BYBON, GKOROK GORDON, LORD. 



BYRON, QEOROE GORDON, LORD. 



bl by oar fathers ; it would have joined lands broad and rich ; it 

 would have joined at leut one heart, and two parsons not ill matched 

 in yean she wu two yean my elder." HU lordship bad fancied 

 hlmeelf in lore two or three time* before, but this more than half- 

 imaginary passion for Mary Chaworth seem* to liave haunted him 

 almoat to the last hour* of hU existence, and he alwayi persisted in 

 aaying that had he been united to her he should hare proved a batter 

 and a happier man. The young lady treated him as a clever, warm- 

 hearted, but capricious school-boy, a friend and nothing more, and a 

 year or two after her fint acquaintance witli the poet the gave her 

 hand to Mr. John Musters, a gentleman of Nottinghamshire. But all 

 Byron'i Harrow vacation* were not spent in making love ; he passed 

 one of them in the house of the Abbe Ruuffigny, in Took's-oourt, for 

 the purpose of studying the French language ; but he spent most of 

 his time in boxing and fencing, to the no small disturbance of the old 

 Abbe"* establishment. 



In October 1805 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he 

 spent two yean in the way that is not uncommon with young men 

 of rank and fashion ; but still, by fits and starts, be devoted himself 

 to pretty hard study, and continued to cultivate that taste for poetry 

 which fint allowed itself when he was about ten yean old, and which 

 he had never since permitted to lie wholly dormant. At the same 

 time he indulged in rnnuy eccentricities, and caused great annoyance 

 by keeping a bear, and several bull-dogs. But at Cambridge, as at 

 Harrow, he frequently evinced the most generous and noble feelings, 

 and chose his associates, with one or two exceptions, from auioni; the 

 young men of the greatest ability, wit, and character, to a few of 

 whom he seems to have continued much attached in after-lift). In 

 1806, while yet at college, he printed a very thin quarto volume of 

 poems for private circulation. Of this edition Mr. Moore says there 

 are but two or at the most three copies in existence. In 1807 he 

 brought out, in 1 vol. 8vo, his ' Hours of Idleness,' which were very 

 severely, but we cannot say altogether unjustly, bandied in the ' Edin- 

 burgh Review.' It was just such a collection of fugitive pieces as any 

 tolerably read young man of nineteen might write : it was not less, 

 and it certainly was not more, than this. In this volume we can 

 scarcely discover any indication of the superior genius which he after- 

 wards displayed ; and there was iu it an assumption of aristocratic 

 .1 r- that rendered the author peculiarly obnoxious to writers who 

 advocated liberal principles. The severity of the reviewers seams to 

 have produced a good effect on his lordship's muse, which was always 

 too readily animated and inspired by feelings of spite and revenge. 

 He collected his powers, he brought them to bear on one point, he 

 took more pains with his stylo, and in 1S09 appeared his well-known 

 satire, ' English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' which, however faulty 

 in parti as a composition, and blamcable in moral feeling, was a won- 

 derful improvement on his preceding productions. A few days before 

 its publication be took his seat in the House of Lords. 



At one time Byron thought seriously of devoting himself to politic.*, 

 and wrote to his mother that he " must do something in the House 

 soon." He delivered two set speeches in the Lords, with indifferent 

 success and a tolerable ignorance of the subjects on which he spoke, 

 and then his senatorial ardour ceased altogether. This was after his 

 return from his travels, in 1812. 



On the 2nd of July 1809 Lord Byron, in company with his friend 

 Mr. John Cam Hobhouse (now Lord Broughton), left England to travel 

 in Portugal, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Ac. Ue was absent two yean on 

 this classical tour, which eurichrd his mind with incidents and poetical 

 imagery, and filled it with reflections of conic of the finest and most 

 melancholy scenery in the world. His travels, in fact, finished his 

 poetical education, and nearly everything be wrote afterwards is 

 redolent of the glowing atmosphere of the East, and bears more or 

 IMS directly on the adventurous, impassioned narratives which he 

 heard in ' the clime of the East,' in ' the land of the sun.' 



In March 1812 Byron published the first two cantos of his splendid 

 poem 'Child* Harold,' which at once gained him the very highest 

 name among the poeU of the day. The popularity of this production 

 was as immediate as it was great, and he used to say, he went to bed 

 one night, and, on waking the next morning, found himself famout. 

 He wss now sought after by the rich and treat, who formerly knew 

 him not, or avoided him ; and he threw himself into the vortex of 

 fashionable dissipation without much taste for its pleasure, and with 

 little respect for the mass of those with whom he associated. 



To pass over some minor productions, it wits iu the mouth of May 

 1818, that hi* wild oriental tale, or rather fragment of a tale, ' The 

 Giaour,' fint appeared ; this was followed, in December of the same 

 year, by the ' Bride of Abydos,' another passionate Eastern poem, 

 more consecutive as a narrative than thw** Giaour,' and equally rich 

 in scenic descriptions. In January 1814 he published his 'Corsair,' 

 one of the most applauded, though fur from one nf the best of his 

 productions. He however showed in it an admirable mastery of the 

 ten-syllable English verse and what he called " the good old and now 

 neglected heroic couplet." His descriptions of tho (irvvk inlands and 

 the scenery of the coast of Greece are exquisitely beautiful : they are 

 moreover oorrect pictures, as mu-t be felt by all who have travelled 

 in those clime*. The story, like all bin stories, is badly constructed : 

 the character, are not very dramatically sustained, and have little in 

 them to lay hold of the heart when the fervour and passions of youth 



are passed. It is stated on the best authority that IV"" copies of 

 the 'Corsair* were sold in one day. In May 1814 be published his 

 splendid ode on the fint fall of Bonaparte. In August of the name 

 year appeared hi* ' Lara,' an irregular sort of sequel and wind-up to 

 the ' Corsair,' written in much the same style, but with less power. 



During the blase of hi* poetical fame, and bin intoxicating success 

 in society, Byron was hardly ever happy, and he occasionally withdrew 

 for considerable periods to the solitude of the old abbey at Newstead. 

 In October 1814 he was married to Mi-a Milbauke, a great heiress in 

 prospect, but at the time possessed of little money, while the )>oct stood 

 in need of a great deal. He was in fact so involved iu his pecuniary 

 affairs, that he tells us he had nine executions in his house during the 

 fint twelve months of his marriage, besides having his door continually 

 beset by duns. These were not circumstances likely to soothe the 

 irritable temperament of Lord Byron : he sought a refuge from them 

 in pleasures from home ; and an utter incompatibility of character 

 between him and bis lady becoming every day more and more con- 

 spicuous, augured ill for this hastily-formed alliance. Ou the 10th of 

 December 1815 Lady Byron bore him a daughter, the Ada of his 

 poems (the late Countess of Lovelace). In the latter end of J..uuiry 

 Lady Byron left his house with her infant, and retired to her 

 father's residence iu Leicestershire : the poet never saw his wife or 

 child again. 



At the end of February 1815 Byron published his two poems, the 

 ' Siege of Corinth ' and ' Pariaiua.' On the 25th of April following he 

 set sail for Ostood, with a fixed deteruiinnti.ni never more to return 

 to a country which had given him honours, titles, competent wealth, 

 and fame. 



On starting on his continental travels he went through Belgium, up 

 the Rhine, and then through part of Switzerland to Ucneva. where he 

 fixed himself for some time, his favourite companions there being the 

 late Mr. Shelley, the poet, and Mrs. Shelley. He often crossed the 

 lake to visit Madame de Stael at Coppet. His frequent voyages on 

 the Lake of Geneva, and excursions among the Alps, revived all his 

 passionate adoration of sublime scenery. During his stay at the villa 

 Diodati, near Geneva, he wrote the third canto of ' Childe Harold,' the 

 ' Prisoner of Chillon,' ' The Dream,' and several of bis fugitive pieces. 

 In October 1S16 he left Switzerland for Italy, and by the middle of 

 the following November we find him at Venice, where he remained 

 for more than three years, which were mainly spent in an alternation 

 of literary labour and debauchery. We must however deduct from 

 this long sojourn some three weeks, which he employed in visiting 

 Rome iu company with hid friend Hobhouse, and a few excursi 

 made to Bologna and otlu r plai- . In January Ib2(i he took up his 

 residence at Itaveuna, where he involved himself with secret to 

 and Italian plots to overthrow the government of the pope. The 

 brother and other near connections of the Countess Guiccioli, an 

 woman to whom he had attached himself, were so seriously 

 that the pupal government exiled them from the States of the Church. 

 Upon this the lady and her relatives took refuge in Tuscany, and 

 ultimately fixed themselves at Pisa, whither Byron followed them in 

 November 1821. 



Soon after his arrival at Pisa he was joiivl by Mr. and Mrs. Shelley, 

 and his party was subsequently increased by Mr. Leigh Hunt and 

 family. Byrou, Shelley, and Hunt started a work called ' The Liberal, 

 which was to appear periodically, and to be written and edited by the 

 three conjointly. It was altogether a badly devised scheme, and after 

 the irregular appearance of two or three numbers the work stopped. 

 He was much affected by the death of his friend Shelley in July 

 and iu October he went to Genoa. Early in 1823 he re eived flattering 

 overtures from tho committee of friends to the Greeks established in 

 London for the purpose of aiding that people in their struggle for 

 independence. His knowledge of the country, the beauty and energy 

 of the many verses in which ho had described her sad condition under 

 the Turks, naturally directed attention to his lordship, who, after a 

 short correspondence with the committee, determined not oiily to 

 assist in purse, but in person and with arms in his hands. With his 

 usual haste and impetuosity he prepared forthwith to leave Italy. 

 During his stay in that beautiful country he had written the fourth 

 canto of 'Childe Harold;' ' Beppo, a Venetian Story;' 'Ma/ 

 'Manfred;' the ' Lament of Tosso;' 'Ode to Venice; the 'Prophecy 

 of Dante ' (wherein be imitated, not very successfully, the terza riina 

 of the Italians) ; ' Cain, a Mystery ;' ' Marino Faliero,' the ' Two Foscari,' 

 ' Sardanapalus,' and ' Werner,' tragedies ; the cant < - ; ' I 'on Juan ' (the 

 most astonishing of all his productions) ; the ' Vision of J udgmeut ;' and 

 many fugitive pieces. 



With his head full of warlike notions, Byron sailed from Gen 

 the 14th of July ; on tho 19th he put into Leghorn to purchase guu- 

 powder and other commodities for the Ureeks, and sailing again on 

 the 24th, he reached the island of Cephalonia in about ten days. He 

 had scarcely arrived there and looked a little into the all'.ui-s of the 

 Greeks, when be repented of his expedition. " I was a fool," he wrote 

 to a friend, " to come here ; but being here, I must see what is to Ixi 

 done." He however showed a talent for public IIIIMIIOH that surprised 

 most people, and a degree of good common sense that contrasted very 

 advantngeouidy with the wild theoretic dreamiugs of many of the 

 rhilhelleues who had repaired to Greece. 



At the end of December 1S23 his lordship sailed from Cephalouia, 



