Part 12 (2/2)

{15} This alludes to the Young Betty mania. The writer was in the stage-box at the height of this young gentleman's popularity. One of the other occupants offered, in a loud voice, to prove that Young Betty did not understand Shakespeare. ”Silence!” was the cry; but he still proceeded. ”Turn him out!” was the next e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. He still vociferated. ”He does not understand Shakespeare;” and was consequently shouldered into the lobby. ”I'll prove it to you,” said the critic to the doorkeeper. ”Prove what, sir?” ”That he does not understand Shakespeare.” This was Moliere's housemaid with a vengeance.

Young Betty may now [1833] be seen walking about town--a portly personage, aged about forty--clad in a furred and frogged surtout; probably muttering to himself (as he has been at college), ”O mihi praeteritos!” &c. [He is still alive, 1854. Master Betty, or the ”Young Roscius,” was born in 1791, and made his first appearance on a London stage as Achmet in ”Barbarossa,” at Covent Garden Theatre, on the lst of December, 1804. He was, therefore, ”not quite thirteen.”

He lasted two seasons.]

{16} A ”Phoenix” was perhaps excusable. The first theatre in Drury Lane was called ”The c.o.c.k-pit or Phoenix Theatre.” Whitbread himself wrote an address, it is said, for the occasion; like the others, it had of course a Phoenix. ”But Whitbread,” said Sheridan, ”made more of the bird than any of them; he entered into particulars, and described its wings, beak, tail, &c.; in short, it was a POULTERER'S description of a Phoenix.”

{17} For an account of this anonymous gentleman, see Preface, xiii.

{18} ”The author has succeeded better in copying the melody and misanthropic sentiments of Childe Harold, than the nervous and impetuous diction in which his n.o.ble biographer has embodied them.

The attempt, however, indicates very considerable power; and the flow of the verse and the construction of the poetical period are imitated with no ordinary skill.”--JEFFREY, Edinburgh Review.

{19} This would seem to show that poet and prophet are synonymous, the n.o.ble bard having afterwards returned to England, and again quitted it, under domestic circ.u.mstances painfully notorious. His good-humoured forgiveness of the Authors has already been alluded to in the Preface. Nothing of this ill.u.s.trious poet, however trivial, can be otherwise than interesting. ”We know him well.” At Mr.

Murray's dinner-table the annotator met him and Sir John Malcolm.

Lord Byron talked of intending to travel in Persia. ”What must I do when I set off?” said he to Sir John. ”Cut off your b.u.t.tons!” ”My b.u.t.tons! what, these metal ones!” ”Yes; the Persians are in the main very honest fellows; but if you go thus bedizened, you will infallibly be murdered for your b.u.t.tons!” At a dinner at Monk Lewis's chambers in the Albany, Lord Byron expressed to the writer his determination not to go there again, adding, ”I never will dine with a middle-aged man who fills up his table with young ensigns, and has looking-gla.s.s panels to his book-cases.” Lord Byron, when one of the Drury-lane Committee of Management, challenged the writer to sing alternately (like the swains in Virgil) the praises of Mrs. Mardyn, the actress, who, by-the-bye, was hissed off the stage for an imputed intimacy of which she was quite innocent.

The contest ran as fellows:

”Wake, muse of fire, your ardent lyre, Pour forth your amorous ditty, But first profound, in duly bound, Applaud the new Committee; Their scenic art from Thespis' cart All jaded nags discarding, To London drove this queen of love, Enchanting Mrs. Mardyn.

Though tides of love around her rove, I fear she'll choose Pactolus - In that bright surge bards ne'er immerge.

So I must e'en swim solus.

'Out, out, alas!' ill-fated gas, That s.h.i.+n'st round Covent Garden, Thy ray how flat, compared with that From eye of Mrs. Mardyn!”

And so on. The reader has, no doubt, already discovered ”which is the justice, and which is the thief.”

Lord Byron at that time wore a very narrow cravat of white sarsnet, with the s.h.i.+rt-collar falling over it; a black coat and waist-coat, and very broad white trousers to hide his lame foot--these were of Russia duck in the morning, and jean in the evening. His watch-chain had a number of small gold seals appended to it, and was looped up to a b.u.t.ton of his waistcoat. His face was void of colour; he wore no whiskers. His eyes were grey, fringed with long black lashes; and his air was imposing, but rather supercilious. He under-valued David Hume; denying his claim to genius on account of his bulk, and calling him, from the Heroic Epistle,

”The fattest hog in Epicurus' sly.'

One of this extraordinary man's allegations was, that ”fat is an oily dropsy.” To stave off its visitation, he frequently chewed tobacco in lieu of dinner, alleging that it absorbed the gastric juice of the stomach, and prevented hunger. ”Pa.s.s your hand down my side,” said his Lords.h.i.+p to the writer; ”can you count my ribs?” ”Every one of them.” ”I am delighted to hear you say so. I called last week on Lady -; 'Ah, Lord Byron,' said she, 'how fat you grow!' But you know Lady -- is fond of saying spiteful timings!” Let this gossip be summed up with the words of Lord Chesterfield, in his character of Bolingbroke: ”Upon the whole, on a survey of this extraordinary character, what can we say, but 'Alas, poor human nature!'”

His favourite Pope's description of man is applicable to Byron individually:

”Chaos of thought and pa.s.sion all confused, Still by himself abused or disabused; Created part to rise and part to fall, Great lord of all things, yet a slave to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled - The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.”

The writer never heard him allude to his deformed foot except upon one occasion, when, entering the green-room of Drury-lane, he found Lord Byron alone, the younger Byrne and Miss Smith the dancer having just left him, after an angry conference about a pas suel. ”Had you been here a minute sooner,” said Lord B., ”you would have heard a question about dancing referred to me:- me! (looking mournfully downward) whom fate from my birth has prohibited from taking a single step.”

{20} The first stanza (see Preface) was written by James Smith; the remainder by Horace.

{21} See Note, p. 8. ({15})

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