I now saw Lord Byron daily. It was about this time that Lord Falkland was killed in a duel, which suggested some lines as the Satire was going through the press. Nature had endowed Lord Byron with very benevolent feelings, which I have had opportunities of discerning, and I have seen them at times render his fine countenance most beautiful. His features seemed formed in a peculiar manner for emanating the high conceptions of genius, and the workings of the passions. I have often, and with no little admiration, witnessed these

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effects. I have seen them in the glow of poetical inspiration, and under the influence of strong emotion; on the one hand amounting to virulence, and on the other replete with all the expression and grace of the mild and amiable affections. When under the influence of resentment and anger, it was painful to observe the powerful sway of those passions over his features: when he was impressed with kindness, which was the natural state of his heart, it was a high treat to contemplate his countenance. I saw him the morning after Lord Falkland’s death. He had just come from seeing the lifeless body of the man with whom he had a very short time before spent a social day; he now and then said, as if it were to himself, but aloud, “Poor Falkland!” He looked more than he spoke—“But his wife, it is she who is to be pitied.” I saw his mind teeming with benevolent intentions—and they were not abortive. If ever an

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action was pure, that which he then meditated was so; and the spirit that conceived, the man that performed it, was at that time making his way through briers and brambles to that clear but narrow path which leads to heaven. Those, who have taken pains to guide him from it, must answer for it!

The remembrance of the impression produced on Lord Byron by Lord Falkland’s death, at the period I am retracing, has excited this slight, but sincere and just, effusion; and I am sensible that the indulgence of it needs no apology.

The Satire was published about the middle of March, previous to which he took his seat in the House of Lords, on the 13th of the same month. On that day, passing down St. James’s-street, but with no intention of calling, I saw his chariot at his door, and went in. His countenance, paler than usual, showed that his mind was agi-

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tated, and that he was thinking of the nobleman to whom he had once looked for a hand and countenance in his introduction to the House. He said to me—“I am glad you happened to come in; I am going to take my seat, perhaps you will go with me.” I expressed my readiness to attend him; while, at the same time, I concealed the shock I felt on thinking that this young man, who, by birth, fortune, and talent, stood high in life, should have lived so unconnected and neglected by persons of his own rank, that there was not a single member of the senate to which he belonged, to whom he could or would apply to introduce him in a manner becoming his birth. I saw that he felt the situation, and I fully partook his indignation. If the neglect he had met with be imputed to an untoward or vicious disposition, a character which he gave himself, and which I understood was also given to him by others, it is

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natural to ask, how he came by that disposition, for he got it not from Nature? Had he not been left early to himself, or rather to dangerous guides and companions, would he have contracted that disposition? Or even, had nature been cross, might it not have been rectified? During his long minority, ought not his heart and his intellect to have been trained to the situation he was to fill? Ought he not to have been saved from money-lenders, and men of business? And ought not a shield to have been placed over a mind so open to impressions, to protect it from self-sufficient freethinkers, and witty sophs? The wonder is, not that he should have erred, but that he should have broken through the cloud that enveloped him, which was dispersed solely by the rays of his own genius.

After some talk about the Satire, the last sheets of which were in the press, I accompanied Lord Byron to the House. He

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was received in one of the antechambers by some of the officers in attendance, with whom he settled respecting the fees he had to pay. One of them went to apprize the Lord Chancellor of his being there, and soon returned for him. There were very few persons in the House. Lord Eldon was going through some ordinary business. When Lord Byron entered, I thought he looked still paler than before; and he certainly wore a countenance in which mortification was mingled with, but subdued by, indignation. He passed the woolsack without looking round, and advanced to the table where the proper officer was attending to administer the oaths. When he had gone through them, the Chancellor quitted his seat, and went towards him with a smile, putting out his hand warmly to welcome him; and, though I did not catch his words, I saw that he paid him some compliment. This was all thrown away upon

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Lord Byron, who made a stiff bow, and put the tips of his fingers into a hand, the amiable offer of which demanded the whole of his. I was sorry to see this, for Lord Eldon’s character is great for virtue, as well as talent; and, even in a political point of view, it would have given me inexpressible pleasure to have seen him uniting heartily with him. The Chancellor did not press a welcome so received, but resumed his seat; while Lord Byron carelessly seated himself for a few minutes on one of the empty benches to the left of the throne, usually occupied by the Lords in opposition. When, on his joining me, I expressed what I had felt, he said: “If I had shaken hands heartily, he would have set me down for one of his party—but I will have nothing to do with any of them, on either side; I have taken my seat, and now I will go abroad.” We returned to St. James’s-street, but he did not recover his spirits.

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The going abroad was a plan on which his thoughts had turned for some time; I did not, however, consider it as determined, or so near at hand as it proved. In a few days he left town for Newstead Abbey, after seeing the last proof of the Satire, and writing a short preface to the Poem. In a few weeks I had the pleasure of sending him an account of its success, in the following letter, dated April 11, 1809:

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The success of the Satire brought him quickly to town. He found the edition almost exhausted, and began the preparations for another, to which he determined to prefix his name. I saw him constantly; and in about a fortnight found the Poem completely metamorphosed, and augmented nearly four hundred lines, but retaining the whole of the first impression. He happily seized on some of the vices which at that juncture obtruded themselves on the public notice, and added some new characters to the list of authors with censure or applause. Among those who received the meed of praise, it gave me great pleasure to find my excellent friend Waller Rodwell Wright, whose poem “Horæ Ionicæ,” was just published*. He allowed me to take home with me his manuscripts as he wrote them;

* Mr. Wright was, at that time, Recorder of Bury St. Edmunds; and is now in a high judicial situation at Malta.

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and so soon as the 10th of May I had a note from him, urging that they should to be sent to the press. He was desirous of hastening the new edition in order that he might see the last proofs before he left England; for, during his stay at Newstead Abbey, he had arranged with Mr. Hobhouse his plan of going abroad early in June, but whither, I believe, was not exactly settled; for he sometimes talked to me of crossing the line, sometimes of Persia and India. As I perceived the new edition not only concluded in a most bitter strain, and contained besides a prose postscript in which I thought he allowed his feelings to carry him to an excess of abuse and defiance that looked more like the vaunting ebullition of

“Some fiery youth of new commission vain Who sleeps on brambles till he kills his man,”

than the dignified revenge of genius, I en-

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deavoured to prevail upon him to suppress or alter it, as the proofs which I corrected passed my hands, but was only able to obtain some modification of his expressions. The following letter, which was the last that I wrote to him respecting the Satire before he left England, will show how strenuous I was on this point, and also the liberty which he allowed me to take:

Very soon after this the Satire appeared in its new form, but too late for its author to enjoy his additional laurels before he left England. I was with him almost every day while he remained in London. Misanthropy, disgust of life leading to scepticism and impiety, prevailed in his heart and embittered his existence. He had for some time past been grossly attacked in several low publications, which he bore however with more temper than he did the blind headlong assault on his genius by the Edinburgh Review. Unaccustomed to fe-

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male society, he at once dreaded and abhorred it; and spoke of women, such I mean as he neither dreaded nor abhorred, more as playthings than companions. As for domestic happiness he had no idea of it. “A large family,” he said, “appeared like opposite ingredients mixed perforce in the same salad, and he never relished the composition.” Unfortunately, having never mingled in family circles, he knew nothing of them; and, from being at first left out of them by his relations, he was so completely disgusted that he avoided them, especially the female part. “I consider,” said he, “collateral ties as the work of prejudice, and not the bond of the heart, which must choose for itself unshackled.” It was in vain for me to argue that the nursery, and a similarity of pursuits and enjoyments in early life, are the best foundations of friendship and of love; and that to choose freely, the knowledge of home was as requisite as

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that of wider circles. In those wider circles he had found no friend, and but few companions, whom he used to receive with an assumed gaiety, but real indifference at his heart, and spoke of with little regard, sometimes with sarcasm. He used to talk of one young man, who had been his school-fellow, with an affection which he flattered himself was returned. I occasionally met this friend at his apartments, before his last excursion to Newstead. Their portraits, by capital painters, were elegantly framed, and surmounted with their respective coronets, to be exchanged. However, whether taught by ladies in revenge to neglect Lord Byron, or actuated by a frivolous inconstancy, he gradually lessened the number of his calls and their duration. Of this, however, Lord Byron made no complaint, till the very day I went to take my leave of him, which was the one previous to his departure. I found him bursting

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with indignation. “Will you believe it,” said he, “I have just met * * *, and asked him to come and sit an hour with me; he excused himself; and what do you think was his excuse? He was engaged with his mother and some ladies to go shopping! And he knows I set out to-morrow, to be absent for years, perhaps never to return! Friendship!—I do not believe I shall leave behind me, yourself and family excepted, and perhaps my mother, a single being who will care what becomes of me.”

At this period of his life his mind was full of bitter discontent. Already satiated with pleasure, and disgusted with those companions who have no other resource, he had resolved on mastering his appetites; he broke up his harams; and he reduced his palate to a diet the most simple and abstemious; but the passions of the heart were too mighty, nor did it ever enter his mind to

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overcome them: resentment, anger, and hatred held full sway over him, and his greatest gratification at that time was in overcharging his pen with gall, which flowed in every direction against individuals, his country, the world, the universe, creation, and the Creator. He might have become, he ought to have been, a different creature; and he but too well accounts for the unfortunate bias of his disposition in the following lines:—

E’en I—least thinking of a thoughtless throng, Just skill’d to know the right and choose the wrong, Freed at that age when Reason’s shield is lost, To fight my course through Passion’s countless host; Whom every path of Pleasure’s flowery way Has lured in turn, and all have led astray.

I took leave of him on the 10th of June, 1809, and he left London the next morning: his objects were still unsettled; but he wished to hear from me particularly on the subject of the Satire, and promised to inform

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me how to direct to him when he could so with certainty;—it was, however, long before I heard from him. After some time I wrote to him; directing, at a chance, to Malta, informing him of the success of his Poem.

Leaving England with a soured mind, disclaiming all attachments, and even belief in the existence of friendship, it will be no wonder if it shall be found that Lord Byron, during the period of his absence, kept up little correspondence with any persons in England. A letter, dated at Constantinople, is the only one I received from him, till he was approaching the shores of England in the Volage frigate. To his mother he wrote by every opportunity. Upon her death, which happened very soon after his arrival, and before he saw her, I was conversing with him about Newstead, and expressing my hope that he would never be persuaded to part with it; he assured me

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he would not, and promised to give me a letter which he had written to his mother to that effect, as a pledge that he never would. His letters to her being at Newstead, it was some time before he performed his promise; but in doing it he made me a present of all his letters to her on his leaving England and during his absence; saying, as he put them into my hands, “Some day or other they will be curiosities.” They are written in an easy style, and if they do not contain all that is to be expected from a traveller, what they do contain of that nature is pleasant; and they strongly mark the character of the writer.

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