Shakespeare's England

by William Winter

RELICS OF LORD BYRON

The Byron Memorial Loan Collection, that was displayed at the Albert Memorial Hall, for a short time in the summer of 1877, did not attract much attention: yet it was a vastly impressive show of relics. The catalogue names seventy-four objects, together with thirty-nine designs for a monument to Byron. The design that has been chosen presents a seated figure, of the young sailor-boy type. The right hand supports the chin; the left, resting on the left knee, holds an open book and a pencil. The dress consists of a loose shirt, open at the throat and on the bosom, a flowing neckcloth, and wide, marine trousers. Byron's dog, Boatswain—commemorated in the well-known misanthropic epitaph—

"To mark a friend's remains these stones arise,
I never knew but one, and here he lies"—

is shown, in effigy, at the poet's feet. The treatment of the subject, in this model, certainly deserves to be called free, but the general effect of the work is finical. The statue will probably be popular; but it will give no adequate idea of the man. Byron was both massive and intense; and this image is no more than the usual hero of nautical romance. (It was dedicated in May, 1880, and it stands in Hamilton Gardens, near Hyde Park Corner, London.)

It was the treasure of relics, however, and not the statuary, that more attracted notice. The relics were exhibited in three glass cases, exclusive of large portraits. It is impossible to make the reader—supposing him to revere this great poet's genius and to care for his memory—feel the thrill of emotion that was aroused by actual sight, and almost actual touch, of objects so intimately associated with the living Byron. Five pieces of his hair were shown, one of which was cut off, after his death, by Captain Trelawny—the remarkable gentleman who says that he uncovered the legs of the corse, in order to ascertain the nature and extent of their deformity. All those locks of hair are faded and all present a mixture of gray and auburn. Byron's hair was not, seemingly, of a fine texture, and it turned gray early in life. Those tresses were lent to the exhibition by Lady Dorchester, John Murray, H. M. Robinson, D.D., and E. J. Trelawny. A strangely interesting memorial was a little locket of plain gold, shaped like a heart, that Byron habitually wore. Near to this was the crucifix found in his bed at Missolonghi, after his death. It is about ten inches long and is made of ebony. A small bronze figure of Christ is displayed upon it, and at the feet of the figure are cross-bones and a skull, of the same metal. A glass beaker, that Byron gave to his butler, in 1815, attracted attention by its portly size and, to the profane fancy, hinted that his lordship had formed a liberal estimate of that butler's powers of suction. Four articles of head-gear occupied a prominent place in one of the cabinets. Two are helmets that Byron wore when he was in Greece, in 1824—and very queer must have been his appearance when he wore them. One is light blue, the other dark green; both are faded; both are fierce with brass ornaments and barbaric with brass scales like those of a snake. A comelier object is the poet's "boarding-cap"—a leather slouch, turned up with green velvet and studded with brass nails. Many small articles of Byron's property were scattered through the cases. A corpulent little silver watch, with Arabic numerals upon its face, and a meerschaum pipe, not much coloured, were among them. The cap that he sometimes wore, during the last years of his life,—the one depicted in a well-known sketch of him by Count D'Orsay,—was exhibited, and so was D'Orsay's portrait. The cap is of green velvet, not much tarnished, and is encircled by a gold band and faced by an ugly visor. The face in the sketch is supercilious and defiant. A better, and obviously truer sketch is that made by Cattermole, which also was in this exhibition. Strength in despair and a dauntless spirit that shines through the ravages of irremediable suffering are the qualities of this portrait; and they make it marvellously effective. Thorwaldsen's fine bust of Byron, made for Hobhouse, and also the celebrated Phillips portrait—that Scott said was the best likeness of Byron ever painted—occupied places in this group. The copy of the New Testament that Lady Byron gave to her husband, and that he, in turn, presented to Lady Caroline Lamb, was there, and is a pocket volume, bound in black leather, with the inscription, "From a sincere and anxious friend," written in a stiff, formal hand, across the fly-leaf. A gold ring that the poet constantly wore, and the collar of his dog Boatswain—a discoloured band of brass, with sharply jagged edges—should also be named as among the most interesting of the relics.

But the most remarkable objects of all were the manuscripts. These comprise the original draft of the third canto of "Childe Harold," written on odd bits of paper, during Byron's journey from London to Venice, in 1816; the first draft of the fourth canto, together with a clean copy of it; the notes to "Marino Faliero"; the concluding stage directions—much scrawled and blotted—in "Heaven and Earth"; a document concerning the poet's matrimonial trouble; and about fifteen of his letters. The passages seen are those beginning "Since my young days of passion, joy, or pain"; "To bear unhurt what time cannot abate"; and in canto fourth the stanzas 118 to 129 inclusive. The writing is free and strong, and it still remains legible although the paper is yellow with age. Altogether those relics were touchingly significant of the strange, dark, sad career of a wonderful man. Yet, as already said, they attracted but little notice. The memory of Byron seems darkened, as with the taint of lunacy. "He did strange things," one Englishman said to me; "and there was something queer about him." The London house in which he was born, in Holies Street, Cavendish Square, is marked with a tablet,—according to a custom instituted by a society of arts. (It was torn down in 1890 and its site is now occupied by a shop, bearing the name of John Lewis & Co.) Two houses in which he lived, No. 8 St. James Street, near the old palace, and No. 139 Piccadilly, are not marked. The house of his birth was occupied in 1877 by a descendant of Elizabeth Fry, the philanthropist.

The custom of marking the houses associated with great names is obviously a good one, and it ought to be adopted in other countries. Two buildings, one in Westminster and one in the grounds of the South Kensington Museum, bear the name of Franklin; and I also saw memorial tablets to Dryden and Burke in Gerrard Street, to Dryden in Fetter Lane, to Mrs. Siddons in Baker Street, to Sir Joshua Reynolds and to Hogarth in Leicester Square, to Garrick in the Adelphi Terrace, to Louis Napoleon, and to many other renowned individuals. The room that Sir Joshua occupied as a studio is now an auction mart. The stone stairs leading up to it are much worn, but they remain as they were when, it may be imagined, Burke, Johnson, Goldsmith, Langton, Beauclerk, and Boswell walked there, on many a festive night in the old times. It is a breezy, slate-coloured evening in July. I look from the window of a London house that fronts a spacious park. Those great elms, which in their wealth of foliage and irregular and pompous expanse of limb are finer than all other trees of their class, fill the prospect, and nod and murmur in the wind. Through a rift in their heavy-laden boughs is visible a long vista of green field, in which many children are at play. Their laughter and the rustle of leaves, with now and then the click cf a horse's hoofs upon the road near by, make up the music of this hallowed hour. The sky is a little overcast but not gloomy. As I muse upon this delicious scene the darkness slowly gathers, the stars come out, and presently the moon rises, and blanches the meadow with silver light. Such has been the English summer, with scarce a hint of either heat or storm.