"The state of Newstead at the time the poet succeeded to the estate is
not generally known: '_the wicked lord_' had felled all the noble oaks,
destroyed the finest herds of deer, and, in short, had denuded the
estate of everything he could. The hirelings of the attorney did the
rest: they stripped away all the furniture, and everything the law
would permit them to remove. The buildings on the east side were
unroofed; the old Xenodochium, and the grand refectory, were full of
hay; and the entrance-hall and monks' parlour were stable for cattle.
In the only habitable part of the building, a place then used as a sort
of scullery, under the only roof that kept out wet of all this vast
pile, the fifth Lord Byron breathed his last; and to this inheritance
the poet succeeded."
It is not necessary for me to refer to the lofty expression of the poet's
feelings on such his inheritance, nor to the necessity of his parting from
the estate, which appears now to be happily restored to its former
splendour; but possessing some knowledge of a lamentable fact, that neither
Mr. Pettigrew nor Mr. Ashpitel appears to be aware of, I feel inclined to
soften the asperity of the reflections quoted; and palliate, although I may
not justify, the apparently reckless proceedings of the eccentric fifth
Lord, as he is called. In the years 1796 and 1797, after finishing my
clerkship, I had a seat in the chambers of the late Jas. Hanson, Esq., an
eminent conveyancer of Lincoln's Inn; and while with him, amongst other
peers of the realm who came to consult Mr. Hanson regarding their property,
we had this _eccentric_ fifth Lord Byron, who apparently came up to town
for the purpose, and under the most painful and pitiable load of
distress,--and I must confess that I felt for him exceedingly; but his case
was past remedy, and, after some daily attendance, pouring forth his
lamentations, he appears to have returned home to subside into the reckless
operations reported of him. His case was this:--Upon the marriage of his
son, he, as any other father would do, granted a settlement of his
property, including the Newstead Abbey estate; but by some unaccountable
inadvertence or negligence of the lawyers employed, the ultimate reversion
of the fee-simple of the property, instead of being left, as it ought to
have been, in the father as the owner of the estates, was limited to the
heirs of the son. And upon his death, and failure of the issue of the
marriage, the unfortunate father, _this eccentric lord_, found himself
robbed of the fee-simple of his own inheritance, and left merely the naked
tenant for life, without any legal power of raising money upon it, or even
of cutting down a tree. It is so many years ago, that I now do not remember
the detail of what passed on these consultations, but it would appear, that
if the lawyers were aware of the effect of the final limitation, neither
father nor son appear to have been informed of it, or the result might have
been corrected, and his lordship would probably have kept up the estate in
its proper order. Whether this case was at all a promoting cause of the
alteration of the law, I do not know; but, as the law now stands, the
estate would revert back to the father as heir of this son. This case made
a lasting impression on me, and I once had to correct a similar erroneous
proposition in a large intended settlement; and I quoted this unfortunate
accident as an authority. Now, although this relation may not fully justify
the reckless waste that appears to have been committed, it certainly is a
palliative. I do not recollect whether {3} our fifth lord had any surviving
daughter to provide for; but if he had, his situation would be a still more
aggravated position.