'April 21. 1813. "I shall be in town by Sunday next, and will call and have some conversation on the subject of Westall's designs. I am to sit to him for a picture at the request of a friend of mine; and as Sanders's is not a good one, you will probably prefer the other. I wish you to have Sanders's taken down and sent to my lodgings immediately before my arrival. I hear that a certain malicious publication on Waltzing is attributed to me. This report, I suppose, you will take care to contradict, as the author, I am sure, will not like that I should wear his cap and bells. Mr. Hobhouse's quarto will be out immediately; pray send to the author for an early copy, which I wish to take abroad with me. P. S.-I see the Examiner threatens some observations upon you next week. What can you have done to share the wrath which has heretofore been principally expended upon the Prince? I presume all your Scribleri will be drawn up in battle array in defence of the modern Tonson - - Mr. Bucke, for instance. "Send in my account to Bennet Street, as I wish to settle it before sailing." In the month of May appeared his wild and beautiful "Fragment," The Giaour; and though, in its first flight from his hands, some of the fairest feathers of its wing were yet wanting, the public hailed this new offspring of his genius with wonder and delight. The idea of writing a poem in fragments had been suggested to him by the Columbus of Mr. Rogers; and, whatever objections may lie against such a plan in general, it must be allowed to have been well suited to the impatient temperament of Byron, as enabling him to overleap those mechanical difficulties, which, in a regular narrative, embarrass, if not chill, the poet, leaving it to the imagination of his readers to fill up the intervals between those abrupt bursts of passion in which his chief power lay. The story, too, of the poem possessed that stimulating charm for him, almost indispensable to his fancy, of being in some degree connected with himself, - - an event in which he had been personally concerned, while on his travels, having supplied the groundwork on which the fiction was founded. After the appearance of The Giaour, some incorrect statement of this romantic incident having got into circulation, the noble author requested of his friend, the Marquis of Sligo, 'My dear Byron, 66 : -- Albany, Monday, August 31. 1813. You have requested me to tell you all that I heard at Athens about the affair of that girl who was so near being put an end to while you were there; you have asked me to mention every circumstance, in the remotest degree relating to it, which I heard. In compliance with your wishes, I write to you all I heard, and I cannot imagine it to be very far from the fact, as the circumstance happened only a day or two before I arrived at Athens, and, consequently, was a matter of common conversation at the time. "The new governor, unaccustomed to have the same intercourse with the Christians as his predecessor, had of course the barbarous Turkish ideas with regard to women. In consequence, and in compliance with the strict letter of the Mahommedan law, he ordered this girl to be sewed up in a sack, and thrown into the sea, - as is, indeed, quite customary at Constantinople. As you were returning from bathing in the Piræus, you met the procession going down to execute the sentence of the Waywode on this unfortunate girl. Report continues to say, that on finding out what the object of their journey was, and who was the miserable sufferer, you immediately interfered; and on some delay in obeying your orders, you were obliged to inform the leader of the escort, that force should make him comply ; — that, on farther hesitation, you drew a pistol, and told him, that if he did not immediately obey your orders, and come back with you to the Aga's house, you would shoot him dead. On this the man turned about and went with you to the governor's house; here you succeeded, partly by personal threats, and partly by bribery and entreaty, in procuring her pardon, on condition of her leaving Athens. I was told that you then conveyed her in safety to the convent, and despatched her off at night to Thebes, where she found a safe asylum. Such is the story I heard, as nearly as I can recollect it at present. Should you wish to ask me any further questions about it, I shall be very ready and willing to answer them. I remain, my dear Byron, "Yours, very sincerely, "SLIGO. "I am afraid you will hardly be able to read this scrawl; but I am so hurried with Of the prodigal flow of his fancy, when its sources were once opened on any subject, The Giaour affords one of the most remarkable instances, - this poem having accumulated under his hand, both in printing and through successive editions, till from four hundred lines, of which it consisted in his first copy, it at present amounts to nearly fourteen hundred. The plan, indeed, which he had adopted, of a series of fragments, - a set of "orient pearls at random strung," -left him free to introduce, without reference to more than the general complexion | of his story, whatever sentiments or images his fancy, in its excursions, could collect; and how little fettered he was by any regard to connection in these additions, appears from a note which accompanied his own copy of the paragraph commencing "Fair clime, where every season smiles," - in which he says, "I have not yet fixed the place of insertion for the following lines, but will, when I see you - as I have no copy." - Even into this new passage, rich as it was at first, his fancy afterwards poured a fresh infusion, the whole of its most picturesque portion, from the line "For there, the Rose o'er crag or vale," down to "And turns to groans his roundelay," having been suggested to him during revision. In order to show, however, that though so rapid in the first heat of composition, he formed no exception to that law which imposes labour as the price of perfection, I shall here extract a few verses from his original draft of this paragraph, by comparing which with the form they wear at present, we may learn to appreciate the value of these after-touches of the master. "Fair clime! where ceaseless summer smiles ["It is a 'fragment,' it is true; but it reads like one of those old woful tragic ballads, in which the hiatus seem caused by the falling away of all needless stanzas, and the stream of suffering leaps darkly and foamingly over each chasm in the rocks."- WILSON.] The following are the lines in their present shape, and it will be seen that there is not a single alteration in which the music of the verse has not been improved as well as the thought: — "Fair clime! where every season smiles Benignant o'er those blessed isles, Which, seen from far Colonna's height, That wakes and wafts the fragrance there." 179 Among the other passages added to this edition (which was either the third or fourth, and between which and the first there intervened but about six weeks) was that most beautiful and melancholy illustration of the lifeless aspect of Greece, beginning" He who hath bent him o'er the dead,” - of which the most gifted critic of our day 3 has justly pronounced, that "it contains an image more true, more mournful, and more exquisitely finished, than any we can recollect in the whole compass of poetry." To the same edition also were added, among other accessions of wealth 5, those lines, "The cygnet proudly walks the water," and the impassioned verses, "My memory now is but the tomb." + On my rejoining him in town this spring, I found the enthusiasm about his writings and himself, which I left so prevalent, both in the world of literature and in society, grown, if any thing, still more general and intense. In the immediate circle, perhaps, around him, familiarity of intercourse might have begun to produce its usual disenchanting effects. His own liveliness and unreserve on a more inviate acquaintance, would not be long in dispelling that charm of poetic sadness, which to the eyes of distant observers hung about him; while the romantic notions, connected by some of his fair readers with those past and nameless loves alluded to in his poems, ran some risk And if at times a transient breeze Break the blue crys ne seas, Or sweep one blossom from the trees, That wakes and wafts the odours there!" 3 Mr. Jeffrey. 4 In Dallaway's Constantinople, a book which Lord Byron is not unlikely to have consulted, I find a passage quoted from Gillies's History of Greece, which contains, perhaps, the first seed of the thought thus expanded into full perfection by genius:-" The present state of Greece compared to the ancient is the silent obscurity of the grave contrasted with the vivid lustre of active life." 5 Among the recorded instances of such happy afterthoughts in poetry may be mentioned, as one of the most memorable, Denham's four lines, "Oh could I flow like thee," &c., which were added in the second edition of his poem. of abatement from too near an acquaintance with the supposed objects of his fancy and fondness at present. A poet's mistress should remain, if possible, as imaginary a being to others, as, in most of the attributes he clothes her with, she has been to himself; the reality, however fair, being always sure to fall short of the picture which a too lavish fancy has drawn of it. Could we call up in array before us all the beauties whom the love of poets has immortalised, from the high-born dame to the plebeian damsel, from the Lauras and Sacharissas down to the Cloes and Jeannies, we should, it is to be feared, sadly unpeople our imaginations of many a bright tenant that poesy has lodged there, and find, in more than one instance, our admiration of the faith and fancy of the worshipper increased by our discovery of the worthlessness of the idol. But, whatever of its first romantic impression the personal character of the poet may, from such causes, have lost in the circle he most frequented, this disappointment of the imagination was far more than compensated by the frank, social, and engaging qualities, both of disposition and manner, which, on a nearer intercourse, he disclosed, as well as by that entire absence of any literary assumption or pedantry, which entitled him fully to the praise bestowed by Sprat upon Cowley, that few could "ever discover he was a great poet by his discourse." While thus, by his intimates, and those who had got, as it were, behind the scenes of his fame, he was seen in his true colours, as well of weakness as of aulableness, on strangers, and such as were out of this immediate circle, the spell of his poetical character still continued to operate; and the fierce gloom and sternness of his imaginary personages were, by the greater number of them, supposed to belong, not only as regarded mind, but manners, to himself. So prevalent and persevering has been this notion, that, in some disquisitions the character published since his death, and containing otherwise 1 Letters on the Character and Poetical Genius of Lord Byron, by Sir Egerton Brydges, Bart. 2 Continuus aspectus minus verendos magnos homines facit." 3 The only peculiarity that struck me on those occasions was the uneasy restlessness which he seemed to feel in wearing a hat, — an article of dress which, from his constant use of a carriage while in England, he was almost wholly unaccustomed to, and which, after that year, I do not remember to have ever seen upon him again. Abroad, he always wore a kind of foraging cap. 4 ["Such painting as this bespeaks the hand of a master; every touch brings out character; and we feel assured that the portrait is true to nature. There is ·-- many just and striking views, we find, in the professed portrait drawn of him, such features as the following: Lord Byron had a stern, direct, severe mind: a sarcastic, disdainful, gloomy temper. He had no light sympathy with heartless cheerfulness-upon the surface was sourness, discontent, displeasure, ill-will. Beneath all this weight of cloud and darkness '," &c. &c. Of the sort of double aspect which he thus presented, as viewed by the world and by his friends, he was himself fully aware; and it not only amused him, but, as a proof of the versatility of his powers, flattered his pride. He was, indeed, as I have already remarked, by no means insensible or inattentive to the effect he produced personally on society; and though the brilliant station he had attained, since the commencement of my acquaintance with him, made not the slightest alteration in the unaffectedness of his private intercourse, I could perceive, I thought, with reference to the external world, some slight changes in his conduct, which seemed indicative of the effects of his celebrity upon him. Among other circumstances, I observed that, whether from shyness of the general gaze, or from a notion, like Livy's, that men of eminence should not too much familiarise the public to their persons, he avoided showing himself in the mornings, and in crowded places, much more than was his custom when we first became acquainted. The preceding year, before his name had grown so rife and celebrated," we had gone together to the exhi- || bition at Somerset House, and other such places 3, and the true reason, no doubt, of his present reserve, in abstaining from all such miscellaneous haunts, was the sensitiveness, so often referred to, on the subject of his lameness, - a feeling which the curiosity of the public eye, now attracted to this infirmity by his fame, could not fail, he knew, to put rather painfully to the proof. 66 Among the many gay hours we passed together this spring, I remember particularly the wild flow of his spirits one evening, vindication in such free and fearless friendship which is irresistible, and we love the biographer who, by simple and undisguised truth, puts down falsehood till its tongue drops its idle venom in the dust. Strong sense and fine sentiment here glow in every line; love for the poor inhabitant below engenders no hatred towards the malignity that would fain stir and disturb his very shroud; but his eulogist is serene, in the conscious pride of being privileged to confess the frailties of him whose character, in spite of them all, was still noble-nor by any exagge ration of his virtues, any more than of his vices, would seek to wrong Byron any where, and ' least of all, Here standing by his grave.""-WILSON.] Ær. 25. LORD THURLOW. when we had accompanied Mr. Rogers home from some early assembly, and when Lord Byron, who, according to his frequent custom, had not dined for the last two days, found his hunger no longer governable, and called aloud for "something to eat." Our repast, - of his own choosing,- was simple bread and cheese; and seldom have I partaken of so joyous a supper. It happened that our host had just received a presentation copy of a volume of poems, written professedly in imitation of the old English writers, and containing, like many of these models, a good deal that was striking and beautiful, mixed up with much that was trifling, fantastic, and absurd. In our mood, at the moment, it was only with these latter qualities that either Lord Byron or I felt disposed to indulge ourselves; and, in turning over the pages, we found, it must be owned, abundant matter for mirth. In vain did Mr. Rogers, in justice to the author, endeavour to direct our attention to some of the beauties of the work:- it suited better our purpose (as is too often the case with more deliberate critics) to pounce only on such passages as ministered to the laughing humour that possessed us. In this sort of hunt through the volume, we at length lighted on the discovery that our host, in addition to his sincere approbation of some of its contents, had also the motive of gratitude for standing by its author, as one of the poems was a warm, and, I need not add, well-deserved panegyric on himself. We were, however, too far gone in nonsense for even this eulogy, in which we both so heartily agreed, to stop us. The opening line of the poem was, as well as I can recollect, When Rogers o'er this labour bent;" and Lord Byron undertook to read it aloudbut he found it impossible to get beyond the first two words. Our laughter had now increased to such a pitch that nothing could restrain it. Two or three times he began; but no sooner had the words "When Rogers" passed his lips, than our fit burst forth afresh, - till even Mr. Rogers himself, with all his feeling of our injustice, found it impossible not to join us; and we were, at last, all three, in such a state of inextinguishable laughter, that, had the author himself [Poems on several Occasions, by Edward Lord Thurlow."] ↑ He here alludes to a dinner at Mr. Rogers's, of which I have elsewhere given the following account:-" The company consisted but of Mr. Rogers himself, Lord Byron, Mr. Sheridan, and the writer of this Memoir. Sheridan knew the admiration his audience felt for him: the presence of the young poet, in particular, seemed to bring back his own youth and wit; and the details he gave of his early life were not less interesting and ani 181 mating to himself than delightful to us. It was in the course of this evening that, describing to us the poem which Mr. Whitbread had written, and sent in, among the other addresses for the opening of Drury Lane theatre, and which, like the rest, turned chiefly on allusions to the Phoenix, he said But Whitbread made more of this bird than any of them:-he entered into particulars, and described its wings, beak, tail, &c. ; — in short, it was a poulterer's description of a Phoenix."Life of Sheridan. 2. "" Then thus to form Apollo's crown. "A crown! why, twist it how you will, Thy chaplet must be foolscap still. When next you visit Delphi's town, Inquire amongst your fellow-lodgers, They'll tell you Phœbus gave his crown, Some years before your birth, to Rogers. 666 3. Let every other bring his own.' "When coals to Newcastle are carried, And owls sent to Athens as wonders, And thou shalt have plenty to spare." The mention which he makes of Sheridan in the note just cited affords a fit opportunity of producing, from one of his Journals, some particulars which he has noted down respecting this extraordinary man, for whose talents he entertained the most unbounded admiration, — rating him, in natural powers, far above all his great political contemporaries. : "In society I have met Sheridan frequently he was superb! He had a sort of liking for me, and never attacked me, at least to my face, and he did every body else -high names, and wits, and orators, some of them poets also. I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de Staël, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others (whose names, as friends, I set not down) of good fame and ability. The last time I met him was, I think, at Sir Gilbert Heathcote's, where he was as quick as ever- - no, it was not the last time; the last time was at Douglas Kin or other upon the subject of the sturdiness of the Whigs in resisting office and keeping to their principles: Sheridan turned round : -Sir, it is easy for my Lord G. or Earl G. or Marquis B. or Lord H. with thousands upon thousands a year, some of it either presently derived, or inherited in sinecure or acquisitions from the public money, to boast of their patriotism and keep aloof from temptation; but they do not know from what temptation those have kept aloof who had equal pride, at least equal talents, and not unequal passions, and nevertheless knew not in the course of their lives what it was to have a shilling of their own.' And in saying this he wept. 66 I have more than once heard him say, 'that he never had a shilling of his own.' To be sure, he contrived to extract a good many of other people's. In 1815, I had occasion to visit my lawyer in Chancery Lane; he was with Sheridan. After mutual greetings, &c., Sheridan retired first. Before recurring to my own business, I could not help inquiring that of Sheridan. Oh,' replied the attorney, the usual thing! to stave off an action from his wine-merchant, my client.'—' Well,' said I, and what do you mean to do?'-'Nothing at all for the present,' said he would you have us proceed against old Sherry? what would be the use of it?' and here he began laughing, and going over Sheridan's good gifts of conversation. "Now, from personal experience, I can vouch that my attorney is by no means the tenderest of men, or particularly accessible to any kind of impression out of the statute or record; and yet Sheridan, in half an hour, had found the way to soften and seduce him in such a manner, that I almost think he would have thrown his client (an honest man, with all the laws, and some justice, on his side) out of the window, had he come in at the moment. "Such was Sheridan! he could soften an attorney! There has been nothing like it since the days of Orpheus. "One day I saw him take up his own Monody on Garrick.' He lighted upon the Dedication to the Dowager Lady Spencer. On seeing it, he flew into a rage, and exclaimed, that it must be a forgery, that he had never dedicated any thing of his to such a d-d canting,' &c. &c. &c. - and so went on for half an hour abusing his own dedication, or at least the object of it. If all writers were equally sincere, it would be ludicrous. |