Chapter 52

[Footnote 58: Milton's first wife, it is well known, ran away from him, within a month after their marriage, disgusted, says Phillips, "with his spare diet and hard study;" and it is difficult to conceive a more melancholy picture of domestic life than is disclosed in his nuncupative will, one of the witnesses to which deposes to having heard the great poet himself complain, that his children "were careless of him, being blind, and made nothing of deserting him."]

[Footnote 59: By whatever austerity of temper or habits the poets Dante and Milton may have drawn upon themselves such a fate, it might be expected that, at least, the "gentle Shakspeare" would have stood exempt from the common calamity of his brethren. But, among the very few facts of his life that have been transmitted to us, there is none more clearly proved than the unhappiness of his marriage. The dates of the birth of his children, compared with that of his removal from Stratford,--the total omission of his wife's name in the first draft of his will, and the bitter sarcasm of the bequest by which he remembers her afterwards,--all prove beyond a doubt both his separation from the lady early in life, and his unfriendly feeling towards her at the close of it.

In endeavouring to argue against the conclusion naturally to be deduced from this will, Boswell, with a strange ignorance of human nature, remarks:--"If he had taken offence at any part of his wife's conduct, I cannot believe that he would have taken this petty mode of expressing it."]

[Footnote 60: In a small book which I have in my possession, containing a sort of chronological History of the Ring, I find the name of Lord Byron, more than once, recorded among the "backers."]

[Footnote 61: Dr. Woolriche, an old and valued friend of mine, to whose skill, on the occasion here alluded to, I was indebted for my life.]

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LETTER. 207. TO MR. MURRAY.

"December 31, 1814.

"A thousand thanks for Gibbon: all the additions are very great improvements.

"At last I must be _most_ peremptory with you about the _print_ from Phillips's picture: it is pronounced on all hands the most stupid and disagreeable possible: so do, pray, have a new engraving, and let me see it first; there really must be no more from the same plate. I don't much care, myself; but every one I honour torments me to death about it, and abuses it to a degree beyond repeating. Now, don't answer with excuses; but, for my sake, have it destroyed: I never shall have peace till it is. I write in the greatest haste.

"P.S. I have written this most illegibly; but it is to beg you to destroy the print, and have another 'by particular desire.' It must be d----d bad, to be sure, since every body says so but the original; and he don't know what to say. But do _do_ it: that is, burn the plate, and employ a new _etcher_ from the other picture. This is stupid and sulky."

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On his arrival in town, he had, upon enquiring into the state of his affairs, found them in so utterly embarrassed a condition as to fill him with some alarm, and even to suggest to his mind the prudence of deferring his marriage. The die was, however, cast, and he had now no alternative but to proceed. Accordingly, at the end of December, accompanied by his friend Mr. Hobhouse, he set out for Seaham, the seat of Sir Ralph Milbanke, the lady's father, in the county of Durham, and on the 2d of January, 1815, was married.

"I saw him stand Before an altar with a gentle bride; Her face was fair, but was not that which made The Starlight of his Boyhood;--as he stood Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock That in the antique Oratory shook His bosom in its solitude; and then-- As in that hour--a moment o'er his face, The tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced,--and then it faded as it came, And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke The fitting vows, but heard not his own words, And all things reel'd around him; he could see Not that which was, nor that which should have been-- But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall, And the remember'd chambers, and the place, The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, All things pertaining to that place and hour, And her, who was his destiny, came back, And thrust themselves between him and the light:-- What business had they there at such a time?"[62]

This touching picture agrees so closely in many of its circumstances, with his own prose account of the wedding in his Memoranda, that I feel justified in introducing it, historically, here. In that Memoir, he described himself as waking, on the morning of his marriage, with the most melancholy reflections, on seeing his wedding-suit spread out before him. In the same mood, he wandered about the grounds alone, till he was summoned for the ceremony, and joined, for the first time on that day, his bride and her family. He knelt down, he repeated the words after the clergyman; but a mist was before his eyes,--his thoughts were elsewhere; and he was but awakened by the congratulations of the bystanders, to find that he was--married.

The same morning, the wedded pair left Seaham for Halnaby, another seat of Sir Ralph Milbanke, in the same county. When about to depart, Lord Byron said to the bride, "Miss Milbanke, are you ready?"--a mistake which the lady's confidential attendant pronounced to be a "bad omen."

It is right to add, that I quote these slight details from memory, and am alone answerable for any inaccuracy there may be found in them.

[Footnote 62: The Dream.]

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