Transcribed , email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
My present task is one of considerable difficulty; but I have longhad a notion that some time or another it would fall to my lot to performit. I approach it, therefore, without apprehension, entirely inconsequence of having determined, to my own satisfaction, the mannerin which the biography of so singular and so richly endowed a characteras that of the late Lord Byron should be treated, but still with nosmall degree of diffidence; for there is a wide difference between determininga rule for one’s self, and producing, according to that rule,a work which shall please the public.
It has happened, both with regard to the man and the poet, that fromthe first time his name came before the public, there has been a vehementand continual controversy concerning him; and the chief difficultiesof the task arise out of the heat with which the adverse parties havemaintained their respective opinions. The circumstances in whichhe 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 prudentor judicious man. Nor, according to the history of his family,was his blood without a taint of sullenness, which disqualified himfrom conciliating the good opinion of those whom his innate superioritymust have often prompted him to desire for friends. He was branded,moreover, with a personal deformity; and the grudge against Nature forinflicting this defect not only deeply disturbed his happiness, butso generally affected his feelings as to embitter them with a vindictivesentiment, so strong as, at times, to exhibit the disagreeable energyof misanthropy. This was not all. He enjoyed high rank,and was conscious of possessing great talents; but his fortune was inadequateto his desires, and his talents were not of an order to redeem the deficienciesof fortune. It likewise so happened that while indulged by hisonly friend, his mother, to an excess that impaired the manliness ofhis character, her conduct was such as in no degree to merit the affectionwhich her wayward fondness inspired.
It is impossible to reflect on the boyhood of Byron without regret. 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 impressions of early youth, freshand unfaded, there was a gloom and shadow upon them, which proved howlittle they had been really joyous.
The riper years of one so truly the nursling of pride, poverty, andpain, could only be inconsistent, wild, and impassioned, even had histemperament been moderate and well disciplined. But when it isconsidered that in addition to all the awful influences of these fatalities,for they can receive no lighter name, he possessed an imagination ofunbounded capacity—was inflamed with those indescribable feelingswhich constitute, in the opinion of many, the very elements of genius—fearfullyquick in the discernment of the darker qualities of character—andsurrounded by temptation—his career ceases to surprise. It would have been more wonderful had he proved an amiable and well-conductedman, than the questionable and extraordinary being who has alike provokedthe malice and interested the admiration of the world.
Posterity, while acknowledging the eminence of his endowments, andlamenting the habits which his unhappy circumstances induced, will regardit as a curious phenomenon in the fortunes of the individual, that theprogress of his fame as a poet should have been so similar to his histo