The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-20 00:00:00

MOORE'S LIFE OF BYRON.

" In the extracts from his Journal, just given,
there is a passage that cannot fail to have been
remarked, when, in speaking of his admiration
of some lady, whose name he has himself left
blank, the noble writer says A wife would be
the salvation of me.' It was under the convic-
tion, which not only himself but some of his
friends entertained, of the prudence of his taking
timely refuge in matrimony, from those per-
plexities which form the sequel of all less re-
gular ties, that he had been induced, about a
Y.ear ago, to turn his thoughts seriously to mar-
Ilge,--at least as seriously as his thoughts were
ever 'capable of being so turned, and chiefly, I
believe, by the advice and intervention of his
friend, Lady Melbourne, to become a suitor for
the hand of a relative of that lady, Miss Mil-
banke. Though his proposal was not then ac-
cepted, every assurance of friendship and regard
accompanied the refusal ; a wish was even ex-
pressed that they should continue to write to
each other, and a correspondence—somewhat
singular.
,between two young persons of different
sexes, inasmuch as love was not the subject of it
---ensued between them. We have seen how
highly Lord Byron estimated as well the virtues
aS the accomplishments of the young lady; but
it is evident that on neither. side, at this period,
Was love either felt or professed.
(c In the meantime new entanglements, in
which his heart was the willing dupe of his fancy
and vanity, came to engross the young Poet ;
and still, as the usual penalties of such pursuits
followed, he again found himself sighing for the
sober yoke of wedlock, as some security against
these recurrences. There were, indeed, in the
interval between Miss Milbanke's refusal and
acceptance to him, two or three other young
Women of rank, who, at different times, formed
the subject of his matrimonial dreams. In the
°ciety of one of these, whose family had long
honoured me with their friendship, he and I
passed much of our time during this and the
Preceding spring ; and it will be found that in a
subsequent part of his correspondence, he repre-
sents me as having entertained an anxious wish
,that he, should so far cultivate my fair friend's
!avour as to give a chance at least of matrimony
by the result.
" That I more than once expressed some such
feeling is undoubtedly trne.
Wit the Fully concurring
h opinion, not only of himself but of
othersonlykof his friends, that in marriage lay his
chance of salvation from the sort of perplex-
ing attachments
stantlytee into which he was now con-
pted I saw in none of those whom he
requisitesadmj''e with More legitimate views, so many
into fidelitfyoar
mithe difficult task of winning him
Combining happiness as the lady in question.
. beauty of the highest order with a
nu intelligent and ingenuous—having just
andeamio
f g enough to give refinement to her taste,
learnianrgt;oovvmithuch taste to make pretensions to
ovo, a patrician spirit proud as his
Of ", but shewing it only in a delicate generosity
spirit; a feminine high mindedness, which
to old have led her to tolerate "his defects, in
llsideration of his noble qualities and his glory,
had even to sacrifice silently some of her own
ilI which PPiness, rather than violate the responsibility
she stood pledged to the world for his.
of was, from long experience, my impression
the character of this lady • and perceiving
clai-4'l 13 be attracted- '
lobvious
yron to
1. las to admiration, I felt a pleasure no less in
.e 4 .
zbedering justice to the still rare qualities which
n 0 possessed, than in endeavouring to raise my
h; he friend's mind to the contemplation of a
er
model of female character than he had,
st me'dv for himself, been much in the habit of
14•
dying.
been TO this extent do I confess myself to have
att,ibt,',ofluenced by the sort of feeling which he
(a4it"Les to me. But in taking for granted
that Will appear he did from one of his letters)
Wishel entertained any very decided or definite
ttrio en the subject, he gave more credit for
if
el'aness in my suggestions than I deserved.
Jett vepri the lady herself; the unconscious ob-
Nei., these speculations, by whom he was re-
gtii4heg in no other light than that of a -
vpde ed acquaintance, could have consented to
gl(),.4ake the perilous—but still possible and
viitt:°us--achievement of attaching Byron to
iii e' I own that, sanguinely as in theory I
Seta' have looked to the result, I should have
tint, not without trembling, the happiness of
chili:hum I had known and valued from her
,(11.0od risked in the experiment.
the
shall now proceed to resume the thread of
",ournal which I had broken off, and of
e ' it will be perceived, the Noble Author

himself had for some weeks, at this time, inter.
rupted the progress :

" ' JOURNAL, 1814.

" ' Feb. IS

" Better than a month since I last jour-
nalised ; most of it out of London and at Notts
—but a busy one and a pleasant, at least three
weeks of it. On my return I find all the News-
papers in hysterics*, and town in an uproar, on
the avowal and republication of two stanzas on
Princess Charlotte's weeping at Regency's speech
to Lauderdale in 1812. They are daily at it
still ; some of the abuse good, all of it hearty.
They talk of a motion in our House upon it—
he it so.

" Got up—read the Morning Post, contain-
ing the battle of Bonaparte, the destruction of
the Custom-house, and a paragraph on me as
long as my pedigree, and vituperative as usual.

" llobhouse is returned to England. He
is my best friend, the most lively, and a man of
the most sterling talents extant.
" The Corsair' has been conceived, written,
published, &c. since I last took up this Journal.
They tell me it has great success ; it was written
con amour, and much from existence. Murray
is satisfied with its progress ; and if the public
are equally so with its perusal, there's an end of
the matter.
w • • i M •

" Redde a little—wrote notes and letters,
and am alone, which Locke says is bad company.
—' Be not solitary, be not idle'—Um !—the
idleness is troublesome ; but I can't see much
to regret in the solitude. The more I see of
men, the less I like them. If I could but say so
of women too, all would be well. Why can't I ?
I am now six and twenty; my passions have had
enough to cool them ; my affections more than
enough to wither them—and yet—and yet—
always
,yet and but--' Excellent well, you are a
fishmonger—get thee to a nunnery'—' They
fool me to the top of my bent.'

Midnight;
" Began a letter, which I threw into the fire.
—Redde—but to little purpose. Did not visit
Hobhouse as I promised, and ought. No
matter, the loss is mine—smoked cigars.
" Napoleon !—this week will decide his
fate.—All seems against him : but I believe and
hope he will win—at least beat back the invaders.
What right have we to prescribe Sovereigns to
France ? Oh for a Republic ! Brutus, thou
sleepest.' Hobhouse abounds in Continental
anecdotes of this extraordinary man ; all in
favour of his intellect and courage, but against
his bon4ommie. No wonder ; how should he,
who knows mankind well, do other than despise
and abhor them.

" The greater the equality, the more impar-
tially evil is distributed, and becomes lighter by
the division among so many--therefore a Re-
public !
" More notes from Mad. de S— unan-
swered—and so they shall remain. I admire
her abilities, but really her society is overwhelm-
ing—an avalanche that buries one in glittering
nonsense—all snow and sophistry.

4. . . « • •
" ' I wonder how the deuce anybody could
make such a world ; for what purpose Dandies,
for instance, were ordained—and Kings—and
Fellows of Colleges--and women of ' a certain
age '—and many men of any age—and myself,
most of all !

Dives ne prisco et natus ab 'Macho,
Nil interest, an pauper, et infimi
De gente, sub dio mareris,
Victima nil miserantis Orci.
a . « • • •

Omnes eodem cogimur.
" ' Is there anything beyond ?—teho knows ?
He that can't tell. Who tells that there is
He who don't know. Arid when shall he
know ? Perhaps when he don't expect, and ge-
nerally when he don't wish it. In this last re-
spect, however, all are not alike : it depends a
good deal upon education—something upon
nerves and habits, but most upon digestion.

" ' Saturday, Feb. 19.
" ' Just returned from seeing Kean in Ri-
chard. By Jove, he is a soul ! Life—nature
—truth—without exaggeration or diminution.
Kemble's Hamlet is perfect—but Hamlet is
not nature. Richard is a man—and Kean is
Richard. Now to my own concerns.
*__ *

" Went to Waite's. Teeth all right and
whole ; but he says that I grind them in my
sleep and chip the edges. That same sleep is
no friend of mine, though I court him some-
times for half the 24.

" ' Sunday, March 6.
" On Tuesday last dined with Rogers, Ma-
dame de Stael, Mackintosh, Sheridan, Erskine,
and Payne Knight ; Lady Donegal), and Miss
K. there. Sheridan told a very good story of
himself and Madame de Recamier's handker-
chief; Erskine a few stories of himself. She
is going to write a big book about England, she
says. I believe her. Asked by her how I
liked Miss . . 's thing called . . , and answered
(very sincerely) that I thought it very bad for
her, and worse than any of the others. After-
wards thought it possible Lady Donegal!, being
Irish, might be a patroness of . . , and was
rather sorry for my opinion, as I hate putting
people into fusses, either with themselves or their
favourites ; it looks as if one did it on purpose.
The party went off very well, and the fish was
very much to my gusto. But we got up too
soon after the women ; and Mrs. Corinne always
lingers so long after dinner, that we wish her in
—the draWing-room.
• r •

" March 10th, Thor'sday.
" ' On Tuesday dined with Rogers, Mack-
intosh, Sheridan, Sharpe ; much talk and good ;
all except my own little prattlement. Much of
old times, Horne Tooke, the Trials, evidence of
Sheridan, and anecdotes of those times, when I
alas I was an infant. If I had been a man I
would have made an English Lord Edward
Fitzgerald.
" Set down Sheridan at Brookes's, when,

* " Immediately on the appearance of the Corsair '
(with these obnoxious verses, Weep, Daughter of a Royal
line!' appended to it) a series of attacks, not confined to
Lord Byron himself, but aimed also at all those who had
lately become his friends, was commenced in the Courier
and Morning Post, and carried on through the greater
part of the months of February and March. The point
selected by these writers, as a ground-work of censure in
the poet, was one which now, perhaps, even themselves
would agree to class among his claims to praise—namely,
the atonement which he had endeavoured to make for the
youthful violence of his satire, by a measure of Justice,
amiable even in its overflowing', to every one he conceived
he had wronged.

" Notwith-standing the careless tone in which here and
elsewhere he speaks of these assaults, it is evident that
they annoyed him ; an effect which in reading thent over
now we should be apt to wonder they could produce, did
we not recollect the property which Dryden attributes to
small wits,' in common with cer►ain other small animals :

We scarce could know they live, but that they
" 'rice following is a specimen of the terms in which
these party scribes could then speak of one of the Masters
of English Song They might have slept in oblivion
with Lord Carlisle's drama, and Lord Byren's Poems.'__
Some certainly extol Lord Byron's Poems much, but
most of the best judges place his Lordship rather low in
the list of our minor Poets.'"

by the bye, he could not have well set down him-
self, as he and I were the only drnik2cP. Sherry
means to stand for Westmin,ter, as Cochrane,
(the Stock-jobbing hoaxer) must vacate,
Brougham is a candidate. I fear for poor dear
Sherry. Both have talents of the higheSt or:ler,
but the youngster has yet a character. We
shall see, if he lives to Sherry's age, how he will
pass over the red hot ploughshares of public
life. I don't know why, but I hate to see the
old ones love ; particularly Sheridan, notwith-
standing all his mechancete.
" Received many and the kindest thanks
from Lady Portsmouth, pert and mere for my
matchmaking. I don't regret it, as she looks
the Countess well, and is a very good girl. it
is odd how well she carries her new honours.—
She looks a different woman, and high-bred. I
had . no idea that I could make so good a
Peeress.

" < W. W. called : Lord Erskine, Lord Hol-
land, &c. &c. Wrote to . . the Corsair report.
She says she don't wonder, since' Conrad is so
like.' It is odd that one who knows me so
thoroughly should tell me this to my face. How-
ever, if she don't know nobody can.
" Mackintosh is, it ~-,;eems, the writer of the
defensive article in the Morning Chronicle. If
so, it is very kind, and more than I did for
myself,

" Thursday, March 17th.
" ' I have been sparring with Jackson, for
exercise, this morning ; and mean to continue
and renew my acquaintance with the muffles.—
My chest, and arms, and wind are in very good
plight, and lam not in flesh. I used to be a
very hard hitter, and my arms are very long for
my height (five feet 81 inches). At any rate,
exercise is good, and this the sweetest of all ;
fencing and the broad sword never fatigued me
half so much.

" ' Tuesday, March 22.
" Last night—party at Lansdown-house.
To night—party at Lady Charlotte Grenville's
—deplorable waste of time, and something of
temper. Nothing imparted—nothing argued—
talking without ideas ; if any thing like thought
in my mind, it was not on the subjects on which
we were gabbling—Heigho ! and in this way
half London pass what is called life.

" Let me see—what did I see ? The only
person who much struck me was Lady S—d's
eldest daughter, Lady C. L. They say she is
not pretty. I don't know—every thing is pretty
that pleases ; but there is an air of soul about
her—and her colour changes—and there is that
shyness of the antelope (which I delight in) in
her manner, so much, that I observed her more
than I did any other woman in the rooms, and
only looked at anything else when I thought she
might perceive, and feel embarrassed by my
scrutiny.
• *

" ' April 10th.
" ' I do not know that I am happiest when
alone ; but when I am sure of that, I never am
long in the society even of her I love (God
knows too well, and the Devil probably too),
without a yearning for the company of my lamp
and my utterly confused and tumbled over li-
brary. Even in the day I send away my carriage
oftener than I use or abuse it. Per esempro.
I have not stirred out of these rooms for these
four days past ; but I have sparred for exercise
(windows open) with Jackson an hour daily, to
attenuate and keep up the etherial part of me.
The more violent the fatigue, the better my spi-
rits for the rest of the day ; and then my even-
ings have that calm nothingness of languor which
I most delight in. To-day I have boxed one
Od B,

,our—written an ,e to ,apoieon ionaparte
—copied it—eaten six biscuits—drunk four
bottles of soda-water—redde away the rest of my
time—besides giving poor
advice about this mistress of his, who is plaguing
him into a phthisic and intolerable tediousness.
• • •

" ' To Mr. Murray.
" ' Jan. 11th; 1814.

" Correct this proof by Mr. Gifford's, (and
from the MSS.), particularly as to the pointing.
I have added a section for Gulnare, to fill up
the parting, and dismiss her more ceremoniously.
If Mr. Gifford or you dislike, 'tis but a sponge
and another midnight better employed than in
yawning over Miss . .; who, by the by, may
soon return the compliment.
" 'Wednesday or Thursday.
" ' P.S. I have read . . It is full of
praises of Lord Ellenborough ! ! ! from which I
infer near and dear relations at the bar and

" Ido not love Madame de Staci ; but de-
pend upon it she beats all your natives hollow
as an authoress, in my opinion ; and I would
not say this if I could help it.
" P.S. Pray report my best acknowledgments
to Mr. Gifford, in any words that may best ex-
press how truly his kindness obliges me. I
won't bore him with lip thank or notes.
w w • w w w •
"' To Mr. Moore.
'March 12th, 1814.

• .:roo, • • •
"' I cannot conceive how the Vault* has got
ab out—but so it is. It is too farouche ; but
truth to say, my satires are not very playful. I
have the plan of an epistle in my head, at him
and to him ; and if they are not a little quieter I
shall embody it. I shall say little or nothing of
myself. As to mirth and ridicule, that is out of
my way; but Ithave a tolerable fund of sternness
and contempt, and with Juvenal before me, I
shall, perhaps, read him a lecture he has not
lately heard in the C—t. From particular
circamstances, which came to my knowledge
almost by accident, I could tell him what he is.
I know him well.'

" Such effect had the passionate energy of
Kean's acting on his mind, that once, in seeing
his play of Sir Giles Overreach, he was so
affected, as to be seized with a sort of convul-
sive fit ; and we shall find him some years after
in Italy when the representation of Alfieri's Tra-
gedy of Mirza had agitated him in the same
violent manner, comparing the two instances as
the only ones in his life when anything under
reality' had been able to move him so power-
fully."

" To Mr. Moore.
" Newstead Abbey, &pt. 20, 1814.
" Here's to her who long
Hath wak'd the poet's sigh
The girl who gave to song
What gold could never buy.
My dear Moore, I am going to be married—
that is, I am accepted, and one usually hopes
the rest will follow. My Mother of the
Gracchi (that are to be) you think too strait-laced
for me, although the paragon of my children, and
invested with golden opinion of all sorts of
men,' and full of most blest conditions' as
Desdeinona herself. Miss .Millbanke is the
lady, and I have her father's invitation to pro-
ceed there in my elect capacity, which, however,

* Those bitter and powerful lines which he wrote on
the opening of the vault that contained the remains of
Henry VIII. and Charles I.

I cannot d T have settled some business in
London, and got a blue coat.
" She is said to be an heiress, but of that
I really know nothing, certainly, and shall not
inquire. But I do know that she has talent
and excellent qualities, and you will not deny
her judgment, after having refused six suitors and
taken me.'

The following lines are part of a poem writ-
ten by Lord Byron, in imitation of the " Devil's"
Walk," by Coleridge, a poem generally attri-
to Porson
" The Devil return'd to hell by two,
And he staid at house till five ;
When he dined on some homicides done in ragout,
And a rebel or so in an Irish stew,
And sausages made of a self-slain Jew,
And bethought himself what next to do,
And,' quoth he, I'll take a drive.
I walk'd in the morning, I'll ride to-night;
In darkness my children take most delight,
And I'll see how my favourites thrive.
" And what shall I ride in ?' quoth Lucifer, then—
' If I follow'd my taste, indeed,
I should mount in a waggon of wounded men,
And smile to see them bleed.
But these will be furnished again and again,
And at present my purpose is speed ;
To see my manor as much as I may,
And watch that no souls shall be poach'd away,
' I have a state-coach at C House,
A chariot in Seymour-place ;
But they're lent to two friends, who make me amends
By driving my favourite pace;
And they handle their reins with such 'a grace,
I have something for both at the end of their race.
" So now for the earth to take my chance.
Then up to the earth sprung he ;
And making a jump from Moscow to France,
He stepp'd across the sea,
And rested his hoof on a turnpike road,
No very great way from a bishop's abode.
" But first as he flew, I forgot to say,
That he hover'd a moment upon his way
To look upon Leipsic plain;
And so sweet to his eye was its sulpbury glare,
And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair,
That he perched on a mountain of slain;
And he gazed with delight from its growing height,
Nor often on earth had he seen such a sight,
Nor his work done half as well :
For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead,
That it blush'd like the waves of Hell !
Then loudly, and wildly, and long laugh'd he ;
' Methinks they have here little need of me !"
• • • • • • •
" But the softest note that sooth'd his ear

Was the sound of a widow sighing ;
And the sweetest sight was the icy tear
Which Horror froze in the blue eye clear
Of a maid by her lover lying—
As round her fell her long fair hair ;
And she look'd to Heaven with that frenzied air
Which seem'd to ask if a God were there !
And, stretch'd by the wall of a tuin'd hut,
With its hollow cheek, and eyes half shut,
A child of famine dying :
And the carnage begun, when resistance is done,
And the fall of the vainly flying !
0 *
" But the Devil has reach'd our cliffs so white,
And what did he there, I pray?
If his eyes were good, he but saw by night
What we see every day;
But he made a tour, and kept a journal
Of all the wondrous sights nocturnal,
And he sold it in shares to the Men of the Row,
Who bid pretty well—but they cheated him, though 1
" The Devil first saw, as he thought, the Mail,
Its coachman and his coat;
So instead of a pistol he cock'd his tail,
And seized him by the throat :
Alia,' quoth he, what have we here ?
'Tis a new barouche, and an ancient peer !'
So he set him on his box again,
And bade him have no fear,
But be true to his club, and staunch to his rein,

His brothel, and his beer ;
' Next to seeing a Lord at the Council board,
I would rather see him here.'

# .

" The Devil got next to Westminster,
And he turn'd to ' the room' of the Commons ;
But he heard, as he purposed to enter in there,

That the Lords' had received a summons ;
And he thought, as a quondam Aristocrat,'
He might peep at tke Peers, though to hear them were flat;
And he walk'd up the House so like one of our own,
That they say that he stood pretty near the throne.
" He saw the Lord L—l seemingly wise,
The Lord W—d certainly silly,
And Johnny of Norfolk—a man of some size—
And Chatham, so like his friend Billy ;
And he saw the tears in Lord E—n's eyes,
Because the Catholics would not rise,
In spite of his prayers and his prophecies;
And he heard—which set Satan himself a staring--
A certain Chief Justice say something like swearing.
And the Devil was shock'd—and quoth he, I must go,
For I find we have much better manners below.
If thus he harangues when he passes my border,
I shall hint to friend Moloch to call him to order.' "