The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals Volume I Part 31

Again (vol. ii. p. 295) she says of him:

"Besides his varied accomplishments, and his admirable goodness and kindness, he has all sorts of amusing peculiarities. With a temper never known to fail, an indulgence the largest, a tenderness as of a woman, he has the habit of talking like a cynic! and with more learning, ancient and modern, and a wider grasp of literature than almost any one I know, professes to read nothing and care for nothing but 'Shakespeare and the Bible.' He is the finest reader of both that I ever heard. His preaching, which has been so much admired, is too rapid, but his reading the prayers is perfection. The best parish priest in London, and the truest Christian."

Miss Mitford's praise may be exaggerated; but she had known Harness for a lifetime.

Harness edited 'Shakespeare' (1825, 8 vols.), as well as 'Ma.s.singer'

(1830) and 'Ford' (1831); wrote for the 'Quarterly' and 'Blackwood'; and published a number of sermons, including 'The Wrath of Cain', 'A Boyle Lecture' (1822). He wrote 'The Life of Mary Russell Mitford' (1870), in collaboration with the Rev. A. G. L'Estrange, whose 'Life of the Rev. W.

Harness' is the chief authority for his career.

His friendship with Byron began at Harrow ('Life', pp. 23, 24), where Byron, who was older than Harness, took pity upon his lameness and weakness, and protected him from the bullies of the school. At a later period they became estranged, as is shown by the following letter from Byron to Harness ('Life', pp. 24, 25):--

"We both seem perfectly to recollect, with a mixture of pleasure and regret, the hours we once pa.s.sed together, and I a.s.sure you, most sincerely, they are numbered among the happiest of my brief chronicle of enjoyment. I am now 'getting into years', that is to say, I was 'twenty' a month ago, and another year will send me into the world to run my career of folly with the rest. I was then just fourteen,--you were almost the first of my Harrow friends, certainly the 'first' in my esteem, if not in date; but an absence from Harrow for some time, shortly after, and new connections on your side, and the difference in our conduct (an advantage decidedly in your favour) from that turbulent and riotous disposition of mine, which impelled me into every species of mischief,--all these circ.u.mstances combined to destroy an intimacy, which affection urged me to continue, and memory compels me to regret. But there is not a circ.u.mstance attending that period, hardly a sentence we exchanged, which is not impressed on my mind at this moment. I need not say more,--this a.s.surance alone must convince you, had I considered them as trivial, they would have been less indelible. How well I recollect the perusal of your 'first flights'! There is another circ.u.mstance you do not know;--the 'first lines' I ever attempted at Harrow were addressed to 'you'. You were to have seen them; but Sinclair had the copy in his possession when we went home;--and, on our return, we were 'strangers'. They were destroyed, and certainly no great loss; but you will perceive from this circ.u.mstance my opinions at an age when we cannot be hypocrites.

I have dwelt longer on this theme than I intended, and I shall now conclude with what I ought to have begun. We were once friends,--nay, we have always been so, for our separation was the effect of chance, not of dissension. I do not know how far our destinations in life may throw us together, but if opportunity and inclination allow you to waste a thought on such a hare-brained being as myself, you will find me at least sincere, and not so bigoted to my faults as to involve others in the consequences. Will you sometimes write to me? I do not ask it often; and, if we meet, let us be what we 'should' be, and what we 'were'."

The following is Harness's own account of the circ.u.mstances in which Letter 92 was written:--

"A coolness afterwards arose, which Byron alludes to in the first of the accompanying letters, and we never spoke during the last year of his remaining at school, nor till after the publication of his 'Hours of Idleness'. Lord Byron was then at Cambridge; I, in one of the upper forms, at Harrow. In an English theme I happened to quote from the volume, and mention it with praise. It was reported to Byron that I had, on the contrary, spoken slightingly of his work and of himself, for the purpose of conciliating the favour of Dr. Butler, the master, who had been severely satirised in one of the poems. Wingfield, who was afterwards Lord Powerscourt, a mutual friend of Byron and myself, disabused him of the error into which he had been led, and this was the occasion of the first letter of the collection. Our intimacy was renewed, and continued from that time till his going abroad. Whatever faults Lord Byron might have had towards others, to myself he was always uniformly affectionate. I have many slights and neglects towards him to reproach myself with; but I cannot call to mind a single instance of caprice or unkindness, in the whole course of our friendship, to allege against him."

In December, 1811, Harness paid Byron a visit at Newstead, the only other guest being Francis Hodgson, who, like Harness, was not then ordained. He thus describes the visit ('Life of the Rev. Francis Hodgson', vol. i. pp. 219-221):--

"When Byron returned, with the MS. of the first two cantos of 'Childe Harold' in his portmanteau, I paid him a visit at Newstead. It was winter--dark, dreary weather--the snow upon the ground; and a straggling, gloomy, depressive, partially inhabited place the Abbey was. Those rooms, however, which had been fitted up for residence were so comfortably appointed, glowing with crimson hangings, and cheerful with capacious fires, that one soon lost the melancholy feeling of being domiciled in the wing of an extensive ruin. Many tales are related or fabled of the orgies which, in the poet's early youth, had made clamorous these ancient halls of the Byrons. I can only say that nothing in the shape of riot or excess occurred when I was there. The only other visitor was Dr. Hodgson, the translator of 'Juvenal', and nothing could be more quiet and regular than the course of our days.

Byron was retouching, as the sheets pa.s.sed through the press, the stanzas of 'Childe Harold'. Hodgson was at work in getting out the ensuing number of the 'Monthly Review', of which he was princ.i.p.al editor. I was reading for my degree. When we met, our general talk was of poets and poetry--of who could or who could not write; but it occasionally rose into very serious discussions on religion. Byron, from his early education in Scotland, had been taught to identify the principles of Christianity with the extreme dogmas of Calvinism. His mind had thus imbibed a most miserable prejudice, which appeared to be the only obstacle to his hearty acceptance of the Gospel. Of this error we were most anxious to disabuse him. The chief weight of the argument rested with Hodgson, who was older, a good deal, than myself.

I cannot even now--at a distance of more than fifty years--recall those conversations without a deep feeling of admiration for the judicious zeal and affectionate earnestness (often speaking with tears in his eyes) which Dr. Hodgson evinced in his advocacy of the truth.

The only difference, except perhaps in the subjects talked about, between our life at Newstead Abbey and that of the great families around us, was the hours we kept. It was, as I have said, winter, and the days were cold; and, as nothing tempted us to rise early, we got up late. This flung the routine of the day rather backward, and we did not go early to bed. My visit to Newstead lasted about three weeks, when I returned to Cambridge to take my degree."

To Harness Byron intended to dedicate 'Childe Harold', but feared to do so, "lest it should injure him in his profession."]

[Footnote 2: Three Wingfields, sons of Lord Powerscourt, entered Harrow in February, 1801. The Hon. Richard Wingfield succeeded his father as fifth Viscount Powerscourt in 1809, and died in 1823. Edward became a clergyman and died of cholera in 1825; John, Byron's friend, the "Alonzo" of "Childish Recollections" entered the Coldstream Guards, and died of fever at Coimbra, May 14, 1811.

"Of all human beings, I was perhaps at one time most attached to poor Wingfield, who died at Coimbra, 1811, before I returned to England"

('Life', p. 21). To his memory Byron wrote the lines in 'Childe Harold', Canto I. stanza xci.]

93.--To J. Ridge.

[Mr. Ridge, Newark.]

Dorant's Hotel, February 21st, 1808.

Mr. Ridge,--Something has occurred which will make considerable alteration in my new volume. You must _go back_ and _cut out_ the whole _poem_ of 'Childish Recollections'. [1] Of course you will be surprized at this, and perhaps displeased, but it must be _done_. I cannot help its detaining you a _month_ longer, but there will be enough in the volume without it, and as I am now reconciled to Dr.

Butler I cannot allow my satire to appear against him, nor can I alter that part relating to him without spoiling the whole. You will therefore omit the whole poem. Send me an _immediate_ answer to this letter but _obey_ the directions. It is better that my reputation should suffer as a poet by the omission than as a man of honour by the insertion.

Etc., etc.,

BYRON.

[Footnote 1: For "Childish Recollections," see 'Poems', vol.i. p.101. A previous letter, written to Ridge from Dorant's Hotel, January 9, 1808, ill.u.s.trates the rapidity with which Byron's moods changed. In this case, the lines on "Euryalus" (Lord Delawarr: see page 41 [Letter 13], [Foot]note 1 [5]) were to be omitted:--

"Mr. Ridge,--In Childish Recollections omit the whole character of 'Euryalus', and insert instead the lines to 'Florio' as a part of the poem, and send me a proof in due course.

"Etc. etc.,

"BYRON.

"P.S.--The first line of the pa.s.sage to be omitted begins 'Shall fair Euryalus,' etc., and ends at 'Toil for more;' omit the _whole_."]

CHAPTER III.

1808-1809.

'ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS.'

94.--To the Rev. John Becher. [1]

Dorant's Hotel, Feb. 26, 1808.

MY DEAR BECHER,--Now for Apollo. I am happy that you still retain your predilection, and that the public allow me some share of praise. I am of so much importance that a most violent attack is preparing for me in the next number of the 'Edinburgh Review'. [2] This I had from the authority of a friend who has seen the proof and ma.n.u.script of the critique. You know the system of the Edinburgh gentlemen is universal attack. They praise none; and neither the public nor the author expects praise from them. It is, however, something to be noticed, as they profess to pa.s.s judgment only on works requiring the public attention. You will see this when it comes out;--it is, I understand, of the most unmerciful description; but I am aware of it, and hope 'you' will not be hurt by its severity.

Tell Mrs. Byron not to be out of humour with them, and to prepare her mind for the greatest hostility on their part. It will do no injury whatever, and I trust her mind will not be ruffled. They defeat their object by indiscriminate abuse, and they never praise except the partisans of Lord Holland and Co. [3] It is nothing to be abused when Southey, Moore, Lauderdale, Strangford, and Payne Knight, share the same fate. [4]

I am sorry--but "Childish Recollections" must be suppressed during this edition. I have altered, at your suggestion, the _obnoxious allusions_ in the sixth stanza of my last ode.

And now, my dear Becher, I must return my best acknowledgments for the interest you have taken in me and my poetical bantlings, and I shall ever be proud to show how much I esteem the _advice_ and the _adviser._

Believe me, most truly, etc.

[Footnote 1: The Rev. John Thomas Becher (1770-1848), educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, was appointed Vicar of Rumpton, Notts., and Midsomer Norton, 1801; Prebendary of Southwell in 1818; and chairman of Newark Quarter Sessions in 1816. In all matters relating to the condition of the poor he made himself an acknowledged authority. He was the originator of a house of correction, a Friendly Society, and a workhouse at Southwell. He was one of the "supervisors" appointed to organize the Milbank Penitentiary, which was opened in June, 1816. On Friendly Societies he published three works (1824, 1825, and 1826), in which, 'inter alia', he sought to prove that labourers, paying sixpence a week from the time they were twenty, could secure not only sick-pay, but an annuity of five shillings a week at the age of sixty-five. His 'Anti-Pauper System' (1828) pointed to indoor relief as the true cure to pauperism. It was by Becher's advice that Byron destroyed his 'Fugitive Pieces'. No one who has read the silly verses which Becher condemned, can doubt that the counsel was wise (see Byron's Lines to Becher, 'Poems', vol. i. pp. 112-114, 114-116, 247-251). The following are the lines in which Becher expostulated with Byron on the mischievous tendency of his verses:--