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Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org
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We have traced the progress of Byron’sEnglish
Bards and Scotch ReviewersChilde Harold Corsair, &c. the second and
Don JuanByron
The first of these was CainByronMedwin“it is difficult to judge, from the contradictory nature of his
writings, what the religious opinions of Lord Byron really were;”
(p. 74.)
and the Captain seems to have been just as much at a loss to solve this enigma by the laid
of his Lordship’s personal communications. Thus much however is certain, that his
Lordship professed to think it “a pleasant voyage, to float like
(p. 74.) He thought Pyrrho“religions take their turn:
’twas
He spoke
with contemptuous indifference of the uses of a building which had been the “shrine
of all Saints and Temple of all Gods, from Jove’sMahomet’sother creeds will rise with other years.”JoveJesus Childe Harold.)
“Yet,” says(p. 75.)Captain , “his wavering never amounted to a disbelief in the Divine Founder of Christianity.”Medwin
“I am called a Manichean; I may rather be called in Anychean, or an Anythingarian”)—
“calling on him the next day we found him, as was sometimes the case, silent, dull, and sombre. At length he said, ‘Here is a little book somebody has sent me about Christianity, that has made me very uncomfortable; the reasoning seems to me very strong; the proofs are very staggering. I don’t think you can answer it,(p. 80.) But though the Noble Peer was thus destitute of any fixed principles of religion, he was not destitute of superstition. We learn that this luminary of the age had a dread of omens, a belief in presentiments, and a faith in fortunetellers!—. At least I’m sure I can’t; and what is more I don’t wish it.’” Shelley
“The first time of my seeing(p. 36.) Again,Miss was at Lady ——’s. It was a fatal day: and I remember that in going up stairs I stumbled, and remarked toMillbank, who accompanied me, that it was a bad omen. I ought to have taken the warning.” Moore
“The very day the match was concluded, a ring of my mother’s, that had been lost, was dug up, by the gardener at Newstead. I thought it was sent on purpose for the wedding; but my mother’s marriage had not been a fortunate one; and this ring was doomed to be seal of an unhappier union still.” (p. 38.)—“I had very early a horror of matrimony. This feeling came over me very strongly at my wedding. Something whispered me that I was sealing my own death-warrant. I am a great believer in presentiments.!—(p. 54.) Passing by a cottage in Italy on his daughter’s birth-day he heard the wailings of some women over a corpse:Socrates’s demon was no fiction.Monk Lewis had his monitor, andNapoleon many warnings.”
“(p. 100.) Could any old nurse in Christendom gabble greater nonsense than this? However he goes on—Lord was much affected; and his superstition, acted upon by a sadness that seemed to be a presentiment, led him to augur some disaster. I shall not be happy, said he, till I hear that my daughter is well. I have a great horror of anniversaries: people only laugh who have never kept a register of them. I always write to toy sister onByronAda’s birth-day. I did so last year; and what wasvery remarkable,my letter reached her on my wedding day, and her answer reached me on my birth-day!”
“Several extraordinary things have happened to me on my birth-day:!! The conclusion of this adventure is really curious. The day after this most salutary and serviceable presentiment, a letter arrives from England, mentioning among other things that a certainso they did to”Napoleon .
“I was convinced,” said(p. 101.)Lord , “something very unpleasant hung over me last night. I expected to hear that some body I knew was dead.”Byron
“There are lucky and unlucky days as well as years and numbers too,” says(p. 103.)Lord on another occasion.Byron“You would not visit on a(p. 104.) “Who can help being superstitious?” “The Italians think the dropping of oil very unlucky.Friday,would you? You know, you are to introduce me to Mrs. ——. It must not be tomorrow, because it is Friday!”( PietropCount Gamba ) dropped some the night before his exile!”
“It had been predicted by(p. 37.)Mrs. that twenty-seven was to be a dangerous age for me. The fortune-telling witch was right.”Williams
“Have you ever had your fortune told?(p. 104.) This last touch is exquisite. The superstitious man takes just as much of the prophecy as renders it plausible; but for the credit of the fortuneteller he sinks the rest; and it is only by cross examination that you can extract from him proof’ that his oracle is false. And this is the greatMrs. told mine.—She predicted that 27 and 37 were to be dangerous ages in my life. One has come true. Yes, added I, and did she not prophesy that you were to die a Monk and a miser? I don’t think (says his Lordship) these two last very likely;Williamsbut it was part of her prediction.”
O caecas hominum mentes !
But enough of CainByronHuntNimini-pimini and
Folly-age (p. 261), he made an attempt to establish a literary Journal called The Liberal, which struggled through
about three numbers, and then expired. In
When CainByron“He is threatened with a prosecution by the Anti-constitutional
Society. I don’t believe they will venture to attack him: if they do,
His Lordship
was misinformed. The Constitutional Society, which I shall go home, and make my own defence.”Byron Cain. That Society, however, did prosecute to conviction the
publisher of the
We all remember the old story of the three schoolboys who got into the water.
The one who could swim a little was punished the most severely.
little. To his mind therefore every scoff at the Almighty, at
Christ, at the Apostles, at the Resurrection, and the Final Judgment, was at least a possible blasphemy. He was certain to shock and harrow up the minds of
the pious: he was not certain not to sacrifice his own and his reader’s eternal
salvation. One would think that no earthly temptation could induce a man wilfully to encounter
the peril of so tremendous an evil. And what was his temptation? To indulge political pique and
private rancour.
If ever there was a Sovereign whose memory was sanctified in the gratitude and
affection of a people, it was George the ThirdByronBuonaparte“I take little interest in the politics at home.”—“My
views extend to the good of mankind in general—of the world at large.”
(pp.
228, 229.)—“I had a magazine of one hundred stand of arms in my
house,”—“I had received a very high degree, without passing through
the intermediate ranks.”
(p. 32.) Thus was an English Peer acting the secret
traitor, in a foreign State: and all for the good of mankind in general! It did not enter
into Byron’s
AllegraIrish
AvataraKing received from his Irish subjects when he visited
Dublin. It is indeed as dull as Cain; but had it been a hundred times more animated, the single
expression “the welcome of tyrants” would have sufficed to render every Irish
heart indignant at the libel. In the same copy of verses is also a frantic tirade against
the
We have, however, somewhat digressed from the Vision of JudgmentByronSoutheyMedwinMarino Faliero“He looked perfectly awful: his color changed
almost prismatically: his lips were as pale as death.”
(p. 148.) ByronSoutheyByronByronSouthey’sByronSouthey’sWordsworth“It is satisfactory to reflect,” says
(p. 192.) But ByronWordsworth“The republican trio (meaning
Messrs.
(p. 194.) But they never
did publish in common, and they never were to have had a community of any thing. This shews
that WordsworthSoutheyColeridgeByron
We have observed that the principal aim of the Vision of JudgmentMr. SoutheyByron’sGod,
impious, sceptical, superstitious. To sum up all—With great advantages of birth, rank,
person, and fortune, he became a miserable because a vicious man and with vast native powers of
imagination, and great acquired command of felicitous language, he was a bad, because an impure
and irreligious Poet.