Life of Lord Byron Volume I Part 1

Life of Lord Byron.

Vol. I.

by Thomas Moore.

PREFACE

TO THE

FIRST VOLUME OF THE FIRST EDITION.[1]

In presenting these Volumes to the public I should have felt, I own, considerable diffidence, from a sincere distrust in my own powers of doing justice to such a task, were I not well convinced that there is in the subject itself, and in the rich variety of materials here brought to ill.u.s.trate it, a degree of attraction and interest which it would be difficult, even for hands the most unskilful, to extinguish.

However lamentable were the circ.u.mstances under which Lord Byron became estranged from his country, to his long absence from England, during the most brilliant period of his powers, we are indebted for all those interesting letters which compose the greater part of the Second Volume of this work, and which will be found equal, if not superior, in point of vigour, variety, and liveliness, to any that have yet adorned this branch of our literature.

What has been said of Petrarch, that "his correspondence and verses together afford the progressive interest of a narrative in which the poet is always identified with the man," will be found applicable, in a far greater degree, to Lord Byron, in whom the literary and the personal character were so closely interwoven, that to have left his works without the instructive commentary which his Life and Correspondence afford, would have been equally an injustice both to himself and to the world.

PREFACE

TO THE

SECOND VOLUME OF THE FIRST EDITION.

The favourable reception which I ventured to antic.i.p.ate for the First Volume of this work has been, to the full extent of my expectations, realised; and I may without scruple thus advert to the success it has met with, being well aware that to the interest of the subject and the materials, not to any merit of the editor, such a result is to be attributed. Among the less agreeable, though not least valid, proofs of this success may be counted the attacks which, from more than one quarter, the Volume has provoked;--attacks angry enough, it must be confessed, but, from their very anger, impotent, and, as containing nothing whatever in the shape either of argument or fact, not ent.i.tled, I may be pardoned for saying, to the slightest notice.

Of a very different description, both as regards the respectability of the source from whence it comes, and the mysterious interest involved in its contents, is a doc.u.ment which made its appearance soon after the former Volume,[2] and which I have annexed, without a single line of comment, to the present;--contenting myself, on this painful subject, with entreating the reader's attention to some extracts, as beautiful as they are, to my mind, convincing, from an unpublished pamphlet of Lord Byron, which will be found in the following pages.[3]

Sanguinely as I was led to augur of the reception of our First Volume, of the success of that which we now present to the public, I am disposed to feel even still more confident. Though self-banished from England, it was plain that to England alone Lord Byron continued to look, throughout the remainder of his days, not only as the natural theatre of his literary fame, but as the tribunal to which all his thoughts, feelings, virtues, and frailties were to be referred; and the exclamation of Alexander, "Oh, Athenians, how much it costs me to obtain your praises!" might have been, with equal truth, addressed by the n.o.ble exile to his countrymen. To keep the minds of the English public for ever occupied about him,--if not with his merits, with his faults; if not in applauding, in blaming him,--was, day and night, the constant ambition of his soul; and in the correspondence he so regularly maintained with his publisher, one of the chief mediums through which this object was to be effected lay. Mr. Murray's house being then, as now, the resort of most of those literary men who are, at the same time, men of the world, his Lords.h.i.+p knew that whatever particulars he might wish to make public concerning himself, would, if transmitted to that quarter, be sure to circulate from thence throughout society. It was on this presumption that he but rarely, as we shall find him more than once stating, corresponded with any others of his friends at home; and to the mere accident of my having been, myself, away from England, at the time, was I indebted for the numerous and no less interesting letters with which, during the same period, he honoured me, and which now enrich this volume.

In these two sets of correspondence (given, as they are here, with as little suppression as a regard to private feelings and to certain other considerations, warrants) will be found a complete history, from the pen of the poet himself, of the course of his life and thoughts, during this most energetic period of his whole career;--presenting altogether so wide a canva.s.s of animated and, often, unconscious self-portraiture, as even the communicative spirit of genius has seldom, if ever, before bestowed on the world.

Some insinuations, calling into question the disinterestedness of the lady whose fate was connected with that of Lord Byron during his latter years, having been brought forward, or rather revived, in a late work, ent.i.tled "Galt's Life of Byron,"--a work wholly unworthy of the respectable name it bears,--I may be allowed to adduce here a testimony on this subject, which has been omitted in its proper place,[4] but which will be more than sufficient to set the idle calumny at rest. The circ.u.mstance here alluded to may be most clearly, perhaps, communicated to my readers through the medium of the following extract from a letter, which Mr. Barry (the friend and banker of Lord Byron) did me the favour of addressing to me soon after his Lords.h.i.+p's death[5]:--"When Lord Byron went to Greece, he gave me orders to advance money to Madame G----; but that lady would never consent to receive any. His Lords.h.i.+p had also told me that he meant to leave his will in my hands, and that there would be a bequest in it of 10,000_l._ to Madame G----. He mentioned this circ.u.mstance also to Lord Blessington. When the melancholy news of his death reached me, I took for granted that this will would be found among the sealed papers he had left with me; but there was no such instrument. I immediately then wrote to Madame G----, enquiring if she knew any thing concerning it, and mentioning, at the same time, what his Lords.h.i.+p had said as to the legacy. To this the lady replied, that he had frequently spoken to her on the same subject, but that she had always cut the conversation short, as it was a topic she by no means liked to hear him speak upon.

In addition, she expressed a wish that no such will as I had mentioned would be found; as her circ.u.mstances were already sufficiently independent, and the world might put a wrong construction on her attachment, should it appear that her fortunes were, in any degree, bettered by it."

NOTICES

OF THE

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

It has been said of Lord Byron, "that he was prouder of being a descendant of those Byrons of Normandy, who accompanied William the Conqueror into England, than of having been the author of Childe Harold and Manfred." This remark is not altogether unfounded in truth.

In the character of the n.o.ble poet, the pride of ancestry was undoubtedly one of the most decided features; and, as far as antiquity alone gives l.u.s.tre to descent, he had every reason to boast of the claims of his race. In Doomsday-book, the name of Ralph de Burun ranks high among the tenants of land in Nottinghams.h.i.+re; and in the succeeding reigns, under the t.i.tle of Lords of h.o.r.estan Castle,[6] we find his descendants holding considerable possessions in Derbys.h.i.+re; to which, afterwards, in the time of Edward I., were added the lands of Rochdale in Lancas.h.i.+re. So extensive, indeed, in those early times, was the landed wealth of the family, that the part.i.tion of their property, in Nottinghams.h.i.+re alone, has been sufficient to establish some of the first families of the county.

Its antiquity, however, was not the only distinction by which the name of Byron came recommended to its inheritor; those personal merits and accomplishments, which form the best ornament of a genealogy, seem to have been displayed in no ordinary degree by some of his ancestors. In one of his own early poems, alluding to the achievements of his race, he commemorates, with much satisfaction, those "mail-covered barons"

among them,

who proudly to battle Led their va.s.sals from Europe to Palestine's plain.

Adding,

Near Askalon's towers John of Horiston slumbers, Unnerved is the hand of his minstrel by death.

As there is no record, however, as far as I can discover, of any of his ancestors having been engaged in the Holy Wars, it is possible that he may have had no other authority for this notion than the tradition which he found connected with certain strange groups of heads, which are represented on the old panel-work, in some of the chambers at Newstead. In one of these groups, consisting of three heads, strongly carved and projecting from the panel, the centre figure evidently represents a Saracen or Moor, with an European female on one side of him, and a Christian soldier on the other. In a second group, which is in one of the bed-rooms, the female occupies the centre, while on each side is the head of a Saracen, with the eyes fixed earnestly upon her. Of the exact meaning of these figures there is nothing certain known; but the tradition is, I understand, that they refer to some love-adventure, in which one of those crusaders, of whom the young poet speaks, was engaged.

Of the more certain, or, at least, better known exploits of the family, it is sufficient, perhaps, to say, that, at the siege of Calais under Edward III., and on the fields, memorable in their respective eras, of Cressy, Bosworth, and Marston Moor, the name of the Byrons reaped honours both of rank and fame, of which their young descendant has, in the verses just cited, shown himself proudly conscious.

It was in the reign of Henry VIII., on the dissolution of the monasteries, that, by a royal grant, the church and priory of Newstead, with the lands adjoining, were added to the other possessions of the Byron family.[7] The favourite upon whom these spoils of the ancient religion were conferred, was the grand-nephew of the gallant soldier who fought by the side of Richmond at Bosworth, and is distinguished from the other knights of the same Christian name in the family, by the t.i.tle of "Sir John Byron the Little, with the great beard." A portrait of this personage was one of the few family pictures with which the walls of the abbey, while in the possession of the n.o.ble poet, were decorated.

At the coronation of James I. we find another representative of the family selected as an object of royal favour,--the grandson of Sir John Byron the Little, being, on this occasion, made a knight of the Bath. There is a letter to this personage, preserved in Lodge's Ill.u.s.trations, from which it appears, that notwithstanding all these apparent indications of prosperity, the inroads of pecuniary embarra.s.sment had already begun to be experienced by this ancient house. After counselling the new heir as to the best mode of getting free of his debts, "I do therefore advise you," continues the writer,[8] "that so soon as you have, in such sort as shall be fit, finished your father's funerals, to dispose and disperse that great household, reducing them to the number of forty or fifty, at the most, of all sorts; and, in my opinion, it will be far better for you to live for a time in Lancas.h.i.+re rather than in Notts, for many good reasons that I can tell you when we meet, fitter for words than writing."

From the following reign (Charles I.) the n.o.bility of the family date its origin. In the year 1643, Sir John Byron, great grandson of him who succeeded to the rich domains of Newstead, was created Baron Byron of Rochdale in the county of Lancaster; and seldom has a t.i.tle been bestowed for such high and honourable services as those by which this n.o.bleman deserved the grat.i.tude of his royal master. Through almost every page of the History of the Civil Wars, we trace his name in connection with the varying fortunes of the king, and find him faithful, persevering, and disinterested to the last. "Sir John Biron," says the writer of Colonel Hutchinson's Memoirs, "afterwards Lord Biron, and all his brothers, bred up in arms, and valiant men in their own persons, were all pa.s.sionately the king's." There is also, in the answer which Colonel Hutchinson, when governor of Nottingham, returned, on one occasion, to his cousin-german, Sir Richard Biron, a n.o.ble tribute to the valour and fidelity of the family. Sir Richard having sent to prevail on his relative to surrender the castle, received for answer, that "except he found his own heart p.r.o.ne to such treachery, he might consider there was, if nothing else, so much of a Biron's blood in him, that he should very much scorn to betray or quit a trust he had undertaken."

Such are a few of the gallant and distinguished personages, through whom the name and honours of this n.o.ble house have been transmitted.

By the maternal side also Lord Byron had to pride himself on a line of ancestry as ill.u.s.trious as any that Scotland can boast,--his mother, who was one of the Gordons of Gight, having been a descendant of that Sir William Gordon who was the third son of the Earl of Huntley, by the daughter of James I.

After the eventful period of the Civil Wars, when so many individuals of the house of Byron distinguished themselves,--there having been no less than seven brothers of that family on the field at Edgehill,--the celebrity of the name appears to have died away for near a century. It was about the year 1750, that the s.h.i.+pwreck and sufferings of Mr.

Byron[9] (the grandfather of the ill.u.s.trious subject of these pages) awakened, in no small degree, the attention and sympathy of the public. Not long after, a less innocent sort of notoriety attached itself to two other members of the family,--one, the grand-uncle of the poet, and the other, his father. The former in the year 1765, stood his trial before the House of Peers for killing, in a duel, or rather scuffle, his relation and neighbour Mr. Chaworth; and the latter, having carried off to the Continent the wife of Lord Carmarthen, on the n.o.ble marquis obtaining a divorce from the lady, married her. Of this short union one daughter only was the issue, the Honourable Augusta Byron, now the wife of Colonel Leigh.

In reviewing thus cursorily the ancestors, both near and remote, of Lord Byron, it cannot fail to be remarked how strikingly he combined in his own nature some of the best and, perhaps, worst qualities that lie scattered through the various characters of his predecessors,--the generosity, the love of enterprise, the high-mindedness of some of the better spirits of his race, with the irregular pa.s.sions, the eccentricity, and daring recklessness of the world's opinion, that so much characterised others.

The first wife of the father of the poet having died in 1784, he, in the following year, married Miss Catherine Gordon, only child and heiress of George Gordon, Esq. of Gight. In addition to the estate of Gight, which had, however, in former times, been much more extensive, this lady possessed, in ready money, bank shares, &c. no inconsiderable property; and it was known to be solely with a view of relieving himself from his debts, that Mr. Byron paid his addresses to her. A circ.u.mstance related, as having taken place before the marriage of this lady, not only shows the extreme quickness and vehemence of her feelings, but, if it be true that she had never at the time seen Captain Byron, is not a little striking. Being at the Edinburgh theatre one night when the character of Isabella was performed by Mrs.

Siddons, so affected was she by the powers of this great actress, that, towards the conclusion of the play, she fell into violent fits, and was carried out of the theatre, screaming loudly, "Oh, my Biron, my Biron!"

On the occasion of her marriage there appeared a ballad by some Scotch rhymer, which has been lately reprinted in a collection of the "Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland;" and as it bears testimony both to the reputation of the lady for wealth, and that of her husband for rakery and extravagance, it may be worth extracting:--

MISS GORDON OF GIGHT.

O whare are ye gaen, bonny Miss Gordon?

O whare are ye gaen, sae bonny an' braw?

Ye've married, ye've married wi' Johnny Byron, To squander the lands o' Gight awa'.

This youth is a rake, frae England he's come; The Scots dinna ken his extraction ava; He keeps up his misses, his landlord he duns, That's fast drawen' the lands o' Gight awa'.

O whare are ye gaen, &c.

The shooten' o' guns, an' rattlin' o' drums, The bugle in woods, the pipes i' the ha', The beagles a howlin', the hounds a growlin'; These soundings will soon gar Gight gang awa'.

O whare are ye gaen, &c.

Soon after the marriage, which took place, I believe, at Bath, Mr.

Byron and his lady removed to their estate in Scotland; and it was not long before the prognostics of this ballad-maker began to be realised. The extent of that chasm of debt, in which her fortune was to be swallowed up, now opened upon the eyes of the ill-fated heiress.

The creditors of Mr. Byron lost no time in pressing their demands; and not only was the whole of her ready money, bank shares, fisheries, &c., sacrificed to satisfy them, but a large sum raised by mortgage on the estate for the same purpose. In the summer of 1786, she and her husband left Scotland, to proceed to France; and in the following year the estate of Gight itself was sold, and the whole of the purchase money applied to the further payment of debts,--with the exception of a small sum vested in trustees for the use of Mrs. Byron, who thus found herself, within the short s.p.a.ce of two years, reduced from competence to a pittance of 150_l._ per annum.[10]

From France Mrs. Byron returned to England at the close of the year 1787; and on the 22d of January, 1788, gave birth, in Holles Street, London, to her first and only child, George Gordon Byron. The name of Gordon was added in compliance with a condition imposed by will on whoever should become husband of the heiress of Gight; and at the baptism of the child, the Duke of Gordon, and Colonel Duff of Fetteresso, stood G.o.dfathers.