Thomas Moore - Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III

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"The peasant girls have all very fine dark eyes, and many of them
are beautiful. There are also two dead bodies in fine
preservation--one Saint Carlo Boromeo, at Milan; the other not a
saint, but a chief, named Visconti, at Monza--both of which
appeared very agreeable. In one of the Boromean isles (the Isola
bella), there is a large laurel--the largest known--on which
Buonaparte, staying there just before the battle of Marengo, carved
with his knife the word 'Battaglia.' I saw the letters, now half
worn out and partly erased.

"Excuse this tedious letter. To be tiresome is the privilege of old
age and absence: I avail myself of the latter, and the former I
have anticipated. If I do not speak to you of my own affairs, it is
not from want of confidence, but to spare you and myself. My day is
over--what then?--I have had it. To be sure, I have shortened it;
and if I had done as much by this letter, it would have been as
well. But you will forgive that, if not the other faults of

"Yours ever and most affectionately,

"B.

"P.S. November 7. 1816.

"I have been over Verona. The amphitheatre is wonderful--beats even
Greece. Of the truth of Juliet's story they seem tenacious to a
degree, insisting on the fact--giving a date (1303), and showing a
tomb. It is a plain, open, and partly decayed sarcophagus, with
withered leaves in it, in a wild and desolate conventual garden,
once a cemetery, now ruined to the very graves. The situation
struck me as very appropriate to the legend, being blighted as
their love. I have brought away a few pieces of the granite, to
give to my daughter and my nieces. Of the other marvels of this
city, paintings, antiquities, &c., excepting the tombs of the
Scaliger princes, I have no pretensions to judge. The gothic
monuments of the Scaligers pleased me, but 'a poor virtuoso am I,'
and ever yours."

* * * * *

It must have been observed, in my account of Lord Byron's life previous
to his marriage, that, without leaving altogether unnoticed (what,
indeed, was too notorious to be so evaded) certain affairs of gallantry
in which he had the reputation of being engaged, I have thought it
right, besides refraining from such details in my narrative, to suppress
also whatever passages in his Journals and Letters might be supposed to
bear too personally or particularly on the same delicate topics.
Incomplete as the strange history of his mind and heart must, in one of
its most interesting chapters, be left by these omissions, still a
deference to that peculiar sense of decorum in this country, which marks
the mention of such frailties as hardly a less crime than the commission
of them, and, still more, the regard due to the feelings of the living,
who ought not rashly to be made to suffer for the errors of the dead,
have combined to render this sacrifice, however much it may be
regretted, necessary.

We have now, however, shifted the scene to a region where less caution
is requisite;--where, from the different standard applied to female
morals in these respects, if the wrong itself be not lessened by this
diminution of the consciousness of it, less scruple may be, at least,
felt towards persons so circumstanced, and whatever delicacy we may
think right to exercise in speaking of their frailties must be with
reference rather to our views and usages than theirs.

Availing myself, with this latter qualification, of the greater latitude
thus allowed me, I shall venture so far to depart from the plan hitherto
pursued, as to give, with but little suppression, the noble poet's
letters relative to his Italian adventures. To throw a veil altogether
over these irregularities of his private life would be to afford--were
it even practicable--but a partial portraiture of his character; while,
on the other hand, to rob him of the advantage of being himself the
historian of his errors (where no injury to others can flow from the
disclosure) would be to deprive him of whatever softening light can be
thrown round such transgressions by the vivacity and fancy, the
passionate love of beauty, and the strong yearning after affection which
will be found to have, more or less, mingled with even the least refined
of his attachments. Neither is any great danger to be apprehended from
the sanction or seduction of such an example; as they who would dare to
plead the authority of Lord Byron for their errors must first be able to
trace them to the same palliating sources,--to that sensibility, whose
very excesses showed its strength and depth,--that stretch of
imagination, to the very verge, perhaps, of what reason can bear without
giving way,--that whole combination, in short, of grand but disturbing
powers, which alone could be allowed to extenuate such moral
derangement, but which, even in him thus dangerously gifted, were
insufficient to excuse it.

Having premised these few observations, I shall now proceed, with less
interruption, to lay his correspondence, during this and the two
succeeding years, before the reader:--

LETTER 252. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, November 17. 1816.

"I wrote to you from Verona the other day in my progress hither,
which letter I hope you will receive. Some three years ago, or it
may be more, I recollect your telling me that you had received a
letter from our friend Sam, dated 'On board his gondola.' _My_
gondola is, at this present, waiting for me on the canal; but I
prefer writing to you in the house, it being autumn--and rather an
English autumn than otherwise. It is my intention to remain at
Venice during the winter, probably, as it has always been (next to
the East) the greenest island of my imagination. It has not
disappointed me; though its evident decay would, perhaps, have that
effect upon others. But I have been familiar with ruins too long to
dislike desolation. Besides, I have fallen in love, which, next to
falling into the canal, (which would be of no use, as I can swim,)
is the best or the worst thing I could do. I have got some
extremely good apartments in the house of a 'Merchant of Venice,'
who is a good deal occupied with business, and has a wife in her
twenty-second year. Marianna (that is her name) is in her
appearance altogether like an antelope. She has the large, black,
oriental eyes, with that peculiar expression in them which is seen
rarely among _Europeans_--even the Italians--and which many of the
Turkish women give themselves by tinging the eyelid,--an art not
known out of that country, I believe. This expression she has
_naturally_,--and something more than this. In short, I cannot
describe the effect of this kind of eye,--at least upon me. Her
features are regular, and rather aquiline--mouth small--skin clear
and soft, with a kind of hectic colour--forehead remarkably good:
her hair is of the dark gloss, curl, and colour of Lady J * *'s:
her figure is light and pretty, and she is a famous
songstress--scientifically so; her natural voice (in conversation,
I mean) is very sweet; and the naivete of the Venetian dialect is
always pleasing in the mouth of a woman.

"November 23.

"You will perceive that my description, which was proceeding with
the minuteness of a passport, has been interrupted for several
days.

"December 5.

"Since my former dates, I do not know that I have much to add on
the subject, and, luckily, nothing to take away; for I am more
pleased than ever with my Venetian, and begin to feel very serious
on that point--so much so, that I shall be silent.

"By way of divertisement, I am studying daily, at an Armenian
monastery, the Armenian language. I found that my mind wanted
something craggy to break upon; and this--as the most difficult
thing I could discover here for an amusement--I have chosen, to
torture me into attention. It is a rich language, however, and
would amply repay any one the trouble of learning it. I try, and
shall go on;--but I answer for nothing, least of all for my
intentions or my success. There are some very curious MSS. in the
monastery, as well as books; translations also from Greek
originals, now lost, and from Persian and Syriac, &c.; besides
works of their own people. Four years ago the French instituted an
Armenian professorship. Twenty pupils presented themselves on
Monday morning, full of noble ardour, ingenuous youth, and
impregnable industry. They persevered, with a courage worthy of the
nation and of universal conquest, till Thursday; when _fifteen_ of
the _twenty_ succumbed to the six-and-twentieth letter of the
alphabet. It is, to be sure, a Waterloo of an Alphabet--that must
be said for them. But it is so like these fellows, to do by it as
they did by their sovereigns--abandon both; to parody the old
rhymes, 'Take a thing and give a thing'--'Take a king and give a
king.' They are the worst of animals, except their conquerors.

"I hear that H----n is your neighbour, having a living in
Derbyshire. You will find him an excellent-hearted fellow, as well
as one of the cleverest; a little, perhaps, too much japanned by
preferment in the church and the tuition of youth, as well as
inoculated with the disease of domestic felicity, besides being
over-run with fine feelings about woman and _constancy_ (that small
change of Love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such
counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal); but, otherwise, a very
worthy man, who has lately got a pretty wife, and (I suppose) a
child by this time. Pray remember me to him, and say that I know
not which to envy most his neighbourhood--him, or you.

"Of Venice I shall say little. You must have seen many
descriptions; and they are most of them like. It is a poetical
place; and classical, to us, from Shakspeare and Otway. I have not
yet sinned against it in verse, nor do I know that I shall do so,
having been tuneless since I crossed the Alps, and feeling, as yet,
no renewal of the 'estro.' By the way, I suppose you have seen
'Glenarvon.' Madame de Stael lent it me to read from Copet last
autumn. It seems to me that if the authoress had written the
_truth_, and nothing but the truth--the whole truth--the _romance_
would not only have been more romantic, but more entertaining. As
for the likeness, the picture can't be good--I did not sit long
enough. When you have leisure, let me hear from and of you,
believing me ever and truly yours most affectionately, B.

"P.S. Oh! _your poem_--is it out? I hope Longman has paid his
thousands: but don't you do as H * * T * *'s father did, who,
having made money by a quarto tour, became a vinegar merchant;
when, lo! his vinegar turned sweet (and be d----d to it) and ruined
him. My last letter to you (from Verona) was enclosed to
Murray--have you got it? Direct to me _here, poste restante_. There
are no English here at present. There were several in
Switzerland--some women; but, except Lady Dalrymple Hamilton, most
of them as ugly as virtue--at least, those that I saw."

* * * * *

LETTER 253. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, December 24. 1816.

"I have taken a fit of writing to you, which portends postage--once
from Verona--once from Venice, and again from Venice--_thrice_ that
is. For this you may thank yourself, for I heard that you
complained of my silence--so, here goes for garrulity.

"I trust that you received my other twain of letters. My 'way of
life' (or 'May of life,' which is it, according to the
commentators?)--my 'way of life' is fallen into great regularity.
In the mornings I go over in my gondola to babble Armenian with the
friars of the convent of St. Lazarus, and to help one of them in
correcting the English of an English and Armenian grammar which he
is publishing. In the evenings I do one of many nothings--either at
the theatres, or some of the conversaziones, which are like our
routs, or rather worse, for the women sit in a semicircle by the
lady of the mansion, and the men stand about the room. To be sure,
there is one improvement upon ours--instead of lemonade with their
ices, they hand about stiff _rum-punch--punch_, by my palate; and
this they think _English_. I would not disabuse them of so
agreeable an error,--'no, not for Venice.'

"Last night I was at the Count Governor's, which, of course,
comprises the best society, and is very much like other gregarious
meetings in every country,--as in ours,--except that, instead of
the Bishop of Winchester, you have the Patriarch of Venice, and a
motley crew of Austrians, Germans, noble Venetians, foreigners,
and, if you see a quiz, you may be sure he is a Consul. Oh, by the
way, I forgot, when I wrote from Verona, to tell you that at Milan
I met with a countryman of yours--a Colonel * * * *, a very
excellent, good-natured fellow, who knows and shows all about
Milan, and is, as it were, a native there. He is particularly civil
to strangers, and this is his history,--at least, an episode of it.

"Six-and-twenty years ago, Col. * * * *, then an ensign, being in
Italy, fell in love with the Marchesa * * * *, and she with him.
The lady must be, at least, twenty years his senior. The war broke
out; he returned to England, to serve--not his country, for that's
Ireland--but England, which is a different thing; and _she_--heaven
knows what she did. In the year 1814, the first annunciation of the
Definitive Treaty of Peace (and tyranny) was developed to the
astonished Milanese by the arrival of Col. * * * *, who, flinging
himself full length at the feet of Mad. * * * *, murmured forth, in
half-forgotten Irish Italian, eternal vows of indelible constancy.
The lady screamed, and exclaimed, 'Who are you?' The Colonel cried,
'What! don't you know me? I am so and so,' &c. &c. &c.; till, at
length, the Marchesa, mounting from reminiscence to reminiscence,
through the lovers of the intermediate twenty-five years, arrived
at last at the recollection of her _povero_ sub-lieutenant. She
then said, 'Was there ever such virtue?' (that was her very word)
and, being now a widow, gave him apartments in her palace,
reinstated him in all the rights of wrong, and held him up to the
admiring world as a miracle of incontinent fidelity, and the
unshaken Abdiel of absence.

"Methinks this is as pretty a moral tale as any of Marmontel's.
Here is another. The same lady, several years ago, made an escapade
with a Swede, Count Fersen (the same whom the Stockholm mob
quartered and lapidated not very long since), and they arrived at
an Osteria on the road to Rome or thereabouts. It was a summer
evening, and, while they were at supper, they were suddenly regaled
by a symphony of fiddles in an adjacent apartment, so prettily
played, that, wishing to hear them more distinctly, the Count rose,
and going into the musical society, said, 'Gentlemen, I am sure
that, as a company of gallant cavaliers, you will be delighted to
show your skill to a lady, who feels anxious,' &c. &c. The men of
harmony were all acquiescence--every instrument was tuned and
toned, and, striking up one of their most ambrosial airs, the whole
band followed the Count to the lady's apartment. At their head was
the first fiddler, who, bowing and fiddling at the same moment,
headed his troop and advanced up the room. Death and discord!--it
was the Marquis himself, who was on a serenading party in the
country, while his spouse had run away from town. The rest may be
imagined--but, first of all, the lady tried to persuade him that
she was there on purpose to meet him, and had chosen this method
for an harmonic surprise. So much for this gossip, which amused me
when I heard it, and I send it to you, in the hope it may have the
like effect. Now we'll return to Venice.

"The day after to-morrow (to-morrow being Christmas-day) the
Carnival begins. I dine with the Countess Albrizzi and a party, and
go to the opera. On that day the Phenix, (not the Insurance Office,
but) the theatre of that name, opens: I have got me a box there for
the season, for two reasons, one of which is, that the music is
remarkably good. The Contessa Albrizzi, of whom I have made
mention, is the De Stael of Venice, not young, but a very learned,
unaffected, good-natured woman, very polite to strangers, and, I
believe, not at all dissolute, as most of the women are. She has
written very well on the works of Canova, and also a volume of
Characters, besides other printed matter. She is of Corfu, but
married a dead Venetian--that is, dead since he married.

"My flame (my 'Donna' whom I spoke of in my former epistle, my
Marianna) is still my Marianna, and I, her--what she pleases. She
is by far the prettiest woman I have seen here, and the most
loveable I have met with any where--as well as one of the most
singular. I believe I told you the rise and progress of our
_liaison_ in my former letter. Lest that should not have reached
you, I will merely repeat, that she is a Venetian, two-and-twenty
years old, married to a merchant well to do in the world, and that
she has great black oriental eyes, and all the qualities which her
eyes promise. Whether being in love with her has steeled me or not,
I do not know; but I have not seen many other women who seem
pretty. The nobility, in particular, are a sad-looking race--the
gentry rather better. And now, what art _thou_ doing?

"What are you doing now,
Oh Thomas Moore?
What are you doing now,
Oh Thomas Moore?
Sighing or suing now,
Rhyming or wooing now,
Billing or cooing now,
Which, Thomas Moore?

Are you not near the Luddites? By the Lord! if there's a row, but
I'll be among ye! How go on the weavers--the breakers of
frames--the Lutherans of politics--the reformers?

"As the Liberty lads o'er the sea
Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,
So we, boys, we
Will _die_ fighting, or _live_ free,
And down with all kings but King Ludd!

"When the web that we weave is complete,
And the shuttle exchanged for the sword,
We will fling the winding-sheet
O'er the despot at our feet,
And dye it deep in the gore he has pour'd.

"Though black as his heart its hue,
Since his veins are corrupted to mud,
Yet this is the dew
Which the tree shall renew
Of Liberty, planted by Ludd!

"There's an amiable _chanson_ for you--all impromptu. I have
written it principally to shock your neighbour * * * *, who is all
clergy and loyalty--mirth and innocence--milk and water.

"But the Carnival's coming,
Oh Thomas Moore,
The Carnival's coming,
Oh Thomas Moore,
Masking and humming,
Fifing and drumming,
Guitarring and strumming,
Oh Thomas Moore.

The other night I saw a new play,--and the author. The subject was
the sacrifice of Isaac. The play succeeded, and they called for the
author--according to continental custom--and he presented himself,
a noble Venetian, Mali, or Malapiero, by name. Mala was his name,
and _pessima_ his production,--at least, I thought so, and I ought
to know, having read more or less of five hundred Drury Lane
offerings, during my coadjutorship with the sub-and-super
Committee.

"When does your poem of poems come out? I hear that the E.R. has
cut up Coleridge's Christabel, and declared against me for praising
it. I praised it, firstly, because I thought well of it; secondly,
because Coleridge was in great distress, and, after doing what
little I could for him in essentials, I thought that the public
avowal of my good opinion might help him further, at least with the
booksellers. I am very sorry that J * * has attacked him, because,
poor fellow, it will hurt him in mind and pocket. As for me, he's
welcome--I shall never think less of J * * for any thing he may say
against me or mine in future.

"I suppose Murray has sent you, or will send (for I do not know
whether they are out or no) the poem, or poesies, of mine, of last
summer. By the mass! they are sublime--'Ganion Coheriza'--gainsay
who dares! Pray, let me hear from you, and of you, and, at least,
let me know that you have received these three letters. Direct,
right _here, poste restante_.

"Ever and ever, &c.

"P.S. I heard the other day of a pretty trick of a bookseller, who
has published some d----d nonsense, swearing the bastards to me,
and saying he gave me five hundred guineas for them. He lies--never
wrote such stuff, never saw the poems, nor the publisher of them,
in my life, nor had any communication, directly or indirectly, with
the fellow. Pray say as much for me, if need be. I have written to
Murray, to make him contradict the impostor."

* * * * *

LETTER 254. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, November 25. 1816.

"It is some months since I have heard from or of you--I think, not
since I left Diodati. From Milan I wrote once or twice; but have
been here some little time, and intend to pass the winter without
removing. I was much pleased with the Lago di Garda, and with
Verona, particularly the amphitheatre, and a sarcophagus in a
convent garden, which they show as Juliet's: they insist on the
_truth_ of her history. Since my arrival at Venice, the lady of the
Austrian governor told me that between Verona and Vicenza there are
still ruins of the castle of the _Montecchi_, and a chapel once
appertaining to the Capulets. Romeo seems to have been of Vicenza
by the tradition; but I was a good deal surprised to find so firm a
faith in Bandello's novel, which seems really to have been founded
on a fact.

"Venice pleases me as much as I expected, and I expected much. It
is one of those places which I know before I see them, and has
always haunted me the most after the East. I like the gloomy gaiety
of their gondolas, and the silence of their canals. I do not even
dislike the evident decay of the city, though I regret the
singularity of its vanished costume; however, there is much left
still; the Carnival, too, is coming.

"St. Mark's, and indeed Venice, is most alive at night. The
theatres are not open till _nine_, and the society is
proportionably late. All this is to my taste, but most of your
countrymen miss and regret the rattle of hackney coaches, without
which they can't sleep.

"I have got remarkably good apartments in a private house; I see
something of the inhabitants (having had a good many letters to
some of them); I have got my gondola; I read a little, and luckily
could speak Italian (more fluently than correctly) long ago, I am
studying, out of curiosity, the _Venetian_ dialect, which is very
naive, and soft, and peculiar, though not at all classical; I go
out frequently, and am in very good contentment.

"The Helen of Canova (a bust which is in the house of Madame the
Countess d'Albrizzi, whom I know) is, without exception, to my
mind, the most perfectly beautiful of human conceptions, and far
beyond my ideas of human execution.

"In this beloved marble view,
Above the works and thoughts of man,
What Nature _could_, but _would not_, do,
And Beauty and Canova _can_!
Beyond imagination's power,
Beyond the bard's defeated art,
With immortality her dower,
Behold the _Helen_ of the _heart_!

"Talking of the 'heart' reminds me that I have fallen in
love--fathomless love; but lest you should make some splendid
mistake, and envy me the possession of some of those princesses or
countesses with whose affections your English voyagers are apt to
invest themselves, I beg leave to tell you that my goddess is only
the wife of a 'Merchant of Venice;' but then she is pretty as an
antelope, is but two-and-twenty years old, has the large, black,
oriental eyes, with the Italian countenance, and dark glossy hair,
of the curl and colour of Lady J * *'s. Then she has the voice of a
lute, and the song of a seraph (though not quite so sacred),
besides a long postscript of graces, virtues, and accomplishments,
enough to furnish out a new chapter for Solomon's Song. But her
great merit is finding out mine--there is nothing so amiable as
discernment.

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