Life of Lord Byron Volume I Part 18

But, however far short of himself his first writings must be considered, there is in his Satire a liveliness of thought, and still more a vigour and courage, which, concurring with the justice of his cause and the sympathies of the public on his side, could not fail to attach instant celebrity to his name. Notwithstanding, too, the general boldness and recklessness of his tone, there were occasionally mingled with this defiance some allusions to his own fate and character, whose affecting earnestness seemed to answer for their truth, and which were of a nature strongly to awaken curiosity as well as interest. One or two of these pa.s.sages, as ill.u.s.trative of the state of his mind at this period, I shall here extract. The loose and unfenced state in which his youth was left to grow wild upon the world is thus touchingly alluded to:--

"Ev'n I, least thinking of a thoughtless throng, Just skill'd to know the right and choose the wrong, Freed at that age when Reason's s.h.i.+eld is lost To fight my course through Pa.s.sion's countless host, Whom every path of Pleasure's flowery way Has lured in turn, and all have led astray[105]-- Ev'n I must raise my voice, ev'n I must feel Such scenes, such men destroy the public weal: Although some kind, censorious friend will say, 'What art thou better, meddling fool,[106] than they?'

And every brother Rake will smile to see That miracle, a Moralist, in me."

But the pa.s.sage in which, hastily thrown off as it is, we find the strongest traces of that wounded feeling, which bleeds, as it were, through all his subsequent writings, is the following:--

"The time hath been, when no harsh sound would fall From lips that now may seem imbued with gall, Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes.

But now so callous grown, so changed from youth," &c.

Some of the causes that worked this change in his character have been intimated in the course of the preceding pages. That there was no tinge of bitterness in his natural disposition, we have abundant testimony, besides his own, to prove. Though, as a child, occasionally pa.s.sionate and headstrong, his docility and kindness towards those who were themselves kind, is acknowledged by all; and "playful" and "affectionate" are invariably the epithets by which those who knew him in his childhood convey their impression of his character.

Of all the qualities, indeed, of his nature, affectionateness seems to have been the most ardent and most deep. A disposition, on his own side, to form strong attachments, and a yearning desire after affection in return, were the feeling and the want that formed the dream and torment of his existence. We have seen with what pa.s.sionate enthusiasm he threw himself into his boyish friends.h.i.+ps. The all-absorbing and unsuccessful love that followed was, if I may so say, the agony, without being the death, of this unsated desire, which lived on through his life, and filled his poetry with the very soul of tenderness, lent the colouring of its light to even those unworthy ties which vanity or pa.s.sion led him afterwards to form, and was the last aspiration of his fervid spirit in those stanzas written but a few months before his death:--

"'Tis time this heart should be unmoved, Since others it has ceased to move; Yet, though I cannot be beloved, Still let me love!"

It is much, I own, to be questioned, whether, even under the most favourable circ.u.mstances, a disposition such as I have here described could have escaped ultimate disappointment, or found any where a resting-place for its imaginings and desires. But, in the case of Lord Byron, disappointment met him on the very threshold of life. His mother, to whom his affections first, naturally with ardour, turned, either repelled them rudely, or capriciously trifled with them. In speaking of his early days to a friend at Genoa, a short time before his departure for Greece, he traced the first feelings of pain and humiliation he had ever known to the coldness with which his mother had received his caresses in infancy, and the frequent taunts on his personal deformity with which she had wounded him.

The sympathy of a sister's love, of all the influences on the mind of a youth the most softening, was also, in his early days, denied to him,--his sister Augusta and he having seen but little of each other while young. A vent through the calm channel of domestic affections might have brought down the high current of his feelings to a level nearer that of the world he had to traverse, and thus saved them from the tumultuous rapids and falls to which this early elevation, in their after-course, exposed them.

In the dearth of all home-endearments, his heart had no other resource but in those boyish friends.h.i.+ps which he formed at school; and when these were interrupted by his removal to Cambridge, he was again thrown back, isolated, on his own restless desires. Then followed his ill-fated attachment to Miss Chaworth, to which, more than to any other cause, he himself attributed the desolating change then wrought in his disposition.

"I doubt sometimes (he says, in his 'Detached Thoughts,') whether, after all, a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me; yet I sometimes long for it. My earliest dreams (as most boys' dreams are) were martial; but a little later they were all for _love_ and retirement, till the hopeless attachment to M---- C---- began and continued (though sedulously concealed) _very_ early in my teens; and so upwards for a time. _This_ threw me out again 'alone on a wide, wide sea.' In the year 1804 I recollect meeting my sister at General Harcourt's, in Portland Place. I was then _one thing_, and _as_ she had always till then found me. When we met again in 1805 (she told me since) that my temper and disposition were so completely altered, that I was hardly to be recognised. I was not then sensible of the change; but I can believe it, and account for it."

I have already described his parting with Miss Chaworth previously to her marriage. Once again, after that event, he saw her, and for the last time,--being invited by Mr. Chaworth to dine at Annesley not long before his departure from England. The few years that had elapsed since their last meeting had made a considerable change in the appearance and manners of the young poet. The fat, unformed schoolboy was now a slender and graceful young man. Those emotions and pa.s.sions which at first heighten, and then destroy, beauty, had as yet produced only their favourable effects on his features; and, though with but little aid from the example of refined society, his manners had subsided into that tone of gentleness and self-possession which more than any thing marks the well-bred gentleman. Once only was the latter of these qualities put to the trial, when the little daughter of his fair hostess was brought into the room. At the sight of the child he started involuntarily,--it was with the utmost difficulty he could conceal his emotion; and to the sensations of that moment we are indebted for those touching stanzas, "Well--thou art happy,"

&c.,[107] which appeared afterwards in a Miscellany published by one of his friends, and are now to be found in the general collection of his works. Under the influence of the same despondent pa.s.sion, he wrote two other poems at this period, from which, as they exist only in the Miscellany I have just alluded to, and that collection has for some time been out of print, a few stanzas may, not improperly, be extracted here.

"THE FAREWELL--TO A LADY.[108]

"When man, expell'd from Eden's bowers, A moment linger'd near the gate, Each scene recall'd the vanish'd hours, And bade him curse his future fate.

"But wandering on through distant climes, He learnt to bear his load of grief; Just gave a sigh to other times, And found in busier scenes relief.

"Thus, lady,[109] must it be with me, And I must view thy charms no more!

For, whilst I linger near to thee, I sigh for all I knew before," &c. &c.

The other poem is, throughout, full of tenderness; but I shall give only what appear to me the most striking stanzas.

"STANZAS TO ---- ON LEAVING ENGLAND.

"'Tis done--and s.h.i.+vering in the gale The bark unfurls her snowy sail; And whistling o'er the bending mast, Loud sings on high the fresh'ning blast; And I must from this land be gone, Because I cannot love but one.

"As some lone bird, without a mate, My weary heart is desolate; I look around, and cannot trace One friendly smile or welcome face, And ev'n in crowds am still alone, Because I cannot love but one.

"And I will cross the whitening foam, And I will seek a foreign home; Till I forget a false fair face, I ne'er shall find a resting-place; My own dark thoughts I cannot shun, But ever love, and love but one.

"I go--but wheresoe'er I flee There's not an eye will weep for me; There's not a kind congenial heart, Where I can claim the meanest part; Nor thou, who hast my hopes undone, Wilt sigh, although I love but one.

"To think of every early scene, Of what we are, and what we've been, Would whelm some softer hearts with woe-- But mine, alas! has stood the blow; Yet still beats on as it begun, And never truly loves but one.

"And who that dear loved one may be Is not for vulgar eyes to see, And why that early love was crost, Thou know'st the best, I feel the most; But few that dwell beneath the sun Have loved so long, and loved but one.

"I've tried another's fetters, too, With charms, perchance, as fair to view; And I would fain have loved as well, But some unconquerable spell Forbade my bleeding breast to own A kindred care for aught but one.

"'Twould soothe to take one lingering view, And bless thee in my last adieu; Yet wish I not those eyes to weep For him that wanders o'er the deep; His home, his hope, his youth, are gone, Yet still he loves, and loves but one."[110]

While thus, in all the relations of the heart, his thirst after affection was thwarted, in another instinct of his nature, not less strong--the desire of eminence and distinction--he was, in an equal degree, checked in his aspirings, and mortified. The inadequacy of his means to his station was early a source of embarra.s.sment and humiliation to him; and those high, patrician notions of birth in which he indulged but made the disparity between his fortune and his rank the more galling. Ambition, however, soon whispered to him that there were other and n.o.bler ways to distinction. The eminence which talent builds for itself might, one day, he proudly felt, be his own; nor was it too sanguine to hope that, under the favour accorded usually to youth, he might with impunity venture on his first steps to fame. But here, as in every other object of his heart, disappointment and mortification awaited him. Instead of experiencing the ordinary forbearance, if not indulgence, with which young aspirants for fame are received by their critics, he found himself instantly the victim of such unmeasured severity as is not often dealt out even to veteran offenders in literature; and, with a heart fresh from the trials of disappointed love, saw those resources and consolations which he had sought in the exercise of his intellectual strength also invaded.

While thus prematurely broken into the pains of life, a no less darkening effect was produced upon him by too early an initiation into its pleasures. That charm with which the fancy of youth invests an untried world was, in his case, soon dissipated. His pa.s.sions had, at the very onset of their career, forestalled the future; and the blank void that followed was by himself considered as one of the causes of that melancholy, which now settled so deeply into his character.

"My pa.s.sions" (he says, in his 'Detached Thoughts') "were developed very early--so early that few would believe me if I were to state the period and the facts which accompanied it. Perhaps this was one of the reasons which caused the antic.i.p.ated melancholy of my thoughts,--having antic.i.p.ated life. My earlier poems are the thoughts of one at least ten years older than the age at which they were written,--I don't mean for their solidity, but their experience. The two first Cantos of Childe Harold were completed at twenty-two; and they are written as if by a man older than I shall probably ever be."

Though the allusions in the first sentence of this extract have reference to a much earlier period, they afford an opportunity of remarking, that however dissipated may have been the life which he led during the two or three years previous to his departure on his travels, yet the notion caught up by many, from his own allusions, in Childe Harold, to irregularities and orgies of which Newstead had been the scene, is, like most other imputations against him, founded on his own testimony, greatly exaggerated. He describes, it is well known, the home of his poetical representative as a "monastic dome, condemned to uses vile," and then adds,--

"Where Superst.i.tion once had made her den, Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile."

Mr. Dallas, too, giving in to the same strain of exaggeration, says, in speaking of the poet's preparations for his departure, "already satiated with pleasure, and disgusted with those companions who have no other resource, he had resolved on mastering his appet.i.tes;--he broke up his harams." The truth, however, is, that the narrowness of Lord Byron's means would alone have prevented such oriental luxuries.

The mode of his life at Newstead was simple and unexpensive. His companions, though not averse to convivial indulgences, were of habits and tastes too intellectual for mere vulgar debauchery; and, with respect to the alleged "harams," it appears certain that one or two suspected "_subintroductae_" (as the ancient monks of the abbey would have styled them), and those, too, among the ordinary menials of the establishment, were all that even scandal itself could ever fix upon to warrant such an a.s.sumption.

That gaming was among his follies at this period he himself tells us in the journal I have just cited:--

"I have a notion (he says) that gamblers are as happy as many people, being always _excited_. Women, wine, fame, the table,--even ambition, _sate_ now and then; but every turn of the card and cast of the dice keeps the gamester alive: besides, one can game ten times longer than one can do any thing else. I was very fond of it when young, that is to say, of hazard, for I hate all _card_ games,--even faro. When macco (or whatever they spell it) was introduced, I gave up the whole thing, for I loved and missed the _rattle_ and _dash_ of the box and dice, and the glorious uncertainty, not only of good luck or bad luck, but of _any luck at all_, as one had sometimes to throw _often_ to decide at all. I have thrown as many as fourteen mains running, and carried off all the cash upon the table occasionally; but I had no coolness, or judgment, or calculation. It was the delight of the thing that pleased me. Upon the whole, I left off in time, without being much a winner or loser. Since one-and-twenty years of age I played but little, and then never above a hundred, or two, or three."

To this, and other follies of the same period, he alludes in the following note:--

TO MR. WILLIAM BANKES.

"Twelve o'clock, Friday night.

"My dear Bankes,

"I have just received your note; believe me I regret most sincerely that I was not fortunate enough to see it before, as I need not repeat to you that your conversation for half an hour would have been much more agreeable to me than gambling or drinking, or any other fas.h.i.+onable mode of pa.s.sing an evening abroad or at home.--I really am very sorry that I went out previous to the arrival of your despatch: in future pray let me hear from you before six, and whatever my engagements may be, I will always postpone them.--Believe me, with that deference which I have always from my childhood paid to your _talents_, and with somewhat a better opinion of your heart than I have hitherto entertained,

"Yours ever," &c.

Among the causes--if not rather among the results--of that disposition to melancholy, which, after all, perhaps, naturally belonged to his temperament, must not be forgotten those sceptical views of religion, which clouded, as has been shown, his boyish thoughts, and, at the time of which I am speaking, gathered still more darkly over his mind.

In general we find the young too ardently occupied with the enjoyments which this life gives or promises to afford either leisure or inclination for much enquiry into the mysteries of the next. But with him it was unluckily otherwise; and to have, at once, antic.i.p.ated the worst experience both of the voluptuary and the reasoner,--to have reached, as he supposed, the boundary of this world's pleasures, and see nothing but "clouds and darkness" beyond, was the doom, the anomalous doom, which a nature, premature in all its pa.s.sions and powers, inflicted on Lord Byron.

When Pope, at the age of five-and-twenty, complained of being weary of the world, he was told by Swift that he "had not yet acted or suffered enough in the world to have become weary of it."[111] But far different was the youth of Pope and of Byron;--what the former but antic.i.p.ated in thought, the latter had drunk deep of in reality;--at an age when the one was but looking forth on the sea of life, the other had plunged in, and tried its depths. Swift himself, in whom early disappointments and wrongs had opened a vein of bitterness that never again closed, affords a far closer parallel to the fate of our n.o.ble poet,[112] as well in the untimeliness of the trials he had been doomed to encounter, as in the traces of their havoc which they left in his character.

That the romantic fancy of youth, which courts melancholy as an indulgence, and loves to a.s.sume a sadness it has not had time to earn, may have had some share in, at least, fostering the gloom by which the mind of the young poet was overcast, I am not disposed to deny. The circ.u.mstance, indeed, of his having, at this time, among the ornaments of his study, a number of skulls highly polished, and placed on light stands round the room, would seem to indicate that he rather courted than shunned such gloomy a.s.sociations.[113] Being a sort of boyish mimickry, too, of the use to which the poet Young is said to have applied a skull, such a display might well induce some suspicion of the sincerity of his gloom, did we not, through the whole course of his subsequent life and writings, track visibly the deep vein of melancholy which nature had imbedded in his character.

Such was the state of mind and heart,--as, from his own testimony and that of others, I have collected it,--in which Lord Byron now set out on his indefinite pilgrimage; and never was there a change wrought in disposition and character to which Shakspeare's fancy of "sweet bells jangled out of tune" more truly applied. The unwillingness of Lord Carlisle to countenance him, and his humiliating position in consequence, completed the full measure of that mortification towards which so many other causes had concurred. Baffled, as he had been, in his own ardent pursuit of affection and friends.h.i.+p, his sole revenge and consolation lay in doubting that any such feelings really existed.

The various crosses he had met with, in themselves sufficiently irritating and wounding, were rendered still more so by the high, impatient temper with which he encountered them. What others would have bowed to, as misfortunes, his proud spirit rose against, as wrongs; and the vehemence of this re-action produced, at once, a revolution throughout his whole character,[114] in which, as in revolutions of the political world, all that was bad and irregular in his nature burst forth with all that was most energetic and grand. The very virtues and excellencies of his disposition ministered to the violence of this change. The same ardour that had burned through his friends.h.i.+ps and loves now fed the fierce explosions of his indignation and scorn. His natural vivacity and humour but lent a fresher flow to his bitterness,[115] till he, at last, revelled in it as an indulgence; and that hatred of hypocrisy, which had hitherto only shown itself in a too shadowy colouring of his own youthful frailties, now hurried him, from his horror of all false pretensions to virtue, into the still more dangerous boast and ostentation of vice.

The following letter to his mother, written a few days before he sailed, gives some particulars respecting the persons who composed his suit. Robert Rushton, whom he mentions so feelingly in the postscript, was the boy introduced, as his page, in the first Canto of Childe Harold.