Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

My spirit shall resume it — if we may,

  Unbodied, choose a sanctuary. I twine

  My hopes of being remember’d in my line,

  With my land’s language; if too fond and far

  These aspirations in their hope incline —

  If my fame should be as my fortunes are,

  Of hasty growth and blight, and dull oblivion bar

  My name from out the temple where the dead

  Are honour’d by the nations — let it be,

  And light the laurels on a loftier head,

  And be the Spartan’s epitaph on me:

  ”Sparta had many a worthier son than he”;

  Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need;

  The thorns which I have reap’d are of the tree

  I planted — they have torn me — and I bleed:

  I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

  It will strike the reader as remarkable, that although the poet, in the course of this canto, takes occasion to allude to Dante and Tasso, in whose destinies there was a shadowy likeness of his own, the rumination is mingled with less of himself than might have been expected, especially when it is considered how much it was a habit with him, to make his own feelings the basis and substratum of the sentiments he ascribed to others. It has also more than once surprised me that he has so seldom alluded to Alfieri, whom of all poets, both in character and conduct, he most resembled; with this difference, however, that Alfieri was possessed of affections equally intense and durable, whereas the caprice of Byron made him uncertain in his partialities, or what was the same in effect, made his friends set less value on them than perhaps they were entitled to.

  Before Childe Harold was finished, an incident occurred which suggested to Byron a poem of a very different kind to any he had yet attempted: — without vouching for the exact truth of the anecdote, I have been told, that he one day received by the mail a copy of Whistlecraft’s prospectus and specimen of an intended national work; and, moved by its playfulness, immediately after reading it, began Beppo, which he finished at a sitting. The facility with which he composed renders the story not improbable; but, singular as it may seem, the poem itself has the facetious flavour in it of his gaiety, stronger than even his grave works have of his frowardness, commonly believed to have been — I think, unjustly — the predominant mood of his character.

  The Ode to Venice is also to be numbered among his compositions in that city; a spirited and indignant effusion, full of his peculiar lurid fire, and rich in a variety of impressive and original images. But there is a still finer poem which belongs to this period of his history, though written, I believe, before he reached Venice — The Lament of Tasso: and I am led to notice it the more particularly, as one of its noblest passages affords an illustration of the opinion which I have early maintained — that Lord Byron’s extraordinary pretensions to the influence of love was but a metaphysical conception of the passion.

  It is no marvel — from my very birth

  My soul was drunk with love, which did pervade

  And mingle with whate’er I saw on earth;

  Of objects all inanimate I made

  Idols, and out of wild and lovely flowers,

  And rocks whereby they grew, a paradise,

  Where I did lay me down within the shade

  Of waving trees, and dream’d uncounted hours.

  It has been remarked by an anonymous author of Memoirs of Lord Byron, a work written with considerable talent and acumen, that “this is so far from being in character, that it is the very reverse; for whether Tasso was in his senses or not, if his love was sincere, he would have made the object of his affection the sole theme of his meditation, instead of generalising his passion, and talking about the original sympathies of his nature.” In truth, no poet has better described love than Byron has his own peculiar passion.

  His love was passion’s essence — as a tree

  On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame

  Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be

  Thus enamour’d were in him the same.

  But his was not the love of living dame,

  Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,

  But of ideal beauty, which became

  In him existence, and o’erflowing teems

  Along his burning page, distemper’d though it seems.

  In tracing the course of Lord Byron’s career, I have not deemed it at all necessary to advert to the instances of his generosity, or to conduct less pleasant to record. Enough has appeared to show that he was neither deficient in warmth of heart nor in less amiable feelings; but, upon the whole, it is not probable that either in his charities or his pleasures he was greatly different from other young men, though he undoubtedly had a wayward delight in magnifying his excesses, not in what was to his credit, like most men, but in what was calculated to do him no honour. More notoriety has been given to an instance of lavish liberality at Venice, than the case deserved, though it was unquestionably prompted by a charitable impulse. The house of a shoemaker, near his Lordship’s residence, in St Samuel, was burned to the ground, with all it contained, by which the proprietor was reduced to indigence. Byron not only caused a new but a superior house to be erected, and also presented the sufferer with a sum of money equal in value to the whole of his stock in trade and furniture. I should endanger my reputation for impartiality if I did not, as a fair set-off to this, also mention that it is said he bought for five hundred crowns a baker’s wife. There might be charity in this, too.

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  Removes to Ravenna — The Countess Guiccioli

  Although Lord Byron resided between two and three years at Venice, he was never much attached to it. “To see a city die daily, as she does,” said he, “is a sad contemplation. I sought to distract my mind from a sense of her desolation and my own solitude, by plunging into a vortex that was anything but pleasure. When one gets into a mill-stream, it is difficult to swim against it, and keep out of the wheels.” He became tired and disgusted with the life he led at Venice, and was glad to turn his back on it. About the close of the year 1819 he accordingly removed to Ravenna; but before I proceed to speak of the works which he composed at Ravenna, it is necessary to explain some particulars respecting a personal affair, the influence of which on at least one of his productions is as striking as any of the many instances already described upon others. I allude to the intimacy which he formed with the young Countess Guiccioli.

  This lady, at the age of sixteen, was married to the Count, one of the richest noblemen in Romagna, but far advanced in life. “From the first,” said Lord Byron, in his account of her, “they had separate apartments, and she always called him, Sir! What could be expected from such a preposterous connection. For some time she was an Angiolina and he a Marino Faliero, a good old man; but young Italian women are not satisfied with good old men, and the venerable Count did not object to her availing herself of the privileges of her country in selecting a cicisbeo; an Italian would have made it quite agreeable: indeed, for some time he winked at our intimacy, but at length made an exception against me, as a foreigner, a heretic, an Englishman, and, what was worse than all, a Liberal.

  “He insisted — Teresa was as obstinate — her family took her part. Catholics cannot get divorces; but to the scandal of all Romagna, the matter was at last referred to the Pope, who ordered her a separate maintenance on condition that she should reside under her father’s roof. All this was not agreeable, and at length I was forced to smuggle her out of Ravenna, having discovered a plot laid with the sanction of the legate, for shutting her up in a convent for life.”

  The Countess Guiccioli was at this time about twenty, but she appeared younger; her complexion was fair, with large, dark, languishing eyes; and her auburn hair fell in great profusion of natural ringlets over her shapely shoulders. Her features were not so regular as in their expression pleasing, and there was an amiable gentleness in
her voice which was peculiarly interesting. Leigh Hunt’s account of her is not essentially dissimilar from any other that I have either heard of or met with. He differs, however, in one respect, from every other, in saying that her hair was yellow; but considering the curiosity which this young lady has excited, perhaps it may be as well to transcribe his description at length, especially as he appears to have taken some pains on it, and more particularly as her destiny seems at present to promise that the interest for her is likely to be revived by another unhappy English connection.

  “Her appearance,” says Mr Hunt, “might have reminded an English spectator of Chaucer’s heroine:

  Yclothed was she, fresh for to devise,

  Her yellow hair was braided in a tress

  Behind her back, a yardé long I guess,

  And in the garden (as the same uprist)

  She walketh up and down, where as her list.

  And then, as Dryden has it:

  At every turn she made a little stand,

  And thrust among the thorns her lily hand.

  Madame Guiccioli, who was at that time about twenty, was handsome and lady-like, with an agreeable manner, and a voice not partaking too much of the Italian fervour to be gentle. She had just enough of it to give her speaking a grace — none of her graces appeared entirely free from art; nor, on the other hand, did they betray enough of it to give you an ill opinion of her sincerity and good-humour . . . Her hair was what the poet has described, or rather blond, with an inclination to yellow; a very fair and delicate yellow, at all events, and within the limits of the poetical. She had regular features of the order properly called handsome, in distinction to prettiness or piquancy; being well proportioned to one another, large, rather than otherwise, but without coarseness, and more harmonious than interesting. Her nose was the handsomest of the kind I ever saw; and I have known her both smile very sweetly, and look intelligently, when Lord Byron has said something kind to her. I should not say, however, that she was a very intelligent person. Both her wisdom and her want of wisdom were on the side of her feelings, in which there was doubtless mingled a good deal of the self-love natural to a flattered beauty. . . . In a word, Madame Guiccioli was a kind of buxom parlour-boarder, compressing herself artificially into dignity and elegance, and fancying she walked, in the eyes of the whole world, a heroine by the side of a poet. When I saw her at Monte Nero, near Leghorn, she was in a state of excitement and exultation, and had really something of this look. At that time, also, she looked no older than she was; in which respect, a rapid and very singular change took place, to the surprise of everybody. In the course of a few months she seemed to have lived as many years.”

  This is not very perspicuous portraiture, nor does it show that Mr Hunt was a very discerning observer of character. Lord Byron himself is represented to have said, that extraordinary pains were taken with her education: “Her conversation is lively without being frivolous; without being learned, she has read all the best authors of her own and the French language. She often conceals what she knows, from the fear of being thought to know too much; possibly because she knows I am not fond of blues. To use an expression of Jeffrey’s, ‘If she has blue stockings, she contrives that her petticoats shall hide them.’”

  Lord Byron was at one time much attached to her; nor could it be doubted that their affection was reciprocal; but in both, their union outlived their affection, for before his departure to Greece his attachment had perished, and he left her, as it is said, notwithstanding the rank and opulence she had forsaken on his account, without any provision. He had promised, it was reported, to settle two thousand pounds on her, but he forgot the intention, or died before it was carried into effect. On her part, the estrangement was of a different and curious kind — she had not come to hate him, but she told a lady, the friend of a mutual acquaintance of Lord Byron and mine, that she feared more than loved him.

  CHAPTER XXXV

  Residence in Ravenna — The Carbonari — Byron’s Part in their Plot — The Murder of the military Commandant — The poetical Use of the Incident — ”Marino Faliero” — Reflections — ”The Prophecy of Dante”

  Lord Byron has said himself, that except Greece, he was never so attached to any place in his life as to Ravenna. The peasantry he thought the best people in the world, and their women the most beautiful. “Those at Tivoli and Frescati,” said he, “are mere Sabines, coarse creatures, compared to the Romagnese. You may talk of your English women; and it is true, that out of one hundred Italian and English you will find thirty of the latter handsome; but then there will be one Italian on the other side of the scale, who will more than balance the deficit in numbers — one who, like the Florence Venus, has no rival, and can have none in the North. I found also at Ravenna much education and liberality of thinking among the higher classes. The climate is delightful. I was not broken in upon by society. Ravenna lies out of the way of travellers. I was never tired of my rides in the pine forest: it breathes of the Decameron; it is poetical ground. Francesca lived and Dante was exiled and died at Ravenna. There is something inspiring in such an air.

  “The people liked me as much as they hated the government. It is not a little to say, I was popular with all the leaders of the constitutional party. They knew that I came from a land of liberty, and wished well to their cause. I would have espoused it, too, and assisted them to shake off their fetters. They knew my character, for I had been living two years at Venice, where many of the Ravennese have houses. I did not, however, take part in their intrigues, nor join in their political coteries; but I had a magazine of one hundred stand of arms in the house, when everything was ripe for revolt — — a curse on Carignan’s imbecility! I could have pardoned him that, too, if he had not impeached his partisans.

  “The proscription was immense in Romagna, and embraced many of the first nobles: almost all my friends, among the rest the Gambas (the father and brother of the Countess Guiccioli), who took no part in the affair, were included in it. They were exiled, and their possessions confiscated. They knew that this must eventually drive me out of the country. I did not follow them immediately: I was not to be bullied — I had myself fallen under the eye of the government. If they could have got sufficient proof they would have arrested me.”

  The latter part of this declaration bears, in my opinion, indubitable marks of being genuine. It has that magnifying mysticism about it which more than any other quality characterized Lord Byron’s intimations concerning himself and his own affairs; but it is a little clearer than I should have expected in the acknowledgment of the part he was preparing to take in the insurrection. He does not seem here to be sensible, that in confessing so much, he has justified the jealousy with which he was regarded.

  “Shortly after the plot was discovered,” he proceeds to say, “I received several anonymous letters, advising me to discontinue my forest rides; but I entertained no apprehensions of treachery, and was more on horseback than ever. I never stir out without being well armed, nor sleep without pistols. They knew that I never missed my aim; perhaps this saved me.”

  An event occurred at this time at Ravenna that made a deep impression on Lord Byron. The commandant of the place, who, though suspected of being secretly a Carbonaro, was too powerful a man to be arrested, was assassinated opposite to his residence. The measures adopted to screen the murderer proved, in the opinion of his Lordship, that the assassination had taken place by order of the police, and that the spot where it was perpetrated had been selected by choice. Byron at the moment had his foot in the stirrup, and his horse started at the report of the shot. On looking round he saw a man throw down a carbine and run away, and another stretched on the pavement near him. On hastening to the spot, he found it was the commandant; a crowd collected, but no one offered any assistance. His Lordship directed his servant to lift the bleeding body into the palace — he assisted himself in the act, though it was represented to him that he might incur the displeasure of the government — and t
he gentleman was already dead. His adjutant followed the body into the house. “I remember,” says his Lordship, “his lamentation over him — ’Poor devil he would not have harmed a dog.’”

  It was from the murder of this commandant that the poet sketched the scene of the assassination in the fifth canto of Don Juan.

  The other evening (‘twas on Friday last),

  This is a fact, and no poetic fable —

  Just as my great coat was about me cast,

  My hat and gloves still lying on the table,

  I heard a shot — ’twas eight o’clock scarce past,

  And running out as fast as I was able,

  I found the military commandant

  Stretch’d in the street, and able scarce to pant.

  Poor fellow! for some reason, surely bad,

  They had him slain with five slugs, and left him there

  To perish on the pavement: so I had

  Him borne into the house, and up the stair;

  The man was gone: in some Italian quarrel

  Kill’d by five bullets from an old gun-barrel.

  The scars of his old wounds were near his new,

  Those honourable scars which bought him fame,

  And horrid was the contrast to the view —

  But let me quit the theme, as such things claim

  Perhaps ev’n more attention than is due

  From me: I gazed (as oft I’ve gazed the same)

  To try if I could wrench aught out of death

  Which should confirm, or shake, or make a faith.

  Whether Marino Faliero was written at Ravenna or completed there, I have not ascertained, but it was planned at Venice, and as far back as 1817. I believe this is considered about the most ordinary performance of all Lord Byron’s works; but if it is considered with reference to the time in which it was written, it will probably be found to contain many great and impressive passages. Has not the latter part of the second scene in the first act reference to the condition of Venice when his Lordship was there? And is not the description which Israel Bertuccio gives of the conspirators applicable to, as it was probably derived from, the Carbonari, with whom there is reason to say Byron was himself disposed to take a part?