My Recollections of Lord Byron
Did I my error mourn?
No--from oppressive bonds relieved,
I left the wretch to scorn.
I turn'd to those my childhood knew,
With feelings warm, with bosoms true,
Twined with my heart's according strings;
And till those vital chords shall break,
For none but these my breast shall wake
Friendship, the power deprived of wings!
Ye few! my soul, my life is yours,
My memory and my hope;
Your worth a lasting love insures,
Unfetter'd in its scope;
From smooth deceit and terror sprung
With aspect fair and honey'd tongue,
Let Adulation wait on kings;
With joy elate, by snares beset,
We, we, my friends, can ne'er forget
"Friendship is Love without his wings!"
Fictions and dreams inspire the bard
Who rolls the epic song;
Friendship and truth be my reward--
To me no bays belong;
If laurell'd Fame but dwells with lies,
Me the enchantress ever flies,
Whose heart and not whose fancy sings;
Simple and young, I dare not feign;
Mine be the rude yet heartfelt strain,
"Friendship is Love without his wings!"
_December_, 1806.
These early poems are well characterized by the impression which they
produced upon Sir Robert Dallas, a man of taste and talent, who, though
a bigot and a prey to prejudices of all kinds, hastened, nevertheless,
after reading them, to compliment the author in the following
words:--"Your poems are not only beautiful as compositions, but they
also denote an honorable and upright heart, and one prone to virtue."
This eulogium is well deserved, and I pity those who could read the
"Hours of Idleness" without liking their youthful writer. If we had
space enough, we fain would follow the young man from Cambridge to the
mysterious Abbey of Newstead, where he loved to invite his friends and
institute with them a monastery of which he proclaimed himself the
Abbot--an amusement really most innocent in itself, and which bigotry
and folly alone could consider reprehensible. With what pleasure he
would show that in the monastery of Newstead its abbot lived the
simplest and most austere existence,--"a life of study," as Washington
Irving describes it, from what he heard Nanna Smyth say of it some
years after Byron's death. How delighted we should be to follow him in
his first travels in search of experience of life, and when his genius
revealed itself in that light which was shortly to make him the idol of
the public and the hatred of the envious. We could show him to have been
always the same kind-hearted man, by whom severity and injustice were
never had recourse to except against himself, and whose melancholy was
too often the result of broken illusions and disappointments. His simple
and noble character, having always before it an ideal perfection,
perpetually by comparison, thought itself at fault; and the world, who
could not comprehend the exquisite delicacy of his mind, took for
granted the reputation he gave himself, and made him a martyr till
heaven should give him time to become a saint.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 20: See chapter upon Generosity.]
[Footnote 21: Marston Moor, where the adherents of Charles I. were
defeated. Prince Rupert, son of the Elector Palatine, and nephew to
Charles I. He afterward commanded the fleet in the reign of Charles II.]
[Footnote 22: This alludes to the public speeches delivered at the
school where the author was educated.]
[Footnote 23: Harrow.]
CHAPTER VI.
THE FRIENDSHIPS OF LORD BYRON.
The extraordinary part which friendship played in Lord Byron's life is
another proof of his goodness. His friendships may be divided into two
categories: the friendships of his heart, and those of his mind. To the
first class belong those which he made at Harrow and in his early
Cambridge days, while his later acquaintances at the University matured
into friends of the second category. These had great influence over his
mind. The names of those of the first category who were dearest to him,
and who were alive when he left Harrow for Cambridge (for he had lost
some very intimate friends while still at Harrow, and among these
Curzon), were--
WINGFIELD.
DELAWARE.
TATTERSALL.
CLARE.
LONG.
EDDLESTON.
HARNESS.
I will say a word of each, so as to show that Byron in the selection of
his friends was guided instinctively by the qualities of those he loved.
WINGFIELD.
The Hon. John Wingfield, of the Coldstream Guards, was a brother of
Richard, fourth Viscount Powerscourt, and died of fever at Coimbra, on
the 14th of May, 1811, in his 20th year.
"Of all beings on earth," says Byron, "I was perhaps at one time more
attached to poor Wingfield than to any. I knew him during the best part
of his life and the happiest portion of mine."
When he heard of the death of this beloved companion of his youth, he
added the two following stanzas to the first canto of "Childe Harold:"
XCI.
"And thou, my friend!--since unavailing woe
Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain--
Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low,
Pride might forbid e'en Friendship to complain:
But thus unlaurell'd to descend in vain,
By all forgotten, save the lonely breast,
And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain,
While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest!
What hadst thou done, to sink so peacefully to rest?
XCII.
"Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most!
Dear to a heart where naught was left so dear!
Though to my hopeless days forever lost,
In dreams deny me not to see thee here!
And Morn in secret shall renew the tear
Of Consciousness awaking to her woes,
And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier,
Till my frail frame return to whence it rose,
And mourn'd and mourner lie united in repose."
Writing to Dallas on the 7th of August, 1812, he says, "Wingfield was
among my best and dearest friends; one of the very few I can never
regret to have loved." And on the 7th of September, speaking of the
death of Matthews, in whom he said he had lost a friend and a guide, he
wrote to Dallas to say: "In Wingfield I have lost a friend only; but one
I could have wished to precede in his long journey."
TATTERSALL (DAVUS).
The Rev. John Cecil Tattersall, B.A., of Christ Church, Oxford, died on
the 8th of October, 1812, aged 24.
"His knowledge," says a writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine," "was
extensive and deep; his affections were sincere and great. By his
extreme aversion to hypocrisy, he was so far from assuming the
appearance of virtue, that most of his good qualities remained hidden,
while he was most anxious to reveal the slightest fault into which he
had fallen. He was a stanch friend, and a stranger to all enmity; he
behaved loyally to men when alive, and died full of confidence and trust
in God."
DELAWARE (EURYALUS).
George John, fifth Earl of Delaware, born in October, 1791, succeeded to
his father in July, 1795.
Lord Byron wrote from Harrow on the 25th of October, 1804:--
"I am very comfortable here; my friends are not numerous, but choice.
Among the first of these I place Delaware, who is very amiable, and my
great friend. He is younger than I am, but is gifted with the finest
character. He is the most intelligent creature on earth, and is besides
particularly good-looking, which is a charm in women's eyes."
In consequence of a misunderstanding, or rather of a false
accusation,--of which I shall speak elsewhere, in order to show the
generosity of Lord Byron's character,--a coolness took place in their
friendship. A charming piece in the "Hours of Idleness" alludes to it,
and shows well the nature of his mind. I will only quote the seventh
stanza:--
"You knew that my soul, that my heart, my existence,
If danger demanded, were wholly your own;
You knew me unalter'd by years or by distance,
Devoted to love and to friendship alone."
CLARE (LYCUS).
John Fitzgibbon, second Earl of Clare, succeeded to his father in 1802;
was twelve years Chancellor of Ireland, and, later, Governor of Bombay.
Lord Byron wrote of him at Ravenna:--
"I never hear the name of Clare without my heart beating even now, and I
am writing in 1821, with all the feelings of 1803, 4, 5, and _ad
infinitum_."
He had kept all the letters of his early friends, and among these is one
of Lord Clare's, in which the energy of his mind appears even through
the language of the child. At the bottom of this letter and in Byron's
hand, is a note written years after, showing his tender and amiable
feelings:--
"This letter was written at Harrow by Lord Clare, then, and I trust
ever, my beloved friend. When we were both students, he sent it to me in
my study, in consequence of a brief childish misunderstanding, the only
one we ever had. I keep this note only to show him, and laugh with him
at the remembrance of the insignificance of our first and last quarrel.
BYRON."
Besides mentioning Lord Clare in "Childish Recollections," his "Hours of
Idleness" contain another poem addressed to him, which begins thus:--
TO THE EARL OF CLARE.
"Tu semper amoris
Sis memor, et cari comitis ne abscedat imago."--VAL. FLAC.
Friend of my youth! when young we roved,
Like striplings, mutually beloved,
With friendship's purest glow,
The bliss which winged those rosy hours
Was such as pleasure seldom showers
On mortals here below.
The recollection seems alone
Dearer than all the joys I've known,
When distant far from you:
Though pain, 'tis still a pleasing pain,
To trace those days and hours again,
And sigh again, adieu!
* * * * *
Our souls, my friend! which once supplied
One wish, nor breathed a thought beside,
Now flow in different channels:
Disdaining humbler rural sports,
'Tis yours to mix in polish'd courts,
And shine in fashion's annals:
* * * * *
I think I said 'twould be your fate
To add one star to royal state:--
May regal smiles attend you!
And should a noble monarch reign,
You will not seek his smiles in vain,
If worth can recommend you.
Yet since in danger courts abound,
Where specious rivals glitter round,
From snares may saints preserve you;
And grant your love or friendship ne'er
From any claim a kindred care,
But those who best deserve you!
Not for a moment may you stray
From truth's secure, unerring way!
May no delights decoy!
O'er roses may your footsteps move,
Your smiles be ever smiles of love,
Your tears be tears of joy!
Oh! if you wish that happiness
Your coming days and years may bless,
And virtues crown your brow;
Be still, as you were wont to be,
Spotless as you've been known to me,--
Be still as you are now.
And though some trifling share of praise,
To cheer my last declining days,
To me were doubly dear,
While blessing your beloved name,
I'd waive at once a _poet's_ fame,
To prove a _prophet_ here.
In 1821, as he was going to Pisa, Byron met his old and dear friend
Clare on the route to Bologna, and speaks of their meeting in the
following terms:--
"'There is a strange coincidence sometimes in the little things of this
world, Sancho,' says Sterne, in a letter (if I mistake not), and so I
have often found it. At page 128, article 91, of this collection, I had
alluded to my friend Lord Clare in terms such as my feelings suggested.
About a week or two afterward I met him on the road between Imola and
Bologna, after an interval of seven or eight years. He was abroad in
1814, and came home just as I set out in 1816.
"This meeting annihilated for a moment all the years between the present