I was once invited to dinner by Sir James Burges, father of my friend,
Captain Burges, of the Guards: it was towards the end of the season
1815. I there met, to my great delight, Lord Byron and Sir Walter
Scott; and amongst the rest of the company were Lord Caledon, and
Croker, the Secretary to the Admiralty. Sir James had been private
secretary to Pitt at the time of the French Revolution, and had a fund
of curious anecdotes about everything and everybody of note at the end
of the last century. I remember his telling us the now generally
received story of Pitt dictating a King's speech off-hand--then a more
difficult task than at the present day--without the slightest
hesitation; this speech being adopted by his colleagues nearly word for
word as it was written down.
Walter Scott was quite delightful, appearing full of fire and
animation, and told some interesting anecdotes connected with his early
life in Scotland. I remember his proving himself, what would have been
called in the olden times he delighted to portray, "a stout
trencher-man." Nor were his attentions confined by any means to the
eatables; on the contrary, he showed himself worthy to have made a
third in the famous carousal in Ivanhoe, between the Black Knight and
the Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst.
Byron, whom I had before seen at the shooting galleries and elsewhere,
was then a very handsome man, with remarkably fine eyes and hair; but
was, as usual, all show-off and affectation. I recollect his saying
that he disliked seeing women eat, or to have their company at dinner,
from a wish to believe, if possible, in their more ethereal nature; but
he was rallied into avowing that his chief dislike to their presence at
the festive board arose from the fact of their being helped first, and
consequently getting all the wings of the chickens, whilst men had to
be content with the legs or other parts. Byron, on this occasion, was
in great good humour, and full of boyish and even boisterous mirth.
Croker was also agreeable, notwithstanding his bitter and sarcastic
remarks upon everything and everybody. The sneering, ill-natured
expression of his face, struck me as an impressive contrast to the
frank and benevolent countenance of Walter Scott.
I never assisted at a more agreeable dinner. According to the custom of
the day, we sat late; the poets, statesmen, and soldiers, all drank an
immense quantity of wine, and I for one felt the effects of it next
day. Walter Scott gave one or two recitations, in a very animated
manner, from the ballads that he had been collecting, which delighted
his auditory; and both Lord Byron and Croker added to the hilarity of
the evening by quotations from, and criticisms on the more prominent
writers of the period.