SECOND PERIOD OF

CHAPTER V.

AUTHORSHIP-LIFE

IN LONDON

CORRESPONDENCE WITH SCOTT.

THE deaths of Long, Wingfield, Eddlestone, Matthews, and of his mother, had narrowed the circle of the poet's early companions; and, though he talks of each loss in succession as if it had been that of an only friend, we can credit a degree of loneliness, and excuse a certain amount of bitterness in the feelings with which he returned to London. He had at this time seen very little of the only relative whom he ever deeply loved. He and his half-sister met casually in 1804, and again in the following year. After her marriage (1807), Byron writes from abroad (1810), regretting having distressed her by his quarrel with Lord Carlisle. In 1811 she is mentioned as reversionary heiress of his estate. Towards the close of 1813, there are two allusions which testify to their mutual affection. Next we come to the interesting series of letters of 1815-16, published with the Memoir of Mr. Hodgson, to whom, along with Hobhouse and Scrope Davies, his lordship in a will and codicil leaves the management of his property. Harness appears frequently at this period among his surviving intimates: to this list there was shortly added another. In speaking of his Bards and Reviewers, the author makes occa

sional reference to the possibility of his being called to account for some of his attacks. His expectation was realized by a letter from the poet Moore, dated Dublin, Jan. 1, 1810, couched in peremptory terms, demanding to know if his lordship avowed the authorship of the insults contained in the poem. This letter, being entrusted to Mr. Hodgson, was not forwarded to Byron abroad; but shortly after his return, he received another in more conciliatory terms, renewing the complaint. To this he replied in a stiff but manly letter, that he had never meant to insult Mr. Moore; but that he was, if necessary, ready to give him satisfaction. Moore accepting the explanation, somewhat querulously complained of his advances to friendship not being received. Byron again replied that much as he would feel honoured by Mr. Moore's acquaintance, be being practically threatened by the irate Irishman could hardly make the first advances. This called forth a sort of apology; the correspondents met at the house of Mr. Rogers, and out of the somewhat awkward circumstances, owing to the frankness of the "noble author," as the other ever after delights to call him, arose the life-long intimacy which had such various and lasting results. Moore has been called a false friend to Byron, and a traitor to his memory. The judgment is somewhat harsh, but the association between them was unfortunate. Thomas Moore had some sterling qualities. His best satirical pieces are inspired by a real indignation, and lit up by a genuine humour. He was also an exquisite musician in words, and must have been occasionally a fascinating companion. But he was essentially a worldling, and, as such, a superficial critic. He encouraged the shallow affectations of his great friend's weaker work, and recoiled in alarm before the daring

defiance of his stronger. His criticisms on all Byron wrote and felt seriously on religion are almost worthy of a conventicle. His letters to others on Manfred, and Cain, and Don Juan, are the expression of sentiments which he had never the courage to state explicitly to the author. On the other hand, Byron was attracted beyond reasonable measure by his gracefully deferential manners, paid too much regard to his opinions, and overestimated his genius. For the subsequent destruction of the memoirs, urged by Mr. Hobhouse and Mrs. Leigh, he was not wholly responsible; though a braver man, having accepted the position of his lordship's literary legatee, with the express understanding that he would see to the fulfilment of the wishes of his dead friend, would have to the utmost resisted their total frustration.

Meanwhile, on landing in England, the poet had placed in the hands of Mr. Dallas the Hints from Horace, which he intended to have brought out by the publisher Cawthorne. Of this performance-an inferior edition, relieved by a few strong touches, of the Bards and Reviewers-Dallas ventured to express his disapproval. "Have you no other result of your travels?" he asked ; and got for answer, "A few short pieces; and a lot of Spenserian stanzas; not worth troubling you with, but you are welcome to them." Dallas took the remark literally, saw they were a safe success, and assumed to himself the merit of the discovery, the risks, and the profits. It is the converse of the story of Gabriel Harvey and the Faery Queene. The first two cantos of Childe Harold bear no comparison with the legend of Una and the Red Cross Knight; but there was no mistake about their proof of power, their novelty, and adaptation to a public taste as yet unjaded by elo

quent and imaginative descriptions of foreign scenery, manners, and climates.

The poem-after being submitted to Gifford, in defiance of the protestations of the author, who feared that the reference might seem to seek the favour of the august Quarterly-was accepted by Mr. Murray, and proceeded through the press, subject to change and additions, during the next five months. The Hints from Horace, fortunately postponed and then suspended, appeared posthumously in 1831. Byron remained at Newstead till the close of October, negotiating with creditors and lawyers, and engaged in a correspondence about his publications, in the course of which he deprecates any identification of himself and his hero, though he had at first called him Childe Byron. "Instruct Mr. Murray," he entreats, "not to call the work 'Child of Harrow's Pilgrimage,' as he has done to some of my astonished friends, who wrote to inquire after my sanity, as well they might." At the end of the month we find him in London, again indulging in a voyage in "the ship of fools," in which Moore claims to have accompanied him; but at the same time exhibiting remarkable shrewdness in reference to the affairs of his household. In February, 1812, he again declares to Hodgson his resolve to leave England for ever, and fix himself in "one of the fairest islands of the East." On the 27th he made in the House of Lords his speech on a Bill to introduce special penalties against the frame-breakers of Nottingham. This effort, on which he received many compliments, led among other results to a friendly correspondence with Lord Holland. On April 21st of the same year, he again addressed the House on behalf of Roman Catholic Emancipation; and in June, 1813, in favour of Major Cartwright's petition.

On all these occasions, as afterwards on the continent, Byron espoused the Liberal side of politics. But his rôle was that of Manlius or Cæsar, and he never fails to remind us that he himself was for the people, not of them. His latter speeches, owing partly to his delivery, blamed as too Asiatic, were less successful. To a reader the three seem much on the same level. They are clever, but evidently set performances, and leave us no ground to 'suppose that the poet's abandonment of a parliamentary career was a serious loss to the nation.

On the 29th of February the first and second cantos of Childe Harold appeared. An early copy was sent to Mrs. Leigh, with the inscription: "To Augusta, my dearest sister and my best friend, who has ever loved me much better than I deserved, this volume is presented by her father's son and most affectionate brother, B." The book ran through seven editions in four weeks. The effect of the first edition of Burns, and the sale of Scott's Lays, are the only parallels in modern poetic literature to this success. All eyes were suddenly fastened on the author, who let his satire sleep, and threw politics aside, to be the romancer of his day and for two years the darling of society. Previous to the publition, Mr. Moore confesses to have gratified his lordship with the expression of the fear that Childe Harold was too good for the age. Its success was due to the reverse being the truth. It was just on the level of its age. Its flowing verse, defaced by rhymical faults perceptible only to finer ears, its prevailing sentiment, occasional boldness relieved by pleasing platitudes, its half affected rakishness, here and there elevated by a rush as of morning air, and its frequent richness-not yet, as afterwards, splendour of description, were all appreciated by the