University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

“What a great admirer you are of Byron, Mr.
Pinckney,” said Fanny.

“Yes, Miss Fitzhurst, I love his poetry as much as
ever lady loved himself. Byron is as remarkable an
instance as can be quoted in proof of the fact that
circumstances hold a controling influence over, give
the hue and colour to talent, while they develop it.”

“How?” asked Fanny.

“In his early youth he was very poor; by the death
of his uncle he received his title and fortune, at a
time of life when so sudden a change of fortune would
be very apt to have an injurious effect on an unregulated
mind like his. He burst into tears, such was the
proud swelling of his heart, the first time he was called
Lord Byron. Such a susceptible and sensitive spirit
should have been most carefully watched and instructed.
How was he instructed? The mother was
more wayward even than the son; and, withal, the victim
of that vice that makes a man a brute, and a woman a
fiend. “Stop,” said Pinckney, “excuse me one moment;
I saw an article to day in the library, in a late
number of the Edinburgh Review, which is written

with a force of language that is seldom surpassed—I
will get the Review.”

Pinckney left the room, and Fanny sat musing upon
his literary enthusiasm. He returned in a moment
and read as follows:

“The pretty fable by which the Duchess of Orleans
illustrated the character of her son, the regent, might
be with little change applied to Byron. All the
fairies save one had been bidden to his cradle. All
the gossips had been profuse in their gifts: one had
bestowed nobility, another genius, a third beauty; the
malignant elf, who had been uninvited, came last, and
unable to reverse what her sister had done for their
favourite, mixed up a curse with every blessing. The
young peer had great intellectual gifts, yet there was
an unsound part in his mind. He had naturally a
generous and tender heart, but his temper was wayward
and irritable. He had a head which statuaries loved
to copy, and a foot, the deformity of which the beggar
in the street remarked. But, capriciously as nature
had dealt with him, the relative to whom the
office of forming his character was assigned was
more capricious still. She passed from paroxysms of
rage to paroxysms of fondness; at one time stifled him
with caresses, at another insulting his deformity.”

“Yes, that is true,” said Fanny.

“All except where the Review says, that there
was an unsound part in Byron's mind; and it certainly
must have called forth all his penetration to
have discovered that. Byron had violent passions,
and they often eclipsed his judgment; but his letters,
and particularly his journal, show that the sagacity of
his observation was equal to the brilliancy of his
genius. His mother would fly in a passion, and
throw the shovel and tongs at him; at other times
she would run furiously out of the room, and as she
did so, he would exclaim, `exit Mrs. Byron in a

rage.' To such a height did their natural misunderstanding
arise, and such was their mutual idea of each
other's temper, that after one of their quarrels, they
both have been know to slip round to the apothecaries
to inquire if the other had been there to purchase poison.
At school, Byron was not remarkable for anything
except for his fighting propensities and very superior
talents for declamation, which leave us no reason to
doubt that if he had devoted himself to oratory, Brougham
and Canning would have had a fearful rival—
in all human probability, a superior.”

“But, Mr. Pinckney,” interrupted Fanny, “did
not Byron make one or two speeches in the House of
Lords, but without remarkable success?”

“He did; but that does not prove that he would
not eventually have succeeded. Sheridan, who failed
himself in his first attempt, and who, one of the
best judges of character and talent, frequently advised
Byron to turn his attention to oratory; telling
him that he felt satisfied he would succeed if he did.
Oratory is the art of all others the most difficult to
excel in—with one or two exceptions almost every
great orator has failed in his first attempts. Byron
had all the qualifications to make an orator—voice,
manner, expression of countenance, depth of passion,
wit, sarcasm, sublimity, and he possessed a fearlessness
which would have given him full power in the
combat over all their intellectual weapons. In all
probability if he had not inherited a title, but had been
compelled to devote himself to a profession, he would
now have been the first statesman of the day, the
Chatham of the age.”

“Mr. Pinckney,” said Fanny, smiling at his enthusiasm,
and yet fascinated by the deep tones of his
voice and the intense lustre of his eye, “the world
would say that there is great speculation in that opinion.”

Pinckney smiled in return, but continued, “Not so
much speculation as at first blush appears. Canning
was a devotee to literature. At the age of seventeen
he wrote many numbers of the Microcosm. He has
written a satire and fugitive pieces of poetry which
are beautiful. It was imperious poverty which
drove him into the arena of politics. He set out with
the determination of becoming prime minister of
Great Britain, and succeeded; but the wear and tare
of ambition laid him prematurely in the grave. If
we may conclude from Byron's superiority over Canning
in literature that he would have been as far his
superior in politics if he had devoted himself to them,
there could be no comparison between the two. But I
weary you.”

“No, no,” said Fanny, impatiently, “go on; unless,”
she added, in a sarcastic tone, “it has just occurred
to you that you are wasting your breath upon
a woman, and a very young one?”

Pinckney gazed on Fanny for a moment with an
eye of open admiration, ere he said, “Byron, Miss
Fitzhurst, we are told once stood before the glass and,
as he contemplated his pale features said, `I should like
to die of consumption.' `Why so?' asked a friend who
was by; `because,' he replied, `the women would say,
`poor Byron! how interesting he looks.”' A commonplace
man would call that affectation and folly, but
one who can appreciate such gorgeous dreams of
beauty as Byron personified—such creations as Zuleika,
Medora, Zelia—would say that it was the intense
passion of a poet for an abiding interest in gentle hearts.
A longing to have those interested in his fate who
suggested to his imagination such life devoted love—
and such matchless beauty.

“Therefore, before your fair self would he wish to be
vindicated. At school, as I have observed, Byron was
remarkable only for his fighting propensities, and his
powers of declamation. He was self-willed, obstinate
and wayward, but frank and generous. His friendships
were at least as lasting as his enmities. The
letters he received from his school-fellows he treasured
up—he delighted to read them in after years, and to
dwell upon the companions of his boyhood. He was
the champion of all the smaller boys, and would suffer
none of the larger ones to domineer over them. These
are high traits in a boy. His first love—his strongest
and his purest—loved another; and this unrequited
affection cost him many a pang. How coldly she
treated the unknown and fameless boy. She afterwards
repented, but alas! too late—her regrets came
like the monarch's gift to the dying pihlosopher. In
that, to me the best of his poems, how elegantly he
describes his feelings when he dreamed that Miss
Chaworth loved him not:

“O! how beautiful,” exclaimed Fanny with enthusiasm,
“I have read the dream often, but I never
felt that passage so forcibly before.”

Pinckney bowed, and flattered by Fanny's evident
attention, he continued:

“Byron flew from love to seek fame, and published
his first poem, the “Hours of Idleness.” Fame at
first was as unkind as his mistress. The unmerciful
and unmanly critique of the Edinburgh Review on
them, bruised his feelings to the heart's core. He tells
us, himself, that on the evening he read the review he
drank three bottles of wine, but oblivion would not
come. He soon determined on a better course than
oblivion—he set to work, and wrote his satire of the
`English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' and damned
his foes to everlasting fame. He reminds me of
Curran, who said that he was always frightened to
death in the Court House until one day the judge insulted
him. `When sir,' said he, `I looked him steadily
in the eye and broke out upon him, and he has not
looked me in the eye since.' So it was with Byron,
he met the

And the lion roused him as gently as a sucking
dove. To a spirit so proud and haughty, and acutely
sensitive as Byron's, such a triumph as this must have
given moments of intense and burning exultation.
After the publication of “The English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers,” he repaired to the Continent, where
he travelled, and wrote the first cantos of Childe Harold,
and returned and published it. On its publication
the Edinburgh Review, who had said that Byron's
first poem was `fit for neither God nor man,' declared
that he was the first poet of the age. It but echoed
public opinion throughout Great Britain. Thus, he
who had left England unnoticed, and almost unknown,
returned to be courted and eulogised more than any
other man in the kingdom. For him the daily press
teemed with approbation; for him the fete was given;
the proud courted him; the ambitious sought his applause.
For Lord Byron the brilliant hall was lighted;
for Lord Byron beauty wore her most winning
smiles, and put on all her fascinations—it was discovered
that he had the head and bust of an Apollo; his address,
too, was so insinuating, there was such blandness in
his smile—his very deformity was a grace, it made
him so interesting. What young man would not
have been guilty of indiscretions under such circumstances?
What old man's head would they not have
turned? Amidst all this, Byron met Miss Milbanke,
a beauty, a fortune, a favourite; one, too, who wrote
poetry and loved it; quite a blue, blue as the sky, but
without storm or cloud.

“How interesting to be the town talk, and to reform
such a man. They were married; soon quarrelled
and separated. The fashion, then, like that from
abundant sleeves to no sleeves at all, changed completely.
It became the rage to abuse Byron. He
was called vain, conceited, haughty, overbearing,—
a perfect monster, with passions darker than the
darkest he had drawn. His deformity was pointed
at, in proof that he was the imp of the old one, with
the curse stamped upon him, like Cain's, by the hand
of Deity. All the hearts that might, or could, or
should, or would have been broken by him, now were
up in judgment against him; and many an old
dowager, and many a young duchess abused the
abominable Byron. Those who thought themselves
entitled to be the talk, but whom he had entirely

eclipsed, now made at him. What a beautiful moral
spectacle! Lady Caroline Lamb published her celebrated
novel of “Glenarvon,” in which his character
was so darkly painted, and which it was said contained
many of his letters to her. But one of your
sex, I think he states, had boldness enough to be his
friend. In this state of things he left England to return
no more. The ban of ostracism was against
him; whether justly or unjustly, I shall not pretend
to determine. I mention all this to show how
greatly circumstances influenced the development of
his talent, as well as his morals. He had all that
ambition can aspire to—fame, fortune, friends, the
world's applause; he drained the burning bowl to the
dregs. Yet amidst it all, he could not be happy.
Look at his early life. Think of his temperament;
his sensibilities; his passions; his untutored youth;
his pride. His mother, had she been a mother to
him—his father was in the grave, but his memory
was a stain and a reproach. His first affections were
blighted. He plunged in revel, perhaps in crime, to
forget it. But think of the peasant poet's prayer,
who resembled the peer much:
And, in reflecting upon it, it will perhaps occur to us
that, from the difference of men's impulses arose the
justice of the text `judge not.' He published his
first poems—they were satirised—he retaliated. His
reputation came upon him so suddenly, that, as he
himself said, `he awoke one morning and found himself
famous.' He ran his brief career of splendid
misery; for unhappiness was at his heart even then.
He was banished by public opinion, without the public
knowing anything of the facts of the case in
which they condemned him. Let me repeat you his
own language on the subject; I have it by rote, and
it is as eloquent a passage as any in his poetry. He
says: `I felt that if what was whispered, and muttered,
and murmured was true, I was unfit for England;
if false, England was unfit for me. I withdrew,
but this was not enough. In other countries,
in Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, and by
the blue depth of the lakes, I was pursued and
breathed upon by the same blight. I crossed the
mountains, but it was the same; so I went a little
farther, and settled myself by the waves of the Adriatic,
like the stag at bay, who betakes himself to the
waters.”'

“Indeed,” said Fanny, “that is eloquent.”

“Disgust, satiety, wounded pride, impaired health,
were his companions in exile. Then came forth the
dark strains of his muse; in which loathing and love,
sadonic laughter, heartfelt anguish, misery and pride,
were so strangely and so strongly blended. His soul
was a chaos of passion, and his poetry expressed his
soul. His was

All at once, remembering the length of his talk,
Pinckney stopped abruptly, and in some confusion.

“Ah, Mr. Pinckney,” said Fanny, shaking her
head, “but he should `have looked beyond the tomb.'
O! you enthusiast, I did not think you were capable
of as much admiration of anything—of a man, not to
speak of a woman. Well, sir; you have treated me
like a rational being to-day!”

“Take my arm, Miss Fitzhurst, will you not? and
let us walk. And you believe I have impulses of admiration.”

Fanny took his arm; and as she did so,
Pinckney continued, “If you had been anything of a
physiognomist, you must have discovered it before;
but no eyes are so blind as those that will not see.”