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Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) by Thomas Moore

T >> Thomas Moore >> Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6)




When we consider all these distractions that beset him, taking into
account also the frequent derangement of his health, and the time and
temper he must have thrown away on the minute drudgery of watching
over every item of his household expenditure, the mind is lost in
almost incredulous astonishment at the wonders he was able to achieve
under such circumstances--at the variety and prodigality of power
with which, in the midst of such interruptions and hinderances, his
"bright soul broke out on every side," and not only held on its
course, unclogged, through all these difficulties, but even extracted
out of the very struggles and annoyances it encountered new nerve for
its strength, and new fuel for its fire.

While thus at this period, more remarkably than at any other during
his life, the unparalleled versatility of his genius was unfolding
itself, those quick, cameleon-like changes of which his character,
too, was capable were, during the same time, most vividly, and in
strongest contrast, drawn out. To the world, and more especially to
England,--the scene at once of his glories and his wrongs,--he
presented himself in no other aspect than that of a stern, haughty
misanthrope, self-banished from the fellowship of men, and, most of
all, from that of Englishmen. The more genial and beautiful
inspirations of his muse were, in this point of view, looked upon but
as lucid intervals between the paroxysms of an inherent malignancy of
nature; and even the laughing effusions of his wit and humour got
credit for no other aim than that which Swift boasted of, as the end
of all his own labours, "to vex the world rather than divert it."

How totally all this differed from the Byron of the social hour, they
who lived in familiar intercourse with him may be safely left to
tell. The sort of ferine reputation which he had acquired for himself
abroad prevented numbers, of course, of his countrymen, whom he would
have most cordially welcomed, from seeking his acquaintance. But, as
it was, no English gentleman ever approached him, with the common
forms of introduction, that did not come away at once surprised and
charmed by the kind courtesy and facility of his manners, the
unpretending play of his conversation, and, on a nearer intercourse,
the frank, youthful spirits, to the flow of which he gave way with
such a zest, as even to deceive some of those who best knew him into
the impression, that gaiety was after all the true bent of his
disposition.

To these contrasts which he presented, as viewed publicly and
privately, is to be added also the fact, that, while braving the
world's ban so boldly, and asserting man's right to think for himself
with a freedom and even daringness unequalled, the original shyness
of his nature never ceased to hang about him; and while at a distance
he was regarded as a sort of autocrat in intellect, revelling in all
the confidence of his own great powers, a somewhat nearer observation
enabled a common acquaintance at Venice[1] to detect, under all this,
traces of that self-distrust and bashfulness which had marked him as
a boy, and which never entirely forsook him through the whole of his
career.

[Footnote 1: The Countess Albrizzi--see her Sketch of his Character.]

Still more singular, however, than this contradiction between the
public and private man,--a contradiction not unfrequent, and, in some
cases, more apparent than real, as depending upon the relative
position of the observer,--were those contrarieties and changes not
less startling, which his character so often exhibited, as compared
with itself. He who, at one moment, was seen intrenched in the most
absolute self-will, would, at the very next, be found all that was
docile and amenable. To-day, storming the world in its strong-holds,
as a misanthrope and satirist--to-morrow, learning, with implicit
obedience, to fold a shawl, as a Cavaliere--the same man who had so
obstinately refused to surrender, either to friendly remonstrance or
public outcry, a single line of Don Juan, at the mere request of a
gentle Donna agreed to cease it altogether; nor would venture to
resume this task (though the chief darling of his muse) till, with
some difficulty, he had obtained leave from the same ascendant
quarter. Who, indeed, is there that, without some previous clue to
his transformations, could have been at all prepared to recognise the
coarse libertine of Venice in that romantic and passionate lover who,
but a few months after, stood weeping before the fountain in the
garden at Bologna? or, who could have expected to find in the close
calculator of sequins and baiocchi, that generous champion of Liberty
whose whole fortune, whose very life itself were considered by him
but as trifling sacrifices for the advancement, but by a day, of her
cause?

And here naturally our attention is drawn to the consideration of
another feature of his character, connected more intimately with the
bright epoch of his life now before us. Notwithstanding his strongly
marked prejudices in favour of rank and high birth, we have seen with
what ardour,--not only in fancy and theory, bet practically, as in
the case of the Italian Carbonari,--he embarked his sympathies
unreservedly on the current of every popular movement towards
freedom. Though of the sincerity of this zeal for liberty the seal
set upon it so solemnly by his death leaves us no room to doubt, a
question may fairly arise whether that general love of excitement,
let it flow from whatever source it might, by which, more or less,
every pursuit of his whole life was actuated, was not predominant
among the impulses that governed him in this; and, again, whether it
is not probable that, like Alfieri and other aristocratic lovers of
freedom, he would not ultimately have shrunk from the result of his
own equalising doctrines; and, though zealous enough in lowering
those _above_ his own level, rather recoil from the task of raising
up those who were _below_ it.

With regard to the first point, it may be conceded, without deducting
much from his sincere zeal in the cause, that the gratification of
his thirst of fame, and, above all, perhaps, that supply of
excitement so necessary to him, to whet, as it were, the edge of his
self-wearing spirit, were not the least of the attractions and
incitements which a struggle under the banners of Freedom presented
to him. It is also but too certain that, destined as he was to
endless disenchantment, from that singular and painful union which
existed in his nature of the creative imagination that calls up
illusions, and the cool, searching sagacity that, at once, detects
their hollowness, he could not long have gone on, even in a path so
welcome to him, without finding the hopes with which his fancy had
strewed it withering away beneath him at every step.

In politics, as in every other pursuit, his ambition was to be among
the first; nor would it have been from the want of a due appreciation
of all that is noblest and most disinterested in patriotism, that he
would ever have stooped his flight to any less worthy aim. The
following passage in one of his Journals will be remembered by the
reader:--"To be the first man _(not_ the Dictator), not the Sylla,
but the Washington, or Aristides, the leader in talent and truth, is
to be next to the Divinity." With such high and pure notions of
political eminence, he could not be otherwise than fastidious as to
the means of attaining it; nor can it be doubted that with the sort
of vulgar and sometimes sullied instruments which all popular leaders
must stoop to employ, his love of truth, his sense of honour, his
impatience of injustice, would have led him constantly into such
collisions as must have ended in repulsion and disgust; while the
companionship of those beneath him, a tax all demagogues must pay,
would, as soon as it had ceased to amuse his fancy for the new and
the ridiculous, have shocked his taste and mortified his pride. The
distaste with which, as appears from more than one of his letters, he
was disposed to view the personal, if not the political, attributes
of what is commonly called the Radical party in England, shows how
unsuited he was naturally to mix in that kind of popular fellowship
which, even to those far less aristocratic in their notions and
feelings, must be sufficiently trying.

But, even granting that all these consequences might safely be
predicted as almost certain to result from his engaging in such a
career, it by no means the more necessarily follows that, _once_
engaged, he would not have persevered in it consistently and
devotedly to the last; nor that, even if reduced to say, with Cicero,
"nil boni praeter causam," he could not have so far abstracted the
principle of the cause from its unworthy supporters as, at the same
time, to uphold the one and despise the others. Looking back, indeed,
from the advanced point where we are now arrived through the whole of
his past career, we cannot fail to observe, pervading all its
apparent changes and inconsistencies, an adherence to the original
bias of his nature, a general consistency in the main, however
shifting and contradictory the details, which had the effect of
preserving, from first to last, all his views and principles, upon
the great subjects that interested him through life, essentially
unchanged.[1]

[Footnote 1: Colonel Stanhope, who saw clearly this leading character
of Byron's mind, has thus justly described it:--"Lord Byron's was a
versatile and still a stubborn mind; it wavered, but always returned
to certain fixed principles."]

At the worst, therefore, though allowing that, from disappointment or
disgust, he might have been led to withdraw all personal
participation in such a cause, in no case would he have shown himself
a recreant to its principles; and though too proud to have ever
descended, like Egalite, into the ranks of the people, he would have
been far too consistent to pass, like Alfieri, into those of their
enemies.

After the failure of those hopes with which he had so sanguinely
looked forward to the issue of the late struggle between Italy and
her rulers, it may be well conceived what a relief it was to him to
turn his eyes to Greece, where a spirit was now rising such as he had
himself imaged forth in dreams of song, but hardly could have even
dreamed that he should live to see it realised. His early travels in
that country had left a lasting impression on his mind; and whenever,
as I have before remarked, his fancy for a roving life returned, it
was to the regions about the "blue Olympus" he always fondly looked
back. Since his adoption of Italy as a home, this propensity had in a
great degree subsided. In addition to the sedatory effects of his new
domestic r, there had, at this time, grown upon him a degree of
inertness, or indisposition to change of residence, which, in the
instance of his departure from Ravenna, was with some difficulty
surmounted.

The unsettled state of life he was from thenceforward thrown into, by
the precarious fortunes of those with whom he had connected himself,
conspired with one or two other causes to revive within him all his
former love of change and adventure; nor is it wonderful that to
Greece, as offering _both_ in their most exciting form, he should
turn eagerly his eyes, and at once kindle with a desire not only to
witness, but perhaps share in, the present triumphs of Liberty on
those very fields where he had already gathered for immortality such
memorials of her day long past.

Among the causes that concurred with this sentiment to determine him
to the enterprise he now meditated, not the least powerful,
undoubtedly, was the supposition in his own mind that the high tide
of his poetical popularity had been for some time on the ebb. The
utter failure of the Liberal,--in which, splendid as were some of his
own contributions to it, there were yet others from his pen hardly to
be distinguished from the surrounding dross,--confirmed him fully in
the notion that he had at last wearied out his welcome with the
world; and, as the voice of fame had become almost as necessary to
him as the air he breathed, it was with a proud consciousness of the
yet untouched reserves of power within him he now saw that, if
arrived at the end of _one_ path of fame, there were yet others for
him to strike into, still more glorious.

That some such vent for the resources of his mind had long been
contemplated by him appears from a letter of his to myself, in which
it will be recollected he says,--"If I live ten years longer, you
will see 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 was my vocation. But you will see that I shall do something,--the
times and Fortune permitting,--that 'like the cosmogony of the world
will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.'" He then adds this but too
true and sad prognostic:--"But I doubt whether my constitution will
hold out."

His zeal in the cause of Italy, whose past history and literature
seemed to call aloud for redress of her present vassalage and wrongs,
would have, no doubt, led him to the same chivalrous self-devotion in
her service, as he displayed afterwards in that of Greece. The
disappointing issue, however, of that brief struggle is but too well
known; and this sudden wreck of a cause so promising pained him the
more deeply from his knowledge of some of the brave and true hearts
embarked in it. The disgust, indeed, which that abortive effort left
behind, coupled with the opinion he had early formed of the
"hereditary bonds-men" of Greece, had kept him for some time in a
state of considerable doubt and misgiving as to their chances of ever
working out their own enfranchisement; nor was it till the spring of
this year, when, rather by the continuance of the struggle than by
its actual success, some confidence had begun to be inspired in the
trust-worthiness of the cause, that he had nearly made up his mind to
devote himself to its aid. The only difficulty that still remained to
retard or embarrass this resolution was the necessity it imposed of a
temporary separation from Madame Guiccioli, who was herself, as might
be expected, anxious to participate his perils, but whom it was
impossible he could think of exposing to the chances of a life, even
for men, so rude.

At the beginning of the month of April he received a visit from Mr.
Blaquiere, who was then proceeding on a special mission to Greece,
for the purpose of procuring for the Committee lately formed in
London correct information as to the state and prospects of that
country. It was among the instructions of this gentleman that he
should touch at Genoa and communicate with Lord Byron; and the
following note will show how cordially the noble poet was disposed to
enter into all the objects of the Committee.


LETTER 519. TO MR. BLAQUIERE.

"Albaro, April 5. 1823.

"Dear Sir,

"I shall be delighted to see you and your Greek friend, and the
sooner the better. I have been expecting you for some time,--you will
find me at home. I cannot express to you 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.

"Ever yours truly, NOEL BYRON."


Soon after this interview with their agent, a more direct
communication on the subject was opened between his Lordship and the
Committee itself.


LETTER 520. TO MR. BOWRING.

"Genoa, May 12. 1823

"Sir,

"I have great pleasure in acknowledging your letter, and the honour
which the Committee have done me:--I shall endeavour to deserve their
confidence by every means in my power. My first wish is to go up into
the Levant in person, where I might be enabled to advance, if not the
cause, at least the means of obtaining information which the
Committee might be desirous of acting upon; and my former residence
in the country, my familiarity with the Italian language, (which is
there universally spoken, or at least to the same extent as French in
the more polished parts of the Continent,) and my _not_ total
ignorance of the Romaic, would afford me some advantages of
experience. To this project the only objection is of a domestic
nature, and I shall try to get over it;--if I fail in this, I must do
what I can where I am; but it will be always a source of regret to
me, to think that I might perhaps have done more for the cause on the
spot.

"Our last information of Captain Blaquiere is from Ancona, where he
embarked with a fair wind for Corfu, on the 15th ult.; he is now
probably at his destination. My last letter _from_ him personally was
dated Rome; he had been refused a passport through the Neapolitan
territory, and returned to strike up through Romagna for
Ancona:--little time, however, appears to have been lost by the
delay.

"The principal material wanted by the Greeks appears to be, first, a
park of field artillery--light, and fit for mountain-service;
secondly, gunpowder; thirdly, hospital or medical stores. The
readiest mode of transmission is, I hear, by Idra, addressed to Mr.
Negri, the minister. I meant to send up a certain quantity of the two
latter--no great deal--but enough for an individual to show his good
wishes for the Greek success,--but am pausing, because, in case I
should go myself, I can take them with me. I do not want to limit my
own contribution to this merely, but more especially, if I can get to
Greece myself, I should devote whatever resources I can muster of my
own, to advancing the great object. I am in correspondence with
Signor Nicolas Karrellas (well known to Mr. Hobhouse), who is now at
Pisa; but his latest advice merely stated, that the Greeks are at
present employed in organising their _internal_ government, and the
details of its administration: this would seem to indicate
_security_, but the war is however far from being terminated.

"The Turks are an obstinate race, as all former wars have proved
them, and will return to the charge for years to come, even if
beaten, as it is to be hoped they will be. But in no case can the
labours of the Committee be said to be in vain; for in the event even
of the Greeks being subdued, and dispersed, the funds which could be
employed in succouring and gathering together the remnant, so as to
alleviate in part their distresses, and enable them to find or make a
country (as so many emigrants of other nations have been compelled to
do), would 'bless both those who gave and those who took,' as the
bounty both of justice and of mercy.

"With regard to the formation of a brigade, (which Mr. Hobhouse hints
at in his short letter of this day's receipt, enclosing the one to
which I have the honour to reply,) I would presume to suggest--but
merely as an opinion, resulting rather from the melancholy experience
of the brigades embarked in the Columbian service than from any
experiment yet fairly tried in GREECE,--that the attention of the
Committee had better perhaps be directed to the employment of
_officers_ of experience than the enrolment of _raw British_
soldiers, which latter are apt to be unruly, and not very
serviceable, in irregular warfare, by the side of foreigners. A small
body of good officers, especially artillery; an engineer, with
quantity (such as the Committee might deem requisite) of stores of
the nature which Captain Blaquiere indicated as most wanted, would, I
should conceive, be a highly useful accession. Officers, also, who
had previously served in the Mediterranean would be preferable, as
some knowledge of Italian is nearly indispensable.

"It would also be as well that they should be aware, that they are
not going 'to rough it on a beef-steak and bottle of port,'--but that
Greece--never, of late years, very plentifully stocked for a
_mess_--is at present the country of all kinds of _privations_. This
remark may seem superfluous; but I have been led to it, by observing
that many _foreign_ officers, Italian, French, and even Germans
(but_fewer_ of the _latter_), have returned in disgust, imagining
either that they were going up to make a party of pleasure, or to
enjoy full pay, speedy promotion, and a very moderate degree of duty.
They complain, too, of having been ill received by the Government or
inhabitants; but numbers of these complainants were mere adventurers,
attracted by a hope of command and plunder, and disappointed of both.
Those Greeks I have seen strenuously deny the charge of
inhospitality, and declare that they shared their pittance to the
last crum with their foreign volunteers.

"I need not suggest to the Committee the very great advantage which
must accrue to Great Britain from the success of the Greeks, and
their probable commercial relations with England in consequence;
because I feel persuaded that the first object of the Committee is
their EMANCIPATION, without any interested views. But the
consideration might weigh with the English people in general, in
their present passion for every kind of speculation,--they need not
cross the American seas, for one much better worth their while, and
nearer home. The resources even for an emigrant population, in the
Greek islands alone, are rarely to be paralleled; and the cheapness
of every kind of, not _only necessary_, but _luxury_, (that is to
say, _luxury_ of _nature_,) fruits, wine, oil, &c. in a state of
peace, are far beyond those of the Cape, and Van Dieman's Land, and
the other places of refuge, which the English people are searching
for over the waters.

"I beg that the Committee will command me in any and every way. If I
am favoured with any instructions, I shall endeavour to obey them to
the letter, whether conformable to my own private opinion or not. I
beg leave to add, personally, my respect for the gentleman whom I
have the honour of addressing,

"And am, Sir, your obliged, &c.

"P.S. The best refutation of Gell will be the active exertions of the
Committee;--I am too warm a controversialist; and I suspect that if
Mr. Hobhouse have taken him in hand, there will be little occasion
for me to 'encumber him with help.' If I go up into the country, I
will endeavour to transmit as accurate and impartial an account as
circumstances will permit.

"I shall write to Mr. Karrellas. I expect intelligence from Captain
Blaquiere, who has promised me some early intimation from the seat of
the Provisional Government. I gave him a letter of introduction to
Lord Sydney Osborne, at Corfu; but as Lord S. is in the government
service, of course his reception could only be a _cautious_ one."


LETTER 521. TO MR. BOWRING.

"Genoa, May 21. 1823.

"Sir,

"I received yesterday the letter of the Committee, dated the 14th of
March. What has occasioned the delay, I know not. It was forwarded by
Mr. Galignani, from Paris, who stated that he had only had it in his
charge four days, and that it was delivered to him by a Mr. Grattan.
I need hardly say that I gladly accede to the proposition of the
Committee, and hold myself highly honoured by being deemed worthy to
be a member. I have also to return my thanks, particularly to
yourself, for the accompanying letter, which is extremely flattering.

"Since I last wrote to you, through the medium of Mr. Hobhouse, I
have received and forwarded a letter from Captain Blaquiere to me,
from Corfu, which will show how he gets on. Yesterday I fell in with
two young Germans, survivors of General Normann's band. They arrived
at Genoa in the most deplorable state--without food--without a
soul--without shoes. The Austrians had sent them out of their
territory on their landing at Trieste; and they had been forced to
come down to Florence, and had travelled from Leghorn here, with four
Tuscan _livres_ (about three francs) in their pockets. I have given
them twenty Genoese scudi (about a hundred and thirty-three livres,
French money,) and new shoes, which will enable them to get to
Switzerland, where they say that they have friends. All that they
could raise in Genoa, besides, was thirty _sous_. They do not
complain of the Greeks, but say that they have suffered more since
their landing in Italy.

"I tried their veracity, 1st, by their passports and papers; 2dly, by
topography, cross-questioning them about Arta, Argos, Athens,
Missolonghi, Corinth, c.; and, 3dly, in _Romaic_, of which I found
one of them, at least, knew more than I do. One of them (they are
both of good families) is a fine handsome young fellow of
three-and-twenty--a Wirtembergher, and has a look of _Sandt_ about
him--the other a Bavarian, older and flat-faced, and less ideal, but
a great, sturdy, soldier-like personage. The Wirtembergher was in the
action at Arta, where the Philhellenists were cut to pieces after
killing six hundred Turks, they themselves being only a hundred and
fifty in number, opposed to about six or seven thousand; only eight
escaped, and of them about three only survived; so that General
Normann 'posted his ragamuffins where they were well peppered--not
three of the hundred and fifty left alive--and they are for the
town's end for life.'

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