The Press. — London, England, 1858-05-15 00:00:00

We think that we have met this style before from the lips of Miss Bridgetina Botherum, in the capital novel of which that lady plays so philosophical a part. Miss Edgeworth has written a tale called "Forester," in which will be found more judicious advice than can be ex tracted from Mr. Spencer's essay on " Manners aad Fashion." _ _ . It is often an error in Mr. Spencer, from being too precipitate in generalization, not to perceive the double edge of an argument. In noticing the want of faith in speculative principles shown by merely practical people, he writes : It is the habit of this school of thinkers to make a limited human intelligence the measure of, phenomena which it requires omniscience to grasp. That which it does not see the way to, it does not believe will take place. Though society has, generation after generation, been growing to developments which none foresaw, yet there is no practical belief in unforeseen developments in the future. The parliamentary debates constitute an elaborate balancing of probabilities, having for data things as they are. Meanwhile every day adds new elements to lungs as they are, and seemingly improbable results con stantly wear. Who, a few years ago, expected that a Leiceateraquare refugee would shortly become Emperor of the French ? Who looked for Free Trade from a landlords' Ministry? Who dreamed that Irish over population would spontaneously cure itself, as it is now doing? But we would suggest to those who possess a "speculative human intelligence" to study the " unforeseen developments" of reaction. It would form a most curious chapter in the history of modern politics to trace how the Reform Bill party of 1832 fell into pieces, how two years after 1832 the country was fairly divided into Conservatives and Liberals, and how, in spite of their boasted majorities, the Liberals have again and again broken down in office. The law of development has, clearly, a reactionary as well as a progressive action. We had marked other passages for critical notice, but our space will not permit us to enter into further detail. We sum up our view of these essays in saying that they are not equal to the " Social Statics," and that it is in grave books rather than in popular essays that Mr. Spencer's &cult) , would appear to most advan tage. We think that he overrates the value of mere "speculation," and that his propensity to generalization should be kept in check. Broad views and a large manner of thinking, are im posing and attractive, but accuracy of estimate and closeness to facts are indispensable; and taken out of their philosophic diction, the views of Mr. Spencer too often result in mere generalities. We expect other and more important volumes from his pen, but these essays will hardly add to the reputation previously acquired by him. Reoo&Mons of Me Last Days of Shelley and Byron. By E. J. Trelawny. London : Moxon. WE have so recently devoted a considerable space on two occasions to the works of Mr. Mid dleton and Mr. Hogg, that we may dispense for the present with any criticism on Mr. Tre lawny's book so fl►r as it relates to Shelley. His recollections of that poet belong to the last four years of his life, and, in case of our being able to recur to them, will more fitly engage our con sideration on the appearance of Mr. Hogg's sub sequent volumes. Mr. Trelavmy's view of the character of his other subject will not be by any means pleasing to the thoroughgoing worshippers of Byron. Though the cultivation of his poetry is no longer the fashion of the age, there is a time of life at which "the Byron fever" is still found conta gious; and as it is usually one at which the passions are strong, the judgment immature, and the mind open to the reception of its most en during impressions, it is not wonderful that those who have been so fascinated by the splendour of such a genius, should be unwilling to disturb the associations which belong to his name. But unfortunately, in this, as in other matters, dis tance lends enchantment to the view; and the microscopic scru ti ny with which it is the custom of the day to re gardall deceased celebrities, and which tarnishes so many a fair reputation, is one which Byron of all men was the least able to endure with safety. It is not well to go behind the scenes of Mat theatre, and see the canvas mountains, the paste jewelry, Gulnare rouging her cheeks, and her pirate lover imbibing from a pewter vessel the lowliest of spirituous compounds. It is better to stay in the boxes, and imagine the HE PRESS, MAY 15, 1858 pasteboard dagger to be flashing steel, the rap tures to be real, and the thunder the product of electricity and not of sheet-iron. Those who wish to retain their enthusiasm for Byron un shaken should perhaps abstain from reading his life by Moore, certainly from forming any . ac quaintance with him by means of Lady Blessing ton or Mr. Trelawny. Mr. Carlyle tells us that, if no man is a hero to his valet, it is because none but a hero can comprehend a hero. Unfortunately, however, the lives of heroes are not commonly written by men of their own stamp. And when the biogra pher himself is a man of power and mark, he is not always exempt from the propensity to strip his subject of his trappings, and exhibit him with his bow-legs and without his wig; which is, of course, natural to valets, but not necessarily so to men of other professions. Has not Mr. Carlyle himself, in his "Life of Sterling," destroyed the prestige which Archdeacon Hare had taken so much pains to build up ? Has he not, in a few graphic words, drawn a caricature of Coleridge which that philosopher's greatest admirers will never be able to dissociate from their idea of him? We must not then be surprised if a man like Mr. Trelawny, in whom the contempt often felt by practical for imaginative men is strongly evident, flu from "garlanding the tomb " with his votive chaplet, lifts the laurel from the poet's brow to expose his baldness. The motive is somewhat frankly avowed. " Any man," says he at p. 37, " who cultivates his intellectual faculty so highly "as to seem at times inspired, would be too much " above us, if on closer inspection, we should not " find it alloyed with weaknesses akin to our own. "Byron soon put you at your ease on this point." Mr. Trelawny found such traits in Byron's character as must have produced entire con tentment with his own. Unlike Shelley, whose manners were always simple and self-possessed, Byron was embarrassed at meeting with strangers, and talked a vast deal of nonsense to conceal his want of dignity. While Shelley was in the habit of frankly expressing his admiration for his friend's poetry, Byron refused to second that which he felt by overt acts : Taking advantage of a panegyric on Shelley, I observed he might do him a great service at little cost, by a friendly word or two in his next work, such as he had bestowed on authors of less merit " Av," he said, with a significant look, " who reads them If we puffed the Snake [i e. Shelley], it might not turn out a profitable investment. If be cast off the slough of his mystifying metaphysics, he would want no puffing." Seeing I was not satisfied, be added, " if we introduced Shelley to our readers, they might draw comparisons, and they are ' odorous." After Shelley's death, Byron said the world had never done him justice, but, says his biographer, " he never drew his weapon to redress any wrongs " but his own." Mr. Trelawny disposes of Byron's claims as a traveller in an equ ally manner. After enumerating the countries he visited and the time he spent in them—certainly not of great amount—and his mode of travelling, generally on board of a comfortable man-of-war, he points out what a very narrow circle comprises his wanderings : Any man might go, and many have gone without the aid of steam, over the same ground in a few months—even if he had to walk with a knapsack, where Byron root,. The Pilgrim moved about hke a Pasha, with a host of attendants, and all that he and they required on the journey. So far as I could learn from Fletcher, his yeoman bold—and he had been with him from the time of his fist leaving England,— Byron, wherever he was, so far as it was practicable, pursued the same lazy, dawdling habits he continued during the time I knew him. He was seldom out of his bed before noon, when be drank a cup of very strong green tea, without sugar or milk. At two he ate a biscuit and drank soda water. At three he mounted his horse and sauntered along the road—and generally the same road,—if alone, racking his brains for fitting matter and rhymes for the coming poem, he dined at seven, as frugally as anchorites are said in story-books to have done, at nine he visited the family of Count Gamba, on his return home he sat reading or composing until two or three o'clock in the morning, and then to bed, often feverish, restless and exhausted—to dream, as be said, more than to sleep His conversation was anything hut literary, except when Shelley was near him. The character lie must commonly appeared in was of the free and easy sort, such as had been in vogue when he was in London, and George IV. was Regent ; and his talk was seasoned with anecdotes of the great actors on and off the stage, boxers, gamblers, duellists, drunkards. dzc., be., appropriately garnished with the slang and scandal of that day. Such things had all been in fashion, and were at that time considered accomplish ments by gentlemen; and of this tribe of Mohawks the Prince Regent was the chief, and allowed to be the most perfect specimen. Byron, not knowing the tribe w as extinct, still prided himself on h av i ng b elonged to it; a:f nothing was he more indignant, th an o f b e i ng treated s a man of letters, in stead of as a lord and a man of fashion: this prevented foreigners and literary people from getting on with him, for they invariably so offended. His long absence had not effaced the mark John Bull brands his children with ; the instant he loomed above the horizon, on foot or horseback, you saw et a glance he was a Britisher. He did not understand foreigners, nor they him ; and, during the time l knew him, he associated with no Italians except the family of Count Mamba. He seemed to take an especial pleasure in making a clean breast to every new comer, as if to mock their previous conceptions of him, and to give the lie to the portraits published of him. It has generally been supposed that Lord Byron drank deeply ; and the charge appears to have been founded on the testimony of Moore, who associated with him at Venice. Lord Macaulay talks of the " midnight draughts of ardent spirits " and Rhenish wines " which " had begun to " work the ruin of his fine intellect." Mr. Tre lawny's testimony is very different. He defends his sobriety ; though, indeed, he defend s it at t h e expense of his manliness and his sincerity. Byron, he tells us, was in the habit of boasting of the quantity of wine he had drunk, but was in reality most abstemious both in eating and drinking. A glass or two of small claret or hock, and, when utterly exhausted at night, a single glass of very weak grog, was his usual allowance. Yet he called all his English acquaintances in Italy " milksops." It has also been said that from motives of affectation he wished to be thought to live on the simplest food, but that after dining, perhaps, on a few potatoes before a large party, he would go to his club and eat a hearty supper of cold meat. Mr. Trelawny enables us to view such an act (if it really occurred) in a different light. Byron's lameness prevented his taking sufficient exercise, and he had an unfortunate tendency to get fat, to counteract which he re duced his diet almost to starvation-point. Thus he was always hungry, and, as a natural conse quence, always more or less irritable. But some times (as Gibbon would say) "insulted nature vindicated her rights " after the following fashion : He would exist on biscuits and sola•water for days together, then, to allay the eternal hunger gnawing at his vitals, he would make up a horrid mess of cold potaoes, rioe, fish, or greens, deluged in vinegar, and gobble it up like a famished dog. Oa either of these unsavoury dishes, with a biscuit and a glass or two of Rhine wine, he cared not how sour, he called feasting sumptuously. Upon my observing he might as well have fresh fish and vegetables, instead of stale, he laughed and answered, " I have an advantage over you, I have no palate; one thing is as good as another to me." Mr. Trelawny is equally contemptuous about Byron's powers as a swimmer : As he seldom indulged in this sport, and when he did, over-exerted himself, he suffered severely ; which observing and knowing how deeply he would be mortified at being beaten, I had the magnanimity when contending with him to give in. He had a misgiving in his mind that I was trifling with him ; and one day as we were on the snore, and the Bulivar at anchor, about three miles off, he insisted on our trying conclusions ; we were to swim to the yacht, dine in the sea alongside of her, treading water the while, and then to return to the shore. It was calm and hot, and seeing he would not be fobbed ofd we started. I reached the boat a long time before he did; ordered the edibles to be ready, and floated until he arrived. We ate our faro leisurely, from off a gratiiig that floated alongside, drank a bottle of ale, and I smoked a cigar, which he tried to extinguish,—as he never smoked. We then put about, and struck off towards the shore. We had not got a hundred yards on our passage, when be retched violently, sod, as that is often followed by cramp, I urged him to put his hand on my shoulder that I might tow him back to the schooner. " Keep off, you villain, don't touch me. I'll drown ere I give in." I answered as !ago did to Roderigo, " A fig for drowning ! drown cats and blind pupp i es. ' I shall go on board and try the effects of a glass of grog to stay my stomach." " Come . on," he shouted, " I am always better after vomiting." With difficulty I deluded him back; I went on board, and he sat on the steps of the accommodation -ladder, with his feet in the water. I handed him a wiue-glass of brandy, and screened him from the burning sun. He was in a sullen mood, bat after a time resumed his usual tone. Nothing conld induce him to he landed in the s chooner . * boat, though I protested I had bad enough of the water. "You may do as you like," be called out, and plumped in, and we swam on shore. He never afterwards alluded to this event , nor to his prowess in swimming, to me, except in the past tense. Ile was ill, and kept his bed for two days afterwards. Still, three miles out and back, though possibly a trifle to an athlete like the biographer, is not bad swimming, particularly for a half-starved man.