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Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach
Who please, the more because they preach in vain.
Let us hare wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.
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Byron has been accused of drinking deeply. Our universities,
certainly, did turn out more famous drinkers than scholars. In the good old times, to drink
lustily was the characteristic of all Englishmen, just as tuft-hunting is now. Eternal
swilling, and the rank habits and braggadocio manners which it engendered, came to a climax
in George IV.’s reign. Since then, excessive
drinking has gone out of fashion, but an elaborate style of gastronomy has come in to fill
up the void; so there is not much gained. Byron used to
boast of the quantity of wine he had drunk. He said, “We young Whigs imbibed
claret, and so saved our constitutions: the
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He bragged, too, of his prowess in riding, boxing, fencing, and even walking; but to excel in these things feet are as necessary as hands. It was difficult to avoid smiling at his boasting and self-glorification. In the water a fin is better than a foot, and in that element he did well; he was built for floating,—with a flexible body, open chest, broad beam, and round limbs. If the sea was smooth and warm, he would stay in it for hours; but as he seldom indulged in this sport, and when he did, over-exerted himself, he suffered severely; which observing, and knowing how deeply he would be mortified at being beaten, I had the magnanimity when contending with him to give in.
He had a misgiving in his mind that I was trifling with him; and one day as
we were on the shore, and the Bolivar at anchor, about three miles
off, he insisted on our trying conclusions; we were to swim to the yacht, dine in the sea
alongside of her, treading water the while, and then to return to the shore. It was calm
and hot, and seeing he would not be fobbed off, we started. I reached the boat a long
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“Keep off, you villain, don’t touch me. I’ll drown ere I give in.”
I answered as Iago did to Roderigo, “‘A fig for drowning! drown cats and blind puppies.’ I shall go on board and try the effects of a glass of grog to stay my stomach.”
“Come on,” he shouted, “I am always better after vomiting.”
With difficulty I deluded him back; I went on board, and he sat on the steps
of the accommodation-ladder, with his feet in the water. I handed him a wine-glass of
brandy, and screened him from the burning sun. He was in a sullen mood, but
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“You may do as you like,” he called out, and plumped in, and we swam on shore.
He never afterwards alluded to this event, nor to his prowess in swimming, to me, except in the past tense. He was ill, and kept his bed for two days afterwards.
To return to his drinking propensities, after this digression about his
gymnastic prowess: I must say, that of all his vauntings, it was, luckily for him, the
emptiest—that is, after he left England and his boon companions, as I know nothing of
what he did there. From all that I heard or witnessed of his habits abroad, he was and had
been exceedingly abstemious in eating and drinking. When alone, he drank a glass or two of
small claret or hock, and when utterly exhausted at night a single glass of grog; which
when I mixed it for him I lowered to what sailors call “water
bewitched,” and he never made any remark. I once, to try him, omitted the
alcohol; he then said, “Tre, have
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Byron had not damaged his body by strong drinks, but his terror of getting fat was so great that he reduced his diet to the point of absolute starvation. He was of that soft, lymphatic temperament which it is almost impossible to keep within a moderate compass, particularly as in his case his lameness prevented his taking exercise. When he added to his weight, even standing was painful, so he resolved to keep down to eleven stone, or shoot himself. He said everything he swallowed was instantly converted into tallow and deposited on his ribs.
He was the only human being I ever met with
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I remember one of his old friends saying, “Byron, how well you are looking!” If he had stopped there it had been well, but when he added, “You are getting fat,” Byron’s brow reddened, and his eyes flashed—“Do you call getting fat looking well, as if I were a hog?” and, turning to me, he muttered, “The beast, I can hardly keep my hands off him.” The man who thus offended him was the husband of the lady addressed as ‘Genevra,’ and the original of his ‘Zuleika,’ in the ‘Bride of Abydos.’ I don’t think he had much appetite for his dinner that day, or for many days, and never forgave the man who, so far from wishing to offend, intended to pay him a compliment.
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Byron said he had tried all seals of experiments to stay his hunger, without adding to his bulk. “I swelled,” he said, “at one time to fourteen stone, so I clapped the muzzle on my jaws, and, like the hybernating animals, consumed my own fat.”
He would exist on biscuits and soda-water for days together, then, to allay the eternal hunger gnawing at his vitals, he would make up a horrid mess of cold potatoes, rice, fish, or greens, deluged in vinegar, and gobble it up like a famished dog. On either of these unsavoury dishes, with a biscuit and a glass or two of Rhine wine, he cared not how sour, he called feasting sumptuously. Upon my observing he might as well have fresh fish and vegetables, instead of stale, he laughed and answered,
“I have an advantage over you, I have no palate; one thing is as good as another to me.”
“Nothing,” I said, “disagrees with the natural man, he fasts and gorges, his nerves and brains don’t bother him; but if you wish to live?”
“Who wants to live?” he replied, “not I. The
Byrons are a short-lived race on both sides,
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His habits and want of exercise damaged him, not drink. It must be borne in mind, moreover, that his brain was always working at high pressure. The consequences resulting from his way of life were low or intermittent fevers; these last had fastened on him in his early travels in the Levant; and there is this peculiarity in malaria fevers, that if you have once had them, you are ever after peculiarly susceptible to a renewal of their attacks if within their reach, and Byron was hardly ever out of it. Venice and Ravenna are belted in with swamps, and fevers are rife in the autumn. By starving his body Byron kept his brains clear; no man had brighter eyes or a clearer voice; and his resolute bearing and prompt replies, when excited, gave to his body an appearance of muscular power that imposed on strangers. I never doubted, for he was indifferent to life, and prouder than Lucifer, that if he had drawn his sword in Greece, or elsewhere, he would have thrown away the scabbard.
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