Thomas Moore - Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III

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There needs no stronger proof of the predominance of imagination in
these attachments than his own serious avowal, in the Journal already
given, that often, when in the company of the woman he most loved, he
found himself secretly wishing for the solitude of his own study. It was
_there_, indeed,--in the silence and abstraction of that study,--that
the chief scene of his mistress's empire and glory lay. It was there
that, unchecked by reality, and without any fear of the disenchantments
of truth, he could view her through the medium of his own fervid fancy,
enamour himself of an idol of his own creating, and out of a brief
delirium of a few days or weeks, send forth a dream of beauty and
passion through all ages.

While such appears to have been the imaginative character of his loves,
(of all, except the one that lived unquenched through all,) his
friendships, though, of course, far less subject to the influence of
fancy, could not fail to exhibit also some features characteristic of
the peculiar mind in which they sprung. It was a usual saying of his
own, and will be found repeated in some of his letters, that he had "no
genius for friendship," and that whatever capacity he might once have
possessed for that sentiment had vanished with his youth. If in saying
thus he shaped his notions of friendship according to the romantic
standard of his boyhood, the fact must be admitted: but as far as the
assertion was meant to imply that he had become incapable of a warm,
manly, and lasting friendship, such a charge against himself was unjust,
and I am not the only living testimony of its injustice.

To a certain degree, however, even in his friendships, the effects of a
too vivid imagination, in disqualifying the mind for the cold contact of
reality, were visible. We are told that Petrarch (who, in this respect,
as in most others, may be regarded as a genuine representative of the
poetic character,) abstained purposely from a too frequent intercourse
with his nearest friends, lest, from the sensitiveness he was so aware
of in himself, there should occur any thing that might chill his regard
for them [55]; and though Lord Byron was of a nature too full of social
and kindly impulses ever to think of such a precaution, it is a fact
confirmatory, at least, of the principle on which his brother poet,
Petrarch, acted, that the friends, whether of his youth or manhood, of
whom he had seen least, through life, were those of whom he always
thought and spoke with the most warmth and fondness. Being brought less
often to the touchstone of familiar intercourse, they stood naturally a
better chance of being adopted as the favourites of his imagination, and
of sharing, in consequence, a portion of that bright colouring reserved
for all that gave it interest and pleasure. Next to the dead, therefore,
whose hold upon his fancy had been placed beyond all risk of severance,
those friends whom he but saw occasionally, and by such favourable
glimpses as only renewed the first kindly impression they had made, were
the surest to live unchangingly, and without shadow, in his memory.

To this same cause, there is little doubt, his love for his sister owed
much of its devotedness and fervour. In a mind sensitive and versatile
as his, long habits of family intercourse might have estranged, or at
least dulled, his natural affection for her;--but their separation,
during youth, left this feeling fresh and untried.[56] His very
inexperience in such ties made the smile of a sister no less a novelty
than a charm to him; and before the first gloss of this newly awakened
sentiment had time to wear off, they were again separated, and for ever.

If the portrait which I have here attempted of the general character of
those gifted with high genius be allowed to bear, in any of its
features, a resemblance to the originals, it can no longer, I think, be
matter of question whether a class so set apart from the track of
ordinary life, so removed, by their very elevation, out of the
influences of our common atmosphere, are at all likely to furnish
tractable subjects for that most trying of all social experiments,
matrimony. In reviewing the great names of philosophy and science, we
shall find that all who have most distinguished themselves in those
walks have, at least, virtually admitted their own unfitness for the
marriage tie by remaining in celibacy;--Newton, Gassendi, Galileo,
Descartes, Bayle, Locke, Leibnitz, Boyle, Hume, and a long list of other
illustrious sages, having all led single lives.[57]

The poetic race, it is true, from the greater susceptibility of their
imaginations, have more frequently fallen into the ever ready snare. But
the fate of the poets in matrimony has but justified the caution of the
philosophers. While the latter have given warning to genius by keeping
free of the yoke, the others have still more effectually done so by
their misery under it;--the annals of this sensitive race having, at all
times, abounded with proofs, that genius ranks but low among the
elements of social happiness,--that, in general, the brighter the gift,
the more disturbing its influence, and that in married life
particularly, its effects have been too often like that of the "Wormwood
Star," whose light filled the waters on which it fell with bitterness.

Besides the causes already enumerated as leading naturally to such a
result, from the peculiarities by which, in most instances, these great
labourers in the field of thought are characterised, there is also much,
no doubt, to be attributed to an unluckiness in the choice of
helpmates,--dictated, as that choice frequently must be, by an
imagination accustomed to deceive itself. But from whatever causes it
may have arisen, the coincidence is no less striking than saddening,
that, on the list of married poets who have been unhappy in their homes,
there should already be found four such illustrious names as Dante,
Milton[58], Shakspeare[59], and Dryden; and that we should now have to
add, as a partner in their destiny, a name worthy of being placed beside
the greatest of them,--Lord Byron.

I have already mentioned my having been called up to town in the
December of this year. The opportunities I had of seeing Lord Byron
during my stay were frequent; and, among them, not the least memorable
or agreeable were those evenings we passed together at the house of his
banker, Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, where music,--followed by its accustomed
sequel of supper, brandy and water, and not a little laughter,--kept us
together, usually, till rather a late hour. Besides those songs of mine
which he has himself somewhere recorded as his favourites, there was
also one to a Portuguese air, "The song of war shall echo through our
mountains," which seemed especially to please him;--the national
character of the music, and the recurrence of the words "sunny
mountains," bringing back freshly to his memory the impressions of all
he had seen in Portugal. I have, indeed, known few persons more alive to
the charms of simple music; and not unfrequently have seen the tears in
his eyes while listening to the Irish Melodies. Among those that thus
affected him was one beginning "When first I met thee warm and young,"
the words of which, besides the obvious feeling which they express, were
intended also to admit of a political application. He, however,
discarded the latter sense wholly from his mind, and gave himself up to
the more natural sentiment of the song with evident emotion.

On one or two of these evenings, his favourite actor, Mr. Kean, was of
the party; and on another occasion, we had at dinner his early
instructor in pugilism, Mr. Jackson, in conversing with whom, all his
boyish tastes seemed to revive;--and it was not a little amusing to
observe how perfectly familiar with the annals of "The Ring[60]," and
with all the most recondite phraseology of "the Fancy," was the sublime
poet of Childe Harold.

The following note is the only one, of those I received from him at this
time, worth transcribing:--

"December 14. 1814.

"My dearest Tom,

"I will send the pattern to-morrow, and since you don't go to our
friend ('of the _keeping_ part of the town') this evening, I shall
e'en sulk at home over a solitary potation. My self-opinion rises
much by your eulogy of my social qualities. As my friend Scrope is
pleased to say, I believe I am very well for a 'holiday drinker.'
Where the devil are you? With Woolridge[61], I conjecture--for
which you deserve another abscess. Hoping that the American war
will last for many years, and that all the prizes may be registered
at Bermoothes, believe me, &c.

"P.S. I have just been composing an epistle to the Archbishop for
an especial licence. Oons! it looks serious. Murray is impatient to
see you, and would call, if you will give him audience. Your new
coat!--I wonder you like the colour, and don't go about, like
Dives, in purple."

[Footnote 51: I had frequently, both in earnest and in jest, expressed
these hopes to him; and, in one of my letters, after touching upon some
matters relative to my own little domestic circle, I added, "This will
all be unintelligible to you; though I sometimes cannot help thinking it
within the range of possibility, that even _you_, volcano as you are,
may, one day, cool down into something of the same _habitable_ state.
Indeed, when one thinks of lava having been converted into buttons for
Isaac Hawkins Browne, there is no saying what such fiery things may be
brought to at last."]

[Footnote 52: Of the lamentable contrast between sentiments and conduct,
which this transfer of the seat of sensibility from the heart to the
fancy produces, the annals of literary men afford unluckily too many
examples. Alfieri, though he could write a sonnet full of tenderness to
his mother, never saw her (says Mr. W. Rose) but once after their early
separation, though he frequently passed within a few miles of her
residence. The poet Young, with all his parade of domestic sorrows, was,
it appears, a neglectful husband and harsh father; and Sterne (to use
the words employed by Lord Byron) preferred "whining over a dead ass to
relieving a living mother."]

[Footnote 53: It is the opinion of Diderot, in his Treatise on Acting,
that not only in the art of which he treats, but in all those which are
called imitative, the possession of real sensibility is a bar to
eminence;--sensibility being, according to his view, "le caractere de la
bonte de l'ame et de la mediocrite du genie."]

[Footnote 54: Pope.]

[Footnote 55: See Foscolo's Essay on Petrarch. On the same principle,
Orrery says, in speaking of Swift, "I am persuaded that his distance
from his English friends proved a strong incitement to their mutual
affection."]

[Footnote 56: That he was himself fully aware of this appears from a
passage in one of his letters already given:--"My sister is in town,
which is a great comfort; for, never having been much together, we are
naturally more attached to each other."]

[Footnote 57: Wife and children, Bacon tells us in one of his Essays,
are "impediments to great enterprises;" and adds, "Certainly, the best
works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the
unmarried or childless men." See, with reference to this subject,
chapter xviii. of Mr. D'Israeli's work on "The Literary Character."]

[Footnote 58: Milton's first wife, it is well known, ran away from him,
within a month after their marriage, disgusted, says Phillips, "with his
spare diet and hard study;" and it is difficult to conceive a more
melancholy picture of domestic life than is disclosed in his nuncupative
will, one of the witnesses to which deposes to having heard the great
poet himself complain, that his children "were careless of him, being
blind, and made nothing of deserting him."]

[Footnote 59: By whatever austerity of temper or habits the poets Dante
and Milton may have drawn upon themselves such a fate, it might be
expected that, at least, the "gentle Shakspeare" would have stood exempt
from the common calamity of his brethren. But, among the very few facts
of his life that have been transmitted to us, there is none more clearly
proved than the unhappiness of his marriage. The dates of the birth of
his children, compared with that of his removal from Stratford,--the
total omission of his wife's name in the first draft of his will, and
the bitter sarcasm of the bequest by which he remembers her
afterwards,--all prove beyond a doubt both his separation from the lady
early in life, and his unfriendly feeling towards her at the close of
it.

In endeavouring to argue against the conclusion naturally to be deduced
from this will, Boswell, with a strange ignorance of human nature,
remarks:--"If he had taken offence at any part of his wife's conduct, I
cannot believe that he would have taken this petty mode of expressing
it."]

[Footnote 60: In a small book which I have in my possession, containing
a sort of chronological History of the Ring, I find the name of Lord
Byron, more than once, recorded among the "backers."]

[Footnote 61: Dr. Woolriche, an old and valued friend of mine, to whose
skill, on the occasion here alluded to, I was indebted for my life.]

* * * * *

LETTER. 207. TO MR. MURRAY.

"December 31, 1814.

"A thousand thanks for Gibbon: all the additions are very great
improvements.

"At last I must be _most_ peremptory with you about the _print_
from Phillips's picture: it is pronounced on all hands the most
stupid and disagreeable possible: so do, pray, have a new
engraving, and let me see it first; there really must be no more
from the same plate. I don't much care, myself; but every one I
honour torments me to death about it, and abuses it to a degree
beyond repeating. Now, don't answer with excuses; but, for my sake,
have it destroyed: I never shall have peace till it is. I write in
the greatest haste.

"P.S. I have written this most illegibly; but it is to beg you to
destroy the print, and have another 'by particular desire.' It must
be d----d bad, to be sure, since every body says so but the
original; and he don't know what to say. But do _do_ it: that is,
burn the plate, and employ a new _etcher_ from the other picture.
This is stupid and sulky."

* * * * *

On his arrival in town, he had, upon enquiring into the state of his
affairs, found them in so utterly embarrassed a condition as to fill him
with some alarm, and even to suggest to his mind the prudence of
deferring his marriage. The die was, however, cast, and he had now no
alternative but to proceed. Accordingly, at the end of December,
accompanied by his friend Mr. Hobhouse, he set out for Seaham, the seat
of Sir Ralph Milbanke, the lady's father, in the county of Durham, and
on the 2d of January, 1815, was married.

"I saw him stand
Before an altar with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The Starlight of his Boyhood;--as he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then--
As in that hour--a moment o'er his face,
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced,--and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reel'd around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been--
But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall,
And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her, who was his destiny, came back,
And thrust themselves between him and the light:--
What business had they there at such a time?"[62]

This touching picture agrees so closely in many of its circumstances,
with his own prose account of the wedding in his Memoranda, that I feel
justified in introducing it, historically, here. In that Memoir, he
described himself as waking, on the morning of his marriage, with the
most melancholy reflections, on seeing his wedding-suit spread out
before him. In the same mood, he wandered about the grounds alone, till
he was summoned for the ceremony, and joined, for the first time on that
day, his bride and her family. He knelt down, he repeated the words
after the clergyman; but a mist was before his eyes,--his thoughts were
elsewhere; and he was but awakened by the congratulations of the
bystanders, to find that he was--married.

The same morning, the wedded pair left Seaham for Halnaby, another seat
of Sir Ralph Milbanke, in the same county. When about to depart, Lord
Byron said to the bride, "Miss Milbanke, are you ready?"--a mistake
which the lady's confidential attendant pronounced to be a "bad omen."

It is right to add, that I quote these slight details from memory, and
am alone answerable for any inaccuracy there may be found in them.

[Footnote 62: The Dream.]

* * * * *

LETTER 208. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Kirkby, January 6. 1815.

"The marriage took place on the 2d instant: so pray make haste and
congratulate away.

"Thanks for the Edinburgh Review and the abolition of the print.
Let the next be from the _other_ of Phillips--I mean (_not_ the
Albanian, but) the original one in the exhibition; the last was
from the copy. I should wish my sister and Lady Byron to decide
upon the next, as they found fault with the last. _I_ have no
opinion of my own upon the subject.

"Mr. Kinnaird will, I dare say, have the goodness to furnish copies
of the Melodies[63], if you state my wish upon the subject. You may
have them, if you think them worth inserting. The volumes in their
collected state must be inscribed to Mr. Hobhouse, but I have not
yet mustered the expressions of my inscription; but will supply
them in time.

With many thanks for your good wishes, which have all been
realised, I remain, very truly, yours,

"BYRON."

[Footnote 63: The Hebrew Melodies which he had employed himself in
writing, during his recent stay in London.]

* * * * *

LETTER 209. TO MR. MOORE.

"Halnaby, Darlington, January 10, 1815.

"I was married this day week. The parson has pronounced it--Perry
has announced it--and the Morning Post, also, under the head of
'Lord Byron's Marriage'--as if it were a fabrication, or the
puff-direct of a new stay-maker.

"Now for thine affairs. I have redde thee upon the Fathers, and it
is excellent well. Positively, you must not leave off reviewing.
You shine in it--you kill in it; and this article has been taken
for Sydney Smith's (as I heard in town), which proves not only your
proficiency in parsonology, but that you have all the airs of a
veteran critic at your first onset. So, prithee, go on and prosper.

"Scott's 'Lord of the Isles' is out--'the mail-coach copy' I have,
by special licence, of Murray.

"Now is _your_ time;--you will come upon them newly and freshly. It
is impossible to read what you have lately done (verse or prose)
without seeing that you have trained on tenfold. * * has
floundered; * * has foundered. _I_ have tried the rascals (i.e. the
public) with my Harrys and Larrys, Pilgrims and Pirates. Nobody but
S * * * *y has done any thing worth a slice of bookseller's
pudding; and _he_ has not luck enough to be found out in doing a
good thing. Now, Tom, is thy time--'Oh joyful day!--I would not
take a knighthood for thy fortune. Let me hear from you soon, and
believe me ever, &c.

"P.S. Lady Byron is vastly well. How are Mrs. Moore and Joe
Atkinson's 'Graces?' We must present our women to one another."

* * * * *

LETTER 210. TO MR. MOORE.

"January 19. 1815.

"Egad! I don't think he is 'down;' and my prophecy--like most
auguries, sacred and profane--is not annulled, but inverted.

"To your question about the 'dog'[64]--Umph!--my 'mother,' I won't
say any thing against--that is, about her: but how long a
'mistress' or friend may recollect paramours or competitors (lust
and thirst being the two great and only bonds between the amatory
or the amicable) I can't say,--or, rather, you know, as well as I
could tell you. But as for canine recollections, as far as I could
judge by a cur of mine own, (always bating Boatswain, the dearest
and, alas! the maddest of dogs,) I had one (half a _wolf_ by the
she side) that doted on me at ten years old, and very nearly ate me
at twenty. When I thought he was going to enact Argus, he bit away
the backside of my breeches, and never would consent to any kind of
recognition, in despite of all kinds of bones which I offered him.
So, let Southey blush and Homer too, as far as I can decide upon
quadruped memories.

"I humbly take it, the mother knows the son that pays her
jointure--a mistress her mate, till he * * and refuses salary--a
friend his fellow, till he loses cash and character--and a dog his
master, till he changes him.

"So, you want to know about milady and me? But let me not, as
Roderick Random says, 'profane the chaste mysteries of
Hymen'[65]--damn the word, I had nearly spelt it with a small _h_.
I like Bell as well as you do (or did, you villain!) Bessy--and
that is (or was) saying a great deal.

"Address your next to Seaham, Stockton-on-Tees, where we are going
on Saturday (a bore, by the way,) to see father-in-law, Sir Jacob,
and my lady's lady-mother. Write--and write more at length--both to
the public and yours ever most affectionately,

"B."

[Footnote 64: I had just been reading Mr. Southey's fine poem of
"Roderick;" and with reference to an incident in it, had put the
following question to Lord Byron:--"I should like to know from you, who
are one of the philocynic sect, whether it is probable, that any dog
(out of a melodrame) could recognise a master, whom neither his own
mother or mistress was able to find out. I don't care about Ulysses's
dog, &c.--all I want is to know from _you_ (who are renowned as 'friend
of the dog, companion of the bear') whether such a thing is probable."]

[Footnote 65: The letter H. is blotted in the MS.]

* * * * *

LETTER 211. TO MR. MOORE.

"Seaham, Stockton-on-Tees, February 2. 1815.

"I have heard from London that you have left Chatsworth and all the
women full of 'entusymusy'[66] about you, personally and
poetically; and, in particular, that 'When first I met thee' has
been quite overwhelming in its effect. I told you it was one of the
best things you ever wrote, though that dog Power wanted you to
omit part of it. They are all regretting your absence at
Chatsworth, according to my informant--'all the ladies quite,' &c.
&c. &c. Stap my vitals!

"Well, now you have got home again--which I dare say is as
agreeable as a 'draught of cool small beer to the scorched palate
of a waking sot'--now you have got home again, I say, probably I
shall hear from you. Since I wrote last, I have been transferred to
my father-in-law's, with my lady and my lady's maid, &c. &c. &c.
and the treacle-moon is over, and I am awake, and find myself
married. My spouse and I agree to--and in--admiration. Swift says
'no _wise_ man ever married;' but, for a fool, I think it the most
ambrosial of all possible future states. I still think one ought to
marry upon _lease_; but am very sure I should renew mine at the
expiration, though next term were for ninety and nine years.

"I wish you would respond, for I am here 'oblitusque meorum
obliviscendus et illis.' Pray tell me what is going on in the way
of intriguery, and how the w----s and rogues of the upper Beggar's
Opera go on--or rather go off--in or after marriage; or who are
going to break any particular commandment. Upon this dreary coast,
we have nothing but county meetings and shipwrecks; and I have this
day dined upon fish, which probably dined upon the crews of several
colliers lost in the late gales. But I saw the sea once more in all
the glories of surf and foam,--almost equal to the Bay of Biscay,
and the interesting white squalls and short seas of Archipelago
memory.

"My papa, Sir Ralpho, hath recently made a speech at a Durham
tax-meeting; and not only at Durham, but here, several times since,
after dinner. He is now, I believe, speaking it to himself (I left
him in the middle) over various decanters, which can neither
interrupt him nor fall asleep,--as might possibly have been the
case with some of his audience. Ever thine, B.

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