Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/The home and grave of Byron
THE HOME AND GRAVE OF BYRON.
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On the highway-side from Mansfield to Nottingham, some four miles from the former place, stands an oak of such remarkable growth that attention is arrested by the beauty of its form and the extent of its branches. It partially over-shadows the road, and stretching back its long arms to meet the trees on either side of it, overhangs with a mass of thick foliage a park-gate of unpretending appearance. This is the entrance to the romantic domain of Newstead. There is no lodge—no guardian at the gate, save this noble tree.
Lord George Gordon Byron, the poet, was only six years old when he succeeded to this property, and Moore mentions the delight with which he was here received by some of the tenantry, accompanied by his mother, on their journey from Aberdeen. It was in 1808 that these gates were afterwards thrown open to receive him as the owner and resident of Newstead, which had been occupied, during his minority, by Lord Grey de Ruthyn.
The original carriage-road to the abbey is nearly effaced, and the broad glade is intersected by the tracks of timber-carts. On the occasion of our visit, the rain of the preceding night had filled the turf ruts and washed the sandy road into furrows, while the oppressive heat of the morning sun, and the distant thunder were warnings of the returning storm. Scenes of sylvan beauty succeeded each other under the most brilliant effects of light and shade, until an extensive prospect opened over the woodlands of Nottinghamshire. From a seat on one of the finely grown stems, with which the woodman’s axe had strewn the glade (trees which once must have overshadowed the young poet as he passed), we marked in the landscape such points as were connected with his brief residence among these fair scenes. Looking over a foreground of brake and briar—rich in their early autumn tints, and glittering with rain-drops—beyond yellow hillocks where the rabbits burrowed, and, again, over green slopes, studded with twisted thorns and stag-headed oaks, the eye rested on dark masses of elm, forming the middle distance of the picture. Embedded in that woody declivity lay the Abbey of Newstead:
“perhaps a little low,
Because the monks preferr’d a hill behind
To shelter their devotion from the wind.”
From this point of view the building was concealed, but the further end of the lake, fronting the abbey, was visible,—the brightest object in the landscape. The “hills of Annesley, bleak and barren,” lay in dark blue tone beneath a heavy thunder-cloud, and the avenue of trees was discernible, which leads through the domain of the Chaworths to the ancient hall, with all its sad associations and regrets. Sadder still were the thoughts with which we turned to the extreme right of the landscape and discerned, through the grey mist of the falling rain, the village and tower of Hucknall, where lie the mortal remains of the pilgrim poet, brought from the far distant marshes of Missolonghi, to rest in the chancel of one of the least picturesque of our country churches.
As the storm was coming up quickly over the hills, we hastened across the park; at a sudden, turning in the road, the abbey with its lake and overhanging woods presented the view, rendered so familiar in the illustrated editions of Byron’s works, or in the more faithful delineations of his own graphic pen. The gothic entrance passed, we were conducted to the library, a room in which the artist and antiquary must delight; and there cannot be a fitter place than this—the favourite apartment of Colonel Wildman, the late possessor of the abbey—to render all respect to his memory, and to express a hope, now that the approaching sale of Newstead is occupying public attention, that this sanctuary of genius may continue to be as faithfully guarded by its future occupants. With all his misfortunes Byron was happy in these two respects—first, that his ancestral home, in which he took so much pride, was rescued from ruin by becoming the property of his old friend and schoolfellow; secondly, that his poetical works, that richer heritage of his mind, were consigned to those who have most liberally published them to the world in editions, remarkable for their variety, completeness, and richness of illustration.
From the library we were led by a dark panelled corridor to the different chambers, each bearing the name of some royal or illustrious visitor. As in many other show-places, there is the usual exhibition of family pictures, cabinets and chimney-pieces of exquisite workmanship, old china and faded tapestry. But these were not the object of our visit, and in traversing the grand drawing-room, we were glad to have our thoughts called from other subjects to the remembrance of him whose genius has given a more recent charm and interest to the abbey of Newstead. Here is preserved the cup, made by the poet’s desire, from the cranium of a monk; it is mounted in silver, and engraved upon it, is that brilliant anacreontic which the subject suggested to his wild imagination. As we made a hasty sketch of the cup, we could not contemplate, without revulsion, such a relic consigned to such use, nor was this feeling diminished by the gloom of that vast room, once the monks’ dormitory, while the pale lightning glanced through the high windows, and the surrounding silence was made more impressive by the thunder without, and the roaring of the full-leaved elms bending to the fitful wind.
On entering the grand hall, our fancy went back to the time of the young poet, when a wolf and a bear were janitors at the door, not in the mock savageness of the sculptor’s art, but alive in chained and worried ferocity. There, too, is the high, over-hanging chimney-piece, under which such a fire was kindled on the first night of Byron’s arrival at Newstead, that the safety of the abbey was endangered. A group of heedless dependents caroused in the centre of the hall; while their young lord, breaking sherds from the neglected hearth, showed the precision of his aim by scaring the bats from the timber roof, reddened from the blaze below. It is difficult to realise such a scene in the present hall, with its rich Gothic screen and music gallery, resplendent with polished oak, armour, and heraldic device. This, as well as other parts of the abbey, at the time of Byron’s accession to the property, was a scene of melancholy degradation. The predecessor of the poet, rightly surnamed “The Wicked Lord Byron,” had denuded the estate, destroyed the deer, felled the noblest trees, “condemned to uses vile” the most sacred and fair portions of the abbey; and at last, with difficulty, found a place in the vast building impervious to the weather, where he could close a life of the most daring profligacy. To such an inheritance did the young poet succeed.
From the hall a winding staircase leads to the abbot’s lodgings, one room of which was Byron’s sleeping chamber. At the desire of Colonel Wildman, every article of furniture has remained in the same state and position as left by the poet; there is a melancholy interest in such identity: in the heavy bedstead with its gilded coronets; the favourite pictures of his college at Cambridge; the portraits of his faithful valet Murray, and of gentleman Jackson the pugilist, hanging on the faded paper of the walls. Before the oriel window which lights the room, and overlooks the lake and woods, stands his writing-table, with inkstand, &c., and near it, on a dressing-table, is a toilette glass; and we doubt not that it must have occurred to many a fair visitant how often his handsome features were reflected there.
Of all the precincts of this “vast and venerable pile,” the cloisters are the most interesting and picturesque. They enclose a small turf quadrangle, in the centre of which stands a Gothic fountain, surmounted with grotesque figures, “here a monster, there a saint.” The slender jets falling from grim “mouths of granite made” into the circular basin beneath, break with their monotonous splash the indescribable stillness of the scene. Awaiting the passing of the storm, time was given to reflect on the many scenes and generations which have passed away since those graceful arches were first chiselled by the skilful masons of that early age, at the command of the repentant Henry, who founded Newstead, like many other abbeys in England, in expiation of the murder of à Beckett. What variety of men and events! We could imagine the abbot, with his reverend conclave, in that small but exquisitely proportioned chapter-house now used as the chapel. We could see the cowled monks, descending the staircase of the strangers’ hall, to distribute alms and sustenance to the poor and wayfaring. The stones of that uneven pavement have sunk over the accumulated dust of abbot and monk, and time has left no record of them, save the marks of the brasses abstracted from their graves. And then, in later years, we could picture the desecration of that spot. Alas! how picturesque it must have been! The cattle were littered in those holy cloisters. Lastly, we could fancy the meditative poet pacing these aisles, and “muttering his wayward fancies as he went;” or can we not imagine him, on the eve of his departure from his ancestral home, while the sound of revelling breaks on the stillness of the night, here alone, with broken and remorseful spirit, weeping over blighted hopes and aspirations; and on the morrow the
“Childe departed from his father’s hall.”
Passing out into the pleasure-grounds, the eye is at once attracted by the ruin of the west end of the abbey church. It is best seen from the tomb which Byron built over his dog Boatswain. A broad expanse of light falls through the high dismantled window upon the verdant turf, all fresh and even from the recent rain and the gardener’s scythe; in bright contrast to the grey masonry and the dark masses of the trees. The tracery of the window was thrown down, some thirty years since, by an earthquake; and the gaping chinks of the dog’s tomb, as well as several horizontal fissures in the abbey walls, were produced by the effects of the same unusual phenomenon. .png)
The simple superstition of the neighbourhood has peopled the groves with apparitions; and certainly the trees are of the most grotesque growth, with their gnarled branches reflected in the fountains, which they half filled with their decaying leaves. Let us pass to that noble terrace, one of the longest in England. Beneath our footsteps break the twigs with which the recent storm has strewn it, and at the further extremity a limb from the overhanging elms is thrown across its broad path. The broken hollyoaks which have laid their flowered sceptres on its grey balustrade, the ruined sun-dial, long since fallen a victim to that insidious Time, against which it had warned so many generations, the weather-stained vases, from which the wind has torn the flowering creepers, the half-ruined steps, on which a peacock is trailing his bright plumage in the watery sunshine,—these and many other objects enhance the melancholy beauty of the scene, and have a touching sympathy with the memory of him who will ever be sadly remembered there.
From the terrace we descended to the old fish-pond, skirted on one side by a grove, in the recesses of which are two statues of Pan and a female Satyr, much defaced by time, and looked upon by the country people as the “old Lord’s devils.” The only object of real interest is a tree on which Byron, at his last visit to Newstead, engraved his name and that of his loved sister Augusta. On the other side, dark masses of yew, probably as ancient as the abbey itself, overhang the stagnant water, whose stillness is occasionally broken by the plunge of the heavy carp. It is probable that treasure and relics of the abbey lie at the bottom of that dark pond, since a brazen eagle, forming a lectern, was fished up from its depths some years ago, and its hollow pedestal was found to contain deeds and grants of the time of Edward III. and Henry VIII., together with immunities from Rome, granted to the monks of Newstead. These latter documents caused at the time of their discovery much curiosity and scandal, as proofs of papal leniency, and the laxity of monastic morals.
It is said, that Byron delighted to people these dark shades with supernatural visitants, and give currency to all the superstitious reports connected with the abbey, by pretending to believe them. Tales of terror were circulated by him, especially that of the Goblin Friar, the Evil Genius of the Byron family, whose appearance always portended misfortune to the lords of Newstead. But even a mind superstitiously and poetically inclined as that of Byron, could hardly have invented a tale more romantic and touching than that of the “Little White Lady”—such was the name given to a person who long haunted this spot. In her invariable dress of white, veiled, silent, and timid, she glided away at the approach of strangers into the recesses of the groves, or moving slowly along the glades in the evening twilight, returned to a lonely farm-house on the estate, where she had chosen her residence. To the country people she was an object of mysterious conjecture. Her appearance attracted the attention of Colonel and Mrs. Wildman, who became interested in her history, and showed her constant marks of kindness and liberality. Her enthusiastic admiration for the writings of Byron, and devotional interest in his fate, amounted to an infatuation, which, for nearly four years, kept her, as it were, spell-bound to the precincts of the abbey. After Byron’s death her constant companion was the noble dog which had been brought over at the same time with his master’s remains from Missolonghi. Thus accompanied, she spent hours in reading and reflection, till family affairs or pecuniary difficulties compelled her suddenly to leave Newstead. On the eve of her departure she delivered to Mrs. Wildman a packet, requesting that it might not be opened till the morning. Besides MSS., written in her solitary walks about the abbey, it contained a letter explanatory of her friendless situation, and her gratitude for the attentions which she had so long received. On reading this note, Mrs. Wildman—having discovered that she had taken the road to Nottingham—dispatched a messenger to overtake her, and entreat her return. The bearer of this kind proposal, on entering the town, reined up his horse to pass more slowly through a crowd which had formed before the principal inn. An accident had occurred, and he beheld the lifeless body of the “Little White Lady,” who, owing to her extreme deafness, had been run over, and died without suffering. The romantic issue of this tale remains to be heard. Colonel Wildman took upon himself the care of her interment at Hucknall, and she was laid in death near the body of him who had, during her life, been the idol of her imagination.
Passing by the principal front of the abbey, where we could see the extent of the restorations made by its late respected owner, we left Newstead in the direction of Hucknall. For two miles we followed the ridge of high land overlooking the forest of Sherwood, and the legendary haunts of Robin Hood, till we turned from the direct road to visit the venerable Hall, the home of Mary Chaworth, “that bright morning star of Annesley,” who often lured the young poet’s steps over those bleak and barren hills. The lover of picturesque illustration might here crowd a redundancy of subject into one picture—an avenue of stately elms—a gate-house, with its low archway leading to a court-yard which fronts the hall—the hall itself, built at various times and in various tastes, with high gables and massive chimneys. But in connection with the youth of Byron, and his love for the heiress of Annesley, the chief points of interest are the room over the gateway, supposed to be “the antique oratory” mentioned in his poem of “The Dream,” and the terrace, where he loved to loiter with her whom he declared to be “his destiny.” Not far from the Hall is the scene of their parting—
“a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last,
As ’twere the cape of a long ridge of such.”
The morning storm had passed away as we traversed “the landscape at its base.” In the soft sunshine of a Sunday afternoon we arrived at Hucknall. The church bell had summoned to evening service groups of rustic labourers, whose ruddy health contrasted with that of the pale stocking-weavers who loitered about the unromantic street of a manufacturing village. As the bell ceased, those who had assembled passed through the churchyard with its crowded gravestones, and beneath its humble porch, we at once moved onward to the chancel, the burial-place of Byron. .png)
There was very little of that beauty peculiar to English village churches. On the south wall was a simple slab of white marble, and the silken escutcheon which bore the Byron arms hung from its frame, faded and torn. In the vault beneath lie the remains of the poet, with those of his daughter, Lady Lovelace, “sole daughter of his house and heart.” When the congregation had quitted the church, and a fee dropped into the palm of the obsequious clerk had ensured us the privilege of being alone with our meditations,—we passed from the contemplation of the poet’s career to the beauty of his works. Our memory unconsciously went back to the time when the sensitive feelings of our childhood were first moved to tears by the “Prisoner of Chillon”—how we read it in later years with scarcely less emotion by the white castle “on the blue Leman.” We remembered in school-boy days how the wet half-holiday was beguiled with the odd volume of his poems,—how we envied and admired the retentive memory of our favourite chum, who could charm the wakeful hours of the Long Chamber with the recital of “Mazeppa,” and long quotations from the “Corsair,”—how in after life we appreciated more and more the meaning and music of his sweet verse, till in our mature, and perhaps partial judgments, we considered “Childe Harold” as the master-piece of modern poetry. There at the humble shrine of the Pilgrim Poet did we gratefully aspire to be among those who could respond to this, his parting wish:—
"Ye who have traced the pilgrim to the scene
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell
A thought which once was his—if in ye dwell
A single recollection—not in vain
He wore his sandal shoon and scallop shell.”