When Byron had hurled this lance, he could not draw back. He had pledged himself heart and soul to poetry, he had taken upon him the mantle of Nessus which was to consume him but also to immortalise him. And yet he hesitated for a brief period. By birth he had a right to sit in the House of Lords, and he decided he would take his seat there. If his aristocratic peers received him cordially, who knew what might happen? He might give up everything, even the idea of his journey to Persia with his friend Hobhouse, to follow his schoolfellow Robert Peel in a political career. It should all depend on a smile or a hand-shake; and for such an acknowledgment he would fling away the pen that had written the Hours of Idleness and English Bards and Scotch Reviewers; for a smile and a hand-shake he would bid farewell to games, betting, races, drunkenness, and break himself off from those youthful follies in which he had tried to drown the memory of Miss Chaworth; he would leave them all, even the woman who had followed him to Brighton dressed as a man, whose scandalous presence had roused the indignation of the prudish English aristocracy!
It was at this crisis he wrote to his mother the following letter, which shows what a degree of coldness existed between mother and son:—
"TO THE HONOURABLE LADY BYRON
"NEWSTEAD ABBEY, NOTTS
October 7, 1808"DEAR MADAM,—I have no beds for the Hansons or anybody else at present. The Hansons sleep at Mansfield. I do not know that I resemble Jean Jacques Rousseau. I have no ambition to be like so illustrious a madman—but this I know, that I shall live in my own manner, and as much alone as possible. When my rooms are ready I shall be glad to see you: at present it would be improper and uncomfortable to both parties. You can hardly object to my rendering my mansion habitable, notwithstanding my departure for Persia in March (or May at farthest), since you will be tenant till my return; and in case of any accident (for I have already arranged my will to be drawn up the moment I am twenty-one), I have taken care you shall have the house and manor for life, besides a sufficient income. So you see my improvements are not entirely selfish.—Adieu. Believe me, yours very truly,
BYRON"
In another letter to his mother, dated 6 March 1809, he adds:—
"What you say is all very true: come what may, Newstead and I stand or fall together. I have now lived on the spot, I have fixed my heart upon it, and no pressure, present or future, shall induce me to barter the last vestige of our inheritance. I have that pride within me which will enable me to support difficulties. I can endure privations; but could I obtain in exchange for Newstead Abbey the first fortune in the country, I would reject the proposition. Set your mind at ease on that score; Mr. Hanson talks like a man of business on the subject,—I feel like a man of honour, and I will not sell Newstead. I shall get my seat on the return of the affidavits from Carhais, in Cornwall, and will do something in the House soon: I must dash, or it is all over. My Satire must be kept secret for a month; after that you may say what you like on the subject. Lord Carlisle has used me infamously, and refused to state any particulars of my family to the Chancellor. I have lashed him in my rhymes, and perhaps his lordship may regret not being more conciliatory. They tell me it will have a sale; I hope so, for the bookseller has behaved well, as far as publishing well goes.—Believe me, etc.,
BYRON"P.S.—You shall have a mortgage on one of the farms."
But Byron was doomed in advance. He had the greatest difficulty in obtaining the papers necessary to establish his title to the peerage, and, three days after writing the above letter—that is to say, on 9 March 1809, six weeks after having attained his majority—he presented himself in the House of Lords.
As we have said, upon this test his whole career was to depend. As he told his mother, his Satire was to be kept a secret for a month longer, and if he were well received by his illustrious colleagues, it was to remain unpublished and the poet unknown.
It was the will of Providence that these aristocrats should be unjust towards this young man, this boy, nay, more than unjust, cruel.