RETURN TO ENGLAND--PUBLICATION OF "CHILDE HAROLD"
July 1811 saw Byron back in England after two years' absence, but in no
hurry, for various reasons, to return to Newstead. The "venerable pile"
had been desecrated by the invasion of bailiffs in connection with an
unpaid upholsterer's bill; and Mrs. Byron was living there, and was, as
usual, quarrelling with her neighbours. Byron, in one of his letters from
the Levant, tells her that she cannot deny that she is a "vixen," and
suggests that she is in the habit of drinking more champagne than is good
for her. It was only to be expected that she would rattle the fire-irons,
and throw the tongs, as furiously as ever--even if a little less
accurately--under the stimulating influence. He lingered, therefore, at
Reddish's Hotel, Saint James's Street; and it was there that the news of
her sudden illness--the result, it is said, of shock caused by the
magnitude of the afore-mentioned upholsterer's bill--surprised him. He
hurried to her, but the news of her death met him on his way.
He had not loved her. We have passed many proofs of that, and many others
could be given. She had taunted him with his deformity, and he
believed--so he told Lord Sligo--that he owed it to her "false delicacy"
at his birth. She had not understood him, and he had fled before her
violence. Unable to love her, he had missed a precious emotion to which he
felt himself entitled--that may be one of the secrets of his persistent
view of himself as a lonely man, without a friend in a lonely world. If he
was shaken by the sudden sundering of the tie, it would have been too much
to expect him to be prostrated by his grief, or to do more than pay his
brief tribute to the solemnity of death, remembering that there had been
signs of tenderness in the midst of, or in the intervals between, the
storms of passion.
"Oh, Mrs. By," he exclaimed to his mother's maid. "I had but one friend in
the world, and she is gone"; but he always said that of every friend who
died--of Skinner Matthews who was drowned in the Cam; of John Wingfield
who was drowned off Coimbra; and of Eddleston, the choir boy, whom he had
admitted to his intimacy at Cambridge. He said it quite sincerely, giving
emotion its hour, and then let his thoughts flow in other directions. On
the day of Mrs. Byron's funeral he told his servant to fetch the gloves
and spar with him; and the boy thought that he hit harder than usual. Then
he threw down the gloves and left the room without a word, with the air of
a man disgusted with himself for trying to kill devils like that; and
presently he was in the thick of his preparations for the production of
"Childe Harold."
He had brought the manuscript of "Childe Harold" home with him, together
with the manuscript of "Hints from Horace." He believed "Hints from
Horace" to be much the greater work of the two; and his reasons for
thinking so are easy to understand. "Hints from Horace" was a satire based
on the best models, and composed on conventional lines. It could be
compared with the models, and judged and "marked," like a schoolboy's
theme. "Childe Harold" was an experiment. It expressed a personality--the
personality of a very young man who was not yet quite sure of himself and,
except when his temper was up, was afraid of being laughed at.
Hobhouse--that candid, trusty, matter-of-fact friend--had seen it, and had
criticised it pretty much in the spirit in which Mark Twain's jumping frog
was criticised. He had failed to see any points in that poem different
from any other poem. Byron, consequently, was sensitive and timorous about
it. "Childe Harold," he felt, like "Hours of Idleness," would put him on
his defence, whereas in "Hints from Horace," as in "English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers," he would have the advantage of attacking. He needed the
encouragement of flattery.
One Dallas, a distant relative who now introduced himself and, for a
season, doubled the parts, as it were, of literary mentor and literary
valet, supplied the flattery, recognising that, whereas "Hints from
Horace" was just a satire like another, "Childe Harold" was the expression
of a new sentiment, hitherto unheard in English literature. "Hints from
Horace," he thought, might be published, if the author wished it--it did
not much matter one way or the other; but "Childe Harold" must be
published. It was interesting; it was romantic; it would please. It was
not merely a narrative, but a manifesto. It ignored conventions, lifted a
mask, and revealed a man--a new and unsuspected type of man--beneath it.
So Dallas spoke and wrote; and Byron let himself be persuaded. He yielded,
at first, with reluctance--or perhaps it was only with a pretence of
reluctance; but, after he had yielded, he entered into the spirit of the
situation. He would not only publish, but he would publish with _éclat_.
If he could not command success, he would deserve it, and would be careful
not to throw away a chance. He would not be contented with a publisher who
merely printed a few copies of the poem, pushed them outside the
back-door, and waited to see what would happen. The minds of men--and
women--should be duly prepared for the sensation in store for them.
Whatever the mountain might be destined to bring forth, at least it should
be visibly in labour. Publication should be preluded by a noise as of the
rolling of logs.
The money did not matter. The "magnificent man"--and there was a good deal
of Aristotle's "magnificent man" about Byron at this period--could not
soil his hands by taking money for a poem even for the purpose of
discharging his debt to the upholsterers whose bills were frightening
his mother out of her life. Perish the mean thought! If there was money in
the poem, Dallas might have it for himself. All that the author wanted was
glory--a "boom," as we vulgar moderns say--and that arresting noise
already referred to, as of the rolling of logs. Dallas must see to that to
the best of his ability, and he himself would lend a hand. Above all,
there must be no hole-and-corner publishing. Cawthorne must on no account
have the book--his status was not good enough. Miller was the man, and,
failing Miller, Murray. On the whole it was to Murray that it would be
best to go. Murray was the coming man--one could divine him as the
publisher of the future, and he had, on his side divined Byron as the poet
of the future, and expressed a wish to "handle" some of his work.
So Dallas went to Murray, and got five hundred guineas for the copyright;
and then the sound of the rolling of the logs began. Galt heard it. Galt,
being himself a man of letters as well as a commercial traveller, knew
what it was that he heard. Galt, who was now back in London, tells us that
"various surmises to stimulate curiosity were circulated," and he
continues:
"I do not say that these were by his orders or under his directions,
but on one occasion I did fancy that I could discern a touch of his
own hand in a paragraph in the _Morning Post_, in which he was
mentioned as having returned from an excursion into the interior of
Africa; and when I alluded to it, my suspicion was confirmed by his
embarrassment."
That is quite modern--one often reads similar paragraphs nowadays
concerning the visits of novelists to the Engadine, or to Khartoum; and if
Byron did not go quite so far as to speak publicly of his forthcoming work
as "a colossal undertaking," he managed, without saying so, to convey the
impression that that was what it was. He also contrived to have the proofs
shown, as a great privilege, to the right people, and was careful to let
the critics have advance copies with a view to notice on the day of
publication. Dallas himself reviewed it before the day of publication, and
was excused on the ground that his indiscretion had proved "a good
advertisement." The privileged women--Lady Caroline Lamb was among
them--enchanted by the sentiment of the poem, boasted to the women who
were not so privileged, and besought an introduction to the poet. "I must
see him. I am dying to see him," was Lady Caroline's exclamation to
Rogers. "He bites his nails," Rogers maliciously warned her; but she
persisted as vehemently as ever.
She was to see him presently, in circumstances and with consequences which
we shall have to note. In the meantime many striking stories concerning
him were floating about for her to hear. She heard, for instance--or one
may suppose her to have heard--of that dinner-party at Rogers' house at
which Byron distinguished himself by his abstemiousness, refused soup, and
fish, and mutton, and wine, asked for hard biscuits and soda-water, and,
when Rogers confessed himself unable to provide these delicacies, "dined
upon potatoes bruised down upon his plate and drenched with vinegar." Let
us hope that she never heard the end of the story which proceeds, in
"Table Talk of Samuel Rogers": "I did not then know, what I now know to be
a fact, that Byron, after leaving my house, had gone to a Club in Saint
James's Street and eaten a hearty meat-supper." And, of course, her
interest, like the interest of the rest of the world, was stimulated by
Byron's maiden speech in the House of Lords.
Galt says quite bluntly that "there was a degree of worldly management in
making his first appearance in the House of Lords so immediately preceding
the publication of his poem." Most probably there was. When so many logs
were rolling, this particular log was hardly likely to be left unrolled;
and there is no denying that the note of self-advertisement does sound in
the speech quite as loudly as the note of sympathy with the common
people--those Nottingham rioters and frame-breakers for whose suppression
it was proposed to legislate.
Viewed as a contribution to the debate, the speech does more credit to the
speaker's heart than to his head. The appeal for pity for misguided,
labouring men is mixed up with a denunciation of labour-saving appliances
as devices for the further impoverishment of the poor. An economist might
say a good deal about that if this were the place for saying it. Byron,
such a one would point out, was a Radical by instinct, but a Radical who
had as yet but an imperfect comprehension of the natural laws most
favourable to the production, distribution, and exchange of wealth. But
let that pass. The most resounding note of the speech is, after all, the
note of the new man presenting himself, and explaining who he is, and what
he has done:
"I have traversed the seat of war in the Peninsular, I have been in
some of the most oppressed provinces in Turkey; but never under the
most despotic of infidel governments did I behold such squalid
wretchedness," &c. &c. &c.
That, in the days in which travel was really travel, involving adventure
and bestowing unique experience, was the sort of utterance to draw
attention. Byron had actually been to the places which other people only
talked and read about; and he was no bronzed, maimed, or wrinkled veteran,
but a youth with curling hair, a marble brow, a pallid face, a godlike
aspect. What havoc must he not have wrought in harems, and in the hearts
of odalisques! He was so young, so handsome, so clever--and, according to
his own account, so wicked. And he had written a poem, it appeared--a poem
as wicked and beautiful as himself, explaining, with all kinds of
delightful details, the shocking courses into which he had been driven by
disappointed love. However much poetry one left unread, one must read that
poem, and read it at once, in order to show that one was "in the
movement."
So the women argued. It did not matter to them that Byron lacked the
graces of the natural orator, and declaimed his sentiments in a monotonous
sing-song tone, like a public schoolboy on a speech-day. It mattered still
less to them whether his economics were sound or shaky. Sympathy, not
argument, was what they wanted, and the sympathy was there. Byron would be
some one to lionise--some one, it might be, to love--some one, at any
rate, whom every woman must try to understand. And the first step towards
understanding him must be to read his book.
They read it, and made the men read it too. It was recognised, as such
things come to be recognised, that any one who had not read it would be
liable to feel foolish wherever the "best" people were gathered together.
The first edition, issued on March 10, 1812, was sold out in three days.
There was a second edition in April, a third in June, a fourth in
September, a fifth in December, a sixth in August 1813, a seventh in
February 1814. By 1819, an eleventh edition had been reached; and the
subsequent editions would require a professional statistician to count
them. Byron, in short, had not only, as he said, "woke up one morning and
found himself famous"; his fame had proved to have enduring qualities.
The suddenness of the fame, as we have seen, was not solely the result
either of accident or of merit. Author, publisher, and literary agent--for
Dallas may fairly be ranked with the pioneers of the last-named
profession--had planned and plotted for it. It may even be questioned
whether such supreme success was quite deserved; and it would be easy to
cite examples of much greater work--some of Wordsworth's, for
example--which was far less successful. But that the enthusiasm was
natural--and indeed almost inevitable--cannot be disputed.
The title helped, as Byron himself recognised with cheerful cynicism.
Lords, of course, had tried their hands at poetry before, but never with
much success, whether they were good lords or wicked. Their compositions
had amounted to little more than ingenious exercises in rhyme. Either they
had failed to put their personalities into their poems or they had had no
personalities worth speaking of to put into them. One could say that, with
varying degrees of truth, of Rochester, Roscommon, Sheffield, and
Carlisle. To find a lord whose poems could be taken seriously one had to
go back to the Elizabethan ages; and modern readers--especially the women
among them--were not very fond of going back so far. To get real poetry,
with a real personality behind it, from a lord was "phenomenal," like
getting figs from thistles--a thing to stand still and take note of.
Note, therefore, was taken--the more carefully, perhaps, because Byron
was, as it were, an unknown lord, born and brought up in exile, coming
into society with something of the air of one who had to break down
barriers in order to claim his birthright. His poem was, in a manner, his
weapon of assault; and, whatever else might be said about it, it was, in
no case mere exercise in metrical composition. It was the manifesto of a
new personality.
An immature personality, no doubt--in these two cantos of "Childe Harold"
the essential Byron is not yet revealed. A personality, too, it might be,
with a good deal of paste board theatricality about it--sincerity and
clarity of insight were later Byronic developments. But that did not
matter--least of all did it matter to the women. Melodrama is often more
instantaneously effective than drama; and "twopence coloured" has obvious
immediate advantages over "penny plain." The pose might be apparent, but
it was not ridiculous--or, at all events, it did not strike people as
being so; and the power of posing without making himself ridiculous is one
of the tests of a man's value. Moreover no pose which makes an impression
is ever entirely insincere. The great posturer must put a good deal of
himself into his postures, just as the great painter puts a good deal of
himself into his pictures. Matter-of-fact persons like Hobhouse might not
think so; but women, with their surer instinct, know better. Hobhouse,
glancing at the manuscript of "Childe Harold," might say, with perfect
candour, that he saw no points in that poem different from any other poem;
but to the women it was, and was bound to be, a revelation.
A revelation, too, of just such a personality as the women liked to think
that they understood--and with just such gaps in the revelation as they
liked to be puzzled by! One may almost say that the hearts of Englishwomen
went out with a rush to Byron for the same reason for which the
hearts of the Frenchwomen, two generations earlier, had gone out to
Rousseau--because he gave them sentiment in place of gallantry. He had, in
fact, given them both; but the note of sentiment predominated; and it was
easy to believe that the sentiment was sincere, and the gallantry merely
the consoling pastime of the stricken heart.
The women took that view, as they were bound to, agreeing that Byron was
the most interesting man of their age and generation. He certainly was
infinitely more interesting, from their point of view, than Rousseau. He
was younger, better born, and better looking, with more distinguished
manners--one of themselves and not, like Jean-Jacques, a promoted lackey.
So, in a day and a night, they made him famous, and ensured that, whatever
else his career might be, it should be spectacular. The world, in short,
was placed, in a sudden instant, at his feet. It was open to him to stand
with his foot on its neck, striking attitudes--to step at a stride into a
notable position in public life, or to ride, in his own way, with his own
haste, to the devil.
Or, at all events, it seemed open to him to make this choice, though the
actual course of his life in the presence of the apparent choice, might
well be cited as an object lesson in the distinction which the
philosophers have drawn between the freedom to do as we will, and the
freedom to will as we will. Which is to say that the spectacular life, in
his case as in so many others, was to be at the mercy of the inner life,
and the things seen in it were largely to be the effect of causes which
were out of sight.
It is to that inner life, and to those invisible causes of visible effects
that we must now turn back.