NOTICES OF THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 000 IT has been said of Lord Byron, that "he was prouder of being a descendant of those Byrons of Normandy, who accompanied William the Conqueror into England, than of having been the author of Childe Harold and Manfred." This remark is not altogether unfounded in truth. In the character of the noble poet the pride of ancestry was undoubtedly one of the most decided features; and, as far as antiquity alone gives lustre to descent, he had every reason to boast of the claims of his race. In Doomsday-book, the name of Ralph de Burun ranks high among the tenants of land Nottinghamshire; and in the succeeding reigns, under the title of Lords of Horestan Castle, * we find his descendants holding considerable possessions in Derbyshire, to which afterwards, in the time of Edward I, were added the lands of Rochdale in Lancashire. So extensive, indeed, in those early times, was the landed wealth of the family, that the partition of their property, in Nottinghamshire alone, has been sufficient to establish some of the first families of the county. figure evidently represents a Saracen or Moor, with an European female on one side of him, and a Christian soldier on the other. In a second group, which is in one of the bedrooms, the female occupies the centre, while on each side is the head of a Saracen, with the eyes fixed earnestly upon her. Of the exact meaning of these figures there is nothing certain known; but the tradition is, I understand, that they refer to some love-adventure, in which one of those crusaders, of whom the young poet speaks, was engaged. Of the more certain, or, at least, better known exploits of the family, it is sufficient, perhaps, to say, that, at the siege of Calais under Edward III, and on the fields, memorable in their respective eras, of Cressy, Bosworth, and Marston Moor, the name of the Byrons reaped honours, both of rank and fame, of which their young descendant has, in the verses just cited, shown himself proudly conscious. It was in the reign of Henry VIII, on the dissolution of the monasteries, that, by a royal grant, the Its antiquity, however, was not the only distinction church and priory of Newstead, with the lands adby which the name of Byron came recommended to joining, were added to the other possessions of the its inheritor; those personal merits and accomplish- | Byron family. The favourite, upon whom these ments, which form the best ornament of a genealogy, spoils of the ancient religion were conferred, was seem to have been displayed in no ordinary degree the grand-nephew of the gallant soldier who fought by some of his ancestors. In one of his own early by the side of Richmond at Bosworth, and is dispoems, alluding to the achievements of his race, he commemorates, with much satisfaction, those "mailcover'd barons" among them, who proudly to battle Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain. Adding, Near Askalon's towers John of Horiston slumbers, Unnerved is the hand of his minstrel by death. As there is no record, however, as far as I can discover, of any of his ancestors having been engaged in the Holy Wars, it is possible that he may have had no other authority for this notion than the tradition which he found connected with certain strange groups of heads, which are represented on the old panelwork in some of the chambers at Newstead. In one of these groups, consisting of three heads, strongly carved, and projecting from the panel, the centre * "In the park of Horseley (says Thoroton) there was a castle, some of the ruins whereof are yet visible, called Horestan Castle, which was the chief mansion of his (Ralph de Burun's) successors." *The priory of Newstead had been founded and dedicated to God and the Virgin by Henry II:-and its monks, who were canons regular of the Order of St. Augustine, appear to have been peculiarly the objects of royal favour, no less in spiritual than in temporal concerns. During the lifetime of the fifth Lord Byron, there was found in the Lake at Newstead,-where it is supposed to have been thrown for concealment by the monks,-a large brass eagle, in the body of which, on its being sent to be cleaned, was discovered a secret aperture, concealing within it a number of old legal papers connected with the rights and privileges of the foundation. At the sale of the old lord's effects, in 1776-7, this eagle, together with three candelabra, found at the same time, was purchased by a watchmaker of Nottingham (by whom the concealed manuscripts were discovered), and having from his hands passed into those of Sir Richard Kaye, a prebendary of Southwell, forms at present a very remarkable ornament of the cathedral of that place. A curious document, said to have been among those found in the eagle, is now in the possession of Colonel Wildman, containing a grant of full pardon from Henry V, of every possible crime (and there is a tolerably long catalogue enumerated) which the monks might have committed previous to the 8th of December preceding :-" murdris per ipsos post decimum nonum diem Novembris ultimo præteritum perpetratis, si quæ fuerint, exceptis." 1 name, tinguished from the other knights of the same christian in the family, by the title of "Sir John Byron the Little with the great beard." A portrait of this personage was one of the few family pictures with which the walls of the abbey, while in the possession of the noble poet, were decorated. At the coronation of James I, we find another representative of the family selected as an object of royal favour, the grandson of Sir John Byron the Little, being, on this occasion, made a Knight of the Bath. There is a letter to this personage, preserved in Lodge's Illustrations, from which it appears that, notwithstanding all these apparent indications of prosperity, the inroads of pecuniary embarrassment had already begun to be experienced by this ancient house. After counselling the new heir as to the best mode of getting free of his debts, "I do therefore advise you," continues the writer, "that so soon as you have, in such sort as shall be fit, finished your father's funerals, to dispose and disperse that great household, reducing them to the number of forty or fifty, at the most, of all sorts; and, in my opinion, it will be far better for you to live for a time in Lancashire rather than in Notts for many good reasons that I can tell you when we meet, fitter for words than writing." From the following reign (Charles I) the nobility of the family dates its origin. In the year 1643, Sir John Byron, great grandson of him who succeeded to the rich domains of Newstead, was created Baron Byron of Rochdale in the county of Lancaster; and seldom has a title been bestowed for such high and honourable services as those by which this nobleman deserved the gratitude of his royal master. Through almost every page of the History of the Civil Wars, we trace his name in connexion with the varying fortunes of the king, and find him faithful, persevering, and disinterested to the last. "Sir John Biron (says the writer of Colonel Hutchinson's Memoirs), afterwards Lord Biron, and all his brothers, bred up in arms and valiant men in their own persons, were all passionately the king's." There is also, in the answer which Colonel Hutchinson, when governor of Nottingham, returned, on one occasion, to his cousin-german, Sir Richard Biron, a noble tribute to the valour and fidelity of the family. Sir Richard, having sent to prevail on his relative to surrender the castle, received for answer, that, "except he found his own heart prone to such treachery, he might consider there was, if nothing else, so much of a Biron's blood in him, that he should very much scorn to betray or quit a trust he had undertaken." Such are a few of the gallant and distinguished personages, through whom the name and honours of this noble house have been transmitted. By the maternal side also, Lord Byron had to pride himself on a line of ancestry as illustrious as any that Scotland can boast,-his mother, who was one of the Gordons of Gight, having been a descendant of that Sir William Gordon, who was the third son of the Earl of Huntley by the daughter of James I. After the eventful period of the Civil Wars, when so many individuals of the house of Byron distinguished themselves-there having been no less than seven The Earl of Shrewsbury * brothers of that family on the field at Edgehill-the celebrity of the name appears to have died away for near a century. It was about the year 1750, that the shipwreck and sufferings of Mr Byron (the grandfather of the illustrious subject of these pages), awakened in no small degree the attention and sympathy of the public. Not long after, a less innocent sort of notoriety attached itself to two other members of the family,-one, the grand-uncle of the poet, and the other, his father. The former, in the year 1765, stood his trial before the House of Peers for killing, in a duel, or rather scuffle, his relation and neighbour Mr Chaworth; and the latter, having carried off to the continent the wife of Lord Carmarthen, on the noble marquis obtaining a divorce from the lady, married her. Of this short union one daughter only was the issue, the honourable Augusta Byron, now the wife of Colonel Leigh. In reviewing thus cursorily the ancestors, both near and remote, of Lord Byron, it cannot fail to be remarked how strikingly he combined in his own nature some of the best and, perhaps, worst qualities that lie scattered through the various characters of his predecessors,-the generosity, the love of enterprise, the high-mindedness of some of the better spirits of his race, with the irregular passions, the eccentricity, and daring recklessness of the world's opinion, that so much characterized others. The first wife of the father of the poet having died in 1784, he, in the following year, married Miss Catherine Gordon, only child and heiress of George Gordon, Esq. of Gight. In addition to the estate of Gight, which had, however, in former times, been much more extensive, this lady possessed, in ready money, Bank shares, &c. no inconsiderable property; and it was known to be solely with a view of relieving himself from his debts that Mr Byron paid his addresses to her. A circumstance related, as having taken place before the marriage of this lady, not only shows the extreme quickness and vehemence of her feelings, but, if it be true that she had never at the time seen Captain Byron, is not a little striking. Being at the Edinburgh Theatre one night when the character of Isabella was performed by Mrs Siddons, so affected was she by the powers of this great actress, that, towards the conclusion of the play, she fell into violent fits, and was carried out of the theatre, screaming loudly, "Oh my Biron, my Biron." On the occasion of her marriage there appeared a ballad by some Scotch rhymer, which has been lately reprinted in a collection of the "Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland;" and as it bears testimony both to the reputation of the lady for wealth, and that of her husband for rakery and extravagance, it may be worth extracting MISS GORDON OF GIGHT. O whare are ye gaen', bonny Miss Gordon? Afterwards Admiral. The shooten' o' guns, an' rattlin' o' drums, Soon after the marriage, which took place, I believe, at Bath, Mr Byron and his lady removed to their estate in Scotland; and it was not long before the prognostics of this ballad-maker began to be realized. The extent of that chasm of debt, in which her fortune was to be swallowed up, now opened upon the eyes of the ill-fated heiress. The creditors of Mr Byron lost no time in pressing their demands, and not only was the whole of her ready money, Bank shares, fisheries, &c., sacrificed to satisfy them, but a large sum raised by mortgage on the estate for the same purpose. In the summer of 1786, she and her husband left Scotland, to proceed to France; and in the following year the estate of Gight itself was sold, and the whole of the purchase-money applied to the further payment of debts, with the exception of a small sum vested in trustees for the use of Mrs Byron, who thus found herself, within the short space of two years, reduced from competence to a pittance of £150 per annum.* From France Mrs Byron returned to England at the close of the year 1787, and on the 22d of January, 1788, gave birth, in Holles-street, London, to her first and only child, George Gordon Byron. The name of Gordon was added in compliance with a condition imposed by will on whoever should become husband of the heiress of Gight; and at the baptism of the child, the Duke of Gordon, and Colonel Duff of Fetteresso, stood godfathers. *The following particulars respecting the amount of Mrs Byron's fortune before marriage, and its rapid disappearance afterwards, are, I have every reason to think, from the authentic source to which I am indebted for them, strictly correct : "At the time of the marriage Miss Gordon was possessed of about £3000 in money, two shares in the Aberdeen Banking Company, the estates of Gight and Monkshill, and the Superiority of two Salmon Fishings on Dee. Soon after the arrival of Mr and Mrs Byron Gordon in Scotland, it appeared that Mr Byron had involved himself very deeply in debt, and his creditors commenced legal proceedings for the recovery of their money. The cash in hand was soon paid away,-the Bank shares were disposed of at £600 (now worth £5000)-timber on the estate was cut down and sold to the amount of £1500-the farm of Monkshill and Superiority of the Fishings, affording a freehold qualification, were disposed of at £480; and, in addition to these sales, within a year after the marriage, £8000 was borrowed on a mortgage upon the estate, granted by Mrs Byron Gordon to the person who lent the money. "In March 1786 a contract of marriage in the Scotch form was drawn up and signed by the parties. In the course of the summer of that year Mr and Mrs Byron left Gight, and never returned to it; the estate being, in the following year, sold to Lord Haddo for the sum of £17,850, the whole of which was applied to the payment of Mr Byron's debts, with the exception of £1122, which remained as a burden on the estate (the interest to be applied to paying a jointure of £55. 11s. 1d. to Mrs Byron's grandmother, the principal reverting, at her death, to Mrs Byron), and £3000, vested in Trustees for Mrs Byron's separate use, which was lent to Mr Carsewell of Ratharllet in Fifeshire." "A strange occurrence" (says another of my informants) "took place previous to the sale of the lands. All the doves left the house of Gight and came to Lord Haddo's, and so did a number of herons, which had built their nests for many years in a wood on the banks of a large loch, called the Hagberry Pot. When this was told to Lord Haddo, he pertinently replied,' Let the birds come, and do them no harm, for the land will soon follow;' which it actually did." In reference to the circumstance of his being an only child, Lord Byron, in one of his journals, mentions some curious coincidences in his family, which to a mind disposed as his was to regard every thing connected with himself as out of the ordinary course of events, would naturally appear even more strange and singular than they are. "I have been thinking," he says, " of an odd circumstance. My daughter (1), my wife (2), my half-sister (3), my mother (4), my sister's mother (5), my natural daughter (6), and myself (7), are, or were, all only children. My sister's mother (Lady Conyers) had only my half-sister by that second marriage (herself, too, an only child), and my father had only me, an only child, by his second marriage with my mother, an only child too. Such a complication of only children, all tending to one family, is singular enough, and looks like fatality almost." He then adds, characteristically, "But the fiercest animals have the fewest numbers in their litters, as lions, tigers, and even elephants, which are mild in comparison." From London Mrs Byron proceeded with her infant to Scotland, and in the year 1790, took up her residence in Aberdeen, where she was soon after joined by Captain Byron. Here for a short time they lived together in lodgings at the house of a person named Anderson, in Queen-street. But their union being by no means happy, a separation took place between them, and Mrs Byron removed to lodgings at the other end of the street. Notwithstanding this schism, they for some time continued to visit, and even to drink tea with each other; but the elements of discord were strong on both sides, and their separation was, at last, complete and final. He would frequently, however, accost the nurse and his son in their walks, and expressed a strong wish to have the child for a day or two, on a visit with him. To this request Mrs Byron was, at first, not very willing to accede, but, on the representation of the nurse, that "if he kept the boy one night, he would not do so another," she consented. The event proved as the nurse had predicted; on inquiring next morning after the child, she was told by Captain Byron that he had quite enough of his young visitor, and she might take him home again. It should be observed, however, that Mrs Byron, at this period, was unable to keep more than one servant, and that, sent as the boy was on this occasion to encounter the trial of a visit, without the accustomed superintendence of his nurse, it is not so wonderful that he should have been found, under such circumstances, rather an unmanageable guest. That as a child, his temper was violent, or rather sullenly passionate, is certain. Even when in petticoats, he showed the same uncontrolable spirit with his nurse, which he afterwards exhibited, when an author, with his critics. Being angrily reprimanded by her, one day, for having soiled or torn a new frock in which he had been just dressed, he got into one of his "silent rages" (as he himself has described them), seized the frock with both his hands, rent it from top *It appears that she several times changed her residence during her stay at Aberdeen, as there are two other houses pointed out, where she lodged for some time; one, situated in Virginia-street, and the other, the house of a Mr Leslie, I think, in Broad-street. to bottom, and stood in sullen stillness, setting his censurer and her wrath at defiance. But, notwithstanding this, and other such unruly outbreaks in which he was but too much encouraged by the example of his mother, who frequently, it is said, proceeded to the same extremities with her caps, gowns, &c.-there was in his disposition, as appears from the concurrent testimony of nurses, tutors, and all who were employed about him, a mixture of affectionate sweetness and playfulness, by which it was impossible not to be attached; and which rendered him then, as in his riper years, easily manageable, by those who loved and understood him sufficiently to be at once gentle and firm enough for the task. The female attendant of whom we have spoken, as well as her sister, May Gray, who succeeded her, gained an influence over his mind against which he very rarely rebelled; while his mother, whose capricious excesses, both of anger and of fondness, left her little hold on either his respect or affection, was indebted solely to his sense of filial duty for any small portion of authority she was ever able to acquire over him. By an accident which, it is said, occurred at the time of his birth, one of his feet was twisted out of its natural position, and this defect (chiefly from the contrivances employed to remedy it) was a source of much pain and inconvenience to him during his early years. The expedients used at this period to restore the limb to shape were adopted by the advice, and under the direction, of the celebrated John Hunter, with whom Doctor Livingstone of Aberdeen corresponded on the subject; and his nurse, to whom fell the task of putting on these machines or bandages, at bedtime, would often, as she herself told my informant, sing him to sleep, or tell him stories and legends, in which, like most other children, he took great delight. She also taught him, while yet an infant, to repeat a great number of the Psalms; and the first and twenty-third Psalms were among the earliest that he committed to memory. It is a remarkable fact, indeed, that through the care of this respectable woman, who was herself of a very religious disposition, he attained a far earlier and more intimate acquaintance with the Sacred Writings than falls to the lot of most young people. In a letter which he wrote to Mr Murray, from Italy, in 1821, after requesting of that gentleman to send him, by the first opportunity, a Bible, he adds -"Don't forget this, for I am a great reader and admirer of those books, and had read them through and through before I was eight years old,—that is to say, the Old Testament, for the New struck me as a task, but the other as a pleasure. I speak, as a boy, from the recollected impression of that period at Aberdeen, in 1796." The malformation of his foot was, even at this childish age, a subject on which he showed peculiar sensitiveness. I have been told by a gentleman of Glasgow, that the person who nursed his wife, and who still lives in his family, used often to join the nurse of Byron when they were out with their respective charges, and one day said to her, as they walked together, "What a pretty boy Byron is! what a pity he has such a leg!" On hearing this allusion to his infirmity, the child's eyes flashed with anger, and striking at her with a little whip which he The short visit of Captain Byron to Aberdeen has already been mentioned, and he again passed two or three months in that city, before his last departure for France. On both occasions, his chief object was to extract still more money, if possible, from the unfortunate woman whom he had beggared; and so far was he successful, that, during his last visit, narrow as were her means, she contrived to furnish him with the money necessary for his journey to Valenciennes, where, in the following year, 1791, he died. Though latterly Mrs Byron would not see her husband, she entertained, it is said, a strong affection for him to the last, and on those occasions, when the nurse used to meet him in her walks, would inquire of her with the tenderest anxiety as to his health and looks. When the intelligence of his death, too, arrived, her grief, according to the account of this same attendant, bordered on distraction, and her shrieks were so loud as to be heard in the street. She was, indeed, a woman full of the most passionate extremes, and her grief and affection were bursts as much of temper as of feeling. To mourn at all, however, for such a husband was, it must be allowed, a most gratuitous stretch of generosity. Having married her, as he openly avowed, for her fortune alone, he soon dissipated this, the solitary charm she possessed for him, and was then unmanful enough to taunt her with the inconveniences of that penury which his own extravagance had occasioned. When not quite five years old, young Byron was sent to a day-school at Aberdeen, taught by Mr Bowers,† and remained there, with some interrup *By her advances of money to Mr Byron (says an autho. rity I have already cited) on the two occasions when he furnishing the floor occupied by her, after his death, in visited Aberdeen, as well as by the expenses incurred in Broad-street, she got in debt to the amount of £300, by paying the interest on which her income was reduced to £135. On this, however, she contrived to live without increasing her debt, and on the death of her grandmother, when she received the £1122 set apart for that lady's annuity, discharged the whole. +In Long Acre. The present master of this school is Mr David Grant, the ingenious editor of a collection of "Battles and War-Pieces," and of a work of much utility entitled "Class-Book of Modern Poetry." tions, during a twelvemonth, as appears by the following extract from the day-book of the school: George Gordon Byron. 19th November, 1792. 19th November, 1793-paid one guinea. The terms of this school for reading were only five shillings a quarter, and it was evidently less with a view to the boy's advance in learning than as a cheap mode of keeping him quiet that his mother had sent him to it. Of the progress of his infantine studies at Aberdeen, as well under Mr Bowers as under the various other persons that instructed him, we have the following interesting particulars communicated by himself, in a sort of journal which he once began, under the title of "My Dictionary," and which is preserved in one of his manuscript books. ". England, the fifth, sixth forms, and monitors, are heard by the head masters." are many, Of his class-fellows at the grammar-school there of course, still alive, by whom he is well remembered; and the general impression they retain of him is, that he was a lively, warm-hearted, and high-spirited boy-passionate and resentful, but affectionate and companionable with his school-fellows -to a remarkable degree venturous and fearless, and (as one of them significantly expressed it) "always more ready to give a blow than take one." Among many anecdotes illustrative of this spirit, it is related that once, in returning home from school, he fell in with a boy who had on some former occasion insulted him, but had then got off unpunished-little Byron, however, at the time, promising to "pay him off" whenever they should meet again. Accordingly, on this second encounter, though there were some other boys to take his opponent's part, he succeeded in inflicting upon him a hearty beating. On his return home, breathless, the servant inquired what he had been about, and was answered by him, with a mixture of rage and humour, that he had been paying a debt, by beating a boy according to promise; for that he was a Byron, and would never belie his motto, "Trust Byron." He was, indeed, much more anxious to distinguish himself among his schoolfellows by prowess in all sports and exercises, than by advancement in learning. Though quick, when he could be persuaded to attend, or had any study that pleased him, he was in general very low in the class, nor seemed ambitious of being promoted any higher. It is the custom, it seems, in this seminary, to invert, now and then, the order of the class, so as to make the highest and lowest boys change places,-with a view, no doubt, of piquing the ambition of both. On these occasions, and only these, Byron was sometimes at the head, and the master, to banter him, would say, "Now, George, man, let me see how soon you'll be at the foot again." "For several years of my earliest childhood, I was in that city, but have never revisited it since I was ten years old. I was sent, at five years old, or earlier, to a school kept by a Mr Bowers, who was called 'Bodsy Bowers,' by reason of his dapperness. It was a school for both sexes. I learned little there, except to repeat by rote the first lesson of monosyllables (God made man-'Let us love him') by hearing it often repeated, without acquiring a letter. When ever proof was made of my progress at home, I repeated these words with the most rapid fluency; but on turning over a new leaf, I continued to repeat them, so that the narrow boundaries of my first year's accomplishments were detected, my ears boxed (which they did not deserve, seeing it was by ear only that I had acquired my letters), and my intellects consigned to a new preceptor. He was a very devout, clever little clergyman, named Ross, afterwards minister of one of the kirks (East, I think). Under him I made astonishing progress, and I recollect to this day his mild manners and good-natured painstaking. The moment I could read, my grand passion was history, and, why I know not, but I was particularly taken with the battle near the Lake Regillus in the Roman History, put into my hands the first. Four years ago, when standing on the heights of Tusculum, and looking down upon the little round lake that was once Regillus, and which dots the immense expanse below, I remembered my young enthusiasm and my old instructor. Afterwards I had a very serious, saturnine, but kind young man, named Paterson, for a tutor. He was the son of my shoemaker, but a good scholar, as is common with the Scotch. He was a rigid presbyterian also. With him I begun Latin in Ruddiman's grammar, and continued till I went to the Grammar School' (Scotice, Schule;' Aberdonice, Squeel') where I threaded all the classes to the fourth, when I was recalled to England (where I had been hatched) by the demise of my uncle. I acquired this handwriting, which I can hardly read myself, under the fair copies of Mr Duncan of the same city: I don't think he ould plume himself much upon my progress. How-able swiftness of foot." ever, I wrote much better then than I have ever done since. Haste and agitation of one kind or another have quite spoilt as pretty a scrawl as ever scratched over a frank. The grammar-school might consist of a hundred and fifty of all ages under age. It was divided into five classes taught by four masters, the chief teaching the fourth and fifth himself. As in During this period, his mother and he made, occasionally, visits among their friends, passing some time at Fetteresso, the seat of his godfather, Colonel Duff (where the child's delight with a humorous old butler, named Ernest Fidler, is still remembered), and also at Banff, where some near connexions of Mrs Byron resided. In the summer of the year 1796, after an attack of scarlet-fever, he was removed by his mother for change of air into the Highlands; and it was either at this time, or in the following year, that they took up their residence at a farm-house in the neighbour *The old Porter, too, at the College, "minds weel" the little boy, with the red jacket and nankeen trowsers, whom he has so often turned out of the College court-yard. marbles, and could drive one farther than most boys. He "He was," says one of my informants, "a good hand at also excelled at Bases,' a game which requires consider + On examining the quarterly lists kept at the grammarschool of Aberdeen, in which the names of the boys are set down according to the station each holds in his class, it appears that in April of the year 1794, the name of Byron, then in the second class, stands twenty-third in a list of thirty-eight boys. In the April of 1798, however, he had risen to be fifth in the fourth class, consisting of twentyseven boys, and had got ahead of several of his contemporaries, who had, previously, always stood before him. |