by Lord Byron
Matthews and I, meeting in London, and elsewhere, became great cronies. He was not good tempered — nor am I — but with a little tact his temper was manageable, and I thought him so superior a man, that I was willing to sacrifice something to his humours, which were often, at the same time, amusing and provoking. What became of his papers (and he certainly had many), at the time of his death, was never known. I mention this by the way, fearing to skip it over, and as he wrote remarkably well, both in Latin and English. We went down to Newstead together, where I had got a famous cellar, and Monks’ dresses from a masquerade warehouse. We were a company of some seven or eight, with an occasional neighbour or so for visiters, and used to sit up late in our friars’ dresses, drinking burgundy, claret, champagne, and what not, out of the skull-cup, and all sorts of glasses, and buffooning all round the house, in our conventual garments. Matthews always denominated me “the Abbot,” and never called me by any other name in his good humours, to the day of his death. The harmony of these our symposia was somewhat interrupted, a few days after our assembling, by Matthews’s threatening to throw Hobhouse out of a window, in consequence of I know not what commerce of jokes ending in this epigram. Hobhouse came to me and said, that “his respect and regard for me as host would not permit him to call out any of my guests, and that he should go to town next morning.” He did. It was in vain that I represented to him that the window was not high, and that the turf under it was particularly soft. Away he went.
Matthews and myself had travelled down from London together, talking all the way incessantly upon one single topic. When we got to Loughborough, I know not what chasm had made us diverge for a moment to some other subject, at which he was indignant. “Come,” said he, “don’t let us break through — let us go on as we began, to our journey’s end;” and so he continued, and was as entertaining as ever to the very end. He had previously occupied, during my year’s absence from Cambridge, my rooms in Trinity, with the furniture; and Jones, the tutor, in his odd way, had said, on putting him in,
“Mr. Matthews, I recommend to your attention not to damage any of the moveables, for Lord Byron, Sir, is a young man of tumultuous passions.”
Matthews was delighted with this; and whenever anybody came to visit him, begged them to handle the very door with caution; and used to repeat Jones’s admonition in his tone and manner. There was a large mirror in the room, on which he remarked, “that he thought his friends were grown uncommonly assiduous in coming to see him, but he soon discovered that they only came to see themselves.” Jones’s phrase of “tumultuous passions” and the whole scene, had put him into such good humour, that I verily believe that I owed to it a portion of his good graces.
When at Newstead, somebody by accident rubbed against one of his white silk stockings, one day before dinner; of course the gentleman apologised.
“Sir,” answered Matthews, “it may be all very well for you, who have a great many silk stockings, to dirty other people’s; but to me, who have only this one pair, which I have put on in honour of the Abbot here, no apology can compensate for such carelessness; besides, the expense of washing.”
He had the same sort of droll sardonic way about every thing. A wild Irishman, named Farrell, one evening began to say something at a large supper at Cambridge, Matthews roared out “Silence!” and then, pointing to Farrell, cried out, in the words of the oracle, “Orson is endowed with reason.” You may easily suppose that Orson lost what reason he had acquired, on hearing this compliment. When Hobhouse published his volume of poems, the Miscellany (which Matthews would call the “Miss-sell-any”), all that could be drawn from him was, that the preface was “extremely like Walsh.” Hobhouse thought this at first a compliment; but we never could make out what it was, for all we know of Walsh is his Ode to King William, and Pope’s epithet of “knowing Walsh.” When the Newstead party broke up for London, Hobhouse and Matthews, who were the greatest friends possible, agreed, for a whim, to walk together to town. They quarrelled by the way, and actually walked the latter half of the journey, occasionally passing and repassing, without speaking. When Matthews had got to Highgate, he had spent all his money but three-pence halfpenny, and determined to spend that also in a pint of beer, which I believe he was drinking before a public-house, as Hobhouse passed him (still without speaking) for the last time on their route. They were reconciled in London again.
One of Matthews’s passions was “the fancy;” and he sparred uncommonly well. But he always got beaten in rows, or combats with the bare fist. In swimming, too, he swam well; but with effort and labour, and too high out of the water; so that Scrope Davies and myself, of whom he was therein somewhat emulous, always told him that he would be drowned if ever he came to a difficult pass in the water. He was so; but surely Scrope and myself would have been most heartily glad that
”the Dean had lived,
And our prediction proved a lie.”
His head was uncommonly handsome, very like what Pope’s was in his
youth.
His voice, and laugh, and features, are strongly resembled by his brother Henry’s, if Henry be he of King’s College. His passion for boxing was so great, that he actually wanted me to match him with Dogherty (whom I had backed and made the match for against Tom Belcher ), and I saw them spar together at my own lodgings with the gloves on. As he was bent upon it, I would have backed Dogherty to please him, but the match went off. It was of course to have been a private fight, in a private room.
On one occasion, being too late to go home and dress, he was equipped by a friend (Mr. Baillie, I believe,) in a magnificently fashionable and somewhat exaggerated shirt and neckcloth. He proceeded to the Opera, and took his station in Fop’s Alley. During the interval between the opera and the ballet, an acquaintance took his station by him and saluted him:
“Come round,” said Matthews, “come round.”
”Why should I come round?” said the other; “you have only to turn
your head — I am close by you.”
”That is exactly what I cannot do,” said Matthews; “don’t you see
the state I am in?”
pointing to his buckram shirt collar and inflexible cravat, — and there he stood with his head always in the same perpendicular position during the whole spectacle.
One evening, after dining together, as we were going to the Opera, I happened to have a spare Opera ticket (as subscriber to a box), and presented it to Matthews.
“Now, sir,” said he to Hobhouse afterwards, “this I call courteous in the Abbot — another man would never have thought that I might do better with half a guinea than throw it to a door-keeper; — but here is a man not only asks me to dinner, but gives me a ticket for the theatre.”
These were only his oddities, for no man was more liberal, or more honourable in all his doings and dealings, than Matthews. He gave Hobhouse and me, before we set out for Constantinople, a most splendid entertainment, to which we did ample justice. One of his fancies was dining at all sorts of out-of-the-way places. Somebody popped upon him in I know not what coffee-house in the Strand — and what do you think was the attraction? Why, that he paid a shilling (I think) to dine with his hat on. This he called his “hat house,” and used to boast of the comfort of being covered at meal times.
When Sir Henry Smith was expelled from Cambridge for a row with a
tradesman named “Hiron,” Matthews solaced himself with shouting under
Hiron’s windows every evening,
”Ah me! what perils do environ
The man who meddles with hot Hiron.”
He was also of that band of profane scoffers who, under the auspices of — — , used to rouse Lort Mansel (late Bishop of Bristol) from his slumbers in the lodge of Trinity; and when he appeared at the window foaming with wrath, and crying out, “I know you, gentlemen, I know you!” were wont to reply, “We beseech thee to hear us, good Lort!” — ”Good Lort deliver us!” (Lort was his Christian name.)
As he was very free in his speculations upon all kinds of subjects, although by no means either dissolute or intemperate in his conduct, and as I was no less independent, our conversation and correspondence used to alarm our friend Hobhouse to a considerable degree.
You must be almost tired of my packets, which will have cost a mint of postage.
Salute Gifford and all my friends.
Yours, etc.
[Footnote 1: This letter, though written twelve years later, belongs to the Cambridge period of Byron’s life. It is therefore introduced here. (For John Murray, see [Foot]note to letter to R. C. Dallas [Letter 167] of August 21, 1811.)]
[Footnote 2: Charles Skinner Matthews was known at Eton as Matthews ‘major’, his ‘minor’ being his brother Henry, the author of ‘The Diary of an Invalid’, afterwards a Judge in the Supreme Court of Ceylon, who died in 1828. They were the sons of John Matthews of Belmont, Herefordshire, M.P. for that county (1802-6). C. S. Matthews became a Scholar of Trinity, Cambridge; Ninth Wrangler in 1805; First Members’ Prizeman in 1807; Fellow of Downing in 1808. He was drowned in the Cam in August, 1811. He at the time contemplated standing as Member for the University of Cambridge. For a description of the accident, see letter from Henry Drury to Francis Hodgson (‘Life of the Rev. Francis Hodgson’, vol. i. pp. 182-185). In the note to ‘Childe Harold’, Canto I. stanza xci., Byron speaks of Matthews:
“I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired; while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority.”]
[Footnote 3: See page 120 [Letter 67], [Foot]note 1.]
[Footnote 4: See page 73 [Letter 31], [Foot]note 2.]
[Footnote 5: See page 163 [Letter 83], note 1 .]
[Footnote 6: Of this visit to Newstead, Matthews wrote the following account to his sister: —
“London, May 22, 1809.
“My Dear — — , — I must begin with giving you a few particulars of the singular place which I have lately quitted.
Newstead Abbey is situate 136 miles from London, — four on this side Mansfield. It is so fine a piece of antiquity, that I should think there must be a description, and, perhaps, a picture of it in Grose. The ancestors of its present owner came into possession of it at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, — but the building itself is of a much earlier date. Though sadly fallen to decay, it is still completely an abbey, and most part of it is still standing in the same state as when it was first built. There are two tiers of cloisters, with a variety of cells and rooms about them, which, though not inhabited, nor in an inhabitable state, might easily be made so; and many of the original rooms, amongst which is a fine stone hall, are still in use. Of the abbey church only one end remains; and the old kitchen, with a long range of apartments, is reduced to a heap of rubbish. Leading from the abbey to the modern part of the habitation is a noble room, seventy feet in length, and twenty-three in breadth; but every part of the house displays neglect and decay, save those which the present Lord has lately fitted up.
The house and gardens are entirely surrounded by a wall with battlements. In front is a large lake, bordered here and there with castellated buildings, the chief of which stands on an eminence at the further extremity of it. Fancy all this surrounded with bleak and barren hills, with scarce a tree to be seen for miles, except a solitary clump or two, and you will have some idea of Newstead. For the late Lord, being at enmity with his son, to whom the estate was secured by entail, resolved, out of spite to the same, that the estate should descend to him in as miserable a plight as he could possibly reduce it to; for which cause, he took no care of the mansion, and fell to lopping of every tree he could lay his hands on, so furiously, that he reduced immense tracts of woodland country to the desolate state I have just described. However, his son died before him, so that all his rage was thrown away.
So much for the place, concerning which I have thrown together these few particulars, meaning my account to be, like the place itself, without any order or connection. But if the place itself appear rather strange to you, the ways of the inhabitants will not appear much less so. Ascend, then, with me the hall steps, that I may introduce you to my Lord and his visitants. But have a care how you proceed; be mindful to go there in broad daylight, and with your eyes about you. For, should you make any blunder, — should you go to the right of the hall steps, you are laid hold of by a bear; and should you go to the left, your case is still worse, for you run full against a wolf! — Nor, when you have attained the door, is your danger over; for the hall being decayed, and therefore standing in need of repair, a bevy of inmates are very probably banging at one end of it with their pistols; so that if you enter without giving loud notice of your approach, you have only escaped the wolf and the bear to expire by the pistol-shots of the merry monks of Newstead.
Our party consisted of Lord Byron and four others, and was, now and
then, increased by the presence of a neighbouring parson. As for our
way of living, the order of the day was generally this: — for
breakfast we had no set hour, but each suited his own convenience,
— everything remaining on the table till the whole party had done;
though had one wished to breakfast at the early hour of ten, one would
have been rather lucky to find any of the servants up. Our average
hour of rising was one. I, who generally got up between eleven and
twelve, was always, — even when an invalid, — the first of the party,
and was esteemed a prodigy of early rising. It was frequently past two
before the breakfast party broke up. Then, for the amusements of the
morning, there was reading, fencing, single-stick, or shuttle-cock, in
the great room; practising with pistols in the hall;
walking — riding — cricket — sailing on the lake, playing with the bear,
or teasing the wolf. Between seven and eight we dined; and our evening
lasted from that time till one, two, or three in the morning. The
evening diversions may be easily conceived.
I must not omit the custom of handing round, after dinner, on the removal of the cloth, a human skull filled with burgundy. After revelling on choice viands, and the finest wines of France, we adjourned to tea, where we amused ourselves with reading, or improving conversation, — each, according to his fancy, — and, after sandwiches, etc., retired to rest. A set of monkish dresses, which had been provided, with all the proper apparatus of crosses, beads, tonsures, etc., often gave a variety to our appearance, and to our pursuits.
You may easily imagine how chagrined I was at being ill nearly the first half of the time I was there. But I was led into a very different reflection from that of Dr. Swift, who left Pope’s house without ceremony, and afterwards informed him, by letter, that it was impossible for two sick friends to live together; for I found my shivering and invalid frame so perpetually annoyed by the thoughtless and tumultuous health of every one about me, that I heartily wished every soul in the house to be as ill as myself.
“The journey back I performed on foot, together with another of the guests. We walked about twenty-five miles a day; but were a week on the road, from being detained by the rain. So here I close my account of an expedition which has somewhat extended my knowledge of this country. And where do you think I am going next? To Constantinople! — at least, such an excursion has been proposed to me. Lord B. and another friend of mine are going thither next month, and have asked me to join the party; but it seems to be but a wild scheme, and requires twice thinking upon.
“Addio, my dear I., yo
urs very affectionately, C. S. MATTHEWS.”]
[Footnote 7: A joke, related by Hobhouse, reminds us of the youth of the party. In the Long Gallery at Newstead was placed a stone coffin, from which, as he passed down the Gallery at night, he heard a groan proceeding. On going nearer, a cowled figure rose from the coffin and blew out the candle. It was Matthews.]
[Footnote 8: The Rev. Thomas Jones. (See page 79 [Letter 36], [Foot]note 1.)]
[Footnote 9: The only thing remarkable about Walsh’s preface is that Dr. Johnson praises it as “very judicious,” but is, at the same time, silent respecting the poems to which it is prefixed (Moore).]
[Footnote 10: No “Ode” under this title is to be found in Walsh’s Poems. Byron had, no doubt, in mind The Golden Age Restored — a composition in which, says Dr. Johnson, “there was something of humour, while the facts were recent; but it now strikes no longer.”]
[Footnote 11:
” — — Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write.”
“About fifteen,” says Pope, “I got acquainted with Mr. Walsh. He used to encourage me much, and tell me, that there was one way left of excelling: for though we had several great poets, we never had any one great poet that was correct; and he desired me to make that my study and aim” (Spence’s Anecdotes, edit. 1820, p. 280).]
[Footnote 12: See page 165 [Letter 86], [Foot]note 2.]
[Footnote 13: Dan Dogherty, Irish champion (1806-11), came into notice as a pugilist in 1806. He was beaten by Belcher in April, 1808, near the Rubbing House on Epsom Downs, and again on the Curragh of Kildare, in 1813, in thirty-five minutes, after twenty-six rounds.]