But drunkenness upon Lord Byron had a peculiar and specific effect, which he notices afterwards, in his Journal, at Venice: ‘The effect of all wines and spirits upon me is, however, strange. It settles, but makes me gloomy—gloomy at the very moment of their effect: it composes, however, though sullenly.’ [{178b}] And, again, in another place, he says, ‘Wine and spirits make me sullen, and savage to ferocity.’
It is well known that the effects of alcoholic excitement are various as the natures of the subjects. But by far the worst effects, and the most destructive to domestic peace, are those that occur in cases where spirits, instead of acting on the nerves of motion, and depriving the subject of power in that direction, stimulate the brain so as to produce there the ferocity, the steadiness, the utter deadness to compassion or conscience, which characterise a madman. How fearful to a sensitive young mother in the period of pregnancy might be the return of such a madman to the domestic roof! Nor can we account for those scenes described in Lady Anne Barnard’s letters, where Lord Byron returned from his evening parties to try torturing experiments on his wife, otherwise than by his own statement, that spirits, while they steadied him, made him ‘gloomy, and savage to ferocity.’
Take for example this:—
‘One night, coming home from one of his lawless parties, he saw me (Lady B.) so indignantly collected, and bearing all with such a determined calmness, that a rush of remorse seemed to come over him. He called himself a monster, and, though his sister was present, threw himself in agony at my feet. “I could not, no, I could not, forgive him such injuries! He had lost me forever!” Astonished at this return to virtue, my tears, I believe, flowed over his face; and I said, “Byron, all is forgotten; never, never shall you hear of it more.”
‘He started up, and folding his arms while he looked at me, burst out into laughter. “What do you mean?” said I. “Only a philosophical experiment; that’s all,” said he. “I wished to ascertain the value of your resolutions.”’
To ascribe such deliberate cruelty as this to the effect of drink upon Lord Byron, is the most charitable construction that can be put upon his conduct.
Yet the manners of the period were such, that Lord Byron must have often come to this condition while only doing what many of his acquaintances did freely, and without fear of consequences.
Mr. Moore, with his usual artlessness, gives us an idea of a private supper between himself and Lord Byron. We give it, with our own italics, as a specimen of many others:—
‘Having taken upon me to order the repast, and knowing that Lord Byron for the last two days had done nothing towards sustenance beyond eating a few biscuits and (to appease appetite) chewing mastic, I desired that we should have a good supply of at least two kinds of fish. My companion, however, confined himself to lobsters; and of these finished two or three, to his own share, interposing, sometimes, a small liqueur-glass of strong white brandy, sometimes a tumbler of very hot water, and then pure brandy again, to the amount of near half a dozen small glasses of the latter, without which, alternately with the hot water, he appeared to think the lobster could not be digested. After this, we had claret, of which, having despatched two bottles between us, at about four o’clock in the morning we parted.
‘As Pope has thought his “delicious lobster-nights” worth commemorating, these particulars of one in which Lord Byron was concerned may also have some interest.
‘Among other nights of the same description which I had the happiness of passing with him, I remember once, in returning home from some assembly at rather a late hour, we saw lights in the windows of his old haunt, Stevens’s in Bond Street, and agreed to stop there and sup. On entering, we found an old friend of his, Sir G---- W----, who joined our party; and, the lobsters and brandy and water being put in requisition, it was (as usual on such occasions) broad daylight before we separated.’—Vol. iii. p.83.
During the latter part of Lady Byron’s pregnancy, it appears from Moore that Byron was, night after night, engaged out at dinner parties, in which getting drunk was considered as of course the finale, as appears from the following letters:—
(LETTER 228.)
TO MR. MOORE.
‘TERRACE, PICCADILLY, OCT. 31,1815.
‘I have not been able to ascertain precisely the time of duration of the stock-market; but I believe it is a good time for selling out, and I hope so. First, because I shall see you; and, next, because I shall receive certain moneys on behalf of Lady B., the which will materially conduce to my comfort; I wanting (as the duns say) “to make up a sum.”
‘Yesterday I dined out with a large-ish party, where were Sheridan and Colman, Harry Harris, of C. G., and his brother, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Ds. Kinnaird, and others of note and notoriety. Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, * then altogethery, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult to get down again without stumbling; and, to crown all, Kinnaird and I had to conduct Sheridan down a d---d corkscrew staircase, which had certainly been constructed before the discovery of fermented liquors, and to which no legs, however crooked, could possibly accommodate themselves. We deposited him safe at home, where his man, evidently used to the business, [{181}] waited to receive him in the hall.
‘Both he and Colman were, as usual, very good; but I carried away much wine, and the wine had previously carried away my memory: so that all was hiccough and happiness for the last hour or so, and I am not impregnated with any of the conversation. Perhaps you heard of a late answer of Sheridan to the watchman who found him bereft of that “divine particle of air” called reason . . . He (the watchman) found Sherry in the street fuddled and bewildered, and almost insensible. “Who are you, sir?”—No answer. “What’s your name?”—A hiccough. “What’s your name?”—Answer, in a slow, deliberate, and impassive tone, “Wilberforce!” Is not that Sherry all over?—and, to my mind, excellent. Poor fellow, his very dregs are better than the “first sprightly runnings” of others.
‘My paper is full, and I have a grievous headache.
‘P.S.—Lady B. is in full progress. Next month will bring to light (with the aid of “Juno Lucina, fer opem,” or rather opes, for the last are most wanted) the tenth wonder of the world; Gil Blas being the eighth, and he (my son’s father) the ninth.’