Published under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License
Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org
All the world, talkers, readers, blue-stockings, and all, have long
since made up their minds about the subject of
All this, however, “argued a foregone conclusion,” for, lover of
eccentricities as a man may be, there are obvious inconveniences in their pursuit which
probably save the world from being often perplexed by a career of this inveterate opposition to
public tastes. l.; of which l. a year. There, unquestionably, too, was madness
in the line.
The poet’s mother was married in 1785; and he was born, in Holles-street,
London, on the 22nd of January, 1788. The head of the line was in the
very remote relation,
as the biographer emphatically remarks, seems to have been for some time the only substitute
for the “troops of friends” that generally make a young lord buoyant on the St.
James’s tide. If ennui, which is to be found in prussic acid or the pistol.
But he was intended by nature for a poet. And every step of his career was by a
strong necessity ordered for his future eminence. His foot, his disease, the desertion of all
other society, and the society of
Our theory is unquestionable, that the materiel of poetry exists in a thousand
minds for one that has the circumstances to bring it out; as every pebble contains fire, and
hit it but hard enough, gives it out too; but bury the flint in a slough, or polish it into the
ornament of a fair lady’s necklace, and it is equally beyond the chance of giving out
that spark, which if luckily placed, may blow up a house, a ship, or a
city. If entré
into the world preceded by the fair and the fond strewing his path with rose-buds, as is the
custom with young lords in general; if noble fathers had overwhelmed him with cards for their
banquets, and noble mothers speculated on him for their daughters, and noble misses
“fondly marked him for their own,
” what could he have been but what all
the tribe of heirs are? Where would have been his solitary hours of fierce musing, his
brilliant visions of vengeance, his
With seventy thousands a year, he would have been like Lord! and Heaven only knows how small a portion of human use,
good, or dignity, is concentred in the name. But it was otherwise decreed he was cast out into
the desert, to wander, like the demoniac, among the tombs; but there to harden himself against
the infirmities of nature, and defy the accidents of fortune; until, like the dæmoniac, a
mightier spirit stirred within him, and he raved against man in accents more than of man.
At length he was sent to Harrow, where he boasts of having hated the master,
small Latin and less Greek,
” and appears to have been
wise enough never, in after life, to have felt the slightest wish to burthen his memory with
either.
In this we allude to no one great school more than another. Their present masters, we take it for granted, make as good nonsense verses as any of those who have made nonsense verses before them. The old system is the sin. The national evil consists in giving ten years to what might be acquired in two; in the miserable abandonment of the young to their own extravagance, their own passions, and their own resentments; in the encouragment of tyranny by fagging; and in the general growth of selfishness, waste, and arrogance, by the allowed habits of those establishments, one and all.
The death of his grand uncle, the
The biographer’s anecdotes of the scenes between the son and the mother,
are sufficiently extraordinary. they were
known each to go privately, after one of those nights of dispute, to the
apothecary’s, anxiously inquiring whether the other had gone to
” After an uneasy sojourn at Harrow, he went to
Cambridge, where he amused himself according to his whim; bred up a bear, which he pronounced
that he kept to sit for a fellowship; and published his first volume of poems by a
“Minor.” purchase poison!
Here his life was like that of his contemporaries, and he suitably begins one of
his letters with “My dear
” Moore in his note animadverts upon
“Hazard, I take up my pen.that sort of display and boast of rakishness, which is but too common a folly at
this period of life. Unluckily, this boyish desire of being thought worse than he really
was, remained with Lord Byron, as did some other failings and foibles of his boyhood, long
after the period when with others they are past and forgotten.
”
A villainous chaos of dice and drunkenness, nothing but hazard and
Burgundy, hunting, mathematics and Newmarket, riot and racing.
”
His tastes for adventure had now begun to take a form. “Next January,
(but this is
” He
finishes the letter by saying, that he has “entre nouswritten the first volume of a novel, and a
poem of 380 lines,
” which formed the ground work of the “
In his visits to London, about 1808, he became acquainted with the
”
Of this farrago, of displaying his wit at the expense of his
character;
” it must be recollected, that it was addressed to “one of
those officious, self-satisfied advisers, whom it was at all times the delight of
” It was one of
those “tricks with which through life, he amused himself at the expense of the
numerous
” So
much for the biographer’s homage to quacks, which his celebrity drew round him.
His first literary event was in 1808; the I am of so much
importance, that a most violent attack is preparing for me in the next number of the
”
The critique came out, and it vexed him for the moment. “A friend who
found him in the first moments of excitement, after reading the article, inquired
anxiously, whether he had just received a challenge!
” (By the by, not a very
complimentary question to his Lordship’s nerves.) But petto
At this time he writes to his friend
” He had the early fondness for travel natural to every body, boobies
and all. But his fondness was for regions beyond what the Travellers’ Club call
Postchaise-land. He longed to sun himself in India, or at least in Persia. But India, probably
as being the further off, was his favourite. He writes to his mother in 1808: “Entre nousI wish
you would inquire of
”
But first of the first, he was to bring out his
was smoothed down to coxcomb classic
a lame boy,
” and whom he continued to adopt as
beau ideal, or
commodious lay-figure to dress his future verses on.
bon vivant, an
oddity, a boxer, a rambler, and unhappily a boaster of atheism, gives this sketch in a letter
to a female correspondent:
“Ascend with me the hall steps, that I may introduce you to my lord and
his visitants. But have a care how you proceed: be mindful to go there in broad daylight,
and with your eyes about you. For, should you make any blunder, should yon go to the right
of the hall steps, you are laid hold of by a bear; and should you go to the left, your case
is still worse, for you run full against a wolf. Nor, when you have attained the door, is
your danger over; for, the hall being decayed, and therefore standing in need of repair, a
bevy of inmates are very probably banging at one end of it with their pistols; so that, if
you enter without giving loud notice of your approach, you have only escaped the wolf and
the bear, to expire by the pistol-shots of the merry monks of Newstead.
“Our party consisted of
parson! As for our way of living, the order of the day was generally
this: For breakfast we had no set hour, but each suited his own convenience every thing
remaining on the table till the whole party had done: though, had any one wished to
breakfast at the early hour of ten, one would have been lucky to find any of the servants
up. Our average hour of rising was one. I, who was generally up between eleven and twelve,
was always, even when an invalid, the first of the party, and was deemed a prodigy of early
rising. It was frequently past two before the breakfast party broke up. Then for the
amusements of the morning: there was reading, fencing, single-stick, or shuttlecock in the
great room; practising with pistols in the hall; walking, riding, cricket, sailing on the
lake, playing with the bear, or teasing the wolf. Between seven and eight we dined, and our
evening lasted from that time till one, two, or three, in the morning. The evening
diversions may be easily conceived.
“I must not omit the custom of handing round, after dinner, a human
scull, filled with Burgundy. After revelling on choice viands, and the finest wines of
France, we adjourned to tea, where we amused ourselves with reading or improving
conversation, each according to his fancy:
”
Gaming is a sort of apprentice fee, which all young men of rank, and multitudes
of no rank at all, pay for their entrance into that miserable and silly life called
fashionable. principle. “I have,
” says his journal, “a notion that
gamblers are as happy as many people, being always
” His lordship’s delicacy never
perceived that gambling is robbery, the taking the purse of some fool, foolish enough to risk
his money on the throw of a die: his sensibility felt too much, to feel the radical baseness of
the act of taking a man’s money out of his pocket, when, in nine instances out of ten,
the process was the direct road to his beggary and suicide. Gambling is the fashion, as all the
world knows; but it is impossible to connect the idea, in any instance, with dignity, feeling,
or delicacy of mind. It is the meanest form of avarice! excited. Women,
wine, fame, the table, even ambition, sate now and then. But every
turn of the card, and cast of the die, keeps the gamester alive: besides, one can game ten
times longer than one can do any thing else. I was very fond of it when young, that is to
say of Hazard, for I hate all card games, even Faro. When Macco (or however they spell it)
was introduced, I gave up the whole thing, for I loved and missed the rattle of the box and
dice, and the glorious uncertainty, not only of good luck or bad luck, but of any luck at
all, as one had sometimes to throw often to decide at all. I have thrown as many as
fourteen mains running, and carried off all the cash upon the table occasionally; but I had
no coolness, no judgment, no calculation.
He was now seriously bent on travel, as he says, “
” And concludes a letter on the subject by laughing at his friend
Vor all the world, like
”
From Falmouth he wrote an excellent song, which we do not recollect to have seen in any of his publications.
THE LISBON PACKET. Falmouth Roads, June30, 1809.Huzza, Hodgson ! we are going;Our embargo’s off at last; Favourable breezes blowing, Bend the canvas o’er the mast. From aloft the signal’s streaming— Hark! the farewell-gun is fired; Women screeching, tars blaspheming, Tell us that our time’s expired. There’s a rascal, Come to task all Prying from the Custom-house! Trunks unpacking, Cases cracking; Not a corner for a mouse ’Scapes unsearched amid the racket, Ere we sail on board The Packet!’ Now our boatmen quit their mooring, And all hands must ply the oar; Baggage from the quay is lowering; We’re impatient push from shore. “Have a care! that case holds liquor.”— “Stop the boat! I’m sick oh, Lord!”— “Sick, Ma’am? damme! you’ll be sicker Ere you’ve been an hour on board.” Thus are screaming Men and women, Gemmen, ladies, servants, Jacks; Here entangling, All are wrangling, Stuck together close as wax. Such the general noise and racket, Ere we reach The Lisbon Packet! Now we’ve reached her! Lo! the captain, Gallant Kidd , commands the crew;Passengers their berths are clapt in, Some to grumble, some to spew. “Heyday! call you that a cabin? Why, ’tis hardly three feet square— Not enough to stow Queen Mab in! Who the deuce can harbour there?”— “Who, Sir? plenty; Nobles twenty Did at once my vessel fill.”— “Did they? Jesus! How you squeeze us!— Would to God they did so still! Then I’d ’scape the heat and racket Of the good ship, Lisbon Packet! Fletcher !Murray !Bob ! where are you?Stretched along the deck like logs! Bear a hand, you jolly tar, you! Here’s a rope’s-end for the dogs. Hobhouse , muttering fearful curses,As the hatchway down he rolls; Now his breakfast, now his verses, Vomits forth, and damns our souls. Here’s a stanza On Braganza. “Help!” “A couplet?” “No, a cup Of warm water.”— “What’s the matter?”— “Zounds! my liver’s coming up: I shall not survive the racket Of this brutal Lisbon Packet!” Now at length we’re off for Turkey— Lord knows when we may come back; Breezes foul, and tempests murky, May unship us in a crack: But, since life at most a jest is, As philosophers allow, Still to laugh by far the best is; Then laugh on, as I do now. Laugh at all things, Great and small things, Sick or well, at sea or shore; While we’re quaffing, Let’s have laughing; Who the devil cares for more? Some good wine! and who would lack it, E’en on board The Lisbon Packet?
He landed at Lisbon, and rode through Spain to Cadiz. With Cadiz he was
delighted, for many reasons: the first of which he gives in the words, “Cadiz is a
complete
” This character of
the Spanish ladies was dashed off after a week’s acquaintance with a single town, on the
principle of Cythera. Many of the grandees who have left Madrid during
the troubles, reside here; and it is the prettiest and cleanest town in Europe. The Spanish
women are all alike,—their education the same. The wife of a duke is
in information as the wife of a peasant; the wife of a peasant is in manner equal to a
duchess. Certainly they are fascinating; but their minds have only one idea, and the
business of their lives is intrigue.
At Malta he met with
In his letters he keeps up a regular detail of his movements, with now and then an anecdote. The following is well told.
“You don’t know
”
After two years travel he returned, in 1811, and luckily escaped publishing a
“
He now, probably warned a little by the suddenness of this death, made his will, the most striking point of which is, his determination that nobody should mistake him for any thing but what he was.
“The body of
” ceremony or burial
service whatever, or any inscription, save his name and age. His dog not to be
removed from the vault.
So much for bravado; too boyish for Atheist, in
the album of Mont Blanc. The whole was vulgar bravado that was not content with being impious
unless all the world knew it; that felt insult to Heaven an empty indulgence, unless the insult
was blazoned to man; and that found its triumph in calling on society to stare at the courage
which could defy common sense, and outrage decent virtue. We are neither Methodists nor
Muggletonians, but we have knowledge enough of the
His next tidings were of the death of another atheist, his friend and other wild animals,
”
but over coffee; and the two poets became companions.
The warlike correspondence ended in an armistice, cemented at a dinner given by
that “ancient and loving grandmother, as
” in compliment to the country of his antagonist, and the qualities of his
host.
” Do read mathematics. I should think X plus Y, at least
as amusing as the
”
The initials comprehended the various names of d—mn’d, though yet alive.
” “Many an old fool,” said
His hits on character are in the highest spirit of that dash and rattle, which he loved. “very miserable dog for all that.
The present ministers are to continue, and his majesty does continue in the same state, so
there’s folly and madness for you, both in a breath.
“I never heard but of one man truly fortunate; and he was
”
His summer visits to the country seats gave him some insight into public
persons. At
” would be
applauded for the same thing twice over: he would read his own
verses, his own paragraphs, and tell his own story again and again; and then the
‘Trial by Jury:’ I almost wished it abolished, for I sat next him at
dinner.
Drury Lane having been burnt, for the ruin of
“I was applied to to write the
” His poem, after all, was good for nothing; but it was good enough for
the purpose. It produced, however, two good consequences, the “my
honour!the authors of the Rejected Addresses
” still put forth their
performances; and the display of
had the honour of a parody in the do?”
The
“I hear that a certain malicious publication on waltzing is attributed
to me. This report, I suppose, you will take care to contradict, as the author I am sure,
will not like that
” This, in a letter to the publisher himself, is rather amusing. I should wear his cap and
bells.
He and
”
“One day I saw him take up his ‘
”
“He told me, that on the night of the grand success of his ‘
”
“When dying, he was requested to undergo an operation. He replied, that
‘
” he had already submitted to two, which were enough for one man’s
lifetime; having his hair cut, and sitting for his picture!
’
The biographer now comes to the
“It was at this time that
” They went together
to dine with regret to have to add, partly through my
means) with
The result of this acquaintance has been sufficiently known.
” In his poem, the “three to spare.
The “Chief Justice” was probably
blues. At the end of two years of this
foolish and trifling sentimentality, he was informed that he might make his proposals again.
“What an odd situation is ours,
” says not a spark of love on either side.
” The mode of making this overture
must be a pleasant discovery for the lady. His “memoranda” say, that a friend
advised him to take a wife, and mentioned one. It is really a
very pretty letter. It is a pity it should not go. I never read a prettier one.
”
“Then it shall go,
” said the fiat of his fate.
”
What wonder that this kind of marriage should have run into bickerings and
separation. The biographer throws no further light on the “mysterious
separation,
” of which all the world talked so much at the time. But the courtship was
a sufficient solution. The wife had taken, her steps in palpable defiance of her parents and
friends, and of course had nobody to thank for her subsequent ill-luck but herself. roué, and clearly a
troublesome companion for a fire-side. But all this the lady knew before; for the gentleman had
never made any concealment of his tastes; and she ought to have abided by them. was in the
” And as choice.blueism, a man who was proud of publishing his scorn of mankind and womankind, and
home and country, and the habits and principles of English life, she ought to have made up her
mind to go through with the affair. with all
faults,
” and her separation from him certainly threw the weight of blame on her
side.
The volume, on the whole, is amusing. tact from his mixture with the
race who are always talking about it—yet we miss this considerably in his determination to
insert every thing that dropped from religious notions in general, (which are
nonsense, much less remarkable for their novelty than their ostentatious emptiness, folly, and
ignorance,) ought to have been wholly omitted.
But, for the one grand merit of impartiality, the biographer may claim universal
praise. He lets out the facts, be they what they will, and run a muck at
whom they may. The following anecdote from one of
“
” bookseller! has been cruelly cudgelled of misbegotten
knaves, in ‘Kendal-green,’ at Newington Butts, in his way home from a purlieu
dinner, and robbed would you believe it? of three or four bonds of forty pounds a-piece,
and a seal ring of his grandfather’s, worth a million. This is his version; but
others opine that injuria
formæ
Nothing is said in this volume, that we can discover, of the famous l.,” at the desire of l.,” but clearly amounting
to a close detail of almost every transaction of his mind or body. So much the better, we say.
The MS. ought not to have been burned; though, from the superfluity of Journalising, nothing
may have been lost by its mounting to that lunar region where
Of