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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)




[Footnote 1: I insert the verses in the original language, as an
English version gives but a very imperfect notion of their meaning.]

"Ein freundlich Wort kommt eines nach dem andern
Von Sueden her und bringt uns frohe Stunden;
Es ruft uns auf zum Edelsten zu wandern,
Nich ist der Geist, doch ist der Fuss gebunden.

"Wie soil ich dem, den ich so lang begleitet,
Nun etwas Traulich's in die Ferne sagen?
Ihm der sich selbst im Innersten bestreitet,
Stark angewohnt das tiefste Weh zu tragen.

"Wohl sey ihm doch, wenn er sich selbst empfindet!
Er wage selbst sich hoch beglueckt zu nennen,
Wenn Musenkraft die Schmerzen ueberwindet,
Und wie ich ihn erkannt moeg' er sich kennen.

"The verses reached Genoa, but the excellent friend to whom they were
addressed was already gone, and to a distance, as it appeared,
inaccessible. Driven back, however, by storms, he landed at Leghorn,
where these cordial lines reached him just as he was about to embark,
on the 24th of July, 1823. He had barely time to answer by a
well-filled page, which the possessor has preserved among his most
precious papers, as the worthiest evidence of the connection that had
been formed. Affecting and delightful as was such a document, and
justifying the most lively hopes, it has acquired now the greatest,
though most painful value, from the untimely death of the lofty
writer, which adds a peculiar edge to the grief felt generally
throughout the whole moral and poetical world at his loss: for we
were warranted in hoping, that when his great deeds should have been
achieved, we might personally have greeted in him the pre-eminent
intellect, the happily acquired friend, and the most humane of
conquerors. At present we can only console ourselves with the
conviction that his country will at last recover from that violence
of invective and reproach which has been so long raised against him,
and will learn to understand that the dross and lees of the age and
the individual, out of which even the best have to elevate
themselves, are but perishable and transient, while the wonderful
glory to which he in the present and through all future ages has
elevated his country, will be as boundless in its splendour as it is
incalculable in its consequences. Nor can there be any doubt that the
nation, which can boast of so many great names, will class him among
the first of those through whom she has acquired such glory."

The following is Lord Byron's answer to the communication above
mentioned from Goethe:--


LETTER 524. TO GOETHE.

"Leghorn, July 24. 1823.

"Illustrious Sir,

"I cannot thank you as you ought to be thanked for the lines which my
young friend, Mr. Sterling, sent me of yours; and it would but ill
become me to pretend to exchange verses with him who, for fifty
years, has been the undisputed sovereign of European literature. You
must therefore accept my most sincere acknowledgments in prose--and
in hasty prose too; for I am at present on my voyage to Greece once
more, and surrounded by hurry and bustle, which hardly allow a moment
even to gratitude and admiration to express themselves.

"I sailed from Genoa some days ago, was driven back by a gale of
wind, and have since sailed again and arrived here, 'Leghorn,' this
morning, to receive on board some Greek passengers for their
struggling country.

"Here also I found your lines and Mr. Sterling's letter; and I could
not have had a more favourable omen, a more agreeable surprise, than
a word of Goethe, written by his own hand.

"I am returning to Greece, to see if I can be of any little use
there: if ever I come back, I will pay a visit to Weimar, to offer
the sincere homage of one of the many millions of your admirers. I
have the honour to be, ever and most,

"Your obliged,

"NOEL BYRON."


From Leghorn, where his Lordship was joined by Mr. Hamilton Browne,
he set sail on the 24th of July, and, after about ten days of most
favourable weather, cast anchor at Argostoli, the chief port of
Cephalonia.

It had been thought expedient that Lord Byron should, with the view
of informing himself correctly respecting Greece, direct his course,
in the first instance, to one of the Ionian islands, from whence, as
from a post of observation, he might be able to ascertain the exact
position of affairs before he landed on the continent. For this
purpose it had been recommended that either Zante or Cephalonia
should be selected; and his choice was chiefly determined towards the
latter island by his knowledge of the talents and liberal feelings of
the Resident, Colonel Napier. Aware, however, that, in the yet
doubtful aspect of the foreign policy of England, his arrival thus on
an expedition so declaredly in aid of insurrection might have the
effect of embarrassing the existing authorities, he resolved to adopt
such a line of conduct as would be the least calculated either to
compromise or offend them. It was with this view he now thought it
prudent not to land at Argostoli, but to await on board his vessel
such information from the Government of Greece as should enable him
to decide upon his further movements.

The arrival of a person so celebrated at Argostoli excited naturally
a lively sensation, as well among the Greeks as the English of that
place; and the first approaches towards intercourse between the
latter and their noble visiter were followed instantly, on both
sides, by that sort of agreeable surprise which, from the false
notions they had preconceived of each other, was to be expected. His
countrymen, who, from the exaggerated stories they had so often heard
of his misanthropy and especial horror of the English, expected their
courtesies to be received with a haughty, if not insulting coldness,
found, on the contrary, in all his demeanour a degree of open and
cheerful affability which, calculated, as it was, to charm under any
circumstances, was to them, expecting so much the reverse, peculiarly
fascinating;--while he, on his side, even still more sensitively
prepared, by a long course of brooding over his own fancies, for a
cold and reluctant reception from his countrymen, found himself
greeted at once with a welcome so cordial and respectful as not only
surprised and flattered, but, it was evident, sensibly touched him.
Among other hospitalities accepted by him was a dinner with the
officers of the garrison, at which, on his health being drunk, he is
reported to have said, in returning thanks, that "he was doubtful
whether he could express his sense of the obligation as he ought,
having been so long in the practice of speaking a foreign language
that it was with some difficulty he could convey the whole force of
what he felt in his own."

Having despatched messengers to Corfu and Missolonghi in quest of
information, he resolved, while waiting their return, to employ his
time in a journey to Ithaca, which island is separated from that of
Cephalonia but by a narrow strait. On his way to Vathi, the chief
city of the island, to which place he had been invited, and his
journey hospitably facilitated, by the Resident, Captain Knox, he
paid a visit to the mountain-cave in which, according to tradition,
Ulysses deposited the presents of the Phaeacians. "Lord Byron (says
Count Gamba) ascended to the grotto, but the steepness and height
prevented him from reaching the remains of the Castle. I myself
experienced considerable difficulty in gaining it. Lord Byron sat
reading in the grotto, but fell asleep. I awoke him on my return, and
he said that I had interrupted dreams more pleasant than ever he had
before in his life."

Though unchanged, since he first visited these regions, in his
preference of the wild charms of Nature to all the classic
associations of Art and History, he yet joined with much interest in
any pilgrimage to those places which tradition had sanctified. At the
Fountain of Arethusa, one of the spots of this kind which he visited,
a repast had been prepared for himself and his party by the Resident;
and at the School of Homer,--as some remains beyond Chioni are
called,--he met with an old refugee bishop, whom he had known
thirteen years before in Livadia, and with whom he now conversed of
those times, with a rapidity and freshness of recollection with which
the memory of the old bishop could but ill keep pace. Neither did the
traditional Baths of Penelope escape his research; and "however
sceptical (says a lady, who, soon after, followed his footsteps,) he
might have been as to these supposed localities, he never offended
the natives by any objection to the reality of their fancies. On the
contrary, his politeness and kindness won the respect and admiration
of all those Greek gentlemen who saw him; and to me they spoke of him
with enthusiasm."

Those benevolent views by which, even more, perhaps, than by any
ambition of renown, he proved himself to be actuated in his present
course, had, during his short stay at Ithaca, opportunities of
disclosing themselves. On learning that a number of poor families had
fled thither from Scio, Patras, and other parts of Greece, he not
only presented to the Commandant three thousand piastres for their
relief, but by his generosity to one family in particular, which had
once been in a state of affluence at Patras, enabled them to repair
their circumstances and again live in comfort. "The eldest girl (says
the lady whom I have already quoted) became afterwards the mistress
of the school formed at Ithaca; and neither she, her sister, nor
mother, could ever speak of Lord Byron without the deepest feeling of
gratitude, and of regret for his too premature death."

After occupying in this excursion about eight days, he had again
established himself on board the Hercules, when one of the messengers
whom he had despatched returned, bringing a letter to him from the
brave Marco Botzari, whom he had left among the mountains of Agrafa,
preparing for that attack in which he so gloriously fell. The
following are the terms in which this heroic chief wrote to Lord
Byron:--

"Your letter, and that of the venerable Ignazio, have filled me with
joy. Your Excellency is exactly the person of whom we stand in need.
Let nothing prevent you from coming into this part of Greece. The
enemy threatens us in great number; but, by the help of God and your
Excellency, they shall meet a suitable resistance. I shall have
something to do to-night against a corps of six or seven thousand
Albanians, encamped close to this place. The day after to-morrow I
will set out with a few chosen companions, to meet your Excellency.
Do not delay. I thank you for the good opinion you have of my
fellow-citizens, which God grant you will not find ill-founded; and I
thank you still more for the care you have so kindly taken of them.

"Believe me," &c.

In the expectation that Lord Byron would proceed forthwith to
Missolonghi, it had been the intention of Botzari, as the above
letter announces, to leave the army, and hasten, with a few of his
brother warriors, to receive their noble ally on his landing in a
manner worthy of the generous mission on which he came. The above
letter, however, preceded but by a few hours his death. That very
night he penetrated, with but a handful of followers, into the midst
of the enemy's camp, whose force was eight thousand strong, and after
leading his heroic band over heaps of dead, fell, at last, close to
the tent of the Pasha himself.

The mention made in this brave Suliote's letter of Lord Byron's care
of his fellow-citizens refers to a popular act done recently by the
noble poet at Cephalonia, in taking into his pay, as a body-guard,
forty of this now homeless tribe. On finding, however, that for want
of employment they were becoming restless and turbulent, he
despatched them off soon after, armed and provisioned, to join in the
defence of Missolonghi, which was at that time besieged on one side
by a considerable force, and blockaded on the other by a Turkish
squadron. Already had he, with a view to the succour of this place,
made a generous offer to the Government, which he thus states himself
in one of his letters:--"I offered to advance a thousand dollars a
month for the succour of Missolonghi, and the Suliotes under Botzari
(since killed); but the Government have answered me, that they wish
to confer with me previously, which is in fact saying they wish me to
expend my money in some other direction. I will take care that it is
for the public cause, otherwise I will not advance a para. The
opposition say they want to cajole me, and the party in power say the
others wish to seduce me, so between the two I have a difficult part
to play; however, I will have nothing to do with the factions unless
to reconcile them if possible."

In these last few sentences is described briefly the position in
which Lord Byron was now placed, and in which the coolness,
foresight, and self-possession he displayed sufficiently refute the
notion that even the highest powers of imagination, whatever effect
they may sometimes produce on the moral temperament, are at all
incompatible with the sound practical good sense, the steadily
balanced views, which the business of active life requires.

The great difficulty, to an observer of the state of Greece at this
crisis, was to be able clearly to distinguish between what was real
and what was merely apparent in those tests by which the probability
of her future success or failure was to be judged. With a Government
little more than nominal, having neither authority nor resources, its
executive and legislative branches being openly at variance, and the
supplies that ought to fill its exchequer being intercepted by the
military Chiefs, who, as they were, in most places, collectors of the
revenue, were able to rob by authority;--with that curse of all
popular enterprises, a multiplicity of leaders, each selfishly
pursuing his own objects, and ready to make the sword the umpire of
their claims;--with a fleet furnished by private adventure, and
therefore precarious; and an army belonging rather to its Chiefs than
to the Government, and, accordingly, trusting more to plunder than to
pay;--with all these principles of mischief, and, as it would seem,
ruin at the very heart of the struggle, it had yet persevered, which
was in itself victory, through three trying campaigns; and at this
moment presented, in the midst of all its apparent weakness and
distraction, some elements of success which both accounted for what
had hitherto been effected, and gave a hope, with more favouring
circumstances, of something nobler yet to come.

Besides the never-failing encouragement which the incapacity of their
enemies afforded them, the Greeks derived also from the geographical
conformation of their country those same advantages with which nature
had blessed their great ancestors, and which had contributed mainly
perhaps to the formation, as well as maintenance, of their high
national character. Islanders and mountaineers, they were, by their
very position, heirs to the blessings of freedom and commerce; nor
had the spirit of either, through all their long slavery and
sufferings, ever wholly died away. They had also, luckily, in a
political as well as religious point of view, preserved that sacred
line of distinction between themselves and their conquerors which a
fond fidelity to an ancient church could alone have maintained for
them;--keeping thus holily in reserve, against the hour of struggle,
that most stirring of all the excitements to which Freedom can appeal
when she points to her flame rising out of the censer of Religion. In
addition to these, and all the other moral advantages included in
them, for which the Greeks were indebted to their own nature and
position, is to be taken also into account the aid and sympathy they
had every right to expect from others, as soon as their exertions in
their own cause should justify the confidence that it would be
something more than the mere chivalry of generosity to assist
them.[1]

[Footnote 1: For a clear and concise sketch of the state of Greece at
this crisis, executed with all that command of the subject which a
long residence in the country alone could give, see Colonel Leake's
"Historical Outline of the Greek Revolution."]

Such seem to have been the chief features of hope which the state of
Greece, at this moment, presented. But though giving promise,
perhaps, of a lengthened continuance of the struggle, they, in that
very promise, postponed indefinitely the period of its success; and
checked and counteracted as were these auspicious appearances by the
manifold and inherent evils above enumerated,--by a consideration,
too, of the resources and obstinacy of the still powerful Turk, and
of the little favour with which it was at all probable that the
Courts of Europe would ever regard the attempt of any people, under
any circumstances, to be their own emancipators,--none, assuredly,
but a most sanguine spirit could indulge in the dream that Greece
would be able to work out her own liberation, or that aught, indeed,
but a fortuitous concurrence of political circumstances could ever
accomplish it. Like many other such contests between right and might,
it was a cause destined, all felt, to be successful, but at its own
ripe hour;--a cause which individuals might keep alive, but which
events, wholly independent of them, alone could accomplish, and
which, after the hearts, and hopes, and lives of all its bravest
defenders had been wasted upon it, would at last to other hands, and
even to other means than those contemplated by its first champions,
owe its completion.

That Lord Byron, on a nearer view of the state of Greece, saw it much
in the light I have here regarded it in, his letters leave no room to
doubt. Neither was the impression he had early received of the Greeks
themselves at all improved by the present renewal of his acquaintance
with them. Though making full allowance for the causes that had
produced their degeneracy, he still saw that they were grossly
degenerate, and must be dealt with and counted upon accordingly. "I
am of St. Paul's opinion," said he, "that there is no difference
between Jews and Greeks,--the character of both being equally vile."
With such means and materials, the work of regeneration, he knew,
must be slow; and the hopelessness he therefore felt as to the
chances of ever connecting his name with any essential or permanent
benefit to Greece, gives to the sacrifice he now made of himself a
far more touching interest than had the consciousness of dying for
some great object been at once his incitement and reward. He but
looked upon himself,--to use a favourite illustration of his own,--as
one of the many waves that must break and die upon the shore, before
the tide they help to advance can reach its full mark. "What
signifies Self," was his generous thought, "if a single spark of that
which would be worthy of the past can be bequeathed unquenchedly to
the future?"[1] Such was the devoted feeling with which he embarked
in the cause of Italy; and these words, which, had they remained
_only_ words, the unjust world would have pronounced but an idle
boast, have now received from his whole course in Greece a practical
comment, which gives them all the right of truth to be engraved
solemnly on his tomb.

[Footnote 1: _Diary of_ 1821.--The same distrustful and, as it turned
out, just view of the chances of success were taken by him also on
that occasion:--"I shall not," he says, "fall back;--though I don't
think them in force or heart sufficient to make much of it."]

Though with so little hope of being able to serve signally the cause,
the task of at least lightening, by his interposition, some of the
manifold mischiefs that pressed upon it, might yet, he thought, be
within his reach. To convince the Government and the Chiefs of the
paralysing effect of their dissensions;--to inculcate that spirit of
union among themselves which alone could give strength against their
enemies;--to endeavour to humanise the feelings of the belligerents
on both sides, so as to take from the war that character of barbarism
which deterred the more civilised friends of freedom through Europe
from joining in it;--such were, in addition to the now essential aid
of his money, the great objects which he proposed to effect by his
interference; and to these he accordingly, with all the candour,
clear-sightedness, and courage which so pre-eminently distinguished
his great mind, applied himself.

Aware that, to judge deliberately of the state of parties, he must
keep out of their vortex, and warned, by the very impatience and
rivalry with which the different chiefs courted his presence, of the
risk he should run by connecting himself with any, he resolved to
remain, for some time longer, in his station at Cephalonia, and there
avail himself of the facilities afforded by the position for
collecting information as to the real state of affairs, and
ascertaining in what quarter his own presence and money would be most
available. During the six weeks that had elapsed since his arrival at
Cephalonia, he had been living in the most comfortless manner, pent
up with pigs and poultry, on board the vessel which brought him.
Having now come, however, to the determination of prolonging his
stay, he decided also upon fixing his abode on shore; and, for the
sake of privacy, retired to a small village, called Metaxata, about
seven miles from Argostoli, where he continued to reside during the
remainder of his stay on the island.

Before this change of residence, he had despatched Mr. Hamilton
Browne and Mr. Trelawney with a letter to the existing Government of
Greece, explanatory of his own views and those of the Committee whom
he represented; and it was not till a month after his removal to
Metaxata that intelligence from these gentlemen reached him. The
picture they gave of the state of the country was, in most respects,
confirmatory of what has already been described as his own view of
it;--incapacity and selfishness at the head of affairs,
disorganisation throughout the whole body politic, but still, with
all this, the heart of the nation sound, and bent on resistance. Nor
could he have failed to be struck with the close family resemblance
to the ancient race of the country which this picture
exhibited;--that great people, in the very midst of their own endless
dissensions, having been ever ready to face round in concert against
the foe.

His Lordship's agents had been received with all due welcome by the
Government, who were most desirous that he should set out for the
Morea without delay; and pressing letters to the same purport, both
from the Legislative and Executive bodies, accompanied those which
reached him from Messrs. Browne and Trelawney. He was, however,
determined not to move till his own selected time, having seen
reason, the farther insight he obtained into their intrigues, to
congratulate himself but the more on his prudence in not plunging
into the maze without being first furnished with those guards against
deception which the information he was now acquiring supplied him.

To give an idea, as briefly as possible, of the sort of conflicting
calls that were from various scenes of action, reaching him in his
retirement, it may be sufficient to mention that, while by Metaxa,
the present governor of Missolonghi, he was entreated earnestly to
hasten to the relief of that place, which the Turks were now
blockading both by land and by sea, the head of the military chiefs,
Colocotroni, was no less earnestly urging that he should present
himself at the approaching congress of Salamis, where, under the
dictation of these rude warriors, the affairs of the country were to
be settled,--while at the same time, from another quarter, the great
opponent of these chieftains, Mavrocordato, was, with more urgency,
as well as more ability than any, endeavouring to impress upon him
his own views, and imploring his presence at Hydra, whither he
himself had just been forced to retire.

The mere knowledge, indeed, that a noble Englishman had arrived in
those regions, so unprepossessed by any party as to inspire a hope of
his alliance in all, and with money, by common rumour, as abundant as
the imaginations of the needy chose to make it, was, in itself, fully
sufficient, without any of the more elevated claims of his name, to
attract towards him all thoughts. "It is easier to conceive," says
Count Gamba, "than to relate the various means employed to engage him
in one faction or the other: letters, messengers, intrigues, and
recriminations,--nay, each faction had its agents exerting every art
to degrade its opponent." He then adds a circumstance strongly
illustrative of a peculiar feature in the noble poet's
character:--"He occupied himself in discovering the truth, hidden as
it was under these intrigues, and _amused himself in confronting the
agents of the different factions_."

During all these occupations he went on pursuing his usual simple and
uniform course of life,--rising, however, for the despatch of
business, at an early hour, which showed how capable he was of
conquering even long habit when necessary. Though so much occupied,
too, he was, at all hours, accessible to visitors; and the facility
with which he allowed even the dullest people to break in upon him
was exemplified, I am told, strongly in the case of one of the
officers of the garrison, who, without being able to understand any
thing of the poet but his good-nature, used to say, whenever he found
his time hang heavily on his hands,--"I think I shall ride out and
have a little talk with Lord Byron."

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