"December 31, 1814.
"A thousand thanks for Gibbon: all the additions are very great
improvements.
"At last I must be _most_ peremptory with you about the _print_
from Phillips's picture: it is pronounced on all hands the most
stupid and disagreeable possible: so do, pray, have a new
engraving, and let me see it first; there really must be no more
from the same plate. I don't much care, myself; but every one I
honour torments me to death about it, and abuses it to a degree
beyond repeating. Now, don't answer with excuses; but, for my sake,
have it destroyed: I never shall have peace till it is. I write in
the greatest haste.
"P.S. I have written this most illegibly; but it is to beg you to
destroy the print, and have another 'by particular desire.' It must
be d----d bad, to be sure, since every body says so but the
original; and he don't know what to say. But do _do_ it: that is,
burn the plate, and employ a new _etcher_ from the other picture.
This is stupid and sulky."
* * * * *
On his arrival in town, he had, upon enquiring into the state of his
affairs, found them in so utterly embarrassed a condition as to fill him
with some alarm, and even to suggest to his mind the prudence of
deferring his marriage. The die was, however, cast, and he had now no
alternative but to proceed. Accordingly, at the end of December,
accompanied by his friend Mr. Hobhouse, he set out for Seaham, the seat
of Sir Ralph Milbanke, the lady's father, in the county of Durham, and
on the 2d of January, 1815, was married.
"I saw him stand
Before an altar with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The Starlight of his Boyhood;--as he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then--
As in that hour--a moment o'er his face,
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced,--and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reel'd around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been--
But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall,
And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her, who was his destiny, came back,
And thrust themselves between him and the light:--
What business had they there at such a time?"[62]
This touching picture agrees so closely in many of its circumstances,
with his own prose account of the wedding in his Memoranda, that I feel
justified in introducing it, historically, here. In that Memoir, he
described himself as waking, on the morning of his marriage, with the
most melancholy reflections, on seeing his wedding-suit spread out
before him. In the same mood, he wandered about the grounds alone, till
he was summoned for the ceremony, and joined, for the first time on that
day, his bride and her family. He knelt down, he repeated the words
after the clergyman; but a mist was before his eyes,--his thoughts were
elsewhere; and he was but awakened by the congratulations of the
bystanders, to find that he was--married.
The same morning, the wedded pair left Seaham for Halnaby, another seat
of Sir Ralph Milbanke, in the same county. When about to depart, Lord
Byron said to the bride, "Miss Milbanke, are you ready?"--a mistake
which the lady's confidential attendant pronounced to be a "bad omen."
It is right to add, that I quote these slight details from memory, and
am alone answerable for any inaccuracy there may be found in them.
[Footnote 62: The Dream.]
* * * * *