In the collection of "Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea," to which Lord
Byron so skilfully had recourse for the technical knowledge and facts
out of which he has composed his own powerful description, the reader
will find the account of the loss of the Juno here referred to.]
[Footnote 25: This elegy is in his first (unpublished) volume.]
[Footnote 26: See page 25.]
[Footnote 27: For the display of his declamatory powers, on the
speech-days, he selected always the most vehement passages,--such as
the speech of Zanga over the body of Alonzo, and Lear's address to the
storm. On one of these public occasions, when it was arranged that he
should take the part of Drances, and young Peel that of Turnus, Lord
Byron suddenly changed his mind, and preferred the speech of
Latinus,--fearing, it was supposed, some ridicule from the
inappropriate taunt of Turnus, "Ventosâ in linguâ, _pedibusque
fugacibus istis_."]
[Footnote 28: His letters to Mr. Sinclair, in return, are unluckily
lost,--one of them, as this gentleman tells me, having been highly
characteristic of the jealous sensitiveness of his noble schoolfellow,
being written under the impression of some ideal slight, and
beginning, angrily, "Sir."]
[Footnote 29: On a leaf of one of his note-books, dated 1808, I find the
following passage from Marmontel, which no doubt struck him as applicable
to the enthusiasm of his own youthful friendships:--"L'amitié, qui dans le
monde est à peine un sentiment, est une passion dans les
cloîtres."--_Contes Moraux_.]
[Footnote 30: Mr. D'Israeli, in his ingenious work "On the Literary
Character," has given it as his opinion, that a disinclination to
athletic sports and exercises will be, in general, found among the
peculiarities which mark a youthful genius. In support of this notion
he quotes Beattie, who thus describes his ideal minstrel:--
"Concourse, and noise, and toil, he ever fled,
Nor cared to mingle in the clamorous fray
Of squabbling imps, but to the forest sped."
His highest authority, however, is Milton, who says of himself,
"When I was yet a child, no childish play
To me was pleasing."
Such general rules, however, are as little applicable to the
dispositions of men of genius as to their powers. If, in the instances
which Mr. D'Israeli adduces an indisposition to bodily exertion was
manifested, as many others may be cited in which the directly opposite
propensity was remarkable. In war, the most turbulent of exercises,
Æschylus, Dante, Camoens, and a long list of other poets,
distinguished themselves; and, though it may be granted that Horace
was a bad rider, and Virgil no tennis-player, yet, on the other hand,
Dante was, we know, a falconer as well as swordsman; Tasso, expert
both as swordsman and dancer; Alfieri, a great rider; Klopstock, a
skaiter; Cowper, famous, in his youth, at cricket and foot-ball; and
Lord Byron, pre-eminent in all sorts of exercises.]
[Footnote 31: "At eight or nine years of age the boy goes to school.
From that moment he becomes a stranger in his father's house. The
course of parental kindness is interrupted. The smiles of his mother,
those tender admonitions, and the solicitous care of both his parents,
are no longer before his eyes--year after year he feels himself more
detached from them, till at last he is so effectually weaned from the
connection, as to find himself happier anywhere than in their
company."--_Cowper, Letters._]
[Footnote 32: Even previously to any of these school friendships, he
had formed the same sort of romantic attachment to a boy of his own
age, the son of one of his tenants at Newstead; and there are two or
three of his most juvenile poems, in which he dwells no less upon the
inequality than the warmth of this friendship. Thus:--
"Let Folly smile, to view the names
Of thee and me in friendship twined;
Yet Virtue will have greater claims
To love, than rank with Vice combined.
"And though unequal is thy fate,
Since title deck'd my higher birth,
Yet envy not this gaudy state,
Thine is the pride of modest worth.
"Our souls at least congenial meet,
Nor can thy lot my rank disgrace;
Our intercourse is not less sweet
Since worth of rank supplies the place.
"November, 1802."]
[Footnote 33: There are, in other letters of the same writer, some
curious proofs of the passionate and jealous sensibility of Byron.
From one of them, for instance, we collect that he had taken offence
at his young friend's addressing him "my dear Byron," instead of "my
dearest;" and from another, that his jealousy had been awakened by
some expressions of regret which his correspondent had expressed at
the departure of Lord John Russell for Spain:--
"You tell me," says the young letter-writer, "that you never knew me
in such an agitation as I was when I wrote my last letter; and do you
not think I had reason to be so? I received a letter from you on
Saturday, telling me you were going abroad for six years in March, and
on Sunday John Russell set off for Spain. Was not that sufficient to
make me rather melancholy? But how can you possibly imagine that I was
more agitated on John Russell's account, who is gone for a few months,
and from whom I shall hear constantly, than at your going for six
years to travel over most part of the world, when I shall hardly ever
hear from you, and perhaps may never see you again?
"It has very much hurt me your telling me that you might be excused if
you felt rather jealous at my expressing more sorrow for the departure
of the friend who was with me, than of that one who was absent. It is
quite impossible you can think I am more sorry for John's absence than
I shall be for yours;--I shall therefore finish the subject."]
[Footnote 34: To this tomb he thus refers in the "Childish
Recollections," as printed in his first unpublished volume:--
"Oft when, oppress'd with sad, foreboding gloom,
I sat reclined upon our favourite tomb."
]
[Footnote 35: I find this circumstance, of his having occasionally
slept at the Hut, though asserted by one of the old servants, much
doubted by others.]
[Footnote 36: It may possibly have been the recollection of these
pictures that suggested to him the following lines in the Siege of
Corinth:--
"Like the figures on arras that gloomily glare,
Stirr'd by the breath of the wintry air,
So seen by the dying lamp's fitful light,
Lifeless, but life-like and awful to sight;
As they seem, through the dimness, about to come down
From the shadowy wall where their images frown."
]
[Footnote 37: Among the unpublished verses of his in my possession, I
find the following fragment, written not long after this period:--
"Hills of Annesley, bleak and barren,
Where my thoughtless childhood stray'd,
How the northern tempests, warring,
Howl above thy tufted shade!
"Now no more, the hours beguiling,
Former favourite haunts I see;
Now no more my Mary smiling,
Makes ye seem a heaven to me."
]
[Footnote 38: The lady's husband, for some time, took her family
name.]
[Footnote 39: These stanzas, I have since found, are not Lord Byron's,
but the production of Lady Tuite, and are contained in a volume
published by her Ladyship in the year 1795.--(_Second edition._)]
[Footnote 40: Gibbon, in speaking of public schools, says--"The mimic
scene of a rebellion has displayed, in their true colours, the
ministers and patriots of the rising generation." Such prognostics,
however, are not always to be relied on;--the mild, peaceful Addison
was, when at school, the successful leader of a _barring-out_.]
[Footnote 41: This anecdote, which I have given on the testimony of
one of Lord Byron's schoolfellows, Doctor Butler himself assures me
has but very little foundation in fact.--(_Second Edition_.)]
[Footnote 42: "It is deplorable to consider the loss which children
make of their time at most schools, employing, or rather casting away,
six or seven years in the learning of words only, and that very
imperfectly."--_Cowley, Essays_.
"Would not a Chinese, who took notice of our way of breeding, be apt
to imagine that all our young gentlemen were designed to be teachers
and professors of the dead languages of foreign countries, and not to
be men of business in their own?"--_Locke on Education_.]
[Footnote 43: "A finished scholar may emerge from the head of
Westminster or Eton in total ignorance of the business and
conversation of English gentlemen in the latter end of the eighteenth
century."--_Gibbon_.]
[Footnote 44: "Byron, Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, Alumnus Scholæ;
Lyonensis primus in anno Domini 1801, Ellison Duce."
"Monitors, 1801.--Ellison, Royston, Hunxman, Rashleigh, Rokeby,
Leigh."]
[Footnote 45: "Drury's Pupils, 1804.--Byron, Drury, Sinclair, Hoare,
Bolder, Annesley, Calvert, Strong, Acland, Gordon, Drummond."]
[Footnote 46: During one of the Harrow vacations, he passed some time
in the house of the Abbé de Roufigny, in Took's-court, for the purpose
of studying the French language; but he was, according to the Abbé's
account, very little given to study, and spent most of his time in
boxing, fencing, &c. to the no small disturbance of the reverend
teacher and his establishment.]
[Footnote 47: Between superior and inferior, "whose fortunes (as he
expresses it) comprehend the one and the other."]
[Footnote 48: A gentleman who has since honourably distinguished
himself by his philanthropic plans and suggestions for that most
important object, the amelioration of the condition of the poor.]
[Footnote 49: In a suit undertaken for the recovery of the Rochdale
property.]
[Footnote 50: This precious pencilling is still, of course,
preserved.]
[Footnote 51: The verses "To a beautiful Quaker," in his first volume,
were written at Harrowgate.]
[Footnote 52: A horse of Lord Byron's:--the other horse that he had
with him at this time was called Sultan.]
[Footnote 53: The favourite dog, on which Lord Byron afterwards wrote
the well-known epitaph.]
[Footnote 54: Lord Byron and Dr. Pigot continued to be correspondents
for some time, but, after their parting this autumn, they never met
again.]
[Footnote 55: Of this edition, which was in quarto, and consisted but
of a few sheets, there are but two, or, at the utmost, three copies in
existence.]
[Footnote 56: His valet, Frank.]
[Footnote 57: Of this "Mary," who is not to be confounded either with
the heiress of Annesley, or "Mary" of Aberdeen, all I can record is,
that she was of an humble, if not equivocal, station in life,--that
she had long, light golden hair, of which he used to show a lock, as
well as her picture, among his friends; and that the verses in his
"Hours of Idleness," entitled "To Mary, on receiving her Picture,"
were addressed to her.]
[Footnote 58: Here the imperfect sheet ends.]
[Footnote 59: Though always fond of music, he had very little skill in
the performance of it. "It is very odd," he said, one day, to this
lady,--"I sing much better to your playing than to any one
else's."--"That is," she answered, "because I play to your
singing."--In which few words, by the way, the whole secret of a
skilful accompanier lies.]
[Footnote 60: Cricketing, too, was one of his most favourite sports;
and it was wonderful, considering his lameness, with what speed he
could run. "Lord Byron (says Miss ----, in a letter, to her brother,
from Southwell) is just gone past the window with his bat on his
shoulder to cricket, which he is as fond of as ever."]
[Footnote 61: In one of Miss ----'s letters, the following notice of
these canine feuds occurs:--"Boatswain has had another battle with
Tippoo at the House of Correction, and came off conqueror. Lord B.
brought Bo'sen to our window this morning, when Gilpin, who is almost
always here, got into an amazing fury with him."]
[Footnote 62: "It was the custom of Burns," says Mr. Lockhart, in his
Life of that poet, "to read at table."]
[Footnote 63: "I took to reading by myself," says Pope, "for which I
had a very great eagerness and enthusiasm;... I followed every where,
as my fancy led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the fields
and woods, just as they fell in his way. These five or six years I
still look upon as the happiest part of my life." It appears, too,
that he was himself aware of the advantages which this free course of
study brought with it:--"Mr. Pope," says Spence, "thought himself the
better, in some respects, for not having had a regular education. He
(as he observed in particular) read originally for the sense, whereas
we are taught, for so many years, to read only for words."]
[Footnote 64: Before Chatterton was twelve years old, he wrote a
catalogue, in the same manner as Lord Byron, of the books he had
already read, to the number of seventy. Of these the chief subjects
were history and divinity.]
[Footnote 65: The perfect purity with which the Greeks wrote their own
language, was, with justice, perhaps, attributed by themselves to
their entire abstinence from the study of any other. "If they became
learned," says Ferguson, "it was only by studying what they themselves
had produced."]
[Footnote 66: The only circumstance I know, that bears even remotely
on the subject of this poem, is the following. About a year or two
before the date affixed to it, he wrote to his mother, from Harrow (as
I have been told by a person to whom Mrs. Byron herself communicated
the circumstance), to say, that he had lately had a good deal of
uneasiness on account of a young woman, whom he knew to have been a
favourite of his late friend, Curzon, and who, finding herself, after
his death, in a state of progress towards maternity, had declared Lord
Byron was the father of her child. This, he positively assured his
mother, was not the case; but, believing, as he did firmly, that the
child belonged to Curzon, it was his wish that it should be brought up
with all possible care, and he, therefore, entreated that his mother
would have the kindness to take charge of it. Though such a request
might well (as my informant expresses it) have discomposed a temper
more mild than Mrs. Byron's, she notwithstanding answered her son in
the kindest terms, saying that she would willingly receive the child
as soon as it was born, and bring it up in whatever manner he desired.
Happily, however, the infant died almost immediately, and was thus
spared the being a tax on the good nature of any body.]
[Footnote 67: In this practice of dating his juvenile poems he
followed the example of Milton, who (says Johnson), "by affixing the
dates to his first compositions, a boast of which the learned Politian
had given him an example, seems to commend the earliness of his own
compositions to the notice of posterity."
The following trifle, written also by him in 1807, has never, as far
as I know, appeared in print:--
"EPITAPH ON JOHN ADAMS, OF SOUTHWELL, A CARRIER,
"WHO DIED OF DRUNKENNESS.
"John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell,
A _Carrier_, who _carried_ his can to his mouth well;
He _carried_ so much, and he _carried_ so fast,
He could _carry_ no more--so was _carried_ at last;
For, the liquor he drank being too much for one,
He could not _carry_ off,--so he 's now _carri-on_.
"B----, Sept. 1807."
]
[Footnote 68: Annesley is, of course, not forgotten among the
number:--
"And shall I here forget the scene,
Still nearest to my breast?
Rocks rise and rivers roll between
The rural spot which passion blest;
Yet, Mary, all thy beauties seem
Fresh as in Love's bewitching dream," &c. &c.
]
[Footnote 69: It appears from a passage in one of Miss ----'s letters
to her brother, that Lord Byron sent, through this gentleman, a copy
of his poems to Mr. Mackenzie, the author of the Man of Feeling:--"I
am glad you mentioned Mr. Mackenzie's having got a copy of Lord B.'s
poems, and what he thought of them--Lord B. was so _much_ pleased!"
In another letter, the fair writer says,--"Lord Byron desired me to
tell you that the reason you did not hear from him was because his
publication was not so forward as he had flattered himself it would
have been. I told him, 'he was no more to be depended on than a
woman,' which instantly brought the softness of that sex into his
countenance, for he blushed exceedingly."]
[Footnote 70: He was, indeed, a thorough boy, at this period, in every
respect:--"Next Monday" (says Miss ----) "is our great fair. Lord
Byron talks of it with as much pleasure as little Henry, and declares
he will ride in the round-about,--but I think he will change his
mind."]
[Footnote 71: He here alludes to an odd fancy or trick of his
own;--whenever he was at a loss for something to say, he used always
to gabble over "1 2 3 4 5 6 7."]
[Footnote 72: Notwithstanding the abuse which, evidently more in sport
than seriousness, he lavishes, in the course of these letters, upon
Southwell, he was, in after days, taught to feel that the hours which
he had passed in this place were far more happy than any he had known
afterwards. In a letter written not long since to his servant,
Fletcher, by a lady who had been intimate with him, in his young days,
at Southwell, there are the following words:--"Your poor, good master
always called me 'Old Piety,' when I preached to him. When he paid me
his last visit, he said, 'Well, good friend, I shall never be so happy
again as I was in old Southwell.'" His real opinion of the advantages
of this town, as a place of residence, will be seen in a subsequent
letter, where he most strenuously recommends it, in that point of
view, to Mr. Dallas.]
[Footnote 73: It may be as well to mention here the sequel of this
enthusiastic attachment. In the year 1811 young Edleston died of a
consumption, and the following letter, addressed by Lord Byron to the
mother of his fair Southwell correspondent, will show with what
melancholy faithfulness, among the many his heart had then to mourn
for, he still dwelt on the memory of his young college friend:--
"Cambridge, Oct. 28. 1811.
"Dear Madam,
"I am about to write to you on a silly subject, and yet I cannot well
do otherwise. You may remember a _cornelian_, which some years ago I
consigned to Miss ----, indeed _gave_ to her, and now I am going to
make the most selfish and rude of requests. The person who gave it to
me, when I was very young, is _dead_, and though a long time has
elapsed since we met, as it was the only memorial I possessed of that
person (in whom I was very much interested), it has acquired a value
by this event I could have wished it never to have borne in my eyes.
If, therefore, Miss ---- should have preserved it, I must, under these
circumstances, beg her to excuse my requesting it to be transmitted to
me at No. 8. St. James's Street, London, and I will replace it by
something she may remember me by equally well. As she was always so
kind as to feel interested in the fate of him that formed the subject
of our conversation, you may tell her that the giver of that cornelian
died in May last of a consumption, at the age of twenty-one, making
the sixth, within four months, of friends and relatives that I have
lost between May and the end of August.
"Believe me, dear Madam, yours very sincerely,
"BYRON.
"P.S. I go to London to-morrow."
The cornelian heart was, of course, returned, and Lord Byron, at the
same time, reminded that he had left it with Miss ----]
[Footnote 74: In the Collection of his Poems printed for private
circulation, he had inserted some severe verses on Dr. Butler, which
he omitted in the subsequent publication,--at the same time explaining
why he did so, in a note little less severe than the verses.]
[Footnote 75: This first attempt of Lord Byron at reviewing (for it
will be seen that he, once or twice afterwards, tried his hand at this
least poetical of employments) is remarkable only as showing how
plausibly he could assume the established tone and phraseology of
these minor judgment-seats of criticism. For instance:--"The volumes
before us are by the author of Lyrical Ballads, a collection which has
not undeservedly met with a considerable share of public applause. The
characteristics of Mr. Wordsworth's muse are simple and flowing,
though occasionally inharmonious, verse,--strong and sometimes
irresistible appeals to the feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments.
Though the present work may not equal his former efforts, many of the
poems possess a native elegance," &c. &c. &c. If Mr. Wordsworth ever
chanced to cast his eye over this article, how little could he have
suspected that under that dull prosaic mask lurked one who, in five
short years from thence, would rival even _him_ in poetry.]
[Footnote 76: This plan (which he never put in practice) had been
talked of by him before he left Southwell, and is thus noticed in a
letter of his fair correspondent to her brother:--"How can you ask if
Lord B. is going to visit the Highlands in the summer? Why, don't
_you_ know that he never knows his own mind for ten minutes together?
I tell _him_ he is as fickle as the winds, and as uncertain as the
waves."]
[Footnote 77: We observe here, as in other parts of his early letters,
that sort of display and boast of rakishness which is but too common a
folly at this period of life, when the young aspirant to manhood
persuades himself that to be profligate is to be manly. Unluckily,
this boyish desire of being thought worse than he really was, remained
with Lord Byron, as did some other feelings and foibles of his
boyhood, long after the period when, with others, they are past and
forgotten; and his mind, indeed, was but beginning to outgrow them,
when he was snatched away.]
[Footnote 78: The poem afterwards enlarged and published under the
title of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." It appears from this
that the ground-work of that satire had been laid some time before the
appearance of the article in the Edinburgh Review.]
[Footnote 79: Sept. 1807. This Review, in pronouncing upon the young
author's future career, showed itself somewhat more "prophet-like"
than the great oracle of the North. In noticing the Elegy on Newstead
Abbey, the writer says, "We could not but hail, with something of
prophetic rapture, the hope conveyed in the closing stanza:--
"Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine,
Thee to irradiate with meridian ray," &c. &c.
]
[Footnote 80: The first number of a monthly publication called "The
Satirist," in which there appeared afterwards some low and personal
attacks upon him.]
[Footnote 81: "Look out for a people entirely destitute of religion:
if you find them at all, be assured that they are but few degrees
removed from brutes."--HUME.
The reader will find this avowal of Hume turned eloquently to the
advantage of religion in a Collection of Sermons, entitled, "The
Connexion of Christianity with Human Happiness," written by one of
Lord Byron's earliest and most valued friends, the Rev. William
Harness.]
[Footnote 82: The only thing remarkable about Walsh's preface is, that
Dr. Johnson praises it as "very judicious," but is, at the same time,
silent respecting the poems to which it is prefixed.]
[Footnote 83: Characters in the novel called _Percival_.]
[Footnote 84: This appeal to the imagination of his correspondent was
not altogether without effect.--"I considered," says Mr. Dallas,
"these letters, _though evidently grounded on some occurrences in the
still earlier part of his life_, rather as _jeux d'esprit_ than as a
true portrait."]
[Footnote 85: He appears to have had in his memory Voltaire's lively
account of Zadig's learning: "Il savait de la métaphysique ce qu'on en
a su dans tous les âges,--c'est à dire, fort peu de chose," &c.]
[Footnote 86: The doctrine of Hume, who resolves all virtue into
sentiment.--See his "Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals."]
[Footnote 87: See his Letter to Anthony Collins, 1703-4, where he
speaks of "those sharp heads, which were for damning his book, because
of its discouraging the staple commodity of the place, which in his
time was called _hogs' shearing_."]
[Footnote 88: Hard, "Discourses on Poetical Imitation."]
[Footnote 89: Prologue to the University of Oxford.]
[Footnote 90: "'Tis a quality very observable in human nature, that
any opposition which does not entirely discourage and intimidate us,
has rather a contrary effect, and inspires us with a more than
ordinary grandeur and magnanimity. In collecting our force to overcome
the opposition, we invigorate the soul, and give it an elevation with
which otherwise it would never have been acquainted."--Hume, _Treatise
of Human Nature._]
[Footnote 91: "The colour of our whole life is generally such as the
three or four first years in which we are our own masters make
it."--Cowper.]
[Footnote 92: "I refer to my old friend and corporeal pastor and master,
John Jackson, Esq., Professor of Pugilism, who I trust still retains the
strength and symmetry of his model of a form, together with his good humour
and athletic, as well as mental, accomplishments."--_Note on Don Juan,
Canto II_.]
[Footnote 93: Thus addressed always by Lord Byron, but without any
right to the distinction.]
[Footnote 94: The Journal entitled by himself "Detached Thoughts."]
[Footnote 95: Few philosophers, however, have been so indulgent to the
pride of birth as Rousseau.--"S'il est un orgueil pardonnable (he
says) après celui qui se tire du mérite personnel, c'est celui qui se
tire de la naissance."--_Confess._]
[Footnote 96: This gentleman, who took orders in the year 1814, is the
author of a spirited translation of Juvenal, and of other works of
distinguished merit. He was long in correspondence with Lord Byron,
and to him I am indebted for some interesting letters of his noble
friend, which will be given in the course of the following pages.]
[Footnote 97: He had also, at one time, as appears from an anecdote
preserved by Spence, some thoughts of burying this dog in his garden,
and placing a monument over him, with the inscription, "Oh, rare
Bounce!"
In speaking of the members of Rousseau's domestic establishment, Hume
says, "She (Therése) governs him as absolutely as a nurse does a
child. In her absence, his dog has acquired that ascendant. His
affection for that creature is beyond all expression or
conception."--_Private Correspondence._ See an instance which he gives
of this dog's influence over the philosopher, p. 143.
In Burns's elegy on the death of his favourite Mailie, we find the
friendship even of a sheep set on a level with that of man:--
"Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She ran wi' speed:
A friend mair faithful ne'er came nigh him,
Than Mailie dead."
In speaking of the favourite dogs of great poets, we must not forget
Cowper's little spaniel "Beau;" nor will posterity fail to add to the
list the name of Sir Walter Scott's "Maida."]
[Footnote 98: In the epitaph, as first printed in his friend's
Miscellany, this line runs thus:--
"I knew but one unchanged--and here he lies."
]
[Footnote 99: We are told that Wieland used to have his works printed
thus for the purpose of correction, and said that he found great
advantage in it. The practice is, it appears, not unusual in Germany.]
[Footnote 100: See his lines on Major Howard, the son of Lord
Carlisle, who was killed at Waterloo:--
"Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine;
Yet one I would select from that proud throng,
Partly because they blend me with his line,
And _partly that I did his sire some wrong_."