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Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org
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Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit .
Anecdotes of the late
Of the late
To possess such an unfailing source of merriment is a perilous temptation to its
abuse; but he was too polite and kind-hearted to give unnecessary pain to any one, and
knowing his mirth-provoking weapon to be irresistible, wielded it charily and
considerately. Properly jealous of his great conversational talent, in which few men
exceeded him, I have known him resist every solicitation to mimetic display, especially in
great houses, if he had any reason to suspect that he had been invited, like Samson, to
make sport for the Philistine lords. So well was he aware that “a jest’s
prosperity lies in the ear of him who hears it,” that an evidently uncongenial
company would seal his mouth for a whole evening; while to an audience that could
appreciate and laugh heartily at his waggery, he would pour forth its inexhaustible stores
without solicitation or stint.
This was eminently the case at our Noctes
Sydenhamicæ
His many bodily infirmities, and more especially the sad accident that lamed
him for life, had tended to irritate a temper which his extreme sensitiveness sometimes
rendered touchy, though his nature was always kind and genial. Among his little prandial peculiarities was a vehement objection to mock-turtle soup,
on account of some unwholesome ingredient with which, as he asserted, it was usually
thickened. Once I met him at a party where several servants in succession having offered
him a plate of his “pet abhorrence,” he at length lost patience, uttered an
angry “No, I tell you!” and petulantly tossing up his elbow at the same
time, upset a portion of the rejected compound upon his sleeve. Next day I again
encountered him at dinner, when he related what had occurred, exclaiming, “I am
delighted beyond measure that my coat is spoiled; I have locked it up; I wouldn’t
have it cleaned for twenty pounds; call to-morrow, and I’ll show you the sleeve;
it stands of itself, stiff as the arm of a statue. You wouldn’t believe mo when I
told you, on good authority, that the lawyers sold all their old parchments to the
pastry-cooks, to make some villanous stuff called glaize or gelatine, or in plain
English
glue, out of which they manufacture jelly, or sell it to
our poisoning cooks who put it into their mock-turtle, ‘to make the gruel thick
and slab.’”
“I have heard of a man eating his own words,” said
acts and deeds.”
“He may, he may!” cried will in my stomach, which renders it so insubordinate to my own will; I myself
love roast pork and plum-pudding, but this alien will, transferred from some lawyer’s
office to my intestines, will not allow me to digest them. You have heard of the fellow
with a bad asthma who exclaimed, ‘If once I can get this troublesome breath out of my
body, I’ll take good care it shall never get in again;’ and I may well say the
same of this parchment usurper who has taken possession of my stomach. How he got there is
the wonder, for years have elapsed since I swallowed glue—I mean jelly or
mock-turtle.”
Grievously was he annoyed by the lateness of the dinners, whereby people
condemned themselves to two or three previous dark and idle hours of intolerable ennui. These dark hours, indeed, constituted his bête noire
“Now a days,” I once heard him say, “I never know at what hour I may expect to get any thing to eat; but last week I was informed to a minute when I could not get a mouthful. While posting to Liverpool, where I had an appointment to attend a rehearsal, the sharp air made me uncommonly hungry, and as I perceived a decent road-side inn, with the landlord standing at the door, I told the postilion to draw up, and called out from the window of the chaise,
“‘Landlord, have you got any thing hot in the house?’
“‘No, sir.’
“‘Any thing cold in the house?’
“‘No, sir.’
“‘The deuce! what then have you got in the house?’
“‘An execution, sir.’
“‘Poor fellow, sorry for you. Drive on, postilion.’”
And this reminds me of another anecdote which—but if I run on in this manner I shall never have done, and I might unconsciously be repeating stories inserted in the delightful biography to which the reader has already been referred. An author’s vanity and a gray beard’s licence may, perhaps, plead my excuse when I state, in conclusion, that on the death of this unrivalled comedian and excellent man, I was honoured by an application from his family to write a poetical inscription for his tombstone in St. Andrew’s church, Plymouth; which melancholy duty I performed, and gave vent to my feelings of sorrow and respect in a subsequent and longer tribute to his memory.
The man of the highest literary eminence among the visitors to
Walking up Holborn-hill, he perceived that he had burst his boot, and as it
happened that the streets were rather wet, he turned into the first
“I beg your pardon, sir; I hope I am not taking too great a liberty; I would not
for the world be guilty of the smallest disrespect, but may I venture to inquire
whether I have the honour of seeing in my shop the
celebrated
“My dear friend,” said the bard, in relating this anecdote to me, “I
have heard so little lately of my literary reputation, for people have almost forgotten
the ‘
“‘I don’t exactly know whom you mean by the
celebrated
“‘Oh, sir,’ cried the fellow, ‘I meant
“An ignorant Muggletonian rascal!” ejaculated the bard, in narrating this
misadventure, “I’ll never buy another pair of boots of him as long as I
live.”
The poet’s residence among the grave Algerines did not destroy his taste for jocular quirks and quiddits, for he addressed from that quarter a poetical epistle to the writer of these notices, full of puns and verbal conceits, to one of which I remember his alluding after his return to England. A reference having been made to him upon some question of chronology, he exclaimed,
“That is a point upon which you should never apply to a Scotch
dates without the least
apparent inconvenience.”
I have heard him state, that when a child, knowing nothing of his animal
namesake, he felt offended at the association, on reading in the Old Testament, that
asses and camels,” but he probably did not expect this anecdote to be
taken au pied de la lettre
Though he did not affect the character of a professed wag, he would sometimes indulge a vein of quiet, caustic drollery that might well have entitled him to his diploma as a successful jester, one instance of which I cannot refrain from recording.
It may be in the recollection of my elderly readers that, early in the
career of
“Not one—not one—not one,” was assentingly echoed by three times as many loyal bibliopplists.
“Egad, gentlemen,” said the poet, with an arch smile, “I
cannot quite agree with ye. Ye seem, all of ye, to forget that he once shot a bookseller!”
Few writings have attained long endurance which have not required a length
of time for their composition; a literary as well as natural law seeming to require that
longevity should demand an extended period of gestation. An elephant is not prolific, but
its offspring outlives whole generations of the inferior animals whose incubation is of
more frequent recurrence. Drudges are manually and mechanically quick, because they are
intellectually slow; men of genius are tardy, because the fertility of their minds supplies
a superabundance of thought, and their high standard, of taste renders them fastidious in
the choice and perfection of their materials. Their’s is literally l’embarras des richesses
“My good friend,” he once said to me, “if an author does not go
forwards he goes backwards; the world will not suffer him to stand still. When he has a
hungry reputation to sustain, he is like a man with a ravenous beast in his house, he
must feed it, or it will prey upon its owner.”
With these feelings, he was the last man who should have undertaken, as he
did in two or three instances, to get up a book for the publishers, invitâ Mivervâ
“Confound the woman. I wish her career had not been so monotonous and so virtuous,
for it does not afford me any supplies, either of incident or of scandal; so that when
I once get her off the stage of the theatre, I have not a word more to say.”
A professed scribe would have dilated, to any extent, upon everything and
nothing, however irrelevant the matter; a substitution for genuine biography which
In ridicule of the imputed rareness and difficulty of his literary
parturition, more especially when the offspring of his throes was poetical, one of his
waggish friends used gravely to assert, that on passing his residence, at the time that he
was writing “
“Thank you, sir,” was the servant’s reply, “master is doing as
well as can be expected.”
“Good heavens! as well as can be expected! what has happened to him?”
“Why, sir, he was this morning delivered of a
couplet!”
With the enlarged and liberal feeling of all true poets, Timonise his spirit; but
whatever may have been the cause, the effect was visible enough when, in one of my visits
to the metropolis, I paid him my customary visit. Not without difficulty did I discover the
house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in which he had engaged a set of chambers. Various
names were written on the door-post, but not that of which I was in search. I wandered from
floor to floor with no better result; and at length I summoned the porteress from below,
who told me where to find the door of my friend’s apartment; adding, that he would
not have his name inscribed on it, because he did not want to be “bothered with
visitors.”
Undiscouraged by this warning, I ventured to knock at the portal, which was
opened by the bard himself, who welcomed me with his usual cheerful cordiality, though his
appearance led me to suspect that he was out of health and out of spirits. After the first
salutations had been exchanged, I made inquiry about the London University, knowing that he
had actively exerted himself in its establishment, though I was not aware that it was just
then involved in some little temporary difficulty. “My dear friend,” was his
reply, “don’t ask me a word about it. I never wish to hear its name
mentioned. Don’t ask me about any thing upon the success of which I have set my
heart, for you may be sure it’s a failure. All attempts at improving or
benefiting my fellow-creatures I have given up for ever. I have now had a pretty long
experience, and I have at length come to the conclusion—I wish I had done so
sooner— that our race is not destined to improve, even if it do not relapse into
comparative barbarism. Ay, you may shake your head; I know you are a sanguine believer
in a never-ceasing progress towards higher destinies; but for my own part I am
satisfied that man is an incorrigible rascal, whose innate brutality will ever
predominate over his modicum of rationality.”
After he had run on in this strain for some time, I ventured to protest
against his disparaging and gloomy views, predicting that they
“Oh, I am at no loss for much better society than the world can give me,”
was his reply; “come hither and see what a charming companion I have.”
So saying, he led me up to an oil-painting, of the size of life, representing a handsome gipsy girl, the work, as he informed me, of a Polish emigrant. In an enthusiastic and excited tone, he proceeded to give me the history of the picture, evidently quite unconscious of the hallucination the following narrative betrayed:—
“I was walking down Great Queen-street, when I saw this beautiful creature in a
broker’s shop, gazing upon me with such a friendly smile, that I instantly stood
transfixed. So much was I smitten with the painting, that I inquired the price, but
finding that it was forty guineas, much more than I could afford to give, I uttered a
deep sigh, and walked on to Long Acre. But the gipsy was still before me, smiling at me
as I proceeded, and thus she continued to bless me with her lovely presence, until I
reached my home. Even in the darkness of night it was just the same. I could not sleep,
because those beautiful eyes were still benignly fixed upon mine; and in the morning I
asked myself, why I should be made miserable by not possessing that which forty guineas
would obtain. I procured the money, accordingly, hurried to secure my
beauty—there she is—and I would not take a thousand guineas for her! See
how she smiles upon me! so she does in whatever part of the room I may be placed, and
even when I quit the room. How can I be solitary with such a sweet companion? I talk to
her constantly, and she always gives me a gracious reply. You laugh, and I don’t
wonder. Mark you, I don’t say that you, or any one else, can hear her mellifluous
voice; but I do, and that is quite enough to make her society charming, and more than
enough to supply the place of all other companionship.”
Seeing that it would be difficult, and, perhaps, hardly desirable to dispel
an illusion which had a peculiar charm for his imaginative mind, I did not attempt to
combat it, and willingly admitted the great beauty of his canvas innamorata. How long this species of nympholepsy lasted, I cannot say; I was told
he had completely chased away the vaporous clouds by which his fine mind had been
depressed, but one subsequent return of his hypochondria fell within my own immediate
cognisance.
From time to time he would run down to the provincial town in which I
reside, on which occasions he passed the greater part of the day with me as long as he
remained. One afternoon he made his appearance, evidently in deep dejection of spirits,
telling me that he had given up his chambers, and after having tied up all his money,
between one and two hundred pounds, intending to bring it with him, he had ensconced
himself and his valise in the stage-coach, for the purpose of paying me a visit. When the
coach arrived at Reigate, he suddenly recollected that he had left his money-bag on the
table of his bed-room, whereupon he jumped instantly out, ordered a post-chaise, urged the
postilion to drive as fast as possible, sped back to London, and had the satisfaction to
find that the landlady had found and carefully locked up his treasure. The worthy dame,
after having made him count it over in her presence, to be sure that nothing had been
abstracted, again tied it up, secured it in his
“And why, in the name of wonder,” I demanded, “did you not pay it into your banker’s? and for what earthly purpose can you have come hither with so large a sum of money?”
“Pay it into my banker’s!” exclaimed the poet, “why, my good
friend, I have just drawn it out. As to my purpose in doing so, I will disclose it to
you; but I do so in confidence. The fact is that I shall
stay here for some time: I have secured capital apartments at the hotel; I shall live
handsomely until the money is all gone; I shall then take advantage of some fine
morning to go out in a boat, as if for the purpose of fishing; and when we are at a
sufficient distance from land, I have made up my mind to jump overboard, that I may
take my leave for ever of a good-for-nothing and ungrateful world, which no
philanthropist can improve, and which no gentleman can wish to live in—I beg your
pardon; you are willing, I believe, to take a prolonged lease of life: I am tired of
mine, and care not how soon I get rid of it.”
I treated this as a joke, or as the splenetic effusion of the minute; but his look and manner evinced a seriousness that pained and alarmed me. A few post-prandial glasses of wine, however, so completely chased away his blue devils, that he quickly became too much elevated in spirits to be quite guarded in his language; and subsequent meetings gave me occasion to observe, that very slight potations disturbed the equipoise of his mind. Bracing air, change of scene, and a little cheerful society, having cured his morbid despondency, he returned to London in a few days, with his health invigorated, and his money-bag unemptied.
The last time I encountered my friend was at his own house in Victoria-square, Pimlico, where he took great delight in showing me his library,—a projecting skylight room, built at the back of the premises.
“This is much better than your study,” he said, rubbing his hands; “a
library should be always lighted in this way; first, because it gives you the command
of the whole wall for your books; and secondly, because, instead of being tempted to
sit at the window, and look out upon living knaves and fools, you hold uninterrupted
communion with the surrounding spirits of departed sages and philanthropists; or if you
look upwards, you gaze out upon the pure and glorious heavens.”
It will be seen that there was still a touch of misanthropy in his language;
but it was literally a façon de parler
Summoned to attend his burial, I performed the melancholy duty of following
this eminent bard and distinguished man to his last, and most appropriate resting-place in
the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey. His funeral suggested to me a short poem,
with the last stanza of which I will conclude this brief and slight notice of
To me, the humblest of the mourning band, Who knew the bard thro’ many a changeful year, It was a proud, sad privilege to stand Beside his grave, and shed a parting tear. Seven lustres had he been my friend, Be that my plea when I suspend This all-unworthy wreath on such a poet’s bier.