BYRON THE MAN

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2758, 12 March 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

BYRON THE MAN

By PROFESSOR OSBORNE. No* matter what theory of heredity we adopt or effect, we generally admit that a child does not display any character which has not, at some time, been manifested in his ancestors. The importance of family history in determining the diagnosis and giving a judgment as to the. prognosis of a disease is one of the first things to be learned by the medical student in his hospital work. What is applicable to incidence of disease, is also applicable to each and every character of mind and body, nor. inaj and abnormal. Judging Byron from this standpoint, we may say at once That he had a distinctly unfavorable family history. His father was a libertine, prodigal with his money and always in debt. “Mad Jack Byron,” as ho was called, disowned by his father, and cut dead by his relations and brother officers. Add, also, that he was handsome, andjbhat he died at the age of 3G years. The poet’s grandfather, Admiral Byron—“Foul-Weather Jack” • —possessed' signal courage, and was a born seaman. His great-uncle was tlie “wicked Lord Byron,” notorious for his trial in the House of Lords for tlie murder of Mr. Chaworth. The Hon., Isabella Byron, who died in 1795, was a woman of eccentric habits and a writer of passionate verses, which have a form and moral flavor remarkably like those written by her grand-nephew. —The Poet’s Mother.—

Byron’s, mother was corpulent, even in youth, and possessed, wnat is on the whole unusual with the sleek-headed, a volcanic temper. She was immoderately vain of me one personal attraction she possessed, nameiy, the fine curves of her arm, and no fewer than forty sittings were necessary before the artist's portraiture o! this region of her anatomy met with her full approval. That she was lacking m nervous balance is proved not only by her ebullitions of temper, but also by the following incident: —Before her marriage slio was present in Edinburgh at a. performance of “Love’s Labor Lost,” and was so much affected by the drama that she developed a flrst-ciass attack of hysteria, she screamed long and loudly, am had to be supported and led out «■’ thei building. Now, a young lady who is carried- away by emotion on hearing so insipid a dramatic effort as “Love’s Labor Lost” cannot be classed as one who lias a good, reliable, set of nerve-cells. Perhaps the most damning fact in her history is the one that she was not only the daughter, but also the granddaughter of a suicide. So when mad Jack Byron, with his handsome face, his debts, his dissipation, and his unsavory history of love affairs, married the corpulent and emotional Miss Gordon, what chance was there of the issue of such a union being born well-balanc-ed in mind, or, as a youth, adhering to the straight path of virtue, or becoming, what Byron was gjad he was not, “a quiet mercantile politician or a lord-in-waiting?” —Lameness and its Cause.— George Gordon Bvron was born in London on January 22, 1788. Of his childhood in Aberdeen, Newstead, and elsewhere we get sufficient glimpses to show that he was not in any way singled cut as a budding genius. A fat, bashful, but headstrong boy, with large eyes, rather prominent lips, and rich chestnut hair combed ever his forehead —such is the picture. His health in childhood seems to have been good. What concerns us more is the physical deformity, conditional lameness, which plaved such an important part in his after-life. Here we come upon the first mystery in Byron’s biography. How was it caused? The poet, when a young man, is reported to have laid thet blame on his mother; but this, if the report is true, was probably a repetition of servants’ gessip. The other alternatives are that he was born deformed, or that the deformity developed as a consequence of the disease, known as infantile paralysis. There is no record, so far as I know, of liis having had any illness in childhood, except scarlet fever ; but this does not rule out the possibility of infantile paralysis. We must leave the' question undecided. Equally difficult because here we have evidence, and that conflicting—is the decision as to which leg or foot was affected. It was the right foot-, according to his mother, to Stendhal. and as we gather from his surgical boots which are still extant. It was the left foot, acording to Sheldrake, the bookmaker, to Jackson, the boxer, to Mrs. Leigh Hunt, to Thorwalsden the sculptor, and to Hr. Millingen (who looked at the feet, after the poets death. Moore, liis intimate friend and subsequent biographer, never could de_ eide which. Lady Blessington was in the same uncertainty. Trelawny in ISSB. stated that both feet were clubbed and both legs were withered to the knee; in 1878 be wrote that the feet mid legs were perfect, except that there was a, contraction of each tendo Achillis. Whatever the exact physical cause of his lameness, there is no doubt that it played a considerable part in formin'*' his character and determining his actions. His boyhood was embittered by the taunts of companions and even of his mother, and still more by the cruelty of the surgical __ treatment to which he was subjected. " The great John Hunter gave advice on the subject in the early infancy of the pact, and treatment by special boots and appliances was continued, under the advice of a number of medical men and one quack, until his fourteenth year. There is little doubt that the treatment aggravated the; infirmity, besides poisoning his childhood with unnecessary pain. It gives us positive pleasure to find that the poor boy was careless with these instruments of torture, and allowed the ankle-straps to remain loose. His lameness interfened with many of the usual activities of boyhood. Field sports he always loathed. In batting, however, be became tolerably proficient, as is evidenced by his playing for Harrow against Eton, the runs being made by a substitute. As far as we. can judge, lie walked, climbed, etc., with difficulty, and, when possible, "voided these exertions altogether. This partly accounts for his ap parent luxuriousness in the way of horses and carriages at a later P 0 I r . lo . ci ; Swimming and diving were his delight at school and at the university, and up to the end of life- Dancing was always impossible, and this /disability rather made- him shun society functions m adolescence and early manhood. As is common with those who have deformities in the lower limbs, he possessed Ion" and muscular arms, and was more than able to hold his own m schoolboy battles. „ , -

—coynoou. — While not actually a percocious child, ho passed the various mile-stones or hie WieTSU usual. We thus find him desperately in love with Mary Cha worth when 15 vearsi old. This same characteristic is seen m his later encclis. He matriculated in vie©, whey.only 18, later he speaks of men as juniors, who were, in the strictest sense, his equals in years; his letters relating to disputes

amongst his tenants have the restraint of a man ten years older; finally, wo may note that his hair began to turn grey in his 29th year. Beyond a facility in versification and a certain proficiency m declamation, Byron showed little promise at Harrow of more than the average attainments. Towards the close of his eighteenth year, the future poet entered Trinity College, Cambridge. It was here that every characteristic, good and evil, by which his personality is so well known, was formed or matured. Had Cambridge been able to offer.him something better in the way of intellectual inducement than the antiquated system of education she proffered, Byron’s affer-career might liav© been different. But, like Milton and Dry-den, lie. learnt little from his academic preceptors. Byron entered Cambridge ill Ootober, 1806, with an income of £SOO a year, and a special, allowance for servants, horse, and plate. At Christmas of the same year, he was already in debt, and in a short time was committed to one of his greatest follies — the raising of loans from usurers. A heavy price in coin was afterwards paid by Byron for thSse youthful sallies, for not until a few years of his death were bis minority debts finally settled. —His University Career.—

In Cambridge, a love of animal pets became one of liis greatest eccentricities —dogs at first, and later a bear, which he declared was eligible for a fellowship. His collection of unruly pets subsequently, at Newstead, became famous; and in Italy we find him harboring in liis villa enormous dogs, five peacocks, five cats, three monkeys, two guinea-bens, an eagle, .a crow, a falcon, and an Egyptian crane. It was in Cambridge, too, that lie detected his tendency derived from his mother to lay on fat. Good living, aided by a good digestion, brought up his weight to I4st 71b ; his height being sft Sin. Alarmed by this tendency, and incommodated bv the increased lameness which his greater weight brought about, he started on a course of vigorous exorcise—boxing, fencing, and riding, also dieting and drug-taking. Now lie who drugs and diets himself has. a bad patient and a. worse physician—a fact which Byron soon experienced, though never to appreciate. This tendency to corpulence, and his continued efforts to keep it in check, lasted throughout his life. Trelawny, not by any means favorably disposed towards Byron, admitted that he was the only man lie knew who had the requisite strength of mind to persist in a low diet and to conquer tile tendency. His greatest weight, after lie had removed his excessive fat, was in 1809, just before starting on his grand tour —namely list oi|lb. The lowest, shortly after his return, when thinned by malaria and vinegar, he turned the scale at 9st 11 \lb.

At Cambridge began also that senseless affectation of rakislmess which Byron kept up so long to his detriment, in describing himself as the “votarv of licentiousness and the disciple of infidelity,” he was obviously milling Mr. R. C. Dallas’s leg: but the joke was prompted by vanity. It certainly was a dangerous game to play at. and much of the hostilit" subsequently displayed against him was due to tlie public not unnaturally taking him at Iris word. —Debts and Travel.— After Cambridge came residence in Newstead, and later in London. Tl'.s contemporaries were convinced that during this stage of his career Byron’s life was that of an abandoned libertine. Newstead was a seraglio and liis experiences in London a round of intrigues, dice, and drink. The Newstead charges break down entirely upon examination, and, as for London life. I

feel convinced that, with the exception of certain regrettable liasions, he was rather mending his ways than deteriorating. Gambling he gave up for good on attaining his majority. Alcohol he used but sparingly, except on festal nights. He smoked very little, and kept’ fit with boxing, fencing, pistolshooting, and riding. In one respect he had not profited by bitter experience. He remained recklessly extravagant got deeper into dob l, and seemed obtuse to the rights of tradesmen whom he ruined, and of Ids own mother, from whom lie extracted money that she could ill spare. He was “cursedly dipped,” to use h;s own phrase, and. when he loft on his grand tour, was over £12.000 in debt. In July, 1807, be started on the Mediterranean travel which had such momentous influences on his life and poetry. Like manv another compatriot who had tasted the beauty of a sunnier land, bo acquired and retained a dislike for the London winter, and a dislike, too, of the element of prudery which was prevalent even then among a section of Englishmen. It was in Greece that he met liis most dangerous enemy, though he recognised him not. namely, the anopheles mosquito. Malaria got a firm foothold in his system, and left him dangerously open to renewed nttacks. Almost immediatelv after his return to England his mother died through an explosion of rage caused Dv reading an upholsterer’!? bill. ’ Byron was now alone in the world, without any near relations or anyone of his own rank who would take trouble with him. He v.ms truly isolated, and this was not good for one of his temperament. He began to carry his erratic system of diet to ait excess of abstemiousness, drank vinegar, drenched himself with magnesia and other drugs, including opium, and in order to allay the pangs of hunger learned the odious habit of chewing tobacco —° in which lie persisted uptil his death. Naturally his • tonia'■•h resented this; abuse, nnd inflamation set up. He was also deeply in debt his hones of gaining money from his encumered property seenmd further off than evgr, and his whole, prospects frir the future were gloomy enough. Hiss mother b n d al’*ead~- advised him to marry ns the only chance of financial advancement —A Ludklessi Marriage.

The marvel is that Byron married neither tor monev nor for love. In one of those qualms of loneliness which asf iiil the bachelor, he proposed' to Miss Milbanke, and was refused, proposed again, and was accepted. One meets with considerable difficulty in camming up the character- or this young lady. If we judge bv what we know of her m later years, she was perverse, wilful, rather treacherous, and not addicated to telling the truth, though she coukl be generous with her money in charity to the poor. But in these, later years she was a soured woman, with rather a fierce light beating upon her. Judging by her letters before marriage she was n'rim. formal, and self-complacent. She had the. misfortune to bo, tetter educated in a bookish sense, and cleverer |,lKin her parents, but knew nothing of the world, and developed a vanity and a narrowness in consequence. She was also deeply religious, or professed to be. There was unquestionably too much egO' and too much mamma in her cosmos. Tim marriage took nlace on January 2, 1815. that is. close to Byron’s twenty-seventh birthday. Three months after 'the marriage the young couple

settled' in London, and -commenced life, on nothing a year, in fine style, with carriages for both and luxury galore. This, naturally, could not last. Creditors began to dun and enlist the law; coarse bailiffs invaded the privacy of their rooms, and had not Bvron been a peer of the realm lie most assuredly would have been clapped in prison. There is no getting over the fact that, he did not treat liis young wife w- 1 ' Granted that the haunts of vice lie purported to visit were only existent in his own vain imagination, yet he pl) f ’"” not have made any such pretence. He had his meals apart from his wife; ho gave her little of his company by •' and less in the evening: lie rudely rebuffed her attempts to share his troubles; and showed her little or no sympathy when her state of health -' manded such. Byron’s increasing irritability did not escape the notion of vsister; moreover, he bad a nervous breakdown at the theatre when Kean was acting. —The Separation and the Secret -- At last the tension became unbearable. Lady Byron, stung by lier illtreatment, which was magnified by her jealous temperament, got hold of what sho probably thought the most charitable idea possible, namely*, that her husband was insane. She procured a medical book and read up tlie signs ami symptoms of some form of lunacy. Here we may parenthetically remark liow much misunderstanding and misery have been caused by unqualified persons reading medical books. She ticked off sign alter sign (sixteen in all), and, of course, found them in her husband. “Pride” —yes, impious and wicked pride; “revenge”—why his whole behaviour has been dictated by revenge ; “reversal of affections”—Bless me! bowtrue; “suicidal crises” —Gracious! we must dilute the laudanum. Obsessed with this idea, she induced a couple of medical men to visit Byron, who was unconscious of the impending storm. They came, saw, and pronounced the trouble to be indigestion. It was now that Lady Byron’s affection for her husband changed to a deep, and, as we know, lasting hatred; and hatred with her meant action cunningly devised and persistently adhered to. She had seen Dr. Lushington, the lawyer, who apparently pooh-poohed the whole thing, and suggested amicable settlement. Foiled in this, she played her trump-card. Grilling on Dr. Lushington, unknown to her parents, she whispered into his ear the dreadful secret about Bvron.. The lawyer made a complete volte face. A separation must be effected'; to suggest an amicable settlement- after this would) be wicked. Having now got the- lawyer on her side, Lady Byron, aided by her mother, conducted negotiations with a. finesse and secrecy for which Byron was no match. Tlie bolt from the bine stunned him for a moment ; then be pulled himself together and prepared to- fight. Just then came a, bill for £2OOO from his carriagemaker, and Byron collapsed. The separation was accomplished. About all this is a mystery—a threefold mystery, we may say—which time has not cleared up. In the first place, was the great secret true, or was it the product- of Lady Byiron’s subtlety ? Judging from her subsequent- conduct, she was quite capable of involving any unfounded story, if it injured her husband and exalted herself. In the second place, if the story was true, what was it? That it was the abominable charge made by lier at- a much later date, and disseminated by the gossipy Mrs Stowe, no one now, except the poet’s grandson, will admit for a moment.. In the third place, did Byron know what the charge was ; and if not, did he do everything in his power to learn? . We cannot tell- But unless light- is thrown on this dark topic by memoirs hitherto inaccessible, an agnostic position is the wisest to take.

The English public, who knew practically nothing of the. underlying facts, had lopirned of a separation at first by rumors, and then by the medium of the newspapers, but it was not until some discreet friend published the famous “Fare Thee Well” that tlie storm broke out. It is difficult for us nowadays 'bo realise the full reotijian possibilities of the press at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The newspapers proceeded* to “write him down.” There was no lie black enough, no invention mean enough to bur] at. him. The best thing that. Byr ut could do was to leave hugland. and this he did in anger on -lie 24th. April, 1816, never to return. —Closing Scenes. —

The most regrettable period in Byron’s life was his three years’ stay in Venice. Irritated by the insults, which still followed him, and discovering the implacable hatred of his wife, and, feeling that, as far as domestic happiness was concerned, he was a ruined man, out of sheer perverseness he plunged into dissipation. “Evil bo thou my good,” appeared to be his motto. His excesses sapped his health, but he cared not. “I will work the. mine of my youth to the last veins of ore and then good-night.” he declared. The few visitors who arrived found him fat, flabby, sallow, end feverish. His letters to his sister almost ceased, and those to- his friends contained more and more unprintable matter. _ whilst, his public references to- his wife were in execrably bad taste. Again and again, too, he was attacked by malaria; he raved, composed delirious verses, and was haunted by the awful apparition of his mother-in-law 1 Only in one par_ f.icular does he appear to have improved—he paid on the nai] for everything he ordered, and got- more into debt. But Byiron in Venice was apparently done for; his friends deplored his- fall, but probably few _ of them expected 'that ho could rise. Deliverance came in a manner unexpected. However much we may deplore the Guiccioli incident, which shocked even Italian society, there is no doubt that his attachment te this lady, who was bright, well-educated, and his equal in rank, pulled hinn out of the mud. The scales fell from his eyes; the Venetians became the ne plus ultra of human debasement. So Venice was abandoned, and a new life began at Ravenna. His friends found him restored to health and good looks, but his hair was grey, and the youthful buoyancy that produced the Giaour and the Bride of Abydos was gone. He was now a. man with all the romance knocked out of him, and he felt that a man’s work was still- to do. His financial condition improved verv considerably, and he became aware of the new power in his hands. With the struggle for libertv against Austria, which was beginning to ferment again throughout Italy he identified himself with characteristic of consequences. His efforts, his name, and Ins subsequent monetary .aid proved, however, unavailing, and only 'the long arm of the England he detested kept him from imprisonment and even assassination. Then came the call .to Greece. To this cal] Byron responded with his whole soul. He became a. changed man. The -poet, cynic, and idler, turned instantly into a man of action. Whilst the Greek Committee in England was sending out pamphlets and essays on liberty, juris-

prudence, Jeremy Bentham and the British Constitution, also Wesleyan tracts and Bibles, to aid the Greek insurgents, Byron was buying artillery and powder, arming ships and men, and raising money, even to the last penny of his private funds. Ho knew tp what sort of people he was coming as a succour. He looked for no gratitude, and expected little help from them. To use his own expressive simile he went to Greece as the noble, Elisabeth Fry visited the prison of Newgate. It is difficult to picture Byron as he actually must have been in Greece. He. the iritable. indulgent egotist, now spent his time in coaxing iractious chiefs, smoothing over difficulties, hearing both sides of disputes, arbitrating without bias, distributing Bibles as agent of a religious society in England, arranging tlie plan of campaigns, and doing his utmost to prevent wanton havoc and unnecessary cruelty in warfare. This was the supreme achievement of his life, and modern Greece, long freed from the curse of Turkish dominion, is this year giving the.' fact ample recognition. He was not destined, as he almost hoped, to die in battle. 'Struck down by fever, probably malaria again, the impetuous spirit “flamed away” at Mcsolong. hi. on the 19th April, 1824. Of Byron, as of Napoleon, each one. will have his own picture, his own censure, and his own appreciation. But the spirits were antithetically mixed. In matters of literary criticism opinions will always vary, but anyone who reads Byron’s works will admit the immanent ami vivid personality ot the author. In that personality there is much to deplore, something to dispise, but surely not a lit-' A. to. love.