Life of Lord Byron Volume I Part 5

In the summer of this year (1806) he, as usual, joined his mother at Southwell,--among the small, but select, society of which place he had, during his visits, formed some intimacies and friends.h.i.+ps, the memory of which is still cherished there fondly and proudly. With the exception, indeed, of the brief and bewildering interval which he pa.s.sed, as we have seen, in the company of Miss Chaworth, it was at Southwell alone that an opportunity was ever afforded him of profiting by the bland influence of female society, or of seeing what woman is in the true sphere of her virtues, home. The amiable and intelligent family of the Pigots received him within their circle as one of themselves: and in the Rev. John Becher[48] the youthful poet found not only an acute and judicious critic, but a sincere friend. There were also one or two other families--as the Leacrofts, the Housons--among whom his talents and vivacity made him always welcome; and the proud shyness with which, through the whole of his minority, he kept aloof from all intercourse with the neighbouring gentlemen seems to have been entirely familiarised away by the small, cheerful society of Southwell. One of the most intimate and valued of his friends, at this period, has given me the following account of her first acquaintance with him:--"The first time I was introduced to him was at a party at his mother's, when he was so shy that she was forced to send for him three times before she could persuade him to come into the drawing-room, to play with the young people at a round game. He was then a fat bashful boy, with his hair combed straight over his forehead, and extremely like a miniature picture that his mother had painted by M. de Chambruland. The next morning Mrs. Byron brought him to call at our house, when he still continued shy and formal in his manner. The conversation turned upon Cheltenham, where we had been staying, the amus.e.m.e.nts there, the plays, &c.; and I mentioned that I had seen the character of Gabriel Lackbrain very well performed. His mother getting up to go, he accompanied her, making a formal bow, and I, in allusion to the play, said, "Good by, Gaby." His countenance lighted up, his handsome mouth displayed a broad grin, all his shyness vanished, never to return, and, upon his mother's saying 'Come, Byron, are you ready?'--no, she might go by herself, he would stay and talk a little longer; and from that moment he used to come in and go out at all hours, as it pleased him, and in our house considered himself perfectly at home."

To this lady was addressed the earliest letter from his pen that has fallen into my hands. He corresponded with many of his Harrow friends,--with Lord Clare, Lord Powerscourt, Mr. William Peel, Mr.

William Bankes, and others. But it was then little foreseen what general interest would one day attach to these school-boy letters; and accordingly, as I have already had occasion to lament, there are but few of them now in existence. The letter, of which I have spoken, to his Southwell friend, though containing nothing remarkable, is perhaps for that very reason worth insertion, as serving to show, on comparing it with most of its successors, how rapidly his mind acquired confidence in its powers. There is, indeed, one charm for the eye of curiosity in his juvenile ma.n.u.scripts, which they necessarily want in their printed form; and that is the strong evidence of an irregular education which they exhibit,--the unformed and childish handwriting, and, now and then, even defective spelling of him who, in a very few years after, was to start up one of the giants of English literature.

LETTER 1.

TO MISS ----.

Burgage Manor, August 29. 1804.

"I received the arms, my dear Miss ----, and am very much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken. It is impossible I should have any fault to find with them. The sight of the drawings gives me great pleasure for a double reason,--in the first place, they will ornament my books, in the next, they convince me that you have not entirely _forgot_ me. I am, however, sorry you do not return sooner--you have already been gone an _age_. I perhaps may have taken my departure for London before you come back; but, however, I will hope not. Do not overlook my watch-riband and purse, as I wish to carry them with me.

Your note was given me by Harry, at the play, whither I attended Miss L---- and Dr. S. ----; and now I have set down to answer it before I go to bed. If I am at Southwell when you return,--and I sincerely hope you will soon, for I very much regret your absence,--I shall be happy to hear you sing my favourite, 'The Maid of Lodi.' My mother, together with myself, desires to be affectionately remembered to Mrs. Pigot, and, believe me, my dear Miss ----,

I remain your affectionate friend,

"BYRON."

"P.S. If you think proper to send me any answer to this, I shall be extremely happy to receive it. Adieu.

"P.S. 2d. As you say you are a novice in the art of knitting, I hope it don't give you too much trouble. Go on _slowly_, but surely. Once more, adieu."

We shall often have occasion to remark the fidelity to early habits and tastes by which Lord Byron, though in other respects so versatile, was distinguished. In the juvenile letter, just cited, there are two characteristics of this kind which he preserved unaltered during the remainder of his life;--namely, his punctuality in immediately answering letters, and his love of the simplest ballad music. Among the chief favourites to which this latter taste led him at this time were the songs of the Duenna, which he had the good taste to delight in; and some of his Harrow contemporaries still remember the joyousness with which, when dining with his friends at the memorable mother Barnard's, he used to roar out, "This bottle's the sun of our table."

His visit to Southwell this summer was interrupted, about the beginning of August, by one of those explosions of temper on the part of Mrs. Byron, to which, from his earliest childhood, he had been but too well accustomed, and in producing which his own rebel spirit was not always, it may be supposed, entirely blameless. In all his portraits of himself, so dark is the pencil which he employs, that the following account of his own temper, from one of his journals, must be taken with a due portion of that allowance for exaggeration, which his style of self-portraiture, "overshadowing even the shade," requires.

"In all other respects," (he says, after mentioning his infant pa.s.sion for Mary Duff,) "I differed not at all from other children, being neither tall nor short, dull nor witty, of my age, but rather lively--except in my sullen moods, and then I was always a Devil.

They once (in one of my silent rages) wrenched a knife from me, which I had s.n.a.t.c.hed from table at Mrs. B.'s dinner (I always dined earlier), and applied to my breast;--but this was three or four years after, just before the late Lord B.'s decease.

"My _ostensible_ temper has certainly improved in later years; but I shudder, and must, to my latest hour, regret the consequence of it and my pa.s.sions combined. One event--but no matter--there are others not much better to think of also--and to them I give the preference....

"But I hate dwelling upon incidents. My temper is now under management--rarely _loud_, and _when_ loud, never deadly. It is when silent, and I feel my forehead and my cheek paling, that I cannot control it; and then.... but unless there is a woman (and not any or every woman) in the way, I have sunk into tolerable apathy."

Between a temper at all resembling this, and the loud hurricane bursts of Mrs. Byron, the collision, it may be supposed, was not a little formidable; and the age at which the young poet was now arrived; when--as most parents feel--the impatience of youth begins to champ the bit, would but render the occasions for such shocks more frequent.

It is told, as a curious proof of their opinion of each other's violence, that, after parting one evening in a tempest of this kind, they were known each to go privately that night to the apothecary's, enquiring anxiously whether the other had been to purchase poison, and cautioning the vender of drugs not to attend to such an application, if made.

It was but rarely, however, that the young lord allowed himself to be provoked into more than a pa.s.sive share in these scenes. To the boisterousness of his mother he would oppose a civil and, no doubt, provoking silence,--bowing to her but the more profoundly the higher her voice rose in the scale. In general, however, when he perceived that a storm was at hand, in flight lay his only safe resource. To this summary expedient he was driven at the period of which we are speaking; but not till after a scene had taken place between him and Mrs. Byron, in which the violence of her temper had proceeded to lengths, that, however outrageous they may be deemed, were not, it appears, unusual with her. The poet, Young, in describing a temper of this sort, says--

"The cups and saucers, in a whirlwind sent, Just intimate the lady's discontent."

But poker and tongs were, it seems, the missiles which Mrs. Byron preferred, and which she, more than once, sent resounding after her fugitive son. In the present instance, he was but just in time to avoid a blow aimed at him with the former of these weapons, and to make a hasty escape to the house of a friend in the neighbourhood; where, concerting the best means of baffling pursuit, he decided upon an instant flight to London. The letters, which I am about to give, were written, immediately on his arrival in town, to some friends at Southwell, from whose kind interference in his behalf, it may fairly be concluded that the blame of the quarrel, whatever it may have been, did not rest with him. The first is to Mr. Pigot, a young gentleman about the same age as himself, who had just returned, for the vacation, from Edinburgh, where he was, at that time, pursuing his medical studies.

LETTER 2.

TO MR. PIGOT.

"16. Piccadilly, August 9. 1806.

"My dear Pigot,

"Many thanks for your amusing narrative of the last proceedings of ----, who now begins to feel the effects of her folly. I have just received a penitential epistle, to which, apprehensive of pursuit, I have despatched a moderate answer, with a _kind_ of promise to return in a fortnight;--this, however (_entre nous_), I never mean to fulfil.

Seriously, your mother has laid me under great obligations, and you, with the rest of your family, merit my warmest thanks for your kind connivance at my escape.

"How did S.B. receive the intelligence? How many _puns_ did he utter on so _facetious_ an event? In your next inform me on this point, and what excuse you made to A. You are probably, by this time, tired of deciphering this hieroglyphical letter;--like Tony Lumpkin, you will p.r.o.nounce mine to be a d----d up and down hand. All Southwell, without doubt, is involved in amazement. Apropos, how does my blue-eyed nun, the fair ----? is she '_robed in sable garb of woe_?'

"Here I remain at least a week or ten days; previous to my departure you shall receive my address, but what it will be I have not determined. My lodgings must be kept secret from Mrs. B. You may present my compliments to her, and say any attempt to pursue me will fail, as I have taken measures to retreat immediately to Portsmouth, on the first intimation of her removal from Southwell. You may add, I have now proceeded to a friend's house in the country, there to remain a fortnight.

"I have now _blotted_ (I must not say written) a complete double letter, and in return shall expect a _monstrous budget_. Without doubt, the dames of Southwell reprobate the pernicious example I have shown, and tremble lest their _babes_ should disobey their mandates, and quit, in dudgeon, their mammas on any grievance. Adieu. When you begin your next, drop the 'lords.h.i.+p,' and put 'Byron' in its place.

Believe me yours, &c.

"BYRON."

From the succeeding letters, it will be seen that Mrs. Byron was not behind hand, in energy and decision, with his young Lords.h.i.+p, but immediately on discovering his flight, set off after him.

LETTER 3.

TO MISS ----.

"London, August 10. 1806.

"My dear Bridget,

"As I have already troubled your brother with more than he will find pleasure in deciphering, you are the next to whom I shall a.s.sign the employment of perusing this second epistle. You will perceive from my first, that no idea of Mrs. B.'s arrival had disturbed me at the time it was written; _not_ so the present, since the appearance of a note from the _ill.u.s.trious cause_ of my _sudden decampment_ has driven the 'natural ruby from my cheeks,' and completely blanched my woe-begone countenance. This gun-powder intimation of her arrival breathes less of terror and dismay than you will probably imagine, and concludes with the comfortable a.s.surance of all _present motion_ being prevented by the fatigue of her journey, for which my _blessings_ are due to the rough roads and restive quadrupeds of his Majesty's highways. As I have not the smallest inclination to be chased round the country, I shall e'en make a merit of necessity; and since, like Macbeth, 'they've tied me to the stake, I cannot fly,' I shall imitate that valorous tyrant, and 'bear-like fight the course,' all escape being precluded. I can now engage with less disadvantage, having drawn the enemy from her intrenchments, though, like the _prototype_ to whom I have compared myself, with an excellent chance of being knocked on the head. However, 'lay on, Macduff, and d----d be he who first cries, Hold, enough.'

"I shall remain in town for, at least, a week, and expect to hear from _you_ before its expiration. I presume the printer has brought you the offspring of my _poetic mania_. Remember in the first line to '_loud_ the winds whistle,' instead of 'round,' which that blockhead Ridge has inserted by mistake, and makes nonsense of the whole stanza.

Addio!--Now to encounter my _Hydra_.

Yours ever."

LETTER 4.

TO MR. PIGOT.

"London, Sunday, midnight, August 10. 1806.

"Dear Pigot,

"This _astonis.h.i.+ng_ packet will, doubtless, amaze you; but having an idle hour this evening, I wrote the enclosed stanzas, which I request you will deliver to Ridge, to be printed _separate_ from my other compositions, as you will perceive them to be improper for the perusal of ladies; of course, none of the females of your family must see them. I offer 1000 apologies for the trouble I have given you in this and other instances.