Young is said to have applied a skull', such a display might well induce some suspicion of the sincerity of his gloom, did we not, through the whole course of his subsequent life and writings, track visibly the deep vein of melancholy which nature had imbedded in his character.

Such was the state of mind and heart, as, from his own testimony and that of others, I have collected it, in which Lord Byron now set out on his indefinite pilgrimage; and never was there a change wrought in disposition and character to which Shakspeare's fancy of "sweet bells jangled out of tune more truly applied. The unwillingness of Lord Carlisle to countenance him, and his humiliating position in consequence, completed the full measure of that mortification towards which so many other causes had concurred. Baffled, as he had been, in his own ardent pursuit of affection and friendship, his sole revenge and consolation lay in doubting that any such feelings really existed. The various crosses he had met with, in themselves sufficiently irritating and wounding, were rendered still more so by the high, impatient temper with which he encountered them. What others would have bowed to, as misfortunes, his proud spirit rose against, as wrongs; and the vehemence of this re-action produced, at once, a revolution throughout his whole character?, in which, as in revolutions of the political world, all that was bad and irregular in his nature burst forth with all that was most energetic and grand. The very virtues and excellences of his disposition ministered to the violence of this change. The same ardour that had burned through his friendships and loves now fed the fierce explosions of his indignation and scorn. His natural vivacity and humour but lent a fresher flow to his bitterness', till he at last revelled in it as an indulgence; and that hatred of hypocrisy, which had hitherto only shown itself in a too shadowy colouring of his own youthful frailties, now hurried him, from his horror of all false pretensions to virtue, into the still more dangerous boast and ostentation of vice.

"Dear Mother,

"Falmouth, June 22. 1809.

"I am about to sail in a few days; probably before this reaches you. Fletcher begged so hard, that I have continued him in my service. If he does not behave well abroad, I will send him back in a transport. I have a German servant, (who has been with Mr. Wilbraham in Persia before, and was strongly recommended to me by Dr. Butler, of Harrow,) Robert and William ; they constitute my whole suite. I have letters in plenty :- you shall hear from me at the different ports I touch upon; but you must not be alarmed if my letters miscarry. The Continent is in a fine state an insurrection has broken out at Paris, and the Austrians are beating Buonaparte — the Tyrolese have risen.

"There is a picture of me in oil, to be sent down to Newstead soon. I wish the

1 [When Young was writing one of his tragedies, Grafton, according to Spence, sent him a human skull, with a candle in it as a lamp; and the poet is said to have used it. Spence's Anecdotes.]

2 Rousseau appears to have been conscious of a similar sort of change in his own nature:-" They have laboured without intermission," he says, in a letter to Madame de Boufflers, "to give to my heart, and, perhaps, at the same time to my genius, a spring and stimulus of action, which they have not inherited from nature. I was born

weak, ill treatment has made me strong."— HUME'S Private Correspondence.

3 ["Dr. Adams told me that Johnson, while he was at Pembroke College, was a gay and frolicsome fellow ;' but this is a striking proof of the fallacy of appearances, and how little any of us know of the real internal state even of those whom we see most frequently. When I mentioned to him this account, he said, Ah, sir, I was mad and violent: it was bitterness which they mistook for frolic.'"- BOSWELL, vol. i. p. 74.]

Miss Pigots had something better to do than carry my miniatures to Nottingham to copy. Now they have done it, you may ask them to copy the others, which are greater favourites than my own. As to money matters, I am ruined—at least till Rochdale is sold; and if that does not turn out well, 1 shall enter into the Austrian or Russian service- perhaps the Turkish, if I like their manners. The world is all before me, and I leave England without regret, and without a wish to revisit any thing it contains, except yourself, and your present residence.

"Believe me, yours ever sincerely.

"P. S.-Pray tell Mr. Rushton his son is well, and doing well; so is Murray, indeed better than I ever saw him; he will be back in about a month. I ought to add the leaving Murray to my few regrets, as his age perhaps will prevent my seeing him again. Robert I take with me; I like him, because, like myself, he seems a friendless animal."

To those who have in their remembrance his poetical description of the state of mind in which he now took leave of England, the gaiety and levity of the letters I am about to give will appear, it is not improbable, strange and startling. But in a temperament like that of Lord Byron, such bursts of vivacity on the surface are by no means incompatible with a wounded spirit underneath; and the light, laughing tone that pervades these letters, but makes the feeling of solitariness that breaks out in them the more striking and affecting.

The poet Cowper, it is well known, produced that masterpiece of humour, John Gilpin, during one of his fits of morbid dejection; and he himself says, Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood, and but for that saddest mood, perhaps, had never been written at all." [See Southey's Life of Cowper, vol. ii. p. 38.]

2 The reconciliation which took place between him and Dr. Butler, before his departure, is one of those instances of placability and pliableness with which his life abounded. We have seen, too, from the manner in which he mentions the circumstance in one of his notebooks, that the reconcilement was of that generously retrospective kind, in which not only the feeling of hostility is renounced in future, but a strong regret expressed that it had been ever entertained.

Not content with this private atonement to Dr. Butler, it was his intention, had he published another edition of the Hours of Idleness, to substitute for the offensive

being at last procured, by this time tomorrow evening we shall be embarked on the vide vorld of vaters, vor all the world like Robinson Crusoe. The Malta vessel not sailing for some weeks, we have determined to go by way of Lisbon, and, as my servants term it, to see that there Portingale ' — thence to Cadiz and Gibraltar, and so on our old route to Malta and Constantinople, if so be that Captain Kidd, our gallant commander, understands plain sailing and Mercator, and takes us on our voyage all according to the chart.

Will you tell Dr. Butler 2 that I have taken the treasure of a servant, Friese, the from his recommendation. He has been all native of Prussia Proper, into my service and has seen Persepolis and all that. among the Worshippers of Fire in Persia,

"Hobhouse has made woundy preparations for a book on his return; 100 pens, two gallons of japan ink, and several volumes of best blank, is no bad provision for a discernhave promised to contribute a chapter on ing public. I have laid down my pen, but the state of morals, &c. &c.

verses against that gentleman a frank avowal of the wrong he had been guilty of in giving vent to them. This fact, so creditable to the candour of his nature, I learn from a loose sheet in his hand-writing, containing the following corrections. In place of the passage beginning" Or if my Muse a pedant's portrait drew," he meant to insert

"If once my Muse a harsher portrait drew,

Warm with her wrongs, and deem'd the likeness true, By cooler judgment taught, her fault she owns,— With noble minds a fault, confessed, atones." And to the passage immediately succeeding his warm praise of Dr. Drury" Pomposus fills his magisterial chair," it was his intention to give the following turn: "Another fills his magisterial chair;

Reluctant Ida owns a stranger's care;

Oh may like honours crown his future name,-
If such his virtues, such shall be his fame."

"We are going to Lisbon first, because the Malta packet has sailed, d'ye see? from Lisbon to Gibraltar, Malta, Constantinople, and all that,' as Orator Henley said, when he put the Church, and all that,' in danger. I

"This town of Falmouth, as you will partly conjecture, is no great ways from the sea. It is defended on the sea-side by tway castles, St. Maws and Pendennis, extremely well calculated for annoying every body except an enemy. St. Maws is garrisoned by an able-bodied person of fourscore, a widower. He has the whole command and sole management of six most unmanageable pieces of ordnance, admirably adapted for the destruction of Pendennis, a like tower of strength on the opposite side of the Channel. We have seen St. Maws, but Pendennis they will not let us behold, save at a distance, because Hobhouse and I are suspected of having already taken St. Maws by a coup de main.

"The town contains many Quakers and salt fish-the oysters have a taste of copper, owing to the soil of a mining country — the women (blessed be the Corporation therefor!) are flogged at the cart's tail when they pick and steal, as happened to one of the fair sex yesterday noon. She was pertinacious in her behaviour, and damned the

mavor.

"I don't know when I can write again, because it depends on that experienced navigator, Captain Kidd, and the 'stormy winds that (don't) blow' at this season. I leave England without regret - I shall return to it without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first convict sentenced to transportation, but I have no Eve, and have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab;and thus ends my first chapter. Adieu.

"Yours," &c.

In this letter the following lively verses were enclosed :· :

"Falmouth Roads, June 30. 1809.

"Huzza! Hodgson, we are going, Our embargo's off at last; Favourable breezes blowing

Bend the canvass o'er the mast. From aloft the signal's streaming, Hark! the farewell gun is fired, Women screeching, tars blaspheming, Tell us that our time's expired.

[Henley, in one of his publications entitled " Oratory Transactions," engaged "to execute singly what would sprain a dozen of modern doctors of the tribe of Issachar -to write, read, and study twelve hours a day, and yet appear as untouched by the yoke as if he never wore it

Here's a rascal

Come to task all,

Prying from the Custom-house; Trunks unpacking,

Cases cracking,

Not a corner for a mouse

'Scapes unsearch'd amid the racket,
Ere we sail on board the Packet.
"Now our boatmen quit their mooring,
And all hands must ply the oar;
Baggage from the quay is lowering,

We're impatient-push from shore.
Have a care! that case holds liquor-
Stop the boat I'm sick - oh Lord!'
'Sick, ma'am, damme, you'll be sicker
Ere you've been an hour on board.'
Thus are screaming
Men and women,
Gemmen, ladies, servants, Jacks;
Here entangling,

All are wrangling,

Stuck together close as wax.Such the general noise and racket,

Ere we reach the Lisbon Packet. "Now we've reach'd her, lo! the captain, Gallant Kidd, commands the crew; Passengers their berths are clapt in,

Some to grumble, some to spew. Hey day! call you that a cabin? Why 'tis hardly three feet square; Not enough to stow Queen Mab inWho the deuce can harbour there ?' Who, sir? plentyNobles twenty

Did at once my vessel fill' 'Did they? Jesus,

How you squeeze us!
Would to God they did so still:
Then I'd scape the heat and racket,
Of the good ship, Lisbon Packet.'
"Fletcher! Murray! Bob! where are you?

Stretch'd along the deck like logs -
Bear a hand, you jolly tar you!
Here's a rope's end for the dogs.
Hobhouse muttering fearful curses,
As the hatchway down he rolls;
Now his breakfast, now his verses,
Vomits forth- and damns our souls.
Here's a stanza

On Braganza

Help!' A couplet ?'-' No, a cup
Of warm water.'-
'What's the matter ?'
Zounds! my liver's coming up;

I shall not survive the racket
Of this brutal Lisbon Packet.'

"Now at length we're off for Turkey,
Lord knows when we shall come back!
Breezes foul and tempests murky

May unship us in a crack.

But, since life at most a jest is,

As philosophers allow,

Still to laugh by far the best is,
Then laugh on- as I do now.

-to teach in one year what schools or universities teach in five;" and he furthermore pledged himself to persevere in his bold scheme, until he had " put the Church, and all that, in danger."]

Ær. 21.

91

Laugh at all things,

Great and small things,

Sick or well, at sea or shore;

While we're quaffing,

Let's have laughing

Who the devil cares for more ?

Some good wine! and who would lack it, Ev'n on board the Lisbon Packet?

"BYRON."

On the 2d of July the packet sailed from Falmouth, and, after a favourable passage of four days and a half, the voyagers reached Lisbon, and took up their abode in that city. 1

The following letters, from Lord Byron to his friend Mr. Hodgson, though written in his most light and schoolboy strain, will give some idea of the first impressions that his residence in Lisbon made upon him. Such letters, too, contrasted with the noble stanzas on Portugal in "Childe Harold," will show how various were the moods of his versatile mind, and what different aspects it could take when in repose or on the wing.

LETTER 37. TO MR. HODGSON.

"Lisbon, July 16. 1809. "Thus far have we pursued our route, and seen all sorts of marvellous sights, palaces, convents, &c. ;- which, being to be heard in my friend Hobhouse's forthcoming Book of Travels, I shall not anticipate by smuggling any account whatsoever to you in a private and clandestine manner. I must just observe, that the village of Cintra in Estremadura is the most beautiful, perhaps, in the world.

"I am very happy here, because I loves oranges, and talk bad Latin to the monks, who understand it, as it is like their own,and I goes into society (with my pocketpistols), and I swims in the Tagus all across at once, and I rides on an ass or a mule, and swears Portuguese, and have got a diarrhoea and bites from the musquitoes. But what of that? Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a pleasuring.

"When the Portuguese are pertinacious, I say, 'Carracho!'-the great oath of the grandees, that very well supplies the place

1 Lord Byron used sometimes to mention a strange story, which the commander of the packet, Captain Kidd, related to him on the passage. This officer stated that, being asleep one night in his berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something heavy on his limbs, and, there being a faint light in the room, could see, as he thought, distinctly, the figure of his brother, who was at that time in the naval service in the East Indies, dressed in his uniform, and stretched across the bed. Concluding it to be an illusion of the senses, he shut his eyes and made an effort to sleep. But still the same pressure continued, and still, as often as he ventured to take another look,

of Damme,' and, when dissatisfied with my neighbour, I pronounce him' Ambra di merdo.' With these two phrases, and a third, 'Avra bouro,' which signifieth ‘Get an ass,' I am universally understood to be a person of degree and a master of languages. How merrily we lives that travellers be! if we had food and raiment. But, in sober sadness, any thing is better than England, and I am infinitely amused with my pilgrimage as far as it has gone.

"To-morrow we start to ride post near 400 miles as far as Gibraltar, where we embark for Melita and Byzantium. A letter to Malta will find me, or to be forwarded, if I am absent. Pray embrace the Drury and Dwyer, and all the Ephesians you encounter. I am writing with Butler's donative pencil, which makes my bad hand worse. Excuse illegibility.

"Hodgson! send me the news, and the deaths and defeats and capital crimes and the misfortunes of one's friends; and let us hear of literary matters, and the controversies and the criticisms. All this will be pleasant-Suave mari magno,' &c. Talking of that, I have been sea-sick, and sick of the

sea.

"Adieu. Yours faithfully," &c.

LETTER 38. TO MR. HODGSON.

"Gibraltar, August 6. 1809.

"I have just arrived at this place after a journey through Portugal, and a part of Spain, of nearly 500 miles. We left Lisbon and travelled on horseback to Seville and Cadiz, and thence in the Hyperion frigate to Gibraltar. The horses are excellent we rode seventy miles a day. Eggs and wine, and hard beds, are all the accommodation we found, and, in such torrid weather, quite enough. My health is better than in England.

"Seville is a fine town, and the Sierra Morena, part of which we crossed, a very sufficient mountain; but damn description, it is always disgusting. Cadiz, sweet Cadiz!

it is the first spot in the creation. The beauty of its streets and mansions is only excelled by the loveliness of its inhabitants. For, with all national prejudice, I must con

he saw the figure lying across him in the same position. To add to the wonder, on putting his hand forth to touch this form, he found the uniform, in which it appeared to be dressed, dripping wet. On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom he called out in alarm, the apparition vanished; but in a few months after he received the startling intelligence that on that night his brother had been drowned in the Indian seas. Of the supernatural character of this appearance, Captain Kidd himself did not appear to have the slightest doubt.

2 The baggage and part of the servants were sent by sea to Gibraltar.

"You will not expect a long letter after my riding so far on hollow pampered jades of Asia. Talking of Asia puts me in mind of Africa, which is within five miles of my present residence. I am going over before I go on to Constantinople.

Cadiz is a complete Cythera. Many of the grandees who have left Madrid during the troubles reside there, and I do believe it is the prettiest and cleanest town in Europe. London is filthy in the comparison. The Spanish women are all alike, their education the same. The wife of a duke is, in information, as the wife of a peasant,- the wife of peasant, in manner, equal to a duchess. Certainly they are fascinating; but their minds have only one idea, and the business of their lives is intrigue.

66

I have seen Sir John Carr at Seville and Cadiz, and, like Swift's barber, have been down on my knees to beg he would not put me into black and white. Pray remember me to the Drurys and the Davies, and all of that stamp who are yet extant. 2 Send me

a letter and news to Malta. My next epistle shall be from Mount Caucasus or Mount Sion. I shall return to Spain before I see England, for I am enamoured of the country. 'Adieu, and believe me," &c.

66

1 ["Once stopping at an inn at Dundalk, the Dean was so much amused with a prating barber, that rather than be alone he invited him to dinner. The fellow was rejoiced at this unexpected honour, and being dressed out in his best apparel came to the inn, first inquiring of the groom what the clergyman's name was who had so kindly invited him. 'What the vengeance,' said the servant, don't you know Dean Swift?' At which the barber turned pale, and running into the house fell upon his knees and intreated the Dean not to put him into print; for that he was a poor barber, had a large family to maintain, and if his reverence put him into black and white he should lose all his customers.' Swift laughed heartily at the poor fellow's simplicity, bade him sit down and eat his dinner in peace, for he assured him he would neither put him nor his wife in print."— Sheridan's Life of Swift.]

2 "This sort of passage," says Mr. Hodgson, in a note

scription, natural and artificial. Palaces and gardens rising in the midst of rocks, cataracts, and precipices; convents on stupendous heights-a distant view of the sea and the Tagus; and, besides (though that is a secondary consideration), is remarkable as the scene of Sir Hew Dalrymple's Convention. It unites in itself all the wildness of the western highlands, with the verdure of the south of France. Near this place, about ten miles to the right, is the palace of Mafra, the boast of Portugal, as it might be of any other country, in point of magnificence without elegance. There is a convent annexed; the monks, who possess large revenues, are courteous enough, and understand Latin, so that we had a long conversation: they have a large library, and asked me if the English had any books in their country?"

An adventure which he met with at Seville, characteristic both of the country and of himself, is thus described in the same letter to Mrs. Byron :

"We lodged in the house of two Spanish unmarried ladies, who possess six houses in Seville, and gave me a curious specimen of Spanish manners. They are women of character, and the eldest a fine woman, the youngest pretty, but not so good a figure as Donna Josepha. The freedom of manner, which is general here, astonished me not a little; and in the course of further observ. ation, I find that reserve is not the characteristic of the Spanish belles, who are, in general, very handsome, with large black eyes, and very fine forms. The eldest honoured your unworthy son with very particular attention, embracing him with great tenderness at parting (I was there but three days), after cutting off a lock of his hair, and presenting him with one of her own, about three feet in length, which I send, and beg you will retain till my return. Her last words were, Adios, tu hermoso! me gusto

on his copy of this letter, "constantly occurs in his correspondence. Nor was his interest confined to mere remembrances and inquiries after health. Were it possible to state all he has done for numerous friends, he would appear amiable indeed. For myself, I am bound to acknowledge, in the fullest and warmest manner, his most generous and well-timed aid; and, were my poor friend Bland alive, he would as gladly bear the like testimony;-though I have most reason, of all men, to do so."

3 The filthiness of Lisbon and its inhabitants.

4 Colonel Napier, in a note in his able History of the Peninsular War, notices the mistake into which Lord Byron and others were led on this subject; the signature of the Convention, as well as all the other proceedings connected with it, having taken place at a distance of thirty miles from Cintra. [See Works, p. 67.]