It was near the close of a fragrant, golden summer day when, having driven
from Nottingham, I alighted in the market-place of the little town of
Hucknall-Torkard, on a pilgrimage to the grave of Byron. The town is
modern and commonplace in appearance,--a straggling collection of low
brick dwellings, mostly occupied by colliers. On that day it appeared at
its worst; for the widest part of its main street was filled with stalls,
benches, wagons, and canvas-covered structures for the display of
vegetables and other commodities, which were thus offered for sale, and it
was thronged with rough, noisy, dirty persons, intent on barter and
traffic, and not indisposed to boisterous pranks and mirth, as they pushed
and jostled each other among the crowded booths. This main street
terminates at the wall of the graveyard in which stands the little gray
church wherein Byron was buried. There is an iron gate in the center of
the wall, and in order to reach this it was necessary to thread the mazes
of the marketplace, and to push aside the canvas flaps of a pedler's stall
which had been placed close against it. Next to the churchyard wall is a
little cottage, with a bit of garden, devoted, at that time, to potatoes;
and there, while waiting for the sexton, I talked with an aged man, who
said that he remembered, as an eye-witness, the funeral of Byron. He
stated his age and said that his name was William Callandyne. Pointing to
the church, he indicated the place of the Byron vault. "I was the last
man," he said, "that went down into it before he was buried there. I was a
young fellow then, and curious to see what was going on. The place was
full of skulls and bones. I wish you could see my son; he's a clever lad,
only he ought to have more of the _suaviter in modo_." Thus, with the
garrulity of wandering age, he prattled on, but his mind was clear and his
memory tenacious and positive. There is a good prospect from the region of
Hucknall-Torkard Church, and pointing into the distance, when his mind had
been brought back to the subject of Byron, my aged interlocutor described,
with minute specification of road and lane,--seeming to assume that the
names and the turnings were familiar to me,--the course of the funeral
train from Nottingham to the church. "There were eleven carriages," he
said. "They didn't go to the Abbey" (meaning Newstead), "but came directly
here. There were many people to look at them. I remember all about it, and
I'm an old man--eighty-two. You're an Italian, I should say," he added. By
this time the sexton had come and unlocked the gate, and parting from Mr.
Callandyne we presently made our way into the Church of St. James, locking
the churchyard gate to exclude rough and possibly mischievous followers. A
strange and sad contrast, I thought, between this coarse, turbulent place,
by a malign destiny ordained for the grave of Byron, and that peaceful,
lovely, majestic church and precinct at Stratford-upon-Avon which enshrine
the dust of Shakespeare....
The sexton of the Church of St. James and the parish clerk of
Hucknall-Torkard was Mr. John Brown, and a man of sympathetic
intelligence, kind heart, and interesting character I found him to
be,--large, dark, stalwart, but gentle alike in manner and feeling, and
considerate of his visitor. The pilgrim to the literary shrines of England
does not always find the neighboring inhabitants either sympathetic with
his reverence or conscious of especial sanctity or interest appertaining
to the relics which they possess; but honest, manly John Brown of
Hucknall-Torkard understood both the hallowing charm of the place and the
sentiment, not to say the profound emotion, of the traveler who now beheld
for the first time the tomb of Byron. The church has been considerably
altered since Byron was buried in it, 1824, yet it retains its fundamental
structure and its ancient peculiarities. The tower, a fine specimen of
Norman architecture, dark, ragged, and grim, gives indication of great
age. It is of a kind often met with in ancient English towns; you can see
its brothers at York, Shrewsbury, Canterbury, Worcester, Warwick, and in
many places sprinkled over the northern heights of London; but amid its
tame surroundings in this little colliery settlement it looms with a
peculiar frowning majesty, a certain bleak loneliness, both unique and
impressive. The edifice is of the customary crucial form,--a low stone
structure, having a peaked roof, which is supported by four great pillars
on each side of the center aisle. The ceiling, which is made of heavy
timbers, forms almost a true arch above the nave. There are four large
windows on each side of the nave, and two on each side of the chancel,
which is beneath a roof somewhat lower than that of the main building.
Under the pavement of the chancel, and back of the altar rail,--at which
it was my privilege to kneel while gazing upon this sacred spot,--is the
grave of Byron.... Nothing is written on the stone that covers his
sepulcher except the simple name of BYRON with the dates of his birth and
death, in brass letters, surrounded by a wreath of leaves in brass, the
gift of the King of Greece; and never did a name seem more stately or a
place more hallowed. The dust of the poet reposes between that of his
mother on his right hand, and that of his Ada,--"sole daughter of my house
and heart,"--on his left. The mother died on August 1, 1811; the daughter,
who had by marriage become the Countess of Lovelace, in 1852. "I buried
her with my own hands," said the sexton, John Brown, when, after a little
time, he rejoined me at the altar-rail. "I told them exactly where he was
laid when they wanted to put that brass on the stone; I remembered it
well, for I lowered the coffin of the Countess of Lovelace into this
vault, and laid her by her father's side." And when presently we went into
the vestry, he produced the Register of Burials and displayed the record
of that interment in the following words: "1852. Died at 69 Cumberland Pl.
London. Buried December 3. Aged thirty-six.--Curtis Jackson." The Byrons
were a short-lived race. The poet himself had just turned thirty-six; his
mother was only forty-six when she passed away. This name of Curtis
Jackson in the register was that of the rector or curate then incumbent
but now departed....
A book has been kept for many years, at the church of Hucknall-Torkard, in
which visitors desiring to do so, can write their names. The first book
provided for this purpose was an album given to the church by the poet,
Sir John Bowling, and in that there was a record of visitations during the
years from 1825 to 1834.... The catalog of pilgrims to the grave of Byron
during the last eighty years is not a long one. The votaries of that poet
are far less numerous than those of Shakespeare. Custom has made the visit
to Stratford "a property of easiness," and Shakespeare is a safe no less
than a rightful object of worship. The visit to Hucknall-Torkard is
neither as easy nor as agreeable. Torkard is neither as easy nor as
agreeable.... On the capital of a column near Byron's tomb I saw two
moldering wreaths of laurel, which had hung there for several years; one
brought by the Bishop of Norwich, the other by the American poet Joaquin
Miller. It was good to see them, and especially to see them beside the
tablet of white marble which was placed on that church wall to commemorate
the poet, and to be her witness in death, by his loving and beloved sister
Augusta Mary Leigh,--a name that is the synonym of noble fidelity, a name
that cruel detraction and hideous calumny have done their worst to
tarnish. That tablet names him "The Author of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,"
and if the conviction of thoughtful men and women throughout the world can
be accepted as an authority, no name in the long annals of English
literature is more certain of immortality than the name of Byron. His
reputation can afford the absence of all memorial to him in Westminster
Abbey,--can endure it, perhaps, better than the English nation can,--and
it can endure the neglect and censure of the precinct of Nottingham. That
city rejoices in many interesting associations, but all that really
hallows it for the stranger is its association with the name of Byron. The
stranger will look in vain, however, for any adequate sign of his former
connection with that place. It is difficult even to find prints or
photographs of the Byron shrine, in the shops of Nottingham. [Footnote:
Since this paper was written the buildings that flanked the front wall of
Hucknall-Torkard churchyard have been removed, the street in front of it
has been widened, and the church has been "restored" and considerably
altered.--Author's note to the Editor.]
DR. JOHNSON'S BIRTHPLACE [Footnote: From "Our Old Home." Published by
Houghton, Mifflin Co.]