by Lord Byron
In his Detached Thoughts (1821) Byron says,
“Of actors Cooke was the most natural, Kemble the most supernatural, Kean the medium between the two. But Mrs. Siddons was worth them all put together.”
February 20th
Got up and tore out two leaves of this Journal — I don’t know why. Hodgson just called and gone. He has much bonhommie with his other good qualities, and more talent than he has yet had credit for beyond his circle.
An invitation to dine at Holland House to meet Kean. He is worth meeting; and I hope, by getting into good society, he will be prevented from falling like Cooke. He is greater now on the stage, and off he should never be less. There is a stupid and underrating criticism upon him in one of the newspapers. I thought that, last night, though great, he rather under-acted more than the first time. This may be the effect of these cavils; but I hope he has more sense than to mind them. He cannot expect to maintain his present eminence, or to advance still higher, without the envy of his green-room fellows, and the nibbling of their admirers. But, if he don’t beat them all, why then — merit hath no purchase in “these coster-monger days.”
I wish that I had a talent for the drama; I would write a tragedy now. But no, — it is gone. Hodgson talks of one, — he will do it well; — and I think M — -e [Moore] should try. He has wonderful powers, and much variety; besides, he has lived and felt. To write so as to bring home to the heart, the heart must have been tried, — but, perhaps, ceased to be so. While you are under the influence of passions, you only feel, but cannot describe them, — any more than, when in action, you could turn round and tell the story to your next neighbour! When all is over, — all, all, and irrevocable, — trust to memory — she is then but too faithful.
Went out, and answered some letters, yawned now and then, and redde the Robbers. Fine, — but Fiesco is better; and Alfieri, and Monti’s Aristodemo best. They are more equal than the Tedeschi dramatists.
Answered — or rather acknowledged — the receipt of young Reynolds’s poem, Safie. The lad is clever, but much of his thoughts are borrowed, — whence, the Reviewers may find out. I hate discouraging a young one; and I think, — though wild and more oriental than he would be, had he seen the scenes where he has placed his tale, — that he has much talent, and, certainly fire enough.
Received a very singular epistle; and the mode of its conveyance, through Lord H.’s hands, as curious as the letter itself. But it was gratifying and pretty.
Sunday, February 27th
Here I am, alone, instead of dining at Lord H.’s, where I was asked, — but not inclined to go any where. Hobhouse says I am growing a loup garou, — a solitary hobgoblin. True; — ”I am myself alone.”
The last week has been passed in reading — seeing plays — now and then visitors — sometimes yawning and sometimes sighing, but no writing, — save of letters. If I could always read, I should never feel the want of society. Do I regret it? — um! — ”Man delights not me,” and only one woman — at a time.
There is something to me very softening in the presence of a woman, — some strange influence, even if one is not in love with them — which I cannot at all account for, having no very high opinion of the sex. But yet, — I always feel in better humour with myself and every thing else, if there is a woman within ken. Even Mrs. Mule, my firelighter, — the most ancient and withered of her kind, — and (except to myself) not the best-tempered — always makes me laugh, — no difficult task when I am “i’ the vein.”
Heigho! I would I were in mine island! — I am not well; and yet I look in good health. At times, I fear, “I am not in my perfect mind;” — and yet my heart and head have stood many a crash, and what should ail them now? They prey upon themselves, and I am sick — sick — ”Prithee, undo this button — why should a cat, a rat, a dog have life — and thou no life at all?”
Six-and-twenty years, as they call them, why, I might and should have been a Pasha by this time. “I ‘gin to be a-weary of the sun.”
Buonaparte is not yet beaten; but has rebutted Blucher, and repiqued Schwartzenburg. This it is to have a head. If he again wins, Væ victis!
“I am myself alone.”
Henry VI., Part III. act v. sc. 6.
“This ancient housemaid, of whose gaunt and witch-like appearance it would be impossible to convey any idea but by the pencil, furnished one among the numerous instances of Lord Byron’s proneness to attach himself to any thing, however homely, that had once enlisted his good nature in its behalf, and become associated with his thoughts. He first found this old woman at his lodgings in Bennet Street, where, for a whole season, she was the perpetual scarecrow of his visitors. When, next year, he took chambers in Albany, one of the great advantages which his friends looked to in the change was, that they should get rid of this phantom. But, no, — there she was again — he had actually brought her with him from Bennet Street. The following year saw him married, and, with a regular establishment of servants, in Piccadilly; and here, — as Mrs. Mule had not made her appearance to any of the visitors, — it was concluded, rashly, that the witch had vanished. One of those friends, however, who had most fondly indulged in this persuasion, happening to call one day when all the male part of the establishment were abroad, saw, to his dismay, the door opened by the same grim personage, improved considerably in point of babiliments since he last saw her, and keeping pace with the increased scale of her master’s household, as a new peruke, and other symptoms of promotion, testified. When asked ‘how he came to carry this old woman about with him from place to place,’ Lord Byron’s only answer was, ‘The poor old devil was so kind to me’ “ (Moore).
“Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
And thou no breath at all?”
King Lear, act v. sc. 3.
“I ‘gin to be a-weary of the sun,
And wish the estate of the world were now undone.”
Macbeth, act v. sc. 5.
Sunday, March 6th
On Tuesday last dined with Rogers, — Madame de Staël, Mackintosh, Sheridan, Erskine, and Payne Knight, Lady Donegal, and Miss R. there. Sheridan told a very good story of himself and Madame de Recamier’s handkerchief; Erskine a few stories of himself only. She is going to write a big book about England, she says; — I believe her. Asked by her how I liked Miss Edgeworth’s thing, called Patronage, and answered (very sincerely) that I thought it very bad for her, and worse than any of the others. Afterwards thought it possible Lady Donegal, being Irish, might be a patroness of Miss Edgeworth, and was rather sorry for my opinion, as I hate putting people into fusses, either with themselves or their favourites; it looks as if one did it on purpose. The party went off very well, and the fish was very much to my gusto. But we got up too soon after the women; and Mrs. Corinne always lingers so long after dinner that we wish her in — the drawing-room.
To-day Campbell called, and while sitting here in came Merivale. During our colloquy, C. (ignorant that Merivale was the writer) abused the “mawkishness of the Quarterly Review of Grimm’s Correspondence.” I (knowing the secret) changed the conversation as soon as I could; and C. went away, quite convinced of having made the most favourable impression on his new acquaintance. Merivale is luckily a very good-natured fellow, or God he knows what might have been engendered from such a malaprop. I did not look at him while this was going on, but I felt like a coal — for I like Merivale, as well as the article in question.
Asked to Lady Keith’s to-morrow evening — I think I will go; but it is the first party invitation I have accepted this “season,” as the learned Fletcher called it, when that youngest brat of Lady — — ’s cut my eye and cheek open with a misdirected pebble — ”Never mind, my Lord, the scar will be gone before the season;” as if one’s eye was of no importance in the mean time.
Lord Erskine called, and gave me his famous pamphlet, with a marginal note and corrections in his handwriting. Sent it to be bound superbly, and shall treasure it.
“Even the great luminaries of the law,” says Wraxall (Posthumous Memoirs, vol. i. p. 86), “when arrayed in their ermine, bent under his ascendancy, and seemed to be half subdued by his intelligence, or awed by his vehemence, pertinacity, and undaunted character.”
With a jury he was particularly successful, though he lived to write the lines quoted by Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, ed. 1868, vol. viii. p. 233):
“The monarch’s pale face was with blushes suffused,
To observe right and wrong by twelve villains confused,
And, kicking their — — s all round in a fury,
Cried, ‘Curs’d be the day I invented a jury!’“
A Whig in politics, and in sympathy with the doctrines of the French Revolution, he defended Paine, Frost, Hardy, and other political offenders, and did memorable service to the cause of constitutional liberty. In the House of Commons, which he entered as M. P. for Portsmouth in 1783, he was a failure; his maiden speech on Fox’s India Bill fell flat, and he was crushed by Pitt’s contempt. As Lord Chancellor (1806-7) he proved a better judge than was expected. At the time when Byron made his acquaintance, he had practically retired from public life, and devoted himself to literature, society, and farming, writing on the services of rooks, and attending the Holkham sheep-shearings. Lord Campbell has collected many of his verses and jokes in vol. ix. chap. cxc. of his Lives of the Chancellors. His famous pamphlet, On the Causes and Consequences of the War with France (1797), was written, as he told Miss Berry (Journal of Miss Berry, vol. ii. p. 340),
“on slips of paper in the midst of all the business which I was engaged in at the time — not at home, but in open court, whilst the causes were trying. When it was not my turn to examine a witness, or to speak to the Jury, I wrote a little bit; and so on by snatches.”
His Armata was published by Murray in 1817. In society Erskine was widely known for his brilliancy, his puns, and his extraordinary vanity. His egotism gained him such titles as Counsellor Ego, Baron Ego of Eye, and supplied Mathias (Pursuits of Literature) with an illustration:
“A vain, pert prater, bred in Erskine’s school.”
“Old Edgeworth, the fourth or fifth Mrs. Edgeworth, and the Miss Edgeworth were in London, 1813. Miss Edgeworth liked, Mrs. Edgeworth not disliked, old Edgeworth a bore, the worst of bores — a boisterous Bore. I met them in Society — once at a breakfast of Sir H. D.’s. Old Edgeworth came in late, boasting that he had given ‘Dr. Parr a dressing the night before’ (no such easy matter by the way). I thought her pleasant. They all abused Anna Seward’s memory. When on the road they heard of her brother’s — and his son’s — death. What was to be done? Their London apparel was all ordered and made! so they sunk his death for the six weeks of their sojourn, and went into mourning on their way back to Ireland. Fact!
“While the Colony were in London, there was a book with a subscription for the ‘recall of Mrs. Siddons to the Stage’ going about for signatures. Moore moved for a similar subscription for the ‘recall of Mr. Edgeworth to Ireland!’ “Sir Humphry Davy told me that the scene of the French Valet and Irish postboy in Ennui was taken from his verbal description to the Edgeworths in Edgeworthtown of a similar fact on the road occurring to himself. So much the better — being life.”
March 7th
Rose at seven — ready by half-past eight — went to Mr. Hanson’s, Bloomsbury Square — went to church with his eldest daughter, Mary Anne (a good girl), and gave her away to the Earl of Portsmouth. Saw her fairly a countess — congratulated the family and groom (bride) — drank a bumper of wine (wholesome sherris) to their felicity, and all that — and came home. Asked to stay to dinner, but could not. At three sat to Phillips for faces. Called on Lady M. [Melbourne] — I like her so well, that I always stay too long. (Mem. to mend of that.)
Passed the evening with Hobhouse, who has begun a poem, which promises highly; — wish he would go on with it. Heard some curious extracts from a life of Morosini, the blundering Venetian, who blew up the Acropolis at Athens with a bomb, and be damned to him! Waxed sleepy — just come home — must go to bed, and am engaged to meet Sheridan to-morrow at Rogers’s.
Queer ceremony that same of marriage — saw many abroad, Greek and Catholic — one, at home, many years ago. There be some strange phrases in the prologue (the exhortation), which made me turn away, not to laugh in the face of the surpliceman. Made one blunder, when I joined the hands of the happy — rammed their left hands, by mistake, into one another. Corrected it — bustled back to the altar-rail, and said “Amen.” Portsmouth responded as if he had got the whole by heart; and, if any thing, was rather before the priest. It is now midnight and — — .
“Denman mentioned Lord Byron’s affidavit about Lord Portsmouth as a proof of the influence of Hanson over him; Lord B. swearing that Lord P. had ‘rather a superior mind than otherwise’“
(Memoirs, etc., of Thomas Moore, vol. vi. p. 47).
The following is the note which Byron sent Hanson to embody in his affidavit:
“I have been acquainted with Mr. Hanson and his family for many years. He is my solicitor. About the beginning of March last he sent to me to ask my opinion on the subject of Lord Portsmouth, who, as I understood from Mr. H., was paying great attention to his eldest daughter. He stated to me that Mr. Newton Fellowes (with whom I have no personal acquaintance) was particularly desirous that Lord Portsmouth should marry some ‘elderly woman’ of his (Mr. Fellowes’s) selection — that the title and family estates might thereby devolve on Mr. F. or his children; but that Lord P. had expressed a dislike to old women, and a desire to choose for himself. I told Mr. Hanson that, if Miss Hanson’s affections were not pre-engaged, and Lord Portsmouth appeared attached to her, there could be, in my opinion, no objection to the match. I think, but cannot be positive, that I saw Lord Portsmouth at Mr. Hanson’s two or three times previous to the marriage; but I had no conversation with him upon it.
“The night before the ceremony, I received an invitation from Mr. Hanson, requesting me, as a friend of the family, to be present at the marriage, which was to take place next morning. I went next morning to Bloomsbury Square, where I found the parties. Lady Portsmouth, with her brother and sister and another gentleman, went in the carriage to St. George’s Church; Lord Portsmouth and myself walked, as the carriage was full, and the distance short. On my way Lord Portsmouth told me that he had been partial to Miss Hanson from her childhood, and that, since she grew up, and more particularly subsequent to the decease of the late Lady P., this partiality had become attachment, and that he thought her calculated to make him an excellent wife. I was present at the ceremony and gave away the bride. Lord Portsmouth’s behaviour seemed to me perfectly calm and rational on the occasion. He seemed particularly attentive to the priest, and gave the responses audibly and very distinctly. I remarked this because, in ordinary conversation, his Lordship has a hesitation in his speech. After the ceremony, we returned to Mr. Hanson’s, whence, I believe, they went into the country — where I did not accompany them. Since their return I have occasionally seen Lord and Lady Portsmouth in Bloomsbury Square. They appeared very happy. I have never been very intimate with his Lordship, and am therefore unqualified to give a decided opinion of his general conduct. But had I considered him insane, I should have advised Mr. Hanson, when he consulted me on the subject, not to permit the marriage. His preference of a young woman to an old one, and of his own wishes to those of a younger brother, seemed to me neither irrational nor extraordinary.”
There is nothing in the note itself, or in the draft affidavit, to bear out Moore’s report of Denman’s statement.
Byron, according to the account given by Newton Hanson, is wrong in saying that Mrs. Hanson approved of the marriage. On the contrary, it was the cause of her death, a fortnight later. In 1828 the marriage was annulled, a jury
having decided that Lord Portsmouth was non compos mentis when he contracted it.
March 10th
Thor’s Day
On Tuesday dined with Rogers, — Mackintosh, Sheridan, Sharpe, — much talk, and good, — all, except my own little prattlement. Much of old times — Horne Tooke — the Trials — evidence of Sheridan, and anecdotes of those times, when I, alas! was an infant. If I had been a man, I would have made an English Lord Edward Fitzgerald.
Set down Sheridan at Brookes’s, — where, by the by, he could not have well set down himself, as he and I were the only drinkers. Sherry means to stand for Westminster, as Cochrane (the stock-jobbing hoaxer) must vacate. Brougham is a candidate. I fear for poor dear Sherry. Both have talents of the highest order, but the youngster has yet a character. We shall see, if he lives to Sherry’s age, how he will pass over the redhot plough-shares of public life. I don’t know why, but I hate to see the old ones lose; particularly Sheridan, notwithstanding all his méchanceté.
Received many, and the kindest, thanks from Lady Portsmouth, père and mère, for my match-making. I don’t regret it, as she looks the countess well, and is a very good girl. It is odd how well she carries her new honours. She looks a different woman, and high-bred, too. I had no idea that I could make so good a peeress.
Went to the play with Hobhouse. Mrs. Jordan superlative in Hoyden, and Jones well enough in Foppington. What plays! what wit! — hélas! Congreve and Vanbrugh are your only comedy. Our society is too insipid now for the like copy. Would not go to Lady Keith’s. Hobhouse thought it odd. I wonder he should like parties. If one is in love, and wants to break a commandment and covet any thing that is there, they do very well. But to go out amongst the mere herd, without a motive, pleasure, or pursuit — ’sdeath! “I’ll none of it.” He told me an odd report, — that I am the actual Conrad, the veritable Corsair, and that part of my travels are supposed to have passed in privacy. Um! — people sometimes hit near the truth; but never the whole truth. H. don’t know what I was about the year after he left the Levant; nor does any one — nor — — nor — nor — however, it is a lie — but, “I doubt the equivocation of the fiend that lies like truth!”