Er. 22. TOUR OF THE MOREA.-LORD SLIGO. will do those things in spite of merit. I remember this farce from a curious circumstance. When Drury Lane was burnt to the ground, by which accident Sheridan and his son lost the few remaining shillings they were worth, what doth my friend Dallas do? Why, before the fire was out, he writes a note to Tom Sheridan, the manager of this combustible concern, to inquire whether this farce was not converted into fuel with about two thousand other unactable manuscripts, which of course were in great peril, if not actually consumed. Now was not this characteristic ? — the ruling passions of Pope are nothing to it. Whilst the poor distracted manager was bewailing the loss of a building only worth 300,000/., together with some twenty thousand pounds of rags and tinsel in the tiring rooms, Bluebeard's elephants, and all that-in comes note from a scorching author, requiring at his hands two acts and odd scenes of a farce!! a "Dear H., remind Drury that I am his well-wisher, and let Scrope Davies be well affected towards me. I look forward to meeting you at Newstead, and renewing our old champagne evenings with all the glee of anticipation. I have written by every opportunity, and expect responses as regular as those of the liturgy, and somewhat longer. As it is impossible for a man in his senses to hope for happy days, let us at least look forward to merry ones, which come nearest to the other in appearance, if not in reality; and in such expectations I remain," &c. He was a good deal weakened and thinned by his illness at Patras, and, on his return to Athens, standing one day before a lookingglass, he said to Lord Sligo "How pale I look! - I should like, I think, to die of a consumption?"-" Why of a consumption?" asked his friend. "Because then (he answered) the women would all say, 'See that poor Byron-how interesting he looks in dying!" In this anecdote,—which, slight as it is, the relater remembered, as a proof of the poet's consciousness of his own beauty, -may be traced also the habitual reference of his imagination to that sex, which, however he affected to despise it, influenced, more or less, the flow and colour of all his thoughts. He spoke often of his mother to Lord Sligo, and with a feeling that seemed little short of aversion. "Some time or other," he said, "I will tell you why I feel thus [This farce was entitled, Not at Home,' and was arted, though with moderate success, at the Lyceum, by the Drury Lane Company, in November 1809. It was after 113 towards her."-A few days after, when they were bathing together in the Gulf of Lepanto, he referred to this promise, and, pointing to his naked leg and foot, exclaimed "Look there!-it is to her false delicacy at my birth I owe that deformity; and yet as long as I can remember, she has never ceased to taunt and reproach me with it. Even a few days before we parted, for the last time, on my leaving England, she, in one of her fits of passion, uttered an imprecation upon me, praying that I might prove as ill formed in mind as I am in body!" His look and manner, in relating this frightful circumstance, can be conceived only by those who have ever seen him in a similar state of excitement. The little value he had for those relics of ancient art, in pursuit of which he saw all his classic fellow-travellers so ardent, was, like everything he ever thought or felt, unreservedly avowed by him. Lord Sligo having it in contemplation to expend some money in digging for antiquities, Lord Byron, in offering to act as his agent, and to see the money, at least, honestly applied, said"You may safely trust me-I am no dilettante. Your connoisseurs are all thieves; but I care too little for these things ever to steal them.” - The system of thinning himself, which he had begun before he left England, was continued still more rigidly abroad. While at Athens, he took the hot bath for this purpose, three times a week, his usual drink being vinegar and water, and his food seldom more than a little rice. Among the persons, besides Lord Sligo, whom he saw most of at this time, were Lady Hester Stanhope and Mr. Bruce. One of the first objects, indeed, that met the eyes of these two distinguished travellers, on their approaching the coast of Attica, was Lord Byron, disporting in his favourite element under the rocks of Cape Colonna. They were afterwards made acquainted with each other by Lord Sligo; and it was in the course, I believe, of their first interview, at his table, that Lady Hester, with that lively eloquence for which she is so remarkable, took the poet briskly to task for the depreciating opinion, which, as she understood, he entertained of all female intellect. Being but little inclined, were he even able, to sustain such a heresy, against one who was in her own person such an irresistible refutation of it, Lord Byron had no other wards printed, with a prologue (intended to have been spoken) written by Waller Rodwell Wright, esq., author of" Hora lonicæ."] refuge from the fair orator's arguments than in assent and silence; and this well-bred deference being, in a sensible woman's eyes, equivalent to concession, they became, from thenceforward, most cordial friends. In recalling some recollections of this period in his Memoranda," after relating the circumstance of his being caught bathing by an English party at Sunium, he added, "This was the beginning of the most delightful acquaintance which I formed in Greece." He then went on to assure Mr. Bruce, if ever those pages should meet his eyes, that the days they had passed together at Athens were remembered by him with plea sure.
I seize an occasion to write as usual, I shortly, but frequently, as the arrival of letters, where there exists no regular communication, is, of course, very precarious. I have lately made several small tours of some hundred or two miles about the Morea, Attica, &c., as I have finished my grand giro by the Troad, Constantinople, &c., and believe I have mentioned to you more than am returned down again to Athens. though without his lady) across the Hellesonce that I swam (in imitation of Leander, pont, from Sestos to Abydos. Of this, and all other particulars, Fletcher, whom I have sent home with papers, &c., will apprise you. I cannot find that he is any loss being tolerably master of the Italian and also studying with a master, I can order and modern Greek languages, which last I am discourse more than enough for a reasontations after beef and beer, the stupid, able man. Besides, the perpetual lamenbigoted contempt for every thing foreign, and insurmountable incapacity of acquiring him, like all other English servants, an ineven a few words of any language, rendered During this period of his stay in Greece, we find him forming one of those extraordinary friendships, -if attachment to persons so inferior to himself can be called by that name, of which I have already mentioned two or three instances in his younger days, and in which the pride of being a protector, and the pleasure of exciting gratitude, seem to have constituted to his mind the chief, pervading charm. The person, whom he now adopted in this manner, and from similar feelings to those which had inspired his early attachments to the cottage-boy near Newstead, and the young chorister at Cambridge, was a Greek youth, named Nicolo I do assure you, the plague of Giraud, the son, I believe, of a widow lady, speaking for him, the comforts he required in whose house the artist Lusieri lodged. (more than myself by far), the pilaws (a In this young man he appears to have taken Turkish dish of rice and meat) which he the most lively, and even brotherly, interest drink, the beds where he could not sleep, could not eat, the wines which he could not -so much so, as not only to have presented to him, on their parting, at Malta, a consi- and the long list of calamities, such as stumb derable sum of money, but to have subseling horses, want of tea!!! &c., which quently designed for him, as the reader will learn, a still more munificent, as well as permanent, provision. Though he occasionally made excursions through Attica and the Morea, his headquarters were fixed at Athens, where he had taken lodgings in a Francisan convent, and, in the intervals of his tours, employed himself in collecting materials for those notices on the state of modern Greece which he has appended to the second canto of Childe Harold. In this retreat, also, as if in utter defiance of the "genius loci," he wrote his "Hints from Horace," a Satire which, impregnated as it is with London life from beginning to end, bears the date, Athens, Capuchin Convent, March 12. 1811." 66 From the few remaining letters addressed to his mother, I shall content myself with selecting the two following: cumbrance. assailed him, would have made a lasting "It is probable I may steer homewards in spring; but to enable me to do that, I must have remittances. My own funds would have lasted me very well; but I was obliged to assist a friend, who, I know, will pay me; but, in the mean time, I am out of pocket. At present, I do not care to venture a tired of travelling; but I am so convinced of winter's voyage, even if I were otherwise the advantages of looking at mankind instead of reading about them, and the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an islander, that I think there should be a law amongst us, to set our young men abroad, for a term, among the few allies our wars have left us. "Here I see and have conversed with French, Italians, Germans, Danes, Greeks, Turks, Americans, &c. &c. &c.; and without losing sight of my own, I can judge of the countries and manners of others. Where I see the superiority of England (which, by the by, we are a good deal mistaken about in many things), I am pleased, and where I find her inferior, I am at least enlightened. Now, I might have stayed, smoked in your towns, or fogged in your country, a century, without being sure of this, and without acquiring any thing more useful or amusing at home. I keep no journal, nor have I any intention of scribbling my travels. I have done with authorship, and if, in my last production, I have convinced the critics or the world I was something more than they took me for, I am satisfied; nor will I hazard that reputation by a future effort. It is true I have some others in manuscript, but I leave them for those who come after me; and, if deemed worth publishing, they may serve to prolong my memory when I myself shall cease to remember. I have a famous Bavarian artist taking some views of Athens, &c. &c. for me. This will be better than scribbling, a disease I hope myself cured of. I hope, on my return, to lead a quiet, recluse life, but God knows and does best for us all; at least, so they say, and I have nothing to object, as, on the whole, I have no reason to complain of my lot. I am convinced, however, that men do more harm to themselves than ever the devil could do to them. I trust this will find you well, and as happy as we can be; you will, at least, be pleased to hear I am so, and yours ever." 66 LETTER 50. TO MRS. BYRON. "Athens, February 28. 1811. Dear Madam, "As I have received a firman for Egypt, &c., I shall proceed to that quarter in the spring, and I beg you will state to Mr. Hanson that it is necessary to further remittances. On the subject of Newstead, I answer as before, No. If it is necessary to sell, sell Rochdale. Fletcher will have arrived by this time with my letters to that purport. I will tell you fairly, I have, in the first place, no opinion of funded property; if, by any particular circumstances, I shall be led to adopt such a determination, I will, at all events, pass my life abroad, as my only tie to England is Newstead, and, that once gone, neither interest nor inclination lead me northward. Competence in your country is ample wealth in the East, 115 such is the difference in the value of money and the abundance of the necessaries of life; and I feel myself so much a citizen of the world, that the spot where I can enjoy a delicious climate, and every luxury, at a less expense than a common college life in England, will always be a country to me; and such are in fact the shores of the Archipelago. This then is the alternative - if I preserve Newstead, I return; if I sell it, I stay away. I have had no letters since yours of June, but I have written several times, and shall continue, as usual, on the same plan. Believe me yours ever, "BYRON. "P. S.-I shall most likely see you in the course of the summer, but, of course, at such a distance, I cannot specify any particular month.". "Volage Frigate, at sea, June 29. 1811. "In a week, with a fair wind, we shall be at Portsmouth, and on the 2d of July I shall have completed (to a day) two years of peregrination, from which I am returning with as little emotion as I set out. I think, upon the whole, I was more grieved at leaving Greece than England, which I am impatient to see, simply because I am tired of a long voyage. 66 Indeed, my prospects are not very pleasant. Embarrassed in my private affairs, indifferent to public, solitary without the wish to be social, with a body a little enfeebled by a succession of fevers, but a spirit I trust, yet unbroken, I am returning home without a hope, and almost without a desire. The first thing I shall have to encounter will be a lawyer, the next a creditor, then colliers, farmers, surveyors, and all the agreeable attachments to estates out of repair, and contested coal-pits. In short, I am sick and sorry, and when I have a little repaired my irreparable affairs, away I shall march, either to campaign in Spain, or back again to the East, where I can at least have cloudless skies and a cessation from impertinence. "I trust to meet, or see you, in town, or at Newstead, whenever you can make it convenient- I suppose you are in love and in poetry as usual. That husband, H. Drury, has never written to me, albeit I have sent him more than one letter; but I dare say the poor man has a family, and of course all his cares are confined to his circle. "For children fresh expenses get, And Dicky now for school is fit.' WARTON. If you see him, tell him I have a letter for him from Tucker, a regimental chirurgeon and friend of his, who prescribed for me, *** and is a very worthy man, but too fond of hard words. I should be too late for a speech-day, or I should probably go down to Harrow. I regretted very much in Greece having omitted to carry the Anthology with me I mean Bland and Merivale's. What has Sir Edgar done? And the Imitations and Translations where are they? I suppose you don't mean to let the public off so easily, but charge them home with a quarto. For me, I am sick of fops, and poesy, and prate,' and shall leave the whole Castalian state' to Bufo, or any body else. 1 But you are a sentimental and sensibilitous person, and will rhyme to the end of the chapter. Howbeit, I have written some 4000 lines, of one kind or another, on my travels. "I need not repeat that I shall be happy to see you. I shall be in town about the 8th, at Dorant's Hotel, in Albemarle Street, and proceed in a few days to Notts., and thence to Rochdale on business. "I am, here and there, yours," &c. LETTER 52. TO MRS. BYRON. "Volage frigate, at sea, June 25. 1811. "Dear Mother, "This letter, which will be forwarded on our arrival at Portsmouth, probably about the 4th of July, is begun about twenty-three days after our departure from Malta. I have just been two years (to a day, on the 2d of July) absent from England, and I return to it with much the same feelings which prevailed on my departure, viz. indifference; but within that apathy I certainly do not comprise yourself, as I will prove by every means in my power. You will be good enough to get my apartments ready at Newstead; but don't disturb yourself, on any account, particularly mine, nor consider me in any other light than as a visiter. I must only inform you that for a long time 1 [" And sick of fops, and poetry, and prate, To Bufo leave the whole Castalian state."-POPE.] I have been restricted to an entire vegetable diet, neither fish nor flesh coming within my regimen; so I expect a powerful stock of potatoes, greens, and biscuit: I drink no wine. I have two servants, middle-aged men, and both Greeks. It is my intention to proceed first to town, to see Mr. Hanson, and thence to Newstead, on my way to Rochdale. I have only to beg you will not forget my diet, which it is very necessary for me to observe. I am well in health, as I have generally been, with the exception of two agues, both of which I quickly got over. 66 'My plans will so much depend on circumstances, that I shall not venture to lay down an opinion on the subject. My prospects are not very promising, but I suppose we shall wrestle through life like our neighbours; indeed, by Hanson's last advices, I have some apprehension of finding Newstead dismantled by Messrs. Brothers, &c., and he seems determined to force me into selling it, but he will be baffled. I don't suppose I shall be much pestered with visiters; but if I am, you inust receive them, for I am determined to have nobody breaking in upon my retirement: you know that I never was fond of society, and I am less so than before. I have brought you a shawl, and a quantity of attar of roses, but these 1 must smuggle, if possible. I trust to find my library in tolerable order. "Fletcher is no doubt arrived. I shall separate the mill from Mr. B**'s farm, for his son is too gay a deceiver to inherit both, and place Fletcher in it, who has served me faithfully, and whose wife is a good woman; besides, it is necessary to sober young Mr. B * *, or he will people the parish with bastards. In a word, if he had seduced a dairy-maid, he might have | found something like an apology; but the girl is his equal, and in high life or low life reparation is made in such circumstances. But I shall not interfere further than (like Buonaparte) by dismembering Mr. B.'s kingdom, and erecting part of it into a principality for field-marshal Fletcher! I hope you govern my little empire and its sad load of national debt with a wary hand. To drop || my metaphor, I beg leave to subscribe myself. BYRON." "Yours ever. “P. S. July 14.—This letter was written to be sent from Portsmouth, but, on arriving there, the squadron was ordered to the Nore, from whence I shall forward it. This I have not done before, supposing you might be alarmed by the interval mentioned in the We "After two years' absence (on the 2d) and some odd days, I am approaching your country. The day of our arrival you will see by the outside date of my letter. At present, we are becalmed comfortably, close to Brest Harbour; - I have never been so near it since I left Duck Puddle. left Malta thirty-four days ago, and have had a tedious passage of it. You will either see or hear from or of me, soon after the receipt of this, as I pass through town to repair my irreparable affairs; and thence I want to go to Notts. and raise rents, and to Lancs. and sell collieries, and back to London and pay debts, for it seems I shall neither have coals nor comfort till I go down to Rochdale in person. 2. "I have brought home some marbles for Hobhouse ;- for myself, four ancient Athenian skulls', dug out of sarcophagia phial of Attic hemlock 2— four live tortoises a greyhound (died on the passage)-two live Greek servants, one an Athenian, t'other a Yaniote, who can speak nothing but Romaic and Italian-and myself, as Moses in the Vicar of Wakefield says, slily, and I may say it too, for I have as little cause to boast of my expedition as he had of his to the fair. 3 "I wrote to you from the Cyanean Rocks to tell you I had swam from Sestos to Abydos-have you received my letter? Hodgson, I suppose, is four deep by this time. What would he have given to have seen, like me, the real Parnassus, where I robbed the Bishop of Chrissæ of a book of geography!-but this I only call plagiarism, as it was done within an hour's ride of Delphi." 1 Given afterwards to Sir Walter Scott. * At present in the possession of Mr. Murray. 3 ["Welcome, welcome, Moses! well, my boy, what have you brought us from the fair?' I have brought you myself,' cried Moses, with a sly look, and resting the box on the dresser."— Vicar of Wakefield, ch. xii.] • ["We cannot agree with Mr. Moore in thinking that Byron's life at Harrow was 'the very reverse of poetical.' That life is the most poetical which is the fullest of impulses; and Byron's life at Harrow was full to overflowing RETURN TO ENGLAND. EFFECT OF TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE ON THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF LORD BYRON. PECUNIARY EMBARRASSMENTS. FALSE JUDGMENTS OF AUTHORS RESPECTING THEIR OWN PRODUCTIONS. PASSAGES FROM THE PARAPHRASE ON HORACE. PREPARATIONS FOR THE PUBLICATION OF CHILDE HAROLD. ACQUAINTANCE WITH MR. MURRAY. HAVING landed the young pilgrim once more in England, it may be worth while, before we accompany him into the scenes that awaited him at home, to consider how far the general character of his mind and disposition may have been affected by the course of travel and adventure in which he had been, for the last two years, engaged. A life less savouring of poetry and romance than that which he had pursued previously to his departure on his travels, it would be difficult to imagine. In his childhood, it is true, he had been a dweller and wanderer among scenes well calculated, according to the ordinary notion, to implant the first rudiments of poetic feeling. But, though the poet may afterwards feed on the recollection of such scenes, it is more than questionable, as has been already observed, whether he ever has been formed by them. If a childhood, indeed, passed among mountainous scenery were so favourable to the awakening of the imaginative power, both the Welsh, among ourselves, and the Swiss, abroad, ought to rank much higher on the scale of poetic excellence than they do at present. But, even allowing the picturesqueness of his early haunts to have had some share in giving a direction to the fancy of Byron, the actual operation of this influence, whatever it may have been, ceased with his childhood; and the life which he led afterwards during his school-days at Harrow, was, as naturally the life of so idle and daring a school-boy_must be, the very reverse of poetical. For a of affections and passions. He did not, during play hours, sport Tityrus sub tegmine fagi,' but, though lame, preferred cricket: and can there be any doubt that, out of school, a bat is better than a book, and the wickets a thousand times more poetical than the gates of Paradise Lost? The very bodies of rejoicing schoolboys at play are spiritual; and poetic visions swarm on every bough' of the green shady trees, rustling over their heads as they are swimming like Dracones in the milk-warm rivers of summer, or racing along the banks to dry themselves in the sunshine."-WILSON, 1830.] |