WILLIAM M'CULLAGH TORRENS. BYRON AND LADY CAROLINE LAMB.1 [Lady Caroline Lamb was the wife of the Hon. Mr. Lamb, afterwards Lord Melbourne, and prime minister. Her love escapade with Byron is well known, and has been referred to in the memoir of the Hon. Mrs. Norton. It may be necessary to explain that "William” in the following passage from the biography is Lord Melbourne, at that period the Hon. William Lamb: Lady Melbourne is his mother.] [Mr. William M'Cullagh Torrens was born in Dublin in October, 1813, being the eldest son of Mr. James M'Cullagh, of Greenfield. In 1863 he assumed his maternal name for family reasons. He began his distinguished public career many years back. Having graduated in Trinity College, Dublin, he was admitted to the Irish and afterwards to the English bar; and for several years he practised with success, especially before parliamentary committees. After he had held office as a commissioner of inquiry into the operation of the poor-law in Ireland, and as private secretary to Lord Taunton (then Mr. Henry Whatever may have been the effects of life Labouchere), he represented Dundalk from passed in the whirl of distraction and indul1848 to 1852. In the latter year he unsuc-gence which characterized the early days of cessfully contested Yarmouth, and he was the regency, they were nowhere more traceequally unfortunate in 1857, for, having been able perhaps than upon the young and imreturned, he was afterwards unseated on peti- pressionable dwellers at Melbourne House. tion. In 1865 he was elected for Finsbury. Lady Melbourne had ceased, indeed, to be The parliamentary career of Mr. Torrens has more than casually amused by whims or novbeen active, and he has succeeded on more elties; and she moved on in her own dipthan one occasion in making important and lomatic way, observant of all that was going even vital changes in the measures brought on around her in looks and spirits, less brilforward by ministers. For instance, it was liant than she once had been, though still not on his proposal that the lodger franchise was a bit like sixty-two: in artifices of dress and granted on the household suffrage bill of arts of manner more consummate than ever. Lord Beaconsfield (then Mr. Disraeli), and an Like Lady Holland at Kensington and Lady amendment of his to the education measure Spencer at St. James's Place, her ascendency of Mr. Forster led to the establishment of the in the household was supreme; yet there London School Board. He also passed the were some things her influence could not conmeasure which has done so much to improve trol, some energies she could not fire. Wilthe dwellings of the poor. To the pen of Mr. liam would do anything to please her when Torrens we owe several valuable contributions asked; but she knew it was no use always to political history. He has written biogra- asking him to work as others worked for poliphies of Sheil, Sir James Graham, and, quite tical advancement. Disenchantment seemed recently, Lord Melbourne, a most interesting to have spread its insidious spell over him; and brightly written volume, from which we and though weary enough of ennui, she could make our quotation. He is also the author not bring him, and he could not bring himof Lectures on the Study of History, Indus- self, to set about any undertaking requiring trial History of Free Nations, and a scathing effort or toil. His wife, unceasingly active, review of British action in India, under the spent her existence with as little concentitle, Empire in Asia, How we came by it; a tration of aim. Painting, music, reading, Book of Confessions. The active pen of Mr. writing verses, patronizing plays, taking part Torrens is now engaged in a political study, in private theatricals, dreaming romantically, which ought to prove extremely instructive. and talking in a way to make people stare; It is a contrast in the form of two biogra-riding on horseback, often coquetting, somephies between "Proconsul and Tribune"-the times quarrelling (she hardly knew about proconsul being the Marquis of Wellesley, what) with her husband, trying to please her and the tribune Daniel O'Connell. The first father-in-law, who thought her a fidget; and volume (the "Life of Lord Wellesley") has been published.] 1 Extracted by permission of the author. trying to please her child, whose wistful gaze | the petulance of his 'prentice rhymes, aided of incurious wonder made her for the moment him cheerfully with information and advice staid and sad:-these and a world of inter- for his maiden speech in the Lords. It was mingling trifles filled up her time. But her an undoubted success, and he was forthwith versatility found no resting-place, and the enrolled as a promising recruit in the ranks fatal habit of mentally looking into the glass of the Liberal party. But in the crowd of grew upon her day by day. Her quick celebrities and competitors for notice at Holpowers of appreciation were thrown away land House his vanity might have eaten its upon a glittering crowd of forms and faces, heart out with scant pity or heed, had he not but few of which she paused to look at long been able to lay the world under tribute in a enough to be able to caricature. None of the very different sphere. His speech, he thought, remarkable persons whom she met in society would prove a good advertisement for Childe fixed her attention or riveted her fancy. It Harold, which appeared a few days afterwards. was not a profitable condition of mind, but it Rogers and Moore had seen it in the proof, had been well for her and all who loved her and foretold the triumph which awaited him. had her butterflyhood continued longer. Out The former told Lady Caroline Lamb that she of the unknown a new influence was about to ought to know the new poet, and lent her his break forth on English society, and especially copy to read before the work came out. Soon upon that portion of it wherein she moved, afterwards Lady Westmoreland introduced compared with which all other talents, genius, him to her. Her first impression was unand originality seemed to her but as so many favourable, and she wrote in her diary, "Mad, dull and motionless lamps, while the lightning bad, and dangerous to know." But the éclat was flashing in at the window. An instinc- of his poem made him in a few weeks the star tive sense of misgiving impelled her at first without rival of society. Wherever he went, to turn away; but when this new element of and he soon went everywhere, to use his own dazzling and resistless power came so gently expression, "the women suffocated him." His as not even to cause a start, and in its vivid air of abstraction and look of melancholy, and and seemingly harmless beauty lingered and the rumours put about of his eccentric life, all played all the summer evening round her, her contributed to fan the flame. Emulation for imagination was led captive to its will. his favour became fierce, and the wiles spread for his bewitchment were innumerable. Lady Caroline avers that she spread none. She had called at Holland House after a morning ride through wind and rain; he was unexpectedly announced, and she owns that she ran away to readjust her toilet before they met. His grave attention pleased her; the interview ended in his asking leave to call, and the acquaintance thus begun quickly ripened into friendship. Up to this time the name of Byron, save to a comparative few, may be said to have been unknown. Lord Carlisle, though one of his guardians, had seldom inquired after him during his college days; and on his coming of age forgot to ask him to dinner. When he took the oaths and his seat at Westminster he was not recognized by any one of his peers; and on the chancellor offering his hand in welcome, as a new member of the House, he mistook the courtesy for the form of party enlistment, and took it so ungraciously that Lord Eldon turned away with a frown. Morbidly sensitive to neglect, and attributing it to a slight deformity of which nobody but himself thought or cared, and fevered with an insatiable thirst for distinction, he published in 1809 a satire in which he attacked nearly every critic and poet of the day, in order to be revenged for the ridicule cast by Brougham on his Hours of Idleness in the Edinburgh Review. With his Cambridge class-fellow, Mr. Hobhouse, he spent two years abroad, and returned full of aspirations as a poet and a politician. Through Samuel Rogers, his only acquaintance of note, he was introduced to Lord Holland, who, more suo, forgetting He lived much at Melbourne House, where he was received on terms of the utmost familiarity. For the talents of society, in which Lady Melbourne had probably no equal in her day, his admiration was unbounded. The world she knew by long and keen observation, and whose scenes she had the rare faculty of picturing by a few graphic touches, was all a new world to him. There was hardly a person of note among courtiers, politicians, artists, or men of letters, from the time of Garrick and Chatham, whom she had not known; and there was not a prominent character living whom she did not weigh in the balance of her own judgment, and whose idiosyncrasy she could not, when she would, accurately tell. This, with casual acquaintances, was not often. Experience had taught her the thanklessness | special recognition in the glittering throng, of those who delight in another's unguarded chafed at devotion to the pastime in which he candour. She used to say that few men were could not participate. He preferred sentito be trusted with their neighbours' secrets, mental talk with a clever and wayward woand hardly any woman with her own. But man, whose self-idolatry, already too mature, she found Byron better worth gossiping with ripened into fruit as bitter as his own. One than other young men of his years. He asked who knew her long and well, and who was her questions which it really interested her to more than others lenient to her errors, has answer; and, notwithstanding her habitual said of her that her conversation had all the wariness and reserve, a remarkable degree of charm of intellect, fancy, culture, and a low, confidence sprang up between them. musical voice: it had but one fault, that it was all about herself. There was an affinity in this respect between them which in itself became gradually the cause of disappointment and vexation. Craving on the one side encountered exaction on the other; and as neither knew how to stifle ill-humour or chagrin, he would grow moody and she fretful when their rival egotisms jarred. For the sensitive plant which could yield small fruit With Lady Caroline it was hero-worship. The fascination wrought upon her susceptible and credulous fancy by his account of his youth and foreign adventures; his dark hints at the hidden griefs, the sorrows of his loneliness, the pain of early disappointments, and his real or pretended indifference to passing success; the ever-changing beauty of his features, and the glittering splendour of his verse; and all these laid with a look and tone of ineffable gallantry at her feet by one whose nobility dated from the Conquest, fairly bewildered her. It is all very well for those who have never been brought within the perilous circle of such a spell to talk pharisaically of the ease with which it might have been resisted. But to be just, one must estimate antecedents and surroundings; the enervating atmosphere of dissipation, and the furore about a picturesque poet of high degree. If these things are not taken into account, what really is left but the mingled echo of two names of whose brief association and subsequent severance the world has heard too much and understands too little. It was impossible that such intimacy should not be remarked, but this was exactly what his vanity wanted. With all his profession of democratic enthusiasm, he was habitually swayed by aristocratic feeling; with all his romance in rhyme about devotion to nameless and secluded beauty, he was vain as any coxcomb of being greeted by smiles of quality, and to be known as the favourite of supreme fashion. In the best set Lady Caro-"Offer it to Lord Byron," she replied; "he is line was just then one of the fair and fickle rulers. Melbourne House was the centre of gaiety and revel. "My cousin Hartington wanted to have waltzes and quadrilles; and at Devonshire House it would not be allowed, so we had them in the great drawing-room at Whitehall. All the bon ton assembled there continually. There was nothing so fashionable. But after a time Byron contrived to sweep them all away." She brought him fresh verses on which she had spent half the sleepless night in an agony of hope that his eye would kindle and his lips respond to emotions she had thus endeavoured to express. But though he failed not to praise the well-chosen epithet and flowing rhythm, he was far too full of his own greater thoughts to be able, had he tried, to affect enthusiasm at the tinkling of her lyric bells. In her mortification she would inwardly upbraid him with being, like the rest of his sex, too self-engrossed; and the time was to come when she would tell him so in no measured terms. But with Childe Harold she could not thus make free. At a reception one evening Lord Holland took an antique censer from a cabinet to show it to some learned guest; as he passed Byron and Lady Caroline he turned and said gallantly to her, "You see I bear you incense." accustomed to it." How soon the poet began to tire of the confidential iteration of morbid fancies, which were not redeemed by grandeur of outline or depth of colouring that marked those drawn from the dark chamber of his imagery-who can tell? But he loved being conspicuous in everything; and above the admiration of women he coveted the envy of men, and liked being spoken of as a favoured intimate at Melbourne House. Throughout the year 1813 Byron continued For his overweening egotism, gratified by to visit constantly at Whitehall and Kensing ton. The Giaour and Bride of Abydos kept his name before the public, and, in the estimation of his female critics, maintained his reputation. Lord Holland was too goodnatured, and too loyal in everything to the taste of his wife, to be niggardly in his praise. Other men more fastidious and outspoken in their criticisms tried to induce the poet to take more serious interest in politics, but without effect; his letters and journals evince hardly a trace of sympathy or regard for the great events which were stirring the heart of Christendom; and it seems to have been for him too great a sacrifice of pleasure to attend frequently even as a listener any long debate in the House of Lords. His second speech did not attract much notice; and with all his pretentious vows of zeal for liberty, he was a soldier that, without encouragement of fife and drum, could not be got to march. His time was spent for the most part in flattering pretty women, or being flattered by them; and by his own account he was not sure with which of them he was most in love. Lamb grew tired of his airs of self-importance, and laughed at his wife's exaggerated estimate of his perfections. If sometimes provoked at her misplaced friendship, he anticipated that it would soon wear out; and sighed only at the illusion he was unable to dispel. He knew better what Byron was than she could ever know, and felt secure that ere very long he would declare himself bored, and betake himself to other company. There was another circumstance which no doubt influenced him, but of which few were aware. Byron had in confidence told Lady Melbourne his intention and desire to form a matrimonial alliance, in order that he might settle down at Newstead and take the part that became him in public life. Would she advise him? Did she not know every one worth knowing in the sphere out of which he did not care to wed? Would she not save him from the daughters of Heth? To the mind of the old lady thus consulted no connection seemed more suitable than one with her young relative, the daughter of Sir Noel Milbanke, who, besides many other attractions, possessed a considerable fortune, and was heiress to the barony of Wentworth in her own right. Without professing to fall in love the poet offered her his hand. It was refused, but with so much kindness, and even compliment, that he readily agreed that they should continue friends, and upon indifferent subjects correspond. At Cheltenham, then in highest vogue, many of those with whom he was most intimate-the Hollands, Cowpers, Jerseys, Oxfords, and Melbournes - passed September pleasantly. Lady Melbourne had more leisure there; she listened to his wandering talk and gave him good advice. Whatever it was, he believed it sound and wise. On receipt of a letter from her not long afterwards he wrote, "I have had a letter from Lady Melbourne, the best friend I ever had in my life, and the cleverest of women. I write with most pleasure to her, and her answers are so sensible, so tactique. I never met with half her talent. If she had been a few years younger what a fool she would have made of me, had she thought it worth her while, and I should have lost a valuable and most agreeable friend.”1 The The Corsair was followed by Lara. hero of the latter, writes Ward, "is just the same sort of gloomy, haughty, mysterious villain as Childe Harold, the Giaour, the Corsair, and all the rest. There is a strange mixture of fertility and barrenness. One would think it was easier to invent a new character than to describe the old one over and over again.”2 On the 20th of April, 1814, the King of France entered London accompanied by the prince regent, who went to meet him at Stanmore. The Duke of Montrose, master of the horse, and Viscount Melbourne, were in attendance. A vast concourse of all classes awaited their arrival in town, and the populace, they scarce knew why (except that they had a certain notion that the end of the weary war was near), vociferously bade the Bourbon god-speed on his way back to Paris. Later on, the allied sovereigns came to thank in person the royal representative of England's constancy and courage, which had stood fast for them and theirs when all else in Europe quailed. For weeks London was in carnival. Rejoicings and festivities never ceased; and those who, through evil report and good report, had helped to sustain the policy thus crowned at last with triumph, could not but feel, as Lamb confessed he did, historic exultation. He was very proud of his country, and not a little proud of having never despaired of its success. When all their other visits were paid the czar and the King of Prussia went with the regent to inspect the great naval arsenals, and were entertained by the officers of the fleet. Byron's diary, Nov. 13th and 17th, 1813. 2 Letter to Bishop of Llandaff, July 7th, 1814. On leaving Portsmouth for Goodwood, early | tery to address to his peevish and hypochonon the 25th of June, their majesties were driacal friend the lines beginning— received at breakfast by the Duke of Richmond. In the afternoon they visited Lord Egremont at Petworth, where a brilliant company, including Lord and Lady Melbourne and William Lamb, awaited them. Thence they proceeded to Dover, and embarked next day. "And sayest thou, Cara," &c., in which, to excuse the discontinuance of his visits, he tells her that in fact he is thinking of nobody else, and apologizes for conjugal perfidy by the assurance that "falsehood to all else is truth to thee." The only palliation that can be suggested for all the inconsistent, By letters patent of the 11th of August, exaggerated, and indefensible freaks in rhyme 1815, Lord Melbourne was created a peer of of which poor Lady Caroline was the theme, the United Kingdom, as Baron Melbourne of is the poetic license Byron gave himself of Melbourne in the county of Derby. He took treating esthetically the impulse of the hour the oaths and his seat on the 5th of February, without the least regard to what had gone 1816. Early in this year Lord Byron had mar-before or was to follow after, and with entire ried Miss Milbanke with the advice and ap-indifference to the obligations of delicacy and proval of Lady Melbourne, and in spite of of truth. The world has already heard too many petulant warnings of evil to come from Lady Caroline. Her cousin might be learned, and pious, and philosophical, but she was quite unsuited for a soul that was all sensibility and romance. It would never do; she was quite sure of that. A woman that went to church punctually, understood statistics, and had a bad figure; how could Conrad find any real community of sentiment with such a being? But the real grievance was that Byron could no longer be a lord-in-waiting to her majesty expectant of Whitehall. Ere long he heard of her complainings at his absence and alienation; and he had the effron much of his ill-starred union, and how, during its brief continuance, he was willing to have it believed that he still valued the society of Lady Caroline more than that of his wife. During Lady Caroline's temporary stay in Ireland a correspondence was kept up between them in prose and verse. At length, on learning that she was about returning to England, Byron resolved to put an end to all future communication; and did so in a letter which bore on its seal the coronet and initials of Lady Oxford, whom he knew she disliked. Before she recovered from the illness that ensued he had quitted England, and they met no more. LADY WILDE (SPERANZA). that had previously appeared in the Nation, and was one of those produced on the trial of Gavan Duffy. After some months of mystification Mr. Duffy was invited by Speranza to pay a visit to a house in Leeson Street, and there the editor of the Nation, brought face to face with the contributor, found to his surprise that "Speranza" was not a man but a lady in her early youth. [In the course of the year 1847 Gavan Duffy | which created more sensation than anything received at the Nation office a copy of verses which were signed by the nom de plume "Speranza," but which gave no indication of the real name of the author. From time to time other verses came from the same hand in the same mysterious manner. These poems by a new writer attracted a vast amount of attention even in the pages which were then made bright by so many brilliant poets, and the verses of "Speranza" became more welcome than those of any other writer of the time. "Speranza,” moreover, was not only a maker of poems, but there also came from her hand some of the most daring, effective, and vehement prose articles of the Nation. One of the articles, attributed to "Speranza's" pen, was the well-known one, headed Jacta alea est, Jane Francesca Elgee-such was "Speranza's" name-had been brought up amid surroundings of intense Conservatism,-and indeed, when the immense funeral procession that marked the admiration in which Thomas Davis was held, passed by her window, she did not know who that great poet was. Some time after this she got hold of The Spirit of the Nation, |