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diff --git a/41701-0.txt b/41701-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bc69908 --- /dev/null +++ b/41701-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9353 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41701 *** + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 41701-h.htm or 41701-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41701/41701-h/41701-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41701/41701-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://archive.org/details/cu31924013451913 + + + + + +THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF LORD BYRON + + * * * * * + +_Works by the Same Author_ + + +MADAME DE STAËL AND HER LOVERS + +GEORGE SAND AND HER LOVERS + +ROSSEAU AND THE WOMEN HE LOVED + +CHATEAUBRIAND AND HIS COURT OF WOMEN + +THE PASSIONS OF THE FRENCH ROMANTICS + + * * * * * + + +[Illustration: _Lord Byron._] + + +THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF LORD BYRON + +by + +FRANCIS GRIBBLE + +Author of "George Sand and Her Lovers" etc. + + + + + + + +London +Eveleigh Nash +Fawside House +1910 + + + + +PREFACE + + +Whether a book is called "The Love Affairs of Lord Byron" or "The Life of +Lord Byron" can make very little difference to the contents of its pages. +Byron's love affairs were the principal incidents of his life, and almost +the only ones. Like Chateaubriand, he might have spoke of "a procession of +women" as the great panoramic effect of his career. He differed from +Chateaubriand, however, in the first place, in not professing to be very +much concerned by the pageant, and, in the second place, in being, in +reality, very deeply affected by it. Chateaubriand kept his emotions well +in hand, exaggerating them in retrospect for the sake of literary effect, +picturing the sensibility of his heart in polished phrases, but never +giving the impression of a man who has suffered through his passions, or +been swept off his feet by them, or diverted by them from the pursuit of +ambition or the serene cult of the all-important ego. In all +Chateaubriand's love affairs, in short, red blood is lacking and +self-consciousness prevails. He appears to be equally in love with all the +women in the procession; the explanation being that he is more in love +with himself than with any of them. In spite of the procession of women, +which is admitted to have been magnificent, it may justly be said of +Chateaubriand that love was "of his life a thing apart." + +Of Byron, who coined the phrase (though Madame de Staël had coined it +before him) it cannot be said. It may appear to be true of sundry of his +incidental love affairs, but it cannot stand as a broad generalisation. +His whole life was deflected from its course, and thrown out of gear: +first, by his unhappy passion for Mary Chaworth; secondly, by the way in +which women of all ranks, flattering his vanity for the gratification of +their own, importuned him with the offer of their hearts. Lady Byron +herself did so no less than Lady Caroline Lamb, and Jane Clairmont, and +the Venetian light o' loves, though, no doubt, with more delicacy and a +better show of maidenly reserve. Fully persuaded in her own mind that he +had pined for her for two years, she delicately hinted to him that he need +pine no longer. He took the hint and married her, with the catastrophic +consequences which we know. Then other women--a long series of other +women--did what they could to break his fall and console him. He dallied +with them for years, without ever engaging his heart very deeply, until at +last he realised that this sort of dalliance was a very futile and +enervating occupation, tore himself away from his last entanglement, and +crossed the sea to strike a blow for freedom. + +That is Byron's life in a nutshell. His biographer, it is clear, has no +way of escape from his love affairs; while the critic is under an +obligation, almost equally compelling, to take note of them. It is not +merely that he was continually writing about them, and that the meaning of +his enigmatic sentences can, in many cases, only be unravelled by the help +of the clue which a knowledge of his love affairs provides. The striking +change which we see the tone of his work undergoing as he grows older is +the reflection of the history of his heart. Many of his later poems might +have been written in mockery of the earlier ones. He had his illusions in +his youth. In his middle-age, if he can be said to have reached +middle-age, he had none, but wrote, to the distress of the Countess +Guiccioli, as a man who delighted to tear aside, with a rude hand, the +striped veil of sentiment and hypocrisy which hid the ugly nakedness of +truth. The secret of that transformation is written in the record of his +love affairs, and can be read nowhere else. His life lacks all unity and +all consistency unless the first place in it is given to that record. + +Since the appearance of Moore's Life, and even since the appearance of +Cordy Jeaffreson's "Real Lord Byron," a good deal of new information has +been made available. The biographer has to take cognisance of the various +documents brought together in Mr. Murray's latest edition of Byron's +Writings and Letters; of Hobhouse's "Account of the Separation"; of the +"Confessions," for whatever they may be worth, elicited from Jane +Clairmont and first printed in the _Nineteenth Century_; of Mr. Richard +Edgcumbe's "Byron: the Last Phase"; and of the late Lord Lovelace's +privately printed work, "Astarte." + +The importance of each of these authorities will appear when reference is +made to it in the text. It will be seen, then, that some of the Murray +MSS. give precision to the narrative of Byron's relations with Lady +Caroline Lamb, and that others effectually dispose of Cordy Jeaffreson's +theory that Lady Byron's mysterious grievance--the grievance which caused +her lawyer to declare reconciliation impossible--was her husband's +intimacy with Miss Clairmont. Others of them, again, as effectually +confute Cordy Jeaffreson's amazing doctrine that Byron only brought +railing accusations against his wife because he loved her, and that at the +time when he denounced her as "the moral Clytemnestra of thy lord," he was +in reality yearning to be recalled to the nuptial bed. Concerning +"Astarte" some further remarks may be made. + +It is a disgusting and calumnious compilation, designed, apparently, to +show that Byron's descendants accept the worst charges preferred against +him by his enemies during his lifetime. Those charges are such that one +would have expected a member of the family to hold his tongue about them, +even if he were in possession of evidence conclusively demonstrating their +truth. That a member of the family should have revived the charges on the +strength of evidence which may justly be described as not good enough to +hang a dog on almost surpasses belief. Still, the thing has been done, and +the biographer's obligations are affected accordingly. Unpleasant though +the subject is, he must examine the so-called evidence for fear lest he +should be supposed to feel himself unable to rebut it; and he is under the +stronger compulsion to do so because the mud thrown by Lord Lovelace is +not thrown at Byron only, but also at Augusta Leigh, a most worthy and +womanly woman, and the best of sisters and wives. It is the hope and +belief of the present writer that he has succeeded in definitely clearing +her character, together with that of her brother, and demonstrated that +the legend of the crime, so industriously inculated by Byron's grandson, +has no shadow of foundation in fact. + +FRANCIS GRIBBLE + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. ANCESTORS, PARENTS, AND HEREDITARY INFLUENCES 1 + + II. CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS AT ABERDEEN, DULWICH, AND HARROW 10 + + III. A SCHOOLBOY'S LOVE AFFAIRS--MARY DUFF, MARGARET PARKER, + AND MARY CHAWORTH 23 + + IV. LIFE AT CAMBRIDGE AND FLIRTATIONS AT SOUTHWELL 35 + + V. REVELRY AT NEWSTEAD--"ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" 50 + + VI. THE GRAND TOUR--FLIRTATIONS IN SPAIN 63 + + VII. FLORENCE SPENCER SMITH 75 + + VIII. THE MAID OF ATHENS--MRS. WERRY--MRS. PEDLEY--THE SWIMMING + OF THE HELLESPONT 87 + + IX. RETURN TO ENGLAND--PUBLICATION OF "CHILDE HAROLD" 101 + + X. THE SECRET ORCHARD 114 + + XI. LADY CAROLINE LAMB 127 + + XII. THE QUARREL WITH LADY CAROLINE--HER CHARACTER AND + SUBSEQUENT CAREER 138 + + XIII. LADY OXFORD--BYRON'S INTENTION OF GOING ABROAD WITH HER 148 + + XIV. AN EMOTIONAL CRISIS--THOUGHTS OF MARRIAGE, OF FOREIGN + TRAVEL, AND OF MARY CHAWORTH 158 + + XV. RENEWAL AND INTERRUPTION OF RELATIONS WITH MARY CHAWORTH 170 + + XVI. MARRIAGE 182 + + XVII. INCOMPATIBILITY OF TEMPER 194 + + XVIII. LADY BYRON'S DEMAND FOR A SEPARATION--RUMOURS THAT + "GROSS CHARGES" MIGHT BE BROUGHT, INVOLVING MRS. LEIGH 208 + + XIX. "GROSS CHARGES" DISAVOWED BY LADY BYRON--SEPARATION + AGREED TO 221 + + XX. REVIVAL OF THE BYRON SCANDAL BY MRS. BEECHER STOWE AND + THE LATE LORD LOVELACE 231 + + XXI. INHERENT IMPROBABILITY OF THE CHARGES AGAINST AUGUSTA + LEIGH--THE ALLEGATION THAT SHE "CONFESSED"--THE PROOF THAT SHE + DID NOTHING OF THE KIND 240 + + XXII. BYRON'S DEPARTURE FOR THE CONTINENT--HIS ACQUAINTANCE + WITH JANE CLAIRMONT 253 + + XXIII. LIFE AT GENEVA--THE AFFAIR WITH JANE CLAIRMONT 264 + + XXIV. FROM GENEVA TO VENICE--THE AFFAIR WITH THE DRAPER'S WIFE 277 + + XXV. AT VENICE--THE AFFAIR WITH THE BAKER'S WIFE--DISSOLUTE + PROCEEDINGS IN THE MOCENIGO PALACE--ILLNESS, RECOVERY AND + REFORMATION 287 + + XXVI. IN THE VENETIAN SALONS--INTRODUCTION TO COUNTESS GUICCIOLI 300 + + XXVII. BYRON'S RELATIONS WITH THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI AND HER + HUSBAND AT RAVENNA 312 + + XXVIII. REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITIES--REMOVAL FROM RAVENNA TO PISA 324 + + XXIX. THE TRIVIAL ROUND AT PISA 336 + + XXX. FROM PISA TO GENOA 345 + + XXXI. DEPARTURE FOR GREECE 356 + + XXXII. DEATH IN A GREAT CAUSE 369 + + APPENDIX 375 + + INDEX 377 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + LORD BYRON _Frontispiece_ + + THE MAID OF ATHENS _To face page_ 88 + + LADY CAROLINE LAMB " 128 + + MARY CHAWORTH " 174 + + LADY BYRON " 222 + + COUNTESS GUICCIOLI " 302 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +ANCESTORS, PARENTS, AND HEREDITARY INFLUENCES + + +The Byrons came over with the Conqueror, helped him to conquer, and were +rewarded with a grant of landed estates in Lancashire. Hundreds of years +elapsed before they distinguished themselves either for good or evil, or +emerged from the ruck of the landed gentry. There were Byrons at Crecy, +and at the siege of Calais; and there probably were Byrons among the +Crusaders. There is even a legend of a Byron Crusader rescuing a Christian +maiden from the Saracens; but neither the maiden nor the Crusader can be +identified. The authentic history of the family only begins with the grant +of Newstead Abbey, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, to +Sir John Byron of Clayton, in Lancashire--a reward, apparently, for +services rendered by his father at the Battle of Bosworth Field. + +Even so, however, the Byrons remained comparatively inconspicuous[1]; and +their records only begin to be full and interesting at the time of the war +between Charles I. and his Parliament. Seven Byrons, all brothers, then +fought on the King's side; and the most distinguished of the seven was the +eldest, another Sir John Byron of Clayton--a loyal, valiant, and impetuous +soldier, with more zeal than discretion. It was his charge that broke +Haslerig's cuirassiers at Roundway Down. It was in his regiment that +Falkland was fighting when he fell at Newbury. On the other hand he helped +to lose the battle of Marston Moor by charging without orders. "By Lord +Byron's improper charge," Prince Rupert reported, "much harm hath been +done." + +He had been given his peerage--with limitations in default of issue male +to his six surviving brothers and the issue male of their bodies--in the +midst of the war. After Naseby, he went to Paris, and spent the rest of +his life in exile. His first wife being dead, he married a second--a lady +concerning whom there is a piquant note in Pepys' Diary. She was, Pepys +tells us, one of Charles II.'s mistresses--his "seventeenth mistress +aboard," who, as the diarist proceeds, "did not leave him till she got him +to give her an order for £4000 worth of plate; but, by delays, thanks be +to God! she died before she got it." + +This first Lord Byron died childless, and the title passed to his brother +Richard, who had also distinguished himself in the war on the King's side. +He was one of the colonels whose gallantry at Edgehill the University of +Oxford rewarded with honorary degrees; and he was Governor, successively, +of Appleby and Newark. He tried to seduce his kinsman, Colonel +Hutchinson, from his allegiance to the Parliament, but without avail. +"Except," Colonel Hutchinson told him, "he found his own heart prone to +such treachery, he might consider that there was, if nothing else, so much +of a Byron's blood in him that he should very much scorn to betray or quit +a trust he had undertaken." + +The third Lord, Richard's son William, succeeded to the title in 1679. His +marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Viscount Chaworth, brings the name of +the heroine of the poet's first and last love into the story; and he is +also notable as the first Byron who had a taste, if not actually a turn, +for literature. Thomas Shipman, the royalist singer whose songs indicate, +according to Mr. Thomas Seccombe's criticism in the "Dictionary of +National Biography," that "the severe morals of the Roundheads were even +less to his taste than their politics," was his intimate friend; and +Shipman's "Carolina" contains a set of verses from his pen: + + "_My whole ambition only does extend + To gain the name of Shipman's faithful friend; + And though I cannot amply speak your praise, + I'll wear the myrtle, tho' you wear the bays._" + +That is a fair specimen of the third Lord Byron's poetical style; and it +is clear that his descendant did not need to be a great poet in order to +improve upon it. Of his son, the fourth Lord, who died in 1736, there is +nothing to be said; but his grandson, the fifth Lord, lives in history +and tradition as "the wicked Lord Byron." The report of his arraignment +before his fellow peers on the charge of murdering his relative, Mr. +William Chaworth, in 1765, may be read in the Nineteenth Volume of State +Trials, though the most careful reading is likely to leave the rights of +the case obscure. + +The tragedy, whatever the rights of it, occurred after one of the weekly +dinners of the Nottinghamshire County Club, at the Star and Garter Tavern +in Pall Mall. The quarrel arose out of a heated discussion on the subject +of preserving game--a topic which country gentlemen are particularly +liable to discuss with heat. Lord Byron is said to have advocated +leniency, and Mr. Chaworth severity, towards poachers. The argument led to +a wager; and the two men went upstairs together--apparently for the +purpose of arranging the terms of the wager--and entered a room lighted +only by a dull fire and a single candle. As soon as the door was closed, +they drew their swords and fought, and Lord Byron ran Mr. Chaworth through +the body. + +Those are the only points on which all the depositions agree. Lord Byron +said that Chaworth, who was the better swordsman of the two, challenged +him to fight, and that the fight was conducted fairly. The case for the +prosecution was that Chaworth did not mean to fight, and that Lord Byron +attacked him unawares. Chaworth, though he lingered for some hours, and +was questioned on the subject, said nothing to exonerate his assailant. +That, broadly speaking, was the evidence on which the peers had to come to +their decision; and they found Lord Byron not guilty of murder but guilty +of manslaughter. Pleading his privilege as a peer, he was released on +payment of the fees. + +Society, however, inclined to the view that he had not fought fairly. Two +years before he had been Master of the Stag-hounds. Now he was cut by the +county, and relapsed into misanthropic debauchery. He quarrelled with his +son, the Honorable William Byron, sometime M.P. for Morpeth, for +contracting a marriage of which he disapproved. He drove his wife away +from Newstead by his brutality, and consorted with a low-born "Lady +Betty." The stories of his shooting his coachman and trying to drown his +wife were untrue, but his neighbours believed them, and behaved +accordingly; and an unpleasant picture of his retirement may be found in +Horace Walpole's Letters. + + "The present Lord," Horace Walpole writes, "hath lost large sums, and + paid part in old oaks; five thousand pounds worth have been cut down + near the house. _En revanche_, he has built two baby forts to pay his + country in castles for the damage done to the Navy, and planted a + handful of Scotch firs that look like plough-boys dressed in old + family liveries for a public day." + +Playing at naval battles and bombardments, with toy ships, on the little +lakes in his park, was, indeed, the favourite, if not the only, +recreation of the wicked lord's old age. It is said that his chief purpose +in cutting down the timber was to spite and embarrass his heirs; and he +did, at any rate, involve his heir in a law suit almost as long as the +famous case of Jarndyce _versus_ Jarndyce by means of an improper sale of +the Byron property at Rochdale. + +His heir, however, was not to be either his son or his grandson. They both +predeceased him--the latter dying in Corsica in 1794--and the title and +estates passed to the issue of his brother John, known to the Navy List as +Admiral Byron, and to the navy as "foul weather Jack." + +The Admiral had been round the world with Anson, had been wrecked on the +coast of Chili, and had published a narrative--"my granddad's +narrative"--of his hardships and adventures. He had later been sent round +the world on a voyage of discovery on his own account, but had discovered +nothing in particular. Finally he had fought, not too successfully, +against d'Estaing in the West Indies, and had withdrawn to misanthropic +isolation. His son, Captain Byron, of the Guards, known to his +contemporaries as "Mad Jack Byron," was a handsome youth of worthless +character, but very fascinating to women. His elopement, while still a +minor, with the Marchioness of Carmarthen, was one of the sensational +events of a London season. + +Lady Carmarthen's husband having divorced her, Mad Jack married her in +1778. They lived together in Paris and at Chantilly--prosperously, for +the bride had £4000 a year in her own right. A child was born--Augusta, +who subsequently married Colonel Leigh; but, in 1784, his wife died, and +Captain Byron, heavily in debt, was once more thrown on his own resources. +He returned to England to look for an heiress, and he found one in the +person of Miss Gordon of Gight, whom he met and married at Bath in 1786. + +The fortune, when the landed estates had been realised, amounted to about +£23,000; and Captain Byron's clamorous creditors took most of it. A +considerable portion of what was left was quickly squandered in riotous +living on the Continent. The ultimate income consisted of the interest +(subject to an annuity to Mrs. Byron's grandmother) on the sum of £4200; +and that lamentable financial position had already been reached when +Captain and Mrs. Byron came back to England and took a furnished house in +Holles Street, where George Noel Gordon, sixth Lord Byron, was born on +January 22, 1788. + +There we have, in brief outline, all that is essential of the little that +is known of Byron's heredity. If it is not precisely common-place, it is +at least undistinguished. No one can ever have generalised from it and +said that the Byrons were brilliant, or even--in spite of the third Lord's +conscientious attempts at versification--that they were "literary." A far +more likely generalisation would have been that the Byrons were mad. + +They were not quite that, of course, though some of them were eccentric; +and those who were eccentric had the courage of their eccentricity. But +they were, at least so far as we know them, impetuous and reckless +men--men who went through life in the spirit of a bull charging a gate, +doing what they chose to do because they chose to do it, with a defiant +air of "damn the consequences." We find that note alike in the first +Lord's "improper charge" on Marston Moor, and the fifth Lord's improvised +duel in the dark room of the Pall Mall tavern, and in Captain Byron's +dashing elopement with a noble neighbour's wife. We shall catch it again, +and more than once, in our survey of the career of the one Byron who has +been famous; and we shall see how much his fame owed to his pride, his +determined indifference, in spite of his prickly sensitiveness, to public +opinion, and his clear-cut, haughty character. + +Legh Richmond, the popular evangelical preacher, once said that, if Byron +had been as bad a poet as he was a man, his poetry would have done but +little harm, but that criticism is almost an inversion of the truth. +Byron, in fact, imposed himself far less because his poetry was good than +because his personality was strong. He never saw as far into the heart of +things as Wordsworth. When he tried to do so, at Shelley's instigation, he +only saw what Wordsworth had already shown; and there are many passages in +his work which might fairly be described as being "like Wordsworth only +less so." None of his shorter pieces are fit to stand beside "The world is +too much with us," and he never wrote a line so wonderfully inspired as +Wordsworth's "still, sad music of humanity." + +But he had one advantage over Wordsworth. He spoke out; he was not afraid +of saying things. His genius had all the hard riding, neck-or-nothing +temper of the earlier, undistinguished Byrons behind it. He was "dowered +with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,"--and he damned the +consequences with the haphazard blasphemy of an aristocrat who feels sure +of himself, and has no need to pick his words. He was quite ready to damn +them in the presence of ladies, and in the face of kings; and he damned +them as one having authority, and not as the democratic upstarts; so that +the world listened attentively, wondering what he would say next, and even +Shelley, observing how easily he compelled a hearing, was fully persuaded +that Byron was a greater poet than himself. + +That, in the main, it would seem, was how heredity affected him. The +hereditary influences, however, were, in their turn modified by the +strange circumstances of his upbringing; and it is time to glance at them, +and see how far they help to account for the loneliness and aloofness of +Byron's temperament, for the sensitiveness already referred to, and for +the ultimate attitude known as the Byronic pose. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS AT ABERDEEN, DULWICH, AND HARROW + + +Captain and Mrs. Byron, finding themselves impoverished, left Holles +Street, and retired to Aberdeen, to live on an income of £150 a year. +Augusta having been taken off their hands by her grandmother, Lady +Holderness, they were alone together, with the baby and the nurse, in +cheap and gloomy lodgings; and they soon began to wrangle. It was the old +story, no doubt, of poverty coming in at the door and love flying out of +the window, leaving only incompatibility of temper behind. + +The husband, though inclined to be amiable as long as things went well, +was, in modern phrase, a "waster." The wife, though shrewd and possessed +of some domestic virtues, was, in the language of all time, a scold. He +wanted to run into debt in order to keep up appearances; she to disregard +appearances in order to live within her income. Dinners of many courses +and wines of approved vintages seemed to her the superfluities but to him +the necessaries of life. He probably did not mince words in expressing his +view of the matter; she certainly minced none in expressing hers. There is +a strong presumption, too, that she complained of him to her neighbours; +for it is well attested in her son's letters to his sister that she was +that sort of woman. So the day came when Captain Byron walked out of the +house, vowing that he would live with his wife no longer. + +For a time he lived in a separate lodging in the same street. Presently, +scraping some money together--borrowing it, that is to say, without any +intention of repaying it--he went to France to amuse himself; and in +January 1791, at the age of thirty-five, he died at Valenciennes. It has +been suggested that he committed suicide, but nothing is known for +certain. One of Byron's earliest recollections was of his mother's weeping +at the news of her husband's death, and of his own astonishment at her +tears. She had continually nagged at him, and heaped abuse on him, while +he lived; yet now her distracted shrieks filled the house and disturbed +the neighbourhood. That was the child's earliest lesson in the +unaccountable ways of women. He was only three at the time--yet old enough +to wonder, though not to understand. + +His stay at Aberdeen was to last for seven more years. He was to go to +school there, and to be accounted a dunce, though not a fool. He was to +learn religion there from his nurse, who taught him the dark, alarming +Calvinistic doctrine; and he was to develop some of the traits and +characteristics which were afterwards to be pronounced. On the whole, +indeed, in spite of alleviations, he had a gloomy childhood, by a sense, +however imperfectly comprehended, of the contrast between life as it was +and life as it ought to have been. + +He had been born proud, inheriting quite as much pride from his mother's +as from his father's family. He soon came to know that there were such +things as old families, and that the Byron family was one of the oldest of +them. It was borne in upon him by what he saw and heard that the proper +place for a baron was a baronial hall; and he could see that the apartment +in which he was growing up was neither a hall nor baronial. The first +apartment occupied by his mother was, in fact, as has already been said, a +lodging, and the second was an "upper part," the furniture of which, when +it ultimately came to be sold, fetched exactly £74 17s. 7d. + +The boy must have felt--we may depend upon it that his mother told +him--that there was something wrong about that; that his school companions +were make-shift associates, not really worthy of him; that he was, as it +were, a child born in exile, and unjustly kept out of his rights. The +feeling must have grown stronger--we may be quite sure that his mother +stimulated it--when the unexpected death of his cousin made him the direct +heir to the title and estates; and, indeed, it was a feeling to some +extent justified by the facts. His great-uncle, the wicked Lord Byron, +ought then, as everybody said, to have shown signs of recognition, and to +have offered an allowance. + +He made no sign, however, and he offered no allowance. Instead of doing +so, he went on felling timber, and effected the illegal sale of the +Rochdale property already referred too; and for four more years--from the +age of six, roughly speaking, to the age of ten--the heir apparent to the +barony was living poorly in an Aberdeen "upper part," while the actual +baron was living in luxury and state at Newstead. There were good grounds +for bitterness and resentment there; and Mrs. Byron, with her unruly +tongue, was the woman to make the most of them. Family pride grew apace +under her influence; and there was no other influence to check or +counteract it. The boy learnt to be as proud of his birth as a _parvenu_ +would like to be--a characteristic of which we shall presently note some +examples. + +If he was proud, however, he was also sensitive: and it may well have been +that his pride was, to some extent, a shield of protection which his +sensitiveness threw up. He was sensitive, not only because he was poor +when he ought to be rich and insignificant when he ought to be important, +but also because he was lame. An injury done at birth to his Achilles +tendons prevented him from planting his heels firmly on the ground. He had +to trot on the ball of his foot instead of walking; he could not even trot +for more than a mile or so at a time. A physical defect of that sort is +always a haunting grief to a child--especially so, perhaps, to a child +with a dawning consciousness of great mental gifts. It appears to such a +child as an irreparable wrong done--a wrong which can never be either +righted or avenged--an irremovable mark of inferiority, inviting taunts +and gibes. + +Byron was sensitive on the subject, fearing that it made him ridiculous, +throughout his life, alike when he was the darling and when he was the +outcast of society; and various stories show how the deformity embittered +his childhood. + +"What a pretty boy Byron is! What a pity he has such a leg!" he, one day, +heard a lady say to his nurse. + +"Dinna speak of it," he screamed, stamping his foot, and slashing at her +with his toy whip. + +And then there is the story of his mother who, in one of her fits of +passion, called him "a lame brat." + +He drew himself up, and, with a restraint and a concentrated scorn beyond +his years, replied in the word which he afterwards put into "The +Hunchback": + +"I was born so, mother." + +That was one of the passionate scenes that passed between them--but only +one among many; and it was only in the case of this one affront which cut +him to the quick, that the child displayed such precocious self-control. +More often he answered rage with rage and violence with violence. In one +fit of fury he tore his new frock to shreds; in another he tried to stab +himself, at table, with a dinner knife. Exactly why he did it, or what he +resented, he probably did not know either at the time, or afterwards; but +he vaguely felt, no doubt, that something was wrong with the world, and +instinct impelled him to kick against the pricks and damn the whole nature +of things. + +Then, in 1798, came the sudden change of fortune. The wicked Lord Byron +was dead at last; and the child of ten was a peer of the realm and the +heir to great, though heavily mortgaged estates. He could not take +possession of them yet--the embarrassed property needed to be delicately +nursed--but still, subject to the charges, they were his. He was taken to +look at them, and then, a tenant having been found for Newstead, Mrs. +Byron settled, first at Nottingham, and then in London, and her son was +sent to school--first to a preparatory school at Dulwich, and then to +Harrow. + +Even so, however, there remained something strange, abnormal, and +uncomfortable about his position. On the one hand, Mrs. Byron, not +understanding, or trying to understand, him, nagged and scolded until he +lost almost all his natural affection for her. On the other hand, his +father's relatives, whether because they felt that "Mad Jack" had +disgraced the family, or because they objected to Mrs. Byron--who, in +truth, in spite of her good birth, was extremely provincial in her style, +and of loquacious, mischief-making propensities--were very far from +cordial. They had not even troubled to communicate with her when the death +of her son's cousin made him the direct heir, but had left her to learn +the news accidentally from strangers. Lord Carlisle, the son of his +grandfather's sister, Isabella Byron, consented to act as his guardian, +but abstained from making friendly overtures. + +The fault in that case, however, was almost entirely Mrs. Byron's. There +was some dispute between her and Dr. Glennie, her son's Dulwich +headmaster--a dispute which culminated in a fit of hysterics in Dr. +Glennie's study. Lord Carlisle was appealed to, and the result of his +attempt at mediation was that Mrs. Byron practically ordered him out of +the house. Byron, of course, could not help that; but, equally of course, +he suffered from it. He was neglected, and he was sensible of the neglect. +He had come into a world in which he had every right to move, only to be +made to feel that he was not wanted there. Born in exile, and having +returned from exile, he was cold-shouldered by kinsmen who seemed to think +that he would have done better to remain in exile. + +Very likely he was, at that age, somewhat of a lout, shy, ill at ease, and +unprepossessing. Genius does not necessarily reflect itself in polished +behaviour. Aberdeen is not as good a school of manners as Eton, and Mrs. +Byron was but an indifferent teacher of deportment. But his pride, it +seems clear, was not the less but the greater because of his inability to +express it in strict accordance with the rules of the best society. He was +a Byron--a peer of the realm--the senior representative of an ancient +house. He knew that respect, and even homage, were due to him; and he felt +that he must assert himself--if not in one way, then in another. So, when +the Earl of Portsmouth--a peer of comparatively recent creation--presumed +to give his ear a friendly pinch, he asserted himself by picking up a +sea-shell and throwing it at the Earl of Portsmouth's head. That would +teach the Earl, he said, not to take liberties with other members of the +aristocracy. + +At this date, too, when writing to his mother, he addressed her as "the +Honorable Mrs. Byron," a designation to which, of course, she had no +shadow of a right; and he earned the nickname of "the old English Baron" +by his habit of boasting to his schoolfellows of the amazing antiquity of +his lineage. Lord Carlisle may well have thought that it was high time for +his ward to go to Harrow to be licked or kicked into shape. He went there +in 1803, at the age of thirteen and a half. + +Dr. Drury, of Harrow, was the first man who saw in Byron the promise of +future distinction. "He has talents, my lord," he soon assured his +guardian, "which will add lustre to his rank." Whereat Lord Carlisle +merely shrugged his shoulders and said, "Indeed!"--whether because his +ward's talents were a matter of indifference to him, or because he +considered that rank could dispense with the lustre which talents bestow. + +According to his own recollections, Byron was quick but indolent. He could +run level in the class-room with Sir Robert Peel, who afterwards took a +sensational double-first at Oxford, when he chose; but, as a rule, he did +not choose. He absorbed a good deal of scholarship, without ever becoming +a good scholar in the technical sense, and his declamations on the +speech-days were much applauded. There are records to the effect that he +was bullied. A specially offensive insult directed at him in later life +drew from him the retort that he had not passed through a public school +without learning that he was deformed; and Leigh Hunt has related that +sometimes "he would wake and find his leg in a tub of water." But he was +not an easy boy to bully, for he was ready to fight on small provocation; +and he won all his fights except one. He did credit to his religious +training by punching Lord Calthorpe's head for calling him an atheist, +though it is possible that his objections to the obnoxious epithet were as +much social as theological, for an atheist, among schoolboys is, by +implication, an "outsider." + +"I was a most unpopular boy," he told Moore, "but _led_ latterly." The +latter statement has been generally accepted by his biographers; but not +all the stories told in support of it stand the test of inquiry. There is +the story, for instance, accepted even by Cordy Jeaffreson, that he led +the revolt against Butler's appointment to the headmastership, but +prevented his followers from burning down one of the class-rooms by +reminding them that the names of their ancestors were carved upon the +desks. "I can certify," wrote the late Dean Merivale of Ely, "that just +such a story was told in my early days of Sir John Richardson;" so that +Byron seems here to have got the credit for another hero's exploits. + +There are the stories, too, of his connection with the first Eton and +Harrow cricket match. Cordy Jeaffreson goes so far as to express doubt +whether he took part in the match at all; but that is exaggerated +scepticism, which research would have confuted. The score is printed in +Lillywhite's "Cricket Scores and Biographies of celebrated Cricketers;" +and it appears therefrom that Byron scored seven runs in the first innings +and two in the second, and also bowled one wicket; but even on that +subject the Dean of Ely, who went to Harrow in 1818, has something to say. + + "It is clear," the Dean writes, "that he was never a leader.... On the + contrary, awkward, sentimental, and addicted to dreaming and + tombstones, he seems to have been held in little estimation among our + spirited athletes. The remark was once made to me by Mr. John Arthur + Lloyd (of Salop), a well-known Harrovian, who had been captain of the + school in the year of the first match with Eton (1805): 'Yes,' he + said, 'Byron played in the match, and very badly too. He should never + have been in the eleven if my counsel had been taken.'" + +And the Dean goes on, picturing Byron's awkwardness: + + "Mrs. Drury was once heard to say of him: 'There goes Byron' (Birron + she called him) 'straggling up the hill, like a ship in a storm + without rudder or compass.'" + +Byron's influence at Harrow, in short, was exercised over his juniors +rather than his contemporaries. It pleased him, when he was big enough, to +protect small boys from school tyrants. One catches his feudal spirit +again in his appeal to a bully not to lick Lord Delawarr "because he is a +fellow peer"; but he was also ready to intervene in other cases in which +that plea could not be urged; and he had the reward that might be +expected. He once offered to take a licking for one of the Peels; and he +became a hero with hero-worshippers--titled hero-worshippers for the most +part--sitting at his feet. Lord Delawarr, Lord Clare, the Duke of Dorset, +the Honorable John Wingfield, were the most conspicuous among them. It was +from their adulation that he got his first taste of the incense which was, +in later years, to be burnt to him so lavishly. + +He described his school friendships, when he looked back on them, as +"passions"; and there is no denying that the language of the letters which +he wrote to his friends was inordinately passionate for a schoolboy +addressing schoolfellows. "Dearest" is a more frequent introduction to +them than "dear," and the word "sweet" also occurs. It is not the happiest +of signs to find a schoolboy writing such letters; and it is not +altogether impossible that unfounded apprehensions caused by them account +for the suggestion made by Drury--though the fact is not mentioned in the +biographies--that Byron should be quietly removed from the school on the +ground that his conduct was causing "much trouble and uneasiness." + +That, however, is uncertain, and one must not insist. All that the +so-called "passions"--occasionally detrimental though they may have been +to school discipline--demonstrate is Byron's enjoyment of flattery, and +his proneness to sentiment and gush. He liked, as he grew older, to accept +flattery, while professing to be superior to it; to enjoy sentiment, and +then to laugh at it; to gush with the most gushing, and then suddenly to +turn round and "say 'damn' instead." But the cynicism which was afterwards +to alternate with the sentimentalism had not developed yet. He did not yet +say "damn"--at all events in that connection. + +One must think of him as a boy with a great capacity for passionate +affection, and a precocious tendency to gush, deprived of the most natural +outlets for his emotions. He could not love his mother because she was a +virago; he hardly ever saw his sister; his guardian kept him coldly at a +distance. Consequently his feelings, dammed in one direction, broke out +with almost ludicrous intensity in another; and his friendships were +sentimental to a degree unusual, though not, of course, unknown or +unprecedented, among schoolboys. He wrote sentimental verses to his +friends. + +But not to them alone. "Hours of Idleness," first published when he was a +Cambridge undergraduate, is the idealised record of his school +friendships; but it is also the idealised record of other, and very +different, excursions into sentiment. It introduces us to Mary Duff, to +Margaret Parker, to Mary Chaworth,--and also to some other Maries of less +importance; and we will turn back and glance, in quick succession at their +stories before following Byron to Cambridge. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A SCHOOLBOY'S LOVE AFFAIRS--MARY DUFF, MARGARET PARKER, AND MARY CHAWORTH + + +First on the list of early loves comes little Mary Duff of Aberdeen. She +was one of Byron's Scotch cousins, though a very distant one; and there is +hardly anything else to be said, except that he was a child and she was a +child in their kingdom by the sea. Only no wind blew out of a cloud +chilling her. Her mother made a second marriage--described by Byron as a +"faux pas" because it was socially disadvantageous--and left the city; and +the two children never met again. + +It was of no importance, of course. They were only a little more than +seven when they were separated. But Byron was proud of his precocity, and +liked to recall it, and to wonder if any other lover had ever been equally +precocious. "I have been thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff," he +wrote in a fragment of a diary at the age of twenty-five; and he reminded +himself how he used to lie awake, picturing her, and how he urged his +nurse to write her a love letter on his behalf, and how they sat +together--"gravely making love in our way"--while Mary expressed pity for +her younger sister Helen, for not having an admirer too. Above all, he +reminded himself of the shock which he felt, years afterwards, when the +sudden communication of a piece of news revived the recollection of the +idyll. + + "My mother," he proceeded, "used always to rally me about this + childish amour; and, at last, many years after, when I was sixteen, + she told me, one day, 'Oh, Byron, I have had a letter from Edinburgh, + from Miss Abercromby, and your old sweetheart Mary Duff is married to + a Mr. C----.' And what was my answer? I really cannot explain or + account for my feelings at that moment; but they nearly threw me into + convulsions, and alarmed my mother so much that, after I grew better, + she generally avoided the subject--to _me_--and contented herself with + telling it to all her acquaintance." + +And then again: + + "My misery, my love for that girl were so violent that I sometimes + doubt if I have ever been really attached since. Be that as it may, + hearing of her marriage several years after was like a thunder + stroke--it nearly choked me--to the horror of my mother and the + astonishment and almost incredulity of nearly everybody." + +It is a well-known story, and one can add nothing to it beyond the fact +that Mary Duff's husband was Mr. Cockburn, the wine merchant, and that she +lived quite happily with him, and that we are entitled to think of her +whenever we drink a glass of Cockburn's port. But we may also doubt, +perhaps, whether Byron is, in this case, quite a faithful reporter of his +own emotions, and whether his grief was not artistically blended with +other and later regrets, and other and later perceptions of the fickleness +of the female heart and the mutability of human things. For when we come +to look at the dates, we find that the date of Mary Duff's marriage was +also the date of Byron's desperate passion for Mary Chaworth. + +Between Mary Duff and Mary Chaworth, however, Margaret Parker had +intervened. She was another cousin, descended from Admiral Byron's +daughter Augusta. The first letter that Byron ever wrote was addressed to +her mother. "Dear Madam," it began, "My Mamma being unable to write +herself desires I will let you know that the potatoes are now ready and +you are welcome to them whenever you please." For the rest, one can only +quote Byron's brief reminiscence: + + "My first dash into poetry was as early as 1800. It was the ebullition + of a passion for my first cousin Margaret Parker, one of the most + beautiful of evanescent beings. I have long forgotten the verses, but + it would be difficult for me to forget her--her dark eyes--her long + eyelashes--her completely Greek cast of face and figure! I was then + about twelve--she rather older, perhaps a year. She died about a year + or two afterwards in consequence of a fall which injured her spine + and induced consumption.... My sister told me that, when she went to + see her, shortly before her death, upon accidentally mentioning my + name, Margaret coloured through the paleness of mortality to the + eyes.... I knew nothing of her illness, being at Harrow and in the + country, till she was gone. Some years after I made an attempt at an + elegy--a very dull one." + +And then Byron speaks of his cousin's "transparent" beauty--"she looked as +if she had been made out of a rainbow"--and concludes: + + "My passion had its usual effect upon me--I could not eat--I could not + sleep--I could not rest; and although I had reason to know that she + loved me, it was the texture of my life to think of the time that must + elapse before we could meet again, being usually about twelve hours of + separation! But I was a fool then, and am not much wiser now." + +The elegy is included in the collected works. Special indulgence is asked +for it on the ground that it was "composed at the age of fourteen." It is +very youthful in tone--quite on the conventional lines--as one would +expect. A single quatrain may be given--not to be criticised, but merely +to show that Byron, as a boy, was still looking at life pretty much as his +pastors and masters told him to look at it: + + "_And shall presumptuous mortals Heaven arraign! + And, madly, Godlike Providence accuse! + Ah! no, far fly from me attempts so vain;-- + I'll ne'er submission to my God refuse._" + +We are still a long way here from the intense, the cynical, the defiant, +or even the posturing Byron of later years. The gift of personal +expression has not yet come to him; and he is still in literary fetters, +weeping, on paper, according to the rules. Intensity and the personal note +only begin with his sudden love for Mary Chaworth; cynicism and defiance +only begin after that love affair has ended in failure. + +Mary Chaworth was the heir of the Annesley property, adjoining Newstead, +and she was the grand-niece of the Chaworth whom the wicked Lord Byron ran +through the body in the upper chamber of the Pall Mall tavern; so that +their marriage, if they could have been married, would, as Byron says, +"have healed feuds in which blood had been shed by our fathers." But Byron +was not yet the Byron who had only to come, and to be seen, in order to +conquer. He was a schoolboy of fifteen, which is an awkward age. He had +achieved no triumphs in any field which could give him self-assurance. He +was not yet a leader, even among his schoolfellows; and he was not only +lame, but also fat. How shall a fat boy hope, whatever fires of genius +burn within him, to enter the lists against his elders and bear away the +belle from county balls? Byron, at any rate, failed signally in the +attempt to do so. + +Newstead having been let to Lord Grey de Ruthen, Mrs. Byron was, at the +time, lodging at Nottingham; and Byron had various reasons for preferring +to see as little of her as possible. She was never sympathetic; she was +often quarrelsome; it was her pleasant habit, when annoyed, to rattle the +fire-irons and throw the tongs at him. So he often availed himself of his +tenant's invitation to visit Newstead, whenever he liked; and from +Newstead it was the most natural thing in the world that he should go over +to Annesley, where Miss Chaworth, with whom he already had a slight +acquaintance, was living with her mother, Mrs. Clarke. + +He was always welcome there. There was as little desire on his cousin's +side as on his to revive the recollection of the feud. When he came to +call, he was pressed to stay and sleep. At first he refused, most probably +from shyness, though he professed a superstitious fear of the family +portraits. They had "taken a grudge to him," he said, on account of the +duel; they would "come down from their frames at night to haunt him." But +presently his fears, or his shyness, were conquered. He had seen a ghost, +he said, in the park; and if he must see ghosts he might just as well see +them in the house; so, if it was all the same to his hosts, he would like +to stay. + +He stayed, and was entranced with Mary Chaworth's singing. He rode with +her, and practiced pistol shooting on the terrace--more than a little +pleased, one conjectures, to show off his marksmanship. He went with +her--and with others, including a chaperon--on an excursion to Matlock and +Castleton. A note, written long afterwards, preserves a memory of the +trip: + + "It happened that, in a cavern in Derbyshire, I had to cross in a boat + (in which two people only could lie down) a stream which flows under a + rock, with the rock so close upon the water as to admit the boat only + to be pushed on by a ferryman (a sort of Charon) who wades at the + stern, stooping all the time. The companion of my transit was M.A.C., + with whom I had long been in love, and never _told_ it, though _she_ + had discovered it without. I recollect my sensations, but cannot + describe them, and it is as well." + +And no doubt Mary Chaworth encouraged the boy, amused at his raptures, +enjoying the visible proof of her power, prepared to snub him, in the end, +if necessary, but scarcely expecting that there would be any need for her +to do so. She was seventeen, and a girl of seventeen always feels capable +of reminding a boy of fifteen that the prayer book forbids him to marry +his grandmother. Moreover, she was engaged, though the engagement had not +yet been announced, to Mr. John Musters--a grown man and a Philistine--a +handsome, rather dissipated, hard-riding and hard-drinking country squire. +The dreamy, limping, fat boy from Harrow had no shadow of a chance against +his athletic rival. It was impossible for Mary Chaworth to divine the +genius that lurked beneath the fat. One has no right to expect such powers +of divination from girls of seventeen. + +No doubt she thought the fat boy, as she would have said, "good fun." No +doubt she was amused when, as a demonstration that he was not too young to +be loved, he showed her the locket which Margaret Parker had given him, +three years before, when he was twelve. Unquestionably she flirted with +him--or, at least, let him flirt with her. She even gave him a ring, and +the gift must have raised high hopes, though it was the cause of the +discovery which brought the flirtation to an end. + +Squire Musters discovered the ring among Byron's clothes one day when he +and the boy were bathing together in the Trent. He recognised it, picked +it up, and put it in his pocket. Byron claimed it, and Musters declined to +give it up; and then, to quote the Countess Guiccioli, who is the +authority for the story: + + "High words were exchanged. On returning to the house, Musters jumped + on a horse and galloped off to ask an explanation from Miss Chaworth, + who, being forced to confess that Lord Byron wore the ring with her + consent, felt obliged to make amends to Musters by promising to + declare immediately her engagement with him." + +Such is the story, as one gets it, through the Countess and through Moore, +from Byron himself; but we also get a side glimpse at it in a letter, +recently published,[2] from Mrs. Byron to Hanson, the family solicitor. +From this we gather that Byron, in order to make love, had absented +himself from school; that Drury had inquired the reason of his absence; +and that his mother was making strenuous, but unavailing, efforts to +induce him to return. Nothing was the matter with him but love--"desperate +love, the _worst_ of all _maladies_ in my opinion." He had hardly been to +see his mother at all, but had been spending all his time at Annesley. "It +is the last of all connexions," she added, "that I should wish to take +place"; and she begged Mr. Hanson to make arrangements for her son to +spend his next holidays elsewhere. Expense was no object; and it would +suit her very well if Dr. Drury could be induced to detain him at Harrow. + +And Byron himself, meanwhile, was writing to his mother, alternately using +lofty language about his right to choose his own friends, and pleading for +one more day in order that he might take leave. + +He took it; but there is more than one version of the story. + +"Do you think," he overheard Mary Chaworth say to her maid, "that I could +care anything for that lame boy?" And, having heard that, "he instantly +darted out of the house, and, scarcely knowing whither he ran, never +stopped till he found himself at Newstead." That is what Moore tells us; +but the picture drawn in "The Dream,"--the most obviously and +deliberately autobiographical of Byron's poems--is different. + +"She loved," he writes: + + "_Another: even now she loved another, + And on the summit of that hill she stood + Looking afar as if her lover's steed + Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew._" + +She was waiting, that is to say, for Squire Musters to ride up the lane, +while listening to Byron's declaration. That is the first picture; and +then there follows the picture of the boy who "within an antique oratory +stood," and to whom, presently, "the lady of his love re-entered": + + "_She was serene and smiling then, and yet + She knew she was by him beloved--she knew, + For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart + Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw + That he was wretched, but she saw not all. + He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp + He took her hand; a moment o'er his face + A tablet of unutterable thoughts + Was traced, and then it faded, as it came; + He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps + Retired, but not as bidding her adieu, + For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed + From out the massy gate of that old Hall, + And mounting on his steed he went his way; + And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more._" + +There we have the Mary Chaworth legend as it has been handed down from one +generation of biographers to another. Byron, according to that legend, saw +Mary once after her marriage, but once only. He was on the point of +visiting her at a later date, but was dissuaded by his sister. "If you +go," Augusta said, "you will fall in love again, and then there will be a +scene; one step will lead to another, _et cela fera un éclat_." He agreed +that the reasoning was sound, and did as he was advised. He tells that +story himself, and adds: "Shortly after, I married." + +And yet--the legend continues--this hopeless love, which touched his heart +at the age of fifteen, was the dominating influence of his life. Mary +Chaworth, though always absent, was yet always present. He never loved any +other woman, though he tried to love, and indeed seemed to love, several. +The vision of her face always came between him and them. His later love +affairs were only concessions, or attempts to escape from himself and his +memories--unavailing attempts, for this memory continued to haunt him +until the end. + +It sounds incredible. The thoughts of youth may be long, long thoughts; +but the memories of youth are short, and the dreams of youth are dreams +from which we never fail to wake. And yet Byron insists, quite as much as +biographers have insisted. He insists in "The Dream," which was written +more than a decade after the parting. He insists in later poems, the inner +meaning of which is hardly to be questioned. So that speculation is +challenged, and, when pursued, leads us inevitably to a dilemma. + +For of two things, one: Either Byron was posing--posing not only to the +world but to himself; or else the story, as all the biographers from Moore +to Cordy Jeaffreson have told it, is incomplete, and after an interlude, +had a sequel. + +To search for such a sequel will be our task presently. Unless we can find +one, the development of the personal note in Byron's work will have to be +left unexplained. The impression which we get, if we read the more +personal poems in quick succession, is of a man who first awakes from the +dream of love--and remains very wide awake for a season--and then relapses +and dreams it all over again. Unless the story which first set him +dreaming had had a sequel, that would hardly be. So we will seek for the +sequel in due course, though we must first gather up the incidents of the +interlude. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LIFE AT CAMBRIDGE AND FLIRTATIONS AT SOUTHWELL + + +Baffled in love, Byron returned to Harrow, after a term's absence, in +January 1804, and remained there for another eighteen months. This +eighteen months is the period during which he describes himself as having +been happy at school. It is also the period during which he haunted the +Harrow churchyard, indulging his day dreams as he looked down from the +hillside on the wide, green valley of the Thames. Those dreams, it is +hardly to be doubted, were chiefly of Mary Chaworth; and we may picture +the poet's secret sorrow as giving him, fat though he was, a sense of +superiority over other boys who had no secret sorrows. Apparently, too, +casting about for an explanation of his failure, he realised that, in the +rivalries of love, the victory is far less likely to rest with the fat +than with the lame; and so, presently,--though not until after an interval +of reflection--he set himself the task of compelling his too solid flesh +to melt. + +He has been laughed at, and charged with vanity for doing so; but he was +right. He would also have been ridiculed, and with more justice, if he had +resigned himself to be overwhelmed by the rising tide of superabundant +tissue. Fatness is not merely a grotesque condition. It is a condition +incompatible with fitness; and it is far nobler to resist it with +systematic heroism than to cultivate it and call heaven and earth to +witness that one is the fattest person going; and the fact that Byron, by +dint of exercises which made him perspire, a careful diet, and a +persistent use of Epsom salts, reduced his weight from fourteen stone six +to twelve stone seven, is no small achievement to be passed over lightly. +It is, on the contrary, one of the most memorable incidents in his +development--the greatest of all the feats performed by him at Trinity +College, Cambridge,[3] where he began to reside in October 1805. + +He did not read for honours. At Oxford he might have done so, and might +have figured in the same class list as his Harrow friend, Sir Robert Peel, +who took a double-first, and Archbishop Whately, who took a double-second. +At Cambridge, however, the pernicious rule prevailed that honours were +only for mathematicians. The Classical Tripos was not originated until a +good many years afterwards, and Byron had neither talent nor taste for +figures. The most notable, though not the highest, wranglers of his year +were Adam Sedgwick, the geologist, and Blomfield, Bishop of London. Byron +would have had to work very hard to make any show against them. He did +not enter the competition, but let his mind exercise itself on more +congenial themes, cherishing the belief--so erroneous and yet so +common--that Senior Wranglers never come to any good in after life. + +His allowance was £500 a year; and he kept a servant and a horse. His +general proceedings, except when he was writing verses were pretty similar +to those of the average young nobleman who attends a University, not to +instruct but to amuse himself. He rode, and fenced, and boxed, and swam, +and dived; he gambled and backed horses; he was alternately guest and host +at rather uproarious wine-parties, and was spoken of as a young man "of +very tumultuous passions." The statement has been made--he has made it +himself and his biographers have repeated it--that he lived quietly at +first, and only latterly got into a dissipated set; but as we find him, in +his second term, entreating his sister to back a bill for £800, the +statement probably needs to be modified in order to square with the facts. + +Apparently Augusta did not comply with his request; but the proofs that he +lived beyond his means are ample. Mrs. Byron was as loud in her wail on +the subject as the widows of Asher. She complains--this also in the second +term--of bills "coming in thick upon me to double the amount I expected"; +and she protests, in Byron's first Easter vacation, against his wanton +extravagance in subscribing thirty guineas to Pitt's statue; while, in the +course of the next Easter vacation we find her consulting the family +solicitor as to the propriety of borrowing £1000 to get her son out of the +hands of the Jews, and declaring that, during the whole of his Cambridge +career he has done "nothing but drink, gamble, and spend money." + +Very similar is the testimony of his own and his sister's letters. "I was +much surprised," Augusta writes, in the second term, to the solicitor, "to +see my brother a week ago at the Play, as I think he ought to be employing +his time more profitably at Cambridge." Byron himself, writing to his +intimates, confesses to several departures from sobriety. The first was in +celebration of the Eton and Harrow match, which was followed by a +convivial scene, foreshadowing those at the Empire on boat-race night, at +some place of public entertainment. "How I got home after the play," Byron +says, "God knows. I hardly recollect, as my brain was so much confused by +the heat, the row, and the wine I drank, that I could not remember in the +morning how I found my way to bed." Later, in a letter to Miss Elizabeth +Bridget Pigot of Southwell, he speaks of his life as "one continual +routine of dissipation," talks of "a bottle of claret in my head," and +concludes with the specific admission: "Sorry to say been drunk every day, +and not quite sober yet." + +Possibly he exaggerates a little; but those who know the Universities best +will be least likely to suspect him of exaggerating very much. There is +always a set which lives in that style at any college frequented by young +men of ample means. Their ways, _mutatis mutandis_, are faithfully +described in the pages of "Verdant Green." Byron's career, once more +_mutatis mutandis_, was not unlike the career of Charles Larkyns and +Little Mr. Bouncer in Cuthbert Bede's picture of life at the sister +University. He had, at any rate, one foot in such a set as that, though he +was in a better set as well, and formed serious friendships with such men +as Hobhouse, afterwards Lord Broughton, Charles Skinner Matthews, +afterwards Fellow of Downing, Scrope Davies, afterwards Fellow of King's, +and Francis Hodgson, ultimately Provost of Eton. It is not quite clear +whether he was, or was not, one of the rowdy spirits who "ragged" Lort +Mansell, the Master of Trinity.[4] He certainly annoyed the dons by +keeping a bear as a pet, and asserting that he intended the animal to "sit +for a fellowship." But the most characteristic picture, after all, is that +which he draws (selecting his solicitor, of all persons in the world, for +his confidant) of his mode of reducing his flesh. + + "I wear _seven_ waistcoats, and a great Coat, run and play cricket in + this Dress, till quite exhausted by excessive perspiration, use the + bath daily, eat only a quarter of a pound of Butcher's Meat in 24 + hours.... By these means my ribs display Skin of no great Thickness, + and my clothes have been taken in nearly _half a yard_." + +That is the closing passage of a letter which begins with the confession +that "_Wine_ and _women_ have _dished_ your _humble servant_." The two +statements, taken in conjunction, furnish two-thirds of the picture. The +remaining third of it may be deduced and constructed from the verses which +Byron had then written or was then writing. + +It might be tempting to see in the period of dissipation a disappointed +lover's desperate attempt to escape from an ineffaceable recollection; and +the view might be supported by Byron's own subsequent declaration that "a +violent, though _pure_, love and passion," was "the then romance of the +most romantic period of my life." Undergraduate excesses, however, rarely +require such recondite explanations; and Byron's reminiscences had, as we +shall see, been coloured by intervening events. All the contemporary +evidence that one can gather goes to show that they were inexact; that, +though he had been hard hit by Mary Chaworth's disdainful reception of his +suit, he did not mope, but, holding up his head, was in a fair way to live +his trouble down; and that his theory of himself, put forward in the +well-known lines in "Childe Harold": + + "_And I must from this land begone + Because I cannot love but one_" + +is an after thought entirely inconsistent with his practices as a +Cambridge undergraduate. + +One would be constrained to suspect that, even if the early poems +addressed to Mary Chaworth stood alone. There are not many of them, and +they lack the intensity of passion--the impression of all possible hopes +irremediably blighted--which "The Dream" reveals. They strike one as a +little stiff and artificial, as though the poet had tried to express, not +so much what he actually felt, as what he considered that a man in his +position ought to feel. That is particularly the case with the poems of +the first period. There are boasts in them which we know to have been +quite unwarranted by the circumstances of the case. The poet pictures +himself as one who might disturb domestic peace if he chose, but refrains, +being merciful as he is strong: + + "_Perhaps his peace I could destroy, + And spoil the blisses that await him; + Yet let my rival smile in joy, + For thy dear sake, I cannot hate him._" + +The boasts there, we see, are the prelude of resignation; and, a line or +two further on, resignation is followed by the resolution to forget: + + "_Then, fare thee well, deceitful Maid, + 'Twere vain and fruitless to regret thee; + Nor Hope nor Memory yield their aid, + But Pride may teach me to forget thee._" + +That is very conventional--hardly less conventional than the Elegy on +Margaret Parker--a sentimental "prelude to life," one would judge, of +quite an ordinary kind. And, as has been said, the sentimental utterance +does not stand alone. Other verses, hardly less sentimental, addressed to +several other ladies, were, at the same time, pouring from Byron's pen. + +Burgage Manor, a house which his mother had taken at Southwell, near +Nottingham, was his vacation home. He fled from his home, from time to +time, because of Mrs. Byron's incurable habit of rattling the fire-irons +in order to draw attention to his faults; but he returned at intervals, +and stayed long enough to form a considerable circle of friends--friends, +be it noted, who belonged not to "the county" but to the professional +society of the town. + +The county did not "call" to any appreciable extent. A few of the men +called on Byron himself; but none of the women called on Mrs. +Byron--whether because her reputation for rattling the fire-irons and +hurling the tongs had reached them, or because, on general principles, +they did not think her good enough to mix with them. Byron, as was +natural, resented their attitude and refused to return visits which +implied a slight upon his mother. Whatever his own disputes with her, he +would not have her snubbed by the local magnates, or himself enter their +doors on sufferance while she was excluded from them. He mixed instead +with the clergy, the doctors, the lawyers, the retired colonels, and +flirted with their sisters and daughters. In that set he moved as a triton +among the minnows, fluttering the dovecotes of Southwell pretty much as, +at a later date, Praed, fresh from Eton, fluttered the dovecotes of +Teignmouth. He could not dance, of course, owing to his lameness; but he +could distinguish himself in amateur theatricals, and he could write +verses. + +His success in the Southwell drawing-rooms and boudoirs was the first +reward of his success in resisting and repelling the encroachments of the +flesh. The struggle was one which he had to renew at intervals throughout +his life; but his "crowning mercy" was the victory of this date. He +emerged from it slim, elegant, and strikingly handsome. He rejoiced, and +the girls of Southwell rejoiced with him. They understood, as well as he +did, that it is difficult for a man to be fat and sentimental at one and +the same time; that there is something ludicrously incongruous in the +picture of a fat boy writing sentimental verses and professing to pine +away for love. And they liked him to write sentimental verses to them, and +he was quite willing to do so. He was, at this time, the sort of young man +who will write verses to any girl who will give him a keepsake--the sort +of young man to whom almost every girl will give a keepsake on condition +that he will write verses to her. + +He wrote lines, for instance, "to a lady who presented to the author a +lock of hair braided with his own and appointed a night in December to +meet him in the garden." Nothing is known of her except that her name was +Mary, and that she was neither Mary Duff nor Mary Chaworth, but a third +Mary "of humble station." Southwell, when it saw those verses, was +shocked. It seemed highly improper to Southwell that maidens of humble +station should be encouraged to presume by such attentions on the part of +noblemen. Probably it was on this occasion that the Reverend John Becher, +Vicar of Rumpton, Notts, expostulated with the poet for + + "_Deigning to varnish scenes that shun the day + With guilty lustre and with amorous lay._" + +But Byron kept Mary's lock of hair, and showed it, together with her +portrait, to his friends and wrote: + + "_Thro' hours, thro' years, thro' time 'twill cheer-- + My hope in gloomy moments raise; + In life's last conflict 'twill appear, + And meet my fond, expiring gaze._" + +To Mary Chaworth herself Byron could hardly have said more, but he was, in +fact, at this time, saying the same sort of thing to all and sundry. Just +the same sentiment recurs in the lines addressed "To a lady who presented +the author with the velvet band which bound her tresses": + + "_Oh! I will wear it next my heart; + 'Twill bind my soul in bonds to thee: + From me again 'twill ne'er depart, + But mingle in the grave with me._" + +Yet if Byron proposes to be faithful for ever to this un-named lady, he +proposes, at the same time, to be equally faithful to a lady who can be +identified as Miss Anne Houson: + + "_With beauty like yours, oh, how vain the contention! + Thus lowly I sue for forgiveness before you;-- + At once to conclude such a fruitless dissension, + Be false, my sweet Anne, when I cease to adore you!_" + +And then there are other lines--innumerable other lines which would also +have to be quoted if the treatment of the subject were to be +encyclopædic--lines to Marion, lines to Caroline, lines to a beautiful +Quaker, lines to Miss Julia Leacroft, whose brother, the fire-eating +Captain John Leacroft remonstrated with Byron, and, according to Moore, +even went so far as to challenge him, on account of his pointed attentions +to his sister: lines, finally, to M.S.G. who would appear, if verse could +be accepted as autobiography, to have offered to yield to Byron, but to +have been spared because of his tender regard for her fair fame: + + "_I will not ease my tortured heart, + By driving dove-ey'd peace from thine; + Rather than such a sting impart, + Each thought presumptuous I resign._ + + "_At least from guilt shalt thou be free, + No matron shall thy shame reprove; + Though cureless pangs may prey on me, + No martyr shalt thou be to love._" + +With that citation we may quit the subject. Not one of the sets of +verses--with the single exception of the set addressed to Miss +Leacroft--has any discoverable story attached to it. All of them--or +nearly all of them--have the air of celebrating some profound attachment +from which no escape is to be looked for on this side of the grave. +Byron's later conception of himself as a man who had loved but one had not +crept into his poetry yet. He had not even begun to strike the pose of the +Childe impelled to "visit scorching climes beyond the sea" because the one +he loved "could ne'er be his." + +The idea, indeed, of a man fleeing the country in 1809 because he had +loved in vain in 1804 would not, in any case, carry conviction. Even to a +poet the idea could hardly have presented itself without some definite +renewal of the memories. They were revived, in fact, at a dinner party, in +1808, of which we find an account in one of Byron's letters to Hodgson: + + "I was seated near a woman to whom, when a boy, I was as much attached + as boys generally are, and more than a man should be. I knew this + before I went, and was determined to be valiant and converse with + _sang froid_; but instead I forgot my valour and my nonchalance, and + never opened my lips even to laugh, far less to speak, and the lady + was almost as absurd as myself, which made both the object of more + observation than if we had conducted ourselves with easy indifference. + You will think all this great nonsense; if you had seen it, you would + have thought it still more ridiculous. What fools we are! We cry for a + plaything which, like children, we are never satisfied with till we + break open, though, like them, we cannot get rid of it by putting it + on the fire." + +That is the prose record of the meeting, and there is also a record in +verse. There are lines "to a lady on being asked my reason for quitting +England in the Spring"; there is the piece beginning, "Well! thou art +happy": + + "_Mary, adieu! I must away: + While thou art blest I'll not repine; + But near thee I can never stay; + My heart would soon again be thine._" + +And also: + + "_In flight I shall be surely wise, + Escaping from temptation's snare; + I cannot view my Paradise + Without the wish of dwelling there._" + +Poor stuff, as poetry, it will be agreed. Any one who wrote poetry at all +might have written it. The sentiment rendered in it is just the sentiment +which any sentimental youth would have felt to be proper to the occasion. +We can find in it, at most, only the faint fore-running shadow of the +Byronic pose. It rings very insincerely if we set it beside the lines in +which Walter Savage Landor, at about the same period, commemorated a +similar moment of emotion: + + "_Rose Aylmer, whom these waking eyes + May weep but never see; + A night of memories and of sighs + I consecrate to thee._" + +In that comparison, most decidedly, all the advantage is with +Landor--inevitably, because his were the feelings of a man, whereas +Byron's were the feelings of a boy. He was only twenty, and his age is the +explanation of a good deal. It explains his startled timidity, described +in the letter to Hodgson, in a novel, romantic situation. It explains his +hugging his grief as a precious possession on no account to be let go. It +also explains the zest with which, when grief had had its sacred hour, he +could turn from it and throw himself into other activities. + +He rejoiced in the pose, only outlined as yet, which was presently to make +him the most interesting man (to women at all events) in Europe; but he +also rejoiced in his youth. He flirted, as we have seen; he took part in +amateur theatrical performances; he engaged energetically in most of the +sports of the day, fencing with Angelo, boxing with Gentleman Jackson, +swimming the Thames from Lambeth to the Tower; he accumulated debts with +the fine air of a man heaping Pelion on Ossa; he flung down his defiant +challenge to the literary bigwigs in "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers"; +he drew his plans for the grand tour. The world, in short, was just then +"so full of a number of things" that Mary Chaworth's importance in it can +easily be, as it has often been, exaggerated. + +Presently we shall see Byron exaggerating it; and we shall also see how he +came to do so--how the boy's occasional pose became the determining +reality of the man's life. But before we come to that, we must turn back. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +REVELRY AT NEWSTEAD--"ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" + + +One watches the swelling of Byron's indebtedness with morbid interest. It +is like the rapid rising of a Spring tide which threatens to submerge a +city. Already, in his second term at Cambridge, as we have seen, he +besought his sister to pledge her credit for his loans. At the beginning +of his third year, we find him making a confession to his solicitor: + + "My debts amount to three thousand, three hundred to Jews, eight + hundred to Mrs. B. of Nottingham, to coachmaker and other tradesmen a + thousand more, and these must be much increased before they are + lessened." + +They were increased before they were lessened--unless the explanation be +that Byron only told the truth about them in instalments. Three months +later this is his confession to the Reverend John Becher: + + "_Entre nous_, I am cursedly dipped; my debts, _everything_ inclusive, + will be nine or ten thousand before I am twenty-one." + +But, even so, the high-water mark is not yet reached. Towards the end of +the same year, when Byron is contemplating his "grand tour," he once more +calls his solicitor into council: + + "You honour my debts; they amount to perhaps twelve thousand pounds, + and I shall require perhaps three or four thousand at setting out, + with credit on a Bengal agent. This you must manage for me." + +A pleasant commission, which seems to have led to a reference to Mrs. +Byron, who made a luminous suggestion: + + "I wish to God he would exert himself and retrieve his affairs. He + must marry a woman of _fortune_ this Spring; love matches is all + nonsense. Let him make use of the Talents God has given him. He is an + English Peer, and has all the privileges of that situation." + +It was a matter-of-fact proposal, worthy of the canny Scotswoman who made +it--a proof that, even when she threw the tongs at her son, she still had +his interests at heart; but nothing came of it. Very likely Byron, at this +date knew no heiresses; and even his mother was not matter-of-fact enough +to expect him to advertise for one, even for the purpose of avoiding the +necessity of selling Newstead. There was still the resource of borrowing a +little more, and of making the loans go as far as possible by retaining +the money for personal expenses, instead of applying it to the payment of +debt; and something of that sort seems to have been done. Scrope Davies +lent Byron £4800; and yet Mrs. Byron had occasion to write: + + "There is some Trades People at Nottingham that will be completely + ruined if he does not pay them, which I would not have happen for a + whole world." + +Moreover, though Byron himself talked vaguely to Hanson of the possibility +of his marriage with "a golden Dolly," he was at an age at which a young +man does not readily marry any woman with whom he is not in love. Whether +he was or was not, at that time, in love with Mrs. Chaworth,[5] he +certainly was not in love with any one else; and he was enjoying himself +and "having his fling," after the manner of gilded youth. His "domestic +female companion," to use Gibbon's charming phrase, was a professional +daughter of joy who travelled about with him in male attire. He even +brought her to Newstead, when he took possession of the Abbey on the +expiration of Lord Grey de Ruthen's tenancy. That may have been one +reason--though it need not necessarily have been the only one--for his +refusal to let his mother join him there. It would certainly have been a +valid reason for postponing matrimony. + +Around those Newstead revels a good deal of fantastic legend circles; and +the facts concerning them are hardly to be disentangled from the myths. +"Childe Harold" starts with them:-- + + _Ah! me! in sooth he was a shameless wight, + Sore given to revel and ungodly glee; + Few earthly things found favour in his sight + Save concubines and carnal companie, + And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree._ + +"Childe Harold," however, in spite of the fact that it was first called +"Childe Buron," is a poem, not a deposition. The picture, with its +"Paphian girls" and the rest of it-- + + _Where superstition once had made her den, + Now Paphian girls were wont to sing and smile, + And monks might deem their time was come agen, + If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men_, + +is not necessarily faithful because the note of contrast which it sounds +is of the essence of the poem. But, on the other hand, the excuses and +explanations by means of which Moore and Cordy Jeaffreson attempt to +palliate and minimise the supposed assertions of the poem are somewhat +less than convincing. + +The revels, say these apologists, cannot have been so very dreadful +because the Newstead guests sometimes included some of the local clergy, +and because some of the young men who engaged in them afterwards took +orders. The obvious answer to that is that the revellers may very well +have moderated their revelry on the occasions on which clergymen were +present--and that those of them who afterwards became pillars of the +Church may not, at that date, have got the old Adam into complete +subjection. Nor is a great deal gained by the contention that the part of +the supposed "Paphian girls" was, in fact, sustained by Byron's "domestic +female companion," and by the Newstead cook and the Newstead housemaid. To +say this is merely to protest that the alleged Paphians did not really +come from Paphos, but from some other island in the same neighbourhood. + +A letter written by Charles Skinner Matthews to his sister is the only +contemporary chronicle of the proceedings. There is a confirmation of his +account, together with some supplementary details, in a letter written, +long afterwards, by Byron to John Murray. Remembering the ages and +circumstances of the revellers--and remembering also that Moore's +information was derived from some of them--we will try to get as near to +the truth as the procurable evidence allows. + +Byron, one must always bear in mind, had not yet conquered his place in +county society, or in what is now called "smart" society. His mother's +eccentricities and his guardian's chilly attitude had, as we have seen, +kept him out of it. He actually knew no peer who could or would introduce +him when he took his seat in the House of Lords. The people whom he knew +at home were chiefly provincial people of the professional classes. At +Cambridge he had got into a fast, though not an unintellectual, set. He +was very young, and he had plenty of credit, if not much ready money; and +here was the "venerable pile" of Newstead--not the less venerable because +it was dilapidated--at his disposal as a playground, and a place in which +to dispense hospitality. + +Naturally he wanted to show Newstead to his friends, whom he had never +been able to entertain at home before. Naturally, having credit, he used +it to fit up and furnish as much of Newstead as was necessary for their +comfortable accommodation, not troubling to foresee the day--though he +would not have had to look very far ahead in order to foresee it--when the +bailiffs would be put in to seize the goods in default of payment. +Naturally, as Mrs. Byron was so addicted to rattling the tongs and +throwing the fire-irons at him, he did not want her there. Naturally, his +college friends having fast tastes and habits, and no ladies of their own +station being of the party, the method of their life did not follow the +conventional round of the ordinary house-party. The pet bear, and the pet +wolf, which guarded the entrances, were only symbols of the unusual and +extravagant state of things within. + +Breakfast, in theory, could be served at any hour. The hour actually +preferred by the majority of the party was one P.M. Matthews, who +generally came down between eleven and twelve, "was esteemed a prodigy of +early rising." Any one, he says, who had wanted to breakfast as early as +ten "would have been rather lucky to find any of the servants up." Not +until two P.M., as a rule, was the breakfast cleared away. The amusements +of the afternoon--which Matthews euphemistically calls the morning--were +"reading, fencing, single-stick, or shuttle-cock, in the great room, +practising with pistols in the hall, walking, riding, cricket, sailing on +the lake, playing with the bear, or teasing the wolf." Dinner was between +seven and eight, and then--another euphemism most proper in a letter to a +sister--"the evening diversions may be easily conceived." + +Those evening diversions consisted, in the first instance of dressing up +and drinking. The beverages, according to Byron himself, were "burgundy, +claret, champagne, and what not," quaffed not only out of ordinary +glasses, but also out of a loving-cup fashioned from a skull which had +been dug up in the Newstead grounds. As for the dressing-up; "A set of +monkish dresses," says Matthews, "which had been provided, with all the +proper apparatus of crosses, beads, tonsures, &c., often gave a variety to +our appearance and to our pursuits," which pursuits consisted, in Byron's +words, of "buffooning all round the house in our conventual garments." + +That Matthews speaks of tonsures as if they were articles of dress is +neither here nor there; and there is no importance to be attached to his +omission of all reference to the "buffooning." We know from Hobhouse that +he played his part in it, and that one of the amusements of this brilliant +young Fellow of Downing was to hide himself in a stone coffin in the Long +Gallery and groan, by way of alarming his brother revellers. Evidently the +Monks of Newstead, while taking some hints from the profane members of the +Medmenham Hell Fire Club, carried out, to the best of their ability, the +traditions of the Monks of Thelema. "Fays ce que voudras" might have been +their motto; and the doing of what they wished appears to have involved +and included the extension of invitations to the cook and the housemaid to +participate in their pleasures. Moore says so, not as one who makes a +charge, but as one who makes an admission to rebut a graver charge, and is +full of sympathy for the exuberance of lusty youth. Moralists must make +what they can of the story, and apportion censure and indulgence as they +think just. + +The excesses, at any rate, whatever their degree and nature, did not fill +Byron's life. He was getting on with his poetry in spite of them, though +it would be too much to say that he had yet proved his title to be called +a poet. + +"Hours of Idleness" had appeared while he was at Cambridge. The interest +of that volume, nowadays, is far more biographical than poetical. When one +has inferred from it that Byron did not pass through the University with a +heart bowed down by the loss of Mary Chaworth, but flirted with a long +series of the belles of Southwell, one has said nearly all that there is +to say. The poems themselves, as the quotations given amply demonstrate, +are no better than the general run of undergraduate verse composition. +They are purely imitative; no new note rings in them. One is not surprised +that Lord Carlisle, on receiving a presentation copy, was in a greater +hurry to acknowledge than to read it, and merely remarked, in his +acknowledgment that young men were better occupied in writing poetry than +in devoting their valuable time to women and horses. + +"Tolerably handsome," was Byron's first verdict on that letter; but he +seems to have felt snubbed when he read it over a second time. Lord +Carlisle's opinions, he wrote to Miss Pigot, were nothing to him, but his +guardian must not be "insolent." If he were insolent, he should be +gibbeted, just as Butler of Harrow had been gibbeted. In fact, and to sum +up: + + "Perhaps the Earl '_bears no brother near the throne_'--_if so_, I + will make his _sceptre_ totter _in his hands_." + +Which shows that Byron's back was up, and that he was already in a +fighting mood when the famous review in the _Edinburgh_ introduced a +jarring note into the chorus of approbation. + +The author of the attack was not Jeffrey, as Byron thought, but Brougham. +He had the excuse, for what it may be worth, that the poems had +indubitably been over-praised because they had appeared under the +signature of a nobleman. He, therefore, set out on the war path with the +truculent air of a man whose conscience requires him to bludgeon a +butterfly. The punishment, we cannot doubt, was very painful to the poet +whom Cambridge undergraduates and Southwell belles had flattered; and the +instant question for him was: Would he take his punishment lying down, or +would he take it fighting? + +That question, however, was not long in doubt. The Byrons were a fighting +race; and the poet had inherited their love of fighting. Just as he had +fought Lord Calthorpe at Harrow for calling him an atheist, so now he +would fight the _Edinburgh_ critic for calling him a fool. And he would +fight him with his own weapons. Let him have three bottles of claret to +prime him, and then he would strip for the fray, and would "take on," not +the reviewer only, but every one whom the reviewer had praised, and every +one whom he himself disliked, or thought he might dislike if he knew him +better. So he emptied his three bottles, and set to work on "English Bards +and Scotch Reviewers," and having written twenty lines of it, "felt +better." + +It is the poem in which his genius first begins to be apparent. Most of +the judgments expressed in it were unjust--most of them were afterwards +retracted by their author; but that does not matter. One does not expect +sound criticism from poets--least of all does one expect it from poets of +one-and-twenty. The essence of the thing is that now, in "English Bards +and Scotch Reviewers" a new personality spoke--and spoke loud enough to +be heard. + +The note of Byron--the note which gained him his large and attentive +audience--was his reckless audacity. He was not afraid of saying things; +he did not wrap them up, like Wordsworth and Coleridge, but said them in +plain language which all the world could understand--said them, moreover, +in a manner which made them appear true even to those who thought, or +wished to think, them false. His readers never knew what he would be +saying next. They only knew that, whatever it was, he would say it +effectively, and, as has already been remarked, with the air of one who +damned the consequences. That was the note which was, in later years, to +ring through "Don Juan." We can already hear it ringing, as it were in +anticipation, through the couplets of "English Bards and Scotch +Reviewers." + +Many examples might be cited; for the Satire, after the way of Satires, is +almost entirely composed of damnatory clauses. Any piece of gossip was +good enough for Byron to lay hold of and use as a missile when running +amok among literary reputations. The best instance, however, may be found +in the passage in which he turned and rent Carlisle. + +His original intention was to make himself pleasant to his guardian. He +had no particular reason for liking him, but he had no definite case +against him. There was the letter, of course, in which Carlisle had +patronised the poet instead of praising his poetry; but he had got over +his irritation about that, and did not bear malice; and so he prepared for +publication these lines of fulsome eulogy: + + "_Ah, who would take their titles from their rhymes? + On one alone Apollo deigns to smile, + And crowns a new Roscommon in Carlisle._" + +But then, before the day of publication, occurred his quarrel with +Carlisle. He thought that his guardian ought to have volunteered to +introduce him when he took his seat in the House of Lords; he had the more +reason for thinking so because his guardian was the only Peer of the Realm +whom he knew. Carlisle, however, did not do so, contenting himself with +instructing his ward as to the formalities to be fulfilled. The slight, +whether intentional or not, was keenly felt--the more keenly because Byron +was, at the moment, at war with all the world except Carlisle. _Et tu, +Brute_, may very well have been his reflection. + +So he had misjudged Carlisle. So Carlisle was as bad as other +people--worse, indeed, because better things might reasonably have been +expected from him. Very well. It was to be war between them, was it? Those +who played at bowls must look out for rubbers. Carlisle should see what +kind of an antagonist he had provoked. He had threatened to make his +sceptre totter in his hands. Now he would show that he could do it. So he +struck out the lines of eulogy, and substituted: + + "_Yet did or Taste or Reason sway the times, + Ah! who would take their titles with their rhymes! + Roscommon! Sheffield! With your spirits fled, + No future laurels deck a noble head; + No Muse will cheer with renovating smile + The paralytic puling of Carlisle._" + +Such was the Parthian shaft; and Byron, having discharged it, shook the +dust of England from off his feet, and departed on the grand tour. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE GRAND TOUR--FLIRTATIONS IN SPAIN + + +The glory has long since departed from the grand tour. We all take it +nowadays, with less and less sense of adventure, and more and more +expectation of home comforts. Sir Henry Lunn has pegged out the course, +and stationed lecturers along it at intervals, to prevent us from +confounding Scylla and Charybdis with Sodom and Gomorrah. They stir +appropriate emotions in our breasts like stokers making up a fire. We play +bridge in the evening on steamers "replete with every modern convenience"; +and we are back again, in about six weeks, with a smattering of +second-hand culture which goes the way of all smatterings in a very brief +period of time. It is a shadowy, unreal, unsatisfactory business--a poor +imitation of the grand tour as our forefathers knew it. + +Some of them, no doubt, travelled frivolously and superficially. The Earl +of Carlisle did so when he and Fox, as Samuel Rogers tells us, "travelled +from Paris to Lyons for the express purpose of buying waistcoats and, +during the whole journey, talked of nothing else." But there was plenty of +emotion in travel for those who cared for it--a real impression of a +widening horizon on which unusual figures might be expected to appear--a +sense of escaping from the familiar crowd and plunging into an unknown +world in which anything might happen. The temptation was strong for the +traveller of temperament to strike an attitude and say: "Behold me! The +old moorings were impossible; the old lights gave no guidance. I prefer to +be adrift on a strange sea, seeking I know not what. Travel is my escape +from life. A woman tempted me, and tortured me, and so, unless a woman +heals the wound a woman gave----" + +Chateaubriand sought the Orient in that spirit. Disgust and disillusion, +as he tells us, drove him forth. Pauline de Beaumont was dead, and Madame +de Chateaubriand was a woman hard to live with. He needed the consolations +of religion; he needed to meditate at the tomb of Christ. Above all he +needed, when his meditations had fortified his mind, to meet Natalie de +Noailles-Mouchy in the Court of the Lions at the Alhambra. He met her +there, and travelled with her for three months in Spain, and presently +found that he had only plucked yet another Dead Sea apple. And so he +cried: "Behold me!" Similarly, in spite of the differences, with Byron. + +It was a fixed article of faith with Chateaubriand that Byron had +plagiarised his personality without acknowledgment. It was an act of +envious vengeance, he said, for his own neglect to reply to a letter which +Byron had written him while a schoolboy. That accusation, of course, is +incredible and may be dismissed; but the resemblance between the two men +was nevertheless as close as the differences of race allowed. Byron was as +distinctly British, at intervals, as Chateaubriand was, at all times, +distinctly French; and their points of view were to diverge widely as they +grew older. Chateaubriand, an artistic Catholic, was to become one of the +pillars of the Holy Alliance. Byron was to do more than any other man +except Canning to pull the pillars of that temple down. But, in the +meantime, the likeness was striking. There was about them both an equal +air of cultivated gloom, an equal tendency to introspection, an equally +intense interest in their personalities--that sense of the significance of +the ego which was to be of the essence of the Romantic Movement--an equal +readiness, as has been re-marked, to exclaim: Behold me! + +The likeness is specially striking in the case of their journeys to the +Orient. They sailed the same seas in the same spirit--with the one +difference that Byron, who had a deadly hatred of certain kinds of +hypocrisy, made no pretence in his quest for peace, of looking to and fro +between love and religion. In both cases alike, disgust for life was +understood to have given the impulsion to the journey. A leading incident +in both journeys was, as Byron bluntly puts it, "a passion for a married +woman." Neither passion gave the lover any lasting satisfaction. Both +passions were proclaimed in enigmatic pæans to the world. + +The two cantos of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" which chronicle the +journey are also the record of the beginning of the Byronic pose. The +picture of the Childe is the picture of René, with a difference--the +difference being that, whereas Chateaubriand could never, even in a work +of art, depreciate himself, Byron rejoiced in doing so. For the rest, the +Childe was "tameless and swift and proud," and worthless, and weary, and +disillusioned, and disgusted. He had "spent his days in riot most +uncouth": he had "felt the fulness of satiety." It was well that he had +not won the woman whom he loved because his kiss "had been polution unto +aught so chaste." His boon companions were only "flatterers of the festal +hour," and "none did love him, not his lemans dear." Wherefore behold him, +on the Lisbon packet, in flight from himself, and seeking his "escape from +life." + +That is the picture; that, as perhaps it would be better to put it, is the +pose. It was to become a sincere and natural posture before the end; but +it is impossible, at this early stage, to take it very seriously. Byron +would himself have been the first to repudiate the suggestion that such +men as Matthews, Hobhouse, and Hodgson were "heartless parasites of +present cheer." He had more respect for Matthews than for any man of his +acquaintance; Hodgson was to be his most regular correspondent, and +Hobhouse the chosen companion of his journey. Moreover, he was only +twenty-one--an age at which a young man is eager to see the world and +needs no excuse for setting out to do so. His conception of himself as a +forlorn exile impelled to wander because the world has betrayed and +trifled with him is, in the main, a young man's literary affectation. + +An affectation, no doubt, for which certain realities had furnished a +hint. The fear of impending pecuniary embarrassment may sometimes have +given the sound of revelry a hollow ring. The sarcasm of the _Edinburgh_, +though repaid in kind, had certainly left a thin skin sore. The icy +politeness of Carlisle had chilled an expansive heart, and given Byron the +impression that he was regarded as an intruder in his own domain. +Conjoined with his mother's nagging, it had made something of a +three-cornered quarrel from which it was good to escape. He had also found +himself more sentimental than he ought to be about Mary Chaworth. Here, at +any rate, was something to exaggerate--a foundation of bad temper on which +a superstructure of pessimism might be raised. Byron duly raised it, for +literary purposes. But he had his high spirits as well as his low spirits; +and the farewell lines which he sent from Falmouth to Hodgson suggest +anything rather than a heart bowed down with woe. + + "_Now at length we're off for Turkey, + Lord knows when we shall come back! + Breezes foul and tempests murky + May unship us in a crack. + But since life at most a jest is, + As philosophers allow, + Still to laugh by far the best is, + Then laugh on--as I do now. + Laugh at all things, + Great and small things, + Sick or well, at sea or shore; + While we're quaffing, + Let's have laughing-- + Who the devil asks for more?-- + Some good wine! and who would lack it, + Ev'n on board the Lisbon packet?_" + +Those verses, quite as much as "'Tis done, and shivering in the gale"--and +much more than anything in "Childe Harold,"--indicate the frame of mind in +which Byron wished his native land good-night. He was travelling with all +the paraphernalia of the grand tourist--with more servants than he could +afford, and with the hearty, matter-of-fact John Cam Hobhouse for his +companion to keep him out of mischief. Whatever he fled from, adventure +was what he was looking for--not only the adventures which belong to the +exploration of barbarous countries, but also those which are to be +encountered in the boudoirs of garrison towns. + +He landed at Lisbon and went to Cintra. He rode across Spain to Seville +and Cadiz. He proceeded to Gibraltar, to Malta, to Albania, to Athens, and +thence to Smyrna and the Dardanelles. He returned to Athens, and spent +some time in exploring the interior of Greece. That, in outline, was the +itinerary; and there were two adventures of which the letters to Hodgson +show him to have been particularly proud. He swam the Hellespont, in +imitation of Leander--a feat of which he boasts, over and over again, in +every letter to every correspondent--and he indulged in "a passion for a +married woman at Malta." + +Nor was that his only passion. If it was the only passion which he +felt--which is doubtful--it certainly was not the only passion which he +inspired. "Lord Byron," says Hobhouse, in his matter-of-fact way, "is, of +course, very popular with all the ladies, as he is very handsome, amusing, +and generous; but his attentions to all and sundry generally end, as on +this occasion, in _rixæ femininæ_." We shall come to that story in a +moment. It is preceded by a story of which the hint is in the lines +beginning: + + "_Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons, + But formed for all the witching arts of love_:" + +a story of which the memory is in "Don Juan": + + "_'Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue + By female lips and eyes--that is I mean, + When both the teacher and the taught are young, + As was the case, at least, where I have been._" + +It happened at Seville, where the travellers, as Hobhouse writes, "made +the acquaintance of Admiral Cordova, with whose daughter Byron contrived +to fall in love at very short notice." + +Admiral Cordova was the Admiral who put up the fight which gained Sir John +Jervis the title of Earl Saint Vincent. Byron had an introduction to the +family, met Señorita Cordova at the theatre, and was invited to escort her +home. It is not quite clear from the correspondence whether it was +Señorita Cordova or some other lady who quarrelled with him because he +would not give her the ring which he wore, as pledge of his affection; nor +is it certain whether the ring was, or was not, a memento of Mary +Chaworth. Whatever its origin, it was to be yielded up at the hour of the +"passion for a married woman"; and meanwhile there was another little +incident of which Byron speaks, of all places in the world, in a letter to +his mother: + + "We lodged in the house of two Spanish unmarried ladies.... The eldest + honoured your _unworthy_ son with very particular attention, embracing + him with great tenderness at parting ... after cutting off a lock of + his hair, and presenting him with one of her own, about three feet in + length, which I send and beg you will retain till my return.... She + offered me a share of her apartment, which my _virtue_ induced me to + decline." + +That is all, and it is of no importance. The next stage was Gibraltar, and +it is there, and on the voyage thence to Malta, that we get our first +glimpse of Byron from the pen of an observer who observed, not as a matter +of course, but as a matter of curiosity, and had a turn for picturesque +description. + +John Galt, afterwards famous as a Scotch novelist, was at Gibraltar when +Byron arrived there. He had been sent to the Levant by a firm of traders +to ascertain how far British goods could be exploited in defiance of the +Berlin and Milan Decrees. He was to try hard, though in vain, to introduce +such goods into the Greek archipelago, and to smuggle them into Spain. +Half man of action and half dreamer, he went about denouncing priests and +kings, and exhorting the British Government to seize all the islands +everywhere for the supposed advantage of British commerce. Byron, +condescendingly asking Hodgson to review one of his books favourably, +describes him, with more or less of justice, as "a cock-brained man," and, +remembering him at a later date, told Lady Blessington that he "could not +awe him into a respect sufficiently profound for my sublime self, either +as a peer or an author." + +This means, of course, that Galt, though he perceived the pose, did not +abase himself in ecstasy before it. Seeing that he was a man of thirty, +whereas Byron was only just of age, it was hardly to be expected that he +would. Moreover, as a Scotsman, he would naturally take the side of the +_Edinburgh_ and maintain that Byron had done nothing to be conceited +about. So he observed Byron--and we may be grateful to him for doing +so--in a spirit of criticism and detachment. + + "His physiognomy," Galt writes, "was prepossessing and intelligent, + but ever and anon his brows lowered and gathered; a habit, as I then + thought, with a degree of affectation in it, probably first assumed + for picturesque effect and energetic expression, but which I + afterwards discovered was undoubtedly the occasional scowl of some + unpleasant recollection: it was certainly + disagreeable--forbidding--but still the general cast of his features + was impressed with elegance and character." + +That was the first impression, and the second impression was not more +favourable: + + "In the little bustle and process of embarking their luggage, his + lordship affected, as it seemed to me, more aristocracy than befitted + his years or the occasion; and I then thought of his singular scowl, + and suspected him of pride and irascibility. The impression that + evening was not agreeable, but it was interesting; and that forehead + mark, the frown, was calculated to awaken curiosity and beget + conjectures." + +Galt, in short, contrasted Byron unfavourably with Hobhouse, whom he found +"a cheerful companion" and "altogether an advantageous specimen of a +well-educated English gentleman;" but it was Byron who intrigued him. He +noticed what Byron ate--"no animal food, but only bread and +vegetables"--and he reflected that "he had not acquired his knowledge of +the world by always dining so sparingly." He even found his way "by +cautious circumvallations into his intimacy"--though not very far into it, +for "his uncertain temper made his favour precarious"; and finally we find +him, as if in return for this precarious favour, drawing a picture of +Byron which really can be called Byronic. The scene is the ship which +conveys them both from Gibraltar to Malta: + + "When the lights were placed, he made himself a man forbid, took his + station on the railing between the pegs on which the sheets are + belayed and the shrouds, and there, for hours, sat in silence, + enamoured, it may be, of the moon. All these peculiarities, with his + caprices, and something inexplicable in the cast of his metaphysics, + while they served to awaken interest, contributed little to conciliate + esteem. He was often strangely rapt--it may have been from his genius; + and, had its grandeur and darkness been then divulged, susceptible of + explanation; but, at the time, it threw, as it were, round him the + sackcloth of penitence. Sitting amidst the shrouds and rattlings, + churming an inarticulate melody, he seemed almost apparitional, + suggesting dim reminiscences of him who shot the albatross. He was as + a mystery in a winding sheet, crowned with a halo." + +One quotes the passage in full because it is the earliest coloured picture +of the theatrical Byron--the fatal man of gloom and splendour on whom so +much limelight was presently to be thrown. Whether Byron was posing for +Galt--or whether Galt magnified the pose in the light of subsequent +events--it is, of course, at this date, impossible to say. Perhaps both +things happened, and the picture owes a little to each of them. At all +events the beginning of Byronism--of the outward, visible Byronism, that +is to say--is there. It is just the picture which we feel we have a right +to look for of the fatal man divining the doom which he is unable to +resist--alone in the midst of the crowd--his own personality creating a +void around him--proceeding to his first "passion for a married woman." + +That passion awaited him as soon as he landed at Malta. The woman who +inspired it was Mrs. Spencer Smith--the "Florence" of "Childe Harold:" + + "_Sweet Florence! could another ever share + This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine._" + +But Mrs. Spencer Smith has a story of her own which it is worth while to +turn aside and tell. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +FLORENCE SPENCER SMITH + + +Mrs. Spencer Smith was the daughter of an Austrian Ambassador and the wife +of an English Minister Plenipotentiary. "Married unhappily, yet has never +been impeached in point of character," says Byron in a letter to his +mother. There are no details forthcoming about that, however. All that one +can affirm is that her husband only appears as a shadowy figure in the +background of her adventures, leaving the leading _rôle_ to other men, +while he serves his country at the other end of Europe. + +He was a younger brother of Sir Sidney Smith, who had checked Napoleon's +victorious career at Acre. Napoleon, it is said by some French writers, +loathed the very name of Smith after that calamity, held all the Smiths +jointly and severally responsible for it, and swore to wreak his vengeance +on the first Smith who fell into his hands. Consequently, the same writers +add, when he heard that a Mrs. Smith was staying at Venice--a city then in +his power--he felt that his long-delayed hour of triumph had come, and +gave his orders accordingly. + +That version of the story, however, is too good to be true. Mrs. Spencer +Smith, in fact, was suspected, whether rightly or wrongly, of having +played some part, as a secret agent, in some conspiracy against Napoleon. +She had been betrayed, or denounced; she was being watched; and she +walked, unaware of her danger, into the snare that had been set. Venice, +it had seemed to her, would be a safe place of refuge when the +over-running of northern Italy by the French armies made it awkward for +her to remain at the Baths of Valdagno, where she had been staying for the +benefit of her health. Her sister, Countess Attems, lived at Venice, and +she went to visit her. + +She was young, accomplished, beautiful--"like one of those apparitions," +says the Duchesse d'Abrantès, "which come to us in our happiest dreams." +She spoke seven languages, and looked down demurely--"a habit," the +Duchesse d'Abrantès continues, "which only added to her charms." A +Sicilian boy of twenty, the Marquis de Salvo, begged for an introduction, +was presented, and fell in love. He had hardly done so--he had not even +declared himself--when he lighted upon his chance of proving his devotion +by rendering help in time of trouble. + +General Lauriston, Napoleon's aide-de-camp, arrived at Venice with a +commission to act as Military Governor in his pocket; and then the trouble +began. Mrs. Spencer Smith was sent for by the Chief of Police and +requested to leave the town and take a residence in the country. She had +hardly begun to look for one when there arrived four gendarmes, with the +intimation that she was to remain in her apartment, and that they were to +see that she did so. The Marquis de Salvo then volunteered to call on the +Chief of Police and inquire the meaning of this rigorous measure. The +Chief of Police first talked vaguely to him about Napoleon's prejudice +against the name of Smith, and then hinted that there might be more +specific reasons for his severity. He added that his orders were to +conduct Mrs. Smith under an escort to Milan; "and I rather fancy," he +concluded, "that she is to be detained in the fortress of Valenciennes." + +That was the boy's chance. He was a boy in years, but a man in courage and +resource. He ran to Mrs. Spencer Smith, repeated what he had been told, +and promised that he would save her. + +At first she hesitated. He would be taking a risk, she said, which he had +no right to take. He probably expected a reward which her "principles" +would not permit her to grant. But the boy, as it happened, was as +chivalrous as he was brave. Perhaps he loved noble actions for their own +sake. At all events he loved adventure; and here was the prospect of an +adventure such as rarely comes the way of a youth fresh from school. As +for the risks, he said, he did not fear them. As for reward, he would not +ask for any. If Mrs. Spencer Smith would let him save her she should be +saved. He had thought the matter out, and made his plans. All that was +necessary was that she should take a maid with her whom she could trust. +Everything else might be left to him. + +Then Florence Spencer Smith thanked Salvo, and promised to accept his aid. +She too was of the age at which one is grateful to life for adventures; +and, if she must choose between the two evils, well then she would rather +be compromised than locked up. So she made sure of her maid, and got into +the carriage which the gendarmes provided. There were five of them, +including the brigadier; and Salvo sought, and obtained, leave to ride +with them in the vague character of "friend of the family." The gendarmes, +he found, were excellent fellows, quite unsuspicious, and very +sympathetic. The brigadier was specially sympathetic because he was lost +in admiration of Mrs. Smith's faithful maid; and Salvo, having carefully +thought out his coup, watched all the chances. + +It had been agreed that Mrs. Smith should plead ill health, and ask to be +allowed to journey by short stages. No objections were raised--probably +because of the pleasure which the brigadier took in the society of the +maid--and the party halted, first at Verona, and then at Brescia. At +Verona nothing could be done. An Italian friend, whom Salvo implored to +meet and help him, failed to keep the appointment, guessing why he was +wanted, and fearing Napoleon's long arm. He must, therefore, act alone; +and the question was whether he could find a means of getting Mrs. Smith +on board a boat and across the Lake of Garda. Probably he could if he +could first see her alone and concert a scheme with her. So he galloped +off to the lake side, hired two boats, and bought a post chaise, in which +he proposed to drive Mrs. Smith up into the mountains, and over the +frontier into Austria. Then he galloped back, told the brigadier that he +was obliged to return to Venice, and begged to be allowed to say good-bye +to Mrs. Smith without witnesses. + +The brigadier, who liked to be alone with the maid, could quite understand +that the marquis liked to be alone with the mistress. He winked a wicked +eye, called the marquis "a sad dog," and gave permission. Salvo winked +back at him, as if admitting the impeachment of sad doggedness, and, in +the brief interview which the brigadier supposed to be consecrated to +sentiment, told Mrs. Smith what he had plotted, and how she herself must +act. + +He would return, after night-fall, with a rope ladder. In order to avoid +the suspicions of the inquisitive, he would make that rope ladder with his +own hands. He would pack it up into a parcel, and Mrs. Smith must lower a +piece of string with which to draw it up. The parcel would also contain a +boy's costume, as a disguise for her, and a dose of laudanum with which to +drug the maid's evening drink in case she were not a party to the +conspiracy. He would come again at eleven, wearing a cocked hat, and +enveloped in a military cloak. Mrs. Smith, understanding who was there, +must then make the ladder fast and climb down to him. + +He came; and things happened more or less as he had planned them. The +maid, in particular, was magnificently loyal. She offered to attend her +mistress in her flight; and, when told that that could not be, she handed +out her mistress' jewels, helped in securing the ladder to the verandah, +promised to remove it after it had served its purpose, and then tossed off +the soporific of her own accord, so that it might be physically impossible +for her to answer questions for some hours to come--incidentally also, no +doubt, in order to give the brigadier the excuse which he would naturally +desire for acquitting her of all complicity in the escape. + +Mrs. Smith descended the ladder half way, and then fell off it; but Salvo +had expected that. He caught her in his arms, and they got into their +carriage and were off. The gates of the town were closed; but Salvo +bluffed his way through them in an instant, with the help of his military +cloak and head-gear. + +"What in thunder do you mean by keeping me waiting? I'm the colonel of the +twenty-fifth. You were warned to look out for me. You'll hear of this +again, my man. Open the gate at once, and let me through." + +Thus the boy swore in the full-blooded military style of the period. The +gate was thrown open for him with profound apologies. He whipped up the +horses, and galloped to Salona, where the boats were ready. They embarked, +taking their carriage with them, and crossed to Riva. There they got into +the carriage again, and galloped on to Trent, where a sleepy official, +much in wrath at this disturbance of his slumbers, proceeded to make +trouble about their passports, which were only approximately in order. The +only course, since time pressed, and pursuers were on their track, was to +leave the chaise behind and slip away surreptitiously in a country cart +which an inn-keeper offered to sell them. + +The pursuers, indeed, were hard upon their heels; but happily the morning +sun was in their eyes. The fugitives saw them before they were seen, and +drove their cart down from the mountain road through the forest to the +torrent, so that the horsemen missed them and rode past them. After that, +they abandoned their cart, and travelled by cross country roads and +mountain paths, continually in peril of arrest, but always escaping as if +by a miracle. A peasant, to whom they appealed for food and shelter, +proposed to conduct them to the nearest police station, but was melted to +tenderness by Mrs. Smith's tears and pitiful entreaties. They read the +offer of a reward for their capture posted on the walls. They hid +themselves for two days in a mountain chapel. They were stopped, and +questioned, and mistaken for other more romantic fugitives--an Italian +Princess who was said to have eloped with an Italian bookseller's +assistant. They disguised themselves as peasants, and travelled in the +midst of the real peasants' flocks of sheep. Not until after many days' +wanderings did they reach Austrian territory, declare their true +identity, and claim the protection of the law; and even so their troubles +were not over. + +Austria, at that date, had not yet recovered either morally or materially +from the shock of Austerlitz, and dared not stand openly between Napoleon +and his prey. The fugitives had to be arrested before they could be saved. +Salvo was, for a while, locked up, like a criminal, in the deepest dungeon +of a Styrian Castle; and Mrs. Smith was smuggled out of the country, under +the name of Frau Müller--first to Riga, and thence to England, where Salvo +ultimately joined her. Queen Charlotte thanked him publicly for the +service so gallantly rendered to a British subject; and he made his best +bow and withdrew, remembering his promise to expect no other recompense. + +Such is the story of Mrs. Smith's adventure as told, first by Salvo +himself, who wrote a book about it, and then by the Duchesse d'Abrantès, +who devoted a long section of her Memoirs to it. One repeats it, partly +for its own sake and partly because the romance of it explains how the +heroine of it appealed to Byron's imagination. + +She was the first really interesting--or, at all events, the first really +remarkable--woman whom he had met. The women whom he had previously known +had been very conventional young persons of the upper middle classes. Even +Mary Chaworth had been _bourgeoise_, or must have seemed so in comparison +with Mrs. Spencer Smith. To meet her was to encounter, for the first time, +the amazing realities of life, and to find more romance in them than even +a poet dared to dream of without reality to prompt him. And she was +married, and it made no difference--or none except that, being married, +she had more liberty, and could be more audacious than a spinster. "Since +my arrival here," Byron writes--still to his mother--"I have had scarcely +any other companion." There is an unmistakable note of self-complacency in +the confession. Byron's "passion for a married woman" was evidently +signalling to him, as such a passion has signalled to many a young man +before and after him, that, now at last, he was grown up. + +Galt says that the attachment was merely "Platonic." Possibly Galt was +right, though his evidence goes for nothing, seeing that Byron looked down +upon him from far too Olympian a height to be in the least likely to +confide in him. The impression which Mrs. Spencer Smith, from the little +that we know about her, gives is that of the type of the favourite heroine +of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones' more serious plays--a woman, that is to say, +who shows herself of a very "coming-on" disposition until a certain point +is reached, but then stops suddenly short, being frightened and abashed by +her own temerity. She asked Byron for his ring--the ring which the Spanish +lady had asked him for in vain--and he gave it to her. "Soon after this I +sailed for Malta, and there parted with both heart and ring," is his own +way of putting it; and as Galt knew that she had got the ring, there seem +to be grounds for the conjecture that she showed it and boasted of it. + +Anything else, however, it would be idle to conjecture, even though we +have "Childe Harold" and sundry "Lines" to help us in the quest. + +The suggestion in "Childe Harold" is that Mrs. Spencer Smith made love to +Byron in vain: + + "_Fair Florence found, in sooth, with some amaze, + One who, 'twas said, still sighed to all he saw, + Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze----_" + +The suggestion in the "Lines" is different: + + "_Oh, lady! When I left the shore, + The distant shore which gave me birth, + I hardly thought to grieve once more, + To quit another spot on earth:_ + + "_Yet, here amidst this barren isle, + Where panting Nature droops the head, + Where only thou art seen to smile, + I view my parting hour with dread._" + +We must make what we can of that; and it really matters very little what +we make of it. This "passion for a married woman" was an inevitable stage +of the sentimental pilgrimage. Byron was bound to halt there for a little +while, if not for long; and it was not to be expected that he would, like +Ulysses, stuff his ears with wool while passing the Siren's Isle. That is +not the way of poets, and that is not the way of youth. He was bound, too, +to fancy, for a moment, that the passion meant a great deal to him, even +though, in fact, it meant but little; for that also is the way of youth +and poets. And hardly less inevitable, though both of them knew that no +hearts were being broken was the idea that Fate was cruel to decree their +parting, and that, while they acted wisely, they must also suffer for +their wisdom. And therefore: + + "_Though Fate forbids such things to be, + Yet by thine eyes and ringlets curled! + I cannot_ lose _a_ world _for thee, + But would not lose_ thee _for a_ World." + +And therefore again, just two months later: + + "_The spell is broke, the charm is flown! + Thus is it with Life's fitful fever: + We madly smile when we should groan; + Delirium is our best deceiver. + Each lucid interval of thought + Recalls the woes of Nature's charter; + And_ He _that acts as_ wise men ought, + _But_ lives--_as Saints have died--a martyr._" + +That is all; and the story which the lines half cover up and half disclose +is clearly of very little consequence. Mrs. Smith had enjoyed her +flirtation, and had had verses written to her--much better verses than had +been addressed to any of the belles of Southwell. Byron had posed, not +knowing for certain whether he posed or not, had undergone a necessary +experience, and had passed through the fire unhurt. The experiences which +were really to matter to him were yet to come--though not immediately; and +he had hardly finished writing verses to Mrs. Spencer Smith when he began +writing verses to the Maid of Athens. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE MAID OF ATHENS--MRS. WERRY--MRS. PEDLEY--THE SWIMMING OF THE +HELLESPONT + + + "_Maid of Athens, ere we part, + Give, oh give me back my heart!_" + +It would be superfluous to quote more of the poem than that; and it would +be absurd to attach importance to the episode which it commemorates. + +Byron came to Athens after an expedition, with Hobhouse, into the heart of +Albania. He was, according to Hobhouse's Diary, "all this time engaged in +writing a long poem in the Spenserian stanzas," the poem being, of course, +the first canto of "Childe Harold." That the travellers roughed it a good +deal is evident from Hobhouse's description of a supper whereat "Byron, +with his sabre, cut off the head of a goose which shared our room with a +collection of pigs and cows, and so we got an excellent roast." He was +much pleased with his reception by Ali Pasha, who said "he was certain I +was a man of birth because I had small ears, curling hair, and little +white hands." He was also, at the same time, brooding on his "passion for +a married woman," and no doubt felt himself years older in consequence of +that passion; and then, arriving at Athens, he fell in love, or fancied +or pretended that he was in love, with his landlady's daughter. + +That was the social status of the Maid of Athens. Her mother, Theodora +Macri, the widow of a former British Vice-Consul, had been reduced to +letting lodgings--a sitting-room and two bedrooms, looking on to a +courtyard, much patronised by English travellers, and highly recommended +by them. There were three daughters, and there are passages in Byron's +letters which might be read to mean that he was equally in love with all +of them. "An attachment to three Greek girls" is his summary of the +incident to Hodgson; but he distinguished one of them by the special +homage of a poem destined to be one of the most famous in the English +language, with the result that Theresa Macri, Maid of Athens, became an +institution, and that subsequent lodgers made much of her, looking for a +romance where there had, in fact, been little more than the formal salute +of the ships passing in the night. Hugh W. Williams, the artist, who was +at Athens in 1817, depicts them for us: + + "On the crown of the head of each is a red Albanian skull-cap, with a + blue tassel spread out and fastened down like a star. Near the edge or + bottom of the skull-cap is a handkerchief of various colours bound + round their temples. The youngest wears her hair loose, falling on her + shoulders." + +[Illustration: _The Maid of Athens._] + +That, no doubt, was how Theresa wore her hair when Byron flattered her +with his attentions. She also, it seems, wore "white stockings and +yellow slippers," and had "teeth of pearly whiteness" and "manners such as +would be fascinating in any country." It was the usual thing, according to +Williams, for their mother's lodgers to flirt with one or other of them. +It would have been "remarkable," he thinks, if they had not done so. +Presumably he did so himself. At all events he admired them very much as +they sat "in the Eastern style, a little reclined, with their limbs +gathered under them on the divan, and without shoes"; but he insists with +no less emphasis upon their propriety than upon their graces. "Modesty and +delicacy of conduct," he comments, "will always command respect"; and +further: + + "Though so poor, their virtues shine as conspicuous as their + beauty.... Not all the wealth of the East, or the complimentary lays + even of the first of England's poets could render them so truly worthy + of love and admiration." + +Moore tells us that Byron, in Oriental style, gashed himself across the +breast with a dagger as a symbolic demonstration of his conquest by +Theresa's charms, and that Theresa "looked on very coolly during the +operation, considering it a fit tribute to her beauty, but in no degree +moved to gratitude." And that, of course, is what one would expect. The +game was being played according to the rules, and Theresa was child enough +to enjoy the fun. One can imagine that it was a game which the girls +often played with the lodgers, teaching them the rules when they did not +already know them. One would be churlish indeed to begrudge them their +enjoyment, or to protest that they were "forward" or suspect that they +were "designing." The landlady's daughter can often do much to make life +in a lodging-house agreeable; and youth must have its hour though time +flies and love, like a bird, is on the wing. + +Our next glimpse of Theresa, taken from Walsh's "Narrative of a Residence +in Constantinople," shows us that time is, indeed, an "ever-rolling +stream," carrying its daughters, as well as its sons away upon the flood. +"Lord Byron's poem," writes Walsh in 1817, "has rendered the poor lady no +temporal service though it has ensured her immortality"; and he continues: + + "She was once very lovely, I was informed by those who knew her, and + realised all the descriptive part of the poem; but time and, I + suppose, disappointed hopes preyed upon her, and though still very + elegant in her person, and gentle and lady-like in her manners, she + has lost all pretensions to beauty, and has a countenance singularly + marked by hopeless sadness." + +That, no doubt, is the exaggeration of a sentimentalist. Theresa's hopes +can hardly have been serious. Landladies' daughters, have too many hopes +deferred and disappointed to allow the disappointment of any hope in +particular to blight their lives. Theresa, in due course, became Mrs. +Black, the wife, like her mother, of a vice-consul; and she lived to the +great age of eighty, "a tall old lady," writes the United States Consular +Agent at Athens, "with features inspiring reverence, and showing that at a +time past she was a beautiful woman." Her countrymen, however, did not +forget that she had been the Maid of Athens; and, Byron's services to the +Greek cause being also remembered, a public subscription provided for the +necessities of her last years. That is all that there is to say about her +unless it be to repeat that she played but a very minor part in the +pageant of Byron's life, and cannot even be spoken of as Mrs. Spencer +Smith's only rival. + +For there were others; and though the other stories are clouded with a +good deal of doubt, they cannot fail to leave a certain collective +impression of Byron as a man whom all women found attractive and many +women found susceptible. + +At Smyrna, for instance, there was a Mrs. Werry, whose name and effusive +proceedings are mentioned by Hobhouse: + + "Mrs. Werry actually cut off a lock of Byron's hair on parting from + him to-day, and shed a good many tears. Pretty well for fifty-six + years at least!" + +At Athens, too, there was a second affair of which there is a full and +circumstantial account in Medwin's "Conversations of Lord Byron." The +heroine was a Turkish girl of whom Byron was "fond as I have been of few +women." All went well, he told Medwin, until the Fast of Ramadan, when Law +and Religion prohibit love-making for forty days, and the women are not +allowed to quit their apartments. An attempt to arrange an assignation at +this season was detected. The penalty was to be death, and Byron was to be +kept in ignorance of everything until it was too late to interfere: + + "A mere accident only enabled me to prevent the completion of the + sentence. I was taking one of my usual evening rides by the sea-side, + when I observed a crowd of people moving down to the shore, and the + arms of the soldiers glittering among them. They were not so far off + but that I thought I could now and then distinguish a faint and + stifled shriek. My curiosity was forcibly excited, and I despatched + one of my followers to inquire the cause of the procession. What was + my horror to learn that they were carrying an unfortunate girl, sewn + up in a sack, to be thrown into the sea! I did not hesitate as to what + was to be done. I knew I could depend on my faithful Albanians, and + rode up to the officer commanding the party, threatening in case of + his refusal to give up his prisoner, that I would adopt means to + compel him. He did not like the business he was on, or perhaps the + determined look of my bodyguard, and consented to accompany me back to + the city with the girl, whom I discovered to be my Turkish favourite. + Suffice it to say that my interference with the chief magistrate, + backed by a heavy bribe, saved her; but it was only on condition that + I should break off all intercourse with her, and that she should + immediately quit Athens, and be sent to her friends in Thebes. There + she died, a few days after her arrival, of a fever, perhaps of love." + +"Perhaps of love" is the typical finishing touch of the "fatal man;" but +Medwin may have added it. To Byron, at any rate, the incident counted for +no more than any of the other incidents; but it was followed, or is said +to have been followed, by an incident which counted for even less--the +incident of the beautiful Mrs. Pedley, related in a curious anonymous work +entitled: "The life, Writings, Opinions, and Times of the Right Hon. G. G. +Noel Byron," published in 1825. + +Byron met Mrs. Pedley at Malta on his way home. She was the wife of a Dr. +Pedley, beautiful and frivolous--addicted, it may be, to levity, as a +relief from the dulness of garrison life. Her husband, for reasons which +we are left to conjecture, turned her out of his house. She came to +Byron's house, sat down on the door-step, and refused to go. Perhaps she +argued that, as Byron had loved one married woman, he was prepared to love +all married women; but if so, she argued wrongly. Byron begged her to +return to her home, and when she declined to do so, he sent a note to Dr. +Pedley to ask what he had better do with her. The Dr.'s answer was to pack +up the lady's clothes and other belongings and send them to Byron's +rooms, with a message to the effect that he wished him joy of the +adventure. The upshot of it all was that Byron consented to take Mrs. +Pedley to England, but gave her very little of his society, and parted +with her immediately on landing. + +Such, at all events, is the story as the anonymous biographer relates it, +though it is impossible to say on what authority it reposes. Even if it +rests upon gossip, and is untrue, it helps to fill in the picture by +reflecting the reputation which Byron was making for himself during his +Oriental travels: a reputation, on the one hand, of a man who made love +with cynical recklessness, and on the other hand of a man who swaggered +round the Levant with unwarrantable arrogance and pride. + +We have already seen him swaggering about his swimming of the Hellespont. +He continued to swagger about it to the very end of his life. Even in "Don +Juan" there is a well-known reference to the exploit: + + "_A better swimmer you could scarce see ever; + He could, perhaps, have passed the Hellespont, + As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) + Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did._" + +It was a considerable feat, no doubt, though he was only an hour and ten +minutes in the water; but the anonymous biographer already quoted adds +some details which make it, if not more glorious, at least more dramatic. +Byron, according to this version of the story, was helped out of the +water in a state of extreme exhaustion, and lay three days in a +fisherman's hut, nursed and tended by the fisherman's wife. The fisherman +did not in the least know whom he was entertaining, but believed his +guest, whose language he could not speak, to be a needy shipwrecked +sailor. On his departure, therefore, he pressed on him not only bread and +cheese and wine, but also a few copper coins. Byron accepted the gift, +without attempting to explain, and a few days afterwards sent his servant +with a return gift: a brace of pistols, a fowling piece, a fishing net, +and some silk to make a gown for the fisherman's wife. The fisherman was +so overwhelmed that he set out at once in his boat to thank the generous +donor, and was caught in a sudden squall and drowned. + +That is a story of which it is impossible to say whether it is true or +only well invented. We are on safer ground in taking the testimony of the +well-known people who met Byron in the course of his journey; and our +principal witnesses are Lady Hester Stanhope, who passed him at Athens on +her way to Lebanon, Sir Stratford Canning, afterwards Lord Stratford de +Redcliffe, the "great Eltchi," then Secretary of Embassy at +Constantinople, and John Galt, who was still going his rounds as a +high-class commercial traveller. No one of the three is extravagantly +eulogistic, and all three bear witness to the pose, the swagger, and the +arrogance. + +"A sort of Don Quixote fighting with the police for a woman of the town," +is Lady Hester's verdict, suggested, no doubt, by the adventure on which +Byron put such a different colour when he related it to Medwin. "He +wanted," she continues, "to make himself something great," but she will +not allow that he succeeded. "He had a great deal of vice in his looks," +she says, "his eyes set close together and a contracted brow"; and, as for +his poetry, Lady Hester shakes her head even over that: + + "At Athens, I saw nothing in him but a well-bred man, like many + others; for, as for poetry, it is easy enough to write verses; and as + for the thoughts, who knows where he got them? Many a one picks up + some old book that nobody knows anything about, and gets his ideas out + of it." + +That reflection, perhaps, always supposing that Dr. Merryon has reported +it correctly, throws a brighter flood of light upon the critic's mind than +upon the poet's genius; but the criticism offered by Sir Stratford Canning +was a criticism of matters which he understood. He "cannot," he says, +"forbear to record" what happened when Byron obtained permission to be +present at an audience granted by the Sultan to the _corps diplomatique_. +There is a reference to the story in Moore's "Journal"; but the authorised +version must be sought in Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's Papers: + + "We had assembled," he writes, "in the hall of our so-called palace + when Lord Byron arrived in scarlet regimentals topped by a profusely + feathered cocked hat, and, coming up to me, asked what his place as a + peer of the realm was to be in the procession. I referred him to Mr. + Adair, who had not yet left his room, and the upshot of their private + interview was that, as the Turks ignored all but officials, any + amateur, though a peer, must be content to follow in the wake of the + Embassy. His lordship thereupon walked away with that look of scornful + indignation which so well became his fine, imperious features." + +"As Canning refused to walk behind him, Byron went home," is Hobhouse's +laconic report of the incident; but when a letter from the Ambassador +followed him, he apologised. His fancy dress, it had seemed to him, was +quite as becoming as other people's uniforms; he had honestly supposed +himself to be standing out for the legitimate rights of a peer of the +realm. As this was not so--as the Austrian Internuncio had been consulted +and had said that it was not so--then he would be glad to join the +procession as a simple individual, and humbly to follow his Excellency and +"his ox or his ass or anything that was his." Whether that was a subtle +way of calling Stratford Canning an ass does not appear; but the +transaction was a characteristic exhibition of the neck-or-nothing +audacity of Byron's undisciplined youth. He figures, at this date, as a +Lord among adventurers and an adventurer among Lords. + +Stratford Canning saw him in the latter and John Galt in the former light. +At a dinner-party at which they were both present, "he seemed inclined," +says Galt, "to exact a deference to his dogmas that was more lordly than +philosophical"; and he continues: + + "It was too evident ... that without intending wrong, or any offence, + the unchecked humour of his temper was, by its caprices, calculated to + prevent him from ever gaining that regard to which his talents and + freer moods, independently of his rank, ought to have entitled him. + Such men become objects of solicitude, but never of esteem." + +The fair inference seems to be that Byron had let Galt perceive the great +gulf fixed between peers of the realm and commercial travellers. It was +the sort of thing that he would do when in a bad temper, though not when +in a good one. Galt, however, not only submitted to the snub, but +accounted for it like a philosopher. Byron, he says, was in trouble at +this time, not about his soul, but about his remittances; and "the false +dignity he assumed" was really "the apprehension of a person of his rank +being exposed to require assistance among strangers." One can certainly +find support for the supposition in his urgent letters home. + +In due course, however, the remittances turned up, and Byron recovered his +affability and resumed his journey. Hobhouse left him and returned alone. +"Took leave," he notes in his Diary, "_non sine lacrymis_, of this +singular young person, on a little stone terrace at the end of the bay, +dividing with him a little nosegay of flowers." There had been some +coolness between them, and this was the sentimental renewal of their +friendship. A return visit to Athens was the next stage, but there does +not appear to have been any resumption of the old relations with the Maid +of Athens. On the contrary, it was on this second visit to Athens that +Lady Hester Stanhope discovered the poet "fighting the police for a woman +of the town." + +At Athens, too, Byron met his old Cambridge acquaintance, Lord Sligo, from +whom we obtain, through Moore, some further glimpses at his manner of life +and characteristic affectations. He was once more, it seems, constrained +to combat the flesh by means of self-denying ordinances, and, to that end, +took three Turkish baths a week, and confined himself to a diet of rice +and vinegar and water. This system, and a fever contracted at Patras, made +him very pale; and he felt that to be pale was to be interesting. + + "Standing one day before a looking glass," Moore tells us, "he said to + Lord Sligo: + + "'How pale I look! I should like, I think, to die of a consumption!' + + "'Why of a consumption?' asked his friend. + + "'Because then,' he answered, 'all the women would say, "See that poor + Byron--how interesting he looks in dying!"'" + +But that is another of the stories which throw at least as much light on +the reporter as on the reported. Lord Sligo, no doubt, was the sort of +healthy, wooden-headed young Philistine on whom it is a joy to test the +effect of such remarks. Byron, in thus posing for him, was, so to say, +"trying it on the dog." There is no such foolishness in his correspondence +with those whom he regarded as his intellectual equals, and one cannot +conclude the account of his travels better than by quoting his summary of +their moral effect contained in a letter to Hodgson: + + "I hope you will find me an altered personage--I do not mean in body + but in manner, for I begin to find out that nothing but virtue will do + in this damned world. I am tolerably sick of vice, which I have tried + in its agreeable varieties, and mean, on my return, to cut all my + dissolute acquaintance, leave off wine and carnal company, and betake + myself to politics and decorum." + +To what extent, and within what limits, he carried out these good +resolutions, we shall observe as we proceed. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +RETURN TO ENGLAND--PUBLICATION OF "CHILDE HAROLD" + + +July 1811 saw Byron back in England after two years' absence, but in no +hurry, for various reasons, to return to Newstead. The "venerable pile" +had been desecrated by the invasion of bailiffs in connection with an +unpaid upholsterer's bill; and Mrs. Byron was living there, and was, as +usual, quarrelling with her neighbours. Byron, in one of his letters from +the Levant, tells her that she cannot deny that she is a "vixen," and +suggests that she is in the habit of drinking more champagne than is good +for her. It was only to be expected that she would rattle the fire-irons, +and throw the tongs, as furiously as ever--even if a little less +accurately--under the stimulating influence. He lingered, therefore, at +Reddish's Hotel, Saint James's Street; and it was there that the news of +her sudden illness--the result, it is said, of shock caused by the +magnitude of the afore-mentioned upholsterer's bill--surprised him. He +hurried to her, but the news of her death met him on his way. + +He had not loved her. We have passed many proofs of that, and many others +could be given. She had taunted him with his deformity, and he +believed--so he told Lord Sligo--that he owed it to her "false delicacy" +at his birth. She had not understood him, and he had fled before her +violence. Unable to love her, he had missed a precious emotion to which he +felt himself entitled--that may be one of the secrets of his persistent +view of himself as a lonely man, without a friend in a lonely world. If he +was shaken by the sudden sundering of the tie, it would have been too much +to expect him to be prostrated by his grief, or to do more than pay his +brief tribute to the solemnity of death, remembering that there had been +signs of tenderness in the midst of, or in the intervals between, the +storms of passion. + +"Oh, Mrs. By," he exclaimed to his mother's maid. "I had but one friend in +the world, and she is gone"; but he always said that of every friend who +died--of Skinner Matthews who was drowned in the Cam; of John Wingfield +who was drowned off Coimbra; and of Eddleston, the choir boy, whom he had +admitted to his intimacy at Cambridge. He said it quite sincerely, giving +emotion its hour, and then let his thoughts flow in other directions. On +the day of Mrs. Byron's funeral he told his servant to fetch the gloves +and spar with him; and the boy thought that he hit harder than usual. Then +he threw down the gloves and left the room without a word, with the air of +a man disgusted with himself for trying to kill devils like that; and +presently he was in the thick of his preparations for the production of +"Childe Harold." + +He had brought the manuscript of "Childe Harold" home with him, together +with the manuscript of "Hints from Horace." He believed "Hints from +Horace" to be much the greater work of the two; and his reasons for +thinking so are easy to understand. "Hints from Horace" was a satire based +on the best models, and composed on conventional lines. It could be +compared with the models, and judged and "marked," like a schoolboy's +theme. "Childe Harold" was an experiment. It expressed a personality--the +personality of a very young man who was not yet quite sure of himself and, +except when his temper was up, was afraid of being laughed at. +Hobhouse--that candid, trusty, matter-of-fact friend--had seen it, and had +criticised it pretty much in the spirit in which Mark Twain's jumping frog +was criticised. He had failed to see any points in that poem different +from any other poem. Byron, consequently, was sensitive and timorous about +it. "Childe Harold," he felt, like "Hours of Idleness," would put him on +his defence, whereas in "Hints from Horace," as in "English Bards and +Scotch Reviewers," he would have the advantage of attacking. He needed the +encouragement of flattery. + +One Dallas, a distant relative who now introduced himself and, for a +season, doubled the parts, as it were, of literary mentor and literary +valet, supplied the flattery, recognising that, whereas "Hints from +Horace" was just a satire like another, "Childe Harold" was the expression +of a new sentiment, hitherto unheard in English literature. "Hints from +Horace," he thought, might be published, if the author wished it--it did +not much matter one way or the other; but "Childe Harold" must be +published. It was interesting; it was romantic; it would please. It was +not merely a narrative, but a manifesto. It ignored conventions, lifted a +mask, and revealed a man--a new and unsuspected type of man--beneath it. + +So Dallas spoke and wrote; and Byron let himself be persuaded. He yielded, +at first, with reluctance--or perhaps it was only with a pretence of +reluctance; but, after he had yielded, he entered into the spirit of the +situation. He would not only publish, but he would publish with _éclat_. +If he could not command success, he would deserve it, and would be careful +not to throw away a chance. He would not be contented with a publisher who +merely printed a few copies of the poem, pushed them outside the +back-door, and waited to see what would happen. The minds of men--and +women--should be duly prepared for the sensation in store for them. +Whatever the mountain might be destined to bring forth, at least it should +be visibly in labour. Publication should be preluded by a noise as of the +rolling of logs. + +The money did not matter. The "magnificent man"--and there was a good deal +of Aristotle's "magnificent man" about Byron at this period--could not +soil his hands by taking money for a poem even for the purpose of +discharging his debt to the upholsterers whose bills were frightening +his mother out of her life. Perish the mean thought! If there was money in +the poem, Dallas might have it for himself. All that the author wanted was +glory--a "boom," as we vulgar moderns say--and that arresting noise +already referred to, as of the rolling of logs. Dallas must see to that to +the best of his ability, and he himself would lend a hand. Above all, +there must be no hole-and-corner publishing. Cawthorne must on no account +have the book--his status was not good enough. Miller was the man, and, +failing Miller, Murray. On the whole it was to Murray that it would be +best to go. Murray was the coming man--one could divine him as the +publisher of the future, and he had, on his side divined Byron as the poet +of the future, and expressed a wish to "handle" some of his work. + +So Dallas went to Murray, and got five hundred guineas for the copyright; +and then the sound of the rolling of the logs began. Galt heard it. Galt, +being himself a man of letters as well as a commercial traveller, knew +what it was that he heard. Galt, who was now back in London, tells us that +"various surmises to stimulate curiosity were circulated," and he +continues: + + "I do not say that these were by his orders or under his directions, + but on one occasion I did fancy that I could discern a touch of his + own hand in a paragraph in the _Morning Post_, in which he was + mentioned as having returned from an excursion into the interior of + Africa; and when I alluded to it, my suspicion was confirmed by his + embarrassment." + +That is quite modern--one often reads similar paragraphs nowadays +concerning the visits of novelists to the Engadine, or to Khartoum; and if +Byron did not go quite so far as to speak publicly of his forthcoming work +as "a colossal undertaking," he managed, without saying so, to convey the +impression that that was what it was. He also contrived to have the proofs +shown, as a great privilege, to the right people, and was careful to let +the critics have advance copies with a view to notice on the day of +publication. Dallas himself reviewed it before the day of publication, and +was excused on the ground that his indiscretion had proved "a good +advertisement." The privileged women--Lady Caroline Lamb was among +them--enchanted by the sentiment of the poem, boasted to the women who +were not so privileged, and besought an introduction to the poet. "I must +see him. I am dying to see him," was Lady Caroline's exclamation to +Rogers. "He bites his nails," Rogers maliciously warned her; but she +persisted as vehemently as ever. + +She was to see him presently, in circumstances and with consequences which +we shall have to note. In the meantime many striking stories concerning +him were floating about for her to hear. She heard, for instance--or one +may suppose her to have heard--of that dinner-party at Rogers' house at +which Byron distinguished himself by his abstemiousness, refused soup, and +fish, and mutton, and wine, asked for hard biscuits and soda-water, and, +when Rogers confessed himself unable to provide these delicacies, "dined +upon potatoes bruised down upon his plate and drenched with vinegar." Let +us hope that she never heard the end of the story which proceeds, in +"Table Talk of Samuel Rogers": "I did not then know, what I now know to be +a fact, that Byron, after leaving my house, had gone to a Club in Saint +James's Street and eaten a hearty meat-supper." And, of course, her +interest, like the interest of the rest of the world, was stimulated by +Byron's maiden speech in the House of Lords. + +Galt says quite bluntly that "there was a degree of worldly management in +making his first appearance in the House of Lords so immediately preceding +the publication of his poem." Most probably there was. When so many logs +were rolling, this particular log was hardly likely to be left unrolled; +and there is no denying that the note of self-advertisement does sound in +the speech quite as loudly as the note of sympathy with the common +people--those Nottingham rioters and frame-breakers for whose suppression +it was proposed to legislate. + +Viewed as a contribution to the debate, the speech does more credit to the +speaker's heart than to his head. The appeal for pity for misguided, +labouring men is mixed up with a denunciation of labour-saving appliances +as devices for the further impoverishment of the poor. An economist might +say a good deal about that if this were the place for saying it. Byron, +such a one would point out, was a Radical by instinct, but a Radical who +had as yet but an imperfect comprehension of the natural laws most +favourable to the production, distribution, and exchange of wealth. But +let that pass. The most resounding note of the speech is, after all, the +note of the new man presenting himself, and explaining who he is, and what +he has done: + + "I have traversed the seat of war in the Peninsular, I have been in + some of the most oppressed provinces in Turkey; but never under the + most despotic of infidel governments did I behold such squalid + wretchedness," &c. &c. &c. + +That, in the days in which travel was really travel, involving adventure +and bestowing unique experience, was the sort of utterance to draw +attention. Byron had actually been to the places which other people only +talked and read about; and he was no bronzed, maimed, or wrinkled veteran, +but a youth with curling hair, a marble brow, a pallid face, a godlike +aspect. What havoc must he not have wrought in harems, and in the hearts +of odalisques! He was so young, so handsome, so clever--and, according to +his own account, so wicked. And he had written a poem, it appeared--a poem +as wicked and beautiful as himself, explaining, with all kinds of +delightful details, the shocking courses into which he had been driven by +disappointed love. However much poetry one left unread, one must read that +poem, and read it at once, in order to show that one was "in the +movement." + +So the women argued. It did not matter to them that Byron lacked the +graces of the natural orator, and declaimed his sentiments in a monotonous +sing-song tone, like a public schoolboy on a speech-day. It mattered still +less to them whether his economics were sound or shaky. Sympathy, not +argument, was what they wanted, and the sympathy was there. Byron would be +some one to lionise--some one, it might be, to love--some one, at any +rate, whom every woman must try to understand. And the first step towards +understanding him must be to read his book. + +They read it, and made the men read it too. It was recognised, as such +things come to be recognised, that any one who had not read it would be +liable to feel foolish wherever the "best" people were gathered together. +The first edition, issued on March 10, 1812, was sold out in three days. +There was a second edition in April, a third in June, a fourth in +September, a fifth in December, a sixth in August 1813, a seventh in +February 1814. By 1819, an eleventh edition had been reached; and the +subsequent editions would require a professional statistician to count +them. Byron, in short, had not only, as he said, "woke up one morning and +found himself famous"; his fame had proved to have enduring qualities. + +The suddenness of the fame, as we have seen, was not solely the result +either of accident or of merit. Author, publisher, and literary agent--for +Dallas may fairly be ranked with the pioneers of the last-named +profession--had planned and plotted for it. It may even be questioned +whether such supreme success was quite deserved; and it would be easy to +cite examples of much greater work--some of Wordsworth's, for +example--which was far less successful. But that the enthusiasm was +natural--and indeed almost inevitable--cannot be disputed. + +The title helped, as Byron himself recognised with cheerful cynicism. +Lords, of course, had tried their hands at poetry before, but never with +much success, whether they were good lords or wicked. Their compositions +had amounted to little more than ingenious exercises in rhyme. Either they +had failed to put their personalities into their poems or they had had no +personalities worth speaking of to put into them. One could say that, with +varying degrees of truth, of Rochester, Roscommon, Sheffield, and +Carlisle. To find a lord whose poems could be taken seriously one had to +go back to the Elizabethan ages; and modern readers--especially the women +among them--were not very fond of going back so far. To get real poetry, +with a real personality behind it, from a lord was "phenomenal," like +getting figs from thistles--a thing to stand still and take note of. + +Note, therefore, was taken--the more carefully, perhaps, because Byron +was, as it were, an unknown lord, born and brought up in exile, coming +into society with something of the air of one who had to break down +barriers in order to claim his birthright. His poem was, in a manner, his +weapon of assault; and, whatever else might be said about it, it was, in +no case mere exercise in metrical composition. It was the manifesto of a +new personality. + +An immature personality, no doubt--in these two cantos of "Childe Harold" +the essential Byron is not yet revealed. A personality, too, it might be, +with a good deal of paste board theatricality about it--sincerity and +clarity of insight were later Byronic developments. But that did not +matter--least of all did it matter to the women. Melodrama is often more +instantaneously effective than drama; and "twopence coloured" has obvious +immediate advantages over "penny plain." The pose might be apparent, but +it was not ridiculous--or, at all events, it did not strike people as +being so; and the power of posing without making himself ridiculous is one +of the tests of a man's value. Moreover no pose which makes an impression +is ever entirely insincere. The great posturer must put a good deal of +himself into his postures, just as the great painter puts a good deal of +himself into his pictures. Matter-of-fact persons like Hobhouse might not +think so; but women, with their surer instinct, know better. Hobhouse, +glancing at the manuscript of "Childe Harold," might say, with perfect +candour, that he saw no points in that poem different from any other poem; +but to the women it was, and was bound to be, a revelation. + +A revelation, too, of just such a personality as the women liked to think +that they understood--and with just such gaps in the revelation as they +liked to be puzzled by! One may almost say that the hearts of Englishwomen +went out with a rush to Byron for the same reason for which the +hearts of the Frenchwomen, two generations earlier, had gone out to +Rousseau--because he gave them sentiment in place of gallantry. He had, in +fact, given them both; but the note of sentiment predominated; and it was +easy to believe that the sentiment was sincere, and the gallantry merely +the consoling pastime of the stricken heart. + +The women took that view, as they were bound to, agreeing that Byron was +the most interesting man of their age and generation. He certainly was +infinitely more interesting, from their point of view, than Rousseau. He +was younger, better born, and better looking, with more distinguished +manners--one of themselves and not, like Jean-Jacques, a promoted lackey. +So, in a day and a night, they made him famous, and ensured that, whatever +else his career might be, it should be spectacular. The world, in short, +was placed, in a sudden instant, at his feet. It was open to him to stand +with his foot on its neck, striking attitudes--to step at a stride into a +notable position in public life, or to ride, in his own way, with his own +haste, to the devil. + +Or, at all events, it seemed open to him to make this choice, though the +actual course of his life in the presence of the apparent choice, might +well be cited as an object lesson in the distinction which the +philosophers have drawn between the freedom to do as we will, and the +freedom to will as we will. Which is to say that the spectacular life, in +his case as in so many others, was to be at the mercy of the inner life, +and the things seen in it were largely to be the effect of causes which +were out of sight. + +It is to that inner life, and to those invisible causes of visible effects +that we must now turn back. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE SECRET ORCHARD + + +The invisible force which was beginning to influence Byron's life, and was +presently to deflect it, was a revival of his recollections of Mary +Chaworth. He nowhere tells us so, nor do his biographers on his behalf, +but the fact is none the less quite certain. The proofs abound, though the +name is never mentioned in them; and Mr. Richard Edgecumbe has marshalled +them[6] with conclusive force. The course which Byron's life followed--the +things which he willed and did, as well as the things he said--can only be +explained if Mary Chaworth is once more brought into the story. + +She is, it must be admitted, one of the most shadowy and elusive of all +heroines of romance. We have hardly a scrap of her handwriting--hardly a +definite report about her from any contemporary witness. She is said to +have been disposed to flirt before her marriage, but to have been serious +and well-conducted afterwards. It is known that her husband was unkind to +her and that she was unhappy with him; there are statements that she was +"religious"; but most of the other evidence is negative, leaving the +impression that she was commonplace. The secret of her charm, that is to +say, is lost; and we can only guess at it--each of us guessing differently +because something of ourselves has to go to the framing of the guesses. + +Assuredly there is no inference unfavourable to her charm to be drawn from +the fact that she passed through the world without cutting a figure in it. +The women who dazzle the world are rarely the women for whose love men +count the world well lost. It has been written that a man could no more +fall in love with Mrs. Siddons than with the Pyramid of Cheops. Men have +also refrained, as a rule, from falling in love with the brilliant women +of the _salons_--with Madame du Deffand, for instance, and Madame Necker, +and Lady Blessington, and Lady Holland. The qualities of a hostess, they +have felt, are different from those of a mistress. Such women can dominate +the crowd, wearing their tiaras like queens, in the garish light of +fashionable assemblies; but, in the twilight of the secret orchard, their +empire crumbles to the dust. It is not given to them to make any man feel +that the limitations of time and space have ceased and that the whole of +life is concentrated in the life lived here and now. The women who possess +that power are the women who seem insignificant to the men to whom they +have not revealed themselves. + +Mary Chaworth possessed that power, and so left no mark anywhere in life +except on Byron's heart. She was quite undistinguished, and seemingly +conventional--the last woman in the world to be likely to throw her bonnet +over the windmill; but she had this subtle, indefinable, and inexplicable +secret. She had had it even in the irresponsible days when she flirted +with the fat boy, but failed to divine his genius, and preferred the +hard-riding and hard-drinking squire. She retained it when the fox-hunting +squire had shown the coarseness of his fibre, and the fat boy was a man +whose genius had proved itself. Every meeting, therefore, was bound to +bring a renewal of the spell, even though, in the intervals between the +meetings, Byron could forget. + +We have it, on Byron's authority, that there were certain "stolen +meetings." It has been assumed that these were prior to Mary Chaworth's +marriage; but that is hardly credible. There was no need for stolen +meetings then; for everything was frank and open. They must have taken +place, if at all--and there is no reason to doubt that they did take +place--subsequently to the marriage: subsequently to that dinner-party at +which Byron and Mary met, and were embarrassed, and did not know what to +say to each other. Perhaps, since Mary was a woman whose instinct it was +to walk in the straight path, there was no conscious and deliberate +secrecy. The more likely assumption, indeed, is that they contrived to +meet by accident, and then thought it better, without any definite +exchange of promises, not to mention that they had met. However that may +be, the spell continued, and Mary kept the key of the secret orchard. Her +spirit was certain to revisit it, even if she herself did not. + +Then came the long Eastern pilgrimage. The feeling that this sort of thing +could not go on indefinitely may very well have been one of the motives +for it; and Byron, of course, was quite young enough to forget, and a +great deal too young to let past memories divert his mind from present +pleasures. He did forget--or very nearly so; he did divert himself as +opportunity occurred. He enjoyed his battle with the police for a woman of +the town; he enjoyed his passion for a married woman. There is no reason +whatever to suppose that he was really thinking of Mary Chaworth when he +wrote verses to the Maid of Athens, or when he gave the most precious of +his rings to Mrs. Spencer Smith. But the secret orchard always remained; +the spirit of the old tenant might at any time return to it. Such spirits +always do return whenever life suddenly, for whatever reason, seems a +blank. + +It was, in this instance, death--a rapid series of deaths--that brought it +back. Byron's mother died, in circumstances for which, as we have seen, he +had some reason to reproach himself. His choirboy friend Eddleston pined +away from consumption. Charles Skinner Matthews was drowned in the +Cam--entangled in the river weeds and sucked under. Wingfield was drowned +on his way to the war in Spain. The news of these four deaths came almost +simultaneously, and the shock broke down Byron's high spirits. His +letters are very heartbroken and eloquent. + +"Some curse," he wrote to Scrope Davies, the gamester, "hangs over me and +mine.... Come to me, Scrope; I am almost desolate--left almost alone in +the world." "At three-and-twenty," he wrote to Dallas, "I am left alone, +and what more can we be at seventy? It is true I am young enough to begin +again, but with whom can I retrace the laughing part of my life?" To +Dallas, too, he wrote a certain morbid letter about the four skulls which +lay on his study table, and in another letter to Hodgson he says: + + "The blows followed each other so rapidly that I am yet stupid from + the shock; and though I do eat, and drink, and talk, and even laugh at + times, yet I can hardly persuade myself that I am awake, did not every + morning convince me mournfully to the contrary. I shall now waive the + subject, the dead are at rest, and none but the dead can be so.... I + am solitary, and I never felt solitude irksome before." + +The consolations which Hodgson offered him in his distress were those of +religion. He wrote him long letters concerning the immortality of the +soul; letters which caused Byron, years afterwards, to remark, when his +friend had taken orders, that Hodgson was always pious, "even when he was +kept by a washerwoman"--and was shocked by his blasphemous reply that he +did not believe in immortality and did not desire it. He appealed to +Byron--"for God's sake"--to pull himself together and read Paley's +"Evidences of Christianity." He had a great respect for Paley as a Senior +Wrangler and entertained no doubt that his conclusions followed from his +premisses. A little later, he and Harness,[7] one of Byron's Harrow +protégés, who was then at Cambridge, reading for his degree, went down to +Newstead to stay with Byron. + +There were no orgies there this time. No "Paphian girls" were introduced; +no practical jokes were played; the cook and the housemaid remained in the +servants' quarters. "Nothing," says Harness, "could have been more orderly +than the course of our days"--which was right and proper seeing that both +he and Hodgson were shortly going to be ordained. If the trio sat up late, +it was only to talk about literature and religion. Hodgson pressed +orthodox views on Byron with "judicious zeal and affectionate +earnestness." Harness supported him with the diffidence appropriate to his +tender years. Byron maintained his own point of view, while thinking of +other things. + +Chiefly he thought of the ghost which now revisited his secret orchard, +telling himself that it was not the ghost but the real woman which should +have been there. With Mary Chaworth alone he had known the sensation that +nothing else mattered while he and she were together. Now that so many +deaths had made a solitude in his heart he sorely needed the renewal of +that feeling. She could have vouchsafed it to him; she both could and +should. Why then, was she not at Annesley, waiting for him, granting more +stolen interviews, proving that she still cared, affording him that escape +from life to ecstasy? + +That was the drift of Byron's thoughts at the time when Hodgson was trying +to direct his attention to Paley's "Evidences." He saw, as youth is apt to +do, more possibilities of comfort in love than in theology--a fact which +is the less to be wondered at seeing that the theology in which he had +been brought up was of the uncomfortable Calvinistic kind; and though he +was the victim of a mood rather than of a passion--for passion needed the +stimulus of sight and touch--the mood had to be expressed, and perhaps +worked off, in verse. It burst into "Childe Harold": + + "_Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one! + Whom Youth and Youth's affections bound to me; + Who did for me what none beside have done, + Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee. + What is my Being! thou has ceased to be! + Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home, + Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see-- + Would they had never been, or were to come! + Would he had ne'er returned to find fresh cause to roam._ + + "_Oh, ever loving, lovely, and beloved! + How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past. + And clings to thoughts now better far removed! + But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last. + All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death, thou hast; + The Parent, Friend, and now the more than Friend, + Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, + And grief with grief continuing still to blend, + Hath snatched the little joy that Life hath yet to lend._" + +These stanzas, with three others, were sent to Dallas after "Childe +Harold" was in the press, together with a letter which must have mystified +him though, as a "poor relation," he would not well ask impertinent +questions; a letter to the effect that Byron has "supped full of horrors" +and "become callous" and "has not a tear left." The "Thyrza" sequence of +poems belongs to the same period--almost to the same day. They have +puzzled many generations of editors and commentators because "Thyrza" is +addressed in them as one who is dead, and because, though Byron spoke of +Thyrza to his friends as a real person and showed a lock of her hair, no +trace of any woman answering to her description can be discovered in any +chronicle of his life. + +The explanation is that Thyrza was not really dead, though Byron chose so +to write of her. Thyrza was Mary Chaworth who was dead to Byron in the +sense that she had passed out of his life, as he had every reason to think +(though he thought wrongly) for ever. The poems expressed, according to +Moore, "the essence, the abstract spirit, as it were, of many griefs," +with which was mingled the memory of her who "though living was for him as +much lost as" any of the dead friends for whom he mourned. They expressed, +in fact, his despair at finding the secret orchard tenanted only by a +ghost; and if we read the poems by the light of that clue, we can get a +clear meaning out of every line. + +They are too long to be quoted. Readers must refer to them and judge. The +note is the note of bitter despair, working up, at the end, into the note +of recklessness. The contrast is there--that contrast as old as the +world--between the things that are and the things that might, and should, +have been; and then there follows the declaration that, as things are what +they are, and as their consequences will be what they will be, there is +nothing for it but to plunge into pleasure, albeit with the full knowledge +that pleasure cannot please: + + "_One struggle more, and I am free + From pangs that rend my heart in twain; + One last long sigh to Love and thee, + Then back to busy life again. + It suits me well to mingle now + With things that never pleased before: + Though every joy is fled below, + What future grief can touch me more?_ + + "_Then bring me wine, the banquet bring; + Man was not formed to live alone: + I'll be that light unmeaning thing + That smiles with all, and weeps with none. + It was not thus in days more dear, + It never would have been, but thou + Hast fled, and left me lonely here; + Thou'rt nothing,--all are nothing now._" + +The so-called Byronic pose challenges us in that passage; but it is by no +means as a pose that it must be dismissed. The men who seem to pose are +very often just the men who have the courage--or the bravado, if any one +prefers the word--to be sincere; and Byron, if he is to be rightly +understood, must be thought of as the most sincere man who ever struck an +attitude. That was the secret of his strength. Pose was for him just what +Aristotle, as interpreted by Professor Bywater, says that the spectacle of +tragedy is to the mass of the spectators. It purged him, for the time +being, of his emotions by indulging them. The pose, having done its work, +ceased until the emotions recurred, and then he posed again. Hence the +many differences of opinion among his friends as to whether he posed or +not. + +Just now he was posing, in all sincerity, not only to himself but to +Hodgson. At one time he told Hodgson that, as soon as he had set his +affairs in order, he should "leave England for ever." At another he sent +him an "Epistle to a Friend in Answer to some Lines exhorting the Author +to be cheerful and to 'banish Care.'" Hodgson sent them to Moore for +publication in his Life, requesting that the concluding lines should not +be printed; but Moore disregarded the request. The Epistle ended thus: + + "_But let this pass--I'll whine no more. + Nor seek again an Eastern shore; + The world befits a busy brain,-- + I'll hie me to its haunts again. + But if, in some succeeding year, + When Britain's "May is in the sere," + Thou hear'st of one, whose deepening crimes + Suit with the sablest of the times, + Of one, whom love nor pity sways, + Nor hope of fame, nor good men's praise; + One, who in stern Ambition's pride, + Perchance not blood shall turn aside: + One ranked in some recording page + With the worst anarchs of the age, + Him wilt thou_ know,--_and_ knowing _pause, + Nor with the effect forget the cause._" + +The allusion here, as Hodgson's biographer discerns, is to "his early +disappointment in love as the source of all his subsequent sorrow." +Hodgson's own comment, scrawled in the margin of the manuscript is: +"N.B.--The poor dear soul meant nothing of all this." + +He meant it--and yet he did not mean it. It was the emphasised and +exaggerated expression of what he meant--momentarily emphasised for the +purpose, whether conscious or unconscious, of relieving himself from the +black mood which had descended on him. The relief was gained--though it +was not to be permanent. He did not "leave England for ever"--not +yet--but hied him to the haunts of the world as he had promised. He +plunged into pleasure--and found pleasure more pleasant than he had +imagined that it could be. + +That was inevitable. He was only twenty-four, and he was famous; and "to +be famous when one is young--that is the dream of the gods." Moreover, he +was achieving just that sort of fame which is attended by the most +intoxicating joy. The fame of the man of science is nothing--the world +interests itself in his discovery but not in him. The fame of a statesman +is hardly sweeter--it is only won by fighting and working hard and making +jealous enemies. The fame of a poet--a poet who is also _the_ poet--brings +instantaneously the applause of men and the wonder and homage of women. +They do not separate the man from his work, but insist on associating him +with it. Beautiful women as well as blue-stockings--and with less critical +discrimination than blue-stockings--prostrate and abase themselves before +him, competing for the sunshine of his smiles, believing, or affecting to +believe, that his and theirs are kindred souls. + +So it befell Byron. Born in exile, he had at last returned from exile in a +blaze of triumph. All the doors of all the best houses were thrown open to +him with a blare of trumpets. He entered them, not as a parvenu, like +Moore the Irish grocer's son, but as the one man without whose presence +the festival would have been incomplete. No man, if one might judge by +externals, had ever a better chance of making a splendid and noble pageant +of his life. So far as an observer could judge--so far probably as he +himself knew--the ghosts of the past were laid, and its memories in a fair +way of being effaced. If the past had not come back to him, he might have +forgotten it. The tragedy of his life was that it did come back--that he +did meet Mary Chaworth again and rediscover the secret orchard which, +while she was absent from it, was a howling wilderness, overgrown with +weeds. + +But not quite immediately. There were certain other things which had to +happen first. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +LADY CAROLINE LAMB + + +The record of Byron's social triumphs may be outlined in a few sentences. + +Without quite losing sight of such old friends as Hodgson and Harness, he +moved, with the air of a social conqueror in three new sets, which may be +regarded as distinct, though there were points at which they touched each +other. Among men of letters his chief friends were Samuel Rogers, the +banker poet, then a man verging on fifty, whose superlative dinner we have +seen him refusing to eat, and Thomas Moore, who had made his acquaintance +by demanding satisfaction for an alleged affront in "English Bards," which +Byron had explained away. At the same time he "got on very well," as he +tells us, with Beau Brummell and the other dandies, being one of the three +men of letters who were admitted to Watiers, and was lionised in the +society which we should nowadays describe as "smart." + +It has been written that the roadway opposite to his apartments was +blocked by liveried footmen conveying perfumed notes. That, we may take +it, is a picturesque exaggeration; but, no doubt, he received more +invitations than the laws of time and space allowed him to accept--most +of them, though by no means all of them, to the great Whig houses. Lady +Westmorland, Lady Jersey, Lady Holland, and Lady Melbourne were the most +fashionable of the hostesses who competed for the privilege of his +company; and Lady Melbourne had a daughter-in-law--Lady Caroline Lamb. She +also had a niece--Miss Anna Isabella Milbanke; but it is of Lady Caroline +Lamb that we must speak first. + +Lady Caroline was three years older than Byron. She was the daughter of +the third Earl of Bessborough, and the wife of William Lamb, who, as Lord +Melbourne, afterwards became Prime Minister of England. It was a matter of +opinion whether she was beautiful; it was also a matter of opinion whether +she was sane--doctors consulted on that branch of the subject had returned +doubtful, non-committal answers. She was not exactly mad, they said, but +she was of a temperament allied to madness. She must not be pressed to +study, but must be allowed to run wild and do as she liked. + +She had run wild, for years, reading the works of Burns, which are not +written for the young, and galloping about parks on bare-backed steeds, +imagining the world about her instead of realising it, and, of course, +imagining it wrong. It is on record that she believed that +bread-and-butter was a natural product and that horses were fed on beef; +also that she divided the community into two classes--dukes and +beggars--and supposed that the former would always, by some law of +nature, remain wealthy, whatever they did with their money. Her charm--and +she could be very charming when she liked--was that of a high-spirited, +irresponsible, wilful, wayward child. She was, in short, the kind of girl +whom those who loved her best would describe, in the vernacular, as "a +handful." + +[Illustration: _Lady Caroline Lamb._] + +"Of all the Devonshire House girls," William Lamb had said, "that is the +one for me." That was when she was thirteen; and six years later he was +still of the same opinion. He was confirmed in it when she refused his +offer of marriage, proposing instead to run away with him in boy's clothes +and act as his secretary. He accepted neither his dismissal nor her +alternative suggestion, but persevered in his suit until he was accepted. +The next thing that happened was that Lady Caroline broke into railing +accusations against the bishop who performed the marriage rites, tore her +wedding dress to tatters, and had to be carried to her carriage in a +fainting fit. It was not a very auspicious commencement of married life, +but one which prepares us for the general reflections on marriage found in +her husband's common-place book, recently edited by Mr. Lloyd Sanders: + + "The general reason against marriage is that two minds, however + congenial they may be, or however submissive the one may be to the + other, can never act like one. It is the nature of human beings that + no man can be free or independent...." + + "... By marriage you place yourself on the defensive instead of the + offensive in society...." + + "Every man will find his own private affairs more difficult to control + than any public affairs on which he may be engaged...." + +William Lamb's experience of married life was to be, as it were, an object +lesson on those texts. At one moment Lady Caroline was to overwhelm him +with doting affection; at the next to make him ridiculous. Sometimes the +two moods followed each other as quickly as the thunder follows the +lightning, as in the case of a scene of which the Kembles were involuntary +witnesses when staying in the same hotel with the Lambs in Paris. + +Husband and wife had quarrelled in their presence, and had then withdrawn +to their apartment which faced the rooms which the Kembles occupied. The +lamps were lighted, and the blinds were not drawn, so that the Kembles +looked across the courtyard and saw what happened. William Lamb was in his +arm-chair. Lady Caroline first sat on his knee, and then slid to his feet, +looking up into his face with great humility. This for a few moments. Then +something that William Lamb said once more disturbed Lady Caroline's +equanimity. In an instant she was on her feet, running round the room, +pursued by her husband, sweeping mirrors, candlesticks, and crockery on to +the floor, in a veritable whirlwind of passion; whereupon William Lamb +drew the blind and the Kembles saw no more. + +That story may serve as a symbolic epitome of William Lamb's married life. +We shall come to many stories of the same kind as we proceed. Lady +Caroline was a creature of impulse, and there was nearly always a man in +the case. She easily persuaded herself that any man who was polite to her +was in love with her--both Moore and Rogers were among the victims of whom +she boasted--and she would not allow the contrary to be suggested. +Moreover, besides being self-willed in matters of the heart, she liked to +_afficher_ herself with every man for whom she felt a preference, and to +declare the state of her affections to the world with the insistent +emphasis with which the sensational virtues of soaps and sauces are set +forth on the hoardings. + +Whether she deliberately sought notoriety, or merely did what she chose to +do without fear of it, remains, to this hour, an open question. All that +is certain is that she did, in fact, make herself very notorious indeed, +and that there was more scandal than subtlety in her attempts to +monopolise Byron, to whose heart she laid siege, with all the audacity of +a stage adventuress, in the presence of a large, amused, and interested +audience. + +It was Lady Westmorland who introduced them. She did not introduce Byron +to Lady Caroline, but Lady Caroline to Byron. Already, only a few days +after the appearance of "Childe Harold," he was on his pedestal, and was +not expected to descend from it, even to show deference to ladies. "He +has a club-foot and bites his nails," Rogers had told her. "If he is as +ugly as Æsop I must know him," she had answered. But now that she was +brought to him, she shrank from him, whether because she was afraid, or +because she wished to provoke and pique him. "I looked earnestly at him," +she told Lady Morgan, "and turned on my heel"; and she went home and wrote +in her diary the impression that Byron was "mad, bad, and dangerous to +know." + +That was the first scene in the comedy. The second took place at Holland +House, and the third at Melbourne House. Lady Caroline's recollections of +them were recorded in Lady Morgan's reminiscences: + + "I was sitting with Lord and Lady Holland when he was announced. Lady + Holland said, 'I must present Lord Byron to you.' Lord Byron said, + 'That offer was made to you before; may I ask why you rejected it?' He + begged permission to come and see me. He did so the next day. Rogers + and Moore were standing by me: I had just come in from riding. I was + filthy and heated. When Lord Byron was announced, I flew out of the + room to wash myself. When I returned, Rogers said, 'Lord Byron, you + are a happy man. Lady Caroline has been sitting here in all her dirt + with us, but when you were announced, she flew to beautify herself.' + Lord Byron wished to come and see me at eight o'clock, when I was + alone. I said he might." + +He did; and "from that moment for more than nine months he almost lived at +Melbourne House." The rest, in Lady Caroline's opinion--at all events in +one of her opinions, expressed in an angry letter--was all William Lamb's +fault. + + "He cared nothing for my morals," she remarks. "I might flirt and go + about with what men I pleased. He was privy to my affair with Lord + Byron and laughed at it. His indolence renders him insensible to + everything. When I ride, play, and amuse him, he loves me. In sickness + and suffering he deserts me." + +That protest, however, is wholly unjust, and only partly true. A married +woman who has no sooner met a man than she arranges to dine _tête-à-tête_ +with him is hardly entitled to ascribe her flirtation to her husband's +contributory negligence. Lady Caroline not only did that, but also, in her +wilful way, plunged at once into a compromising correspondence. Her very +first letter to Byron, according to Rogers, "assured him that, if he was +in any want of money, all her jewels were at his disposal." In another +letter of approximately the same date we find her writing: "The rose Lord +Byron gave Lady Caroline Lamb died in despite of every effort made to save +it; probably from regret at its fallen fortunes." + +Evidently Lady Caroline had thrown herself at Byron's head before William +Lamb guessed what was happening. Afterwards, no doubt, he knew what the +rest of the world knew. But he also knew--what the rest of the world did +not know, and what Lady Caroline herself only imperfectly realised--how +froward and changeable were his wife's moods, how great was the risk of +hysterical explosions if those moods were crossed, what a "handful" she +was, in short, and how very difficult it was to handle her, and so he left +things alone. + +Leaving things alone, indeed, was William Lamb's regular formula for the +solution of the problems alike of public and of private life. He believed +that problems left alone tended to solve themselves, just as letters left +unanswered tend to answer themselves. On the whole the principle had +worked, if not ideally, yet well enough for the practical purposes of +domestic life. Things had happened before, and, being left alone, had +ceased to happen. In his desk lay a letter relating to some previous +ebullition the particulars of which are wrapped in mystery. "I think +lately, my dearest William," Lady Caroline had written, three years +before, "we have been very troublesome to each other." It was true, and it +had not mattered. The fire, if there had been a fire, had burnt itself +out. The hysterics--it is not to be doubted that there were hysterics--had +subsided with the passing of the occasion which had called them forth. The +clouds had been dispersed, and the sun had shone again. Why should not +this chapter in his domestic history repeat itself? He was very fond of +his wife; he hated rows; he wished to take no risks. The best way of +avoiding risks was to humour her. + +So he humoured her, remembering how she had railed at the bishop on her +wedding day, knowing, no doubt, how little a thing might upset her mental +balance, and making every possible allowance; and the only attempt at +intervention came from Lady Melbourne, who remonstrated, not with Lady +Caroline, but with Byron. He struck an attitude, and waived the matter on +one side. + + "You need not fear me," was his reply. "I do not pursue pleasure like + other men; I labour under an incurable disease and a blighted heart. + Believe me she is safe with me." + +No one knows whether she was, in the narrow sense of the word, "safe" with +him or not. Rogers thought that she was, but admitted that he did not +really know. In any case she was not safe from herself, or from the tongue +of scandal. She was really in love--her devotion was no passing fancy--and +she did not care who knew it. Indeed she behaved as if she thought that +the more people who knew it, the better. The woman who, at a ball, called +upon Byron's friend Harness--that very serious young Cantab just about to +take orders--to bear witness that she was wearing no fewer than six pairs +of stockings, was not likely to hide the light of a grand passion under a +bushel. She did not so hide it, but proceeded, as has been said, to +_afficher_ herself as if she were inviting the attention of the world to +a great spectacular entertainment. She had not known Byron a couple of +months before people were beginning to talk. + + "Your little friend Caro William," wrote the Duchess of Devonshire on + May 4, 1812, "as usual is doing all sorts of imprudent things with + him.... The ladies, I hear spoil him, and the gentlemen are jealous of + him. He is going back to Naxos, and then the husbands may sleep in + peace. I should not be surprised if Caro William were to go with him, + she is so wild and imprudent." + +Rogers, in his "Table Talk," is still more picturesque. He tells us how, +when Byron and Lady Caroline quarrelled, she used to plant herself in his +(Rogers') garden, waiting to catch him on his return home and beg him to +effect a reconciliation; and he continues: + + "When she met Byron at a party, she would always, if possible, return + home from it in _his_ carriage, and accompanied by _him_: I recollect + particularly their returning to town together from Holland House. But + such was the insanity of her passion for Byron that sometimes, when + not invited to a party where he was to be, she would wait for him in + the street till it was over! One night, after a great party at + Devonshire House, to which Lady Caroline had not been invited, I saw + her--yes, saw her--talking to Byron, with half of her body thrust into + the carriage which he had just entered." + +In the midst of, and in consequence of, these spectacles, Lady Melbourne +decided to take Lady Caroline to Ireland. She cherished, it seems, the +double design of getting her daughter-in-law out of Byron's way and +marrying Byron to her niece. Of the success of the latter scheme there +will be a good deal to be said in subsequent chapters. Much was to happen, +however, both to Byron and to Lady Caroline before it succeeded. They +continued to correspond during Lady Caroline's absence; and the +correspondence soon reached an acute phase which resulted in a series of +violent scenes. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE QUARREL WITH LADY CAROLINE--HER CHARACTER AND SUBSEQUENT CAREER + + +"While in Ireland," Lady Caroline Lamb told Lady Morgan, "I received +letters constantly--the most tender and the most amusing." + +She received one letter in which Byron, after speaking of "a sense of duty +to your husband and mother" declared that "no other in word or deed shall +ever hold the place in my affections which is, and shall be, most sacred +to you," and concluded: "I was and am yours freely and most entirely, to +obey, to honour, love--and fly with you when, where, and how you yourself +_might_ and _may_ determine." What did he mean? + +Apparently he meant to let Lady Caroline down gently--to give her the +right of boasting of his undying regard--and to obtain his liberty in +exchange. We need not stop to consider whether the bargain would have been +a fair one, for Lady Caroline did not agree to it. There were no bounds to +her infatuation, and she could not bear the thought that there should be +any bounds to his. But there were. "Even during our intimacy," he told +Medwin, "I was not at all constant to this fair one, and she suspected as +much." It looks as though her suspicions decided her to return to +England. At all events she started, and at Dublin, received another letter +to which the epithets "tender" and "amusing" were equally inapplicable. + +"It was," she told Lady Morgan, "that cruel letter I have published in +'Glenarvon'"--the novel in which, some five years later, she gave the +world her version of the liaison. The text of it, as given in 'Glenarvon,' +is as follows: + + "I am no longer your lover; and since you oblige me to confess it by + this truly unfeminine persecution, learn that I am attached to + another, whose name it would, of course, be dishonest to mention. I + shall ever remember with gratitude the many instances I have received + of the predilection you have shown in my favour. I shall ever continue + your friend, if your ladyship will permit me so to style myself. And + as a first proof of my regard, I offer you this advice: correct your + vanity, which is ridiculous: exert your absurd caprices on others; and + leave me in peace." + +Byron appears to have admitted to Medwin that "a part" of the letter was +genuine. The rest of it--the gratuitously offensive part of it--was +doubtless doctored, if not actually fabricated, by the novelist for the +purposes of her art. In any case, however, quite enough was written to +send Lady Caroline into a fit, from which she only recovered to renew her +eccentricities. "I lost my brain," she confesses. "I was bled, leeched; +kept for a month in the filthy Dolphin Inn at Rock. On my return I was in +great prostration of mind and spirit." And then scenes followed--scene on +the heels of scene. It is impossible to be quite sure of arranging them in +their proper order; but that matters little. + +There was a scene in Brocket Park, where Lady Caroline burnt Byron in +effigy. Together with his effigy she burnt copies of his letters, keeping +the originals for reference. A number of girls, attired in white, danced +round the pyre, chanting a dirge which she had composed for the occasion: + + "_Is this Guy Faux you burn in effigy? + Why bring the Traitor here? What is Guy Faux to me? + Guy Faux betrayed his country, and his laws. + England revenged the wrong; his was a public cause. + But I have private cause to raise this flame. + Burn also those, and be their fate the same._" + +And also: + + "_Burn, fire, burn, while wondering Boys exclaim, + And gold and trinkets glitter in the flame. + Ah! look not thus on me, so grave, so sad; + Shake not your heads, nor say the Lady's mad._" + +Et cetera. + +Then there was a scene in Byron's chambers, whither Lady Caroline pursued +him in order to obtain confirmation of certain suspicions, thus described +by Byron to Medwin: + + "In order to detect my intrigues she watched me, and earthed a lady + into my lodgings--and came herself, terrier-like, in the disguise of a + carman. My valet, who did not see through the masquerade, let her in: + when to the despair of Fletcher, she put off the man and put on the + woman. Imagine the scene! It was worthy of Faublas!" + +After that, according to Medwin, it was agreed that, if they met, they +were to meet as strangers; but Lady Caroline did not carry out her part of +the agreement. "We were at a ball," the reporter represents Byron as +saying. "She came up and asked me if she might waltz. I thought it +perfectly indifferent whether she waltzed or not, or with whom, and told +her so, in different terms, but with much coolness. After she had +finished, a scene occurred, which was in the mouths of everyone." Fanny +Kemble, however, gives a more sensational version of the story. + +"Lady Caroline," she says, "with impertinent disregard of Byron's +infirmity, asked him to waltz. He contemptuously replied, 'I cannot, and +you nor any other woman ought not.'" Whereupon, the narrator continues, +Lady Caroline rushed into the dressing-room, threw up the window, and +tried to throw herself out of it, exclaiming with Saint-Preux: "_La roche +est escarpée; l'eau est profonde!_" Then, saved by someone who saw her +intention and caught hold of her skirts, she asked for water, bit a piece +out of the glass which was handed to her, and tried to stab herself with +it, but was ultimately persuaded to return home and go to bed. + +Fact and fancy, no doubt, are inextricably woven together in that +narrative. All that is quite certain is that Lady Caroline did go home, +and that her temper became so ungovernable that William Lamb, who also, in +spite of his easy-going ways, had a temper, proposed a separation. The +proposal was agreed to, and the family lawyer was instructed to draw up +the deed. He drew it up; but when he brought it to the house to be signed, +sealed, and delivered, he found Lady Caroline sitting on her husband's +knee, "feeding him," says his biographer, "with tiny scraps of transparent +bread and butter." His professional tact bade him retire before this +unexpected tableau; and the separation was postponed for twelve years. + +That is practically the whole of the story, so far as Byron is concerned +with it. Lady Caroline was to write him other letters to which it will be +necessary to refer as we proceed; but she had now passed out of his life, +even if he had not passed out of hers. Other urgent interests were +springing up to occupy him; and he had once more heard the _leit motif_ +for which we always have to listen when we find his actions, his letters, +and his poems perplexing us. + +Society--that is to say, the women of society--blamed him for his conduct; +but the blame, if it is to have any sting in it, seems to require the +assumption that every woman has a right to every man's heart if she +demands it with sufficient emphasis, and that any man who refuses to +honour the demand is, _ipso facto_, "behaving badly." Women, perhaps, are +a little more ready to make that assumption than are philosophers to allow +its validity. Granting the assumption, we shall be bound to admit that +Byron did treat Lady Caroline shamefully; but suppose we do not grant +it--then, perhaps, our chief task will be to search for excuses for Lady +Caroline herself. + +The excuses to which she is entitled are those which were very obviously +made for her by her husband and his mother. They did not quarrel with her, +though they sometimes lost their temper with her; and--what is more to the +purpose--they did not quarrel with Byron. Evidently, therefore, they held +the view that Lady Caroline was responsible for Byron's conduct--but could +not be held responsible for her own. They had the doctor's word for it +that, though she was not mad, she might easily become so. If she was to be +kept sane, she must be humoured. In humouring her up to a point, Byron had +acted for the best. Neither a husband nor a mother-in-law could blame him +for his unwillingness to go beyond that point. His proposal to fly with +her may strike one as excessive; but it may perhaps be classed with the +promises sometimes made to passionate children in the hope of keeping them +quiet till the passion passes. There is really no reason to think that +either William Lamb or Lady Melbourne regarded it in any other light. + +It was "really from the best motives," Byron assured Hodgson, that "I +withdrew my homage." The best motives, as we shall perceive, were mixed +with other motives; but they were doubtless there. Byron could justly +speak of himself as "restoring a woman to her family, who are treating her +with the greatest kindness, and with whom I am on good terms." It was only +to be expected that he would be flattered by her attentions when he was +twenty-four and new to society. It was equally to be expected that he +should execute a retreat when he realised that he had to do with a +_détraquée_ whose pursuit at once threatened a scandal and made him as +well as her husband look ridiculous. + +The proofs that her mind was unhinged are ample. "She appears to me," +wrote Lady H. Leveson Gower to Lady G. Morpeth, "in a state very little +short of insanity, and my aunt describes it as at times having been very +decidedly so." That is an example of the direct evidence; and the +circumstantial evidence is even more abundant. The scene at the ball, of +which Lady Caroline herself gave a spluttering account in a rambling and +incoherent letter to Medwin, is only a part of it. An attempt which she +made to forge Byron's signature in order to obtain his portrait from John +Murray points to the same conclusion. The inconsistent and inconsequential +picture which she draws of herself in her letters and her writings affords +the most conclusive testimony of all. + +From the correspondence and other documents one could not possibly gather +whether she preferred her husband to her lover or her lover to her +husband; whether she "worshipped" Byron for three years only or throughout +her life; whether her attachment to him ceased, or did not cease, after +her visit, in men's clothes, to his chambers; whether she did or did not +rejoice in the unhappiness of his married life. On all these points she +repeatedly contradicted herself with the excessive emphasis of the +hysterical. To say that Byron's treatment of her drove her mad would be to +talk nonsense. At the most it only gave an illusion of method to her +madness, and supplied the monomania for which her unbalanced mind was +waiting. + +William Lamb humoured her long after Byron had ceased to do so. She knew +it, and, in her comparatively lucid intervals, appreciated both his +forbearance and his character. "Remember," she wrote to Lady Morgan, "the +only noble fellow I ever met with is William Lamb; he is to me what Shore +was to Jane Shore." She also placed "William Lamb first" in the order of +the objects of her affection; but, in the very letter in which she did so, +she spoke of "Lord Byron, that dear, that angel, that misguided and +misguiding Byron, whom I adore." We must make what we can of it; but, in +truth, there is nothing to be made of it except that Lady Caroline was +mad. Presently she became so obviously mad that she smashed her doctor's +watch in a fit of rage and had to be placed in the charge of two female +keepers. + +There came a day when, riding near Brocket, she met a funeral procession, +and was told that it was Byron's. Then she fainted; and it was after that +incident that her uncontrollable violence caused the long-postponed +separation to be carried into effect. Some verses which she wrote on the +occasion are printed among Lord Melbourne's papers: + + "_Loved One! No tear is in mine eye, + Though pangs my bosom thrill, + For I have learned, when others sigh, + To suffer and be still. + Passion, and pride, and flattery strove, + They made a wreck of me; + But oh, I never ceased to love, + I never loved but thee._" + +There are two other--very similar--stanzas. The inadequacy of the +expression is, perhaps, the most pathetic thing about them. A child seems +to be struggling to utter the emotions of a grown-up person--a clouded +mind, to be striving to clear itself under the influence of a sudden +shock. And the mind in truth was, at that date, very far from clear. The +drinking of laudanum mixed with brandy often helped in the clouding of it; +and the end was not very far removed. + +The last illness began towards the end of 1827. William Lamb, when he +heard of it, hurried to his wife's side; devoted to her, and eager to +humour her, in spite of everything, to the last. She was "able to converse +with him and enjoy his society," and he found her "calm, patient, and +affectionate." She died of dropsy on January 28, 1828; and William Lamb +published an article consecrated to her memory in the _Literary Gazette_ +in the course of the following month. One gathers from it, reading between +the lines, not only that he forgave, but that he understood. Hopes, he +admitted, had been drawn from her early years which "her maturity was not +destined to realise"; but he concluded: "Her manners, though somewhat +eccentric, and apparently, not really, affected, had a fascination which +it is difficult for any who never encountered their effect to conceive." + +All this, however, though not irrelevant, is taking us a long way from +Byron, to whom it is now time to return. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +LADY OXFORD--BYRON'S INTENTION OF GOING ABROAD WITH HER + + +Byron's separation from Lady Caroline Lamb, though suggested by Lady +Melbourne, appears to have been negotiated by Hobhouse at the instance of +Lady Bessborough. "Received a note from Lady Bessborough. Went to Byron, +who agrees to go out of town," is the entry in his Diary which reveals the +part he played. A further entry relating that Lady Caroline found him and +Lady Bessborough together, and charged them with looking like +conspirators, adds all the confirmation needed. Byron went out of town as +he had promised, stayed at Cheltenham, and presently wrote the letter in +which he told Lady Caroline that he had ceased to love her. He added +insult to injury, as Lady Caroline felt, by writing on notepaper bearing +the arms of the Countess of Oxford. + +She and Lady Oxford knew each other rather well, and had been friends. +"Lady Oxford and Caroline William Lamb," we read in one of the letters of +Harriet Lady Granville, "have been engaged in a correspondence, the +subject whether learning Greek purifies or inflames the passions." The +right answer to the conundrum is, perhaps, that it depends upon the +learner--or else that it depends upon the teacher. Lady Oxford's +passions, at any rate, were, like Lady Caroline's, inflammable. She was +forty--the romantic age in the view of the philosophers; and she was +unhappily married. Byron spoke of her to Medwin as "sacrificed, almost +before she was a woman, to one whose mind and body were equally +contemptible." A less prejudiced witness, Uvedale Price, wrote to Rogers, +at the time of her death: "There could not, in all respects, be a more +ill-matched pair than herself and Lord Oxford, or a stronger instance of +the cruel sports of Venus or, rather, of Hymen." + +Byron was in love with her, or thought so--he was not quite clear which +when he poured his confidences on the subject into Medwin's ear. Lady +Caroline's suspicions, to that extent, were justified. The "autumnal +charms"--it is he who calls them so--fascinated him for about eight +months. "The autumn of a beauty like hers," he said, "is preferable to the +spring in others." He added that he "had great difficulty in breaking with +her," and "once was on the point of going abroad with her, and narrowly +escaped this folly." How he escaped it--or why he avoided it--he does not +say; but perhaps we may find a reason. + +Of his intentions, at any rate, there is no room for doubt. We have no +need to depend on Medwin's evidence for the full proof is in Byron's own +letters. It is mixed up with a good deal of extraneous matter, but it is +there; and a series of very brief citations will present the romance, +such as it was, in outline: + + To William Bankes on September 12, 1812: "The only persons I know are + the Rawdons and Oxfords, with some later acquaintances of less + brilliant descent. But I do not trouble them much." + + To Hanson on October 22, 1812: "I am going to Lord Oxford's, Eywood, + Presteigne, Hereford." + +Letters are dated from Presteigne on October 31, November 8, and November +16. A letter of November 22 begins, "On my return here (Cheltenham) from +Lord Oxford's." A January letter shows Byron once again at Lord Oxford's; +and then the references to the contemplated foreign tour--letters of which +there is no mistaking the significance--begin: + + To Hanson on February, 27, 1813: "It is my determination, on account + of a malady to which I am subject, and for other weighty reasons, to + go abroad again almost immediately. To this you will object; but, as + my intention cannot be altered, I have only to request that you will + assist me as far as in your power to make the necessary arrangements." + + To Hanson on March 1, 1813: "Your objections I anticipated and can + only repeat that I cannot act otherwise; so pray hasten some + arrangement--for with, or without, I must go." + + To Hanson on March 6, 1813: "I must be ready in April at whatever + risk--at whatever loss." + + To Charles Hanson on March 24, 1813: "Pray tell your father to get the + money on Rochdale, or I must sell it directly. I must be ready by the + last week in _May_, and am consequently pressed for time. I go first + to Cagliari in Sardinia, and then on to the Levant." + + To Mrs. Leigh on March 26, 1813: "I am going abroad again in June, but + should wish to see you before my departure.... On Sunday, I set off + for a fortnight for Eywood, near Presteigne, in Herefordshire--with + the _Oxfords_. I see you put on a _demure_ look at the name, which is + very becoming and matronly in you; but you won't be sorry to hear that + I am quite out of a more serious scrape with another singular + personage, which threatened me last year." + + To Hanson on April 15, 1813: "I shall only be able to see you a few + days in town, as I shall sail before the 20th of May." + + To Hanson on April 17, 1813: "I wish, if possible, the arrangement + with Hoare to be made immediately, as I must set off forthwith." + + To John Murray on April 21, 1813: "Send in my account to Bennet + Street, as I wish to settle it before sailing." + + To Hanson on June 3, 1813; "I am as determined as I have been for the + last six months.... Everything is ordered and ready now. Do not trifle + with me, for I am in very solid serious earnest.... I have made my + choice, and go I will." + + To Hodgson on June 8, 1813: "I shall manage to see you somewhere + before I sail, which will be next month." + + To John Murray on June 12, 1813: "Recollect that my lacquey returns in + the Evening, and that I set out for Portsmouth to-morrow." + + To William Gifford on June 18, 1813: "As I do not sail quite so soon + as Murray may have led you to expect (not till July), I trust I may + have some chance of taking you by the hand before my departure." + + To Mrs. Leigh, in the same month: "If you knew _whom_ I had put off + besides my journey, you would think me grown strangely fraternal." + + To Moore on July 8, 1813: "The Oxfords have sailed almost a fortnight, + and my sister is in town, which is a great comfort." + +That is the skeleton of the romance. Such clothes as it is felt to need +the imagination must provide. Byron's position seems to have been +perilously near that of a "tame cat," though he might have preferred to +call himself, then, as on a later occasion, a _cavaliere servente_. His +excuse is that he was only twenty-five, and that a fascinating woman of +forty can be very fascinating indeed, and very clever at getting her own +way. Her attempt to annex Byron, though she was fifteen years his senior, +may be viewed as her gambler's throw for happiness. She threw and +lost--but she lost quietly. She resembled Lady Caroline in being romantic, +but she differed from her in not being "obstreperous." There was no +scandal for society to take note of, and the welkin never rang with her +complaints, though she did walk about Rome displaying Byron's portrait at +her girdle. + +Nor did it ring with Byron's, who, indeed, had nothing to complain of. The +few allusions to the affair which Hobhouse contributes throw very little +light upon it. He notes, in one place, that Lady Oxford was "most uncommon +in her talk and licentious." He adds, on another page, the memorandum: +"Got a picture of Lady Oxford from Mrs. Mee. Lord B.'s money for it." That +is all; and there are no hints to be derived from "occasional" verses. +However much Lady Oxford may have pleased Byron, she did not inspire him. +The period of his intimacy with her was, from the literary point of view, +a singularly barren period; and the allusions cited from the letters--they +are all the allusions that can be cited--are chiefly instructive because +of the difference between their tone and the tone of certain other letters +written very soon afterwards. + +There is no suggestion in them of deep sentiment. What they do suggest +is--first, a young man desperately determined to go through with a +desperate adventure, and very much afraid of being warned of the +consequences of his folly--then a young man who, having a haunting doubt +of his own sincerity, shouts to keep up his courage--finally a young man +who is grateful to the circumstances, whatever they may have been, which +have deflected him from a rash course, and saved him from himself. One +turns a few pages, and finds Byron writing in a very different strain: + + "I have said nothing of the brilliant sex; but the fact is, I am at + this moment in a far more serious, and entirely new, scrape, than any + of the last twelve months, and that is saying a good deal. It is + unlucky we can neither live with nor without these women." + + "I would incorporate with any woman of decent demeanour + to-morrow--that is, I would a month ago, but at present...." + + "Some day or other, when we are _veterans_, I may tell you a tale of + present and past times; and it is not from want of confidence that I + do not tell you now.... All this would be very well if I had no heart; + but, unluckily, I have found that there is such a thing still about + me, though in no very good repair, and also that it has a habit of + attaching itself to _one_, whether I will or no." + +These passages are from letters to Moore. A few days before writing the +last of them Byron had written to Miss Milbanke, whom he was shortly to +marry: + + "I am at present a little feverish--I mean mentally--and, as usual, on + the brink of something or other, which will probably crush me at last, + and cut our correspondence short, with everything else." + +No names are mentioned here; but certain inferences not only can, but +inevitably must, be drawn. At some time towards the end of the summer of +1813, there was a crisis of Byron's life. It did not come to a head until +after Lady Oxford's departure, and Lady Oxford had nothing whatever to do +with it. The latter point not only follows from the sudden disappearance +of Lady Oxford from Byron's sphere of interest, but is specifically made +in a letter (dated November 8, 1813) from Byron to his sister: + + "MY DEAREST AUGUSTA, + + "I have only time to say that my long silence has been occasioned by a + thousand things (with which _you_ are not concerned). It is not Lady + Caroline, nor Lady Oxford; _but perhaps you may guess_, and if you do, + do not tell. You do not know what mischief your being with me might + have prevented. You shall hear from me to-morrow: in the meantime + don't be alarmed. I am in _no immediate_ peril." + +Those are the most significant of the letters, though there are others. +Even if they stood alone, one would feel sure that there was a story +behind them; but they do not stand alone. We have the poems to set beside +them, and we have also the journal which Byron kept from November 14, 1813 +till April 19, 1814. Letters, poems, and journal, read in conjunction, +furnish a clue which it is impossible to mistrust. The distinction of +having first so read them with sufficient care to find the clue belongs to +Mr. Richard Edgcumbe. + +Possibly Mr. Edgcumbe has proved just a little too much--that question +will have to be faced when we come to it; but our immediate task must be +to track the story along the lines which he has indicated, and see how all +the mysteries connected with Byron can be solved, and all the emotional +inconsistencies of his life unified, by the recollection that, of all the +many passions of his life, there was only one which really mattered to +him. + +Many women were welcome to love him if they liked--he was a man very ready +to let himself be loved; but only one woman had the power to make him +suffer--and that woman was Mary Chaworth. The motto "Cherchez la femme" +may, in short, in his case, be particularised. Whenever his conduct and +his utterances seem, on the face of it, inexplicable, we have to look for +Mary Chaworth and see her re-asserting a power which has been allowed to +lapse; and we will turn to look for her now. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +AN EMOTIONAL CRISIS--THOUGHTS OF MARRIAGE, OF FOREIGN TRAVEL, AND OF MARY +CHAWORTH + + +The poems written during the dark period of Byron's life which we have now +to consider are "The Giaour," "The Bride of Abydos," "The Corsair," and +"Lara." Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge, in his introduction to "The Bride of +Abydos," attributed the gloom to the fact that Byron "had been staying at +Aston Hall, Rotherham, with his friend James Wedderburn Webster, and had +fallen in love with his friend's wife, Lady Frances." It will be time +enough to treat that suggestion seriously when more evidence is offered in +support of it. The one important reference to Lady Frances in the Letters +certainly does not bear it out: + + "I stayed a week with the Websters, and behaved very well, though the + lady of the house is young, religious, and pretty, and the master is + my particular friend. I felt no wish for anything but a poodle dog, + which they kindly gave me." + +That is all; and it is not in tune with those allusions, veiled by +asterisks, to a consuming and destroying passion, with which the Journal +is thickly sprinkled. On the other hand the open references to Mary +Chaworth scattered throughout Byron's autobiographical utterances are +perfectly in tune with these enigmatical invocations of an Unknown Lady. +Even if it could not be shown that she and Byron met during this period of +mental anguish, we should still be tempted to conjecture that she and the +Unknown Lady were one; and, as a matter of fact, we know that they did +meet, and also know enough of the terms on which they met to be able to +clear up the situation beyond much possibility of doubt. The key to it, +indeed, is the letter written by Byron to Mary Chaworth five years after +their final separation: + + "My own, we may have been very wrong, but I repent of nothing except + that cursed marriage, and your refusing to continue to love me as you + had loved me. I can neither forget nor _quite forgive_ you for that + precious piece of reformation. But I can never be other than I have + been, and whenever I love anything, it is because it reminds me in + some way or other of yourself." + +That letter by itself proves practically the whole case. It does not +matter whether it is his own marriage or Mary Chaworth's that Byron speaks +of as "cursed"--the epithet may well have seemed to him equally applicable +to either union. The essential point is that Byron could not conceivably +have written in this tone to Mary Chaworth in 1818 if he had had no +relations, or only formal relations, with her since 1809. The mere +fact--the only openly acknowledged fact--that she had jilted him when he +was a schoolboy would certainly not have warranted him in reproaching her +with "refusing to continue to love" at a date thirteen years subsequent to +his rejection. The letter obviously, and undeniably, implies an intimacy +of later date in which his passion was reciprocated. + +Later acquaintance, indeed, apart from intimacy, can easily be +demonstrated, in spite of the suppressions of the biographers. "I remember +meeting her," Byron himself said to Medwin, "after my return from Greece"; +and the statement is confirmed, as Medwin's statements generally need to +be, from other sources. It appears from Byron's own letters that Mary +Chaworth, or some member of her family, took charge of his robes after one +of his attendances at the House of Lords; and a letter from Mary Chaworth +to Byron, in the possession of Mr. Murray, is printed by Mr. Edgcumbe. It +speaks of a seal which Byron was having made for her. The seal is still in +existence, and is in the possession of the Musters family. The approximate +date of its presentation is fixed by an entry in Byron's journal: + + "Mem. I must get a toy to-morrow for Eliza, and send the device for + the seals of myself and ----." + +Here, at any rate, we get one clear case in which the asterisks in the +Journal not only appear to indicate Mary Chaworth, but cannot possibly +indicate anybody else. It does not follow, of course, that we are entitled +to insert her name wherever we encounter asterisks--for Byron and his +editors have, from time to time, had various reasons for thus concealing +various names; but the cases in which the asterisks do refer to her are, +when once this clue is provided, tolerably easy to distinguish. Furnished +with the clue, we can at once unravel the skein of events and construct a +consistent picture of these critical months in Byron's career; and we may +begin with the picture which he drew of himself to Medwin: + + "I was at this time," he says, "a mere Bond Street lounger--a great + man at lobbies, coffee and gambling houses: my afternoons were passed + in visits, luncheons, lounging, and boxing--not to mention drinking." + +This is true, and yet, at the same time, it is not true. The picture is, +at once, confirmed by the Letters and the Journal and contradicted by +them. It is a picture in which, so to say, all the lights are glaring, and +all the shadows are left out. The truest thing in it is the after-thought, +added a few sentences lower down; "Don't suppose, however, that I took any +pleasure in all these excesses." In that moody claim we get, of course, +the reflection, or recollection, of the Byronic pose; and at this period, +if not at all periods, there was grim reality behind the pose, and Byron +fully justifies the description of him as the most sincere man who ever +struck an attitude. + +It would be easy to depict him, whether from his letters or from +contemporary memoirs, as the dissipated darling of society. The year 1813 +was the year in which he and Madame de Staël were the rival lions of the +season, roaring against each other, not entirely without jealousy. The +list of his social engagements, if one troubled to draw it out, would have +a very formidable appearance. It would show him going everywhere, meeting +everybody, doing everything. We should see him at the great houses, such +as Lady Melbourne's, Lady Holland's, Lady Jersey's. We should discover him +at the opera and the theatre, now in their boxes, now in his own, and at +men's dinners, with Sheridan, and Rogers, "Conversation Sharp," and other +brilliant talkers. We should also find him patronising "the fancy," and +losing his money at hazard, and drinking several bottles of claret at a +sitting--retiring to bed in a sublime state of exaltation, and rising from +it with a shocking headache. + +That, however, would only be one half the picture. Many contemporary +observers remarked that Byron passed through the haunts of pleasure with a +scowl, and that his face wore a frown whenever his features were in +repose. One would infer from that, not that Byron, while really enjoying +himself, posed, for the sake of effect, as a man who was secretly eating +his heart out, but rather that some secret trouble was actually gnawing at +his heart while he made the gestures of a man of pleasure; and the Letters +and the Journal--more particularly the Journal--give us many glimpses at +this darker side of his life. If he often accepted the invitations which +continued to be showered on him, he also frequently declined them, locking +himself up alone in his chambers to read, and write, and think things +out--persuading himself, after some months had lapsed, that he had really +been very little into society, and that it was a matter of indifference to +him whether he went into it again or not. + +And this, it will be observed, is a new note which only begins to be +sounded in his intimate writings towards the end of the summer of 1813, +after he has allowed Lady Oxford to go abroad alone. There is nothing like +it in the days of his dalliance with her. Still less is there anything +like it in the writings of the days of his dalliance with Lady Caroline +Lamb. Those episodes and adventures, it is quite clear, only touched the +surface of his nature. He first pursued them, and then ceased to pursue +them, with laughter on his lips, and self-satisfaction--one might even say +jollity--in his heart. There was not even anything in them to cradle him +into song. The interval between the "Thyrza" poems and the passionate +allegorical tales of which "The Giaour" was the first--an interval of some +eighteen months--was poetically uneventful. A period of feverish activity +succeeded; and it coincided with a renewal of relations with Mary +Chaworth. + +Mary Chaworth had lived unhappily with the handsome squire whom she had, +so naturally, preferred to the fat boy from Harrow. He had been, as these +red-faced, full-blooded Philistines are so apt to be, at once jealous, +unfaithful, and brutal, wanting to "have it both ways,"--to push rivals +brusquely out of his path, and to pursue his own coarse pleasures where he +chose. He had forbidden his wife to see Byron. He had insisted upon her +absence from Annesley at the time of Byron's return from Greece; and he +had found her, whether willingly or unwillingly, compliant. But he had +also, by his own conduct, caused scandals which had set the tongues of the +neighbours wagging; and, in doing that, he had presumed too far. There had +been a separation by mutual consent; and it was after the separation that +the meeting with Byron took place. + +There was little about him now to remind Mary of the fat boy whom she had +laughed at. The Turkish baths, the Epsom salts, and the regimen of +biscuits and soda-water had done their work. He came to her as a man of +ethereal beauty, fascinating manners, and undisputed genius; and he left +other women--women of higher rank, greater importance, and more widely +acknowledged charm--in order to come to her. Nor did he come with the +triumphant air of a man who was resolved to dazzle her in order to avenge +a slight. He came, as it were, because he could not help himself--because +he felt cords drawing him--because this was his destiny and he must fulfil +it, though he forfeited the whole world in doing so. + +Her case was hard. She was not one of the women who readily do desperate +things in scorn of consequence. The traditions of her class, the claims of +her family--the precepts, also, one imagines, of her religion--had too +strong a hold on her for that. These very hesitations, no doubt,--so +different from the "on coming" ways of Lady Caroline, and Lady Oxford's +"terrible love," as Balzac phrases it, "of the woman of forty"--were a +part of her charm for Byron. But she was very unhappy, and Byron was +offering her a little happiness; and it was very, very difficult for her +to refuse the gift. So the history of the matter seems, in a sentence or +two, to have been this: that she was slow to yield, but yielded; that she +had no sooner yielded than she repented; that her repentance left Byron a +desperate, heart-broken man, profoundly cynical about women--so cynical +about them that he could speak even of her, while he still loved her, to +Medwin, as "like the rest of her sex, far from angelic"--ready to marry +out of pique, or from any other motive equally unworthy. + +The details must remain obscure. They passed in the secret orchard; and +Byron was not, like Victor Hugo, a man who treated his secret orchard as a +park to be thrown open to excursionists. He knew that there was a time to +keep silence as well as a time to speak; and though there were some +episodes in his life of which he spoke too much, of this particular +episode he only spoke to Moore and Mrs. Leigh, whom he could trust. Yet, +given the clues, the story constructs itself; and we must either believe +the story which arises out of those clues, or else believe that the most +passionate poems which Byron ever wrote were the outcome of a spiritual +crisis about nothing in particular. And that, of course, is absurd. + +We find him, at the beginning of the crisis, pondering two escapes from +it--the escape by way of marriage, and the escape by way of foreign +travel. He talks, in the middle of July, of proposing to Lady Adelaide +Forbes; he talks, at the end of August, of proposing to anyone who is +likely to accept him; but in neither instance does he talk like a man who +really means what he says. This is the July announcement: + + "My circumstances are mending, and were not my other prospects + blackening, I would take a wife, and that should be the woman had I a + chance.... The Staël last night said that I had no feeling, was + totally _in_sensible to _la belle passion_, and _had_ been all my + life. I am very glad to hear it, but did not know it before." + +Then in August he writes: + + "After all, we must end in marriage; and I can conceive nothing more + delightful than such a state in the country, reading the county + newspaper, &c., and kissing one's wife's maid. Seriously, I would + incorporate with any woman of decent demeanour to-morrow--that is, I + would a month ago, but at present----." + +The word "seriously" there is evidently a _façon de parler_. The writer's +mood may be serious, but his intentions evidently are not. It may be +doubted whether the thoughts of travel were any more serious, though they +lasted longer. In letter after letter we find Byron making inquiries about +a passage in a ship of war bound for the Levant. When such a passage is +offered to him, however, he declines it on the ground that he is unable to +obtain accommodation for as many servants as he desires to take with him; +and that explanation inevitably strikes one as a pretext rather than a +reason--the pretext of a man who, while he knows that it would be better +to go, is looking for an excuse to stay. + +Projects of travel with his sister and with various friends fell through +at about the same time, for reasons which are nowhere stated, but can very +easily be guessed. We cannot read the letters, dark though the allusions +are, without being conscious of a thickening plot. It thickens very +perceptibly when we discover Byron at Newstead at a time when Mary +Chaworth, forsaken by her husband, is at Annesley. There is nearly a +month's gap in the published letters at this point; but conjecture can +easily fill the gap in the light of the letter from Byron to Mrs. Leigh, +already quoted, which is dated November 8: + + "It is not Lady Caroline nor Lady Oxford; but perhaps you may guess, + and if you _do_, do not tell. + + "You do not know what mischief your being near me might have + prevented. You shall hear from me to-morrow; in the meantime, don't be + alarmed. I am in _no immediate_ peril." + +One is further helped to understand by a letter to Moore written, after a +longer silence than usual, on November 30: + + "Since I last wrote to you, much has occurred, good, bad, and + indifferent,--not to make me forget you, but to prevent me of + reminding you of one who, nevertheless, has often thought of you.... + + "Your French quotation was very confoundedly to the purpose,--though + very _unexpectedly_ pertinent, as you may imagine by what I _said_ + before, and my silence since. However, 'Richard's himself again,' and + except all night, and some part of the morning, I don't think very + much about the matter." + +The French quotation referred to is Fontenelle's: "Si je recommençais ma +carrière je ferais tout ce que j'ai fait." The inference from the allusion +to it, and from the two letters given, is quite clear. Something has +happened--at Newstead or in the neighbourhood, as the dates +demonstrate--something which Byron cannot bring himself to regret, even +though he feels that it is going to make trouble for him. Hints at the +possibility of a duel which follow in later letters make it not less clear +that the trouble--or a part of it--may come from the indignation of an +angry husband. "I shall not return his fire," Byron writes--an +indication, we may take it, that a sense of guilt, and some remorse, is +mingled with his passion. + +That is what we gather, and cannot help gathering, from the letters, in +spite of their vagueness and intentional obscurity. We will take up the +thread of the story from them again in a moment. In the meanwhile we will +turn to the Journal and see how Byron presents the story to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +RENEWAL AND INTERRUPTION OF RELATIONS WITH MARY CHAWORTH + + +The Journal is only a fragment, kept only for five months. It is a record +rather of emotions than of events--the chronicle of the emotions of a man +who feels the need of talking to himself of matters of which he cannot +easily talk to others, but who, even in speaking to himself, speaks in +riddles. It begins soon after the "mischief" of which Augusta has been +told has happened, and while he is entangled in the "scrape" mentioned to +Moore. The talk on the first page is of travel--"provided I neither marry +myself, nor unmarry any one else in the interval"; and there immediately +follows a reference to the writing of "The Bride of Abydos": + + "I believe the composition of it kept me alive--for it was written to + drive my thoughts from the recollection of-- + + "_Dear sacred name, rest ever unreveal'd._" + + "At least, even here, my hand would tremble to write it." + +"The Bride," he insists, was written for himself, and not with any view to +publication. "I am sure, had it not been for Murray, _that_ would never +have been published, though the circumstances which are the groundwork +make it ... heigho!" "It was written," he adds, "in four days to distract +my thoughts from * * *"; and then we perceive that he is in correspondence +with the lady thus enigmatically designated. He is expecting a letter from +her which does not arrive. What, he asks himself, is the meaning of that? + + "Not a word from * * * Have they set out from * * *? or has my last + precious epistle fallen into the lion's jaws? If so--and this silence + looks suspicious--I must clap on my 'musty morion' and 'hold out my + iron.' I am out of practice--but I won't begin again at Manton's now. + Besides, I would not return his shot. I was once a famous + wafer-splitter; but then the bullies of society made it necessary. + Ever since I began to feel that I had a bad cause to support, I have + left off the exercise." + +The probability of a challenge from an injured husband is evidently +contemplated here. No challenge came, the injured man remaining in +ignorance of his injury; but peace of mind nevertheless remained +unattainable. No connected narrative, indeed, can be pieced together. It +is hardly ever possible to declare that such and such a thing happened on +such and such a day. There is only the general impression that things are +happening, and that, whether they happen or do not happen, a tragedy is +always in progress. We come presently to a curiously significant note on +the _raison d'être_ of Byron's practice of fasting: + + "I should not so much mind a little accession of flesh--my bones can + well bear it. But the worst is, the devil always came with it,--till I + starved him out,--and I will _not_ be the slave of _any_ appetite. If + I do err, it shall be my heart, at least, that heralds the way." + +But a man does not write like that unless his heart has heralded the way, +and he is following it. Byron's trouble was not that he had failed to +follow the road which his heart pointed, but that he had followed it into +an _impasse_. He had reached a point at which the only way out was the way +on; but he could not follow it alone, and his companion would not follow +it with him. She had gone a little way with him, and then taken fright at +his and her own temerity. + +It is a question whether we should pity her for her lack of courage or +praise her for remembering her principles after she had yielded to +temptation; but we should need more knowledge of the facts than we have in +order to answer it with confidence. Exceptional people may do exceptional +things with impunity--it is sometimes for lack of the nerve to do them +that they make shipwreck of their lives; but though Byron was an +exceptional man, we have no proof that Mary Chaworth was an exceptional +woman. She had neither the romantic audacity of George Sand, nor that +audacity of the superior person which upheld George Eliot in her bold +misappropriation of another woman's name. Probably, if she had had it, +Byron would have classed her with the "blues," and either have tired of +her at once or turned away from her very quickly. She had, no doubt, +exceptional charm, but no exceptional strength of character. She was just +a weak woman launched into a situation to which the old rules did not +apply, but afraid to break them, ashamed of having broken them, obstinate +in her refusal to go on breaking them. + +Catastrophe, in those circumstances, was inevitable. The bold course might +have led to it--for a weak woman, brought up in the fear of her +neighbours, can only take a bold course at grave risks. The weak +course--since the love of the heart and not merely the passion of the +senses was at stake--was bound to lead to it, and did. The only question +was whether the victims of the catastrophe would suffer in silence or +would cry aloud; and the answer to that question, given the characters of +the victims, could easily be predicted. Mary Chaworth would be silent, +would make believe to the best of her ability, would wear a mask, and +pose, and persuade the world that she was behaving naturally. Byron, +disdaining to pretend, proclaiming the truth about his own heart even +while respecting Mary's secret--proclaiming it quite naturally though +rather noisily--would appear to the world to be posing. + +He did so; but before we observe him doing so, we may turn back to the +Journal, and study a few more of its enigmatic passages with the help of +the clues at our disposal: + + "I awoke from a dream! well! and have not others dreamed? but she did + not overtake me.... Ugh! how my blood chilled,--and I could not + wake--and--heigho!... I do not like this dream,--I hate its 'foregone + conclusions.'" + + "No letters to-day;--so much the better,--there are no answers. I must + not dream again;--it spoils even reality. I will go out of doors and + see what the fog will do for me." + + "Ward talks of going to Holland, and we have partly discussed an + _ensemble_ expedition.... And why not? ---- is distant, and will be at + ----, still more distant, till spring. No one else except Augusta + cares for me; no ties--no trammels." + + "No dreams last night of the dead, nor the living; so--I am 'firm as + the marble, founded on the rock,' till the next earthquake.... + + "... I am tremendously in arrear with my letters--except to ----, and + to her my thoughts overpower me;--my words never compass them." + + "I believe with Clym o' the Clow, or Robin Hood, 'By our Mary (dear + name!) thou art both mother and May, I think it never was a man's lot + to die before his day.'" + +[Illustration: _Mary Chaworth._] + + "---- has received the portrait safe; and, in answer the only remark + she makes upon it is, 'indeed it is like'--and again 'indeed it is + like.' With her the likeness 'covered a multitude of sins,' for I + happen to know this portrait was not a flatterer, but dark and + stern,--even black as the mood in which my mind was scorching last + July when I sat for it." + + "I am _ennuyé_ beyond my usual tense of that yawning verb, which I am + always conjugating; and I don't find that society much mends the + matter. I am too lazy to shoot myself--and it would annoy Augusta, and + perhaps ----." + + "Much done, but nothing to record. It is quite enough to set down my + thoughts,--my actions will rarely bear retrospection." + + "The more I see of men the less I like them. If I could say so of + women too, all would be well. Why can't I? I am now six-and-twenty; my + passions have had enough to cool them; my affections more than enough + to wither them,--and yet, and yet, always _yet_ and _but_." + + "I must set about some employment soon; my heart begins to eat + _itself_ again." + + "I do not know that I am happiest when alone; but this I am sure of, + that I never am long in the society even of _her_ I love (God knows + too well, and the devil probably too) without a yearning for the + company of my lamp, and my utterly confused and tumbled-down library. + + "I will keep no further journal of that same hesternal torch-light; + and to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, + I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume. To be sure, I have + long despised myself and man, but I never spat in the face of my + species before, 'O fool! I shall go mad!'" + +These entries, as everyone who has read them through will have remarked, +are all variations on a single theme; and there are many more entries in +the same key, which have been left unquoted. They succeed each other, week +after week, and almost day after day, for a period of about five months. +The story of the events to which they relate has been told, and need not +be repeated. One may think of them as the cries attendant on the birth +pangs of those aspects of Byron's character and personality which the +world knows specifically as Byronism. Other tragedies, indeed, were to +come to pass--and were to be necessary--before the angry heart could dash +itself with its full force against the desolations of the world; but the +train was being laid for those tragedies too; and by the time Byron flung +his unfinished Diary down, the thing called Byronism was born. + +Curiously enough, indeed, even the political Byronism can be seen coming +to birth at the time of the writing of the Journal. The Byron who was +presently, while in exile, to harbour revolutionists, and make his house +their arsenal, deride the Tsar of All the Russias as a "Billy bald-coot," +and shake his fist in the faces of the "holy three," already begins to +reveal himself in its pages with scoffing remarks about legitimate kings +and the hereditary principle. Perhaps it is only a case of instinct +asserting itself and the imperious need to find something to scoff at +following the line of least resistance; but that does not matter. What +does matter is that here was a crisis and a turning point in Byron's +development, brought about because Mary Chaworth had come back into his +life, had passed through it, and had passed out of it again. + +Mr. Richard Edgcumbe reads, and has written, still more details into the +story, startling students of Byron's biography with the suggestion that a +child was born as the result of the intimacy--that Mrs. Leigh adopted the +child and pretended that it was her own--that the child thus secretly born +and falsely acknowledged was no other than Medora Leigh, who turned out so +badly, and whose alleged autobiography was published by Charles Mackay. +Passages can be quoted from the poems--and perhaps also from the +letters--which might conceivably contain veiled allusions to such a +transaction. None, however, can be quoted which require that explanation +as an alternative to remaining unintelligible; and, in the absence of +positive evidence, all the probabilities are against Mr. Edgcumbe's +theory. + +Such a secret as he hints at--and indeed almost affirms--would have been +very difficult to keep; and it is hard to believe that Mrs. Leigh's sense +of duty to her husband, with whom she was on the best of terms, would have +allowed her to be a party to the alleged conspiracy. Those are a few of +the most obvious objections; and they must be given the greater weight +because Byron's bitter cries and altered attitude towards life are more +easily explicable without Mr. Edgcumbe's hypothesis than with it. Loving +the real mother so passionately, and having such a faithful friend in the +supposed mother, he would assuredly not have been content to live out his +life in exile without ever making an attempt to see his daughter, and +without constant and particular inquiries after her. So why strain +credulity so far when, without straining it, everything can be made plain +and clear? + +There was a renewal of intimacy, and then a suspension of intimacy; a fear +of a public scandal which proved to be groundless; a risk of a duel which +was, after all, avoided. That is all that is certain; but that suffices to +explain the references to "scrapes" and "mischief" and the rest of it; and +that also, on the assumption that Byron was passionately sincere, explains +the depth and disgusted vehemence of his emotions. He had dreamed of Mary +Chaworth before as the one woman in the world with whom he could live out +the whole of his life in a continuous ecstasy of intense emotion; but he +had from time to time awakened from his dream. Now the dream had become a +reality--and the reality had not lasted. She had been too high +principled--or too much afraid. He had not been strong enough to give her +courage--or to shake her principles. And therefore.... + +Therefore he wrote poem after poem, all on the same theme, all in the same +key--poems of farewell, of everlasting sorrow and despair, and of that +sense of guilt, not defiant as yet, of which Mr. Edgcumbe makes so much, +but which are perhaps best read as the reflection of Mary Chaworth's own +horror--the horror of a mind perilously near insanity--at the thing which +she had done, but was resolved to do no more. He wrote this, for instance: + + "_There is no more for me to hope, + There is no more for thee to fear; + And, if I give my sorrow scope, + That sorrow thou shalt never hear. + Why did I hold thy love so dear? + Why shed for such a heart one tear? + Let deep and dreary silence be + My only memory of thee!_" + +He wrote the well-known lines, beginning: + + "_I speak not--I trace not--I breathe not thy name-- + There is love in the sound--there is Guilt in the fame-- + But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart + The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart._" + +He wrote, again, these lines, which are taken from "Lara": + + "_The tempest of his heart in scorn had gazed + On that the feebler Elements had raised. + The Rapture of his Heart had looked on high, + And asked if greater dwell beyond the sky: + Chained to excess, the slave of each extreme, + How woke he from the wildness of that dream! + Alas! he told not--but he did awake + To curse the withered heart that would not break._" + +And then, once more: + + "_These lips are mute, these eyes are dry; + But in my breast and in my brain, + Awake the pangs that pass not by, + The thought that ne'er shall sleep again. + My soul nor deigns nor dares complain, + Though Grief and Passion there rebel: + I only know we loved in vain-- + I only feel--Farewell! Farewell!_" + +There is no need to quote more. Enough has been given to show how the +passionate heart found passionate utterance, and what a wound the wrench +had left. Afterwards, of course, when it was all over--or as much over as +it ever would be--Byron realised that a man of twenty-six could not well +consecrate all the rest of his years to lamentation. He had to live out +his life somehow, with the help of incident of some sort; and incident in +such a case must mean either a fresh love affair or marriage. + +In Byron's case it meant marriage--the very marriage which Lady Melbourne +had designed as a distraction for him from the too-pointed attentions of +Lady Caroline Lamb. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +MARRIAGE + + +Whatever doubts and mysteries environ the circumstances of Byron's +separation from his wife, there is, at any rate, nothing to perplex us in +the train of events which brought about his marriage, though the two +common and conflicting theories have to be set aside. He did not marry +Miss Milbanke for money; he did not marry her for love; he married her, +partly because he had persuaded himself that he wanted a wife, and partly +because she had made up her mind that he should do so. + +He cannot have married her for money because, at that date, her fortune +was inconsiderable and her expectations were vague. She had only £10,000; +and "good lives" stood between her and the prospect of any substantial +inheritance. Seeing that Newstead, when put up to auction, was bought in +for £90,000, a dowry of £10,000 was of no particular consequence to Byron, +and if he had been fortune-hunting, he would have hunted bigger game. The +fortune which he did capture was not enough to save him from almost +instant financial embarrassments; and he faced that prospect as one who +viewed it with indifference. "She is said," he wrote to Moore, "to be an +heiress, but of that I really know nothing certainly, and shall not +inquire. But I do know that she has talents and excellent qualities." + +But if it is clear that Byron was not an interested, it is equally clear +that he was not a passionate, suitor. He hardly could be so soon after the +emotional stress through which we have seen him passing; and the proofs +that he was not are conclusive. The most conclusive proof of all is that +at the time when he proposed, by letter, to Miss Milbanke, he had not seen +her, or made any attempt to see her, for ten months, and that, though he +had, during those ten months, been corresponding with her, he had also, +during those ten months, been pursuing sentimental adventures with which +she had nothing to do. It was, as we have already seen, during those ten +months that the renewed relations with Mary Chaworth were broken off; and +when, after the close of those renewed relations, Byron's thoughts turned +to marriage, it was not Miss Milbanke whom he first thought of marrying. + +The desire to marry, in short, had only been a particular emotion with +Byron when there was a possibility of marrying Mary Chaworth. Thereafter +it was only a general emotion--a desire for an "escape from life," and a +domestic refuge from the storms which threatened shipwreck. He was tired +of the struggle, and here was a prospect of rest. A little more than three +months before his proposal to Miss Milbanke he was thinking of proposing +to Lady Adelaide Forbes--ready to marry her, as he wrote to Moore, "with +the same indifference which has frozen over the 'Black Sea' of all my +passions." A fortnight later--almost to a day three months before the +proposal--he writes again to Moore: + + "I _could_ be very sentimental now, but I won't. The truth is, that I + have been all my life trying to harden my heart, and have not yet + quite succeeded--though there are great hopes--and you do not know how + it has sunk with your departure." + +Byron assuredly was not in love with Miss Milbanke when he wrote that; and +he had no opportunity of falling in love with her in the course of the +next three months, for he did not even see her. None the less he made up +his mind to ask her to marry him--as an alternative to departing on a long +foreign tour; and it is from Hobhouse's lately published narrative that we +can best see how he was led, or lured, to that decision. + +Byron had first met Miss Milbanke at the time when Lady Caroline Lamb was +throwing herself at his head. Lady Caroline had shown him some verses +which Miss Milbanke had written, and he had said that he considered them +rather good--possibly because he thought so, but more probably because he +wished to be polite. Soon afterwards, he had been presented to her, and +had made her a first proposal of marriage, which she had declined. + +The reasons alike for his offer and for her refusal of it remain obscure. +He must, at any rate, have liked her; he was almost certainly getting +tired of Lady Caroline's determination to monopolise and exploit him; +perhaps he was also anxious to do anything in reason to oblige Lady +Melbourne, who had the motives which we know of for desiring to bring +about the match. Whether Miss Milbanke, on her part, preferred some other +admirer or resented Lady Melbourne's attempt to make a convenience of her +is doubtful. Both motives may have operated simultaneously; and Byron, at +any rate, accepted his refusal in a philosophic spirit. It had not, +Hobhouse says, "sunk very deep into his heart or preyed upon his spirits." +He "did not pretend to regret Miss Milbanke's refusal deeply." Indeed "it +might be said that he did not pretend to regret it at all." And Hobhouse +describes a "ludicrous scene" when some common friend related that he had +been rejected by Miss Milbanke, and burst into tears over the catastrophe. + + "Is that all?" said Lord Byron. "Perhaps then it will be some + consolation for you to know that I also have been refused by Miss + Milbanke." + +Perhaps it was--some unsuccessful suitors are quite capable of taking +comfort from such reflections; but that need not concern us. What we have +to note is that Byron's rejection by Miss Milbanke resulted in his +engaging in a long correspondence with her; and that the commencement of +that correspondence was negotiated by Lady Melbourne. One infers that Lady +Melbourne was a very clever woman, by no means innocent of "ulterior +motives," far less ready than Byron to take "no" for an answer from Miss +Milbanke, and intuitively conscious that correspondences of this character +are apt to weave entanglements for those who engage in them. + +Some extracts from the correspondence are printed in Mr. Murray's +Collected Edition of Byron's Works. There are references to it both in +Byron's Journal and in Hobhouse's Account of the Separation. There is +nothing in the text which it seems imperative to quote--nothing, that is +to say, which perceptibly helps the story along. Byron's own letters are +rather high-flown and artificial. The impression which one gathers from +them is that of a man elaborately keeping alive the double pretence that +he is unworthy and that he is disappointed--but only keeping it alive out +of politeness. The nature of Miss Milbanke's letters can only be inferred +from the one or two allusions which we find to them. + + "Yesterday, a very pretty letter from Annabella, which I answered. + What an odd situation and friendship is ours!--without one spark of + love on either side, and produced by circumstances which in general + lead to coldness on one side and aversion on the other. She is a very + superior woman, and very little spoiled.... She is a poetess--a + mathematician--a metaphysician, and yet withal, very kind, generous, + and gentle, with very little pretension. Any other head would be + turned with half her acquisitions, and a tenth of her advantages." + +That is what Byron says; but Hobhouse adds a little more. He says that +Byron at first "believed that a certain eccentricity of education had +produced this communication from a young woman otherwise notorious for the +strictest propriety of conduct and demeanour." He also says that the tone +of the communications grew in warmth as the correspondence proceeded, and +that Byron did not make up his mind to propose marriage a second time +until "after certain expressions had been dropped by Miss Milbanke in her +letters which might easily have encouraged a bolder man than his +lordship." He says finally, and this he says, in italics, that when Byron +did propose for the second time, Miss Milbanke _accepted him by return of +post_. To which piece of information Moore adds the statement that in +order to make assurance doubly sure, she sent her acceptance in duplicate +to his town and his country addresses. + +It reached him at Hastings; and Miss Milbanke proceeded to impart her news +to her friends. A passage from one of the letters--that to Miss +Milner--shows not only that she was very happy in the prospect of her +marriage, but also that she had woefully deceived herself as to the +circumstances which had preceded and led up to the proposal: + + "You only know me truly in thinking that without the highest moral + esteem I could never have yielded to, if I had been weak enough to + form, an attachment. It is not in the great world that Lord Byron's + true character must be sought; but ask of those nearest to him--of the + unhappy whom he has consoled, of the poor whom he has blessed, of the + dependants to whom he is the best of masters. For his despondency I + fear I am but too answerable for the last two years." + +"The last two years" included, as we have seen, the period during which +Byron was bombarding Hanson with perpetual and imperious demands for the +ready money without which he could not go abroad with Lady Oxford--the +period at which he told Moore that he was ready to "incorporate with any +decent woman"--and the period at which he wrote "The Bride of Abydos" in +order to "distract my thoughts from * * *" Miss Milbanke, that is to say, +exaggerated both her importance to Byron and her influence over him, +flattering herself that there would have been no "Byronism" but for her +coldness, and that the warmth of her affection, so long withheld, was the +one thing wanting to make glorious summer of the winter of Byron's +discontent. + +It was not an unnatural hallucination. Young women of romantic disposition +are easily flattered into such beliefs, especially if the gates are +thronged with suitors. Having read of such situations in many novels, and +dreamed of them in many dreams, they live in expectation of the day when +life will be true to fiction and their dreams will be fulfilled. And +sometimes, of course, the dreams are fulfilled--sometimes, but not very +often, and hardly ever in the case of heroines who are, as Miss Milbanke +was, commonplace in spite of their intelligence, cold, obstinate, +unyielding, critical, vain, and inexperienced, quick to perceive slights, +and slow to forgive them. + +At all events they were not, in her case, destined to be fulfilled; and +the initial improbability of their fulfilment may be inferred from a +confession which Hobhouse reports. + + "Lord Byron," Hobhouse writes, "frankly confessed to his companion + that he was not in love with his intended bride; but at the same time + he said that he felt for her that regard which he believed was the + surest guarantee of matrimonial felicity." + +No more than that. Byron was only marrying, Hobhouse assures us, from "a +love of change, and curiosity and a feeling of a sort of necessity of +doing such a thing once." So that the engagement may be said to have been +entered upon with a clash of conflicting expectations; and though tact +might have saved the adventurers from shipwreck, tact was precisely the +quality in which they were both most conspicuously deficient. + +It was on the last day of September, 1814, that Hobhouse heard of the +engagement. On the first day of October he wrote his congratulations, and +on October 19, he was invited to act as groomsman. Some time in the same +month Byron paid his first visit to the Milbankes at Seaham. Thence he +went to Cambridge to vote in favour of the candidature of his friend Dr. +Clarke's candidature for the Professorship of Anatomy, and was applauded +by the undergraduates in the Senate House. "This distinction," Hobhouse +says, "to a literary character had never before been paid except in the +instance of Archdeacon Paley"--a curious partner in the poet's glory. A +month later Byron and Hobhouse set out together again for Seaham on what +Hobhouse calls "his matrimonial scheme." + +This was the occasion on which Byron confided to Hobhouse that he was not +in love. A note in Hobhouse's Diary to the effect that "never was lover in +less haste" affords contemporary corroboration of the fact; and the Diary +continues to be picturesque, giving us Hobhouse's critical, but not +altogether unfavourable, impression of Miss Milbanke and her family: + + "Miss Milbanke is rather dowdy-looking, and wears a long and high + dress, though she has excellent feet and ankles.... The lower part of + her face is bad, the upper, expressive but not handsome, yet she gains + by inspection. + + "She heard Byron coming out of his room, ran to meet him, threw her + arms round his neck, and burst into tears. She did this _not before + us_.... Lady Milbanke was so much agitated that she had gone to her + room ... our delay the cause.... Indeed I looked foolish in finding + out an excuse for our want of expedition.... + + "Miss Milbanke, before us, was silent and modest, but very sensible + and quiet, and inspiring an interest which it is easy to mistake for + love. With me she was frank and open, without little airs and + affectations.... + + "Of my friend she seemed dotingly fond, gazing with delight on his + bold and animated face ... this regulated, however, by the most entire + decorum. + + "Old Sir Ralph Milbanke is an honest, red-faced spirit, a little + prosy, but by no means devoid of humour.... My lady, who has been a + dasher in her day, and has ridden the grey mare, is pettish and + tiresome, but clever." + +There is more; but that is the essence. The impression which disengages +itself is one of a well-bred but rather narrow provincialism. The +Milbankes are not exactly great people, but the country cousins of great +people--very decidedly their country cousins. The men are not quite men of +the world; the women are very far from being women of the world--which is +pretty much what one would expect in an age in which the country was so +much more remote from the town than it is at present. Miss Milbanke, in +particular, seems to strike the exact note of provincial correctitude +alike in her display of the emotion proper to the occasion and in her +concealment of it. Her correctitude was, no doubt, made still more correct +by an unemotional disposition. + +During the ceremony, which took place in her mother's drawing-room, she +was very self-possessed--"firm as a rock," is Hobhouse's description of +her demeanour. Things were happening as she had meant them to happen--one +may almost say as she had contrived that they should happen. "I felt," +says Hobhouse, "as if I had buried a friend"; but he nevertheless paid the +compliments which were due, and Miss Milbanke, now Lady Byron, said just +the right thing in reply to them: + + "At a little before twelve," Hobhouse notes, "I handed Lady Byron + downstairs and into her carriage. When I wished her many years of + happiness, she said, 'If I am not happy it will be my own fault.'" + +Nothing could have been more proper than that; for that is just how things +happen when the dreams come true. Such a saying sometimes is, and always +should be, the prelude to "they lived happily together ever afterwards"; +and one can picture Lady Byron telling herself that things were happening, +and would continue to happen, just as in a story-book. + +Only there are two kinds of story-books. There are the story-books which +are written for girls--and the others. This story was to be one of the +others. The husband's past and the wife's illusions were almost bound to +make it so--the more certainly because both husband and wife suffered from +the defects of their qualities; and the defects of Lady Byron's qualities +in particular were such as not only to make her helpless in the _rôle_ +which developments were to assign to her, but also to compel her to +comport herself with something worse than a lack of dignity. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +INCOMPATIBILITY OF TEMPER + + +A thick accretion of legend has gathered round Byron's life alike as an +engaged and as a married man. Every biographer, whether friendly or +hostile, has added fresh anecdotes to the heap. Almost all the stories are +coloured by prejudice. Even when they seem to be derived from the same +source, they are often mutually contradictory; so that it is, as a rule, a +hopeless task to try to distinguish between fact and fiction, or do more +than disengage a general impression of discordant temperaments progressing +from incompatibility to open war. + +Even the period of the engagement is reported not to have been of +unclouded happiness. A son of Sir Ralph Milbanke's Steward at Seaham has +furnished recollections to that effect. "While Byron was at Seaham," says +this witness, "he spent most of his time pistol-shooting in the +plantation"--a strangely moody occupation for an affianced man; and he +adds that, on the wedding morning, when all was prepared for the ceremony, +"Byron had to be sought for in the grounds where he was walking in his +usual surly mood." Mrs. Beecher Stowe tells us that Miss Milbanke, +observing that her lover did not rejoice sufficiently in his good +fortune, offered to release him from his promise--whereupon he "fainted +entirely away," and so convinced her, for the moment, of the sincerity of +his affection. + +Similar stories, equally well attested and equally unconvincing, cluster +round the departure of the married couple for Halnaby where they spent +their honeymoon. Lady Byron told Lady Anne Barnard that the carriage had +no sooner driven away from the door of the mansion than her husband turned +upon her with "a malignant sneer" and derided her for cherishing the "wild +hope" of "reforming him," saying: "Many are the tears you will have to +shed ere that plan is accomplished. It is enough for me that you are my +wife for me to hate you." The Steward's son, giving an alternative version +of the story, declares that "insulting words" were spoken before leaving +the park--"after which he appeared to sit in moody silence, reading a book +for the rest of the journey." Byron's own account of the incident, as +given to Medwin, was as follows: + + "I was surprised at the arrangements for the journey, and somewhat out + of humour to find a lady's maid stuck between me and my bride. It was + rather too early to assume the husband; so I was forced to submit, but + it was not with a very good grace. Put yourself in a similar + situation, and tell me if I had not some reason to be in the sulks." + +These three stories, it is clear, cannot all be true; and none of them can +either be proved or disproved, though the last was contradicted by +Hobhouse who said that he had inspected the carriage and found no maid in +it. Similarly with the stories which follow. According to the Steward's +son, Sir Ralph Milbanke's tenants assembled to cheer Byron on his arrival +at Halnaby--but "of these he took not the slightest notice, but jumped out +of the carriage and walked away, leaving his bride to alight by herself." +There is also a story told by another authority, who cannot, however, have +been an eye-witness, to the effect that Byron, awaking from his slumbers +on his nuptial night, exclaimed, in his surprise at his strange +surroundings, that he supposed he was in Hell. + +All these stories, of course, are exceedingly shocking, if true; but there +are no means of ascertaining whether they are true. Nothing can be +positively affirmed except that the beginnings were inauspicious, and must +have seemed the more inauspicious to Lady Byron because of that fond +belief of hers, that her rejection of Byron in 1812 had caused him two +years' mental agony, now at last to be happily removed by her +condescending tenderness. A vast amount of tact--a vast amount of +give-and-take--would have been needed to make a success of a marriage +concluded under that misapprehension; and Lord and Lady Byron were both of +an age at which tact is, as a rule, a virtue only known by name. + +Of Byron's tact we have an example in the famous dialogue: "Do I +interrupt you, Byron?"... "Damnably." Of Lady Byron's tact we shall +discover an instance at the crisis of her married life. In the meantime we +must note that they made up their first quarrel--which may very well have +been less serious at the time than it appeared to be in retrospect--and, +at any rate, kept up appearances sufficiently well to deceive their +closest friends. From Halnaby they returned to Seaham, where nothing +happened except that Byron discovered his father-in-law to be a bore, +addicted to dreary political monologuising over wine and walnuts. They +next visited Mrs. Leigh at Six Mile Bottom, and then they proceeded to 13 +Piccadilly Terrace--that unluckily numbered house, hired from the Duchess +of Devonshire, in which many catastrophes were to occur, and a distress +was presently to be levied for non-payment of the rent. + +Mrs. Leigh, it will be observed, was pleasantly surprised to observe that +the marriage seemed to be turning out well. She had the more reason to be +surprised because she shared none of Lady Byron's illusions as to the part +which she had played, for the past two years, in Byron's emotional and +imaginative life. She was in her brother's confidence, and knew all about +Lady Caroline Lamb, all about Lady Oxford, and--more particularly--all +about Mary Chaworth. Consequently she had had her apprehensions, which she +confided to Byron's friend Hodgson. A few extracts from her letters to +Hodgson will bring this point out, and show us how the marriage looked +from her point of view. On February 15, 1815, she wrote: + + "It appears to me that Lady Byron _sets about_ making him happy in + quite the right way. It is true I judge at a distance, and we + generally _hope_ as we _wish_; but I assure you I don't conclude + hastily on this subject, and will own to you, what I would not + scarcely to any other person, that I had _many fears_ and much anxiety + _founded upon many causes and circumstances_ of which I cannot + _write_. Thank God! that they do not appear likely to be realised." + + On March 18, 1815: "Byron is looking remarkably well, and of Lady B. I + hardly know how to write, for I have a sad trick of being struck dumb + when I am most happy and pleased. The expectations I had formed could + not be _exceeded_, but at least they are fully answered. + + "I think I never saw or heard of a more perfect being in mortal mould + than she appears to be, and scarcely dared flatter myself such a one + would fall to the lot of my dear B. He seems quite sensible of her + value." + + On March 31, 1815: "Byron and Lady B. left me on Tuesday for + London.... The more I see of her the more I love and esteem her, and + feel how grateful I am, and ought to be, for the blessing of such a + wife for my dear, darling Byron." + + On September 4, 1815: "My brother has just left me, having been here + since last Wednesday, when he arrived very unexpectedly. I never saw + him _so_ well, and he is in the best spirits." + +This is evidence not extorted by questions but spontaneously volunteered. +If it proves nothing else, at least it proves that appearances were kept +up, and that Augusta was deceived. But appearances, none the less, gave a +false impression; and there were other friends, more keen sighted than +Augusta, who saw through them. Hobhouse, in particular, did so. He too had +had his anxieties, and had been watching; and the notes in his Diary--some +of them contemporaneous with, but others subsequent to, Augusta's +letters--are not unlike the rumblings of a coming thunderstorm. + + On March 25, 1815: "I went to bed out of spirits from indeterminate + but chiefly low apprehensions about Byron." + + On April 1, 1815: "He advises me 'not to marry,' though he has the + best of wives." + + On April 2, 1815: "Lady Oxford walks about Naples with Byron's picture + on her girdle in front." + + On July 31, 1815: "Byron is not more happy than before marriage. D. + Kinnaird is also melancholy. This is the state of man." + + On August 4, 1815: "Lord Byron tells me he and she have begun a little + snubbing on money matters. 'Marry not,' says he." + + On August 8, 1815: "Dined with Byron, &c. All grumbled at life." + + On November 25, 1815: "Called on Byron. In that quarter things do not + go well. Strong advice against marriage. Talking of going abroad." + +There is nothing specific there; and when we set out to look for something +specific, we only run up against gossip of doubtful authenticity. "Do I +interrupt you?"... "Damnably," may be assumed to be authentic since Byron +himself has admitted the repartee. It was rude and reprehensible, though +it was probably provoked. The charges which young Harness, now in Holy +Orders, heard preferred by some of Lady Byron's friends are rightly +described by him as "nonsensical"; but we may as well have them before us +in order to judge of the propriety of the epithet: + + "The poor lady had never had a comfortable meal since their marriage. + Her husband had no fixed hour for breakfast, and was always too late + for dinner. + + "At his express desire she had invited two elderly ladies to meet them + in her opera-box. Nothing could be more courteous than his manner to + them while they remained; but no sooner had they gone than he began to + annoy his wife by venting his ill-humour, in a strain of bitterest + satire, against the dress and manners of her friends." + + "Poor Lady Byron was afraid of her life. Her husband slept with loaded + pistols by his bed-side, and a dagger under his pillow." + +"Nonsensical" is decidedly the word for these allegations. The incidents, +even if true, could only be symptoms, not causes, of the disagreement. +Harness, perceiving that, seeks the true explanation of the estrangement +in the disposition of Lady Byron, whom he had known as a girl. She "gave +one the idea of being self-willed and self-opinionated." She "carried no +cheerfulness along with her." The majority of her acquaintances "looked +upon her as a reserved and frigid sort of being whom one would rather +cross the room to avoid than be brought into conversation with +unnecessarily." A common acquaintance remarked to Harness: "If Lady Byron +has a heart, it is deeper seated and harder to get at than anybody else's +heart whom I have ever known." + +Et cetera. So far as we can judge Lady Byron by the letters in which she +subsequently announced, without formulating, her grievances, the verdict +seems a just one. She might be pictured, in the words of the author of +"Ionica" as one who + + "_Smiles at all that's coarse and rash, + Yet wins the trophies of the fight, + Unscathed in honour's wreck and crash, + Heartless, yet always in the right._" + +Or rather one begins so to picture her--and is even justified in so +picturing her at the beginning--though presently, when one sees how +unfairly she fought in the great fight which ensued, one changes one's +mind about her, withdraws such sympathy as one has allowed to go out to +her, and thinks of her husband when one comes to the final couplet of the +poem: + + "_And I, dear passionate Teucer, dare + Go through the homeless world with you._" + +Yet Lady Byron had her grievances, and though they were quite different +from those which Harness has reported, they were not light ones. Two +grievances in particular must have been very trying to the temper of a +young bride who had been an only and spoiled child. In the first place, +and almost at once, there was trouble about money. In the second place, +and very soon, there was trouble about "the women of the theatre." + +Byron, at the time of his marriage, was heavily in debt. His one idea of +economy had always been to obtain credit instead of paying cash; and such +cash as he had the handling of quickly slipped through his fingers. He +never denied himself a luxury, and seldom refused a request for a loan. He +had helped Augusta; he had helped Hodgson; he had helped Coleridge. Now he +found his expenses increased out of all proportion to the increase of his +income; while his creditors, assuming that his wife had a fortune, +proceeded to press for the settlement of their accounts. Hence that +"snubbing on money matters" to which we have seen Hobhouse referring; and +the word "snubbing" may well have been a euphemism for more severe +remonstrance when executions began to be levied. There were no fewer than +ten executions in the house in the course of a few months; and one can +understand that the experience was unfavourable to the temper of a young +wife coming from a well-ordered home in which precise middle-class notions +on such subjects had prevailed. + +The simultaneous trouble about women, of course, made matters worse. +Whether there was trouble about Mary Chaworth or not is uncertain; but, at +any rate, Lady Byron met her and appears to have felt the pangs of +jealousy. "Such a wicked looking cat I never saw. Somebody else looked +quite virtuous by the side of her," was her commentary to Augusta; and, if +she spoke of Mary Chaworth as a cat, we need not suppose her to have been +any more complimentary in her references to those actresses whose +acquaintance she knew her husband to be making. + +He had become, at this time, together with Lord Essex, George Lamb, +Douglas Kinnaird, and Peter Moore, a member of the Sub-Committee of +Management of Drury Lane Theatre. It does not appear that the +Sub-Committee did a great deal except waste the time of the actual +managers; but it is not to be supposed that they were altogether +neglectful of the amenities of their position. They had "influence"; and +upon the men who have "influence" actresses never fail to smile. Some +actresses smiled upon Byron for that reason, and others smiled upon him +for his own sake. Some of them, it may be, drew the line at smiling; but +others, as certainly, did more than smile. Miss Jane Clairmont, in +particular--but we shall come to Miss Jane Clairmont presently. + +How much Lady Byron knew, at the time, about these matters is doubtful. +She must have known a good deal, for actresses sometimes called at the +house; and any defects in her knowledge may be presumed to have been eked +out by conjecture. Knowledge, conjecture, and gossip, operating in +concert, cannot have failed to make her feel uncomfortable. In this +respect, as in others, things were not falling out as she had expected. +The fondly cherished belief that her love was the one thing needful to +Byron's happiness, and that he had moped for two years because she had +withheld it from him, was receiving every day a ruder shock. + +The shocks were the more violent because Byron, in the midst of his +pecuniary embarrassments and theatrical philanderings, was attacked by a +disorder of the liver. No man is at his best when his liver is sluggish; +and Byron probably was at his worst--gloomy, contentious, and prone to +uncontrollable outbursts of passion. So there were scenes--the sort of +scenes that one would expect: Lady Byron, on the one hand, coldly and +reasonably reproachful--"always in the right," and most careful not to +lose her temper; Byron, on the other hand, talking to provoke her, +boasting of abandoned wickedness, falling into fits of rage, much as his +own mother had been wont to do when she rattled the fire-irons--throwing +his watch on the ground and smashing it to pieces with the poker. + +Very likely he was angry with Lady Byron because he did not love +her--irritated beyond measure at every fresh revelation that she could +never be to him what Mary Chaworth might have been. The beginning of +unhappiness in marriage must often come like that. It is not unnatural, +though it is unreasonable, and not to be combated by reason. Lady Byron, +unhappily, had no other weapon than reason with which to combat it; and it +is quite likely that her very reasonableness made the trouble worse. It +did, at any rate, pass from bad to worse--and then from worse to +worst--during the critical days of her confinement, at the end of 1815. + +Those were the circumstances which paved the way for open war and the +demand for judicial separation. Or, at all events, those were some of the +circumstances; for the story is long, and intricate, and involved, and +darkened with the clouds of controversy. Byron's version of it, it is +needless to say, is quite different from Lady Byron's. According to him +the causes of the separation were "too simple to be easily found out." +According to her, they included an enormity of which he dared not speak; +and the clash of these conflicting allegations constitutes what has been +called "the Byron mystery." + +Perhaps it is not possible to solve the whole of that mystery even now. +New evidence, however, has lately been adduced, on the one hand in +Hobhouse's Diary and Narrative, and on the other hand from Lady Byron's +correspondence, printed by the late Earl of Lovelace in "Astarte." By +sifting it, we may at least contrive to come nearer to the truth--to put, +as it were, a ring fence round the mystery--to distinguish the assertions +which have been proved from the assertions which have been disproved, and +to reduce within narrow limits the fragment of the mystery which, until +more conclusive documents are produced, must still remain mysterious. + +The late Earl of Lovelace, as is well-known, attempted to acquit his +grandmother of a charge of evil-speaking by convicting his grandfather of +a charge of unnatural vice. It will be necessary to consider whether he +has succeeded or failed in the attempt. The latter charge, but for his +revival of it, might have been waived aside as equally calumnious and +incredible. As it is, a biographer cannot discharge his task without +taking up the challenge. It shall be taken up with every possible +avoidance of unpleasant detail, but taken up it must be; and the most +convenient way to approach the subject will be first to tell the story as +it is presented by Hobhouse who represented Byron throughout the +negotiations. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +LADY BYRON'S DEMAND FOR A SEPARATION--RUMOURS THAT "GROSS CHARGES" MIGHT +BE BROUGHT, INVOLVING MRS. LEIGH + + +Hobhouse, as we have seen, had an early inkling of the trouble which was +to come; and it is not to be supposed that the brief entries in his Diary +chronicle the whole of his knowledge. He had observed, indeed--or so he +says--that it was "impossible for any couple to live in more apparent +harmony"; but he also had reason to believe that the appearances did not +reflect the realities with complete exactitude. He had heard Byron talk, +though "vaguely," of breaking up his establishment, of going abroad +without Lady Byron, of living alone in rooms; and he had noticed that +Byron's complaints of his poverty led up to disparaging generalisations +about marriage. + +Speaking of his embarrassments, Byron had said that "no one could know +what he had gone through," but that he "should think lightly of them were +he not married." Marriage, he had added, "doubled all his misfortunes and +diminished all his comforts." He summed the matter up, with apparent +anxiety to do equal justice to Lady Byron's feelings and his own by +saying: "My wife is perfection itself--the best creature breathing; but +mind what I say--_don't marry_." Having received these confidences, and +knowing Byron well, Hobhouse must have been at least partially prepared +for the subsequent developments; but their suddenness nevertheless +surprised him, as they surprised everyone. + +The crisis came shortly after Lady Byron's confinement, in the early days +of 1816. Augusta, Byron's cousin, Captain George Byron, and Mrs. Clermont, +a waiting woman who had been promoted to be Lady Byron's governess and +companion, were all in the house at the time. They had witnessed some of +the scenes of which we have spoken--scenes which appear to have included, +if not to have been provoked by, irritating references to "the women of +the theatre." Byron is said to have been aggressive in his allusions to +them; and there is no evidence that Lady Byron was conciliatory on the +subject. The state of his liver and of her general health would naturally +have tended to accentuate any differences that arose. Things came to such +a pass that, for a few days, they communicated in writing instead of by +word of mouth; and Byron sent a note to Lady Byron's room. + +He spoke in this note of the necessity of breaking up his establishment--a +necessity of which, in view of the frequent invasions of the bailiffs, she +can scarcely have then heard for the first time. He asked her to fix a +date for accepting an invitation to stay with her mother at Kirkby +Mallory. He proposed that that date should be as early as was compatible +with her convenience, and added: "The child will, of course, accompany +you." Whereto Lady Byron replied, also in writing: "I shall obey your +wishes and fix the earliest day that circumstances will admit for leaving +London." + +Neither letter is particularly amiable. On the other hand, neither letter +suggests that Lady Byron was leaving, or being asked to leave, as the +direct consequence of any specific quarrel. There was no question of a +separation--only of a visit to be paid; and the dread of more "men in +possession" sufficiently explains Byron's wish that it should be paid +without delay. Lady Byron would obviously be more comfortable at Kirkby +Mallory than in a house besieged or occupied by minions of the law. Her +husband would have time, while she was there, to turn round and reconsider +his position. The temporary estrangement--the interchange of heated +recriminations--did not make the execution of the plan any the less +desirable. On the contrary, it might afford opportunity for tempers to +cool and for absence to make the heart grow fonder. + +It seemed, at first, as though Lady Byron saw the matter in that light. +She did not sail out of the house with indignation--she left it on +ostensibly cordial terms with everybody who remained in it. She wrote to +Byron in language which seemed to express fond affection, sending him news +of his child, and saying that she looked forward to seeing him at Kirkby. +One of the letters--there were two of them--began with the words "Dear +Duck," and was signed with Lady Byron's pet name "Pippin." That was in the +middle of January. There was an interval of a few days, and then it became +known that Lady Noel[8] and Mrs. Clermont were in London, "for the +purpose," as Hobhouse states, "of procuring means of providing a +separation." + +Nothing, Hobhouse insists, had happened since Lady Byron's departure to +account for this sudden change of attitude. There had, in fact, hardly +been time for anything to happen. That intrigue with a "woman of the +theatre" which Cordy Jeaffreson believed to have been Lady Byron's +determining grievance did not begin until a later date. The one thing, in +short, which had happened was that Lady Byron--and Mrs. Clermont, who had +accompanied her--had talked. Byron's conduct had been painted by them in +lurid colours--the more lurid, no doubt, because they found listeners who +were at once astounded and sympathetic. Sir Ralph and Lady Noel had, +naturally, been indignant. Their daughter, they vowed, was not to be +treated in this way; and they were, no doubt, the more disposed to +indignation because they and Byron had not got on very well together. + +Sir Ralph is commonly described in Byron's letters to his intimates as +prosy and a bore. "I can't stand Lady Noel," was the reason which he gave +Hobhouse for declining to visit her house. A very small spark, in such +circumstances, may kindle a fierce conflagration; and it appeared to do so +in this case. There was no manoeuvring for position, no beating about the +bush. Byron received no intimation, direct or indirect, of the plans which +were being laid for his confusion. What he did receive--on February 2--was +a stiffly worded ultimatum from his father-in-law. + +The charges contained in the ultimatum were mostly vague; in so far as +they were precise, they were untrue. "Very recently," Sir Ralph began, +"circumstances have come to my knowledge"; the circumstances, so far as he +disclosed them, relating to Lady Byron's "dismissal" from Byron's house, +and "the treatment she experienced while in it." He went on to propose a +separation and to demand as early an answer as possible. He got his answer +the same day. It was to the effect that Lady Byron had not been +"dismissed" from Piccadilly Terrace, but had left London "by medical +advice," and it concluded: "Till I have her express sanction of your +proceedings, I shall take leave to doubt the propriety of your +interference." + +Mrs. Leigh wrote simultaneously to Lady Byron to inquire whether the +proposal made by her father had her concurrence. The answer, dated +February 3, was that it had, but that Lady Byron, owing to her +"distressing situation" did not feel "capable of stating in a detailed +manner the reasons which will not only justify this measure, but compel +me to take it." She referred, however, to Byron's "avowed and +insurmountable aversion to the married state, and the desire and +determination he has expressed, ever since its commencement, to free +himself from that bondage, as finding it quite insupportable"; and she +added in a subsequent letter, written on the following day: + + "I hope, my dear A., that you would on no account, withhold from your + brother the letter which I sent yesterday, in answer to yours, written + by his desire; particularly as one which I have received from himself + to-day renders it still more important that he should know the + contents of that addressed to you." + +That was the stage which the discussion had reached when Hobhouse, calling +on Byron on February 5, heard what had happened and was taken into +council. The whole thing was a mystery to him, and a mystery on which +Byron could throw but little light. In the light of the few facts before +him, Lady Byron's conduct was absolutely unaccountable, inconsistent, and +incoherent. The transition from the "Dearest Duck" letter to the "avowed +and insurmountable aversion to the married state" letter seemed +inexplicably abrupt; and, indeed, it seems so still, though later +disclosures enable us, in some measure, to trace its history; the facts +now known, but not then known either to Byron or to his advisers, being +as follows: + + 1. Lady Byron had assumed that Byron was mad, and must be humoured + tactfully. The "Dearest Duck" letter had been the manifestation of her + tact. + + 2. Lady Byron had secretly instructed doctors to inquire into, and + report upon, the state of Byron's mind. They had reported that he was + perfectly sane; and their report had, in Lady Byron's opinion, removed + all shadow of excuse for his behaviour, and decided her to leave him. + Hence Lady Noel's journey to London, to consult lawyers. + + 3. Dr. Lushington, the lawyer consulted, had advised Lady Noel that, + while the circumstances laid before him "were such as justified a + separation," they were "not such as to render such a measure + indispensable," and that he "deemed a reconciliation practicable." + + 4. Lady Byron had persisted, for reasons which she did not yet state, + either to her family or to her legal advisers, in her refusal to + return. Hence Sir Ralph Noel's ultimatum. + +These facts, which gave Lady Byron's conduct a certain superficial +coherence, were gradually elicited. For the moment, however, the only fact +which Hobhouse had before him was the ultimatum and Lady Byron's +endorsement of it. Of Lady Byron's reasons he knew nothing; and he had no +grounds for suspecting any other motives than the word "tantrums" would +cover. He proceeded, as did all Byron's supporters, on the assumption that +the word "tantrums" did, in fact, cover them; and a fusillade of letters +ensued. One cannot quote them all, but their contents can easily be summed +up. From Byron's side there issued appeals for reconciliation, for +explanations, for specific charges, for personal interviews; from Lady +Byron's side there came refusals either to give reasons or to parley, and +reiterated statements that her mind was unalterably made up. + +"I must decline your visit and all discussion," was what Lady Byron wrote +to Hobhouse on February 7; and on the same day she wrote to Byron himself: +"I have finally determined on the measure of a separation.... Every +expression of feeling, sincerely as it might be made, would be misplaced." +The letter apparently crossed one from Byron to Sir Ralph Noel, in which +he said that his house was still open to Lady Byron, that he must not +debase himself to "implore as a suppliant the restoration of a reluctant +wife," but that it was her duty to return, and that he knew of no reason +why she should not do so. On the following day Byron addressed a further +appeal to Lady Byron herself: "Will you see me--when and where you +please--in whose presence you please?" and, almost as he was writing, he +received another communication from Sir Ralph Noel, threatening legal +proceedings "until a final separation is effected." + +February 13 brought the letter in which Lady Byron stated that she had +excused Byron's conduct in the belief that he was mad, but that she could +not excuse it now that she had received assurance of his sanity. She +added: "I have consistently fulfilled my duty as your wife; it was too +dear to be resigned till it was hopeless. Now my resolution cannot be +changed." Byron rejoined on February 15: "I have invited your return; it +has been refused. I have requested to know with what I am charged; it is +refused." + +He had, in fact, made, and was still to make, attempts, through several +channels, to pin Lady Byron and her supporters to a specific allegation. +Hodgson had been appealed to by Mrs. Leigh to come and help. He came, and, +on the strength of the information supplied to him, wrote to Lady Byron. +Two of her letters and one of his are published in his life by his son, +the Reverend James T. Hodgson. Hers may be analysed as a very thinly +veiled threat to bring mysterious and abominable charges unless she got +her way. There is an air about the letters of conscious virtue and of +consideration for the feelings of others, but the threat is unmistakably +contained in them. "He _does_ know--too well--what he affects to inquire," +is one sentence; and another is: "The circumstances, which are of too +convincing a nature, shall not be generally known whilst Lord B. allows me +to spare him." + +Hanson, the lawyer had, in the meantime, been sent to call on Sir Ralph +Noel. He had asked for explanations, and been refused any. He had also +met Lushington who had, by this time, been definitely retained by Lady +Byron, and addressed some inquiries to him. "Oh, we are not going to let +you into the _forte_ of our case," had been Dr. Lushington's reply. + +It was, no doubt, a reply in strict conformity with his instructions. +Lushington, as we know from a published letter from him to Lady Byron, +was, at this date, personally in favour of an attempt at reconciliation. +On the other hand, as is equally clear from the letters quoted in +preceding paragraphs, Lady Byron had announced her intention of going into +Court unless she could get her separation without doing so. Whether she +had, at this date, any case--any case, that is to say, which a lawyer +could take into Court with any confidence of winning it--may be +questioned. The weaker her case, of course, the less likely her counsel +would be to reveal the nakedness of the land prematurely by talking about +it. Professional etiquette and zeal for the interests intrusted to him +account quite adequately for his reticence; and there is no other +influence to be drawn from it. + +A little later, at an uncertain date towards the end of February, +Lushington, as his letter to Lady Byron sets forth, received a visit from +Lady Byron, had "additional information" imparted to him, changed his +mind, and said that, if a reconciliation were still contemplated, or +should thereafter be proposed, he, at any rate, should decline to render +any help in bringing it about. The original "Byron mystery" was: What was +the nature of that "additional information" which so suddenly altered +Lushington's attitude towards the case? That mystery has, as we shall see +in a moment, been solved by Lord Lovelace. The questions left unsolved +relate, not to the nature of the information but to its accuracy. Byron, +Hobhouse, and Hodgson, however, were unable to dispute its accuracy +because they were left uninformed as to its nature, and could only guess +the charges to be met. + +The awkwardness of the situation is obvious. On the one hand, Byron could +not be expected to desire, for his own sake, the society of a wife who +wrote him such letters as he was now receiving from Lady Byron--to +separate from her would, at any rate, be the least uncomfortable of the +courses open to him. On the other hand, he could not afford to let it be +said that he had consented to a separation under the threat of gross, but +unspecified, accusations. The charges might be specified afterwards, +whether by Lady Byron herself or by the irresponsible voice of gossip, and +he would be held to have pleaded guilty to them. + +That, as Byron's friends impressed upon him, could not be allowed. It +could the less be allowed because rumour was already busy, and charges of +a very monstrous and malignant character were being whispered. The name of +Mrs. Leigh was being mixed up in the matter, and there was some reason to +suppose that the stories implicating her emanated from Lady Byron; for +Lady Byron, according to Hobhouse, had intimated to Mrs. Leigh that "she +would be one of her evidences against her brother." That might mean much, +or might mean little; but it meant enough, at any rate, to make it +imperative for Byron to show fight until the air was cleared. So his +friends urged, and he agreed with them, and waited for the next step to be +taken by the other side. + +What the other side did, in these circumstances--we are still following +Hobhouse's account--was simultaneously to appeal for pity, to bluff, and +to spy out the land. They "talked of the cruelty of dragging" Lady Byron +into a public Court. They sent Mrs. Clermont to Captain Byron to try to +induce him to dissuade Byron from fighting. They threatened that, if he +did fight, they would carry the case from Court to Court, and bury him +alive under a heap of costs. But all this without effect. Sir Ralph Noel +wrote to Hanson to inquire whether Byron had "come to any determination" +on the proposal to separate. The reply was to the effect that "his +Lordship cannot accede." + +At the end of February, that is to say, Byron still meant fighting. He +said that, if Lady Byron did not proceed against him, he should proceed +against her, and commence an action for the restitution of conjugal +rights. His friends approved of his determination; but, at the same time, +desiring to know what sort of a case would have to be met, they begged +Byron to be quite candid with them and inform them, not, of course, of the +nature of Lady Byron's charges, of which he had not himself been informed, +but of any good grounds of complaint which he knew himself to have given +her. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +"GROSS CHARGES" DISAVOWED BY LADY BYRON--SEPARATION AGREED TO + + +How far Byron was candid with his friends it is, of course, impossible to +say. We know neither what he told them nor what he left untold. All that +is on record is their opinion, reproduced by Hobhouse, that "the whole +charge against him would amount merely to such offences as are more often +committed than complained of, and, however they might be regretted as +subversive of matrimonial felicity, would not render him amenable to the +laws of any court, whether of justice or of equity." + +That was either at the end of February or the beginning of March. Early in +the latter month Byron and his friends opened further negotiations. Byron +once more asked his wife to see him, and she replied: "I regret the +necessity of declining an interview under existing circumstances." Then +Lady Melbourne urged her to return to her husband, but only elicited an +expression of wonder "that Lord Byron had not more regard for his +reputation than to think of coming before the public." Then Lord Holland, +who had already offered his services as a negotiator, submitted to Byron +the proposed terms of a deed of separation; but Byron rejected the terms, +describing the proposal as "a kind of appeal to the supposed mercenary +feelings of the person to whom it was made." + +There next followed interviews between Lady Byron and Mrs. Leigh, and +between Lady Byron and Captain Byron. To these intermediaries Lady Byron +represented that "something had passed which she had as yet told to no +one, and which nothing but the absolute necessity of justifying herself in +Court should wring from her." Whereto Byron replied that "it was +absolutely false that he had been guilty of any enormity--that nothing +could or would be proved by anybody against him, and that he was prepared +for anything that could be said in any Court." He allowed Hobhouse to +offer on his behalf "any guarantees short of separation"; but he made it +quite clear that he was not frightened, and would not yield to threats. + +Upon that Lady Byron changed her tone. Her next letter did not so much +claim a separation as beg for one. "After your repeated assertions," she +wrote, "that, when convinced my conduct has not been influenced by others, +you should not oppose my wishes, I am yet disposed to hope these +assertions will be realised." There, at last, was an appeal to which it +was possible for Byron to respond--on terms; not on Lady Byron's terms, of +course--but on his own. He had begun the negotiations by declining to +"implore as a suppliant the return of a reluctant wife." Nothing had +happened in the course of the negotiations to persuade him that he +would live more happily with Lady Byron than without her. Indeed, it was +now more evident than ever that to separate was the only way of making the +best of a bad job. + +[Illustration: _Lady Byron._] + +At the same time it was equally evident that he must stand out for terms. +Mud had been thrown; and while there had been no specific charges, there +had been dark hints of monstrous crimes. It was necessary, therefore, to +insist that Lady Byron should give "a positive disavowal of all the +grosser charges" which had been suggested without being positively +preferred; and Hobhouse proceeded to continue the negotiations on those +lines. + +There were, in fact, two "gross" charges to be faced. One of these +concerned Mrs. Leigh, and the other did not. On the nature of the latter +charge it is quite superfluous to speculate. Whatever it may have been, no +evidence was offered in support of it at the time, and no evidence bearing +on it has since been brought to light. It was not maintained; it was not +revived; it has been forgotten. The rules of controversy not only warrant +us in passing it over, but bid us do so. The Byron mystery, wherever it +may be, is not there. Though all the "gross" charges had, at the moment, +to be dealt with collectively, the only charge which mattered was the +charge in which Mrs. Leigh was involved. + +Lady Byron, when challenged with the charges, at first equivocated. She +was quite willing, she said, to declare that the rumours indicated "had +not emanated from her or from her family." That, naturally, was not good +enough for Byron and his friends. What they required was that Lady Byron +should state "not only that the rumours did not originate with her or her +family, but that the charges which they involved made no part of her +charges against Lord Byron." A statement to that effect was drawn up for +her to sign, and she signed it. The signed statement, witnessed by Byron's +cousin, Wilmot Horton, was shown to Hobhouse, and was left in Wilmot +Horton's hands until the settlement should be completed. The Byron +mystery, such as it is, or was, only exists--or existed--because Byron and +Wilmot Horton fell out, and the latter, withdrawing from the negotiations, +mislaid or lost the document. + +That Lady Byron did sign the document, however, and that its contents were +as stated, no doubt whatever can be entertained. Hobhouse's subsequent +evidence on the subject is supported by the correspondence which passed at +the time. He referred to the document, with full particularity, in a +letter which he wrote Lady Byron, and which has been published; and Lady +Byron, in her answer, did not deny either that she had signed, or that she +was bound by its contents. The trouble arose because, after having signed +it, she behaved as if she had not done so, and, by her conduct, gave the +lie to her pledged word that "neither of the specified charges would have +formed part of her allegations if she had come into Court." + +This trouble, however, was not immediate. Lady Byron did not begin to +talk till some time afterwards: and at first she only talked to people who +had sense enough to keep her secret, if not to rate it at its true value. +Not until some years after her death did a foolish woman in whom she had +confided publish her story to the world in a book filled from cover to +cover with gross and even ludicrous inaccuracies. When that happened, the +old scandal which the book revived was mistaken for a new scandal freshly +brought to light; and there was a great outcry about "shocking +revelations" and much angry beating of the air by violent +controversialists on both sides. All that it is necessary to say on that +branch of the subject shall be said in a moment. What we have to note now +is that Byron did not, and could not, foresee that that particular battle +would rage over his reputation. + +He admitted to his friends, and he had previously admitted to Lady Byron, +that "he had been guilty of infidelity with one female." He was under the +impression that she had given him "a plenary pardon"; but the offence +nevertheless gave her a moral--if not also a legal--right to her +separation, if she insisted on it. Of the "gross" charges he only knew +that they had never been formally pressed, and that they had been formally +repudiated. So far as they were concerned, therefore, his honour was +perfectly clear; and there remained no reason why he should not append his +signature to the proposed deed of separation, as soon as its exact terms +were agreed upon. The details still awaiting adjustment were mainly of +the financial order. They were adjusted, and then Byron signed. + +It may be that he signed the more readily because the rumours had been +tracked to another source, and disavowed there also. Lady Caroline Lamb +has often been accused of putting them in circulation. She heard, at the +time, that she had been so accused, and wrote to Byron to repudiate the +charge. "They tell me," she wrote, "that you have accused me of having +spread injurious reports against you. Had you the heart to say this? I do +not greatly believe it." Very possibly the receipt of that letter +strengthened Byron's resolution to sign. At all events he did sign, and +then a storm burst about his head: + + "I need not tell you of the obloquy and opprobrium that were cast upon + my name when our separation was made public. I once made a list from + the Journals of the day of the different worthies, ancient and modern, + to whom I was compared. I remember a few: Nero, Apicius, Epicurus, + Caligula, Heliogabalus, Henry the Eighth, and lastly the ----. All my + former friends, even my cousin George Byron, who had been brought up + with me, and whom I loved as a brother, took my wife's part. He + followed the stream when it was strongest against me, and can never + expect anything from me: he shall never touch a sixpence of mine. I + was looked upon as the worst of husbands, the most abandoned and + wicked of men, and my wife as a suffering angel--an incarnation of + all the virtues and perfections of the sex. I was abused in the public + prints, made the common talk of private companies, hissed as I went to + the House of Lords, insulted in the streets, afraid to go to the + theatre, whence the unfortunate Mrs. Mardyn had been driven with + insult. The _Examiner_ was the only paper that dared say a word in my + defence, and Lady Jersey the only person in the fashionable world that + did not look upon me as a monster." + + "I was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and private + rancour; my name which had been a knightly or a noble one since my + fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for William the Norman, was + tainted. I felt that, if what was whispered, and muttered, and + murmured was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was + unfit for me." + +The former of these passages is from Medwin's "Conversations"; the latter +is written by Byron's own hand. There is very little to be added to the +picture which they draw. Byron discovered that, for a man of his +notoriety, there was no such thing as private life. His business was +assumed to be everybody's business. In his case, just as in the Dreyfus +case, at a later date, all the world took a side, and those who knew least +of the rights of the case were the most vehement in their indignation. + +Broadly speaking one may say that his friends were for him but his +acquaintances were against him, and the mob took the part of his +acquaintances. Hobhouse, Hodgson, Moore, Rogers, Leigh Hunt, and Scrope +Davies never faltered in their allegiance. On the other hand, many social +leaders cut him; the journalists showered abuse on him as spitefully as if +they felt that they had "failed in literature" through his fault; the +religious seized the opportunity to punish him for what they considered +the immoral tone of his writings; the pit and gallery at Drury Lane +classed him with the villain of the melodrama who presumes to lay his hand +upon a woman otherwise than in the way of kindness. It was a combination +as irresistible as it was unforeseen, and he had to yield to it. + +Lady Jersey, as he told Medwin, did her best for him. He and Mrs. Leigh +were both present at a reception specially given in his honour--a +demonstration that one social leader at least attached no importance and +gave no credence to the scandals which besmeared his name. Miss Mercer, +afterwards Madame de Flahault and, in her own right, Lady Keith, made a +point of greeting him with frank cordiality as if nothing had happened. +Probably the specific scandal which Lady Byron had been compelled to +disavow was never taken very seriously outside Lady Byron's immediate +circle. Certainly it was not the scandal which aroused the indignation of +the multitude. For them, the _causa teterrima belli_ was Mrs. Mardyn, the +actress, whom Byron hardly knew by sight; and the gravamen of their charge +against him was that he had treated a woman badly. + +That was enough for them; and their indignation was too much for him. Now +that the deed of separation had been signed, it was too late for him to +fight. The "grosser charges" against him were charges of which he could +not prove publication--charges which had been withdrawn. Sneers and +innuendoes did not, any more than hoots and hisses, furnish him with any +definite allegation on which he could join issue. The whispered charge +involving his sister was not one which he could formally contradict unless +it were formally preferred. _Qui s'excuse s'accuse_ would have been quoted +against him if he had done so; and Mrs. Leigh's good name as well as his +own would have been at the mercy of the mud-slingers. All things +considered, it seemed that the best course open to him was to travel, and +let the hostile rumours die away, instead of keeping them alive by +argument. + +He went, and they died away and were forgotten. We will follow him to the +continent presently, and see how nearly persecution drove him to +degradation, and how, under the influence of the blow which threatened to +crush him, his genius took fresh flights, more hardy than of old, and more +sublime. But first we must turn back, and face the scandal in the form in +which Mrs. Beecher Stowe and Lord Lovelace have successively given it two +fresh leases of life, and see whether it is not possible to blow it into +the air so effectively that no admirer of Byron's genius need ever feel +uneasy about it again. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +REVIVAL OF THE BYRON SCANDAL BY MRS. BEECHER STOWE AND THE LATE LORD +LOVELACE + + +The Byron scandal slowly fell asleep, and was allowed to slumber for about +half a century. Even the publication of Moore's Life did not awaken it. +People took sides, indeed, as they always do, some throwing the blame on +the husband, and others on the wife; but the view that, whoever was to +blame, the causes of the separation were "too simple to be easily found +out" prevailed. + +Forces, however, making for the revival of the scandal were nevertheless +at work. Byron smarted under social ostracism and resented it. Though Lady +Byron had never made any formal charge to which he could reply, but had, +on the contrary, formally retracted all "gross" charges, he continued to +be embittered by suggestions of mysterious iniquities, and his anger found +expression alike in his letters and in his poems. To a certain extent he +defended himself by taking the offensive. He caused notes on his case to +be privately distributed. He wrote "at" Lady Byron, in the Fourth Canto of +"Childe Harold," in "Don Juan," and elsewhere. A good deal of his +correspondence, printed by Moore, expressed his opinion of her in terms +very far from flattering. + +Under these combined influences public opinion veered round--the more +readily because Byron was held to have made ample atonement for his +faults, whatever they might have been, by sacrificing his life in the +cause of Greek independence. Lady Byron was now thought, not indeed to +have erred in any technical sense, but to have made an undue fuss about +very little, and to have been most unwomanly in her frigid consciousness +of rectitude. The world, in short, was more certain now that she had been +"heartless" than that she had been "always in the right." + +Naturally, her temptation to "answer back" was strong. She could not very +well answer back by preferring any monstrous indictment in public. That +course was not only to be avoided in her daughter's interest, but might +also have involved her in an action for defamation of character on the +part of Mrs. Leigh--an action which she could not have met with any +adequate defence. Of that risk, indeed, she had been warned by her friend +Colonel Doyle, in a letter printed in "Astarte" to which it will presently +be necessary to return--a letter in which she had been urgently +recommended to "act as if a time might possibly arise when it might be +necessary for you to justify yourself." But if she could not answer back +in public, at least she could answer back in private. + +She did so. That is to say, she talked--mostly to sympathetic women who +were more or less discreet, but also, in her later years to Mrs. Harriet +Beecher Stowe, who did not so much as know what discretion was. The story +of which Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe had already received hints from the +women whose discretion was comparative was ultimately told to her, whose +indiscretion was absolute, by Lady Byron herself. She remained as discreet +as the rest--that is to say, more or less discreet--during Lady Byron's +life, and for some time afterwards. But when the Countess Guiccioli wrote +a book about Byron in which Lady Byron was disparaged, she could restrain +herself no longer. In support of Lady Byron's story she had no evidence +except Lady Byron's word. She did not know--and she did not trouble to +inquire--what evidence against it might exist. She did not pause to ask +herself whether her own recollection might not be at fault concerning a +story which she had heard thirteen years before. It was enough for her, +apparently, that Lady Byron was a religious woman, and that Byron, on his +own showing, had lived "a man's life." That sufficed, in her view, +wherever there was a conflict of statements, to demonstrate that Byron was +a liar, and that Lady Byron spoke the truth. So she plunged into the fray, +and, with a great flourish of trumpets, published Lady Byron's story in +"Macmillan's Magazine." When the "Quarterly Review" had, in so far as it +is ever possible to prove a negative, disproved the story, she repeated it +with embellishments in a book entitled: "Lady Byron Vindicated: A History +of the Byron Controversy from its Beginning in 1816 to the Present Time." + +The essence of Mrs. Stowe's story is contained in this report of Lady +Byron's conversation: + + "There was something awful to me in the intensity of repressed emotion + which she showed as she proceeded. The great fact upon which all + turned was stated in words that were unmistakable: + + "'He was guilty of incest with his sister.'" + +There is the charge. Turning over the pages in quest of the evidence in +support of it, we find this: + + "She said that one night, in her presence, he treated his sister with + a liberty which both shocked and astonished her. Seeing her amazement + and alarm he came up to her, and said, in a sneering tone, 'I suppose + you perceive _you_ are not wanted here. Go to your own room, and leave + us alone. We can amuse ourselves better without you.' + + "She said, 'I went to my room trembling. I went down on my knees and + prayed to my heavenly Father to have mercy on them. I thought: What + shall I do?' + + "I remember, after this, a pause in the conversation, during which she + seemed struggling with thoughts and emotions; and, for my part, I was + unable to utter a word or ask a question." + +No more than that. This _ex parte_ interpretation of a foolish conjugal +quarrel of forty years before, admittedly untested by any demand for +particulars, was absolutely the sole piece of testimony which Mrs. Stowe +adduced when she set out to blast Byron's reputation. The rest of the book +consists of pious and sentimental out-pourings, vulgar abuse of Byron, and +equally vulgar eulogy of his wife; the two passages cited being the only +passages material to the issue. There was nothing in writing for her to +quote--no case which a respectable lawyer would have taken into Court--no +case that would not have been laughed out of Court within five minutes if +it had ever got so far. + +The tribunal of public opinion did, in fact, laugh the case out of Court +at the time. It was "snowed under," partly by laughter, and partly by +indignation and the British feeling in favour of fair play; and it +remained so buried for nearly forty years. Biographers could afford to +scout it as "monstrous" without troubling to confute it. Sir Leslie +Stephen, in the "Dictionary of National Biography," treated it as an +hallucination to which Lady Byron had fallen a victim through brooding +over her grievances in solitude. + +One would be glad if one could still take that tone towards it; but Lord +Lovelace has made it impossible to do so. Mrs. Stowe, as a mischief-making +meddler, interfering with matters which did not concern her, and about +which she was obviously very ill informed, had not even a _primâ facie_ +title to be taken seriously. The case of Lord Lovelace was different. He +was Byron's grandson and the custodian of Lady Byron's strong-box. He +affected not merely to assert but to argue. He produced from the +strong-box documents which he was pleased to call proofs. A good many +people, not having seen them, probably still believe that they are proofs. +They cannot be waived on one side like Mrs. Stowe's unsupported +allegations, but must be dealt with; and the whole question of the charge +which they are alleged to substantiate must, of course, be dealt with +simultaneously. + +And first, as the documents laid before us are miscellaneous, we must +distinguish between those of them which count and those which do not +count. Some of the contents of the strong-box, it seems, are merely +"statements" in Lady Byron's handwriting. These are only referred to by +Lord Lovelace, but not printed. Not having been produced, they cannot be +criticised; but there are, nevertheless, two comments which it is +legitimate to make. In the first place, an _ex parte_ statement, though +admissible in evidence for what it may be worth, is not the same thing as +proof. In the second place, if the statements had been of a nature to +strengthen the case which Lord Lovelace was trying to make out, instead of +merely embellishing it, they would not have been held back. Their absence +from the _dossier_ need not, therefore, embarrass us; and we need, in +fact, be the less embarrassed by it because it was already perfectly well +known that Lady Byron was in the habit of writing out statements, and had +shown them to impartial persons who had taken the measure of their value. +That fact is set forth in the Rev. Frederick Arnold's Life of Robertson +of Brighton, who, as is well known, was, for a considerable time, Lady +Byron's religious adviser. + + "A remarkable incident," writes Mr. Arnold, "may be mentioned in + illustration of the relations with Lord Byron. Lady Byron had + accumulated a great mass of documentary evidence, papers and letters, + which were supposed to constitute a case completely exculpatory of + herself and condemnatory of Byron. She placed all this printed matter + in the hands of a well-known individual, who was then resident at + Brighton, and afterwards removed into the country. This gentleman went + carefully through the papers, and was utterly astonished at the utter + want of criminatory matter against Byron. He was not indifferent to + the _éclat_ or emolument of editing such memoirs. But he felt that + this was a brief which he was unable to hold, and accordingly returned + all the papers to Lady Byron." + +That comment on the "statements," significant in itself, is doubly +significant when taken in conjunction with Lord Lovelace's suppression of +them; and we may fairly consider the case without further reference to +them, and without an apprehension that a surprise will be sprung from that +source to upset the conclusions at which we arrive. Lord Lovelace did not +rest his case on them, but on quite other documents, which we will proceed +to examine after first saying the few words which need to be said in order +to clear the air. + +One point, indeed, Lord Lovelace has made successfully. He has proved that +the gross and mysterious charge which Lady Byron preferred (or rather +hinted at while refusing to prefer it) at the time of the separation was, +in fact, identical with the charge formulated in Mrs. Stowe's book. A +contemporary memorandum to that effect, in Lushington's handwriting, +signed by Lady Byron, and witnessed by Lushington, Wilmot Horton, and +Colonel Doyle, is printed in "Astarte." To that extent the so-called Byron +mystery is now solved, once and for all. The statement set forth in that +memorandum, and afterwards repeated to Mrs. Stowe, was the statement on +the strength of which Lushington declared, as has already been mentioned, +that he could not be a party to any attempt to effect a reconciliation. + +So far so good. The probability of these facts could have been inferred +from Hobhouse's narrative; their certainty is now established. We now know +of what Byron was accused--behind his back; we also know of what Mrs. +Leigh was accused--behind her back. But--and the "but" is most +important--the memorandum contains this remarkable sentence: + + "It will be observed that this Paper does not contain nor pretend to + contain any of the grounds which gave rise to the suspicion which has + existed and still continues to exist in Lady B.'s mind." + +Which is to say that Lady Byron, on her own showing, and that of her +legal advisers, was acting not on evidence but on "suspicion." In this +document there is not even so much evidence as was set before Mrs. Stowe, +or any suggestion that any evidence worthy of the name exists. The quest +for proof must be pursued elsewhere. + +But where? + +Lord Lovelace has not shown us. The document in which it is expressly set +forth that none of the statements contained in it are of the nature of +proofs is the only contemporary document which he cites; for the scrap of +a letter which he quotes from Mrs. George Lamb only proves, if indeed it +proves anything, that Mrs. Lamb had heard what Lady Byron said. Further on +in his book, indeed, Lord Lovelace represents that Mrs. Leigh +subsequently, under pressure, confessed her guilt to Lady Byron; but +concerning that representation two things shall be demonstrated in the +next chapter. + +In the first place Mrs. Leigh did not confess--the alleged confession +having no bearing whatsoever on the matter which we are now considering. +In the second place the inherent probabilities of the case and the +circumstantial evidence which illuminates it are such that, even if Mrs. +Leigh had confessed, it would be impossible to believe her on her oath. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +INHERENT IMPROBABILITY OF THE CHARGES AGAINST AUGUSTA LEIGH--THE +ALLEGATION THAT SHE "CONFESSED"--THE PROOF THAT SHE DID NOTHING OF THE +KIND + + +First as to the inherent probabilities: + +The accusation, as elaborated by Lord Lovelace, is, it must be observed, +that Byron had yielded to an unnatural passion for his sister at a period +anterior to his marriage--the period covered by the Journal from which we +have quoted, and by those mysteriously morbid and gloomy poems of which +"The Bride of Abydos" and "Lara" are the most remarkable. This passion, +according to Lord Lovelace, was the cause of the spiritual "crisis" +through which poems and Journal alike prove him to have passed. When Byron +writes that "The Bride" was "written to drive my thoughts from the +recollection of * * *," Lord Lovelace interprets him to mean that it was +written to drive his thoughts from the recollection of Mrs. Leigh. Hers, +he invites us to believe, was the "dear sacred name" which was to "rest +ever unrevealed." + +That theory is not only nonsense, but arrant nonsense--obviously so to +readers who are familiar with Byron's letters, and demonstrably so to +those who are not. All that can be said in favour of the view is that +some of the passages in some of the poems are so obscure that they can be +tortured into accord with the most preposterous hypothesis. On the other +hand, while there is no direct evidence on the subject at all, there is +conclusive circumstantial evidence which effectually disposes of Lord +Lovelace's calumnious assertion--evidence, happily, so simple that one +almost can sum it up in a sentence. + +Throughout the whole of the "crisis" in question Byron was in +correspondence with Mrs. Leigh; and a great deal of the correspondence has +been published. The letters are letters in which Byron takes his sister +into his confidence. We find him writing to her, first about his "affairs" +with Lady Caroline Lamb and Lady Oxford, and then about his desolating +passion for another lady whom we have seen reason to identify with Mary +Chaworth. Nor does it matter, for the purposes of the present argument, +whether that identification is correct or not. The solid fact, in any +case, remains that, at the very time when Lord Lovelace represents Byron +as engaged in an intrigue with Augusta Leigh, he was, in fact, writing to +her to apologise for his "long silence," and attributing that silence to +trouble in connection with another lady: "It is not Lady Caroline, nor +Lady Oxford; _but perhaps you may guess_, and, if you do, do not tell." + +There are other letters to the same effect, but that letter should +suffice. No sane man will believe Byron to have been devoured by a guilty +passion for the woman to whom he confided secrets of that sort; and, if +there were any disposition to entertain the belief were still harboured, +it could hardly fail to be expelled by an examination of the letters which +passed between Lady Byron and Mrs. Leigh, and between Mrs. Leigh and +Francis Hodgson. + +Mrs. Leigh had been with Lady Byron during her confinement. There had been +no quarrel between them, and no suspicion or suggestion of a quarrel. When +Lady Byron left Piccadilly Terrace for Kirkby Mallory, Mrs. Leigh +continued, with her knowledge, and without any hint of an objection, to +stay in her brother's house. Even when Lady Byron communicated her +decision not to return to her husband, she expressed neither surprise at +Mrs. Leigh's remaining there, nor desire for her departure. On the +contrary, at the very time when she was insisting upon separation, and +hinting at charges too awful to be preferred unless the particulars were +dragged from her, she was corresponding with Mrs. Leigh, not merely on +terms of ordinary politeness, but on terms of confidential intimacy and +cordial affection--addressing her as "My dearest A.," "My dearest Sis," +"My dearest Gus," &c., &c. + +A long series of these letters is printed in Mr. Murray's latest edition +of Byron's Works. Readers who desire full particulars must be referred to +them. A few sentences only need be given here, as an indication of their +tone: + + "If all the world had told me you were doing me an injury, I _ought + not_ to have believed it. My chief feeling, therefore, in relation to + you and myself must be that I _have_ wronged you, and that you have + never wronged me!" + + "I know you feel for me as I do for you--and perhaps I am better + understood than I think. You have been ever since I knew you my best + comforter, and will so remain, unless you grow tired of the office, + which may well be." + + "The present sufferings of all _may_ yet be repaid in blessings. Don't + despair absolutely, dearest; and leave me but enough of your interest + to afford you any consolation by partaking that sorrow which I am most + unhappy to cause you thus unintentionally.... Heaven knows you have + considered me more than one in a thousand would have done." + + "I am anxious to acquit you of all misrepresentation, and myself of + having supposed that you had misrepresented.... I cannot give you pain + without feeling yet more myself." + + "My dearest A., it is my great comfort that you are in Piccadilly." + +Some of these letters were written at a time when Lady Byron believed her +husband to be mad. All of them were written at a time when she was +accusing him of improper relations with her correspondent--as is +established beyond dispute by her signed statement, published in +"Astarte." The excerpt printed last was written at the time when she +professed to entertain both beliefs. It amounts, when analysed, to an +expression of gratification that her sister-in-law, to whom she claims to +be deeply attached, is in a position to continue incestuous and adulterous +intercourse with a raving maniac. It is incredible, of course, that she +can either have felt, or intended to express, any such gratification at +any such state of things. The letter is explicable on one hypothesis, and +one only: that Lady Byron herself did not really believe the story which +she had told to her advisers. + +We have already seen--from the wording of Lady Byron's statement and from +her correspondence with Colonel Doyle--that she had no proofs of her +story. We have also seen that, when Byron's friends tried to pin her to +the story, she disavowed it. The conclusion that she did not even believe +it at the time when she told it comes as a fitting climax; and it needs +but little conjecture or imagination to divine her motives and give +coherence to the narrative of her proceedings. + +She had come to hate her husband, and had resolved to separate from him at +all costs. Such hatreds are sometimes conceived by women without adequate +cause, just before and just after pregnancy. One suspects that +pathological explanation, though one does not know enough of the facts to +insist upon it. The hatred, at any rate, was there, impelling Lady Byron +to seek a separation, and she proceeded to take advice. Probably she was +advised that her case was too weak to be taken into Court with +confidence; and she certainly was advised that reconciliation was +preferable to separation. The only way of securing the firm support of her +own friends was to lay fresh facts before them. + +That is the stage of the proceedings at which we are told that fresh facts +came to her knowledge. But the alleged facts were only treated as facts +for the purposes of argument. They were scandals--the scandals implicating +Mrs. Leigh, and launched, as is believed, by Lady Caroline Lamb, who +subsequently disavowed them as explicitly as Lady Byron herself. In order +to make sure of her separation Lady Byron adopted those scandals and laid +them before Lushington. Lushington may or may not have believed them. So +long, however, as he remained in charge of the case he was bound to behave +as if he did; and the nature of the charges was such that, even if he only +believed them in the sense in which a barrister is required to believe the +contents of his brief, he was obviously bound to take the line that they +precluded all idea of a reconciliation. + +He did take that line; and Lady Byron got her separation. She was so eager +to get it that she first made abominable charges against her husband in +order to win the sympathy of her own friends, and then withdrew them in +order to disarm Byron's friends. All this without informing Mrs. Leigh +that her name was being mixed up in the matter, and without withdrawing +from Mrs. Leigh's society. Ultimately, no doubt, she did come to believe +the story which she had first circulated and then disavowed. It is hardly +to be questioned that she believed it at the time when she told it to Mrs. +Beecher Stowe. But she clearly did not believe it at the time when she +made use of it; and one can only attribute her final belief in it to a +kind of auto-suggestion, induced by dwelling on her grievances, and akin +to the process by which George IV. persuaded himself that he had taken +part in the Battle of Waterloo. + +That is the most plausible supposition as to the motives inspiring Lady +Byron's conduct; and there is nothing except the motives themselves which +stands in need of explanation. From Lushington's action no inference +whatever is to be drawn, for it was the only action which the rules of +professional etiquette left open to him; and the Byron question is not: On +what evidence did Lady Byron act as she did? It is merely: Why did Lady +Byron act as she did without any evidence at all? It is so small a +question that, having offered a tentative solution, we may fairly leave it +and glance at Mrs. Leigh's correspondence with Hodgson. + +Hodgson, as has already been mentioned was brought in by Mrs. Leigh as a +peacemaker. The letters which she wrote to him before, during, and after +the quarrel appear in the Life of Hodgson by his son, published in 1878. +They are too long to be given at length; but their bearing on the issue, +which no one who takes the trouble to read them will dispute, must be +briefly stated. + +In the first place they, most obviously, are not the letters of a guilty +woman, or of a woman who feels herself in any way personally implicated in +the dispute which she seeks to compose. Every line in them demonstrates, +not merely that the writer is conscious of rectitude, but also that the +writer is ignorant that she herself is, or can be, the object of sinister +suspicion. They are just the flurried letters of a simple body who feels +that circumstances have laid upon her shoulders a heavier load of +responsibility than they can bear, but would rather be helped to bear the +burden than run away from it; and it is a fair summary of them to say that +they exonerate Byron by exonerating the alleged accomplice in his crime. + +In the second place the letters show Mrs. Leigh, ignorant, indeed, of the +specific enormities with which Byron is charged, but well aware of certain +circumstances which had made Byron's marriage a dubious experiment. In the +earlier letters, indeed those circumstances are only hinted at obscurely, +but in the later letters the meaning of the hints is made quite clear. For +instance: + + "I assure you I don't conclude hastily on this subject, and will own + to you, what I would not scarcely to any other person that I HAD _many + fears_ and much anxiety founded upon many causes and circumstances of + which I cannot _write_. Thank God! that they do not appear likely to + be realised." + +That was written during the honeymoon. In letters written shortly after +the honeymoon there are similar vague expressions of anxiety. It is not +until we come to the letters written after the separation that we begin to +get sight of the particulars; but then we light upon this significant +passage: + + "I am afraid to open my lips, though all I say to _you_ I know is + secure from misinterpretation. On the opinions expressed by Mr. M. I + am _not surprised_. I have seen letters written _to him_ which could + not but give rise to such, or confirm them. If I may give you _mine_, + it is that _in his own mind_ there _were_ and _are_ recollections, + fatal to his peace, and which would have prevented his being happy + with any woman whose excellence equalled or approached that of Lady + B., from the consciousness of being unworthy of it. Nothing could or + can remedy this fatal cause but the consolations to be derived from + religion, of which, alas! dear Mr. H., our beloved B. is, I fear, + destitute." + +The idea that the fatal recollections here deplored are recollections of +guilty acts in which the writer of the letter was a partner would be too +preposterous to be treated with respect even if we did not know what the +nature of those recollections was; but, as a matter of fact, a later +passage in the same letter supplies the information: + + "I am glad you were rather agreeably surprised in the poems.... Of + course _you_ know to whom the 'Dream' alludes, Mrs. C----." + +And there, of course, the truth is out. Mrs. C---- is, and can be no one +else than, Mary Chaworth. The "causes too simple to be found out" had to +do with Byron's imperishable passion for the lady whom we have seen his +wife calling a "cat." Byron could not live happily with Lady Byron because +he could not forget Mary Chaworth--and Lady Byron knew it. Consequently +she set her heart upon obtaining a separation, and, in order to make sure +of that separation, "put up" the story, suggested by Lady Caroline Lamb's +poisonous tongue. The whole business is as simple as all that; and the +subject might properly be dropped at that point if it were not for Lord +Lovelace's assertion that papers in his hands demonstrated that Mrs. Leigh +had "confessed." + +But the so-called confession of Augusta Leigh is like the so-called +confession of Captain Dreyfus. We are told that it exists; and when our +curiosity has been thus aroused we are told that it is not worth while to +produce it. Augusta, says Lord Lovelace, "admitted everything in her +letters of June, July, and August, 1816"; and then he goes on to say: "It +is unnecessary to produce them here, as their contents are confirmed and +made clear by the correspondence of 1819 in another chapter." But when we +turn to the correspondence of 1819, we find that no confession is +contained in them. The most that one can say is that, the language of the +letters being sometimes enigmatic, and the subjects to which they relate +being uncertain, one or two passages in them might conceivably be read as +referring to a confession, if one knew that a confession had been made. +Even on that hypothesis, however, they might just as easily be read as +referring to something else; and the real clue to their meaning may, +almost certainly, be found in a letter which Lord Lovelace prints in the +chapter entitled "Some Correspondence of Augusta Byron." + +The letter[9] in question is a love letter. It begins "My dearest Love" +and ends "Ever Dearest." Lord Lovelace prints it as addressed by Lord +Byron to Mrs. Leigh in May 1819. It is a letter, however, in which both +the signature and the address are erased; but though there is no great +reason for doubting that Byron was the writer, there is no reason whatever +for believing that Mrs. Leigh was the recipient. Indeed, one has only to +place it side by side with the letters which we actually know Byron to +have written to Mrs. Leigh a little before May 1819, and a little +afterwards, in order to be positive that she was not; and one has only to +remember that Byron still sometimes wrote to Mary Chaworth, and that his +correspondence passed through his sister's hands, in order to satisfy +oneself whose letter it was that Lord Lovelace found among Lord Byron's +papers. So that our conclusion must be: + + 1. That Lord Lovelace's most substantial piece of evidence against + Mrs. Leigh is a letter[9] which though it passed through her hands, + was really written to Mary Chaworth. + + 2. That the alleged confession does not exist--for if it did exist, + Lord Lovelace would have printed it. + +And we may go further, and say, with confidence, not only that the alleged +confession does not exist at the present time, but that it never did +exist; for even that conclusion follows irresistibly from the known +circumstances of the final meeting between Lady Byron and Mrs. Leigh, at +Reigate, in the presence of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, in 1851. + +They had remained friends until 1830, and had then quarrelled, not about +Byron, but about the appointment of a new trustee under a settlement. +After that, they had ceased to see each other; and the Reigate interview, +of which Robertson drew up a memorandum, was avowedly and admittedly +arranged because Lady Byron desired, and expected, to receive a confession +before a witness of unimpeachable integrity. Nothing is more obvious than +that Lady Byron would have had no need to solicit a verbal confession in +1851 if she had succeeded in extracting a written confession in 1816; and +it is common ground that, in 1851, Mrs. Leigh not only confessed nothing, +but denied that she had anything to confess. + +The whole story of the confession, therefore, vanishes like smoke; and one +is free, at last, to quit this painful part of the subject. It was +necessary to dwell on it carefully and at length on account of the +sophistical cobwebs spun round it by Lord Lovelace's awkward hands and +because, while justice injoined the vindication of Lord Byron, his +biographer could not let any prudish scruples or false delicacy withhold +him from the task of definitely clearing the memory of Byron's sister from +the shameful aspersions cast upon it, by Byron's grandson. But one, +nevertheless, gets away from it with relief, and returns with a sense of +recovered freedom to the facts of Byron's career at the time when the +storm broke about his head and drove him from the country. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +BYRON'S DEPARTURE FOR THE CONTINENT--HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH JANE CLAIRMONT + + +Macaulay has described, in that picturesque style of his, how, just as +Byron "woke up one morning and found himself famous," so the British +public woke up one morning and found itself virtuous, with the result that +Byron was hooted and hounded out of England. The picture, like all +Macaulay's pictures, was overdrawn and over-coloured. The life of the +country, and even of the capital, went on pretty much as usual in spite of +Byron's dissensions with his wife; and Byron himself kept up appearances +fairly well, going to the theatre, entertaining Leigh Hunt, Kinnaird, and +other friends at dinner, and corresponding with Murray about the +publication of his poems. But, nevertheless, many circumstances combined +to make him feel uncomfortable. + +Invitations ceased to be showered upon him; and "gross charges" continued +to be whispered in spite of Lady Byron's disavowal. The grounds of the +separation not being known, every one was free to conjecture his own +solution of the mystery. There seemed little doubt, at any rate, that +Byron had forsaken his lawful wife's society for that of the nymphs of +Drury Lane; and it was quite certain that he had failed to pay the +Duchess of Devonshire her rent. The only possible reply to these +allegations was that they were no part of the business of the people who +made such a fuss about them. The fuss being made, the most reasonable +course was to go abroad until the hubbub ceased. + +It was no case, as Byron's enemies have said, of running away to avoid an +investigation into his conduct--investigation had been challenged, and all +the grave charges had been withdrawn. They had, indeed, by a breach of +faith, been secretly kept alive; but they had not reappeared in such shape +and circumstances that action could be taken on them; and Byron could not +be expected to formulate them himself, merely for the purpose of denying +them. His threat, a little later, to appeal to the Courts for an +injunction to restrain Lady Byron from taking his daughter out of England +as he had heard that she proposed to do, amply showed that he had no fear +of any shameful disclosures; but he had Mrs. Leigh's reputation as well as +his own to think of; and it was better for her sake as well as his that he +should desist from bandying words with her calumniators. Moreover it was +not only his calumniators who were making things unpleasant for him. His +creditors were also joining in the hue and cry and multiplying his motives +for retiring; so he resolved to go, attended by three servants and the +Italian physician, Polidori. + +Rogers paid him a farewell visit on April 22; and Mr. and Mrs. Kinnaird +called the same evening, bringing, as Hobhouse tells us, "a cake and two +bottles of champagne." On the following morning the party were up at six +and off at half-past nine for Dover; Hobhouse riding with Polidori in +Scrope Davies' carriage, and Byron, with Scrope Davies, in his own new +travelling coach, modelled on that of Napoleon, containing a bed, a +library, and a dinner-service, specially built for him at a cost of £500. +A crowd gathered to watch the departure--a crowd which Hobhouse feared +might prove dangerous, but which, in fact, was only inquisitive. The +bailiffs arrived ten minutes afterwards and "seized everything," with +expressions of regret that they had not been in time to seize the coach as +well. Even cage-birds and a squirrel were taken away by them. + +This news having been brought by Fletcher, the valet, who followed the +party, the coach was hustled on board the packet to be safe--a most wise +precaution seeing that there was a day's delay before it started; and +Hobhouse continues: + + "April 25. Up at eight, breakfasted; all on board except the company. + The captain said he could not wait, and Byron would not get up a + moment sooner. Even the serenity of Scrope was disturbed.... The + bustle kept Byron in spirits, but he looked affected when the packet + glided off.... The dear fellow pulled off his cap and waved it to me. + I gazed until I could not distinguish him any longer. God bless him + for a gallant spirit and a kind one!" + +And then: + + "Went to London.... Told there was a row expected at the theatre, + Douglas K. having received fifteen anonymous letters stating that Mrs. + Mardyn would be hissed on Byron's account." + +This gives us, of course, the point of view of the populace--or perhaps +one should say of the middle classes. They, it is evident, knew nothing of +any specially gross or unspeakable charges against Byron, but were +satisfied to turn the hose of virtuous indignation on him because, instead +of managing Drury Lane in the sole interest of dramatic art, he had +availed himself of opportunities and yielded to temptations. And so no +doubt he had, though not exactly in such circumstances as the populace +supposed or in connection with the particular lady whose guilt the +populace had hastily assumed. + +The popular indictment, indeed, included at least three glaring errors of +fact. In the first place the partner of Byron's latest passion (if passion +be the word) was not Mrs. Mardyn, but Miss Jane Clairmont. In the second +place his relations with Miss Clairmont had nothing whatever to do with +his separation from Lady Byron, because he did not make Miss Clairmont's +acquaintance until after Lady Byron had left him. In the third place it +was not Byron who pursued Miss Clairmont with his attentions, but Miss +Clairmont who threw herself at Byron's head. + +Jane Clairmont was, as is well known, sister by affinity to Mary Godwin +who was then living with Shelley and was afterwards married to him. She +had accompanied Shelley and Mary on their first trip to Switzerland in +1814, and had subsequently stayed with them in various lodgings. In the +impending summer she was to go to Switzerland with them again, and Byron +was to meet her there, whether accidentally or on purpose. In the early +biographies, indeed, the meeting figures as accidental; but the later +biographers knew better, and the complete story can be pieced together +from a bundle of letters included in the Murray MSS., and the statement +which Miss Clairmont herself made in her old age to Mr. William Graham, +who travelled all the way to Florence to see her, and, after her death, +reported her conversations in the _Nineteenth Century_. + +"When I was a very young girl," Miss Clairmont told Mr. Graham, "Byron was +the rage." She spoke of the "troubling morbid obsession" which he +exercised "over the youth of England of both sexes," and insisted that the +girls in particular "made simple idiots of themselves about him"; and then +she went on to describe how one girl did so: + + "In the days when Byron was manager of Drury Lane Theatre I bethought + myself that I would go on to the stage. Our means were very narrow, + and it was necessary for me to do something, and this seemed to suit + me better than anything else; in any case it was the only form of + occupation congenial to my girlish love of glitter and excitement.... + I called, then, on Byron in his capacity of manager, and he promised + to do what he could to help me as regards the stage. The result you + know. I am too old now to play with any mock repentance. I was young, + and vain, and poor. He was famous beyond all precedent.... His beauty + was as haunting as his fame, and he was all-powerful in the direction + in which my ambition turned. It seems to me almost needless to say + that the attentions of a man like this, with all London at his feet, + very quickly completely turned the head of a girl in my position; and + when you recollect that I was brought up to consider marriage not only + as a useless but as an absolutely sinful custom, that only bigotry + made necessary, you will scarcely wonder at the results, which you + know." + +That is the story as Miss Clairmont remembered it, or as she wished +posterity to believe it. She also seems to have been fully persuaded in +her own mind that Shelley had recommended her to apply to Byron, and that +it was about her that Byron and Lady Byron fell out; but the letters +published by Mr. Murray show all this to be a tissue of absurd +inexactitudes. What actually happened was that Miss Clairmont wrote to +Byron under the pseudonym of "E Trefusis," beginning "An utter stranger +takes the liberty of addressing you," and proceeding to say: "It may seem +a strange assertion, but it is not the less true that I place my +happiness in your hands." + +There is no reference there, it will be remarked, to any desire on Miss +Clairmont's part to adopt the theatrical profession. The few references to +such a desire which do occur later in the correspondence are of such a +nature as to show that Miss Clairmont did not entertain it seriously, +consisting mainly of objections to Byron's proposal that she should +discuss the matter with Mr. Kinnaird instead of him. Miss Clairmont, in +short, made it abundantly clear that she was in love, not with the +theatre, but with Byron; and the more evasive Byron showed himself, the +more ardently and impulsively did she advance. We gather from her letters, +indeed, that most of those letters were left unanswered, that Byron very +frequently was "not at home" to her, and that, when she was at last +admitted, she did not find him alone. + +Most women would have been discouraged by such a series of repulses; but +Miss Clairmont was not. In response to a communication in which Byron had +begged her to "write short," she wrote: "I do not expect you to love me; I +am not worthy of your love." But she begged him, if he could not love, at +least to let himself be loved--to suffer her to demonstrate that she, on +her part, could "love gently and with affection"; and thus she paved the +way to a practical proposal: + + "Have you, then," (she asked) "any objection to the following plan? On + Thursday Evening we may go out of town together by some stage of mail + about the distance of ten or twelve miles. There we shall be free and + unknown; we can return early the following morning. I have arranged + everything here so that the slightest suspicion may not be excited. + Pray do so with your people." + +Even to that appeal Byron seems to have turned a deaf ear. One infers as +much from the fact that other appeals followed it: "Do not delay our +meeting after Saturday--I cannot endure the suspense," &c. After that, +however, and apparently quite soon after it, followed the capitulation; +and for the sequel we will turn again to Mr. Graham's report of Miss +Clairmont's confessions: + + "He was making his final arrangements for leaving England, when I told + him of the project the Shelleys and I had formed of the journey to + Geneva. He at once suggested that we should all meet at Geneva, and + delightedly fell in with my proposal to accompany me one day when I + had arranged to visit the Shelleys at Marlow,[10] where they were then + stopping, and arrange matters. We started early one morning, and we + arrived at Marlow about the mid-day dinner-hour.... Byron refreshed + himself with a huge mug of beer.... A few minutes afterwards in came + Shelley and Mary. It was such a merry party that we made at lunch in + the inn parlour: Byron, despite his misfortunes, was in the spirits + of a boy at leaving England, and Shelley was overjoyed at meeting his + idolised poet, who had actually come all the way from London to see + him." + +Such are the facts, so far as they are ascertainable, concerning the +origin of this curious _liaison_. It is a story which begins, and goes on +for some time, though it does not conclude, like the story of Joseph and +Potiphar's wife; and Miss Clairmont recalls how exultantly she proclaimed +her triumph. "Percy! Mary! What do you think? The great Lord Byron loves +me!" she exclaimed, bursting in upon her friends; and she adds that +Shelley regarded the attachment as right and natural and proper, and a +proof that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. + +He may have done so, for he was a dreamer, cradled in illusions, +unfettered by codes, always ready to look upon life as a fairy-tale that +was turning out to be true. Whether he did so or not, it seems at any rate +pretty clear that he was in Miss Clairmont's confidence, knew for what +reason Byron wished to meet him at Geneva, and acquiesced in the proposal. +But it is equally certain that he was not in Byron's confidence, and had +no suspicion of the spirit in which Byron had entered into the intrigue. + +For Byron was not in love with Miss Clairmont, and never had been in love +with her, and never would be. In so far as he loved at all, he still loved +Mary Chaworth, to whom his heart always returned at every crisis of +unhappiness. There was no question of any renewal of the old passionate +relations; but she consented to see him once more before he left England. +"When we two parted in silence and tears" seems to belong to this moment +of his life--the moment at which Miss Clairmont first persuaded herself, +and then persuaded Shelley, that she was enthroned for ever in the +author's heart. That, still, was his one real sentimental hold on life. +Nothing else mattered; and the coquetries and audacities of this child of +seventeen mattered less than most things. + +But a man must live; a man must divert himself. Most especially must a man +do so when, as Byron expressed it, his household gods lay shivered around +him--when his home was broken up and his child was taken away--when +rumours as intangible as abominable were afloat to his dishonour--when the +society of which he had been the bright particular star was turning its +back on him. Even the love, or what passed for such, of a stage-struck +girl of seventeen, could be welcome in such a case, and it would not be +difficult to give something which could pass for love in return for it. + +That was what happened--and that was all that happened. Miss Clairmont +told Mr. Graham, in so many words, that she never loved Byron, but was +only "dazzled" by him. It is written in Byron's letters--from which there +shall be quotations in due course--and it is amply demonstrated by his +conduct, that he never loved Miss Clairmont, but only accepted favours +which she pressed upon him, and suffered her to help him to live at a +time when life was difficult. + +The credit of having done that for him, however, should be freely given to +her. The appointment which she made with him at Geneva touched his flight +from England with romance. His reception by the generality of English +residents on the Continent was very, very doubtful. It would have been +painful to him to travel across Europe, defying opinion in solitude; but +he and Shelley and Mary Godwin and Jane Clairmont could defy it in company +and laugh; and it was with this confident assurance in his mind that, as +Hobhouse writes, "the dear fellow pulled off his cap and waved it" when +the Ostend packet glided out of Dover harbour. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +LIFE AT GENEVA--THE AFFAIR WITH JANE CLAIRMONT + + +"From Brussels," as Moore magniloquently puts it, "the noble traveller +pursued his course along the Rhine." At Geneva he joined Shelley and his +party who had taken the shorter route across France; and it would seem +that he felt the need of all the moral support which their companionship +could give him. + +Concerning the nature of his reception in Switzerland, indeed, there is a +good deal of conflicting testimony; but the balance of the evidence points +to its having been unfavourable. His own statement is that he "retired +entirely from society," with the exception of "some occasional intercourse +with Coppet at the wish of Madame de Staël"; but there are indications +that the retirement was not voluntary, and that, even at Coppet, his +welcome was something less than enthusiastic. On the former point we may +quote the letters of Lady Westmorland, just published by Lady Rose +Weigall: + + "Lord Byron has been very coldly received here both by the natives and + by the English. No one visited him, though there is much curiosity + about him. He has been twice to Coppet." + +Only twice, be it observed; and on one of the two occasions, one of Madame +de Staël's guests, Mrs. Hervey the novelist--a mature woman novelist of +sixty-five virtuous summers--fainted, according to one account, and +"nearly fainted," according to another, at the sudden appearance of the +Man of Sin, though, when she came to, she was ashamed of herself, and +conversed with him. Probably he called again; and not all the Coppet +house-party shared Mrs. Hervey's consternation at his visits. Lady +Westmorland did not for one, but commented on his "sweetness and sadness, +melancholy and depression," adding: "If he was all that he tries to seem +now he would really be very fascinating." On the other hand, however, +Madame de Staël's son-in-law, the Duc de Broglie, summed him up unkindly +and almost scornfully, declaring him "a boastful pretender in the matter +of vice," protesting that "his talk was heavy and tiresome," and that "he +did not manoeuvre his lame legs with the same ease and nonchalance as M. +de Talleyrand," and concluding: + + "Madame de Staël, who helped all her friends to make the best of + themselves, did what she could to make him cut a dignified figure + without success; and when the first moment of curiosity had passed, + his society ceased to attract, and no one was glad to see him." + +Which clearly indicates, in spite of the offensive priggishness of the +witness, that the tide of hostile opinion was, indeed, flowing too +strongly for even Madame de Staël to stem it. + +She did her best, however; for she was no prude, but a woman with a great +heart, who had herself sought happiness in marriage, and failed to find it +there, and had openly done things for which, if she had been an +Englishwoman, Mrs. Grundy, instead of lionising, would have turned and +rent her. She went further, and proposed to write to Lady Byron and try to +arrange terms of peace; and Byron thanked her, and let her do so. + +Not, of course, that he had the least desire to return to Lady Byron's +society. He was presently to thunder at her as his "moral Clytemnestra"; +and Cordy Jeaffreson's suggestion that his irrepressible rhetoric was +"only the superficial ferment covering the depths of his affection for +her," and that "the woman at whom he railed so insanely was the woman who +shared with his child the last tender emotions of his unruly heart" is as +absurd a suggestion as ever a biographer put forth. Hobhouse has told us +that Byron never was in love with Lady Byron; and, after what we have seen +of Lady Byron's conduct and correspondence, it is hard to believe that any +man would have been in love with her after living with her for a +twelvemonth. Moreover, we know from "The Dream" where Byron's heart was at +this time, as always, and we know from his own, as well as from Miss +Clairmont's confessions, with how little regard for Lady Byron's feelings +he was just then diverting himself in the Genevan suburbs; and we may +fairly conclude that what he desired was not to return to her, but merely +to be set right with the world by a nominal reconciliation, which would +still leave him free to live apart from her. + +He did not get what he wanted, and Lady Byron was quite within her rights +in withholding it. He had allowed himself to be manoeuvred into a false +position, and had no claim upon her to help him to manoeuvre himself out +of it; while she, on her part, was much too high principled to strain a +point in favour of a returning prodigal--especially if, as is probable, +information had reached her as to his proceedings in his exile. So she +rejected his overtures in that cold, judicial, high-minded way of hers; +and Byron did not repeat them, but made it clear that he had meant nothing +by them, seeing that-- + +His reason is in "The Dream" which he wrote in July 1816. It was another +of his bursts of candour, telling the world (and Lady Byron) yet again how +he loved Mary Chaworth, and always had loved her, and always would, and +how, even on his wedding day, the memory of her had come between him and +his bride: + + "_A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. + The Wanderer was returned--I saw him stand + Before an Altar--with a gentle bride; + Her face was fair, but was not that which made + The Starlight of his boyhood:--as he stood + Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came + The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock + That in the antique Oratory shook + His bosom in its solitude: and then-- + As in that hour--a moment o'er his face + The tablet of unutterable thoughts + Was traced,--and then it faded as it came, + And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke + The fitting vows, but heard not his own words, + And all things reeled around him; he could see + Not that which was, nor that which should have been-- + But the old mansion and the accustomed hall, + And the remembered chambers, and the place, + The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, + All things pertaining to that place and hour + And her who was his destiny, came back + And thrust themselves between him and the light._" + +That was his Parthian shaft; and Cordy Jeaffreson's view of "The Dream" as +"a lovely and elaborate falsehood, written to persuade all mankind that he +never loved the woman whose heart he was yearning to recover" is much too +preposterous to be admitted. Mary Chaworth's husband knew that it was no +figment. He recognised the reference to a certain "peculiar diadem of +trees" on his estate, and gave orders that those trees should be cut down. +Lady Byron had no such remedy open to her; but she knew what was meant and +wrapped herself up in her virtue; while Byron, on his part, turned to the +diversions which were to help him to live in the face of the world's +contumely. + +Alike for him and for Shelley and the two ladies who attended him there +was a good deal of that contumely as long as they remained in the Hotel +d'Angleterre; and it may almost be said that they invited it by making +themselves conspicuous. In Shelley's relations with Miss Godwin and Miss +Clairmont there was at least the appearance of promiscuity--an appearance +on which it did not take gossip long to base positive asseveration.[11] +Byron, already an object of curiosity on account of his supposed misdeeds, +had made himself conspicuous by his coach, and his retinue, and his manner +of travelling _en seigneur_. So that the other boarders stared when he +arrived, and stared still more when they saw him fraternising with his +brother poet and the ladies, not only wondering what the eccentric party +would be up to next, but keeping close watch on their comings and goings, +following them to the lake-side when they went out boating, awaiting them +on the lake-side when they landed on their return, lining up to inspect +them as often as carriages were brought to the door to take them for a +drive. + +They did not like it, and moved into villas on the other side of the +Rhone, only to discover that the Hotel d'Angleterre overlooked them, and +that its obliging landlord had set up a large telescope so that his +visitors might survey their proceedings the more commodiously. This +obliged them to move again--Byron to the Villa Diodati, and Shelley to +the Maison Chapuis or Campagne Mont Allègre--and there at last they were +able, as the party of the Libertins in the Geneva of the Reformation put +it, to "live as they chose without reference to the preachers." + +To much that they did there the preachers, even those of Calvin's time, +could have taken no exception. They talked--the sort of talk that would +have been high over the heads of their censors of the d'Angleterre; they +rowed on the lake, and sang in their boat in the moonlight; they read +poetry, and wrote it. Shelley pressed Byron to read Wordsworth; and he did +so, with results which are apparent in the Third Canto of "Childe Harold," +where we find the Wordsworthian conception of the unity of man with Nature +reproduced and spoiled, as Wordsworth most emphatically insisted, in the +reproduction. There was a week of rain during which the friends decided to +fleet the time by writing ghost stories, and Mary Godwin wrote +"Frankenstein." There was also a circular tour of the lake, undertaken +without the ladies, in the course of which Shelley had a narrow escape +from drowning near Saint Gingolph. These things were a part, and not the +least important part, of the diversions which helped Byron to defy the +slanderers whom he could not answer. So was his short trip to the Oberland +with Hobhouse. And, finally, meaning so little to him that one naturally +keeps it to the end and adds it as a detail, there was the "affair" with +Miss Jane Clairmont. + +On this branch of the subject he wrote to Mrs. Leigh, who had heard +exaggerated rumours: + + "As to all these 'mistresses,' Lord help me--I have had but one. Now + don't scold; but what could I do?--a foolish girl, in spite of all I + could say or do, would come after me, or rather went before--for I + found her here--and I have had all the plague possible to persuade her + to go back again; but at last she went. Now, dearest, I do most truly + tell thee that I could not help this, that I did all I could to + prevent it, and have at last put an end to it. I was not in love, nor + have any love left for any; but I could not exactly play the Stoic + with a woman who had scrambled eight hundred miles to unphilosophise + me. Besides, I had been regaled of late with so many 'two courses and + a _desert_' (Alas!) of aversion, that I was fain to take a little love + (if pressed particularly) by way of novelty." + +The love had been pressed, as we have seen, and as Miss Clairmont, in her +age, admitted, very particularly indeed. She had dreamt, she admits--and +she would have us think that Shelley and Mary Godwin expected--that her +alliance with "the great Lord Byron" was to be permanent; and this though +she declares, elsewhere in her confessions, that she did not really love +him, but was only dazzled by him, and that her heart, in truth, was +Shelley's. + +It was an ambitious dream; and it would be easy to make a list of reasons +why it was impossible that it should come true. The mood in which she +found Byron was only one of them. The defects and limitations of her own +qualities furnish others. She was a tradesman's daughter, and, though +well-educated, not without vulgarity; pretentious, but superficial; +stage-struck, a romp, and a mimic. If she ever mimicked Byron--if, in +particular, she ever mimicked his lameness--a good deal would be +explained. + +One does not know whether she did or not. What one does know is that he +shook her off rather roughly, and, never having loved her, presently +conceived a dislike for her; and that though she bore him a child--the +little Allegra, so named after her birthplace, who only lived to be five +years of age, and now lies buried at Harrow. To Allegra, indeed, Byron was +good and kind--he looked forward, he told Moore and others, to the time +when she would be a support to the loneliness of his old age; but to +Allegra's mother he would have nothing more to say. How she hunted him +down, and how she and the Countess Guiccioli made each other +jealous--these are matters into which it is unnecessary to enter here. The +conclusions which Miss Clairmont drew, as she told Mr. Graham, was that +Byron's attitude towards women was that of a Sultan towards the ladies of +his harem. No doubt it was so in her case--and through her fault; for her +plight was very much like that of the worshipper of Juggernaut who should +prostrate himself before the oncoming car and then complain because the +wheels pass over him. + +Probably, if she had been less pressing, or less clinging, he would have +been more grateful; for there assuredly was cause for gratitude even +though there was no room for love. Vulgar, feather-headed, stage-struck +little thing that she was, Jane Clairmont, by throwing herself at Byron's +head, and telling him, without waiting to be asked, that she, at least, +would count the world well lost for him--and still more perhaps by +bringing him into relation with the Shelleys--had rendered him real help +in the second desperate crisis of his life. One may repeat, indeed, that +she helped him to live through that dark period; and if she knew that, or +guessed it, she may well have felt aggrieved that his return for her +passion was so inadequate. + +But he could not help it. His heart was out of his keeping, and he could +not give what he did not possess. A "passade" was all that he was capable +of just then; but that this "passade" did really help him to feel his feet +again in stormy waters, and bring him back once more to cheerfulness and +self-respect, is amply proved, first by the change of tone which appears +in his more intimate writings, and then by the new, and worse, way of life +into which we see him falling after the curtain has been rung down on the +episode. + +Shelley departed, taking Miss Clairmont and her sister with him, sorely, +as there is reason to believe, against the former's wish, towards the end +of August; the honeymoon, such as it was, having lasted about three +months. Towards the end of the time, visitors began to arrive--"Monk" +Lewis, and "Conversation" Sharp, and Scrope Davies, and Hobhouse--but most +particularly Hobhouse who wrote Mrs. Leigh a reassuring letter to the +effect that her brother was "living with the strictest attention to +decorum, and free from all offence, either to God or man or woman," having +given up brandy and late hours and "quarts of magnesia" and "deluges of +soda-water," and appearing to be "as happy as it is consistent for a man +of honour and common feeling to be after the occurrence of a calamity +involving a charge, whether just or unjust, against his honour and his +feeling." + +That was written on September 9; and it approximated to the truth. Having +despatched his report, Hobhouse took Byron for the tour already referred +to--over the Col de Jaman, down the Simmenthal to Thun, up the Lake of +Thun to Interlaken, and thence to Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Brienz, and +back by way of Berne, Fribourg, and Yverdon. Byron kept a journal of the +journey for his sister to peruse. In the main it is merely a record, +admirably written, of things seen; but now and again the diarist speaks +out and shows how exactly his companion had read and interpreted his mind. + +"It would be a great injustice," Hobhouse had continued to Mrs. Leigh, in +reference to the "calamity" and the "charge," "to suppose that he has +dismissed the subject from his thoughts, or indeed from his conversation, +upon any other motive than that which the most bitter of his enemies would +commend. The uniformly guarded and tranquil manner shows the effort which +it is meant to hide." And there are just two passages in the Diary in +which we see the tranquil manner breaking down. In the first place at +Grindelwald: + + "Starlight, beautiful, but a devil of a path. Never mind, got safe in; + a little lightning; but the whole of the day as fine in point of + weather as the day on which Paradise was made. Passed _whole woods of + withered pines, all withered_; trunks stripped and barkless, branches + lifeless; done by a single winter--their appearance reminded me of me + and my family." + +In the second place, at the very end of the tour: + + "I ... have seen some of the noblest views in the world. But in all + this--the recollections 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 old wretched identity in the + majesty, and the power and the glory, around, above, and beneath me." + +A striking admission truly of the unreality and insincerity of the Byronic +presentation of Wordsworth's Pantheism, and concluding with an exclamation +which shows clearly how distinct a thing Byron's individuality was to him, +and how far he was from picturing himself, in sober prose, as "a portion +of the tempest" or anything but his passionate and suffering self: + + "I am past reproaches; and there is a time for all things. I am past + the wish of vengeance, and I know of none like for what I have + suffered; but the hour will come when what I feel must be felt, and + the--but enough." + +And so up the Rhone valley and over the Simplon to Italy, where his life +was to enter upon yet another phase. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +FROM GENEVA TO VENICE--THE AFFAIR WITH THE DRAPER'S WIFE + + +As long as Hobhouse remained with Byron nothing memorable happened. There +was a good deal of the schoolmaster about Hobhouse, though he could +sometimes unbend in a non-committal way; and in the presence of +schoolmasters life is seldom a drama and never an extravaganza. The +change, therefore, in the manner of Byron's life did not occur until, +tiring of his friend's supervision, he declined to accompany him to Rome. +In the meantime, first at Milan and then at Verona, he held up his head, +and passed like a pageant through the salons of the best continental +society. + +Milan, he told Murray, was "very polite and hospitable." He parted there +from Polidori, who was expelled from the territory on account of a brawl +with an Austrian officer in a theatre; and he dined with the Marquis de +Brême--an Italian nobleman equally famous for his endeavours to popularise +vaccination and suppress mendicity--to meet Monti the Italian poet and +Stendhal the French novelist. "Never," wrote Stendhal of that meeting, +"shall I forget the sublime expression of his countenance; it was the +peaceful look of power united with genius." And a long account of Byron's +sojourn at Milan was contributed by Stendhal to the _Foreign Literary +Gazette_. + +The introductions, Stendhal says, "passed with as much ceremonious gravity +as if our introducer had been de Brême's grandfather in days of yore +ambassador from the Duke of Savoy to the court of Louis XIV." He describes +Byron as "a dandy" who "expressed a constant dread of augmenting the bulk +of his outward man, concealed his right foot as much as possible, and +endeavoured to render himself agreeable in female society;" and he +proceeds to relate how female society sought to make itself agreeable to +him: + + "His fine eyes, his handsome horses, and his fame gained him the + smiles of several young, lovely, and noble females, one of whom, in + particular, performed a journey of more than a hundred miles for the + pleasure of being present at a masked ball to which his Lordship was + invited. Byron was apprised of the circumstance, but either from + _hauteur_ or shyness, declined an introduction. 'Your poets are + perfect clowns,' cried the fair one, as she indignantly quitted the + ball-room." + +And then again: + + "Perhaps few cities could boast such an assemblage of lovely women as + that which chance had collected at Milan in 1817. Many of them had + flattered themselves with the idea that Byron would seek an + introduction; but whether from pride, timidity, or a remnant of + dandyism, which induced him to do exactly the contrary of what was + expected, he invariably declined the honour. He seemed to prefer a + conversation on poetical or philosophical subjects." + +The explanation of his aloofness, Stendhal thought, might be that he "had +some guilty stain upon his conscience, similar to that which wrecked +Othello's fame." He suspected him of having, in a frenzy of jealousy, +"shortened the days of some fair Grecian slave, faithless to her vows of +love." That, it seemed to him, might account for the fact that he so often +"appeared to us like one labouring under an access of folly, often +approaching to madness." But, of course, as this narrative has +demonstrated, Stendhal was guessing wildly and guessing wrong; and the +thoughts which really troubled Byron were thoughts of the wreck of his +household gods, and the failure of his sentimental life, and perhaps also +of the failure of Miss Clairmont's free offering of a naïve and passionate +heart to awaken any answering emotion in his breast, or do more than tide +him over the first critical weeks following upon the separation. So he +wrote Moore a long letter from Verona, relating his kind reception by the +Milanese, discoursing of Milanese manners and morals, but then concluding: + + "If I do not speak to you of my own affairs, it is not from want of + confidence, but to spare you and myself. My day is over--what then--I + have had it. To be sure, I have shortened it." + +From Verona, too, he wrote on the same day to his sister, saying, after +compliments and small-talk: "I am also growing _grey_ and _giddy_, and +cannot help thinking my head will decay; I wish my memory would, at least +my remembrance." All of which seems to show Byron defiant, but not yet +reckless, preferring, if not actually enjoying, the society of his equals, +and still paying a very proper regard to appearances. The change occurred +when he got to Venice and Hobhouse left him there. Then there was a moral +collapse, just as if a moral support had been withdrawn--a collapse of +which the first outward sign was a new kind of intrigue. + +Hitherto his amours had been with his social equals; and the daughters of +the people had, since his celebrity, had very little attraction for him. +Now the decline begins--a decline which was to conduct him to very +degraded depths; and our first intimation of it is in a letter written to +Moore within a week of his arrival. He begins with a comment on the decay +of Venice--"I have been familiar with ruins too long to dislike +desolation"--and he proceeds: + + "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.... 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 Jersey's: her figure is + light and pretty, and she is a famous songstress." + +And so on at some length. Our only other witness to Marianna's charms and +character--a manuscript note to Moore's Life quoted in Murray's edition of +the Letters--describes her as "a demon of avarice and libidinousness who +intrigued with every resident in the house and every guest who visited +it." It is possible--it is even probable--that this description, made from +a different point of view than Byron's, fits her. Byron's enthusiasm was +for her physical, not her moral, attributes; and it does not appear that +he was under any illusion as to the latter. The former, however, +fascinated him; and we find him dwelling on them, in letter after letter, +to Murray as well as Moore--the publisher, indeed, being the first +recipient of the confidence that "Our little arrangement is completed; the +usual oaths having been taken, and everything fulfilled according to the +'understood relations' of such liaisons." Which means, very clearly, that +the draper's wife has become the poet's mistress, with the knowledge of +her husband, and to his pecuniary advantage. + +The story is not one on which to dwell. It is less a story, indeed, than a +string of unrelated incidents. Though spun out and protracted, it does +not end but leaves off; and of the circumstances of its termination there +is no record. Marianna's avarice may have had something to do with it. So +may her habit, above referred to, of intriguing with all comers. But +nothing is known; and the one thing certain is that, though Byron was +attracted, sentiment played no part in the attraction. It would seem too +that he was only relatively faithful. + +One gathers that from the account which he gives to Moore of a visit +received from Marianna's sister-in-law, whom Marianna caught in his +apartment, and seized by the hair, and slapped: + + "I need not describe the screaming which ensued. The luckless visitor + took flight. I seized Marianna, who, after several vain attempts to + get away in pursuit of the enemy, fairly went into fits in my arms; + and, in spite of reasoning, eau de Cologne, vinegar, half a pint of + water, and God knows what other waters beside, continued so till past + midnight." + +Whereupon enter Signor Segati himself, "her lord and master, and finds me +with his wife fainting upon the sofa, and all the apparatus of confusion, +dishevelled hair, hats, handkerchiefs, salts, smelling-bottles--and the +lady as pale as ashes, without sense or motion." And then, explanations +more or less suitable having been offered and accepted, "The +sister-in-law, very much discomposed at being treated in such wise, has +(not having her own shame before her eyes) told the affair to half Venice, +and the servants (who were summoned by the fight and the fainting) to the +other half." + +And so forth, and so forth. It is all very vulgar, and none of it of the +faintest importance except for the sake of the light which it throws on +Byron's mind and disposition, though its importance is, from that point of +view, considerable. It shows Byron sick of sentiment because sentiment has +failed him and played him false, but grasping at the sensual pleasures of +love as the solid realities about which no mistake is possible. It shows +him, moreover, socially as well as sentimentally, on the down grade, +consorting with inferiors, and in some danger of unfitting himself for the +company of his equals. + +The reckless note of the man resolved to enjoy himself, or at any rate to +keep up the pretence that he is doing so, although his heart is bankrupt, +is struck in one of the letters to Augusta. It refers to a previous +letter, not published, in which the tidings of the "new attachment" has +already been communicated, and to a letter addressed, some time +previously, to Lady Byron; and it continues: + + "I was wretched enough when I wrote it, and had been so for many a + long day and month: at present I am less so, for reasons explained in + my late letter; and as I never pretend to be what I am not, you may + tell her, if you please, that I am recovering, and the reason also if + you like it." + +Which is to say that he wishes Lady Byron to be told, _totidem verbis_, +and on authority which she cannot question, that, having lived connubially +with both, he very much prefers the draper's wife to her. And so, no +doubt, he did; for though the draper's wife, as well as Lady Byron, had +her faults, they were the faults of a naughty child rather than a pedantic +schoolmistress, and therefore less exasperating to a man in the mood to +which Byron had been driven. She might be--indeed she was--very jealous +and very violent; but at least she did not assume airs of moral +superiority and deliver lectures, or parade the heartlessness of one who +is determined to be always in the right. + +So that Byron delighted to have her about him. "I am very well off with +Marianna, who is not at all a person to tire me," he told Murray in one +letter; and in another he wrote: "She is very pretty and pleasing, and +talks Venetian, which amuses me, and is naïve, and I can besides see her, +and make love with her at all or any hours, which is convenient to my +temperament." Just that, and nothing more than that; for such occasional +outbursts of sentiment and yearnings after higher things as we do find in +the letters of this date leave Signora Segati altogether on one side. + +There is something of sentiment, for instance, in a letter to Mrs. Leigh +informing her that Miss Clairmont has borne Byron a daughter. The mother, +he says, is in England, and he prays God to keep her there; but then he +thinks of the child, and continues: + + "They tell me it is very pretty, with blue eyes and _dark_ hair; and, + although I never was attached nor pretended attachment to the mother, + still in case of the eternal war and alienation which I foresee about + my legitimate daughter, Ada, it may be as well to have something to + repose a hope upon. I must love something in my old age, and probably + circumstances will render this poor little creature a great, and, + perhaps, my only comfort." + +There is sentiment there; and there also is sentiment, although of a +different kind, in a letter written at about the same date to Moore: + + "If I live ten years longer you will see, however, that it is not over + with me--I don't mean in literature, for that is nothing; and it may + seem odd enough to say, I do not think it my vocation. But you will + see that I shall do something or other--the times and fortune + permitting--that, 'like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will + puzzle the philosophers of all ages.' But I doubt whether my + constitution will hold out. I have exorcised it most devilishly." + +This is a strikingly interesting, because an unconsciously prophetic, +passage. Byron's ultimate efforts to "do something"--something quite +unconnected with literature--is the most famous, and some would say the +most glorious, incident in his life. We shall come to it very soon, and we +shall see how his constitution, so sorely tried by an indiscreet diet and +excessive indulgence in all things from love to Epsom Salts, just allowed +him to begin his task, but did not suffer him to finish it. Enough to note +here that Byron saw the better even when he preferred the worse, and never +lost faith in himself even in his most degraded years, but always looked +forward, even then, to the day when he would shake off sloth and +sensuality in order to be worthy of his higher self. + +He divined that the power to do that would be restored to him in the +end--that social outlawry, though it might daze him, could not crush +him--that it would come to be, in the end, a kind of education, and a +source of self-reliance. But not yet, and not for a good many years to +come. Before the moral recovery could begin, the moral collapse had to be +completed; and the affair with the draper's wife was only the first +milestone on the downward path. We shall have to follow him past other +milestones before we see him turning back. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +AT VENICE--THE AFFAIR WITH THE BAKER'S WIFE--DISSOLUTE PROCEEDINGS IN THE +MOCENIGO PALACE--ILLNESS, RECOVERY AND REFORMATION + + +For six weeks or so in May and June 1817 Byron tore himself away from +Marianna and visited Rome, where he dined with Lord Lansdowne, sat to +Thorwaldsen for his bust, and gathered the materials for the Fourth Canto +of "Childe Harold." He refused, however, for Marianna's sake, to go on +with Hobhouse to Naples, but hurried back to her, bidding her meet him +half-way, and afterwards taking her, but not her husband, to a villa at La +Mira, on the Brenta, a few miles out of Venice. It seems that the +neighbours, less particular than the leaders of English society, yet +including a marquis as well as a physician with four unmarried daughters, +hastened to call, if not on the lady, at all events on him. Monk Lewis +paid him a short visit, and Hobhouse, on his return from Naples, stayed +for some time in a house close by, studying in the Ducal Library, and +amassing the erudition which appears in his notes to "Childe Harold." +Praise of Marianna, however, disappears from Byron's letters at this +period; and one may infer from his comment on the news of the death of +Madame de Staël that, if Marianna had ever made him happy, she had now +ceased to do so. + + "With regard to death," he then wrote to Murray, "I doubt that we have + any right to pity the dead for their own sakes." + +This is not the note of a man who has found happiness in love or even +pleasure in dissipation. Apparently the novelty of the new experiences was +wearing off; and Byron was becoming sick of the isolation and +uneventfulness of his life. He had gone to Venice largely because there +was no English society there--and yet he missed it; Hoppner, the +Consul-General being almost his only English friend. He had access to +Venetian society, and to some extent, mixed in it; but he did not find it +interesting. He tired of the receptions alike of Signora Benzoni the +worldly, and of Signora Albrizzi the "blue," at which, no doubt, he was +stared at as a marvel of fascinating profligacy; and he also tired of +Marianna Segati, who doubtless gave him an excuse for breaking off his +relations with her; and then there followed a further and deeper plunge. + +The departure of Hobhouse seems, as usual, to have given the signal. It +was about the time of his departure that Byron gave up his lodging in the +draper's shop and moved into the Mocenigo Palace; and the letter in which +Murray is advised that Hobhouse is on his way home continues thus: + + "It is the height of the Carnival, and I am in the _estrum_ and + agonies of a new intrigue with I don't exactly know whom or what, + except that she is insatiate of love, and won't take money, and has + light hair and blue eyes, which are not common here, and that I met + her at the Masque, and that when her mask is off, I am as wise as + ever. I shall make what I can of the remainder of my youth." + +A vow which he kept after a fashion as innumerable passages from +innumerable letters prove--Moore, Murray, and James Wedderburn Webster +receiving his confidences in turn. Venice, he assures the last named, "is +by no means the most regular and correct moral city in the universe;" and +he continues, describing the life there--not everybody's life, of course, +but the life with which he has chosen to associate himself: + + "Young and old--pretty and ugly--high and low--are employed in the + laudable practice of Love-making--and though most Beauty is found + amongst the middling and lower classes--this of course only renders + their amatory habits more universally diffused." + +Then to Moore there is talk of "a Venetian girl with large black eyes, a +face like Faustina's and the figure of a Juno--tall and energetic as a +Pythoness, with eyes flashing, and her dark eyes streaming in the +moonlight;" while to Murray there is a long account of the affair with +Margarita Cogni, the baker's wife, with whom the draper's wife disputed +publicly for Byron's favours: + + "Margarita threw back her veil, and replied in very explicit Venetian: + '_You_ are _not_ his _wife_: _I_ am _not_ his _wife_: _you_ are his + _Donna_ and _I_ am his _Donna_; _your_ husband is a cuckold, and + _mine_ is another. For the rest what right have you to reproach me? if + he prefers what is mine to what is yours, is it my fault? if you wish + to secure him, tie him to your petticoat-string; but do not think to + speak to me without a reply because you happen to be richer than I + am.' Having delivered this pretty piece of eloquence (which I relate + as it was translated to me by a bye-stander), she went on her way, + leaving a numerous audience with Madame Segati, to ponder at her + leisure on the dialogue between them." + +And Byron goes on to tell other stories of Margarita's jealousy, relating +that "she had inordinate self-love, and was not tolerant of other women +... so that, I being at the time somewhat promiscuous, there was great +confusion and demolition of head-dresses and handkerchiefs; and sometimes +my servants, in 'redding' the fray between her and other feminine persons, +received more knocks than acknowledgments for their peaceful endeavours." +And then follows the story of Margarita's flight from her husband's house +to Byron's palace, and her husband's application to the police to restore +her to him, and her second desertion of "that consumptive cuckold," as she +styled him in open court, and her final success in settling herself as a +fixture in Byron's establishment, without his formal consent, but with his +indolent acquiescence. + +She became his housekeeper, with the result that "the expenses were +reduced to less than half, and everybody did their duty better." But she +also had an ungovernable temper, suppressed all letters in a feminine +handwriting, threatened violence with a table-knife, and had to be +disarmed by Fletcher; so that Byron at last tired of her and told her to +go. She then went quietly downstairs and threw herself into the canal, but +was fished out, brought to with restoratives, and sent away a second time. +"And this," Byron concludes, "is the story of Margarita Cogni, as far as +it belongs to me." + +Like the story of Marianna Segati, it is hardly a story at all; and there +seem to have been several other stories very much like it running +concurrently with it. So, at all events, Byron told Augusta, who passed +the news on to Hodgson, saying that her brother had written "on the old +subject very uncomfortably, and on his present pursuits which are what one +would dread and expect; a string of low attachments." And if a picture of +the life, drawn by an eye-witness, be desired, one has only to turn to +Shelley's letter on the subject to Thomas Love Peacock. + +The subject of Shelley's comments is the point of view and "tone of mind" +of certain passages in "Childe Harold." He finds here "a kind of obstinate +and self-willed folly," and he continues: + + "Nothing can be less sublime than the true source of these + expressions of contempt and desperation. The fact is that, first, the + Italian women with whom he associates are, perhaps, the most + contemptible of all who exist under the moon--the most ignorant, the + most disgusting, the most bigoted; Countesses smell so strongly of + garlic that an ordinary Englishman cannot approach them. Well, L. B. + is familiar with the lowest sort of these women, the people his + gondolieri pick up in the streets. He associates with wretches who + seem almost to have lost the gait and physiognomy of man, and who do + not scruple to avow practices, which are not only not named, but I + believe, seldom even conceived in England. He says he disapproves, but + he endures. He is heartily and deeply discontented with himself; and + contemplating in the distorted mirror of his own thoughts the nature + and habits of man, what can he behold but objects of contempt and + despair?... And he has a certain degree of candour while you talk to + him, but, unfortunately, it does not outlast your departure. No, I do + not doubt, and for his sake I ought to hope, that his present career + must end soon in some violent circumstance." + +This, it is to be remarked, is the picture, not of an enemy, but of a +friend--one who already admired Byron as the greatest poet of his +generation, and was to learn to admire him as one of its greatest men: a +man capable of doing great things as well as dreaming them. Evidently, +therefore, it is, as far as it goes, a true picture, though there is +something to be added to it--something which blackens, and also something +which brightens it. + +Byron, to begin with, was, during this dark period, as careless of his +appearance as of his morals. It was not necessary to his facile conquests +among the Venetian courtesans that he should be either sober or +well-groomed. It may even, on the contrary, have been necessary that he +should drink too much and go unkempt in order to live comfortably on their +level. At all events he did drink too much--preferring fiery spirits to +the harmless Italian wines--and indulged a large appetite for +miscellaneous foods, and ceased his frequentation of the barber's shop; +with the result that the flesh, set free from its customary discipline, +revolted and spread abroad, and Hanson, who came to Byron at Venice to +settle about the sale of Newstead to Colonel Wildman, reported to Augusta +that he had found him "_fat_, immensely large, and his hair long." James +Wedderburn Webster, a few months later, heard of his "corpulence" as +"stupendous;" and Byron, while objecting to that epithet, was constrained +to admit that it was considerable. + +There were limits, however, to his excesses; and if misconduct was +sometimes three parts of life for him, there always remained the fourth +part to be devoted to other activities and interests. Even at his most +debased hours Byron never quite lost his love of literature and out-door +exercise, or his genius for friendship with men of like tastes with +himself, who judged him as they found him and not as his wife said that he +was; so that a picture contrasting pleasantly from Shelley's may be taken +from Consul-General Hoppner, whom Byron took almost daily in his gondola +to ride on the Lido: + + "Nothing could be more delightful than these rides on the Lido were to + me. We were from half to three quarters of an hour crossing the water, + during which his conversation was always most amusing and interesting. + Sometimes he would bring with him any new book he had received, and + read to me the passages which most struck him. Often he would repeat + to me whole stanzas of the poems he was engaged in writing, as he had + composed them on the preceding evening; and this was the more + interesting to me because I could frequently trace in them some idea + which he had started in our conversation of the preceding day, or some + remark the effect of which he had evidently been trying upon me. + Occasionally, too, he spoke of his own affairs, making me repeat all I + had heard with regard to him, and desiring that I would not spare him, + but let him know the worst that was said." + +The two reports must be read, of course, not as contradicting but as +supplementing one another; so that a just estimate of the actual situation +may not be very difficult to arrive at. + +Byron, it is important to remember, though he had so many adventures, was +only thirty years of age; and at thirty even a man of genius is still very +young; and a very young man is always apt, given the provocation, to +challenge public attention by going to the devil conspicuously and with a +blare of trumpets. He may or may not like, and therefore nurse, the idea +that he has tied his life up into such a knot that nothing but death--his +own death or another's--can untie it; but he is quite ready, as a rule, to +accept the tangle, if not to welcome it, as an excuse for a sensational +plunge into the abysms of debauchery. And this is especially so if his +passions are strong, and if his private affairs have been a public +pageant, watched, whether for praise or censure, by innumerable eyes. + +Both those conditions were fulfilled in Byron's case. Consequently he set +out to swagger to the devil--as cynical now as he had once been +sentimental--convinced, or at any rate affecting to be convinced, that, in +a so-called love affair, nothing mattered but the sensual satisfaction; +promiscuous in his habits and careless of his health--pleased to let Lady +Byron know that he found more pleasure in the society of the scum of the +stews of Venice than in hers--delighted also to think that the community +at large were shocked by his dissolute proceedings. We have just seen him +asking his sister to inform his wife what he was doing and how he was +living. His friend Harness, who had long since lost sight of him, assures +us that one of his great joys was to send defamatory paragraphs about +himself to the continental newspapers in the hope that the English press +would copy them, and that the world would believe him to be even worse +than he was. He was vicious, that is to say, and he was also, as the Duc +de Broglie called him, a "fanfaron of vice." + +It was a phase which he had to pass through, but no more; for such a man +could not possibly go on living such a life for long. The real risk for +his reputation was that he should die before the phase was finished, die +in a house which was little better than a brothel, with Venetian +prostitutes tearing each other's hair and scratching each other's faces by +his bedside. The end, indeed, might easily have come in that ignominious +fashion; for he had a recurrence of the malaria to which he had been +liable ever since his first journey to Greece, and, in view of the +liberties which he had taken with his constitution, it is rather +surprising that he recovered from it. Still, he did recover; and, whether +ill or well, he never quite lost sight of the better possibilities. + +His harem claimed his days, but not, as a rule, his nights. There came, +pretty regularly, an hour when the revelry ceased and the domestic female +companions were packed off to their several beds; and then pens and ink +and ardent spirits were set before Byron, and he wrote. It was, indeed, +just when his life was most dissolute that his genius was brightest. He +wrote "Manfred," the poem in which he responded to the challenge of his +calumniators, and showed that he could, if he chose, cast a halo round the +very charge with which they had sought to crush him. He wrote the Fourth +Canto of "Childe Harold," in which we see the last of the admired Byronic +pose. He began "Don Juan," the poem in which the sincere cynic, who has +come to cynicism by way of sentiment, passes with a light step from the +pathetic to the ribald, and, attacking all hypocrisies, from those of Mrs. +Grundy to those of the Holy Alliance, brushes them impatiently away like +cobwebs. + +Byron, in short, remained a fighter even in the midst of his +self-indulgences; and for the fighter there is always hope. +Self-indulgence brings satiety, but fighting does not, when it can be seen +that the blows are telling; and there could be no question of the effect +of Byron's blows. Though the sea rolled between him and his countrymen, he +shocked them as they had never been shocked before. Regarding him as the +wickedest of wicked men, they admitted that his was a wickedness that had +to be reckoned with, which was exactly what he wished and had intended. +Perhaps he shocked them more for the fun of the thing than as the +conscious champion of any particular cause; but that does not matter. The +greatest builders are nearly always those who are building better than +they know; and the building, at any rate, saved Byron from suffering too +much harm from the loose manner of his life, and helped him to await his +opportunity. + +"I am only a spectator upon earth, until a tenfold opportunity offers. It +may come yet," he wrote to Moore about this time. The passage is +enigmatical, and may only refer to some dream of vengeance cherished +against Lady Byron and her advisers. On the other hand, it may just as +well be a second reference to that resolution to "do something,"--something +which "like the cosmogony or creation of the world will puzzle the +philosophers of all ages,"--formulated in the letter to Moore already +quoted. The letter, at all events, is quickly followed by news of the +illness already mentioned, and of which there is a more or less particular +account in one of the letters to Murray: + + "You ask about my health: about the beginning of the year I was in a + state of great exhaustion, attended by such debility of stomach that + nothing remained upon it; and I was obliged to reform my 'way of + life,' which was conducting me from the Yellow leaf to the Ground, + with all deliberate speed. I am better in health and in morals, and + very much yours ever, + + "B." + +This change in the "way of life" meant, of course, in the first instance, +the restoration of the draper's and baker's wives to the baker and draper +respectively, and the return of the professional prostitutes to the places +in which they normally plied their trade. It also meant, in the second +place, the courtship of the Countess Guiccioli, a branch of the subject to +be dealt with in a separate chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +IN THE VENETIAN SALONS--INTRODUCTION TO COUNTESS GUICCIOLI + + +Even at the time when the draper's and baker's wives were quarrelling over +their claims to his attentions--even at the time when the baker's wife was +routing the rest of the harem, and threatening violence with +carving-knives--Byron never quite lost his foothold in the Venetian +salons. There were two such salons, such as they were--that of the +Countess Albrizzi, who aspired to be literary, and was styled the Venetian +de Staël, and that of the Countess Benzoni, who aspired, in modern +parlance, to be smart; and Byron was welcome in both of them, and could +even wound the feelings of either hostess by preferring the receptions of +her rival. + +Both hostesses knew, of course, how he spent the time which he did not +spend with them. They saw the draper's wife in his box at the theatre; +they saw the baker's wife frolicking with him at the Carnival; they heard +shocking stories of the "goings on" at the Mocenigo Palace. But they +considered that these matters were not their business--or at all events +did not concern them very much. They knew that English milords were mad, +and that men of genius were mad; and, as Byron was both of these things, +they could pardon him for possessing a double dose of eccentricity. +Moreover, in a country in which most wives as well as most husbands were +unfaithful, the fuss made about Lady Byron's grievances, whatever they +might be, appeared ridiculous. Why, they asked themselves, looking at the +matter from their Italian view-point, could not Lady Byron take a lover +and be happy instead of assuming the airs of a martyr, organising a +persecution, and hiring lawyers to throw mud? And they noted, too, that +Byron had picturesque ways of demonstrating that, though he followed +depraved courses, he was, at the bottom of his heart, disgusted with them, +and profoundly conscious of his capability of walking in sublimer paths. + + "An additional proof," says Moore, "that, in this short, daring career + of libertinism, he was but desperately seeking relief for a wronged + and mortified spirit, and + + '_What to us seem'd guilt might be but woe_,'-- + + is that, more than once, of an evening, when his house has been in the + possession of such visitants, he has been known to hurry away in his + gondola, and pass the greater part of the night upon the water, as if + hating to return to his home." + +Allowances, it was clear (to the ladies), must be made for a man (or at +all events for a milord and a poet) who, even when passing from the arms +of a draper's to a baker's wife, could thus search for, even if he could +not "set up," + + "_a mark of everlasting light + Above the howling senses' ebb and flow_." + +They made the allowances, therefore, showing that, even if they sometimes +disapproved, they were always ready to forgive when the footman threw open +the door and announced the return of the prodigal. To Countess Albrizzi, +on these occasions, "his face appeared tranquil like the ocean on a fine +Spring morning," while his hands "were as beautiful as if they had been +works of art," and his eyes "of the azure colour of the heavens, from +which they seemed to derive their origin." This, though Countess Albrizzi +was nearly sixty years of age; so that one can readily imagine the +impression made upon Countess Guiccioli, whose husband was sixty, but who +was herself little more than seventeen. + +[Illustration: _Countess Guiccioli._] + + "I became acquainted with Lord Byron," she wrote to Moore, "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." + +The girl Countess's maiden name was Teresa Gamba; and she had been married +to her elderly husband for his money. He was in his sixtieth year, and was +worth about £12,000 a year. In his youth he had collaborated with Alfieri +in the establishment of a national theatre. Now his principal interests +were political--as were also those of the Gamba family--and the police had +their eyes on them in consequence. His principal establishment was at +Ravenna; and he was on the point of starting for Ravenna, breaking the +journey at various mansions which he possessed upon the road, on the +evening on which his wife, acting "purely in obedience," to his +instructions, attended the reception at which she lost her heart. + +He removed her from Venice a very few days afterwards; but by that time +the mischief was done, and it was not the heart only that had been lost. +Byron had pressed his suit with impetuous precipitation, and Countess +Guiocioli had yielded--without, as it would seem, the least idea that +there could be any harm in her doing so. + +Morality, as has been said, is a matter partly of geography and partly of +chronology; and, in the Italy of those days, no woman got credit for +fidelity unless she had a lover, as well as a husband, to be faithful to. +So Madame Guiccioli punctuated her departure with fainting fits, and then +wrote Byron appealing letters, begging him to follow her as soon as she +had prepared the minds of her relatives to receive him. + +To do so occupied her until the first days of June; and the further +development of events may be best related in extracts from Byron's +letters: + + "About the 20th I leave Venice, to take a journey into Romagna; but + shall probably return in a month." + +This to Murray, as early as May 6. On May 20, we find him still going, but +not yet gone: "Next week I set out for Romagna, at least in all +probability." On June 2, a letter addressed to Hoppner from Padua shows +that he has started, but that, the favours he sought having been accorded +to him at Venice, he is not very anxious to take a hot and dusty journey +for the purpose of following up the intrigue: + + "Now to go to Cuckold a Papal Count, who, like Candide, has already + been 'the death of two men, one of whom was a priest,' in his own + house is rather too much for my modesty, when there are several other + places at least as good for the purpose. She says they must go to + Bologna in the middle of June, and why the devil then drag me to + Ravenna? However I shall determine nothing till I get to Bologna, and + probably take some time to decide when I am there, so that, the Gods + willing, you may probably see me again soon. The Charmer forgets that + a man may be whistled anywhere _before_, but that _after_, a journey + in an Italian June is a Conscription, and therefore she should have + been less liberal in Venice, or less exigent at Ravenna." + +That letter is the first which throws light on the vexed question whether +Byron really loved Madame Guiccioli, or merely viewed her as an eligible +mistress. It is to be observed, however, that his conduct was less cynical +than his correspondence, and that the Countess, on her part, saw no reason +for suspecting insincerity. "I shall stay but a few days at Bologna," is +his announcement when he gets there; and the Countess relates his arrival: + + "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 ... while I, attacked by a consumptive + complaint, which had its origin from the moment of my quitting Venice, + appeared on the point of death.... 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 he would ever + see me again, he replied, if such were the case, he hoped that he + should die also; which circumstance, being repeated, revealed the + object of his journey." + +The narrative adds that Count Guiccioli himself begged Byron to call in +the hope that his society might be beneficial to his wife's health; and it +is, at all events, certain that Byron's arrival was followed by a +remarkably rapid recovery, explicable from the fact, set forth by Byron, +that her complaint, after all, was not consumption but a "fausse couche." +The husband's attitude, however, puzzled him. "If I come away with a +Stiletto in my gizzard some fine afternoon," he writes, "I shall not be +astonished;" and he proceeds: + + "I cannot make _him_ out at all, he visits me frequently, and takes me + out (like Whittington the Lord Mayor) in a coach and _six_ horses.... + By the aid of a Priest, a Chambermaid, a young negro-boy, and a female + friend, we are enabled to carry on our unlawful loves, as far as they + can well go, though generally with some peril, especially as the + female friend and priest are at present out of town for some days, so + that some of the precautions devolve upon the Maid and Negro." + +That, it will be agreed, is rather the language of Don Juan than of a +really devout lover; but there is more of the lover and less of the Don +Juan in the letters which succeed. In the letter to Murray, for instance, +dated June 29: + + "I see my _Dama_ every day at the proper and improper hours; but I + feel seriously uneasy about her health, which seems very precarious. + In losing her I should lose a being who has run great risks on my + account, and whom I have every reason to love, but I must not think + this possible. I do not know what I _should_ do if she died, but I + ought to blow my brains out, and I hope that I should. Her husband is + a very polite personage, but I wish he would not carry me out in his + Coach and Six, like Whittington and his Cat." + +And still more in a letter to Hoppner dated July 2: + + "If anything happens to my present _Amica_, I have done with passion + for ever, it is my _last_ love. As to libertinism, I have sickened + myself of that, as was natural in the way I went on, and have at least + derived that advantage from vice, to _love_ in the better sense of the + word. _This_ will be my last adventure. I can hope no more to inspire + attachment, and I trust never again to feel it." + +But then, in a letter to Murray, dated August 9, there is a relapse and a +change of tone: + + "My 'Mistress dear,' who hath 'fed my heart upon smiles and wine' for + the last two months, set out for Bologna with her husband this + morning, and it seems that I follow him at three to-morrow morning. I + cannot tell how our romance will end, but it hath gone on hitherto + most erotically--such perils and escapes--Juan's are a child's play in + comparison." + +Gallantry, not passion, is the note there; but, on the other hand, passion +and not gallantry prevails in the letter to the Countess, written on a +blank page of her copy of "Corinne," which Byron had read in her garden in +her absence: + + "My destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, seventeen years of + age, and two out of a convent. I wish that you had stayed there, with + all my heart, or, at least, that I had never met you in your married + state. + + "But all this is too late. I love you and you love me--at least you + _say so_, and _act_ as if you _did_ so, which last is a great + consolation in all events. But _I_ more than love you, and cannot + cease to love you." + + "Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and the ocean divide us--but + they never will unless you _wish_ it." + +A series of contradictions with which we must be content to be perplexed; +though perhaps they indicate nothing except that Byron changed his mind +from time to time, and was more in love on some days than on others. And +that, of course, it may be urged, is pretty much the same as saying that +he was not, in the fullest sense of the words, in love at all. + +That his feelings for the Countess differed from his feelings for the +wives of the baker and the draper is, indeed, clear enough. Otherwise he +would not have drawn the invidious distinction which we have seen him +drawing between the "libertinism" of the earlier intrigues and the +"romance" of the later one. Those passions had depended solely on the +senses; into this one sentiment and intellectual sympathy entered. That is +what his biographers are thinking of when they say that the new attachment +either lifted him out of the mire or, at least, prevented him from +slipping back into it. That, in particular, is what Shelley meant when he +wrote of Byron as "greatly improved in every respect" and apparently +becoming "a virtuous man," and added, by way of explanation: "The +connection with La Guiccioli has been an inestimable benefit to him." + +But that, after all merely signifies that Byron, having a lady instead of +a loose woman for his mistress, had to forswear sack and live cleanly--a +thing which the painful effects of his excesses on his health had already +disposed him to do. It does not signify that he had found a love which +filled his life, or healed his wounds, or effaced the memories of his +earlier loves; and there is, in fact, a poem of the period to which Mr. +Richard Edgcumbe points as circumstantial proof that, even when he was +paying his suit to Madame Guiccioli, Byron's heart was in England, with +Mary Chaworth. + + * * * * * + +Three years had passed since he had seen her. Her mind had been +temporarily deranged by her troubles, but she had recovered. She had been +reconciled to her husband, and was living with him at Colwick Hall, near +Nottingham. Close to the walls of that old mansion flows the river Trent; +and Byron wrote the lines beginning: + + "_River that rollest by the ancient walls, + Where dwells the Lady of my love, when she + Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls + A faint and fleeting memory of me._" + +The common supposition is that the river invoked is the Po, and that the +lady referred to is Madame Guiccioli; but that can hardly be. Seeing that +Madame Guiccioli was, at this time, beseeching Byron to come to her arms +at Ravenna, her recollection of him could hardly be described as "fair and +fleeting." The allusion is evidently to an anterior passion; and Madame +Guiccioli's place in the poem comes in a later stanza: + + "_My blood is all meridian: were it not, + I had not left my clime, nor should I be, + In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot, + A slave again to Love--at least of thee._" + +And then again: + + "_A stranger loves the Lady of the land, + Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood + Is all meridian, as if never fanned + By the bleak wind that chills the polar flood._ + + "_'Tis vain to struggle--let me perish young-- + Live as I lived, and love as I have loved: + To dust if I return, from dust I sprung, + And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved._" + +The conclusion here clearly is that Byron is committed to passion because +his temperament compels it, and is very grateful to Madame Guiccioli for +loving him, but that if Mary Chaworth should ever lift a little finger and +beckon him, he would leave Madame Guiccioli and go to her. + +So Mr. Edgcumbe argues; and he makes out his case--a case which we shall +find nothing to contradict, and something to confirm when we get back to +our story. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +BYRON'S RELATIONS WITH THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI AND HER HUSBAND AT RAVENNA + + +Countess Guiccioli speaks of Byron's regard for her as "the serious +attachment which he had wished to avoid, but which had mastered his whole +heart, and induced him to live an isolated life with the person he loved +in a town of Romagna, far from all that could flatter his vanity and from +all intercourse with his countrymen." The account is not altogether +inaccurate, but it omits one important fact: the Countess's own resolute +insistence that Byron's society was essential to her happiness and even to +her life. + +At first, it seems clear, his sole objective was the seduction of his +neighbour's wife. He was engaged, as he thought, upon an affair not of +sentiment but of gallantry; and he had no idea that his neighbour's wife, +having consented to be seduced, would expect him to dance attendance on +her for ever afterwards. So much seems evident from the letter in which he +complains of being dragged to Ravenna in a blazing Italian June. His +mistress, however, had compelled him to come by pleading illness; and she +did not scruple to repeat that plea as often as she found any difficulty +in getting her own way. "I am ill--so ill. Send for Lord Byron or I shall +die;" that was the refrain which helped her to reorganise her life. + +Having joined her at Ravenna, Byron, as we have seen, accompanied her to +Bologna. It was at Bologna that he wrote the love letter, quoted in the +preceding chapter, in Madame Guiccioli's copy of "Corinne." From Bologna, +too, he wrote to Murray, asking him to use his influence to procure Count +Guiccioli a nomination as British Vice-Consul--an unsalaried office which +would entitle him to British protection in the event of political +disturbances; and at Bologna, finally, occurred Countess Guiccioli's +second diplomatic indisposition. + + "Some business," she told Moore, "having called Count Guiccioli to + Ravenna, I was obliged by the state of my health, instead of + accompanying him, to return to Venice, and he consented that Lord + Byron should be the companion of my journey. We left Bologna on + September 15.... When I arrived at Venice, the physicians ordered that + I should try the country air; and Lord Byron, having a Villa at La + Mira, gave it up to me, and came to reside there with me. At this + place we passed the Autumn." + +At this place, too, the plot began to thicken in a manner which throws +light upon Count Guiccioli's character. He wrote proposing that Byron +should lend him £1000; and when Byron refused to do anything of the kind, +seeing that the Count was a richer man than he, he demanded that the +Countess should return to him; so that letters of October 29 and November +8 contain these significant passages: + + "Count G. comes to Venice next week, and I am requested to consign his + wife to him, which shall be done--with all her linen." + + "Count G. has arrived in Venice, and has presented his spouse (who had + preceded him two months for her health and the prescriptions of Dr. + Aglietti) with a paper of conditions, regulations of hours and conduct + and morals, &c., which he insists on her accepting, and she persists + in refusing. I am expressly, it would seem, excluded by this treaty, + as an indispensable preliminary; so that they are in high discussion, + and what the result may be I know not, particularly as they are + consulting friends." + +The view of the friends--that is to say of the Italy of the period--was +that morals were of little but appearances of great importance. Married +women might have lovers--one lover at a time--but their amours must be +conducted in their own homes and under their husbands' patronage. By +running away with their lovers they put themselves in the wrong; and the +men who ran away with them showed themselves ignorant of the manners of +good society; so that Countess Belzoni, who knew all about the draper's +wife and the baker's wife and the promiscuous debaucheries of the +Mocenigo Palace, remarked to Moore, who was passing through Venice at the +time: "It is such a pity, you know. Until he did that, he had been +behaving with such perfect propriety." + +So the debate proceeded; the girl wife and the sexagenarian husband giving +each other pieces of their several minds, and the friends offering good +advice to both of them, while Byron, who was excluded from the Council +Chamber, sat below and wrote to Murray: + + "As I tell you that the Guiccioli business is on the eve of exploding + in one way or the other, I will just add that, without attempting to + influence the decision of the Contessa, a good deal depends upon it. + If she and her husband make it up you will, perhaps, see me in England + sooner than you expect; if not, I shall retire with her to France or + America, change my name, and live a quiet provincial life. All this + may seem odd, but I have got the poor girl into a scrape; and as + neither her birth, nor her rank, nor her connections by birth or + marriage are inferior to my own, I am in honour bound to support her + through: besides, she is a very pretty woman--ask Moore--and not yet + one and twenty." + +That, once again, is not the language of a man whom an invincible passion +has swept off his feet. It is the language of the man who lets himself be +loved rather than of the man who loves--the man who will preserve an even +mind whether he retains his mistress or loses her, and whose affection for +her only carries him to the point of saying that, whatever happens, at any +rate he will not treat her badly. It is a point, at any rate, beyond that +to which his affection for Miss Clairmont ever carried him; but it is +hardly the furthest point to which it is possible for love to go. + + * * * * * + +"With some difficulty, and many internal struggles, I reconciled the lady +with her lord," is the language in which Byron relates the upshot of the +negotiations. "I think," he continues, "of setting out for England by the +Tyrol in a few days"; but only six days later he has changed his plans. +"Pray," he then writes to Murray, "let my sister be informed that I am not +coming as I intended: I have not the courage to tell her so myself, at +least not yet; but I will soon, _with the reasons_." And about the reasons +there is, of course, no mystery. + +Count Guiccioli, having gained the day, had carried his wife off to +Ravenna, and Byron had missed her more than he had expected. Hoppner +writes of him as "very much out of spirits, owing to Madame Guiccioli's +departure, and out of humour with everybody and everything around him." He +had had his belongings packed for his return to England, and had even +dressed for the journey, but had changed his mind, and unpacked and +undressed again at the last minute; and Madame Guiccioli, in the meantime, +had had her third diplomatic indisposition, and threatened yet again to +die unless Byron were brought to her. So that presently, on January 2, +1820, we find Byron back again at Ravenna, and giving Moore a curious +explanation of his movements: + + "After her arrival at Ravenna the Guiccioli fell ill again too; and at + last her father (who had, all along, opposed the _liaison_ most + violently till now) wrote to me to say that she was in such a state + that _he_ begged me to come and see her--and that her husband had + acquiesced, in consequence of her relapse, and that _he_ (her father) + would guarantee all this, and that there would be no further scenes in + consequence between them, and that I should not be compromised in any + way. I set out soon after and have been here ever since. I found her a + good deal altered, but getting better." + +At first he seems to have supposed that he was merely a visitor like +another; and a letter to Hoppner, dated January 20, shows him uncertain as +to the duration of his stay: + + "I may stay a day, a week, a year, all my life; but all this depends + upon what I can neither see nor foresee. I came because I was called, + and will go the moment that I perceive what may render my departure + proper. My attachment has neither the blindness of the beginning, nor + the microscopic accuracy of the close to such _liaisons_; but 'time + and the hour' must decide upon what I do." + +Here, yet again, one detects a note of hesitation incompatible with +perfect love. The very letter, however, which expresses the hesitations +also contains directions for the forwarding of his furniture, which looks +as though Byron already foresaw and accepted his fate. He was destined, in +fact, to live with the household of the Guicciolis on the same terms on +which he had previously lived with the household of the Segatis--engaging +an apartment in their mansion, and paying a rent to the husband while +making love to the wife--and to be what the Italians call a _cicisbeo_ and +the English a tame cat. He admits, in various letters, that that is his +position, and that he does not altogether like it. "I can't say," he tells +Hobhouse, "that I don't feel the degradation;" but he nevertheless submits +to it, describing himself to Hoppner as "drilling very hard to learn how +to double a shawl," and giving the same correspondent a graphic picture of +his first appearance in his new character: + + "The G.'s object appeared to be to parade her foreign lover as much as + possible, and, faith, if she seemed to glory in the scandal, it was + not for me to be ashamed of it. Nobody seemed surprised; all the + women, on the contrary, were, as it were, delighted with the excellent + example. The Vice-legate, and all the other Vices, were as polite as + could be; and I, who had acted on the reserve, was fairly obliged to + take the lady under my arm, and look as much like a Cicisbeo as I + could on so short a notice, to say nothing of the embarrassment of a + cocked hat and sword, much more formidable to me than it ever will be + to the enemy." + +A picture in which no one's part is dignified, and no one's emotions are +strained to a tense pitch, but everybody is happy and comfortable in an +easy-going way. One gets the same impression from Byron's reply to +Murray's suggestion that he should write "a volume of manners, &c. on +Italy." There are many reasons, he says, why he does not care to touch +that subject in print; but he assures Murray privately that the Italian +morality, though widely different from the English, has nevertheless "its +rules and its fitnesses and decorums." The women "exact fidelity from a +lover as a debt of honour, while they pay the husband as a tradesman, that +is not at all." At the same time, he adds, "the greatest outward respect +is to be paid to the husbands, not only by the ladies, but by their +_serventi_," so that "you would suppose them relations," and might imagine +the _servente_ to be "one adopted into the family." + +But this was an Arcadian state of things too good to last. Exactly how or +why it came to an end one does not know; but probably because, while the +Countess was too vehemently in love to control the expression of her +feelings, Byron's European importance overshadowed her husband, made him +feel foolish, and challenged him to assert himself. Whatever the reason, +the arrangement only remained idyllic for about four months, and then, in +May 1821, there began to be talk of divorce, "on account of our having +been taken together _quasi_ in the fact, and, what is worse, that she does +not _deny_ it." + +She was so far from denying it, indeed, that she protested that it was a +shame that she should be the only woman in Romagna who was not allowed to +have a lover, and declared that, unless her husband did allow her to have +a lover, she would not live with him. Her family took her part, saying +that her husband, having tolerated her infidelity for so long, had +forfeited, his right to make a fuss about it. The ladies of Ravenna, and +the populace, also made the business theirs, and supported the lovers, on +general principles, because they were of the age for love and the husband +was not, and also because Count Guiccioli was an unpleasant person and +unpopular. + +He was, indeed, not only unpleasant and unpopular, but also reputed to be +a desperate and dangerous character, careful, indeed, of his own elderly +skin, but quite capable of hiring bravos to assassinate those who crossed +his path. "Warning was given me," Byron writes to Moore, "not to take such +long rides in the Pine Forest without being on my guard;" and again: + + "The principal security is that he has not the courage to spend twenty + scudi--the average price of a clean-handed bravo--otherwise there is + no want of opportunity, for I ride about the woods every evening, with + one servant, and sometimes an acquaintance, who latterly looks a + little queer in solitary bits of bushes." + +The peril of violence may have been the greater because the Count could +not find a lawyer willing to take up his case; the advocates declining, as +one man, to act for him on the ground that he was either a fool or a +knave--a fool if he had been unaware of the liaison and a knave if he had +connived at it and "waited for some bad end to divulge it." The stiletto, +however, remained in its sheath, and the matter, after all, was settled in +the Courts. The Countess, supported by her family, applied for the +separation which she had previously resisted; and the Count, on his part, +resisted the separation which he had previously demanded, raising +particular objections to the claim that he should pay alimony. + +But he had to pay it. The papal Court decreed a separation, fixing Madame +Guiccioli's allowance at £200 a year, but, at the same time, ordained with +that indifference to liberty and justice which distinguishes Churches +whenever they attain temporal power, that the wife whose injuries it was +professing to redress, should not be allowed to live with her lover, but +must either reside in the house of her parents or get her to a nunnery. +She went on July 16 to a villa about fifteen miles from Ravenna. Byron +visited her there twice a month, but continued to occupy his hired +apartment in her husband's house--a fact which by itself sufficiently +justifies his reiterated protests that the manners and customs of Italy +are beyond the comprehension of the English. A letter to Moore dated +August 31 gives us his own view of his proceedings as well as of the +relations which he conceives to subsist between genius and disorder: + + "I verily believe that nor you nor any man of poetical temperament can + avoid a strong passion of some kind. It is the poetry of life. What + should I have known or written had I been a quiet mercantile + politician or a lord-in-waiting? A man must travel and turmoil, or + there is no existence. Besides, I only meant to be a Cavalier + Servente, and had no idea it would turn out a romance in the Anglo + fashion." + +So that we find Byron launched yet again on a new way of life--the last +before his final and famous transference of his energies from love to +revolutionary politics. + +Evidently it was a relief to him to find himself a lover instead of a +cavaliere servente--even at the risk of having a dagger planted, on some +dark night, between his shoulder blades. Evidently, too, he loved "the +lady whom I serve" better than he had loved her at the beginning of the +liaison, and better than he was to love her towards the end of it. But, +even so, it was no absorbing love that possessed him--no love that +diverted his thoughts from morbid introspection, or made him feel that, +merely by loving, he had fulfilled his destiny and played a worthy part in +life. On the contrary he could write in the Diary which he then kept for +six weeks or so: "I go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having lived +so long, and to so little purpose;" and he could compose the well-known +epigram: + + _Through life's road, so dim and dirty, + I have dragged to three-and-thirty. + What have these years left to me? + Nothing--except thirty-three._ + +Nationalism, movements, risings, revolutions, and the rest of it might +well seem a welcome excitement to a man so _blasé_ and so inured to +sensations that love, though he vowed that he "loved entirely" could not +lift him to a more exalted frame of mind than that; and his attachment to +Madame Guiccioli may well have gained an element of permanence from the +fact that she belonged to a family of conspirators in league against +priests and kings. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITIES--REMOVAL FROM RAVENNA TO PISA + + +The origin of Byron's revolutionary opinions is wrapped in mystery. He +certainly was not born a revolutionist; there is no record of his becoming +one for definite reasons at any definite moment of time; and if it were +alleged that he assumed revolutionism for the sake of swagger and effect, +or had it thrust upon him by the household of the Gambas, the +propositions, though pretty obviously untrue, could not very easily be +disproved. + +What he chiefly lacked in the character of revolutionist was the fine +enthusiasm of the men of 1789, their pathetic belief in the perfectibility +of human nature, and their zeal for equality and fraternity as things of +equal account with liberty. His view of human nature was thoroughly +cynical, and he was far too proudly conscious of his own place in the +social hierarchy to aspire to be merely citizen Byron in a world from +which all honorific distinctions had disappeared. Indeed we find him, in +some of his letters, actually gibing at Hobhouse because his activities as +a political agitator have brought him into contact with ill-bred +associates; and that, as will be admitted, is a strange tone for a sincere +revolutionist to take. + +Nor was Byron ever an argumentative revolutionist of the school of the +philosophic Radicals. Neither in his letters nor in his other writings +does he give reasons for his revolutionary faith. He presents himself +there as one who is a revolutionist as a matter of course--one to whom it +could not possibly occur to be anything but a revolutionist. As for his +motives, he assumes that we know them, or that they do not concern us, or +else he leaves us to guess them, or to infer them from our general +knowledge of his character and circumstances. + +Apparently, since guess-work is our resource, he was a Revolutionist in +Italy for much the same reason for which he had been a protector of small +boys at Harrow. The same generous instinct which had made him hate bullies +then made him hate oppressors now; and he hated them the more because he +perceived that oppression was buttressed by hypocrisy. In particular he +saw the Italians bullied by the Austrians in the name of the so-called +Holy Alliance--that unpleasant group of potentates whose fanaticism was +exploited by the cunning of Metternich, and who invoked the name of God +and the principle of divine right for the crushing of national +aspirations. That was enough to set him now sighing for "a forty-parson +power" to "snuffle the praises of the Holy Three," now proposing that the +same Three should be "shipped off to Senegal," and to enlist his +sympathies on the Italian side. The rest depended upon circumstances; and +the determining circumstances were that he was an active man on a loose +end, and that his lot was cast among conspirators. + +He was ready to conspire because of the trend of his sympathies; he +actually conspired, in the first instance, partly to please the Gambas, +and partly because he was bored; and his appetite grew with what it fed +upon. It was not merely that conspiracy furnished him with occupation--the +cause at the same time furnished him with an ideal, of which he was +beginning to feel the need. Living for himself he had made a mess of his +life; and his relations with Madame Guiccioli did not conceal the fact +from him. His love for her was a pastime, and no more an end in itself +than his attachment to the draper's wife at Venice. But he felt the need +of some end in itself, unrelated to his personal concerns, to round off +his life, give it unity and consistency, and make it a progressive drama +instead of a mere series of unrelated incidents; and he found that end in +espousing the cause of oppressed nationalities. + +No doubt there were other influences simultaneously at work. The most +effective altruist is always something of an egoist as well; and it is +likely enough that Byron heard the promptings of personal ambition as well +as the bitter cry of outcast peoples. His place in a revolutionary army +could not be that of a private soldier--he was bound to be its picturesque +figure-head if not its actual leader; and that meant much at a time when +all the Liberals of Europe closely followed every attempt to shake off the +Austrian, or the Prussian, or the Papal yoke. So that here was his clear +chance to rehabilitate himself--to issue from his obscure retreat in a +sudden blaze of glory, and set the prophets saying that the stone which +the builders rejected had become the head-stone of the corner. But, +however that may be, and however much or little that object may have been +present to his mind, it is at all events from the time of his active +association with revolutionary movements that Byron's life in exile begins +to acquire seriousness and dignity. + +So much in broad outline. The details, when we come to look for them, are +obscure, insignificant, and disappointing. He joined the Carbonari, and +was made the head of one of their sections--the Capo of the Americani was +his official designation; but the Carbonari, though a furious, were a +feeble folk. They had signs, and passwords, and secret meeting-places in +the forest, and they whispered any quantity of sedition; but their secrets +were "secrets de Polichinelle." Spies lurked behind every door and +listened at every keyhole, and their intentions were better known to the +police than to themselves. + +A rising was proposed and even planned. The poet's letters to his +publisher are full of dark references to the terrible things about to +happen. A row is imminent, and he means to be in the thick of it. Heads +are likely to be broken, and his own shall be risked with the rest. All +other projects must be postponed to that contingency. He cannot even come +to England as he had intended, to attend to his private affairs. And so +on, in a series of letters, in one of which we find the significantly +prophetic question, honoured with a paragraph to itself: "What thinkst +thou of Greece?" It is the beginning, at last, of the awakening of Byron's +sterner and more serious self--the first occasion on which we see the +fierce joys of battle clearly meaning more to him than the soft delights +of love. + +Only there was to be no battle this time, and hardly even a skirmish, and, +in fact, very little beyond a scare. The Austrians were watching the +Romagnese border much as a cat watches a mouse-hole. A week or so before +the proposed insurrection was to have taken place, an Austrian army +crossed the Po, and the proposed insurgents scattered and hid themselves. +It only remained for the Government to arrest those of them whom it +desired to keep under lock and key, and expel those whom it preferred to +get rid of. + +Byron himself might very well have been lodged in an Austrian or Papal +gaol through a scurvy trick played on him by some of the conspirators. He +had provided a number of them with arms at his expense; and then the +decree went forth that all persons found in possession of arms were to be +treated as rebels. Whereupon the chicken-hearted crew came running to the +Guiccioli Palace and begged Byron to take back his muskets. He was out at +the time, but returned from his ride to find his apartment turned into an +armoury; and it still remains uncertain whether he escaped molestation, +as he thought, because his servants did not betray him, or, as seems more +probable, because the Government preferred not to have such an +embarrassing prisoner on their hands. + +If he would have been embarrassing as a prisoner, however, he was equally +embarrassing as a resident; and, as his expulsion might have made a noise, +it was decided to manoeuvre him out of the country by expelling the +Gambas. Where they went Madame Guiccioli would have to go too, and where +she went Byron might be expected to follow. We get his version of the +story, together with a glimpse at his feelings, and at the new struggle in +his mind between love and ambition, in a letter to Moore dated September +19, 1821; + + "I am all in the sweat, dust, and blasphemy of an universal packing of + all my things, furniture &c., for Pisa, whither I go for the winter. + The cause has been the exile of all my fellow Carbonics, and, amongst + them, of the whole family of Madame G.; who, you know, was divorced + from her husband, last week, 'on account of P. P. clerk of this + parish,' and who is obliged to join her family and relatives, now in + exile there, to avoid being shut up in a monastery, because the Pope's + decree of separation required her to reside in _casa paterna_, or + else, for decorum's sake, in a convent. As I could not say, with + Hamlet, 'Get thee to a nunnery,' I am preparing to follow them. + + "It is awful work, this love, and prevents all a man's projects of + good or glory. I wanted to go to Greece lately (as everything seems up + here), with her brother, who is a very fine, brave fellow (I have seen + him put to the proof) and wild about liberty. But the tears of a woman + who has left her husband for a man, and the weakness of one's own + heart, are paramount to these projects, and I can hardly indulge + them." + +Greece again, it will be observed, and an indication that Byron is at last +more anxious to be up and doing something as the champion of desperate +causes than to lie bound with silken chains about the feet of a mistress! +A proof, too, that his mistress, on her part, already perceiving that +causes may be her rivals, feels the need of working on his feelings with +her tears! Moore prints the letters in which she appeals to him in the +first excitement of her passions and apprehensions: "Help me, my dear +Byron, for I am in a situation most terrible; and without you I can +resolve upon nothing." She has received, it seems, a passport, and also an +intimation that she must either return to her husband or go to a convent. +Not suspecting that passport and intimation came from the same source, she +talks of the necessity of escaping by night lest the passport should be +taken from her. She is in despair, and cannot bear the thought of never +seeing Byron again. If that is to be the result of quitting Romagna, then +she will remain and let them immure her, regarding that as the less +melancholy fate. And so forth, in language which may be merely +hysterical, but more probably indicates a waning confidence in her lover. + +But her tears prevailed. Byron, it is true, lingered at Ravenna for some +months after her departure; but that is a circumstance of which we must +not make too much. He had his apartment at Ravenna; he had his belongings +about him; and they were considerable, including not only furniture, and +books, and manuscripts, and horses, and carriages, and dogs and cats, but +a large menagerie of miscellaneous live-stock. He could hardly be expected +to go until he and the Gambas had arranged where to settle; and their +arrangements called for much discussion and balancing of pros and cons. + +It was during the time of indecision that Shelley came, at his request, to +visit him; and we may take Shelley's letters to Peacock as our next +testimony to his way of life. His establishment, Shelley reports, +"consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, five +cats, an eagle, a crow and a falcon;" and in a postscript he adds: "I find +that my enumeration of the animals in this Circæan Palace was defective, +and that in a material point. I have just met, on the grand staircase, +five peacocks, two guinea-hens, and an Egyptian crane." Then he proceeds: + + "Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual + custom (but one must sleep or die, like Southey's sea-snake in + _Kehama_) at twelve. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From + six till eight we gallop through the pine forests which divide Ravenna + from the sea. We then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till + six in the morning." + +They gossiped about many things, and considered, among other matters, what +would be the best place for Byron, the Gambas, and Madame Guiccioli to +live in. Switzerland had been proposed, but Shelley urged objections which +Byron admitted to be sound. Switzerland was "little fitted for him." The +English colonies would be likely to "torment him as they did before," +ostentatiously sending him to Coventry, and then spying on him when there. +The consequence of his exasperation might be "a relapse of libertinism," a +return to the Venetian way of life, "which he says he plunged into not +from taste, but from despair." + +Perhaps the last-named danger was rather less than Shelley supposed; for +the drapers' and bakers' wives of Geneva and the Canton of Vaud are +neither so attractive nor so accommodating as those of Venice; but, on the +whole, this wayward sprite, as he is commonly esteemed--so wayward that he +had been expelled from his University and had sacrificed a large fortune +to an unnecessary quarrel with his father--showed common sense and worldly +wisdom in his advice. He showed so much of it, indeed, and showed it so +clearly, that Byron begged him to write to Madame Guiccioli and put the +case to her; which he duly did "in lame Italian," eliciting an answer +very eloquent of his correspondent's growing anxiety as to her hold upon +Byron's heart. Madame Guiccioli agreed to the proposal, but then begged a +favour: "Pray do not leave Ravenna without taking Milord with you." + +But that, of course, was rather too much to ask. The most that Shelley +could promise was that he would undertake every arrangement on Byron's +behalf for his establishment at Pisa, and would then "assail him with +importunities," if these should be necessary, to rejoin his mistress; and +it seems that they were necessary, for two months or more later, we find +Shelley writing to him: "When may we expect you? The Countess G. is very +patient, though sometimes she seems apprehensive that you will never leave +Ravenna." + +The Countess, indeed, in supplying Moore with biographical material, +showed herself at her wit's end to devise excuses for Byron's delay, not +too wounding to her vanity; and Shelley, at the time, showed a tendency to +reconsider his estimate of their relations: "La Guiccioli," he wrote in +October, "is a very pretty, sentimental, innocent Italian, who has +sacrificed an immense fortune for the sake of Lord Byron, and who, if I +know anything of my friend, of her, and of human nature, will hereafter +have plenty of leisure and opportunity to repent her rashness." It was a +harsh judgment, based in part, no doubt, on what Shelley had been told of +Byron's treatment of Miss Clairmont; but it indicated a real danger-spot. + +Byron had ceased to love passionately, if he had ever done so, and he did +not love blindly. We need not, indeed, accept Miss Clairmont's statement +that, at the end, he was "sick to death of Madame Guiccioli," and that it +was chiefly for the purpose of escaping from her that he joined the Greek +insurgents. That utterance was the voice of a jealous woman endeavouring +to appease her own affronted pride. But though there was no question of +Byron's giving Madame Guiccioli a rival of her own sex, she was now +destined to encounter the rivalry, hardly less serious, of his political +interests and ambitions. All through the period of his residence at +Ravenna things had been working towards that conclusion; and the +circumstances of the removal showed how near they had now got to it. + + "We were divided in choice," Byron wrote to Moore, "between + Switzerland and Tuscany, and I gave my vote for Pisa, as nearer the + Mediterranean, which I love for the sake of the shores which it + washes, and for my young recollections of 1809. Switzerland is a curst + selfish, swinish country of brutes, placed in the most romantic region + of the world. I never could bear the inhabitants, and still less their + English visitors; for which reason, after writing for some information + about houses, upon hearing that there was a colony of English all over + the cantons of Geneva, &c., I immediately gave up the thought, and + persuaded the Gambas to do the same." + +Which is true enough as far as it goes, but is something less than the +whole truth, since it omits to mention the increasing seriousness in +Byron's character, and his new tendency to transfer the bitterness of his +indignation from the authors of his own wrongs to the political tyrants of +the political school of Metternich. + +Switzerland could afford no scope, in that direction, for his energies. +The Swiss, it is true, have their revolutions from time to time; but these +are petty and trivial. Strangers have a difficulty in understanding the +points at issue; and the interference of strangers is not solicited. The +revolutionist from abroad is only welcome in Switzerland when he is +resting, or when a price is put upon his head--neither of which conditions +Byron could claim to fulfil. In Italy, however, and over against Greece, +he would be in the midst of the most hospitable revolutionists in the +world; and his chance of passing from love and literature to fighting and +statesmanship was bound to come to him if he would wait for it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE TRIVIAL ROUND AT PISA + + +From Ravenna to Pisa, from Pisa to Genoa, from Genoa to Cephalonia, from +Cephalonia to Missolonghi and an untimely death in a great cause still +very far from victory--these are the remaining stages of the pilgrimage. +We have a cloud of witnesses--Shelley, Leigh Hunt, Trelawny, Medwin, Lady +Blessington, and others; but only the merest fragment of their long +depositions can be presented here. + +The life at Pisa, where Byron at last arrived in November 1822, was, at +first, quite commonplace and uneventful. One reads of a trivial round of +functions rather than of duties punctually discharged at the same hour of +every day. Byron, we gather, lay late in bed, but ultimately rose, and ate +biscuits and drank soda-water, and received the visits of his English +acquaintances, and rode out with them to an inn, and practised shooting at +a mark, and then rode home again. After that came dinner, and a call upon +the Gambas, and an interview with Madame Guiccioli; and then, that +ceremony finished, the late hours of the night and early hours of the +morning were devoted, sometimes to conversation, but more often to +literary composition. That was all; and it would have seemed little +enough if the witnesses had not taken the view that, whatever Byron did, +he was giving a performance, and that whoever saw him do it was a +privileged spectator at a private view and under an obligation to report +the spectacle. + +They did take that view, however, and devoted themselves, in the modern +phraseology, to "interviewing" Byron. He was so different from them--so +much greater--and so much more interesting--that they could no more +converse with him lightly, on common topics and on equal terms, than they +could so converse with a monster advertised as the leading attraction of a +freak museum. Shelley, indeed, might do so, being his friend as well as +his admirer, and one who moved naturally on the same plane of thought; but +the others could only approach him humbly from below, sit at his feet, and +talk to him about himself. After his back was turned, they might presume +to quiz and satirise--Leigh Hunt did so, and so, too, to a less extent, +did both Trelawny and Lady Blessington; but, at the time, they could get +no further than begging permission to ask questions. + +The permission was always accorded. Byron had never seriously resisted the +doctrine that his private affairs were of public interest; and he had, at +this period of his life, completely succumbed to it. No topic was so +delicate that his interlocutors felt any obligation to avoid it. His +quarrel with Lady Byron; his adventures with Lady Caroline Lamb and Lady +Oxford, his excursions into inebriety with Sheridan and Scrope Davies; his +losses at hazard with the dandies; the moral laxity of the Venetian +interlude; the placid pleasure which he found in his relations with Madame +Guiccioli: on all these topics he talked at large and at length whenever +any stray companion started them. His readiness thus to gossip with all +comers on his most intimate affairs is noticed somewhere by Hobhouse as +one of the gravest defects of his character; but very likely there was not +much else to talk about in that dull provincial town; and in any case +Byron did not invariably tell the truth. + +Trelawny says that he delighted to "bam" those who conversed with him; but +that queer slang word has long since gone out of date. A more modern way +of putting it would be to say that he liked to "gas," having no +inconsiderable contempt for those who tried to pump him, and being more +anxious to tell them things that would astonish them than to supply them +with accurate information. Having left London in the days of the dandies, +he had taken some of the ideals of the dandies to Italy with him, though +he had coated them with a cosmopolitan veneer. He still liked to swagger +in the style of a buck of the Regency who spared neither man in his anger +nor woman in his lust and could carry any quantity of claret with heroic +lightness of heart. Or, at all events, he liked to swagger in that way +from time to time; though one can see, collating the confidences with the +letters, that there were also moments at which the mask was lifted and the +real man appeared. + +But the real man was also a new man--or, at all events, a man whose +character was undergoing a radical transformation under the very eyes of +his friends. Shelley seems to have been the only one of them who perceived +the change--he is, at any rate, the only one who has recorded it. Byron, +he said, was "becoming a virtuous man;" and the expression may pass, and +may be regarded as confirmed by the testimony of the other companions, if +we do not give the word "virtue" too rigid an interpretation. The Venetian +libertinism had been left behind for ever. With it had been left the old +passions and the old bitterness, and the old lack of aim or of ambition to +do more than enrapture the women and rub the self-righteous the wrong way. +Byron, in fact, was becoming calm, tolerant, practical and +sincere--learning to look forward instead of backward--a man who was at +last ready, and even resolved, to make sacrifices in order to achieve. + +Even his feelings towards Lady Byron and her family seem to have undergone +a change at about this time, though not a change which indicated any +probability of reconciliation. A little while before, at Ravenna, he had +composed two epigrams on the subject: one addressed "To Medea," on the +anniversary of his wedding: + + "_This day of all our days has done + The most for me and you; + 'Tis just six years since we were_ One + _And_ five _since we were Two!_" + +and the second on hearing simultaneously that _Marino Faliero_ had failed +on the stage, and that Lady Noel had recovered from an illness which had +seemed likely to be fatal: + + "_Behold the blessing of a lucky lot! + My play is_ damned, _and Lady Noel not._" + +Now, at Pisa, we find him acknowledging the gift of a lock of his child's +hair, and writing to Lady Byron thus: + + "The time which has elapsed since the separation has been considerably + more than the whole brief period of our union, and the not much longer + one of our prior acquaintance. We both made a bitter mistake; but now + it is over, and irrevocably so. For, at thirty-three on my part, and a + few years less on yours, though it is no very extended period of life, + still it is one when the habits and thought are generally so formed as + to admit of no modification; and as we could not agree when younger, + we should with difficulty do so now." + +And also: + + "Whether the offence has been solely on my side, or reciprocal, or on + yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect upon any but two things--viz. + that you are the mother of my child, and that we shall never meet + again. I think if you also consider the two corresponding points with + reference to myself, it will be better for all three." + +The letter, for whatever reason, was never sent; but it has, nevertheless, +its value as a document illustrative of Byron's ultimate attitude towards +the great blunder of his life. There is no renewal of love, and no desire +for the renewal of intimate relations; but, on the other hand, there is no +more angry talk about shattered household gods. Instead, there is a new +spirit of toleration. Byron recognises, at last, that Lady Byron has a +perfect right to be the sort of woman that she is--that she may even be a +woman of some merit, though on him her very virtues jar. So he takes the +tone of a man who parleys politely under a flag of truce; and then turns +and goes his way, a little disappointed perhaps, but on the whole +indifferent. He had thought it worth while to send Lady Byron messages +about the pleasure which he found in the company of the Venetian harlots; +but he sent her none about the charms of Madame Guiccioli. He had +travelled too far from her for that, and got too completely out of touch +with her, and acquired too many new interests which she did not share. + +It should be added, however, that in many of his new interests Madame +Guiccioli herself hardly shared. She was a charming woman--almost exactly +the woman to suit him--pretty and plump and intelligent, and yet ready to +acquiesce in his habit of regarding her sex from the standpoint of an +Oriental Satrap. It gratified him to relapse into her society when +strenuous activities had tired him; for he found her restful as well as +amiable. But her affection was no substitute for those strenuous +activities; and his need for her love seems to have diminished as the +desire to assert and prove himself by doing something strenuous and +striking grew upon him. An eloquent fact is that, having suspended the +writing of "Don Juan" at her request, he presently resumed it--and that +though her objection to "Don Juan" was that it stripped the sentiment from +love; which indicates that, though he still loved her in his fashion, he +loved no more than he chose to, and certainly not enough to let his love +stand between him and any serious enterprise. + +There are biographers, indeed, who doubt whether he would have been +willing to marry Madame Guiccioli if unexpected circumstances had enabled +him to do so; but, according to Lady Blessington, the irregularity of +their relations was a cause of great distress to him: + + "I am bound by the indissoluble ties of marriage to _one_ who will + _not_ live with me, and live with one to whom I cannot give a legal + right to be my companion, and who, wanting that right, is placed in a + position humiliating to her and most painful to me. Were the Countess + Guiccioli and I married, we should, I am sure, be cited as an example + of conjugal happiness, and the domestic and retired life we lead would + entitle us to respect. But our union, wanting the legal and religious + part of the ceremony of marriage, draws on us both censure and blame. + She is formed to make a good wife to any man to whom she attaches + herself. She is fond of retirement, is of a most affectionate + disposition, and noble-minded and disinterested to the highest degree. + Judge then how mortifying it must be to me to be the cause of placing + her in a false position. All this is not thought of when people are + blinded by passion, but when passion is replaced by better + feelings--those of affection, friendship, and confidence--when, in + short, the _liaison_ has all of marriage but its forms, then it is + that we wish to give it the respectability of wedlock." + +Such is the report, confirming the view that the ardour of Byron's passion +had by this time burnt itself out, and exhibiting him in the novel light +of a lover tired of love-making but desirous of domestication. The desire +does, at times, overtake even the most disorderly; and it is credible +enough that Byron had come to entertain it. He had entertained it once +before, on the eve of his marriage; and it is the kind of desire that +recurs even after the first experiments have proved unsatisfactory. So it +was with Byron, the wife, and not the estate of matrimony, being held +responsible for the failure; only the desire was not, in his case, the +ruling passion. That passion was to do something, and to be seen doing +it, the second condition being as essential as the first, in defence of +the victims of the Holy Alliance or any other tyranny. + +It was a passion destined very soon to be gratified, the end coming in a +dismal swamp, but in a blaze of glory. We will tell the story--or as much +of it as needs to be told--in a moment; but we must first attend Byron a +little longer on the trivial round--riding out to the inn, and shooting at +a mark, and riding home again--in order that we may note how certain +deaths and other incidents aided and threw light upon the further +development of his character. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +FROM PISA TO GENOA + + +It was while Byron was at Pisa that his natural daughter, the little +Allegra, died, after a rapid illness, of typhus fever at her Convent +School. He disliked her mother--we have noted the reasons why it was +hardly to be expected that he would do anything else--but he had viewed +the child as the gift of heaven, precious, though at first undesired. He +had played with her in his garden at Ravenna, and had made a will leaving +her £5000, and was at once too fond and too proud to make any mystery of +the relationship. All his friends, as well as his sister were apprised of +it, and received news, from time to time, of the child's physical and +moral progress. Nearly all of them were informed of her death. "It is a +heavy blow for many reasons, but must be borne--with time," he wrote to +Murray. "The blow was stunning and unexpected," he told Shelley. "I +suppose that Time will do his usual work--Death has done his." To Sir +Walter Scott he commented: + + "The only consolation, save time, is that she is either at rest or + happy; for her few years (only five), prevented her from having + incurred any sin, except what we inherit from Adam." + +He desired, too, that the child's relationship to him should be proclaimed +on a tablet to be set up in Harrow Church; but that was impossible owing +to the prejudices of the Vicar and Churchwardens. It seemed to them that +"every man of refined taste, to say nothing of sound morals," would +practise hypocrisy in such a matter. The Vicar wrote to Murray to say so, +and to ask him to point out to Byron that, in the case of ex-parishioners, +the Churchwardens had the power not only to advise hypocrisy but to +enforce it; and he enclosed a formal prohibition from one of them, running +thus: + + "_Honoured Sir_, + + I object on behalf of the parish to admit the tablet of Lord Byron's + child into the church. + + "_James Winkley, Churchwarden._" + +It was the pitiful performance of a clerical Jack-in-Office; and we will +leave it and pass on, merely noting that Byron, more than once, in +defining his duties to Allegra, affirmed and illustrated his own religious +position. One of his avowed reasons for not allowing her to be brought up +by her mother was that Jane Clairmont was "atheistical." For himself, he +said, he was "a very good Christian," though given to expressing himself +flippantly. The affirmation is confirmed by Shelley's description of him, +half playful and half-shocked, as "no better than a Christian," and by the +account of his opinions given by Pietro Gamba in a letter to Dr. +Kennedy--from which it appears that though Byron might, like his own Cain, +defy the God of the Shorter Catechism, he was profoundly reverent in his +attitude towards really holy things. + +Count Pietro reports two conversations with him on these sacred matters; +the first talk taking place at Ravenna: + + "We were riding together in the Pineta on a beautiful Spring day. + 'How,' said Byron, 'when we raise our eyes to heaven, or direct them + to the earth, can we doubt of the existence of God? or how, turning + them inwards, can we doubt that there is something within us, more + noble and more durable than the clay of which we are formed? Those who + do not hear, or are unwilling to listen to these feelings, must + necessarily be of a vile nature.' I answered him with all those + reasons which the superficial philosophy of Helvetius, his disciples + and his masters, have taught. Byron replied with very strong + arguments, and profound eloquence, and I perceived that obstinate + contradiction on this subject, which forced him to reason upon it, + gave him pain." + +Later, at Genoa, the subject came up again: + + "In various ways I heard him confirm the sentiments which I have + already mentioned to you. + + "'Why, then,' said I to him, 'have you earned for yourself the name of + impious, and enemy of all religious belief, from your writings?' He + answered, 'They are not understood, and are wrongly interpreted by + the malevolent. My object is only to combat hypocrisy, which I abhor + in everything, and particularly in religion, and which now + unfortunately appears to me to be prevalent, and for this alone do + those to whom you allude wish to render me odious and make me out + worse than I am.'" + +Decidedly we have a more serious Byron there--a child becoming a man, +emerging from frivolity, and putting away frivolous and childish things; +and one gets the same impression of mental and moral evolution repeated +when one reads Byron's appreciation of Shelley, written under the shock of +the news of his sudden death--passages which it is a labour of love to +copy out: + + "I presume you have heard that Mr. Shelley and Captain Williams were + lost on the 7th ultimo in their passage from Leghorn to Spezzia, in + their own open boat. You may imagine the state of their families: I + never saw such a scene, nor wish to see another. You were all brutally + mistaken about Shelley, who was, without exception, the _best_ and + least selfish man I ever knew. I never knew one who was not a beast in + comparison." + + "There is thus another man gone, about whom the world was + ill-naturedly, and ignorantly, and brutally mistaken. It will, + perhaps, do him justice _now_, when he can be no better for it." + + "You are all mistaken about Shelley. You do not know how mild, how + tolerant, how good he was in society; and as perfect a gentleman as + ever crossed a drawing-room, when he liked, and where he liked." + +Those are the appreciations; and one quotes them, not for Shelley's sake, +but for Byron's, and because the power to appreciate Shelley's worth in +spite of his eccentricities is a test of character. His shining +spirituality cannot be perceived by the gross who are in bondage to the +conventions of ethics, politics, or religion, or by those, not less gross, +who are the slaves of their lusts. To love him was impossible except for +one who looked beyond the material to the ideal. It is so now, and it was +more especially so in his lifetime, when belief in his wickedness was +almost an article of the Christian faith. But Byron stands the test, and +his relations with Shelley are further proofs of his final progress +towards moral grandeur. + +One cannot say the same of his relations with Leigh Hunt; but then Leigh +Hunt was a very different sort of person from Shelley; and his behaviour +towards Byron was peculiar. Invited to Pisa to arrange for the production +of a new newspaper or magazine, he arrived with a sick wife and several +children, with no visible means of support, and with the ill-concealed +intention of sponging up innumerable guineas from the stores of the +originators of the enterprise. The guineas were not refused to him. Byron +seems to have let him have about five hundred guineas in all, as well as +some valuable copyrights and board and lodging for himself and his family +on the ground floor of his own palace. He found the noisy children a +nuisance, however, and resented the desire to sponge; with the result that +relations were quickly strained, and the reluctant host and clamorous +guest regarded each other with suspicion and dislike. + +One of Hunt's complaints was that the guineas, instead of being poured +into his lap in a continual golden shower, were doled out, a few at a +time, by a steward. Another was that there was a point in the palace which +no member of the household of the Hunts was allowed to pass without a +special invitation, and that a savage bull-dog was stationed there to +guard the passage. The former precaution was probably quite necessary, and +the latter charge is probably untrue; though, the palace being full of +bull-dogs, and the Hunt children being, as Byron said, "far from +tractable," one can readily imagine the nature of the incident on which it +was based. In any case, however, the essential facts of the situation are +that Byron, though he had once been sufficiently in sympathy with Hunt to +visit him when in prison, for calling the Regent a fat Adonis of fifty, +now found that he disliked him, and kept him at arm's length; while Hunt, +on his part, taking offence at the aloofness of Byron's attitude, avenged +himself by writing a very spiteful book, full of unpleasant truths not +only about Byron, but also about Madame Guiccioli. + +The Countess, he says, did not know how to "manage" Byron. When he +"shocked" her, she replied by "nagging"--the prime offence, it will be +remembered, of Lady Byron herself. It was a policy which might have served +when she was in the full bloom of youth; but that happy time was passing. +She was beginning to look old and weary, and to go about as one who +carried a secret sorrow locked up in her breast. "Everybody" noticed the +change: "In the course of a few months she seemed to have lived as many +years. It is most likely in that interval that she discovered that she had +no real hold on the affections of her companion." + +Assuredly if Hunt had nothing better to do in Italy than to take notes of +this character it was high time to pack him off home again; and packed off +he was, in due course, though not quite immediately. Before his departure +Byron had moved from Pisa to Genoa, driven to this further migration by +the fact that the Tuscan Government had in its turn, expelled the Gambas, +and that Madame Guiccioli, for reasons already explained, was once more +obliged to accompany them. If he had been as anxious to be rid of her as +Hunt hints, and Cordy Jeaffreson, leaning upon Hunt's testimony, +explicitly declares, here was his opportunity. He did not take it, but +accompanied her to her new home, where he was to live under the same roof +with her; one of Hunt's minor grievances being that he and his +children--described by Byron in a letter to Mrs. Shelley as "dirtier and +more mischievous than Yahoos"--were not admitted to the same boat with +them, but had to travel in a separate felucca. Afterwards there was some +talk of a further trip of the nature of a honey-moon--_solus cum sola_--to +Naples; but this, for whatever reason, did not take place, and Byron +remained at Genoa. + +It was at Genoa that he met Lady Blessington, whose report of his regret +that there was no way of regularising his intimacy with Madame Guiccioli +we have already had before us. She and Leigh Hunt, if they do not +contradict each other at every point, at least give very contrary +impressions of the state of things. The difference may be due to the fact +that, whereas Leigh Hunt was borrowing money with great difficulty, Lady +Blessington was flirting with some success. Neither she nor Byron meant +anything by it. Count d'Orsay, no less than Countess Guiccioli, barred the +way to anything approaching attachment or intrigue. Lady Blessington only +flirted to flatter her vanity; Byron only for the purpose of killing time +and introducing variety into a somewhat monotonous life. Flirtation there +was, however, or at all events the semblance of it, and one may fairly +suppose it to afford a partial explanation of Countess Guiccioli's nagging +and martyred look, observed by Leigh Hunt's prying eyes. Indeed there are +passages in Lady Blessington's Journal which suggest as much, the passage, +for instance, in which Byron is reported as saying, not that he "was" but +that he "had been" passionately in love with the Countess; and then this +passage: + + "Byron is a strange _mélange_ of good and evil, the predominancy of + either depending wholly on the humour he may happen to be in. His is a + character that Nature totally unfitted for domestic habits, or for + rendering a woman of refinement or susceptibility happy. He confesses + to me that he is not happy, but admits that it is his own fault, as + the Contessa Guiccioli, the only object of his love, has all the + qualities to render a reasonable being happy. I observed, _à propos_ + to some observation he had made, that I feared La Contessa Guiccioli + had little reason to be satisfied with her lot. He answered: 'Perhaps + you are right: yet she must know that I am sincerely attached to her; + but the truth is, my habits are not those requisite to form the + happiness of any woman. I am worn out in feelings; for, though only + thirty-six, I feel sixty in mind, and am less capable than ever of + those nameless attentions that all women, but above all Italian women, + require. I like solitude, which has become absolutely necessary to me; + am fond of shutting myself up for hours, and, when with the person I + like, am often _distrait_ and gloomy.'" + +A man does not talk like that to a woman with whom he has just become +acquainted unless he is flirting with her--albeit, it may be, giving her +to understand, while in the act of flirting, that his heart is too +withered to be long responsive to her charms. And that, it seems, at the +end of many love affairs, was Byron's final note. Even Madame Guiccioli +did not really matter to him, though he acknowledged obligations to her +and discharged them. Nothing mattered except one memory which, though it +could never be anything more than a memory, still haunted him. He lived +with that memory to the last, as we shall see. Being only a memory, and a +painful one, it was rather a stimulus to action than a hindrance to it. +But with the luxurious and uxorious love which does hinder action he had +done. Whether he was tired of it or not, he felt that it was unworthy of +him, and that life held nobler possibilities. + +To an unknown lady who seems, at this date, to have offered him the free +gift of her love, he answered, pooh-poohing the proposition. He looked +upon love, he said, as "a sort of hostile transaction, very necessary to +make or to break matches, but by no means a sinecure to the parties +concerned." He added that he regarded his own "love times" as "pretty well +over"; and so in fact they were. He needed a sharper spur than they could +give him, and a more heroic issue than they could involve, if, during the +few years left to him, he was to redeem the time and startle the world by +deeds of which it had not imagined him to be capable. The revolt in Greece +gave him his chance and he took it. + +His sympathies, as we have seen, had long been enlisted on the Greek side, +as had also those of the Gambas. Now the London Greek Committee placed +itself in communication with him. "I cannot express to you," he wrote to +Edward Blaquière, "how much I feel interested in the cause, and nothing +but the hopes I entertained of witnessing the liberation of Italy itself +prevented me long ago from returning to do what little I could, as an +individual, in that land which it is an honour even to have visited." To +Sir John Bowring he added a significant detail: "To this project the only +objection is of a domestic nature, and I shall try to get over it." + +He did get over it; and those who knew him best were confident that he +would; but the fact that Madame Guiccioli tried to detain him is to be +remarked as explaining a good deal. It explains why he did not care to +take her to Greece, or even to the Ionian Islands, with him, fearing lest +she should be a clog on his activities. It explains the comparative +coldness of the letters which he addressed to her from the scene of +action. It explains finally, if any explanation be needed, why hers was +not the memory which he chose to live with in the dismal swamp in which +his last days were passed. + +And so off to Cephalonia with young Trelawny and Pietro Gamba. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +DEPARTURE FOR GREECE + + +A book might be written--indeed more than one book has been written--about +that picturesque last phase of Byron's life which dazzled the imagination +of mankind. Coming to it at the end of a book already long, one owes it to +one's sense of proportion to treat it briefly, noting only the outstanding +facts. The details, when all is said, are of small importance. What +matters is that here is an instance, almost unique in history, of a poet +transforming himself into a man of action, and proving himself a very +competent man of action, very sober and sensible, and quite free from the +characteristic vices of the poetical and artistic temperaments. + +So far, though he had succeeded as a poet, Byron had failed as a man. The +one deep and sincere passion of his life had only made trouble for him; +and still more trouble had been made by his own violence, and vanity, and +faults of temper. Through them he had allowed himself to be manoeuvred +into a false position from which, in the bitterness of his indignation at +the injustice done to him, he had made no serious effort to escape. +Sitting in the midst of the wreck of his household gods, he had given +vent to his anger in winged words; while, at the same time, making the +persecution which he endured an excuse for sensual indulgence. Sensuality +had wrecked his health without yielding him any real satisfaction, and, of +course, without giving his censors any reason to reconsider their +disapproval. He understood now what a poor figure he would have cut, in +the eyes alike of his contemporaries and of future generations, if he had +died, as he so nearly did, in the days of his degradation, in the arms of +the baker's wife, or of some hired mistress. He understood, too, that he +was capable of greater things than any of these virtuous people who would +then have pointed the finger of scorn at him. He had thought to +demonstrate as much by his association with the Carbonari. It was not he +who had failed the Carbonari, but the Carbonari who had failed him. That +failure being however, through their fault and foolishness, complete, it +still remained for him to give his proofs, in a much more striking style, +in Greece. + +Though he had but a poor opinion of his colleagues, he was thoroughly in +earnest about the cause. He had always hated bullying, and the Turks were +bullies. He was always at war with hypocrites--and it seemed to him that +an absolute government was an organised hypocrisy. It was not necessary, +therefore, for him to love revolutionists in order to be willing to help +them to work out their salvation; and he certainly did not love the +Greeks. It is recorded that he gave up keeping a diary because he found so +much abuse of the Greeks creeping into it; and he sometimes spoke of them +with excessive bitterness: "I am of St. Paul's opinion," he said, "that +there is no difference between Jews and Greeks, the character of both +being equally vile;" and his conduct, at the beginning of his expedition, +was somewhat of a disappointment to romantic people. + +The eyes of romantic Europe were upon him, and far too much was expected +from the magic of his presence and his name. He would, at once, people +thought, raise an army and march to Constantinople. Arriving before +Constantinople, he would blow a trumpet, and the walls of the city would +fall down flat. "Instead of which," they complained, he had settled down +comfortably in a villa in the Ionian Islands, and was writing a fresh +canto of "Don Juan." But that was not true. Byron was, indeed, living in a +villa--for even a romantic poet must live somewhere; but the only poetry +which he wrote in his villa was a war song. For the rest, he was wisely +trying to master the situation before committing himself--refusing to stir +before he saw his way. + +For the situation was, just then, far from satisfactory. Their initial +successes had turned the heads of the Greeks, and now their leaders were +at loggerheads. Each of them was anxious to secure Byron's help, not for a +nation, but for a faction, and to engage him, not in revolt against the +common enemy, but in internecine strife. As Finlay puts it: + + "To nobody did the Greeks ever unmask their selfishness and + self-deceit so candidly.... Kolokrotones invited him to a national + assembly at Salamis. Mavrocordatos informed him that he would be of no + use anywhere but at Hydra, for Mavrocordatos was then in that island. + Constantine Metaxa, who was Governor of Missolonghi, wrote saying that + Greece would be ruined unless Lord Byron visited that fortress. Petra + Bey used plainer words. He informed Lord Byron that the true way to + save Greece was to lend him, the bey, a thousand pounds." + +Trelawny, who was more keen about the fighting than about the cause, +accused him of "dawdling" and "shilly-shallying," and went off, without +him, to join the forces of one of the sectional chiefs.[12] Byron, just +because he took the revolution more seriously than Trelawny, sat tight. +His immediate purpose was to reconcile the rival factions, and raise money +for them. Pending the conclusion of a loan, he advanced them a good deal +of his own money, and those who imagined that he was merely out to see +sights and amuse himself, quickly discovered their mistake. + +It was suggested to him, for instance, that as a man of letters, a +scholar, and an antiquary, he might be interested to visit the stronghold +of Ulysses. "Do I look," he asked indignantly, "like one of those +emasculated fogies? I detest antiquarian twaddle. Do people think I have +no lucid intervals, and that I came to Greece to scribble nonsense? I will +show them that I can do something better." On another occasion, when he +was taken to a monastery, and the Abbot received him in ecclesiastical +costume, with the swinging of odorous censers, and presented him with an +address of fulsome flattery, he burst into tempestuous rage, exclaiming: +"Will no one release me from the presence of these pestilential idiots? +They drive me mad." + +It was at this time that the idea was mooted of electing Byron to be King +of Greece. A King would be wanted, it was said, as soon as the Turks had +been turned out, and no one would cut a nobler figure on the throne than +Byron. He heard what had been said, and smiled on the proposal. "If they +make me the offer," he wrote, "I will perhaps not reject it"; and one +feels quite sure that he would not have rejected it. To found a dynasty +and be privileged, as a royal personage, to repudiate Lady Byron and take +another wife, in order that the throne might have an heir--that would, +indeed, have been a triumph over the polite Society which had +cold-shouldered him and the pious people who had denounced his morals; and +there can be little doubt that Byron aspired to win it, and would have won +it if he had lived. He was very far, however, from stooping to conciliate +the electors with smooth words; in a State Paper, addressed to the Greek +Central Government, he lectured them severely: + + "I desire the well-being of Greece and nothing else. I will do all I + can to secure it; but I will never consent that the English public be + deceived as to the real state of affairs. You have fought gloriously; + act honourably towards your fellow citizens and the world, and it will + then no more be said, as has been repeated for two thousand years, + that Philopæmen was the last of the Grecians." + +The man of action spoke there; and the man of action also came out in +Byron's expressions of disdain for his colleague, Colonel Stanhope--the +"typographical colonel," as he called him--who maintained that the one +thing needful for the salvation of the Greeks was that they should "model +their institutions on those of the United States of America, and decree +the unlimited freedom of the Press." Byron knew better than that. He was +not to be persuaded that "newspapers would be more effectual in driving +back the Ottoman armies than well-drilled troops and military tactics." He +knew that fighting would be necessary, and he was awaiting his chance of +fighting with effect. + +His chance came when Mavrocordatos, emerging from the ruck of +revolutionary leaders, arrived to raise the siege of Missolonghi, after +mopping up a Turkish treasure ship by the way, and invited Byron to join +him, placing a brig at his disposal for the voyage. "I need not tell you," +he wrote, "to what a pitch your presence is desired by everybody, or what +a prosperous direction it will give to all our affairs." The +"typographical colonel," who was already with Mavrocordatos, wrote at the +same time: "It is right and proper to tell you that a great deal is +expected from you, both in the way of counsel and money ... you are +expected with feverish anxiety. Your further delay in coming will be +attended with serious consequences." Whereupon Byron, resolving at last to +take the plunge, wrote to Douglas Kinnaird, who was managing his affairs +for him in London: "Get together all the means and credit of mine you can, +to face the war establishment, for it is 'in for a penny, in for a pound,' +and I must do all that I can for the ancients." And so, with Pietro Gamba, +to the dismal swamp, where he was "welcomed," Gamba tells us, "with salvos +of artillery, firing of muskets, and wild music." + + "Crowds of soldiery," Gamba continues, "and citizens of every rank, + sex, and age were assembled on the shore to testify their delight. + Hope and content were pictured in every countenance. His lordship + landed in a Spezziot boat, dressed in a red uniform. He was in + excellent health, and appeared moved by the scene." + +Moved by the scene, indeed, he doubtless was. The scene was the beginning +of his rehabilitation in the eyes of those who had treated him with +contempt--the beginning of the proof that he had the qualities of a +leader, and could wield other weapons besides the pen--the demonstrative +proclamation that the path of duty was to be the way to glory. The scarlet +uniform was an appropriate tribute to the solemnity of the occasion on +which he formally entered upon his last and best new way of life. He did +not enter upon it, however, "in excellent health," as Gamba says, but as a +broken man with a shattered constitution, who had but a little time in +which to do his work before the inevitable malaria came up out of the +marsh and gripped him. + +Meanwhile, however, Mavrocordatos gave him a commission as +commander-in-chief--archi-strategos was his grandiloquent title--and he +did what he could. He took 500 of those "dark Suliotes" whom he had sung +in the early cantos of "Childe Harold" into his pay, and was prepared to +lead them to the storming of Lepanto. He did something to mitigate the +inhumanities of the war by insisting upon the release of some Turkish +prisoners whom his allies proposed to massacre. Maintaining his character +as man of action, he suppressed a converted blacksmith, who arrived from +England with a cargo of type, paper, bibles and Wesleyan tracts, proposing +to use the tracts for cartridges and turn the type into small shot. And +then, having leisure on his hands, he wrote one poem, which he showed to +Colonel Stanhope, saying: "You were complaining the other day that I never +write any poetry now. This is my birthday, and I have just finished +something which, I think, is better than what I usually write." + + I + + "_'Tis time this heart should be unmoved, + Since others it hath ceased to move; + Yet though I cannot be beloved, + Still let me love!_ + + II + + "_My days are in the yellow leaf; + The flowers and fruits of love are gone; + The worm, the canker, and the grief + Are mine alone!_ + + III + + "_The fire that on my bosom preys + Is lone as some volcanic isle; + No torch is kindled at its blaze-- + A funeral pile!_ + + IV + + "_The hope, the fear, the jealous care, + The exalted portion of the pain + And power of love, I cannot share, + But wear the chain._ + + V + + "_But 'tis not_ thus--_and 'tis not_ here-- + _Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor_ now, + _Where glory decks the hero's bier, + Or binds his brow._ + + VI + + "_The sword, the banner, and the field, + Glory and Greece, around me see! + The Spartan, borne upon his shield, + Was not more free._ + + VII + + "_Awake! (not Greece--she is awake!) + Awake my spirit! Think through_ whom + _Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, + And then strike home._ + + VIII + + "_Tread those reviving passions down, + Unworthy manhood!--unto thee + Indifferent should the smile or frown + Of beauty be._ + + IX + + "_If thou regret'st thy youth_, why love? + _The land of honourable death + Is here:--up to the field, and give + Away thy breath!_ + + X + + "_Seek out--less often sought than found-- + A soldier's grave, for thee the bed; + Then look around, and choose thy ground, + And take thy rest._" + +"We perceived," Count Gamba comments, "from these lines ... that his +ambition and his hope were irrevocably fixed upon the glorious objects of +his expedition to Greece, and that he had made up his mind to 'return +victorious or return no more.'" Readers who are better acquainted than +Count Pietro alike with the English language and with the circumstances of +the case will find rather more than that in them. They also reveal the +memory which Byron fell back upon and lived with at the hours when he +rested from the strain of his revolutionary enthusiasm. It was not the +memory of Count Pietro's sister. Byron could not possibly have been +thinking of her when he cried out that his love was a lonely fire at which +no torch was kindled; for her love for him was far fiercer and more +enduring than his love for her. His thoughts, it is quite clear, had once +more strayed back to Mary Chaworth; and the internal evidence of that is +confirmed by the mention of her name in two separate passages of those +"Detached Thoughts" which he threw on paper just before he left Ravenna. +His attachment to her, he then remembers, threw him out "on a wide, wide +sea." He speaks of her as "My M.A.C.," and continues in a passage often +quoted: + + "Alas! why do I say _My_? Our Union would have healed feuds, in which + blood had been shed by our fathers; it would have joined lands broad + and rich; it would have joined at least _one_ heart, and two persons + not ill-matched in years (she is two years my elder); + and--and--and--what has been the result? She has married a man older + than herself, been wretched, and separated. I have married, and am + separated; and yet _we_ are _not_ united." + +This last fact, indeed, may well have impressed him as the cruellest of +all. There had been two desperately unhappy marriages, and a shivering +and scattering of two sets of household gods; and yet he and she, through +whatever misunderstandings and scruples, had failed to set up their new +structure on the ruins. He, indeed, on his part, would have asked nothing +better than to be allowed to try that task of reconstruction; but she, on +hers, had been too good, or too weak, or too much under the influence of +well-meaning friends who believed the whole duty of woman to consist in +forgiving her husband and keeping up appearances. She had kept them up, +accepting martyrdom with a resignation worthy of a better cause than any +which her hard-drinking husband was capable of representing, believing +that she only sacrificed herself, and earning no gratitude worth speaking +of by doing so. But she had also sacrificed her lover. + +He was one of those exceptional men who may do exceptional things with +impunity--and also one of those self-willed men who, having made up their +minds what is best, can never be contented with the second-best, but must +always be kicking against the pricks. Hence the stormy emotional career +through which we have followed him, and the many experiments, reckless but +half-hearted, with new ways of life; a reckless but half-hearted marriage; +reckless but half-hearted intrigues, first with the Drury Lane actresses, +and then with the Venetian light-o'-loves; a reckless but half-hearted +career as the _cicisbeo_ of an Italian nobleman's wife. + +Two thoughts had been present to his mind through all these phases: the +thought in the first place that he owed it to himself to prove that he was +a better and a greater man than he had seemed to be, and to redeem the +mess which he had made of his life by some impressive action; the thought, +in the second place, of Mary Chaworth. We have seen the former thought +flashing out in a letter to Moore, who was probably one of the last men in +the world capable of understanding it. The latter thought is blazoned in +the letter written to Mary Chaworth in the midst of the Venetian revels, +and so absurdly asserted by Lord Lovelace to be a letter to Augusta Leigh. +It reappears, as we have seen, in the Detached Thoughts, and also in poem +after poem, from "The Dream" to the piece just cited. Evidently, +therefore, it was, indeed, the thought which Byron lived with--the thought +which, if not always with him, was always waiting for him when the +reaction following upon excitement made room for it. There would be no +escape from it until the hour when, as he put it, he looked around, and +chose his ground, and took his rest; and it only remains for us to picture +the last stormy scenes at the end of which rest was reached. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +DEATH IN A GREAT CAUSE + + +The end was not to come, as Byron may have hoped, on the field of battle. +It was his health, as he had apprehended (though without, for that reason, +taking any special care of it) that was to fail him. An imprudent plunge +into the winter sea while on his way to Missolonghi had upset him; and +though he had temporarily recovered, he was in no state to resist the +pestilential climate of that dismal swamp. He knew it, and at the very +time when Stanhope was writing home that "Lord Byron burns with military +ardour and chivalry," he was keenly conscious, as his own letters show, of +the danger attending his residence in the most malarious quarter of a +malarious town. + + "If we are not taken off by the sword," he wrote on February 5, "we + are like to march off with an ague in this mud basket; and, to + conclude with a bad grace better _marshally_ than _marti-ally_. The + dykes of Holland, when broken down, are the deserts of Arabia in + comparison with Missolonghi." + +The risk, though inglorious in itself, was nevertheless the price of +glory; and he paid it willingly. He was, once more, as famous as at the +hour when "Childe Harold" had suddenly revealed his genius, and the fame +which he now tasted was of a worthier kind. Then he had dazzled and +fascinated. Now he enjoyed the love and admiration, not merely of idle +women, but of a whole people, and discovered that he had the power to heal +feuds and to lead men. He might, or might not, live to wear, or to refuse, +a kingly crown; but at least he had lived to be hailed as the Liberator of +a nation, and to be revered accordingly. An anecdote preserved by Parry, +the artificer who was serving under him in charge of the arsenal, +illustrates the adoration of the peasantry: + + "Byron one day," Parry relates, "returned from his ride more than + usually pleased. An interesting country-woman, with a fine family, had + come out of her cottage and presented him with a curd cheese and some + honey, and could not be persuaded to accept payment for it. 'I have + felt,' he said, 'more pleasure this day, and at this circumstance, + than for a long time past.'" + +Such was the homage paid to him, by the humble as well as the great; but +it soon became increasingly evident that though he had achieved the glory, +death was to rob him of the crown. He began to have epileptic seizures; +and in the midst of them, there was trouble with the Suliotes. There were +only five hundred of them, and they preferred the insolent claim that one +hundred and fifty of them should be promoted to be officers, and that the +rest should be accorded a month's pay in advance. Colonel Stanhope tells +us how he quelled the mutiny: + + "Soon after his dreadful paroxysm, when he was lying on his sick-bed, + while his whole nervous system completely shaken, the mutinous + Suliotes, covered with dirt and splendid attire, broke into his + apartment, brandishing their costly arms, and loudly demanding their + rights. Lord Byron electrified by this unexpected act, seemed to + recover from his sickness, and the more the Suliotes raged, the more + his calm courage triumphed. The scene was truly sublime." + +The mutineers suppressed, the doctors came and bled him. He pulled +through, whether in consequence of their treatment or in spite of it; but +his regimen and his mode of life were not such as to restore him to +vigour. He was sweeping away the coats of his stomach by large and +frequent doses of powerful purgative medicaments; and in the intervals +between the purges he partook freely of a comfortable and potent kind of +punch which Parry mixed for him. It is no wonder, therefore, that relapse +succeeded relapse and that just at that hour at which fortune seemed +beginning to smile upon the Greeks, his life could be seen to be ebbing +away. + +On April 9, while riding with Gamba, he was caught in a violent storm of +rain. "I should make a fine soldier if I did not know how to stand such a +trifle as this," he said to his companion; but two hours after his return +he was shivering and complaining: "I am in great pain," he said to Gamba. +"I should not care for dying but I cannot bear these pains." On April 11, +he was well enough to ride again, but on the 12th, he was in bed with what +was diagnosed as rheumatic fever, and the fever never again left him. The +inevitable proposal to bleed him was repeated. At first he resisted, with +the usual talk about the lancet being more deadly than the sword, but in +the end he acquiesced. "There!" he said. "You are, I see, a d----d set of +butchers. Take away as much blood as you like, and have done with it." + +They took twenty ounces of blood from him. It was an absurd treatment, and +probably hastened the end; but he had bad doctors, and even the good +doctors of these days knew no better. Moreover his constitution was +shattered. He was falling to pieces like an old ruin, and it is doubtful +whether the wisest treatment could have saved him. There was a further +rally, however, and Gamba, who was laid up in an adjoining apartment with +a sprained ankle, hobbled in to see him. "I contrived," he writes, "to +walk to his room. His look alarmed me much. He was too calm. He talked to +me in the kindest way, but in a sepulchral tone. I could not bear it. A +flood of tears burst from me, and I was obliged to retire." + +Soon after this, the final delirium set in. His attendants stood by his +bedside weeping copiously. They could not, says Cordy Jeaffreson +cynically, have wept more copiously "if there had been a prize of a +thousand guineas for the one who wept most." Afterwards he was alone, at +one time with Parry, and at another time with Fletcher; and of his last +articulate words there is more than one account. It is told that he spoke +of Greece: "I have given her my time, my money, and my health--what could +I do more? Now I give her my life." It is told that he gesticulated +wildly, as if mounting a breach to an assault, and calling, half in +English, half in Italian: "Forward--forward--courage--follow my +example--don't be afraid." It is told again that he stammered +unintelligible messages to Lady Byron and to his sister. + +But all that matters little. What matters is, not Byron's last utterance, +but his last action, now that neither love nor lust, nor despair, nor +bitterness, nor sloth, nor self-indulgence, held him any longer in +unworthy bondage. For he had died in the act of redeeming the many wasted +years, and of fulfilling the prediction of his most degraded time, that, +in spite of everything, he would come to achievement at last--not merely +the literary achievement which was compatible with the life of a trifler +and a man of pleasure, but the more glorious achievement which is only +possible to those who consent to sacrifice their ease and make a free gift +of their energies to a cause which they perceive to be greater than +themselves. + + + + +APPENDIX + +BYRON'S LETTER TO MARY CHAWORTH + + +VENICE, _May 17, 1819_ + +MY DEAREST LOVE, + +I have been negligent in not writing, but what can I say? Three years' +absence--and the total change of scene and habit make such a difference +that we have never nothing in common but our affections and our +relationship. But I have never ceased nor can cease to feel for a moment +that perfect and boundless attachment which bound and binds me to +you--which renders me incapable of _real_ love for any other human +being--for what could they be to me after _you_? My own ... we may have +been very wrong--but I repent of nothing except that cursed marriage--and +your refusing to continue to love me as you had loved me. I can neither +forget nor _quite forgive_ you for that precious piece of reformation, but +I can never be other than I have been--and whenever I love anything it is +because it reminds me in some way or other of yourself. For instance, I +not long ago attached myself to a Venetian for no earthly reason (although +a pretty woman) but because she was called ..., and she often remarked +(without knowing the reason) how fond I was of the name. It is +heart-breaking to think of our long separation--and I am sure more than +punishment enough for all our sins. Dante is more humane in his "Hell," +for he places his unfortunate lovers--Francesca of Rimini and Paolo--whose +case fell a good deal short of _ours_ (though sufficiently naughty) in +company; and though they suffer, it is at least together. If ever I return +to England it will be to see you; and recollect that in all time, and +place, and feelings, I have never ceased to be the same to you in heart. +Circumstances may have ruffled my manner and hardened my spirit; you may +have seen me harsh and exasperated with all things around me; grieved and +tortured with your _new resolution_, and soon after the persecution of +that infamous fiend who drove me from my country, and conspired against my +life--by endeavouring to deprive me of all that could render it +precious--but remember that even then _you_ were the sole object that cost +me a tear; and _what tears_! Do you remember our parting? I have not +spirits now to write to you upon other subjects. I am well in health, and +have no cause of grief but the reflection that we are not together. When +you write to me speak to me of yourself, and say that you love me; never +mind commonplace people and topics which can be in no degree interesting +to me who see nothing in England but the country which holds _you_, or +around it but the sea which divides us. They say absence destroys weak +passions, and confirms strong ones. Alas! _mine_ for you is the union of +all passions and of all affections--has strengthened itself, but will +destroy me; I do not speak of physical destruction, for I have endured, +and can endure, much; but the annihilation of all thoughts, feelings, or +hopes, which have not more or less a reference to you and to _our +recollections_. + +Ever, dearest, + + + + +INDEX + + + Albrizzi, Countess, 300, 302 + + Allegra, Byron's natural daughter, 272, 345-346 + + + Bankes, William, 150 + + Becher, Rev. John, 44, 50 + + Benzoni, Countess, 300, 302-303 + + Bessborough, Lady, 148 + + Blessington, Lady, 336-337, 342, 352-353 + + "_Bride of Abydos, The_," 170 + + Broglie, Duc de, 265 + + Byron, Admiral Lord, 6 + + Byron, Augusta. _See_ Leigh, Augusta + + Byron, Captain George, the poet's cousin, 209, 226 + + Byron, Captain, "Mad Jack," the poet's father, 6-7, 10-11 + + Byron, George Noel Gordon, Lord, ancestors, parents, and hereditary + influences, 1-9; + childhood and schooldays, 10-22; + schoolboy love affairs, 23-34; + life at Cambridge, and flirtations at Southwell, 35-49; + revelry at Newstead, 50-62; + the "grand tour," 63-74; + flirtations in Spain, 70-74; + meeting with Mrs. Spencer Smith, 74-86; + at Athens, 87; + swims the Hellespont, 94; + return to England, 101; + death of his mother, 101; + publishes "_Childe Harold_," 103-111; + recollections of Mary Chaworth, 114-126; + infatuation of Lady Caroline Lamb, 128-145; + acquaintance with Lady Oxford, 148-155; + renewed relations with Mary Chaworth, 164-181; + Marriage with Miss Milbanke, 182-193; + disagreements, 194-207; + Lady Byron demands separation, 208-226; + scandalous accusations against him, 226-252; + departure for the Continent, 253; + acquaintance with Miss Clairmont, 256-263, 271-273; + at Geneva, 264-276; + in Italy, 277 _et seq._; + moral decline, 280-298; + in the Venetian salons, 300; + attachment to Countess Guiccioli, 302-328; + revolutionary activities, 324-335; + life at Pisa and Genoa, 336-355; + enlists in the Greek cause, 356-373; + illness and death, 369-373 + + Byron, John, Lord, 2 + + Byron, Lady, wife of the poet, marriage, 192; + disagreements, 194-207; + demands separation, 208-226; + scandalous admissions, 226-252; + mentioned, 339-341, 373. _See also_ Milbanke, Anna Isabella + + Byron, Mrs., the poet's mother, 10-17, 28, 31, 37-38, 42, 51, 101 + + Byron, Richard, Lord, 2 + + Byron, Sir John, of Claydon, 1 + + Byron, "the wicked Lord," 4-6, 12, 15 + + Byron, William, Lord, 3 + + + Canning, Sir Stratford, 96-98 + + Carlisle, Lord, 15-17, 58, 60-61 + + Carmarthen, Marchioness of, 6 + + Chateaubriand, Vicomte de, 64-66 + + Chaworth, Mary, 25, 27-34, 114-126, 156-157, 159-160, 164-181, 248-250, + 310-311, 366-368, 375-376 + + Chaworth, William, 4 + + "_Childe Harold_," 65-66, 102-111, 120 + + Clairmont, Jane, 256-263, 269-273, 284, 334, 346 + + Clermont, Mrs., 209, 219 + + Cogni, Margarita, 289-291 + + Cordova, Admiral, 69 + + + Dallas, 103-105, 110 + + Davies, Scrope, 39, 118, 228, 255 + + "_Don Juan_," 297, 342 + + Duff, Mary, 23 + + + "_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_," 59-62 + + + Forbes, Lady Adelaide, 166, 184 + + + Galt, John, 71-74, 83, 98, 105-106 + + Gamba, Pietro, 362 + + Gifford, William, 152 + + Godwin, Mary, 257, 260, 263, 269-271, 273 + + Guiccioli, Count, 302, 306, 313-321 + + Guiccioli, Countess, 233, 302-323, 330-332, 336-337, 341-343, 350-355 + + + Hanson, Charles, 150-152, 216, 219 + + Harness, Rev. William, 119, 127, 135 + + Hervey, Mrs., 265 + + Hobhouse, John Cam, 66, 68, 72, 87, 99, 153, 189-190, 208-209, 213, 218, + 219, 221, 228, 255, 274, 277-278 + + Hodgson, 118-119, 123-124, 127, 144, 152, 216, 218, 228, 246 + + Holland, Lady, 132 + + Holland, Lord, 221 + + Hoppner, Consul-General at Venice, 288, 304, 307, 316-317 + + Horton, Wilmot, 224 + + "_Hours of Idleness_," 21 + + Houson, Anne, 45 + + Hunt, Leigh, 228, 336-337, 349-352 + + Hutchinson, Colonel, 3 + + + Jersey, Lady, 227-228 + + + Kemble, Fanny, 141 + + + Lamb, Lady Caroline, 106-107, 128-145, 146-147, 245 + + Lamb, William, afterwards Lord Melbourne, 128-131, 133-135, 142-143, + 145-147 + + Lauriston, General, 76 + + Leigh, Medora, 177 + + Leigh, Augusta, 7, 37, 151-152, 155, 174-175, 197-199, 209, 212-213, + 216, 219, 222-223, 234-252, 274, 291, 373 + + Lovelace, Lord, 206, 218, 235-240, 249-252 + + Lushington, Dr., 214, 217, 245-246 + + + Macri, Theresa, 88-91 + + "_Manfred_," 297 + + Mardyn, Mrs., 256 + + Mavrocordatos, 359, 361, 363 + + Medwin, 96, 138, 140-141, 144, 160-161, 195, 336 + + Melbourne, Lady, 128, 185-186, 221 + + Melbourne, Lord. _See_ Lamb, William + + Milbanke, Anna Isabella, afterwards Lady Byron, 128, 155, 182-192 + + Milbanke, Sir Ralph, afterwards Noel, 191 + + Moore, Thomas, 123-124, 127, 131-132, 152, 154-155, 168, 184, 228, 315, + 334 + + Morgan, Lady, 132 + + Murray, John, 151-152, 319, 346 + + + Napoleon I., 75-77 + + Noel, Sir Ralph, 211, 214-216, 219. _See also_ Milbanke, Sir Ralph + + + Oxford, Lady, 148-157 + + + Parker, Margaret, 25-26 + + Pedley, Mrs., 93-94 + + + Robertson, Rev. F. W., 237, 251 + + Rogers, Samuel, 127, 131-132, 135-136, 228, 254 + + + Salvo, Marquis de, 76-82 + + Segati, Marianna, 280-284, 287, 288-290 + + Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 257, 260-261, 263-264, 269-271, 273, 293, + 331-332, 336-337, 339, 348-349 + + Shipman, Thomas, 3 + + Sligo, Lord, 99 + + Smith, Florence Spencer, 74-86 + + Staël, Madame de, 162, 166, 264-265 + + Stanhope, Lady Hester, 95-96 + + Stendhal, 277-278 + + Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 233-239, 246 + + + "_Thyrza_," 121 + + Trelawny, 336-338, 359 + + + Webster, James Wedderburn, 289, 293 + + Webster, Lady Frances, 158 + + Werry, Mrs., 91 + + Westmorland, Lady, 265 + + Williams, Captain, 348 + + Williams, Hugh W., 88-89 + + +PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD. + +TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN LONDON + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] One of the heads of the family was born before his father's marriage, +but he was subsequently given a title on his own merits. + +[2] In Mr. Murray's latest edition of "The Letters and Journals." + +[3] He would have preferred Oxford, but there was no set of rooms vacant +at Christ Church. + +[4] They intoned underneath his windows the supplication: Good Lort, +deliver us! + +[5] Musters took his wife's name when he married her, though he afterwards +resumed his own. + +[6] In "Byron: the Last Phase." + +[7] Afterwards the Rev. William Harness, and a popular preacher. + +[8] Sir Ralph Milbanke had taken the name of Noel on succeeding to some +property. + +[9] For the full text of the letter see Appendix. + +[10] It is doubtful whether Shelley was at Marlow at this date, so that +Miss Clairmont's memory of the place of meeting was probably at fault. + +[11] Southey, among others, circulated the scandal. + +[12] Odysseus, who was in Attica. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41701 *** |