The Life of Lord Byron

These antique obsequies were undoubtedly affecting; but the return of the mourners from the burning is the most appalling orgia, without the horror of crime, of which I have ever heard. When the duty was done, and the ashes collected, they dined and drank much together, and bursting from the calm mastery with which they had repressed their feelings during the solemnity, gave way to frantic exultation. They were all drunk; they sang, they shouted, and their barouche was driven like a whirlwind through the forest. I can conceive nothing descriptive of the demoniac revelry of that flight, but scraps of the dead man’s own song of Faust, Mephistophiles, and Ignis Fatuus, in alternate chorus.

The limits of the sphere of dream,The bounds of true and false are past;Lead us on, thou wand’ring Gleam;Lead us onwards, far and fast,To the wide, the desert waste.But see how swift, advance and shift,Trees behind trees – row by row,Now clift by clift, rocks bend and lift,Their frowning foreheads as we go;The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho!How they snort, and how they blow.Honour her to whom honour is due,Old mother Baubo, honour to you.An able sow with old Baubo upon herIs worthy of glory and worthy of honour.The way is wide, the way is long,But what is that for a Bedlam throng?Some on a ram, and some on a prong,On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along.Every trough will be boat enough,With a rag for a sail, we can sweep through the sky.Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?

CHAPTER XL

“The Two Foscari”—“Werner”—“The Deformed Transformed”—“Don Juan”—“The Liberal”—Removes from Pisa to Genoa

I have never heard exactly where the tragedy of The Two Foscari was written: that it was imagined in Venice is probable. The subject is, perhaps, not very fit for a drama, for it has no action; but it is rich in tragic materials, revenge and affection, and the composition is full of the peculiar stuff of the poet’s own mind. The exulting sadness with which Jacopo Foscari looks in the first scene from the window, on the Adriatic, is Byron himself recalling his enjoyment of the sea.

How many a time have ICloven with arm still lustier, heart more daring,The wave all roughen’d: with a swimmer’s strokeFlinging the billows back from my drench’d hair,And laughing from my lip th’ audacious brineWhich kiss’d it like a wine-cup.

The whole passage, both prelude and remainder, glows with the delicious recollections of laying and revelling in the summer waves. But the exile’s feeling is no less beautifully given and appropriate to the author’s condition, far more so, indeed, than to that of Jacopo Foscari.

Had I gone forthFrom my own land, like the old patriarchs, seekingAnother region with their flocks and herds;Had I been cast out like the Jews from Zion,Or like our fathers driven by AttilaFrom fertile Italy to barren islets,I would have given some tears to my late country,And many thoughts; but afterward address’dMyself to those about me, to createA new home and first state.

What follows is still more pathetic:

Ay – we but hearOf the survivors’ toil in their new lands,Their numbers and success; but who can numberThe hearts which broke in silence of that parting,Or after their departure; of that malady 4Which calls up green and native fields to viewFrom the rough deep with such identityTo the poor exile’s fever’d eye, that heCan scarcely be restrained from treading them?That melody 5 which out of tones and tunesCollects such pastime for the ling’ring sorrowOf the sad mountaineer, when far awayFrom his snow-canopy of cliffs and clouds,That he feeds on the sweet but poisonous thoughtAnd dies. – You call this weakness! It is strength,I say – the parent of all honest feeling:He who loves not his country can love nothing.MARINA

Obey her then, ’tis she that puts thee forth.

JACOPO FOSCARIAy, there it is. ’Tis like a mother’s curseUpon my soul – the mark is set upon me.The exiles you speak of went forth by nations;Their hands upheld each other by the way;Their tents were pitch’d together – I’m alone —Ah, you never yetWere far away from Venice – never sawHer beautiful towers in the receding distance,While every furrow of the vessel’s trackSeem’d ploughing deep into your heart; you neverSaw day go down upon your native spiresSo calmly with its gold and crimson glory,And after dreaming a disturbed visionOf them and theirs, awoke and found them not.

All this speaks of the voluntary exile’s own regrets, and awakens sympathy for the anguish which pride concealed, but unable to repress, gave vent to in the imagined sufferings of one that was to him as Hecuba.

It was at Pisa that Werner, or The Inheritance, a tragedy, was written, or at least completed. It is taken entirely from the German’s tale, Kruitzner, published many years before, by one of the Miss Lees, in their Canterbury Tales. So far back as 1815, Byron began a drama upon the same subject, and nearly completed an act when he was interrupted. “I have adopted,” he says himself, “the characters, plan, and even the language of many parts of this story”; an acknowledgment which exempts it from that kind of criticism to which his principal works are herein subjected.

But The Deformed Transformed, which was also written at Pisa, is, though confessedly an imitation of Goethe’s Faust, substantially an original work. In the opinion of Mr Moore, it probably owes something to the author’s painful sensibility to the defect in his own foot; an accident which must, from the acuteness with which he felt it, have essentially contributed to enable him to comprehend and to express the envy of those afflicted with irremediable exceptions to the ordinary course of fortune, or who have been amerced by nature of their fair proportions. But save only a part of the first scene, the sketch will not rank among the felicitous works of the poet. It was intended to be a satire – probably, at least – but it is only a fragment – a failure.

Hitherto I have not noticed Don Juan otherwise than incidentally. It was commenced in Venice, and afterward continued at intervals to the end of the sixteenth canto, until the author left Pisa, when it was not resumed, at least no more has been published. Strong objections have been made to its moral tendency; but, in the opinion of many, it is the poet’s masterpiece, and undoubtedly it displays all the variety of his powers, combined with a quaint playfulness not found to an equal degree in any other of his works. The serious and pathetic portions are exquisitely beautiful; the descriptive have all the distinctness of the best pictures in Childe Harold, and are, moreover, generally drawn from nature, while the satire is for the most part curiously associated and sparklingly witty. The characters are sketched with amazing firmness and freedom, and though sometimes grotesque, are yet not often overcharged. It is professedly an epic poem, but it may be more properly described as a poetical novel. Nor can it be said to inculcate any particular moral, or to do more than unmantle the decorum of society. Bold and buoyant throughout, it exhibits a free irreverent knowledge of the world, laughing or mocking as the thought serves, in the most unexpected antitheses to the proprieties of time, place, and circumstance.

The object of the poem is to describe the progress of a libertine through life, not an unprincipled prodigal, whose profligacy, growing with his growth, and strengthening with his strength, passes from voluptuous indulgence into the sordid sensuality of systematic debauchery, but a young gentleman, who, whirled by the vigour and vivacity of his animal spirits into a world of adventures, in which his stars are chiefly in fault for his liaisons, settles at last into an honourable lawgiver, a moral speaker on divorce bills, and possibly a subscriber to the Society for the Suppression of Vice. The author has not completed his design, but such appears to have been the drift of it, affording ample opportunities to unveil the foibles and follies of all sorts of men – and women too. It is generally supposed to contain much of the author’s own experience, but still, with all its riant knowledge of bowers and boudoirs, it is deficient as a true limning of the world, by showing man as if he were always ruled by one predominant appetite.

In the character of Donna Inez and Don José, it has been imagined that Lord Byron has sketched himself and his lady. It may be so; and if it were, he had by that time got pretty well over the lachrymation of their parting. It is no longer doubtful that the twenty-seventh stanza records a biographical fact, and the thirty-sixth his own feelings, when,

Poor fellow! he had many things to wound him,Let’s own, since it can do no good on earth;It was a trying moment that which found himStanding alone beside his desolate hearth,Where all his household gods lay shiver’d round him:No choice was left his feelings or his pride,Save death or Doctors’ Commons.

It has been already mentioned, that while the poet was at Dr Glennie’s academy at Dulwich, he read an account of a shipwreck, which has been supposed to have furnished some of the most striking incidents in the description of the disastrous voyage in the second canto in Don Juan. I have not seen that work; but whatever Lord Byron may have found in it suitable to his purpose, he has undoubtedly made good use of his grandfather’s adventures. The incident of the spaniel is related by the admiral.

In the licence of Don Juan, the author seems to have considered that his wonted accuracy might be dispensed with.

The description of Haidee applies to an Albanian, not a Greek girl. The splendour of her father’s house is altogether preposterous; and the island has no resemblance to those of the Cyclades. With the exception of Zea, his Lordship, however, did not visit them. Some degree of error and unlike description, runs indeed through the whole of the still life around the portrait of Haidee. The fête which Lambro discovers on his return, is, however, prettily described; and the dance is as perfect as true.

And farther on a group of Grecian girls,The first and tallest her white kerchief waving,Were strung together like a row of pearls,Link’d hand in hand and dancing; each too havingDown her white neck long floating auburn curls.Their leader sang, and bounded to her song,With choral step and voice, the virgin throng.

The account of Lambro proceeding to the house is poetically imagined; and, in his character, may be traced a vivid likeness of Ali Pasha, and happy illustrative allusions to the adventures of that chief.

The fourth canto was written at Ravenna; it is so said within itself; and the description of Dante’s sepulchre there may be quoted for its truth, and the sweet modulation of the moral reflection interwoven with it.

I pass each day where Dante’s bones are laid;A little cupola, more neat than solemn,Protects his dust; but reverence here is paidTo the bard’s tomb and not the warrior’s column.The time must come when both alike decay’d,The chieftain’s trophy and the poet’s volumeWill sink where lie the songs and wars of earth,Before Pelides’ death or Homer’s birth.

The fifth canto was also written in Ravenna. But it is not my intention to analyze this eccentric and meandering poem; a composition which cannot be well estimated by extracts. Without, therefore, dwelling at greater length on its variety and merits. I would only observe that the general accuracy of the poet’s descriptions is verified by that of the scenes in which Juan is placed in England, a point the reader may determine for himself; while the vagueness of the parts derived from books, or sketched from fancy, as contrasted with them, justifies the opinion, that invention was not the most eminent faculty of Byron, either in scenes or in characters. Of the demerits of the poem it is only necessary to remark, that it has been proscribed on account of its immorality; perhaps, however, there was more of prudery than of equity in the decision, at least it is liable to be so considered, so long as reprints are permitted of the older dramatists, with all their unpruned licentiousness.

But the wheels of Byron’s destiny were now hurrying. Both in the conception and composition of Don Juan he evinced an increasing disregard of the world’s opinion; and the project of The Liberal was still more fatal to his reputation. Not only were the invidious eyes of bigotry now eagerly fixed upon his conduct, but those of admiration were saddened and turned away from him. His principles, which would have been more correctly designated as paradoxes, were objects of jealousy to the Tuscan Government; and it has been already seen that there was a disorderliness about the Casa Lanfranchi which attracted the attention of the police. His situation in Pisa became, in consequence, irksome; and he resolved to remove to Genoa, an intention which he carried into effect about the end of September, 1822, at which period his thoughts began to gravitate towards Greece. Having attained to the summit of his literary eminence, he grew ambitious of trying fortune in another field of adventure.

In all the migrations of Lord Byron there was ever something grotesque and desultory. In moving from Ravenna to Pisa, his caravan consisted of seven servants, five carriages, nine horses, a monkey, a bulldog, and a mastiff, two cats, three peafowl, a harem of hens, books, saddles, and firearms, with a chaos of furniture nor was the exodus less fantastical; for in addition to all his own clanjamphry, he had Mr Hunt’s miscellaneous assemblage of chattels and chattery and little ones.

CHAPTER XLI

Genoa—Change in the Manners of Lord Byron—Residence at the Casa Saluzzi—“The Liberal”—Remarks on the Poet’s Works in general and on Hunt’s Strictures on his Character

Previously to their arrival at Genoa, a house had been taken for Lord Byron and the Guiccioli in Albaro, a pleasant village on a hill, in the vicinity of the city; it was the Casa Saluzzi, and I have been told, that during the time he resided there, he seemed to enjoy a more uniform and temperate gaiety than in any former period of his life. There might have been less of sentiment in his felicity, than when he lived at Ravenna, as he seldom wrote poetry, but he appeared to some of his occasional visitors, who knew him in London, to have become more agreeable and manly. I may add, at the risk of sarcasm for the vanity, that in proof of his mellowed temper towards me, besides the kind frankness with which he received my friend, as already mentioned, he sent me word, by the Earl of Blesinton, that he had read my novel of The Entail three times, and thought the old Leddy Grippy one of the most living-like heroines he had ever met with. This was the more agreeable, as I had heard within the same week, that Sir Walter Scott had done and said nearly the same thing. Half the compliment from two such men would be something to be proud of.

Lord Byron’s residence at Albaro was separate from that of Mr Hunt, and, in consequence, they were more rarely together than when domiciled under the same roof as at Pisa. Indeed, by this time, if one may take Mr Hunt’s own account of the matter, they appear to have become pretty well tired of each other. He had found out that a peer is, as a friend, but as a plebeian, and a great poet not always a high-minded man. His Lordship had, on his part, discovered that something more than smartness or ingenuity is necessary to protect patronage from familiarity. Perhaps intimate acquaintance had also tended to enable him to appreciate, with greater accuracy, the meretricious genius and artificial tastes of his copartner in The Liberal. It is certain that he laughed at his affected admiration of landscapes, and considered his descriptions of scenery as drawn from pictures.

One day, as a friend of mine was conversing with his Lordship at the Casa Saluzzi, on the moral impressions of magnificent scenery, he happened to remark that he thought the view of the Alps in the evening, from Turin, the sublimest scene he had ever beheld. “It is impossible,” said he, “at such a time, when all the west is golden and glowing behind them, to contemplate such vast masses of the Deity without being awed into rest, and forgetting such things as man and his follies.” – “Hunt,” said his Lordship, smiling, “has no perception of the sublimity of Alpine scenery; he calls a mountain a great impostor.”

In the mean time the materials for the first number of The Liberal had been transmitted to London, where the manuscript of The Vision of Judgment was already, and something of its quality known. All his Lordship’s friends were disturbed at the idea of the publication. They did not like the connection he had formed with Mr Shelley – they liked still less the copartnery with Mr Hunt. With the justice or injustice of these dislikes I have nothing to do. It is an historical fact that they existed, and became motives with those who deemed themselves the custodiers of his Lordship’s fame, to seek a dissolution of the association.

The first number of The Liberal, containing The Vision of Judgment, was received soon after the copartnery had established themselves at Genoa, accompanied with hopes and fears. Much good could not be anticipated from a work which outraged the loyal and decorous sentiments of the nation towards the memory of George III. To the second number Lord Byron contributed the Heaven and Earth, a sacred drama, which has been much misrepresented in consequence of its fraternity with Don Juan and The Vision of Judgment; for it contains no expression to which religion can object, nor breathes a thought at variance with the Genesis. The history of literature affords no instance of a condemnation less justifiable, on the plea of profanity, than that of this Mystery. That it abounds in literary blemishes, both of plan and language, and that there are harsh jangles and discords in the verse, is not disputed; but still it abounds in a grave patriarchal spirit, and is echo to the oracles of Adam and Melchisedek. It may not be worthy of Lord Byron’s genius, but it does him no dishonour, and contains passages which accord with the solemn diapasons of ancient devotion. The disgust which The Vision of Judgment had produced, rendered it easy to persuade the world that there was impiety in the Heaven and Earth, although, in point of fact, it may be described as hallowed with the Scriptural theology of Milton. The objections to its literary defects were magnified into sins against worship and religion.

The Liberal stopped with the fourth number, I believe. It disappointed not merely literary men in general, but even the most special admirers of the talents of the contributors. The main defect of the work was a lack of knowledge. Neither in style nor genius, nor even in general ability, was it wanting; but where it showed learning it was not of a kind in which the age took much interest. Moreover, the manner and cast of thinking of all the writers in it were familiar to the public, and they were too few in number to variegate their pages with sufficient novelty. But the main cause of the failure was the antipathy formed and fostered against it before it appeared. It was cried down, and it must be acknowledged that it did not much deserve a better fate.

With The Liberal I shall close my observations on the works of Lord Byron. They are too voluminous to be examined even in the brief and sketchy manner in which I have considered those which are deemed the principal. Besides, they are not, like them, all characteristic of the author, though possessing great similarity in style and thought to one another. Nor would such general criticism accord with the plan of this work. Lord Byron was not always thinking of himself; like other authors, he sometimes wrote from imaginary circumstances; and often fancied both situations and feelings which had no reference to his own, nor to his experience. But were the matter deserving of the research, I am persuaded, that with Mr Moore’s work, and the poet’s original journals, notes, and letters, innumerable additions might be made to the list of passages which the incidents of his own life dictated.

The abandonment of The Liberal closed his Lordship’s connection with Mr Hunt; their friendship, if such ever really existed, was ended long before. It is to be regretted that Byron has not given some account of it himself; for the manner in which he is represented to have acted towards his unfortunate partner, renders another version of the tale desirable. At the same time – and I am not one of those who are disposed to magnify the faults and infirmities of Byron – I fear there is no excess of truth in Hunt’s opinion of him. I judge by an account which Lord Byron gave himself to a mutual friend, who did not, however, see the treatment in exactly the same light as that in which it appeared to me. But, while I cannot regard his Lordship’s conduct as otherwise than unworthy, still the pains which Mr Hunt has taken to elaborate his character and dispositions into every modification of weakness, almost justifies us in thinking that he was treated according to his deserts. Byron had at least the manners of a gentleman, and though not a judicious knowledge of the world, he yet possessed prudence enough not to be always unguarded. Mr Hunt informs us, that when he joined his Lordship at Leghorn, his own health was impaired, and that his disease rather increased than diminished during his residence at Pisa and Genoa; to say nothing of the effect which the loss of his friend had on him, and the disappointment he suffered in The Liberal; some excuse may, therefore, be made for him. In such a condition, misapprehensions were natural; jocularity might be mistaken for sarcasm, and caprice felt as insolence.

CHAPTER XLII

Lord Byron resolves to join the Greeks—Arrives at Cephalonia—Greek Factions—Sends Emissaries to the Grecian Chiefs—Writes to London about the Loan—To Mavrocordato on the Dissensions—Embarks at lest for Missolonghi

While The Liberal was halting onward to its natural doom, the attention of Lord Byron was attracted towards the struggles of Greece.

In that country his genius was first effectually developed; his name was associated with many of its most romantic scenes, and the cause was popular with all the educated and refined of Europe. He had formed besides a personal attachment to the land, and perhaps many of his most agreeable local associations were fixed amid the ruins of Greece, and in her desolated valleys. The name is indeed alone calculated to awaken the noblest feelings of humanity. The spirit of her poets, the wisdom and the heroism of her worthies; whatever is splendid in genius, unparalleled in art, glorious in arms, and wise in philosophy, is associated in their highest excellence with that beautiful region.

Had Lord Byron never been in Greece, he was, undoubtedly, one of those men whom the resurrection of her spirit was likeliest to interest; but he was not also one fitted to do her cause much service. His innate indolence, his sedentary habits, and that all-engrossing consideration for himself, which, in every situation, marred his best impulses, were shackles upon the practice of the stern bravery in himself which he has so well expressed in his works.

It was expected when he sailed for Greece, nor was the expectation unreasonable with those who believe imagination and passion to be of the same element, that the enthusiasm which flamed so highly in his verse was the spirit of action, and would prompt him to undertake some great enterprise. But he was only an artist; he could describe bold adventures and represent high feeling, as other gifted individuals give eloquence to canvas and activity to marble; but he did not possess the wisdom necessary for the instruction of councils. I do, therefore, venture to say, that in embarking for Greece, he was not entirely influenced by such exoterical motives as the love of glory or the aspirations of heroism. His laurels had for some time ceased to flourish, the sear and yellow, the mildew and decay, had fallen upon them, and he was aware that the bright round of his fame was ovalling from the full and showing the dim rough edge of waning.

He was, moreover, tired of the Guiccioli, and again afflicted with a desire for some new object with which to be in earnest. The Greek cause seemed to offer this, and a better chance for distinction than any other pursuit in which he could then engage. In the spring of 1823 he accordingly made preparations for transferring himself from Genoa to Greece, and opened a correspondence with the leaders of the insurrection, that the importance of his adhesion might be duly appreciated.