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diff --git a/old/12685-8.txt b/old/12685-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0639ee4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12685-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1894 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and +Instruction, No. 474, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 + Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number + +Author: Various + +Release Date: June 22, 2004 [EBook #12685] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRROR OF LITERATURE, NO. 474 *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Allen Siddle and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + +THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. + +VOL. XVII. No. 474.] SUPPLEMENTARY NUMBER. [PRICE 2d. + + + + * * * * * + + + +LORD BYRON. + + +LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON, WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE, BY THOMAS +MOORE, Vol. ii. + + [To attempt anything like an analysis of a "great big book," of 823 + pages, like the present, and that within a sheet of 16 pages, would + be an effort of condensation indeed. Besides, the very nature of the + volume before us will not admit of such a task being performed with + much regard to accuracy or unique character. The "Letters," of which, + the work is, in great part, composed, are especially ill adapted for + such a purpose; since, many of them become interesting only from + manner rather than importance of matter. Horace Walpole's + Correspondence would make but a dull book cut in "little stars" in + the letter style; and Lord Byron, as a letter writer, resembles + Walpole more closely than any other writer of his time. His gay, + anecdotical style is delightful--his epithets and single words are + always well chosen, and often convey more than one side of the letter + of a common-place mind. + + Our sheet of Extracts is from such portions of Mr. Moore's volume as + appear to illustrate the main points of the Noble Poet's character + and habits, as the superscriptions will best explain--_currente + calamo_ from pages 22 to 769--within a few leaves of the Appendix.] + +HIS SENSIBILITY. + +With the following melancholy passage one of his journals concludes:-- + +"In the weather for this tour (of thirteen days) I have been very +fortunate--fortunate in a companion (Mr. H.)--fortunate in all our +prospects, and exempt from even the little petty accidents and delays +which often render journeys in a less wild country disappointing. I was +disposed to be pleased. I am a lover of nature, and an admirer of beauty; +I can bear fatigue and welcome privation, and have seen some of the +noblest views in the world. But in all this--the recollection of +bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which +must accompany me through life, have preyed upon me here; and neither the +music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the +mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment +lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched +identity in the majesty, and the power, and the glory, around, above, and +beneath me----." + +On his return from an excursion to Diodati, an occasion was afforded for +the gratification of his jesting propensities by the avowal of the young +physician (Polidori) that--he had fallen in love. On the evening of this +tender confession they both appeared at Shelley's cottage--Lord Byron, in +the highest and most boyish spirits, rubbing his hands as he walked about +the room, and in that utter incapacity of retention which was one of his +foibles, making jesting allusions to the secret he had just heard. The +brow of the doctor darkened as this pleasantry went on, and, at last, he +angrily accused Lord Byron of hardness of heart. "I never," said he, "met +with a person so unfeeling." This sally, though the poet had evidently +brought it upon himself, annoyed him most deeply. "Call _me_ +cold-hearted--_me_ insensible!" he exclaimed, with manifest emotion--"as +well might you say that glass is not brittle, which has been cast down a +precipice, and lies dashed to pieces at the foot!" + + +TO AUGUSTA. + + I. + + My sister! my sweet sister! if a name + Dearer and purer were, it should be thine, + Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim + No tears, but tenderness to answer mine. + Go where I will, to me thou art the same-- + A loved regret which I would not resign. + There yet are two things in my destiny-- + A world to roam through, and a home with thee. + + + II. + + The first were nothing--had I still the last, + It were the haven of my happiness; + But other claims and other ties thou hast, + And mine is not the wish to make them less. + A strange doom is thy father's son's, and part + Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; + Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore-- + He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore. + + + III. + + If my inheritance of storms hath been + In other elements, and on the rocks + Of perils overlook'd or unforeseen, + I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks, + The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen + My errors with defensive paradox; + I have been cunning in mine overthrow, + The careful pilot of my proper woe. + + + IV. + + Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. + My whole life was a contest, since the day + That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd + The gift--a fate, or will, that walk'd astray; + And I at times have found the struggle hard, + And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: + But now I fain would for a time survive, + If but to see what next can well arrive. + + + V. + + Kingdoms and empires in my little day + I have outlived, and yet I am not old; + And when I look on this, the petty spray + Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd + Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: + Something--I know not what--does still uphold + A spirit of slight patience--not in vain, + Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain. + + + VI. + + Perhaps the workings of defiance stir + Within me--or perhaps a cold despair, + Brought on when ills habitually recur-- + Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air, + (For even to this may change of soul refer, + And with light armour we may learn to bear,) + Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not + The chief companion of a calmer lot. + + + VII. + + I feel almost at times as I have felt + In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks, + Which do remember me of where I dwelt + Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, + Come as of yore upon me, and can melt + My heart with recognition of their looks: + And even at moments I could think I see + Some living thing to love--but none like thee. + + + VIII. + + Here are the Alpine landscapes which create + A fund for contemplation.--to admire + Is a brief feeling of a trivial date; + But something worthier do such scenes inspire: + Here to be lonely is not desolate. + For much I view which I could most desire, + And, above all, a lake I can behold + Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old. + + + IX. + + Oh that thou wert but with me!--but I grow + The fool of my own wishes, and forget + The solitude which I have vaunted so + Has lost its praise in this but one regret; + There may be others which I less may show;-- + I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet + I feel an ebb in my philosophy + And the tide rising in my alter'd eye. + + + X. + + I did remind thee of our own dear lake, + By the old hall which may be mine no more, + Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake + The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore: + Sad havoc Time must with my memory make + Ere _that_ or _thou_ can fade these eyes before; + Though, like all things which I have loved, they are + Resign'd for ever, or divided far. + + + XI. + + The world is all before me; I but ask + Of nature that with which she will comply-- + It is but in her summer sun to bask, + To mingle with the quiet of her sky, + To see her gentle fare without a mask, + And never gaze on it with apathy. + She was my early friend, and now shall be + My sister--till I look again on thee. + + + XII. + + I can reduce all feelings but this one: + And that I would not;--for at length I see + Such scenes as those wherein my life begun. + The earliest--even the only paths for me-- + Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, + I had been better than I now can be: + The passions which have torn me would have slept: + I had not suffered, and _thou_ hadst not wept. + + + XIII. + + With false ambition what had I to do? + Little with love, and least of all with fame; + And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, + And made me all which they can make--a name. + Yet this was not the end I did pursue; + Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. + But all is over--I am one the more + To baffled millions which have gone before. + + + XIV. + + And for the future, this world's future may + From me demand but little of my care; + I have outlived myself by many a day; + Having survived so many things that were; + My years have been no slumber, but the prey + Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share + Of life that might have filled a century, + Before its fourth in time had passed me by. + + + XV. + + And for the remnant which may be to come + I am content; and for the past I feel + Not thankless--for within the crowded sum + Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, + And for the present I would not benumb + My feelings farther.--Nor shall I conceal, + That with all this I still can look around, + And worship Nature with a thought profound. + + + XVI. + + For thee my own sweet sister, in thy heart + I know myself secure, as thou in mine; + We were and are--I am even as thou art-- + Beings who ne'er each other can resign; + It is the same, together or apart, + From life's commencement to its slow decline + We are entwined--let death come slow or fast, + The tie which bound the first endures the last! + + +AMOUR AT VENICE. + + Venice, November 17, 1816. + +"I wrote to you from Verona the other day in my progress hither, which +letter I hope you will receive. Some three years ago, or it may be more, I +recollect you telling me that you had received a letter from our friend, +Sam, dated "On board his gondola." _My_ gondola is, at this present, +waiting for me on the canal; but I prefer writing to you in the house, it +being autumn--and rather an English autumn than otherwise. It is my +intention to remain at Venice during the winter, probably, as it has +always been (next to the east) the greenest island of my imagination. It +has not disappointed me; though its evident decay would, perhaps, have +that effect upon others. But I have been familiar with ruins too long to +dislike desolation. Besides, I have fallen in love, which, next to falling +into the canal (which would be of no use, as I can swim,) is the best or +the worst thing I could do. I have got some extremely good apartments in +the house of a "Merchant of Venice," who is a good deal occupied with +business, and has a wife in her twenty-second year. Marianna (that is her +name) is in her, appearance altogether like an antelope. She has the large, +black, oriental eyes, with that peculiar expression in them, which is seen +rarely among _Europeans_--even the Italians--and which many of the Turkish +women give themselves by tinging the eyelid--an art not known out of that +country, I believe. This expression she has _naturally_--and something +more than this. In short, I cannot describe the effect of this kind of +eye--at least upon me. Her features are regular, and rather aquiline--mouth +small--skin clear and soft, with a kind of hectic colour--forehead +remarkably good; her hair is of the dark gloss, curl, and colour of Lady +J----'s; her figure is light and pretty, and she is a famous +songstress--scientifically so; her natural voice (in conversation, I mean,) +is very sweet; and the _naiveté_ of the Venetian dialect is always +pleasing in the mouth of a woman. + + November 23. + +You will perceive that my description, which was proceeding with the +minuteness of a passport, has been interrupted for several days. In the +meantime. + + * * * * * + + December 5. + +Since my former dates, I do not know that I have much to add on the +subject, and, luckily, nothing to take away; for I am more pleased than +ever with my Venetian, and begin to feel very serious on that point--so +much so, that I shall be silent. + + * * * * * + +By way of divertisement, I am studying daily, at an Armenian monastery, +the Armenian language. I found that my mind wanted something craggy to +break upon; and this--as the most difficult thing I could discover here +for an amusement--I have chosen, to torture me into attention. It is a +rich language, however, and would amply repay any one the trouble of +learning it. I try, and shall go on;--but I answer for nothing, least of +all for my intentions or my success. There are some very curious MSS. in +the monastery, as well as books; translations also from Greek originals, +now lost, and from Persian and Syriac, &c.; besides works of their own +people. Four years ago the French instituted an Armenian professorship. +Twenty pupils presented themselves on Monday morning, full of noble ardour, +ingenuous youth, and impregnable industry. They persevered with a courage +worthy of the nation and of universal conquest, till Thursday; when +_fifteen_ of the _twenty_ succumbed to the six and twentieth letter of the +alphabet. It is, to be sure, a Waterloo of an Alphabet--that must be said +for them. But it is so like these fellows, to do by it as they did by +their sovereigns--abandon both; to parody the old rhymes, "Take a thing +and give a thing"--"Take a king and give a king. They are the worst of +animals, except their conquerors. + +I hear that that H----n is your neighbour, having a living in Derbyshire. +You will find him an excellent hearted fellow, as well as one of the +cleverest; a little, perhaps, too much japanned by preferment in the +church and the tuition of youth, as well as inoculated with the disease of +domestic felicity, besides being overrun with fine feelings about women +and _constancy_ (that small change of love, which people exact so rigidly, +receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal;) but, +otherwise, a very worthy man, who has lately got a pretty wife, and (I +suppose) a child by this time. Pray remember me to him, and say that I +know not which to envy most--his neighbourhood, him, or you. + +Of Venice I shall say little. You must have seen many descriptions; and +they and they are most of them like. It is a poetical place; and classical, +to us, from Shakspeare and Otway. I have not yet sinned against it in +verse, nor do I know that I shall do so, having been tuneless since I +crossed the Alps, and feeling, as yet, no renewal of the "estro." By the +way, I suppose you have seen "Glenarvon." Madame de Staël lent it me to +read from Copet last autumn. It seems to me that, if the authoress had +written the _truth_, and nothing but the truth--the whole truth--the +romance would not only have been more _romantic_, but more entertaining. +As for the likeness, the picture can't be good--I did not sit long enough. +When you have leisure, let me hear from and of you, believing me ever and +truly yours most affectionately. + +B. + +P.S. Oh! _your Poem_--is it out? I hope Longman has paid his thousands; +but don't you do as H---- T----'s father did, who, having, made money by a +quarto tour, became a vinegar merchant; when, lo! his vinegar turned sweet +(and be d----d to it) and ruined him. My last letter to you (from Verona) +was inclosed to Murray--have you got it? Direct to me _here, poste +restante_. There are no English here at present. There were several in +Switzerland--some women; but, except Lady Dalrymple Hamilton, most of them +as ugly as virtue--at least those that I saw." + + +AT VENICE. + +_To Mr. Moore._ + + "Venice, December 24th, 1816. + +"I have taken a fit of writing to you, which portends postage--once from +Verona--once from Venice, and again from Venice--_thrice_ that is. For +this you may thank yourself, for I heard that you complained of my +silence--so here goes for garrulity. + +"I trust that you received my other twain of letters. My 'way of life' (or +'May of life,' which is it, according to the commentators?)--my 'way of +life' is fallen into great regularity. In the mornings I go over in my +gondola to hobble Armenian with the friars of the convent of St. Lazarus, +and to help one of them in correcting the English of an English and +Armenian grammar which he is publishing. In the evenings I do one of many +nothings--either at the theatres, or some of the conversaziones, which are +like our routs, or rather worse, for the women sit in a semicircle by the +lady of the mansion, and the men stand about the room. To be sure, there +is one improvement upon ours--instead of lemonade with their ices, they +hand about stiff _rum-punch--punch_, by my palate; and this they think +_English_. I would not disabuse them of so agreeable an error--'no, not +for Venice.' + +"Last night I was at the Count Governor's, which, of course, comprises the +best society, and is very much like other gregarious meetings in every +country--as in ours--except that, instead of the Bishop of Winchester, you +have the Patriarch of Venice; and a motley crew of Austrians, Germans, +noble Venetians, foreigners, and, if you see a quiz, you may be sure he is +a consul. Oh, by the way, I forgot, when I wrote from Verona, to tell you +that at Milan I met with a countryman of yours--a Colonel ----, a very +excellent, good-natured fellow, who knows and shows all about Milan, and +is, as it were, a native there. He is particularly civil to strangers, and +this is his history--at least an episode of it. + +"Six-and-twenty years ago, Colonel ----, then an ensign, being in Italy, +fell in love with the Marchesa ----, and she with him. The lady must +be, at least, twenty years his senior. The war broke out; he returned to +England, to serve--not his country, for that's Ireland, but England, which +is a different thing; and _she_, heaven knows what she did. In the year +1814, the first annunciation of the definitive treaty of peace (and +tyranny) was developed to the astonished Milanese by the arrival of +Colonel ----, who flinging himself full length at the feet of Madame ----, +murmured forth, in half forgotten Irish Italian, eternal vows of indelible +constancy. The lady screamed, and exclaimed 'Who are you?' The colonel +cried, 'What, don't you know me? I am so and so,' &c. &c. &c.; till at +length, the Marchesa, mounting from reminiscence, to reminiscence, through +the lovers of the intermediate twenty-five years, arrived at last at the +recollection of her _povero_ sub-lieutenant.--She then said, 'Was there +ever such virtue?' (that was her very word) and, being now a widow, gave +him apartments in her palace, reinstated him in all the rights of wrong, +and held him up to the admiring world as a miracle of incontinent fidelity, +and the unshaken Abdiel of absence. + +"Methinks this is as pretty a moral tale as any of Marmontel's. Here is +another. The same lady, several years ago, made an escapade with a Swede, +Count Fersen (the same whom the Stockholm mob quartered and lapidated not +very long since), and they arrived at an Osteria, on the road to Rome or +thereabouts. It was a summer evening, and while they were at supper, they +were suddenly regaled by a symphony of fiddles in an adjacent apartment, +so prettily played, that, wishing to hear them more distinctly, the count +rose, and going into the musical society, said--'Gentlemen, I am sure that, +as a company of gallant cavaliers, you will be delighted to show your +skill to a lady, who feels anxious,' &c. &c. The men of harmony were all +acquiescence--every instrument was tuned and toned, and, striking up one +of their most ambrosial airs, the whole band followed the count to the +lady's apartment. At their head was the first fiddler, who, bowing and +fiddling at the same moment, headed his troop, and advanced up the room. +Death and discord!--it was the marquess himself, who was on a serenading +party in the country, while his spouse had run away from town.--The rest +may be imagined; but, first of all, the lady tried to persuade him that +she was there on purpose to meet him, and had chosen this method for an +harmonic surprise. So much for this gossip, which amused me when I heard +it, and I send it to you, in the hope it may have the like effect. Now +we'll return to Venice." + +"The day after to-morrow (to-morrow being Christmas-day) the Carnival +begins. I dine with the Countess Albrizzi and a party, and go to the opera. +On that day the Phenix (not the Insurance Office, but) the theatre of that +name opens: I have got me a box there for the season, for two reasons, one +of which is, that the music is remarkably good. The Contessa Albrizzi, of +whom I have made mention, is the De Staël of Venice--not young, but a very +learned, unaffected, good-natured woman, very polite to strangers, and, I +believe, not at all dissolute, as most of the women are. She has written +very well on the works of Canova, and also a volume of Characters, besides +other printed matter. She is of Corfu, but married a dead Venetian--that +is, dead since he married. + +"My flame (my 'Donna,' whom I spoke of in my former epistle, my Marianna) +is still my Marianna, and I, her--what she pleases. She is by far the +prettiest woman I have seen here, and the most loveable I have met with +any where--as well as one of the most singular. I believe I told you the +rise and progress of our _liaison_ in my former letter. Lest that should +not have reached you, I will merely repeat that she is a Venetian, +two-and-twenty years old, married to a merchant well to do in the world, +and that she has great black oriental eyes, and all the qualities which +her eyes promise. Whether being in love with her has steeled me or not, I +do not know; but I have not seen many other women who seem pretty. The +nobility, in particular, are a sad-looking race--the gentry rather better. +And now, what art _thou_ doing? + + "What are you doing now, + Oh Thomas Moore? + What are you doing now, + Oh Thomas Moore? + Sighing or suing now, + Rhyming or wooing now, + Billing or cooing now, + Which, Thomas Moore? + +Are you not near the Luddites? By the Lord! if there's a row, but I'll be +among ye! How go on the weavers--the breakers of frames--the Lutherans of +politics--the reformers? + + "As the Liberty lads o'er the sea + Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood, + So we, boys, we + Will _die_ fighting, or _live_ free, + And down with all kings but King Ludd! + + "When the web that we weave is complete, + And the shuttle exchanged for the sword, + We will fling the winding-sheet + O'er the despot at our feet, + And dye it deep in the gore he has pour'd. + + "Though black as his heart its hue, + Since his veins are corrupted to mud, + Yet this is the dew + Which the tree shall renew + Of Liberty, planted by Ludd! + +There's an amiable _chanson_ for you--all impromptu. I have written it +principally to shock your neighbour ----, who is all clergy and +loyalty--mirth and innocence--milk and water. + + "But the Carnival's coming, + Oh Thomas Moore, + The Carnival's coming, + Oh Thomas Moore, + Masking and humming, + Fifing and drumming, + Guitarring and strumming, + Oh Thomas Moore. + +The other night I saw a new play--and the author. The subject was the +sacrifice of Isaac. The play succeeded, and they called for the +author--according to continental custom--and he presented himself: a noble +Venetian, Mali, or Malapiero by name. Mala was his name, and _pessima_ his +production--at least, I thought so, and I ought to know, having read more +or less of five hundred Drury-lane offerings, during my coadjutorship with +the sub-and-super committee. + +"When does your Poem of Poems come out? I hear that the E.R. has cut up +Coleridge's Christabel, and declared against me for praising it. I praised +it, firstly, because I thought well of it; secondly, because Coleridge was +in great distress, and, after doing what little I could for him in +essentials, I thought that the public avowal of my good opinion might help +him further, at least with the booksellers. I am very sorry that J---- has +attacked him, because, poor fellow, it will hurt him in mind and pocket. +As for me, he's welcome,--I shall never think less of J---- for any thing +he may say against me or mine in future. + +"I suppose Murray has sent you, or will send (for I do not know whether +they are out or no) the poem, or poesies, of mine, of last summer. By the +mass! they're sublime--'Ganion Coheriza'--gainsay who dares! Pray, let me +hear from you, and of you, and, at least, let me know that you have +received these three letters. Direct, right _here, poste restante_.--"Ever +and ever, &c." + + +AN EXECUTION. + +_To Mr. Murray_. + + "Venice, May 30th, 1817. + +"I returned from Rome two days ago, and have received your letter; but no +sign nor tidings of the parcel sent through Sir C. Stuart, which you +mention. After an interval of months, a packet of 'Tales,' &c. found me at +Rome; but this is all, and may be all that ever will find me. The post +seems to be the only sure conveyance, and _that only for letters_. From +Florence I sent you a poem on Tasso, and from Rome the new Third Act of +'Manfred,' and by Dr. Polidori two portraits for my sister. I left Rome +and made a rapid journey home. You will continue to direct here as usual. +Mr. Hobhouse is gone to Naples; I should have run down there too for a +week, but for the quantity of English whom I heard of there. I prefer +hating them at a distance; unless an earthquake, or a good real irruption +of Vesuvius, were ensured to reconcile me to their vicinity. + + * * * * * + +"The day before I left Rome I saw three robbers guillotined. The +ceremony--including the _masqued_ priests; the half-naked executioners; +the bandaged criminals; the black Christ and his banner; the scaffold; the +soldiery; the slow procession, and the quick rattle and heavy fall of the +axe; the splash of the blood, and the ghastliness of the exposed heads--is +altogether more impressive than the vulgar and ungentlemanly dirty 'new +drop,' and dog-like agony of infliction upon the sufferers of the English +sentence. Two of these men behaved calmly enough, but the first of the +three died with great terror and reluctance. What was very horrible, he +would not lie down; then his neck was too large for the aperture, and the +priest was obliged to drown his exclamations by still louder exhortations. +The head was off before the eye could trace the blow; but from an attempt +to draw back the head, notwithstanding it was held forward by the hair, +the first head was cut off close to the ears: the other two were taken off +more cleanly. It is better than the oriental way, and (I should think) +than the axe of our ancestors. The pain seems little, and yet the effect +to the spectator, and the preparation to the criminal, is very striking +and chilling. The first turned me quite hot and thirsty, and made me shake +so that I could hardly hold the opera-glass, (I was close, but was +determined to see, as one should see every thing, once, with attention;) +the second and third (which shows how dreadfully soon things grow +indifferent,) I am ashamed to say, had no effect on me as a horror, though +I would have saved them if I could. + +"Yours, &c." + + +PORSON. + +"I remember to have seen Porson at Cambridge, in the hall of our college, +and in private parties, but not frequently; and I never can recollect him +except as drunk or brutal, and generally both: I mean in an evening, for +in the hall, he dined at the Dean's table, and I at the Vice-master's, so +that I was not near him; and he then and there appeared sober in his +demeanour, nor did I ever hear of excess or outrage on his part in +public,--commons, college, or chapel; but I have seen him in a private +party of under-graduates, many of them freshmen and strangers, take up a +poker to one of them, and heard him use language as blackguard as his +action. I have seen Sheridan drunk, too, with all the world; but his +intoxication was that of Bacchus, and Porson's that of Silenus. Of all the +disgusting brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable, Porson was the most +bestial, as far as the few times that I saw him went which were only at +William Bankes's (the Nubian discoverer's) rooms. I saw him once go away +in a rage, because nobody knew the name of the 'Cobbler of Messina,' +insulting their ignorance with the most vulgar terms of reprobation. He +was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents, as the +Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or +rather vomit pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot; +and certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a grosser exhibition +than this man's intoxication. + +"I perceive, in the book you sent me, a long account of him, which is very +savage. I cannot judge, as I never saw him sober, except in _hall_ or +combination room; and then I was never near enough to hear, and hardly to +see him. Of his drunken deportment, I can be sure, because I saw it." + + +THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI. + +It was about the time (1819) when the foregoing letter was written, and +when, 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 connexion 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 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, then only +eighteen, and just emancipated from a convent, was the selected victim. + +The first time Lord Byron had ever seen this lady was in the autumn of +1818, when she made her appearance, soon after her marriage, at the house +of the Countess Albrizzi, in all the gaiety of bridal array, and the first +delight of exchanging a convent for the world. At this time, however, no +acquaintance ensued between them;--it was not till the spring of the +present year that, at an evening party of Madame Benzoni's, they were +introduced to each other. The love that sprung out of this meeting was +instantaneous and mutual,--though with the usual disproportion of +sacrifice between the parties; such an event being, to the man, but one of +the many scenes of life, while, with woman, it generally constitutes the +whole drama. The young Italian found herself suddenly inspired with a +passion, of which, till that moment, her mind could not have formed the +least idea;--she had thought of love but as an amusement, and now became +its slave. If at the outset, too, less slow to be won than an Englishwoman, +no sooner did she begin to understand the full despotism of the passion +than her heart shrunk from it as something terrible, and she would have +escaped, but that the chain was already around her. + +No words, however, can describe so simply and feelingly as her own, the +strong impression which their first meeting left upon her mind:-- + +"I became acquainted," says Madame Guiccioli, "with Lord Byron in the +April of 1819:--he was introduced to me at Venice, by the Countess Benzoni, +at one of that lady's parties. This introduction, which had so much +influence over the lives of us both, took place contrary to our wishes, +and had been permitted by us only from courtesy. For myself, more fatigued +than usual that evening on account of the late hours they keep at Venice, +I went with great repugnance to this party, and purely in obedience to +Count Guiccioli. Lord Byron, too, who was averse to forming new +acquaintances,--alleging that he had entirely renounced all attachments, +and was unwilling any more to expose himself to their consequences,--on +being requested by the Countess Benzoni to allow himself to be presented +to me, refused, and, at last, only assented from a desire to oblige her. + +"His noble and exquisitely beautiful countenance, the tone of his voice, +his manners, the thousand enchantments that surrounded him, rendered him +so different and so superior a being to any whom I had hitherto seen, that +it was impossible he should not have left the most profound impression +upon me. From that evening, during the whole of my subsequent stay at +Venice, we met every day." + + * * * * * + +About the middle of April, Madame Guiccioli had been obliged to quit +Venice with her husband. Having several houses on the road from Venice to +Ravenna, it was his habit to stop at these mansions, one after the other, +in his journeys between the two cities; and from all these places the +enamoured young Countess now wrote to her lover, expressing, in the most +passionate and pathetic terms, her despair at leaving him. So utterly, +indeed, did this feeling overpower her, that three times, in the course of +her first day's journey, she was seized with fainting-fits. In one of her +letters, which I saw when at Venice, dated, if I recollect right, from "Cà +Zen, Cavanella di Po," she tells him that the solitude of this place, +which she had before found irksome, was, now that one sole idea occupied +her mind, become dear and welcome to her, and promises that, as soon as +she arrives at Ravenna, "she will, according to his wish, avoid all +general society, and devote herself to reading, music, domestic +occupations, riding on horseback,--every thing, in short, that she knew he +would most like." What a change for a young and simple girl, who, but a +few weeks before, had thought only of society and the world, but who now +saw no other happiness but in the hope of becoming worthy, by seclusion +and self-instruction, of the illustrious object of her love! + +On leaving this place, she was attacked with a dangerous illness on the +road, and arrived half dead at Ravenna; nor was it found possible to +revive or comfort her till an assurance was received from Lord Byron, +expressed with all the fervour of real passion, that, in the course of the +ensuing month, he would pay her a visit. Symptoms of consumption, brought +on by her state of mind, had already shown themselves; and, in addition to +the pain which this separation had caused her, she was also suffering much +grief from the loss of her mother, who, at this time, died in giving birth +to her twentieth child. Towards the latter end of May she wrote to +acquaint Lord Byron that, having prepared all her relatives and friends to +expect him, he might now, she thought, venture to make his appearance at +Ravenna. Though, on the lady's account, hesitating as to the prudence of +such a step, he, in obedience to her wishes, on the 2nd of June, set out +from La Mira (at which place he had again taken a villa for the summer), +and proceeded towards Romagna. + +While he was 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 lover; 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, 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 inquiries 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 the +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. + + * * * * * + +In the separation that had now taken place (1820) between Count Guiccioli +and his wife, it was one of the conditions that the lady should, in future, +reside under the paternal roof:--in consequence of which, Madame Guiccioli, +on the 16th of July, left Ravenna and retired to a villa belonging to +Count Gamba, about fifteen miles distant from that city. Here Lord Byron +occasionally visited her--about once or twice, perhaps, in the +month--passing the rest of his time in perfect solitude. To a mind like +his, whose world was within itself, such a mode of life could have been +neither new nor unwelcome; but to the woman, young and admired, whose +acquaintance with the world and its pleasures had but just begun, this +change was, it must be confessed, most sudden and trying. Count Guiccioli +was rich, and, as a young wife, she had gained absolute power over him. +She was proud, and his station placed her among the highest in Ravenna. +They had talked of travelling to Naples, Florence, Paris,--and every +luxury, in short, that wealth could command was at her disposal. + +All this she now voluntarily and determinedly sacrificed for Byron. Her +splendid home abandoned--her relations all openly at war with her--her +kind father but tolerating, from fondness, what he could not approve--she +was now, upon a pittance of 200_l_. a year, living apart from the world, +her sole occupation the task of educating herself for her illustrious +lover, and her sole reward the few brief glimpses of him which their now +restricted intercourse allowed. Of the man who could inspire and keep +alive so devoted a feeling, it may be pronounced with confidence that he +could _not_ have been such as, in the freaks of his own wayward humour, he +represented himself; while, on the lady's side, the whole history of her +attachment goes to prove how completely an Italian woman, whether by +nature or from her social position, is led to invert the usual course of +such frailties among ourselves, and, weak in resisting the first impulses +of passion, to reserve the whole strength of her character for a display +of constancy and devotedness afterwards. + + * * * * * + + +MEETING OF LORD BYRON AND MR. MOORE AT VENICE. + +It was my good fortune, at this period, (1819) in the course of a short +and hasty tour through the north of Italy, to pass five or six days with +Lord Byron at Venice. I had written to him on my way thither to announce +my coming, and to say how happy it would make me could I tempt him to +accompany me as far as Rome. + +Having parted, at Milan, with Lord John Russell, whom I had accompanied +from England, and whom I was to rejoin, after a short visit to Rome, at +Genoa, I made purchase of a small and (as it soon proved) crazy travelling +carriage, and proceeded alone on my way to Venice. My time being limited, +I stopped no longer at the intervening places than was sufficient to hurry +over their respective wonders, and, leaving Padua at noon on the 8th of +October, I found myself, about two o'clock, at the door of my friend's +villa, at La Mira. He was but just up, and in his bath; but the servant +having announced my arrival, he returned a message that, if I would wait +till he was dressed, he would accompany me to Venice. The interval I +employed in conversing with my old acquaintance, Fletcher, and in viewing, +under his guidance, some of the apartments of the villa. + +It was not long before Lord Byron himself made his appearance, and the +delight I felt in meeting him once more, after a separation of so many +years, was not a little heightened by observing that his pleasure was, to +the full, as great, while it was rendered doubly touching by the evident +rarity of such meetings to him of late, and the frank outbreak of +cordiality and gaiety with which he gave way to his feelings. It would be +impossible, indeed, to convey to those who have not, at some time or other, +felt the charm of his manner, any idea of what it could be when under the +influence of such pleasurable excitement as it was most flatteringly +evident he experienced at this moment. + +I was a good deal struck, however, by the alteration that had taken place +in his personal appearance. He had grown fatter both in person and face, +and the latter had most suffered by the change, having lost, by the +enlargement of the features, some of that refined and spiritualized look +that had, in other times, distinguished it. The addition of whiskers, too, +which he had not long before been induced to adopt, from hearing that some +one had said he had a "faccia di musico," as well as the length to which +his hair grew down on his neck, and the rather foreign air of his coat and +cap,--all combined to produce that dissimilarity to his former self I had +observed in him. He was still, however, eminently handsome; and, in +exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high, romantic +character, they had become more fitted for the expression of that arch, +waggish wisdom, that Epicurean play of humour, which he had shown to be +equally inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while, by +the somewhat increased roundness of the contours, the resemblance of his +finely formed mouth and chin to those of the Belvedere Apollo had become +still more striking. + +His breakfast, which I found he rarely took before three or four o'clock +in the afternoon, was speedily despatched,--his habit being to eat it +standing, and the meal in general consisting of one or two raw eggs, a cup +of tea without either milk or sugar, and a bit of dry biscuit. Before we +took our departure, he presented me to the Countess Guiccioli, who was at +this time living under the same roof with him at La Mira; and who, with a +style of beauty singular in an Italian, as being fair-complexioned and +delicate, left an impression upon my mind, during this our first short +interview, of intelligence and amiableness such as all that I have since +known or heard of her has but served to confirm. + +We now started together, Lord Byron and myself, in my little Milanese +vehicle, for Fusina,--his portly gondolier Tita, in a rich livery and most +redundant mustachios, having seated himself on the front of the carriage, +to the no small trial of its strength, which had already once given way, +even under my own weight, between Verona and Vicenza. On our arrival at +Fusina, my noble friend, from his familiarity with all the details of the +place, had it in his power to save me both trouble and expense in the +different arrangements relative to the custom-house, remise, &c. and the +good-natured assiduity with which he bustled about in despatching these +matters gave me an opportunity of observing, in his use of the infirm limb, +a much greater degree of activity than I had ever before, except in +sparring, witnessed. + +As we proceeded across the Lagoon in his gondola, the sun was just setting, +and it was an evening such as Romance would have chosen for a first sight +of Venice, rising "with her tiara of bright towers" above the wave; while +to complete, as might be imagined, the solemn interest of the scene, I +beheld it in company with him who had lately given a new life to its +glories, and sung of that fair City of the Sea thus grandly: + + "I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs; + A palace and a prison on each hand: + I saw from out the wave her structures rise + As from the stroke of the enchanters wand: + A thousand years their cloudy wings expand + Around me, and a dying glory smiles + O'er the far times, when many a subject land + Look'd to the winged lion's marble piles, + Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles." + +But whatever emotions the first sight of such a scene might, under other +circumstances, have inspired me with, the mood of mind in which I now +viewed it was altogether the very reverse of what might have been expected. +The exuberant gaiety of my companion, and the recollections,--any thing +but romantic,--into which our conversation wandered, put at once +completely to flight all poetical and historical associations; and our +course was, I am almost ashamed to say, one of uninterrupted merriment and +laughter till we found ourselves at the steps of my friend's palazzo on +the Grand Canal. All that had ever happened, of gay or ridiculous, during +our London life together,--his scrapes and my lecturings,--our joint +adventures with the Bores and Blues, the two great enemies, as he always +called them, of London happiness,--our joyous nights together at Watier's, +Kinnaird's, &c. and "that d--d supper of Rancliffe's which _ought_ to have +been a dinner,"--all was passed rapidly in review between us, and with a +flow of humour and hilarity, on his side, of which it would have been +difficult, even for persons far graver than I can pretend to be, not to +have caught the contagion. + + +LORD BYRON'S PARSIMONY. + +It is, indeed, certain, that he had at this time (1819) taken up the whim +(for it hardly deserves a more serious name) of minute and constant +watchfulness over his expenditure; and, as most usually happens, it was +with the increase of his means that this increased sense of the value of +money came. The first symptom I saw of this new fancy of his was the +exceeding joy which he manifested on my presenting to him a rouleau of +twenty Napoleons, which Lord K----d, to whom he had, on some occasion, +lent that sum, had entrusted me with, at Milan, to deliver into his hands. +With the most joyous and diverting eagerness, he tore open the paper, and, +in counting over the sum, stopped frequently to congratulate himself on +the recovery of it. + +Of his household frugalities I speak but on the authority of others; but +it is not difficult to conceive that, with a restless spirit like his, +which delighted always in having something to contend with, and which, but +a short time before, "for want," as he said, "of something craggy to break +upon," had tortured itself with the study of the Armenian language, he +should, in default of all better excitement, find a sort of stir and +amusement in the task of contesting, inch by inch, every encroachment of +expense, and endeavouring to suppress what he himself calls + + "That climax of all earthly ills, + The inflammation of our weekly bills." + +In truth, his constant recurrence to the praise of avarice in Don Juan, +and the humorous zest with which he delights to dwell on it, shows how +new-fangled, as well as far from serious, was his adoption of this "good +old-gentlemanly vice." In the same spirit he had, a short time before my +arrival at Venice, established a hoarding-box, with a slit in the lid, +into which he occasionally put sequins, and, at stated periods, opened it +to contemplate his treasures. His own ascetic style of living enabled him, +as far as himself was concerned, to gratify this taste for enonomy in no +ordinary degree,--his daily bill of fare, when the Margarita was his +companion, consisting, I have been assured, of but four beccafichi of +which the Fornarina eat three leaving even him hungry. + + +HIS MEMOIRS. + +(1819)--A short time before dinner he left the room, and in a minute or +two returned, carrying in his hand a white leather bag. "Look here," he +said, holding it up,--"this would be worth something to Murray, though +_you_, I dare say, would not give sixpence for it." "What is it?" I +asked.--"My Life and Adventures," he answered. On hearing this, I raised +my hands in a gesture of wonder. "It is not a thing," he continued, "that +can be published during my lifetime, but you may have it if you +like--there, do whatever you please with it." In taking the bag, and +thanking him most warmly, I added, "This will make a nice legacy for my +little Tom, who shall astonish the latter days of the nineteenth century +with it." He then added, "You may show it to any of our friends you may +think worthy of it:"--and this is nearly word for word, the whole of what +passed between us on the subject. + + + _To Mr. Moore._ + + "January 2nd, 1820. + + "My Dear Moore, + + "'To-day it is my wedding-day, + And all the folks would stare + If wife should dine at Edmonton, + And I should dine at Ware.' + + Or _thus_-- + + "Here's a happy new year! but with reason + I beg you'll permit me to say-- + Wish me _many_ returns of the _season_, + But as _few_ as you please of the _day_. + +"My this present writing is to direct you that, _if she chooses_, she may +see the MS. Memoir in your possession. I wish her to have fair play, in +all cases, even though it will not be published till after my decease. For +this purpose, it were but just that Lady B. should know what is their said +of her and hers, that she may have full power to remark on or respond to +any part or parts, as may seem fitting to herself. This is fair dealing, I +presume, in all events. + +"To change the subject, are you in England? I send you an epitaph for +Castlereagh. + + * * * * * + +Another for Pitt-- + + "With death doom'd to grapple + Beneath this cold slab, he + Who lied in the Chapel + Now lies in the Abbey. + +"The gods seem to have made me poetical this day-- + + "In digging up your bones, Tom Paine, + Will. Cobbett has done well: + You visit him on earth again, + He'll visit you in hell. + +Or-- + + "You come to him on earth again, + He'll go with you to hell. + +"Pray let not these versiculi go forth with _my_ name, except among the +initiated, because my friend H. has foamed into a reformer, and, I greatly +fear, will subside into Newgate; since the Honourable House, according to +Galignani's Reports of Parliamentary Debates, are menacing a prosecution +to a pamphlet of his. I shall be very sorry to hear of any thing but good +for him, particularly in these miserable squabbles; but these are the +natural effects of taking a part in them." + + +SIR HUMPHRY DAVY. + +"Ravenna, May 8, 1820. + +"Sir Humphry Davy was here last fortnight, and I was in his company in the +house of a very pretty Italian lady of rank, who, by way of displaying her +learning in presence of the great chemist, then describing his fourteenth +ascension of Mount Vesuvius, asked 'if there was not a similar volcano in +_Ireland_?' My only notion of an Irish volcano consisted of the lake of +Killarney, which I naturally conceived her to mean; but on second thoughts +I divined that she alluded to _Ice_land and to Hecla--and so it proved, +though she sustained her volcanic topography for some time with all the +amiable pertinacity of 'the feminie.' She soon after turned to me, and +asked me various questions about Sir Humphry's philosophy, and I explained +as well as an oracle his skill in gasen safety lamps, and ungluing the +Pompeian MSS. 'But what do you call him?' said she. 'A great chemist,' +quoth I. 'What can he do?' repeated the lady 'Almost any thing,' said I. +'Oh, then, mio caro, do pray beg him to give me something to dye my +eyebrows black. I have tried a thousand things, and the colours all come +off; and besides, they don't grow. Can't he invent something to make them +grow?' All this with the greatest earnestness; and what you will be +surprised at, she is neither ignorant nor a fool, but really well educated +and clever. But they speak like children, when first out of their convents; +and, after all, this is better than an English bluestocking." + + +POPE--AND OTHER MATTERS. + +_To Mr. Moore._ + +"Ravenna, July 5th, 1821. + +"How could you suppose that I ever would allow any thing that _could_ be +said on your account to weigh with _me_? I only regret that Bowles had not +_said_ that you were the writer of that note until afterwards, when out he +comes with it, in a private letter to Murray, which Murray sends to me. +D--n the controversy! + + "D--m Twizzle, + D--n the bell, + And d--n the fool who rung it--Well! + From all such plagues I'll quickly be deliver'd. + +"I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England (I never saw +her) who says she is given over of a decline, but could not go out of the +world without thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several years, +&c. &c. &c. It is signed simply N.N.A., and has not a word of 'cant' or +preachment in it upon _any_ opinions. She merely says that she is dying, +and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she +thought that she might say so, begging me to _burn_ her _letter_--which, +by the way, I can _not_ do, as I look upon such a letter, in such +circumstances, as better than a diploma from Gottingen. I once had a +letter from Drontheim, in _Norway_ (but not from a dying woman) in verse, +on the same score of gratulation. These are the things which make one at +times believe oneself a poet. But if I must believe that ----, and +such fellows, are poets, also, it is better to be out of the corps. + +"I am now in the fifth act of 'Foscari,' being the third tragedy in twelve +months, besides _proses_; so you perceive that I am not at all idle. And +are you, too, busy? I doubt that your life at Paris draws too much upon +your time, which is a pity. Can't you divide your day, so as to combine +both? I have had plenty of all sorts of worldly business on my hands last +year--and yet it is not so difficult to give a few hours to the _Muses_. +This sentence is so like ---- that-- + "Ever, &c." + + +FROM "DETACHED THOUGHTS." + +"What a strange thing is life and man! Were I to present myself at the +door of the house where my daughter now is, the door would be shut in my +face--unless (as is not impossible) I knocked down the porter; and if I +had gone in that year (and perhaps now) to Drontheim (the furthest town in +Norway), or into Holstein, I should have been received with open arms into +the mansion of strangers and foreigners, attached to me by no tie but by +that of mind and rumour. + +"As far as _fame_ goes, I have had my share: it has indeed been leavened +by other human contingencies, and this in a greater degree than has +occurred to most literary men of a decent rank of life; but, on the whole, +I take it that such equipoise is the condition of humanity." + +"A young American, named Coolidge, called on me not many months ago. He +was intelligent, very handsome, and not more than twenty years old, +according to appearances; a little romantic, but that sits well upon youth, +and mighty fond of poesy, as may be suspected from his approaching me in +my cavern. He brought me a message from an old servant of my family (Joe +Murray), and told me that _he_ (Mr. Coolidge) had obtained a copy of my +bust from Thorwaldsen, at Rome, to send to America. I confess I was more +flattered by this young enthusiasm of a solitary Trans-Atlantic traveller, +than if they had decreed me a statue in the Paris Pantheon (I have seen +emperors and demagogues cast down from their pedestals even in my own time, +and Grattan's name razed from the street called after him in Dublin); I +say that I was more flattered by it, because it was _single, unpolitical_, +and was without motive or ostentation--the pure and warm feeling of a boy +for the poet he admired. It must have been expensive, though;--_I_ would +not pay the price of a Thorwaldsen bust for any human head and shoulders, +except Napoleon's, or my children's, or some '_absurd womankind's_,' as +Monkbarn's calls them--or my sister's. If asked _why_, then, I sate for my +own?--Answer, that it was at the particular request of J.C. Hobhouse, Esq., +and for no one else. A _picture_ is a different matter;--every body sits +for their picture;--but a bust looks like putting up pretensions to +permanency, and smacks something of a hankering for public fame rather +than private remembrance. + +"Whenever an American requests to see me (which is not unfrequently) I +comply, firstly, because I respect a people who acquired their freedom by +their firmness without excess; and, secondly, because these Trans-Atlantic +visits, 'few and-far between' make me feel as if talking with posterity +from the other side of the Styx. In a century or two, the new English and +Spanish Atlantides will be masters of the old countries, in all +probability, as Greece and Europe overcame their mother Asia in the older +or earlier ages, as they are called." + + +EXTRACT FROM A DIARY OF LORD BYRON, 1821. + +"Ravenna, January 12th, 1821. + +"I have found out the seal cut on Murray's letter. It is meant for Walter +Scott--or _Sir_ Walter--he is the first poet knighted since Sir Richard +Blackmore. But it does not do him justice. Scott's--particularly when he +recites---is a very intelligent countenance, and this seal says nothing. + +"Scott is certainly the most wonderful writer of the day. His novels are a +new literature in themselves, and his poetry as good as any--if not better +(only on an erroneous system)--and only ceased to be so popular, because +the vulgar learned were tired of hearing 'Aristides called the Just,' and +Scott the Best, and ostracised him. + +"I like him, too, for his manliness of character, for the extreme +pleasantness of his conversation, and his good-nature towards myself, +personally. May he prosper!--for he deserves it. I know no reading to +which I fall with such alacrity as a work of W. Scott's. I shall give the +seal, with his bust on it, to Madame la Contesse G. this evening, who will +be curious to have the effigies of a man so celebrated. + + "January 20th, 1821. + +"To-morrow is my birthday--that is to say, at twelve o' the clock, +midnight, i.e. in twelve minutes, I shall have completed thirty and three +years of age!!!--and I go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having +lived so long, and to so little purpose. + +"It is three minutes past twelve.--''Tis the middle of night by the castle +clock, and I am now thirty-three! + + 'Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume, + Labuntur anni;--' + +but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I might +have done. + + "Through life's road, so dim and dirty, + I have dragg'd to three-and-thirty. + What have these years left to me? + Nothing--except thirty-three. + + "January 22nd, 1821. + + 1821. + Here lies + interred in the Eternity + of the Past, + from whence there is no + Resurrection + for the Days--whatever there may be + for the Dust-- + the Thirty-Third Year + of an ill-spent Life, + Which, after + a lingering disease of many months, + sunk into a lethargy, + and expired, + January 22nd, 1821, A.D. + Leaving a successor + Inconsolable + for the very loss which + occasioned its + Existence." + + +LORD CLARE. + +On the road to Bologna he had met with his early and dearest friend, Lord +Clare, and the following description of their short interview is given in +his "Detached Thoughts." + + "Pisa, November 5th, 1821. + +"'There is a strange coincidence sometimes in the little things of this +world, Sancho,' says Sterne in a letter (if I mistake not,) and so I have +often found it. + +"Page 128, article 91, of this collection, I had alluded to my friend Lord +Clare in terms such as my feelings suggested. About a week or two +afterwards, I met him on the road between Imola and Bologna, after not +having met for seven or eight years. He was abroad in 1814, and came home +just as I set out in 1816. + +"This meeting annihilated for a moment all the years between the present +time and the days of _Harrow_. It was a new and inexplicable feeling, like +rising from the grave, to me. Clare too was much agitated--more in +_appearance_ than myself; for I could feel his heart beat to his fingers' +ends, unless, indeed, it was the pulse of my own which made me think so. +He told me that I should find a note from him left at Bologna. I did. We +were obliged to part for our different journeys, he for Rome, I for Pisa, +but with the promise to meet again in spring. We were but five minutes +together, and on the public road; but I hardly recollect an hour of my +existence which could be weighed against them. He had heard that I was +coming on, and had left his letter for me at Bologna, because the people +with whom he was travelling could not wait longer. + +"Of all I have ever known, he has always been the least altered in every +thing from the excellent qualities and kind affections which attached me +to him so strongly at school. I should hardly have thought it possible for +society (or the world, as it is called) to leave a being with so little of +the leaven of bad passions. + +"I do not speak from personal experience only, but from all I have ever +heard of him from others, during absence and distance." + +On the subject of intimacies formed by Lord Byron, not only at the period +of which we are speaking, but throughout his whole life, it would be +difficult to advance any thing more judicious, or more demonstrative of a +true knowledge of his character, than is to be found in the following +remarks of one who had studied him with her whole heart, who had learned +to regard him with the eyes of good sense, as well as of affection, and +whose strong love, in short, was founded upon a basis the most creditable +both to him and herself,--the being able to understand him.[1] + + [1] "My poor Zimmerman, who now will understand thee?"--such was + the touching speech addressed to Zimmerman by his wife, on her + deathbed, and there is implied in these few words all that a + man of morbid sensibility must be dependent for upon the + tender and self-forgetting tolerance of the woman with whom he + is united. + +"We continued in Pisa even more rigorously to absent ourselves from +society. However, as there were a good many English in Pisa, he could not +avoid becoming acquainted with various friends of Shelley, among which +number was Mr. Medwin. They followed him in his rides, dined with him, and +felt themselves happy, of course, in the apparent intimacy in which they +lived with so renowned a man; but not one of them was admitted to any part +of his friendship, which, indeed, he did not easily accord. He had a great +affection for Shelley, and a great esteem for his character and talents; +but he was not his friend in the most extensive sense of that word. +Sometimes, when speaking of his friends and of friendship, as also of love, +and of every other noble emotion of the soul, his expressions might +inspire doubts concerning his sentiments and the goodness of his heart. +The feeling of the moment regulated his speech, and besides, he liked to +play the part of singularity,--and sometimes worse, more especially with +those whom he suspected of endeavouring to make discoveries as to his real +character; but it was only mean minds and superficial observers that could +be deceived in him. It was necessary to consider his actions to perceive +the contradiction they bore to his words: it was necessary to be witness +of certain moments, during which unforeseen and involuntary emotion forced +him to give himself entirely up to his feelings; and whoever beheld him +then, became aware of the stores of sensibility and goodness of which his +noble heart was full. + +"Among the many occasions I had of seeing him thus overpowered, I shall +mention one relative to his feelings of friendship. A few days before +leaving Pisa, we were one evening seated in the garden of the Palazzo +Lanfranchi. A soft melancholy was spread over his countenance;--he +recalled to mind the events of his life; compared them with his present +situation and with that which it might have been if his affection for me +had not caused him to remain in Italy, saying things which would have made +earth a paradise for me, but that even then a presentiment that I should +lose all this happiness tormented me. At this moment a servant announced +Mr. Hobhouse. The slight shade of melancholy diffused over Lord Byron's +face gave instant place to the liveliest joy; but it was so great, that it +almost deprived him of strength. A fearful paleness came over his cheeks, +and his eyes were filled with tears as he embraced his friend. His emotion +was so great that he was forced to sit down. + +"Lord Clare's visit also occasioned him extreme delight. He had a great +affection for Lord Clare, and was very happy during the short visit that +he paid him at Leghorn. The day on which they separated was a melancholy +one for Lord Byron. 'I have a presentiment that I shall never see him +more,' he said, and his eyes filled with tears. The same melancholy came +over him during the first weeks that succeeded to Lord Clare's departure, +whenever his conversation happened to fall upon this friend." + +Of his feelings on the death of his daughter Allegra, this lady gives the +following account:--"On the occasion also of the death of his natural +daughter, I saw in his grief the excess of paternal tenderness. His +conduct towards this child was always that of a fond father; but no one +would have guessed from his expressions that he felt this affection for +her. He was dreadfully agitated by the first intelligence of her illness; +and when afterwards that of her death arrived, I was obliged to fulfil the +melancholy task of communicating it to him. The memory of that frightful +moment is stamped indelibly on my mind. For several evenings he had not +left his house, I therefore went to him. His first question was relative +to the courier he had despatched for tidings of his daughter, and whose +delay disquieted him. After a short interval of suspense, with every +caution which my own sorrow suggested, I deprived him of all hope of the +child's recovery. 'I understand,' said he,--'it is enough, say no more.' A +mortal paleness spread itself over his face, his strength failed him, and +he sunk into a seat. His look was fixed, and the expression such that I +began to fear for his reason; he did not shed a tear, and his countenance +manifested so hopeless, so profound, so sublime a sorrow, that at the +moment he appeared a being of a nature superior to humanity. He remained +immovable in the same attitude for an hour, and no consolation which I +endeavoured to afford him seemed to reach his ears, far less his heart. +But enough of this sad episode, on which I cannot linger, even after the +lapse of so many years, without renewing in my own heart the awful +wretchedness of that day. He desired to be left alone, and I was obliged +to leave him. I found him on the following morning tranquillized, and with +an expression of religious resignation on his features. 'She is more +fortunate than we are,' he said; 'besides her position in the world would +scarcely have allowed her to be happy. It is God's will--let us mention it +no more.' And from that day he would never pronounce her name; but became +more anxious when he spoke of Ada,--so much so as to disquiet himself when +the usual accounts sent him were for a post or two delayed." + +The melancholy death of poor Shelley, which happened, as we have seen, +also during this period, seems to have affected Lord Byron's mind less +with grief for the actual loss of his friend than with bitter indignation +against those who had, through life, so grossly misrepresented him; and +never certainly was there an instance where the supposed absence of all +religion in an individual was assumed so eagerly as an excuse for the +entire absence of truth and charity in judging him. Though never +personally acquainted with Mr. Shelley, I can join freely with those who +most loved him in admiring the various excellencies of his heart and +genius, and lamenting the too early doom that robbed us of the mature +fruits of both. His short life had been, like his poetry, a sort of bright, +erroneous dream,--false in the general principles on which it proceeded, +though beautiful and attaching in most of the details. Had full time been +allowed for the "over-light" of his imagination to have been tempered down +by the judgment which, in him, was still in reserve, the world at large +would have been taught to pay that high homage to his genius which those +only who saw what he was capable of can now be expected to accord to it. + +It was about this time that Mr. Cowell, paying a visit to Lord Byron at +Genoa, was told by him that some friends of Mr. Shelley, sitting together +one evening, had seen that gentleman, distinctly, as they thought, walk, +into a little wood at Lerici, when at the same moment, as they afterwards +discovered, he was far away, in quite a different direction. "This," added +Lord Byron, in a low, awe-struck tone of voice, "was but ten days before +poor Shelley died." + + +HIS SERVICE IN THE GREEK CAUSE. + +With that thanklessness which too often waits on disinterested actions, it +has been some times tauntingly remarked, and in quarters from whence a +more generous judgment might be expected, that, after all, Lord Byron +effected but little for Greece: as if much _could_ be effected by a single +individual, and in so short a time, for a cause which, fought as it has +been almost incessantly through the six years since his death, has +required nothing less than the intervention of all the great powers of +Europe to give it a chance of success, and, even so, has not yet succeeded. +That Byron himself was under no delusion, as to the importance of his own +solitary aid--that he knew, in a struggle like this, there must be the +same prodigality of means towards one great end as is observable in the +still grander operations of nature, where individuals are as nothing in +the tide of events--that such was his, at once, philosophic and melancholy +view of his own sacrifices, I have, I trust, clearly shown. But that, +during this short period of action, he did not do well and wisely all that +man could achieve in the time, and under the circumstances, is an +assertion which the noble facts here recorded fully and triumphantly +disprove. He knew that, placed as he was, his measures, to be wise, must +be prospective, and from the nature of the seeds thus sown by him, the +benefits that were to be expected must be judged. To reconcile the rude +chiefs to the government and to each other;--to infuse a spirit of +humanity, by his example, into their warfare;--to prepare the way for the +employment of the expected loan, in a manner most calculated to call forth +the resources of the country--to put the fortifications of Missolonghi in +such a state of repair as might, and eventually _did_, render it proof +against the besieger;--to prevent those infractions of neutrality, so +tempting to the Greeks, which brought their government in collision with +the Ionian authorities, and to restrain all such license of the press as +might indispose the courts of Europe to their cause:--such were the +important objects which he had proposed to himself to accomplish, and +towards which, in this brief interval, and in the midst of such +dissensions and hindrances, he had already made considerable and most +promising progress. But it would be unjust to close even here the bright +catalogue of his services. It is, after all, _not_ with the span of mortal +life that the good achieved by a name immortal ends. The charm acts into +the future--it is an auxiliary through all time; and the inspiring example +of Byron, as a martyr of liberty, is for ever freshly embalmed in his +glory as a poet. + + +HIS PORTRAIT. + +Of his face, the beauty may be pronounced to have been of the highest +order, as combining at once regularity of features with the most varied +and interesting expression. + +The same facility, indeed, of change observable in the movements of his +mind was seen also in the free play of his features, as the passing +thoughts within darkened or shone through them. His eyes, though of a +light grey, were capable of all extremes of expression, from the most +joyous hilarity to the deepest sadness--from the very sunshine of +benevolence to the most concentrated scorn or rage. Of this latter passion, +I had once an opportunity of seeing what fiery interpreters they could be, +on my telling him, thoughtlessly enough, that a friend of mine had said to +me--"Beware of Lord Byron, he will, some day or other, do something very +wicked." "Was it man or woman said so?" he exclaimed, suddenly turning +round upon me with a look of such intense anger as, though it lasted not +an instant, could not easily be forgot, and of which no better idea can be +given than in the words of one who, speaking of Chatterton's eyes, says +that "fire rolled at the bottom of them." + +But it was in the mouth and chin that the great beauty, as well as +expression of his fine countenance lay. "Many pictures have been painted +of him (says a fair critic of his features) with various success; but the +excessive beauty of his lips escaped every painter and sculptor. In their +ceaseless play they represented every emotion, whether pale with anger, +curled in disdain, smiling in triumph, or dimpled with archness and love." +It would be injustice to the reader not to borrow from the same pencil a +few more touches of portraiture. "This extreme facility of expression was +sometimes painful, for I have seen him look absolutely ugly--I have seen +him look so hard and cold, that you must hate him, and then, in a moment, +brighter than the sun, with such playful softness in his look, such +affectionate eagerness kindling in his eyes, and dimpling his lips into +something more sweet than a smile, that you forget the man, the Lord Byron, +in the picture of beauty presented to you, and gazed with intense +curiosity--I had almost said--as if to satisfy yourself, that thus looked +the god of poetry, the god of the Vatican, when he conversed with the sons +and daughters of man." + +His head was remarkably small--so much so as to be rather out of +proportion with his face. The forehead, though a little too narrow, was +high, and appeared more so from his having his hair (to preserve it, as he +said) shaved over the temples; while the glossy, dark-brown curls, +clustering over his head, gave the finish to its beauty. When to this is +added, that his nose, though handsomely, was rather thickly shaped, that +his teeth were white and regular, and his complexion colourless, as good +an idea perhaps as it is in the power of mere words to convey may be +conceived of his features. + +In height he was, as he himself has informed us, five feet eight inches +and a half, and to the length of his limbs he attributed his being such a +good swimmer. His hands were very white, and--according to his own notion +of the size of hands as indicating birth--aristocratically small. The +lameness of his right foot, though an obstacle to grace, but little +impeded the activity of his movements; and from this circumstance, as well +as from the skill with which the foot was disguised by means of long +trousers, it would be difficult to conceive a defect of this kind less +obtruding itself as a deformity; while the diffidence which a constant +consciousness of the infirmity gave to his first approach and address made, +in him, even lameness a source of interest. + + * * * * * + +_Printed and Published by J. 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No. 474.</title> + + <style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + p {text-align: justify;} + blockquote {text-align: justify;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center;} + pre {font-size: 0.7em;} + + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + html>body hr {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 100%;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 0%; width: 100%;} + hr.short {text-align: center; width: 20%;} + html>body hr.short {margin-right: 40%; margin-left: 40%; width: 20%;} + + .note, .footnote + {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + + span.pagenum + {position: absolute; left: 1%; right: 91%; font-size: 8pt;} + + .poem + {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + .poem p.i4 {margin-left: 2em;} + .poem p.i6 {margin-left: 3em;} + .poem p.i8 {margin-left: 4em;} + .poem p.i10 {margin-left: 5em;} + .poem p.i14 {margin-left: 9em;} + + .figure + {padding: 1em; margin: 0; text-align: center; font-size: 0.8em; margin: auto;} + .figure img + {border: none;} + .figure p + + .side { float:right; + font-size: 75%; + width: 25%; + padding-left:10px; + border-left: dashed thin; + margin-left: 10px; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; + font-weight: bold; + font-style: italic;} + --> + </style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and +Instruction, No. 474, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 + Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number + +Author: Various + +Release Date: June 22, 2004 [EBook #12685] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRROR OF LITERATURE, NO. 474 *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Allen Siddle and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + + <hr class="full" /> + +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page81" + name="page81"> + </a>[pg 81] +</span> + + <h1>THE MIRROR<br /> + OF<br /> + LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.</h1> + <hr class="full" /> + + <table width="100%" summary="Volume, Number, and Date"> + <tr> + <td align="left"><b>Vol. XVII. No. 474.]</b></td> + <td align="center"><b> SUPPLEMENTARY NUMBER.</b></td> + <td align="right"><b>[PRICE 2d.</b></td> + </tr> + </table> + <hr class="full" /> + + +<h2>LORD BYRON.</h2> + +<h3>LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON,<br /> +WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE,<br /> +BY THOMAS MOORE, Vol. ii.</h3> + +<blockquote> +<p> + [To attempt anything like an analysis of a "great big book," of 823 + pages, like the present, and that within a sheet of 16 pages, would + be an effort of condensation indeed. Besides, the very nature of the + volume before us will not admit of such a task being performed with + much regard to accuracy or unique character. The "Letters," of which, + the work is, in great part, composed, are especially ill adapted for + such a purpose; since, many of them become interesting only from + manner rather than importance of matter. Horace Walpole's + Correspondence would make but a dull book cut in "little stars" in + the letter style; and Lord Byron, as a letter writer, resembles + Walpole more closely than any other writer of his time. His gay, + anecdotical style is delightful—his epithets and single words are + always well chosen, and often convey more than one side of the letter + of a common-place mind. +</p> +<p> + Our sheet of Extracts is from such portions of Mr. Moore's volume as + appear to illustrate the main points of the Noble Poet's character + and habits, as the superscriptions will best explain—<i>currente + calamo</i> from pages 22 to 769—within a few leaves of the Appendix.] +</p> +</blockquote> +<br /><br /> +<h3>HIS SENSIBILITY.</h3> +<p> +With the following melancholy passage one of his journals concludes:— +</p><p> +"In the weather for this tour (of thirteen days) I have been very +fortunate—fortunate in a companion (Mr. H.)—fortunate in all our +prospects, and exempt from even the little petty accidents and delays +which often render journeys in a less wild country disappointing. I was +disposed to be pleased. I am a lover of nature, and an admirer of beauty; +I can bear fatigue and welcome privation, and have seen some of the +noblest views in the world. But in all this—the recollection of +bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which +must accompany me through life, have preyed upon me here; and neither the +music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the +mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment +lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched +identity in the majesty, and the power, and the glory, around, above, and +beneath me——." +</p><p> +On his return from an excursion to Diodati, an occasion was afforded for +the gratification of his jesting propensities by the avowal of the young +physician (Polidori) that—he had fallen in love. On the evening of this +tender confession they both appeared at Shelley's cottage—Lord Byron, in +the highest and most boyish spirits, rubbing his hands as he walked about +the room, and in that utter incapacity of retention which was one of his +foibles, making jesting allusions to the secret he had just heard. The +brow of the doctor darkened as this pleasantry went on, and, at last, he +angrily accused Lord Byron of hardness of heart. "I never," said he, "met +with a person so unfeeling." This sally, though the poet had evidently +brought it upon himself, annoyed him most deeply. "Call <i>me</i> +cold-hearted—<i>me</i> insensible!" he exclaimed, with manifest emotion—"as +well might you say that glass is not brittle, which has been cast down a +precipice, and lies dashed to pieces at the foot!" +</p> +<br /><br /> +<h3>TO AUGUSTA.</h3> + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>I.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>My sister! my sweet sister! if a name</p> + <p>Dearer and purer were, it should be thine,</p> + <p>Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim</p> + <p>No tears, but tenderness to answer mine.</p> + <p>Go where I will, to me thou art the same—</p> + <p>A loved regret which I would not resign.</p> + <p>There yet are two things in my destiny—</p> + <p>A world to roam through, and a home with thee.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>II.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>The first were nothing—had I still the last,</p> + <p>It were the haven of my happiness;</p> + <p>But other claims and other ties thou hast,</p> + <p>And mine is not the wish to make them less.</p> + <p>A strange doom is thy father's son's, and part</p> + <p>Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;</p> + <p>Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore—</p> + <p>He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>III.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>If my inheritance of storms hath been</p> + <p>In other elements, and on the rocks</p> + <p>Of perils overlook'd or unforeseen,</p> + <p>I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks,</p> +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page82" + name="page82"> + </a>[pg 82] +</span> + <p>The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen</p> + <p>My errors with defensive paradox;</p> + <p>I have been cunning in mine overthrow,</p> + <p>The careful pilot of my proper woe.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>IV.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward.</p> + <p>My whole life was a contest, since the day</p> + <p>That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd</p> + <p>The gift—a fate, or will, that walk'd astray;</p> + <p>And I at times have found the struggle hard,</p> + <p>And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:</p> + <p>But now I fain would for a time survive,</p> + <p>If but to see what next can well arrive.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>V.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Kingdoms and empires in my little day</p> + <p>I have outlived, and yet I am not old;</p> + <p>And when I look on this, the petty spray</p> + <p>Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd</p> + <p>Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away:</p> + <p>Something—I know not what—does still uphold</p> + <p>A spirit of slight patience—not in vain,</p> + <p>Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>VI.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Perhaps the workings of defiance stir</p> + <p>Within me—or perhaps a cold despair,</p> + <p>Brought on when ills habitually recur—</p> + <p>Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,</p> + <p>(For even to this may change of soul refer,</p> + <p>And with light armour we may learn to bear,)</p> + <p>Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not</p> + <p>The chief companion of a calmer lot.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>VII.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>I feel almost at times as I have felt</p> + <p>In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,</p> + <p>Which do remember me of where I dwelt</p> + <p>Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,</p> + <p>Come as of yore upon me, and can melt</p> + <p>My heart with recognition of their looks:</p> + <p>And even at moments I could think I see</p> + <p>Some living thing to love—but none like thee.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>VIII.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Here are the Alpine landscapes which create</p> + <p>A fund for contemplation.—to admire</p> + <p>Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;</p> + <p>But something worthier do such scenes inspire:</p> + <p>Here to be lonely is not desolate.</p> + <p>For much I view which I could most desire,</p> + <p>And, above all, a lake I can behold</p> + <p>Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>IX.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Oh that thou wert but with me!—but I grow</p> + <p>The fool of my own wishes, and forget</p> + <p>The solitude which I have vaunted so</p> + <p>Has lost its praise in this but one regret;</p> + <p>There may be others which I less may show;—</p> + <p>I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet</p> + <p>I feel an ebb in my philosophy</p> + <p>And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>X.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>I did remind thee of our own dear lake,</p> + <p>By the old hall which may be mine no more,</p> + <p>Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake</p> + <p>The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:</p> + <p>Sad havoc Time must with my memory make</p> + <p>Ere <i>that</i> or <i>thou</i> can fade these eyes before;</p> + <p>Though, like all things which I have loved, they are</p> + <p>Resign'd for ever, or divided far.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>XI.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>The world is all before me; I but ask</p> + <p>Of nature that with which she will comply—</p> + <p>It is but in her summer sun to bask,</p> + <p>To mingle with the quiet of her sky,</p> + <p>To see her gentle fare without a mask,</p> + <p>And never gaze on it with apathy.</p> + <p>She was my early friend, and now shall be</p> + <p>My sister—till I look again on thee.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>XII.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>I can reduce all feelings but this one:</p> + <p>And that I would not;—for at length I see</p> + <p>Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.</p> + <p>The earliest—even the only paths for me—</p> + <p>Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,</p> + <p>I had been better than I now can be:</p> + <p>The passions which have torn me would have slept:</p> + <p>I had not suffered, and <i>thou</i> hadst not wept.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>XIII.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>With false ambition what had I to do?</p> + <p>Little with love, and least of all with fame;</p> + <p>And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,</p> + <p>And made me all which they can make—a name.</p> + <p>Yet this was not the end I did pursue;</p> + <p>Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.</p> + <p>But all is over—I am one the more</p> + <p>To baffled millions which have gone before.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>XIV.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>And for the future, this world's future may</p> + <p>From me demand but little of my care;</p> + <p>I have outlived myself by many a day;</p> + <p>Having survived so many things that were;</p> + <p>My years have been no slumber, but the prey</p> + <p>Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share</p> + <p>Of life that might have filled a century,</p> + <p>Before its fourth in time had passed me by.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>XV.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>And for the remnant which may be to come</p> + <p>I am content; and for the past I feel</p> + <p>Not thankless—for within the crowded sum</p> + <p>Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,</p> + <p>And for the present I would not benumb</p> + <p>My feelings farther.—Nor shall I conceal,</p> + <p>That with all this I still can look around,</p> + <p>And worship Nature with a thought profound.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>XVI.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>For thee my own sweet sister, in thy heart</p> + <p>I know myself secure, as thou in mine;</p> + <p>We were and are—I am even as thou art—</p> + <p>Beings who ne'er each other can resign;</p> + <p>It is the same, together or apart,</p> + <p>From life's commencement to its slow decline</p> + <p>We are entwined—let death come slow or fast,</p> + <p>The tie which bound the first endures the last!</p> + </div> + </div> + +<br /><br /> +<h3>AMOUR AT VENICE.</h3> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Venice, November 17, 1816.</p> + </div> + </div> +<p> +"I wrote to you from Verona the other day in my progress hither, which +letter I hope you will receive. Some three years ago, or it may be more, I +recollect you telling me that you had received a letter from our friend, +Sam, dated "On board his gondola." <i>My</i> gondola is, at this present, +waiting for me on the canal; but I prefer writing to you in the house, it +being autumn—and rather an English autumn than otherwise. It is my +intention to remain at Venice during the winter, probably, as it has +always been (next to the east) the greenest island of my imagination. It +has not disappointed me; though its evident decay would, perhaps, have +that effect upon others. But I have been familiar with ruins too long to +dislike desolation. Besides, I have fallen in love, which, next to falling +into the canal (which would be of no use, as I can swim,) is the best or +the worst thing I could do. I have got some extremely good apartments in +the house of +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page83" + name="page83"> + </a>[pg 83] +</span> + a "Merchant of Venice," who is a good deal occupied with +business, and has a wife in her twenty-second year. Marianna (that is her +name) is in her, appearance altogether like an antelope. She has the large, +black, oriental eyes, with that peculiar expression in them, which is seen +rarely among <i>Europeans</i>—even the Italians—and which many of the Turkish +women give themselves by tinging the eyelid—an art not known out of that +country, I believe. This expression she has <i>naturally</i>—and something +more than this. In short, I cannot describe the effect of this kind of +eye—at least upon me. Her features are regular, and rather aquiline—mouth +small—skin clear and soft, with a kind of hectic colour—forehead +remarkably good; her hair is of the dark gloss, curl, and colour of Lady +J——'s; her figure is light and pretty, and she is a famous +songstress—scientifically so; her natural voice (in conversation, I mean,) +is very sweet; and the <i>naiveté</i> of the Venetian dialect is always +pleasing in the mouth of a woman. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>November 23.</p> + </div> + </div> +<p> +You will perceive that my description, which was proceeding with the +minuteness of a passport, has been interrupted for several days. In the +meantime. +</p> + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>December 5.</p> + </div> + </div> +<p> +Since my former dates, I do not know that I have much to add on the +subject, and, luckily, nothing to take away; for I am more pleased than +ever with my Venetian, and begin to feel very serious on that point—so +much so, that I shall be silent. +</p> + +<p> +By way of divertisement, I am studying daily, at an Armenian monastery, +the Armenian language. I found that my mind wanted something craggy to +break upon; and this—as the most difficult thing I could discover here +for an amusement—I have chosen, to torture me into attention. It is a +rich language, however, and would amply repay any one the trouble of +learning it. I try, and shall go on;—but I answer for nothing, least of +all for my intentions or my success. There are some very curious MSS. in +the monastery, as well as books; translations also from Greek originals, +now lost, and from Persian and Syriac, &c.; besides works of their own +people. Four years ago the French instituted an Armenian professorship. +Twenty pupils presented themselves on Monday morning, full of noble ardour, +ingenuous youth, and impregnable industry. They persevered with a courage +worthy of the nation and of universal conquest, till Thursday; when +<i>fifteen</i> of the <i>twenty</i> succumbed to the six and twentieth letter of the +alphabet. It is, to be sure, a Waterloo of an Alphabet—that must be said +for them. But it is so like these fellows, to do by it as they did by +their sovereigns—abandon both; to parody the old rhymes, "Take a thing +and give a thing"—"Take a king and give a king. They are the worst of +animals, except their conquerors. +</p><p> +I hear that that H——n is your neighbour, having a living in Derbyshire. +You will find him an excellent hearted fellow, as well as one of the +cleverest; a little, perhaps, too much japanned by preferment in the +church and the tuition of youth, as well as inoculated with the disease of +domestic felicity, besides being overrun with fine feelings about women +and <i>constancy</i> (that small change of love, which people exact so rigidly, +receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal;) but, +otherwise, a very worthy man, who has lately got a pretty wife, and (I +suppose) a child by this time. Pray remember me to him, and say that I +know not which to envy most—his neighbourhood, him, or you. +</p><p> +Of Venice I shall say little. You must have seen many descriptions; and +they and they are most of them like. It is a poetical place; and classical, +to us, from Shakspeare and Otway. I have not yet sinned against it in +verse, nor do I know that I shall do so, having been tuneless since I +crossed the Alps, and feeling, as yet, no renewal of the "estro." By the +way, I suppose you have seen "Glenarvon." Madame de Staël lent it me to +read from Copet last autumn. It seems to me that, if the authoress had +written the <i>truth</i>, and nothing but the truth—the whole truth—the +romance would not only have been more <i>romantic</i>, but more entertaining. +As for the likeness, the picture can't be good—I did not sit long enough. +When you have leisure, let me hear from and of you, believing me ever and +truly yours most affectionately. +</p><p> +B. +</p><p> +P.S. Oh! <i>your Poem</i>—is it out? I hope Longman has paid his thousands; +but don't you do as H—— T——'s father did, who, having, made money by a +quarto tour, became a vinegar merchant; when, lo! his vinegar turned sweet +(and be d——d to it) and ruined him. My last letter to you (from Verona) +was inclosed to Murray—have you got it? Direct to me <i>here, poste +restante</i>. +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page84" + name="page84"> + </a>[pg 84] +</span> +There are no English here at present. There were several in +Switzerland—some women; but, except Lady Dalrymple Hamilton, most of them +as ugly as virtue—at least those that I saw." +</p> + +<br /><br /> +<h3>AT VENICE.</h3> + +<h4><i>To Mr. Moore.</i></h4> + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"Venice, December 24th, 1816.</p> + </div> + </div> + +<p> +"I have taken a fit of writing to you, which portends postage—once from +Verona—once from Venice, and again from Venice—<i>thrice</i> that is. For +this you may thank yourself, for I heard that you complained of my +silence—so here goes for garrulity. +</p><p> +"I trust that you received my other twain of letters. My 'way of life' (or +'May of life,' which is it, according to the commentators?)—my 'way of +life' is fallen into great regularity. In the mornings I go over in my +gondola to hobble Armenian with the friars of the convent of St. Lazarus, +and to help one of them in correcting the English of an English and +Armenian grammar which he is publishing. In the evenings I do one of many +nothings—either at the theatres, or some of the conversaziones, which are +like our routs, or rather worse, for the women sit in a semicircle by the +lady of the mansion, and the men stand about the room. To be sure, there +is one improvement upon ours—instead of lemonade with their ices, they +hand about stiff <i>rum-punch—punch</i>, by my palate; and this they think +<i>English</i>. I would not disabuse them of so agreeable an error—'no, not +for Venice.' +</p><p> +"Last night I was at the Count Governor's, which, of course, comprises the +best society, and is very much like other gregarious meetings in every +country—as in ours—except that, instead of the Bishop of Winchester, you +have the Patriarch of Venice; and a motley crew of Austrians, Germans, +noble Venetians, foreigners, and, if you see a quiz, you may be sure he is +a consul. Oh, by the way, I forgot, when I wrote from Verona, to tell you +that at Milan I met with a countryman of yours—a Colonel ——, a very +excellent, good-natured fellow, who knows and shows all about Milan, and +is, as it were, a native there. He is particularly civil to strangers, and +this is his history—at least an episode of it. +</p><p> +"Six-and-twenty years ago, Colonel ——, then an ensign, being in Italy, +fell in love with the Marchesa ——, and she with him. The lady must +be, at least, twenty years his senior. The war broke out; he returned to +England, to serve—not his country, for that's Ireland, but England, which +is a different thing; and <i>she</i>, heaven knows what she did. In the year +1814, the first annunciation of the definitive treaty of peace (and +tyranny) was developed to the astonished Milanese by the arrival of +Colonel ——, who flinging himself full length at the feet of Madame ——, +murmured forth, in half forgotten Irish Italian, eternal vows of indelible +constancy. The lady screamed, and exclaimed 'Who are you?' The colonel +cried, 'What, don't you know me? I am so and so,' &c. &c. &c.; till at +length, the Marchesa, mounting from reminiscence, to reminiscence, through +the lovers of the intermediate twenty-five years, arrived at last at the +recollection of her <i>povero</i> sub-lieutenant.—She then said, 'Was there +ever such virtue?' (that was her very word) and, being now a widow, gave +him apartments in her palace, reinstated him in all the rights of wrong, +and held him up to the admiring world as a miracle of incontinent fidelity, +and the unshaken Abdiel of absence. +</p><p> +"Methinks this is as pretty a moral tale as any of Marmontel's. Here is +another. The same lady, several years ago, made an escapade with a Swede, +Count Fersen (the same whom the Stockholm mob quartered and lapidated not +very long since), and they arrived at an Osteria, on the road to Rome or +thereabouts. It was a summer evening, and while they were at supper, they +were suddenly regaled by a symphony of fiddles in an adjacent apartment, +so prettily played, that, wishing to hear them more distinctly, the count +rose, and going into the musical society, said—'Gentlemen, I am sure that, +as a company of gallant cavaliers, you will be delighted to show your +skill to a lady, who feels anxious,' &c. &c. The men of harmony were all +acquiescence—every instrument was tuned and toned, and, striking up one +of their most ambrosial airs, the whole band followed the count to the +lady's apartment. At their head was the first fiddler, who, bowing and +fiddling at the same moment, headed his troop, and advanced up the room. +Death and discord!—it was the marquess himself, who was on a serenading +party in the country, while his spouse had run away from town.—The rest +may be imagined; but, first of all, the lady tried to persuade him that +she was there on purpose to meet him, and had chosen this method for an +harmonic surprise. So much for this gossip, which amused me when I heard +it, and +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page85" + name="page85"> + </a>[pg 85] +</span> +I send it to you, in the hope it may have the like effect. Now +we'll return to Venice." +</p><p> +"The day after to-morrow (to-morrow being Christmas-day) the Carnival +begins. I dine with the Countess Albrizzi and a party, and go to the opera. +On that day the Phenix (not the Insurance Office, but) the theatre of that +name opens: I have got me a box there for the season, for two reasons, one +of which is, that the music is remarkably good. The Contessa Albrizzi, of +whom I have made mention, is the De Staël of Venice—not young, but a very +learned, unaffected, good-natured woman, very polite to strangers, and, I +believe, not at all dissolute, as most of the women are. She has written +very well on the works of Canova, and also a volume of Characters, besides +other printed matter. She is of Corfu, but married a dead Venetian—that +is, dead since he married. +</p><p> +"My flame (my 'Donna,' whom I spoke of in my former epistle, my Marianna) +is still my Marianna, and I, her—what she pleases. She is by far the +prettiest woman I have seen here, and the most loveable I have met with +any where—as well as one of the most singular. I believe I told you the +rise and progress of our <i>liaison</i> in my former letter. Lest that should +not have reached you, I will merely repeat that she is a Venetian, +two-and-twenty years old, married to a merchant well to do in the world, +and that she has great black oriental eyes, and all the qualities which +her eyes promise. Whether being in love with her has steeled me or not, I +do not know; but I have not seen many other women who seem pretty. The +nobility, in particular, are a sad-looking race—the gentry rather better. +And now, what art <i>thou</i> doing? +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"What are you doing now,</p> + <p class="i2">Oh Thomas Moore?</p> + <p>What are you doing now,</p> + <p class="i2">Oh Thomas Moore?</p> + <p>Sighing or suing now,</p> + <p>Rhyming or wooing now,</p> + <p>Billing or cooing now,</p> + <p>Which, Thomas Moore?</p> + </div> +</div> + +<p> +Are you not near the Luddites? By the Lord! if there's a row, but I'll be +among ye! How go on the weavers—the breakers of frames—the Lutherans of +politics—the reformers? +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"As the Liberty lads o'er the sea</p> + <p>Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood,</p> + <p class="i10">So we, boys, we</p> + <p class="i2">Will <i>die</i> fighting, or <i>live</i> free,</p> + <p>And down with all kings but King Ludd!</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"When the web that we weave is complete,</p> + <p>And the shuttle exchanged for the sword,</p> + <p class="i4">We will fling the winding-sheet</p> + <p class="i4">O'er the despot at our feet,</p> + <p>And dye it deep in the gore he has pour'd.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"Though black as his heart its hue,</p> + <p>Since his veins are corrupted to mud,</p> + <p class="i4">Yet this is the dew</p> + <p class="i4">Which the tree shall renew</p> + <p>Of Liberty, planted by Ludd!</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +There's an amiable <i>chanson</i> for you—all impromptu. I have written it +principally to shock your neighbour ——, who is all clergy and +loyalty—mirth and innocence—milk and water. +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"But the Carnival's coming,</p> + <p class="i2">Oh Thomas Moore,</p> + <p>The Carnival's coming,</p> + <p class="i2">Oh Thomas Moore,</p> + <p>Masking and humming,</p> + <p>Fifing and drumming,</p> + <p>Guitarring and strumming,</p> + <p class="i2">Oh Thomas Moore.</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +The other night I saw a new play—and the author. The subject was the +sacrifice of Isaac. The play succeeded, and they called for the +author—according to continental custom—and he presented himself: a noble +Venetian, Mali, or Malapiero by name. Mala was his name, and <i>pessima</i> his +production—at least, I thought so, and I ought to know, having read more +or less of five hundred Drury-lane offerings, during my coadjutorship with +the sub-and-super committee. +</p><p> +"When does your Poem of Poems come out? I hear that the E.R. has cut up +Coleridge's Christabel, and declared against me for praising it. I praised +it, firstly, because I thought well of it; secondly, because Coleridge was +in great distress, and, after doing what little I could for him in +essentials, I thought that the public avowal of my good opinion might help +him further, at least with the booksellers. I am very sorry that J—— has +attacked him, because, poor fellow, it will hurt him in mind and pocket. +As for me, he's welcome,—I shall never think less of J—— for any thing +he may say against me or mine in future. +</p><p> +"I suppose Murray has sent you, or will send (for I do not know whether +they are out or no) the poem, or poesies, of mine, of last summer. By the +mass! they're sublime—'Ganion Coheriza'—gainsay who dares! Pray, let me +hear from you, and of you, and, at least, let me know that you have +received these three letters. Direct, right <i>here, poste restante</i>.—"Ever +and ever, &c." +</p> +<br /><br /> +<h3>AN EXECUTION.</h3> + +<h4><i>To Mr. Murray</i>.</h4> + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"Venice, May 30th, 1817.</p> + </div> + </div> + + +<p> +"I returned from Rome two days ago, and have received your letter; but no +sign nor tidings of the parcel sent through Sir C. Stuart, which you +mention. After an interval of months, a packet of +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page86" + name="page86"> + </a>[pg 86] +</span> +'Tales,' &c. found me at +Rome; but this is all, and may be all that ever will find me. The post +seems to be the only sure conveyance, and <i>that only for letters</i>. From +Florence I sent you a poem on Tasso, and from Rome the new Third Act of +'Manfred,' and by Dr. Polidori two portraits for my sister. I left Rome +and made a rapid journey home. You will continue to direct here as usual. +Mr. Hobhouse is gone to Naples; I should have run down there too for a +week, but for the quantity of English whom I heard of there. I prefer +hating them at a distance; unless an earthquake, or a good real irruption +of Vesuvius, were ensured to reconcile me to their vicinity. +</p> +<hr class="short" /> +<p> +"The day before I left Rome I saw three robbers guillotined. The +ceremony—including the <i>masqued</i> priests; the half-naked executioners; +the bandaged criminals; the black Christ and his banner; the scaffold; the +soldiery; the slow procession, and the quick rattle and heavy fall of the +axe; the splash of the blood, and the ghastliness of the exposed heads—is +altogether more impressive than the vulgar and ungentlemanly dirty 'new +drop,' and dog-like agony of infliction upon the sufferers of the English +sentence. Two of these men behaved calmly enough, but the first of the +three died with great terror and reluctance. What was very horrible, he +would not lie down; then his neck was too large for the aperture, and the +priest was obliged to drown his exclamations by still louder exhortations. +The head was off before the eye could trace the blow; but from an attempt +to draw back the head, notwithstanding it was held forward by the hair, +the first head was cut off close to the ears: the other two were taken off +more cleanly. It is better than the oriental way, and (I should think) +than the axe of our ancestors. The pain seems little, and yet the effect +to the spectator, and the preparation to the criminal, is very striking +and chilling. The first turned me quite hot and thirsty, and made me shake +so that I could hardly hold the opera-glass, (I was close, but was +determined to see, as one should see every thing, once, with attention;) +the second and third (which shows how dreadfully soon things grow +indifferent,) I am ashamed to say, had no effect on me as a horror, though +I would have saved them if I could. +</p><p> +"Yours, &c." +</p> +<br /><br /> +<h3>PORSON.</h3> +<p> +"I remember to have seen Porson at Cambridge, in the hall of our college, +and in private parties, but not frequently; and I never can recollect him +except as drunk or brutal, and generally both: I mean in an evening, for +in the hall, he dined at the Dean's table, and I at the Vice-master's, so +that I was not near him; and he then and there appeared sober in his +demeanour, nor did I ever hear of excess or outrage on his part in +public,—commons, college, or chapel; but I have seen him in a private +party of under-graduates, many of them freshmen and strangers, take up a +poker to one of them, and heard him use language as blackguard as his +action. I have seen Sheridan drunk, too, with all the world; but his +intoxication was that of Bacchus, and Porson's that of Silenus. Of all the +disgusting brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable, Porson was the most +bestial, as far as the few times that I saw him went which were only at +William Bankes's (the Nubian discoverer's) rooms. I saw him once go away +in a rage, because nobody knew the name of the 'Cobbler of Messina,' +insulting their ignorance with the most vulgar terms of reprobation. He +was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents, as the +Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or +rather vomit pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot; +and certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a grosser exhibition +than this man's intoxication. +</p> +<p> +"I perceive, in the book you sent me, a long account of him, which is very +savage. I cannot judge, as I never saw him sober, except in <i>hall</i> or +combination room; and then I was never near enough to hear, and hardly to +see him. Of his drunken deportment, I can be sure, because I saw it." +</p> +<br /><br /> +<h3>THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI.</h3> +<p> +It was about the time (1819) when the foregoing letter was written, and +when, 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 connexion to which +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page87" + name="page87"> + </a>[pg 87] +</span> +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 an event fortunate both for his +reputation and happiness. +</p><p> +The fair object of this last, and (with one signal exception) only <i>real</i> +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, then only +eighteen, and just emancipated from a convent, was the selected victim. +</p><p> +The first time Lord Byron had ever seen this lady was in the autumn of +1818, when she made her appearance, soon after her marriage, at the house +of the Countess Albrizzi, in all the gaiety of bridal array, and the first +delight of exchanging a convent for the world. At this time, however, no +acquaintance ensued between them;—it was not till the spring of the +present year that, at an evening party of Madame Benzoni's, they were +introduced to each other. The love that sprung out of this meeting was +instantaneous and mutual,—though with the usual disproportion of +sacrifice between the parties; such an event being, to the man, but one of +the many scenes of life, while, with woman, it generally constitutes the +whole drama. The young Italian found herself suddenly inspired with a +passion, of which, till that moment, her mind could not have formed the +least idea;—she had thought of love but as an amusement, and now became +its slave. If at the outset, too, less slow to be won than an Englishwoman, +no sooner did she begin to understand the full despotism of the passion +than her heart shrunk from it as something terrible, and she would have +escaped, but that the chain was already around her. +</p><p> +No words, however, can describe so simply and feelingly as her own, the +strong impression which their first meeting left upon her mind:— +</p><p> +"I became acquainted," says Madame Guiccioli, "with Lord Byron in the +April of 1819:—he was introduced to me at Venice, by the Countess Benzoni, +at one of that lady's parties. This introduction, which had so much +influence over the lives of us both, took place contrary to our wishes, +and had been permitted by us only from courtesy. For myself, more fatigued +than usual that evening on account of the late hours they keep at Venice, +I went with great repugnance to this party, and purely in obedience to +Count Guiccioli. Lord Byron, too, who was averse to forming new +acquaintances,—alleging that he had entirely renounced all attachments, +and was unwilling any more to expose himself to their consequences,—on +being requested by the Countess Benzoni to allow himself to be presented +to me, refused, and, at last, only assented from a desire to oblige her. +</p><p> +"His noble and exquisitely beautiful countenance, the tone of his voice, +his manners, the thousand enchantments that surrounded him, rendered him +so different and so superior a being to any whom I had hitherto seen, that +it was impossible he should not have left the most profound impression +upon me. From that evening, during the whole of my subsequent stay at +Venice, we met every day." +</p> +<hr class="short" /> +<p> +About the middle of April, Madame Guiccioli had been obliged to quit +Venice with her husband. Having several houses on the road from Venice to +Ravenna, it was his habit to stop at these mansions, one after the other, +in his journeys between the two cities; and from all these places the +enamoured young Countess now wrote to her lover, expressing, in the most +passionate and pathetic terms, her despair at leaving him. So utterly, +indeed, did this feeling overpower her, that three times, in the course of +her first day's journey, she was seized with fainting-fits. In one of her +letters, which I saw when at Venice, dated, if I recollect right, from "Cà +Zen, Cavanella di Po," she tells him that the solitude of this place, +which she had before found irksome, was, now that one sole idea occupied +her mind, become dear and welcome to her, and promises that, as soon as +she arrives at Ravenna, "she will, according to his wish, avoid all +general society, and devote herself to reading, music, domestic +occupations, riding on horseback,—every thing, in short, that she knew he +would +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page88" + name="page88"> + </a>[pg 88] +</span> +most like." What a change for a young and simple girl, who, but a +few weeks before, had thought only of society and the world, but who now +saw no other happiness but in the hope of becoming worthy, by seclusion +and self-instruction, of the illustrious object of her love! +</p><p> +On leaving this place, she was attacked with a dangerous illness on the +road, and arrived half dead at Ravenna; nor was it found possible to +revive or comfort her till an assurance was received from Lord Byron, +expressed with all the fervour of real passion, that, in the course of the +ensuing month, he would pay her a visit. Symptoms of consumption, brought +on by her state of mind, had already shown themselves; and, in addition to +the pain which this separation had caused her, she was also suffering much +grief from the loss of her mother, who, at this time, died in giving birth +to her twentieth child. Towards the latter end of May she wrote to +acquaint Lord Byron that, having prepared all her relatives and friends to +expect him, he might now, she thought, venture to make his appearance at +Ravenna. Though, on the lady's account, hesitating as to the prudence of +such a step, he, in obedience to her wishes, on the 2nd of June, set out +from La Mira (at which place he had again taken a villa for the summer), +and proceeded towards Romagna. +</p><p> +While he was 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 lover; 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." +</p><p> +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:— +</p><p> +On my departure from Venice, he had promised to come and see me at Ravenna. +Dante's tomb, the classical pine wood, 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 inquiries 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 the +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. +</p> +<hr class="short" /> +<p> +In the separation that had now taken place (1820) between Count Guiccioli +and his wife, it was one of the conditions that the lady should, in future, +reside under the paternal roof:—in consequence of which, Madame Guiccioli, +on the 16th of July, left Ravenna and +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page89" + name="page89"> + </a>[pg 89] +</span> +retired to a villa belonging to +Count Gamba, about fifteen miles distant from that city. Here Lord Byron +occasionally visited her—about once or twice, perhaps, in the +month—passing the rest of his time in perfect solitude. To a mind like +his, whose world was within itself, such a mode of life could have been +neither new nor unwelcome; but to the woman, young and admired, whose +acquaintance with the world and its pleasures had but just begun, this +change was, it must be confessed, most sudden and trying. Count Guiccioli +was rich, and, as a young wife, she had gained absolute power over him. +She was proud, and his station placed her among the highest in Ravenna. +They had talked of travelling to Naples, Florence, Paris,—and every +luxury, in short, that wealth could command was at her disposal. +</p><p> +All this she now voluntarily and determinedly sacrificed for Byron. Her +splendid home abandoned—her relations all openly at war with her—her +kind father but tolerating, from fondness, what he could not approve—she +was now, upon a pittance of 200<i>l</i>. a year, living apart from the world, +her sole occupation the task of educating herself for her illustrious +lover, and her sole reward the few brief glimpses of him which their now +restricted intercourse allowed. Of the man who could inspire and keep +alive so devoted a feeling, it may be pronounced with confidence that he +could <i>not</i> have been such as, in the freaks of his own wayward humour, he +represented himself; while, on the lady's side, the whole history of her +attachment goes to prove how completely an Italian woman, whether by +nature or from her social position, is led to invert the usual course of +such frailties among ourselves, and, weak in resisting the first impulses +of passion, to reserve the whole strength of her character for a display +of constancy and devotedness afterwards. +</p> + + +<br /><br /> +<h3>MEETING OF LORD BYRON AND MR. MOORE AT VENICE.</h3> + +<p> +It was my good fortune, at this period, (1819) in the course of a short +and hasty tour through the north of Italy, to pass five or six days with +Lord Byron at Venice. I had written to him on my way thither to announce +my coming, and to say how happy it would make me could I tempt him to +accompany me as far as Rome. +</p><p> +Having parted, at Milan, with Lord John Russell, whom I had accompanied +from England, and whom I was to rejoin, after a short visit to Rome, at +Genoa, I made purchase of a small and (as it soon proved) crazy travelling +carriage, and proceeded alone on my way to Venice. My time being limited, +I stopped no longer at the intervening places than was sufficient to hurry +over their respective wonders, and, leaving Padua at noon on the 8th of +October, I found myself, about two o'clock, at the door of my friend's +villa, at La Mira. He was but just up, and in his bath; but the servant +having announced my arrival, he returned a message that, if I would wait +till he was dressed, he would accompany me to Venice. The interval I +employed in conversing with my old acquaintance, Fletcher, and in viewing, +under his guidance, some of the apartments of the villa. +</p><p> +It was not long before Lord Byron himself made his appearance, and the +delight I felt in meeting him once more, after a separation of so many +years, was not a little heightened by observing that his pleasure was, to +the full, as great, while it was rendered doubly touching by the evident +rarity of such meetings to him of late, and the frank outbreak of +cordiality and gaiety with which he gave way to his feelings. It would be +impossible, indeed, to convey to those who have not, at some time or other, +felt the charm of his manner, any idea of what it could be when under the +influence of such pleasurable excitement as it was most flatteringly +evident he experienced at this moment. +</p><p> +I was a good deal struck, however, by the alteration that had taken place +in his personal appearance. He had grown fatter both in person and face, +and the latter had most suffered by the change, having lost, by the +enlargement of the features, some of that refined and spiritualized look +that had, in other times, distinguished it. The addition of whiskers, too, +which he had not long before been induced to adopt, from hearing that some +one had said he had a "faccia di musico," as well as the length to which +his hair grew down on his neck, and the rather foreign air of his coat and +cap,—all combined to produce that dissimilarity to his former self I had +observed in him. He was still, however, eminently handsome; and, in +exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high, romantic +character, they had become more fitted for the expression of that arch, +waggish wisdom, that Epicurean play of humour, which he had shown to be +equally inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while, by +the somewhat increased roundness of the +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page90" + name="page90"> + </a>[pg 90] +</span> +contours, the resemblance of his +finely formed mouth and chin to those of the Belvedere Apollo had become +still more striking. +</p><p> +His breakfast, which I found he rarely took before three or four o'clock +in the afternoon, was speedily despatched,—his habit being to eat it +standing, and the meal in general consisting of one or two raw eggs, a cup +of tea without either milk or sugar, and a bit of dry biscuit. Before we +took our departure, he presented me to the Countess Guiccioli, who was at +this time living under the same roof with him at La Mira; and who, with a +style of beauty singular in an Italian, as being fair-complexioned and +delicate, left an impression upon my mind, during this our first short +interview, of intelligence and amiableness such as all that I have since +known or heard of her has but served to confirm. +</p><p> +We now started together, Lord Byron and myself, in my little Milanese +vehicle, for Fusina,—his portly gondolier Tita, in a rich livery and most +redundant mustachios, having seated himself on the front of the carriage, +to the no small trial of its strength, which had already once given way, +even under my own weight, between Verona and Vicenza. On our arrival at +Fusina, my noble friend, from his familiarity with all the details of the +place, had it in his power to save me both trouble and expense in the +different arrangements relative to the custom-house, remise, &c. and the +good-natured assiduity with which he bustled about in despatching these +matters gave me an opportunity of observing, in his use of the infirm limb, +a much greater degree of activity than I had ever before, except in +sparring, witnessed. +</p><p> +As we proceeded across the Lagoon in his gondola, the sun was just setting, +and it was an evening such as Romance would have chosen for a first sight +of Venice, rising "with her tiara of bright towers" above the wave; while +to complete, as might be imagined, the solemn interest of the scene, I +beheld it in company with him who had lately given a new life to its +glories, and sung of that fair City of the Sea thus grandly: +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs;</p> + <p>A palace and a prison on each hand:</p> + <p>I saw from out the wave her structures rise</p> + <p>As from the stroke of the enchanters wand:</p> + <p>A thousand years their cloudy wings expand</p> + <p>Around me, and a dying glory smiles</p> + <p>O'er the far times, when many a subject land</p> + <p>Look'd to the winged lion's marble piles,</p> + <p>Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles."</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +But whatever emotions the first sight of such a scene might, under other +circumstances, have inspired me with, the mood of mind in which I now +viewed it was altogether the very reverse of what might have been expected. +The exuberant gaiety of my companion, and the recollections,—any thing +but romantic,—into which our conversation wandered, put at once +completely to flight all poetical and historical associations; and our +course was, I am almost ashamed to say, one of uninterrupted merriment and +laughter till we found ourselves at the steps of my friend's palazzo on +the Grand Canal. All that had ever happened, of gay or ridiculous, during +our London life together,—his scrapes and my lecturings,—our joint +adventures with the Bores and Blues, the two great enemies, as he always +called them, of London happiness,—our joyous nights together at Watier's, +Kinnaird's, &c. and "that d—d supper of Rancliffe's which <i>ought</i> to have +been a dinner,"—all was passed rapidly in review between us, and with a +flow of humour and hilarity, on his side, of which it would have been +difficult, even for persons far graver than I can pretend to be, not to +have caught the contagion. +</p> + <br /><br /> +<h3>LORD BYRON'S PARSIMONY.</h3> + +<p> +It is, indeed, certain, that he had at this time (1819) taken up the whim +(for it hardly deserves a more serious name) of minute and constant +watchfulness over his expenditure; and, as most usually happens, it was +with the increase of his means that this increased sense of the value of +money came. The first symptom I saw of this new fancy of his was the +exceeding joy which he manifested on my presenting to him a rouleau of +twenty Napoleons, which Lord K——d, to whom he had, on some occasion, +lent that sum, had entrusted me with, at Milan, to deliver into his hands. +With the most joyous and diverting eagerness, he tore open the paper, and, +in counting over the sum, stopped frequently to congratulate himself on +the recovery of it. +</p><p> +Of his household frugalities I speak but on the authority of others; but +it is not difficult to conceive that, with a restless spirit like his, +which delighted always in having something to contend with, and which, but +a short time before, "for want," as he said, "of something craggy to break +upon," had tortured itself with the study of the Armenian language, he +should, in default of all better excitement, find a sort of stir and +amusement in the task of contesting, inch by inch, every encroachment of +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page91" + name="page91"> + </a>[pg 91] +</span> +expense, and endeavouring to suppress what he himself calls +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i8">"That climax of all earthly ills,</p> + <p>The inflammation of our weekly bills."</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +In truth, his constant recurrence to the praise of avarice in Don Juan, +and the humorous zest with which he delights to dwell on it, shows how +new-fangled, as well as far from serious, was his adoption of this "good +old-gentlemanly vice." In the same spirit he had, a short time before my +arrival at Venice, established a hoarding-box, with a slit in the lid, +into which he occasionally put sequins, and, at stated periods, opened it +to contemplate his treasures. His own ascetic style of living enabled him, +as far as himself was concerned, to gratify this taste for enonomy in no +ordinary degree,—his daily bill of fare, when the Margarita was his +companion, consisting, I have been assured, of but four beccafichi of +which the Fornarina eat three leaving even him hungry. +</p> +<br /><br /> +<h3>HIS MEMOIRS.</h3> +<p> +(1819)—A short time before dinner he left the room, and in a minute or +two returned, carrying in his hand a white leather bag. "Look here," he +said, holding it up,—"this would be worth something to Murray, though +<i>you</i>, I dare say, would not give sixpence for it." "What is it?" I +asked.—"My Life and Adventures," he answered. On hearing this, I raised +my hands in a gesture of wonder. "It is not a thing," he continued, "that +can be published during my lifetime, but you may have it if you +like—there, do whatever you please with it." In taking the bag, and +thanking him most warmly, I added, "This will make a nice legacy for my +little Tom, who shall astonish the latter days of the nineteenth century +with it." He then added, "You may show it to any of our friends you may +think worthy of it:"—and this is nearly word for word, the whole of what +passed between us on the subject. +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p><i>To Mr. Moore.</i></p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"January 2nd, 1820.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"My Dear Moore,</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i2">"'To-day it is my wedding-day,</p> + <p class="i4">And all the folks would stare</p> + <p class="i2">If wife should dine at Edmonton,</p> + <p class="i4">And I should dine at Ware.'</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Or <i>thus</i>—</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i2">"Here's a happy new year! but with reason</p> + <p class="i4">I beg you'll permit me to say—</p> + <p class="i2">Wish me <i>many</i> returns of the <i>season</i>,</p> + <p class="i4">But as <i>few</i> as you please of the <i>day</i>.</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +"My this present writing is to direct you that, <i>if she chooses</i>, she may +see the MS. Memoir in your possession. I wish her to have fair play, in +all cases, even though it will not be published till after my decease. For +this purpose, it were but just that Lady B. should know what is their said +of her and hers, that she may have full power to remark on or respond to +any part or parts, as may seem fitting to herself. This is fair dealing, I +presume, in all events. +</p> +<p> +"To change the subject, are you in England? I send you an epitaph for +Castlereagh. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +Another for Pitt— +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"With death doom'd to grapple</p> + <p class="i2">Beneath this cold slab, he</p> + <p>Who lied in the Chapel</p> + <p class="i2">Now lies in the Abbey.</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +"The gods seem to have made me poetical this day— +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"In digging up your bones, Tom Paine,</p> + <p class="i2">Will. Cobbett has done well:</p> + <p>You visit him on earth again,</p> + <p class="i2">He'll visit you in hell.</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +Or— +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"You come to him on earth again,</p> + <p class="i2">He'll go with you to hell.</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +"Pray let not these versiculi go forth with <i>my</i> name, except among the +initiated, because my friend H. has foamed into a reformer, and, I greatly +fear, will subside into Newgate; since the Honourable House, according to +Galignani's Reports of Parliamentary Debates, are menacing a prosecution +to a pamphlet of his. I shall be very sorry to hear of any thing but good +for him, particularly in these miserable squabbles; but these are the +natural effects of taking a part in them." +</p> +<br /><br /> +<h3>SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.</h3> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"Ravenna, May 8, 1820.</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +"Sir Humphry Davy was here last fortnight, and I was in his company in the +house of a very pretty Italian lady of rank, who, by way of displaying her +learning in presence of the great chemist, then describing his fourteenth +ascension of Mount Vesuvius, asked 'if there was not a similar volcano in +<i>Ireland</i>?' My only notion of an Irish volcano consisted of the lake of +Killarney, which I naturally conceived her to mean; but on second thoughts +I divined that she alluded to <i>Ice</i>land and to Hecla—and so it proved, +though she sustained her volcanic topography for some time with all the +amiable pertinacity of 'the feminie.' She soon after turned to me, and +asked me various questions about Sir Humphry's philosophy, and I explained +as well as an oracle his skill in gasen safety lamps, and ungluing the +Pompeian MSS. 'But what do you call him?' said she. 'A great chemist,' +quoth I. 'What can he +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page92" + name="page92"> + </a>[pg 92] +</span> + do?' repeated the lady 'Almost any thing,' said I. +'Oh, then, mio caro, do pray beg him to give me something to dye my +eyebrows black. I have tried a thousand things, and the colours all come +off; and besides, they don't grow. Can't he invent something to make them +grow?' All this with the greatest earnestness; and what you will be +surprised at, she is neither ignorant nor a fool, but really well educated +and clever. But they speak like children, when first out of their convents; +and, after all, this is better than an English bluestocking." +</p> +<br /><br /> +<h3>POPE—AND OTHER MATTERS.</h3> + +<h4><i>To Mr. Moore.</i></h4> + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"Ravenna, July 5th, 1821.</p> + </div> +</div> + +<p> +"How could you suppose that I ever would allow any thing that <i>could</i> be +said on your account to weigh with <i>me</i>? I only regret that Bowles had not +<i>said</i> that you were the writer of that note until afterwards, when out he +comes with it, in a private letter to Murray, which Murray sends to me. +D—n the controversy! +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i14">"D—m Twizzle,</p> + <p class="i14">D—n the bell,</p> + <p>And d—n the fool who rung it—Well!</p> + <p>From all such plagues I'll quickly be deliver'd.</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +"I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England (I never saw +her) who says she is given over of a decline, but could not go out of the +world without thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several years, +&c. &c. &c. It is signed simply N.N.A., and has not a word of 'cant' or +preachment in it upon <i>any</i> opinions. She merely says that she is dying, +and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she +thought that she might say so, begging me to <i>burn</i> her <i>letter</i>—which, +by the way, I can <i>not</i> do, as I look upon such a letter, in such +circumstances, as better than a diploma from Gottingen. I once had a +letter from Drontheim, in <i>Norway</i> (but not from a dying woman) in verse, +on the same score of gratulation. These are the things which make one at +times believe oneself a poet. But if I must believe that ——, and +such fellows, are poets, also, it is better to be out of the corps. +</p> +<p> +"I am now in the fifth act of 'Foscari,' being the third tragedy in twelve +months, besides <i>proses</i>; so you perceive that I am not at all idle. And +are you, too, busy? I doubt that your life at Paris draws too much upon +your time, which is a pity. Can't you divide your day, so as to combine +both? I have had plenty of all sorts of worldly business on my hands last +year—and yet it is not so difficult to give a few hours to the <i>Muses</i>. +This sentence is so like —— that—<br /> + "Ever, &c." +</p> + +<br /><br /> +<h3>FROM "DETACHED THOUGHTS."</h3> +<p> +"What a strange thing is life and man! Were I to present myself at the +door of the house where my daughter now is, the door would be shut in my +face—unless (as is not impossible) I knocked down the porter; and if I +had gone in that year (and perhaps now) to Drontheim (the furthest town in +Norway), or into Holstein, I should have been received with open arms into +the mansion of strangers and foreigners, attached to me by no tie but by +that of mind and rumour. +</p><p> +"As far as <i>fame</i> goes, I have had my share: it has indeed been leavened +by other human contingencies, and this in a greater degree than has +occurred to most literary men of a decent rank of life; but, on the whole, +I take it that such equipoise is the condition of humanity." +</p><p> +"A young American, named Coolidge, called on me not many months ago. He +was intelligent, very handsome, and not more than twenty years old, +according to appearances; a little romantic, but that sits well upon youth, +and mighty fond of poesy, as may be suspected from his approaching me in +my cavern. He brought me a message from an old servant of my family (Joe +Murray), and told me that <i>he</i> (Mr. Coolidge) had obtained a copy of my +bust from Thorwaldsen, at Rome, to send to America. I confess I was more +flattered by this young enthusiasm of a solitary Trans-Atlantic traveller, +than if they had decreed me a statue in the Paris Pantheon (I have seen +emperors and demagogues cast down from their pedestals even in my own time, +and Grattan's name razed from the street called after him in Dublin); I +say that I was more flattered by it, because it was <i>single, unpolitical</i>, +and was without motive or ostentation—the pure and warm feeling of a boy +for the poet he admired. It must have been expensive, though;—<i>I</i> would +not pay the price of a Thorwaldsen bust for any human head and shoulders, +except Napoleon's, or my children's, or some '<i>absurd womankind's</i>,' as +Monkbarn's calls them—or my sister's. If asked <i>why</i>, then, I sate for my +own?—Answer, that it was at the particular request of J.C. Hobhouse, Esq., +and for no one else. A <i>picture</i> is a different matter;—every body sits +for their picture;—but a bust looks like putting up pretensions +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page93" + name="page93"> + </a>[pg 93] +</span> +to +permanency, and smacks something of a hankering for public fame rather +than private remembrance. +</p><p> +"Whenever an American requests to see me (which is not unfrequently) I +comply, firstly, because I respect a people who acquired their freedom by +their firmness without excess; and, secondly, because these Trans-Atlantic +visits, 'few and-far between' make me feel as if talking with posterity +from the other side of the Styx. In a century or two, the new English and +Spanish Atlantides will be masters of the old countries, in all +probability, as Greece and Europe overcame their mother Asia in the older +or earlier ages, as they are called." +</p> +<br /><br /> +<h3>EXTRACT FROM A DIARY OF LORD BYRON, 1821.</h3> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"Ravenna, January 12th, 1821.</p> + </div> +</div> + + +<p> +"I have found out the seal cut on Murray's letter. It is meant for Walter +Scott—or <i>Sir</i> Walter—he is the first poet knighted since Sir Richard +Blackmore. But it does not do him justice. Scott's—particularly when he +recites—is a very intelligent countenance, and this seal says nothing. +</p><p> +"Scott is certainly the most wonderful writer of the day. His novels are a +new literature in themselves, and his poetry as good as any—if not better +(only on an erroneous system)—and only ceased to be so popular, because +the vulgar learned were tired of hearing 'Aristides called the Just,' and +Scott the Best, and ostracised him. +</p><p> +"I like him, too, for his manliness of character, for the extreme +pleasantness of his conversation, and his good-nature towards myself, +personally. May he prosper!—for he deserves it. I know no reading to +which I fall with such alacrity as a work of W. Scott's. I shall give the +seal, with his bust on it, to Madame la Contesse G. this evening, who will +be curious to have the effigies of a man so celebrated. +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"January 20th, 1821.</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +"To-morrow is my birthday—that is to say, at twelve o' the clock, +midnight, i.e. in twelve minutes, I shall have completed thirty and three +years of age!!!—and I go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having +lived so long, and to so little purpose. +</p><p> +"It is three minutes past twelve.—''Tis the middle of night by the castle +clock, and I am now thirty-three! +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>'Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume,</p> + <p>Labuntur anni;—'</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I might +have done. +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"Through life's road, so dim and dirty,</p> + <p>I have dragg'd to three-and-thirty.</p> + <p>What have these years left to me?</p> + <p>Nothing—except thirty-three.</p> + </div> +</div> +<hr class="short" /> +<br /><br /> + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"January 22nd, 1821.</p> + </div> +</div> + + +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <center> 1821.<br /> + Here lies<br /> + interred in the Eternity<br /> + of the Past,<br /> + from whence there is no<br /> + Resurrection<br /> + for the Days—whatever there may be<br /> + for the Dust—<br /> + the Thirty-Third Year<br /> + of an ill-spent Life,<br /> + Which, after<br /> + a lingering disease of many months,<br /> + sunk into a lethargy,<br /> + and expired,<br /> + January 22nd, 1821, A.D.<br /> + Leaving a successor<br /> + Inconsolable<br /> + for the very loss which<br /> + occasioned its<br /> + Existence."<br /> + </center> + </div> +</div> + +<br /><br /> +<h3>LORD CLARE.</h3> +<p> +On the road to Bologna he had met with his early and dearest friend, Lord +Clare, and the following description of their short interview is given in +his "Detached Thoughts." +</p> +<div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>"Pisa, November 5th, 1821.</p> + </div> +</div> +<p> +"'There is a strange coincidence sometimes in the little things of this +world, Sancho,' says Sterne in a letter (if I mistake not,) and so I have +often found it. +</p><p> +"Page 128, article 91, of this collection, I had alluded to my friend Lord +Clare in terms such as my feelings suggested. About a week or two +afterwards, I met him on the road between Imola and Bologna, after not +having met for seven or eight years. He was abroad in 1814, and came home +just as I set out in 1816. +</p><p> +"This meeting annihilated for a moment all the years between the present +time and the days of <i>Harrow</i>. It was a new and inexplicable feeling, like +rising from the grave, to me. Clare too was much agitated—more in +<i>appearance</i> than myself; for I could feel his heart beat to his fingers' +ends, unless, indeed, it was the pulse of my own which made me think so. +He told me that I should find a note from him left at Bologna. I did. We +were obliged to part for our different journeys, he for Rome, I for Pisa, +but with the promise to meet again in spring. We were but five minutes +together, and on the public road; but I hardly recollect an hour of my +existence which could be weighed against them. He had heard that I was +coming on, and had left his letter for me at Bologna, because the people +with whom he was travelling could not wait longer. +</p><p> +"Of all I have ever known, he has always been the least altered in every +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page94" + name="page94"> + </a>[pg 94] +</span> +thing from the excellent qualities and kind affections which attached me +to him so strongly at school. I should hardly have thought it possible for +society (or the world, as it is called) to leave a being with so little of +the leaven of bad passions. +</p><p> +"I do not speak from personal experience only, but from all I have ever +heard of him from others, during absence and distance." +</p><p> +On the subject of intimacies formed by Lord Byron, not only at the period +of which we are speaking, but throughout his whole life, it would be +difficult to advance any thing more judicious, or more demonstrative of a +true knowledge of his character, than is to be found in the following +remarks of one who had studied him with her whole heart, who had learned +to regard him with the eyes of good sense, as well as of affection, and +whose strong love, in short, was founded upon a basis the most creditable +both to him and herself,—the being able to understand him.<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><sup><a href="#footnote1">1</a></sup> +</p><p> +"We continued in Pisa even more rigorously to absent ourselves from +society. However, as there were a good many English in Pisa, he could not +avoid becoming acquainted with various friends of Shelley, among which +number was Mr. Medwin. They followed him in his rides, dined with him, and +felt themselves happy, of course, in the apparent intimacy in which they +lived with so renowned a man; but not one of them was admitted to any part +of his friendship, which, indeed, he did not easily accord. He had a great +affection for Shelley, and a great esteem for his character and talents; +but he was not his friend in the most extensive sense of that word. +Sometimes, when speaking of his friends and of friendship, as also of love, +and of every other noble emotion of the soul, his expressions might +inspire doubts concerning his sentiments and the goodness of his heart. +The feeling of the moment regulated his speech, and besides, he liked to +play the part of singularity,—and sometimes worse, more especially with +those whom he suspected of endeavouring to make discoveries as to his real +character; but it was only mean minds and superficial observers that could +be deceived in him. It was necessary to consider his actions to perceive +the contradiction they bore to his words: it was necessary to be witness +of certain moments, during which unforeseen and involuntary emotion forced +him to give himself entirely up to his feelings; and whoever beheld him +then, became aware of the stores of sensibility and goodness of which his +noble heart was full. +</p><p> +"Among the many occasions I had of seeing him thus overpowered, I shall +mention one relative to his feelings of friendship. A few days before +leaving Pisa, we were one evening seated in the garden of the Palazzo +Lanfranchi. A soft melancholy was spread over his countenance;—he +recalled to mind the events of his life; compared them with his present +situation and with that which it might have been if his affection for me +had not caused him to remain in Italy, saying things which would have made +earth a paradise for me, but that even then a presentiment that I should +lose all this happiness tormented me. At this moment a servant announced +Mr. Hobhouse. The slight shade of melancholy diffused over Lord Byron's +face gave instant place to the liveliest joy; but it was so great, that it +almost deprived him of strength. A fearful paleness came over his cheeks, +and his eyes were filled with tears as he embraced his friend. His emotion +was so great that he was forced to sit down. +</p><p> +"Lord Clare's visit also occasioned him extreme delight. He had a great +affection for Lord Clare, and was very happy during the short visit that +he paid him at Leghorn. The day on which they separated was a melancholy +one for Lord Byron. 'I have a presentiment that I shall never see him +more,' he said, and his eyes filled with tears. The same melancholy came +over him during the first weeks that succeeded to Lord Clare's departure, +whenever his conversation happened to fall upon this friend." +</p><p> +Of his feelings on the death of his daughter Allegra, this lady gives the +following account:—"On the occasion also of the death of his natural +daughter, I saw in his grief the excess of paternal tenderness. His +conduct towards this child was always that of a fond father; but no one +would have guessed from his expressions that he felt this affection for +her. He was dreadfully agitated by the first intelligence of her illness; +and when afterwards that of her death arrived, I was obliged to fulfil the +melancholy task of communicating it to him. The memory of that frightful +moment is stamped indelibly on my mind. For several evenings he had not +left his +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page95" + name="page95"> + </a>[pg 95] +</span> + house, I therefore went to him. His first question was relative +to the courier he had despatched for tidings of his daughter, and whose +delay disquieted him. After a short interval of suspense, with every +caution which my own sorrow suggested, I deprived him of all hope of the +child's recovery. 'I understand,' said he,—'it is enough, say no more.' A +mortal paleness spread itself over his face, his strength failed him, and +he sunk into a seat. His look was fixed, and the expression such that I +began to fear for his reason; he did not shed a tear, and his countenance +manifested so hopeless, so profound, so sublime a sorrow, that at the +moment he appeared a being of a nature superior to humanity. He remained +immovable in the same attitude for an hour, and no consolation which I +endeavoured to afford him seemed to reach his ears, far less his heart. +But enough of this sad episode, on which I cannot linger, even after the +lapse of so many years, without renewing in my own heart the awful +wretchedness of that day. He desired to be left alone, and I was obliged +to leave him. I found him on the following morning tranquillized, and with +an expression of religious resignation on his features. 'She is more +fortunate than we are,' he said; 'besides her position in the world would +scarcely have allowed her to be happy. It is God's will—let us mention it +no more.' And from that day he would never pronounce her name; but became +more anxious when he spoke of Ada,—so much so as to disquiet himself when +the usual accounts sent him were for a post or two delayed." +</p><p> +The melancholy death of poor Shelley, which happened, as we have seen, +also during this period, seems to have affected Lord Byron's mind less +with grief for the actual loss of his friend than with bitter indignation +against those who had, through life, so grossly misrepresented him; and +never certainly was there an instance where the supposed absence of all +religion in an individual was assumed so eagerly as an excuse for the +entire absence of truth and charity in judging him. Though never +personally acquainted with Mr. Shelley, I can join freely with those who +most loved him in admiring the various excellencies of his heart and +genius, and lamenting the too early doom that robbed us of the mature +fruits of both. His short life had been, like his poetry, a sort of bright, +erroneous dream,—false in the general principles on which it proceeded, +though beautiful and attaching in most of the details. Had full time been +allowed for the "over-light" of his imagination to have been tempered down +by the judgment which, in him, was still in reserve, the world at large +would have been taught to pay that high homage to his genius which those +only who saw what he was capable of can now be expected to accord to it. +</p><p> +It was about this time that Mr. Cowell, paying a visit to Lord Byron at +Genoa, was told by him that some friends of Mr. Shelley, sitting together +one evening, had seen that gentleman, distinctly, as they thought, walk, +into a little wood at Lerici, when at the same moment, as they afterwards +discovered, he was far away, in quite a different direction. "This," added +Lord Byron, in a low, awe-struck tone of voice, "was but ten days before +poor Shelley died." +</p> +<br /><br /> +<h3>HIS SERVICE IN THE GREEK CAUSE.</h3> + +<p> +With that thanklessness which too often waits on disinterested actions, it +has been some times tauntingly remarked, and in quarters from whence a +more generous judgment might be expected, that, after all, Lord Byron +effected but little for Greece: as if much <i>could</i> be effected by a single +individual, and in so short a time, for a cause which, fought as it has +been almost incessantly through the six years since his death, has +required nothing less than the intervention of all the great powers of +Europe to give it a chance of success, and, even so, has not yet succeeded. +That Byron himself was under no delusion, as to the importance of his own +solitary aid—that he knew, in a struggle like this, there must be the +same prodigality of means towards one great end as is observable in the +still grander operations of nature, where individuals are as nothing in +the tide of events—that such was his, at once, philosophic and melancholy +view of his own sacrifices, I have, I trust, clearly shown. But that, +during this short period of action, he did not do well and wisely all that +man could achieve in the time, and under the circumstances, is an +assertion which the noble facts here recorded fully and triumphantly +disprove. He knew that, placed as he was, his measures, to be wise, must +be prospective, and from the nature of the seeds thus sown by him, the +benefits that were to be expected must be judged. To reconcile the rude +chiefs to the government and to each other;—to infuse a spirit of +humanity, by his example, into their warfare;—to prepare the way for the +employment of the +<span class="pagenum"> + <a id="page96" + name="page96"> + </a>[pg 96] +</span> +expected loan, in a manner most calculated to call forth +the resources of the country—to put the fortifications of Missolonghi in +such a state of repair as might, and eventually <i>did</i>, render it proof +against the besieger;—to prevent those infractions of neutrality, so +tempting to the Greeks, which brought their government in collision with +the Ionian authorities, and to restrain all such license of the press as +might indispose the courts of Europe to their cause:—such were the +important objects which he had proposed to himself to accomplish, and +towards which, in this brief interval, and in the midst of such +dissensions and hindrances, he had already made considerable and most +promising progress. But it would be unjust to close even here the bright +catalogue of his services. It is, after all, <i>not</i> with the span of mortal +life that the good achieved by a name immortal ends. The charm acts into +the future—it is an auxiliary through all time; and the inspiring example +of Byron, as a martyr of liberty, is for ever freshly embalmed in his +glory as a poet. +</p> +<br /><br /> +<h3>HIS PORTRAIT.</h3> +<p> +Of his face, the beauty may be pronounced to have been of the highest +order, as combining at once regularity of features with the most varied +and interesting expression. +</p><p> +The same facility, indeed, of change observable in the movements of his +mind was seen also in the free play of his features, as the passing +thoughts within darkened or shone through them. His eyes, though of a +light grey, were capable of all extremes of expression, from the most +joyous hilarity to the deepest sadness—from the very sunshine of +benevolence to the most concentrated scorn or rage. Of this latter passion, +I had once an opportunity of seeing what fiery interpreters they could be, +on my telling him, thoughtlessly enough, that a friend of mine had said to +me—"Beware of Lord Byron, he will, some day or other, do something very +wicked." "Was it man or woman said so?" he exclaimed, suddenly turning +round upon me with a look of such intense anger as, though it lasted not +an instant, could not easily be forgot, and of which no better idea can be +given than in the words of one who, speaking of Chatterton's eyes, says +that "fire rolled at the bottom of them." +</p><p> +But it was in the mouth and chin that the great beauty, as well as +expression of his fine countenance lay. "Many pictures have been painted +of him (says a fair critic of his features) with various success; but the +excessive beauty of his lips escaped every painter and sculptor. In their +ceaseless play they represented every emotion, whether pale with anger, +curled in disdain, smiling in triumph, or dimpled with archness and love." +It would be injustice to the reader not to borrow from the same pencil a +few more touches of portraiture. "This extreme facility of expression was +sometimes painful, for I have seen him look absolutely ugly—I have seen +him look so hard and cold, that you must hate him, and then, in a moment, +brighter than the sun, with such playful softness in his look, such +affectionate eagerness kindling in his eyes, and dimpling his lips into +something more sweet than a smile, that you forget the man, the Lord Byron, +in the picture of beauty presented to you, and gazed with intense +curiosity—I had almost said—as if to satisfy yourself, that thus looked +the god of poetry, the god of the Vatican, when he conversed with the sons +and daughters of man." +</p><p> +His head was remarkably small—so much so as to be rather out of +proportion with his face. The forehead, though a little too narrow, was +high, and appeared more so from his having his hair (to preserve it, as he +said) shaved over the temples; while the glossy, dark-brown curls, +clustering over his head, gave the finish to its beauty. When to this is +added, that his nose, though handsomely, was rather thickly shaped, that +his teeth were white and regular, and his complexion colourless, as good +an idea perhaps as it is in the power of mere words to convey may be +conceived of his features. +</p><p> +In height he was, as he himself has informed us, five feet eight inches +and a half, and to the length of his limbs he attributed his being such a +good swimmer. His hands were very white, and—according to his own notion +of the size of hands as indicating birth—aristocratically small. The +lameness of his right foot, though an obstacle to grace, but little +impeded the activity of his movements; and from this circumstance, as well +as from the skill with which the foot was disguised by means of long +trousers, it would be difficult to conceive a defect of this kind less +obtruding itself as a deformity; while the diffidence which a constant +consciousness of the infirmity gave to his first approach and address made, +in him, even lameness a source of interest. +</p> +<hr class="full" /> + + +<blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"> + </a><b>Footnote 1</b>: + <a href="#footnotetag1"> + (return) + </a><p> + "My poor Zimmerman, who now will understand thee?"—such was + the touching speech addressed to Zimmerman by his wife, on her + deathbed, and there is implied in these few words all that a + man of morbid sensibility must be dependent for upon the + tender and self-forgetting tolerance of the woman with whom he + is united. + </p> +</blockquote> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> +<i>Printed and Published by J. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 + Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number + +Author: Various + +Release Date: June 22, 2004 [EBook #12685] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRROR OF LITERATURE, NO. 474 *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Allen Siddle and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + +THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. + +VOL. XVII. No. 474.] SUPPLEMENTARY NUMBER. [PRICE 2d. + + + + * * * * * + + + +LORD BYRON. + + +LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF LORD BYRON, WITH NOTICES OF HIS LIFE, BY THOMAS +MOORE, Vol. ii. + + [To attempt anything like an analysis of a "great big book," of 823 + pages, like the present, and that within a sheet of 16 pages, would + be an effort of condensation indeed. Besides, the very nature of the + volume before us will not admit of such a task being performed with + much regard to accuracy or unique character. The "Letters," of which, + the work is, in great part, composed, are especially ill adapted for + such a purpose; since, many of them become interesting only from + manner rather than importance of matter. Horace Walpole's + Correspondence would make but a dull book cut in "little stars" in + the letter style; and Lord Byron, as a letter writer, resembles + Walpole more closely than any other writer of his time. His gay, + anecdotical style is delightful--his epithets and single words are + always well chosen, and often convey more than one side of the letter + of a common-place mind. + + Our sheet of Extracts is from such portions of Mr. Moore's volume as + appear to illustrate the main points of the Noble Poet's character + and habits, as the superscriptions will best explain--_currente + calamo_ from pages 22 to 769--within a few leaves of the Appendix.] + +HIS SENSIBILITY. + +With the following melancholy passage one of his journals concludes:-- + +"In the weather for this tour (of thirteen days) I have been very +fortunate--fortunate in a companion (Mr. H.)--fortunate in all our +prospects, and exempt from even the little petty accidents and delays +which often render journeys in a less wild country disappointing. I was +disposed to be pleased. I am a lover of nature, and an admirer of beauty; +I can bear fatigue and welcome privation, and have seen some of the +noblest views in the world. But in all this--the recollection of +bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which +must accompany me through life, have preyed upon me here; and neither the +music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the +mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment +lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched +identity in the majesty, and the power, and the glory, around, above, and +beneath me----." + +On his return from an excursion to Diodati, an occasion was afforded for +the gratification of his jesting propensities by the avowal of the young +physician (Polidori) that--he had fallen in love. On the evening of this +tender confession they both appeared at Shelley's cottage--Lord Byron, in +the highest and most boyish spirits, rubbing his hands as he walked about +the room, and in that utter incapacity of retention which was one of his +foibles, making jesting allusions to the secret he had just heard. The +brow of the doctor darkened as this pleasantry went on, and, at last, he +angrily accused Lord Byron of hardness of heart. "I never," said he, "met +with a person so unfeeling." This sally, though the poet had evidently +brought it upon himself, annoyed him most deeply. "Call _me_ +cold-hearted--_me_ insensible!" he exclaimed, with manifest emotion--"as +well might you say that glass is not brittle, which has been cast down a +precipice, and lies dashed to pieces at the foot!" + + +TO AUGUSTA. + + I. + + My sister! my sweet sister! if a name + Dearer and purer were, it should be thine, + Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim + No tears, but tenderness to answer mine. + Go where I will, to me thou art the same-- + A loved regret which I would not resign. + There yet are two things in my destiny-- + A world to roam through, and a home with thee. + + + II. + + The first were nothing--had I still the last, + It were the haven of my happiness; + But other claims and other ties thou hast, + And mine is not the wish to make them less. + A strange doom is thy father's son's, and part + Recalling, as it lies beyond redress; + Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore-- + He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore. + + + III. + + If my inheritance of storms hath been + In other elements, and on the rocks + Of perils overlook'd or unforeseen, + I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks, + The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen + My errors with defensive paradox; + I have been cunning in mine overthrow, + The careful pilot of my proper woe. + + + IV. + + Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. + My whole life was a contest, since the day + That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd + The gift--a fate, or will, that walk'd astray; + And I at times have found the struggle hard, + And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: + But now I fain would for a time survive, + If but to see what next can well arrive. + + + V. + + Kingdoms and empires in my little day + I have outlived, and yet I am not old; + And when I look on this, the petty spray + Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd + Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: + Something--I know not what--does still uphold + A spirit of slight patience--not in vain, + Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain. + + + VI. + + Perhaps the workings of defiance stir + Within me--or perhaps a cold despair, + Brought on when ills habitually recur-- + Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air, + (For even to this may change of soul refer, + And with light armour we may learn to bear,) + Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not + The chief companion of a calmer lot. + + + VII. + + I feel almost at times as I have felt + In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks, + Which do remember me of where I dwelt + Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, + Come as of yore upon me, and can melt + My heart with recognition of their looks: + And even at moments I could think I see + Some living thing to love--but none like thee. + + + VIII. + + Here are the Alpine landscapes which create + A fund for contemplation.--to admire + Is a brief feeling of a trivial date; + But something worthier do such scenes inspire: + Here to be lonely is not desolate. + For much I view which I could most desire, + And, above all, a lake I can behold + Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old. + + + IX. + + Oh that thou wert but with me!--but I grow + The fool of my own wishes, and forget + The solitude which I have vaunted so + Has lost its praise in this but one regret; + There may be others which I less may show;-- + I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet + I feel an ebb in my philosophy + And the tide rising in my alter'd eye. + + + X. + + I did remind thee of our own dear lake, + By the old hall which may be mine no more, + Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake + The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore: + Sad havoc Time must with my memory make + Ere _that_ or _thou_ can fade these eyes before; + Though, like all things which I have loved, they are + Resign'd for ever, or divided far. + + + XI. + + The world is all before me; I but ask + Of nature that with which she will comply-- + It is but in her summer sun to bask, + To mingle with the quiet of her sky, + To see her gentle fare without a mask, + And never gaze on it with apathy. + She was my early friend, and now shall be + My sister--till I look again on thee. + + + XII. + + I can reduce all feelings but this one: + And that I would not;--for at length I see + Such scenes as those wherein my life begun. + The earliest--even the only paths for me-- + Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, + I had been better than I now can be: + The passions which have torn me would have slept: + I had not suffered, and _thou_ hadst not wept. + + + XIII. + + With false ambition what had I to do? + Little with love, and least of all with fame; + And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, + And made me all which they can make--a name. + Yet this was not the end I did pursue; + Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. + But all is over--I am one the more + To baffled millions which have gone before. + + + XIV. + + And for the future, this world's future may + From me demand but little of my care; + I have outlived myself by many a day; + Having survived so many things that were; + My years have been no slumber, but the prey + Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share + Of life that might have filled a century, + Before its fourth in time had passed me by. + + + XV. + + And for the remnant which may be to come + I am content; and for the past I feel + Not thankless--for within the crowded sum + Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, + And for the present I would not benumb + My feelings farther.--Nor shall I conceal, + That with all this I still can look around, + And worship Nature with a thought profound. + + + XVI. + + For thee my own sweet sister, in thy heart + I know myself secure, as thou in mine; + We were and are--I am even as thou art-- + Beings who ne'er each other can resign; + It is the same, together or apart, + From life's commencement to its slow decline + We are entwined--let death come slow or fast, + The tie which bound the first endures the last! + + +AMOUR AT VENICE. + + Venice, November 17, 1816. + +"I wrote to you from Verona the other day in my progress hither, which +letter I hope you will receive. Some three years ago, or it may be more, I +recollect you telling me that you had received a letter from our friend, +Sam, dated "On board his gondola." _My_ gondola is, at this present, +waiting for me on the canal; but I prefer writing to you in the house, it +being autumn--and rather an English autumn than otherwise. It is my +intention to remain at Venice during the winter, probably, as it has +always been (next to the east) the greenest island of my imagination. It +has not disappointed me; though its evident decay would, perhaps, have +that effect upon others. But I have been familiar with ruins too long to +dislike desolation. Besides, I have fallen in love, which, next to falling +into the canal (which would be of no use, as I can swim,) is the best or +the worst thing I could do. I have got some extremely good apartments in +the house of a "Merchant of Venice," who is a good deal occupied with +business, and has a wife in her twenty-second year. Marianna (that is her +name) is in her, appearance altogether like an antelope. She has the large, +black, oriental eyes, with that peculiar expression in them, which is seen +rarely among _Europeans_--even the Italians--and which many of the Turkish +women give themselves by tinging the eyelid--an art not known out of that +country, I believe. This expression she has _naturally_--and something +more than this. In short, I cannot describe the effect of this kind of +eye--at least upon me. Her features are regular, and rather aquiline--mouth +small--skin clear and soft, with a kind of hectic colour--forehead +remarkably good; her hair is of the dark gloss, curl, and colour of Lady +J----'s; her figure is light and pretty, and she is a famous +songstress--scientifically so; her natural voice (in conversation, I mean,) +is very sweet; and the _naivete_ of the Venetian dialect is always +pleasing in the mouth of a woman. + + November 23. + +You will perceive that my description, which was proceeding with the +minuteness of a passport, has been interrupted for several days. In the +meantime. + + * * * * * + + December 5. + +Since my former dates, I do not know that I have much to add on the +subject, and, luckily, nothing to take away; for I am more pleased than +ever with my Venetian, and begin to feel very serious on that point--so +much so, that I shall be silent. + + * * * * * + +By way of divertisement, I am studying daily, at an Armenian monastery, +the Armenian language. I found that my mind wanted something craggy to +break upon; and this--as the most difficult thing I could discover here +for an amusement--I have chosen, to torture me into attention. It is a +rich language, however, and would amply repay any one the trouble of +learning it. I try, and shall go on;--but I answer for nothing, least of +all for my intentions or my success. There are some very curious MSS. in +the monastery, as well as books; translations also from Greek originals, +now lost, and from Persian and Syriac, &c.; besides works of their own +people. Four years ago the French instituted an Armenian professorship. +Twenty pupils presented themselves on Monday morning, full of noble ardour, +ingenuous youth, and impregnable industry. They persevered with a courage +worthy of the nation and of universal conquest, till Thursday; when +_fifteen_ of the _twenty_ succumbed to the six and twentieth letter of the +alphabet. It is, to be sure, a Waterloo of an Alphabet--that must be said +for them. But it is so like these fellows, to do by it as they did by +their sovereigns--abandon both; to parody the old rhymes, "Take a thing +and give a thing"--"Take a king and give a king. They are the worst of +animals, except their conquerors. + +I hear that that H----n is your neighbour, having a living in Derbyshire. +You will find him an excellent hearted fellow, as well as one of the +cleverest; a little, perhaps, too much japanned by preferment in the +church and the tuition of youth, as well as inoculated with the disease of +domestic felicity, besides being overrun with fine feelings about women +and _constancy_ (that small change of love, which people exact so rigidly, +receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal;) but, +otherwise, a very worthy man, who has lately got a pretty wife, and (I +suppose) a child by this time. Pray remember me to him, and say that I +know not which to envy most--his neighbourhood, him, or you. + +Of Venice I shall say little. You must have seen many descriptions; and +they and they are most of them like. It is a poetical place; and classical, +to us, from Shakspeare and Otway. I have not yet sinned against it in +verse, nor do I know that I shall do so, having been tuneless since I +crossed the Alps, and feeling, as yet, no renewal of the "estro." By the +way, I suppose you have seen "Glenarvon." Madame de Stael lent it me to +read from Copet last autumn. It seems to me that, if the authoress had +written the _truth_, and nothing but the truth--the whole truth--the +romance would not only have been more _romantic_, but more entertaining. +As for the likeness, the picture can't be good--I did not sit long enough. +When you have leisure, let me hear from and of you, believing me ever and +truly yours most affectionately. + +B. + +P.S. Oh! _your Poem_--is it out? I hope Longman has paid his thousands; +but don't you do as H---- T----'s father did, who, having, made money by a +quarto tour, became a vinegar merchant; when, lo! his vinegar turned sweet +(and be d----d to it) and ruined him. My last letter to you (from Verona) +was inclosed to Murray--have you got it? Direct to me _here, poste +restante_. There are no English here at present. There were several in +Switzerland--some women; but, except Lady Dalrymple Hamilton, most of them +as ugly as virtue--at least those that I saw." + + +AT VENICE. + +_To Mr. Moore._ + + "Venice, December 24th, 1816. + +"I have taken a fit of writing to you, which portends postage--once from +Verona--once from Venice, and again from Venice--_thrice_ that is. For +this you may thank yourself, for I heard that you complained of my +silence--so here goes for garrulity. + +"I trust that you received my other twain of letters. My 'way of life' (or +'May of life,' which is it, according to the commentators?)--my 'way of +life' is fallen into great regularity. In the mornings I go over in my +gondola to hobble Armenian with the friars of the convent of St. Lazarus, +and to help one of them in correcting the English of an English and +Armenian grammar which he is publishing. In the evenings I do one of many +nothings--either at the theatres, or some of the conversaziones, which are +like our routs, or rather worse, for the women sit in a semicircle by the +lady of the mansion, and the men stand about the room. To be sure, there +is one improvement upon ours--instead of lemonade with their ices, they +hand about stiff _rum-punch--punch_, by my palate; and this they think +_English_. I would not disabuse them of so agreeable an error--'no, not +for Venice.' + +"Last night I was at the Count Governor's, which, of course, comprises the +best society, and is very much like other gregarious meetings in every +country--as in ours--except that, instead of the Bishop of Winchester, you +have the Patriarch of Venice; and a motley crew of Austrians, Germans, +noble Venetians, foreigners, and, if you see a quiz, you may be sure he is +a consul. Oh, by the way, I forgot, when I wrote from Verona, to tell you +that at Milan I met with a countryman of yours--a Colonel ----, a very +excellent, good-natured fellow, who knows and shows all about Milan, and +is, as it were, a native there. He is particularly civil to strangers, and +this is his history--at least an episode of it. + +"Six-and-twenty years ago, Colonel ----, then an ensign, being in Italy, +fell in love with the Marchesa ----, and she with him. The lady must +be, at least, twenty years his senior. The war broke out; he returned to +England, to serve--not his country, for that's Ireland, but England, which +is a different thing; and _she_, heaven knows what she did. In the year +1814, the first annunciation of the definitive treaty of peace (and +tyranny) was developed to the astonished Milanese by the arrival of +Colonel ----, who flinging himself full length at the feet of Madame ----, +murmured forth, in half forgotten Irish Italian, eternal vows of indelible +constancy. The lady screamed, and exclaimed 'Who are you?' The colonel +cried, 'What, don't you know me? I am so and so,' &c. &c. &c.; till at +length, the Marchesa, mounting from reminiscence, to reminiscence, through +the lovers of the intermediate twenty-five years, arrived at last at the +recollection of her _povero_ sub-lieutenant.--She then said, 'Was there +ever such virtue?' (that was her very word) and, being now a widow, gave +him apartments in her palace, reinstated him in all the rights of wrong, +and held him up to the admiring world as a miracle of incontinent fidelity, +and the unshaken Abdiel of absence. + +"Methinks this is as pretty a moral tale as any of Marmontel's. Here is +another. The same lady, several years ago, made an escapade with a Swede, +Count Fersen (the same whom the Stockholm mob quartered and lapidated not +very long since), and they arrived at an Osteria, on the road to Rome or +thereabouts. It was a summer evening, and while they were at supper, they +were suddenly regaled by a symphony of fiddles in an adjacent apartment, +so prettily played, that, wishing to hear them more distinctly, the count +rose, and going into the musical society, said--'Gentlemen, I am sure that, +as a company of gallant cavaliers, you will be delighted to show your +skill to a lady, who feels anxious,' &c. &c. The men of harmony were all +acquiescence--every instrument was tuned and toned, and, striking up one +of their most ambrosial airs, the whole band followed the count to the +lady's apartment. At their head was the first fiddler, who, bowing and +fiddling at the same moment, headed his troop, and advanced up the room. +Death and discord!--it was the marquess himself, who was on a serenading +party in the country, while his spouse had run away from town.--The rest +may be imagined; but, first of all, the lady tried to persuade him that +she was there on purpose to meet him, and had chosen this method for an +harmonic surprise. So much for this gossip, which amused me when I heard +it, and I send it to you, in the hope it may have the like effect. Now +we'll return to Venice." + +"The day after to-morrow (to-morrow being Christmas-day) the Carnival +begins. I dine with the Countess Albrizzi and a party, and go to the opera. +On that day the Phenix (not the Insurance Office, but) the theatre of that +name opens: I have got me a box there for the season, for two reasons, one +of which is, that the music is remarkably good. The Contessa Albrizzi, of +whom I have made mention, is the De Stael of Venice--not young, but a very +learned, unaffected, good-natured woman, very polite to strangers, and, I +believe, not at all dissolute, as most of the women are. She has written +very well on the works of Canova, and also a volume of Characters, besides +other printed matter. She is of Corfu, but married a dead Venetian--that +is, dead since he married. + +"My flame (my 'Donna,' whom I spoke of in my former epistle, my Marianna) +is still my Marianna, and I, her--what she pleases. She is by far the +prettiest woman I have seen here, and the most loveable I have met with +any where--as well as one of the most singular. I believe I told you the +rise and progress of our _liaison_ in my former letter. Lest that should +not have reached you, I will merely repeat that she is a Venetian, +two-and-twenty years old, married to a merchant well to do in the world, +and that she has great black oriental eyes, and all the qualities which +her eyes promise. Whether being in love with her has steeled me or not, I +do not know; but I have not seen many other women who seem pretty. The +nobility, in particular, are a sad-looking race--the gentry rather better. +And now, what art _thou_ doing? + + "What are you doing now, + Oh Thomas Moore? + What are you doing now, + Oh Thomas Moore? + Sighing or suing now, + Rhyming or wooing now, + Billing or cooing now, + Which, Thomas Moore? + +Are you not near the Luddites? By the Lord! if there's a row, but I'll be +among ye! How go on the weavers--the breakers of frames--the Lutherans of +politics--the reformers? + + "As the Liberty lads o'er the sea + Bought their freedom, and cheaply, with blood, + So we, boys, we + Will _die_ fighting, or _live_ free, + And down with all kings but King Ludd! + + "When the web that we weave is complete, + And the shuttle exchanged for the sword, + We will fling the winding-sheet + O'er the despot at our feet, + And dye it deep in the gore he has pour'd. + + "Though black as his heart its hue, + Since his veins are corrupted to mud, + Yet this is the dew + Which the tree shall renew + Of Liberty, planted by Ludd! + +There's an amiable _chanson_ for you--all impromptu. I have written it +principally to shock your neighbour ----, who is all clergy and +loyalty--mirth and innocence--milk and water. + + "But the Carnival's coming, + Oh Thomas Moore, + The Carnival's coming, + Oh Thomas Moore, + Masking and humming, + Fifing and drumming, + Guitarring and strumming, + Oh Thomas Moore. + +The other night I saw a new play--and the author. The subject was the +sacrifice of Isaac. The play succeeded, and they called for the +author--according to continental custom--and he presented himself: a noble +Venetian, Mali, or Malapiero by name. Mala was his name, and _pessima_ his +production--at least, I thought so, and I ought to know, having read more +or less of five hundred Drury-lane offerings, during my coadjutorship with +the sub-and-super committee. + +"When does your Poem of Poems come out? I hear that the E.R. has cut up +Coleridge's Christabel, and declared against me for praising it. I praised +it, firstly, because I thought well of it; secondly, because Coleridge was +in great distress, and, after doing what little I could for him in +essentials, I thought that the public avowal of my good opinion might help +him further, at least with the booksellers. I am very sorry that J---- has +attacked him, because, poor fellow, it will hurt him in mind and pocket. +As for me, he's welcome,--I shall never think less of J---- for any thing +he may say against me or mine in future. + +"I suppose Murray has sent you, or will send (for I do not know whether +they are out or no) the poem, or poesies, of mine, of last summer. By the +mass! they're sublime--'Ganion Coheriza'--gainsay who dares! Pray, let me +hear from you, and of you, and, at least, let me know that you have +received these three letters. Direct, right _here, poste restante_.--"Ever +and ever, &c." + + +AN EXECUTION. + +_To Mr. Murray_. + + "Venice, May 30th, 1817. + +"I returned from Rome two days ago, and have received your letter; but no +sign nor tidings of the parcel sent through Sir C. Stuart, which you +mention. After an interval of months, a packet of 'Tales,' &c. found me at +Rome; but this is all, and may be all that ever will find me. The post +seems to be the only sure conveyance, and _that only for letters_. From +Florence I sent you a poem on Tasso, and from Rome the new Third Act of +'Manfred,' and by Dr. Polidori two portraits for my sister. I left Rome +and made a rapid journey home. You will continue to direct here as usual. +Mr. Hobhouse is gone to Naples; I should have run down there too for a +week, but for the quantity of English whom I heard of there. I prefer +hating them at a distance; unless an earthquake, or a good real irruption +of Vesuvius, were ensured to reconcile me to their vicinity. + + * * * * * + +"The day before I left Rome I saw three robbers guillotined. The +ceremony--including the _masqued_ priests; the half-naked executioners; +the bandaged criminals; the black Christ and his banner; the scaffold; the +soldiery; the slow procession, and the quick rattle and heavy fall of the +axe; the splash of the blood, and the ghastliness of the exposed heads--is +altogether more impressive than the vulgar and ungentlemanly dirty 'new +drop,' and dog-like agony of infliction upon the sufferers of the English +sentence. Two of these men behaved calmly enough, but the first of the +three died with great terror and reluctance. What was very horrible, he +would not lie down; then his neck was too large for the aperture, and the +priest was obliged to drown his exclamations by still louder exhortations. +The head was off before the eye could trace the blow; but from an attempt +to draw back the head, notwithstanding it was held forward by the hair, +the first head was cut off close to the ears: the other two were taken off +more cleanly. It is better than the oriental way, and (I should think) +than the axe of our ancestors. The pain seems little, and yet the effect +to the spectator, and the preparation to the criminal, is very striking +and chilling. The first turned me quite hot and thirsty, and made me shake +so that I could hardly hold the opera-glass, (I was close, but was +determined to see, as one should see every thing, once, with attention;) +the second and third (which shows how dreadfully soon things grow +indifferent,) I am ashamed to say, had no effect on me as a horror, though +I would have saved them if I could. + +"Yours, &c." + + +PORSON. + +"I remember to have seen Porson at Cambridge, in the hall of our college, +and in private parties, but not frequently; and I never can recollect him +except as drunk or brutal, and generally both: I mean in an evening, for +in the hall, he dined at the Dean's table, and I at the Vice-master's, so +that I was not near him; and he then and there appeared sober in his +demeanour, nor did I ever hear of excess or outrage on his part in +public,--commons, college, or chapel; but I have seen him in a private +party of under-graduates, many of them freshmen and strangers, take up a +poker to one of them, and heard him use language as blackguard as his +action. I have seen Sheridan drunk, too, with all the world; but his +intoxication was that of Bacchus, and Porson's that of Silenus. Of all the +disgusting brutes, sulky, abusive, and intolerable, Porson was the most +bestial, as far as the few times that I saw him went which were only at +William Bankes's (the Nubian discoverer's) rooms. I saw him once go away +in a rage, because nobody knew the name of the 'Cobbler of Messina,' +insulting their ignorance with the most vulgar terms of reprobation. He +was tolerated in this state amongst the young men for his talents, as the +Turks think a madman inspired, and bear with him. He used to recite, or +rather vomit pages of all languages, and could hiccup Greek like a Helot; +and certainly Sparta never shocked her children with a grosser exhibition +than this man's intoxication. + +"I perceive, in the book you sent me, a long account of him, which is very +savage. I cannot judge, as I never saw him sober, except in _hall_ or +combination room; and then I was never near enough to hear, and hardly to +see him. Of his drunken deportment, I can be sure, because I saw it." + + +THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI. + +It was about the time (1819) when the foregoing letter was written, and +when, 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 connexion 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 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, then only +eighteen, and just emancipated from a convent, was the selected victim. + +The first time Lord Byron had ever seen this lady was in the autumn of +1818, when she made her appearance, soon after her marriage, at the house +of the Countess Albrizzi, in all the gaiety of bridal array, and the first +delight of exchanging a convent for the world. At this time, however, no +acquaintance ensued between them;--it was not till the spring of the +present year that, at an evening party of Madame Benzoni's, they were +introduced to each other. The love that sprung out of this meeting was +instantaneous and mutual,--though with the usual disproportion of +sacrifice between the parties; such an event being, to the man, but one of +the many scenes of life, while, with woman, it generally constitutes the +whole drama. The young Italian found herself suddenly inspired with a +passion, of which, till that moment, her mind could not have formed the +least idea;--she had thought of love but as an amusement, and now became +its slave. If at the outset, too, less slow to be won than an Englishwoman, +no sooner did she begin to understand the full despotism of the passion +than her heart shrunk from it as something terrible, and she would have +escaped, but that the chain was already around her. + +No words, however, can describe so simply and feelingly as her own, the +strong impression which their first meeting left upon her mind:-- + +"I became acquainted," says Madame Guiccioli, "with Lord Byron in the +April of 1819:--he was introduced to me at Venice, by the Countess Benzoni, +at one of that lady's parties. This introduction, which had so much +influence over the lives of us both, took place contrary to our wishes, +and had been permitted by us only from courtesy. For myself, more fatigued +than usual that evening on account of the late hours they keep at Venice, +I went with great repugnance to this party, and purely in obedience to +Count Guiccioli. Lord Byron, too, who was averse to forming new +acquaintances,--alleging that he had entirely renounced all attachments, +and was unwilling any more to expose himself to their consequences,--on +being requested by the Countess Benzoni to allow himself to be presented +to me, refused, and, at last, only assented from a desire to oblige her. + +"His noble and exquisitely beautiful countenance, the tone of his voice, +his manners, the thousand enchantments that surrounded him, rendered him +so different and so superior a being to any whom I had hitherto seen, that +it was impossible he should not have left the most profound impression +upon me. From that evening, during the whole of my subsequent stay at +Venice, we met every day." + + * * * * * + +About the middle of April, Madame Guiccioli had been obliged to quit +Venice with her husband. Having several houses on the road from Venice to +Ravenna, it was his habit to stop at these mansions, one after the other, +in his journeys between the two cities; and from all these places the +enamoured young Countess now wrote to her lover, expressing, in the most +passionate and pathetic terms, her despair at leaving him. So utterly, +indeed, did this feeling overpower her, that three times, in the course of +her first day's journey, she was seized with fainting-fits. In one of her +letters, which I saw when at Venice, dated, if I recollect right, from "Ca +Zen, Cavanella di Po," she tells him that the solitude of this place, +which she had before found irksome, was, now that one sole idea occupied +her mind, become dear and welcome to her, and promises that, as soon as +she arrives at Ravenna, "she will, according to his wish, avoid all +general society, and devote herself to reading, music, domestic +occupations, riding on horseback,--every thing, in short, that she knew he +would most like." What a change for a young and simple girl, who, but a +few weeks before, had thought only of society and the world, but who now +saw no other happiness but in the hope of becoming worthy, by seclusion +and self-instruction, of the illustrious object of her love! + +On leaving this place, she was attacked with a dangerous illness on the +road, and arrived half dead at Ravenna; nor was it found possible to +revive or comfort her till an assurance was received from Lord Byron, +expressed with all the fervour of real passion, that, in the course of the +ensuing month, he would pay her a visit. Symptoms of consumption, brought +on by her state of mind, had already shown themselves; and, in addition to +the pain which this separation had caused her, she was also suffering much +grief from the loss of her mother, who, at this time, died in giving birth +to her twentieth child. Towards the latter end of May she wrote to +acquaint Lord Byron that, having prepared all her relatives and friends to +expect him, he might now, she thought, venture to make his appearance at +Ravenna. Though, on the lady's account, hesitating as to the prudence of +such a step, he, in obedience to her wishes, on the 2nd of June, set out +from La Mira (at which place he had again taken a villa for the summer), +and proceeded towards Romagna. + +While he was 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 lover; 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, 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 inquiries 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 the +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. + + * * * * * + +In the separation that had now taken place (1820) between Count Guiccioli +and his wife, it was one of the conditions that the lady should, in future, +reside under the paternal roof:--in consequence of which, Madame Guiccioli, +on the 16th of July, left Ravenna and retired to a villa belonging to +Count Gamba, about fifteen miles distant from that city. Here Lord Byron +occasionally visited her--about once or twice, perhaps, in the +month--passing the rest of his time in perfect solitude. To a mind like +his, whose world was within itself, such a mode of life could have been +neither new nor unwelcome; but to the woman, young and admired, whose +acquaintance with the world and its pleasures had but just begun, this +change was, it must be confessed, most sudden and trying. Count Guiccioli +was rich, and, as a young wife, she had gained absolute power over him. +She was proud, and his station placed her among the highest in Ravenna. +They had talked of travelling to Naples, Florence, Paris,--and every +luxury, in short, that wealth could command was at her disposal. + +All this she now voluntarily and determinedly sacrificed for Byron. Her +splendid home abandoned--her relations all openly at war with her--her +kind father but tolerating, from fondness, what he could not approve--she +was now, upon a pittance of 200_l_. a year, living apart from the world, +her sole occupation the task of educating herself for her illustrious +lover, and her sole reward the few brief glimpses of him which their now +restricted intercourse allowed. Of the man who could inspire and keep +alive so devoted a feeling, it may be pronounced with confidence that he +could _not_ have been such as, in the freaks of his own wayward humour, he +represented himself; while, on the lady's side, the whole history of her +attachment goes to prove how completely an Italian woman, whether by +nature or from her social position, is led to invert the usual course of +such frailties among ourselves, and, weak in resisting the first impulses +of passion, to reserve the whole strength of her character for a display +of constancy and devotedness afterwards. + + * * * * * + + +MEETING OF LORD BYRON AND MR. MOORE AT VENICE. + +It was my good fortune, at this period, (1819) in the course of a short +and hasty tour through the north of Italy, to pass five or six days with +Lord Byron at Venice. I had written to him on my way thither to announce +my coming, and to say how happy it would make me could I tempt him to +accompany me as far as Rome. + +Having parted, at Milan, with Lord John Russell, whom I had accompanied +from England, and whom I was to rejoin, after a short visit to Rome, at +Genoa, I made purchase of a small and (as it soon proved) crazy travelling +carriage, and proceeded alone on my way to Venice. My time being limited, +I stopped no longer at the intervening places than was sufficient to hurry +over their respective wonders, and, leaving Padua at noon on the 8th of +October, I found myself, about two o'clock, at the door of my friend's +villa, at La Mira. He was but just up, and in his bath; but the servant +having announced my arrival, he returned a message that, if I would wait +till he was dressed, he would accompany me to Venice. The interval I +employed in conversing with my old acquaintance, Fletcher, and in viewing, +under his guidance, some of the apartments of the villa. + +It was not long before Lord Byron himself made his appearance, and the +delight I felt in meeting him once more, after a separation of so many +years, was not a little heightened by observing that his pleasure was, to +the full, as great, while it was rendered doubly touching by the evident +rarity of such meetings to him of late, and the frank outbreak of +cordiality and gaiety with which he gave way to his feelings. It would be +impossible, indeed, to convey to those who have not, at some time or other, +felt the charm of his manner, any idea of what it could be when under the +influence of such pleasurable excitement as it was most flatteringly +evident he experienced at this moment. + +I was a good deal struck, however, by the alteration that had taken place +in his personal appearance. He had grown fatter both in person and face, +and the latter had most suffered by the change, having lost, by the +enlargement of the features, some of that refined and spiritualized look +that had, in other times, distinguished it. The addition of whiskers, too, +which he had not long before been induced to adopt, from hearing that some +one had said he had a "faccia di musico," as well as the length to which +his hair grew down on his neck, and the rather foreign air of his coat and +cap,--all combined to produce that dissimilarity to his former self I had +observed in him. He was still, however, eminently handsome; and, in +exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high, romantic +character, they had become more fitted for the expression of that arch, +waggish wisdom, that Epicurean play of humour, which he had shown to be +equally inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while, by +the somewhat increased roundness of the contours, the resemblance of his +finely formed mouth and chin to those of the Belvedere Apollo had become +still more striking. + +His breakfast, which I found he rarely took before three or four o'clock +in the afternoon, was speedily despatched,--his habit being to eat it +standing, and the meal in general consisting of one or two raw eggs, a cup +of tea without either milk or sugar, and a bit of dry biscuit. Before we +took our departure, he presented me to the Countess Guiccioli, who was at +this time living under the same roof with him at La Mira; and who, with a +style of beauty singular in an Italian, as being fair-complexioned and +delicate, left an impression upon my mind, during this our first short +interview, of intelligence and amiableness such as all that I have since +known or heard of her has but served to confirm. + +We now started together, Lord Byron and myself, in my little Milanese +vehicle, for Fusina,--his portly gondolier Tita, in a rich livery and most +redundant mustachios, having seated himself on the front of the carriage, +to the no small trial of its strength, which had already once given way, +even under my own weight, between Verona and Vicenza. On our arrival at +Fusina, my noble friend, from his familiarity with all the details of the +place, had it in his power to save me both trouble and expense in the +different arrangements relative to the custom-house, remise, &c. and the +good-natured assiduity with which he bustled about in despatching these +matters gave me an opportunity of observing, in his use of the infirm limb, +a much greater degree of activity than I had ever before, except in +sparring, witnessed. + +As we proceeded across the Lagoon in his gondola, the sun was just setting, +and it was an evening such as Romance would have chosen for a first sight +of Venice, rising "with her tiara of bright towers" above the wave; while +to complete, as might be imagined, the solemn interest of the scene, I +beheld it in company with him who had lately given a new life to its +glories, and sung of that fair City of the Sea thus grandly: + + "I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs; + A palace and a prison on each hand: + I saw from out the wave her structures rise + As from the stroke of the enchanters wand: + A thousand years their cloudy wings expand + Around me, and a dying glory smiles + O'er the far times, when many a subject land + Look'd to the winged lion's marble piles, + Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles." + +But whatever emotions the first sight of such a scene might, under other +circumstances, have inspired me with, the mood of mind in which I now +viewed it was altogether the very reverse of what might have been expected. +The exuberant gaiety of my companion, and the recollections,--any thing +but romantic,--into which our conversation wandered, put at once +completely to flight all poetical and historical associations; and our +course was, I am almost ashamed to say, one of uninterrupted merriment and +laughter till we found ourselves at the steps of my friend's palazzo on +the Grand Canal. All that had ever happened, of gay or ridiculous, during +our London life together,--his scrapes and my lecturings,--our joint +adventures with the Bores and Blues, the two great enemies, as he always +called them, of London happiness,--our joyous nights together at Watier's, +Kinnaird's, &c. and "that d--d supper of Rancliffe's which _ought_ to have +been a dinner,"--all was passed rapidly in review between us, and with a +flow of humour and hilarity, on his side, of which it would have been +difficult, even for persons far graver than I can pretend to be, not to +have caught the contagion. + + +LORD BYRON'S PARSIMONY. + +It is, indeed, certain, that he had at this time (1819) taken up the whim +(for it hardly deserves a more serious name) of minute and constant +watchfulness over his expenditure; and, as most usually happens, it was +with the increase of his means that this increased sense of the value of +money came. The first symptom I saw of this new fancy of his was the +exceeding joy which he manifested on my presenting to him a rouleau of +twenty Napoleons, which Lord K----d, to whom he had, on some occasion, +lent that sum, had entrusted me with, at Milan, to deliver into his hands. +With the most joyous and diverting eagerness, he tore open the paper, and, +in counting over the sum, stopped frequently to congratulate himself on +the recovery of it. + +Of his household frugalities I speak but on the authority of others; but +it is not difficult to conceive that, with a restless spirit like his, +which delighted always in having something to contend with, and which, but +a short time before, "for want," as he said, "of something craggy to break +upon," had tortured itself with the study of the Armenian language, he +should, in default of all better excitement, find a sort of stir and +amusement in the task of contesting, inch by inch, every encroachment of +expense, and endeavouring to suppress what he himself calls + + "That climax of all earthly ills, + The inflammation of our weekly bills." + +In truth, his constant recurrence to the praise of avarice in Don Juan, +and the humorous zest with which he delights to dwell on it, shows how +new-fangled, as well as far from serious, was his adoption of this "good +old-gentlemanly vice." In the same spirit he had, a short time before my +arrival at Venice, established a hoarding-box, with a slit in the lid, +into which he occasionally put sequins, and, at stated periods, opened it +to contemplate his treasures. His own ascetic style of living enabled him, +as far as himself was concerned, to gratify this taste for enonomy in no +ordinary degree,--his daily bill of fare, when the Margarita was his +companion, consisting, I have been assured, of but four beccafichi of +which the Fornarina eat three leaving even him hungry. + + +HIS MEMOIRS. + +(1819)--A short time before dinner he left the room, and in a minute or +two returned, carrying in his hand a white leather bag. "Look here," he +said, holding it up,--"this would be worth something to Murray, though +_you_, I dare say, would not give sixpence for it." "What is it?" I +asked.--"My Life and Adventures," he answered. On hearing this, I raised +my hands in a gesture of wonder. "It is not a thing," he continued, "that +can be published during my lifetime, but you may have it if you +like--there, do whatever you please with it." In taking the bag, and +thanking him most warmly, I added, "This will make a nice legacy for my +little Tom, who shall astonish the latter days of the nineteenth century +with it." He then added, "You may show it to any of our friends you may +think worthy of it:"--and this is nearly word for word, the whole of what +passed between us on the subject. + + + _To Mr. Moore._ + + "January 2nd, 1820. + + "My Dear Moore, + + "'To-day it is my wedding-day, + And all the folks would stare + If wife should dine at Edmonton, + And I should dine at Ware.' + + Or _thus_-- + + "Here's a happy new year! but with reason + I beg you'll permit me to say-- + Wish me _many_ returns of the _season_, + But as _few_ as you please of the _day_. + +"My this present writing is to direct you that, _if she chooses_, she may +see the MS. Memoir in your possession. I wish her to have fair play, in +all cases, even though it will not be published till after my decease. For +this purpose, it were but just that Lady B. should know what is their said +of her and hers, that she may have full power to remark on or respond to +any part or parts, as may seem fitting to herself. This is fair dealing, I +presume, in all events. + +"To change the subject, are you in England? I send you an epitaph for +Castlereagh. + + * * * * * + +Another for Pitt-- + + "With death doom'd to grapple + Beneath this cold slab, he + Who lied in the Chapel + Now lies in the Abbey. + +"The gods seem to have made me poetical this day-- + + "In digging up your bones, Tom Paine, + Will. Cobbett has done well: + You visit him on earth again, + He'll visit you in hell. + +Or-- + + "You come to him on earth again, + He'll go with you to hell. + +"Pray let not these versiculi go forth with _my_ name, except among the +initiated, because my friend H. has foamed into a reformer, and, I greatly +fear, will subside into Newgate; since the Honourable House, according to +Galignani's Reports of Parliamentary Debates, are menacing a prosecution +to a pamphlet of his. I shall be very sorry to hear of any thing but good +for him, particularly in these miserable squabbles; but these are the +natural effects of taking a part in them." + + +SIR HUMPHRY DAVY. + +"Ravenna, May 8, 1820. + +"Sir Humphry Davy was here last fortnight, and I was in his company in the +house of a very pretty Italian lady of rank, who, by way of displaying her +learning in presence of the great chemist, then describing his fourteenth +ascension of Mount Vesuvius, asked 'if there was not a similar volcano in +_Ireland_?' My only notion of an Irish volcano consisted of the lake of +Killarney, which I naturally conceived her to mean; but on second thoughts +I divined that she alluded to _Ice_land and to Hecla--and so it proved, +though she sustained her volcanic topography for some time with all the +amiable pertinacity of 'the feminie.' She soon after turned to me, and +asked me various questions about Sir Humphry's philosophy, and I explained +as well as an oracle his skill in gasen safety lamps, and ungluing the +Pompeian MSS. 'But what do you call him?' said she. 'A great chemist,' +quoth I. 'What can he do?' repeated the lady 'Almost any thing,' said I. +'Oh, then, mio caro, do pray beg him to give me something to dye my +eyebrows black. I have tried a thousand things, and the colours all come +off; and besides, they don't grow. Can't he invent something to make them +grow?' All this with the greatest earnestness; and what you will be +surprised at, she is neither ignorant nor a fool, but really well educated +and clever. But they speak like children, when first out of their convents; +and, after all, this is better than an English bluestocking." + + +POPE--AND OTHER MATTERS. + +_To Mr. Moore._ + +"Ravenna, July 5th, 1821. + +"How could you suppose that I ever would allow any thing that _could_ be +said on your account to weigh with _me_? I only regret that Bowles had not +_said_ that you were the writer of that note until afterwards, when out he +comes with it, in a private letter to Murray, which Murray sends to me. +D--n the controversy! + + "D--m Twizzle, + D--n the bell, + And d--n the fool who rung it--Well! + From all such plagues I'll quickly be deliver'd. + +"I have had a curious letter to-day from a girl in England (I never saw +her) who says she is given over of a decline, but could not go out of the +world without thanking me for the delight which my poesy for several years, +&c. &c. &c. It is signed simply N.N.A., and has not a word of 'cant' or +preachment in it upon _any_ opinions. She merely says that she is dying, +and that as I had contributed so highly to her existing pleasure, she +thought that she might say so, begging me to _burn_ her _letter_--which, +by the way, I can _not_ do, as I look upon such a letter, in such +circumstances, as better than a diploma from Gottingen. I once had a +letter from Drontheim, in _Norway_ (but not from a dying woman) in verse, +on the same score of gratulation. These are the things which make one at +times believe oneself a poet. But if I must believe that ----, and +such fellows, are poets, also, it is better to be out of the corps. + +"I am now in the fifth act of 'Foscari,' being the third tragedy in twelve +months, besides _proses_; so you perceive that I am not at all idle. And +are you, too, busy? I doubt that your life at Paris draws too much upon +your time, which is a pity. Can't you divide your day, so as to combine +both? I have had plenty of all sorts of worldly business on my hands last +year--and yet it is not so difficult to give a few hours to the _Muses_. +This sentence is so like ---- that-- + "Ever, &c." + + +FROM "DETACHED THOUGHTS." + +"What a strange thing is life and man! Were I to present myself at the +door of the house where my daughter now is, the door would be shut in my +face--unless (as is not impossible) I knocked down the porter; and if I +had gone in that year (and perhaps now) to Drontheim (the furthest town in +Norway), or into Holstein, I should have been received with open arms into +the mansion of strangers and foreigners, attached to me by no tie but by +that of mind and rumour. + +"As far as _fame_ goes, I have had my share: it has indeed been leavened +by other human contingencies, and this in a greater degree than has +occurred to most literary men of a decent rank of life; but, on the whole, +I take it that such equipoise is the condition of humanity." + +"A young American, named Coolidge, called on me not many months ago. He +was intelligent, very handsome, and not more than twenty years old, +according to appearances; a little romantic, but that sits well upon youth, +and mighty fond of poesy, as may be suspected from his approaching me in +my cavern. He brought me a message from an old servant of my family (Joe +Murray), and told me that _he_ (Mr. Coolidge) had obtained a copy of my +bust from Thorwaldsen, at Rome, to send to America. I confess I was more +flattered by this young enthusiasm of a solitary Trans-Atlantic traveller, +than if they had decreed me a statue in the Paris Pantheon (I have seen +emperors and demagogues cast down from their pedestals even in my own time, +and Grattan's name razed from the street called after him in Dublin); I +say that I was more flattered by it, because it was _single, unpolitical_, +and was without motive or ostentation--the pure and warm feeling of a boy +for the poet he admired. It must have been expensive, though;--_I_ would +not pay the price of a Thorwaldsen bust for any human head and shoulders, +except Napoleon's, or my children's, or some '_absurd womankind's_,' as +Monkbarn's calls them--or my sister's. If asked _why_, then, I sate for my +own?--Answer, that it was at the particular request of J.C. Hobhouse, Esq., +and for no one else. A _picture_ is a different matter;--every body sits +for their picture;--but a bust looks like putting up pretensions to +permanency, and smacks something of a hankering for public fame rather +than private remembrance. + +"Whenever an American requests to see me (which is not unfrequently) I +comply, firstly, because I respect a people who acquired their freedom by +their firmness without excess; and, secondly, because these Trans-Atlantic +visits, 'few and-far between' make me feel as if talking with posterity +from the other side of the Styx. In a century or two, the new English and +Spanish Atlantides will be masters of the old countries, in all +probability, as Greece and Europe overcame their mother Asia in the older +or earlier ages, as they are called." + + +EXTRACT FROM A DIARY OF LORD BYRON, 1821. + +"Ravenna, January 12th, 1821. + +"I have found out the seal cut on Murray's letter. It is meant for Walter +Scott--or _Sir_ Walter--he is the first poet knighted since Sir Richard +Blackmore. But it does not do him justice. Scott's--particularly when he +recites---is a very intelligent countenance, and this seal says nothing. + +"Scott is certainly the most wonderful writer of the day. His novels are a +new literature in themselves, and his poetry as good as any--if not better +(only on an erroneous system)--and only ceased to be so popular, because +the vulgar learned were tired of hearing 'Aristides called the Just,' and +Scott the Best, and ostracised him. + +"I like him, too, for his manliness of character, for the extreme +pleasantness of his conversation, and his good-nature towards myself, +personally. May he prosper!--for he deserves it. I know no reading to +which I fall with such alacrity as a work of W. Scott's. I shall give the +seal, with his bust on it, to Madame la Contesse G. this evening, who will +be curious to have the effigies of a man so celebrated. + + "January 20th, 1821. + +"To-morrow is my birthday--that is to say, at twelve o' the clock, +midnight, i.e. in twelve minutes, I shall have completed thirty and three +years of age!!!--and I go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having +lived so long, and to so little purpose. + +"It is three minutes past twelve.--''Tis the middle of night by the castle +clock, and I am now thirty-three! + + 'Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume, + Labuntur anni;--' + +but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I might +have done. + + "Through life's road, so dim and dirty, + I have dragg'd to three-and-thirty. + What have these years left to me? + Nothing--except thirty-three. + + "January 22nd, 1821. + + 1821. + Here lies + interred in the Eternity + of the Past, + from whence there is no + Resurrection + for the Days--whatever there may be + for the Dust-- + the Thirty-Third Year + of an ill-spent Life, + Which, after + a lingering disease of many months, + sunk into a lethargy, + and expired, + January 22nd, 1821, A.D. + Leaving a successor + Inconsolable + for the very loss which + occasioned its + Existence." + + +LORD CLARE. + +On the road to Bologna he had met with his early and dearest friend, Lord +Clare, and the following description of their short interview is given in +his "Detached Thoughts." + + "Pisa, November 5th, 1821. + +"'There is a strange coincidence sometimes in the little things of this +world, Sancho,' says Sterne in a letter (if I mistake not,) and so I have +often found it. + +"Page 128, article 91, of this collection, I had alluded to my friend Lord +Clare in terms such as my feelings suggested. About a week or two +afterwards, I met him on the road between Imola and Bologna, after not +having met for seven or eight years. He was abroad in 1814, and came home +just as I set out in 1816. + +"This meeting annihilated for a moment all the years between the present +time and the days of _Harrow_. It was a new and inexplicable feeling, like +rising from the grave, to me. Clare too was much agitated--more in +_appearance_ than myself; for I could feel his heart beat to his fingers' +ends, unless, indeed, it was the pulse of my own which made me think so. +He told me that I should find a note from him left at Bologna. I did. We +were obliged to part for our different journeys, he for Rome, I for Pisa, +but with the promise to meet again in spring. We were but five minutes +together, and on the public road; but I hardly recollect an hour of my +existence which could be weighed against them. He had heard that I was +coming on, and had left his letter for me at Bologna, because the people +with whom he was travelling could not wait longer. + +"Of all I have ever known, he has always been the least altered in every +thing from the excellent qualities and kind affections which attached me +to him so strongly at school. I should hardly have thought it possible for +society (or the world, as it is called) to leave a being with so little of +the leaven of bad passions. + +"I do not speak from personal experience only, but from all I have ever +heard of him from others, during absence and distance." + +On the subject of intimacies formed by Lord Byron, not only at the period +of which we are speaking, but throughout his whole life, it would be +difficult to advance any thing more judicious, or more demonstrative of a +true knowledge of his character, than is to be found in the following +remarks of one who had studied him with her whole heart, who had learned +to regard him with the eyes of good sense, as well as of affection, and +whose strong love, in short, was founded upon a basis the most creditable +both to him and herself,--the being able to understand him.[1] + + [1] "My poor Zimmerman, who now will understand thee?"--such was + the touching speech addressed to Zimmerman by his wife, on her + deathbed, and there is implied in these few words all that a + man of morbid sensibility must be dependent for upon the + tender and self-forgetting tolerance of the woman with whom he + is united. + +"We continued in Pisa even more rigorously to absent ourselves from +society. However, as there were a good many English in Pisa, he could not +avoid becoming acquainted with various friends of Shelley, among which +number was Mr. Medwin. They followed him in his rides, dined with him, and +felt themselves happy, of course, in the apparent intimacy in which they +lived with so renowned a man; but not one of them was admitted to any part +of his friendship, which, indeed, he did not easily accord. He had a great +affection for Shelley, and a great esteem for his character and talents; +but he was not his friend in the most extensive sense of that word. +Sometimes, when speaking of his friends and of friendship, as also of love, +and of every other noble emotion of the soul, his expressions might +inspire doubts concerning his sentiments and the goodness of his heart. +The feeling of the moment regulated his speech, and besides, he liked to +play the part of singularity,--and sometimes worse, more especially with +those whom he suspected of endeavouring to make discoveries as to his real +character; but it was only mean minds and superficial observers that could +be deceived in him. It was necessary to consider his actions to perceive +the contradiction they bore to his words: it was necessary to be witness +of certain moments, during which unforeseen and involuntary emotion forced +him to give himself entirely up to his feelings; and whoever beheld him +then, became aware of the stores of sensibility and goodness of which his +noble heart was full. + +"Among the many occasions I had of seeing him thus overpowered, I shall +mention one relative to his feelings of friendship. A few days before +leaving Pisa, we were one evening seated in the garden of the Palazzo +Lanfranchi. A soft melancholy was spread over his countenance;--he +recalled to mind the events of his life; compared them with his present +situation and with that which it might have been if his affection for me +had not caused him to remain in Italy, saying things which would have made +earth a paradise for me, but that even then a presentiment that I should +lose all this happiness tormented me. At this moment a servant announced +Mr. Hobhouse. The slight shade of melancholy diffused over Lord Byron's +face gave instant place to the liveliest joy; but it was so great, that it +almost deprived him of strength. A fearful paleness came over his cheeks, +and his eyes were filled with tears as he embraced his friend. His emotion +was so great that he was forced to sit down. + +"Lord Clare's visit also occasioned him extreme delight. He had a great +affection for Lord Clare, and was very happy during the short visit that +he paid him at Leghorn. The day on which they separated was a melancholy +one for Lord Byron. 'I have a presentiment that I shall never see him +more,' he said, and his eyes filled with tears. The same melancholy came +over him during the first weeks that succeeded to Lord Clare's departure, +whenever his conversation happened to fall upon this friend." + +Of his feelings on the death of his daughter Allegra, this lady gives the +following account:--"On the occasion also of the death of his natural +daughter, I saw in his grief the excess of paternal tenderness. His +conduct towards this child was always that of a fond father; but no one +would have guessed from his expressions that he felt this affection for +her. He was dreadfully agitated by the first intelligence of her illness; +and when afterwards that of her death arrived, I was obliged to fulfil the +melancholy task of communicating it to him. The memory of that frightful +moment is stamped indelibly on my mind. For several evenings he had not +left his house, I therefore went to him. His first question was relative +to the courier he had despatched for tidings of his daughter, and whose +delay disquieted him. After a short interval of suspense, with every +caution which my own sorrow suggested, I deprived him of all hope of the +child's recovery. 'I understand,' said he,--'it is enough, say no more.' A +mortal paleness spread itself over his face, his strength failed him, and +he sunk into a seat. His look was fixed, and the expression such that I +began to fear for his reason; he did not shed a tear, and his countenance +manifested so hopeless, so profound, so sublime a sorrow, that at the +moment he appeared a being of a nature superior to humanity. He remained +immovable in the same attitude for an hour, and no consolation which I +endeavoured to afford him seemed to reach his ears, far less his heart. +But enough of this sad episode, on which I cannot linger, even after the +lapse of so many years, without renewing in my own heart the awful +wretchedness of that day. He desired to be left alone, and I was obliged +to leave him. I found him on the following morning tranquillized, and with +an expression of religious resignation on his features. 'She is more +fortunate than we are,' he said; 'besides her position in the world would +scarcely have allowed her to be happy. It is God's will--let us mention it +no more.' And from that day he would never pronounce her name; but became +more anxious when he spoke of Ada,--so much so as to disquiet himself when +the usual accounts sent him were for a post or two delayed." + +The melancholy death of poor Shelley, which happened, as we have seen, +also during this period, seems to have affected Lord Byron's mind less +with grief for the actual loss of his friend than with bitter indignation +against those who had, through life, so grossly misrepresented him; and +never certainly was there an instance where the supposed absence of all +religion in an individual was assumed so eagerly as an excuse for the +entire absence of truth and charity in judging him. Though never +personally acquainted with Mr. Shelley, I can join freely with those who +most loved him in admiring the various excellencies of his heart and +genius, and lamenting the too early doom that robbed us of the mature +fruits of both. His short life had been, like his poetry, a sort of bright, +erroneous dream,--false in the general principles on which it proceeded, +though beautiful and attaching in most of the details. Had full time been +allowed for the "over-light" of his imagination to have been tempered down +by the judgment which, in him, was still in reserve, the world at large +would have been taught to pay that high homage to his genius which those +only who saw what he was capable of can now be expected to accord to it. + +It was about this time that Mr. Cowell, paying a visit to Lord Byron at +Genoa, was told by him that some friends of Mr. Shelley, sitting together +one evening, had seen that gentleman, distinctly, as they thought, walk, +into a little wood at Lerici, when at the same moment, as they afterwards +discovered, he was far away, in quite a different direction. "This," added +Lord Byron, in a low, awe-struck tone of voice, "was but ten days before +poor Shelley died." + + +HIS SERVICE IN THE GREEK CAUSE. + +With that thanklessness which too often waits on disinterested actions, it +has been some times tauntingly remarked, and in quarters from whence a +more generous judgment might be expected, that, after all, Lord Byron +effected but little for Greece: as if much _could_ be effected by a single +individual, and in so short a time, for a cause which, fought as it has +been almost incessantly through the six years since his death, has +required nothing less than the intervention of all the great powers of +Europe to give it a chance of success, and, even so, has not yet succeeded. +That Byron himself was under no delusion, as to the importance of his own +solitary aid--that he knew, in a struggle like this, there must be the +same prodigality of means towards one great end as is observable in the +still grander operations of nature, where individuals are as nothing in +the tide of events--that such was his, at once, philosophic and melancholy +view of his own sacrifices, I have, I trust, clearly shown. But that, +during this short period of action, he did not do well and wisely all that +man could achieve in the time, and under the circumstances, is an +assertion which the noble facts here recorded fully and triumphantly +disprove. He knew that, placed as he was, his measures, to be wise, must +be prospective, and from the nature of the seeds thus sown by him, the +benefits that were to be expected must be judged. To reconcile the rude +chiefs to the government and to each other;--to infuse a spirit of +humanity, by his example, into their warfare;--to prepare the way for the +employment of the expected loan, in a manner most calculated to call forth +the resources of the country--to put the fortifications of Missolonghi in +such a state of repair as might, and eventually _did_, render it proof +against the besieger;--to prevent those infractions of neutrality, so +tempting to the Greeks, which brought their government in collision with +the Ionian authorities, and to restrain all such license of the press as +might indispose the courts of Europe to their cause:--such were the +important objects which he had proposed to himself to accomplish, and +towards which, in this brief interval, and in the midst of such +dissensions and hindrances, he had already made considerable and most +promising progress. But it would be unjust to close even here the bright +catalogue of his services. It is, after all, _not_ with the span of mortal +life that the good achieved by a name immortal ends. The charm acts into +the future--it is an auxiliary through all time; and the inspiring example +of Byron, as a martyr of liberty, is for ever freshly embalmed in his +glory as a poet. + + +HIS PORTRAIT. + +Of his face, the beauty may be pronounced to have been of the highest +order, as combining at once regularity of features with the most varied +and interesting expression. + +The same facility, indeed, of change observable in the movements of his +mind was seen also in the free play of his features, as the passing +thoughts within darkened or shone through them. His eyes, though of a +light grey, were capable of all extremes of expression, from the most +joyous hilarity to the deepest sadness--from the very sunshine of +benevolence to the most concentrated scorn or rage. Of this latter passion, +I had once an opportunity of seeing what fiery interpreters they could be, +on my telling him, thoughtlessly enough, that a friend of mine had said to +me--"Beware of Lord Byron, he will, some day or other, do something very +wicked." "Was it man or woman said so?" he exclaimed, suddenly turning +round upon me with a look of such intense anger as, though it lasted not +an instant, could not easily be forgot, and of which no better idea can be +given than in the words of one who, speaking of Chatterton's eyes, says +that "fire rolled at the bottom of them." + +But it was in the mouth and chin that the great beauty, as well as +expression of his fine countenance lay. "Many pictures have been painted +of him (says a fair critic of his features) with various success; but the +excessive beauty of his lips escaped every painter and sculptor. In their +ceaseless play they represented every emotion, whether pale with anger, +curled in disdain, smiling in triumph, or dimpled with archness and love." +It would be injustice to the reader not to borrow from the same pencil a +few more touches of portraiture. "This extreme facility of expression was +sometimes painful, for I have seen him look absolutely ugly--I have seen +him look so hard and cold, that you must hate him, and then, in a moment, +brighter than the sun, with such playful softness in his look, such +affectionate eagerness kindling in his eyes, and dimpling his lips into +something more sweet than a smile, that you forget the man, the Lord Byron, +in the picture of beauty presented to you, and gazed with intense +curiosity--I had almost said--as if to satisfy yourself, that thus looked +the god of poetry, the god of the Vatican, when he conversed with the sons +and daughters of man." + +His head was remarkably small--so much so as to be rather out of +proportion with his face. The forehead, though a little too narrow, was +high, and appeared more so from his having his hair (to preserve it, as he +said) shaved over the temples; while the glossy, dark-brown curls, +clustering over his head, gave the finish to its beauty. When to this is +added, that his nose, though handsomely, was rather thickly shaped, that +his teeth were white and regular, and his complexion colourless, as good +an idea perhaps as it is in the power of mere words to convey may be +conceived of his features. + +In height he was, as he himself has informed us, five feet eight inches +and a half, and to the length of his limbs he attributed his being such a +good swimmer. His hands were very white, and--according to his own notion +of the size of hands as indicating birth--aristocratically small. The +lameness of his right foot, though an obstacle to grace, but little +impeded the activity of his movements; and from this circumstance, as well +as from the skill with which the foot was disguised by means of long +trousers, it would be difficult to conceive a defect of this kind less +obtruding itself as a deformity; while the diffidence which a constant +consciousness of the infirmity gave to his first approach and address made, +in him, even lameness a source of interest. + + * * * * * + +_Printed and Published by J. LIMBIRD, 143, Strand, (near Somerset House,) +London_. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, +and Instruction, No. 474, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRROR OF LITERATURE, NO. 474 *** + +***** This file should be named 12685.txt or 12685.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/6/8/12685/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Allen Siddle and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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