M MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON JUNE, 1831 NOTE ON THE ESSAY ACAULAY has owned in a letter to his sister, Hannah, 10th June, 1831, that he never wrote anything with less heart than this essay. He did not feel himself attracted towards Byron as a man, nor has he seriously attempted to criticise Byron as a poet. After a brief and telling sketch of the poet's life he goes on to examine not his poetry, but his poetical theories. Macaulay himself has remarked that a man may be a great poet yet an indifferent critic, and the remark is peculiarly applicable to Byron, sensitive, irritable, petulant, swayed by difference of political opinion, by personal friendship or enmity, nay, even by the mere need of contradiction. That Byron praised Pope in extravagant terms, that he imperfectly relished Shakspeare and flouted Wordsworth, are curious particulars in the history of Byron's mind, but not things of moment when we seek to decide Byron's place in literature. Yet it is on these particulars that Macaulay laid the main stress of his essay, because he felt strongly and could express himself incisively on the dispute between the older school of poets and the poets who had gained the affection of the public when he was a youth at Cambridge. Even on this subject his criticism is superficial. He tells us truly, no doubt, that many of the rules considered inviolable by the disciples of Boileau and Pope were conventions, sometimes silly conventions. But he makes no attempt to discover the reasons why people came to demand "correctness" or the real excellences of the best works of the "correct" poets. The Essay on Man and the Epistle to Arbuthnot are not mere feats of ingenuity in complying with perverse conditions. What we want to ascertain is their distinctive quality, the thing which makes them classics, although not classics of the same rank with "Hamlet" or with Paradise Lost. But this Macaulay does not help us to discover. When at length and unwillingly he begins to criticise Byron's poetry, he is content to make a few remarks which are sensible but somewhat obvious. That Byron had little dramatic power; that he had a marvellous talent for description; that he dwelt incessantly upon the painfulness of life; that his melancholy was partly ingrained, partly an affectation; all this is true, but is little more than a preamble to an adequate criticism of Byron's poetry. We should like to have heard something about the development of his genius and to have had some guidance in distinguishing that which will last from that which is perishable in his poems. We should like to know why Byron's poetry called forth such a response from his contemporaries. His youth, his beauty, his misfortunes, nay, his vices, accounted for much, but it is childish to think that they accounted for all. They were of far less moment than the energy of his vehement soul and the ardour of his sympathy with that age of revolt into which he was born. Macaulay, stoutly as he championed the new poetry, was hardly initiated into its secrets. He might jeer at the poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but he lived more with them than with Wordsworth or Shelley. As a Whig he hardly knew what to think of Byron's radicalism. As a man singularly irreproachable, but a trifle commonplace, he did not pierce very far into the mind of the pessimist. At all events he felt his deficiencies. The literature relating to Byron is enormous and much of it has been published since Macaulay's essay appeared. But Mr. Prothero's edition of the Letters and Journals is so full, exact and rich in detail as to supersede Moore's Life and to claim the especial thanks of all who interest themselves in Byron. Any reader of the following essay, who wishes to form his own opinion on such points in Byron's life and character as Macaulay has noticed, will find all the material collected and arranged for him by Mr. Prothero. MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON Letters and Journals of Lord Byron; with Notices of his Life. BY THOMAS MOORE, Esq. 2 vols. 4to. London: 1830. E have read this book with the greatest pleasure. WE Con sidered merely as a composition, it deserves to be classed among the best specimens of English prose which our age has produced. It contains, indeed, no single passage equal to two or three which we could select from the Life of Sheridan.1 But, as a whole, it is immeasurably superior to that work. The style is agreeable, clear, and manly, and when it rises into eloquence, rises without effort or ostentation. Nor is the matter inferior to the manner. It would be difficult to name a book which exhibits more kindness, fairness, and modesty. It has evidently been written, not for the purpose of showing, what, however, it often shows, how well its author can write, but for the purpose of vindicating, as far as truth will permit, the memory of a celebrated man who can no longer vindicate himself. Mr. Moore never thrusts himself between Lord Byron and the public. With the strongest temptations to egotism, he has said no more about himself than the subject absolutely required. A great part, indeed the greater part, of these volumes, consists of extracts from the Letters and Journals of Lord Byron; and it is difficult to speak too highly of the skill which has been shown in the selection and arrangement. We will not say that we have not occasionally remarked in these two large quartos an anecdote which should have been omitted, a letter which should have been suppressed, a name which should have been concealed by asterisks, or asterisks which do not answer the purpose of concealing the name. But it is impossible, on a general survey, to deny that the task has been executed with great judgment and great humanity. When we consider the life which Lord Byron had led, his petulance, his irritability, 1 Also by Moore. VOL. I.-20 and his communicativeness, we cannot but admire the dexterity with which Mr. Moore has contrived to exhibit so much of the character and opinions of his friend, with so little pain to the feelings of the living. The extracts from the journals and correspondence of Lord Byron are in the highest degree valuable, not merely on account of the information which they contain respecting the distinguished man by whom they were written, but on account also of their rare merit as compositions. The letters, at least those which were sent from Italy, are among the best in our language. They are less affected than those of Pope and Walpole; they have more matter in them than those of Cowper. Knowing that many of them were not written merely for the person to whom they were directed, but were general epistles, meant to be read by a large circle, we expected to find them clever and spirited, but deficient in ease. We looked with vigilance for instances of stiffness in the language and awkwardness in the transitions. We have been agreeably disappointed; and we must confess that, if the epistolary style of Lord Byron was artificial, it was a rare and admirable instance of that highest art which cannot be distinguished from nature. Of the deep and painful interest which this book excites no abstract can give a just notion. So sad and dark a story is scarcely to be found in any work of fiction; and we are little disposed to envy the moralist who can read it without being softened. The pretty fable by which the Duchess of Orleans 1 illustrated the character of her son the Regent might, with little change, be applied to Byron. All the fairies, save one, had been bidden to his cradle. All the gossips had been profuse of their gifts. One had bestowed nobility, another genius, a third beauty. The malignant elf who had been uninvited came last, and, unable to reverse what her sisters had done for their favourite, had mixed up a curse with every blessing. In the rank of Lord Byron, in his understanding, in his character, in his very person, there was a strange union of opposite extremes. He was born to all that men covet and admire. But in every one of those eminent advantages which he possessed over others was mingled 1 Charlotte Elizabeth, 1652-1722, daughter of Charles Louis, Elector Palatine, and second wife of Philip, Duke of Orleans, the brother of Louis XIV. A very ugly woman, of strong character and shrewd intelligence, she proved an austere critic of the French court, and had much cause for grief in the vices of her brilliant son who became Duke of Orleans in 1701 and Regent of France on the death of Louis. Saint-Simon quotes the fable in his description of the regent's character. something of misery and debasement. He was sprung from a house, ancient indeed and noble, but degraded and impoverished by a series of crimes and follies which had attained a scandalous publicity. The kinsman whom he succeeded had died poor, and, but for merciful judges, would have died upon the gallows.1 The young peer had great intellectual powers; yet there was an unsound part in his mind. He had naturally a generous and feeling heart but his temper was wayward and irritable. He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked.2 Distinguished at once by the strength and by the weakness of his intellect, affectionate yet perverse, a poor lord, and a handsome cripple, he required, if ever man required, the firmest and the most judicious training. But, capriciously as nature had dealt with him, the parent to whom the office of forming his character was intrusted was more capricious still.3 She passed from paroxysms of rage to paroxysms of tenderness. At one time she stifled him with her caresses: at another time she insulted his deformity. He came into the world; and the world treated him as his mother had treated him, sometimes with fondness, sometimes with cruelty, never with justice. It indulged him without discrimination, and punished him without discrimination. He was truly a spoiled child, not merely the spoiled child of his parent, but the spoiled child of nature, the spoiled child of fortune, the spoiled child of fame, the spoiled child of society. His first poems were received with a contempt which, feeble as they were, they did not absolutely deserve. The poem which he published on his return from his travels was, on the other hand, extolled far above its merit.5 At twenty-four, he found 1 Compare Mr. Prothero's account of the poet's father, Captain John Byron, "a gambler, a spendthrift, a profligate scamp disowned by his father." He ran away with and subsequently married Lady Carmarthen. The poet's half-sister, Augusta, was the offspring of this marriage. The poet succeeded William, fifth Lord Byron, known as "the wicked Lord Byron," who killed Mr. Chaworth in a duel. For this he was tried before the House of Lords, but acquitted. 2 The strangely discrepant evidence of contemporaries concerning Byron's lame ness is collected by Mr. Prothero in his edition of the Letters and Journals (vol. i., pp. 11, 12). Macaulay alludes here to an incident described by Byron's old schoolfellow, Mr. Bailey (Moore, Life of Lord Byron). 3 Captain Byron died in 1791 when his son was little more than three years old. Young Byron was therefore brought up solely by his mother, Captain Byron's second wife. Many illustrations of her violent yet affectionate temper will be found in Mr. Prothero's edition of the Letters and Journals (vol. i.). 4 Hours of Idleness published in 1807. 5 The first two cantos of Childe Harold were published in 1812. "I awoke and found myself famous." |