STANZAS WRITTEN on the Road between Florence and PISA 169

ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR

INTRODUCTION

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

Less than a century ago Byron shared with Napoleon the wonder of Europe. With the sole exception of Shakespeare, the author of Childe Harold and Don Juan is still Byron a great historical and to the foreign world by far the greatest figure in literary figure English poetry. His influence upon European literature has been almost incalculable. Perhaps never did a man's personality more deeply impress his generation; and Byron's poems are but a revelation of his personality,-complex, powerful, and brilliant. All this inevitably leads us to some consideration of the poet's life, character, and place in literature.

Byron, always something of a fighter and adventurer, sprang from an old and fighting stock. The Byrons, or Buruns, were Byron's Normans, who came over with the Conqueror, ancestry and are mentioned in his Domesday Book. They perhaps took part in the Crusades; certainly they fought at Crécy, and at Calais one of them was knighted. Various Sir Johns, Sir Richards, and Sir Nicholases continued the fighting tradition, and in 1643 one particular Sir John, a prominent Royalist, was created Baron of Rochdale for his services to the royal cause.

For us the chief interest in Byron's pedigree begins with 1722, in which year his great-uncle, the fifth lord, was born. "The wicked lord," as he came to be known, having murdered a relative, Mr. Chaworth, bore an unenviable reputation. He left the ancestral property in

"The wicked

lord "

The seaman and traveler

a ruinous condition, and made the name of Byron a rather questionable heritage for his descendants. His brother, John Byron, became a famous seaman and traveler, who wrote an entertaining autobiography, from which his illustrious grandson, the poet, gained material for some of his poetry.

The eldest son of this traveler and seaman, also named John Byron, the father of the poet, was born in 1751, and became a captain in the Guards. He was a dissipated, worthless fellow, "Mad Jack" known as "Mad Jack," though his character seems to have been somewhat redeemed by a certain careless generosity and good nature. He eloped with the wife of the Marquis of Carmarthen, and married her after she had secured a divorce from her former husband. Of Byron's birth this marriage was born Augusta, afterwards Mrs. Leigh, the poet's half-sister. This first wife died in 1784, and in the next year the fortune hunter entrapped a Scotch lady, Miss Catherine Gordon, of Gight, who was of an old family and possessed considerable estates. On January 22, 1788, the boy known as George Gordon Byron was born in Holles Street, London. Soon after this event, having squandered all of his wife's fortune, "Jack" Byron deserted his family, fled to France, and there died in 1791.

Character of

Byron's mother

The boy George came into the world heavily handicapped. His father's race was a violent one; his mother's, foolish. Had Byron's mother been other than she was, the tenor of her son's life might have been more equable. But "Mrs. Byron," as the boy often called her, was a vain, impulsive woman, hysterical and passionate, and utterly capricious in her treatment of her son. She alternately abused and petted him; would berate him as a "lame brat" one instant, and caress him the next. So, although she was always ready to sacrifice herself for him,

and doubtless really loved him in her own way, their relations were in general most unfortunate. She was no mother for such a boy as Byron, — headstrong, passionate, moody, as he was. "Your mother's a fool," once remarked a fellow-schoolboy. "I know it," was the startling and significant reply.

This was not all: Byron was lame. This lameness has been the subject of endless controversy; but it is now finally Byron's stated, and probably with truth, that he "was lameness afflicted with an infantile paralysis which affected the muscles of the right leg and foot." From this resulted a slight limp, never corrected, in spite of severe treatment. About this deformity, which was scarcely noticeable, Byron up to the very end of his life was abnormally sensitive. "What a pretty boy Byron is!" remarked a friend of his nurse; "what a pity he is lame!" Thereupon the boy, with flashing eyes, struck at her with his baby whip, exclaiming, "Dinna speak of it!" This abnormal sensitiveness undoubtedly colored his views of society and embittered his disposition. Byron's life now falls into five clearly defined periods, his early school life up to and through his Harrow days; his Five epochs of university career; his two years' stay in southern Byron's life Europe; his London residence, marriage, and subsequent unpopularity; and his life abroad until his death, in 1824, at the age of thirty-six.

School days at Aberdeen

In 1790 Mrs. Byron took her son to Aberdeen and put him to school under various tutors. He showed himself a poor student, but read with avidity all the history and romance he could find. From 1794 to 1798 he attended the grammar school, during which period he was sent, in order to recuperate after an attack of scarlet fever, to Ballater. Here he wandered through the mountains and added to his passionate love of the sea, gained at Aberdeen, the love of mountain scenery that glorifies so much of his