The Life of Lord Byron Part 20

The hilt, too, hurts my hand.

It may be asked why I dwell so particularly on the character of Sardanapalus. It is admitted that he is the most heroic of voluptuaries, the most philosophical of the licentious. The first he is undoubtedly, but he is not licentious; and in omitting to make him so, the poet has prevented his readers from disliking his character upon principle. It was a skilful stroke of art to do this; had it been otherwise, and had there been no affection shown for the Ionian slave, Sardanapalus would have engaged no sympathy. It is not, however, with respect to the ability with which the character has been imagined, nor to the poetry with which it is invested, that I have so particularly made it a subject of criticism; it was to point out how much in it Lord Byron has interwoven of his own best nature.

At the time when he was occupied with this great work, he was confessedly in the enjoyment of the happiest portion of his life.

The Guiccioli was to him a Myrrha, but the Carbonari were around, and in the controversy, in which Sardanapalus is engaged, between the obligations of his royalty and his inclinations for pleasure, we have a vivid insight of the cogitation of the poet, whether to take a part in the hazardous activity which they were preparing, or to remain in the seclusion and festal repose of which he was then in possession.

The a.s.syrian is as much Lord Byron as Childe Harold was, and bears his lineaments in as clear a likeness, as a voluptuary unsated could do those of the emaciated victim of satiety. Over the whole drama, and especially in some of the speeches of Sardanapalus, a great deal of fine but irrelevant poetry and moral reflection has been profusely spread; but were the piece adapted to the stage, these portions would of course be omitted, and the character denuded of them would then more fully justify the idea which I have formed of it, than it may perhaps to many readers do at present, hidden as it is, both in shape and contour, under an excess of ornament.

That the character of Myrrha was also drawn from life, and that the Guiccioli was the model, I have no doubt. She had, when most enchanted by her pa.s.sion for Byron--at the very time when the drama was written--many sources of regret; and he was too keen an observer, and of too jealous a nature, not to have marked every shade of change in her appearance, and her every moment of melancholy reminiscence; so that, even though she might never have given expression to her sentiments, still such was her situation, that it could not but furnish him with fit suggestions from which to fill up the moral being of the Ionian slave. Were the character of Myrrha scanned with this reference, while nothing could be discovered to detract from the value of the composition, a great deal would be found to lessen the merit of the poet's invention. He had with him the very being in person whom he has depicted in the drama, of dispositions and endowments greatly similar, and in circ.u.mstances in which she could not but feel as Myrrha is supposed to have felt--and it must be admitted, that he has applied the good fortune of that incident to a beautiful purpose.

This, however, is not all that the tragedy possesses of the author.

The character of Zarina is, perhaps, even still more strikingly drawn from life. There are many touches in the scene with her which he could not have imagined, without thinking of his own domestic disasters. The first sentiment she utters is truly conceived in the very frame and temper in which Byron must have wished his lady to think of himself, and he could not embody it without feeling THAT--

How many a year has pa.s.s'd, Though we are still so young, since we have met Which I have borne in widowhood of heart.

The following delicate expression has reference to his having left his daughter with her mother, and unfolds more of his secret feelings on the subject than anything he has expressed more ostentatiously elsewhere:

I wish'd to thank you, that you have not divided My heart from all that's left it now to love.

And what Sardanapalus says of his children is not less applicable to Byron, and is true:

Deem not I have not done you justice: rather make them Resemble your own line, than their own sire; I trust them with you--to you.

And when Zarina says,

They ne'er Shall know from me aught but what may honour Their father's memory,

he puts in her mouth only a sentiment which he knew, if his wife never expressed to him, she profoundly acknowledged in resolution to herself. The whole of this scene is full of the most penetrating pathos; and did the drama not contain, in every page, indubitable evidence to me, that he has shadowed out in it himself his wife, and his mistress, this little interview would prove a vast deal in confirmation of the opinion so often expressed, that where his genius was most in its element, it was when it dealt with his own sensibilities and circ.u.mstances. It is impossible to read the following speech, without a conviction that it was written at Lady Byron:

My gentle, wrong'd Zarina!

I am the very slave of circ.u.mstance And impulse--borne away with every breath!

Misplaced upon the throne--misplaced in life.

I know not what I could have been, but feel I am not what I should be--let it end.

But take this with thee: if I was not form'd To prize a love like thine--a mind like thine-- Nor dote even on thy beauty--as I've doted On lesser charms, for no cause save that such Devotion was a duty, and I hated All that look'd like a chain for me or others (This even rebellion must avouch); yet hear These words, perhaps among my last--that none E'er valued more thy virtues, though he knew not To profit by them.

At Ravenna Cain was also written; a dramatic poem, in some degree, chiefly in its boldness, resembling the ancient mysteries of the monasteries before the secular stage was established. This performance, in point of conception, is of a sublime order. The object of the poem is to ill.u.s.trate the energy and the art of Lucifer in accomplishing the ruin of the first-born. By an unfair misconception, the arguments of Lucifer have been represented as the sentiments of the author upon some imaginary warranty derived from the exaggerated freedom of his life; and yet the moral tendency of the reflections are framed in a mood of reverence as awful towards Omnipotence as the austere divinity of Milton. It would be presumption in me, however, to undertake the defence of any question in theology; but I have not been sensible to the imputed impiety, while I have felt in many pa.s.sages influences that have their being amid the shadows and twilights of "old religion";

"Stupendous spirits That mock the pride of man, and people s.p.a.ce With life and mystical predominance."

The morning hymns and worship with which the mystery opens are grave, solemn, and scriptural, and the dialogue which follows with Cain is no less so: his opinion of the tree of life is, I believe, orthodox; but it is daringly expressed: indeed, all the sentiments ascribed to Cain are but the questions of the sceptics. His description of the approach of Lucifer would have shone in the Paradise Lost.

A shape like to the angels, Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect, Of spiritual essence. Why do I quake?

Why should I fear him more than other spirits Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords Before the gates round which I linger oft In twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those Gardens which are my just inheritance, Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls, And the immortal trees which overtop The cherubim-defended battlements?

I shrink not from these, the fire-arm'd angels; Why should I quail from him who now approaches?

Yet he seems mightier far than them, nor less Beauteous; and yet not all as beautiful As he hath been, or might be: sorrow seems Half of his immortality.

There is something spiritually fine in this conception of the terror or presentiment of coming evil. The poet rises to the sublime in making Lucifer first inspire Cain with the knowledge of his immortality--a portion of truth which hath the efficacy of falsehood upon the victim; for Cain, feeling himself already unhappy, knowing that his being cannot be abridged, has the less scruple to desire to be as Lucifer, "mighty." The whole speech of Lucifer, beginning,

Souls who dare use their immortality,

is truly satanic; a daring and dreadful description given by everlasting despair of the Deity.

But, notwithstanding its manifold immeasurable imaginations, Cain is only a polemical controversy, the doctrines of which might have been better discussed in the pulpit of a college chapel. As a poem it is greatly unequal; many pa.s.sages consist of mere metaphysical disquisition, but there are others of wonderful scope and energy. It is a thing of doubts and dreams and reveries--dim and beautiful, yet withal full of terrors. The understanding finds nothing tangible; but amid dread and solemnity, sees only a shapen darkness with eloquent gestures. It is an argument invested with the language of oracles and omens, conceived in some religious trance, and addressed to spirits.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

Removal to Pisa--The Lanfranchi Palace--Affair with the Guard at Pisa--Removal to Monte Nero--Junction with Mr Hunt--Mr Sh.e.l.ley's Letter

The unhappy distrusts and political jealousies of the times obliged Lord Byron, with the Gambas, the family of the Guiccioli, to remove from Ravenna to Pisa. In this compulsion he had no cause to complain; a foreigner meddling with the politics of the country in which he was only accidentally resident, could expect no deferential consideration from the government. It has nothing to do with the question whether his Lordship was right or wrong in his principles.

The government was in the possession of the power, and in self- defence he could expect no other course towards him than what he did experience. He was admonished to retreat: he did so. Could he have done otherwise, he would not. He would have used the Austrian authority as ill as he was made to feel it did him.

In the autumn of 1821, Lord Byron removed from Ravenna to Pisa, where he hired the Lanfranchi palace for a year--one of those ma.s.sy marble piles which appear

"So old, as if they had for ever stood-- So strong, as if they would for ever stand!"

Both in aspect and character it was interesting to the boding fancies of the n.o.ble tenant. It is said to have been constructed from a design of Michael Angelo; and in the grandeur of its features exhibits a bold and colossal style not unworthy of his genius.

The Lanfranchi family, in the time of Dante, were distinguished in the factions of those days, and one of them has received his meed of immortality from the poet, as the persecutor of Ugolino. They are now extinct, and their traditionary reputation is ill.u.s.trated by the popular belief in the neighbourhood, that their ghosts are restless, and still haunt their former gloomy and gigantic habitation.

The building was too vast for the establishment of Lord Byron, and he occupied only the first floor.

The life he led at this period was dull and unvaried. Billiards, conversations, reading, and occasionally writing, const.i.tuted the regular business of the day. In the cool of the afternoon, he sometimes went out in his carriage, oftener on horseback, and generally amused himself with pistol practice at a five-paul piece.

He dined at half an hour after sunset, and then drove to Count Gamba's, where he pa.s.sed several hours with the Countess Guiccioli, who at that time still resided with her father. On his return he read or wrote till the night was far spent, or rather till the morning was come again, sipping at intervals spirits diluted with water, as medicine to counteract some nephritic disorder to which he considered himself liable.

Notwithstanding the tranquillity of this course of life, he was accidentally engaged in a transaction which threatened unpleasant consequences, and had a material effect on his comfort. On the 21st of March, 1822, as he was returning from his usual ride, in company with several of his friends, a hussar officer, at full speed, dashed through the party, and violently jostled one of them. Lord Byron, with his characteristic impetuosity, instantly pushed forwards, and the rest followed, and overtook the hussar. His Lordship inquired what he meant by the insult; but for answer, received the grossest abuse: on which he and one of his companions gave their cards, and pa.s.sed on. The officer followed, hallooing, and threatening with his hand on his sabre. They were now near the Paggia gate. During this altercation, a common artilleryman interfered, and called out to the hussar, "Why don't you arrest them?--command us to arrest them."

Upon which the officer gave the word to the guard at the gate. His Lordship, hearing the order, spurred his horse, and one of his party doing the same, they succeeded in forcing their way through the soldiers, while the gate was closed on the rest of the party, with whom an outrageous scuffle ensued.