Lord Byron: a biography with a critical essay on his place in literature

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Chapter II. School And University

1798-1808.

When the travellers arrived at the Newstead toll-bar, his mother, affecting ignorance, asked the woman of the toll-house to whom the park and house belonged ; she answered, that Lord Byron, the owner of it, had been dead for some months. 4 And who is the next heir ? ’ asked the proud and happy mother. 4 They say,’ answered the woman, 4 it is a little boy who lives at Aberdeen.’ 4 And this is he, bless him ! ’ exclaimed the nurse, no longer able to contain herself, and turning to kiss with delight the young lord who was seated on her lap.1

Thus did the young lord, in his eleventh year, make his entrance into Newstead Abbey. There, everything wore a dreary and desolate look ; and though Mrs. Byron had not been accustomed to luxury, she could not bring herself to make Hew stead her home, but retired with her son to tbe neighbouring town of Nottingham, a step which was moreover rendered needful from a regard to the young peer’s training both of body and mind. Byron himself, as soon as he inherited the peerage, had become a ward of the Court of Chancery, which appointed the Earl of Carlisle his guardian. This nobleman (1784-1826) was a near relation, bis mother, Isabella Byron (1721-1795), being a

BYRON AND HIS GUARDIAN.

sister of the fifth Lord Byron, the duellist. This lady belied in nowise the family character; she was full of talent and wit, wrote tolerable verses1 and some pungent epigrams. In eccentricity she equalled her brother, and, like him, though without the grounds he had, secluded herself in her later years entirely from the world, in which she had shone in earlier life as one of the stars of society. Fox, to whom she was known, characterised her in a satire as

Carlisle, recluse in pride and rags ; 2

and they are said to have spoken or written yet coarser things of each other. Her son was distinguished in the world of fashion, made a figure in Parliament, and had been Viceroy of Ireland in the year 1780. He was, moreover, a wit and a poet, who soared even to the lofty regions of tragedy.3 His tragedy, e The Father’s Revenge,’ which had been submitted to Dr. Johnson, met with some favour from the great critic. It is well known that Byron, who, not without reason, believed himself neglected by his guardian, so harshly criticised his poetry in the 4 English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, ’ that he endeavoured, at a later period, to make every reparation for the wrong he had been guilty of. To him he dedicated the second edition of ‘ The Hours of Idleness,’ as his obliged ward and affectionate kinsman. The two men were evidently, both poetically and otherwise, of minds too much opposed as not mutually to repel each other. The Earl of Carlisle appears at first to have little concerned

1 One or two in Pearch’s Collection are ascribed to her ; she composed also a small treatise on Education.

2 Galt’s Life of Byron, chap. iv. p. 33.

3 He was the author of the following works: — Poems, 1773; Unite or Fall, 1798 ; The Step-mother, a tragedy, 1800 ; Tragedies and Poems, 1801 ; Verses on the Death of Lord Nelson, 1806 ; Thoughts on the Stage.

LIFE OF LOED BYEON.

himself in the education of his ward, but to have entrusted it to his mother, who directed her attention chiefly to the cure of the deformed foot. She, like Scott’s parents, who hoped to succeed in removing his lameness by the so-called earth-bath of Dr. Graham, applied to a quack of the name of Lavender 1 with a like object. This man, rubbing the foot with oil, forcibly twisted it round, and then screwed it up in a wooden machine, causing of course dreadful suffering to the poor boy.2

That he might lose no ground in the studies of the school, Byron received instruction in Latin from a respectable teacher of the name of Rogers,3 who read Yirgil and Cicero with him — rather prematurely, certainly, for a boy of eleven years of age. Teacher and scholar were, however, mutually satisfied. Mr. Rogers, remarking one day the pain which Byron endured with his foot in the machine while he was teaching him, could not withhold his sympathy : ‘ It makes me uncomfortable, my Lord, to see you sitting there in such pain, as I know you must be suffering ’ — e Never mind, Mr. Rogers,’ answered the boy, ‘ you shall not see any signs of it in me.’ 4 Of him, as of almost all his masters, he preserved a respectful and kindly recollection, while for his tormentor Lavender he had nothing but hatred, and delighted to practise jokes upon him. Thus on one occasion writing down all the letters of the alphabet and putting them together at random in the form of words, he asked the pompous ignoramus what language it was : ( Italian,’ he answered with his

1 It is said that Lavender often sent the hoy across the street for a jug of beer. ( Notes and Queries, 4th series, vol. iii. pp. 284, 418, 561.) The thing seems scarcely credible.

3 According to Notes and Qiteiies, 4th series, vol. iii. p. 561, Rogers ■was an American royalist, who enjoyed a pension from the English Government.

BYRON’S MOTHER SETTLES IN LONDON.

accustomed confidence, and brought down on himself a shout of triumphant laughter from the boy.1

When Mrs. Byron herself could no longer doubt that Lavender’s so-called cure was nothing but the infliction of useless torture, she was advised by Lord Carlisle to consult the celebrated Dr. Baillie in London, brother of the still more celebrated dramatic poetess Joanna Baillie. This advice was probably in harmony with the personal wishes and inclinations of Mrs. Byron, and led to her settling in London in the summer of 1799, where she took a house in Sloane Terrace, and sent her son to the private school of a Dr. Glennie in Dulwich, one of the most charming districts to the south of London. Her personal resources, which the young Lord, as long as he was a minor, could not from his own means augment, received about this time a seasonable addition, inasmuch as she obtained (July 5, 1799), a pension of 300L a year on the Civil List; who interceded for her with the king, or on what grounds the king granted it, is however unknown.2 About this time also the faithful nurse of the child, May Gray, returned to her home in Scotland, where she was married, and died about the year 1827. In parting with her Byron gave her his watch, the first he had possessed, and a full-length miniature of himself (painted by Kay of Edinburgh in 1795), which represented him standing with a bow and arrow in his hand and a profusion of hair falling over his shoulders.3 Some years afterwards Byron wrote to tell her, among other matters, that his foot was so far restored that he was able to put on a common boot — 4 an event for which he had long anxiously wished, and which he was sure would give her great pleasure.’ 4

D

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

It was in many respects a happy thing for Byron that he was now separated from his mother ; already she began to appear to him under a ludicrous aspect. Her outbursts of rage no longer made him afraid, but caused him much amusement.1 When with her short and corpulent figure she ran round the room to catch him and punish him, he managed, in spite of his lameness, always to escape from her, and laughed at her rage. Of her coarse invectives one only left a sting, which was never eradicated ; in one of her fits of passion she called him ‘ a lame brat,’ although to her he believed himself indebted for this deformity.2 These outbursts of temper she displayed even in Dr. Glennie’s school, who once heard one of his pupils say to Byron : £ Byron, your mother is a fool.’ < I know it ’ said he gloomily.3 Dr. Glennie, himself a Scotchman, gave Moore the following description of Mrs. Byron : £ Mrs. Byron was a total stranger to English society and English manners ; with an exterior far from prepossessing, an understanding where nature had not been more bountiful, a mind almost wholly without cultivation, and the peculiarities of northern opinions, . northern habits, and northern accent, I trust I do no great prejudice to the memory of my country-woman, if I say Mrs. Byron was not a Madame de Lambert, endowed with powers to retrieve the fortune and form the character and manners of a young nobleman, her son.’ 4 In a word, she was deficient in mental culture, and even in mere external refinement : there was something even childish in her character. If Disraeli may be regarded as an authority, Mrs. Byron was wont to pour out her heart to everyone on the enormities of her husband, on her miserable condition, on the fifth Lord Byron, who had brought

CHARACTERISTICS OF BYRON’S MOTHER;

Kewstead to such a ruinous condition, and generally on everything which vexed and annoyed her. He hints, too, that she was partial to strong drinks, especially to whisky ; and a letter of Byron to his mother, hereafter to be cited, appears to corroborate this. The worst was that Mrs. Byron incessantly interfered with the instruction and education of the boy ; for not only from Saturday to Monday was Geordie kept at home, but often for the whole week ; and in all the complaints which were made, she appears always to have taken the part of the pupil against the masters. Thus all the efforts of Dr. Glennie

O

and Lord Carlisle were continually thwarted, so that the latter withdrew more and more from all concern for his ward, and at last declared that he would have nothing more to do with Mrs. Byron, and thdt Dr. Glennie must manage her as he could.1 Young Byron himself, tortured by a new machine applied to his foot, and enjoined to abstain as much as possible from all bodily exertion, had to devote all his powers to accommodate himself to the course of instruction pursued in English schools, which differed from the system followed at Aberdeen, and in some measure to fill up the gaps. Dr. Glennie, who appears to have taken a fatherly interest in him, testifies that he showed diligence and zeal ; that he was playful and goodhumoured, and beloved by his companions ; only that his aristocratic pride frequently excited the ridicule of the other boys, and gained for him the nickname of the old English Baron,2 in allusion to the celebrated romance of that name by Miss Clara Reeve (1777) ; that his reading in history and poetry was far beyond the usual standard of his age, especially that he had an intimate acquaintance with the historical writings of the Bible and delighted to converse on them. Dr. Glennie believed that Byron 1 Moore’s Life , i. 48. 8 Ibid. i. 70.

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

had read more than once from beginning to end a collection of English poets from Chancer to Churchill, which he found in the Doctor’s library.1 As Byron, on account of the medical treatment to which he was subjected, slept in the Doctor’s study, he had an unusually good opportunity to use his books, openly as well as secretly. Notwithstanding these favourable circumstances, Mrs. Byron was by no means satisfied with the progress of her son, and in spite of the assurances of Dr. Glennie that he was not yet sufficiently prepared, she insisted on sending him to one of the great public schools. It is possible that Dr. Glennie’s school was not adequate to all the requirements which might be made. We have only his own account of Byron’s residence with him, and it is remarkable that Byron never, for good or evil, makes mention of him ; but substantially the right appears to have been on Dr. Glennie’s side. However this may be, it is enough that Byron, with the consent of his guardian, in the summer of 1801 was sent to Harrow.

Before we accompany him further, we must dwell on one circumstance belonging to this stage of his boyhood. Byron’s first attempt in poetry was, according to the account of May Gray, an epigram, which he made at Newstead on an old lady who paid frequent visits to his mother, and who made herself disagreeable to him by her strange opinions and her unpleasing manners. This lady, among other views, entertaining the notion that the soul, after death, took its flight to the moon, he at last vented his anger against her in the following lines, which he delighted to repeat over and over again : —

In Nottingham county there lives at Swan Green As curst an old lady as ever was seen :

And when she does die, which I hope will he soon,

She firmly believes she will go to the moon.2

1801:]

BYRON’S FIRST ATTEMPT IN POETR^.

These early verses suggest three remarks : that the first lisping attempt of Byron’s muse connects itself with Newstead ; that it was of a satirical character ; and that we are indebted for the knowledge of it to his nurse instead of to his mother. Byron aspired, however, to far higher aims with extraordinary rapidity ; when only in his thirteenth year, he made an attempt at a play, 4 Ulrich and Ilvina,’ which fortunately he soon burnt. About the same time lyrical efforts, more appropriate to his age, strove to find utterance. During his residence at Dulwich (1800) he fell in love with his cousin, Margaret Parker, the daughter and grand-daughter of two admirals of this name, and this attachment, to use his own words,1 led to his first dash into poetry. The verses which she inspired him to write, he had long ago (he says) forgotten — perhaps they deserved no better fate — but the dark eyes, the long eyelashes, the completely Greek cast of the face and figure of the girl, then in her twelfth or thirteenth year, appear never to have passed from his memory. 4 She was,’ he writes, 4 of a transparent beauty. She looked as if she had been made out of a rainbow — all beauty and peace.’2 Like Mary Duff, she had a sister, Augusta, who by many persons was thought still more beautiful. Both sisters died not long afterwards of consumption, the fatal issue of which, in Margaret’s case, was accelerated by a fall which injured her spine. The first poem in the 4 Hours of Idleness,’ bearing the date 1802, is dedicated to the memory of Margaret.

Just before going to Harrow, Byron accompanied his mother on a tour to Cheltenham, where the Malvern Hills, and especially the sunsets on them, produced a deep effect upon his mind.3 Here his superstitious mother went with him to a fortune-teller, who predicted that

1 Moore’s Life, i. 52. 2 Ibid. i. 53. 3 Ibid. i. 25,

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

before coming of age he would run some danger of being poisoned, and that he would be twice married — the second time to a foreign lady.1

Harrow, one of the great English public schools, stood at that time high in the favour of the aristocracy, a circumstance which, combined with its short distance from London, certainly helped to influence and determine the choice of Mrs. Byron. Harrow, moreover, possessed in the person of Dr. Joseph Drury a distinguished head-master,2 whose merits in the education of Byron were truly great, and who, therefore, enjoyed his life-long honour and respect. His pupil described Dr. Drury as a perfect gentleman, of the mildest disposition, and utterly free from pedantry.3 When Byron was consigned to his care by Mr. Hanson, the family solicitor, with the remark that his education had been neglected, but that he possessed some cleverness, Dr. Drury attempted to find out from the youth himself some particulars concerning the direction of his previous studies, the persons with whom he had associated, and his inclinations, but soon discovered that a wild mountain colt had been committed to his management, and became convinced that his new pupil might be led by a silken string, rather than by a cable.4 Byron, already accustomed to habits of com-

1 Moore’s Life , i. oG.

2 Joseph. Drury, born in London in the year 1750, was educated at "Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. Before he had completed his twentieth year he was appointed one of the under-masters at Harrow, of which school he was head-master from the year 1784 to the year 1805. He then retired to Cockwood in Devonshire, where he devoted himself to the improvement of agriculture, and died in January 1834. A memorial of him has been placed in the Church at Harrow. Without achieving any distinction in literature, he left behind him the reputation of an excellent teacher, pre-eminently fitted and endowed for his position.

3 See note to the ‘ Hours of Idleness,’ Works, vii. p. 147.

1 Moore’s Life, i. 5S.

1801.] BYRON AT HARROW. 39

mand, showed himself refractory to all school discipline and subordination. His natural shyness, also, was increased by the sudden transition from a quiet private school to the vigorous life of a great public institution. His position with regard to the other boys of the school was so far difficult, that they knew he came from circles enjoying no distinction in the fashionable world, and that his fortune little corresponded with his rank. To this was superadded the proud dread, lest, through his insufficient preparation, he might be placed below younger and smaller boys. Dr. Drury calmed his apprehensions by assuring him, that his place in the school should not be fixed, until by his diligence he might rank with those of his own age. He committed him to the care of one of the masters as his tutor, and did everything in his power to accustom him to the ways of the school. Notwithstanding this, Byron confesses that for the first year and a half he hated Harrow ; 1 that only in the two last years of his residence was he reconciled to it, after he had risen to be a leader, not so much by his proficiency in the studies of the school, as by his character, i.e. his courage and his independence, as well as by excelling in all games and sports, and from being a very unpopular, had become a very popular boy. To the elder and bigger boys he was undaunted and brave, to the younger kind and amiable, often playing the part of their protector. Against wrong and pretension his attitude was bold and decisive. His intellectual capacity naturally could be hid neither from the pupils nor from the masters, and Dr. Drury was among the first who recognised it. After he had been some time at Harrow, Lord Carlisle, considering it his duty to make some

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

enquiries about him, desired to see Dr. Drury in town : — eI waited on his Lordship/ says Dr. Drury; ‘ his object was to inform me of Lord Byron’s expectations of property when he came of age, which he represented as contracted, and to enquire concerning his abilities. On the former circumstance I made no remark : as to the latter I replied : He has talents, my Lord, which will add lustre to his rank. “ Indeed !” said his Lordship, with a degree of surprise, that, according to my feeling, did not express in it all the satisfaction I expected.’1

Byron’s high estimation of his master was, under such circumstances, very natural. When at a later period they met in London, the master reproachfully asked his former pupil, now become famous, why he had never sent his poems to him : £ Because,’ said Byron, ‘ you are the only man I never wish to read them ;’ but in a few moments he added, 4 What do you think of “The Corsair”? ’ 2 In one of his journals he says, 4 Dr. Drury was the best, the kindest (and yet strict too) friend I ever had, and I look on him still as a father.’3 In another place — in a note to 4 Childe Harold,’ iv. 75 — he speaks of his preceptor as the best and worthiest friend he ever possessed, 4 whose warnings I have remembered but too well though too late, when I have erred, and whose counsels I have but followed when I have done well or wisely. If ever this imperfect record of my feelings towards him should reach his eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with gratitude and veneration, of one who would more gladly boast of having been his pupil, if by more closely following his injunctions he could reflect any honour on his instruction.’

To this beautiful relation between master and pupil,

1 Dr. Drury’s Recollections, Moore’s Life , i. 58, 59.

2 Ibid, i. m 3 Ibid. i. 66.

1801-4.]

BYRON’S DISLIKE TO DR. BUTLER.

Byron’s relation to Dr. Bntler presented, alas ! a complete contrast. In tlie ‘Hours of Idleness,’ which are rich in allusions to the poet’s school and university life, he is described under the character of Pomposus, as ‘ of narrow brain yet of a narrower soul,’ as vain and conceited, pedantic and destitute of social virtues, and the decay of the school is reckoned from his assumption of the head-mastership.1 In maturer years, indeed, Byron deplored this as well as many other attacks. A reconciliation with Dr. Butler, which he intended to commemorate in a later edition of the ‘Hours of Idleness,’ (never, however, called for,) took place in the year 1809, before he departed on his travels to Greece. When Dr. Butler, according to custom, invited the pupils of the higher classes to dinner at the end of the term, it is said that Byron, contrary to all rules Qf propriety, refused the invitation, and when interrogated by Dr. Butler as to the grounds of this strange conduct, is also said to have given him the less courteous than manly and sincere answer : ‘ If you, Dr. Butler, should happen to come into my neighbourhood, when I was staying at Newstead, I certainly should not ask you to dine with me, and therefore feel that I ought not to dine with you.’ 2 Dr. Butler, indeed, assured Moore 3 that this anecdote, communicated by a school companion of the poet, had very little foundation in fact ; but the qualification ‘ very little ’ proves that the story is, notwithstanding, not without some ground. On another occasion, when Byron to the great vexation of Dr. Butler, tore down all the gratings from the window of the hah in the doctor’s house, he answered, on being asked the reason for his conduct, ‘ Because they darkened

1 ‘On a Change of Masters at a great Public School/' Works, vii. 37.

3 Note in 2nd edition of Moore’s Life, i. 88.

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

the hall.’ 1 His conduct was, however, not always in opposition nor destructive, as the following anecdote, omitted in Moore’s narrative, will show. In one of their rebellious moods the boys, wanting to set fire to a classroom, Byron restrained them from the attempt by pointing to the names, written and carved on the desks, of their fathers and grandfathers who had become the ornaments of their country.2

How under such circumstances it would fare with Byron’s progress and studies, may easily be conceived. For a mind of his stamp, Harrow, with its almost exclusive devotion to the dead languages, was not the appropriate place of culture : the too predominant classical element failed to interest him ; and again he was more or less left to his own self-instruction. Horace, by continual repetition, was made odious to him for his whole life. It is the old story exemplified in Shakspeare, Scott, and many others : Byron learnt little Latin and less Greek. Learning and poetry are only to a certain extent compatible with each other in the same mind ; either attaining perfection excludes the other. The poetical translations from Greek and Latin poets in the 4 Hours of Idleness ’ prove nothing to the contrary ; they are mere school exercises. In his Greek school-books the easiest Greek words are underlined with their English equivalents, as if he were not very sure of their meaning.3 He was generally regarded by all his masters as an idle boy, and, as be himself says, 4 no one had the least notion that I should subside into poetry.’4 It was the talent of an orator which was ascribed to him. Dr. Drury5 saw in him the future distinguished parliamentary speaker. This ex-

3 Medwin’s Conversations Kith Lord Byron, p. 85, 2nd edition. 1824.

3 Moore’s Life, i. 88. 4 Moore’s Life, i. 62. 5 Ibid.

BYRON NO STUDENT AT HARROW.

pectation was chiefly founded on the fact, that he chose for his recitations the most passionate pieces, as, for instance, Lear’s address to the storm.1 Harrow, like the other public schools, and even the universities, bestowed little attention on that which would have had pre-eminent attractions for Byron — the modern languages and their literature, the English language not excepted. History and geography were almost entirely left to private diligence. Thus it was that Byron never acquired a facility in speaking French, a defect which in later life he often enough had occasion to deplore. Of German he learnt still less, and the little he acquired he soon forgot. On the other hand, works of history, of biography, of poetry and even of philosophy, he read, both during his school and university days, in profusion, and with his fine memory not without lasting benefit ; but it was a strange medley without plan or purpose.2 Besides Little’s (Moore’s) poems,3 we find in this mass of reading Lord Strangford’s Camoens,4 and the autobiography of Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, the father of the English Deists. He was also, of course, a great reader of novels. The favourite place, to which he was wont to retire with his books and his thoughts, was a venerable elm near a tomb in the churchyard, which by the boys was generally called Byron’s tomb, and under this name is shown to this day.5 From thence he enjoyed a view unique in its way which the situation of Harrow, on one of the most considerable heights which surround the basin of London, afforded

1 Moore’s Life, vii. 50. 2 Ibid. i. 140 et seq.

3 In a letter to Moore (June 9, 1820) he thus humorously speaks of the effects of these poems : ‘ I have just been turning over Little, which I knew hy heart in 1803, being then in my fifteenth summer. Heigho !

I believe all the mischief I have ever done, or sung, has been owing to that confounded book of yours.’ (iv. 326.)

4 Ibid. i. 119. 5 ‘ Lines written beneath an Elm,’ Works, vii. 187.

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

him. He saw, indeed, on the bounds of the horizon, no mountains in the blue distance, no lakes sparkling, no ships dancing on the distant waves of the sea : but before him the green landscape stretched in lovely undulations like a garden, and the battlements and towers of Windsor shone in the evening light, and, veiled in perpetual mist, the domes and spires of London uprose as from a sea, like phantom forms of supernatural magnitude from out the mirage of the desert. In this churchyard the young poet desired to be committed to his mother earth ; and when in the year 1822 his natural daughter Allegra died, he caused her to be buried there.

His Harrow life was for Byron the period of enthusiastic youthful friendships. c My school friendships,’ he says himself in his Journal of 1821, ‘ were with me passions, for I was always violent.’ 1 This may be explained from his natural disposition, from his having no brothers, and from want of the discipline of a well-regulated family; only here he found objects for his affections. To this passion Byron gave the most eloquent expression in his youthful poem (first printed in the year 1832) £ L’Amitie estl’ Amour sans Ailes,’ 2 which, from some unknown motives, he did not admit into the £ Hours of Idleness,’ but in which he has immortalised all the friends of his youth. Of these the greater number were younger than Byron, but he loved to play the part of their protector and Mentor, and to regard them, to a certain extent, as his satellites. With one or two exceptions they all belonged to the aristocracy, and save 'Robert Peel none of them afterwards attained distinction ; several of them died prematurely in early life. Byron, indeed, once said, that almost all his school companions had become famous, but he had formed no friendships there with those whom he cites in proof of this

1 Me ore's Life , i. 63.

3 Ibid. vii. 161.

1801-4.] HIS YOUTHFUL FRIENDSHIPS. 45

assertion. His most intimate friends were Wildman, wlio afterwards became tbe proprietor of Newstead, the Duke of Dorset, who was his fag, Tatersall, Wingfield, Lord Delaware, Lord Clare, and Sir Robert Peel. His friendship with Lord Clare was one of the earliest, the most tender and enduring. 4 I never hear the word 44 Clare,” ’ he writes in his Journal of 1821, 4 without a beating of the heart even now, and I write it with the feelings of 1803-4-5 ad infinitum .’ 1 The accidental meeting of the two friends in the year 1821, on the road between Imola and Bologna, profoundly agitated both, and transported them to the happy days of their youth. His relations with Peel, who was born in the same year with himself, Byron has described in the following words : 4 We were on good terms, but his brother was my intimate friend. There were always great hopes of Peel amongst us all, masters and scholars, and he has not disappointed them. As a scholar he was greatly my superior ; as a declaimer and actor I was reckoned at least his equal ; as a schoolboy out of school I was always in scrapes, and he never ; and in school he always knew his lesson, and I rarely. But when I knew it, I knew it nearly as well. In general information, history, &c., I think I was his superior, as well as of most boys of my standing.’ 2 When Peel was once being unmercifully beaten by an older boy, who claimed the right to fag little Peel, Byron ventured to interrupt the tormentor with the question, how many stripes he meant to inflict ? 4 Why ? ’ returned he, 4 you little rascal, what is that to you ? ’ 4 Because, if you please,’ said