Part 2 (1/2)
The early dislike which Byron felt towards the Earl of Carlisle is abundantly well known, and he had the e that it was in some respects unjust But the antipathy was not all on one side; nor will it be easy to parallel the conduct of the Earl with that of any guardian It is but justice, therefore, to Byron, to an on the part of Lord Carlisle, and originated in some distaste which he took to Mrs Byron's ave him on account of her son
Dr Drury, in his co the early history of Byron, ular circumstance as to this subject, which we record with the more pleasure, because Byron has been blamed, and has blamed himself, for his irreverence towards Lord Carlisle, while it appears that the fault lay with the Earl
”After some continuance at Harrow,” says Dr Drury, ”and when the powers of his un to expand, the late Lord Carlisle, his relation, desired to see me in town I waited on his Lordshi+p His object was to inform e, which he represented as contracted, and to inquire respecting his abilities On the former circumstance I made no remark; as to the latter, I replied, 'He has talents, my Lord, which will add lustre to his rank' 'Indeed,' said his Lordshi+p, with a degree of surprise, that, according to s, did not express in it all the satisfaction I expected”
Lord Carlisle had, indeed, much of the Byron humour in him His mother was a sister of the homicidal lord, and possessed soreat talent, and in her latter days she exhibited great singularity She wrote beautiful verses and piquant epigra others, there is a poetical effusion of her pen addressed to Mrs Greville, on her Ode to Indifference, which, at the time, was much admired, and has been, with other poems of her Ladyshi+p's, published in Pearch's collection
Aftertime, as one of the most brilliant orbs in the sphere of fashi+on, she suddenly retired, and like her morose brother, shut herself up from the world While she lived in this seclusion, she became an object of the sportive satire of the late Mr Fox, who characterized her as
Carlisle, recluse in pride and rags
I have heard a still coarser apostrophe by the sa her in the drawing- rooo about his business, for she did not care two skips of a louse for hi paper and ink on the table, he wrote two lines in answer, and sent it up to her Ladyshi+p, to the effect that she always spoke of as running in her head
Byron has borne testiic poet, by characterizing his publications as paper books It is, however, said that they nevertheless showed soedies, was subment of Dr Johnson, who did not despise it
But to return to the progress of Byron at Harrow; it is certain that notwithstanding the affectionate solicitude of Dr Drury to encourage him, he never became an eminent scholar; at least, we have his own testimony to that effect, in the fourth canto of Childe Harold; the lines, however, in which that testi the weakest he ever penned
May he ill his recollections rake And quote in classic raptures, and awake The hills with Latin echoes: I abhorr'd Too much to conquer, for the poet's sake, The drill'd, dull lesson forced doord by word, In nant youth with pleasure to record
And, as an apology for the defect, heremarks in a note subjoined:--
”I wish to express that we become tired of the task before we can coet by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed by the didactic anticipation, at an age e can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions, which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and Greek, to relish or to reason upon For the same reason, we never can be aware of the fulness of soes of Shakspeare ('To be, or not to be,' for instance), froht years old, as an exercise not of h to enjoy theone, and the appetite palled In soht from mere common authors, and do not read the best classics until their maturity I certainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion towards the place of my education I was not a slow or an idle boy; and I believe no one could be more attached to Harrow than I have always been, and with reason: a part of the time passed there was the happiest of my life; and my preceptor, the Rev Dr Joseph Drury, was the best and worthiest friend I ever possessed; whose warnings I have reh too late, when I have erred; and whose counsels I have but follohen I have done well and wisely If ever this is towards him should reach his eyes, let it reratitude and veneration; of one ouldbeen his pupil if, byhis injunctions, he could reflect any honour upon his instructor”
Lord Byron, however, is not singular in his opinion of the inutility of pre the able manner in which the late Dean Vincent defended public education, we have so upon this point will not be deemed conclusive Milton, says Dr Vincent, co the dead languages Cowley also coht words only and not things; and Addison deeenius or without were all to be bred poets indiscriminately As far, then, as respects the education of a poet, we should think that the nao well to settle the question; especially when it is recollected how little Shakspeare was indebted to the study of the classics, and that Burns knew nothing of them at all I do not, however, adopt the opinion as correct; neither do I think that Dean Vincent took a right view of the subject; for, as discipline, the study of the classicsof Greek and Latin into English cannot be very conducive to the refinement of taste or the exaltation of sentiic in the following observations e and note, quoted by the anonymous author of Childe Harold's Monitor
”This doctrine of antipathies, contracted by the iainst the noblest authors of antiquity, fro been erous doctrine indeed; since it strikes at the root, not only of all pure taste, but of all praiseworthy industry It would, if acted upon (as Harold by theinferior writers in the business of tuition would seereat source of the intellectual vigour of our country too much; for those who have objected to the years ”wasted” in teaching the dead languages, do not ad theour of the understanding; and, therefore, before the soundness of the opinion of Milton, of Cowley, of Addison, and of reat men can be rejected, it falls on those who are of Dean Vincent's opinion, and that of Childe Harold's Monitor, to prove that the study of the learned languages is of so much primary importance as they clai the early period of his residence at Harroas occupied with another object than his studies, and which may partly account for his inattention to them
He fell in love with Mary Chaworth ”She was,” he is represented to have said, ”several years older thanolder than theer later in life
Our estates adjoined, but owing to the unhappy circumstances of the feud (the affair of the fatal duel), our fahbours, who happen to be near relations, were never on terms of more than common civility, scarcely those She was the beau ideal of all that my youthful fancy could paint of the beautiful! and I have taken all my fables about the celestial nature of woination created in her I say created, for I found her, like the rest of the sex, anything but angelic 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 s were stolen ones, and ate leading frorounds 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 hed at aveto make verses upon Had I married Miss Chaworth, perhaps the whole tenor of my life would have been different; she jiltedbut a happy one” It is to this attachment that we are indebted for the beautiful poe
Oh, had h this love affair a little interfered with his Greek and Latin, his ti
Until he was eighteen years old, he had never seen a review; but his general information was so extensive on modern topics, as to induce a suspicion that he could only have collected so , but always idle, and in mischief, or at play He was, however, a devourer of books; he read eating, read in bed, read when no one else read, and had perused all sorts of books from the time he first could spell, but had never read a review, and knew not what the name implied
It should be here noticed, that while he was at Harrow, his qualities were rather oratorical than poetical; and if an opinion had then been fornostication would have led to the expectation of an orator Altogether, his conduct at Harrow indicated a clever, but not an extraordinary boy