letter, and thought it was a trick, though I had never been in that theatre before.

Altogether, I think myself justified in thinking the comparison not well founded. I don't say this out of pique, for Rousseau was a great man; and the thing, if true, were flattering enough;-but I have no idea of being pleased with the chimera."

In another letter to his mother, dated some weeks after the preceding one, he explains further his plans both with respect to Newstead and his projected travels.

LETTER 31. TO MRS. BYRON.

Dear Mother,

"Newstead Abbey, November 2. 1808.

"If f you please, we will forget the things you mention. I have no desire to remember them. When my rooms are finished, I shall be happy to see you; as I tell but the truth, you will not suspect me of evasion. I am furnishing the house more for you than myself, and I shall establish you in it before I sail for India, which I expect to do in March, if nothing particularly obstructive occurs. am now fitting up the green drawing-room; the red for a bed-room, and the rooms over as sleeping-rooms. They will be soon completed; at least I hope so.

I

"I wish you would inquire of Major Watson (who is an old Indian) what things will be necessary to provide for my voyage. I have already procured a friend to write to the Arabic Professor at Cambridge, for some information I am anxious to procure. I can easily get letters from government to the ambassadors, consuls, &c., and also to the governors at Calcutta and Madras. I shall place my property and my will in the hands of trustees till my return, and I mean to appoint you one. From H** [Hanson] I have heard nothing-when I do, you shall have the particulars,

"After all, you must own my project is not a bad one. If I do not travel now, I never shall, and all men should one day or other. I have at present no connections to keep me at home; no wife, or unprovided

1 This gentleman, who took orders in the year 1814, is the author of a spirited translation of Juvenal, and of other works of distinguished merit. He was long in correspondence with Lord Byron, and to him I am indebted for some interesting letters of his noble friend, which will be given in the course of the following pages.

* He had also, at one time, as appears from an anecdote preserved by Spence, some thoughts of burying this dog in his garden, and placing a monument over him, with the inscription, "Oh, rare Bounce!"

In speaking of the members of Rousseau's domestic establishment, Hume says, “She (Thérèse) governs him

73

In the November of this year he lost his favourite dog, Boatswain, -the poor animal having been seized with a fit of madness, at the commencement of which so little aware was Lord Byron of the nature of the malady, that he more than once, with his bare hand, wiped away the slaver from the dog's lips during the paroxysms. In a letter to his friend, Mr. Hodgson, he thus announces Boatswain is dead!-he expired in a state of madness on the 18th, after suffering much, yet retaining all the gentleness of his nature to the last, never attempting to do the least injury to any one near him. I have now lost every thing except old Murray."

this event:

The monument raised by him to this dog,

the most memorable tribute of the kind, since the Dog's Grave, of old, at Salamis,is still a conspicuous ornament of the gardens of Newstead. The misanthropic verses engraved upon it may be found among his poems, and the following is the inscription by which they are introduced :

"Near this spot

Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,

Strength without Insolence,

Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.
This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
If inscribed over human ashes,

Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a Dog,

Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,
And died at Newstead Abbey, November 18. 1808.

The poet Pope, when about the same age as the writer of this inscription, passed a similar eulogy on his dog 2, at the expense

as absolutely as a nurse does a child. In her absence, his dog has acquired that ascendant. His affection for that creature is beyond all expression or conception.". Private Correspondence. See an instance which he gives of this dog's influence over the philosopher, p. 143.

In Burns's elegy on the death of his favourite Mailie, we find the friendship even of a sheep set on a level with that of man:

"Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She ran wi' speed:

A friend mair faithful ne'er came nigh him,
Than Mailie dead."

of human nature; adding, that "Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.” ́ In a still sadder and bitterer spirit, Lord Byron writes of his favourite,

"To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one, and here he lies." 1

Melancholy, indeed, seems to have been gaining fast upon his mind at this period. In another letter to Mr. Hodgson, he says, -"You know laughing is the sign of a rational animal-so says Dr. Smollet. I think so too, but unluckily my spirits don't always keep pace with my opinions."

Old Murray, the servant whom he mentions, in a preceding extract, as the only faithful follower now remaining to him, had long been in the service of the former lord, and was regarded by the young poet with a fondness of affection which it has seldom been the lot of age and dependence to inspire. I have more than once," says a gentleman who was at this time a constant visiter at Newstead, seen Lord Byron at the dinnertable fill out a tumbler of Madeira, and hand it over his shoulder to Joe Murray, who stood behind his chair, saying, with a cordiality that brightened his whole countenance, 'Here, my old fellow.'"

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The unconcern with which he could sometimes allude to the defect in his foot is manifest from another passage in one of these letters to Mr. Hodgson. That gentleman having said jestingly that some of the verses in the "Hours of Idleness" were calculated to make schoolboys rebellious. Lord Byron answers- If my songs have produced the glorious effects you mention, I shall be a complete Tyrtæus ;-though I am sorry to say I resemble that interesting harper more in his person than in his poesy." Sometimes, too, even an allusion to this infirmity by others, when he could perceive that it was not offensively intended, was borne by him with the most perfect good humour. "I was once present," says the friend I have just mentioned, " in a large and mixed company, when a vulgar person asked him aloud-Pray, my Lord, how is that foot of yours?'-Thank you, sir,' answered Lord Byron, with the utmost mildness- -'much the same as usual.'"

The following extract, relating to a reverend friend of his Lordship, is from another of his letters to Mr. Hodgson, this year:

"A few weeks ago I wrote to ***, to request he would receive the son of a citizen of London, well known to me, as a pupil; the family having been particularly polite during the short time I was with them induced me to make this application. Now, mark what follows, as somebody sublimely saith. On this day arrives an epistle signed * containing not the smallest reference to tuition or intuition, but a petition for Robert Gregson, of pugilistic notoriety, now in bondage for certain paltry pounds sterling, and liable to take up his everlasting abode in Banco Regis. Had the letter been from any of my lay acquaintance, or, in short, from any person but the gentleman whose signature it bears, I should have marvelled not. If *** is serious, I congratulate pugilism on the acquisition of such a patron, and shall be most happy to advance any sum necessary for the liberation of the captive Gregson. But I certainly hope to be certified from you, or some respectable housekeeper, of the fact, before I write to * on the subject. When I say the fact, I mean of the letter being written by ***, not having any doubt as to the authenticity of the statement. The letter is now before me, and I keep it for your perusal."

His time at Newstead during this autumn was principally occupied in enlarging and preparing his Satire for the press; and with the view, perhaps, of mellowing his own judgment of its merits, by keeping it some time before his eyes in a printed form3, he had proofs taken off from the manuscript by his former publisher at Newark. It is somewhat remarkable, that, excited as he was by the attack of the reviewers, and possessing, at all times, such rapid powers of composition, he should have allowed so long an interval to elapse between the aggression and the revenge. But the importance of his next move in literature seems to have been fully appreciated by him. He saw that his chances of future eminence now depended upon the effort he was about to make, and therefore deliberately collected all his energies for the spring. Among the preparatives

Er. 21.

by which he disciplined his talent to the task, was a deep study of the writings of Pope; and I have no doubt that from this period may be dated the enthusiastic admiration which he ever after cherished for this great poet, an admiration which at last extinguished in him, after one or two trials, all hope of pre-eminence in the same track, and drove him thenceforth to seek renown in fields more open to competition.

The misanthropic mood of mind into which he had fallen at this time, from disappointed affections and thwarted hopes, made the office of satirist but too congenial and welcome to his spirit. Yet it is evident that this bitterness existed far more in his fancy than his heart; and that the sort of relief he now found in making war upon the world arose much less from the indiscriminate wounds he dealt around, than from the new sense of power he became conscious of in dealing them, and by which he more than recovered his former station in his own esteem. In truth, the versatility and ease with which, as shall presently be shown, he could, on the briefest consideration, shift from praise to censure, and, sometimes, almost as rapidly, from censure to praise, shows how fanciful and transient were the impressions under which he, in many instances, pronounced his judgments; and though it may in some degree deduct from the weight of his eulogy, absolves him also from any great depth of malice in his Satire.

His coming of age, in 1809, was celebrated at Newstead by such festivities as his narrow means and society could furnish. Besides the ritual roasting of an ox, there was a ball, it seems, given on the occasion, of which the only particular I could collect, from the old domestic who mentioned it, was, that Mr. Hanson, the agent of her lord, was among the dancers. Of Lord Byron's own method of commemorating the day, I find the following curious record in a letter written from Genoa in 1822 :'Did I ever tell you that the day I came of age I dined on eggs and bacon and a bottle of ale? For once in a way they are my favourite dish and drinkable; but as neither of them agree with me, I never use them but on great jubilees, -once in four or five years or so." The pecuniary supplies necessary towards his outset, at this epoch, were procured from money-lenders at an enormously usurious interest, the payment of which for a long time

continued to be a burden to him.

CHAPTER VIII.

1809.

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IT was not till the beginning of this year that he took his Satire, in a state ready, as he thought, for publication,- to London. Before, however, he had put the work to press, new food was unluckily furnished to his spleen by the neglect with which he conceived himself to have been treated by his guardian, Lord Carlisle. The relations between this nobleman and his ward had, at no time, been of such a nature as to afford opportunities for the cultivation of much friendliness on either side; and to the temper and influence of Mrs. Byron must mainly be attributed the blame of widening, if not of producing, this estrangement between them. The coldness with which Lord Carlisle had received the dedication of the young poet's first volume was, as we have seen from one of the letters of the latter, felt by him most deeply. He, however, allowed himself to be so far governed by prudential considerations as not only to stifle this displeasure, but even to introduce into his Satire, as originally intended for the press, the following compliment to his guardian:

"On one alone Apollo deigns to smile,

And crowns a new Roscommon in Carlisle."

The crown, however, thus generously awarded, did not long remain where it had been placed. In the interval between the inditing of this couplet and the delivery of under the impression that it was customary the manuscript to the press, Lord Byron, for a young peer, on first taking his seat, to have some friend to introduce him, wrote to remind Lord Carlisle that he should be of

age at the commencement of the session. Instead, however, of the sort of answer which he expected, a mere formal, and, as it appeared to him, cold reply, acquainting him with the technical mode of proceeding on such occasions, was all that, in return to this application, he received. Disposed as he had been, by preceding circumstances, to suspect his noble guardian of no very friendly inclin

ations towards him, this backwardness in proposing to introduce him to the House (a ceremony, however, as it appears, by no means necessary or even usual) was sufficient to rouse in his sensitive mind a strong feeling of resentment. The indignation, thus excited, found a vent, but too temptingly, at hand ;the laudatory couplet I have just cited was instantly expunged, and his Satire went forth charged with those vituperative verses against Lord Carlisle, of which, gratifying as they must have been to his revenge at the moment, he, not long after, with the placability so inherent in his generous nature, repented. 2

During the progress of his poem through the press, he increased its length by more than a hundred lines; and made several alterations, one or two of which may be mentioned, as illustrative of that prompt susceptibility of new impressions and influences which rendered both his judgment and feelings so variable. In the Satire, as it originally stood, was the following couplet : — "Though printers condescend the press to soil

With odes by Smythe 3, and epic songs by Hoyle." 4 Of the injustice of these lines (unjust, it is but fair to say, to both the writers mentioned,) he, on the brink of publication, repented; and,-as far, at least, as regarded one of the intended victims, - adopted a

1 ["It appears, certainly, that the young poet had, in his own opinion, every right to expect the aid and countenance of his relative on this occasion, and that, possessing not one personal friend or acquaintance among the members of the peerage then in London, his entrée was embarrassed with many awkward and humiliating difficulties, which the slightest interference on the part of a nobleman of Lord Carlisle's rank and character would have rendered impossible. It would be unfair, however, not to add, that from all we have heard and read, very little was at this time known about Lord Byron that could have been expected to conciliate those prejudices with which his mother's rude passions and conduct seem originally to have inspired the Earl of Carlisle ; a weak poet, no doubt, but a nobleman distinguished for personal virtues, whose tastes were all elegant and praiseworthy, and his habits and manners, of course, of the highest standard of refinement."- Quarterly Review, 1831.]

2 See his lines on Major Howard, the son of Lord Carlisle, who was killed at Waterloo :"Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine; Yet one I would select from that proud throng, Partly because they blend me with his line, And partly that I did his sire some wrong."

Childe Harold, Canto III. 3 [William Smythe, M. A., professor of modern history in the University of Cambridge, author of "English Lyrics," &c. &c.]

[The Rev. Charles James Hoyle, of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1808, he published "Exodus," an epic in thirteen books," thereby surpassing in generosity," says the Edinburgh Review," Virgil himself, giving us thirnate books, as the conscientious baker gives thirteen rolls,

tone directly opposite in his printed Satire, where the name of Professor Smythe is mentioned honourably, as it deserved, in conjunction with that of Mr. Hodgson, one of the poet's most valued friends :

"Oh dark asylum of a Vandal race!

At once the boast of learning and disgrace;
So sunk in dulness, and so lost in shame,
That Smythe and Hodgson scarce redeem thy fame.”

In another instance we find him "changing his hand" with equal facility and suddenThe original manuscript of the Satire contained this line,

ness.

"I leave topography to coxcomb Gell;" 5

but having, while the work was printing, become acquainted with Sir William Gell, he, without difficulty, by the change of a single epithet, converted satire into eulogy, and the line now descends to posterity thus :

I leave topography to classic Gell."6

Among the passages added to the poem during its progress through the press were those lines denouncing the licentiousness of the Opera, "Then let Ausonia," &c. which the young satirist wrote one night, after returning, brimful of morality, from the Opera, and sent them early next morning to Mr. Dallas for insertion. The just and animated tribute to Mr. Crabbe was also among the

and describes the style of the poem as "the most perfect model that could be imagined for seconding the lulling magic of Mr. Hoyle's muse, breathing the very spirit of repose."-Vol. xi. p. 370.]

5 [Besides the "Topography of Troy," Sir William Gell published" Topography of Rome," "Pompeiana," &c. He died at Naples, in February 1836.]

6 In the fifth edition of the Satire (suppressed by him in 1812) he again changed his mind respecting this gentleman, and altered the line to

"I leave topography to rapid Gell;" explaining his reasons for the change in the following note:-"Rapid,' indeed ;—he topographised and typographised King Priam's dominions in three days. I called him 'classic' before I saw the Troad, but since have learned better than to tack to his name what don't belong to it." He is not, however, the only satirist who has been thus capricious and changeable in his judgments. The variations of this nature in Pope's Dunciad are well known; and the Abbé Cotin, it is said, owed the "painful pre-eminence" of his station in Boileau's Satires to the unlucky convenience of his name as a rhyme. Of the generous change from censure to praise, the poet Dante had already set an example; having, in his "Convito," lauded some of those persons whom, in his Commedia, he had most severely lashed.