Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron
R. C. Dallas to Lord Byron, 10 November 1819
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LITERARY CAREER, AND INCLUDING VARIOUS UNPUBLISHED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.
“I am almost out of life, and I shall speak to you
with the freedom of a spirit already arrived beyond the grave: what I now write
you may suppose addressed to you in a dream, or by my ghost, which I believe
will be greatly inclined to haunt ![]()
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you, and render you
even supernatural service.
“I take it for granted, my Lord, that when you
excluded me from your friendship, you also banished me from your thoughts, and
forgot the occurrences of our intimacy. I will, therefore, bring one
circumstance to your recollection, as it is introductory to the subject of this
letter. One day when I called upon you at your apartments in the Albany, you
took up a book in which you had been writing, and having read a few short
passages, you said that you intended to fill it with the characters of those
then around you, and with present anecdotes, to be published in the succeeding
century, and not before; and you enjoyed, by anticipation, the effect that
would be produced on the fifth and sixth generations of those to whom you
should give niches in your posthumous volume. I have often thought of this
fancy of yours, and imagined the wits, the belles, ![]()
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and
the beaux, the dupes of our sex, and the artful and frail ones of the other,
figuring at the beginning of the twentieth century in the costume of the early
part of the nineteenth. I remember well that after one or two slight sketches
you concluded with, ‘This morning Mr.
Dallas was here, &c. &c.’ You went on no farther,
but the smile with which you shut your book gave me to understand that the
colours you had used for my portrait were not of a dismal hue, and I was
inclined enough at the time to digest the flattery, as I was conscious that I
deserved your kindness, and believed that you felt so too. But, however that
may be, whether the words were a mere flattering impromptu or not, whatever
character you may have doomed me to figure in, a hundred years hence, you
certainly have not done me justice in this age: it will not, therefore, appear
extraordinary if I should not have depended altogether for my character ![]()
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on the smile with which you put your volume down.
“Lest you should suspect some inconsistency in this,
and that although I began by assuring you that I did not mean to complain, my
letter has been imagined for no other purpose; I will pause here, to declare to
you solemnly that the affection I have felt for you, that the affection I do
feel for you, is the motive by which I am at present actuated; and that but for
the desire I feel to be of some service to you, you never would have heard from
me again while I remained in this life. Were not this the case, this letter
would deserve to be considered as an impertinence, and I would scorn to write
it. I would give the world to retrieve you; to place you again upon that summit
which you reached, I may say on which you alighted, in the spring of 1812. It
may be a more arduous attempt, but I see no impossibility; nay, to place you
much higher than ever. You ![]()
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are yet but little beyond the
dawn of life—it is downright affectation; it is, I was going to say,
folly, to talk of grey hairs and age at twenty-nine. This is free language, my
Lord, but not more than you formerly allowed me, and my increased age, and
nearer view of eternity confirm the privilege. As a Poet
you have indeed wonderfully filled up the years you have attained—as a
man you are in your infancy. Like a child you fall and dirt yourself, and your
last fall has soiled you more than all the rest. I would to heaven you had not
written your last unaccountable work*, and which, did it not here and there bear internal
incontestible evidence, I would suffer no man to call yours. Forgive my
warmth—I would rather consider you as a child slipping into mire, that
may be washed away, than as a man Stept in so far, that should he wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er. |
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Your absence, and the distance of your abode, leave your
name at the mercy of every tatler and scribbler, who, even without being
personal enemies, attack character for the mere pleasure of defamation, or for
gain; and the life you are said to lead, and I grieve to say the work you have
published, leave you no defenders. However you may stand with the world, I
cannot but believe that at your age you may shake off all that clogs you in the
career for which you were born. The very determination to resume it would be an
irresistible claim to new attention from the world; and unshaken perseverance
would effect all that you could wish. Imagination has had an ample range. No
genius ever attained its meed so rapidly, or more completely; but manhood is
the period for reality and action. Will you be content to throw it away for
Italian skies and the reputation of eccentricity? May God grant me power to
stir ![]()
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up in your mind the resolution of living the next
twenty years in England, engaged in those pursuits to which Providence seems
more directly to call every man who by birth is entitled to take a share in the
legislation of his country. But what do I say? I believe that I ought first to
wish you to take a serious view of the subjects on which legislation turns.
Much has been argued in favour of adopting and adhering to a party—I have
never been convinced of this—but I am digressing. At all events, I
beseech you to think of reinstating yourself in your own country. Preparatory
to this, an idea has come into my mind, which it is time for me to state to
you; to do which I must return to the seemingly querulous style from which I
have digressed. Well then, my Lord, I did some time ago think of your treatment
of me with pain; and reflection, without lessening my attachment, showed me
that you had acted towards me ![]()
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very ungenerously, and,
indeed, very unjustly—you ought to have made more of me. I say this the
more freely now because I have lived till it is become indifferent to me. It is true that I benefited not inconsiderably by
some of your works; but it was not in the nature of money to satisfy or repay
me. I felt the pecuniary benefit as I ought, and was not slow in acknowledging
it as I ought. The six or seven hundred pounds paid by the purchaser of Childe Harold for the copyright was, in my mind, nothing
in comparison with the honour that was due to me for discerning the genius that
lay buried in the Pilgrimage, and for exciting you to the publication of it, in
spite of the damp which had been thrown upon it in the course of its
composition, and in spite of your own reluctance and almost determination to
suppress it; nothing in comparison with the kindness that was due to me for the
part I took in keeping back your ![]()
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Hints from Horace, and the new edition of the Satire, till the moment I impressed conviction on your
mind that your fame and the choice of your future career in life depended upon
the suppression of these, and on the publication of Childe
Harold. I made an effort to render you sensible that I was not dead to
that better claim, but it was unsuccessful; and though you continued your
personal kindness whenever we met, you raised in my mind a jealousy which I was
perhaps too proud, if not too mean-spirited, to betray. The result of the
feeling, however, was, that I borrowed from you the hint of a posthumous
volume, for after awhile I did not much care for the present, and I have
indulged meditations on you and on myself for the amusement and judgment of
future generations, but with this advantage over you, that I am convinced that
I shall participate in whatever effect they produce; and without this
conviction ![]()
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I cannot conceive how the slightest value can
be attached to posthumous fame. This is a topic on which I feel an inclination
to dwell, but I will conquer the impulse, for my letter is already advanced
beyond the limits I proposed. My Lord, my posthumous volume is made up—I
look into it occasionally with much pleasure, and I enjoy the thought of being,
when it is opened, in the year 1900, in company with your spirit, and of
finding you pleased, even in the high sphere you may, if you will, then occupy,
which it is possible you would not be, were you to see it now opened to the
public in your present sphere. I do not know, my Lord, whether you are able to
say as much for your book, for if you do live hereafter, and I have not the
slightest doubt but you will, I suspect that you will have company about you at
the opening of it, which may rather afford occasion of remorse than of
pleasure, however gra-![]()
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cious and forgiving you may find
immortal spirits. Of you I have written precisely as I think, and as I have
found you; and though I have inserted some things which I would not give to the
present generation, the whole, as it stands, is a just portrait of you during
the time I knew you; for I drop the pencil where you dropped the curtain
between us, and the picture is to me an engaging one. I contemplate it together
with some parts of your works, and I cannot help breaking forth into the
exclamation of ‘And is this man to be lost!’ You, perhaps, echo, in
a tone of displeasure, ‘Lost!’—Yes, lost.—Nay, unclench
your hand—remember it is my ghost that is addressing you; not the being
of flesh and blood whom you may dash from you at your will, as you have done.
The man whose place is in the highest council of the first nation in the world,
who possesses powers to delight and to serve his ![]()
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country, if he dissipates years between an Italian country-house and opera-box,
and murders his genius in attempts to rival a Rochester or a Cleland,—for I will not, to flatter you, say a Boccacio or a LaFontaine, who wrote at periods when, and in countries where,
indecency was wit—that man is lost. Gracious Heaven! on what lofty ground
you stood in the month of March, 1812! The world was before you, not as it was
to Adam, driven in tears from Paradise to seek a place of
rest, but presenting an elysium, to every part of which its crowded and various
inhabitants vied in their welcome of you. ‘Crowds of eminent
persons,’ says my posthumous volume, ‘courted an introduction, and
some volunteered their cards. This was the trying moment of virtue, and no
wonder if that were shaken, for never was there so sudden a transition from
neglect to courtship. Glory darted thick upon him from all sides; from the ![]()
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Prince Regent, and his admirable daughter, to the
bookseller and his shopman; from Walter
Scott to ——; from Jeffrey to the nameless critics of the Satirist and Scourge; he was
the wonder of wits, and the show of fashion.’ I will not pursue the
reverse; but I must repeat, ‘And is this man to be lost!’ My head is full of you, and whether you allow me
the merit or not, my heart tells me that I was chiefly instrumental, by my
conduct, in 1812, in saving you from perpetuating the enmity of the world, or
rather in forcing you, against your will, into its admiration and love; and
that I once afterwards considerably retarded your rapid retrograde motion from
the envied station which genius merits, but which even genius cannot preserve
without prudence. These recollections have actuated me, it may be imprudently,
to write you this letter, to endeavour to impel you to reflect seriously upon
what you ought to be, and to beseech ![]()
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you to take steps
to render your manhood solidly and lastingly glorious. Will you once more make
use of me? I cannot believe that there is an insurmountable bar to your return
to your proper station in life,—a station, which let me be bold enough to
say, you have no right to quit. All that I have heard concerning you is but
vague talk. The breach with Lady Byron was
evidently the ground of your leaving England; and I presume the causes of that
breach are what operate upon your spirit in keeping you abroad. In recollecting
my principles, you will naturally imagine that the first thing that would occur
to my mind in preparing the way for your return, is an endeavour to close that
breach—but I am not sufficiently acquainted with her to judge of the
force of her opposition. At any rate, I would make the blame rest at her door,
if reconciliation is not obtainable; I would be morally right; ![]()
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and this it is in your power to be, on whichever side
the wrong at first lay, by a manly severity to yourself, and by declaring your
resolution to forgive, and to banish from your thought for ever all that could
interrupt a cordial reconciliation. This step, should it not produce a
desirable effect on the mind of Lady Byron, would
infallibly lead to the esteem of the world. Is it too much for me to hope that
I might, by a letter to her, and by a public account of you, and of your
intended pursuits in England, make such a general impression, as once more to
fix the eyes of your country upon you with sentiments of new admiration and
regard, and usher you again to a glory of a nature superior to all you ever
enjoyed. It has, I own, again and again come into my mind, to model my intended
posthumous work for present publication, so as to have that effect; could I but
prevail upon you to follow it up by a return to ![]()
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England,
with a resolution to lead a philosophical life, and to turn the great powers of
your mind to pursuits worthy of them: and, among those, to a candid search
after that religious Truth which often, as imagination sobers, becomes more
obvious to the ordinary vision of Reason. Once more, my dear Lord Byron, forgive, or, rather, let me say,
reward, my warmth, by listening again to the affection which prompts me to
express my desire of serving you. I do not expect the glory of making a
religious convert of you. I have still a hope that you will yourself have that
glory if your life be spared to the usual length—but my present anxiety
is to see you restored to your station in this world, after trials that should
induce you to look seriously into futurity.”
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Anonymous,
“Dallas’s Recollections of Lord Byron” in Gentleman’s Magazine
Vol. 94 (November 1824)
Mr. DALLAS, the author of the
“Recollections,” has
soon followed the subject of his work to the “bourne whence no traveller
returns.” He was at the time of his death 70 years of age, and was personally
connected with the Noble Lord’s family, his sister
having married the father of the present Peer. These circumstances led, at one period of his
Lordship’s life, to a degree of intimacy; in the course of which Mr.
Dallas not only became one of his Correspondents, but was entrusted with the
duty of an Editor to several of his poems, and lastly was made the depositary of many of his
Lordship’s confidential letters to his mother and other persons. Whether those letters
were or were not intended by Lord Byron to see the light at
a future period, is a matter of some doubt. We confess we think they were; but his executors
have restrained their publication. A long “preliminary statement,” of 97 pages,
drawn up by the Rev. A. R. C. Dallas, son of the Author,
is occupied with the disputes between his father and the executors, who obtained an injunction
from the Court of Chancery against the publication of the Letters. We pass over this, and come
to the “Recollections.” . . .
Anonymous,
“Dallas’s Recollections of Lord Byron” in Gentleman’s Magazine
Vol. 94 (November 1824)
In our review of Capt.
Medwin’s book (p. 436), we have observed, that the publication of Childe Harold was
“the crisis of Lord Byron’s fate as a
man and a poet.” The present volume sets this truth in the strongest light;
but it adds a fact so extraordinary, that if it were not related so circumstantially, we
own we should hesitate to give it credence—this fact is, that Lord
Byron himself was insensible to the value of Childe Harold, and could with difficulty be brought to
consent to its publication! He had written a very indifferent paraphrase of Horace’s Art of Poetry, and was anxious to have it
published. . . .
Anonymous,
“Dallas’s Recollections of Lord Byron” in Gentleman’s Magazine
Vol. 94 (November 1824)
Childe Harold, with all its moral
faults, is beyond a doubt the great work of Lord Byron. No
one, after reading it, can deny him to be a Poet. Yet was this production the ruin of his
Lordship’s mind. “The rapidity of the sale of the Poem,” says Mr. Dallas, “its reception, and the elution of the
author’s feelings were unparalleled.” This elation of feeling was the
outbreaking of an inordinate vanity which had at last found its food, and which led him in the
riotous intoxication of his passions to break down all the fences of morality, and to trample
on everything that restrained his excesses. Mr. Dallas rendered him
essential service, by persuading him to omit some very blamable stanzas: and when he could not
prevail on him to strike out all that was irreligious, he entered a written Protest against certain passages. This protest, which is a very curious document, is
preserved in p. 124 of the volume before us. Probably Lord Byron grew
weary of such lecturing; for in a few years he dropped his intimacy with Mr.
Dallas, and fell into other hands, which only accelerated his degradation. . . .
Anonymous,
“Dallas’s Recollections of Lord Byron” in Gentleman’s Magazine
Vol. 94 (November 1824)
It certainly does appear that Mr. Dallas,
from the first to the last of his intimacy with Lord Byron,
did every thing that a friend, with the feelings of a parent, could do to win his Lordship to
the cause of virtue, but unhappily in vain. . . .
Anonymous,
“Dallas’s Recollections of Lord Byron” in Gentleman’s Magazine
Vol. 94 (November 1824)
The concluding chapter of this book is written by Mr. Dallas, jun. to whom his father on his death-bed confided the task of
closing these “Recollections.” This Gentleman’s
reflections on the decided and lamentable turn which the publication of Childe Harold gave to Lord Byron’s character, are forcible and just. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
Since
Orrery wrote his defamatory life of Swift, and since Mr.
Wyndham published Doddington’s diary, in order to expose the author of that strange record of venality, we are not
aware that the friends or family of any writer have deliberately set down to diminish his
fame and tarnish his character. Such, however, has been the case in the work before us. We
do not mean to say that such was the first object in view by the author or authors of this
volume. No; their first object was the laudable motive of putting money into their purses;
for it appears upon their own showing, that Mr. R. C. Dallas, having
made as much money as he could out of lord Byron in his life time,
resolved to pick up a decent livelihood (either in his own person or that of his son) out
of his friend’s remains when dead. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
But it appears that Mr. R. C. Dallas
could not wait for his money so long as was requisite, and that in the year 1819 he became
a little impatient to touch something in his life time: accordingly, in an evil hour, he
writes a long long letter to lord Byron, containing a debtor and
creditor account between R. C. Dallas and his lordship; by which, when
duly balanced, it appeared that said lord Byron was still considerably
in arrears of friendship and obligation to said R. C. Dallas, and
ought to acquit himself by a remittance of materials (such is
Mr. R. C. Dallas’s own word, in his own letter, as will be
seen by and by) to his creditor Mr. R. C.
Dallas. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
The death of lord Byron, of
course, seemed at once to promise this settlement: no sooner had he heard it, than he set
about copying the manuscripts; he wrote to Messrs.
Galignani at Paris, to know whether they would “enter into the speculation” of publishing some very interesting manuscripts
of lord Byron; he set off for London; he sold the volume to a London:
bookseller, and “he returned without loss of time to
France.” His worthy son has told us all this himself, at pages 94 and 96 of his
volume, and has actually printed the letter his father wrote to Messrs.
Galignani, to show, we suppose, how laudably alert Mr. R. C.
Dallas evinced himself to be on this interesting opportunity of securing his
lawful property. The booksellers, also, performed their part; they announced the “Private Correspondence” of lord Byron for
sale; and, as it also appears by this volume, were so active as to be prepared to bring
their goods to market before lord Byron’s funeral. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
They thought
differently of the publication of private letters; and Mrs. Leigh
desired Mr. Hobhouse one of the executors, to write
to Mr. R. C. Dallas to say, that she should think the publication, in
question “quite unpardonable,” at least for the present, and unless
after a previous inspection by his lordship’s family. Unfortunately for Mr.
Dallas, it appears, according to this volume, that Mr.
Hobhouse did not in this letter, state that he was lord
Byron’s executor; but merely appealed to Mr. R. C.
Dallas’s “honour and feeling,” wishing
probably to try that topic first; and thinking it more respectful to do so, than to
threaten the author with legal interference at once. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
Mr. Dallas was resolved upon getting his money, and wrote a very angry
letter, not to Mr. Hobhouse but to Mrs. Leigh
(which, his prudent son has also printed), containing menaces not unkilfully calculated to
intimidate that lady, especially considering that she must have been at that moment
peculiarly disposed to receive any unpleasant impressions—her brother’s corpse
lying yet unburied. For an author and seller of Remains the time was
not ill chosen—by a gentleman and a man, another moment, to say nothing of another
style, might perhaps have been selected. But no time was to be lost; the book must be out
on the 12th of July, and out it would have been had not the executors procured an
injunction against it on the 7th of the same month, and thus very seriously damaged, if not
ruined, Mr. R. C. Dallas’s “speculation.” . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
Ninety-seven
pages of the volume are taken up with a statement of the proceedings in Chancery, which
were so fatal to the “speculation.” In this statement, which is written by
Mr. Alexander Dallas, the son of Mr.
R. C. Dallas, who died before the volume could be published, it may easily
be supposed that all imaginable hard things are said of those who spoiled the speculation.
The executors, and lord Byron’s sister, are spoken of in terms
which, if noticed, would certainly very much increase those “expenses” of which the Rev. Alexander Dallas so
piteously complains; for we doubt if any jury would hesitate to return a verdict of libel
and slander against many passages which we could point out in the preliminary
statement. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
Lord Byron was taken into Scotland by his mother and
father, and Mrs. Leigh was left in England with her
grandmother, to whom her father had consigned her on condition that she should provide for
her. They were thus separated from 1789 until lord Byron came to
England; when thy met as often as possible, although it was not easy to bring them
together, as Mrs. Byron, the mother of
lord Byron, had quarrelled with lady
Holdernesse. For the intercourse which did take place, the brother and
sister were indebted to the kind offices of lord
Carlisle. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
That lord Byron might have dropt an
unguarded opinion as to relationship in general is possible, though such an error is
nothing in comparison with the atrocity of coolly recording that opinion as if it had been
an habitual sentiment, which we say it was not. We say that it is untrue that lord Byron declaimed against the ties of
consanguinity. It is untrue that he entirely withdrew from the
company of his sister during the period alluded to. It is untrue
that he “made advances” to a friendly intercourse with her only after the
publication of Childe Harold, and only at
the persuasion of Mr. R. C. Dallas. Mrs. Leigh corresponded with lord Byron at the very time
mentioned, and saw in lord Carlisle’s house in
the spring of 1809; after which he went abroad, and did not return until July 1811. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
We speak from the same authority, when we say that what is said of
lord Carlisle, though there was, as all the world
knows, a difference between his lordship and lord Byron,
is also at variance with the facts. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
Such was Mr. Alexander
Dallas’s letter to Mr.
Hobhouse; and that he should, after writing such a letter, make a statement
which he knew the production of that letter could positively contradict, is an instance of
confidence in the forbearance of others such as we never have happened before to witness.
We beg the reader to compare the words in italics from Mr.
Dallas’s statement with the words in capitals from Mr.
Dallas’s letter—and then to ask himself whether he thinks
lord Byron’s
reputation, or that of his relations and friends, has much to suffer or
fear from such a censor as the Reverend Alexander Dallas. In the
Statement, he tells the world that Mr. Hobhouse is mentioned in
lord Byron’s letters in the enumeration of his suite; and,
in a remark, that lord Byron was satisfied at being alone. In the
letter, he tells Mr. Hobhouse, that “he (Mr.
Hobhouse) is mentioned throughout the whole of the correspondence with great
affection.” . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
It answered the purpose of the editor to
deal in the strongest insinuations against Mr. Hobhouse; but,
unfortunately, his father had, in the course of his correspondence with lord
Byron, mentioned that gentleman in very different terms—what does
the honest editor do? he gives only the initial of the name, so that the eulogy, such
as it is, may serve for any Mr. H * *. Mr. R. C.
Dallas’s words are, “I gave Murray your note on M * *, to be placed in the page with Wingfield. He must have been a very extraordinary
young man, and I am sincerely sorry for H * *, for whom I have felt an
increased regard ever since I heard of his intimacy with my son at Cadiz, and that they
were mutually pleased” [p. 165]. The H * * stands for
Hobhouse, and the M * * whom R. C. Dallas
characterises here, “as an extraordinary young man,” becomes, in the hands
of his honest son, “an unhappy Atheist” [p. 325], whose name he mentions,
in another place, at full length, and characterises him in such a way as must give the
greatest pain to the surviving relations and friends of the deceased. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
We now come to the reverend gentleman’s father, and as the death of
lord Byron did not prevent that person from writing
what we know to be unfounded of his lordship, we shall not refrain, because he also is
dead, from saying what we know to be founded of Mr. R. C.
Dallas. In performing this task we are, most luckily, furnished with a list
of Mr. Dallas’s pretensions, by Mr. Dallas
himself, in the shape of a letter written by that person to lord Byron
in 1819, of which the Reverend Alexander Dallas has
thought fit to publish a considerable portion. To this letter, or list of Mr. R.
C. Dallas’s brilliant virtues, and benefits conferred upon
lord Byron, we shall oppose an answer from a person, whom neither
Mr. R. C. Dallas nor his reverend son had ever dreamt could appear
against them again in this world—that person is lord Byron
himself. For it so happens, that although his lordship did not reply to the said letter by
writing to the author, yet he did transmit that epistle, with sundry notes of his own upon
it, to one of his correspondents in England. The letter itself, with lord
Byron’s notes, is now lying before us, and we shall proceed at once to
cite the passages which lord Byron has commented upon, all of which,
with one exception, to he noticed hereafter, have before been given to the public. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
Across these passages, opposite the words “saving you from
perpetuating the enmity,” lord Byron has put
“the Devil you did?” and over the
words “rapid retrograde motion” lord Byron has
written “when did this happen? and how?”
. . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
We have now to mention that, Mr. R. C.
Dallas after the words which conclude his letter, as given by his son,
namely, these words: “but my present anxiety is, to see you restored to your
station in this world, after trials that should induce you to look seriously into
futurity.”—after these words, we find in the original letter the
following— . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
The upshot of this letter appears to be, to obtain my sanction to
the publication of a volume about
Mr. Dallas and
myself, which I shall not allow. The letter has remained and will remain
unanswered. I never injured Mr. R. C. Dallas, but did him all
the good I could, and I am quite unconscious and ignorant of what he means by
reproaching me with ungenerous treatment; the facts will speak for themselves to
those who know them—the proof is easy. . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
These persons, whose work, or rather, whose conduct we are reviewing, have tried all the
common topics by which they think they may enlist the sympathy of their readers in their
favour, to the prejudice of their illustrious benefactor. They have bandied about the
clap-trap terms of atheism, scepticism, irreligion, immorality, &c. but the good sense,
nay more, the generosity, the humanity, and the true Christian spirit of their
fellow-countrymen, will reject such an unworthy fellowship. They may weep over the failings
of Byron; but they will cast from them, with scorn and reprobation,
detractors, whose censure bears on the face of it, the unquestionable marks of envy,
malice, and. all uncharitableness. Can anything be more unpardonable, anything more unfair,
for instance, than for the editor of this volume (the clergyman) to take for granted, that
the Conversations of Medwin are authentic, though he himself has given an
example of two gross mis-statements in them, which would alone throw a doubt over their
authenticity; and upon that supposition to charge lord Byron with being sunk to the lowest
depths of degradation? What are we to say to this person who, at the same time that he
assumes the general truth of the Conversations, makes an
exception against that part of them, which represents lord
Byron’s dislike of the anti-religious opinions of Mr. Shelley? . . .
[John Cam Hobhouse],
“[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review
Vol. 3 (January 1825)
If the author of “Aubrey” had but read, or had not forgotten lord
Byron’s preface to the second edition of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, he would have spared us
all this fine writing, for that preface explains that “phenomenon of the human mind, for which it is difficult to
account,” and which this poor writer has accounted for so
profoundly. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“Lord Byron” in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
Vol. 17
No. 97 (February 1825)
The story of his having said to his mother, when he and Mr
Hobhouse parted company on their travels, that he “was glad to be
alone,” amounts to nothing; for who is he, and above all, who is the poet, who does
not often feel the departure of his dearest friend as a temporary relief? The man
that was composing Childe Harold had other
things to entertain him than the conversation of any companion, however pleasant; and we
believe there are few pleasanter companions anywhere than Mr Hobhouse.
This story, however, has been magnified into a mighty matter by Mr Dallas, whose name has recently been rather wearisomely connected with
Lord Byron’s. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“Lord Byron” in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
Vol. 17
No. 97 (February 1825)
Old Mr Dallas appears to have been an
inveterate twaddler, and there are even worse things than twaddling alleged against him by
Mr Hobhouse, in the article we have been quoting.
The worst of these, however, his misstatement as to the amount of his pecuniary obligations to
Lord Byron, may perhaps be accounted for in a way much
more charitable than has found favour with Mr Hobhouse; and as to the son,
(Mr Alexander Dallas,) we assuredly think he has
done nothing, but what he supposed his filial duty bound him to, in the whole matter. Angry
people will take sneering and perverted views of the subject matter of dispute, without
subjecting themselves in the eyes of the disinterested world, to charges so heavy either as
Mr Hobhouse has thought fit to bring against Mr A.
Dallas, or as Mr A. Dallas has thought fit to bring against
Mr Hobhouse. As for the song of which so much has been said, what is it, after all, but a mere
joke— . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“Lord Byron” in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine
Vol. 17
No. 97 (February 1825)
Dallas’s book,
utterly feeble and drivelling as it is, contains certainly some very interesting
particulars as to his feelings when he was a very young author. The whole getting up of the
two first cantos of Childe Harold—the
diffidence—the fears —the hopes that alternately depressed and elevated his
spirits while the volume was printing, are exhibited, so as to form a picture that all
students of literature, at least, will never cease to prize. All the rest of the work is
more about old Dallas than young Byron, and is
utter trash. . . .
Leigh Hunt,
Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries (London: Henry Colburn, 1828)
The only publications that contained any thing at once new and true
respecting Lord Byron were, Dallas’s Recollections, the Conversations by
Captain Medwin, and Parry’s and Gamba’s Accounts of his Last Days. A good deal of the real
character of his Lordship, though not always as the writer viewed it, may be gathered from
most of them; particularly the first two. . . .
Leigh Hunt,
Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries (London: Henry Colburn, 1828)
Dallas, who was a sort of lay-priest, errs from
being half-witted. He must have tired Lord Byron to death with blind
beggings of the question, and solemn mistakes. The wild poet ran against him, and scattered
his faculties. To the last he does not seem to have made up his mind, whether his Lordship
was Christian or Atheist. I can settle at least a part of that dilemma. Christian he
certainly was not. He neither wrote nor talked, as any Christian, in the ordinary sense of
the word, would have done: and as to the rest, the strength of his belief probably varied
according to his humour, and was at all times as undecided and uneasy, as the lights
hitherto obtained by mere reason were calculated to render it. . . .
Leigh Hunt,
Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries (London: Henry Colburn, 1828)
Now, the passage here quoted was quoted by myself, one of those
“atheists and scoffers,” according to Mr.
Dallas, by whom “he was led into defiance of the sacred
writings.” . . .
Pietro Gamba,
A Narrative of Lord Byron’s Last Journey to Greece (London: John Murray, 1825)
Again, in order to prove the difficulty of living with Lord Byron, it is said, that “When Mr. Hobhouse and he travelled in Greece together, they
were generally a mile asunder.” I have the best authority for saying, that
this is not the fact: that two young men, who were continually together and slept in the
same room for many months, should not always have ridden side by side on their journey is
very likely; but when Lord Byron and Mr. Hobhouse
travelled in Greece, it would have been as little safe as comfortable to be
“generally a mile asunder;” and the truth is, they were generally
very near each other. . . .
John Cleland (1710-1789)
English novelist and miscellaneous writer, author of
Memoirs of a Woman
of Pleasure (
Fanny Hill) (1748-49).
Robert Charles Dallas (1754-1824)
English poet, novelist, and translator who corresponded with Byron. His sister Charlotte
Henrietta Dallas (d. 1793) married Captain George Anson Byron (1758-1793); their son George
Anson Byron (1789-1868) inherited Byron's title in 1824.
Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773-1850)
Scottish barrister, Whig MP, and co-founder and editor of the
Edinburgh
Review (1802-29). As a reviewer he was the implacable foe of the Lake School of
poetry.
Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695)
French poet whose
Fables were first translated into English in
1734.
The Satirist, or, Monthly Meteor. (1807-1814). Originally issued with colored plates, the Tory-inspired
Satirist
was edited by George Manners (1778–1853) from October 1807 to June 1812, and William Jerdan
(1782–1869) from July 1812 to August 1814; it was continued as
Tripod,
or, New Satirist (July-Aug. 1814). The humor was coarse, and Byron the target in a
series of pieces by Hewson Clarke (1787-1845 fl.).
George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)
Don Juan. (London: 1819-1824). A burlesque poem in ottava rima published in installments: Cantos I and II published in
1819, III, IV and V in 1821, VI, VII, and VIII in 1823, IX, X, and XI in 1823, XII, XIII,
and XIV in 1823, and XV and XVI in 1824.
