Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 1: With His Letters and JournalsMoore, Thomas
General
Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 1: With His Letters and Journals
Moore, Thomas
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
Almost every second day, while the Satire was printing, Mr. Dallas,
who had undertaken to superintend it through the press, received fresh
matter, for the enrichment of its pages, from the author, whose mind,
once excited on any subject, knew no end to the outpourings of its
wealth. In one of his short notes to Mr. Dallas, he says, "Print soon,
or I shall overflow with rhyme;" and it was, in the same manner, in
all his subsequent publications,--as long, at least, as he remained
within reach of the printer,--that he continued thus to feed the
press, to the very last moment, with new and "thick-coming fancies,"
which the re-perusal of what he had already written suggested to him.
It would almost seem, indeed, from the extreme facility and rapidity
with which he produced some of his brightest passages during the
progress of his works through the press, that there was in the very
act of printing an excitement to his fancy, and that the rush of his
thoughts towards this outlet gave increased life and freshness to
their flow.
Among the passing events from which he now caught illustrations for
his poem was the melancholy death of Lord Falkland,--a gallant, but
dissipated naval officer, with whom the habits of his town life had
brought him acquainted, and who, about the beginning of March, was
killed in a duel by Mr. Powell. That this event affected Lord Byron
very deeply, the few touching sentences devoted to it in his Satire
prove. "On Sunday night (he says) I beheld Lord Falkland presiding at
his own table in all the honest pride of hospitality; on Wednesday
morning at three o'clock I saw stretched before me all that remained
of courage, feeling, and a host of passions." But it was not by words
only that he gave proof of sympathy on this occasion. The family of
the unfortunate nobleman were left behind in circumstances which
needed something more than the mere expression of compassion to
alleviate them; and Lord Byron, notwithstanding the pressure of his
own difficulties at the time, found means, seasonably and delicately,
to assist the widow and children of his friend. In the following
letter to Mrs. Byron, he mentions this among other matters of
interest,--and in a tone of unostentatious sensibility highly
honourable to him.
LETTER 32.
TO MRS. BYRON.
"8. St. James's Street, March 6. 1809.
"Dear Mother,
"My last letter was written under great depression of spirits from
poor Falkland's death, who has left without a shilling four children
and his wife. I have been endeavouring to assist them, which, God
knows, I cannot do as I could wish, from my own embarrassments and
the many claims upon me from other quarters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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