LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
Documents Biography Criticism
Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron
Rejected Note to Childe Harold
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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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LITERARY CAREER, AND INCLUDING VARIOUS UNPUBLISHED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.
NOTE ON SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

In the year 1809, it is a well-known fact, that the assassinations in the streets of Lisbon and its vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to their countrymen; but Englishmen were daily butchered, and so far from the survivors obtaining redress, they were requested “not to interfere” if they perceived their compatriot defending himself against his amiable allies. I was once
182 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
stopped in the way to the theatre, at eight in the evening, when the streets were not more empty than they generally are, opposite to an open shop, and in a carriage with a friend, by three of our allies; and had we not fortunately been armed, I have not the least doubt we should have “adorned a tale,” instead of telling it. We have heard wonders of the Portuguese lately, and their gallantry,—pray heaven it continue; yet, “would it were bed-time, Hal, and all were well!” They must fight a great many hours, by “Shrewsbury clock,” before the number of their slain equals that of our countrymen butchered by these kind creatures, now metamorphosed into “Cacadores,” and what not. I merely state a fact not confined to Portugal, for in Sicily and Malta we are knocked on the head at a handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian and Maltese is ever punished! The neglect of protection is disgraceful to our government and governors, for the murders are as notorious as the moon that shines upon them, and the apathy that overlooks them. The Portuguese, it is to be hoped, are complimented with the “Forlorn Hope,”—if the cowards
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are become brave, (like the rest of their kind, in a corner,) pray let them display it. But there is a subscription for these “Θςασύ δειλον” (they need not be ashamed of the epithet once applied to the Spartans,) and all the charitable patronymicks, from ostentatious A. to diffident Z., and 1l. 1s. 0d. from “an admirer of valour,” are in requisition for the lists at Lloyd’s, and the honour of British benevolence. Well, we have fought and subscribed, and bestowed peerages, and buried the killed by our friends and foes; and, lo! all this is to be done over again! Like “young The.” (in Goldsmith’s Citizen of the World,) as we “grow older, we grow never the better.” It would be pleasant to learn who will subscribe for us, in or about the year 1815, and what nation will send fifty thousand men, first to be decimated in the capital, and then decimated again (in the Irish fashion, nine out of ten,) in the “bed of honour,” which, as Serjeant Kite says, is considerably larger and more commodious than the “bed of Ware.” Then they must have a poet to write the “Vision of Don Perceval,” and generously bestow the profits of the well and
184 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
widely-printed quarto to re-build the “Back-wynd” and the “Canon-gate,” or furnish new kilts for the half-roasted Highlanders. Lord Wellington, however, has enacted marvels; and so did his oriental brother, whom I saw charioteering over the French flag, and heard clipping bad Spanish, after listening to the speech of a patriotic cobler of Cadiz, on the event of his own entry into that city, and the exit of some five thousand bold Britons out of this “best of all possible worlds.” Sorely were we puzzled how to dispose of that same victory of Talavera; and a victory it surely was somewhere, for every body claimed it. The Spanish dispatch and mob called it Cuesta’s, and made no great mention of the Viscount; the French called it theirs (to my great discomfiture, for a French consul stopped my mouth in Greece with a pestilent Paris Gazette, just as I had killed Sebastiani “in buckram,” and king Joseph in “Kendal green,”)—and we have not yet determined what to call it, or whose, for certes it was none of our own. Howbeit, Massena’s retreat is a great comfort, and as we have not been in the habit of pursuing for
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some years past, no wonder we are a little awkward at first. No doubt we shall improve, or if not, we have only to take to our old way of retrograding, and there we are at home.”