4 (which Byron expected), it was found to be still on tap, for Byron and Hobhouse had to begin by 'begging a bed and a morsel for the night' of a particular friend of Galt's; and 'God forgive me!' says Galt, with a certain irrelevancy, but I partook of Byron's levity at the idea of personages so consequential wandering destitute in the streets,' etc. There is more of Malta, and there is much of Greece (Galt and Byron met again at Athens), but I shall sample Galt no further. Enough to say that after the return to England, and at a time when Byron 'could not well be said to be a celebrated character'-a time, in fact, when Childe Harold was known to Murray and Dallas alone-'I was frequently with him.' Then, however, came a tiff over The Bride of Abydos (1813), the story of which, as Galt insisted, was-not Byron's but -Galt's. Byron protested, and the tiff was ended, for the time being, by a very friendly letter which will be found under date of 11th December 1813, in Vol. ii. But the relation was not one made to last. At this time Byron, as he confessed to Lady Blessington, was in no frame of mind to form an impartial opinion' of Galt :-' His mildness and equanimity struck me even then; but, to say the truth, his manner had not deference enough for my then aristocratical taste, and, finding I could not awe him into a respect sufficiently profound for my sublime self, either as a peer or an author, I felt a little grudge against him,' etc. If I add that Byron thought highly of Galt's novels (he read The Entail three times), and spoke very sensibly and well of the peculiar quality of his gift, I shall have said enough of Galt and Byron during Byron's life. The worst came after Byron's death, when Galt read (in Moore) an entry in one of Byron's Diaries that he (Galt) was 'almost the last person on whom any one would commit literary larceny.' That nettled him, and, in The Life of Lord Byron (1830), a work which, as we have seen, is rather well meant than well written, but which is still worth reading, he reflects (1) that Childe Harold was preceded by a poem in the Spenserian measure, which was 'called The Unknown,' which was intended to describe... . . pilgrim . . the scenes I expected to visit,' and on which 'I was occasionally engaged.. during the passage with Lord Byron from Gibraltar to Malta, and he knew what I was about; (2) that 'I wrote at Athens a burlesque poem on nearly the same subject' as The Curse of Minerva, that the MS. was 'sent to his Lordship in Asia Minor, and returned to me through Mr. Hobhouse,' and that 'his Curse of Minerva I saw for the first time in 1828 in Galignani's edition of his works'; ་ and (3) that, though 'his Lordship disdained to commit any larceny on me, and no doubt the following passage from The Giaour is perfectly original' (follows the passage), yet 'not the most judicious action of all my youth was to publish certain,' etc. and his Lordship had the printed book in his possession long before,' etc., and may have read the following passage,' etc. etc. etc. It might be inferred from this that the creator of the inimitable Micah Balquhidder and the scarce less admirable Lady Grippy (as who should say a Glasgow Mrs. Gamp) was not remarkable for humour in private life. But, however that be, he was the only true begetter of the 'apparitional' Byron-the Byron who was as a mystery in a winding-sheet crowned with a halo, at the same time that he was 'distinguished for superior personal elegance, particularly in his bust.' LETTER CXxxiii. p. 192. With my best thanks :-See ante, p. 399, Note to Letter cxxix. LETTER CXXXV. p. 195. The thing which accompanies this note:-The First and Second Harold, published two days after Byron's maiden speech. Anything I may formerly have uttered:-See ante, p. 314, Note to Letter xxviii. See also English Bards :— Illustrious Holland! Hard would be his lot, and the rest. With Byron's note (1816) to the passage:-' Bad enough, and on mistaken grounds, too.' Again, under date of 17th November 1813, Byron writes thus in his Journal:-'I have had a most kind letter from Lord Holland on The Bride of Abydos, which he likes, and so does Lady H. This is very good-natured in both, from whom I don't deserve any quarter. Yet I did think at the time that my cause of enmity proceeded from Holland House, and am glad I was wrong, and wish I had not been in such a hurry with that confounded Satire, of which I would suppress even the memory; but people, now they can't get it, make a fuss, I verily believe out of contradiction.' LETTER CXxxvii. p. 197. I shall see you, I hope, at Lady Jersey's:-'Suppose that you were in love with a girl, and that her father refused his consent to the union, what would you do?' Thus, some time in 1782, John, Tenth Earl of Westmoreland, to Child the banker. 'Do?' was the answer: 'why, run away with her, to be sure!' That very night ('tis said), Lord Westmoreland and his interlocutor's one child eloped together, and took the road from Berkeley Square to Gretna Green. The father followed 'hot and instant in their trace,' and in the end so nearly ran them down that Lord Westmoreland had to stand up in the fleeing chaise, and shoot one of the banker's leaders: which happy yet desperate expedient enabled him to make good his retreat. Three months after the wedding, Robert Child died, bequeathing his very splendid fortune to the first daughter, who should be called Sarah, after his own dead wife. This was Lady Sarah Sophia Fane; and on the 23rd May 1804 she married George Villiers, Fifth Earl of Jersey, twice Lord Chamberlain of the Household, twice Master of the Horse (according to Byron, as reported by Lady Blessington, 'Pegasus was perhaps the only horse of whose points Lord Jersey couldn't be a judge')-and, Lord Malmesbury says, 'in manner and appearance le plus grand seigneur of his time.' From the beginning to the end the Countess of Jersey, who was extremely beautiful, was the greatest of great ladies de par le monde, and wielded an influence in society which none, perhaps, but Lady Palmerston's could rival. She was one of the Committee of Lady Patronesses which decided who should, and who should not, be admitted to Almack's, the assembly rooms in King Street, St. James's Street, founded in 1769, and then.' the Seventh Heaven of the fashionable world (GRONOW): So that, after 1815, 'to be excluded from them was fatal to any one who aspired to belong to the elite of fashion' (LORD WILLIAM LENNOX). To Almack's, after Waterloo, Lady Jersey imported the favourite quadrille, which has so long remained popular' (a French print, copied into Gronow's First Set of Reminiscences, shows her in act to dance it, her fellows being Lord and Lady Worcester, and Clanronald Macdonald); and at Almack's (1819) Ticknor, who describes her 'as a beautiful creature with a great deal of talent, taste, and elegant accomplishment,' stood by on a memorable occasion when the Duke of Wellington (a great society mań: whose nickname was The Beau) was announced at seven minutes past eleven of the clock, and heard her say, 'with emphasis and distinctness,' these awful words: 'Give my compliments-Lady Jersey's compliments -to the Duke of Wellington, and say that she is very glad that the first enforcement of the rule of exclusion is such that hereafter no one can complain of its application. He cannot be admitted.' [It is worth noting that once before the Duke had been denied his place in Paradise, for that he came to look for it in trousers, and not in breeches as a reputable angel should.] Gronow, who did not love the Countess, complains that, in 1814-when the Committee consisted of herself, the Countess Lieven, Lady Castlereagh, Lady Sefton, the Countess Cowper, Mrs. Drummond Burrell, and the Princess Esterhazy,-'her bearing,' as compared to Lady Cowper's, 'was that of a theatrical tragedy queen,' and that 'whilst attempting the sublime, she frequently made herself simply ridiculous, being inconceivably rude, and in her manner often ill-bred.' But there were two Lady Jerseys, it would seem; and this one was the leader of ton, whom Byron described to Lady Blessington as 'the veriest tyrant that ever governed Fashion's fools, and compelled them to shake their caps and bells as she willed it.' The other, the Lady Jersey of private life, was not at all that sort of person. In the May of this same year Byron, who was ever her devout admirer-('Does she still retain her beautiful cream-coloured complexion and raven hair?' he asked at Genoa) -and who was very soon to see her dancing with the Czar : He wore but a starless blue coat, and in kersey mere breeches, waltzed round with the Countess of Jersey, With majesty's presence, as those she invited : ... inscribed to her the famous Condolatory Address:-'On the Occasion of the Prince Regent Returning her Picture to Mrs. Mee.' 'Don't be very angry with me,' he writes, in a note (unpublished) communicated to the Editor by the present Earl. 'If ill-done, the shame can only be mine. . . They were begun and finished since ten o'clock to-night, so that, whether good or bad, they were done in good earnest. Do with them what you please. Whether they amuse your friends or light your fire, I shall be content, so they don't offend you.' This is scarce the sort of letter which a man would write to 'a theatrical tragedy queen'; nor is a Siddons manquée suggested by Sheridan's description (1815: reported by Lady Granville and quoted by Mr. Fraser Rae) of his 'Silence' (so he called her) as 'a pretty rushing babbling stream, never stagnant.' [From this of Sheridan's about his 'Silence,' by the way, you understand why Byron 'used to long to tell her that she spoiled her looks by excessive animation,' for 'eyes, tongue, head, and arms were all in motion at once.'] Take, too, the acutely observed, not altogether friendly portrait which Charles Greville painted of her after staying at Middleton in 1819: 1819, January 17th-'. It was very agreeable, and the house extremely comfortable. Lady Jersey is an extraordinary woman, and has many good qualities; surrounded as she is by flatterers and admirers, she is neither proud nor conceited. She is full of vivacity, spirit, and goodnature, but the wide range of her sympathies and affections proves that she has more general benevolence than particular sensibility in her character. She performs all the ordinary duties of life with great correctness, because her heart is naturally good; and she is, perhaps, from her temperament, exposed to fewer temptations than the generality of her sex. She is deficient in passion and in softness (which constitute the greatest charm in women), so that she excites more of admiration than of interest; in conversation she is lively and pleasant, without being very remarkable, for she has neither wit, nor imagination, nor humour; her understanding is active rather than strong, and her judgment is too often warped by preju dice to be sound. She has a retentive memory and a restless mind, together with a sort of intellectual arrangement, with which she appears rather to have been gifted by nature than to have derived from the cultivation of her reasoning faculties.' It may have been a mistake in taste for Lady Jersey to identify herself (as she did) with the cause of the ill-guided and ill-starred Caroline of Brunswick (whose worst enemy her mother-in-law, the Dowager Countess, had been); and it may be that the Regent, in turning her picture out of his Gallery of Beauties, was within his rights as both Gentleman and King. But the enduring argument in her favour is that, despite the weight and manner of her tyranny, she so developed and consolidated her social influence that in the end, Lord Malmesbury says, she was 'almost a European personage, for no crowned head or representative of royalty ever landed in England without immediately calling on her, and being found in her salon during his stay.' She died at eighty-two, having survived her husband (by some seventeen years) and her three daughters-(one of them married an Esterhazy, while the second eloped, as her grandmother before her) and displayed to the last 'the courage and coolness for which she was famous' (MALMESBURY). These qualities were certainly conspicuous in her treatment of Byron at the lowest pitch of his fortune. On the eve of his departure into banishment, when all London was ringing with the rumour of his misdeeds, and there was scarce a voice which dared uplift itself in his defence, she took the lists for him with equal benevolence and intrepidity, 'made a party for him expressly,' and received him with a serene and gracious kindness,' which he remembered gratefully until the last. The 'party' was a failure. Most of the guests were uncivil or worse, and only one, Miss Mercer, afterwards Lady Keith, was |