This took place in 1805, the year of his leaving Harrow, which he quitted with the character of a plain-spoken, clever and undaunted, but idle boy. His master, Dr. Drury, for whom he always entertained respect and affection, spoke of him as one who ‘might be led by a silken string to a point, rather than by a cable;’ and being asked his opinion of his pupil, after some continuance at Harrow, by lord Carlisle, he replied, that ‘he had talents which would add lustre to his rank.’ Though generally, however, reputed to be too indolent to excel in school, it seems that he collected a vast fund of information, which was little suspected by those who saw him only when idle, in mischief, or at play. ‘The truth is,’ he says, ‘that I read eating, read in bed, read when no one else read, and had read all sorts of reading since I was five years old, though I never met with a review till I was in my nineteenth year.’ He was not, at first, liked by his schoolfellows; but with some of them he ultimately formed friendships, to which he always reverted with a melancholy delight, broken, as most of them were, by his own waywardness, or the peculiar circumstances which attended his subsequent career.
His intrepidity was shown in several pugilistic combats, many of which he undertook in the defense and protection of other boys. One of his schoolfellows says, that he has seen him fight by the hour like a Trojan, and stand up, against the disadvantages of his lameness, with all the spirit of an ancient combatant. On the same person’s reminding him of his battle with Pitt, he replied, ‘You are mistaken, I think; it must have been with Rice-pudding Morgan, or Lord Jocelyn, or one of the Douglases, or George Raynsford, or Pryce (with whom I had two conflicts), or with Moses Moore (the clod), or with somebody else, and not with Pitt; for with all the above-named, and other worthies of the fist, had I an interchange of black eyes and bloody noses, at various and sundry periods. However, it may have happened, for all that.’ He also told Captain Medwin, in allusion to two of his actions at Harrow, that he fought Lord Calthorpe for writing ‘D—d atheist’ under his name; and prevented the school-room from being burnt, during a rebellion, by pointing out to the boys the names of their fathers and grandfathers on the walls.
In 1805, he was entered of Trinity College, Cambridge, which he describes as ‘a new and heavy-hearted scene to him;’ adding, it was one of the deadliest and heaviest feelings of his life, to feel that he was no longer a boy. His chief ambition seems to have been to attain the reputation of a rake and a spendthrift; and his principal fear, lest he should become too fat, to prevent which, he took as much violent exercise as his naturally delicate constitution would allow. Among other of his eccentricities, for which he was more remarkable than his profligacy, though he seemed to take a pride in exaggerating the latter, it is said that he kept a bear, with the intention, as he observed, of training it up for a degree. The time not passed by him at the university, he at first spent with his mother, at Southwell, but her violent temper, which his own was not calculated to appease, soon led to their separation; and he afterwards resided in London, Little Hampton, Harrowgate, and other places of fashionable resort. At this period, he is said to have been remarkably bashful, though he subsequently so far overcame his shyness, as to take a prominent part in some private theatricals at Southwell. In November, 1807, his Hours of Idleness was printed at Newark; and, in the following year, appeared the memorable criticism upon them in The Edinburgh Review, which was decidedly unjust, though few, perhaps, will agree with the subject of our memoir, that these poems were as good as any he ever produced. The impression which the ciriticism above-mentioned made upon our poet, is described, by one who witnessed his fierce looks of defiance, during a first perusal of it, as fearful and sublime. Among the less sentimental effects of this review upon his mind, says Mr. Moore, he used to mention that, on the day he read it, he drank three bottles of claret to his own share after dinner; that nothing, however, relieved him till he had given vent to his indignation in rhyme; and that ‘after the first twenty lines, he felt himself considerably better.’ During the progress of the satire, he passed his time alternately at Newstead, London, and Brighton, where he took lessons in boxing, and appeared in public with a mistress who accompanied him, dressed in boy’s clothes, and whom he introduced as his young brother.
On coming of age, in 1809, he apprised Lord Carlisle of his wish to take his seat in the house of peers; and to the formal reply of the earl, and his refusal to afford any information respecting the marriage of our poet’s grandfather, is owing the bitterness with which he attacked the former in his English Bards. He at length took his seat on the 13th of March, and went down to the house for that purpose, accompanied only by Mr. Dallas, whom he had accidentally met. ‘He was received,’ says that gentleman, ‘in one of the ante-chambers, by some of the officers in attendance, with whom he settled respecting the fees he had to pay: one of them went to apprise the lord-chancellor of his being there, and soon returned for him. There were very few persons in the house. Lord Eldon was going through some ordinary business. When Lord Byron entered, I thought he looked still paler than before; and he certainly wore a countenance in which mortification was mingled with, but subdued by, indignation. He passed the woolsack without looking round, and advanced to the table, where the proper officer was attending to administer the oaths. When he had gone through them, the chancellor quitted his seat, and went towards him with a smile, putting out his hand warmly to welcome him; and, though I did not catch his words, I saw that he paid him some compliment. This was all thrown away upon Lord Byron, who made a stiff bow, and put the tips of his fingers into Lord Eldon’s hand. The chancellor did not press a welcome so received, but resumed his seat; while Lord Byron carelessly seated himself, for a few minutes, on one of the empty benches to the left of the throne, usually occupied by the lords in opposition. When, on his joining me, I expressed what I had felt, he said, “If I had shaken hands heartily, he would have set me down for one of his party; but I will have nothing to do with any of them, on either side: I have taken my seat, and now I will go abroad.” We returned to St. James’ Street, but he did not recover his spirits.’ Another account states that he offended the chancellor by replying to him, when he apologized for requiring the evidence of Admiral Byron’s marriage, as being a part of his duty: ‘Your lordship was exactly like Tom Thumb; you did your duty, and nothing more.’
Shortly after he had taken his seat, his satire was published anonymously, of which, though the success, at the time, highly gratified him, he, some years afterwards, wrote, ‘Nothing but the consideration of its being the property of another, prevents me from consigning this miserable record of misplaced and indiscriminate anger to the flames.’ Before a second edition was published, he left England, accompanied by Mr. Hobhouse, under the influence of those melancholy feelings, which he has described in the early part of the first canto of Childe Harold, in which poem a pretty accurate account of his travels is given, during his two years’ residence abroad. Almost every event he met with, he has made subservient to his muse, particularly the incident on which is founded his Giaour, and it was during this tour that he swam from Sestos to Abydos.
In July, 1811, he returned to England, and being visited by Mr. Dallas, put into his hands a Paraphrase of Horace’s Art of Poetry, expressing a wish that it should be printed under the latter’s superintendence; but he mentioned nothing of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, until Mr. Dallas expressed his surprise that he should have written so little during his absence. He then told his friend that ‘he had occasionally written short poems, besides a great many stanzas in Spenser’s measure, relative to the countries he had visited;’ and, at the same time, handed them to Mr. Dallas, observing, that they were not worth troubling him with. This gentleman had no sooner perused the poem, than he endeavored to persuade the author of its superiority, in every respect, to the Paraphrase of Horace; but it was not until after much real or affected reluctance, that he consented to the publication of Childe Harold, in preference to that of the former. He had scarcely made up his mind on the subject, before he was called to Newstead, by the illness of his mother, who, however, died a short time before his arrival, on the 1st of August. He is said to have been sincerely affected at her loss; and, on being found sitting near the corpse of his mother, by Mrs. Byron’s waiting-woman, he, in answer to her remonstrance with him for so giving way to grief, exclaimed, bursting into tears, ‘I had but one friend in the world, and she is gone!’ His subsequent conduct, however, had an eccentricity about it, which brought the sincerity of his grief into question:—‘On the morning of the funeral,’ says Mr. Moore, ‘having declined following the remains himself, he stood looking, from the abbey door, at the procession, till the whole had moved off; then turning to young Rushton, who was the only person left besides himself, he desired him to fetch the sparring gloves, and proceeded to his usual exercise with the boy. He was silent and abstracted all the time; and, as if from an effort to get the better of his feelings, threw more violence, Rushton thought, in his blows than was his habit; but, at last,—the struggle seeming too much for him,—he flung away the gloves, and retired to his room.’
A few months after the death of his mother, a correspondence took place between himself and Mr. Moore, the poet, of whose duel with Mr. Jeffrey, Byron had given a ludicrous, but untrue, account in his English Bards. After several letters of an explanatory, rather than hostile, nature, had passed on both sides, and in which each exhibited a manly and forbearing spirit, they became mutual friends, and remained so ever afterwards. On the 27th of February, 1812, Lord Byron made his first speech in the house of lords, on the subject of the Nottingham Frame-breaking Bill, and appears to have pleased both himself and his hearers. Mr. Dallas, who met him coming out of the house, says, that he was greatly elated; and, after repeating some of the compliments which had been paid him, concluded by saying, ‘that he had, by his speech, given the best advertisement for Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,’ which was two days afterwards published. The effect upon the public, as his biographer observes, was electric; as he has himself said, in his memoranda, ‘he awoke one morning, and found himself famous.’ The first edition of his work was disposed of instantly; ‘Childe Harold,’ and ‘Lord Byron,’ were the theme of every tongue; the most eminent literati of the day, including many whom he had attacked in his satire, left their names at his door; upon his table lay the epistolary tribute of the statesman and philosopher, the billet of some incognita, or the pressing note of some fair leader of fashion; and, in fine, ‘he found himself among the illustrious crowds of high life, the most distinguished object.’ The sum of £600 which he received for the copyright of the poem, he presented to Mr. Dallas; observing, ‘he would never receive money for his writings;’ a resolution which he subsequently abandoned. Among other results of the fame he had acquired by his Childe Harold, was his introduction to the prince regent, which took place at a ball, at the request of his royal highness, whose conversation so fascinated the poet, that had it not been, says Mr. Dallas, for an accidental deferring of the next levee, he bade fair to become a visitor at Carlton House, if not a complete courtier.
In the spring of 1813, he published, anonymously, his poem on waltzing; and as it was not received with the applause he anticipated, did not avow himself to be its author. In the same year, appeared The Giaour, and The Bride of Abydos; the former of which reached a fifth edition in four months. Mr. Murray offered him a thousand guineas for the copyright of the two poems, but he still refused to derive any pecuniary benefit from his writings. In 1814, his Corsair was published; the copyright of which he presented to Mr. Dallas. Fourteen thousand copies of the poem were sold in one day; but the popularity which this and his other works had procured for him, began to be lessened by his verses to the Princess Charlotte, and by a certain peculiarity of conduct which was looked upon as more indecorous than eccentric. Under these circumstances, he was persuaded to marry, and, in consequence, proposed to Miss Milbanke, the daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke; but was at first met with a polite refusal. He was however, not so much mortified as not to make her a second offer, though he says, in his memoranda, that a friend strongly advised him against doing so; observing that Miss Milbanke had, at present, no fortune, and that his embarrassed affairs would not allow him to marry without one; that she was, moreover, a learned lady, which would not at all suit him.’ He then agreed that his friend should write a proposal for him to another lady, and a refusal being the consequence, he said, ‘you see, after all, Miss Milbanke is to be the person: I will write to her:’ which he accordingly did, and was accepted. His marriage took place at Seaham, on the 2d of January, 1815; a day to which he seems to have always reverted with a shudder, and on which he, in reality, perhaps, experienced those emotions so touchingly described in his beautiful poem of The Dream. Superstition had, no doubt, some influence over his mind on the occasion; for, in addition to the circumstances hereafter related in his own words, he fancied, a short time previous to his marriage, that he had seen, at Newstead, the ghost of the monk which was supposed to haunt the abbey, and to appear when misfortune impended over the mansion,—a legend which he was versified in the sixteenth canto of Don Juan. His own memoranda relative to his union form an interesting prelude to its unhappy consequences. ‘It had been predicted by Mrs. Williams,’ says he, ‘that twenty-seven was to be the dangerous age for me. The fortune-telling which was right: it was destined to prove so. I shall never forget the 2d of January. Lady Byron was the only unconcerned person present: Lady Noel, her mother, cried: I trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and after the ceremony called her Miss Milbanke. There is a singular history attached to the ring:—the very day the match was concluded, a ring of my mother’s that had been lost, was dug up by the gardener at Newstead. I thought it was sent on purpose for the wedding; but my mother’s marriage had not been a fortunate one, and this ring was doomed to be the seal of an unhappier union still. After the ordeal was over, we set off for a country seat of Sir Ralph’s; and I was surprised at the arrangements for the journey, and somewhat out of humor to find a lady’s maid stuck between me and my bride. It was rather too early to assume the husband, so I was forced to submit; but it was not with a very good grace. I have been accused of saying, on getting into the carriage, that I had married Lady Byron out of spite, and because she had refused me twice. Though I was, for a moment, vexed at the prophecy, or whatever you may choose to call it, if I had made so uncavalier, not to say brutal, a speech, I am convinced Lady Byron would instantly have left the carriage to me and the maid. She had spirit enough to have done so, and would properly have resented the insult. Our honeymoon was not all sunshine; it had its clouds; and Hobhouse has some letters which would serve to explain the rise and fall in the barometer; but it was never down at zero.’
About ten months after his marriage, the birth of his daughter took place; an event that was, in a few weeks, followed by a total separation of the parents. So many various reasons have been assigned for this step, by the friends of either party, and so much more than has yet come to light, has been insinuated by Lady Byron herself, that the real cause of their continued disunion still remains a mystery. Our poet has avowed, both in his conversation and correspondence, that, during his residence with his wife, he had nothing to complain of; and it was only when he found her unwilling to resume her connection with him that he gave vent to that bitterness of spirit with which he alludes to her in some of his poems. Mr. Moore speaks with all evident bias in favor of the subject of his biography; but whatever inferences may be drawn from the sacrifice of the papers relating to this affair, at the request of Lady Byron’s family,—and the previous request of the lady herself to her husband, that he would not publish them, on his sending them to her for perusal, which she declined,—it is clear, from the facts that have as yet been made public, that the conduct of Lord Byron was at least as culpable, as that of his wife appears, in the absence of further explanation, to have been extraordinary. Many excuses, however, are to be made for the subject of our memoir, who was most unwarrantably calumniated on the occasion, and publicly taxed with crimes, of which conjugal infidelity was not the least, though, perhaps, at the time of its imputation, the most unjustifiable. The ostensible cause of their separation was the involvement of his lordship’s affairs, and his connexion with the managing committee of Drury Lane, which led him into a course of life unsuitable to the domestic habits of Lady Byron. ‘My income, at this period,’ says his own account of the affair, ‘was small, and somewhat bespoken. We had a house in town, gave dinner parties, had separate carriages, and launched into every sort of extravagance. This could not last long. My wife’s £10,000 soon melted away. I was beset by duns, and at length, an execution was levied, and the bailiffs put in possession of the very beds we had to sleep on. This was no very agreeable state of affairs, no very pleasant scene for Lady Byron to witness; and it was agreed she should pay her father a visit till the storm had blown over, and some arangements had been made with my creditors.’
The lady, however, expressed her determination never to return to him, in a letter which had been preceded by one, beginning, as he ludicrously says, ‘dear duck!’ ‘You asked me,’ he says in a communication to Captain Medwin, ‘if no cause was assigned for this sudden resolution?—if I formed no conjecture about the cause? I will tell you: I have prejudices about women; I do not like to see them eat. Rousseau makes Julie un peu gourmande; but that is not at all according to my taste. I do not like to be interrupted when I am writing. Lady Byron did not attend to these whims of mine. The only harsh thing I ever remember saying to her was, one evening, shortly before our parting. I was standing before the fire, ruminating upon the embarrassment of my affairs, and other annoyances, when Lady Byron came up to me, and said, “Byron, am I in your way?” to which I replied, “D——bly!” I was sorry, and reproached myself for the expression; but it escaped me unconsciously,—involuntarily: I hardly knew what I said.’