A FRIEND OF LORD BYRON.
A brilliant little set clustered round Byron in his days of residence at Trinity College, Cambridge. The poet came from school at Harrow, as everyone who has visited the churchyard that tops its hill will remember, but most of his friends came from the level meadows of Eton. Fullest of promise for the future was that "intellectual giant" Charles Skinner Matthews, Matthews major of boyish life, whose "infinite superiority" Byron stood in awe of, but Matthews at the time that he contemplated contesting the representation of the university, was whelm'd beneath the waters of the Cam (August 1811). Matthews minor of Eton, "the image, to the very voice of his brother Charles" left his contemporaries at Cambridge to travel through the south of Europe in pursuit of health, and produced the popular "diary of an invalid" which Byron pronounced "most excellent" as one of the three books "of truth or sense upon Italy." A stray reader or two will perhaps even at this date remember the work for; its passionate regrets at his change of life from warm rooms on the shore of England to the stone staircases and starving casements of Florence or Rome. A third of these friends, William John Bankes, Byron's "collegiate pastor and master and patron" penetrated the districts of Syria and Mesopotamia, returned to visit Byron in Venice, and after several years of parliamentary life in England died in that city. Best known of all was John Cam Hobhouse, afterwards lord Broughton de Gyfford whose "recollections of a long life" printed for the entertainment of his friends in 5 vols. in 1865 and only known for many years by an article in the Edinburgh review for April 1871 have within the last few months been partially revealed to a larger circle of readers. One more friend remains, Scrope Berdmore Davies, who excelled them all in knowledge of the classics and in brightness of conversation. An Eton boy, a Cambridge Don, he wasted his resources in the gambling hells of London and on the race-course of Newmarket. The second moiety of his life he spent, an exile from England, in pacing the digue of a Belgian seaside resort or in resting forsaken and neglected, on a bench in the gardens of the Tuileries or the Palais Royal. It is of Davies that I propose to write.
The name of Berdmore was more prominent in the eighteenth century than at the present day. One of the family was a prebendary in Southwell minster in 1743; a second, called Scrope Berdmore, was the warden of Merton college in 1790 and his armorial bookplate sometimes meets our eyes in the second-hand book catalogues. Another of them Thomas Berdmore, a dentist, dwelt in Racquet court, Fleet Street in November 1785. It was probably in allusion to him that Byron spoke of his friend as the " dens-descended Davies." In his profession this dentist attained to distinction. His treatise on "the disorders and deformities of the teeth and gums" came out in 1768 and a new edition was issued in 1770. About seventy years later it was deemed worthy of reprint in the American journal of dental science.
The boy's father, the Revd. Richard Davies came from Llangattock in Breconshire and graduated B.A. at Worcester college, Oxford, in 1779, while an elder brother matriculated from Merton college five years earlier . From 1777, two years be it noticed before he took his degree, to 1825, the year of his death, Richard Davies held the vicarage of Horsley in Gloucestershire, situate about four miles from the town of Tetbury, and in the register of the parish "Christianisings," to use his own word, are the entries of seven of his children "by Margaretta his wife." The names and dates are (1) 9 May 1779, John—the vicar must have married while yet an undergraduate, (2) 10 Jan 1781, Isabella, (3) 1 Jany 1783 Scrope Berdmore, (4) 7 April 1785, Thomas, (5) 24 May 1787 Maria, (6) 9 July 1789 Genevova, born 30 March last, (7) David de l'Engle. For some years to 1792 the father held the lectureship in the parish church of Tetbury and he retained, with the living of Horsley, the vicarage of Tetbury from 1792 until 1825.
Scrope Berdmore Davies was born towards the end of the year 1782 and probably acquired the rudiments of his classical knowledge in the grammar school of Tetbury. It was founded in 1610 under the will of sir William Romney, alderman of the city of London, who had been born in and was a great benefactor to the town, and at it were educated Oldham, the poetical satirist, and Trapp, the unpoetical professor of poetry at Oxford. The worthy cit had risen by commerce and to stimulate others in the art of commercial calculation ordered in his will, that "the schoolmaster shall be very skilful in arithmetick, which art teacheth much wit unto all sorts of men and traders but is too little known in our land, especially in our country towns and cities." Alas for poor Davies, the art of adding and multiplying his resources never became his! Nor does the ordinance of the school that the Master "shall not read unto the schollars any of ye obscene odes, satyres, or epigrams of Juvenal Martial or Horace" appear if we may judge by his after life to have contributed to his moral edification.
Scrope Davies went to Eton and became one of its King's Scholars. We find him in the upper school fifth form lower division in 1796, and in 1799 in the upper division. The head-master was George Heath but the reins of command were held by him very loosely and the numbers in the school declined from 489 to 357. Still many distinguished names can be found in the lists and among them figure a future prime minister and a future archbishop of Canterbury. The beaux and wits of after years were in great force at Eton at this period. Brummell and Raikes paced in Eton jackets its playing-fields and the two Matthews boys were in their company. Henry Matthews indeed made himself conspicuous by driving a tandem right through Eton and Windsor. Scrope's younger brother, Thomas, was also a King's Scholar at Eton and in 1802 was head-boy of the fifth form upper division. His college was Merton college at Oxford, no doubt selected on account of the connections of the family of Berdmore with it and he enjoyed a fellowship there from 1807 to 1840. Like his better-known brother the last part of his life was spent abroad. Let us hope that it was not for the same reason!
In 1801 Scrope proceeded to Kings College, Cambridge and was elected a scholar in July 1802. Next year he was awarded by the provost of Eton, the Belham Scholarship, a gift bestowed upon the scholars of Kings who had behaved well at Eton and he continued in possession of it until 1816. At that period the undergraduates at Kings were not required to submit themselves to the University examination for the degree of B.A. They took their degrees and obtained their fellowships as a matter of course without being compelled to face such an irksome ordeal as that. Scrope became B.A. in 1806 and M.A. in 1809 and was elected to a fellowship in July 1805. The course of time advanced him to a senior fellowship in 1822 and upon its proceeds he lived abroad until 1852. Scholarships and fellowships must have brought into his pockets many thousands of pounds. Not a bad return for the talents of a man whose life benefitted neither his college nor his country. Once and once only is he mentioned by the latest historian of his college, and then, not very creditably. There was found one morning on the handle of the Lodge door a game hamper directed to the Provost with "Mr. Scrope Davies's compliments." It was opened and "found to contain a dead cat and even less attractive objects. Of course Scrope Davies was convened but he coolly maintained that if he had sent the hamper his own name was the last which he would have chosen to attach to it; and so he escaped."
Byron was introduced to Scrope at Cambridge by Charles Skinner Matthews and their common tastes at once brought them together in terms of intimate friendship. Davies excelled in all athletic games such as boxing, cricket, tennis and swimming. At cricket or tennis he was unconquerable and he could compete on favourable terms with Byron in swimming. The pair united in depreciating the style of Matthews in that exercise. He swam "with effort and labour and too high out of the water" and Byron claimed that Scrope and he had always predicted that their friend "would be drowned if ever he came to a difficult pass in the water." This prediction, if ever uttered, was verified and after that event Davies became Byron's particular friend. He was admitted to his rooms at all hours and one occasion "found the poet in bed with his hair en papillote." Davies was the best talker of them all in this little côterie. He was "always ready and often witty." Hobhouse and Byron invariably went to the wall in their contests of wit with the other pair "and even Matthews yielded to the dashing vivacity of Scrope Davies."
To Byron's eyes Davies appeared more a man of the world than the other members of this little set and he did not expect the death of Matthews to come home to a man of that temperament so keenly as it did to Hobhouse. But Davies was a true friend to Byron at all events, and did not shrink from telling the poet to his face of the faults which beset him and especially of his craze for desiring the world to invest him with a reputation for lunacy. When Byron's reckless speculations in thought used, as he himself expressed it, to suffer from "a confusion of ideas" and when with his wonted vehemence of phrase and with the melodramatic manner which captivated the youth of both sexes he would exclaim "I shall go mad," it would be the part of Scrope to pour ridicule on this affectation. Davies possessed a "quaint dry manner of speaking" and was numbered among the wits whose efforts were heightened by the charms of an irresistible stammer. Very quiet and cutting was his comment on Byron's conduct rather silliness than madness.
One or two of Scrope's jests at this period in his life have been preserved for us by his admiring associates. Their sparkle has evaporated. They are as flat as a bottle of Seltzer water the day after the cork has been drawn. Picture to yourselves Byron and Davies sitting at supper at Steevens's after the opera on a night in 1808 with their third bottle of claret before them. There enters young Goulburn, full of the praises of his horse, a forgotten Grimaldi, which had just won a race for him at Newmarket. "Did he win easy?" was the natural but not very inspiriting question of Scrope. "Sir" said Goulburn "he did not even condescend to puff at coming in." "No" said Scrope " and so you puff for him."
The scene of the other witticism is laid at Cambridge. Some amateur theatricals had been arranged and the hour for the play's production had arrived, when one of the performers called Tulk disappointed the company by throwing up his part in a pet. Hobhouse made the necessary explanation to the audience and referred to the culprit as "a Mr. Tulk." This scornful allusion wounded the pride of the aspiring Roscius who openly resented the expression. "Perhaps" drawled out Scrope "you prefer being entitled the Mr. Tulk." This suggestion irritated him still more, but he knew that the lips which uttered it were those of a man with the reputation of being a good shot who had already fought two or three duels and he retired muttering some empty threats.
The friends whom Davies attracted to his side at Cambridge made easy for him the entrance into the inner life of society in London. He became one of the most fashionable men of his day. Byron, Douglas Kinnaird and Hobhouse "formed one part of the chain," Brummell, Alvanley and Davies another. Gronow no bad judge of a man's fitness for the dining table and the drawing room, who "lived much" with him and Wedderburn Webster called him "one of the most agreeable men I ever met." The rooms into which he entered once, were open to him always. Quietness in style, the absence of anything showy, these were the notes of his demeanour in social life. He had read much of classical and modern literature and was always ready with an apt quotation, which the man of Eton learning could appreciate. Gronow used to delight in obtaining from Davies his opinion of Byron. The answer was invariably the same. One unfailing expression came from his lips. Byron was "vain, overbearing, conceited, suspicious and jealous."
Davies on his way to taking the waters of Harrogate spent a week at Newstead Abbey with Byron in the August of 1811, when his host penned the comment on his parting guest "his gaiety (death cannot mar it) has done me service." It was arranged between them that Byron should in the following October pass a week with Davies at Kings College. At one time Byron was under heavy pecuniary obligations to his friend. Davies was a daring gambler, blessed with the power of making shrewd calculations on the play of the cards or the throw of the dice and for some years fortune was on his side. It is said that on one night, that of 10 June 1814, he won no less than £6065 when playing macao at Watier's club. At all events he was in a position before 1809 to lend his friend several thousands of pounds. When the death of Matthews brought home to Byron the uncertainty of life he provided against accident by making his will and ap- pointing Davies his executor. It embodied the necessary arrangements for the payment of his debts, but events proved that it was not necessary to wait for Byron's death for the discharge of the sums due to his creditors. He paid Davies the sum of £1500 in October 1812 and £4800 in March 1814 and expressed his satisfaction in the words "a debt of some standing, which I wished to have paid before. My mind is much relieved by the removal of that debit." It was presumably when flush with this money that Davies joined the Drury Lane committee, presented a share to Edmund Kean and subscribed to the Testimonial cup. Davies was the single friend from whom Byron seems to have borrowed.
Davies in his younger days of life in London was an inveterate drinker. One of his favourite sneers at Byron was to depreciate his powers of absorption of strong drink as good for a holiday drinker. But the draughts of Davies generally ended in tipsiness and a quarrel. It was no doubt on one of these occasions that he challenged lord Foley to a duel, when it needed all the energy of his poetic friend to reconcile their differences. One day (Sept. 1813) Byron wrote to Mrs. Leigh that between 8 and 11 on the preceding evening Scrope and he had swallowed six bottles of burgundy and claret. Scrope became unwell and he was "rather feverish." On another night, 27 March 1814, the night before Byron moved into the Albany, Davies and he dined tête-à-tête at the Cocoa Tree. Their hours this time were from six to midnight and they drank between them one bottle of champagne and six of claret. The effect of this dinner was to make Davies tipsy and pious. Byron left him "on his knees praying to I know not what purpose." On the night of the appearance of the number of the Edinburgh Review containing the celebrated denunciation of the "Hours of Idleness," Byron dined alone with Davies. He acknowledged to have consumed three bottles of claret. Medwin records in his conversations (p. 95) that Davies, H—— and Byron clubbed together £19, all the loose cash that they had in their pockets and lost it in playing chicken hazard at a hell in St. James's Street. The usual result followed. They all got drunk together till H—— and Davies quarrelled. Scrope afterwards wrote to Byron for his pistols so that he might shoot himself, but Byron declined to lend them "on the plea that they would be forfeited as a deodand." Attempts at suicide under losses in betting afterwards became a mania with him.
Strange people found themselves in the lodgings of Scrope Davies in St. James's Street. It was there that Byron came one morning in a towering passion and standing before the fire broke out with the exclamation "Damn all women and that woman [lady Frances Wedderburn] in particular." He then tore from his watch-ribbon a seal which she had given him and dashed it into the grate. Scrope also claimed to be high in her favours and when Hodgson's letters were sold by Sotheby and Wilkinson on 2 March 1885, lot 10 was a letter from him written in exile in 1828 descanting on her wondrous beauty. It was typical of the man's tastes, for it contained a quotation from Horace and references to the verses of Goldsmith.
Kaye, the learned and orthodox bishop of Lincoln, reminded Hodgson at the close of 1831 that their last meeting had been many years previously in the rooms of Scrope Davies. Byron and Dr. Clarke, the mineralogist and traveller, of Cambridge, were present. They were joined later on by Spencer Perceval, then engaged, says the bishop, in a "harder task than any imposed on Hercules, that of endeavouring to bring the house of commons to a sense of religion." Perceval was anxious for an introduction to Byron and they argued "the question determined by Locke in the negative, whether there is an innate notion of the deity." By 1831, such was the bishop's reflection, two of the party had gone to their account and Davies was in exile.
Parisina was dedicated to Davies by Byron in the follow- ing terms:—
"To
Scrope Beardmore (sic) Davies, Esq.
The following poem
Is inscribed
By one who has long admired his Talents
And valued his Friendship "
and the dedication was dated January 22, 1816. The " Siege of Corinth " was published in the same volume with it and the dedication ran : —
"To
John Hobhouse, Esq.
This poem is inscribed
By his
Friend."
Byron thought this sublime, but Hobhouse "would have liked it better" if he had not dedicated the other poem to Davies, and he told Byron of his feelings.
Before the spring of the year had passed away Byron was an exile. On 20 April 1816 he presented to Scrope a copy of the Philadelphia edition of his poems (1813; 2 vols.) which had been given to him in the previous June by George Ticknor. The volumes afterwards passed to sir Francis Burdett. Three days later Byron at half-past nine in the morning fled to the continent, just escaping the bailiffs. "Polidori and Hobhouse went in Scrope Davies's chaise; Byron and Davies in Byron's new Napoleonic carriage built by Baxter for £500." They arrived at Dover by half-past eight and dined at the Ship. On 25 April Hobhouse was up to an eight o'clock breakfast but Byron did not appear. The captain was impatient, "even the serenity of Scrope was disturbed," but after some bustle out came Byron and walked down to the quay. Slowly the packet glided out of the harbour bearing the poet, never again to return to his native shores. Disconsolate and overwhelmed in gloom, Davies and Hobhouse returned to London (Lord Broughton, recollections of a long life, I, 334–6.)
Davies was entrusted at Dover with a parcel for Miss Mercer, who afterwards married the comte de Flahault. He was to give it to her with Byron's message "had I been fortunate enough to marry a woman like you, I should not now be obliged to exile myself from my country." The friends had their portraits painted in miniature and on ivory by James Holmes for presentation to one another. The portrait of Byron, an admirable likeness, was painted in 1815; it afterwards became the property of Mr. Alfred Morrison. That of Davies, 4¾ by 3½ inches, in gold frame, was among the relics of the poet which were sold at Christie's on 5 Dec. 1906 and was subsequently on sale by Mr. Bertram Dobell. On the back was the autograph inscription "Painted by Js. Holmes 1816 for lord Byron — Scrope Davies." Byron described his own miniature as "a picture of my upright self, done for Scrope B. Davies, Esq." Prints of it were made about a year later.
Davies and Byron used to have boxing bouts in the latter's rooms and sometimes "gentleman" Jackson, the pugilist, was a third in these encounters. It was on one of these occasions that Holmes made the acquaintance of Scrope. When sitting for his portrait Davies told the story of a dangerous incident in his life. "A small thin man but extremely handy with his fists," his appearance on one of the wharves on the Thames attracted the attention of some of the coal-heavers. They began to make fun of the dapper little gentleman dressed in the height of fashion. Chaff was returned with chaff, threats followed on retorts, and Davies was soon confronted by a huge bargee, one blow from whose fist would have settled the diminutive dandy. He lunged, Davies warded the blow, and at once struck him with all his force in the wind. "He instantly fell all in a heap. His friends crowded round thinking he was dead and I took to my heels" says Davies "and ran for my life." (Life of Holmes, by Alfred T. Storey, pp. 55, 59.)
Lady Morgan recounts an incident that happened in Scrope's rooms. One fine morning "Mr. Lovett of Lismore of literary notoriety" sauntered into them and threw himself on a sofa. The room was filled with books which Davies explained were left by Byron on his departure and had not yet been arranged. Lovett took up some of the volumes and among them was Vathek. "Oh you must lend me this, I have never read it" was his delighted exclamation. Eagerly turning over the leaves he came across a manuscript addressed to lady Caroline Lamb. It was the poem, with the bitter lines, beginning
- "Thou false to him, thou fiend to me." A few hours before his flight from England in May 1816
poor George Brummell sent to Davies the piteous appeal :
- "My Dear Scrope, —Lend me two hundred pounds. The banks are shut and all my money is in the three per cents. It shall be repaid to-morrow morning.
- Yours,
- George Brummell."
The reply was as laconic and as true:
- "My Dear George, — Tis very unfortunate, but all my money is in the three per cents.
- Yours
- S. Davies."
One of Scrope's best-remembered jests was on the flight of the "Beau," who bought at Calais a French grammar to improve his French. Davies when asked what progress the exile had made in his studies remarked that "like Buonaparte in Russia, he had been stopped by the elements." Byron put the witticism into Beppo, "a fair exchange and no robbery," as he alleged.
A great crowd of persons distinguished in the inmost circles of Whiggism became members of Brooks's Club on 11 May 1816. Among them were Cam Hobhouse, Leicester Stanhope, Raikes the diarist and Scrope Davies. Somewhat later in that year Hobhouse and he visited Byron at Villa Diodati on the shores of Lake Leman. On 30 July 1816 they "crossed to Calais and supped with Brummell." They travelled through the Belgian cities to Cologne and then ascended the Rhine. Nearly a month after their departure—it was on 26 August—the travellers arrived at Villa Diodati, "a delightful house and spot." Next day they walked to Geneva and two days later the party, including Byron, set off on an excursion to Chamouni. Davies returned to England on 5 September, when Hobhouse "took leave of my friend and fellow traveller, with whom I have not had even a bickering upon a six weeks tour. Good fortune attend him!" (lord Broughton, II., 1—12.)
Davies returned to England with the statement that the poet, although gloomy, was in good health and full of spirit; he brought back also some trinkets for Byron's nieces and the fair copy of the third canto of Childe Harold. Whether this copy was ever delivered to John Murray remains a matter of doubt. Byron wrote a letter of enquiry about it in December 1816, in which he dubbed poor Davies a man "of inaccurate memory" and maliciously adds that he "will bountifully bestow extracts and transcriptions on all the curious of his acquaintance." Ultimately this canto was printed from the transcript brought to England by Shelley. Davies became more and more associated in the public mind with the poet's friendship. He gave evidence on 28 November 1816 before the lord chancellor in the case of Byron v. Johnson, when an injunction was obtained to restrain Johnson from publishing a volume with the title of "lord Byron's Childe Harold's pilgrimage to the Holy Land." He was among those consulted on the propriety of publishing Don Juan and he concurred with his associates, Hobhouse, Douglas Kinnaird, Moore and Frere, in recommending that it should be suppressed. Murray advised the author to "wrap up or leave out certain approximations to indelicacy." This reminded Byron of George Lamb's quarrel at Cambridge with Davies. "Sir," said Lamb " he hinted at my illegitimacy." " Yes," said Scrope "I called him a damned adulterous bastard."
Tom Moore chronicles in his diary the doings of many of the fashionable members of the Whig party. He describes a visit which he paid in September 1818 to Ramsbury, the Wiltshire seat of Sir Francis Burdett. Scrope was another of the guests, told many stories, and in the evening music joined in the singing of Purcell's "Waters of Babylon." Hobhouse was also of the party, and records that "in conversation Moore beat them out of the field. I saw Scrope was envious." Moore in the subsequent pages of his diary repeats several of the jests of our friend, including some which Hodgson, the provost of Eton, who had been senior boy to Davies and Skinner Matthews in the school, had told him. Davies called some person "who had a habit of puffing out his cheeks when he spoke and was not remarkable for veracity "The Æolian lyre." His epitaph on Lord L. ran:
"Here lies L.'s body, from his soul asunder,
He once was on the turf and now is under."
Davies used to enjoy sailing in a boat called the Swallow, but the waves at last proved too tempestuous for him. He wrote lines on his troubles, two of which were:
"If ever in the Swallow I to sea
Shall go again, may the sea swallow me."
On the whole it must be allowed that Scrope's witticisms, if amusing at the moment, were hardly framed for permanent wear.
After their meeting at the country house of Burdett, then an ardent radical, his two guests, Moore and Davies, became very intimate. Moore dined at Scrope's lodgings (29 Nov. 1818) to meet "gentleman" Jackson the boxer, and in less than a week afterwards breakfasted in his rooms at seven o'clock, when they adjourned "to the fight at Crawley, between Randall and Turner," two forgotten pugilists. Moore went to the opera at Covent Garden and in lady Oxford's box found "a rare set of reformers, Hobhouse, Douglas Kinnaird and Scrope Davies." Davies made a lasting impression on Moore. Some years later, it was in 1824, Washington Irving dined with him " near the Park." They sat long at table when Fitzroy Stanhope and their host repeated incessant anecdotes about Davies, much to the annoyance of Kenney, who was also of the party, who complained bitterly "it was nothing but Scrope Davies this and Scrope Davies that; they killed me with their Scrope Davies." (Irving's life, II., 168—9.)
These reformers, who met in the public glare of the opera had their little differences in private life. Among the Hobhouse manuscripts at the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 36457, ff. 408—9) is a letter from Scrope, written from 11 Great Ryder Street in 1819, complaining that Hobhouse had used "offensive and vulgar expressions to him yesterday," and demanding an apology. The request was at once met in the frankest way. Hobhouse sent a letter of regret stating that he had shown it to Kinnaird and authorising Davies to bring it under the notice of Bickersteth.
During all these years Scrope gambled in St. James's Street and plunged at Newmarket. For a time success crowned his ventures but then the tide of fortune ran heavily against him. It was his habit, after a heavy loss on the turf, to cut his throat. The cynics spread the rumour that this was a device to gain time. At all events it was practised so often that the surgeon declared his intention of not answering any future summons. Oakes was the name of this operator and he is reported to have said "there is no danger : I have sewn him up six times already."
The fatal day, when he could face his creditors no more, came in December 1820. No resource was open to him save flight to the continent. Like Byron, like Brummell, he crossed the channel. The comment of Byron was "our friend, Scrope, is dished, diddled and done up." Thenceforward his days were to be passed in those resorts abroad which were mainly frequented by the impecunious Englishmen who had brought themselves to penury. His future lot was to dream of the white cliffs of England and to dwell in imagination only among his old associates of Mayfair.
His life in Belgium and in France is familiar to us through the gossiping chroniclers of that age. Thomas Colley Grattan has described him in the second volume of "Beaten paths" (1862) in the chapter on "diners-out; Scrope Davies." For five or six years Davies had settled at Ostend "the Magnus Apollo of a confined set " and had become a trifle dictatorial. His life was varied by a change to Brussels for a week's dining out, and it was on one of these occasions in 1827 that Grattan first met him. At the beginning of dinner he was confused in speech and half-maudlin; he wanted warming-up. That time came and he "talked fluently, quoted freely" and evidently remembered much. His conversation lacked method and sequence but he brought into play the lives of Byron and Porson and the celebrities of the university that he had been brought up at. He could give "a repartee of Fox. a saying of Pitt, a tirade of Burke, or a sarcasm of Sheridan" as if he had heard them himself, and he showed the possession of a "perfect facility for the light and easy style of table-talk." His hair was "close cut and grizzled" and his forehead was poor. He had led a hard life and his mental powers and bodily vigour had suffered decay.
They met at breakfast at the house of "Kit Hughes, the American minister," when Scrope enlarged on the "fancy" and probably recounted the narrative of Tom Moore's visit to the Crawley prize-fight. He had told Grattan at their first meeting that he had completed "all but the last chapter" of his life of Byron and that Murray had offered him an excessive price for it. Some inkling of the intentions of Davies must have reached Tom Moore; possibly it came through Grattan. For Moore wrote to John Murray in 1828 that "Scrope Davies both from his cleverness and the materials he must possess is rather a formidable competitor and it might at least be worth your while to enter into negotiations with him for his work."
The same jokes, anecdotes and quotations flowed from the lips of Davies on their renewal of intercourse in August 1836. Grattan then noticed on this occasion his ignorance of modern languages; he talked "even French very imperfectly." But there was an improvement in his habits of life and he walked on the digue at Ostend in the early morning hours of 7 and 8. He repeated "word for word" the statement about his contemplated life of Byron, adding that Moore had applied to him for information but that he had refused to give any assistance. By next year Davies had "a bachelor's residence" at Dunkerque, but the friends met again at Ostend in August and next month at Calais. Once more he spoke about his life of Byron and Grattan saw John Murray about the book. His "papers were a sort of chaos, without form and void." The completed pages were few and unconnected and he wanted a library for his work; but after this conversation with Grattan he announced his intention, on returning to Dunkerque, to set to the composition in earnest. These good intentions soon flickered out: nothing came of the enterprise nor indeed of that "account of Porson and other literary friends" which Pryse Lockhart Gordon, another refugee in Belgium, announced that "Porson's intimate friend and associate Mr. Scrope Davies is preparing for the press."
Another of these enforced sojourners on the un-English side of the channel, Tom Raikes of diary-fame, makes frequent mention of Scrope Davies both in his journals and in his private correspondence. They dined together at Versailles on 20 May 1835 and Raikes expected to see him on 26 May but instead received a despondent letter. "Lethargic days and sleepless nights" writes Scrope "have reduced me to a state of nervous irritability," and he quotes from Rasselas that "of all uncertainties the uncertain continuance of reason is the most dreadful.... I would much rather be accessory to my own death"—evidently the unhappy man is still thinking of throat-cutting"—— than to my own insanity. The dead are less to be deplored than the insane. . . . Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awful as that of the human mind in ruins. It is a firmament without a sun, a temple without a god. I have survived most of my friends: heaven forbid I should survive myself." Raikes wrote in reply recommending "quiet and calomel" and entered in his diary his fear that "the brandy-bottle has much to do with the excitement." Next day he called on Davies and found him "well and gone out."
In June 1837 Raikes and Davies passed two days in the pleasant town of Gisors. Raikes was then busy in composing the volume on Petersburg which was published in 1838 under the title of "The city of the Czar." He wanted some classical quotations for insertion in its pages. The average reader of those days, like the average country-gentleman in parliament, wanted his Latin tags. He wrote to Davies as a fellow of King's for help and the reply from Dunkerque (13 Dec. 1837) was "I have very few classical books here and no classical acquaintance; while my memory is as treacherous as a black-lead pencil."
Two months later Davies in a letter to Raikes from the same seaside resort, then the quietest of the resorts on that long line of dunes, challenged Ball Hughes—the name will be familiar to all readers of Gronow as another of the extravagant men of fashion who died on foreign soil—to mortal combat at tennis. They met in fight in March 1840 and Raikes was a witness of the struggle. But now poor Davies was ill. The influenza, in the familiar language of that game, had "added half 15 to my years and taken away from my play half 30." He was coming to Paris, would show Miss Raikes "a French translation of Manfred of which I possess the copyright, and which should she declare it to possess such merit as I am informed it does I intend to publish, together with some other writings about which I have no alarm."
A second letter in the spring of 1838 records "a second attack of the grippe which had left him more dead than alive." He had discovered, but the truth came home to him somewhat too late in life "that a man can live on very little." For nearly six months he had never but once "drank more than one bottle of weak Bordeaux per diem. This I solemnly declare. I have surprised myself." He now had "impudence for a dinner-party and within a week he intended to be in Paris to get one." Indeed the French translation of Manfred "is already packed up in my trunk" and there it seems to have remained. (Raikes, private correspondence, pp. 70—83).
In September 1840 Davies wrote to Raikes from the Hotel d'Angleterre at Abbeville. His companion was a volume of Burke, and he was on his way to St. Germain where he intended "to pass four or five days before taking an apartment in Paris." Meantime he purposed visiting Dieppe for two or three days and then proceeding to Rouen to gratify his tastes as a gourmet. "The table d'hôte at Rouen is admirable. There are objections to all but fewer to that at Rouen than to any I ever knew." His chief reason for this praise was not complimentary to his nationality. "There are rarely any English to be seen there." The second argument was more original. "As Paris is France, so at this hotel the table d'hôte is the kitchen. Each and every dish at a private dinner is a réchauffé." So he invites Raikes to drop down the river and rest for two or three days at Rouen.
Colley Grattan came across him again at Boulogne in August 1849. His appearance was quite changed and for the better. He looked spruce, "so neatly-dressed, so gentlemanlike in air, so lively and fresh in conversation." His dining-out days were past and gone. But he had acquired an unfortunate habit. He had taken to walk in his sleep and had on one occasion "awoke finding himself on the banks of a river." A year or two later he had ventured to cross to England. Hawtrey met him at Eton probably in the autmn of 1851 but would not have recognised him" had he not mentioned his name." He seemed quite broken down.
The home of Scrope Davies was then in Paris; he was lodging at No. 2 Rue Miromenil and living on £80 a year. There he died suddenly, on 24 May 1852. He left this world "obscurely, but not quite deserted, or with any ignominious circumstances of discomfort." One old friend, Hopkins Northey, was with him. He had been one of that brilliant little set of Englishmen at Brussels that so warmly welcomed the visits of Davies.
His slight expenditure in living is corroborated by the chronicler of the Gentleman's Magazine. He had become " economical, almost penurious, and is supposed to have accumulated a large sum of money." Another popular belief was that he possessed some curious documents relating to lord Byron. None, however, could be found, "nor the ring which the noble lord sent on his death-bed by his valet Fletcher and upon which Davies placed much value." The money was a myth. When letters of administration of his estate were granted on 2 September 1852 to his sister, Isabella Wood, a widow, the estate was sworn at something less than £450.
Hawtrey penned the general verdict on the character of Scrope Davies. He was a "most agreeable and kindhearted person. I shall not soon forget the pleasant hours I have passed with him." His fault seems to have been a disposition to quarrel.
One or two anecdotes connected with his name still have point. He it was that on the strength of his intimacy with the testy sir Philip Francis once ventured to say, "sir Philip, will you allow me to put a question to you?" The answer was "at your peril, sir; at your peril." Another of his sayings had its origin in the dinners of the Whig club at Cambridge which Byron used to attend. At one of them the youth who became the duke of —— presided. He rose to give the recognised toast of Whiggism. "Gentlemen, I will give you the noble cause for which" (turning aside to Hobhouse in a whisper, "which of them died on the field?" but no answer; so the orator continued) "Sydney died on the field and Hampden on the scaffold."
Few, very few, now remember much of Scrope Davies. Mr. Walter Sichel asserted that Mr. Henley had forgotten that "the sir Berdmore Scrope in the first novel [Vivian Grey] and the sketch of lord Scrope in the second [Venetia] are patently derived from Byron's witty friend, Berdmore Scrope Davies." Another admirer of lord Beaconsfield was even less fortunate. Disraeli, addressing one of the Runnymede letters to the then sir John Cam Hobhouse says that some words of his in a recent debate seemed "not so much the inspiration of the moment as the reminiscence of some of those quips and cranks of Matthews and Scrope Davies of which you were the constant and often the unconscious victim." The learned commentator when reprinting these addresses committed the indecency of penning to the first name the note "Charles Matthews, the elder," and to the second "a little doctor who attends lady Burdett." Shades of Charles Skinner Matthews and Scrope Berdmore Davies! Would you not come back to earth again on hearing of this insolent ignorance?