188 Moore's Notices of Lord Byron. 



having returned a cold answer to a hint that Lord Byron was ready 

 to take his seat in the Peers, was hitched into a bitter rhyme. Others 

 were stung in the MS., and balmed in the book. Thus, 



" I leave topography to coxcomb Gell," 



was smoothed down to classic Gell. 



Byron was always in love with somebody or other, like all boys that 

 are left to themselves, and not kept in awe by the solemnity of a papa. 

 His flames began with a peasant, Mary Duff, at eight years old ; and 

 proceeded from one idol to another, until he fell into something like 

 real passion with that person, of the most unloveable name of Chaworth, 

 who affronted him by calling him ' ' a lame boy," and whom he con- 

 tinued to adopt as Petrarch his Laura, and Dante his. Beatrice, for a 

 poetic lean ideal, or commodious lay-figure to dress his future verses on. 



Byron's life at Newstead was little calculated to charm him with Eng- 

 land ; it was the rude, self-indulgent, rough life of a boy, spoiled by a 

 fool of a mother, and left his own master when he should have been at 

 school. His companions were as singular as himself. One of them, 

 the Charles Skinner Matthews, whom he celebrates in the " Childe 

 Harold," a bon vwant, an oddity, a boxer, a rambler, and unhappily a 

 boaster of atheism, gives this sketch in a letter to a female correspon- 

 dent : 



" Ascend with me the hall steps, that I may introduce you to my 

 lord and his visitants. But have a care how you proceed : be mindful 

 to go there in broad daylight, and with your eyes about you. For, 

 should you make any blunder, should yon go to the right of the haM 

 steps, you are laid hold of by a bear ; and should you go to the left, your 

 case is still worse, for you run full against a wolf. Nor, when you have 

 attained the door, is your danger over ; for, the hall being decayed, and 

 therefore standing in need of repair, a bevy of inmates are very probably 

 banging at one end of it with their pistols ; so that, if you enter without 

 giving loud notice of your approach, you have only escaped the wolf and 

 the bear, to expire by the pistol-shots of the merry monks of Newstead. 



" Our party consisted of Lord Byron and four others ; and was now 

 and then increased by the presence of a neighbouring parson ! As for 

 our way of living, the order of the day was generally this : For break- 

 fast we had no set hour, but each suited his own convenience every 

 thing remaining on the table till the whole party had done : though, had 

 any one wished to breakfast at the early hour of ten, one would have 

 been lucky to find any of the servants up. Our average hour of rising 

 was one. I, who was generally up between eleven and twelve, was 

 always, even when an invalid, the first of the party, and was deemed a 

 prodigy of early rising. It was frequently past two before the breakfast 

 party broke up. Then for the amusements of the morning : there was 

 reading, fencing, single-stick, or shuttlecock in the great room j prac- 

 tising with pistols in the hall ; walking, riding, cricket, sailing on the lake, 

 playing with the bear, or teasing the wolf. Between seven and eight 

 we dined, and our evening lasted from that time till one, two, or three, 

 in the morning. The evening diversions may be easily conceived. 



" I must not omit the custom of handing round, after dinner, a human 

 scull, filled with Burgundy. After revelling on choice viands, and the 

 finest wine^/of France, we adjourned to tea, where we amused ourselves 

 with reading or improving conversation, each according to his fancy : 



