| 209 |
A week after the last of the letters in the last chapter was written, Byron writes to Dallas: ‘I have brought you and my friend Juvenal Hodgson on my back, on the score of revelation. You are fervent, but he is quite glowing. I honour and thank you both but am convinced by neither,’ &c.; and four days later to Hodgson himself.
My dear Hodgson,—I fear that before the latest of October or the
first of November, I shall hardly be able to make Cambridge. My everlasting
agent puts off his coming like the
accomplishment of a prophecy. However, finding me growing serious he hath
promised to be here on Thursday, and
| 210 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
My tortoises (all Athenians), my hedgehog, my mastiff, are all purely. The tortoises lay eggs, and I have hired a hen to hatch them. I am writing notes for my quarto1 (Murray would have it a quarto), and Hobhouse is writing text for his quarto; if you call on Murray or Cawthorn you will hear news of either. I have attacked De Pauw, Thornton, Lord Elgin, Spain, Portugal, the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ travellers, painters, antiquarians and others, so you see what a dish of sour crout controversy I shall prepare for myself. It would not answer for me to give way, now; as I was forced into bitterness at the beginning, I will go through to the last. ‘Væ Victis.’ If I fall, I shall fall gloriously, fighting against a host.
| ’OH! BANISH CARE. | 211 |
Hodgson, deeply distressed at the tone of these last letters—a tone which he knew to be partly real and partly assumed, and earnestly desirous that his friend should share the happiness which his own kindly and contented disposition enabled him to enjoy—wrote some verses in a cheerful and joyous strain, exhorting Byron to look at the brighter side of life, and to banish care. Byron immediately responded in those eminently characteristic and now celebrated lines1 in which he alludes to his early disappointment in love as the source of all his subsequent sorrow. When in 1829 Hodgson sent these verses to Moore, for insertion in the ‘Life,’ which was then being compiled, he carefully drew his pen through the concluding lines, and wrote below them, ‘From hence to the end to be left out as agreed with Moore. F. H.’ This stipulation, however, Moore, as in many other cases, entirely disregarded. The lines marked for omission are these:—
But if, in some succeeding year, When Britain’s ‘May is in the sere,’ Thou hear’st of one whose deepening crimes Suit with the sablest of the times; Of one, whom love nor pity sways, Nor hope of fame, nor good men’s praise; |
| 212 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
One, who in stern ambition’s pride, Perchance not blood shall turn aside; One rank’d in some recording page With the worst anarchs of the age; Him wilt thou know, and, knowing,
pause, Nor with the effect forget the cause. |
This note speaks volumes; coming as it does from one who knew the poet so intimately, and who understood the strangely blended contrasts of his character perhaps better than any other one of his friends. It has often been remarked that Byron loved to identify himself with ‘the dark sublime he drew.’ There can be no stronger confirmation of the fact than these few words, which go far to dispel the many misunderstandings and illusions by which his great name has so long been surrounded.
Two days later he sent a long letter to Hodgson, published by Moore, in
which he writes: ‘I don’t know that I shan’t end with insanity, for I
want a method in arranging my thoughts that perplexes me strangely; but this looks more
like silliness than madness, as Scrope Davies
would facetiously remark in his consoling manner. I must try the hartshorn of your
company.’ And again at the end: ‘Write and
| PEACE-MAKING. | 213 |
The dry allusion is to Mr. Payne, of the firm of Payne & Mackinlay, who had published Hodgson’s ‘Juvenal.’ Payne had lately committed suicide by drowning himself in the Paddington Canal.
It was at the end of this month (October) that Byron paid his promised visit to Cambridge, where many matters, religious and poetical, were doubtless discussed in detail by the friends. During this visit a letter from Moore (the first which Byron ever received from him) was forwarded from Newstead, calling his attention to a former letter written from Dublin on January 1, 1810, in which an explanation was required of certain expressions used by Byron in ‘English Bards,’ with reference to Moore’s ‘leadless’ and therefore bloodless duel with Jeffrey at Chalk Farm; and, failing such explanation, satisfaction was demanded.
This former letter, having been despatched soon after Lord Byron’s departure from England, was placed by the friend to whom
Moore had entrusted it, in Hodgson’s hands. Having been made aware, by the
manner of its delivery, of the nature of this letter, and feeling sure that his
friend’s impetuous and fiery
| 214 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
| LETTER FROM BYRON. | 215 |
Moore’s letter was written on the 30th October. A fortnight later Byron wrote from London to Hodgson at Cambridge, laconically, but in a very large hand underlined, ‘Send a certain letter. B.’; and after two days, having received no answer, he wrote again:—
Dear Hodgson,—I have been waiting for the letter, which was to be sent by you immediately, and must again jog your memory on the subject. I have heard from Hobhouse, who has at last sent more copy to Cawthorn for his ‘Travels.’ I franked an enormous cover for you yesterday, seemingly to convey at least twelve cantos on any given subject. I fear the aspect of it was too epic for the post. From this and other coincidences I augur a publication on your part, but what or when, or how much, you must disclose immediately.
I don’t know what to say about coming down to Cambridge
at present, but live in hopes. I am so completely superannuated there, and
besides feel it something brazen in me to wear my magisterial habit, after all
my buffooneries, that I hardly think I shall venture again. And being now an
| 216 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
Do write and send this letter that hath been so long in your custody. It is of importance that M. should be certain I never received it, if it be his. Are you drowned that I have never heard from you, or are you fallen into a fit of perplexity? Cawthorn has declined, and the MS. is returned to him. This is all at present from yours in the faith,
The conclusion of the next letter proves that Hodgson’s considerate counsel on religious subjects had, at all events, greater influence with its recipient than he was at present prepared to admit. The words ‘I deny nothing’ point to an altered frame of mind; and universal doubt, however unsatisfactory, is a decided improvement upon absolute unbelief.
My dear Hodgson,—I have seen Miller, who will see Bland, but I have no great hopes of his obtaining LETTER FROM BYRON. 217
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth, &c. |
I have read Watson to Gibbon. He proves nothing, so I am where I was, verging towards Spinoza; and yet it is a gloomy creed, and I want a better, but there is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything. The post brings me to a conclusion. Bland has just been here.
|
1 The translation of Charlemagne, an epic poem by Prince Lucien Bonaparte, afterwards undertaken by Francis Hodgson conjointly with Samuel Butler, Head-master of Shrewsbury, and subsequently Bishop of Lichfield. |
| 218 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
In the next letter, dated London, December 8, 1811, and partly published by Moore, Byron writes:—
I sent you a sad ‘Tale of Three Friars’ the other day, and now take a dose in another style. I wrote it a day or two ago, on hearing a song of former days:—
Away, away, ye notes of woe, etc. |
I have gotten a book by Sir W. Drummond (printed but not published) entitled ‘Œdipus Judaicus,’ in which he attempts to prove the greater part of the Old Testament an allegory, particularly Genesis and Joshua. He professes himself a theist in the preface, and handles the literal interpretation very roughly. I wish you could see it. Mr. Ward has lent it to me, and I confess to me it is worth fifty Watsons. You and Harness must fix on the time for your visit to Newstead. . . . Master William Harness and I have recommenced a most fiery correspondence; I like him as Euripides liked Agatho, or Darby admired Joan, as much for the past as the present.
In the postscript of the next letter he adds: ‘I only wait for your
answer to fix our meeting.’ A few days later this meeting took place at Newstead,
between Byron, Harness, and Hodgson. Moore, who
| VISIT TO NEWSTEAD. | 219 |
When Byron returned, with the MS. of the first two cantos of ‘Childe Harold’ in his portmanteau, I paid him a visit at Newstead.2 It was Winter—dark, dreary weather—the snow upon the ground; and a straggling, gloomy, depressive, partially-inhabited place the Abbey was. Those rooms, however, which had been fitted up for residence were so comfortably appointed, glowing with crimson hangings, and cheerful with capacious fires, that one soon lost the melancholy feeling of being domiciled in the wing of an extensive ruin. Many tales are related or fabled of the orgies which, in the poet’s early youth, had made clamorous these ancient halls of the Byrons. I can only say that nothing in the shape of riot or excess occurred when I was there. The only other visitor was Dr. Hodgson,3 the translator of ‘Juvenal,’ and
1 Quoted by Mr. L’Estrange in his Literary Life of the Rev. Wm. Harness. 2 It will be observed that this visit took place several months after Byron’s return. 3 This is a mistake. Hodgson, at this time, was not even ordained, and never took the Doctor’s degree, even when Provost of Eton. |
| 220 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
1 It will be seen from the foregoing letters that this is hardly a complete statement of the case. |
| BYRON’S DESPONDENCY. | 221 |
About the middle of the next month, January 1812, Hodgson also returned to Cambridge, and Byron went to London to his old
quarters in St. James’s Street. Several letters passed between them, but not upon
subjects of public interest. Byron was again possessed
by a feeling of the deepest melancholy, and seems to have recurred to his old sorrow, the
early disappointment in love, which he appears to have attributed partly to that slight
physical infirmity on which he often dwelt so painfully. He writes to
Hodgson with reference to another object of affection: ‘I
do not blame her, but my own vanity in fancying that such a thing as I am could ever be
beloved.’ He also recurred to the numerous deaths of friends which had
rendered his return to England
| 222 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
I am rather unwell with a vile cold, caught in the House of
Lords last night. Lord Sligo and myself,
being tired, paired off, being of opposite sides, so
that nothing was gained or lost by our votes. I did not
speak; but I might as well, for nothing could have been inferior to (those who
did). The Catholic Question comes on this month, and per-GOOD-NATURED CRITICISM. 223
While the preparation for the great speech on the Frame-breaking Bill was going on, and with ‘Childe Harold’ in the press, Byron yet found time for the following humorous and good-natured appeal in behalf of a friend and aspiring author:—
My dear Hodgson,—There is a book entituled ‘Galt, his Travels in ye Archipelago,’ daintily printed by Cadell and Davies, ye which I could desiderate might be criticised by you, inasmuch as ye author is a well-respected esquire of mine acquaintance, but I fear will meet with little mercy as a writer, unless a friend passeth judgment. Truth to say, ye boke is ye boke of a cock-brained man, and is full of devices crude and conceitede, but peradventure for my sake this grace may be vouchsafed unto him. Review him myself I can not, will not, and if you are likewize hard of heart, woe unto ye boke, ye which is a comely quarto.
Now then! I have no objection to review if it
| 224 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
The earliest, and indeed the only original, account of his first and most famous speech, was sent to Hodgson, and is published by Moore, with the exception of this sentence, ‘I hire myself unto Griffiths, and my poesy comes out on Saturday.’ Griffiths was the editor of the ‘Monthly,’ but there is no record of any contribution to it from Byron, and he afterwards refused to review at all.
The poesy thus unostentatiously mentioned was the immortal ‘Childe Harold;’ and immediately after
its publication, Byron, who, as he concisely puts it,
‘woke up one morning and found himself famous,’ now plunged into the
vortex of London society, which at once paid him that unprecedented homage, amounting
almost to idolatry, which was sustained for a time through the combined influences of his
rank and genius, as well as by the irresistible charms of his manner and appearance.
Hodgson remained
| CAMBRIDGE AND LONDON. | 225 |
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