ments; and the following verses are said to have dropped from his pen to excuse a transient expression of melancholy which overclouded the general gaiety. « When from the heart where Sorrow sits, And clouds the brow, or fills the eve- My thoughts their dungeon know too well; And bleed within their silent cell.» It was impossible to notice a dejection belonging neither to the rank, the age, nor the success of this young nobleman, without feeling an indefinable curiosity to ascertain whether it had a deeper cause than habit or constitutional temperament. It was obviously of a degree incalculably more serious than that alluded to by Prince Arthur R some distance at the time, but, on learning who he was, His Royal Highness sent a gentleman to him to desire that he would be presented. Of course the presentation took place; the Regent expressed his admiration of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and entered into a conversation 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 Lord Byron permitted himself to write and speak disrespectfully of the prince. The whole of Byron's political career may be summed up in the following anecdotes: The The Earl of Carlisle having declined to introduce Lord Byron 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 I remember when I was in France, entering he appeared rather abashed and looked Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, very pale, but passing the woolsack, where the Only for wantonnessChancellor (Lord Eldon) was engaged in some of the ordinary routine of the house, he went But howsoever derived, this, joined to Lord By- directly to the table, where the oaths were adron's air of mingling in amusements and sports ministered to him in the usual manner. as if he contemned them, and felt that his sphere Lord Chancellor then approached, and offered his was far above the fashionable and frivolous hand in the most open familiar manner, concrowd which surrounded him, gave a strong ef-gratulating him on his taking possession of his fect of colouring to a character whose tints seat. Lord Byron only placed the tips of his were otherwise decidedly romantic. Noble and far descended, the pilgrim of distant and savage countries, eminent as a poet among the first whom Britain has produced, and having besides cast around him a mysterious charm arising from the sombre tone of his poetry, and the occasional melancholy of his deportment, Lord Byron occupied the eyes, and interested the feelings of all. The enthusiastic looked on him to admire, the serious with a wish to admonish, and the soft He only addressed the house three times the with a desire to console. Even literary envy, a first of his speeches was on the Frame-work base sensation, from which, perhaps, this age is Bill; the second in favour of the Catholic claims more free than any other, forgave the man whose which gave good hopes of his becoming an orasplendour dimmed the fame of his competitors. tor; and the other related to a petition of Major The generosity of Lord Byron's disposition, his Cartwright. Byron himself says, the Lords told readiness to assist merit in distress, and to bring him his manner was not dignified enough for it forward where unknown, deserved and obtained them, and would better suit the lower house; general regard; while his poetical effusions, pour-others say, they gathered round him while speaked forth with equal force and fertility, showed at ing, listening with the greatest attention—a sign once a daring confidence in his own powers, and at any rate that he was interesting. He always a determination to ruaintain, by continued effort, voted with the opposition, but evinced no likethe high place he had attained in British lite- lihood of becoming the blind partisan of either rature. At one of the fashionable parties where the noble bard was present, His Majesty, then Priuce Regent, entered the room: Lord Byron was at fingers in the Chancellor's hand; the latter returned to his seat, and Byron, after lounging a few minutes on one of the opposition benches, retired. To his friend, Mr Dallas, who followed him out, he gave as a reason for not entering into the spirit of the Chancellor, that it might have been supposed he would join the court party, whereas he intended to have nothing at all to do with politics.» side. 縣 : The following is a pleasing instance of the generosity, the delicacy, and the unwounding bene volence of Byron's nature: A young lady of considerable talents, but who had never been able to succeed in turning them to any profitable account, was reduced to great hardships through the misfortunes of her faly. The only persons from whom she could ve hoped for relief were abroad, and so urged un, more by the sufferings of those she held dear than by her own, she summoned up resolation to wait on Lord Byron at his apartments in the Albany, and ask his subscription to a volume of poems; she had no previous know And for a sixpence circles round Byron retained his antipathy to this relative to the last. On reading some lines in the newspapers addressed to Lady Holland by the Earl of Carlisle, persuading her to reject the snuff-box bequeathed to her by Napoleon, beginning: «Lady, reject the gift,» etc. ledge of him except from his works, but from He immediately wrote the following parody: the boldness and feeling expressed in them, she concluded that he must be a man of kind heart and amiable disposition. Experience did not disappoint her, and though she entered the apartment with faltering steps and a palpitating heart, she soon found courage to state her request, which she did in the most simple and delicate manner: he heard it with the most marked attention and the keenest sympathy; and when she had ceased speaking, he, as if to avert her thoughts from a subject which could not be bat painful to her, began to converse in words so fascinating, and tones so gentle, that she Larily perceived he had been writing, until he pat a folded slip of paper into her hand, saying It was his subscription, and that he most heartily ་་ <«<Lady, accept the gift a hero wore, Prevent your ladyship from taking snuff.>> Sir Lumley Skeffington had written a tragedy, called, if we remember right, «The Mysterious Bride, » which was fairly damned on the first night: a masquerade took place soon after this fatal catastrophe, to which went John Cam Hobhouse as a Spanish nun who had been ravished by the French army, and was under the protection of his lordship. Skeffington,compassionating the unfortunate young woman, asked, in a very sentimental manof Byron, who is she?» The Mysterious Bride, replied his lordship. ner, a called upon him, and, after the usual salutations On Byron's return from his first tour, Mr Dallas Hints from wished her success: « but,» added he, ❝ we are both young, and the world is very censorious, had passed, enquired if he was prepared with and so if I were to take any active part in pro-any other work to support the fame which he curing subscribers to your poems, I fear it would had already acquired. Byron then delivered for do you harm rather than good. The young lady, overpowered by the prudence and delicacy of his conduct, took her leave, and upon opening in the street the paper, which in her agitation she had not previously looked at, she found it was a draft upon his banker for fifty pounds! The enmity that Byron entertained towards the Farl of Carlisle was owing to two causes: the earl had spoken rather irreverently of the Hours of Idleness, when Byron expected, as a relation, that he would have countenanced it. He had moreover refused to introduce his kinsman to the House of Lords, even, it is said, somewhat doubting his right to a seat in that honourable house. The Earl of Carlisle was a great admirer of the classic drama, and once published a sixpenny pamphlet, in which he strenuously argued in behalf of the propriety and necessity of small theatres: on the same day that this weighty publication appeared, he subscribed a thousand pounds for some public purpose. On this occasion Byron composed the following epigram: Carlisle subscribes a thousand pound his examination a poem, entitled « Who would not laugh if Lawrence, hired to grace Mr Dallas expressed his sorrow that his lordship had written nothing else. Byron then told him that he had occasionally composed some verses in Spenser's measure, relative to the countries he the kingdom of Ireland, by whom he had five sons, all of whom died young except William; whose eldest son, William, was born in 1722, and came to the title in 1736. own rank, his unhappy temper found abundant exercise in continual war with his neighbours and tenants, and sufficient punishment in their hatred. One of his amusements was feeding crickets, which were his only companions. He had made them so tame as to crawl over him; and used to whip them with a wisp of straw, if too familiar. In this forlorn condition he lin William, Lord Byron, passed the early part of his life in the navy. In 1763 he was made master of the stag hounds; and in 1765 was sent to the Tower, and tried before the House of Peers for killing his relation and neighbour, Mr Cha-gered out a long life, doing all in his power to worth, in a duel.-The following details of this ruin the paternal mansion for that other branch fatal event are peculiarly interesting from subse- of the family to which he was aware it must pass sequent circumstances connected with the sub- at his death, all his own children having descended ject of our sketch. before him to the grave. John, the next brother to William, and born in the year after him, that is in 1723, was of a very different disposition, although his career in life was almost an unbroken scene of misfortunes. The hardships he endured while accompanying Commodore Anson in his expedition to the South Seas are well known, from his own highly popu He The old Lord Byron belonged to a club of which Mr Chaworth was also a member. It met at the Star and Garter tavern, Pall Mall, once a month, and was called the Nottinghamshire Club. On the 29th January, 1765, they met at four o'clock to dinner as usual, and every thing went agreeably on, until about seven o'clock, when a dispute arose betwixt Lord Byron and Mr Cha-lar and affecting narrative. His only son, born worth concerning the quantity of game on their in 1751, who received an excellent education, estates. The dispute rose to a high pitch, and and whose father procured for him a commission Mr Chaworth, having paid his share of the bill, in the guards, was so dissipated that he was retired. Lord Byron followed him out of the known by the name of «mad Jack Byron.» room in which they had dined, and, stopping him was one of the handsomest men of his time; on the landing of the stairs, called to the waiter but his character was so notorious that his fato show them into an empty room. They were ther was obliged to desert him, and his company shown into one, and a single candle being placed was shunned by the better part of society. In on the table,-in a few minutes the bell was rung, his twenty-seventh year he seduced the Marand Mr Chaworth found mortally wounded. He chioness of Carmarthen; who had been but a said that Lord Byron and he entered the room few years married to a husband with whom she together, Lord Byron leading the way; that his had lived in the most happy state, until she lordship, in walking forward, said something formed this unfortunate connexion. After one relative to the former dispute, on which he pro- fruitless attempt at reclaiming his lady, the posed fastening the door; that on turning him- marquis obtained a divorce; and a marriage was self round from this act, he perceived his lordship brought about between her and her seducer; with his sword half drawn, or nearly so: on which, which, after the most brutal conduct on his part, knowing his man, he instantly drew his own, and and the greatest misery and keenest remorse on made a thrust at him, which he thought had hers, was dissolved in two years by her sinking wounded or killed him; that then, perceiving his to the grave, the victim of a broken heart. lordship shorten his sword to return the thrust, he About three years subsequent, Captain Byron thought to have parried it with his left hand; that he sought to recruit his fortunes by matrimony, felt the sword enter his body and go deep through and having made a conquest of Miss Catherine his back; that he struggled, and being the stronger Gordon, an Aberdeenshire heiress, (lineally deman, disarmed his lordship, and expressed a con- scended from the Earl of Huntley and the Princern, as under the apprehension of having mor- cess Jane, daughter of James II. of Scotland) he tally wounded him; that Lord Byron replied by united himself to her, ran through her property saying something to the like effect, adding at the in a few years, and, leaving her and her only same time, that he hoped he would now allow child, the subject of this memoir, in a destitute him to be as brave a man as any in the kingdom,» | and defenceless state, fled to France to avoid his For this offence he was unanimously convicted of manslaughter, but, on being brought up for judgment, pleaded his privilege as a peer, and was, in consequence, discharged. After this affair he was abandoned by his relations, and retired to Newstead Abbey; where, though he lived in a state of perfect exile from persons of his creditors, and died at Valenciennes, in 1791. In Captain Medwin's « Conversations of Lord Byron,» the following expressions are said to have fallen from his lordship on the subject of his unworthy father: I lost my father when I was only six years of age. My mother, when she was in a rage deur of nature around him; the feeling that he was upon hills where «Foreign tyrant never trod, But Freedom, with her falchion bright, Swept the stranger from her sight;» his intercourse with a people whose chief amusements consisted in the recital of heroic tales of other times, feats of strength, and a display of independence, blended with the wild superna with me (and I gave her cause enough), used to say, Ah! you little dog, you are a Byron all over; you are as bad as your father! It was very diltereat from Mrs Malaprop's saying, 'Ah! good dear Mr Malaprop! I never loved him till he was drad.' But, in fact, iny father was, in his youth, any thing but a Calebs in search of a wife.' He I would have made a bad hero for Hannah More. He ran out three fortunes, and married or ran away with three women; and once wanted a gui-tural stories peculiar to remote and thinly-peonea, that he wrote for: I have the note. He seemed born for his own ruin, and that of the other sex. He began by seducing Lady Carmarthen, and spent for her four thousand pounds ayear, and, not content with one adventure of this Lind, afterwards eloped with Miss Gordon. This marriage was not destined to be a very fortunate one either, and I don't wonder at her differing from sheridan's widow in the play; they certably could not have claimed 'the flitch.'» pled districts;--all these were calculated to foster that poetical feeling innate in his character. When George was seven years of age, his mother sent him to the grammar-school at Aberdeen, where he remained till his removal to Harrow, with the exception of some intervals of absence, which were deemed requisite for the establishment of his health. His progress beyond that of the general run of his class-fellows was never so remarkable as after those occasional inGeorge Byron Gordon (for so he was called on tervals, when, in a few days, he would master account of the neglect his father's family had shown exercises which, in the school routine, it had reto his mother) was born at Dover, on the 22d of quired weeks to accomplish. But when he had January, 1788. On the unnatural desertion of overtaken the rest of the class he always rehis father, the entire care of his infant years laxed his exertions, and, contenting himself with devolved upon his mother, who retired to Aber-being considered a tolerable scholar, never made Jeen, where she lived in almost perfect seclusion, any extraordinary effort to place himself at the on the ruins of her fortune. Her undivided affec- head of the highest form. It was out of school tion was naturally concentred in her son, who that he aspired to be the leader of every thing; was her darling; and when he only went out for in all boyish games and amusements he would an ordinary walk, she would entreat him, with be first if possible. For this he was eminently the tear glistening in her eye, to take care of calculated; quick, enterprising, and daring, the himself, as she had nothing on earth but energy of his mind enabled him to overcome Lun to live for; a conduct not at all pleasing to the impediments which nature had thrown in his adventurous spirit; the more especially, as his way. Even at that early period (from eight some of his companions, who witnessed the affec- to ten years of age), all his sports were of a tionate scene, would laugh and ridicule him about manly character; fishing, shooting, swimming, It. This excessive maternal indulgence, and the and managing a horse, or steering and trimming absence of that salutary discipline and control, the sails of a boat, constituted his chief delights, so necessary to childhood, doubtless contributed and, to the superficial observer, seemed his sole to the formation of the less pleasing features of occupations. Lord Byron's character. It must, however, be remembered, in Mrs Byron's extenuation, not only that the circumstances in which she had I been left with her son were of a very peculiar nature, but also that a slight malformation of one of his feet, and great weakness of constitution, naturally solicited for him in the heart of a mother a more than ordinary portion of tenderness. For these latter reasons he was not sent very early to school, but was allowed to expand his lungs, and brace his limbs, upon the mountams of the neighbourhood. This was evidently the most judicious method for imparting strength to his bodily frame; and the sequel showed that it was far from the worst for giving tone and vigour to his mind. The savage gran He was exceedingly brave, and in the juvenile wars of the school, he generally gained the victory; upon one occasion a boy pursued by another took refuge in Mrs Byron's house: the latter, who had been much abused by the former, proceeded to take vengeance on him even on the landing-place of the drawing-room stairs, when George interposed in his defence, declaring that nobody should be ill-used while under his roof and protection. Upon this the aggressor dared him to fight, and, although the former was by much the stronger of the two, the spirit of young Byron was so determined, that after the combat had lasted for nearly two hours, it was suspended because both the boys were entirely exhausted. A school-fellow of Byron's had a very small Shetland pony which his father had bought him, and one day they went to the banks of the Don to bathe, but having only one pony, they were obliged to follow the good old practice, called in Scotland « ride and tie. When they came to the bridge over that dark romantic stream, Byron bethought him of the prophecy which he has quoted in Don Juan: Brig of Balgounie, black 's your wa'; He immediately stopped his companion, who was It is the custom of the grammar-school at Aberdeen, that the boys of all the five classes of which it is composed should be assembled for prayers in the public school at eight o'clock in the morning; after prayers a censor calls over the names of all, and those who are absent are punished. The first time that Lord Byron had come to school after his accession to his title, the rector had caused his name to be inserted in the censor's book, Georgius Dominus de Byron, instead of Georgius Byron Gordon as formerly. The boys, unaccustomed to this aristocratic sound, set up a loud and involuntary shout, which had such an effect on his sensitive mind that he burst into tears, and would have fled from the school had he not been restrained by the master. An answer which Lord Byron made to a fellow scholar, who questioned him as to the cause of the honorary addition of Dominus de Byron to his name, served at that time, when he was only ten years of age, to point out that he would be a man who would think, speak, and act for himself; who, whatever might be his sayings or his doings, his vices or his virtues, would not condescend to take them at second hand. This happened on the very day after he had been menaced with being flogged round the school for a fault which he had not committed; and when the question was put to him he replied, it is not my doing; Fortune was to whip me yesterday for what another did, and she has this day made me a lord for what another has ceased to do. I need not thank her in either case, for I have asked nothing at her hands.» On the 17th of May, 1798, William, the fifth Lord Byron, departed this life at Newstead. the son of this eccentric nobleman had died when As George was five years old, and as the descent both of the titles and estates was to heirs male, the latter, of course, succeeded his great uncle. Upon this change of fortune Lord Byron, now ten years of age, was removed from the immediate care of his mother, and placed as a ward under the guardianship of the Earl of Carlisle, whose father had married Isabella, the sister of the preceding Lord Byron. In one or two points of character this great aunt resembled the bard: she also wrote beautiful poetry, and after adorning the gay and fashionable world for many years, she left it without any apparent cause and with perfect indifference, and in a great measure secluded herself from society. The young nobleman's guardian decided that he should receive the usual education given to England's titled sons, and that he should in the first instance be sent to the public school at Harrow. A He was accordingly placed there under the tuition of the Rev. Dr Drury, to whom he has testified his gratitude in a note to the fourth canto of Childe Harold, in a manner which does equal honour to the tator and the pupil. change of scene and of circumstances so unforeseen and so rapid, would have been hazardous to any boy, but it was doubly so to one of Byron's ardent mind and previous habits. Taken at once from the society of boys in humble life, and placed among youths of his own newly-acquired rank, with means of gratification, which to him must have appeared considerable, it is by no means surprising that he should have been betrayed into every sort of extravagance; none of them appear, however, to have been of a very culpable nature. Though he was lame, says one of his schoolhe was a great lover of sports, and fellows, preferred hockey to Horace, relinquished even Helicon for duck-puddle,' and gave up the best poet that ever wrote hard Latin for a game of cricket on the common. He was not remarkable (nor was he ever) for his learning, but he was always a clever, plain-spoken, and undaunted boy. I have seen him fight by the hour like a Trojan, and stand up against the disadvantage of his lameness with all the spirit of an ancient Don't you remeinber battle your combatant. with Pitt?' (a brewer's son) said I to him in a letter (for 1 had witnessed it), but it seems that he had forgotten it. You are mistaken, I it must have been think,' said he in reply; with Rice-Pudding Morgan, or Lord Jocelyn, or one of the Douglases, or George Raynsford, or Pryce (with whom I had two conflicts), or with Moses Moore (the clod), or with somebody else, and not with Pitt; for with all the abovenamed and other worthies of the fist had I an |