The Works of Lord Byron Volume V Part 136

THE AGE OF BRONZE;

OR,

CARMEN SECULARE ET ANNUS HAUD MIRABILIS.[dv]

"Impar _Congressus_ Achilli."[253]

INTRODUCTION TO _THE AGE OF BRONZE_.

_The Age of Bronze_ was begun in December, 1822, and finished on January 10, 1823. "I have sent," he writes (letter to Leigh Hunt, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 160), "to Mrs. S[h.e.l.ley], for the benefit of being copied, a poem of about seven hundred and fifty lines length--The Age of Bronze,--or _Carmen Seculare et Annus haud Mirabilis_, with this Epigraph--'Impar _Congressus_ Achilli.' It is calculated for the reading part of the million, being all on politics, etc., etc., etc., and a review of the day in general,--in my early _English Bards_ style, but a little more stilted, and somewhat too full of 'epithets of war' and cla.s.sical and historical allusions. If notes are necessary, they can be added."

On March 5th he forwarded the "Proof in Slips" ("and certainly the _Slips_ are the most conspicuous part of it") to his new publisher, John Hunt; and, on April 1, 1823, _The Age of Bronze_ was published, but not with the author's name.

Ten years had gone by since he had published, only to disclaim, the latest of his boyish satires, _The Waltz_, and more than six years since he had written, "at the request of Douglas Kinnaird," the stilted and laboured _Monody on the Death of ... Sheridan_. In the interval (1816-1822) he had essayed any and every measure but the heroic, and, at length, as a tardy recognition of his allegiance to "the great moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of all stages of existence" (_Observations upon "Observations,"_ _Letters_, 1901, v.

590), he reverts, as he believes, to his "early _English Bards_ style,"

the style of Pope.

The brazen age, the "Annus Haud Mirabilis," which the satirist would hold up to scorn, was 1822, the year after Napoleon's death, which witnessed a revolution in Spain, and the Congress of Allied Sovereigns at Verona. Earlier in the year, the publication of Las Cases' _Memorial de S^te^ Helene_, and of O'Meara's _Napoleon in Exile, or a Voice from St. Helena_, had created a sensation on both sides of the Channel.

Public opinion had differed as to the system on which Napoleon should be treated--and, since his death, there had been a conflict of evidence as to the manner in which he had been treated, at St. Helena. Tories believed that an almost excessive lenience and indulgence had been wasted on a graceless and thankless intriguer, while the "Opposition,"

Liberals or Radicals, were moved to indignation at the hardships and restrictions which were ruthlessly and needlessly imposed on a fallen and powerless foe. It was, and is, a very pretty quarrel; and Byron, whose lifelong admiration for his "Heros de Roman" was tempered by reason, approached the Longwood controversy somewhat in the spirit of a partisan.

In _The Age of Bronze_ (sects, iii.-v.) he touches on certain incidents of the "Last Phase" of Napoleon's career, and proceeds to recapitulate, in a sort of _Memoria Technica_, the chief events of his history, from the dawn at Marengo to the sunset at "b.l.o.o.d.y and most bootless Waterloo," and draws the unimpeachable moral that "Honesty is the best policy," even when the "game is Empire" and "the stakes are thrones"!

From the rise and fall, the tyranny and captivity of Napoleon, he pa.s.ses on to the Congress of Allied Powers, which met at Verona in November, 1822.

The "Congress" is the object of his satire. It had a.s.sembled with a parade of power and magnificence, and had dispersed with little or nothing accomplished. It was "impar Achilli" (_vide ante_, p. 535, note 1), an empty menace, ill-matched with the revolutionary spirit, and in pitiful contrast to the _Sic volo, sic jubeo_ of the dead Napoleon.

The immediate and efficient cause of the Congress of Verona was the success of the revolution in Spain. The point at issue between Spanish Liberals and Royalists, or _serviles_, was the adherence to, or the evasion of, the democratic Const.i.tution of 1812. At the moment the Liberals were in the ascendant, and, as Chateaubriand puts it, had driven King Ferdinand into captivity, at Urgel, in Catalonia, to the tune of the Spanish Ma.r.s.eillaise, "_Tragala, Tragala_" "swallow it, swallow it," that is, "accept the Const.i.tution." On July 7, 1822, a government was established under the name of the "Supreme Regency of Spain during the Captivity of the King," and, hence, the consternation of the partners of the Holy Alliance, especially France, who conceived, or feigned to conceive, that revolution next door was a source of danger to const.i.tutional government at home. To meet the emergency, a Congress was summoned in the first instance at Vienna, and afterwards at Verona.

Thither came the sovereigns of Europe, great and small, accompanied by their chancellors and ministers. The Czar Alexander was attended by Count Nesselrode and Count Pozzo di Borgo; the Emperor Francis of Austria, by Metternich and Prince Esterhazy; the King of Prussia (Frederic William III.), by Count Bernstorff and Baron Humboldt. George IV. of Great Britain, and Louis XVIII. of France, being elderly and gouty, sent as their plenipotentiaries the Duke of Wellington and the Vicomte de Montmorenci, accompanied, and, finally, superseded by, the French amba.s.sador, M. de Chateaubriand. Thither, too, came the smaller fry, Kings of the Two Sicilies and of Sardinia; and last, but not least, Marie Louise of Austria, Archd.u.c.h.ess of Parma, _ci-devant_ widow of Napoleon, and wife _sub rosa_ of her one-eyed chamberlain, Count de Neipperg. They met, they debated, they went to the theatre in state, and finally decided to send monitory despatches to Spain, and to leave to France a free hand to look after her own interests, and to go to war or not, as she was pleased to determine. There was one dissentient, the Duke of Wellington, who refused to sign the _proces verbaux_. His Britannic Majesty had been advised to let the Spaniards alone, and not to meddle with their internal affairs. The final outcome of the Congress, the French invasion of Spain, could not be foreseen; and, apparently, all that the Congress had accomplished was to refuse to prohibit the exportation of negroes from Africa to America, and to decline to receive the Greek deputies.

As the _Morning Chronicle_ (November 7, 1822) was pleased to put it, "the Royal vultures have been deprived of their antic.i.p.ated meal."

From the Holy Alliance and its antagonist, "the revolutionary stork,"

Byron turns to the landed and agricultural "interest" of Great Britain.

With the cessation of war and the resumption of cash payments in 1819, prices had fallen some 50 per cent., and rents were beginning to fall.

Wheat, which in 1818 had fetched 80s. a quarter, in December, 1822, was quoted at 39s. 11d.; consols were at 80. Poor rates had risen from 2,000,000 in 1792 to 8,000,000 in 1822. How was the distress which these changes involved to be met? By retrenchment and reform, by the repeal of taxes, the reduction of salaries, by the landlords and farmers, who had profited by war prices, submitting to the inevitable reaction; or by sliding scales, by a return to an inflated currency, perhaps by a repudiation of a portion of the funded debt?

The point of Byron's diatribe is that Squire Dives had enjoyed good things during the war, and, now that the war was over, he had no intention to let Lazarus have his turn; that, whoever suffered, it should not be Dives; that patriotism had brought grist to his mill; and that he proposed to suck no small advantage out of peace.

"Year after year they voted cent. per cent., Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions--why? for rent?

They roared, they dined, they drank, they swore they meant To die for England--why then live?--for rent!"

It is easier to divine the "Sources" and the inspiration of _The Age of Bronze_ than to place the reader _au courant_ with the literary and political _causerie_ of the day. Byron wrote with O'Meara's book at his elbow, and with batches of _Galignani's Messenger_, the _Morning Chronicle_, and _Cobbett's Weekly Register_ within his reach. He was under the impression that his lines would appear as an anonymous contribution to _The Liberal_, and, in any case, he felt that he could speak out, unchecked and uncriticized by friend or publisher. He was, so to speak, unmuzzled.

With regard to the style and quality of his new satire, Byron was under an amiable delusion. His couplets, he imagined, were in his "early _English Bards_ style," but "more stilted." He did not realize that, whatever the intervening years had taken away, they had "left behind"

experience and pa.s.sion, and that he had learned to think and to feel.

The fault of the poem is that too much matter is packed into too small a compa.s.s, and that, in parts, every line implies a minute acquaintance with contemporary events, and requires an explanatory note. But, even so, in _The Age of Bronze_ Byron has wedded "a striking pa.s.sage of history" to striking and imperishable verse.

_The Age of Bronze_ was reviewed in the _Scots Magazine_, April, 1823, N.S., vol. xii. pp. 483-488; the _Monthly Review_, April, 1823, E.S., vol. 100, pp. 430-433; the _Monthly Magazine_, May, 1823, vol. 55, pp.

322-325; the _Examiner_, March 30, 1823; the _Literary Chronicle_, April 5, 1823; and the _Literary Gazette_, April 5, 1823.

THE AGE OF BRONZE.

I.

The "good old times"--all times when old are good-- Are gone; the present might be if they would; Great things have been, and are, and greater still Want little of mere mortals but their will:[dw]

A wider s.p.a.ce, a greener field, is given To those who play their "tricks before high heaven."[254]

I know not if the angels weep, but men Have wept enough--for what?--to weep again!

II.

All is exploded--be it good or bad.

Reader! remember when thou wert a lad, 10 Then Pitt was all; or, if not all, so much, His very rival almost deemed him such.[255]

We--we have seen the intellectual race Of giants stand, like t.i.tans, face to face-- Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea Of eloquence between, which flowed all free, As the deep billows of the aegean roar Betwixt the h.e.l.lenic and the Phrygian sh.o.r.e.

But where are they--the rivals! a few feet Of sullen earth divide each winding sheet.[256] 20 How peaceful and how powerful is the grave, Which hushes all! a calm, unstormy wave, Which oversweeps the World. The theme is old Of "Dust to Dust," but half its tale untold: Time tempers not its terrors--still the worm Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves its form, Varied above, but still alike below; The urn may shine--the ashes will not glow-- Though Cleopatra's mummy cross the sea[257]

O'er which from empire she lured Anthony; 30 Though Alexander's urn[258] a show be grown On sh.o.r.es he wept to conquer, though unknown--[259]

How vain, how worse than vain, at length appear The madman's wish, the Macedonian's tear!

He wept for worlds to conquer--half the earth Knows not his name, or but his death, and birth, And desolation; while his native Greece Hath all of desolation, save its peace.

He "wept for worlds to conquer!" he who ne'er Conceived the Globe, he panted not to spare! 40 With even the busy Northern Isle unknown, Which holds his urn--and never knew his throne.

III.

But where is he, the modern, mightier far, Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car; The new Sesostris, whose unharnessed kings,[260]

Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings, And spurn the dust o'er which they crawled of late, Chained to the chariot of the Chieftain's state?

Yes! where is he, "the champion and the child"[261]

Of all that's great or little--wise or wild; 50 Whose game was Empire, and whose stakes were thrones; Whose table Earth--whose dice were human bones?

Behold the grand result in yon lone Isle, And, as thy nature urges--weep or smile.

Sigh to behold the Eagle's lofty rage Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage; Smile to survey the queller of the nations Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations;[dx][262]

Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines, O'er curtailed dishes and o'er stinted wines; 60 O'er petty quarrels upon petty things.

Is this the Man who scourged or feasted kings?

Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs, A surgeon's[263] statement, and an earl's[264] harangues!

A bust delayed,[265]--a book[266] refused, can shake The sleep of Him who kept the world awake.

Is this indeed the tamer of the Great,[dy]

Now slave of all could tease or irritate-- The paltry gaoler[267] and the prying spy, The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?[268] 70 Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great; How low, how little was this middle state, Between a prison and a palace, where How few could feel for what he had to bear!

Vain his complaint,--My Lord presents his bill, His food and wine were doled out duly still; Vain was his sickness, never was a clime So free from homicide--to doubt's crime; And the stiff surgeon,[269] who maintained his cause, Hath lost his place, and gained the world's applause. 80 But smile--though all the pangs of brain and heart Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art; Though, save the few fond friends and imaged face Of that fair boy his Sire shall ne'er embrace, None stand by his low bed--though even the mind Be wavering, which long awed and awes mankind: Smile--for the fettered Eagle breaks his chain, And higher Worlds than this are his again.[270]