The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume I Part 1

The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals.

Vol. 1.

by Lord Byron.

PREFACE

Two great collections of Byron's letters have been already printed. In Moore's 'Life', which appeared in 1830, 561 were given. These, in FitzGreene Halleck's American edition of Byron's 'Works', published in 1847, were increased to 635. The first volume of a third collection, edited by Mr. W. E. Henley, appeared early in 1897. A comparison of the number of letters contained in these three collections down to August 22, 1811, shows that Moore prints 61, Halleck 78, and Mr. Henley 88. In other words, the edition of 1897, which was the most complete so far as it goes, added 27 letters to that of 1830, and 10 to that of 1847. But it should be remembered that by far the greater part of the material added by Halleck and Mr. Henley was seen and rejected by Moore.

The present edition, down to August 22, 1811, prints 168 letters, or an addition of 107 to Moore, 90 to Halleck, and 80 to Mr. Henley. Of this additional matter considerably more than two-thirds was inaccessible to Moore in 1830.

In preparing this volume for the press, use has been also made of a ma.s.s of material, bearing more or less directly on Byron's life, which was acc.u.mulated by the grandfather and father of Mr. Murray. The notes thus contain, it is believed, many details of biographical interest, which are now for the first time published.

It is necessary to make these comparisons, in order to define the position which this edition claims to hold with regard to its predecessors. On the other hand, no one can regret more sincerely than myself--no one has more cause to regret--the circ.u.mstances which placed this wealth of new material in my hands rather than in those of the true poet and brilliant critic, who, to enthusiasm for Byron, and wide acquaintance with the literature and social life of the day, adds the rarer gift of giving life and significance to bygone events or trivial details by unconsciously interesting his readers in his own living personality.

Byron's letters appeal on three special grounds to all lovers of English literature. They offer the most suggestive commentary on his poetry; they give the truest portrait of the man; they possess, at their best, in their ease, freshness, and racy vigour, a very high literary value.

The present volume, which covers the period from 1798 to August, 1811, includes the letters written Lord Byron from his eleventh to his twenty-third year. They therefore ill.u.s.trate the composition of his youthful poetry, of 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers', and of the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold'. They carry his history down to the eve of that morning in March, 1812, when he awoke and found himself famous--in a degree and to an extent which to the present generation seem almost incomprehensible.

If the letters were selected for their literary value alone, it is probable that very few of those contained in the present volume would find a place in a collection formed on this principle. But biographical interest also demands consideration, and, in the case of Byron, this claim is peculiarly strong. He has for years suffered much from the suppression of the material on which a just estimate of his life may be formed. It is difficult not to regret the destruction of the 'Memoirs', in which he himself intended his history to be told. Their loss cannot be replaced; but their best subst.i.tute is found in his letters. Through them a truer conception of Byron can be formed than any impression which is derived from Dallas, Leigh Hunt, Medwin, or even Moore. It therefore seems only fair to Byron, that they should be allowed, as far as possible, to interpret his career. For other reasons also it appears to me too late, or too soon, to publish only those letters which possess a high literary value. The real motive of such a selection would probably be misread, and thus further misconceptions of Byron's character would be encouraged.

With one exception, therefore, the whole of the available material has been published. The exception consists of some of the business letters written by Byron to his solicitor. Enough of these have been printed to indicate the pecuniary difficulties which undoubtedly influenced his life and character; but it was not considered necessary to publish the whole series. Men of genius ask money from their lawyers in the same language, and with the same arguments, as the most ordinary persons.

The picture which the letters give of Byron, is, it is believed, unique in its completeness, while the portrait has the additional value of being painted by his own hand. Byron's career lends itself only too easily to that method of treatment, which dashes off a likeness by vigorous strokes with a full brush, seizing with false emphasis on some salient feature, and revelling in striking contrasts of light and shade.

But the style here adopted by the unconscious artist is rather that in which Richardson the novelist painted his pathetic picture of Clarissa Harlowe. With slow, laborious touches, with delicate gradations of colour, sometimes with almost tedious minuteness and iteration, the gradual growth of a strangely composite character is presented, surrounded by the influences which controlled or moulded its development, and traced through all the varieties of its rapidly changing moods. Written, as Byron wrote, with habitual exaggeration, and on the impulse of the moment, his letters correct one another, and, from this point of view, every letter contained in the volume adds something to the truth and completeness of the portrait.

Round the central figure of Byron are grouped his relations and friends, and two of the most interesting features in the volume are the strength of his family affections, and the width, if not the depth, of his capacity for friends.h.i.+p. His father died when the child was only three years old. But a bundle of his letters, written from Valenciennes to his sister, Mrs. Leigh, in 1790-91, still exists, to attest, with startling plainness of speech, the strength of the tendencies which John Byron transmitted to his son. The following extract contains the father's only allusion to the boy:--

"Valenciennes, Feb. 16, 1791.

Have you never received any letters from me by way of Bologne? I have sent two. For G.o.d's sake send me some, as I have a great deal to pay.

With regard to Mrs. Byron, I am glad she writes to you. She is very amiable at a distance; but I defy you and all the Apostles to live with her two months, for, if any body could live with her, it was me.

'Mais jeu de Mains, jeu de Vilains'. For my son, I am happy to hear he is well; but for his walking, 'tis impossible, as he is club-footed."

Between his mother and himself, in spite of frequent and violent collisions, there existed a real affection, while the warmth of his love for his half-sister Augusta, who had much of her brother's power of winning affection, lost nothing in its permanence from the rarity of their personal intercourse. Outside the family circle, the volume introduces the only two men among his contemporaries who remained his lifelong friends. In his affection for Lord Clare, whom he very rarely saw after leaving school, there was a tinge of romance, and in him Byron seems to have personified the best memories of an idealized Harrow. In Hobhouse he found at once the truest and the most intimate of his friends, a man whom he both liked and respected, and to whose opinion and judgment he repeatedly deferred. On Hobhouse's side, the sentiment which induced him, eminently sensible and practical as he was, to treasure the nosegay which Byron had given him, long after it was withered, shows how attractive must have been the personality of the donor.

Without the 'Dictionary of National Biography', the labour of preparing the letters for the press would be trebled. Both in the facts which it supplies, and in the sources of information which it suggests, it is an invaluable aid.

In conclusion, I desire to express my special obligations to Lord Lovelace and Mr. Richard Edgc.u.mbe, who have read the greater part of the proofs, and to both of whom I am indebted for several useful suggestions.

R. E. PROTHERO.

March, 1898.

THE LETTERS OF LORD BYRON.

CHAPTER I.

1788-1805.

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL.

Catherine Gordon of Gight (1765-1811), afterwards Mrs. Byron, and mother of the poet, was descended on the paternal side from Sir William Gordon of Gight, the third son, by Annabella Stewart, daughter of James I of Scotland, of George, second Earl of Huntly, Chancellor of Scotland (1498-1502), and Lord-Lieutenant of the North from 1491 to his death in 1507. The owners of Gight, now a ruin, once a feudal stronghold, were a hot-headed, hasty-handed race, sufficiently notable to be commemorated by Thomas the Rhymer, and to leave their mark in the traditions of Aberdeens.h.i.+re. In the seventh generation from Sir William Gordon, the property pa.s.sed to an heiress, Mary Gordon. By her marriage with Alexander Davidson of Newton, who a.s.sumed the name of Gordon, she had a son Alexander, Mrs. Byron's grandfather, who married Margaret Duff of Craigston, a cousin of the first Earl of Fife. Their eldest son, George, the fifth of the Gordons of Gight who bore that name, married Catherine Innes of Rosieburn, and by her became the father of Catherine Gordon, born in 1765, afterwards Mrs. Byron. Both her parents dying early, Catherine Gordon was brought up at Banff by her grandmother, commonly called Lady Gight, a penurious, illiterate woman, who, however, was careful that her granddaughter was better educated than herself. Thus, for the second time, Gight, which, with other property, was worth between 23,000 and 24,000, pa.s.sed to an heiress.

Miss Catherine Gordon had her full share of feminine vanity. At the age of thirty-five she was a stout, dumpy, coa.r.s.e-looking woman, awkward in her movements, provincial in her accent and manner. But as her son was vain of his personal appearance, and especially of his hands, neck, and ears, so she, when other charms had vanished, clung to her pride in her arms and hands. She exhausted the patience of Stewartson the artist, who in 1806, after forty sittings, painted her portrait, by her anxiety to have a particular turn in her elbow exhibited in the most pleasing light. Of her ancestry she was, to use her son's expression, as "proud as Lucifer," looked down upon the Byron family, and regarded the Duke of Gordon as an inferior member of her clan. In later life, at any rate, her temper was ungovernable; her language, when excited, unrestrained; her love of gossip insatiable. Capricious in her moods, she flew from one extreme to the other, pa.s.sing, for the slightest cause, from pa.s.sionate affection to equally pa.s.sionate resentment. How far these defects were produced, as they certainly were aggravated, by her husband's ill treatment and her hard struggle with poverty, it is impossible to say. She had many good qualities. She bore her ruin, as her letters show, with good sense, dignity, and composure. She lived on a miserable pittance without running into debt; she pinched herself in order to give her son a liberal supply of money; she was warm-hearted and generous to those in distress. She adored her scamp of a husband, and, in her own way, was a devoted mother. In politics she affected democratic opinions, took in the 'Morning Chronicle', and paid for it, as is shown by a bill sent in after her death, at the rate of 4 17s.

6d. for the half-year--no small deduction from her narrow income. She was fond of books, subscribed to the Southwell Book Club, copied pa.s.sages which struck her in the course of her reading, collected all the criticisms on her son's poetry, made shrewd remarks upon them herself (Moore's 'Journal and Correspondence', vol. v. p. 295), and corresponded with her friends on literary subjects.

In 1785 Miss Catherine Gordon was at Bath, where, it may be mentioned, her father had, some years before, committed suicide. There she met, and there, on May 13, 1785, in the parish church of St. Michael, as the register shows, she married Captain John Byron.

Captain John Byron (1755-91), born at Plymouth, was the eldest son of Admiral the Hon. John Byron (1723-86)--known in the Royal Navy as "Hardy Byron" or "Foul-weather Jack"--by his marriage (1748) with Sophia Trevanion of Carhais, in Cornwall. The admiral, next brother to William, fifth Lord Byron, was a distinguished naval officer, whose 'Narrative'

of his s.h.i.+pwreck in the 'Wager' was published in 1768, and whose 'Voyage round the World' in the 'Dolphin' was described by "an officer in the said s.h.i.+p" in 1767. His eldest son, John Byron, educated at Westminster and a French Military Academy, entered the Guards and served in America.

A gambler, a spendthrift, a profligate scamp, disowned by his father, he in 1778 ran away with, and in 1779 married, Lady Carmarthen, wife of Francis, afterwards fifth Duke of Leeds, nee Lady Amelia d'Arcy, only child and heiress of the last Earl of Holderness, and Baroness Conyers in her own right.

Captain Byron and his wife lived in Paris, where were born to them a son and a daughter, both of whom died in infancy, and Augusta, born 1783, the poet's half-sister, who subsequently married her first cousin, Colonel George Leigh. In 1784 Lady Conyers died, and Captain Byron returned to England, a widower, over head and ears in debt, and in search of an heiress.

It was a rhyme in Aberdeens.h.i.+re--

"When the heron leaves the tree, The laird of Gight shall landless be."

Tradition has it that, at the marriage of Catherine Gordon with "mad Jack Byron," the heronry at Gight pa.s.sed over to Kelly or Haddo, the property of the Earl of Aberdeen. "The land itself will not be long in following," said his lords.h.i.+p, and so it proved. For a few months Mrs.

Byron Gordon--for her husband a.s.sumed the name, and by this t.i.tle her Scottish friends always addressed her--lived at Gight. But the ready money, the outlying lands, the rights of fishery, the timber, failed to liquidate Captain Byron's debts, and in 1786 Gight itself was sold to Lord Aberdeen for 17,850. Mrs. Byron Gordon found herself, at the end of eighteen months, stripped of her property, and reduced to the income derived from 4200, subject to an annuity payable to her grandmother.

She bore the reverse with a composure which shows her to have been a woman of no ordinary courage. Her letters on the subject are sensible, not ill-expressed, and, considering the circ.u.mstances in which they were written, give a favourable impression of her character.

The wreck of their fortunes compelled Mrs. Byron Gordon and her husband to retire to France. At the beginning of 1788 she had returned to London, and on January 22, 1788, at 16, Holles Street (since numbered 24, and now destroyed), in the back drawing-room of the first floor, gave birth to her only child, George Gordon, afterwards sixth Lord Byron. Hanson gives the names of the nurse, Mrs. Mills, the man-midwife, Mr. Combe, the doctor, Dr. Denman, who attended Mrs. Byron at her confinement. Dallas was, therefore, mistaken in his supposition that the poet was born at Dover. The child was baptized in London on February 29, 1788, as is proved by the register of the parish of Marylebone.

Shortly after the birth of her son, Mrs. Byron settled in Aberdeen, where she lived for upwards of eight years. During her stay there, in the summer of 1791, her husband died at Valenciennes. In the year 1794, by the death of his cousin William John Byron (1772-94) from a wound received at the siege of Calvi, in Corsica, her son became the heir to his great-uncle, the "wicked Lord Byron" (William, fifth Lord Byron, 1722-98), and a solicitor named Hanson was appointed to protect the boy's interests. From Aberdeen Mrs. Byron kept up a correspondence with her sister-in-law, Frances Leigh ('nee' Byron), wife of General Charles Leigh, to whom, in a letter, dated March 27, 1791, she speaks of her son as "very well, and really a charming boy." Writing again to Mrs. Leigh, December 8, 1794, she says,

"I think myself much obliged to you for being so interested for George; you may be sure I would do anything I could for my son, but I really don't see what can be done for him in that case. You say you are afraid Lord B. will dispose of the estates that are left, if he can; if he has it in his power, n.o.body can prevent him from selling them; if he has not, no one will buy them from him. You know Lord Byron. Do you think he will do anything for George, or be at any expense to give him a proper education; or, if he wish to do it, is his present fortune such a one that he could spare anything out of it?

You know how poor I am, not that I mean to ask him to do anything for him, that is to say, to be of any expense on his account."

If any application was made to the boy's great-uncle, it was unsuccessful. On May 19, 1798, Lord Byron died, and Hanson informed Mrs.

Byron that her son had succeeded to the t.i.tle and estates. At the end of the summer of that year, the little Lord Byron, with his mother and the nurse May Gray, reached Newstead, and, within a few weeks from their arrival, his first letter was written. His letters to his mother, it may be observed, are always addressed to "the Honourable Mrs. Byron," a t.i.tle to which she had no claim.

1.--To Mrs. Parker. [1]

Newstead Abbey, Nov. 8th, 1798.

Dear Madam,--My Mamma being unable to write herself desires I will let you know that the potatoes are now ready and you are welcome to them whenever you please.

She begs you will ask Mrs. Parkyns if she would wish the poney to go round by Nottingham or to go home the nearest way as it is now quite well but too small to carry me.

I have sent a young Rabbit which I beg Miss Frances will accept off and which I promised to send before. My Mamma desires her best compliments to you all in which I join.