The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume II Part 28

"To Augusta, my dearest sister, and my best friend, who has ever loved me much better than I deserved, this volume is presented by her _father's_ son, and most affectionate brother, B."

The effect which the poem instantly produced is best expressed in Byron's own memorandum:

"I awoke one morning and found myself famous."

He was only just twenty-three years old.

"The subject," says Elizabeth, d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re ('Two d.u.c.h.esses', pp. 375, 376), "of conversation, of curiosity, of enthusiasm almost, one might say, of the moment is not Spain or Portugal, Warriors or Patriots, but Lord Byron!" "He returned," she continues, "sorry for the severity of some of his lines (in the 'English Bards'), and with a new poem, 'Childe Harold', which he published. This poem is on every table, and himself courted, visited, flattered, and praised whenever he appears. He has a pale, sickly, but handsome countenance, a bad figure, and, in short, he is really the only topic almost of every conversation--the men jealous of him, the women of each other."

"Lord Byron," writes Lady Harriet Leveson Gower to the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, May 10, 1812 ('Letters of Harriet, Countess Granville', vol. i. p. 34), "is still upon a pedestal, and Caroline William doing homage. I have made acquaintance with him. He is agreeable, but I feel no wish for any further intimacy. His countenance is fine when it is in repose; but the moment it is in play, suspicious, malignant, and consequently repulsive. His manner is either remarkably gracious and conciliatory, with a tinge of affectation, or irritable and impetuous, and then, I am afraid, perfectly natural."

Rogers ('Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers', pp. 232, 233) says,

"After Byron had become the 'rage', I was frequently amused at the manoeuvres of certain n.o.ble ladies to get acquainted with him by means of me; for instance, I would receive a note from Lady----, requesting the pleasure of my company on a particular evening, with a postscript, 'Pray, could you not contrive to bring Lord Byron with you?' Once, at a great party given by Lady Jersey, Mrs. Sheridan ran up to me and said, 'Do, as a favour, try if you can place Lord Byron beside me at supper!'"]

[Footnote 2:

"Forgiveness to the injured does belong, But they ne'er pardon, who have done the wrong."

Dryden's 'Conquest of Grenada', part ii. act i. sc. 2.]

[Footnote 3: Murphy, in sc. 1 of 'The Way to Keep Him' (1760), uses the word in the same sense;

"A wife's a drug now; mere tar-water, with every virtue under heaven, but n.o.body takes it."]

CHAPTER VI.

MARCH, 1812--MAY, 1813.

THE IDOL OF SOCIETY--THE DRURY LANE ADDRESS--SECOND SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT.

229.--To Thomas Moore.

With regard to the pa.s.sage on Mr. Way's loss, no unfair play was hinted at, as may be seen by referring to the book [1]; and it is expressly added that the managers _were ignorant_ of that transaction. As to the prevalence of play at the Argyle, it cannot be denied that there were _billiards_ and _dice_;--Lord B. has been a witness to the use of both at the Argyle Rooms. These, it is presumed, come under the denomination of play. If play be allowed, the President of the Inst.i.tution can hardly complain of being termed the "Arbiter of Play,"--or what becomes of his authority?

Lord B. has no personal animosity to Colonel Greville. A public inst.i.tution, to which he himself was a subscriber, he considered himself to have a right to notice _publickly_. Of that inst.i.tution Colonel Greville was the avowed director;--it is too late to enter into the discussion of its merits or demerits.

Lord B. must leave the discussion of the reparation, for the real or supposed injury, to Colonel G.'s friend and Mr. Moore, the friend of Lord B.--begging them to recollect that, while they consider Colonel G.'s honour, Lord B. must also maintain his own. If the business can be settled amicably, Lord B. will do as much as can and ought to be done by a man of honour towards conciliation;--if not, he must satisfy Colonel G. in the manner most conducive to his further wishes.

[Footnote 1: Byron, in 'English Bards, etc.' (lines 638-667), had alluded to Colonel Greville, Manager of the Argyle Inst.i.tution:

"Or hail at once the patron and the pile Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle," etc.

In a note he had also referred to "Billy" Way's loss of several thousand pounds in the Rooms. On his return from abroad, Colonel Greville demanded satisfaction through his friend Gould Francis Leckie. Byron referred Leckie to Moore, and sent Moore the above paper for his guidance. The affair was amicably settled.

In his 'Detached Thoughts' occurs the following pa.s.sage:--

"I have been called in as mediator, or second, at least twenty times, in violent quarrels, and have always contrived to settle the business without compromising the honour of the parties, or leading them to mortal consequences, and this, too, sometimes in very difficult and delicate circ.u.mstances, and having to deal with very hot and haughty spirits,--Irishmen, gamesters, guardsmen, captains, and cornets of horse, and the like. This was, of course, in my youth, when I lived in hot-headed company. I have had to carry challenges from gentlemen to n.o.blemen, from captains to captains, from lawyers to counsellors, and once from a clergyman to an officer in the Life Guards; but I found the latter by far the most difficult:

"'to compose The b.l.o.o.d.y duel without blows,'

"the business being about a woman: I must add, too, that I never saw a _woman_ behave so ill, like a cold-blooded, heartless b----as she was,--but very handsome for all that. A certain Susan C----was she called. I never saw her but once; and that was to induce her but to say two words (which in no degree compromised herself), and which would have had the effect of saving a priest or a lieutenant of cavalry. She would _not_ say them, and neither Nepean nor myself [the son of Sir Evan Nepean, and a friend to one of the parties] could prevail upon her to say them, though both of us used to deal in some sort with womankind. At last I managed to quiet the combatants without her talisman, and, I believe, to her great disappointment: she was the d.a.m.nedest b----that I ever saw, and I have seen a great many. Though my clergyman was sure to lose either his life or his living, he was as warlike as the Bishop of Beauvais, and would hardly be pacified; but then he was in love, and that is a martial pa.s.sion."

One challenge from a gentleman to a n.o.bleman was that of Scrope Davies to Lord Foley, in 1813; but Byron succeeded in arranging the matter.

That from a lawyer to a counsellor was in 1815, from John Hanson to Serjeant Best, afterwards Lord Wynford, and arose out of the marriage of Miss Hanson to Lord Portsmouth; this quarrel was also settled by Byron.

The case of the clergyman was that of the Rev. Robert Bland, whose mistress, during his absence in Holland, left him for an officer in the Guards (see 'Letters', vol. i. p. 197, end of 'note' [Footnote 1 of Letter 102] on Francis Hodgson). Byron was himself a fair shot with a pistol.

"When in London," writes Gronow ('Reminiscences', vol. i. p. 152), "Byron used to go to Manton's shooting-gallery, in Davies Street, to try his hand, as he said, at a wafer. Wedderburn Webster was present when the poet, intensely delighted with his own skill, boasted to Joe Manton that he considered himself the best shot in London. 'No, my lord,' replied Manton, 'not the best; but your shooting to-day was respectable.' Whereupon Byron waxed wroth, and left the shop in a violent pa.s.sion."]

230.--To William Bankes.