Biron

“ This renewal of confidence was cruelly dissipated three days later when, on reaching Bouvines, half-way to Namur, after a fifty-league march over bad roads, Lafayette was met by frightened, breathless couriers with despatches detailing the humiliating disasters which had befallen both Biron's and Dillon's divisions. ”

“ No doubt, the idea of raising new men to power to balance the ambitions of the older nobility was not altogether a foolish one, and some of the favourites, like Épernon, Joyeuse, and the Marshal de Biron, were men of capacity. ”

“ A circumstance related, as having taken place before the marriage of this lady, not only shows the extreme quickness and vehemence of her feelings, but, if it be true that she had never at the time seen Captain Byron, is not a little striking. [8] Being at the Edinburgh theatre one night when the character of Isabella was performed by Mrs. Siddons, so affected was she by the powers of this great actress, that, towards the conclusion of the play, she fell into violent fits, and was carried out of the theatre, screaming loudly, "Oh, my Biron, my Biron!" ”

“ King Henry smiled in his beard when Rosny presented me to him, but heard me soberly enough when I gave him Hilary Rawdon's message, to wit, that the Duke of Mayenne was drawing nigh with twenty-five thousand foot and eight thousand horse to give him battle.
"What shall we do against so great a host with our poor three thousand?" said the King to Marshal Biron that stood by. "Ventre-saint-gris! Is it not hard to be a king without a kingdom, a husband without a wife, and a warrior without money?" ”

“ But it was very plain that we could resist but little longer, and unless Biron should come within a few minutes, our case would be desperate indeed. In a fever of trouble I strove to think of some way whereby we might save the King, for I believed then, and I know now, that the loss of so great a man would have been a sore calamity for France and the world. And as I beat my wits on this matter, on a sudden I chanced to remember Henry's hat and cloak that lay on the table in the great salon, and a device rushed into my mind. ”

“ Who like sour fruit to sharpen up the tides
Of their salt veins, and stir their stagnancy.— [MS. erased.]
[547] {417}In the Empress Anne's time, Biren, her favourite, assumed the name and arms of the "Birons" of France; which families are yet extant with that of England. There are still the daughters of Courland of that name; one of them I remember seeing in England in the blessed year of the Allies (1814) —the Duchess of S.—to whom the English Duchess of Somerset presented me as a namesake.
["Ernest John Biren was born in Courland [in 1690] . ”

“ We feel that we are watching clouds sweep majestically across the sky, and, even when they are darkest, blue interspaces are not far off. Contrast the moodiest parts of Childe Harold or of Cain with Novalis's Night Hymns. Byron's gloom is a mere elegance in comparison. The one pipes to us with a graceful despondency on the edge of the gulf, while the other carries us actually down into the black profound, with no rebellious cry, nor shriek of woe, but sombrely awaiting the deliverance of death, with soul absorbed and consumed by weariness. ”

“ By the maternal side also Lord Byron had to pride himself on a line of ancestry as illustrious as any that Scotland can boast,—his mother, who was one of the Gordons of Gight, having been a descendant of that Sir William Gordon who was the third son of the Earl of Huntley, by the daughter of James I.
After the eventful period of the Civil Wars, when so many individuals of the house of Byron distinguished themselves,—there having been no less than seven brothers of that family on the field at Edgehill,—the celebrity of the name appears to have died away for near a century. ”

“ The elephant, even the biggest of its race, does not inspire awe, for we are too familiar with the docile Behemoth. Our children ride upon its back and feed it with buns. The lion is superb in appearance and demeanour, but it has not the bulk to make it terrible, behind bars. Now the bison is both unfamiliar and huge, and short-tempered besides, “with bloodshot eyes in savage rifts of hair.” A snort from it when angry will blow your hat off, a butt from its head, if meant in earnest, would flatten a tiger.
What a sight it must have been to see that “masterful tramping of the bison herds” ”

“ Hence the imaginary creation which has been called Byron, and which has been maintained in France notwithstanding its being wholly unacceptable as a portrait of the man, and totally different from the Byron known personally to some happy few who had the pleasure of beholding in him the handsomest, the most amiable of men, and the greatest genius whom God has created. ”

“ Biorn’s retainers rose with reverence, and took off their helmets; Biorn himself did the same.
“What means this?” asked Folko very gravely.
“What thy forefathers and mine have done on every Yule feast,” answered Biorn. “We are going to make vows on the boar’s head, and then pass the goblet round to their fulfilment.”
“We no longer keep what our ancestors called the Yule feast,” said Folko; “we are good Christians, and we keep holy Christmas-tide.”
“To do the one, and not to leave the other undone,” answered Biorn. “I hold my ancestors too dear to forget their knightly customs. ”

“ Under the pavement of the chancel and back of the altar rail,—at which it was my privilege to kneel, while gazing upon this sacred spot,—is the grave of Byron. [26] Nothing is written on the stone that covers his sepulchre except the name of BYRON, with the dates of his birth and death, in brass letters, surrounded by a wreath of leaves, in brass, the gift of the King of Greece; and never did a name seem more stately or a place more hallowed. The dust of the poet reposes between that of his mother, on his right hand, and that of his Ada,—"sole daughter of my house and heart,"—on his left. ”

“ Like many other animals, wild and tame, they often liked to seek elevated points from which a wide view might be had, and I have found their tracks and other signs on points high up in the mountains, where only sheep or goats would be looked for. The mountain bison, so-called—and by many hunters regarded as a species quite distinct from the buffalo of the plains—was especially given to frequenting the peaks in summer; no doubt in part to avoid the attacks of flies, but also in part—as I believe—from sheer love of climbing. ”

“ Such a complication of only children, all tending to one family, is singular enough, and looks like fatality almost." He then adds, characteristically, "But the fiercest animals have the fewest numbers in their litters, as lions, tigers, and even elephants, which are mild in comparison."
From London, Mrs. Byron proceeded with her infant to Scotland; and, in the year 1790, took up her residence in Aberdeen, where she was soon after joined by Captain Byron. Here for a short time they lived together in lodgings at the house of a person named Anderson, in Queen Street. ”

“ Except the occupation of one or two annoyances, I have done nothing but read, since I got "Lord Byron's Life." I have no pretensions to being a critic, yet I know infinitely well what pleases me. Not to mention the judicious arrangement and happy tact displayed by Mr. Moore, which distinguish the book, I must say a word concerning the style, which is elegant and forcible. I was particularly struck by the observations on Lord Byron's character before his departure to Greece, and on his return. There is strength and richness, as well as sweetness. ”

“ One of the first objects, indeed, that met the eyes of these two distinguished travellers, on their approaching the coast of Attica, was Lord Byron, disporting in his favourite element under the rocks of Cape Colonna. They were afterwards made acquainted with each other by Lord Sligo; and it was in the course, I believe, of their first interview, at his table, that Lady Hester, with that lively eloquence for which she is so remarkable, took the poet briskly to task for the depreciating opinion, which, as she understood, he entertained of all female intellect. ”

“ The latchstring of Birnie's log house on the hillside was out to the trapper, the trader, the Indian, and the sailor. More than one old missionary has paid tribute to the housekeeping virtues of his pretty wife, the daughter of a Hudson's Bay trader in the north country. Her blazing hearth, clean-scrubbed fir floor, and neat pine table of snowy whiteness, offered cheer and comfort to all the early wanderers who came " the plains across or the Horn around." Sole Saxon of the forest, Birnie's flag was first to welcome the incoming ship, and last to wave a farewell from the shore. ”

“ Jardine.
'Oh, if you think that, you don't know Byron,' exclaimed Brian. 'He wanted people always to be talking of him. A man may write the greatest book that was ever written, and the world will accept it, and put him on a pinnacle; but they soon leave off talking about him unless he does something. He must keep a bear in his rooms—quarrel with his wife—wear a pea-green overcoat—cross the Channel in a balloon—and go on doing queer things—if he wants to be famous. Byron was an adept in the art of réclame—just as Whistler is on his smaller scale. ”

“ Lord Byron's verses contain striking imitations of the Minstrel. At the time of my exile in England, Lord Byron was living at Harrow School, in a village ten miles from London. He was a child, I was young and as unknown as [Pg 130] he; he had been brought up on the heaths of Scotland, by the sea-side, as I in the marshes of Brittany, by the sea-side; he first loved the Bible and Ossian, as I loved them; he sang the memories of his childhood in Newstead Abbey, as I sang mine in Combourg Castle:
When I roved a young Highlander o'er the dark heath. ”

“ Byron, who was a short and corpulent person, and rolled considerably in her gait, would, in a rage, endeavour to catch him, for the purpose of inflicting punishment, the young urchin, proud of being able to out-strip her, notwithstanding his lameness, would run round the room, laughing like a little Puck, and mocking at all her menaces. ”

“ Biru, name of a plant. Colocasia odorata.
Biruluk, a small dwarf cocoanut, the nut injured in its growth.
Birus, as di birus, to strip young growing paddy, in order to get at the stem, to make a child's pipe or ole-ole-an. The young stems so stripped.
Bisa, able, clever, skilled, learned. Can, to be abe, to have the power. To bisa, I cannot, Id'ont know how. This word is also, no doubt, of Sanscrit origin, though Clough does not give the word in the shape of simply Bisa or Wisa. ”

“ There are two monkeys, five cats, eight dogs, and ten horses, all of whom (except the horses) walk about the house like the masters of it. Tita, the Venetian, is here, and operates as my valet—a fine fellow, with a prodigious black beard, who has stabbed two or three people, and is the most good-natured-looking fellow I ever saw.
"Wednesday, Ravenna.
"I told you I had written, by Lord Byron's desire,Pg 222 to La Guiccioli, to dissuade her and her family from Switzerland. Her answer is this moment arrived, and my representation seems to have reconciled them to the unfitness of the step. ”

“ Even when feeding his fancy and invigorating his imagination amid the rural charms and sublimities of Switzerland, Byron thus writes in his journal: “I am a lover of nature and an admirer of beauty. I can bear fatigue and welcome privation, and have seen some of the noblest views in the world. ”

“ Though this house, where they still show with much pride the bed in which young Byron slept, has become naturally a place of pilgrimage for the worshippers of genius, neither its own appearance, nor that of the small bleak valley, in which it stands, is at all worthy of being associated with the memory of a poet. Within a short [22] distance of it, however, all those features of wildness and beauty, which mark the course of the Dee through the Highlands, may be commanded. ”

“ I hope the poor Bear is well; I wish you could make him understand that he is immortalized, for, if four-leg'd Bears have any vanity, it would certainly delight him. Walter Scott, too (I really do not mean to call him a Bear) , will be highly gratified: the compliment to him is very elegant: in short, I look upon it as a most highly finished work, and Lord Byron has certainly taken the Palm from all our Poets ... A good account of yourself I assure you will always give the most sincere pleasure to my dear Mrs. Byron's very affectionate friend, Margt. Pigot. Elizabeth begs her compts. ”

“ La Guiccioli and her brother (who is Lord Byron's friend and confidant, and acquiesces perfectly in her connection with him) wish to go to Switzerland, asPg 220 Lord Byron says, merely from the novelty and pleasure of travelling. Lord Byron prefers Tuscany or Lucca, and is trying to persuade them to adopt his views. He has made me write a long letter to her to engage her to remain. An odd thing enough for an utter stranger to write on subjects of the utmost delicacy to his friend's mistress—but it seems destined that I am always to have some active part in every body's affairs whom I approach. ”

“ If a childhood, indeed, passed among mountainous scenery were so favourable to the awakening of the imaginative power, both the Welsh, among ourselves,Pg 2 and the Swiss, abroad, ought to rank much higher on the scale of poetic excellence than they do at present. But, even allowing the picturesqueness of his early haunts to have had some share in giving a direction to the fancy of Byron, the actual operation of this influence, whatever it may have been, ceased with his childhood ”