LORD BYRON'S MARRIAGE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
Lord Byron's marriage exercised such a deplorable influence over his destiny, that it is impossible to speak of it succinctly, and without entering into details; for this one great misfortune proved the fruitful source of all others.
If we were permitted to believe that Providence sometimes abandons men here below to the influence of an evil genius, we might well conceive this baneful intervention in the case of Lord Byron's conjugal union, and all the circumstances that led to it.
It was but a few months after having returned from his travels in the East, that Lord Byron published his first cantos of "Childe Harold," and obtained triumphs as an orator in the House of Lords. Presenting himself thus for the first time to the public, surrounded by all the prestige belonging to a handsome person, rank, and youth,—in a word, with such an assemblage of qualities as are seldom if ever found united in one person—he immediately became the idol of England. The enemies created by his boyish satire, and augmented by the jealousy his success could not fail to cause, now hid themselves like those vile insects that slink back into their holes on the first appearance of the sun's rays, ready to creep out again when fogs and darkness return. Living then in the midst of the great world, in the closest intimacy with many of the fair sex, and witnessing the small amount of wedded happiness enjoyed by aristocratic couples within his observation, intending also to wing his flight eventually toward climes more in unison with his tastes, he no longer felt that attraction for marriage which he had experienced in boyhood (like most youths), and he said, quite seriously, that if his cousin, George Byron, would marry, he, on his part, would willingly engage not to enter into wedlock. But his friends saw with regret that his eyes were still seeking through English clouds the blue skies of the East; and that he was kept in perpetual agitation by the fair ones who would cast themselves athwart his path, throwing themselves at his head when not at his feet. Vainly did he distort himself, give himself out to the public as a true "Childe Harold," malign himself; his friends knew that his heart was overflowing with tenderness, and they could not thus be duped. If he had wished to cull some flowers idly, for the sake of scattering their leaves to the breeze, as youth so often does, this sort of amusement would have been difficult for him, for the fine ladies of his choice, if once they succeeded in inspiring him with some kind of tender feeling, fastened themselves upon him in such a passionate way that his freedom became greatly shackled, and they generally ended by making the public the confidante of their secret.
Lord Byron had some adventures that brought him annoyance and grief. They made him fall into low spirits,—a sort of moral apathy and indifference for every thing. His best friends, and the wisest among them, thought that the surest way of settling him in England, and getting him out of the scrapes into which he was being dragged by female enthusiasm, would be for him to marry, and they advised him to it pertinaciously. Lord Byron, ever docile to the voice of affection, did not repel the counsels given, but he made them well understand that he should marry from reason rather than choice; and the letter he wrote, when Moore insisted on his choosing a certain beautiful girl of noble birth,[138] well explains his whole state of mind at this time:—
"I believe," said he, "that you think I have not been quite fair with that Alpha and Omega of beauty with whom you would willingly have united me. Had Lady —— appeared to wish it, I would have gone on, and very possibly married with the same indifference which has frozen over the Black Sea of almost all my passions. It is that very indifference which makes me so uncertain and apparently capricious. It is not eagerness of new pursuits, but that nothing impresses me sufficiently to fix. I do not feel disgusted, but simply indifferent to almost all excitements; and the proof of this is that obstacles, the slightest even, stop me. This can hardly be timidity, for I have done some imprudent things, too, in my time; and in almost all cases opposition is a stimulus. In this circumstance it is not; if a straw were in my way I could not stoop to pick it up. I have sent you this long tirade, because I would not have you suppose that I have been trifling designedly with you or others. If you think so, in the name of St. Hubert (the patron of antlers and hunters) let me be married out of hand, I don't care to whom, so it amuses any body else, and don't interfere with me much in the daytime."
But that to which Lord Byron most aspired was always to wing his flight to brighter skies.
"Your climate kills me," he wrote to Hodgson, directly after his return from the East. And then again, "My inclinations and my health make me wish to leave England; neither my habits nor constitution are improved by your customs or your climate. I shall find employment in making myself a good Oriental scholar. I shall buy a mansion in one of the fairest islands, and describe, at intervals, the most interesting portions of the East."
Lord Byron wrote this before he had attained great celebrity, but this did not change either his sentiments or his tastes. Notwithstanding the embarrassments arising from the legacy left him by his great uncle, and which were principally caused by the action brought against him on account of the illegal sale of the Rochdale mines (a suit which Lord Byron gained, but the expenses of which were ruinous), he was nevertheless sufficiently rich to live at ease, to let his needy friends enjoy the profits arising from his works, and to allow himself acts of beneficence and generosity that were the joy of his heart. And when he had done all that, he still found that he could not spend the surplus in England according to his tastes. After the death of his mother, no longer bound by his promise to her of not selling Newstead, he resolved on effecting the sale so as to settle his affairs definitively. The sale having failed, the forfeit brought him in £25,000; and he wrote to Moore, in September, 1814:—
"I shall know to-morrow whether a circumstance, of importance enough to change all my plans, will occur or not.[139] If it does not, I am off for Italy next month.