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diff --git a/41701-8.txt b/41701-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 26a2293..0000000 --- a/41701-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9745 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Love Affairs of Lord Byron, by Francis -Henry Gribble - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - - - - -Title: The Love Affairs of Lord Byron - - -Author: Francis Henry Gribble - - - -Release Date: December 24, 2012 [eBook #41701] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF LORD BYRON*** - - -E-text prepared by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team -(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by -Internet Archive (http://archive.org) - - - -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 THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF LORD BYRON*** - - -******* This file should be named 41701-8.txt or 41701-8.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/1/7/0/41701 - - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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