LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
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Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron
Chapter I
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
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Table of Contents
Preliminary Statement
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
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RECOLLECTIONS

OF THE

LIFE OF LORD BYRON,


FROM THE YEAR

1808 TO THE END OF 1814;


EXHIBITING


HIS EARLY CHARACTER AND OPINIONS, DETAILING THE PROGRESS OF HIS
LITERARY CAREER, AND INCLUDING VARIOUS UNPUBLISHED
PASSAGES OF HIS WORKS.


TAKEN FROM AUTHENTIC DOCUMENTS.
IN THE POSSESSION OF THE AUTHOR.


BY THE LATE
R. C. DALLAS, Esq.


TO WHICH IS PREFIXED


AN ACCOUNT OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES LEADING TO THE SUPPRESSION
OF LORD BYRON’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE AUTHOR,
AND HIS LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER, LATELY
ANNOUNCED FOR PUBLICATION.




LONDON:

PRINTED FOR CHARLES KNIGHT, PALL-MALL-EAST.

MDCCCXXIV.
RECOLLECTIONS

OF THE

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.


CHAPTER I.
CONNEXION AND FIRST PERSONAL ACQUAINT-
ANCE WITH LORD BYRON.
J. C. Hobhouse, in Review of Dallas
J. G. Lockhart, “Lord Byron”
L. Hunt, Ld Byron & his Contemporaries

Lord Byron was a nephew of the late Captain George Anson Byron, of the Royal Navy, who was married to my sister, Henrietta Charlotte. In consequence of this connexion I was well acquainted with Lord Byron’s father and mother. The former, whose name was John, died at Valenciennes not long after the birth of his son, which took place at Dover, 22d January, 1788; the latter went with her child into Scotland, and I lost sight of them for many years.
2 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
I heard of him when a boy at De Loyauté’s Academy, and afterwards, on the death of the old Lord, his grand uncle, when he was placed at Harrow. Captain Byron and my sister were then both dead, and I saw little of the Byron family for several years.

Lord Byron was called George after his uncle, who was his godfather: the name of Gordon had been assumed by his father in compliance with a condition imposed by will on the husband of Miss Gordon, the maiden name of his mother, and on the representatives of her family.

At the end of the year 1807, some of my family observed in the newspapers extracts from Lord Byron’s Juvenile Poems, which he had published under the title of Hours of Idleness. I ordered the volume, which I received on the 27th of December. I read it with great pleasure; and, if it is not saying too much for my own judgment, discerned in it marks of the genius which
LIFE OF LORD BYRON3
has been since so universally acknowledged. Though sensible of some personal gratification from this proof of superior talents breaking forth in the nephew of my friend and brother, it did not enter my mind to make it the occasion of seeking the author, till I was urged to compliment him upon his publication, which I did in the following letter, dated January 6th, 1808:—

“My Lord,

“Your Poems were sent to me a few days ago. I have read them with more pleasure than I can express, and I feel myself irresistibly impelled to pay you a tribute on the effusions of a noble mind in strains so truly poetic. Lest, however, such a tribute from a stranger should appear either romantic or indecorous, let me inform your Lordship that the name of Byron is extremely dear to me, and that
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for some portion of my life I was intimately connected with, and enjoyed the friendship of, a near relation of yours, who had begun to reflect new lustre on it, and who, had he lived, would have added a large share of laurels to those which your Muse so sweetly commemorates; I mean your father’s brother, through whom I also knew your father and mother.

Your Poems, my Lord, are not only beautiful as compositions;—they bespeak a heart glowing with honour, and attuned to virtue, which is infinitely the higher praise. Your addresses to Newstead Abbey, a place about which I have often conversed with your uncle, are in the true spirit of chivalry; and the following lines are in a spirit still more sublime:
“I will not complain, and though chill’d is affection,
With me no corroding resentment shall live;
My bosom is calm’d by the simple reflection
That both may be wrong, and that both should forgive.”
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A spirit that brings to my mind another noble author, who was not only a fine poet, orator, and historian, but one of the closest reasoners we have on the truth of that religion of which forgiveness is a prominent principle; the great and the good Lord Lyttleton, whose fame will never die. His son, to whom he had transmitted genius but not virtue, sparkled for a moment, and went out like a falling star, and with him the title became extinct. He was the victim of inordinate passions, and he will be heard of in this world only by those who read the English Peerage. The lines which I have just cited, and the sentiments that pervade your volume, sufficiently indicate the affinity of your mind with the former; and I have no doubt that like him you will reflect more honour on the Peerage than the Peerage on you.

I wish, my Lord, that it had been within your plan, and that you had been permitted
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to insert among your poems the verses from your friend complaining of the warmth of your descriptions. They must have been much to his honour; and, from the general sentiments of your reply, I think your Lordship will not long continue of an opinion you express in it: I mean, that you will not always consider the strength of virtue in some, and the downhill career of other young women, as rendering the perusal of very lively descriptions a matter of indifference. Those whom education and early habits have made strong, and those whom neglected nurseries or corrupt schools have rendered weak, are, perhaps, few compared to the number that are for a time undecided characters; that is, who have not been advanced to the adamantine rock of purity by advice and by example; nor, on the other hand, are yet arrived at the steep pitch of descent where their progress cannot be arrested, but are still within the influence
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of impressions. Rousseau acknowledges the danger of warm descriptions, in the front of a book in which that danger is pushed to its utmost extent; and, at the same time, with his usual paradoxical inconsistency, says it will not be his fault that certain ruin ensues, for good girls should not read novels. I have not the Nouvelle Heloise by me, but I translate the passage from an Essay on Romances by Marmontel: “No chaste young woman,” says Rousseau, “ever reads novels, and I have given this a title sufficiently expressive to show, on opening it, what is to be expected. She who, in spite of that title, shall dare to read a single page of it is a lost young woman: but let her not impute her ruin to this book; the mischief was done before, and as she has begun let her read to the end; she has nothing more to risk*.” On this Marmontel asks if the

* “Jamais fille chaste n’a lu des romans, et j’ai mis à celle ci un titre assez décidé, pour qu’en l’ouvrant on sût

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title, Letters of two Lovers, is a bugbear, and adds: “shall he who puts sweet poison in the reach of children say, if they poison themselves, that he is not to be blamed for it?”

Having perhaps already trespassed too much on your time, I will not pursue this subject further, but content myself with referring your Lordship to the Essay which I have cited for an admirable critique on Rousseau’s Novel. It is printed with Marmontel’s other works.

And now, my Lord, shall I conclude with an apology for my letter? If I thought one necessary I would burn it: yet I should feel myself both delighted and honoured if I were sure your Lordship would be better pleased with its being put into the post than

à quoi s’en tenir. Celle qui, malgré ce titre, en osera lire une page est une fille perdue: mais qu’elle n’impute point sa perte à ce livre; le mal étoit fait d’avance. Puisqu’elle a commencé, qu’elle achéve de lire: elle n’a plus rien à risquer.”

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into the fire. Most sincerely do I wish you success in those pursuits to which I conceive you allude in your preface; and I congratulate you that, at so early a period of your life, and in spite of being a favourite of the Muses, you feel yourself born for your country.”

Lord Byron conveyed to me in a flattering manner the pleasure which he had received from this letter, as far as it contained a tribute to his muse, but declared that he must in candour decline such praise as he did not deserve, and that therefore, with respect to his virtue, he could not accept of my applause. He was forcibly struck with the manner in which I had alluded to the two Lords Lyttelton with reference to himself, as he had frequently been compared to the latter. The events of his short life had been singular, and had had the effect of causing him to be held up as the votary of licenti-
10 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
ousness, and the disciple of infidelity; though in this respect he felt he was made out to be worse than he really was. He mentioned to me some of the Reviews in which his little volume had been noticed; and, intimating that my name and connexion with his family had long been known to him, expressed a pleasing desire of a personal acquaintance.

This communication, while it highly gratified me, was calculated to excite a strong desire to know more of the character and feelings of a young man who evinced so much genius, and who gave such an account of the results of a life which had not yet occupied twenty years. I immediately expressed my feelings in the following letter, dated January 21, 1808:—

“I am much indebted to the impulse that incited me to write to you, for the new pleasure it has procured me.

LIFE OF LORD BYRON 11

Though your letter has made some alteration in the portrait my imagination had painted, it has in two points heightened it; the candour with which you decline praise you think you do not deserve, and your declaration that you should be happy to merit it, convince me that you have been very injudiciously compared to the last Lord Lyttleton. I own that, from the design you express in your preface of resigning the service of the Muses for a different vocation, I conceived you bent on pursuits which lead to the character of a legislator and statesman. I imagined you at one of the Universities, training yourself to habits of reasoning and eloquence, and storing up a large fund of history and law, preparatory to the time when your rank in society must necessarily open to you an opportunity of gratifying a noble ambition. But I have not taken up the pen to make your Lordship’s letter the subject of a sermon: on the
12 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
contrary, I am perfectly sensible that if you do indeed need the reform some of your friends think you do, pedantry will never effect it; and though my years and the compliments you pay me might be some excuse for me, the only inclination I feel at present is to express a warm wish that so much candour, good sense, and talent, may lead you to the knowledge of Truth, and the enjoyment of real happiness. I write principally to thank you for the honour you intend me by a gift of the new edition of your poems, which I shall be happy to receive; and to say that I mean to avail myself of your expressions relative to a meeting, to pay my compliments to you in Albemarle-street, in the course of a few days.

While the pen is in my hand, I will just say that my mention of Lord Lyttleton to you, who had been compared with him, is singular: but it is no less remarkable that before I was of your age I was anxious to
LIFE OF LORD BYRON13
see him, and went from school to the House of Peers on purpose, when he introduced a bill for licensing a theatre at Manchester, in which I heard him opposed by your relation Lord Carlisle. No, no; you are not like him—you shall not be like him, except in eloquence. Pardon this last effusion.”

By the return of the post which took this letter to him I received a reply, professing to give a more particular account of his studies, opinions, and feelings, written in a playful style, and containing rather flippant observations made for the sake of antitheses, than serious remarks intended to convey information. The letter may be considered as characteristic of his prose style in general, possessing the germ of his satire without the bitterness of its maturity, and the pruriency of his wit uncorrected by the hand of experience. Though written in so light and unserious a tone as prevents the
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possibility of charging him gravely with the opinions he expresses, still the bent of his mind is perceptible in it; a bent which led him to profess that such were the sentiments of the wicked George Lord Byron.

I considered these expressions of feeling, though evidently grounded on some occurrences in the still earlier part of his life, rather as jeux d’esprit than as a true portrait. I called on him on the 24th of January, and was delighted with the interview. In a few days, the 27th, I dined with him, and was more and more pleased with him. I saw nothing to warrant the character he had given of himself; on the contrary, when a young fellow-collegian, who dined with us, introduced a topic on which I did not hesitate to avow my orthodoxy, he very gracefully diverted the conversation from the channel of ridicule which it had begun to take, and partly combated on my side;
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though, as I was afterwards convinced, his opinion did not differ from his companion’s, who was also a polite gentleman, and did not make me feel the contempt which he, probably, entertained for the blindness of my understanding. After this I saw him frequently, always with new pleasure, but occasionally mixed with pain, as intimacy removed the polite apprehension of offending, and showed me his engrafted opinions of religion. I must say engrafted, for I think he was inoculated by the young pridelings of intellect, with whom he associated at the University. In the course of the spring he left town, and I did not see him or hear from him for several months.

J. C. Hobhouse, in Review of Dallas
J. C. Hobhouse, in Review of Dallas

In the beginning of the next year, I was agreeably surprised on receiving a note from him, dated January 20th, at Reddish’s Hotel, St. James’s-street, requesting to see me on the morning of the Sunday following. I did not fail to keep the appointment. It
16 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
was his birth-day, (January 22d, 1809,) and that on which he came of age. He was in high spirits; indeed, so high as to seem to me more flippant on the subject of religion, and on some others, than he had ever appeared before. But he tempered the overflow of his gaiety with good manners and so much kindness, that, far from being inclined to take offence, I felt a hope that by adopting forbearance, I might do him some service in an occasional argument or sentiment: for, although I did not put on solemn looks, I never, for a moment, allowed him to imagine that I could adopt his opinions on sacred points. He talked of the Earl of Carlisle with more than indignation. I had heard him before speak bitterly of that nobleman, whose applause he had courted for his juvenile poetry, and from whom he received a frigid answer, and little attention. But his anger that morning proceeded from another cause. Overcoming,
LIFE OF LORD BYRON17
or rather stifling, the resentment of the poet, he had written to remind the Earl that he should be of age at the commencement of the ensuing Session of Parliament, in expectation of being introduced by him, and, by being presented as his near relation, saved some trouble and awkwardness. A cold reply informed him, technically, of the mode of proceeding; but nothing more. Extremely nettled, he determined to lash his relation with all the gall he could throw into satire. He declaimed against the ties of consanguinity, and abjured even the society of his sister; from which he entirely withdrew himself until after the publication of Childe Harold, when, at length, he yielded to my persuasions, and made advances towards a friendly intercourse with her. When he had vented his resentment on this subject, he attacked the editor and other writers of the Edinburgh Review ; and then told me that, since I last saw him,
18 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
he had written a Satire on them, which he wished me to read. He put it into my hands, and I took it home. I was surprised and charmed with the nerve it evinced. I immediately wrote to him upon it, and he requested me to get it published without his name.

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