by Thomas Moore
He used, at first, though offered a bed at Annesley, to return every night to Newstead, to sleep; alleging as a reason that he was afraid of the family pictures of the Chaworths, — that he fancied “they had taken a grudge to him on account of the duel, and would come down from their frames at night to haunt him.” At length, one evening, he said gravely to Miss Chaworth and her cousin, “In going home last night I saw a bogle;” — which Scotch term being wholly unintelligible to the young ladies, he explained that he had seen a ghost, and would not therefore return to Newstead that evening. From this time he always slept at Annesley during the remainder of his visit, which was interrupted only by a short excursion to Matlock and Castleton, in which he had the happiness of accompanying Miss Chaworth and her party, and of which the following interesting notice appears in one of his memorandum-books: —
“When I was fifteen years of age, it happened that, in a cavern in Derbyshire, I had to cross in a boat (in which two people only could lie down) a stream which flows under a rock, with the rock so close upon the water as to admit the boat only to be pushed on by a ferryman (a sort of Charon) who wades at the stern, stooping all the time. The companion of my transit was M.A.C., with whom I had been long in love, and never told it, though she had discovered it without. I recollect my sensations, but cannot describe them, and it is as well. We were a party, a Mr. W., two Miss W.s, Mr. and Mrs. Cl — ke, Miss R. and my M.A.C. Alas! why do I say MY? Our union would have healed feuds in which blood had been shed by our fathers, — it would have joined lands broad and rich, it would have joined at least one heart, and two persons not ill matched in years (she is two years my elder), and — and — and — what has been the result?”
In the dances of the evening at Matlock, Miss Chaworth, of course, joined, while her lover sat looking on, solitary and mortified. It is not impossible, indeed, that the dislike which he always expressed for this amusement may have originated in some bitter pang, felt in his youth, on seeing “the lady of his love” led out by others to the gay dance from which he was himself excluded. On the present occasion, the young heiress of Annesley having had for her partner (as often happens at Matlock) some person with whom she was wholly unacquainted, on her resuming her seat, Byron said to her pettishly, “I hope you like your friend?” The words were scarce out of his lips when he was accosted by an ungainly-looking Scotch lady, who rather boisterously claimed him as “cousin,” and was putting his pride to the torture with her vulgarity, when he heard the voice of his fair companion retorting archly in his ear, “I hope you like your friend?”
His time at Annesley was mostly passed in riding with Miss Chaworth and her cousin, sitting in idle reverie, as was his custom, pulling at his handkerchief, or in firing at a door which opens upon the terrace, and which still, I believe, bears the marks of his shots. But his chief delight was in sitting to hear Miss Chaworth play; and the pretty Welsh air, “Mary Anne,” was (partly, of course, on account of the name) his especial favourite. During all this time he had the pain of knowing that the heart of her he loved was occupied by another; — that, as he himself expresses it,
“Her sighs were not for him; to her he was Even as a brother — but no more.”
Neither is it, indeed, probable, had even her affections been disengaged, that Lord Byron would, at this time, have been selected as the object of them. A seniority of two years gives to a girl, “on the eve of womanhood,” an advance into life with which the boy keeps no proportionate pace. Miss Chaworth looked upon Byron as a mere school-boy. He was in his manners, too, at that period, rough and odd, and (as I have heard from more than one quarter) by no means popular among girls of his own age. If, at any moment, however, he had flattered himself with the hope of being loved by her, a circumstance mentioned in his “Memoranda,” as one of the most painful of those humiliations to which the defect in his foot had exposed him, must have let the truth in, with dreadful certainty, upon his heart. He either was told of, or overheard, Miss Chaworth saying to her maid, “Do you think I could care any thing for that lame boy?” This speech, as he himself described it, was like a shot through his heart. Though late at night when he heard it, he instantly darted out of the house, and scarcely knowing whither he ran, never stopped till he found himself at Newstead.
The picture which he has drawn of his youthful love, in one of the most interesting of his poems, “The Dream,” shows how genius and feeling can elevate the realities of this life, and give to the commonest events and objects an undying lustre. The old hall at Annesley, under the name of “the antique oratory,” will long call up to fancy the “maiden and the youth” who once stood in it: while the image of the “lover’s steed,” though suggested by the unromantic race-ground of Nottingham, will not the less conduce to the general charm of the scene, and share a portion of that light which only genius could shed over it.
He appears already, at this boyish age, to have been so far a proficient in gallantry as to know the use that may be made of the trophies of former triumphs in achieving new ones; for he used to boast, with much pride, to Miss Chaworth, of a locket which some fair favourite had given him, and which probably may have been a present from that pretty cousin, of whom he speaks with such warmth in one of the notices already quoted. He was also, it appears, not a little aware of his own beauty, which, notwithstanding the tendency to corpulence derived from his mother, gave promise, at this time, of that peculiar expression into which his features refined and kindled afterwards.
With the summer holidays ended this dream of his youth. He saw Miss Chaworth once more in the succeeding year, and took his last farewell of her (as he himself used to relate) on that hill near Annesley which, in his poem of “The Dream,” he describes so happily as “crowned with a peculiar diadem.” No one, he declared, could have told how much he felt — for his countenance was calm, and his feelings restrained. “The next time I see you,” said he in parting with her, “I suppose you will be Mrs. Chaworth,” — and her answer was, “I hope so.” It was before this interview that he wrote, with a pencil, in a volume of Madame de Maintenon’s letters, belonging to her, the following verses, which have never, I believe, before been published: —
“Oh Memory, torture me no more, The present’s all o’ercast; My hopes of future bliss are o’er, In mercy veil the past. Why bring those images to view I henceforth must resign? Ah! why those happy hours renew, That never can be mine? Past pleasure doubles present pain, To sorrow adds regret, Regret and hope are both in vain, I ask but to — forget.”
In the following year, 1805, Miss Chaworth was married to his successful rival, Mr. John Musters; and a person who was present when the first intelligence of the event was communicated to him, thus describes the manner in which he received it.— “I was present when he first heard of the marriage. His mother said, ‘Byron, I have some news for you.’— ‘Well, what is it?’— ‘Take out your handkerchief first, for you will want it.’— ‘Nonsense!’ — Take out your handkerchief, I say.’ He did so, to humour her. ‘Miss Chaworth is married.’ An expression very peculiar, impossible to describe, passed over his pale face, and he hurried his handkerchief into his pocket, saying, with an affected air of coldness and nonchalance, ‘Is that all?’— ‘Why, I expected you would have been plunged in grief!’ — He made no reply, and soon began to talk about something else.”
His pursuits at Harrow continued to be of the same truant description during the whole of his stay there;— “always,” as he says himself, “cricketing, rebelling, rowing, and in all manner of mischiefs.” The “rebelling,” of which he here speaks, (though it never, I believe, proceeded to any act of violence,) took place on the retirement of Dr. Drury from his situation as head master, when three candidates for the vacant chair presented themselves, — Mark Drury, Evans, and Butler. On the first movement to which this contest gave rise in the school, young Wildman was at the head of the party for Mark Drury, while Byron at first held himself aloof from any. Anxious, however, to have him as an ally, on
e of the Drury faction said to Wildman— “Byron, I know, will not join, because he doesn’t choose to act second to any one, but, by giving up the leadership to him, you may at once secure him.” This Wildman accordingly did, and Byron took the command of the party.
The violence with which he opposed the election of Dr. Butler on this occasion (chiefly from the warm affection which he had felt towards the last master) continued to embitter his relations with that gentleman during the remainder of his stay at Harrow. Unhappily their opportunities of collision were the more frequent from Byron’s being a resident in Dr. Butler’s house. One day the young rebel, in a fit of defiance, tore down all the gratings from the window in the hall; and when called upon by his host to say why he had committed this violence, answered, with stern coolness, “Because they darkened the hall.” On another occasion he explicitly, and so far manfully, avowed to this gentleman’s face the pique he entertained against him. It has long been customary, at the end of a term, for the master to invite the upper boys to dine with him; and these invitations are generally considered as, like royal ones, a sort of command. Lord Byron, however, when asked, sent back a refusal, which rather surprising Dr. Butler, he, on the first opportunity that occurred, enquired of him, in the presence of the other boys, his motive for this step:— “Have you any other engagement?”— “No, sir.”— “But you must have some reason, Lord Byron.”— “I have.”— “What is it?”— “Why, Dr. Butler,” replied the young peer, with proud composure, “if you should happen to come into my neighbourhood when I was staying at Newstead, I certainly should not ask you to dine with me, and therefore feel that I ought not to dine with you.”
The general character which he bore among the masters at Harrow was that of an idle boy, who would never learn anything; and, as far as regarded his tasks in school, this reputation was, by his own avowal, not ill-founded. It is impossible, indeed, to look through the books which he had then in use, and which are scribbled over with clumsy interlined translations, without being struck with the narrow extent of his classical attainments. The most ordinary Greek words have their English signification scrawled under them, showing too plainly that he was not sufficiently familiarised with their meaning to trust himself without this aid. Thus, in his Xenophon we find νεοι, young — σωμασιν, bodies — ανθρωποις τοις αγαθοις, good men, &c. &c. — and even in the volumes of Greek plays which he presented to the library on his departure, we observe, among other instances, the common word χρυσος provided with its English representative in the margin.
But, notwithstanding his backwardness in the mere verbal scholarship, on which so large and precious a portion of life is wasted, in all that general and miscellaneous knowledge which is alone useful in the world, he was making rapid and even wonderful progress. With a mind too inquisitive and excursive to be imprisoned within statutable limits, he flew to subjects that interested his already manly tastes, with a zest which it is in vain to expect that the mere pedantries of school could inspire; and the irregular, but ardent, snatches of study which he caught in this way, gave to a mind like his an impulse forwards, which left more disciplined and plodding competitors far behind. The list, indeed, which he has left on record of the works, in all departments of literature, which he thus hastily and greedily devoured before he was fifteen years of age, is such as almost to startle belief, — comprising, as it does, a range and variety of study, which might make much older “helluones librorum” hide their heads.
Not to argue, however, from the powers and movements of a mind like Byron’s, which might well be allowed to take a privileged direction of its own, there is little doubt, that to any youth of talent and ambition, the plan of instruction pursued in the great schools and universities of England, wholly inadequate as it is to the intellectual wants of the age, presents an alternative of evils not a little embarrassing. Difficult, nay, utterly impossible, as he will find it, to combine a competent acquisition of useful knowledge with that round of antiquated studies which a pursuit of scholastic honours requires, he must either, by devoting the whole of his attention and ambition to the latter object, remain ignorant on most of those subjects upon which mind grapples with mind in life, or by adopting, as Lord Byron and other distinguished persons have done, the contrary system, consent to pass for a dunce or idler in the schools, in order to afford himself even a chance of attaining eminence in the world.
From the memorandums scribbled by the young poet in his school-books, we might almost fancy that, even at so early an age, he had a sort of vague presentiment that everything relating to him would one day be an object of curiosity and interest. The date of his entrance at Harrow, the names of the boys who were, at that time, monitors, the list of his fellow pupils under Doctor Drury, — all are noted down with a fond minuteness, as if to form points of retrospect in his after-life; and that he sometimes referred to them with this feeling will appear from one touching instance. On the first leaf of his “Scriptores Græci,” we find, in his schoolboy hand, the following memorial:— “George Gordon Byron, Wednesday, June 26th, A. D. 1805, 3 quarters of an hour past 3 o’clock in the afternoon, 3d school, — Calvert, monitor; Tom Wildman on my left hand and Long on my right. Harrow on the Hill.” On the same leaf, written five years after, appears this comment: —
“Eheu fugaces, Posthume! Posthume!
Labuntur anni.”
“B. January 9th, 1809. — Of the four persons whose names are here mentioned, one is dead, another in a distant climate, all separated, and not five years have elapsed since they sat together in school, and none are yet twenty-one years of age.”
The vacation of 1804 he passed with his mother at Southwell, to which place she had removed from Nottingham, in the summer of this year, having taken the house on the Green called Burgage Manor. There is a Southwell play-bill extant, dated August 8th, 1804, in which the play is announced as bespoke “by Mrs. and Lord Byron.” The gentleman, from whom the house where they resided was rented, possesses a library of some extent, which the young poet, he says, ransacked with much eagerness on his first coming to Southwell; and one of the books that most particularly engaged and interested him was, as may be easily believed, the life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury.
In the month of October, 1805, he was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, and his feelings on the change from his beloved Ida to this new scene of life are thus described by himself: —
“When I first went up to college, it was a new and a heavy-hearted scene for me: firstly, I so much disliked leaving Harrow, that though it was time (I being seventeen), it broke my very rest for the last quarter with counting the days that remained. I always hated Harrow till the last year and a half, but then I liked it. Secondly, I wished to go to Oxford, and not to Cambridge. Thirdly, I was so completely alone in this new world, that it half broke my spirits. My companions were not unsocial, but the contrary — lively, hospitable, of rank and fortune, and gay far beyond my gaiety. I mingled with, and dined, and supped, &c., with them; but, I know not how, it was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy.”
But though, for a time, he may have felt this sort of estrangement at Cambridge, to remain long without attaching himself was not in his nature; and the friendship which he now formed with a youth named Eddleston, who was two years younger than himself, even exceeded in warmth and romance all his schoolboy attachments. This boy, whose musical talents first drew them together, was, at the commencement of their acquaintance, one of the choir at Cambridge, though he afterwards, it appears, entered into a mercantile line of life; and this disparity in their stations was by no means without its charm for Byron, as gratifying at once both his pride and good-nature, and founding the tie between them on the mutually dependent relations of protection on the one side, and gratitude and devotion on the other; — the only relations, according to Lord Bacon, in which the little friendship that still remains in the world is to be found. It was upon a gift present
ed to him by Eddleston, that he wrote those verses entitled “The Cornelian,” which were printed in his first, unpublished volume, and of which the following is a stanza: —
“Some, who can sneer at friendship’s ties, Have for my weakness oft reproved me; Yet still the simple gift I prize, For I am sure the giver loved me.”
Another friendship, of a less unequal kind, which had been begun at Harrow, and which he continued to cultivate during his first year at Cambridge, is thus interestingly dwelt upon in one of his journals: —
“How strange are my thoughts! — The reading of the song of Milton, Sabrina fair,’ has brought back upon me — I know not how or why — the happiest, perhaps, days of my life (always excepting, here and there, a Harrow holiday in the two latter summers of my stay there) when living at Cambridge with Edward Noel Long, afterwards of the Guards, — who, after having served honourably in the expedition to Copenhagen (of which two or three thousand scoundrels yet survive in plight and pay), was drowned early in 1809, on his passage to Lisbon with his regiment in the St. George transport, which was run foul of in the night by another transport. We were rival swimmers — fond of riding — reading — and of conviviality. We had been at Harrow together; but — there, at least — his was a less boisterous spirit than mine. I was always cricketing — rebelling — fighting — rowing (from row, not boat-rowing, a different practice), and in all manner of mischiefs; while he was more sedate and polished. At Cambridge — both of Trinity — my spirit rather softened, or his roughened, for we became very great friends. The description of Sabrina’s seat reminds me of our rival feats in diving. Though Cam’s is not a very translucent wave, it was fourteen feet deep, where we used to dive for, and pick up — having thrown them in on purpose — plates, eggs, and even shillings. I remember, in particular, there was the stump of a tree (at least ten or twelve feet deep) in the bed of the river, in a spot where we bathed most commonly, round which I used to cling, and ‘wonder how the devil I came there.’
