Lord Byron at Harrow School: speaking out, talking back, acting up, bowing out

241 Pages·2000·0.65 MB·English

by  Paul Elledge

Lord Byron at Harrow School

Paul Elledge
Lord Byron
at Harrow School
Speaking Out,
Talking Back,
Acting Up,
Bowing Out
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore and London
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data will be found
at the end of this book.
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
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for
Gordon Peerman and Ben Curtis
physicians to the soul

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xiii
Prologue 1
1: Tutor and Tenant 16
2: Virgilian King: 5 July 1804 44
First Interval 64
3: William Henry West Betty 85
4: Villain: 6 June 1805 98
Second Interval 135
5: Shakespearean King: 4 July 1805 140
Epilogue: ‘‘The Sixth of June’’ 165
Notes 169
Selected Bibliography 207
Index 217
Illustrations follow page 134.

Acknowledgments
This project originated in a gift. Upon my relieved surrender of
the department chair several years back, my Vanderbilt colleagues in
English expressed themselves with the generous o√ering of a well-
preserved, handsomely bound 1833 copy of Thomas Moore’s two-
volume The Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices of His Life.
Rereading that text after many years, I found my subject. I thanked my
friends then, not knowing the extent of their largesse; I thank them
again here, now that I do. Other gifts have followed.
I gratefully acknowledge Dean of Research Russell Hamilton and
the Vanderbilt University Research Council for the awards of two con-
secutive summer grants and support for a one-term research leave of
absence, along with travel funds and assistance with the costs of permis-
sion to reproduce illustrations.
Vanderbilt University librarians Dale Manning, Paula Covington,
and Anne Rueland have, like Auntie Mame, opened doors—a.k.a. elec-
tronic ‘‘files’’—for me that I never dreamed existed, and escorted me
through them with capital forbearance. Interlibrary loan o≈cers Jim
Toplon and Marilyn Pilley once again proved e≈cient in locating and
prompt in delivering materials essential to my research.
Among British librarians, my first thanks must go to Mrs. Rita
Gibbs, archivist at Harrow School, for good-spirited diligence, tenacity,
and resourceful digging in conditions that would break the spirit of a
saint. Her assistance to me in the Archive Room, and thereafter by
e-mail and telephone, her mediation with other parties, and her success
at arranging an interview, against all odds, with boys of the school
having Speech Day experience were invaluable to my project.
Mrs. Gibbs’s immediate predecessor, Alasdair Hawkyard, intro-
duced me to the Harrow School archives, usefully guided a tour of the
grounds, and o√ered experienced counsel. Peter D. Hunter, Vaughan
Librarian and English master at the school, kindly advised me on the
fine Harrow collection of materials related to Lord Byron. And N. R.
ix