Thomas Moore - Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III
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Thomas Moore >> Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III
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"Kingdoms and empires in my little day
I have outlived, and yet I am not old;
And when I look on this, the petty spray
Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd
Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away:
Something--I know not what--does still uphold
A spirit of slight patience; not in vain,
Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.
"Perhaps the workings of defiance stir
Within me,--or perhaps a cold despair,
Brought on when ills habitually recur,--
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,
(For even to this may change of soul refer,
And with light armour we may learn to bear,)
Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
The chief companion of a calmer lot.
"I feel almost at times as I have felt
In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,
Which do remember me of where I dwelt
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt
My heart with recognition of their looks;
And even at moments I could think I see
Some living thing to love--but none like thee.
"Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation;--to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;
But something worthier do such scenes inspire:
Here to be lonely is not desolate,
For much I view which I could most desire,
And, above all, a lake I can behold
Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.
"Oh that thou wert but with me!--but I grow
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so
Has lost its praise in this but one regret;
There may be others which I less may show;--
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet
I feel an ebb in my philosophy,
And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.
"I did remind thee of our own dear lake[126],
By the old hall which may be mine no more.
Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make
Ere _that_ or _thou_ can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved, they are
Resign'd for ever, or divided far.
"The world is all before me; I but ask
Of nature that with which she will comply--
It is but in her summer's sun to bask,
To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.
She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister--till I look again on thee.
"I can reduce all feelings but this one;
And that I would not;--for at length I see
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.
The earliest--even the only paths for me--
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,
I had been better than I now can be;
The passions which have torn me would have slept;
_I_ had not suffer'd, and _thou_ hadst not wept.
"With false ambition what had I to do?
Little with love, and least of all with fame;
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,
And made me all which they can make--a name.
Yet this was not the end I did pursue;
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
But all is over--I am one the more
To baffled millions which have gone before.
"And for the future, this world's future may
From me demand but little of my care;
I have outlived myself by many a day;
Having survived so many things that were;
My years have been no slumber, but the prey
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
Of life which might have fill'd a century,
Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.
"And for the remnant which may be to come
I am content; and for the past I feel
Not thankless,--for within the crowded sum
Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,
And for the present, I would not benumb
My feelings farther.--Nor shall I conceal
That with all this I still can look around
And worship Nature with a thought profound.
"For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart
I know myself secure, as thou in mine:
We were and are--I am, even as thou art--
Beings who ne'er each other can resign;
It is the same, together or apart,
From life's commencement to its slow decline
We are entwined--let death come slow or fast,
The tie which bound the first endures the last!"
[Footnote 125: "Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a voyage
without a tempest. He was known to the sailors by the facetious name of
'Foul-weather Jack.'
"But, though it were tempest-tost,
Still his bark could not be lost.
He returned safely from the wreck of the Wager (in Anson's Voyage), and
subsequently circumnavigated the world, many years after, as commander
of a similar expedition."]
[Footnote 126: The lake of Newstead Abbey.]
* * * * *
In the month of August, Mr. M.G. Lewis arrived to pass some time with
him; and he was soon after visited by Mr. Richard Sharpe, of whom he
makes such honourable mention in the Journal already given, and with
whom, as I have heard this gentleman say, it now gave him evident
pleasure to converse about their common friends in England. Among those
who appeared to have left the strongest impressions of interest and
admiration on his mind was (as easily will be believed by all who know
this distinguished person) Sir James Mackintosh.
Soon after the arrival of his friends, Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. S. Davies,
he set out, as we have seen, with the former on a tour through the
Bernese Alps,--after accomplishing which journey, about the beginning of
October he took his departure, accompanied by the same gentleman, for
Italy.
The first letter of the following series was, it will be seen, written a
few days before he left Diodati.
LETTER 247. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Diodati, Oct. 5. 1816.
"Save me a copy of 'Buck's Richard III.' republished by Longman;
but do not send out more books, I have too many.
"The 'Monody' is in too many paragraphs, which makes it
unintelligible to me; if any one else understands it in the present
form, they are wiser; however, as it cannot be rectified till my
return, and has been already published, even publish it on in the
collection--it will fill up the place of the omitted epistle.
"Strike out 'by request of a friend,' which is sad trash, and must
have been done to make it ridiculous.
"Be careful in the printing the stanzas beginning,
"'Though the day of my destiny,' &c.
which I think well of as a composition.
"'The Antiquary' is not the best of the three, but much above all
the last twenty years, saving its elder brothers. Holcroft's
Memoirs are valuable as showing strength of endurance in the man,
which is worth more than all the talent in the world.
"And so you have been publishing 'Margaret of Anjou' and an
Assyrian tale, and refusing W.W.'s Waterloo, and the 'Hue and Cry.'
I know not which most to admire, your rejections or acceptances. I
believe that _prose_ is, after all, the most reputable, for certes,
if one could foresee--but I won't go on--that is with this
sentence; but poetry is, I fear, incurable. God help me! if I
proceed in this scribbling, I shall have frittered away my mind
before I am thirty, but it is at times a real relief to me. For the
present--good evening."
* * * * *
LETTER 248. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Martigny, October 9. 1816.
"Thus far on my way to Italy. We have just passed the 'Fisse-Vache'
(one of the first torrents in Switzerland) in time to view the iris
which the sun flings along it before noon.
"I have written to you twice lately. Mr. Davies, I hear, is
arrived. He brings the original MS. which you wished to see.
Recollect that the printing is to be from that which Mr. Shelley
brought; and recollect, also, that the concluding stanzas of Childe
Harold (those to my _daughter_) which I had not made up my mind
whether to publish or not when they were _first_ written (as you
will see marked on the margin of the first copy), I had (and have)
fully determined to publish with the rest of the Canto, as in the
copy which you received by Mr. Shelley, before I sent it to
England.
"Our weather is very fine, which is more than the summer has
been.--At Milan I shall expect to hear from you. Address either to
Milan, _poste restante_, or by way of Geneva, to the care of Monsr.
Hentsch, Banquier. I write these few lines in case my other letter
should not reach you: I trust one of them will.
"P.S. My best respects and regards to Mr. Gifford. Will you tell
him it may perhaps be as well to put a short note to that part
relating to _Clarens_, merely to say, that of course the
description does not refer to that particular spot so much as to
the command of scenery round it? I do not know that this is
necessary, and leave it to Mr. G.'s choice, as my editor,--if he
will allow me to call him so at this distance."
* * * * *
LETTER 249. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Milan, October 15. 1816.
"I hear that Mr. Davies has arrived in England,--but that of some
letters, &c., committed to his care by Mr. H., only _half_ have
been delivered. This intelligence naturally makes me feel a little
anxious for mine, and amongst them for the MS., which I wished to
have compared with the one sent by me through the hands of Mr.
Shelley. I trust that _it_ has arrived safely,--and indeed not less
so, that some little crystals, &c., from Mont Blanc, for my
daughter and my nieces, have reached their address. Pray have the
goodness to ascertain from Mr. Davies that no accident (by
custom-house or loss) has befallen them, and satisfy me on this
point at your earliest convenience.
"If I recollect rightly, you told me that Mr. Gifford had kindly
undertaken to correct the press (at my request) during my
absence--at least I hope so. It will add to my many obligations to
that gentleman.
"I wrote to you, on my way here, a short note, dated Martigny. Mr.
Hobhouse and myself arrived here a few days ago, by the Simplon
and Lago Maggiore route. Of course we visited the Borromean
Islands, which are fine, but too artificial. The Simplon is
magnificent in its nature and its art,--both God and man have done
wonders,--to say nothing of the devil who must certainly have had a
hand (or a hoof) in some of the rocks and ravines through and over
which the works are carried.
"Milan is striking--the cathedral superb. The city altogether
reminds me of Seville, but a little inferior. We had heard divers
bruits, and took precautions on the road, near the frontier,
against some 'many worthy fellows (i.e. felons) that were out,' and
had ransacked some preceding travellers, a few weeks ago, near
Sesto,--or _C_esto, I forget which,--of cash and raiment, besides
putting them in bodily fear, and lodging about twenty slugs in the
retreating part of a courier belonging to Mr. Hope. But we were not
molested, and I do not think in any danger, except of making
mistakes in the way of cocking and priming whenever we saw an old
house, or an ill-looking thicket, and now and then suspecting the
'true men,' who have very much the appearance of the thieves of
other countries. What the thieves may look like, I know not, nor
desire to know, for it seems they come upon you in bodies of thirty
('in buckram and Kendal green') at a time, so that voyagers have no
great chance. It is something like poor dear Turkey in that
respect, but not so good, for there you can have as great a body of
rogues to match the regular banditti; but here the gens d'armes are
said to be no great things, and as for one's own people, one can't
carry them about like Robinson Crusoe with a gun on each shoulder.
"I have been to the Ambrosian library--it is a fine
collection--full of MSS. edited and unedited. I enclose you a list
of the former recently published: these are matters for your
literati. For me, in my simple way, I have been most delighted with
a correspondence of letters, all original and amatory, between
_Lucretia Borgia_ and _Cardinal Bembo_, preserved there. I have
pored over them and a lock of her hair, the prettiest and fairest
imaginable--I never saw fairer--and shall go repeatedly to read the
epistles over and over; and if I can obtain some of the hair by
fair means, I shall try. I have already persuaded the librarian to
promise me copies of the letters, and I hope he will not disappoint
me. They are short, but very simple, sweet, and to the purpose;
there are some copies of verses in Spanish also by her; the tress
of her hair is long, and, as I said before, beautiful. The Brera
gallery of paintings has some fine pictures, but nothing of a
collection. Of painting I know nothing; but I like a Guercino--a
picture of Abraham putting away Hagar and Ishmael--which seems to
me natural and goodly. The Flemish school, such as I saw it in
Flanders, I utterly detested, despised, and abhorred; it might be
painting, but it was not nature; the Italian is pleasing, and their
_ideal_ very noble.
"The Italians I have encountered here are very intelligent and
agreeable. In a few days I am to meet Monti. By the way, I have
just heard an anecdote of Beccaria, who published such admirable
things against the punishment of death. As soon as his book was
out, his servant (having read it, I presume) stole his watch; and
his master, while correcting the press of a second edition, did all
he could to have him hanged by way of advertisement.
"I forgot to mention the triumphal arch begun by Napoleon, as a
gate to this city. It is unfinished, but the part completed worthy
of another age and the same country. The society here is very oddly
carried on,--at the theatre, and the theatre only,--which answers
to our opera. People meet there as at a rout, but in very small
circles. From Milan I shall go to Venice. If you write, write to
Geneva, as before--the letter will be forwarded.
"Yours ever."
* * * * *
LETTER 250. TO MR. MURRAY.
"Milan, November 1. 1816.
"I have recently written to you rather frequently but without any
late answer. Mr. Hobhouse and myself set out for Venice in a few
days; but you had better still address to me at Mr. Hentsch's,
Banquier, Geneva; he will forward your letters.
"I do not know whether I mentioned to you some time ago, that I had
parted with the Dr. Polidori a few weeks previous to my leaving
Diodati. I know no great harm of him; but he had an alacrity of
getting into scrapes, and was too young and heedless; and having
enough to attend to in my own concerns, and without time to become
his tutor, I thought it much better to give him his conge. He
arrived at Milan some weeks before Mr. Hobhouse and myself. About a
week ago, in consequence of a quarrel at the theatre with an
Austrian officer, in which he was exceedingly in the wrong, he has
contrived to get sent out of the territory, and is gone to
Florence. I was not present, the pit having been the scene of
altercation; but on being sent for from the Cavalier Breme's box,
where I was quietly staring at the ballet, I found the man of
medicine begirt with grenadiers, arrested by the guard, conveyed
into the guard-room, where there was much swearing in several
languages. They were going to keep him there for the night; but on
my giving my name, and answering for his apparition next morning,
he was permitted egress. Next day he had an order from the
government to be gone in twenty-four hours, and accordingly gone he
is, some days ago. We did what we could for him, but to no purpose;
and indeed he brought it upon himself, as far as I could learn, for
I was not present at the squabble itself. I believe this is the
real state of his case; and I tell it you because I believe things
sometimes reach you in England in a false or exaggerated form. We
found Milan very polite and hospitable[127], and have the same
hopes of Verona and Venice. I have filled my paper.
"Ever yours," &c.
[Footnote 127: With Milan, however, or its society, the noble traveller
was far from being pleased, and in his Memoranda, I recollect, he
described his stay there to be "like a ship under quarantine." Among
other persons whom he met in the society of that place was M. Beyle, the
ingenious author of "L'Histoire de la Peinture en Italie," who thus
describes the impression their first interview left upon him:--
"Ce fut pendant l'automne de 1816, que je le rencontrai au theatre de la
_Scala_, a Milan, dans la loge de M. Louis de Breme. Je fus frappe des
yeux de Lord Byron au moment ou il ecoutait un sestetto d'un opera de
Mayer intitule Elena. Je n'ai vu de ma vie, rien de plus beau ni de plus
expressif. Encore aujourd'hui, si je viens a penser a l'expression qu'un
grand peintre devrait donner an genie, cette tete sublime reparait
tout-a-coup devant moi. J'eus un instant d'enthousiasme, et oubliant la
juste repugnance que tout homme un peu fier doit avoir a se faire
presenter a un pair d'Angleterre, je priai M. de Breme de m'introduire a
Lord Byron, je me trouvai le lendemain a diner chez M. de Breme, avec
lui, et le celebre Monti, l'immortel auteur de la _Basvigliana_. On
parla poesie, on en vint a demander quels etaient les douze plus beaux
vers faits depuis un siecle, en Francais, en Italien, en Anglais. Les
Italiens presens s'accorderent a designer les douze premiers vers de la
_Mascheroniana_ de Monti, comme ce que l'on avait fait de plus beau dans
leur langue, depuis cent ans. _Monti_ voulut bien nous les reciter. Je
regardai Lord Byron, il fut ravi. La nuance de hauteur, ou plutot l'air
d'un homme _qui se trouve avoir a repousser une importunite_, qui
deparait un peu sa belle figure, disparut tout-a-coup pour faire a
l'expression du bonheur. Le premier chant de la _Mascheroniana_, que
Monti recita presque en entier, vaincu par les acclamations des
auditeurs, causa la plus vive sensation a l'auteur de Childe Harold. Je
n'oublierai jamais l'expression divine de ses traits; c'etait l'air
serein de la puissance et du genie, et suivant moi, Lord Byron n'avait,
en ce moment, aucune affectation a se reprocher."]
* * * * *
LETTER 251. TO MR. MOORE.
"Verona, November 6. 1816.
"My dear Moore,
"Your letter, written before my departure from England, and
addressed to me in London, only reached me recently. Since that
period, I have been over a portion of that part of Europe which I
had not already seen. About a month since, I crossed the Alps from
Switzerland to Milan, which I left a few days ago, and am thus far
on my way to Venice, where I shall probably winter. Yesterday I was
on the shores of the Benacus, with his _fluctibus et fremitu_.
Catullus's Sirmium has still its name and site, and is remembered
for his sake: but the very heavy autumnal rains and mists prevented
our quitting our route, (that is, Hobhouse and myself, who are at
present voyaging together,) as it was better not to see it at all
than to a great disadvantage.
"I found on the Benacus the same tradition of a city, still visible
in calm weather below the waters, which you have preserved of Lough
Neagh, 'When the clear, cold eve's declining.' I do not know that
it is authorised by records; but they tell you such a story, and
say that the city was swallowed up by an earthquake. We moved
to-day over the frontier to Verona, by a road suspected of
thieves,--'the wise _convey_ it call,'--but without molestation. I
shall remain here a day or two to gape at the usual
marvels,--amphitheatre, paintings, and all that time-tax of
travel,--though Catullus, Claudian, and Shakspeare have done more
for Verona than it ever did for itself. They still pretend to
show, I believe, the 'tomb of all the Capulets'--we shall see.
"Among many things at Milan, one pleased me particularly, viz. the
correspondence (in the prettiest love-letters in the world) of
Lucretia Borgia with Cardinal Bembo, (who, _you say_, made a very
good cardinal,) and a lock of her hair, and some Spanish verses of
hers,--the lock very fair and beautiful. I took one single hair of
it as a relic, and wished sorely to get a copy of one or two of the
letters; but it is prohibited: _that_ I don't mind; but it was
impracticable; and so I only got some of them by heart. They are
kept in the Ambrosian Library, which I often visited to look them
over--to the scandal of the librarian, who wanted to enlighten me
with sundry valuable MSS., classical, philosophical, and pious. But
I stick to the Pope's daughter, and wish myself a cardinal.
"I have seen the finest parts of Switzerland, the Rhine, the Rhone,
and the Swiss and Italian lakes; for the beauties of which, I refer
you to the Guidebook. The north of Italy is tolerably free from the
English; but the south swarms with them, I am told. Madame de Stael
I saw frequently at Copet, which she renders remarkably pleasant.
She has been particularly kind to me. I was for some months her
neighbour, in a country house called Diodati, which I had on the
Lake of Geneva. My plans are very uncertain; but it is probable
that you will see me in England in the spring. I have some business
there. If you write to me, will you address to the care of Mons.
Hentsch, Banquier, Geneva, who receives and forwards my letters.
Remember me to Rogers, who wrote to me lately, with a short account
of your poem, which, I trust, is near the light. He speaks of it
most highly.
"My health is very endurable, except that I am subject to casual
giddiness and faintness, which is so like a fine lady, that I am
rather ashamed of the disorder. When I sailed, I had a physician
with me, whom, after some months of patience, I found it expedient
to part with, before I left Geneva some time. On arriving at Milan,
I found this gentleman in very good society, where he prospered for
some weeks: but, at length, at the theatre he quarrelled with an
Austrian officer, and was sent out by the government in twenty-four
hours. I was not present at his squabble; but, on hearing that he
was put under arrest, I went and got him out of his confinement,
but could not prevent his being sent off, which, indeed, he partly
deserved, being quite in the wrong, and having begun a row for
row's sake. I had preceded the Austrian government some weeks
myself, in giving him his conge from Geneva. He is not a bad
fellow, but very young and hot-headed, and more likely to incur
diseases than to cure them. Hobhouse and myself found it useless to
intercede for him. This happened some time before we left Milan. He
is gone to Florence.
"At Milan I saw, and was visited by, Monti, the most celebrated of
the living Italian poets. He seems near sixty; in face he is like
the late Cooke the actor. His frequent changes in politics have
made him very unpopular as a man. I saw many more of their
literati; but none whose names are well known in England, except
Acerbi. I lived much with the Italians, particularly with the
Marquis of Breme's family, who are very able and intelligent men,
especially the Abate. There was a famous improvvisatore who held
forth while I was there. His fluency astonished me; but, although I
understand Italian, and speak it (with more readiness than
accuracy), I could only carry off a few very common-place
mythological images, and one line about Artemisia, and another
about Algiers, with sixty words of an entire tragedy about Etocles
and Polynices. Some of the Italians liked him--others called his
performance 'seccatura' (a devilish good word, by the way)--and all
Milan was in controversy about him.
"The state of morals in these parts is in some sort lax. A mother
and son were pointed out at the theatre, as being pronounced by the
Milanese world to be of the Theban dynasty--but this was all. The
narrator (one of the first men in Milan) seemed to be not
sufficiently scandalised by the taste or the tie. All society in
Milan is carried on at the opera: they have private boxes, where
they play at cards, or talk, or any thing else; but (except at the
Cassino) there are no open houses, or balls, &c. &c.
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