Microsoft Word Byron and Scott 1809-1824

37: Scott seems to imply that B.’s Turkish Tales are not as original as they seem. 
38: Moore’s note: A few passages at the beginning of these recollections have been omitted, as containing 
particulars relative to Lord Byron’s mother, which have already been mentioned in the early part of this work. 
Among these, however, there is one anecdote, the repetition of which will be easily pardoned, on account of the 
infinitely greater interest as well as authenticity imparted to its details by coming from such an eye-witness as Sir 
Walter Scott:—“I remember,” he says, “having seen Lord Byron’s mother before she was married, and a certain 
coincidence rendered the circumstance rather remarkable. It was during Mrs. Siddons’s first or second visit to 
Edinburgh, when the music of that wonderful actress’s voice, looks, manner, and person, produced the strongest 
effect which could possibly be exerted by a human being upon her fellow-creatures. Nothing of the kind that I ever 
witnessed approached it by a hundred degrees. The high state of excitation was aided by the difficulties of 
obtaining entrance and the exhausting length of time that the audience were contented to wait until the piece 
commenced. When the curtain fell, a large proportion of the ladies were generally in hysterics.
I remember Miss Gordon of Ghight, in particular, harrowing the house by the desperate and wild way in 
which she shrieked out Mrs. Siddons’s exclamation, in the character of Isabella, ‘Oh my Byron! Oh my Byron!’ A 
well-known medical gentleman, the benevolent Dr. Alexander Wood, tendered his assistance; but the thick-pressed 
audience could not for a long time make way for the doctor to approach his patient, or the patient the physician. 
The remarkable circumstance was, that the lady had not then seen Captain Byron, who, like Sir Toby, made her 
conclude with ‘Oh!’ as she had begun with it.”

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him the pleasure I should have in making Lord Byron’s acquaintance, he had the kindness to mention 
my wish to his Lordship, which led to some correspondence. [p.616] 
It was in the spring of 1815 that, chancing to be in London, I had the advantage of a personal 
introduction to Lord Byron. Report had prepared me to meet a man of peculiar habits and a quick 
temper, and I had some doubts whether we were likely to suit each other in society. I was most 
agreeably disappointed in this respect. I found Lord Byron in the highest degree courteous, and even 
kind. We met, for an hour or two almost daily, in Mr. Murray’s drawing-room, and found a great deal 
to say to each other. We also met frequently in parties and evening society, so that for about two 
months I had the advantage of a considerable intimacy with this distinguished individual. Our 
sentiments agreed a good deal, except upon the subjects of religion and politics, upon neither of which 
I was inclined to believe that Lord Byron entertained very fixed opinions. I remember saying to him, 
that I really thought, that if he lived a few years he would alter his sentiments. He answered, rather 
sharply, ‘I suppose you are one of those who prophesy I will turn Methodist.’ I replied, ‘No—I don’t 
expect your conversion to be of such an ordinary kind. I would rather look to see you retreat upon the 
Catholic faith, and distinguish yourself by the austerity of your penances. The species of religion to 
which you must, or may, one day attach yourself must exercise a strong power on the imagination.’ He 
smiled gravely, and seemed to allow I might be right. 
On politics, he used sometimes to express a high strain of what is now called Liberalism; but it 
appeared to me that the pleasure it afforded him as a vehicle of displaying his wit and satire against 
individuals in office was at the bottom of this habit of thinking, rather than any real conviction of the 
political principles on which he talked. He was certainly proud of his rank and ancient family, and, in 
that respect, as much an aristocrat as was consistent with good sense and good breeding. Some 
disgusts, how adopted I know not, seemed to me to have given this peculiar and, as it appeared to me, 
contradictory cast of mind: but, at heart, I would have termed Byron a patrician on principle. 
Lord Byron’s reading did not seem to me to have been very extensive either in poetry or history. 
Having the advantage of him in that respect, and possessing a good competent share of such reading as 
is little read, I was sometimes able to put under his eye objects which had [p.617] for him the interest 
of novelty. I remember particularly repeating to him the fine poem of Hardyknute, an imitation of the 
old Scottish Ballad, with which he was so much affected, that some one who was in the same 
apartment asked me what I could possibly have been telling Byron by which he was so much agitated. 
I saw Byron, for the last time, in 1815, after I returned from France. He dined, or lunched, with me 
at Long’s in Bond Street. I never saw him so full of gaiety and good-humour, to which the presence of 
Mr. Mathews, the comedian, added not a little. Poor Terry was also present. After one of the gayest 
parties I ever was present at, my fellow-traveller, Mr. Scott, of Gala, and I set off for Scotland, and I 
never saw Lord Byron again. Several letters passed between us—one perhaps every half year. Like the 
old heroes in Homer, we exchanged gifts:—I gave Byron a beautiful dagger mounted with gold, which 
had been the property of the redoubted Elfi Bey. But I was to play the part of Diomed, in the Iliad, for 
Byron sent me, some time after, a large sepulchral vase of silver. It was full of dead men’s bones, and 
had inscriptions on two sides of the base. One ran thus:—‘The bones contained in this urn were found 
in certain ancient sepulchres within the land walls of Athens, in the month of February, 1811.’ The 
other face bears the lines of Juvenal: 
Expende—quot libras in duce summo invenies. 
—Mors sola fatetur quantula hominum corpuscula.” 
Juv. x.
39
To these I have added a third inscription, in these words—‘The gift of Lord Byron to Walter Scott.’
40
There was a letter with this vase more valuable to me than the gift itself, from the kindness with which 
[p.618] the donor expressed himself towards me. I left it naturally in the urn with the bones,—but it is 
now missing. As the theft was not of a nature to be practised by a mere domestic, I am compelled to 
suspect the inhospitality of some individual of higher station,—most gratuitously exercised certainly, 
39: JUV. SAT. X 147-8 and 172-3 “Weigh [Hannibal]: how many pounds will you find in that great leader? Only 
death shows how contemptible the bodies of men are” (B.’s motto for the Ode to Napoleon).