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

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




"Your truly attached and sincere

"BYRON."


Considering himself bound to replace the copies of his work which he
had withdrawn, as well as to rescue the general character of the
volume from the stigma this one offender might bring upon it, he set
instantly about preparing a second edition for the press, and, during
the ensuing six weeks, continued busily occupied with his task. In the
beginning of January we find him forwarding a copy to his friend, Dr.
Pigot, in Edinburgh:--


LETTER 9.

TO MR. PIGOT.

"Southwell, Jan. 13. 1807.


"I ought to begin with _sundry_ apologies, for my own negligence, but
the variety of my avocations in _prose_ and _verse_ must plead my
excuse. With this epistle you will receive a volume of all my
_Juvenilia_, published since your departure: it is of considerably
greater size than the _copy_ in your possession, which I beg you will
destroy, as the present is much more complete. That _unlucky_ poem to
my poor Mary[57] has been the cause of some animadversion from
_ladies in years_. I have not printed it in this collection, in
consequence of my being pronounced a most _profligate sinner_, in
short, a '_young Moore_,' by ----, your ---- friend. I believe, in
general, they have been favourably received, and surely the age of
their author will preclude _severe_ criticism. The adventures of my
life from sixteen to nineteen, and the dissipation into which I have
been thrown in London, have given a voluptuous tint to my ideas; but
the occasions which called forth my muse could hardly admit any other
colouring. This volume is _vastly_ correct and miraculously chaste.
Apropos, talking of love,...

"If you can find leisure to answer this farrago of unconnected
nonsense, you need not doubt what gratification will accrue from your
reply to yours ever," &c.


To his young friend, Mr. William Bankes, who had met casually with a
copy of the work, and wrote him a letter conveying his opinion of it,
he returned the following answer:--


LETTER 10.

TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES.

"Southwell, March 6. 1807.


"Dear Bankes,

"Your critique is valuable for many reasons: in the first place, it is
the only one in which flattery has borne so slight a part; in the
_next_, I am _cloyed_ with insipid compliments. I have a better
opinion of your judgment and ability than your _feelings_. Accept my
most sincere thanks for your kind decision, not less welcome, because
totally unexpected. With regard to a more exact estimate, I need not
remind you how few of the _best poems_, in our language, will stand
the test of _minute_ or _verbal_ criticism: it can, therefore, hardly
be expected the effusions of a boy (and most of these pieces have been
produced at an early period) can derive much merit either from the
subject or composition. Many of them were written under great
depression of spirits, and during severe indisposition:--hence the
gloomy turn of the ideas. We coincide in opinion that the '_poesies
erotiques_' are the most exceptionable; they were, however, grateful
to the _deities_, on whose altars they were offered--more I seek not.

"The portrait of Pomposus was drawn at Harrow, after a _long sitting_;
this accounts for the resemblance, or rather the _caricatura_. He is
_your_ friend, he _never was mine_--for both our sakes I shall be
silent on this head. _The collegiate_ rhymes are not personal--one of
the notes may appear so, but could not be omitted. I have little doubt
they will be deservedly abused--a just punishment for my unfilial
treatment of so excellent an Alma Mater. I sent you no copy, lest _we_
should be placed in the situation of _Gil Blas_ and the _Archbishop_
of Grenada; though running some hazard from the experiment, I wished
your _verdict_ to be unbiassed. Had my '_Libellus_' been presented
previous to your letter, it would have appeared a species of bribe to
purchase compliment. I feel no hesitation in saying, I was more
anxious to hear your critique, however severe, than the praises of
the _million_. On the same day I was honoured with the encomiums of
_Mackenzie_, the celebrated author of the 'Man of Feeling.' Whether
_his_ approbation or _yours_ elated me most, I cannot decide.

"You will receive my _Juvenilia_,--at least all yet published. I have
a large volume in manuscript, which may in part appear hereafter; at
present I have neither time nor inclination to prepare it for the
press. In the spring I shall return to Trinity, to dismantle my rooms,
and bid you a final adieu. The _Cam_ will not be much increased by my
_tears_ on the occasion. Your further remarks, however _caustic_ or
bitter, to a palate vitiated with the _sweets of adulation_, will be
of service. Johnson has shown us that _no poetry_ is perfect; but to
correct mine would be an Herculean labour. In fact I never looked
beyond the moment of composition, and published merely at the request
of my friends. Notwithstanding so much has been said concerning the
'Genus irritabile vatum,' we shall never quarrel on the
subject--poetic fame is by no means the 'acme' of my wishes. Adieu.

"Yours ever,

"BYRON."


This letter was followed by another, on the same subject, to Mr.
Bankes, of which, unluckily, only the annexed fragment remains:--

* * * * *

"For my own part, I have suffered severely in the decease of my two
greatest friends, the only beings I ever loved (females excepted); I
am therefore a solitary animal, miserable enough, and so perfectly a
citizen of the world, that whether I pass my days in Great Britain or
Kamschatka, is to me a matter of perfect indifference. I cannot evince
greater respect for your alteration than by immediately adopting
it--this shall be done in the next edition. I am sorry your remarks
are not more frequent, as I am certain they would be equally
beneficial. Since my last, I have received two critical opinions from
Edinburgh, both too flattering for me to detail. One is from Lord
Woodhouselee, at the head of the Scotch literati, and a most
_voluminous_ writer (his last work is a life of Lord Kaimes); the
other from Mackenzie, who sent his decision a second time, more at
length. I am not personally acquainted with either of these gentlemen,
nor ever requested their sentiments on the subject: their praise is
voluntary, and transmitted through the medium of a friend, at whose
house they read the productions.

"Contrary to my former intention, I am now preparing a volume for the
public at large: my amatory pieces will be exchanged, and others
substituted in their place. The whole will be considerably enlarged,
and appear the latter end of May. This is a hazardous experiment; but
want of better employment, the encouragement I have met with, and my
own vanity, induce me to stand the test, though not without _sundry
palpitations_. The book will circulate fast enough in this country,
from mere curiosity, what I prin--"[58]

* * * * *

The following modest letter accompanied a copy which he presented to
Mr. Falkner, his mother's landlord:--


LETTER 11.

TO MR. FALKNER.


"Sir,

"The volume of little pieces which accompanies this, would have been
presented before, had I not been apprehensive that Miss Falkner's
indisposition might render such trifles unwelcome. There are some
errors of the printer which I have not had time to correct in the
collection: you have it thus, with 'all its imperfections on its
head,' a heavy weight, when joined with the faults of its author. Such
'Juvenilia,' as they can claim no great degree of approbation, I may
venture to hope, will also escape the severity of uncalled for, though
perhaps _not_ undeserved, criticism.

"They were written on many and various occasions, and are now
published merely for the perusal of a friendly circle. Believe me,
sir, if they afford the slightest amusement to yourself and the rest
of my _social_ readers, I shall have gathered all the _bays_ I ever
wish to adorn the head of yours,

very truly,

"BYRON.

"P.S.--I hope Miss F. is in a state of recovery."


Notwithstanding this unambitious declaration of the young author, he
had that within which would not suffer him to rest so easily; and the
fame he had now reaped within a limited circle made him but more eager
to try his chance on a wider field. The hundred copies of which this
edition consisted were hardly out of his hands, when with fresh
activity he went to press again,--and his first published volume, "The
Hours of Idleness," made its appearance. Some new pieces which he had
written in the interim were added, and no less than twenty of those
contained in the former volume omitted;--for what reason does not very
clearly appear, as they are, most of them, equal, if not superior, to
those retained.

In one of the pieces, reprinted in the "Hours of Idleness," there are
some alterations and additions, which, as far as they may be supposed
to spring from the known feelings of the poet respecting birth, are
curious. This poem, which is entitled "Epitaph on a Friend," appears,
from the lines I am about to give, to have been, in its original
state, intended to commemorate the death of the same lowly born youth,
to whom some affectionate verses, cited in a preceding page, were
addressed:--

"Though low thy lot, since in a cottage born,
No titles did thy humble name adorn;
To me, far dearer was thy artless love
Than all the joys wealth, fame, and friends could prove."

But, in the altered form of the epitaph, not only this passage, but
every other containing an allusion to the low rank of his young
companion, is omitted; while, in the added parts, the introduction of
such language as

"What, though thy sire lament his failing line,"

seems calculated to give an idea of the youth's station in life,
wholly different from that which the whole tenour of the original
epitaph warrants. The other poem, too, which I have mentioned,
addressed evidently to the same boy, and speaking in similar terms, of
the "lowness" of his "lot," is, in the "Hours of Idleness," altogether
omitted. That he grew more conscious of his high station, as he
approached to manhood, is not improbable; and this wish to sink his
early friendship with the young cottager may have been a result of
that feeling.

As his visits to Southwell were, after this period, but few and
transient, I shall take the present opportunity of mentioning such
miscellaneous particulars respecting his habits and mode of life,
while there, as I have been able to collect.

Though so remarkably shy, when he first went to Southwell, this
reserve, as he grew more acquainted with the young people of the
place, wore off; till, at length, he became a frequenter of their
assemblies and dinner-parties, and even felt mortified if he heard of
a rout to which he was not invited. His horror, however, at new faces
still continued; and if, while at Mrs. Pigot's, he saw strangers
approaching the house, he would instantly jump out of the window to
avoid them. This natural shyness concurred with no small degree of
pride to keep him aloof from the acquaintance of the gentlemen in the
neighbourhood, whose visits, in more than one instance, he left
unreturned;--some under the plea that their ladies had not visited his
mother; others, because they had neglected to pay him this compliment
sooner. The true reason, however, of the haughty distance, at which,
both now and afterwards, he stood apart from his more opulent
neighbours, is to be found in his mortifying consciousness of the
inadequacy of his own means to his rank, and the proud dread of being
made to feel this inferiority by persons to whom, in every other
respect, he knew himself superior. His friend, Mr. Becher, frequently
expostulated with him on this unsociableness; and to his
remonstrances, on one occasion, Lord Byron returned a poetical answer,
so remarkably prefiguring the splendid burst, with which his own
volcanic genius opened upon the world, that as the volume containing
the verses is in very few hands, I cannot resist the temptation of
giving a few extracts here:--

"Dear Becher, you tell me to mix with mankind,--
I cannot deny such a precept is wise;
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind,
And I will not descend to a world I despise.

"Did the Senate or Camp my exertions require,
Ambition might prompt me at once to go forth;
And, when infancy's years of probation expire,
Perchance, I may strive to distinguish my birth.

_"The fire, in the cavern of AEtna concealed,
Still mantles unseen, in its secret recess;--
At length, in a volume terrific revealed,
No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress.

"Oh thus, the desire in my bosom for fame
Bids me live but to hope for Posterity's praise;
Could I soar, with the Phoenix, on pinions of flame,
With him I would wish to expire in the blaze._

"For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death,
What censure, what danger, what woe would I brave?
Their lives did not end when they yielded their breath,--
Their glory illumines the gloom of the grave!"

In his hours of rising and retiring to rest he was, like his mother,
always very late; and this habit he never altered during the remainder
of his life. The night, too, was at this period, as it continued
afterwards, his favourite time for composition; and his first visit in
the morning was generally paid to the fair friend who acted as his
amanuensis, and to whom he then gave whatever new products of his
brain the preceding night might have inspired. His next visit was
usually to his friend Mr. Becher's, and from thence to one or two
other houses on the Green, after which the rest of the day was devoted
to his favourite exercises. The evenings he usually passed with the
same family, among whom he began his morning, either in conversation,
or in hearing Miss Pigot play upon the piano-forte, and singing over
with her a certain set of songs which he admired,[59]--among which
the "Maid of Lodi," (with the words, "My heart with love is beating,")
and "When Time who steals our years away," were, it seems, his
particular favourites. He appears, indeed, to have, even thus early,
shown a decided taste for that sort of regular routine of
life,--bringing round the same occupations at the stated
periods,--which formed so much the system of his existence during the
greater part of his residence abroad.

Those exercises, to which he flew for distraction in less happy days,
formed his enjoyment now; and between swimming, sparring, firing at a
mark, and riding,[60] the greater part of his time was passed. In the
last of these accomplishments he was by no means very expert. As an
instance of his little knowledge of horses, it is told, that, seeing a
pair one day pass his window, he exclaimed, "What beautiful horses! I
should like to buy them."--"Why, they are your own, my Lord," said his
servant. Those who knew him, indeed, at that period, were rather
surprised, in after-life, to hear so much of his riding;--and the
truth is, I am inclined to think, that he was at no time a very adroit
horse-man.

In swimming and diving we have already seen, by his own accounts, he
excelled; and a lady in Southwell, among other precious relics of him,
possesses a thimble which he borrowed of her one morning, when on his
way to bathe in the Greet, and which, as was testified by her brother,
who accompanied him, he brought up three times successively from the
bottom of the river. His practice of firing at a mark was the
occasion, once, of some alarm to a very beautiful young person, Miss
H.,--one of that numerous list of fair ones by whom his imagination
was dazzled while at Southwell. A poem relating to this occurrence,
which may be found in his unpublished volume, is thus introduced:--"As
the author was discharging his pistols in a garden, two ladies,
passing near the spot, were alarmed by the sound of a bullet hissing
near them, to one of whom the following stanzas were addressed the
next morning."

Such a passion, indeed, had he for arms of every description, that
there generally lay a small sword by the side of his bed, with which
he used to amuse himself, as he lay awake in the morning, by thrusting
it through his bed-hangings. The person who purchased this bed at the
sale of Mrs. Byron's furniture, on her removal to Newstead, gave
out--with the view of attaching a stronger interest to the holes in
the curtains--that they were pierced by the same sword with which the
old lord had killed Mr. Chaworth, and which his descendant always kept
as a memorial by his bedside. Such is the ready process by which
fiction is often engrafted upon fact;--the sword in question being a
most innocent and bloodless weapon, which Lord Byron, during his
visits at Southwell, used to borrow of one of his neighbours.

His fondness for dogs--another fancy which accompanied him through
life--may be judged from the anecdotes already given, in the account
of his expedition to Harrowgate. Of his favourite dog Boatswain, whom
he has immortalised in verse, and by whose side it was once his
solemn purpose to be buried, some traits are told, indicative, not
only of intelligence, but of a generosity of spirit, which might well
win for him the affections of such a master as Byron. One of these I
shall endeavour to relate as nearly as possible as it was told to me.
Mrs. Byron had a fox-terrier, called Gilpin, with whom her son's dog,
Boatswain, was perpetually at war,[61] taking every opportunity of
attacking and worrying him so violently, that it was very much
apprehended he would kill the animal. Mrs. Byron therefore sent off
her terrier to a tenant at Newstead; and on the departure of Lord
Byron for Cambridge, his "friend" Boatswain, with two other dogs, was
intrusted to the care of a servant till his return. One morning the
servant was much alarmed by the disappearance of Boatswain, and
throughout the whole of the day he could hear no tidings of him. At
last, towards evening, the stray dog arrived, accompanied by Gilpin,
whom he led immediately to the kitchen fire, licking him and lavishing
upon him every possible demonstration of joy. The fact was, he had
been all the way to Newstead to fetch him; and having now established
his former foe under the roof once more, agreed so perfectly well with
him ever after, that he even protected him against the insults of
other dogs (a task which the quarrelsomeness of the little terrier
rendered no sinecure), and, if he but heard Gilpin's voice in
distress, would fly instantly to his rescue.

In addition to the natural tendency to superstition, which is usually
found connected with the poetical temperament, Lord Byron had also the
example and influence of his mother, acting upon him from infancy, to
give his mind this tinge. Her implicit belief in the wonders of second
sight, and the strange tales she told of this mysterious faculty, used
to astonish not a little her sober English friends; and it will be
seen, that, at so late a period as the death of his friend Shelley,
the idea of fetches and forewarnings impressed upon him by his mother
had not wholly lost possession of the poet's mind. As an instance of a
more playful sort of superstition I may be allowed to mention a slight
circumstance told me of him by one of his Southwell friends. This lady
had a large agate bead with a wire through it, which had been taken
out of a barrow, and lay always in her work-box. Lord Byron asking one
day what it was, she told him that it had been given her as an amulet,
and the charm was, that as long as she had this bead in her
possession, she should never be in love. "Then give it to me," he
cried, eagerly, "for that's just the thing I want." The young lady
refused;--but it was not long before the bead disappeared. She taxed
him with the theft, and he owned it; but said, she never should see
her amulet again.

Of his charity and kind-heartedness he left behind him at
Southwell--as, indeed, at every place, throughout life, where he
resided any time--the most cordial recollections. "He never," says a
person, who knew him intimately at this period, "met with objects of
distress without affording them succour." Among many little traits of
this nature, which his friends delight to tell, I select the
following,--less as a proof of his generosity, than from the interest
which the simple incident itself, as connected with the name of Byron,
presents. While yet a school-boy, he happened to be in a bookseller's
shop at Southwell, when a poor woman came in to purchase a Bible. The
price, she was told by the shopman, was eight shillings. "Ah, dear
sir," she exclaimed, "I cannot pay such a price; I did not think it
would cost half the money." The woman was then, with a look of
disappointment, going away,--when young Byron called her back, and
made her a present of the Bible.

In his attention to his person and dress, to the becoming arrangement
of his hair, and to whatever might best show off the beauty with which
nature had gifted him, he manifested, even thus early, his anxiety to
make himself pleasing to that sex who were, from first to last, the
ruling stars of his destiny. The fear of becoming, what he was
naturally inclined to be, enormously fat, had induced him, from his
first entrance at Cambridge, to adopt, for the purpose of reducing
himself, a system of violent exercise and abstinence, together with
the frequent use of warm baths. But the embittering circumstance of
his life,--that, which haunted him like a curse, amidst the buoyancy
of youth, and the anticipations of fame and pleasure, was, strange to
say, the trifling deformity of his foot. By that one slight blemish
(as in his moments of melancholy he persuaded himself) all the
blessings that nature had showered upon him were counterbalanced. His
reverend friend, Mr. Becher, finding him one day unusually dejected,
endeavoured to cheer and rouse him, by representing, in their
brightest colours, all the various advantages with which Providence
had endowed him,--and, among the greatest, that of "a mind which
placed him above the rest of mankind."--"Ah, my dear friend," said
Byron, mournfully,--"if this (laying his hand on his forehead) places
me above the rest of mankind, that (pointing to his foot) places me
far, far below them."

It sometimes, indeed, seemed as if his sensitiveness on this point led
him to fancy that he was the only person in the world afflicted with
such an infirmity. When that accomplished scholar and traveller, Mr.
D. Baillie, who was at the same school with him at Aberdeen, met him
afterwards at Cambridge, the young peer had then grown so fat that,
though accosted by him familiarly as his school-fellow, it was not
till he mentioned his name that Mr. Baillie could recognise him. "It
is odd enough, too, that you shouldn't know me," said Byron--"I
thought nature had set such a mark upon me, that I could never be
forgot."

But, while this defect was such a source of mortification to his
spirit, it was also, and in an equal degree, perhaps, a stimulus:--and
more especially in whatever depended upon personal prowess or
attractiveness, he seemed to feel himself piqued by this stigma, which
nature, as he thought, had set upon him, to distinguish himself above
those whom she had endowed with her more "fair proportion." In
pursuits of gallantry he was, I have no doubt, a good deal actuated by
this incentive; and the hope of astonishing the world, at some future
period, as a chieftain and hero, mingled little less with his young
dreams than the prospect of a poet's glory. "I will, some day or
other," he used to say, when a boy, "raise a troop,--the men of which
shall be dressed in black, and ride on black horses. They shall be
called 'Byron's Blacks,' and you will hear of their performing
prodigies of valour."

I have already adverted to the exceeding eagerness with which, while
at Harrow, he devoured all sorts of learning,--excepting only that
which, by the regimen of the school, was prescribed for him. The same
rapid and multifarious course of study he pursued during the holidays;
and, in order to deduct as little as possible from his hours of
exercise, he had given himself the habit, while at home, of reading
all dinner-time.[62] In a mind so versatile as his, every novelty,
whether serious or light, whether lofty or ludicrous, found a welcome
and an echo; and I can easily conceive the glee--as a friend of his
once described it to me--with which he brought to her, one evening, a
copy of Mother Goose's Tales, which he had bought from a hawker that
morning, and read, for the first time, while he dined.

I shall now give, from a memorandum-book begun by him this year, the
account, as I find it hastily and promiscuously scribbled out, of all
the books in various departments of knowledge, which he had already
perused at a period of life when few of his school-fellows had yet
travelled beyond their _longs_ and _shorts_. The list is,
unquestionably, a remarkable one;--and when we recollect that the
reader of all these volumes was, at the same time, the possessor of a
most retentive memory, it may be doubted whether, among what are
called the regularly educated, the contenders for scholastic honours
and prizes, there could be found a single one who, at the same age,
has possessed any thing like the same stock of useful knowledge.

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