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the poem, which may never take place." This we doubt. He adds that "N. B. They (the Episode) are the productions of a young man, who has now just turned the corner on his first year of maturity." The Episode is a long and hard allegory, in which Lord Byron figures away as an oak tree:Lion's Head, however, objects to the oak being called "the Monarch of the Woods" as a violation of his own imperial rights. The printed specimens are not much better than the MSS.

Palmerin's lines are before us, with his notes, stating " that a line in Lion's Head will be thankfully received;" we are sorry we cannot oblige him with one of his own composition.

The contribution of " a Subscriber" is received, but we dare not indulge in enigmas from a fear of that termagant, the Lady's Almanack.

We have received a very pretty packet of poetry from a young gentleman, with a note, commencing thus, “A youthful adventurer in the regions of poesy humbly solicits permission to plant a little flower of his own in the regions governed by Lion's Head." We are extremely sorry to be com pelled to act like Selim in the Bride of Abydos, and " refuse his little flower.”

G. F.'s verses are under consideration.

The Westminster Review has erred in stirring up every tender writer to crave money for his Musings. The Essay of O. would not, if printed, bring him profit enough to pay his way into St. Paul's.

Q. Q. Q. We are reluctantly compelled to refuse, and he may have his paper again at any time. He is evidently young and inexperienced as a writer, though we think he may grow up into a very pleasant contributor in the course of time.

The Calais Trip is done with considerable humour and quaintness,-but we cannot accept it.

Councillor's Essay" may be recovered on application at our Publishers :" Lion's Head is too good-natured to growl at an intended kindness.

Several papers are left in the hands of Messrs. Taylor and Hessey for the respective writers,-amongst which are "the Sonnet of a Stripling "—and the Contributions of A. G. G.,—James the 2d,-Z.,~Orlando,—T. T.,— A Contributor,-Reginald Dalton, and H. W. L.-We wish we could accept all that is sent to us.

THE

London Magazine.

NOVEMBER, 1824.

CONVERSATIONS OF LORD BYRON.*

EVERY account of Lord Byron which pretends to the least degree of authenticity has been rendered valuable in the eyes of the public, by the injudicious, and, we will add, unwarrantable destruction of his Memoirs. Whether it was mere folly, or puritanical squeamishness, or (as is most probable) a wish to conceal the reputation of some half dozen fashionable delinquents, which dictated that measure, its effect has been to deprive us of more needful information than any other source can supply. That blind and fatal deed has been every way injurious. It has defrauded a present and a future world of so much intellectual gratification as was to be derived from those Memoirs. It has left even the author's published works under a cloud of obscurity, which no commentary, but such as the Memoirs themselves furnished, could dissipate. It has surrendered his fame and that of many of his cotemporaries, to his enemies, and theirs, respectively: the tongue of slander is now busy on both sides; he himself, his nearest relatives, and his most distant acquaintances, are now all and equally liable to any and every foul aspersion which calumny may invent, and credulity swallow. It was not fair to the living; it was most unjust to the dead. No excuse that can be set up for it can maintain itself an instant. There is one question to which there

is no answer, and which therefore leaves the advocates, agents, and abettors of the destruction guilty at the least of supreme folly, of inexcusable temerity. Why were not the objectionable parts of the Memoirs expunged, and the remainder published? Was there a page, was there a sentence, was there a line iu the whole Memoirs of an unexceptionable nature?—and if so, why was not even that page, that sentence, that line given to the public? What! was the whole work Satanic? Was every page inspired by the Genius of Evil? Was every period rounded by the eloquent Belial, the god of Byron's idolatry? Was every line written underhand by the Devil? And unless the agents of destruction are prepared to assert this, on what principle, let us ask, did they dare commit such an act of injustice to us and to the author? Who is there that has a right to cheat the nation of any portion of that genius to which she gave birth, by devoting its records unsparingly to the flames? Who is it that has a right to rob us of our interest and property in that which was bequeathed to us by our countryman and brother? Unless a paramount reason be assignable,-No one! Equity, if not law, pronounces this judgment; and though we cannot take legal, we will have literary revenge; if we cannot punish by fine or imprisonment, we will punish by reprobation and pub

* Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron: noted during a Residence with his Lordship at Pisa, in the Years 1821 and 1822. By Thomas Medwin, Esq. of the 24th Light Dragoons, Author of "Ahasuerus the Wanderer." 4to. London. Colburn, 1824. Nov. 1824. 2 G

lic censure. In the name of our fellow-countrymen we characterise the total destruction of Lord Byron's Memoirs as rash, unjustifiable, and reprehensible in the extreme,-a private injustice and a public injury. It is manifest à priori that there must have been some portion of the Memoirs worthy salvation; that they were not all of such a nature as to merit being delivered into the hands of the common hangman, to be burnt by him like heretical tracts or libels. But in the publication we are now about to notice, there is an afterproof of this which is not to be gainsaid. Captain Medwin's book is a Journal of Conversations held by Lord Byron, conversations of the most familiar kind, uttered in the fullest confidence of friendship, and evidently without the least caution or prudential reserve; yet, after certain retrenchments (which ought to have been made) it would still furnish a valuable, an interesting, and a morally uninjurious volume. Why

were not the Memoirs made such a

work as Captain Medwin's Journal might have been? Is it credible that Lord Byron would sit down and deliberately utter in manuscript what he would not utter in private conversation unrestrained as this? If there was not a page in the Memoirs but deserved the infamous death which is apportioned to infidel works and scandalous publications, how does it happen there are so many in his Conversations worth preserving? though the latter, from their very nature, must have been more thickly interspersed with objectionable phrases,

satirical remarks, unguarded and inconsiderate ebullitions of anger against living persons, allusions to family concerns, disclosures of faults, frailties, peccadilloes, &c. It is ridiculous to assert after this that the Memoirs were not sacrificed for a few unhappy paragraphs, which alone merited the fate that was dealt to the whole. We wish Mr. Moore who read them would stand forward, and boldly avow whether this was or was not the case. Let us hear the noble author's own opinion on the subject:

"I have not the least objection to their being circulated; in fact they have been read by some of mine, and several of Moore's friends and acquaintances; among

others, they were lent to Lady Burghersh. On returning the MS. her Ladyship told Moore that she had transcribed the whole work. This was un peu fort, and he suggested the propriety of her destroying the copy. She did so, by putting it into the pened, Douglas Kinnaird has been recomfire in his presence. Ever since this hapmending me to resume possession of the MS, thinking to frighten me by saying that a spurious or a real copy, surreptitiously obtained, may go forth to the world. I am quite indifferent about the world knowing all that they contain. There are very few licentious adventures of my own, or scandalous anecdotes that will affect others, in the book. It is taken up from my earliest recollections, almost from childhood,-very liar style. The second part will prove a incoherent, written in a very loose and famigood lesson to young men; for it treats of the irregular life I led at one period, and the fatal consequences of dissipation. There are few parts that may not, and none that will not, be read by women.

Another time he said:

"A very full account of my marriage and separation is contained in my Memoirs. After they were completed, I wrote to Lady Byron, proposing to send them for her inspection, in order that any misstatements or inaccuracy (if any such existed, which I was not aware of,) might be pointed out and corrected. In her answer she declined the offer, without assigning any reason; but desiring, if not on her account, for the sake of her daughter, that they might never appear, and finishing with a threat. My reply was the severest thing I ever wrote, and contained two quotations, one from Shakspeare, and another from Dante. I told her that she knew all I had written was incontrovertible truth, and that she did

not wish to sanction truth. I ended by saying, that she might depend on their being published. It was not till after this correspondence that I made Moore the depositary of the MS."

"

Now it is more than probable that the original MS, if published in its integral form, would not have been found quite so innocuous as the author asserts; but surely he could not declare in the face of the fact, that there were few parts "which might not be read by women if the whole were only fit for the fire. Lady Burghersh read and transcribed it. Yet what her ladyship studied with such fervour, and copied with such avidity, was afterwards judged of so highly immoral and flagitious a nature that it would have put the innocent people of England to the blush, and corrupted the purity of

the Continent, had it been published! Verily we fear there was something more than simple anxiety for public morals at the bottom of this transaction; some unpleasant truths" were to be sanctioned" we suspect, and in the hurry to suppress these, the whole MS. was precipitated into the flames. But it is useless to regret this measure; we hope it will not be useless to reprobate it. Such a case will most probably not soon recur; if it does, we expect there will be a little more compunction displayed before it is resolved to sacrifice the national property in this wholesale way to the caprice or nervous apprehensions of a few individuals. Perhaps, indeed, reflection upon the consequences of this hasty act may prevent its repetition. Ever since the destruction took place, the press has teemed with histories, letters, reports, and allusions, as scandalous as they are spurious, but to which no contradiction can be given from the impossibility of comparing them with an existing original. Indeed, such things would never have appeared but for the intemperate prudence of Lord Byron's friends, by whose instrumentality numberless slanders have been invented and circulated, which are a thousand times more injurious to all parties than the whole truth could have been. There is nothing which may not be now said of Lord Byron, his family, connexions, and acquaintances, and attributed to him without the least fear of its supposititious nature being detected and exposed.

In the defect of more authentic materials, therefore, we turn to Captain Medwin's Journal with curiosity. It diminishes, though it certainly does not "remedy" the evil we complain of. Captain Medwin had an opportunity of studying Lord Byron's character, moral as well as intellectual, which he did not let escape him. Indeed, he appears to have made rather too free a use of this advantage; but we will at present speak only of the benefit he has conferred on the world by publishing what he might, and not of the injury he has

committed against individuals by publishing what he should not.

Although it is our chief object to elucidate the genius and character of Byron by such extracts from his Conversations as appear to us most suitable to that purpose, we are truer disciples of both Lavater and Gall than to omit the following brief description of his personal appearance.

During the few minutes that Lord Byron was finishing his letter, I took an opportunity of narrowly observing him, and drawing his portrait in my mind. Thorwaldsen's bust is too thin-necked and young for Lord Byron. None of the engravings gave me the least idea of him. I saw a man of about five feet seven or eight, apparently forty years of age as was said of Milton, he barely escaped being short and thick. His face was fine, and the lower part symmetrically moulded; for the lips and chin had that curved and definite outline that distinguishes Grecian beauty. His forehead was high, and his temples broad; and he had a paleness in his complexion, almost to wanness. His hair, thin and fine, had almost become grey, and waved in natural and graceful curls over his head, that was assimilating itself fast to the "bald first Cæsar's." He allowed it to grow longer behind than it is accustomed to be worn, and at that time had mustachios, which were not sufficiently dark to be becoming. In criticising his features it might, perhaps, be said that his eyes were placed too near his nose, and that one was rather smaller than the other; they were of a greyish brown, but of a peculiar clearness, and when animated possessed a fire which seemed to look through and penetrate the thoughts of others, while they marked the His teeth were inspirations of his own. small, regular, and white; these, I afterwards found, he took great pains to preserve.*

I expected to discover that he had a club→ perhaps a cloven-foot; but it would have been difficult to have distinguished one from the other, either in size or in form.

Lord Byron's conversation, if resembling at all that which is given a's his in this volume, was fully equal to his poetry,-allowing for the different circumstances under which they were severally born. Indeed, this must have been the case, inasmuch as it appears that his poetry was the efflux not the effort of his mind; he

*For this purpose he used tobacco when he first went into the open air: and he told me he was in the habit of grinding his teeth in his sleep, to prevent which he was forced to put a napkin between them.

wrote as quickly as he spoke, seldom blotted a word, and never altered a line.

It may be asked when Lord Byron writes. The same question was put to Madame de Staël: "Vous ne comptez pas sur ma chaise-à-porteur," said she. I am often with him from the time he gets up till two or three o'clock in the morning, and after sitting up so late he must require rest; but he produces, the next morning, proofs

that he has not been idle. Sometimes

when I call, I find him at his desk; but he either talks as he writes, or lays down his pen to play at billiards till it is time to take his airing. He seems to be able to resume the thread of his subject at all times, and to weave it of an equal texture. Such talent is that of an improvisatore. The fairness too of his manuscripts (I do not speak of the hand-writing) astonishes no less than the perfection of every thing he writes. He hardly ever alters a word for whole pages, and never corrects a line in subsequent editions. I do not believe that he has ever read his works over since be examined the proof-sheets; and yet he remembers every word of them, and every thing else worth remembering that he has ever known.

I never met with any man who shines so much in conversation. He shines the more, perhaps, for not seeking to shine. His ideas flow without effort, without his having occasion to think. As in his letters, he is not nice about expressions or words; -there are no concealments in him, no injunctions to secresy. He tells every thing that he has thought or done without the least reserve, and as if he wished the whole world to know it; and does not throw the slightest gloss over his errors. Brief himself, he is impatient of diffuseness in others, hates long stories, and seldom repeats his own. If he has heard a story you are telling, he will say, "You told me that," and with good humour sometimes finish it for you himself.

been in a higher state of excitement upon the one occasion than upon the other. He was an English Improvisatore, and when we say this, we do not mean that he was a mere stringer of musical sentences; but such an Improvisatore as an Englishman might and an Italian could not be. It is, therefore, no wonder that his conversation exhibits marks of genius in every period, more however of the satirical than the sentimental kind, more akin to the spirit of Don Juan than of Childe Harold.

The account which he gives of the date and source to which his poetic inclinations may be primarily referred is deeply interesting, however questionable as to its philosophy.

"I don't know from whom I inherited verse-making; probably the wild scenery of Morven and Loch-na-garr, and the banks of the Dee, were the parents of my poetical vein, and the developers of my poetical boss. If it was so, it was dormant; at least, I never wrote any thing worth mentioning till I was in love. Dante dates his passion for Beatrice at twelve. I was almost as young when I fell over head and ears in love; but I anticipate. I was sent to Harrow at twelve, and spent my vacations at Newstead. It was there that I first saw Mary C. She was several years older than myself: but, at my age, boys like something older than themselves, as they do younger, later in life. Our estates adjoined: but, owing to the unhappy circumstance of the feud to which I before alluded, our families (as is generally the case with neighbours who happen to be relations,) were never on terms of more than common civility,―scarcely those. I passed the summer vacation of this year among the Malvern hills: those were days of romance! She was the beau idéal of all that my youthful fancy could paint of beautiful; and I have taken all my fables about the celestial nature of women from the perfection my imagination created in her-I say created, for I found her, like the rest of the sex, any thing but angelic.

He hates argument, and never argues for victory. He gives every one an opportunity of sharing in the conversation, and has the art of turning it to subjects that may bring out the person with whom he converses. He never shews the author, prides. himself most on being a man of the world and of fashion, and his anecdotes of life and living characters are inexhaustible. In spirits, as in every thing else, he is ever in

extremes.

Such, therefore, as his poetry was, such must have been his conversation, for both were unpremeditated, spontaneous effusions of the perennial spring within his bosom. The only difference was, that he may have

"I returned to Harrow, after my trip to Cheltenham, more deeply enamoured than ever, and passed the next holidays at Newstead. I now began to fancy myself a man, and to make love in earnest. Our meetings were stolen ones, and my letters passed gate leading from Mr. Cthrough the medium of a confidante. A -'s grounds to those of my mother, was the place of our interviews. But the ardour was all on

my side. I was serious; she was volatile. She liked me as a younger brother, and treated and laughed at me as a boy. She,

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