"At Harrow I fought my way very fairly.[30] I think I lost but one
battle out of seven; and that was to H----;--and the rascal did not
win it, but by the unfair treatment of his own boarding-house, where
we boxed--I had not even a second. I never forgave him, and I should
be sorry to meet him now, as I am sure we should quarrel. My most
memorable combats were with Morgan, Rice, Rainsford, and Lord
Jocelyn,--but we were always friendly afterwards. I was a most
unpopular boy, but _led_ latterly, and have retained many of my school
friendships, and all my dislikes--except to Dr. Butler, whom I treated
rebelliously, and have been sorry ever since. Dr. Drury, whom I
plagued sufficiently too, was the best, the kindest (and yet strict,
too,) friend I ever had--and I look upon him still as a father.
"P. Hunter, Curzon, Long, and Tatersall, were my principal friends.
Clare, Dorset, C^s. Gordon, De Bath, Claridge, and J^no. Wingfield,
were my juniors and favourites, whom I spoilt by indulgence. Of all
human beings, I was, perhaps, at one time, the most attached to poor
Wingfield, who died at Coimbra, 1811, before I returned to England."
One of the most striking results of the English system of education
is, that while in no country are there so many instances of manly
friendships early formed and steadily maintained, so in no other
country, perhaps, are the feelings towards the parental home so early
estranged, or, at the best, feebly cherished. Transplanted as boys are
from the domestic circle, at a time of life when the affections are
most disposed to cling, it is but natural that they should seek a
substitute for the ties of home[31] in those boyish friendships which
they form at school, and which, connected as they are with the scenes
and events over which youth threw its charm, retain ever after the
strongest hold upon their hearts. In Ireland, and I believe also in
France, where the system of education is more domestic, a different
result is accordingly observable:--the paternal home comes in for its
due and natural share of affection, and the growth of friendships, out
of this domestic circle, is proportionably diminished.
To a youth like Byron, abounding with the most passionate feelings,
and finding sympathy with only the ruder parts of his nature at home,
the little world of school afforded a vent for his affections, which
was sure to call them forth in their most ardent form. Accordingly,
the friendships which he contracted, both at school and college, were
little less than what he himself describes them, "passions." The want
he felt at home of those kindred dispositions, which greeted him among
"Ida's social band," is thus strongly described in one of his early
poems[32]:--
"Is there no cause beyond the common claim,
Endear'd to all in childhood's very name?
Ah! sure some stronger impulse vibrates here,
Which whispers, Friendship will be doubly dear
To one who thus for kindred hearts must roam,
And seek abroad the love denied at home:
Those hearts, dear Ida, have I found in thee,
A home, a world, a paradise to me."
This early volume, indeed, abounds with the most affectionate tributes
to his school-fellows. Even his expostulations to one of them, who had
given him some cause for complaint, are thus tenderly conveyed:--
"You knew that my soul, that my heart, my existence,
If danger demanded, were wholly your own;
You know me unaltered by years or by distance,
Devoted to love and to friendship alone.
"You knew--but away with the vain retrospection,
The bond of affection no longer endures.
Too late you may droop o'er the fond recollection,
And sigh for the friend who was formerly yours."
The following description of what he felt after leaving Harrow, when
he encountered in the world any of his old school-fellows, falls far
short of the scene which actually occurred but a few years before his
death in Italy,--when, on meeting with his friend, Lord Clare, after a
long separation, he was affected almost to tears by the recollections
which rushed on him.
"If chance some well remember'd face,
Some old companion of my early race,
Advance to claim his friend with honest joy,
My eyes, my heart proclaim'd me yet a boy;
The glittering scene, the fluttering groups around,
Were all forgotten when my friend was found."
It will be seen, by the extracts from his memorandum-book, which I
have given, that Mr. Peel was one of his contemporaries at Harrow; and
the following interesting anecdote of an occurrence in which both were
concerned, has been related to me by a friend of the latter gentleman,
in whose words I shall endeavour as nearly as possible to give it.
While Lord Byron and Mr. Peel were at Harrow together, a tyrant, some
few years older, whose name was ----, claimed a right to fag little
Peel, which claim (whether rightly or wrongly I know not) Peel
resisted. His resistance, however, was in vain:-- ---- not only
subdued him, but determined also to punish the refractory slave; and
proceeded forthwith to put this determination in practice, by
inflicting a kind of bastinado on the inner fleshy side of the boy's
arm, which, during the operation, was twisted round with some degree
of technical skill, to render the pain more acute. While the stripes
were succeeding each other, and poor Peel writhing under them, Byron
saw and felt for the misery of his friend; and although he knew that
he was not strong enough to fight ---- with any hope of success, and
that it was dangerous even to approach him, he advanced to the scene
of action, and with a blush of rage, tears in his eyes, and a voice
trembling between terror and indignation, asked very humbly if ----
would be pleased to tell him "how many stripes he meant to inflict?"
--"Why," returned the executioner, "you little rascal, what is that to
you?"--"Because, if you please," said Byron, holding out his arm, "I
would take half!"
There is a mixture of simplicity and magnanimity in this little trait
which is truly heroic; and however we may smile at the friendships of
boys, it is but rarely that the friendship of manhood is capable of
any thing half so generous.
Among his school favourites a great number, it may be observed, were
nobles or of noble family--Lords Clare and Delaware, the Duke of
Dorset and young Wingfield--and that their rank may have had some
share in first attracting his regard to them, might appear from a
circumstance mentioned to me by one of his school-fellows, who, being
monitor one day, had put Lord Delaware on his list for punishment.
Byron, hearing of this, came up to him, and said, "Wildman, I find
you've got Delaware on your list--pray don't lick him."--"Why
not?"--"Why, I don't know--except that he is a brother peer. But pray
don't." It is almost needless to add, that his interference, on such
grounds, was anything but successful. One of the few merits, indeed,
of public schools is, that they level, in some degree, these
artificial distinctions, and that, however the peer may have his
revenge in the world afterwards, the young plebeian is, for once, at
least, on something like an equality with him.
It is true that Lord Byron's high notions of rank were, in his boyish
days, so little disguised or softened down, as to draw upon him, at
times, the ridicule of his companions; and it was at Dulwich, I think,
that from his frequent boast of the superiority of an old English
barony over all the later creations of the peerage, he got the
nickname, among the boys, of "the Old English Baron." But it is a
mistake to suppose that, either at school or afterwards, he was at all
guided in the selection of his friends by aristocratic sympathies. On
the contrary, like most very proud persons, he chose his intimates in
general from a rank beneath his own, and those boys whom he ranked as
_friends_ at school were mostly of this description; while the chief
charm that recommended to him his younger favourites was their
inferiority to himself in age and strength, which enabled him to
indulge his generous pride by taking upon himself, when necessary, the
office of their protector.
Among those whom he attached to himself by this latter tie, one of the
earliest (though he has omitted to mention his name) was William
Harness, who at the time of his entering Harrow was ten years of age,
while Byron was fourteen. Young Harness, still lame from an accident
of his childhood, and but just recovered from a severe illness, was
ill fitted to struggle with the difficulties of a public school; and
Byron, one day, seeing him bullied by a boy much older and stronger
than himself, interfered and took his part. The next day, as the
little fellow was standing alone, Byron came to him and said,
"Harness, if any one bullies you, tell me, and I'll thrash him, if I
can." The young champion kept his word, and they were from this time,
notwithstanding the difference of their ages, inseparable friends. A
coolness, however, subsequently arose between them, to which, and to
the juvenile friendship it interrupted, Lord Byron, in a letter
addressed to Harness six years afterwards, alludes with so much kindly
feeling, so much delicacy and frankness, that I am tempted to
anticipate the date of the letter, and give an extract from it here.
"We both seem perfectly to recollect, with a mixture of pleasure and
regret, the hours we once passed together, and I assure you, most
sincerely, they are numbered among the happiest of my brief chronicle
of enjoyment. I am now _getting into years_, that is to say, I was
_twenty_ a month ago, and another year will send me into the world to
run my career of folly with the rest. I was then just fourteen,--you
were almost the _first_ of my Harrow friends, certainly the first in
my esteem, if not in date; but an absence from Harrow for some time,
shortly after, and new connections on your side, and the difference in
our conduct (an advantage decidedly in your favour) from that
turbulent and riotous disposition of mine, which impelled me into
every species of mischief,--all these circumstances combined to
destroy an intimacy, which affection urged me to continue, and memory
compels me to regret. But there is not a circumstance attending that
period, hardly a sentence we exchanged, which is not impressed on my
mind at this moment. I need not say more,--this assurance alone must
convince you, had I considered them as trivial, they would have been
less indelible. How well I recollect the perusal of your 'first
flights!' There is another circumstance you do not know;--the _first
lines_ I ever attempted at Harrow were addressed to _you_. You were to
have seen them; but Sinclair had the copy in his possession when we
went home;--and, on our return, we were _strangers_. They were
destroyed, and certainly no great loss; but you will perceive from
this circumstance my opinions at an age when we cannot be hypocrites.
"I have dwelt longer on this theme than I intended, and I shall now
conclude with what I ought to have begun. We were once friends,--nay,
we have always been so, for our separation was the effect of chance,
not of dissension. I do not know how far our destinations in life may
throw us together, but if opportunity and inclination allow you to
waste a thought on such a hare-brained being as myself, you will find
me at least sincere, and not so bigoted to my faults as to involve
others in the consequences. Will you sometimes write to me? I do not
ask it often; and, if we meet, let us be what we _should_ be, and what
we _were_."
Of the tenaciousness with which, as we see in this letter, he clung to
all the impressions of his youth, there can be no stronger proof than
the very interesting fact, that, while so little of his own boyish
correspondence has been preserved, there were found among his papers
almost all the notes and letters which his principal school
favourites, even the youngest, had ever addressed to him; and, in some
cases, where the youthful writers had omitted to date their scrawls,
his faithful memory had, at an interval of years after, supplied the
deficiency. Among these memorials, so fondly treasured by him, there
is one which it would be unjust not to cite, as well on account of the
manly spirit that dawns through its own childish language, as for the
sake of the tender and amiable feeling which, it will be seen, the
re-perusal of it, in other days, awakened in Byron:--
"TO THE LORD BYRON, &c. &c.
"Harrow on the Hill, July 28. 1805.
"Since you have been so unusually unkind to me, in calling me names
whenever you meet me, of late, I must beg an explanation, wishing to
know whether you choose to be as good friends with me as ever. I must
own that, for this last month, you have entirely cut me,--for, I
suppose, your new cronies. But think not that I will (because you
choose to take into your head some whim or other) be always going up
to you, nor do, as I observe certain other fellows doing, to regain
your friendship; nor think that I am your friend either through
interest, or because you are bigger and older than I am. No,--it
never was so, nor ever shall be so. I was only your friend, and am so
still,--unless you go on in this way, calling me names whenever you
see me. I am sure you may easily perceive I do not like it;
therefore, why should you do it, unless you wish that I should no
longer be your friend? And why should I be so, if you treat me
unkindly? I have no interest in being so. Though you do not let the
boys bully me, yet if _you_ treat me unkindly, that is to me a great
deal worse.
"I am no hypocrite, Byron, nor will I, for your pleasure, ever suffer
you to call me names, if you wish me to be your friend. If not, I
cannot help it. I am sure no one can say that I will cringe to regain
a friendship that you have rejected. Why should I do so? Am I not your
equal? Therefore, what interest can I have in doing so? When we meet
again in the world, (that is, if you choose it,) _you_ cannot advance
or promote _me_, nor I you. Therefore I beg and entreat of you, if you
value my friendship,--which, by your conduct, I am sure I cannot think
you do,--not to call me the names you do, nor abuse me. Till that
time, it will be out of my power to call you friend. I shall be
obliged for an answer as soon as it is convenient; till then