deed, putting portraits in his books as Goldwin Smith can tell us. The larger Reviews were coy of praise and coy of condemnation : indeed 'twas hard to say which way it pointed-socially or politically; but, for the scandal-mongers, there was in it very appetizing meat. He became a lion of the salons; and he enjoyed the lionhood vastly. Chalon painted him in that day—a very Adonis -gorgeous in velvet coat and in ruffled shirt.

*

But he grew tired of England and made his trip of travel; it followed by nearly a score of years after that of Childe Harold, and was doubtless largely stimulated by it; three years he was gone

·wandering over all the East, as well as Europe. He came back with an epic (published 1834), believing that it was to fill men's minds, and to conquer a place for him among the great poets of the century. In this he was dismally mistaken; so he broke his lyre, and that was virtually the last of his poesy. There came, however, out of these journeyings, besides the poem, the stories of Con

*A. E. Chalon, an artist much in vogue in the days of "Tokens," — who also painted Lady Blessington,—but of no lasting reputation.

tarini Fleming, of The Young Duke, and The Wondrous Tale of Alroy. These kept his fame alive, but seemed after all only the work of a man playing with literature, rather than of one in earnest.

With ambition well sharpened now, by what he counted neglect, he turned to politics; as the son of a country gentleman of easy fortune, it was not difficult to make place for himself. Yet, with all the traditions of a country gentleman about him, in his first moves he was not inclined to Toryism; indeed, he startled friends by his radicalism

- was inclined to shake hands at the outset with the arch-agitator O'Connell; but not identifying himself closely with either party; and so, to the last it happened that his sympathies were halved in most extraordinary way; he had the concurrence of the most staid, Toryish, and conservative of country voters; and no man could, like himself, bring all the jingoes of England howling at his back. Indeed, nothing is more remarkable in his career than his shrewd adaptation of policy to meet existing, or approaching tides of feeling; he does not avow great convictions of duty, and

stand by them; but he toys with convictions; studies the weakness, as he does the power, of those with him or against him; shifts his ground accordingly; rarely lacking poise, and the attitude of seeming steadfastness; whipping with his scourge of a tongue the little lapses of his adversaries till they shrill all over the kingdom; and putting his own triumphs- great or small-into such scenic combination, with such beat of drum, and blare of trumpet, as to make all England break out into bravos.* There was not that literary quality in his books, either early or late, which will give to them, I think, a very long life; but there was in the man a quality of shrewdness and of power which will be long rememberedperhaps not always to his honor.

I do not yield to any in admiration for the noble and philanthropic qualities which belong to the venerable, retired statesman of Hawarden; yet I

* In illustration of his comparatively humble position early, Greville in his later Journal, Chapter XXIV., speaks of Disraeli's once proposing to Moxon, the publisher, to take him (Disraeli) into partnership; Greville says Moxon told him this.

cannot help thinking that if such a firm and audacious executive hand as belonged to Lord Beaconsfield, had in the season of General Gordon's stress at Khartoum-controlled the fleets and armies of Great Britain, there would have been quite other outcome to the sad imbroglio in the Soudan. When war is afoot, the apostles of peace are the poorest of directors.

I go back for a moment to that Blessington Salon in order to close her story. There was a narrowed income-a failure of her jointure -a shortening of her book sales; but, notwithstanding, there was a long struggle to keep that brilliant little court alive. One grows to like so much the music and the fêtes and the glitter of the chandeliers, and the unction of flattering voices! But at last the ruin came; on a sudden the sheriffs were there; and clerks with their inventories in place of the "Tokens" and "annuals"-with their gorgeous engravings by Finden & Heath-which the Mistress had exploited; and she hurried off-after the elegant D'Orsay to Paris, hoping to rehabilitate herself, on the Champs Elysées, under the wing of Louis

--

LORD BYRON.

187

Napoleon, just elected President. I chanced to see her in her coupé there, on a bright afternoon early in 1849 — with elegant silken wraps about her and a shimmer of the old kindly smile upon her shrunken face-dashing out to the Bois; but within three months there was another sharp change; she dead, and her pretty decolleté court at an end forever.

The Poet of Newstead.

The reminiscences and conversations of Lord Byron, which we have at the hands of Lady Blessington, belong to a time, of course, much earlier than her series of London triumphs, and date with her journeys in Italy. A score of years at least before ever the chandeliers of her Irish ladyship were lighted in Gore House, Byron * had

*George Noel Gordon (Lord Byron), b. (London) 1788; d. (Greece) 1824. Hours of Idleness, 1807; English Bards, etc., 1809; Childe Harold (2 cantos), 1812; Don Juan, 181924; Moore's Life, 1830; Trelawney, Recollections, etc., 1858. The first volume (Macmillan, 1897) has appeared of a new edition of Byron's works, with voluminous notes (in over-fine print) by William Ernest Henley. The editorial stand-point may be judged by this averment from the preface," the sole