Norwich bulletin., 1922-08-05
Famous Literary Mysteries
WHY WAS BRYoN's ~THxRzA P


 i Several of the most beautiful of Bryon's shorter poems are addressed to 'fThyrza' There is much contro- ] versy as to who inspired the Eng fish poet to write these sublime verses. The point never has been settled. l Moore asserts that the poems were addressed to an imaginary person
 Jeafferson; in his Real Lord Bryon" thinks that Margaret Parker was lat i.least an. inspiring force of the poems
 Margaret, like ThyrZa died while
 Bryon was separated from her and | had given him a locket, as Thyrza gives him 8 pledge.
 In 1928 Bryon said to Trelawny that his gloom on leaving England was i genuine;= that he was really in love
 with a cousin and that she was in a decline. No cousin except Margaret 1 Parker died of decline after having inspired him with love.
 But the love affair that is given l was in 1900 when Bryon was twelve years old. On her death he wrote what he truly called "a very dull epitaph." | This he published in Hours of Idle less.'' His gloom in 1909 could not 1 have been caused by love of cou- l sin who was then in a decline. The poems to Thyrza were not written un- til 1S11-12.
 At that time. however, he had nu- merous causes for melancholy. In four months, May to December, 1811 he had lost as he says, "six of his friends and relations Four of these were his mother, Mathews, Wingate and Cho- rister Eddleston. Who were the other l two.
 In October he writes to Dallas of
 the death of lone very dear to him
 in happier times but the name of this
 bein" does not appear and no biog- raph has been able to identify her.
 She nay have the Thyrza of the po-
 ems.
 A correspondent of the Athanaeum
 some years ago suggested curious
 theory which identified Thyrza with the Chofister EddIeston. There is a
 strong paral1elism between words and allusions in Byron's letters about his dear friend and the Thyrza dirges February 1s, 1872, Byron tells Hodg- son that Cambridge would bring sad
 recollections.
 q believe the only human being , that ever loved me, in truth and en- , tirely, belonged to Cambridge and nc , one can take her place. There is ont : consolation in death-where he sets
 his seal the in1pr ession can neither be melted nor broken, but enduretf
 forever. The being to whom refers i!
 undoubtedly Eddleston, the Chorister Tn the best of the poems to Thyrzs which were written in the same montf :. February 1912, there is the sam h thought and phrase:
 The love when death has set hi z seal,
 T Nor age can chill, nor rival stea- = Nor falgehood diSa VOW !" \ Eddleston died of a decline in May
 1911 while Byron was at Malta. Ed
 dfeston had given him a corneiiar l. which he reclaimed, October 28 181 r from Miss Pgot. A poem followed thi t to Thyrza, dated March 16 1912, In n letter to Miss Pigot, written durin t Eddleston's life Bryon speaks of hi ,e friendship for him, which is to eclips T. "all classical precedents and says hi e Nloice first attracted my attention It his countenance fixed it and his man E. ners attached him to me forever $ Bryon tells Hodeson that the Cam ot bridge organ is "a sad remembrance ;e One of the poems to Thyrza enclose rs in the same letter and written tw g- days before Is suggested by a song ( fe former days, whose soft notes. no ie repeat a dirge, an anthem OCT th IS dead.''
 le In this, as in the other circumstanct at Eddleston would correspond to the COT of dition of the problem, and it does nt ly appear that Margaret Parker was rt ot rnenbered for her singing though, :; ie MT. Jeafferson says, another phra. I'd in the same line might apply to hir H. Was Moore right in his inferent ed that there was, strictly speaking I g. Thyrza, and that the poems addresse D. to her were intended to mislead ar SC instead that Eddleston was in
 mind but that he used the name Tn! sd rza in, order not to provoke ridicule In which no one dreaded more-by tellir sh in public such a sentiment about h is humble friend as he expressed in b be letters to Hodgson": He, therefor n. adopted the language of a bereay' ts lower, end addressed his verses to k feminine name. though the poet e. would equally appropriate in eth