Chapter VI: March, 1812--May, 1813

THE IDOL OF SOCIETY--THE DRURY LANE ADDRESS--SECOND SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT.

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229.--To Thomas Moore.

With regard to the passage on Mr. Way's loss, no unfair play was hinted at, as may be seen by referring to the book [1]; and it is expressly added that the managers _were ignorant_ of that transaction. As to the prevalence of play at the Argyle, it cannot be denied that there were _billiards_ and _dice_;--Lord B. has been a witness to the use of both at the Argyle Rooms. These, it is presumed, come under the denomination of play. If play be allowed, the President of the Institution can hardly complain of being termed the "Arbiter of Play,"--or what becomes of his authority?

Lord B. has no personal animosity to Colonel Greville. A public institution, to which he himself was a subscriber, he considered himself to have a right to notice _publickly_. Of that institution Colonel Greville was the avowed director;--it is too late to enter into the discussion of its merits or demerits.

Lord B. must leave the discussion of the reparation, for the real or supposed injury, to Colonel G.'s friend and Mr. Moore, the friend of Lord B.--begging them to recollect that, while they consider Colonel G.'s honour, Lord B. must also maintain his own. If the business can be settled amicably, Lord B. will do as much as can and ought to be done by a man of honour towards conciliation;--if not, he must satisfy Colonel G. in the manner most conducive to his further wishes.

[Footnote 1: Byron, in 'English Bards, etc.' (lines 638-667), had alluded to Colonel Greville, Manager of the Argyle Institution:

"Or hail at once the patron and the pile
Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle," etc.

In a note he had also referred to "Billy" Way's loss of several thousand pounds in the Rooms. On his return from abroad, Colonel Greville demanded satisfaction through his friend Gould Francis Leckie. Byron referred Leckie to Moore, and sent Moore the above paper for his guidance. The affair was amicably settled.

In his 'Detached Thoughts' occurs the following passage:--

"I have been called in as mediator, or second, at least twenty times,
in violent quarrels, and have always contrived to settle the business
without compromising the honour of the parties, or leading them to
mortal consequences, and this, too, sometimes in very difficult and
delicate circumstances, and having to deal with very hot and haughty
spirits,--Irishmen, gamesters, guardsmen, captains, and cornets of
horse, and the like. This was, of course, in my youth, when I lived in
hot-headed company. I have had to carry challenges from gentlemen to
noblemen, from captains to captains, from lawyers to counsellors, and
once from a clergyman to an officer in the Life Guards; but I found
the latter by far the most difficult:

"'to compose
The bloody duel without blows,'

"the business being about a woman: I must add, too, that I never saw a
_woman_ behave so ill, like a cold-blooded, heartless b----as she
was,--but very handsome for all that. A certain Susan C----was she
called. I never saw her but once; and that was to induce her but to
say two words (which in no degree compromised herself), and which
would have had the effect of saving a priest or a lieutenant of
cavalry. She would _not_ say them, and neither Nepean nor myself [the
son of Sir Evan Nepean, and a friend to one of the parties] could
prevail upon her to say them, though both of us used to deal in some
sort with womankind. At last I managed to quiet the combatants without
her talisman, and, I believe, to her great disappointment: she was the
damnedest b----that I ever saw, and I have seen a great many. Though
my clergyman was sure to lose either his life or his living, he was as
warlike as the Bishop of Beauvais, and would hardly be pacified; but
then he was in love, and that is a martial passion."

One challenge from a gentleman to a nobleman was that of Scrope Davies to Lord Foley, in 1813; but Byron succeeded in arranging the matter. That from a lawyer to a counsellor was in 1815, from John Hanson to Serjeant Best, afterwards Lord Wynford, and arose out of the marriage of Miss Hanson to Lord Portsmouth; this quarrel was also settled by Byron. The case of the clergyman was that of the Rev. Robert Bland, whose mistress, during his absence in Holland, left him for an officer in the Guards (see 'Letters', vol. i. p. 197, end of 'note' [Footnote 1 of