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Mr. Becher the first copy of the work was presented. curred with no small degree of pride to keep him Of this edition, which was in quarto, and consisted aloof from the acquaintance of the gentlemen in but of a few sheets, there are but two, or, at the the neighbourhood, whose visits, in more than one utmost three, copies in existence, all the others instance, he left unreturned; some under the plea having been withdrawn and burned by Byron that their ladies had not visited his mother, others, himself, at the suggestion of his friend that one of because they had neglected to pay him this complithe poems was too luxuriously coloured. Consi- ment sooner. The true reason, however, of the dering himself bound to replace the copies of his haughty distance at which, both now and afterwork which he had withdrawn, as well as to rescue wards, he stood apart from his more opulent neighthe general character of the volume from the stigma bours, is to be found in his mortifying consciousthis one offender might bring upon it, he set in-ness of the inadequacy of his own means to his rank, stantly about preparing a second edition for the and the proud dread of being made to feel this press, and, during the ensuing six weeks, conti-inferiority by persons to whom, in every other nued busily occupied with his task. In reference respect, he knew himself superior. to this subject he says, in a letter to Mr. Bankes: "Contrary to my former intention, I am now preparing a volume for the public at large my amatory pieces will be exchanged, and others substituted in their place. The whole will be considerably enlarged, and appear the latter end of May. This is a hazardous experiment; but want of better employment, the encouragement I have met with, and my own vanity, induce me to stand the test, though not without sundry palpitations. The book will circulate fast enough in this country, from mere curiosity."

The hundred copies of which this edition consisted were hardly out of his hands, when, with fresh activity, he went to press again-and his first published volume, "The Hours of Idleness," made its appearance.

As his visits to Southwell were, after this period, but few and transient, I shall take the present opportunity of mentioning such miscellaneous particulars respecting his habits and mode of life, while there, as I have been able to collect.

Though so remarkably shy when he first went to Southwell, this reserve, as he grew more acquainted with the young people of the place, wore off; till, at length, he became a frequenter of their assemblies and dinner-parties, and even felt mortified if he heard of a rout to which he was not invited. horror, however, at new faces still continued; and if, while at Mrs. Pigot's, he saw strangers approaching the house, he would instantly jump out of the window to avoid them. This natural shyness con

His

(1) Though always fond of music, he had very little skill in the performance of it. "It is very odd," he said, one day, to this lady, "I sing much better to your playing than to any one else's. -"That is," she answered," because I play to your singing.

In his hours of rising and retiring to rest he was, like his mother, always very late; and this habit he never altered during the remainder of his life. The night, too, was at this period, as it continued afterwards, his favourite time for composition; and his first visit in the morning was generally paid to the fair friend who acted as his amanuensis, and to whom he then gave whatever new products of his brain the preceding night might have inspired. His next visit was usually to his friend Mr. Becher's, and from thence to one or two other houses on the Green; after which, the rest of the day was devoted to his favourite exercises. The evenings he usually passed with the same family among whom he began his morning, either in conversation, or in hearing Miss Pigot play upon the piano-forte, and singing over with her a certain set of songs which he admired,(1) — among which the "Maid of Lodi" (with the words "My heart with love is beating"), and "When Time, who steals our years away," were, it seems, his particuler favourites. He appears, indeed, to have, even thus early, shown a decided taste for that sort of regular routine of life-bringing round the same occupations at the same stated periods—which formed so much the system of his existence during the greater part of his residence abroad.

Those exercises to which he flew for distraction, in less happy days, formed his enjoyment now; and between swimming, sparring, firing at a mark, and riding, (2) 'the greater part of his time was passed. In the last of these accomplishments he

In which few words, by the way, the whole secret of a skilful accompanier lies.

(2) Cricketing, too, was one of his most favourite sports; and it was wonderful, considering his lameness, with what speed he

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was by no means very expert. As an instance of his be in love. "Then give it to me," he cried eagerly, little knowledge of horses, it is told, that, seeing a "for that's just the thing I want." The young lady pair one day pass his window, he exclaimed," What | refused; but it was not long before the bead disapbeautiful horses! I should like to buy them."-peared. She taxed him with the theft, and he Why, they are your own, my Lord," said his ser- owned it; but said, she never should see her amuvant. Those who knew him, indeed, at that period, let again. were rather surprised, in after-life, to hear so much of his riding; and the truth is, I am inclined to think, that he was at no time a very adroit horse

man.

In swimming and diving, we have already seen, by his own accounts, he excelled; and a lady in Southwell, among other precious relics of him, possesses a thimble which he borrowed of her one morning, when on his way to bathe in the Greet, and which, as was testified by her brother, who accompanied him, he brought up three times successively from the bottom of the river. His practice of firing at a mark was the occasion, once, of some alarm to a very beautiful young person, Miss H-, one of that numerous list of fair ones, by whom his imagination was dazzled when at Southwell. A poem relating to this occurrence will be found in this volume.

His passion for arms of every description, and his fondness for dogs, accompanied him through life. In addition to the natural tendency to superstition, which is usually found connected with the poetical temperament, Lord Byron had also the example and influence of his mother, acting upon him from infancy, to give his mind this tinge. Her implicit belief in the wonders of second sight, and the strange tales she told of this mysterious faculty, used to astonish, not a little, her sober English friends; and at so late a periodas the death of his friend Shelley, the idea of fetches and forewarnings, impressed upon him by his mother, had not wholly lost possession of the poet's mind. As an instance of a more playful sort of superstition, I may be allowed to mention a slight circumstance told me of him by one of his Southwell friends. This lady had a large agate bead, with a wire through it, which had been taken out of a barrow, and lay always in her work-box. Lord Byron, asking one day what it was, she told him that it had been given her as an amulet, and the charm was, that, as long as she had this bead in her possession, she should never

Of his charity and kind-heartedness he left behind him at Southwell—as indeed at every place, throughout life, where he resided any time-the most cordial recollections. "He never," says a person who knew him intimately at this period, " met with objects of distress without affording them succour." Among many little traits of this nature which his friends delight to tell, I select the following,-less as a proof of his generosity, than from the interest which the simple incident itself, as connected with the name of Byron, presents. While yet a schoolboy, he happened to be in a bookseller's shop at Southwell, when a poor woman came in to purchase a Bible. The price, she was told by the shopman, was eight shillings. “Ah, dear sir," she exclaimed, "I cannot pay such a price; I did not think it would cost half the money." The woman was then, with a look of disappointment, going away-when young Byron called her back, and made her a present of the Bible.

In his attention to his person and dress, to the becoming arrangement of his hair, and to whatever might best show off the beauty with which nature had gifted him, he manifested, even thus early, his anxiety to make himself pleasing to that sex who were, from first to last, the ruling stars of his destiny. The fear of becoming, what he was naturally inclined to be, enormously fat, had induced him, from his first entrance at Cambridge, to adopt, for the purpose of reducing himself, a system of violent exercise and abstinence, together with the frequent use of warm baths. But the embittering circumstance of his life - that which haunted him like a curse amidst the buoyancy of youth, and the anticipations of fame and pleasure— was, strange to say, the trifling deformity of his foot. By that one slight blemish (as in his moments of melancholy he persuaded himself) all the blessings that nature had showered upon him were counterbalanced. His reverend friend, Mr. Becher, finding him one day unusually dejected, endeavoured to cheer and rouse him..by representing,

could run. "Lord Byron (says Miss ———, in a letter, to her brother, from Southwell) is just gone past the window, with his in their brightest colours, all the various advantages with which Providence had endowed him,

bat on his shoulder, to cricket, which he is as fond of as ever."

and, among the greatest, that of "a mind which placed him above the rest of mankind." "Ah, my dear friend," said Byron, mournfully, "if this (laying his hand on his forehead) places me above the rest of mankind, that (pointing to his foot) places me far, far below them."

what was to be expected from that quarter appears by the following letter to his friend, Mr. Becher.

TO MR. BECHER.

"Dorant's Hotel, Feb. 26, 1808.

66 MY DEAR BECHER,

It sometimes, indeed, seemed as if his sensitiveness on this point led him to fancy that he was the ***** Now for Apollo. I am happy that you only person in the world afflicted with such an still retain your predilection, and that the public infirmity. When that accomplished scholar and allow me some share of praise. I am of so much traveller, Mr. D. Bailey, who was at the same school importance, that a most violent attack is preparing with him at Aberdeen, met him afterwards at Cam- for me in the next number of the Edinburgh Rebridge, the young peer had then grown so fat, that, view. This I had from the authority of a friend, though accosted by him familiarly as his school-who has seen the proof and manuscript of the crifellow, it was not till he mentioned his name that tique. You know the system of the Edinburgh Mr. Bailey could recognize him. "It is odd enough, gentlemen is universal attack. They praise none; too, that you shouldn't know me," said Byron, "I and neither the public nor-the author expects praise thought nature had set such a mark upon me that from them. It is, however, something to be nocould never be forgot.” ticed, as they profess to pass judgment only on

I

"Tell Mrs. Byron not to be out of humour with

them, and to prepare her mind for the greatest hos-
tility on their part. It will do no injury whatever;
They
and I trust her mind will not be ruffled.
defeat their object by indiscriminate abuse, and
they never praise, except the partisans of Lord Hol-
land and Co. It is nothing to be abused, when
Southey, Moore, Lauderdale, Strangford, and Payne
Knight share the same fate.

But, while this defect was such a source of morti-works requiring the public attention. You will see fication to his spirit, it was also, and in an equal this when it comes out ;—it is, I understand, of the degree perhaps, a stimulus; and more especially, most unmerciful description; but I am aware of it, in whatever depended upon personal prowess or and hope you will not be hurt by its severity. attractiveness, he seemed to feel himself piqued by this stigma, which nature, as he thought, had set upon him, to distinguish himself above those whom she had endowed with her more "fair proportion." I have already adverted to the exceeding eagerness with which, while at Harrow, he devoured all sorts of learning,—excepting only that which, by the regimen of the school, was prescribed for him. The same rapid and multifarious course of study he pursued during the holidays; and, in order to deduct as little as possible from his hours of exercise, he had given himself the habit, while at home, of reading all dinner-time. (1) In a mind so versatile as his, every novelty, whether serious or light, whether lofty or ludicrous, found a welcome and an echo ; and I can easily conceive the glee-as a friend of his once described it to me - with which he brought to her one evening a copy of Mother Goose's Tales, which he had bought from a hawker that morning, and read, for the first time, while he dined.

It was in the spring of 1808, that the memorable critique upon the "Hours of Idleness" appeared in the Edinburgh Review. That he had some notice of

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"I am sorry, but Childish Recollections' must be suppressed during this edition. I have altered, at your suggestion, the obnoxious allusion in the sixth stanza of my last ode.

"And now, my dear Becher, I must return my best acknowledgments for the interest you have taken in me and my poetical bantlings, and I shail ever be proud to show how much I esteem the advice and the adviser. Believe me, most truly," etc.

Soon after this letter, appeared the dreaded article - an article which, if not witty in itself deserves eminently the credit of causing wit in others. Seldom, indeed, has it fallen to the lot of the justest criticism to attain celebrity such as injustice has procured for this; nor, as long as the

" It was the custom of Burns," says Mr. Lockhart, in his Life short but glorious race of Byron's genius is remem

of that poet, "to read at table."

bered,can the critic, whoever he may be, that so un

intentionally ministered to its first start, be for- whole world with, or for, that which I loved; but gotten. (1)

though my temperament was naturally burning, I could not share in the common-place libertinism of the place and time without disgust. And yet this very disgust, and my heart thrown back upon itself,

those from which I shrunk, as fixing upon one (at a time) the passions which spread amongst many would have hurt only myself."

It is but justice, however, to remark-without at the same time intending any excuse for the contemptuous tone of criticism assumed by the reviewer that the early verses of Lord Byron, how-threw me into excesses perhaps more fatal than ever distinguished by tenderness and grace, give but little promise of those dazzling miracles of poesy with which he afterwards astonished and enchanted the world; and that, if his youthful verses now have a peculiar charm in our eyes, it is because we read them, as it were, by the light of his subsequeut glory.

The effect this criticism produced upon him can only be conceived by those who, besides having an adequate notion of what most poets would feel under such an attack, can understand all that there was in the temper and disposition of Lord Byron, to make him feel it with tenfold more acuteness than others. His pride had been wounded to the quick, and his ambition humbled:-but this feeling of humiliation lasted but for a moment. The very reaction of his spirit against aggression roused him to a full consciousness of his own powers; and the pain and the shame of the injury were forgotten in the proud certainty of revenge.

Though, from the causes here alleged, the irregularities he at this period gave way to, were of a nature far less gross and miscellaneous than those, perhaps, of any of his associates, yet, partly from the vehemence which this concentration caused, and still more from that strange pride in his own errors, which led him always to bring them forth in the most conspicuous light, it so happened that one single indiscretion, in his hands, was made to go. farther, if I may so express it, than a thousand in those of others. An instance of this, that occurred about the time of which we are speaking, was, I am inclined to think, the sole foundation of the mysterious allusions just cited. An amour (if it may be dignified with such a name) of that sort of casual description which less attachable natures would have forgotten, and more prudent ones at least conThe sort of life which he led at this period, be- cealed, was by him converted, at this period, and tween the dissipations of London and of Cambridge, with circumstances of most unnecessary display, without a home to welcome, or even the roof of a into a connexion of some continuance-the object single relative to receive him, was but little cal- of it not only becoming domesticated with him in culated to render him satisfied either with himself lodgings at Brompton, but accompanying him afteror the world. Unrestricted as he was by deference wards, disguised in boy's clothes, to Brighton. He to any will but his own, even the pleasures to introduced this young person, who used to ride which he was naturally most inclined prematurely about with him in male attire, as his younger bropalled upon him, for want of those best zests of ther; and the late Lady P **, who was at Brighton all enjoyment, rarity and restraint. There is, in at the time, and had some suspicion of the real one of his note books, a passage descriptive of his nature of the relationship, said one day to the poet's feelings on first going to Cambridge, in which he companion, "What a pretty horse that is you are. says, that "one of the deadliest and heaviest feel-riding!". "Yes, answered the pretended cavaings of his life was to feel that he was no longer a lier, "it was gave me by my brother!" boy."-"From that moment," he adds, "I began to grow old in my own esteem, and in my esteem age is not estimable. I took my gradations in the vices with great promptitude, but they were not to my taste; for my early passions, though violent in the extreme, were concentrated, and hated division or spreading abroad. I could have left or lost the

(1) The honour and glory, whatever they may be, of the criticism have long been affixed to Mr. (since Lord) Brougham.-E

Among the exercises in which he took delight was that of boxing, or sparring; this taste it was that, at a very early period, brought him acquainted with the distinguished professor of that art, Mr. Jackson, for whom he continued through life to entertain the sincerest regard. During his stay at Brighton, in 1808, Jackson was one of his most constant visitors,-the expense of the professor's chaise thither and back being always defrayed by He also honoured with his nohis noble patron.

tice, at this time, D'Egville, the ballet-master, and Grimaldi, the celebrated clown, to the latter of whom he sent, on one of his benefit-nights, a present of five guineas.

His time at Newstead, during the autumn of 1809, was principally occupied in enlarging and preparing his Satire for the press; and, with the view perhaps of mellowing his own judgment of its merits, by keeping it some time before his eyes in a printed form, he had proofs taken off from the manuscript by his former publisher at Newark. It is somewhat remarkable that, excited as he was by the attack of the Reviewers, and possessing, at all times, such rapid powers of composition, he should have allowed so long an interval to elapse between the aggression and the revenge. But the importance of his next move in literature seems to have been fully appreciated by him. He saw that his chances of future eminence now depended upon the effort he was about to make, and therefore deliberately collected all his energies for the spring. Among the preparatives by which he disciplined his talents to the task, was a deep study of the writings of Pope; and I have no doubt that from this period may he dated the enthusiastic admiration which he ever after cherished for this great poet—an admiration which at last extinguished in him, after one or two trials, all hope of pre-eminence in the same track, and drove him thenceforth to seek renown in fields more open to competition.

His coming of age, in 1809, was celebrated at Newstead by such festivities as his narrow means and society could furnish. The pecuniary supplies necessary towards his outset, at this epoch, were procured from money-lenders, at an enormously usurious interest, the payment of which for a long time continued to be a burden to him.

It was not till the beginning of this year that he took his Satire,-in a state ready as he thought for publication,-to London. Before, however, he had put the work to press, new food was unluckily furnished to his spleen, by the neglect with which he conceived himself to have been treated by his guardian, Lord Carlisle. The relations between this nobleman and his ward had at no time been of such a nature as to afford opportunities for the cultivation of much friendliness on either side; and to the temper and influence of Mrs. Byron must mainly be attributed the blame of widening, if not

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On one alone Apollo deigns to smile,

And crowns a new Roscommon in Carlisle.

The crown, however, thus generously awarded, did not long remain where it had been placed. In the interval between the inditing of this couplet and the delivery of the manuscript to the press, Lord Byron, with the natural hope that his guardian would, of himself, make an offer to introduce him to the House of Lords on his first taking his seat, wrote to remind his Lordship that he should be of age at the commencement of the session. Instead, however, of the courtesy which he had thus, not unreasonably, counted upon, a mere formal reply, acquainting him with the technical mode of proceeding on such occasions, was all that, it appears, in return to this application, he received. It is not wonderful, therefore, that, disposed as he had been by preceding circumstances to suspect his noble guardian of no very friendly inclinations towards him, such backwardness, at a moment when the countenance of so near a connexion might have been of service to him, should have roused in his sensitive mind a strong feeling of resentment. The indignation, thus excited, found a vent, but too temptingly, at hand;-the laudatory couplet I have just cited was instantly expunged, and his Satire went forth charged with those vituperative verses against Lord Carlisle, of which, gratifying as they must have been to his revenge at the moment, he, not long after, with the placability so inherent in his generous nature, repented.

On the 13th of March, he took his seat in the House of Lords; and, in a few days after, the Satire made its appearance, without the name of the author, although, from the first, the public rightly attributed the work.

He had, at this time, serious thoughts of at once entering on the high political path which his station as an hereditary legislator opened to him. But, whatever may have been the first movements of his ambition in this direction, they were soon

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