"UBI MEL,

No. 16-NEW SERIES.]

SATURDAY, APRIL 20.

[TWOPENCE.

THE FLY'S PICTURE-GALLERY. (No. XVI.-New Series.)

LORD BYRON.

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

George Gordon, Lord Byron, had not only is own talents, but the pride of illustrious ncestry, to boast; for, even so early as the onquest, his family was distinguished, not erely for their extensive manors in Lancaire and other parts, but for their prowess in

ms.

The last Lord Byron but one had only one n, who held a commission in the army, and as killed in Corsica several years before the ath of his father, which accelerated the sucssion of his present Lordship, as the infant andson of the celebrated Admiral Byron, 10 was the eldest brother of the late Lord. is nobleman died on the 19th of May, 1791, which means the author became entitled to title and estates of his illustrious ancestry. Lordship's father married first the Baess Conyers, daughter of Lord Holderness, whom he had a daughter: and, after her nise, Miss Gordon of Gight, the mother of noble lord.

His Lordship spent a considerable portion his early life in Scotland, where the wild untainous scenes which surrounded him tributed not a little to strengthen the hty energies of his mind, and to imprint his vivid imagination those powerful and utiful images of natural grandeur and wildswhich characterise all his writings. At es, his Lordship would exclude himself n his ordinary companions, and wander e amid the majestic and sublime scenery he Highlands, until his soul seemed tinged those elements of real sublimity, and ak a species of inspiration from the mists of mountains, the wild waves of the ocean,

and the black adamant of its terrific boundaries.

The celebrated school at Harrow, and the University at Cambridge, had the honour of adding the polish of education to the innate powers of his mind, and several of his academic companions can relate not a few instances of his precocious talents and strange eccentricities. At this early period of his life he made many voluntary excursions to the Aonian Hill, and drank largely of the Castalian stream, which the work he published under the title of "Hours of Idleness, a series of Poems, original and translated," sufficiently proves; yet, premature as these poetic attempts might be considere, and notwithstanding the severity with which the editor of the Edinburgh Review" handled them, there are numerous original beauties in many of the pieces, which proved the harbingers of the splendid galaxy that succeeded them.

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These poems were published at Newark in 1805, when his Lordship was nineteen years of age; and, from the dates prefixed, it appears that the majority were written between his sixteenth aad eighteenth year.

This critique elicited from his Lordship one of the bitterest and most powerful satires ever published. Lord Byron declares, towards the termination of his poem, that it was his intention to close, from that persod, his connexion with the Muses, and that, should he return in safety from the "Minarets" of Constantinople, the Maidens of Georgia," and the "sublime snows" of Mount Caucasus, nothing on earth should tempt him to resume the pen.

Happily for the republic of letters, this resolution was not persevered in, and the noble bard, with that generosity which usually accompanies true genius, has not only forgiven the editor of the "Edinburgh Review," but flatteringly alludes to him in one of his poems. In more than one instance, Lord Byron exhibits his attachment to Scotland. His re

membrances, or the scenes of his childhood, are recorded in an early poem on Loch na Gar, a mountain which he describes as 66 one of the most sublime and picturesque amongst our Caledonian Alps." Though the verses were among his earliest poetical efforts, they have much poetical force, and are by no means devoid of harmony.

Among the early amusements of his Lordship were swimming and managing a boat, in both of which he is said to have acquired a great dexterity even in his childhood. In his aquatic excursions near Newstead Abbey, he had seldom any other companion than a large Newfoundland dog, to try whose sagacity and fidelity he would sometimes fall out of the boat, as if by accident, when the dog would seize him, and drag him ashore. On losing this dog, in 1808, his Lordship caused a monument to be erected, commemorative of its attachment, with an inscription, which will be given in the next number of the "Fly."

His Lordship, when very young, was placed under the guardianship of Mr. Whyte, an eminent solicitor, who, by a singular coincidence of circumstances, had likewise become the guardian of the accomplished Miss Chatworth, whose father had formerly fallen a victim to the deadly resentment of a very near relative of his Lordship.

To this lady, notwithstanding the family. feud, it was the wish of their guardian that Lord Byron should be united; and there are pretty strong grounds for supposing that the inclinations of his Lordship were not at variance with the intentions of his guardian. The lady, however, from family circumstances, and perhaps still more from early-formed attachment to J. Masters, Esq., then honoured for his fashionable notoriety with the more familiar appellation of "the gay Jack Masters," was far from being a willing ward. His lordship's pride would not suffer him to woo a reluctant fair one in propria personæ, yet he

expressed the warmth of his feelings very frequently in his invocation of the Muses.

Mr. Masters was a pretty constant attendant upon Miss Chatworth, and, for the purpose of avoiding him, Mr. Whyte, his two sisters, Lord Byron, and the unwilling fair, were dragged in rapid succession from one watering place to another, throughout the country, while he followed in pursuit.

the "Corsair," the spirit and brilliancy of all which poems are very great.

On the 2d of January, 1815, Lord Byron married at Seham, in the county of Durham, the only daughter of Sir Ralph Noel Milbank, Bart., and towards the close of the same year his lady brought him a daughter, for whom he always manifested the strongest affection. Within a few weeks, however, after that event, It was useless, however, contending with a separation took place, for which various destiny. His lordship's fate was not to be causes have been stated. Within a few weeks united with that of Miss Chatworth, notwith-after the separation took place, Lord Byron standing the ardency of his attachment, and suddenly left the kingdom, with the resolution the influence of their guardian.

never to return.

The anguish produced by unrequited love He crossed over to France, through which and disappointed ambition on a mind like his he passed rapidly to Brussels, taking in his Lordship's may be more easily conceived than way a survey of the field of Waterloo. He described: fits of gloominess and gaiety, des. proceeded to Coblentz, and thence up the peration and dissipation, alternately prevailed Rhine as far as Basle. After visiting some of in rapid succession, until the Muses, the in- the most remarkable scenes in Switzerland, variable confidents of intense passion, gently he proceeded to the North of Italy. He took soothed the irritation of his heart, by present-up his abode some time at Venice, where he ing to his over-credulous imagination a bright was joined by Mr. Hobhouse, who accomperspective of poetical honours and perennial panied him in an excursion to Rome, where triumphs. He shortly afterwards published he completed his "Childe Harold." his Minor Poems. Their fate and its conse- His Lordship resided for some time at Pisa; quences have been already described. This and during his stay in Italy wrote numerous last and long-cherished hope was apparently poetical productions, including his "Don blasted for ever, and he could no longer look Juan," "Beppo," "Mazeppa," three or four for consolation, under the extreme anguish of tragedies, and, in conjunction with Percy his feelings, to literary glory. This drove him Bysshe Shelley, and Mr. Leigh Hunt, comto the verge of madness. His mind and con-menced the Liberal, to which he contributed duct were entirely metamorphosed: naturally some papers. mirthful, he hecame suddenly melancholy; he shunned, despised, and hated every one; the sulkiness of his disposition was converted into the gall of misanthropy; and the conflicting passions, which, like vultures, preyed upon the tenderest fibres of his heart, goaded him to a determination to quit the scenes where circumstances and associations only served to awaken recollections which tortured his soul to madness.

On arriving at the age of manhood, Lord Byron took a long leave of his native country, in the view of making a tour in foreign lands; but, as the ordinary course of travelling through Europe was impeded by the war which prevailed between England and France, he embarked from Falmouth for Lisbon. In 1809, he passed through Portugal and Spain, touched at Malta and Sicily, and proceeded to the Morea and Constantinople; during part of which tour he was accompanied by Mr. J. C. Hobhouse.

While the Salsette frigate, in which Lord Byron was a passenger to Constantinople, lay in the Dardanelles, a discourse arose among some of the officers respecting the practicability of swimming across the Hellespont Lord Byron and Lieutenant Ekenhead agreed to make the trial; they accordingly performed this enterprise on the 3d of May, 1810.

After an absence of nearly three years, Lord Byron revisited his native shores, and exhibited the advantages of travelling in his "Childe Harold," the plan of which was laid at Albania, and prosecuted at Athens, where it received some of its finest touches and most splendid ornaments.

His Lordship published in rapid succession Giaour," the "Bride of Abydos," and

the "

In most of his poems Lord Byron displays the most fond and ardent attachment to Greece, whose fate he beautifully describes in one of his poems.

He devoted himself to the redemption of that lovely and classic land from the bondage of the infidel, which so long enthralled it. Lord Byron's personal influence reconciled the Greek chiefs, and banished discord from amongst them. He contributed largely from his private fortune to their wants, and his presence on those shores drew the attention of all Europe to the strife of the Christians against the Infidel crescent, and made the very Divan tremble.

The names of her modern heroes, by whose intrepid courage the Turkish bands have been so often scattered, would have been joined with the patriots of Platea and Thermopyla; and, consecrated by the talents of Lord Byron, have gone down, in kindred memory, to succeeding days; but, unhappily for Greece, their champion has perished in the prime of youth, and in the midst of his exertions in her cause. This melancholy event took place at Missolonghi, on the 19th of April. On the 9th of that month, his Lordship, who had been living very low, exposed himself to a violent rain; the consequence of which was a severe cold, and he was immediately confined to his bed.

The disease terminated fatally on the 19th of April. His last words, before delirium had seized his powerful mind, were-"I wish it to be known that my last thoughts were given to my wife, my child, and my sister !”

Thus died Lord Byron, at the early age of 37, leaving behind him a name second only to that of the Emperor Napoleon, and a memory

which the sublime effusions of his muse will endear to all posterity.

His body was conveyed to England, and was buried in the next vault to his mother at the village church at Huchnall.

Besides his only legitimate child, he left an other daughter in Italy, to whom he bequeathed five thousand pounds, on condition that she should not marry an Englishman.

The Greeks have requested and obtaine! the heart of Lord Byron, which will be placed in a mausoleum in the country for whose liberation it last beat.

About two years ago, Lord Byron wrote his own memoirs, which he presented to Mr. Moore, and Mr. Murray purchased the MS. for two thousand pounds, not to be publised until the death of the noble poet; he has since given it up, and at the wish of some tí Lord Byron's relatives, it is said to have bee destroyed.

The death of Lord Byron is an event which was little expected. It falls on the public car like a shock of deep, private misfortune. Hhas sunk to rest in the prime of his days, and in the zenith of his fame; he has left the world when his services could ill be spared and we may add with truth, when they care be supplied. A more calamitous event el not have happened to Greece; all his personal and pecuniary-all the energies a his body and of his mind, were but for the restoration of her freedom; to her cause loss is irreparable.

Lord Byron's genius was of the very fre order: he was one of those characters f whose existence new eras date their e mencement: that fresh career of society w is beginning in Europe wanted the stin of a mind like his to carry it onward to ha ness and to glory; he was no lover of rev tions;. he looked only to the improvement which the political condition of mankind capable, by the diffusion of knowledge, the just estimate of independence. It wa with these views that he aided Greece to ha utmost of his means to rescue herself from the claims of her oppressor, and rise again to and liberty.

Cut off in the very prime of life, and in very summer of his mental power, his de on that account rendered additionally p in itself; yet he certainly could not have under circumstances more favourable to s fame. He had already established a repa tion as the great poetical ornament of his and he had acquired, in spite of the preju of rank and wealth, that honour and esta from mankind which are ensured by a st sensibility to their wrongs, and a vivid indas nation against their oppressors. He was po suing a career of glory, labouring hand heart in the purest cause of modern times, 1 the most illustrious soil in the world. celebrity as a patriot was bidding fair to his reputation as a poet-a rare conjuncti honours! He had the fortune which thought Napoleon's reputation so much w ed, when he reproached him with not dying a the field of battle.

Of the appearance and character of L Byron it is hardly necessary further to spe

APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar. I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue oceanroll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore-upon the watery plain

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain

A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When for a moment like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's

form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or confused-in breeze, or gale, or storm,

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime,

The image of eternity: the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each

zone

Obeys thee-thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy,
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a
boy

I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear,

For I was, as it were, a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane, as I do here.

ANSWER TO CHARADE IN NO. XV. The Letter L.

Of our odd fishes

To visit every clime between the poles,
Swam with the stream, a histrionic Kraken,
Although his wishes

Must not, in this proceeding, be mistaken;
For he went out professionally,-bent
To see how money might be made, not spent.
In this most laudable employ

He found himself at Lille one afternoon,
And, that he might the breeze enjoy,
And catch a peep at the ascending moon,
Out of the town he took a stroll,
With sight of streams, and trees, and snowy
Refreshing in the fields his soul,
fleeces,

And thoughts of crowded houses and new pieces.

When we are pleasantly employed time flies;
He counted up his profits, in the skies,
Until the moon began to shine,

Backward he turned his steps instanter,
Stumping along with might and main;
And, though 'tis plain

He couldn't gallop, trot, or canter,

(Those who had seen him would confess it) he

Marched well for one of such obesity. Eyeing his watch, and now his forehead mopping,

He puffed and blew along the road, Afraid of melting, more afraid of stopping, When in his path he met a clown Returning from the town.

"Tell me," he panted, in a thawing state, "Dost think I can get in, friend, at the gate?" "Get in!" replied the hesitating loon, Measuring with his eye our bulky wight,

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Why-yes, sir,-I should think you might; "A load of hay went in this afternoon."

THE FLY'S LETTER-BOX. The Gallery of Portraits has been unavoidably delayed. We have now the pleasure of announcing the portrait of Lord Byron this week.

"Mr. Balls" has been attended to. "Veto." We cannot agree with you! We call the attention of all lovers of lithographic drawing to a series of portraits of public characters (advertised in our pages to-day); they are beautiful specimens of the art, and surprisingly cheap.

Will Mr. Barfield, the proprietor of the Plate Powder, call on our publisher, and settle his little account?

The numbers of the "Fly" (old series) may be had on order of any bookseller. The plates, which are still presented gratuitously with any of the numbers, have in every instance been touched up or entirely re-executed, enabling every purchaser to possess specimens of the lithographic art equal to those that tended to make the "Fly" pre-eminent as an

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