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

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"These two left Greece by the direction of the Greeks. When Churschid
Pacha over-run the Morea, the Greeks seem to have behaved well, in
wishing to save their allies, when they thought that the game was up
with themselves. This was in September last (1822): they wandered
from island to island, and got from Milo to Smyrna, where the French
consul gave them a passport, and a charitable captain a passage to
Ancona, whence they got to Trieste, and were turned back by the
Austrians. They complain only of the minister (who has always been an
indifferent character); say that the Greeks fight very well in their
own way, but were at _first_ afraid to _fire_ their own cannon--but
mended with practice.

"Adolphe (the younger) commanded at Navarino for a short time; the
other, a more material person, 'the bold Bavarian in a luckless
hour,' seems chiefly to lament a fast of three days at Argos, and the
loss of twenty-five paras a day of pay in arrear, and some baggage at
Tripolitza; but takes his wounds, and marches, and battles in very
good part. Both are very simple, full of naivete, and quite
unpretending: they say the foreigners quarrelled among themselves,
particularly the French with the Germans, which produced duels.

"The Greeks accept muskets, but throw away _bayonets_, and will _not_
be disciplined. When these lads saw two Piedmontese regiments
yesterday, they said, 'Ah! if we had but _these_ two, we should have
cleared the Morea:' in that case the Piedmontese must have behaved
better than they did against the Austrians. They seem to lay great
stress upon a few regular troops--say that the Greeks have arms and
powder in plenty, but want victuals, hospital stores, and lint and
linen, &c. and money, very much. Altogether, it would be difficult to
show more practical philosophy than this remnant of our 'puir hill
folk' have done; they do not seem the least cast down, and their way
of presenting themselves was as simple and natural as could be. They
said, a Dane here had told them that an Englishman, friendly to the
Greek cause, was here, and that, as they were reduced to beg their
way home, they thought they might as well begin with me. I write in
haste to snatch the post.

"Believe me, and truly,

"Your obliged, &c.

"P.S. I have, since I wrote this, seen them again. Count P. Gamba
asked them to breakfast. One of them means to publish his Journal of
the campaign. The Bavarian wonders a little that the Greeks are not
quite the same with them of the time of Themistocles, (they were not
then very tractable, by the by,) and at the difficulty of
disciplining them; but he is a 'bon homme' and a tactician, and a
little like Dugald Dalgetty, who would insist upon the erection of 'a
sconce on the hill of Drumsnab,' or whatever it was;--the other seems
to wonder at nothing."

LETTER 522. TO LADY ----.

"May 17. 1823.

"My voyage to Greece will depend upon the Greek Committee (in
England) partly, and partly on the instructions which some persons
now in Greece on a private mission may be pleased to send me. I am a
member, lately elected, of the said Committee; and my object in going
up would be to do any little good in my power;--but as there are some
_pros_ and _cons_ on the subject, with regard to how far the
intervention of strangers may be advisable, I know no more than I
tell you; but we shall probably hear something soon from England and
Greece, which may be more decisive.

"With regard to the late person (Lord Londonderry), whom you hear
that I have attacked, I can only say that a bad minister's memory is
as much an object of investigation as his conduct while alive,--for
his measures do not die with him like a private individual's notions.
He is a matter of _history_; and, wherever I find a tyrant or a
villain, _I will mark him._ I attacked him no more than I had been
wont to do. As to the Liberal,--it was a publication set up for the
advantage of a persecuted author and a very worthy man. But it was
foolish in me to engage in it; and so it has turned out--for I have
hurt myself without doing much good to those for whose benefit it was
intended.

"Do _not defend_ me--it will never do--you will only make _yourself_
enemies.

"Mine are neither to be diminished nor softened, but they may be
overthrown; and there are events which may occur, less improbable
than those which have happened in our time, that may reverse the
present state of things--_nous verrons_.

"I send you this gossip that you may laugh at it, which is all it is
good for, if it is even good for so much. I shall be delighted to see
you again; but it will be melancholy, should it be only for a moment.

"Ever yours, N. B."

It being now decided that Lord Byron should proceed forthwith to
Greece, all the necessary preparations for his departure were
hastened. One of his first steps was to write to Mr. Trelawney, who
was then at Rome, to request that he would accompany him. "You must
have heard," he says, "that I am going to Greece--why do you not come
to me? I can do nothing without you, and am exceedingly anxious to
see you. Pray, come, for I am at last determined to go to Greece:--it
is the only place I was ever contented in. I am serious; and did not
write before, as I might have given you a journey for nothing. They
all say I can be of use to Greece; I do not know how--nor do they;
but, at all events, let us go."

A physician, acquainted with surgery, being considered a necessary
part of his suite, he requested of his own medical attendant at
Genoa, Dr. Alexander, to provide him with such a person; and, on the
recommendation of this gentleman, Dr. Bruno, a young man who had just
left the university with considerable reputation, was engaged. Among
other preparations for his expedition, he ordered three splendid
helmets to be made,--with his never forgotten crest engraved upon
them,--for himself and the two friends who were to accompany him. In
this little circumstance, which in England (where the ridiculous is
so much better understood than the heroic) excited some sneers at the
time, we have one of the many instances that occur amusingly through
his life, to confirm the quaint but, as applied to him, true
observation, that "the child is father to the man;"--the
characteristics of these two periods of life being in him so
anomalously transposed, that while the passions and ripened views of
the man developed themselves in his boyhood, so the easily pleased
fancies and vanities of the boy were for ever breaking out among the
most serious moments of his manhood. The same schoolboy whom we
found, at the beginning of the first volume, boasting of his
intention to raise, at some future time, a troop of horse in black
armour, to be called Byron's Blacks, was now seen trying on with
delight his fine crested helmet, and anticipating the deeds of glory
he was to achieve under its plumes.

At the end of May a letter arrived from Mr. Blaquiere communicating
to him very favourable intelligence, and requesting that he would as
much as possible hasten his departure, as he was now anxiously looked
for, and would be of the greatest service. However encouraging this
summons, and though Lord Byron, thus called upon from all sides, had
now determined to give freely the aid which all deemed so essential,
it is plain from his letters that, in the cool, sagacious view which
he himself took of the whole subject, so far from agreeing with these
enthusiasts in their high estimate of his personal services, he had
not yet even been able to perceive any definite way in which those
services could, with any prospect of permanent utility, be applied.

For an insight into the true state of his mind at this crisis, the
following observations of one who watched him with eyes quickened by
anxiety will be found, perhaps, to afford the clearest and most
certain clue. "At this time," says the Contessa Guiccioli, "Lord
Byron again turned his thoughts to Greece; and, excited on every side
by a thousand combining circumstances, found himself, almost before
he had time to form a decision, or well know what he was doing,
obliged to set out for that country. But, notwithstanding his
affection for those regions,--notwithstanding the consciousness of
his own moral energies, which made him say always that 'a man ought
to do something more for society than write verses,'--notwithstanding
the attraction which the object of this voyage must necessarily have
for his noble mind, and that, moreover, he was resolved to return to
Italy within a few months,--notwithstanding all this, every person
who was near him at the time can bear witness to the struggle which
his mind underwent (however much he endeavoured to hide it), as the
period fixed for his departure approached."[1]

[Footnote 1: "Fu allora che Lord Byron rivolse i suoi pensieri alla
Grecia; e stimolato poi da ogni parte per mille combinazioni egli si
trovo quasi senza averlo deciso, e senza saperlo, obbligato di
partire per la Grecia. Ma, non ostante il suo affetto per quelle
contrade,--non ostante il sentimento delle sue forze morali che gli
faceva dire sempre 'che un uomo e obbligato a fare per la societa
qualche cosa di piu che dei versi,--non ostante le attrative che
doveva avere pel nobile suo animo l'oggetto di que viaggio,--e non
ostante che egli fosse determinato di ritornare in Italia fra non
molti mesi,--pure in quale combattimento si trovasse il suo cuore
mentre si avvanzava l'epoca della sua parenza (sebbene cercasse
occultarlo) ognuno che lo ha avvicinato allora puu dirlo."]

In addition to the vagueness which this want of any defined object so
unsatisfactorily threw round the enterprise before him, he had also a
sort of ominous presentiment--natural, perhaps, to one of his
temperament under such circumstances--that he was but fulfilling his
own doom in this expedition, and should die in Greece. On the evening
before the departure of his friends, Lord and Lady B----, from Genoa,
he called upon them for the purpose of taking leave, and sat
conversing for some time. He was evidently in low spirits, and after
expressing his regret that they should leave Genoa before his own
time of sailing, proceeded to speak of his intended voyage in a tone
full of despondence. "Here," said he, "we are all now together--but
when, and where, shall we meet again? I have a sort of boding that we
see each other for the last time; as something tells me I shall never
again return from Greece." Having continued a little longer in this
melancholy strain, he leaned his head upon the arm of the sofa on
which they were seated, and, bursting into tears, wept for some
minutes with uncontrollable feeling. Though he had been talking only
with Lady B----, all who were present in the room observed, and were
affected by his emotion, while he himself, apparently ashamed of his
weakness, endeavoured to turn off attention from it by some ironical
remark, spoken with a sort of hysterical laugh, upon the effects of
"nervousness."

He had, previous to this conversation, presented to each of the party
some little farewell gift--a book to one, a print from his bust by
Bartolini to another, and to Lady B---- a copy of his Armenian
Grammar, which had some manuscript remarks of his own on the leaves.
In now parting with her, having begged, as a memorial, some trifle
which she had worn, the lady gave him one of her rings; in return for
which he took a pin from his breast, containing a small cameo of
Napoleon, which he said had long been his companion, and presented it
to her Ladyship.

The next day Lady B---- received from him the following note.

TO THE COUNTESS OF B----.

"Albaro, June 2. 1823.

"My dear Lady B----, 'I am _superstitious_, and have recollected that
memorials with a _point_ are of less fortunate augury; I will,
therefore, request you to accept, instead of the _pin_, the enclosed
chain, which is of so slight a value that you need not hesitate. As
you wished for something _worn_, I can only say, that it has been
worn oftener and longer than the other. It is of Venetian
manufacture; and the only peculiarity about it is, that it could only
be obtained at or from Venice. At Genoa they have none of the same
kind. I also enclose a ring, which I would wish _Alfred_ to keep; it
is too large to _wear_; but is formed of _lava_, and so far adapted
to the fire of his years and character. You will perhaps have the
goodness to acknowledge the receipt of this note, and send back the
pin (for good luck's sake), which I shall value much more for having
been a night in your custody.

"Ever and faithfully your obliged, &c.

"P.S. I hope your _nerves_ are well to-day, and will continue to
flourish."

In the mean time the preparations for his romantic expedition were in
progress. With the aid of his banker and very sincere friend, Mr.
Barry, of Genoa, he was enabled to raise the large sums of money
necessary for his supply;--10,000 crowns in specie, and 40,000 crowns
in bills of exchange, being the amount of what he took with him, and
a portion of this having been raised upon his furniture and books, on
which Mr. Barry, as I understand, advanced a sum far beyond their
worth. An English brig, the Hercules, had been freighted to convey
himself and his suite, which consisted, at this time, of Count Gamba,
Mr. Trelawney, Dr. Bruno, and eight domestics. There were also aboard
five horses, sufficient arms and ammunition for the use of his own
party, two one-pounders belonging to his schooner, the Bolivar, which
he had left at Genoa, and medicine enough for the supply of a
thousand men for a year.

The following letter to the Secretary of the Greek Committee
announces his approaching departure.

LETTER 523. TO MR. BOWRING.

"July 7. 1823.

"We sail on the 12th for Greece.--I have had a letter from Mr,
Blaquiere, too long for present transcription, but very satisfactory.
The Greek Government expects me without delay.

"In conformity to the desires of Mr. B. and other correspondents in
Greece, I have to suggest, with all deference to the Committee, that
a remittance of even '_ten thousand pounds only_' (Mr. B.'s
expression) would be of the greatest service to the Greek Government
at present. I have also to recommend strongly the attempt of a loan,
for which there will be offered a sufficient security by deputies now
on their way to England. In the mean time, I hope that the Committee
will be enabled to do something effectual.

"For my own part, I mean to carry up, in cash or credits, above
eight, and nearly nine thousand pounds sterling, which I am enabled
to do by funds I have in Italy, and credits in England. Of this sum I
must necessarily reserve a portion for the subsistence of myself and
suite; the rest I am willing to apply in the manner which seems most
likely to be useful to the cause--having of course some guarantee or
assurance, that it will not be misapplied to any individual
speculation.

"If I remain in Greece, which will mainly depend upon the presumed
probable utility of my presence there, and of the opinion of the
Greeks themselves as to its propriety--in short, if I am welcome to
them, I shall continue, during my residence at least, to apply such
portions of my income, present and future, as may forward the
object--that is to say, what I can spare for that purpose. Privations
I can, or at least could once bear--abstinence I am accustomed
to--and as to fatigue, I was once a tolerable traveller. What I may
be now, I cannot tell--but I will try.

"I await the commands of the Committee--Address to Genoa--the letters
will be forwarded me, wherever I may be, by my bankers, Messrs. Webb
and Barry. It would have given me pleasure to have had some more
_defined_ instructions before I went, but these, of course, rest at
the option of the Committee.

I have the honour to be,

"Yours obediently, &c.

"P.S. Great anxiety is expressed for a printing press and types, &c.
I have not the time to provide them, but recommend this to the notice
of the Committee. I presume the types must, partly at least, be
_Greek_: they wish to publish papers, and perhaps a Journal, probably
in Romaic, with Italian translations."

All was now ready; and on the 13th of July himself and his whole
party slept on board the Hercules. About sunrise the next morning
they succeeded in clearing the port; but there was little wind, and
they remained in sight of Genoa the whole day. The night was a bright
moonlight, but the wind had become stormy and adverse, and they were,
for a short time, in serious danger. Lord Byron, who remained on deck
during the storm, was employed anxiously, with the aid of such of his
suite as were not disabled by sea-sickness from helping him in
preventing further mischief to the horses, which, having been badly
secured, had broken loose and injured each other. After making head
against the wind for three or four hours, the captain was at last
obliged to steer back to Genoa, and re-entered the port at six in the
morning. On landing again, after this unpromising commencement of his
voyage, Lord Byron (says Count Gamba) "appeared thoughtful, and
remarked that he considered a bad beginning a favourable omen."

It has been already, I believe, mentioned that, among the
superstitions in which he chose to indulge, the supposed unluckiness
of Friday, as a day for the commencement of any work, was one by
which he, almost always, allowed himself to be influenced. Soon after
his arrival at Pisa, a lady of his acquaintance happening to meet him
on the road from her house as she was herself returning thither, and
supposing that he had been to make her a visit, requested that he
would go back with her. "I have not been to your house," he answered;
"for, just before I got to the door, I remembered that it was Friday;
and, not liking to make my first visit on a Friday, I turned back."
It is even related of him that he once sent away a Genoese tailor who
brought him home a new coat on the same ominous day.

With all this, strange to say, he set sail for Greece on a
Friday:--and though, by those who have any leaning to this
superstitious fancy, the result maybe thought but too sadly
confirmatory of the omen, it is plain that either the influence of
the superstition over his own mind was slight, or, in the excitement
of self-devotion under which he now acted, was forgotten, In truth,
notwithstanding his encouraging speech to Count Gamba, the
forewarning he now felt of his approaching doom seems to have been
far too deep and serious to need the aid of any such accessory.
Having expressed a wish, on relanding, to visit his own palace, which
he had left to the care of Mr. Barry during his absence, and from
which Madame Guiccioli had early that morning departed, he now
proceeded thither, accompanied by Count Gamba alone. "His
conversation," says this gentleman, "was somewhat melancholy on our
way to Albaro: he spoke much of his past life, and of the uncertainty
of the future. 'Where,' said he, 'shall we be in a year?'--It looked
(adds his friend) like a melancholy foreboding; for, on the same day,
of the same month, in the next year, he was carried to the tomb of
his ancestors."

It took nearly the whole of the day to repair the damages of their
vessel; and the greater part of this interval was passed by Lord
Byron, in company with Mr. Barry, at some gardens near the city. Here
his conversation, as this gentleman informs me, took the same gloomy
turn. That he had not fixed to go to England, in preference, seemed
one of his deep regrets; and so hopeless were the views he expressed
of the whole enterprise before him, that, as it appeared to Mr.
Barry, nothing but a devoted sense of duty and honour could have
determined him to persist in it.

In the evening of that day they set sail;--and now, fairly launched
in the cause, and disengaged, as it were, from his former state of
existence, the natural power of his spirit to shake off pressure,
whether from within or without, began instantly to display itself.
According to the report of one of his fellow-voyagers, though so
clouded while on shore, no sooner did he find himself, once more,
bounding over the waters, than all the light and life of his better
nature shone forth. In the breeze that now bore him towards his
beloved Greece, the voice of his youth seemed again to speak. Before
the titles of hero, of benefactor, to which he now aspired, that of
poet, however pre-eminent, faded into nothing. His love of freedom,
his generosity, his thirst for the new and adventurous,--all were
re-awakened; and even the bodings that still lingered at the bottom
of his heart but made the course before him more precious from his
consciousness of its brevity, and from the high and self-ennobling
resolution he had now taken to turn what yet remained of it
gloriously to account.

"Parte, e porta un desio d'eterna ed alma
Gloria che a nobil cuor e sferza e sprone;
A magnanime imprese intenta ha l'alma,
Ed _insolite cose oprar_ dispone.
Gir fra i nemici--_ivi o cipresso o palma_
Acquistar."

After a passage of five days, they reached Leghorn, at which place it
was thought necessary to touch, for the purpose of taking on board a
supply of gunpowder, and other English goods, not to be had
elsewhere.

It would have been the wish of Lord Byron, in the new path he had now
marked out for himself, to disconnect from his name, if possible, all
those poetical associations, which, by throwing a character of
romance over the step he was now taking, might have a tendency, as he
feared, to impair its practical utility; and it is, perhaps, hardly
saying too much for his sincere zeal in the cause to assert, that he
would willingly at this moment have sacrificed his whole fame, as
poet, for even the prospect of an equivalent renown, as
philanthropist and liberator. How vain, however, was the thought that
he could thus supersede his own glory, or cause the fame of the lyre
to be forgotten in that of the sword, was made manifest to him by a
mark of homage which reached him, while at Leghorn, from the hands of
one of the only two men of the age who could contend with him in the
universality of his literary fame.

Already, as has been seen, an exchange of courtesies, founded upon
mutual admiration, had taken place between Lord Byron and the great
poet of Germany, Goethe. Of this intercourse between two such
men,--the former as brief a light in the world's eyes, as the latter
has been long and steadily luminous,--an account has been by the
venerable survivor put on record, which, as a fit preliminary to the
letter I am about to give, I shall here insert in as faithful a
translation as it has been in my power to procure.

"GOETHE AND BYRON.

"The German poet, who, down to the latest period of his long life,
had been always anxious to acknowledge the merits of his literary
predecessors and contemporaries, because he has always considered
this to be the surest means of cultivating his own powers, could not
but have his attention attracted to the great talent of the noble
Lord almost from his earliest appearance, and uninterruptedly watched
the progress of his mind throughout the great works which he
unceasingly produced. It was immediately perceived by him that the
public appreciation of his poetical merits kept pace with the rapid
succession of his writings. The joyful sympathy of others would have
been perfect, had not the poet, by a life marked by
self-dissatisfaction, and the indulgence of strong passions,
disturbed the enjoyment which his infinite genius produced. But his
German admirer was not led astray by this, or prevented from
following with close attention both his works and his life in all
their eccentricity. These astonished him the more, as he found in the
experience of past ages no element for the calculation of so
eccentric an orbit.

"These endeavours of the German did not remain unknown to the
Englishman, of which his poems contain unambiguous proofs; and he
also availed himself of the means afforded by various travellers, to
forward some friendly salutation to his unknown admirer. At length a
manuscript Dedication of _Sardanapaius_, in the most complimentary
terms, was forwarded to him, with an obliging enquiry whether it
might be prefixed to the tragedy. The German, who, at his advanced
age, was conscious of his own powers and of their effects, could only
gratefully and modestly consider this Dedication as the expression of
an inexhaustible intellect, deeply feeling and creating its own
object. He was by no means dissatisfied when, after a long delay,
Sardanapaius appeared without the Dedication; and was made happy by
the possession of a fac-simile of it, engraved on stone, which he
considered a precious memorial.

The noble Lord, however, did not abandon his purpose of proclaiming
to the world his valued kindness towards his German contemporary and
brother poet, a precious evidence of which was placed in front of the
tragedy of Werner. It will be readily believed, when so unhoped for
an honour was conferred upon the German poet,--one seldom experienced
in life, and that too from one himself so highly distinguished,--he
was by no means reluctant to express the high esteem and sympathising
sentiment with which his unsurpassed contemporary had inspired him.
The task was difficult, and was found the more so, the more it was
contemplated;--for what can be said of one whose unfathomable
qualities are not to be reached by words? But when a young gentleman,
Mr. Sterling, of pleasing person and excellent character, in the
spring of 1823, on a journey from Genoa to Weimar, delivered a few
lines under the hand of the great man as an introduction, and when
the report was soon after spread that the noble Peer was about to
direct his great mind and various power to deeds of sublime daring
beyond the ocean, there appeared to be no time left for further
delay, and the following lines were hastily written[1]:--

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