Life of Lord Byron Volume II Part 11

"8. St. James's Street, February 12. 1812.

"My dear John,

"You have probably long ago forgotten the writer of these lines, who would, perhaps, be unable to recognise _yourself_, from the difference which must naturally have taken place in your stature and appearance since he saw you last. I have been rambling through Portugal, Spain, Greece, &c. &c. for some years, and have found so many changes on my return, that it would be very unfair not to expect that you should have had your share of alteration and improvement with the rest. I write to request a favour of you: a little boy of eleven years, the son of Mr. * *, my particular friend, is about to become an Etonian, and I should esteem any act of protection or kindness to him as an obligation to myself; let me beg of you then to take some little notice of him at first, till he is able to s.h.i.+ft for himself.

"I was happy to hear a very favourable account of you from a schoolfellow a few weeks ago, and should be glad to learn that your family are as well as I wish them to be. I presume you are in the upper school;--as an _Etonian_, you will look down upon a _Harrow_ man; but I never, even in my boyish days, disputed your superiority, which I once experienced in a cricket match, where I had the honour of making one of eleven, who were beaten to their hearts' content by your college in _one innings_.

"Believe me to be, with great truth," &c. &c.

On the 27th of February, a day or two before the appearance of Childe Harold, he made the first trial of his eloquence in the House of Lords; and it was on this occasion he had the good fortune to become acquainted with Lord Holland,--an acquaintance no less honourable than gratifying to both, as having originated in feelings the most generous, perhaps, of our nature, a ready forgiveness of injuries, on the one side, and a frank and unqualified atonement for them, on the other. The subject of debate was the Nottingham Frame-breaking Bill, and, Lord Byron having mentioned to Mr. Rogers his intention to take a part in the discussion, a communication was, by the intervention of that gentleman, opened between the n.o.ble poet and Lord Holland, who, with his usual courtesy, professed himself ready to afford all the information and advice in his power. The following letters, however, will best explain their first advances towards acquaintance.

LETTER 88. TO MR. ROGERS.

"February 4. 1812.

"My dear Sir,

"With my best acknowledgments to Lord Holland, I have to offer my perfect concurrence in the propriety of the question previously to be put to ministers. If their answer is in the negative, I shall, with his Lords.h.i.+p's approbation, give notice of a motion for a Committee of Enquiry. I would also gladly avail myself of his most able advice, and any information or doc.u.ments with which he might be pleased to intrust me, to bear me out in the statement of facts it may be necessary to submit to the House.

"From all that fell under my own observation during my Christmas visit to Newstead, I feel convinced that, if _conciliatory_ measures are not very soon adopted, the most unhappy consequences may be apprehended. Nightly outrage and daily depredation are already at their height, and not only the masters of frames, who are obnoxious on account of their occupation, but persons in no degree connected with the malecontents or their oppressors, are liable to insult and pillage.

"I am very much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken on my account, and beg you to believe me ever your obliged and sincere,"

&c.

LETTER 89. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"8. St. James's Street, February 25. 1812.

"My Lord,

"With my best thanks, I have the honour to return the Notts, letter to your Lords.h.i.+p. I have read it with attention, but do not think I shall venture to avail myself of its contents, as my view of the question differs in some measure from Mr. Coldham's. I hope I do not wrong him, but _his_ objections to the bill appear to me to be founded on certain apprehensions that he and his coadjutors might be mistaken for the '_original advisers_' (to quote him) of the measure. For my own part, I consider the manufacturers as a much injured body of men, sacrificed to the views of certain individuals who have enriched themselves by those practices which have deprived the frame-workers of employment. For instance;--by the adoption of a certain kind of frame, one man performs the work of seven--six are thus thrown out of business. But it is to be observed that the work thus done is far inferior in quality, hardly marketable at home, and hurried over with a view to exportation. Surely, my Lord, however we may rejoice in any improvement in the arts which may be beneficial to mankind, we must not allow mankind to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism. The maintenance and well-doing of the industrious poor is an object of greater consequence to the community than the enrichment of a few monopolists by any improvement in the implements of trade, which deprives the workman of his bread, and renders the, labourer "unworthy of his hire." My own motive for opposing the bill is founded on its palpable injustice, and its certain inefficacy. I have seen the state of these miserable men, and it is a disgrace to a civilised country.

Their excesses may be condemned, but cannot be subject of wonder.

The effect of the present bill would be to drive them into actual rebellion. The few words I shall venture to offer on Thursday will be founded upon these opinions formed from my own observations on the spot. By previous enquiry, I am convinced these men would have been restored to employment, and the county to tranquillity. It is, perhaps, not yet too late, and is surely worth the trial. It can never be too late to employ force in such circ.u.mstances. I believe your Lords.h.i.+p does not coincide with me entirely on this subject, and most cheerfully and sincerely shall I submit to your superior judgment and experience, and take some other line of argument against the bill, or be silent altogether, should you deem it more advisable. Condemning, as every one must condemn, the conduct of these wretches, I believe in the existence of grievances which call rather for pity than punishment. I have the honour to be, with great respect, my Lord, your Lords.h.i.+p's

"Most obedient and obliged servant,

"BYRON.

"P.S. I am a little apprehensive that your Lords.h.i.+p will think me too lenient towards these men, and half a _framebreaker myself_."

It would have been, no doubt, the ambition of Lord Byron to acquire distinction as well in oratory as in poesy; but Nature seems to set herself against pluralities in fame. He had prepared himself for this debate,--as most of the best orators have done, in their first essays,--not only by composing, but writing down, the whole of his speech beforehand. The reception he met with was flattering; some of the n.o.ble speakers on his own side complimented him very warmly; and that he was himself highly pleased with his success, appears from the annexed account of Mr. Dallas, which gives a lively notion of his boyish elation on the occasion.

"When he left the great chamber, I went and met him in the pa.s.sage; he was glowing with success, and much agitated. I had an umbrella in my right hand, not expecting that he would put out his hand to me;--in my haste to take it when offered, I had advanced my left hand--'What!' said he, 'give your friend your left hand upon such an occasion?' I showed the cause, and immediately changing the umbrella to the other hand, I gave him my right hand, which he shook and pressed warmly. He was greatly elated, and repeated some of the compliments which had been paid him, and mentioned one or two of the peers who had desired to be introduced to him. He concluded with saying, that he had, by his speech, given me the best advertis.e.m.e.nt for Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."

The speech itself, as given by Mr. Dallas from the n.o.ble speaker's own ma.n.u.script, is pointed and vigorous; and the same sort of interest that is felt in reading the poetry of a Burke, may be gratified, perhaps, by a few specimens of the oratory of a Byron. In the very opening of his speech, he thus introduces himself by the melancholy avowal, that in that a.s.sembly of his brother n.o.bles he stood almost a stranger.

"As a person in some degree connected with the suffering county, though a stranger not only to this House in general, but to almost every individual whose attention I presume to solicit, I must claim some portion of your Lords.h.i.+ps' indulgence."

The following extracts comprise, I think, the pa.s.sages of most spirit:--

"When we are told that these men are leagued together, not only for the destruction of their own comfort, but of their very means of subsistence, can we forget that it is the bitter policy, the destructive warfare, of the last eighteen years which has destroyed their comfort, your comfort, all men's comfort;--that policy which, originating with 'great statesmen now no more,' has survived the dead to become a curse on the living, unto the third and fourth generation! These men never destroyed their looms till they were become useless,--worse than useless; till they were become actual impediments to their exertions in obtaining their daily bread. Can you then wonder that, in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and imputed felony, are found in a station not far beneath that of your Lords.h.i.+ps, the lowest, though once most useful, portion of the people should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives? But while the exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new capital punishments must be devised, new snares of death must be spread for the wretched mechanic who is famished into guilt.

These men were willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them. Their own means of subsistence were cut off; all other employments pre-occupied; and their excesses, however to be deplored or condemned, can hardly be the subject of surprise.

"I have traversed the seat of war in the Peninsula I have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of Turkey; but never, under the most despotic of infidel governments, did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return, in the very heart of a Christian country. And what are your remedies? After months of inaction, and months of action worse than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specific, the never-failing nostrum of all state physicians from the days of Draco to the present time. After feeling the pulse, and shaking the head over the patient, prescribing the usual course of warm water and bleeding--the warm water of your mawkish police, and the lancets of your military--these convulsions must terminate in death, the sure consummation of the prescriptions of all political Sangrados. Setting aside the palpable injustice and the certain inefficiency of the bill, are there not capital punishments sufficient on your statutes? Is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth to ascend to heaven and testify against you? How will you carry this bill into effect? Can you commit a whole county to their own prisons? Will you erect a gibbet in every field, and hang up men like scare-crows? or will you proceed (as you must, to bring this measure into effect,) by decimation; place the country under martial law; depopulate and lay waste all around you, and restore Sherwood Forest as an acceptable gift to the crown in its former condition of a royal chase, and an asylum for outlaws? Are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace?

Will the famished wretch who has braved your bayonets be appalled by your gibbets? When death is a relief, and the only relief it appears that you will afford him, will he be dragooned into tranquillity? Will that which could not be effected by your grenadiers, be accomplished by your executioners? If you proceed by the forms of law, where is your evidence? Those who refused to impeach their accomplices, when transportation only was the punishment, will hardly be tempted to witness against them when death is the penalty. With all due deference to the n.o.ble lords opposite, I think a little investigation, some previous enquiry, would induce even them to change their purpose. That most favourite state measure, so marvellously efficacious in many and recent instances, _temporising_, would not be without its advantage in this. When a proposal is made to emanc.i.p.ate or relieve, you hesitate, you deliberate for years, you temporise and tamper with the minds of men; but a death-bill must be pa.s.sed off hand, without a thought of the consequences."

In reference to his own parliamentary displays, and to this maiden speech in particular, I find the following remarks in one of his Journals:--

"Sheridan's liking for me (whether he was not mystifying me, I do not know, but Lady Caroline Lamb and others told me that he said the same both before and after he knew me,) was founded upon 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.' He told me that he did not care about poetry, (or about mine--at least, any but that poem of mine,) but he was sure, from that and other symptoms, I should make an orator, if I would but take to speaking, and grow a parliament man. He never ceased harping upon this to me to the last; and I remember my old tutor, Dr. Drury, had the same notion when I was a _boy_; but it never was my turn of inclination to try. I spoke once or twice, as all young peers do, as a kind of introduction into public life; but dissipation, shyness, haughty and reserved opinions, together with the short time I lived in England after my majority (only about five years in all), prevented me from resuming the experiment. As far as it went, it was not discouraging, particularly my _first_ speech (I spoke three or four times in all); but just after it, my poem of Childe Harold was published, and n.o.body ever thought about my _prose_ afterwards, nor indeed did I; it became to me a secondary and neglected object, though I sometimes wonder to myself if I should have succeeded."

His immediate impressions with respect to the success of his first speech may be collected from a letter addressed soon after to Mr.

Hodgson.

LETTER 90. TO MR. HODGSON.

"8. St. James's Street, March 5. 1812.

"My dear Hodgson,

"_We_ are not answerable for reports of speeches in the papers; they are always given incorrectly, and on this occasion more so than usual, from the debate in the Commons on the same night. The Morning Post should have said _eighteen years_. However, you will find the speech, as spoken, in the Parliamentary Register, when it comes out. Lords Holland and Grenville, particularly the latter, paid me some high compliments in the course of their speeches, as you may have seen in the papers, and Lords Eldon and Harrowby answered me. I have had many marvellous eulogies repeated to me since, in person and by proxy, from divers persons _ministerial_--yea, _ministerial!_--as well as oppositionists; of them I shall only mention Sir F. Burdett. _He_ says it is the best speech by a _lord_ since the '_Lord_ knows when,' probably from a fellow-feeling in the sentiments. Lord H. tells me I shall beat them all if I persevere; and Lord G. remarked that the construction of some of my periods are very like _Burke's_! And so much for vanity. I spoke very violent sentences with a sort of modest impudence, abused every thing and every body, and put the Lord Chancellor very much out of humour; and if I may believe what I hear, have not lost any character by the experiment. As to my delivery, loud and fluent enough, perhaps a little theatrical. I could not recognise myself or any one else in the newspapers.

"My poesy comes out on Sat.u.r.day. Hobhouse is here; I shall tell him to write. My stone is gone for the present, but I fear is part of my habit. We _all_ talk of a visit to Cambridge.

"Yours ever, B."

Of the same date as the above is the following letter to Lord Holland, accompanying a copy of his new publication, and written in a tone that cannot fail to give a high idea of his good feeling and candour.

LETTER 91. TO LORD HOLLAND.

"St. James's Street, March 5. 1812.

"My Lord,

"May I request your Lords.h.i.+p to accept a copy of the thing which accompanies this note? You have already so fully proved the truth of the first line of Pope's couplet,

"'_Forgiveness to the injured doth belong,_'

that I long for an opportunity to give the lie to the verse that follows. If I were not perfectly convinced that any thing I may have formerly uttered in the boyish rashness of my misplaced resentment had made as little impression as it deserved to make, I should hardly have the confidence--perhaps your Lords.h.i.+p may give it a stronger and more appropriate appellation--to send you a quarto of the same scribbler. But your Lords.h.i.+p, I am sorry to observe to-day, is troubled with the gout; if my book can produce a _laugh_ against itself or the author, it will be of some service.

If it can set you to _sleep_, the benefit will be yet greater; and as some facetious personage observed half a century ago, that 'poetry is a mere drug,' I offer you mine as a humble a.s.sistant to the 'eau medicinale.' I trust you will forgive this and all my other buffooneries, and believe me to be, with great respect,