Harold electrified the mass of readers, and placed at once upon Lord Byron's head the garland for which other men of genius have toiled long and obtained late. He became pre-eminent among the literary men of his country by general acclamation. Those who had so mercilessly censured his juvenile essays were the first to pay homage to his more matured efforts; while others, who saw in the sentiments of Childe Harold much to regret and censure, did not withhold their tribute of applause to the depth of thought and force of expression which animated the « Pilgrimage.» Thus, as all admired the poem, all were prepared to greet the author with that fame which is the poet's best reward. It was amidst such feelings of admiration that Lord Byron fully entered on that public stage where, to the close of his life, he made so distinguished a figure. on various occasions of rest and emotion, knew that their proper language was that of melaucholy, which sometimes interrupted even his gayest and most happy moments. The following verses are said to have dropped from his pen, to excuse a transient expression of melancholy which overclouded the general gaiety: When from the heart where Sorrow sits, And clouds the brow, or fills the eye- And bleed within their silent cell. It was impossible to notice a dejection belonging neither to the rank, the age, nor the success of this young uobleman, without feeling an indefinable curiosity to ascertain whether it had a Every thing in his manner, person, and conversation tended to maintain the charm which his genius had flung around him; and those ad-deeper cause than habit or constitutional temperamitted to his conversation, far from finding that the inspired poet sunk into ordinary mortality, felt themselves attached to him by many noble qualities, and by the interest of a mysterious and almost painful curiosity. it ment. But, howsoever derived, this appearance of melancholy, added to his mingling in amusements and sports as if he contemned them, while he felt that his sphere was far above the fashionable and frivolous crowd that surrounded him, gave a strong effect of colouring to a character whose tints were otherwise decidedly romantic. Noble and far It is well known how wide the doors of society are opened in London to literary merit very inferior to Lord Byron's, and that it is only neces-descended, the pilgrim of distant and savage sary to be honourably distinguished by the public countries, eminent as a poet, and having cast voice to move as a denizen in the first circles. around him a mysterious charm by the sombre This passport was not necessary to Lord Byron, tone of his poetry and the occasional melancholy who possessed the hereditary claims of birth and of his deportment, Lord Byron occupied the eyes rauk. But the interest which his genius attached and interested the feelings of all. The enthuto his presence and conversation, was of a nature siastic looked on him to admire, the serious with far beyond what these hereditary claims could of a wish to admonish, and the gentle with a desire themselves have conferred, and his reception was to console. Even literary envy, a base sensation, enthusiastic beyond any thing imaginable. Lord from which perhaps this age is more free than Byron was not one of those literary men of whom any other, forgave the man whose splendour may be said, minuit præsentia famam. A counte- dimmed the fame of his competitors. The genenance, exquisitely modeled for the expression of rosity of Lord Byron's disposition, his readiness to feeling and passion, and exhibiting the remark-assist merit in distress, and to bring it forward able contrast of very dark hair and eye-brows, where unknown, deserved and obtained general with light eyes, presented to the physiognomist an interesting subject for the exercise of his art. The predominating expression was that of deep and habitual thought, which, when engaged in interesting discussion, gave way to so rapid a play of features, that a brother poet compared them to the sculpture of a beautiful alabaster At one of the fashionable parties to which the vase, seen only to perfection when lighted up noble bard was invited, His Majesty, then Prince from within. The flashes of mirth, gaiety, indig-Regent, happened to be present. Lord Byron was nation, or satirical dislike which frequently ani- at some distance when he entered the room, but, mated his countenance, might, during an even- on learning who he was, His Royal Highness sent | ing's conversation, be mistaken by a stranger for a gentleman to desire that he would be presentits habitual expression, so happily was it formed ed. Of course the presentation took place; the for them all; but those who had an opportunity Regent expressed his admiration of «Childe Haof studying his features for a length of time, and rold's Pilgrimage, and entered into a conversa regard; while his poetical effusions, poured ¦ tion which so fascinated the poet, that had it not purpose. On this occasion Byron composed the been for an accident which deferred a levee intend-, following epigram : ed to have been held the next day, he would have gone to court. Soon after, however, an unfortanate influence counteracted the effect of royal praise, and Byron permitted himself to write and speak disrespectfully of the prince. The whole of Byron's political career may be summed up in the following anecdotes: Carlisle subscribes a thousand pound Out of his rich domains; The produce of his brains: Byron retained to the last his antipathy to this relative. On reading some lines addressed to Lady Holland by the Farl of Carlisle, persuading her to reject the snuff-box bequeathed to her by NapoIcon, beginning Lady, reject the gift, etc. He immediately wrote the following parody : Lady, accept the gift a hero wore, The Earl of Carlisle having declined to introduce him to the House of Peers, he resolved to introduce himself, and accordingly went there a little before the usual hour, when he knew few of the lords would be present. On entering he appeared rather abashed and looked very pale, but, passing the woolsack, where the Chancellor Lord Eldon) was engaged in some of the ordinary routine of the house, he went directly to the table, where the oaths were administered to him. The Lord Chancellor then approached, and offered his hand in the most open friendly manner, congratulating him on his taking possession of On Byron's return from his first tour, Mr Dallas his seat. Lord Byron only placed the tips of his called upon him, and, after the usual salutations fingers in the Chancellor's hand: the latter re-inquired if he was prepared with any other work turned to his seat, and Byron, after lounging a to support the fame which he had already acfew minutes on one of the opposition benches, quired. Byron in reply delivered to him a poem, retired. To Mr Dallas, who followed him out, entitled « Hints from Horace, being a paraphrase he gave as a reason for not entering into the spirit of the Art of Poetry. Mr Dallas promised to suof the Chancellor, that it might have been sup- perintend its publication as he had done that of posed he would join the court party, whereas he the satire; and, accordingly, it was carried to Cawintended to have nothing at all to do with po- thorn the bookseller, and matters arranged; but Mr D. not thinking the poem likely to increase his lordship's reputation, allowed it to linger in the press. It began thus: litics.. He only addressed the house three times: the first of his speeches was on the Frame-work Bill; the second in favour of the Catholic claims, which gave good hopes of his becoming an orator; and the other related to a petition from Major Cartwright. Byron himself says, the Lords told him his manner was not dignified enough for them, and would better suit the lower house; » others say, they gathered round him while speaking, listening with the greatest attention-a sign at any rate that he was interesting. He always voted with the opposition, but evinced no likelihood of becoming the blind partisan of either side. The enmity that Byron entertained towards the Earl of Carlisle was owing to two causes: the earl had spoken rather irreverently of the Hours of Idleness, and had also refused to introduce his kinsman to the House of Lords, even, it is said, doubting his right to a seat in that honourable house. The Earl was a great admirer of the classic drama, and once published a pamphlet, in which he strenuously argued in behalf of the propriety and necessity of small theatres: the same day that this weighty publication appeared, he subscribed a thousand pounds for some public Who would not laugh if Lawrence, hired to grace Mr Dallas having expressed his sorrow that his lordship had written nothing else, Byron told him that he had occasionally composed some verses in the Spenserean measure, relative to the countries he had visited. They are not worth troubling you with, said his lordship, « but you shall have them all with you. He then handed him « Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. When Mr Dallas had read the poem, he was in raptures with it, and resolved to do his utmost to suppress the Hints from Horace, and bring out Childe Harold. He urged " or causes, however, are up to this moment involved in mystery, though, as might be expected, a wouderful sensation was excited at the time, and every description of contradictory rumour was in active circulation. G The following anecdotes on the subject of his marriage are given from Lord Byron's Conversations, in his own words: Byron to publish this last poem; but he was unwilling. He would not be convinced of the great merit of the « Childe, and as some person had seen it before Mr Dallas, and expressed disapprobation, Byron was by no means sure of its kind reception by the world. In a short time Byron was first introduced to Miss Millbank at afterwards, however, he agreed to its publication, Lady ——'s. In going up stairs he stumbled, and and requested Mr Dallas not to deal with Caw- remarked to Moore, who accompanied him, that thorn, but to offer it to Miller of Albemarle Street: it was a bad omen. On entering the room, he he wished a fashionable publisher. Miller declined perceived a lady more simply dressed than the it, chiefly on account of the strictures it contained, rest sitting on a sofa. He asked Moore if she was on Lord Elgin, whose publisher he was. Longman a humble companion to any of the ladies. The had refused to publish the « Satire,» and Byron | latter replied, She is a great heiress; you'd would not suffer any of his works to come from better marry her, and repair the old place at that house. The work was therefore carried to Newstead.» Mr Murray, who had expressed a desire to publish for Lord Byron, and regretted that Mr Dallas had not taken the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers» to him; but this was after its success. There was something piquant, and what we Byron became acquainted with Mr Hogg, the term pretty, in Miss Millbank; her features were Ettrick Shepherd, at the Lakes. Hogg was stand- small and feminine, though not regular; she had ing at the inn door of Ambleside, when a strapping | the fairest skin imaginable; her figure was peryoung man came out of the house, and taking off fect for her height, and there was a simplicity, his hat, held out his hand to him. The Shepherd retired modesty about her, which was very chadid not know him, and appearing at a loss, the racteristic, and formed a happy contrast to the other relieved him by saying, Mr Hogg, I hope cold artificial formality and studied stiffness you will excuse me; my name is Byron, and which is called fashion: she interested me excannot help thinking that we ought to hold our-ceedingly. It is unnecessary to detail the proselves acquainted.» The poets accordingly shookgress of our acquaintance: I became daily more hands, and, while they continued at the Lakes, attached to her, and it euded in my making her were on the most intimate terms, drinking deeply together, and laughing at their brother bards. On Byron's leaving the Lakes, he sent Hogg a letter quizzing the Lakists, which the Shepherd was so mischievous as to show to them. " a a proposal that was rejected; her refusal was couched in terms that could not offend me. 1 was besides persuaded that in declining my offer she was governed by the influence of her mother; and was the more confirmed in this opinion by On the 2d of January, 1815, Lord Byron mar- her reviving our correspondence herself twelve ried, at Seaham, in the county of Durham, Anne¦ months after. The tenor of her letter was, that Isabella, only daughter of Sir Ralph Millbank | although she could not love me, she desired my (since Noel), Bart. To this lady he had made a | friendship. Friendship is a dangerous word for proposal twelve months before, but was rejected: young ladies; it is love full-fledged, and waiting well would it have been for their mutual hap- for a fine day to fly. piness had that rejection been repeated. After their marriage, Lord and Lady Byron took a house in London, gave splendid dinner-parties, and launched into every sort of fashionable extravagance. This could not last long; the portion which his lordship received with Miss Millbank (ten thousand pounds) soon melted away; and, at length, an execution was actually levied on the furniture of his residence. It was then agreed that Lady Byron, who, on the 10th of December, 1815, had presented her lord with a daughter, should pay a visit to her father till the storm was blown over, and some arrangements had been made with their creditors. From that visit she never returned, and aseparation ensued, for which various reasons have been assigned; the real cause I I was not so young when my father died, but that I perfectly remember him, and had very early a horror of matrimony, from the sight of domestic broils: this feeling came over me very strongly at my wedding. Something whispered me that I was sealing my own death-warrant. am a great believer in presentiments: Socrates' demon was not a fiction; Monk Lewis had his monitor; and Napoleon many warnings. At the ¦ last moment I would have retreated if I could have done so; I called to mind a friend of mine, who had married a young, beautiful, and rich girl, and yet was miserable; he had strongly urged me against putting my neck in the same yoke: and, to show you how firmly I was resolved to attend to his advice, I betted Hay fifty I ! neas to one that I should always remain single. Six years afterwards, I sent him the money. The day before 1 proposed to Lady Byron, I had no idea of doing so. ■ It had been predicted by Mrs Williams, that twenty-seven was to be a dangerous age for me; the fortune-telling witch was right; it was destined to prove so. I shall never forget the ad of January! Lady Byron (Byrn, he pronounced it was the only unconcerned person present; Lady Noel, her mother, cried; I trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and, after the ceremony, called her Miss Millbank. a . There is a singular history attached to the iring; the very day the match was concluded, a Inng of my mother's that had been lost was dug up by the gardener at Newstead. I thought it was sent on purpose for the wedding; but my mother's marriage had not been a fortunate one, and this ring was doomed to be the seal of an unhappier union still. • After the ordeal was over, we set off for a country-seat of Sir Ralph's, and I was surprised at the arrangements for the journey, and somewhat out of humour to find a lady's maid stack between me and my bride. It was rather too early to assume the husband, so I was forced to submit, but it was not with a very good grace. I have been accused of saying, on getting into the carriage, that I had married Lady Byron out of spite, and because she had refused me twice. Though I was for a moment vexed at her pradery, or whatever it may be called, if I had made so uncavalier, not to say brutal, a speech, I am convinced Lady Byron would instantly I have left the carriage to me and the maid (I mean the lady's); she had spirit enough to have done so, and would properly have resented the affront. Our honey-moon was not all sunshine, it had its clouds; and Hobhouse has some letters which would serve to explain the rise and fall in the barometer; but it was never down at zero. A curious thing happened to me shortly after the honey-moon, which was very awkward at the time, but has since amused me much. It so happened that three married women were on | a wedding visit to my wife (and in the same room at the same time), whom I had known to be all birds of the same nest. Fancy the scene of confusion that ensued! • The world says I married Miss Millbank for her fortune, because she was a great heiress. All I have ever received, or am likely to receive and that has been twice paid back too), was | 10,000l. My own income at this period was small and somewhat bespoke. Newstead was a very unprofitable estate, and brought me in a bare 1500l. a year; the Lancashire property was hampered with a law-suit, which has cost me 14,000l., and is not yet finished. I heard afterwards that Mrs Charlment had been the means of poisoning Lady Noel's mind against me; that she had employed herself and others in watching me in Loudon, and had reported having traced me into a house in Portland-Place. There was one act unworthy of any one but such a confidante; I allude to the breaking open my writing-desk: a book was found in it that did not do much credit to my taste in literature, and some letters from a married woman with whom I had been intimate before my marriage. The use that was made of the latter was most unjustifiable, whatever may be thought of the breach of confidence that led to their discovery. Lady Byron sent them to the husband of the lady, who had the good sense to take no notice of their contents. The gravest accusation that has been made against me is that of having intrigued with Mrs Mardyn in my own house, introduced her to my own table, etc.; there never was a more unfounded calumny. Being on the Committee of Drury-Lane Theatre, I have no doubt that several actresses called on me; but as to Mrs Mardyn, who was a beautiful ' woman, and might have been a dangerous visi- | tress, I was scarcely acquainted (to speak) with her. I might even make a more serious charge i against than employing spies to watch suspected amours. I had been shut up in a dark street in London writing The Siege of Corinth,' and had refused myself to every one till it was finished. I was surprised one day by a doctor and a lawyer almost forcing themselves at the 'same time into my room; I did not know till afterwards the real object of their visit. I thought their questions singular, frivolous, and somewhat importunate, if not impertinent; but what should I have thought if I had known that they were sent to provide proofs of my insanity? I have no doubt that my answers to these emissaries' interrogations were not very rational or consistent, for my imagination was heated by other things; but Dr Baillie could not conscientiously make me out a certificate for Bedlam, and perhaps the lawyer gave a more favourable report to his employers. The doctor said after- ¦ wards he had been told that I always looked ¦ down when Lady Byron bent her eyes on me, and exhibited other symptoms equally infallible, particularly those that marked the late king's case so strongly. I do not, however, tax Lady Byron with this transaction: probably she was not privy to it; she was the tool of others. Her mother always detested me: she had not even the decency to conceal it in her own house. Dining one day at Sir Ralph's (who was a good sort of man, and of whom you may form some idea, when I tell you that a leg of mutton was always served at his table, that he might cut the same joke upon it), I broke a tooth, and was in great pain, which I could not avoid showing. It will do you good,' said Lady Noel; 'I am glad of it!' I gave her a look! « Lady Byron had good ideas, but could never express them; wrote poetry too, but it was only good by accident; her letters were always enigmatical, often unintelligible. She was easily made the dupe of the designing, for she thought her knowledge of mankind infallible. She had got some foolish idea of Madame de Stael's into her head, that a person may be better known in the first hour than in ten years. She had the habit of drawing people's characters after she had seen them once or twice. She wrote pages on pages about my character, but it was as unlike as possible. She was governed by what she called fixed rules and principles, squared mathematically. She would have made an excellent wrangler at Cambridge. It must be confessed, however, that she gave no proof of her boasted consistency; first she refused me, then she accepted me, then she separated herself from meso much for consistency. I need not tell you of the obloquy and opprobrium that were cast upon my name when our separation was made public. I once made a list from the journals of the day of the different worthies, ancient and modern, to whom I was compared: I remember a few, Nero, Apicius, Epicurus, Caligula, Heliogabalus, Henry the Eighth, and lastly, the my All former friends, even my cousin George Byron, who had been brought up with me, and whom I loved as a brother, took my wife's part: he followed the stream when it was strongest against me, and can never expect any thing from me; he shall never touch a sixpence of mine. I was looked upon as the worst of husbands, the most abandoned and wicked of men; and my wife as a suffering angel, an incarnation of all the virtues and perfections of the sex. I was abused in the public prints, made the common talk of private companies, hissed as I went to the House of Lords, insulted in the streets, afraid to go to the theatre, whence the unfortunate Mrs Mardyn had been driven with insult. The Examiner was the only paper that dared say a word in my defence, and Lady Jersey the only person in the fashionable world that did not look upon me as a monster. » In addition to all these mortifications, my affairs were irretrievably involved, and almost so as to make me what they wished. I was compelled to part with Newstead, which I never could have ventured to sell in my mother's life time. As it is, I shall never forgive myself for having done so, though I am told that the estate would not now bring half as much as I got for it: this does not at all reconcile me to having parted with the old Abbey. I did not make up my mind to this step but from the last necessity; I had my wife's portion to repay, and was determined to add 10,000l. more of my own to it, which I did: I always hated being in debt, and do not owe a guinea. The moment I had put my affairs in train, and in little more than eighteen months after my marriage, I left England, an involuntary exile, intending it should be for ever,» We shall here avail ourselves of some obser vations by a powerful and elegant critic,' whose opinions on the personal character of Lord Byron, as well as on the merits of his poems, are, from their originality, candour, and discrimination, of considerable weight. The charge against Lord Byron,» says this writer, « is, not that he fell a victim to excessive temptations, and a combination of circumstances, which it required a rare and extraordinary degree of virtue, wisdom, prudence, and steadiness to surmount; but that he abandoned a situation of uncommon advantages, and fell weakly, pusillanimously, and selfishly, when victory would have been easy, and when defeat was ignominious. In reply to this charge, I do not deny that Lord Byron inherited some very desirable, and even enviable privileges, in the lot of life which fell to his share. I should falsify my own sentiments if I treated lightly the gift of an ancient English peerage, and a name of honour and venerable antiquity; but without a fortune competent to that rank, it is not a bed of roses, nay, it is attended with many and extreme difficulties, and the difficulties are exactly such as a genius and temper like Lord Byron's were least calculated to meet-at any rate, least calculated to meet under the peculiar collateral circumstances in which he was placed. His income was very narrow; his Newstead property left him a very small disposable surplus; his Lancashire property was, in its condition, etc. unproductive. A profession, such as the army, might have lessened, or almost annihilated the difficulties of his peculiar position; but probably his lameness rendered this impossible. He seems to have had a love of independence, which was | noble, and probably even an intractability; but this temper added to his indisposition to bend and adapt himself to his lot. A dull, or supple, or intriguing man, without a single good quality of head or heart, might have managed it much Sir Egerton Brydges, Bart. |