"Oh! banish care, such ever beThe motto ofthyrevelry!Perchance ofminewhen wassail nightsRenew those riotous delights,Wherewith the children of DespairLull the lone heart, and 'banish care,'But not in morn's reflecting hour."
Two days after replying in verse, he answered him in prose.
"I am growing nervous—it is really true—really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically, nervous. I can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. My days are listless, and my nights restless."
The same day, 11th October, 1811, one of the darkest in his life, he wrote also his first stanza, addressed to Thyrza, of which the pathetic charm seems to rise to the highest pitch.
"To no other but an imaginary being," says Moore, "could he have addressed such tender and melancholy poetical lines."
BYRON'S FRIENDSHIP FOR MOORE.
At this time of his life, whether from the numerous injuries inflicted on him by men and by fate, or from some other circumstance, Byron seemed to be less given to friendships than formerly. He felt the force of friendship as deeply as before, but he became less expansive. Death, in taking so many of his friends away from him, had endeared those who remained still more to his heart, and caused him to seek among these the consolation he wanted. It is not true to say that Lord Byron was left alone entirely, at any time of his life: quite the contrary, he at all times lived in the midst of friends more or less devoted to him. Dallas and Moore pretend that there was a time in his early youth when he had no friends at all; but this time can not be stated, unless one forgets the names of Hobhouse, Hodgson, Harness, Clare, and many others who never lost sight of him, and unless one forgets the life of devotion which he led at Southwell and at Newstead both before and after his travels in the East.
Dallas and Moore, in speaking of this momentary isolation, in all probability adopted a common prejudice which causes them to believe that a lord must ever be lonely unless he is surrounded by a circle of rich and fashionable companions. The truth is that Byron, having left England immediately on quitting college, only had college connections, with all of whom he renewed his friendship on his return to the mother-country. But it is equally true, and this is to his credit, that he long hesitated to replace departed friends by new ones.
To conquer this repugnance he required a very high degree of esteem for the friend he was about to make, a similarity of tastes, and above all a sympathy based upon real goodness. This was the time of his greatest mental depression. It preceded that splendid epoch in his life, when his star shone with such brilliancy in the literary sphere, thanks to "Childe Harold," and in the world of politics through his parliamentary successes, which had earned for him the praises of the whole nation. Then did friends present themselves in scores, but out of these few were chosen.
Among the great men of the day who surrounded him, he took to several, and in particular to Lord Holland, a Whig like himself, and a man equally distinguished for the excellence of his heart as for his rare intellect. Lord Holland's hospitality was the pride of England. Byron also conceived a liking for Lord Lansdowne,—the model of every virtue, social and domestic; for Lord Dudley, whose wit so charmed him; for Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, brother to Lord Kinnaird, whom Byron called his most devoted friend in politics and in literature; for all those first notabilities of the day, Rogers, Sheridan, Curran, Mackintosh, for all of whom he may be said to have entertained a feeling akin to friendship. But all these were friends of the moment; friends whom the relations of every-day life in the world of fashion had brought together, and whose talents exacted admiration, and hence he formed ties which may be styled friendship, provided the strict sense of that word is not understood. Byron felt this more than any one.
One man, however, contrived to get such a hold on his mind and heart, that he became truly his friend, and exercised a salutary influence over him. This man, who contributed to dispel the dark clouds which hung over Byron's mind, and was the first to charm him in his new life of fashion, was no other than Thomas Moore.
This new intimacy had not, it is true, the freshness of his early friendships, formed, as these were, in the freshness of a young heart, and therefore without any worldly calculations. Moore was even ten years his senior. But his affection for Moore, founded as it was upon a similarity of tastes, upon mutual reminiscences, esteem and admiration, soon developed itself into a friendship which never changed. The circumstances under which Byron and Moore became friends speaktoo highly for the credit of both not to be mentioned here, and we must therefore say a few words on the subject.
Byron, as the reader knows, had in his famous satire of "English Bards," etc., attacked the poems of Moore as having an immoral tendency. Instead of interpreting the beautiful Irish melodies in their figurative sense, Byron had taken the direct sense conveyed in their love-inspiring words, and considered them as likely to produce effeminate and unhealthy impressions.
"Who in soft guise, surrounded by a choirOf virgins melting, not to Vesta's fire,With sparkling eyes, and cheek by passion flush'd,Strikes his wild lyre, while listening dames are hush'd?'Tis Little! young Catullus of his day,As sweet, but as immoral, in his lay!* * * * *Yet kind to youth,...She bids thee 'mend thy line and sin no more.'"
Lord Byron was always of opinion that literature, when it tends to exalt the more tender sentiments of our nature, pure as these may be, is ever injurious to the preservation of those manly and energetic qualities which are so essential for the accomplishment of a noble mission here below. This opinion is illustrated by the occasional extreme energy of his heroes, and by his repugnance to introduce love into his dramas. If this reproach offended Moore a little, Lord Byron's allusion to his duel with Jeffrey at Chalk Farm in 1806, where it was said that the pistols of each were not loaded, must have wounded him still more, and he wrote a letter to Lord Byron which must, it would seem, have brought on a duel.
Lord Byron was then travelling in the Levant, and the letter remained with his agent in London. It was only two years after, on his return from his travels, that he received it. An exchange of letters with Moore took place, and such was the "good sense, self-possession and frankness" of Byron's conduct in the matter, that Moore was quite pacified, and all chances of a duel disappeared with the reconciliation of both, at the request of each.
The reconciliation took place under the auspices of Rogers, and at a dinner given by the latter for that purpose. After speaking of his extraordinary beauty, and of the delicacy andprudence of his conduct, Moore, in referring to this dinner, ends by saying, "Such did I find Lord Byron on my first experience of him, and such, so open and manly-minded did I find him to the last."
Byron, too, was influenced by the charm of Moore's acquaintance, and so dear to him became the latter's society through that kind of electric current which appears to run through some people and forms between them an unbounded sympathy, that it actually succeeded in dispelling the sombre ideas which then possessed his soul.
Their similarity of tastes, and at the same time those differences of character which are so essential to the development of the intellect of two sympathetic minds, were admirably adapted to form the charm which existed in their relations with one another.
This sympathy, however, would never have found a place in the mind of Lord Byron had it not sprung from his heart. Amiability was essential in his friends before he could love them; and though Moore had not that quality in its highest degree, still he had it sufficiently for Lord Byron to say in one of his notes, "I have received the most amiable letter possible from Moore. I really think him the most kind-hearted man I ever met. Besides which, his talents are equal to his sentiments."
His sympathy for Moore was such that the mention of his name was enough to awaken his spirits and give him joy. This is palpable in his letters to Moore, which are masterpieces of talent.
His cordial friendship for Moore was never once affected by the series of triumphs which followed its formation, and which made the whole world bow before his genius. "The new scenes which opened before him with his successes," says Moore, "far from detaching us from one another, multiplied, on the contrary, the opportunities of meeting each other, and thereby strengthening our intimacy."
This excessive liking for Moore was kept up by all the force which constancy lends to affection. One of Byron's most remarkable qualities was great constancy in his likes, tastes, and a particular attachment to the recollections of his childhood. At the age of fifteen, Moore's "Melodies" alreadydelighted him. "I have just been looking over Little Moore's Melodies, which I knew by heart at fifteen." In 1803 he wrote from Ravenna: "Hum! I really believe that all the bad things I ever wrote or did are attributable to that rascally book."
We have seen that at Southwell he used even to ask Miss Chaworth and Miss Pigott to sing him songs of Moore. At Cambridge, what reconciled him to leaving Harrow were the hours which he spent with his beloved Edward Long, with whom he used to read Moore's poetry after having listened to Long's music.
He already then had a sympathy for Moore, and a wish to know him. The latter's place was therefore already marked out in Byron's heart, even before he was fortunate enough to know him.
Moore's straitened means often obliged him to leave London. Then Byron was seized with a fit of melancholy.
"I might be sentimental to-day, but I won't," he said. "The truth is that I have done all I can since I am in this world to harden my heart, and have not yet succeeded, though there is a good chance of my doing so.
"I wish your line and mine were a little less parallel, they might occasionally meet, which they do not now.
"I am sometimes inclined to write that I am ill, so as to see you arrive in London, where no one was ever so happy to see you as I am, and where there is no one I would sooner seek consolation from, were I ill."
Then, according to his habitual custom of ever depreciating himself morally, he writes to Moore, in answer to the latter's compliments about his goodness: "But they say the devil is amusing when pleased, and I must have been more venomous than the old serpent, to have hissed or stung in your company."
His sympathy for Moore went so far as to induce him to believe that he was capable of every thing that is good.
"Moore," says he, in his memoranda of 1813, "has a reunion of exceptional talents—poetry, music, voice, he has all—and an expression of countenance such as no one will ever have.
"What humor in his poet's bag! There is nothing that Moore can not do if he wishes.
"He has but one fault, which I mourn every day—he is not here."
He even liked to attribute to Moore successes which the latter only owed to himself. Byron had, as the reader knows, the most musical of voices. Once heard, it could not be forgotten.[26]He had never learned music, but his ear was so just, that when he hummed a tune his voice was so touching as to move one to tears.
"Not a day passes," he wrote to Moore, "that I don't think and speak of you. You can not doubt my sincere admiration, waiving personal friendship for the present. I have you by rote and by heart, of whichecce signum."
He then goes on to tell him his adventure when at Lady O——'s:—
"I have a habit of uttering, to what I think tunes, your 'Oh, breathe not,' and others; they are my matins and vespers. I did not intend them to be overheard, but one morning in comes not la Donna, but il Marita, with a very grave face, and said, 'Byron, I must request you not to sing any more, at least of those songs.'—'Why?'—'They make my wife cry, and so melancholy that I wish her to hear no more of them.'
"Now, my dear Moore, the effect must have been from your words, and certainly not my music."
To give Moore the benefit of effecting a great success with an Oriental poem, Byron gave up his own idea of writing one, and sent him some Turkish books.
"I have been thinking of a story," says he, "grafted on the amours of a Peri and a mortal, something like Cayotte's 'Diable Amoureux.' Tenderness is not myforte; for that reason I have given up the idea, but I think it a subject you might make much of."
Moore actually wished to write a poem on an Oriental subject, but dreaded such a rival as Byron, and expressed his fears in writing to him. Byron replied:—
"Your Peri, my dear Moore, is sacred and inviolable. I have no idea of touching the hem of her petticoat. Your affectation of a dislike to encounter me is so flattering that I begin to think myself a very fine fellow. But it really puts me out of humor to hear you talk thus."
Not only did Byron encourage Moore in his task, but effaced himself completely in order to make room for him.
When he published the "Bride of Abydos," Moore remarked that there existed some connection in that poem with an incident he had to introduce in his own poem of "Lalla Rookh." He wrote thereupon to Byron to say that he would stop his own work, because to aspire after him to describe the energy of passion would be the work of a Cæsar.
Byron replied:—
"I see in you what I never saw in poet before, a strange diffidence of your own powers, which I can not account for, and which must be unaccountable when a Cossack like me can appall a cuirassier.
"Go on—I shall really be very unhappy if I at all interfere with you. The success of mine is yet problematical ... Come out, screw your courage to the sticking-place—no man stands higher, whatever you may think on a rainy day in your provincial retreat."
To Moore he dedicated his "Corsair," and to read the preface is to see how sincerely attached Byron was to his friend.
When at Venice he heard of some domestic affliction which had befallen Moore; he wrote to him with that admirable simplicity of style which can not be imitated, because the true accents of the heart defy imitation.
"Your domestic afflictions distress me sincerely; and, as far as you are concerned, my feelings will always reach the furthest limits to which I may still venture. Throughout life your losses shall be mine, your gains mine also, and, however much I may lose in sensibility, there will always remain a drop of it for you."
When Moore obtained his greatest success, and arrived at the summit of popularity, by the publication of "Lalla Rookh," Byron's pleasure was equal to the encouragements he had given him. But of his noble soul, in which no feeling of jealousy could enter, we shall speak elsewhere. Here, in conclusion, I must add that his friendship for Moore remained stanch through time and circumstances, and even notwithstanding Moore's wrongs toward him, of which I shall speak in another chapter.
In treating of Byron's friendships, I have endeavored to in set forth the wrongs which some of his friends, and Moore particular, have committed against him both before and after his death.
If, as Moore observes, it be true that Byron never lost a friend, was their friendship a like friendship with his own? Has it ever gone so far as to make sacrifices for his sake, and has not Lord Byron ever given more as a friend than he ever received in return? Had he found in his friendship among men that reciprocity of feeling which he ever found among women, would so many injuries and calumnies have been heaped upon his head? Would not his friends, had they shown a little more warmth of affection, have been able to silence those numerous rivals who rendered his life a burden to him? Had they been conscientious in their opinions, they would certainly not have drawn upon them the rather bitter lines in "Childe Harold:"—
"I do believe,Though I have found them not, that there may beWords which are things, hopes which will not deceive,And virtues which are merciful, nor weaveSnares for the failing; I would also deemO'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve,That two, or one, are almost what they seem,That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream."
And later, in "Don Juan," Byron would not have said with a smile, but also with a pain which sprang from the heart:—
"O Job! you had two friends: one's quite enough,Especially when we are ill at ease;They are but bad pilots when the weather's rough,Doctors less famous for their cures than fees.Let no man grumble when his friends fall off,As they will do like leaves at the first breeze;When your affairs come round, one way or t'other,Go to the coffee-house and take another."
It is, however, also true that he would not have had the opportunity of showing us so perfectly the beauty of his mind, and his admirable constancy, notwithstanding the conduct of those on whom he had bestowed his friendship. This constancy is shown even by his own words, for immediately after the lines quoted above, he adds:—
"But this is not my maxim; had it been,Some heart-aches had been spared me."
FOOTNOTES:[24]Mossop, a contemporary of Garrick, famous for his performance of Zanga.[25]His marriage.[26]Lord Holland's youngest son, in speaking of Byron, styled him "the gentleman with the beautiful voice."
[24]Mossop, a contemporary of Garrick, famous for his performance of Zanga.
[24]Mossop, a contemporary of Garrick, famous for his performance of Zanga.
[25]His marriage.
[25]His marriage.
[26]Lord Holland's youngest son, in speaking of Byron, styled him "the gentleman with the beautiful voice."
[26]Lord Holland's youngest son, in speaking of Byron, styled him "the gentleman with the beautiful voice."
LORD BYRON AS A FATHER.
If, as a great moralist has said, our natural affections have power only upon sensitive and virtuous natures, but are despised by men of corrupt and dissipated habits, then must we find a proof again of Lord Byron's excellence in the influence which his affections exercised over him.
His tenderness for his child, and for his sister, was like a ray of sunshine which lit up his whole heart, and in the moments of greatest depression prevented desolation from completely absorbing his nature.
His thoughts were never far from the objects of his affection.
CXV."My daughter! with thy name this song begun;My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end;I see thee not, I hear thee not, but noneCan be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friendTo whom the shadows of far years extend:Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold,My voice shall with thy future visions blend.And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold,A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.CXVI."To aid thy mind's development, to watchThy dawn of little joys, to sit and seeAlmost thy very growth, to view thee catchKnowledge of objects,—wonders yet to thee!To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,This, it should seem, was not reserved for me,Yet this was in my nature: as it is,I know not what is there, yet something like to this.CXVIII.* * * * *"Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er the seaAnd from the mountains where I now respire,Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to me."
Who ever read "Childe Harold" and was not touched by the delightful stanzas of the third canto,—a perfectchef-d'œuvreof tenderness and kindness, inclosed, as it were, in another master-piece, like, were it possible, a jewel found in a diamond?
Those only, however, who lived with him in Greece and in Italy are able to bear witness to his paternal tenderness. This sentiment really developed itself on his leaving England, and only appears from that time forward in his poems. Byron loved all children, but his heart beat really when he met children of Ada's age.
Hearing at Venice that Moore had lost a child, he wrote to him, "I enter fully into your misery, for I feel myself entirely absorbed in my children. I have such tenderness for my little Ada."
Both at Ravenna and at Pisa he was miserable if he did not hear from Ada. Whenever he received any portraits of her or a piece of her hair, these were solemn days of rejoicing for him, but they usually increased his melancholy. When in Greece he heard of Ada's illness, he was seized with such anxiety that he could no longer give his attention to any thing. "His journal (which, by-the-by, was lost or destroyed after his death) was interrupted on account of the news of his child's illness," says Count Gamba, in his narrative of Byron's last voyage to Greece.
The thought of his child was ever present to him when he wrote, and she was the centre of all his hopes and his fears.
The persecution to which he was subjected for having written "Don Juan," having made him fear one day at Pisa that its effect upon his daughter might be to diminish her affection for him, he said:—
"I am so jealous of my daughter's entire sympathy, that, were this work, 'Don Juan'—(written to while away hours of pain and sorrow),—to diminish her affection for me, Iwould never write a word more; and would to God I had not written a word of it!"
He likewise said that he was often wont to think of the time when his daughter would know her father by his works. "Then," said he, "shall I triumph, and the tears which my daughter will then shed, together with the knowledge that she will share the feelings with which the various allusions to herself and me have been written, will console me in my darkest hours. Ada's mother may have enjoyed the smiles of her youth and childhood, but the tears of her maturer age will be for me."
He distinctly foresaw that his daughter would be brought up to look indifferently upon her father; but he never could have believed that such means would be adopted, as were used, to alienate from him the heart of his own child. We will give one instance only, mentioned by Colonel Wildman, the companion and friend of Byron, who had bought Newstead, of which he took the most religious care. Having in London made the acquaintance of Ada, then Lady Lovelace, the colonel invited her to pay a visit to the late residence of her illustrious father, and she went to see it sixteen months before Byron's death. As Lady Lovelace was looking over the library one morning, the colonel took a book of poems and read out a poem with all the force of the soul and heart. Lady Lovelace, in rapture with this poem, asked the name of its writer. "There he is," said the colonel, pointing to a portrait of Byron, painted by Phillips, which hung over the wall, and he accompanied his gesture by certain remarks which showed what he felt at the ignorance of the daughter. Lady Lovelace remained stupefied, and, from that moment, a kind of revolution took place in her feelings toward her father. "Do not think, colonel," she said, "that it is affectation in me to declare that I have been brought up in complete ignorance of all that concerned my father."
Never had Lady Lovelace seen even the writing of her father; and it was Murray who showed it to her for the first time.
From that moment an enthusiasm for her father filled her whole soul. She shut herself up for hours in the rooms which he had inhabited, and which were still filled with the thingswhich he had used. Here she devoted herself to her favorite studies. She chose to sleep in the apartments which were most particularly hallowed by the reminiscences of her father, and appeared never to have been happier than during this stay at Newstead, absorbed as she had become for the first time in all the glory of him whose tenderness for her had been so carefully concealed from her. From that time all appeared insipid and tasteless to her; existence became a pain. Every thing told her of her father's renown, and nothing could replace it. All these feelings so possessed her that she fell ill, and when she was on the point of death she wrote to Colonel Wildman to beg that she might be buried next to her illustrious father. There, in the modest village church of Hucknell, lie the father and the daughter, who, separated from one another during their lifetime, became united in death, and thus were realized, in a truly prophetic way, the words which close the admirable third canto of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." Words of consolation for those who loved Byron, and whom religion and philosophy inspire with hope; for they think that, despite his enemies, this union of their mortal remains must be the symbol of their union above, and that the prophetic sense of the words pronounced in the agony of despair will be realized by an eternal happiness.
CXVII."Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,I know that thou wilt love me; though my nameShould be shut from thee, as a spell still fraughtWith desolation, and a broken claim:Though the grave closed between us,—'twere the same,I know that thou wilt love me; though to drainMyblood from out thy being were an aimAnd an attainment,—all would be in vain,—Still thou would'st love me, still that more than life retain."
LORD BYRON AS A BROTHER.
Fraternal love was no less conspicuous in him than his paternal affection. It may be easily conceived how great must have been the influence over one who cared so much for friends in general, of that affection which is the perfection of love, and, at the same time, the most delicate, peaceful, and charming of sentiments. Such a love has neither misunderstandings to dread, nor misrepresentations to fear. It is above the caprices, ennui, and changes which often rule the friendships of our choice.
From his return from his first travels in the East, to the time of his publishing the first two cantos of "Childe Harold," Byron may be said not to have known his sister. The daughter of another mother, and older by several years than himself,—living as she did with relations of her mother, brought up as she was by her grandmother, Lady Carmarthen, and married as she had been at an early age to the Hon. Colonel Leigh, Lord Byron had had very few opportunities of seeing her. It was only on his return from the East that he began to have some correspondence with her, on the occasion of his publication of "Childe Harold." Notwithstanding all these circumstances, which might tend to lessen in him his love for his sister, his affection for her on the contrary increased.
The reader has observed that about this time, under the pressure of repeated sorrows, a shade of misanthropy had spread itself over his character, notwithstanding that such a failing was totally contrary to his nature. The acquaintance with his sister helped greatly to dispel this veil, and, thanks to it, he was able to get rid of the first sorrowful impressions of youth.
His dear Augusta became the confidant of his heart; and his pen on the one hand, and his sister on the other, were the means of curing him of all ills. Her influence over him is shown by the love expressed for her in his letters and his notes at that time, and her prudent advice often puts to flight the more unruly dictates of his imagination. Thus, on one occasion, Mrs. Musters (Miss Chaworth) wrote to ask Byron to come and see her. She was miserable that she had preferred her husband to the handsome young man now the celebrated Byron. Byron is tempted to go and see her; he loved her so dearly when a boy. But Augusta thought it dangerous that he should go and see her, and Byron does not.
"Augusta wishes that I should be reconciled with Lord Carlisle," he says. "I have refused this to every body, but I can not to my sister. I shall, therefore, have to do it, though I had as lief 'Drink up Esil,' or 'eat a crocodile.'"
"We will see. Ward, the Hollands, the Lambs, Rogers,every one has, more or less, tried to settle these matters during the past two years, but unsuccessfully; if Augusta succeeds it will be odd, and I shall laugh."
To refuse his sister any thing was out of the question. He loved her so much that the least likeness to her in any woman was enough to attract his sympathy. If ill, he would not have his sister know it; if she was unwell, he can not rest until he received better accounts of her health. Nothing, however, shows better his love for her than the lines with which she inspired him at the time of his deepest distress; that is, on leaving England for Switzerland. I can not transcribe them altogether, but I can not refuse myself the satisfaction of quoting some extracts from them.
I."When all around grew drear and dark,And reason half withheld her ray—And hope but shed a dying spark,Which more misled my lonely way,* * * * *Thou wert the solitary starWhich rose and set not to the last.IV."Oh! blest be thine unbroken light!That watch'd me as a seraph's eye,And stood between me and the night,Forever shining sweetly nigh.VI."Still may the spirit dwell on mine,And teach it what to brave or brook;There's more in one soft word of thineThan in the world's defied rebuke."
Again,
"Though human, thou didst not deceive me,Though woman, thou didst not forsake,Though loved, though forborest to grieve me,Though slandered, thou never couldst shake,Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,Though parted, it was not to fly,Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,Nor, mute, that the world might belie.* * * * *"From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd,Thus much I at least may recall,It hath taught me that what I most cherish'dDeserved to be dearest of all."
This deep fraternal affection, assumed at times under the influence of his powerful genius, and under exceptional circumstances an almost too passionate expression, which opened a fresh field to his enemies. But it was to him a consolation and a benefit, which did him good throughout his short career; and even at the times when troubles came pouring down upon him, the love of his sister, though not sufficient to give him courage enough to bear up, still always appeared to him as a hope and an encouragement to do well.
LORD BYRON AS A SON.
The two sentiments of which we have just spoken were so strong and so proved in Lord Byron, that it would be almost useless to speak of them, were it not for the pleasure which there is in recalling them.
But there is another natural affection which, though less manifested, was not less felt by Byron; I mean his filial love.
Many biographers, and Moore at their head, have not, for reasons to which I have alluded in another chapter, been fair to his mother. Besides the motives which seem always to have actuated them in the exaggeration of his faults, and of the smallest particulars of his life, they wished, I believe, to give to their narrative a more amusing character. Moore would seem to say that Byron's childhood was badly directed; but how so? Does he mean that his mother did not justly appreciate the peculiarities of her child's character, or promote the fine dispositions of his nature? But such a discernment in parents is matter of rare occurrence, and can it be said that many known characters have been handled according to the scientific rules here laid down? Those who speak of these fine theories would, we fear, be rather puzzled by their application, were they called to do so.
It is matter of note that Byron was surrounded as a child with the tenderest care. At a very early age he was handed over, by his over-indulgent mother and nurses, to most respectable, intelligent, and devoted masters; and at no time of his youth was either his physical, intellectual, or moral education ever neglected. I may add that Byron's mother was respected, both as a wife and as a mother. She was an heiress belonging to a most ancient Scotch family, and closely allied tothe royal house of Stuart, and was the second wife of the youngest son of Admiral Byron,—an unusually handsome man, and father to the poet.
Though this man had been rather spoiled by the world, and had not rendered her life perfectly happy, she loved him passionately, and was most devoted to him. When he died, four years after their marriage, her grief was such that it completely changed her nature.
A widow at twenty-three, she centred in her only child all the depth of her affection, and though her fortune was considerably reduced, she still had enough to render her child's life comfortable, so that his education did not suffer by it. He was scarcely six years of age when he succeeded to the barony of his great-uncle, and this circumstance in a young Englishman's life always means increased prosperity. His childhood was, therefore, most decidedly fortunate in many respects. This is all the more certain that Byron, throughout his life, always spoke of his happy childhood, and that his ideal of human happiness never seems to have been realized except at that time.
But, notwithstanding Moore's exaggerations, and the excessive kindness of his mother, whose whole life was centred in the one thought of amusing her child, it is very likely that Byron's passionate nature may have rendered his relations at home less agreeable than they might have been. However much this may have been the case, it is still more certain that such little family dissensions never produced in his mind the slightest germ of ingratitude toward or want of care for his mother, and that the recollection of his passionate moments only served to make him acquire by his own efforts that wonderful self-possession for which he was afterward remarkable.
His filial sentiments betrayed themselves at every period, and in every circumstance of his life. The reader has seen how, at Harrow, by showing the names of their parents written on the wall, he prevented his comrades from setting fire to the school.
On attaining his majority, his first care was to improve the financial condition of his mother, notwithstanding the shattered state of his fortune, and to prepare a suitable apartment for her at Newstead.
When the cruel criticisms of the "Edinburgh Review" condemned his first steps in the career of literature, his chief care after the first explosion of his own sorrow, was to allay, as far as he could, the sensitiveness of his mother, who, not having the same motive or power to summon up a spirit of resistance, was, of course, more helplessly alive to this attack upon his fame, and felt it far more than, after the first burst of indignation, he did himself.
During his first travels to the East his affairs were in a very embarrassed state. But, nevertheless, here are the terms in which he wrote to his mother from Constantinople:—
"If you have occasion for any pecuniary supply, pray use my funds as far as they go, without reserve; and, lest this should not be enough, in my next to Mr. H—— I will direct him to advance any sum you may want."
There is a degree of melancholy in the letter which he wrote to his mother on his return to England. He had received most deplorable accounts of his affairs when at Malta, and he applied the terms apathy and indifference to the sentiments with which he approached his native land. He goes on to say, however, that the word apathy is not to be applied to his mother, as he will show; that he wishes her to be the mistress of Newstead, and to consider him only as the visitor. He brings her presents of all kinds, etc. "That notwithstanding this alienation," adds Moore, "which her own unfortunate temper produced, he should have continued to consult her wishes, and minister to her comforts with such unfailing thoughtfulness (as is evinced not only in the frequency of his letters, but in the almost exclusive appropriation of Newstead to her use), redounds in no ordinary degree to his honor."
This want of affection never existed but in the minds of some of Byron's biographers. Lord Byron knew that his mother doted upon him, and that she watched his growing fame with feverish anxiety.
His successes were passionately looked forward to by her. She had collected in one volume all the articles which had appeared upon his first poems and satires, and had written her own remarks in the margin, which showed that she was possessed of great good sense and considerable talent. Could, then, such a heart as Lord Byron's be ungrateful, and not love such a mother? Mr. Galt, a biographer of Byron's, who is certainly not to be suspected of partiality, renders him, however, full justice in regard to his filial devotion during the life of his mother, and to the deep distress which he felt at her death.
"In the mean time, while busily engaged in his literary projects with Mr. Dallas, and in law affairs with his agent, he was suddenly summoned to Newstead by the state of his mother's health. Before he reached the Abbey she had breathed her last. The event deeply affected him. Notwithstanding her violent temper, her affection for him had been so fond and ardent that he undoubtedly returned it with unaffected sincerity; and, from many casual and incidental expressions which I have heard him employ concerning her, I am persuaded that this filial love was not at any time even of an ordinary kind."
On the night after his arrival at the Abbey, the waiting-woman of Mrs. Byron, in passing the door of the room where the corpse lay, heard the sound of some one sighing heavily within, and, on entering, found his lordship sitting in the dark beside the bed. She remonstrated, when he burst into tears, and exclaimed, "I had but one friend in the world, and she is gone!" This same filial devotion often inspired him with beautiful lines, such as those in the third canto of "Childe Harold," when standing before the tomb of Julia Alpinula, he exclaims:
LXVI."And there—oh! sweet and sacred be the name!—Julia—the daughter, the devoted—gaveHer youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claimNearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would craveThe life she lived in; but the Judge was just,And then she died on him she could not save.Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust.LXVII."But these are deeds which should not pass away,And names that must not wither, though the earthForgets her empires with a just decay,The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth;The high, the mountain-majesty of worthShould be, and shall, survivor of its woe,And from its immortality look forthIn the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,Imperishably pure beyond all things below."
As a note to the above, Byron writes:
"Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain attempt to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Cœcina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago; it is thus:
JULIA ALPINULA:HIC JACEO.INFELICIS PATRIS, INFELIX PROLES.DEÆ AVENTIÆ SACERDOS.EXORARE PATRIS NECEM NON POTUI:MALE MORI IN FATIS ILLE ERAT.VIXI ANNOS XXIII.
"I know," adds Byron, "of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions which ought not to perish, and to which we turn with a true and healthy tenderness."
His father having died in 1793, when Byron was only four years of age, he could not know him; but to show how keen were his sentiments toward his memory, I must transcribe a note of Murray's after the following lines in "Hours of Idleness:"—