"Newstead Abbey, August 7. 1811.
"My dearest Davies,
"Some curse hangs over me and mine. My mother lies a corpse in this
house; one of my best friends is drowned in a ditch. What can I
say, or think, or do? I received a letter from him the day before
yesterday. My dear Scrope, if you can spare a moment, do come down
to me--I want a friend. Matthews's last letter was written on
_Friday_,--on Saturday he was not. In ability, who was like
Matthews? How did we all shrink before him? You do me but justice
in saying, I would have risked my paltry existence to have
preserved his. This very evening did I mean to write, inviting him,
as I invite you, my very dear friend, to visit me. God forgive * *
* for his apathy! What will our poor Hobhouse feel? His letters
breathe but or Matthews. Come to me, Scrope, I am almost
desolate--left almost alone in the world--I had but you, and H.,
and M., and let me enjoy the survivors whilst I can. Poor M., in
his letter of Friday, speaks of his intended contest for
Cambridge[19], and a speedy journey to London. Write or come, but
come if you can, or one or both.
"Yours ever."
[Footnote 15: In many instances the mothers of illustrious poets have
had reason to be proud no less of the affection than of the glory of
their sons; and Tasso, Pope, Gray, and Cowper, are among these memorable
examples of filial tenderness. In the lesser poems of Tasso, there are
few things so beautiful as his description, in the Canzone to the
Metauro, of his first parting with his mother:--
"Me dal sen della madre empia fortuna
Pargoletto divelse," &c.
]
[Footnote 16: Napoleon.]
[Footnote 17: In a letter, written between two and three months after
his mother's death, he states no less a number than six persons, all
friends or relatives, who had been snatched away from him by death
between May and the end of August.]
[Footnote 18: In continuation of the note quoted in the text, he says of
Matthews--"His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater
honours, against the _ablest candidates_, than those of any graduate on
record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot
where it was acquired." One of the candidates, thus described, was Mr.
Thomas Barnes, a gentleman whose career since has kept fully the promise
of his youth, though, from the nature of the channels through which his
literary labours have been directed, his great talents are far more
extensively known than his name.]
[Footnote 19: It had been the intention of Mr. Matthews to offer
himself, at the ensuing election, for the university. In reference to
this purpose, a manuscript Memoir of him, now lying before me, says--"If
acknowledged and successful talents--if principles of the strictest
honour--if the devotion of many friends could have secured the success
of an 'independent pauper' (as he jocularly called himself in a letter
on the subject), the vision would have been realised."]
* * * * *
Of this remarkable young man, Charles Skinner Matthews[20], I have
already had occasion to speak; but the high station which he held in
Lord Byron's affection and admiration may justify a somewhat ampler
tribute to his memory.
There have seldom, perhaps, started together in life so many youths of
high promise and hope as were to be found among the society of which
Lord Byron formed a part at Cambridge. Of some of these, the names have
since eminently distinguished themselves in the world, as the mere
mention of Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. William Bankes is sufficient to testify;
while in the instance of another of this lively circle, Mr. Scrope
Davies[21], the only regret of his friends is, that the social wit of
which he is such a master should in the memories of his hearers alone be
like to leave any record of its brilliancy. Among all these young men of
learning and talent, (including Byron himself, whose genius was,
however, as yet, "an undiscovered world,") the superiority, in almost
every department of intellect, seems to have been, by the ready consent
of all, awarded to Matthews;--a concurrence of homage which, considering
the persons from whom it came, gives such a high notion of the powers of
his mind at that period, as renders the thought of what he might have
been, if spared, a matter of interesting, though vain and mournful,
speculation. To mere mental pre-eminence, unaccompanied by the kindlier
qualities of the heart, such a tribute, however deserved, might not,
perhaps, have been so uncontestedly paid. But young Matthews
appears,--in spite of some little asperities of temper and manner, which
he was already beginning to soften down when snatched away,--to have
been one of those rare individuals who, while they command deference,
can, at the same time, win regard, and who, as it were, relieve the
intense feeling of admiration which they excite by blending it with
love.
To his religious opinions, and their unfortunate coincidence with those
of Lord Byron, I have before adverted. Like his noble friend, ardent in
the pursuit of Truth, he, like him too, unluckily lost his way in
seeking her,--"the light that led astray" being by both friends mistaken
for hers. That in his scepticism he proceeded any farther than Lord
Byron, or ever suffered his doubting, but still ingenuous, mind to
persuade itself into the "incredible creed" of atheism, is, I find
(notwithstanding an assertion in a letter of the noble poet to this
effect), disproved by the testimony of those among his relations and
friends, who are the most ready to admit and, of course, lament his
other heresies;--nor should I have felt that I had any right to allude
thus to the religious opinions of one who had never, by promulgating his
heterodoxy, brought himself within the jurisdiction of the public, had
not the wrong impression, as it appears, given of those opinions, on the
authority of Lord Byron, rendered it an act of justice to both friends
to remove the imputation.
In the letters to Mrs. Byron, written previously to the departure of her
son on his travels, there occurs, it will be recollected, some mention
of a Will, which it was his intention to leave behind him in the hands
of his trustees. Whatever may have been the contents of this former
instrument, we find that, in about a fortnight after his mother's death,
he thought it right to have a new form of will drawn up; and the
following letter, enclosing his instructions for that purpose, was
addressed to the late Mr. Bolton, a solicitor of Nottingham. Of the
existence, in any serious or formal shape, of the strange directions
here given, respecting his own interment, I was, for some time, I
confess, much inclined to doubt; but the curious documents here annexed
put this remarkable instance of his eccentricity beyond all question.
[Footnote 20: He was the third son of the late John Matthews, Esq. of
Belmont, Herefordshire, representative of that county in the parliament
of 1802-6. The author of "The Diary of an Invalid," also untimely
snatched away, was another son of the same gentleman, as is likewise the
present Prebendary of Hereford, the Reverend Arthur Matthews, who, by
his ability and attainments, sustains worthily the reputation of the
name.
The father of this accomplished family was himself a man of considerable
talent, and the author of several unavowed poetical pieces; one of
which, a Parody of Pope's Eloisa, written in early youth, has been
erroneously ascribed to the late Professor Porson, who was in the habit
of reciting it, and even printed an edition of the verses.]
[Footnote 21: "One of the cleverest men I ever knew, in conversation,
was Scrope Berdmore Davies. Hobhouse is also very good in that line,
though it is of less consequence to a man who has other ways of showing
his talents than in company. Scrope was always ready and often
witty--Hobhouse as witty, but not always so ready, being more
diffident."--_MS. Journal of Lord Byron._]
* * * * *