so indelicate as to express a wish that a
man of understanding should profess ought
that is not supported by his own convic-
tions. But, not to proclaim loudly opinions
by which general feelings are harrowed,
and which cannot possibly be attended
with any good to the proclaimer, — on the
contrary, most likely with much injury,— is
not only compatible with the best under-
standing, but is in some measure the result
of it. Mr. Murray thinks that your scep-
tical stanzas will injure the circulation of
your work. I will not dissemble that I am
not of his opinion— I suspect it will rather
sell the better for them : but I am of opinion,
my dear Lord Byron, that they will hurt
you ; that they will prove new stumbling-
blocks in your road of life. At three and
twenty, oh ! deign to court, what you may
most honourably court, the general suffrage



LIFE OP LORD BYRON. 161

of your country. It is a pleasure that will
travel with you through the long portion
of life you have now before you. It is not
subject to that satiety which so frequently
attends most other pleasures. Live you
must, and many, many years ; and that suf-
frage would be nectar and ambrosia to your
mind for all the time you live. To gain it,
you have little more to do than show that
you wish it ; and to abstain from outraging
the sentiments, prepossessions, or, if you
will, prejudices of those who form the ge-
nerally estimable part of the community.
Your boyhood has been marked with some
eccentricities, but at three and twenty what
may you not do ? Your Poem, when I first
read it, and it is the same now, appeared
to me an inspiration to draw forth a glo-
rious finish. Yield a little to gain a great
deal ; what a foundation may you now lay
for lasting fame, and love, and honour !
What jewels to have in your grasp! I

M



IQZ RECOLLECTIONS OP THE

beseech you, seize the opportunity. I am
glad you have agreed to appear in the title-
page. It is impossible to remain an instant
unknown as the author, or to separate the
Pilgrim from the Traveller. This being
the case, I am convinced that your name
alone is far preferable to giving it under
your description as " the author of English
Bards and Scotch Reviewers ;" because,
in the first place, your rank dignifies the
page, whilst the execution of the work re-
flects no common lustre on your rank ; and,
in the next place, you avoid appearing to
challenge your old foes, which you would
be considered as doing by announcing the
author as thek Satirist ; and certainly your
best defiance of them in future will be
never to notice either their censure or their
praise. You will observe that the intro-
ductory stanza which you sent me is not
printed : Mr. Murray had not received it
when this sheet was printed as a specimen ;



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 163

it will be easily put into its place. As you
read the proofs you will, perhaps, find a
line here and there which wants polishing,
and a word which may be advantageously
changed. If any strike me I shall, without
hesitation, point them out for your consi-
deration. In page 7, four lines from the
bottom,

' Yet deem him not from this with breast of steely

is not only rough to the ear, but the phrase
appears to me inaccurate: the change of
him to ye, and with to his might set it right.
In the last line of the following stanza,
page 8, you use the word central: I doubt
whether even poetical license will autho-
rize your extending the idea of your pro-
posed voyage to seas beyond the equator,
when the Poem no where shows that you
had it in contemplation to cross, or even
approach, within many degrees, the Sum-
mer tropic line. I am not sure, however,

M2



164 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE

that this is not hypercriticism, and it is al-
most a pity to alter so beautiful a line*.
I beheve I told you that my friend Waller
Wright wrote an Ode for the Duke of
Gloucester's Installation as Chancellor of
the University at Cambridge. Some of
the leading men of Granta have had it
printed at the University Press. He has
given me two copies, and begs I will make
one of them acceptable to you, only ob-
serving that the motto was not of his
chusing. I believe the sheet may be
overweight for one frank, I shall therefore
unsew it, and put it under two covers, not
doubting that you will think it v/orthy of
re-stitching when you receive it. I gave
Murray your note on M * *, to be placed
in the page with Wingfield. He must
have been a very extraordinary young man,

* It is true the travellers did not cross the line, but
before Lord Byron left England, India had been thought
of.



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 165

and I am sincerely sorry for H**, for
whom I have felt an increased regard ever
since I heard of his intimacy with my son
at Cadiz, and that they were mutually
pleased. I lent his miscellany the other
day to Wright, who speaks highly of the
poetical talent displayed in it. I will search
again for the lofty genius you ascribe to
Kirke White : I cannot help thinking I have
allowed him all his merit. I agree that
there was much cant in his religion, sincere
as he was. This is a pity, for religion
has no greater enemy than cant. As to
genius, surely he and Chatterton ought not
to be named in the same day ; but, as I
said, I will look again. I do not know how
Blackett's posthumous stock goes off; I
have not seen or heard from Pratt since
you left town. Be that, however, as it
may, I still boldly deny being in any degree
accessary to his murder.— George Byron
left us in the beginning of the week."



166 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE

" P. S. Casting my eyes again over the
printed stanzas, something struck me to be
amiss in the last line but one of page 6—

' Nor sought a friend to counsel or condole.^

From the context I think you must have
written, or meant, — I have not the MS. —

' Nor sought he friend,' &c.

otherwise grammar requires — ' Or seeks a
friend,' &c.

These are straws on the surface, easily
skimmed off."

Previous to receiving this letter, Lord
Byron had written to Mr. Murray, forbid-
ding him to show the manuscript of Childe
Harold to Mr. GifFord, though he had no
objection to letting it be seen by any one
else ; and he was exceedingly angry when
he found that his instructions had come too
late. He was afraid that Mr. GifFord would



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 167

think it a trap to extort his applause, or a
hint to get a favourable review of it in the
Quarterly. He was very anxious to re-
move any impression of this kind that
might have remained on his mind. His
praise, he said, meant nothing, for he could
do no other than be civil to a man who had
extolled him in every possible manner. His
expressions about Mr. Murray's deserts for
such an obsequious squeezing out of appro-
bation, and deprecation of censure, were
quaint, and though strong, were amusing
enough. Still, however, the praise, all un-
meaning as he seemed to consider it, had
the effect of strengthening my arguments
concerning the delay of the " Hints from
Horace ;" and when, in a letter soon after-
wards, I said, *' Cawthorn's business detains
him in the North, and I will manage to de-
tain the ' Hints,' first from, and then in, the
press — ' the Romaunt' shall come forth
first," I found, so far from opposing my



168 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE

intention, he concurred with and forwarded
it. He acknowledged that I was right, and
begged me to manage, so that Cawthorn
should not get the start of Murray in the
publication of the two works.

I cannot express the great anxiety I
felt to prevent Lord Byron from publicly
committing himself, as holding decidedly
sceptical opinions. There were several
stanzas which showed the leaning of
his mind ; but, in one, he openly acknow-
ledged his disbelief of a future state ; and
against this I made my stand. I urged
him by every argument I could devise, not
to allow it to appear in print ; and I had the
great gratification of finding him yield to
my entreaties, if not to my arguments. It
has, alas ! become of no importance, that
these lines should be pubhshed to the world
— they are exceedingly moderate compared
to the blasphemy with which his suicidal
pen has since blackened the fame that I



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 159

was SO desirous of keeping fair, till the time
came when he should love to have it fair—
a period to which I fondly looked forward,
as not only possible, but near. The origi-
nal stanza ran thus —

" Frown not upon me, churlish Priest ! that I
Look not for life, where hfe may never be;
I am no sneerer at thy Phantasy ;
Thou pitiest me, — alas ! I envy thee,
Thou bold discoverer in an unknown sea,
Of happy isles and happier tenants there ;
I ask thee not to prove a Sadducee.
Still dream of Paradise, thou know'st not where,
But lov'st too well to bid thine erring brother share.

The stanza that he at length sent me
to substitute for this, was that beautiful
one —

*' Yet if, as hoHest men have deemed, there be
A land of souls beyond that sable shore.
To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee,
And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore,
How sweet it were in concert to adore.



170 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE

With those who made our mortal labours light !
To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more !
Behold each mighty shade reveal'd to sight.
The Bactrian, Samian Sage, and all who taught the
right !"

The stanza which follows this, (the 9th of
the 2d Canto), and which applies the sub-
ject of it to the death of a person for whom
he felt affection, was written subsequently,
when the event to which he alludes took
place ; and was sent to me only just in time
to have it inserted. He made a slight
alteration in it, and enclosed me another
copy, from which the fac-simile is taken
that accompanies this volume.

As a note to the stanzas upon this subject,
beginning with the 3d, and continuing to
the 9th, Lord Byron had originally written
a sort of prose apology for his opinions ;
which he sent to me for consideration,
whether it did not appear more like an
attack than a defence of religion, and had



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 171

therefore better be left out. I had no
hesitation in advising its omission, though
for the reasons above stated, I now insert
it here.

" In this age of bigotry, when the puritan and
priest have changed places, and the wretched
catholic is visited with the * sins of his fathers,'
even unto generations far beyond the pale of
the commandment, the cast of opinion in these
stanzas will doubtless meet with many a con-
temptuous anathema. But let it be remembered,
that the spirit they breathe is desponding, not
sneering, scepticism ; that he who has seen the
Greek and Moslem superstitions contending for
mastery over the former shrines of Polytheism, —
who has left in his own country ' Pharisees,
thanking God that they are not like Publicans
and Sinners,' and Spaniards in theirs, abhorring
the Heretics, who have holpen them in their
need, — will be not a little bewildered, and begin
to think, that as only one of them can be right.



172 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE

they may most of them be wrong. With regard
to morals, and the effect of religion on mankind,
it appears, from all historical testimony, to have
had less effect in making them love their neigh-
bours, than inducing that cordial christian abhor-
rence between sectaries and schismatics. The
Turks and Quakers are the most tolerant ; if an
Infidel pays his heratch to the former ; he may
pray how, when, and where he pleases ; and the
mild tenets, and devout demeanour of the latter,
make their Uves the truest commentary on the
Sermon of the Mount."



This is a remarkable instance of false and
weak reasoning, and affords a key to Lord
Byron's mind, which I shall take occasion
to notice more particularly in my conclud-
ing chapter.

Lord Byron made a journey into Lanca-
shire, and some little time elapsed before I



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 173

took advantage of his disposition to oblige
me relative to the stanzas on the Conven-
tion at Cintra. He had always talked of
war en Philosophe, and took pleasure in
observing the faults of mihtary leaders ; nor
was he incUned to allow them even their
merit, Bonaparte excepted. In these
stanzas he had not only satirized the
Convention, but introduced the names of
the generals ludicrously. I therefore urged
him warmly to omit them, and the more
as the Duke of Wellington was then ac-
quiring fresh laurels in the Peninsula. I
began to make a copy of the letter which I
wrote to him on the subject, but something
happened to prevent my finishing it. I
insert what I kept ; it is dated October 3,
1811.

" The alteration of some bitter stings
shall be made previous to the Stanza going
to press. You say if I will point out the



174 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE

Stanzas on Cintra I wish re-cast, you will
send me an answer. We are now come to
them, and I fear your answer. What lan-
guage shall I adopt to persuade your Muse
not to commit self-murder, or at least slash
herself unnecessarily ? She has not even
the excuse of Honorius for the penance she
imposes on herself, and must suffer. PoH-
tically speaking, indeed in every sense,
great deeds should be allowed to efface
slight errors. The Cintra Convention will
do doubt be recorded; but shall a Byron's
Muse spirt ink upon a hero ? You admit
that Wellesley has effaced his share in it ;
yet you will not let it be effaced. Were
you tovis it Tusculum, would it be a subject
for a Stanza, that Cicero or some one of his
family was marked with a vetch? But
you may think that Sir Harry and Sir
Hew have done nothing to efface the Cintra
folly ; still the subject is beneath your pen.
It had its run among newspaper epigram-



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 175

matists, and your pen cannot raise it to the
dignity of the Poem into which you intro-
duce it. Let any judge read the 25th
stanza, and say if it be worthy of the pen
that wrote the Poem ; — the same of the
26th, 27th, and 28th. The name of Byng,
too, is grown sadly stale in allusion,

' And folks in office at the mention sweat ;'

sweat*! I beseech you, my dear Lord, to
let the exquisite stanza which follows the
29th succeed the 23dt, &c. &c. &c."

In consequence of this letter, Lord Byron
consented to omit the 25th, 27th, and 28th
stanzas, but retained the 24th, 26th, and
29th, making, however, some alterations in
them. As his genius has now placed his
fame so far above the possibility of being

* Printed as the 27th stanza.

t These references are to my MS. copy of Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage.



176 RECOLLEOTIONS OF THE

injured by the production of an occasional
inferior stanza, and as the succeeding
glories of the Peninsular campaigns have
completely thrown into shade the events
alluded to, there can be no impropriety in
now pubhshing, as literary curiosities, the
three stanzas which were then properly
omitted. The following are the six stanzas
as they originally stood. Those appearing
below, as 24, 26, 29, appeared in the Poem
in an altered state, numbered there as 24,
25, 26, of the first Canto. The stanzas
marked below, 25, 27, and 28, were those
omitted :

XXIV.

Behold the hah, where chiefs were late convened !
Oh dome displeasmg unto British eye I
With diadem hight foolscap, lo ! a fiend,
A little fiend that scoffs incessantly,
There sits in parchment robe arrayed, and by
His side is hung a seal and sable scroll,
Where blazoned glares a name spelt Wellesley,
And sundi-y signatures adown the roll,
Whereat the urchin points and laughs with all his soul.



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 177

XXV.

In golden characters right well design''d
First on the list appeareth one " Junot ;"
Then certain other glorious names we find ;
(Which rhyme compelleth me to place below)
Dull victors ! baffled by a vanquished foe.
Wheedled by conynge tongues of laurels due,
Stand, worthy of each other, in a row —
Sirs Arthur, Harry, and the dizzard Hew
Dairy mple, seely wight, sore dupe of t'other tew.



XXVI.

Convention is the dwarfy demon styled
That foird the Knights in Marialva's dome :
Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled,
And turned a nation's shallow joy to gloom.
For well I wot when first the news did come
That Vimiera's field by Gaul was lost.
For paragraph ne paper scarce had room.
Such Pagans teemed for our triumphant host
In Courier, Chronicle, and eke in Morning; Post.



XXVII.

But when Convention sent his handy work
Pens, tongues, feet, hands, combined in wild uproar;
Mayor, Aldermen, laid down th' uplifted fork ;
The Bench of Bishops half forgot to snore ;



178 RECOLLECTIONS OP THE

Stern Cobbett, who for one whole week forbore
To question aught, once more with transport leap't,
And bit liis devilish quill agen, and swore
With foe such treaty never should be kept.
Then burst the blatant * beast, and roar'd, and rfiged,
and — slept ! ! !

XXVIII.

Thus unto heaven appealed the people ; heaven,
Which loves the lieges of om' gracious King,
Decreed that ere our generals were forgiven,
Inquiry should be held about the thing.
But mercy cloaked the babes beneath her wing ;
And as they spared our foes so spared we them.
(Where was the pity of our sires for Byngt?)
Yet knaves, not idiots, should the law condemn.
Then triumph, gallant knights! and bless your judges'
phlegm.

* " Blatant beast;" a figure for the mob, I think first
used by Smollett in his Adventures of an Atom. Horace
has the " Bellua multorum capitum ;"" in England, fortu-
nately enough, the illustrious mobility have not even one.

t By this query it is not meant that our foolish Gene-
rals should have been shot, but that Byng might have been
spared, though the one suffered and the others escaped,

probably, for Candide's reason, '^ four encowager les
autres."



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 179

XXIX.

But ever since that martial synod met,
Britannia sickens, Cintra ! at thy name ;
And folks in office at the mention sweat,
And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame.
How will posterity the deed proclaim !
Will not our own and fellow nations sneer,
To view these champions cheated of their fame
By foes in fight overthrown, yet victors here.
Where scorn her finger points through many a coming
year.

To these stanzas was attached a long
note, which though nothing but a wild
tirade against the Portuguese, and the mea-
sures of government, and the battle of
Talavera, I had great difficulty in in-
ducing him to relinquish. I wrote him the
following letter upon the subject:—

" You sent me but few notes for the first
Canto — there are a good many for the
second. The only hberty I took with
them was, if you will allow me to use the



180 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE

expression, to dove-tail two of them, which,
though connected in the sense and relative
to the reference in the Poem, were disunited
as they stood in your MS. I have omitted
the passage respecting the Portuguese,
which fell with the alteration you made in
the stanzas relative to Cintra, and the in-
sertion of which would overturn what your
kindness had allowed me to obtain from
you on that point. I have no objection to
your politics, my dear Lord, as in the first
place I do not much give my mind to poli-
tics ; and, in the next, I cannot but have
observed that you view politics, as well as
some other subjects, through the optics of
philosophy. But the note, or rather pas-
sage, I allude to, is so discouraging to the
cause of our country, that it could not fail
to damp the ardour of your readers. Let
me intreat you not to recall the sacrifice of
it ; at least, let it not appear in this volume,
in which I am more anxious than I can



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 181

express for your fame, both as a Poet and
as a Philosopher. Except this, in which I
thought myself warranted, I have not inter-
fered with the subjects of the notes — yes,
the word " fiction" I turned, as you have
seen, conceiving it to have been no fiction
to Young. But when I did it, I determined
not to send it to the press till it had met
your eye. Indeed you know that even
when a single word has struck me as better
changed, my way has been to state my
thought to you."

The note I alluded to was as follows :—

NOTE ON SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

In the year 1809, it is a well-known fact, that
the assassinations in the streets of Lisbon and its
vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to
their countrymen ; but Englishmen were daily
butchered, and so far from the survivors obtaining
redress, they were requested " not to interfere"
if they perceived their compatriot defending him-
self against his amiable allies. I was onc^




182 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE

Stopped in the way to the theatre, at eight in the
evening, when the streets were not more empty
than they generally are, opposite to an open shop,
and in a carriage with a friend, by three of our
allies; and had we not fortunately been armed, I
have not the least doubt we should have " adorned
a tale," instead of telling it. We have heard
wonders of the Portuguese lately, and their gal-
lantry, — pray heaven it continue ; yet, " would it
were bed-time, Hal, and all were well !" They
must fight a great many hours, by *' Shrewsbury
clock," before the number of their slain equals
that of our countrymen butchered by these kind
creatures, now metamorphosed into " Ca^adores,"
and what not. I merely state a fact not confined
to Portugal, for in Sicily and Malta we are
knocked on the head at a handsome average
nightly, and not a Sicihan and Maltese is ever
punished ! The neglect of protection is disgrace-
ful to our government and governors, for the
murders are as notorious as the moon that shines
upon them, and the apathy that overlooks them.
The Portuguese, it is to be hoped, are compli-
mented with the " Forlorn Hope," — if the cowards



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 183

are become brave, (like the rest of their kind, in
a corner,) pray let them display it. But there is
a subscription for these " ^qaa-h ^uxov," (they
need not be ashamed of the epithet once applied
to the Spartans,) and all the charitable patrony-
micks, from ostentatious A. to diffident Z,, and
1/. Is. Od. from " an admirer of valour," are in
requisition for the Hsts at Lloyd's, and the honour
of British benevolence. Well, we have fought
and subscribed, and bestowed peerages, and
buried the killed by our friends and foes ; and, lo !
all this is to be done over again! Like " young
The." (in Goldsmith's Citizen of the World,) as
we " grow older, we grow never the better." It
would be pleasant to learn who will subscribe
for us, in or about the year 1815, and what
nation will send fifty thousand men, first to be
decimated in the capital, and then decimated
again (in the Irish fashion, nine out o^ten,) in the
" bed of honour," which, as Serjeant Kite says,
. is considerably larger and more commodious than
the " bed of Ware." Then thoy must have a
poet to write the " Vision of Don Perceval," and
generously bestow the profits of the well and



184 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE

widely-printed quarto to re-build the " Back-
wynd" and the " Canon-gate," or furnish new
kilts for the half-roasted Highlanders. Lord Wel-
lington, however, has enacted marvels; and so
did his oriental brother, whom I saw charioteering
over the French flag, and heard clipping bad
Spanish, after listening to the speech of a pa-
triotic cobler of Cadiz, on the event of his own
entry into that city, and the exit of some five
thousand bold Britons out of this " best of
all possible worlds." Sorely were we puzzled
how to dispose of that same victory of Talavera ;
and a victory it surely was somewhere, for every
body claimed it. The Spanish dispatch and mob
called it Cuesta's, and made no great mention of
the Viscount ; the French called it theirs (to my
great discomfiture, for a French consul stopped
my mouth in Greece with a pestilent Paris
Gazette, just as I had killed Sebastiani " in
buckram," and king Joseph in " Kendal green,")
•—and we have not yet determined ichat to call it,
or whose, for certes it was none of our own. How-
beit, Massena's retreat is a great comfort, and
as we have not been in the habit of pursuing for



LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 185

some years past, no wonder we are a little awk-
ward at first. No doubt we shall improve, or if
not, we have only to take to our old way of
retrograding, and there we 'ixe at home."

There were several stanzas in w^hich
allusions v^ere made of a personal nature,
and which I prevailed upon Lord Byron to
omit. The reasons which induced their