Life of Lord Byron Volume V Part 32

"In the impartial Galignani I perceive an extract from Blackwood's Magazine, in which it is said that there are people who have discovered that you and I are no poets. With regard to one of us, I know that this north-west pa.s.sage to _my_ magnetic pole had been long discovered by some sages, and I leave them the full benefit of their penetration. I think, as Gibbon says of his History, 'that, perhaps, a hundred years hence it may still continue to be abused.'

However, I am far from pretending to compete or compare with that ill.u.s.trious literary character.

"But, with regard to _you_, I thought that you had always been allowed to be _a poet_, even by the stupid as well as the envious--a bad one, to be sure--immoral, florid, Asiatic, and diabolically popular,--but still always a poet, _nem. con._ This discovery therefore, has to me all the grace of novelty, as well as of consolation (according to Rochefoucault), to find myself _no_-poetised in such good company. I am content to 'err with Plato;' and can a.s.sure you very sincerely, that I would rather be received a _non_-poet with you, than be crowned with all the bays of (the _yet_-uncrowned) Lakers in their society. I believe you think better of those worthies than I do. I know them * * * * * *

"As for Southey, the answer to my proposition of a meeting is not yet come. I sent the message, with a short note, to him through Douglas Kinnaird, and Douglas's response is not arrived. If he accepts, I shall have to go to England; but if not, I do not think the Noel affairs will take me there, as the arbitrators can settle them without my presence, and there do not seem to be any difficulties. The licence for the new name and armorial bearings will be taken out by the regular application, in such cases, to the Crown, and sent to me.

"Is there a hope of seeing you in Italy again ever? What are you doing?--_bored_ by me, I know; but I have explained _why_ before. I have no correspondence now with London, except through relations and lawyers and one or two friends. My greatest friend, Lord Clare, is at Rome: we met on the road, and our meeting was quite sentimental--_really_ pathetic on both sides. I have always loved him better than any _male_ thing in the world."

The preceding was enclosed in that which follows.

LETTER 482. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, March 4. 1822.

"Since I wrote the enclosed, I have waited another post, and now have your answer acknowledging the arrival of the packet--a troublesome one, I fear, to you in more ways than one, both from weight external and internal.

"The unpublished things in your hands, in Douglas K.'s, and Mr.

John Murray's, are, 'Heaven and Earth, a lyrical kind of Drama upon the Deluge, &c.;'--'Werner,' _now with you_;--a translation of the First Canto of the Morgante Maggiore;--_ditto_ of an Episode in Dante;--some stanzas to the Po, June 1st, 1819;--Hints from Horace, written in 1811, but a good deal, _since_, to be omitted;--several prose things, which may, perhaps, as well remain unpublished;--'The Vision, &c. of Quevedo Redivivus' in verse.

"Here you see is 'more matter for a May morning;' but how much of this can be published is for consideration. The Quevedo (one of my best in that line) has appalled the Row already, and must take its chance at Paris, if at all. The new Mystery is less speculative than 'Cain,' and very pious; besides, it is chiefly lyrical. The Morgante is the _best_ translation that ever was or will be made; and the rest are--whatever you please to think them.

"I am sorry you think Werner even _approaching_ to any fitness for the stage, which, with my notions upon it, is very far from my present object. With regard to the publication, I have already explained that I have no exorbitant expectations of either fame or profit in the present instances; but wish them published because they are written, which is the common feeling of all scribblers.

"With respect to 'Religion,' can I never convince you that I have no such opinions as the characters in that drama, which seems to have frightened every body? Yet _they_ are nothing to the expressions in Goethe's Faust (which are ten times hardier), and not a whit more bold than those of Milton's Satan. My ideas of a character may run away with me: like all imaginative men, I, of course, embody myself with the character while I draw it, but not a moment after the pen is from off the paper.

"I am no enemy to religion, but the contrary. As a proof, I am educating my natural daughter a strict Catholic in a convent of Romagna; for I think people can never have _enough_ of religion, if they are to have any. I incline, myself, very much to the Catholic doctrines; but if I am to write a drama, I must make my characters speak as I conceive them likely to argue.

"As to poor Sh.e.l.ley, who is another bugbear to you and the world, he is, to my knowledge, the _least_ selfish and the mildest of men--a man who has made more sacrifices of his fortune and feelings for others than any I ever heard of. With his speculative opinions I have nothing in common, nor desire to have.

"The truth is, my dear Moore, you live near the _stove_ of society, where you are unavoidably influenced by its heat and its vapours. I did so once--and too much--and enough to give a colour to my whole future existence. As my success in society was _not_ inconsiderable, I am surely not a prejudiced judge upon the subject, unless in its favour; but I think it, as now const.i.tuted, _fatal_ to all great original undertakings of every kind. I never courted it _then_, when I was young and high in blood, and one of its 'curled darlings;' and do you think I would do so _now_, when I am living in a clearer atmosphere? One thing _only_ might lead me back to it, and that is, to try once more if I could do any good in _politics_; but _not_ in the petty politics I see now preying upon our miserable country.

"Do not let me be misunderstood, however. If you speak your _own_ opinions, they ever had, and will have, the greatest weight with _me_. But if you merely _echo_ the 'monde,' (and it is difficult not to do so, being in its favour and its ferment,) I can only regret that you should ever repeat any thing to which I cannot pay attention.

"But I am prosing. The G.o.ds go with you, and as much immortality of all kinds as may suit your present and all other existence.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 483. TO MR. MOORE.

"Pisa, March 6. 1822.

"The enclosed letter from Murray hath melted me; though I think it is against his own interest to wish that I should continue his connection. You may, therefore, send him the packet of _Werner,_ which will save you all further trouble. And pray, _can you_ forgive me for the bore and expense I have already put upon you? At least, _say_ so--for I feel ashamed of having given you so much for such nonsense.

"The fact is, I cannot _keep_ my _resentments,_ though violent enough in their onset. Besides, now that all the world are at Murray on my account, I neither can nor ought to leave him; unless, as I really thought, it were better for _him_ that I should.

"I have had no other news from England, except a letter from Barry Cornwall, the bard, and my old school-fellow. Though I have sickened you with letters lately, believe me

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. In your last letter you say, speaking of Sh.e.l.ley, that you would almost prefer the 'd.a.m.ning bigot' to the 'annihilating infidel.'[75] Sh.e.l.ley believes in immortality, however--but this by the way. Do you remember Frederick the Great's answer to the remonstrance of the villagers whose curate preached against the eternity of h.e.l.l's torments? It was thus:--'If my faithful subjects of Schrausenhaussen prefer being eternally d.a.m.ned, let them.'

"Of the two, I should think the long sleep better than the agonised vigil. But men, miserable as they are, cling so to any thing like life, that they probably would prefer d.a.m.nation to quiet. Besides, they think themselves so _important_ in the creation, that nothing less can satisfy their pride--the insects!"

[Footnote 75: It will be seen from the extract I shall give presently of the pa.s.sage to which he refers, that he wholly mistook my meaning.]

It is Dr. Clarke, I think, who gives, in his Travels, rather a striking account of a Tartar whom he once saw exercising a young, fiery horse, upon a spot of ground almost surrounded by a steep precipice, and describes the wantonness of courage with which the rider, as if delighting in his own peril, would, at times, dash, with loose rein, towards the giddy verge. Something of the same breathless apprehension with which the traveller viewed that scene, did the unchecked daring of Byron's genius inspire in all who watched its course,--causing them, at the same moment, to admire and tremble, and, in those more especially who loved him, awakening a sort of instinctive impulse to rush forward and save him from his own headlong strength. But, however natural it was in friends to give way to this feeling, a little reflection upon his now altered character might have forewarned them that such interference would prove as little useful to him as safe for themselves; and it is not without some surprise I look back upon my own temerity and presumption in supposing that, let loose as he was now, in the full pride and consciousness of strength, with the wide regions of thought outstretching before him, any representations that even friendship could make would have the power--or _ought_ to have--of checking him. As the motives, however, by which I was actuated in my remonstrances to him may be left to speak for themselves, I shall, without dwelling any further upon the subject, content myself with laying before the reader a few such extracts from my own letters at this period[76] as may serve to explain some allusions in those just given.

In writing to me under the date January 24th, it will be recollected that he says--"be a.s.sured that there is no such coalition as you apprehend." The following extracts from my previous communication to him will explain what this means:--"I heard some days ago that Leigh Hunt was on his way to you with all his family; and the idea seems to be, that you and Sh.e.l.ley and he are to conspire together in the Examiner. I cannot believe this,--and deprecate such a plan with all my might. Alone you may do any thing; but partnerships in fame, like those in trade, make the strongest party answerable for the deficiencies or delinquencies of the rest, and I tremble even for you with such a bankrupt >i>Co._--* * *. They are both clever fellows, and Sh.e.l.ley I look upon as a man of real genius; but I must again say, that you could not give your enemies (the * * *'s, 'et hoc genus omne') a greater triumph than by forming such an unequal and unholy alliance. You are, single-handed, a match for the world,--which is saying a good deal, the world being, like Briareus, a very many-handed gentleman,--but, to be so, you must stand alone. Recollect that the scurvy buildings about St.

Peter's almost seem to overtop itself."

[Footnote 76: It should have been mentioned before, that to the courtesy of Lord Byron's executor, Mr. Hobhouse, who had the kindness to restore to me such letters of mine as came into his hands, I am indebted for the power of producing these and other extracts.]

The notices of Cain, in my letters to him, were, according to their respective dates, as follow:--

"September 30. 1821.

"Since writing the above, I have read Foscari and Cain. The former does not please me so highly as Sardanapalus. It has the fault of all those violent Venetian stories, being unnatural and improbable, and therefore, in spite of all your fine management of them, appealing but remotely to one's sympathies. But Cain is wonderful--terrible--never to be forgotten. If I am not mistaken, it will sink deep into the world's heart; and while many will shudder at its blasphemy, all must fall prostrate before its grandeur. Talk of aeschylus and his Prometheus!--here is the true spirit both of the Poet--and the Devil."

"February 9. 1822.

"Do not take it into your head, my dear B. that the tide is at all turning against you in England. Till I see some symptoms of people _forgetting_ you a little, I will not believe that you lose ground. As it is, 'te veniente die, te, decedente,'--nothing is hardly talked of but you; and though good people sometimes bless themselves when they mention you, it is plain that even _they_ think much more about you than, for the good of their souls, they ought. Cain, to be sure, _has_ made a sensation; and, grand as it is, I regret, for many reasons, you ever wrote it. * * For myself, I would not give up the _poetry_ of religion for all the wisest results that _philosophy_ will ever arrive at. Particular sects and creeds are fair game enough for those who are anxious enough about their neighbours to meddle with them; but our faith in the Future is a treasure not so lightly to be parted with; and the dream of immortality (if philosophers will have it a dream) is one that, let us hope, we shall carry into our last sleep with us."[77]

[Footnote 77: It is to this sentence Lord Byron refers at the conclusion of his letter, March 4.]

"February 19. 1822.

"I have written to the Longmans to try the ground, for I do _not_ think Galignani the man for you. The only thing he can do is what we can do, ourselves, without him,--and that is, employ an English bookseller.

Paris, indeed, might be convenient for such refugee works as are set down in the _Index Expurgatorius_ of London; and if you have any political catamarans to explode, this is your place. But, _pray_, let them be only political ones. Boldness, and even licence, in politics, does good,--actual, present good; but, in religion, it profits neither here nor hereafter; and, for myself, such a horror have I of both extremes on this subject, that I know not _which_ I hate most, the bold, d.a.m.ning bigot, or the bold, annihilating infidel. 'Furiosa res est in tenebris impetus;'--and much as we are in the dark, even the wisest of us, upon these matters, a little modesty, in unbelief as well as belief, best becomes us. You will easily guess that, in all this, I am thinking not so much of you, as of a friend and, at present, companion of yours, whose influence over your mind (knowing you as I do, and knowing what Lady B. _ought_ to have found out, that you are a person the most tractable to those who live with you that, perhaps, ever existed) I own I dread and deprecate most earnestly."[78]

[Footnote 78: This pa.s.sage having been shown by Lord Byron to Mr.

Sh.e.l.ley, the latter wrote, in consequence, a letter to a gentleman with whom I was then in habits of intimacy, of which the following is an extract. The zeal and openness with which Sh.e.l.ley always professed his unbelief render any scruple that might otherwise be felt in giving publicity to such avowals unnecessary; besides which, the testimony of so near and clear an observer to the state of Lord Byron's mind upon religious subjects is of far too much importance to my object to be, from any over-fastidiousness, suppressed. We have here, too strikingly exemplified,--and in strong contrast, I must say, to the line taken by Mr. Hunt in similar circ.u.mstances,--the good breeding, gentle temper, and modesty for which Sh.e.l.ley was so remarkable, and of the latter of which Dualities in particular the undeserved compliment to myself affords a strong ill.u.s.tration, as showing how little this true poet had yet learned to know his own place.

"Lord Byron has read me one or two letters of Moore to him, in which Moore speaks with great kindness of me; and of course I cannot but feel flattered by the approbation of a man, my inferiority to whom I am proud to acknowledge. Amongst other things, however, Moore, after giving Lord B, much good advice about public opinion, &c. seems to deprecate my influence on his mind on the subject of religion, and to attribute the tone a.s.sumed in Cain to my suggestions. Moore cautions him against any influence on this particular with the most friendly zeal, and it is plain that his motive springs from a desire of benefiting Lord B.

without degrading me. I think you know Moore. Pray a.s.sure him that I have not the smallest influence over Lord Byron in this particular; if I had, I certainly should employ it to eradicate from his great mind the delusions of Christianity, which, in spite of his reason, seem perpetually to recur, and to lay in ambush for the hours of sickness and distress. Cain was _conceived_ many years ago, and begun before I saw him last year at Ravenna. How happy should I not be to attribute to myself, however indirectly, any partic.i.p.ation in that immortal work!"]

"March 16. 1822.

"With respect to our Religious Polemics, I must try to set you right upon one or two points. In the first place, I do _not_ identify you with the blasphemies of Cain no more than I do myself with the impieties of my Mokanna,--all I wish and implore is that you, who are such a powerful manufacturer of these thunderbolts, would not _choose_ subjects that make it necessary to launch them. In the next place, were you even a decided atheist, I could not (except, perhaps, for the _decision_ which is always unwise) blame you. I could only pity,--knowing from experience how dreary are the doubts with which even the bright, poetic view I am myself inclined to take of mankind and their destiny is now and then clouded. I look upon Cuvier's book to be a most desolating one in the conclusions to which it may lead some minds. But the young, the simple,--all those whose hearts one would like to keep unwithered, trouble their heads but little about Cuvier. _You_, however, have embodied him in poetry which every one reads; and, like the wind, blowing 'where you list,' carry this deadly chill, mixed up with your own fragrance, into hearts that should be visited only by the latter.