Byron. I. George Gordon, lord, an English poet, born in London, Jan. 22, 1788, died at Missolonghi, Greece, April 19,1824. His grandfather, Admiral John Byron, was the younger brother of William, fifth Lord Byron. His father, John Byron, was a captain in the guards, whose reckless dissipation gained for him the name of "mad Jack Byron." At the age of 23 he eloped with Amelia d'Arcy, daughter of the earl of Holderness, in her own right Baroness Conyers, and wife of the marquis of Carmarthen, afterward duke of Leeds. They went to France, where she died in 1784, leaving a daughter Augusta, afterward Mrs. Leigh. In 1786 John Byron married Catharine Gordon, a Scottish heiress, with a fortune of about £25,000, of which £3,000 was settled upon her, and most of the remainder went to pay her husband's debts. They went to France, and returned to England just before the birth of their son. Augusta, then six years old, was sent to her grandmother, the countess of Holderness, by whom she was brought up, and Mrs. Byron and her infant went to Aberdeen, their only means of support being £150 a year, the interest of the sum which had been settled upon her.

Her husband remained awhile in London, but at length visited Aberdeen, and induced his wife to borrow a few hundred pounds for him, with which he set out for Paris, but died on the way in 1791. Mrs. Byron was ungainly in person, with a narrow intellect and violent temper. At the time of Byron's birth the bones of his right foot were partially displaced, and he grew up lame. In her fits of passion she would taunt him as a lame brat, while in her moods of fondness she would stifle him with caresses, and praise the beauty of his eyes. They remained at Aberdeen till 1798, when his great-uncle, William, Lord Byron of Rochdale and Newstead Abbey, died without direct heirs, and the lame boy succeeded to the titles and estates. The estates were large, but much encumbered, the net income from them for some years amounting to not more than £1,500. Lord Byron, as a minor peer, became a ward of chancery, his guardian being his distant kinsman the earl of Carlisle. He was sent to school at Dulwich, where some attempts were made to restore his foot to its proper position. These were only partially successful; though there was no marked deformity, the ankle remained weak, and he always walked with a slight limp.

Still, as he grew up, he excelled in athletic exercises; was a fair cricketer, a capital swimmer, and an expert boxer. In 1800, at the age of 12, he was sent to Harrow school, where he remained five years. He was a careless student, but an omnivorous reader, especially of history and fiction. During a six weeks' vacation, while in his 16th year, he fell in love with his distant relative Mary Anne Chaworth, whose great-uncle had been killed by his own great-uncle. She was two years his senior, and soon after married another. . Byron was wont to say, in prose and verse, that this boyish passion was the turning point of his life. In 1805 he went to Trinity college, Cambridge, and in the next year printed for private circulation «a small volume of poems. Most of these, with many additions, are contained in the "Hours of Idleness," which he published in 1807. Byron was much elated at some favorable notices which appeared of this volume, and at once set about writing an epic, a novel, and a satire. But a contemptuous criticism in the "Edinburgh Review" made him exceedingly angry.

He determined to have his revenge, arid so set himself at work to finish the satire which he had begun months before, and published months after (March, 1809), under the title of " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." Some of the keenest passages which appear in this satire were added in a second edition, published a few weeks later. Byron came of age in January, 1809, and prepared to take his seat in the house of peers; but there was some difficulty in proving the marriage of his grandfather, Admiral Byron, so that he did not take his seat till March. The last two years had been passed in coarse dissipations at Cambridge and London, and he was not recognized by a single member of his order who would introduce him to the house of peers. The earl of Carlisle, his kinsman and guardian, refused to perform this act of formal courtesy, and was repaid by Byron with a lampoon interjected into his satire. Upon taking his seat, Byron, as far as present income went, was the poorest peer of the realm. His great-uncle had separated from his wife, quarrelled with his son and grandson, both of whom he survived, and seems to have set himself at work to destroy the value of the inheritance which would fall to his heirs.

He cut down the timber at New-stead Abbey, and suffered the house to fall into decay. He sold the more valuable estates of Rochdale, for which he could give no legal title, and spent the money in idle whims. Suits at law were instituted by Byron to recover this property, which after many years were successful, and toward the close of his life he became a rich man; but on coming of age, with an income of £1,500, he owed £10,000. His dissipations had impaired his health; his narrow fortunes had rendered England distasteful to him; and in June, 1809, he set out for a long tour in the East. Barely touching at Lisbon, he went into Spain as far as Cadiz and Seville, and thence by way of Gibraltar and Malta to Albania, where he commenced the composition of " Ohilde Harold." The year 1810 and a part of 1811 were spent mainly in Greece, where he wrote " Hints from Horace" and "The Curse of Minerva," and completed the first and second cantos of " Childe Harold." During this time he scarcely saw a fellow countryman, and was fond of hinting afterward that he had been engaged in strange adventures, shadowed forth in some of his later poems, of which pirates and other outlaws are the heroes.

He was on the point of sailing for Egypt when remittances from home failed, and he returned to England in July, 1811, after an absence of a little more than two years. He had scarcely landed before he began to prepare to print the poems which he had written during his absence. He showed the " Hints from Horace " to his kinsman Robert Charles Dallas, who was disappointed with them. Byron then said that he had written many stanzas in the Spenserian measure, describing the countries which he had visited; that a friend who had seen the verses had found little to praise and much to condemn; but if Dallas wanted the rhymes, he was welcome to them. Dallas took the manuscript, read it, and urged its immediate publication. This manuscript was only the rough draught of the first and second cantos of " Childe Harold;" for while the poem was passing through the press many feeble stanzas were expunged, and many of the finest passages written and added. Byron meanwhile had not gone to see his mother, from whom he had parted more than two years before in no pleasant way. Almost her last words were an imprecation that he might become as deformed in mind as he was in body. A month after his arrival at London he learned that she was ill, and the next day that she was dead.

She had died from the effects of a fit of rage arising from a quarrel with a tradesman, " Childe Harold " passed slowly through the process of printing, and almost of rewriting. It was published Feb. 29, 1812. He had made his first speech in the house of peers two days before, in opposition to a bill imposing severe penalties upon weavers who had broken the newly invented weaving machines. The speech was written out and recited, and, notwithstanding its schoolboy manner of delivery, excited some attention. Burdett said that it was " the best speech made by a lord since the Lord knows when; " and Lord Harrowby declared that " some of the periods were very like those of Burke." Byron' spoke twice more in the house of peers, but these speeches were of no account. The publication of the first two cantos of " Childe Harold " formed an epoch in literature. He became at once a celebrity. As he himself said, " I awoke one morning and found myself famous; " and not only famous but the fashion. His table was loaded with letters from statesmen and philosophers, and with billets from women of high rank and easy virtue; Holland house opened its doors to him; the prince regent requested a special introduction; instead of the prize fighters and grooms who had heretofore been his associates, Sheridan and Moore and Rogers became his friends and companions.

Notwithstanding his slight lameness and his constitutional tendency to obesity, he had grown to be the handsomest man of his day. Heretofore his way of life had not been worse than that of other young men of his rank and' time; but he now trod the downward path with swift steps. For weeks he lived upon fare which would have starved an anchorite; then for weeks he plunged into the wildest debauchery. His liaisons, mostly with married women almost old enough to be his mother, were numerous, and report multiplied them tenfold. Though poor and loaded with debt, he was lavish in giving. To Dallas he presented the £600 which Murray paid him for "Childe Harold," to another person he gave £500, and so on. During the remainder of the year in which " Childe Harold " was published he wrote little. In 1813 he fairly began that career of literary activity which lasted nearly through the remaining 11 years of his life. In May, 1813, "The Giaour" appeared, and before another year had passed he had written " The Waltz," " The Bride of Abydos," " The Blues," " The Corsair," and several smaller poems.

He then declared his intention to write no more poetry, and to suppress all that he had written; but within three weeks he commenced " Lara." Meanwhile Newstead Abbey had been sold for £140,000, the purchaser paying down £25,000, to be forfeited unless he should meet the succeeding payments. He was unable to raise the money, and Byron retained the £25,000, with which he paid some of his debts, but contracted more new ones. His friends grew alarmed, and urged him to marry. Any wife might mend his morals; a rich wife would repair his fortunes. He was jaded with excess, and hearkened to the suggestion. Eighteen months before he had been struck with the beauty and modesty of Anne Isabella Milbanke. She was the daughter of a baronet with large though somewhat encumbered estates; she was moreover the presumed heiress of an uncle, Noel, Viscount Wentworth, whose landed estates yielded. £8,000 a year. Byron proposed to her and was refused; but a correspondence sprung up from which he inferred that a second offer would be accepted. He was inclined to renew the offer, but a confidential friend told him that Miss Milbanke's present fortune was not sufficient to relieve his necessities, and advised him to write to another heiress proposing marriage. . Byron agreed, wrote, and was refused.

He thereupon wrote to Miss Milbanke, and was accepted. The marriage took place Jan. 2, 1815, Byron being 27 years of age, his wife four years younger. Byron's creditors, learning that he had married an heiress, soon began to press for payment of their debts. His wife's fortune melted away; in a few months ten executions were placed in his house, and he was saved from personal arrest only by his privilege as a peer. His daughter Ada was born Dec. 10, 1815. During this year he wrote "The Siege of Corinth," "Parisina," and several smaller poems. His wife had hardly risen from childbed when Byron insisted in writing that she should return to her father's house. She did so, Jan. 15, 1816, and on Feb. 2 her father wrote to Byron proposing a formal separation. Byron refused, but upon being threatened with legal proceedings consented. The real grounds for the separatipn are yet a matter of question. Apart from notorious infidelity on his part, and alleged ill treatment in other respects, it was whispered at the time that he had been guilty of incest with his half sister Augusta. This charge has been definitely reiterated within a few years by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, upon the authority of statements made to her in 1856 by Lady Byron. At the time of the separation, however, and subsequently, Lady Byron alleged nothing more than that Byron was guilty of great harshness; that he had declared to her that incestuous intercourse between himself and his sister had occurred; that she then believed him to be insane, and upon that supposition would have consented to a reconciliation.

She treated Augusta with great kindness, and wrote to her in terms of confidence and affection which continued during the remainder of Byron's life, and apparently for several years after. Mrs. Leigh's whole life and character renders the supposition of her guilt improbable. She was six years older than Byron, nowise especially attractive, and at the time of the alleged crime she had been married eight years, and was the mother of four children. She died in 1851, at the age of 67 years, and, save for the rumor of a whole generation before, her reputation was never called in question. But there had been a sad episode in her domestic life. Her fourth daughter, Medora, born about the time of the marriage of Byron, entered about 1830 upon criminal relations with Henry Trevanion, the husband of her oldest sister, Georgiana. Medora, disowned by her relatives, fell into great distress, and was in the end befriended by Lady Byron, who as late as 1840 told her that she had learned that Lord Byron, and not Col. Leigh, was her father. - Never was there a popular revulsion so sudden and fierce as in the case of Byron after the separation between him and his wife. Four years before he had become famous in a day; in a day he now found himself an outcast.

He was lampooned in the newspapers, threatened with being hissed in the theatres and mobbed in the streets. For a month he tried to brave it out, and then fled from his country, never to return. From England he went to Brussels, and thence travelled leisurely up the Rhine to Switzerland. He went in state, with a physician and three servants, in a carriage built after the model of that of Napoleon captured after the battle of Waterloo, having within it a bed, library, and dinner service. The money to pay his lavish expenses probably came from the family of his wife. He reached Geneva in May. Here he met Shelley, with his infant son, Mary Woll-stonecraft Godwin, its yet unwedded mother, and Jane Clermont, a young woman, daughter of a widow whom Godwin had married after the death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Byron had never before seen either of them; but in barely nine months Miss Clermont became the mother of his daughter Allegra. This child when 20 months old was sent to him at Venice, and he provided for her support; she died at the age of five years.

Byron sailed on the. lake of Geneva, made excursions among the Alps, wrote the third canto of "Childe Harold," " The Prisoner of Chillon," and several minor poems, began " Manfred," and commenced a novel afterward written out from memory by his physician, Polidori, and published in 1819 under the title of "The Vampire." Byron's sketch was written in consequence of an agreement that he, Shelley, and Mary Godwin should each write a ghost story. Her story, the only one ever completed, was " Frankenstein." In October, 1816, Byron left Switzerland, leaving behind his unborn child and its mother, and in November took up his abode in Venice, where he remained three years. He hired apartments in the house of an elderly Venetian merchant, who had a young wife, and in ten days Byron entered upon a liaison with her which lasted for months. He soon hired a palace, which he converted into a harem, the inmates of which belonged mainly to the lowest class of Venetian women. During these three years he studied the Armenian language, finished " Manfred," wrote " The Lament of Tasso," "Beppo," the "Ode on Venice," "Mazeppa," the fourth and noblest canto of "Childe Harold," four cantos of "Don Juan," many smaller poems, and numerous letters filled with wit and ribaldry.

But his excesses began to tell upon him; his hair grew thin and gray, and he seemed to be fast approaching his end. Having somewhat amended his way of life, and partially recovered his health, Byron, in April, 1819, happened to meet with Teresa Guiccioli. She was the daughter of Count Gamba, and some months before, at the age of 16, had become the third wife of Count Guiccioli, a wealthy nobleman of the Romagna, more than 60 years old.

Byron and she appear to have fallen in love with each other at first sight. Byron broke up his harem and attached himself to her. Toward the close of the year 1819 the old count took his young wife to his home in Ravenna. She fell sick, and it was thought nothing could save her life but the presence of her lover. Her father, brother, and husband urged him to come. He went, and took up his residence in her husband's palace, where he remained- for about two years, openly recognized as the lover of the countess. During this time he translated the first canto of the "Morgante Maggiqre" of Pulci, the "Fran-cesca of Rimini" of Dante, wrote "Marino Faliero," "Sardanapalus," "TheTwoFoscari," "Cain," "The Vision of Judgment," "Heaven and Earth," "The Prophecy of Dante," the fifth canto of "Don Juan," and began "Werner " and " The Deformed Transformed." Most of his poetry of this period, and that which was to follow, shows a great falling off in power. There are indeed passages equal to anything which he ever wrote; but as a whole the verse is heavy and loose. While in England his excesses in drinking had been occasional; toward the close of his life in Venice they had grown more and more constant; now they were habitual, and gin took the place of wine.

After more than a year Count Guiccioli began to take umbrage at the relations between his wife and Byron, and demanded that she should give him up. She demurred, thought it hard that she must be the only woman in Romagna who might not have an amico, and demanded a formal separation from her husband. This was granted by the pope, upon condition that she should reside at a castle belonging to her father, 15 miles from Ravenna, She could not long endure the separation from Byron, and soon went back to her father's house at Ravenna. Toward the close of 1821 Italy was in a ferment of revolution. The two Gambas, father and son, were among the leaders of the carbonari; Byron joined with them, promising pecuniary aid. He was now a rich man. He had recovered the Rochdale estates, and sold Newstead Abbey for cash; the mother of his wife had died, and she had come into possession of the Noel estate, a portion of the income from which had been settled upon Byron at his marriage. We now find him negotiating to lend £100,000 to the earl of Bles-sington upon the security of property in Ireland; the negotiation fell through, because his agents were not satisfied with the security.

Not long after we find him boasting that his surplus income exceeded the salary of the president of the United States. At this time, by the advice of his trustees, he formally assumed the name of Noel in addition to his own. The uprising in Italy proved a failure. The Gambas were obliged to leave the Romagna. Byron and the countess Guiccioli accompanied them, and in November, 1821, they took up their abode in Pisa, where they remained nine months, when they removed to Genoa. After leaving Ravenna Byron finished " Werner" and "The Deformed Transformed," wrote "The Age of Bronze," "The Island," and "Don Juan," cantos vi. to xvi., which completed the work as far as ever published; although the countess Guiccioli states that he subsequently wrote five more cantos, bringing the poem to an edifying conclusion. Several of his later poems were first published in "The Liberal," a periodical started by him in conjunction with Shelley and Leigh Hunt, of which only four numbers were issued. He had also written his "Memoirs," the manuscript of which he presented to Moore, who sold it to Murray the publisher for £2,000, with the condition that it should not be published until after Byron's death.

This manuscript was repurchased, and finally burned; but it is affirmed that several copies were made and are still in existence. Byron had now grown weary of the monotonous life which he was leading. He had years before said that if he lived he would some day do something besides writing poetry. Greece had now risen against the Turks, and Byron resolved to join the Greek cause. He seems to have had in mind to place himself at its head, and perhaps to become king of Hellas. He advanced considerable money to the Greek committee, promised more, and on July 14 sailed from Genoa for the Greek islands. The two Gambas, father and son, accompanied him. The countess Guiccioli remained behind. After Byron's death she appears to have returned to her husband; at all events, after his death she received an annuity from his estate. About 1833 she appeared in England and France. In 1851 she married the French marquis de Boissy, who died in 1866, and was wont to speak of her as "my wife, formerly mistress of Lord Byron." In 1868 she published in French a volume relating to Byron, which was translated into English under the title " My Recollections of Lord Byron." Byron remained for six months among the Grecian islands, and then sailed for Missolonghi, where he arrived Jan. 5, 1824. On the 22d he wrote the lines " On Completing my Thirty-sixth Year," his latest poem.

On the 30th he was appointed commander of an expedition against Lepanto, which never sailed. On Feb. 15 he was seized with a convulsive fit, from which he partially recovered, but relapsed, and gradually failed till April 9, after which he never crossed his threshold. He died on the 19th, vainly endeavoring with his last breath to make his servant understand some message, of which the only intelligible words were the names of a few friends, his sister, wife, and daughter. His body was embalmed and sent to England; the dean of Westminster refused permission for its interment in Westminster abbey, and it was buried in the family vault in the little church of Hucknall, near Newstead Abbey. By his will, executed a few months after his marriage, he bequeathed his whole property to his sister, Mrs. Leigh. The will was duly proved after his death, but it does not appear that she ever came into possession of the estates, for in her later years she received a royal pension. Byron's title devolved upon his cousin, George Anson Byron (born March 8, 1789, died March 1, 1868), who was an admiral in the British navy, and became lord in waiting to the queen.

He was succeeded by his son, George Anson Bvron (born June 30, 1818, died Nov. 20, 1870), who was succeeded by his nephew, George Frederick William Byron (born Dec. 27, 1855), the 9th and present Lord Byron of Rochdale. - Besides the longer works above enumerated, Byron's smaller poems number about 200; among which are the "Hebrew Melodies," "Epistle to Augusta," "The Dream," "Darkness," "Churchill's Grave," and " Stanzas to the Po." His letters, which are given in full or in part in Moore's "Life," number more than 1,000. Byron as a poet was overestimated during his lifetime and unduly depreciated after his death. While he lived, his rank, his personal beauty, his domestic misfortunes, and a certain air of romantic mystery with which he knew how to invest his character, actions, and writings, made an impression on the public, and especially on women and young men, which has never been exceeded in intensity in the history of literature. For a time his sentimental melancholy, his cynicism, and his skepticism infected not only English literature, but even English society, and By-ronism became the rage through a large and fashionable circle. After his death a natural reaction took place, and Byron's reputation as a poet sank far below its just value.

More recently the tendency of criticism seems to be toward the opinion that, in spite of the morbidness and shallowness of much of his thought, he was one of the great masters of the English language, and that his place is among the highest of English poets. On the continent of Europe, especially in France, Germany, Italy, and among the Slavic races, his poetry has always maintained its influence, undoubtedly in some degree because of its political bearing, and its fervent advocacy of liberal and democratic ideas. - The works relating to Byron are numerous. Most of them, as those of Dallas, Medwin, Lady Blessington, Leigh Hunt, Kennedy, and the countess Guic-cioli, are of little value. Moore's "Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices of his Life" (London, 1830), is the standard work. Of later works the two most important are in German: Eberty, Lord Byron, eine Biographie (2 vols., Leipsic, 1862), and Elze, Lord Byron (2 vols., Leipsic, 1870; translated into English, " Lord Byron, a Biography, with a Critical Essay on his Place in Literature," London, 1872). II. Anne Isabella Milbanke, wife of the preceding, born May 17, 1792, died May 16, 1860. She was the only child of Sir Ralph Milbanke and his wife Judith Noel, the sister of Thomas Noel, Viscount Wentworth, of whose large estates she ultimately became heir.

She was married to Lord Byron Jan. 2, 1815, and separated from him in February, 1816. Upon the death of her uncle without issue, in 1815, the title of Viscount Wentworth became extinct, but the mother of Lady Byron became Baroness Wentworth; and upon her death in 1822 this title remained in abeyance between Lady Byron and her cousin the earl of Scars-dale, upon whose death in 1856 Lady Byron became Baroness Wentworth. For nearly 30 years she devoted her large income to benevolent purposes, especially for industrial schools and reformatory institution's. III. Ada Augusta, daughter of the preceding, born in London, Dec. 10, 1815, died Nov. 27, 1852. In 1835 she married William, Lord King, afterward earl of Lovelace. Her eldest son, Byron Noel, Baron Wentworth, usually known by the courtesy title of Viscount Ockham, born May 12, 1836, died Sept. 1, 1862. He put aside the claims of his rank, engaged as a common workman in a ship yard, and insisted upon being called simply Ockham. He never married, and upon his death was succeeded by his brother, Ralph Gordon Noel, born July 2, 1839, who in 1861 took by royal license the surname of Milbanke, in place of that of King. He is the present Baron Wentworth.