36 R. ESTERQUEST B B996 0 1 mo PREFACE. IN presenting these volumes to the public I should have felt, I own, considerable diffidence, from a sincere distrust. in my own powers of doing justice to such a task, were I not well convinced that there is in the subject itself, and in the rich variety of materials here brought to illustrate it, a degree of attraction and interest which it would be difficult, even for hands the most unskilful, to extinguish. However lamentable were the circumstances under which Lord Byron became estranged from his country, to his long absence from England, during the most brilliant period of his powers, we are indebted for all those interesting letters which are to be found in the latter part of this volume, and which will be found equal, if not superior, in point of vigour, variety and liveliness, to any that have yet adorned this branch of our literature. What has been said of Petrarch, that "his correspondence and verses together afford the progressive interest of a narrative in which the poet is always identified with the man," will be found applicable, in a far 775734 greater degree, to Lord Byron, in whom the literary and the personal character were so closely interwoven, that to have left his works without the instructive commentary which his Life and Correspondence afford, would have been equally an injustice both to himself and to the world. THOMAS MOORE. LIFE AND LETTERS OF LORD BYRON. 1. It has been said of Lord Byron, that "he was prouder of being a descendant of those Byrons of Normandy, who accompanied William the Conqueror into England, than of having been the author of Childe Harold and Manfred." This is not altogether unfounded in truth. In the character of the noble Poet, the pride of ancestry was one of the most decided features; and, as far as antiquity alone gives lustre to descent, he had every reason to boast of the claims of his race. Its antiquity was not the only distinction by which the name of Byron came recommended to its inheritor. Of the better known exploits of the family, it is sufficient, perhaps, to say, that at the siege of Calais, under Edward III., and on the fields of Cressy, Bosworth, and Marston Moor, the name of the Byrons reaped honours both of rank and fame. It was in the reign of Henry VIII., on the dissolution of the monasteries, that, by a royal grant, the church and priory of Newstead, with the lands adjoining, were added to the possessions of the Byron family. At the coronation of James I. a representative of the family was made a knight of the Bath. The inroads of pecuniary embarrassment begun to be experienced by this ancient house. From the reign of Charles I. the nobility of the family date its origin. In 1643, Sir John Byron was created Baron Byron of Rochdale. Through almost every page of the History of the Civil Wars, we trace his name in connection with the fortunes of the king, and find him faithful, persevering, and disinterested to the last. By the maternal side Lord Byron had to pride himself on a line of ancestry as illustrious as any that Scotland can boast,his mother was one of the Gordons of Gight, descended from Sir William Gordon, third son of the Earl of Huntley, by the daughter of James I. In the Civil Wars, seven brothers of the Byron family died on the field at Edgehill. It was about 1750, that the shipwreck and sufferings of Mr. Byron (grandfather of the illustrious subject of these pages), awakened the attention and sympathy of the public. Not long after, notoriety attached itself to two other members of the family,--one, the grand uncle of the Poet, and the other, his father. The former, in 1765, stood his trial before the House of Peers for killing, in a duel, or rather scuffle, his relation and neighbour, Mr. Chaworth; and the latter, having carried off to the Continent the wife of Lord Carmarthen, on the noble marquis obtaining a divorce from the lady, married her. Of this short union one daughter only was the issue, the Honourable Augusta Byron, wife of Colonel Leigh. Lord Byron combined in his own nature some of the best and, perhaps, worst qualities that lie scattered through the various characters of his predecessors,-the generosity, the love of enterprize, the high-mindedness of some of the better spirits of his race, with the irregular passions, the eccentricity, and daring recklessness of the world's opinion, that so much characterised others. The first wife of his father having died in 1784, he, in 1785, married Miss Catherine Gordon, only child and heiress of George Gordon, Esq., of Gight. In addition to the estate of Gight, in former times more extensive, this lady possessed, in money, bank shares, &c., no inconsiderable property; and it was to gain relief from his debts that Mr. Byron paid his addresses to her. On her marriage there appeared a ballad, reprinted in a collection of the "Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland" and it bears testimony both to the reputation of the lady for wealth, and that of her husband for rakery and extravagance: "MISS GORDON OF GIGHT. "O whare are ye gaen, bonny Miss Gordon, O whare are ye gaen, sae bonny an' braw? "This youth is a rake, frae England he's come; "The shooten' o' guns, an' rattlin' o' drums, Soon after the marriage, at Bath, Mr. Byron and his lady removed to their estate in Scotland. The chasm of debt, in which her fortune was to be swallowed up, now opened upon the eyes of the ill-fated heiress. In 1786, she and her husband left Scotland! * About £18,000, as per items, in 4to edition |