This work had proceeded thus far, when it pleased God to stop the pen of the writer, and bid to cease the current of recollections which had set it in motion. Mr. Dallas had been attacked, in the month of July*, with an inflammatory fever, for which copious bleeding was necessary: he recovered indeed from the immediate disease, but the debility occasioned by the remedy was too great for his constitution to overcome, and he gradually sank under its effects. On the 21st of October, 1824, he expired. On his death-bed, and with a near view of eternity before him, which

* See Preliminary Statement.

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was brightened by the firm hope of its being passed in the presence of his reconciled Maker, he confided to the writer of the following pages the task of closing these Recollections, and imparted to him his feelings and opinions upon the matter which should compose this concluding chapter.

While executing this sacred commission, I intreat the reader to remember that it is not the same person who writes; and not only that the writer is different, but to call to mind that it is a son who takes up the mantle which a father has cast down in leaving this world. Whoever has perused the foregoing pages, cannot but feel that the author has borne a part in the circumstances which are related of so honourable a nature, that a son may be well authorised to speak in other terms than those which the person himself might use. And if, in any thing I may say, it should be

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thought that I have overstepped the reasonable licence which may be granted to the feelings of so near and dear a connexion, I trust that whatever may be counted as excess, will be pardoned in consideration of the fresh and powerful impulse which cannot but be given by the sense of so recent an event.

The character of Lord Byron, as it stands depicted in the preceding pages, will appear in a different light from that in which the public have recently been led to regard it. Piquant anecdotes, and scandalous chronicles, may serve to amuse for a time the unthinking; but their real tendency is to pander to the worst feelings ot our nature, by dragging into light the corruptions which disgrace humanity. It is not difficult to form an estimate of what Lord Byron might have been, by attending to the causes which made him what he was.

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To reason from hearsay, and form opinions upon the unauthenticated annals of common conversation, can never bring us to truth, nor give to our judgments sufficient certainty for practical purposes. It will therefore be useless to attempt to estimate Lord Byron’s original character from the events commonly related of his early life; nor to take into consideration the defects of his education, and the misfortunes of his boyhood. We have no authorized data upon which to conduct such an inquiry. But the pages of this book do contain authorized data. They contain opinions, and feelings, and facts, established by his own hand, although circumstances withhold from the British public the original records. These data will show us what he was, immediately before and immediately after the public development of his poetical powers had thrown him into a vortex which

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decided his character, whatever it might have been previously.

There might have been some difficulty in finding so reasonable a ground-work upon which to form an opinion of what he had continued to be in his subsequent progress through life; and the fairest inference would have been that which his own later productions afford, had not a work been published purporting to be the record of Conversations held with Lord Byron at Pisa, in the years 1821 and 1822. This book appeared on the very day on which my father’s remains were consigned to the grave, and I cannot be too thankful that he was spared the pain which he would have felt in reading it.

The perusal of this book rewards the reader, as he was rewarded who opened Pandora’s box. It fills the mind with an unvaried train of miserable reflections; but there is one consolation at the end. As by

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a mathematical axiom the lesser is contained in the greater, so the comparatively smaller crime of falsehood is necessarily within the capability of one so depraved as Lord Byron appears in this book; and by the same argument, the man whose mind could be in such a state as to suppose that he was doing “the world” and “the memory of Lord Byron” a service, by thus laying bare the degradation to which a master-mind was reduced, must surely be unable to restrain the tendency to exaggeration which would heighten the incredibility of what is already beyond belief. This opinion concerning the reporter of Lord Byron’s conversations is in some degree confirmed, by the simplicity which he displays in stating, that when Lord Byron was applied to for some authentic particulars of his life, his lordship asked the reporter himself, “Why he did not write some, as he believed that he knew more of

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him than any one else?” This was after three or four months’ acquaintance*!

In my own case, after reading the book to which I allude, this solitary consolation on account of Lord Byron was accompanied by a feeling of great satisfaction on account of my father; for, if its contents be not

* There are several things mentioned in this book of Conversations which prove, to say the least, that Lord Byron’s memory was not correct, if what is reported of him be true. On one occasion his lordship is stated to have said that his mother’s death was one of the reasons of his return from Turkey, and this is repeated more strongly in another place. His mother’s death did not take place until several weeks after his arrival in London, and he had not the slightest expectation of it when it happened. Lord Byron is also stated to have said, that after an absence of three years, he returned to London, and that the second canto of Childe Harold was just then published. The fact is, that he was absent two years to a day, which he remarked himself in a very strong manner, returning in July, 1811, and that the first and second cantos of Childe Harold were published together eight months after, in March, 1812, in the manner related in these Recollections.

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only the truth, but the whole truth, Lord Byron afforded the highest testimony of his respect for my father’s character, which in his unhappy situation he could possibly upon give. In such company, and conversing such subjects, he forbore to mention his name, although referring to matters upon which, the reader will have seen, it would have been natural to have spoken of him. I am willing to attribute this silence to the circumstance that, in Lord Byron’s mind, my father’s name must have been connected with the remembrance of all he had done, and said, and written, to turn him into the better path; and his Lordship could not have borne to recal that train of thought, after he had decidedly chosen the worse. That my father’s earnest exertions had been applied to this end, will sufficiently appear from the foregoing part of this work; and, perhaps, I shall be pardoned for inserting here the body of a letter

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which he wrote to Lord Byron at a much later period, to prove that he still retained that object in view. The letter is that alluded to in the last chapter, when, stating that he informed Lord Byron of his intention to leave a posthumous account of him, he extracted a short passage from it. The whole letter, which might not so well have been made public by the writer himself, cannot be considered as improperly published by the present Editor.

It was dated the 10th of November, 1819, and after some introductory remarks upon the cessation of his correspondence with Lord Byron, it proceeds as follows:—

Such was the affectionate interest with which the author of this letter continued

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to regard Lord Byron! But it was too late; he had hardened his heart, and blunted his perception of the real value of such a friend. This was the last communication that ever took place between them, although an accidental circumstance afforded the assurance that this letter had reached its destination.

To return to the original character of Lord Byron. Whoever has read these pages attentively, or has seen the original documents from whence they are drawn, cannot fail to have perceived, that in his Lordship’s early character there were the seeds of all the evil which has blossomed and borne fruit with such luxuriance in his later years. Nor will it be attempted here, to shew that in any part of his life he was without those seeds; but I think that a candid observer will also be ready to acknowledge, after reading this work, that there was an opposing principle of

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good acting in his mind, with a strength which produced opinions that were afterwards entirely altered. The coterie into which he unfortunately fell at Cambridge familiarized him with all the sceptical arguments of human pride. And his acquaintance with an unhappy atheist—who was suddenly summoned before his outraged Maker, while bathing in the streams of the Cam, was rendered a severe trial, by the brilliancy of the talent which he possessed, and which imparted a false splendour to the principles which he did not scruple to avow. Yet, when Lord Byron speaks of this man, as being an atheist, he considers it offensive;—when he remarks on the work of Mr. Townsend, who had attempted in the sketch of an intended poem to give an idea of the last judgment, he considered his idea as too daring;—in opening his heart to his mother he shows that he believed that God knew, and did all things for the

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best;—after having seen mankind in many nations and characters, he unrestrainedly conveys his opinion, that human nature is every where corrupt and despicable. These points are the more valuable, because they flowed naturally and undesignedly from the heart; while, on the contrary, his sceptical opinions were expressed only when the subject was before him, and as it were by way of apology.

When, in this period of his life, there is any thing like argument upon this subject, advanced by him in his correspondence, it is miserably weak and confused. The death of his atheistical friend bewildered him: he thought there was the stamp of immortality in all this person said and did—that he seemed a man created to display what the Creator could make—and yet, such as he was, he had been gathered into corruption, before the maturity of a mind that might have been the pride of posterity.

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And this bewildered him! If his opinion of his friend were a just one, ought not this reasoning rather to have produced the conviction, that such a mind could not be gathered into the corruption which awaited the perishable body? Accordingly, Lord Byron’s inference did not lead him to produce this death as a support to the doctrine of annihilation; but his mind being tinctured previously with that doctrine, he confesses that it bewildered him.

When about to publish Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, containing sceptical opinions, the decided expression of which he was then induced to withdraw, he wrote a note to accompany them, which has been inserted in this work. Its main object is to declare, that his was not sneering, but desponding scepticism—and he grounds his opinions upon the most unlogical deduction that could be formed: that, because he had found many people abuse and disgrace

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the religion they professed, that therefore religion was not true. This is like saying, that because a gamester squanders his guineas for his own destruction, they are therefore not gold, nor applicable for good purposes. Weak as this was, he called it an apology for his scepticism.

It cannot be said, that up to this period, Lord Byron was decidedly an unbeliever; but, on the contrary, I think it may be said, that there was a capability in his mind for the reception of Divine Truth,—that he had not closed his eyes to the light which therefore forced its way in with sufficient power to maintain some contest with the darkness of intellectual pride; and this opinion is strengthened, by observing the effects of that lingering light, in the colouring which it gave to vice and virtue in his mind. His conduct had been immoral and dissipated; but he knew it to be such, and acknowledged it in its true colours. He

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regretted the indulgence of his passions as producing criminal acts, and bringing him under their government. He expressed these feelings;—he did more, he strove against them. He scrupled not publicly to declare his detestation of the immorality which renders the pages of Mr. Moore inadmissible into decent society; and he severely satirizes the luxurious excitements to vice which abound in our theatrical importation of Italian manners*. When a circumstance occurred in which one of his tenants had given way to his passions, Lord Byron’s opinion and decision upon the subject were strongly expressed, and his remarks upon that occasion are particularly worthy of notice. He thought our first

* Then let Ausonia, skilled in every art To soften manners, but corrupt the heart, Pour her exotic follies o’er the town, To sanction vice, and hunt decorum down. English Bards.

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duty was not to do evil, though he felt that was impossible. The next duty was to repair the evil we have done, if in our power. He would not afford his tenants a privilege he did not allow himself.—He knew he had been guilty of many excesses, but had laid down a resolution to reform, and latterly kept it.

I mention these circumstances to call to the reader’s mind the general tenor of Lord Byron’s estimate of moral conduct, as it appears in the present work; because I think it may be said that he had a lively perception of what was right, and a strong desire to follow it; but he wanted the regulating influence of an acknowledged standard of sufficient purity, and, at the same time, established by sufficient authority in his mind. The patience of God not only offered him such a standard in religion, but kept his heart in a state of capability for receiving it. In spite of his many

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grievings of God’s spirit, still, it would not absolutely desert him as long as he allowed a struggle to continue in his heart.

But the publication of Childe Harold was followed by consequences which seemed to have closed his heart against the long-tarrying spirit of God, and at once to have ended all struggle. Never was there a more sudden transition from the doublings of a mind to which Divine light was yet accessible, to the unhesitating abandonment to the blindness of vice. Lord Byron’s vanity became the ruling passion of his mind. He made himself his own god; and no eastern idol ever received more abject or degrading worship from a bigotted votary.

The circumstances which have been detailed in this work respecting the publication of Childe Harold, prove sufficiently how decided and how lamentable a turn they gave to a character, which, though

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wavering and inconsistent for want of the guide I have referred to, had not yet passed all the avenues which might take him from the broad way that leadeth to destruction, into the narrow path of life. But Lord Byron’s unresisting surrender to the first temptation of intrigue, from which all its accompanying horrors could not affright him, seems to have banished for ever from his heart the Divine influence which could alone defend him against the strength of his passions and the weakness of his nature to resist them; and it is truly astonishing to find the very great rapidity with which he was involved in all the trammels of fashionable vice.

With proportionable celerity his opinions of moral conduct were changed; his power of estimating virtue at any thing like its true value ceased; and his mind became spiritually darkened to a degree as great perhaps as has ever been known to take

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place from the results of one step. Witness the course of his life at this time, as detailed in the conversations lately published, to which I have before alluded. Witness the fact of his being capable of detailing such a course of life in familiar conversation to one almost a stranger.

What must have been the change in that man who could at one time write these lines,—

Grieved to condemn, the muse must still be just, Nor spare melodious advocates of lust; Pure is the flame that o’er her altar burns, From grosser incense with disgust she turns; Yet kind to youth, this expiation o’er, She bids thee mend thy line, and sin no more—

and at another become the author of Don Juan, where grosser, more licentious, more degrading images are produced, than could have been expected to have found their way into any mind desirous merely of preserving a decent character in society;—than

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could have been looked for from any tongue not habituated to the conversation of the most abandoned of the lowest order of society? What must have been the change in him who, from animadverting severely upon the licentiousness of a village intrigue, could glory in the complication of crimes which give zest to fashionable adultery; and even in the excess of his glorying could forego his title to be called a man of honour or a gentleman, for which the merest coxcomb of the world will commonly restrain himself within some bounds after he has overstepped the narrower limits of religious restraint! For who can venture to call Lord Byron either one or the other after reading the unrestrained disclosures he is said, in his published Conversations, to have made, “without any injunctions to secrecy.” Who could have imagined that the same man who had observed upon the offensiveness of the expression of another’s irreligious

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principles, should ever be capable of offending the world with such awfully fearless impiety as is contained in the latter Cantos of Don Juan, and boldly advanced in Cain? Who can read, in his own handwriting, the opinion that a sublime and well intentioned anticipation of the Last Judgment is too daring, and puts him in mind of the line—

“And fools rush in where Angels fear to tread,”

and conceive that the same hand wrote his Vision of Judgment?

Yet such a change did take place, as any one may be convinced of, who will take the trouble to read the present work, and the Conversations to which I have alluded, and compare them together. For, let it be observed, that the few pages in the latter publication which refer to Lord Byron’s religious opinions, state only his old weak reasoning, founded upon the disunion of

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professing Christians, some faint, and, I may say, childish wishes; and a disowning of the principles of Mr. Shelley’s school. So also that solitary reference to a preparation for death, when death stood visibly by his bed-side ready to receive him, which is related by his servant,* and upon which I have known a charitable hope to be hung, amounts to just as much—an assertion. It can only be the most puerile ignorance of the nature of religion, which can receive assertion for proof in such a matter. The very essence of real religion is to let itself be seen in the life, when it is really sown in the heart; and a man who appeals to his assertions to establish his religious character, may be his own dupe, but can never dupe any but such as are like him—just as the lunatic in Bedlam may call himself a king,

* Lord Byron is stated to have said to his servant, “I am not afraid of dying—I am more fit to die than people think.”

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and believe it; but it is only those who are as mad as himself who will think themselves his subjects. There is no possibility of hermetically sealing up religion in the heart; if it be there it cannot be confined,—it must extend its influence over the principle of thought, of word, and of action.

When we see wonderful and rapid changes take place in the physical world, we naturally seek for the cause; and it cannot but be useful to trace the cause of so visible a change in the moral world, as that which appears upon the comparison I have pointed out. It will not, I think, be too much to say, that it took place immediately that the resistance against evil ceased in Lord Byron’s mind. Temptation certainly came upon him in an overpowering manner; and the very first temptation was perhaps the worst, yet he yielded to it almost immediately. I refer to the circum-

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stance recorded in these pages, which took place little more than a week after the first appearance of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, when he received an extraordinary anonymous letter, which led immediately to the most disgraceful liaison of which he has not scrupled to boast. There was something so disgusting in the forwardness of the person who wrote, as well as deterring in the enormity of the criminal excesses of which this letter was the beginning, that he should have been roused against such a temptation at the first glance. But the sudden gust of public applause had just blown upon him, and having raised him in its whirlwind above the earth, he had already began to deify himself in his own imagination; and this incense came to him as the first offered upon his altar. He was intoxicated with its fumes; and, closing his mind against the light that had so long

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crept in at crevices, and endeavoured to shine through every transparent part, he called the darkness light, and the bitter sweet, and said Peace when there was no Peace.

As long as Lord Byron continued to resist his temptations to evil, and to refrain from exposing publicly his tendency to infidelity, so long he valued the friendship of the author of the foregoing chapters, who failed not to seize every opportunity of supporting the struggle within him, in the earnest hope that the good might ultimately be successful. The contents of this book may give some idea of the nature and constancy of that friendship, and cannot fail of being highly honourable to its author, as well as of reflecting credit on Lord Byron, who, on so many occasions, gave way to its influence. But it is a strong proof of the short-sightedness of man’s

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judgment, that upon the most remarkable occasion on which this influence was excited, by inducing him to publish Childe Harold instead of the Hints from Horace, though the best intentions guided the opinion, it was made the step by which Lord Byron was lost; and he who, in a literary point of view, had justly prided himself upon having withheld so extraordinary a mind from encumbering its future efforts with the dead weight of a work which might have altogether prevented its subsequent buoyancy, and who was alive to the glory of having discerned the neglected merit of the real poem, and of having spread out the wings which took such an eagle flight—having lived to see the rebellious presumption which that towering flight occasioned, and to anticipate the destruction that must follow the audacity, died deeply regretting that he had, even though unconsciously,

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ever borne such a part in producing so lamentable a loss. One of the last charges which he gave me upon his death-bed, but a few days before he died, and with the full anticipation of his end, was, not to let this work go forth into the world without stating his sincere feeling of sorrow that ever he had been instrumental in bringing forward Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage to the public, since the publication of it had produced such disastrous effects to one whom he had loved so affectionately, and from whom he had hoped so much good—effects which the literary satisfaction the poem may afford to all the men of taste in the present and future generations, can never, in the slightest degree, compensate.

In obeying this solemn charge I should have concluded these remarks, had I not found, in looking over the manuscript of the work upon this subject, which was

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first intended to have been left to posterity as a posthumous offering, and which was written about the year 1819, a passage which appears to me to form a fitter conclusion to this Chapter, and which, therefore, I copy from the author’s writing:—

“I have suffered Time to make a progress unfriendly to the subject to which I had attached so great an interest. Had Providence vouchsafed me the happiness of recording of Lord Byron, from my own knowledge, the renovation of his mind and character, which was the object of my last letter to him, my delight would have supplied me with energy and spirits to continue my narrative, and my observations. Of his course of life subsequent I will not write upon hearsay; but I cannot refrain from expressing my grief, disappointment, and wonder, at the direction which was given

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to it by the impulse of his brilliant success as a Poet. It seemed not only to confirm him in his infidelity, but to set him loose from social ties, and render him indifferent to every other praise than that of poetical genius. I am not singular in the cooling of his friendship, if it be not derogatory to call by that name any transient feeling he may have expressed; and his intended posthumous volume will, probably, show this, if he has not, in consequence of what I said to him in my last letter, altered or abandoned it. In the dedications of his poems there is no sincerity; he had neither respect nor regard for the persons to whom they are addressed; and Lord Holland, Rogers, Davies, and Hobhouse, if earthly knowledge becomes intuitive on retrospection, will see on what grounds I say this, and nod the recognition, and I trust forgiveness of heavenly spirits, if heavenly

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their’s become, to the wondering Poet with whose works their names are swimming down the stream of Time. He and they shall have my nod too on the occasion, if, let me humbly add, my prayers shall have availed me beyond the grave.”

THE END.

---

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES,

Northumberland-court.

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Anonymous, “Dallas’s Recollections of Lord Byron” in Gentleman’s Magazine  Vol. 94  (November 1824)

Mr. DALLAS, the author of the “Recollections,” has soon followed the subject of his work to the “bourne whence no traveller returns.” He was at the time of his death 70 years of age, and was personally connected with the Noble Lord’s family, his sister having married the father of the present Peer. These circumstances led, at one period of his Lordship’s life, to a degree of intimacy; in the course of which Mr. Dallas not only became one of his Correspondents, but was entrusted with the duty of an Editor to several of his poems, and lastly was made the depositary of many of his Lordship’s confidential letters to his mother and other persons. Whether those letters were or were not intended by Lord Byron to see the light at a future period, is a matter of some doubt. We confess we think they were; but his executors have restrained their publication. A long “preliminary statement,” of 97 pages, drawn up by the Rev. A. R. C. Dallas, son of the Author, is occupied with the disputes between his father and the executors, who obtained an injunction from the Court of Chancery against the publication of the Letters. We pass over this, and come to the “Recollections.” . . .

Anonymous, “Dallas’s Recollections of Lord Byron” in Gentleman’s Magazine  Vol. 94  (November 1824)

In our review of Capt. Medwin’s book (p. 436), we have observed, that the publication of Childe Harold was “the crisis of Lord Byron’s fate as a man and a poet.” The present volume sets this truth in the strongest light; but it adds a fact so extraordinary, that if it were not related so circumstantially, we own we should hesitate to give it credence—this fact is, that Lord Byron himself was insensible to the value of Childe Harold, and could with difficulty be brought to consent to its publication! He had written a very indifferent paraphrase of Horace’s Art of Poetry, and was anxious to have it published. . . .

Anonymous, “Dallas’s Recollections of Lord Byron” in Gentleman’s Magazine  Vol. 94  (November 1824)

Childe Harold, with all its moral faults, is beyond a doubt the great work of Lord Byron. No one, after reading it, can deny him to be a Poet. Yet was this production the ruin of his Lordship’s mind. “The rapidity of the sale of the Poem,” says Mr. Dallas, “its reception, and the elution of the author’s feelings were unparalleled.” This elation of feeling was the outbreaking of an inordinate vanity which had at last found its food, and which led him in the riotous intoxication of his passions to break down all the fences of morality, and to trample on everything that restrained his excesses. Mr. Dallas rendered him essential service, by persuading him to omit some very blamable stanzas: and when he could not prevail on him to strike out all that was irreligious, he entered a written Protest against certain passages. This protest, which is a very curious document, is preserved in p. 124 of the volume before us. Probably Lord Byron grew weary of such lecturing; for in a few years he dropped his intimacy with Mr. Dallas, and fell into other hands, which only accelerated his degradation. . . .

Anonymous, “Dallas’s Recollections of Lord Byron” in Gentleman’s Magazine  Vol. 94  (November 1824)

It certainly does appear that Mr. Dallas, from the first to the last of his intimacy with Lord Byron, did every thing that a friend, with the feelings of a parent, could do to win his Lordship to the cause of virtue, but unhappily in vain. . . .

Anonymous, “Dallas’s Recollections of Lord Byron” in Gentleman’s Magazine  Vol. 94  (November 1824)

The concluding chapter of this book is written by Mr. Dallas, jun. to whom his father on his death-bed confided the task of closing these “Recollections.” This Gentleman’s reflections on the decided and lamentable turn which the publication of Childe Harold gave to Lord Byron’s character, are forcible and just. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

Since Orrery wrote his defamatory life of Swift, and since Mr. Wyndham published Doddington’s diary, in order to expose the author of that strange record of venality, we are not aware that the friends or family of any writer have deliberately set down to diminish his fame and tarnish his character. Such, however, has been the case in the work before us. We do not mean to say that such was the first object in view by the author or authors of this volume. No; their first object was the laudable motive of putting money into their purses; for it appears upon their own showing, that Mr. R. C. Dallas, having made as much money as he could out of lord Byron in his life time, resolved to pick up a decent livelihood (either in his own person or that of his son) out of his friend’s remains when dead. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

But it appears that Mr. R. C. Dallas could not wait for his money so long as was requisite, and that in the year 1819 he became a little impatient to touch something in his life time: accordingly, in an evil hour, he writes a long long letter to lord Byron, containing a debtor and creditor account between R. C. Dallas and his lordship; by which, when duly balanced, it appeared that said lord Byron was still considerably in arrears of friendship and obligation to said R. C. Dallas, and ought to acquit himself by a remittance of materials (such is Mr. R. C. Dallas’s own word, in his own letter, as will be seen by and by) to his creditor Mr. R. C. Dallas. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

The death of lord Byron, of course, seemed at once to promise this settlement: no sooner had he heard it, than he set about copying the manuscripts; he wrote to Messrs. Galignani at Paris, to know whether they would “enter into the speculation” of publishing some very interesting manuscripts of lord Byron; he set off for London; he sold the volume to a London: bookseller, and “he returned without loss of time to France.” His worthy son has told us all this himself, at pages 94 and 96 of his volume, and has actually printed the letter his father wrote to Messrs. Galignani, to show, we suppose, how laudably alert Mr. R. C. Dallas evinced himself to be on this interesting opportunity of securing his lawful property. The booksellers, also, performed their part; they announced the “Private Correspondence” of lord Byron for sale; and, as it also appears by this volume, were so active as to be prepared to bring their goods to market before lord Byron’s funeral. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

They thought differently of the publication of private letters; and Mrs. Leigh desired Mr. Hobhouse one of the executors, to write to Mr. R. C. Dallas to say, that she should think the publication, in question “quite unpardonable,” at least for the present, and unless after a previous inspection by his lordship’s family. Unfortunately for Mr. Dallas, it appears, according to this volume, that Mr. Hobhouse did not in this letter, state that he was lord Byron’s executor; but merely appealed to Mr. R. C. Dallas’s “honour and feeling,” wishing probably to try that topic first; and thinking it more respectful to do so, than to threaten the author with legal interference at once. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

Mr. Dallas was resolved upon getting his money, and wrote a very angry letter, not to Mr. Hobhouse but to Mrs. Leigh (which, his prudent son has also printed), containing menaces not unkilfully calculated to intimidate that lady, especially considering that she must have been at that moment peculiarly disposed to receive any unpleasant impressions—her brother’s corpse lying yet unburied. For an author and seller of Remains the time was not ill chosen—by a gentleman and a man, another moment, to say nothing of another style, might perhaps have been selected. But no time was to be lost; the book must be out on the 12th of July, and out it would have been had not the executors procured an injunction against it on the 7th of the same month, and thus very seriously damaged, if not ruined, Mr. R. C. Dallas’s “speculation.” . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

Ninety-seven pages of the volume are taken up with a statement of the proceedings in Chancery, which were so fatal to the “speculation.” In this statement, which is written by Mr. Alexander Dallas, the son of Mr. R. C. Dallas, who died before the volume could be published, it may easily be supposed that all imaginable hard things are said of those who spoiled the speculation. The executors, and lord Byron’s sister, are spoken of in terms which, if noticed, would certainly very much increase those “expenses” of which the Rev. Alexander Dallas so piteously complains; for we doubt if any jury would hesitate to return a verdict of libel and slander against many passages which we could point out in the preliminary statement. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

Lord Byron was taken into Scotland by his mother and father, and Mrs. Leigh was left in England with her grandmother, to whom her father had consigned her on condition that she should provide for her. They were thus separated from 1789 until lord Byron came to England; when thy met as often as possible, although it was not easy to bring them together, as Mrs. Byron, the mother of lord Byron, had quarrelled with lady Holdernesse. For the intercourse which did take place, the brother and sister were indebted to the kind offices of lord Carlisle. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

That lord Byron might have dropt an unguarded opinion as to relationship in general is possible, though such an error is nothing in comparison with the atrocity of coolly recording that opinion as if it had been an habitual sentiment, which we say it was not. We say that it is untrue that lord Byron declaimed against the ties of consanguinity. It is untrue that he entirely withdrew from the company of his sister during the period alluded to. It is untrue that he “made advances” to a friendly intercourse with her only after the publication of Childe Harold, and only at the persuasion of Mr. R. C. Dallas. Mrs. Leigh corresponded with lord Byron at the very time mentioned, and saw in lord Carlisle’s house in the spring of 1809; after which he went abroad, and did not return until July 1811. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

We speak from the same authority, when we say that what is said of lord Carlisle, though there was, as all the world knows, a difference between his lordship and lord Byron, is also at variance with the facts. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

Such was Mr. Alexander Dallas’s letter to Mr. Hobhouse; and that he should, after writing such a letter, make a statement which he knew the production of that letter could positively contradict, is an instance of confidence in the forbearance of others such as we never have happened before to witness. We beg the reader to compare the words in italics from Mr. Dallas’s statement with the words in capitals from Mr. Dallas’s letter—and then to ask himself whether he thinks lord Byron’s reputation, or that of his relations and friends, has much to suffer or fear from such a censor as the Reverend Alexander Dallas. In the Statement, he tells the world that Mr. Hobhouse is mentioned in lord Byron’s letters in the enumeration of his suite; and, in a remark, that lord Byron was satisfied at being alone. In the letter, he tells Mr. Hobhouse, that “he (Mr. Hobhouse) is mentioned throughout the whole of the correspondence with great affection.” . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

It answered the purpose of the editor to deal in the strongest insinuations against Mr. Hobhouse; but, unfortunately, his father had, in the course of his correspondence with lord Byron, mentioned that gentleman in very different terms—what does the honest editor do? he gives only the initial of the name, so that the eulogy, such as it is, may serve for any Mr. H * *. Mr. R. C. Dallas’s words are, “I gave Murray your note on M * *, to be placed in the page with Wingfield. He must have been a very extraordinary young man, and I am sincerely sorry for H * *, for whom I have felt an increased regard ever since I heard of his intimacy with my son at Cadiz, and that they were mutually pleased” [p. 165]. The H * * stands for Hobhouse, and the M * * whom R. C. Dallas characterises here, “as an extraordinary young man,” becomes, in the hands of his honest son, “an unhappy Atheist” [p. 325], whose name he mentions, in another place, at full length, and characterises him in such a way as must give the greatest pain to the surviving relations and friends of the deceased. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

We now come to the reverend gentleman’s father, and as the death of lord Byron did not prevent that person from writing what we know to be unfounded of his lordship, we shall not refrain, because he also is dead, from saying what we know to be founded of Mr. R. C. Dallas. In performing this task we are, most luckily, furnished with a list of Mr. Dallas’s pretensions, by Mr. Dallas himself, in the shape of a letter written by that person to lord Byron in 1819, of which the Reverend Alexander Dallas has thought fit to publish a considerable portion. To this letter, or list of Mr. R. C. Dallas’s brilliant virtues, and benefits conferred upon lord Byron, we shall oppose an answer from a person, whom neither Mr. R. C. Dallas nor his reverend son had ever dreamt could appear against them again in this world—that person is lord Byron himself. For it so happens, that although his lordship did not reply to the said letter by writing to the author, yet he did transmit that epistle, with sundry notes of his own upon it, to one of his correspondents in England. The letter itself, with lord Byron’s notes, is now lying before us, and we shall proceed at once to cite the passages which lord Byron has commented upon, all of which, with one exception, to he noticed hereafter, have before been given to the public. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

I recollect nothing of all this—but suppose that he alludes to a journal which I kept for six months, in 1813 and 14, and afterwards gave to Moore, who, I believe, still has it. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

Across this passage lord Byron has written as follows. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

This is not true—the publication of Childe Harold was urged, but not the suppression of the satire. What took place was in 1812, to gratify Rogers,who asked me on account of Lord Holland. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

Across these passages, opposite the words “saving you from perpetuating the enmity,” lord Byron has put “the Devil you did?” and over the words “rapid retrograde motion” lord Byron has written “when did this happen? and how?” . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

We have now to mention that, Mr. R. C. Dallas after the words which conclude his letter, as given by his son, namely, these words: “but my present anxiety is, to see you restored to your station in this world, after trials that should induce you to look seriously into futurity.”—after these words, we find in the original letter the following— . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

The upshot of this letter appears to be, to obtain my sanction to the publication of a volume about  Mr. Dallas and myself, which I shall not allow. The letter has remained and will remain unanswered. I never injured Mr. R. C. Dallas, but did him all the good I could, and I am quite unconscious and ignorant of what he means by reproaching me with ungenerous treatment; the facts will speak for themselves to those who know them—the proof is easy. . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

These persons, whose work, or rather, whose conduct we are reviewing, have tried all the common topics by which they think they may enlist the sympathy of their readers in their favour, to the prejudice of their illustrious benefactor. They have bandied about the clap-trap terms of atheism, scepticism, irreligion, immorality, &c. but the good sense, nay more, the generosity, the humanity, and the true Christian spirit of their fellow-countrymen, will reject such an unworthy fellowship. They may weep over the failings of Byron; but they will cast from them, with scorn and reprobation, detractors, whose censure bears on the face of it, the unquestionable marks of envy, malice, and. all uncharitableness. Can anything be more unpardonable, anything more unfair, for instance, than for the editor of this volume (the clergyman) to take for granted, that the Conversations of Medwin are authentic, though he himself has given an example of two gross mis-statements in them, which would alone throw a doubt over their authenticity; and upon that supposition to charge lord Byron with being sunk to the lowest depths of degradation? What are we to say to this person who, at the same time that he assumes the general truth of the Conversations, makes an exception against that part of them, which represents lord Byron’s dislike of the anti-religious opinions of Mr. Shelley? . . .

[John Cam Hobhouse], “[Review of Dallas and Medwin on Byron]” in Westminster Review  Vol. 3  (January 1825)

If the author of “Aubrey” had but read, or had not forgotten lord Byron’s preface to the second edition of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, he would have spared us all this fine writing, for that preface explains that “phenomenon of the human mind, for which it is difficult to account,” and which this poor writer has accounted for so profoundly. . . .

[John Gibson Lockhart], “Lord Byron” in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine  Vol. 17  No. 97  (February 1825)

The story of his having said to his mother, when he and Mr Hobhouse parted company on their travels, that he “was glad to be alone,” amounts to nothing; for who is he, and above all, who is the poet, who does not often feel the departure of his dearest friend as a temporary relief? The man that was composing Childe Harold had other things to entertain him than the conversation of any companion, however pleasant; and we believe there are few pleasanter companions anywhere than Mr Hobhouse. This story, however, has been magnified into a mighty matter by Mr Dallas, whose name has recently been rather wearisomely connected with Lord Byron’s. . . .

[John Gibson Lockhart], “Lord Byron” in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine  Vol. 17  No. 97  (February 1825)

Old Mr Dallas appears to have been an inveterate twaddler, and there are even worse things than twaddling alleged against him by Mr Hobhouse, in the article we have been quoting. The worst of these, however, his misstatement as to the amount of his pecuniary obligations to Lord Byron, may perhaps be accounted for in a way much more charitable than has found favour with Mr Hobhouse; and as to the son, (Mr Alexander Dallas,) we assuredly think he has done nothing, but what he supposed his filial duty bound him to, in the whole matter. Angry people will take sneering and perverted views of the subject matter of dispute, without subjecting themselves in the eyes of the disinterested world, to charges so heavy either as Mr Hobhouse has thought fit to bring against Mr A. Dallas, or as Mr A. Dallas has thought fit to bring against Mr Hobhouse. As for the song of which so much has been said, what is it, after all, but a mere joke— . . .

[John Gibson Lockhart], “Lord Byron” in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine  Vol. 17  No. 97  (February 1825)

Dallas’s book, utterly feeble and drivelling as it is, contains certainly some very interesting particulars as to his feelings when he was a very young author. The whole getting up of the two first cantos of Childe Harold—the diffidence—the fears —the hopes that alternately depressed and elevated his spirits while the volume was printing, are exhibited, so as to form a picture that all students of literature, at least, will never cease to prize. All the rest of the work is more about old Dallas than young Byron, and is utter trash. . . .

Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries  (London:  Henry Colburn,  1828)

The only publications that contained any thing at once new and true respecting Lord Byron were, Dallas’s Recollections, the Conversations by Captain Medwin, and Parry’s and Gamba’s Accounts of his Last Days. A good deal of the real character of his Lordship, though not always as the writer viewed it, may be gathered from most of them; particularly the first two. . . .

Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries  (London:  Henry Colburn,  1828)

Dallas, who was a sort of lay-priest, errs from being half-witted. He must have tired Lord Byron to death with blind beggings of the question, and solemn mistakes. The wild poet ran against him, and scattered his faculties. To the last he does not seem to have made up his mind, whether his Lordship was Christian or Atheist. I can settle at least a part of that dilemma. Christian he certainly was not. He neither wrote nor talked, as any Christian, in the ordinary sense of the word, would have done: and as to the rest, the strength of his belief probably varied according to his humour, and was at all times as undecided and uneasy, as the lights hitherto obtained by mere reason were calculated to render it. . . .

Leigh Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries  (London:  Henry Colburn,  1828)

Now, the passage here quoted was quoted by myself, one of those “atheists and scoffers,” according to Mr. Dallas, by whom “he was led into defiance of the sacred writings.” . . .

Pietro Gamba, A Narrative of Lord Byron’s Last Journey to Greece  (London:  John Murray,  1825)

Again, in order to prove the difficulty of living with Lord Byron, it is said, that “When Mr. Hobhouse and he travelled in Greece together, they were generally a mile asunder.” I have the best authority for saying, that this is not the fact: that two young men, who were continually together and slept in the same room for many months, should not always have ridden side by side on their journey is very likely; but when Lord Byron and Mr. Hobhouse travelled in Greece, it would have been as little safe as comfortable to be “generally a mile asunder;” and the truth is, they were generally very near each other. . . .

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) Italian humanist, author of the Decameron.

Anne Isabella Noel Byron [née Milbanke] [Annabella] (1792-1860) The only child of Sir Ralph Milbanke; married Byron in 1815, separating shortly after the birth of their daughter Ada in January 1816.

Catherine Byron [née Gordon] (1764-1811) Byron's mother, who married Capt. John Byron 12 May 1785.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) The author of Childe Harold and Don Juan.

John Cleland (1710-1789) English novelist and miscellaneous writer, author of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Fanny Hill) (1748-49).

Alexander Robert Charles Dallas (1791-1869) The son of Byron's relation R. C. Dallas; he served in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo and was ordained in 1821; he was rector of Wonston near Winchester from 1828.

Robert Charles Dallas (1754-1824) English poet, novelist, and translator who corresponded with Byron. His sister Charlotte Henrietta Dallas (d. 1793) married Captain George Anson Byron (1758-1793); their son George Anson Byron (1789-1868) inherited Byron's title in 1824.

Scrope Berdmore Davies (1782-1852) Byron met his bosom friend while at Cambridge. Davies, a professional gambler, lent Byron funds to pay for his travels in Greece and Byron acted as second in Davies' duels.

Henry Richard Fox, third baron Holland (1773-1840) Whig politician and literary patron; Holland House was for many years the meeting place for reform-minded politicians and writers. He also published translations from the Spanish and Italian; Memoirs of the Whig Party was published in 1852.

John Cam Hobhouse, baron Broughton (1786-1869) Founder of the Cambridge Whig Club; traveled with Byron in the orient, radical MP for Westminster (1820); Byron's executor; after a long career in politics published Some Account of a Long Life (1865) later augmented as Recollections of a Long Life, 6 vols (1909-1911).

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773-1850) Scottish barrister, Whig MP, and co-founder and editor of the Edinburgh Review (1802-29). As a reviewer he was the implacable foe of the Lake School of poetry.

Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) French poet whose Fables were first translated into English in 1734.

Lady Caroline Lamb [née Ponsonby] (1785-1828) Daughter of the third earl of Bessborough; she married the Hon. William Lamb (1779-1848) and fictionalized her infatuation with Lord Byron in her first novel, Glenarvon (1816).

Charles Skinner Matthews (1785-1811) The libertine friend of Byron and Hobhouse at Trinity College, Cambridge; he was drowned in the Cam.

Thomas Medwin (1788-1869) Lieutenant of dragoons who was with Byron and Shelley at Pisa; the author of Conversations of Lord Byron (1824) and The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 2 vols (1847).

Thomas Moore (1779-1852) Irish poet and biographer, author of the Irish Melodies (1807-34), The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and Lalla Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) English poet, banker, and aesthete, author of the ever-popular Pleasures of Memory (1792), Columbus (1810), Jaqueline (1814), and Italy (1822-28).

Sir Walter Scott, baronet (1771-1832) Scottish poet, novelist, antiquary, biographer, editor, and sheriff.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) English poet, with Byron in Switzerland in 1816; author of Queen Mab (1813), The Revolt of Islam (1817), The Cenci and Prometheus Unbound (1820), and Adonais (1821).

George Townsend (1788-1857) He attended Trinity College, Cambridge under the patronage of Richard Cumberland, and published Armageddon a Poem, in Twelve Books (1815) and The Old Testament arranged in Historical and Chronological Order, 2 vols (1821).

John Wilmot, second earl of Rochester (1647-1680) Court wit and libertine poet; he was an intimate of the Duke of Buckingham, Charles Sedley and Henry Savile.

The Satirist, or, Monthly Meteor. (1807-1814). Originally issued with colored plates, the Tory-inspired Satirist was edited by George Manners (1778–1853) from October 1807 to June 1812, and William Jerdan (1782–1869) from July 1812 to August 1814; it was continued as Tripod, or, New Satirist (July-Aug. 1814). The humor was coarse, and Byron the target in a series of pieces by Hewson Clarke (1787-1845 fl.).

The Scourge, or, Monthly Expositor of Imposture and Folly. 6 vols (1811-13). A scandal magazine edited by Byron's foe, Hewson Clarke.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) “Cain: a Mystery” in Sardanapalus: a Tragedy. The two Foscari: a Tragedy. Cain: a Mystery. (London: Murray, 1821). A closet drama in three acts that gave considerable offence to the pious.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: a Romaunt. (London: John Murray, 1812-1818). A burlesque topographical poem in Spenserian stanzas; Cantos I-II were published in 1812, III in 1816, and IV in 1818.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) Don Juan. (London: 1819-1824). A burlesque poem in ottava rima published in installments: Cantos I and II published in 1819, III, IV and V in 1821, VI, VII, and VIII in 1823, IX, X, and XI in 1823, XII, XIII, and XIV in 1823, and XV and XVI in 1824.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. (London: Cawthorn, 1809). Byron's revisions ended with the third edition in 1810; he later attempted to suppress his pointed satire on the literary establishment.

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824) “The Vision of Judgment. By Quevedo Redivivus” in The Liberal. Vol. 1 No. 1 (1822): 3-39. Byron's burlesque of Southey's Vision of Judgement was reprinted as a pamphlet by John Hunt in 1822.

Thomas Medwin (1788-1869) Conversations of Lord Byron: noted during a Residence with his Lordship at Pisa, in the Years 1821 and 1822. (London: Colburn, 1824). Medwin had been invited to Italy by Shelley and was intimate with both poets.

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Author: Dallas, Robert Charles, 1754-1824

Title:  Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron (London: Charles Knight, 1824).

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Series: Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org

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