| 162 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON |
The letters written by Byron during his first pilgrimage, to which reference has been already made, are not less remarkable for keen observation and genial good-humour, than for that morbid self-consciousness which was their author’s bane throughout his life. Some few sentences in the first of these letters give the keynote to many of the others, which are written with a racy freshness strangely belying some of the melancholy and misanthropic sentiments expressed in them. The date of this first letter is Lisbon, July 16, 1809.
Thus far have we pursued our route, and seen all sorts of
marvellous sights, palaces, convents, &c.; which, being to be heard of in
my friend Hobhouse’s
LETTERS FROM BYRON. SPAIN. PORTUGAL. 163
Hodgson! send me the news, and Hobby’s Missellingany, and the deaths and defeats, and capital crimes, and the misfortunes of one’s friends, and the controversies and criticisms. All this will be pleasant, suave mari magno, &c. Talking of that, I have been sea-sick and sick of the sea. Adieu!
Alluding to these Spanish letters, Byron writes to Drury when on board the ‘Salsette’ frigate on his way from Smyrna to Constantinople.
Of Spain I sent some account to our Hodgson, but have subsequently written to no one save notes to relations and lawyers to keep them out of my premises. I mean to give up all connection, on my return, with many of my best friends, as I supposed them, and to snarl all my life. But I hope to have
1 The millionaire; author of Vathek, and other works. |
| 164 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
On the same voyage, when in the Dardanelles off Abydos, he writes to Hodgson a letter, extracts from which, although already in part published by Moore, will bear repetition.
I am on my way to Constantinople after a tour through Greece, Epirus, &c, and part of Asia Minor, some particulars of which I have just communicated to our friend and host H. Drury. With these, then, I shall not trouble you; but, as you will perhaps be pleased to hear that I am well, &c., I take the opportunity of our ambassador’s return to forward the few lines I have time to despatch. . . .
I have lived a good deal with the Greeks, whose modern dialect I can
converse in enough for my purposes. With the Turks I have also some male acquaintances;
female society is out of the question. I have been very well treated by the Pashas and
Governors, and have no complaint to make of any kind. Hobhouse will one day inform you of all our adventures. Were I to
attempt the recital,
| GREECE. TURKEY. | 165 |
Of my return I cannot positively speak, but think it probable Hobhouse will precede me in that respect. We have been very nearly one year abroad. I should wish to gaze away another at least in these evergreen climates; but I fear business —law business, the worst of employments—will recall me previous to that period, if not very quickly. If so, you shall have due notice. I am very serious and cynical, and a good deal disposed to moralise; but, fortunately for you, the coming homily is cut off by default of pen, and defection of paper.
| 166 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
Good morrow! If you write, address to me at Malta, whence your letters will be forwarded. You need not remember me to anybody, but believe me yours with all faith,
The postscript to this letter, which has never hitherto been published, was written on May 15, 1810, immediately after his arrival at Constantinople.
P.S.—My dear H.,—The date of my postscript will
‘prate to you of my whereabouts.’ We anchored between the Seven
Towers and the Seraglio on the 13th, and yesterday settled ashore. The
ambassador is laid up; but the secretary does the honours of the palace, and we
have a general invitation to his table. In a short time he has his leave of
audience, and we accompany him in our uniforms to the Sultan, &c., and in a
few days I am to visit the Captain Pasha with the commander of our frigate. I
have seen enough of their Pashas already; but I wish to have a view of the
Sultan, the last of the Ottoman race. Of Constantinople you have Gibbon’s description, very correct as
far as I have seen. The mosques I shall have a firman to visit. I shall most
probably (Deo volente), CONSTANTINOPLE. 167
In a letter to Drury, written on the 17th of the next month, Byron writes:—
And Hodgson has been publishing more poesy. I wish he would send me his ‘Sir Edgar’ and Bland’s ‘Anthology’ to Malta, whence they will be forwarded. . . . I wish you would write. I have heard from Hodgson frequently.
And on July 4, 1810, he writes from Constantinople as follows:—
| 168 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
My dear Hodgson,1—Twice have I written—once in answer to your last, and a former letter when I arrived here in May. That I may have nothing to reproach myself with, I will write once more—a very superfluous task, seeing that Hobhouse is bound for your parts full of talk and wonderment. My first letter went by an ambassadorial express; my second by the ‘Black John’ lugger; my third will be conveyed by Cam, the miscellanist. I shall begin by telling you, having only told it you twice before, that I swam from Sestos to Abydos. I do this that you may be impressed with proper respect for me, the performer; for I plume myself on this achievement more than I could possibly do on any kind of glory, political, poetical, or rhetorical. Having told you this I will tell you nothing more, because it would be cruel to curtail Cam’s narrative, which, by-the-bye, you must not believe till confirmed by me, the eye-witness. I promise myself much pleasure from contradicting the greatest part of it. He has been plaguily pleased by the intelligence contained in your last to me respecting the reviews of his hymns. I refreshed him with that paragraph immediately, together with the tidings of my own third edition,
1 This letter has never been published. |
| ANTICIPATED RETURN. | 169 |
The Russians and Turks are at it, and the Sultan in person
is soon to head the army. The Captain Pasha cuts off heads every day, and a
| 170 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
Good night, dear H. I have crammed my paper and crave your indulgence. Write to me at Malta.
During an excursion in the Morea, which occupied the next few months, Lord Byron was attacked by a fever, which nearly proved fatal, at Patras near Missolonghi, where, fourteen years afterwards, he died of a similar complaint. On his partial recovery he wrote to Hodgson a letter dated Patras, Morea, Oct. 3, 1810, which is so illustrative of the intimacy then existing between them, and in many ways so characteristic of the writer, that its previous publication by Moore does not preclude the interest which the insertion of extracts from it here can hardly fail to excite.
| SERIOUS ILLNESS. | 171 |
As I have just escaped from a physician and a fever, which confined me five days to bed, you won’t expect much ‘allegrezza’ in the ensuing letter. In this place there is an indigenous distemper, which, when the wind blows from the Gulf of Corinth (as it does five months out of six), attacks great and small, and makes woful work with visiters (sic). Here be also two physicians, one of whom trusts to his genius (never having studied); the other to a campaign of eighteen months against the sick of Otranto, which he made in his youth with great effect. When I was seized with my disorder, I protested against both these assassins; but what can a helpless, feverish, toast-and-watered poor wretch do? . . . In this state I made my epitaph—take it:—
Youth, Nature, and relenting Jove, To keep my lamp in strongly strove; But Romanelli was so
stout, He beat all three—and blew it out. |
Since I left Constantinople I have made a tour of the Morea, and
visited Veley Pasha, who paid me great honours,
and gave me a pretty stallion.
| 172 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
I have been out fifteen months this very day, and I believe my
concerns will draw me to England very soon; but of this I will apprise you regularly
from Malta. On all points Hobhouse will inform
you, if you are curious as to our adventures. I have seen some old English papers up to
the 15th of May. I see the ‘Lady of the
Lake’ advertised. Of course it is in his old ballad style, and pretty.
| EXPECTED MEETING. | 173 |
Dear H., remind Drury that I am his well-wisher, and let Scrope Davies be well affected towards me. I look forward to meeting you at Newstead, and renewing our old champagne evenings with all the glee of anticipation. I have written by every opportunity, and expect responses as regular as those of the Liturgy, and somewhat longer. As it is impossible for a man in his senses to hope for happy days, let us at least look forward to merry ones, which come nearest to the other in appearance if not in reality; and in such expectations I remain, &c.
Having returned to his head-quarters at Athens, where he lived in the Franciscan Monastery, as afterwards at Venice with the Armenians, Byron wrote again to his only English correspondent on November 14, 1810.
My dear Hodgson,1—This will arrive with an English servant whom I send homewards with some papers
1 This letter has not before been published. |
| 174 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
| VARIOUS ADVENTURES IN THE EAST. | 175 |
If anybody honours my name with an inquiry, tell them of
‘my whereabouts,’ and write if you like it. I am living alone in
the Franciscan Monastery with one Friar (a Capucin of
course) and one Frier (a bandy-legged Turkish cook), two
Albanian savages, a Tartar, and a Dragoman: my only Englishman departs with
this and other letters. The day before yesterday, the Waynode (or Governor of
Athens) with the Mufti of Thebes (a sort of Mussulman Bishop) supped here with
the Padre of the Convent, and my Attic feast went off with great eclât. I
have had a present of a stallion from the Pasha of the Morea. I caught a fever
going to Olympia. I was blown ashore on the Island of Salamis, in my way to
Corinth through the Gulf of Ægina. I have kicked an Athenian postmaster, I
have a friendship with the French Consul and an
| 176 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
From the ‘Volage’ frigate, at sea, June 29, 1811, Byron writes his last letter before reaching England, in a strain of sadness half real and half assumed.
In a week, with a fair wind, we shall be at Portsmouth, and
on the 2nd of July I shall have completed (to a day) two years of
peregrination, from which I am returning with as little emotion as I set out. I
think, upon the whole, I was more grieved at leaving Greece than England, which
I am impatient to see, simply because I am tired of a long voyage. Indeed, my
prospects are not very pleasant. Embarrassed in my private affairs, indifferent
to public, solitary without the wish to be social, with a body a little
enfeebled by a succession of fevers, but a spirit, I trust, yet unbroken, I am
returning home without a hope, and almost without a desire. The first thing I
shall have to encounter will be a lawyer; the next a creditor; then colliers,
farmers, surveyors, and all the agreeable attachments to estates out of repair,
FRIENDLY INTEREST OF BYRON. 177
I trust to meet or see you, in town, or at Newstead,
whenever you can make it convenient. I suppose you are in love and poetry as
usual. That husband, H. Drury, has never
written to me, albeit I have sent him more than one letter; but I daresay the
poor man has a family, and of course all his cares are confined to his circle.
I regretted very much in Greece having omitted to carry the ‘Anthology’ with me.
What has ‘Sir
Edgar’ done? And the ‘Imitations and Translations;’
where are they? I suppose you don’t mean to let the public off so easily,
but charge them home with a quarto. For me, I am sick of ‘fops, and
poesy, and prate,’ and shall leave ‘the whole Castalian
state’ to Bufo, or anybody
else. But you are a sentimental and sensibilitous person, and will rhyme to the
end of the chapter. Howbeit I have written some 4,000 lines, of one kind or
another, on my travels. I need not repeat that I shall be happy to see you. I
shall be in town about the
| 178 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
In his last letter from the ‘Volage’ frigate, off Ushant, he writes to Drury, and at the end remarks:—
Hodgson, I suppose, is four deep by this time. What would he have given to have seen, like me, the real Parnassus, where I robbed the Bishop of Chrissæ of a book of geography! But this I only call plagiarism, as it was done within an hour’s ride of Delphi.
It was about this time that Hodgson wrote one of those rhyming epistles to his friend, of which specimens have been already given.
|
While modern Greeks, the shadows of their sires,
Detain my Byron on that fabled
shore,
And cull faint murmurs from those sacred lyres
That thrill’d the bosom of the world of yore;
|
|
Home-keeping still on England’s happier plains,
To native beauty sounds my faithful lay;
While native beauty smiles upon my strains,
Why should I wish in Grecian woods to stray?
|
| MEETING IN LONDON. | 179 |
|
For genius high and cultured taste are here,
And all that Athens in her pride could boast;
The sage’s eye that scans the glittering sphere,
The patriot’s ardour in itself a host.
|
|
Return then, Byron, to this favour’d land,
For joy that flies thee cease in vain to roam;
What joy can dwell with Turkey’s slavish band?
Thy own time-honour’d Newstead calls thee home.
|
|
Those mouldering walls where Phidias triumphs
yet
(If safe from Elgin’s
sacrilegious guile),
Can e’en their beauty bid thy soul forget
Repentant Henry’s
consecrated pile?
|
|
Forget the scene, where loyal valour strove—
Forget the ranks where godlike Falkland died—
Forget the youthful scene of promised love,
Where love shall yet enjoy a fairer bride?
|
|
Return, my Byron; to Britannia’s fair,
To that soft pow’r which shares the bliss it yields;
Return to Freedom’s pure and vigorous air,
To Love’s own groves and Glory’s native fields.
|
About three weeks after the last of these letters was written the friends met in London; but their first meeting was interrupted by the arrival of other visitors, and Hodgson gave expression to the warmth of his feelings in the evening of the same day by the following cordial effusion:—
| 180 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
My dear B.,—We were interrupted this morning in our first interview; I wish to prolong it, so converse with me again.
|
Alone, my Byron, at Harrovian
springs—
Yet not alone—thy joyous Hodgson sings;
The welcome image of his friend’s return
Fills his reviving heart, and bids it cease to mourn.
O flow along, all unrestrain’d by art,
Thou glad effusion of that grateful heart;
Tell his recovered Byron, that once more
It burns to see him on his native shore.
It has not seen him yet! For who can know,
Disturb’d by common-place, that genuine glow
Uninterrupted friendship sweetly feels,
And wisdom from the world’s vain commerce steals?
First let inspiring Health, and patriot Pride,
Behold thee rank’d upon thy country’s side;
First let thy country’s foes severely feel
Thy caustic ardour for the general weal.
Spread, like a flame, my Byron, through the land
That natural warmth no scoundrel can withstand;
That blaze of light, which folly’s dearest shade
Shall feel its inmost fastnesses invade.
O’erthrow the bulwarks that corruption rears,
And from proverbial dulness rescue half thy peers!
Yet oh! while Virtue fires let Prudence guide,
Nor argue, when she hints, but then decide.
Sage that advice immortal Horace
gave,
‘Oft laughing wit excels reflection grave;’
Nor less divine that second maxim flows,
‘He writes the best who most correctly knows.’
|
| WISE COUNSEL | 181 |
|
He then shall speak, with Nature’s noblest
force,
Who, free from parliamentary remorse,
Untried, and pure, unpledged, and all his own,
By patient labour to full knowledge grown,
Shall weigh his country’s power by sea, by land,
Shall half the foe’s resources understand;
Shall smoothe advice with reconciling wit,
Athens! my Byron! Athens be thy aim!
Thy inspiration and thy guide to fame!
Not modern Athens—languid and impure,
Body and soul unworthy of a cure—
No, the fair land whose genius rose on high
Like yon Acropolis that mocks the sky;
The sky where earlier suns more proudly shone,
On old Piraeus, and old Marathon!
|
That they met again after a few days is shown by a note written next day to Drury, in which Hodgson says:—
Byron prevented me from coming to you
yesterday. He kept me so late in conversation, that I could get no farther than
Kilburn in my walk, and then really thought it safer to return. He will come to
you, if you can receive him, on Saturday next.
| 182 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
At the end of the month poor Byron, who had been reluctantly compelled to remain in town for the settlement of some legal and literary business, was suddenly summoned to Newstead by the serious illness of his mother, the news of whose death reached him on the road. Almost simultaneously with the announcement of this bereavement, he heard also of the deaths of his old Harrow schoolfellow Wingfield, and of one of his most cherished Cambridge colleagues, Charles Skinner Matthews, who was drowned while bathing in the Cam. Of this most melancholy catastrophe Drury wrote a graphic account immediately after its occurrence. Matthews was, as has been remarked, a young man of the greatest promise, and was a candidate for the representation of his University in Parliament at the ensuing election.
My dear Hodgson,—All the way from Puckeridge to-day I was conning an
extempore laughing epistle; but have been so shocked with the account of poor
Matthews’s death, though I
never saw him, DEATH OF MATTHEWS. 183
These are the facts. You know the fork above the mills, thus—
| [Figure Here.] |
1. Newnham mills. | 4. Spot where Matthews was drowned. |
2. Queen’s mills. | 5. Freshmen’s pool. |
3. Spot where Hart was bathing. | 6. Course of the river towards
Grandchester. |
| 184 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
| Byron’s First Will. | 185 |
Byron, as may well be imagined, was deeply affected by these successive shocks; and, becoming impressed with the idea that he was himself destined to die young, he made a will in which he bequeathed his
Household goods and furniture, library, pictures, sabres, watches,
plate, linen, trinkets, and other personal estate (except money and securities) to his
friends J. C. Hobhouse, S. B. Davies, and Francis
Hodgson, their executors, &c., to be equally divided among them for
their own use, requesting them to
| 186 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
On the 22nd of August he wrote a warm invitation to Newstead.
You will write to me? I am solitary, and I never felt solitude irksome before. Your anxiety about the critique on — —’s book is amusing; as it was anonymous, certes it was of little consequence. I wish it had produced a little more confusion, being a lover of literary malice. Are you doing nothing? writing nothing? printing nothing? Why not your ‘Satire on Methodism?’ The subject (supposing the public to be blind to merit) would do wonders. Besides, it would be as well for a destined deacon to prove his orthodoxy. It really would give me pleasure to see you properly appreciated. I say really, as, being an author, my humanity might be suspected.
Four days later than the date of the above, the following pathetic verses were despatched to Hodgson. It is strange indeed that they should never have
been previously published, as they must be admitted to be
| BYRON’S VERSES ON NEWSTEAD. | 187 |
|
I.
In the dome of my sires as the clear moonbeam falls
Through silence and shade o’er its desolate walls,
It shines from afar like the glories of old;
It gilds, but it warms not—’tis dazzling, but cold.
|
|
II.
Let the sunbeam be bright for the younger of days:
’Tis the light that should shine on a race that decays,
When the stars are on high and the dews on the ground,
And the long shadow lingers the ruin around.
|
|
III.
And the step that o’erechoes the gray floor of stone
Falls sullenly now, for ’tis only my own;
And sunk are the voices that sounded in mirth,
And empty the goblet, and dreary the hearth.
|
|
IV.
And vain was each effort to raise and recall
The brightness of old to illumine our hall;
And vain was the hope to avert our decline,
And the fate of my fathers has faded to mine.
|
|
V.
And theirs was the wealth and the fulness of fame,
And mine to inherit too haughty a name;
And theirs were the times and the triumphs of yore,
And mine to regret, but renew them no more.
|
| 188 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
|
VI
And Ruin is fixed on my tower and my wall,
Too hoary to fade, and too massy to fall;
It tells not of Time’s or the tempest’s decay,
But the wreck of the line that have held it in sway.
|
In answer to Drury’s letter respecting the death of Matthews, Hodgson writes from the house of his uncle Mr. Coke, in Herefordshire, on September 1, 1811.
My dear Drury,—I send this to Walkerne, as I conclude you will have returned ‘domum atque dulces liberos.’ I have to thank you very much for your circumstantial letter concerning poor Matthews. It was unfortunate that I did not know Tom Hart was present at his death; as I fear, by expressing what the wrong report in the newspapers suggested to many readers, I ignorantly offended him. I am truly sorry for the occasion, and trust he will as soon recover his spirits as can be expected after such an accident. He was sure to exert himself to the utmost.
Your ‘Fen Gazette’ also reached me and caused
a hearty laugh. I ought to have acknowledged both these letters before. But our
engagements in this country are most numerous. So much so, indeed, that I have
been forced to neglect all my LETTER TO DRURY. 189
How joyous is Bland’s return! I have just heard from my cousin that he arrived (on the 20th I think) at Deal, in a licensed vessel, with a French passport. How he managed this I have yet to learn; but it is a most glorious escape. I hear he is looking uncommonly well, and is in very good spirits.
I have heard from Byron, who is at Newstead. The deaths of his mother and of his friend Matthews seemed to press heavily upon him. He tells me that a prosecution for a libel, published against him (in the ‘Scourge’), is in the Attorney-General’s hands, and will be brought forward in November. He begs me to come to Newstead—which I should much like to do—but I must first attend my mother to Bath or London, whichever she fixes upon. In October Byron talks of coming to Cambridge to see Davies 1—of course I should rejoice to receive him there. You must tell me in your next your fen party. The good news about poor Hawtrey is delightful.
| 190 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
My best and kindest regards to Mrs. D. The bell tolls for breakfast, and another will soon toll for church. So adieu!
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