LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Frontispiece BYRON, FROM THE PORTRAIT BY R. WESTALL, THOMAS MOORE, FROM THE PICTURE BY SIR LADY CAROLINE LAMB, IN HER PAGE'S COSTUME, THE COUNTESS OF Oxford, FROM THE PICTURE ... THE LETTERS OF LORD BYRON. CHAPTER V. AUGUST, 1811-MARCH, 1812. CHILDE HAROLD, CANTOS I., II. 169.-To John Murray.1 Newstead Abbey, Notts., August 23, 1811. SIR,-A domestic calamity in the death of a near relation 2 has hitherto prevented my addressing you on the subject of this letter.-My friend, Mr. Dallas,3 has placed in your hands a manuscript poem written by me in Greece, which he tells me you do not object to publishing. But he also informed me in London that you wished to send the MS. to Mr. Gifford. Now, though no one would feel more gratified by the chance of obtaining his observations on a work than myself, there is in such a proceeding a kind of petition for praise, that neither my pride or whatever you please to call it will admit. 1. For John Murray, see Letters, vol. i. p. 334, note 1. 2. Mrs. Byron died August 1, 1811. 3. For R. C. Dallas, see Letters, vol. i. p. 168, note 1. 4. For Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review, see Letters, vol. i. p. 198, note 2. VOL. II. B Mr. G. is not only the first satirist of the day, but editor of one of the principal reviews. As such, he is the last man whose censure (however eager to avoid it) I would deprecate by clandestine means. You will therefore retain the manuscript in your own care, or, if it must needs be shown, send it to another. Though not very patient of censure, I would fain obtain fairly any little praise my rhymes might deserve, at all events not by extortion, and the humble solicitations of a bandied-about MS. I am sure a little consideration will convince you it would be wrong. If you determine on publication, I have some smaller poems (never published), a few notes, and a short dissertation on the literature of the modern Greeks (written at Athens), which will come in at the end of the volume.— And, if the present poem should succeed, it is my intention, at some subsequent period, to publish some selections from my first work,-my Satire,—another nearly the same length, and a few other things, with the MS. now in your hands, in two volumes.-But of these hereafter. You will apprize me of your determination. I am, Sir, your very obedient, humble servant, BYRON. 170.-To James Wedderburn Webster.1 Newstead Abbey, August 24th, 1811. MY DEAR W.,-Conceiving your wrath to be somewhat evaporated, and your Dignity recovered from the Hysterics 1. James Wedderburn Webster (1789-1840), grandson of Sir A. Wedderburn, Bart., whose third son, David, assumed the additional name of Webster, was the author of Waterloo, and other Poems (1816), and A Genealogical Account of the Wedderburn Family (privately printed, 1819). He was with Byron, possibly at Cambridge, certainly at Athens in 1810. He married, in 1810, 1811.] THE ACCURSED COACH. 3 into which my innocent note from London had thrown it, I should feel happy to be informed how you have determined on the disposal of this accursed Coach,1 Lady Frances Caroline Annesley, daughter of Arthur, first Earl of Mountnorris and eighth Viscount Valentia. He was knighted in 1822. Byron, in 1813, lent him £1000. Lady Frances died in 1837, and her husband in 1840. Moore (Memoirs, Journals, etc., vol. iii. p. 112) mentions dining with Webster at Paris in 1820. "He told me," writes Moore, "that, one day, travelling from Newstead to town with Lord Byron "in his vis-à-vis, the latter kept his pistols beside him, and con"tinued silent for hours, with the most ferocious expression possible "on his countenance. For God's sake, my dear B.,' said W"at last, what are you thinking of? Are you about to commit "murder? or what other dreadful thing are you meditating?' To "which Byron answered that he always had a sort of presentiment "that his own life would be attacked some time or other; and that "this was the reason of his always going armed, as it was also the "subject of his thoughts at that moment.' Moore also adds (ibid., p. 292), "W. W. owes Lord Byron, he says, 1000, and does not 'seem to have the slightest intention of paying him." 66 Lady Frances was the lady to whom Byron seriously devoted himself in 1813-4. Subsequently she was practically separated from her husband, and Byron, in 1823, endeavoured to reconcile them. Moore (Memoirs, Journals, etc., vol. ii. p. 249) writes, "To the "Devizes ball in the evening; Lady Frances W. there; introduced "to her, and had much conversation, chiefly about our friend Lord B. "Several of those beautiful things, published (if I remember right) "with the Bride, were addressed to her. She must have been very "pretty when she had more of the freshness of youth, though she is "still but five or six and twenty; but she looks faded already" (1819). In the Court of Common Pleas, February 16, 1816, the libel action of Webster v. Baldwin was heard. The plaintiff obtained £2000 in damages for a libel charging Lady Frances and the Duke of Wellington with adultery. 1. On his return to London in July, 1811, Byron ordered a vis-à-vis to be built by Goodall. This he exchanged for a carriage belonging to Webster, who, within a few weeks, resold the vis-à-vis to Byron. The two following letters from Byron to Webster explain the transaction: "Reddish's Hotel, 29th July, 1811. "MY DEAR WEBSTER,-As this eternal vis-à-vis seems to sit "heavy on your soul, I beg leave to apprize you that I have arranged "with Goodall: you are to give me the promised Wheels, and the "lining, with the Box at Brighton,' and I am to pay the stipulated "I am obliged to you for your favourable opinion, and trust |