The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-06

much mind little accession OF Gesh my bones can
well bear IT, But the worst is, the Deyll & always s
be the slave of any appetite II do err, snail De
my heart, at least, that herads the way omy headl
how it aches The horrors OF dlgestionl wonder
how Bonaparte's dinner agrees with hm."-Aoores
life, vol. H. p 264
From all the contemporary history and litera-
Dre of the times, therefore, we have reason TO
believe that Lord Byron spoke the exact truth
Shen he said to Medwin:-
s'My own masser at an age when most required
Rside, left to the dominion OF my passions wnen
Dey were the strongest, with fortune anuclpated
pefOre came into possession OF u, ana cOnstltu-
ion impaired by early excesses, commenced my
Havels in 1909, with a joyess indifference to the
E3orid and all that was before me.'-Medwans Con-
ersGtiOnS, p. a.
Utter prostration of the whole physical man
from Incorporate excess, the deafness to temp
tation which comes from utter exhaustion, was
his condition, according to himself and Moore,
when he first left England at twenty-one years
of age.
In considering his subsequent history, we are
to take into account that it was upon the brain
and nerve-power, thus exhausted by early eX,
cess that the draughts of sudden and rapid
literary composition began to be made. There
was something unnatural and unhealthy In the
rapidity cearness, and vigor with which his
various works followed each other. Subsequently
TO the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold" 'The
Bride of Abydos," "The Corsair, " "The Giaour,"
tLara" "Parisina, and "The Siege of Corinth,
all followed close upon each other, IN a space OF
less than three years, and those the three most
critical years of his life. "The Bride of Abydos"
came out in the autumn of 1913, and was written
in q week. and 1.-THE Corsair was composed in
thirteen days. few months more than year
before his marriage, and the brief space of his
married life, was the period in which all this
literary labor was performed, while yet he was
running the wild career of intrigue and fashion,
able folly. He speaks of Lara" as being tossed
off in the intervals between masquerades and
balls, etc. 1t is with the physical results of such
unnatural efforts that we have now chiefly to do.
Every Psychologist would say that the demands
Nf on hpaIt nv
1pace, must have been exhausting; but when we
consider that they were checks drawn on bank
broken by early extravaganza, and that the sub
ject was prodigally spending vital forces In
every other direction at the same time, one can
scarcely estimate the physiological madness of
such course as Lord Byron's.
1t is evident from his Journal, and Moore's
account, that any amount of physical force
which was for the time restored by his first
Foreign travel was reckessly spent in this period,
when he threw himself with mad recklessness
into London society in the time just preceding
his marriage. The revelations made in Moore's
Memoir of this period are sad enough; those
to Medwin are so appalling as to the state of
contemporary society in England, as to require,
at least, the benefit OF the doubt for which Lord
Byron's habitual carelessness of truth gave
scope. His adventures with ladies of the high
est rank in England are there paraded with
freedom of detail that respect for womanhood
must lead every woman to question. The only
thing that is unquestionable is, that Lord Byron
made these assertions to Medwin, not as re-
morscful confessions, but as relations OF his
6onnes fortunes and that Medwin published
them in the very face of the society to which
they related.
When Lord Byron says, II have seen a great
deal of Italian society, and swum in gondoa;
but nothing could equal the profgacy of high
life in ENGLAND when | knew it," he
makes certainly strong assertions if we remem
ber what Mr.. Moore reveals of the harem kept
in Venice.
But when Lord Byron intimates that three
married women in his own rank In life, who
had once held Illicit relations with him, made
wedding visits to his wife at one time, we must
hope that he drew on his active Imagination,
as he often did, in his statements in regard to
women.
When he relates at large his amour with Lord
Melbournes wife, and represents her as pursu-
ing him with an insane passion, to which he
with difficulty responded; and when he says that
she tracked rival lady to his lodgings, and
came into them herself, disguised as a carman -
one hopes that he exaggerates. And what are
we to make of passages like this?-
''There was lady at that time, double my own
age the mother of several children who were per-
tinued without interruption for eight months. She
told me she was never in love till she was thirty
and thought myself so with her when she was
forty. never felt stronger passion, which she re
turned with equal ardor
do, an in6uence over me so strong that had grea
Gf1culty In breaking with her."
Unfortunately these statements though proba
bly, exaggerated are, for substance, borne out il
the history of the times. With every possible
abatement for exaggeration in these statements
there remains still undoubted evidence from
other sources that Lord Byron exercised mos
peculiar and fatal power over the moral sense o
Ihe women with whom he was brought in rela
tion; and that love for him, IN many women, be
came a sort of insanity, depriving them of thu
Just use of their faculties. All this makes hi
fatal history both possible and probable.
Even the article in Blackaoood, written in 1872
Tor the express purpose of vindicating his char
acter admits that his name had been couples
with those of three, four, or more women o
rank whom it speaks of as ''licentous, un
principled, characterless women"
That such course, in connection with alter
nate extremes of excess and abstinence In eatin
and drinking, and the immense draughts on tn
bran-power of rapid and brilliant composition
should have ended in that abnormal state i
which cravings of unnatural vice give indica
cations of approaching brain-disease, seems onl
too probable.
This symptom of exhausted vitality become
often frequent type in periods of very corrup
society. The dregs of the old Greek and Re
man civilization were foul with it; and th
apostle speaks of the turning CT the use of tn
natural into that which is against nature, MS th
last step in abandonment.
The very literature Of such periods mark
their want of physical and moral soundness
Having lost all sense of what is simple and natr
al and pure, the mind delights to dwell o
horrible ideas which give shudderng sense
quilt and crime. All the writings of this fats
jeriod of Lord Byron's life are more or less IL
ense histories of unrepentant guilt and remor2
DR. of unnatural crime. A recent writer |
Temple Bar brings to light the fact, that th
Bride of Ahydos, the first of the brilliant an
rapid series Of poems which began in the perio
Immediately preceding his marriage, was, in II
first composition, an Intense story of love b(
hrnt apdcf cfata in Turb Il, har