LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
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Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries
Preface
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Preface
Lord Byron.
Mr. Moore.
Mr. Shelley. With a Criticism on his Genius.
Mr. Keats. With a Criticism on his Writings.
Mr. Dubois. Mr. Campbell. Mr. Theodore Hook. Mr. Mathews. Messrs. James & Horace Smith.
Mr. Fuseli. Mr. Bonnycastle. Mr. Kinnaird.
Mr. Charles Lamb.
Mr. Coleridge.
Recollections of the Author’s Life.
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LORD BYRON
AND
SOME OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES;
WITH
RECOLLECTIONS OF

THE AUTHOR’S LIFE,
AND OF HIS
VISIT TO ITALY.


BY LEIGH HUNT.

“It is for slaves to lie, and for freemen to speak truth.

“In the examples, which I here bring in, of what I have heard, read, done, or said, I have forbid myself to dare to alter even the most light and indifferent circumstances. My conscience does not falsify one tittle. What my ignorance may do, I cannot say.”       Montaigne.






LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1828.
PREFACE.

The reader will oblige me by letting me explain to him, how it is that the volume here offered to his perusal, came to be what it is. I think it due to myself to make the explanation; and as a conscientious reader of the prefaces of other men, I may request his indulgence without scruple.

The work was originally intended to be nothing but a selection from the Author’s writings, preceded by a biographical sketch. I engaged for it, together with another work, as soon as I returned to England: but the delight of finding myself among my old scenes and friends, the prospect of better health and resources, the feeling of the first taste of comfort (a novelty unknown for years), and the very dread of seeing this new piece of rose-colour in my existence vanish before the re-exertion of my brain and the ink-spots it produces between me and the sun,—all conspired with bad habits of business and the sorriest arithmetic, to make me avail myself unawares of the handsome treatment of my publisher, and indulge in too long a holiday. I wrote, but I wrote little: I had not even yet learned how
ivPreface
much I might have done with that little, if done regularly; and the consequence was, that time crept on, uneasiness returned, and I found myself painfully anxious to show my employer how much I would fain do for him. The worst of it was, that the sick hours which I dreaded on a renewal of work, returned upon me, aggravated by my not having dared to encounter them sooner; and my anxieties became thus increased. I wished to make amends for loss of time: the plan of the book became altered; and I finally made up my mind to enlarge and enrich it with an account of
Lord Byron.

It had been wondered, when I returned to England, how it was that I did not give the public an account of my intimacy with Lord Byron. I was told that I should put an end to a great deal of false biography, and do myself a great service besides. My refusal of this suggestion will at least show, that I was in no hurry to do the work for my own sake; and to say the truth, it would never have been done at all, but for the circumstances above-mentioned. I must even confess, that such is my dislike of these personal histories, in which it has been my lot to become a party, that had I been rich enough, and could have repaid the handsome conduct of Mr. Colburn with its proper interest, my first impulse on finishing the work would have been to put it in the fire. Not that I have not written it conscientiously, and that it is not in every respect fit to appear; but it has long ceased to be within my notions of what is necessary for society, to give an unpleasant account of any man; and as to my own biography, I soon became tired of that. It is true, I should have entered into it in
vPreface
greater detail, and endeavoured to make the search into my thoughts and actions of some use, seeing that I had begun it at all; but I was warned off of this ground as impossible on account of others, and gladly gave it up. The Byron part of the work I could not so well manage.
What was to be told of the Noble Poet, involved of necessity a painful retrospect; and humanize as I may, and as I trust I do, upon him as well as every thing else,—and certain as I am, that although I look upon this or that man as more or less pleasant and admirable, I partake of none of the ordinary notions of merit and demerit with regard to any one,—I could not conceal from myself, on looking over the manuscript, that in renewing my intercourse with him in imagination, I had involuntarily felt a re-access of the spleen and indignation which I experienced, as a man who thought himself ill-treated. With this, to a certain extent, the account is coloured, though never with a shadow of untruth; nor have I noticed a great deal that I should have done, had I been in the least vindictive, which is a vice I disclaim. If I know any two things in the world, and have any two good qualities to set off against many defects, it is that I am not vindictive, and that I speak the truth. I have not told all: for I have no right to do so. In the present case it would also be inhumanity, both to the dead and the living. But what I have told, is not to be gainsaid. Perhaps had I felt Lord Byron’s conduct less than I did, I should have experienced less of it. Flattery might have done much with him; and I felt enough admiration of his talents, and sympathy with his common nature, to have given him all the
viPreface
delight of flattery without the insincerity of it, had it been possible. But nobody, who has not tried it, knows, how hard it is to wish to love a man, and to find the enthusiasm of this longing worse than repelled. It was the death of my friend
Shelley, and my own want of resources, that made me add this bitter discovery to the sum of my experience. The first time Lord Byron found I was in want, was the first time he treated me with disrespect. I am not captious: I have often been remonstrated with for not showing a stronger sense of enmity and ill-usage: but to be obliged, in the common sense of the word, and disobliged at the same time, not only in my reasonablest expectations, but in the tenderest point of my nature, was what I could not help feeling, whether I had told the world of it or not. Besides, Lord Byron was not candid with me. He suffered himself to take measures, and be open to representations, in which I was concerned, without letting me know; and I know of no safety of intercourse on these terms, especially where it should be all sincerity or nothing.

Nevertheless, I subscribe so heartily to a doctrine eloquently set forth* by Mr. Hazlitt,—that whatever is good and true in the works of a man of genius, eminently belongs to and is a part of him, let him partake as he will of common infirmities,—that I cannot without regret think of the picture I have drawn of the infirmities of Lord Byron, common or uncommon, nor omit to set down

* In the “Plain Speaker,” vol. ii. p. 418.

viiPreface
this confession of an unwilling hand. Fecit mœrens. Let it be turned against myself, if it ought. The same may be said of my remarks on
Mr. Hazlitt.* If no man reduces himself to a greater necessity for it than he, by the waywardness and cruelty of his temper, no man deserves it more for the cuts and furrows which his temper ploughs in his own face, and the worship which he pays to truth and beauty when it is not upon him. When we see great men capable of being inhuman in some things, when they are all over humanity in others, and add to the precious stock of human emotion, one is frightened to think what mistakes we may commit in our own self-knowledge. I, for one, willingly concede that the reader may know me better than myself, and punish me in his thought accordingly. Let me have only the benefit of the concession. I have been forced to give up, in my time, too many dreams of self-love, to deny myself the consolation of candour.

The account of Lord Byron was not intended to stand first in the book. I should have kept it for a climax. My own reminiscences, I fear, coming after it, will be like bringing back the Moselle, after devils

* Since writing this Preface, the article here alluded to has been omitted, though not on Mr. Hazlitt’s account, or my own; for however I might regret speaking disagreeable truths of any man, much more of one whose unquestionable love of truth would have reconciled him to the hearing them, the article had quite enough of what was panegyrical in it to do him justice. But more readers might have mistaken the object of it, than was desirable; and Mr. Hazlitt is ready enough, at all times, to save others the necessity of exhibiting his defects. Twenty such articles would not have put an end to the good understanding between us; so genuine indeed is his love of truth, violently as his passions may sometimes lead him to mistake it.

viiiPreface
and Burgundy. Time also, as well as place, is violated; and the omission of a good part of the autobiography, and substitution of detached portraits for inserted ones, have given altogether a different look to the publication from what was contemplated at first. But my publisher thought it best; perhaps it is so; and I have only to hope, that in adding to the attractions of the title-page, it will not make the greater part of the work seem unworthy of it.






ILLUSTRATIONS.
PORTRAIT OF LORD BYRON TO FACE THE TITLE.
FAC-SIMILES of the HANDWRITING of LORD BYRON, MR. SHELLEY, and MR. KEATS TO FACE PAGE        1
PORTRAIT of the COUNTESS GUICCIOLI 39
PORTRAIT of MR. KEATS 246
PORTRAIT of MR. CHARLES LAMB 296
PORTRAIT of MR. LEIGH HUNT 305