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Art. VII.—Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices of his Life
It was made, if we rightly recollect, some time since, a matter of
grave accusation against
With every respect for that gentleman, it becomes our duty, however, to observe
that it is, to say the least of it, doubtful, whether he has not, even yet, used the pruning
knife rather too sparingly with regard to the original materials which were subjected to his
revision. Let any person who reads this volume, ask himself, on perusing the last of its pages,
whether it is a work which, so far as it goes, tends to exalt the character of
It is, perhaps, to be regretted that passages have been allowed to remain in this
volume, which, sanctioned as they are by the authority of
In a literary point of view, the volume before us is perhaps the best specimen of
memoir writing, which has been ever produced in our language. It has all the advantages of
great variety, not only as to subject, but as to style. In the latter respect we may observe a
striking difference between the composition of
The narrative portion of the present work, which belongs to the Biographer, might
easily be comprised in a small duodecimo. It is framed in a style almost the reverse of that
which disfigured the “
Those who are acquainted with I have been thinking,
” he
says, “of an odd circumstance. My daughter, my wife, my half-sister, my mother, my
sister’s mother, my natural daughter, and myself, are, or were, all only children. My
sister’s mother (
”
The conduct of silent
rages.
” In this he only imitated his mother, who is represented to have frequently
performed a similar operation upon her caps and gowns. Indeed the account given of this lady in
every part of this work, and apparently upon the best authority, reminds us of the furies of
ancient times. Under the tutelage of such a woman, we can scarcely wonder at the untameable
sort of disposition which formed the principal element of evil in the character of
Notwithstanding this rebelliousness of temper, there was from his earliest age a
trait in young
At the age of five years, young
During young with
the various other remembrances which that period leaves behind—of its innocence, its
sports, its first hopes, and affections—all of them reminiscences which the poet afterwards
converts to his use, but which no more make the poet, than—to apply an illustration of
’
It was, we suppose, in one of his mountain rambles, that our hero, at the early
age of eight years, fell “in love” with
The character of the old gentleman had already surrounded that ancient monastery
with imaginary horrors. He had killed his neighbour,
‘They had already arrived at the Newstead toll-bar, and
saw the woods of the Abbey stretching out to receive them, when
’—p. 25. And who is
the next heir?
” asked the proud and happy mother. “They
say,
” answered the woman, “it is a little boy who lives at
Aberdeen.
”—“And this is he, bless him!
” exclaimed the
nurse, no longer able to contain herself, and turning to kiss with delight the young lord
who was seated on her lap.
In the following remarks, we may trace some of the circumstances which shed a
baneful influence upon the life of
‘Even under the most favourable circumstances, such an
early elevation to rank would be but too likely to have a dangerous influence on the
character; and the guidance under which young
a lame brat.
” As all that he had felt strongly through life was, in
some shape or other, reproduced in his poetry, it was not likely that an expression such as
this should fail of being recorded. Accordingly we find, in the opening of his drama,
“
It may be questioned, indeed, whether that whole drama was not indebted for its origin
to this single recollection.BerthaArnold
‘While such was the character of the person under whose
immediate eye his youth was passed, the counteraction which a kind and watchful guardian
might have opposed to such example and influence was almost wholly
‘Had even the character which the last Lord left behind
been sufficiently popular to pique his young successor into an emulation of his good name,
such a salutary rivalry of the dead would have supplied the place of living examples; and
there is no mind in which such an ambition would have been more likely to spring up than
that of
’—pp. 25—27.
By the advice of
‘“Till I was eighteen years old (odd as it may seem)
I had never read a Review. But while at Harrow, my general information was so great on
modern topics as to induce a suspicion that I could only collect so much information from
Reviews, because I was never seen reading, but always idle, and
in mischief, or at play. The truth is, that I read eating, read in bed, read when no one
else read, and had read all sorts of reading since I was five years old, and yet never met
with a Review, which is the only reason I know of why I should not have read them. But it
is true, for I remember when
’ To be sure, they were then less common. In three years
more, I was better acquainted with that same; but the first I ever read was in 1806-7.What
is a Review?
‘“At school I was (as I have said) remarked for the
extent and readiness of my
general information; but in all other
respects idle, capable of great sudden exertions (such as thirty or forty Greek hexameters,
of course with such prosody as it pleased God), but of few continuous drudgeries. My
qualities were much more oratorical and martial than poetical, and
‘“
”—pp. 40—41. out of school, I was always in scrapes, and
he never; and in school, he always knew his lesson, and I rarely,—but when I knew it, I knew it
nearly as well. In general information, history, &c. &c. I think I was his superior, as well as of most boys of my
standing.’
One of the most redeeming traits in the character of
‘“My school-friendships were with me passions* (for
I was always violent), but I do not know that there is one which has endured (to be sure
some have been cut short by death) till now. That with
”’—p. 42. Clarenow, and I write it with the feelings of 1803-4-5 ad
infinitum.
* On a leaf of one of his note books, dated 1808, I find the following
passage from L’amitie, qui
dans le
the following
description of what
’
There is a trait of magnanimity about the subjoined anecdote, which it is impossible not to admire.
‘While
’—pp. 45, 46. how many stripes he meant to
inflict?
”—“Why,
” returned the executioner, “you
little rascal, what is that to you?
”—“Because, if you
please,
” said
His remarkable attachment to aristocratic notions, had already obtained for him
at Dulwich, the appropriate nickname of the “Old English Baron.
” His
friendships were indeed chiefly formed among boys, who in point of rank were his inferiors; yet
even this preference would appear to have arisen from the pride of affording
“protection,” and was in itself essentially Patrician.
We have already mentioned monde est à peine un sentiment, est une passion
dans les Cloîtres.”—Contes Morauxit sunk so deep into his mind, as to give a
colour to all his future life.
’ The object of his new flame, was broad and
rich.
” He evidently set his heart upon her, for besides her worldly endowments,
she was possessed of ‘much personal beauty, and a disposition the most amiable and
attaching.
’ But alas for his hopes, her heart was already engaged, and the
mortification of his rejection as a lover was infinitely enhanced by do you think I could care any thing
for that lame boy?
” This pretty speech was either overheard by, or reported to
him, and as he himself described it, “was like a shot through his heart.
” No
more of his Harrow vacations appear to have been spent at Annesley. The object of his
attachment was married in 1805, to
It appears that the character of young
In October, 1805, he was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, where his time
does not appear to have passed very pleasantly. His vacations were usually spent with his
mother, at Southwell, amid the cheerful society of the he too was a poet sometimes, and would write down for her some verses of his own,
which he remembered.
” He then, with a pencil, wrote those lines beginning
“In thee I fondly hoped to clasp,
” which were printed in his first
unpublished volume, but are not contained in the editions that followed. The rage for printing
then took entire possession of him, although his views were limited only to the circle of his
friends. being types, as it were, of the two extremes, between which his own
character in after-life so singularly vibrated.
’ He furnished the prologues and
epilogues on these occasions, in which he frequently betrayed his talent for satire.
Of his much more worthy models, both
in style and thought, to be found among the established names of English
literature.
’ In compliance with the wishes of his friend, the first edition was
recalled, and a second substituted for it in 1807, consisting of about one hundred copies. The
applause which they obtained, urged him at length to the publication of the “
In the Spring of the following year, 1808, appeared the famous that the early verses of
’
It is lamentable to find that at this early period of his life,
It was in the autumn of this year (1808), that
In addition to the other causes of mortification which were already sufficiently
numerous to weigh heavily upon a sensitive mind, be had now to undergo a trial of more than
common bitterness to a young and proud nobleman, upon his very first step in the exercise of
his hereditary privileges. It is worth observing, that on coming to London to take his seat in
the House of Lords, he brought with him his satire prepared for publication; and containing
among other things, a neatly turned compliment to his guardian, in the following terms:—
This compliment was soon exchanged for verses of a wholly opposite description,
and perhaps the change is not to be wondered at, when we learn, that the
Upon the effect of his satire, after it was published, we need make no remark.
Shortly after the publication of this work,
‘“Indeed, my prospects are not very pleasant.
Embarrassed in my private affairs, indifferent to public, solitary without the wish to be
social; with a body a little enfeebled by a succession of fevers, but a spirit, I, trust,
yet unbroken, I am returning
”’—pp. 247, 248. home without a hope, and almost without
a desire. The first thing I shall have to encounter will be a lawyer, the next a creditor,
then colliers, farmers, surveyors, and all the agreeable attachments to estates out of
repair and contested coal-pits. In short, I am sick and sorry, and when I have a little
repaired my irreparable affairs, away I shall march, either to campaign in Spain, or back
again to the East, where I can at least have cloudless skies and a cessation from
impertinence.
His biographer informs us of some of the miseries which awaited him on his arrival.
* ‘
’—[A similar circumstance was mentioned to us some years ago of a lady,
whose son went out as a Cadet to India, and who on the passage fell from the rigging into
the sea, and perished. She awoke one night under an irresistible impression, that she saw
him fall into the sea; and from the letters which afterwards reached her, it appeared that
her dream occurred at the moment it was realized.—Ed. M.R.]
‘“
’—pp. 257, 258. To be happy at home
,” says is the ultimate result of all ambition,
the end to which every enterprise and labour tends.
” But l. owing to the Messrs.
On arriving in England, relative to the countries
he had visited.
” It is needless to add, that these verses formed the first cantos
of
There are in this collection several letters from Honourable
” a title
to which he well knew she had no manner of right. He sometimes begins, “Dear
Mother,
” but more generally “Dear Madam,
” and the tone of his
correspondence with her is correctly described as that “of a son, performing, strictly
and conscientiously, what he deems to be his duty, without the intermixture of any
sentiment of cordiality to sweeten the task.
” By way of contrast to this picture,
in many
instances the mothers of illustrious poets have had reason to be proud, no less of the
affection, than of the glory of their sons; and
” To these
ex-
‘It was, at first, intended by
two* of whom he looked up with that tributary admiration, which
youthful genius is ever ready to pay to its precursors.
‘Among the impressions which this meeting left upon me,
what I chiefly remember to have remarked was the nobleness of his air, his beauty, the
gentleness of his voice and manners, and—what was, naturally, not the least attraction—his
marked kindness to myself. Being in mourning for his mother, the colour, as well of his
dress, as of his glossy, curling, and picturesque hair, gave more effect to the pure,
spiritual paleness of his features, in the expression of which, when he spoke, there was a
perpetual play of lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual character, when in
repose.
‘As we had none of us been apprized of his peculiarities
with respect to food, the embarrassment of our host was not a little, on discovering that
there was nothing upon the table which his noble guest could eat or drink. Neither meat,
fish, or wine, would
’—pp. 314, 315.
From this moment
* ‘In speaking thus, I beg to disclaim all affected modesty.
’
‘We frequently, during; the first months of our
acquaintance, dined together alone; and as we had no club in common, to resort to, the
Alfred being the only one to which he, at that period, belonged, and I being then a member
of none but Watier’s,—our dinners used to be either at the St. Alban’s, or at
his old haunt, Stevens’s. Though at times he would drink freely enough of claret, he
still adhered to his system of abstinence in food. He appeared, indeed, to have conceived a
notion that animal food had some peculiar influence on the character; and I remember one
day, as I sat opposite to him, employed, I suppose, rather earnestly over a beef-steak,
after watching me for a few seconds, he said, in a grave tone of
inquiry—“
’—p. 324.
”
“
We have been much amused with several of the extracts, which
‘“I am
ennuyé beyond my usual
tense of that yawning verb, which I am always conjugating; and I don’t find that
society much mends the matter. I am too lazy to shoot myself—and it would annoy
‘“I have had the kindest letter from
‘“Dined on Wednesday at
princessly. * * *
‘“The Staël wwas at the other end of the table, and
less loquacious than heretofore. We are now very good friends; though she asked
bonhommieshe could not have found it out, and so—she wants me to dine there next
Sunday.
‘“
‘“Saw
oriental? * *
*
‘“Lent
not hers. I must read it,
and endeavour not to displease the author. I hate annoying them with cavil; but a comedy I
take to be the most difficult of compositions, more so than tragedy.
‘“witting
thefts on any of the genus. As to originality, all pretensions are
ludicrous,—‘there is nothing new under the sun.
’
‘“Went last night to the play. *
she and I ever
were, or could be, any thing; but I love any aspect that reminds me of the ‘children
of the sun.’
‘“To dine to-day with
’—pp. 466—468.
‘I have already, in some observations on the general
character of men of genius, endeavoured to point out those peculiarities, both in
disposition and habitudes, by which, in the far greater number of instances, they have been
found unfitted for domestic happiness. Of these defects (which are, as it were, the shadow
that genius casts, and too generally, it is to be feared, in proportion to its stature,)
sicklies o’er
” the face of happiness itself,—he was
understood by the person most interested in observing him, will appear from the following
anecdote, as related by himself.
‘“People have wondered at the melancholy which runs
through my writings. Others have wondered at my personal gaiety. But I recollect once,
after an hour in which I had been sincerely and particularly gay and rather brilliant, in
company, my wife replying to me when I said (upon her remarking my high spirits),
‘
” And yet,
’—‘No,
’ she answered, ‘it is not so: at heart you are the
most melancholy of mankind; and often when apparently gayest.
’
‘To these faults and sources of faults, inherent in his
own sensitive nature, he added also many of those which a long indulgence of self-will
generates,—the least compatible, of all others (if not softened down, as they were in him,
by good-nature), with that system of mutual concession and sacrifice by which the balance
of domestic peace is maintained. When we look back, indeed, to the unbridled career, of
which this marriage was meant to be the goal,—to the rapid and restless course in which his
life had run along, like a burning train, through a series of wanderings, adventures,
successes, and passions, the fever of all which was still upon him, when, with the same
headlong recklessness, he rushed into this marriage,—it can but little surprise us that, in
the space of one short year, he should not have been able to recover all at once from his
bewilderment, or to settle down into that tame level of conduct which the officious spies
of his privacy required. As well might it be expected that a steed like his own
should stand still, when reined, without chafing or champing the bit.
‘ * ‘ ‘“Even had the new condition of life into which he passed
been one of prosperity and smoothness, some time, as well as tolerance, must still have
been allowed for the subsiding of so excited a spirit into rest. But, on the contrary, his
marriage (from the reputation, no doubt, of the lady, as an heiress) was, at once, a signal
for all the arrears and claims of a long-accumulating state of embarrassment to explode
upon him;—his door was almost daily beset by duns, and his house nine times during that
year in possession of bailiffs;* while, in addition to these anxieties and—what he felt
still more
An anecdote connected with one of these occasions is
thus related in the Journal just referred to.
When the bailiff (for I have seen most kinds of
life) came upon me in 1815 to seize my chattels, (being a peer of parliament,
my person was beyond him,) being curious (as is my habit), I first asked him
‘what extents elsewhere he had for government?’ upon which he
showed me one upon
”’ one house only for seventy thousand pounds! Next I asked him if he had nothing for
Oh—
’ said he;
‘ay, I have this
’ (pulling out a pocket book, &c.);
‘but, my lord, I have been in
’ &c. &c. &c. Our own business was then
discussed, which was none of the easiest for me at that time. But the man was
civil, and (what I valued more) communicative. I had met many of his brethren,
years before, in affairs of my friends (commoners, that is), but this was the
first (or second) on my own account. A civil man; fee’d accordingly:
probably he anticipated as much.us,
‘As, from the state of their means, his lady and he saw
but little society, his only relief from the thoughts which a life of such embarrassment
brought with it was in those avocations which his duty, as a member of the Drury-lane
Committee, imposed upon him. And here,—in this most unlucky connection with the
theatre,—one of the fatalities of his short year of trial, as husband, lay. From the
reputation which he had previously acquired for gallantries, and the sort of reckless and
boyish levity to which—often in very “bitterness of soul”—he gave way, it was
not difficult to bring suspicion upon some of those acquaintances which his frequent
intercourse with the green-room induced him to form, or even (as, in one instance, was the
case), to connect with his name injuriously that of a person to whom he had scarcely ever
addressed a single word.
‘Notwithstanding, however, this ill-starred concurrence of
circumstances, which might have palliated any excesses either of temper or conduct into
which they drove him, it was, after all, I am persuaded, to no such serious causes that the
unfortunate alienation, which so soon ended in disunion, is to be traced.
“
most of which have been
unhappy ones, the great cause of evil has proceeded from slight occasions;
”
and to this remark the marriage at present under our consideration would not be found, I
think, on inquiry, to furnish much exception. the causes, my dear sir, were too simple to be easily
found out.
”
‘In truth, the circumstances, so unexampled, that attended
their separation,—the last words of the parting wife to the husband being those of the most
playful affection, while the language of the deserted husband towards the wife was in a
strain, as the world knows, of tenderest eulogy,—are in themselves a sufficient proof that,
at the time of their parting, there could have been no very deep sense of injury on either
side. It was not till afterwards that, in both bosoms, the repulsive force came into
operation,—when, to the party which had taken the first decisive step in the strife, it
became naturally a point of pride to persevere in it with dignity, and this unbendingness
provoked, as naturally, in the haughty spirit of the other, a strong feeling of resentment
which overflowed, at last, in acrimony and scorn. If there be any truth, however, in the
principle that they “
never pardon, who have done the wrong,
”
‘But though it would have been difficult, perhaps, for the
victims of this strife, themselves, to have pointed out any single, or definite, cause for
their disunion,—beyond that general incompatibility which is the canker of all such
marriages,—the public, which seldom allows itself to be at a fault on these occasions, was,
as usual, ready with an ample supply of reasons
‘Meanwhile, the unmoved silence of the lady herself (from
motives, it is but fair to suppose, of generosity and delicacy), under the repeated demands
made for a specification of her charges against him, left to malice and imagination the
fullest range for their combined industry. It was accordingly stated, and almost
universally believed, that the noble lord’s second proposal to
‘To the falsehoods concerning his green-room intimacies,
and particularly with respect to one beautiful actress, with whom, in reality, he had
hardly ever exchanged a single word, I have already adverted; and the extreme confidence
with which this tale was circulated and believed affords no unfair specimen of the sort of
evidence with which the public, in all such fits of moral wrath, is satisfied. It is, at
the same time, very far from my intention to allege that, in the course of the noble
poet’s intercourse with the theatre, he was not sometimes led into a line of
acquaintance and converse, unbefitting, if not dangerous to, the steadiness of married
life. But the imputations against him on this head were (as far as affected his conjugal
character) not the less unfounded,—as the sole case, in which he afforded any thing like
’—pp. 649—653. real grounds for such an accusation, did not take place till after the period of the separation.
* ‘For this story, however, there was so far a foundation that
the practice to which he had accustomed himself from boyhood, of having loaded pistols
always near him at night, was considered so strange a propensity as to be included in
that list of symptoms (sixteen, I believe, in number) which were submitted to medical
opinion, in proof of his insanity. Another symptom was the emotion, almost to
hysterics, which he had exhibited on seeing
’
To this account, which, after all, still leaves something to be explained, it is but an act of justice towards Lady Byron, to add a note which her husband addressed to Mr. Rogers on this melancholy subject.
‘“You are one of the few persons with whom I have lived in what
is called intimacy, and have heard me at times conversing on the untoward topic of my
recent family disquietudes. Will you have the goodness to say to me at once, whether you
ever heard me speak of her with disrespect, with unkindness, or defending myself at her
expence by any serious imputation of any description against
her?
Did you never hear me say ‘that when there was a right or a wrong, she had the right?’—The reason I put these questions to you or others of
my friends is, because I am said, by her and hers, to have resorted to such means of
exculpation. Ever very truly yours,
Shortly after this event