THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. 422.-JANUARY, 1910. Art 1-BYRON AND BONAPARTE. 1. Recollections of a Long Life. By Lord Broughton (John Cam Hobhouse). Edited by his daughter, Lady Dorchester. Two vols. London: Murray, 1909. 2. The Substance of some Letters written by an Englishman resident at Paris during the Last Reign of the Emperor Napoleon. Two vols. London: Ridgways, 1816. 3. Byron: the Last Phase. By Richard Edgcumbe. London: Murray, 1909. ALL books of good gossip are good things, but one strongly flavoured with two such ingredients as our title indicates transcends its congeners. In the history of Europe there have not appeared half a dozen human manifestations upon the Napoleonic plane, nor have there arisen more than that number of poets as great or greater than Byron in the literature of England. These two personages were in their several ways the most prominent children of the French Revolution, and every new thing written of them has still that odour of freshness which hangs about all topics that have been touched by the rose of the great epoch. Lord Broughton was a well-known social and literary figure in the first half of the nineteenth century. A catalogue of his works fills more than a column in the pages of the Dictionary of National Biography. But of these we need only now mention his two octavo volumes published in 1816 upon Napoleon's 'Last Reign,' from Ella to Waterloo, and his 'Recollections of a Long Life,' privately printed in 1865. The first of these was somewhat severely attacked at the time of its publication, Vol. 212.-No. 422. B chiefly on account of its author's marked dislike of th Bourbon dynasty and his sympathy with Napoleon. is not very easily accessible, so that possibly the gener reader will have to rest content with the not infrequen quotations from it in the volumes now in review. Wit regard to the second work, the same intelligent class wil have to repose for the present upon that instalment o the five volumes of 1865 which Lord Broughton's daughte has thought sufficient for to-day. We desire, however to express a respectful hope that ere long Lady Dorches ter may not consider it indiscreet to complete a publication which we confidently venture to assure her will be neither valueless nor unwelcome. John Cam Hobhouse was born at Bristol in 1786, two years before his illustrious friend Lord Byron. He got his earliest teaching at a school in that city, kept by Dr Estlin, a Unitarian minister. Accident had at that time brought together in Bristol a group of famous residents, including Coleridge, Southey, and Lamb, besides Dr Beddoes the chemist, and his still more remarkable assistant, Humphry Davy. The fact that as Hobhouse rose to the top of the school he was allowed to be present at some of the small literary suppers which Dr Estlin was in the habit of giving, has enabled him to tell one or two of the earliest among the many good stories which are to be found in these 'Recollections.' From Bristol he was removed to Westminster, and while there, and subsequently, in the enjoyment of an admirable privilege, he occasionally sat under the stranger's gallery and listened to the debates in the House of Commons. He thus heard Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, and Windham, in the zenith of their fame, and Plunket, Grattan, and Canning, in the dawn of theirs. From Westminster he proceeded to Trinity, Cambridge, where he formed the friendship of his life. The immeasurable superiority of Byron does not preclude an admission that it is scarcely more to Broughton's honour that the brilliant man of genius should have selected him, than it is to the advantage of Byron's repute that a man of Broughton's character should have remained his persistent upholder and unLord Rosebery has called him the shrinking friend. High Priest of the Byron mystery, and we may feel sure that, had certain alleged forms of pollution been enacted n the Temple, he would not have remained to officiate at the shrine. In June 1809 the two friends set forth upon their memorable tour in southern and eastern Europe. To Byron the occasion was the baptism and illumination of his genius, a revelation of the past, an exposition of the present, a vision of the future. To him this tour was in reality a pilgrimage from which the votary brought me four precious relics preserved to us in the cantos f 'Childe Harold.' It is amazing how soon the false theatrical costume drops from the limbs of the true poet. We echo his own 'good night' to the Childe as soon as his 'Adieu' is sung at the close of the thirteenth stanza of the first canto. From that moment all obsolete affectations are abandoned; the very verse, with a few occasional lapses, grows natural and genuine, and the antique Spenserian stanza becomes a modern creation all Byron's own. The sea voyage has done its healthgiving work, and the landscape and history of the Spanish peninsula dominate him forthwith. We are whirled with him through, or rather over, all the natural glories of Lusitania and Hispania-mountain, forest, vale, and river. Was ever landscape painted on so grand a scale, with so broad a brush, except elsewhere by himself! It is true that we are drawn off from it to give momentary blush for the Convention of Cintra, to pay a passing tribute to Pelagio, to gratify our taste for battle over Talavera and Albuera. We help to glorify the Maid of Saragossa; we are even induced to yield to the unhealthy but seductive excitement of a bull-fight. Fired by all we have read of the past, and indignant with all we know of the present, we break out with him into the spirited cry: 'Awake, ye sons of Spain! awake! advance! Say, is her voice more feeble than of yore, When her war-song was heard on Andalusia's shore?' But it is the masterful landscape that chiefly enthrals us; as is most natural, while we are the companions and shadows of a boy poet. The book itself marches on, improving in an unbroken progress, and accumulating wealth of scenery, historical association, and passion, now enthusiastic, now indignant, now melancholy. The last canto is its culmination, surpassing the others, swift as they had been, in the rush and speed of its composition. It was written in five or six weeks, almost as many years after its inspiration had been imbibed, yet it is still the gospel of Italy, and has left no room for a second evangelist. But, if his voyage of two years wrought the intellectual transformation of Byron, the ten months during which he shared it were of great if lowlier advantage to Hobhouse. To him they gave that enlargement of experience which the grand tour, sensibly spent, gives to an intelligent young Englishman. He published an account of his travels, which was well received. The references to them in these 'Recollections' involve just such incidents as a clever and observant youth would care to record. They still make very good reading, but we must leave the reader to pick the plums out of the pudding for himself. Their sea-passage from Malta through the Gulf of Corinth was enlivened by a series of adventures which have a strong flavour of piracy. It is only fair to give these in Hobhouse's own words: 'Sept. 19. Left Malta and on the 23rd got our first sight of Ancient Greece from the channel betwixt Cephalonia and Zante. On the morning of the 24th, as we were entering the gulf of Corinth we fell in with, chased, and captured a small boat laden with currants, and, fitting her out as a privateer with a spare two-pounder, we went off in her with the surgeon, Mr Swann, a Midshipman, Mr Barker, and ten men. The next day we fell in with a Turkish vessel of about 70 tons, to which we immediately gave chase. She fired upon One of our crew sitting next to me being shot, us in return. and another bullet passing within an inch of my ear. Eventually, the wind dropping, we pulled up alongside of her, and, jumping on board, her crew at once surrendered. We brought captured her into Patras the next day. . . . That evening we a boat from Ithaca, and a Turkish ship from Dulcigno. Lord Byron rummaged her, but found nothing save some worthless arms.' ... These four days luckily concluded their piratical escapade. After a picturesque excursion on the north side of the gulf, they found themselves back at Patras, having touched at Missolonghi-fateful spot!-on their way. They rode from Salona, via Cressa, to Delphi, saw the Babù of the Pythoness, looked up to the snowy peaks of grim Parnassus, and dutifully drank of the Castalian spring. Hobhouse's description of Delphi is all but limited to a declaration that it has nothing either alluring or romantic.' It may be that the hand of the excavator has done much even for the scenic effect of the place, but a modern pilgrim would record a very different sense of its charm. . The travellers made their way overland through Phocis and Boeotia to Athens. They explored the city and its environs, made a tour of Attica, and touched at Euboea. It is strange that, among a great deal of pleasant and varied chitchat, Hobhouse makes but slight reference to the sights and sites of Greece. The Parthenon is dismissed with the following entry: 'Feb. 28. With Mr Galt we went to the Parthenon to view more closely the bas-reliefs.' However, mercifully, Byron was at work, and the second canto of Childe Harold' more than makes up to the world for the somewhat niggardly notes of his less impressionable companion. They parted at Zea, a fact which Hobhouse thus characteristically notifies : July 17. Arrived at the port of Zea. Went on board with Lord Byron and his suite. Took leave, non sine lacrymis, of this singular young person, on a little stone terrace at the end of the bay, dividing with him a little nosegay of flowers, the last thing perhaps I shall ever divide with him.' The original Recollections' of 1865 passed at once from the year 1810 to 1813, and Lady Dorchester has had recourse to diaries to fill the gap. It looks as if Hobhouse's days were full of reminiscences worth record. sit is, we find sparse notices of dinners in Hall at Trinity, Cambridge, among distinguished company; of days spent at Canterbury and in its neighbourhood with Byron, who had returned in July 1811, and is now spoken of as his 'dear friend'; later on, of another dinner |