Life of Lord Byron Volume I Part 26

LETTER 53.

TO MR. HENRY DRURY.

"Volage frigate, off Ushant, July 17. 1811.

"My dear Drury,

"After two years' absence (on the 2d) and some odd days, I am approaching your country. The day of our arrival you will see by the outside date of my letter. At present, we are becalmed comfortably, close to Brest Harbour;--I have never been so near it since I left Duck Puddle. We left Malta thirty-four days ago, and have had a tedious pa.s.sage of it. You will either see or hear from or of me, soon after the receipt of this, as I pa.s.s through town to repair my irreparable affairs; and thence I want to go to Notts. and raise rents, and to Lanes. and sell collieries, and back to London and pay debts,--for it seems I shall neither have coals nor comfort till I go down to Rochdale in person.

"I have brought home some marbles for Hobhouse;--for myself, four ancient Athenian skulls,[141] dug out of sarcophagi--a phial of Attic hemlock[142]--four live tortoises--a greyhound (died on the pa.s.sage)--two live Greek servants, one an Athenian, t'other a Yaniote, who can speak nothing but Romaic and Italian--and _myself_, as Moses in the Vicar of Wakefield says, slily, and I may say it too, for I have as little cause to boast of my expedition as he had of his to the fair.

"I wrote to you from the Cyanean Rocks to tell you I had swam from Sestos to Abydos--have you received my letter? Hodgson I suppose is four deep by this time. What would he have given to have seen, like me, the _real Parna.s.sus_, where I robbed the Bishop of Chrissae of a book of geography!--but this I only call plagiarism, as it was done within an hour's ride of Delphi."

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Published in two volumes, 4to.]

[Footnote 2: It is almost unnecessary to apprise the reader that the paragraph at the bottom of p. 222. vol. iv. was written _before_ the appearance of this extraordinary paper.]

[Footnote 3: From p. 4. to 11. vol. v. inclusive.]

[Footnote 4: In p. 232. vol. iv. however, the reader will find it alluded to, and in terms such as conduct so disinterested deserves.]

[Footnote 5: June 12, 1828.]

[Footnote 6: "In the park of Horseley," says Thoroton, "there was a castle, some of the ruins whereof are yet visible, called h.o.r.estan Castle, which was the chief mansion of his (Ralph de Burun's) successors."]

[Footnote 7: The priory of Newstead had been founded and dedicated to G.o.d and the Virgin, by Henry II.; and its monks, who were canons regular of the order of St. Augustine, appear to have been peculiarly the objects of royal favour, no less in spiritual than in temporal concerns. During the lifetime of the fifth Lord Byron, there was found in the lake at Newstead,--where it is supposed to have been thrown for concealment by the monks,--a large bra.s.s eagle, in the body of which, on its being sent to be cleaned, was discovered a secret aperture, concealing within it a number of old legal papers connected with the rights and privileges of the foundation. At the sale of the old lord's effects in 1776-7, this eagle, together with three candelabra, found at the same time, was purchased by a watch-maker of Nottingham (by whom the concealed ma.n.u.scripts were discovered), and having from his hands pa.s.sed into those of Sir Richard Kaye, a prebendary of Southwell, forms at present a very remarkable ornament of the cathedral of that place. A curious doc.u.ment, said to have been among those found in the eagle, is now in the possession of Colonel Wildman, containing a grant of full pardon from Henry V. of every possible crime (and there is a tolerably long catalogue enumerated) which the monks might have committed previous to the 8th of December preceding:--"_Murdris_, per ipsos _post decimum nonum diem Novembris_, ultimo praeteritum perpetratis, si quae fuerint, _exceptis_."]

[Footnote 8: The Earl of Shrewsbury.]

[Footnote 9: Afterwards Admiral.]

[Footnote 10: The following particulars respecting the amount of Mrs.

Byron's fortune before marriage, and its rapid disappearance afterwards, are, I have every reason to think, from the authentic source to which I am indebted for them, strictly correct:--

"At the time of the marriage, Miss Gordon was possessed of about 3000 _l._ in money, two shares of the Aberdeen Banking Company, the estates of Gight and Monks.h.i.+ll, and the superiority of two salmon fis.h.i.+ngs on Dee. Soon after the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Byron Gordon in Scotland, it appeared that Mr. Byron had involved himself very deeply in debt, and his creditors commenced legal proceedings for the recovery of their money. The cash in hand was soon paid away,--the bank shares were disposed of at 600 _l._ (now worth 5000 _l._)--timber on the estate was cut down and sold to the amount of 1500_l._--the farm of Monks.h.i.+ll and superiority of the fis.h.i.+ngs, affording a freehold qualification, were disposed of at 480_l._; and, in addition to these sales, within a year after the marriage, 8000_l._ was borrowed upon a mortgage on the estate, granted by Mrs. Byron Gordon to the person who lent the money.

"In March, 1786, a contract of marriage in the Scotch form was drawn up and signed by the parties. In the course of the summer of that year, Mr. and Mrs. Byron left Gight, and never returned to it; the estate being, in the following year, sold to Lord Haddo for the sum of 17,850_l._, the whole of which was applied to the payment of Mr.

Byron's debts, with the exception of 1122_l._, which remained as a burden on the estate, (the interest to be applied to paying a jointure of 55_l._ 11_s._ 1_d._ to Mrs. Byron's grandmother, the princ.i.p.al reverting, at her death, to Mrs. Byron,) and 3000_l._ vested in trustees for Mrs. Byron's separate use, which was lent to Mr.

Ca.r.s.ewell of Ratharllet, in Fifes.h.i.+re."

"A strange occurrence," says another of my informants, "took place previous to the sale of the lands. All the doves left the house of Gight and came to Lord Haddo's, and so did a number of herons, which had built their nests for many years in a wood on the banks of a large loch, called the Hagberry Pot. When this was told to Lord Haddo, he pertinently replied, 'Let the birds come, and do them no harm, for the land will soon follow;' which it actually did."]

[Footnote 11: It appears that she several times changed her residence during her stay at Aberdeen, as there are two other houses pointed out, where she lodged for some time; one situated in Virginia Street, and the other, the house of a Mr. Leslie, I think, in Broad Street.]

[Footnote 12: By her advances of money to Mr. Byron (says an authority I have already cited) on the two occasions when he visited Aberdeen, as well as by the expenses incurred in furnis.h.i.+ng the floor occupied by her, after his death, in Broad Street, she got in debt to the amount of 300 _l._, by paying the interest on which her income was reduced to 135 _l._ On this, however, she contrived to live without increasing her debt; and on the death of her grandmother, when she received the 122 _l._ set apart for that lady's annuity, discharged the whole.]

[Footnote 13: In Long Acre. The present master of this school is Mr.

David Grant, the ingenious editor of a collection of "Battles and War Pieces," and of a work of much utility, ent.i.tled "Cla.s.s Book of Modern Poetry."]

[Footnote 14: The old porter, too, at the College, "minds weel" the little boy, with the red jacket and nankeen trowsers, whom he has so often turned out of the College court-yard.]

[Footnote 15: "He was," says one of my informants, "a good hand at marbles, and could drive one farther than most boys. He also excelled at 'Bases,' a game which requires considerable swiftness of foot."]

[Footnote 16: On examining the quarterly lists kept at the grammar-school of Aberdeen, in which the names of the boys are set down according to the station each holds in his cla.s.s, it appears that in April of the year 1794, the name of Byron, then in the second cla.s.s, stands twenty-third in a list of thirty-eight boys. In the April of 1798, however, he had risen to be fifth in the fourth cla.s.s, consisting of twenty-seven boys, and had got ahead of several of his contemporaries, who had previously always stood before him.]

[Footnote 17: Notwithstanding the lively recollections expressed in this poem, it is pretty certain, from the testimony of his nurse, that he never was at the mountain itself, which stood some miles distant from his residence, more than twice.]

[Footnote 18: The Island.]

[Footnote 19: Dante, we know, was but nine years old when, at a May-day festival, he saw and fell in love with Beatrice; and Alfieri, who was himself a precocious lover, considers such early sensibility to be an unerring sign of a soul formed for the fine arts:--"Effetti,"

he says, in describing the feelings of his own first love, "che poche persone intendono, e pochissime provano: ma a quei soli pochissimi e concesso l' uscir dalla folla volgare in tutte le umane arti." Canova used to say, that he perfectly well remembered having been in love when but five years old.]

[Footnote 20: To this Lord Byron used to add, on the authority of old servants of the family, that on the day of their patron's death, these crickets all left the house simultaneously, and in such numbers, that it was impossible to cross the hall without treading on them.]

[Footnote 21: The correct reading of this legend is, I understand, as follows:--

"Brig o' Balgounie, _wight_ (strong) is thy wa'; Wi' a wife's ae son on a mare's ae foal, Down shall thou fa'."

[Footnote 22: In a letter addressed lately by Mr. Sheldrake to the editor of a Medical Journal, it is stated that the person of the same name who attended Lord Byron at Dulwich owed the honour of being called in to a mistake, and effected nothing towards the remedy of the limb. The writer of the letter adds that he was himself consulted by Lord Byron four or five years afterwards, and though unable to undertake the cure of the defect, from the unwillingness of his n.o.ble patient to submit to restraint or confinement, was successful in constructing a sort of shoe for the foot, which in some degree alleviated the inconvenience under which he laboured.]

[Footnote 23: "Quoique," says Alfieri, speaking of his school-days, "je fusse le plus pet.i.t de tons les _grands_ qui se trouvaient au second appartement ou j'etais descendu, e'etait precis.e.m.e.nt mon inferiorite de taille, d'age, et de force, qui me donnait plus de courage, et m'engageait a me distinguer."]

[Footnote 24: The following is Lord Byron's version of this touching narrative; and it will be felt, I think, by every reader, that this is one of the instances in which poetry must be content to yield the palm to prose. There is a pathos in the last sentences of the seaman's recital, which the artifices of metre and rhyme were sure to disturb, and which, indeed, no verses, however beautiful, could half so naturally and powerfully express:--

"There were two fathers in this ghastly crew, And with them their two sons, of whom the one Was more robust and hardy to the view, But he died early; and when he was gone, His nearest messmate told his sire, who threw One glance on him, and said, 'Heaven's will be done, I can do nothing,' and he saw him thrown Into the deep without a tear or groan.

"The other father had a weaklier child, Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate; But the boy bore up long, and with a mild And patient spirit held aloof his fate; Little be said, and now and then he smiled, As if to win a part from off the weight He saw increasing on his father's heart, With the deep, deadly thought, that they must part.

"And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed, And when the wish'd-for shower at length was come, And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed, Brighten'd, and for a moment seem'd to roam, He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain Into his dying child's mouth--but in vain.

"The boy expired--the father held the clay, And look'd upon it long, and when at last Death left no doubt, and the dead burden lay Stiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past, He watch'd it wistfully, until away 'Twas borne by the rude wave wherein 'twas cast: Then he himself sunk down all dumb and s.h.i.+vering, And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering."

DON JUAN, CANTO II.

In the collection of "s.h.i.+pwrecks and Disasters at Sea," to which Lord Byron so skilfully had recourse for the technical knowledge and facts out of which he has composed his own powerful description, the reader will find the account of the loss of the Juno here referred to.]

[Footnote 25: This elegy is in his first (unpublished) volume.]

[Footnote 26: See page 25.]

[Footnote 27: For the display of his declamatory powers, on the speech-days, he selected always the most vehement pa.s.sages,--such as the speech of Zanga over the body of Alonzo, and Lear's address to the storm. On one of these public occasions, when it was arranged that he should take the part of Drances, and young Peel that of Turnus, Lord Byron suddenly changed his mind, and preferred the speech of Latinus,--fearing, it was supposed, some ridicule from the inappropriate taunt of Turnus, "Ventosa in lingua, _pedibusque fugacibus istis_."]