The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 14

Ye Bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear, He was your Master--emulate him _here_!

Ye men of wit and social eloquence![103]

He was your brother--bear his ashes hence!

While Powers of mind almost of boundless range,[104]

Complete in kind, as various in their change, 110 While Eloquence--Wit--Poesy--and Mirth, That humbler Harmonist of care on Earth, Survive within our souls--while lives our sense Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence, Long shall we seek his likeness--long in vain, And turn to all of him which may remain, Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, And broke the die--in moulding Sheridan![105]

FOOTNOTES:

[98] {71}[Compare--

"As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun."

_Churchill's Grave,_ line 26, _vide ante,_ p. 48.]

[99] {72}[Sheridan's first speech on behalf of the Begum of Oude was delivered February 7, 1787. After having spoken for five hours and forty minutes he sat down, "not merely amidst cheering, but amidst the loud clapping of hands, in which the Lords below the bar and the strangers in the Gallery joined" (_Critical ... Essays,_ by T. B. Macaulay, 1843, iii.

443). So great was the excitement that Pitt moved the adjournment of the House. The next year, during the trial of Warren Hastings, he took part in the debates on June 3,6,10,13, 1788. "The conduct of the part of the case relating to the Princesses of Oude was intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of the public to hear him was unbounded.... It was said that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket. Sheridan, when he concluded, contrived ... to sink back, as if exhausted, into the arms of Burke, who hugged him with the energy of generous admiration"

(_ibid.,_iii 451, 452).]

[100] [_The Rivals, The Scheming Lieutenant_, and _The Duenna_ were played for the first time at Covent Garden, January 17, May 2, and November 21, 1775. _A Trip to Scarborough_ and the _School for Scandal_ were brought out at Drury Lane, February 24 and May 8, 1777; the _Critic_, October 29, 1779; and _Pizarro_, May 24, 1799.]

[101] {73}[Only a few days before his death, Sheridan wrote thus to Rogers: "I am absolutely undone and broken-hearted. They are going to put the carpets out of window, and break into Mrs. S.'s room and _take me_. For G.o.d's sake let me see you!" (Moore's _Life of Sheridan_, 1825, ii. 455).

The extent and duration of Sheridan's dest.i.tution at the time of his last illness and death have been the subject of controversy. The statements in Moore's _Life_ (1825) moved George IV. to send for Croker and dictate a long and circ.u.mstantial harangue, to the effect that Sheridan and his wife were starving, and that their immediate necessities were relieved by the (then) Prince Regent's agent, Taylor Vaughan (Croker's _Correspondence and Diaries_, 1884, i. 288-312). Mr.

Fraser Rae, in his _Life of Sheridan_ (1896, ii. 284), traverses the king's apology in almost every particular, and quotes a letter from Charles Sheridan to his half-brother Tom, dated July 16, 1816, in which he says that his father "almost slumbered into death, and that the reports ... in the newspapers (_vide_, e.g., _Morning Chronicle_, July, 1816) of the privations and want of comforts were unfounded."

Moore's sentiments were also expressed in "some verses" (_Lines on the Death of SH--R--D--N_), which were published in the newspapers, and are reprinted in the _Life_, 1825, ii. 462, and _Poetical Works_, 1850, p.

400--

"How proud they can press to the funeral array Of one whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow!

How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, Whose pall shall be held up by n.o.bles to-morrow.

Was _this_, then, the fate of that high-gifted man, The pride of the palace, the bower, and the hall, The orator--dramatist--minstrel, who ran Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all?"]

[ao] {74}

_Abandoned by the skies, whose teams have nurst_ _Their very thunders, lighten--scorch, and burst_.--[MS.]

[102] {75}Fox--Pitt--Burke. ["I heard Sheridan only once, and that briefly; but I liked his voice, his manner, and his wit: he is the only one of them I ever wished to hear at greater length."--_Detached Thoughts_, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 413.]

[103] ["In society I have met Sheridan frequently: he was superb!... I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de Stael, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others ... of good fame and abilities.... I have met him in all places and parties, ... and always found him very convivial and delightful."--_Ibid_., pp. 413, 414.]

[104] ["The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him, ... and mine was this:--'Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, _par excellence_, always the _best_ of its kind. He has written the _best_ comedy (_School for Scandal_), the _best_ drama (in my mind, far before that St. Giles's lampoon, the _Beggars Opera_), the best farce (the _Critic_--it is only too good for a farce), and the best Address ('Monologue on Garrick'), and, to crown all, delivered the very best Oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.'"--_Journal_, December 17, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 377.]

[105] [It has often been pointed out (_e.g. Notes and Queries_, 1855, Series I. xi. 472) that this fine metaphor may be traced to Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_. The subject is Zerbino, the son of the King of Scotland--

"Non e vu si bello in tante altre persone: Natura il fece e poi ruppe la stampa."

Canto X. stanza lx.x.xiv. lines 5, 6.]

MANFRED:

A DRAMATIC POEM.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

[_Hamlet,_ Act i. Scene 5, Lines 166, 167.

[_Manfred_, a choral tragedy in three acts, was performed at Covent Garden Theatre, October 29-November 14, 1834 [Denvil (afterwards known as "Manfred" Denvil) took the part of "Manfred," and Miss Ellen Tree (afterwards Mrs. Charles Kean) played "The Witch of the Alps"]; at Drury Lane Theatre, October 10, 1863-64 [Phelps played "Manfred," Miss Rosa Le Clercq "The Phantom of Astarte," and Miss Heath "The Witch of the Alps"]; at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester, March 27-April 20, 1867 [Charles Calvert played "Manfred"]; and again, in 1867, under the same management, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Liverpool; and at the Princess's Theatre Royal, London, August 16, 1873 [Charles Dillon played "Manfred;" music by Sir Henry Bishop, as in 1834].

_Overtures, etc._

"Music to Byron's _Manfred_" (overture and incidental music and choruses), by R. Schumann, 1850.

"Incidental Music," composed, in 1897, by Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (at the request of Sir Henry Irving); heard (in part only) at a concert in Queen's Hall, May, 1899.

"_Manfred_ Symphony" (four tableaux after the Poem by Byron), composed by Tschaikowsky, 1885; first heard in London, autumn, 1898.]

INTRODUCTION TO _MANFRED_

Byron pa.s.sed four months and three weeks in Switzerland. He arrived at the Hotel d'Angleterre at Secheron, on Sat.u.r.day, May 25, and he left the Campagne Diodati for Italy on Sunday, October 6, 1816. Within that period he wrote the greater part of the Third Canto of _Childe Harold_, he began and finished the _Prisoner of Chillon_, its seven attendant poems, and the _Monody_ on the death of Sheridan, and he began _Manfred_.

A note to the "Incantation" (_Manfred_, act i. sc. 1, lines 192-261), which was begun in July and published together with the _Prisoner of Chillon_, December 5, 1816, records the existence of "an unfinished Witch Drama" (First Edition, p. 46); but, apart from this, the first announcement of his new work is contained in a letter to Murray, dated Venice, February 15, 1817 (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 52). "I forgot," he writes, "to mention to you that a kind of Poem in dialogue (in blank verse) or drama ... begun last summer in Switzerland, is finished; it is in three acts; but of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable kind."

The letter is imperfect, but some pages of "extracts" which were forwarded under the same cover have been preserved. Ten days later (February 25) he reverts to these "extracts," and on February 28 he despatches a fair copy of the first act. On March 9 he remits the third and final act of his "dramatic poem" (a definition adopted as a second t.i.tle), but under reserve as to publication, and with a strict injunction to Murray "to submit it to Mr. G[ifford] and to whomsoever you please besides." It is certain that this third act was written at Venice (Letter to Murray, April 14), and it may be taken for granted that the composition of the first two acts belongs to the tour in the Bernese Alps (September 17-29), or to the last days at Diodati (September 30 to October 5, 1816), when the _estro_ (see Letter to Murray, January 2, 1817) was upon him, when his "Pa.s.sions slept," and, in spite of all that had come and gone and could not go, his spirit was uplifted by the "majesty and the power and the glory" of Nature.

Gifford's verdict on the first act was that it was "wonderfully poetical" and "merited publication," but, as Byron had foreseen, he did not "by any means like" the third act. It was, as its author admitted (Letter to Murray, April 14) "d.a.m.nably bad," and savoured of the "dregs of a fever," for which the Carnival (Letter to Murray, February 28) or, more probably, the climate and insanitary "palaces" of Venice were responsible. Some weeks went by before there was either leisure or inclination for the task of correction, but at Rome the _estro_ returned in full force, and on May 5 a "new third act of _Manfred_--the greater part rewritten," was sent by post to England. _Manfred, a Dramatic Poem_, was published June 16, 1817.

_Manfred_ was criticized by Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_ (No. lvi., August, 1817, vol. 28, pp. 418-431), and by John Wilson in the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_ (afterwards _Blackwood's, etc._) (June, 1817, i. 289-295). Jeffrey, as Byron remarked (Letter to Murray, October 12, 1817), was "very kind," and Wilson, whose article "had all the air of being a poet's," was eloquent in its praises. But there was a fly in the ointment. "A suggestion" had been thrown out, "in an ingenious paper in a late number of the _Edinburgh Magazine_ [signed H. M. (John Wilson), July, 1817], that the general conception of this piece, and much of what is excellent in the manner of its execution, have been borrowed from the _Tragical History of Dr. Faustus_ of Marlow (_sic_);"

and from this contention Jeffrey dissented. A note to a second paper on Marlowe's _Edward II_. (_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, October, 1817) offered explanations, and echoed Jeffrey's exaltation of _Manfred_ above _Dr. Faustus_; but the mischief had been done. Byron was evidently perplexed and distressed, not by the papers in _Blackwood_, which he never saw, but by Jeffrey's remonstrance in his favour; and in the letter of October 12 he is at pains to trace the "evolution" of _Manfred_. "I never read," he writes, "and do not know that I ever saw the _Faustus_ of Marlow;" and, again, "As to the _Faustus_ of Marlow, I never read, never saw, nor heard of it." "I heard Mr. Lewis translate verbally some scenes of Goethe's _Faust_ ... last summer" (see, too, Letter to Rogers, April 4, 1817), which is all I know of the history of that magical personage; and as to the germs of _Manfred_, they may be found in the Journal which I sent to Mrs. Leigh ... when I went over first the Dent, etc., ... shortly before I left Switzerland. I have the whole scene of _Manfred_ before me."

Again, three years later he writes (_a propos_ of Goethe's review of _Manfred_, which first appeared in print in his paper _Kunst und Alterthum_, June, 1820, and is republished in Goethe's _Sammtliche Werke_ ... Stuttgart, 1874, xiii. 640-642; see _Letters_, 1901, v.

Appendix II. "Goethe and Byron," pp. 503-521): "His _Faust_ I never read, for I don't know German; but Matthew Monk Lewis (_sic_), in 1816, at Coligny, translated most of it to me _viva voce_, and I was naturally much struck with it; but it was the _Staubach_ (_sic_) and the _Jungfrau_, and something else, much more than Faustus, that made me write _Manfred_. The first scene, however, and that of Faustus are very similar" (Letter to Murray, June 7, 1820, _Letters_, 1901, v. 36).

Medwin (_Conversations, etc._, pp. 210, 211), who of course had not seen the letters to Murray of 1817 or 1820, puts much the same story into Byron's mouth.

Now, with regard to the originality of _Manfred_, it may be taken for granted that Byron knew nothing about the "Faust-legend," or the "Faust-cycle." He solemnly denies that he had ever read Marlowe's _Faustus_, or the selections from the play in Lamb's _Specimens, etc._ (see Medwin's _Conversations, etc._, pp. 208, 209, and a hitherto unpublished Preface to _Werner_, vol. v.), and it is highly improbable that he knew anything of Calderon's _El Magico Prodigioso_, which Sh.e.l.ley translated in 1822, or of "the beggarly elements" of the legend in Hroswitha's _Lapsus et Conversio Theophrasti Vice-domini_. But Byron's _Manfred_ is "in the succession" of scholars who have reached the limits of natural and legitimate science, and who essay the supernatural in order to penetrate and comprehend the "hidden things of darkness." A predecessor, if not a progenitor, he must have had, and there can be no doubt whatever that the primary conception of the character, though by no means the inspiration of the poem, is to be traced to the "Monk's" oral rendering of Goethe's _Faust_, which he gave in return for his "bread and salt" at Diodati. Neither Jeffrey nor Wilson mentioned _Faust_, but the writer of the notice in the _Critical Review_ (June, 1817, series v. vol. 5, pp. 622-629) avowed that "this scene (the first) is a gross plagiary from a great poet whom Lord Byron has imitated on former occasions without comprehending. Goethe's _Faust_ begins in the same way;" and Goethe himself, in a letter to his friend Knebel, October, 1817, and again in his review in _Kunst und Alterthum_, June, 1820, emphasizes whilst he justifies and applauds the use which Byron had made of his work. "This singular intellectual poet has taken my _Faustus_ to himself, and extracted from it the strangest nourishment for his hypochondriac humour. He has made use of the impelling principles in his own way, for his own purposes, so that no one of them remains the same; and it is particularly on this account that I cannot enough admire his genius." Afterwards (see record of a conversation with Herman Furst von Puckler, September 14, 1826, _Letters_, v. 511) Goethe somewhat modified his views, but even then it interested him to trace the unconscious transformation which Byron had made of his Mephistopheles. It is, perhaps, enough to say that the link between _Manfred_ and _Faust_ is formal, not spiritual. The problem which Goethe raised but did not solve, his counterfeit presentment of the eternal issue between soul and sense, between innocence and renunciation on the one side, and achievement and satisfaction on the other, was not the struggle which Byron experienced in himself or desired to depict in his mysterious hierarch of the powers of nature. "It was the _Staubach_ and the _Jungfrau_, and something else," not the influence of _Faust_ on a receptive listener, which called up a new theme, and struck out a fresh well-spring of the imagination. The _motif_ of _Manfred_ is remorse--eternal suffering for inexpiable crime. The sufferer is for ever buoyed up with the hope that there is relief somewhere in nature, beyond nature, above nature, and experience replies with an everlasting No! As the sunshine enhances sorrow, so Nature, by the force of contrast, reveals and enhances guilt. _Manfred_ is no echo of another's questioning, no expression of a general world-weariness on the part of the time-spirit, but a personal outcry: "De profundis clamavi!"

No doubt, apart from this main purport and essence of his song, his sensitive spirit responded to other and fainter influences. There are "points of resemblance," as Jeffrey pointed out and Byron proudly admitted, between _Manfred_ and the _Prometheus_ of aeschylus. Plainly, here and there, "the tone and pitch of the composition," and "the victim in the more solemn parts," are aeschylean. Again, with regard to the supernatural, there was the stimulus of the conversation of the Sh.e.l.leys and of Lewis, brimful of magic and ghost-lore; and lastly, there was the glamour of _Christabel_, "the wild and original" poem which had taken Byron captive, and was often in his thoughts and on his lips. It was no wonder that the fuel kindled and burst into a flame.