The Works of Lord Byron Volume I Part 30

['MS. M.']

See also allusion in letter to Mr. Henry Drury, June 25, 1809.

--Moore's 'Note'.]

[Footnote 6: On the retirement of Dr. Drury, three candidates for the vacant chair presented themselves--Messrs. Drury, Evans, and Butler. On the first movement to which this contest gave rise in the school, young Wildman was at the head of the party for Mark Drury, while Byron held himself aloof from any. Anxious, however, to have him as an ally, one of the Drury faction said to Wildman, "Byron, I know, will not join, because he does not choose to act second to any one, but, by giving up the leadership to him, you may at once secure him." This Wildman did, and Byron took the command.--'Life', p. 29.]

[Footnote 7: Dr. Drury. This most able and excellent man retired from his situation in March, 1805, after having resided thirty-five years at Harrow; the last twenty as head-master; an office he held with equal honour to himself and advantage to the very extensive school over which he presided. Panegyric would here be superfluous: it would be useless to enumerate qualifications which were never doubted. A considerable contest took place between three rival candidates for his vacant chair: of this I can only say--

'Si mea c.u.m vestris valuissent vota, Pelasgi!

Non foret ambiguus tanti certaminis hares.'

[Byron's letters from Harrow contain the same high praise of Dr. Drury.

In one, of November 2, 1804, he says,

"There is so much of the gentleman, so much mildness, and nothing of pedantry in his character, that I cannot help liking him, and will remember his instructions with grat.i.tude as long as I live."

A week after, he adds,

"I revere Dr. Drury. I dread offending him; not, however, through fear, but the respect I bear him makes me unhappy when I am under his displeasure."

Dr. Drury has related the secret of the influence he obtained: the glance which told him that the lad was "a wild mountain colt," told him also that he could be "led with a silken string."]]

[Footnote 8: This alludes to a character printed in a former private edition ['P. on V. Occasions'] for the perusal of some friends, which, with many other pieces, is withheld from the present volume. To draw the attention of the public to insignificance would be deservedly reprobated; and another reason, though not of equal consequence, may be given in the following couplet:--

"Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?

Who breaks a b.u.t.terfly upon a wheel?"

'Prologue to the Satires': POPE.

['Hours of Idleness', p. 154, 'note']

[(See the lines "On a Change of Masters at a Great Public School,"

'ante', p. 16.)

The following lines, attached to the Newstead MS. draft of "Childish Recollections," are aimed at Pomposus:--

"Just half a Pedagogue, and half a Fop, Not formed to grace the pulpit, but the Shop; The 'Counter', not the 'Desk', should be his place, Who deals out precepts, as if dealing Lace; Servile in mind, from Elevation proud, In argument, less sensible than loud, Through half the continent, the c.o.xcomb's been, And stuns you with the Wonders he has seen: ''How' in Pompeii's vault he found the page, Of some long lost, and long lamented Sage, And doubtless he the Letters would have trac'd, Had they not been by age and dust effac'd: This single specimen will serve to shew, The weighty lessons of this reverend Beau, Bombast in vain would want of Genius cloke, For feeble fires evaporate in smoke; A Boy, o'er Boys he holds a trembling reign, More fit than they to seek some School again."]]

[Footnote 9: Lines 121-243 were added in 'Hours of Idleness'.]

[Footnote 10: During a rebellion at Harrow, the poet prevented the school-room from being burnt down, by pointing out to the boys the names of their fathers and grandfathers on the walls.--(Medwin's 'Conversations' (1824), p. 85.)

Byron elsewhere thus describes his usual course of life while at Harrow: "always cricketing, rebelling, 'rowing', and in all manner of mischiefs." One day he tore down the gratings from the window of the hall; and when asked by Dr. Butler his reason for the outrage, coolly answered, "because they darkened the room."--'Life', p. 29.]

[Footnote 11: "Lord Clare." (Annotated copy of 'P. on V. Occasions'

in the British Museum.)

[Lines 243-264, as the note in Byron's handwriting explains, were originally intended to apply to Lord Clare. In 'Hours of Idleness'

"Joannes" became "Alonzo," and the same lines were employed to celebrate the memory of his friend the Hon. John Wingfield, of the Coldstream Guards, brother to Richard, fourth Viscount Powerscourt. He died at Coimbra in 1811, in his twentieth year. Byron at one time gave him the preference over all other friends.]]

[Footnote 12: The Rev. John Cecil Tattersall, B.A., of Christ Church, Oxford, who died December 8, 1812, at Hall's Place, Kent, aged twenty-three.]

[Footnote 13: The "factious strife" was brought on by the breaking up of school, and the dismissal of some volunteers from drill, both happening at the same hour. The b.u.t.t-end of a musket was aimed at Byron's head, and would have felled him to the ground, but for the interposition of Tattersall.--'Life', p. 25.]

[Footnote 14: John Fitzgibbon, second Earl of Clare (1792-1851), afterwards Governor of Bombay, of whom Byron said, in 1822,

"I have always loved him better than any 'male' thing in the world."

"I never," was his language in 1821, "hear the word ''Clare'' without a beating of the heart even 'now'; and I write it with the feelings of 1803-4-5, ad infinitum."]

[Footnote 15: John Fitzgibbon, first Earl of Clare (1749-1802), became Attorney-General and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. In the latter years of the independent Irish Parliament, he took an active part in politics in opposition to Grattan and the national party, and was distinguished as a powerful, if bitter, speaker. He was made Earl of Clare in 1795.]

[Footnote 16: George John, fifth Earl of Delawarr.--

"I am happy enough, and comfortable here," says Byron, in a letter from Harrow of Oct. 25, 1804. "My friends are not numerous, but select. Among the princ.i.p.al, I rank Lord Delawarr, who is very amiable, and my particular friend."-- "Nov. 2, 1804. Lord Delawarr is considerably younger than me, but the most good-tempered, amiable, clever fellow in the universe. To all which he adds the quality (a good one in the eyes of women) of being remarkably handsome. Delawarr and myself are, in a manner, connected; for one of my forefathers, in Charles I's time, married into their family."

The allusion in the text to their subsequent quarrel, receives further light from a letter which the poet addressed to Lord Clare under date, February 6, 1807. (See, too, lines "To George, Earl Delawarr," p. 126.) The first Lord Byron was twice married. His first wife was Cecilie, widow of Sir Francis Bindlose, and daughter of Thomas, third Lord Delawarr. He died childless, and was succeeded by his brother Richard, the poet's ancestor. His younger brother, Sir Robert Byron, married Lucy, another daughter of the third Lord Delawarr.]

[Footnote 17: Edward Noel Long, who was drowned by the foundering of a transport on the voyage to Lisbon with his regiment, in 1809. (See lines "To Edward Noel Long, Esq.," 'post', p. 184.)]

[Footnote 18: This alludes to the public speeches delivered at the school where the author was educated.]

[Footnote 19:

"My qualities were much more oratorical than poetical, and Dr. Drury, my grand patron, had a great notion that I should turn out an orator from my fluency, my turbulence, my voice, my copiousness of declamation, and my action. I remember that my first declamation astonished Dr. Drury into some unwonted (for he was economical of such) and sudden compliments, before the declaimers at our first rehearsal."

'Byron Diary'.

"I certainly was much pleased with Lord Byron's att.i.tude, gesture, and delivery, as well as with his composition. To my surprise, he suddenly diverged from the written composition, with a boldness and rapidity sufficient to alarm me, lest he should fail in memory as to the conclusion. I questioned him, why he had altered his declamation? He declared he had made no alteration, and did not know, in speaking, that he had deviated from it one letter. I believed him, and from a knowledge of his temperament, am convinced that he was hurried on to expressions and colourings more striking than what his pen had expressed."

DR. DRURY, 'Life', p. 20.]

[Footnote 20: "L'Amitie est l'Amour sans ailes," is a French proverb.

(See the lines so ent.i.tled, p. 220.)]

[Footnote i:

'Hence! thou unvarying song, of varied loves, Which youth commends, maturer age reproves; Which every rhyming bard repeats by rote, By thousands echo'd to the self-same note!

Tir'd of the dull, unceasing, copious strain, My soul is panting to be free again.

Farewell! ye nymphs, propitious to my verse, Some other Damon, will your charms rehea.r.s.e; Some other paint his pangs, in hope of bliss, Or dwell in rapture on your nectar'd kiss.