The Sun.
London, England, 1832-03-27 00:00:00

BYRONIANA.

Mr. Moore has a poetical way of glossing over a
murder. The great uncle of Lord Byron had
stabbed a man in the dark with great atroci'y and
cowardice. Mr. Moore says he was tried for kil-
ling his relation "in a duel, or rather scuffle." In
another place he calls it an " unfortunate affray."
And he relates with applause Lord Byron when a
boy inflicting on another " a hearty beating"—" for
he was a Byron and would never belie his motto."
All this we suppose is consistent with the piety of
the poer!e temperament to which Mr. Moore so
perpetually recurs. A lady once remarked to Lord
Byron that she thought he had a little of the Scotch
accent. " Good God! I hope not," he exclaimed,
" I am sure I haven't, I would rather the whole
-- country were sunk in the sea. I the Scotch
accent indeed."

It is to be regretted that Mr. Moore in his "Life
of Byron," when he relates an act of atrocious
cruelty at Harrow school, did not take the oppor-
tunity of reprobating the fagging, and other barbar-
ous customs of our public schools.
So violent were the scenes between Lord Byron
and his mother, whom he called his Hydra, that on
one occasion each was known to go privately that
night to the apothecaries enquiring anxiously
whether the other had been to purchase poison.
" Apropos, sorry to say have been drunk every
day, and not quite sober yet—however, touch no
meat ; nothing but fish, soup, and vegetables,conse-
quently it does me no harm—sad dogs, all the
Cantabs."—Lord Byron's Journal.
According to " Moore's Life of Byron," Cam-
bridge University at this period was the reverse of
being exempt from drunkenness and atheism.
" Were rr asoning, eloquence, or virtue the objects
of my search, Granta is not their Metropolis, nor is
the place of her situation an El Dorado, far less an
Utopia. The intellects of her children are as stag-
nant as her Cam, and their pursuits limited to the
church—not of Christ, hut of the nearest benefice."

The utter contempt or abhorrence which our
great geniuses have had of a University education
is very memorable. Witness the sentiments of
Milton, Gray, Gibbon, Locke, Dryden, Cowley, Ad-
dison, Cowper, &c. &c. Swift, Goldsmith, and
Churchill, had been pronounced dunces at college,
whilst Shakspeare, Pope, Ciray, Thomson, Burns,
Chatterton, and a host of geniuses, had not the ad-
vantage or disadvantage of a collegiate education.
Lord Byron, speaking of his entrance into the Uni-
versity of Cambridge, says, " though my tempera-
ment was naturally burning, I could not share in the
common-place libertinism of the place and time
without disgust." This is passing strange, if we
consider that the clergy are absolute monarchs of the
seminaries. In another place, Lnrd Byron says,
" Alma Mater was to me injusta Noverea ; and the
old Beldam gave me my A.M. degree, because she
could not avoid it."

Mr. Moore in his life of Byron, has taken upon
himself the responsibility of many omissions and cur-
tailments, beyond, we believe, what any man can
approve of. He has dwelt much upon Mr. Dallas's
inducing Lord Byron to suppress his imitations of
Horace, but was not the biographer aware that Mr.
Dallas had much greater difficulty in persuading the
noble poet to suppress a poem in imitation of the
sec Lind Eclogue of Virgil, a poem which Mr. Dallas
was obliged to acknowledge full of excellent poetry,
misapplied
Lord Byron, when he was entering upon the
world, and but little known to the aristocracy, in-
troduced to his friends au object of his attachment,
whom he had dressed in boy's clothes, and passed
off as his younger brother. The disguise was at
length suspected by Lady P., who met " this younger
brother," taking his usual ride on horseback at
Brighton. Determined to discover the truth, she
accosted him—" What a pretty horse that is you
are riding,"—" Yes, ma'm, it is, and my brother is
the gentleman what gave it me." The expose was
complete, and Lord Byron's rage may be easily
imagined.

Lord Byron's reply to a comparison between him-
self and Rousseau—" He wrote prose, I verse; he
was of the people, I was of the aristocracy; he was
a philosopher, I am none; he published his first
work at 40, I mine at 18; his first essay brought
him universal applause, mine the contrary ; he mar-
ried his housekeeper, I could not keep house with
my wife; he thought all the world in a plot
against him, my little world seems to think me in a
plot agaitht it ; he liked botany, I like flowers,
herbs, and trees, but know nothing of their pedigree;
he wrote music, 1 can only catch it by ear ; I never
could learn anything by study, he had a bad me-
mory, 1 had an excellent one ; he wrote with hesi-
tation and care, I with rapidity, and rarely with
paints; he could never ride nor swim, nor was cun-
ning of fence, I am an excellent swimmer, a decent
rider, and was sufficient of fence, nor a bad boxer,
when I could keep my temper, which was difficult,
but which I strove to do ever since I knocked down
Mr. P. with the gloves on, and put his knee pan
out—but Rousseau was a great man, and the com-
parison, if true, would be fl rttering enough to me."
Gifford's story of the Irish gentleman, who re-
quested him in his second edition of " the Baviad,"
to change " C—'s drowsy jest" to C—'s lively jest,
resembles a change in Byron's " English Bards."
The line

" I leave topography to coxcomb Gen,"
was changed, upon his acquaintance with Sir W.
Gell, to
I leave topography to classic Gell ;"
and upon his acquaintance with the scene of Sir
William's travels, the lise was again changed to
I leave topography to rapid GelL
Rapid, indeed, he typographised, and typographised
Priam's dominions in three days.
" The mode of h's life, at Newstead, was simple
and unexpensive." Mr. Moore's notions of a " sim-
ple" life are very poetic il, and full of the poetic
temperament from which religion is separable. An
inmate of Newstead, after alluding to the drunken
revels and debaucheries, thus describes this "sim-
ple life :"—" Our average hour of rising was one;
it was frequently past two before the breakfast
party broke up. Then for the amusements of
the morning, there was reading, fencing, single
stick, or shut the cock in the great room, practising
with pistols in the hall, walking, riding, cricket,
sailing on the lake, playing with the hear, or teasing
the wolf. Between seven and eight we dined, and
our evening lasted till one, two, or three in the morn-
ing. The evening diversions may be easily con-
ceived. I must not omit the custom of handing
round the human skull, filled with Burgundy. This
skull Mr. Moore calls " a sort of boyish (query
brutal) mimicry"—" by no means an inelegant
object"—" an interesting relic."—The consequences
of this simple and unexpensive life soon appear.—
" As to money matters," says Lord Byron, " I am
ruined, at least till Rochdale is sold," &c.—So much
for a simple life.

AN TIT lasts.

Lord Byron was a good deal weakened and
thinned. Standing one day before a looking glass,
Ise said, " I should like to die of a consumption,
because the women would say, Look at poor Byron,
how interestiug he looks in dying." Let the reader
reflect that this was said to the Marquis of Sligo,
and if he kno qs the person of the Marquis, he will
see through the quiz.