1812.] SPEECH ON FRAME-WORK BILL. 105 repeated to me since, in person and by proxy, from divers persons ministerial-yea, ministerial/-as well as oppositionists; of them I shall only mention Sir F. Burdett. He says it is the best speech by a lord since the "Lord knows when," probably from a fellow-feeling in the sentiments. Lord H. tells me I shall beat them all if I persevere; and Lord G. remarked that the construction of some of my periods are very like Burke's!! And so much for vanity. I spoke very violent sentences with a sort of modest impudence, abused every thing and every body, and put the Lord Chancellor very much out of humour: and if I may believe what I hear, have not lost any character by the experiment. As to my delivery, loud and fluent enough, perhaps a little theatrical. I could not recognize myself or any one else in the newspapers.1 Grenville said, "There never was a maxim of greater wisdom than "that uttered by the noble lord [Byron] who had so ably addressed "their lordships that night for the first time" (Hansard, vol. xxi. p. 977). Moore quotes a passage from Byron's Detached Thoughts : 66 66 "Sheridan's liking for me (whether he was not mystifying me I "do not know, but Lady Caroline Lamb and others told me that "he said the same both before and after he knew me) was founded 66 upon English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers. He told me that he "did not care about poetry (or about mine-at least, any but that "poem of mine), but he was sure, from that and other symptoms, 'I should make an orator, if I would but take to speaking, and 'grow a parliament man. He never ceased harping upon this to me to the last; and I remember my old tutor, Dr. Drury, had "the same notion when I was a boy; but it never was my turn of "inclination to try. I spoke once or twice, as all young peers do, “as a kind of introduction into public life; but dissipation, shyness, "haughty and reserved opinions, together with the short time I "lived in England after my majority (only about five years in all), "prevented me from resuming the experiment. As far as it went, "it was not discouraging, particularly my first speech (I spoke "three or four times in all); but just after it, my poem of Childe "Harold was published, and nobody ever thought about my prose "afterwards, nor indeed did I; it became to me a secondary and "neglected object, though I sometimes wonder to myself if I should "have succeeded." 1. Byron, writing to John Hanson, February 28, 1812, says― I hire myself unto Griffiths, and my poesy1 comes out on Saturday. Hobhouse is here; I shall tell him to write. My stone is gone for the present, but I fear is part of my habit. We all talk of a visit to Cambridge. Yours ever, B. 228.-To Lord Holland. St. James's Street, March 5, 1812. MY LORD,-May I request your Lordship to accept a copy of the thing which accompanies this note ? 2 You 66 "DEAR SIR,-In the report of my speech (which by the bye is "given very incorrectly) in the M[orning] Herald, Day, and "British] Press, they state that I mentioned Bristol, a place I never saw in my life and knew nothing of whatever, nor mentioned "at all last night. Will you be good enough to send to these papers "immediately, and have the mistake corrected, or I shall get into a "scrape with the Bristol people? "I am, yours very truly, "B." Another copy 1. Childe Harold, Cantos I., II. 2. Childe Harold was published March 1, 1812. of Childe Harold was sent to Mrs. Leigh, with the following inscription: "To Augusta, my dearest sister, and my best friend, who "has ever loved me much better than I deserved, this volume is pre"sented by her father's son, and most affectionate brother, B." The effect which the poem instantly produced is best expressed in Byron's own memorandum: "I awoke one morning and found myself famous." He was only just twenty-three years old. "The "subject," says Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire (Two Duchesses, pp. 375, 376), "of conversation, of curiosity, of enthusiasm almost, one might say, of the moment is not Spain or Portugal, Warriors or Patriots, but Lord Byron !" "He returned," she continues, sorry for the severity of some of his lines (in the English Bards), "and with a new poem, Childe Harold, which he published. This 66 poem is on every table, and himself courted, visited, flattered, and "praised whenever he appears. He has a pale, sickly, but handsome countenance, a bad figure, and, in short, he is really the "only topic almost of every conversation-the men jealous of him, "the women of each other." "Lord Byron," writes Lady Harriet Leveson Gower to the Duke of Devonshire, May 10, 1812 (Letters 1812.] PUBLICATION OF CHILDE HAROLD. 107 have already so fully proved the truth of the first line of Pope's couplet,1 "Forgiveness to the injured doth belong," that I long for an opportunity to give the lie to the verse that follows. If I were not perfectly convinced that any thing I may have formerly uttered in the boyish rashness of my misplaced resentment had made as little impression as it deserved to make, I should hardly have the confidence-perhaps your Lordship may give it a stronger and more appropriate appellation-to send you a quarto of the same scribbler. But your Lordship, I am sorry to observe to-day, is troubled with the gout; if my book can produce a laugh against itself or the author, it will be of some service. If it can set you to sleep, the benefit will be yet greater; and as some facetious personage observed half a century ago, that "poetry is a mere "drug," "2 I offer you mine as a humble assistant to the of Harriet, Countess Granville, vol. i. p. 34), "is still upon a pedestal, and Caroline William doing homage. I have made acquaintance "with him. He is agreeable, but I feel no wish for any further "intimacy. His countenance is fine when it is in repose; but the "moment it is in play, suspicious, malignant, and consequently "repulsive. His manner is either remarkably gracious and con"ciliatory, with a tinge of affectation, or irritable and impetuous, "and then, I am afraid, perfectly natural." Rogers (Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers, pp. 232, 233) says, "After Byron had become the rage, I was frequently "amused at the manoeuvres of certain noble ladies to get acquainted "with him by means of me; for instance, I would receive a note "from Lady, requesting the pleasure of my company on a "particular evening, with a postscript, Pray, could you not "contrive to bring Lord Byron with you?' Once, at a great party "given by Lady Jersey, Mrs. Sheridan ran up to me and said, Do, as a favour, try if you can place Lord Byron beside me at 66 supper 66 I. !" " "Forgiveness to the injured does belong, But they ne'er pardon, who have done the wrong." 2. Murphy, in sc. 1 of The Way to Keep Him (1760), uses the eau medicinale. I trust you will forgive this and all my other buffooneries, and believe me to be, with great respect, Your Lordship's obliged and sincere servant, BYRON. word in the same sense; "A wife's a drug now; mere tar-water, "with every virtue under heaven, but nobody takes it." 1812.] COLONEL GREVILLE AND english bards. 109 CHAPTER VI. MARCH, 1812-MAY, 1813. THE IDOL OF SOCIETY-THE DRURY LANE ADDRESSSECOND SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT. 229.-To Thomas Moore. With regard to the passage on Mr. Way's loss, no unfair play was hinted at, as may be seen by referring to the book; and it is expressly added, that the managers 1 1. Byron, in English Bards, etc. (lines 638-667), had alluded to Colonel Greville, Manager of the Argyle Institution :— "Or hail at once the patron and the pile Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle," etc. In a note he had also referred to "Billy" Way's loss of several thousand pounds in the Rooms. On his return from abroad, Colonel Greville demanded satisfaction through his friend Gould Francis Leckie. Byron referred Leckie to Moore, and sent Moore the above paper for his guidance. The affair was amicably settled. In his Detached Thoughts occurs the following passage :"I have been called in as mediator, or second, at least twenty "times, in violent quarrels, and have always contrived to settle the "business without compromising the honour of the parties, or lead"ing them to mortal consequences, and this, too, sometimes in very "difficult and delicate circumstances, and having to deal with very "hot and haughty spirits,-Irishmen, gamesters, guardsmen, cap"tains, and cornets of horse, and the like. This was, of course, in "my youth, when I lived in hot-headed company. I have had to "carry challenges from gentlemen to noblemen, from captains to "captains, from lawyers to counsellors, and once from a clergyman "to an officer in the Life Guards; but I found the latter by far the "most difficult, |