Thomas Moore - Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV

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* * * * *

LETTER 331. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Bologna, June 7. 1819.

"Tell Mr. Hobhouse that I wrote to him a few days ago from Ferrara.
It will therefore be idle in him or you to wait for any further
answers or returns of proofs from Venice, as I have directed that
no English letters be sent after me. The publication can be
proceeded in without, and I am already sick of your remarks, to
which I think not the least attention ought to be paid.

"Tell Mr. Hobhouse that, since I wrote to him, I had availed myself
of my Ferrara letters, and found the society much younger and
better there than at Venice. I am very much pleased with the little
the shortness of my stay permitted me to see of the Gonfaloniere
Count Mosti, and his family and friends in general.

"I have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino
and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the
beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls, and found, besides
the superb burial-ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded
one of the grave-digger in Hamlet. He has a collection of
capuchins' skulls, labelled on the forehead, and taking down one of
them, said, 'This was Brother Desiderio Berro, who died at
forty--one of my best friends. I begged his head of his brethren
after his decease, and they gave it me. I put it in lime, and then
boiled it. Here it is, teeth and all, in excellent preservation. He
was the merriest, cleverest fellow I ever knew. Wherever he went,
he brought joy; and whenever any one was melancholy, the sight of
him was enough to make him cheerful again. He walked so actively,
you might have taken him for a dancer--he joked--he laughed--oh! he
was such a Frate as I never saw before, nor ever shall again!'

"He told me that he had himself planted all the cypresses in the
cemetery; that he had the greatest attachment to them and to his
dead people; that since 1801 they had buried fifty-three thousand
persons. In showing some older monuments, there was that of a Roman
girl of twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a princess
Bartorini, dead two centuries ago: he said that, on opening her
grave, they had found her hair complete, and 'as yellow as gold.'
Some of the epitaphs at Ferrara pleased me more than the more
splendid monuments at Bologna; for instance:--

"Martini Luigi
Implora pace;

"Lucrezia Picini
Implora eterna quiete.

Can any thing be more full of pathos? Those few words say all that
can be said or sought: the dead had had enough of life; all they
wanted was rest, and this they _implore_! There is all the
helplessness, and humble hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise
from the grave--'implora pace.'[34] I hope, whoever may survive
me, and shall see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the
Lido, within the fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two
words, and no more, put over me. I trust they won't think of
'pickling, and bringing me home to Clod or Blunderbuss Hall.' I am
sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix
with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive
me mad on my deathbed, could I suppose that any of my friends would
be base enough to convey my carcass back to your soil. I would not
even feed your worms, if I could help it.

"So, as Shakspeare says of Mowbray, the banished Duke of Norfolk,
who died at Venice (see Richard II.) that he, after fighting

"'Against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens,
And toiled with works of war, retired himself
To Italy, and there, at _Venice_, gave
His body to that _pleasant_ country's earth,
And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long.'

"Before I left Venice, I had returned to you your late, and Mr.
Hobhouse's sheets of Juan. Don't wait for further answers from me,
but address yours to Venice, as usual. I know nothing of my own
movements; I may return there in a few days, or not for some time.
All this depends on circumstances. I left Mr. Hoppner very well. My
daughter Allegra was well too, and is growing pretty; her hair is
growing darker, and her eyes are blue. Her temper and her ways, Mr.
Hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will
make, in that case, a manageable young lady.

"I have never heard any thing of Ada, the little Electra of
Mycenae. But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should
not live to see it.[35] What a long letter I have scribbled! Yours,
&c.

"P.S. Here, as in Greece, they strew flowers on the tombs. I saw a
quantity of rose-leaves, and entire roses, scattered over the
graves at Ferrara. It has the most pleasing effect you can
imagine."

[Footnote 34: Though Lord Byron, like most other persons, in writing to
different friends, was sometimes led to repeat the same circumstances
and thoughts, there is, from the ever ready fertility of his mind, much
less of such repetition in his correspondence than in that, perhaps, of
any other multifarious letter-writer; and, in the instance before us,
where the same facts and reflections are, for the second time,
introduced, it is with such new touches, both of thought and expression,
as render them, even a second time, interesting;--what is wanting in the
novelty of the matter being made up by the new aspect given to it.]

[Footnote 35: There were, in the former edition, both here and in a
subsequent letter, some passages reflecting upon the late Sir Samuel
Romilly, which, in my anxiety to lay open the workings of Lord Byron's
mind upon a subject in which so much of his happiness and character were
involved, I had been induced to retain, though aware of the erroneous
impression under which they were written;--the evident morbidness of the
feeling that dictated the attack, and the high, stainless reputation of
the person assailed, being sufficient, I thought, to neutralise any ill
effects such reflections might otherwise have produced. As I find it,
however, to be the opinion of all those whose opinions I most respect,
that, even with these antidotes, such an attack upon such a man ought
not to be left on record, I willingly expunge all trace of it from these
pages.]

* * * * *

While he was thus lingering irresolute at Bologna, the Countess
Guiccioli had been attacked with an intermittent fever, the violence of
which, combining with the absence of a confidential person to whom she
had been in the habit of intrusting her letters, prevented her from
communicating with him. At length, anxious to spare him the
disappointment of finding her so ill on his arrival, she had begun a
letter, requesting that he would remain at Bologna till the visit to
which she looked forward should bring her there also; and was in the act
of writing, when a friend came in to announce the arrival of an English
lord in Ravenna. She could not doubt for an instant that it was her
noble friend; and he had, in fact, notwithstanding his declaration to
Mr. Hoppner that it was his intention to return to Venice immediately,
wholly altered this resolution before the letter announcing it was
despatched,--the following words being written on the outside cover:--"I
am just setting off for Ravenna, June 8. 1819.--I changed my mind this
morning, and decided to go on."

The reader, however, shall have Madame Guiccioli's own account of these
events, which, fortunately for the interest of my narration, I am
enabled to communicate.

"On my departure from Venice, he had promised to come and see me at
Ravenna. Dante's tomb, the classical pine wood[36], the relics of
antiquity which are to be found in that place, afforded a sufficient
pretext for me to invite him to come, and for him to accept my
invitation. He came, in fact, in the month of June, arriving at Ravenna
on the day of the festival of the Corpus Domini; while I, attacked by a
consumptive complaint, which had its origin from the moment of my
quitting Venice, appeared on the point of death. The arrival of a
distinguished foreigner at Ravenna, a town so remote from the routes
ordinarily followed by travellers, was an event which gave rise to a
good deal of conversation. His motives for such a visit became the
subject of discussion, and these he himself afterwards involuntarily
divulged; for having made some enquiries with a view to paying me a
visit, and being told that it was unlikely that he would ever see me
again, as I was at the point of death, he replied, if such were the
case, he hoped that he should die also; which circumstance, being
repeated, revealed the object of his journey. Count Guiccioli, having
been acquainted with Lord Byron at Venice, went to visit him now, and in
the hope that his presence might amuse, and be of some use to me in the
state in which I then found myself, invited him to call upon me. He came
the day following. It is impossible to describe the anxiety he
showed,--the delicate attentions that he paid me. For a long time he had
perpetually medical books in his hands; and not trusting my physicians,
he obtained permission from Count Guiccioli to send for a very clever
physician, a friend of his, in whom he placed great confidence. The
attentions of Professor Aglietti (for so this celebrated Italian was
called), together with tranquillity, and the inexpressible happiness
which I experienced in Lord Byron's society, had so good an effect on my
health, that only two months afterwards I was able to accompany my
husband in a tour he was obliged to make to visit his various
estates."[37]

[Footnote 36:

"Tal qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie
Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi,
Quando Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie."
DANTE, PURG. Canto xxviii.

Dante himself (says Mr. Carey, in one of the notes on his admirable
translation of this poet) "perhaps wandered in this wood during his
abode with Guido Novello da Polenta."]

[Footnote 37: "Partendo io da Venezia egli promise di venir a vedermi a
Ravenna. La Tomba di Dante, il classico bosco di pini, gli avvanzi di
antichita che a Ravenna si trovano davano a me ragioni plausibili per
invitarlo a venire, ed a lui per accettare l'invito. Egli venne difatti
nel mese Guigno, e giunse a Ravenna nel giorno della Solennita del
Corpus Domini, mentre io attaccata da una malattia de consunzione ch'
ebbe principio dalla mia partenza da Venezia ero vicina a morire.
L'arrivo in Ravenna d'un forestiero distinto, in un paese cosi lontano
dalle strade che ordinariamente tengono i viaggiatori era un avvenimento
del quale molto si parlava, indagandosene i motivi, che
involontariamente poi egli feci conoscere. Perche avendo egli domandato
di me per venire a vedermi ed essendogli risposto 'che non potrebbe
vedermi piu perche ero vicina a morire'--egli rispose che in quel caso
voleva morire egli pure; la qual cosa essendosi poi ripetata si conobbe
cosi l'oggetto del suo viaggio.

"Il Conte Guiccioli visito Lord Byron, essendolo conosciuto in Venezia,
e nella speranza che la di lui compagnia potesse distrarmi ed essermi di
qualche giovamento nello stato in cui mi trovavo egli lo invito di
venire a visitarmi. Il giorno appresso egli venne. Non si potrebbero
descrivere le cure, i pensieri delicati, quanto egli fece per me. Per
molto tempo egli non ebbe per le mani che dei Libri di Medicina; e poco
confidandosi nel miei medici ottenne dal Conte Guiccioli il permesso di
far venire un valente medico di lui amico nel quale egli aveva molta
confidenza. Le cure del Professore Aglietti (cosi si chiama questo
distinto Italiano) la tranquillita, anzi la felicita inesprimibile che
mi cagionava la presenza di Lord Byron migliorarono cosi rapidamente la
mia salute che entro lo spazio di due mesi potei seguire mio marito in
un giro che egli doveva fare per le sue terre."--MS.]

* * * * *

LETTER 332. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, June 20. 1819.

"I wrote to you from Padua, and from Bologna, and since from
Ravenna. I find my situation very agreeable, but want my horses
very much, there being good riding in the environs. I can fix no
time for my return to Venice--it may be soon or late--or not at
all--it all depends on the Donna, whom I found very seriously in
_bed_ with a cough and spitting of blood, &c. all of which has
subsided. I found all the people here firmly persuaded that she
would never recover;--they were mistaken, however.

"My letters were useful as far as I employed them; and I like both
the place and people, though I don't trouble the latter more than I
can help _She_ manages very well--but if I come away with a
stiletto in my gizzard some fine afternoon, I shall not be
astonished. I can't make _him_ out at all--he visits me frequently,
and takes me out (like Whittington, the Lord Mayor) in a coach and
_six_ horses. The fact appears to be, that he is completely
_governed_ by her--for that matter, so am I.[38] The people here
don't know what to make of us, as he had the character of jealousy
with all his wives--this is the third. He is the richest of the
Ravennese, by their own account, but is not popular among them. Now
do, pray, send off Augustine, and carriage and cattle, to Bologna,
without fail or delay, or I shall lose my remaining shred of
senses. Don't forget this. My coming, going, and every thing,
depend upon HER entirely, just as Mrs. Hoppner (to whom I remit my
reverences) said in the true spirit of female prophecy.

"You are but a shabby fellow not to have written before. And I am
truly yours," &c.

[Footnote 38: That this task of "governing" him was one of more ease
than, from the ordinary view of his character, might be concluded, I
have more than once, in these pages, expressed my opinion, and shall
here quote, in corroboration of it, the remark of his own servant
(founded on an observation of more than twenty years), in speaking of
his master's matrimonial fate:--

"It is very odd, but I never yet knew a lady that could not manage my
Lord, _except_ my Lady."

"More knowledge," says Johnson, "may be gained of a man's real character
by a short conversation with one of his servants than from the most
formal and studied narrative."]

* * * * *

LETTER 333. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, June 29. 1819.

"The letters have been forwarded from Venice, but I trust that you
will not have waited for further alterations--I will make none.

"I have no time to return you the proofs--publish without them. I
am glad you think the poesy good; and as to 'thinking of the
effect,' think _you_ of the sale, and leave me to pluck the
porcupines who may point their quills at you.

"I have been here (at Ravenna) these four weeks, having left Venice
a month ago;--I came to see my 'Amica,' the Countess Guiccioli, who
has been, and still continues, very unwell. * * She is only in her
seventeenth, but not of a strong constitution. She has a perpetual
cough and an intermittent fever, but bears up most _gallantly_ in
every sense of the word. Her husband (this is his third wife) is
the richest noble of Ravenna, and almost of Romagna; he is also
_not_ the youngest, being upwards of three-score, but in good
preservation. All this will appear strange to you, who do not
understand the meridian morality, nor our way of life in such
respects, and I cannot at present expound the difference;--but you
would find it much the same in these parts. At Faenza there is Lord
* * * * with an opera girl; and at the inn in the same town is a
Neapolitan Prince, who serves the wife of the Gonfaloniere of that
city. I am on duty here--so you see 'Cosi fan tut_ti_ e tut_te_.'

"I have my horses here, _saddle_ as well as carriage, and ride or
drive every day in the forest, the _Pineta_, the scene of
Boccaccio's novel, and Dryden's fable of Honoria, &c. &c.; and I
see my Dama every day; but I feel seriously uneasy about her
health, which seems very precarious. In losing her, I should lose a
being who has run great risks on my account, and whom I have every
reason to love--but I must not think this possible. I do not know
what I _should_ do if she died, but I ought to blow my brains
out--and I hope that I should. Her husband is a very polite
personage, but I wish he would not carry me out in his coach and
six, like Whittington and his cat.

"You ask me if I mean to continue D.J. &c. How should I know? What
encouragement do you give me, all of you, with your nonsensical
prudery? publish the two Cantos, and then you will see. I desired
Mr. Kinnaird to speak to you on a little matter of business; either
he has not spoken, or you have not answered. You are a pretty pair,
but I will be even with you both. I perceive that Mr. Hobhouse has
been challenged by Major Cartwright--Is the Major 'so cunning of
fence?'--why did not they fight?--they ought.

"Yours," &c.

* * * * *

LETTER 334. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"Ravenna, July 2. 1819.

"Thanks for your letter and for Madame's. I will answer it
directly. Will you recollect whether I did not consign to you one
or two receipts of Madame Mocenigo's for house-rent--(I am not sure
of this, but think I did--if not, they will be in my drawers)--and
will you desire Mr. Dorville[39] to have the goodness to see if
Edgecombe has _receipts_ to all payments _hitherto_ made by him on
my account, and that there are _no debts_ at Venice? On your
answer, I shall send order of further remittance to carry on my
household expenses, as my present return to Venice is very
problematical; and it may happen--but I can say nothing
positive--every thing with me being indecisive and undecided,
except the disgust which Venice excites when fairly compared with
any other city in this part of Italy. When I say _Venice_, I mean
the _Venetians_--the city itself is superb as its history--but the
people are what I never thought them till they taught me to think
so.

"The best way will be to leave Allegra with Antonio's spouse till I
can decide something about her and myself--but I thought that you
would have had an answer from Mrs. V----r.[40] You have had bore
enough with me and mine already.

"I greatly fear that the Guiccioli is going into a consumption, to
which her constitution tends. Thus it is with every thing and every
body for whom I feel any thing like a real attachment;--'War,
death, or discord, doth lay siege to them.' I never even could
keep alive a dog that I liked or that liked me. Her symptoms are
obstinate cough of the lungs, and occasional fever, &c. &c. and
there are latent causes of an eruption in the skin, which she
foolishly repelled into the system two years ago: but I have made
them send her case to Aglietti; and have begged him to come--if
only for a day or two--to consult upon her state.

"If it would not bore Mr. Dorville, I wish he would keep an eye on
E---- and on my other ragamuffins. I might have more to say, but I
am absorbed about La Gui. and her illness. I cannot tell you the
effect it has upon me.

"The horses came, &c. &c. and I have been galloping through the
pine forest daily.

"Believe me, &c.

"P.S. My benediction on Mrs. Hoppner, a pleasant journey among the
Bernese tyrants, and safe return. You ought to bring back a
Platonic Bernese for my reformation. If any thing happens to my
present Amica, I have done with the passion for ever--it is my
_last_ love. As to libertinism, I have sickened myself of that, as
was natural in the way I went on, and I have at least derived that
advantage from vice, to _love_ in the better sense of the word.
_This_ will be my last adventure--I can hope no more to inspire
attachment, and I trust never again to feel it."

[Footnote 39: The Vice-Consul of Mr. Hoppner.]

[Footnote 40: An English widow lady, of considerable property in the
north of England, who, having seen the little Allegra at Mr. Hoppner's,
took an interest in the poor child's fate, and having no family of her
own, offered to adopt and provide for this little girl, if Lord Byron
would consent to renounce all claim to her. At first he seemed not
disinclined to enter into her views--so far, at least, as giving
permission that she should take the child with her to England and
educate it; but the entire surrender of his paternal authority he would
by no means consent to. The proposed arrangement accordingly was never
carried into effect.]

* * * * *

The impression which, I think, cannot but be entertained, from some
passages of these letters, of the real fervour and sincerity of his
attachment to Madame Guiccioli[41], would be still further confirmed by
the perusal of his letters to that lady herself, both from Venice and
during his present stay at Ravenna--all bearing, throughout, the true
marks both of affection and passion. Such effusions, however, are but
little suited to the general eye. It is the tendency of all strong
feeling, from dwelling constantly on the same idea, to be monotonous;
and those often-repeated vows and verbal endearments, which make the
charm of true love-letters to the parties concerned in them, must for
ever render even the best of them cloying to others. Those of Lord Byron
to Madame Guiccioli, which are for the most part in Italian, and written
with a degree of ease and correctness attained rarely by foreigners,
refer chiefly to the difficulties thrown in the way of their
meetings,--not so much by the husband himself, who appears to have liked
and courted Lord Byron's society, as by the watchfulness of other
relatives, and the apprehension felt by themselves lest their intimacy
should give uneasiness to the father of the lady, Count Gamba, a
gentleman to whose good nature and amiableness of character all who know
him bear testimony.

In the near approaching departure of the young Countess for Bologna,
Lord Byron foresaw a risk of their being again separated; and under the
impatience of this prospect, though through the whole of his preceding
letters the fear of committing her by any imprudence seems to have been
his ruling thought, he now, with that wilfulness of the moment which has
so often sealed the destiny of years, proposed that she should, at once,
abandon her husband and fly with him:--"c'e uno solo rimedio efficace,"
he says,--"cioe d' andar via insieme." To an Italian wife, almost every
thing but this is permissible. The same system which so indulgently
allows her a friend, as one of the regular appendages of her matrimonial
establishment, takes care also to guard against all unseemly
consequences of this privilege; and in return for such convenient
facilities of wrong exacts rigidly an observance of all the appearances
of right. Accordingly, the open step of deserting the husband for the
lover instead of being considered, as in England, but a sign and sequel
of transgression, takes rank, in Italian morality, as the main
transgression itself; and being an offence, too, rendered wholly
unnecessary by the latitude otherwise enjoyed, becomes, from its rare
occurrence, no less monstrous than odious.

The proposition, therefore, of her noble friend seemed to the young
Contessa little less than sacrilege, and the agitation of her mind,
between the horrors of such a step, and her eager readiness to give up
all and every thing for him she adored, was depicted most strongly in
her answer to the proposal. In a subsequent letter, too, the romantic
girl even proposed, as a means of escaping the ignominy of an elopement,
that she should, like another Juliet, "pass for dead,"--assuring him
that there were many easy ways of effecting such a deception.

[Footnote 41: "During my illness," says Madame Guiccioli, in her
recollections of this period, "he was for ever near me, paying me the
most amiable attentions, and when I became convalescent he was
constantly at my side. In society, at the theatre, riding, walking, he
never was absent from me. Being deprived at that time of his books, his
horses, and all that occupied him at Venice, I begged him to gratify me
by writing something on the subject of Dante, and, with his usual
facility and rapidity, he composed his 'Prophecy.'"--"Durante la mia
malattia L.B. era sempre presso di me, prestandomi le piu sensibili
cure, e quando passai allo stato di convalescenza egli era sempre al mio
fianco;--e in societa, e al teatro, e cavalcando, e passeggiando egli
non si allontanava mai da me. In quel' epoca essendo egli privo de' suoi
libri, e de' suoi cavalli, e di tuttocio che lo occupava in Venezia io
lo pregai di volersi occupare per me scrivendo qualche cosa sul Dante;
ed egli colla usata sua facilita e rapidita scrisse la sua Profezia."]

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