English Literature for Boys and Girls Part 73

Then Scott began the book which will be the first of all his books to interest you, The Tales of a Grandfather. This is a history of Scotland, and it was written for his grandson John Hugh Lockhard, or Hugh Littlejohn as he is called in The Tales.

"I will make," said Scott, "if possible, a book that a child shall understand, yet a man shall feel some temptation to peruse should he chance to take it up."

Hugh Littlejohn was a delicate boy, indeed he had not long to live, but many a happy day he spent, this summer (1827), riding about the woods of Abbotsford with his kind grandfather, listening to the tales he told. For Scott, too, the rides were a joy, and helped to make him forget his troubles. When he had told his tale in such a simple way that Littlejohn understood, he returned home and wrote it down.

In the December of the same year the first part of The Tales was published, and at once was a tremendous success, a success as great almost as any of the novels. Hugh Littlejohn liked The Tales too. "Dear Grandpapa," he writes, "I thank you for the books. I like my own picture and the Scottish chief: I am going to read them as fast as I can."

Two more volumes of Tales followed. Then there was no need to write more for the dearly loved grandson, as a year or two later, when he was only eleven, poor Littlejohn died. But already the kind grandfather was near his end also, the tremendous effort which he made to force himself to work beyond his strength could not be kept up. His health broke down under it. Still he struggled on, but at last, yielding to his friends' entreaties, he went to Italy in search of health and strength. It gives us some idea of the high place Sir Walter had won for himself in the hearts of the people, when we learn that his health seemed a national concern, and that a wars.h.i.+p was sent to take him on his journey. But the journey was of no avail. Among the great hills and blue lakes of Italy Scott longed for the lesser hills and grayer lochs of Scotland. So he turned homewards. And at home, in his beloved Abbotsford, in the still splendor of an autumn day, with the meadow-scented air he loved fanning his face, and the sound of rippling Tweed in his ears, he closed his eyes for ever. In the gra.s.s-grown ruin of Dryburgh Abbey, not far from his home, he was laid to rest, while the whole countryside mourned Sir Walter.

Before he died Scott had paid 70,000 pounds of his debt, an enormous sum for one man to make by his pen in six years. He died in the happy belief that all was paid, as indeed it all was.

For after the author's death, his books still brought in a great deal of money, so that in fifteen years the debt was wiped out.

I have not told you any of Scott's stories here, because, unlike many of the books we have spoken of, they are easily to be had.

And the time will soon come, if it has not come already, when you can read Sir Walter's books, just as he wrote them. It is best, I think, that you should read them so, for Sir Walter Scott is perhaps the first of all our great writers nearly the whole of whose books a child can read without help. You will find many long descriptions in them, but do not let them frighten you. You need not read them all the first time, and very likely you will want to read them the second time.

But perhaps before you read his novels you will like to read his Metrical Romances. For when we are children--big children perhaps, but still children--is the time to read them. Long ago in the twelfth century, when the people of England were simple and unlearned, they loved Metrical Romances, and we when we are simple and unlearned may love them too. Many of these old romances, however, are hard to get, and they are written in a language hard for many of us to understand. But Sir Walter Scott, in the nineteenth century, has recreated for us all the charm of those old tales. For this then, let us thank and remember him.

"His legendary song could tell Of ancient deeds, so long forgot; Of feuds, whose memory was not; Of forests, now laid waste and bare; Of towers, which harbour now the hare; Of manners, long since chang'd and gone; Of chiefs, who under their grey stone So long had slept, that fickle Fame Had blotted from her rolls their name, And twin'd round some new minion's head The fading wreath for which they bled."*

*Lay of the Last Minstrel.

Chapter LXXIX BYRON--"CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE"

WHEN Sir Walter Scott ceased to write Metrical Romances, he said it was because Byron had beaten him. But the metrical romances of these two poets are widely different. With Sir Walter we are up among the hills, out on the wide moorland. With him we tramp the heather, and ford the rus.h.i.+ng streams; his poems are full of healthy, generous life. With Byron we seem rather to be in the close air of a theater. His poems do not tell of a rough and vigorous life, but of luxury and softness; of tyrants and slaves, of beautiful houris and dreadful villains. And in the villains we always seem to see Byron himself, who tries to impress us with the fact that he is indeed a very "bold, bad man." In his poetry there is something artificial, which takes us backward to the time of Pope, rather than forward with the nature poets.

The boyhood of George Gordon Byron was a sad one. He came of an ancient and n.o.ble family, but one which in its later generations had become feeble almost to madness. His father, who was called Mad Jack, was wild and worthless, his mother was a wealthy woman, but weak and pa.s.sionate, and in a short time after her marriage her husband spent nearly all her money. Mrs. Byron then took her little baby and went to live quietly in Aberdeen on what was left of her fortune.

She was a weak and pa.s.sionate woman, and sometimes she petted and spoiled her little boy, sometimes she treated him cruelly, calling him "a lame brat," than which nothing could hurt him more, for poor little George was born lame, and all his life long he felt sore and angry about it. To him too had been given the pa.s.sionate temper of both father and mother, and when he was angry he would fall into "silent rages," bite pieces out of saucers, or tear his pinafores to bits.

Meanwhile, while in Aberdeen Mrs. Byron struggled to live on 130 pounds a year, in Newstead Abbey, near Nottingham, there lived a queer, half-mad, old grand-uncle, who had earned for himself the name of "the wicked lord." He knew well enough that when he died the little boy in Aberdeen, with the pretty face and lame foot, would become Lord Byron. He might have taken some interest in his nephew, and seen at least that he was sent to school, and given an education to fit him for his future place in the world. But that was not "the wicked lord's" way. He paid no attention to the little boy in Aberdeen. Indeed, it is said that he hated him, and that he cut down his trees and despoiled Newstead as much as he could, in order to leave his heir as poor a heritage as possible.

But when George was ten this old uncle died. Then mother and son said good-by to Aberdeen, and at length traveled southwards to take possession of their great house and broad lands. But the heritage was not so great as at first sight would appear, for the house was so ruinous that it was scarcely fit to live in, and the wicked lord had sold some of the land. However, as the sale was unlawful, after much trouble the land was recovered.

Byron had now to take his place among boys of his own cla.s.s, and when he was thirteen he was sent to school at Harrow. But he hated school. He was shy as "a wild mountain colt" and somewhat sn.o.bbish, and at first was most unpopular.

As he says himself, however, he "fought his way very fairly" and he formed some friends.h.i.+ps, pa.s.sionately, as he did everything.

In spite of his lameness, he was good at sports, especially at swimming. He was brave, and even if his sn.o.bbishness earned for him the nickname of the "Old English Baron," his comrades admired his spirit, and in the end, instead of being unpopular, he led-- often to mischief. "I was," he says, "always cricketing-- rebelling--fighting, rowing (from row, not boat-rowing, a different practice), and in all manner of mischiefs." Yet, wild though he was, of his headmaster he ever kept a kindly remembrance. "Dr. Drury," he says, "whom I plagued sufficiently too, was the best, the kindest friend I ever had."

Byron hated Harrow until his last year and a half there; then he liked it. And when he knew he must leave and go to Cambridge, he was so unhappy that he counted the days that remained, not with joy at the thought of leaving, but with sorrow.

At Cambridge he felt himself lonely and miserable at first, as he had at school. But there too he soon made friends. He found plenty of time for games, he rode and shot, rejoiced in feats of swimming and diving. He wrote poetry also, which he afterwards published under the name of Hours of Idleness. It was a good name for the book, for indeed he was so idle in his proper studies, that the wonder is that he was able to take his degree.

It was in 1807, at the age of nineteen, that Lord Byron published his Hours of Idleness, with a rather pompous preface. The poems were not great, some of them indeed were nothing less than mawkish, but perhaps they did not deserve the slas.h.i.+ng review which appeared in the Edinburgh Review. The Edinburgh Review was a magazine given at this time to criticising authors very severely, and Byron had to suffer no more than other and greater poets. But he trembled with indignation, and his anger called forth his first really good poem, called English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. It is a satire after the style of Pope, and in it Byron lashes not only his reviewers, but also other writers of his day. His criticisms are, many of them, quite wrong, and in after years when he came to know the men he now decried, he regretted this poem, and declared it should never be printed again. But it is still included in his works. Perhaps having just read about Sir Walter Scott, it may amuse you to read what Byron has to say of him.

"Thus Lays of Minstrels--may they be the last!-- On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast.

While mountain spirits prate to river sprites, That dames may listen to the sound at nights; . . . . . .

Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, The golden-crested haughty Marmion, Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight, The gibbet or the field prepared to grace; A mighty mixture of the great and base.

And think'st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance, On public taste to foist thy stale romance."

Then after a sneer at Scott for making money by his poems, Byron concludes with this pa.s.sage:-- "These are the themes that claim our plaudits now; These are the bards to whom the muse must bow; While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot, Resign their hallowed bays to Walter Scott."

When people read this satire, they realized that a new poet had appeared. But it was not until Byron published his first long poem, called Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, that he became famous.

Then his success was sudden and amazing. "I woke up one morning and found myself famous," he says. "His fame," says another poet and friend who wrote his life,* "seemed to spring up like the palace of a fairy tale, in a night." He was praised and lauded by high and low. Every one was eager to known him, and for a time he became the spoiled darling of society.

*Moore.

Childe Harold is a long poem of four cantos, but now only two cantos were published. The third was added in 1816, the fourth in 1818. It is written in the Spenserian stanza, with here and there songs and ballads in other meters, and in the first few verses there is even an affectation of Spenserian wording. But the poet soon grew tired of that, and returned to his own English. Childe is used in the ancient sense of knight, and the poem tells of the wanderings of a gloomy, vicious, world-worn man.

There is very little story in Childe Harold. The poem is more a series of descriptions and a record of the thoughts that are called forth by the places through which the traveler pa.s.ses. It is indeed a poetic diary. The pilgrim visits many famous spots, among them the field of Waterloo, where but a few months before the fate of Europe had been decided. To us the battle of Waterloo is a long way off. To Byron it was still a deed of yesterday. As he approaches the field he feels that he is on sacred ground.

"Stop!--for thy tread is on an Empire's dust!

An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below!

Is the spot marked with no colossal bust?

Nor column trophied for triumphal show?

None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so, As the ground was before, thus let is be;-- How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!

And is this all the world has gain'd by thee, Thou first and last of field! kingmaking victory?"

Then in thought Byron goes over all that took place that fateful day.

"There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gather'd then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell; But hus.h.!.+ hark! a deep sound strikes a rising knell!

Did ye not hear it?--No; 'twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street; On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

But hark!--that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm! arm! it is--it is--the cannon's opening roar!

"Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, And gathering tears and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness; And there were sudden parting, such as press The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!

"And there was mounting in hot haste; the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips--'The foe! they come! they come!'"

And then thinking of the battle lost by the great conqueror of Europe, the poet mourns for him--

"Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou!

She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now That thou are nothing, save the jest of Fame, Who woo'd thee once, thy va.s.sal, and became The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert A G.o.d unto thyself; nor less the same To thee astounded kingdoms all inert, Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst a.s.sert.

"Oh, more or less than man--in high or low, Battling with nations, flying from the field; Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield; An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, But govern not thy pettiest pa.s.sion, nor, However deeply in men's spirits skill'd, Look through thine own, nor curb the l.u.s.t of war, Nor learn that tempted Fate will eave the loftiest Star."

These are a few verses from one of the best known parts of Childe Harold. There are many other verses equally well known. They have become the possession of almost every schoolboy. Some of them you will read in school books, and when you are grown up and able to distinguish between what is vulgar and what is good and beautiful in it, I hope you will read the whole poem.

For two years Byron was as popular as man might be. Then came a change. From the time that he was a child he had always been in love, first with one and then with another. His heart was tinder, ever ready to take fire. Now he married. At first all went well. One little baby girl was born. Then troubles came, troubles which have never been explained, and for which we need not seek an explanation now, and one day Lady Byron left her husband never to return.

The world which had petted and spoiled the poet now turned from the man. He was abused and decried; instead of being courted he was shunned. So in anger and disgust, Byron left the country where he found no sympathy. He never returned to it, the rest of his life being spent as a wanderer upon the Continent.

It was to a great extent a misspent life, and yet, while Byron wasted himself in unworthy ways, he wrote constantly and rapidly, pouring out volumes of poetry at a speed equaled only by Scott.