Part 1 (1/2)

The Life of Lord Byron

by John Galt

INTRODUCTION

My present task is one of considerable difficulty; but I have long had a notion that some time or another it would fall to my lot to perform it I approach it, therefore, without apprehension, entirely in consequence of having deterraphy of so singular and so richly endowed a character as that of the late Lord Byron should be treated, but still with no sree of diffidence; for there is a wide difference between deter to that rule, a hich shall please the public

It has happened, both with regard to the man and the poet, that from the first time his name came before the public, there has been a vehe him; and the chief difficulties of the task arise out of the heat hich the adverse parties have maintained their respective opinions The circumstances in which he was placed, until his accession to the title and estates of his ancestors, were not such as to prepare a boy that would be father to a prudent or judiciousto the history of his family, was his blood without a taint of sullenness, which disqualified hiood opinion of those whom his innate superiority must have often prompted him to desire for friends He was branded, ainst Nature for inflicting this defect not only deeply disturbed his happiness, but so generally affected his feelings as to e as, at tiy of h rank, and was conscious of possessing great talents; but his fortune was inadequate to his desires, and his talents were not of an order to redeem the deficiencies of fortune It likewise so happened that while indulged by his only friend, his mother, to an excess that impaired the ree to merit the affection which her ard fondness inspired

It is iret

There is not one point in it all which could, otherwise than with pain, have affected a young mind of sensibility His works bear testimony, that, while his memory retained the iloom and shadow upon them, which proved how little they had been really joyous

The riper years of one so truly the nursling of pride, poverty, and pain, could only be inconsistent, wild, and impassioned, even had his temperament been moderate and well disciplined But when it is considered that in addition to all the awful influences of these fatalities, for they can receive no lighter naination of unbounded capacity--was inflas which constitute, in the opinion of enius--fearfully quick in the discernment of the darker qualities of character--and surrounded by temptation--his career ceases to surprise It would have been more wonderful had he proved an amiable and well-conductedwho has alike provoked the malice and interested the ad the e the habits which his unhappy circuard it as a curious phenoress of his fame as a poet should have been so sih displaying both originality and poere received with a contelect which blighted the budding of his youth The unjust ridicule in the review of his first poems, excited in his spirit a discontent as inveterate as the feeling which sprung from his deformity: it affected, ree that he e which had joined in the derision, as he cherished an antipathy against those persons who looked curiously at his foot Childe Harold, the most triumphant of his works, was produced when the world was kindliest disposed to set a just value on his talents; and his latter productions, in which the faults of his taste appear the broadest, ritten when his errors as a man were harshest in the public voice

These allusions to the incidents of a life full of contrarieties, and a character so strange as to be almost mysterious, sufficiently show the difficulties of the task I have undertaken But the course I intend to pursue will relieve , in any particular manner, upon those debatable points of his personal conduct which have been so much discussed I shall consider him, if I can, as his character will be estiotten, and when the monument he has raised to hinificence, without suggesting recollections of the eccentricities of the builder

JOHN GALT

CHAPTER I

Ancient Descent--Pedigree--Birth--Troubles of his Mother--Early Education--Accession to the title

The English branch of the family of Byron came in with William the Conqueror; and fro the edom, under the nan of Henry II that they began to call theh for upwards of seven hundred years distinguished for the extent of their possessions, it docs not appear, that, before the ti the heroic fadom

Erneis and Ralph were the coists have not determined in what relation they stood to each other Erneis, who appears to have been the e of the two, held numerous manors in the counties of York and Lincoln In the Doh a the tenants of the Crown, in Notts and Derbyshi+re; in the latter county he resided at horestan Castle, from which he took his title One of the lords of horestan was a hostage for the payment of the ransom of Richard Coeur de Lion; and in the timented by the addition of the Manor of Rochdale, in Lancashi+re On what account this new grant was given has not been ascertained; nor is it of importance that it should be

In the wars of the three Edwards, the de Byrons appeared with some distinction; and they were also of note in the ti at Milford, and fought gallantly at the battle of Bosworth, against Richard III, for which he was afterwards appointed Constable of Nottingham Castle and Warden of Sherwood Forest At his death, in 1488, he was succeeded by Sir Nicholas, his brother, who, at the e of Arthur, Prince of Wales, in 1501, was hts of the Bath

Sir Nicholas died in 1540, leaving an only son, Sir John Byron, whom Henry VIII made Steward of Manchester and Rochdale, and Lieutenant of the Forest of Sherwood It was to him that, on the dissolution of the monasteries, the church and priory of Newstead, in the county of Nottingharanted The abbey from that period became the family seat, and continued so until it was sold by the poet

Sir John Byron left Newstead and his other possessions to John Byron, whom Collins and other writers have called his fourth, but as in fact his illegitihted by Queen Elizabeth in 1579, and his eldest son, Sir Nicholas, served with distinction in the wars of the Netherlands When the great rebellion broke out against Charles I, he was one of the earliest who arehill, where he courageously distinguished hiallantly defended that city against the Parliamentary army Sir John Byron, the brother and heir of Sir Nicholas, was, at the coronation of Jae with Anne, the eldest daughter of Sir Richard Molyneux, he had eleven sons and a daughter

The eldest served under his uncle in the Netherlands; and in the year 1641 was appointed by King Charles I, Governor of the Tower of London In this situation he became obnoxious to the refractory spirits in the Parliament, and was in consequence ordered by the Coes which the sectaries alleged against hi's command; and upon' this the Commons applied to the Lords to join the to remove him The Peers rejected the proposition

On the 24th October, 1643, Sir John Byron was created Lord Byron of Rochdale, in the county of Lancaster, with remainder of the title to his brothers, and their male issue, respectively He was also made Field-Marshal-General of all his Majesty's forces in Worcestershi+re, Cheshi+re, Shropshi+re and North Wales: nor were these trusts and honours unwon, for the Byrons, during the Civil War, were euished At the battle of Newbury, seven of the brothers were in the field, and all actively engaged

Sir Richard, the second brother of the first lord, was knighted by Charles I for his conduct at the battle of Edgehill, and appointed Governor of Appleby Castle, in Westreat honour Sir Richard, on the death of his brother, in 1652, succeeded to the peerage, and died in 1679