Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey

or praise,
Which kindle manhood, but can ne’er entrance
The heart in an existence of its own,
Of which another’s bosom is the zone.”
    Whether this love was really responded to by the object, is uncertain. Byron sometimes speaks as if he had met with kindness in return, at other times lie acknowledges that she never gave ‘him reason to believe she loved him. It is probable, however, that at first she experienced some flutterings of the heart. She was of a susceptible age; had as yet formed no other attachments; her lover, though boyish in years, was a man in intellect, a poet in imagination, and had a countenance of remarkable beauty.
    With the six weeks’ vacation ended this brief romance. Byron returned to school deeply enamored, but if he had really made any impression on Miss Chaworth’s heart, it was too slight to stand the test of absence. She was at that age when a female soon changes from the girl to a woman, and leaves her boyish lovers far behind her. While Byron was pursuing his schoolboy studies, she was mingling with society, and met with a gentleman of the name of Musters, remarkable, it is said, for manly beauty. A story is told of her having first seen him from the top of Annesley Hall, as he dashed through the park, with hound and horn, taking the lead of the whole field in a fox chase, and that she was struck by the spirit of his appearance, and his admirable horsemanship. Under such favorable auspices, he wooed and won her, and when Lord Byron next met her, he learned to his dismay that she was the affianced bride of another.
    With that pride of spirit—which always distinguished him, he controlled his feelings and maintained a serene countenance. He even affected to speak calmly on the subject of her approaching nuptials. “The next time I see you,” said he, “I suppose you will be Mrs. Chaworth” (for she was to retain her family name). Her reply was, “I hope so.”
    I have given these brief details preparatory to a sketch of a visit which I made to the scene of this youthful romance. Annesley Hall I understood was shut up, neglected, and almost in a state of desolation; for Mr. Musters rarely visited it, residing with his family in the neighborhood of Nottingham. I set out for the Hall on horseback, in company with Colonel Wildman, and followed by the great Newfoundland dog Boatswain. In the course of our ride we visited a spot memorable in the love story I have cited. It was the scene of this parting interview between Byron and Miss Chaworth, prior to her marriage. A long ridge of upland advances into the valley of Newstead, like a promontory into a lake, and was formerly crowned by a beautiful grove, a landmark to the neighboring country. The grove and promontory are graphically described by Lord Byron in his “Dream,” and an exquisite picture given of himself, and the lovely object of his boyish idolatry—
    “I saw two beings to the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green, and of mild declivity, the last
As ‘twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the ware
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men.
Scattered at intervals and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs;—the hill
Was crown’d with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing—the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself—but the boy gazed on her;
And both were fair, and one was beautiful:
And both were young—yet not alike in youth:
As the sweet moon in the horizon’s verge,
The maid was on the verge of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him.”
    I stood upon the spot consecrated by this memorable interview. Below me extended the “living landscape,” once contemplated by the loving pair; the gentle valley of Newstead, diversified by woods and cornfields, and village spires, and gleams of water, and the distant towers and pinnacles of the venerable Abbey. The diadem of trees, however, was gone. The attention drawn to it by the poet, and the romantic manner in which he had associated it with his early passion for Mary Chaworth, had nettled the irritable feelings of her husband, who but ill brooked the poetic celebrity conferred on his wife by the enamored verses of