(Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron - Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6)
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(Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron >> Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6)
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"Lady Noel has, as you say, been dangerously ill; but it may
console you to learn that she is dangerously well again.
"I have written a sheet or two more of Memoranda for you; and I
kept a little Journal for about a month or two, till I had filled
the paper-book. I then left it off, as things grew busy, and,
afterwards, too gloomy to set down without a painful feeling. This
I should be glad to send you, if I had an opportunity; but a
volume, however small, don't go well by such posts as exist in this
Inquisition of a country.
"I have no news. As a very pretty woman said to me a few nights
ago, with the tears in her eyes, as she sat at the harpsichord,
'Alas! the Italians must now return to making operas.' I fear
_that_ and maccaroni are their forte, and 'motley their only
wear.' However, there are some high spirits among them still. Pray
write. And believe me," &c.
* * * * *
LETTER 422. TO MR. MOORE.
"Ravenna, May 3. 1821.
"Though I wrote to you on the 28th ultimo, I must acknowledge yours
of this day, with the lines[35]. They are sublime, as well as
beautiful, and in your very best mood and manner. They are also but
too true. However, do not confound the scoundrels at the _heel_ of
the boot with their betters at the top of it. I assure you that
there are some loftier spirits.
"Nothing, however, can be better than your poem, or more deserved
by the Lazzaroni. They are now abhorred and disclaimed nowhere more
than here. We will talk over these things (if we meet) some day,
and I will recount my own adventures, some of which have been a
little hazardous, perhaps.
"So, you have got the Letter on Bowles[36]? I do not recollect to
have said any thing of _you_ that could offend,--certainly, nothing
intentionally. As for * *, I meant him a compliment. I wrote the
whole off-hand, without copy or correction, and expecting then
every day to be called into the field. What have I said of you? I
am sure I forget. It must be something of regret for your
approbation of Bowles. And did you _not_ approve, as he says? Would
I had known that before! I would have given him some more
gruel.[37] My intention was to make fun of all these fellows; but
how I succeeded, I don't know.
"As to Pope, I have always regarded him as the greatest name in our
poetry. Depend upon it, the rest are barbarians. He is a Greek
Temple, with a Gothic Cathedral on one hand, and a Turkish Mosque
and all sorts of fantastic pagodas and conventicles about him. You
may call Shakspeare and Milton pyramids, if you please, but I
prefer the Temple of Theseus or the Parthenon to a mountain of
burnt brick-work.
"The Murray has written to me but once, the day of its publication,
when it seemed prosperous. But I have heard of late from England
but rarely. Of Murray's other publications (of mine), I know
nothing,--nor whether he has published. He was to have done so a
month ago. I wish you would do something,--or that we were
together.
"Ever yours and affectionately,
"B."
[Footnote 35: "Aye, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are," &c.
&c.]
[Footnote 36: I had not, when I wrote, _seen_ this pamphlet, as he
supposes, but had merely heard from some friends, that his pen had "run
a-muck" in it, and that I myself had not escaped a slight graze in its
career.]
[Footnote 37: It may be sufficient to say of the use to which both Lord
Byron and Mr. Bowles thought it worth their while to apply my name in
this controversy, that, as far as my own knowledge of the subject
extended, I was disposed to agree with _neither_ of the extreme opinions
into which, as it appeared to me, my distinguished friends had
diverged;--neither with Lord Byron in that spirit of partisanship which
led him to place Pope _above_ Shakspeare and Milton, nor with Mr. Bowles
in such an application of the "principles" of poetry as could tend to
sink Pope, on the scale of his art, to any rank below the very first.
Such being the middle state of my opinion on the question, it will not
be difficult to understand how one of my controversial friends should be
as mistaken in supposing me to differ altogether from his views, as the
other was in taking for granted that I had ranged myself wholly on his
side.]
* * * * *
It was at this time that he began, under the title of "Detached
Thoughts," that Book of Notices or Memorandums, from which, in the
course of these pages, I have extracted so many curious illustrations of
his life and opinions, and of which the opening article is as follows:--
"Amongst various Journals, Memoranda, Diaries, &c. which I have kept in
the course of my living, I began one about three months ago, and carried
it on till I had filled one paper-book (thinnish), and two sheets or so
of another. I then left off, partly because I thought we should have
some business here, and I had furbished up my arms and got my apparatus
ready for taking a turn with the patriots, having my drawers full of
their proclamations, oaths, and resolutions, and my lower rooms of their
hidden weapons, of most calibres,--and partly because I had filled my
paper-book.
"But the Neapolitans have betrayed themselves and all the world; and
those who would have given their blood for Italy can now only give her
their tears.
"Some day or other, if dust holds together, I have been enough in the
secret (at least in this part of the country) to cast perhaps some
little light upon the atrocious treachery which has replunged Italy
into barbarism: at present, I have neither the time nor the temper.
However the _real_ Italians are not to blame; merely the scoundrels at
the _heel of the boot_, which the _Hun_ now wears, and will trample them
to ashes with for their servility. I have risked myself with the others
_here_, and how far I may or may not be compromised is a problem at this
moment. Some of them, like Craigengelt, would 'tell all, and more than
all, to save themselves.' But, come what may, the cause was a glorious
one, though it reads at present as if the Greeks had run away from
Xerxes. Happy the few who have only to reproach themselves with
believing that these rascals were less 'rascaille' than they
proved!--_Here_ in Romagna, the efforts were necessarily limited to
preparations and good intentions, until the Germans were fairly engaged
in _equal_ warfare--as we are upon their very frontiers, without a
single fort or hill nearer than San Marino. Whether 'hell will be paved
with' those 'good intentions,' I know not; but there will probably be
good store of Neapolitans to walk upon the pavement, whatever may be its
composition. Slabs of lava from their mountain, with the bodies of their
own damned souls for cement, would be the fittest causeway for Satan's
'Corso.'"
* * * * *
LETTER 423. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, May 10. 1821.
"I have just got your packet. I am obliged to Mr. Bowles, and Mr.
Bowles is obliged to me, for having restored him to good-humour. He
is to write, and you to publish, what you please,--_motto_ and
subject. I desire nothing but fair play for all parties. Of course,
after the new tone of Mr. Bowles, you will _not_ publish my
_defence of Gilchrist_: it would be brutal to do so after his
urbanity, for it is rather too rough, like his own attack upon
Gilchrist. You may tell him what I say there of _his Missionary_
(it is praised, as it deserves). However, and if there are any
passages _not personal_ to Bowles, and yet bearing upon the
question, you may add them to the reprint (if it is reprinted) of
my first Letter to you. Upon this consult Gifford; and, above all,
don't let any thing be added which can _personally_ affect Mr.
Bowles.
"In the enclosed notes, of course what I say of the _democracy_ of
poetry cannot apply to Mr. Bowles, but to the Cockney and water
washing-tub schools.
"I hope and trust that Elliston _won't_ be permitted to act the
drama. Surely _he_ might have the grace to wait for Kean's return
before he attempted it; though, _even then_, _I_ should be as much
against the attempt as ever.
"I have got a small packet of books, but neither Waldegrave,
Oxford, nor Scott's novels among them. Why don't you republish
Hodgson's Childe Harold's Monitor and Latino-mastix? They are
excellent. Think of this--they are all for _Pope_.
"Yours," &c.
* * * * *
The controversy, in which Lord Byron, with so much grace and
good-humour, thus allowed himself to be disarmed by the courtesy of his
antagonist, it is not my intention to run the risk of reviving by any
enquiry into its origin or merits. In all such discussions on matters of
mere taste and opinion, where, on one side, it is the aim of the
disputants to elevate the object of the contest, and on the other, to
depreciate it, Truth will usually be found, like Shakspeare's gatherer
of samphire on the cliff, "halfway down." Whatever judgment, however,
may be formed respecting the controversy itself, of the urbanity and
gentle feeling on both sides, which (notwithstanding some slight trials
of this good understanding afterwards) led ultimately to the result
anticipated in the foregoing letter, there can be but one opinion; and
it is only to be wished that such honourable forbearance were as sure of
imitators as it is, deservedly, of eulogists. In the lively pages thus
suppressed, when ready fledged for flight, with a power of self-command
rarely exercised by wit, there are some passages, of a general nature,
too curious to be lost, which I shall accordingly proceed to extract for
the reader.
* * * * *
"Pope himself 'sleeps well--nothing can touch him further;' but those
who love the honour of their country, the perfection of her literature,
the glory of her language, are not to be expected to permit an atom of
his dust to be stirred in his tomb, or a leaf to be stripped from the
laurel which grows over it. * * *
"To me it appears of no very great consequence whether Martha Blount was
or was not Pope's mistress, though I could have wished him a better.
She appears to have been a cold-hearted, interested, ignorant,
disagreeable woman, upon whom the tenderness of Pope's heart in the
desolation of his latter days was cast away, not knowing whither to
turn, as he drew towards his premature old age, childless and
lonely,--like the needle which, approaching within a certain distance of
the pole, becomes helpless and useless, and ceasing to tremble, rusts.
She seems to have been so totally unworthy of tenderness, that it is an
additional proof of the kindness of Pope's heart to have been able to
love such a being. But we must love something. I agree with Mr. B. that
_she_ 'could at no time have regarded _Pope personally_ with
attachment,' because she was incapable of attachment; but I deny that
Pope could not be regarded with personal attachment by a worthier woman.
It is not probable, indeed, that a woman would have fallen in love with
him as he walked along the Mall, or in a box at the opera, nor from a
balcony, nor in a ball-room: but in society he seems to have been as
amiable as unassuming, and, with the greatest disadvantages of figure,
his head and face were remarkably handsome, especially his eyes. He was
adored by his friends--friends of the most opposite dispositions, ages,
and talents--by the old and wayward Wycherley, by the cynical Swift, the
rough Atterbury, the gentle Spence, the stern attorney-bishop Warburton,
the virtuous Berkeley, and the 'cankered Bolingbroke.' Bolingbroke wept
over him like a child; and Spence's description of his last moments is
at least as edifying as the more ostentatious account of the deathbed of
Addison. The soldier Peterborough and the poet Gay, the witty Congreve
and the laughing Rowe, the eccentric Cromwell and the steady Bathurst,
were all his intimates. The man who could conciliate so many men of the
most opposite description, not one of whom but was a remarkable or a
celebrated character, might well have pretended to all the attachment
which a reasonable man would desire of an amiable woman.
"Pope, in fact, wherever he got it, appears to have understood the sex
well. Bolingbroke, 'a judge of the subject,' says Warton, thought his
'Epistle on the Characters of Women' his 'masterpiece.' And even with
respect to the grosser passion, which takes occasionally the name of
'_romantic_,' accordingly as the degree of sentiment elevates it above
the definition of love by Buffon, it may be remarked, that it does not
always depend upon personal appearance, even in a woman. Madame Cottin
was a plain woman, and might have been virtuous, it may be presumed,
without much interruption. Virtuous she was, and the consequences of
this inveterate virtue were that two different admirers (one an elderly
gentleman) killed themselves in despair (see Lady Morgan's 'France'). I
would not, however, recommend this rigour to plain women in general, in
the hope of securing the glory of two suicides apiece. I believe that
there are few men who, in the course of their observations on life, may
not have perceived that it is not the greatest female beauty who forms
the longest and the strongest passions.
"But, apropos of Pope.--Voltaire tells us that the Marechal Luxembourg
(who had precisely Pope's figure) was not only somewhat too amatory for
a great man, but fortunate in his attachments. La Valiere, the passion
of Louis XIV. had an unsightly defect. The Princess of Eboli, the
mistress of Philip the Second of Spain, and Maugiron, the minion of
Henry the Third of France, had each of them lost an eye; and the famous
Latin epigram was written upon them, which has, I believe, been either
translated or imitated by Goldsmith:
"'Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro,
Et potis est forma vincere uterque Deos:
Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede sorori,
Sic tu caecus Amor, sic erit illa Venus.'
"Wilkes, with his ugliness, used to say that 'he was but a quarter of an
hour behind the handsomest man in England;' and this vaunt of his is
said not to have been disproved by circumstances. Swift, when neither
young, nor handsome, nor rich, nor even amiable, inspired the two most
extraordinary passions upon record, Vanessa's and Stella's.
"'Vanessa, aged scarce a score.
Sighs for a gown of _forty-four_.'
He requited them bitterly; for he seems to have broken the heart of the
one, and worn out that of the other; and he had his reward, for he died
a solitary idiot in the hands of servants.
"For my own part, I am of the opinion of Pausanias, that success in love
depends upon Fortune. 'They particularly renounce Celestial Venus, into
whose temple, &c. &c. &c. I remember, too, to have seen a building in
AEgina in which there is a statue of Fortune, holding a horn of Amalthea;
and near here there is a winged Love. The meaning of this is, that the
success of men in love affairs depends more on the assistance of Fortune
than the charms of beauty. I am persuaded, too, with Pindar (to whose
opinion I submit in other particulars), that Fortune is one of the
Fates, and that in a certain respect she is more powerful than her
sisters.'--See Pausanias, Achaics, book vii. chap. 26 page 246.
'Taylor's Translation.'
"Grimm has a remark of the same kind on the different destinies of the
younger Crebillon and Rousseau. The former writes a licentious novel,
and a young English girl of some fortune and family (a Miss Strafford)
runs away, and crosses the sea to marry him; while Rousseau, the most
tender and passionate of lovers, is obliged to espouse his chambermaid.
If I recollect rightly, this remark was also repeated in the Edinburgh
Review of Grimm's Correspondence, seven or eight years ago.
"In regard 'to the strange mixture of indecent, and sometimes _profane_
levity, which his conduct and language _often_ exhibited,' and which so
much shocks the tone of _Pope_, than the tone of the _time_. With the
exception of the correspondence of Pope and his friends, not many
private letters of the period have come down to us; but those, such as
they are--a few scattered scraps from Farquhar and others--are more
indecent and coarse than any thing in Pope's letters. The comedies of
Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, Gibber, &c. which naturally attempted to
represent the manners and conversation of private life, are decisive
upon this point; as are also some of Steele's papers, and even
Addison's. We all know what the conversation of Sir R. Walpole, for
seventeen years the prime-minister of the country, was at his own table,
and his excuse for his licentious language, viz. 'that every body
understood _that_, but few could talk rationally upon less common
topics.' The refinement of latter days,--which is perhaps the
consequence of vice, which wishes to mask and soften itself, as much as
of virtuous civilisation,--had not yet made sufficient progress. Even
Johnson, in his 'London,' has two or three passages which cannot be read
aloud, and Addison's 'Drummer' some indelicate allusions."
* * * * *
To the extract that follows I beg to call the particular attention of
the reader. Those who at all remember the peculiar bitterness and
violence with which the gentleman here commemorated assailed Lord Byron,
at a crisis when both his heart and fame were most vulnerable, will, if
I am not mistaken, feel a thrill of pleasurable admiration in reading
these sentences, such as alone can convey any adequate notion of the
proud, generous pleasure that must have been felt in writing them.
* * * * *
"Poor Scott is now no more. In the exercise of his vocation, he
contrived at last to make himself the subject of a coroner's inquest.
But he died like a brave man, and he lived an able one. I knew him
personally, though slightly. Although several years my senior, we had
been schoolfellows together at the 'grammar-schule' (or, as the
Aberdonians pronounce it, '_squeel_') of New Aberdeen. He did not behave
to me quite handsomely in his capacity of editor a few years ago, but he
was under no obligation to behave otherwise. The moment was too tempting
for many friends and for all enemies. At a time when all my relations
(save one) fell from me like leaves from the tree in autumn winds, and
my few friends became still fewer--when the whole periodical press (I
mean the daily and weekly, _not_ the _literary_ press) was let loose
against me in every shape of reproach, with the two strange exceptions
(from their usual opposition) of 'The Courier' and 'The Examiner,'--the
paper of which Scott had the direction, was neither the last, nor the
least vituperative. Two years ago I met him at Venice, when he was bowed
in griefs by the loss of his son, and had known, by experience, the
bitterness of domestic privation. He was then earnest with me to return
to England; and on my telling him, with a smile, that he was once of a
different opinion, he replied to me,'that he and others had been greatly
misled; and that some pains, and rather extraordinary means, had been
taken to excite them. Scott is no more, but there are more than one
living who were present at this dialogue. He was a man of very
considerable talents, and of great acquirements. He had made his way, as
a literary character, with high success, and in a few years. Poor
fellow! I recollect his joy at some appointment which he had obtained,
or was to obtain, through Sir James Mackintosh, and which prevented the
further extension (unless by a rapid run to Rome) of his travels in
Italy. I little thought to what it would conduct him. Peace be with him!
and may all such other faults as are inevitable to humanity be as
readily forgiven him, as the little injury which he had done to one who
respected his talents and regrets his loss."
* * * * *
In reference to some complaints made by Mr. Bowles, in his Pamphlet, of
a charge of "hypochondriacism" which he supposed to have been brought
against him by his assailant, Mr. Gilchrist, the noble writer thus
proceeds:--
"I cannot conceive a man in perfect health being much affected by such a
charge, because his complexion and conduct must amply refute it. But
were it true, to what does it amount?--to an impeachment of a liver
complaint. 'I will tell it to the world,' exclaimed the learned
Smelfungus: 'you had better (said I) tell it to your physician. 'There
is nothing dishonourable in such a disorder, which is more peculiarly
the malady of students. It has been the complaint of the good and the
wise and the witty, and even of the gay. Regnard, the author of the last
French comedy after Moliere, was atrabilarious, and Moliere himself
saturnine. Dr. Johnson, Gray, and Burns, were all more or less affected
by it occasionally. It was the prelude to the more awful malady of
Collins, Cowper, Swift, and Smart; but it by no means follows that a
partial affliction of this disorder is to terminate like theirs. But
even were it so,
"'Nor best, nor wisest, are exempt from thee;
Folly--Folly's only free.' PENROSE.
"Mendelsohn and Bayle were at times so overcome with this depression as
to be obliged to recur to seeing 'puppet-shows,' and 'counting tiles
upon the opposite houses,' to divert themselves. Dr. Johnson, at times,
'would have given a limb to recover his spirits.'
"In page 14. we have a large assertion, that 'the Eloisa alone is
sufficient to convict him (Pope) of _gross licentiousness_.' Thus, out
it comes at last--Mr. B. does accuse Pope of 'gross licentiousness,' and
grounds the charge upon a poem. The _licentiousness_ is a 'grand
peut-etre,' according to the turn of the times being:--the _grossness_ I
deny. On the contrary, I do believe that such a subject never was, nor
ever could be, treated by any poet with so much delicacy mingled with,
at the same time, such true and intense passion. Is the 'Atys' of
Catullus _licentious_? No, nor even gross; and yet Catullus is often a
coarse writer. The subject is nearly the same, except that Atys was the
suicide of his manhood, and Abelard the victim.
"The 'licentiousness' of the story was _not_ Pope's,--it was a fact. All
that it had of gross he has softened; all that it had of indelicate he
has purified; all that it had of passionate he has beautified; all that
it had of holy he has hallowed. Mr. Campbell has admirably marked this
in a few words (I quote from memory), in drawing the distinction between
Pope and Dryden, and pointing out where Dryden was wanting. 'I fear,'
says he, 'that had the subject of 'Eloisa' fallen into his (Dryden's)
hands, that he would have given us but a _coarse_ draft of her passion.'
Never was the delicacy of Pope so much shown as in this poem. With the
facts and the letters of 'Eloisa' he has done what no other mind but
that of the best and purest of poets could have accomplished with such
materials. Ovid, Sappho (in the Ode called hers)--all that we have of
ancient, all that we have of modern poetry, sinks into nothing compared
with him in this production.
"Let us hear no more of this trash about 'licentiousness.' Is not
'Anacreon' taught in our schools?--translated, praised, and edited? and
are the English schools or the English women the more corrupt for all
this? When you have thrown the ancients into the fire, it will be time
to denounce the moderns. 'Licentiousness!'--there is more real mischief
and sapping licentiousness in a single French prose novel, in a Moravian
hymn, or a German comedy, than in all the actual poetry that ever was
penned or poured forth since the rhapsodies of Orpheus. The sentimental
anatomy of Rousseau and Mad. de S. are far more formidable than any
quantity of verse. They are so, because they sap the principles by
_reasoning_ upon the _passions_; whereas poetry is in itself passion,
and does not systematise. It assails, but does not argue; it may be
wrong, but it does not assume pretensions to optimism."
Mr. Bowles having, in his pamphlet, complained of some anonymous
communication which he had received, Lord Byron thus comments on the
circumstance.
"I agree with Mr. B. that the intention was to annoy him; but I fear
that this was answered by his notice of the reception of the criticism.
An anonymous writer has but one means of knowing the effect of his
attack. In this he has the superiority over the viper; he knows that his
poison has taken effect when he hears the victim cry;--the adder is
_deaf_. The best reply to an anonymous intimation is to take no notice
directly nor indirectly. I wish Mr. B. could see only one or two of the
thousand which I have received in the course of a literary life, which,
though begun early, has not yet extended to a third part of his
existence as an author. I speak of _literary_ life only;--were I to add
_personal_, I might double the amount of _anonymous_ letters. If he
could but see the violence, the threats, the absurdity of the whole
thing, he would laugh, and so should I, and thus be both gainers.
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