Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/809

1868.] The result was precisely as might have been expected. He got tired of her after a while and went to Greece. All these things demonstrate pretty well that Miss Chaworth would probably have been just as unhappy with Lord Byron, had she married him, as she afterward turned out to be with Mr. Jack Musters. And they also show that Lord Byron would not have been any better in his morals with her than he was with the lady he did wed.

If people had only known then of these matters what they do now, there would never have been any Byronism. But they did not, and such affectation was looked upon in few quarters as pernicious, and as ridiculous nowhere. Consequently it extended over the whole of England, No mania was ever before carried so far into the confines of the ludicrous. A visit to the fashionable circles of an evening would invariably disclose at least a half-dozen young noblemen wrapped in the solitude of their own absurdity, seated all alone in some dismal corner, gloomy and misanthropic. When they laughed, it was hollow mockery, and when they heard anything uttered that was christian-like, the sneer that curled upon their lips stood plainly for "fudge"—a little more energetic and heartless, however, than Mr. Burchell's. In all the universities the fever raged with such violence that its symptoms came to be at once recognized. It always broke out in open shirt collars and flaring neckties. There were more Lara-like young medical students and corsair-like lawyers than one would care to count. Their rooms were adorned with pictures and busts of their idol, their shelves with his works, and their private portfolios with imitations of his verses Mr. Moore's biography, when it came forth, quite a long while after the death of its unhappy subject, was eagerly seized upon as a sort of authority upon the Art of Being Byronic. Two persons, one over forty years of age, carried their fury to such an extreme that they were clapped into Bedlam. That was not much, however, for a noble lady had gone mad about the great original in his lifetime. There are no instances recorded, but is not improbable that some enthusiastic youth may have lamed himself just to be a little more like the bard than his fellows.

Such were the ridiculous instances of this affectation. If it had been carried no further, nothing else would have come of it, but smiles from the more sensible of mankind. But the consequences were in very many cases extremely pernicious. It was well known that nobody could be Byronic, without being dissipated and a gross libertine, so the gentlemen of England plunged into the wildest excesses. Some did it who averred that they wished to drown recollection, when their recollections were of a very agreeable past before they took to the folly that then possessed them. Others did it, just to get crossed in love, and then to appear reckless in consequence. A man whose intended had been really cruel enough to jilt him, was looked upon as singularly fortunate. Other men whose charmers were very glad to have made a conquest of them, and would never have thought of such a thing as inconstancy, counted themselves as unlucky, and did every outrage upon society in their power, merely for the purpose of frightening their ladies out of the proposed alliance. There was also an immense deal of voyaging done to Italy and to Greece. In short, every particular of Lord Byron's history was jealously treasured up, all his personal habits were greedily noted and carried to the profoundest, most foolish, and most disgusting excess of servile imitation.

The consequences were, of course, very bad. Parents saw their children wasting their years in such folly, with feelings which may be readily imagined.