UC-NRLF 
 
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 REMINISCENCE 
 
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NEWSTEAJD AiMJE\ 
 
 ITS PRESENT OWNER, 
 
 REMINISCENCES 
 
 LORD BYRON 
 
 " Years roll on years;— to ages, ages yield 
 Abbots to Abbots in a line succeed ; 
 Religion's charter their protecting shield, 
 Till royal sacrilege their doom decreed. 
 One holy Henry rear'd the Gothic Walls, 
 And bade the pious inmates rest in peace ; 
 Another Henry the kind gift recalls, 
 And bids Devotion's hallowed echoes cease." 
 
 LONDON : LONGMAN AND CO., PATERNOSTER NOW. 
 NOTTINGHAM \ C. N. WRIGHT. 
 
 n si 
 
PREFATORY NOTICE. 
 
 It is well known that when Lord Byron was made acquainted that 
 Newstead Abbey was about to pass into the possession of Ms friend, and 
 former school-fellow, Colonel Wihbnan, he expressed the most lively 
 emotions of pleasure and satisfaction. Could he rise from his resting- 
 place at Hucknall, and view in its present state the venerable pile, it is 
 impossible to imagine into what region of poetry his mind would soar ; he 
 might leave us something as grand as the description of the Sea, in the 
 ■\lh Canto of the Pilgrimage, or he might dart to the Heavens for objects 
 of grandeur, and bequeath to the world a sketch equal to the opening of 
 the 1th Scene in the 3rd Act of Manfred. The writer of the following 
 pages, having learned much of the Noble Poet, and those who lived in 
 his dag, from associates ivho have left this scene, and others who still 
 lire and are ornaments of Literature and Science; a casual visit to 
 "Newstead Abbey," since its magnificent restoration by Col. Wildman, 
 awakened in Jtis mind all his early recollections of the Noble Poet, and 
 of his extraordinary career, he perhaps may be excused in the attempt at 
 flaring a flower, however humble, upon the Tomb of one of England's 
 hightest and most gifted Sons. 
 
 N 
 
 3i5 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In a central part of Nottinghamshire, nine miles north of Nottingham, 
 four south of Mansfield, about seventeen from Worksop, twenty-two from 
 lvetford, fifteen from Newark, nine from Southwell, and fourteen from 
 Chesterfield, is situated Newstead Abbey, the place where the immortal 
 genius of Byron first "stretched her wing for fame." Apart from the 
 natural reverence of mankind generally for the memories of men distin- 
 guished in past days for great talents and high attainments, and especially 
 lor one who has touched the tenderest chords of human passion, and 
 awakened the sympathies of the world with never-dying smiles and 
 tears —apart from these associations, intimately connected as they are 
 with the name of Byron, and his romantic home — such varied scenes pre- 
 sent themselves to the mind from the history of this ancient castled-convent, 
 which of themselves aro sufficient to interest the most casual observer, and 
 to fully repay the antiquarian, historical, or literary tourist who may visit 
 its precincts, to whatever trouble or expense he may have incurred in 
 reaching it. But in these days of rapid locomotion delay and expense 
 have become almost chimerical ; for we may journey from John o'Groat's 
 to Land's End in little more than a day, and for as small a cost as would 
 formerly have been involved in visiting a neighbouring town. Newstead 
 is particularly easy of access from the surrounding neighbourhood ; and 
 from whichever side it is approached the scenery is .delightful, the objects 
 of attraction varied and rich in romantic tales and legendary lore. 
 
 From Nottingham, Newstead is approached either by road or rail. The 
 road is by far the most preferable, and generally adopted by parties who 
 engage a vehicle at a moderate charge for the enjoyment of a rural ride, 
 
 " From where the town's grey turrets dimly rise, 
 And manufacture taints the ambient skies." 
 
 Out by the Mansfield Road, past Carrington, down Mapperley Hill, up 
 Woodthorpe Rise, over Daybrook, leaving Arnold on the right, through 
 
Red Hill, across Papplewick Forest, well known in ancient days to Robin 
 Hood, and where king John ofttimes hunted, we soon reach " The Hut," 
 as comfortable an hostelry as one could wish to meet with, lately rebuilt 
 in Old English style by Colonel Wildman. Here we put up our vehicle, and 
 proceed further on foot. 
 
 The first noble object that meets our view is the "Pilgrim Oak," a 
 place to which our forefathers were wont to resort since the time when 
 " Merrie Sherwood" was in its prime, long before Byron had cast his 
 "hallowed stole" around the spot. It stands at the entrance to the 
 carriage road leading to the Abbey, and has witnessed the denuding of 
 the ancient forest trees around it. It was only saved from the destroying- 
 hand of the' "Wicked Lord," — as his great uncle was termed, — by the 
 liberality of several gentlemen of Nottingham and Mansfield, who pur- 
 chased it from him out of pure veneration, and in order to prevent it sharing 
 the fate which he ruthlessly dealt out to hundreds of its noble and majestic 
 brethren. The growth of this tree has been extremely beautiful, as if 
 conscious of the dignity of its position, whether as it regards the classical 
 and beauteous domain to which it stands sentinel, 'its gigantic proportions, 
 its symmetrical shape, or the extent of its spreading branches. 
 
 Leaving the turnpike road, the path leads through a portion of the 
 park for about a mile, and affords a striking contrast to the scene which 
 grandly bursts upon the sight as we approach the venerable pile. 
 Upon the right there is a splendid sheet of water, fringed by young 
 woods, numerous aquatic wild fowl gaily disporting themselves on its 
 surface. A romantic waterfall, the ruins of a rustic mill, the ivy-mantled 
 abbey, and the richly- wooded country around, completes a picture of un- 
 rivalled loveliness, aud.one of the most charming prospects that ever poet's 
 fancy fed upon. 
 
 By rail we have not time for romantic musings, and when we have 
 filled our minds with pleasing reflections of bygones they are quickly dis- 
 pelled by the noiso and bustle around. But if any one quitting Notting- 
 ham by the Mansfield line on a pilgrimage to the shrine of the " Poet 
 Lord," can pass the castle and its majestic rock without a slight touch of 
 
romance, then in that mind the feeling must be dead. What glorious 
 scenes have occurred in the strange eventful history of that hoary old rock 
 since the time Alfred the Great first stormed the " Dane s Tower'' on its 
 summit in the year of our Lord 866, until its funeral pyre was lighted by a 
 lawless mob in 1832, on the passing of the Reform Bill. The old castle was 
 built in the year 1068 by William Peverell, natural son of William the 
 Conqueror, who also founded Lenton Priory, both of which have now dis- 
 appeared. It was here that Henry II. held his Parliament ; Prince John 
 fortified himself against his brother, Richard Cceur de Lion, and when king 
 he hung the twenty-eight Welch hostages on the Castle walls. The seizure 
 of the "Gentle Mortimer," the Court of Edward of York, and the commence- 
 mcnt of the Wars of the Roses ; the last sleep of Richard III. previous to 
 the battle of Bosworth Field; the planting of the standard by Charles Li 
 and the demolition of the ancient castle by Colonel Hutchinson, are all 
 historical events upon which the mind loves to dwell. The domain of the 
 castle having been purchased by a late Duke of Newcastle, the present 
 structure was built and completed in 1G79, at a cost of about £14,000. 
 In 1688 Princess, afterwards Queen, Anne paid a visit to this place. 
 Then comes the least eventful era of its history, terminated by the sad 
 catastrophe to which its present ruined and desolate appearance is owing. 
 There has been some talk of building a garrison once more on the rock. 
 Let us hope that its history in future years may be less chequered than 
 those which preceded it. Leaving the castle we pass what was for- 
 merly the park, but now laid out for villa residences. The principal object 
 of interest in it is the Newcastle Bowling Green and gardens, on the site 
 of the ancient Druid holes, part of which are still remaining. We next 
 arrive at Lenton, famous in past days for its Priory of Cluniac monks and 
 .HBi-it.s great fair, during which "no man might be allowed to buy or sell 
 in Nottingham on pain of severe penalties." There are several manufac- 
 tories in Lenton. We next enter the parish of Radford, the largest and 
 most populous suburb of Nottingham. Near the station is " Radford 
 commonly known by the name of the " Folly." It was erected as a 
 suburban retreat by Mr. Elliott, an eminent silk dyer, of Nottingham, but 
 latterly it was occupied by the late Mr. Richard Sutton, proprietor of 
 9 nmd above the "Folly" is Radford church. 
 About a mile to the left of Radford station may be seen through the trees 
 
Wollaton Hall, one of the seats of the Right Hon. Lord Middleton. Built 
 in 1588 by Sir Francis Willoughby, this very fine specimen of architec- 
 tural grandeur, embowered within a park of 700 acres, has long been an 
 admired feature in the surrounding landscape. Wollaton derives a pecu. 
 liar interest from the circumstance of having been the birthplace of Sir 
 Hugh Willoughby, one of the first of England's adventurous navigators, 
 who embarked upon the perilous enterprise of exploring a route to China 
 by the North Pole, in the last year of the reign of Edward VI. He 
 perished in the attempt, with his unfortunate crew, and they were after- 
 wards found frozen to death sifting at a table, with all the ship's papers 
 and his will dated 1554, at Azina, in Russian Lapland. A little farther 
 on Aspley Hall becomes visible to the traveller. It was formerly the seat 
 of a branch of the Willoughby family, but it is now the residence of R. 
 Birkin, Esq. There are several romantic tales told in connection with 
 Aspley and Broxtowe. We next arrive at Basford, with its ivy-mantled 
 church, dedicated to Saint Leodigarius, and founded by a captain in the 
 train of Richard Peverell, shortly after the Conquest. At the period of 
 the Reformation the rectory of the parish was given to James Hardwick, 
 Esq., of Hardwick Grange, in the county of Derby, of whose daughter and 
 heiress, Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, we shall have subsequently to 
 speak. His grace the Duke of Newcastle is at present Lord of the Manor. 
 Basford is noted as the early home of Philip James Bailey, the author of 
 " Festus." The train next stops at Bulwell, and on a rising gi-ound to the 
 left of the station the newly erected church forms a pleasing object. The 
 stone of this neighbourhood is much used for common building purposes. 
 Bulwell is the birth-place of Dr. Samuel Wright, the eminent medical 
 practitioner, who died in 1853. On the hill beyond the village to the left 
 hand is Bulwell-wood Hall, formerly a residence of a junior member of the 
 Byrcai family, now the property of the Duke of Portland. About a mile 
 from this spot is Hucknall station. The Lordship of Hucknall Torkard 
 was once in possession of the Byrons, but it is now chiefly the property of 
 the Duke of Portland. The church contains the mortal remains of the 
 noble poet, his mother and daughter, also many of his ancestors. 
 Resuming our 'journey we soon arrive at the picturesque village of 
 Lynby, with its lofty Maypole, an interesting relic of ancient rural fes- 
 tivity, and the two ancient, crosses, supposed to have been erected by the 
 
monks of Newstead. Here we leave the railway, and pursue our course by 
 the wild but pleasant path that leads to the Abbey. 
 
 There still continues to run from Sheffield to Mansfield one of those 
 nearly obsolete modes of conveyance, a stage coach, which affords the 
 pilgrim from the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire and Lancashire an 
 opportunity of enjoying a delightful ride over part of the Derbyshire hills to 
 Chesterfield, and from thence towards the fertile vales of Nottinghamshire. 
 Pleasley Vale brings us to the confines of that county, contiguous to which 
 is Hardwick Hall, one of the seats of His-Grace the Duke of Devonshire ; 
 it is an object worthy of note, and its history, together with the ruins 
 attached, is full of romantic incidents. It is an oblong building, with 
 three square towers at each end, projecting from and rising much higher 
 than the body of the building. The parapet surrounding these towers is 
 a singular piece of openwork masonry, displaying the initials of the 
 builder, " E.S." — Elizabeth Shrewsbury — surmounted with an earl's coro- 
 net. On all sides of the house the letters and coronet meet the eye, and 
 the whole parapet appears so unlike what is usually wrought in stone, that 
 the spectator cannot help thinking that its singular builder, " Old Bess of 
 Hai-dwick," must have cut out the pattern in paper with her scissors. It 
 is difficult to say whether this remarkable woman had a greater penchant 
 for architecture or matrimony. She married four times, always conti'iving 
 to get the power over her husband's estate, by direct demise, or by inter- 
 marrying the children of their former marriages with those of former 
 husbands ; so that she brought into the family immense estates, and laid 
 the foundation of four dukedoms.' It is said that having been foretold by 
 some astrologers that when she ceased to build she would cease to exist, 
 she was perpetually engaged in building. At length as she was raising 
 a set of almshouses at Derby a severe frost set in ; divers measures were 
 resorted to necessary for the men to continue their work — their mortar 
 was dissolved with hot water, and that failing, with hot ale; but the 
 frost triumphed — the work ceased — and " Bess of Hardwick " expired. 
 
 Leaving Hardwick to the right, five miles brings us to Mansfield ; here 
 the journey by coach ceases, and after a pleasant walk of about four 
 miles upon the Nottingham road, mostly bounded by extensive woods, 
 
occasionally relieved by heathy glades and patoises of cultivation ; and 
 passing within a short distance of a place of no less celebrity than 
 Fountain Dale, once the abode of the " Saint Militant," Friar Tuck, we 
 arrive at " The Hut," and then proceed down to the Abbey by the path 
 already mentioned. 
 
 There are many superstitious tales connected with the Abbey, and a 
 great deal has been said about ghosts haunting it. The " goblin friar" is 
 the one to which Lord Byron has given the greatest importance. It 
 was supposed to walk the cloisters by night, and sometimes glimpses of 
 it were seen in other parts of the Abbey. Its appearance was said to 
 portend some impending evil to the owner of the mansion. Lord Byron 
 is said to have seen it about a month before his marriage. 
 
 He has embodied this tradition in the following ballad : — 
 
 " Beware ! beware ! of the Black Friar, 
 
 Who sitteth by Norman stone. 
 For he mutters his prayer in the midnight air, 
 
 And his mass of the days that are gone. 
 When the Lord of the Hill, Amimdeville, 
 
 Made Norman Church his prey, 
 And expell'd the friars, one friar still 
 
 Would not be driven away. 
 
 Though he came in his might, with; King Henry's 
 
 To turn church-lands to lay, [right, 
 
 With sword in hand, and torch'to light 
 
 Their walls, if they said nay, 
 A monk remain' d unchased, unchained, 
 
 And he did not seem form' d of clay 
 For he's seen in the porch, and he's scen'in the 
 
 Though he is not seen by day. [church, 
 
 And whether for good, or whether for ill, 
 
 It is not mine to say ; 
 But still to the house of Amundeville 
 
 He abideth night and day, 
 By the marriage-bed of their lords, 'tis said, 
 
 "He flits on the bridal eve ; 
 And 'tis held as faith, to their bed of death, 
 
 He comes— bvit not to grieve. 
 
 When an heir is born he is heard to mourn, 
 
 And when aught is to befall 
 That ancient line, in the pale moonshine 
 
 He walks from hall to hall. 
 H is form you may trace, but not his face, 
 
 'Tis shadow' d by his cowl ; 
 But his eyes may be seen from the folds between, 
 
 And they seem of a parted soul. 
 
 But beware I beware ! of the Black Friar ^ 
 
 He still retains his sway, 
 For he is yet the church's heir, 
 
 Whoever may be the lay. 
 Amundeville is lord by day 
 
 But the monk is lord by night, 
 Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal 
 
 To question that friar's right. 
 
 Say nought to him as he walks the hall, 
 
 And he'll say nought to you, 
 He sweeps along in his dusky pall, 
 
 As o'er the grass the dew. 
 Then, gramercy ! for the Black Friar; 
 
 Heaven sain him, fair or foul, 
 And whatsoe'er may be his prayer, 
 
 Let ours be for his soul." 
 
 o - ^ iHs* 
 

 
% %tmmmut 
 
 It is recorded of a certain Persian monarch, that it was the duty of 
 one of his attendants to hring daily into his presence a favourite bird, 
 in order that the little, harmless, fluttering captive, should remind 
 him that he was mortal. If, then, what is termed existence is a pil- 
 grimage to death, what is termed death is the passport to immortality. 
 The poetical enthusiast who was at a loss for words to express his 
 gratitude, when told that Milton wore shoe buckles, would, perhaps, 
 not have given four-pence to know by what means Sir Humphrey 
 Davy arrived at the ever-memorable discovery of the Safety Lamp ; 
 and yet the one is a matter of barren importance, while the other 
 involves the safely of the life of the miner: the indisputable fact still 
 remains before us, that it is the works of a man, the mental legacy 
 he leaves mankind, which inspire us with awe, veneration, and love 
 for his memory, and that we care not to extend our knowledge of the 
 one but in proportion as we have received delight from the other. 
 Among the host of illustrious characters of the nineteenth century, 
 none will occupy a more splendid place in the literature of his 
 country than the author of " Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." Distin- 
 guished alike for the force of his intellectual images, the depth of his 
 thoughts and feelings, he, at the early age of twenty-four years, 
 took the world captive, by describing in poetry of the highest order 
 a travelling pilgrimage to distant and even savage countries, never 
 before attempted by mortal man; and the great result followed, — he 
 entered the temple of Parnassus, crowned with the garland, for which 
 other men of genius have toiled long, but obtained late. The illustrious 
 critic, the late Lord Jeffrey, was of opinion that to pourtray a 
 n battle in poetry was an impossibility ; but when he perused 
 Lord Byron's d< ^cription of the battle of Waterloo, in the 3rd Canto 
 of the Pilgrimage, he acknowledged the difficulty had been overcome. 
 Distinguished for the sincerity of his friendships, — the kindness of his 
 
disposition,— h}s. open .candour to, all,— --the benevolence of his heart, — 
 his known JiibfirAlii.jt* ' f 6 .others,- '.especially wherever merit was con- 
 cerned, — it may be worth while to bestow some passing thoughts, how 
 so much of his life was passed in and troubled by inquietude ; and that, 
 quitting the world at the early age of thirty-six, he should have left 
 behind him such noble memorials of what the human mind can accom- 
 plish, when endowed with genius. The remarkable faculties and 
 operations of his intellect ; the readiness with which it must have 
 received the new impressions which the distant scenes must then 
 have made, and the tenacity with which it retained whatever had 
 once been made ; the wide field over which his genius traversed, 
 for if it had somewhat exhausted itself in the visible glories of nature, 
 it then took flight with Cain and Lucifer among the stars, and his 
 spirit revelled in the realms of space. Captain Parry, who was closely 
 connected with him in Greece during the last year of his earthly ex- 
 istence, says, " he was so felicitous in his language, so quick in 
 thought, that writing to him was not labour, but pleasure ;" naturally, 
 like most men of exalted genius, he was contemplative, and loved 
 solitude rather than society." From this we can arrive at the conclu- 
 sion how he left such vast monuments in the short space of twelve 
 years, remarkable for their extent and variety of satire, of song, of poetry, 
 and prose. The details of his life are before the world, penned by the 
 hand of friendship and admiration, and his persecution appears inscribed 
 upon the tablets of time, to go down for posterity to blush for the 
 conduct of those who hunted him from his native land. 
 
 The laws which govern the world are perfect. The solar system 
 with' its countless orbs, each in its separate sphere, moves with mathe- 
 matical precision. " The sweet influence of the Pleiades and the 
 bands of Orion" are visible to us, as they were six thousand years ago 
 to the Hebrew poet, who penned the Book of Job : new bodies are 
 discovered, and added to the brilliant throng, who are 
 
 " For ever singing as they shine, 
 The hand that made ns is Divine." 
 
 By the perfection of these laws, Halley calculated and foretold the 
 return of a comet eighty-six years after it had been visible in his day; 
 and it duly made its appearance at the appointed hour, though the 
 philosopher had slept in the silent tomb three quarters of a century. 
 These laws are parallels, analogies, but all harmonious; the mariner 
 
guides his ship across the pathless deep by the position of heaven's 
 stars, and he sees their reflected forms in the depths of the waters 
 which surround him. These laws pervade all forms, and connect the 
 past with the present, the present with the future. The astronomer 
 of our day enters his observatory, and calculates an eclipse of the 
 moon that will take place fifty years hence, and though he may have 
 long left the scene, those living may bear testimony to the truth of his 
 observations, for, at a given minute, they may behold the shadow of the 
 earth they inhabit, reflected in the face of heaven. But all these 
 harmonious laws cease from operation, when applied to the sons of 
 genius. Poets are by nature men of stronger imagination and keener 
 sensibilities than others : it is the nature of the poetical temperament 
 to carry every thing to excess, especially in love, excitement, pleasure, 
 or pain. The tears of poets have been compared to "drops gushing 
 from the heart, and their words burning sighs breathed from the soul 
 of love;*' the texture of their minds, thoughts, and feelings, are of 
 that dangerous fineness, that they ought no more to be compared with 
 those of ordinary mortals than a 
 
 " Skein of whip-cord to the tangles of Neoera's hair.'.' 
 
 The startling facts that present themselves in their biography are 
 almost appalling. If fame, coveted by all — more or less— brought 
 with it peace of mind, how, it may be asked, does it occur that poets, 
 generally speaking, pass unhappily through the world? "If," says 
 Lord Holland, in his life of Lope de Vega, the Spanish poet and 
 dramatist, "there be any truth in the supposition that poets have a 
 greater portion of sensibility in their frames than other men, it is 
 fortunate that they are furnished by the nature of their occupation 
 with the means of withdrawing themselves from its effects. The act 
 of composition, especially of verse, abstracts the mind most powerfully 
 from external objects. The poet therefore has always a refuge within 
 reach ; by inventing fictitious distresses, he may be blunting the 
 poignancy of real grief; while he is raising the affections of his 
 readers, he may be allaying the violence of his own, and thus find 
 an emblem of his own susceptibility of impression in that poetical 
 spear which is represented as curing with one end the wounds it had 
 inflicted with the other." Whether this fanciful theory be true or not, 
 it is certain that poets have continued their pursuits with ardour under 
 the pressure of calamity ; and it is indeed certain that minds are 
 
 t 
 
elastic in proportion as they are active ; and that the more buoyant • 
 the spirit the better is it able to bear the bufferings which it must meet 
 with upon this rude sea of life. 
 
 With respect to Cowper and Collins, the greater part of their lives 
 were passed in insanity; and, notwithstanding the repeated attacks 
 Cowper experienced, the return of his lucid intervals was accompanied 
 with all his refined classical attainments. Otway, choked by ravenously 
 devouring food after suffering too long the pangs of hunger ; Johnson 
 and Savage, walking the streets of St. James's a whole night without 
 the means of paying for lodgment ; the "Marvellous Boy," Chatterton, 
 beneath whose eyes rolled fire too impatient to wait for that laurel 
 which in due time would have encircled his brow, partaking of the 
 poisoned chalice, and taking his leap into eternity; Kirke White, wear- 
 ing his mind out in preparing himself for the commencement of his 
 studies ; Coleridge and De Quincey, calling to their aid the deadly 
 drug, that fatal ally, opium; and the poetical eloquence of Robert Hall, 
 in two instances, finding its level within the walls of a lunatic asylum. 
 Such are the facts that present themselves respecting the biography 
 of poets. 
 
 The history of men of genius in their general outlines brings a 
 variety of characteristics, internal and external, and are of importance 
 in connection with the progress of society and the state of literature 
 in their day and generation. They belong to an illustrious band at 
 home, and, joined with others, who in various and distant climes have 
 bequeathed to the world legacies which hand down their names from 
 one generation to another, whose intellectual superiority, though it 
 might not avail to shield them from persecution, have left us the 
 inspirations of their genius alike honorable to them, and beneficial to 
 us. Their works are like monuments which rise on the ascending 
 path of human greatness like " towers along the steep," beneath which 
 the tide of time and of persecution beats in vain. 
 
 With poets there is a longing for distant climes, and generally a 
 departure from their native land. Another characteristic is the restless- 
 ness of their spirit: they sigh for brighter skies than may be above 
 them, and a change of scene more glorious in nature than that which 
 surrounds them. This frequently leads them to lands they little 
 thought to visit— to mental paths they little expected to trace— to 
 associations they little thought to make or form — to grasp subjects 
 
which at one period of their lives they would have shrunk from as 
 appalling — to some unexpected haven for their genius to dwell upon, 
 and for a time calm their troubled spirits — perhaps to an early and 
 unexpected grave for their mortal bodies. 
 
 " What is mail's history ? Bora — living, — dying, — 
 Leaving the still shore for the troubled wave : 
 Struggling with storm-winds over shipwrecks flying, 
 And casting anchor in the silent grave." 
 
 Specimens of the Russian Poets. 
 
 It would be well if the above was an overdrawn sketch of the fate of 
 poets. But it occurred in two instances in our own day. Thus Shelley, 
 having bequeathed to the world " Queen Mab," " Prometheus Unbound," 
 " The Censi," a tragedy second only to Shakspeare's, breathed his last 
 drowned in the waters of the Adriatic; and Lord Byron, self-exiled, 
 rendered up his last sigh, while invoking the ashes of Greece to a 
 sense of independence, and his life ebbed away amid a scene of 
 darkness and confusion, almost unattended, certainly, without a 
 kindred spirit to smooth his dying pillow, or a loved friend to close his 
 eyes ; but, instead, there was " Fletcher," his valet, and also "Tita," 
 his gondolier, to watch the mighty spirit, that had accomplished so 
 much, pass " to that bourne from whence no traveller returns." 
 Whenever such men live, their lives, character, and influence, are 
 deserving our consideration. With respect to literature, "they have 
 done the state some service, and we know it" — if their daring spirits 
 have at times " frightened the island from its propriety," by pouv- 
 traying to the world opinions peculiar to themselves, not altogether 
 in accordance with the dialectics of established schools, we should be 
 careful not "to set down aught in malice;" they were honest in 
 declaring those opinions to the world, and leaving those who dissented 
 from them to refute them, and consequently whenever such men die, 
 their loss is to be regretted, and their memories cherished. 
 
 If the vanities and glories of literature in a general sense are 
 fleeting, great must be the emanations of those minds that will be 
 read, admired, and quoted, a hundred years hence : and we have no 
 fear as to the result of Crabbe, Wordsworth, Moore, Scott, and Lord 
 Byron, and other ornaments of our own day, being held in remem- 
 brance when centuries shall have passed away. 
 
 In contemplating the remains of a Gothic monastery of bye-gone 
 
greatness, such as "Fountains'" or "Melrose," or in viewing the 
 splendid pile of York Minster, having satiated our curiosity with 
 the one, and our feelings of admiration had full sway with the other, 
 we are in a great degree satisfied, and after a few reflections upon the 
 mutability of earthly things, we may whisper to ourselves " Sic transit 
 gloria mundi," and pass on; but it is not so with the works of a 
 great author, their emanations do not pass away : w T e turn again and 
 again to the pages, and discover, or fancy we have discovered, new 
 beauties which before had escaped our attention. 
 
 This may be applied to more than literature, and especially to those 
 sciences which please the senses. With those endowed with a taste 
 for the higher branches of music, and if it has formed, even, but 
 a small portion of their education, whoever heard of their being 
 satiated with the compositions of Handel ? on the contrary, they seize 
 every opportunity of advancing to their performance, and so far from 
 the imagination being wearied, the immortal musician comes off victo- 
 rious, and we are constrained to adopt the sentiment of Arbuthnot to 
 Pope, "conceive as high as you possibly can of his works, and they are 
 star height above all that you can conceive." Posterity testifies to 
 the truth of this observation. It is thus in the closet when we study 
 or meditate upon the works of Shakspeare, Milton, Pope, or Byron, 
 we find passages which rule our destinies, and which are adapted 
 to every circumstance of human life. Shakspeare took " the world 
 and all which it inherits" for his empire, pourtrayed every character in 
 the catalogue of humanity, leaving none untold ; quotations are there- 
 fore out of the question. Thus in Milton's awful description of 
 blindness, we know he is describing his own feelings under the priva- 
 tion of sight. Thus when Lord Byron puts forth in the Doge of Venice 
 such crushing language as, "standing alone upon his hearth with all 
 his household gods shivered around him," we are aware that it is an 
 allusion to the circumstance that Lady Byron had departed from 
 him, and the distressing circumstances which surrounded him at that 
 period of his eventful life. It is the remark of a French author, that 
 there are not two more comprehensive words in the English language 
 than those two simple syllables, "no more." This is not altogether 
 destitute of foundation: thus the Shakspeares and Miltons of former 
 times, and the Byrons and Scotts of our own days, pass from this 
 earthly to an intellectual state of existence, and we behold them " no 
 
more." Our dearest and beloved friends are removed from us, but 
 we live on, and enjoy tbe anticipation of a re-union, and we are 
 assured t that, however high our notions may be of it as a state of 
 happiness, it will be to part "no more." 
 
 The question may be asked, what do we know of Shakspeare or 
 Milton ? It may be briefly answered, scarcely anything. " The 
 genius of biography neglected them, and they neglected themselves," 
 and all we know of the former is that he was born at Stratford-upon- 
 Avon, in due time he went to London, was attached to the Globe 
 Theatre, wrote for the stage, or more properly speaking, in the lan- 
 guage of Ben Jonson, for "All Time," realised a small fortune, 
 that Lord Southampton presented to him one thousand pounds, 
 retired to his native town, lived a few years in the society of his friends, 
 and died. 
 
 With respect to Milton, we know that he was Latin Secretary to Crom- 
 well, that he was persecuted by his wives, plundered by his daughters, 
 that he composed Paradise Lost in a state of helpless blindness, 
 received ten pounds by instalments for the copyright, had in his old 
 age a narrow escape from the gibbet, died, and was buried in the 
 church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and that, years after his interment, 
 some sacrilegious barbarians, constructing a vault close upon the spot, 
 broke open the tomb, but instead of viewing with awe and veneration 
 the remains of him who had sung 
 
 " Of man's first disobedience," 
 
 they, with ruthless barbarism, tore every hair from his devoted head. 
 Both have had innumerable biographers : all convince the reader that 
 the materials upon which they have worked have but slender founda- 
 tion, and Johnson's life of Milton may be dismissed as unworthy of 
 the great author of the life of Savage. But we will not let pass two 
 tributes paid to the memory of Milton in our day. Mr. Macaulay, in 
 his History of England, gives us the following grand description of the 
 bard, — " A mightier poet tried at once by pain, danger, poverty, oblo- 
 quy, and blindness, meditated, undisturbed by the obscene tumult 
 which raged all around him, a song so sublime and so holy, that it 
 would not have misbecome the lips of those ethereal virtues, whom he 
 saw with that inner eye which no calamity could darken, flinging down 
 on the jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold." 
 
The other trihute is by the ever to he lamented P. B. Shelley. 
 
 " He died who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 
 Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride, 
 The priest, the slave, and the liberticide 
 Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite 
 Of lust and blood ; he went unterrified 
 Into the gulpli of death : hut his clear sprite 
 Yet reigns o'er earth ; the third among the 
 Sons of light." 
 
 Boswell travelled thousands of miles to note down the sayings of 
 Johnson, but no Boswell lived to note the sayings of " sweet Avon's 
 Swan," or hand us the gigantic ideas of Milton, one of the closest rea- 
 soners that ever existed. Both have buried their staffs " five fathom 
 deep below plummet line," and whether they will ever be recovered, 
 time alone must prove. 
 
 The records of the illustrious in their day and generation are mainly 
 preserved by the generous resources of biography ; and whether we are 
 perusing the mighty deeds of a Marlborough or a Wellington, the 
 literary life of warfare of Lord Jeffery or Sidney Smith, the hair- 
 breadth escapes of an enterprising traveller, or the simple annals of 
 that glorious tinker Bunyan, biography has a charm which never dies : 
 it imparts pleasure at the eax'liest dawn of intellect, its charm follows 
 us through life, and it is one of the solaces of our old age, when the 
 world is passing from us. 
 
 We delight to trace the gradually unfolding faculties of infancy ; 
 the eager curiosity of boyhood ; the confidence of youth ; the alternate 
 disappointments and success that checks the course of manhood ; and 
 we bow with reverence to the experience of age. But, at length the. 
 scene is generally closed amidst the contemplation of disease and 
 mental decay, decrepitude,, and death. The man is soon forgotten, 
 while the author alone lives in the estimation of congenial minds. 
 
 The latter half of the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries 
 will ever remain a remarkable era in the annals of time, the number 
 of extraordinary men who lived, flourished, and had their day during 
 that period, far exceeding that of any former epoch. 
 
 If we turn to the political arena, we find that Chatham, Pitt, Fox, 
 Burke, Sheridan, and others, poured forth such streams of eloquence in 
 the senate as sent their auditors home wondering at the resources of 
 the English language, while the bench and the bar boasted of such 
 
men as Mansfield, Erskine, &c If we turn to the naval ami military 
 transactions, we find that Rodney, Hood, Howe, St. Vincent, Colling- 
 wood, and Nelson, swept the. seas, and destroyed the fleets of France 
 and Spain ; while on land, Bonaparte, Mehemet Ali, and Wellington, 
 kept the world awake by their astounding deeds of military triumph. 
 
 In the sciences, Herschel surveyed the heavens, and added to the 
 catalogue of the planets, while Watt made steam available, not only for 
 the purposes of manufacture and printing, but that his fellow man 
 might travel from one end of the kingdom to the other, in so short a 
 space of time that our forefathers could never even have dreamt of. 
 The mighty power of steam, applied to navigation, comparatively speak- 
 ing, has made the millions upon the plains of India our neighbours — 
 it has brought the road to the trackless forests of America within a 
 ten days' journey, and reduced the voyage to the mighty empire of 
 the Czar of Russia to an excursion of one hundred and twenty hours. 
 
 Chemistry had Priestley, Dalton, and Davy, names which will be 
 held in everlasting remembrance, to make its wonderful advances ; 
 geology has made gigantic strides ; and to crown the discoveries of 
 modern science, our thoughts are now submitted to the captivity of an 
 electric wire at the bottom of the ocean, and, with unerring exactness, 
 in a few minutes communicated to those we love or esteem upon a 
 distant shore. 
 
 The arts could number Barry, Opie, Reynolds, West, and Lawrence, 
 in the range of painting ; and its sister, sculpture, had Flaxman, 
 Canova, Thorswaldsen, and Chantry. In the dramatic world Garrick, 
 Barry, Henderson, Cooke, Kean, and Kemble, with a Siddons, 
 and an O'Neill carried all before them ; and the literary forum was 
 graced by Johnson, Goldsmith, Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, Scott, 
 Rogers, Gifford, Shelley, Campbell, Moore, and Byron. 
 
 Nottinghamshire, a flourishing county, rich in legendary lore, is not 
 less celebrated for the number of princely mansions with which it 
 abounds thus Wei beck Abbey, the seat of the Duke of Portland; 
 Clumber, the- seat of the Duke of Newcastle ; Rufford Abbey, belong- 
 ing to the Earl of Scarborough ; Thoresby, the seat of the Earl of 
 Manvers; Hardwick, belonging to the Duke of Devonshire; and last, 
 though not least, Newstead, the seat of Colonel Wildman, formerly 
 the property of Lord Byron. The above are all situated within a 
 limited circle ; and the works of art which each noble mansion displays 
 
10 
 
 will amply repay the visit of the man of taste, refinement, and sensi- 
 bility. Newstead Abbey is situate in the heart of Sherwood Forest, 
 about eight miles from Nottingham. 
 
 The details of this venerable Monastery are meagre in the extreme. 
 The industrious Grose scarcely mentions Newstead in his Antiquities. 
 Thoroton in his history of Nottinghamshire merely mentions — that at 
 one time the beautiful park contained 2,700 head of deer, and makes an 
 allusion to the stately oaks, cut down by Lord Byron's great uncle, of 
 whom we shall have to speak hereafter. Dugdale's Monasticum, be- 
 yond a fine plate of the Abbey in its former state, gives but little 
 information, — none of a character to interest the general reader. The 
 building has stood the test of nearly 800 winters, and from documents 
 now in the possession of its present worthy and gallant proprietor, 
 enough is known, that the jolly friars and merry monks of Newstead 
 were no mean participators in the enjoyments of life, at the times in 
 which they lived, prayed, and fasted. 
 
 In the reign of Henry the Second, Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, a man raised from a comparatively low station to the very 
 highest offices of the state by that monarch, was proud, insolent, and 
 ungrateful. Having shown himself the violent opponent of his royal 
 patron, the latter gave utterance to some hasty expressions respecting 
 him in the presence of his courtiers, and he was at length assassinated 
 in one of the side aisles of Canterbury Cathedral, but not at the altar, 
 as is generally represented. After his death he was canonized, and 
 the Pope compelled Henry to do homage at his shrine. 
 
 The writer of these pages on visiting Canterbury Cathedral some 
 years ago, enquired for Becket's shrine, and on being conducted to the 
 spot, was forcibly struck with the appearance that the stone steps lead- 
 ing up to it shewed of the wear and tear of time. The verger, replied, 
 that it was noticed by all antiquarians, and that the wear of the stone 
 was occasioned by the bare feet of the countless myriads of Pilgrims 
 who ascended and descended the steps, and it was upon record, that 
 during one year, a hundred thousand Pilgrims came to Canterbury to 
 do homage at the shrine of the Saint. 
 
 As some of my readers may not be acquainted with the humiliating 
 circumstances a monarch eight hundred years ago had to encounter in 
 a matter of this nature, the following description of Henry II. doing 
 homage at Becket's shrine is extracted from a learned, elaborate, and 
 
ii 
 
 interesting article on the murder of Thomas a Becket in the 93rd 
 volume of the Quarterly Review : — 
 
 " Two years passed again, add the fortunes of the King grew darker 
 and darker with the rebellion of his sons. It was this which led to the 
 final and greater penance at Canterbury. He was conducting a cam- 
 paign against Prince Richard in Poitou when the Bishop of AYinches- 
 ter arrived with the tidings that England was in a state of general 
 revolt. The Scots had crossed the border, under their King ; York- 
 shire was in rebellion, under the standard of Mowbray; Norfolk, under 
 Bigod ; the midland counties, under Ferrers and Huntingdon ; and 
 the Earl of Flanders and Prince Henry were meditating an invasion 
 of England from Flanders. All these hostile movements were further 
 fomented and sustained by the revival of the belief, not sufficiently 
 dissipated by the penance at Avranches, that the King had himself 
 been privy to the murder of the saint who had now: 'been canonized, 
 and whose fame and miracles were increasing year by year. It was on 
 Midsummer-day that the Bishop found the King at Bonneville. So 
 many messages had heen daily despatched, and so much importance 
 was attached to the character of the Bishop of Winchester, that the 
 Normans, on seeing his arrival, exclaimed, ' The next thing that the 
 English will send over to fetch the King will be the Tower of London 
 itself.' Henry saw at once the emergency. That very day, with 
 Eleanor, Margaret, his son and daughter John and Joan, and the 
 princesses, wives of his other sons, be set out for England. He em- 
 barked, in spite of the threatening weather, and ominous looks of the 
 captain. A tremendous gale sprang up, and the King uttered a public 
 r on board the ship, that, ' if his arrival in England would be for 
 good, it might be accomplished; if for evil, never.' 
 
 " The wind abated, and be arrived at Southampton on Monday, the 
 8th of July. From that moment he began to live on the penitential 
 diet of bread and water, ami deferred all business till he had fulfilled 
 his vow. He rode to Canterbury with speed, avoiding towns as much 
 as possible, and on Friday, the Jfith of July, approached the sacred 
 city by the usual road from London over the Forest of Blean. The 
 firsl view of the central tower, with the gilded angel at the summit, 
 was jusl before lie reached the ancient village and hospital of Harble- 
 down. This hospital or leperhouse, now venerable with the age of 
 seven centuries, was then fresh from the hands of its founder Lanfranc. 
 
19 
 
 Whether it had jet obtained the relic of the saint— the upper leather 
 of his shoe, which Erasmus saw, and which remained in the alms- 
 house almost down to our own day— doe^ not appear ; hut they halted 
 there, as was the wont of all pilgrims, and made a gift of 40 marks to 
 the little church. And now, as he climbed the steep road beyond the 
 hospital and descended on the other side of the hill, the whole view of 
 the cathedral burst upon him, rising, not indeed in its present propor- 
 tions, but still with its three towers and vast front, and he leaped off 
 his horse, and went on foot to the outskirts of the town. Here, at St. 
 Dunstan"s church, he paused again, entered the edifice with tbe pre- 
 lates who were present, stripped off his ordinary dress, and walked 
 through the streets in the guise of a penitent pilgrim — barefoot, and 
 with no other covering than a woollen shirt, and a cloak thrown over 
 it to keep off rain. 
 
 " So, amidst a wondering crowd — the rough stones of the streets 
 marked with the blood that started from his feet— he reached the 
 cathedral. There he knelt, as at Avranches, in the porch, then entered 
 the church and went straight to the scene of the murder in the north 
 transept, Here he knelt again, and kissed the sacred stone on which 
 the Archbishop had fallen, the prelates standing round to receive his 
 confession. Thence he was conducted to the crypt, where he again 
 knelt, and with groans" and tears kissed the tomb, and remained long 
 in prayer. At this stage of the solemnity Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of 
 London — the ancient opponent and rival of Becket — addressed the 
 monks and bystanders, announcing to them the King's penitence for 
 having by his rash words unwittingly occasioned the perpetration of a 
 crime of which he himself was innocent, and his intention of restoring 
 the rights and property of the church, and bestowing 40 marks yearly 
 on the monastery to keep lamps burning constantly at the martyr's 
 tomb. The King ratified all that the bishop had said, requested abso- 
 lution, and received a kiss of reconciliation from the prior. He knelt 
 again at the tomb, removed the rough cape or cloak which had been 
 thrown over his shoulders, but still -retained the woollen shirt to hide 
 the haircloth which was visible to near observation next his skin, 
 placed his head and shoulders in the tomb, and there received five 
 strokes from each bishop and abbot who was present, beginning with 
 Foliot, who stood by with the ' balai' or monastic rod in his hand, and 
 three from each of the eighty monks. Fully absolved he resumed his 
 
18 
 
 clothes, but was still left in the crypt — on the bare ground, with bare 
 feet still unwashed from the muddy streets, and passed the whole 
 night fasting. At early matins, he rose and went round the altars and 
 shrines of the upper church, then returned to the tomb, and finally, 
 after hearing mass, set off, with one of the usual phials of Canterbury 
 pilgrims, containing water mixed with the martyr's blood, and rode to 
 London, which he reached in a week. So deep a humiliation of so great 
 a Prince was unparalleled within the memory of that generation." 
 
 In those barbarous times, barbarous crimes were supposed to be 
 atoned for by the erection of a religious bouse, and hence Henry 
 founded Newstead Abbey, soon after the murder of Thomas a Becket. 
 
 " Religion's shrine ! repentant Henry's pride." 
 
 This Abbey was founded in the year 1170, as a Priory of Black 
 Canons, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Through successive reigns 
 it continued a religious house down to the time of Henry the Eighth, 
 who closed the doors, January 1st, a.d. 1539. In the year 1540, by 
 letters patent, it passed into the family of Sir John Byron, and con- 
 tinued in the family of the Byrons down to the time of the noble poet. 
 When it came into his possession, his great uncle had felled all the 
 noble oaks, destroyed the finest herds of deer, and, in short, denuded 
 the estate of every thing he could. 
 
 In the only inhabited part of the building, under the only roof of all 
 this vast pile that kept out wet, tbe moody homicide had breathed his 
 last. 
 
 Can it be wondered at, tbat this scene of former wealth and power, 
 and of then degradation and ruin — this scene of majesty and desola- 
 tion — should have deeply affected one of the most sensitive minds? 
 
 Walpole, who visited Newstead, gives, in his sarcastic manner, the 
 following account of it: "As I returned from the north I saw New- 
 stead and Althorpe. The former is the very Abbey, the great east 
 window of the church remains, and connects with the house; the hall 
 entire, the refectory entire, the cloister untouched, with the ancient 
 cistern of the convent and their arms on it. The park, which is still 
 charming, has not been so much unprofaned. The present Lord has 
 lost large sums, and paid part in old oaks; five thousand pounds worth 
 have been cut down near the house. En revanche he has built two 
 baby forts to pay his country in castles for damage done to the navy, 
 
II 
 
 and planted a handful of Scotch firs, that look like plough boys dressed 
 in old family liveries for a public day ; in the hall is a very good col- 
 lection of family pictures, all animals. The refectory, now the great 
 drawing-room, is full of Byrons, the vaulted roof remaining, but the 
 windows have new dresses making for them by a Venetian tailor." 
 
 From the gate to the Abbey is a mile. The carriage road runs 
 through the plantation for about three hundred yards, when it takes a 
 sudden turn to the right ; and on re-turning to the left a beautiful and 
 extensive view over the valley and distant hills is opened, with the 
 turrets of the Abbey rising among the dark trees beneath. 
 
 To the right of the Abbey is perceived a tower on a hill, in the 
 midst of a grove of firs. From this part the road winds gently to the 
 left till it reaches the Abbey, which is approached on the north side. 
 It lies in a valley, very low, sheltered to the north and west by rising 
 ground, and to the south enjoying a fine prospect over an undulating 
 vale. A more secluded spot could hardly have been selected. 
 
 The whole edifice is a quadrangle enclosing a court, with a reser- 
 voir and jet-d'eau in the middle, and the cloister still entire, running 
 round the four sides. The entrance door is on the west, in a small 
 vestibule, and has nothing remarkable in it. On entering you come 
 into a large stone hall, and turning to the left go through it to a 
 smaller, beyond which is the staircase ; the whole of this has been re- 
 built by Colonel Wildman : indeed, during Byron's occupation, the 
 habitable rooms were some small ones in the south-east angle. 
 Over the cloister, on the four sides of the building, runs the gallery, 
 from which doors open into various apartments, now fitted up with 
 great taste and elegance for the accommodation of the family. In one 
 of the galleries hang two oil paintings of dogs as large as life : one a 
 red wolf-dog, and the other a black Newfoundland with white legs — 
 the celebrated " Boatswain" — they both died at Newstead. Of the 
 latter Byron felt the loss as of a dear friend. These are almost the 
 only paintings of Byron which remain at the Abbey. 
 
 From the gallery you enter the refectory, now the grand draw- 
 ing room — an apartment of great dimensions, facing south, with a 
 fine vaulted roof, and polished oak floor, splendidly furnished in the 
 modern style, The walls are covered with full length portraits. This 
 
 )m was in days of old the sleeping apartment of the monks. Two 
 3Cts are there which demand attention ; the first is the portrait of 
 
is 
 
 Byron, by Phillips : it is certainly the handsomest and most pleasing 
 likeness of him. The other is a thing of which every body has heard, 
 and of which few have any just idea. In a cabinet at the end of the 
 room, carefully preserved, is kept the celebrated Skull Cup, on which 
 are inscribed those splendid verses : 
 
 " Start not, nor deem my spirit fled : 
 
 In me behold the only skull, 
 From which unlike a living head, 
 
 Whatever flows is never dull. 
 
 I lived, I lov'd, I quaffed like thee : 
 
 I died : let earth my bones resign : 
 Fill up — thou canst not iujure me; 
 
 The worm hath fouler lips than thine. 
 
 Better to hold the sparkling grape, 
 
 Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood, 
 
 And circle in the goblet's shape 
 
 The drink of gods, than reptiles' food. 
 
 Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone, 
 
 In aid of others let me shine; 
 And when, alas! our brains are gone. 
 
 What nobler substitute than wine ? 
 
 Quaff while thou canst: another race, 
 
 When thou and thine, like me, are sped, 
 May rescue thee from earth's embrace, 
 
 And rhyme and revel with the dead. 
 
 Why, no — since through life's little day 
 
 Our heads such sad effects produce, 
 Eedeem'd from worms and wasting clay, 
 
 This chance is theirs, to be of use." 
 
 People often suppose, from the name, that the cup retains all the 
 terrific appearance of a death's head, and imagine that they could 
 
 " Behold through each lack-lustre eyeless hole 
 The gay recess of wisdom and of wit." 
 
 There is nothing whatever startling in it. It is well polished ; its 
 edge is bound by a broad rim of silver, and it is set in a neat stand of 
 the same metal. It is in appearance a very handsome goblet, from 
 which the most fastidious might drink without scruple. It was always 
 produced after dinner when Byron had company at the Abbey, and a 
 bottle of claret poured into it. An elegant round library table is the 
 only article in this room that belonged to Byron, and this he con- 
 stantly used. Beyond this noble room, on the same floor, is Byron's 
 study, now used as a temporary dining-room, the entire furniture of 
 which is the same that was used by him : it is all of the plainest de- 
 scription. A good painting of a battle, over the sideboard, was also 
 
16 
 
 his. This apartment perhaps, be\ T ond all others, deserves the atten- 
 tion of the pilgrim to Xewstead, as more intimately connected with the 
 poetical existence of Byron. 
 
 It was here that he prepared those first effusions of his genius, 
 which were published at Newark, under the title of " Hours of Idle- 
 ness." It was here that he meditated, planned, and wrote that retort 
 to the severe critique they had called down, which stamped him as 
 the keenest satirist of the day. And it was here that his beautiful 
 and tender verses to Mary, of whom we have to speak hereafter, and 
 many of those sweet pieces found among his miscellaneous poems, were 
 composed. 
 
 Every memorial of his noble friend, Colonel Wildman preserves with 
 almost filial reverence. You are conducted to the chamber of the noble 
 poet, still remaining in the same state as when he left it forty years 
 ago. The bedstead he had with him at Cambridge, with gilt posts, 
 and surrounded by coronets. In some of the rooms are very curiously 
 carved mantel pieces with grotesque figures, which are of very ancient 
 date. In a corner of the cloister is a stone coffin taken from the 
 burial ground of the Abbey. The ground floor contains some spacious 
 halls and divers apartments for domestic offices ; and there is a 
 neat private chapel in the cloister where service is performed on 
 Sundays. Byron's sole recreation here was his boat and dogs, and 
 boxing, fencing, &c, for exercise, and to prevent a tendency to obesity 
 — which he dreaded. His coustant employment was writing, for 
 which he used to sit up till two or three o'clock in the morning. His 
 life here was entire seclusion, devoted to the study of his art. 
 
 The evening before he finally left the Abbey, being in the garden 
 with his sister, the Hon. Mrs. Leigh, his attention was attracted to a 
 tree with two stems, and he observed to her that the tree reminded 
 him of themselves, alone in the world, and, taking a knife from his 
 pocket, cut his own initials and those of his sister on the bark. A few 
 years ago a distinguished foreigner, inspecting the Abbey and grounds, 
 the tree with its rude inscription was pointed to his attention : he im- 
 mediately sent his card, by the gardener, to Colonel Wildman, with an 
 offer of five hundred pounds for that portion only containing the 
 initials ; but Colonel Wildman politely refused, stating that five thou- 
 sand pounds would not induce him to part with that relic of his illus- 
 trious friend. 
 
The Byrons of Normanby came over with William the Conqueror, 
 and from that period were distinguished for their manors in Lanca- 
 shire and elsewhere, and also for their prowess in arms. John de 
 Byron attended Edward the First in several warlike expeditions. Two 
 of the Byrons fell at the battle of Cressy. Another member of the 
 family, Sir John de Byron, rendered good service in Bosworth Field 
 to the Earl of Richmond, and contributed by his valour to transfer 
 the crown from the head of Richard the Third to that of Henry the 
 Seventh. 
 
 Sir John was a man of honour as well as a brave warrior. He was 
 very intimate with his neighbour Sir Gervase Clifton ; and although 
 Byron fought under Henry, and Clifton under Richard, it did not 
 diminish their friendship, though it put it to a severe test. Previous 
 to the battle they had mutually promised each other, that whichever 
 should be vanquished, the other should endeavour to prevent the for- 
 feiture of his friend's estate. 
 
 While Clifton was bravely fighting at the head of his troop, he was 
 struck off his horse; Byron, perceiving the accident, quitted the ranks, 
 and ran to the relief of his friend, who died in his arms. This warlike 
 ancestor of the poet nobly kept his word : he interceded with the king, 
 (Henry the Seventh); and the estate is now in the possession of a 
 descendant of the Sir Gervase Clifton who fell in the slaughtering 
 battle of Bosworth Field. 
 
 In the wars between Charles the First and the Parliament, the 
 Byrons adhered to the royal cause. Sir Nicholas Byron, the eldest 
 brother, was an eminent loyalist, who, having distinguished himself in 
 the wars of the low countries, was appointed governor of Chelsea in 
 101-2. lie had two sons, who both died without issue, and his younger 
 brother became heir. This person was made a Knight of the Bath at 
 the coronation of James the First. He had eleven sons, most of whom 
 distinguished themselves by their loyalty and gallantry on the side of 
 Charles the First. Seven of these brothers were engnged at the battle 
 of Marston Moor, and four fell in defence of the royal cause. Sir John, 
 one of the survivors, was appointed to several important commands, 
 and on the ^>0th October, 1043, was created Lord Byron, with col- 
 lateral remainder to his brothers. On the decline of the king's affairs, 
 he was appointed governor to the Duke of York, and, while holding 
 c 
 
tfl 
 
 this office, died without issue, in France, in the year 1652 ; upon 
 which his brother Richard, a celebrated cavalier, became the second 
 Lord Byron. He was Governor of Appleby Castle, and distinguished 
 himself at Newark. He died in 1697, aged seventy-four, and was 
 succeeded by his eldest son, William, who married Elizabeth, daughter 
 of John, Viscount Chaworth, of the kingdom of Ireland, by whom he 
 had five sons, all of whom died young, except William, whose eldest 
 son, William, was born in 1722, and came to the title in 1730. He 
 had passed the early part of his life in the navy. In the year 1763, 
 he was made Master of the Stag Hounds, and in 1705 was sent to 
 the Tower, and tried before the house of Peers, for killing, in a duel, 
 his relation and neighbour, Mr. Chaworth. 
 
 The following details of this fatal event are interesting, from 
 subsequent circumstances connected with the noble poet. William, 
 Lord Byron, belonged to a club, of which Mr. Chaworth was also a 
 member. It met at the Star and Garter Tavern, Pall Mall, and 
 \*as called the Nottinghamshire Club. 
 
 On the 29th January, 1705, they assembled at four o'clock at 
 dinner, as usual, and everything went on agreeably until seven o'clock, 
 when an angry dispute arising between Lord Byron and Mr. Chaworth, 
 respecting the quantity of game on their estates, the latter gentle- 
 man paid his share of the bill and retired. Lord Byron followed him 
 out of the room, and stopping him on the landing of the stairs, called 
 to the waiter to show them into an empty room. 
 
 They were shown into one, and a single candle was placed on the 
 table : in a few minutes the bell was rung, and Mr. Chaworth found mor- 
 tally wounded. From what we can learn of this fatal event, it appears 
 that all was over before their companions knew anything about it, 
 without attendants or medical man upon the spot. Mr. Donston, one 
 of the club, who had gone out with Mr. Chaworth, returned to the 
 dining room, and he met Lord Byron coming out, and they passed, 
 (as there was a large screen which covered the door), without knowing 
 each other. 
 
 Lord Byron found Mr. Chaworth still on the stairs, and it now 
 remains a doubt whether Lord Byron called upon Mr. Chaworth, or 
 Mr. Chaworth on Lord Byron, but both went to the first landing- 
 place, having dined on the second floor, and both called the waiter to 
 show an empty room, which the waiter did, and having placed a 
 
candle, which he had in his hand,' on the table, he retired, when the 
 two gentlemen entered and closed the door after them. With two 
 such men, Hushed with wine, the affair was soon ended, and the hell 
 rung; the waiter again entered, but soon disappeared to inform Mr. 
 Fynmore, his master, of the catastrophe. He was instantly upon the 
 spot, and found the two combatants standing close together : Mr. 
 Chaworth had his sword in his left hand, and Lord Byron had his 
 sword in his right ; Lord Byron's left arm was round Mr. Chaworth, 
 and Mr. Chaworth's right arm was round Lord Byron's neck. He 
 desired Mr. Fynmore to take his sword, and Lord Byron delivered up 
 his at the same time, and Mr. Hawkins, a surgeon, was sent for. In 
 the mean time, the members of the club entered the room. The 
 account Mr. Chaworth then gave was, "that he could not live many 
 hours, that he forgave Lord Byron, and hoped the world would ; that 
 the affair had taken place in the dark, only a small caudle burning in 
 the room ; that Lord Byron asked him, if he meant the conversation 
 on the game to Sir Chas. Sedley or to him. To which he replied, if 
 you have anything to say, we had better shut the door. That while 
 he was doing this, Lord Byron bade him draw, and in turning, he saw 
 his lordship's sword half drawn, on which, knowing his man, he 
 whipped out his own and made the first pass. The sword being 
 through Lord Byron's waistcoat, he thought he had killed him ; and 
 asking whether he was not mortally wounded, Lord Byron, while he 
 was speaking, shortened his sword, and made the fatal pass, which he 
 thought to have parried with his left hand— that he felt the sword 
 .enter his body and go deep through his back, that he struggled, and 
 being the stronger man, disarmed his Lordship, and expressed some 
 concern, as under the apprehension of having mortally wounded him ; 
 that Lord Byron replied by saying something to the same effect, 
 adding that he hoped he would now allow him to be as brave a man 
 as any in the kingdom." 
 
 For this offence Lord Byron was unanimously convicted of man- 
 slaughter, but on being brought up for judgment, pleaded his privilege 
 as a peer, paid the fines, and was discharged. 
 
 After this affair, he retired to Newstead Abbey, where, while he 
 lived in a state of exile from persons of his own rank, his unhappy 
 temper found abundant exercise in continual war with his neighbours 
 and tenants, and sufficient punishment in their hatred. 
 
20 
 
 In this forlorn condition he lingered out a long life, doing all in his 
 power to ruin the paternal mansion, and impoverish the estate, for 
 that other branch of the family to which he was aware it must pass 
 at his death, all his own children having descended before him to the 
 grave. John, the next brother to William, and born in the year after 
 him, that is in 1723, was of a very different disposition, but his career 
 in life was almost an unbroken series of misfortunes. The hardships 
 he endured while accompanying Commodore Anson, in his expedition 
 to the South Seas, are well known, from his own highly popular and 
 affecting narrative — the sailors designated him "Foul Weather Jack." 
 His only son, John, (father of the noble poet), was born in the year 
 1751, received an excellent education, and held a commission in the 
 Guards, but was so dissipated, that he was known by the name of 
 " Mad Jack Byron." He was one of .the handsomest men of his day; 
 but his character was so notorious, that his father was obliged to 
 desert him, and his company was shunned by the better portion of 
 society. In his twenty-seventh year an elopement took place with 
 the Marchioness of Carmarthen, who had been but a few years married 
 to her husband, with whom she lived in the greatest happiness, until 
 the commencement of this unfortunate affair. The Marquis was 
 tenderly attached to her, and, after a fruitless attempt at reclaiming 
 his lady, he obtained a divorce ; and a marriage was then brought 
 about between her and Captain Byron, which, after conduct on his 
 part, which we cannot enter into, and the keenest remorse on hers, 
 was dissolved in two years, by her sinking into the grave.* About 
 three years after her death, this handsome libertine again sought to 
 recruit his broken fortunes by matrimony, and having made a conquest 
 of Miss Catharine Gordon, an Aberdeenshire heiress, (lineally descend- 
 ed from the Earl of Huntley, and the Princess Jane, daughter of 
 James the Second of Scotland), he united himself to her, ran through 
 her property, and leaving her and her only child, the noble poet, 
 fled to France, to avoid his creditors, and died at Valenciennes in 
 1791. 
 
 Such were the stormy ele .: ents that, in 1788, ushered into existence 
 the future Lord of Newstead. Of him who was to be equally at home 
 
 * The issue of this unfortunate marriage was the Honourable Augusta Mary, widow 
 of Colonel Leigh, who survived her illustrious brother twenty-eight years, anil died at 
 Hampton Court Palace in 1852, 
 
in the darkest passion of Harold, and the airiest levity of Beppo. Of 
 him who was to appeal in his works, for which posterity will honour 
 his name, to the purest and loftiest feelings of his kind. Of him 
 who was to lav before us the glories of an Eastern landscape, and 
 present us with the startling character of the Corsair. There remains 
 enough to condemn, hoth in his life, and his works ; hut both will at 
 least he studied in the absence of sweeping and relentless prejudice ; 
 and throughout both, it will be impossible not to trace one prevailing 
 vein of self-reproach, of repentance — we had almost said, of remorse. 
 This frets out in his lightest productions — it is the key-note of his 
 highest, and the torturing burthen of his last. The name of Byron 
 had sunk into a sort of discreditable obscurity, in consequence of a 
 long train of domestic tragedies, which charitable persons had accus- 
 tomed themselves to account for, by imputing a vein of hereditary 
 insanity to the blood of this race. His great uncle, whom he succeeded, 
 neither knew nor cared anything about " the little boy that lived at 
 Aberdeen ;"' he had buried a fantastic imagination, fierce gloomy 
 passions, and hands stained with kindred blood, among the quaint 
 cloisters of Ncwsteadj, where all his habits confirmed the belief, which 
 had, perhaps, in part saved him from the last punishment of the law. 
 The father of the noble poet appears to have been a handsome sen- 
 sualist, unredeemed by any good quality of understanding of heart, or 
 even of temper. He concluded a youth of debauchery by marrying, 
 for her fortune, a very plain woman, not his inferior in point of pedigree, 
 though destitute of education, with all the pride of birth, but without its 
 manners ; with no sense of religion, combining a plentiful stock of 
 weak, vulgar superstition ; whose rude and violent passions, her hus- 
 band's almost incredible ill-usage seeming to have so worked upon, as 
 to shatter her reason, and, indeed, distort even her maternal feelings. 
 As soon as the spendthrift had robbed her of a fair inheritance, and 
 dissipated it to the winds, he abandoned her, leaving her to bring up 
 an only child on a pittance which scarcely afforded a lodging in a 
 country town, and a single maid servant. Society, which winks at so 
 much, even of mean vice, has no toleration for such consummate pro- 
 fligacy ; but though just contempt, and the physical consequences of 
 his vices, hunted the offender to an early grave, this, (such even in 
 the midst of coarseness and imbecility is the generosity of woman), 
 appears only to have lent new bitterness to her cup of sorrow. 
 
29 
 
 The character of this unhappy woman, to whose unaided care a 
 child, precocious in all his feelings, was abandoned during those years 
 in which the education of the heart makes such rapid and irrevocable 
 strides, — even where the mental faculties are dull, — must be deeply 
 weighed by every one who desires to judge with candour the personal 
 history of her gifted son. By her rude and unaided hand were the 
 seeds planted of a sadly mingled crop. Let no man, who in his day 
 sat on a happy mother's lap, and w T as taught to lisp his first prayer 
 by a peaceful fire-side, refuse compassion to the circumstances under 
 which this miserable woman's gifted child imbibed that nervous 
 suspiciousness, which afterwards ripened into a quarrel with human 
 nature, and was remarked among his earliest companions at once for 
 solitary pride, and passionate fervour of affection, for sitting in a 
 churchyard to watch the sunset, and for " silent rages." He had 
 been born with a bodily deformity, and his mother, when in ill-humour 
 with him, used to make this misfortune the subject of taunts and 
 reproaches. 
 
 " I could have borne 
 It all, but that my mother spurned me from her. 
 The she-bear licks her cubs into a sort 
 Of shape ; my dam beheld my shape was hopeless."* 
 
 • She would pass from the most passionate caresses of him, as a 
 child, to the repulsion of actual disgust : then devour him with kisses 
 again, and swear with awful oaths, that his eyes were as beautiful as 
 his father's. She nursed him with haughty stories of ancestry, chivalry, 
 and feudal devotion, amidst the mean miseries of poverty and desert- 
 edness. And such was the domestic education of a child whose clay 
 was of that dangerous fineness, that, like Dante before him, he was a 
 passionate lover at nine years of age, and incapable of looking at a 
 mountain landscape without drinking in wild dreams of melancholy 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 The boy Avas in his eleventh year when the moody homicide of New- 
 stead died, and he thus suddenly and unexpectedly became entitled 
 to the honours and estates of his father's family. This worked a 
 total revolution in his and his mother's affairs ; their poor chattels at 
 Aberdeen were sold for £'70, and they took possession of a venerable 
 residence, surrounded by an ample domain, in the centre of England. 
 
 * The Deformed Transformed. 
 
28 
 
 The child was observed to blush deep as scarlet, he trembled, and 
 the tear started in his eve, when his name was first called over in the 
 little school-room at Aberdeen with the prefix of "dominus;" and 
 when, after a week's journey, the hoary Abbey lay before him, its long 
 range of windows gleaming against an autumnal sky, his emotion was 
 not less visible. It would be 'difficult to imagine a transition more 
 fitted in all its circumstances to stamp lasting traces on such a mind. 
 He passed, as at the changing of a theatrical scene, from very nearly 
 the one extreme of outward show to the other — from a Scotch " flat" 
 to a Talace — and one that, with all its accompaniments of landscape 
 and tradition, could not but stimulate to the highest pitch a spirit 
 naturally solemn, already not lightly tinged with superstition, and 
 in which the pride of ancestry had been planted from the cradle, strik- 
 ing the deeper root because of the forlornness and squalor of every- 
 thing hitherto about him — anger and resentment, and jealousy, the 
 sense of injustice and indignity, and a haughty, sullen shame, all 
 combining with, and moulding its earliest growth. The late Earl of 
 Carlisle had accepted the office of guardian to the minor peer, but the 
 habits and manners of Mrs. Byron were such that he soon abandoned 
 his young relative to her sole guidance, rather than encounter the 
 annoyance of personal communication with her. The immediate con- 
 sequence however was, that Lord Byron's mind continued to expand 
 and ripen under the same unhappy influences which had withered 
 the bloom of his infancy. His self-love was alternately pampered and 
 bruised ; and it may be doubted whether the mother or the foot was 
 more frequently felt as 
 
 " The vile crooked clog 
 That made him lonely." 
 
 The latter had been originally embittered to his imagination by her 
 own unwomanly spleen; and now the reckless glee of his school- 
 fellows found almost equal gratification in taunting him with nature's 
 unkindness to himself, and the grotesque absurdities of his only 
 parent. 
 
 Yet, amidst all these adverse circumstances, the native affeetionate- 
 ness of his disposition continued to shine out perpetually ; his temper 
 had already been corroded, but his heart was still warm, generous, 
 
 " And tender even as is a little maid's." 
 
2 J 
 
 We pass over his going to "Harrow," and the friendships he formed 
 there. It was in the summer of 1804, in the course of a short resi- 
 dence at Newstead, that he became known to the family of the 
 Chaworths of Annesley Hall, descendants of the gentleman who was 
 killed by his great uncle. The heiress of Annesley was then a beauti- 
 ful girl, two years older than Lord Byron. There was something to 
 touch a colder fancy in the situation, and he sooji became intoxicated 
 with the deepest and purest passion his bosom was ever to know. A 
 young lady at eighteen is as old, all the world over, as a man of 
 five-and-twenty. 
 
 " But her sighs were not for him ;" 
 
 and she amused herself with the awkward attentions of a lover whom 
 she considered as a mere schoolboy. Little did she think with what 
 passions, and with what a mind, her fortune had brought her into 
 contact, — little did she think of the Etna of adoration that was 
 burning in his breast for 
 
 " Her who was his destiny ;" 
 
 that " the lame boy" was to be the admiration of the world at 
 large — and still less that when all her own dreams of happiness were 
 scattered to the winds, and herself eclipsed in mental darkness, — that 
 he would waft her name and fate across the Alps, in strains which will 
 last so long as the English language shall maintain, and over the com- 
 position of which he would shed a thousand tears. 
 
 This episode is to the story of Lord Byron, though in a different 
 way, what that of Highland Mary is to Robert Burns. This was 
 his one " true love" — perhaps no truly imaginative mind ever had 
 room for two. And here we may remark, what is common indeed to 
 all genuine poets, a lively sensibility to female charms, a sensibility 
 which has been the creator of some of the sweetest songs of the choir 
 of bards. But instead of ending like Burns's early dream of love and 
 innocence, in pure humanizing sorrow, this blossom was cut off rudely, 
 and left an angry wound upon the stem. His profoundest pathos is 
 embodied in the various 'poems of unutterable tenderness, which his 
 maturer genius consecrated to the recollections of Annesley. 
 
 In his seventeenth year he went to Cambridge, and while there a 
 dashing fox-hunter, of the name of Musters, led Miss Chaworth to the 
 altar, but the result was misery and woe; and at last ended in that 
 most dreadful of all human calamities, insanitv. 
 
35 
 
 In due time she was surrounded by a blooming family, but the 
 cold neglect of him upon whose affections she had a sacred claim 
 loosened the silver chord that bound her to existence, and after many 
 years of great suffering, she at last expired under the cloud of mental 
 derangement. 
 
 The object of his adoration was the wife of anothei*, and he was 
 driven upon the shoals of disappointed affection, but his baffled and 
 blighted love did not die away with the loss of its object, but continued 
 to burn on with the fierceness and fervour of a volcano. It embittered 
 all the after-thoughts of his young heart, left him a prey to tortuous 
 feelings, and though time and the remaining conflicts had their effect 
 in soothing, nothing could efface her image from his breast, and 
 truly has he described himself in the words of " The Giaour," who, in 
 his interview with the friar in the Convent, exclaims, — 
 
 " Tbe cold in clime are cold in blood, 
 
 Their love can scarce deserve the name; 
 But mine was like the lava flood 
 
 That boils in ^Etna's breast of flame." 
 
 In that remarkable poem, " The Dream," which his biographer ob- 
 serves " cost him many a tear in writing," and is such a complete 
 epitome of his exigence, and displaying the painful recollections of 
 Annesley, it may be added that passion will not be silent ; conviction 
 will speak ; anguish which has bled in silence, will utter at last the 
 long suppressed cry, if not for justice — if not for pity — yet for relief:— ^ 
 
 " I would recall a vision which I dream M 
 Perchance in sleep — for in itself a thought, 
 A slumbering thought, is capable of years, 
 And curdles a long life into one hour. 
 
 I saw two beings in the Lues of youth 
 Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill, 
 Green and of mild declivity, the last 
 As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of sach, 
 Save that there was no sea to lave its base, 
 But a most living landscape, and tbe wave 
 Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men 
 Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke 
 Arising from such rustic roofs ; — the hill 
 Was crowu'd with a peculiar diadem 
 Of tree?., in circular array, so fix'd, 
 Not by tbe sport of nature, but of man : 
 These two. a maiden and a youth, were there 
 Gazing — the one on all that was ben 
 Fair as herself— bat tt n her; 
 
 And both were young, ami it'ul : 
 
 And both were young — yet not alike in youth; 
 As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge, 
 The maid was on the eve of womanhood J 
 D 
 
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart 
 
 Had far outgrown his years, arid to his eye 
 
 There was but one beloved face on earth, 
 
 And that was shining on him ; he had look'd 
 
 Upon it till it could not pass away; 
 
 He had no breath, no being, hut in hers : 
 
 She was his voice ; he did not speak to her, 
 
 But trembled on her words : she was his sight, 
 
 For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers, 
 
 "Which colour'd all his objects: — he had ceased 
 
 To live within himself; she was his life, 
 
 The ocean to the river of his thoughts, 
 
 Which terminated all: upon a tone, 
 
 A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow, 
 
 And his cheek change tempestuously — his heart 
 
 Unknowing of its cause of agony. 
 
 But she in these fond feelings had no share : 
 
 Her sighs were not for him ; to her he was 
 
 Even as a brother — but no more ; 'twas much, 
 
 For brotherless she was, save in the name 
 
 Her infant friendship had bestow'd on him ; 
 
 Herself the solitary scion left 
 
 Of a time-honour'd race. It was a name 
 
 Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not — and why? 
 
 Time taught him a deep answer, — when she loved 
 
 Another; even now she loved another, 
 
 And on the summit of that hill she stood 
 
 Looking afar if yet her lover's steed 
 
 Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew. 
 
 " A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 
 The Lady of his love was wed with one 
 Who did not love her better : — in her home, 
 A thousand leagues from his — her native home, 
 She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy, 
 Daughters and sons of Beauty, — but behold! 
 Upon her face there was tbe tint of grief, 
 The settled shadow of an inward strife, 
 And an unquiet drooping of the eye, 
 As if its lid were charged with unshed tears. 
 AVhat could her grief be? — she had all she loyed, 
 And he who had so loved her was not there 
 To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish, 
 Or ill-repress'd affliction, her pure thoughts. 
 What could her grief be ? — she had loved him not, 
 Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved, 
 Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd 
 Upon her mind — a spectre of the past. 
 
 A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 
 The lady of his love ; — Oh ! she was changed, 
 As by the sickness of the soul; her mind 
 Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes, 
 They had not their own lustre, but the look 
 Which is not of the earth; she was become 
 The queen of a fantastic realm ; her thoughts 
 Were combinations of disjointed things ; 
 And forms impalpable andunperceived 
 Of others' sight familiar were to hers. 
 And this the world calls phrensy ; but the wise 
 Have a far deeper madness, and the glance 
 Of melancholy is a fearful gift ; 
 What is it hut the telescope of truth? 
 Which strips the distance of its phantasies, 
 And brings life near in utter nakedness, 
 Making the cold reality too real ! 
 
My dream was past; it hail no further change. 
 
 Itiwas of strange order that the doom 
 
 Of these two creatures should he thus traced out 
 
 Almost like reality — the one 
 
 To end in madness — hoth in misery." 
 
 At the time lie wrote " The Dream" he also wrote to his biographer 
 a letter, which that gentleman thought proper to suppress from publi- 
 cation, exceptjthe following paragraph : — 
 
 " By her marriage with the fox-hunting Squire, she destroyed the 
 influence of two very ancient families. Our union would have united 
 two persons not ill matched in years, it would have joined lands broad 
 and rich, healed feuds in which blood had been shed by our fathers, at 
 least have joined one heart, and a head that has not been quite right 
 since." 
 
 It would appear that, after the publication of this poem, the rage 
 of the fox-hunting Squire knew no bounds, and he at once levelled 
 the " diadem of trees" upon the hill with the dust, and has thus 
 insured the lasting execration of every poetical pilgrim. The hus- 
 band of Annesley's heiress needs no comment here. He lived and 
 died a great sportsman ; as such, we dismiss him from these pages, 
 with all the honours. Let our dismissal be accompanied with the 
 benediction, "Peace to his ashes." 
 
 But not so with the Lady of the Manor. The future poet and 
 pilgrim will take care of her memory. 
 
 " You may break, you may ruin the vase if 3'ou will, 
 
 " Bat the scent of the roses will hang round it still." — Mooee. 
 
 A melancholy interest combined with the existence of the noble poet 
 will be for ever attached to her character. She was the last in direct 
 succession of a very long line of ancestry, the ancient family of the 
 Chaworths, whose interests were large and important in the county of 
 Nottingham. The estate belonged to the De Annesleys, until the 18th 
 of Henry the Sixth, 1440, when Alice de Annesley, daughter and 
 heiress of John de Annesley, conveyed it by marriage to George Cha- 
 worth, Esq., third son of Sir Thomas Chaworth of Wiverton, whose 
 last representative was Mary Ann, " Byron's bright Morning Star of ■ 
 Annesley." Her grandfather had been slain by Lord Byron's great 
 uncle as before mentioned. Her wealth and large possessions placed 
 her in youtrf and beauty in a commanding position. She might ascend 
 
28 
 
 the adjoining hill and look down upon the paternal mansion where 
 she first saw the light, view the bowers and valleys beneath, with the 
 cornfield ripe for the sickle, the sheep feeding in the pasture, and the 
 cattle grazing at the brow, and exclaim "All these are mine ! happy 
 Mary Ann Chaworth !"!" 
 
 Doubtless she did anticipate the time when one suitable to her 
 rank and wealth was to share all these advantages, and to whom in 
 the generosity of woman's heart she would resign the ladyship of the 
 manor: to him who was to be lord of her affections, and participate in 
 her joys and her sorrows; but, alas, the vanity of human wishes, and 
 the instability of earthly grandeur. It came, but soon departed. The 
 canker-worm of disappointment was already in embryo, and might 
 construct its cell in the lilliputian Eden she had planted and watered 
 with her own hand, beneath the windows of the old hall, from which, 
 instead of looking at the flowers she had raised, she was to gaze with 
 vacant stare. Her mother hoped and wished her to become the Lady of 
 the youthful Lord of Newstead, but fate decreed otherwise. In the morn- 
 ing of her existence, in her youth and inexperience of the world, she 
 passed unheeded a Shakspeare in intellect as her companion down the 
 stream of human existence, rejected the honour of the coronet of an 
 English peeress, to give her hand and her heart, with the addendas of 
 the hall of her ancestors, and her large possessions, to one, the span of 
 whose mind extended no further than the stride of a horse, and riding 
 to what is termed the "music" of a pack of hounds. Surrounded with all 
 that rendered life desirable, happy might she have been with one 
 whose attainments adorn the human family. Byron has interwoven 
 her sad fate in language which can never die. Future bards may also 
 make her history the subject of their strains, but it only adds one more 
 to an already sad catalogue. Wealth with all its overwhelming advan- 
 tages is only the means to an end, and, unaccompanied by those ac- 
 quirements which elevate and adorn the mind, leads to anything but 
 contentment. 
 
 " Lift not the painted veil which those who live 
 
 Call Life ; though unreal shapes be pictured there, 
 
 And it but mimic all we would believe 
 
 With colours idly spread, — behind lurk Fear 
 
 And Hope, twin destinies ; who ever weave 
 
 Their shadows, o'er the chasm sightless and drear." — Shelley. 
 
 Happy is it with those united in the bonds of wedlock, who, when 
 
99 
 
 the summer of their existence, is passed away, find the autumn crowned 
 with an endearment superior to all anticipation, and which will last 
 till they shall pass through the " Valley of the shadow of death," with 
 the exhilarating, consoling, and ahiding hope of a re-union in another 
 and a better world. Burns never lost sight of the hope of meeting his 
 Highland Mary in a future state, and in his own fearful language 
 describes his " beholding her in speechless agony." All this was 
 denied the unfortunate heiress ; a few years of neglect wrecked the 
 susceptible mind of the woman, and in the prime of life her mental 
 faculties sunk to rise no more, and a few brief years made her dust. 
 She died at Wiverton Hall, near Nottingham, in 1832, aged 4.0. 
 
 " And when she felt her failing breath 
 Grow weak — What said she of her doom ? 
 That there are pains far worse than death, 
 And she had known them — thoughts of gloom 
 Seem'd to hang round her towards the tomb — 
 Some things she said — and none replied, 
 Of unrequited love she died." 
 
 OLD SPANISH BALLAD. 
 
 Her poor broken heart could neither counteract nor prevent the 
 outpourings of that genius, who, in the felicity of language with 
 which he was so eminently endowed, designated a cluster of trees " a 
 diadem," because their branches waved over her who, in his sight, was 
 "beautiful." 
 
 A fine painting of her in youth has had ample justice done to it by 
 the masterly burin of Finden, and forms one of the beautiful illustra- 
 tions of the works of the noble poet, and when the name of Musters is 
 buried in oblivion, she will go down to posterity as Mary Ann Chaworth, 
 the heiress of Annesley, the first love of " Childe Harold," and be for 
 ever blended with a name immortal. 
 
 " Thee long I've loved, and still 111 love, 
 Thou wert the first and thou shalt prove 
 The last dear object of my flame : 
 The love which first our breast inspires, 
 When free from guilt, such strength acquires, 
 It lasts till death consumes our frame." 
 
 JIETASTASIO. 
 
 Every word and thought respecting her were " sealed with a tear and 
 a sigh as pure as ever flowed on earth," and her sad fate, combined 
 with his own ill-starred marriage, were such a chain of events that all 
 his recollections of Annesley were interwoven with a thread of almost 
 demoniacal bitterness, and to the end of his existence were to him. 
 
3Q 
 
 " One fatal remembrance, — one sorrow that throws 
 
 Its bleak shade alike o'er our joj^s and our woes — 
 
 To which Life nothing darker nor brighter can bring, 
 
 For which joy hath no balm — and affliction no sting." — mooee. 
 
 Annesley Hall is now deserted, and desolation reigns throughout, 
 and reminds the visiter of the havoc of the tyrant time. After the 
 death of Mr. Musters, in 1850, every choice memorial of the heiress 
 and her ancient family were sold hy public auction. 
 
 The success of the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers was heyond 
 his expectations, hut the success could bring hut momentary gratifica- 
 tion to one whose inward aspirations were under the throbbing pulse 
 of a genius which had yet found no outlet for its noble energies. He 
 wrote thus to a young friend : — 
 
 " The fire in the cavern of iEtna conceal'd 
 Still mantles unseen, in its secret recess; — 
 At length, in a volume terrific reveal'd, 
 No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress. 
 Oh thus, the desire in my bosom for fame 
 Bids me live but to hope for Posterity's praise ; 
 Could I soar with the l'hoenix, on pinions of flame, 
 With him I would wish to expire in the blaze." 
 
 Such applauses as a clever satire could evoke were nothing to this 
 burning thirst. He was sick at heart, and a casual meeting with the 
 lady of Annesley and her child seems to have concentrated all his 
 wounded feelings into a paroxysm of anguish, under which to escape 
 from England was the grand impulse — and the guiding one. How 
 little the "English Bards" reflected of what his poetical powers already 
 were will be sufficiently proved by those touching stanz&s, written 
 shortly before he set out on his memorable pilgrimage, addressed to the 
 Lady of Annesley : — 
 
 " Tis done — and shivering in the gale, 
 The bark unfurls her snowy sail ; 
 And whistling o'er the bending mast, 
 Loud sings on high the fresh'ning blast; 
 And I must from this land be gone, 
 Because I cannot love but one. 
 
 As some lone bird, without a mate, 
 My weary heart is desolate; 
 I look around, and cannot trace 
 One friendly smile or welcpme face, 
 And ev'n in crowds am still alone. 
 Because I cannot love but one. 
 
 And I will cross the whitening foam, 
 And I will seek a foreign home : 
 Till I forget a false fair face, 
 I* ne'er shall find a resting place ; 
 My own dark thoughts I cannot shun, 
 But ever love, and love but one. 
 
81 
 
 I go — but wheresoe'er I flee 
 There's not an eye will weep for me ; 
 There's not a kind congenial heart, 
 Where I can claim the meanest part; 
 Nor thou who hast my hopes undone, 
 Wilt sigh, although I love but one. 
 
 'T would soothe to take one lingering view, 
 And bless thee in my last adieu ; 
 Yet wish I not those eyes to weep 
 For him that wanders o'er the deep ; 
 His home, his hope, his youth are gone, 
 Yet still he loves, and loves but one." 
 
 He set out on his travels with his accomplished friend John Cam 
 Hobbouse, Esq., now Lord Brougbton, and on his return published 
 the first two Cantos of the Pilgrimage. 
 
 From that moment his place was tbe first ; he at once became an 
 inexhaustible topic of animated discussion in society — all the blandish- 
 ments of flattery were lavished on him. Every one identified him, 
 to a large extent, with his forlorn hero; and, considering his extreme 
 youth, and tbe immeasurable distance at which the Pilgrimage left his 
 preceding efforts, even the good and tbe wise saw in the darkest 
 features of bis delineation — even in his contemptuous derision of 
 national feelings — even in his dreary glimpses of infidelity — every 
 thing to move a compassionate interest rather than to check hope. 
 Forced -at once into the most brilliant society which his country 
 afforded, " the observed of all observers" — tbe singular beauty of his 
 countenance, stamped habitually with a pale dejection, but reflecting, 
 in rapid interchanges, every possible variety of thought and sentiment, 
 tbe darkest and tbe lightest, — a certain indefinable blending of haugh- 
 tiness and modesty, — manners simple and unembarrassed, yet tinged 
 with a not ungraceful sbyness — 
 
 " A blush that comes as ready as a girl's ; — 
 
 everything combined to fix and deepen the general curiosity; and, 
 among women at least, when that feeling is once effectually roused, 
 it needs no seer to calculate the consequences. 
 
 " And what art thou who dwellest 
 So haughtily in spirit, and canst range 
 Nature and Immortality, and yet 
 Seemest sorrowlul '.'" 
 
 Such was the language of many an eye that had hitherto been con- 
 tented to waste its brightness on objects of a far humbler order. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott delighted to descant on the singular beauty oi 
 
83 
 
 Byron's countenance At an after dinner conversation at Mr. Home 
 Drummond's, Scott exclaimed, " As for poets, I have seen all the best 
 of our own time and country — and, though Burns had the most glori- 
 ous eyes imaginable, I never thought any of them would come up to 
 an artist's notion of the character, except Byron. The prints give one 
 no impression of him — the lustre is there, but it is not lighted up — 
 Byron's countenance is a thing to dream of." 
 
 It is impossible not to regret that, being the contemporary of 
 Lawrence and Chantry, he never sat to either of those unrivalled 
 artists, whose canvas and marble have fixed, with such magical felicity, 
 the very air and gestures of the other illustrious men of this age. 
 "Many pictures have been painted of him, (says a fair critic of his 
 features), with various success; but the excessive beauty of his lips 
 escaped every painter and sculptor. In their ceaseless play they re- 
 presented every emotion, whether pale with anger, curled in disdain, 
 smiling in triumph, or dimpled with archness and love. This extreme 
 facility of expression was sometimes painful, for I have seen him look 
 absolutely ugly — I have seen him look so hard and cold, that you must 
 hate him, and then in a moment, brighter than the sun, with such 
 playful softness in his look, such affectionate eagerness kindling in his 
 eyes, and dimpling his lips into something more sweet than a smile, that 
 you forgot the man, the Lord Byron, in the picture of beauty pre- 
 sented to you, and gazed with intense curiosity — I had almost said — 
 as if to satisfy yourself, that thus looked the god of Poetry, the god 
 of the Vatican, when he conversed with the sons and daughters of 
 man." 
 
 At length he withdrew from these giddy rounds, ever and anon, in 
 weariness and sickness of spirits, and enjoyed his own better being in 
 solitude and his art. How rapidly the Giaour, the Bride of Abydos, 
 the Corsair, Lara — to say nothing of minor pieces — followed each other 
 from the press — how, with each new effort, the public enthusiasm of 
 admiration grew and spread — and how each strengthened, instead of 
 weakening, as in less masterly hands must have been the case, the 
 mysterious, romantic interest with which Childe Harold had invested 
 the personal character of the poet ; these are things which ever remain 
 fresh in the memories of those who witnessed it. 
 
 There have been since master minds' contributions to our literature; 
 
33 
 
 but when have we witnessed, or who ever hopes to witness again, any 
 thing like the intensity of wonder, and of solemn rapture, with which 
 the world in those days watched the unwearying wing of this proud, 
 solitary genius, in the morning of his strength ? He passed onward, 
 progressing triumphantly throughout the literary period of his life to a 
 goal of popularity that was wonderful. The lamp which lighted up 
 his genius never burnt dimly, much less sunk into darkness. The 
 " Corsair" was written in ten days, and fourteen thousand copies sold 
 in one day. He glittered in the poetical horizon as a star of the first 
 magnitude, and maintained his position till death sealed up the foun- 
 tains of his inspiration. His mind appears to have been a vast maga- 
 zine stored With the richest literary lore. One day he was defending 
 Pope, (whom he adored as a poet) from the attacks of enemies — the 
 next day addressing Mr. Disraeli with a fresh chapter on the cala- 
 mities of authors. His great poem. "The Pilgrimage, - ' was completed 
 only six years before his death, but the interval of his leaving England 
 in 1810, to his death in 1824, produced Manfred, Sardanapalus, Cain, 
 Doge of Venice, and others, with the satire upon human nature, Don 
 Juan, — pity that the last should have been written at all, — but " what 
 is writ is writ." 
 
 To separate the man from the poet was what none tried to do, or 
 could be done. In the best of these astonishing performances, there 
 was much to regret— but none of them wanted such flashes of noble 
 sentiment, such gleams of passionate gentleness, as were more than 
 sufficient to redeem the darkest of his creations within sympathy; 
 and the best and the purest, even of his countrywomen, still regarded 
 
 " This immortal thing 
 Which stood before them," 
 
 with at worst, such feelings as he had put into the lips of his Adah, — 
 
 " I cannot abhor him : 
 I look upon him with a pleasing fear, 
 
 My heart 
 Beats quick — he awes me, and yet draws me near." 
 
 Mr. Moir, in the eloquent Lectures delivered before the Edinburgh 
 Philosophical Society in 1851, thus forcibly describes the appearance of 
 Lord Byron in the poetical arena : "Up to the time at which this lec- 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 ture commences — (1812)— the writings of Wordsworth had been more 
 talked about than read; the fame of Coleridge was limited to a small 
 circle of affectionate admirers ; the star of Campbell was still in the 
 ascendant — the cynosure of eyes with the select ; Crabbe was quietly 
 but industriously cultivating his own homely peculiar field ; while the 
 tide of popularity flowed triumphantly along with Scott, whose fresh 
 free song all the aspiring young bards imitated, like a forest of mock- 
 ing-birds. Open their tomes where you listed, let it have been at page 
 one, or page one hundred, there were nothing but moss-trooper and 
 marauder — baron bold and gay ladye— hound in leash and hawk in 
 hood — bastion huge and grey chapelle — henchman and servetors, — 
 slashed sleeves and Spanish boots — steel-barred aventayles and nod- 
 ding morions — 'guns, trumpets, blunderbusses, drums, and thunder.' 
 The chivalrous epics of Scott are indeed glorious things, — full of viva- 
 city, energy, variety, and nature, — and will endure while a monument 
 of human genius remains; but their thousaud and one imitations have 
 vanished, like the clouds of yesterday. When the mighty master him- 
 self, instead of satiating the public, took to another field, that of prose, 
 and left poetry to younger men, arose the Oriental dynasty, under the 
 prime viziership of Lord Byron; and down went William of Deloraine, 
 and Wat of Buccleuch, before Hassan and Selim, Conrad and Medora, 
 the Jereed men and the Janissaries, and all the white turbaned, wide- 
 trousered, hyacinthine-tressed, pearl-cinctured, gazelle-eyed, opium- 
 chewing, loving and hating sons and daughters of Mahomet. Every 
 puny rhymester called the moon ' Phingari ;' daggers ' Ataghans;' 
 drummers ' Tambourgis ;' tobacco pipes 'Chibouques;' and women 
 ' Houris.' It was up with the crescent and down with the cross; and, 
 in as far as scribbling at least went,' every poet was a detester of port 
 and pork, and a renegade from all things Christian. Nay, even some- 
 thing like the personal appearance of Childe Harold was aspired at ; 
 and each beardless bardling, whether baker's, butcher's, or barber's 
 apprentice, had his hair cut and his shirt collar turned down a la 
 Byron. Midshipmen perseveringly strove to look Conrad-like and 
 misanthropic; lawyers' clerks affected the most melancholious mood; 
 and half-pay ensigns, contemptuous of county police, or the public 
 safety — 
 
85 
 
 ' With the left heel insidiously aside, 
 Provoked the caper that they seemed to uhide;' 
 
 and on hacks, hired by the hour, adventured imitations of Mazeppa at 
 a band-gallop along the king's highway. The premature appearance 
 of George Gordon, Lord Byron, a minor, and his crushing by Lord 
 Brougham in the Edinburgh Review, are matters too well known to 
 need anything beyond mere allusion ; and the ' English Bards and 
 Scotch Reviewers,' his satire in retort courteous, may be passed over — 
 vigorous and venomous as it was — in an equally summary manner. 
 Even in the early volume, however mixed up with much crudeness 
 and juvenility, there were undoubted sparkles of that genius which 
 afterwards astonished the world; and in the maturer satire — rash, 
 presumptuous, and ill-judged as it was — indications of an ardent tem- 
 perament and masculine intellect. But these glimpses were heliacal : 
 the true morning of Byron's genius manifested itself in ' Childe 
 Harold,' — a work of transcendent power and beauty, rich in its descrip- 
 tions, passionate in its tones, majestic in its aspirings, sublime in its 
 very doubts — which at once stamped his reputation as a great and 
 prevailing poet. Its effect was electric— its success was instantane- 
 ously recognized. The star of his popularity shot with a burst to the 
 zenith; and, as he himself expresses it, ' I got up one fine morning, 
 and found myself famous.' It is somewhat remarkable that the two 
 most impassioned poets of modern times — Robert Burns and Lord 
 Byron — should each have died at the early age of thirty-six — as if the 
 blade of such temperaments soon wore through the scabbard. Al- 
 though so far dissociated by place in society, their fates and fortunes 
 had many common points of resemblance. 
 
 " In the zenith of his dazzling reputation Byron could not help 
 exclaiming, 
 
 ' I have not loved the world nor the world me.' 
 
 And Burns, doomed to a destiny so irreconcilable with his feelings and 
 aspirations, must have often felt, like 'Thalaba,' that he indeed was 
 
 ' A lonely being, fur from all he loved.' 
 
 Light lie the earth on these two glorious human creatures; and let 
 every cloud perish and pass away from their immortal memories." 
 Hazlett, speaking of Lord Byron, says, " He hath a demon, and 
 
30 
 
 that is the next thing to being full of the god. His brow collects 
 the scattered gloom ; his eye flashes livid fire that withers and con- 
 sumes. But still we watch the progress of the scathing bolt with 
 interest, and mark the ruin it leaves behind, with awe. "Within the 
 contracted range of his imagination, he has great unity and truth of 
 keeping. He chooses elements and agents congenial to his mind, the 
 dark and glittering ocean, the frail bark hurrying before the storm, 
 pirates and men that 'house on the wild sea with wild usages.' He 
 gives the tumultuous eagerness of action, and the fixed despair of 
 thought. In vigour of style and force of conception, he in one sense 
 surpasses every writer of the present day. His indignant apothegms 
 are like oracles of misanthrophy. He who wishes for ' a curse to kill 
 with,' may find it in Lord Byron's writings. Yet he has beauty with 
 his strength, tenderness sometimes joined with the phrenzy of despair. 
 A flash of golden light sometimes follows from a stroke of his pencil, 
 like a fallen meteor. The flowers that adorn his poetry bloom over 
 charnel houses and the grave." It has been recorded that with many 
 great men, their manners and conversation, if it did not disappoint, fell 
 below that standard of excellence which had been expected from per- 
 sonal intercourse. There was a marked difference between the two 
 great philosophers, Sir Humphrey Davy and Dr. Wollaston. " Davy 
 was ever imagining something greater than he knew ; Wollaston 
 always knew more than he acknowledged : in Wollaston the pre- 
 dominant principle was to avoid error: in Davy it was the desire to 
 discover truth," consequently with Davy all was open candour and 
 an unbounded flow of conversation, with Wollaston, all was caution 
 and reserve. 
 
 The following eloquent description of Lord Byron's person and 
 manners, is from the pen of Sir W r alter Scott :— " Distinguished by 
 title and descent from an illustrious line of ancestry, Lord Byron 
 showed, even in his earliest years, that nature had added to those 
 advantages the richest gifts of genius and fancy. His own tale is 
 partly told in two lines of ' Lara,' 
 
 1 Left by his Sire, too young such loss to know, 
 Lord of himself, that heritage of woe.' 
 
 "It was in 1812 when Lord Byron returned to England, that 
 1 Cbilde Harold's Pilgrimage' made its first appearance, producing 
 
37 
 
 an effect upon the"public, at least equal to any work which has ap- 
 peared within this or the last century. The fictitious personage whose 
 sentiments, however, no one could help identifying with those of the 
 author himself, presented himself with an avowed disdain of all the 
 attributes which most men would be gladly supposed to possess. 
 Childe Harold is represented as one satiated by indulgence and plea- 
 sure, and seeking, in change of place and clime, a relief from the 
 tedium of a life which glided on without an object. The assuming of 
 such a character as the medium of communicating his poetry and his 
 sentiments, indicated a feeling towards the public, which, if it fell 
 ehort of contemning their favour, disdained at least, all attempts to 
 propitiate them. Yet the very audacity of this repulsive personifica- 
 tion, joined to the energy with which it was supported, and to the 
 indications of a bold, powerful, and original mind, which glanced 
 through every line of the poem, electrified the mass of readers. He 
 was placed pre eminent among the literary men of his country by 
 general acclamation. Those who had so rigorously censured his 
 juvenile essays, and perhaps ' dreaded such another field,' were the 
 first to pay warm, and we believe sincere, homage to his matured efforts; 
 while others, who saw in the sentiments of Childe Harold, much to 
 regret and censure, did not withhold their tribute of applause to the 
 depth of thought, the power and force of expression, the beauty of 
 description, and the energy of sentiment, which animated ' The 
 Pilgrimage.' If the volume was laid aside for a moment, under the 
 melancholy and unpleasing impression that it seemed calculated to 
 chase hope from the side of man, and to dim his prospects, both of 
 this life and of futurity, it was immediately and almost involuntarily 
 assumed again, as our feelings of the author's genius predominated 
 over our dislike to contemplate the gloomy views of human nature, 
 which it was his pleasure to lay before us. Every thing in his manner, 
 person, and conversation, tended to maintain the charm which his 
 genius had flung around him ; and those admitted to his conversation, 
 far from finding that the inspired poet sunk into ordinary mortality, 
 felt themselves attached to him, not only by many noble qualities, 
 but by the interest of a mysterious, undefined, and almost painful 
 curiosity. 
 
3S 
 
 " But the interest which his genius attached to his presence, and to 
 his conversation, was of a nature far beyond what the hereditary 
 claims could of themselves have conferred, and his reception was 
 enthusiastic beyond anything we have ever witnessed or even heard 
 reported. We have already noticed that Lord Byron is not one 
 of those literary men of whom it may be truly said, Minuit 2^'ccseiitia 
 famam. 
 
 "A countenance, exquisitely modeled to the expression of feeling and 
 passion, and exhibiting the remarkable contrast of very dark hair and 
 eyebrows, with light and expressive eyes, presented to the physiog- 
 nomist the most interesting subject for the exercise of bis art. The 
 predominating expression was that of deep and habitual thought, which 
 gave way to the most rapid play of features, when he engaged in inter- 
 esting discussion ; so that a brother poet compared them to the 
 sculpture of a beautiful alabaster vase, only seen to perfection when 
 lighted up from within. The flashes of mirth, gaiety, indignation, or 
 satirical dislike, which frequently animated Lord Byron's countenance, 
 might, during an evening's conversation, be mistaken by a stranger for 
 the habitual expression, so easily and so happily was it formed for 
 them all ; but those who had an opportunity of studying his features 
 for a length of time, and upon various occasions, both of rest and 
 emotion, will agree with us that their proper language was that of 
 melancholy. Sometimes shades of this gloom interrupted even his 
 gayest and most happy moments, and the following verses are said to 
 have dropped from his pen, to excuse a transient expression of melan- 
 choly, which overclouded the general gaiety: — 
 
 ' When from the heart where Sorrow sits, 
 Her dusky shadow mounts too high, 
 And o'er the changing aspect flits 
 And clouds the brow, or tills the eye — 
 Heed not the gloom that soon shall sink : 
 My thoughts their dungeon know too well; 
 Back to my breast the captives shrink, 
 And bleed within their silent cell.' 
 
 "It was impossible to behold this interesting countenance, expressive 
 of a dejection belonging neither to the rank, the age, nor the success 
 of this young nobleman, without feeling an indefinable curiosity to 
 
Li 'J 
 
 ascertain whether it had a deeper cause than habit or constitutional 
 temperament. The enthusiastic looked on him to admire, the serious 
 with a wish to admonish, and the soft with a desire to console. Even 
 literary envy, a base sensation, from which, perhaps, this age is more 
 free than any other, forgave the man whose splendour dimmed the 
 fame of his competitors. 
 
 " The generosity of Lord Byron's disposition, his readiness to assist 
 merit in distress, and to bring it forward, where unknown, deserved 
 and obtained the general regard of those who partook of such merit, 
 while his poetical effusions poured forth with equal force and fertility, 
 showed at once a daring confidence in his own powers, and a deter- 
 mination to maintain, by continued effort, the high place he had 
 attained in British Literature." 
 
 The fire which warmed the breast of the great and good man, Sir 
 Walter Scott, who penned the above, proved a furnace in the more 
 fiery temperament of Byron, and consumed him at the age of thirty- 
 six. The great mind of Scott discovered the rock that his noble friend 
 had split upon, that his unbridled imagination coined subjects that 
 were more powerful than pleasing, and in many instances leaving 
 human hope no anchor whereon to rest. Byron quoted to Scott, with 
 the bitterest despair, the strong expression of Shakspeare — 
 
 " Our pleasant vices are but whips to scourge us;" 
 
 and added, " I would to God that I could have your peace of mind ; 
 I would give all I have, all my fame, every thing, to be able to speak 
 on this subject, (that of domestic happiness,) as you do." The friend- 
 ship that subsisted between these two great men was of marked cha- 
 racter. Scott, writing to the late John Murray, says, " My heart 
 bleeds for Byron, that, with his splendid talents, he cannot be happy 
 on the usual terms." Byron, alluding to Scott, exclaimed, "the sight 
 of a letter from him always does me good, — that the Waverley Novels 
 were a literature of themselves, and his Poetry as good as any — but 
 beside, I love him for the manliness of his character, and his marked 
 kindness to me." 
 
 Such an immense track of country as " The Pilgrimage" embraced 
 could not be traversed without some affecting instances, one of which 
 
40 
 
 we shall relate. On the 3rd of May, 1810, while the Salsette frigate 
 was lying at anchor in the Dardanelles, Lord Byron, accompanied by 
 Lieutenant Ekenhead, swam across the Hellespont from the European 
 shore to the Asiatic, about two miles wide. The tide of the Dar- 
 danelles runs so strong, that it is impossible either to swim or to sail 
 to any given point. Lord Byron went from the Castle to Abydos, 
 landing full three miles below his meditated place of approach. He 
 had a boat in attendance all the way ; so that no danger could be ap- 
 prehended, even if his strength had failed. His Lordship records, in 
 one of his minor poems, that he got the ague by the voyage, but it 
 became known, that after landing, he was so much exhausted, that he 
 gladly accepted the offer of a Turkish fisherman, and reposed in his 
 hut for several hours. He was then very ill, and as Lieutenant Eken- 
 head was compelled to go on board his frigate, he was left alone. 
 The poor Turk had no idea of the rank or consequence of his inmate, 
 but paid him most marked attention. His wife was his nurse, and 
 at the end of five days he left this asylum completely recovered. 
 "When about to embark, the Turk gave him a large loaf, a cheese, a 
 skin filled with wine, and a few paras, (about a penny each,) prayed 
 " Allah" to bless him, and wished him safe home. When his Lord- 
 ship arrived at Abydos he sent over his man Stephano to the Turk, 
 with an extensive assortment of fishing nets, a fowling piece, a brace 
 of pistols, and a piece of silk to make gowns for his wife. The poor 
 Turk was lost in astonishment at the present, and lifting up his 
 hands, exclaimed, "What a noble return for an act of humanity." He 
 then formed the resolution of crossing the Hellespont in order to', 
 thank his Lordship in person : his wife approved of the plan ; and he 
 had sailed about half way across when a sudden squall, so prevalent 
 in those seas, upset his boat, and the poor Turkish fisherman was 
 drowned. Lord Byron was greatly distressed when he heard of the 
 catastrophe, and, with that kindness of heart which was natural to 
 him, immediately sent the widow a sum of money, with a message 
 that he would ever be a friend to her. He did not forget his promise. 
 Seven years afterwards Lord Byron, then proceeding to Constanti- 
 nople, put in at the Island, and made a handsome present to the 
 widow and her son. 
 
41 
 
 The most active principles of benevolence ever marked Lord B) run's 
 character. His publisher had offered him a thousand guineas for 
 the two poems. The Siege of Corinth, and Parisina, which he refused 
 to accept. About two months before his final departure. Mr. Godwin, 
 the author of Caleb Williams, and other works on political science, 
 was involved in difficulties, and the circumstance having become known 
 to Mr. Rogers and Sir James Macintosh, it occurred to them that a 
 part of the sum thus unappropriated by Lord Byron could not be 
 better bestowed than in relieving the necessities of this gentleman. 
 This suggestion was no sooner conveyed to the noble poet than he 
 proceeded to act upon it, and the following remarkable letter to 
 Mr. Rogers was immediately dispatched : — 
 
 "It occurs to me now, that as I have never seen Mr. G. but once, 
 and consequently have no claim to his acquaintance, that you, or Sir 
 James, had better arrange it with him, in such a manuer as may be 
 least offensive to his feelings, and so as not to have the appearance of 
 officiousness, nor obtrusion on my part. I hope you will be able to do 
 this, as I should be very sorry to do any thing by him that may be 
 deemed indelicate. I have closed with M., and propose the sum of 
 six hundred pounds to be transmitted to Mr. G. I shall feel glad if 
 it can be of any use, only don't let him be plagued, nor think himself 
 obliged, and all that, which makes people hate one another. 
 
 " Yours very truly. 
 
 "B."* 
 
 On the 25th April, 181C>, Lord Byron left the shores of his native 
 country, to return no more. During one year at least he continued to 
 think a reconciliation with Lady Byron was not impossible. It was 
 never a secret that the formal deed of separation of 1810 was the 
 result of the wife's fixed determination to live no longer with her 
 husband. The last advances he made towards a reconciliation were 
 from Switzerland, and were at once peremptorily rejected. He imme- 
 diately crossed the Alps — the die was cast — he was for ever lost to the 
 society of England ; nor, in the whole body of his poetry, is there any- 
 thing more mournfully and desolately beautiful than the " parting 
 
 I f Byron, 
 
43 
 
 stanzas to Augusta," that beloved sister, now his only hope, and of 
 which the following is an extract : — 
 
 " My sister ! my sweet sister ! if a name 
 Dearer and purer were, it should be thine. 
 Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim 
 No tears, hut tenderness to answer mine : 
 Go where I will, to me thou art the same — 
 A loved regret which I would not resign. 
 There yet are two things in my destiny, — ' 
 A world to roam through, and a home with thee. 
 
 The first were nothing — had I still the last, 
 It were the haven of my happiness ; 
 But other claims and other ties thou hast, 
 And mine is not the wish to make them less. 
 A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past 
 Eecalling, as it lies beyond redress; 
 Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore — 
 He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore. 
 
 The world is all before me ; I but ask 
 Of nature that with which she will comply — 
 It is but in her summer's sun to bask, 
 To mingle with the quiet of her sky, 
 To see her gentle face without a mask, 
 And never gaze on it with apathy. 
 She was my early friend, and now shall be 
 My sister — till I look again on thee. 
 
 With false ambition what had I to do ? 
 Little with love, and least of all with Fame ; 
 And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, 
 And made me all which they can make — a name. 
 Yet this was not the end I di.l pursue ; 
 Surely I once beheld a nobler aim, 
 But all is over — I am one the more 
 To baffled millions which have gone before." 
 
 The above are the subdued effusions of a wounded spirit, and dis- 
 close the lofty sympathy which binds the despiser of man to the 
 glories of nature. In the following stanzas, which were also addressed 
 to this loved relative, it is difficult to maintain an opinion in the 
 midst of the agonizing feelings they display ; there is a dreadful tone 
 of sincerity about them far beyond deception, and it is at last a relief 
 to close the book and " clasp the clasp." 
 
 Though the day of my destiny's over, 
 
 And the star of my fate hath declined, 
 Thy soft heart refused to discover 
 
 The faults which so many could find; 
 
43 
 
 Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, 
 
 It shrunk not to share it with me, 
 And the love which my spirit hath painted, 
 
 It never hath found but in thee. 
 Then when nature around me is smiling, 
 
 The last smile which answers to mine, 
 1 do not believe it beguiling 
 
 Because it reminds me of thine ; 
 And when winds are at war with the ocean, 
 
 As the breasts I believed in with me, 
 If their billows excite an emotion, 
 
 It is that they bear me from thee. 
 " Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd, 
 
 And its fragments are sunk in the wave, 
 Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd 
 
 To pain — it shall not be its slave. 
 There is many a pang to pursue me : 
 
 They may crush, but they shall not contemn — 
 They may torture, but 6hall not subdue me — 
 
 'Tis of thee that I think — not of them. 
 Though human, thou didst not deceive me, 
 
 Though woman, thou didst not forsake, 
 Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, 
 
 Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake, 
 Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, 
 
 Though parted, it was not to fly, 
 Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me, 
 
 Nor, mute, that the world might belie. 
 Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, 
 
 Nor the war of the many with one — 
 If my soul was not fitted to prize it, 
 
 T'was fully not sooner to shun : 
 And if dearly that error hath cost me, 
 
 And more than I once could foresee, 
 I have found that, whatever it lost me, 
 
 It could not deprive me of thee. 
 From the wreck of the past which hath perish'd, 
 
 Thus much I at least may recall, 
 It bath taught me that what I most cherish'd, 
 
 Deserved to be dearest of all : 
 In the desert a fountain is springing, 
 
 In the wide waste there still is a tree, 
 And a bird in the solitude singing, 
 
 Which speaks to my spirit of thee." 
 
 In Mr. Macaulay's essay on the noble poet, he observes, " The 
 obloquy which Byron had to endure was such as might well have 
 shaken a more constant mind. The newspapers were filled with lam- 
 poons. The theatres shook with execrations. He was excluded from 
 circles where he had lately been the observed of all observers. All 
 those creeping things that riot in the decay of nobler natures hastened 
 
44 
 
 to their repast; and they were right; they did after their kind. It is 
 not every day that the savage envy of aspiring dunces is gratified by 
 the agonies of such a spirit, and the degradation of such a name. 
 
 " The unhappy man left his country for ever. The howl of con- 
 tumely followed him across the sea, up the Rhine, over the Alps ; it 
 gradually waxed fainter; it died away; those who had raised it began 
 to ask each other what, after all, was the matter about which they had 
 been so clamourous, and wished to invite back the criminal whom they 
 had just chased from them. His poetry became more popular than it 
 had ever been ; and his complaints were read with tears by thousands 
 and tens of thousands who had never seen his face.'" 
 
 Among others was an attack in Blackwood's Magazine, and the 
 noble poet's reply was printed, but on further consideration sup- 
 pressed. The exile of Ravenna thus sums up his own case : — 
 " The man who is exiled by a faction, has the consolation of thinking 
 he is a martyr ; he is upheld by hope and the dignity of his cause, 
 real or imaginary : he who withdraws from the pressure of debt, may 
 indulge in the thought that time and prudence will retrieve his cir- 
 cumstances : he who is condemned by the law, has a term to his 
 banishment, or a dream of its abbreviation ; or, it may be, the know- 
 ledge or the belief of some injustice of the law, or of its administration 
 in his own particular : but he who is outlawed by general opinion, 
 without the intervention of hostile politics, illegal judgment, or 
 embarrassed circumstances, whether he be innocent or guilty, must 
 undergo all the bitterness of exile, without hope, without pride, without 
 alleviation. This case was mine. Upon what grounds the public 
 founded their opinion, I am not aware ; but it was general, and it 
 was decisive. Of me, or mine, they knew little, except that I had 
 written what is called poetry, was a nobleman, had married, become 
 a father, and was involved in differences with my wife and her 
 relatives, no one knew why, because the persons complaining refused 
 to state their grievances. The fashionable world was divided into 
 parties, mine consisting of a very small minority : the reasonable 
 world was naturally on the stronger side, which happened to be the 
 lady's, as was most proper and polite. The press was active and 
 scurrilous ; and such was the rage of the day. that the unfortunate 
 publication of two copies of verses, rather complimentary than other- 
 
45 
 
 wise to the subjects of both, was tortured into a species of crime, or 
 constructive petty treason. I was accused of every monstrous vice by 
 public rumour and private rancour : my name, which had been a 
 knightly or a noble one, since my fathers helped to conquer the 
 kingdom for William the Norman, was tainted. I felt that, if what 
 was whispered, and muttered, and murmured, was true, I was unfit 
 for England; if false, England was unfit for me. I withdrew; but 
 this was not enough. In other countries, in Switzerland, in the 
 shadow of the Alps, and by the blue depth of the lakes, I was pursued 
 and breathed upon by the same blight. I crossed the mountains, 
 but it was the same : so I went a little further, and settled myself 
 by the waves of the Adriatic, like the stag at bay who betakes him 
 to the waters. I thought, in the words of Campbell, — 
 
 ' Then wed thee to an exiled lot, 
 And if the world hath loved thee not, 
 Its absence may he borne.' " 
 
 Only nine months elapsed from the time of his leaving England 
 when the expanding genius of Byron brought forth the third Canto of 
 Childe Harold, and revealed a mine of poetical wealth, of which even 
 his former works could hardly have afforded a presage — that the fourth 
 Canto surpassed not less astonishingly the third ; and that through 
 his dramatic pieces, considered merely as poems, the same fervid on- 
 ward career will ever be traced : one of his bitterest and most talented 
 assailants pronounced the fourth Canto of the Pilgrimage to be "the 
 sublimest achievement of mortal pen."* It was in the third Canto that 
 he pourtrayed the deep sense of the persecution which he had sus- 
 tained from his countrymen. It required great force in writing, but 
 
 the master-mind was with him for the task. 
 
 •*• 
 
 " Something too much of this : — but now 'tis past, 
 And the spell closes with its silent seal. 
 Long absent BAEOLD re-appears at last; 
 He of the breast which fain no more would feel, 
 AVrung with the wounds that kill not, but ne'er heal ; 
 Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him 
 In soul and aspect as in age : years steal 
 Fire fronrthe mind as vigour from the limb; 
 And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim." 
 
 It is the third Canto which opens with the beautiful and pathetic 
 invocation to the infant daughter of the author, and at the time 
 
 * The Ker. C. C. Colton, the author of Many Things in few Words. 
 
46 
 
 bespoke such volumes of interest and sympathy for the self-exiled 
 Pilgrim. 
 
 " Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child ! 
 Ada ! sole daughter of my house and heart ? 
 When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled, 
 And then we parted, — not as now we part, 
 But with a hope. — 
 
 Awaking with a start, 
 The waters heave around me ; and on high 
 The winds lift up their voices : I depart, 
 Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by, 
 When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye." 
 
 And then follows a grand burst of poetry upon the sea, — 
 
 " Once more upon the waters ! yet once more 1 
 And the waves bound beneath me as a steed 
 That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar ! 
 Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead! 
 Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed, 
 And the rent canvass fluttering strew the gale, 
 Still must I on ; for I am as a weed, 
 Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail 
 Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail." 
 
 This Canto also contains the celebrated description of the Battle of 
 Waterloo, and the night scene witnessed on the Lake of Geneva ; and 
 each natural object, from the evening grasshopper to the stars, " the 
 poetry of heaven," suggests the contemplation of the connection be- 
 tween the Creator and his works. But the " live thunder leaping 
 among the rattling crags" — the voice of the mountains, as if shouting 
 to each other — the plashing of the big rain — the gleaming of the wide 
 lake, lighted like a phosphoric sea, — present a picture of sublime 
 terror, yet of enjoyment, all brought out in the highest perfection, and 
 the poet, in his own person, tften reviews the affecting address to his 
 infant daughter :" — 
 
 " My daughter! with thy name this song begun — 
 My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end — 
 I see thee not, — I hear thee not, — but none 
 Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend 
 To whom the shadows of far years extend : 
 Albeit my brow thou never should'st behold, 
 My voice shall with thy future visions blend, 
 And reach into thy heart — when mine is cold, — 
 A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould." 
 
 Proceeding in the same strain for several stanzas, he thus concludes 
 with this paternal benediction : — 
 
A", 
 
 " Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er the sea, 
 And from the mountains where I now respire, 
 Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee, 
 As, with a sigh, I deem thou rnight'st have been to me." 
 
 In a masterly paper, by Lord Jeffrey, upon the third Canto, he ob- 
 serves, " If the finest poetry be that which leaves the deepest impres- 
 sion on the minds of its readers — and this is not the worst test of its 
 excellence — Lord Byron, we think, must be allowed to take prece- 
 dence of all his distinguished contemporaries. He has not the variety 
 of Scott— nor the delicacy of Campbell— nor the absolute truth of 
 Crabbe— nor the polished sparkling of Moore ; but in force of diction, 
 and inextinguishable energy of sentiment, he clearly surpasses them all. 
 ' Words that breathe, and thoughts that burn,' are not merely the 
 ornaments, but the common staple of his poetry ; and he is not in- 
 spired or impressive only in some happy passages, but through the 
 whole body and tissue of his composition. It was an unavoidable 
 condition perhaps of this higher excellence, that his scene should be 
 narrow, and his persons few. To compass such ends as he had in 
 view, it was necessary to reject all ordinary agents, and all trivial 
 combinations. He could not possibly be amusing, or ingenious, or 
 playful ; or hope to maintain the requisite pitch of interest by the 
 recitation of sprightly adventures, or the opposition of common cha- 
 racters. To produce great effect, in short, he felt that it was necessary 
 to deal only with the greater passions — with the exaltations of a daring 
 fancy, and the errors of a lofty intellect — with the pride, the terrors, 
 and the agonies of strong emotion — the fire and air alone of our 
 human elements." 
 
 About this time appeared his poem entitled "Darkness ;" it may be 
 considered a grand and gloomy sketch of the extinction of the hea- 
 venly bodies, but its conception is terrible : — 
 
 " The icy earth 
 Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. 
 
 The world was void, 
 The populous and the the powerful was a lump, 
 Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless — 
 A lump of death— a chaos of hard clay ! 
 The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, 
 And nothing stirr'd within their silcut depths; 
 Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, 
 And their masts fell down piecemeal : as they dropp'd, 
 They slept on the abyss without a surge — 
 
-IS 
 
 The waves were dead ; the tides were in their grave, 
 The Moon, their mistress, had expir'd before; 
 The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air, 
 And the clouds perish'd ! Darkness had no need 
 Of aid from them — She was the universe." 
 
 At length the year arrived that was to number the days of this ex- 
 traordinary man, and the sun of his glory had a last parting ray to 
 shed upon his brilliant career. Greece, the land of poetry and song, 
 had suddenly risen upon her oppressors, thither he bent his steps, 
 and the result is known ;_ pleasure, excitement, and sorrow, had done 
 their work, and a few months after his arrival thirty-six guns 
 announced to the poor Greeks that their benefactor had ceased 
 to exist. Lord Byron must and will be identified by posterity with 
 her cause, and if we examine her early history, we shall find that one 
 of tbe first acts that Lycurgus, the Spartan Lawgiver, placed upon the 
 Statute Book, was tbe destruction of all children born with any bodily 
 deformity, little thinking that, after thousands of years had elapsed, 
 one slightly deformed would arise to play such a conspicuous part in 
 her history. The Spartan law was as cruel as it was impolitic. In many 
 instances great minds have been embodied in very frail tenements. 
 Had Pope, Byron, and Scott been Spartans, their bodies might have 
 found a watery grave in the Eurotius, or have been hurled over Mount 
 Tagetua, and furnished food for the vultures ; the Nightingale of 
 Twickenham would not have left the world the tender and thrilling 
 epistle of Eloise to Abelard ; neither would Lord Byron have tuned 
 his lyre to the glories of Greece ; nor would Sir Walter Scott have 
 enriched our literature with the " Waverley Novels." Doubtless Ly- 
 curgus was more anxious respecting a hardy race of soldiers to defend 
 the state, than of poets and philosophers to delight and instruct man- 
 kind ; but at that period the science of physiognomy had not even 
 dawned upon the human race. 
 
 The noble poet has been praised for attaching others to him, but 
 far greater praise is due, and will be for ever attached to his memory, 
 that, after sounding every depth of human passion, he could so far 
 govern himself, that at the call of humanity he sacrificed his time, his 
 talents, his fortune, and his life, in the cause of Greece. And when the 
 Bard of Newstead was added to the band of immortals that had gone 
 before him, prejudice and calumny retired from the scene. He had 
 
49 
 
 perished in her cause, and dying, clung to it with convulsive grasp, 
 and thus gained a niche in her history, for whatever she claims is 
 immortal, even in decay, as the marhle sculpture upon the columns 
 of her fallen temples. 
 
 " Slumbering on earth's cold breast, serene beneath, 
 Youth (all its fire and glory dim) reposes : 
 And this pale peaceful monument discloses 
 Life's weakness, and the omnipotence of death. 
 Love sits with tearful eye upon the tomb, 
 And speeds his erring shafts — his thoughtful care, 
 In memory of his sorrow and his gloom, 
 Hath raised this dear — this sad memorial here. 
 He scarce had passed life's portal on the wings 
 Of youthful joy — while hope repentaut hung 
 Upon his talents and his silver tongue, — 
 Ere fate's dark mandate, fierce and threatening, 
 Tore him away — and reckless with him tore 
 All that had taught us to bear woe before." 
 
 OLD SPANISH EriTAPH. 
 
 Dr. Millengen, the surgeon to Lord Byron"s suliotes, thus describes 
 the appearance of the body after death : — 
 
 " Before we proceeded to embalm the body, we could not refrain 
 from pausing, in silent contemplation, on the lifeless clay of one, who, 
 but a few days before, was the hope of a whole nation, and the 
 admiration of the civilized world. After consecrating a few moments 
 to the feelings such a spectacle naturally inspired, we could not but 
 admire the perfect symmetry of his body. Nothing could surpass the 
 beauty of the forehead ; its height was extraordinary, and the pro- 
 tuberances, under which the nobler intellectual faculties are supposed 
 to reside, were strongly pronounced. His hair, which curled naturally, 
 was quite grey ; the mustachios light coloured. His physiognomy 
 had suffered little alteration; and still preserved the sarcastic, haughty 
 expression which habitually characterized it. The chest was broad 
 and high vaulted ; the waist very small, the pelvis narrow. The only 
 blemish of his body, which might otherwise have vied with that of 
 Apollo himself, was the congenital malconformation of his loft foot 
 and leg." 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, that the marble statue of the noble poet, by 
 Thorswaldsen, on being brought to this country, lay in the vaults of 
 the docks for six years. It was understood, that had any application 
 been made to the then existing Dean of Westminster, Dr. Ireland, for 
 
its erection in the Abbey, it would have been refused ; be that as it may, 
 no application was ever made : the keen eye of Lord Byron's own 
 Alma Mater was upon the prize, and it now graces the Library Hall 
 of Trinity College, Cambridge, where it stands a proud memorial of 
 the sculptor's great talents, and is viewed with admiration and delight 
 by all who have seen it. 
 
 Within a period embracing little more than a quarter of a century, 
 poetry and song have lost a Byron and a Scott, a Southey and a 
 Coleridge, a Gilford and a Campbell, a Crabbe and a Wordsworth, a 
 Shelley and a Moore ; and recently the venerable patriarch, Samuel 
 Eogers, " the last argonaut of classical English Poetry," as Lord Byron 
 delighted to call him, at the age of ninety-three, has paid the debt of 
 nature : his lamp had long been flickering, but he still lived to dwell 
 upon illustrious friendships, long since gathered to their fathers, 
 having been the Mend and associate of all the illustrious men of 
 letters during the last seventy years. Honour to his memory. His 
 abode was a treasure of art, and his was the hand that ministered 
 to the wants of the poor dying Sheridan in the hour of trial. It is 
 interesting to consider where the remains of these pioneers, that did 
 so much in their day and generation, rest in peace, after the stormy 
 turmoil of existence. Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey, contain- 
 ing the dust of generation after generation of poets, philosophers, war- 
 riors, and statesmen, whose minds had been shattered in the adjoin- 
 ing halls of legal eloquence and Parliamentary strife, received those of 
 Campbell and Gifford ; the old churchyard, at Higbgate, those of 
 Coleridge ; the adjoining village of Hornsey, those of Rogers ; Cros- 
 thwaite, in Cumberland, those of Southey; Dryburgh Abbey, those of 
 Scott; and the village churches, amid the scenes of their labours, those 
 of Crabbe, Wordsworth, and Moore. The body of poor Shelley, being 
 cast on shore after he was drowned, was, according to the laws which 
 govern the Italian coast, consumed by fire in the presence of Lord 
 Byron and others, and the scorching embers, gathered by the hand of 
 filial affection and friendship, were deposited in an urn, and placed in 
 the Cemetery at Rome. They have passed away, but their works re- 
 main to us as intellectual provender that will last for ages, and be read 
 with delight by thousands yet unborn. 
 
 Their works are our companions in solitude, in prosperity, in adver- 
 
51 
 
 sity; and we feel a tenderness for the character of great men: they may 
 have helped us up the steep hill of science, or delighted our imagina- 
 tion. It is a labour of love with us to find excuses for their short- 
 comings, it affords us delight to find all the failings of the mortal 
 merge into the immortality attached to their names, and we look upon 
 them as the benefactors of the human race. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that, whereas mental labour, especially 
 that of the inventive faculty, exhausts the individual more than any 
 other occupation, so it is of the last importance to him to seek occa- 
 sional, even frequent renovation, by some external agency. The phy- 
 sician, the lawyer, the soldier, and others, necessarily pass their lives 
 from home, a return to which constitutes a welcome change and relief. 
 But the laborious man of letters spends his working hours alone, in 
 silence, within his own four walls ; when the sands of his intellectual 
 hour-glass have run out he needs variety, and the reviving influences 
 afforded by social and festive pleasures. 
 
 With respect to the poets we have mentioned, their ripe and mellow 
 fruits are before us, and we feast upon them deliciously, but it is like 
 partaking that of an expiring species; for with all our respect for living 
 talent, and it is great, what, alas, is the crop that is now ripening, and 
 where are the blossoms, that should perpetuate their increase ? We 
 may think ourselves fortunate in possessing the works they have be- 
 queathed us. The present generation has witnessed the setting of such 
 luminaries as we have enumerated, and the present lull in the 
 groves of Farnassus is not surprising, but at a future time others 
 may arise, with majestic imaginations, and intellects of gigantic 
 structure, and again entwine the wreath around the glories of 
 nature, and pourtray the passions with a more terrible reality than 
 the masters we have named. That Lord Byron felt anxious respecting 
 his posthumous fame there can be no question, but whatever visions 
 of future greatness may have floated in his imagination, the currents 
 must have been far short of the reality. The only two words he wished 
 to be inscribed upon his tomb were " Implora Tace." 
 
 It could never have entered Lord Byron's mind that his biogra- 
 pher would do so much for his memory — that the classical Rogers 
 would in elegant strains describe their meeting at Bologna, and com- 
 bine with it the following touching monody : — 
 
59 
 
 " He is now at rest ; 
 And praise and blame fall on his ear alike, 
 Now dull in death. Yes, Byron, thou art gone, 
 Gone like a star that thro' the firmament 
 Shot and was lost, in its eccentric course 
 Dazzling, perplexing. Yet thy heart, methinks, 
 Was generous, noble — noble in its scorn 
 Of all things low or little; nothing there 
 Sordid or servile. If imagined wrongs 
 Pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do 
 Things long regretted, oft as many know, 
 None more than I, thy gratitude would build 
 On slight foundations : and if in thy life 
 Not happy, in thy deatli thou surely wert, 
 Thy wish accomplished ; dying in the land 
 Where thy young mind had caught ethereal fire, 
 Dying in Greece, and in a cause so glorious ! 
 They in thy train — ah, little did they think 
 As round we went, that they so soon should sit 
 Mourning beside thee, while a Nation mourned, 
 Changing her festal for her funeral song ; 
 That they so soon should hear the minute-gun, 
 As morning gleamed on what remained of thee, 
 Roll o'er the sea, the mountains, numbering 
 Thy years of joy and sorrow. 
 
 Thou art gone ; 
 And he who would assail thee in thy grave, 
 Oh, let him pause ! For who among us all 
 Tried as thou wert — even from thine earliest years, 
 When wandering, yet unspoilt, a highland boy — 
 Freed as thou wert, and with thy soul of flame; 
 Pleasure, while yet the down was on thy cheek, 
 Uplifting, pressing, and to lips like thine, 
 Her charmed cup — ah, who among us all 
 Could say he had not erred as much, and more ?" 
 
 that the- oak planted by him at Newstead is now enquired for as the 
 "Byron Oak," and promises to share the celebrity (but not the fate we 
 trust) of Shakspeare's Mulberry tree ; that Newstead, the pride and 
 glory of Byron, should have fallen into the possession of Colonel Wild- 
 man, who, with a boundless liberality, has expended a hundred thousand 
 pounds in the restoration of this famed Monastery, and the wish of the 
 poet carried out to the letter : — 
 
 " Haply thy sun emerging yet may shine, 
 Thee to irradiate with meridian ray, 
 Hours, splendid as the past, may still be thine, 
 And bless thy future as thy former day :" 
 
 that an eloquent and literary divine would thus address his audience 
 from the pulpit,* 'Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity.' 
 There was a man, in modern times, who in some respects bore a 
 
 * Gillillan's Five Discourses, published by A. Falkuer, Leeds. 
 
53 
 
 striking resemblance to Solomon ; I refer to a late noble poet, wbo 
 blazed across tbe horizon of our literature, 
 
 'Like some fierce comet of tremendous size, 
 To which the stars did homage as it passed.' 
 
 This man bad every thing which might have satisfied a human being. 
 He had wealth, fame, noble birth, genius, beauty, admiration, and 
 love. He rose proudly, and at one sweep, above all his contemporaries, 
 as if it were his ambition to claim kindred, or demand a contest with a 
 superior order of beings. He looked like one girded for some celestial 
 strife. He seemed aspiring to the laurels of no earthly victory. He 
 seemed as much alone and superior, as if no mother had begot him 
 with human pangs, or baptized him with mortal tears, and yet 
 he was miserable. All his works are but repetitions of the cry of 
 Solomon, ' All is vanity.' Whether he soared to the heights of poetic 
 rapture, or sounded the depths of human passion, echoed the old 
 thunder in a voice of kindred power and majesty, or sung an evening 
 song with tbe grasshopper beneath his feet ;— whether he frowned the 
 frown of rage, or smiled the smile of bitterness — whether he shed tears 
 such as angels weep, or laughed with the laughter of the fiends, 
 ' Vanity of vanities' was still his burden, and a proclamation of human 
 misery seemed tbe purpose for which he was sent into the world. Tbe 
 very vocabulary of woe laboured under the demands of his melancholy 
 genius — and never — never more till this scene of tears and sighs be 
 ended, shall we meet with such a gigantic expounder of the wretched- 
 ness of man ; who, not for a moment, not even in a dream, forgot the 
 truth that man was miserable. If ye believe not Solomon, believe 
 Byron." 
 
 Such are the tributes paid to the Bard of Newstead. 
 
 When death closed the scene upon the shores of Missolonghi, with 
 Fletcher, the faithful valet of bis boyhood, who had followed him through 
 the world, and who was then to receive his last sigh, for his wife, 
 bis child, and bis sister, how would it have cheered the dying poet if 
 some ministering angel could have whispered in his ear, that his 
 revered friend.. Sir W. Scott, on hearing of his death, would concentrate 
 Lis mighty faculties, and pour forth to the world an culogium to his 
 memory, not surpassed by the Greeks or the Romans, over their de- 
 parted heroes? Si) W.Scott was greatly affected when the news 
 
54 
 
 reached Abbotsford that Lord Byron was no more. He had drawn 
 tears of gratitude and admiration from him, by his masterly papers 
 upon his genius, his sorrows, and his persecution, — he had defended 
 him while living, and the time having arrived when he was alike 
 insensible to praise or censure, when he could no longer vindicate 
 himself, he came forth in all his strength, with the following manly, 
 affectionate, and memorable tribute on the decease of his noble and 
 illustrious friend : — 
 
 " To the Editor of the Edinburgh Courant. 
 
 " Amidst the general calmness of the political atmosphere, we have 
 been stunned, from another quarter, by one of these death notes, 
 which are pealed at intervals, as from an archangel's trumpet, to awaken 
 the soul of a whole people at once. Lord Byron, who has so long and 
 so amply filled the highest place in the public eye, has shared the lot 
 of humanity. That mighty genius, which walked amongst men as some- 
 thing superior to ordinary mortality, and w r hose powers were beheld 
 with wonder, and something approaching to terror, as if we knew not 
 whether they were of good or of evil, is laid as soundly to rest as the 
 poor peasant, whose ideas went not beyond his daily task. The voice 
 of just blame and of malignant censure are at once silenced ; and we 
 feel almost as if the great luminary of heaven had suddenly disap- 
 peared from the sky, at the moment when every telescope was levelled 
 for the examination of the spots which dimmed its brightness. It is 
 not now the question, what were Byron's faults, what his mistakes ; 
 but how is the blank which he has left in British literature to be filled 
 up ? Not, we fear, in one generation, which, among many highly 
 gifted persons, has produced none which approached Lord Byron in 
 originality, the first attribute of genius. Only thirty-six years old 
 — so much already done for immortality— so much time remaining, 
 as it seemed to us short-sighted mortals, to maintain and extend his 
 fame, and to atone for errors in conduct, and levities in composition, — 
 who will not grieve that such a race has been shortened, though not 
 always keeping the straight path ; such a light extinguished, though 
 sometimes flaming to dazzle and bewilder ? One word on this ungrate- 
 ful subject, ere we quit it for ever. The errors of Lord Byron arose 
 
56 
 
 neither from depravity of heart — for nature had not committed the 
 anomaly of uniting to such extraordinary talents, an imperfect moral 
 sense — nor from feelings dead to the admiration of virtue. No man 
 had ever a kinder heart for sympathy, or a more open hand for the 
 relief of distress ; and no mind was ever more formed for the en- 
 thusiastic admiration of noble actions, provided he was convinced that 
 the actors had proceeded on disinterested principles. Remonstrances 
 from a friend, of whose intentions and kindness he was secure, had 
 often great weight with him ; but there were few who would venture 
 on a task so difficult. Reproof he endured with impatience, and 
 reproach hardened him in his error ; so that he often resembled the 
 gallant war-steed, who rushes forward on the steel that wounds him. 
 In the most painful crisis of his private life, he evinced this irritabi- 
 lity and impatience of censure in such a degree as almost to resemble 
 the nuble victim of the bull- fight, which is more maddened by the 
 squibs, darts, and petty annoyances of the unworthy crowd beyond 
 the lists, than by the lance of his nobler, and, so to speak, his more 
 legitimate antagonist. In a word, much of that in which he erred, 
 was in bravado and scorn of his censors, and was done with the 
 motive of Dryden's despot, to show his arbitrary power. 
 
 " As various in composition as Shakspeare himself, (this will be ad- 
 mitted by all who are acquainted with his Don Juan), he has embraced 
 every topic of human life, and sounded every string on the divine 
 harp, from its slightest to its most powerful and heart-astounding tones. 
 There is scarce a passion, or a situation, which has escaped his pen : 
 and he might be drawn, like Garrick, between the weeping and the 
 laughing Muse, although his most powerful efforts have certainly been 
 devoted to Melpomene. His genius seemed as prolific as various. 
 The most prodigal use did not exhaust his powers, nay, seemed rather 
 to increase their vigour. Neither Childe Harold, nor any of the most 
 beautiful of Byron's earlier tales, contain more exquisite morsels of 
 poetry than are to be found scattered through the cantos of Don Juan, 
 amidst verses which the author appears to have thrown off with an 
 effort as spontaneous as that of a tree resigning its leaves to the wind. 
 But that noble tree will never more bear fruit or blossom ! It has 
 been cut down in its strength, and the past is all that remains to us 
 of Byron. We can scarce reconcile ourselves to the idea — scarce 
 
56 
 
 think that the voice is silent for ever, which, bursting so often on our 
 ear, was often heard with rapturous admiration, sometimes with regret, 
 but always with the deepest interest. 
 
 1 All 'that's bright must fade, 
 The brightest still the fleetest.' 
 
 With a strong feeling of awful sorrow we take leave of the subject. 
 Death creeps upon our most serious, as well as upon our most idle 
 employments ; and it is a reflection, solemn and gratifying, that he 
 found our Byron in no moment of levity, but contributing his fortune 
 and hazarding his life, in behalf of a people only endeared to him by 
 their own past glories, and as fellow creatures, suffering under the 
 yoke of a heathen oppressor. 
 
 " To have fallen in a crusade for Freedom and Humanity, as in olden 
 times it would have been an atonement for the blackest crimes, may, 
 in the present, be allowed to expiate greater follies than even exagger- 
 ating calumny has propagated against Byron." 
 
 Doubtless it would be prudent to close this lteminiscence with the 
 above gigantic tribute to- the memory of this great man ; but the writer 
 of these pages distinctly states that he lays no claim to literary 
 composition — they have been put together for amusement, and beguiled 
 many solitary but not one dull hour in searching for information respect- 
 ing one, of whom, watched witheagle eyes from all the citadels of criticism, 
 so much has been written, whose every word and action were so carefully 
 chronicled. The masterly criticisms of others with which these pages 
 are enriched speak for themselves. If the writer has succeeded in placing 
 a single flower (however humble the genus) upon his tomb, he is satis- 
 fied ; should he induce one stranger, who might happen to be in the 
 neighbourhood, to visit "Newstead" — his reward is ample. In periods of 
 dejection, the Poet's works have rendered him independent of the world 
 for enjoyment ; and who is there among us but what has found in 
 -them weapons with which at one period or another, he could baffle some 
 of the annoyances of this transitory existence ? For if gloomy, we can 
 excite a smile by the airy levity of " Beppo" — if thoughtful, we can 
 ascend the tower with " Manfred," and gaze on the Alps, the setting 
 sun, and the "Coliseum's wall, 'midst the chief relics of 'Almighty 
 Home;" and if these are not lofty enough for our imagination, we can 
 soar into the realms of space, and " walk over the ruins of past worlds 
 
57 
 
 with Cain ;" and if we wish to study the sublimities of nature, the 
 glorious panorama of the pilgrimage is an everlasting resource. 
 
 " So r\-Ds Childe Harold itis last PILGRIMAGE ! — 
 
 Upon the shores of G !. and cried 
 
 'Liberty!' an«l those shores, from age to age 
 
 Kenovin'd, and Sparta's woods and rocks replied 
 
 ' Liberty!' But a Spectre, at his side, 
 
 Stood mocking; — and its dart, uplifting high, 
 
 Smote him ; — lie sank to earth in life's fair pride : 
 : ■ i : thy rocks then heard another cry, 
 \n 1 old llissus sigh'd — ' Die, generous exile, die.' " 
 
 He died, but left a name to be lisped by future generations, when 
 drae lias gathered the present to its forefathers; and materiel upon 
 which the future philosopher, historian, poet, and student, will dwell 
 with rapture. To his memory monuments may be built, but they are 
 unnecessary — he erected his own, more durable than brass or marble — 
 it may be seen in the palace upon the plains of India — upon the shores 
 of the Adriatic — of whose glories he had sung in such exalted strains 
 only six years previous to his death — it stands in every city, town, and 
 hamlet throughout the civilized world, and it will last to the end of 
 time. That monument is,— HIS WORKS. 
 
 Now, courteous reader, farewell. Thou wilt hear no more of the 
 stranger who hath addressed thee in these pages. One word at 
 paiting. Should the circumstances of time call thee to Nottingham, 
 to Mansfield, or to Worksop, go upon a pilgrimage to Xewstead Abbey. 
 Art thou an Antiquarian? — a banquet is prepared for thee in the 
 remains of this far-famed Monastery, with its arches, crypts, fountains, 
 and cloisters. Art thou a lover of the refinements of nature? — the 
 grounds, gardens, and lakes, are of the most recherche and picturesque 
 description. Art thou endowed with poetical feelings? — then I leave 
 thee to that cloud of reverie which will encompass thee, on visiting such 
 cal ground, and thou wilt not depart without bestowing a bene- 
 diction upon the present worthy and gallant proprietor, who, with a 
 hand of princely liberality, has restored tins vast magnificent pile, and 
 has declared " The dates of Nemtead shall never be shut against the 
 Pilgrim;" and who, though endowed with an ample fortune, passed 
 irly life in the service of bis country, was distinguished during 
 oinsular War, braved death at the cannon's mouth in the 
 
5S 
 
 following engagements, " Sahagun," '" Mayorga," " Beneyente,' 
 
 — •■ Corunna" — " Painpeluna"— " Nivelle£ — " Orthes" — " Toulouse" 
 — "Quartre Bras," "Genappe," and closing bis military career as the 
 companion of England's Great Duke upon the plains of "Waterloo," 
 and subsequently restoring, but not altering, the seat of the author 
 of Cbilde Harold's Pilgrimage. 
 
 A short distance from Xewstead is the village of Hucknall, 
 
 " Where rests my youth upon his Couu try's hreast; 
 
 Show me the spot where ye have laid hiiu down, 
 
 'Mid his own music's echoes let hirn rest, 
 
 And in the brightness of his fair renown." — Old Germam Ell>,y. 
 
 And in the chancel of its rural Church is the final resting-place of the 
 noble poet, where, 
 
 " After life's fitful fever he sleeps well: 
 
 Malice prepense — nothing can touch him further." 
 
 And beside him sleeping in peace "Ada," late Countess of Lovelace, the 
 
 " Sole daughter of his house and heart," 
 
 who died in 1852, — being at the time the same age as her illustrious 
 sire. Thus, though severed throughout life, they are united in death : 
 — Nature seems to delight in circles. 
 
 «' 
 
 It 
 
 LEEI'S ; 
 PSLNTED BY GEOEGE CRAW5HAW, BIUGGATE. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 TOW BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 
 w"Ll increase to so cents on the fourth 
 
 DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 n 
 
 -N8Y— &196t4«- 
 
 RECDLDJEC 
 
 5 '69 -3PI 
 
 OCT 2 1978 
 
 
 
 -^mmw*m — 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 
 LD21-100m-7,'39(402s) 
 
"ev/stead 
 
 ibbey 
 
 iJ^^t^ 
 
 
 
 If— 
 
 OCT 27 
 
 939 
 
 NOV i 
 
 
 SEP 9 T945^^^S P& 
 
 rp /^S s 
 
 
 £5.231.5 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY