Byron: The Last Phase

‘This brought from the bows of the boat a huge Venetian gondolier, with a musket slung diagonally across his back, a stone jar of two gallons of what turned out to be English gin, another porous one of water, and a quart pitcher, into which the gondolier poured the spirit, and laid the whole, with two or three large tumblers, at the feet of his expectant lord, who quickly uncorked the jar, and began to pour its contents into the smaller vessel.

‘“Now, gentlemen, drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; it is the true poetic source. I’m a rogue if I have drunk to-day. Come” (handing tumblers round to us), “this is the way;” and he nearly half filled a tumbler, and then poured from the height of his arm out of the water-jar, till the tumbler sparkled in the sun like soda-water, and drunk it off while effervescing, glorious gin-swizzle, a most tempting beverage, of which everyone on board took his share, munching after it a biscuit out of a huge tin case of them. This certainly exhilarated us, till we landed within some fifty or sixty yards of the house to which we were directed.

‘On our way we learned that the Regent of the island – that is, the native Governor, as Captain Knox was the protecting Power’s Governor (Viceroy over the King!) – had forwarded the materials of a substantial feast to the occupant (his brother); for the nobili Inglesi, who were to honour his premises. In mentioning this act of the Regent to Lord Byron, his remark was a repetition of the satirical line in the imitation address of the poet Fitzgerald, “God bless the Regent!” and as I mentioned the relationship to our approaching host, he added, with a laugh, “and the Duke of York!”

‘On entering the mansion, we were received by the whole family, commencing with the mother of the Princes – a venerable lady of at least seventy, dressed in pure Greek costume, to whom Lord Byron went up with some formality, and, with a slight bend of the knee, took her hand, and kissed it reverently. We then moved into the adjoining sala, or saloon, where there was a profusion of English comestibles, in the shape of cold sirloin of beef, fowls, ham, etc., to which we did such honour as a sea appetite generally produces. It was rather distressing that not one of the entertainers touched any of these luxuries, it being the Greek Second or Panagia Lent, but fed entirely on some cold fish fried in oil, and green salad, of which last Lord Byron, in adherence to his rule of accustoming himself to eat anything eatable, partook, though with an obvious effort – as well as of the various wines that were on the table, particularly Ithaca, which is exactly port as made and drunk in the country of its growth.

‘I was not antiquary enough to know to what object of antiquity our visit was made, but I saw Lord Byron in earnest conversation with a very antique old Greek monk in full clerical habit. He was a Bishop, sitting oil a stone of the ruined wall close by, and he turned out to be the Esprit fort mentioned in a note at the end of the second canto of “Childe Harold” – a freethinker, at least a freespeaker, when he called the sacrifice of the Maso una Coglioneria.

‘When we embarked on our return to Vathi, Lord Byron seemed moody and sullen, but brightened up as he saw a ripple on the water, a mast and sail raised in the cutter, and Trelawny seated in the stern with the tiller in hand. In a few minutes we were scudding, gunwale under, in a position infinitely more beautiful than agreeable to landsmen, and Lord Byron obviously enjoying the not improbable idea of a swim for life. His motions, as he sat, tended to increase the impulse of the breeze, and tended also to sway the boat to leeward. “I don’t know,” he said, “if you all swim, gentlemen; but if you do, you will have fifty fathoms of blue water to support you; and if you do not, you will have it over you. But as you may not all be prepared, starboard, Trelawny – bring her up. There! she is trim; and now let us have a glass of grog after the gale. Tita, i fiaschi!” This was followed by a reproduction of the gin-and-water jars, and a round of the immortal swizzle. To my very great surprise, it was new to the company that the liquor which they were enjoying was the product of Scotland, in the shape of what is called “low-wines,” or semi-distilled whisky – chiefly from the distillery of mine ancient friend, James Haig of Lochrin; but the communication seemed to gratify the noble drinker, and led to the recitation by one of the company, in pure lowland Scotch, of Burns’s Petition to the House of Commons in behalf of the national liquor. The last stanza, beginning very much pleased Lord Byron, who said that he too was more than half a Scotchman.

‘“Scotland, my auld respeckit mither,”

‘The conversation again turned on the “Waverley Novels,” and on this occasion Lord Byron spoke of “The Bride of Lammermoor,” and cited the passage where the mother of the cooper’s wife tells her husband (the cooper) that she “kent naething aboot what he might do to his wife; but the deil a finger shall ye lay on my dochter, and that ye may foond upon.” Shortly afterwards, the conversation having turned upon poetry, his lordship mentioned the famous ode on the death of Sir John Moore as the finest piece of poetry in any language. He recited some lines of it. One of the company, with more presumption than wisdom, took him up, as his memory seemed to lag, by filling in the line:

‘“And he looked like a warrior taking his rest,With his martial cloak around him.”

‘Lord Byron, with a look at the interloper that spoke as if death were in it, and no death was sufficiently cruel for him, shouted, “He lay– he lay like a warrior, not he looked.” The pretender was struck dumb, but, with reference to his lordship’s laudation of the piece, he ventured half to whisper that the “Gladiator” was superior to it, as it is to any poetical picture ever painted in words. The reply was a benign look, and a flattering recognition, by a little applausive tapping of his tobacco-box on the board on which he sat.

‘On arriving at Vathi, we repaired to our several rooms in the worthy citizens’ houses where we were billeted, to read and meditate, and write and converse, as we might meet, indoors or out; and much profound lucubration took place among us, on the characteristics and disposition of the very eminent personage with whom we were for the time associated. Dr. Scott, the assistant-surgeon of the 8th Foot, who had heard of, though he may not have witnessed, any of the peculiarities of the great poet, accounted for them, and even for the sublimities of his poetry, by an abnormal construction or chronic derangement of the digestive organs – a theory which experience and observation of other people than poets afford many reasons to support:

‘“Is it not strange now – ten times strange – to think,And is it not enough one’s faith to shatter,That right or wrong direction of a drink,A plus or minus of a yellow matter,One half the world should elevate or sinkTo bliss or woe (most commonly the latter) —That human happiness is well-formed chyle,And human misery redundant bile!”

‘The next morning the accounts we heard of Lord Byron were contradictory: Trelawny, who slept in the next room to him, stating that he had been writing the greater part of the night, and he alleged it was the sixteenth canto of “Don Juan”; and Dr. Bruno, who visited him at intervals, and was many hours in personal attendance at his bedside, asserting that he had been seriously ill, and had been saved only by those benedette pillule which so often had had that effect. His lordship again appeared rowing in from his bath at the Lazzaretto, a course of proceeding (bathing and boating) which caused Dr. Bruno to wring his hands and tear his hair with alarm and vexation.

‘It was, however, the day fixed for our return to Cephalonia, and, having gladly assented to the proposition to join the suite, we all mounted ponies to cross the island to a small harbour on the south side, where a boat was waiting to bear us to Santa Eufemia, a Custom-house station on the coast of Cephalonia, about half an hour’s passage from Ithaca, which we accordingly passed, and arrived at the collector’s mansion about two o’clock.

‘During the journey across the smaller island, I made a bold push, and succeeded in securing, with my small pony, the side-berth of Lord Byron’s large brown steed, and held by him in the narrow path, to the exclusion of companions better entitled to the post. His conversation was not merely free – it was familiar and intimate, as if we were schoolboys meeting after a long separation. I happened to be “up” in the “Waverley Novels,” had seen several letters of Sir Walter Scott’s about his pedigree for his baronetage, could repeat almost every one of the “Rejected Addresses,” and knew something of the London Magazine contributors, who were then in the zenith of their reputation – Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Talfourd, Browning, Allan Cunningham, Reynolds, Darley, etc. But his lordship pointed at the higher game of Southey, Gifford (whom he all but worshipped), Jeffrey of the Edinburgh Review, John Wilson, and other Blackwoodites. He said they were all infidels, as every man has a right to be; that Edinburgh was understood to be the seat of all infidelity, and he mentioned names (Dr. Chalmers and Andrew Thomson, for examples) among the clergy as being of the category. This I never could admit. He was particularly bitter against Southey, sneered at Wordsworth, admired Thomas Campbell, classing his “Battle of the Baltic” with the very highest of lyric productions. “Nothing finer,” he said, “was ever written than —

‘“There was silence deep as death,And the boldest held his breathFor a time.”

‘We arrived at one of the beautiful bays that encircle the island, like a wavy wreath of silver sand studded with gold and emerald in a field of liquid pearl, and embarked in the collector’s boat for the opposite shore of Santa Eufemia, where, on arrival, we were received by its courteous chief, Mr. Toole, in a sort of state – with his whole establishment, French and English, uncovered and bowing. He had had notice of the illustrious poet’s expected arrival, and had prepared one of the usual luxurious feasts in his honour – feasts which Lord Byron said “played the devil” with him, for he could not abstain when good eating was within his reach. The apartment assigned to us was small, and the table could not accommodate the whole party. There were, accordingly, small side or “children’s tables,” for such guests as might choose to be willing to take seats at them. “Ha!” said Lord Byron, “England all over – places for Tommy and Billy, and Lizzie and Molly, if there were any. Mr. – ” (addressing me), “will you be my Tommy?” – pointing to the two vacant seats at a small side-table, close to the chair of our host. Down I sat, delighted, opposite to my companion, and had a tête-à-tête dinner apart from the head-table, from which, as usual, we were profusely helped to the most recherché portions. “Verily,” said his lordship, “I cannot abstain.” His conversation, however, was directed chiefly to his host, from whom he received much local information, and had his admiration of Sir Thomas Maitland increased by some particulars of his system of government. There were no vacant apartments within the station, but we learned that quarters had been provided for us at a monastery on the hill of Samos, across the bay. Thither we were all transported at twilight, and ascended to the large venerable abode of some dozen of friars, who were prepared for our arrival and accommodation. Outside the walls of the building there were some open sarcophagi and some pieces of carved frieze and fragments of pottery.

‘I walked with his lordship and Count Gamba to examine them, speculating philosophically on their quondam contents. Something to our surprise, Lord Byron clambered over into the deepest, and lay in the bottom at full length on his back, muttering some English lines. I may have been wrong, or idly and unjustifiably curious, but I leaned over to hear what the lines might be. I found they were unconnected fragments of the scene in “Hamlet,” where he moralizes with Horatio on the skull:

‘“Imperious Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,Might stop a hole to keep the wind away;O, that that earth, which held the world in awe,Should patch a wall to expel the winter’s flaw!”

‘As he sprang out and rejoined us, he said: “Hamlet, as a whole, is original; but I do not admire him to the extent of the common opinion. More than all, he requires the very best acting. Kean did not understand the part, and one could not look at him after having seen John Kemble, whose squeaking voice was lost in his noble carriage and thorough right conception of the character. Rogers told me that Kemble used to be almost always hissed in the beginning of his career. ‘The best actor on the stage,’ he said, ‘is Charles Young. His Pierre was never equalled, and never will be.’” Amid such flying desultory conversation we entered the monastery, and took coffee for lack of anything else, while our servants were preparing our beds. Lord Byron retired almost immediately from the sala. Shortly afterwards we were astonished and alarmed by the entry of Dr. Bruno, wringing his hands and tearing his hair – a practice much too frequent with him – and ejaculating: “O Maria, santissima Maria, se non è già morto – cielo, perchè non son morto io!” It appeared that Lord Byron was seized with violent spasms in the stomach and liver, and his brain was excited to dangerous excess, so that he would not tolerate the presence of any person in his room. He refused all medicine, and stamped and tore all his clothes and bedding like a maniac. We could hear him rattling and ejaculating. Poor Dr. Bruno stood lamenting in agony of mind, in anticipation of the most dire results if immediate relief were not obtained by powerful cathartics, but Lord Byron had expelled him from the room by main force. He now implored one or more of the company to go to his lordship and induce him, if possible, to save his life by taking the necessary medicine. Trelawny at once proceeded to the room, but soon returned, saying that it would require ten such as he to hold his lordship for a minute, adding that Lord Byron would not leave an unbroken article in the room. The doctor again essayed an entrance, but without success. The monks were becoming alarmed, and so, in truth, were all present. The doctor asked me to try to bring his lordship to reason; “he will thank you when he is well,” he said, “but get him to take this one pill, and he will be safe.” It seemed a very easy undertaking, and I went. There being no lock on the door, entry was obtained in spite of a barricade of chairs and a table within. His lordship was half undressed, standing in a far corner like a hunted animal at bay. As I looked determined to advance in spite of his imprecations of “Back! out, out of my sight! fiends, can I have no peace, no relief from this hell! Leave me, I say!” and he lifted the chair nearest to him, and hurled it direct at my head; I escaped as I best could, and returned to the sala. The matter was obviously serious, and we all counselled force and such coercive measures as might be necessary to make him swallow the curative medicine. Mr. Hamilton Browne, one of our party, now volunteered an attempt, and the silence that succeeded his entrance augured well for his success. He returned much sooner than expected, telling the doctor that he might go to sleep; Lord Byron had taken both the pills, and had lain down on my mattress and bedding, prepared for him by my servant, the only regular bed in the company, the others being trunks and portable tressels, with such softening as might be procured for the occasion. Lord Byron’s beautiful and most commodious patent portmanteau bed, with every appliance that profusion of money could provide, was mine for the night.

‘On the following morning Lord Byron was all dejection and penitence, not expressed in words, but amply in looks and movements, till something tending to the jocular occurred to enliven him and us. Wandering from room to room, from porch to balcony, it so happened that Lord Byron stumbled upon their occupants in the act of writing accounts, journals, private letters, or memoranda. He thus came upon me on an outer roof of a part of the building, while writing, as far as I recollect, these very notes of his conversation and conduct. What occurred, however, was not of much consequence – or none – and turned upon the fact that so many people were writing, when he, the great voluminous writer, so supposed, was not writing at all. The journey of the day was to be over the Black Mountain to Argostoli, the capital of Cephalonia. We set out about noon, struggling as we best could over moor, marsh ground, and water wastes. Lord Byron revived; and, lively on horseback, sang, at the pitch of his voice, many of Moore’s melodies and stray snatches of popular songs of the time in the common style of the streets. There was nothing remarkable in the conversation. On arrival at Argostoli, the party separated – Lord Byron and Trelawny to the brig of the former, lying in the offing, the rest to their several quarters in the town.’

CHAPTER VI

After an absence of eight days the party returned to Argostoli, and went on board the Hercules. The messenger whom Byron had sent to Corfu brought the unwelcome intelligence that Mr. Blaquière had sailed for England, without leaving any letters for Byron’s guidance. News also reached him that the Greeks were split up into factions, and more intent on persecuting and calumniating each other than on securing the independence of their country. This was depressing news for a man who had sacrificed so much, and would have damped the enthusiasm of most people in Byron’s position; but it neither deceived nor disheartened him. He was, and had always been, prepared for the worst. He made up his mind not to enter personally into the arena of contending factions, but to await further developments at Cephalonia, hoping to acquire an influence which might eventually be employed in settling their internal discords. As he himself remarked, ‘I came not here to join a faction, but a nation. I must be circumspect.’ Trelawny, in his valuable record of events at this time, is hard on Byron. He mistook Byron’s motives, and thought that he was ‘shilly-shallying and doing nothing.’ But Trelawny, though mistaken, was sincere. He was in every sense of the word a man of action, and full of a wild enthusiasm for the Greek cause. It was not in his nature to await events, but rather to create them, and Byron’s wise decision made him restive. He determined to proceed to the Morea, and induced Hamilton Browne to go with him. Byron gave them letters to the Greek Government, if they could find any such authority, expressing his readiness to serve them when they had satisfied him how he could do so.

Gamba takes a calmer view of Byron’s hesitation. He says that Byron well knew that prudence had never been in the catalogue of his virtues; that he knew the necessity of such a virtue in his present situation, and was determined to attain it. He carefully avoided every appearance of ostentation, and dreaded being suspected of being a mere hunter after adventures.

‘By perseverance and discernment,’ says Gamba, ‘Byron hoped to assist in the liberation of Greece. To know and to be known was consequently, from the outset, his principal object.’

How far he succeeded we shall see later. From the time of Byron’s arrival at Argostoli until September 6 he lived on board the Hercules. Colonel Napier had frequently begged him to take up his quarters with him, but Byron declined the hospitality; mainly because he feared that he might thereby embroil the British authorities on the island with their own Government, whose dispositions were yet unknown. Early in September Byron removed with Gamba to a village named Metaxata, in a healthy situation and amidst magnificent scenery. A month later letters arrived from Edward Trelawny, saying that things were not so bad as had been reported. It was evident that great apathy and total disorganization prevailed among those who had got the upper hand, but that the mass of the people – well disposed towards the revolution – was beginning to take an interest in the war. A general determination of never again submitting to the Turkish yoke had taken deep root. The existing Greek Government sent pressing letters to Byron inviting him to set out immediately, but Byron still thought it wiser not to move; for the reasons which had governed his conduct hitherto still prevailed. He was determined neither to waste his services nor his money on furthering the greed of some particular chieftain, or at best of some faction. Letters arrived from the Greek Committee in London, informing Byron that arrangements had been made for the floating of a Greek loan. Meanwhile Mavrocordato wrote to Byron from Hydra, whither he had fled, inviting him to that island. Lord Byron replied that so long as the dissensions between the factions continued he would remain a mere spectator, as he was resolved not to be mixed up in quarrels whose effects were so disastrous to the cause. He at the same time begged Mavrocordato to expedite the departure of the fleet, and to send the Greek deputies to London. The Turkish fleet meanwhile had sailed for the Dardanelles, leaving a squadron of fourteen vessels for the blockade of Missolonghi, and for the protection of a fortress in the gulf, which was still in the hands of the Turks.

The gallant Marco Botzari had been killed in action, and Missolonghi was in a state of siege. Its Governor wrote and implored Byron to come there; but as the place was in no danger, either from famine or from assault, he declined the proposal.

In the middle of November, 1823, Mr. Hamilton Browne and the deputies arrived at Cephalonia. They brought letters from the Greek Government asking Byron to advance £6,000 (30,000 dollars) for the payment of the Greek fleet. An assurance was offered by the legislative body that, upon payment of this money, a Greek squadron would immediately put to sea. Byron consented to advance £4,000, and gave the deputies letters for London. In allusion to the loan about to be raised in England, he thus addressed them:

‘Everyone believes that a loan will be the salvation of Greece, both as to its internal disunion and external enemies. But I shall refrain from insisting much on this point, for fear that I should be suspected of interested views, and of wishing to repay myself the loan of money which I have advanced to your Government.’

On December 17, 1823, while Byron was at Metaxata, awaiting definite information as to the progress of events, he resumed his journal, which had been abruptly discontinued in consequence of news having reached him that his daughter was ill.

‘I know not,’ he wrote, ‘why I resume it even now, except that, standing at the window of my apartment in this beautiful village, the calm though cool serenity of a beautiful and transparent moonlight, showing the islands, the mountains, the sea, with a distant outline of the Morea traced between the double azure of the waves and skies, has quieted me enough to be able to write, which (however difficult it may seem for one who has written so much publicly to refrain) is, and always has been, to me a task, and a painful one. I could summon testimonies were it necessary; but my handwriting is sufficient. It is that of one who thinks much, rapidly, perhaps deeply, but rarely with pleasure.’

The Greeks were still quarrelling among themselves, and Byron almost despaired of being able to unite the factions in one common interest. Mavrocordato and the squadron from Hydra, for whose coming Byron had bargained when he advanced £4,000, had at length arrived after the inglorious capture of a small Turkish vessel with 50,000 dollars on board. This prize having been captured within the bounds of neutrality, on the coast of Ithaca, Byron naturally foresaw that it would bring the Greeks into trouble with the British authorities. Meanwhile, news from London confirmed the accounts of an increasing interest in the Greek cause, and gave good promise of a successful floating of the loan.

In the middle of November Colonel Leicester Stanhope arrived at Cephalonia. He had been deputed by the London Committee to act with Lord Byron. News also came from Greece that the Pasha of Scutari had abandoned Anatolico, and that the Turkish army had been put to flight. But the Greek factions, whose jealous dissensions promised to wreck the cause of Greek independence, had come to blows in the Morea.