Character at Harrow--Poetical Predilections--Byron at Cambridge--His
"Hours of Idleness"
In reconsidering the four years which Byron spent at Harrow, while we
can clearly trace the development of the sensibilities of his
character, and an increased tension of his susceptibility, by which
impressions became more acute and delicate, it seems impossible not
to perceive by the records which he has himself left of his feelings,
that something morbid was induced upon them. Had he not afterwards
so magnificently distinguished himself as a poet, it is not probable
that he would have been recollected by his schoolfellows as having
been in any respect different from the common herd. His activity and
spirit, in their controversies and quarrels, were but the
outbreakings of that temperament which the discipline of riper years,
and the natural awe of the world, afterward reduced into his
hereditary cast of character, in which so much of sullenness and
misanthropy was exhibited. I cannot, however, think that there was
anything either in the nature of his pastimes, or his studies,
unfavourable to the formation of the poetical character. His
amusements were active; his reading, though without method, was yet
congenial to his impassioned imagination; and the phantom of an
enthusiastic attachment, of which Miss Chaworth was not the only
object (for it was altogether intellectual, and shared with others),
were circumstances calculated to open various sources of reflection,
and to concentrate the elements of an energetic and original mind.
But it is no easy matter to sketch what may have been the outline of
a young poet's education. The supposition that poets must be
dreamers, because there is often much dreaminess in poesy, is a mere
hypothesis. Of all the professors of metaphysical discernment, poets
require the finest tact; and contemplation is with them a sign of
inward abstract reflection, more than of any process of mind by which
resemblance is traced, and associations awakened. There is no
account of any great poet, whose genius was of that dreamy
cartilaginous kind, which hath its being in haze, and draws its
nourishment from lights and shadows; which ponders over the mysteries
of trees, and interprets the oracles of babbling waters. They have
all been men--worldly men, different only from others in reasoning
more by feeling than induction. Directed by impulse, in a greater
degree than other men, poets are apt to be betrayed into actions
which make them singular, as compared by those who are less
imaginative; but the effects of earnestness should never be
confounded with the qualities of talent.
No greater misconception has ever been obtruded upon the world as
philosophic criticism, than the theory of poets being the offspring
of "capering lambkins and cooing doves"; for they differ in no
respect from other men of high endowment, but in the single
circumstance of the objects to which their taste is attracted. The
most vigorous poets, those who have influenced longest and are most
quoted, have indeed been all men of great shrewdness of remark, and
anything but your chin-on-hand contemplators. To adduce many
instances is unnecessary. Are there any symptoms of the gelatinous
character of the effusions of the Lakers in the compositions of
Homer? The London Gazette does not tell us things more like facts
than the narratives of Homer, and it often states facts that are much
more like fictions than his most poetical inventions. So much is
this the case with the works of all the higher poets, that as they
recede from that worldly standard which is found in the Epics of
Homer, they sink in the scale of poets. In what does the inferiority
of Virgil, for example, consist, but in his having hatched fancies in
his contemplations which the calm mind rejects as absurdities. Then
Tasso, with his enchanted forests and his other improbabilities; are
they more than childish tales? tales, too, not in fancy to be
compared with those of that venerable dry-nurse, Mother Bunch.
Compare the poets that babble of green fields with those who deal in
the actions and passions of men, such as Shakspeare, and it must be
confessed that it is not those who have looked at external nature who
are the true poets, but those who have seen and considered most about
the business and bosom of man. It may be an advantage that a poet
should have the benefit of landscapes and storms, as children are the
better for country air and cow's milk; but the true scene of their
manly work and business is in the populous city. Inasmuch as Byron
was a lover of solitude, he was deficient as an observer of men.
The barrenest portion, as to materials for biography, in the life of
this interesting man, is the period he spent at the University of
Cambridge. Like that of most young men, it is probable the major
part of his time was passed between the metropolis and the
university. Still it was in that period he composed the different
poems which make up the little volume of The Hours of Idleness; a
work which will ever be regarded, more by its consequences than its
importance, as of great influence on the character and career of the
poet.
It has been supposed, I see not how justly, that there was
affectation in the title. It is probable that Byron intended no more
by it than to imply that its contents were sketches of leisure. This
is the less doubtful, as he was at that period particularly sensitive
concerning the opinion that might be entertained of his works.
Before he made the collection, many of the pieces had been
circulated, and he had gathered opinions as to their merits with a
degree of solicitude that can only be conceived by those who were
acquainted with the constantly excited sensibility of his mind. When
he did publish the collection, nothing appeared in the style and form
of the publication that indicated any arrogance of merit. On the
contrary, it was brought forward with a degree of diffidence, which,
if it did not deserve the epithet of modesty, could incur nothing
harsher than that of bashfulness. It was printed at the obscure
market-town press of Newark, was altogether a very homely, rustic
work, and no attempt was made to bespeak for it a good name from the
critics. It was truly an innocent affair and an unpretending
performance. But notwithstanding these, at least seeming, qualities
of young doubtfulness and timidity, they did not soften the austere
nature of the bleak and blighting criticism which was then
characteristic of Edinburgh.
A copy was somehow communicated to one of the critics in that city,
and was reviewed by him in the Edinburgh Review in an article replete
with satire and insinuations calculated to prey upon the author's
feelings, while the injustice of the estimate which was made of his
talent and originality, could not but be as iron in his heart. Owing
to the deep and severe impression which it left, it ought to be
preserved in every memoir which treats of the development of his
genius and character; and for this reason I insert it entire, as one
of the most influential documents perhaps in the whole extent of
biography.