GEORGE GORDON NOEL, 6TH BARON BYRON OF ROCHDALE1

“...WHO WOULD BE FREE, THEMSELVES MUST STRIKE THE BLOW?”

“WHICH IS THE BEST AND QUICKEST POISON?”

1. 1st Baron Byron of Rochdale: On October 24, 1643, John Byron (circa 1600-1652) was created 1st Baron Byron of Rochdale by King Charles I. 2nd Baron Byron of Rochdale: Sir Richard Byron (1605-1679) - The 1st Lord Byron’s brother. 3rd Baron Byron of Rochdale: William Byron (1635-1695) - Son of the 2nd Lord Byron. 4th Baron Byron of Rochdale: William Byron (1668-1736) - Son of the 3rd Lord Byron. 5th Baron Byron of Rochdale: William Byron (1722-1798) - Son of the 4th Lord Byron. 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale: George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) - Grand-Nephew of the 5th Lord Byron. 7th Baron Byron of Rochdale: Cpt. George Anson Byron (1789-1868) - Cousin of the Poet. 8th Baron Byron of Rochdale: George Anson Byron (1818-1870) - Son of the 7th Lord Byron. 9th Baron Byron of Rochdale: George Frederick Byron (1855-1917) - Nephew of the 8th Lord Byron. 10th Baron Byron of Rochdale: Rev. Frederick Ernest Charles Byron (1861-1949) - Brother of the 9th Lord Byron. 11th Baron Byron of Rochdale: Rupert Frederick George Byron (1903-1983) - Cousin of the 10th Lord Byron. 12th Baron Byron of Rochdale: Lt. Col. Richard Geoffry Gordon Byron (1899-19?) - Distant relative of the 11th Lord Byron. 13th Baron Byron of Rochdale: Robert James Byron (b. 1950) - Son of the 12th Lord Byron. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1086 CE

During this year and the following one a general tax survey of England would be being carried out. This would be the Domesday Book’s description of the hundred of Uttlesforda, as translated from its Latin, Roman numerals, and many abbreviations:2 • Geoffrey holds [Saffron] Waldana in lordship, which Ansgar held before 1066 as a manor, for 19½ hides.3 Then and later 8 ploughs in lordship, now 10. Always 22 men’s ploughs. • Then and later 66 villagers, now 46; then and later 17 smallholders, now 40; then and later 16 slaves, now 20. • Woodland, then and later 1000 pigs, now 800; meadow, 80 acres; always 1 mill. • Attached to this manor before 1066 were 13 Freemen, now 14, who hold 6½ hides. • Then and later 8½ ploughs, now 8. • Then and later 10 smallholders, now 14. • Woodland, then and later 50 pigs, now 30; meadow, 20 acres: the third part of a mill. • Then 6 cobs, 11 cattle, 200 sheep, 110 pigs, 40 goats, 4 beehives; now 9 cobs, 10 cattle, 243 sheep, 100 pigs, 20 goats, 30 beehives. • Value then and later £36; value now £50. • Of this manor, Odo holds 1 hide and 1 vigate and Reginald (holds) 1 hide less 12 acres. 2 ploughs. • 13 smallholders. • Value 50s in the same assessment.

2. The Domesday Book mentions Ralph de Burun as holding extensive lands in Nottinghamshire, including manors in Ossington, Calum (Kelham), Costock, Ompton, Hucknall, Lamcote, and Cotgrove; thirteen knight’s houses in Nottingham, in one of which lived a merchant. In Derbyshire he was recorded as holding lands in Weston Underwood, Horsley, Denby, Kirk Hallam, and Herdebi (a long vanished part of the manor of Duffield). 3. A hide was an area of land, about 120 acres, and we fancy that a “hundred” may perhaps have been an area supporting one hundred families, or perhaps an area of one hundred taxable hides. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1156 CE

Walden Castle was restored to Geoffrey de Mandeville III.

Hugh de Burun died. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

ESSENCE IS BLUR. SPECIFICITY, THE OPPOSITE OF ESSENCE, IS OF THE NATURE OF TRUTH.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1170 CE

King Henry II founded Newstead Abbey for the Canons Regular of the Order of St. Augustine.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

ESSENCES ARE FUZZY, GENERIC, CONCEPTUAL; ARISTOTLE WAS RIGHT: ALL TRUTH IS SPECIFIC, PARTICULAR.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1270

Robert de Burun of Clayton would be changing the initial vowel in the family name from “u” to “y.” While the modern spelling of his family name, “Byron,” would not be standardized until several centuries later, the “u” is rarely seen after this date, generally being replaced by an “i.” GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

“HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE” BEING A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN TIME (JUST AS THE PERSPECTIVE IN A PAINTING IS A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN SPACE), TO “LOOK AT THE COURSE OF HISTORY MORE GENERALLY” WOULD BE TO SACRIFICE PERSPECTIVE ALTOGETHER. THIS IS FANTASY-LAND, YOU’RE FOOLING YOURSELF. THERE CANNOT BE ANY SUCH THINGIE, AS SUCH A PERSPECTIVE.

August 22, Monday (Old Style): There had been another rebellion against the deformed monarch Richard III. On Bosworth Field in Leicestershire, England in what we now consider to have been the last medieval sort of battle engagement, Harri Tudur of the House of Lancaster defeated, with a smaller army, the forces of the House of York, by killing Richard on the field when on his white horse Richard attempted to lead a cavalry charge that would dispose once and for all of the main personage of his opposition. He had arrived within swords-length of Harri Tudur when his horse got onto a piece of marshy ground and he was surrounded, and then he was dispatched by a blow to the head with a halberd wielded by a Welshman. The blow took away the back portion of his skull. The royal corpse would be stripped of its armor, repeatedly desecrated, thrown over a horse with an arrow in the back and a dagger handle protruding up from between the ass cheeks (what is known technically as a “humiliation wound”), and then dumped without casket into a grave at Greyfriars in Leicester — a grave so short that even with the corpse’s feet hacked off, its chin was forced onto its chest with what remained of the skull wedged against the dirt.

Since the first blow with the halberd had carried away the back portion of the skull, it would appear that the other head wounds would have been superfluous or symbolic, and if they were symbolic, what they would have symbolized was that this was not the head that should have been wearing England’s crown. However, since there never was any issue as to Richard’s Plantagenet lineage or entitlement, it could be suspected that the reason why this was not the head that should have been wearing England’s crown was merely that this was the head atop a deformed spine. “Only the upright shall rise above us.”

The arrow positioned in the back of the corpse was distinctly symbolic. Normally a wound in the back would indicate that one had been killed while attempting to flee, which would be taken as an indication of

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

contemptible cowardice. “Return with your shield or upon it,” the Spartan mother instructed.

Anal penetration of the corpse by dagger would also have been distinctly symbolic.4 The corpse would be depicted as performing the role of the willing passive partner (the “female” if you will) in an act of copulation, or as performing the role of the powerless victim of an act of homosexual rape. The message to be read in this final desecration of the corpse, clearly, was “Here was a man of contemptible weakness.” We were righteous because we were able to kill him and he unrighteous because he was unable to prevent us from killing him, QED. Now that he is dead we can proceed to tell lies about him. (The lies that we will have our poets and historians and playwrights tell will portray him, of course, as the culprit rather than as our victim in order to portray us, of course, as defenders of the realm rather than as regicides.)

This nastiness ended the War of the Roses by destroying the dynasty (the sole surviving male Plantagenet would be executed in 1499 by the winner, Henry Tudor, as King Henry VII) and kick-starting the following dynasty — which as we all understand would be Tudor and vastly less nasty.

Per William Shakespeare’s RICHARD III: CATESBY: Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue! The king enacts more wonders than a man, Daring an opposite to every danger: His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights, Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death. Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost! 4. In the case of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, we can see on the cellphone video that he was still being held standing as one of his captors rammed a bayonet or military knife up through his pants in the rear. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

RICHARD: A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! CATESBY: Withdraw, my lord; I’ll help you to a horse.

Henry Thoreau would reference the soliloquy with which Shakespeare began RICHARD III, “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York,” in WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS and elsewhere in his writings:

WALDEN: Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went PEOPLE OF down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to WALDEN build my house, and began to cut down some tall arrowy white pines, still in their youth, for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it. It was a pleasant hillside where I worked, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines and hickories were springing up. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though there were some open spaces, and it was all dark colored and saturated with water. There were some slight flurries of snow during the days that I worked there; but for the most part when I came out on to the railroad, on my way home, its yellow sand heap stretched away gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark and pewee and other birds already come to commence another year with us. They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man’s discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself.

KING RICHARD III WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE : HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

John Byron, who would be the ancestor of George Gordon, Lord Byron, served in the victorious army of Henry Tudor of the House of Lancaster, who would become King Henry VII of England and Wales:

Chronological observations of America to the year of Christ 1673.

Henry the Seventh began to Raign.

From the year of World BY John Josselyn Gent.

YOUR GARDEN-VARIETY ACADEMIC HISTORIAN INVITES YOU TO CLIMB ABOARD A HOVERING TIME MACHINE TO SKIM IN METATIME BACK ACROSS THE GEOLOGY OF OUR PAST TIMESLICES, WHILE OFFERING UP A GARDEN VARIETY OF COGENT ASSESSMENTS OF OUR PROGRESSION. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP! YOU SHOULD REFUSE THIS HELICOPTERISH OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORICAL PAST, FOR IN THE REAL WORLD THINGS HAPPEN ONLY AS THEY HAPPEN. WHAT THIS SORT WRITES AMOUNTS, LIKE MERE “SCIENCE FICTION,” MERELY TO “HISTORY FICTION”: IT’SNOT WORTH YOUR ATTENTION.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1487

John Byron (AKA John Byron of Colewyke/John Byron of Newstead), son of Sir Nicholas Byron, KB and Joan Bussey, was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

THE TASK OF THE HISTORIAN IS TO CREATE HINDSIGHT WHILE INTERCEPTING ANY ILLUSION OF FORESIGHT. NOTHING A HUMAN CAN SEE CAN EVER BE SEEN AS IF THROUGH THE EYE OF GOD.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1527

John Byron the illegitimate son of Sir John Byron of Colewyke and Elizabeth Halghe, wife of George Halghe, was born. He would later be known as “Little Sir John with the Great Beard.”5 GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

5. This nickname is sometimes mistakenly used to refer to his father. An examination of the effigies on their respective tombs, as well as the famous portrait of Little Sir John that belongs to the current Lord Byron, shows quite clearly that it was the son who possessed the “great beard”. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1540

Newstead Abbey was sold to Sir John Byron of Colewyke by King Henry VIII for £810.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1576

Little John Byron inherited Newstead Abbey by deed of gift.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1579

Little John Byron was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1599

It was in this year, or perhaps in the next, that John Byron (later the 1st Baron Byron), great grandson of Little Sir John Byron, was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1604

Little Sir John Byron died. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT EITHER THE REALITY OF TIME OVER THAT OF CHANGE, OR CHANGE OVER TIME — IT’S PARMENIDES, OR HERACLITUS. I HAVE GONE WITH HERACLITUS.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1635

William Byron (later the 3rd Baron Byron), son of Richard Byron and Elizabeth Rossel, was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

ONE COULD BE ELSEWHERE, AS ELSEWHERE DOES EXIST. ONE CANNOT BE ELSEWHEN SINCE ELSEWHEN DOES NOT.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1641

King Charles I appointed Sir John Byron to be his lieutenant in control of the Tower of London. (The following year, during civil war, Sir John would be dismissed by a joint action of the Houses of Parliament.) GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1642

During the civil war in England, until 1649, Sir John Byron would be serving in the army of King Charles I. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1643

October 24, Tuesday (Old Style): King Charles I created Sir John Byron the Baron Byron of Rochdale. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1652

John, Lord Byron died in Paris while in exile with Charles II, and his brother Sir Richard Byron became the 2nd Baron Byron of Rochdale. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1669

William Byron, who would become the 4th Baron Byron, was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1679

October 4, Saturday (Old Style): Richard, Lord Byron died and his son William became the 3rd Baron Byron of Rochdale. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1695

November 13, Wednesday (Old Style): William, Lord Byron died and his son William became the 4th Baron Byron of Rochdale. He would re-landscape the grounds of Newstead Abbey.

John Evelyn’s diary entry: HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Famous & very chargeable Fireworkes (now the King being returned from his progresse staying at Althorp 7 or 8 days, at L[ord] Sunderlands, & mightily entertained) were shewed befor my L[ord] Rumny, Master of the Ordinance, where the King stood, viz. St. James’s greate Square:

NEVER READ AHEAD! TO APPRECIATE NOVEMBER 13TH, 1695 AT ALL ONE MUST APPRECIATE IT AS A TODAY (THE FOLLOWING DAY, TOMORROW, IS BUT A PORTION OF THE UNREALIZED FUTURE AND IFFY AT BEST).

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1722

November 5, Monday (Old Style): William Byron was born, son of William Byron, grandson of William Byron. He would be known not only as the 5th Baron Byron but also as “The Wicked Lord.” GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

THE FALLACY OF MOMENTISM: THIS STARRY UNIVERSE DOES NOT CONSIST OF A SEQUENCE OF MOMENTS. THAT IS A FIGMENT, ONE WE HAVE RECOURSE TO IN ORDER TO PRIVILEGE TIME OVER CHANGE, A PRIVILEGING THAT MAKES CHANGE SEEM UNREAL, DERIVATIVE, A MERE APPEARANCE. IN FACT IT IS CHANGE AND ONLY CHANGE WHICH WE EXPERIENCE AS REALITY, TIME BEING BY WAY OF RADICAL CONTRAST UNEXPERIENCED — A MERE INTELLECTUAL CONSTRUCT. THERE EXISTS NO SUCH THING AS A MOMENT. NO INSTANT HAS EVER FOR AN INSTANT EXISTED.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1723

November 8, Friday (Old Style): John Byron, son of William, 4th Lord Byron and Frances Berkley, was born at Newstead Abbey. He would be known as “Foulweather Jack.”

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

BETWEEN ANY TWO MOMENTS ARE AN INFINITE NUMBER OF MOMENTS, AND BETWEEN THESE OTHER MOMENTS LIKEWISE AN INFINITE NUMBER, THERE BEING NO ATOMIC MOMENT JUST AS THERE IS NO ATOMIC POINT ALONG A LINE. MOMENTS ARE THEREFORE FIGMENTS. THE PRESENT MOMENT IS A MOMENT AND AS SUCH IS A FIGMENT, A FLIGHT OF THE IMAGINATION TO WHICH NOTHING REAL CORRESPONDS. SINCE PAST MOMENTS HAVE PASSED OUT OF EXISTENCE AND FUTURE MOMENTS HAVE YET TO ARRIVE, WE NOTE THAT THE PRESENT MOMENT IS ALL THAT EVER EXISTS — AND YET THE PRESENT MOMENT BEING A HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

MOMENT IS A FIGMENT TO WHICH NOTHING IN REALITY CORRESPONDS.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1736

August 8, Sunday (Old Style): William, Lord Byron died and his son William became the 5th Baron Byron of Rochdale. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

FIGURING OUT WHAT AMOUNTS TO A “HISTORICAL CONTEXT” IS WHAT THE CRAFT OF HISTORICIZING AMOUNTS TO, AND THIS NECESSITATES DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE SET OF EVENTS THAT MUST HAVE TAKEN PLACE BEFORE EVENT E COULD BECOME POSSIBLE, AND MOST CAREFULLY DISTINGUISHING THEM FROM ANOTHER SET OF EVENTS THAT COULD NOT POSSIBLY OCCUR UNTIL SUBSEQUENT TO EVENT E.

December 5, Sunday (Old Style): William, 5th Lord Byron was constituted master of His Majesty’s staghounds. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1737

John Byron left Westminster School for the Royal Navy. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1740

Midshipman John Byron embarked on the Wager, one of the ships under the command of Commodore George Anson sent to harass the Spanish in the South Seas. Shortly after leaving port the Wager ’s commanding officer, Captain Dandy Kidd, died and was succeeded by Captain David Cheap. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON PIRACY HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1741

May 14, Thursday (Old Style): The Wager was wrecked on the coast of Patagonia, north of the Strait of Magellan. When the survivors would reach the mainland of Chile, they would be held captive there for three years by the Spanish Government. One of the castaway prisoners, John Byron, would later author a NARRATIVE and his clubfooted grandson George Gordon, Lord Byron would reprise the incident in his DON JUAN.

HISTORY’S NOT MADE OF WOULD. WHEN SOMEONE REVEALS, FOR INSTANCE, THAT THE SURVIVORS WOULD REACH THE MAINLAND OF CHILE, THEY “WOULD” BE HELD CAPTIVE THERE FOR THREE YEARS BY THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT, WHEN SOMEONE REVEALS THAT ONE OF THE CASTAWAY PRISONERS “WOULD” LATER AUTHOR A NARRATIVE AND THAT HIS CLUBFOOTED GRANDSON “WOULD” REPRISE THE INCIDENT IN A LENGTHY POEM, S/HE DISCLOSES THAT WHAT IS BEING CRAFTED IS NOT REALITY BUT PREDESTINARIANISM — FOR THE RULE OF REALITY IS THAT THE FUTURE HASN’T EVER HAPPENED, YET.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1746

February: Lt. John Byron returned from his long imprisonment in South America to England. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

December 30, Tuesday (Old Style): Lieutenant John Byron was promoted to Captain and given command of the frigate Syren. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1747

March 28, Saturday (Old Style): William, 5th Lord Byron married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Charles Shaw of Besthorpe. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1748

September 8, Thursday (Old Style): Captain John Byron married his first cousin, Sophia Trevanion. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1749

October 27, Friday (Old Style): William Byron, son of the 5th Lord Byron and Elizabeth Shaw, was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1755

February 7, 1755 or 1756 or 1757: John Byron, son of Captain John Byron and Sophia Trevanion, was born. He would be know as “Mad Jack” Byron. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1758

November 30, Thursday: George Anson Byron, son of Captain John Byron and Sophia Trevanion, was born. He was named for Admiral George, Lord Anson, 1st Lord of the Admiralty. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1765

January 26, Saturday: A charter and seal and coat of arms were granted, for the Society of Artists of Great Britain.

Adriano in Siria, an opera by Johann Christian Bach to words after Metastasio, was performed for the initial time, in King’s Theatre, London, in the presence of the King and Queen.

Madama l’umorista, a dramma giocoso by Giovanni Paisiello to words after Palomba, was performed for the initial time.

William, 5th Lord Byron killed William Chaworth in a duel and of necessity resigned his post as master of His Majesty’s stag hounds. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

THE FALLACY OF MOMENTISM: THIS STARRY UNIVERSE DOES NOT CONSIST OF A SEQUENCE OF MOMENTS. THAT IS A FIGMENT, ONE WE HAVE RECOURSE TO IN ORDER TO PRIVILEGE TIME OVER CHANGE, A PRIVILEGING THAT MAKES CHANGE SEEM UNREAL, DERIVATIVE, A MERE APPEARANCE. IN FACT IT IS CHANGE AND ONLY CHANGE WHICH WE EXPERIENCE AS REALITY, TIME BEING BY WAY OF RADICAL CONTRAST UNEXPERIENCED — A MERE INTELLECTUAL CONSTRUCT. THERE EXISTS NO SUCH THING AS A MOMENT. NO INSTANT HAS EVER FOR AN INSTANT EXISTED.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

April 16, Tuesday: William, 5th Lord Byron was acquitted of murder, but found guilty of manslaughter, by the House of Lords for having killed William Chaworth in a duel, and was discharged by the paying of a fine and by his retiring to Newstead Abbey. While in residence there he would add what many have considered to be a number of “Gothic follies.”

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

BETWEEN ANY TWO MOMENTS ARE AN INFINITE NUMBER OF MOMENTS, AND BETWEEN THESE OTHER MOMENTS LIKEWISE AN INFINITE NUMBER, THERE BEING NO ATOMIC MOMENT JUST AS THERE IS NO ATOMIC POINT ALONG A LINE. MOMENTS ARE THEREFORE FIGMENTS. THE PRESENT MOMENT IS A MOMENT AND AS SUCH IS A FIGMENT, A FLIGHT OF THE IMAGINATION TO WHICH NOTHING REAL CORRESPONDS. SINCE PAST MOMENTS HAVE PASSED OUT OF EXISTENCE AND FUTURE MOMENTS HAVE YET TO ARRIVE, WE NOTE THAT THE PRESENT MOMENT IS ALL THAT EVER EXISTS — AND YET THE PRESENT MOMENT BEING A HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

MOMENT IS A FIGMENT TO WHICH NOTHING IN REALITY CORRESPONDS.

Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1768

THE NARRATIVE OF THE HONOURABLE JOHN BYRON... was published in London, relating Captain Byron’s adventures of 1740-1746 in the South Seas. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1769

March 31, Friday: Commodore John Byron was promoted to Rear-Admiral of the Blue. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1776

June 22, Saturday: The 5th Lord Byron detested his son William Byron, and in order to prevent him from inheriting anything of value, had determinedly wrecked the Newstead Abbey. He had destroyed remorselessly, for instance, a herd of 2,000 deer, and utterly erased an enormous ancient forest. With Newstead Abbey a ghost of its former self, at this point William Byron died while his father yet lived.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1777

April: Rear-Admiral John Byron was promoted to Rear-Admiral of the White. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1778

January 23, Friday: Rear-Admiral John Byron was promoted to Rear-Admiral of the Red. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

January 29, Thursday: Rear-Admiral John Byron was promoted to Vice-Admiral of the Blue. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

British general John Burgoyne began making plans for the conquest of the colonies.

General Benjamin Lincoln’s division of the Continental Army encamped at Dobbs Ferry.

People were trying to kill each other in Augusta, Georgia. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1779

George Gordon, 12th Laird of Gight, drowned in Bath Canal as a suspected suicide. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

March 19, Friday: Vice-Admiral John Byron was promoted to Vice-Admiral of the White. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

March 26, Friday: People were trying to kill each other at West Greenwich, Connecticut.

In England, Amelia D’Arcy, Baroness Conyers’ trail for adultery resulted in her divorce from the marquis of Carmarthen. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

June 9, Wednesday: The Baroness Conyers married Captain John Byron at St. George’s, Hanover Square. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1780

September 14, Thursday: People were trying to kill each other at Black Mingo, South Carolina.

Captain John Byron retired from the Army. He and Mrs. Byron would settle in Paris. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1784

January 26, Monday: Augusta Mary Byron, daughter of Cpt. Byron and Amelia D’Arcy, was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

January 27, Tuesday: Amelia Byron died from consumption thought to have been brought on by accompanying Captain Byron on a hunt too soon after giving birth to their daughter, Augusta. She would be buried at Hornby, Yorkshire. Augusta would be sent to be raised by Lady Holdernesse while Captain Byron, virtually penniless, would be forced to go off to search out another rich wife. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1785

May 13, Friday: Captain John Byron married Catherine Gordon of Gight. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

At his brother Isaac Bartram’s home on 3rd Street in Philadelphia, the debtor William Bartram finally addressed all his creditors, who had been summoned by the following newspaper advertisement, and dispensed himself of what bequests he had received from his father John Bartram: Whereas William Bartram, of the township of Kingsessing, and state of Pennsylvania, being duly sensible of the signal indulgence shown by his creditors in forbearing to distress him, thinks it his duty, in this public manner, to acknowledge the same, and to make them all the compensation in his power; that having lately received a legacy left him by his father, John Bartram, he is desirous of discharging the remainder of what is so justly their due; and, though he is fearful his whole property will not be sufficient to satisfy all that may be demanded of him, is yet anxious that an equal distribution should be made as far as the same will hold out.

November 13, Sunday: Caroline Ponsonby, the future Lady Caroline Lamb, was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1786

April 5/6(?): Vice-Admiral John Byron died. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

April 10, Monday: Vice-Admiral Byron was buried at Twickenham. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

June 27, Tuesday: John Cam Hobhouse (later the 1st Baron Broughton of Giffard) was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1788

January 22, Tuesday: George Gordon Byron (later the 6th Baron Byron), son of Captain John “Mad Jack” Byron and Catherine Gordon, was born at 16 Holles Street, Cavendish Square, London. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1789

Mrs. Byron, mother of the infant who would become George Gordon, Lord Byron, took lodgings in Queen Street, Aberdeen.

March 8, Monday: George Anson Byron II (later the 7th Baron Byron), son of Captain George Anson Byron and Henrietta Dallas, was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1790

Margaret Power (later Countess of Blessington) was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

November 6, Saturday: Sophia Byron died at Bath. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

November 12, Friday: Sophia Byron was buried at the Abbey at Bath. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1791

August 2, Tuesday: Captain John “Mad Jack” Byron died in France (Mrs. Byron would take a flat at 64 Broad Street, Aberdeen). GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1792

May 17, Thursday: Anne Isabella “Annabella” Milbanke (later Lady Byron) was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1794

From this year into 1798, George Gordon Byron would be attending the Aberdeen Grammar School. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1797

At the age of nine, George Gordon Byron was getting laid by his nanny. Was she turned on by his club foot, or what? This was the year, also, of his “Mary Duff” episode while attending the Aberdeen Grammar School. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1798

Clare Clairmont was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

May 21, Monday: William, Lord Byron died. George Gordon Byron became the 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

Benjamin Stoddert was appointed as Secretary of the new US Navy. One of his first decisions was to disrupt the racially open enlistment policy of the US Navy, by forbidding the use of American black sailors on American men-of-war.

August: George Gordon, Lord Byron accompanied his mother to Newstead Abbey, a monastery ruin that had by royal grant become the ancestral estate of the Byrons.

How could the clubfoot lad but have acquired a sense of his own importance in the grand scheme of things? HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1799

George Gordon, Lord Byron lived with the Parkyns Family in Nottingham and was tutored by “Drummer” Rogers.

July: George Gordon, Lord Byron was taken to London by his lawyer and business agent, John Hanson.

September: George Gordon, Lord Byron entered Dr. Glennie’s School, Dulwich.

December 25, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron was spending the Christmas holidays with the Hanson family at Earls Court, Kensington.

Napoléon Bonaparte assumed the permanent post of First Consul. He sent letters to King George III of Great Britain and Emperor Franz asking for peace, while at the same time issuing a proclamation “To the French Soldiers” calling for them to prepare themselves for war beyond the borders of France. Hugues Bernard Maret became Secretary of State (chief minister). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1800

Teresa Gamba (the future Countess Guiccioli) was born. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

George Gordon, Lord Byron spent the summer holiday in Nottingham and Newstead and fell in love with his first cousin, Margaret Parker. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1801

March: George Anson Byron II sailed for the East Indies as a midshipman on board the Tremendous, commanded by Captain John Osborn. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

April: George Gordon, Lord Byron entered Harrow School.

Summer: George Gordon, Lord Byron was with his mother at Mrs. Massingberd’s, 16 Piccadilly, at Hanson’s, and at Cheltenham. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1802

Christmas Holiday: George Gordon, Lord Byron was with his mother at Bath. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1803

February: George Gordon, Lord Byron returned to Harrow School, leasing the ruin known as Newstead

Abbey for an annual pittance to 23-year-old Henry Edward Yelverton, 19th Baron Grey de Ruthyn.

July 13, Monday: Shoja al-Molk Shah replaced Mahmud Shah as King of Afghanistan.

July 15, Wednesday: Incidental music to Goethe’s play Clavigo by Johann Friedrich Reichardt was performed for the initial time, at the Nationaltheater, Berlin.

July 21, Thursday: Mrs. Byron, mother of George Gordon, Lord Byron, rented Burgage Manor in Southwell. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

July 25, Monday: Margrave Karl Friedrich of Baden was created a prince-elector. The Margraviate of Baden became the Electorate of Baden.

July 26, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron left Harrow School for Southwell.

July 27, Wednesday: Muzio Clementi arrived in Berlin from St. Petersburg.

Concerto for piano C.187 by Jan Ladislav Dussek was entered at Stationers’ Hall, London.

August 2, Tuesday: John Hoole died.

George Gordon, Lord Byron was with Owen Mealy, Newstead steward, at the estate’s gatehouse.

September-November: George Gordon, Lord Byron was in love with Mary Chaworth of Annesly Hall and was refusing to return to Harrow School. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

November-January: During the early part of the winter of 1803/1804, George Gordon, Lord Byron was at Newstead Abbey with Lord Grey. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1804

January: George Gordon, Lord Byron broke with Lord Grey and returned to Harrow School.

March 22, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron began a holiday at Burgage Manor.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould’s religious sensitivities were maturing. He remembered having heard Friend Henry Hull minister eloquently on the need to abstain from sugar and all other slave-made goods. He reflected that had he done as he should have done, and joined in this total boycott, he would not be being “thus tried now.” INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE RACE SLAVERY 22 of 3rd M 1804 fifth day preparative Meeting Our Meeting was silent, in which my mind was favored with quietude, but it is a low time, & perhaps rendered the more so, as I see no way to prosper on my outward business, so little that it seems as if I am ready to conclude I must throw it up & work at journey work —— And notwithstanding I have been favored to get along so far beyond what I had a right to expect yet there is now allmost a total stagnation, & it dont seem as if I feel any liberty to extend my persuits as the Traffic of the World has become so extreamly iniquitous, that a person who is concerned to dwell within the holy enclosure of Truth can hardly be concerned in it with any degree of purity, or at least without becoming contaminated therewith ——The African Slave Trade is something with which my mind has become burdened of late, & if I knew where to draw the line I think that I would wholly renounce the use of any produce raised by the poor Black people for their cruel task Masters who which they sell to us to increase their purses & support themselves in rioting & drunkeness, fullness of bread & aboundance of Idleness while the poor afflicted Slaves are suffering for the want of the absolute nessaries of life. But it is a matter so very extensive that almost every imported Article that we eat or drink is raised by the labor of Slaves & the generality of friends so very easy about the use and traffic of those things that I see little encouragement from any quarter to take up the cross in that respect. And what is still more of a block in the way is I am so situated in life as to make it extreamly inconvenient. So believe I must wait and & see what my feelings will be upon the occasion HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

I fully believe that had I have been faithful to my feelings about ten years ago, I should have been thus tried now, for I remember in the Yearly Meeting about that time the matter concerning the use of Shugar was spoken to in Such a manner by our friend Henry Hull from Nine Partners as did greatly affect my mind, & the same conviction followed me at times ever since, & tho’ I was but young about twelve years of age, yet I believe a sacrifice of that kind would have been acceptable to the Lord, & perhaps have been the means of my groth & furtherance in the truth, & and the means of my being stronger and more fervant in spirit than I have been. My mind was very early touched with feelings which sometimes wrought powerfully, & even did bring me to many tears while alone by my self, which I knew then, & have since more sensibly felt was the Lords power & goodness at work in me, which would have purified from all the defilements of flesh and spirit & preserved me out of much light irreverent & unproffitable company, which I have sometimes been in the way of & and too much partook of their spirit. Everything begits its own likeness & as lightness begits lightness, so seriousness does seriousness. I have found that when I have been in company with sober feeling friends my mind has been brought into sympathy with them, & also when I have been in the company of my young associates, brethren & citizens of Society, it has often been my place to set silent most of the time for an example to them & for profit to myself, which I really have the comfort to believe has been of use to myself & those around me; as such behaviour will tend to keep down lightness in others more than at first we may be sensible of. Oh how doth all that is alive within me at this time, crave that my future walks in life may be in the pure spirit & wisdom of Truth. A life thus led is of more value & will yeald more peace than one filled up with all the pleasing things of time & sense, which will last but for a moment, nor even for a moment as they often carry with them more of a sting than pleasure Whereas a life humbly dedicated to the Masters will, altho he may see meet to lead us thro many tribulations in this life & mingle with our draught the Wormwood & Gaul, yet in the end he will crown us with life immortal, peace & Glory in the Mansions on High. I have written thus much as it has occurred to me sentence by sentence having but little prospect when I begun, further then to insert my feelings at Meeting. Much could I write of the feelings experience of my youth were they to open with a sufficient degree of life to render them useful in a future day to myself —— particularly of my apprentiship which was made up with many ——? [&] inward trials of flesh & spirit which I desire to remember, as I believe they were all permitted for my refinement & improvement but as one can ever fully know but myself thro the corse of it from outward appearances one would think that I met with nothing to try my patience, but many tears have I Shed when alone by myself when no eye but that of heaven hath seen me imploring the divine Succor in times of very deep and proving trials, when it hath seemed as if my poor heart was almost broken from a complication of besetments, hardly knowing whether to turn to the right hand or to the left, seeing no way to get along with peace in my mind but to press gently forward thro’ the narrow passage that I stood HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

in, with a considerable degree of faith & patience was favored to reach the Age of 21 Years honorable. And served my master faithfully tho perhaps if I had been more faithful in some points of conduct I might have bettered it. I stayed the whole time which was from the 15th of the 8th M 1795 to the 30th of the 12 M 1802. Most of the time I had but few associates, & often walked alone both inwardly & outwardly, the refining had [hand] of God was often upon me & I loved solitude I spent most of the evenings of the three last years of my apprentiship at my dearst Aunt Martha Gould either in coppying good peaces of writing, or reading George Foxe’s Journal which I read through & trust my mind was much benefited therby. In this the chief of my evenings were passed & I am now thankful for it, as it is probable I might have spent them much worse had I have given way to a light airy mind & run unto such company. The company of my endeared Aunt I dearly love & have occasion to, for her Motherly care & religious concern over me in my infantile years. When a child I lived with her & have good reason to believe that her concern even travel of Spirit for my prosperity (under the divine Blessing) was one of the main things which preserved me from the facenating things of the world. I now remember how dearly I used to love her Company & the company of good friends who came to visit her, of which there was not a few, as she is a Woman much esteemed by all her acquaintances & particularly set by in society as a weighty & useful Member, in whose service she hath spent much of her time. & tho’ a poor woman & nothing to depend upon but her daily labor for support which she hath obtained credibly & honorably in the forepart of her life by Tayloring & now in her latter days keeps a school & Chiefly maintains herself & two sisters. Yet thus poor she hath spent allmost twenty Years of her life in weighty appointment [to] office of an Overseer in Society, in which she was very useful, being careful that her conduct brought no reproach upon her standing. Now to return & add a little further to my own particular I may say that from a child I was singularly fond of the company of elderly friends & took much life in sitting with them hearing them converse in matter [in] which they were experienced & often gained much information & solid instruction therefrom. I now feel renewed [cup?] of thankfulness for my many favors in this way, believing that they have kept me from much unprofitable company, into which youth are drawn thro’ inattention to that divine inward principal which is made manifest to us even in very young years. May this which has been mercifully vouchsafed in my childhood be extended thro’ the succeeding days of my pilgrimage. My spirit often bows in reverent humility before the Almighty God for the discovery of his will, thus far & also have abourdant [?] cause to humble myself with my mouth in the dust at my frequent rejections of his holy calls. May my spirit be more & more engaged in faithfully performing what he will please to have me do. There was another relation of mine who hath gone in peace to her grave some years agoo, with whom I was very fond of being with, & from whom I have reaped solid instruction She was a woman indowed with a good understanding, & large share of [? pale??] which rendered her very engaging to me; as she could speak experimentally in things of an inward & outward nature. Some of her advice & observations I still instructingly remember, nor HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

do I wish those seasons to be forgot. The above mentioned relation name was Mary Marsh. These things have all very unexpectably occured in my mind having no prospect of inserting anything but the pressent state of my mind when I first begun, & I have expected to stop at every page, but [?] one thing after another has occured [?] have written on till now & dont know why I should give this small account of my pilgrimage & that of my dear Aunts as I never expect any one will ever be benefited by my Diary but myself, the chief end that I have had in it was to keep in rememberance what I have once felt & experienced that if I should ever swerve & loose my first love for the truth by recurring to my book experience I might be quickened to the necessity of keeping to the inward Guide. ———

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

April: George Gordon, Lord Byron was back at Harrow School.

July 28, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron left for Southwell. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

September: George Gordon, Lord Byron was at Harrow School in north-west London again.

Percy Bysshe Shelley began his studies at Eton College near Windsor to the west of London (his sinecure at this welfare institution for the extraordinarily well situated would continue through Spring 1810).

December: George Gordon, Lord Byron spent the Christmas holidays with the Hansons. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1805

February: George Gordon, Lord Byron returned to Harrow School.

April: While at Southwell, George Gordon, Lord Byron had a quarrel with his mother.

May: George Gordon, Lord Byron left for London.

May 8, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron was at Harrow School.

June 3, Monday: Lorenzo da Ponte arrived in Philadelphia from London.

Lady Caroline Ponsonby married the Honorable William Lamb. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

August: Mary Chaworth got married with John Musters. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

August 2, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron was in a cricket match against Eton.

August 4, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron went to Southwell.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1 day 5 [sic] of 8 M 1805 / Although I have been very weak & poor much of the time last week & prevailed with insensibility, HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Yet there has been seasons when the presence of the master has been witnessed — Our meetings this day were silent & I think I may say they were proffitable opportunities, being preserved under a good degree of quietness thro’ them both. Went with Clark Rodman to Sam’l Thurstons & took tea where we spent the evening very aggreably — D Buffum was with us part of the time. I do sincerely love the company of such friends, & esteem it a very great favor to be conversant with them. it is a priviledge which ought to be prised & proffited by — I have considered how much better it would be for young friends frequently to join in the company of experienced friends, than to follow & assimulate with the giddy circles. ————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

September 23, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron went to Hanson’s in London.

The Emperor Napoléon announced to the French Senate that he had changed his plans — instead of invading Britain, he intended presently to lead a campaign east against Austria, Russia, Great Britain, and Sweden.

October 24, Thursday: At the age of 17, George Gordon, Lord Byron entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he would meet E.N. Long and the 15-year-old Trinity choirboy John Edleson.

The Emperor Napoléon levied an “Army Fund” on Prussia and Austria (over the following five years this would collect 743,000,000 francs).

Christmas: George Gordon, Lord Byron spent his Christmas vacation in London, at Mrs. Massingberd’s. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1806

April: George Gordon, Lord Byron returned to Trinity. At some point, the 15-year-old Trinity choirboy John Edleson would give the 17-year-old Byron a heart-shaped cornelian stone.

July: While at Southwell, George Gordon, Lord Byron prepared a collection of his poems.

August 7, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron fled to London after a fight with his mother.

August 20, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron was at Little Hampton with N.E. Long.

Viktor II replaced Karl as Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym.

September: George Gordon, Lord Byron was back at Southwell.

October: George Gordon, Lord Byron composed his poem “The Cornelian.” No specious splendour of this stone, Endears it to my memory ever; With lustre only once it shone, and blushes modest as the giver. Some who can sneer of friendship’s ties, Have for my weakness oft reprov’d me, Yet still the simple gift I prize, For I am sure, the giver lov’d me. He offer’d it with downcast look, As fearful that I might refuse it, I told him when the gift I took, My only fear should be to lose it. This pledge attentively I view’d, And sparkling as I held it near, Methought one drop the stone bedew’d, And ever since I’ve lov’d a tear. Still to adorn his humble youth, Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield, But he who seeks the flowers of truth, Must quit the garden for the field. ’Tis not the plant uprear’d in sloth, Which beauty shews, and sheds perfume; The flowers which yield the most of both In nature’s wild luxuriance bloom.

Had Fortune aided Nature’s care, For once forgetting to be blind, His would have been an ample share, If well proportioned to his mind. But had the Goddess clearly seen, His form had fixed her fickle breast, Her countless hoards would his have been, HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

And none remain’d to give the rest.

November: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s FUGITIVE PIECES was privately printed. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1807

January: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s POEMS ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS was privately printed.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge listened as William Wordsworth read his “Prelude,” and then wrote “Lines to William Wordsworth.”

April: George Gordon, Lord Byron prepared more poems for publication.

The epidemic of measles on St. Helena had claimed 150 lives.

June: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s HOURS OF IDLENESS.

June 27, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron was at Cambridge, where he met Hobhouse and Matthews and said farewell to John Edleston.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7 day 27 of 6 M / Occupied at trade thro’ the day, & pretty much a death as to the best life, but was unexpectedly favord this eveng while Sitting at my dear Aunt Martha Goulds with a little bread which was of a norishing kind. O may I be thankful for it - RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 6, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron was at Gordon’s Hotel, London.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2 day 6 of 7 M / The day has passed with but little religious exercise, tho’ not so much pained with death to the sense of it as at Sometimes. Spent the evening at D Williams in company with Mary Morton whose company of humble redeemed deportment was very sweet & instructing to my mind I could but feel a Strong desire excited that I might be more & more drawn from the Spirits of this world & become entirly engaged to do my masters will while time here is mercifully lengthened out to do it in Oh that as thorough renovation of heart may be wrought in me for I daily see the necessity & advantage resulting from it RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

August 17, Monday: Robert Fulton’s North River (which we now know as the Clermont) began chugging up the Hudson River from New-York, averaging 5 mph. By nightfall it reached Haverstraw Bay. It would accomplish a successful round trip to Albany.

Carl Maria von Weber was appointed “Geheimer Sekretär” to Duke Ludwig Friedrich Alexander in Württemberg. He was responsible to administer the Duke’s affairs and instruct his children in music.

Robert Fulton left New-York aboard his steamboat Clermont. He would arrive in Albany in 32 hours. The journey would prove the practicality of motorized water transport.

Nè l’un, nè l’altro, a dramma giocoso by Simon Mayr to words of Anelli, was performed for the initial time, at Teatro alla Scala, Milan.

Augusta Byron married Lieutenant-Colonel George Leigh. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

August 24, Monday: George Anson Byron returned to England on board the frigate Concorde and obtained his initial commission. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

Russia and Turkey agreed to an armistice.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2 day 24 of 8 M 1807 / My dear Aunts Martha, Mary & Hannah have this day removed from John Coggershalls House to Jeremiah Lawtons it is a pleasant place I feel glad they are so pleasantly situated as to the outward in that respect but how they will get a living I know not but hope the good hand of Providence that hath helped them hitherto will Still be their support —-Receiv’d a comfortable letter from my friends Wm Burling of N York - in the evening called at Several of my friends houses -& have nothing to insert —except that there is but very little religion in me today RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October: George Gordon, Lord Byron returned to Trinity; Writing satires and other poems; meets Davies and Hodgson.

December: George Gordon, Lord Byron left Cambridge for good. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1808

January: George Anson Byron joined the Tartar, under joint command of his cousin, Captain George Byron Bettesworth. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

March: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s POEMS ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED (2d ed., see HOURS OF IDLENESS, 1807).

September: George Gordon, Lord Byron settled at Newstead Abbey.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge went to reside with the family of William and Dorothy Wordsworth at the Allen Bank house in Grasmere (until May 1810). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

November 18, Friday: Boatswain, Lord Byron’s dog, died of rabies and was buried at Newstead Abbey.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON Near this Spot Are deposited the Remains of one Who possessed Beauty Without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferosity, And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices. This Praise, which would be unmeaning flattery If inscribed over Human Ashes, Is but a just tribute to the Memory of “Boatswain,” a Dog Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803, And died at Newstead Abbey Nov. 18, 1808. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 18th of 11 M / Heard of the decease of Asa Russel & dont know when my mind has been more seriously affected with the consideration of Death - he was a young man in good esteem among friends & had for some years born an acceptable public testimony & some Years since Married Hetty Earl of this Town. how Soon the Young & stout [sturdy] man may be called to the silent grave is uncertain but that we must all ere long die is certain & my mind is bowed within me that I may live in readiness for the Awful summons, that when it comes I may not fear the Issere [?], but Alass how poor & how barran hath my mind been for a long time, Oh Lord Arise for my help, shut mine Eye & Ear more & more to the serferting things of the world, & in lieu of darkness which at present pervaids my heart, introduce fresh rays of thy celestial light, that once more I may lift up my head in hope that thy visiting Arm of love is yet extended. — Dined & tea’d at father R’s my H being there to spend the day RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1809

January 22, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron celebrated his majority at Newstead.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 22 of 1 M / Silent meeting roving seasons tho’ something seem’d to be working underneath of that nature which seemd to be a little stay We dind and took tea at father R’s & went home in the eveng received a letter from Aunt M Stanton which was pleasant. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 9, Thursday: In ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS, George Gordon, Lord Byron ridiculed William Hayley’s TRIUMPHS OF TEMPER and TRIUMPHS OF MUSIC.

French troops crossed from Spain into Portugal, but somewhat behind schedule.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5 day 9th of 3rd M 1809 / Silent meeting & a dull time, towards the close my mind became aroused a little but no great food was dispenced — The mind this eveng in a thoughtful mood — Father & Mother R took tea with us — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

March 13, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron took his seat at the House of Lords.

King Gustaf IV Adolf of Sweden was forced from power by his nobles and liberal army officers because he had been pressing toward a war against Russia. He was succeeded by an uncle as Carl XIII.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2 day 13 of 3 M / Much occupied at Trade, in the eveng called at the widdow Birds to see Aunt M Wanton who is here on a visit & is in a low distressed state of mind [this entry Xed] RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 16, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS was published.

Robert Fulton leased a house at 75 Chambers Street in New-York.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 16th of 3rd M 1809 / We had a pretty good meeting, but my mind was roving, yet a little life experienced. This Afternoon more Sweetness. An agreeable opportunity in conversation with a Youth who seems to be under a divine visitation. I crave that his mind may be rightly directed - Sister E Spent the Afternoon & eveng with us RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

June 11, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron left London with Hobhouse on his first “Pilgrimage.”

In retaliation for the decree of May 17th, Pope Pius VII excommunicated the Emperor Napoléon.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 11 of 6 Mo 1809// Our Meeting this forenoon was large & I believe Truth reigned as much as in any meeting I have been in for sometime Our friend James Mendenhall had the weight of labor & several women spoke short testimonys much to the point & I believe well seasoned with salt - James is an excellent plain preacher no spectacular & tho plain in expression is weighty in communication - a living prayer by a Woman ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Afternoon// Several women Spoke & one appeard in supplication. J Mendenhall had a few words - John Casey bore a short but very living testimony. One of the women is a workwoman at her calling -The meeting was much more crouded than in the morning but remarkabley still for the Vast concorse that was there. I believe truth was in dominion - We had at tea Polly Chase & Abijah Chase & wife, brother John Rodman accompanied them in the evening - Micajah Collins & wife & M Purinton & Wife ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

July 2, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron sailed with Hobhouse on the Lisbon packet, Princess Elizabeth.

Internal government in Spain was reorganized by King José I, with the creation of 38 new provinces.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 2nd of 7th Mo // Silent meetings, but I believe pretty good ones after meeting in the Afternoon went down to J Dennis’s with brother D R took tea & set sometime after in very instructing conversation, on our way home stopt a little at D Buffums Mary Collins took tea with my H I wanted to converse with her should therefore liked to have been at Home — John Rodman married ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 6, Thursday: In retaliation for the Emperor Napoléon’s excommunication of June 11th, French troops arrested Pope Pius VII and conveyed him to Grenoble.

After two days of fighting at Wagram, the cost of the battle had been 70,000 casualties or approximately a quarter of each of the opposing armies. When the Austrians retreated the French were too exhausted to pursue.

On this day or the following one, George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse arrived in Lisbon

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 6th of 7th Mo // A Silent meeting, & to me the most drowsey one I have had in a long time, but the forepart of it was a pretty good time - In the Afternoon my Dear H went out to see our friends D Buffum & family & I went & took tea with them -David & his daughter Wait seem much unwell & it is a doubt in my mind whether either of them sojourn with us long - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 12, Wednesday-16, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse visited Cintra and Mafra.

July 16, Sunday: Pedro Domingo Murillo led a revolt by criollos and mestizos in La Paz and proclaimed an independent state in Upper Peru (Bolivia) in the name of King Ferdinand VII.

July 17, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Libson.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 17 of 7 Mo // Altogether poor, as to the spirits of religion Sister Mary spent the Afternoon with us ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

July 18, Tuesday-25(?): George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse traveled through Portugal and Spain to Seville. On the way they visited Albuera.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 18 of 7 Mo // Again poor & weak - in the eveng called at brother Davids to see his children with the hooping cough — We are in great fear that our little Caleb is coming down with the same complaint - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 25, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Seville in order to travel across the Sierra Morena to Cadiz, a 5-day trip.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 25 of 7 Mo // Most of the time as yet today I have been as one dead as to religious life, yet there has been intervals in which I have felt a little light as it were dart upon me, when I set down to breakfast & dinner at our little pause I was lifeless tho’ I made an effort to center to the place of life & thankfulness. Oh that I could be more & more alive to best things - I think my feelings have been a little more alive this Afternoon -Avis Knowles Set the afternoon with my H & neighbor Vinson the eveng with us — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 29, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse arrived in Cadiz.

American slaver captains like La Coste of South Carolina, caught red-handed and convicted, were usually at the last moment the beneficiaries of “executive clemency” by the President of the United States. For instance, on this day our new President, James Madison, himself the proud owner of other human beings, pardoned the skippers of 15 vessels arriving at New Orleans from Cuba with 666 white persons and 683 negroes (in fact, as we can see by inspecting PARDONS AND REMISSIONS, I. 179, this President would remit each and every such penalty incurred, during his entire term in the office, under the Act of 1807). He must have been a truly compassionate man, for he never met a slaver he couldn’t sympathize with. INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE

It appears that our President, although he could sympathize with the sinner, could not sympathize with the sin, for during this year he would appear before the federal Congress to challenge the Representatives and Senators thusly: “[I]t appears that American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity, and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced the interdiction in force against this criminal conduct, will doubtless be felt by Congress, in devising further means of suppressing the evil.”6

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

6. HOUSE JOURNAL (reprinted 1826), 11th Congress, 3d session, VII. page 435. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

7th day 29 of 7 Mo // The Gun has announced the Setting Sun. Another day has gone, gone no more to be recall’d, & all who draw the breath of life are now a day nearer the silent grave - Awful consideration indeed, may I proffit by it, may I take warning from what I now feel. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 30, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron witnessed a bullfight at Puerta Santa Maria (the bull lost).

The Royal Navy began landing 39,000 men on Walcheren Island at the mouth of the Scheldt River.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 30th of 7th Mo // Our meetings were silent & to me very poor times & I believe that I was not the only one who was sent away nearly empty. tho’ perhaps it was not alltogether the worst of times - I spent the day chiefly at home except a few calls Vizt a little while at R Taylors between meetings - In the eveng a few minutes at my fathers - O W’s & D R’s — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

August 3, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse sailed on the frigate Hyperion bound for Gibraltar.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal describing the role of visiting Friends and their missions of visiting families, as well as of speaking out in Meetings, particularly Quarterly Meetings: 5th day 3 of 8th Mo// This morng took chaise & rode to Portsmouth to attend our Quarterly meeting. Sister Eliza went with me, my H being unwilling to leave the little boy - we arrived at R Shermans alittle [sic] after 9 OClock where I left E & went to the Meeting house to meet with the representatives, we got thro’ with our buisness in Season to go back & bring E to meeting. In the first meeting James Green opened the service in which he pointed out the true way to happines which he said was in a “clean concience, a life of religion & thousands & tens of thousands of this world would not purchase it” then after a long time of waiting, Our friend Easter Griffin rose up with the text “Awake thou that sleepest that Christ may give the light” & soon set down appearing to have but little to say - John Casey then rose up & bore testimony to the universality of divine light & its all sufficiency thro’ life, he said that he felt it in his early life but then did not distinctly see what it was but since having been brought more into the knowledge of it, he could bear testimony now in his Old age when his cheeks were furrow’d with Age & his head coverd with grey hairs, that it is all that is worth living for, he Sweetly encoraged all to walk & believe in it & very touchingly addressed the younger part of society - he had not taken his seat but a few minutes be fore Easter again rose, took up his subject & greatly enlarged to the comfort & consolation of many present, that light had again broke thro’ the thick cloud of darkness that has for a long time coverd our HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

land. I know that we are apt to think the last best, but I really think I have not heard preaching that appeard to reach the audience like hers in a very long time, such life & power attended it as was cause of admiration in my mind. Soon after she took her seat - Hannah Field kneeld in supplication, Beseeching the Almighty to “gather the people call a solemn assembly assemble the Elders & blow the trumpet in Zion that truth might arrise in its ancient splendor &c - In the meeting for buisness before we began to act James Dinson Ladd introduced himself as one traveling for his health, belonging to Wain Oak Monthly & particular Meeting in Virginia, he appeard to be a solid friend & was permitted to set tho’ he had no certificate - Soon after the Queries were read & the Answers approved - Our friend David Buffum in a very weighty manner proposed the appointment of a Solid committee to visit the Moy [Monthly] Meetings & labor for the promotion & preservation of Love & Unity, it consisted of the following names John Casey, D Buffum, Sylvester Wickes, Moses Brown, Thos Howland Jona[thon] Dennis & O Williams - it was also united with by the women & one appointed by them to unite with the men - but little further buisness was transacted the most important was that of reading the certificates of our friend E Griffin & H Field, & Gideon Seman who accompanied them - After Meeting Sister E & I went to H Almy’s & dined, where I left her to go to Tiverton to be at meeting with Our abovementioned [sic] friends E G & H F tomorrow -I rode home with Lloyd Green & took James Green up who rode a little ways with us — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

August 6, Sunday: Alfred, Lord Tennyson was born, already bald but not yet a Lord (nor, it would seem, yet recognized as the poet laureate of England).

George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse arrived in Gibraltar.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 6 of 8 Mo// In the forenoon Our friend E G & H F had considerable public labor, tho’ as they expressed it - it was a low time - In the Afternoon they were entirely Silent except Easter appeard in supplication at the close of the meeting, previous to which H Dennis had a short testimony “Seek first the kingdom of hevin &c” D Buffum then was concern’d to repeat the cry of the woman from the Walls of Samaria to the king in time of famine, & the kings reply, which was “If the Lord do not help thee whence shall I help thee? out of the barn floor, or out of the wine press - & applied it to the present famished state of things, & that it is as impossible for the instruments to help the people as it was for the King formerly with out the Lord helpeth- Betsy Parish took tea with us & Sister E set the eveng ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

August 16, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse sailed on the Townshend Packet bound for Malta (John Galt was also on board this vessel).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 16 of 8 Mo// The mind seems a little dipt into Seriousness - The Gun has just announced the Setting Sun, which reminds me that the Year is declining, the days are Shortening, the Autumnal season rolls on & that Winter fast approaches - Well may I be in readiness to meet its pinching cold & driving Storms as to the outward - & Oh that when the Winter of Age (if I should live to see it) shall await me, may I be favor’d with that which will norish the inner Man, tho’ the outward may not be in a capacity to enjoy “The singing Men & singing Women” Oh that I may now while my bones are moistened with Marrow so lay up a treasure that when the time of Separation approaches I may be in readiness to meet the Summons ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

August 31, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse arrived in Malta.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 31 of 8 Mo// I am this morning going to Portsmouth to attend our monthly Meeting. I hope I shall, yea, very much desire that I may keep my place & be favord with the precious life that crowns our Assemblies — At our first meeting John Casey was large living & powerful in testimony I cannot undertake to commit to writing so as to give an Adequate Idea of his communication, but desirous to keep the heads in rememberance, Will just say “He seemd much exercised for the wellfare of the Church & spoke of Lamb the Brides wife, & it was thought made the the most finished alegories that has of late been heard from any friends, he particularly addressed the Youth & those that are coming forward in society to transact the affairs thereof, & said the (that) the rebuilding of Zions Walls greatly depended on the faithfulness of these & encoraged all to dedication” - Then Ann Smith appear’d in a solemn manner I trust to edification of many for my own part I thought the feeling part in me was more reached than at the foregoing — In the last meeting buisness went on with a good degree of order & solemnity except in one instance of a Contentious man who took up his Sons cause & spoke very disorderly, his son was complaind of for not paying a just debt, & his fathers initials are D....C.... ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Anne Greene expressed a prospect she had of visiting the families of Swansey Moy [Monthly] Meeting which was united with & a coppy of a minute granted - The Quarterly meetings committee produced their coppy from the Quarterly meetings minutes & informed that they were willing to extend labor where it was necessary & where they were likly to do good, they met at the close of the meeting & I expect the Overseers gave them HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

information of such cases as was likly to need their assistance — We rode after meeting to Isaac Mitchells & dined then directly home, & tho’ some part of the meeting was trying yet to me it was a good one, & I hope will prove a Useful one — John Casey Moses Brown Sylvester Weeks & Anna Smith were present being part of the Quarterly meetings committee ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

September: George Gordon, Lord Byron was in love with Mrs. Spencer Smith.

September 19, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Malta on board the brig-of-war Spider for Greece and Albania.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 19 of 9 Mo// The mind is this morning brought into feeling & depths are raised in me this Wise. Create in me O Lord a clean Spirit - I must desire that the Old leven may be purged away & a new & clean spirit to possess the place of one that is very defective. I feel my unworthiness & short comings, & am almost ready to fear that I shall never rise above what I am Was with Peter Taylor all the eveng till 1// 2 past 10 OClock who seem’d in great distress at times, & apparently breathing his last, it was a lesson of deep instruction to me. I had many reflections & feelings that it is impossible for me to describe ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

September 21, Thursday: In England, the Perceval ministry began as British Foreign Minister George Canning and Secretary for War Lord Castlereagh engaged in a duel on Putney Heath. Canning was upset that Castlreagh had taken troops he had intended for Portugal and used them in the Walcheren operation. Canning was struck in the thigh. Public sentiment would turn against both the duelists.

Sophia Amelia Peabody was born to the dentist Nathanael Peabody and the Unitarian Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. She would attend the 2d (soon to be Unitarian) Church in Salem, Massachusetts. She would attend a school run by her mother and by her sister Elizabeth Palmer Peabody there and upon graduation, would become a teacher in that school as well.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 21 of 9 M 1809// At meeting Our friends D Buffum & Mary Morton were very acceptably engaged in Short testimonies - In the eveng a little while at R Taylors ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

September 26, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron set foot on Greek soil for the first time when the Spider anchored at Patras.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 26 of 9 Mo// This morng I found that Abijah Purinton was in Town & lodged at Father R’s last night, after breakfast he called up to see us a little while & informed us that Betsy Purinton, Hannah Collins & James Breed was on there way here on a visit to this Quarterly Meeting - Immediately wrote to L Clarke & inclosed one to them that it might meet them at Narragansett & wrote to Matthew informing him as far as I knew of their progress, & that I had written to them — Abijah went in the Packet to NYork about 9 OClock this Morning - Aunt Stanton & Niobe went about Sunrise ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

September 27, Wednesday: The Spider was in the Channel between Ithaca and the mainland.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 27 of 9 Mo// The day has passed wuth the usual rounds Recd this Afternoon a long acceptable letter from my frd D Smith of Bolton — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

September 29, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse landed at Prevesa.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 29 of 9 Mo// Again the day has passed & what acct have I to give of my faithfulness? Since I have nothing to boast of which indeed to me belongs blushing & confusion of face that my talent is no better improved - My H & little son spent the day at father R’s — & Philip Dunham Set the evening with us at our dwelling — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 1, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Prevesa for Janina. That evening they arrived in Salakhora.

Adrien Boieldieu was hired by Tsar Alyekandr to write and teach at the Imperial Theater School, St. Petersburg.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 1st of 10th M 1809// At Meeting this morning Our friend Benjm Mitchell from Nantucket — on his way to Nine Partners where he is going to settle) was with us & preached a little evincing himself to be a friend of descrenment & green in life - In the HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Afternoon he was with us also but set in Silence, but our friend M Morton was solemnly & livingly engaged in supplication on behalf of all classes present & particularly for the Aged “thise who had lived many days & seen many sorrows”. —- Sister E staid with Our little boy while My H went to meeting & set the evening with us — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 3, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Salakhora and arrived in Arta.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 3 of 10 Mo// Our friend B Purinton seems to see but little about appointing a meeting with us today & if she sees us at Meeting at all it will not be till 5th day.— She has been at father R’s all day - My H went to see them in the forenoon, returned home to dinner & went again in the Afternoon & took tea & went home again before evening — & J Bread with us & set an hour (I believe) to mutual edification, we (J & myself) returnd & found several come in to set the evening with them & it passed very agreeably —- J Bread was at my shop to see me twice & in the forenoon I walked about the town with him a little & went into the Common Burying ground — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 4, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Arta and arrived in St. Demetre.

Spencer Perceval replaced William Henry Cavendish, Duke of Portland as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 4th of 10th M 1809// Our friend B Purinton & companions, accompanied by Sister Ruth in the Carriage with them, & Sister Eliza & Rebecca in a chaise by themselves & O Williams & wife went to Portsmouth to attend Meeting this morning expecting to return this Afternoon They returned this evening & I understand B was much favord at Meeting. They dined at R Shermans & took tea at P Lawtons - I set the evening with them at father R’s —- ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 5, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse arrived in Janina.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 5th of 10th Mo// At meeting our dear friend B Purinton was favord (first) in supplication & then in testimony I hope yea, very much desire, that her labors may prove useful & if not HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

immediatedly felt, that like the bread spoken of by the Wise Man, cast upon the Water to return after many days - They dined at O Williams then made several little calls, & among the rest a few minutes on my dear H which was sweet & precious to us, parting in near love to one another - They went down to father R’s where the carriage was waiting for them & at a little past 3 OClock set off for Tiverton to an appointed Meeting there tomorrow, accompanied by Sister Ruth & brother John — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 8, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron rode out into the country. This was the 1st day of Ramadan.

Clemens Wenzel Lothar, Count Metternich-Winneburg Portella succeeded Johann Philipp Karl, Count Stadion-Warthousen as Lord Chamberlain, Minister of State and Minister of Foreign Affairs to Emperor Franz I of Austria.

October 11, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Janina for Tepelene to visit the Ali Pacha. Byron wrote “Lines Written During a Thunderstorm.”

Traveling east along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee on his way from St. Louis to the District of Columbia, Meriwether Lewis committed suicide at Grinder’s Stand, an inn south of Nashville.7

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 11 of 10 Mo// The day has passed without any thing remarkable the same rounds as usual & the mind in the same state as usual Oh when shall I feel more of the incomes of love & Life in my heart —— Sister Ruth spent the Afternoon & evening with us very agreeably on our parts — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 12, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse were at Zitsa.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 12 of 10 M 1809// Again the Day has passed without any material variations from the usual corse of things at Meeting a dull time to me, tho’ not as hard as sometimes ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

7. Later, theories that he had been murdered would arise, but neither William Clark nor Jefferson doubted the original, on-site reports that Lewis had simply shot himself. Few historians give credence to the murder theory. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

October 13, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Zitsa and arrived at Mossiani.

Pedro Rivero replaced Martin de Garay Perales as First Secretary of State of the resistance government of Spain.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 13 of 10 Mo// Again the mind in a poor dull condition with but little to feed upon but the dry husks, & in a low discoraged State of Mind ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 14, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Mossiani and arrived at Delvinaki.

A treaty of peace was signed at the Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna. Austria gave up Trieste and Illyria to France, Galicia to Saxony and Russia, and Salzburg and the Inn District to Bavaria. Austrian lands in Poland were handed over to the Duchy of Warsaw and Austria was required to pay an indemnity of 85,000,000 francs. Southern Tirol was transferred to the Kingdom of Italy. Austria would join the continental system against Britain.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 14 of 10 Mo// This morning recd a letter dated Yesterday from Cousin L Clarke which was edifying as any one I ever received from any person - as soon as I opened it I thought that it contained something for my instruction & I dont know that I ever received a letter that seemd to raise the Seed of life in my mind, or at least so immediately touch something that is feeling, as that did —— My H spent the Afternoon at Brother Ds & I took tea with them ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 15, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Delvinaki and arrived in Libokhovo.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 15 of 10 Mo// In the forenoon we had a pretty good tho’ small meeting Sarah Fish preached & I have no doubt was Authorised [genuinely spiritually based and unprepared] — In the Afternoon We were silent & after meeting went with Saml Thurston to D Buffums took tea & spent the forepart of the evening very agreeably, then returnd & set the rest at home - I have, or hope I have, not been wholly void of life today tho’ the Stream has not risen very high ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

October 17, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Libokhovo and arrived in Cesarades.

Pierre-Louis-Georges Du Buat died at Vieux-Condé, which was than in Flanders rather than in France.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 17 of 10 Mo// I have passed another day & of course am one day nearer the Silent Awful grave. How Awful indeed it is to die; my feelings are often arrested with the consideration, & Yesterday an occurence took place that gave scope to reflection -A Man in our neighborhood who had lived a wicked life, who had professed the Universalists Doctrine & practiced drinking to excess had been a long time unwell, but as well as usual, & walked out & while at a Dram Shop (whether he had been drinking I know not) but while there he was taken in pain, carried home at nine OClock in the Morning & before 11 OCLOCK Died - his name is —- Millvill -I know the mercies of God are great & extended to the eleventh hour; but how it is with this poor man I leave—— Oh that it may serve as a warning to those of us who are left to sojourn a few more days, that we no longer slight the mercies & long suffering & tender visitations of Him in whose hands we are & from whose Eye we cannot hide — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 18, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Cesarades and arrived in Ereeneed.

French troops attacked a superior Spanish force at Tamames, southwest of Salamanca, and were thrown back with heavy losses.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 18 of 10 Mo// No material occurrrance that I recollect, the day has passed with the usual rounds - recd a letter from my much valued friends M & B Purinton which was very acceptable —- ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 19, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Ereeneed and arrived in Tepeleni.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 19 0f 10 Mo// Our first meeting was silent & to me a pretty good time — The last (preparative) two young men were complained of, one for attending a military training, the other for keeping company with a woman not in Membership & neglecting the attendance of our meetgs Very sorrowful indeed to see so many of our youths depart from society, but perhaps if a thourough search of the Camp was made some of us who make a more strait appearance would be found to weigh lightly in the ballance — My H left the little boy at her fathers & sister R took care of him while she went to meeting - we dined there & she spent the HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Afternoon — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 20, Friday: The reception of George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse by the Ali Pacha.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 20th of 10th Mo// The day passed as usual — In the eveng I called to see Sister Rebecca who I must confess feels near to my best feelings, & while setting with her the precious life arose very sweetly in my mind, our conversation turning on subjects which I trust were reciprocally interesting ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 23, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Tepeleni and arrived in Locavo.

A young German named Stapps attempted to stab the Emperor Napoléon but was intercepted by the emperor’s aide, General Rapp (the man would be offered clemency by Napoléon in return for an apology but would refuse and be executed).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 23 of 10 M 1809// This morng My dear Mother related to me her feelings for sometime perhaps two years past, about society [the Society of Friends] particularly when she has been at meeting, & as she told me was much affected & wept She said that many times & almost allways when she went to meeting, she felt desolation so to prevade her mind, that she has frequently shed tears, & looked about & said to herself - where is the weight, surely we are in a very desolate condition, & what will become of us - when she told me my mind was much affected & desires were raised that I might be one that should put forth a hand to help in raising the Standard among us - She also added that yesterday she had the best meeting she had had in a long time. - In the eveng met with the Directors of the AFrican Benevolent Society at Wm Pattens ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 24, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Locavo and arrived in Delvinaki.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 24 of 10 Mo// The day has passed with the usual rounds with no particular occurrence either within or without that I recollect, except that as one of a committee from the directors of the African Society I attended to the appointment with the rest & agreed with a Master to open an eveng School. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 25, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Delvinaki and arrived in Zitsa.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 25 of 10 Mo// Nothing material but the usual rounds thro’ the day, from the Shop to the house & the house to the Shop. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 26, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Zitsa and arrived in Janina.

Having defeated Austria, the Emperor Napoléon arrived back in Paris.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 26 of 10 M 1809// Rhode [sic] with beloved H to Portsmouth to attend our Moy [Monthly] Meeting, (Mother R took care of the little boy the while) Stoped before meeting at H Almys & took a little sustenance - At meeting M Morton was very sweetly engaged in testimony & in the last buisness went on pretty well - to me it was a precious meeting, especially the last, wherein my mind was brought to feel a sweet income of the precious life & my heart rejoiced in the belief that I was yet permitted to taste the dainties of the Lords table, tho’ not to feast very largely -& was incoraged to accept appointments to treat with two young men One for bearing Arms at a Military training the Other for keeping company with a young Woman not in membership with us, which however incapable I am of performing, I thought It was best for me to accept & do what I could — & Also found strength when it was preposed to enter into subscriptions for the poor of Society, to stand up & mention, that since the Matter was preposed I had remember’d, & according to my measure had been dipt into sympathy with friends in early times when they suffered much spoiling of goods [goods confiscated] & imprisonment & yet when supscriptions were made they allmost allways exceeded what was wanted for the purpose, & had Money left - We took dinner at P Lawtons & then rode home & found our little boy had been very well thro’ the day which was also cause for thankfulness ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 31, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron began writing the first canto of CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 31 of 10 Mo 1809// Again a pretty good day for which I desire to be thankful - Many of our friends have gone to Swanset to attend the Quarterly Meeting nest 5th day, they have HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

a pleasant time as to the Outward & I hope it will prove proffitable as to the inward, while we who stay behind may be permitted to partake with them tho’ at a distance ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 3, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Janina and arrived in St. Demetre.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 3rd of 11th M 1809// I may acknowledge that it has been a good feeling day, the fountain of life a little opened to my rejoicing — I have seen several friends from Quarterly Meeting who say it was a favor’d time our friend D Buffum John Naley & John Casey were much favord in testimony — Today & this eveng Dear Aunt M Wanton has been much more rational & like herself than she has been for a long time, & if she finally gets better again I dont know but the beginning of her mending may be here dated. I do most fervantly desire she may, for hew own sake & that of dear Mothers who has had as much as she could seemingly live thro’ for many Months, indeed more than a year ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 4, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left St. Demetre and arrived in Arta.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 4th of 11th Mo// I may again acknowledge with thankfulness that the good spirit has been near — what an inestimable favor it is to feel the precious incomes of life in the mind, to feel that when we turn our minds to Wisdom that she will incline her Ear ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 5, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Arta and arrived in Salakhora.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 5th of 11th Mo// At meeting this forenoon I had a good comfortable time, life seem’d easy of access, and towards the close cousin Anne Greene appeard very livly in testimony — In the Afternoon it was rather a restless time I did not feel as in the Morning — Brother D’s son Wm is very sick, we stoped to see him & our minds were dipt into sympathy with them ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

November 7, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Salakhora and arrived in Prevesa.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 7t of 11 Mo// The Day has passed with the usual rounds, & I do not recollect any thing material to insert — Brother Davids little Wm is no better, — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 8, Wednesday: American slaver captains like La Coste of South Carolina, caught red-handed and convicted, were usually at the last moment the beneficiaries of “executive clemency” by the President of the United States. For instance, on this date the fault of John Hopkins and Lewis Le Roy, who had imported an African as their slave, was forgiven by the tolerant pen of President James Madison (PARDONS AND 8 REMISSIONS, I. 184-5). INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE

George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse sailed in a Turkish vessel from Prevesa and came to anchor off the coast near Parga. They were caught in a storm and came close to being shipwrecked, but at the last moment their many sins were forgiven as they received the “executive clemency” of a compassionate Deity.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 8th of 11th M 1809// My mind is this morning in a sweet state of feeling, the life flows sweetly, & Oh that I may be thankful for the favor —- Brother Ds son Wmm is no better — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 9, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Parga by land and arrived in Volondorako.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 9 of 11 Mo// I dreamed last night that Sister R R & myself were in the presence of the King & Queen of England who talk with us freely particularly the Queen - We seem’d to be in a large Brick building like our Court house & for a while set in a long entry & then were invited into another room & went - the King seem’d to be a large fat man dark eyes & dark complexion - I told him he looked as I had form’d an Idea of him - the Queen was as I saw her in fancy, a small Woman, thin & dark complexion & talked more than the king - I dont insert this thinking it any ways probable that we shall ever see them or that it is any ways ominous, but because my Dream seem’d so very livly on my immagination & has continued so all the morning At Meeting we were Silent, & small in numbers, but one Man set on the Old mens Quarter, tho’ there was as many as usually does, on the Young mens & considerable many Women - In the evening made Several calls but spent the most time at Aunt M Goulds

8. This President, we may here point out, may have himself owned human beings, but at least he was the 1st US President to regularly wear trousers. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 10, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Volondorako and arrived in Castrosikia.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 10th of 11th Mo// Nothing material on my own part - Brother D Rs little Wm remains very low, he cannot remain long - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 11, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Castrosikia and arrived in Prevesa.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 11 of 11 Mo// This forenoon, buisness calling, I went to Portsmouth, Dined & did what buisness I had to do at Thos Potters, then went to B Chases & did what call’d me there then to Benj, Freeborns took tea & staid all night the eveng was past most agreeably in conversation with B & Wife - In the morning we went to meeting - Russel Davis was there & preached - H Almy also preached & A Sherman said a few words - but according to my sense of feeling - Holder was the most of a Minister & none of them was very lively — After meeting I went to Z Chases, Dined & took tea — While at tea Go [George] Gould came in & told me that D Rodmans Child died yesterday towards night which hastened me home as soon as tea was over - I found my H at her father’s intending to stay all night -I called at Brother Ds & my fathers in the eveng & then return’d to father Rs & soon went with fatigued limbs to bed. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 13, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse sailed from Prevesa and anchor off Vonitsa.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 13th of 11th M 1809// This Afternoon attended the funeral of Brother David Rodmans child - it was a solid silent opportunity, & many people attended. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 14, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse sailed from Vonista and arrived at Lutraki. Byron wrote “Tambourgi, Tambourgi” (which became part of Canto II of CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE) and Stanzas Written in Passing the Ambracian Gulf.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

3rd day 14th of 11th Mo// Pretty dilligently at Trade thro’ the day, & not much religious life in the mind ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 15, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Lutraki and arrived at Katuna.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 15 of 11 Mo// My H has been since 7th day at her fathers on a visit & this day after dinner we again commenced housekeepers — I have been much occipied at Trade & unable to enjoy much of the life of religion — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 16, Thursday: The widow of Samuel Lord Dexter, Esther Dexter, making careful prearrangement to keep her inherited properties separate and in her own possession (what we would now term a “prenup”), remarried with William Rose of Charlestown.

George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Katuna and arrived at Mukala (Machalas?).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 16 of 11 Mo// A poor dull meeting to me - Wm Dean of Salem was there. I should be glad if the object of his visit was like to prove more successful or gratifying, but Alass the Young Damsels health is such that it is improbable she will ever make a Wife for any one — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 18, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Mukala and arrived at Guria.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 18th of 11th M 1809// The day has passed I hardly know how Uncle P Lawton Dined with us & Mother R spent the eveng is pretty much all I can say about it ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 19, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Guria and arrived at Ætolikon.

French forces defeated Spanish forces at Ocaña, opening the way to Andalusia.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 19th of 11th Mo// Our meetings were Silent & to me dull seasons - I suppose the fault was my own, for the mind was in an unsettled state, tho’ I did try to center down to the life, HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

but it seem’d as if it was withheld in consequence of my not laboring sufficiently for it when out of meetings - Spent the eveng with R Taylor at D William’s on buisness respecting Nicholas’s affairs -R & myself being the committee ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 20, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Ætolikon and arrived in Missolonghi.

France ended its occupation of Vienna.

Mary Clark was born.9

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 20th of 11th Mo// Alass another day of my life has passed over, & what returns I have made to My God for the blessing I know not - tho’ I do not feel that I have done any thing that is much amiss - It is a season of famine with me, I cannot get hold of any thing, or but little of any thing, that is food of heavenly kind, for the Mind, & if in this state I can be preserved from Sin I shall be thankful, for in those days of fast it is, that Satan is the most buisy. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 23, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse sailed from Missolonghi and arrived in Patras.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 23rd of 11th Mo// Silent meeting, & tho’ my mind was much in the roving order, a stillness was at length experienced, & I trust a little of the Life felt to circulate tho’ it seem’d to be much (as it were) underneath — no buisness of importance at the Preparative Meeting - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 4, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Patras for Athens. They slept at Han on shore.

After four and a half months on Walcheren Island, the final British troops were removed and transported home (4,066 of them had died during the operation, almost all from disease).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 9. Don’t you suppose this sister of Alvan Clark would have been the “Mary Clark” who was the author of A CONCISE HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT. IN THE FORM OF QUESTION AND ANSWER (1830), BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND: INTENDED TO ACQUAINT YOUTH WITH THE LIVES, CHARACTERS AND SUFFERINGS OF THOSE WHO FOUNDED OUR CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS (1836), and THE EARLY LIFE OF WASHINGTON: DESIGNED FOR THE INSTRUCTION AND AMUSEMENT OF THE YOUNG (1838)? HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

2nd day 4th of 12th Mo // What shall I say? why I think I may say with some propriety that it has been a day of thoughtfulness, & rememberance of various mercies, or at least I have recognized them with a degree of thankfulness — father & Mother R have taken tea with & Mother sets the evening - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 5, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Han and arrived at Vostitsa.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 5 of 12 Mo // A day of a degree of best feeling, but Alass I have nothing to boast of I’m a poor thing, & know not when I shall be otherways ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 14, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse sailed from Vostitsa and arrived at Larnaki.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 14 of 12 Mo // Our meeting was large considering the bad travelling & I believe was a pretty good time to many minds, to me it was better than common of late - In the eveng called at Aunt Patty Goulds to see Aunt Molly who left fathers this forenoon in consequence of a fall which hurt her side - it is remarkable that two in one house, first Aunt Molly Wanton & then Aunt Molly Gould should fall so soon together & hurt themsleves so as to be allmost helpless ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 15, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Larnaki and arrived in Chryso.

In his office at Fontainebleau, before his brothers and sisters, the Emperor Napoléon and the Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais signed an act of annulment.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 15 of 12 Mo // Frank Sayer, an acquaintance of mine & boarder with Aunt A Carpenter arrived from a Voyge to sea, on going in to see him my mind very feelingly recurred to the joy we felt on the arrival of my poor brother David who is now in his silent grave, Many times when he has come home from a long tedious Voige, how were our hearts renew’d at the sight of him, & at hearing his recital of his many adventures, but Alass he’s gone no more to return. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

December 16, Saturday: By act of the French Senate, the Emperor Napoléon was divorced from the Empress Josephine.

George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse visited Delphi, the cave of the Pythian, and the stream of Castaly.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 16th of 12 Mo 1809// The mind has been much pertubated in consequence of letters received from NYork from Aunt M Stanton & Wm Burling [two lines crossed out and heavily inked] I hope the matter of dispute may be amicably adjusted ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 17, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Chryso and arrived in Arakhova (Rhakova).

At the age of 78, Margaret “Meg” Smith died. She would be buried near the remains of her husband Venture Smith.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 17 of 12 Mo// I had pretty good meetings - & in the forenoon H Dennis appeard very sweetly in testimony - in the Afternoon Silent - My dear H was at Meeting forenoon & Afternoon -I went out to S Thurstons took tea & set the evening - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 18, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Arakhova and arrived in Livadia.

After an illness of five days during which he sometimes thought he was giving Latin instruction, Alexander Adam died. His last words were “It grows dark, boys, you may go.”

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 18 of 12 Mo// Brother David & wife & John & Wife & sister Ruth took tea with us & passed the eveng very pleasantly on our part ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 21, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Livadia and arrived in Mazi.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 21 of 12 Mo// I am better in health than yesterday - We had a Silent, & pretty full meeting for the season, both meeting were dull seasons, in the last (Preparative) we had the HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

quarterly Meetings Epistle read - My H spent the Afternoon at Neighbor Towles. I took tea with them, & the only aloy was that H was quite sick with the nead Ach.— ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 22, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Mazi and arrived in Thebes.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 22nd of 12 Mo// The mind unpleasantly affected, but Patience must be exercised. Wm Stanton a poor thing has moved here from Hudson & has undertaken Clock Making & Watch repairing, but if he goes on in insinuating false hoods about his fellow craftsmen will not be of long standing here, especially when his Caracter in Hudson is known. - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 23, Saturday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 23 of 12 Mo // Less concernd about Stantons conduct than yesterday, it is unpleasant to lay under false sencure, but I think my conduct is justified & his condemn’d ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 24, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Thebes and arrived in Skurta.

Christopher Houston Carson was born near Richmond, Kentucky. His father Lindsey Carson was a Scots-Irish farmer who had served during the Revolutionary War under General Wade Hampton. There were already 10 children in this family, 5 by a 1st wife and 5 by Kit’s mother Rebecca Robinson Carson (eventually the total would reach 15).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 24th of 12th Mo// At our Morning meeting Our D Buffum was very lively in testimony - & in the Afternoon, Silent & to me both were poor barran seasons - After meeting I walked home with D Buffum & took tea J Dennis was also there we spent the eveng aggeeably, but Poor Waits situation could but excite sympathy. I think she fails fast & will not continue long in Mutability ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

December 25, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Skurta and arrived in Athens. They took lodgings with Marci, mother of “The Maid of Athens.”

France organized the Illyrian Provinces in the Balkans. The Province of Fiume was created.

In Danville, Kentucky, Dr. Ephraim McDowell removed an ovarian tumor from Jane Todd Crawford. This first operation required 25 minutes, of course without anesthesia. The patient would survive for an additional 32 years.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 25 of 12 Mo// Sister Ruth spent the day & eveng with us very agreeably on our part. My H seems quite unwell with a cold ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 30, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron finished writing Canto I of CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.

Giovanni Paisiello was nominated as one of the eight “associés étrangers” of the Fine Arts section of the French Imperial Institute.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 12 Mo 30// With this Day I compleat the 28 Year of my life - And I feel thankful to be Able to Say that it hath been a day wherein I have experienced a considerable portion of the precious life to work on my mind - Rec’d a precious Comfortable letter from my dear Friend Micajah Collins this Afternoon which was indeed a brook by the Way ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1810

January 13, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse visited Eleusis.

An advisory body of elder statesmen, the Council of State, was formally opened by Tsar Alyeksandr.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 1st M 13th// The day has passed with a degree if feeling My dear Mother has been very sick for several days - we hope the effects of Medicine will be beneficial — Joseph Rodman arrived from NYork this morning — Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

January 16, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse visited Mendeli.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 1st M 16th 1810// Another day has passed. Some religious life experienced, but nothing to boast of — poor J R continues very troublesome — Our little Caleb seems to be quite unwell today ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

January 17, Wednesday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 1 M 17// Caleb seems better today —-Nothing material the old grief remains in father R’s family with but little abatement —My Mother is still much unwell but we are in hopes she is getting better, tho’ slowly - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

January 18, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron walked around the peninsula of Munychia.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day [sic] 1st M 18th// Silent Meeting, the last (preparative) was dull, tho’ the reading of the Extracts from the Yearly Meeting seem’d to enliven us a little - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

January 19, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Athens and arrived at Vari.

60,000 French troops begin a major invasion of Andalucia.

Henry Thoreau would describe this day, in his journal for January 11 and January 22, 1857, as “Cold Friday,”10

January 11, 1857: Began snowing yesterday afternoon, and it is still snowing this forenoon. Mother remembers the Cold Friday very well. She lived in the house where I was born. The people in the kitchen –Jack Garrison, Esther, and a Hardy girl– drew up close to the fire, but the dishes which the Hardy girl was washing froze as fast as she washed them, close to the fire. They managed to keep warm in the parlor by their great fires.

January 22. Snows all day, clearing up at night, — a remarkably fine and dry snow, which, looking out, you might suspect to be blowing snow merely. Yet thus it snows all day, driving almost horizontally, but it does not amount to much. P. M.—To Walden. I never knew it to make such a business of snowing and bring so little to pass. The air is filled so that you cannot see far against it, i. e. looking north-northwest, yet but an inch or two falls all day. There is some drifting, however. You wonder how the tree sparrows can seek their food on the railroad causeway, flying in the face of such a fine, cold, driving snow-storm. Within the woods it is comparatively still.... I asked M. about the Cold Friday. He said, “It was plaguy cold; it stung like a wasp.” He remembers seeing them toss up water in a shoemaker’s shop, usually a very warm place, and when it struck the floor it was frozen and rattled like so many shot. Old John Nutting used to say, “When it is cold it is a sign it’s going to be warm,” and “When it’s warm it’s a sign it’s going to be cold.”

having already made mention of it in WALDEN:

WALDEN: Though, when I had been exposed to the rudest blasts a long time, my whole body began to grow torpid, when I reached the genial atmosphere of my house I soon recovered my faculties and prolonged my life. But the most luxuriously housed has little to boast of in this respect, nor need we trouble ourselves to speculate how the human race may be at last destroyed. It would be easy to cut their threads any time with a little sharper blast from the north. We go on dating from Cold Fridays and Great Snows; but a little colder Friday, or greater snow, would put a period to man’s existence on the globe.

THE GREAT SNOW

10. This 1810 decade would in fact be the coldest of the previous 500 years. Refer to Luke Howard’s THE CLIMATE OF LONDON. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

The weather that winter had been unusually moderate. December had been warm and very little snow had fallen. The ground was bare in southern New England, though there was snow in the northern states, enough “for good sleighing.” The previous day had been mild, with a warm south wind, but about four o’clock in the afternoon there had been a snow squall and the wind had come up, changed around to the north-northwest, and increased in force until it blew “with great violence.” The temperature, which was 45 degrees in Salem MA, suddenly began to plunge. Eighteen hours later, it had fallen 50 degrees. In Springfield MA, people witnessed a heavy fog passing down the Connecticut River. The cold air congealed into a fine snow, which rose 40 feet above the water and was most conspicuous about 2PM. At Amherst NH, it was 14 below zero. At Weare NH, the temperature fell 55 degrees between Thursday morning and Friday morning. Few people ventured out. A winter hurricane had swept in. At times and places the wind was so strong it was difficult to stand. The gale force wind continued all day, and houses and barns were blown away. Huge stands of trees were blown down, or splintered so as to “render them unfit for timber.” In Chester NH, the wind so moved a house that one corner fell into the cellar. At Sanbornton, three children died while their parents were attempting to get them in a sleigh from their home, the roof of which had gone, to a neighbor’s house. The sleigh kept blowing over, and though a neighbor attempted to help, the children froze. The neighbor would not recovered from snowblindness. The cold would continue until the morning of the following Monday, when the wind would change to the southwest and the temperature begin to rise. Many of the livestock, however, would be found to have frozen where they stood.

Here are Zechariah Allen’s diary entries for this storm as experienced in Providence, Rhode Island:

Jan 19. 1857 violent gale and snowstorm Train to Boston got as far as Mansfield, broke the plow and returned etc Edward J Cushing passed the night with me being unable to get back to his home. Has long pleasant conversation, has been through a lot with C and now feels toward him like a son HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1/23/57 several degrees below zero last night, violent wind, more drifting. ...Most inclement has been the past wek. It has produced in every bosm a thrill of grateful thankfulness that a shelter from the freezing cold and food are available to sustain existence. (The next day he would report that the cold Friday was –20 to –28.)

1/26 I ventured to go to the mills today [but a later entry would indicate that he didn’t make it all the way]. The roads are in places cut through deep snow drifts. It has been difficult to keep the attic stories of either of the mills warm. The water wheels have all been kept sufficiently free of ice to operate regularly and no delay and no delay has occurred form the destruction of ice. But the snowstorm on Monday last was so severe that only 3/4 of the hands went into the mills. The inclemency of the weather has prevented me from going out to the mills since the 17th of January, nine days ago. On the south side of the dam the road is blocked by a snowdrift 16 feet deep. I think there will be snow remaining from this drift until the 10th of April next. The icehouse at Allendale was nearly full last Saturday night when the snowstorm commenced One or two days work more will be requisite to complete the filling of the icehouse.

1/28 William D Ely returned from Hartford last evening by the first train that has come through from Hartford to Providence since the 17th The drifted snowbanks are high as the top of the locomotive chimney in the deep cuts along the road. (He here pasted in a number of newspaper articles that showed all the records that were broken often for the coldest temperature ever recorded throughout the NorthEast.)

Here are Oliver Ames’s diary entries for the storm as experienced in North Easton, Massachusetts:

January 18th — this was a cloudy dark day & verry cold thermometer in the morning from 8 to 10 degrees below 0 cold all day. I had a yoke of oxen brought here by Caleb Easton the 17th and left on trial for two weeks— the weighd 3400 — one measures 7 feet & 1 inch & the other 7 feet & 2 inches.

The 19th it began to snow yesterday afternoon wind northeast and snowd until noon today the wind blew verry hard last night and today the snow was verry fine and dry and blew into heaps verry badly & fild up the cannal so that we could not run the enjoin the river was fild up so that it would not run in the chanel & flowd out onto the land it was the worst time about managing the water that I have ever known.

the 20th and 21st were fair days but pritty cold

the 22nd there was a fine snowstorm today with a high wind & cold wind about north west there was about 4 inches of snow fell

the 23rd this was a fair day & verry cold & windy thermometer 18 degrees below zero in the morning & 9 below at noon the wind yesterday and today fild up the roads badly

24th the thermometer was 30 degrees below zero this morning it rose rapidly and at noon was 19 above 0 it was fair in the forenoon and a little cloudy in the afternoon wind about south

the 28th it is colder today wind northeast but thaws some and our cannal is thawd out and they are at work at Joel's Shop for the first time since the 17th

Feb 4th the wind was southwest & much the warmest day we have had for a long time the snow melted pritty fast

The 7th it was foggy this morning wind southerly and cloudy all day but did not thaw but little our team went to Bridgewater on wheels today for the first time since the 3rd January

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 1st M 19th// The day has passed, I hardly know how. A very cold day however may be said of it & but very little accomplished in the line of my buisness, in the eveng I was at home & tho’ we had a good fire we had much ado to keep comfortable. — HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

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January 20, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Vari and arrived at Keratea.

January 23, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse visited the Temple of Athena at Sunuim.

In the face of the French offensive, the Spanish junta abandoned Seville for Cádiz.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 1 M 23// The weather is warmer & a little more buisness can be done. The mind touched with a feeling of life at times ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

January 24, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Keratea and arrived at the plain of Marathon.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 1st M 24// At seasons the mind thro’ the day the mind has felt the precious arisings of truth but Oh how short are its visits. My Mother continues poorly but we hope is better ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 5, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Athens and embarked on board the Pylades.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 5 of 3 Mo// Engaged all day with Sam Thurston & Richard Mitchell in taking an inventory of the personal Estate Elizabeth Hadwen. We dind & took tea With Benjamin ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 6, Tuesday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 6 of 3 Mo// Nothing material to insert, except that I am quite indisposed with a cold & sore throat — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

March 7, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse arrived in Smyrna.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 7 of 3 Mo// I am still unwell & more so than yesteray with an horseness & soreness in my throat — Brother D & Wife & brother J & Wife took tea with, Sister Rebecca set the eveng ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 8, Thursday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 8 of 3 M 1810// I went to meeting, tho’ before I went I thought I was too much unwell, but was glad I did as it was a pretty good time - A Sherman express words as follows “Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath it enter’d into the heart of Man to conceive the good which the Lord hath laid up in store for those that love him” Sarah Fish was present but had nothing to Say among us — A Cough came on with violence late this Afternoon which causes a great oppression & soreness at my lungs, medicine (however) taken this eveng has a Salutary effect ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 13, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Smyrna and slept at Han, near the river Halesus.

The New York State Senate passes a resolution calling for Governeur Morris, Stephen Van Rensselaer, DeWitte Clinton, Simeon De Witt, William North, Thomas Eddy, and Peter B. Porter to be appointed commissioners to explore routes for a canal across the state, and to recommend improvements to Onondaga Lake. ERIE CANAL

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 13 of 3 Mo// Again the usual rounds & but little else, my cold seems better for which I desire to be thankful with all the rest of my favors. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

NEVER READ AHEAD! TO APPRECIATE MARCH 13TH, 1810 AT ALL ONE MUST APPRECIATE IT AS A TODAY (THE FOLLOWING DAY, TOMORROW, IS BUT A PORTION OF THE UNREALIZED FUTURE AND IFFY AT BEST). Lord Byron “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

March 14, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Han and arrived in Aiasaluk, near Ephesus.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 14 of 3 Mo// My H & little Son spent the day at my fathers Sister Ruth was there in the Afternoon, which was very agreeable — Recd a long letter from Lewis Clarke.- ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 15, ThursdayGeorge Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse visited the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.

Last issue of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Friend.

March 16, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left Ephesus and returned to Smyrna.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 16 of 3 Mo// Our Little soon [son] seems quite unwell I suppose it owing to his teeth, none of which are through but his gums much swollen — Mary Collins spent the Afternoon & evening With us — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 28, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron finished writing Canto II of CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE:

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 28 of 3 Mo// I have experienced a little life at times in the course of the day but I am a very barran creature, & If I feel no more tomorrow I shall be of but little service at Meetings ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

April 15, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse saw the plain of Troy.

Giacomo Meyer Beer (Meyerbeer) arrived in Darmstadt with his brother Heinrich, his tutor Aron Wolfssohn, and a servant. He had come to study with Georg Joseph Vogler. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

April 16, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Lt. William Ekenhead set out on their initial attempt to swim across the Hellespont, but that day the water turned out to be too cold. Then Byron explored the Troad.

Dr. Abraham Skinner, who had been practicing medicine in Acton for some 29 years, died at the age of 53. Dr. Abraham Skinner, was from Woodstock, Conn., and commenced practice in Acton, in 1781, where he died April 16, 1810, aged 53. He married Sarah, daughter of Francis Faulkner, Esq. 1788.11

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 16th of 4th Mo// The mind not very susceptable, but a little degree of Life has been experienced. My H is still at her father’s & expects to be for several days - We spent the Afternoon with E Hosier which was very agreeable to us.- ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

April 30, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse visited the springs of Bunarbashi.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 30 of 4 M // I seem to feel allmost out of conceit of myself in every respect, but this will not do; I must try not to be discouraged but hold fast the faith however discouraging prospects may seem at present - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

May 1, Tuesday: The Salsette weighed anchor from off Cape Janissary and anchored eight miles from Dardanelles.

2d of 5 Month (May 2), 4th day of the week (Wednesday): The Salsette anchored off Castle Chanak Kalessia.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 2nd of 5 Mo// Surely those that contend, that those who are of a different complexion from our selves are not accountable beings & have not minds capable of mental improvement, are mistaken, & no greater proof is needed than in the instance of Paul Cuffe a man of colour who has been to my shop today, whose spirit seems sweet & lovely, & mind expanded far above these lower objects, he felt near to my best life & my spirit was much refreshed in his company, by the arisings of the precious life. -It has been a noisy day but no more so than common for Election days, as usual there has been much Spirituous liquor drank & peoples min in quite heat. however not much violence committed, which is a favor — 11. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry David Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

May 3, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Lt. William Ekenhead made their 2d attempt to swim the Hellespont in emulation of Leander (about 4 miles on a slant with the current) and succeeded. Ekenhead completed the swim in 1 hour and 5 minutes and Byron got ashore 5 minutes later.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 3rd of 5th M 1810// Josiah Lawton & Mary Collins were married this day, they spoke handsomely & the meeting was large & quick considering the occasion - We had no preaching & no Man Elder present the rest are absent to the Quarterly meeting - In the afternoon by invitation I went to the wedding house & took a dish of tea with them & while setting in the company I felt a sweetness to attend my mind and a little silent Supplication was breathed for their Spiritual improvements. My dear H was also invited but could not attend.- ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

May 9, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote “Written After Swimming From Sestos to Abydos.”

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 9 of 5 Mo// Again the mind occupied about that which proffiteth not. C J Tenny set the evening with us - & here is another instance to confirm the doctrine that times & seasons are not at our command, for when I was with him at his house some evengs past my mind was open & could converse with clearness on religious subjects but this eveng I was shut up & could say but very little, perhaps it was all for the best. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

May 13, Sunday: The Salsette anchored off Venaglio Point. They got their first sight of Constantinople.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day Breakfasted at J S - At meeting in the forenoon Our dear friend Hannah Dennis spoke a few words very sweetly & acceptably then Ann Smith & then our dear & venerable John Casey appeared in a long & baptizing testimony which I think could not fail [to] affect every mind present - at the conclusion our last mentioned friends requested that the inhabitance of the Village might be invited to set with us in the Afternoon & accordingly we had an enlarged meeting. The good old man was very living & Powerful in his testimony & I have no doubt his communication will live in the minds of some that were present when his body shall return to its parent dust - I dined & took tea with J S & John Casey also took tea - In the eveng went down to Avis & Ann’s where we had a sweet & very affecting opportunity. Ann took occasion to say that the opportunity was unexpected but HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

agreeable, & that she had been reflecting during the time of our silent setting together of the very great uncertainty of time, & that as she was soon to be seperated from her beloved friends & connections it was very uncertain whether she should ever see us more & if she her self should be favord to return, it was doubtful whether some that were present would not be called to their long homes, before her return, so that she felt it to be a solemn thing to part with her friends she exhorted all to be diligent & faithful that when the sumons to almighty Purity came, we might be ready [to] meet it with joy & not sorrow — It was an affecting season indeed & many tears were shed — I return’d to my friend John’s & lodged - RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

May 14, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse arrived in Constantinople.

French forces captured Lérida in Catalonia.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day took breakfast at Johns & then went to Avis & Anns & staid untill the carriage was ready at the parting opportunity (which was very solid & affecting) Ann appeard in a solemn supplication when our minds were again much affected even to many tears - Soon after they went away We [i.e.] Preserved Fish Hannah Dennis & myself went onboard the Packet & had a pleasant passage home in just 3 hours - I found my dearly beloved Wife & little son as well as when I left them & my outward concerns as well attended too as they could be in my absence -. which is cause of real thankfulness & confirmation that it was right for me to make the Sacrifice - I have been much favor’d to feel the partition that has for a long time stood between me & the precious life removed, & the life very sweetly raised in my mind which is worth all that I may have lost of an earthly nature — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 10, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron was at the Ambassador’s audience with Sultan Mahmoud II.

British forces captured the islands of Réunion and Mauritius.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 10 of 7 Mo// The precious life has been sweetly revived upon my mind this morning & desires has arisen afresh that I may be enabled to draw nearer & nearer the fountain — It has been a day throughout of more favor than common for which I desire to be thankful — My dear Cousin Alice Gould Junr Daughter of Thos departed this life this forenoon between 11 & 12 OClock after a long & uncommonly distressing Illness (a Cancer in her breast) Which she bore with great patience & fortitude, being resigned to go hence, & manifested such sweetness of spirit as renderd her company desirable to all that visited he tho’ her pain was violent, & the last time I visited her (17 of last Mo) She was HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

so low that she could speak nor bear to be spoken to but little, yet she seemd so sweet & precious in Spirit that I have not forgotten it since.- ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 14, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse sailed from Constantinople on board the Salsette with Ambassador Robert Adair.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 14 of 7 Mo// Nothing material to insert except the usual rounds from the shop to the house & from there back again ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 17, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse arrived at Zea. Hobhouse left for England.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 17 of 7 Mo// The usual similarity of my life, perhaps the mind a little more lively frame than at some of my deadest seasons ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 18, Wednesday: DeWitte Clinton’s party arrived at the outlet of Onondaga Lake in New York.

George Gordon, Lord Byron returned to Athens.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 18 of 7 Mo// My mind was quickened this morning with a little of true spirit of life, which I love to feel, & has lasted in good & comfortable degree thro’ the [day], may I be thankful for every revival & renewal of every tendering Season that occurs. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 21, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron left for Mores.

French troops once again crossed from Spain into Portugal, heading toward Almeida.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 21 of 7 M 1810// My endeared brother P Dunham has been over today & dined with us, we have had a sweet refreshing time together. we have conversed on many subjects (I trust) to our mutual instruction & edification — Oh how sweetly & preciously has the life flowed as a brook on my mind this day - truly I HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

have cause to thank my father which is in heaven & take courage, in that he hath again been pleased to unvail my spirit of that mist which is so often between the mind & heavenly enjoyment, & trust that the day of his merciful visitation is not over, but yet extended for the healing of my infermities, which are many — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 25, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron took the Greek boy Eustathius into his entourage at Vositza.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 25 of 7 Mo// Nothing material to insert - the day has passed in the usual way. No special degree of life & not as Barran as at some seasons — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 26, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron arrived in Patras.

DeWitt Clinton, one-time Governor of New York State, was visiting John C. Spencer, who had served as Secretary of War, in Canandaigua. At the local coachmaker’s shop, a “plain coachee with leather curtains” with an inscription on its back in large letters V*F was in for repairs. This was brought to his attention as belonging to the prophetess Jemimah Wilkinson, who resided with 30 or 40 followers at Crooked Lake some 25 miles to the southeast. “She is opposed to war, to oaths, and to marriage; and to her confidential friends she represents herself as Jesus Christ personified in the body of Jemima Wilkinson.”

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 26th of 7 M 1810// Our first meeting was a dull heavy time Our friend H Almy spoke feelingly & pertinently to the state of it as he expressed it, a “Dumb stupid Silence” seemd to prevail, I thought I was favor’d with ability to wrestle a little but it was not to much effect — In the last (Monthly Meeting) it seemd as if I had more life than in the last, & spoke to the buisness with a good degree of Satisfaction to my own mind — David Bowen & Elizabeth Folger Chase published their intentions of Marriage — We had no company at Dinner — After dinner We attended the funeral of Elizabeth Stanton from my fathers house, many people attended & I thought it was a good solid opportunity. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

August: George Gordon, Lord Byron visited Veli Pasha in Tripolitza.

August 19, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron was back in Athens staying at a Capuchin Monastery.12

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

12. According to Lord Byron this was a Franciscan Convent that was being occupied by Capuchins. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1st day 19 of 8 Mo// Owing to a want of Zeal in many of our meetings we [were] very small, the weather was wet which I suppose was the reason that many did not attend that does commonly — They were dull heavy meetings to me. I all most said in my heart “There is neither dews nor Rain nor field offerings” Sat most of the eveng at home except a short call at father Rodmans. — Wm Burling saild for NYork this morning — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

September: George Gordon, Lord Byron made a 2d trip to Morea. He was sick with a fever at Patras.

Percy Bysshe Shelley and his sister Elizabeth Shelley’s ORIGINAL POETRY BY “VICTOR” AND “CAZIRE” was published (in the following month is would be withdrawn).

October 13, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron returned to Athens.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 13 of 10 M 1810// It has been a day of considerable favor to me - my mind has been led into reflections of a very serious nature - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December: George Gordon, Lord Byron made a trip to Sunium.

Publication of ST. IRVYNE, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 2d Gothic novel. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1811

January: Percy Bysshe Shelley met Harriet Westbrook.

George Gordon, Lord Byron was back at the Capuchin Monastery in Athens.

The St. Helena Register was shut down after Saul Solomon, the owner, printed what Governor Major-General Alexander Beatson considered “objectionable remarks.”

January 14, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron sent his valet, Fletcher, home.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 14 of 1 Mo// A very hevy Snow Storm again today - I did not go home to dinner & in the evening when it abated we steped into neighbor Vinson & set with them. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote HINTS FROM HORACE and THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

April 22, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron left Athens aboard the Hydra.

Captain Paul Cuffe’s trading during his 1st visit to Freeport, Sierra Leone had been completed, and in accordance with a letter he had received his Traveller set sail for London rather than for America: The commercial side of his trip has been disappointing, but he had accomplished much in other areas. He had been able to gather colonists together to work out a petition for the African Institution in London with the hopes of having the document presented in Parliament. Cuffe also had taken the first steps in forming a Friendly Society, which he hoped would one day be the core of his future endeavors “for the betterment of Africa.” The Traveler was loaded and ready to return to America when Cuffe received a letter requesting his presence in London to meet with members of the African Institution....

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 22 of 4th Mo // An hint from a friend is good when spoken in a manner that can give no offence, — a friend of mine spoke to me this Afternoon that did me much good, or at least put me, on looking into my Spiritual condition to find the cause of my “great dearth & poverty,” which is no doubt owing to a want of going down daily to search after Stones of memorial. Oh that I may be renew’d in Spirit & live nearer the fountains of life — HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

April 30, Tuesday: The Hydra arrived at Valetta. George Gordon, Lord Byron went to Malta. He would be in Malta until June 2d.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 30 of 4th Mo// A number of Friends have sail’d this morning in the Packet for Greenwich among whom is my Wife They have had a very pleasant day to be on the Water & my mind has been often with them, but so it is I so situated that it is improper for me to be long from especially at a time when it is so Public as the present it is a great day among the freemasons, & tomorrow is Election & I feel insecure to leave my Watches in the Window & no one in the Shop, besides which there is generally a considerable many Watches at such times, & my pecuniary situation is low & needs all I can get — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

May: John Edleston died while George Gordon, Lord Byron was on the island of Malta. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

June 2, Sunday: That evening George Gordon, Lord Byron left Malta for England aboard the frigate Volage.

Cantata per la nascità del re di Roma by Simon Mayr to words of Muletti was performed for the initial time, in Bergamo for the benefit of the Pio Instituto Musicale. On the same day, Mayr’s cantata Numa Pompilio to words of Carrara-Spinelli was performed for the initial time, in Bergamo for the christening of the King of Rome.

That evening William J. Burchell (who was in Cape Town, South Africa from late 1810 until mid-1811) wrote in his journal that many of the people there, who had recently felt an earthquake, “coupled the comet, which had been seen every night since the 12th of the foregoing month, and the earthquake together, and drew from this two-fold portentous sign, the certain prognostics of the annihilation of the Cape.” On this night Franz Xaver von Zach of the observatory of St. Peyre near Marseille last detected the comet at an elongation of 52 degrees. SKY EVENT

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day Rose early & began to Work. - at the time Went to meeting, returned & Dined at cousin Greenes, finished what I had to do there, & went to the Widow Weedens to rectify her Clock & returned to cousin J G’s & lodged - It is disagreeable to me to work on first days but it seems as if there was no other way for me to get along - It is what I disapprove of as being made an unnecessary practice of tho’ when necessity requires it I can see no iniquity in it: first I was away from my Shop & no one to answer to my mail in my absence, & further I was obliged to be at home, to attend the vendue of D Holloway as executor to his Will — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 11, Thursday: The Volage arrived at Portsmouth with George Gordon, Lord Byron aboard.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5 day 11 of 7 Mo// It was (tho small) a good meeting to me, being favor’d to get on the spot where prayer was breathed forth for help & strength, & when the meeting concluded I found my mind in quite a sweet frame for which I desire to be thankful I heard this forenoon that John Weavers Wife died night before last in the evening & is to be inter’d this Afternoon - I should have gone to Connanicut to attend the funeral but my buisness was such that I thought best not to leave it especially as I felt no special drift in my mind to go. - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 14, Sunday: The Volage arrived at Sheerness and George Gordon, Lord Byron set his foot upon English soil for the first time in 2 years and 12 days. He stayed at Reddish’s Hotel on St. James Street.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1st day 14 of 7 Mo// I feel better today on some accounts & others not so well — In our forenoon Meeting we had a new appearance in the Ministry. it was Lydia Almy wife of Christopher. She spake low but those who set near her inform me that her words were nearly these “Altho the enemy is on one hand & the red sea on the other, yet the Lord is able to open the way for the ransomed & redeemed to pass through”-. and I think I may bear this little testimony to her first appearance, that altho I could not hear what she said, yet my mind was solemnized, & raised from a dull state to lively feelings, at only, the sight of her standing & the sound of her voice. —Sarah Fish & Hannah Dennis attend Connanicut Meeting today — In the Afternoon D Buffum had a short communication. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

August 1, Thursday: Catherine Byron, George Gordon, Lord Byron’s mother, died.

According to a report in the Edinburgh Review based upon a news account in the Liverpool Mercury, a vessel arrived on this day in the port of Liverpool with a cargo from Sierra Leone. It was the vessel Traveller the owner and master (Captain Paul Cuffe), mate and crew of which, this publication was interested to point out, were free blacks.

The article continued by remarking on what a strange and animating spectacle it must have been, to see this free and enlightened African sail with his black crew into such a port on the coast of Africa — a port which had been so lately the nidus of the slave trade.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 1 of 8 M 1811 // I expect presently to go to Portsmouth to attend our Quarterly Meeting, & am favor’d at this moment to feel desires to arise for a good time, Oh! that I may keep near to what I now feel moving upon my spirit, & thereby experience life to arise into dominion. — It rained & we had a wet ride to Portsmouth before meeting we stopped at Holder Almys, & saw several of our friends & acquaintances from off the Island, which was pleasant & agreeable At Meeting James Greene as usual opened the Service, then our dear & much lov’d friend Nathan Hunt from North Carolina, HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

delivered a powerful Gospel testimony, which according to my sense was to exceed any thing I ever heard from him or hardly any one else. The meeting seem’d cover’d with an Awful solemnity while he was speaking & the hearts of many deeply affected with the truths that he declared. It was to my mind an highly favor’d season for which I desire to be thankful. - In the meeting for discipline the buisness went on with a good degree of love & condescention — We dined at Anna Anthonys, & then Rode home, & tho it raind & we had an uncomforatble ride both in & out of town & my dear H got some wet, yet she appears not to have taken cold, for which also I desire to be thankful —— ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October: A sister of John Edleston informed George Gordon, Lord Byron that her brother had died.

The Shelleys arrived at York, where Thomas Jefferson Hogg promptly attempted to seduce Harriet. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1812

George Gordon, Lord Byron’s CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE, Cantos I and II.

In this timeframe the Lord was making desperate efforts to sell off the ruin of Newstead Abbey to obtain living expenses.

Four Approaches to the Writer’s Estate

Approach “Old Money” “New Money” “Sweat Equity” “Just Enough Money” Writer Lord Byron Sir Walter Scott Henry Thoreau Virginia Wolff

Estate Newstead Abbey Abbotsford Walden Pond A Room of One’s Own

Results Bailout Insolvency Immortality Feminism HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

A bill against the Luddites proposed capital punishment for frame-breaking. George Gordon, Lord Byron’s maiden speech in the House of Lords would be in opposition to such barbarity. COLDBLOODED MURDER WOMEN13 HANGED IN ENGLAND DURING 1812

Date Name Place of execution Crime

23/03 Elizabeth Smith Ipswich Murder of daughter

13/06 Hannah Smith Lancaster Castle Riot

12/08 Catherine Foster Newgate Making false oath

February 27, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s maiden speech at the House of Lords was in opposition to a proposal to impose capital punishment upon Luddites found guilty of frame-breaking.

LORD BYRON’S SPEECH

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 27 of 2 Mo// Our Moy [Monthly] Meeting is this day held at Portsmouth, I would have been glad to have gone, but such is the situation of my dear H that at present I feel most easy not to leave her long at a time. — Those who attended the meeting say they had a pretty good time, but suffered much with the cold in going & coming. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

February 29, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s Cantos I and II of CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE were published, inclusive of the line

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?

that would be so often quoted by Frederick Douglass in 1863 while he was seeking volunteers for the Civil War black regiments:

13. Please understand that I am limiting myself to the hanging of women and girls in England not because it is more of an atrocity to hang a person who has a vagina than a person who has a penis, and not because what goes on in England is super relevant, but because this defined subset of the available data can be used to indicate the nature of that superset of data — and because if I were to consider as well all of the hundreds of men and boys who were suffering this fate, my page would become unreadable. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Liberty won by white men would lose half its luster. Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. Better even die free, than to live slaves. I urge you to fly to arms and smite to death the power that would bury the Government and your liberty in the same hopeless grave. This is your golden opportunity.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 29 of 2 Mo// The day has passed as usual. & the mind in its usual mood ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 10, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron published the first two cantos of his CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE. The sensation would be immediate and widespread and would establish Byron in the mind of the public. He would later remark, “I awoke one morning and found myself famous.”

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 10 of 3 Mo// I have today been made acquainted with some cases wherein the enemy is secretly & all most quite openly at work at the other end of the Island, on which account I feel Sorrowfull, & may an increased concern prevail in my mind to work against his subtilty in my own heart that it may be the more clean & qualified frallies [?] his shafts against others. - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 25, Wednesday: Publication of the Twelve Dances for piano op.44 by Johann Nepomuk Hummel was announced in the Wiener Zeitung.

Samuel Wesley and his wife Charlotte Louisa Martin Wesley executed a deed of separation.

Lady Caroline Lamb gave a waltzing party at Melborne House. Among the guests were George Gordon, Lord Byron, Annabella Milbanke, Rev. Sidney Smith, Lady Jersey, Lord and Lady Kinnaird, et al.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 25 of 3 Mo// The day has rolled away much as days generally do with me — Several friends went to Connanicut to attend the funeral of our Aged & Worthy friend John Weaver whose remains were carried to the Meeting house & after Meeting were decently inter’d in the Meeting House Yard I should have been glad, & thought of going but concluded as tomorrow is our Moy [Monthly] Meeting it would not be best to leave my Shop two days successively — HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 27, Friday: Caroline Lamb wrote her initial love letter to George Gordon, Lord Byron.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 27 of 3 Mo// Yesterday toward night, Departed this Life at his house in Portsmouth HOLDER ALMY a worthy & excellent man, & will be a great loss to Society - His Ministry was generally lively & clear & I have no doubt hath been helpful to many, especially the feeble minded. - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

May 18, Monday: Amidst celebrations by night and military preparations by day, the Emperor and Empress of Austria arrived in Dresden.

John Bellingham was hanged in front of Newgate Prison, for the murder of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval a week earlier. In the cheering multitude was George Gordon, Lord Byron.

Demetrio e Polibio, a dramma serio by Gioachino Rossini to words of Viganò-Mombelli, was performed for the initial time, in Teatro Valle, Rome.

Friend Paul Cuffe was in New-York while on his way back from Washington DC to Westport, Massachusetts. He wrote in his diary that On my Return Called to see Dr. Ross, a man that Resided 7 years in Jamaica in which time he Saw most horrible abomination inflicted on the Slaves being jibetted, Launced on a Plank Down a Steep Place Whiped Hanged Burnt and racked. Lord have Mercy I Pray Thee.

During this stop-over in the big city, Friend Paul went with Friend Thomas Eddy for a visit to the African School. There was a street encounter: P.S. I was traveling in the Street With my Guide he kindly introduced me to two Methodist preachers Who accosted me thus, “Do you understand English?” I answered them “There Was a Part I did not understand (Viz) that of one Brother professor making merchandize of and holding in Bondage their Brother professor, this part I Should be glad they Would Clear up to me.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

These white preachers, in the big city for a convention of their fellows, of course made no response to a person of color’s street insolence. Friend Paul was sufficiently disturbed by the encounter, however, that that evening he wrote the incident up as a letter. On the following day he would go to the convention of Methodists and make his protest heard, and later he would pay a call on the Methodist Bishop, the Reverend Asbury, in a further effort to discuss the pros and cons of human enslavement. RHODE ISLAND RELIGION

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 18 of 5 Mo// Tho’ its seems as if there is nothing to insert, yet I feel most easy to say that times are gloomy both within & without both as respecting myself & things at large in town, State & the world. yet it does not just at this present time seem as if the devastation of War was quite so much to be feared as some little time ago —- O Williams set the eveng with us, on our part very acceptably.- ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 10, Saturday: It may have been on this day that in a transparent attempt to resolve his pressing financial issues, George Gordon, Lord Byron proposed marriage to the heiress Anne Isabella Milbanke (she had the sense to refuse him).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 10 of 10 M 1812 / This Afternoon in company with the others of the committee for the purpose visited Sarah Stevens, late Sherman in consequence of her having Married out of the order of society. — Towards night I went to Portsmouth on buisness Lodged at Z Chases. - After breakfast the next Morning I called at P Lawtons & from Thence went to Meeting which was a good comfortable time to me - no one preached — After Meeting I went to Abraham Anthonys & dined then returnd to Cousin Z Chases & took tea then Walked homeward. found my H & little son in good health. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 9, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote a final letter to Caroline Lamb, which she would later publish in her novel, GLENARVON.

Napoléon Bonaparte and the Grande Armée reached Smolensk where they proceeded to loot the city. At the same time, Allied reinforcements were attacked by Russians southwest of the city and induced to surrender.

In Newport, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 9 of 11 M / Been buisily engaged in getting in my shop wood &c. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

November 13, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron left Eywood after his stay with Lady Oxford.

In Newport, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 13 of 11 M / I felt disposed this forenoon to write to Edward Cobb of Portland, In the eveng called & set a while at Aunt Martha Goulds — My H & little son spent the Day at her fathers. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1813

George Gordon, Lord Byron’s THE GIAOUR and THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS were sensational successes; THE WALTZ (anonymous) was printed privately.

In Rotherham, Lord Byron met Ebenezer Elliott.

January: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s 2d stay at Eywood. With Lady Oxford departing for the continent, her fling with Byron was of course a thing of the past (but she didn’t know that).

Augusta moved into a set of rooms at St. James’s Palace in London.

July/August: George Gordon, Lord Byron was in London.

August 21, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron stayed at Aston Hall, and began an affair with Lady Frances Webster. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

October: George Gordon, Lord Byron returned to Aston Hall.

The Websters visited Newstead Abbey.

From this month into April of the following year, Samuel Taylor Coleridge lectured in Bristol, England on Milton, Cervantes, taste, Shakespeare, education, the French revolution, and Napoléon.

November/January: George Gordon, Lord Byron was in London.

December: George Gordon, Lord Byron was writing THE CORSAIR. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1814

January 17, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Augusta would spend the following three weeks together at Newstead Abbey.

Austrian and Russian forces reached the Langres Plateau north of Dijon. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

February 1, Tuesday: This was “Cold Tuesday” in Concord. The temperature was well below zero.

In a driving blizzard at La Rothière, a combined Allied force of Russians, Prussians, Austrians, Bavarians, and other Germans attacked the French forces. Due to the extreme weather, and some Allied blunders, the Emperor Napoléon was able to arrange an orderly retreat. The struggle on this day nevertheless produced some 12,000 casualties, order of magnitude.

L’oriflamme de Charles Martell, an opéra comique by Etienne-Nicolas Méhul, Henri Montan Berton, Rodolphe Kreutzer, and Ferdinando Paer to words of Etienne and Baour-Lormian, was performed for the initial time, at the Paris Opéra (this was a government effort to rally support for the Emperor and for France during this invasion).

Neapolitan troops occupied Tuscany.

George Gordon, Lord Byron’s THE CORSAIR hit the bookstore shelves — and on this day sold a magnificent 10,000 copies.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 1 of 2nd M 1814 / It was my intention to have gone this day to Providence to have attended our Quarterly Meeting to be held 5th day next but the River Shut with Ice last night & the Packets do not run the expense of the Stage is rather beyond prudence for me to bare & it looks so much like a Storm & indeed Snows a little this Afternoon that it seems to be rather too great a risk & undertaking for me to Walk even as far as Warren which I had contemplated & take the Stage from thence hence I see no way but to abide in the patience & see what the morrow will bring forth - My mind has been quite unsettled most of the day - but since dinner feel more like laboring for the quiet & waiting for the event. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 28, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron moved into a set of rooms in Albany, Piccadilly.

14 April 10, Easter Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote an ODE TO NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

British forces captured Toulouse.

British Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh and Austrian Foreign Minister Prince von Metternich arrived in Paris to represent their respective countries. They met with Tsar Alyeksandr I of Russia and worked out the conditions of abdication. This was presented to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, prince de Bénévent and the provisional government, who accepted them.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 10 of 4 M 1814 / Our Meeting this forenoon was pretty well attended And a season of favor - I can say ti was in good measure so the me — D B was concern’d in testimony - - - In the Afternoon father R said a few Words. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

14. I haven’t read this, and thus cannot tell you whether it contains the line “Lo, how the mighty have fallen.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

April 15, Friday: Elizabeth Medora Leigh was born.15

The Spanish National Guard, a citizen army, was created.

Prince Karl von Lichnowsky, Ludwig van Beethoven’s initial Vienna patron, died.

Des Teutschen Vaterland for male voices and winds by Meyer Beer (Giacomo Meyerbeer) to words of Arndt was performed for the initial time, in Vienna.

June 7, Tuesday: George Anson Byron was promoted to Captain.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 7 of 6 M / Attended Town Meeting being the Election of Town Officers considerable opposition to those of last year was expected, but the greater part of the solid freemen attended & Most Friends of the Town were present which I have no doubt prevented much delay in the buisness as those who were disposed to oppose were thereby discouraged - The whole buisness of the Town was conducted without a single paper Vote. — I thought I was never more sensible of the good effect of the countenances of solid people on the conduct of the loose minded, & I differ much in sentiment with those who think Friends ought not to Attend Town Meetings. I believe they may & have done in this Town much good many times for there is something in the Countenances of a weighty Friend which carries Awe over others. & it is my solid judgement that if Friends in some sections of this Country had timely exerted their influence in a proper Manner the present disastrous War might have been Averted. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

September 15, Thursday: The English soldiers and sailors who had been taken prisoner, and who were able to travel, were sent by steamboat from Plattsburgh, New York for Greenbush, New York in the care of Captain White Youngs.

For the 2d time, George Gordon, Lord Byron proposed marriage to the heiress Anne Isabella Milbanke. This time, they announced that they had become engaged.

Russian State Secretary Count Karl Nesselrode arrived in Vienna to attend the Congress.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 15th of 9 M 1814 / Late at meeting by Accident but a solid favord time to me & I believe to others. A few words spoken by C R. — This Morng Allancin Peckham of Middletown Moved in the Extra sessions of the General Assembly now sitting in this Town that the Law exempting friends & other conscientious people from Military Duty be repealed. In a very short time after the question was taken & there appear’d but five Votes in favor of 15. Medora may have been the product of an affair between George Gordon, Lord Byron and his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. Medora herself would allege as much in her autobiography MEDORA LEIGH: A HISTORY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY. If the story has any truth to it, it transforms Medora from the sort of person in whom no-one would take any interest, into the sort of person in whom some would have some slight interest. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

it. Thus the House of Assembly has again & with allmost unanimous Vote frustrated the designs of a few Malicious people who are ready on any occasion to persecute as far as their power extends — This is a fresh cause of thankfulness to the Author of every good & my heart has when ever I have reflected on the subject been tendered within me & desires raised that we who are of an Age to reap the benefit of the exemption May so order our lives & conversations as not to dishonor the Principles we Profess RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote HEBREW MELODIES.

December 24, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse left London.

In Stockholm, Muzio Clementi was elected to the Royal Academy of Music.

A convention of New England states, meeting at the State House in Hartford, Connecticut, called for changes in defense and federal taxation and issued its list of proposed constitutional amendments.

The territorial government in Kaskaskia (Illinois) authorized a prize of $50 for any “Indian” scalp, or any captured female or child “Indian.”

American sailors being held in the prison complex on the Devonshire moor near Plymouth, England received their long-awaited Christmas present when John Quincy Adams, James Asheton Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan Russell, and Albert Gallatin as commissioners on the part of the United States of America set their signatures to a Treaty of Ghent officiously terminating the War of 1812. Almost all territory was returned status quo ante, CRIMPING with other issues being either put off or ignored — but as it would turn out, the free enterprise USA would be in no great hurry to send ships to repatriate any such low-income, low-status naval laborers. They were definitely worthy enough to serve as a pretense for the war, as a “cause” — but definitely not worthy enough actually to be worth the bother of arranging such personal assistance.

(Among the prisoners to be eventually freed was Uriah Phillips Levy. Upon his return to the United States, he would become second master aboard the USS Franklin, a 74-gun ship of the line, flagship to the Pacific Squadron of the US Navy.)

It was agreed by all that if there had been anything that the war had been about, definitely it had not been about freedom for any former slaves, who were immediately to be remanded to their bondage: All ... possessions whatsoever taken by either party from the other during the war ... shall be restored without delay and without causing any destruction or carrying away any ... Slaves or other private property....

Adams, one of the American commissioners who had negotiated this agreement, had pretended to commit the United States “to use their best endeavors” to assist the British fleet in bringing the Atlantic slave trade to an end. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Two White Men Shaking Hands

Actually this international slave trade would be expanding as the clipper ships built in the shipbuilding yards of Baltimore and of Rhode Island would become able to outdistance the ponderous British men-of-war on guard off the coast of Africa, to deliver their cargoes of slaves to ports in the New World. As secretary of state and as president, Adams would have something of greater moment on his mind. He would consistently oppose any British search of these American slave vessels as a violation of the vital principle of freedom of the seas. When asked in 1824 by the British minister to Washington if he could think of a greater evil than the slave trade, he would reply that there was indeed a greater evil of which he could think, for to grant that right of search on the high seas would be to “make slaves of ourselves” — and that would be an even greater evil than continuation of the trade in black slaves.16 LA AMISTAD 16. Remember that in 1783 John Quincy Adams had visited the British Museum in London to view the seal of his ancestor Saer de Quincy upon the original parchment of the Magna Carta. He would come to consider his representing the blacks of the La Amistad as of the greatest importance only because the Amistad had been seized by the USS Washington without warrant, in a “gross violation” by the US government of a principle underlying this foundational document which his eponymous ancestor had helped to create. In other words, he wasn’t defending the black defendants at all, but was defending instead the historical significance of his alleged white ancestor Saer de Quincy. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

His father John Adams evaluated the proceedings: Nothing was adjusted, nothing was settled, nothing of substance but an indefinite suspension of hostilities was agreed to.

The British forces had, during the 17 months that they held Fort Niagara, made a number of improvements and repairs to the position. The terms and conditions of the Treaty of Ghent between the United States of America and Great Britain now called for a return to the “status quo ante bellum” — and so these troops were going to need to march away from their conquest. THE TREATY OF GHENT

December 30, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse arrived at Seaham.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 30th of 12th M 1814 / With this day I complete the 33 Year of my Age - Another Year of my life has gone & I have advanced another towards the Grave. - It has seldom in my life happened that this day has passed away unnoticed & has ever been a day of much reflection. — this has been peculiarly so - love has flowed sweetly in my heart & I desired to be thankful for a fresh evidence of the continuation of divine regard. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

December 31, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Annabella signed their marriage contract.

When the Vienna palace of Russian ambassador Count Andrei Kyrillovich Razumovsky was consumed by fire, hundreds of art works meticulously collected by him were forever lost. Two people who attempted to salvage embassy documents were killed. The count would return to Russia, depriving Ludwig van Beethoven of one of his most important patrons.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 31 of 12 M 1814 / Here ends the Year - It has been to HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

me a day of seriousness & much reflection - Who will see the close of the next is very uncertain — but it is certain that many of us who are now on the stage & probably some who are in Active life Will not. — This evening I was admitted a member of Engine Company N 5 - There are some circumstances which prompted to this measure which I conceive justifyable but from my present feelings I shall not remain a Member Long. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1815

A 4-volume edition of the poems of George Gordon, Lord Byron, and HEBREW MELODIES.

January: George Gordon, Lord Byron got married with Annabella Millbank.

January-April: During this period Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft, Clare Clairmont, and Thomas Jefferson Hogg were engaging in an experiment in free love. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

January 2, Monday: At Seaham, George Gordon, Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke were wed. Lord and Lady Byron would sojourn at Halnaby in Yorkshire until the 21st of the month.

Andrew Law sent a petition from Newark, New Jersey to the US House of Representatives to renew the 1802 patent for his system of musical notation involving four note shapes and the elimination of the staff (which wasn’t going to happen).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 2nd of 1st M / This day rode with J. Weaver to R Mitchells in Company with Abigail Robinson & H Dennis to See Thos Gould Junr who being at Cundels Mills I took the Chaise went & invited him up to Richards where After dinner we had a solid opportunity with him & discharged our Legacy of Love in a manner which affords peace to our Minds tho’ with no obvious benefit to his. — There is a solid & enriching benefit remitting from a sense of having done our duty & all that lays in our power to restore a brother but alass the poor thing seem’d shut up in a full belief that he had done right tho’ much was said & very affectionatly expressed to convince him of the error in which he is involved - Vizt that of learning the Art of War — Abigail Robinson & Hannah Dennis, seem’d to be much engaged for his Welfare — After the opportunity we spent a little time in interesting conversation in company with Richard & his wife - then I rode home with Hannah & John with Abigail. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

January 21, Saturday: Horace Wells was born in Hartford, Vermont.17

The assembled leaders in Vienna attended a requiem mass in St. Stephen’s Cathedral organized by Talleyrand, for Louis XVI on the 22d anniversary of the monarch’s execution. The requiem was conducted by Antonio Salieri. LA GUILLOTINE

From this date until March 9th, Lord and Lady Byron would be at Seaham, home of Sir Ralph and Lady Milbanke.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 21st of 1st M 1815 / I have heard many speak of their satisfaction & edification at being at James Meeting last evening This eveng rode to Portsmouth with David Williams & lodged at Cousin Z Chases RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 9, Thursday: Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft wrote in her journal: “Thursday 9th. Read & talk — still think about my little baby — ’tis hard indeed for a mother to lose a child.”

George Gordon, Lord Byron and Lady Byron left for Six Mile Bottom to visit Augusta Leigh.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

17. Wells’s drug experiments on himself would, on January 24, 1848, bring about his death. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

5th day 9th of 3rd M / Thos Jones & his companion George Philbrick were at meeting - Thos was concern’d in a short but sweet testimony. — The meeting was as well attended as could be expected considering the Walking- Rote a letter this eveng to Wm Rotch Jnr respecting Jacob Rivera RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 12, Sunday: Lord and Lady Byron began to stay at Six Mile Bottom, until the 28th of the month. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 12 of 3rd M / Our Meetings were both pretty large, no vocal communication & from my own condition I was ready to conclude it was a low season with most present but little life in circulation RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 28, Tuesday: News of the international outlaw Napoléon Bonaparte’s unopposed entry into Paris reached Vienna.

Lord and Lady Byron set out for London.

March 29, Wednesday: Jane Austen put the finishing touches on the final chapters of EMMA.

The Byrons settled at 13 Piccadilly Terrace, in a house leased from Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire.18

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington departed from Vienna to take command of his army in the Netherlands.

Napoléon Bonaparte, as part of his “Hundred Days” decreed “À dater de la publication du présent Décret, la Traite des Noirs est abolie” and French participation in the international slave trade came to an end (BRITISH AND FOREIGN STATE PAPERS, 1815-16, page 196, note; 1817-18, page 1025).19

18. “Do Men Ever Visit Boston?” is a mnemonic indicating the sequence of precedence of the British titles of nobility: D = Dukes and/or Duchesses addressed as “Your Grace” M = Marquesses and/or Marchionesses addressed as “My Lord” and as “Madam” E = Earls and/or Countesses V = Viscounts and/or Viscountesses B = Barons and/or Baronesses 19. This decree would be re-enacted in 1818 by the Bourbon dynasty. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: At the beginning of the nineteenth century England held 800,000 slaves in her colonies; France, 250,000; Denmark, 27,000; Spain and Portugal, 600,000; Holland, 50,000; Sweden, 600; there were also about 2,000,000 slaves in Brazil, and about 900,000 in the United States.20 This was the powerful basis of the demand for the slave-trade; and against the economic forces which these four and a half millions of enforced laborers represented, the battle for freedom had to be fought. Denmark first responded to the denunciatory cries of the eighteenth century against slavery and the slave-trade. In 1792, by royal order, this traffic was prohibited in the Danish possessions after 1802. The principles of the French Revolution logically called for the extinction of the slave system by France. This was, however, accomplished more precipitately than the Convention anticipated; and in a whirl of enthusiasm engendered by the appearance of the Dominican deputies, slavery and the slave-trade were abolished in all French colonies February 4, 1794.21 This abolition was short-lived; for at the command of the First Consul slavery and the slave-trade was restored in An X (1799).22 The trade was finally abolished by Napoleon during the Hundred Days by a decree, March 29, 1815, which briefly declared: “À dater de la publication du présent Décret, la Traite des Noirs est abolie.”23 The Treaty of Paris eventually confirmed this law.24 In England, the united efforts of Sharpe, Clarkson, and Wilberforce early began to arouse public opinion by means of agitation and pamphlet literature. May 21, 1788, Sir William Dolben moved a bill regulating the trade, which passed in July and was the last English measure countenancing the traffic.25 The report of the Privy Council on the subject in 178926 precipitated the long struggle. On motion of Pitt, in 1788, the House had resolved to take up at the next session the question of the abolition of the trade.27 It was, accordingly, called up by Wilberforce, and a remarkable parliamentary battle ensued, which lasted continuously until 1805. The Grenville-Fox ministry now espoused the cause. This ministry first prohibited the trade with such colonies as England had acquired by conquest during the Napoleonic wars; then, in 1806, they prohibited the foreign slave-trade; and finally, March 25, 1807, enacted the total abolition of the traffic.28

20. Cf. Augustine Cochin, in Lalor, CYCLOPEDIA, III. 723. 21. By a law of Aug. 11, 1792, the encouragement formerly given to the trade was stopped. Cf. CHOIX DE RAPPORTS, OPINIONS ET DISCOURS PRONONCÉS À LA TRIBUNE NATIONALE DEPUIS 1789 (Paris, 1821), XIV. 425; quoted in Cochin, THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION (Booth’s translation, 1863), pages 33, 35-8. 22. Cochin, THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION (Booth’s translation, 1863), pages 42-7. 23. BRITISH AND FOREIGN STATE PAPERS, 1815-6, page 196. 24. BRITISH AND FOREIGN STATE PAPERS, 1815-6, pages 195-9, 292-3; 1816-7, page 755. It was eventually confirmed by royal ordinance, and the law of April 15, 1818. 25. STATUTE 28 GEORGE III., ch. 54. Cf. STATUTE 29 GEORGE III., ch. 66. 26. Various petitions had come in praying for an abolition of the slave-trade; and by an order in Council, Feb. 11, 1788, a committee of the Privy Council was ordered to take evidence on the subject. This committee presented an elaborate report in 1739. See published REPORT, London, 1789. 27. For the history of the Parliamentary struggle, cf. Clarkson’s and Copley’s histories. The movement was checked in the House of Commons in 1789, 1790, and 1791. In 1792 the House of Commons resolved to abolish the trade in 1796. The Lords postponed the matter to take evidence. A bill to prohibit the foreign slave-trade was lost in 1793, passed the next session, and was lost in the House of Lords. In 1795, 1796, 1798, and 1799 repeated attempts to abolish the trade were defeated. The matter then rested until 1804, when the battle was renewed with more success. 28. STATUTE 46 GEORGE III., ch. 52, 119; 47 GEORGE III., sess. I. ch. 36. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

March 31, Friday: General Andrew Jackson was fined $1,000 for contempt of court. He gave his check for the fine — the amount would be reimbursed to him by subscription. (He had arrested a member of the legislature named Louallier for an article written while the city was under martial law. Judge Hall having granted a writ of habeas corpus in the prisoner’s favor, Jackson had arrested the judge and sent him out of the city. When martial law was repealed, the judge, returning, had summoned the general on the charge of contempt.)

The Congress of Vienna attached the Island of Elba to Tuscany (figuratively, of course).

George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote his initial letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

April: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s HEBREW MELODIES was published with a musical score by Braham and Nathan.

Augusta would be staying with Lord and Lady Byron in London, until June.

April 7, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron met Walter Scott at Jon Murray’s.

April 17, Monday: Lord Wentworth, Annabella’s uncle, died. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

May: George Gordon, Lord Byron became a member of the Sub-Committee of Management of the Drury Lane Theater.

May 20, Tuesday: Nicolò Paganini sued Ferdinando Cavanna, father of pregnant 17-year-old Angiolina Cavanna, for extortion.

Stephen Decatur sailed from New-York for the Mediterranean with a fleet of 10 ships, to deal with the Barbary pirates.

Sir Ralph Milbanke obtained authorization from the Prince-Regent to take the name and arms of Noel.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th [sic] day 20th of 5 M 1815 / Disappointments are often the lor of all - I cannot help feeling one of Minor importance in a considerable degree I had calculated on going this Afternoon to Portsmouth to visit my beloved Relations Zacheus Chase & his wife, but the weather is so cool & the ground so wet that it looks like an unfavorable time. — As the probability is from the age of my afore mentioned relations - the loved & greatly beloved scenes of my youth will not long remain unbroken I am a little disappointed in not being able to go conveniently, but disappointments are frequently good for us. & Such minor ones being patiently submitted to may tend to insure the mind to greatr[?] ones RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

June: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Remorse” was performed in Calne, Wiltshire.

During this month and the following one, George Gordon, Lord Byron would be visiting James Henry Leigh Hunt at Maida Vale.

June 25, Sunday: Augusta returned to Six Mile Bottom. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 25 of 6 M 1815 / Attended Liberty Street Meeting In the forenoon Stephen Grellett bor an excellent testimony his opening was “The whole need not a Physician but the Sick” his communication was edifying instructive & Powerful, very encouraging to see as [illegible] themselves under sickness & discourgament of mind, to apply to the Physician who heals all maladys of the mind, binds up the broken hearted &c — In the Afternoon he was again concerned “Watch & pray continually” from which he took occasion to recommend the necssity of keeping our spirits under subjection so that while we weere engaged in our outward concerns [three lines illegible] This testimony seemed to me to be as — ???it being a subject I have ruminated much on since I have been here — The people seem in such an hurry of spirits passing the streets about their buisness on week days that I can scarcely believe they can in stpping out of their buisness into meeting, enjoy that abstraction of mind which is desirable & to which they must attain to perform comforatble worship [very faint and scarcely legible] Just before the close Mary Hinsdale wife of Henry delivered a short but pretty savory testimony — Ann Swinbine & Eliza the young woman who lives with her dined with us also Thos Casey. Thos is at present a steady & hoopeful young man.

July 29, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron made out his will, leaving the residue of his estate to Augusta.

August: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote STAR OF THE BRAVE and NAPOLEON’S FAREWELL.

During this month and the following one, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s BELLES LETTRES, SIBYLLINE LEAVES, and BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA were being put through the presses.

August 30, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron would be visiting Augusta, at Six Mile Bottom, until September 4th.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 30th of 8th M / Set the Afternoon & took tea at Br J Rodmans It is a season of great dullness in buisness, my trade affords but little pecuniary Assistance, yet I am far from feelings as HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

discouraged as I have sometimes when things of an outward nature have been low, for which I do feel thankful. —Our visit at Br Johns was very pleasant & while setting with them I could but say in my mind, “Behold how good & how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in love” — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

August 31, Thursday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th 31 of 8 M / A Stormy morning pretty high wind & rain - I feel much dicouraged with the prospect of Portsmouth Notwithstanding it looked like a difficult undertaking to go to Portsmouth, yet as several who usualy go were like to be detained at home, my H & I took Chaise & went - The wind blew a violent gale at N E & it rained hard & I got wet, thro’ on my arms - but by means of a camblet Cloak Hannah got wet not at all, & neither of us was very little incommoded by the undertaking -In the first meeting Anne Almy appeard in a Sweet & fervant Supplication - then Hannah Dennis in testimony, the Mary Morton in fervant supplication again, & to me it was a good Meeting as I have no doubt it was to many others present whose hearts rejoiced in a fresh evidence of renew’d life in themselves & felt it extended to others - In the last meeting we had but little buisness - Wm Mitchell was permitted to marry Mary Willcox next 2nd day [Monday] in the Afternoon - A subscription was enter’d into for the purpose of raising $200 & a part of the money was subscribed in Meeting - We dined at R Mitchells. - Ths storm has been considerd to be greater by the Aged people today than any that has happened since the Church Steeple was blown down many years ago - many people went to the Beach in the course of the day & evening to See the breakers which run astonishingly high A vessel was said to be cast away in the Afternoon near Beaver tail light house — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.

November: Bailiffs entered 13 Piccadilly Terrance on behalf of the creditors of George Gordon, Lord Byron; Mrs. Clermont and George Anson Byron went to stay at Piccadilly Terrace.

November 15, Wednesday: Caspar Carl van Beethoven died in Vienna of tuberculosis. His will named his brother Ludwig van Beethoven as sole guardian of his 9-year-old son Karl, who couldn’t however be removed from the care of his wife Johanna.

John Banvard was born.

Augusta went to live at 13 Piccadilly Terrace. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

December 10, Sunday: Birth of George Gordon, Lord Byron’s daughter Ada (Augusta Ada King, countess of Lovelace), the 1st computer programmer, in London.

The city of Danzig was much injured by the explosion of a powder-magazine. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1816

In England, Mrs. Felicia Hemans’s THE RESTORATION OF THE WORKS OF ART TO ITALY: A POEM was being published anonymously after having been read and admired by George Gordon, Lord Byron and thus taken up for publication and promotion by Murray. Mrs. Hemans had begun her incredible record of publication of popular Romantic poetry, in which she would be bringing approximately one volume per year out of her oven through 1834, sometimes more than that.29

FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS The statement one commonly sees, that Mrs. Hemans was much quoted in her day in comparison with other English-language poets, simply is not accurate, as can be readily seen by consulting the Chadwyck-Healey Full-Text English Poetry Database, which of course cannot detect allusions but is quite capable of calculating the number of total entries and number of different poets who refer by proper name to selected Romantic era writers. Here is the tabulation for Hemans in comparison with some other poets of the period. She was not so often referred to as Byron, Wordsworth, or Shelley, being more or less in the same category as Letitia Elizabeth Langdon (1802-1838):

COMPARATIVE OBSCURITY

Poet 1800-1835 1835-1870 1870-1900 entries poets entries poets entries poets

BYRON 304 64 213 45 120 40

WORDSWORTH 232 54 173 55 139 35

SHELLEY 44 14 88 38 195 44

HEMANS 16 13 13 10 1 1

29. Meanwhile, she and Captain Hemans were also making babies. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

COMPARATIVE OBSCURITY

L.E. LANGDON 9 6 23 12 0 0

George Gordon, Lord Byron’s THE SIEGE OF CORINTH, THE PRISONER OF CHILLON, AND OTHER POEMS, CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO III, POEMS, PARISIANA.

January 6, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote to his wife requesting that she leave the house.

January 8, Monday: Lady Byron consulted Dr. Baillie as to George Gordon, Lord Byron’s possible insanity.

January 15, Monday: Lady Byron left London with Ada. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

January 16, Tuesday: Lady Byron arrived at Krikby Mallory. She took with her not only Ada but also a clutch of stories of incest and sodomy that Lord Byron had told to her, that she would tell her parents — that her parents would tell to everyone in Britain. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 16 of 1 M 1816 / My Mother set the Afternoon & took tea with us — Having the Ague in my teeth this eveng & sat at home & wrote to my fr Hannah Pope in Answer to hers of 10 M last. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

February: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s PARISINA.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge received grants from the Literary Fund and from Lord Byron.

February 2, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron was informed by a letter from Sir Ralph Milbanke that Lady Byron sought to be separated from him.

Karl van Beethoven was officially under the guardianship of his uncle Ludwig van Beethoven, who knew what was best. Taken from his mother, he was entered in the private boarding school of Cajeten Giannatasio del Rio.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 2 of 2 M / Our friends have returned from Quarterly Meeting bringing with them a good report — Micajah & several of our Lynn frs were there - Aslo Tristram Russel a Punlic Fr from York State — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

February 7, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s “The Siege of Corinth” and “Parsinia” were published together.

The Congress of New Granada invested Simón Bolívar with political and military control of the invasion of Venezuela from Haiti.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 7 of 2 M / This forenoon the remains of Elisha Brown were carried to Tiverton to be buried, he died yesterday in a fit on Sherburns Wharf — A solemn warning to survivors - My mind has been this day in a serious mood I hop proffitably so. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote “Fare Thee Well” to Annabella Millbank, who had in January left him taking their daughter Ada.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was in London, ill.

March 16, Saturday: Augusta left Piccadilly Terrace after four months, and moved into rooms at St. James Palace. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 16th of 3rd M / Sister Ruth & Mary spent the Afternoon, also ten children Johns school Mates & cousins - they spent the Afternoon very pleasantly in childrens play - It brought to my mind very forceably the days of my childhood. — This Afternoon Arrived in town from Portsmouth Our friend Rachael Barnard & her companion Eliza Pennock attended by Caleb Swayne of Jersey on a religious visit to friends in these parts RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March 17, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron accepted the principle of a mutual separation from his spouse.

Lieutenant Francis Hall arrived at the Canadian border.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 17th of 3rd M / Our friends Rachael Barnard & Elizabeth Pennock attended both meetings, & in both Rachael was very sweetly engaged in testimony, much to the satisfaction of Friends & I believe all who heard her — Rachael & Elizabeth appear to be women rather short of middle Age — tall & thin in stature Caleb is tall & not a full habit I should say about 60 Years if Age & has a good countenance. - RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

March 18, Monday: Gli amori di Teolinda, a dramatic cantata for soprano, clarinet, chorus and orchestra by Giacomo Meyerbeer to words of Rossi was performed for the initial time, in Verona.

Captain George Anson Byron married Elizabeth Mary Chandos-Pole. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

March 29, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote “The Sketch.”

April: Amidst dark rumors about George Gordon, Lord Byron’s character centering around an alleged affair with his half-sister Augusta, a deed of separation was drawn up and signed; he met and began an affair with Claire Clairmont, Mary Shelley’s stepsister.

April 8, Monday: There was a reception at Lady Jersey’s. Among the guests were George Gordon, Lord Byron, Augusta, Miss Mercer Elphinstone, the Comte de Flahault, Benjamin Constant, Mrs. George Lamb, Lord Brougham, et. al.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 8 of 4 M / Rec’d a letter from Aunt Stanton - This Morng Br Isaac saild in the Packet Express for N York — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

April 14, Easter Sunday: Augusta paid a farewell visit to George Gordon, Lord Byron.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 14th of 4 M / Our Morning Meeting was pretty well attended & Our fr D Buffum was very lively in Testimony on the subject of a speedy preparation for a future state - he took occasion to mention the Solemn warning of King Hezekiah “Set thine house in order for thou shalt Die & not live. he also enforced the necessity for belief in the fundamental doctrines of religion & hinted a little at what they were, & how the spirit of Truth operates in the heart converting the Soul &c In the Afternoon Meeting was small - this was a meeting to be remembered by me - tho’ a labor was witnessed to gain a settled state of mind, yet I could not attain to what I desired & When meeting was nearly done I perceived it would fall to my lot with another friend (J D) who sat near me to conclude the sitting - this brought serious reflections. The time of separation drew nigh & a conciousness of falling short pressed upon me, & brought me to reflect on the Awfulness of the separation of body & soul, unprepared. This reflection made me tremble, & on my part meeting broke in much fear — My old mistress Mary Williams came home with us, took tea & set the evening — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

April 21, Sunday: Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire. Her father, an Irish-born Anglican clergyman, would move with his wife and six children to become the rector of a curacy in Haworth in 1820 and change his name from Brontë to its more common form, Brunty. Soon Charlotte’s mother and two older sisters would die and the surviving children would be raised with the help of Elizabeth Branswell, an aunt.

George Gordon, Lord Byron signed the deed of separation from Lady Byron.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 21 of 4th M / Our Meetings were both silent - Seasons of weakness to me, but a good degree of life witnessed towards the close in the Afternoon, So that I thought “The End Crowned All” for this litte quickening I desire to be thankful. — This morning Br Isaac arrived from N York in health himself & brot the grattifying news of the health & prosperity of our friends & kinsfolk there. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

April 23, Tuesday: Cut by London society over the separation scandal, and with financial difficulties worsening, George Gordon, Lord Byron left England forever, going to Dover and a channel crossing with Hobhouse and Scrope Davies.

In Concord, Massachusetts, Daniel Shattuck got married with Sarah Edwards of nearby Ashby.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 23rd of 4 M / This Afternoon I pulled out my front tooth next my Eye tooth, on the left side - this Tooth has been long troublesome. The gun located above it has been as many as 12 Years decaying round it & about 5 or 6 Years ago I had a gum boil on it which never healed. Since which the tooth has been gradually growing loose & all that I could apply would neither heal the gum or fasten the tooth which grew looser & looser till it worked quite half way out of the socket - This in addition to grey hairs which are already increasing fast - will frequently remind me that Old age is creeping on & my days fast spending. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

April 25, Thursday: The Reverend Abiel Holmes’s NOTE ON AN ANCIENT MANUSCRIPT: ASCERTAINED TO BE A PART OF GOVERNOUR WINTHROP’S JOURNAL, COMMUNICATED TO THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 25 APRIL, 1816 (analysis of a part of Governor John Winthrop’s JOURNAL).

JOHN WINTHROP JOURNAL Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 25th of 4th M / Rode to Portsmouth with Sister Ruth to attend the Moy [Monthly] Meeting - first meeting silent - the last we had considerable buisness which was transacted in harmony - We dined at Sam Thurstons - & rode home before sunset - My H & son passed the day at father Rodmans in my absence — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

The US Congress appropriated $1,000,000 annually to the increase of the Navy.

George Gordon, Lord Byron viewed the white cliffs of the English shore.

NEVER READ AHEAD! TO APPRECIATE APRIL 25TH, 1816 AT ALL ONE MUST APPRECIATE IT AS A TODAY (THE FOLLOWING DAY, TOMORROW, IS BUT A PORTION OF THE UNREALIZED FUTURE AND IFFY AT BEST). ALTHOUGH BYRON WAS VIEWING THE CHALK CLIFFS OF DOVER FOR THE FINAL TIME, NOBODY WAS AWARE OF THAT LEAST OF ALL HIM.

May: George Gordon, Lord Byron started writing Canto III of CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

May 2, Thursday: At Carlton House, Princess Charlotte Augusta Hanover of Wales, daughter of Prince Regent George of Great Britain and Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, heir presumptive to the throne of Great Britain, got married with Prince Leopold George Christian Frederick of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, afterwards King of the Belgians. They would reside at Claremont, a wedding gift from the nation (their wedded bliss would be temporary).

Persuaded by Clare Clairmont that George Gordon, Lord Byron would be delighted to have their company, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft, and Claire went toward Dover to leave England to visit Byron in Geneva (they would arrive in mid-May and would remain near him till August 29th).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 2 of 5 M Meeting rather small - A short testimony from C R. — My Mother, Cousins Patty & Mary Ann Gardiner & Josiah Lawton & Wife set the Afternoon with us. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

May 25, Saturday: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 13th birthday. Would the following have occurred in about the year 1816 or 1817 (per his reminiscing to his journal on about September 29th or 30th, 1839)?

When I was thirteen years old, my uncle Samuel Ripley one day asked me, “How is it Ralph, that all the boys dislike you & quarrel with you, whilst the grown people are fond of you?” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

For sure Emerson was nothing like James Holley Garrison, the more obstreperous of the two Garrison boys, who would later brag in his BEHOLD ME ONCE MORE about how he and his buddy teenager had so much blackstrap rum one day, in Lynn in like this year, that his clothing fell off:

Blackstrap sold for 16 cents per quart and Satarday every apprentice an boy laid in his half a gallon for Sunday. One Sunday I with another boy had 2 gallons. This we stowed in a field adjoining the turnpike road. About 12 o’clock in the day both of us being drunk we resolved to have some sport as we called it. When the meeting was let out, we stripped off our clothes and like naked savages in their barbarous state, persued all the girls as they came along from meeting. Colonel Brimblecoms dauthers I chased into their house and nothing was said to me about it, only as a joke. ... In L[ynn] tidemen went around every Sunday to keep people from walking about in church time. It so happened that one of these came across a young fellow by the name of James Phineous Winthrop and my self. He asked us why we want in church. I told him I did not make a practice of going there. “If your not in Church this afternoon you must suffer the consequences,” said he, and left us. In the afternoon he came into a shoemakers shop were we were drinking and ordered us to Church. We took him neck and heels and put him out door. The next morning I received a note saying he was willing to settle it by my paying 15 dollers. I had not 16 cents in the world to bless myself, my clothes most all gorn and I nothing before me but a prison. We immediately sold our tools, but not all of them keeping one set for our selves. All the money we could raise was two dollers with hardly a shift of clothes to our back. We scarcely had got our tools packed before the High Sherrif and his brother a constable made their appearance. Snatching up what we had got we fled to the hills and traveling through Sagus we crossed the Ma[r]shes and arrived in Boston that night. My partner had been to sea. Taken me to a sailors boarding house we got supper and lodgeing. That night we played cards for Rum and lost all our money but one quarter of a doller. In the morning we got a pint of black strap, some tobacco, a few smoked herring, and brisket — which took all our money and we started for Providence penniless.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

George Gordon, Lord Byron arrived at Geneva and took lodgings at the Hôtel d’Angleterre, Sécheron.

Caroline Lamb’s GLENARVON, the hero of which roman-à-clef was meant to be identified as her lover Lord Byron.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge published his incomplete “Christabel” (three editions in May-June 1816), his HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

“Kubla Khan” (written in 1797), and his “Pains of Sleep,” and republished his “The Ancient Mariner.”

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day [sic] 25th of 5 M / This morning early, the news of the decease of Capt John Earl of Smithfield reached Town. His age was about 72 Years an affective event to his family & all his connections & friends, of the latter but a few men had More RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

June: George Gordon, Lord Byron (with his travelling physician John Polidori) and the Shelleys (with Claire Clairmont) rented neighboring houses on the shore of Lake Geneva at Cologny; they met regularly at Byron’s Villa Diodati, telling ghost stories for which Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft invented FRANKENSTEIN; Byron wrote Canto III of CHILDE HAROLD; after touring the Alps and visiting the Chateau de Chillon with Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron left for Italy at the end of the year.

June: Percy Bysshe Shelley toured Lake Leman near Geneva with George Gordon, Lord Byron and wrote a “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.”

June 14, Friday/15, Saturday: Having been stuck inside for several days due to stormy weather, George Gordon, Lord Byron and his guests passed the time by reading ghost stories to each other. At one point Byron challenged everyone to write their own story. Clare and Percy both lost interest fairly soon and apparently wrote nothing. Byron outlined a vampyre story that he would never finish. “Poor Polidori,” in the words of Mary, “had a terrible idea about a skull headed lady.” Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft dreamt the idea that would become Frankenstein.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 15 of 6 M / Friends have begun to come in pretty fast to the Yearly Meeting - Our lodgers tonight are only Isaac Stevens from Falmouth Calvin Straight took tea with us. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

June 16, Sunday: Celebrations took place in Vienna honoring the 50th anniversary of Antonio Salieri’s arrival in the city. He received a gold medal from the Lord Chamberlain in the name of the Emperor. During a celebration of the High Mass Salieri conducted his own music. In the evening, a concert by his pupils took place in his Vienna home, wherein Beitrag zur fünfzigjährigen Jubelfeier des Herrn Salieri D.441 for solo voices and piano by Franz Schubert was performed for the initial time.

That night Percy Bysshe Shelley and his 18-year-old bride Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft were holed up at the Villa Diodati near Geneva, with Dr. John Polidori and George Gordon, Lord Byron, because during this particularly violent storm of that strangely rainy summer, they simply would not have been able to make their way back comfortably to where they had been staying at Chapuis. Evidently due to the bad weather the group was unable to get a good cable connection for their TV (or something), and so they decided to amuse themselves by reading aloud a collection of German ghost stories, THE FANTASMAGORIANA, in one of which a group of travelers were trying to amuse one another with their respective supernatural experiences. Byron proposed the agenda that they were each to invent a story such as found in this volume, for one another’s entertainment. Shelley wrote a piece which was entirely forgettable, Byron dashed off a fragment, and Polidori began what would become the “The Vampyre,” the first modern vampire tale, the main character of which, Lord Ruthven, could well have been based upon Byron (for some time it would be presumed that Byron himself had invented the story). Mary herself did not at this point put anything on paper. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

In every month during this year there was a severe frost. January and February were comparatively mild, though there were a few cold days. The greater part of March was as might be expected, cold and boisterous. April opened warm, again, as might be expected, but then grew colder, ending in snow and ice and wintry cold. In May ice formed half an inch thick. Opening buds and flowers were killed and the corn froze. Frost, ice, and snow occurred throughout June. On Inauguration Day, in June, there was four inches of snow on the level ground in Warner, New Hampshire, while across the border in Maine there was ten inches. Almost every green thing was killed. There would be no fruit this year. Then there was frost and ice even in July. On July 5th, ice covered the ponds of New England and New York state like window glass. In August this ice thickened to half an inch. The wind was from the north, and cold, nearly all summer. About all that could be done with the corn this year was cut it and dry it for fodder. Farmers would be obliged to pay $4 and even $5 a bushel for corn from the 1815 harvest, in order to get seed for the next spring’s planting. Then the first two weeks of September were mild but the remainder of the month was cold, with frost, and ice again formed, a quarter of an inch thick. October was more than usually cold, with frost and ice. November was cold and blustering, with snow enough for good sleighing, but then December proved to be quite mild and comfortable.

Cold weather was persisting through the summer in much of the world’s temperate zones. Crops were being killed by frost and snow would be occurring in June and July in the United States. The weather this summer was so dreadful for farming, that during the following traveling season, the summer of 1817, a number of families would pack up and leave for points west. (This population migration phenomenon caused by the cold summer of 1816 would come to be known as “Ohio fever.”)

Why was this summer of 1816 in the Northern Hemisphere exhibiting such strange weather? Well, it wasn’t just the sunspots, which were extraordinarily prominent and which people were observing through smoked glass during that May and June, and also, it wasn’t just the “ice king” Frederic Tudor of Boston who was cooling off the hot spots of this planet! For in fact dust, circling the earth from the explosion of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815, in this season was reaching the northern latitudes.30 Crop-damaging summer frosts SUNSPOTS caused some of the hard-won farmlands of New England to be abandoned — fields upon which cultivation has not since been attempted. Indiana experienced an unprecedented surge of some 42,000 settlers in this year, many of them fleeing the cold weather back in New England. The drop in mean temperature was amounting to some 7 degrees in New England31 and the price of hay was rocketing from like $30.00 per ton to like $180.00 per ton. People were praying “God, please do not inflict on us another year without a summer.” Of course, in Switzerland that summer, Mary was huddling indoors to stay out of the cold and damp, and her story FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS, if you go back and look into it, or the last half of it, is a story with what would have appeared to be a wholly gratuitous amount of guess what, snow and ice and coldness.

30. Soufrière on St. Vincent had blown in 1812, Mayon in the Philippines had blown in 1814, but these became almost as pop-tarts popping up in a toaster when Tambora in Indonesia blew, as this was by far the most powerful volcanic blast of the past 10,000 years. All but 26 of the 12,000 Sumbawa islanders had lost their lives. We would have a mild taste of this volcano weather, in our own lives, in the series of cool summers after 1991 when Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines blew its top. 31. What happened in New England, what happened for instance to the denizens of Thoreau’s “Easterbrooks Country,” of course doesn’t compare at all with what was happening on the islands immediately around this Indonesian volcano, for some 80,000 people were starving to death in huts staring out at the barren, buried fields that had been their entire livelihood. (That’s them and we’re us, I suppose.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Because of this explosion of which they were unaware, Americans would come to refer to their year 1816 as “eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death.”

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, the children’s author, would write the best-known contemporary account of this strange year. The season appears to have been a repeat of the growing season of the year 1454 in the Northern Hemisphere, when the Chinese wheat crop was destroyed by frosts after a winter in which the Yellow Sea had frozen, along the coast, to as much as a dozen miles out from the shoreline.

To bring this home to Concord, Massachusetts, please note that per John Hanson Mitchell: Departures are not necessarily well documented, but there is good evidence that 1816 might have broken the back of Estabrook [Thoreau’s “Easterbrooks Country”]. In 1815 the great volcano Tambora in Indonesia blew its top, and ... here in New England the effects were especially troublesome, since the soils were wearing out and the hardscrabble hilltop farms and marginal areas such as Estabrook were already hard-pressed.... The Estabrooks, the Kibbes, the Clarks, the Browns, and other “outlivers,” as they were called, who inhabited the poor farms in the tract that would come to be known as Estabrook Woods, were not immune to this pattern of settlement, and one by one, for varying reasons, the families pulled up stakes and went west ... and by Thoreau’s time Estabrook was a haunted land, the farms deserted, the families departed, and only a wind blowing.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day / Our afternoon meeting was not quite as large as usual but proved a quiet favor’d opportunity - James Greene opened the meeting in a rather short testimony which savor’d well to me Then Gerrard F Hopkins in a large & excellent testimony, wherein the power of Truth was remarkably conspicuous - Margaret Judge concluded in a living prayer In the Afternoon James Greene again, & as usual when present opened the Service then David Harkness, then Calvin Straight, then Christopher Healy & then Calvin Straight a second time — all the appearances, I thought were in the life - & The meeting as quiet as so large & mixed a gathering could be - in addition to our lodgers, we have tonight Isaac Thorne & wife of Nine Partners & Robert Pary & wife of Pennsylvania — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

June 17, Monday night: George Gordon, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft and Dr. John Polidori continued their evening activities at the Villa Diodadi and Lord Byron wrote “A Fragment of a Novel (1816).” At midnight he recited Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Christabel” and, becoming overwrought and declaring Mary to be the villainess of this poem, Percy Bysshe ran from the room. Apparently his behavior got the group rather worried — especially Mary. What the hell was going on in the mind of this high-strung hubby?

READ “CHRISTABEL” Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day / Our meeting this morning opened under solemn covering -Jas Green opened then Hugh Judge, then C Rodman, then Isaac Thorn in solemn Supplication - at the instance of D Buffum seconded by E Thornton the meeting proceeded to business. The usual Service of this forenoon was persued, & some lively sensations excited by Several Epistles particularly the London & Virginia, pertinent remarks made several times by Hugh Judge. — In the Afternoon we enterd into the State of Societys, Some deficiencies appeared, but I thought on the whole thngs were as comfortable as at any time. (that is) in the general — Many remarks were with much feeling, weight & life. Hugh Judge tho’ deaf, sought out the cause which he knew not speaking very pertinently to divers cases while the Answers were under consideration tho’ he could not hear a single voice - Isaac Thorn Christopher Healy, James Hallack, G F Hopkins, D Harness, C Straight labord abundantly for our good, & many remarks were added by several of our own members —. The meeting concluded under a remarkably solom covering & adjourned to the 3rd hour HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

tomorrow Afternoon — In the eveng we had a large company of pleasant & interesting friends. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

June 22, Saturday: Britain ended its 13-year occupation of St. Pierre and Miquelon as these islands reverted to being a colony of France.

That night, George Gordon, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley having plans for a boat trip around Lake Geneva on the next day, they abandoned their efforts to compete in the story contest, but Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft, after her late start, was persisting. The friends discussed a subject from Madame de Staël’s DE L’ALLEMAGNE: “whether the principle of life could be discovered and whether scientists could galvanize a corpse of manufactured humanoid.”32

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day Early this morning Several friends went to fort Walcot & procured liberty to meet with the Soldiers at 11 OClock, they HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

went in the Custom House boat kindly accomodated by John Stevens. The company from abroad were James Halleck, John Hull - - - -Robert Parry, Sally Parry, Dorothy Holding, Alice Abbot of our own towns folks was father Rodman, Jonathon Dennis, John Slocum, Benja Hadwen Hannah Dennis, Ruth & Eliza Rodman. They first went to Fort Walcot where they had good service & truth was maintained, then to fort Adams where Truth also bore the Palm, & the good cause preserved -This meeting was of great weight on my Spirits & since I find it succeeded well, I feel rejoiced with those who went having travailed with them as deeply as my capasity would admit. - I was fully persuaded it was best for me not to go, but to stay & promote the meeting appointed for people of colour at 5 OC this afternoon -While our aforementioned friends were on the fort Hugh Judge, Gerrard T Hopkins & company were called to go on Board the Packet for NYork 0- which rendered my presence necessary to pay their passages as one of the committee for that purpose Robert & Sally Parry & Sister Ruth dined with us. — The black meeting this Afternoon was not largely attended, but succeeded pretty well John Hallock, Dorothy Golding twice, James Halleck twice were concerned in testimony — Robert & Sally lodged at Jonathon Dennis’s to night & expect to be at Portsmouth tomorrow from thence to Providence homeward bound. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

32. The term “scientist” in this translation is of course an anachronism, as this term would not begin to be used until 1830. In regard to the scientific currency of Mary Shelley’s galvanic mechanism for bringing life to Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s monster: In 1809 in ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOPHILOSOPHY, no less a credited figure than Lorenz Oken had declared that “Galvanism is the principle of life. There is no other vital force than the galvanic polarity.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

June 23, Sunday morning: Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft had had a “waking” nightmare: I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life ... His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away ... hope that ... this thing ... would subside into dead matter ... he opens his eyes; behold the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains ...

She scribbled a promising 1st draft of some lines: It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half- extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

She would originate a story about a monster created out of dead bodies and Dr. Erasmus Darwin’s life fluid of electricity, by a fictitious Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The lines scribbled this morning would become what now 33 opens Chapter IV of FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS.

George Gordon, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley began a boat tour of the lake.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal 1st day 23rd of 6th M 1816 / In our forenoon meeting James Halleck was largely & pertinently concerned in testimony - Dorothy Golding was short & pretty clever. - In the Afternoon John Halleck was long & I thought his testimony was pretty sound & attended with a degree of life — I believe him to be an honest 33. Laura Dassow Walls has inquired rhetorically, “Is it necessary to remark that Mary Shelly’s FRANKENSTEIN is still the paradigmatic myth of romantic science, right down to ‘Dr. Strangelove,’ Michael Crichton’s JURASSIC PARK, and the dystopias of cyberpunk?” — but as we shall see, this misappreciates our 20th-Century horror movies to have been accurate renditions of the Shelley romance, something which they simply are not. Shelley’s tale was not at all similar to the popular “Jurassic Park” with its focus upon hubristic science and the wrongfulness of others, but to the contrary was very similar to the unpopular “Elephant Man” with its focus upon our personal, instinctual, and very very wrong revulsion at the sight of human deformity. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

friend. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

(In this year Erasmus Darwin’s grandson Charles Robert Darwin had reached at the age of seven years — and his portrait was painted.)

July 27, Saturday: On their boat tour around Lake Geneva, George Gordon, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley visited Ouchy, where Byron wrote “The Prisoner of Chillon.” He finished Canto III of “Childe Harold” and wrote “The Dream,” “Stanzas to Augusta,” and other poems.

A heated cannonball fired from the gunboats of the white attacking force blew up the powder magazine of Fort Barrancas at Pensacola, Florida, causing the instant death of 270 of its defenders. After the recognizable leaders among the few survivors had been summarily executed there remained 64 black persons to “return” per the orders of Andrew Jackson “to their former owners,” which is to say, 64 burned and maimed persons to be transported to Georgia and there shared out among the owners of various plantations for whatever remaining usefulness could be extracted from such survivors as field slaves.34 WHITE ON RED, RED ON WHITE “OLD COMERS”

34. News of the event would be suppressed by the US federal government. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

August 17, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Hobhouse toured the Alps, until the 29th of the month. Lord Byron began writing MANFRED.

Publication of the Septet op.74 for piano, flute, oboe, horn, viola, cello and bass by Johann Nepomuk Hummel was announced in the Wiener Zeitung.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7 day 17 of 8 M / Rose early this morning & with John went up to Dyres shore & took a sea bathing but in the course of the forenoon found myself much unwell with an oppression at my breast & my head disorderd, inclining to a fever - took a dose of salts & find myself more comfortable this evening — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

August 29, Thursday: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft, and Clare Clairmont left Geneva to return to England.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 29th of 8th M / Rode to Portsmouth with Sister Mary & John in the Chaise & attended the Moy [Monthly] Meeting, - stoped on the way thither at Uncle Thurstons — At Meeting D Buffum preached very lively - & a pretty good meeting to me — In the last we had considerable buisness some of which labor’d & occasioned some pretty smart remarks, particularly a communication from So Kingston Moy [Monthly] Meeting respecting a matter between R Hazard & T R Williams —- Daniel Gould was restored to membership & I hope he may prove more useful to society than he has hither to been We dined at Anne Anthonys after which we rode to the new Cotton factory in Motts Gulley after taking a View of it we return’d to tea & then rode home by a little after sun set — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

November 1, Friday: Ada Byron’s christening. Augusta, who was to be the godmother, was excluded from the ceremony. Captain George Anson Byron became Ada’s godfather, and Lady Noel and Viscountess Tamworth became her godmothers. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

November 11, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron settled in Venice. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1817

Mrs. Felicia Hemans’s MODERN GREECE (anonymous), a poem opposing George Gordon, Lord Byron on the topic of the Elgin Marbles.

January 2, Thursday: The initial issue of the Vienna Allgemeine Musik Zeitung.

George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote amusingly to John Murray describing the sexual morals of the Mediterranean clime — if a woman limits herself to her husband plus one lover, she is considered virtuous; if she takes two, three, or more lovers, she might be considered a little wild; only when she becomes indiscriminately profuse, or forms “a low connexion, such as the Princess of Wales with her courier,” will she be considered to have overstepping the modesty of marriage.

Maintaining the Princess-of-Wales Tradition

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 2 of 1 M / Meeting pretty well attended, -a short offering - leanness was my companion. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

January 12, Sunday: Allegra, Claire Clairmont’s illegitimate daughter by George Gordon, Lord Byron, was born at Bath (at first her mother called her “Alba”).

In Naples the Real Teatro di San Carlo was reopened 11 months after having burned to the ground. The inaugural work was the premiere of Simon Mayr’s melodramma allegorico Il sogno di Partenope to words of Lampredi, composed for the birthday of King Ferdinando I.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 12 of 1 M / A few words spoken in the Life at meeting in the forenoon - Silent in the Afternoon & to me a Season of a little favor — Attended the funeral of two men the Capt & Mate of a vessel who were brought in from sea Dead — They were four days ago Killed by lightnening - none of the other hands hurt - a very remarkable circumstance, while I stood by the graves & saw them deposited I thought while their friends at home were in anguish at their sudden privation it must yeald them Some consolation that they were decently committed to the earth & not consigned to a Watery grave. The consideration of their very sudden removal in full strength & vigor of life affected me almost to weeping. — Cousin Henry Gould & wife set the evening with us. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

February: George Gordon, Lord Byron finished MANFRED.

April 29, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron began to travel toward Rome (he would arrive on May 26th).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 29 of 4 M / At half past 11 OClock this morng took passage with the friends to Greenwich Quarterly Meeting we were six hours & three quarters on the Water but the time passed pleasantly when we got to our old friends John Caseys we found him very glad to see us & we lodged there — 4th day morng I took Chaise & went to the fulling mill factory with Sister Mary & Susan Proud which was a pleasant little excursion for Mary as HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

she was never from home so far before. — Called at Cousin Wanton Caseys - Dined at John Caseys. — took tea at Wanton Caseys & Mary with me where I lodged 2nd day [Monday] after breakfast called to J Casey where I saw several old friends - then at James Greenes after taking a dish of tea with him — we went to meeting —James & Peter Hoxie were several times on foot. no other preachers —In the last meeting After the Queries were Answer’d - Peter Hoxies concern was considered to visit some parts of New York Yearly Meeting - which after much weighty deliberation was refer’d to next Quarterly Meeting. — Thomas Anthony was Brought forward as a minister from Greenwich Monthly Meeting the case united with & forwarded to the Yearly Meeting, which was the chief buisness that concerned us. Dined at John Caseys — took tea with father Rodman & lodged at Wanton Caseys. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

May 26, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron arrived in Rome.

June: George Gordon, Lord Byron, in Venice, began writing Canto IV of CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.

June 16, Monday: Edward Jesse was promoted from 3d-ranking to 2d-ranking commissioner of hackney coaches at Windsor Palace.35

MANFRED by George Gordon, Lord Byron was published in London.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day In the forenoon the usual buisness was enterd upon. Epistles from all the Yearly Meetings were rec’d & read & in the Acct from Falmouth Quarter was observed a proposal to remove the Yearly Meeting - & a very good testimony from Westport Moy [Monthly] Meeting was read concerning our aged & truly honorable friend Jeremiah Austin - Many testimonies were delivered by our foreign brethren, particularly S Grellet I Thornm Jr Jesse Kersey &c &c In the Afternoon The answers to the Queries were attended to, under a solemn covering, which with the other subjects drew many observations from several friends from other Yearly Meetings. — The state of the African race & a right education of children were the principal subjects tho many of minor importance were touched upon & I was gratified to observe the life which rose & shone in our Aged brother Moses Brown as well Wm Rotch Jr Wm Almy Obadiah Davis & others of this Yearly Meeting. — We have had much company today & have been favor’d to get along with rather more satisfaction at the close of the Day than common. — Isaac Thorn & Ruben House are our lodgers with several others in addition to last night. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

35. This office had been created in 1694 and would be abolished on January 5, 1832. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

October: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote BEPPO.

At the port of Alexandria, the head and torso of the statue known then as “younger Memnon” was loaded onto HMS Minerva.

November: Samuel Taylor Coleridge published “Zapolya: A Christmas Tale.”

Colonel Thomas Wildman purchased the ruin of Newstead Abbey from George Gordon, Lord Byron for a surprisingly generous amount. The Colonel’s ample funds derived from slave plantations on the island of Jamaica.

Four Approaches to the Writer’s Estate

Approach “Old Money” “New Money” “Sweat Equity” “Just Enough Money”

Writer Lord Byron Sir Walter Scott Henry Thoreau Virginia Wolff

Estate Newstead Abbey Abbotsford Walden Pond A Room of One’s Own

Results Bailout Insolvency Immortality Feminism HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1818

George Gordon, Lord Byron’s BEPPO and DON JUAN.

By this point, the quarterly circulation of the Edinburgh Review had reached 13,500. Francis Jeffrey, the editor between the journal’s initial issue in 1802 and 1829, was an outspoken critic of certain writers such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. An article written by Henry Peter Brougham that attacked the work of George Gordon, Lord Byron resulted in the writer replying with the poem “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.”

January 2, Friday: Formation of the British Institution of Civil Engineers.

In Venice, George Gordon, Lord Byron completed “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” (4th canto). To John Hobhouse, Esq. A.M., F.R.S. etc. etc. etc. My Dear Hobhouse, After an interval of eight years between the composition of the first and last cantos of Childe Harold, the conclusion of the poem is about to be submitted to the public. In parting with so old a friend it is not extraordinary that I should recur to one still older and better,-to one who has beheld the birth and death of the other, and to whom I am far more indebted for the social advantages of an enlightened friendship, than — though not ungrateful — I can, or could be, to Childe Harold, for any public HDT WHAT? INDEX

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favour reflected through the poem on the poet, — to one, whom I have known long, and accompanied far, whom I have found wakeful over my sickness and kind in my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril — to a friend often tried and never found wanting; — to yourself. In so doing, I recur from fiction to truth, and in dedicating to you in its complete, or at least concluded state, a poetical work which is the longest, the most thoughtful and comprehensive of my compositions, I wish to do honour to myself by the record of many years intimacy with a man of learning, of talent, of steadiness, and of honour. It is not for minds like ours to give or to receive flattery; yet the praises of sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of friendship; and it is not for you, nor even for others, but to relieve a heart which has not elsewhere, or lately, been so much accustomed to the encounter of good-will as to withstand the shock firmly, that I thus attempt to commemorate your good qualities, or rather the advantages which I have derived from their exertion. Even the recurrence of the date of this letter, the anniversary of the most unfortunate day of my past existence, but which cannot poison my future while I retain the resource of your friendship, and of my own faculties, will henceforth have a more agreeable recollection for both, inasmuch as it will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for an indefatigable regard, such as few men have experienced, and no one could experience without thinking better of his species and of himself. It has been our fortune to traverse together, at various periods, the countries of chivalry, history, and fable — Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy; and what Athens and Constantinople were to us a few years ago, Venice and Rome have been more recently. The poem also, or the pilgrim, or both, have accompanied me from first to last; and perhaps it may be a pardonable vanity which induces me to reflect with complacency on a composition which in some degree connects me with the spot where it was produced, and the objects it would fain describe; and however unworthy it may be deemed of those magical and memorable abodes, however short it may fall of our distant conceptions and immediate impressions, yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and of feeling for what is glorious, it has been to me a source of pleasure in the production, and I part with it with a kind of regret, which I hardly suspected that events could have left me for imaginary objects. With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese in Goldsmith’s “Citizen of the World”, whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined, that I had drawn a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether — and have done so. The opinions which have been, or may be, formed on that subject, are now a matter of indifference; the work is to depend on itself, and not on the writer; and the author, who has no resources in his own mind beyond the HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

reputation, transient or permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate of authors. In the course of the following Canto it was my intention, either in the text or in the notes, to have touched upon the present state of Italian literature, and perhaps of manners. But the text, within the limits I proposed, I soon found hardly sufficient for the labyrinth of external objects and the consequent reflections; and for the whole of the notes, excepting a few of the shortest, I am indebted to yourself, and these were necessarily limited to the elucidation of the text. It is also a delicate, and no very grateful task, to dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so dissimilar; and requires an attention and impartiality which would induce us, — though perhaps no inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the people amongst whom we have recently abode, — to distrust, or at least defer our judgment, and more narrowly examine our information. The state of literary party runs as high or higher than even on the question of Romantic or Classical as they call it, so that for a stranger to steer impartially between them is next to impossible. It may be enough then, at least for my purpose, to quote from their own beautiful language — “Mi pare che in un paese tutto poetico, che vanta la lingua la più nobile ed insieme la più dolce, tutte le vie diverse si possono tentare, e che sinche la patria di Alfieri e di Monti non ha perduto l’antico valore, in tutte essa dovrebbe essere la prima.” Italy has great names still — Canova, Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Pindemonti, Visconti, Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi, Mezzophanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Aglietti, and Vacca, will secure to the present generation an honourable place in most of the departments of Art, Science, and Belles Lettres; and in some the very highest — Europe — the World — has but one Canova. It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that “La pianta uomo nasce più robusta in Italia che in qualunque altra terra — e che gli stessi atroci delitti che vi si commettono ne sono una prova.” Without subscribing to the latter part of his proposition, a dangerous doctrine, the truth of which may be disputed on better grounds, namely, that the Italians are in no respect more ferocious than their neighbours, that man must be wilfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary capacity of this people, or, if such a word be admissible, their capabilities, the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their sense of beauty, and amidst all the disadvantages of repeated revolutions, the desolation of battles and the despair of ages, their still unquenched “longing after immortality”, — the immortality of independence. And when we ourselves, in riding round the walls of Rome, heard the simple lament of the labourers’ chorus, “Roma! Roma! Roma! Roma non è più come era prima”, it was difficult not to contrast this melancholy dirge with the bacchanal roar of the songs of exultation still yelled from the London taverns, over the carnage of Mont St Jean, and the betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, of France, and of the world, by men whose conduct you yourself have exposed in a work worthy of the better days of our history. For me, Non movero mai corda Ove la turba di sue ciance assorda. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were useless for Englishmen to enquire, till it becomes ascertained that England has acquired something more than a permanent army and a suspended Habeas Corpus: it is enough for them to look at home. For what they have done abroad, and especially in the South, “Verily they will have their reward”, and at no very distant period. Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agreeable return to that country whose real welfare can be dearer to none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its completed state; and repeat once more how truly I am ever

Your obliged And affectionate friend, Byron.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 2 of 1st M / Aunt Molly Gould Set the Afternoon with us, also Martha Aleman. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

February 16, Monday: Lord Blessington married Margaret Powers, widow of Mr. St. Leger Farmer. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

March 3, Tuesday: Sei gegrüsst, Frau Sonne, mir, a lied by Carl Maria von Weber, was performed for the initial time, as part of Das Turnier zu Kronstein, oder Die drei Wahrzeichen, a play by Holbein, in the Dresden Hoftheater.

George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote that he had recently witnessed in Venice a performance of the opera “Otello.” His evaluation was that Gioachino Rossini had “crucified” Shakespeare and that the music was “good but lugubrious.”

March 11, Wednesday: Henry Jacob Bigelow was born, a son of Dr. Jacob Bigelow and Mary Scollay Bigelow.

Sarah Elizabeth Shattuck was born in Concord, 2d child of Daniel Shattuck and Betsey Miles Shattuck.

Official date of publication36 of the story by Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley about the birth of a monster out of dead bodies with the help of Dr. Erasmus Darwin’s electricity, FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS, with a preface ostensibly authored by the author but, for some reason, actually written for her by her spouse Percy Bysshe Shelley: “The event on which the interest of the story depends is exempt from the disadvantages of a mere tale of spectres or enchantment.”

This husbandly evaluation was accurate. You should notice that there is simply no “antiscientism” to be found

36. Actually, copies of her anonymous book had begun to be offered by the small London publishing house of Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mayor, and Jones during December of the previous year. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

in this romance which might have given a 19th-Century person such as Henry Thoreau pause.

The antiscientism with which we are so familiar actually is all stuff which Hollywood has imported into the tale during the 20th Century! The 1931 originary movie would begin with an anonymous authoritative lecturer setting the scene by informing us that we are to learn of “a man of science who sought to create a man after his own image without reckoning upon God.” This movie’s 1935 sequel “Bride of Frankenstein” would be even more explicit, in presenting an actress portraying the author engaged in conversation with Mr. Shelley and George Gordon, Lord Byron, going: “My purpose was to write a moral lesson of the punishment that befell a mortal man who dared to emulate God.”

But where had the real Mary Shelley ever expressed such an attitude? In fact she had placed in Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s mouth, as his dying words, the hope that although he had failed in his scientific objective to “renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption,” there was still room for hope as “another may succeed.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

April 22, Wednesday: Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote again to George Gordon, Lord Byron, urging in the strongest possible moral terms that he involve himself again with the mother, Claire Clairmont, of his illegitimate daughter. Taking Allegra away from her mother was simply wrong, wicked, evil. Byron remained entirely unmoved: he wanted his daughter but would have nothing further to do with its mother. She’d been an OK fuck, and that was about it.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 22nd of 4 M 1818 / This morning Aunt Stanton sailed for N York — Yesterday we had the news of the sudden departure from time of our cousin Dorcas Gardiner & this morning soon after Aunt Stanton left us - Word was brought over from Narragansett that Peleg Gardiner father of Dorcas Died twelve hours after her -this is an afflicting stroke to the family, to have two corpses laying in one house at one time is no common circumstance. & from the near friendship which existed between My mother & cousin Peleg I see nothing but that I must go over to Narragansett to the funeral, tho’ much against my interest, being behind hand in my buisness already On mature consideration this Afternoon of Aunt Molly Wantons situation &c I concluded not to go to Narragansett RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

April 28, Tuesday: Launching of the steamboat Walk-in-the-Water.

George Gordon, Lord Byron’s illegitimate daughter Allegra by Claire Clairmont was forwarded to her father by her mother in the charge of a servant, Louise (Elise) Duvillard.

June 30, Tuesday: Le petit chaperon rouge, an opéra comique by Adrien Boieldieu to words of Théaulon de Lambert after Perrault, was performed for the initial time, at the Théâtre Feydeau, Paris.

George Anson Byron III, son of Captain George Anson Byron and Elizabeth Mary Chandos-Pole, was born. (This infant would grow up to become the 8th Baron Byron.) GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 30 of 6 M / Rose early this morning (as I have done several running) & went over to the Point & took a sea bathing, which was very refreshing. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

August 17, Monday: Percy Bysshe Shelley departed for Venice with Claire Clairmont. They were in the expectation that they would be able to persuade George Gordon, Lord Byron to allow her to see her illegitimate daughter by him, Allegra Byron.

August 27, Thursday: The day after arriving in Venice, Percy Bysshe Shelley visited George Gordon, Lord Byron and sent off a letter summoning Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley and the children (with Milly and a new servant named Paolo Foggi).

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

5th day 27th of 8the M / Rode with my H & John to Portsmouth to attended the Moy [Monthly] Meeting - went out by the way of Green End & took the lower rode & came out by Elams & Isaac Chases — This is a part of the Island which Hannah had never before seen, we stoped at Uncle S Thurstons. At meeting (which was silent) my mind was favord with quiet — In the last we had an exercising case some pleasant ones, & on the whole a pretty good meeting - we dined at Uncle Thurstons & took tea at Uncle Richd Mitchells. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

September: George Gordon, Lord Byron finished Canto I of DON JUAN. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1819

George Gordon, Lord Byron’s MAZEPPA; “Ode to Venice”; CHILDE HAROLD (all four cantos published together).

January 20, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron finished Canto II of DON JUAN.

April: George Gordon, Lord Byron met Teresa Guiccioli at the Countess Benzoni’s in Venice.

April: The New Monthly Magazine published “The Vampyre,” attributing this piece to George Gordon, Lord Byron. The next month’s issue would convey a letter from Dr. Polidori in which he would lay claim to having authored the story despite the fact that he had based it upon an unfinished piece by Byron.

Late May: Late in the month, George Gordon, Lord Byron joined the Countess Guiccioli at Ravenna.

July 15, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s DON JUAN I-II was published anonymously and then, to Murray’s distress, pirated.

On this evening John Keats wrote again from Shanklin on the Isle of Wight to Fanny Brawne: My love — I have been in so irritable a state of health these two or three last days, that I did not think I should be able to write this week. Not that I was so ill, but so much so as only to be capable of an unhealthy teasing letter. To night I am greatly recovered only to feel the languor I have felt after you touched with ardency. You say you perhaps might have made me better: you would then have made me worse: now you could quite effect a cure: What fee my sweet Physician would I not give you to do so. Do not call it folly, when I tell you I took your letter last night to bed with me. In the morning I found your name on the sealing wax obliterated. I was startled at the bad omen till I recollected that it must have happened in my dreams, and they you know fall out by contraries. You must have found out by this time I am a little given to bode ill like the raven; it is my misfortune not my fault; it has proceeded from the general tenor of the circumstances of my life, and rendered every event suspicious. However I will no more trouble either you or myself with sad prophecies; though so far I am pleased at it as it has given me opportunity to love your disinterestedness towards me. I can be a raven no more; you and pleasure take possession of me at the same moment. I am afraid you have been unwell. If through me illness have touched you (but it must be with a very gentle hand) I must be selfish enough to feel a little glad at it. Will you forgive me this? I have been reading lately an oriental tale of a very beautiful color. It is of a city of melancholy men, all made so by this circumstance. Through a series of adventures each one of them HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

by turns reach some gardens of Paradise where they meet with a most enchanting Lady; and just as they are going to embrace her, she bids them shut their eyes they shut them and on opening their eyes again find themselves descending to the earth in a magic basket. The remembrance of this Lady and their delights lost beyond all recovery render them melancholy ever after. How I applied this to you, my dear; how I palpitated at it; how the certainty that you were in the same world with myself, and though as beautiful, not so talismanic as that Lady; how I could not bear you should be so you must believe because I swear it by yourself. I cannot say when I shall get a volume ready. I have three or four stories half done, but as I cannot write for the mere sake of the press, I am obliged to let them progress or lie still as my fancy chooses. By Christmas perhaps they may appear, but I am not yet sure they ever will. ’Twill be no matter, for Poems are as common as newspapers and I do not see why it is a greater crime in me than in another to let the verses of an half-fledged brain tumble into the reading-rooms and drawing-room windows. Rice has been better lately than usual: he is not suffering from any neglect of his parents who have for some years been able to appreciate him better than they did in his first youth, and are now devoted to his comfort. Tomorrow I shall, if my health continues to improve during the night, take a look fa[r]ther About the country, and spy at the parties about here who come hunting after the picturesque like beagles. It is astonishing how they raven down scenery like children do sweetmeats. The wondrous Chine here as a very great Lion: I wish I had as many guineas as there have been spy-glasses in it. I have been, I cannot tell why, in capital spirits this last hour. What reason? When I have to take my candle and retire to a lonely room, without the thought as I fall asleep, of seeing you tomorrow morning? or the next day, or the next — it takes on the appearance of impossibility and eternity — I will say a month — I will say I will see you in a month at most, though no one but yourself should see me; if it be but for an hour. I should not like to be so near you as London without being continually with you: after having once more kissed you Sweet I would rather be here alone at my task than in the bustle and hateful literary chitchat. Meantime you must write to me as I will every week for your letters keep me alive. My sweet Girl I cannot speak my love for you. Good night! and Ever yours John Keats

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 15th 7th M 1819 / Our meeting today was rather thin but we had the company of several who were not members, some of whom I believe suffer loss by standing without the pale of society. may the time come when they may come forward in usefulness among us. —it was a season of some favor & Hannah Dennis was engaged in a lively & pertinent testimony. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

August 10, Tuesday: Kantate zum Geburtstag des Sängers Johann Michael Vogl D.666 for mixed voices and piano by Franz Schubert to words of Stadler was performed for the initial time, at the home of Josef von Koller, in Steyr.

At Harvard College’s Divinity School, Mr. Andrews Norton was inaugurated as the Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature. His full service as Dexter Lecturer and then as Dexter Professor would amount to eleven years. Before autumn of this year, at the Harvard Divinity School, no distinction of classes had existed. At this point the students were divided into a 1st-year class, a 2d-year class, and a 3d-year class.

George Gordon, Lord Byron left Ravenna for Bologna.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 10 of 8 M / Attended the funeral of Edw W Lawtons child the funeral was after the manner of Friends, & I thought the sitting was favor’d with a good degree of solemnity. — he was once a member & both he & his wife attenders of friends Meeting RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

September 18, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Teresa left Bologna together for La Mira, near Venice.

Jean-Bernard-Léon Foucault was born (in 1851 his pendulum would demonstrate the rotation of the earth).

Le testament et les billets-doux, a comédie mêlée de chant by Daniel François Esprit Auber to words of Planard, was performed for the initial time, at the Théâtre Feydeau, Paris.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 18th of 9 M / Uncle & Aunt Stanton with my Mother dined with us. After Dinner Took Chaise with Uncle Stanton & rode to Portsmouth, set a little while at his cousin Stephen Slocum then Called at Uncle Thurstons & took tea. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

October 26, Tuesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron bragged on this day, in a letter to a friend, about his sexual record — about his “tooling” (that is how he put it) in a post-chaise, in a hackney coach, in a Gondola, against a wall, in a court carriage, in a vis a vis, on a table and under it. At this point he had published the first two parts of DON JUAN and was working on the third part, and considered that a poet lacking in that sort of sexual experience couldn’t possibly have authored such excellent stuff.

October 29, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron defended himself against accusations of debauchery: “I should like to know who has been carried off, except poor dear me — I have been more ravished myself than anybody since the Trojan war.”

In preparation for being admitted into the federal union by an act of Congress on March 3, 1820, on this day Maine adopted a constitution vesting the powers of the government in three distinct departments, the legislative, executive and judicial. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

November: George Gordon, Lord Byron finished Canto III, and was writing Canto IV, of DON JUAN.

December 24, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron settled at Ravenna. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1820

Felicia Dorothea Hemans’s “Stanzas to the Memory of the Late King,” and her THE SKEPTIC attacking George Gordon, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

January 2, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron had been married to Penelope for 5 years but at this point they both realized their union had been an unhappy one: ON MY WEDDING-DAY. Here’s a happy new year! but with reason I beg you’ll permit me to say — Wish me many returns of the season, But as few as you please of the day.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 2nd of 1st M / Our Meetings were both silent & pretty well attended. — particularly in the Morning my mind was favor’d with sweetness & religious sensibility, for which I desire to be thankful RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

March: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote THE PROPHECY OF DANTE. DANTE ALIGHIERI

April: George Gordon, Lord Byron took part in the insurgent movement against Papal and Austrian domination.

July 12, Wednesday: Pope Pius VII pronounced the separation of the Count and Countess Guiccioli. The wife Teresa would go to live with her father Count Gamba while the husband George Gordon, Lord Byron would continue for 15 months to reside at the Palazzo Guiccioli.

Mass had been first performed in the port city of Charleston on the eastern coast of the American colonies in 1786 by an Italian priest on his way to South America, for a congregation of merely a dozen persons. By a year or two later the local congregation had risen to several hundred and was being tended to by an Irish priest in an abandoned Methodist meetinghouse (in 1789 this property was purchased by the Reverend Thomas Keating and the building repurposed as “St. Mary’s”). In 1791 the Roman Catholic Church of Charleston had been incorporated by Act of the Legislature. The Diocese of Charleston was established on this day to include both what is now Georgia and what is now North Carolina. The first Bishop of Charleston, the Right Reverend John England, would be consecrated in Cork, Ireland on September 21, 1820 and would arrive on this coast during December (Georgia would in 1850 be separated off as the territory of the new Diocese of Savannah, and North Carolina would in 1868 become a vicariate Apostolic).

November: George Gordon, Lord Byron finished Canto V of DON JUAN. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1821

January 2, Tuesday: Lieutenant George Back arrived at the trading posts on Lake Athabasca. When the new supplies arrived, he would take them to Fort Enterprise.

George Gordon, Lord Byron had been married to Penelope for six years but only the first year had been happy: EPIGRAM ON MY WEDDING-DAY. To Penelope. This day, of all our days, has done The worst for me and you :— ’Tis just six years since we were one, And five since we were two.

Early in the month there would occur a spate of marches in honor of Lady Caroline Amelia of Brunswick- Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales becoming the Queen Consort of the empire. King George IV’s proclamation as king would be met, in a number of cities, with shouts of “Queen, Queen, Long Live the Queen.” The monarch would be booed even at Ascot. There would be street cries of “No Queen, No King.” London walls would be chalked with the slogan “The Queen Forever, the King in the River.”

February 24, Saturday: The failure of the Carbonari plan.

“Matilde Shabran ossia Bellezza, e cuor di ferro,” a melodramma giocoso by Gioachino Rossini to words of Ferretti after Hoffmann and Boutet de Monvel, was performed for the initial time, in Rome’s Teatro Apollo, and was conducted by Nicolò Paganini (the work encountered a mixed reception).

March: The Greeks in Morea rose against Turkish rule.

March: Julia Thuillier Savage Landor gave birth to a female infant that would be christened as Julia.

Austrian troops crushed the Neapolitan republic and restored the hegemony of the Bourbons throughout Italy. NAPLES HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

March: Four-year-old Allegra having come to be more bother than she was worth, she was packed off to be cared for at the convent of Bagnacavallo.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

May: George Gordon, Lord Byron finished SARDANAPALUS.

July: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote CAIN.

Banishment of the Gamba Family.

August: John Williams of Gloucester was lost at sea.

Upon publication of George Gordon, Lord Byron’s “Don Juan” III-V, Murray’s premises in London were mobbed by Booksellers’ messengers.

Percy Bysshe Shelley visited Lord Byron at Ravenna and urged him and the Gambas to move to Pisa.

Shelley, at age 19, to Elizabeth Hitchener: “Adequacy of motive is sufficient ... potence will become omnipotence.”

Contractor William Britton, aided by 30 convicts from Auburn Prison, began construction of Rochesterville’s Erie Canal Aqueduct over the Genesee River.

October 29, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron left Ravenna to rejoin Teresa at Pisa.

November: George Gordon, Lord Byron and the Shelleys joined in Pisa, forming the “Pisan circle.” There Lord Byron began writing “The Deformed Transformed.”37 HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

November 1, Thursday: George Gordon, Lord Byron arrived in Pisa. (The Gambas had preceded him during August.)

When the Lake Erie Steamboat Company’s Great Lakes steamer Walk-in-the-Water, 1st steamship to have plied the Great Lakes waterways on a regular schedule, ran aground during a storm in Lake Erie off Buffalo, there were no injuries. Judge Samuel Wilkinson made a deal with a representative of the steamboat company: he would see to it that the boat was freed by May 1st of the following year or forfeit $150 for each day that deadline was missed, whereas if that deadline was met, the company would commission the building of a new boat in Buffalo. TIMELINE OF ACCIDENTS

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 11th M 1st 1821 / Our meeting was very small owing to its being a Stormy day & the Quarterly Meeting that is now Sitting at Swansey. — to me it was a season of wading but by keeping under the exercise & a pretty close watch (for me) I thought the meeting was favord in closing solidly. - It would have been greatful to have been able to go to the Quarterly meeting & from thence to Providence to meet with the School committee, but So is my way hedged about, in such away that much travelling is not proper for me - may, I however cultivate in my mind a spirit of gratitude for favors vouchsafed & humbly hope for more. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

37. Was this the winter spoken of by Kay Redfield Jamison in TOUCHED WITH FIRE (The Free Press, 1993)? The winter before Byron sailed for Greece, an English physician observed the poet’s melancholy and reported that Byron had asked him, “Which is the best and quickest poison?” His sudden and ungovernable rages, which had been part of his emotional makeup since childhood, and which had been especially pronounced during his year with Lady Byron, became more frequent and more furiously irrational. Moore noted that one of the grounds for the charges of insanity brought by Lady Byron against her husband, in addition to fears for her own safety, was the fact that Byron had taken an old watch that he loved and had had for years, and in “a fit of vexation and rage... furiously dashed this watch upon the hearth, and ground it to pieces among the ashes with the poker.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1822

The Bowles Controversy: George Gordon, Lord Byron’s “A Letter to [John Murray] on the Rev. W.C. Bowles’s Strictures on ... Pope.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley went to Italy where he, James Henry Leigh Hunt, and Lord Byron would publish the journal The Liberal (by publishing it in Italy the three men were able to remain free from prosecution by the British authorities). The 1st edition of The Liberal would sell 4,000 copies but soon after its publication Shelley would be lost at sea while sailing to meet Hunt.

January: George Gordon, Lord Byron began Cantos XV-XVI of DON JUAN, “The Deformed Transformed.” ENGLISH EVENTS OF 1822

The “Pisan Circle” centering on Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley planned theatricals.

In this timeframe Shelley was working on “Charles the First.”

January 28, Monday: Zoraida di Granata, a melodramma eroico by Gaetano Donizetti to words of Merelli, was performed for the initial time, in the Teatro Argentina, Rome.

Lady Noel died. George Gordon, Lord Byron and Lady Byron took the additional name of Noel.

February: George Gordon, Lord Byron wrote Cantos VI, VII, and VIII of DON JUAN. Robert Southey attacked Lord Byron in The Courier. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Hellas was published. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

April 20, Saturday: Death of Allegra, 5-year-old illegitimate daughter of George Gordon, Lord Byron with Claire Clairmont, due to typhus or malaria, at the Roman Catholic convent to which she had been consigned.

Inconvenient and Dead (but not Forgotten) Charles Taber was born to William Congdon Taber and Hannah Tucker Shearman or Sherman Taber (1801- 1858). He would be educated at the Friends’ School in Providence, Rhode Island, and then at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.38 RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

End of April: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont desired that their illegitimate daughter Allegra be buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s at Harrow on the Hill, London, England. The aristocratic Anglicans of Harrow School were not opposed to this, and the evangelicals of the Clapham sect agreed with

this hidebound religious group that in order properly to safeguard the morals of the school’s scholar boys, there could be no tombstone. However, the Vicar, the Reverend John William Cunningham, then blundered into something strange by asking Byron’s friend Henry Drury, a tutor at Harrow School, to convey to the poet his compliments on the recently published CAIN: A MYSTERY. Drury was not discrete in his conversations and rumors about this obsequious behavior spread. Henry Drury’s friend Frances Trollope would create a satirical poem in which the good vicar for this blunder would be made to appear ridiculous. This sort of publicity would not help him one little bit in the ongoing struggle between his evangelical friends of the Clapham sect and the Anglicans who had set out to control Harrow School (and were well on their way to making themselves “high- church”).

38. This is the Quaker who during 1838-1842, as a teenage New Bedford bookstore clerk recently graduated from Haverford College, would be teaching Frederick Douglass to read. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

July: James Henry Leigh Hunt moved to Pisa to join George Gordon, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley in publishing The Liberal.

July 8, Monday: In the “Long Woods” purchase, the Chippewa tribe released a huge tract of land in Ontario to the United Kingdom.

Spanish Royal Guards were defeated in Madrid by troops and militia loyal to the ministry.

In Pisa, George Gordon, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley had renewed their friendship and found they had a common interest in heroic adventures upon the wine-dark sea. Byron was doing well, financially, and was building what he termed a “war-chest” for political adventures in the East Mediterranean. He also had a classy schooner built for himself in Genoa, a schooner fit for a man who was going to become, somewhere, somehow, a dashing monarch. Not uninterestingly, he had named this new schooner the Bolivar. So Shelley, HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

age 29, to compete, had to have the schooner rigging of his yacht Don Juan, a 24-footer with twin mainmasts,

re-rigged in Livorno, or “Leghorn,” so it would sail “like a witch,” and had to add a false prow and stern so he could plow through larger waves on the Mediterranean. Shelley was falling out of love with Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley, his 2d wife, and into love with the wife of his friend Lieutenant Edward Williams of the East India Company, named Jane, who played the guitar. On the way back to Lerici, some ten miles from shore, he and Williams on board his refitted Don Juan were observed to be near the masts with full sail set in a stiff wind, with one of the two grabbing the other by the arm as if to say “No, damn it, keep going, we’re cruising!” Whereupon, smacking into a wave, the craft disintegrated. When the bodies were fished out of the ocean, Byron threw a romantic Viking funeral for Shelley on the sand of the beach. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

July 18, Thursday: At the Providence, Rhode Island meetinghouse for black people, Brother Asa C. Goldbury, “a man of colour,” was ordained.

It was a hot summer day but there was business to be attended to on the shore at Lericcio near Leghorn. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s corpse had been recovered in an advanced state of decomposition and needed to be disposed of in accordance with Italian sanitary regulations. It was not the custom at the time for the widow to attend such an event and Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley was elsewhere. James Henry Leigh Hunt remained in the carriage to keep out of the sun. George Gordon, Lord Byron took to the coolness of the surf and, eventually, swam out to his boat leaving Trelawny to witness the actual burning, which took place in a metal furnace that hired porters had dragged out onto the beach. When nothing was left in the ashes but jaw, skull, and heart, Trelawny raked out that carbonized lump as a souvenir (eventually he would be persuaded to turn it over to the widow and she would retain it wrapped in silk, in her drawer; in 1889 it would be interred with their son Percy Florence Shelley).39 THE MARKET FOR HUMAN BODY PARTS

August: George Gordon, Lord Byron was writing Cantos IX, X, and XI of DON JUAN.

August 15, Thursday: After the two drownings on July 8th when the yacht had sunk during a squall off Livorno, the body of Edward Williams had been cremated on the 13th where it had come to the shore near Via Reggio, and the body of Percy Bysshe Shelley had been cremated on the shore at Lericcio near Leghorn. On this day Edward John Trelawny described the occasion: Three white wands had been stuck in the sand to mark the Poet’s grave, but as they were at some distance from each other, we had 39. Absolutely nothing in the famous 1889 painting of the cremation by Louis Édouard Fournier is accurate. It had not been a desolate beach. It had not been dusk. The witnesses had not swaddled themselves in heavy coats against the cold. Mary had not knelt in prayer. Hunt and Byron had not struck poses. The corpse, which at that point had neither hands nor a face, was not placed on a pyre of branches. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

to cut a trench thirty yards in length, in the line of the sticks, to ascertain the exact spot, and it was nearly an hour before we came upon the grave. Byron could not face this scene, he withdrew to the beach and swam off to the Bolivar. Leigh Hunt remained in the carriage. The fire was so fierce as to produce a white heat on the iron, and to reduce its contents to grey ashes. The only portions that were not consumed were some fragments of bones, the jaw, and the skull, but what surprised us all, was that the heart remained entire. In snatching this relic from the fiery furnace, my hand was severely burnt; and had anyone seen me do the act I should have been put into quarantine. Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley would return to London, where she would reside briefly with her father William Godwin before taking her own lodgings nearby.

The English vessel Orion, Captain William A. Richardson, came to anchor at Yerba Buena in San Francisco Bay.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 15 of 8 M / Our Meeting was a good one & pretty well [— tended] RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

September: George Gordon, Lord Byron settled at Genoa. Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley and the Hunts settled together nearby, at Albaro outside Genoa (they would remain there through July 1823 although there would be friction with the Hunts). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

October 15, Tuesday: The initial issue of the magazine The Liberal included George Gordon, Lord Byron’s “Letters to the Editor of ‘My Grandmother’s Review’” and “The Vision of Judgement” (the latter of which would result in hostile reviews, and John Hunt’s prosecution).

Obadiah Moses Brown, son of Friend Moses Brown, died during his 51st year. He had bequeathed his library and a considerable sum of money to the Quaker Yearly Meeting School in Providence, Rhode Island on the creation of which he and his father had been for so many years laboring.Extracts from the will of Obadiah M.

MOSES BROWN SCHOOL Brown dated March 28, 1814, and from the codicil to the said will dated October 14, 1822, relating to the “Yearly Meeting School” as a legatee, as copied from the official clerk’s copy in the municipal records at the Providence, Rhode Island Town Hall by Friend John R. Kellam during October 2007: .... (from the will:) Item. I give to my honoured Father Moses Brown, as Treasurer of the Yearly Meeting of Friends School Fund or to his Successor that may hereafter be appointed by the Meeting for Sufferings in the Capacity of the said School Committee, an annuity of three thousand Dollars, and hereby authorize and direct my Executors to pay the same in one Year after my Decease to the said Treasurer for the Time being weather [sic] the School be in operation or not. That the Sum be a part of the Fund of said Institution to be applied for the purpose of procuring an Establishment in Land, Buildings and furnishings the necessary accommodations paying the Salaries of Instructors and assistants, and also the Board of the Scholars and Family of the Institution / nearly similar to Friends Boarding Schools of the Yearly Meeting of New York at Nine Partners, or at Weston in Pennsylvania / wherein the Children members of our religious Society of Friends with such others as may be thought best to be admitted / may receive a religious and guarded Education free from the contaminating Influence of the vain fashionable World which leads young minds from the Simplicity of Truth, and that meek and quiet Spirit exhibited by our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ whom we profess to follow.

Item. I also give / after the Decease of my Wife Dorcas Brown / the annuity of Three thousand Dollars more to the aforesaid Institution making up the Sum of Six thousand Dollars to be paid by my Executors in one year after the Decease of my Wife, and HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

annually afterwards to the Treasurer of the said School Fund for the Time being for the purpose of supporting and perpetuating the Institution as aforesaid.

Item. I give all my Books and Maps to the Yearly Meeting School after the Decease of my Wife, or when the School shall be got under Way, providing she is consenting thereto how soon soever the School may be in operation.

.... (from the codicil:) I hereby confirm the Legacy given in my Will for the use of the Yearly Meetings School, which was not then located, but now under successful operation in the Lot given by my Father for that purpose to the Institution there established to be and remain for the use of said Establishment forever. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Friend Obadiah M. Brown

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould had commented on this in his journal: 3rd day 15th of 10th M 1822 / Heard this morning of the Decease of our Valued Friend Sylvester Weeks at his house in Cranston, he has suffered a very painful illness of some obstruction in the Urine passages. — He was an Elder of Honorable standing in Greenwich Moy [Monthly] Meeting, & was an active member & particularly useful in the Quarterly & Yearly Meetings. - his HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

loss to the Church will be great indeed. — I have also heard this Morning that our Frd Obadiah Brown of Providence is very ill & but little prospect of his recovering remains. — It is an Awful time in the Land Sickness in many places prevails & many deaths occur, & a number, where to all human appearance, a longer continuance in life might have been useful. - but The Lords time is the right & best time, & May I & may all cultivate a disposition to Say in sincerity “Thye will be done.” This Afternoon Attended the funeral of Sarah Bowen which went to the Meeting Houses & was a solid favour’d time Testimonys were in course thus Jonathon Dennis, David Buffum Anne Dennis & Hannah Dennis. — David & Hannah were particularly favour’d, & the solemnity of the Meeting was Kept up throughout 4th day 16th of 19th M / Heard this Afternoon of the decease of Our friend Obadiah Brown of Providence & that his Mortal remains were inter’d this day at Providence. “In the Midst of life we are in Death,” when I parted with him at his fathers Door a week ago last first day, little did either of us think it was a final separation. — He was a good man his great Wealth so far from puffing him up rather humbled him & his Charities & other usefulness will be a great loss indeed HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1823

George Gordon, Lord Byron’s THE AGE OF BRONZE; THE ISLAND; Byron left Murray for John Hunt to publish DON JUAN VI-XIV.; The Liberal published Byron’s “Heaven and Earth” and “The Blues.

March 31, Monday: Manuel Felix Fernandez Guadelupe Victoria, at the head of a triumvirate, began to rule Mexico.

Lady Blessington arrived at Genoa, with her husband and Count D’Orsey.

May: George Gordon, Lord Byron received a message from the Greek Committee in London.

May 30, Friday: Aristea, an azione pastorale by Gaetano Donizetti to words of Schmidt, was performed for the initial time, in Teatro San Carlo, Naples.

Toward the end of the month George Gordon, Lord Byron was able to send off for publication extracts from DON JUAN Cantos XV-XVI that he had begun during January 1822, “The Deformed Transformed.”

June 3, Tuesday or June 4, Wednesday: The Blessingtons left Genoa.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 3rd [sic] of 6 M 1823 ?? The toil of Yearly Meeting commences, some have already come from NYork who expect to attend it — I must acknowledge I feel no small weight & even depression at the approach of our Annual Meeting, but trusting in that Almighty power which has hitherto supported us, & carried us through, I desire not to foster a doubtful state. Indeed I have no need to, for where my dependance has been rightly placed, I have never known a failure of help. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

June 30, Monday: Maria Szymanowska performed in Poznan on her 3-year concert tour of Europe.

George Gordon, Lord Byron asked James Henry Leigh Hunt to proceed with publication of DON JUAN Cantos XV-XVI “The Deformed Transformed” without waiting for Canto XVII.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th M 30th (2nd day) 1823 / This day concludes the Month & affords an opportunity of much reflection on the progress of life & brings into view many circumstances that has occur’d from the time of my first going to service, my apprenticeship with David Williams to the present time. — Tho’ in the course of my living with him I had many deep, close & proving trials of flesh & spirit to pass thro’, which arose from enemies within & without, yet I must now confess that I have no doubt they worked HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

together for my good. — his pious care in keeping me close to Meetings in the Middle of the week, a thing which at first my nature rather rebelled against, yet in time I became reconciled to it & enjoyed many precious Seasons. — together with much other care & concern manifested for me, by him & his wife, very much contributed to keep me in the right way, & preserve me from much evil for which I desire to be thankful, & for which I shall revere their memory. — David Died last night about half past 10 OClock - he was not in the full posession of his mental powers. The night before when I watched with him, & before the close [he?] sank into a state of insensibility as to objects before him. — but while sitting by his bed, while reaon lasted, it was remarkable to observe the innocent state of his mind, & often expressed that the prospect of a close was made more easy to him than he could have expected. —- I attended his funeral & was one of the bearers, as I was also to his wife. — Many people attended & sat at his house in a very solid manner. C Rodman & J Dennis bore short testimonies. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 13, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron embarked on the Hercules.

The date on the earliest grave in Concord’s New Burying-Ground. (The date on the oldest extant grave anywhere in Concord is 1677 and the date on the oldest extant grave in its West Burying-Ground is November 17, 1697.) Burying-Grounds were laid out at an early period, but the date is unknown. The monument on the Hill Burying-Ground, containing the inscription, “JOSEPH MERRIAM, AGED 47 YEARS, DIED THE 20 OF APRIL, 1677,” is the oldest in town. The oldest in the West Burying-Ground is that of Thomas Hartshorn, who died November 17, 1697. No other one appears there till 1713. The first person buried in the New Burying-Ground was Mrs. Anna Robbins, who died July 13, 1823, and the fact is properly noted on her monument. Beside these, tradition reports that the ground first used for interring the dead was on the hill easterly of the present one; but no traces of it can be discovered, if indeed one was ever there.40

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 13th of 7 M / The morning meeting was not quite as full on the Mens side of the House &[sic] common, which I have often noticed is the case in hay making time D Buffum & Hannah Dennis engaged in solemn weighty testimonys — Silent in the Afternoon till near the close when a testimony was delivered with the Authority of which I must suspend judgement —- Sister Elizabeth Rodman took tea with us & set the evening — feeling that the time is fast approaching when she will be separated from us, & take a New Name renderd the interview rather a serious cast. — Richard Rodman also came home with John & drank tea [—]re always 40. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston MA: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy, 1835 (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry David Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

pleased with his company - indeed I may say I am comforted with it, from a prospect [that?] if he continues to go on, as he seems to have been, he may make a useful man in the [—]& to society / -He has my hearty prayers for his welfare & so has all well inclined lads, and for him in particular my feelings are often much interested - he now seems hopeful & [sup]posed to conduct so as to insure the Esteem of his friends - & set value on it RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

July 16, Wednesday: George Gordon, Lord Byron set sail from Italy with a small party for Greece to participate in the Greek Revolution; he would help finance the revolutionary army.

August 3, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron arrived at Cephalonia.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 3rd of 8th M 1823 / Small Meeting in the Morng in consequence of Rain - but three good testimonies Father Rodman D Buffum & H Dennis ——In the Afternoon Father Rodman & H Dannis were concerned to bear short testimonies RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

September 22, Monday: Stanhope arrived at Argostoli.

Per the journal of Albert Gallatin’s son James as recorded in THE DIARY OF JAMES GALLATIN: I have seen Miss Pascault; Madame Bonaparte was right. I have never seen anything more lovely. As Madame Reubel has invited me to call I will certainly take advantage of her invitation.

Incidental music to Hell’s play Ali Baba oder Die 40 Rauber by Heinrich August Marschner was performed for the initial time, in Dresden.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 25th of 9th M / Our Moy [Monthly] Meeting this day held in Town was a pretty good one. Anne Greene & A Sherman preached. — In the last Jonathon Nichols & Sister Elizabeth Rodman & Welcome Congdon rec’d their liberty to Marry according to the good order of Friends. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS [This volume of Friend Stephen Gould’s journal ends at this point with a list of names: Ruth Hallack, Sarah Hull, Ruth Halsted, space, Olive Cobb, Lydia Purinton, Eunice Jones, Susan Collins, Sarah Collins, Edwd Cobb, Thos Jones, John Reid.]

December 28, Sunday: George Gordon, Lord Byron left for Missolonghi.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 28 of 12 M / Silent & to me good Meetings - Sister Ruth HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

& Richard Rodman took tea with us. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1824

January 5, Monday: George Gordon, Lord Byron arrived at Missolonghi.

Per the journal of Albert Gallatin’s son James as recorded in THE DIARY OF JAMES GALLATIN: Father was forced by his party, but much against his will, to accept the candidature for the Vice-Presidency. Mr. Crawford’s stroke of paralysis required another candidate. All this is most annoying. Father does not wish to enter into public life again. When he left America seven years ago, I believe he vowed never to return. He has given the best part of his life and all his energies to his adopted country; no one knows better than himself that he is disliked, but that they still want to pick his brains and make use of him. He goes to Washington to-night.

January 22, Thursday: On George Gordon, Lord Byron’s birthday he authored some “Lines on Completing My Thirty-Sixth Year.” NEW POETRY OF 1824

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 22 of 1 M / Our Meeting was a season of favour to some, I have no doubt, but as to myself I was very poor — Hannah Dennis was much favourd in a stimulating testimony to faithful labour, seldom have I heard her more acceptably — In the Preparative Meeting which followed - we answered the Queries & proposed Overseers of the Poor to the Moy [Monthly] Meeting Sister Mary & Hannah Lawton set the eveng. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

February 15, Sunday: Following the new principle of nomination just tested a few years earlier by Andrew Jackson, the legislature of the home state of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams nominated their favorite son to run for the office of President of the United States of America. Objections to such a nomination procedure, such as that it would provide greater power to large states than to small states, had begun to be ignored.

George Gordon, Lord Byron has an epileptic seizure.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 15th of 2nd M 1824 / Silent meetings & seasons of mental labour In the evening visited Abigail Robinson. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

April 9, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron caught a chill after riding. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

April 19, Monday: George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale, a volunteer in the Greek rebellion, lay a victim of malaria in Missolonghi (Mesolongion), to the west of Athens.41 His schemes to become a great white hero seemed remote. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have let physicians near him, but on this occasion he was hardly conscious enough to drive them away. They bled the 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale until Captain George Anson Byron became by default the 7th Baron Byron of Rochdale.

His heart and lungs would remain in Greece, while the remainder of his body would be shipped home to be placed in Hucknall Torkard Church near Newstead, Nottinghamshire.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 19 of 4 M / Went to Conannicut to rectify Clocks, after a laborious day returned at Night — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

May 14, Friday: News of George Gordon, Lord Byron’s death reached London. The horror.

Pedro de Sousa Holstein, marques e conde de Palmela replaces Jose Antonio de Oliveira Leite de Barros, conde de Basto as Secretary of State (prime minister) of Portugal.

May 17, Monday: Destruction of George Gordon, Lord Byron’s memoirs. The precaution.

May 25, Tuesday: Franz Schubert left Vienna for Zseliz to take up the position of music master to the Esterhazy family.

The coffin of George Gordon, Lord Byron was hoisted aboard the Florida at Zante.

June 29, Tuesday: The corpse of George Gordon, Lord Byron arrived at London.

July 12, Saturday: On the 8th day after our national celebration, according to the journal of Hezikiah Prince

Jr., news of the simultaneous deaths of two Founding Fathers and ex-Presidents during that anniversary came to the small port town of Thomaston in Maine: Papers brought the news that Presidents Old Adams and Jefferson both

41. A lot of the fighting of the Greek rebellion centered on this small town. It had originally been carried by storm on November 1, 1821 but then the Turks had laid siege to it during October 1822. The Turks had assaulted the town six times by January 5, 1823 but on January 27, 1823 had been compelled to retreat. They would return on April 17, 1825 and bombard the town beginning on May 7, 1825. There would be another bombardment on January 25, 1826. The town would fall to the Turks on April 22, 1825. The Greeks would again capture the town in 1829, and it would be included in the new kingdom of Greece. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

died on the 4th of July past. CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY

George Gordon, Lord Byron’s funeral.

Horatio Gates Spafford registered his A POCKET GUIDE FOR THE TOURIST AND TRAVELLER ALONG THE LINE OF THE CANALS AND THE INTERIOR COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK and subsequently would publish this.

July 16, Wednesday: The remains of George Gordon, Lord Byron were interred at Hucknall Torkard. Claiming an illness, the new Lord Byron did not make an appearance at this ceremony — he had just been made aware of how little of what he had supposed would be his inheritance was still in existence.

November: The results of the Presidential elections in the US left no candidate with a majority in the Electoral College. Andrew Jackson has 99 votes, John Quincy Adams 81, William Crawford 41, and Henry Clay 37. In 1825 Adams would be elected President, by the House of Representatives.

De Witt Clinton was again elected governor of New York, partly in a backlash due to his ouster from the Erie Canal commissioner’s post by Van Buren’s colleagues.

R.C. Dallas’s “Recollections of Lord Byron” appeared anonymously in Gentleman’s Magazine. NEW POETRY OF 1824

Commodore David Porter took a landing party of 200 onto Spanish territory to attack the town of Fajardo on the island of Puerto Rico, because this town had been sheltering pirates and also because American naval officers had been insulted (whatever that might have been). The local people tendered an apology and the Commodore would be court-martialed for having overstepped his authority. US MILITARY INTERVENTIONS

November 20, Saturday: Lady Oxford died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1825

March 19, Saturday: Sir Ralph Noel died.

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 19 of 3 M / This Afternoon went to the Widow Buckmasters to rectify her clocks. She is very sick & while sitting with her my mind was dipt into sweet feelings - it appears to me she knew where to put her trust & that it was well founded - She is of the Presbyterian persuasion but one of those who has learned in the true school & is very tender in spirit -which mine partook of — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1826

February 4, Saturday: Georgiana Leigh, Augusta’s eldest daughter, married her cousin Henry Trevanion.

George Henry Billings was born to Caleb Callender Billings and Betsey Brown Hammond Billings. He would die still a toddler, on April 15, 1828.

James Fenimore Cooper’s THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS; A NARRATIVE OF 1757. BY THE AUTHOR OF THE PIONEERS (Philadelphia: H.C. Carey & I. Lea. 2 Volumes).

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day came to town & took breakfast at Jos Anthonys then took the Stages for home & arrived before sunset RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1828

James Henry Leigh Hunt’s LORD BYRON AND SOME OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES. It would seem that George Gordon, Lord Byron, who had died of tuberculosis in 1824, had commented “I look pale.... I should like to die of consumption.... The ladies would all say, ‘Look at that poor Byron, how interested he looks in dying!’”42

January 23, Wednesday: Caroline Lamb died.

42. Later, a writer with the same general problem, Robert Louis Stevenson, would comment that he had written in bed, and written out of it, written in haemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn by coughing, written when my head swam for weakness. TB = Mycobacterium tuberculosis humanis = phthisis = consumption. Consumption was at that time still a disease of the aristocracy, so to be a victim of this disease was to be aristocratic. The image of the malady would change in subsequent decades as it became a disease of dark packed urban slums. Probably no single disease accounted for more deaths, in the American north prior to our civil war, than TB. It was one of the three reasons why the countryside was less unhealthy than the crowded city, the other two reasons being typhoid and cholera. Although Boston seems to have been the healthiest of large American cities, nevertheless the city Bostonian could expect to live a life five or six years shorter on average than a rural resident of Massachusetts. The small pox was the only infectious disease for which there was a preventive therapy. The only “behavioral avoidance” that as known was to stay clear of the city of New Orleans, in particular, and in general from the Southern seaports, to make it less likely that one would get what was known as the “yellow fever,” or the “black vomit.” TB, by way of contrast, wasn’t even understood to be actually an infectious disease of the same order as typhoid and cholera. It was supposed that it tended to run in families, and thus was mostly a sign of a hereditary weakness.

Another theory of the genesis of tuberculosis was, however, that its sufferers had brought it on themselves through “indulgence in a vice, in view of which angels … weep, and creation sighs,” to wit, masturbation, and that therefore they deserved no sympathy whatever, but only contempt. See Rosenberg, Charles and Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, eds. THE SECRET VICE EXPOSED! SOME ARGUMENTS AGAINST MASTURBATION, “A Brief and Intelligible View of the Nature, Origin and Cure of Tubercular Disease” (NY: Arno Press, 1974, page 136). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1830

2d edition, complete, of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH AND STATE, ACCORDING TO THE IDEA OF EACH....

Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley’s THE FORTUNES OF PERKIN WARBECK.

John Galt’s THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

Thomas Moore’s LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON, WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1831

June: Thomas Babington Macaulay reviewed Thomas Moore’s LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON, WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE, of 1830, in the Edinburgh Review.

August 15, Monday: Hobhouse became Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Bart.

There was rioting in Warsaw, between various Polish factions. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1832

(Posthumously) THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON: WITH HIS LETTERS AND JOURNALS, AND HIS LIFE, by Thomas Moore, Esq., published by John Murray in 17 volumes until 1834.

July: Thomas Carlyle’s article on Ebenezer Elliott appeared in the Edinburgh Review. The poet was granted points for sincerity and impact but his poetry was noticed to be imitative of the style of others, his political philosophy was considered to be preposterous, and he was condemned as possessing neither a sense of proportion nor a sense of humor.

“Conversations of Lord Byron with the Countess of Blessington” began publication in New Monthly Magazine (installments from July 1832 to December 1833). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1833

August 12, Monday: Captain Henry Nicholas Nicholls, a fine-looking man 50 years of age who had served his country in the Peninsular war, who had been convicted at Croyden “on the clearest evidence ... of the capital offense of Sodomy,” the offense referred to commonly as “buggery” and often recorded in court documents as “b-gg-y,” had been “perfectly calm and unmoved throughout his trial, and even when the sentence of death was passed upon him.” In the interim not a single member of his respectable family had visited him in prison, and he was hanged on this morning at Horse Monger Lane Prison in London. The Courier would report: Captain Henry Nicholas Nicholls, who was one of the unnatural gang to which the late Captain Beauclerk belonged, (and which latter gentleman put an end to his existence), was convicted on the clearest evidence at Croydon, on Saturday last, of the capital offence of Sodomy; the prisoner was perfectly calm and unmoved throughout the trial, and even when sentence of death was passed upon him. In performing the duty of passing sentence of death upon the prisoner, Mr. Justice Park told him that it would be inconsistent with that duty if he held out the slightest hope that the law would not be allowed to take its severest course. At 9 o’clock in the morning the sentence was carried into effect. The culprit, who was fifty years of age, was a fine looking man, and had served in the Peninsular war. He was connected with a highly respectable family; but, since his apprehension not a single member of it visited him.

One is reminded that while George Gordon, Lord Byron had been enjoying the lads of the Ottoman lands, a friend back home had commented “that what you get for £5 we must risque our necks for; and are content to risque them.” Later on in this year an anonymous poem DON LEON would appear, written by some person familiar with details of Lord Byron’s involvement with homosexuality. The poem is now conjectured to have been authored by William Bankes, an antiquarian and collector who had likewise been taken under arrest in this year after having been discovered in a sexual relation with a guardsman: Though law cries “hold!” yet passion onward draws; But nature gave us passions, man gave laws, Whence spring these inclinations, rank and strong? And harming no one, wherefore call them wrong?

This DON LEON would be the 1st homosexual liberationist text to appear in the English language, and no copies of it have been preserved in its 1st edition. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1834

Spring: From this point until early in 1835, Jones Very would be chewing and stewing over George Gordon, Lord Byron’s CHILDE HAROLD.

Marguerite Power Gardiner, countess of Blessington’s A JOURNAL OF THE CONVERSATIONS OF LORD BYRON WITH THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON (London: H. Colburn; the conversations had appeared in Colburn’s New Monthly Magazine). GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

May 19, Monday: Infelice op.94 for soprano and orchestra by Felix Mendelssohn was performed for the initial time, in London.

Marie, daughter of Medora Leigh and her brother-in-law, Henry Trevanion, was born.

That morning at Harvard College an unfortunate tendency had begun to develop: A freshman had been reciting in Mr. Christopher Dunkin’s class in Greek, and, as his performance was being critiqued, appeared to that Tutor to be displaying some sort of attitude of questioning, of the judgment of his betters. Unfortunately, also, as Tutor displayed a bad reaction, other of the students began to make “catcalls,” appearing to be in support of this student. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1835

THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON, IN VERSE AND PROSE; INCLUDING LETTERS, JOURNALS, ETC. WITHASKETCH OF HIS LIFE (New-York: George Dearborn). A copy of this thousand-page tome would be found in Henry Thoreau’s personal library. READ SHATTUCK TEXT

Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley’s LODORE. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Spring: Jones Very’s preoccupation shifted from George Gordon, Lord Byron’s CHILDE HAROLD (1812) to Wordsworth’s poem “Despondency Corrected” in THE EXCURSION (1814).

HERE closed the Tenant of that lonely vale His mournful narrative — commenced in pain, In pain commenced, and ended without peace: Yet tempered, not unfrequently, with strains Of native feeling, grateful to our minds; And yielding surely some relief to his, While we sate listening with compassion due. A pause of silence followed; then, with voice That did not falter though the heart was moved, The Wanderer said:— “One adequate support For the calamities of mortal life Exists — one only; an assured belief That the procession of our fate, howe’er Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being Of infinite benevolence and power; Whose everlasting purposes embrace All accidents, converting them to good. — The darts of anguish ‘fix’ not where the seat Of suffering hath been thoroughly fortified By acquiescence in the Will supreme For time and for eternity; by faith, Faith absolute in God, including hope, And the defence that lies in boundless love Of his perfections; with habitual dread Of aught unworthily conceived, endured Impatiently, ill-done, or left undone, To the dishonour of his holy name. Soul of our Souls, and safeguard of the world! Sustain, thou only canst, the sick of heart; HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Restore their languid spirits, and recall Their lost affections unto thee and thine!” Then, as we issued from that covert nook, He thus continued, lifting up his eyes To heaven: — “How beautiful this dome of sky; And the vast hills, in fluctuation fixed At thy command, how awful! Shall the Soul, Human and rational, report of thee Even less than these? — Be mute who will, who can, Yet I will praise thee with impassioned voice: My lips, that may forget thee in the crowd, Cannot forget thee here; where thou hast built, For thy own glory, in the wilderness! Me didst thou constitute a priest of thine, In such a temple as we now behold Reared for thy presence: therefore, am I bound To worship, here, and everywhere — as one Not doomed to ignorance, though forced to tread, From childhood up, the ways of poverty; From unreflecting ignorance preserved, And from debasement rescued. — By thy grace The particle divine remained unquenched; And, ’mid the wild weeds of a rugged soil, Thy bounty caused to flourish deathless flowers, From paradise transplanted: wintry age Impends; the frost will gather round my heart; If the flowers wither, I am worse than dead! — Come, labour, when the worn-out frame requires Perpetual sabbath; come, disease and want; And sad exclusion through decay of sense; But leave me unabated trust in thee — And let thy favour, to the end of life, Inspire me with ability to seek Repose and hope among eternal things— Father of heaven and earth! and I am rich, And will possess my portion in content! And what are things eternal? — powers depart,” The grey-haired Wanderer stedfastly replied, Answering the question which himself had asked, “Possessions vanish, and opinions change, And passions hold a fluctuating seat: But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken, And subject neither to eclipse nor wane, Duty exists; — immutably survive, For our support, the measures and the forms, Which an abstract intelligence supplies; Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not. Of other converse which mind, soul, and heart, Do, with united urgency, require, What more that may not perish? — Thou, dread source, Prime, self-existing cause and end of all That in the scale of being fill their place; Above our human region, or below, Set and sustained; — thou, who didst wrap the cloud Of infancy around us, that thyself, Therein, with our simplicity awhile Might’st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed; Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep, Or from its death-like void, with punctual care, And touch as gentle as the morning light, Restor’st us, daily, to the powers of sense And reason’s stedfast rule — thou, thou alone Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits, Which thou includest, as the sea her waves: For adoration thou endur’st; endure For consciousness the motions of thy will; For apprehension those transcendent truths HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws (Submission constituting strength and power) Even to thy Being’s infinite majesty! This universe shall pass away — a work Glorious! because the shadow of thy might, A step, or link, for intercourse with thee. Ah! if the time must come, in which my feet No more shall stray where meditation leads, By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild, Loved haunts like these; the unimprisoned Mind May yet have scope to range among her own, Her thoughts, her images, her high desires. If the dear faculty of sight should fail, Still, it may be allowed me to remember What visionary powers of eye and soul In youth were mine; when, stationed on the top Of some huge hill — expectant, I beheld The sun rise up, from distant climes returned Darkness to chase, and sleep; and bring the day His bounteous gift! or saw him toward the deep Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds Attended; then, my spirit was entranced With joy exalted to beatitude; The measure of my soul was filled with bliss, And holiest love; as earth, sea, air, with light, With pomp, with glory, with magnificence! Those fervent raptures are for ever flown; And, since their date, my soul hath undergone Change manifold, for better or for worse: Yet cease I not to struggle, and aspire Heavenward; and chide the part of me that flags, Through sinful choice; or dread necessity On human nature from above imposed. ’Tis, by comparison, an easy task43 Earth to despise; but, to converse with heaven— This is not easy: — to relinquish all We have, or hope, of happiness and joy, And stand in freedom loosened from this world, I deem not arduous; but must needs confess That ’tis a thing impossible to frame Conceptions equal to the soul’s desires; And the most difficult of tasks to ‘keep’ Heights which the soul is competent to gain. — Man is of dust: ethereal hopes are his, Which, when they should sustain themselves aloft, Want due consistence; like a pillar of smoke, That with majestic energy from earth Rises; but, having reached the thinner air, Melts, and dissolves, and is no longer seen. From this infirmity of mortal kind Sorrow proceeds, which else were not; at least, If grief be something hallowed and ordained, If, in proportion, it be just and meet, Yet, through this weakness of the general heart, Is it enabled to maintain its hold In that excess which conscience disapproves. For who could sink and settle to that point Of selfishness; so senseless who could be As long and perseveringly to mourn For any object of his love, removed From this unstable world, if he could fix A satisfying view upon that state Of pure, imperishable, blessedness, Which reason promises, and holy writ Ensures to all believers? — Yet mistrust 43. “’Tis, by comparison, an easy task Earth to despise,” etc. — See, upon this subject, Baxter’s most interesting review of his own opinions and sentiments in the decline of life. It may be found (lately reprinted) in Dr. Wordsworth’s “Ecclesiastical Biography.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Is of such incapacity, methinks, No natural branch; despondency far less; And, least of all, is absolute despair. — And, if there be whose tender frames have drooped Even to the dust; apparently, through weight Of anguish unrelieved, and lack of power An agonizing sorrow to transmute; Deem not that proof is here of hope withheld When wanted most; a confidence impaired So pitiably, that, having ceased to see With bodily eyes, they are borne down by love Of what is lost, and perish through regret. Oh! no, the innocent Sufferer often sees Too clearly; feels too vividly; and longs To realize the vision, with intense And over-constant yearning, — there — there lies The excess, by which the balance is destroyed. Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh, This vital warmth too cold, these visual orbs, Though inconceivably endowed, too dim For any passion of the soul that leads To ecstasy; and, all the crooked paths Of time and change disdaining, takes its course Along the line of limitless desires. I, speaking now from such disorder free, Nor rapt, nor craving, but in settled peace, I cannot doubt that they whom you deplore Are glorified; or, if they sleep, shall wake From sleep, and dwell with God in endless love. Hope, below this, consists not with belief In mercy, carried infinite degrees Beyond the tenderness of human hearts: Hope, below this, consists not with belief In perfect wisdom, guiding mightiest power, That finds no limits but her own pure will. Here then we rest; not fearing for our creed The worst that human reasoning can achieve, To unsettle or perplex it: yet with pain Acknowledging, and grievous self-reproach, That, though immovably convinced, we want Zeal, and the virtue to exist by faith As soldiers live by courage; as, by strength Of heart, the sailor fights with roaring seas. Alas! the endowment of immortal power44 Is matched unequally with custom, time, And domineering faculties of sense In ‘all’; in most, with superadded foes, Idle temptations; open vanities, Ephemeral offspring of the unblushing world; And, in the private regions of the mind, Ill-governed passions, ranklings of despite, Immoderate wishes, pining discontent, Distress and care. What then remains? — To seek Those helps for his occasions ever near Who lacks not will to use them; vows, renewed On the first motion of a holy thought; Vigils of contemplation; praise; and prayer— A stream, which, from the fountain of the heart Issuing, however feebly, nowhere flows Without access of unexpected strength. But, above all, the victory is most sure For him, who, seeking faith by virtue, strives To yield entire submission to the law Of conscience — conscience reverenced and obeyed, As God’s most intimate presence in the soul, And his most perfect image in the world. 44. “Alas! the endowment of immortal Power Is matched unequally with custom, time,” etc.: — This subject is treated at length in the Ode – Intimations of Immortality. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

— Endeavour thus to live; these rules regard; These helps solicit; and a stedfast seat Shall then be yours among the happy few Who dwell on earth, yet breathe empyreal air Sons of the morning. For your nobler part, Ere disencumbered of her mortal chains, Doubt shall be quelled and trouble chased away; With only such degree of sadness left As may support longings of pure desire; And strengthen love, rejoicing secretly In the sublime attractions of the grave.” While, in this strain, the venerable Sage Poured forth his aspirations, and announced His judgments, near that lonely house we paced A plot of greensward, seemingly preserved By nature’s care from wreck of scattered stones, And from encroachment of encircling heath: Small space! but, for reiterated steps, Smooth and commodious; as a stately deck Which to and fro the mariner is used To tread for pastime, talking with his mates, Or haply thinking of far-distant friends, While the ship glides before a steady breeze. Stillness prevailed around us: and the voice That spake was capable to lift the soul Toward regions yet more tranquil. But, methought, That he, whose fixed despondency had given Impulse and motive to that strong discourse, Was less upraised in spirit than abashed; Shrinking from admonition, like a man Who feels that to exhort is to reproach. Yet not to be diverted from his aim, The Sage continued:— “For that other loss, The loss of confidence in social man, By the unexpected transports of our age Carried so high, that every thought, which looked Beyond the temporal destiny of the Kind, To many seemed superfluous — as, no cause Could e’er for such exalted confidence Exist; so, none is now for fixed despair: The two extremes are equally disowned By reason: if, with sharp recoil, from one You have been driven far as its opposite, Between them seek the point whereon to build Sound expectations. So doth he advise Who shared at first the illusion; but was soon Cast from the pedestal of pride by shocks Which Nature gently gave, in woods and fields; Nor unreproved by Providence, thus speaking To the inattentive children of the world: ‘Vainglorious Generation! what new powers ‘On you have been conferred? what gifts, withheld ‘From your progenitors, have ye received, ‘Fit recompense of new desert? what claim ‘Are ye prepared to urge, that my decrees ‘For you should undergo a sudden change; ‘And the weak functions of one busy day, ‘Reclaiming and extirpating, perform ‘What all the slowly-moving years of time, ‘With their united force, have left undone? ‘By nature’s gradual processes be taught; ‘By story be confounded! Ye aspire ‘Rashly, to fall once more; and that false fruit, ‘Which, to your overweening spirits, yields ‘Hope of a flight celestial, will produce ‘Misery and shame. But Wisdom of her sons ‘Shall not the less, though late, be justified.’ HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

“Such timely warning,” said the Wanderer, “gave That visionary voice; and, at this day, When a Tartarean darkness overspreads The groaning nations; when the impious rule, By will or by established ordinance, Their own dire agents, and constrain the good To acts which they abhor; though I bewail This triumph, yet the pity of my heart Prevents me not from owning, that the law, By which mankind now suffers, is most just. For by superior energies; more strict Affiance in each other; faith more firm In their unhallowed principles; the bad Have fairly earned a victory o’er the weak, The vacillating, inconsistent good. Therefore, not unconsoled, I wait — in hope To see the moment, when the righteous cause Shall gain defenders zealous and devout As they who have opposed her; in which Virtue Will, to her efforts, tolerate no bounds That are not lofty as her rights; aspiring By impulse of her own ethereal zeal. That spirit only can redeem mankind; And when that sacred spirit shall appear, Then shall ‘four’ triumph be complete as theirs. Yet, should this confidence prove vain, the wise Have still the keeping of their proper peace; Are guardians of their own tranquillity. They act, or they recede, observe, and feel; ‘Knowing the heart of man is set to be45 The centre of this world, about the which Those revolutions of disturbances Still roll; where all the aspects of misery Predominate; whose strong effects are such As he must bear, being powerless to redress; “And that unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is Man!” Happy is he who lives to understand, Not human nature only, but explores All natures, — to the end that he may find The law that governs each; and where begins The union, the partition where, that makes Kind and degree, among all visible Beings; The constitutions, powers, and faculties, Which they inherit, — cannot step beyond,— And cannot fall beneath; that do assign To every class its station and its office, Through all the mighty commonwealth of things Up from the creeping plant to sovereign Man. Such converse, if directed by a meek, Sincere, and humble spirit, teaches love: For knowledge is delight; and such delight Breeds love: yet, suited as it rather is To thought and to the climbing intellect, It teaches less to love, than to adore; If that be not indeed the highest love!” “Yet,” said I, tempted here to interpose, “The dignity of life is not impaired By aught that innocently satisfies The humbler cravings of the heart; and he Is a still happier man, who, for those heights Of speculation not unfit, descends; And such benign affections cultivates Among the inferior kinds; not merely those That he may call his own, and which depend, As individual objects of regard, HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Upon his care, from whom he also looks For signs and tokens of a mutual bond; But others, far beyond this narrow sphere, Whom, for the very sake of love, he loves. Nor is it a mean praise of rural life And solitude, that they do favour most, Most frequently call forth, and best sustain, These pure sensations; that can penetrate The obstreperous city; on the barren seas Are not unfelt; and much might recommend, How much they might inspirit and endear, The loneliness of this sublime retreat!” “Yes,” said the Sage, resuming the discourse Again directed to his downcast Friend, “If, with the froward will and grovelling soul Of man, offended, liberty is here, And invitation every hour renewed, To mark ‘their’ placid state, who never heard Of a command which they have power to break, Or rule which they are tempted to transgress: These, with a soothed or elevated heart, May we behold; their knowledge register; Observe their ways; and, free from envy, find Complacence there: — but wherefore this to you? I guess that, welcome to your lonely hearth, The redbreast, ruffled up by winter’s cold 45. “Knowing the heart of man is set to be,” etc.: — The passage quoted from Daniel is taken from a poem addressed to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, and the two last lines, printed in Italics, are by him translated from Seneca. The whole Poem is very beautiful. I will transcribe four stanzas from it, as they contain an admirable picture of the state of a wise Man’s mind in a time of public commotion.

Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks Of tyrant’s threats, or with the surly brow Of Power, that proudly sits on others’ crimes; Charged with more crying sins than those he checks. The storms of sad confusion that may grow Up in the present for the coming times, Appal not him; that hath no side at all, But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.

Although his heart (so near allied to earth) Cannot but pity the perplexed state Of troublous and distressed mortality, That thus make way unto the ugly birth Of their own sorrows, and do still beget Affliction upon Imbecility: Yet seeing thus the course of things must run, He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done.

And whilst distraught ambition compasses, And is encompassed, while as craft deceives, And is deceived: whilst man doth ransack man, And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th’ Inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: He looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears no venture in Impiety.

Thus, Lady, fares that man that hath prepared A rest for his desires; and sees all things Beneath him; and hath learned this book of man, Full of the notes of frailty; and compared The best of glory with her sufferings: By whom, I see, you labour all you can To plant your heart! and set your thoughts as near His glorious mansion as your powers can bear. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Into a ‘feathery bunch,’ feeds at your hand: A box, perchance, is from your casement hung For the small wren to build in; — not in vain, The barriers disregarding that surround This deep abiding place, before your sight Mounts on the breeze the butterfly; and soars, Small creature as she is, from earth’s bright flowers, Into the dewy clouds. Ambition reigns In the waste wilderness: the Soul ascends Drawn towards her native firmament of heaven, When the fresh eagle, in the month of May, Upborne, at evening, on replenished wing, This shaded valley leaves; and leaves the dark Empurpled hills, conspicuously renewing A proud communication with the sun Low sunk beneath the horizon! — List! — I heard, From yon huge breast of rock, a voice sent forth As if the visible mountain made the cry. Again!” — The effect upon the soul was such As he expressed: from out the mountain’s heart The solemn voice appeared to issue, startling The blank air — for the region all around Stood empty of all shape of life, and silent Save for that single cry, the unanswered bleat Of a poor lamb — left somewhere to itself, The plaintive spirit of the solitude! He paused, as if unwilling to proceed, Through consciousness that silence in such place Was best, the most affecting eloquence. But soon his thoughts returned upon themselves, And, in soft tone of speech, thus he resumed. “Ah! if the heart, too confidently raised, Perchance too lightly occupied, or lulled Too easily, despise or overlook The vassalage that binds her to the earth, Her sad dependence upon time, and all The trepidations of mortality, What place so destitute and void — but there The little flower her vanity shall check; The trailing worm reprove her thoughtless pride? These craggy regions, these chaotic wilds, Does that benignity pervade, that warms The mole contented with her darksome walk In the cold ground; and to the emmet gives Her foresight, and intelligence that makes The tiny creatures strong by social league; Supports the generations, multiplies Their tribes, till we behold a spacious plain Or grassy bottom, all, with little hills— Their labour, covered, as a lake with waves; Thousands of cities, in the desert place Built up of life, and food, and means of life! Nor wanting here, to entertain the thought, Creatures that in communities exist, Less, as might seem, for general guardianship Or through dependence upon mutual aid, Than by participation of delight And a strict love of fellowship, combined. What other spirit can it be that prompts The gilded summer flies to mix and weave Their sports together in the solar beam, Or in the gloom of twilight hum their joy? More obviously the self-same influence rules The feathered kinds; the fieldfare’s pensive flock, The cawing rooks, and sea-mews from afar, Hovering above these inland solitudes, By the rough wind unscattered, at whose call HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Up through the trenches of the long-drawn vales Their voyage was begun: nor is its power Unfelt among the sedentary fowl That seek yon pool, and there prolong their stay In silent congress; or together roused Take flight; while with their clang the air resounds: And, over all, in that ethereal vault, Is the mute company of changeful clouds; Bright apparition, suddenly put forth, The rainbow smiling on the faded storm; The mild assemblage of the starry heavens; And the great sun, earth’s universal lord! How bountiful is Nature! he shall find Who seeks not; and to him, who hath not asked, Large measure shall be dealt. Three sabbath-days Are scarcely told, since, on a service bent Of mere humanity, you clomb those heights; And what a marvellous and heavenly show Was suddenly revealed! — the swains moved on, And heeded not: you lingered, you perceived And felt, deeply as living man could feel. There is a luxury in self-dispraise; And inward self-disparagement affords To meditative spleen a grateful feast. Trust me, pronouncing on your own desert, You judge unthankfully: distempered nerves Infect the thoughts: the languor of the frame Depresses the soul’s vigour. Quit your couch— Cleave not so fondly to your moody cell; Nor let the hallowed powers, that shed from heaven Stillness and rest, with disapproving eye Look down upon your taper, through a watch Of midnight hours, unseasonably twinkling In this deep Hollow, like a sullen star Dimly reflected in a lonely pool. Take courage, and withdraw yourself from ways That run not parallel to nature’s course. Rise with the lark! your matins shall obtain Grace, be their composition what it may, If but with hers performed; climb once again, Climb every day, those ramparts; meet the breeze Upon their tops, adventurous as a bee That from your garden thither soars, to feed On new-blown heath; let yon commanding rock Be your frequented watch-tower; roll the stone In thunder down the mountains; with all your might Chase the wild goat; and if the bold red deer Fly to those harbours, driven by hound and horn Loud echoing, add your speed to the pursuit; So, wearied to your hut shall you return, And sink at evening into sound repose.” The Solitary lifted toward the hills A kindling eye: — accordant feelings rushed Into my bosom, whence these words broke forth: “Oh! what a joy it were, in vigorous health, To have a body (this our vital frame With shrinking sensibility endued, And all the nice regards of flesh and blood) And to the elements surrender it As if it were a spirit! — How divine, The liberty, for frail, for mortal, man To roam at large among unpeopled glens And mountainous retirements, only trod By devious footsteps; regions consecrate To oldest time! and, reckless of the storm That keeps the raven quiet in her nest, Be as a presence or a motion — one HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Among the many there; and while the mists Flying, and rainy vapours, call out shapes And phantoms from the crags and solid earth As fast as a musician scatters sounds Out of an instrument; and while the streams (As at a first creation and in haste To exercise their untried faculties) Descending from the region of the clouds, And starting from the hollows of the earth More multitudinous every moment, rend Their way before them — what a joy to roam An equal among mightiest energies; And haply sometimes with articulate voice, Amid the deafening tumult, scarcely heard By him that utters it, exclaim aloud, ‘Rage on ye elements! let moon and stars Their aspects lend, and mingle in their turn With this commotion (ruinous though it be) From day to night, from night to day, prolonged!’” “Yes,” said the Wanderer, taking from my lips The strain of transport, “whosoe’er in youth Has, through ambition of his soul, given way To such desires, and grasped at such delight, Shall feel congenial stirrings late and long, In spite of all the weakness that life brings, Its cares and sorrows; he, though taught to own The tranquillizing power of time, shall wake, Wake sometimes to a noble restlessness— Loving the sports which once he gloried in. Compatriot, Friend, remote are Garry’s hills, The streams far distant of your native glen; Yet is their form and image here expressed With brotherly resemblance. Turn your steps Wherever fancy leads; by day, by night, Are various engines working, not the same As those with which your soul in youth was moved, But by the great Artificer endowed With no inferior power. You dwell alone; You walk, you live, you speculate alone; Yet doth remembrance, like a sovereign prince, For you a stately gallery maintain Of gay or tragic pictures. You have seen, Have acted, suffered, travelled far, observed With no incurious eye; and books are yours, Within whose silent chambers treasure lies Preserved from age to age; more precious far Than that accumulated store of gold And orient gems, which, for a day of need, The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs. These hoards of truth you can unlock at will: And music waits upon your skilful touch, Sounds which the wandering shepherd from these heights Hears, and forgets his purpose; — furnished thus, How can you droop, if willing to be upraised? A piteous lot it were to flee from Man— Yet not rejoice in Nature. He, whose hours Are by domestic pleasures uncaressed And unenlivened; who exists whole years Apart from benefits received or done ’Mid the transactions of the bustling crowd; Who neither hears, nor feels a wish to hear, Of the world’s interests — such a one hath need Of a quick fancy, and an active heart, That, for the day’s consumption, books may yield Food not unwholesome; earth and air correct His morbid humour, with delight supplied HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Or solace, varying as the seasons change. — Truth has her pleasure-grounds, her haunts of ease And easy contemplation; gay parterres, And labyrinthine walks, her sunny glades And shady groves in studied contrast — each, For recreation, leading into each: These may he range, if willing to partake Their soft indulgences, and in due time May issue thence, recruited for the tasks And course of service Truth requires from those Who tend her altars, wait upon her throne, And guard her fortresses. Who thinks, and feels, And recognises ever and anon The breeze of nature stirring in his soul, Why need such man go desperately astray, And nurse ‘the dreadful appetite of death?’ If tired with systems, each in its degree Substantial, and all crumbling in their turn, Let him build systems of his own, and smile At the fond work, demolished with a touch; If unreligious, let him be at once, Among ten thousand innocents, enrolled A pupil in the many-chambered school, Where superstition weaves her airy dreams. Life’s autumn past, I stand on winter’s verge; And daily lose what I desire to keep: Yet rather would I instantly decline To the traditionary sympathies Of a most rustic ignorance, and take A fearful apprehension from the owl Or death-watch: and as readily rejoice, If two auspicious magpies crossed my way;— To this would rather bend than see and hear The repetitions wearisome of sense, Where soul is dead, and feeling hath no place; Where knowledge, ill begun in cold remark On outward things, with formal inference ends; Or, if the mind turn inward, she recoils At once — or, not recoiling, is perplexed— Lost in a gloom of uninspired research; Meanwhile, the heart within the heart, the seat Where peace and happy consciousness should dwell, On its own axis restlessly revolving, Seeks, yet can nowhere find, the light of truth. Upon the breast of new-created earth Man walked; and when and wheresoe’er he moved, Alone or mated, solitude was not. He heard, borne on the wind, the articulate voice Of God; and Angels to his sight appeared Crowning the glorious hills of paradise; Or through the groves gliding like morning mist Enkindled by the sun. He sate — and talked With winged Messengers; who daily brought To his small island in the ethereal deep Tidings of joy and love. — From those pure heights (Whether of actual vision, sensible To sight and feeling, or that in this sort Have condescendingly been shadowed forth Communications spiritually maintained, And intuitions moral and divine) Fell Human-kind — to banishment condemned That flowing years repealed not: and distress And grief spread wide; but Man escaped the doom Of destitution; — solitude was not. — Jehovah — shapeless Power above all Powers, Single and one, the omnipresent God, By vocal utterance, or blaze of light, HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Or cloud of darkness, localised in heaven; On earth, enshrined within the wandering ark; Or, out of Sion, thundering from his throne Between the Cherubim — on the chosen Race Showered miracles, and ceased not to dispense Judgments, that filled the land from age to age With hope, and love, and gratitude, and fear; And with amazement smote; — thereby to assert His scorned, or unacknowledged, sovereignty. And when the One, ineffable of name, Of nature indivisible, withdrew From mortal adoration or regard, Not then was Deity engulphed; nor Man, The rational creature, left, to feel the weight Of his own reason, without sense or thought Of higher reason and a purer will, To benefit and bless, through mightier power: — Whether the Persian — zealous to reject Altar and image, and the inclusive walls And roofs of temples built by human hands— To loftiest heights ascending, from their tops, With myrtle-wreathed tiara on his brow, Presented sacrifice to moon and stars, And to the winds and mother elements, And the whole circle of the heavens, for him A sensitive existence, and a God, With lifted hands invoked, and songs of praise: Or, less reluctantly to bonds of sense Yielding his soul, the Babylonian framed For influence undefined a personal shape; And, from the plain, with toil immense, upreared Tower eight times planted on the top of tower, That Belus, nightly to his splendid couch Descending, there might rest; upon that height Pure and serene, diffused — to overlook Winding Euphrates, and the city vast Of his devoted worshippers, far-stretched, With grove and field and garden interspersed; Their town, and foodful region for support Against the pressure of beleaguering war. Chaldean Shepherds, ranging trackless fields, Beneath the concave of unclouded skies Spread like a sea, in boundless solitude, Looked on the polar star, as on a guide And guardian of their course, that never closed His stedfast eye. The planetary Five With a submissive reverence they beheld; Watched, from the centre of their sleeping flocks, Those radiant Mercuries, that seemed to move Carrying through ether, in perpetual round, Decrees and resolutions of the Gods; And, by their aspects, signifying works Of dim futurity, to Man revealed. — The imaginative faculty was lord Of observations natural; and, thus Led on, those shepherds made report of stars In set rotation passing to and fro, Between the orbs of our apparent sphere And its invisible counterpart, adorned With answering constellations, under earth, Removed from all approach of living sight But present to the dead; who, so they deemed, Like those celestial messengers beheld All accidents, and judges were of all. The lively Grecian, in a land of hills, Rivers and fertile plains, and sounding shores,— Under a cope of sky more variable, HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Could find commodious place for every God, Promptly received, as prodigally brought, From the surrounding countries, at the choice Of all adventurers. With unrivalled skill, As nicest observation furnished hints For studious fancy, his quick hand bestowed On fluent operations a fixed shape; Metal or stone, idolatrously served. And yet — triumphant o’er this pompous show Of art, this palpable array of sense, On every side encountered; in despite Of the gross fictions chanted in the streets By wandering Rhapsodists; and in contempt Of doubt and bold denial hourly urged Amid the wrangling schools — a SPIRIT hung, Beautiful region! o’er thy towns and farms, Statues and temples, and memorial tombs; And emanations were perceived; and acts Of immortality, in Nature’s course, Exemplified by mysteries, that were felt As bonds, on grave philosopher imposed And armed warrior; and in every grove A gay or pensive tenderness prevailed, When piety more awful had relaxed. — ‘Take, running river, take these locks of mine’— Thus would the Votary say — ‘this severed hair, ‘My vow fulfilling, do I here present, ‘Thankful for my beloved child’s return. ‘Thy banks, Cephisus, he again hath trod, ‘Thy murmurs heard; and drunk the crystal lymph ‘With which thou dost refresh the thirsty lip, ‘And, all day long, moisten these flowery fields!’ And doubtless, sometimes, when the hair was shed Upon the flowing stream, a thought arose Of Life continuous, Being unimpaired; That hath been, is, and where it was and is There shall endure, — existence unexposed To the blind walk of mortal accident; From diminution safe and weakening age; While man grows old, and dwindles, and decays; And countless generations of mankind Depart; and leave no vestige where they trod. We live by Admiration, Hope and Love; And, even as these are well and wisely fixed, In dignity of being we ascend. But what is error?” — “Answer he who can!” The Sceptic somewhat haughtily exclaimed: “Love, Hope, and Admiration, — are they not Mad Fancy’s favourite vassals? Does not life Use them, full oft, as pioneers to ruin, Guides to destruction? Is it well to trust Imagination’s light when reason’s fails, The unguarded taper where the guarded faints? — Stoop from those heights, and soberly declare What error is; and, of our errors, which Doth most debase the mind; the genuine seats Of power, where are they? Who shall regulate, With truth, the scale of intellectual rank?” “Methinks,” persuasively the Sage replied, “That for this arduous office you possess Some rare advantages. Your early days A grateful recollection must supply Of much exalted good by Heaven vouchsafed To dignify the humblest state. — Your voice Hath, in my hearing, often testified That poor men’s children, they, and they alone, By their condition taught, can understand HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

The wisdom of the prayer that daily asks For daily bread. A consciousness is yours How feelingly religion may be learned In smoky cabins, from a mother’s tongue— Heard where the dwelling vibrates to the din Of the contiguous torrent, gathering strength At every moment — and, with strength, increase Of fury; or, while snow is at the door, Assaulting and defending, and the wind, A sightless labourer, whistles at his work— Fearful; but resignation tempers fear, And piety is sweet to infant minds. — The Shepherd-lad, that in the sunshine carves, On the green turf, a dial — to divide The silent hours; and who to that report Can portion out his pleasures, and adapt, Throughout a long and lonely summer’s day His round of pastoral duties, is not left With less intelligence for ‘moral’ things Of gravest import. Early he perceives, Within himself, a measure and a rule, Which to the sun of truth he can apply, That shines for him, and shines for all mankind. Experience daily fixing his regards On nature’s wants, he knows how few they are, And where they lie, how answered and appeased. This knowledge ample recompense affords For manifold privations; he refers His notions to this standard; on this rock Rests his desires; and hence, in after life, Soul-strengthening patience, and sublime content. Imagination — not permitted here To waste her powers, as in the worldling’s mind, On fickle pleasures, and superfluous cares, And trivial ostentation — is left free And puissant to range the solemn walks Of time and nature, girded by a zone That, while it binds, invigorates and supports. Acknowledge, then, that whether by the side Of his poor hut, or on the mountain top, Or in the cultured field, a Man so bred (Take from him what you will upon the score Of ignorance or illusion) lives and breathes For noble purposes of mind: his heart Beats to the heroic song of ancient days; His eye distinguishes, his soul creates. And those illusions, which excite the scorn Or move the pity of unthinking minds, Are they not mainly outward ministers Of inward conscience? with whose service charged They came and go, appeared and disappear, Diverting evil purposes, remorse Awakening, chastening an intemperate grief, Or pride of heart abating: and, whene’er For less important ends those phantoms move, Who would forbid them, if their presence serve— On thinly-peopled mountains and wild heaths, Filling a space, else vacant — to exalt The forms of Nature, and enlarge her powers? Once more to distant ages of the world Let us revert, and place before our thoughts The face which rural solitude might wear To the unenlightened swains of pagan Greece. — In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched On the soft grass through half a summer’s day, With music lulled his indolent repose: And, in some fit of weariness, if he, When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear HDT WHAT? INDEX

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A distant strain, far sweeter than the sounds Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched, Even from the blazing chariot of the sun, A beardless Youth, who touched a golden lute, And filled the illumined groves with ravishment. The nightly hunter, lifting a bright eye Up towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed That timely light, to share his joyous sport: And hence, a beaming Goddess with her Nymphs, Across the lawn and through the darksome grove, Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes By echo multiplied from rock or cave, Swept in the storm of chase; as moon and stars Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven, When winds are blowing strong. The traveller slaked His thirst from rill or gushing fount, and thanked The Naiad. Sunbeams, upon distant hills Gliding apace, with shadows in their train, Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed Into fleet Oreads sporting visibly. The Zephyrs fanning, as they passed, their wings, Lacked not, for love, fair objects whom they wooed With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque, Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age, From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth In the low vale, or on steep mountain side; And, sometimes, intermixed with stirring horns Of the live deer, or goat’s depending beard,— These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood Of gamesome Deities; or Pan himself, The simple shepherd’s awe-inspiring God!” The strain was aptly chosen; and I could mark Its kindly influence, o’er the yielding brow Of our Companion, gradually diffused; While, listening, he had paced the noiseless turf, Like one whose untired ear a murmuring stream Detains; but tempted now to interpose, He with a smile exclaimed:— “’Tis well you speak At a safe distance from our native land, And from the mansions where our youth was taught. The true descendants of those godly men Who swept from Scotland, in a flame of zeal, Shrine, altar, image, and the massy piles That harboured them, — the souls retaining yet The churlish features of that after-race Who fled to woods, caverns, and jutting rocks, In deadly scorn of superstitious rites, Or what their scruples construed to be such— How, think you, would they tolerate this scheme Of fine propensities, that tends, if urged Far as it might be urged, to sow afresh The weeds of Romish phantasy, in vain Uprooted; would re-consecrate our wells To good Saint Fillan and to fair Saint Anne; And from long banishment recall Saint Giles, To watch again with tutelary love O’er stately Edinborough throned on crags? A blessed restoration, to behold The patron, on the shoulders of his priests, Once more parading through her crowded streets, Now simply guarded by the sober powers Of science, and philosophy, and sense!” This answer followed. — “You have turned my thoughts Upon our brave Progenitors, who rose Against idolatry with warlike mind, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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And shrunk from vain observances, to lurk In woods, and dwell under impending rocks Ill-sheltered, and oft wanting fire and food; Why? — for this very reason that they felt, And did acknowledge, wheresoe’er they moved, A spiritual presence, oft-times misconceived, But still a high dependence, a divine Bounty and government, that filled their hearts With joy, and gratitude, and fear, and love; And from their fervent lips drew hymns of praise, That through the desert rang. Though favoured less, Far less, than these, yet such, in their degree, Were those bewildered Pagans of old time. Beyond their own poor natures and above They looked; were humbly thankful for the good Which the warm sun solicited, and earth Bestowed; were gladsome, — and their moral sense They fortified with reverence for the Gods; And they had hopes that overstepped the Grave. “Now, shall our great Discoverers,” he exclaimed, Raising his voice triumphantly, “obtain From sense and reason, less than these obtained, Though far misled? Shall men for whom our age Unbaffled powers of vision hath prepared, To explore the world without and world within, Be joyless as the blind? Ambitious spirits— Whom earth, at this late season, hath produced To regulate the moving spheres, and weigh The planets in the hollow of their hand; And they who rather dive than soar, whose pains Have solved the elements, or analysed The thinking principle — shall they in fact Prove a degraded Race? and what avails Renown, if their presumption make them such? Oh! there is laughter at their work in heaven! Inquire of ancient Wisdom; go, demand Of mighty Nature, if ’twas ever meant That we should pry far off yet be unraised; That we should pore, and dwindle as we pore, Viewing all objects unremittingly In disconnection dead and spiritless; And still dividing, and dividing still, Break down all grandeur, still unsatisfied With the perverse attempt, while littleness May yet become more little; waging thus An impious warfare with the very life Of our own souls! And if indeed there be An all-pervading Spirit, upon whom Our dark foundations rest, could he design That this magnificent effect of power, The earth we tread, the sky that we behold By day, and all the pomp which night reveals; That these — and that superior mystery Our vital frame, so fearfully devised, And the dread soul within it — should exist Only to be examined, pondered, searched, Probed, vexed, and criticised? Accuse me not Of arrogance, unknown Wanderer as I am, If, having walked with Nature threescore years, And offered, far as frailty would allow, My heart a daily sacrifice to Truth, I now affirm of Nature and of Truth, Whom I have served, that their DIVINITY Revolts, offended at the ways of men Swayed by such motives, to such ends employed; Philosophers, who, though the human soul Be of a thousand faculties composed, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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And twice ten thousand interests, do yet prize This soul, and the transcendent universe, No more than as a mirror that reflects To proud Self-love her own intelligence; That one, poor, finite object, in the abyss Of infinite Being, twinkling restlessly! Nor higher place can be assigned to him And his compeers — the laughing Sage of France.— Crowned was he, if my memory do not err, With laurel planted upon hoary hairs, In sign of conquest by his wit achieved And benefits his wisdom had conferred; His stooping body tottered with wreaths of flowers Opprest, far less becoming ornaments Than Spring oft twines about a mouldering tree; Yet so it pleased a fond, a vain, old Man, And a most frivolous people. Him I mean Who penned, to ridicule confiding faith, This sorry Legend; which by chance we found Piled in a nook, through malice, as might seem, Among more innocent rubbish.” — Speaking thus, With a brief notice when, and how, and where, We had espied the book, he drew it forth; And courteously, as if the act removed, At once, all traces from the good Man’s heart Of unbenign aversion or contempt, Restored it to its owner. “Gentle Friend,” Herewith he grasped the Solitary’s hand, “You have known lights and guides better than these. Ah! let not aught amiss within dispose A noble mind to practise on herself, And tempt opinion to support the wrongs Of passion: whatsoe’er be felt or feared, From higher judgment-seats make no appeal To lower: can you question that the soul Inherits an allegiance, not by choice To be cast off, upon an oath proposed By each new upstart notion? In the ports Of levity no refuge can be found, No shelter, for a spirit in distress. He, who by wilful disesteem of life And proud insensibility to hope, Affronts the eye of Solitude, shall learn That her mild nature can be terrible; That neither she nor Silence lack the power To avenge their own insulted majesty. O blest seclusion! when the mind admits The law of duty; and can therefore move Through each vicissitude of loss and gain, Linked in entire complacence with her choice; When youth’s presumptuousness is mellowed down, And manhood’s vain anxiety dismissed; When wisdom shows her seasonable fruit, Upon the boughs of sheltering leisure hung In sober plenty; when the spirit stoops To drink with gratitude the crystal stream Of unreproved enjoyment; and is pleased To muse, and be saluted by the air Of meek repentance, wafting wall-flower scents From out the crumbling ruins of fallen pride And chambers of transgression, now forlorn. O, calm contented days, and peaceful nights! Who, when such good can be obtained, would strive To reconcile his manhood to a couch Soft, as may seem, but, under that disguise, Stuffed with the thorny substance of the past For fixed annoyance; and full oft beset HDT WHAT? INDEX

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With floating dreams, black and disconsolate, The vapoury phantoms of futurity? Within the soul a faculty abides, That with interpositions, which would hide And darken, so can deal that they become Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt Her native brightness. As the ample moon, In the deep stillness of a summer even Rising behind a thick and lofty grove, Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light, In the green trees; and, kindling on all sides Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil Into a substance glorious as her own, Yea, with her own incorporated, by power Capacious and serene. Like power abides In man’s celestial spirit; virtue thus Sets forth and magnifies herself; thus feeds A calm, a beautiful, and silent fire, From the encumbrances of mortal life, From error, disappointment — nay, from guilt; And sometimes, so relenting justice wills, From palpable oppressions of despair.” The Solitary by these words was touched With manifest emotion, and exclaimed; “But how begin? and whence? — ‘The Mind is free— Resolve,’ the haughty Moralist would say, ‘This single act is all that we demand.’ Alas! such wisdom bids a creature fly Whose very sorrow is, that time hath shorn His natural wings! — To friendship let him turn For succour, but perhaps he sits alone On stormy waters, tossed in a little boat That holds but him, and can contain no more! Religion tells of amity sublime Which no condition can preclude; of One Who sees all suffering, comprehends all wants, All weakness fathoms, can supply all needs: But is that bounty absolute? — His gifts, Are they not, still, in some degree, rewards For acts of service? Can his love extend To hearts that own not him? Will showers of grace, When in the sky no promise may be seen, Fall to refresh a parched and withered land? Or shall the groaning Spirit cast her load At the Redeemer’s feet?” In rueful tone, With some impatience in his mien, he spake: Back to my mind rushed all that had been urged To calm the Sufferer when his story closed; I looked for counsel as unbending now; But a discriminating sympathy Stooped to this apt reply:— “As men from men Do, in the constitution of their souls, Differ, by mystery not to be explained; And as we fall by various ways, and sink One deeper than another, self-condemned, Through manifold degrees of guilt and shame; So manifold and various are the ways Of restoration, fashioned to the steps Of all infirmity, and tending all To the same point, attainable by all— Peace in ourselves, and union with our God. For you, assuredly, a hopeful road Lies open: we have heard from you a voice At every moment softened in its course By tenderness of heart; have seen your eye, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Even like an altar lit by fire from heaven, Kindle before us. — Your discourse this day, That, like the fabled Lethe, wished to flow In creeping sadness, through oblivious shades Of death and night, has caught at every turn The colours of the sun. Access for you Is yet preserved to principles of truth, Which the imaginative Will upholds In seats of wisdom, not to be approached By the inferior Faculty that moulds, With her minute and speculative pains, Opinion, ever changing! I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely; and his countenance soon Brightened with joy; for from within were heard Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed Mysterious union with its native sea. Even such a shell the universe itself Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times, I doubt not, when to you it doth impart Authentic tidings of invisible things; Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power; And central peace, subsisting at the heart Of endless agitation. Here you stand, Adore, and worship, when you know it not; Pious beyond the intention of your thought; Devout above the meaning of your will. — Yes, you have felt, and may not cease to feel. The estate of man would be indeed forlorn If false conclusions of the reasoning power Made the eye blind, and closed the passages Through which the ear converses with the heart. Has not the soul, the being of your life, Received a shock of awful consciousness, In some calm season, when these lofty rocks At night’s approach bring down the unclouded sky, To rest upon their circumambient walls; A temple framing of dimensions vast, And yet not too enormous for the sound Of human anthems, — choral song, or burst Sublime of instrumental harmony, To glorify the Eternal! What if these Did never break the stillness that prevails Here, — if the solemn nightingale be mute, And the soft woodlark here did never chant Her vespers, — Nature fails not to provide Impulse and utterance. The whispering air Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights, And blind recesses of the caverned rocks; The little rills, and waters numberless, Inaudible by daylight, blend their notes With the loud streams: and often, at the hour When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard, Within the circuit of this fabric huge, One voice — the solitary raven, flying Athwart the concave of the dark blue dome, Unseen, perchance above all power of sight — An iron knell! with echoes from afar Faint — and still fainter — as the cry, with which The wanderer accompanies her flight Through the calm region, fades upon the ear, Diminishing by distance till it seemed To expire; yet from the abyss is caught again, And yet again recovered! But descending HDT WHAT? INDEX

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From these imaginative heights, that yield Far-stretching views into eternity, Acknowledge that to Nature’s humbler power Your cherished sullenness is forced to bend Even here, where her amenities are sown With sparing hand. Then trust yourself abroad To range her blooming bowers, and spacious fields, Where on the labours of the happy throng She smiles, including in her wide embrace City, and town, and tower, — and sea with ships Sprinkled; — be our Companion while we track Her rivers populous with gliding life; While, free as air, o’er printless sands we march, Or pierce the gloom of her majestic woods; Roaming, or resting under grateful shade In peace and meditative cheerfulness; Where living things, and things inanimate, Do speak, at Heaven’s command, to eye and ear, And speak to social reason’s inner sense, With inarticulate language. For, the Man— Who, in this spirit, communes with the Forms Of nature, who with understanding heart Both knows and loves such objects as excite No morbid passions, no disquietude, No vengeance, and no hatred — needs must feel The joy of that pure principle of love So deeply, that, unsatisfied with aught Less pure and exquisite, he cannot choose But seek for objects of a kindred love In fellow-natures and a kindred joy. Accordingly he by degrees perceives His feelings of aversion softened down; A holy tenderness pervade his frame. His sanity of reason not impaired, Say rather, all his thoughts now flowing clear, From a clear fountain flowing, he looks round And seeks for good; and finds the good he seeks: Until abhorrence and contempt are things He only knows by name; and, if he hear, From other mouths, the language which they speak, He is compassionate; and has no thought, No feeling, which can overcome his love. And further; by contemplating these Forms In the relations which they bear to man, He shall discern, how, through the various means Which silently they yield, are multiplied The spiritual presences of absent things. Trust me, that for the instructed, time will come When they shall meet no object but may teach Some acceptable lesson to their minds Of human suffering, or of human joy. So shall they learn, while all things speak of man, Their duties from all forms; and general laws, And local accidents, shall tend alike To rouse, to urge; and, with the will, confer The ability to spread the blessings wide Of true philanthropy. The light of love Not failing, perseverance from their steps Departing not, for them shall be confirmed The glorious habit by which sense is made Subservient still to moral purposes, Auxiliar to divine. That change shall clothe The naked spirit, ceasing to deplore The burthen of existence. Science then Shall be a precious visitant; and then, And only then, be worthy of her name: For then her heart shall kindle; her dull eye, HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang Chained to its object in brute slavery; But taught with patient interest to watch The processes of things, and serve the cause Of order and distinctness, not for this Shall it forget that its most noble use, Its most illustrious province, must be found In furnishing clear guidance, a support Not treacherous, to the mind’s ‘excursive’ power. — So build we up the Being that we are; Thus deeply drinking-in the soul of things We shall be wise perforce; and, while inspired By choice, and conscious that the Will is free, Shall move unswerving, even as if impelled By strict necessity, along the path Of order and of good. Whate’er we see, Or feel, shall tend to quicken and refine; Shall fix, in calmer seats of moral strength, Earthly desires; and raise, to loftier heights Of divine love, our intellectual soul.” Here closed the Sage that eloquent harangue, Poured forth with fervour in continuous stream, Such as, remote, ’mid savage wilderness, An Indian Chief discharges from his breast Into the hearing of assembled tribes, In open circle seated round, and hushed As the unbreathing air, when not a leaf Stirs in the mighty woods. — So did he speak: The words he uttered shall not pass away Dispersed, like music that the wind takes up By snatches, and lets fall, to be forgotten; No — they sank into me, the bounteous gift Of one whom time and nature had made wise, Gracing his doctrine with authority Which hostile spirits silently allow; Of one accustomed to desires that feed On fruitage gathered from the tree of life; To hopes on knowledge and experience built; Of one in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A passionate intuition; whence the Soul, Though bound to earth by ties of pity and love, From all injurious servitude was free. The Sun, before his place of rest were reached, Had yet to travel far, but unto us, To us who stood low in that hollow dell, He had become invisible, — a pomp Leaving behind of yellow radiance spread Over the mountain sides, in contrast bold With ample shadows, seemingly, no less Than those resplendent lights, his rich bequest; A dispensation of his evening power. — Adown the path that from the glen had led The funeral train, the Shepherd and his Mate Were seen descending: — forth to greet them ran Our little Page: the rustic pair approach; And in the Matron’s countenance may be read Plain indication that the words, which told How that neglected Pensioner was sent Before his time into a quiet grave, Had done to her humanity no wrong: But we are kindly welcomed — promptly served With ostentatious zeal. — Along the floor Of the small Cottage in the lonely Dell A grateful couch was spread for our repose; Where, in the guise of mountaineers, we lay, Stretched upon fragrant heath, and lulled by sound HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Of far-off torrents charming the still night, And, to tired limbs and over-busy thoughts, Inviting sleep and soft forgetfulness.

June 4, Thursday: Franz Liszt arrived in Basel, where Marie d’Agoult had arrived within the last few days accompanied by her mother.

In Northampton, Samuel Whitmarsh the wannabee silk manufacturer bought $3,500 more meadowland for his mulberry seedlings. Money was going to grow on these trees.

There could be no better commentary on the now-put-foundations-under-your-air-castle advice that Henry Thoreau would give in WALDEN, that some material he copied out of Washington Irving’s THE CRAYON MISCELLANY on this date or shortly thereafter.

WALDEN: I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

CASTLES IN THE AIR

Our guy was copying, none to accurately, into his college literary notebook, from the just-available Volume II, presumably from a copy purchased by the Institute of 1770. The none-too-exact extracts given below come from Volume Two, ABBOTSFORD AND NEWSTEAD ABBEY, announced on this day in the Boston Daily Advertiser as “just received” from the Philadelphia printer by Munroe & Francis, and hence deal with the fanciful architecture of the estates of Sir Walter Scott and George Gordon, Lord Byron: On the following morning, the sun darted his beams from over the hills through the low lattice window. I rose at an early hour, and looked out between the branches of eglantine which overhung the casement. To my surprise Scott was already up and forth, seated on a fragment of stone, and chatting with the workmen employed on the new building. I had supposed, after the time he had wasted upon me yesterday, he would be closely occupied this morning; but he appeared like a man of leisure, who had nothing to do but bask in the sunshine and amuse himself. [42-43] I soon dressed myself and joined him. He talked about his proposed plans of Abbotsford; happy would it have been for him could he have contented himself with his delightful little vine covered cottage, and the simply, yet heart and hospitable style, in which he lived at the time of my visit. The great pile of Abbotsford, with the huge expense it entailed upon him of servants, retainers, guests, and baronial style, was a drain HDT WHAT? INDEX

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upon his purse, a task upon his exertions, and a weight upon his mind, that finally crushed him. [§] As yet, however, all was in embryo and perspective, and Scott pleased himself with picturing out his future residence, as he would one of the fanciful creations of his own romances. “It was one of his air castles,” he said, “Which he was reducing to solid stone and mortar,” — [... §] After passing by the domains of honest Lauckie, Scott pointed out, at a distance, the Eildon stone. There in ancient days stood the Eildon tree, beneath which Thomas the Rhymer, according to popular tradition, dealt forth his prophecies, some of which still exist in antiquated ballads. [§] Here we turned up a little glen with a small burn or brook whimpering and dashing alone it, making an occasional waterfall, and overhung, in some places, with mountain ash and weeping birch. We are now, said Scott, treading classic, or rather fairy ground. This is the haunted glen of Thomas the Rhymer, where he met with the queen of fairy land, and this the bogle burn, or goblin brook, along which she rode on her dapple grey palfrey, with silver bells, ringing at the bridle. – [... §] Scott continued on, leading the way as usual, and limping up the wizard glen, talking as he went, but as his back was toward me, I could only hear the deep growling tones of his voice, like the low breathing of an organ, with [out] distinguishing the words, until pausing, and turning his face towards me, I found he was reciting some scrap of border minstrelsy about Thomas the Rhymer. This was continually the case in my ramblings with him about this storied neighbourhood. [43, 54, 55] His mind was fraught with the traditionary fictions connected with every object around him and he would breath [sic] it forth as he went, apparently as much for his own gratification as for that of his companion. “Nor hill, nor brook, we paced along, but had its legend or its song.” His voice was deep and sonorous, he spoke with a Scottish accent, and with somewhat of the Northumbrian “burr,” which, to my mind, gave a doric strength and simplicity to his elocution. His recitation of poetry was, at times, magnificent – [... §] Whenever Scott touched, in [t]his way, upon local antiquities and in all his familiar conversations about local traditions and superstitions, there was always a sly and quiet humor running at the bottom of his discourse, and playing about his countenance, as if he sport[e]d with the subject. It seemed to me as if he distrusted his own enthusiasm, and was disposed to droll upon his own humors and peculiarities, yet, at the same time, a poetic glean in his eye would show that he really took a strong relish and interest in them. “It was a pity,” he said, “that antiquarians were generally so dry, for the subjects they handled were rich in historical and poetic recollections, in picturesque details, in quaint and heroic characteristics, and in all kinds of curious and obsolete ceremonials. They are are [sic] always groping among the rarest materials for poetry, but they have no idea of turning them to poetic use. Now every fragment from old time has, in some degree, its story with it, or gives an inkling of something characteristic of the circumstances and manners of its day, and so sets the imagination at work.” – [§] For my own part I never met with HDT WHAT? INDEX

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antiquarian so delightful, either in his writings or his conversation, and the quiet subacid humor that was prone to mingle in his disquisitions, gave them, to me, a peculiar and an exquisite flavor. But he seemed, in fact, to undervalue every thing that concerned himself. The play of his genius was so easy that he was unconscious of its mighty power, and made light of those sports of intellect that shamed the efforts and labors of other minds[.] [55, 74-76] The conversation of Scott was frank, hearty, picturesque, and dramatic. During the time of my visit he inclined to the comic rather than the grave, in his anecdotes and stories, and such, I was told, was his general inclination. He relished a joke, or a trait of humor in social intercourse, and laughed with right good will. He talked not for effect or display, but from the flow of his spirits, the stores of his memory, and the vigor of his imagination. He had a natural turn for narration, and his narratives and descriptions were without effort, yet wonderfully graphic. He placed the scene before you like a picture; he gave the dialogue with the appropriate dialect or peculiarities, and described the appearance and characters of his personages with that spirit and felicity evinced in his writings. Indeed, his conversation reminded me continually of his novels; and it seemed to me, that during the whole time I was with him, he talked enough to fill volumes, and that they could not have been filled more delightfully. [90-91] He was as good a listener as talker, appreciated everything that others said, however humble might be their rank or pretensions, and was quick to testify his perception of any point in their discourse. He arrogated nothing to himself, but was perfectly unassuming and unpretending, entering with heart and soul into the business, or pleasure, or, I had almost said folly, of the hour and company. No one’s concerns, no one’s thoughts, no one’s opinions, no one’s tastes and pleasures seemed beneath him. He made himself so thoroughly the companion of those with whom he happened to be, that they forgot for a time his vast superiority, and only recollected and wondered, when all was over, that it was Scott with whom they had been on such familiar terms, and in whose society they had felt so perfectly as their ease. – [§] It was delightful to observe the generous mode in which he spoke of all his literary contemporaries, quoting the beauties of their works, and this, too, with respect to persons with whom he might have been supposed to be at variance in literature or politics. Jeffrey, it was thought, had ruffled his plumes in one of his reviews, yet Scott spoke of him in terms of high and warm eulogy, both as an author and as a man. [§] His humor in conversation, as in his works, was genial and free from all causticity. He had a quick perception of faults and foibles, but he looked upon poor human nature with an indulgent eye, relishing what was good and pleas[ant,] tolerating what was frail, and pitying what was evil. It is this beneficent spirit which gives such an air of bonhommie to Scott’s humor throughout all his works. He played with the foibles and errors of his fellow beings, and presented them in a thousand whimsical and characteristic lights, but the kindness and generosity of his nature would not allow him to be a satirist. I do not recollect a sneer throughout his conversation any more than there is HDT WHAT? INDEX

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throughout his works. – [...] Of his public character and merits, all the world can judge. His works have incorporated themselves with the thoughts and concerns of the whole civilized world, for a quarter of a century, and have had a controlling influence over the age in which he lived. But when did a human being ever exercise an influence more salutary and benignant? Who is there that, on looking [back] over a great portion of his life, does not find the genius of Scott administering to his pleasures, beguiling his cares, and soothing his lonely sorrows? Who does not still guard his works as a treasury of pure enjoyment, an armory to which to resort in time of need, to find weapons with which to fight off the evils and the griefs of life? For my own part, in periods of dejection, I have hail[e]d the announcement of a new work from his pen as an earnest of certain pleasure in store for me, and have looked forward to it as a traveller in a waste looks to a given spot at a distance, where he feels assured of solace and refreshment. When I consider how much he has thus contributed to the better hours of my past existence, and how independent his works still make me, at times, of all the world for my enjoyment, I bless my stars that cast my lot in his days, to be thus cheered and gladdened by the outpourings of his genius. I consider it one of the greatest advantages that I have derived from my literary career, that it has elevated me into genial communion with such a spirit.” [91- 94] Irving again, speaking of Byron. I leaned over the stone balustrade of the terrace, and gazed upon the valley of Newstead, with its silver sheets of water gleaming in the morning sun. It was a Sabbath morning, which always seems to have a hallowed influence over the landscape probably from the quiet of the day, and the cessation of all kinds of week day labor. As I mused upon the mild and beautiful scene, and the wayward destinies of the man, whose stormy temperament forced him from this tranquil paradise to battle with the passions and perils of the world, the sweet chime of bells from a village a few miles distance, came stealing up the valley. Every sight and sound this morning seemed calculated to summon up touching recollections of poor Byron. The chime was from the village spire of Hucknall Torkard, beneath which his remains lie buried.” [125] [On pages 183-194, Irving has a chapter, “Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest.”] HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Four Approaches to the Writer’s Estate

Approach “Old Money” “New Money” “Sweat Equity” “Just Enough Money” Writer Lord Byron Sir Walter Scott Henry Thoreau Virginia Wolff

Estate Newstead Abbey Abbotsford Walden Pond A Room of One’s Own

Results Bailout Insolvency Immortality Feminism HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

THE CRAYON MISCELLANY

George Gordon, Lord Byron’s Newstead Abbey

Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford

July: Ada Byron got married with William, 8th Lord King. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1836

Byron Noel King (later the 12th Baron Wentworth and the first Viscount Ockham), son of Ada and Lord King, was born. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1837

Anne Isabella Noel King (later the 15th Baroness Wentworth), daughter of Ada and Lord King, was born.

Lady Frances Webster died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1838

June 30, Saturday: Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts continued his speech before the US House of Representatives on the expansive topic of Texas, for a 16th consecutive day.

Lord King was created the Earl of Lovelace.

The following news item appeared on page 2 of the Concord Freeman:

EXHUMATION OF THREE INDIAN BODIES. While several men were employed last week in digging a ditch in a meadow, not far from the house of Mr. Israel H. Brown in Sudbury, they disinterred the bodies of three Indians, in a most wonderful state of preservation. There was no appearance on the surface of the ground, that indicated a place of sepulture [sic], and the discovery was purely accidental. The bodies were found about five feet from the top of the meadow, the three lying side by side. A kind of white dust lay immediately over them, seemingly the decayed remains of a cloth, or something else, which had been spread over them. When this was removed, and the air had free access to the bodies, the long straight hair which seemed as perfect as upon a living being, immed- HDT WHAT? INDEX

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iately crumbled to dust. This was, however, the only alteration which an exposure to the atmosphere made. The skin seemed to have shrunk and dryed [sic] upon the bones gradually as the flesh corrupted, and had assumed a dark, dingy color, not unlike that of an Egyptian mummy.— The features appeared to have retained on all the same expression as when death overtook them — an expression of terrific sternness, such as must have been assumed either at a moment of great anguish or passion. In various parts of the body of the one which lay in the centre were holes, which might have been made by a bullet or bayonet, and on the head of one of the others, the skin was parted, showing a fracture on the skull bone, which was evidently produced by a severe blow from some sharp-edged instrument; on one no mark of a violent death was visible, the skin being to appearance unbroken. A number of arrow heads, and a tomahawk nearly eaten up with rust, were found a few feet off. The bodies were raised and carefully removed, and it is the present intention of those who discovered them to place them in the New England Museum, where the public will be enabled to view them, with the many curiosities and wonders which have been collected there. The meadow in which these entombed warriors were dug up is chiefly valuable for its excellent turf, and to the nature of the soil, may be attributed the singular preservation of the bodies, a conclusion amply sustained by similar discoveries, which are familiar to the public. The meadow lies near to the spot, where the gallant Wadsworth and his little band were massacred by the Indians, on the memorable 18th of April, 1676; and it is not improbably to suppose, that these Indians were killed on that fatal day, and were buried by their comrades on the spot where they have lain undisturbed for over a century and a half.—[Com.] HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1839

Ralph Gordon Noel King (later the 9th Baron King of Ockham, 2nd Earl of Lovelace, and the 13th Baron Wentworth), son of Ada and Lord Lovelace, was born. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1840

January: In his journal for this month, on the road to Stonewall,46 Henry Thoreau would be exploring the associations of Greek culture with homoeroticism:

46. Refer to Bryne R.S. Fone’s A ROAD TO STONEWALL: MALE HOMOSEXUALITY AND HOMOPHOBIA IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1750-1969. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

“History tells us of Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias, but why should not we put to shame those old reserved worthies by a community of such” (JOURNAL, 1906, 1: 113). He means a community of “such” homosexual lovers and conjures a vision of this erotic Arcadia: “Constantly, as it were through a remote skylight, I have glimpses of a serene friendship land.” In this friendship land there is needed one other only: “I would live henceforth with some gentle soul such a life as may be conceived, double for variety, single for harmony, —two, only that we might admire at our oneness, —one, because indivisible. Such a community to be a pledge of holy living. How could aught unworthy be admitted into our society?” (JOURNAL, 1906, 1: 113). In this utopia there will be nothing “unworthy,” and because it is a society of lovers the love that binds them is worthy as well. Like George Gordon, Lord Byron in DON LEON, Thoreau wants to meet an ideal friend: “For many years have I striven to meet even one on common manly ground and have not succeeded.” Such a friend might be “as holy a shrine as any God’s.” His grammar hints that there may have been such a friend who dwells in the “distant horizon as rich as an eastern city” and “seems to move in a burnished atmosphere ... his house is incandescent to my eye.” Whether real or a fiction of desire, this friend is an “apology for my life. In him are the spaces which my orbit traverses.” Platonically, love lifts him into “higher walks of being” — indeed, it invents “poetical life.” Thoreau’s extravagant metaphors ascribe to friendship the very qualities usually celebrated as those obtaining in love between man and woman. In the presence of a friend “I am ashamed of my fingers and toes. I have no feature so fair as my love for him. There is more than maiden modesty between us.” What “more” there is between Thoreau and his friend is hinted at in another extravagant and suggestive metaphor that conjures consummation: “He sails all lonely under the edge of the sky, but thoughts go out silently from me and belay him, till at length he rises in my roadsted.” Perhaps this friendship, if it existed at all, was like that between Waldo Emerson and Martin Gay, fantasized and unrequited, for Thoreau extends his metaphor further, and it echoes Emerson’s anguished “Why do I look out at you as I pass?” Thoreau says, “But never does he fairly anchor in my harbor. Perhaps I afford no good anchorage ... his house is incandescent to my eye, while I have no house, but only a neighborhood to his.” Informing his perception of this friendship is the need for secrecy concerning it. He writes, “I cannot make a disclosure — you should seem my secret. — Let me open my doors never so wide, still within and behind them, where it is unopened, does the sun rise and set.” His friend is his secret, and the friendship is founded and depends on secrecy: “Does he forget that new mines of secrecy are constantly opening in me?” Thoreau is not willing to reveal his desire in any place but his private journals, where the secret of his friendship can be safely inscribed. That secrecy attends on homosexual relationships is a given just as the fact that the “unmanly” construction that may be imputed to a passion between men demands that there be no revelation. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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July: Early in this month Miss Elizabeth Palmer Peabody opened, in the front parlor of the building she had leased at 13 West Street in Boston, her Foreign Library, a bookstore and circulating library.47

At the suggestion of Washington Allston she would stock imported art supplies. One section was allocated to the homeopathic nostrums created by her father, Dr. Nathaniel Peabody. She displayed on the walls the paintings her sister Sophia was offering for sale. Margaret Fuller had staged her “conversations” here in late 1839 and this would continue in the early 1840s. The Reverend William Ellery Channing would stop by to read the newspaper. Sophia would marry Nathaniel Hawthorne at West Street in 1842. The editors of and contributors to THE DIAL would meet there, and for a time in 1842 and 1843 she would publish this journal as well as writing for it (her “A Glimpse of Christ’s Idea of Society,” a piece about Brook Farm, would appear in the October 1841 issue, and her “Fourierism” would appear in the April 1844 issue). I had ... a foreign library of new French and German books, and then I came into contact with the world as never before. The Ripleys were starting Brook Farm, and they were friends of ours. Theodore Parker was beginning his career, and all these things were discussed in my book-store by Boston lawyers and Cambridge professors. Those were very living years for me.

47. Circulating libraries were privately owned collections of books and periodicals lent out for profit at fixed rates; this institution had its heyday in America in the first half of the 19th Century, just prior to the rise of the public library movement. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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In this year Miss Peabody issued the first of two printed catalogs of her book collection.48 The collection included such titles as GERMAN LITERATURE. TR. FROM THE GERMAN OF WOLFGANG MENZEL. BY C.C. 49 FELTON.... (3 volumes, Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1840), Miss Peabody’s edition of Anna Cabot Lowell’s THEORY OF TEACHING, Lamartine’s HISTORY OF THE GIRONDISTS and TRAVELS IN THE EAST, Michelet’s MÉMOIRES DE LUTHER, Waldo Emerson’s NATURE, the Reverend Ripley’s LETTERS ON THE LATEST FORM OF INFIDELITY (a response to Andrews Norton’s attack on Transcendentalism), Robespierre’s MÉMOIRES, and Rosini’s LUISA STROZZI, in addition to classic works by Æschylus, Ludovico Ariosto, Honoré de Balzac, George Bancroft, George Gordon, Lord Byron, Thomas Carlyle, Miguel de Cervantes, the Reverend Channing, Chateaubriand, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Cousin, Dante, Dumas, Euripides, Gerando, Goethe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hesiod, Homer, Victor Hugo, Mirabeau, Molière, Petrarch, Plato, Racine, Richter, Rousseau, George Sand, Schiller, Schlegel, William Shakespeare, Madame de Staël, Alexis de Tocqueville, Vol tair e, William Wordsworth, and Xenophon. The collection also included various periodicals such as the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Blackwood’s Magazine, the Boston Quarterly Review, THE DIAL, the Edinburgh Review, the Journal des Literarische Unterhaltung, the London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine, the Musical Journal, the New-York Review, the Revue des Deux Mondes, and the Western Messenger.

48. A facsimile of this catalog still exists, as part of Madeleine B. Stern’s “Elizabeth Peabody’s Foreign Library (1840),” American Transcendental Quarterly, No. 20 Supplement, Part 1, pages 5-12. 49. Henry Thoreau would consult this on December 5, 1840. His extracts would consist of quotations from Lorenz Oken and from Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert. GERMAN LITERATURE, I GERMAN LITERATURE, II GERMAN LITERATURE, III HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1842

March 14, Monday: Waldo Emerson lectured in New-York. This was the 6th and final lecture of the series: “Prospects.” (There would be a long report in the NY Tribune.)

Henry Thoreau wrote to Isaiah T. Williams from Concord. Speaking of the death of his brother John, he commented that “For my own part, I feel that I could not have done without this experience.”

Concord March 14th 1842 Dear Williams, I meant to write to you before but John’s death and my own sickness, with other circumstances, prevented. John died of the lock-jaw, as you know, Jan. 11th I have been confined to my chamber for a month with a prolonged shock of the same disorder – from close at- tention to, and sympathy with him, which I learn is not without prec- edent. Mr. Emerson too has lost his oldest child, Waldo, by scarlet fever, a boy of rare promise, who in the expectation of many was to be one of the lights of his generation. John was sick but three days from the slightest apparent cause – an insignificant cut on his finger, which gave him no pain, and was more than a week old – but nature does not ask for such causes as man expects – when she is ready there will be cause enough. I mean simply that perhaps we never assign the sufficient cause for anything – though it undoubtedly exists. He was perfectly calm, ever pleasant while reason lasted, and gleams of the same serenity and playfulness shone through his delirium to the last. But I will not disturb his mem- ory. If you knew him, I could not add to your knowledge, and if you did not know him, as I think you could not, it is now too late, and no eulogy of mine would suffice— For my own part I feel that I could not have done without this experience. What you express with regard to the effect of time on our youthful feelings – which indeed is the theme of universal elegy – reminds me of some verses of Byron – quite rare to find in him, and of his best I think. Probably you remember them. “No more, no more,! Oh never more on me “The freshness of the heart can fall like dew “Which out of all the lovely things we see, “Extracts emotions beautiful and new, “Hived in our bosoms like the bag o’ the bee, “Think’st thou the honey with these objects grew “Alas! ’Twas not in them, but in thy power, “To double even the sweetness of a flower.

“No more, no more! Oh, never more, my heart! HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON HDT WHAT? INDEX

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“Canst thou be my sole world, my universe “Once all in all, but now a thing apart, “Thou canst not be my blessing, or my curse; “The illusion’s gone forever–” ______

It would be well if we could add new years to our lives as innocently as the fish adds new layers to its shell – no less beautiful than the old. And I believe we may if we will replace the vigor and elasticity of youth with faithfulness in later years. When I consider the universe I am still the youngest born. We do not grow old we rust old. Let us not consent to be old, but to die (live?) rather. Is Truth old? or Virtue — or Faith? If we possess them they will be our elixir vitæ and fount of youth It is at least good to re- member our innocence; what we regret is not quite lost— Earth sends no sweeter strain to Heaven than this plaint. Could we not grieve perpetually, and by our grief discourage time’s encroach- ments? All our sin too shall be welcome for such is the material of Wisdom, and through her is our redemption to come. ’Tis true, as you say, “Man’s ends are shaped for him”, but who ever dared confess the extent of his free agency? Though I am weak, I am strong too. If God shapes my ends – he shapes me also – and his means are always equal to his ends. His work does not lack this completeness, that the creature consents. I am my destiny. Was I ever in that straight that it was not sweet to do right? And then for this free agency I would not be free of God certainly— I would only have freedom to defer to him He has not made us solitary agents. He has not made us to do without him Though we must “abide our destiny”, will not he abide it with us? So do the stars and the flowers. My destiny is now arrived – is now arriving. I believe that what I call my circumstances will be a very true history of myself – for God’s works are complete both within and without–and shall I not be con- tent with his success? I welcome my fate for it is not trivial nor whim- sical. Is there not a soul in circumstances? –and the disposition of the soul to circumstances – is not that the crowning circumstance of all? But after all it is intra-stances, or how it stands within me that I am concerned about. Moreover circumstances are past, but I am to come, that is to say, they are result s of me – but I have not yet ar- rived at my result. All impulse, too, is primarily from within The soul which does shape the world is within and central. I must confess I am apt to consider the trades and professions so many traps which the Devil sets to catch men in – and good luck he has too, if one may judge. But did it ever occur that a man came to want, or the almshouse from consulting his higher instincts? All great good is very present and urgent, and need not be postponed. What did Homer –and Socrates –and Christ and Shakspeare & Fox? HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Did they have to compound for their leisure, or steal their hours? What a curse would civilization be if it thus ate into the substance of the soul— Who would choose rather the simple grandeur of savage life for the solid leisure it affords? But need we sell our birthright for a mess of pottage? Let us trust that we shall be fed as the sparrows are. “Grass and earth to sit on, water to wash the feet, and fourthly, af- fectionate speech are at no time deficient in the mansions of the good” You may be interested to learn that Mr. Alcott is going to England in April. That you may find in Law the profession you love, and the means of spiritual culture, is the wish of your friend Henry D. Thoreau. Isaiah T. Williams Buffalo, N. Y.

March 14: Chaucer’s genius does not soar like Milton’s, but is genial and familiar. It is only a greater portion of humanity, with all its weakness. It is not heroic, as Raleigh, or pious, as Herbert, or philosophical, as Shakespeare, but the child of the English nation, but that child that is “father of the man.” His genius is only for the most part an exceeding naturalness. It is perfect sincerity, though with the behavior of a child rather than of a man. He can complain, as in the “Testament of Love,” but yet so truly and unfeignedly that his complaint does not fail to interest. All England has his case at heart. He shows great tenderness and delicacy, but not the heroic sentiment. His genius was feminine, not masculine, — not but such is rarest to find in woman (though the appreciation of it is not), — but less manly than the manliest.

It is not easy to find one brave enough to play the game of love quite alone with you, but they must get some third person, or world, to countenance them. They thrust others between. Love is so delicate and fastidious that I see not how [it] can ever begin. Do you expect me to love with you, unless you make my love secondary to nothing else? Your words come tainted, if the thought of the world darted between thee and the thought of me. You are not venturous enough for love. It goes alone unscared through wildernesses. As soon as I see people loving what they see merely, and not their own high hopes that they form of others, I pity, and do not want their love. Such love delays me. Did I ask thee to love me who hate myself? N o! Love that I love, and I will love thee that lovest it. The love is faint-hearted and short-lived that is contented with the past history of its object. It does not prepare the soil to bear new crops lustier than the old. “I would I had leisure for these things,” sighs the world. “When I have done my quilting and baking, then I will not be backward.” Love never stands still, nor does its object. It is the revolving sun and the swelling bud. If I know what I love, it is because I remember it. Life is grand, and so are its environments of Past and Future. Would the face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man's destiny were not equally so? What am I good for now, who am still marching after high things, but to hear and tell the news, to bring wood and water, and count how many eggs the hens lay? In the meanwhile, I expect my life will begin. I will not aspire longer. I will see what it is I would be after. I will be unanimous. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1843

A statue of George Gordon, Lord Byron was placed in the Library of Trinity College of Cambridge University.

In his 3d year Francis Galton was compelled to withdraw from school to complete mental rest at home. Upon returning he would opt for a “pass” rather than an honours degree, and would receive this “pass” during January 1844. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1846

January 27, Tuesday: Elie, daughter of Medora Leigh and Jean Louis Taillefer, was born.

It is alleged that on this date Frederick Douglass posted a long letter to William Lloyd Garrison from Perth in Scotland, which Garrison would publish in his Liberator of February 27, 1846:50 Dear Friend: For the sake of our righteous cause, I was delighted to see, by an extract copied into the Liberator of 12th Dec. 1845, from the Delaware Republican, that Mr. A.C.C. Thompson, No. 101, Market- street, Wilmington, has undertaken to invalidate my testimony against the slaveholders, whose names I have made prominent in the narrative of my experience while in slavery. Slaveholders and slave-traders never betray greater indiscretion, than when they venture to defend themselves, or their system of plunder, in any other community than a slaveholding one. Slavery has its own standards of morality, humanity, justice, and Christianity. Tried by that standard, it is a system of the greatest kindness to the salve —sanctioned 50. In regard to the reading of this letter, Steve Mailleux and I have had a most definite difference. Steve, a specialist in rhetoric, reads this letter as a clear assertion by its author that he himself had written, and had written without significant assistance by any amanuensis, the NARRATIVE of 1845. I myself, without training in rhetoric, am unable to parse the document in any such manner. It seems most surprisingly clear to me, that in this letter Douglass is not making any such assertion, but instead is dancing around the issue of who actually wrote the NARRATIVE of 1845, and avoiding the making of any definitive assertion in this regard. Douglass writes, for instance, not about the truth of the accusation made by Mr. A.C.C. Thompson that he had not written his NARRATIVE, but of the inadequacy of the motives which Mr. Thompson, as a racist, had for registering such an accusation: “I trust I have now explained away your reason for thinking I did not write the narrative in question.” — but this is a substitution of issue, is an issue entirely detached from the truth or falseness of the accusation that is laid, and thus qualifies merely as a distractive device rhetorically employed. Douglass begins his letter by speaking of “the narrative of my experience while in slavery” without at that point alleging that it is a narrative written by himself — it is “my experience,” the possessive modifier “my,” but it is “the narrative.” the definite article “the” rather than the possessive modifier “my.” In the long body of the letter Douglass indeed does refer to “a second edition of my narrative in this country,” and to “my narrative,” but when he does so, he does so in regard to the issue of the accuracy of the detail recounted in the text rather than in regard to the provenance of the text in which these details are recounted, and he does so with studied ambiguity between the oral narrative, the self-presentation, which indisputably has been witnessed, repeatedly, as a performance by Douglass, and the written narrative, the book, the provenance of which was what was in dispute. Douglass employs words in a broad manner, as when he says “I am now publishing” when of course he himself is no publisher in the specific sense in which Harper & Row is a publisher, but is instead a full-time lecturer on a lyceum circuit. I would very much like to see the provenance of this January 27, 1846 letter. Does a holograph copy of this letter in the handwriting of Douglass now exist? Has such a holograph copy ever existed? Did Douglass himself inscribe this letter without the assistance of an amanuensis in the British Isles, and was it then printed by the Liberator on February 27, 1846 in verbatim form without editing or spelling correction? Or, was this letter created for Douglass by someone in England with whom Douglass had spoken intercourse and then copied into Douglass’s handwriting, or, was this letter created for Douglass by someone in Boston such as Garrison on the basis of something provided by Douglass or his helpers from Scotland? Or, a combination of these influences? The matter needs to be thoroughly looked into, and, so far as I have presently been able to determine, the matter has not been at all looked into. We have been operating as if there were no distinction to be made between what happens in politics, and the simplified intelligible cover stories that politicians ever and again create as they present their activities to the general public. I do not know that the racists in Maryland and Delaware had ever been interviewed at length. I do not know, for instance, that any researcher has ever gone back and recovered an image of or the actual words of the Thompson letter from the Delaware Republican, to validate the accuracy of the rendition of the material which later surfaced in the Liberator. Also, I have not myself seen independent corroboration for the allegation in this letter that unnamed “pro-slavery people in the North might have persisted, with some show of reason, in representing me as being an imposter –a free Negro who had never been south of Mason & Dixon’s line– one whom the abolitionists, acting on the jesuitical principle, that the end justifies the means, had educated and sent forth to attract attention to their faltering cause.” That this sort of thing was offered by somebody, and that this sort of thing was offered by somebody whose offerings were of any influence, are putative facts for which, I think, we have only the evidence of Douglass’s assertion. And I am wondering, indeed, whether any person has ever attempted to provide the necessary independent attestation in support of this allegation by Douglass. The fact that Douglass was oppressed does not demonstrate that he always told the truth, or that persons writing on his behalf always wrote the truth. But it is perhaps too much, that I find myself forced under the circumstances to elaborate upon such obvious items. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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by the purest morality —in perfect agreement with justice —and, of course, not inconsistent with Christianity. But, tried by any other, it is doomed to condemnation. The naked relation of master and slave is one of those monsters of darkness, to whom the light of truth is death! The wise ones among the slaveholders know this, and they studiously avoid doing anything, which, in their judgment, tends to elicit truth. They seem fully to understand, that their safety is in their silence. They may have learned this Wisdom from Junius, who counselled his opponent, Sir William Draper, when defending Lord Granby, never to attract attention to a character, which would only pass without condemnation, when it passed without observation. I am now almost too far away to answer this attempted refutation by Mr. Thompson. I fear his article will be forgotten, before you get my reply. I, however, think the whole thing worth reviving, as it is seldom we have so good a case for dissection. In any country but the United States, I might hope to get a hearing through the columns of the paper in which I was attacked. But this would be inconsistent with American usage and magnanimity. It would be folly to expect such a hearing. They might possibly advertise me as a runaway slave, and share the reward of my apprehension; but on no other condition would they allow my reply a place in their columns. In this, however, I may judge the “Republican” harshly. It may be that, having admitted Mr. Thompson’s article, the editor will think it but fair —Negro though I am— to allow my reply an insertion. In replying to Mr. Thompson, I shall proceed as I usually do in preaching the slaveholders’ sermon —dividing the subject under two general heads, as follows:— 1st. The statement of Mr. Thompson, in confirmation of the truth of my narrative. 2ndly. His denials of its truthfulness. Under the first, I beg Mr. Thompson to accept my thanks for his full, free and unsolicited testimony, in regard to my identity. There now need be no doubt on that point, however much there might have been before. Your testimony, Mr. Thompson, has settled the question forever. I give you the fullest credit for the deed, saying nothing of the motive. But for you, sir, the pro-slavery people in the North might have persisted, with some show of reason, in representing me as being an imposter —a free Negro who had never been south of Mason & Dixon’s line— one whom the abolitionists, acting on the jesuitical principle, that the end justifies the means, had educated and sent forth to attract attention to their faltering cause. I am greatly indebted to you, sir, for silencing those truly prejudicial insinuations. I wish I could make you understand the amount of service you have done me. You have completely tripped up the heels of your pro- slavery friends, and laid them flat at my feet. You have done a piece of anti-slavery work, which no anti-slavery man could do. our cautious and truth-loving people in New England would never have believed this testimony, in proof of my identity, had it been borne by an abolitionist. Not that they really think an abolitionist capable of bearing false witness intentionally; but such persons are thought fanatical, and to look at every thing HDT WHAT? INDEX

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through a distorted medium. They will believe you — they will believe a slaveholder. They have, some how or other, imbibed (and I confess strangely enough) the idea that persons such as yourself are dispassionate, impartial and disinterested, and therefore capable of giving a fair representation of things connected with slavery. Now, under these circumstances, your testimony is of the utmost importance. It will serve to give effect to my exposures of slavery, both at home and abroad. I hope I shall not administer to your vanity when I tell you that you seem to have been raised up for this purpose! I came to this land with the highest testimonials from some of the most intelligent and distinguished abolitionists in the United States; yet some here have entertained and expressed doubt as to whether I have ever been a slave. You may easily imagine the perplexing and embarrassing nature of my situation, and how anxious I must have been to be relieved from it. You, sir, have relieved me. I now stand before both the American and British public, endorsed by you as being just what I have ever represented myself to be — to wait, an American slave. You say, “I knew this recreant slave by the name of Frederick Bailey” (instead of Douglass). Yes, that was my name; and leaving out the term recreant, which savors a little of bitterness, your testimony is direct and perfect — just what I have long wanted. But you are not yet satisfied. You seem determined to bear the most ample testimony in my favor. You say you knew me when I lived with Mr. Covey. — “And with most of the persons” mentioned in my narrative, “you are intimately acquainted.” This is excellent. then Mr. Edward Covey is not a creature of my imagination, but really did, and may yet exist. You thus brush away the miserable insinuation of my northern pro-slavery enemies, that I have used fictitious not real names. You say — “Col. Lloyd was a wealthy planter. Mr. Gore was once an overseer for Col. Lloyd, but is now living near St. Michael’s, is respected, and [you] believe he is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Thomas Auld is an honorable and worthy member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Covey, too, is a member of the Methodist Church, and all that can be said of him is, that he is a good Christian,” &c., &c. Do allow me, once more, to thank you for this triumphant vindication of the truth of my statements; and to show you how highly I value your testimony, I will inform you that I am now publishing a second edition of my narrative in this country, having already disposed of the first. I will insert your article with my reply as an appendix to the edition now in progress. If you find any fault with my frequent thanks, you may find some excuse for me in the fact, that I have serious fears that you will be but poorly thanked by those whose characters you have felt it your duty to defend. I am almost certain they will regard you as running before you were sent, and as having spoken when you should have been silent. Under these trying circumstances, it is evidently the duty of those interested in your welfare to extend to you such words of consolation as may ease, if not remove, the pain of your sad disappointment. But enough of this. Now, then, to the second part — or your denials. You are confident I did not write the book; and the reason of your confidence is, that when you knew me, I was an unlearned and rather an ordinary Negro. Well, I have to admit I was rather an HDT WHAT? INDEX

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ordinary Negro when you knew me, and I do not claim to be a very extraordinary one now. But you knew me under very unfavorable circumstances. It was when I lived with Mr. Covey, the Negro- breaker, and member of the Methodist Church. I had just been living with master Thomas Auld, where I had been reduced by hunger. Master Thomas did not allow me enough to eat. Well, when I lived with Mr. Covey, I was driven so hard, and whipt so often, that my soul was crushed and my spirits broken. I was a mere wreck. The degradation to which I was then subjected, as I now look back to it, seems more like a dream than a horrible reality. I can scarce realize how I ever passed through it, without quite losing all my moral and intellectual energies. I can easily understand that you sincerely doubt if I wrote the narrative; for if any one had told me, seven years ago, I should ever be able to write such a one, I should have doubted as strongly as you now do. You must not judge me now by what I then was — a change of circumstances has made a surprising change in me. Frederick Douglass, the freeman, is a very different person from Frederick Bailey, (my former name), the slave. I feel myself almost a new man — freedom has given me new life. I fancy you would scarcely know me. I think I have altered very much in my general appearance, and know I have in my manners. You remember when I used to meet you on the road to St. Michaels, or near Mr. Covey’s land gate, I hardly dared to lift my head, and look up at you. If I should meet you now, amid the free hills of old Scotland, where the ancient “black Douglass” once met his foes, I presume I might summon sufficient fortitude to look you full in the face; and were you to attempt to make a slave of me, it is possible you might find me almost as disagreeable a subject, as was the Douglass to whom I have just referred. Of one thing, I am certain — you would see a great change in me! I trust I have now explained away your reason for thinking I did not write the narrative in question. You next deny the existence of such cruelty in Maryland as I reveal in my narrative; and ask, with truly marvellous simplicity, “could it be possible that charitable, feeling men could murder human beings with as little remorse as the narrative of this infamous libeler would make us believe; and that the laws of Maryland, which operate alike upon black and white, bond and free, could permit such foul murders to pass unnoticed?” “No,” you say, “it is impossible.” I am not to determine what charitable, feeling men can do; but, to show what Maryland slaveholders actually do, their charitable feeling is to be determined by their deeds, and not their deeds by their charitable feelings. The cowskin makes as deep a gash in my flesh, when wielded by a professed saint, as it does when wielded by an open sinner. The deadly musket does as fatal execution when its trigger is pulled by Austin Gore, the Christian, as when the same is done by Beal Bondly, the infidel. The best way to ascertain what those charitable, feeling men can do, will be to point you to the laws made by them, and which you say operate alike upon the white and the black, the bond and the free. By consulting the statute laws of Maryland, you will find the following: — “Any slave for rambling in the night, or riding horses in the day time without leave, or running away, may be punished by whipping, cropping, branding in the cheek, or otherwise — not rendering him unfit for labor.” — p. 337. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Then another: — “Any slave convicted of petty treason, murder, or wilful burning of dwelling-houses, may be sentenced to have the right hand cut off, to be hanged in the usual way —his head severed from his body— the body divided into four quarters, and the head and quarters set up in the most public place where such act was committed.” — page 190. Now, Mr. Thompson, when you consider with what ease a slave may be convicted of any one or all of these crimes, how bloody and atrocious do these laws appear! Yet, sir, they are but the breath of those pious and charitable feeling men, whom you would defend. I am sure I have recorded in my narrative, nothing so revolting cruel, murderous, and infernal, as may be found in your own statute book. You say that the laws of Maryland operate alike upon the white and black, the bond and free. If you mean by this, that the parties named are all equally protected by law, you perpetrate a falsehood as big as that told by President Polk in his inaugural address. It is a notorious fact, even on this side the Atlantic, that a black man cannot testify against a white in any court in Maryland, or any other slave State. If you do not know this, you are more than ordinarily ignorant, and are to be pitied rather than censured. I will not say “that the detection of this falsehood proves all you have said to be false” — for I wish to avail myself of your testimony, in regard to my identity, — but I will say, you have made yourself very liable to suspicion. I will close these remarks by saying, your positive opposition to slavery is fully explained, and will be well understood by anti-slavery men, when you say the evil of the system does not fall upon the salve, but the slave-holder. This is like saying that the evil of being burnt is not felt by the person burnt, but by him who kindles up the fire about him.

August 23, Sunday: Medora Leigh got married with Jean-Louis Taillefer.

Margaret Fuller reported to the New-York Tribune her first impressions of England — and after her death this would appear in AT HOME AND ABROAD: Ambleside, Westmoreland, 23d August, 1846. I take the first interval of rest and stillness to be filled up by some lines for the Tribune. Only three weeks have passed since leaving New York, but I have already had nine days of wonder in England, and, having learned a good deal, suppose I may have something to tell. Long before receiving this, you know that we were fortunate in the shortest voyage ever made across the Atlantic,51 — only ten days and sixteen hours from Boston to Liverpool. The weather and all circumstances were propitious; and, if some of us were weak of head enough to suffer from the smell and jar of the machinery, or other ills by which the sea is wont to avenge itself on the arrogance of its vanquishers, we found no pity. The stewardess observed that she thought “any one tempted God Almighty who complained on a voyage where they did not even have to put guards to the dishes”! As many contradictory counsels were given us with regard to going in one of the steamers in preference to a sailing vessel, 51. True at the time these Letters were written. — ED. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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I will mention here, for the benefit of those who have not yet tried one, that he must be fastidious indeed who could complain of the Cambria. The advantage of a quick passage and certainty as to the time of arrival, would, with us, have outweighed many ills; but, apart from this, we found more space than we expected and as much as we needed for a very tolerable degree of convenience in our sleeping-rooms, better ventilation than Americans in general can be persuaded to accept, general cleanliness, and good attendance. In the evening, when the wind was favorable, and the sails set, so that the vessel looked like a great winged creature darting across the apparently measureless expanse, the effect was very grand, but ah! for such a spectacle one pays too dear; I far prefer looking out upon “the blue and foaming sea” from a firm green shore. Our ship’s company numbered several pleasant members, and that desire prevailed in each to contribute to the satisfaction of all, which, if carried out through the voyage of life, would make this earth as happy as it is a lovely abode. At Halifax we took in the Governor of Nova Scotia, returning from his very unpopular administration. His lady was with, him, a daughter of William the Fourth and the celebrated Mrs. Jordan. The English on board, and the Americans, following their lead, as usual, seemed to attach much importance to her left-handed alliance with one of the dullest families that ever sat upon a throne, (and that is a bold word, too,) none to her descent from one whom Nature had endowed with her most splendid regalia, — genius that fascinated the attention of all kinds and classes of men, grace and winning qualities that no heart could resist. Was the cestus buried with her, that no sense of its pre-eminent value lingered, as far as I could perceive, in the thoughts of any except myself? We had a foretaste of the delights of living under an aristocratical government at the Custom-House, where our baggage was detained, and we waiting for it weary hours, because of the preference given to the mass of household stuff carried back by this same Lord and Lady Falkland. Captain Judkins of the Cambria, an able and prompt commander, is the man who insisted upon Douglass being admitted to equal rights upon his deck with the insolent slave-holders, and assumed a tone toward their assumptions, which, if the Northern States had had the firmness, good sense, and honor to use, would have had the same effect, and put our country in a very different position from that she occupies at present. He mentioned with pride that he understood the New York Herald called him “the Nigger Captain,” and seemed as willing to accept the distinction as Colonel McKenney is to wear as his last title that of “the Indian’s friend.” At the first sight of the famous Liverpool Docks, extending miles on each side of our landing, we felt ourselves in a slower, solider, and not on that account less truly active, state of things than at home. That impression is confirmed. There is not as we travel that rushing, tearing, and swearing, that snatching of baggage, that prodigality of shoe-leather and lungs, which attend the course of the traveller in the United States; but we do not lose our “goods,” we do not miss our car. The dinner, if ordered in time, is cooked properly, and served punctually, and at the end of the day more that is permanent seems to have come HDT WHAT? INDEX

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of it than on the full-drive system. But more of this, and with a better grace, at a later day. The day after our arrival we went to Manchester. There we went over the magnificent warehouse of —— Phillips, in itself a Bazaar ample to furnish provision for all the wants and fancies of thousands. In the evening we went to the Mechanics’ Institute, and saw the boys and young men in their classes. I have since visited the Mechanics’ Institute at Liverpool, where more than seventeen hundred pupils are received, and with more thorough educational arrangements; but the excellent spirit, the desire for growth in wisdom and enlightened benevolence, is the same in both. For a very small fee, the mechanic, clerk, or apprentice, and the women of their families, can receive various good and well-arranged instruction, not only in common branches of an English education, but in mathematics, composition, the French and German, languages, the practice and theory of the Fine Arts, and they are ardent in availing themselves of instruction in the higher branches. I found large classes, not only in architectural drawing, which may be supposed to be followed with a view to professional objects, but landscape also, and as large in German as in French. They can attend many good lectures and concerts without additional charge, for a due place is here assigned to music as to its influence on the whole mind. The large and well-furnished libraries are in constant requisition, and the books in most constant demand are not those of amusement, but of a solid and permanent interest and value. Only for the last year in Manchester, and for two in Liverpool, have these advantages been extended to girls; but now that part of the subject is looked upon as it ought to be, and begins to be treated more and more as it must and will be wherever true civilization is making its way. One of the handsomest houses in Liverpool has been purchased for the girls’ school, and room and good arrangement been afforded for their work and their play. Among other things they are taught, as they ought to be in all American schools, to cut out and make dresses. I had the pleasure of seeing quotations made from our Boston “Dial,” in the address in which the Director of the Liverpool Institute, a very benevolent and intelligent man, explained to his disciples and others its objects, and which concludes thus: — “But this subject of self-improvement is inexhaustible. If traced to its results in action, it is, in fact, ‘The Whole Duty of Man.’ What of detail it involves and implies, I know that you will, each and all, think out for yourselves. Beautifully has it been said: ‘Is not the difference between spiritual and material things just this, — that in the one case we must watch details, in the other, keep alive the high resolve, and the details will take care of themselves? Keep the sacred central fire burning, and throughout the system, in each of its acts, will be warmth and glow enough.’52 “For myself, if I be asked what my purpose is in relation to you, I would briefly reply, It is that I may help, be it ever so feebly, to train up a race of young men, who shall escape vice by rising above it; who shall love truth because it is 52. The Dial, Vol. I. p. 188, October, 1840, “Musings of a Recluse.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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truth, not because it brings them wealth or honor; who shall regard life as a solemn thing, involving too weighty responsibilities to be wasted in idle or frivolous pursuits; who shall recognize in their daily labors, not merely a tribute to the “hard necessity of daily bread,” but a field for the development of their better nature by the discharge of duty; who shall judge in all things for themselves, bowing the knee to no sectarian or party watchwords of any kind; and who, while they think for themselves, shall feel for others, and regard their talents, their attainments, their opportunities, their possessions, as blessings held in trust for the good of their fellow-men.” I found that The Dial had been read with earnest interest by some of the best minds in these especially practical regions, that it had been welcomed as a representative of some sincere and honorable life in America, and thought the fittest to be quoted under this motto: — “What are noble deeds but noble thoughts realized?” Among other signs of the times we bought Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, and, opening it, found extracts from the writings of our countrymen, Elihu Burritt and Charles Sumner, on the subject of Peace, occupying a leading place in the “Collect,” for the month, of this little hand-book, more likely, in an era like ours, to influence the conduct of the day than would an illuminated breviary. Now that peace is secured for the present between our two countries, the spirit is not forgotten that quelled the storm. Greeted on every side with expressions of feeling about the blessings of peace, the madness and wickedness of war, that would be deemed romantic in our darker land, I have answered to the speakers, “But you are mightily pleased, and illuminate for your victories in China and Ireland, do you not?” and they, unprovoked by the taunt, would mildly reply, “We do not, but it is too true that a large part of the nation fail to bring home the true nature and bearing of those events, and apply principle to conduct with as much justice as they do in the case of a nation nearer to them by kindred and position. But we are sure that feeling is growing purer on the subject day by day, and that there will soon be a large majority against war on any occasion or for any object.” I heard a most interesting letter read from a tradesman in one of the country towns, whose daughters are self-elected instructors of the people in the way of cutting out from books and pamphlets fragments on the great subjects of the day, which they send about in packages, or paste on walls and doors. He said that one such passage, pasted on a door, he had seen read with eager interest by hundreds to whom such thoughts were, probably, quite new, and with some of whom it could scarcely fail to be as a little seed of a large harvest. Another good omen I found in written tracts by Joseph Barker, a working-man of the town of Wortley, published through his own printing- press. How great, how imperious the need of such men, of such deeds, we felt more than ever, while compelled to turn a deaf ear to the squalid and shameless beggars of Liverpool, or talking by night in the streets of Manchester to the girls from the Mills, who were strolling bareheaded, with coarse, rude, and reckless HDT WHAT? INDEX

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air, through the streets, or seeing through the windows of the gin-palaces the women seated drinking, too dull to carouse. The homes of England! their sweetness is melting into fable; only the new Spirit in its holiest power can restore to those homes their boasted security of “each man’s castle,” for Woman, the warder, is driven into the street, and has let fall the keys in her sad plight. Yet darkest hour of night is nearest dawn, and there seems reason to believe that

“There’s a good time coming.” Blest be those who aid, who doubt not that “Smallest helps, if rightly given, Make the impulse stronger; ’Twill be strong enough one day.”

Other things we saw in Liverpool, — the Royal Institute, with the statue of Roscoe by Chantrey, and in its collection from the works of the early Italian artists, and otherwise, bearing traces of that liberality and culture by which the man, happy enough to possess them, and at the same time engaged with his fellow-citizens in practical life, can do so much more to enlighten and form them, than prince or noble possibly can with far larger pecuniary means. We saw the statue of Huskisson in the Cemetery. It is fine as a portrait statue, but as a work of art wants firmness and grandeur. I say it is fine as a portrait statue, though we were told it is not like the original; but it is a good conception of an individuality which might exist, if it does not yet. It is by Gibson, who received his early education in Liverpool. I saw there, too, the body of an infant borne to the grave by women; for it is a beautiful custom, here, that those who have fulfilled all other tender offices to the little being should hold to it the same relation to the very last. From Liverpool we went to Chester, one of the oldest cities in England, a Roman station once, and abode of the “Twentieth Legion,” “the Victorious.” Tiles bearing this inscription, heads of Jupiter, and other marks of their occupation, have, not long ago, been detected beneath the sod. The town also bears the marks of Welsh invasion and domestic struggles. The shape of a cross in which it is laid out, its walls and towers, its four arched gateways, its ramparts and ruined, towers, mantled with ivy, its old houses with Biblical inscriptions, its cathedral, — in which tall trees have grown up amid the arches, a fresh garden-plot, with flowers, bright green and red, taken place of the altar, and a crowd of revelling swallows supplanted the sallow choirs of a former priesthood, — present a tout-ensemble highly romantic in itself, and charming, indeed, to Transatlantic eyes. Yet not to all eyes would it have had charms, for one American traveller, our companion on the voyage, gravely assured us that we should find the “castles and that sort of thing all humbug,” and that, if we wished to enjoy them, it would “be best to sit at home and read some handsome work on the subject.” At the hotel in Liverpool and that in Manchester I had found no bath, and asking for one at Chester, the chambermaid said, with earnest good-will, that “they had none, but she thought she could get me a note from her master to the Infirmary (!!) if I would go there.” Luckily I did not generalize quite as rapidly HDT WHAT? INDEX

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as travellers in America usually do, and put in the note-book, — “Mem.: None but the sick ever bathe in England”; for in the next establishment we tried, I found the plentiful provision for a clean and healthy day, which I had read would be met everywhere in this country. All else I must defer to my next, as the mail is soon to close. ARTHUR FULLER’S BOOK HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1849

June 4, Monday: Lady Blessington died.

There was an outbreak of the Asiatic cholera in Boston — by November there would be roughly 1,000 new graves.

Charlotte Brontë wrote in regard to her family’s tuberculosis: “...They are both gone, and so is poor Branwell, and Papa has now me only-the weakest, puniest, least promising of his children. Consumption has take the whole five.... I am ordered to remain at the sea-side awhile....”

August 28, Tuesday: Elizabeth Medora Leigh, Madame Taillefer died.

In Weimar as part of the celebrations of the centennial of Goethe’s birth, Tasso: lamento e trionfo, a symphonic poem, was performed for the initial time, directed by its composer Franz Liszt, along with the Festmarsch zur Goethejubiläumsfeier (Liszt also conducted Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and parts of Robert Schumann’s Faust). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1850

March 3, day: Colonel George Leigh died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1851

February 1, Saturday: Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley died in London of the tumor on her brain.

The graves of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin at Old St Pancras Church were opened and the remains of the parents repositioned with the remains of the daughter, in Bournemouth Churchyard.

February 26: Sir John Cam Hobhouse was created Baron Broughton de Gyfford.

February 26, Wednesday: Examined the floating meadow again today. It is more than a foot thick the under part much mixed with ice –ice & muck– It appeared to me that the meadow surface had been heaved by the frost & then the water had run down & under it & finally when the ice rose lifted it up –wherever there was ice enough mixed with it to float it. I saw large cakes of ice with other large cakes the latter as big as a table on top of them. Probably the former rose while the latter were already floating about. The plants scattered about were bullrushes & lily-pad stems.– Saw 5 red-wings & a songsparrow? this afternoon.

April 8, Tuesday: Lady Byron’s last interview with Augusta.

October 12, Sunday: Augusta Mary Leigh died. Ada, Countess of Lovelace, would comment “I wonder if anyone personally laments Mrs Leigh? A sad end to a sad life. I suppose a bad life is generally a sad one.”

October 12: Yesterday after noon saw by the brookside above Emerson’s the dwarf primrose in blossom – the norway Cinquefoil – & fall dandelions which are now drying up. the houstonia – buttercups – small golden-rods & various asters more or less purplish. The seeds of the bidens – without florets or beggar ticks with 4 barbed awns like hay-hooks now adhere to your clothes – so that you are all bristling with them Certainly they adhere to nothing so readily as to woolen cloth, as if in the creation of them the invention of woolen clothing by man had been foreseen. How tenacious of its purpose to spread and plant its race– By all methods nature secures this end whether by the balloon or parachute or hook or barbed spear like this – or mere lightness which the winds can waft. What are those seeds big as skunk cabbage seeds amid leafless stalks like Pontederia in the brooks – now bending their stems ready to plant themselves at the bottom? The swamp pink buds begin to show Black birds & larks [Eastern Meadowlark Sturnella magna] are about. And the Flicker or Yellow hammer [Yellow-shafted Flicker Colaptes auratus] so beautifully spotted (in the hand) & the Goldfinches [American Goldfinch Carduleis tristis]. I see a cow in the meadow with a new dropt calf by her side. The anemone nemorosa in bloom & the Potentilla Sarmentosa or running cinquefoil which springs in April – HDT WHAT? INDEX

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now again springing. I love very well this cloudy afternoon so sober – and favorable to reflection after so many bright ones – what if the clouds shut out the heavens provided they concentrate my thoughts and make a more celestial heaven below? I hear the crickets plainer – I wander less in my thoughts – am less dissipated.– am aware how shallow was the current of my thoughts before – deep streams are dark as if there were a cloud in their sky – shallow ones are bright & sparkling reflecting the sun from their bottoms– The very wind on my cheek seems more fraught with meaning.53 Many maples around the edges of the meadows are now quite bare like smoke I seem to be more constantly merged in nature – my intellectual life is more obedient to nature than formerly – but perchance less obedient to Spirit– I have less memorable seasons. I exact less of myself. I am getting used to my meanness – getting to accept my low estate– O if I could be discontented with myself! If I could feel anguish at each descent! The sweet fern is losing its leaves– I see where a field of oats has been cradled by the railroad – alternate white & dark green stripes the width of a swathe running across the field– I find it arises from the stubble being bent a particular way by the cradle – as the cradler advanced – and accordingly reflecting the light but one way – and if I look over the field from the other side – the first swaths will be dark & the latter white. Minot shells all his corn by hand. He has got a box full ready for the mill. He will not winnow it for he says the GEORGE MINOTT chaff? makes it lie loose & dry faster. He tells me that Jacob Baker who raises as fair corn as anybody – gives all the corn of his own raising to his stock – & buys the flat yellow corn of the South for bread – & yet the northern corn is worth the most per bushel Minot did not like this kind of farming any better than I– Baker also buys a great quantity of “Shorts” below for his cows – to make more milk. EDMUND HOSMER He remembers when a Prescott who lived where E. Hosmer does used to let his hogs run in the woods in the fall – and they grew quite fat on the acorns &c they found, but now there are few nuts & it is against the law. He tells me of places in the woods which to his eyes are unchanged since he was a boy – as natural as life – he tells me then that in some respects he is still a boy. & yet the grey-squirrels were 10 then to 1 now. But for the most part he says the world is turned upside down.

P M To Cliffs: I hear Lincoln bell tolling for church At first I thought of the telegraph harp. Heard at a distance 53. William M. White’s version of the journal entry is:

I love very well this cloudy afternoon, So sober and favorable to reflection After so many bright ones.

What if the clouds shut out the heavens, Provided they concentrate my thoughts And make a more celestial heaven below!

I hear the crickets plainer; I wander less in my thoughts, Am less dissipated; Am aware How shallow was the current of my thoughts before.

Deep streams are dark, As if there were a cloud in their sky; Shallow ones are bright and sparkling, Reflecting the sun from their bottoms.

The very wind on my cheek seems more fraught with meaning. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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the sound of a bell acquires a certain vibratory hum, as it were from the air through which it passes – like a harp – All music is a harp music at length– As if the atmosphere were full of strings vibrating to this music. It is not the mere sound of the bell but the humming in the air that enchants me – just azure tint which much air or distance imparts delights the eye. It is not so much the object as the object clothed with an azure veil. All sound heard at a great distance thus tends to produce the same music – vibrating the strings of the universal lyre. There comes to me a melody which the air has strained.– which has conversed with every leaf and needle of the woods. It is by no means the sound of the bell as heard near at hand, and which at this distance I can plainly distinguish – but its vibrating echoes that portion of the sound which the elements take up and modulate. A sound which is very much much modified sifted and refined before it reaches my ear. The echo is to some extent an independent sound – and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of my voice – but it is in some measure the voice of the wood. A cloudy misty day with rain more or less steady– This gentle rain is fast loosening the leaves– I see them filling the air at the least puff – and it is also flattening down the layer which has already fallen. The pines on Fair Haven have shed nearly all their leaves– Butter & eggs still blooms – barrels of apples lie under the trees – The Smiths have carried their last load of peaches to market. To day no part of the heavens is so clear & bright as Fair Haven Pond & the river. Though the air quite misty yet the island wood is distinctly reflected. Ever & anon I see the mist thickening in the S– W– and concealing trees which were before seen, and revealing the direction and limits of the valleys – precursor of harder rain which soon passes again. Minot calls the stakes-driver belcher-squelcher – says he has seen them when making the noise– They go slug- GEORGE MINOTT toot, slug-toot, slug-toot. Told me of his hunting grey squirrels with old Colnel Brooks’s hound. How the latter came into the yard one day – & he spoke to him – patted him – went into the house took down his gun marked London – thought he would go a squirrel hunting. Went over among the ledges – away from Brooks’s for Tige had a dreadful strong DOG voice and could be heard as far as a cannon – & he was plaguey afraid Brooks would hear him. How tige treed them on the oaks on the plain below the cliffs. He could tell by his bark when he had treed one – he never told a lie. How tige told him from a distance that he had got one – but when he came up he could see nothing – but still he knew that Tige never told a lie – and at length he saw his head, in a crotch high up in the top of a very tall oak – and though he did’nt expect to get him – he knocked him over. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1852

November 27, Saturday: Ada, Countess of Lovelace, only child of Lord and Lady Byron, died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1853

George P. Bond prepared the first accurate tourist map of the White Mountains.

Mount Washington House, one of Horace Fabyan’s tourist hotels, burned. Due to legal squabbles it would not be rebuilt. By this point in time, with the Atlantic and Saint Lawrence Railroad passing eight miles to the east of Mount Washington, two new hotels had been built on the eastern slopes of the mountain in an area previously little frequented by tourists. One of these the railroad corporation itself had erected, in Gorham to the east of the mountain: a hotel known as the Alpine House. The Lafayette House in the Franconia Notch was replaced by a much more elaborate hotel, the Profile House, renamed of course in honor of the attractiveness of the nearby Great Stone Face. By this point the grand hotels of the region could play host to two thousand paying tourists at a time.

Although we 20th-Century people might presume that these 19th-Century people were tourists for the same reasons that we ourselves are tourists, perhaps a back-to-nature experience obtained on solitary hiking trails featuring superb views, Dona Brown has pointed out that this simply was not the case: in the 19th Century what the American tourist was seeking was instead the picturesque and the sublime: Sublime scenery was in some sense overwhelming. It inspired the viewer with awe, reverence, perhaps even fear. Towering mountains, a massive waterfall, an overhanging cliff, could all serve as reminders of one’s own insignificance and weakness in the face of larger forces. In an encounter with the sublime, the observer would be deeply moved by the overwhelming power of the sight. Dona Brown points out that George Gordon, Lord Byron well understood the fact that “scenery and the emotions it engendered were of tremendous importance to the travellers and would-be travelers who modeled their writing on his poems.” She suggests that: [T]he cult of scenery may have been connected with the crisis of young adulthood. Its most fervent practitioners tended to be young, perhaps traveling after graduation from college, or immediately before or after marriage. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

I personally think that Dona Brown is onto something here. I believe that people were seeking out scenery that would match the scenery in the popular “Journey of Life” paintings. Newlyweds, for instance, in visiting the Niagara Falls, were reminding themselves that the placid stream of their marriage could suddenly become a maelstrom of plunging disaster, if they did not look ahead and plan carefully together to sail only in the waters of marital bliss. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1854

Richard Realf, having given up trying to be the lover of Lady Noell Byron, widow of George Gordon, Lord Byron, came to the United States of America due to “instincts” which he characterized as “democratic and republican, or, at least, anti-monarchical.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1855

December 27, Thursday: English actress Laura Keene reopened New-York’s Metropolitan Theatre as “Laura Keene’s Varieties.”

George Frederick Byron (later the 9th Baron Byron), son of Frederick and Mary Jane Byron and grandson of the 7th Lord Byron, was born.

Henry Thoreau noted in his journal that he had kept Town School a fortnight in Concord in 1837.

Dec 27th 8 Recalled this evening—with the aid of Mother the various houses (& towns) in which I have lived—& some other events of my life. Uncle David d. when I was Born July 12th 1817 in the 6 weeks old—I was baptized in old M. H. by Dr Ripley when I was 3 months & did not cry Minott House, on the Virginia Road Where Father occupied Grandmother's carrying on the farm Si Merriam next neighbor 3ds—^The Catherines the other half Bob. Catherines & John threw up the Turkies of the house— Lived there about Si Merriam the neighbor 81 months.

We the W side The Red House, Where Grandmother Lived—^till Sep or Oct. (?) 1818—hiring of Josiah Davis There were cousin Charles agent for Woodards— & (uncle C more or less) Ac. to *Day Book Father hired of Proctor Oct 16th 1818—& shop of Spaulding Nov 10th 1818 Chelmsford till March 1821 Last change in Chelmsford about mid of March `21 Aunt Sarah taught me to walk there when 14

months old.— Lived next the M. H. where they kept the powder in the garret. Father kept shop—& painted—signs &c 5 or Popes House at South End in Boston^6 (?) months Moved from Chelmsford through Concord a 10 footer & may have tarried in Concord a little while. Day book says "Moved to Pinkney Street Sep 10th 1821 on Monday". Whitwell's House Pinkney St. Boston to Mar. 1823 (?) Brick House—Concord—to spring of 1826 Davis House—(next to S. Hoars) to May 7th '27

*Day-book 1st used by Grandfather dated 1797. His part cut out & used by Father in Concord in 1808-9126. & in Chelmsford 1818-19-20-21

236 Shattuck House (now Wm Monroe's) to Spring Hollis Hall Cam. of 35—(Hollis. Cambridge. '33) Aunts House to Spring of '37—at Brownson's Hollis Hall & Canton. While teaching in winter of 35— Went to N. York with Father peddling in '36 HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Parkman House to fall of '44. Was Gradu- Hollis-Cambridge ated in '37. Kept Town School a fortnight in '37 (?)— Began the Big Red Journal Oct '37— Found first arrowheads Fall127 of '37—. Wrote a Lecture (my first) on Society, May 14th 38 & read it before the Lyceum in the Mason's Hall— Ap. 11th '38— Went to Maine for a May 17 school in Spring of 38 Commenced school in the house in summer of '38. Wrote an essay on Sound & Silence Dec '38.— Fall of '39 up Merrimack to White Mts.— Aulus Persius Flaccus first printed paper of128 consequence, Feb 10th 546 1840— The Red Journal of 396 ps ended June 1840— Journal of 396 ps R.W.E.'s ended Jan 31st 41 Went to R.W.E's in Spring of 41 & stayed there to summer of '43 Wm Emersons Went to Staten Island June '43—& returned Staten Island %or to Thanksgiving% in Dec%^%'43— Made pencils in '44— Texas House to Aug 29th '50. At Walden Walden July 45 to fall of '47—then at R.W.E's to fall R.W.E's of 48 or while he was in Europe. Yellow-House reformed till present" THOREAU RESIDENCES HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1856

Marie Taillefer took religious vows. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1860

Colonel Wildman sold Newstead Abbey to William Frederick Webb. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1861

March 26, Tuesday: Frederick Earnest Charles Byron (later the 10th Baron Byron), son of Frederick and Mary Jane Byron and grandson of the 7th Lord Byron, was born.

It is extremely difficult for us to grasp the nature of the primary activities of the antebellum federal United States, because we live with a federal establishment whose primary activities are in entitlement programs such as welfare, medicare, and retirement, and in constant worldwide military operations. The government wasn’t like that before our civil war. Back then, back before entitlement programs and a large armaments industry, the primary expenditures of the federal government went toward what it regarded as science, but which in actuality amounted to a continual boondoggle. As evidence for this we have a letter of this date from Sir William Jackson Hooker to Harvard professor Asa Gray:

What a pest, plague & nuisance are your official, semi- official & unofficial Railroad reports, surveys &c. &c. &c. Your valuable researches are scattered beyond the power of anyone but yourself finding them. Who on earth is to keep in their heads or quote such a medley of books - double-paged, double titled & half finished as your Govt. vomits periodically into the great ocean of Scientific bibliography.

Such boondoggles were being conducted at first by the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, and then by the Army Corps of Engineers and the US Geographical Surveys. The Pacific Railroad reports, for instance, issued for free, cost our federal government over a million dollars, at a time when a million dollars was a very, very large fraction of the government’s total annual expenditures. [THOREAU MADE NO ENTRY IN HIS JOURNAL FOR 26 MARCH]

May 16, Thursday: “P.M. Walk on Goat Island.”

Ann Isabella Noel, Lady Byron died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1862

Byron Noel King, Lord Ockham died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1863

May 19, Tuesday: Destruction of Medora’s papers.

Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau wrote from Concord to her cousin Marianne or Mary Anne Mitchell Dunbar of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, giving news of relatives and of Concord friends: “I really shrink from telling you what befell my precious mother last Dec. the 21st day of the month. It was bitter cold, all the family (that is my two aged aunts & Joanna our girl) except mother & myself had gone to bed, when dear mother fell down a very steep staircase, very nearly killing herself. She was deprived of her senses for an hour or two, & during that time she called continually for Henry to help her, her right arm was frightfully shattered. The Dr. administered either, & set her arm carrying off four pieces of bone in his pocket. It was months before poor mother left her bed. Our previous afflictions, & this terrible shock to my nerves, added to the fatigue of nursing mother has seriously impaired my frail health, & the spring finds us miserable indeed. Mother can walk, but there is no prospect that she will ever recover the use of her right hand. I would not forget the many blessings which attend me, but in my feebleness I do miss an earthly friend to lean upon, dear Henry was a host so wise in counsel & so efficient in every emergency. Oh it is a great mystery that we are left to live without him. Ticknor & Fields are about to issue a volume of my brother’s papers.... I have been preparing some of my brothers MSS, for the press.” CYNTHIA DUNBAR THOREAU HENRY THOREAU

May 28, Thursday: William Cooper Nell stood on State Street in Boston and watched as the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment begin its march toward South Carolina. He was part of the largest crowd in Boston’s history. Many of these onlookers would purchase a souvenir of the day containing a quote from George Gordon, Lord Byron’s CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE, Canto ii. Stanza 76: Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not, Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow? HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

This black regiment would be used for dirty labor details until in frustration their white commander would volunteer their bodies to soak up some of the Secesh ammunition in the initial stages of a useless frontal assault on a heavily fortified position, Fort Wagner.

An anti-slavery convention adjourned for an hour to permit the delegates to witness this interesting sight. Frederick Douglass waited to view and wave at his two sons in the ranks (after the publicity and the propaganda, he would of course use his political influence to get them released from service and out of uniform and out of harm’s way). The 1st American regiment of black soldiers, the Massachusetts 54th, was retracing the route through downtown Boston that had been traced nine years before by the white soldiers escorting Anthony Burns back into his enslavement.

Instead of one of our boys going south in a donated suit of clothing and in shackles to suffer violence, this time a thousand of our boys were going south in uniform and in lockstep to perpetrate violence — and yet some dare allege there to be no such thing as progress! The 54th marched through Boston to the Common, where there was a ceremony marking our boys’ departure for service –that is, for their burial service, presuming any of them received one– in South Carolina.54 HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1868

March 1, Sunday: Captain George Anson, Lord Byron died. His son, George Anson Byron III, became the 8th Baron Byron of Rochdale.

54. When a people’s worthiness is questioned on racial grounds, one of the things that happen is that their young men attempt to hurl their worthiness into the teeth of their accusers, by the taking of great risks in battle. This happened in the Civil War and resulted in high casualties in Black regiments, and would happen again in World War II when many hyphenated and sequestered Japanese- American youths volunteered out of their concentration camps in the American desert for segregated service in the “Rainbow Battalion” in the European theater of operations, thus causing this battalion to have by far the highest casualty rate of any Allied troops of the war. Of course, we might in both cases well have anticipated this phenomenon and taken steps to prevent it — but we found it worthwhile to allow/coerce the boys in this manner to immolate themselves for our benefit.

During the Civil War, the fact is that the primary use of black Union soldiers was for manual labor details. The secondary use, the combat use, was to encourage the Southron side to expend its ammunition. To cause them to expose themselves so that the Southrons could expend ammunition, the black Americans were asked over and over again to “prove their bravery.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1869

The idiom “cross lots” was in use, as witness this extract from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s OLD TOWN FOLKS: I came cross lots from Aunt Sawin’s and I got caught in those pesky blackberry bushes in the graveyard.

John Cam Hobhouse, Lord Broughton died.

Ralph Gordon Noel King, Lord Wentworth got married with Fanny Heriot.

Anne Isabella Noel King got married with Wilfred Scawen Blunt.

The Atlantic Monthly incautiously published an article by Stowe about the personal life of George Gordon, Lord Byron. Her intent had been to “arrest Byron’s influence upon the young” but young readers would be fascinated by the salacious detail to the point of outraging their parents — resulting in 15,000 cancelled subscriptions. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1870

November 28, Monday: George Anson, Lord Byron died. His nephew, George Frederick Byron, became the 9th Baron Byron of Rochdale. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1871

Ada Mary King (later the 14th Baroness Wentworth), daughter of Lord Wentworth and Fanny Heriot, was born. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1873

Judith Anne Dorethea Blunt (later the 16th Baroness Wentworth), daughter of Anne Isabella Noel King and Wilfred Scawen Blunt, was born.

Sister Saint-Hilaire (Marie Taillefer) died.

Teresa Guiccioli died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1878

Fanny, Lady Wentworth died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1879

Clare Clairmont died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1880

Ralph Gordon Noel King, Lord Wentworth got married with Mary Caroline Stuart-Wortley. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1893

William, 1st Earl of Lovelace died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1899

Judith Anne Dorothea Blunt got married with Neville Lytton.

November 3, Friday: Richard Geoffrey Gordon Byron (later the 12th Baron Byron), descendant of the 5th Lord Byron’s brother, Rev. Richard Byron, was born. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1900

Noel Anthony Scawen Lytton (later the 4th Earl of Lytton and the 17th Baron Wentworth), son of Judith Anne Dorothea Blunt and Neville Lytton, was born.

January 22, Monday: Elie Tailefer died.

Sergei Rakhmaninov and Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin visited the home of Lev Nikolævich Tolstòy to perform some songs including Fate. The writer responded by asking what was the point of the music, declaring that “Beethoven is nonsense. So too is Pushkin and Lermontov.” He deemed Apukhtin’s poem, Fate, “abominable.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1903

August 13, Thursday: Rupert Frederick George Byron (later the 11th Baron Byron), great-grandson of the 7th Baron Byron, was born. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1906

Ralph Gordon Noel, 9th Lord King, 13th Baron Wentworth, and the 2nd Earl of Lovelace, died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1917

Ada Mary King, Lady Wentworth died. Her aunt, Anne Isabella Noel Blunt, briefly became the 15th Baroness Wentworth, but soon also died. Thereupon her daughter Judith Anne Dorethea Lytton became the 16th Baroness Wentworth.

March 30, Friday: George Frederick, Lord Byron died and his brother the Reverend Frederick Ernest Charles Byron became the 10th Baron Byron of Rochdale.

End of November: Toward the end of this month, with World War I virtually over, Richard Geoffrey Gordon Byron, lineal descendant of George Gordon, Lord Byron, was commissioned in the Army and joined the Fourth Royal Irish Dragoon Guards (he would serve as part of the Army of occupation in Cologne).

November 30, Friday: German forces counterattacked against British at Cambrai. WORLD WAR I HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1922

Richard Geoffrey Gordon Byron was appointed ADC to the Governor of Bombay, Sir George Lloyd. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1925

Richard Geoffrey Gordon Byron’s appointment as ADC to the Governor of Bombay ended. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1930

Sir Julian Cahn purchased Newstead Abbey and donated it to the Corporation of Nottingham for use as a city park and museum. The image below shows it as it appeared in 1975. It now houses a museum of artifacts pertaining to George Gordon, Lord Byron (who actually had not for any extended period of time resided there). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1931

The originary movie “Frankenstein” began with an anonymous authoritative lecturer informing us that we were to learn of “a man of science who sought to create a man after his own image without reckoning upon God.”55

55.You should notice that there had simply been no such “antiscientism” to be found in the book which began this famous series of movies. The antiscientism with which we are so familiar actually is all stuff which Hollywood has imported into the tale, more or less as a series of prequels to the “Mad Scientist” of the megamovie JURASSIC PARK and his monstrous saurian creations! The 1935 sequel “Bride of Frankenstein” would be even more explicit, in presenting an actress portraying the author engaged in conversation with Percy Bysshe Shelley and George Gordon, Lord Byron, going: “My purpose was to write a moral lesson of the punishment that befell a mortal man who dared to emulate God.”

But where had the real Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley ever expressed such an attitude? In fact she had placed in Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s mouth, as his dying words, the hope that although he had failed in his scientific objective to “renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption,” there was still room for hope as “another may succeed.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1935

The movie “Bride of Frankenstein” was even more explicit in its antiscientism than 1831’s “Frankenstein” had been, in presenting an actress portraying the author engaged in conversation with Percy Bysshe Shelley and George Gordon, Lord Byron, going: “My purpose was to write a moral lesson of the punishment that befell a mortal man who dared to emulate God.”

But where had the real Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley ever expressed such an attitude of antagonism toward the stock figure of the “Mad Scientist”? In fact she had placed in Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s mouth, as his dying words, the hope that although he had failed in his scientific objective to “renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption,” there was still room for hope as “another may succeed.”56

56. In the 1818 romance, the problem which was being presented was not that some smartypants among us was trying to play God but that we are all of us shamefully guilty of an uncontrolled aversive reaction to visibly deformed persons. The entire problem of the story originates when Dr. Frankenstein flees in disgust upon catching his first full view of the deformity which he has caused. The creature’s problem is not that he has been created by someone other than God but that due to shameful circumstances entirely beyond his control he had been created “deformed and loathsome,” and that because of shameful attitudes beyond his control all human beings were disowning him: And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant; but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endowed with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome.... When I looked around, I saw and heard none like me. Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned? Our problem, which created the monster’s monsterness, happens to be one of the deepest predispositions of our biological inheritance, something so entirely amoral as to be indiscriminately immoral, with which Hollywood has yet to learn to cope — our instinctive aversion toward malformity. For an elaborate study of this instinctual aversion, one might consult the work of the ex- Nazi ethologist, Konrad Lorenz, who was fascinated by such things, and far more willing than he ought to have been to accept and embrace them. The fact is that despite the innateness of this response of frisson, it is something which can be unlearned. The unlearning of such responses is awarded a certain honor among us, by being referred to as the learning of compassion. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1947

Neville Lytton succeeded as the 3rd Earl of Lytton. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1949

June 6, Monday: The Reverend Frederick Ernest Charles, Lord Byron died. His cousin Rupert Frederick George Byron became the 11th Baron Byron of Rochdale.

President Harry S Truman signed an executive order establishing the office of U.S. High Commissioner in Germany, as a step in replacing army control with civilian supervision. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1950

April 5, Wednesday: Robert “Robin” James Byron (later the 13th Baron Byron), son of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Geoffrey Gordon Byron and Dorigen Margaret Esdaile, was born.

The Republican chairman of the US Loyalty Review Board testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that after 10,000 field investigations “not one single case” of espionage has been found in the federal government. The Republican chairman of the State Department Loyalty Security Board testified that no Communists were found at the State Department. UNAMERICANISM

Incidental music to Hay’s play God, Caesar and Peasant by Witold Lutoslawski was performed for the initial time, in Teatr Polski, Warsaw.

At a ceremony attended by a small group of family and friends, the earthly remains of Kurt Weill were laid to rest at Mount Repose Cemetery, Haverstraw, New York.

The Ballad of the Railroads for voice and piano by Ernst Krenek to his own words, was performed for the initial time, in the Carnegie Hall of New York City. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1951

Neville, Lord Lytton died. His son, Noel Anthony Scawen Lytton, became the 4th Earl of Lytton. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1957

Judith Anne Dorethea, Lady Lytton died. Her son, Noel Anthony Scawen, Lord Lytton, became the 17th Baron Wentworth. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1968

The Dean, the Very Reverend Eric Abbott, approved a petition by the Poetry Society for a Byron memorial in Westminster Abbey.

THE SELECTED LETTERS OF ROBINSON JEFFERS, 1887-1962 (Edited by Ann N. Ridgeway. Foreword by Mark Van Doren. Photos by Leigh Wiener. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1969

May 8, Thursday: A “Ceremony of Dedication of a Memorial to Lord Byron” was held at Westminster Abbey. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1983

November 1, Tuesday: Upon the death of Rupert Frederick George, Lord Byron, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Geoffrey Gordon Byron, a dependent of the 5th Baron’s brother, became 12th Baron Byron of Rochdale. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1986

The brick-faced foundation for Rome’s Colossus Solis next to the Colosseum (no one knows when the enormous bronze statue itself had been destroyed, or why), once upon a time covered in marble, were at this point restored.

Lord Byron took his seat at the House of Lords, which, as you can see, is now lit by electricity. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

1988

THE HOUSE OF BYRON: A HISTORY OF THE FAMILY FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST 1066-1988 by Violet W. Walker, revised and completed by Margaret J. Howell, included a Foreword by Lord Byron. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2015. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: November 11, 2015 HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.