Chapter II · — Cambridge and Juvenile Poems (continued 3)

Life of Rev, F. Hodgson

, vol. i p. 204), Davies was, during the Regency and afterwards, a popular member of fashionable society. A daring gambler and shrewd calculator, he at one time won heavily at the gaming-tables. On June 10, 1814, as he told Hobhouse, he won £6065 at Watier's Club at Macao. Captain Cronow, in his

Reminiscences

(ed. 1860, vol. i. pp. 93-96), sketches him among "Golden Ball" Hughes, "King" Allen, and other dandies. But luck turned against him, and he retired, poverty-stricken and almost dependent upon his Fellowship, to Paris, where he died, May 23, 1852. It was supposed he had for many years occupied himself with writing his recollections of his friends. But the notes, if they were ever written, have disappeared.

Byron, who hated obligations, as he himself says, counted Davies as a friend, though not on the same plane as Hobhouse. He borrowed from Davies £4800 before he left England in 1809, repaid him in 1814, and dedicated to him his

Parisina

. In his

MS. Journal

(

Life

, pp. 129, 130) he says,

"One of the cleverest men I ever knew, in conversation, was Scrope Berdmore Davies. Hobhouse is also very good in that line, though it is of less consequence to a man who has other ways of showing his talents than in company. Scrope was always ready, and often witty — Hobhouse was witty, but not always so ready, being more diffident."

Byron appointed him one of the executors of his will of 1811. In his

Journal

for March 28, 1814 (

Life

, p. 234), occurs this entry:

"Yesterday, dined tête à tête at the Cocoa with Scrope Davies — sat from six till midnight — drank between us one bottle of champagne and six of claret, neither of which wines ever affect me. Offered to take Scrope home in my carriage; but he was tipsy and pious, and I was obliged to leave him on his knees praying to I know not what purpose or pagod. No headach, nor sickness, that night, nor to-day. Got up, if anything, earlier than usual — sparred with Jackson ad sudorem, and have been much better in health than for many days. I have heard nothing more from Scrope."

Scrope Davies visited Byron at the Villa Diodati, in 1816, and brought back with him

Childe Harold

, canto iii. On his return he gave evidence in the case of

Byron v. Johnson

, before the Lord Chancellor, November 28, 1816, when an injunction was obtained to restrain Johnson from publishing a volume containing

Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

, and other works, which he professed to have bought from Byron for £500.

According to Gronow (

Reminiscences

, vol. i. p. 153, 154), Scrope Davies, asked to give his private opinion of Byron, said that he considered him

"very agreeable and clever, but vain, overbearing, suspicious, and jealous. Byron hated Palmerston, but liked Peel, and thought that the whole world ought to be constantly employed in admiring his poetry and himself."

return

cross-reference: return to Footnote 12 of Letter 83

cross-reference: return to Footnote 3 of Letter 140

Footnote 3:

For Hobhouse's lines on Bowles, see

English Bards, etc.

, line 384, and

note

.

return

List of Letters

87 — To Robert Charles Dallas¹

Dorant's Hotel, Albemarle Street, Jan. 20, 1808.

Sir, — Your letter was not received till this morning, I presume from being addressed to me in Notts., where I have not resided since last June; and as the date is the 6th, you will excuse the delay of my answer.

If the little volume you mention has given pleasure to the author of

Percival

and

Aubrey

, I am sufficiently repaid by his praise. Though our periodical censors have been uncommonly lenient, I confess a tribute from a man of acknowledged genius is still more flattering. But I am afraid I should forfeit all claim to candour, if I did not decline such praise as I do not deserve; and this is, I am sorry to say, the case in the present instance.

My compositions speak for themselves, and must stand or fall by their own worth or demerit:

thus far

I feel highly gratified by your favourable opinion. But my pretensions to virtue are unluckily so few, that though I should be happy to merit, I cannot accept, your applause in that respect.

One

passage in your letter struck me forcibly: you mention the two Lords Lyttleton

²

in the manner they respectively deserve, and will be surprised to hear the person who is now addressing you has been frequently compared to the

latter

. I know I am injuring myself in your esteem by this avowal, but the circumstance was so remarkable from your observation, that I cannot help relating the fact. The events of my short life have been of so singular a nature, that, though the pride commonly called honour has, and I trust ever will, prevent me from disgracing my name by a mean or cowardly action, I have been already held up as the votary of licentiousness, and the disciple of infidelity. How far justice may have dictated this accusation, I cannot pretend to say; but, like the

gentleman

to whom my religious friends, in the warmth of their charity, have already devoted me, I am made worse than I really am. However, to quit myself (the worst theme I could pitch upon), and return to my poems, I cannot sufficiently express my thanks, and I hope I shall some day have an opportunity of rendering them in person. A second edition is now in the press, with some additions and considerable omissions; you will allow me to present you with a copy.

The

Critical

³

,

Monthly

⁴

, and

Anti-Jacobin⁵ Reviews

have been very indulgent; but the

Eclectic

⁶

has pronounced a furious Philippic, not against the

book

but the

author

, where you will find all I have mentioned asserted by a reverend divine who wrote the critique.

Your

name and connection with our family have been long known to me, and I hope your person will be not less so: you will find me an excellent compound of a "Brainless" and a "Stanhope."

⁷

I am afraid you will hardly be able to read this, for my hand is almost as bad as my character; but you will find me, as legibly as possible,

Your obliged and obedient servant,

Byron

.

Footnote 1:

Robert Charles Dallas (1754-1842), born in Jamaica and educated in Scotland, read law at the Inner Temple. About 1775 he returned to Jamaica to look after his property and take up a lucrative appointment. Three years later he returned to England, married, and took his wife back with him to the West Indies. His wife's health compelled him to return to Europe, and he lived for some time in France. At the outbreak of the Revolution he emigrated to America; but finally settled down to literary work in England. His first publication (1797) was

Miscellaneous Writings consisting of Poems; Lucretia, a Tragedy; and Moral Essays, with a Vocabulary of the Passions

. He translated a number of French books bearing on the French Revolution, by Bertrand de Moleville, Mallet du Pan, Hue, and Joseph Weber; also a work on Volcanoes by the Abbé Ordinaire, and an historical novel by Madame de Genlis,

The Siege of Rochelle

. He wrote a number of novels, among them

Percival, or Nature Vindicated

(1801);

Aubrey: a Novel

(1804);

The Morlands; Tales illustrative of the Simple and Surprising

(1805);

The Knights; Tales illustrative of the Marvellous

(1808). Later (1819 and 1823) he published two volumes of poems. He says (preface to

Percival

, p. ix.) that his object is "to improve the heart, as well as to please the fancy, and to be the auxiliary of the Divine and the Moralist." He is one of the writers, others being "Gleaner" Pratt and Lord Carlisle, "whose writings" (

Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Percival Stockdale

, 1809, vol. i. Preface, p. xvi.) "dart through the general fog of our literary dulness." Stockdale further says of him that he was "a man of a most affectionate and virtuous mind. He has had the moral honour, in several novels, to exert his talents, which were worthy of their glorious cause, in the service of good conduct and religion."

Dallas's sister, Henrietta Charlotte, married George Anson Byron, the son of Admiral the Hon. John Byron, and was therefore Byron's aunt by marriage. On the score of this connection, Dallas introduced himself to Byron by complimenting him, in a letter dated January 6, 1808, on his

Hours of Idleness

. A well-meaning, self-satisfied, dull, industrious man, he gave Byron excellent moral advice, to which the latter responded as the

fanfaron de ses vices

, evidently with great amusement to himself.

English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers

was brought out under Dallas's auspices, as well as

Childe Harold

and

The Corsair

, the profits of which Byron made over to him. Dallas distrusted his own literary judgment in the matter of Byron's verse, and consulted Walter Wright, the author of Horæ Ioniæ, about the prospects of

Childe Harold

.

"I have told him," said Wright, "that I have no doubt this will succeed. Lord Byron had offered him before some translations from Horace, which I told him would never sell, and he did not take them"

(

Diary of H. Crabb Robinson

, vol. i. pp. 29, 30). The connection between Dallas and Byron practically ended in 1814. The publication of Dallas's

Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron from the Year

1808

to the end of

1814 was stopped by a decree obtained by Byron's executors, in the Court of Chancery, August 23, 1824. But the book was published by the writer's son, the Rev. A. R. C. Dallas.

return to footnote mark

cross-reference: return to Footnote 3 of Letter 148

Footnote 2:

Byron refers to the following passage in Dallas's letter of January 6, 1808:

"A spirit that brings to my mind another noble author, who was not only a fine poet, orator, and historian, but one of the closest reasoners we have on the truth of that religion, of which forgiveness is a prominent principle: the great and the good Lord Lyttelton, whose fame will never die. His son, to whom he had transmitted genius but not virtue, sparkled for a moment, and went out like a falling star, and with him the title became extinct. He was the victim of inordinate passions, and he will be heard of in this world only by those who read the English Peerage"

(

Correspondence of Lord Byron

, p. 20, the suppressed edition).

Dallas was, of course, aware that Byron's predecessor in the title, William, fifth Lord Byron, was known as the "wicked Lord Byron." George, first Lord Lyttelton (1709-1773), to whom Pope refers (

Imitations of Horace

, bk. i. Ep. i. 1. 30) as

"Still true to virtue, and as warm as true,"

was a voluminous writer in prose and verse, but owed his political importance to his family connection with Chatham, Temple, and George Grenville. Horace Walpole calls him a "wise moppet" (

Letters

, vol. ii. p. 28, ed. Cunningham), and repeatedly sneers at his dulness. His son Thomas, second Lord Lyttelton (1744-1779), the "wicked Lord Lyttelton," appears in W. Combe's

Diaboliad

as the

"Peer of words, Well known, — and honour'd in the House of Lords, — Whose Eloquence all Parallel defies!"

who claims the throne of Hell as the worst of living men. His

Poems by a Young Nobleman lately deceased

(published in 1780, after his death) may have helped Dallas in his allusion. He was the hero and the victim of the famous ghost story which Dr. Johnson was "willing to believe."

return

Footnote 3:

The Critical Review

(3rd series, vol. xii. pp. 47-53) specially praises lines "On Leaving Newstead Abbey" and "Childish Recollections."

return

Footnote 4:

In

Monthly Literary Recreations

(July, 1807, pp. 67-71), "Childish Recollections" and "The Tear" are particularly commended.

"As friends to the cause of literature, we have thought proper not to disguise our opinion of his powers, that we might alter his determination, and lead him once more to the Castalian fount."

return

Footnote 5:

The Anti-Jacobin Review

(December, 1807, pp. 407, 408) says that the poems

"exhibit strong proofs of genius, accompanied by a lively but chastened imagination, a classical taste, and a benevolent heart."

return

Footnote 6:

The Eclectic Review

(vol. iii. part ii. pp. 989-993) begins its review thus:

"The notice we take of this publication regards the author rather than the book; the book is a collection of juvenile pieces, some of very moderate merit, and others of very questionable morality; but the author is a nobleman!"

return

Footnote 7:

Characters in the novel called

Percival

.

return

List of Letters

88 — To Robert Charles Dallas

Dorant's, January 21, 1808.

Sir, — Whenever leisure and inclination permit me the pleasure of a visit, I shall feel truly gratified in a personal acquaintance with one whose mind has been long known to me in his writings.

You are so far correct in your conjecture, that I am a member of the University of Cambridge, where I shall take my degree of A.M. this term; but were reasoning, 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 stagnant as her Cam, and their pursuits limited to the church — not of Christ, but of the nearest benefice.

As to my reading, I believe I may aver, without hyperbole, it has been tolerably extensive in the historical department; so that few nations exist, or have existed, with whose records I am not in some degree acquainted, from Herodotus down to Gibbon. Of the classics, I know about as much as most school-boys after a discipline of thirteen years;

of

the law of the land as much as enables me to keep "within the statute" — to use the poacher's vocabulary. I did study the "Spirit of Laws"

¹

and the Law of Nations; but when I saw the latter violated every month, I gave up my attempts at so useless an accomplishment:— of geography, I have seen more land on maps than I should wish to traverse on foot; — of mathematics, enough to give me the headach without clearing the part affected; — of philosophy, astronomy, and metaphysics, more than I can comprehend; and of common sense so little, that I mean to leave a Byronian prize at each of our "Almæ Matres" for the first discovery, — though I rather fear that of the longitude will precede it.

I once thought myself a philosopher, and talked nonsense with great decorum: I defied pain, and preached up equanimity. For some time this did very well, for no one was in

pain

for me but my friends, and none lost their patience but my hearers. At last, a fall from my horse convinced me bodily suffering was an evil; and the worst of an argument overset my maxims and my temper at the same moment: so I quitted Zeno for Aristippus, and conceive that pleasure constitutes the

.

In morality, I prefer Confucius to the Ten Commandments, and Socrates to St. Paul (though the two latter agree in their opinion of marriage). In religion, I favour the Catholic emancipation, but do not acknowledge the Pope; and I have refused to take the sacrament, because I do not think eating bread or drinking wine from the hand of an earthly vicar will make me an inheritor of heaven. I hold virtue, in general, or the virtues severally, to be only in the disposition, each a

feeling

, not a principle. I believe truth the prime attribute of the Deity, and death an eternal sleep, at least of the body. You have here a brief compendium of the sentiments of the

wicked

George, Lord Byron; and, till I get a new suit, you will perceive I am badly cloathed.

I remain yours, etc.,

Byron

.

Footnote 1:

In Byron's "List of historical writers whose works I have perused in different languages" (

Life

, pp. 46, 47), occurs the name of Montesquieu. It is to his

Esprit des Lois

that Byron refers.

return to footnote mark

List of Letters

89 — To John Hanson

Dorant's, January 25th, 1808.

Sir, — The picture I have drawn of my finances is unfortunately a true one, and I find the colours may be heightened but not improved by time. — I have inclosed the receipt, and return my thanks for the loan, which shall be repaid the first opportunity. In the concluding part of my last I gave my reasons for not troubling you with my society at present, but when I can either communicate or receive pleasure, I shall not be long absent.

Yrs., etc.,

Byron

.

P.S. — I have received a letter from Whitehead, of course you know the contents, and must act as you think proper.

List of Letters

90 — To John Hanson

Dorant's, January 25th, 1808.

Dear Sir, — Some time ago I gave Mitchell the sadler [

sic

] a letter for you, requesting his bill might be paid from the Balance of the Quarter you obliged me by advancing. If he has received this you will further oblige me by paying what remains, I believe somewhere about five pounds, if so much.

You will confer a favour upon me by the loan of twenty. I will endeavour to repay it next week, as I have immediate occasion for that sum, and I should not require it of you could I obtain it elsewhere.

I am now in my one and twentieth year, and cannot command as many pounds. To Cambridge I cannot go without paying my bills, and at present I could as soon compass the National Debt; in London I must not remain, nor shall I, when I can procure a trifle to take me out of it. Home I have none; and if there was a possibility of getting out of the Country, I would gladly avail myself of it. But even that is denied me, my Debts amount to three thousand, three hundred to Jews, eight hundred to Mrs. B. of Nottingham, to coachmaker and other tradesmen a thousand more, and these must be much increased, before they are lessened.

Such is the prospect before me, which is by no means brightened by ill-health. I would have called on you, but I have neither spirits to enliven myself or others, or inclination to bring a gloomy face to spoil a group of happy ones. I remain,

Your obliged and obedt. sert.,

Byron

.

P.S. — Your answer to the former part will oblige, as I shall be reduced to a most unpleasant dilemma if it does not arrive.

List of Letters

91 — To James De Bathe¹

Dorant's Hotel, February 2d, 1808.

My Dear De Bathe, — Last Night I saw your Father and Brother, the former I have not the pleasure of knowing, but the latter informed me

you

came to Town on

Saturday

and returned

yesterday

.

I have received a pressing Invitation from Henry Drury to pay him a visit; in his Letter he mentions a very old

Friend

of yours, who told him he would join my party, if I could inform him on what day I meant to go over. This Friend you will readily conclude to be a Lord

B

.; but not the one who now addresses you. Shall I bring him to you? and insure a welcome for myself which perhaps might not otherwise be the case. This will not be for a Fortnight to come. I am waiting for Long, who is now at Chatham, when he arrives we shall probably drive down and dine with Drury.

I confess Harrow has lost most of its charms for me. I do not know if Delawarr is still there; but, with the exception of yourself and the Earl, I shall find myself among Strangers. Long has a Brother at Butler's, and all his predilections remain in full force; mine are weakened, if not destroyed, and though I can safely say, I never knew a Friend out of Harrow, I question whether I have one left in it. You leave Harrow in July; may I ask what is your future Destination?

In January

1809

I shall be twenty one & in the Spring of the same year proceed abroad, not on the usual Tour, but a route of a more extensive Description. What say you? are you disposed for a view of the Peloponnesus and a voyage through the Archipelago? I am merely in jest with regard to you, but very serious with regard to my own Intention which is fixed on the

Pilgrimage

, unless some political view or accident induce me to postpone it. Adieu! if you have Leisure, I shall be as happy to hear from you, as I would have been to have

seen

you. Believe me,

Yours very truly,

Byron

.

Footnote 1:

Sir James Wynne De Bathe (1792-1828) succeeded his father as second baronet, February 22, 1808.

"Clare, Dorset, Charles Gordon, De Bathe, Claridge, and John Wingfield, were my juniors and favourites, whom I spoilt by indulgence"

(

Life

, p. 21). De Bathe's name does not appear in the Harrow School lists. A Captain De Bathe interested himself in the case of Medora Leigh in 1843 (see Charles Mackay's

Medora Leigh

, pp. 92, 93, and elsewhere in the volume).

return to footnote mark

List of Letters

92 — To William Harness¹

Dorant's Hotel, Albemarle Street, Feb. II, 1808.

My Dear Harness, — As I had no opportunity of returning my verbal thanks, I trust you will accept my written acknowledgments for the compliment you were pleased to pay some production of my unlucky muse last November, — I am induced to do this not less from the pleasure I feel in the praise of an old schoolfellow, than from justice to you, for I had heard the story with some slight variations.

Indeed

, when we met this morning, Wingfield

²

had not undeceived me; but he will tell you that I displayed no resentment in mentioning what I had heard, though I was not sorry to discover the truth. Perhaps you hardly recollect, some years ago, a short, though, for the time, a warm friendship between us. Why it was not of longer duration I know not. I have still a gift of yours in my possession, that must always prevent me from forgetting it. I also remember being favoured with the perusal of many of your compositions, and several other circumstances very pleasant in their day, which I will not force upon your memory, but entreat you to believe me, with much regret at their short continuance, and a hope they are not irrevocable,

Yours very sincerely, etc.,

Byron

.

Footnote 1:

William Harness (1790-1869), son of Dr. J. Harness, Commissioner of the Transport Board, was educated at Harrow and Christ's College, Cambridge. Ordained in 1812, he was, from 1823 to 1826, Curate at Hampstead.

"I could quiz you heartily," writes Mrs. Franklin to Miss Mitford (September 6, 1824), "for having told me in three successive letters of Mr. Harness's chapel at Hampstead. I understand he now lives a very retired life"

(

The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford

, vol. i. p. 61). From 1826 to 1844 he was Incumbent of Regent Square Chapel; Minister of Brompton Chapel (1844-47); Perpetual Curate (1849-69) of All Saints', Knightsbridge, which he built from subscriptions raised by himself. He is described by Crabb Robinson (

Diary

, vol. iii. p. 212) as

"a clergyman with Oxford propensities, and a worshipper of the heathen Muses as well as of the Christian Graces;"

and again (iii. 326), as

"a man of taste, of High Church principles and liberal in spirit."

Miss Mitford (

The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford

, vol. ii. p. 289) writes that

"he has neither Catholic nor Puseyite tendencies, — only it is a large and liberal mind like Bishop Stanley's, believing good men and good Christians may exist among Papists, and will be as safe there as if they were Protestants."

Again (vol. ii. p. 295) she says of him:

"Besides his varied accomplishments, and his admirable goodness and kindness, he has all sorts of amusing peculiarities. With a temper never known to fail, an indulgence the largest, a tenderness as of a woman, he has the habit of talking like a cynic! and with more learning, ancient and modern, and a wider grasp of literature than almost any one I know, professes to read nothing and care for nothing but 'Shakespeare and the Bible.' He is the finest reader of both that I ever heard. His preaching, which has been so much admired, is too rapid, but his reading the prayers is perfection. The best parish priest in London, and the truest Christian."

Miss Mitford's praise may be exaggerated; but she had known Harness for a lifetime.

Harness edited

Shakespeare

(1825, 8 vols.), as well as

Massinger

(1830) and

Ford

(1831); wrote for the

Quarterly

and

Blackwood

; and published a number of sermons, including

The Wrath of Cain

,

A Boyle Lecture

(1822). He wrote

The Life of Mary Russell Mitford

(1870), in collaboration with the Rev. A. G. L'Estrange, whose

Life of the Rev. W. Harness

is the chief authority for his career.

His friendship with Byron began at Harrow (

Life

, pp. 23, 24), where Byron, who was older than Harness, took pity upon his lameness and weakness, and protected him from the bullies of the school. At a later period they became estranged, as is shown by the following letter from Byron to Harness (

Life

, pp. 24, 25):—

"We both seem perfectly to recollect, with a mixture of pleasure and regret, the hours we once passed together, and I assure you, most sincerely, they are numbered among the happiest of my brief chronicle of enjoyment. I am now getting into years, that is to say, I was twenty a month ago, and another year will send me into the world to run my career of folly with the rest. I was then just fourteen, — you were almost the first of my Harrow friends, certainly the first in my esteem, if not in date; but an absence from Harrow for some time, shortly after, and new connections on your side, and the difference in our conduct (an advantage decidedly in your favour) from that turbulent and riotous disposition of mine, which impelled me into every species of mischief, — all these circumstances combined to destroy an intimacy, which affection urged me to continue, and memory compels me to regret. But there is not a circumstance attending that period, hardly a sentence we exchanged, which is not impressed on my mind at this moment. I need not say more, — this assurance alone must convince you, had I considered them as trivial, they would have been less indelible. How well I recollect the perusal of your 'first flights'! There is another circumstance you do not know; — the first lines I ever attempted at Harrow were addressed to you. You were to have seen them; but Sinclair had the copy in his possession when we went home; — and, on our return, we were strangers. They were destroyed, and certainly no great loss; but you will perceive from this circumstance my opinions at an age when we cannot be hypocrites. I have dwelt longer on this theme than I intended, and I shall now conclude with what I ought to have begun. We were once friends, — nay, we have always been so, for our separation was the effect of chance, not of dissension. I do not know how far our destinations in life may throw us together, but if opportunity and inclination allow you to waste a thought on such a hare-brained being as myself, you will find me at least sincere, and not so bigoted to my faults as to involve others in the consequences. Will you sometimes write to me? I do not ask it often; and, if we meet, let us be what we should be, and what we were."

The following is Harness's own account of the circumstances in which

Letter 92

was written:—

"A coolness afterwards arose, which Byron alludes to in the first of the accompanying letters, and we never spoke during the last year of his remaining at school, nor till after the publication of his Hours of Idleness. Lord Byron was then at Cambridge; I, in one of the upper forms, at Harrow. In an English theme I happened to quote from the volume, and mention it with praise. It was reported to Byron that I had, on the contrary, spoken slightingly of his work and of himself, for the purpose of conciliating the favour of Dr. Butler, the master, who had been severely satirised in one of the poems. Wingfield, who was afterwards Lord Powerscourt, a mutual friend of Byron and myself, disabused him of the error into which he had been led, and this was the occasion of the first letter of the collection. Our intimacy was renewed, and continued from that time till his going abroad. Whatever faults Lord Byron might have had towards others, to myself he was always uniformly affectionate. I have many slights and neglects towards him to reproach myself with; but I cannot call to mind a single instance of caprice or unkindness, in the whole course of our friendship, to allege against him."

In

December, 1811, Harness paid Byron a visit at Newstead, the only other guest being Francis Hodgson, who, like Harness, was not then ordained. He thus describes the visit (

Life of the Rev. Francis Hodgson

, vol. i. pp. 219-221}:—

"When Byron returned, with the MS. of the first two cantos of Childe Harold in his portmanteau, I paid him a visit at Newstead. It was winter — dark, dreary weather — the snow upon the ground; and a straggling, gloomy, depressive, partially inhabited place the Abbey was. Those rooms, however, which had been fitted up for residence were so comfortably appointed, glowing with crimson hangings, and cheerful with capacious fires, that one soon lost the melancholy feeling of being domiciled in the wing of an extensive ruin. Many tales are related or fabled of the orgies which, in the poet's early youth, had made clamorous these ancient halls of the Byrons. I can only say that nothing in the shape of riot or excess occurred when I was there. The only other visitor was Dr. Hodgson, the translator of Juvenal, and nothing could be more quiet and regular than the course of our days. Byron was retouching, as the sheets passed through the press, the stanzas of Childe Harold. Hodgson was at work in getting out the ensuing number of the Monthly Review, of which he was principal editor. I was reading for my degree. When we met, our general talk was of poets and poetry — of who could or who could not write; but it occasionally rose into very serious discussions on religion. Byron, from his early education in Scotland, had been taught to identify the principles of Christianity with the extreme dogmas of Calvinism. His mind had thus imbibed a most miserable prejudice, which appeared to be the only obstacle to his hearty acceptance of the Gospel. Of this error we were most anxious to disabuse him. The chief weight of the argument rested with Hodgson, who was older, a good deal, than myself. I cannot even now — at a distance of more than fifty years — recall those conversations without a deep feeling of admiration for the judicious zeal and affectionate earnestness (often speaking with tears in his eyes) which Dr. Hodgson evinced in his advocacy of the truth. The only difference, except perhaps in the subjects talked about, between our life at Newstead Abbey and that of the great families around us, was the hours we kept. It was, as I have said, winter, and the days were cold; and, as nothing tempted us to rise early, we got up late. This flung the routine of the day rather backward, and we did not go early to bed. My visit to Newstead lasted about three weeks, when I returned to Cambridge to take my degree."

To Harness Byron intended to dedicate

Childe Harold

, but feared to do so, "lest it should injure him in his profession."

return to footnote mark

cross-reference: return to Footnote 1 of Letter 33

cross-reference: return to Footnote 1 of Letter 102

Footnote 2:

Three Wingfields, sons of Lord Powerscourt, entered Harrow in February, 1801. The Hon. Richard Wingfield succeeded his father as fifth Viscount Powerscourt in 1809, and died in 1823. Edward became a clergyman and died of cholera in 1825; John, Byron's friend, the "Alonzo" of "Childish Recollections" entered the Coldstream Guards, and died of fever at Coimbra, May 14, 1811.

"Of all human beings, I was perhaps at one time most attached to poor Wingfield, who died at Coimbra, 1811, before I returned to England"

(

Life

, p. 21). To his memory Byron wrote the lines in

Childe Harold

, Canto I stanza xci.

return

cross-reference: return to Footnote 2 of Letter 161

List of Letters

93 — To J. Ridge

[Mr. Ridge, Newark.]

Dorant's Hotel, February 21st, 1808.

Mr. Ridge, — Something has occurred which will make considerable alteration in my new volume.

You

must

go back

and

cut out

the whole

poem

of

Childish Recollections

¹

. Of course you will be surprized at this, and perhaps displeased, but it must be

done

. I cannot help its detaining you a

month

longer, but there will be enough in the volume without it, and as I am now reconciled to Dr. Butler I cannot allow my satire to appear against him, nor can I alter that part relating to him without spoiling the whole. You will therefore omit the whole poem. Send me an

immediate

answer to this letter but

obey

the directions. It is better that my reputation should suffer as a poet by the omission than as a man of honour by the insertion.

Etc., etc.,

Byron

.

Footnote 1:

For "Childish Recollections," see

Poems

, vol.i. p.101. A previous letter, written to Ridge from Dorant's Hotel, January 9, 1808, illustrates the rapidity with which Byron's moods changed. In this case, the lines on "Euryalus" (Lord Delawarr: see page 41,

note

1) were to be omitted:—

"Mr. Ridge, — In Childish Recollections omit the whole character of Euryalus, and insert instead the lines to Florio as a part of the poem, and send me a proof in due course. "Etc. etc., "Byron. "P.S. — The first line of the passage to be omitted begins 'Shall fair Euryalus,' etc., and ends at 'Toil for more;' omit the whole."

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