(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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"You neither know nor dream of the consequences of this war. It is
a war of _men_ with monarchs, and will spread like a spark on the
dry, rank grass of the vegetable desert. What it is with you and
your English, you do not know, for ye sleep. What it is with us
here, I know, for it is before, and around, and within us.
"Judge of my detestation of England and of all that it inherits,
when I avoid returning to your country at a time when not only my
pecuniary interests, but, it may be, even my personal security,
require it. I can say no more, for all letters are opened. A short
time will decide upon what is to be done here, and then you will
learn it without being more troubled with me or my correspondence.
Whatever happens, an individual is little, so the cause is
forwarded.
"I have no more to say to you on the score of affairs, or on any
other subject."
* * * * *
The second enclosure in the note consisted of some verses, written by
him, December 10th, 1820, on seeing the following paragraph in a
newspaper:--"Lady Byron is this year the lady patroness at the annual
Charity Ball given at the Town Hall at Hinckley, Leicestershire, and Sir
G. Crewe, Bart, the principal steward." These verses are full of strong
and indignant feeling,--every stanza concluding pointedly with the words
"Charity Ball,"--and the thought that predominates through the whole may
be collected from a few of the opening lines:--
"What matter the pangs of a husband and father,
If his sorrows in exile be great or be small,
So the Pharisee's glories around her she gather,
And the Saint patronises her 'Charity Ball.'
"What matters--a heart, which though faulty was feeling,
Be driven to excesses which once could appal--
That the Sinner should suffer is only fair dealing,
As the Saint keeps her charity back for 'the Ball,'" &c. &c.
* * * * *
LETTER 460. TO MR. MOORE.
"September--no--October 1. 1821.
"I have written to you lately, both in prose and verse, at great
length, to Paris and London. I presume that Mrs. Moore, or whoever
is your Paris deputy, will forward my packets to you in London.
"I am setting off for Pisa, if a slight incipient intermittent
fever do not prevent me. I fear it is not strong enough to give
Murray much chance of realising his thirteens again. I hardly
should regret it, I think, provided you raised your price upon
him--as what Lady Holderness (my sister's grandmother, a
Dutchwoman) used to call Augusta, her _Residee Legatoo_--so as to
provide for us all: _my_ bones with a splendid and larmoyante
edition, and you with double what is extractable during my
lifetime.
"I have a strong presentiment that (bating some out of the way
accident) you will survive me. The difference of eight years, or
whatever it is, between our ages, is nothing. I do not feel (nor
am, indeed, anxious to feel) the principle of life in me tend to
longevity. My father and mother died, the one at thirty-five or
six, and the other at forty-five; and Dr. Rush, or somebody else,
says that nobody lives long, without having _one parent_, at least,
an old stager.
"I _should_, to be sure, like to see out my eternal mother-in-law,
not so much for her heritage, but from my natural antipathy. But
the indulgence of this natural desire is too much to expect from
the Providence who presides over old women. I bore you with all
this about lives, because it has been put in my way by a
calculation of insurances which Murray has sent me. I _really
think_ you should have more, if I evaporate within a reasonable
time.
"I wonder if my 'Cain' has got safe to England. I have written
since about sixty stanzas of a poem, in octave stanzas, (in the
Pulci style, which the fools in England think was invented by
Whistlecraft--it is as old as the hills in Italy,) called 'The
Vision of of Judgment, by Quevedo Redivivus,' with this motto--
"'A Daniel come to _judgment_, yea, a Daniel:
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.'
"In this it is my intent to put the said George's Apotheosis in a
Whig point of view, not forgetting the Poet Laureate for his
preface and his other demerits.
"I am just got to the pass where Saint Peter, hearing that the
royal defunct had opposed Catholic Emancipation, rises up, and,
interrupting Satan's oration, declares _he_ will change places with
Cerberus sooner than let him into heaven, while _he_ has the keys
thereof.
"I must go and ride, though rather feverish and chilly. It is the
ague season; but the agues do me rather good than harm. The feel
after the _fit_ is as if one had got rid of one's body for good and
all.
"The gods go with you!--Address to Pisa.
"Ever yours.
"P.S. Since I came back I feel better, though I stayed out too late
for this malaria season, under the thin crescent of a very young
moon, and got off my horse to walk in an avenue with a Signora for
an hour. I thought of you and
'When at eve thou rovest
By the star thou lovest.'
But it was not in a romantic mood, as I should have been once; and
yet it was a _new_ woman, (that is, new to me,) and, of course,
expected to be made love to. But I merely made a few common-place
speeches. I feel, as your poor friend Curran said, before his
death, 'a mountain of lead upon my heart,' which I believe to be
constitutional, and that nothing will remove it but the same
remedy."
* * * * *
LETTER 461. TO MR. MOORE.
"October 6. 1821.
"By this post I have sent my nightmare to balance the incubus of *
* *'s impudent anticipation of the Apotheosis of George the Third.
I should like you to take a look over it, as I think there are two
or three things in it which might please 'our puir hill folk.'
"By the last two or three posts I have written to you at length. My
_ague_ bows to me every two or three days, but we are not as yet
upon intimate speaking terms. I have an intermittent generally
every two years, when the climate is favourable (as it is here),
but it does me no harm. What I find worse, and cannot get rid of,
is the growing depression of my spirits, without sufficient cause.
I ride--I am not intemperate in eating or drinking--and my general
health is as usual, except a slight ague, which rather does good
than not. It must be constitutional; for I know nothing more than
usual to depress me to that degree.
"How do _you_ manage? I think you told me, at Venice, that your
spirits did not keep up without a little claret. I _can_ drink, and
bear a good deal of wine (as you may recollect in England); but it
don't exhilarate--it makes me savage and suspicious, and even
quarrelsome. Laudanum has a similar effect; but I can take much of
_it_ without any effect at all. The thing that gives me the
highest spirits (it seems absurd, but true) is a close of
_salts_--I mean in the afternoon, after their effect.[58] But one
can't take _them_ like champagne.
"Excuse this old woman's letter; but my _lemancholy_ don't depend
upon health, for it is just the same, well or ill, or here or
there.
"Yours," &c.
[Footnote 58: It was, no doubt, from a similar experience of its effects
that Dryden always took physic when about to write any thing of
importance. His caricature, Bayes, is accordingly made to say, "When I
have a grand design, I ever take physic and let blood; for, when you
would have pure swiftness of thought and fiery flights of fancy, you
must have a care of the pensive part;--in short," &c. &c.
On this subject of the effects of medicine upon the mind and spirits,
some curious facts and illustrations have been, with his usual research,
collected by Mr. D'Israeli, in his amusing "Curiosities of Literature."]
* * * * *
LETTER 462. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Ravenna, October 9. 1821.
"You will please to present or convey the enclosed poem to Mr.
Moore. I sent him another copy to Paris, but he has probably left
that city.
"Don't forget to send me my first act of 'Werner' (if Hobhouse can
find it amongst my papers)--send it by the post (to Pisa); and also
cut out Harriet Lee's 'German's Tale' from the 'Canterbury Tales,'
and send it in a letter also. I began that tragedy in 1815.
"By the way, you have a good deal of my prose tracts in MS.? Let me
have proofs of them _all_ again--I mean the controversial ones,
including the last two or three years of time. Another
question!--The Epistle of St. Paul, which I translated from the
Armenian, for what reason have you kept it back, though you
published that stuff which gave rise to the 'Vampire?' Is it
because you are afraid to print any thing in opposition to the cant
of the Quarterly about Manicheism? Let me have a proof of that
Epistle directly. I am a better Christian than those parsons of
yours, though not paid for being so.
"Send--Faber's Treatise on the Cabiri.
"Sainte Croix's Mysteres du Paganisme (scarce, perhaps, but to be
found, as Mitford refers to his work frequently).
"A common Bible, of a good legible print (bound in russia). I
_have_ one; but as it was the last gift of my sister (whom I shall
probably never see again), I can only use it carefully, and less
frequently, because I like to keep it in good order. Don't forget
this, for I am a great reader and admirer of those books, and had
read them through and through before I was eight years old,--that
is to say, the _Old_ Testament, for the New struck me as a task,
but the other as a pleasure. I speak as a _boy_, from the
recollected impression of that period at Aberdeen in 1796.
"Any novels of Scott, or poetry of the same. Ditto of Crabbe,
Moore, and the Elect; but none of your curst common-place
trash,--unless something starts up of actual merit, which may very
well be, for 'tis time it should."
* * * * *
LETTER 463. TO MR. MURRAY.
"October 20. 1821.
"If the errors _are_ in the MS. write me down an ass: they are
_not_, and I am content to undergo any penalty if they be. Besides,
the _omitted_ stanza (last but one or two), sent _afterwards_, was
that in the MS. too?
"As to 'honour,' I will trust no man's honour in affairs of barter.
I will tell you why: a state of bargain is Hobbes's 'state of
nature--a state of war.' It is so with all men. If I come to a
friend, and say, 'Friend, lend me five hundred pounds,'--he either
does it, or says that he can't or won't; but if I come to Ditto,
and say, 'Ditto, I have an excellent house, or horse, or carriage,
or MSS., or books, or pictures, or, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. honestly
worth a thousand pounds, you shall have them for five hundred,'
what does Ditto say? why, he looks at them, he _hums_, he
_ha's_,--he _humbugs_, if he can, to get a bargain as cheaply as he
can, because _it is_ a bargain. This is in the blood and bone of
mankind; and the same man who would lend another a thousand pounds
without interest, would not buy a horse of him for half its value
if he could help it. It is so: there's no denying it; and therefore
I will have as much as I can, and you will give as little; and
there's an end. All men are intrinsical rascals, and I am only
sorry that, not being a dog, I can't bite them.
"I am filling another book for you with little anecdotes, to my own
knowledge, or well authenticated, of Sheridan, Curran, &c. and such
other public men as I recollect to have been acquainted with, for I
knew most of them more or less. I will do what I can to prevent
your losing by my obsequies.
"Yours," &c.
* * * * *
LETTER 464. TO MR. ROGERS.
"Ravenna, October 21. 1821.
"I shall be (the gods willing) in Bologna on Saturday next. This is
a curious answer to your letter; but I have taken a house in Pisa
for the winter, to which all my chattels, furniture, horses,
carriages, and live stock are already removed, and I am preparing
to follow.
"The cause of this removal is, shortly, the exile or proscription
of all my friends' relations and connections here into Tuscany, on
account of our late politics; and where they go, I accompany them.
I merely remained till now to settle some arrangements about my
daughter, and to give time for my furniture, &c. to precede me. I
have not here a seat or a bed hardly, except some jury chairs, and
tables, and a mattress for the week to come.
"If you will go on with me to Pisa, I can lodge you for as long as
you like; (they write that the house, the Palazzo Lanfranchi, is
spacious: it is on the Arno;) and I have four carriages, and as
many saddle-horses (such as they are in these parts), with all
other conveniences, at your command, as also their owner. If you
could do this, we may, at least, cross the Apennines together; or
if you are going by another road, we shall meet at Bologna, I hope.
I address this to the post-office (as you desire), and you will
probably find me at the Albergo di _San Marco_. If you arrive
first, wait till I come up, which will be (barring accidents) on
Saturday or Sunday at farthest.
"I presume you are alone in your voyages. Moore is in London
_incog._ according to my latest advices from those climes.
"It is better than a lustre (five years and six months and some
days, more or less) since we met; and, like the man from Tadcaster
in the farce ('Love laughs at Locksmiths'), whose acquaintances,
including the cat and the terrier, who 'caught a halfpenny in his
mouth,' were all 'gone dead,' but too many of our acquaintances
have taken the same path. Lady Melbourne, Grattan, Sheridan,
Curran, &c. &c. almost every body of much name of the old school.
But 'so am not I, said the foolish fat scullion,' therefore let us
make the most of our remainder.
"Let me find two lines from you at 'the hostel or inn.'
"Yours ever, &c.
"B."
* * * * *
LETTER 465. TO MR. MOORE.
"Ravenna, Oct. 28. 1821.
"''Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,' and in three hours
more I have to set out on my way to Pisa--sitting up all night to
be sure of rising. I have just made them take off my
bed-clothes--blankets inclusive--in case of temptation from the
apparel of sheets to my eyelids.
"Samuel Rogers is--or is to be--at Bologna, as he writes from
Venice.
"I thought our Magnifico would 'pound you,' if possible. He is
trying to 'pound' me, too; but I'll specie the rogue--or, at least,
I'll have the odd shillings out of him in keen iambics.
"Your approbation of 'Sardanapalus' is agreeable, for more reasons
than one. Hobhouse is pleased to think as you do of it, and so do
some others--but the 'Arimaspian,' whom, like 'a Gryphon in the
wilderness,' I will 'follow for his gold' (as I exhorted you to do
before), did or doth disparage it--'stinting me in my sizings.' His
notable opinions on the 'Foscari' and 'Cain' he hath not as yet
forwarded; or, at least, I have not yet received them, nor the
proofs thereof, though promised by last post.
"I see the way that he and his Quarterly people are tending--they
want a _row_ with me, and they shall have it. I only regret that I
am not in England for the _nonce_; as, here, it is hardly fair
ground for me, isolated and out of the way of prompt rejoinder and
information as I am. But, though backed by all the corruption, and
infamy, and patronage of their master rogues and slave renegadoes,
if they do once rouse me up,
"'They had better gall the devil, Salisbury.'
"I have that for two or three of them, which they had better not
move me to put in motion;--and yet, after all, what a fool I am to
disquiet myself about such fellows! It was all very well ten or
twelve years ago, when I was a 'curled darling,' and _min_ded such
things. At present, I _rate_ them at their true value; but, from
natural temper and bile, am not able to keep quiet.
"Let me hear from you on your return from Ireland, which ought to
be ashamed to see you, after her Brunswick blarney. I am of
Longman's opinion, that you should allow your friends to liquidate
the Bermuda claim. Why should you throw away the two thousand
_pounds_ (of the _non_-guinea Murray) upon that cursed piece of
treacherous inveiglement? I think you carry the matter a little too
far and scrupulously. When we see patriots begging publicly, and
know that Grattan received a fortune from his country, I really do
not see why a man, in no whit inferior to any or all of them,
should shrink from accepting that assistance from his private
friends which every tradesman receives from his connections upon
much less occasions. For, after all, it was not _your debt_--it was
a piece of swindling _against_ you. As to * * * *, and the 'what
noble creatures![59] &c. &c.' it is all very fine and very well,
but, till you can persuade me that there is _no credit_, and no
_self-applause_ to be obtained by being of use to a celebrated man,
I must retain the same opinion of the human _species_, which I do
of our friend Ms. Spe_cie_."
[Footnote 59: I had mentioned to him, with all the praise and gratitude
such friendship deserved, some generous offers of aid which, from more
than one quarter, I had received at this period, and which, though
declined, have been not the less warmly treasured in my recollection.]
* * * * *
In the month of August, Madame Guiccioli had joined her father at Pisa,
and was now superintending the preparations at the Casa Lanfranchi,--one
of the most ancient and spacious palaces of that city,--for the
reception of her noble friend. "He left Ravenna," says this lady, "with
great regret, and with a presentiment that his departure would be the
forerunner of a thousand evils to us. In every letter he then wrote to
me, he expressed his displeasure at this step. 'If your father should be
recalled,' he said, '_I immediately return_ to Ravenna; and if he is
recalled _previous_ to my departure, _I remain_.' In this hope he
delayed his journey for several months; but, at last, no longer having
any expectation of our immediate return, he wrote to me, saying--'I set
out most unwillingly, foreseeing the most evil results for all of you,
and principally for yourself. I say no more, but you will see.' And in
another letter he says, 'I leave Ravenna so unwillingly, and with such a
persuasion on my mind that my departure will lead from one misery to
another, each greater than the former, that I have not the heart to
utter another word on the subject.' He always wrote to me at that time
in Italian, and I transcribe his exact words. How entirely were these
presentiments verified by the event!"[60]
After describing his mode of life while at Ravenna, the lady thus
proceeds:--
"This sort of simple life he led until the fatal day of his departure
for Greece, and the few variations he made from it may be said to have
arisen solely from the greater or smaller number of occasions which were
offered him of doing good, and from the generous actions he was
continually performing. Many families (in Ravenna principally) owed to
him the few prosperous days they ever enjoyed. His arrival in that town
was spoken of as a piece of public good fortune, and his departure as a
public calamity; and this is the life which many attempted to asperse as
that of a libertine. But the world must at last learn how, with so good
and generous a heart, Lord Byron, susceptible, it is true, of the most
energetic passions, yet, at the same time, of the sublimest and most
pure, and rendering homage in his _acts_ to every virtue--how he, I say,
could afford such scope to malice and to calumny. Circumstances, and
also, probably, an eccentricity of disposition, (which, nevertheless,
had its origin in a virtuous feeling, an excessive abhorrence for
hypocrisy and affectation,) contributed, perhaps, to cloud the splendour
of his exalted nature in the opinion of many. But you will well know how
to analyse these contradictions in a manner worthy of your noble friend
and of yourself, and you will prove that the goodness of his heart was
not inferior to the grandeur of his genius."[61]
At Bologna, according to the appointment made between them, Lord Byron
and Mr. Rogers met; and the record which this latter gentleman has, in
his Poem on Italy, preserved of their meeting, conveys so vivid a
picture of the poet at this period, with, at the same time, so just and
feeling a tribute to his memory, that, narrowed as my limits are now
becoming, I cannot refrain from giving the sketch entire.
[Footnote 60: "Egli era partito con molto riverescimento da Ravenna, e
col pressentimento che la sua partenza da Ravenna ci sarebbe cagione di
molti mali. In ogni lettera che egli mi scriveva allora egli mi
esprimeva il suo dispiacere di lasciare Ravenna. 'Se papa e richiamato
(mi scriveva egli) io torno in quel istante a Ravenna, e se e richiamato
_prima_ della mia partenza, _io non parto_.' In questa speranza egli
differi varii mesi a partire. Ma, finalmente, non potendo piu sperare il
nostro ritorno prossimo, egli mi scriveva--'Io parto molto mal
volontieri prevedendo dei mali assai grandi per voi altri e massime per
voi; altro non dico,--lo vedrete.' E in un altra lettera, 'Io lascio
Ravenna cosi mal volontieri, e cosi persuaso che la mia partenza non puo
che condurre da un male ad un altro piu grande che non ho cuore di
scrivere altro in questo punto.' Egli mi scriveva allora sempre in
Italiano e trascrivo le sue precise parole--ma come quei suoi
pressentimenti si verificarono poi in appresso!]
[Footnote 61: The leaf that contains the original of this extract I have
unluckily mislaid.]
* * * * *
"BOLOGNA.
"'Twas night; the noise and bustle of the day
Were o'er. The mountebank no longer wrought
Miraculous cures--he and his stage were gone;
And he who, when the crisis of his tale
Came, and all stood breathless with hope and fear,
Sent round his cap; and he who thrumm'd his wire
And sang, with pleading look and plaintive strain
Melting the passenger. Thy thousand cries [62],
So well portray'd and by a son of thine,
Whose voice had swell'd the hubbub in his youth,
Were hush'd, BOLOGNA, silence in the streets,
The squares, when hark, the clattering of fleet hoofs;
And soon a courier, posting as from far,
Housing and holster, boot and belted coat
And doublet stain'd with many a various soil,
Stopt and alighted. 'Twas where hangs aloft
That ancient sign, the Pilgrim, welcoming
All who arrive there, all perhaps save those
Clad like himself, with staff and scallop-shell,
Those on a pilgrimage: and now approach'd
Wheels, through the lofty porticoes resounding,
Arch beyond arch, a shelter or a shade
As the sky changes. To the gate they came;
And, ere the man had half his story done,
Mine host received the Master--one long used
To sojourn among strangers, every where
(Go where he would, along the wildest track)
Flinging a charm that shall not soon be lost,
And leaving footsteps to be traced by those
Who love the haunts of Genius; one who saw,
Observed, nor shunn'd the busy scenes of life,
But mingled not; and mid the din, the stir,
Lived as a separate Spirit.
"Much had pass'd
Since last we parted; and those five short years--
Much had they told! His clustering locks were turn'd
Grey; nor did aught recall the youth that swam
From Sestos to Abydos. Yet his voice,
Still it was sweet; still from his eye the thought
Flash'd lightning-like, nor lingered on the way,
Waiting for words. Far, far into the night
We sat, conversing--no unwelcome hour,
The hour we met; and, when Aurora rose,
Rising, we climb'd the rugged Apennine.
"Well I remember how the golden sun
Fill'd with its beams the unfathomable gulfs
As on we travell'd, and along the ridge,
'Mid groves of cork, and cistus, and wild fig,
His motley household came.--Not last nor least,
Battista, who upon the moonlight-sea
Of Venice had so ably, zealously
Served, and at parting, thrown his oar away
To follow through the world; who without stain
Had worn so long that honourable badge[63],
The gondolier's, in a Patrician House
Arguing unlimited trust.--Not last nor least,
Thou, though declining in thy beauty and strength,
Faithful Moretto, to the latest hour
Guarding his chamber-door, and now along
The silent, sullen strand of MISSOLONGHI
Howling in grief.
"He had just left that Place
Of old renown, once in the ADRIAN sea[64],
RAVENNA; where from DANTE'S sacred tomb
He had so oft, as many a verse declares[65],
Drawn inspiration; where at twilight-time,
Through the pine-forest wandering with loose rein,
Wandering and lost, he had so oft beheld[66]
(What is not visible to a poet's eye?)
The spectre-knight, the hell-hounds, and their prey,
The chase, the slaughter, and the festal mirth
Suddenly blasted. 'Twas a theme he loved,
But others claim'd their turn; and many a tower,
Shatter'd uprooted from its native rock,
Its strength the pride of some heroic age,
Appear'd and vanish'd (many a sturdy steer[67]
Yoked and unyoked), while, as in happier days,
He pour'd his spirit forth. The past forgot,
All was enjoyment. Not a cloud obscured
Present or future.
"He is now at rest;
And praise and blame fall on his ear alike,
Now dull in death. Yes, BYRON, thou art gone,
Gone like a star that through the firmament
Shot and was lost, in its eccentric course
Dazzling, perplexing. Yet thy heart, methinks,
Was generous, noble--noble in its scorn
Of all things low or little; nothing there
Sordid or servile. If imagined wrongs
Pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do
Things long regretted, oft, as many know,
None more than I, thy gratitude would build
On slight foundations: and, if in thy life
Not happy, in thy death thou surely wert,
Thy wish accomplish'd; dying in the land
Where thy young mind had caught ethereal fire,
Dying in GREECE, and in a cause so glorious!
"They in thy train--ah, little did they think,
As round we went, that they so soon should sit
Mourning beside thee, while a Nation mourn'd,
Changing her festal for her funeral song;
That they so soon should hear the minute-gun,
As morning gleam'd on what remain'd of thee,
Roll o'er the sea, the mountains, numbering
Thy years of joy and sorrow.
"Thou art gone;
And he who would assail thee in thy grave,
Oh, let him pause! For who among us all,
Tried as thou wert--even from thine earliest years,
When wandering, yet unspoilt, a highland boy--Tried
as thou wert, and with thy soul of flame;
Pleasure, while yet the down was on thy cheek,
Uplifting, pressing, and to lips like thine,
Her charmed cup--ah, who among us all
Could say he had not err'd as much, and more?"
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