Thomas Moore - Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV

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"The tales also are in an unfinished state, and I can fix no time
for their completion: they are also not in the best manner. You
must not, therefore, calculate upon any thing in time for this
edition. The Memoir is already above forty-four sheets of very
large, long paper, and will be about fifty or sixty; but I wish to
go on leisurely; and when finished, although it might do a good
deal for you at the time, I am not sure that it would serve any
good purpose in the end either, as it is full of many passions and
prejudices, of which it has been impossible for me to keep
clear:--I have not the patience.

"Enclosed is a list of books which Dr. Aglietti would be glad to
receive by way of price for his MS. letters, if you are disposed to
purchase at the rate of fifty pounds sterling. These he will be
glad to have as part, and the rest _I_ will give him in money, and
you may carry it to the account of books, &c. which is in balance
against me, deducting it accordingly. So that the letters are
yours, if you like them, at this rate; and he and I are going to
hunt for more Lady Montague letters, which he thinks of finding. I
write in haste. Thanks for the article, and believe me

"Yours," &c.

* * * * *

To the charge brought against Lord Byron by some English travellers of
being, in general, repulsive and inhospitable to his own countrymen, I
have already made allusion; and shall now add to the testimony then
cited in disproof of such a charge some particulars, communicated to me
by Captain Basil Hall, which exhibit the courtesy and kindliness of the
noble poet's disposition in their true, natural light.

"On the last day of August, 1818 (says this distinguished writer and
traveller), I was taken ill with an ague at Venice, and having heard
enough of the low state of the medical art in that country, I was not a
little anxious as to the advice I should take. I was not acquainted with
any person in Venice to whom I could refer, and had only one letter of
introduction, which was to Lord Byron; but as there were many stories
floating about of his Lordship's unwillingness to be pestered with
tourists, I had felt unwilling, before this moment, to intrude myself in
that shape. Now, however, that I was seriously unwell, I felt sure that
this offensive character would merge in that of a countryman in
distress, and I sent the letter by one of my travelling companions to
Lord Byron's lodgings, with a note, excusing the liberty I was taking,
explaining that I was in want of medical assistance, and saying I should
not send to any one till I heard the name of the person who, in his
Lordship's opinion, was the best practitioner in Venice.

"Unfortunately for me, Lord Byron was still in bed, though it was near
noon, and still more unfortunately, the bearer of my message scrupled to
awake him, without first coming back to consult me. By this time I was
in all the agonies of a cold ague fit, and, therefore, not at all in a
condition to be consulted upon any thing--so I replied pettishly, 'Oh,
by no means disturb Lord Byron on my account--ring for the landlord, and
send for any one he recommends.' This absurd injunction being forthwith
and literally attended to, in the course of an hour I was under the
discipline of mine host's friend, whose skill and success it is no part
of my present purpose to descant upon:--it is sufficient to mention that
I was irrevocably in his hands long before the following most kind note
was brought to me, in great haste, by Lord Byron's servant.

"'Venice, August 31. 1818.

"'Dear Sir,

"'Dr. Aglietti is the best physician, not only in Venice, but in
Italy: his residence is on the Grand Canal, and easily found; I
forget the number, but am probably the only person in Venice who
don't know it. There is no comparison between him and any of the
other medical people here. I regret very much to hear of your
indisposition, and shall do myself the honour of waiting upon you
the moment I am up. I write this in bed, and have only just
received the letter and note. I beg you to believe that nothing but
the extreme lateness of my hours could have prevented me from
replying immediately, or coming in person. I have not been called a
minute.--I have the honour to be, very truly,

"'Your most obedient servant,

"'BYRON.'

"His Lordship soon followed this note, and I heard his voice in the next
room; but although he waited more than an hour, I could not see him,
being under the inexorable hands of the doctor. In the course of the
same evening he again called, but I was asleep. When I awoke I found his
Lordship's valet sitting by my bedside. 'He had his master's orders,' he
said, 'to remain with me while I was unwell, and was instructed to say,
that whatever his Lordship had, or could procure, was at my service, and
that he would come to me and sit with me, or do whatever I liked, if I
would only let him know in what way he could be useful.'

"Accordingly, on the next day, I sent for some book, which was brought,
with a list of his library. I forget what it was which prevented my
seeing Lord Byron on this day, though he called more than once; and on
the next, I was too ill with fever to talk to any one.

"The moment I could get out, I took a gondola and went to pay my
respects, and to thank his Lordship for his attentions. It was then
nearly three o'clock, but he was not yet up; and when I went again on
the following day at five, I had the mortification to learn that he had
gone, at the same hour, to call upon me, so that we had crossed each
other on the canal; and, to my deep and lasting regret, I was obliged to
leave Venice without seeing him."

* * * * *

LETTER 322. TO MR. MOORE.

"Venice, September 19. 1818.

"An English newspaper here would be a prodigy, and an opposition
one a monster; and except some ex tracts _from_ extracts in the
vile, garbled Paris gazettes, nothing of the kind reaches the
Veneto-Lombard public, who are, perhaps, the most oppressed in
Europe. My correspondences with England are mostly on business, and
chiefly with my * * *, who has no very exalted notion, or extensive
conception, of an author's attributes; for he once took up an
Edinburgh Review, and, looking at it a minute, said to me, 'So, I
see you have got into the magazine,'--which is the only sentence I
ever heard him utter upon literary matters, or the men thereof.

"My first news of your Irish Apotheosis has, consequently, been
from yourself. But, as it will not be forgotten in a hurry, either
by your friends or your enemies, I hope to have it more in detail
from some of the former, and, in the mean time, I wish you joy with
all my heart. Such a moment must have been a good deal better than
Westminster-abbey,--besides being an assurance of _that_ one day
(many years hence, I trust,) into the bargain.

"I am sorry to perceive, however, by the close of your letter, that
even _you_ have not escaped the 'surgit amari,' &c. and that your
damned deputy has been gathering such 'dew from the still _vext_
Bermoothes'--or rather _vexatious_. Pray, give me some items of the
affair, as you say it is a serious one; and, if it grows more so,
you should make a trip over here for a few months, to see how
things turn out. I suppose you are a violent admirer of England by
your staying so long in it. For my own part, I have passed, between
the age of one-and-twenty and thirty, half the intervenient years
out of it without regretting any thing, except that I ever returned
to it at all, and the gloomy prospect before me of business and
parentage obliging me, one day, to return to it again,--at least,
for the transaction of affairs, the signing of papers, and
inspecting of children.

"I have here my natural daughter, by name Allegra,--a pretty little
girl enough, and reckoned like papa.[26] Her mamma is English,--but
it is a long story, and--there's an end. She is about twenty
months old.

"I have finished the first Canto (a long one, of about 180 octaves)
of a poem in the style and manner of 'Beppo', encouraged by the
good success of the same. It is called 'Don Juan', and is meant to
be a little quietly facetious upon every thing. But I doubt whether
it is not--at least, as far as it has yet gone--too free for these
very modest days. However, I shall try the experiment, anonymously,
and if it don't take, it will be discontinued. It is dedicated to S
* * in good, simple, savage verse, upon the * * * *'s politics, and
the way he got them. But the bore of copying it out is intolerable;
and if I had an amanuensis he would be of no use, as my writing is
so difficult to decipher.

"My poem's Epic, and is meant to be
Divided in twelve books, each book containing
With love and war, a heavy gale at sea--
A list of ships, and captains, and kings reigning--
New characters, &c. &c.

The above are two stanzas, which I send you as a brick of my Babel,
and by which you can judge of the texture of the structure.

"In writing the Life of Sheridan, never mind the angry lies of the
humbug Whigs. Recollect that he was an Irishman and a clever
fellow, and that we have had some very pleasant days with him.
Don't forget that he was at school at Harrow, where, in my time, we
used to show his name--R.B. Sheridan, 1765,--as an honour to the
walls. Remember * *. Depend upon it that there were worse folks
going, of that gang, than ever Sheridan was.

"What did Parr mean by 'haughtiness and coldness?' I listened to
him with admiring ignorance, and respectful silence. What more
could a talker for fame have?--they don't like to be answered. It
was at Payne Knight's I met him, where he gave me more Greek than I
could carry away. But I certainly meant to (and _did_) treat him
with the most respectful deference.

"I wish you a good night, with a Venetian benediction, 'Benedetto
te, e la terra che ti fara!'--'May you be blessed, and the _earth_
which you will _make_!'--is it not pretty? You would think it
still prettier if you had heard it, as I did two hours ago, from
the lips of a Venetian girl, with large black eyes, a face like
Faustina's, and the figure of a Juno--tall and energetic as a
Pythoness, with eyes flashing, and her dark hair streaming in the
moonlight--one of those women who may be made any thing. I am sure
if I put a poniard into the hand of this one, she would plunge it
where I told her,--and into _me_, if I offended her. I like this
kind of animal, and am sure that I should have preferred Medea to
any woman that ever breathed. You may, perhaps, wonder that I don't
in that case. I could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl, any
thing, but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when I stood
alone upon my hearth, with my household gods shivered around me[27]
* * Do you suppose I have forgotten or forgiven it? It has
comparatively swallowed up in me every other feeling, and I am only
a spectator upon earth, till a tenfold opportunity offers. It may
come yet. There are others more to be blamed than * * * *, and it
is on these that my eyes are fixed unceasingly."

[Footnote 26: This little child had been sent to him by its mother about
four or five months before, under the care of a Swiss nurse, a young
girl not above nineteen or twenty years of age, and in every respect
unfit to have the charge of such an infant, without the superintendence
of some more experienced person. "The child, accordingly," says my
informant, "was but ill taken care of;--not that any blame could attach
to Lord Byron, for he always expressed himself most anxious for her
welfare, but because the nurse wanted the necessary experience. The poor
girl was equally to be pitied; for, as Lord Byron's household consisted
of English and Italian men servants, with whom she could hold no
converse, and as there was no other female to consult with and assist
her in her charge, nothing could be more forlorn than her situation
proved to be."

Soon after the date of the above letter, Mrs. Hoppner, the lady of the
Consul General, who had, from the first, in compassion both to father
and child, invited the little Allegra occasionally to her house, very
kindly proposed to Lord Byron to take charge of her altogether, and an
arrangement was accordingly concluded upon for that purpose.]

[Footnote 27:

"I had one only fount of quiet left,
And that they poison'd! _My pure household gods
Were shivered on my hearth._" MARINO FALIERO.
]

* * * * *

LETTER 323. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, September 24. 1818.

"In the one hundredth and thirty-second stanza of Canto fourth, the
stanza runs in the manuscript--

"And thou, who never yet of human wrong
Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!

and _not 'lost,'_ which is nonsense, as what losing a scale means,
I know not; but _leaving_ an unbalanced scale, or a scale
unbalanced, is intelligible.[28] Correct this, I pray,--not for the
public, or the poetry, but I do not choose to have blunders made in
addressing any of the deities so seriously as this is addressed.

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. In the translation from the Spanish, alter

"In increasing squadrons flew,

to--

To a mighty squadron grew.

"What does 'thy waters _wasted_ them' mean (in the Canto)? _That is
not me._[29] Consult the MS. _always_.

"I have written the first Canto (180 octave stanzas) of a poem in
the style of Beppo, and have Mazeppa to finish besides.

"In referring to the mistake in stanza 132. I take the opportunity
to desire that in future, in all parts of my writings referring to
religion, you will be more careful, and not forget that it is
possible that in addressing the Deity a blunder may become a
blasphemy; and I do not choose to suffer such infamous perversions
of my words or of my intentions.

"I saw the Canto by accident."

[Footnote 28: This correction, I observe, has never been made,--the
passage still remaining, unmeaningly,

"_Lost_ the unbalanced scale."
]

[Footnote 29: This passage also remains uncorrected.]

* * * * *

LETTER 324. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, January 20. 1819.

"The opinions which I have asked of Mr. H. and others were with
regard to the poetical merit, and not as to what they may think due
to the _cant_ of the day, which still reads the Bath Guide,
Little's Poems, Prior, and Chaucer, to say nothing of Fielding and
Smollet. If published, publish entire, with the above-mentioned
exceptions; or you may publish anonymously, or _not at all_. In the
latter event, print 50 on my account, for private distribution.

"Yours, &c.

"I have written to Messrs. K. and H. to desire that they will not
erase more than I have stated.

"The second Canto of Don Juan is finished in 206 stanzas."

* * * * *

LETTER 325. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, January 25. 1819.

"You will do me the favour to print privately (for private
distribution) fifty copies of 'Don Juan.' The list of the men to
whom I wish it to be presented, I will send hereafter. The other
two poems had best be added to the collective edition: I do not
approve of _their_ being published separately. Print Don Juan
_entire_, omitting, of course, the lines on Castlereagh, as I am
not on the spot to meet him. I have a second Canto ready, which
will be sent by and by. By this post, I have written to Mr.
Hobhouse, addressed to your care.

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. I have acquiesced in the request and representation; and
having done so, it is idle to detail my arguments in favour of my
own self-love and 'Poeshie;' but I _protest_. If the poem has
poetry, it would stand; if not, fall; the rest is 'leather and
prunello,' and has never yet affected any human production 'pro or
con.' Dulness is the only annihilator in such cases. As to the cant
of the day, I despise it, as I have ever done all its other finical
fashions, which become you as paint became the ancient Britons. If
you admit this prudery, you must omit half Ariosto, La Fontaine,
Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, Ford, all the Charles
Second writers; in short, _something_ of most who have written
before Pope and are worth reading, and much of Pope himself. _Read
him_--most of you _don't_--but _do_--and I will forgive you; though
the inevitable consequence would be that you would burn all I have
ever written, and all your other wretched Claudians of the day
(except Scott and Crabbe) into the bargain. I wrong Claudian, who
_was_ a _poet_, by naming him with such fellows; but he was the
'ultimus Romanorum,' the tail of the comet, and these persons are
the tail of an old gown cut into a waistcoat for Jackey; but being
both _tails_, I have compared the one with the other, though very
unlike, like all similes. I write in a passion and a sirocco, and I
was up till six this morning at the Carnival: but I _protest_, as I
did in my former letter."

* * * * *

LETTER 326. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, February 1. 1819.

"After one of the concluding stanzas of the first Canto of 'Don
Juan,' which ends with (I forget the number)--

"To have ...
... when the original is dust,
A book, a d----d bad picture, and worse bust,

insert the following stanza:--

"What are the hopes of man, &c.

"I have written to you several letters, some with additions, and
some upon the subject of the poem itself, which my cursed
puritanical committee have protested against publishing. But we
will circumvent them on that point. I have not yet begun to copy
out the second Canto, which is finished, from natural laziness, and
the discouragement of the milk and water they have thrown upon the
first. I say all this to them as to you, that is, for _you_ to say
to _them_, for I will have nothing underhand. If they had told me
the poetry was bad, I would have acquiesced; but they say the
contrary, and then talk to me about morality--the first time I ever
heard the word from any body who was not a rascal that used it for
a purpose. I maintain that it is the most moral of poems; but if
people won't discover the moral, that is their fault, not mine. I
have already written to beg that in any case you will print _fifty_
for private distribution. I will send you the list of persons to
whom it is to be sent afterwards.

"Within this last fortnight I have been rather indisposed with a
rebellion of stomach, which would retain nothing, (liver, I
suppose,) and an inability, or fantasy, not to be able to eat of
any thing with relish but a kind of Adriatic fish called 'scampi,'
which happens to be the most indigestible of marine viands.
However, within these last two days, I am better, and very truly
yours."

* * * * *

LETTER 327. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, April 6. 1819.

"The second Canto of Don Juan was sent, on Saturday last, by post,
in four packets, two of four, and two of three sheets each,
containing in all two hundred and seventeen stanzas, octave
measure. But I will permit no curtailments, except those mentioned
about Castlereagh and * * * *. You sha'n't make _canticles_ of my
cantos. The poem will please, if it is lively; if it is stupid, it
will fail: but I will have none of your damned cutting and
slashing. If you please, you may publish _anonymously_; it will
perhaps be better; but I will battle my way against them all, like
a porcupine.

"So you and Mr. Foscolo, &c. want me to undertake what you call a
'great work?' an Epic Poem, I suppose, or some such pyramid. I'll
try no such thing; I hate tasks. And then 'seven or eight years!'
God send us all well this day three months, let alone years. If
one's years can't be better employed than in sweating poesy, a man
had better be a ditcher. And works, too!--is Childe Harold
nothing? You have so many 'divine poems,' is it nothing to have
written a _human_ one? without any of your worn-out machinery. Why,
man, I could have spun the thoughts of the four Cantos of that poem
into twenty, had I wanted to book-make, and its passion into as
many modern tragedies. Since you want _length_, you shall have
enough of _Juan_, for I'll make fifty Cantos.

"And Foscolo, too! Why does _he_ not do something more than the
Letters of Ortis, and a tragedy, and pamphlets? He has good fifteen
years more at his command than I have: what has he done all that
time?--proved his genius, doubtless, but not fixed its fame, nor
done his utmost.

"Besides, I mean to write my best work in _Italian_, and it will
take me nine years more thoroughly to master the language; and then
if my fancy exist, and I exist too, I will try what I _can_ do
_really_. As to the estimation of the English which you talk of,
let them calculate what it is worth, before they insult me with
their insolent condescension.

"I have not written for their pleasure. If they are pleased, it is
that they chose to be so; I have never flattered their opinions,
nor their pride; nor will I. Neither will I make 'Ladies' books 'al
dilettar le femine e la plebe.' I have written from the fulness of
my mind, from passion, from impulse, from many motives, but not for
their 'sweet voices.'

"I know the precise worth of popular applause, for few scribblers
have had more of it; and if I chose to swerve into their paths, I
could retain it, or resume it. But I neither love ye, nor fear ye;
and though I buy with ye and sell with ye, I will neither eat with
ye, drink with ye, nor pray with ye. They made me, without any
search, a species of popular idol; they, without reason or
judgment, beyond the caprice of their good pleasure, threw down the
image from its pedestal; it was not broken with the fall, and they
would, it seems, again replace it,--but they shall not.

"You ask about my health: about the beginning of the year I was in
a state of great exhaustion, attended by such debility of stomach
that nothing remained upon it; and I was obliged to reform my 'way
of life,' which was conducting me from the 'yellow leaf' to the
ground, with all deliberate speed. I am better in health and
morals, and very much yours, &c.

"P.S. I have read Hodgson's 'Friends.' He is right in defending
Pope against the bastard pelicans of the poetical winter day, who
add insult to their parricide, by sucking the blood of the parent
of English _real_ poetry,--poetry without fault,--and then spurning
the bosom which fed them."

* * * * *

It was about the time when the foregoing letter was written, and when,
as we perceive, like the first return of reason after intoxication, a
full consciousness of some of the evils of his late libertine course of
life had broken upon him, that an attachment differing altogether, both
in duration and devotion, from any of those that, since the dream of his
boyhood, had inspired him, gained an influence over his mind which
lasted through his few remaining years; and, undeniably wrong and
immoral (even allowing for the Italian estimate of such frailties) as
was the nature of the connection to which this attachment led, we can
hardly perhaps,--taking into account the far worse wrong from which it
rescued and preserved him,--consider it otherwise than as an event
fortunate both for his reputation and happiness.

The fair object of this last, and (with one signal exception) only
_real_ love of his whole life, was a young Romagnese lady, the daughter
of Count Gamba, of Ravenna, and married, but a short time before Lord
Byron first met with her, to an old and wealthy widower, of the same
city, Count Guiccioli. Her husband had in early life been the friend of
Alfieri, and had distinguished himself by his zeal in promoting the
establishment of a National Theatre, in which the talents of Alfieri and
his own wealth were to be combined. Notwithstanding his age, and a
character, as it appears, by no means reputable, his great opulence
rendered him an object of ambition among the mothers of Ravenna, who,
according to the too frequent maternal practice, were seen vying with
each other in attracting so rich a purchaser for their daughters, and
the young Teresa Gamba, not yet sixteen, and just emancipated from a
convent, was the selected victim.

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