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IV.
A FRIEND OF LORD BYRON *
Mr. Hodgson has written his father’s life upon a very unusual
plan, for which he makes apologies in his preface. The apologies,
however, were not strictly necessary, for the book is an interesting
one, more so, perhaps, than if it had been composed in the manner
usually followed in such cases. The late Archdeacon Hodgson
was a genial and accomplished scholar, a man of the world, and an
indefatigable versifier ; but he was not a brilliant writer, and our
loss is not great, in the fact that his letters have for the most part
not been preserved. His son and biographer lays before us, in de
fault of any specimens of his own share in his correspondence, a
selection from the letters that he received from his friends. These
were numerous, for Francis Hodgson had the good fortune to in
spire a great deal of affection and confidence. His chief claim to
the attention of posterity resides in the fact that he was an early
and much-trusted intimate of Lord Byron. A good many of By
ron’s letters to him were printed by Moore, to whom, however,
Hodgson surrendered but a portion of this correspondence. His
son here publishes a number of new letters, together with a great
many communications from Mrs. Leigh, the poet’s sister, and two
or three from Lady Byron. All this portion of these volumes is
extremely interesting, and constitutes, indeed, their principal value.
It throws a clearer, though by no means a perfectly clear, light
upon the much-discussed episode of the separation between Byron
and his wife, and upon the character of his devoted sister. The book
contains, besides, a series of letters from Hodgson’s Eton and Cam
bridge friends, and in its latter portion a variety of extracts from
* Memoir of the Rev. Francis Hodgson, B. D., with Numerous Letters from Lord
Byron and Others. By his Son, the Rev. T. P. Hodgson, M. A. London: Macmillan,
1879.
�A FRIEND OF LORD BYRON.
389
his correspondence with such people as Lord Denman (Chief Justice
of England, who presided at the trial of Queen Caroline, and in
curred the bitter animosity of George IV.), James Montgomery, the
late Herman Merivale, the late Duke of Devonshire, and the charm
ing Mrs. Robert Arkwright, who figures in the lately published
memoirs of Fanny Kemble. The picture of Hodgson’s youth and
early manhood, with his numerous friendships, his passion for lit
erature, his extraordinary and unparalleled fecundity in the produc
tion of poetical epistles, his good spirits, good sense, and great
industry, is an extremely pleasant one, and gives an agreeable idea
of the tone of serious young Englishmen, sixty or seventy years
ago, who were also good fellows. Hodgson’s first intention on
leaving Cambridge had been to study for the bar ; but after some
struggles the literary passion carried the day, and he became an
ardent “ reviewer.” He worked a great deal for the critical peri
odicals of the early years of the century, notably for the “ Edin
burgh Review,” and he produced (besides executing a translation
of Juvenal) a large amount of satirical or wTould - be satirical
verse. His biographer gives a great many examples of his poetical
powers, which, however, chiefly illustrate his passion for turning
couplets d propos of everything and of nothing. The facility of
these effusions is more noticeable than their point. In 1815 Hodg
son went into the Church, and in 1836, after having spent many
years at Bakewell, in Derbyshire, in a living which he held from
the Duke of Devonshire, he was appointed Archdeacon of Derby.
In 1840 he was made Provost of Eton College, a capacity in which
he instituted various salutary reforms (he abolished the old custom
of the “ Montem,” which had become a very demoralizing influence).
Archdeacon Hodgson died in 1852.
Mrs. Leigh wrote to him at the time of Byron’s marriage, in
which she felt great happiness, that her brother had “ said that in
all the years that he had been acquainted with you he never had
had a moment’s disagreement with you : ‘ I have quarreled with
Hobham, with everybody but Hodgson,’ were his own words.” By
ron’s letters and allusions to his friend quite bear out this dec
laration, and they present his irritable and passionate nature in the
most favorable light. He had a great esteem for Hodgson’s judg
ment, both in literature and in life, and he defers to it with a do
cility w'hich is touching in a spoiled young nobleman who, on occa
sion, can make a striking display of temper. Mr. Hodgson gives
no definite account of the origin of his father’s acquaintance with
�390
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
Byron—he simply says that their intimacy, which in 1808 had
become complete, had “ doubtless been formed previously, during
Hodgson’s visits to London and Cambridge and to the Drurys at
Harrow.” In 1808 Hodgson was appointed tutor in moral philoso
phy at King’s College, Cambridge, and in this year “ Byron came
to Cambridge for the purpose of availing himself of his privilege
as a nobleman, and taking his M. A. degree, although he had only
matriculated in 1805. . . . From this time until early in 1816 the
friends constantly met, and when absent as constantly correspond
ed.” Hodgson was completely under the charm of Byron’s richlyendowed nature ; but his affection, warm as it was (and its warmth
is attested by the numerous copies of verse which he addressed to
his noble friend, and which, though they exhibit little poetical in
spiration, show great tenderness of feeling), was of that pure kind
which leaves the judgment unbribed. Byron’s letters have always
a great charm, and those quoted by Mr. Hodgson, whether pub
lished for the first time, or anticipated by Moore, are full of youth
ful wit and spontaneity. In 1811, while the second canto of “ Childe
Harold ” (Hodgson was helping to revise it) was going through the
press, the poet’s affectionate Mentor had, by letter, a religious dis
cussion with him. Hodgson’s side of the controversy has disap
peared, but Byron’s skeptical rejoinders are full of wit, levity, and
a cynicism which (like his cynicism through life) was half natural
and half affected. “ As to your immortality, if people are to live,
why die ? And any carcasses, which are to rise again, are they worth
raising? I hope, if mine is, that I shall have a better pair of legs
than I have moved on these two-and-twenty years, as I shall be
sadly behind in the squeeze into paradise.” The letters which
throw light upon Byron’s unhappy marriage are all, as we have
said, of great interest. Hodgson’s correspondence with Mrs. Leigh,
which became an intimate one, began in 1814 and lasted for forty
years. Staying with Byron at Newstead in the autumn of that
year, she first writes to him as a substitute for her brother, who,
“ being very lazy,” has begged her to take his pen. It was at this
moment that he became engaged to Miss Milbanke, and one of the
few extracts from his father’s own letters, given by Mr. Hodgson,
is a very sympathetic account of a meeting with Byron in Cam
bridge while the latter was in the glow of just having completed
his arrangements for marrying “ one of the most divine beings on
earth.” There are several letters of Mrs. Leigh’s during 1815, after
the marriage had taken place, going on into the winter of 1816,
�A FRIEND OF LORD BYRON.
391
when they assume a highly dramatic interest. It is interesting, in
view of the extraordinary theory which in the later years of her
life Lady Byron was known to hold on the subject of the relations
between her husband and his sister, and which were given to the
world in so regrettable a manner not long after her death, to observe
that Mrs. Leigh’s letters afford the most striking intrinsic evidence
of the purely phantasmal character of the famous accusation, and
place the author’s character in a highly honorable and touching
light. This is the view taken, in the strongest manner, by the edi
tor of these volumes, who regards Mrs. Leigh as the most devoted
and disinterested of sisters—as the good genius, the better angel,
of the perverse and intractable poet. She appears to have been a
very sympathetic and conscientious woman, not very witty or very
clever, but addicted to writing rather expansive, confidential, lady
like letters, and much concerned about the moral tone and religious
views of her brother, whose genius and poetic fame inspire her with
a quite secondary interest. She appeals to Hodgson, as her brother’s
nearest and most trusted friend, to come up to town and intercede
with either party to prevent the separation. Hodgson obeyed her
summons, and did his best in the matter, but his efforts were una
vailing. His son quotes a remarkable letter which he wrote to Lady
Byron, urging her to the exercise of patience and forbearance ; and
he quotes as well Lady Byron’s reply, which on the whole does less
credit to her clemency than his appeal had done to his tact and wis
dom. There is an element of mystery in the whole matter of her
rupture with her husband which these letters still leave unsolved ;
but, putting this aside, they leave little doubt as to her ladyship’s
rigidity of nature.
“ I believe the nature of Lord B.’s mind to be most benevo
lent,” she says in answer to Hodgson’s appeal. “ But there may
have been circumstances (I would hope the consequences, not the
causes of mental disorder) which would render an original tender
ness of conscience the motive of desperation, even of guilt, when
self-esteem had been forfeited too far” And in reply to Hodg
son’s request, made on Byron’s behalf, that she would specify those
acts of his which she holds to have made a reconciliation impos
sible, she says, “ He does know, too well, what he affects to in
quire.” Mrs. Leigh says to Hodgson, in writing of her brother : “ If
I may give you mine [my opinion], it is that in his own mind there
were and are recollections fatal to his peace, and which would have
prevented his being happy with any woman whose excellence
�392
THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
equaled or approached that of Lady B., from the. consciousness of
being unworthy of it. Nothing,” she adds, “ could or can remedy
this fatal cause but the consolation to be derived from religion, of
which, alas ! dear Mr. H., our beloved B. is, I fear, destitute.” In
such allusions as these some people will always read the evidence
of some dark and definite wrong-doing on the part of one who de
lighted in the appearance of criminality, and who, possibly, simply
by overacting his part, in the desire to mystify, rather viciously, a
woman of literal mind, in whom the sense of humor was not
strong, and the imagination was uncorrected by it, succeeded too
well and got caught in his own trap.
Even if the inference we speak of were valid, it would be very
profitless to inquire further as regards Byron’s unforgivable sin; we
are convinced that, if it were ascertained, it would be, to ingenuous
minds, a great disappointment. The reader of these volumes will
readily assent to Mr. Hodgson’s declaration that they offer a com
plete, virtual exoneration of Mrs. Leigh. The simple, touching,
pious letters addressed to her brother’s friend at the time of Byron’s
death and of the arrival of his remains in England, strongly contribute to this effect; as does also the tone in which she speaks
of Lady Byron’s estrangement from her, which took place very
suddemy some years after the separation. The tone is that of a
person a good deal mystified and even wounded.
IIeney James, Jr.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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A friend of Lord Byron
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James, Henry
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Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 388-392 ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From North American Review 128 (April 1879). Review of "a memoir of the Rev. Francis Hodgson with numerous letters from Lord Byron and others. By his son, the Rev. T.F. Hodgson"..London: Macmillan, 1879.
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[s.n.]
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[n.d.]
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CT45
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Book Reviews
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A friend of Lord Byron), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Francis Hodgson
George Gordon Byron
Lord Byron