Poetical works

Preface

This Edition of the Works of Lohd Btbon is the first printed in the quarto form. Originally, indeed, many ot the separate Poems which coustitute the volume were issued in this page ; but others first appeared in octavo, and the tendency of recent publication lias been to diminish the size oi the type, till it is now rare, or an expensive luxury, to meet with a really enjoyaole copy of the Poet's Works. This is the distinction of the present ediiion, which separates it from others, that the text is printed in good readable type expressly cast for the purpose, — open and well displayed in an ample quarto page. How different this from the early American editions in narrow twenty-four or thirty-two mo? in miuion type. Yet the receipt of one of these copies, carried to the noble author by an American traveller to the Mediterranean, gave Byeon an unaffected pleasure. The sight, doubtless, stirred his imagination, suggesting to his mind new generations of readers in a remote land, insensible to the difficulties or prejudices which beset him at home. But however this may have been, Byron always regarded the land of Washington with peculiar admiration. Every reader will remember his tribute to Washington in the fourth Canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage : —

Can tyrants but by tyrants conquer'd be,

And Freedom find no champion and no child,

Such as Columbia saw arise when she

Sprung forth a Pallas, arm'd and undefiled ?

Or must such minds be nourish'd in the wild,

Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar

Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled

On infant Washington ? Has Earth ao more

Such seeds within her breast or Europe no such shore ?

— the coupling of Washington with Leonidas, and other tributes to his fame in Don Juan. Tiiere is a yet more particular passage in one of Byron's Diaries in which he records the visit of a young American. " Whenever," he writes, " an American requests to see me (which is not unfrequently), I comply, urstly, because I respect a people who acquired their freedom by their firmness without excess ; and, secondly, because these trans- Atlantic visits, ' few and far between,' make me feel as if talking with posterity from the otlier side of the Styx. In a century or two the new English and Spanish Atlantides will be masters of the old countries, in all probability, as Greece and Europe overcame their mother Asia in the older or earlier ages, as they are called."

ii PREFACE.

Such was the feeling of Lord Bteox towards America where his popularity haa undergone no change since his brilliant geuia'? Qrst dawned upon the world. The critics for a while ceased writing of liiiii, having perhaps exhausted the tlieme and needing new subjects ; but his fame has constantly been kept fresh in the popular circulation of his Works. Byrox is still the poet of youth and enthusiasm, of the natural emotions of the heart exhibited in that period of life which has more readers of poetry than the rest of the seven ages of man combined. As an artist his Poems challenge the admiration of all ages ; his classic descriptions in Childe Harold find their way to the scholar's library ; his Dramas and Tales of action and sentiment engage the attention of the most careless readers ; while the Horatian charm of his wit and sentiment is a constant delight to the accomplished student of the world and its affairs.

Of the merit and interest of the productions of the author of " Childe Harold," " The Corsair," "Manfred," " Don Juan," and a host of others, included in the series '•familiar to our mouths as household words," it is unnecessary at this day to speak. After the lapse of half a century, the extraordinary popularity of the writings of Byron in their own day is continued to new gCLcrations of readers, who delight to acknowledge his rare poetical powers, the fervour of his imagination, his kindling eloquence, his portrayal of character, his animated description of natural scenery, his wit, humor, pathos, his varied pictures of human life in England, Italy and Greece, his unfailing sympathy with liberty and freedom.

The life of the Poet, accompanying this Edition, is abridged from the best account of Byron, the ample life by his friend and literary executor, Thomas Mooee. The Notes are mostly the Poet's own from the original Editions. The text is that of Murray's Standard Edition.

BIOGRAPHY OF LORD BYRON.

ABRIDGED FROM THE "LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE'

By THOMAS MOORE rnE family of Lord Byron traces its descent to 'be Byrons of Normandy, who came to England with 'William the Conqueror. In Doomsday-book the name of Ralph de Burun ranks high among the tenants of land in Nottinghamshire ; and in the succeeding reigns, under the title of Lords of Horestan Castle, we find his decendants holding consideri^ile possessions in Derbyshire, to which afterward, .n the time of Edward I., were added the lands of Hochdale in Lancashire. Its antiquity however was aot the only distinction by which the name of Byron Tvas recommended to its inheritor; those i^ersonal merits and accomplishments which form the best ornament of a genealogy seem to have been displayed in CO ordinary degree by some of his ancestors. At the siege of Calais under Edward III., and on the memoral)le fields of Cressy, Bosworth and Marston Moor, the Byrons reaped honors both of rank and fame of which theiryoung descendant has shown himself proudly conscious. In the reign of Henr/ VIII., upon the dissolution of the monasteries, the church and priory of Newstead, vnth the lands adjoining, were added to the possessions of the Byron family. These spoils of the ancient religion were conferred upon the grand-nephew of the gallant soldier wlio fought by the side of Richmond at Bosworth, and was distinguished as " Sir John Byron the Little with the great beard." At the coronation of James I., we find another representative of the family selected as an object of royal favor, — being made on this occasion a Knight of the Bath. From the following reign (Cliarles I.,) the nobility of the Byrons dates its origin. In theyear 1643, Sir .John Byron, great grandson of him who succeeded to the rich domains of Newstead, was created Baron Byron of Rochdale, and sckU-m has a title been conferred for more high and honorable services than those of this nobleman. Through the history of the Civil Wars, we trace his Dame in connection with the varying fortunes of the king, and find him faithful, persevering, and disinterested to the last.

Such are a few rf the gallant and distinguished personages of this noble house. By the maternal side also Lord Byron had to pride himself on a line of ancestry as illustrious as any that Scotland can boast, his mother who was one of the Gordons ofGight, having been a descendant of that Sir William Gordon, who was the third son of the Earl of Huntley by the daughter of James I.

After the eventful period of the Civil Wars the celebrity of the name appears to have died away for near a century. About the year 1750, the shipwreck and sufierings of Mr. Byron, afterward Admiral, (the grandfather of the subject of these pages ), awakenined no small degree the attention and sympathy of the public. Not long after, a less innocent notoriety attached itself to two other members of the family — one, the grand-uncle of the poet, and the other, his father. The former, in tlie year 1T65, stood his trial before the House of Pe(>r3 for killing, in a duel, or rather scuffle, his relation and neighbor, 'Mt. Chaworth ; and the latter, having carried ofi' to tlie Continent the wife of Lord Carmarthen, on the marquis obtaining a divorce from the lady, was married to her. Of this short union one daughter only was the issue, Augusta Byron, afterwards the wife of Colonel Leigh.

The first wife of the father of the poet having died in 1784, he, in the following year, married Miss Catharine Gordon, only child and heiress of George Gordon, Esq., of Gight. In addition to the estate of Gight, this lady possessed no inconsiderable property, and it was known to be solely with a view of relieving himself from his debts that Jlr. Byron paid his addresses to her. Soon after the mar riage they removed to Scotland. The creditors ot Mr. Byron now lost no time in pressing their demands, and not only was the whole of her ready money, bank shares, fisheries, etc., sacrificed to satisfy them, but a large sum raised by mortgage on the estate for the same purpose. In the luimmer of 1786 she and her husband proceeded to France and in the following year the estate of Gight itself was sold and the purchase money applied to thi

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

payment of debts, with the exception of a small sum vested in trustees for the use of Jlrs. Bp-ou.

From France Mrs. Byron returned to England at the close of the year 1787, and on the 22d of January, 1788, gave birth, in Holies-Street, London, to her first and only child, George Gordon Byron. From London she proceeded with her infant to Scotland, and in the year 1790, took up her residence in Aberdeen, where she was soon after joined by Captain Byron. Here for a short time they lived together, but their union being by no means happy, a separation took place between them, and Mrs. Byron removed to lodgings at the other end of the street. Notwithstanding this schism, they continued to visit each other ; but the elements of discord were strong on both sides, and their separation was, at last, complete and final. Captain Byron would frequently, however, accost the nurse and his son in their walks, and ex^jrcssed a wish to have the child for a day or two, on a visit with l;im. To this request Mrs. Byron at last acceded, on the representation of the nurse, that " if he kept the boy one night, he would not do so another." The event proved as the nurse had predicted, for she was told by Captain Byron the nest morning, that he had quite enough of his young visitor, and she might take him home again. It is certain that as a child, Byron's temper was violent, or rather sullenly passionate. Even when in petticoats, he showed the same uncontrollable spirit with his nurse which he afterward exhibited, when an author, with his critics. But notwithstanding this th^re was in his disposition, as appears from the concurrent testimony of all who were employed about him, a mixture of affectionate sweetness and playfulness, by which it was impossible not to be attached, and which rendered him then, as in his riper years, easily manageable by those who loved and understood him sufliciently. The female attendant of whom we have spoken, as well as her sister, Mary Gay, who succeeded her, had gained an influence over his mind against which he very rarely rebelled ; while his mother, whose capricious excesses, both of anger and of fondness, left her httle hold on either his respect or affection, was indebted solely to his sense of filial duty for any portion of authority she was ever able to acquire over him.

By an accident which, it is said, occurred at the time of his birth, one of his feet was twisted out of its natural position, and this defect (chiefly from the contrivances employed to remedy it) was a source of much pain and inconvenience to him, during his earlier years. The expedients first made use of to restore theliml) to shape were adopted by the advice of the celebrated sur^^eon, John Hunter; and his nurse, to whom fell the task of putting on these machines o- bandages at bedtime, would often sing him to sleep, or tell him stories or legends, in which like most other children, he took great delight It is a remarkable fact, indeed that through the care of tliis woman, who was her.self of a very religious disposition, he obtained a far earlier and more intimate acquaintance with the Sacred Writings than falls to the lot of most young people.

The malformation of his foot was, even at this childish age, a subject on which he showed peculiar sensitiveness. Sometimes, however, as in after-life, he could talk indifferently, and even jestingly, of this lameness ; there being another little boy in the neighborhood, who had a similar defect in one of his feet, Byron would sometimes say, laughingly, " Come and see the twa laddies with the twa club feet going up the Broad-Street."

Captain Byron now determined to retire to France, and preWous to his departure he returned to Aberdeen, which he had left sometime after his (juarrel with his wife. As on the former occasion, hia object was to entreat more money from the unfortunate woman whom he had beggared; and so far was hu successful, that during his last visit, she contrived to furnish him with the money neccssaj^' for hi? journey to Valenciennes, where in the following year 1791, he died. Though latterly Mrs. Byron would not see her husband, she entertained a strong affection for him to the last, and when the intelligenc* of his death arrived her grief bordered on distrac tion, and her shrieks were so loud as to be heard in the street She was indeed a woman full of passionate extremes and her sorrow and affection were bur,-;ts as much of passion as of feeling.

When not quite five years old, young Bvron was sent to a day-school in Aberdeen, taught by Mr. Bowers, and he remained there with son)e interruiJtions, during a twelvemonth. The terms of this school were only five shillings a quarter for reading, and it was evidently less with a view to the boy's advance in learning than as a cheap mode of keep ing him quiet, that his mother had sent him there. Of the progress of his infantine studies at Aberdeen, Lord Byron gives some particulars in one of his journals. " I was sent at five years old or earlier, to a school kept by Mr. Bowers. It was a school for both sexes. I learned little there, except to repeat by rote the first lesson of monosyllables, without acquiring a letter. Whenever proof was made of my progress at home, I repeated these words with the most rapid fluency, but on tiuning over a new leaf, I continued to repeat them, so th.at th« narrow boundaries of my first year's accomplish mcnts were detected, and my intellects consigned to a new preceptor. lie was a very devout, clever little clergyman, named Boss, afterwards ministei of one of the kirks. Under him I made astonishing progress, and I recollect to this day his mild

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

manners and good-natured painstaking. The moment I could read, my grand passion was history ; and why, I know not, but I was particularly taken with the battle of Lake Regillus in the first Roman history put into my hands. Pour years ago, when standing on the heights of Tusculum, and looking down ujion the little round lake that was once Regillus, and which dots the immense expanse below, I remembered my young enthusiasm and my old instructor. Afterward I had a very serious, saturnine, but kind young man, named Paterson, for a tutor. He was the son of my shoemaker, but a good scholar, as is common with the Scotch. He was a rigid Presbyterian also. Witli him I began Latin in Ruddiman's grammar, and continued till I went to the grammar school ; where I threaded all the classes to t\icfimrlh, when I was recalled to England by the demise of my uncle. I acquired this handwriting, which I can scarcely read myself, under the fair copies of Jlr. Duncan of the same city. The grammar school might consist of a hundred and fifty of all ages under age."

Byron was much more anxious to distinguish himself among his school-fellows by prowess in all roanly sports and exercises, than by advancement in learning. Though quick, when he had any study that pleased him, he was in general very low in the class, nor seemed aml>itious of being promoted any higher.

In the summer of 1796, after an attack of scarletfever, he was removed by his mother for change of air into the Highlands ; and it was either at this time, or in the following year, that they took up their residence at a farm-house in the neighborhood of Ballater, a favorite summer resort for wealth and gayety, about forty miles up the Dec from Aberdeen. Within a short distance of this house, all those features of wildness and beauty, which mark the course of the Dee through the Highlands, may be commanded. "From this period," he says, "I date my love of mountainous countries. I can never forget the effect, a few years afterward in England, of the only thing I had long seen, even in miniature, of a mountain, in the Malvern Hills."

It was about this time, when he was not quite eight years old, that a feeling, jjartaking more of the nature of love than it is easy to believe possible in so young a child, took, according to his own account, entire possession of his thoughts, and showed how early, in this passion, as in most others, the sen- Bibilities of his nature were awakened. The name of the object of this attachment was Mary Dufi", and a passage from a journal, kept by him in 1813, will show how freshly, after an interval of seventeen years, all the circumstances of this early love still lived in his memory. " I have been thinking lately I goo i deal of Mary Duff. How very odd that I should have been bo utterly, devotedly fond of thai girl, at an age when I could neither feel passion, nor know the meaning of the word. And the effect ! — my mother used always to rally me about this childish amour ; and at last, many years after, when I was sixteen, she told me one day, ' Oh, Byron, I have had a letter from Edinburgh, from Jliss Abercromby, and your old sweetheart, Jlary Duff, is married to a Mr. Coe ;' — and what was my answer ? I really cannot explain or account for my feelings at that moment ; but they nearly threw me into convulsions."

By the death of the grandson of the old lord at Corsica in 1794, the only claimant that had hitherto stood between little George and the peerage, was removed ; and the increased importance which this event conferred upon them was felt, not only by Mrs. Byron, but by the young future Baron of Newstead. The title of which he thus early anticipated the enjoyment, devolved to him but too soon. Had he been left to struggle on for ten years longer as plain George Byron, there can be little doubt that his character would have been, in many respects, the better for it. In the year 1798, his grand-uncle, the fifth Lord BjTon, died at Newstead Abbey, having passed the latter years of his life in a state of austere, almost savage seclusion. The cloud which, to a certain degree undeservedly, his unfortunate affray with Mr. Chaworth had thrown upon his character, was deepened and confirmed by the eccentric and unsocial course of life to which he afterward betook himself. The only companions of his solitude — besides a colony of crickets, which he is said to have amused himself with rearing and feeding — were Old Murray, afterward a favorite servant of hia successor, and a female domestic. Though living in this sordid and solitary style, he was frequently much distressed for money ; and one of the most serious injuries inflicted by him upon the property, was his sale of the family estate of Rochdale in Lancashire. On account of his inability to make out a title, proceedings were instituted during the young lord's minority for its recovery, which after some years were successful. At Newstead the mansion and the grounds around it were allowed to fall hopelessly into decay.

On the death of his grand-uncle. Lord Byron, having become a ward in Chancery, the Earl of Carlisle, who was in some degree connected with the family, was appointed his guardian ; and in the autumn of 1798, Mrs. Byron and her son, attended by theii fiiithful Mary Gay, left Aberdeen for Newstead On their arrival, Mrs. Bj-ron, with the ho}oe of having his lameness removed, placed her son under the care of a person who professed the cure of such cases, at Nottingham. The name of this man, who appears to have bera a mere empirical pretender,

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

was Lavender, and the manner in which he is said to have proceeded, was first by rubbing the font with oil, and then twisting the limb forcibly around, and screwing it in a wooden-machine. That the ooy might not lose ground in his education, during this interval he received lessons in Latin from a respcctal)le schoolmaster, Mr. liogcrs,who read parts of Virgil and Cicero with him, and represents his proficiency to have been, for his age, considerable. Finding but little benefit from the Nottingham practitioner, jVIrs. Byron, in the summer of the year 1799, thought it best to remove her boy to London, where at the suggestion of Lord Carlisle, he was put under the care of Dr. Baillie. It being an object, too, to place him at some quiet school, where the means adajjted for the cure of his iufirmity might be more easily attended to, the establishment of Dr. Glennie, at Dulwich, was chosen for that purpose.

Mrs. Byron, who had remained behind a short time at Kewstead, now came to town ; and an instrument was constructed under Dr. Baillie's direction, for straightening the limb of the child. Moderation in all athletic exercises was, of course, pre- Bcribed ; but Dr. Glennie found it by no means easy to enforce compliance with this rule, as though sufficiently quiet when with him in his study, no sooner was the boy released for play, than he showed as BUich amljition to e.xcel in all such games as the most roljust youth in school. It was proliably duiing one of the vacations of this year that the boyish love for his young cousin. Miss Parker, to which he attributes tbe glory of having first inspired him with poetry, took possession of his fancy. " My first dash into poetry," he says, " was as early as 180Q. It was the ebullition of a passion for my first cousin, Margaret Parker, one of the most beautiful of evanescent beings. I have long forgotten the verses, but it would be ditlicuU for me to forget her — -her dark eyes — her long eye-lashes — her completely Greek cast t)f face and figure ! I was then about twelve — she ratlier older, perhaps a year ; she died a year or two afterward, in consequence of a fall, which injured her spine, and induced cousumjition. I knew nothing of her illness, being at Harrow in the country, till she was gone. Some years after I made an attemjit at an elegy, a very dull one."

When he had been nearly two years under the , tuition of Dr. Glennie, his mother, discontented at the slowness of his progress — although slie herself, by her interference, was the cause of it — entreated so urgently of Lord Carlisle to have him removed to a public school, that her wish was at length acceded to ; and " accordingly," says Dr. Glennie, " to Harrow he went, as little prepared as it is natural to suppose from two years of elementary instruction, thwarted b_y every art that could estrange the mind of youth from preceptor, from school, and from all serious study." To a shy disposition, such as Byron's was in his youth, a transition from a quiet establishment, Uke that of Dulmch Grove, to the bustle of a great public school, was sufficiently trying. We find from his own account that, for the first year and a half, he hated Harrow. The acti\-ity however, and sociableness of his nature soon conquered this repugnance ; and from being, as he says, " a most unpopular boy," he rose at length to be a leader in all the sports, schemes, and mischief of the school. At Harrow Lord Byron was remarked for the great extent and readiness of his general information, but in all other respects idle, capable of great sudden exertions, but of few continuous drudgeries. His qualities, at this time, seemed much more oratorical and martial, than poetical, and it was the opinion of Dr. Durry, the head master, that he would turn out an orator. His first verses (in English) were received but coolly.

Byron's ardent temperament led him to contract friendsliips among his companions, which from their warmth might almost be described as passions. When he met one of his school-fellows in after-life, he was aflfected almost to tears by the recollections which rushed upon him. Notwithstanding his general Iiabits of play and idleness, there were moments when the youthful poet would retire thoughtfully within himself and give way to fits of musing uncongenial with the usual cheerfulness of his age. They show a tomb in the church-yard at Harrow, commanding a view over Windsor, where he used to sit for hours, wrapped up in thought.

We come now to an event, which according to his own deliberate persuasion, exercised a lasting influence over the whole of his subsequent character and career. It was in the year 180:!, that he conceived an attachment, which sunk so deep into his mind as to give a color to all his future life. On leaving Bath, Mrs. Byron took up her abode in lodgings at Nottingham — Newstead Abbey being at that time let to Lord Grey de Ruthen — and during the Harrow vacations of this year she was joined there by her son. So attached was he to Newstead that he was continually in its neighborhood. An intimacy soon sprang up between him and his noble tenant, and an apartment in the Abbey was henceforth always at his service. To the family of Jliss Chaworth,who resided at Annesley, in the neighborhood, he had been made known some time before in London, and he now renewed his acquaintance with them. The young heiress possessed much i)ersonal beauty, with a disposition the most amiable and attaching. Byron at this time was in his nineteenth year, and the object of his adoration two years older. The six short summer weeks which he now passed in her company, were suflBcient to lay the founda-

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

tion of a feeling for all life. At first lie used to return to Newstead Abbey every night, but being induced one evening to remain at Annesley, lie stayed there during the rest of his visit. His time here was mostly passed in riding with Miss Chaworth and her cousin ; sitting in idle reverie, as was his custom, pulling at his handkerchief, or in firing at a mark. During all this time he had the pain of kno'n'ing that the heart of her he loved was occupied by another — that, as he himself expresses it,

" Her sighs were not for him ; to her he was Even as a brother — but no more !"

Neither is it probable that, had even her affections been disengaged. Lord Byron would have been selected as the olyect of them. Miss Chaworth looked upon him as a mere sch.oolboy. He was in his manners, too, at that period, rough and odd, and by no means popular among girls of his own age. If at any moment he had flattered himself with the hope of being loved by her, a circumstance mentioned in his " memoranda," as one of the most painful humiliations to which the defect in his foot had exposed him, must have let the truth in, with the dreadful certainty, upon his heart. He was either told of, or overheard. Miss Chaworth saying to her maid, " Do you think I could care anything for that lame boy ?" This speech, as he himself described it, was like a shot through his heart. Though late at night when he heard it, he instantly darted out of the house, and scarcely knowing whither he ran, never stopped, till he found himself at Newstead. In one of the most interestins of his poems, " The Dream," he has drawn a picture of this youthful love. In the follomng year, 1805, Miss Chaworth was married to his successful rival, Jlr. .John Winters.

The general character which Byron bore among the masters at Harrow was that of an idle boy, who would never learn anything ; and as far as regarded his tasks in school, this reputation was, by his own avowal, not ill-founded. But notwithstanding his backwardness in mere verbal scholarship, on which so large and precious a portion of life is wasted, in all that general and miscellaneous knowledge, which is alone useful in the world, he was making rapid progress. The list, which he has left to us, of the books which he had read before he was fifteen years of age, is such, from its variety and extent, as almost to startle belief

In the month of October, 1803, he was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, and his feelings on the change to this new scene of life are thus described by himself: — " AMien I first went up to college it was a new and a heavy-hearted scene for me : first, I so much disliked leaving Harrow, that though it was time (I being seventeen), it broke my very rest for the last quarter, with counting the daya that remained. I always hnted Harrow till the last year and a half, but then I liked it. Secondly, I wished to go to Oxford, and not to Cambridge. Thirdly, I was so completely alone m this new world, that it half broke my spirits. My companions were not unsocial, but the contrary — lively, hospitable, of rank and fortune, and gay far beyond my gayety. I mingled with, and dined and supped, etc., with them ; but, I know not how, it was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of my life to feel that I was no longer a boy." To remain long, however, without attaching himself, was not Byron's nature, and he soon formed friendships at college which were as remarkable for their warmth and romance as any of his schoolboy attachments.