The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 112

Surrounding the quadrangle are two-storied cloisters, and in the centre a "Gothic fountain" (stanza lxv. line 1) of composite workmans.h.i.+p. The upper portion of the stonework is hexagonal, and is ornamented with a double row of gargoyles (all "monsters" and no "saints," recalling, perhaps identical with, the "seven deadly sins" gargoyles, still _in situ_ in the quadrangle of Magdalen College, Oxford); the lower half, which belongs to the seventeenth or eighteenth century, is hollowed into niches of a Roman or cla.s.sical design. (In Byron's time the fountain stood in a courtyard in front of the Abbey, but before he composed this canto it had been restored by Colonel Wildman to its original place within the quadrangle. Byron was acquainted with the change, and writes accordingly.) When the Byrons took possession of the Abbey the upper stories of the cloisters were converted, on three sides of the quadrangle, into galleries, and on the fourth, the north side, into a library. Ab.u.t.ting on the cloisters are the monastic buildings proper, in part transformed, but with "much of the monastic" preserved. On the west, the front of the Abbey, the ground floor consists of the entrance hall and Monks' Parlour, and, above, the Guests' Refectory or Banqueting-hall, and the Prior's Parlour. On the south, the Xenodochium or Guesten Hall, and, above, the Monks' Refectory, or Grand Drawing-room; on the south and east, on the ground floor, the Prior's Lodgings, the Chapter House ("the exquisite small chapel," stanza lxvi.

line 5), the "slype" or pa.s.sage between church and Chapter House; and in the upper story, the state bedrooms, named after the kings, Edward III., Henry VII., etc., who, by the terms of the grant of land to the Prior and Canons, were ent.i.tled to free quarters in the Abbey. During Byron's brief tenure of Newstead, and for long years before, these "huge halls, long galleries, and s.p.a.cious chambers" (stanza lxxvii. line 1) were half dismantled, and in a more or less ruinous condition. A few pictures remained on the walls of the Great Drawing-room, of the Prior's Parlour, and in the apartments of the south-east wing or annexe, which dates from the seventeenth century (see the account of a visit to Newstead in 1812, in _Beauties of England and Wales_, 1813, xii. 401-405). There are and were portraits, by Lely (stanza lxviii. line 7), of a Lady Byron, of f.a.n.n.y Jennings, d.u.c.h.ess of Tyrconnel, "loveliness personified," of Mrs.

Hughes, and of Nell Gwynne; by Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller, of William and Mary; by unnamed artists, of George I. and George II.; and by Ramsay, of George III. There are portraits of a fat Prior, William Sandall, with a jewelled reliquary; of "Sir John the Little with the Great Beard," who ruled in the Prior's stead; and there is the portrait, a votive tablet of penitence and remorse, "of that Lord Arundel Who struck in heat the child he loved so well" (see "A Picture at Newstead," by Matthew Arnold, _Poetical Works_, 1890, p. 177); but of portraits of judges or bishops, or of pictures by old masters, there is neither trace nor record.

But the characteristic feature of Newstead Abbey, so familiar that description seems unnecessary, and, yet, never quite accurately described, is the west front of the Priory Church, which is in line with the west front of the Abbey. "Half apart," the southern portion of this front, which abuts on the windows of the Prior's Parlour, and the room above, where Byron slept, flanks and conceals the west end of the north cloisters and library; but, with this exception, it is a screen, and nothing more. In the centre is the "mighty window" (stanza lxii. line 1), shorn of gla.s.s and tracery; above are six lancet windows (which Byron seems to have regarded as niches), and, above again, in a "higher niche" (stanza lxi. line 1), is the crowned Virgin with the Babe in her arms, which escaped, as by a miracle, the "fiery darts"--the shot and cannon-b.a.l.l.s of the Cromwellian troopers. On either side of the central window are "two blank windows containing tracery ['geometrical decorated'] ... carved [in relief] on the solid ashlar;" on either side of the window, and at the northern and southern extremities of the front, are b.u.t.tresses with canopied niches, in each of which a saint or apostle must once have stood. Over the west door there is the mutilated figure of (?) the Saviour, but of twelve saints or twelve niches there is no trace. The "grand arch" is an ivy-clad screen, and nothing more.

Behind and beyond, in place of vanished nave, of aisle and transept, is the smooth green turf; and at the east end, on the site of the high altar, stands the urn-crowned masonry of Boatswain's tomb.

Newstead Abbey was sold by Lord Byron to his old schoolfellow, Colonel Thomas Wildman, in November, 1817. The house and property were resold in 1861, by his widow, to William Frederick Webb, Esq., a traveller in many lands, the friend and host of David Livingstone. At his death the estate was inherited by his daughter, Miss Geraldine Webb, who was married to General Sir Herbert Charles Chermside, G.C.M.G., etc., Governor of Queensland, in 1899.

For Newstead Abbey, see _Beauties of England and Wales_, 1813, xii. Part I. 401-405 (often reprinted without acknowledgment); _Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey_, by Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, 1835; _Journal of the Archaeological a.s.sociation_ (papers by T.J. Pettigrew, F.R.S., and Arthur Ashpitel, F.S.A.), 1854, vol. ix. pp. 14-39; and _A Souvenir of Newstead Abbey_ (ill.u.s.trated by a series of admirable photographs), by Richard Allen, Nottingham, 1874, etc., etc.]

{497}[669] [The woodlands were sacrificed to the needs or fancies of Byron's great-uncle, the "wicked Lord." One splendid oak, known as the "Pilgrim's Oak," which stood and stands near the north lodge of the park, near the "Hut," was bought in by the neighbouring gentry, and made over to the estate. Perhaps by the Druid oak Byron meant to celebrate this "last of the clan," which, in his day, before the woods were replanted, must have stood out in solitary grandeur.]

{498}[670] [Compare "Epistle to Augusta," stanza x. line 1, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 68.]

[671] [The little wood which Byron planted at the south-east corner of the upper or "Stable" Lake, known as "Poet's Corner," still slopes to the water's brink. Nor have the wild-fowl diminished. The lower of the three lakes is specially reserved as a breeding-place.]

[me] _Its shriller echo_----.--[MS.]

[mf]

_Which sympathized with Time's and Tempest's march, In gazing on that high and haughty Arch_.--[MS.]

{499}[672] [See lines "On Leaving Newstead Abbey," stanza 5, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 3, note 1.]

[mg] _But in the stillness of the moon_----.--[MS.]

{500}[673] [Vide ante, _The Deformed Transformed_, Part I. line 532, _Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 497.]

[674] This is not a frolic invention: it is useless to specify the spot, or in what county, but I have heard it both alone and in company with those who will never hear it more. It can, of course, be accounted for by some natural or accidental cause, but it was a strange sound, and unlike any other I have ever heard (and I have heard many above and below the surface of the earth produced in ruins, etc., etc., or caverns).--[MS.]

["The unearthly sound" may still be heard at rare intervals, but it is difficult to believe that the "huge arch" can act as an aeolian harp.

Perhaps the smaller lancet windows may vocalize the wind.]

{501}[mh] _Prouder of such a toy than of their breed_.--[MS. erased.]

{502}[675] Salvator Rosa. The wicked necessity of rhyming obliges me to adapt the name to the verse.--[MS.]

[Compare--

"Whate'er Lorraine light touch'd with softening hue, Or _savage_ Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew."

Thomson's _Castle of Indolence_, Canto I. stanza x.x.xviii. lines 8, 9.]

[676] If I err not, "your Dane" is one of Iago's catalogue of nations "exquisite in their drinking."

["Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander--drink hoa!

are nothing to your English." "Is your Englishman so exquisite in his drinking?" (So Collier and Knight. The Quarto reads "expert").--_Oth.e.l.lo_, act ii. sc. 3, lines 71-74.]

[mi]

_His bell-mouthed goblet--and his laughing group Provoke my thirst--what ho! a flask of Rhenish_.--[MS. erased.]

{503}[mj] _Hath yet at night the very best of wines._--[MS.]

[677] ["Sea-coal" (i.e. Newcastle coal), as distinguished from "charcoal" and "earth-coal." But the qualification must have been unusual and old-fas.h.i.+oned in 1822. "Earth-coal" is found in large quant.i.ties on the Newstead estate, and the Abbey, far below its foundations, is tunnelled by a coal-drift.]

[678] [See Gray's _omitted_ stanza--

"'Here scatter'd oft, _the earliest_ of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The red-breast loves to build and warble here, And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'

As fine ... as any in his Elegy. I wonder that he could have the heart to omit it."--"Extracts from a Diary," February 27, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 210. The stanza originally preceded the Epitaph.]

{504}[679] In a.s.syria. [See _Daniel_ iii. 1.]

[mk]

---- _she hath the tame Preserved within doors--why not make them Game?_--[MS.]

[680] [It is difficult, if not impossible, to furnish a clue to the names of all the guests at Norman Abbey. Some who are included in this ghostly "house-party" seem to be, and, perhaps, were meant to be, _nomina umbrarum_; and others are, undoubtedly, contemporary celebrities, under a more or less transparent disguise. A few of these shadows have been substantiated (vide infra, et post), but the greater part decline to be materialized or verified.]

[ml]---- _the Countess Squabby._--[MS.]

[681] [Perhaps Mary, widow of the eighth Earl of Cork and Orrery: "Dowager Cork," "Old Corky," of Joseph Jekyll's _Correspondence_, 1894, pp. 83, 275.]

[682] [Mrs. Rabbi may be Mrs. Coutts, the Mrs. Million of _Vivian Grey_ (1826, i. 183), who arrived at "Chateau Desir in a crimson silk pelisse, hat and feathers, with diamond ear-rings, and a rope of gold round her neck."]

{505}[683] [Lie, lye, or ley, is a solution of pota.s.sium salts obtained by bleaching wood-ashes. Byron seems to have confused "lie" with "lee,"

i.e. dregs, sediment.]

[684] [_"Aroint thee, witch!_ the rump-fed ronyon cries." _Macbeth_, act ii. sc. 3, line 6.]

[mm] _Or (to come to the point, like my friend Pulci)_.--[MS. erased.]

[685] [Hor., _Epist. Ad Pisones_, line 343.]

[mn]---- _by fear or flattery_.--[MS. erased.]

[686] Siria, i.e. b.i.t.c.h-star.

[mo] _I have seen--no matter what--we now shall see_.--[MS. erased.]

{506}[687] [Parolles [see _All's Well that Ends Well_, pa.s.sim] is Brougham (vide ante, the suppressed stanzas, Canto I. pp. 67-69). It is possible that this stanza was written after the Canto as a whole was finished. But, if not, an incident which took place in the House of Commons, April 17, 1823, during a debate on Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation, may be quoted in corroboration of Brougham's unreadiness with regard to the point of honour. In the course of his speech he accused Canning of "monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining office," and Canning, without waiting for Brougham to finish, gave him the lie: "I rise to say that that is false" (_Parl. Deb._, N.S. vol. 8, p. 1091).

There was a "scene," which ended in an exchange of explanations and quasi-apologies, and henceforth, as a rule, parliamentary insults were given and received without recourse to duelling. Byron was not aware that the "old order" had pa.s.sed or was pa.s.sing. Compare Hazlitt, in _The Spirit of the Age_, 1825, pp. 302, 303: "He [Brougham] is adventurous, but easily panic-struck, and sacrifices the vanity of self-opinion to the necessity of self-preservation ... himself the first to get out of harm's way and escape from the danger;" and Mr. Parthenopex Puff (W.

Stewart Rose), in _Vivian Grey_ (1826, i. 186, 187), "Oh! he's a prodigious fellow! What do you think b.o.o.by says? he says, that Foaming Fudge [Brougham] can do more than any man in Great Britain; that he had one day to plead in the King's Bench, spout at a tavern, speak in the House, and fight a duel--and that he found time for everything but the _last_."]

[mp] _There was, too, Henry B_----.--[MS. erased.]

[688] [In his Journal for December 5, 1813, Byron writes: "The Duke of ---- called.... His Grace is a good, n.o.ble, ducal person" (_Letters_, 1898, ii. 361). Possibly the earlier "Duke of Dash" was William Spencer, sixth Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, an old schoolfellow of Byron's, who was eager to renew the acquaintance (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 98, note 2); and, if so, he may be reckoned as one of the guests of "Norman Abbey."]

{507}[689] [Gronow (_Reminiscences_, 1889, i. 234-240) identifies the _Chevalier de la Ruse_ with Casimir Comte de Montrond (1768-1843), back-stairs diplomatist, wit, gambler, and man of fas.h.i.+on. He was the lifelong companion, if not friend, of Talleyrand, who pleaded for him: "Qui est-ce qui ne l'aimerait pas, il est si vicieux!" At one time in the pay of Napoleon, he fell under his displeasure, and, to avoid arrest, spent two years of exile (1812-14) in England. "He was not,"

says Gronow, "a great talker, nor did he swagger ... or laugh at his own _bons-mots_. He was demure, sleek, sly, and dangerous.... In the London clubs he went by the name of Old French." He was a constant guest of the Duke of York's at Oatlands, "and won much at his whist-table" (_English Whist_, by W.P. Courtney, 1894, p. 181). For his second residence in England, and for a sketch by D'Orsay, see _A Portion of the Journal, etc._, by Thomas Raikes, 1857, frontispiece to vol. iv., _et_ vols.

i.-iv. _pa.s.sim_. See, for biographical notice, _L'Ami de M. de Talleyrand_, par Henri Welschinger, _La Revue de Paris_, 1895, Fev., tom. i. pp. 640-654.]