The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1876-02-17
Lord ByTOn-The Story OF the Great Eng
nsh Poet as Told by the PirsI Scholar
OF SPaIo.


somewhat remarkable treatise on the
Poet Byron, SeuOr Jose Roman Leal de-
| clares: Whoever has sighed for intimate
fuendshlp. has seen buried in the hun
cry Jaws of destL the friends of his child
hood-whoever has ardently longed for the
lneffaoie Joys of home, and his family has
denied him its pleasure-whoever. in ter
rloie disgust of life, has sought To deaden
his pain, and suffered himself to be drawn
into the Whirlpool of sensual pleasure, the
inevitable consequences of which are re-
morse, shame and opprobrium-wh hoover
has endured sorrow wlshout consolation
whoever has wept without being under
stood-he only can draw near TO salute the
tomb OF Byron" Here are the conditions
TO which we owe one of the strangest spirits
and noblest poets who ever lived
1.-The father of Byron was twice married,
the hrst time for love, the second from mo-
tives of interest. He stole his wife from
her first husband, Lord Carmarthen. From
this resulted a lawsuit, and from that di-
vorce. The divorce was followed by a mar
rlage with his victim. The fruit of this
union was Augusta, the elder sister of the
poet, and by him most tenderly beloved.
Becoming widower, Byron's father was
married second time, to Catherine Cor
don. From this marriage sprang the great
poet begotten In sorrow, from under de-
caying roof tree, made wretched by contin-
ual matrimonial dissensions"
The harsh and cruel treatment, indifference
and neglect Lady Byron experienced at her
husbands hands, whom she always tender
ly loved, may, or should, explain in part
| the cynlclsm and coldness of her later years,
though one Can see in all her bitter disap-
pointments palliative circumstances TO ex-
| . ha Il
passion OF that one heart who had so much
need of a mothers love and sympathy.
Torn at last from the bosom of his
mother, who had well nigh Deem his Sc
pulcher, who was this beiug destined to fly
toward infinity, had one foot contracted.
Thus he was a cripple in childhood. This
stormy fireside; this rebelIious BIRTH this
spendthrift father; this assassin uncle; this
mother embittered by disappointment, the
sweetness of whose sex had been pierced by
| the thOrns of her sorrow; this blood, boil
ing and agitated like the troubled seas over
which wandered the Normans; the cradle
rocked by despair and watered by tears;
this decay of the ilustriOus line, which
tn teatened extinction to its lost representa-
tive; this accidental limencss, to which the
cruel shaft of Iidicule made him keenly SEN
sitive-all these influences, acting on a nat
urally sensitive nature, inspired the eternal
elegy embodied IN his verses, like the con-
tinuation of the first bitter cry OF his ex-
| istence." Speaking of the precocity of the
poet: ''Mary Duff was the Beatrice of By
ron, his first love at the age of twelve years
His mother laughed at him, the parents of
the girl and the friends of both houses ridi-
culed HIM; but Byron continued to love her
| sadly and seriously, without being himself
aware of his passions, with all the tender
ness and purity of childhood"
This was the 'Highland Maid' to whom
some of his earliest verses were dedicated
While mere boy he became unfortunately
| enamored of Miss Chaworth, between whose
family and Byron'S existed deadly feud of
long standing-his uncle, the head of the
Byron family, having killed an uncle of
Miss ChawoIth, and head of her family.
These unhappy circumstances naturally bred
an estrangement between the two. The
beautiful heiress of the Chaworth family
was then sixteen-two years older than her
devoted lover.
Byron regarded Mary Chaworth with a
devotional ardor, which he himself described
with great simplicity.
'The girl sometimes treated him cruelty.
His lameness prevented hlm from dancing;
but his beloved danced with all his friends.
who hSd the pleasure of encircling the waist
which Byron could not approach without a
nervous trembling, as if he had been struck
by lightning. While the happy girl waltzed
the jealous boy struck his neart, fearing
that its violent beating would be heard
through the saloons. And, though he
never formally declared himself he was un-
derstood. She well knew how TO sound
the abyss of look, and he was so far un-
derstood that she gave HIM her picture as
love token"
This appears; however, to have been but
| girlish caprice and coquetry on her part, as
it is nearly certain that she never really
loved Byron, else she would not have SO
cruelty wounded him. 'Her friends one
day mentioned Lord Byron, his beauty and
talents, and the sighs and glances which
they had observed directed toward Miss
Chaworth, and without being in the least dis
concerted, and with all the serenity of per-
feet indifference, she uttered the following
cruel sentence: You offend me in think
ing can possibly be interested in that boy
that cripple
''In those two words she had expressly
defined the two great CULTS which, accord
ing to the poet himself, separated him from
happiness-hls youth and his intirmIty-
that terrible defect, the most bitter of his
sorrows"
1t may be imagined how this would affect
one with the sensibihty of Byron, loving as
he loved-this harsh judgment "from the
lips of his beloved. at a moment, too, when
he was upon the point of throwing himself
at her feet"
His enemies and one OF two severe critics
have assumed this to have been mawkish
sentiment with Byron, and that to have
married Mary Chaworth would not have
made better man of him.
SIN 1906 the one so deeply beloved was
married to Mr.. John Musters The love
and the anguish of the poet are easily seen
in the short and simple verses consecrated
to this event"
At the stormiest period of his life, Byron
met the Countess Guiccioli, '.whom Quinet
numbered as one of the loveliest forms in
which inspiration was ever clothed upon
| earth"
81 always thought that the
Countess Guiccioli, after having smiled upon
Lord Byron at Venice, after having brough hit
him to Ravenna, after pensive meetings
and wanderiDgs with him along the banks
of the Arno, beneath the dark green pine
trees of Pisa-I thought she would have ex-
pired the day after Byron died upon the
Grecian shores. What more remained for
her on earth2 Why, when the mysterious
nightingale who sang at her side would re-
turn no more2 Icould never have
believed that death would have snatched
away the great poet and spared the COun-
| tessn
Here follow some apt illusions to the ro-
mantle attachment of HelOise and Ahelard.
but what did the Countess Guiccioli
She lived. And not only did she live, but
she married wealthy nobleman and Sena-
tor of France, the Marquis de Boissy. And
not only did she marry, but, on becoming &
widow, she wrote book upon Lord Byron,
in two thick volumes, with the best inten-
tions. probably, but tedious like all diffuse
apologies. / have gone over twelve hun
dred pages of her work without finding any
new information, or even q single ray of III.
spiTation. The heavens have refused it Il
this Marquise, this wife of French Sena