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BYRON 
 
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 PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS; 
 
 r OR, 
 
 ALL ABOUT LORD BYRON, 
 
 \S GIVEN IN THE VARIOUS NEWSPAPERS OF HIS DAY, 
 
 SHEWING 
 
 WHEREIN THE AMERICAN NOVELIST GIVES A TRUTHFUL 
 
 ACCOUNT, AND WHEREIN SHE DRAWS ON HER 
 
 OWN MORBID IMAGINATION. 
 
 Facts are stronger than Fiction.' 
 
 LONDON : 
 lAMUEL PALMER, 20, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 
 
 1869. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN B. DAY, " SAVOY STEAM PRESS, 
 
 SAVOY STREET, STRAND. 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 "X l /HEN the great Louis desired his secretary to read to 
 him, he asked his Majesty what he should read : " Should 
 it be a Memoir or a History ?" " No," said the Monarch, " for 
 that is sure to be false." So if we want a truthful account of 
 our great poet, let us not read the exciting pages of a sensa- 
 tional novelist, but turn to the genuine accounts given as they 
 occurred in the papers of the day, and see what his contem- 
 poraries said of him, both while he was living and after his 
 decease. The truest portrait of a man must be that which is 
 photographed in his lifetime, and not that which is drawn after 
 a dreamy recollection of some fifty years gone by. 
 
 Upper Holloway, 
 
 October, 1869. 
 
 6C48G4 
 
BYRON 
 
 PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 
 
 Character of Lord Byron. 
 
 The name of Byron should now, like that of Milton or 
 Shakespeare, be only known in the history of literature and the 
 records of immortality. The little jealousies and perishable 
 interests that fretted themselves against his living fame, as they 
 have done against that of the great men of all ages, have no 
 longer any influence over the tribunal of opinion. The pure 
 principles by which mind is estimated, must now try his claims 
 to public admiration, and not the fears, the ignorance, or the 
 passions of men. 
 
 In the history of human genius, its powers, and its weakness, 
 there never was a man whose abilities and conduct excited 
 more ardent attention, and afforded more of real and specula- 
 tive topic for praise and defamation, than Lord Byron. He 
 entered the world of poetry as Chatham did that of eloquence, 
 scarcely heard of in the lists until he had obtained the first 
 honours of the conflict. As the resentment of Walpole called 
 forth from the young orator the first resistless flashes of an 
 eloquence that burned with inextinguishable splendour to the 
 last hour of his earthly glory, so did the repulse which was 
 given to the boyish aspirings of the noble bard discover to 
 himself, by the reaction it created, all the resources of his 
 intellect, and place him at once on the splendid summit of 
 poetic ambition. The excitement did not so much inflame his 
 passions as exasperate his genius, and thenceforth, in ceasing 
 to appear amiable, he became what men more admire, daring, 
 ■vindictive, and successful. 
 
BYROri 
 
 By nature generous and confiding, he was, by the privilege of 
 genius, sudden and impetuous. Minds of such fine formation 
 look at human Ufe either through the vivid glow of fancy, or 
 the gloom of irritated sensibility. So Byron's early imagina- 
 tion made him hope too highly of the world, and his experience 
 caused him to think too badly of it. The disappointments 
 which his unsuspecting spirit endured from the companions of 
 his pleasures, or the mercenary flatterers whom rank, and 
 opulence, and fame attract, reduced his estimate of human 
 nature, not only far below his own pre-conceived notions, but 
 beneath its proper level. Born to ornament and grace society, 
 he seemed, for a great part of his short life, to study only how 
 he could most effectually desert it. To a man, however, of his 
 creative invention, every wilderness would be peopled with the 
 ideal beings with whom his thoughts could communicate ; and 
 perhaps he was often supposed to be indulging in the morose 
 seclusion of the misanthrope, when he was only enjoying the 
 dreams of a high and splendid imagination. 
 
 Though gay and cheerful in his occasional intercourse with 
 mankind, and fiill of sportive hilarity in the convivial hour, 
 yet his generally reserved habits, and the pecuHar tone of his 
 poetry, gave him, in the popular eyes, a sort of mysterious 
 and gloomy fame, of which he did not seem anxious to remove 
 the impression. His fondness for the delineation of one cha- 
 racter, of sullen, wayward, desperate purpose, animated by the 
 most devoted love and the least placable revenge — terrible to 
 his enemies — fascinating to his followers, and spreading around 
 him the desolation of the passions, or dark influence of dis- 
 tempered sensibility — was taken as proof that he only pour- 
 trayed from his own heart this the favourite hero of his poetry. 
 But a presumption so founded is very fallacious. The opinion 
 was, indeed, entertained by some of the first critics of the day, 
 but it is not improbable they sacrificed philosophical accuracy 
 to tragic eflect. If there were any bard whose intellect had 
 more of the divine emanation than another, it was John Milton, 
 and yet he succeeded best in the awful description of Satanic 
 Majesty. It is not difficult to discover in his Paradise Lost, 
 that the celestial goodness and power had the affection of his 
 morals ; but certainly the reckless and ambitious spirit of evil 
 that desolated the world, and audaciously confronted the light- 
 nings of its Creator, was the hero of his genius. Satan never 
 looked to human thoughts so sublime before the imagination. 
 
PAINTED BV HIS COMPEERS. 7*. 
 
 of the great poet clothed the " Archangel ruined " in all his 
 desperate glory. Yet there was nothing diabolical in the cha- 
 racter of Milton ; never was there a man who showed in a 
 nobler union the imaginative faculty with the spirit of inflexible 
 virtue, or who, " though fallen on evil days and evil tongues," 
 burned with a more intense zeal for enlightened freedom, and 
 the improvement of the world. But it is the prerogative of the 
 first class of genius so to describe ideal existence as to make it 
 appear part of its own moral identity. 
 
 Inferior minds can hardly conceive how a poet can embody 
 thoughts into the counterfeit of some reality, of which he has 
 had no experience. The man who advanced the spirit and 
 language of poetry beyond the limits of his age, and who, in 
 the foresight of his genius, anticipated a century of improve- 
 ment, was the inventor of the incorrigible and malicious 
 barbarism of Caliban. His intellect was enamoured of the 
 invention, as we may see from the spirit and richness with 
 which he pourtrayed it ; but neither his morals nor his mind 
 had any sympathy with the subject. Why, then, should it be 
 thought fair to attempt to measure the moral qualities of Byron 
 by a test which is evidently erroneous when applied to the 
 characters of those great men, whom, in the originality and 
 daring vigour of his inspiration, he most resembled ? 
 
 That first attribute of the poetic mind-creative power, Byron 
 eminently possessed. At his first appearance, every possible 
 variety of poetic style and subject was supposed to be ascer- 
 tained, if not exhausted, yet he created a new era. He was 
 erratic, it is true, but he deviated from the beaten track to 
 make rich discoveries ; his eagle spirit, enamoured of the sun, 
 rushed on a powerful wing into the Oriental world, and carried 
 away the " barbaric pearls and gold," which the magic of his 
 genius converted into ornaments worthy the immortal temple 
 of the muse. He proved that the fictions of the East, though 
 the offspring of the soil of voluptuous barbarism, can be 
 wedded to higher qualities of mind than such as are required 
 to describe the absurd mysteries and monsters — the wondrous 
 unrealities and gorgeous scenery of Arabian enchantment. 
 
 In The Giaour he has adopted the circumstances, the scenery, 
 and perhaps the plot, from the land of the demons and genii ; 
 but he has invested them with the sentiments which only the 
 most gifted inspiration dictates. He has described the faithful, 
 timid, but enduring affection of woman springing up in the 
 
8 BYRON 
 
 land of sensual barbarity, like the fair white lily, that lays 
 forth its sno\vy lustre on the stagnant pool; and he has 
 delineated the wild, headlong career of fierce masculine 
 devotion, with as much of the energy of thought and charm of 
 poetry as ever was lavished upon the passion and fortunes of 
 successless love. He has shown also a perfect conception of 
 what is fine and beautiful and grand in nature, by his picturing, 
 with singular power, the luxuriant and terrific region, where the 
 soft climate wafts balmy airs and the sweeping pestilence, and 
 where the fire of the scorpion mingles with the freshness of 
 the flowers. Above all has he given the workings of passion 
 on the mind itself — the sufferings of the dispairing but tameless 
 spirit — the revenge that survives the destruction of its enemy — 
 the agony of a fidelity whose object is beyond the grave — the 
 extinction of hope, and the collected torments of recollection, 
 with a power of moral scrutiny and exposure, that if it ever 
 was excelled, can own no superiority but in the author of 
 Macbeth and Haitilet. 
 
 The rapid and careless spirit of Byron seldom indulged in 
 prettyness of thought or nicety of expression. He was as 
 bold in his language as he was daring and lofty in his concep- 
 tions. His thoughts shaped themselves into words, either 
 with blameable negligence or enchanting felicity ; but the latter 
 was chiefly their characteristic. In most of the exquisite small 
 poem.s, in which love is his subject, he is the poet of its 
 sentiment rather than of its passion. His muse is not so 
 ardent and amorous as tender and devoted. On great subjects, 
 where he struck the chord of battle, or raised the song of 
 freedom, he has an eloquence that seizes the reason, and 
 carries all the heart along with it — clear, strong, and impetuous, 
 it is full of power and grace, and music and fascination. 
 
 The co7icetti of the Italian school of poetry, as well as the 
 frigid declamation of the French, his manly sense and strong 
 imagination disdained. He sent bold thoughts in the voice of 
 nature to the heart. The mechanical facility which refines 
 upon poetic sentiment until it becomes cold and passionless — 
 the elaborate assortment and nice adaptation of the pretty 
 wares of a glittering fancy, which reduce the divine fame of 
 poetry to the level of the jeweller's art, who sets his gems or 
 his paste, as it may be, with the cold determination to dazzle, 
 Byron never thought of His poetry rose or sunk into grandeur 
 
, PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 9 
 
 or weakness with the inequaHties of his inspiration, as the 
 ocean fluctuates under the breathing of the heavens. 
 
 He has been accused of a proneness to adopt the ideas of 
 others. He could do so without impeachment of his originality. 
 Whatever he borrowed he invested almost always with a 
 peculiar charm, that made it his own. This was not plagiarism, 
 but generous imitation ; and he, like other great poets, has 
 frequently been accused of the former without just ground, by 
 those small critics, who cannot distinguish between poetic 
 larceny and the accidental coincidences of genius. 
 
 He has certainly much that was unworthy of him — much 
 that is below the quality of his mind, and the spirit of his 
 ambition. He who contended for the prize of strength or 
 swiftness in the Olympic games was tried only by the best 
 efforts of his skill and power. So should genius be estimated 
 only by its greatest works ; for those which are below itself are 
 not parts of its fame, but only the more earthly matter which 
 would have sunk into oblivion but for the excellence of the 
 diviner productions, which made them buoyant, and floated 
 them into celebrity. Swift has not lost his reputation as a wit, 
 by having written some things that were dull ; and his having 
 been addicted even to the senseless habit of punning Pope's 
 Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, in which he attempted to rival the 
 lyric grandeur of Dryden, would have lowered him to a level 
 with some of the heroes of his own Dunciad, if that were made 
 the standard of his fame, and the Paradise Regained would, on 
 the same principle, have lost Milton his claim to epic 
 -supremacy. 
 
 Let Byron then be appreciated like others, by his best pro- 
 ductions, and he will stand, in all that constitutes genuine 
 poetry, among the first men of any age or nation, and among 
 those of his own day superior and alone. The Giaour, the 
 Corsair^ Childe Harold, parts of his Do7i Juan, many of his 
 smaller pieces, and even frequent passages in his least estimable 
 works, are of the first stamp of immortal verse. The first and 
 second, especially for intensity of thought, depth of moral 
 delineation, descriptive vigour, and the union of the anatomy 
 of the passions and the feelings with Homeric boldness of 
 action. The Childe Harold is particularly interesting for the 
 strains of a wandering and delicious minstrelsy, which twines 
 with the most vivid descriptions of nature the charm of the 
 most touching sentiments, and all the recollection with which 
 
lO BYRON 
 
 history consecrates her favourite scenes to the peculiar vene- 
 ration of mankind. 
 
 It is objected that these poems were not written with any 
 moral intention. They have, however, a strong moral ten- 
 dency ; they exhibit, in the most appalling manner, the deso- 
 lating effects of unrestrained passion on the strongest minds, 
 consuming virtue, withering up the very intellect, and creating 
 a desert around the infatuated victim of his own wild indul- 
 gence. If there be no moral in such an exposure of human 
 hardihood, crime, and self-infliction, we must deny all the 
 instructive effects of example. Byron has not clothed the evil 
 principle with the charm of success, but torturing passion,, 
 blighted hopes, and distempered mind perform that vengeance 
 on guilt, which more vulgar moralists would visit with the 
 hackneyed scourge of worldly adversity, or the rack of the 
 executioner. 
 
 But independently of the stories themselves, there are 
 passages in the course of those poems replete with the noblest 
 thoughts that philosophy ever breathed under the dictation 
 of the muse. There are not, in all the range of our poetry, 
 any sentiments of more beauty, pathos, originality, and eleva- 
 tion, than those throughout Childe Harold and the Giaour, 
 which are suggested by the scenery of Greece, and the 
 mournful and grand associations with which it fills the 
 civilized mind. With what a fervour of the heart's devotion 
 does he not wake the lyre on this melancholy and enchanting 
 subject? How touching his sorrows over the fallen land of 
 arts and song ! How manly and inspiring his call, to awake 
 her from the long cold trance of debasement ! How full of a 
 deep interest in her future fate, and of the animation of her 
 remembered glory ! Passages like these elevate the soul, in 
 the midst of those fictions, in which the fancy wooes enjoyment. 
 They infuse the preservatives of virtue — heroic thoughts and 
 generous emotions, and thus they display the superiority of 
 truth and wisdom in the most attractive light, by the contrast 
 of their splendour with the surrounding dark and awful scenery 
 of moral ruin. 
 
 After mourning over the fallen pride — the broken lyre — the 
 lost intelligence — the banished virtues of Greece, he lived to 
 see her rise again from chains and dishonour, and shake off 
 the dust of her humility on the trampled turban of her oppres- 
 sor. He lived to see her vessels float again in triumph through 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. II 
 
 Salamis, and her warlike youth stem the torrent of the in- 
 vader in the sacred straits of Thermopylae. He lived to raise 
 the song of battle for the cohorts of Greece, armed for vengeance 
 and freedom, and to see chiefs conquer and fall, who were 
 worthy of interment in the tomb of Leonidas. Had he sur- 
 vived to commemorate them on his lyre, his genius would 
 have been both the incitement of the living and the fame of 
 the dead ; but Providence chose to take away this modern. 
 Tyrtaeus from reviving Greece before her redemption was ac- 
 complished. His mission of virtue and glory had scarcely 
 begun on the soil of Homer, Solon and Miltiades, when his 
 earthly days were numbered, and immortality received him. 
 
 May the world forget his faults and Greece remember his 
 example. Let her not droop over his urn, but carry his spirit 
 to the conflict ; let a just revenge appease his shade, her own 
 liberation will be the best tribute to his memory. His genius 
 will command admiration while the language of England sur- 
 vives to bear his fame above the silence of the grave. But 
 should Greece prevail, there will his name have peculiar 
 honours, and a sanctuary from all detraction. His memory 
 will be identified with her second glory — his inspired exhor- 
 tations to freedom will be remembered as the voice of prophetic 
 virtue. It will be recollected that he was the last to lament 
 over her fallen and degraded state when there was no ray of 
 hope upon it, the first to hail her regeneration. May his 
 dying words still lead on the cause to which his splendid powers 
 were consecrated, although his charmed mantle has fallen on 
 no successor. — Morning Chronicle, July 30//?, 1824. 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 Lord Byron's address was the most affable and courteous, 
 perhaps ever seen ; his manners, when in a good humour, and 
 desirous of being well with his guest, were winning — fascinating 
 in the extreme, and though bland, still spirited, and with an air 
 of frankness and generosity — qualities in which he certainly 
 was not deficient. He was open to a fault — a characteristic 
 probably the result of his fearlessness and independence of the 
 world ; but so opeti was he, that his friends were obliged to liveL 
 
12 BYRON 
 
 upon their guard with him. He was the worst person in the 
 world to confide a secret to ; and if any charge against any- 
 body was mentioned to him, it was probably the first com- 
 munication he made to the person in question. He hated 
 scandal and tittle-tattle — loved the manly straightforward 
 course ; he would harbour no doubts, and never live with 
 another with suspicions in his bosom — out came the accusa- 
 tion, and he called upon the individual to stand clear, or 
 be ashamed of himself. He detested a lie — nothing enraged 
 him so much as a lie ; he was by temperament and 
 •education extremely irritable, and a lie completely unchained 
 him — his indignation knew no bounds. He had considerable 
 tact in detecting untruth, he would smell it out almost instinc- 
 tively ; he avoided the timid driveller, and generally chose his 
 •companions among the lovers and practisers of sincerity and 
 candour. A man tells the false and conceals the true, because 
 he is afraid that the declaration of the thing as it is, will hurt 
 him. Lord Byron was above all the fear of this sort; he flinched 
 from telling no one what he thought to his face ; from his in- 
 fancy he had been afraid of no one ; falsehood is not the vice 
 of the powerful ; the Greek slave lies ; the Turkish tyrant is 
 remarkable for his adherence to truth. 
 
 Lord Byron was irritable (as I have said), irritable in the 
 extreme; and this is another fault of those who have been 
 accustomed to the unmurmuring obedience of obsequious at- 
 tendants. If he had lived at home, and held undisputed sway 
 over hired servants, led captains, servile apothecaries, and 
 willing county magistrates, probably he might have passed 
 through life with an unruffled temper, or at least his escapades 
 of temper would never have been heard of; but he spent his 
 time in adventure and travel, amongst friends, rivals, and 
 foreigners ; and, doubtless, he had often reason to find that 
 his early life had unfitted him for dealing with men on an 
 equal footing, or for submitting to untoward accidents with 
 patience. 
 
 His vanity was excessive — unless it may with greater pro- 
 priety be called by a softer name — a milder term, and perhaps 
 a juster, would be his love of fame. He was exorbitantly de- 
 sirous of being the sole object of interest ; whether in the 
 circle in which he was living, or in the wider sphere of the 
 world, he could bear no rival ; he could not tolerate the per- 
 son who attracted attention from him.self ; he instantly became 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 1 5 
 
 animated with a bitter jealousy, and hated, for the time, every 
 greater or more celebrated man than himself; he carried his. 
 jealousy up even to Bonaparte ; and it was the secret of his 
 contempt for Wellington. It was dangerous for his friends to 
 rise in the world ; if they valued his friendship more than their 
 own fame- -he hated them. 
 
 It cannot be said that he was vain of any talent, accomplish- 
 ment, or other quality in particular; it was neither more nor 
 less than a morbid and voracious appetite for fame, admiration, 
 and public applause : proportionally he dreaded the public 
 censure ; and though from irritation and spite, and sometimes 
 through design, he acted in some respects as if he despised the 
 opinion of the world, no man was ever more alive to it. 
 
 The English newspapers talked freely of him ; and he thought 
 the English public did the same ; and for this reason he feared, 
 or hated, or fancied that he hated England ; in fact, as far as 
 this one cause went, he did hate England, but the balance of 
 love in its favour was immense ; all his views were directed to 
 England ; he never rode a mile, wrote a line, or held a conver- 
 sation, in which England and the English public were not the 
 goal to which he was looking, whatever scorn he might have 
 on his tongue. 
 
 Before he went to Greece, he imagined that he had grown 
 very unpopular and even infamous in England ! when he left 
 Murray engaged in the Liberal, which was unsuccessful, pub- 
 lished with the Hunts, he fancied, and doubtless was told so 
 by some of his aristocratic friends, that he had become low^ 
 that the better English thought him out of fashion, and voted 
 him vulgar ; and that for the licentiousness of Don Juan, or 
 for vices either practised or suspected, the public had morally 
 outlawed him. This was one of the determining causes which 
 led him to Greece, that he might retrieve himself. He thought 
 that his name, coupled with the Greek cause, would sound well 
 at home. When he arrived at Cephalonia, and found that he 
 was in good odour with the authorities — that the regiment 
 stationed there, and other English residents in the island re- 
 ceived him with the highest consideration, he was gratified to 
 a most extravagant pitch ; he talked of it to the last with a per- 
 severance and in a manner which showed how anxious his 
 fears had been that he was lost with the English people. . • 
 
 Lord Byron cannot be said to have been personally vain in 
 any extraordinary degree — that is, not much more than men 
 
14 BYRON 
 
 usually are. He knew the power of his countenance, and he 
 took care that it should always be displayed to the greatest 
 advantage. He never failed to appear remarkable ; and no 
 person, whether from the beauty of the expression of his 
 features, the magnificent height of his forehead, or the singu- 
 larity of his dress, could ever pass him in the street without 
 feeling that he was passing no common person. Lord Byron 
 has been frequently recollected when his portraits have been 
 shown. " Ah !" the spectator exclaimed, on either picture or 
 engraving being seen ; " I met that person in such or such a 
 place, at such or such a time." 
 
 His lameness, a slight malformation of the foot, did not in 
 the least impede his activity : it may, perhaps, account in some 
 measure for his passion for riding, sailing, and swimming. He 
 nearly divided his time between these three exercises ; he rode 
 from four to eight hours every day when he was not engaged in 
 boating or swimming. And in these exercises, so careful was 
 he of his hands (one of those little vanities which sometimes 
 beset men), that he wore gloves even in swimming. 
 
 He indulged in another practice which is not considered in 
 England genteel — that is to say, it is not just now a fashion 
 with the upper classes in this country — he chewed tobacco to 
 some extent. 
 
 At times, too, he was excessively given to drinking ; but this 
 is not so uncommon. In his passage from Genoa to Cephalo- 
 nia, he spent the principal part of the time in drinking with 
 the captain of the vessel. He could bear an immense quan- 
 tity of liquor without intoxication, and was by no means par- 
 ticular either in the nature or in the order of the fluids he im- 
 bibed. He was by no means a drinker constantly, or in other 
 words, a drunkard, and could, indeed, be as abstemious as any- 
 body ; but when his passion blew that way, he drank, as he did 
 everything else, to excess. 
 
 This was, indeed, the spirit of his life — a round of passion, 
 indulgence, and satiety. He had tried, as most men do who have 
 the power, every species of gratificatio?i, however se?isual. Let no 
 young man here, who is not living under the surveillance of his 
 relations, or in fear of the public — let no such person turn up 
 his nose. No men are more given to ring the changes upon 
 gratification of all the sensual kinds than the Enghsh, especially 
 the English on the Continent — the English who, in speech, are 
 the most modest people in the universe, and who, if you might 
 
PAINTED r.Y HIS COMPEERS. 1 5 
 
 trust their shy and reserved manner, think of nothing but de- 
 corum. Lord Byron did no more in this respect than almost 
 any other lord or esquire of degree has done, and is doing, if 
 he dare, at this moment, whether in London, Paris, Naples, 
 Vienna, or elsewhere, with this difference — Lord Byron was a 
 man of strong powers of intellect and active imagination ; he 
 drew conclusions, and took lessons from what he saw. Lord 
 Byron, too, was a man capable of intense passion, which every 
 one who pursues the gratification of his appetite is not ; con- 
 sequently he went to work with a headlong reckless spirit, 
 probably derived exquisite enjoyment, quickly exhausted him- 
 self, and was then stranded in satiety. 
 
 There was scarcely a passion which he had not tried — even 
 that of avarice. Before he left Italy he alarmed all his friends 
 by becoming penurious — absolutely miserly — after the fashion 
 of the Elwes and other great misers on record. The pleasures 
 •of avarice are dwelt on with evident satisfaction in one of the 
 late cantos of Don Juan — pleasures which were no fictions of 
 the poet's brain, but which he had enjoyed and was revelling 
 in at that moment ; of course he indulged to excess, grew tired, 
 and turned to something else. 
 
 The passion which last animated him was that which is said 
 to be the last infirmity of noble minds — ambition. There can 
 be little doubt that he had grown weary of being known only 
 as a writer : he determined to distinguish himself by action. 
 Many other motives, however, went to make up the bundle 
 which took him to the succour of the Greeks. Italy was 
 waning in favour, he was beginning to grow weary of the society 
 of the lady to whom, after the manners of Italy, he had been 
 attached, and unfortunately her passion outlived his ; even in 
 Greece she would have gladly joined him ; but his Lordship had 
 changed. Then, again, Greece was a land of adventure, bustle, 
 struggle, sensation, and excitement, where the inhabitants have 
 beautiful forms, and dress in romantic habits, and dwell in the 
 most picturesque country of the world ; and Lord Byron, as he 
 said himself, had " an oriental twist in his imagination." He 
 knew that the Greek looked up to him as, what he really was, 
 one of their greatest regenerators ; he was aware that his money 
 and rank would give him unlimited power, influence, and re- 
 spect ; all of which he dearly loved. Then again, if any man 
 ever sympathised deeply with bravery suffering in a generous 
 ■cause, it was Lord Byron ; and when he was roused, in moments 
 
1 6 BYRON 
 
 of excitement, this sympathy was a violently propelling and a 
 very virtuous motive. These and other secondary considera- 
 tions led him to Greece, to sacrifice much of his personal com- 
 forts, much of his property, his health, and his life. 
 
 No two men were ever more unlike than Lord Byron excited 
 and Lord Byron in the ordinary state of calm. His friends, 
 about him used to call it mspiratio?i; and when men of their 
 stamp talk about inspiration, there must no common change 
 take place. When excited, his sentiments were noble, his 
 ideas grand or beautiful, his language rich and enthusiastic, 
 his views elevated, and all his feelings of that disinterested and 
 martyr-like cast which marks the great mind. When in the 
 usual dull mood in which almost everybody wearies their 
 friends nine hours out of the ten, his ideas were gross, his lan- 
 guage coarse, his sentiments not mean certainly, but of a low 
 and sensual kind ; his mood sneering and satirical, unless in a 
 very good humour, which indeed he often, I may say, generally 
 was. This is, however, the wrong side of the picture in Lord 
 Byron ; he may be said here to be taken at the worst. With- 
 out being what I have called excited, his conversation was often, 
 very delightful, though almost always polluted by grossness— 
 grossness of the very broadest and lowest description, like, I 
 cannot help saying again, like almost all his class — all of them 
 that do not live either in the fear of God,, or of the public. 
 His grossness, too, had the advantage of a fertile fancy, and 
 such subjects were the ready source of a petty kind of excite- 
 ment ; the forbidden words, the forbidden topics, the concealed 
 actions of our nature, and the secret vices of society, stimu- 
 lated his imagination ; and stimulants he loved, and may be 
 said at times to have wanted. He certainly did permit his. 
 fancy to feed on this dunghill garbage ; now and then, indeed^ 
 even here he scratched up a pearl; but so dirty a pearl, few 
 would be at the pains of washing it for all its price. 
 
 His letters are charming ; he never wrote them with the idea, 
 of " The Letters of the Right Hon. Lord Byron, in 6 vols. 
 i2mo." before his eyes, as, unfortunately, our great men must 
 now almost necessarily do. The public are so fond of this kind 
 of reading, and so justly too, that there is great reason to fear 
 that it will consume what it feeds on. 
 
 Lord Byron's letters are the models of a species of compo- 
 sition which should be mitten without an eye to any models. 
 His fancy kindled on paper ; he touches no subject in a com- 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 1 7 
 
 mon every-day way ; the reader smiles all through, and loves 
 the writer at the end ; longs for his society, and admires his 
 happy genius and his amiable disposition. Lord Byron's letters 
 are like what his conversation was, but better — he had more 
 undisturbed leisure to let his fancies ripen in ; he could point 
 his wit with more security, and his irritable temper met with no 
 opposition on paper. 
 
 Lord Byron was not ill-tempered nor quarrelsome, but still 
 he was very difficult to live with : he was capricious, full of hu- 
 mours, apt to be offended, and wilful. When Mr. Hobhouse 
 and he travelled in Greece together, they were generally a mile 
 asunder, and though some of his friends lived with him off and 
 on a long time (Trelawney for instance), it was not without 
 serious trials of temper, patience, and affection. He could make 
 a great point often about the least and most trifling thing ima- 
 ginable, and adhere to his purpose with a pertinacity truly re- 
 markable, and almost unaccountable. A love of victory might 
 sometimes account for little disputes and petty triumphs, other- 
 wise inexplicable, and always unworthy of his great genius : but 
 as I have said, he was only a great genius now and then, when 
 excited ; when not so, he was sometimes little in his conduct, 
 and in his writings dull, or totally destitute of all powers of pro- 
 duction. He was very good-natured ; and when asked to write 
 a song or a copy of verses in an album, or an inscription, for so 
 poets are plagued, he would generally attempt to comply, but 
 he seldom succeeded in doing anything ; and when he did, he 
 generally gave birth to such Grub-street doggerel as his friends 
 were ashamed of, and, it is to be hoped, charitably put into the 
 fire. When, on the contrary, in a state of enthusiasm, he wrote 
 with great facility, and corrected very little. He used to boast 
 of an indifference about his writings which he did not feel, and 
 would remark with pleasure that he never saw them in print ; 
 and never met with anybody that did not know more about 
 them than himself. 
 
 He left very Httle behind him. Of late he had been too much 
 occupied by the Greeks to write, and indeed, had turned his 
 attention very much to action, as has been observed. Don Jtian 
 he certainly intended to continue ; and I believe that the real 
 reason for his holding so many conferences with Dr. Kennedy 
 in Cephalonia, was, that he might master the slang of a religious 
 sect, in order to hit off the character with more verisimilitude. 
 
 B 
 
l8 BYRON 
 
 His religious principles were by no means fixed ; habitually, 
 like most of his class, he was an unbeliever ; at times, how- 
 ever, he relapsed into Christianity, and, in his interviews with 
 Dr. Kennedy, maintained the part of a Unitarian. Like all 
 men whose imaginations are much stronger than the reasoning 
 power — the guiding and determining faculty — he was in danger 
 of falling into fanaticism, and some of his friends who knew 
 him well used to predict that he would die a Methodist — a 
 consummation by no means impossible. 
 
 From the same cause — the preponderance of the imagination 
 — there might have been some ground for the fear which beset 
 his latter moments that he should go mad. The immediate 
 cause of this fear was, the deep ijiipression which the fate of 
 Swift had made upon him. He read the life of Swift during 
 the whole of his voyage to Greece, and the melancholy termi- 
 nation of the Dean's life haunted his imagination. 
 
 Strong, overruling, and irregular as was Lord Byron's ima- 
 gination — a rich vice which inspired him with his poetry, and 
 which is too surely but the disease of a great mind — strong as 
 was this imagination — sensitive and susceptible as it was to all 
 external influence ; yet Lord Byron's reasoning fliculties were 
 by no means of a low order ; but they had never been culti- 
 vated; and, without cultivation, whether by spontaneous exertion 
 or under the guidance of discipline, to expect a man to be a 
 good reasoner even on the common affairs of life, is to expect a 
 crop where the seed has not been sown, or where the weeds 
 have been suffered to choke the corn. Lord Byron was shrewd, 
 formed frequently judicious conclusions, and though he did 
 not reason with any accuracy or certainty, very often hit upon 
 the right. He had occasional glimpses, and deep ones too, into 
 the nature of the institutions of society, and the foundations of 
 morals, and by his experience of the passions of men speculated 
 ably upon human life ; yet withal he was anything but logical 
 or scientific. 
 
 Uncertain and wavering, he never knew himself whether he 
 was right or wrong, and was always obliged to write and feel 
 for the moment on the supposition that his opinion was the 
 true one. He used to declare that he had no fixed principles ; 
 which means he knew nothing scientifically. In politics, for 
 instance, he was a lover of liberty, from prejudice, habit, or 
 some vague notion that it was generous to be so ; but in what 
 liberty really consists — how it operates for the advantage of 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 1 9 
 
 mankind — how it is to be obtained, secured, regulated, he was 
 as ignorant as a child. 
 
 While he was in Greece, almost every elementary question 
 of government was necessarily to be discussed ; such was the 
 crisis of Greek affairs, about all of which he showed himself 
 perfectly ignorant. In the case of the press, for instance, and 
 in all questions relating to publicity^ he was completely wrong. 
 He saw nothing but a few immediate effects, which appeared 
 to him pernicious or the contrary, and he set himself against 
 or in behalf of the press accordingly. Lord Byron complaining 
 of the licentiousness of the press may sound rather singular ; 
 and yet such are necessarily the inconsistencies of men who 
 suffer themselves to be guided by high-sounding words and 
 vague generalities, and who expect to understand the art of 
 government and the important interests of society by instinct. 
 In spite, however, of Lord Byron, the press was established in 
 Greece, and maintained free and unshackled, by one of the 
 greatest benefactors that country has as yet known from 
 England — the Hon. Colonel L. Stanhope, who, by his activity, 
 his energy, courage, but, above all, by his enlightened know- 
 ledge of the principles of legislation and civilization, succeeded 
 in carrying into effect all his measures as agent of the Greek 
 Committee, and who, by spreading useful information, and 
 above all by the establishment of the press in all the principal 
 points of re-union in Greece, has advanced that country in 
 civilization many years, how many we dare not say. 
 
 % % if- vf ■}(■ 
 
 As a proof of Lord Byron's uncertainty and unfixedness, he 
 at one moment gave a very handsome donation (50/.) to one 
 paper, the Greek Chronicle^ the most independent of them all, 
 and promised to assist in its compilation. His friend and 
 secretary, too, with his approbation, established a polyglot 
 newspaper, the Greek Telegraph, with his countenance and 
 support. The want of any fixed principles and opinions on 
 these important subjects galled him excessively, and he could 
 never discuss them without passion. About this same press, 
 schools, societies for mutual instruction, and all other institu- 
 tions for the purpose of educating and advancing the Greeks 
 in civilization, he would express himself with scorn and disgust 
 He would put it on the ground that the present was not the 
 time for these things ; that the Greeks must conquer first, and 
 then set about learning — an opinion which no one could seri- 
 
 B 2 
 
20 BVRON 
 
 ously entertain, who knew, as he well did, the real situation of 
 the Greeks, who are only now and then visited by the Turks, 
 descending at particular seasons in shoals, like herrings ; and 
 like them, too, to be netted, knocked on the head, and left to 
 die in heaps, till the whole country side is glutted with their 
 carcases. The aptitude of the Greeks is as great as their 
 leisure ; and if even the men were actively engaged for the 
 most part of their time, which they are not, surely no exertion 
 of benevolence could be attended with more advantage than 
 instructing the children at home. This, to be sure, is a Quaker 
 kind of warfare, and little likely to please a poet; though it 
 must be confessed that, in respect to the pomp and circum- 
 stance of war, and all the sad delusions of military glory, no 
 man could have more sane notions than Tord Byron. Merce- 
 nary warfare, and the life-and-death struggle of oppressed men 
 for freedom, are very different things ; and Lord Byron felt a 
 military ardour in Greece wliich he was too wise a man ever to 
 have felt under other circumstances. He was at one time, in 
 Greece, absolutely soldier mad ; he had a helmet made, and 
 other armour, in which to lead the Suliotes to the storming of 
 Lepanto, and thought of nothing but guns and blunderbusses. 
 It is very natural to suppose that a man of an enthusiastic turn, 
 tired of every-day enjoyments, in succouring the Greeks, would 
 look to the bustle, the adventure, the moving accidents by 
 flood and field, as sources of great enjoyment; but allowing 
 for the romantic character of Guerilla warfare in Greece, for 
 the excessively unromantic nature of projects for establishing 
 schools and printing-presses in safe places, where the Turks 
 never or very seldom reach — allowing for these, yet they were 
 not the causes of his lordship's hostility to these peaceful but 
 important instruments in propagating happiness : he was igno- 
 rant of the science of civilization, and he was jealous of those 
 who both knew it and practised it, and consequently were 
 doing more good than himself, and began to be more thought 
 about, too, in spite of his lordship's money, which in Greece is 
 certainly very little short of being all-powerful. The Greeks, 
 it is true, had a kind of veneration for Lord Byron, on account 
 of his having sung the praises of Greece ; but the thing which 
 caused his arrival to make so great a sensation there, was the 
 report that he was immensely rich, and had brought a ship full 
 of sallars (as they call dollars) to pay off all their arrears : so 
 that as soon as it was understood he had anived, the Greek 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 21 
 
 fleet was presently set in motion to the port where he was 
 stationed — was very soon in a state of the most pressing dis- 
 tress, and nothing could relieve it but a loan of 4000/. from his 
 lordship, which loan was eventually obtained (though with a 
 small difficulty), and then the Greek fleet sailed away, and left 
 his lordship's person to be nearly taken by the Turks in cross- 
 ing the Missolonghi, as another vessel, which contained his 
 suite and his stores, actually was captured, though afterwards 
 released. It was this money, too, which channed the Prince 
 Maurocordato, who did not sail away with his fleet, but stayed 
 behind, thinking more was to be obtained, as more indeed 
 w^as, and the whole consumed nobody knows how. However, 
 the sums procured from his lordship were by no means so large as 
 has been supposed; 5000/. would probably cover the whole,, and 
 that chiefly by way of loan, which has, I hear, been repaid since 
 his death. The truth is, that the only good Lord Byron did, or 
 probably ever could have done to Oreece was, that his presence 
 conferred an eclat on the cause all over Europe, and dis- 
 posed the people of England to join in the loan. The lenders 
 were dazzled, by his co-operation with the Greeks, into an 
 idea of the security of their money, which they ought to have 
 been assured of on much better grounds; but it requires some 
 time and labour to learn the real state of a country, while it 
 was pleasant gossip to talk of Lord Byron in Greece. The fact 
 is, that if any of the foreign loans are worth a farthing, it is 
 that to the Greeks, who are decidedly more under the control 
 of European public opinion than any other nation in the world ; 
 .about their capability to pay no one can doubt, and their honesty 
 is secured by their interest. 
 
 Lord Byron was noted for a kind of poetical misanthrophy ; 
 but it existed much more in the imagination of the public than 
 in reality. He was fond of society, very good-natured when 
 not irritated, and, so far from being gloomy, was, on the con- 
 trary, of a cheerful jesting temperament, and fond of witnessing 
 -even low buffoonery; such as setting a couple of vulgar fellows 
 to quarrel, making them drink, or disposing them in any other 
 way to shew their folly. In his writings he certainly dwelt with 
 pleasure on a character which had somehow or other laid hold 
 of his fancy, and consequently under this character he has ap- 
 peared to the public, viz. : that of a proud and scornful being, 
 who pretended to be disgusted with his species, because he 
 himself had been guilty of all sorts of crimes against society, 
 
22 BVRON 
 
 and who made a point of dividing his time between cursing 
 and blessing, murdering and saving, robbing and giving, hating 
 and loving, just as the wind of his humour blew. This pcuchanf 
 for outlaws and pirates might naturally enough flow from his 
 own character, and the circumstances of his life, '^rithout 
 there being^ie slightest resemblance between the Poet and the 
 Corsair. y|ie had a kind and generous heart, and gloried in a 
 splendicypiece of benevolence; that is to say, the dearest exer- 
 cise of power to him was in unexpectedly changing the state of 
 another from misery to happiness : he sympathised deeply with 
 the joy he was the creator of. But he was in great error with 
 respect to the merit of such actions, and in a greater still re- 
 specting the reward which he thought awaited him. He 
 imagined that he was laying up a capital at compound interest. 
 He reckoned upon a large return of gratitude and devotion, and 
 was not content with the instant recompence which charity re- 
 ceives. They who understand the principles of human action 
 know that it is foolish in a benefactor to look further than the 
 pleasure of consciousness and sympathy ; and that if he does, 
 he is a creditor, and not a donor, and must be content to be 
 viewed as creditors are always viewed by their debtors — with 
 distrust and uneasiness. On this mistake were founded most 
 of his charges against human life; but his feelings, true to- 
 nature, and not obeying the false direction of his prejudices and 
 erroneous opinions, still made him love his land with an ardour 
 which removed him as far as possible from misanthrophy. 
 
 Another cause of Lord Byron's misanthrophical turn of writ- 
 ing was his high respect for himself He had a vast reverence 
 for his own person and all he did and thought of doing incul- 
 cated into him, as into other lords, by mothers, governors, 
 grooms, and nurse-maids. When he observed another man 
 neglecting his wants for the sake of some petty gratification of 
 his own, it appeared to him very base in the individual, and a 
 general charge against all mankind; he was positively filled 
 with indignation. He mentions somewhere in his works, with 
 becoming scorn, that one of his relatives accompanied a female 
 friend to a milliner's in preference to coming to take leave of 
 him when he was going abroad. The fact is, no one ever loved 
 his fellow-man more than Lord Byron; he stood in continual 
 need of his sympathy, his respect, his affection, his attentions ; 
 and he was proportionably disgusted and depressed when they 
 
PAINTED BV HIS COMPEERS. ^3 
 
 were found wanting ; this was foolish enough, but he was not 
 
 much of a reasoner on these points ; he was a poet. 
 
 -x- * -\i -;? if- ■■:;• -n- a- j.- ^ 
 
 One day when Fletcher, his valet, was cheai)ening some 
 monkeys, which he thought exorbitantly dear, and refused to 
 purchase without abatement, his master said to him, " Buy 
 them, buy them, Fletcher ; I like them better than men — they 
 amuse, and never plague me." In the same spirit is his epitaph 
 on his Newfoundland Dog — a spirit partly affected and partly 
 genuine. '^^ * "' '" ''' '' 
 
 When he travelled, he communed with the hills, and the 
 valleys, and the ocean. Certainly he did not travel for fashion's 
 sake, nor would he follow in the wake of the herd of voyagers. 
 As much as he had been about the Mediterranean, he had never 
 visited Vesuvius or JEtns,, because all the world had ; and when 
 any of the well-known European volcanic mountains were men- 
 tioned, he would talk of the Andes, which he used to express 
 himself as most anxious to visit. In going to Greece the last 
 time, he went out of his way to see Stromboli ; and when it 
 happened that there was no eruption during the night his vessel 
 lay off there, he cursed and swore bitterly for no short time. 
 
 In travelling, he was an odd mixture of indolence and capri- 
 cious activity; it was scarcely possible to get him away from a 
 place under six months, and very difficult to keep him longer. 
 In T/ie West7?nnsfe}' Reinew there is an interesting paper formed 
 out of his letters, and out of Fletcher's account of his last ill- 
 ness, which, though written with fairness, has unhappily the 
 usual fault of going upon stilts. All Lord Byron's movements 
 are attributed to some high motive or other, or some deep deli- 
 beration, when his friends well know that he went just as the 
 wind did or did not blow. Among a deal more bamboozle- 
 ment about Lord Byron going to Greece, or staying here or 
 there, very sage reasons are given for his remaining at Cepha- 
 lonia so long. The fact is, he had got set down there, and he 
 was too idle to be removed ; first, he was not to be got out of 
 the vessel in which he had sailed, in which he dawdled for six 
 weeks, after his arrival, when the charter of the vessel expired, 
 and he was compelled to change his quarters. He then took 
 up his residence in the little village of Metaxata, where again he 
 was not to be moved to Missolonghi, whither he had declared 
 his resolution of proceeding ; ship after ship was sent for him 
 by Maurocordato, and messenger upon messenger; he pro- 
 
24 BYRON 
 
 mised and promised, until at length, either worn out by im- 
 portunity or weary of his abode, he hired a couple of vessels 
 (refusing the Greek ships) and crossed. 
 
 It is said that his intention was not to remain in Greece, 
 that he determined to return after his attack of epilepsy. 
 Probably it was only his removal into some better climate that 
 he intended. Certainly a more miserable and unhealthy bog 
 than Missolonghi is not to be found out of the fens of Holland 
 or the Isle of Ely. He either felt, or aftected to feel a pre- 
 sentiment that he should die in Greece ; and when his return 
 was spoken of, considered it out of the question, predicting 
 that the Turks, Greeks, or the malaria, would effectually put 
 an end to any designs he might have of returning. At the 
 moment of his seizure with the epileptic fits prior to his last 
 illness, he was jesting with Parry, an engineer sent out by the 
 Greek Committee, who, by dint of being his butt, had got 
 great power over him, and indeed became everything to him. 
 Besides this man there was Fletcher, who had lived with him 
 twenty years, and who was originally a shoemaker, whom his 
 lordship had picked up in the village where he lived, at New- 
 stead ; and who, after attending him in some of his rural ad- 
 ventures, became attached to his service : he had also a faithful 
 Italian servant, Battista ; a Greek secretary ; and Count Gamba 
 seems to have acted the part of his Italian secretary ; Lord 
 Byron spoke French very imperfectly, and Italian not correctly; 
 and it was with the greatest difficulty he could be prevailed 
 upon to make attempts in a foreign language. He would get 
 anybody about him to interpret for him, though he might know 
 the language better than his interpreter. 
 
 When dying, he did not know his situation till a very short 
 time before he fell into the profound lethargy from which he 
 never awoke ; and after he knew his danger, he could never 
 speak intelligibly, but muttered his indistinct directions in three 
 languages. He seems to have spoken of his wife and his 
 daughter — chiefly of the latter; to this child he was very 
 strongly attached, with indeed an intense parental feeling ; his 
 wife I do not believe he ever cared much for, and probably he 
 married her from mercenary motives. 
 
 . I shall not attempt any summing up of the desultory obser- 
 vations which I have thrown together, in the hope of super- 
 ceding the cant and trash that is, and will be said and sung 
 about the character of this great man. All that is necessary 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 25 
 
 to add by way of conclusion, may be condensed into a few 
 words. Lord Byron was a Lord of very powerful intellect and 
 strong passions ; these are almost sufficient data for a moral 
 geometer to construct the whole figure; at least, add the 
 following sentence, and sufficient is given : whether by early 
 romantic experience, or by a natural extreme sensitiveness to 
 external impressions, it was of all his intellectual faculties the 
 imagination which was chiefly developed. Putting them 
 together, we may conclude, as was the fact, that he was irrit- 
 able, capricious, at times even childish, wilful, dissipated, in- 
 fidel, sensual ; with little of that knowledge which is got at 
 school, and much of that acquired afterwards ; he was capable 
 ■of enthusiasm ; and though intensely selfish, that is, enjoying 
 his own sensations, he was able to make great sacrifices, or, in 
 other words, he had a taste for the higher kinds of selfishness, 
 i.e.^ the most useful and valuable kinds ; he was generous, fear- 
 less, open, veracious, and a cordial lover of society and of 
 ■conviviality ; he was ardent in his friendships, but inconstant ; 
 and, however generally fond of his friends, more apt to be 
 neartily weary of them than people usually are. 
 
 No more epithets need be heaped together ; all that men 
 Tiave in general, he had in more than ordinary force ; some of 
 the qualities which men rarely have, he possessed to a splendid 
 degree of perfection. 
 
 Such is the personal character of Lord Byron, as I have 
 been able to draw it from having had access to peculiar sources 
 of information, and from being placed in a situation best cal- 
 culated, as I think, to form an impartial opinion. — London 
 Magazine, Oct. 2, 1824. 
 
 Marriage in High Life. 
 
 On Monday last, January 2nd, 1 815, at Seaham, in the county 
 of Durham, by the Rev. Thomas Noel, rector of Kirkby 
 Mallory, the Right Honourable Lord Byron, to Miss Milbanke, 
 sole daughter and heiress of Sir Ralph Milbanke, Bart. 
 There were present only Sir Ralph and Lady Milbanke, the 
 Rev. Mr. Wallis, rector of Seaham, and John Hobhouse, Esq. 
 After the ceremony the happy couple left Seaham for Hannaby, 
 
 in Yorkshire. — Moi-nrng Chronicle. 
 
26 BVRON 
 
 Birth. 
 
 Sunday last, Lady Byron was safely delivered of a daughter, 
 at his lordship's house, Piccadilly Terrace. — Morning CJu'onicky 
 December \2th, 1815. 
 
 Those who must be sensible that in some degree they are 
 the conductors of public opinion, feel a corresponding and 
 proportionate delicacy in referring to those resources to which 
 they have access, upon the presumption that they will make of 
 them a temperate use. It is not to be conjectured that we 
 have been less ignorant than our cotemporaries of such events 
 as concerns individuals whose stations or talents give them the 
 right or misfortune of notoriety. With this preface, we proceed 
 to state our extreme surprise, and indeed disgust, at the in- 
 vasion upon private feeling, which, for its " rarity and rich- 
 ness," we fear has been selected as the only proofs of declining 
 literary fame. A French poet has libelled that respectable 
 class of writers to which we belong. " Tont feseur de journal 
 doit tribut an malin ;" but we confess that, except in the in- 
 stance to which we allude, we see as little malignity amongst 
 the above class as is to be found in the composition of writers 
 not as frequent, but certainly not less ephemeral. 
 
 The designation of this journalist is not sufficient, con- 
 sidering that he has not scrupled to name the object of his 
 attack. We therefore select the editor of a Sunday newspaper, 
 as having brought upon his literary associates a disgrace, from 
 which, unfortunately, no past or future efforts of his will be 
 capable of exonerating us. We shall not give any extracts 
 from his accompanying libel, as that alone would in some 
 measure make us the unwilling pander of his unworthy pur- 
 pose. But in reply, or rather in observation to his publication 
 on the domestic transaction and domestic verses of a noble 
 lord, we merely observe, that either his lordship was ^vrong in 
 writing them, or he was right — if he was wrong in writing them,, 
 the man who objected to them should not have given a public 
 circulation to that which was only meant for partial inspection ;. 
 if he was right, there is not a censure contained in the animad- 
 version of this critic but must be attributed to a motive more 
 base, than as writers ourselves, we should be willing to assign 
 to any man who pretends to the instruction of his countrymen. 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 27 
 
 It only remains for us to state, that this man has uttered 
 against himself a proscription, in which we should never have 
 been bold enough to include his name ; for he has given to 
 the verses before alluded to an interpretation, from which, with 
 the exception of the moral, they were safe from all but the 
 envious and perverted mind. His lordship has appealed, if 
 appeal he has made (which we cannot admit), only to the 
 generous and the just. As he did not write to the editor of 
 the journal alluded to, that gentleman must be reckoned as an 
 intruder upon common decency and politeness in having dared 
 to answer him. 
 
 The poems of the noble lord, to which the above animad- 
 version alludes, were never written for the public eye. But 
 having been inserted in a Sunday paper and copied into a 
 journal of yesterday, we cannot withhold them from our 
 readers. 
 
 FARE THEE WELL. 
 
 Fare thee well ! and if for ever — 
 
 Still for ever, fare thee loell — 
 Even though unforgiving, never 
 
 'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. — 
 Would that breast were bared before thee 
 
 Where thy head so oft hath lain. 
 While that placid sleep came o'er thee 
 
 Which thou ne'er cans't know again ; 
 Would that breast by thee glanced over, 
 
 Every inmost thought could shew ! 
 Then thou would'st at last discover 
 
 'Twas not well to spurn it so. — 
 Though the world for this commend thee — 
 
 Though it smile upon the blow, 
 Even its praises must offend thee, 
 
 Founded on another's woe — 
 Though my many faults defaced me, 
 
 Could no other arm be found 
 Than the one which once embraced me 
 
 To inflict a cureless wound ? 
 \ Yet — oh, yet — thyself deceive not — 
 
 Love may sink by slow decay, 
 But by sudden wrench, believe not. 
 
 Hearts can thus be torn away ; 
 Still thine own its life retaineth — 
 
 Still must mine — though bleeding — beat, 
 J And the undying thought which paineth 
 
 Is — that we no more may meet. 
 
iS BYRON 
 
 These are words of deeper sorrow 
 
 Than the wail above ^he dead, 
 Both shall live — but every morrow 
 
 Wake us from a widow'd bed. 
 And when thou would'st solace gather — 
 
 When our child's first accents flow — 
 Wilt thou teach her to say — *' Father !" 
 
 Though his care she must forego ? 
 When her little hand shall press thee — 
 
 W^hen her lip to thine is prest — 
 Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee — 
 
 Think of him thy love had bless'd. 
 Should her lineaments resemble 
 
 Those thou never more may'st see — 
 Then thy heart will softly tremble 
 
 With a pulse yet true to me. 
 All my faults — perchance thou knowest — 
 
 All my madness — none can know ; 
 All my hopes — where'er thou goest — 
 
 Wither — yet with ihee they go — 
 Every feeling hath been shaken, 
 
 Pride — which not a world could bow — 
 Bows to thee — by thee forsaken, 
 
 Even my soul forsakes me now. 
 But 'tis done — all words are idle — 
 
 Words from me are vainer still ; 
 But the thoughts we cannot bridle 
 
 Force their way without the will. 
 Fare thee well ! — thus disunited — 
 
 Torn from every nearer tie — 
 Seared in heart — and lone — and blighted — 
 
 More than this, I scarce can die. 
 
 A SKETCH FROM PRIVATE LIFE. 
 
 " Honest — Honest lago ! 
 If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee." 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Bom in a garret, in a kitchen bred. 
 Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head ; 
 Next — for some gracious service unexprest, 
 And from its wages only to be guess'd — 
 Raised from the toilet to the table, — where 
 Her wondering betters wait behind her chair. 
 With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd. 
 She dines from off the plates she lately wash'd. 
 Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie — 
 The genial confidante, and general spy — 
 Who could, ye gods ! her next employment guess — 
 An only infant's earliest governess ! 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 2.^ 
 
 She taught the child to read, and taught so well, 
 That she herself, by teaching, learned to spell. 
 An adept next in penmanship she grows, 
 As many a nameless slander deftly shows : 
 What she had made the pupil of her art, 
 None know — but that high soul secured the heart, 
 And panted for the truth it could not heax", 
 With longing breast and undeluded ear, 
 
 Foil'd was perversion by that youthful mind, 
 Which flattery fooled not — baseness could not blind, 
 Deceit infect not — near contagion soil — 
 Indulgence weaken — nor example spoil — 
 Nor master'd science tempt her to look down 
 On humbler talents with a pitying frown — 
 Nor genius swell — nor beauty render vain — 
 Nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain — 
 Nor fortune change —pride raise — nor passion bow. 
 Nor virtue teach austerity — till now. 
 Serenely purest of her sex that live, 
 But wanting one sweet weakness — to forgive ; 
 Too shock'd at faults her soul can never know. 
 She deems that all could be like her below ; 
 Foe to all vice, yet hardly virtue's friend. 
 For virtue pardons those she would amend. 
 
 But to the theme — now laid aside too long. 
 The baleful burthen of this honest song — 
 Tho' all her former functions are no more, 
 She rules the circle which she served before. 
 If mothers — none know why — before her quake ; 
 If daughters dread her for the mother's sake ; 
 If early habits — those false links, which bind 
 At times the loftiest to the meanest mind- 
 Have given her power too deeply to instil 
 The angry essence of her deadly will ; 
 If, like a snake, she steal within your walls. 
 Till the black slime betray her as she crawls ; 
 If, like a viper, to the heart she wind. 
 And leave the venom there she did not find ; 
 What marvel that this hag of hatred works 
 Eternal evil latent as she lurks. 
 To make a Pandemonium where she dwells. 
 And reign the Hecate of domestic hells ; 
 
 Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints 
 With all the kind mendacity of hints, 
 
 While mingling truth with falsehood — sneers with smiles — 
 A thread of candour with a web of wiles : 
 A plain blunt shew of briefly spoken seeming. 
 To hide her bloodless heart's soul -hard en'd scheming ; 
 A lip of lies — a face formed to conceal ; 
 And, without feeling, mock at all who feel : 
 With a vile mask the gorgon would disown ; 
 A cheek of parchment — and an eye of stone. 
 
30 
 
 BYRON 
 
 Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood 
 
 Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud, 
 
 Cased like the centipede in saffron mail, 
 
 Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale — 
 
 (For drawn from reptiles only may we trace 
 
 Congenial colours in that soul or face) — 
 
 Look on her features, and behold her mind 
 
 As in a mirror of itself defined : 
 
 Look on the picture ! deem it not o'ercharged — 
 
 There is no trait which might not be enlarged ; 
 
 Yet true to " Nature's journeymen," who made 
 
 This monster when their mistress left off trade, — 
 
 This female dog-star of her little sky. 
 
 Where all beneath her influence droop or die. 
 
 Oh ! wretch without a tear — without a thought, 
 Save joy above the ruin thou hast wrought — 
 The time shall come, nor long remote, when thou 
 Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now ; 
 Feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain, 
 And turn thee howling in unpitied pain. 
 May the strong curse of crush'd affections light 
 Back on thy bosom with i-eflected blight ! 
 And make thee in thy leprosy of mind 
 As loathsome to thyself as to mankind ; 
 Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate. 
 Black — as thy will for others would create : 
 Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust, 
 And thy soul welter in its hideous crust. 
 Oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed — 
 The widow'd couch of fire, that thou hast spread ! 
 Then, when thou fain would'st weary Heaven with prayer, 
 Look on thine eaithly victims — and despair ! 
 Down to the dust ! — and, as thou rott'st away. 
 Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay. 
 But for the love I bore, and still must bear. 
 To her thy malice from all ties would tear — 
 Thy name — thy human name — to every' eye, 
 The climax of all scorn should hang on high. 
 Exalted o'er thy less abhorred compeers, 
 And festering in the infamy of years. 
 
 Moniifig Chronicle, April i6th^ 1816. 
 
 We hasten to correct two errors of the press in our yester- 
 day's notice of the wanton attack made upon a noble poet by 
 the editor of a Sunday newspaper. In that notice, the words 
 ^' only proofs of declining literary fame," read " only props of, 
 &c." and the words, " with the exception of the moral," should 
 run " with the exception of the venal." 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COiMPEERS. 3 1 
 
 In the first sentence we meant to say, and here repeat, that 
 the above editor seemed to have had recourse to the last means 
 usually resorted to, in order to increase a sinking circulation, 
 namely, an intrusion into the concerns of private life : in the 
 second sentence we thought it our duty to state our opinion, 
 that no one not inherently perverse himself, or employed in 
 perverting others, would have given to the poetry of the noble 
 lord, the colouring transferred to them by the pencil of this 
 unjust assailant. We are sure, that we are stating the opinion 
 of the great majority of our readers, when we say, that the 
 verses alluded to, do equal honour to the head, and the heart 
 of the writer ; and that the pathetic tenderness with which he 
 takes leave of her who is still, and ever will be the object of 
 his best affections, is not more decisive of the existence of those 
 affections, than the severity with which he visits the imputed 
 cause of his calamity and his regret. 
 
 The industry with which the unprovoked abuse of the noble 
 lord has been circulated through the columns of two of yester- 
 day's papers, will be received by all impartial readers, as a 
 proof that the propogation of this scandal comes from the 
 quarter whence all the infamous misrepresentations originally 
 proceeded. And which though totally disbelieved by all per- 
 sons whose judgments were not under the control of artful 
 malignity, had too much influence on the mind of their lovely, 
 abused and unhappy victim. 
 
 One of the writers says, "that honest prose would not 
 answer the purpose, and thus has the noble poet had recourse 
 to the seductive harmony of verse," — so far is this from the 
 truth, that were it not from that tender regard which he con- 
 tinues to feel for the only object of his heart — we are certain 
 that from circumstances within our knowledge, nothing could 
 more effectually demonstrate the atrocious character of the 
 conspiracy against his lordship's domestic peace, than a plain 
 unvarnished statement of the case. — Morning CJwojiide, 
 April 17, 18 1 6. 
 
 We have authority from Sir Ralph Milbanke for saying that 
 he knows of no conspiracy against the domestic peace of Lord 
 Byron. We cheerfully yield to the honourable baronet's de- 
 sire to insert this declaration, of the truth of which no man, 
 who is acquainted with him, can doubt. The editor of a 
 Sunday journal brought the most false accusations against the 
 
32 BYRON 
 
 noble lord ; and his efforts have been followed by more than 
 one of the daily writers. We felt it our duty to vindicate the 
 ill-treated nobleman from the aspersions so wantonly thrown 
 out against him. Sir Ralph assures us, that these insinuations 
 have been published, not only without his knowledge, but also 
 much to his disquiet and condemnation. We know them to 
 be false, and repeat, that if these continued slanders shall 
 make the publication of all the circumstances of the unhappy 
 dispute necessary, every impartial reader will agree with uSy 
 that nothing but the most gross misrepresentation and malig- 
 nant influence on a delicate mind, could have operated the 
 separation that has taken place. — Moj-ning Chronicle^ April i8, 
 i8i6. 
 
 On Thursday evening we received the following letter from 
 Sir Ralph Noel :— 
 
 " Mivart's Hotel, Lower Brook-street, 
 "April 1 8, 1816. 
 
 " Sir — I observe with the greatest dissatisfaction the manner 
 in which you have inserted, in The Mor?img Chronicle of 
 to-day, the unqualified contradiction I gave you yesterday of 
 the paragraph in your former paper, which stated the existence 
 of a conspiracy against Lord Byron's domestic peace, I did 
 not say that — ^ I knew oi no conspiracy against Lord Byron's 
 domestic peace,' but I told you in the most decided manner, 
 that I knew no conspiracy of the kind had ever existed ; that 
 the report w^as utterly false ; and I gave you my word of honour, 
 that the step taken by Lady Byron was the result of her own 
 unbiassed judgment, and that her parents and friends interfered 
 only when called upon by her to afford her their support. In 
 the necessity of the step, indeed, her friends fully concurred ; 
 but in the suggestion of it they had no concern. Having given 
 you this assurance in the most solemn manner, I called upon 
 you to contradict the paragraph on my authority : you have 
 done so, but in a manner utterly unsatisfactory ; and 1 have to 
 request that you will insert this letter in your paper of to- 
 morrow, in which I repeat, that no conspiracy whatever ever 
 existed against Lord Byron's domestic peace. 
 
 " You also, in another part of the conversation which ensued, 
 entirely mistook me. I never stated that the publication in a 
 Sunday journal was ' much to my disquiet and condemnation/ 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 33 
 
 l)ut in reply to some observations of yours, it was asserted 
 merely as a fact, that no paragraphs hostile to Lord Byron had 
 originated with Lady Byron or her immediate friends, or were 
 published with their knowledge ; and that I should lament very 
 much the necessity of making this subject the theme of further 
 discussion in the public papers, which I have always disap- 
 proved of in questions that concern the relations of private 
 life. Such were my observations. In the present instance, I 
 conceive these discussions have sprung from the publication of 
 Lord Byron's verses, as I do not remember that the subject 
 was ever canvassed before — they have certainly not originated 
 with Lady Byron. 
 
 I am, Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 ^' — Perry, Esq. " Ralph Noel." 
 
 " P.S. My friend, Colonel Doyle, who was present with me, 
 •concurs in his recollection of the above having been the senti- 
 ments which I expressed." 
 
 To this letter the Editor returned the following answer : — 
 " Thursday evening, 1 1 o'clock. 
 
 " Sir — On coming to my office, I find your letter, containing 
 an animadversion on the paragraph inserted in my paper, as the 
 result of the conversation last night, and I should have no hesi- 
 tation in publishing it according to your desire, if I were not 
 morally certain that it would lead inevitably to the publication 
 of the whole correspondence, from Lady Byron's first letter, 
 dated from Kirkby, to the last document, prepared for legal 
 proceedings, if necessary. I stop it, therefore, for one day, to 
 enable you to reflect on the propriety of pushing the matter to 
 this extremity ; and, in the mean time, I beg leave to say, 
 that I published the result of the long conversation that 
 passed between us, and not the detail, from motives of 
 the most anxious concern for all parties. You certainly said, 
 in the first instance, that 'No conspiracy had ever existed 
 against the domestic peace of Lord Byron,' to which you will 
 do me the justice to recollect I answered, ' That you could speak 
 to this only from the best of your own knowledge and belief,' 
 and that I perfectly acquitted you of all participation in it, but 
 that I remained fully convinced, from circumstances within my 
 own knowledge, that nothing but gross misrepresentation and 
 
 c 
 
34 BYRON 
 
 malignant influence could have prevailed on a wife, whose duty- 
 it was to cleave to her husband, and particularly such a wife: 
 as Lord Byron always described his lady to be, to take the 
 step which she did, and to remain apparently implacable to all 
 the overtures of reconciliation that have since been made.. 
 Both you and Colonel Doyle acknowledged that you could 
 not expect me to give up the conviction of my mind, and you 
 appeared to me perfectly to acquiesce in the way that I put it,, 
 which was, that I had your authority to declare that no con- 
 spiracy, to your knowledge, existed against the noble lord. 
 
 " I did not wish to aggravate the unhappy difference by going 
 into all the conversation which took place, nor state the impress 
 sion which was made on my feelings by your declaration, that 
 Lady B.'s separation from her husband was the ' result of her 
 own unbiassed judgment,' a step which I said, from respect to 
 the lady, I could not have supposed possible ; my own ideas of 
 the conduct of a noble-minded woman being so contrary ; and 
 such conduct being at the same time so inconsistent with the 
 expressions used by herself to the last moment of their domestic 
 intercourse. 
 
 " If I had gone into the whole detail, I must have stated the 
 question put to you, ' Why no reply was given to the application 
 made to your family to specify the charges against Lord B., that 
 he might have an opportunity to vindicate himself from the 
 calumnies so industriously propagated against him ? ' To this^ 
 you answered, that Lady Byron acted in this by the advice of 
 Dr. Lushington ! What — a wife tears herself from the bosom of 
 her husband, and acts by the cold caution of a lawyer rather 
 than by the dictates of her own heart ! 
 
 " As to the expression of the disquiet at and condemnation! 
 of the infamous aspersions which provoked me to vindicate the- 
 noble lord, I certainly conceived you to declare that they not 
 only were not authorized by Lady Byron's friends, but that 
 you regretted and condemned them. I trust you do not mean 
 to withdraw this declaration, or to diminish the import of these 
 ■words. 
 
 " If, in the course of to-morrow, I shall receive your instruc- 
 tions to print the letter, you may depend on the publication on- 
 Saturday, together with my own recollection of all that passed 
 between us yesterday, and which, that you may be satisfied of 
 its fairness, I shall be ready to submit beforehand to your 
 perusal. My anxiety is to prevent the breach from being 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. j^ 
 
 widened, and to avoid the consequences to which the piibhca- 
 tion of your letter, and the continuance of such slanders as 
 daily appear in some of the papers, must lead. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, with perfect respect for yourself, 
 
 " Sir, your faithful servant, 
 
 "Ja. Perry." 
 " Sir Ralph Noel, Bart, &c., &c., &c. 
 
 Strand, April i8, 1816." 
 
 Yesterday afternoon we saw that Sir Ralph Noel had printed 
 a copy of his letter in The Cotirier; and in the evening we 
 received the following letter from him, in reply to that of the 
 editor, which we publish without an additional word. If, as 
 we fear, the publication of all the particulars of this domestic 
 quarrel should follow, our readers will judge by which of the 
 parties it has been provoked. 
 
 "Mivart's Hotel, April 19, 18 16, 
 
 " Sir — I cannot withdraw my request, that you will insert the 
 letter of explanation which I yesterday sent you. You must 
 take the responsibility upon yourself of whatever you may 
 choose to publish, and I must decline any previous communi- 
 cation on the subject. 
 
 " I am. Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 *' Ralph Noel." 
 
 The custom, so contrary to law and reason in almost every 
 other case, of treating the pi'ivale character of theatrical per- 
 formers as public property, might be in some measure ex- 
 cusable, as a sort of negative tribute to virtue and morals, 
 were all the chroniclers honest. For a specimen of the license 
 in which some of those facetious gentlemen, the editors of the 
 London prints, indulge, to gratify the prurient curiosity of their 
 readers, we need only allude to the liberties taken with the 
 name of Lord Byron, in association with that of the present 
 reigning favourite of the comic muse, in the theatre over whose 
 welfare his lordship presides as Chairman of the Committee of 
 Proprietors. Whilst all sorts of tales passed current, by way 
 of accounting for Mrs. Mardyn's temporary retirement from 
 
 c 2 
 
36 BYRON 
 
 the stage of Drury, to make room for Mr. Kean's more serious 
 run of characters during Lent, that lady, unconscious of the 
 honours so hberally intended her by the co-operation of envy 
 and creduHty, was increasing her hst of friends by performing 
 at the theatres of Reading, Canterbury, Dover, and Deal. 
 Previously to and during Passion-week, we find her solely 
 occupied with the maternal indulgence of a visit to her child, 
 who is at school in the neighbourhood of this city. On Mon- 
 day evening Mrs. M. visited our theatre to see Mr. Young's 
 Lear, and we understand she is now about returning to resume 
 her contemporary post of honour in London. — Bristol Gazette, 
 April 20, 1816. 
 
 The legal instrument of separation is signed by Lord and 
 Lady Byron, and this day the noble lord takes his departure 
 for the continent. We abstain, therefore, from all further ob- 
 servation on this delicate subject, which ought never, in our 
 mind to have been made the topic of newspaper discussion. 
 We felt it our duty simply to stand forward in vindication of 
 the noble poet, when cruelly slandered, but not as being in 
 his confidence, or in any way instructed by him. The Courier 
 and Morning Post are therefore mistaken in this respect. We 
 never saw the two poems that have given rise to so much fury, 
 till they appeared in The Morning Herald, and we have neither 
 seen nor heard from Lord Byron, through the whole period of 
 the controversy. W^e were led to postpone the publication of 
 Sir Ralph Noel's letter for one day, because we dreaded, from 
 what we had heard of the matter in society, that the noble lord 
 would be provoked to print the testimonies to his innocence 
 which he possessed, if reports of the horrible atrocities imputed 
 to him should be continued. An agreement for a separation 
 had been signed by the two gentlemen to whom the case was 
 referred. But after this agreement, which was to stop all legal 
 proceedings on both sides, the most insidious and diabolical 
 charges were anonymously circulated against him. And yet 
 it is now pretended that the noble lord was the first to bring 
 the suspected destroyer of his domestic peace to the tribunal 
 of the public ! Let those who accuse him of bitterness in his 
 satire, think of the provocation that he received. But the 
 agreement is confirmed. Husband and wife are separated; 
 and the noble lord, we are sorry to say, quits his country, 
 perhaps, for ever. — Morning Chro?iicle, April 22, j 1816. 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 37 
 
 It is our principle to do justice under all circumstances, and 
 abhorring, as we do, the principles avowed by Lord Byron, we 
 rather rejoice at having to record a redeeming act of his life, 
 and which, connected as it is with his amiable lady, will, no 
 doubt, be interesting to our readers. 
 
 It will be remembered that I.ady Noel on her death, be- 
 queathed property to Lady Byron to a considerable amount 
 (we believe as much as seven thousand pounds per annum), 
 but, upon proving the will, it was discovered that, by the word- 
 ing, the whole of the legacy, contrary to the inteution of the 
 testatrix, devolved upon Lord Byron. 
 
 His lordship, however, convinced (as he well, indeed, might 
 be) that no part of the legacy was intended for him^ and yet 
 under his circumstances, not feeling disposed to abandon his 
 right altogether, suggested the appointment of a friend on his 
 part to meet a friend of her ladyship's, by whose award upon 
 the subject he agreed to abide. 
 
 This suggestion was adopted, and the arbitrators (my Lord 
 Dacre on the one part, and Sir Francis Burdett on the other), 
 agreed that the legacy should be equally divided between the 
 parties, in which arrangement Lord Byron has acquiesced. — 
 Joh7i Bull^ Ap7'il 14, 1822. 
 
 BYRON TO MURRAY. 
 
 Attacks on me were what I look'd for, Murray, 
 
 But why the devil do they badger you ? 
 These godly newspapers seem hot as curry, 
 
 But don't, dear publisher, be in a stew. 
 They'll be so glad to see you in a flurry — 
 
 I mean those canting Quacks of your Review — 
 They fain would have you all to their own set ; — 
 But never mind them — we're not parted yet. 
 They surely don't suspect you, Mr. John, 
 
 Of being more than accoitcheur to Cain ; 
 What mortal ever said you wrote the UON ? 
 
 I dig the mine, you only fire the train ! 
 But here — why really no great lengths I've gone — 
 
 Big wigs and buzz were always my disdain — 
 But my poor shoulders why throw all the guilt on ? 
 There's as much blasphemy, or more, in MiLTON. — 
 The thing's a drama, not a sermon book ; 
 
 Here stands the murderer — that's the old one there — 
 In gown and cassock how would Satan look ? 
 
 Should Fraticides discourse like Dr. Blair ? 
 
^8 . BYRON 
 
 The puritanic Milton freedom took, 
 
 Which, now-a-days, would make a bishop stare ; 
 But not to shock the feelings of the age, 
 I only bring your angels on the stage. 
 To bully You, yet shrink from battling Me, 
 
 Is baseness. Nothing baser stains The Times,^ 
 While Jeffrey in each catalogue I see, 
 
 While no one talks of priestly Playfair's crimes. 
 While Drummond, at Marseilles, blasphemes with glee, 
 
 Why all this row about my harmless rhymes? 
 Depend on't, Piso, 'tis some private pique 
 'Mong those that cram your Quarterly with Greek. 
 
 If fthis goes on, I wish you'd plainly tell 'em, 
 
 'Twere quite a treat to me to be indicted ; 
 Is it less sin to write such books than sell 'em? 
 
 There's muscle I — I'm resolv'd I'll see you righted. 
 In mey great Sharpe, in me converte teluml 
 
 Come, Doctor Sewell, show you Jiave been knighted ! — 
 On my account you never shall be dunn'd. 
 
 The copyright, in part, I will refund. 
 You may tell all who come into your shop. 
 
 You and your Bull-dog both remonstrated ; 
 My Jackall did the same, you hints may drop, 
 
 (All which, perhaps, you have already said). 
 Just speak the word, I'll fly to be your prop ; 
 
 They shall not touch a hair, man, in your head. 
 You're free to print this letter ; you're a fool 
 
 If you don't send it first to the John Bull. 
 
 John Bull, Api'il 14//^, 1822. 
 
 Lord Byron in Italy. 
 
 Signior , an English singer, who had been making 
 
 the tour of Italy to improve his musical tactics, was at Reggio, 
 in Calabria, and anxious to proceed to Vienna by the shortest 
 route, where he was engaged to sing before the emperor. He 
 embarked without passports in an open boat, bound to Ancona, 
 a capital town on the Adriatic Gulph ; but was seized near 
 Cape Otranto by a Venetian galley, and thrown into prison, 
 where he managed to have a letter delivered into Lord Byron's 
 hands, who very soon had him released. He sang at the 
 nobility's concerts, and became a general favourite. 
 
 He was also a ?iavigable gentleman, very partial to swimming, 
 and gave a singular proof of his expertness in that exercise. 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 39>, 
 
 At a moonlight meeting on the shore, he sang to amuse many 
 of the chief nobihty without receiving any recompense, and 
 was wearied out with encores, when the Duke de Montcassio 
 insisted upon his repeating a song ; he remonstrated in vain, and 
 they pressed upon him till he stood on the last of the Virgin's 
 .steps leading to the water. They thought he was now safe ; 
 but, to their utter astonishment, he made a low bow, and 
 taking to the water like a spaniel, swam across to the square, 
 amidst thunders of applause. Except upon the stage, the 
 ;Signior was never after troubled with an encore. 
 
 He lodged at a hotel adjoining that of Lord Byron's, who 
 honoured him with particular notice. 
 
 Sir George W had for some time vainly laboured for an 
 
 introduction to his lordship. He was a * '*" *, and most 
 horribly vulgar in his language and deportment; moreover, his 
 ■wife was a blue stocking, and had penned a novel, in which 
 Lord Byron was introduced as a repentant husband. For these 
 reasons the doors of his lordship were hermetically sealed 
 
 against their ingress. Captain F n, a Scotch officer, a 
 
 friend of my lord's, and a wight of '' infinite mirth and excellent 
 fancy," bent upon misehief, promised Sir George an intro- 
 
 vduction. Sigiiior was a partner in the scheme ; he was 
 
 ►dressed up in a fac-simile of his lordship's clothes, and his 
 rsupposed lordship received the baronet at his hotel. Added 
 to his natural stupidity. Sir George was purblind and easily- 
 deceived. The company consisted of several boii vivants ; 
 the baronet sat on the right of the signior, fully convinced he 
 was elbowing the immortal bard. The signior gave some of 
 
 Lord B 's songs, in a strain of burlesque that created 
 
 infinite mirth. Sir George listened with gravity, and marked 
 time with his head. At the close of the evening a bill was 
 presented of " heavy weight," the mock lord having left the 
 chair and the room. Sir George stared ; Captain F n re- 
 marked that they were in a hotel, and everybody was glad to 
 pay for seeing my Lord Byron. The baronet discharged the 
 "bill, and went home highly pleased with his new acquaintance. 
 Next day, when promenading, Sir George met his lordship in 
 a similar dress to that worn by the signior ; and after rubbing 
 his spectacles, saluted him with a " How do ye do, my lord ? 
 how does the wine sit on your stomach?" His lordship did 
 not exactly stomach this mode of salutation, and peevishly 
 -{exclaimed, " Sir, I don't know you." " Not know me !" said 
 
40 BYRON 
 
 the wiseacre, " for whom you sang so many rich songs last 
 night !" " The man is mad," muttered his lordship, and 
 "pushed rudely past him. 
 
 The trick soon reached the ears of his lordship, who was ill 
 pleased at his name being made so free with ; and the baronet,, 
 unable to stand the quizzing, quitted Venice in disgust. His 
 lordship, fertile at invention, laid a plan to be revenged upon 
 the lorAvard ballad singer, who had the vanity to suppose he 
 had a person "worthy of any lady's eye." The Countess 
 
 G undertook to make him believe she was smitten with 
 
 the charms of his person, and in a short time succeeded. The 
 signior professed himself her admirer, and an assignation was 
 fixed upon to take place in her apartment where there was 
 only one door, and no hiding place of any description. His 
 lordship, as concerted, thundered at the door shortly after the 
 signior had entered, and the lady, under pretence of saving him,, 
 thrust him into the chimney, and fastened the board with a 
 spring lock. 
 
 His lordship had ordered a cold collation and a concert 
 of music, as numerous friends came with him. For the space 
 of three hours the entertainment was kept up merrily, and 
 the signior suffered penance in the chimney. Imagine to 
 yourself a July day in Italy, and then think what the signior 
 must have endured. One of the company expressed a wish to 
 change instrumental for vocal music, when Lord Byron 
 observed he had a bird in the chimney which could imitate the 
 
 notes of Signior to admiration. Going near the chimney,. 
 
 he, in a whisper, demanded a song. On pain of further confine- 
 ment the signior, humbled in spirit, began and finished with 
 some humour the air, 
 
 " Pray set the mournful captive free." 
 
 His lordship, then producing sundry benefit cards, made 
 the company (most of whom were those that enjoyed the 
 joke at his expense the preceding evening) purchase at a 
 high price, remarking, that ever}^one was glad to pay for 
 hearing Signior si?]g. The son of Apollo was then re- 
 leased, and a free pardon granted on his promising never 
 agam to soar beyond his professional sphere. 
 
 The Countess of G has occasioned some noise both 
 
 in Italy and England ; all the romantic tales of his lordship 
 taking her out of a convent are fictions ; she is no subject 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 4I. 
 
 for a nunnery. Her father is the head of an ancient Roman 
 family, much reduced in its fortunes ; he let out his palace for 
 their support, and Lord Byron by chance occupied it when his 
 
 daughter was given in marriage to the Count G , an 
 
 officer poor in everything but titles. Lord B made the 
 
 bride a liberal present of jewels, and in a short time he 
 became the locum tenens of the bridegroom. An amicable 
 arrangement was made, the count set off to join the army 
 at Naples, newly caparisoned, and the countess remained 
 under the roof of the noble lord, where the father acts as 
 regulator of the household. She is a lovely woman, not more 
 than twenty-two years of age, of a gay, volatile disposition ;. 
 rides like an Amazon, and fishes, hunts, and shoots with 
 his lordship. Nature appears to have formed them for each 
 other. She is beloved by all the domestics, and is friendly to- 
 everyone that wants her aid. She speaks English with 
 purity, and possesses many accomplishments. 
 
 Her spirit is of the most intrepid description. Two months 
 ago we went on a shooting party to the island of Santa Maura, 
 the ancient Leucadia, where Sappho took the lover's leap, and 
 buried in oblivion all memory of Phaon's inconstancy. My 
 lord was taken with one of his odd vagaries, and without saying. 
 a word to anyone sailed in a Greek polacre to Ithaca. Chance- 
 directed a boat to St. Maura, the crew of which had seen his 
 lordship wandering on the shores of the Ulyssean Isle; the 
 countess resolved to go after him, and, dauntlessly stepping 
 into a small boat, accompanied by a boy, she spread her little 
 sail to the breeze, and steered away, refusing to let any of us- 
 partake of the dangerous enterprise. For my part, I was not 
 so much of a hero as to foster any ambition to become a 
 Palinurus to the crazy bark of love. After being tossed about 
 for three days and two nights, she landed safe at Ithaca, and 
 met the fugitive bard, astonished at her magnanimity. In 
 ancient days, this action would have fonned the theme of" 
 an epic poem, and it is possible his lordship may yet render 
 the tale as immortal as that of Sappho and Phaon. 
 
 The barren island of Ithaca had charms for the gloomy 
 mind of his lordship ; and I have reason for supposing that, 
 during the sojourn of our adventurers upon it, the drama of 
 Cain was first conceived and partly written. The story of 
 Ulysses ploughing the sea sand, when he affected madness- 
 to remain from the siege of Troy, may not have been a fiction^ 
 
-42 BYRON 
 
 for a more barren and desolate place can scarce be imagined. 
 The countess took views from it in many places ; her pencil 
 "is as often in her hand as his lordship's pen is in his ; but 
 it was only chance that ever favoured us with a sight of the 
 productions of either. 
 
 On his lordship's return to Santa Maura, we all embarked 
 'On board of a small latteen-sailed vessel for Venice. The 
 first night we encountered a violent storm, which compelled 
 us to seek shelter in a small creek on the west side of Zante. 
 His lordship proved a good seaman, and showed his 
 ■'* intrepidity in the darkened hour." But for his threats and 
 promises we should have perished on the rocks. The crew, 
 'Consisting of Albanians, were the most wretched cowards I 
 had ever seen. An ofificer on the staff of Sir Thomas Adams 
 -came to the cottage on the beach, where our party had taken 
 refuge ; he politely offered us any accommodation the small 
 fortress near afforded ; this his lordship declined, and invited 
 liim to dine with us in a tent on the shore. The day turned 
 •out fine, and was passed agreeably ; the officer was a subaltern 
 in the Greek infantry, and when a serjeant had known Lord Byron 
 -at Parga, and done him some trifling service. This his lord- 
 ship reminded him of after dinner, and gave him a snuff-box, 
 which he desired him to keep as a memorial of his gratitude. 
 The poor fellow's heart was so full that he could not keep the 
 secret; the box contained a note for 50/. 
 
 Returned from Ithaca to Venice, we frequently made excur- 
 :sions to the neighbouring towns and villages, where his lord- 
 .-ship was well known ; and not unfrequently we had warning 
 ..given at breakfast to be ready for a journey in two hours. This 
 was the usual mode of taking us unprepared. No previous 
 conversation ever led to a belief of what were his lordship's 
 intentions ; all his actions appeared to spring from the impulse 
 of the moment. It was not always pleasant, nevertheless, to 
 T)e thus taken by surprise ; and the time for preparation was 
 never considered by his lordship. 
 
 It took no more trouble to prepare him for a journey of 
 ;'several days than a knight of the first crusades to make ready 
 for a campaign, who had but one suit, in which he slept. 
 Whether he was in his common daily or full court-dress, the 
 only change he makes is drawing on a pair of tanned bro^\^l 
 and red leather boots, and flinging a spotted silk cloak over 
 his shoulders. With a brace of pistols in his belt, and a large 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 43 
 
 English postilion's whip in his hand, he is armed cap-a-pie for 
 all weathers. If he had half a dozen servants to take care of 
 the luggage, he invariably would carry a small portmanteau 
 behind him, which held a change of linen ; before him was a 
 pair of horse-pistol holsters, in which he kept his sketch-book, 
 papers, pens, and ink, and three or four silk and cambric 
 handkerchiefs, which he was in the habit of dipping in the 
 livers and springs, and rubbing his forehead with. No man 
 was more particular in the attendance of his servants, and no 
 one ever had less occasion for their services. He kept them 
 for the convenience of his friends alone, and in that particular 
 certainly studied their comforts to the neglect of his own. We 
 took the road to Verona, which was a favourite city of his 
 lordship's, from a romantic notion which he entertained that 
 the Romeo and Juliet of Shakespeare had absolutely existed 
 within its walls, and he has been heard to declare that 
 he could point out the ruins of Friar Lawrence's hermitage. 
 In fact, like Gray and Mason with their Druids, Temples of 
 Odin, and Fatal Sisters, his lordship brooded over darkened 
 scenes, accordant with his imagination, till he " thought each 
 .strange tale devoutly true." — Magic Lantern, January isf, 1823. 
 
 We quote the following account from an American paper, of 
 the interview of certain Americans with Lord Byron at Genoa. 
 It is evident that his lordship, as Corporal Nym says, " was 
 passing good humours upon them." 
 
 " Genoa, » 
 
 " I have been rambling about in Italy for fourteen months, 
 and know every road in it better than anyone in America, and 
 ■every street or lane in Milan, Florence, Rome, Venice, &c., &c., 
 better than the main street in Richmond. I am however, I 
 believe, about to quit it, I fear for ever. I am here, lingering 
 on the end. On the i6th we arrived here. About two miles 
 from town we overtook a gentleman on horseback, attended by 
 a servant ; I looked at his face, and instantly recognized him 
 from a portrait by an American painter. West, now at Flo- 
 rence, to be the most extraordinary man now alive — a glance 
 at his distorted foot confirmed it. We rode on — part of our 
 object in visiting Genoa had been to introduce ourselves to 
 him. Accordingly next day we wrote a short and polite note^ 
 
44 BYRON 
 
 requesting leave to pay our respects, to which we received one- 
 equally polite, requesting us to call next day at two o'clock. 
 We went ; a servant stood ready to receive us, and we were 
 shown into a saloon, where we waited with beating hearts for 
 about a minute, when he made his appearance. He is about 
 five feet six inches high ; his body is small, and his right leg 
 shrunk, and about two inches shorter than the other ; his head 
 is beyond description fine. West's likeness is pretty good, but 
 no other head I ever saw of him is in the least like him. His 
 forehead is high, and smaller at the top than below (the like- 
 nesses are vice versa). His hair, which had formerly hung in 
 beautiful brown ringlets, beginning to turn grey, he being, as 
 he told us, thirty-five years old. His eyes between a light blue 
 and grey ; his nose straight, but a little turned up ; his teeth 
 most beautiful ; his head is perhaps too large for his body.. 
 Who is he ? One of our company began a set apology, which 
 he cut short by telling us it was useless, for he was very glad 
 to see us, and then began to ask us questions, fifty in a minute,, 
 without waiting for an answer to any, and if by chance it was 
 made, he seemed impatient if it contained more than two- 
 words. He flew from one subject to another, and during 
 about an hour and a half talked upon at least 200 subjects — 
 sometimes with great humour, laughing very heartily. At 
 length, looking round, he asked with a quizzical leer which of 
 us was from old Virginia 1 I bowed assent. Then followed a 
 catechism, to which I occasionally edged in an answer : — 
 * Have you been in England ? How long have you been in 
 Italy ? Is Jefferson alive ? Is it true that your landlords are 
 all colonels and justices ? Do you know Washington Irving ? 
 He is decidedly the first English prose writer, except Scott. 
 Have you read Bracebridge HallV (I answered, * No.') ' Well^ 
 if you choose I'll lend it you ; here it is. Have you any 
 American books to lend me ? I am very desirous of reading 
 the Spy. I intend to visit America as soon as I can arrange 
 my affairs in Italy. Your morals are much purer than those 
 of England (there I laughed) — those of the higher classes in 
 England have become very corrupt (I smothered my laugh). 
 Do you think if I was to live in America they would ever make 
 me a judge of the Ten Pound Court ? Is it true that an 
 Englishman is always insulted, in travelling through America ?* 
 We assured him not. He then told us more laughable stories 
 of the ridiculous biographies made of him, especially by the 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 4$ 
 
 French. One of them represented him as a gloomy, miserable 
 mortal, keeping the skull of his mistress as a drinking cup. I 
 told him that was pretty much the idea we had of him, as we 
 considered him a sort of vampire (he laughed heartily). He 
 said Bracebridge Hall was beautifully written, but as for the 
 characters, they exist only in the brain of W. I. There are no 
 old Ensjlish gentlemen — no yeomen. The English have lost 
 everything good in their character. Their morals are particu- 
 larly bad (here I thought he really was quizzing us). In fine, 
 he kept us for an hour and a half constantly amused, and dis- 
 missed us well satisfied with our interview. His manners are 
 most charming and fascinating, and if he is, as they say, a 
 devil, he is certainly a merry one — nothing gloomy. His voice 
 is low and soft, and at first sounds affected. Now who is it ? 
 Who is this man about whom I have written a whole letter ? 
 It is Childe Harold, Corsair, Do7t Juan — in plain English, 
 Lord Byron." — Mornmg Chrofiicle, September ()th, 1823. 
 
 Lord Byron's Latest Verses. 
 
 We have been indebted to a friend for the following immortal 
 verses of Lord Byron, the last he ever composed. Four of the 
 lines have already appeared in an article in The West7?iinster 
 Review : — 
 
 Messolonghi, January 227id, 1824. 
 
 " On this day I completed my thirty-sixth year." 
 
 'Tis time this heart should be unmoved, 
 
 Since others it has ceased to move ; 
 Yet, though I cannot be beloved, 
 Still let me love. 
 My days are in the yellow leaf, 
 
 The flowers and fruits of love are gone, 
 The worm, the canker, and the grief, 
 
 Are mine alone. 
 The fire that in my bosom preys, 
 
 Is like to some volcanic isle, 
 No torch is kindled at its blaze ; 
 
 A funeral pile. 
 The hope, the fear, the jealous care, 
 ' Th' exalted portion of the pain, 
 
 And power of love, I cannot share, 
 But wear the chain. 
 
46 BYRON 
 
 But 'tis not here — it is not here — • 
 
 Such thoughts should shake my soul ; noi 
 "Where glory seals the hero's bier, 
 Or binds his brow. 
 
 The sword, the banner, and the field, 
 
 Glory and Greece around us see ; 
 
 The Spartan borne upon his shield 
 
 Was not more free. 
 
 Awake ! not Greece — she is awake ! — 
 
 Awake, my spirit, — think through whom 
 My life blood tastes its parent lake — 
 And then strike home ! 
 
 I tread reviving passions down. 
 
 Unworthy manhood — unto thee, 
 Indifferent should the smile or frown 
 Of beauty be. 
 
 If thou regret thy youth, — why live? — 
 
 The land of honorable death 
 Is here — up to the field, and give 
 Away thy breath ! 
 
 Seek out — less often sought than- found — 
 
 A soldier's grave, for thee the best. 
 Then look around, and choose thy ground, 
 And take thy rest. 
 
 Death of Lord Byron. 
 
 A courier arrived in town yesterday morning, with the dis- 
 tressing intelHgence of the decease of Lord Byron, at Misso- 
 longhi, on the 19th of April, after an illness of ten days. A 
 cold, attended with inflammation, was the cause of the fatal 
 result. Lord Sidney Osborne's letters from Corfu are dated 
 the 27th of April. His lordship was about to proceed imme- 
 diately to Zante, where the body had arrived. 
 
 Lord Byron had perfectly recovered from his illness in 
 February, which was of quite a different nature from that 
 under which he died. 
 
 The following is a translation of the proclamation which 
 was issued by the Greek authorities at Missolonghi, to the 
 grief of its inhabitants, who were thus arrested in the cele- 
 bration of their Easter festivities : 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 47" 
 
 " PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF GREECE. 
 
 " The present days of festivity are converted into days of 
 bitter lamentation for all — Lord Byron departed this life to- 
 day, about eleven o'clock in the evening, in consequence of a 
 rheumatic inflammatory fever, which had lasted for ten days. 
 During the time of his illness your general anxiety evinced the 
 profound soitow that pervaded your hearts. All classes, with- 
 out distinction of sex or age, oppressed by grief, entirely forgot 
 the days of Easter. The death of this illustrious personage is 
 certainly a most calamitous event for all Greece, and still 
 more lamentable for this city, to which he was eminently 
 partial, of which he became a citizen, and of the dangers of 
 which he was determined personally to partake when circum- 
 stances should require it. His munificent donations to this 
 community are before the eyes of everyone, and no one 
 amongst us ever ceased, or ever will cease, to consider him, 
 with the purest and most grateful sentiments, our benefactor. 
 Until the dispositions of the National Government regarding 
 this most calamitous event be known, by virtue of the decree 
 of the legislature, No. 314, of date the 15th of October, 
 
 "It IS Ordained, — i. To-morrow, by sunrise, thirty-seven 
 minute-guns shall be fired from the batteries of this town, equaE 
 to the number of years of the deceased personage. 
 
 " 2. All public ofiEices, including all courts of justice, shall 
 be shut for three following days. 
 
 " 3. All shops, except those for provisions and medicines,, 
 shall also be kept shut ; and all sorts of musical instruments,, 
 all dances customary in these days, all sorts of festivities and 
 merriment in the public taverns, and every other sort of public 
 amusement, shall cease during the above-named period. 
 
 "4. A general mourning shall take place for twenty-one 
 days. 
 
 "5. Funeral ceremonies shall be performed in all the- 
 churches. 
 
 "A. Maurocordato, 
 "Giorgio Praidi, Secretary. 
 
 " Missolonghi, 19th April, 1824." 
 
48 BYRON 
 
 We understand that at Missolonghi the grief that pervaded 
 the inhabitants did not require this notification from the Go- 
 vernment. Mourning was deep and universal. 
 
 The Greeks have requested and obtained the heart of Lord 
 Byron, which will be placed in a mausoleum in the country, 
 the liberation of which was his last wish. 
 
 His body will be brought to England. 
 
 His lordship leaves one daughter, a minor. 
 
 Thus has perished, in the flower of his age, in the noblest 
 of causes, one of the greatest poets England ever produced. 
 His death, at this moment, is, no doubt, a severe misfortune 
 to the struggling people for whom he has so generously devoted 
 'himself. 
 
 His character we shall not attempt to draw. He had 
 virtues, and he had failings ; the latter were in a great measure 
 the result of the means of indulgence which were placed within 
 his reach at so early a period of his life. " Give me neither 
 poverty nor riches," said an inspired writer, and certainly it 
 may be said that the gift of riches is an unfortunate one for 
 the possessor. The aim which men, who are not born to 
 wealth, have constantly before them, gives a relish to existence 
 to which the hereditarily opulent must ever be strangers. 
 Gratifications of every kind soon lose their attraction, the 
 game of life is played without interest, for that which can be 
 obtained without eftort is never highly prized. 
 
 It is fortunate for the great when they can escape from 
 themselves into some pursuit, which, by firing their ambition, 
 gives a stimulus to their active powers. We rejoiced to see 
 Lord Byron engaged in a cause which afforded such motives 
 for exertions, and we anticipated from him many days of glory. 
 But it has been otherwise decreed. 
 
 George Gordon Lord Byron, born in 1788, was the repre- 
 sentative of a family which ascends to the Norman Conquest, 
 and many of his ancestors fill a distinguished place in the 
 history of this country. The peerage was conferred on Sir 
 John Byron for his services to the royal cause in the battle of 
 Edge-hill and Newbury, in which he was engaged with six of 
 his brothers. 
 
 William Lord Byron, who succeeded to the family honours, 
 in 1736, was committed to the Tower, in 1765, for killing his 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 49 
 
 relation and neighbour, Mr. Chaworth, in a duel, fought at 
 tlie Star and Garter Tavern, Pall Mall, by the light of a candle. 
 A verdict of wilful murder had been returned by the coroner's 
 jury, and his lordship was tried by his peers in Westminster 
 Hall, and found guilty of manslaughter; but discharged on 
 the plea of privilege, when brought up for judgment. This 
 lord died at Newstead Abbey, May 17, 1798. 
 
 The Hon. John Byron, his brother, born at Newstead Abbey 
 on the 8th Nov., 1723, is distinguished in our naval history for 
 the hardships he encountered in the expedition under Com- 
 modore Anson, and for the expedition he himself commanded 
 shortly after the commencement of the last reign. The son of 
 this veteran, John Byron, the father of the poet, was born in 
 1 75 1. He distinguished himself in the annals of gallantry, by 
 the seduction of the Marchioness of Carmarthen, whom, after 
 her divorce, he married. On her death he married Miss 
 Gordon, a Scotch lady of noble descent, an heiress to an 
 estate at Rayne, in the district of Gairwih, in the county of 
 Aberdeen ; he died at Valenciennes, on the 2nd of August, 
 1 791. His lordship's mother died in Scotland, while he was 
 on his travels, in 181 1. 
 
 Lord Byron succeeded to the title and estates on the death 
 of William the fifth Lord Byron, which, as we have already 
 stated, took place in 1798, when he was only ten years of age. 
 
 Up to that period he had lived in Aberdeenshire, and it 
 appears that the wild scenery of the spot in which he passed 
 his early years remained always deeply engraven on his 
 memory. In his first publication. The Hours of Idleness, there 
 is a poem on Lachin y Gair, to which he prefixes a short intro- 
 duction, in which he says, it is " one of the most sublime and 
 picturesque amongst our Caledonian Alps. Its appearance is 
 of a dusky hue, but the summit is the seat of eternal snows : 
 near Lachin y Gair, I spent some of the early part of my life." 
 In the poem he breaks out thus : — 
 
 Yet, Caledonia ! belov'd are thy mountains, 
 
 Round their white summits though elements war, 
 
 Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth flowing fountains, 
 I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr. 
 
 Ah ! there my young footsteps in infancy wander'd, ■ 
 My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid ; 
 
 On chieftains long perish' d my memory ponder'd, 
 As daily I strode through the pine-cover'd glade ; 
 
50 BVRON 
 
 I sought not my home, till the day's dying glory 
 Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star, 
 
 For fancy was cheer'd by traditional story, 
 
 Disclos'd by the natives of dark Loch na Garr. 
 
 It was then said, indeed, that the Hberty he enjoyed of ranging 
 the hills without controul, at that early period, that his frame, 
 which was deUcate, might be invigorated by air and exercise, 
 made him ever afterwards impatient of restraint. 
 
 If, as has been said, Lord Byron, in Do?ina Inez, in his '' Don 
 Jua7i^'' gave a sketch of his mother, it can hardly be said that 
 her maternal indulgence seduced him into a flattering re- 
 semblance — 
 
 His mother was a learned lady, famed 
 
 For every branch of every science known — 
 
 In every Christian language ever named, 
 With virtues equall'd by her wit alone ; 
 
 She made the cleverest people quite ashamed — 
 And even the good with inward envy groan, 
 
 Finding themselves so very much exceeded 
 
 In their own way by all the things that she did. 
 
 Her favourite science was the mathematical ; 
 
 Ller noblest virtue was her magnanimity ; 
 Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all; 
 
 Her serious sayings darken'd to sublimity : 
 In short, in all things she was fairly what I call 
 
 A prodigy : — her morning dress was dimity. 
 Her evening, silk, or, in the summer muslin, 
 And other stuffs with which I won't stay puzzling. 
 
 Perfect she was — but as perfection is 
 
 Insipid in this naughty world of ours. 
 Where our first parents never learn'd to kiss. 
 
 Till they were exiled from their earlier bowers, 
 Where all was peace, and innocence, and bliss 
 
 (I wonder how they got through the twelve hours), 
 Don Jose, like a lineal son of Eve, 
 Went plucking various fruit without her leave. 
 
 He was a mortal of the careless kind — 
 
 With no great love of learning or the learn'd, 
 
 Who chose to go where'er he had a mind. 
 And never dream'd his lady was concem'd. 
 
 The world, as usual, wickedly inclined -^ 
 To see a kingdom or a house o'erturn'd, 
 
 Whisper'd he had a mistress — some said two — 
 
 But for domestic quarrels one will do. 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. .5 1 
 
 Now Donna Inez had, with all her merit, 
 
 A great opinion of her own good qualities ; 
 
 Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it, 
 
 And such, indeed, she was in her moralities ; 
 But then she had a devil of a spirit — 
 
 And sometimes mix'd up fancies with realities, 
 And let few opportunities escape 
 
 Of getting her liege lord into a scrape. 
 
 Towards the close of the year 1798, he was removed to Har- 
 row. Speaking of his studies there, his lordship says, in a note 
 to the fourth canto of Childe Harold^ " In some parts of the 
 continent, young persons are taught from mere common authors, 
 and do not read their best classics till their maturity. I cer- 
 tainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion 
 towards the plan of my education. I was not a slow though 
 an idle boy; and I believe no one could be more attached to 
 Harrow than I have always been, and with reason : — a part of 
 the time passed there was the happiest of my life ; and my pre- 
 ceptor (the Rev. Dr. Joseph Drury) was the best and worthiest 
 friend I ever possessed, whose warnings I have remembered 
 but too well, but too late when I had erred," &c. 
 
 At the age of little more than sixteen, he removed to the 
 University of Cambridge, where he became a student of 
 Trinity College. 
 
 At the age of nineteen he left the University for Newstead 
 Abbey, and the same year gave to the world his " Hours 0/ 
 Idleness y 
 
 Among the early amusements of his lordship, were swimming 
 and managing a boat, in both of which he is said to have ac- 
 quired great dexterity, even in his childhood. In his aquatic 
 exercises near Newstead Abbey, he had seldom any other com- 
 panion than a large Newfoundland dog, to try whose sagacity and 
 fidelity he would sometimes fall out of the boat, as if by accident, 
 when the dog would seize him and drag him ashore. On 'losing 
 this dog, in the autumn of 1808, his lordship caused a monu- 
 ment to be erected, commemorative of its attachment^ with an 
 inscription, from which we extract the following lines : — 
 
 " Ye who, perchance, behold this simple urn, 
 Pass on — it honours none you wish to mourn ! 
 To mark a friend's remains these stones arise — 
 I never knew but one, and here he lies." 
 
 On arriving at the age of manhood. Lord Byron embarked 
 at Falmouth for Lisbon, and from thence proceeded across the 
 
 D 2 
 
52 BYRON 
 
 Peninsula to the Mediterranean, in company with Mr. Hobhouse. 
 The travels of his lordship are described in Childe Harold 
 and the Notes. It is somewhat singular that his lordship should 
 have then had a narrow escape from a fever, in the vicinity of 
 the place where he has just ended his life : — 
 
 " When, in 1810," he says, " after the departure of my friend^ 
 Mr. Hobhouse, for England, I was seized with a severe fever 
 in the Morea ; these men (Albanians) saved my life, by fright- 
 ening away my physician, whose throat they threatened to cut, 
 if I was not cured within a given time. To this consolatory 
 assurance of posthumous retribution, and a resolute refusal of 
 Dr. Romanelli's prescriptions, I attribute my recovery. I had 
 left my last remaining English servant at Athens; my dragoman,. 
 or interpreter, was as ill as myself, and my poor arnaouts nursed 
 me with an attention which would have done honour to civili- 
 sation." 
 
 While the Salsette frigate, in which Lord Byron was a pas- 
 senger to Constantinople, lay in the Dardanelles, a discourse 
 arose among some of the officers respecting the practicability 
 of swimming across the Hellespont. Lord Byron and Lieut. 
 Ekenhead agreed to make the trial — they accordingly attempted 
 this enterprise on the 3rd of May, 18 10. The following is the 
 account given of it by his lordship : — 
 
 " The whole distance from Abydos, the place whence we 
 started, to our landing at Sestos on the other side, including 
 the length we were carried by the current, was computed by 
 those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles ; 
 though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the 
 current is such that no boat can row directly across ; and it 
 may in some measure be estimated, from the circumstance of 
 the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in 
 an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten minutes. 
 The water was extremely cold, from the melting of the moun- 
 tain snows. About three weeks before, we had made an at- 
 tempt ; but having ridden all the way from the Troad the same 
 morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it 
 necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored 
 below the castles, when we swam the Straits, as just stated, en- 
 tering a considerable way above the European, and landing be- 
 low the Asiatic, fort. Chevalier says that a young Jew swam 
 the same distance for his mistress ; and Olivier mentions its 
 having been done by a Neapolitan ; but our consul at Tarra- 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 53 
 
 ^ona remembered neither of those circumstances, and tried to 
 dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette crew- 
 were known to have accompUshed a greater distance; and 
 the only thing that surprised me was, that as doubts had been 
 entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever 
 endeavoured to ascertain its practicability." 
 
 This notable adventure was, however, followed by a fit of 
 the ague. 
 
 He returned to England, after an absence of nearly three 
 years, and the two first cantos of Childe Harold made their 
 appearance a few months afterwards. To this poem, in rapid 
 succession, followed the Giaour and the Bride of Abydos, two 
 Turkish stories ; and while the world was as yet divided in opi- 
 nion as to which of these three pieces the palm was due, he 
 produced his beautiful poem of the Corsair. 
 
 On the 2nd of January, 1815, his lordship married, at Seaham, 
 in the countyof Durham, the only daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke 
 Noel, Baronet, and towards the close of the same year his lady 
 brought him a daughter. Within a few weeks, however, after 
 that event a separation took place, for which various causes have 
 l)een stated. This difference excited a prodigious sensation at 
 the time. His lordship, while the public anxiety as to the course 
 he would adopt was at its height, suddenly left the kingdom with 
 the resolution never to return. 
 
 He crossed over to France, through which he passed rapidly 
 to Brussels, taking in his way a survey of the field of Waterloo. 
 He proceeded to Coblentz, and thence up the Rhine as far as 
 Basle. After visiting some of the most remarkable scenes in 
 Switzerland, he proceeded to the North of Italy. He took up 
 his abode for some time at Venice, where he was joined by Mr. 
 Hobhouse, who accompanied him in an excursion to Rome, 
 where he completed his Childe Harold. 
 
 At Venice, Lord Byron avoided as much as possible all inters 
 'Course with his countrymen. He quitted that city, and took {|p 
 his residence in other parts of the Austrian dominions in Italy, 
 which he quitted for Tuscany. He was joined by the late Mr. 
 Shelley, and afterwards by Mr. Leigh Hunt. 
 
 His patrimonial estate received lately a large increase by the 
 death of Lady Byron's mother, and a valuable coal mine, said to 
 "be worth 50,000/, had been discovered on his Rochdale estate 
 before he left England, so that at his death he must have been in 
 the possession of a large income. 
 
54 BYRON 
 
 The journey of his lordship to Greece, and the part he- 
 has acted in that country will endear his memory to every 
 friend of liberty. 
 
 One production of his lordship will be looked for with more 
 anxiety than any of his former publications. We allude to his 
 Life, written by himself, which he gave to his friend Mr. Thomas 
 Moore, and which has been some time in this country. If 
 report is to be credited, Lord Byron has in his work examined 
 himself with an unsparing severity of which few men are 
 capable. — Mor7ii?ig Chro7iide, May 17///, 1824. 
 
 The late Lord Byron was brought up in Aberdeenshire, until 
 he was about ten years of age, at which period he was removed 
 to Harrow, his mother being induced to leave Scotland by the 
 demise of the former Lord Byron. It is not our purpose to say 
 anything of the conduct of the Honourable Captain J. Byron, 
 the deceased poet and philanthropist, but that, soon after his 
 marriage, and the birth of his only son, he died, leaving his 
 widow in no very flourishing circumstances, as regards pecuniary 
 matters. Her conduct, however, was most exemplary, and if 
 his lordship intended to depict his mother as Donna Inez, in his 
 Don Juan, as has been said by one of our cotemporaries, and 
 indeed, generally understood, to us it appears that he has 
 dealt with undue severity with his parent. His lordship was 
 bom on his mother's estate, about 30 miles from Aberdeen, to 
 which city both of them removed, on the death of his father, when 
 he was but two years old. In Aberdeen his mother lived in 
 almost perfect seclusion, on account of the great deterioration of 
 her property by the extravagance of her deceased husband, for 
 her high spirit would not suffer her to apply to his family for the 
 slightest allowance, although her own was scanty indeed. She 
 kept no company, but was regarded and esteemed by all who 
 knew her, and her amiable disposition and manners were parti- 
 cularly shown towards all those whom she thought fit to associate 
 in reading or in sports with her darling son. He was her darling 
 son, for we have seen her when he has only been going out 
 for an ordinary walk, entreat him, with the tear glistening 
 in her eye, to take care of himself, as " she had nothing on 
 earth but him to live for ; " a circumstance not at all pleasing 
 to his adventurous spirit, the more especially as some of his 
 companions, who witnessed the affectionate scene, would, at 
 school, or at their sports, make light of it, and ridicule hinx. 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 55 
 
 about it. The Hon. Mrs. Byron had a beautiful countenance, 
 but was rather a petite figure, and had somewhat too much of 
 embonpoint. She was naturally a woman of spirit and of gaiety, 
 but we never understood that her genius lay chiefly in the 
 " mathematical," or that, '' her wit was attic all," which his 
 lordship attributes to that of Donna Inez. 
 
 George Byron Gordon was the appellation by which he was 
 known to his schoolfellows in Aberdeen, and if any of them^ 
 by accident or design, reversed the latter words, he was very 
 indignant at it, on account of the neglect with which his 
 father's family had all along treated his mother. 
 
 At the age of seven years his lordship, whose previous in- 
 struction in the English language had been his mother's sole 
 task, was sent to the Grammar School at Aberdeen, where he 
 continued till his removal to Harrow, with the exception of 
 some intervals of absence, which were deemed necessary for 
 the establishment of his health, by a temporary removal to the 
 Highlands of Aberdeenshire, his constitution being always 
 (while a boy) uncommonly delicate, his mind painfully sensitive, 
 but his heart transcendantly warm and kind. Here it was he 
 delighted in " the mountain and the flood," and here it was 
 that he imbibed that spirit of freedom, and that love for " the 
 land of his Scottish sires," which nothing could tear from his 
 heart. Here it was that he felt himself without restraint, even 
 in dress ; and on his return to school, which, by-the-bye, he 
 always did with the utmost willingness, it was with much 
 difiiculty that his mother could induce him to quit the kilt and 
 the plaid, in compliance with the manners of the town ; but 
 the bonnet he would never leave ofl", until it could be no longer 
 worn. 
 
 At school his progress never was so distinguished above that of 
 the general run of his class-fellows, as after those occasional in- 
 tervals of absence, when he would in a few days run through (and 
 well too) exercises, which, according to the school routine, had 
 taken weeks to accomplish. But when he had overtaken the 
 rest of his class, he contented himself with being considered a 
 tolerable scholar, without making any violent exertion to be 
 placed at the head of the first form. It was out of school that 
 he aspired to be the leader of everything. In all the boyish 
 sports and amusements he would be the first, if possible. For 
 this he was eminently calculated. Candid, sincere ; a lover of 
 stem and inflexible truth ; quick, enterprising, and daring, his 
 
56 BYRON 
 
 mind was capable of overcoming those impediments which 
 nature had thrown in his way, by making his constitution and 
 body weak, and by a malconformation of one of his feet. 
 Nevertheless, no boy could outstrip him in the race, or in 
 swimming. Even at that early period (from eight to ten years 
 of age) all his sports were of a manly character ; fishing, shoot- 
 ing, swimming, and managing a horse, or steering and trimming 
 the sails of a boat, constituted his chief delights ; and, to the 
 superficial observer, seemed his sole occupation. This desire 
 for supremacy in the school games, which we have alluded to, 
 led him into many combats, out of which he always came with 
 honour, almost always victorious. Upon one occasion, a boy, 
 pursued by another, took refuge in his mother's house ; the 
 latter, who had been much abused by the former, proceeded to 
 take vengeance on him, even on the landing-place of the draw- 
 ing-room stairs, when young Byron came out at the noise, and 
 insisted that the refugee should not be struck in his house, or 
 else he must fight for him. The pursuer, "nothing loth," 
 accepted the challenge, and they fought for nearly an hour, when 
 both were compelled to give in, from absolute exhaustion. 
 
 It is the custom of the grammar-school at Aberdeen, that 
 the boys of all the five classes, of which it is composed, should 
 be assembled for prayers in the public school at eight o'clock 
 in the morning, previous to which a censor calls over the names 
 of all, and those who are absent are fined. 
 
 The first time that Lord Byron had come to school after his 
 accession to his title, the rector had caused his name to be 
 inserted in the censor's book — Georgius Dominus de Byron, 
 instead of Georgius Byron Gordon, as formerly. The boys, 
 unused to this aristocratic sound, set up a loud and involuntary 
 shout, which had such an effect on his sensitive mind, that he 
 burst into tears, and would have fled from the school had he 
 not been restrained by the master. A schoolfellow of Byron's 
 had a very small Shetland pony, which his father had bought 
 him, and one day they were riding and walking by turns, to the 
 banks of the Don, to bathe. When they came to the bridge, 
 over that dark, romantic stream, Byron bethought him of the 
 prophecy which he incorrectly quotes (from memory, it is true), 
 in one of his latter cantos oi Don Juan : — 
 
 " Brig o' Balgownie ! wight's thy wa' 
 Wi' a wife's ae son, and a mare's ae foal, 
 Down shalt thou fa'. " 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 57 
 
 "He immediately stopped his companion, who was then riding, 
 and asked him if he remembered the prophecy, saying, that as 
 'they were both only sons, and as the pony might be " a mare's 
 ae foal," he would rather ride over first, because he had only a 
 mother to lament him should the prophecy be fulfilled by the 
 falling of the bridge, whereas the other had both a father and a 
 mother to grieve after him. 
 
 As we said at the outset of this imperfect article, these are 
 but trifling reminiscenses of so great a man as he ultimately 
 turned out to be, triumphing first over the defects and impedi- 
 ments of nature, and lastly over the cant, the hypocrisy, and 
 the malignity of mankind ; but their recollection is dear to the 
 relater of them. From the time of his leaving Aberdeen, in 
 1798, except twice in Parliament, the writer of this article never 
 saw his early friend and beloved schoolfellow ; but, from the 
 ■character of his mind, even at that early age, he was assured 
 that in all he undertook in after life, he would be, if it at all 
 depended upon himself, aut Coesar, aid nullus. 
 
 To THE Count Gamba. 
 
 While the precious life of the illustrious Lord Byron seems 
 in danger, the Government prays for his recovery, and unites 
 its vows to those of all the inhabitants of Greece, in behalf of 
 their generous benefactor. But, being convinced that you, sir, 
 are the individual the most nearly connected with him, enjoy- 
 ing his confidence, directing his affairs, and watching over his 
 interests, it requests you, should any misfortune happen to 
 Mm (which God avert !) immediately to advise it, in order that 
 it may adopt, in concert with you, the necessary measures for 
 the safety of his property. 
 
 (Signed) A. Maurocordato. 
 
 T. Praidi, Secretary. 
 Bated Missolonghi, April 7 (19), 1824. 
 
 To Mr. Nicholas Luriottis, Spiros Rassi, Giovanni Tomba- 
 cacch\, to act in concert with the Count Gamba and Captain 
 
58 BYRON 
 
 Parry, and to seal up all the effects of the deceased Lord 
 Byron. 
 
 (Signed) A. Maurocordato. 
 T. Praidi, Sec^etar}^ 
 Copy of the Protocol. — Missolonghi, April 8 (20), 1824. 
 
 G. Praidi, Secretary. 
 
 The Last Moments of Lord Byron. 
 
 We are enabled to present our readers with a very detailed 
 report of Lord Byron's last illness; it is collected from the 
 mouth of Mr. Fletcher, who has been for more than 20 years 
 his faithful and confidential attendant. It is very possible that 
 the account may contain inaccuracies : the agitation of the 
 scene m-ay have created some confusion in the mind of an 
 humble, but an affectionate friend; memory may, it is possible, 
 in some trifling instances, have played him false ; and some 
 thoughts may have been changed either in the sense or in 
 the expression, or by passing through the mind of an unedu- 
 cated man. But we are convinced of the general accuracy of 
 the whole : — 
 
 " My master," says Mr. Fletcher, " continued his usual 
 custom of riding daily, when the weather would permit, until 
 the 9th of April. But on that ill-fated day he got very wet, 
 and on his return home, his lordship changed the whole of his 
 dress ; but he had been too long in his wet clothes, and the 
 cold, of which he had complained more or less ever since we 
 left Cephalonia, made this attack be more severely felt. 
 Though rather feverish during the night, his lordship slept 
 pretty well, but complained in the morning of a pain in his 
 bones and a head-ache. This did not, however, prevent him 
 from taking a ride in the afternoon, which I grieve to say was 
 his last. On his return, my master said that the saddle was 
 not perfectly dry, from being so wet the day before, and 
 observed that he thought it made him worse. His lordship 
 was again visited by the same slow fever, and I was sorry to 
 perceive on the next morning that his illness appeared to be 
 increasing. He was very low, and complained of not having, 
 had any sleep during the night. His lordship's appetite was 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 59^ 
 
 also quite gone. I prepared a little arrow-root, of which he 
 took three or four spoonfuls, saying it was very good, but could 
 take no more. It was not till the third day, the 1 2th, that I 
 began to be alarmed about my master. In all his former colds, 
 he always slept well, and was never affected by this slow fever. 
 I therefore went to Dr. Bruno and Mr. Millingen, the two medi- 
 cal attendants, and inquired minutely into every circumstance 
 connected with my master's present illness ; both replied that 
 there was no danger, and I might make myself perfectly easy 
 on the subject, for all would be well in a few days. This was 
 on the 13 th. On the following day, I found my master in such 
 a state, that I could not feel happy without supplicating that 
 he would send to Zante for Dr. Thomas ; after expressing my 
 fears lest his lordship should get worse, he desired me to con- 
 sult the doctors, which I did, and was told there was no occa- 
 sion for calling in any person, as they hoped all would be well 
 in a few days. Here I should remark, that his lordship re- 
 peatedly said in the course of the day, he was sure the doctors 
 did not understand his disease ; to which I answered, " Then, 
 my lord, have other advice by all means.' ' They tell me,' said 
 his lordship, ' that it is only a common cold, which you know I 
 have had a thousand times.' ' I am sure, my lord,' said I, 
 * that you never had one of so serious a nature.' ' I think I 
 never had,' was his lordship's answer. I repeated my supplica- 
 tions that Dr. Thomas should be sent for on the 15th, and was 
 again assured that my master would be better in two or three 
 days. After these confident assurances, I did not renew my 
 entreaties until it was too late. With respect to the medicines 
 that were given to my master, I could not persuade myself that 
 those of a strong purgative nature were the best adapted for 
 his complaint; concluding that as he had nothing on his 
 stomach, the only efiect would be to create pain ; indeed this 
 must have been the case with a person in perfect health. The 
 whole nourishment taken by my master for the last eight 
 days consisted of a small quantity of broth, at two or three 
 different times, and two spoonfuls of arrow-root on the i8th, 
 the day before his death. The first time I heard of there being 
 an intention of bleeding his lordship was on the 15th, when it 
 was proposed by Dr. Bruno, but objected to at first by my 
 master, who asked Mr. Millingen if there was any very great 
 reason for taking blood : the latter replied that it might be of 
 service, but added that it could be deferred till the next day. And 
 
<6o BYRON 
 
 accordingly my master was bled in the right arm on the evening 
 of the 1 6th, and a pound of blood was taken. I observed at 
 ^he time that it had a most inflamed appearance. Dr. Bruno 
 now began to say that he had frequently urged my master to 
 be bled, but that he always refused. A long dispute now arose 
 about the time that had been lost, and the necessity of sending 
 for medical assistance to Zante, upon which I was informed 
 for the first time that it would be of no use, as my master 
 would be better or no more, before the arrival of Dr. Thomas. 
 His lordship continued to get worse, but Dr. Bruno said he 
 thought letting blood again would save his life ; and I lost no 
 >time in telling my master how necessary it was to comply with 
 the doctor's wishes; to this he replied by saying, he feared 
 «they knew nothing about his disorder, and then stretching out 
 ihis arm, said ' Here, take my arm, and do whatever you like.' 
 His lordship continued to get weaker ; on the 17 th he was bled 
 'twice — in the morning and at two in the afternoon; the 
 bleeding at both times was followed by fainting fits, and he 
 would have fallen down more than once had I not caught him 
 in my arms ; in order to prevent such an accident, I took care 
 not to let his lordship stir without supporting him ; on this 
 'day my master said to me twice, ' I cannot sleep, and you well 
 know I have not been able to sleep for more than a week : I 
 know,' added his lordship, ' that a man can only be a certain 
 Jtirne without sleep, and then he must go mad without anyone 
 being able to save him ; and I would ten times sooner shoot 
 myself than be mad, for I am not afraid of dying ; I am more 
 ■fit to die than people think.' I do not, however, believe that 
 his lordship had any apprehension of his fate till the day after 
 the 1 8th, when he said, 'I fear you and Tita will be ill by 
 .sitting up constantly night and day.' I answered, ' We shall 
 never leave your lordship till you are better.' As my master 
 had a slight fit of delirium on the i6th, I took care to remove 
 the pistols and stiletto which had hitherto been kept at his bed- 
 side in the night. On the iSth his lordship addressed me fre- 
 quently, and seemed to be very much dissatisfied with his 
 medical treatment. I then said, 'Do allow me to send for 
 Dr. Thomas;' to which he answered, 'Do so, but be quick. 
 I am only sorry I did not let you do so before, as I am sure 
 they have mistaken my disease ; write yourself, for I know he 
 would not like to see other doctors here.' I did not lose a 
 moment in obeying my master's orders, and on informing 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 6 1 
 
 Dr. Bruno and Mr. Millingen of it, they said it was very- 
 right, as they now began to be afraid themselves. On return- 
 ing to my master's room, his first words were, ' Have you sent?* 
 
 * I have, my lord,' was my answer ; upon which he said, ' You 
 have done right, for I should like to know what is the matter 
 with me.' Although his lordship did not appear to think his 
 dissolution was so near, I could perceive he was getting weaker 
 every hour, and he even began to have occasional fits of de- 
 lirium. He afterwards said, ' I now begin to think I am 
 seriously ill, and in case I should be taken off suddenly, I wish 
 to give you several directions, which I hope you will be parti- 
 cular in seeing executed.' I answered I would, in case such an 
 event came to pass ; but expressed a hope that he would live 
 many years, to execute them much better himself than I could. 
 To this my master replied, 'No, it is now nearly over;' and 
 then added, ' I must tell you all without losing a moment.' 
 I then said, 'Shall I go, my lord, and fetch pen, ink, and 
 paper?' ' Oh^ my God, no — you will lose too much time, and 
 I have it not to spare, for my time is now short,' said his lord- 
 ship ; and immediately after, ' Now, pay attention.' His lord- 
 ship commenced by saying, ' You will be provided for.' I 
 begged him, however, to proceed with things of more conse- 
 quence ; he then continued — ' Oh, my poor dear child ! my 
 dear Ada ! my God, could I but have seen her ! give her my 
 blessing — and my dear sister Augusta and her children ; and 
 
 you will go to Lady Byron and say tell her everything — 
 
 you are friends with her.' His lordship appeared to be greatly 
 affected at this moment. Here my master's voice failed him, 
 so that I could only catch a word at intervals, but he kept 
 muttering something very seriously for some time, and would 
 often raise his voice and say, ' Fletcher, now if you do not 
 execute every order which I have given you, I will torment you 
 hereafter if possible.' Here I told his lordship, in a state of 
 the greatest perplexity, that I had not understood a word of 
 what he had said ; to which he replied, ' Oh, my God ! then 
 all his lost ! for it is now too late — can it be possible you 
 have not understood me ? ' No, my lord,' said I, ' but I 
 pray you to try and inform me once more.' ' How can I? ' 
 rejoined my master ; ' it is now too late, and all is over.' I 
 said, • Not our will, but God's be done ;' and he answered, 
 
 * Yes, not mine be done — but I will try .' His lordship 
 
 did indeed make several efforts to speak, but could only re- 
 
■62 BYRON 
 
 peat two or three words at a time, such as, * My wife ! my 
 child ! my sister ! you know all — you must say all — you know 
 my wishes ;' the rest was quite unintelligible. A consultation 
 was now held (about noon), when it was determined to admin- 
 ister some Peruvian bark and wine. My master had now been 
 nine days without any sustenance whatever, except what I have 
 already mentioned. With the exception of a few words, which 
 can only interest those to whom they were addressed, and 
 which, if required, I shall communicate, it was impossible to 
 understand anything his lordship said, after taking the bark. 
 He expressed a wish to sleep. I at one time asked whether I 
 should call Mr. Parry? To which he replied, 'Yes, you may 
 call him.' Mr. Parry desired him to compose himself. He 
 shed tears, and, apparently, sunk into a slumber. Mr. Parry 
 went away, expecting to find him refreshed on his return — but 
 it was the commencement of the lethargy preceding his death. 
 The last words I heard my master utter were at six o'clock on 
 the evening of the i8th, when he said, 'I must sleep now;' 
 upon which he laid down, never to rise again ! for he did not 
 move hand or foot during the following twenty-four hours. 
 His lordship appeared, however, to be in a state of suffocation 
 at intervals, and had a frequent rattling in the throat ; on these 
 occasions, I called Tita to assist me in raising his head, and I 
 thought he seemed to get quite stiff. The rattling and choking 
 in the throat took place every half-hour ; and we continued to 
 raise his head whenever the fit came on, till six o'clock in the 
 evening of the 19th, when I saw my master open his eyes and 
 then shut them, but without showing any symptom of pain, or 
 moving hand or foot. ' Oh, my God !' I exclaimed, 'I fear 
 his lordship is_ gone !' The 'doctors then felt his pulse, and 
 said, 'You are right — he is gone.'" — Wesff?ii?ister Review, 
 1824. 
 
 Last Moments of Lord Byron. 
 
 Dr. Bruno has sent us the following contradiction of por- 
 tions of the statement we copied last Sunday from The IVesi- 
 77iinster Review, respecting the medical treatment of Lord 
 Byron. As the Review itself cannot notice Dr. Bruno's state- 
 ment for three months — and as we contributed to the circula- 
 tion of the particulars which he denies or explains, we think 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 63 
 
 ourselves bound to give it immediate insertion ; and we shall 
 be equally open to any further statements on the subject, either 
 from the editor of The Westjni?ister Review, or from his avowed 
 informant, Mr. Fletcher. We translate from the doctor's 
 French : — 
 
 ANSWER TO THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW, RESPECTING THE 
 LAST MOMENTS OF LORD BYRON. 
 
 " Mr. Fletcher has omitted to state, that on the second day 
 of Lord Byron's illness, his physician. Dr. Bruno, seeing the 
 sudorific medicines had no effect, proposed blood-letting ; and 
 that his lordship refused to allow it, and caused Mr. MiUingen 
 to be sent for, in order to consult with his physician, and see 
 if the rheumatic fever could not be cured without the loss of 
 blood. 
 
 " Mr. Millingen approved of the medicines previously pre- 
 scribed by Dr. Bruno, and was not opposed to the opinion that 
 bleeding was necessary ; but he said to his lordship that it 
 might be deferred till the next day. He held this language 
 for three successive days ; while the other physician (Dr. 
 Bruno) every day threatened Lord Byron that he would die 
 by his obstinacy in not allowing himself to be bled. His lord- 
 ship always answered, 'You wish to get the reputation of 
 curing my disease ; that is why you tell me it is so serious ; 
 but I will not permit you to bleed me.' 
 
 "After the first consultation with Mr. Millingen, the domestic, 
 Fletcher, asked Dr. Bruno how his lordship's complaint was 
 going on ? The physician replied, that if he would allow the 
 bleeding, he would be cured in a few days. But the surgeon, 
 Mr.' Millingen, assured Lord Byron, from day to day, that it 
 could wait till ' to-morrow ;' and thus four days slipped away, 
 during which the disease, for want of blood-letting, grew much 
 worse. At length Mr. Millingen, seeing that the prognostica- 
 tions which Dr. Bruno had made respecting Lord Byron's 
 malady, were more and more confirmed, urged the necessity 
 of bleeding, and of no longer delaying it a moment. This 
 caused Lord Byron, disgusted at finding that he could not be 
 cured without loss of blood, to say, that it seemed to him that 
 the doctors did not understand his malady. He then had a 
 man sent to Zante to fetch Dr. Thomas. Mr. Fletcher having 
 mentioned this to Dr. Bruno, the latter observed, that if his 
 lordship would consent to lose as much blood as was neces- 
 
64 BYRON 
 
 sary, he would answer for his cure ; but that if he delayed any 
 longer, or did not entirely follow his advice, Dr. Thomas would 
 not arrive in time. In fact, when Dr. T. was ready to set out 
 from Zante, Lord Byron was dead. 
 
 " The pistols and stiletto were removed from his lordship's, 
 bed, not by Fletcher, but by the servant Tita, who was the 
 only person that constantly waited on Lord Byron in his 
 illness, and who had been advised to take this precaution by 
 Dr. Bruno, the latter having perceived that my lord had 
 moments of delirium. 
 
 " Two days before the death, a consultation was held with 
 three other doctors, who appeared to think that his lordship's 
 disease was changing from inflammatory diathesis to languid ;. 
 and they ordered ' china,"^ opium, and ammonia. 
 
 " Dr. Bruno opposed this with the greatest warmth, and 
 pointed out to them that the symptoms were those, not of an 
 alteration in the disease, but of the fever flying to the brain, 
 which was violently attacked by it; and that the wine, the 
 china, and the stimulants, would kill Lord Byron more speedily 
 than the complaint itself could ; while on the other hand, by 
 copious bleedings, and the medicines that had been taken 
 before, he might yet be saved. The other physicians, how- 
 ever, were of a different opinion; and it was then that Dr. 
 Bruno declared to his colleagues, that he would have no 
 further responsibility for the loss of Lord Byron, which he 
 pronounced inevitable, if the china were given him. In effect, 
 after my lord had taken the tincture, with some grains of car- 
 bonate of ammonia, he was seized by convulsions. Soon after- 
 wards they gave him a cup of very strong decoction of china, 
 with some drops of laudanum; and he instantly fell into a 
 deep lethargic sleep, from which he never rose. 
 
 " The opening of the body discovered the brain in a state of 
 the highest inflammation ; and all the six physicians who were 
 present at the opening, were convinced that my lord would 
 have been saved by the bleeding, which his physician, Dr. 
 Bruno, had advised from the beginning with the most pressing 
 urgency and the greatest firmness. — F. B." 
 
 Examiner, 1824. 
 
 * This is a French term, sometimes used for the smilax china, but v.e 
 have no doubt it means here the Jesuit's bark. 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 6$' 
 
 [extract of a letter from leghorn, JUNE 12, 1824]. 
 
 "I received a letter from T ''' * '^j of the loth April, dated 
 Zante. I send you a few lines from it relative to Lord Byron's 
 death, which has cast a veil of sorrow over all literary Europe, 
 
 " I had been some months absent from him, engaged in the 
 war, and was, by his desire, returning to join him at Misso- 
 longhi, when an express reached me to say that he was seriously 
 ill. I hurried on that day and night in vain, for, on my arrival 
 at Missolonghi, I found him dead ! He was taken ill on the loth 
 of March — a fever like mine or the Marrama (ague and inflam- 
 mation). He refused to listen to the advice of his doctors, and 
 resisted the only means of recovery, to be blooded ! The fever 
 rapidly augmented, still he considered himself not in danger. 
 The hot and fermented blood mounted to his head — on the 
 fifth day he was bled, too late ! — he became aware of his 
 danger, but again too late, for he was almost immediately after 
 deprived of speech, and the loss of his gigantic mind followed. 
 From the i6th, when he was blooded, till the 19th when he 
 died, he was delirious, muttered many unconnected sentences, 
 broken words and wishes, but nothing that could be clearly 
 defined or noted. He died perfectly fearless, without the 
 slightest indication of weakness, and all his disjointed sen- 
 tences gave token of this. From six in the morning of the 
 1 8th till six in the evening of the 19th, he never stirred hand 
 or foot, or showed the least sign of life, except low quick 
 breathing — he then opened his eyes and closed them instantly 
 for ever. 
 
 " Having left no directions on the point of his funeral, I 
 consented to the wishes of his friends and household, to have 
 his body conserved in spirits, and sent to England. I accom- 
 panied it to this island, to procure a vessel, when General 
 Adam, Lord Sidney Osborne, and Sir Frederick Stoven, plotted 
 together, not to allow the body to be sent to England, but even 
 to inter it here in their ill-governed island, that he abhorred. 
 To thus obscurely shove him into a hole, like a dog, I opposed 
 with all my might, as did those interested in his fame. Our 
 expostulations and representations, with the fear of general 
 execration, obHged them to give up their point. We chartered 
 an English brig to convey the corpse to England. 
 
 " So you see we have got the loan, and everything will go 
 on swimmingly, and it will, I hope, seal the freedom of Greece. 
 
66 BYRON 
 
 All goes on well. A little discord — but that is nothing. We 
 are preparing for an active campaign — no boys' play here, I 
 can tell you. I have already been engaged, both on horse and 
 foot, dressed as an Albanian. I am hand and hand with 
 yiysses, the bravest and best of their generals, with him I 
 served the last wmter. I hurry back to Missolonghi, to-day, 
 thence to Argos, there to rejoin him. The Turks are making 
 desperate efforts. The plague (thank God !) is their general. 
 We have no fear of the event. The civil war on the Morea is 
 accommodated. 
 
 " As T '^ * * will write to me again soon, should anything 
 occur worth transmitting, you shall have it. 
 
 " Ever your obliged friend." 
 
 Dissection of Lord Byron's Body. 
 
 We have received a series of the Telegrapho Greco, published 
 at Missolonghi, to the i6th May. The articles of chief interest 
 which they contain are the following, relative to the late Lord 
 Byron : — 
 
 " Missolonghi, May 2. — The clergy proceeded in a body 
 this day to the house where the remains of Lord Byron laid, 
 in order to take into their keeping, and remove it to the church 
 of San Spiridion, the heart, brains, &c., of the deceased, which 
 had been left to the care of the City of Missolonghi. The 
 city made a solemn request to Count Gamba (the friend of 
 Lord Byron) for permission to erect a monument to their bene- 
 factor and illustrious fellow-citizen. His lordship had already 
 accepted the freedom of the city. Count Gamba felt it his 
 duty to deposit his noble friend's remains in the care of the 
 city until they might be reclaimed by his relatives. 
 
 " Two chests were prepared for the occasion, and after being 
 examined were sealed by the magistrates. In one of them 
 was contained the body, and in the other the heart and brains 
 of the noble defunct. They were removed by four officers of 
 his brigade to the bark which transported them to Basiladi, 
 and thence into a larger vessel to be conveyed to Zante. The 
 whole of the noble lord's brigade was drawn out in front of 
 his late residence, and along the shore of the sea. The con- 
 voy was accompanied by the Prince A. Maurocordati, the 
 primates, the military commandants, and an immense concourse 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 67 
 
 of people, whose countenance and manner bof^ testimony to 
 their sorrow at taking this last farewell of their benefactor and 
 fellow-citizen. As soon as the corpse was removed to the 
 bark, it was saluted by discharges of musketry and artillery. 
 The cannon of his brigade, drawn up along the coast, saluted 
 with twenty-five minute guns ; nine were discharged from the 
 battery, and three from the fort of Basiladi, making in all 
 thirty-seven, the number of years the noble defunct had lived. 
 What a melancholy contrast to the joyous salutes which four 
 months previous had hailed his arrival in Missolonghi ? One 
 consolation, however, remains ; the good he has effected will 
 not be lost : the seeds he has sown with such alacrity and in- 
 dustry, for the benefit of Greece, will yet produce a noble 
 harvest. The most glorious monument which can be raised to 
 him, will be the feelings of gratitude and love, which remain 
 stamped in the heart of every Greek, and every friend of 
 humanity. 
 
 " In the bark which transported the noble lord's remains to 
 Zante were his friend Count Gamba, two other officers of his 
 brigade. Captain and Adjutant Hesketh, Lieutenant Winter ; 
 his private physician. Dr. Brown ; his faithful valet, Fletcher, 
 who had served him more than twenty years ; and his domestic, 
 Batista Fulcciere. In two other barks followed his horses and 
 all his effects, under the care of his secretary, Signor Lega 
 Zambelli. The government sent likewise two gunboats to ac- 
 company them. 
 
 " The following account of the opening of Lord Byron's 
 body, and the appearances it exhibited, is given by the pro- 
 fessional gentleman to whom that office was entrusted. 
 
 " I. The bones of the head were found to be excessively 
 hard, and the skull was without the slightest sign of suture, like 
 that of an octogenarian. It might have been said to consist 
 ■of a single bone without deploes. 
 
 " 2. The dura me7ii7ige was so firmly attached to the internal 
 surface of the cranium, that it required the repeated exertions 
 of two strong men to separate the outer bones from it. The 
 vessels of this membrane were greatly distended and com- 
 pletely full, and it was united to the pia mater in different 
 parts, by some membraneous filaments. 
 
 "3. Between the pia menmge and the furrows of the brain, 
 -a great many bubbles of air were found, with drops of lymph 
 adhering in several places to the pia me/iinge. 
 
 E 2 
 
68 BYRON 
 
 " 4. The gYa.nd/a/x of the brain was crossed with membra- 
 neous filaments, which attached it firmly to both the hemis- 
 pheres ; it was likewise extremely fiill of blood. 
 
 "5. The cerebral medulla was full of minute blood-vessels^ 
 of a bright red colour, and very much swollen. Under the 
 p07is varolius, at the base of the hemisphere, in the two superior 
 or lateral ventricles, there was found an extravasation of about 
 two ounces of bloody serum ; and at the bottom of the. 
 cerebellum there was a similar expansion, the effects of a severe 
 inflammation of the brain. 
 
 " 6. The medullary substance was in much greater propor- 
 tion than is common in the cortex, and was very firm and con- 
 sistent. The cerebrum and cerebellum, without any of the in- 
 teguments, weighed about six medical pounds. 
 
 " 7. The impressions or furrows of the blood-vessels, in the 
 internal part of the skull bones, though small, were much more 
 numerous than usual. 
 
 " 8. The lungs were very fine, perfectly sound, but large, to 
 a size almost gigantic. 
 
 " 9. Between the pericardium and the heart there was an. 
 ounce of lymphatic water. The heart was more ample and. 
 voluminous than ordinary, but its muscular substance was very, 
 relaxed and fibreless. 
 
 "10. The liver was smaller than the natural size, as were 
 likewise the biliary vessels, which, instead of bile, contained 
 air. The intestines were distended with air, and of a deep 
 yellow colour. 
 
 "11. The veins were very large and healthy, and the urinary 
 vessels comparatively small." 
 
 From this examination it was unanimously concluded by the 
 medical gentlemen who attended it, that if Lord Byron, from 
 the commencement of his illness had consented to a little loss 
 of blood, as his private physician repeatedly advised, or even 
 if at a more advanced stage of the disorder he had yielded to 
 the pressing solicitations of his medical advisers, to allow a 
 copious bleeding, his lordship would not have fallen a victim 
 to this attack. From the statements marked i, 8, 9, it may 
 be confidently asserted that his lordship could not have lived 
 many years, from his extreme susceptibiHty of disease, either 
 through the strength of his passions, his excessive occupations, 
 or even through his utter disregard of all the necessary means 
 to prevent the effects of constipation. — Morm?ig Chronicle, 
 July \^th, 1824. 
 
painted by his compeers. 69 
 
 Lord Byron's Memoirs. 
 
 The public will know how to appreciate the loss they have 
 •sustained in the destruction of the auto-biography of the greatest 
 poet of the age. We copy from The Times of yesterday the 
 account of an event to which we own we cannot easily re- 
 'Concile ourselves, premising, however, that the work was not 
 . sold to Mr. Murray, but deposited in his hands as a security 
 for a sum advanced to Mr. Moore, which was not two thousand 
 pounds but two thousand guineas. The MS. was placed by 
 Mr. Moore and Mr. Murray at the disposal of Lord Byron's 
 sister, Mrs. Leigh, by whose wish it was immediately and en- 
 tirely burned. Mr. Moore, at the same time, paying back to 
 Mr. Murray the two thousand guineas he had received upon 
 the manuscript : — 
 
 "The Memoirs of Lord Byron, written by himself, are lost to 
 the world for ever. This posthumous record of the deceased 
 nobleman had been deposited, as our readers may have informed 
 themselves, in the keeping of Mr. Thomas Moore, and de- 
 signed as a legacy for his benefit. This gentleman, with the 
 consent and at the desire of Lord Byron, had long ago sold or 
 pledged the manuscript to Mr. Murray, for the large sum of 
 2000/. Since the death of Lord Byron, it occurred to the sen- 
 sitive and honourable mind of Mr. Moore, that, by possibility, 
 . although the noble author himself had given full authority for a 
 (disclosure of the document, some of his family might be wounded 
 ■or shocked by it. He appointed, therefore, a time for meeting 
 ,a near connexion of the noble lord (not Lady Byron), and after 
 a deliberate and joint perusal of the work, finding that this lady 
 . apprehended from it much pain to the minds of many persons 
 still living, though no sort of imputation on her brother's me- 
 mory, Mr. Moore, with a spirit and generosity which the better 
 part of mankind will be at no loss to appreciate, placed the 
 manuscript in the lady's hands, and permitted her to burn it in 
 his presence ! This sacrifice of self-interest to lofty feeling was 
 made the day before yesterday, and the next morning the 
 jzoGo/. was repaid to Mr. Murray, by Lord Byron's self-desti- 
 tuted legatee. The last words of that nobleman, before the 
 delirium which seized his powerful mind within three days of his 
 •death, were, " I wish it to be known that my last thoughts were 
 ^ven to my wife, my child, and my sister.'"' — Times, May 20th, 
 .1824, 
 
70 BYRON 
 
 Lord Byron's Will. 
 
 O'N Thursday the remains of his lordship arrived at the Nore, 
 frorti Greece, in a vessel chartered for that purpose ; and the 
 intelligence being given to his lordship's executors, they imme- 
 diately repaired to the place to take the charge of it, but to 
 prevent any demur, from want of legal authority to receive it,- 
 "' they previously proved his lordship's will. This important docu- 
 ment bears the date of 29th of July, 1815, just six months after 
 his lordship's marriage with the heiress of the houses of Mil- 
 banke and Noel, and when his lady was enciejite of his only issue. 
 He devises certain real estates at Rochdale and elsewhere, to 
 his friends, John Cam Hobhouse, late of Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, Esq., and John Hanson, of Chancery Lane, London, . 
 Esq., in trust, for sale, and the money arising therefrom, together 
 with such part of his other property, as was not settled by his 
 marriage settlement, on Lady Byron and her children, he directs 
 to be in trust for his only sister, the Honourable Augusta Mary 
 Leigh, for her life, for her own separate and exclusive benefit, 
 and, after her decease, the principal to go to her children, of 
 which there are eight. And his lordship declares that he made 
 such provision for his sister and her children, in consequence of 
 his dear wife, Lady Byron, and any children he might have, 
 being otherwise amply provided for. His lordship appoints Mr. 
 Hobhouse, and Mr. Henson, his executors, to each of whom he 
 bequeaths a legacy of one thousand pounds. 
 
 There is also a short codicil accompanying the will, made 
 in Nov. 1 8 18, when he was at Venice, providing for a certain 
 object, but which by subsequent events becomes inoperative. 
 The property which will thus pass to Mrs. Leigh and her nu- 
 merous family, exclusive of the large revenue which must ulti- 
 mately arise from his great works, will be very considerable. 
 Lady Byron, we have authority to state, has most liberally be- 
 stowed her jointure of 2000/. a year, which she took out of his 
 lordship's property under his marriage settlement, to Captain 
 George Anson Byron, of the Royal Navy, who succeeds to the 
 family honours — a proof, at least, that his lordship calculated 
 justly on her ladyship's approval of his own dispositions to the 
 female branch of his family equally unprovided for. — Morning_ 
 Chronicle, July 4th, 1824. 
 
PAlMEii BY MIS COMPEEis.:-. ft 
 
 On Monday the remains of this great man were removed 
 from the vessel that brought them from the land of his sacrifice 
 to his native country, to a temporary depository in Great 
 George Street, Westminster, until the wishes of his family were 
 ascertained as to his future destination. That it should be the 
 wish of many of his lordship's friends that he should be en- 
 tombed in Westminster Abbey is natural, for to that mausoleum 
 he had a high and paramount claim ; but in death, feelings of 
 ostentation become allayed, and the tomb of his ancestry is 
 the Requiem in Pace to be preferred. His lordship's remains 
 are to be taken to the family vault at Hucknall Torkard, near 
 Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire, where a long race of his 
 ancestry, who rendered services to their country, lie interred, 
 and the procession will start on Monday next. — Moi'iwig Chro- 
 nicle^ July Zth^ 1824. 
 
 I went to look 
 
 On Byron's awful manes ; — 'twas a sight 
 Which all my spirit to its centre shook — 
 
 Grand, glorious, passion-moving, still — the blight 
 Of death was there ; but who could bear or brook 
 Such a sun, clouded in so dark a night ? 
 Not I — I gazed upon his fearful sleep, 
 And tried to weep ; but O ! 1 could not weep. 
 
 Yet he was pale and ghastly ! — nought was left, 
 
 But that high intellectual forehead, crown'd 
 With a few dark grey hairs — his lips bereft 
 
 Of all their bitter scorns ! — his eyelids bound 
 In mists, and all his glories chilled and cleft — 
 For solitude and gloom were gathered round — 
 Save that poor pageantry and vain parade. 
 Which the dull gloominess far gloomier made. 
 
 I turned away — my heart was sick — even now 
 
 His shade pursues me in my dreams ; — I know 
 That he had evil in him — but to bow 
 
 To tyrants — but to fawn upon the foe 
 Of Freedom — but to proffer up a vow, 
 
 For aught but man's most sacred interests No f 
 
 This Byron never did. Ye slanderers tell 
 If ye have served the cause of man so well ! 
 
 I watched him when his light was like the gleaming 
 Of a gay tremulous meteor o'er the sea — 
 
 I watched him when his noontide rays were streaming 
 In all their lustre from Thermopylae. 
 
72 BYRON 
 
 I could have then adored him — almost deeming 
 He was a re-awakened Deity, 
 
 Out of the sacred tombs that Greece has reared 
 To names — whose shadows now have re-appeared. 
 
 'Twas there he died — fit grave ! — and there his form 
 
 Shall oft walk forth, when o'er Parnassus' head 
 There gathers from the clouds some awful storm, 
 
 He shall be seen, in white-robed garb to tread ! 
 And breathing eloquent sounds, to wake and warm 
 The heroic Greek ; and for the patriot dead, 
 Shall chaunt a hymn of liberty ! — as when 
 His fire-touch'd harp was heard by mortal men ! — ^J. B. 
 
 Morning Chronicle, Jtdy i^th, 1824. 
 
 Funeral of Lord Byron. 
 
 The remains of Lord Byron were yesterday morning re- 
 moved from the house of Sir Edward Knatchbull, in Great 
 George Street, Westminster, on their way towards the place 
 appointed for their final resting-place. 
 
 The ceremony of lying in state closed on Saturday last ; but 
 during Sunday the Misses Hanson, the Misses Hobhouse, and 
 other private friends of the executors, were permitted to see 
 the coffin, which had been previously screwed down. 
 
 Yesterday morning, at eight o'clock, the undertaker and 
 assistants arrived at the house, and commenced the necessary 
 arrangements for the funeral procession. The crowd assembled 
 in front of Sir Edward's house, and along the whole line through 
 which the melancholy cavalcade passed was immense. The 
 room, in which the body lay, was still illuminated with wax 
 lights. The coffin was covered with a splendid pall of black 
 velvet, trimmed with white satin, and decorated with the arms 
 of the deceased. At the head of the coffin was placed, upon 
 a separate supporter, a large square case, richly covered and 
 ornamented to correspond with the coffin, containing four 
 earthen urns, of Grecian workmanship, in which were de- 
 posited, at Missolonghi, the heart, brains, &c., of the deceased. 
 Near the coffin, on the ground, was an escutcheon, which was 
 painted on wood in Greece, and there displayed when the body 
 of Lord Byron lay m state at Missolonghi. The crest on this 
 escutcheon is a stag, but the real family crest, and which is 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 73 
 
 preserved on the armorial bearings upon the coffin, is a mer- 
 maid. Large black plumes were placed on the coffin, and the 
 coronet, on a crimson velvet cushion, stood on the case, con- 
 taining the heart, &c. The carriages, appointed to form the 
 procession, assembled in front of the sessions house, and at a 
 -given signal were brought round to the door. Everything 
 being in readiness, the whole moved on in the order already- 
 described. After the hearse came five mourning carriages, 
 •each drawn by four horses. The first carriage contained Col. 
 Leigh, Mr. Hobhouse, and Mr. Hanson. 
 
 The second carriage, the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, the Hon. 
 A. Ellis, Sir F. Burdett, and Mr. Bruce. 
 
 The third, Mr. Thomas Moore, Mr. Thomas Campbell, Mr. 
 Rogers, M. Orlando, Deputy from Greece, and Col. Stan- 
 hope. 
 
 The fourth, Dr. O'Meara, Mr. Holmes, and Dr. Francesco 
 Bruno. 
 
 The fifth, the domestics of his lordship, including George 
 Babba Fallier Cacciatore, the body guard, who is a Greek of 
 uncommon personal beauty ; his hair is jet black, and he wears 
 large moustaches and whiskers, the latter coming completely 
 under his chin. This man, we understand, was much attached 
 to his noble master, and expresses the deepest grief for his 
 loss ; he remained close to the body during the whole of the 
 "Voyage home ; he was dressed this day in a plain suit of black 
 livery. 
 
 After the mourning coaches followed nearly a hundred car- 
 xiages, sent as a mark of respect by the friends and admirers of the 
 deceased. Among others we noticed those of his Royal High- 
 ness the Duke of Sussex, the Duke of Bedford, the Marquis of 
 Lansdowne, Earl of Carlisle, Earl Grey, Earl Tankerville, Earl 
 Jersey, Earl Cowper, Lord Holland, Lord Alvanley, Lord 
 Melbourne, Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, Mr. Farquharson, Mr. 
 Hume, M.P., the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, the Hon. A. Ellis, 
 M.P., Mr. Murray, Mr. B. Beaumont, Mr. R. Williams, &c. 
 
 The procession took the following route : Parliament Street, 
 Cockspur Street, Haymarket, Coventry Street, Princes Street, 
 •Gerrard Street, Dean Street, Oxford Street, Tottenham Court 
 Road, to St. James's Chapel, Hampstead Road ; and here it 
 :stopped for a short time to prepare for the more extended 
 journey. At this spot, too, those gentlemen who were not to 
 take part in the ceremony at Newstead Abbey, took their de- 
 
74 BYRON 
 
 parture, as did those carriages which had followed as a mark 
 of respect. 
 
 By one o'clock, the cavalcade, in its reduced state, and de- 
 prived of its feathered decorations, which were packed up for 
 the journey, proceeded at a quicker rate, passing through 
 Camden Town, Kentish Town, and by the great north road to 
 Welwyn, where it stopped for the night. 
 
 This day the journey will be resumed, and continued to 
 Higham Ferrers ; the next day to Oakham : and on Thursday 
 to Nottingham. On Friday the body will be removed from 
 Nottingham with renewed state and splendour to the vault in 
 which it is to be placed. 
 
 At the New Road, and the different points of communication 
 near the Pancras turnpike, there were assembled large bodies 
 of people, who fell into the procession with that silent and 
 orderly demeanour which evinced more than the ordinary 
 curiosity of a crowd, and bespoke a sympathy suited to the 
 solemn occasion, and the public respect which was due to the 
 memory of Lord Byron. The funeral procession, after passing 
 through the turnpike, moved at a quicker rate, but the crowd 
 seemed still anxious to accompany its progress. 
 
 A fine looking honest tar was observed to walk near the 
 hearse, uncovered, throughout the morning; and on being 
 asked by a stranger whether he formed any part of the funeral 
 cortege, he replied that he came there to pay his respect to the 
 deceased, with whom he had served for two years and a half in 
 the Levant, when he made his tour of the Grecian Islands. 
 This poor fellow was kindly offered a place by some of the 
 servants who were behind carriages, but he said he was strong, 
 and had rather walk near the hearse. 
 
 It was stated in some of the evening papers that the present 
 Lord Byron was in one of the mourning coaches. His lord- 
 ship, we understand, was not at the funeral. The father of 
 Lady Byron was also absent. 
 
 The executors, we understand, applied to Lady Byron, with 
 a view to ascertain if she had any wish to see the body of her 
 deceased husband. Her ladyship answered in the negative. 
 
 It was remarked as singular that not one Tory of conse- 
 quence was present at the funeral. We offer no observations 
 on this ungenerous refusal to bury party rancour in the tomb 
 of genius. The French have their faults ; but injustice towards 
 departed genius is not one of them. We are satisfied that if 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 75" 
 
 any priestling had attempted in Paris to raise himself into dis- 
 tinction by an insult to one of the first ornaments of their 
 literature, before even the last honours were paid to the 
 remains, a general burst of indignation would soon have 
 reduced him to silence. 
 
 Funeral of Lord Byron. 
 
 The last sad rites to the illustrious dead were performed upon 
 the remains of this great poet and patriot, at four o'clock on 
 Friday evening last, in the family vault of the little church of 
 Hucknall, in Nottinghamshire, close to the ancient demesne of 
 the Byrons, who held Newstead Abbey for centuries. From 
 this ancient seat of Lord Byron's family, in which he spent 
 many years of his youth, and where he is well remembered by 
 the surrounding tenantry for the juvenile gambols in which he 
 indulged ; from this ancient seat, which was originally a small 
 priory, founded by King Henry the Second, and given by King 
 Henry the Eighth to Sir John Byron, whose descendants received 
 the peerage for their loyalty and sufferings in the time of King 
 Charles the First, the sad procession could be seen moving 
 slowly to a dilapidated village church, where, in a small and 
 mouldering vault, were to be deposited the remains of the 
 greatest poet of our age. It is only to give rank and genius the 
 benefit of what rank and genius deserve to record, that from 
 the time the funeral procession of Lord Byron left the imme- 
 diate vicinity of London, the men of rank and genius who 
 did honour to themselves by forming the head of the procession 
 through Westminster, were no more seen following the 
 hearse, neither was their place supplied along the line of" 
 road for 120 miles, which was crowded with the seats of 
 personages of rank and fortune, by even the temporary 
 appearance of a carriage to escort as far as the boundary of a 
 private demesne, the body as it was borne through. What the 
 richer ranks failed to supply, the middling and the lower 
 classes hastened to offer. Through all the villages crowds 
 flocked round the hearse ; and every demonstration of respect 
 and feeling was paid by these classes ; the village bells tolled 
 the "passing knell; " and wherever the funeral stopped, the. 
 greatest anxiety was exhibited to manifest every attention andi 
 
76 BYRON 
 
 respect. The arrangements for the funeral were so complete, 
 under the superintendence of Mr. Woodenson and Mr. Toovey 
 of Holborn, who assisted him, that no impediment whatever 
 was encountered in the accommodations on the road ; and the 
 body lay in something like state each night where the funeral 
 halted. After the procession left London, the cavalcade halted 
 the first night at Welwyn, the second at Higham Ferrers, and 
 ■on Wednesday night at Oakham. 
 
 The remains of this much lamented nobleman arrived at 
 Nottingham, at five o'clock on Friday morning. A large con- 
 course of people were assembled at the south end of the town, 
 which rapidly increased to thousands as the procession moved 
 along Fishergate, Cartergate, Hookley, and up Carlton Street, 
 on its way to the Blackmoor's Head Inn, at the bottom of 
 Pelham Street. 
 
 The hearse, followed by the mourning coaches, having entered 
 -the yard, the gates were instantly shut. The cofl^n was then 
 taken out of the hearse, and the case or urn out of the first 
 mourning coach, and carried into the room at the north-west 
 corner of the yard. This room was hung with black, and three 
 escutcheons of the Byron's arms were fixed on each of the four 
 walls of the room. The coffin, as above described, was 
 mounted on trestles in the centre, with the case for the heart, 
 &:c., at the head; six very large wax candles were placed round 
 the coffin, and a few other lights being fixed in the room, the 
 public were admitted, by about twenty at once, to walk round 
 and out again ; but such was the pressure and anxiety to see the 
 spectacle, that a very large body of constables were necessary 
 to clear the way, and to keep anything like a clear ingress and 
 egress. Many thousands were thus admitted in the course of 
 Friday morning. 
 
 Early on Friday morning, the greatest bustle pervaded the 
 town of Nottingham. The mayor and corporation having 
 resolved at a town council, held for the purpose, to attend the 
 funeral as mourners, the whole distance to Hucknall (eight 
 miles), provided the executors allowed them, and they having, 
 with many expressions of thanks, assented to receive so flatter- 
 ing a mark of corporate respect to the illustrious dead, the 
 mayor and corporation, at ten o'clock, assembled in mourning 
 • coaches, to form in the line of the funeral procession; at that 
 hour (ten o'clock Friday morning) the crowds in the market- 
 place were immense, the house tops and windows covered and 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 77" 
 
 filled to excess, and the great bulk of the population attired in 
 mourning. Notwithstanding such a congregation, the greatest 
 order was maintained, and the presence of such a body of 
 Englishmen, spontaneously assembling to pay homage to the 
 deceased nobleman, conferred an honour which no pageant 
 that mere rank and wealth could furnish could supply. The 
 mayor and corporation of Nottingham, who did themselves such 
 honour on this solemn occasion, appeared in full mourning,, 
 with scarfs, hatbands, &c., in coaches and six. 
 
 The Funeral. 
 
 All being arranged, at a quarter before eleven o'clock, the 
 hearse, adorned with twelve large sable plumes, drawn by six 
 beautiful black horses, each having a plume of feathers on the 
 head, was ordered to the front of the Blackmoor's Head Inn, 
 for the purpose of receiving the body of his lordship, which, on 
 being brought out, and placed therein, the first mourning 
 coach and six came up, in which was put the um containing^ 
 the heart, &c., covered with a rich black silk velvet pall, orna- 
 mented with escutcheons of the Byron arms on a white ground. 
 These preliminaries having been performed, the procession, 
 soon began to move in the following order : — 
 
 Two Constables, on horseback. 
 
 Two Bailiffs, on horseback. 
 
 Mr. Woodenson, the Undertaker, on horseback. 
 
 Two Cloakmen, on horseback. 
 
 Twenty-six of Lord Rancliife's Tenants, on horseback, two and two. 
 
 Two Mutes, on horseback, 
 
 A large Plume of black Feathers, carried on a man's head, with two 
 
 supporters, on foot. 
 
 Four Cloakmen, on horseback, two and two. 
 
 The State Horse, richly caparisoned, and led by two Pages, the Rider 
 
 carrying on his arms the Coronet of the deceased Lord on a crimson 
 
 velvet cushion, ornamented with gold tassels and fringe. 
 
 The Hearse, containing the BODY, as before described, 
 Mourning Coach and vSix, with the Um, containing the Heart. 
 Mourning Coach and Six, containing, as Chief Mourners, Colonel Leigh, 
 Colonel Wildman, John Cam Hobhouse, Esq., M.P., and John Hanson, 
 Esq. 
 
78 BYRON 
 
 Mourning Coach and Six, with the late Lord Byron's Household, who 
 
 were chiefly Foreigners. 
 Mourning Coach and Six, containing the Mayor and two Aldermen of the 
 Corporation of Nottingham, attended by three of their servants in full 
 mourning. 
 Mourning Coach and Six, containing the Sheriff, Town Clerk, and the 
 remainder of the Deputation from the Corporate Body, attended by 
 three servants in full mourning. 
 The Right Honourable Lord Rancliffe's carriage, with his Lordship 
 therein. 
 William Sherbrooke, Esq.'s carriage, closed. 
 Colonel Wildman's carriage, containing the Pall-bearers, Messrs. Edw. 
 Staveley, Alfred Thomas Fellows, Jonathan Dunn, Charles Heywood 
 Homer, James Fellows, and Ben well Smith. 
 
 A Chaise, with Messrs. H. M. Wood and John Crackle. 
 
 A Private Carriage. 
 
 About forty Gentlemen, on horseback, two and two. 
 
 The procession moved down Smithy Row, across the Market 
 Place, up Chapel Bar, along Parliament Street, up Milton Street, 
 and the Mansfield Road, to Papplewick Lane, near the seventh 
 mile-stone, then to Papplewick and Hucknall Torkard. The 
 great body of the people on foot, comprising many thousands, 
 followed to the outskirts of the liberties of the town, and then 
 the greater part of them halted ; a few followed all the way, 
 and the number increased greatly, when the procession passed 
 through the villages contiguous to the place of interment. 
 
 HUCKNALL CHURCH AND THE FAMILY VAULT. 
 
 At Hucknall, and the villages leading thereto, the utmost 
 anxiety was manifested to learn which way the funeral would 
 come, and vast numbers were assembled on the road sides, 
 eager to catch the least scintillation of intelligence upon a mat- 
 ter in which all seemed deeply interested, and much disap- 
 pointment was felt at the procession not coming through Bas- 
 ford and Bulwell, as had been expected. The doors of 
 Hucknall church were thrown wide open, and great numbers of 
 persons were there at an early hour, going in and out all the 
 morning, and inspecting the vault which was to be the last 
 resting place of the noble lord. The vault is but small, and 
 will not hold more than three coffins abreast upon the floor. 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 79 
 
 Those which were already there, spoke loudly of the vanity of 
 worldly grandeur. Scarcely a bit of wood or velvet was visible. 
 Nothing but six or seven leaden coffins remained of all the 
 grandeur which had been deposited in that lonely habitation; 
 the most legible inscription is that of the Hon. Catherine Gor- 
 don Byron, mother of him whose wishes were this day ful- 
 filled, where he said, speaking of the noble deeds of his 
 ancestors — 
 
 "Like you will he live, or like you will he perish; 
 When decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your own.'* 
 
 Although she was interred so recently, only fourteen years ago, 
 yet the wood is quite decayed, and nothing is visible but the 
 leaden coffin and the plate. 
 
 The only remembrance of the family of the Byrons, in 
 
 Hucknall church, is a neat mural monument, in white marble, 
 
 affixed to the walls, at the north-side of the communion table. 
 
 The inscription thereon is as follows : — 
 
 Beneath in a Vault 
 
 lies interred the body of Richard Lord Byron, 
 
 who, with the rest of his Family, being seven Brothers, 
 
 Faithfully served King Charles the First in the Civil Wars, 
 
 who suffered much for their loyalty, 
 
 and lost all their present fortunes; 
 
 yet it pleased God so to bless the humble endeavours 
 
 of the said Richard Lord Byron, 
 
 that he repurchased part of their ancient inheritan ce, 
 
 which he left to his posterity, 
 
 with a laudable memory for his great piety and charity : 
 
 he departed this life upon the 4th day of October, 
 
 An. Dom. 1679, in the 74th year of his age. 
 
 In the same Vault is interred the Lady Elizabeth, 
 
 his first wife. Daughter of George Russell, Esq., 
 
 by whom he had 10 children, 
 
 and ye Lady Elizabeth his 2d wife. Daughter 
 
 to Sir George Booth, Knt. and Baronet, 
 
 who appoynted this monument 
 
 to be erected 
 
 to the memory of her dear husband, 
 
 and for her great piety and goodness, 
 
 acquired a name better than that 
 
 of Sons and Daughters. 
 
8o BYRON 
 
 The following are all the inscriptions now legible on the 
 leaden coffins in the vault : — 
 
 Here lieth the body of Lady Elizabeth Byron, first wife of the Lord 
 Richard Byron, who died the 22d March, 1617. 
 
 Here lieth the body of the Lord Richard Byron, who died the 4th of 
 October, 1679. 
 
 The body of the Right Hon, the Lady Mary Egerton, eldest daughter 
 of John Earl of Bridgewater, and wife of the Right Hon. V/illiam Lord 
 Byron, who died the loth April, 1703, in the 27th year of her age. 
 
 William Lord Byron, Obit May 21, 1798, aged 75. 
 
 The Hon. Catherine Gordon, of Gight, mother of George Lord Byron, 
 and lineal descendant of the Earl of Huntley and the Lady Jean Stuart, 
 daughter of King James the First of Scotland, Obiit in the 46th year of 
 her age, Aug. i, 181 1. 
 
 Early in the day all the necessary arrangements were made 
 upon a suitable scale, for making the interior of this small 
 church, suited to the solemnity which was to be performed 
 within its white-washed walls. 
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE FUNERAL. 
 
 At half-past eleven o'clock, a number of the undertaker's 
 men arrived, and immediately began to clothe the pulpit and 
 reading desk with the sable array which is considered indis- 
 pensably necessary at funerals like this. A large seat next to 
 the pulpit, together with the communion table and rails, were 
 also covered with black cloth. An escutcheon of the arms, 
 with the motto, " Crede Byron^' underneath, was hung in front 
 of the pulpit, below the cushion. All these preparations were 
 finished by half-past one, at which hour the minute bell began 
 to toll. By this time many respectable individuals came into 
 the church, and having chosen seats for themselves, waited 
 with invincible patience until half-past three o'clock, when the 
 procession was discerned from the church windows. A general 
 movement took place ; the whole village was alive to the in- 
 teresting scene, and in a few minutes the hearse drew up slowly 
 to the gate. 
 
 A general rush took place towards the doors to witness the 
 removal of the body and uni from the hearse, and to see the 
 mourners in attendance. At eighteen minutes to four o'clock 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. Si 
 
 the Splendid but mournful procession began to enter the church, 
 the vicar, the Rev. Mr. Nixon, taking the lead. The body and 
 urn being brought in, and placed on two trestles fixed in the 
 aisle, the mourners passed to the seats prepared for them. 
 The coronet and cushion were then placed upon the case con- 
 taining the urn, and upon the coffin was placed the noble 
 plume of sable feathers. 
 
 The mayor and corporation of Nottingham took their seats 
 in the pew provided for them near the vault, and the chief 
 mourners sat in the adjoining seat. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Nixon, the vicar, clothed in his white sur- 
 plice, then read a part of the beautiful service of the Church 
 of England ; and at four minutes to four the attendants re- 
 moved the coffin and urn into the vault. Here the bearer of 
 the coronet and cushion placed himself at the entrance, hold- 
 ing the proud emblem of nobility in his arms, while the vicar, 
 from the communion rails, read the remainder of the service. 
 While this last act of devotion was performing, the mourners 
 advanced to the head of the steps conducting to the vault. 
 Mr. Hobhouse appeared much affected, and intent upon seeing 
 the coffin deposited with the utmost care next that of the last 
 Lady Byron. All the mourners were deeply affected, and the 
 domestics of Lord Byron, particularly Fletcher, who had been 
 above twenty years in his service, were overpowered with grief. 
 The last sad arrangements were completed at ten minutes past 
 four o'clock, and in five minutes after the vault was closed and 
 the procession left the church. Mr. Hanson immediately set 
 out for London, and Mr. Hobhouse returned with Lord Ran- 
 cliffe to his seat at Bonny. The executors and Colonel Leigh 
 arrived at Nottingham on Thursday night to rejoin the funeral. 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 The name of Byron is immortalized by the splendour of his 
 genius and the transcendant beauty of his poetical com- 
 positions, no less than by his ardent love of liberty, which led 
 him to volunteer his services, his purse and his person, and to 
 yield his dying breath in the cause of the Greeks. It is no 
 
 F 
 
82 BYRON 
 
 wonder, therefore, that the spot of ground that contains the 
 dear deposit of his body should be visited by many who 
 honour his name, and are desirous of paying a tribute of 
 respect to his memory. Some of those distinguished foreigners 
 who had the happiness of being acquainted with him in other 
 countries, have, on their arrival in Britain, with eager haste 
 sought for his grave, kneeled upon his tomb, and bedewed the 
 hallowed ground with their tears. But these have not been 
 alone in their mourning — many of his countrymen who have 
 read his works, have felt their souls inspired by the ever-living 
 fire which pervades his writings, and acknowledging the 
 triumphs of his mighty pen, in the use of which he had no 
 compeer, they have also paid their silent homage at his last 
 earthly resting place. Amongst these, a stranger, whose name 
 we know not; presented himself at Hucknall, in July last, a 
 few days before the monumental inscription to the memory of 
 Lord Byron was fixed in its destined place. The stranger 
 enquired of the clerk of the church whether there was not a 
 book in which strangers who visited the tomb of this great 
 man might inscribe their names ; and on finding there was no 
 such record, he promised to send one, and in a few days after- 
 wards that promise was fulfilled. The clerk of the parish has 
 been so obliging as to show us the book : it is a small octavo, 
 very neatly bound, and in the first three pages is an inscription 
 and a few stanzas, which we have copied below. There are 
 many blank pages to receive the names of visitors, and there 
 are some very respectable names, both of Englishmen and 
 foreigners already inscribed ; but the stranger who furnished 
 the book has not given his name, neither have we any key to 
 it further than the initials, " J. B." 
 
 TO THE IMMORTAL AND ILLUSTRIOUS FAME OF 
 
 LORD BYRON, 
 
 THE FIRST POET OF THE AGE IN WHICH HE LIVED, 
 
 THESE TRIBUTES, 
 
 WEAK AND UNWORTHY OF HIM, BUT IN THEMSELVES SINCERE, 
 
 ARE INSCRIBED WITH THE DEEPEST REVERENCE. 
 
 July, 1825. 
 
 At this period no monument, not even so simple a slab as 
 records the death of the humblest villager in the neighbour- 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. S^ 
 
 liood, had been erected, to mark the spot in which all that is 
 mortal of the greatest man of our day reposes — and he has 
 l)een buried more than twelve months. 
 
 So should it be — let o'er this grave 
 No monumental banners wave; 
 Let no word speak, no trophy tell 
 Aught that may break the charming spell, 
 By which, as on this sacred ground 
 He kneels, the pilgrim's heart is bound. 
 
 A still resistless influence, 
 Unseen, but felt, binds up the sense ; 
 While every whisper seems to breathe 
 Of th' mighty dead who rests beneath. 
 And though the master hand is cold, 
 And though the lyre it once controll'd 
 Rests mute in death ; yet from the gloom 
 "Which dwells about this holy tomb. 
 Silence breathes out more eloquent 
 Than epitaph, or monument. 
 One laurel wreath — the poet's crown — 
 Is here, by hand unworthy thrown : 
 One tear, that so much worth could die, 
 Fills, as I kneel, my sorrowing eye. 
 This the simjile offering 
 (Poor, but earnest) which I bring. — 
 The tear has dried — the wreath shall fade, 
 The hand that twin'd it soon be laid 
 In cold obstruction ; but the fame 
 Of him who tears and wreath shall claim 
 From most remote posterity. 
 While Britain lives, can never die. — ^J. B. 
 
 Nottingham Rez'iettj, July 26th, 1825. 
 
 Lord Byron's Monument. 
 
 An elegent Grecian tablet of white marble, executed b)^ 
 Messrs. Walker, of this town, has been placed, during the 
 present week, in the chancel of the Hucknall church. ^Ve 
 subjoin a copy of the inscription. The words are in Roman 
 <:apitals, and divided into lines as under : — 
 
 F 2 
 
84 BYRON 
 
 IN THE VAULT BENEATH, 
 
 WHERE MANY OF HIS ANCESTORS AND HIS MOTHER ARE BURIED,, 
 
 LIE THE REMAINS OF 
 
 GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON, 
 
 LORD BYRON OF ROCHDALE, 
 
 IN THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER ; 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF " CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE." 
 
 HE WAS BORN IN LONDON, ON THE 
 
 22ND OF JANUARY, 1 788. 
 
 HE DIED AT MISSOLONGHI, IN WESTERN GREECE, ON THE 
 
 I9TH OF APRIL, 1824, 
 
 ENGAGED IN THE GLORIOUS ATTEMPT TO RESTORE THAT 
 
 COUNTRY TO HER ANCIENT FREEDOM AND RENOWN. 
 
 HIS SISTER, THE HONOURABLE 
 
 AUGUSTA MARIA LEIGH, 
 
 PLACED THIS TABLET TO HIS MEMORY. 
 
 Notti7igham /ournal, August iWi^ 1825.. 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 The first volume of a work under the above title, written by 
 Madame Louise Swanton Belloc, has just appeared at Paris. 
 The object of it appears to be to make the French pubhc 
 better acquainted with the history, character, and works of the 
 noble author. The writer professes to have had access to good 
 sources of information. She states, " that an intimate friend of 
 the poet furnished her with details respecting his early years, 
 his habits, and his marriage ; that by a singular accident she 
 became possessed of two poetical pieces of Lady Byron, which 
 have never appeared either in England or France; that an 
 Austrian colonel in the Greek service gave her some important 
 information 3 that she had received notices from Italy ; that 
 she had some unpublished pieces ; in short, that the object of 
 her work being known to do homage to the character and 
 genius of Lord Byron, had been productive of so much kind- 
 ness and attention from various persons who had known him, 
 that she was obliged to change her plan ; and in place of a 
 short article for a periodical work (which was all she at first 
 intended) to make two volumes." 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 85 
 
 The following are the verses of Lady Byron, which are thus 
 introduced by Madame Belloc — " The most singular accident 
 threw these papers into my hands. As they have never appeared 
 in England, I hesitated at first about publishing them here ; 
 but I determined on doing so, by the reflection that they throw 
 light on one of the most important circumstances of Lord 
 Byron's hfe, and that there is nothing in them that can offend 
 anyone; for Lady Byron could not be an impartial judge of 
 her husband's faults, and if it be true that she had sincerely 
 loved him, and that they had been separated by the malevo- 
 lence of a third party, she had suffered too much not to be 
 unjust. As to her regrets, I think the expression of them can- 
 not be otherwise than honourable to her." 
 
 TO ADA. 
 
 Thine is the smile, and thine the bloom, 
 Where hope might fancy ripen'd charms ; 
 
 But mine is dyed m memory's gloom, 
 Thou art not in a father's arms ! 
 
 And there I could have lov'd thee most, 
 And there have owned thou w^ert so dear, 
 
 That though my worldly all were lost, 
 I still \ifiAfelt my life was here! 
 
 What art thou now ? — A monument. 
 
 Which rose to weep o'er buried love : 
 A fond and filial mourner, sent 
 
 To dream of ties restor'd above ! 
 
 Thou, dove ! who may'st not find a rest. 
 
 Save in this frail and shatter'd bark ; 
 A lonely mother's ofifer'd breast, — 
 
 May Heaven provide a surer ark. 
 
 To bear thee over sorrow's waves, 
 
 Which deluge still this world below, 
 'Till thou, through Him alone that saves, 
 
 A holier Ararat shalt know. 
 
 Nor think me frozen, if for thee 
 
 No earthly wish now claims a part ; 
 Too dear such wish ; too vain in me ; 
 
 Thou art not in a father's heart ! 
 
 A. J. Byron, December loth, 1816. . 
 
86 BYRON 
 
 TO A FRIEND— (Miss D***). 
 
 Oh ! pardon the heart which again would repose 
 
 On the friendship it dreaded to need or to feel ; 
 When nearest it found the most ruthless of foes, 
 
 And its wounds from the hand it had died but to heal. 
 
 The destroyer was there, and the root was consuming, 
 The sunbeams or dews touched the branches in vain ;. 
 
 And thus for thy love was no gratitude beaming — 
 And thus for thy tears all my answer was pain. 
 
 On the stream of the valley, if poison'd it rise. 
 
 The sweet flower may fall, but no sweetness prevails ;. 
 
 So the virtue of sympathy dwindles ; but dies 
 
 When the home-source of feeling in bitterness fails. 
 
 But all I rejected has pass'd not away ; 
 
 The calmness assumed, and the sorrow repress'd, 
 (When e'en thy affection would seem to decay). 
 
 That it might not reproach, whilst it soothed me to rest. 
 
 All these, unforgotten, are ever reviving, 
 
 To soften each trace and each record of grief ; 
 Tho' when present, alas ! they were hopelessly striving 
 
 With evils that banish'd the dream of relief. 
 
 Oh I think not forgiveness the sole vital spark, 
 In a heart where are treasured the ashes of love ; 
 
 Nor deem all the visions of memory dark ; 
 
 There are those I might cherish in regions above ! 
 
 Thou friend of the hour which was thankless and cold, 
 If I feel for thee now what I then should have felt. 
 
 Oh ! turn not away from the thoughts I unfold. 
 
 And withdraw not the smile which has taught them to melt ! 
 
 A. J. Byron,. 
 
 Madame Belloc's work has the merit of introducing the 
 following piquant sketch of Lord Byron's character, from the 
 pen of M. Beyle (better known under the fictitious name of 
 Count Stendhal), a letter to whom from his lordship, on the 
 character of Sir Walter Scott, has been printed by Captain 
 Medwin at the end of his " Conversations :" — 
 
 " I should be happy, madame, to be able to give you some 
 information for the work you are preparing on Lord Byron. It 
 is true that I spent several months in the company of that great 
 poet ; but really it is not an easy thing to speak of him. I 
 never saw Lord Byron at any of those decisive moments which 
 fully display the character : what I know of that extraordinary 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 87 
 
 man is nothing more than the recollection of what I felt in his 
 presence. How can I give you an account of my recollections, 
 without speaking of myself? and how can I venture to speak 
 of myself, after naming Lord Byron ? 
 
 "It was during the autumn of 1816 that I met him at the 
 theatre of La Scala, at Milan, in the box of Signor Luigi de 
 Breme. I was particularly struck with Lord Byron's eyes, at 
 the moment he was Hstening to a sestetto in Mayer's opera of 
 Elena. Never in my life had I ever seen anything finer or 
 more expressive. Even at this distance of time, whenever I 
 think of the expression which a great painter should give to 
 genius, that sublime head all at once appears before me. 1 
 felt at the moment a fit of enthusiasm, and laying aside the 
 just repugnance which every man rather proud should feel in 
 getting himself presented to an English nobleman, I requested 
 Signor de Breme to introduce me to his lordship. Next day I 
 dined with him at the same gentleman's house, along with the 
 celebrated Monti. We talked about poetry, and the question 
 was asked, which were the twelve most beautiful verses com- 
 posed during the last century in French, Italian, or English. 
 All the Italians present agreed in praising the twelve first verses 
 of Monti's poem Mascheroniana as the finest which their lan- 
 guage had produced for a century. During the time that 
 Monti was good enough to recite them to us, I looked at Lord 
 Byron — he was in raptures. That shade of hauteur, or rather 
 the air of a man who feels himself in the situatioji of repelling 
 an inirusio7i, which somewhat disfigured his fine countenance, 
 all at once disappeared, and was replaced by a look expressive 
 of happiness. The first canto of the Maschero7iiana,^ of which 
 Monti recited nearly the whole, in obedience to the acclama- 
 tions of the auditors, produced the strongest impression on the 
 author of Childe Harold. I shall never forget the divine ex- 
 pression of his features ; it was the serene air of power and of 
 genius, and, according to my feeling. Lord Byron had not that 
 moment any affectation to reproach himself with. 
 
 " We made a comparison of Alfieri and Schiller's systems 
 of tragedy. The English poet maintained that it was extremely 
 absurd that in Alfieri' s Philip II. Don Carlos should, without 
 any difficulty, and in the very first scene, be found tete a tete 
 
 * A poem of Monli, on Bonaparte, composed on occasion of the death 
 of the celebrated geometer, Lorenzo Mascheroni. 
 
88 BYRON 
 
 with the wife of the jealous Philip. Monti, who has been so 
 happy in the practice of poetry, advanced such extraordinary 
 positions on the theory of the art, that Lord Byron, turning to 
 his neighbour, said to him, speaking of Monti, ' He knows not 
 hoiv he is a poet. ^ 
 
 From that day, I passed every evening with Lord Byron. 
 When he was elevated, and talked with enthusiasm, his senti- 
 ments were noble, great, generous — in a word, on a par with 
 his genius. But in the prose moments of his life, the senti- 
 ments of the poet also appeared to me very ordinary. He had 
 a great deal about him of little vanity — a constant and boyish 
 dread of appearing ridiculous, and, if I may venture to say it, 
 of that hypocrisy which the English call cant. He seemed to 
 me always ready to make a compromise with any prejudice, if 
 it procured him its applause. 
 
 " There was one point about him which particularly struck 
 the Italians, and that was, that it was evident this great poet 
 was much prouder of his descent from the Byrons of Nor- 
 mandy, who accompanied William the Conqueror to England, 
 than of being the author of Parisina and of Lara. I was lucky 
 enough to raise his curiosity by the personal details I gave him 
 about Napoleon and the retreat from Moscow, which, in 1806, 
 were not yet in everybody's mouth. That sort of merit procured 
 me several walks with him, tete-a-tete, in the immense and 
 solitary green-room of La Scala. The great man made his 
 appearance for half an hour every evening, and then it was the 
 finest conversation 1 ever met with in my life ; a volcano of 
 novel and generous sentiments, so mingled together that I 
 fancied that I had never before felt them. During the remain- 
 ing part of the evening he was so thoroughly the Efiglishman 
 and the noble lord that I could never make up my mind to 
 accept his invitations to dine with him, which he repeated from 
 time to time. He was then 'composing Childe Harold ; every 
 morning he wrote a hundred verses, which, in the evening, he 
 reduced to twenty or thirty. Between these periods of labour 
 he had need of relaxation, and he found the necessary amuse- 
 ment in talking after dinner, with his elbows on the table, in 
 the most easy and familiar manner possible. 
 
 " I remarked that in his moments of inspiration, Lord Byron 
 admired Napoleon, as Napoleon himself admired Corneille — • 
 in his ordinary moments, when Lord Byron felt himself nn 
 grand seigneur, he endeavoured to throw ridicule on the Exile 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 89 
 
 of St. Helena. There is no doubt that he feflt great envy of the 
 brilliant part of Napoleon's character; his sublime expressions 
 vexed him ; we put him quite out of humour by repeating the 
 famous proclamation to the army in Egypt, ' Soldiers, ref7iember 
 thatfrorn the summits of these pyraniids forty centuries are looking 
 down upon you.'' Lord Byron would have been more recon- 
 ciled to Napoleon if he had had a little of the tame appearance 
 of Washington. What is amusing enough is, that it was not at 
 all the odious and despotic part of Napoleon's character which 
 displeased the English peer. 
 
 " One evening, when Lord Byron did me the honour of pro- 
 menading with me in the green-room of La Scala, some person 
 came and told him that the Austrian officer on guard at the 
 theatre had arrested his secretary, Mr. Polidori, a physician, 
 who attended him. Lord Byron's countenance instantly ex- 
 hibited a striking resemblance to that of Napoleon, when he 
 was in a rage. Seven or eight persons accompanied him to the 
 Corps de Garde; there he was quite magnificent with com- 
 pressed indignation and energy during a whole hour that the 
 officer on guard was blustering with vulgar passion. On our 
 return to the box of Signer de Breme, we began praising the 
 •aristocratic principles, which were generally great favourites 
 with Lord Byron \ he felt the irony — and quitted the box, 
 .internally in a rage, but externally displaying nothing but the 
 most perfect politeness. Next day the secretary was obliged to 
 -quit Milan. 
 
 " Signor de Breme prevailed upon me shortly afterwards to 
 accompany his lordship to the Musco di Br era; I admired the 
 depth of feeling with which this great poet entered into the 
 merits of painters the most opposite in their style ; Raphael, 
 Guercino, Luini, Titian, &c. Hagar dismissed by Abraham, 
 by Guercino, quite electrified him ; from that moment admira- 
 tion kept us all silent ; he improvised for a whole hour, much 
 .better, in my opinion, than ever did Madame de Stael. 
 
 " What struck me the most in this extraordinary man, parti- 
 cularly when he was abusing Napoleon, was, that according to 
 Tny opinion, he had no real knowledge of mankind ; his pride, 
 his rank, his renown, had prevented him from treating with 
 them on a footing of equality. His hauteur and distrust had 
 always kept them at too great a distance to allow him to observe 
 them properly; he was too much accustomed to undertake 
 nothing but what he could carry by main force. As some com- 
 
90 BYRON 
 
 pensation, he displayed a multitude of delicate and just ideas- 
 when we happen to talk of women whom he knew, as he always 
 had a desire to please and to deceive them. He spoke with 
 pity of the women of England, of Geneva, and of Neufchatel, 
 &c. What Lord Byron's genius wanted was to be put under the 
 necessity of negociating and discussing with his equals. I am 
 convinced, that if he had lived to return from Greece, his talents 
 would have appeared, all at once, enlarged one-half. In his 
 endeavours to reconcile Maurocordato and Colocolroni, he 
 would have acquired some positive knowledge of the human 
 heart ; then, perhaps, Lord Byron might have elevated himself 
 to the height of real tragedy. He would have had fewer fits of 
 misanthropy ; he would not have always thought that everyone 
 about him was solely occupied with him, and occupied with a 
 view to excite his envy, or to deceive him. The fund of mis- 
 anthropy of this great man had been increased by English 
 society. His friends remarked, that the more he lived with the 
 Italians, the more happy and obliging he became. If we sub- 
 stitute black-bile for fits of childish anger, we shall find that 
 Lord Byron's character had the most striking resemblance 
 to that of Voltaire. 
 
 " But I must conclude, in order not to make a dissertation 
 instead of a letter. You must excuse me, madam, for troubling 
 you with these general observations. I could have wished 
 rather to have given you facts ; but an interval of seven or 
 eight years has banished these from my memory, in which there 
 now only remain the conclusions which I drew from them at 
 the time. I shall be very happy if you are satisfied with this 
 kind of moral portrait, and if you regard these hastily-written 
 pages as a proof of the profound respect with which I have the 
 honour to be, &c., &c. " H. Beyle." 
 
 Mr. Southey and Lord Byron. 
 
 TO THE editor OF THE COURIER. 
 
 Sir, — On two former occasions you have allowed me, through 
 the channel of your journal, to contradict a calumnious accusa- 
 tion as publicly as it had been preferred ; and though, in these 
 days of slander, such things hardly deserve refutation, there 
 are reasons which induce me once more to request a similar 
 favour. 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. QI 
 
 Some extracts from Captain Med win's recent publication of 
 Lord Byron's Coiiversatioiis have been transmitted to me by a 
 friend, who, happening to know what the facts are which are- 
 there falsified, is of opinion that it would not misbecome me to 
 state them at this time. I wish it, however, to be distinctly- 
 understood, that in so doing I am not influenced by any desire 
 of vindicating myself : that would be wholly unnecessary, con- 
 sidering from what quarter the charges come. I notice them 
 for the sake of laying before the public one sample more of 
 the practices of the Satanic school, and showing what credit 
 is due to Lord Byron's assertions. For that his lordship spoke 
 to this effect, and in this temper, I have no doubt ; Captain 
 Medwin having, I daresay, to the best of his recollection, faith- 
 fully performed the worshipful office of retailing all the effusions- 
 of spleen, slander, and malignity, which were vented in his 
 presence. Lord Byron is the person who suffers most by this ;,. 
 and, indeed, what man is there whose character would remain 
 uninjured, if every peevish or angry expression, every sportive 
 or extravagant sally, thrown off in the unsuspicious or imagined 
 safety of private life, were to be secretly noted down, and pub- 
 lished, with no notice of circumstances to show how they had 
 arisen, and when no explanation was possible? One of the- 
 oflSces which has been attributed to the devil, is that of thus- 
 registering every idle word. There is an end of all confidence, 
 or comfort, in social intercourse, if such a practice is to be 
 tolerated by public opinion. When I take these conversations 
 to be authentic, it is because, as far as I am concerned, they 
 accord, both in matter and spirit, with what his lordship him- 
 self had written and published ; and it is on this account, 
 only, that I deem them worthy of notice — the last notice that 
 I shall ever bestow upon the subject. Let there be as many 
 " More Last Words of Mr. Baxter," as the " reading public" 
 may choose to pay for, they will draw forth no further reply 
 from me. 
 
 Now then to the point. The following speech is reported 
 by Captain Medwin, as Lord Byron's : — 
 
 " I am glad Mr. Southey owns that article* on ' Foliage,' 
 which excited my choler so much. But who else could have 
 
 * A volume of poems by Mr. Leigh Hunt. The reader, who may be 
 desirous of referring to the article, will find it in the i8th vol. of the 
 Quarterly Review^ p. 324. 
 
92 BYRON 
 
 been the author ? Who but Southey would have had the base- 
 ness, under pretext of reviewing the work of one man, insidi- 
 ously to make it a nest-egg for hatching malicious calumnies 
 .against others ? I say nothing of the critique itself on ' Foliage;' 
 but what was the object of that article? I repeat, to vilify 
 and scatter his dark and devilish insinuations against me and 
 others. Shame on the man who could wound an already 
 bleeding heart — be barbarous enough to revive the memory 
 'Of an event that Shelley was perfectly innocent of — and found 
 scandal on falsehood ! Shelley taxed him with writing that 
 article some years ago; and he had the audacity to admit 
 ,that he had treasured up some opinions of Shelley, ten years 
 before, when he was on a visit at Keswick, and had made a 
 note of them at the time." 
 
 The reviewal in question I did not write. Lord Byron might 
 have known this if he had inquired of Mr. Murray, who would 
 readily have assured him that I was not the author ; and he 
 might have known it from the reviewal itself, where the writer 
 declares, in plain words, that he was a contemporary of 
 Shelley's, at Eton. I had no concern in it, directly or in- 
 directly ; but let it not be inferred that, in thus disclaiming 
 that paper, any disapproval of it is intended. Papers in the 
 Quarterly Revieiu have been ascribed to me (those on Keat^ 
 Poems, for example), which I have heartily condemned, both 
 for their spirit and manner. But, for the one in question, its 
 ;Composition would be creditable to the most distinguished 
 •writer ; nor is there anything either in the opinions expressed, 
 or in the manner of expressing them, which a man of just and 
 honourable principles would have hesitated to advance. I 
 would not have written that part of it which alludes to Mr. 
 Shelley, because, having met him on familiar terms, and 
 parted with him in kindness (a feeling of which Lord Byron 
 •had no conception), would have withheld me from animad- 
 verting in that manner upon his conduct. In other respects 
 the paper contains nothing that I would not have avowed if 
 I had written, or subscribed, as entirely assenting to, and 
 approving, it. 
 
 It is not true that Shelley ever inquired of me whether I was 
 the author of that paper, which, purporting as it did, to be 
 written by an Etonian of his own standing, he very well knew 
 I was not. But in this part of Lord Byron's statement there 
 .may be some mistake, mingled with a great deal of malignant 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 93-. 
 
 falsehood. Mr. Shelley addressed a letter to me from Pisa, 
 asking if I were the author of a criticism in The Quarterly 
 Review upon his Revolt of Isla7?i ; not exactly, in Lord Byron'S' 
 phrase, taxing me with it, for he declared his own belief that I 
 was not, but added, that he was induced to ask the question 
 by the positive declaration of some friends in England that 
 the article was mine. Denying, in my reply, that either he or 
 any other person was entitled to propose such a question upon 
 such grounds, I, nevertheless, assured him that I had not 
 written the paper, and that I had never, in any of my writings, 
 alluded to him in any way. 
 
 Now for the assertion that I had the audacity to admit 
 having treasured up some of Shelley's opinions, when he re- 
 sided at Keswick, and having made notes of them at the time. 
 What truth is mixed up with the slander of this statement I 
 shall immediately explain ; premising only, that, as the opinion 
 there implied, concerning the practice of noting down familiar 
 conversation, is not applicable to me, I transfer it to Captain 
 Medwin, for his own special use. 
 
 Mr. Shelly having, in the letter alluded to, thought proper 
 to make some remarks upon my opinions, I took occasion, in 
 reply, to comment upon his, and to ask him (as the tree is 
 known by its fruits) whether he had found them conducive to 
 his own happiness, and the happiness of those with whom he 
 had been most nearly connected. This produced a second 
 letter from him, written in a tone, partly of justification, partly 
 of attack. I replied to this also — not by any such absurd ad- 
 mission as Lord Byron has stated — but by recapitulating to 
 him, as a practical illustration of his principles, the leading 
 circumstances of his own life, from the commencement of his 
 career at University College. The earlier facts I stated upon 
 his own authority, as I had heard them from his own lips; 
 the latter were of public notoriety. There the correspondence 
 ended. On his part it had been conducted with the courtesy 
 which was natural to him — on mine, in the spirit of one who 
 was earnestly admonishing a fellow-creature. 
 
 This is the correspondence upon which Lord Byron's misre- 
 presentation has been constructed. It is all that ever passed 
 between us, except a note from Shelley, some years before, 
 accompanying a copy of his Alastor, and one of mine in ac- 
 knowledgment of it. 1 have preserved his letter, together 
 with copies of my own ; and, if I had as little consideration 
 
V4 
 
 BYRON 
 
 for the feelings of the living as Captain Med\vin has displayed, 
 it is not any tenderness towards the deadt that would with- 
 hold me now from publishing them. 
 
 It is not likely that Shelley should have communicated my 
 part of this correspondence to Lord Byron, even if he did 
 his own. Bearing testimony, as his heart did, to the truth 
 •of my statements in every point, and impossible as it was to 
 escape from the conclusion which was there brought home, I 
 do not think he would have dared to produce it. How much, 
 or how little, of the truth was known to his lordship, or with 
 which of the party at Pisa the insolent and calumnious mis- 
 Tepresentation conveyed in his lordship's words originated, is 
 of little consequence. 
 
 The charge of scattering dark and devilish insinuations is 
 one which, if Lord Byron were living, I would throw back in 
 his teeth. Me he had assailed without the slightest provo- 
 cation, and with that unmanliness too, which was peculiar to 
 him ; and in this course he might have gone on without giving 
 me the slightest uneasiness, or calling forth one animadversion 
 in reply. When I came forward to attack his lordship, it was 
 upon public, not upon private grounds. He is pleased, how- 
 ever, to suppose that he had "mortally offended" Mr. Words- 
 worth and myself many years ago, by a letter which he had 
 written to the Ettrick Shepherd. " Certain it is," he says, 
 *' that I did not spare the Lakists in it, and he told me that he 
 could not resist the temptation, and had shown it to the fra- 
 ternity. It was too tempting ; and, as I could never keep a 
 
 + In the preface to his Monody on Keats, Shelley, as I have been 
 informed, asserts, that I was the author of the criticism in the Quarterly 
 Review, upon that young man's poems, and that his death was occasioned 
 by it. There was a degree of meanness in this (especially considering the 
 temper and tenour of our correspondence), which I was not then prepared 
 to expect from Shelley, for that he believed me to be the author of that 
 paper, I certainly do not believe. He was once, for a short time, my 
 neighbour. I met him upon terms, not of friendship indeed, but, certainly, 
 of mutual good will. I admired his talents ; thought that he would out- 
 grow his errors (perilous as they were), and trusted that, meantime, a kind 
 and generous heart would resist the effects of fatal opinions which he had 
 taken up in ignorance and boyhood. Herein I was mistaken. But when 
 I ceased to regard him with hope, he became to me an object for sorrow 
 and awful commiseration, not of any injurious or unkind feeling; and 
 when I expressed myself with just severity concerning him, it was in direct 
 communication to himself. . 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 95 
 
 -secret of my own (as you know), much less that of other 
 people, T could not blame him. I remember saying, among 
 other things, that the lake poets were such fools as not to fish 
 in their own waters. But this was the least offensive part of 
 the epistle." No such epistle was ever shewn either to Mr. 
 Wordsworth or to me ; but I remember (and this passage brings 
 it to my recollection) to have heard that Lord Byron had 
 spoken of us, in a letter to Hogg, with some contempt, as 
 fellows who could neither vie with him for skill in angling, nor 
 for prowess in swimming. Nothing miore than this came to my 
 hearing ; and I must have been more sensitive than his lord- 
 ship himself could I have been offended by it. Lord Byron 
 must have known that I had \kv^ fiocci of his eulogium to 
 balance the 7iaiici of his scorn ; and that the one would have 
 nihili-pili-fied the other, even if I had not well understood the 
 worthlessness of both. 
 
 It was because Lord Byron had brought a stigma upon 
 English literature, that I accused him ; because he had per- 
 verted great talents to the worst purposes ; because he had set 
 up for pander-general to the youth of Great Britain, as long as 
 his writings should endure ; because he had committed a high 
 crime and misdemeanour against society, by sending forth a 
 work, in which mockery was mingled with horrors, filth with 
 impiety, profligacy with sedition and slander. For these 
 offences I came forward to arraign him. The accusation 
 was not made darkly; it was not insinuated, nor was it ad- 
 vanced under the cover of a review, I attacked him openly 
 in my o\vti name, and only not by his, because he had not then 
 publicly avowed the flagitious production, by which he will be 
 remembered for lasting infamy. He replied in a manner 
 altogether worthy of himself and his cause. Contention with 
 a generous and honourable opponent, leads naturally to esteem, 
 and probably to friendship ; but, next to such an antagonist, 
 an enemy like Lord Byron is to be desired ; one who, by his 
 conduct in the contest, divests himself of every claim to 
 respect; one, whose baseness is such as to sanctify the 
 vindictive feeling that it provokes, and upon whom the act 
 of taking vengeance, is that of administering justice. I 
 answered him as he deserved to be answered, and the effect 
 which that answer produced upon his lordship, has been 
 described by his faithful chronicler, Captain Medwin. This 
 is the real history of what the purveyors of scandal for the 
 
96 BYRON 
 
 public are pleased sometimes to announce in their advertise- 
 ments as " Byron's Controversy with Southey." What there 
 was dark and devillish in it belongs to his lordship ; and 
 had I been compelled to resume it during his life, he who^ 
 played the monster in literature, and aimed his blows at women^ 
 should have been treated accordingly. "The Republican 
 Trio," says Lord Byron, " when they began to publish in, 
 common, were to have had a community of all things, like the 
 Ancient Britons — to have lived in a state of nature like 
 savages — and peopled some island of the blest with children 
 
 in common, like . A very pretty Arcadian notion !" I 
 
 may be excused for wishing that Lord Byron had published this^ 
 himself; but though he is responsible for the atrocious false- 
 hood, he is not for its posthumous pubHcation. I shall only 
 observe, therefore, that the slander is as worthy of his lordship, 
 as the scheme itself would have been. Nor would I have 
 condescended to notice it even thus, were it not to show how 
 little this calumniator knew concerning the object of his uneasy 
 and restless hatred. Mr. Wordsworth and I were strangers to^ 
 each other, even by name, when he represents us as engaged, 
 in a Satanic confederacy, and we never published anything in. 
 common. 
 
 Here I dismiss the subject. It might have been thought 
 that Lord Byron had attained the last degree of disgrace when 
 his head was set up for a sign at one of those preparatory 
 schools for the brothel and the gallows ; where obscurity, 
 sedition, and blasphemy, are retailed in drams for the vulgar. 
 There remained one further shame : there remained this 
 exposure of his private conversations, which has compelled, 
 his lordship's friends in their own defence, to compare his oral 
 declarations with his written words, and thereby demonstrate 
 that he was as regardless of truth as he was incapable of sus- 
 taining those feelings suited to his birth, station, and high, 
 endowments, which sometimes came across his better mind. 
 
 Keswick, Dee. 8, 1824. ROBERT SOUTHEY. 
 
 Southey im-siis Lord Byron. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE. 
 " A living Ass will always have a kick at a dead Lion." 
 Sir, — The public have sufficiently expressed their sentiments 
 respecting the calumny upon Lord Byron, inserted in The 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COiMPEERS. 97 
 
 ^Courier by Mr. Southey. It has been everywhere received 
 with mingled feelings of astonishment and disgust ; with asto- 
 nishment and disgust by those who know nothing of Mr. S. ; 
 but with disgust, without astonishment, by those who do know 
 him. The charges which he has so valiantly brought forward 
 against his lordship in his coffin may be reduced to two — one 
 particular, the other general. The particular charge — that a 
 seditious publisher has set up his lordship's head as a sign to 
 his shop, as if his lordship, when in Italy, were responsible for 
 what a vendor of pamphlets chose to do in England, without 
 his knowledge or concurrence, and without a possibility on his 
 part of preventing him, if he did know it. Now, this charge 
 of Mr. Southey against a dead man, is too ridiculous to be re- 
 futed. Mr. Southey's general charge against his lordship is one 
 sweeping accusation of inconsistency, falsehood, infidelity, 
 blasphemy, impiety, and obscenity. In order that the public 
 may judge what claims Mr. Southey, par excellence, has to volun- 
 teer these charges against any character, living or dead, the 
 following plain questions are candidly submitted to public 
 opinion : — 
 
 1. Was Mr. Southey, or was he not, during the French Re- 
 volution, a member of a republican revolutionary society? 
 And did he, or did he not, at that time openly avow himself to 
 be a republican and a revolutionist? 
 
 2. Has Mr. Southey, or has he not, selected men and pub- 
 lished express eulogies upon them for being republicans and 
 regicides ; and has he not denounced all republicans and all 
 regicides, in other publications that are his, as monsters of 
 infamy and as imps of the devil ? 
 
 3. Has Mr. Southey, or has he not, in one of his publications;, 
 stigmatized the character of Mr. Barry O'Meara, for being ex- 
 pelled from the army (though it was only for fighting a duel, 
 .a thing very natural to a fighting man) ; and was he, or was h« 
 not, himself long before expelled from Baliol College, in Ox- 
 ford, and if so, for what was he expelled ; and when ministers 
 sent Mr. Southey to Oxford for a LL.D., did Baliol, or did any 
 other College in Oxford enrol him as a member of it? 
 
 4. Has Mr. Southey, or has he not, though supported in 
 Oxford by a public exhibition, ridiculed and abused, in one of 
 his publications, his own university as the seat of ignorance 
 and error, as the retainer of Roman Catholic rites, and the 
 rejector of Roman Catholic faith; and did he not write that 
 
 G 
 
98 BYRON 
 
 wicked and blasphemous libel upon the king, church, and 
 state, called Wa^ Tyler ? 
 
 5. Has Mr. Southey, or has he not, in one of his publica- 
 tions, declared his disbelief of the leading doctrine of the Scrip- 
 tures — namely, eternal punishment in a future state? Has he 
 not even called it there damnable and impious ; and has he 
 not, in his other publications, represented it to be a divine 
 truth, and necessary to justify God's moral government of the 
 world ? 
 
 6. Has Mr. Southey, or has he not, ridiculed and abused the 
 Church of England for reading as a first lesson in her service 
 the first chapter of Ezekiel, though he knew at the time he 
 published this low abuse that he was writing a falsehood, and 
 that the Church of England never read at all in her service the 
 first chapter of Ezekiel ? 
 
 7. Has Mr. Southey, or has he not, published a work without 
 his name, in which he holds up the Roman CathoHc church as 
 the true church of Christ, the reformation in England as no- 
 reformation at all, but the destruction of her best institutions, 
 both moral, civil, and religious, and in which he represents her 
 refonners as a pack of rascals altogether ? And has he not 
 published another work since, with his name, in which he has 
 extolled the Church of England, represented the Church of Rome 
 as the whore of Babylon, the Reformation the light of the 
 world, and the reformers the glory of it ? 
 
 8. Has Mr. Southey, or has he not, in one of his publications,, 
 raked up and collected together (note upon note, and line upon 
 line) the most salacious, prurient, and filthy witticisms upon the 
 most awful and sacred subjects, upon the vessel of incarnation 
 chosen for the redemption of mankind, upon the salutation of 
 the angel, upon the formation of our holy Redeemer in the 
 uterus, and upon the practicability of clergymen baptizing 
 children in the vagina of their mother's wombs before they were 
 brought into the world ? 
 
 Let any scholar, Mr. Editor, read all the publications of Mr. 
 Southey, both those which he has owned and those which he 
 has not owned, and then ask himself this simple question — 
 Whether for one line of inconsistency, falsehood, infidelity,, 
 republicanism, blasphemy, impiety, and obscenity, which Lord 
 Byron has written, Mr. Southey has or has not written ten ? 
 Was it possible for the public to view without indignation a 
 pensioned bookseller's hack, a writer, everything by turns, and 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. ^ 99 
 
 nothing long, a creeping, cringing cameleon of every hue and 
 colour, a man of the lowest parentage and birth, stabbing, 
 before he is cold in his grave, an accomplished nobleman, 
 (whatever may have been his errors) of the highest inspiration 
 of genius, and who devoted his talents, his ample fortune, 
 his person, and his life, to the recovery of the long-lost 
 liberties of Greece ? 
 
 A Lover of Consistency. 
 
 The following anecdote of the late Lord Byron is given in 
 The New Literary Gazette: — " Lord Byron was in the habit of 
 dispensing much charity through the hands of an excellent man, 
 
 Dr. , under strict injunctions of secrecy as to the donor. 
 
 The doctor one day presented himself with a very sad counte- 
 nance, and, in reply to consequent questions, he said it was 
 caused by the circumstance of a young man having been just 
 placed under his care, for whom his anxiety and commiseration 
 were warmly excited. The young man, independent of extreme 
 ill health, was then in a complete (and, to be feared, incurable) 
 state of insanity — the effect of hopeless love. A reciprocally 
 warm attachment had long existed between him and a girl, well 
 worthy the devotion of a good manly heart. She was, more- 
 over, really beautiful ; but, unfortunately, though of equal rank 
 with her beloved, she could bring a dowry with which it was 
 too far for his most strenuous efforts, or even his hopes, to com- 
 pete. Her father was inexorable, 7?ialgre the very high character 
 of the suitor — and he went mad ! Lord Byron lost no time in 
 ascertaining the truth of the report ; and, under a disguise, he 
 obtained from the girl a confirmation of her lover's worth, and 
 her modest but determined vow to wed no other; also a know- 
 ledge of the amount of her dowry. The doctor was then sum- 
 moned to aid with his advice and opinion, the result of which 
 was, that he engaged to restore the sufferer to reason and health, 
 under the sovereign security his lordship gave for his happi- 
 ness ! The amount of the dowry was doubled ! The young 
 man. though long the object of trying solicitude, recovered, 
 and they were married. Their benefactor, still unknown, dis- 
 pensed, through his exemplary almoner, added gifts; their 
 virtue, their affection, and their good luck, made all prosper 
 under their care, and they are now not only the happiest, but 
 the richest, of the village." — Mor?iing Chronicle^ October loth^ 
 1827. 
 
 G 2 
 
100 BYRON 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 TO THE editor. 
 
 Fife, October 17, 1825. 
 Sir, — The enclosed is by Lord Byron, and has never been 
 pubhshed. It was written by him many years ago in the scrap- 
 book of a lady, now in this part of the country, and I got it 
 from a friend who has a private printing-press. The first line 
 of the fourth verse stood in the original, 
 
 "I often am met in political life," 
 which my friend thought fit to alter to one of greater local 
 interest, viz. — 
 
 " I often am met in the kingdom of Fife j*' 
 but you will, of course, restore the original reading 
 
 I am. Sir, your most obedient servant, 
 
 A Constant Reader. 
 
 A RIDDLE. 
 
 I am not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age, 
 
 But in infancy ever am known ; 
 I'm a stranger alike to the fool and the sage, 
 And tho' I'm distinguished in history's page, 
 
 I always am greatest, alone. 
 
 I am not in the earth, nor the sun, nor the moon, — 
 
 You may search all the sky — I'm not there ; 
 In the morning and evening — tho' not in the noon — 
 You may plainly perceive me, for like a balloon, 
 I am midway suspended in air. 
 
 I am always in riches, and yet I am told 
 
 Wealth ne'er did my presence desire ; 
 I dwell with the miser, but not with his gold, 
 And sometimes I stand in his chimney so cold, 
 
 Tho' I serve as a part of the fire. 
 
 I often am met in political life — 
 
 In my absence no kingdom can be ; — 
 And they say there can neither be friendship nor strife. 
 No one can live single, no one take a wife. 
 
 Without interfering with me. 
 
 My brethren are many, and of my whole race, 
 
 Not one is more slender and tall ; 
 And though not the eldest, I hold the first place, 
 And even in dishonour, despair, and disgrace, 
 
 I boldly appear 'mong them all. 
 
PAINTED »y His GOMl^EERS. lOJ 
 
 Though disease may possess me, and sickness, and pain, 
 
 I am never in sorrow or gloom ; 
 Though in wit and in wisdom 1 equally reign, 
 I'm the heart of all sin, and have long lived in vain, 
 
 And I ne'er shall he found in the tomb ! 
 
 Unpublished Verses of Lord Byron, 
 
 These verses were written by Lord Byron when the Countess 
 
 G was at Ravenna, and he was travelhng down the Po 
 
 to join her. 
 
 ' TO THE PO.— June, 1819. 
 
 River, that rollest by the ancient walls 
 
 Where dwells the lady of my love: when she 
 
 Walks by thy brink and there perchance recalls 
 A faint and fleeting memory of me ; — 
 
 What if thy deep and ample stream should be 
 
 A mirror of my heart ; where she may read 
 The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee, 
 
 W^ild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed. 
 
 What do I say? "A mirror of my heart?" 
 
 Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong: 
 
 Such as my feelings were and are, thou art. 
 And such as thou art were my passions long. 
 
 Time may have somewhat tamed them; not for ever 
 Thou overflowest thy banks, and not for aye 
 
 Thy bosom overboils : congenial river. 
 
 Thy floods subside — and mine have sunk away ; 
 
 But left long wrecks behind us, and again, 
 
 Borne on our old unchanged career we move : 
 
 Thou tendest wildly to the main, 
 
 And I to loving one I should not love. 
 
 The current I behold will sweep beneath 
 
 Her native walls, and murmur at her feet ; 
 Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe 
 
 The twilight air, unchained from summer's heat. 
 
 She will look on thee : I have looked on thee. 
 Full of that thought, and from that moment ne'er 
 
 Thy waters could I tame — ne'er name or sea, 
 With the inseparable sigh for her. 
 
 Her bright eyes will be imaged on thy stream — 
 Yes, they will meet the wave I gaze on now ; 
 
 But mine cannot witness, even in a dream, 
 That happy wave repass me in its flow. 
 
I02 BYRON 
 
 The wave that bears my tear returns no more, 
 Will she return, by whom that tear shall sweep ? 
 
 Both tread thy bank, both wander on thy shore, 
 I near the source, she by the dark blue deep. 
 
 But that which keepeth us apart, is not 
 
 Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth, 
 
 But the distractions of a various lot, — 
 Ah, various as the climates of our birth, 
 
 A stranger loves a lady of the land. 
 
 Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood 
 
 Is all meridian, as if never fanned 
 
 By the black wind that chills the Polar flood. 
 
 My blood is all meridian : were it not 
 I had not left my clime : I should not be 
 
 In spite of torture ne'er to be forgot, 
 A slave again of love — at least of thee. 
 
 'Tis vain to struggle : let me perish young. 
 Live as I lived, love as I have loved : 
 
 To dust if I return from dust I sprung. 
 
 And then at least my heart cannot be moved. 
 
 Theatrical Managers. 
 
 BY LORD BYRON. 
 
 When I belonged to the Drury Lane Committee, and was 
 one of the stage committee of management, the number of 
 plays upon the shelves was about five hundred. Conceiving 
 that amongst these there must be some of merit, in person and 
 by proxy, I caused an investigation. I do not think that of 
 those which I saw there was one which could be conscientiously 
 tolerated. There never were such things as most of them. 
 Maturin was very kindly recommended to me by Walter Scott ; 
 to whom I had recourse, firstly, in the hope that he would do 
 something for us himself; and, secondly, in my despair, that 
 he would point out to us any young or old writer of promise. 
 Maturin sent his Bertram, and a letter without his address ; so 
 that at first I could give him no answer. When I last hit 
 upon his residence, I sent him a favourable answer, and some- 
 thing more substantial. His play succeeded, but at that time 
 I was absent from England. I tried Coleridge, too, but he 
 had nothing feasible in hand at the time. Mr. Sotheby 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. JQ3 
 
 obligingly offered all his tragedies; and I pledged myself, 
 and, notwithstanding many squabbles with my committed 
 brethren, did get Iran accepted, read, and the parts dis- 
 tributed. But lo ! in the very heart of the matter, upon some 
 tepidiiess on the part of Mr. Kean, or warmth on that of the 
 author, Sotheby withdrew his play. Sir J. B. Burgess did also 
 present four tragedies and a farce, and I handed them to the 
 green-room and stage committee ; but they would not do. 
 Then the scenes I had to go through ! The authors and the 
 authoresses — the milliners and the wild Irishmen — the people 
 from Brighton, from Blackwall, from Chatham, from Chelten- 
 ham, from Dublin, from Dundee, who came in upon me ! — to 
 all whom it was proper to give a civil answer, and a hearing, 
 .and a reading. Mrs. Glover's father, an Irish dancing master, 
 of sixty years, called upon me to request to play Archer ^ 
 • dressed in silk stockings on a frosty morning, to show his legs 
 (which were certainly good and Irish for his age ; and had 
 been still better). Miss Emma Somebody, with a play entitled 
 The Bandit of Bohemia, or some such title or production; Mr. 
 O'Higgins — then resident at Richmond — with an Irish tragedy, 
 in which the Protagonist was chained by the leg to a pillar 
 during the chief part of the performance. He was a wild man, 
 ■of savage appearance, and the difficulty of not laughing at him 
 was only to be got over by reflecting on the probable conse- 
 quences of such a cachination. As I am really a civil and 
 polite person, and do hate giving pain when it can be avoided, 
 I sent them up to Douglas Kinnaird, who is a man of business, 
 and sufficiently ready with a negative, and left them to settle 
 with him ; and as at the beginning of next year I went 
 abroad, I have since been little aware of the progress of the 
 theatre. 
 
 Players are said to be an impracticable people. They are so ; 
 but I managed to steer clear of any disputes with them, and, 
 excepting one debate with the elder Byrne about Miss Smith's 
 pas de — something (I forget the technicals), I do not remember 
 any litigation of my own. I used to protect Miss Smith, be- 
 cause she was like Lady Jane Harley in the face ; and like- 
 nesses go a great way with me, indeed. In general, I left such 
 ; things to my more bustling colleagues, who used to reprove 
 me seriously for not being able to take such things in hand, 
 without buffooning with the histrionians, and throwing things 
 .into confusion by treating light matters with levity. 
 
I04 BYRON 
 
 Then the committee, then the sub-committee, we were but 
 few, and never agreed. There was Peter Moore, who contra- 
 dicted Kinnaird ; and Kinnaird, who contradicted everybody. 
 There were two managers, Rae and Dibdin, and our secretary, 
 Ward — and yet we were all very zealous, and in earnest to dO' 
 good, and so forth. Hobhouse furnished us with prologues ta 
 our revived old English plays, but was not pleased with us for 
 complimenting him as the " Upton" of our theatre (Mr. Upton 
 is, or was, the poet who writes the songs for Astley's), and 
 almost gave up prologuizing in consequence. — Morning Chro- 
 nicle^ Febniary 2nd, 1824. 
 
 Note i. — I remember hearing Sir Walter Scott, in a con- 
 versation with Lord Byron, in Albemarle Street, express his 
 determination never to write for the stage, and allege in excuse, 
 not only the probability that he might not succeed, but the un- 
 pleasant, yet necessary and inevitable subjection, in which he 
 must, as a dramatist, be kept by " the good folks of the green- 
 room ; " " Cceteraque (he added) hand subeiinda i?igenio vieo.^^' 
 Byron sprung up, and crossed the room with great vivacity, 
 saying, " No, by G — , nor mine either." I cannot but think 
 that he had been thinking of some dramatic attempt, and that 
 Scott's answer had touched his pride. A. D. 
 
 Note 2. — When this happened, Byron and Scott were both 
 authors of established fame, and extraordinary popularity.. 
 They had, therefore, overcome all the difficulties which men 
 experience in the commencement of a literary career ; they 
 were no longer obliged to undergo the pain of negociatingwith 
 unwilling, indifferent, cold, perhaps haughty, booksellers; nor- 
 were they — at all events they ought not to have been — any 
 longer under the fear and dread of criticisms from unpropitious 
 reviews, and such other ills as ink is heir to. Why, therefore, 
 should Scott and Byron commence a new career, having of 
 course its own new set of difficulties and annoyances to be met 
 and overcome on the threshold ? The question is a very differ- 
 ent one in regard to an author who has not as yet succeeded 
 in any department of letters. 
 
 The " good folks of the green room " must, moreover, be 
 tried with first-rate authors — which they have not been in our 
 time — ere we are entitled to talk of their airs, and the sub- 
 jection in which they wish to keep those who write for them. 
 And first-rate authors will never give them the chance of vindi- 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 105 
 
 eating their character as to this, until the law has been changed 
 in regard to the author's profits in a successful dramatic effort. 
 — These are, at present, by far too slender to tempt men like 
 Scott and Byron, who have once tasted the liberality which the 
 great booksellers of our time never fail to exhibit, when they 
 are satisfied that the public backs their approbation of an 
 author; and which, begging authors' pardon, they would be 
 very foolish, if not presumptuous, to exhibit till this is the 
 case. 
 
 Who will believe anything of Scott and Byron being afraid 
 of a set of managers and players ? Neither player nor manager 
 has lived in our time, that durst have stood erect in the presence 
 of either of these men, after they had attained the eminence on 
 which they stood at the period of this conversation. 
 
 B. F, 
 Mornifig Chronicle, February 2ndj 1826. 
 
 The following lines, addressed extempore by Lord Byron to 
 his friend Mr. Moore, having found their way incorrectly into 
 some of the papers, they are here given in their original state: — 
 
 My boat is on the shore, 
 
 And my bark is on the sea ; 
 But, before I go, Tom Moore, 
 
 JHere's a double health to thee. 
 
 Here's a sigh to those who love me, 
 
 And a smile to those who hate ; 
 And, whatever sky's above me, 
 
 Here's a heart for every fate. 
 
 Tho' the ocean roar around me, 
 
 Yet it still shall bear me on ; 
 Tho' a desert should surround me, 
 
 It hath springs that may be won. 
 
 Wer't the last drop in the well, 
 
 As I gasp'd upon the brink, 
 Ere my fainting spirit fell, 
 
 'Tis to thee that I would drink, 
 
 In that water, as this wine, 
 
 The libation I would pour 
 Should be, " Peace to thine and mine, 
 
 And a health to thee, Tom Moore ! " 
 
 Morning Chronicle, January 1st, 1821. 
 
106 BYRON 
 
 To THE Editor of the Morning Chronicle. 
 Sir, — The two stanzas which I now send you, were, by some 
 mistake of the printer, omitted in the copies of Lord Byron's 
 spirited and poetical ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, already pub- 
 lished. One of the "devils" in Mr. Davison's employ procured 
 a copy of them for me, and I give you the chance of first 
 discovering them to the world. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 J. R. 
 
 ADDITIONAL STANZAS TO LORD BYRON's ODE TO NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 (Not printed in Mr. Murray's edition.) 
 
 Yes ! better to have stood the storm, 
 
 A monarch to the last ! 
 Although that heartless, fireless form, 
 
 Had crumbled in the blast ; 
 Than stoop to drag out life's last years, 
 By nights of terror, days of tears, 
 
 For all the splendour past : 
 Then, — after ages would have read 
 Thy awful death with more than dread. 
 
 A lion in the conquering hour ! 
 
 In wild defeat, a hare ! 
 Thy mind hath vanished v/ith thy power, 
 
 For danger brought despair : 
 The dreams of sceptres now depart. 
 And leave thy desolated heart. 
 
 The capitol of care ! 
 Dark Corsican ! 'Tis strange to trace 
 Thy long deceit, and last disgrace. 
 
 April 2 Zth^ 1 8 1 4. 
 
 Parliamentary Orators. 
 Bv Lord Byron. 
 
 I have never heard anyone who fulfilled my idea of an orator 
 — Grattan would have been near it, but for his harlequin delivery. 
 Pitt I never heard; Fox but once, and then he struck me 
 as a debater, which, to me, seems as different from an orator 
 as an improvisator, or a versifier, from a poet. Grey is great, 
 but it is no oratory. Canning is sometimes very like one. 
 Windham I did not admire, though all the world did ; it seemed 
 sad sophistry. Whitbread was the Demosthenes of bad taste 
 ^nd vulgar vehemence — but strong, and English. 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. lOy 
 
 Holland is impressive from sense and sincerity ; Lord Lans- 
 downe good, but still a debater only. Grenville I like vastly 
 — if he would prune his speeches down to an hour's delivery. 
 
 Burdett is sweet and silvery as Belial himself, and I think 
 the greatest favourite in Pandemonium — at least I always heard 
 the country gentlemen and the ministerial devilry praise his 
 speeches up stairs, and they ran down from Bellamy's when he 
 ^as on his legs. 
 
 I heard Bishop Marsh make his second speech. It made no 
 impression. I like Ward (now Viscount Dudley and Ward) — 
 studied, but clear and sometimes eloquent. Peel, my school 
 and form fellow (we sat within two of each other), strange to 
 say, I have never heard, though I often wished to do so ; but, 
 from what I remember of him at Harrow, he is, or should be, 
 amongst the best of them. Now, I do not admire Mr. Wilber- 
 force's speaking. It is nothing but a flow of words — words, 
 words alone. I doubt greatly if the English have any eloquence, 
 properly so called, and am induced to think that the Irish had 
 a great deal, and that the French will have, and have had, in 
 Mirabeau. Lord Chatham and Burke are the nearest ap- 
 proaches to oratory in England. I don't know what Erskine 
 may have been at the bar, but in the house, I wish him at the 
 bar once more. Lauderdale is shrill, and Scotch, and acute. 
 Of Brougham I shall say nothing, as I have a personal feeling 
 of dislike to the man. 
 
 But, amongst all these good, bad, and indifferent, I iiever 
 heard the speech which was not too long for the auditors, 
 and not very intelligible, except here and there. The whole 
 thing is a grand deception, and as tedious and as tiresonie as may 
 be to those who must be often present. I heard Sheridan only 
 once, and that was briefly, but I liked his voice, his manner, and 
 his wit — he is the only one of them I ever wished to hear at greater 
 length. - Morning Chronicle^ February yd, 1826. 
 
 VERSES ON THE DEATH OF LORD BYRON. 
 
 Thyself had'st said, that in the cloudy clime 
 
 Which gave thee birth, thou willing would' st not die; 
 The wish thus breath'd, in thy prophetic rhyme, 
 
 Has granted been by answ'ring destiny. 
 Greece saw thee die — Greece fully made thine own — 
 
 By all the ties thy genius could impose ; 
 Greece claim'd thee living as her fav'rite son, 
 
 And dead, laments thee with a nation's woes. 
 
I08 BYRON 
 
 Oh ! well, Childe Harolde has his fame restored— 
 
 And well his wayward pilgrimage has clos'd ; 
 In arms for liberty, by Greece adored, 
 He died, to Moslem tyranny oppos'd. 
 
 Oh, had his sword but drank the oppressor's blood ; 
 
 His dying voice but rais'd the victor's cry ; 
 The pilgrim's glorious death would then have stood 
 A crowning, worthy of his poetry. 
 
 A Harrow School-Fellow 
 OF Lord Byron. 
 
 Mornmg Chro?iick, May 17, 1824. 
 
 SONNET TO LORD BYRON. 
 
 Byron ! thy very soul is poetry, 
 
 And as I read thy burning lines, I feel 
 
 My heart within my throbbing bosom reel, 
 And fast tears bathe my cheeks and fill mine eye. 
 
 Byron ! thine eye " in a fine phrenzy rolls," 
 
 But 'tis a jaundic'd eye, and yellow seem 
 
 All objects to its joy- withering beam, 
 Yet has it magic power o'er kindred souls. 
 
 Byron ! thou canst not die, while song shall live, 
 The flower must wither, and the sun must set, 
 But man must woman, woman man forget, 
 Nor can a feeling heart on earth survive, 
 E're man or woman, can refuse thy lays. 
 The sigh of heart-felt sympathy, the song of rapturous praise. 
 
 Philo. 
 
 TO GREECE, ON THE DEATH OF BYRON, 
 
 Land, where the father-bard attuned the lyre 
 For Gods and heroes, where fair Sappho sung 
 Immortal love, and like the bird of mom, 
 Bright Pindar soar'd on inspiration's wing ! 
 Land of the martyrs, whose eternal names 
 The consecrated page of virtue bears 
 When columns moulder ; weep not him who gave 
 His glowing genius to thy holy cause, 
 Who left the myrtle shades and orange bowers, 
 And soft retirement on Ausonia's shore, 
 For the steep mountain and the castled rock, 
 Where, like an eagle in the stormy clouds. 
 Young Freedom's banner floated, and the cry 
 Of vengeance, like the thunder, peal'd around. 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 1^9 
 
 Weep not for Byron, he hath won his fame ; 
 
 Weep not his glory, but avenge his loss ; 
 
 Pour on the foe the spirit he hath breathed, 
 
 So shall the plain of Marathon again 
 
 Be ripe with glory's vintage ; so the waves 
 
 Of Salamis be redden'd with the blush 
 
 Of the descending Crescent, and the rocks, 
 
 Thy rocks, Thermopyl^ ! of awful fame, 
 
 Again be brightened by the lightning s flash, 
 
 Blasting the savage from the hero's soil. 
 He died to win thee from the cold embrace 
 
 Of desolation— from the Tyrant's grasp 
 The slave's base scorn, and pity of the free. 
 
 And when just waking from thy trance of mina 
 
 Did not his lyre enchant thee ? Sweet and wild 
 And full of grandeur, like prophetic strains, 
 
 His voice inspired thee with immortal hopes. 
 Like the strange music of the Orphean song 
 That check'd decay, and call'd the spirit back, 
 And flush'd the face of death with living fires. 
 
 His was not syren-like the strain that flung 
 O'er rosy bowers and vintage-cover'd hills 
 Effeminate enchantment, such as made 
 The vassal youth, in base and shameless joys 
 Forget the virtues of their race— forget the sires 
 Of arts and glory in their ancient land 
 When liberty enclos'd it— No ! his Muse 
 Held not the cup of Circe to the lips 
 Sparkling with witchcrnft that enslav d the soul. 
 The hand that swept the chords, was ftt to wield 
 The sword, Alereus, thy own warnor-bard, 
 Twin'd with the laurel from the Delphic tree. 
 
 Around him gather'd not the votaries 
 Of dance, and lute, and wanton revelry. 
 Wreathing their flowry crowns, and strewing o er 
 The couch ot pleasure with the myrtle bough ; 
 But chiefs, in iron-clad, and martial youth. 
 Strong in the pride that turns the tyrant pale- 
 Forming the Spartan rampart of the land, 
 ""Gainst hosts, that roU'd, like the dark ocean, on, 
 And broke in foam and feebleness away ! 
 
 To these he spoke the words of fire, that flew 
 Electric through the land !— now mute that voice, 
 And tuneless the wild chords of melody- 
 No living hand can waken !— Let his dirge 
 Be heard upon the stormy breath of war !— 
 His requiem not the sighs of drooping slaves, 
 But holy hymns of freedom ;— and the flowers, 
 That deck his urn, be of the immortal growth 
 Of Fame's bright chaplet— never known to spring 
 From out the bosom of a land in chains ! T. 
 
 March 27id, 1824. 
 
no BYRON 
 
 TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD BYRON, 
 
 ON THE RECENT CALUMNIES OCCASIONED BY HIS STANZAS IN THE 
 MORNING CHRONICLE. 
 
 Let servile scribblers, who maintain • 
 
 The father had no fault to weep — 
 Let such calumniate thy strain, 
 
 And on thee fierce invectives heap. 
 
 The tear which falls from virtue's eye, 
 Could never boast a charm for them; 
 
 No frailty could their sight espy. 
 In one who wore a diadem. 
 
 But, though unmark'd by courtier's gaze, 
 The sire's offence, the realm's decline ; 
 
 Though such can lend no voice of praise 
 To virtue's tears, or verse of thine ; 
 
 Yet these shall charm a future age. 
 
 When they who shar'd that sire's disgrace. 
 
 Shall live in history's faithful page, 
 The vilest of a servile race. B. B. 
 
 February 2>t/i, 1814. 
 
 TO LORD BYRON. 
 
 ON READING SOME UNSUSPECTED PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE WROUGHT 
 INTO HIS POETRY. BY THOMAS MULOCK, ESQ. 
 
 Bard of the broken heart ! whose sovereign skill 
 Has swept the chords that waken inmost woe ; 
 Thou tuneful tracer of the streams that flow, 
 In fitful tides from nature's fount of ill. 
 Making life leprous ! then such plagues distil ! 
 Thou who hast known, what all would madly know,. 
 Pleasure's fierce throb, and fame's exulting glow, 
 The cheating joys which through our being thrill — 
 Till God retrieve us ! say if light divine 
 Dawns on thy soul, and brightens to thy view, 
 That holy page where endlessly shall shine 
 The Godhead's glory ? if a ray of true 
 Intelligence shall win thee to the mine 
 Of gospel treasure, all that man e'er knew 
 Of bliss and wisdom, Byron, will be thine ! 
 
PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. Ill 
 
 These are the facts — the bones — which, touched by the magic 
 wand of the author of Uncle To7n's Cabi?i, rise up, become 
 clothed, and present the hideous monster her work presents, 
 but in no one Hneament of which can a feature of our great 
 poet be traced. These facts, however, stand forward to con- 
 tradict in most instances the assertions of Mrs. Stowe, but in no- 
 one instance do they disclose, infer, or bear any reference to- 
 the one infamous and disgusting charge of this lady writer. 
 Newspaper editors are not generally so sensitive of another's 
 character; literary men are their fair game, and though they might 
 in his lifetime have dreaded the lash of his powerful satire, yet 
 after his death they might and would have spoken out ; they 
 might have feared to have touched the lion when alive, but they 
 would not have shrunk from pulling his beard, or treading on 
 his carcase, when dead. But did they so ? On the contrary, 
 the voice of eulogy spoke out boldly, his frailties were forgot- 
 ten ; they allowed the poet, as it were, to rise purified from his 
 grave. There were, no doubt, some Mrs. Stowes in that day, 
 but the honour of the dread secret was to be the acquisition of a 
 transatlantic lady. The whole reminds one of the tales 
 associated with the " Iron Mask." If, in reading history, a 
 character be missed, or some prominent man of that period be 
 spirited away, he is at once ensconsed in the " Iron Mask," 
 and to that person the mystery is solved, the inmate of the 
 mask is revealed. So in this Byron Mystery, one person ascribes 
 the separation to this, and another to that, until an American 
 lady, with feminine delicacy, professes to penetrate the mystery, 
 and embodies the mask with one of the filthiest ideas that the 
 mind can conceive. Therefore, without some more certain 
 proof of his crime than the conjuror of " Legree " has given us, 
 we must class this with her other fanciful conceptions, and 
 believe it is all to create a great sensation. The literary world 
 of old England is not, however, willing to concede to her 
 opinions, and the several papers in the Ti?ftes and other papers 
 do credit to his memory. Especially, are we indebted to Lord 
 Lindsay, who hands a most interesting letter of Lady Anne 
 Barnard's, which, of itself, is enough to confute the vile pre- 
 sumption, for surely, when still suffering from the smart of the 
 separation, and narrating her sufferings to her bosom friend, a 
 crime so foul would have been inferred in a word or a whisper, 
 as some condonement of her proceedings. But such was not 
 the case. We are, therefore, led to believe that the imaginative 
 
112 BYRON PAINTED BY HIS COMPEERS. 
 
 American lady, when domesticated in the famiUes of our aristo- 
 cracy, availed herself of that undue influence to draw aside the 
 curtain of the widow's life, and colouring all she heard with the 
 tinge her own preconceived opinions had laid down as the 
 cause, she heard but to confirm, and saw only, in all that was 
 narrated, an assurance of a cause which would have made the 
 poet's lady recoil with horror and disgust. Battening in this 
 one thought, she conserved it in her imagination, only awaiting 
 the moment when she could disgorge it most advantageously 
 and profitably — she bided her time, and has found it. But 
 Byron's name, fame, and family, will emerge from this poison- 
 ous mirage and shine on the same as ever, God forgive the 
 writer her wickedness ! but after such disclosures, let her bear 
 in mind that if she can walk unblushingly through the streets of 
 her native land, she will not be able to pass unscorned through 
 the cities of the old empire, or ever again be admitted into the 
 privacies of British homes. 
 
 Printed by John B. Dav, " Savoy Steam Press," Savoy Street, Strand. 
 
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