tion which so fascinated the poet, that had it not been for an accident which deferred a levee intended to have been held the next day, he would have gone to court. Soon after, however, an unfortunate influence counteracted the effect of royal praise, and Byron permitted himself to write and speak disrespectfully of the prince. The whole of Byron's political career may summed up in the following anecdotes : be purpose. On this occasion Byron composed the following epigram : Carlisle subscribes a thousand pound Out of his rich domains; The produce of his brains: relative. On reading some lines addressed to Lady Lady, reject the gift, etc. He immediately wrote the following parody: The Earl of Carlisle having declined to introduce him to the House of Peers, he resolved to introduce himself, and accordingly went there a little before the usual hour, when he knew few of the lords would be present. On entering he appeared rather abashed and looked very pale, Lat, passing the woolsack, where the Chancellor Lord Eldon) was engaged in some of the ordinary routine of the house, he went directly to the table, where the oaths were administered to him. The Lord Chancellor then approached, and offered his hand in the most open friendly manner, congratulating him on his taking possession of On Byron's return from his first tour, Mr Dallas his seat. Lord Byron only placed the tips of his called upon him, and, after the usual salutations fingers in the Chancellor's hand the latter re-inquired if he was prepared with any other work turned to his seat, and Byron, after lounging a to support the fame which he had already acfew minutes on one of the opposition benches, quired. Byron in reply delivered to him a poem, retired. To Mr Dallas, who followed him out, entitled « Hints from Horace,» being a paraphrase he gave as a reason for not entering into the spirit of the Art of Poetry. Mr Dallas promised to suof the Chancellor, « that it might have been sup- perintend its publication as he had done that of ¦posed he would join the court party, whereas he the satire; and, accordingly, it was carried to Cawintended to have nothing at all to do with po- thorn the bookseller, and matters arranged; but litics. Mr D. not thinking the poem likely to increase his lordship's reputation, allowed it to linger in the press. It began thus: : He only addressed the house three times: the first of his speeches was on the Frame-work Bill; the second in favour of the Catholic claims, I which gave good hopes of his becoming an orator; and the other related to a petition from ¦ Major Cartwright. Byron himself says, the Lords told him his manner was not dignified enough for them, and would better suit the lower house; >> ¦ others say, they gathered round him while speaking, listening with the greatest attention-a sign at any rate that he was interesting. He always voted with the opposition, but evinced no likelihood of becoming the blind partisan of either side. The enmity that Byron entertained towards the Earl of Carlisle was owing to two causes: the earl had spoken rather irreverently of the Hours of idleness, and had also refused to introduce his kinsman to the House of Lords, even, it is said, doubting his right to a seat in that honourable house. The Earl was a great admirer of the classic drama, and once published a pamphlet, in which he strenuously argued in behalf of the propriety and necessity of small theatres: the same day that this weighty publication appeared, he subscribed a thousand pounds for some public Who would not laugh if Lawrence, hired to grace Mr Dallas having expressed his sorrow that his lordship had written nothing else, Byron told him that he had occasionally composed some verses in the Spenserean measure, relative to the countries he had visited. They are not worth troubling you with,» said his lordship, « but you shall have them all with you. He then handed him « Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. When Mr Dallas had read the poem, he was in raptures with it, and resolved to do his utmost to suppress the Hints from Horace, and bring out Childe Harold. He urged or causes, however, are up to this moment involved in mystery, though, as might be expected, a wonderful sensation was excited at the time, and every description of contradictory rumour was in active circulation. The following anecdotes on the subject of his marriage are given from Lord Byron's Conversations, in his own words: Byron to publish this last poem; but he was unwilling. He would not be convinced of the great merit of the « Childe," and as some person had seen it before Mr Dallas, and expressed disapprobation, Byron was by no means sure of its kind reception by the world. In a short time Byron was first introduced to Miss Millbank at afterwards, however, he agreed to its publication, Lady's. In going up stairs he stumbled, and and requested Mr Dallas not to deal with Caw-remarked to Moore, who accompanied him, that thorn, but to offer it to Miller of Albemarle Street: it was a bad omen. On entering the room, he he wished a fashionable publisher. Miller declined perceived a lady more simply dressed than the it, chiefly on account of the strictures it contained rest sitting on a sofa. He asked Moore if she was on Lord Elgin, whose publisher he was. Longman a humble companion to any of the ladies. The had refused to publish the « Satire," and Byron | latter replied, She is a great heiress; you'd would not suffer any of his works to come from better marry her, and repair the old place at that house. The work was therefore carried to Newstead.» Mr Murray, who had expressed a desire to publish for Lord Byron, and regretted that Mr Dallas had not taken the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers to him; but this was after its success. There was something piquant, and what we Byron became acquainted with Mr Hogg, the term pretty, in Miss Millbank; her features were Ettrick Shepherd, at the Lakes. Hogg was stand- small and feminine, though not regular; she had ing at the inn door of Ambleside, when a strapping the fairest skin imaginable; her figure was peryoung man came out of the house, and taking off | fect for her height, and there was a simplicity, his hat, held out his hand to him. The Shepherd retired modesty about her, which was very chadid not know him, and appearing at a loss, the racteristic, and formed a happy contrast to the other relieved him by saying, « Mr Hogg, I hope cold artificial formality and studied stiffness you will excuse me; my name is Byron, and 1 which is called fashion: she interested me excannot help thinking that we ought to hold our-ceedingly. It is unnecessary to detail the proselves acquainted." The poets accordingly shookgress of our acquaintance: I became daily more hands, and, while they continued at the Lakes, attached to her, and it ended in my making her were on the most intimate terms, drinking deeply | a proposal that was rejected; her refusal was together, and laughing at their brother bards. On Byron's leaving the Lakes, he sent Hogg a letter quizzing the Lakists, which the Shepherd was so mischievous as to show to them. On the 2d of January, 1815, Lord Byron married, at Seaham, in the county of Durham, Anne Isabella, only daughter of Sir Ralph Millbank (since Noel), Bart. To this lady he had made a proposal twelve months before, but was rejected: well would it have been for their mutual happiness had that rejection been repeated. After their marriage, Lord and Lady Byron took a house in London, gave splendid dinner-parties, and launched into every sort of fashionable extravagance. This could not last long; the portion which his lordship received with Miss Millbank (ten thousand pounds) soon melted away; and, at length, an execution was actually levied on the furniture of his residence. It was then agreed that Lady Byron, who, on the 10th of December, 1815, had presented her lord with a daughter, should pay a visit to her father till the storm was blown over, and some arrangements had been made with their creditors. From that visit she never returned, and a separation ensued, for which various reasons have been assigned; the real cause a couched in terms that could not offend me. I << I was not so young when my father died, but that I perfectly remember him, and had very early a horror of matrimony, from the sight of domestic broils: this feeling came over me very strongly at my wedding. Something whispered me that I was sealing my own death-warrant. am a great believer in presentiments: Socrates' demon was not a fiction; Monk Lewis had his monitor; and Napoleon many warnings. At the last moment I would have retreated if I could have done so; I called to mind a friend of mine, who had married a young, beautiful, and rich girl, and yet was miserable; he had strongly urged me against putting my neck in the same yoke: and, to show you how firmly I was resolved to attend to his advice, I betted Hay fifty guineas to one that I should always remain single. Six years afterwards, I sent him the money. The day before I proposed to Lady Byron, I had no idea of doing so. ■ It had been predicted by Mrs Williams, that twenty-seven was to be a dangerous age for me; the fortune-telling witch was right; it was des| tined to prove so. I shall never forget the 2d of January! Lady Byron (Byrn, he pronounced it) was the only unconcerned person present; Lady Noel, her mother, cried; I trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and, after the ceremony, called her Miss Millbank. hampered with a law-suit, which has cost me 14,000l., and is not yet finished. I heard afterwards that Mrs Charlment had been the means of poisoning Lady Noel's mind against me; that she had employed herself and others in watching me in London, and had reported having traced me into a house in Portland-Place. There was one act unworthy of any one but such a confidante; I allude to the breaking open my writing-desk: a book was found in it that did not do much credit to my taste in literature, and some letters from a married woman with whom I had been intimate before my marriage. The use that was made of the latter was most unjustifiable, whatever may be thought of the breach of confidence that led to their discovery. Lady Byron sent them to the husband of the lady, who had the good sense to take no notice of their contents. The gravest accusation that has been made against me is that of having intrigued with Mrs Mardyn in my own After the ordeal was over, we set off for a house, introduced her to my own table, etc.; country-seat of Sir Ralph's, and I was surprised there never was a more unfounded calumny. at the arrangements for the journey, and some-Being on the Committee of Drury-Lane Theatre, what out of humour to find a lady's maid stuck between me and my bride. It was rather too early to assume the husband, so I was forced to submit, but it was not with a very good grace. There is a singular history attached to the ring; the very day the match was concluded, a ring of my mother's that had been lost was dug up by the gardener at Newstead. I thought it was sent on purpose for the wedding; but my mother's marriage had not been a fortunate one, and this ring was doomed to be the seal of an unhappier union still. I have been accused of saying, on getting into the carriage, that I had married Lady Byron out of spite, and because she had refused me twice. Though I was for a moment vexed at her prudery, or whatever it may be called, if I had made so uncavalier, not to say brutal, a speech, I am convinced Lady Byron would instantly have left the carriage to me and the maid (I mean the lady's); she had spirit enough to have done so, and would properly have resented the affront. Our honey-moon was not all sunshine, it had its clouds; and Hobhouse has some letters which would serve to explain the rise and fall in the barometer; but it was never down at zero. A curious thing happened to me shortly after the honey-moon, which was very awkward at the time, but has since amused me much. It so happened that three married women were on a wedding visit to my wife (and in the same room at the same time), whom I had known to be all birds of the same nest. Fancy the scene of confusion that ensued! The world says I married Miss Millbank for her fortune, because she was a great heiress. All I have ever received, or am likely to receive and that has been twice paid back too), was 10,000l. My own income at this period was small and somewhat bespoke. Newstead was a very unprofitable estate, and brought me in a hare 1500l. a year; the Lancashire property was I have no doubt that several actresses called on me; but as to Mrs Mardyn, who was a beautiful woman, and might have been a dangerous visitress, I was scarcely acquainted (to speak) with her. I might even make a more serious charge against than employing spies to watch suspected amours. I had been shut up in a dark street in London writing The Siege of Corinth,' and had refused myself to every one till it was finished. I was surprised one day by a doctor and a lawyer almost forcing themselves at the same time into my room; I did not know till afterwards the real object of their visit. I thought their questions singular, frivolous, and somewhat importunate, if not impertinent; but what should I have thought if I had known that they were sent to provide proofs of my insanity? I have no doubt that my answers to these emissaries' interrogations were not very rational or consistent, for my imagination was heated by other things; but Dr Baillie could not conscientiously make me out a certificate for Bedlam, and perhaps the lawyer gave a more favourable report to his employers. The doctor said afterwards he had been told that I always looked down when Lady Byron bent her eyes on me, and exhibited other symptoms equally infallible, particularly those that marked the late king's case so strongly. I do not, however, tax Lady Byron with this transaction: probably she was not privy to it; she was the tool of others. Her mother always detested me she had not even the decency to conceal it in her own house. Dining one day at Sir Ralph's (who was a good sort of man, and of whom you may form some idea, when I tell you that a leg of mutton was always served at his table, that he might cut the same joke upon it), I broke a tooth, and was in great pain, which I could not avoid showing. It will do you good,' said Lady Noel; 'I am glad of it! I gave her a look! Lady Byron had good ideas, but could never express them; wrote poetry too, but it was only good by accident; her letters were always enigmatical, often unintelligible. She was easily made the dupe of the designing, for she thought her knowledge of mankind infallible. She had got some foolish idea of Madame de Stael's into her head, that a person may be better known in the first hour than in ten years. She had the habit of drawing people's characters after she had seen them once or twice. She wrote pages on pages about my character, but it was as unlike as possible. She was governed by what she called fixed rules and principles, squared mathematically. She would have made an excellent wrangler at Cambridge. It must be confessed, however, that she gave no proof of her boasted consistency; first she refused me, then she accepted me, then she separated herself from meso much for consistency. I need not tell you of the obloquy and opprobrium that were cast upon my name when our separation was made public. I once made a list from the journals of the day of the different worthies, ancient and modern, to whom I was compared: I remember a few, Nero, Apicius, Epicurus, Caligula, Heliogabalus, Heury the Eighth, and lastly, the --. All my former friends, even my cousin George Byron, who had been brought up with me, and whom I loved as a brother, took my wife's part: he followed the stream when it was strongest against me, and can never expect any thing from me; he shall never touch a sixpence of mine. I was looked upon as the worst of husbands, the most abandoned and wicked of men; and my wife as a suffering angel, an incarnation of all the virtues and perfections of the sex. I was abused in the public prints, made the common talk of private companies, hissed as I went to the House of Lords, insulted in the streets, afraid to go to the theatre, whence the unfortunate Mrs Mardyn had been driven with insult. The Examiner was the only paper that dared say a word in my defence, and Lady Jersey the only person in the fashionable world that did not look upon me as a monster. " In addition to all these mortifications, my affairs were irretrievably involved, and almost so as to make me what they wished. I was compelled to part with Newstead, which I never could have ventured to sell in my mother's life time. As it is, I shall never forgive myself for having done so, though I am told that the estate would not now bring half as much as I got for it: this does not at all reconcile me to having parted with the old Abbey. I did not make up my mind to this step but from the last necessity; I had my wife's portion to repay, and was determined to add 10,000l. more of my own to it, which I did: I always hated being in debt, and do not owe a guinea. The moment I had put my affairs in train, and in little more than eighteen months after my marriage, I left England, an involuntary exile, intending it should be for ever.» We shall here avail ourselves of some observations by a powerful and elegant critic,' whose opinions on the personal character of Lord Byron, as well as on the merits of his poems, are, from their originality, candour, and discrimination, of considerable weight. The charge against Lord Byron,» says this writer, is, not that he fell a victim to excessive temptations, and a combination of circumstances, which it required a rare and extraordinary degree of virtue, wisdom, prudence, and steadiness to surmount; but that he abandoned a situation of uncommon advantages, and fell weakly, pusillanimously, and selfishly, when victory would have been easy, and when defeat was ignominious. In reply to this charge, I do not deny that Lord Byron inherited some very desirable, and even enviable privileges, in the lot of life which fell to his share. I should falsit y my own sentiments if I treated lightly the gift of an ancient English peerage, and a name of honour and venerable antiquity; but without a fortune competent to that rank, it is not a bed of roses, nay, it is attended with many and extreme difficulties, and the difficulties are exactly such as a genius and temper like Lord Byron's were least calculated to meet—at any rate, least calculated to meet under the peculiar collateral circumstances in which he was placed. His income was very narrow; his Newstead property left him a very small disposable surplus; his Lancashire property was, in its condition, etc. unproductive. A profession, such as the army, might have lessened, or almost annihilated the difficulties of his peculiar position; but probably his lameness rendered this impossible. He seems to have had a love of independence, which was noble, and probably even an intractability; but this temper added to his indisposition to bend and adapt himself to his lot. A dull, or supple, or intriguing man, without a single good quality of head or heart, might have managed it mach Sir Egerton Brydges, Bart. versation pleasing to ladies when he chose to please; but, to the young dandies of fashion, noble and ignoble, he must have been very repulsive : as long as he continued to be the ton,-the lion, better; he might have made himself subservient to government, and wormed himself into some lucrative place; or he might have lived meanly, conformed himself stupidly or cringingly to all humours, and been borne onward on the wings-they may have endured him without opening of society with little personal expense. - Lord Byron was of another quality and temperament. If the world would not conform to him, still less would be conform to the world. He had all the manly, baronial pride of his ancestors, though he had not all their wealth, and their means of generosity, hospitality, and patronage. He had the will, alas! without the power. their mouths, because he had a frown and a lash which they were not willing to encounter; but when his back was turned, and they thought it safe, I do not doubt that they burst out into full cry! I have heard complaints of his vanity, his peevishness, his desire to monopolize distinction, his dislike of all hobbies but his own. It is not improbable that there may have been some foundation for these complaints: I am sorry for it if « With this temper, these feelings, this genius, there was; I regret such littlenesses. And then exposed to a combination of such untoward and | another part of the story is probably left untold: trying circumstances, it would indeed have been we hear nothing of the provocations given him; inimitably praiseworthy if Lord Byron could-sly hints, curve of the lip, side looks, treachehave been always wise, prudent, calm, correct, pure, virtuous, and unassailable :-if he could have shown all the force and splendour of his mighty poetical energies, without any mixture of their clouds, their baneful lightnings, or their storms: --if he could have preserved all his sensibility to every kind and noble passion, yet have remained placid, and unaffected by the attack of any blameable emotion;—that is, it would have been admirable if he had been an angel, and not a man! - Unhappily, the outrages he received, the gross calumnies which were heaped upon him, even in the time of his highest favour with the | public, turned the delights of his very days of triumph to poison, and gave him a sort of moody, fierce, and violent despair, which led to humours, acts, and words, that mutually aggravated the ill will and the offences between him and his assailants. There was a daring spirit in his temper and his talents, which was always inflamed rather than corrected by opposition. . In this most unpropitious state of things, every thing that went wrong was attributed to Lord Byron, and, when once attributed, was assamed and argued upon as an undeniable fact. Yet, to my mind, it is quite clear, —quite unattended by a particle of doubt,-that in many things in which he has been the most blamed, he was the absolute victim of misfortune; that unpropitious trains of events (for I do not wish to shift the blame on others) led to explosions and consequent derangements, which no cold, prudent pretender to extreme propriety and correctness could have averted or met in a manner less blameable than that in which Lord Byron met it. It is not easy to conceive a character less fitted to conciliate general society by his manners and habits than that of Lord Byron. It is probable that he could make his address and con rous smiles, flings at poetry, shrugs at noble authors, slang jokes, idiotic bets, enigmatical appointments, and boasts of being senseless brutes! We do not hear repeated the jest of the glory of the Jew, that buys the ruined peer's falling castle; the d-d good fellow, that keeps the finest stud and the best hounds in the country out of the snippings and odds and ends of his contract; and the famous good match that the duke's daughter is going to make with Dick Wigly, the son of the rich slave-merchant at Liverpool! We do not hear the clever dry jests whispered round the table by Mr — --, eldest son of the new and rich Lord ——, by young Mr--, only son of Lord—, the ex-lords A., B., and C., sons of the three Irish Union earls, great borough-holders, and the very grave and sarcastic Lord — — who believes that he has the monopoly of all the talents and all the political and legislative knowledge of the kingdom, and that a poet and a bellman are only fit to be yoked together. Thus, then, was this illustrious and mighty poet driven into exile! Yes, driven! Who would live in a country in which he had been so used, even though it was the land of his nativity, the land of a thousand noble ancestors, the land of freedom, the land where his head had been crowned with laurels, but where his heart had been tortured; where all his most generous and most noble thoughts had been distorted and rendered ugly, and where his slightest errors and indiscretions had been magnified into hideous crimes?» - |