Chapter 12

TO MR. FALKNER.

"Sir,

"The volume of little pieces which accompanies this, would have been presented before, had I not been apprehensive that Miss Falkner's indisposition might render such trifles unwelcome. There are some errors of the printer which I have not had time to correct in the collection: you have it thus, with 'all its imperfections on its head,' a heavy weight, when joined with the faults of its author. Such 'Juvenilia,' as they can claim no great degree of approbation, I may venture to hope, will also escape the severity of uncalled for, though perhaps _not_ undeserved, criticism.

"They were written on many and various occasions, and are now published merely for the perusal of a friendly circle. Believe me, sir, if they afford the slightest amusement to yourself and the rest of my _social_ readers, I shall have gathered all the _bays_ I ever wish to adorn the head of yours,

very truly,

"BYRON.

"P.S.--I hope Miss F. is in a state of recovery."

Notwithstanding this unambitious declaration of the young author, he had that within which would not suffer him to rest so easily; and the fame he had now reaped within a limited circle made him but more eager to try his chance on a wider field. The hundred copies of which this edition consisted were hardly out of his hands, when with fresh activity he went to press again,--and his first published volume, "The Hours of Idleness," made its appearance. Some new pieces which he had written in the interim were added, and no less than twenty of those contained in the former volume omitted;--for what reason does not very clearly appear, as they are, most of them, equal, if not superior, to those retained.

In one of the pieces, reprinted in the "Hours of Idleness," there are some alterations and additions, which, as far as they may be supposed to spring from the known feelings of the poet respecting birth, are curious. This poem, which is entitled "Epitaph on a Friend," appears, from the lines I am about to give, to have been, in its original state, intended to commemorate the death of the same lowly born youth, to whom some affectionate verses, cited in a preceding page, were addressed:--

"Though low thy lot, since in a cottage born, No titles did thy humble name adorn; To me, far dearer was thy artless love Than all the joys wealth, fame, and friends could prove."

But, in the altered form of the epitaph, not only this passage, but every other containing an allusion to the low rank of his young companion, is omitted; while, in the added parts, the introduction of such language as

"What, though thy sire lament his failing line,"

seems calculated to give an idea of the youth's station in life, wholly different from that which the whole tenour of the original epitaph warrants. The other poem, too, which I have mentioned, addressed evidently to the same boy, and speaking in similar terms, of the "lowness" of his "lot," is, in the "Hours of Idleness," altogether omitted. That he grew more conscious of his high station, as he approached to manhood, is not improbable; and this wish to sink his early friendship with the young cottager may have been a result of that feeling.

As his visits to Southwell were, after this period, but few and transient, I shall take the present opportunity of mentioning such miscellaneous particulars respecting his habits and mode of life, while there, as I have been able to collect.

Though so remarkably shy, when he first went to Southwell, this reserve, as he grew more acquainted with the young people of the place, wore off; till, at length, he became a frequenter of their assemblies and dinner-parties, and even felt mortified if he heard of a rout to which he was not invited. His horror, however, at new faces still continued; and if, while at Mrs. Pigot's, he saw strangers approaching the house, he would instantly jump out of the window to avoid them. This natural shyness concurred with no small degree of pride to keep him aloof from the acquaintance of the gentlemen in the neighbourhood, whose visits, in more than one instance, he left unreturned;--some under the plea that their ladies had not visited his mother; others, because they had neglected to pay him this compliment sooner. The true reason, however, of the haughty distance, at which, both now and afterwards, he stood apart from his more opulent neighbours, is to be found in his mortifying consciousness of the inadequacy of his own means to his rank, and the proud dread of being made to feel this inferiority by persons to whom, in every other respect, he knew himself superior. His friend, Mr. Becher, frequently expostulated with him on this unsociableness; and to his remonstrances, on one occasion, Lord Byron returned a poetical answer, so remarkably prefiguring the splendid burst, with which his own volcanic genius opened upon the world, that as the volume containing the verses is in very few hands, I cannot resist the temptation of giving a few extracts here:--

"Dear Becher, you tell me to mix with mankind,-- I cannot deny such a precept is wise; But retirement accords with the tone of my mind, And I will not descend to a world I despise.

"Did the Senate or Camp my exertions require, Ambition might prompt me at once to go forth; And, when infancy's years of probation expire, Perchance, I may strive to distinguish my birth.

_"The fire, in the cavern of Ætna concealed, Still mantles unseen, in its secret recess;-- At length, in a volume terrific revealed, No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress.

"Oh thus, the desire in my bosom for fame Bids me live but to hope for Posterity's praise; Could I soar, with the Phoenix, on pinions of flame, With him I would wish to expire in the blaze._

"For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death, What censure, what danger, what woe would I brave? Their lives did not end when they yielded their breath,-- Their glory illumines the gloom of the grave!"

In his hours of rising and retiring to rest he was, like his mother, always very late; and this habit he never altered during the remainder of his life. The night, too, was at this period, as it continued afterwards, his favourite time for composition; and his first visit in the morning was generally paid to the fair friend who acted as his amanuensis, and to whom he then gave whatever new products of his brain the preceding night might have inspired. His next visit was usually to his friend Mr. Becher's, and from thence to one or two other houses on the Green, after which the rest of the day was devoted to his favourite exercises. The evenings he usually passed with the same family, among whom he began his morning, either in conversation, or in hearing Miss Pigot play upon the piano-forte, and singing over with her a certain set of songs which he admired,[59]--among which the "Maid of Lodi," (with the words, "My heart with love is beating,") and "When Time who steals our years away," were, it seems, his particular favourites. He appears, indeed, to have, even thus early, shown a decided taste for that sort of regular routine of life,--bringing round the same occupations at the stated periods,--which formed so much the system of his existence during the greater part of his residence abroad.

Those exercises, to which he flew for distraction in less happy days, formed his enjoyment now; and between swimming, sparring, firing at a mark, and riding,[60] the greater part of his time was passed. In the last of these accomplishments he was by no means very expert. As an instance of his little knowledge of horses, it is told, that, seeing a pair one day pass his window, he exclaimed, "What beautiful horses! I should like to buy them."--"Why, they are your own, my Lord," said his servant. Those who knew him, indeed, at that period, were rather surprised, in after-life, to hear so much of his riding;--and the truth is, I am inclined to think, that he was at no time a very adroit horse-man.

In swimming and diving we have already seen, by his own accounts, he excelled; and a lady in Southwell, among other precious relics of him, possesses a thimble which he borrowed of her one morning, when on his way to bathe in the Greet, and which, as was testified by her brother, who accompanied him, he brought up three times successively from the bottom of the river. His practice of firing at a mark was the occasion, once, of some alarm to a very beautiful young person, Miss H.,--one of that numerous list of fair ones by whom his imagination was dazzled while at Southwell. A poem relating to this occurrence, which may be found in his unpublished volume, is thus introduced:--"As the author was discharging his pistols in a garden, two ladies, passing near the spot, were alarmed by the sound of a bullet hissing near them, to one of whom the following stanzas were addressed the next morning."

Such a passion, indeed, had he for arms of every description, that there generally lay a small sword by the side of his bed, with which he used to amuse himself, as he lay awake in the morning, by thrusting it through his bed-hangings. The person who purchased this bed at the sale of Mrs. Byron's furniture, on her removal to Newstead, gave out--with the view of attaching a stronger interest to the holes in the curtains--that they were pierced by the same sword with which the old lord had killed Mr. Chaworth, and which his descendant always kept as a memorial by his bedside. Such is the ready process by which fiction is often engrafted upon fact;--the sword in question being a most innocent and bloodless weapon, which Lord Byron, during his visits at Southwell, used to borrow of one of his neighbours.

His fondness for dogs--another fancy which accompanied him through life--may be judged from the anecdotes already given, in the account of his expedition to Harrowgate. Of his favourite dog Boatswain, whom he has immortalised in verse, and by whose side it was once his solemn purpose to be buried, some traits are told, indicative, not only of intelligence, but of a generosity of spirit, which might well win for him the affections of such a master as Byron. One of these I shall endeavour to relate as nearly as possible as it was told to me. Mrs. Byron had a fox-terrier, called Gilpin, with whom her son's dog, Boatswain, was perpetually at war,[61] taking every opportunity of attacking and worrying him so violently, that it was very much apprehended he would kill the animal. Mrs. Byron therefore sent off her terrier to a tenant at Newstead; and on the departure of Lord Byron for Cambridge, his "friend" Boatswain, with two other dogs, was intrusted to the care of a servant till his return. One morning the servant was much alarmed by the disappearance of Boatswain, and throughout the whole of the day he could hear no tidings of him. At last, towards evening, the stray dog arrived, accompanied by Gilpin, whom he led immediately to the kitchen fire, licking him and lavishing upon him every possible demonstration of joy. The fact was, he had been all the way to Newstead to fetch him; and having now established his former foe under the roof once more, agreed so perfectly well with him ever after, that he even protected him against the insults of other dogs (a task which the quarrelsomeness of the little terrier rendered no sinecure), and, if he but heard Gilpin's voice in distress, would fly instantly to his rescue.

In addition to the natural tendency to superstition, which is usually found connected with the poetical temperament, Lord Byron had also the example and influence of his mother, acting upon him from infancy, to give his mind this tinge. Her implicit belief in the wonders of second sight, and the strange tales she told of this mysterious faculty, used to astonish not a little her sober English friends; and it will be seen, that, at so late a period as the death of his friend Shelley, the idea of fetches and forewarnings impressed upon him by his mother had not wholly lost possession of the poet's mind. As an instance of a more playful sort of superstition I may be allowed to mention a slight circumstance told me of him by one of his Southwell friends. This lady had a large agate bead with a wire through it, which had been taken out of a barrow, and lay always in her work-box. Lord Byron asking one day what it was, she told him that it had been given her as an amulet, and the charm was, that as long as she had this bead in her possession, she should never be in love. "Then give it to me," he cried, eagerly, "for that's just the thing I want." The young lady refused;--but it was not long before the bead disappeared. She taxed him with the theft, and he owned it; but said, she never should see her amulet again.

Of his charity and kind-heartedness he left behind him at Southwell--as, indeed, at every place, throughout life, where he resided any time--the most cordial recollections. "He never," says a person, who knew him intimately at this period, "met with objects of distress without affording them succour." Among many little traits of this nature, which his friends delight to tell, I select the following,--less as a proof of his generosity, than from the interest which the simple incident itself, as connected with the name of Byron, presents. While yet a school-boy, he happened to be in a bookseller's shop at Southwell, when a poor woman came in to purchase a Bible. The price, she was told by the shopman, was eight shillings. "Ah, dear sir," she exclaimed, "I cannot pay such a price; I did not think it would cost half the money." The woman was then, with a look of disappointment, going away,--when young Byron called her back, and made her a present of the Bible.

In his attention to his person and dress, to the becoming arrangement of his hair, and to whatever might best show off the beauty with which nature had gifted him, he manifested, even thus early, his anxiety to make himself pleasing to that sex who were, from first to last, the ruling stars of his destiny. The fear of becoming, what he was naturally inclined to be, enormously fat, had induced him, from his first entrance at Cambridge, to adopt, for the purpose of reducing himself, a system of violent exercise and abstinence, together with the frequent use of warm baths. But the embittering circumstance of his life,--that, which haunted him like a curse, amidst the buoyancy of youth, and the anticipations of fame and pleasure, was, strange to say, the trifling deformity of his foot. By that one slight blemish (as in his moments of melancholy he persuaded himself) all the blessings that nature had showered upon him were counterbalanced. His reverend friend, Mr. Becher, finding him one day unusually dejected, endeavoured to cheer and rouse him, by representing, in their brightest colours, all the various advantages with which Providence had endowed him,--and, among the greatest, that of "a mind which placed him above the rest of mankind."--"Ah, my dear friend," said Byron, mournfully,--"if this (laying his hand on his forehead) places me above the rest of mankind, that (pointing to his foot) places me far, far below them."

It sometimes, indeed, seemed as if his sensitiveness on this point led him to fancy that he was the only person in the world afflicted with such an infirmity. When that accomplished scholar and traveller, Mr. D. Baillie, who was at the same school with him at Aberdeen, met him afterwards at Cambridge, the young peer had then grown so fat that, though accosted by him familiarly as his school-fellow, it was not till he mentioned his name that Mr. Baillie could recognise him. "It is odd enough, too, that you shouldn't know me," said Byron--"I thought nature had set such a mark upon me, that I could never be forgot."

But, while this defect was such a source of mortification to his spirit, it was also, and in an equal degree, perhaps, a stimulus:--and more especially in whatever depended upon personal prowess or attractiveness, he seemed to feel himself piqued by this stigma, which nature, as he thought, had set upon him, to distinguish himself above those whom she had endowed with her more "fair proportion." In pursuits of gallantry he was, I have no doubt, a good deal actuated by this incentive; and the hope of astonishing the world, at some future period, as a chieftain and hero, mingled little less with his young dreams than the prospect of a poet's glory. "I will, some day or other," he used to say, when a boy, "raise a troop,--the men of which shall be dressed in black, and ride on black horses. They shall be called 'Byron's Blacks,' and you will hear of their performing prodigies of valour."

I have already adverted to the exceeding eagerness with which, while at Harrow, he devoured all sorts of learning,--excepting only that which, by the regimen of the school, was prescribed for him. The same rapid and multifarious course of study he pursued during the holidays; and, in order to deduct as little as possible from his hours of exercise, he had given himself the habit, while at home, of reading all dinner-time.[62] In a mind so versatile as his, every novelty, whether serious or light, whether lofty or ludicrous, found a welcome and an echo; and I can easily conceive the glee--as a friend of his once described it to me--with which he brought to her, one evening, a copy of Mother Goose's Tales, which he had bought from a hawker that morning, and read, for the first time, while he dined.

I shall now give, from a memorandum-book begun by him this year, the account, as I find it hastily and promiscuously scribbled out, of all the books in various departments of knowledge, which he had already perused at a period of life when few of his school-fellows had yet travelled beyond their _longs_ and _shorts_. The list is, unquestionably, a remarkable one;--and when we recollect that the reader of all these volumes was, at the same time, the possessor of a most retentive memory, it may be doubted whether, among what are called the regularly educated, the contenders for scholastic honours and prizes, there could be found a single one who, at the same age, has possessed any thing like the same stock of useful knowledge.

"LIST OF HISTORICAL WRITERS WHOSE WORKS I HAVE PERUSED IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES."

_"History of England._--Hume, Rapin, Henry, Smollet, Tindal, Belsham, Bisset, Adolphus, Holinshed, Froissart's Chronicles (belonging properly to France).

_"Scotland._--Buchanan, Hector Boethius, both in the Latin.

_"Ireland._--Gordon.

_"Rome._--Hooke, Decline and Fall by Gibbon, Ancient History by Rollin (including an account of the Carthaginians, &c.), besides Livy, Tacitus, Eutropius, Cornelius Nepos, Julius Cæsar, Arrian. Sallust.

"_Greece._--Mitford's Greece, Leland's Philip, Plutarch, Potter's Antiquities, Xenophon, Thucydides, Herodotus.

"_France._--Mezeray, Voltaire.

"_Spain._--I chiefly derived my knowledge of old Spanish History from a book called the Atlas, now obsolete. The modern history, from the intrigues of Alberoni down to the Prince of Peace, I learned from its connection with European politics.

"_Portugal._--From Vertot; as also his account of the Siege of Rhodes,--though the last is his own invention, the real facts being totally different.--So much for his Knights of Malta.

"_Turkey._--I have read Knolles, Sir Paul Rycaut, and Prince Cantemir, besides a more modern history, anonymous. Of the Ottoman History I know every event, from Tangralopi, and afterwards Othman I., to the peace of Passarowitz, in 1718,--the battle of Cutzka, in 1739, and the treaty between Russia and Turkey in 1790.

"_Russia._--Tooke's Life of Catherine II., Voltaire's Czar Peter.

"_Sweden._--Voltaire's Charles XII., also Norberg's Charles XII.--in my opinion the best of the two.--A translation of Schiller's Thirty Years' War, which contains the exploits of Gustavus Adolphus, besides Harte's Life of the same Prince. I have somewhere, too, read an account of Gustavus Vasa, the deliverer of Sweden, but do not remember the author's name.

"_Prussia._--I have seen, at least, twenty Lives of Frederick II., the only prince worth recording in Prussian annals. Gillies, his own Works, and Thiebault,--none very amusing. The last is paltry, but circumstantial.

"_Denmark_--I know little of. Of Norway I understand the natural history, but not the chronological.

"_Germany._--I have read long histories of the house of Suabia, Wenceslaus, and, at length, Rodolph of Hapsburgh and his _thick-lipped_ Austrian descendants.

"_Switzerland._--Ah! William Tell, and the battle of Morgarten, where Burgundy was slain.

"_Italy._--Davila, Guicciardini, the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the battle of Pavia, Massaniello, the revolutions of Naples, &c. &c.

"_Hindostan_--Orme and Cambridge.

"_America._--Robertson, Andrews' American War.

"_Africa_--merely from travels, as Mungo Park, Bruce.

"BIOGRAPHY.

"Robertson's Charles V.--Cæsar, Sallust (Catiline and Jugurtha), Lives of Marlborough and Eugene, Tekeli, Bonnard, Buonaparte, all the British Poets, both by Johnson and Anderson, Rousseau's Confessions, Life of Cromwell, British Plutarch, British Nepos, Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, Charles XII., Czar Peter, Catherine II., Henry Lord Kaimes, Marmontel, Teignmouth's Sir William Jones, Life of Newton, Belisaire, with thousands not to be detailed.

"LAW.

"Blackstone, Montesquieu.

"PHILOSOPHY.

"Paley, Locke, Bacon, Hume, Berkeley, Drummond, Beattie, and Bolingbroke. Hobbes I detest.

"GEOGRAPHY.

"Strabo, Cellarius, Adams, Pinkerton, and Guthrie.

"POETRY.

"All the British Classics as before detailed, with most of the living poets, Scott, Southey, &c.--Some French, in the original, of which the Cid is my favourite.--Little Italian.--Greek and Latin without number;--these last I shall give up in future.--I have translated a good deal from both languages, verse as well as prose.

"ELOQUENCE.

"Demosthenes, Cicero, Quintilian, Sheridan, Austin's Chironomia, and Parliamentary Debates from the Revolution to the year 1742.

"DIVINITY.

"Blair, Porteus, Tillotson, Hooker,--all very tiresome. I abhor books of religion, though I reverence and love my God, without the blasphemous notions of sectaries, or belief in their absurd and damnable heresies, mysteries, and Thirty-nine Articles.

"MISCELLANIES.

"Spectator, Rambler, World, &c. &c.--Novels by the thousand.

"All the books here enumerated I have taken down from memory. I recollect reading them, and can quote passages from any mentioned. I have, of course, omitted several in my catalogue; but the greater part of the above I perused before the age of fifteen. Since I left Harrow, I have become idle and conceited, from scribbling rhyme and making love to women. B.--Nov. 30. 1807.

"I have also read (to my regret at present) above four thousand novels, including the works of Cervantes, Fielding, Smollet, Richardson, Mackenzie, Sterne, Rabelais, and Rousseau, &c. &c. The book, in my opinion, most useful to a man who wishes to acquire the reputation of being well read, with the least trouble, is "Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy," the most amusing and instructive medley of quotations and classical anecdotes I ever perused. But a superficial reader must take care, or his intricacies will bewilder him. If, however, he has patience to go through his volumes, he will be more improved for literary conversation than by the perusal of any twenty other works with which I am acquainted,--at least, in the English language."

To this early and extensive study of English writers may be attributed that mastery over the resources of his own language with which Lord Byron came furnished into the field of literature, and which enabled him, as fast as his youthful fancies sprung up, to clothe them with a diction worthy of their strength and beauty. In general, the difficulty of young writers, at their commencement, lies far less in any lack of thoughts or images, than in that want of a fitting organ to give those conceptions vent, to which their unacquaintance with the great instrument of the man of genius, his native language, dooms them. It will be found, indeed, that the three most remarkable examples of early authorship, which, in their respective lines, the history of literature affords--Pope, Congreve, and Chatterton--were all of them persons self-educated,[63] according to their own intellectual wants and tastes, and left, undistracted by the worse than useless pedantries of the schools, to seek, in the pure "well of English undefiled," those treasures of which they accordingly so very early and intimately possessed themselves.[64] To these three instances may now be added, virtually, that of Lord Byron, who, though a disciple of the schools, was, intellectually speaking, _in_ them, not _of_ them, and who, while his comrades were prying curiously into the graves of dead languages, betook himself to the fresh, living sources of his own,[65] and from thence drew those rich, varied stores of diction, which have placed his works, from the age of two-and-twenty upwards, among the most precious depositories of the strength and sweetness of the English language that our whole literature supplies.

In the same book that contains the above record of his studies, he has written out, also from memory, a "List of the different poets, dramatic or otherwise, who have distinguished their respective languages by their productions." After enumerating the various poets, both ancient and modern, of Europe, he thus proceeds with his catalogue through other quarters of the world:--

"_Arabia._--Mahomet, whose Koran contains most sublime poetical passages, far surpassing European poetry.

"_Persia._--Ferdousi, author of the Shah Nameh, the Persian Iliad--Sadi, and Hafiz, the immortal Hafiz, the oriental Anacreon. The last is reverenced beyond any bard of ancient or modern times by the Persians, who resort to his tomb near Shiraz, to celebrate his memory. A splendid copy of his works is chained to his monument.

"_America._--An epic poet has already appeared in that hemisphere, Barlow, author of the Columbiad,--not to be compared with the works of more polished nations.

"_Iceland, Denmark, Norway_, were famous for their Skalds. Among these Lodburgh was one of the most distinguished. His Death Song breathes ferocious sentiments, but a glorious and impassioned strain of poetry.

"_Hindostan_ is undistinguished by any great bard,--at least the Sanscrit is so imperfectly known to Europeans, we know not what poetical relics may exist.

"_The Birman Empire._--Here the natives are passionately fond of poetry, but their bards are unknown.

"_China._--I never heard of any Chinese poet but the Emperor Kien Long, and his ode to _Tea_. What a pity their philosopher Confucius did not write poetry, with his precepts of morality!

"_Africa._--In Africa some of the native melodies are plaintive, and the words simple and affecting; but whether their rude strains of nature can be classed with poetry, as the songs of the bards, the Skalds of Europe, &c. &c., I know not.

"This brief list of poets I have written down from memory, without any book of reference; consequently some errors may occur, but I think, if any, very trivial. The works of the European, and some of the Asiatic, I have perused, either in the original or translations. In my list of English, I have merely mentioned the greatest;--to enumerate the minor poets would be useless, as well as tedious. Perhaps Gray, Goldsmith, and Collins, might have been added, as worthy of mention, in a _cosmopolite_ account. But as for the others, from Chaucer down to Churchill, they are 'voces et præterea nihil;'--sometimes spoken of, rarely read, and never with advantage. Chaucer, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on him, I think obscene and contemptible:--he owes his celebrity merely to his antiquity, which he does not deserve so well as Pierce Plowman, or Thomas of Ercildoune. English living poets I have avoided mentioning;--we have none who will not survive their productions. Taste is over with us; and another century will sweep our empire, our literature, and our name, from all but a place in the annals of mankind.

"November 30. 1807.

BYRON."

Among the papers of his in my possession are several detached poems (in all nearly six hundred lines), which he wrote about this period, but never printed--having produced most of them after the publication of his "Hours of Idleness." The greater number of these have little, besides his name, to recommend them; but there are a few that, from the feelings and circumstances that gave rise to them, will, I have no doubt, be interesting to the reader. When he first went to Newstead, on his arrival from Aberdeen, he planted, it seems, a young oak in some part of the grounds, and had an idea that as it flourished so should he. Some six or seven years after, on revisiting the spot, he found his oak choked up by weeds, and almost destroyed. In this circumstance, which happened soon after Lord Grey de Ruthen left Newstead, originated one of these poems, which consists of five stanzas, but of which the few opening lines will be a sufficient specimen:--

"Young Oak, when I planted thee deep in the ground, I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine; That thy dark-waving branches would flourish around, And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine.

"Such, such was my hope, when, in infancy's years, On the land of my fathers I rear'd thee with pride; They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears,-- Thy decay, not the weeds that surround thee can hide.

"I left thee, my Oak, and, since that fatal hour, A stranger has dwelt in the hall of my sire," &c. &c.

The subject of the verses that follow is sufficiently explained by the notice which he has prefixed to them; and, as illustrative of the romantic and almost lovelike feeling which he threw into his school friendships, they appeared to me, though rather quaint and elaborate, to be worth preserving.

"Some years ago, when at H----, a friend of the author engraved on a particular spot the names of both, with a few additional words as a memorial. Afterwards, on receiving some real or imagined injury, the author destroyed the frail record before he left H----. On revisiting the place in 1807, he wrote under it the following stanzas:--

"Here once engaged the stranger's view Young Friendship's record simply traced; Few were her words,--but yet though few, Resentment's hand the line defaced.

"Deeply she cut--but, not erased, The characters were still so plain, That Friendship once return'd, and gazed,-- Till Memory hail'd the words again.

"Repentance placed them as before; Forgiveness join'd her gentle name; So fair the inscription seem'd once more That Friendship thought it still the same.

"Thus might the record now have been; But, ah, in spite of Hope's endeavour, Or Friendship's tears, Pride rush'd between, And blotted out the line for ever!"

The same romantic feeling of friendship breathes throughout another of these poems, in which he has taken for the subject the ingenious thought "L'Amitié est l'Amour sans ailes," and concludes every stanza with the words, "Friendship is Love without his wings." Of the nine stanzas of which this poem consists, the three following appear the most worthy of selection:--

"Why should my anxious breast repine, Because my youth is fled? Days of delight may still be mine, Affection is _not_ dead. In tracing back the years of youth, One firm record, one lasting truth Celestial consolation brings; Bear it, ye breezes, to the seat, Where first my heart responsive beat,-- 'Friendship is Love without his wings!'

"Seat of my youth! thy distant spire Recalls each scene of joy; My bosom glows with former fire,-- In mind again a boy. Thy grove of elms, thy verdant hill, Thy every path delights me still, Each flower a double fragrance flings; Again, as once, in converse gay, Each dear associate seems to say, 'Friendship is Love without his wings!'

"My Lycus! wherefore dost thou weep? Thy falling tears restrain; Affection for a time may sleep, But, oh, 'twill wake again. Think, think, my friend, when next we meet, Our long-wish'd intercourse, how sweet! From this my hope of rapture springs, While youthful hearts thus fondly swell, Absence, my friend, can only tell, 'Friendship is Love without his wings!'"

Whether the verses I am now about to give are, in any degree, founded on fact, I have no accurate means of determining. Fond as he was of recording every particular of his youth, such an event, or rather era, as is here commemorated, would have been, of all others, the least likely to pass unmentioned by him;--and yet neither in conversation nor in any of his writings do I remember even an allusion to it.[66] On the other hand, so entirely was all that he wrote,--making allowance for the embellishments of fancy,--the transcript of his actual life and feelings, that it is not easy to suppose a poem, so full of natural tenderness, to have been indebted for its origin to imagination alone.

"TO MY SON!

"Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue, Bright as thy mother's in their hue; Those rosy lips, whose dimples play And smile to steal the heart away, Recall a scene of former joy, And touch thy Father's heart, my Boy!

"And thou canst lisp a father's name-- Ah, William, were thine own the same, No self-reproach--but, let me cease-- My care for thee shall purchase peace; Thy mother's shade shall smile in joy, And pardon all the past, my Boy!

"Her lowly grave the turf has prest, And thou hast known a stranger's breast. Derision sneers upon thy birth, And yields thee scarce a name on earth; Yet shall not these one hope destroy,-- A Father's heart is thine, my Boy!

"Why, let the world unfeeling frown, Must I fond Nature's claim disown? Ah, no--though moralists reprove, I hail thee, dearest child of love, Fair cherub, pledge of youth and joy-- A Father guards thy birth, my Boy!

"Oh, 'twill be sweet in thee to trace, Ere age has wrinkled o'er my face, Ere half my glass of life is run, At once a brother and a son; And all my wane of years employ In justice done to thee, my Boy!

"Although so young thy heedless sire, Youth will not damp parental fire; And, wert thou still less dear to me, While Helen's form revives in thee, The breast, which beat to former joy, Will ne'er desert its pledge, my Boy!

"B----, 1807."[67]

But the most remarkable of these poems is one of a date prior to any I have given, being written in December, 1806, when he was not yet nineteen years old. It contains, as will be seen, his religious creed at that period, and shows how early the struggle between natural piety and doubt began in his mind.

"THE PRAYER OF NATURE.

"Father of Light! great God of Heaven! Hear'st thou the accents of despair? Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven? Can vice atone for crimes by prayer? Father of Light, on thee I call! Thou see'st my soul is dark within; Thou who canst mark the sparrow's fall, Avert from me the death of sin. No shrine I seek, to sects unknown, Oh point to me the path of truth! Thy dread omnipotence I own, Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth. Let bigots rear a gloomy fane, Let superstition hail the pile, Let priests, to spread their sable reign, With tales of mystic rites beguile. Shall man confine his Maker's sway To Gothic domes of mouldering stone? Thy temple is the face of day; Earth, ocean, heaven, thy boundless throne. Shall man condemn his race to hell Unless they bend in pompous form; Tell us that all, for one who fell, Must perish in the mingling storm? Shall each pretend to reach the skies, Yet doom his brother to expire, Whose soul a different hope supplies, Or doctrines less severe inspire? Shall these, by creeds they can't expound, Prepare a fancied bliss or woe? Shall reptiles, grovelling on the ground, Their great Creator's purpose know? Shall those who live for self alone, Whose years float on in daily crime-- Shall they by Faith for guilt atone, And live beyond the bounds of Time? Father! no prophet's laws I seek,-- _Thy_ laws in Nature's works appear;-- I own myself corrupt and weak, Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear! Thou, who canst guide the wandering star Through trackless realms of Æther's space; Who calm'st the elemental war, Whose hand from pole to pole I trace: Thou, who in wisdom placed me here, Who, when thou wilt, can take me hence, Ah! whilst I tread this earthly sphere, Extend to me thy wide defence. To Thee, my God, to Thee I call! Whatever weal or woe betide, By thy command I rise or fall, In thy protection I confide. If, when this dust to dust restored, My soul shall float on airy wing, How shall thy glorious name adored, Inspire her feeble voice to sing! But, if this fleeting spirit share With clay the grave's eternal bed, While life yet throbs, I raise my prayer, Though doom'd no more to quit the dead. To Thee I breathe my humble strain, Grateful for all thy mercies past, And hope, my God, to thee again This erring life may fly at last.

"29th Dec. 1806.

BYRON."

In another of these poems, which extends to about a hundred lines, and which he wrote under the melancholy impression that he should soon die, we find him concluding with a prayer in somewhat the same spirit. After bidding adieu to all the favourite scenes of his youth,[68] he thus continues,--

"Forget this world, my restless sprite, Turn, turn thy thoughts to Heav'n: There must thou soon direct thy night, If errors are forgiven. To bigots and to sects unknown. Bow down beneath the Almighty's throne;-- To him address thy trembling prayer; He, who is merciful and just, Will not reject a child of dust, Although his meanest care. Father of Light, to thee I call, My soul is dark within; Thou, who canst mark the sparrow fall, Avert the death of sin. Thou, who canst guide the wandering star, Who calm'st the elemental war, Whose mantle is yon boundless sky, My thoughts, my words, my crimes forgive; And, since I soon must cease to live, Instruct me how to die.

1807."

We have seen, by a former letter, that the law proceedings for the recovery of his Rochdale property had been attended with success in some trial of the case at Lancaster. The following note to one of his Southwell friends, announcing a second triumph of the cause, shows how sanguinely and, as it turned out, erroneously, he calculated on the results.

"Feb. 9. 1807.

Dear ----,

"I have the pleasure to inform you we have gained the Rochdale cause a second time, by which I am, £60,000 plus. Yours ever,

"BYRON."

In the month of April we find him still at Southwell, and addressing to his friend, Dr. Pigot, who was at Edinburgh, the following note[69]:--

"Southwell, April, 1807.

"My dear Pigot,

"Allow me to congratulate you on the success of your first examination--'_Courage_, mon ami.' The title of Doctor will do wonders with the damsels. I shall most probably be in Essex or London when you arrive at this d----d place, where I am detained by the publication of my rhymes.

"Adieu.--Believe me yours very truly,

"BYRON.

"P.S. Since we met, I have reduced myself by violent exercise, much physic, and hot bathing, from 14 stone 6 lb. to 12 stone 7 lb. In all I have lost 27 pounds. Bravo!--what say you?"

His movements and occupations for the remainder of this year will be best collected from a series of his own letters, which I am enabled, by the kindness of the lady to whom they were addressed, to give. Though these letters are boyishly[70] written, and a good deal of their pleasantry is of that conventional kind which depends more upon phrase than thought, they will yet, I think, be found curious and interesting, not only as enabling us to track him through this period of his life, but as throwing light upon various little traits of character, and laying open to us the first working of his hopes and fears while waiting, in suspense, the opinions that were to decide, as he thought, his future fame. The first of the series, which is without date, appears to have been written before he had left Southwell. The other letters, it will be seen, are dated from Cambridge and from London.