins whereof are yet visible, called Horestan Castle, which was the chief mansion of his (Ralph de Burun's) successors."

[7]The priory of Newstead had been founded and dedicated to God and the Virgin, by Henry II.; and its monks, who were canons regular of the order of St. Augustine, appear to have been peculiarly the objects of royal favour, no less in spiritual than in temporal concerns. During the lifetime of the fifth Lord Byron, there was found in the lake at Newstead,—where it is supposed to have been thrown for concealment by the monks,—a large brass eagle, in the body of which, on its being sent to be cleaned, was discovered a secret aperture, concealing within it a number of old legal papers connected with the rights and privileges of the foundation. At the sale of the old lord's effects in 1776-7, this eagle, together with three candelabra, found at the same time, was purchased by a watch-maker of Nottingham (by whom the concealed manuscripts were discovered), and having from his hands passed into those of Sir Richard Kaye, a prebendary of Southwell, forms at present a very remarkable ornament of the cathedral of that place. A curious document, said to have been among those found in the eagle, is now in the possession of Colonel Wildman, containing a grant of full pardon from Henry V. of every possible crime (and there is a tolerably long catalogue enumerated) which the monks might have committed previous to the 8th of December preceding:—"Murdris, per ipsospost decimum nonum diem Novembris, ultimo præteritum perpetratis, si quæ fuerint,exceptis."

[8]The Earl of Shrewsbury.

[9]Afterwards Admiral.

[10]The following particulars respecting the amount of Mrs. Byron's fortune before marriage, and its rapid disappearance afterwards, are, I have every reason to think, from the authentic source to which I am indebted for them, strictly correct:—"At the time of the marriage, Miss Gordon was possessed of about 3000l.in money, two shares of the Aberdeen Banking Company, the estates of Gight and Monkshill, and the superiority of two salmon fishings on Dee. Soon after the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Byron Gordon in Scotland, it appeared that Mr. Byron had involved himself very deeply in debt, and his creditors commenced legal proceedings for the recovery of their money. The cash in hand was soon paid away,—the bank shares were disposed of at 600l.(now worth 5000l.)—timber on the estate was cut down and sold to the amount of 1500l.—the farm of Monkshill and superiority of the fishings, affording a freehold qualification, were disposed of at 480l.; and, in addition to these sales, within a year after the marriage, 8000l.was borrowed upon a mortgage on the estate, granted by Mrs. Byron Gordon to the person who lent the money."In March, 1786, a contract of marriage in the Scotch form was drawn up and signed by the parties. In the course of the summer of that year, Mr. and Mrs. Byron left Gight, and never returned to it; the estate being, in the following year, sold to Lord Haddo for the sum of 17,850l., the whole of which was applied to the payment of Mr. Byron's debts, with the exception of 1122l., which remained as a burden on the estate, (the interest to be applied to paying a jointure of 55l.11s. 1d. to Mrs. Byron's grandmother, the principal reverting, at her death, to Mrs. Byron,) and 3000l.vested in trustees for Mrs. Byron's separate use, which was lent to Mr. Carsewell of Ratharllet, in Fifeshire.""A strange occurrence," says another of my informants, "took place previous to the sale of the lands. All the doves left the house of Gight and came to Lord Haddo's, and so did a number of herons, which had built their nests for many years in a wood on the banks of a large loch, called the Hagberry Pot. When this was told to Lord Haddo, he pertinently replied, 'Let the birds come, and do them no harm, for the land will soon follow;' which it actually did."

"At the time of the marriage, Miss Gordon was possessed of about 3000l.in money, two shares of the Aberdeen Banking Company, the estates of Gight and Monkshill, and the superiority of two salmon fishings on Dee. Soon after the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Byron Gordon in Scotland, it appeared that Mr. Byron had involved himself very deeply in debt, and his creditors commenced legal proceedings for the recovery of their money. The cash in hand was soon paid away,—the bank shares were disposed of at 600l.(now worth 5000l.)—timber on the estate was cut down and sold to the amount of 1500l.—the farm of Monkshill and superiority of the fishings, affording a freehold qualification, were disposed of at 480l.; and, in addition to these sales, within a year after the marriage, 8000l.was borrowed upon a mortgage on the estate, granted by Mrs. Byron Gordon to the person who lent the money.

"In March, 1786, a contract of marriage in the Scotch form was drawn up and signed by the parties. In the course of the summer of that year, Mr. and Mrs. Byron left Gight, and never returned to it; the estate being, in the following year, sold to Lord Haddo for the sum of 17,850l., the whole of which was applied to the payment of Mr. Byron's debts, with the exception of 1122l., which remained as a burden on the estate, (the interest to be applied to paying a jointure of 55l.11s. 1d. to Mrs. Byron's grandmother, the principal reverting, at her death, to Mrs. Byron,) and 3000l.vested in trustees for Mrs. Byron's separate use, which was lent to Mr. Carsewell of Ratharllet, in Fifeshire."

"A strange occurrence," says another of my informants, "took place previous to the sale of the lands. All the doves left the house of Gight and came to Lord Haddo's, and so did a number of herons, which had built their nests for many years in a wood on the banks of a large loch, called the Hagberry Pot. When this was told to Lord Haddo, he pertinently replied, 'Let the birds come, and do them no harm, for the land will soon follow;' which it actually did."

[11]It appears that she several times changed her residence during her stay at Aberdeen, as there are two other houses pointed out, where she lodged for some time; one situated in Virginia Street, and the other, the house of a Mr. Leslie, I think, in Broad Street.

[12]By her advances of money to Mr. Byron (says an authority I have already cited) on the two occasions when he visited Aberdeen, as well as by the expenses incurred in furnishing the floor occupied by her, after his death, in Broad Street, she got in debt to the amount of 300l., by paying the interest on which her income was reduced to 135l.On this, however, she contrived to live without increasing her debt; and on the death of her grandmother, when she received the 122l.set apart for that lady's annuity, discharged the whole.

[13]In Long Acre. The present master of this school is Mr. David Grant, the ingenious editor of a collection of "Battles and War Pieces," and of a work of much utility, entitled "Class Book of Modern Poetry."

[14]The old porter, too, at the College, "minds weel" the little boy, with the red jacket and nankeen trowsers, whom he has so often turned out of the College court-yard.

[15]"He was," says one of my informants, "a good hand at marbles, and could drive one farther than most boys. He also excelled at 'Bases,' a game which requires considerable swiftness of foot."

[16]On examining the quarterly lists kept at the grammar-school of Aberdeen, in which the names of the boys are set down according to the station each holds in his class, it appears that in April of the year 1794, the name of Byron, then in the second class, stands twenty-third in a list of thirty-eight boys. In the April of 1798, however, he had risen to be fifth in the fourth class, consisting of twenty-seven boys, and had got ahead of several of his contemporaries, who had previously always stood before him.

[17]Notwithstanding the lively recollections expressed in this poem, it is pretty certain, from the testimony of his nurse, that he never was at the mountain itself, which stood some miles distant from his residence, more than twice.

[18]The Island.

[19]Dante, we know, was but nine years old when, at a May-day festival, he saw and fell in love with Beatrice; and Alfieri, who was himself a precocious lover, considers such early sensibility to be an unerring sign of a soul formed for the fine arts:—"Effetti," he says, in describing the feelings of his own first love, "che poche persone intendono, e pochissime provano: ma a quei soli pochissimi è concesso l' uscir dalla folla volgare in tutte le umane arti." Canova used to say, that he perfectly well remembered having been in love when but five years old.

[20]To this Lord Byron used to add, on the authority of old servants of the family, that on the day of their patron's death, these crickets all left the house simultaneously, and in such numbers, that it was impossible to cross the hall without treading on them.

[21]The correct reading of this legend is, I understand, as follows:—"Brig o' Balgounie,wight(strong) is thy wa';Wi' a wife's ae son on a mare's ae foal,Down shall thou fa'."

[21]The correct reading of this legend is, I understand, as follows:—

"Brig o' Balgounie,wight(strong) is thy wa';Wi' a wife's ae son on a mare's ae foal,Down shall thou fa'."

[22]In a letter addressed lately by Mr. Sheldrake to the editor of a Medical Journal, it is stated that the person of the same name who attended Lord Byron at Dulwich owed the honour of being called in to a mistake, and effected nothing towards the remedy of the limb. The writer of the letter adds that he was himself consulted by Lord Byron four or five years afterwards, and though unable to undertake the cure of the defect, from the unwillingness of his noble patient to submit to restraint or confinement, was successful in constructing a sort of shoe for the foot, which in some degree alleviated the inconvenience under which he laboured.

[23]"Quoique," says Alfieri, speaking of his school-days, "je fusse le plus petit de tons lesgrandsqui se trouvaient au second appartement où j'étais descendu, e'était précisement mon inferiorité de taille, d'age, et de force, qui me donnait plus de courage, et m'engageait à me distinguer."

[24]The following is Lord Byron's version of this touching narrative; and it will be felt, I think, by every reader, that this is one of the instances in which poetry must be content to yield the palm to prose. There is a pathos in the last sentences of the seaman's recital, which the artifices of metre and rhyme were sure to disturb, and which, indeed, no verses, however beautiful, could half so naturally and powerfully express:—"There were two fathers in this ghastly crew,And with them their two sons, of whom the oneWas more robust and hardy to the view,But he died early; and when he was gone,His nearest messmate told his sire, who threwOne glance on him, and said, 'Heaven's will be done,I can do nothing,' and he saw him thrownInto the deep without a tear or groan."The other father had a weaklier child,Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate;But the boy bore up long, and with a mildAnd patient spirit held aloof his fate;Little be said, and now and then he smiled,As if to win a part from off the weightHe saw increasing on his father's heart,With the deep, deadly thought, that they must part."And o'er him bent his sire, and never raisedHis eyes from off his face, but wiped the foamFrom his pale lips, and ever on him gazed,And when the wish'd-for shower at length was come,And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed,Brighten'd, and for a moment seem'd to roam,He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rainInto his dying child's mouth—but in vain."The boy expired—the father held the clay,And look'd upon it long, and when at lastDeath left no doubt, and the dead burden layStiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past,He watch'd it wistfully, until away'Twas borne by the rude wave wherein 'twas cast:Then he himself sunk down all dumb and shivering,And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering."Don Juan, Canto ii.In the collection of "Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea," to which Lord Byron so skilfully had recourse for the technical knowledge and facts out of which he has composed his own powerful description, the reader will find the account of the loss of the Juno here referred to.

"There were two fathers in this ghastly crew,And with them their two sons, of whom the oneWas more robust and hardy to the view,But he died early; and when he was gone,His nearest messmate told his sire, who threwOne glance on him, and said, 'Heaven's will be done,I can do nothing,' and he saw him thrownInto the deep without a tear or groan.

"The other father had a weaklier child,Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate;But the boy bore up long, and with a mildAnd patient spirit held aloof his fate;Little be said, and now and then he smiled,As if to win a part from off the weightHe saw increasing on his father's heart,With the deep, deadly thought, that they must part.

"And o'er him bent his sire, and never raisedHis eyes from off his face, but wiped the foamFrom his pale lips, and ever on him gazed,And when the wish'd-for shower at length was come,And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed,Brighten'd, and for a moment seem'd to roam,He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rainInto his dying child's mouth—but in vain.

"The boy expired—the father held the clay,And look'd upon it long, and when at lastDeath left no doubt, and the dead burden layStiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past,He watch'd it wistfully, until away'Twas borne by the rude wave wherein 'twas cast:Then he himself sunk down all dumb and shivering,And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering."

Don Juan, Canto ii.

In the collection of "Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea," to which Lord Byron so skilfully had recourse for the technical knowledge and facts out of which he has composed his own powerful description, the reader will find the account of the loss of the Juno here referred to.

[25]This elegy is in his first (unpublished) volume.

[26]Seepage 25.

[27]For the display of his declamatory powers, on the speech-days, he selected always the most vehement passages,—such as the speech of Zanga over the body of Alonzo, and Lear's address to the storm. On one of these public occasions, when it was arranged that he should take the part of Drances, and young Peel that of Turnus, Lord Byron suddenly changed his mind, and preferred the speech of Latinus,—fearing, it was supposed, some ridicule from the inappropriate taunt of Turnus, "Ventosâ in linguâ,pedibusque fugacibus istis."

[28]His letters to Mr. Sinclair, in return, are unluckily lost,—one of them, as this gentleman tells me, having been highly characteristic of the jealous sensitiveness of his noble schoolfellow, being written under the impression of some ideal slight, and beginning, angrily, "Sir."

[29]On a leaf of one of his note-books, dated 1808, I find the following passage from Marmontel, which no doubt struck him as applicable to the enthusiasm of his own youthful friendships:—"L'amitié, qui dans le monde est à peine un sentiment, est une passion dans les cloîtres."—Contes Moraux.

[30]Mr. D'Israeli, in his ingenious work "On the Literary Character," has given it as his opinion, that a disinclination to athletic sports and exercises will be, in general, found among the peculiarities which mark a youthful genius. In support of this notion he quotes Beattie, who thus describes his ideal minstrel:—"Concourse, and noise, and toil, he ever fled,Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous frayOf squabbling imps, but to the forest sped."His highest authority, however, is Milton, who says of himself,"When I was yet a child, no childish playTo me was pleasing."Such general rules, however, are as little applicable to the dispositions of men of genius as to their powers. If, in the instances which Mr. D'Israeli adduces an indisposition to bodily exertion was manifested, as many others may be cited in which the directly opposite propensity was remarkable. In war, the most turbulent of exercises, Æschylus, Dante, Camoens, and a long list of other poets, distinguished themselves; and, though it may be granted that Horace was a bad rider, and Virgil no tennis-player, yet, on the other hand, Dante was, we know, a falconer as well as swordsman; Tasso, expert both as swordsman and dancer; Alfieri, a great rider; Klopstock, a skaiter; Cowper, famous, in his youth, at cricket and foot-ball; and Lord Byron, pre-eminent in all sorts of exercises.

"Concourse, and noise, and toil, he ever fled,Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous frayOf squabbling imps, but to the forest sped."

His highest authority, however, is Milton, who says of himself,

"When I was yet a child, no childish playTo me was pleasing."

Such general rules, however, are as little applicable to the dispositions of men of genius as to their powers. If, in the instances which Mr. D'Israeli adduces an indisposition to bodily exertion was manifested, as many others may be cited in which the directly opposite propensity was remarkable. In war, the most turbulent of exercises, Æschylus, Dante, Camoens, and a long list of other poets, distinguished themselves; and, though it may be granted that Horace was a bad rider, and Virgil no tennis-player, yet, on the other hand, Dante was, we know, a falconer as well as swordsman; Tasso, expert both as swordsman and dancer; Alfieri, a great rider; Klopstock, a skaiter; Cowper, famous, in his youth, at cricket and foot-ball; and Lord Byron, pre-eminent in all sorts of exercises.

[31]"At eight or nine years of age the boy goes to school. From that moment he becomes a stranger in his father's house. The course of parental kindness is interrupted. The smiles of his mother, those tender admonitions, and the solicitous care of both his parents, are no longer before his eyes—year after year he feels himself more detached from them, till at last he is so effectually weaned from the connection, as to find himself happier anywhere than in their company."—Cowper, Letters.

[32]Even previously to any of these school friendships, he had formed the same sort of romantic attachment to a boy of his own age, the son of one of his tenants at Newstead; and there are two or three of his most juvenile poems, in which he dwells no less upon the inequality than the warmth of this friendship. Thus:—"Let Folly smile, to view the namesOf thee and me in friendship twined;Yet Virtue will have greater claimsTo love, than rank with Vice combined."And though unequal is thy fate,Since title deck'd my higher birth,Yet envy not this gaudy state,Thine is the pride of modest worth."Our souls at least congenial meet,Nor can thy lot my rank disgrace;Our intercourse is not less sweetSince worth of rank supplies the place."November, 1802."

"Let Folly smile, to view the namesOf thee and me in friendship twined;Yet Virtue will have greater claimsTo love, than rank with Vice combined.

"And though unequal is thy fate,Since title deck'd my higher birth,Yet envy not this gaudy state,Thine is the pride of modest worth.

"Our souls at least congenial meet,Nor can thy lot my rank disgrace;Our intercourse is not less sweetSince worth of rank supplies the place.

"November, 1802."

[33]There are, in other letters of the same writer, some curious proofs of the passionate and jealous sensibility of Byron. From one of them, for instance, we collect that he had taken offence at his young friend's addressing him "my dear Byron," instead of "my dearest;" and from another, that his jealousy had been awakened by some expressions of regret which his correspondent had expressed at the departure of Lord John Russell for Spain:—"You tell me," says the young letter-writer, "that you never knew me in such an agitation as I was when I wrote my last letter; and do you not think I had reason to be so? I received a letter from you on Saturday, telling me you were going abroad for six years in March, and on Sunday John Russell set off for Spain. Was not that sufficient to make me rather melancholy? But how can you possibly imagine that I was more agitated on John Russell's account, who is gone for a few months, and from whom I shall hear constantly, than at your going for six years to travel over most part of the world, when I shall hardly ever hear from you, and perhaps may never see you again?"It has very much hurt me your telling me that you might be excused if you felt rather jealous at my expressing more sorrow for the departure of the friend who was with me, than of that one who was absent. It is quite impossible you can think I am more sorry for John's absence than I shall be for yours;—I shall therefore finish the subject."

"You tell me," says the young letter-writer, "that you never knew me in such an agitation as I was when I wrote my last letter; and do you not think I had reason to be so? I received a letter from you on Saturday, telling me you were going abroad for six years in March, and on Sunday John Russell set off for Spain. Was not that sufficient to make me rather melancholy? But how can you possibly imagine that I was more agitated on John Russell's account, who is gone for a few months, and from whom I shall hear constantly, than at your going for six years to travel over most part of the world, when I shall hardly ever hear from you, and perhaps may never see you again?

"It has very much hurt me your telling me that you might be excused if you felt rather jealous at my expressing more sorrow for the departure of the friend who was with me, than of that one who was absent. It is quite impossible you can think I am more sorry for John's absence than I shall be for yours;—I shall therefore finish the subject."

[34]To this tomb he thus refers in the "Childish Recollections," as printed in his first unpublished volume:—"Oft when, oppress'd with sad, foreboding gloom,I sat reclined upon our favourite tomb."

[34]To this tomb he thus refers in the "Childish Recollections," as printed in his first unpublished volume:—

"Oft when, oppress'd with sad, foreboding gloom,I sat reclined upon our favourite tomb."

[35]I find this circumstance, of his having occasionally slept at the Hut, though asserted by one of the old servants, much doubted by others.

[36]It may possibly have been the recollection of these pictures that suggested to him the following lines in the Siege of Corinth:—"Like the figures on arras that gloomily glare,Stirr'd by the breath of the wintry air,So seen by the dying lamp's fitful light,Lifeless, but life-like and awful to sight;As they seem, through the dimness, about to come downFrom the shadowy wall where their images frown."

[36]It may possibly have been the recollection of these pictures that suggested to him the following lines in the Siege of Corinth:—

"Like the figures on arras that gloomily glare,Stirr'd by the breath of the wintry air,So seen by the dying lamp's fitful light,Lifeless, but life-like and awful to sight;As they seem, through the dimness, about to come downFrom the shadowy wall where their images frown."

[37]Among the unpublished verses of his in my possession, I find the following fragment, written not long after this period:—"Hills of Annesley, bleak and barren,Where my thoughtless childhood stray'd,How the northern tempests, warring,Howl above thy tufted shade!"Now no more, the hours beguiling,Former favourite haunts I see;Now no more my Mary smiling,Makes ye seem a heaven to me."

[37]Among the unpublished verses of his in my possession, I find the following fragment, written not long after this period:—

"Hills of Annesley, bleak and barren,Where my thoughtless childhood stray'd,How the northern tempests, warring,Howl above thy tufted shade!

"Now no more, the hours beguiling,Former favourite haunts I see;Now no more my Mary smiling,Makes ye seem a heaven to me."

[38]The lady's husband, for some time, took her family name.

[39]These stanzas, I have since found, are not Lord Byron's, but the production of Lady Tuite, and are contained in a volume published by her Ladyship in the year 1795.—(Second edition.)

[40]Gibbon, in speaking of public schools, says—"The mimic scene of a rebellion has displayed, in their true colours, the ministers and patriots of the rising generation." Such prognostics, however, are not always to be relied on;—the mild, peaceful Addison was, when at school, the successful leader of abarring-out.

[41]This anecdote, which I have given on the testimony of one of Lord Byron's schoolfellows, Doctor Butler himself assures me has but very little foundation in fact.—(Second Edition.)

[42]"It is deplorable to consider the loss which children make of their time at most schools, employing, or rather casting away, six or seven years in the learning of words only, and that very imperfectly."—Cowley, Essays."Would not a Chinese, who took notice of our way of breeding, be apt to imagine that all our young gentlemen were designed to be teachers and professors of the dead languages of foreign countries, and not to be men of business in their own?"—Locke on Education.

"Would not a Chinese, who took notice of our way of breeding, be apt to imagine that all our young gentlemen were designed to be teachers and professors of the dead languages of foreign countries, and not to be men of business in their own?"—Locke on Education.

[43]"A finished scholar may emerge from the head of Westminster or Eton in total ignorance of the business and conversation of English gentlemen in the latter end of the eighteenth century."—Gibbon.

[44]"Byron, Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, Alumnus Scholæ; Lyonensis primus in anno Domini 1801, Ellison Duce.""Monitors, 1801.—Ellison, Royston, Hunxman, Rashleigh, Rokeby, Leigh."

[44]"Byron, Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, Alumnus Scholæ; Lyonensis primus in anno Domini 1801, Ellison Duce."

"Monitors, 1801.—Ellison, Royston, Hunxman, Rashleigh, Rokeby, Leigh."

[45]"Drury's Pupils, 1804.—Byron, Drury, Sinclair, Hoare, Bolder, Annesley, Calvert, Strong, Acland, Gordon, Drummond."

[46]During one of the Harrow vacations, he passed some time in the house of the Abbé de Roufigny, in Took's-court, for the purpose of studying the French language; but he was, according to the Abbé's account, very little given to study, and spent most of his time in boxing, fencing, &c. to the no small disturbance of the reverend teacher and his establishment.

[47]Between superior and inferior, "whose fortunes (as he expresses it) comprehend the one and the other."

[48]A gentleman who has since honourably distinguished himself by his philanthropic plans and suggestions for that most important object, the amelioration of the condition of the poor.

[49]In a suit undertaken for the recovery of the Rochdale property.

[50]This precious pencilling is still, of course, preserved.

[51]The verses "To a beautiful Quaker," in his first volume, were written at Harrowgate.

[52]A horse of Lord Byron's:—the other horse that he had with him at this time was called Sultan.

[53]The favourite dog, on which Lord Byron afterwards wrote the well-known epitaph.

[54]Lord Byron and Dr. Pigot continued to be correspondents for some time, but, after their parting this autumn, they never met again.

[55]Of this edition, which was in quarto, and consisted but of a few sheets, there are but two, or, at the utmost, three copies in existence.

[56]His valet, Frank.

[57]Of this "Mary," who is not to be confounded either with the heiress of Annesley, or "Mary" of Aberdeen, all I can record is, that she was of an humble, if not equivocal, station in life,—that she had long, light golden hair, of which he used to show a lock, as well as her picture, among his friends; and that the verses in his "Hours of Idleness," entitled "To Mary, on receiving her Picture," were addressed to her.

[58]Here the imperfect sheet ends.

[59]Though always fond of music, he had very little skill in the performance of it. "It is very odd," he said, one day, to this lady,—"I sing much better to your playing than to any one else's."—"That is," she answered, "because I play to your singing."—In which few words, by the way, the whole secret of a skilful accompanier lies.

[60]Cricketing, too, was one of his most favourite sports; and it was wonderful, considering his lameness, with what speed he could run. "Lord Byron (says Miss ——, in a letter, to her brother, from Southwell) is just gone past the window with his bat on his shoulder to cricket, which he is as fond of as ever."

[61]In one of Miss ——'s letters, the following notice of these canine feuds occurs:—"Boatswain has had another battle with Tippoo at the House of Correction, and came off conqueror. Lord B. brought Bo'sen to our window this morning, when Gilpin, who is almost always here, got into an amazing fury with him."

[62]"It was the custom of Burns," says Mr. Lockhart, in his Life of that poet, "to read at table."

[63]"I took to reading by myself," says Pope, "for which I had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm;... I followed every where, as my fancy led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the fields and woods, just as they fell in his way. These five or six years I still look upon as the happiest part of my life." It appears, too, that he was himself aware of the advantages which this free course of study brought with it:—"Mr. Pope," says Spence, "thought himself the better, in some respects, for not having had a regular education. He (as he observed in particular) read originally for the sense, whereas we are taught, for so many years, to read only for words."

[64]Before Chatterton was twelve years old, he wrote a catalogue, in the same manner as Lord Byron, of the books he had already read, to the number of seventy. Of these the chief subjects were history and divinity.

[65]The perfect purity with which the Greeks wrote their own language, was, with justice, perhaps, attributed by themselves to their entire abstinence from the study of any other. "If they became learned," says Ferguson, "it was only by studying what they themselves had produced."

[66]The only circumstance I know, that bears even remotely on the subject of this poem, is the following. About a year or two before the date affixed to it, he wrote to his mother, from Harrow (as I have been told by a person to whom Mrs. Byron herself communicated the circumstance), to say, that he had lately had a good deal of uneasiness on account of a young woman, whom he knew to have been a favourite of his late friend, Curzon, and who, finding herself, after his death, in a state of progress towards maternity, had declared Lord Byron was the father of her child. This, he positively assured his mother, was not the case; but, believing, as he did firmly, that the child belonged to Curzon, it was his wish that it should be brought up with all possible care, and he, therefore, entreated that his mother would have the kindness to take charge of it. Though such a request might well (as my informant expresses it) have discomposed a temper more mild than Mrs. Byron's, she notwithstanding answered her son in the kindest terms, saying that she would willingly receive the child as soon as it was born, and bring it up in whatever manner he desired. Happily, however, the infant died almost immediately, and was thus spared the being a tax on the good nature of any body.

[67]In this practice of dating his juvenile poems he followed the example of Milton, who (says Johnson), "by affixing the dates to his first compositions, a boast of which the learned Politian had given him an example, seems to commend the earliness of his own compositions to the notice of posterity."The following trifle, written also by him in 1807, has never, as far as I know, appeared in print:—"EPITAPH ON JOHN ADAMS, OF SOUTHWELL, A CARRIER,"WHO DIED OF DRUNKENNESS."John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell,ACarrier, whocarriedhis can to his mouth well;Hecarriedso much, and hecarriedso fast,He couldcarryno more—so wascarriedat last;For, the liquor he drank being too much for one,He could notcarryoff,—so he 's nowcarri-on."B——, Sept. 1807."

The following trifle, written also by him in 1807, has never, as far as I know, appeared in print:—

"EPITAPH ON JOHN ADAMS, OF SOUTHWELL, A CARRIER,"WHO DIED OF DRUNKENNESS.

"John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell,ACarrier, whocarriedhis can to his mouth well;Hecarriedso much, and hecarriedso fast,He couldcarryno more—so wascarriedat last;For, the liquor he drank being too much for one,He could notcarryoff,—so he 's nowcarri-on.

"B——, Sept. 1807."

[68]Annesley is, of course, not forgotten among the number:—"And shall I here forget the scene,Still nearest to my breast?Rocks rise and rivers roll betweenThe rural spot which passion blest;Yet, Mary, all thy beauties seemFresh as in Love's bewitching dream," &c. &c.

[68]Annesley is, of course, not forgotten among the number:—

"And shall I here forget the scene,Still nearest to my breast?Rocks rise and rivers roll betweenThe rural spot which passion blest;Yet, Mary, all thy beauties seemFresh as in Love's bewitching dream," &c. &c.

[69]It appears from a passage in one of Miss ——'s letters to her brother, that Lord Byron sent, through this gentleman, a copy of his poems to Mr. Mackenzie, the author of the Man of Feeling:—"I am glad you mentioned Mr. Mackenzie's having got a copy of Lord B.'s poems, and what he thought of them—Lord B. was somuchpleased!"In another letter, the fair writer says,—"Lord Byron desired me to tell you that the reason you did not hear from him was because his publication was not so forward as he had flattered himself it would have been. I told him, 'he was no more to be depended on than a woman,' which instantly brought the softness of that sex into his countenance, for he blushed exceedingly."

In another letter, the fair writer says,—"Lord Byron desired me to tell you that the reason you did not hear from him was because his publication was not so forward as he had flattered himself it would have been. I told him, 'he was no more to be depended on than a woman,' which instantly brought the softness of that sex into his countenance, for he blushed exceedingly."

[70]He was, indeed, a thorough boy, at this period, in every respect:—"Next Monday" (says Miss ——) "is our great fair. Lord Byron talks of it with as much pleasure as little Henry, and declares he will ride in the round-about,—but I think he will change his mind."

[71]He here alludes to an odd fancy or trick of his own;—whenever he was at a loss for something to say, he used always to gabble over "1 2 3 4 5 6 7."

[72]Notwithstanding the abuse which, evidently more in sport than seriousness, he lavishes, in the course of these letters, upon Southwell, he was, in after days, taught to feel that the hours which he had passed in this place were far more happy than any he had known afterwards. In a letter written not long since to his servant, Fletcher, by a lady who had been intimate with him, in his young days, at Southwell, there are the following words:—"Your poor, good master always called me 'Old Piety,' when I preached to him. When he paid me his last visit, he said, 'Well, good friend, I shall never be so happy again as I was in old Southwell.'" His real opinion of the advantages of this town, as a place of residence, will be seen in a subsequent letter, where he most strenuously recommends it, in that point of view, to Mr. Dallas.

[73]It may be as well to mention here the sequel of this enthusiastic attachment. In the year 1811 young Edleston died of a consumption, and the following letter, addressed by Lord Byron to the mother of his fair Southwell correspondent, will show with what melancholy faithfulness, among the many his heart had then to mourn for, he still dwelt on the memory of his young college friend:—"Cambridge, Oct. 28. 1811."Dear Madam,"I am about to write to you on a silly subject, and yet I cannot well do otherwise. You may remember acornelian, which some years ago I consigned to Miss ——, indeedgaveto her, and now I am going to make the most selfish and rude of requests. The person who gave it to me, when I was very young, isdead, and though a long time has elapsed since we met, as it was the only memorial I possessed of that person (in whom I was very much interested), it has acquired a value by this event I could have wished it never to have borne in my eyes. If, therefore, Miss —— should have preserved it, I must, under these circumstances, beg her to excuse my requesting it to be transmitted to me at No. 8. St. James's Street, London, and I will replace it by something she may remember me by equally well. As she was always so kind as to feel interested in the fate of him that formed the subject of our conversation, you may tell her that the giver of that cornelian died in May last of a consumption, at the age of twenty-one, making the sixth, within four months, of friends and relatives that I have lost between May and the end of August."Believe me, dear Madam, yours very sincerely,"Byron."P.S. I go to London to-morrow."The cornelian heart was, of course, returned, and Lord Byron, at the same time, reminded that he had left it with Miss ——

"Cambridge, Oct. 28. 1811.

"Dear Madam,

"I am about to write to you on a silly subject, and yet I cannot well do otherwise. You may remember acornelian, which some years ago I consigned to Miss ——, indeedgaveto her, and now I am going to make the most selfish and rude of requests. The person who gave it to me, when I was very young, isdead, and though a long time has elapsed since we met, as it was the only memorial I possessed of that person (in whom I was very much interested), it has acquired a value by this event I could have wished it never to have borne in my eyes. If, therefore, Miss —— should have preserved it, I must, under these circumstances, beg her to excuse my requesting it to be transmitted to me at No. 8. St. James's Street, London, and I will replace it by something she may remember me by equally well. As she was always so kind as to feel interested in the fate of him that formed the subject of our conversation, you may tell her that the giver of that cornelian died in May last of a consumption, at the age of twenty-one, making the sixth, within four months, of friends and relatives that I have lost between May and the end of August.

"Believe me, dear Madam, yours very sincerely,

"Byron.

"P.S. I go to London to-morrow."

The cornelian heart was, of course, returned, and Lord Byron, at the same time, reminded that he had left it with Miss ——

[74]In the Collection of his Poems printed for private circulation, he had inserted some severe verses on Dr. Butler, which he omitted in the subsequent publication,—at the same time explaining why he did so, in a note little less severe than the verses.

[75]This first attempt of Lord Byron at reviewing (for it will be seen that he, once or twice afterwards, tried his hand at this least poetical of employments) is remarkable only as showing how plausibly he could assume the established tone and phraseology of these minor judgment-seats of criticism. For instance:—"The volumes before us are by the author of Lyrical Ballads, a collection which has not undeservedly met with a considerable share of public applause. The characteristics of Mr. Wordsworth's muse are simple and flowing, though occasionally inharmonious, verse,—strong and sometimes irresistible appeals to the feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments. Though the present work may not equal his former efforts, many of the poems possess a native elegance," &c. &c. &c. If Mr. Wordsworth ever chanced to cast his eye over this article, how little could he have suspected that under that dull prosaic mask lurked one who, in five short years from thence, would rival evenhimin poetry.

[76]This plan (which he never put in practice) had been talked of by him before he left Southwell, and is thus noticed in a letter of his fair correspondent to her brother:—"How can you ask if Lord B. is going to visit the Highlands in the summer? Why, don'tyouknow that he never knows his own mind for ten minutes together? I tellhimhe is as fickle as the winds, and as uncertain as the waves."

[77]We observe here, as in other parts of his early letters, that sort of display and boast of rakishness which is but too common a folly at this period of life, when the young aspirant to manhood persuades himself that to be profligate is to be manly. Unluckily, this boyish desire of being thought worse than he really was, remained with Lord Byron, as did some other feelings and foibles of his boyhood, long after the period when, with others, they are past and forgotten; and his mind, indeed, was but beginning to outgrow them, when he was snatched away.

[78]The poem afterwards enlarged and published under the title of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." It appears from this that the ground-work of that satire had been laid some time before the appearance of the article in the Edinburgh Review.

[79]Sept. 1807. This Review, in pronouncing upon the young author's future career, showed itself somewhat more "prophet-like" than the great oracle of the North. In noticing the Elegy on Newstead Abbey, the writer says, "We could not but hail, with something of prophetic rapture, the hope conveyed in the closing stanza:—"Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine,Thee to irradiate with meridian ray," &c. &c.

"Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine,Thee to irradiate with meridian ray," &c. &c.

[80]The first number of a monthly publication called "The Satirist," in which there appeared afterwards some low and personal attacks upon him.

[81]"Look out for a people entirely destitute of religion: if you find them at all, be assured that they are but few degrees removed from brutes."—HUME.The reader will find this avowal of Hume turned eloquently to the advantage of religion in a Collection of Sermons, entitled, "The Connexion of Christianity with Human Happiness," written by one of Lord Byron's earliest and most valued friends, the Rev. William Harness.

[81]"Look out for a people entirely destitute of religion: if you find them at all, be assured that they are but few degrees removed from brutes."—HUME.

The reader will find this avowal of Hume turned eloquently to the advantage of religion in a Collection of Sermons, entitled, "The Connexion of Christianity with Human Happiness," written by one of Lord Byron's earliest and most valued friends, the Rev. William Harness.

[82]The only thing remarkable about Walsh's preface is, that Dr. Johnson praises it as "very judicious," but is, at the same time, silent respecting the poems to which it is prefixed.

[83]Characters in the novel calledPercival.

[84]This appeal to the imagination of his correspondent was not altogether without effect.—"I considered," says Mr. Dallas, "these letters,though evidently grounded on some occurrences in the still earlier part of his life, rather asjeux d'espritthan as a true portrait."

[85]He appears to have had in his memory Voltaire's lively account of Zadig's learning: "Il savait de la métaphysique ce qu'on en a su dans tous les âges,—c'est à dire, fort peu de chose," &c.

[86]The doctrine of Hume, who resolves all virtue into sentiment.—See his "Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals."

[87]See his Letter to Anthony Collins, 1703-4, where he speaks of "those sharp heads, which were for damning his book, because of its discouraging the staple commodity of the place, which in his time was calledhogs' shearing."

[88]Hard, "Discourses on Poetical Imitation."

[89]Prologue to the University of Oxford.

[90]"'Tis a quality very observable in human nature, that any opposition which does not entirely discourage and intimidate us, has rather a contrary effect, and inspires us with a more than ordinary grandeur and magnanimity. In collecting our force to overcome the opposition, we invigorate the soul, and give it an elevation with which otherwise it would never have been acquainted."—Hume,Treatise of Human Nature.

[91]"The colour of our whole life is generally such as the three or four first years in which we are our own masters make it."—Cowper.

[92]"I refer to my old friend and corporeal pastor and master, John Jackson, Esq., Professor of Pugilism, who I trust still retains the strength and symmetry of his model of a form, together with his good humour and athletic, as well as mental, accomplishments."—Note on Don Juan, Canto II.

[93]Thus addressed always by Lord Byron, but without any right to the distinction.

[94]The Journal entitled by himself "Detached Thoughts."

[95]Few philosophers, however, have been so indulgent to the pride of birth as Rousseau.—"S'il est un orgueil pardonnable (he says) après celui qui se tire du mérite personnel, c'est celui qui se tire de la naissance."—Confess.

[96]This gentleman, who took orders in the year 1814, is the author of a spirited translation of Juvenal, and of other works of distinguished merit. He was long in correspondence with Lord Byron, and to him I am indebted for some interesting letters of his noble friend, which will be given in the course of the following pages.

[97]He had also, at one time, as appears from an anecdote preserved by Spence, some thoughts of burying this dog in his garden, and placing a monument over him, with the inscription, "Oh, rare Bounce!"In speaking of the members of Rousseau's domestic establishment, Hume says, "She (Therése) governs him as absolutely as a nurse does a child. In her absence, his dog has acquired that ascendant. His affection for that creature is beyond all expression or conception."—Private Correspondence.See an instance which he gives of this dog's influence over the philosopher, p. 143.In Burns's elegy on the death of his favourite Mailie, we find the friendship even of a sheep set on a level with that of man:—"Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,She ran wi' speed:A friend mair faithful ne'er came nigh him,Than Mailie dead."In speaking of the favourite dogs of great poets, we must not forget Cowper's little spaniel "Beau;" nor will posterity fail to add to the list the name of Sir Walter Scott's "Maida."

In speaking of the members of Rousseau's domestic establishment, Hume says, "She (Therése) governs him as absolutely as a nurse does a child. In her absence, his dog has acquired that ascendant. His affection for that creature is beyond all expression or conception."—Private Correspondence.See an instance which he gives of this dog's influence over the philosopher, p. 143.

In Burns's elegy on the death of his favourite Mailie, we find the friendship even of a sheep set on a level with that of man:—

"Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,She ran wi' speed:A friend mair faithful ne'er came nigh him,Than Mailie dead."

In speaking of the favourite dogs of great poets, we must not forget Cowper's little spaniel "Beau;" nor will posterity fail to add to the list the name of Sir Walter Scott's "Maida."

[98]In the epitaph, as first printed in his friend's Miscellany, this line runs thus:—"I knew but one unchanged—and here he lies."

[98]In the epitaph, as first printed in his friend's Miscellany, this line runs thus:—

"I knew but one unchanged—and here he lies."

[99]We are told that Wieland used to have his works printed thus for the purpose of correction, and said that he found great advantage in it. The practice is, it appears, not unusual in Germany.

[100]See his lines on Major Howard, the son of Lord Carlisle, who was killed at Waterloo:—"Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine;Yet one I would select from that proud throng,Partly because they blend me with his line,Andpartly that I did his sire some wrong."Childe Harold, canto iii.

[100]See his lines on Major Howard, the son of Lord Carlisle, who was killed at Waterloo:—

"Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine;Yet one I would select from that proud throng,Partly because they blend me with his line,Andpartly that I did his sire some wrong."

Childe Harold, canto iii.

[101]In the fifth edition of the Satire (suppressed by him in 1812) he again changed his mind respecting this gentleman, and altered the line to"I leave topography torapidGell;"explaining his reasons for the change in the following note:—"'Rapid,' indeed;—he topographised and typographised King Priam's dominions in three days. I called him 'classic' before I saw the Troad, but since have learned better than to tack to his name what don't belong to it."He is not, however, the only satirist who has been thus capricious and changeable in his judgments. The variations of this nature in Pope's Dunciad are well known; and the Abbé Cotin, it is said, owed the "painful pre-eminence" of his station in Boileau's Satires to the unlucky convenience of his name as a rhyme. Of the generous change from censure to praise, the poet Dante had already set an example; having, in his "Convito," lauded some of those persons whom, in his Commedia, he had most severely lashed.

[101]In the fifth edition of the Satire (suppressed by him in 1812) he again changed his mind respecting this gentleman, and altered the line to

"I leave topography torapidGell;"

explaining his reasons for the change in the following note:—"'Rapid,' indeed;—he topographised and typographised King Priam's dominions in three days. I called him 'classic' before I saw the Troad, but since have learned better than to tack to his name what don't belong to it."

He is not, however, the only satirist who has been thus capricious and changeable in his judgments. The variations of this nature in Pope's Dunciad are well known; and the Abbé Cotin, it is said, owed the "painful pre-eminence" of his station in Boileau's Satires to the unlucky convenience of his name as a rhyme. Of the generous change from censure to praise, the poet Dante had already set an example; having, in his "Convito," lauded some of those persons whom, in his Commedia, he had most severely lashed.

[102]In another letter to Mr. Harness, dated February, 1809, he says, "I do not know how you and Alma Mater agree. I was but an untoward child myself, and I believe the good lady and her brat were equally rejoiced when I was weaned; and if I obtained her benediction at parting, it was, at best, equivocal."

[103]The poem, in the first edition, began at the line,"Time was ere yet, in these degenerate days."

[103]The poem, in the first edition, began at the line,

"Time was ere yet, in these degenerate days."

[104]Lady Byron, then Miss Milbank.

[105]In the MS. remarks on his Satire, to which I have already referred, he says, on this passage—"Yea, and a pretty dance they have led me."

[106]"Fool then, and but little wiser now."—MS. ibid.

[107]Dated, in his original copy, Nov. 2. 1808.

[108]Entitled, in his original manuscript, "To Mrs. ——, on being asked my reason for quitting England in the spring." The date subjoined is Dec. 2. 1808.

[109]In his first copy, "Thus, Mary."

[110]Thus corrected by himself in a copy of the Miscellany now in my possession;—the two last lines being, originally, as follows:—"Though wheresoe'er my bark may run,I love but thee, I love but one."

[110]Thus corrected by himself in a copy of the Miscellany now in my possession;—the two last lines being, originally, as follows:—

"Though wheresoe'er my bark may run,I love but thee, I love but one."

[111]I give the words as Johnson has reported them;—in Swift's own letter they are, if I recollect right, rather different.

[112]There is, at least, one striking point of similarity between their characters in the disposition which Johnson has thus attributed to Swift:—"The suspicions of Swift's irreligion," he says, "proceeded, in a great measure, from his dread of hypocrisy;instead of wishing to seem better, he delighted in seeming worse than he was."

[113]Another use to which he appropriated one of the skulls found in digging at Newstead was the having it mounted in silver, and converted into a drinking-cup. This whim has been commemorated in some well-known verses of his own; and the cup itself, which, apart from any revolting ideas it may excite, forms by no means an inelegant object to the eye, is, with many other interesting relics of Lord Byron, in the possession of the present proprietor of Newstead Abbey, Colonel Wildman.

[114]Rousseau appears to have been conscious of a similar sort of change in his own nature:—"They have laboured without intermission," he says, in a letter to Madame de Boufflers, "to give to my heart, and, perhaps, at the same time to my genius, a spring and stimulus of action, which they have not inherited from nature. I was born weak,—ill treatment has made me strong."—Hume'sPrivate Correspondence.

[115]"It was bitterness that they mistook for frolic."—Johnson's account of himself at the university, in Boswell.

[116]The poet Cowper, it is well known, produced that masterpiece of humour, John Gilpin, during one of his fits of morbid dejection; and he himself says, "Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood, and but for that saddest mood, perhaps, had never been written at all."

[117]The reconciliation which took place between him and Dr. Butler, before his departure, is one of those instances of placability and pliableness with which his life abounded. We have seen, too, from the manner in which he mentions the circumstance in one of his note-books, that the reconcilement was of that generously retrospective kind, in which not only the feeling of hostility is renounced in future, but a strong regret expressed that it had been ever entertained.Not content with this private atonement to Dr. Butler, it was his intention, had he published another edition of the Hours of Idleness, to substitute for the offensive verses against that gentleman, a frank avowal of the wrong he had been guilty of in giving vent to them. This fact, so creditable to the candour of his nature, I learn from a loose sheet in his handwriting, containing the following corrections. In place of the passage beginning "Or if my Muse a pedant's portrait drew," he meant to insert—"If once my Muse a harsher portrait drew,Warm with her wrongs, and deem'd the likeness true,By cooler judgment taught, her fault she owns,—With noble minds a fault, confess'd, atones."And to the passage immediately succeeding his warm praise of Dr. Drury—"Pomposus fills his magisterial chair," it was his intention to give the following turn:—"Another fills his magisterial chair;Reluctant Ida owns a stranger's care;Oh may like honours crown his future name,—If such his virtues, such shall be his fame."

Not content with this private atonement to Dr. Butler, it was his intention, had he published another edition of the Hours of Idleness, to substitute for the offensive verses against that gentleman, a frank avowal of the wrong he had been guilty of in giving vent to them. This fact, so creditable to the candour of his nature, I learn from a loose sheet in his handwriting, containing the following corrections. In place of the passage beginning "Or if my Muse a pedant's portrait drew," he meant to insert—

"If once my Muse a harsher portrait drew,Warm with her wrongs, and deem'd the likeness true,By cooler judgment taught, her fault she owns,—With noble minds a fault, confess'd, atones."

And to the passage immediately succeeding his warm praise of Dr. Drury—"Pomposus fills his magisterial chair," it was his intention to give the following turn:—

"Another fills his magisterial chair;Reluctant Ida owns a stranger's care;Oh may like honours crown his future name,—If such his virtues, such shall be his fame."

[118]Lord Byron used sometimes to mention a strange story, which the commander of the packet, Captain Kidd, related to him on the passage. This officer stated that, being asleep one night in his berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something heavy on his limbs, and, there being a faint light in the room, could see, as he thought, distinctly, the figure of his brother, who was at that time in the naval service in the East Indies, dressed in his uniform, and stretched across the bed. Concluding it to be an illusion of the senses, he shut his eyes and made an effort to sleep. But still the same pressure continued, and still, as often as he ventured to take another look, he saw the figure lying across him in the same position. To add to the wonder, on putting his hand forth to touch this form, he found the uniform, in which it appeared to be dressed, dripping wet. On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom he called out in alarm, the apparition vanished; but in a few months after he received the startling intelligence that on that night his brother had been drowned in the Indian seas. Of the supernatural character of this appearance, Captain Kidd himself did not appear to have the slightest doubt.

[119]The baggage and part of the servants were sent by sea to Gibraltar.

[120]"This sort of passage," says Mr. Hodgson, in a note on his copy of this letter, "constantly occurs in his correspondence. Nor was his interest confined to mere remembrances and enquiries after health. Were it possible to stateallhe has done for numerous friends, he would appear amiable indeed. For myself, I am bound to acknowledge, in the fullest and warmest manner, his most generous and well-timed aid; and, were my poor friend Bland alive, he would as gladly bear the like testimony;—though I have most reason, of all men, to do so."

[121]The filthiness of Lisbon and its inhabitants.

[122]Colonel Napier, in a note in his able History of the Peninsular War, notices the mistake into which Lord Byron and others were led on this subject;—the signature of the Convention, as well as all the other proceedings connected with it, having taken place at a distance of thirty miles from Cintra.

[123]We find an allusion to this incident in Don Juan:—"'Tis pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongueBy female lips and eyes—that is, I mean,When both the teacher and the taught are young,As was the case, at least, where I have been," &c. &c.

[123]We find an allusion to this incident in Don Juan:—

"'Tis pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongueBy female lips and eyes—that is, I mean,When both the teacher and the taught are young,As was the case, at least, where I have been," &c. &c.

[124]The postscript to this letter is as follows:—P.S. "So Lord G. is married to a rustic! Well done! If I wed, I will bring you home a sultana, with half a dozen cities for a dowry, and reconcile you to an Ottoman daughter-in-law with a bushel of pearls, not larger than ostrich eggs, or smaller than walnuts."

[124]The postscript to this letter is as follows:—

P.S. "So Lord G. is married to a rustic! Well done! If I wed, I will bring you home a sultana, with half a dozen cities for a dowry, and reconcile you to an Ottoman daughter-in-law with a bushel of pearls, not larger than ostrich eggs, or smaller than walnuts."

[125]The following stanzas from this little poem have a music in them, which, independently of all meaning, is enchanting:—"And since I now remember theeIn darkness and in dread,As in those hours of revelry,Which mirth and music sped;"Do thou, amidst the fair white walls,If Cadiz yet be free,At times, from out her latticed halls,Look o'er the dark blue sea;"Then think upon Calypso's isles,Endear'd by days gone by;To others give a thousand smiles,To me a single sigh," &c. &c.

[125]The following stanzas from this little poem have a music in them, which, independently of all meaning, is enchanting:—

"And since I now remember theeIn darkness and in dread,As in those hours of revelry,Which mirth and music sped;

"Do thou, amidst the fair white walls,If Cadiz yet be free,At times, from out her latticed halls,Look o'er the dark blue sea;

"Then think upon Calypso's isles,Endear'd by days gone by;To others give a thousand smiles,To me a single sigh," &c. &c.

[126]The following is Mr. Hobhouse's loss embellished description of this scene;—"The court at Tepellene, which was enclosed on two sides by the palace, and on the other two sides by a high wall, presented us, at our first entrance, with a sight something like what we might have, perhaps, beheld some hundred years ago in the castle-yard of a great feudal lord. Soldiers, with their arms piled against the wall near them, were assembled in different parts of the square: some of them pacing slowly backwards and forwards, and others sitting on the ground in groups. Several horses, completely caparisoned, were leading about, whilst others were neighing under the hands of the grooms. In the part farthest from the dwelling, preparations were making for the feast of the night; and several kids and sheep were being dressed by cooks who were themselves half armed. Every thing wore a most martial look, though not exactly in the style of the head-quarters of a Christian general; for many of the soldiers were in the most common dress, without shoes, and having more wildness in their air and manner than the Albanians we had before seen."On comparing this description, which is itself sufficiently striking, with those which Lord Byron has given of the same scene, both in the letter to his mother, and in the second Canto of Childe Harold, we gain some insight into the process by which imagination elevates, without falsifying, reality, and facts become brightened and refined into poetry. Ascending from the representation drawn faithfully on the spot by the traveller, to the more fanciful arrangement of the same materials in the letter of the poet, we at length, by one step more, arrive at that consummate, idealised picture, the result of both memory and invention combined, which in the following splendid stanzas is presented to us:—Amidst no common pomp the despot sate,While busy preparations shook the court,Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons wait;Within, a palace, and without, a fort:Here men of every clime appear to make resort."Richly caparison'd, a ready rowOf armed horse, and many a warlike store,Circled the wide-extending court below;Above, strange groups adorn'd the corridore;And oft-times through the area's echoing doorSome high-capp'd Tartar spurr'd his steed away:The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor,Here mingled in their many-hued array,While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close of day."The wild Albanian, kirtled to his knee,With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun,And gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see;The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon;The Delhi, with his cap of terror on,And crooked glaive; the lively, supple Greek;And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son;The bearded Turk that rarely deigns to speak,Master of all around—too potent to be meek,"Are mix'd, conspicuous: some recline in groups,Scanning the motley scene that varies round;There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops,And some that smoke, and some that play, are found;Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground;Half whispering there the Greek is heard to prate;Hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound,The Muezzin's call doth shake the minaret,There is no god but God!—to prayer—lo! God is great!'"Childe Harold, Canto II.

On comparing this description, which is itself sufficiently striking, with those which Lord Byron has given of the same scene, both in the letter to his mother, and in the second Canto of Childe Harold, we gain some insight into the process by which imagination elevates, without falsifying, reality, and facts become brightened and refined into poetry. Ascending from the representation drawn faithfully on the spot by the traveller, to the more fanciful arrangement of the same materials in the letter of the poet, we at length, by one step more, arrive at that consummate, idealised picture, the result of both memory and invention combined, which in the following splendid stanzas is presented to us:—

Amidst no common pomp the despot sate,While busy preparations shook the court,Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons wait;Within, a palace, and without, a fort:Here men of every clime appear to make resort.

"Richly caparison'd, a ready rowOf armed horse, and many a warlike store,Circled the wide-extending court below;Above, strange groups adorn'd the corridore;And oft-times through the area's echoing doorSome high-capp'd Tartar spurr'd his steed away:The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor,Here mingled in their many-hued array,While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close of day.

"The wild Albanian, kirtled to his knee,With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun,And gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see;The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon;The Delhi, with his cap of terror on,And crooked glaive; the lively, supple Greek;And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son;The bearded Turk that rarely deigns to speak,Master of all around—too potent to be meek,

"Are mix'd, conspicuous: some recline in groups,Scanning the motley scene that varies round;There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops,And some that smoke, and some that play, are found;Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground;Half whispering there the Greek is heard to prate;Hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound,The Muezzin's call doth shake the minaret,There is no god but God!—to prayer—lo! God is great!'"

Childe Harold, Canto II.

[127]In the shape of the hands, as a mark of high birth, Lord Byron himself had as implicit faith as the Pacha: see his note on the line, "Though on morethorough-bredor fairer fingers," in Don Juan.

[128]A few sentences are here and elsewhere omitted, as having no reference to Lord Byron himself, but merely containing some particulars relating to Ali and his grandsons, which may be found in various books of travels.Ali had not forgotten his noble guest when Dr. Holland, a few years after, visited Albania:—"I mentioned to him, generally (says this intelligent traveller), Lord Byron's poetical description of Albania, the interest it had excited in England, and Mr. Hobhouse's intended publication of his travels in the same country. He seemed pleased with these circumstances, and stated his recollections of Lord Byron."

Ali had not forgotten his noble guest when Dr. Holland, a few years after, visited Albania:—"I mentioned to him, generally (says this intelligent traveller), Lord Byron's poetical description of Albania, the interest it had excited in England, and Mr. Hobhouse's intended publication of his travels in the same country. He seemed pleased with these circumstances, and stated his recollections of Lord Byron."

[129]I have heard the poet's fellow-traveller describe this remarkable instance of his coolness and courage even still more strikingly than it is here stated by himself. Finding that, from his lameness, he was unable to be of any service in the exertions which their very serious danger called for, after a laugh or two at the panic of his valet, he not only wrapped himself up and lay down, in the manner here mentioned, but, when their difficulties were surmounted, was found fast asleep.

[130]In the route from Ioannina to Zitza, Mr. Hobhouse and the secretary of Ali, accompanied by one of the servants, had rode on before the rest of the party, and arrived at the village just as the evening set in. After describing the sort of hovel in which they were to take up their quarters for the night, Mr. Hobhouse thus continues:—"Vasilly was despatched into the village to procure eggs and fowls, that would be ready, as we thought, by the arrival of the second party. But an hour passed away and no one appeared. It was seven o'clock, and the storm had increased to a fury I had never before, and, indeed, have never since, seen equalled. The roof of our hovel shook under the clattering torrents and gusts of wind. The thunder roared, as it seemed, without any intermission; for the echoes of one peal had not ceased to roll in the mountains, before another tremendous crash burst over our heads; whilst the plains and the distant hills (visible through the cracks of the cabin) appeared in a perpetual blaze. The tempest was altogether terrific, and worthy of the Grecian Jove; and the peasants, no less religious than their ancestors, confessed their alarm. The women wept, and the men, calling on the name of God, crossed themselves at every repeated peal."We were very uneasy that the party did not arrive; but the secretary assured me that the guides knew every part of the country, as did also his own servant, who was with them, and that they had certainly taken shelter in a village at an hour's distance. Not being satisfied with the conjecture, I ordered fires to be lighted on the hill above the village, and some muskets to be discharged: this was at eleven o'clock, and the storm had not abated. I lay down in my great coat; but all sleeping was out of the question, as any pauses in the tempest were filled up by the barking of the dogs, and the shouting of the shepherds in the neighbouring mountains."A little after midnight, a man, panting and pale, and drenched with rain, rushed into the room, and, between crying and roaring, with a profusion of action, communicated something to the secretary, of which I understood only—that they had all fallen down. I learnt, however, that no accident had happened, except the falling of the luggage horses, and losing their way, and that they were now waiting for fresh horses and guides. Ten were immediately sent to them, together with several men with pine-torches; but it was not till two o'clock in the morning that we heard they were approaching, and my friend, with the priest and the servants, did not enter our hut before three."I now learnt from him that they had lost their way from the commencement of the storm, when not above three miles from the village; and that, after wandering up and down in total ignorance of their position, they had, at last, stopped near some Turkish tombstones and a torrent, which they saw by the flashes of lightning. They had been thus exposed for nine hours; and the guides, so far from assisting them, only augmented the confusion, by running away, after being threatened with death by George the dragoman, who, in an agony of rage and fear, and without giving any warning, fired off both his pistols, and drew from the English servant an involuntary scream of horror, for he fancied they were beset by robbers."I had not, as you have seen, witnessed the distressing part of this adventure myself; but from the lively picture drawn of it by my friend, and from the exaggerated descriptions of George, I fancied myself a good judge of the whole situation, and should consider this to have been one of the most considerable of the few adventures that befell either of us during our tour in Turkey. It was long before we ceased to talk of the thunder-storm in the plain of Zitza."

"We were very uneasy that the party did not arrive; but the secretary assured me that the guides knew every part of the country, as did also his own servant, who was with them, and that they had certainly taken shelter in a village at an hour's distance. Not being satisfied with the conjecture, I ordered fires to be lighted on the hill above the village, and some muskets to be discharged: this was at eleven o'clock, and the storm had not abated. I lay down in my great coat; but all sleeping was out of the question, as any pauses in the tempest were filled up by the barking of the dogs, and the shouting of the shepherds in the neighbouring mountains.

"A little after midnight, a man, panting and pale, and drenched with rain, rushed into the room, and, between crying and roaring, with a profusion of action, communicated something to the secretary, of which I understood only—that they had all fallen down. I learnt, however, that no accident had happened, except the falling of the luggage horses, and losing their way, and that they were now waiting for fresh horses and guides. Ten were immediately sent to them, together with several men with pine-torches; but it was not till two o'clock in the morning that we heard they were approaching, and my friend, with the priest and the servants, did not enter our hut before three.

"I now learnt from him that they had lost their way from the commencement of the storm, when not above three miles from the village; and that, after wandering up and down in total ignorance of their position, they had, at last, stopped near some Turkish tombstones and a torrent, which they saw by the flashes of lightning. They had been thus exposed for nine hours; and the guides, so far from assisting them, only augmented the confusion, by running away, after being threatened with death by George the dragoman, who, in an agony of rage and fear, and without giving any warning, fired off both his pistols, and drew from the English servant an involuntary scream of horror, for he fancied they were beset by robbers.

"I had not, as you have seen, witnessed the distressing part of this adventure myself; but from the lively picture drawn of it by my friend, and from the exaggerated descriptions of George, I fancied myself a good judge of the whole situation, and should consider this to have been one of the most considerable of the few adventures that befell either of us during our tour in Turkey. It was long before we ceased to talk of the thunder-storm in the plain of Zitza."

[131]Mr. Hobhouse. I think, makes the number of this guard but thirty-seven, and Lord Byron, in a subsequent letter, rates them at forty.

[132]"Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey,Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye,Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky,In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!"Childe Harold, Canto I.

[132]

"Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey,Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye,Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky,In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!"

Childe Harold, Canto I.

[133]The passage of Harris, indeed, contains the pith of the whole stanza:—"Notwithstanding the various fortune of Athens, as a city, Attica is still famous for olives, and Mount Hymettus for honey. Human institutions perish, but Nature is permanent."—Philolog. Inquiries.—I recollect having once pointed out this coincidence to Lord Byron, but he assured me that he had never even seen this work of Harris.

[134]Travels in Italy, Greece, &c., by H. W. Williams, Esq.

[135]The Miscellany, to which I have more than once referred.

[136]He has adopted this name in his description of the Seraglio in Don Juan, Canto VI. It was, if I recollect right, in making love to one of these girls that he had recourse to an act of courtship often practised in that country,—namely, giving himself a wound across the breast with his dagger. The young Athenian, by his own account, looked on very coolly during the operation, considering it a fit tribute to her beauty, but in no degree moved to gratitude.

[137]Among others, he mentions his passage of the Tagus in 1809, which is thus described by Mr. Hobhouse:—"My companion had before made a more perilous, but less celebrated, passage; for I recollect that, when we were in Portugal, he swam from old Lisbon to Belem Castle, and having to contend with a tide and counter current, the wind blowing freshly, was but little less than two hours in crossing the river." In swimming from Sestos to Abydos, he was one hour and ten minutes in the water.In the year 1808, he had been nearly drowned, while swimming at Brighton with Mr. L. Stanhope. His friend Mr. Hobhouse, and other bystanders, sent in some boatmen, with ropes tied round them, who at last succeeded in dragging Lord Byron and Mr. Stanhope from the surf and thus saved their lives.

In the year 1808, he had been nearly drowned, while swimming at Brighton with Mr. L. Stanhope. His friend Mr. Hobhouse, and other bystanders, sent in some boatmen, with ropes tied round them, who at last succeeded in dragging Lord Byron and Mr. Stanhope from the surf and thus saved their lives.

[138]Alluding to his having swum across the Thames with Mr. H. Drury, after the Montem, to see how many times they could perform the passage backwards and forwards without touching land. In this trial (which took place at night, after supper, when both were heated with drinking,) Lord Byron was the conqueror.

[139]New Monthly Magazine.

[140]In a note upon the Advertisement prefixed to his Siege of Corinth, he says,—"I visited all three (Tripolitza, Napoli, and Argos,) in 1810-11, and in the course of journeying through the country, from my first arrival in 1809, crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains, or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto."

[141]Given afterwards to Sir Walter Scott.

[142]At present in the possession of Mr. Murray.

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