Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I | Page 2

it costs me to obtain your
praises!" might have been, with equal truth, addressed by the noble
exile to his countrymen. To keep the minds of the English public for
ever occupied about him,--if not with his merits, with his faults; if not

in applauding, in blaming him,--was, day and night, the constant
ambition of his soul; and in the correspondence he so regularly
maintained with his publisher, one of the chief mediums through which
this object was to be effected lay. Mr. Murray's house being then, as
now, the resort of most of those literary men who are, at the same time,
men of the world, his Lordship knew that whatever particulars he might
wish to make public concerning himself, would, if transmitted to that
quarter, be sure to circulate from thence throughout society. It was on
this presumption that he but rarely, as we shall find him more than once
stating, corresponded with any others of his friends at home; and to the
mere accident of my having been, myself, away from England, at the
time, was I indebted for the numerous and no less interesting letters
with which, during the same period, he honoured me, and which now
enrich this volume.
In these two sets of correspondence (given, as they are here, with as
little suppression as a regard to private feelings and to certain other
considerations, warrants) will be found a complete history, from the
pen of the poet himself, of the course of his life and thoughts, during
this most energetic period of his whole career;--presenting altogether so
wide a canvass of animated and, often, unconscious self-portraiture, as
even the communicative spirit of genius has seldom, if ever, before
bestowed on the world.
Some insinuations, calling into question the disinterestedness of the
lady whose fate was connected with that of Lord Byron during his latter
years, having been brought forward, or rather revived, in a late work,
entitled "Galt's Life of Byron,"--a work wholly unworthy of the
respectable name it bears,--I may be allowed to adduce here a
testimony on this subject, which has been omitted in its proper place,[4]
but which will be more than sufficient to set the idle calumny at rest.
The circumstance here alluded to may be most clearly, perhaps,
communicated to my readers through the medium of the following
extract from a letter, which Mr. Barry (the friend and banker of Lord
Byron) did me the favour of addressing to me soon after his Lordship's
death[5]:--"When Lord Byron went to Greece, he gave me orders to
advance money to Madame G----; but that lady would never consent to

receive any. His Lordship had also told me that he meant to leave his
will in my hands, and that there would be a bequest in it of 10,000l. to
Madame G----. He mentioned this circumstance also to Lord
Blessington. When the melancholy news of his death reached me, I
took for granted that this will would be found among the sealed papers
he had left with me; but there was no such instrument. I immediately
then wrote to Madame G----, enquiring if she knew any thing
concerning it, and mentioning, at the same time, what his Lordship had
said as to the legacy. To this the lady replied, that he had frequently
spoken to her on the same subject, but that she had always cut the
conversation short, as it was a topic she by no means liked to hear him
speak upon. In addition, she expressed a wish that no such will as I had
mentioned would be found; as her circumstances were already
sufficiently independent, and the world might put a wrong construction
on her attachment, should it appear that her fortunes were, in any
degree, bettered by it."

NOTICES
OF THE
LIFE OF LORD BYRON.
It has been said of Lord Byron, "that he was prouder of being a
descendant of those Byrons of Normandy, who accompanied William
the Conqueror into England, than of having been the author of Childe
Harold and Manfred." This remark is not altogether unfounded in truth.
In the character of the noble poet, the pride of ancestry was
undoubtedly one of the most decided features; and, as far as antiquity
alone gives lustre to descent, he had every reason to boast of the claims
of his race. In Doomsday-book, the name of Ralph de Burun ranks high
among the tenants of land in Nottinghamshire; and in the succeeding
reigns, under the title of Lords of Horestan Castle,[6] we find his
descendants holding considerable possessions in Derbyshire; to which,
afterwards, in the time of Edward I., were added the lands of Rochdale
in Lancashire. So extensive, indeed, in those early times, was the

landed wealth of the family, that the partition of their property, in
Nottinghamshire