Thomas Moore - Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.)

T >> Thomas Moore >> Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.)

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Nor is it genius only that thus rebels against the discipline of the
schools. Even the tamer quality of Taste, which it is the professed
object of classical studies to cultivate, is sometimes found to turn
restive under the pedantic _manege_ to which it is subjected. It was
not till released from the duty of reading Virgil as a task, that Gray
could feel himself capable of enjoying the beauties of that poet; and
Lord Byron was, to the last, unable to vanquish a similar
prepossession, with which the same sort of school association had
inoculated him, against Horace.

--"Though Time hath taught
My mind to meditate what then it learn'd,
Yet such the fix'd inveteracy wrought
By the impatience of my early thought,
That, with the freshness wearing out before
My mind could relish what it might have sought,
If free to choose, I cannot now restore
Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor.

"Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so,
Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse
To understand, not feel thy lyric flow,
To comprehend, but never love thy verse."

CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO IV

To the list of eminent poets, who have thus left on record their
dislike and disapproval of the English system of education, are to be
added, the distinguished names of Cowley, Addison, and Cowper; while,
among the cases which, like those of Milton and Dryden, practically
demonstrate the sort of inverse ratio that may exist between college
honours and genius, must not be forgotten those of Swift, Goldsmith,
and Churchill, to every one of whom some mark of incompetency was
affixed by the respective universities, whose annals they adorn. When,
in addition, too, to this rather ample catalogue of poets, whom the
universities have sent forth either disloyal or dishonoured, we come
to number over such names as those of Shakspeare and of Pope, followed
by Gay, Thomson, Burns, Chatterton, &c., all of whom have attained
their respective stations of eminence, without instruction or sanction
from any college whatever, it forms altogether, it must be owned, a
large portion of the poetical world, that must be subducted from the
sphere of that nursing influence which the universities are supposed
to exercise over the genius of the country.

The following letters, written at this time, contain some particulars
which will not be found uninteresting.

LETTER 22.

TO MR. HENRY DRURY.

"Dorant's Hotel, Jan. 13. 1808.

"My dear Sir,

"Though the stupidity of my servants, or the porter of the house, in
not showing you up stairs (where I should have joined you directly),
prevented me the pleasure of seeing you yesterday, I hoped to meet you
at some public place in the evening. However, my stars decreed
otherwise, as they generally do, when I have any favour to request of
them. I think you would have been surprised at my figure, for, since
our last meeting, I am reduced four stone in weight. I then weighed
fourteen stone seven pound, and now only _ten stone and a half_. I
have disposed of my _superfluities_ by means of hard exercise and
abstinence.

"Should your Harrow engagements allow you to visit town between this
and February, I shall be most happy to see you in Albemarle Street. If
I am not so fortunate, I shall endeavour to join you for an afternoon
at Harrow, though, I fear, your cellar will by no means contribute to
my cure. As for my worthy preceptor, Dr. B., our encounter would by no
means prevent the _mutual endearments_ he and I were wont to lavish on
each other. We have only spoken once since my departure from Harrow in
1805, and then he politely told Tatersall I was not a proper associate
for his pupils. This was long before my strictures in verse; but, in
plain _prose_, had I been some years older, I should have held my
tongue on his perfections. But, being laid on my back, when that
schoolboy thing was written--or rather dictated--expecting to rise no
more, my physician having taken his sixteenth fee, and I his
prescription, I could not quit this earth without leaving a memento of
my constant attachment to Butler in gratitude for his manifold good
offices.

"I meant to have been down in July; but thinking my appearance,
immediately after the publication, would be construed into an insult,
I directed my steps elsewhere. Besides, I heard that some of the boys
had got hold of my Libellus, contrary to my wishes certainly, for I
never transmitted a single copy till October, when I gave one to a
boy, since gone, after repeated importunities. You will, I trust,
pardon this egotism. As you had touched on the subject I thought some
explanation necessary. Defence I shall not attempt, 'Hic murus aheneus
esto, nil conscire sibi'--and 'so on' (as Lord Baltimore said on his
trial for a rape)--I have been so long at Trinity as to forget the
conclusion of the line; but though I cannot finish my quotation, I
will my letter, and entreat you to believe me,

gratefully and affectionately, &c.

"P.S. I will not lay a tax on your time by requiring an answer, lest
you say, as Butler said to Tatersall (when I had written his reverence
an impudent epistle on the expression before mentioned), viz. 'that I
wanted to draw him into a correspondence.'"

LETTER 23.

TO MR. HARNESS.

"Dorant's Hotel, Albemarle Street, Feb. 11. 1808.

"My dear Harness,

"As I had no opportunity of returning my verbal thanks, I trust you
will accept my written acknowledgments for the compliment you were
pleased to pay some production of my unlucky muse last November,--I am
induced to do this not less from the pleasure I feel in the praise of
an old schoolfellow, than from justice to you, for I had heard the
story with some slight variations. Indeed, when we met this morning,
Wingfield had not undeceived me, but he will tell you that I displayed
no resentment in mentioning what I had heard, though I was not sorry
to discover the truth. Perhaps you hardly recollect, some years ago, a
short, though, for the time, a warm friendship between us? Why it was
not of longer duration, I know not. I have still a gift of yours in my
possession, that must always prevent me from forgetting it. I also
remember being favoured with the perusal of many of your compositions,
and several other circumstances very pleasant in their day, which I
will not force upon your memory, but entreat you to believe me, with
much regret at their short continuance, and a hope they are not
irrevocable,

yours very sincerely, &c.

"BYRON."

I have already mentioned the early friendship that subsisted between
this gentleman and Lord Byron, as well as the coolness that succeeded
it. The following extract from a letter with which Mr. Harness
favoured me, in placing at my disposal those of his noble
correspondent, will explain the circumstances that led, at this time,
to their reconcilement; and the candid tribute, in the concluding
sentences, to Lord Byron, will be found not less honourable to the
reverend writer himself than to his friend.

"A coolness afterwards arose, which Byron alludes to in the first of
the accompanying letters, and we never spoke during the last year of
his remaining at school, nor till after the publication of his 'Hours
of Idleness.' Lord Byron was then at Cambridge; I, in one of the upper
forms, at Harrow. In an English theme I happened to quote from the
volume, and mention it with praise. It was reported to Byron that I
had, on the contrary, spoken slightingly of his work and of himself,
for the purpose of conciliating the favour of Dr. Butler, the master,
who had been severely satirised in one of the poems. Wingfield, who
was afterwards Lord Powerscourt, a mutual friend of Byron and myself,
disabused him of the error into which he had been led, and this was
the occasion of the first letter of the collection. Our conversation
was renewed and continued from that time till his going abroad.
Whatever faults Lord Byron might have had towards others, to myself he
was always uniformly affectionate. I have many slights and neglects
towards him to reproach myself with; but I cannot call to mind a
single instance of caprice or unkindness, in the whole course of our
intimacy, to allege against him."

In the spring of this year (1808) appeared the memorable critique
upon the "Hours of Idleness" in the Edinburgh Review. That he had some
notice of what was to be expected from that quarter, appears by the
following letter to his friend, Mr. Becher.

LETTER 24.

TO MR. BECHER.

"Dorant's Hotel, Feb. 26. 1803.

"My dear Becher,

"Now for Apollo. I am happy that you still retain your predilection,
and that the public allow me some share of praise. I am of so much
importance, that a most violent attack is preparing for me in the next
number of the Edinburgh Review. This I had from the authority of a
friend who has seen the proof and manuscript of the critique. You know
the system of the Edinburgh gentlemen is universal attack. They praise
none; and neither the public nor the author expects praise from them.
It is, however, something to be noticed, as they profess to pass
judgment only on works requiring the public attention. You will see
this when it comes out;--it is, I understand, of the most unmerciful
description; but I am aware of it, and hope you will not be hurt by
its severity.

"Tell Mrs. Byron not to be out of humour with them, and to prepare her
mind for the greatest hostility on their part. It will do no injury
whatever, and I trust her mind will not be ruffled. They defeat their
object by indiscriminate abuse, and they never praise except the
partisans of Lord Holland and Co. It is nothing to be abused when
Southey, Moore, Lauderdale, Strangford, and Payne Knight, share the
same fate.

"I am sorry--but 'Childish Recollections' must be suppressed during
this edition. I have altered, at your suggestion, the _obnoxious
allusions_ in the sixth stanza of my last ode.

"And now, my dear Becher, I must return my best acknowledgments for
the interest you have taken in me and my poetical bantlings, and I
shall ever be proud to show how much I esteem the _advice_ and the
_adviser_.

Believe me, most truly," &c.

Soon after this letter appeared the dreaded article,--an article
which, if not "witty in itself," deserved eminently the credit of
causing "wit in others." Seldom, indeed, has it fallen to the lot of
the justest criticism to attain celebrity such as injustice has
procured for this; nor as long as the short, but glorious race of
Byron's genius is remembered, can the critic, whoever he may be, that
so unintentionally ministered to its first start, be forgotten.

It is but justice, however, to remark,--without at the same time
intending any excuse for the contemptuous tone of criticism assumed by
the reviewer,--that the early verses of Lord Byron, however
distinguished by tenderness and grace, give but little promise of
those dazzling miracles of poesy with which he afterwards astonished
and enchanted the world; and that, if his youthful verses now have a
peculiar charm in our eyes, it is because we read them, as it were, by
the light of his subsequent glory.

There is, indeed, one point of view, in which these productions are
deeply and intrinsically interesting. As faithful reflections of his
character at that period of life, they enable us to judge of what he
was in his yet unadulterated state,--before disappointment had begun
to embitter his ardent spirit, or the stirring up of the energies of
his nature had brought into activity also its defects. Tracing him
thus through these natural effusions of his young genius, we find him
pictured exactly such, in all the features of his character, as every
anecdote of his boyish days proves him really to have been, proud,
daring, and passionate,--resentful of slight or injustice, but still
more so in the cause of others than in his own; and yet, with all this
vehemence, docile and placable, at the least touch of a hand
authorised by love to guide him. The affectionateness, indeed, of his
disposition, traceable as it is through every page of this volume, is
yet but faintly done justice to, even by himself;--his whole youth
being, from earliest childhood, a series of the most passionate
attachments,--of those overflowings of the soul, both in friendship
and love, which are still more rarely responded to than felt, and
which, when checked or sent back upon the heart, are sure to turn into
bitterness. We have seen also, in some of his early unpublished poems,
how apparent, even through the doubts that already clouded them, are
those feelings of piety which a soul like his could not but possess,
and which, when afterwards diverted out of their legitimate channel,
found a vent in the poetical worship of nature, and in that shadowy
substitute for religion which superstition offers. When, in addition,
too, to these traits of early character, we find scattered through
his youthful poems such anticipations of the glory that awaited
him,--such, alternately, proud and saddened glimpses into the future,
as if he already felt the elements of something great within him, but
doubted whether his destiny would allow him to bring it forth,--it is
not wonderful that, with the whole of his career present to our
imaginations, we should see a lustre round these first puerile
attempts not really their own, but shed back upon them from the bright
eminence which he afterwards attained; and that, in our indignation
against the fastidious blindness of the critic, we should forget that
he had not then the aid of this reflected charm, with which the
subsequent achievements of the poet now irradiate all that bears his
name.

The effect this criticism produced upon him can only be conceived by
those who, besides having an adequate notion of what most poets would
feel under such an attack, can understand all that there was in the
temper and disposition of Lord Byron to make him feel it with tenfold
more acuteness than others. We have seen with what feverish anxiety he
awaited the verdicts of all the minor Reviews, and, from his
sensibility to the praise of the meanest of these censors, may guess
how painfully he must have writhed under the sneers of the highest. A
friend, who found him in the first moments of excitement after reading
the article, enquired anxiously whether he had just received a
challenge?--not knowing how else to account for the fierce defiance of
his looks. It would, indeed, be difficult for sculptor or painter to
imagine a subject of more fearful beauty than the fine countenance of
the young poet must have exhibited in the collected energy of that
crisis. His pride had been wounded to the quick, and his ambition
humbled;--but this feeling of humiliation lasted but for a moment. The
very re-action of his spirit against aggression roused him to a full
consciousness of his own powers;[90] and the pain and the shame of the
injury were forgotten in the proud certainty of revenge.

Among the less sentimental effects of this review upon his mind, he
used to mention that, on the day he read it, he drank three bottles of
claret to his own share after dinner;--that nothing, however, relieved
him till he had given vent to his indignation in rhyme, and that
"after the first twenty lines, he felt himself considerably better."
His chief care, indeed, afterwards, was amiably devoted,--as we have
seen it was, in like manner, _before_ the criticism,--to allaying,
as far as he could, the sensitiveness of his mother; who, not having
the same motive or power to summon up a spirit of resistance, was, of
course, more helplessly alive to this attack upon his fame, and felt
it far more than, after the first burst of indignation, he did
himself. But the state of his mind upon the subject will be best
understood from the following letter.

LETTER 25.

TO MR. BECKER.

"Dorant's, March 28. 1808.

"I have lately received a copy of the new edition from Ridge, and it
is high time for me to return my best thanks to you for the trouble
you have taken in the superintendence. This I do most sincerely, and
only regret that Ridge has not seconded you as I could wish,--at
least, in the bindings, paper, &c., of the copy he sent to me. Perhaps
those for the public may be more respectable in such articles.

You have seen the Edinburgh Review, of course. I regret that Mrs.
Byron is so much annoyed. For my own part, these 'paper bullets of the
brain' have only taught me to stand fire; and, as I have been lucky
enough upon the whole, my repose and appetite are not discomposed.
Pratt, the gleaner, author, poet, &c. &c., addressed a long rhyming
epistle to me on the subject, by way of consolation; but it was not
well done, so I do not send it, though the name of the man might make
it go down. The E. R^s. have not performed their task well; at least
the literati tell me this; and I think _I_ could write a more
sarcastic critique on _myself_ than any yet published. For instance,
instead of the remark,--ill-natured enough, but not keen,--about
Macpherson, I (quoad reviewers) could have said, 'Alas, this imitation
only proves the assertion of Dr. Johnson, that many men, women, and
_children_, could write such poetry as Ossian's.'

"I am _thin_ and in exercise. During the spring or summer I trust we
shall meet. I hear Lord Ruthyn leaves Newstead in April. As soon as he
quits it for ever, I wish much you would take a ride over, survey the
mansion, and give me your candid opinion on the most advisable mode of
proceeding with regard to the _house_. _Entre nous_, I am cursedly
dipped; my debts, _every_ thing inclusive, will be nine or ten
thousand before I am twenty-one. But I have reason to think my
property will turn out better than general expectation may conceive.
Of Newstead I have little hope or care; but Hanson, my agent,
intimated my Lancashire property was worth three Newsteads. I believe
we have it hollow; though the defendants are protracting the
surrender, if possible, till after my majority, for the purpose of
forming some arrangement with me, thinking I shall probably prefer a
sum in hand to a reversion. Newstead I may _sell_;--perhaps I will
not,--though of that more anon. I will come down in May or June.

"Yours most truly," &c.

The sort of life which he led at this period between the dissipations
of London and of Cambridge, without a home to welcome, or even the
roof of a single relative to receive him, was but little calculated to
render him satisfied either with himself or the world. Unrestricted as
he was by deference to any will but his own,[91] even the pleasures
to which he was naturally most inclined prematurely palled upon him,
for want of those best zests of all enjoyment, rarity and restraint. I
have already quoted, from one of his note-books, a passage descriptive
of his feelings on first going to Cambridge, in which he says that
"one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of his life was to feel
that he was no longer a boy."--"From that moment (he adds) I began to
grow old in my own esteem, and in my esteem age is not estimable. I
took my gradations in the vices with great promptitude, but they were
not to my taste; for my early passions, though violent in the extreme,
were concentrated, and hated division or spreading abroad. I could
have left or lost the whole world with, or for, that which I loved;
but, though my temperament was naturally burning, I could not share in
the common-place libertinism of the place and time without disgust.
And yet this very disgust, and my heart thrown back upon itself, threw
me into excesses perhaps more fatal than those from which I shrunk, as
fixing upon one (at a time) the passions which spread amongst many
would have hurt only myself."

Though, from the causes here alleged, the irregularities he, at this
period, gave way to were of a nature far less gross and miscellaneous
than those, perhaps, of any of his associates, yet, partly from the
vehemence which this concentration caused, and, still more, from that
strange pride in his own errors, which led him always to bring them
forth in the most conspicuous light, it so happened that one single
indiscretion, in his hands, was made to _go farther_, if I may so
express it, than a thousand in those of others. An instance of this,
that occurred about the time of which we are speaking, was, I am
inclined to think, the sole foundation of the mysterious allusions
just cited. An amour (if it may be dignified with such a name) of that
sort of casual description which less attachable natures would have
forgotten, and more prudent ones at least concealed, was by him
converted, at this period, and with circumstances of most unnecessary
display, into a connection of some continuance,--the object of it not
only becoming domesticated with him in lodgings at Brompton, but
accompanied him afterwards, disguised in boy's clothes, to Brighton.
He introduced this young person, who used to ride about with him in
her male attire, as his younger brother; and the late Lady P----, who
was at Brighton at the time, and had some suspicion of the real nature
of the relationship, said one day to the poet's companion, "What a
pretty horse that is you are riding!"--"Yes," answered the pretended
cavalier, "it was _gave_ me by my brother!"

Beattie tells us, of his ideal poet,--

"The exploits of strength, dexterity, or speed,
To him nor vanity nor joy could bring."

But far different were the tastes of the real poet, Byron; and among
the least romantic, perhaps, of the exercises in which he took delight
was that of boxing or sparring. This taste it was that, at a very
early period, brought him acquainted with the distinguished professor
of that art, Mr. Jackson, for whom he continued through life to
entertain the sincerest regard, one of his latest works containing a
most cordial tribute not only to the professional, but social
qualities of this sole prop and ornament of pugilism.[92] During his
stay at Brighton this year, Jackson was one of his most constant
visiters,--the expense of the professor's chaise thither and back
being always defrayed by his noble patron. He also honoured with his
notice, at this time, D'Egville, the ballet-master, and Grimaldi; to
the latter of whom he sent, as I understand, on one of his benefit
nights, a present of five guineas.

Having been favoured by Mr. Jackson with copies of the few notes and
letters, which he has preserved out of the many addressed to him by
Lord Byron, I shall here lay before the reader one or two, which bear
the date of the present year, and which, though referring to matters
of no interest in themselves, give, perhaps, a better notion of the
actual life and habits of the young poet, at this time, than could be
afforded by the most elaborate and, in other respects, important
correspondence. They will show, at least, how very little akin to
romance were the early pursuits and associates of the author of Childe
Harold, and, combined with what we know of the still less romantic
youth of Shakspeare, prove how unhurt the vital principle of genius
can preserve itself even in atmospheres apparently the most ungenial
and noxious to it.

LETTER 26.

TO MR. JACKSON.

"N.A., Notts. September 18. 1808.

"Dear Jack,

"I wish you would inform me what has been done by Jekyll, at No. 40.
Sloane Square, concerning the pony I returned as unsound.

"I have also to request you will call on Louch at Brompton, and
enquire what the devil he meant by sending such an insolent letter to
me at Brighton; and at the same time tell him I by no means can comply
with the charge he has made for things pretended to be damaged.

"Ambrose behaved most scandalously about the pony. You may tell Jekyll
if he does not refund the money, I shall put the affair into my
lawyer's hands. Five and twenty guineas is a sound price for a pony,
and by ----, if it costs me five hundred pounds, I will make an
example of Mr. Jekyll, and that immediately, unless the cash is
returned.

"Believe me, dear Jack," &c.

LETTER 27.

TO MR. JACKSON.

"N.A., Notts. October 4. 1808.

"You will make as good a bargain as possible with this Master Jekyll,
if he is not a gentleman. If he is a _gentleman_, inform me, for I
shall take very different steps. If he is not, you must get what you
can of the money, for I have too much business on hand at present to
commence an action. Besides, Ambrose is the man who ought to
refund,--but I have done with him. You can settle with L. out of the
balance, and dispose of the bidets, &c. as you best can.

"I should be very glad to see you here; but the house is filled with
workmen, and undergoing a thorough repair. I hope, however, to be more
fortunate before many months have elapsed.

"If you see Bold Webster, remember me to him, and tell him I have to
regret Sydney, who has perished, I fear, in my rabbit warren, for we
have seen nothing of him for the last fortnight.

"Adieu.--Believe me," &c.

LETTER 28.

TO MR. JACKSON.

"N.A., Notts. December 12. 1808.

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