DISCOVERY 



135 



which he entered on_hfe — his violent-tempered mother, liis 

 admission to the peerage when quite a boy, liis extreme 

 handsomeness, and, most important of all, the deformed 

 footwliich denied an athletic bod}' its full outlet of energy- — 

 we should rather be surprised at the fine and more generous 

 qualities which he displayed. His deep and lasting friend- 

 ship with Hobhouse, his affection for his old servant, 

 Fletcher, his generosity in lending and giving money, his 

 championship of the cause of Greek independence (result- 

 ing in his death) — these were some of the truest things in 

 his life. But we must let the new letters speak for them- 

 selves. 



The present collection belonged to John Cam Hob- 

 house, Bjrron's great friend already referred to. At liis 

 death they passed into the hands of liis daughter. Lady 

 Dorchester. Lady Dorchester died in 1914 without 

 having published them, and bequeathed them to Mr. 

 Murray, who has now edited them. In the first volume 

 we have the poet's letters to Hobhouse, written during his 

 travels in Greece and Turkey, from 1808, when he was 

 twenty, to 1811, and soon after his return to England, 

 and his letters to Lady Melbourne, covering the period 

 1812 — the year in which he " woke one morning and found 

 liimself famous " after liis first speech in the House of 

 Lords and the publication of the first two cantos of Childe 

 Harold — to the end of the first three months of his married 

 life, in April 1815. The second volume, by far the most 

 interesting of the two, covers the period of his exile in 

 Italy, 1816-1823, and lus expedition to Greece, 1823-1824. 

 It contains correspondence with various persons in 

 England, chiefly Hobhouse and another friend, Ivinnaird, 

 and a large number of valuable letters, as we shall see later, 

 written to him by Byron's fellow-exile in Italy and con- 

 temporary poet, Shelley. 



On account of space we must content ourselves with 

 drawing a few extracts out of the two volumes. In August 

 1810 Byron was staying at the convent in Athens, and in 

 a letter to Hobhouse gives a charming pen-picture, touched 

 with a kindly irony, of the Abbot's young pupils, " my 

 only associates " : "Of this goodly company three are 

 Catholics, and three are Greeks, which scliismatics I have 

 already set a boxing to the great amusement of the 

 Father, who rejoices to see the Catholics conquer. . . .We 

 have nothing but riot from noon to night. The first time 

 I mingled with these sylphs, after about two minutes' recon- 

 noitring, the amiable Signor Barthelemi, without any 

 previous notice, seated himself by me, and after observing 

 by way of compliment that my ' Signoria ' was the 

 ' piu bello ' of his Enghsh acquaintance, saluted me on 

 the left cheek, for which freedom being reproved by 

 Giuseppe, who very properly informed him that I was 

 ' ^eyaXos ' ; he told liim I was his ' cftlXnf,' and ' by his 

 beard ' he would do so again, adding, in reply to the 

 question ' Sia tI iicnrtiafTf ? ' you see he laughs, as in good 

 truth I did heartily. 



" But my friend, as you may easily imagine, is Nicolo, 

 who, by-the-bye, is my Italian master, and we are already 

 very philosophical. I am his ' Padrone ' and liis ' amico,' 

 and the Lord knows what besides. It is about two hours 

 since, that, after informing me he was most desirous to 



follow him (that is me) over the world, he concluded by 

 t?llin g me it was proper for us not only to live but ' morire 

 luiiems.' . . . 



■ ' I am awakened in the morning by those imps shout- 

 ing ' Venite abasso,' and the friar gravely observes it is 

 bisogno bastonare ' everybody before the studies can 

 possibly commence." 



Hobhouse had accompanied Byron during the early part 

 of these travels. When Hobhouse left for England, he 

 owed Byron ;^8i8. It is typical of the latter's generosity 

 that he writes to his friend from Malta in May 1 8 1 1 , though 

 he did not at the time " know where to raise a shilling " 

 himself, that " with regard to our account, don't think 

 of it, or let your father think of it, for I will not hear of it 

 till you are in a state to pay it as easily as so many shillings. 

 1 have fifty resources, and besides my person is parlia- 

 mentary — pay your tradesmen — I am none." 



Byron returned to England in July 1811. By 1813 he 

 had reached the height of his fame and popularity in Lon- 

 don Society. But he had, as the editor teUs us, become 

 " entangled in a social circle whose code of morality was. 

 lax, even judged by the standards of the Regency period." 

 He began to entertain a genuine desire to meet and marry 

 a woman who would " govern him." Unfortunately liis 

 great confidante of these years. Lady Melbourne, so en- 

 couraged his interest in her niece. Miss Milbanke, that his 

 friendship with this lady, far too austere and cold for him, 

 was manufactured into a semblance of love. It is regret- 

 table that Lady Melbourne, who had hitherto exercised 

 an influence all for the good upon Byron, should have 

 ended in effecting a match that was to ruin his life in 

 England and embitter, even more than before, his highly 

 sensitive character. As to Annabella, she herself feared 

 that " he was not the person whom she ought to select as 

 her guide, support, and example on earth with a view to 

 Immortality " ! And as to Byron, we find him writing 

 of Annabella before their marriage in strains such as these : 

 ' ' She seems to have more feeling than we imagine ; but 

 is the most silent woman I have ever encountered ; which 

 perplexes me extremely "; " she is, as you know, a per- 

 fectly good person " ; " Do you know I have grave doubts 

 if this will be a marriage now ? Her disposition is the very 

 reverse to our imaginings. She is overrun with fine feel- 

 ings, scruples about herself and her disposition (I suppose, 

 in fact, she means mine), and to crown all is taken ill every 

 three days with I know not what " ; (this last, if you 

 please, less than two months before their marriage) . And 

 what could be expected of a marriage when the husband 

 writes during the honeymoon that " I have great hopes 

 tliis match will turn out well " ? 



The match did not turn out at all well, and Byron left 

 England on April 25, 1816, pursued by the clamourings of 

 his debtors and the censures of a society which was 

 prudishly moral on the surface, whatever it was under- 

 neath. Arriving in Switzerland some months later, he 

 met Shelley for the first time. Shelley, the younger poet, 

 though never one of Byron's most intimate friends, exer- 

 cised a strong and good influence on his life and poetryboth 

 there, and later on in Italy, and his letters to Byron,'here 

 first published, are of great interest. No two characters 



