Byron: The Last Phase Part 16

'This extraordinary person, whom everybody was as anxious to see, and to know, as if he had been a Napoleon, the conqueror of the world, had a notion that he was hated, and avoided like one who had broken quarantine. He used often to mention to me the kindness of this or that insignificant individual, for having given him a good and friendly reception. In this particular Lord Byron was capricious, for at Genoa he would scarcely see anyone but those who lived in his own family; whereas at Cephalonia he was to everyone and at all times accessible. At Genoa he acted the misanthropist; at Cephalonia he appeared in his genuine character, doing good, and rather courting than shunning society.

'Lord Byron conceived that he possessed a profound knowledge of mankind, and of the working of their pa.s.sions. In this he judged right. He could fathom every mind and heart but his own, the extreme depths of which none ever reached. On my arrival from England at Cephalonia, his lordship asked me what new publications I had brought out. Among others I mentioned "The Springs of Action." "Springs of Action!" said Lord Byron, stamping with rage with his lame foot, and then turning sharply on his heel, "I don't require to be taught on this head. I know well what are the springs of action." Some time afterwards, while speaking on another subject, he desired me to lend him "The Springs of Action." He then suddenly changed the conversation to some humorous remarks for the purpose of diverting my attention. I could not, however, forbear reminding him of his former observations and his furious stamp.

'Avarice and great generosity were among Lord Byron's qualities; these contrarieties are said not unfrequently to be united in the same person. As an instance of Lord Byron's parsimony, he was constantly attacking Count Gamba, sometimes, indeed, playfully, but more often with the bitterest satire, for having purchased for the use of his family, while in Greece, 500 dollars' worth of cloth. This he used to mention as an instance of the Count's imprudence and extravagance.

Lord Byron told me one day, with a tone of great gravity, that this 500 dollars would have been most serviceable in promoting the siege of Lepanto; and that he never would, to the last moment of his existence, forgive Gamba for having squandered away his money in the purchase of cloth. No one will suppose that Lord Byron could be serious in such a denunciation; he entertained, in reality, the highest opinion of Count Gamba, who both on account of his talents and devotedness to his friend merited his lordship's esteem.

'Lord Byron's generosity is before the world; he promised to devote his large income to the cause of Greece, and he honestly acted up to his pledge. It was impossible for Lord Byron to have made a more useful, and therefore a more n.o.ble, sacrifice of his wealth, than by devoting it, _with discretion_, to the Greek cause. He set a bright example to the millionaires of his own country, who certainly show but little public spirit. Most of them expend their fortunes in acts of ostentation or selfishness. Few there are of this cla.s.s who will devote, perchance, the hundredth part of their large incomes to acts of benevolence or bettering the condition of their fellow-men. None of our millionaires, with all their pride and their boasting have had the public virtue, like Lord Byron, to sacrifice their incomes or their lives in aid of a people struggling for liberty.

'Lord Byron's reading was desultory, but extensive; his memory was retentive to an extraordinary extent. He was partial to the Italian poets, and is said to have borrowed from them. Their fine thoughts he certainly a.s.sociated with his own, but with such skill that he could not be accused of plagiarism. Lord Byron possessed, indeed, a genius absolutely boundless, and could create with such facility that it would have been irksome to him to have become a servile imitator. He was original in all things, but especially as a poet.

'The study of voyages and travels was that in which he most delighted; their details he seemed actually to devour. He would sit up all night reading them. His whole soul was absorbed in these adventures, and he appeared to personify the traveller. Lord Byron had a particular aversion to business; his familiar letters were scrawled out at a great rate, and resembled his conversations. Rapid as were his tongue and his pen, neither could keep pace with the quick succession of ideas that flashed across his mind. He hated nothing more than writing formal official letters; this drudgery he would generally put off from day to day, and finish by desiring Count Gamba, or some other friend, to perform the task. No wonder that Lord Byron should dislike this dry antipoetic work, and which he, in reality, performed with so much difficulty. Lord Byron's arduous yet unsuccessful labours in this barren field put me in mind of the difficulty which one of the biographers of Addison describes this politician to have experienced, when attempting to compose an official paragraph for the _Gazette_ announcing the death of the Queen. This duty, after a long and ineffectual attempt, the Minister, in despair, handed over to a clerk, who (not being a genius, but a man of business) performed it in an instant.

'Not less was Lord Byron's aversion to reading than to writing official doc.u.ments; these he used to hand over to me, pretending, spite of all my protestations to the contrary, that I had a pa.s.sion for doc.u.ments. When once Lord Byron had taken any whim into his head, he listened not to contradiction, but went on laughing and satirizing till his joke had triumphed over argument and fact. Thus I, for the sake of peace, was sometimes silent, and suffered him to good-naturedly bully me into reading over, or, rather, yawning over, a ma.s.s of doc.u.ments dull and uninteresting.

'Lord Byron once told me, in a humorous tone, but apparently quite in earnest, that he never could acquire a competent knowledge of arithmetic. Addition and subtraction he said he could, though with some difficulty, accomplish. The mechanism of the rule of three pleased him, but then division was a puzzle he could not muster up sufficient courage to unravel. I mention this to show of how low a cast Lord Byron's capacity was in some commonplace matters, where he could not command attention. The reverse was the case on subjects of a higher order, and in those trifling ones, too, that pleased his fancy.

Moved by such themes, the impulses of his genius shot forth, by day and night, from his troubled brain, electric sparks or streams of light, like blazing meteors.

'Lord Byron loved Greece. Her climate and her scenery, her history, her struggles, her great men and her antiquities, he admired. He declared that he had no mastery over his own thoughts. In early youth he was no poet, nor was he now, except when the fit was upon him, and he felt his mind agitated and feverish. These attacks, he continued, scarcely ever visited him anywhere but in Greece; there he felt himself exhilarated--metamorphosed into another person, and with another soul--in short, never had he, but in Greece, written one good line of poetry. This is a fact exaggerated, as facts often are, by the impulses of strong feelings. It is not on that account less calculated to convey to others the character of Lord Byron's mind, or to impress it the less upon their recollections.

'Once established at Missolonghi, it required some great impetus to move Lord Byron from that unhealthy swamp. On one occasion, when irritated by the Suliotes and the constant applications for money, he intimated his intention to depart. The citizens of Missolonghi and the soldiers grumbled, and communicated to me, through Dr. Meyer, their discontent. I repeated what I had heard to Lord Byron. He replied, calmly, that he would rather be cut to pieces than imprisoned, for he came to aid the Greeks in their struggle for liberty, and not to be their slave. No wonder that the "h.e.l.lenists" endeavoured to impede Lord Byron's departure, for even I, a mere soldier, could not escape from Missolonghi, Athens, Corinth, or Salona, without considerable difficulty. Some time previous to Lord Byron's death, he began to feel a restlessness and a wish to remove to Athens or to Zante.'

On Monday, July 12, at eleven o'clock in the morning, the funeral procession, attended by a great number of carriages and by crowds of people, left No. 20, Great George Street, Westminster, and, pa.s.sing the Abbey, moved slowly to St. Pancras Gate. Here a halt was made; the carriages returned, and the hea.r.s.e proceeded by slow stages to Nottingham.

The Mayor and Corporation of Nottingham now joined the funeral procession.

Mr. Hobhouse, who attended, tells us that the cortege extended about a quarter of a mile, and, moving very slowly, was five hours on the road to Hucknall-Torkard.

'The view of it as it wound through the villages of Papplewick and Lindlay excited sensations in me which will never be forgotten. As we pa.s.sed under the Hill of Annesley, "crowned with the peculiar diadem of trees" immortalized by Byron, I called to mind a thousand particulars of my first visit to Newstead. It was dining at Annesley Park that I saw the first interview of Byron, after a long interval, with his early love, Mary Anne Chaworth.

'The churchyard and the little church of Hucknall were so crowded that it was with difficulty we could follow the coffin up the aisle. The contrast between the gorgeous decorations of the coffin and the urn, and the humble village church, was very striking. I was told afterwards that the place was crowded until a late hour in the evening, and that the vault was not closed until the next morning.

'I should mention that I thought Lady Byron ought to be consulted respecting the funeral of her husband; and I advised Mrs. Leigh to write to her, and ask what her wishes might be. Her answer was, if the deceased had left no instructions, she thought the matter might be left to the judgment of Mr. Hobhouse. There was a postscript, saying, "If you like you may show this."'

Hobhouse concludes his account with these words:

'I was present at the marriage of this lady with my friend, and handed her into the carriage which took the bride and bridegroom away.

Shaking hands with Lady Byron, I wished her all happiness. Her answer was: "If I am _not_ happy, it will be my own fault."'

PART II

WHAT THE POEMS REVEAL

'Intesi, che a cosi fatto tormento Enno dannati i peccator carnali Che la ragion sommettono al talento.'

_Inferno_, Canto V., 37-39.

WHAT THE POEMS REVEAL

'Every author in some degree portrays himself in his works, even be it against his will.'--GOETHE.

Lady Byron has expressed her opinion that almost every incident in Byron's poems was drawn from his personal experience. In a letter to Lady Anne Barnard, written two years after the separation, she says:

'In regard to [Byron's] poetry, egotism is the vital principle of his imagination, which it is difficult for him to kindle on any subject with which his own character and interests are not identified; but by the introduction of fict.i.tious incidents, by change of scene or time, he has enveloped his poetical disclosures in a system impenetrable except to a very few.'

Byron himself has told us in 'Don Juan' that his music 'has some mystic diapasons, with much which could not be appreciated in any manner by the _uninitiated_.' In a letter to John Murray (August 23, 1821), he says: 'Almost all "Don Juan" is _real_ life, either my own or from people I knew.'

It is no exaggeration to say that in Byron's poems some of the mysterious incidents in his life are plainly revealed. For example, 'Childe Harold,'

'The Giaour,' 'The Bride of Abydos,' 'The Corsair,' 'Lara,' 'The Dream,'

'Manfred,' 'Don Juan,' and several of the smaller pieces, all disclose episodes connected with his own personal experience. In the so-called 'Fugitive Pieces' we get a glimpse of his school life and friendships; his pursuits during the time that he resided with his mother at Southwell; and his introduction to Cambridge. In the 'Hours of Idleness' we are introduced to Mary Chaworth, after her marriage and the ruin of his hopes.

In the verse 'Remembrance' we realize that the dawn of his life is overcast. We see, from some verses written in 1808, how, three years after that marriage, he was still the victim of a fatal infatuation:

'I deem'd that Time, I deem'd that Pride, Had quench'd at length my boyish flame; Nor knew, till seated by thy side, My heart in all--save hope--the same.'

After lingering for three months in the neighbourhood of the woman whom he so unwisely loved, he finally resolved to break the chain:

'In flight I shall be surely wise, Escaping from temptation's snare; I cannot view my Paradise Without the wish of dwelling there.'

When about to leave England, in vain pursuit of the happiness he had lost, he addresses pa.s.sionate verses to Mary Chaworth:

'And I must from this land be gone, Because I cannot love but one.'

He tells her that he has had love pa.s.sages with another woman, in the vain hope of destroying the love of his life:

'But some unconquerable spell Forbade my bleeding breast to own A kindred care for aught but one.'

He wished to say farewell, but dared not trust himself. In the cantos of 'Childe Harold,' written during his absence, he recurs to the subject nearest to his heart. He says that before leaving Newstead--

'Oft-times in his maddest mirthful mood Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold's brow, As if the memory of some _deadly feud_ Or _disappointed pa.s.sion_ lurked below: But this none knew, nor haply cared to know.'

He mentions his mother, from whom he dreaded to part, and his sister Augusta, whom he loved, but had not seen for some time. After his return to England in 1811, he wrote the 'Thyrza' poems, and added some stanzas to 'Childe Harold,' wherein he expresses a hope that the separation between himself and Mary Chaworth may not be eternal. He then pours out the sorrows of his heart to Francis Hodgson. We cannot doubt that the 'Lines written beneath a Picture,' composed at Athens in January, 1811,

'Dear object of defeated care!

Though now of Love and thee bereft,'

referred to Mary Chaworth, for he mentions the deathblow of his hope. In the 'Epistle to a Friend,' Byron mentions the effect which a chance meeting with Mary had upon him, causing him to realize that 'Time had not made him love the less.'

The poems that have puzzled the commentator most were those which Byron addressed to 'Thyrza'--a mysterious personage, whose ident.i.ty has not hitherto been discovered. The present writer proposes to enter fully, and, he hopes, impartially, into the subject, trusting that the conclusions at which he has arrived may ultimately be endorsed by others who have given their serious attention to the question at issue.

In any attempt to unravel the mystery of the 'Thyrza' poems, it will be necessary to consider, not only the circ.u.mstances in which they were written, but also those a.s.sociations of Byron's youth which inspired a love that endured throughout his life.

Byron's attachment to his distant cousin, Mary Anne Chaworth, is well known. We know that his boyish love was not returned, and that the young heiress of Annesley married, in 1805, Mr. John Musters, of Colwick, in the neighbourhood of Nottingham. In order to account for these love-poems, it has been suggested that, subsequent to this marriage, Byron fell in love with some incognita, whose ident.i.ty has never been established, and who died soon after his return to England in 1811.

We are unable to concur with so simple a solution of the mystery, for the following reasons: It will be remembered that shortly after Mary Chaworth's marriage Byron entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he formed a romantic attachment to a young chorister, named Edleston, whose life he had saved from drowning. Writing to Miss Elizabeth Pigot on June 30, 1807, Byron says: