SOME MORE ABOUT BYRON.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 53, 27 January 1872, Page 3

SOME MORE ABOUT BYRON.

In a work entitled '■' the Literary Life of the Rev William Harness, Vicar of All Saints, Knightsbridge, and Prebendary of St. Paul's, by the Rev A. G. L'Estrange,'' there are some interesting records of Byron : William Harness was born at WTickham, in Hampshire, in 1790, two years after Miss Mitford, with whom, through the connection of their two families, he was intimate from childhood. The intimacy lasted through life, but not very much is said about it in this volume, which has Byrcn for the chief subject of its earlier pages. Harness went to Harrow in 1802, and Byron at once took him up in a characteristic way. " I was lame from an early accident," wrote Harness afterwards, " and pale and thin in consequence of a severe fever, from which, though perfectly recovered in other respects, I still contiuued weak. This dilapidated condition of mine seem to have touched Byron's sympathies. He saw me a stranger in a crowd; the very person likely to tempt the oppression of a bully, as I was utterly incapable of resisting it, and, in all the kindness of his generous nature, he took me under his charge. The first words he ever spoke to me, as far as I can recollect them, were, 'lf any fellow bullies you, tell me, and I'll thrash him if I can.' " The friendship lasted long after the boys left school. " I have many slights and neglects towards Byron to reproach myself with," wrote Harness; " but, on his part, I cannot call to mind, during the whole course of our intimacy, a single instance of caprice or unkindness." Of his kindness to others, Harness made some pleasant records : "At a time when Coleridge was in great embarrassment, Rogers, when calling on Byron, chanced to mention it. He immediately went to his writingdesk, and brought back a cheque for a hundred pounds, and insisted on its being forwarded to Coleridge. ' I did not like taking it,' said Rogers, who told me the story, ' for I knew that he was in want of it himself.' His servants he treated with a gentle consideration for their feelings which I have seldom witnessed in any other, and they were devoted to him. At Newstead, there was an old man who had been butler to his mother; aftd I have seen Byron, as the old man waited behind his chair at dinner, pour out a glass of wine and pass it to him when he thought we were too much engaged in conversation to observe what he was doing. The transaction was a thing of custom ; and both parties seemed to flatter themselves that it was clandestinely effected. A hideous old woman, who had been brought in to nurse him when he was unwell at one of his lodgings, and whom few would have cared to retain about them longer than her services were required, was carried with him, in improved attire, to his chambers in the Albany, and was seen, after his marriage, gorgeous in bfcick silk, at his house in Piccadilly. She had done him a service, and he could not forget it. Of his attachment to his friends, no one can read Moore's Life and entertain a doubt. He required a great deal from them—not more, perhaps, than he, from the abundance of his life, freely and fully gave—but more than they had to return. The ardor of his nature must have been in a normal state of disappointment. He imagined higher qualities in them than they possessed, and must very often have found his expectations sadly baulked by the dulness of talk, the perversity of taste, or the want of enthusiasm, which he encountered on a better, or rather longer, acquaintance. But, notwithstanding, I have never yet heard anybody complain that Byron had once appeared to entertain a regard for him, and had afterwards capriciously cast him off."

There is nothing very new in Harness's account of Byron ; but it is worth having, especially as its whole effect, and especially the effect of certain passages, should have weight with everyone who has been at all biassed by the monstrous slanders that have lately been put forward in " vindication" of Lady Byron. Mr Harness's impressions of Miss Milbanke before her marriage were like those of nearly all who knew her ; and, though he does not acquit Byron of all blame on account of his conduct towards her, he shows that it could not have been

so very heinous as to poison her regard for him.

" Years after they had met for the last time, Lady Byron went with Mrs Jameson, from whom I repeat the circumstance, to see Thorwaldsen's statue of her husband, which was at Sir Richard Westmacott's studio. After looking at it in silence for a few moments, the tears came into her eyes, and she said to her companion, 'lt is very beautiful, but not so beautiful as my dear Byron.' However interrupted by changes of caprice or irritability, the general course of her husband's conduct must have been gentle and tender, or it never would, after so long a cessation of intercourse, have left such kindly impressions behind it. I have, indeed, reason to believe that these feelings of affectionate remembrance lingered in the heart of Lady Byron to the last. Not a fortnight before her death I dined in company with an old lady who was at the time on a visit to her. On this lady's returning home, and mentioning whom she had met, Lady Byron evinced great curiosity to learn what subjects we had talked about, and what I heard of them, ' because I had been such a fiiend of her husband's.' This instance of fond remembrance, after an interval of more than forty years, in a woman of no very sensitive nature—a woman of more intellect than feeling—conveys to my mind no slight argument in defence of Byron's conduct as a husband." Speaking of Byron's morbid habit of self-slander, or " hypocrisy reversed," as he aptly called it, and its unfortunate effects on others, Harness repeats a conversation with the Reverend Henry Drury, who was well acquainted with Byron's private life. "Do you know any harm of him but what he told you himself?" asked Harness. " Oh, yes ; a hundred things," answered the other. " I don't want you to tell me a hundred things, I shall be content with one," was the reply. An hour or two later, Mr Drury said, " I have been thinking of what you were saying at dinner. I do not know any harm of Byron, but what he has told me of himself."— " Examiner."