The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume II Part 53

My Dearest Augusta,--I did not answer your letter, because I could not answer as I wished, but expected that every week would bring me some tidings that might enable me to reply better than by apologies. But Claughton has not, will not, and, I think, cannot pay his money, and though, luckily, it was stipulated that he should never have possession till the whole was paid, the estate is still on my hands, and your brother consequently not less embarra.s.sed than ever. This is the truth, and is all the excuse I can offer for inability, but not unwillingness, to serve you.

I am going abroad again in June, but should wish to see you before my departure. You have perhaps heard that I have been fooling away my time with different "_regnantes_;" but what better can be expected from me? I have but one _relative_, and her I never see. I have no connections to domesticate with, and for marriage I have neither the talent nor the inclination. I cannot fortune-hunt, nor afford to marry without a fortune. My parliamentary schemes are not much to my taste--I spoke twice last Session, [1] and was told it was well enough; but I hate the thing altogether, and have no intention to "strut another hour" on that stage. I am thus wasting the best part of life, daily repenting and never amending.

On Sunday, I set off for a fortnight for Eywood, near Presteign, in Herefordshire--with the _Oxfords_. I see you put on a _demure_ look at the name, which is very becoming and matronly in you; but you won't be sorry to hear that I am quite out of a more serious sc.r.a.pe with another singular personage which threatened me last year, and trouble enough I had to steer clear of it I a.s.sure you. I hope all my nieces are well, and increasing in growth and number; but I wish you were not always buried in that bleak common near Newmarket.

I am very well in health, but not happy, nor even comfortable; but I will not bore you with complaints. I am a fool, and deserve all the ills I have met, or may meet with, but nevertheless very _sensibly_, dearest Augusta,

Your most affectionate brother, BYRON.

[Footnote 1: What is generally supposed to have been Byron's second speech (see Appendix II. (2)) was made, April 21, 1813, on Lord Donoughmore's motion for a Committee on Roman Catholic claims.

The following impressions of his short parliamentary career are recorded by Byron himself:

"I have never heard any one who fulfilled my ideal of an orator.

Grattan would have been near it, but for his harlequin delivery. Pitt I never heard. Fox but once, and then he struck me as a debater, which to me seems as different from an orator as an improvisatore, or a versifier, from a poet. Grey is great, but it is not oratory. Canning is sometimes very like one. Windham I did not admire, though all the world did; it seemed sad sophistry. Whitbread was the Demosthenes of bad taste and vulgar vehemence, but strong, and English. Holland is impressive from sense and sincerity. Lord Lansdowne good, but still a debater only. Grenville I like vastly, if he would prune his speeches down to an hour's delivery. Burdett is sweet and silvery as Belial himself, and I think the greatest favourite in Pandemonium; at least I always heard the country gentlemen and the ministerial devilry praise his speeches _up_ stairs, and run down from Bellamy's when he was upon his legs. I heard Bob Milnes make his _second_ speech; it made no impression. I like Ward--studied, but keen, and sometimes eloquent.

Peel, my school and form fellow (we sat within two of each other), strange to say, I have never heard, though I often wished to do so; but, from what I remember of him at Harrow, he _is_, or _should_ be, among the best of them. Now I do _not_ admire Mr. Wilberforce's speaking; it is nothing but a flow of words--'words, words, alone.'

"I doubt greatly if the English _have_ any eloquence, properly so called; and am inclined to think that the Irish _had_ a great deal, and that the French _will_ have, and have had in Mirabeau. Lord Chatham and Burke are the nearest approaches to orators in England. I don't know what Erskine may have been at the _bar_, but in the House, I wish him at the bar once more. Lauderdale is shrill, and Scotch, and acute. Of Brougham I shall say nothing, as I have a personal feeling of dislike to the man.

"But amongst all these, good, bad, and indifferent, I never heard the speech which was not too long for the auditors, and not very intelligible, except here and there. The whole thing is a grand deception, and as tedious and tiresome as maybe to those who must be often present. I heard Sheridan only once, and that briefly, but I liked his voice, his manner, and his wit: and he is the only one of them I ever wished to hear at greater length.

"The impression of Parliament upon me was, that its members are not formidable as _speakers_, but very much so as an _audience_; because in so numerous a body there may be little eloquence, (after all, there were but _two_ thorough orators in all antiquity, and I suspect still _fewer_ in modern times,) but there must be a leaven of thought and good sense sufficient to make them _know_ what is right, though they can't express it n.o.bly.

"Horne Tooke and Roscoe both are said to have declared that they left Parliament with a higher opinion of its aggregate integrity and abilities than that with which they entered it. The general amount of both in most Parliaments is probably about the same, as also the number of _speakers_ and their talent. I except _orators_, of course, because they are things of ages, and not of septennial or triennial reunions. Neither House ever struck me with more awe or respect than the same number of Turks in a divan, or of Methodists in a barn, would have done. Whatever diffidence or nervousness I felt (and I felt both, in a great degree) arose from the number rather than the quality of the a.s.semblage, and the thought rather of the _public without_ than the persons within,--knowing (as all know) that Cicero himself, and probably the Messiah, could never have altered the vote of a single lord of the bedchamber, or bishop. I thought _our_ House dull, but the other animating enough upon great days.

"I have heard that when Grattan made his first speech in the English Commons, it was for some minutes doubtful whether to laugh at or cheer him. The _debut_ of his predecessor, Flood, had been a complete failure, under nearly similar circ.u.mstances. But when the ministerial part of our senators had watched Pitt (their thermometer) for the cue, and saw him nod repeatedly his stately nod of approbation, they took the hint from their huntsman, and broke out into the most rapturous cheers. Grattan's speech, indeed, deserved them; it was a _chef-d'oeuvre_. I did not hear _that_ speech of his (being then at Harrow), but heard most of his others on the same question--also that on the war of 1815. I differed from his opinions on the latter question, but coincided in the general admiration of his eloquence.

"When I met old Courtenay, the orator, at Rogers's the poet's, in 1811-12, I was much taken with the portly remains of his fine figure, and the still acute quickness of his conversation. It was _he_ who silenced Flood in the English House by a crushing reply to a hasty _debut_ of the rival of Grattan in Ireland. I asked Courtenay (for I like to trace motives) if he had not some personal provocation; for the acrimony of his answer seemed to me, as I read it, to involve it.

Courtenay said 'he had; that, when in Ireland (being an Irishman), at the bar of the Irish House of Commons, Flood had made a personal and unfair attack upon _himself_, who, not being a member of that House, could not defend himself, and that some years afterwards, the opportunity of retort offering in the English Parliament, he could not resist it.' He certainly repaid Flood with interest, for Flood never made any figure, and only a speech or two afterwards, in the English House of Commons. I must except, however, his speech on Reform in 1790, which Fox called 'the best he ever heard upon that subject.'"]

286.--To John Murray.

March 29th, 1813.

Dear Sir,--Westall has, I believe, agreed to ill.u.s.trate your book [1], and I fancy one of the engravings will be from the pretty little girl [2] you saw the other day, though without her name, and merely as a model for some sketch connected with the subject. I would also have the portrait (which you saw to-day) of the friend who is mentioned in the text at the close of Canto 1st, and in the notes,--which are subjects sufficient to authorise that addition.

Believe me, yours truly, B'N.

[Footnote 1: An edition of the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold', to be ill.u.s.trated by Richard Westall (1765-1836), who painted Byron's portrait in 1813-14.]

[Footnote 2: Lady Charlotte Harley, daughter of Lord Oxford, to whom, under the name of Ianthe, the introductory lines to 'Childe Harold' were afterwards addressed. Lady Charlotte married, in 1820, Brigadier-General Bacon.]

287.--To John Hanson.

Presteigne, April 15th, 1813.

Dear Sir,--I wrote to you requesting an answer last week, and again apprising you of my determination of leaving England early in May, and proceeding no further with Claughton.

Now, having arrived, I shall write to that person immediately to give up the whole business. I am sick of the delays attending it, and can wait no longer, and I have had too much of _law_ already at Rochdale to place Newstead in the same predicament.

I shall only be able to see you for a few days in town, as I shall sail before the 20th of May.

Believe me, yours ever, B.

P.S.--My best compliments to Mrs. H. and the family.

288.--To John Hanson.