Lord Byron in Greece

 

 

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CHAPTER XXIII

Constantinople—Description—The Dogs and the Dead—Landed at Tophana—The Masterless Dogs—The Slave Market—The Seraglio—The Defects in the Description

The spot where the frigate came to anchor affords but an imperfect view of the Ottoman capital.  A few tall white minarets, and the domes of the great mosques only are in sight, interspersed with trees and mean masses of domestic buildings.  In the distance, inland on the left, the redoubted Castle of the Seven Towers is seen rising above the gloomy walls; and, unlike every other European city, a profound silence prevails over all.  This remarkable characteristic of Constantinople is owing to the very few wheel-carriages employed in the city.  In other respects the view around is lively, and in fine weather quickened with innumerable objects in motion.  In the calmest days the rippling in the flow of the Bosphorus is like the running of a river.  In the fifth canto of Don Juan, Lord Byron has seized the principal features, and delineated them with sparkling effect.

   The European with the Asian shore,
   Sprinkled with palaces, the ocean stream
   Here and there studded with a seventy-four,
   Sophia’s cupola with golden gleam;
   The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar;
   The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream,
Far less describe, present the very view
Which charm’d the charming Mary Montague.

In the morning, when his Lordship left the ship, the wind blew strongly from the north-east, and the rushing current of the Bosphorus dashed with great violence against the rocky projections of the shore, as the captain’s boat was rowed against the stream.

The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
Broke foaming o’er the blue Symplegades.
’Tis a grand sight, from off the giant’s grave,
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease.

“The sensations produced by the state of the weather, and leaving a comfortable cabin, were,” says Mr Hobhouse, “in unison with the impressions which we felt, when, passing under the palace of the sultans, and gazing at the gloomy cypresses, which rise above the walls, we saw two dogs gnawing a dead body.”  The description in The Siege of Corinth of the dogs devouring the dead, owes its origin to this incident of the dogs and the body under the walls of the seraglio.

And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall,
Hold o’er the dead their carnival.
Gorging and growling o’er carcase and limb,
They were too busy to bark at him.
From a Tartar’s scull they had stripp’d the flesh,
As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh,
And their white tusks crunched on the whiter scull,
As it slipp’d through their jaws when their edge grew dull.
As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead,
When they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed.
So well had they broken a lingering fast,
With those who had fallen for that night’s repast.
And Alp knew by the turbans that rolled on the sand,
The foremost of these were the best of his band.
Crimson and green were the shawls of their wear,
And each scalp had a single long tuft of hair,
All the rest was shaven and bare.
The scalps were in the wild dogs’ maw,
The hair was tangled round his jaw.
But close by the shore on the edge of the gulf,
There sat a vulture flapping a wolf,
Who had stolen from the hills but kept away,
Scared by the dogs from the human prey;
But he seized on his share of a steed that lay,
Pick’d by the birds on the sands of the bay.

This hideous picture is a striking instance of the uses to which imaginative power may turn the slightest hint, and of horror augmented till it reach that extreme point at which the ridiculous commences.  The whole compass of English poetry affords no parallel to this passage.  It even exceeds the celebrated catalogue of dreadful things on the sacramental table in Tam O’ Shanter.  It is true, that the revolting circumstances described by Byron are less sublime in their associations than those of Burns, being mere visible images, unconnected with ideas of guilt, and unlike

The knife a father’s throat had mangled,
Which his ain son of life bereft:
The gray hairs yet stuck to the heft.

Nor is there in the vivid group of the vulture flapping the wolf, any accessory to rouse stronger emotions, than those which are associated with the sight of energy and courage, while the covert insinuation, that the bird is actuated by some instigation of retribution in pursuing the wolf for having run away with the bone, approaches the very point and line where the horrible merges in the ludicrous.  The whole passage is fearfully distinct, and though in its circumstances, as the poet himself says, “sickening,” is yet an amazing display of poetical power and high invention.

The frigate sent the travellers on shore at Tophana, from which the road ascends to Pera.  Near this landing-place is a large fountain, and around it a public stand of horses ready saddled, attended by boys.  On some of these Lord Byron and his friend, with the officers who had accompanied them, mounted and rode up the steep hill, to the principal Frank Hotel, in Pera, where they intended to lodge.  In the course of the ride their attention was attracted to the prodigious number of masterless dogs which lounge and lurk about the corners of the streets; a nuisance both dangerous and disagreeable, but which the Turks not only tolerate but protect.  It is no uncommon thing to see a litter of puppies with their mother nestled in a mat placed on purpose for them in a nook by some charitable Mussulman of the neighbourhood; for notwithstanding their merciless military practices, the Turks are pitiful-hearted Titans to dumb animals and slaves.  Constantinople has, however, been so often and so well described, that it is unnecessary to notice its different objects of curiosity here, except in so far as they have been contributory to the stores of the poet.

The slave market was of course not unvisited, but the description in Don Juan is more indebted to the author’s fancy, than any of those other bright reflections of realities to which I have hitherto directed the attention of the reader.  The market now-a-days is in truth very uninteresting; few slaves are ever to be seen in it, and the place itself has an odious resemblance to Smithfield.  I imagine, therefore, that the trade in slaves is chiefly managed by private bargaining.  When there, I saw only two men for sale, whites, who appeared very little concerned about their destination, certainly not more than English rustics offering themselves for hire to the farmers at a fair or market.  Doubtless, there was a time when the slave market of Constantinople presented a different spectacle, but the trade itself has undergone a change—the Christians are now interdicted from purchasing slaves.  The luxury of the guilt is reserved for the exclusive enjoyment of the Turks.  Still, as a description of things which may have been, Byron’s market is probable and curious.

   A crowd of shivering slaves of every nation
   And age and sex were in the market ranged,
   Each busy with the merchant in his station.
   Poor creatures, their good looks were sadly changed.

   All save the blacks seem’d jaded with vexation,
   From friends, and home, and freedom far estranged.
The negroes more philosophy displayed,
Used to it no doubt, as eels are to be flayed.

   Like a backgammon board, the place was dotted
   With whites and blacks in groups, on show for sale,
   Though rather more irregularly spotted;
   Some bought the jet, while others chose the pale.

   No lady e’er is ogled by a lover,
   Horse by a black-leg, broadcloth by a tailor,
   Fee by a counsel, felon by a jailer,

   As is a slave by his intended bidder.
   ’Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures,
   And all are to be sold, if you consider
   Their passions, and are dext’rous, some by features
   Are bought up, others by a warlike leader;
   Some by a place, as tend their years or natures;
The most by ready cash, but all have prices,
From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.

The account of the interior of the seraglio in Don Juan is also only probably correct, and may have been drawn in several particulars from an inspection of some of the palaces, but the descriptions of the imperial harem are entirely fanciful.  I am persuaded, by different circumstances, that Byron could not have been in those sacred chambers of any of the seraglios.  At the time I was in Constantinople, only one of the imperial residences was accessible to strangers, and it was unfurnished.  The great seraglio was not accessible beyond the courts, except in those apartments where the Sultan receives his officers and visitors of state.  Indeed, the whole account of the customs and usages of the interior of the seraglio, as described in Don Juan, can only be regarded as inventions; and though the descriptions abound in picturesque beauty, they have not that air of truth and fact about them which render the pictures of Byron so generally valuable, independent of their poetical excellence.  In those he has given of the apartments of the men, the liveliness and fidelity of his pencil cannot be denied; but the Arabian tales and Vathek seem to have had more influence on his fancy in describing the imperial harem, than a knowledge of actual things and appearances.  Not that the latter are inferior to the former in beauty, or are without images and lineaments of graphic distinctness, but they want that air of reality which constitutes the singular excellence of his scenes drawn from nature; and there is a vagueness in them which has the effect of making them obscure, and even fantastical.  Indeed, except when he paints from actual models, from living persons and existing things, his superiority, at least his originality, is not so obvious; and thus it happens, that his gorgeous description of the sultan’s seraglio is like a versified passage of an Arabian tale, while the imagery of Childe Harold’s visit to Ali Pasha has all the freshness and life of an actual scene.  The following is, indeed, more like an imitation of Vathek, than anything that has been seen, or is in existence.  I quote it for the contrast it affords to the visit referred to, and in illustration of the distinction which should be made between beauties derived from actual scenes and adventures, and compilations from memory and imagination, which are supposed to display so much more of creative invention.

   And thus they parted, each by separate doors,
   Raba led Juan onward, room by room,
   Through glittering galleries and o’er marble floors,
   Till a gigantic portal through the gloom
   Haughty and huge along the distance towers,
   And wafted far arose a rich perfume,
It seem’d as though they came upon a shrine,
For all was vast, still, fragrant, and divine.

   The giant door was broad and bright and high,
   Of gilded bronze, and carved in curious guise;
   Warriors thereon were battling furiously;
   Here stalks the victor, there the vanquish’d lies;
   There captives led in triumph droop the eye,
   And in perspective many a squadron flies.
It seems the work of times before the line
Of Rome transplanted fell with Constantine.

   This massy portal stood at the wide close
   Of a huge hall, and on its either side
   Two little dwarfs, the least you could suppose,
   Were sate, like ugly imps, as if allied
   In mockery to the enormous gate which rose
   O’er them in almost pyramidic pride.

CHAPTER XXIV

Dispute with the Ambassador—Reflections on Byron’s Pride of Rank—Abandons his Oriental Travels—Re-embarks in the “Salsette”—The Dagger Scene—Zea—Returns to Athens—Tour in the Morea—Dangerous Illness—Return to Athens—The Adventure on which “The Giaour” is founded

Although Lord Byron remained two months in Constantinople, and visited every object of interest and curiosity within and around it, he yet brought away with him fewer poetical impressions than from any other part of the Ottoman dominions; at least he has made less use in his works of what he saw and learned there, than of the materials he collected in other places.

From whatever cause it arose, the self-abstraction which I had noticed at Smyrna, was remarked about him while he was in the capital, and the same jealousy of his rank was so nervously awake, that it led him to attempt an obtrusion on the ambassadorial etiquettes—which he probably regretted.

It has grown into a custom, at Constantinople, when the foreign ministers are admitted to audiences of ceremony with the Sultan, to allow the subjects and travellers of their respective nations to accompany them, both to swell the pomp of the spectacle, and to gratify their curiosity.  Mr Adair, our ambassador, for whom the Salsette had been sent, had his audience of leave appointed soon after Lord Byron’s arrival, and his Lordship was particularly anxious to occupy a station of distinction in the procession.  The pretension was ridiculous in itself, and showed less acquaintance with courtly ceremonies than might have been expected in a person of his rank and intelligence.  Mr Adair assured him that he could obtain no particular place; that in the arrangements for the ceremonial, only the persons connected with the embassy could be considered, and that the Turks neither acknowledged the precedence, nor could be requested to consider the distinctions of our nobility.  Byron, however, still persisted, and the minister was obliged to refer him on the subject to the Austrian Internuncio, a high authority in questions of etiquette, whose opinion was decidedly against the pretension.

The pride of rank was indeed one of the greatest weaknesses of Lord Byron, and everything, even of the most accidental kind, which seemed to come between the wind and his nobility, was repelled on the spot.  I recollect having some debate with him once respecting a pique of etiquette, which happened between him and Sir William Drummond, somewhere in Portugal or Spain.  Sir William was at the time an ambassador (not, however, I believe, in the country where the incident occurred), and was on the point of taking precedence in passing from one room to another, when Byron stepped in before him.  The action was undoubtedly rude on the part of his Lordship, even though Sir William had presumed too far on his riband: to me it seemed also wrong; for, by the custom of all nations from time immemorial, ambassadors have been allowed their official rank in passing through foreign countries, while peers in the same circumstances claim no rank at all; even in our own colonies it has been doubted if they may take precedence of the legislative counsellors.  But the rights of rank are best determined by the heralds, and I have only to remark, that it is almost inconceivable that such things should have so morbidly affected the sensibility of Lord Byron; yet they certainly did so, and even to a ridiculous degree.  On one occasion, when he lodged in St James’s Street, I recollect him rating the footman for using a double knock in accidental thoughtlessness.

These little infirmities are, however, at most only calculated to excite a smile; there is no turpitude in them, and they merit notice but as indications of the humour of character.  It was his Lordship’s foible to overrate his rank, to grudge his deformity beyond reason, and to exaggerate the condition of his family and circumstances.  But the alloy of such small vanities, his caprice and feline temper, were as vapour compared with the mass of rich and rare ore which constituted the orb and nucleus of his brilliancy.

He had not been long in Constantinople, when a change came over his intentions; the journey to Persia was abandoned, and the dreams of India were dissolved.  The particular causes which produced this change are not very apparent—but Mr Hobhouse was at the same time directed to return home, and perhaps that circumstance had some influence on his decision, which he communicated to his mother, informing her, that he should probably return to Greece.  As in that letter he alludes to his embarrassment on account of remittances, it is probable that the neglect of his agent, with respect to them, was the main cause which induced him to determine on going no farther.

Accordingly, on the 14th of July, he embarked with Mr Hobhouse and the ambassador on board the Salsette.  It was in the course of the passage to the island of Zea, where he was put on shore, that one of the most emphatic incidents of his life occurred; an incident which throws a remarkable gleam into the springs and intricacies of his character—more, perhaps, than anything which has yet been mentioned.

One day, as he was walking the quarter-deck, he lifted an ataghan (it might be one of the midshipmen’s weapons), and unsheathing it, said, contemplating the blade, “I should like to know how a person feels after committing murder.”  By those who have inquiringly noticed the extraordinary cast of his metaphysical associations, this dagger-scene must be regarded as both impressive and solemn; although the wish to know how a man felt after committing murder does not imply any desire to perpetrate the crime.  The feeling might be appreciated by experiencing any actual degree of guilt; for it is not the deed—the sentiment which follows it makes the horror.  But it is doing injustice to suppose the expression of such a wish dictated by desire.  Lord Byron has been heard to express, in the eccentricity of conversation, wishes for a more intense knowledge of remorse than murder itself could give.  There is, however, a wide and wild difference between the curiosity that prompts the wish to know the exactitude of any feeling or idea, and the direful passions that instigate to guilty gratifications.

Being landed, according to his request, with his valet, two Albanians, and a Tartar, on the shore of Zea, it may be easily conceived that he saw the ship depart with a feeling before unfelt.  It was the first time he was left companionless, and the scene around was calculated to nourish stern fancies, even though there was not much of suffering to be withstood.

The landing-place in the port of Zea, I recollect distinctly.  The port itself is a small land-locked gulf, or, as the Scottish Highlander would call it, a loch.  The banks are rocky and forbidding; the hills, which rise to the altitude of mountains, have, in a long course of ages, been always inhabited by a civilized people.  Their precipitous sides are formed into innumerable artificial terraces, the aspect of which, austere, ruinous, and ancient, produces on the mind of the stranger a sense of the presence of a greater antiquity than the sight of monuments of mere labour and art.  The town stands high upon the mountain, I counted on the lower side of the road which leads to it forty-nine of those terraces at one place under me, and on the opposite hills, in several places, upwards of sixty.  Whether Lord Byron ascended to the town is doubtful.  I have never heard him mention that he had; and I am inclined to think that he proceeded at once to Athens by one of the boats which frequent the harbour.

At Athens he met an old fellow-collegian, the Marquis of Sligo, with whom he soon after travelled as far as Corinth; the Marquis turning off there for Tripolizza, while Byron went forward to Patras, where he had some needful business to transact with the consul.  He then made the tour of the Morea, in the course of which he visited the Vizier Velhi Pasha, by whom he was treated, as every other English traveller of the time was, with great distinction and hospitality.

Having occasion to go back to Patras, he was seized by the local fever there, and reduced to death’s door.  On his recovery he returned to Athens, where he found the Marquis, with Lady Hester Stanhope, and Mr Bruce, afterward so celebrated for his adventures in assisting the escape of the French General Lavalette.  He took possession of the apartments which I had occupied in the monastery, and made them his home during the remainder of his residence in Greece; but when I returned to Athens, in October, he was not there himself.  I found, however, his valet, Fletcher, in possession.

There is no very clear account of the manner in which Lord Byron employed himself after his return to Athens; but various intimations in his correspondence show that during the winter his pen was not idle.  It would, however, be to neglect an important occurrence, not to notice that during the time when he was at Athens alone, the incident which he afterwards embodied in the impassioned fragments of The Giaour came to pass; and to apprise the reader that the story is founded on an adventure which happened to himself—he was, in fact, the cause of the girl being condemned, and ordered to be sewn up in a sack and thrown into the sea.

One day, as he was returning from bathing in the Piræus, he met the procession going down to the shore to execute the sentence which the Waywode had pronounced on the girl; and learning the object of the ceremony, and who was the victim, he immediately interfered with great resolution; for, on observing some hesitation on the part of the leader of the escort to return with him to the Governor’s house, he drew a pistol and threatened to shoot him on the spot.  The man then turned about, and accompanied him back, when, partly by bribery and entreaty, he succeeded in obtaining a pardon for her, on condition that she was sent immediately out of the city.  Byron conveyed her to the monastery, and on the same night sent her off to Thebes, where she found a safe asylum.

With this affair, I may close his adventures in Greece; for, although he remained several months subsequent at Athens, he was in a great measure stationary.  His health, which was never robust, was impaired by the effects of the fever, which lingered about him; perhaps, too, by the humiliating anxiety he suffered on account of the uncertainty in his remittances.  But however this may have been, it was fortunate for his fame that he returned to England at the period he did, for the climate of the Mediterranean was detrimental to his constitution.  The heat oppressed him so much as to be positive suffering, and scarcely had he reached Malta on his way home, when he was visited again with a tertian ague.

CHAPTER XXV

Arrival in London—Mr Dallas’s Patronage—Arranges for the Publication of “Childe Harold”—The Death of Mrs Byron—His Sorrow—His Affair with Mr Moore—Their Meeting at Mr Rogers’s House, and Friendship

Lord Byron arrived in London about the middle of July, 1811, having been absent a few days more than two years.  The embarrassed condition in which he found his affairs sufficiently explains the dejection and uneasiness with which he was afflicted during the latter part of his residence in Greece; and yet it was not such as ought to have affected him so deeply, nor have I ever been able to comprehend wherefore so much stress has been laid on his supposed friendlessness.  In respect both to it and to his ravelled fortune, a great deal too much has been too often said; and the manliness of his character has suffered by the puling.

His correspondence shows that he had several friends to whom he was much attached, and his disposition justifies the belief that, had he not been well persuaded the attachment was reciprocal, he would not have remained on terms of intimacy with them.  And though for his rank not rich, he was still able to maintain all its suitable exhibition.  The world could never regard as an object of compassion or of sympathy an English noble, whose income was enough to support his dignity among his peers, and whose poverty, however grievous to his pride, caused only the privation of extravagance.  But it cannot be controverted, that there was an innate predilection in the mind of Lord Byron to mystify everything about himself: he was actuated by a passion to excite attention, and, like every other passion, it was often indulged at the expense of propriety.  He had the infirmity of speaking, though vaguely, and in obscure hints and allusions, more of his personal concerns than is commonly deemed consistent with a correct estimate of the interest which mankind take in the cares of one another.  But he lived to feel and to rue the consequences: to repent he could not, for the cause was in the very element of his nature.  It was a blemish as incurable as the deformity of his foot.

On his arrival in London, his relation, Mr Dallas, called on him, and in the course of their first brief conversation his Lordship mentioned that he had written a paraphrase of Horace’s Art of Poetry, but said nothing then of Childe Harold, a circumstance which leads me to suspect that he offered him the slighter work first, to enjoy his surprise afterward at the greater.  If so, the result answered the intent.  Mr Dallas carried home with him the paraphrase of Horace, with which he was grievously disappointed; so much so, that on meeting his Lordship again in the morning, and being reluctant to speak of it as he really thought, he only expressed some surprise that his noble friend should have produced nothing else during his long absence.

I can easily conceive the emphatic indifference, if my conjecture be well founded, with which Lord Byron must have said to him, “I have occasionally written short poems, besides a great many stanzas in Spenser’s measure, relative to the countries I have visited: they are not worth troubling you with, but you shall have them all with you, if you like.”

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was accordingly placed in his hands; Mr Dallas took it home, and was not slow in discovering its beauties, for in the course of the same evening he despatched a note to his Lordship, as fair a specimen of the style of an elderly patronising gentleman as can well be imagined: “You have written,” said he, “one of the most delightful poems I ever read.  If I wrote this in flattery, I should deserve your contempt rather than your friendship.  I have been so fascinated with Childe Harold, that I have not been able to lay it down; I would almost pledge my life on its advancing the reputation of your poetical powers, and on its gaining you great honour and regard, if you will do me the credit and favour of attending to my suggestions.”

For some reason or another, Lord Byron, however, felt or feigned great reluctance to publish Childe Harold.  Possibly his repugnance was dictated by diffidence, not with respect to its merits, but from a consciousness that the hero of the poem exhibited traits and resemblances of himself.  It would indeed be injustice to his judgment and taste, to suppose he was not sensible of the superiority of the terse and energetic poetry which brightens and burns in every stanza of the Pilgrimage, compared with the loose and sprawling lines, and dull rhythm, of the paraphrase.  It is true that he alleged it had been condemned by a good critic—the only one who had previously seen it—probably Mr Hobhouse, who was with him during the time he was writing it; but still I cannot conceive he was so blind to excellence, as to prefer in sincerity the other composition, which was only an imitation.  But the arguments of Mr Dallas prevailed and in due season Childe Harold was prepared for the press.

In the meantime, while busily engaged in his literary projects with Mr Dallas, and in law affairs with his agent, he was suddenly summoned to Newstead by the state of his mother’s health: before he had reached the Abbey she had breathed her last.  The event deeply affected him; he had not seen her since his return, and a presentiment possessed her when they parted, that she was never to see him again.

Notwithstanding her violent temper and other unseemly conduct, her affection for him had been so fond and dear, that he undoubtedly returned it with unaffected sincerity; and from many casual and incidental expressions which I have heard him employ concerning her, I am persuaded that his filial love was not at any time even of an ordinary kind.  During her life he might feel uneasy respecting her, apprehensive on account of her ungovernable passions and indiscretions, but the manner in which he lamented her death, clearly proves that the integrity of his affection had never been impaired.

On the night after his arrival at the Abbey, the waiting-woman of Mrs Byron, in passing the door of the room where the corpse lay, heard the sound of some one sighing heavily within, and on entering found his Lordship sitting in the dark beside the bed.  She remonstrated with him for so giving way to grief, when he burst into tears, and exclaimed, “I had but one friend in the world, and she is gone.”  Of the fervency of his sorrow I do therefore think there can be no doubt; the very endeavour which he made to conceal it by indifference, was a proof of its depth and anguish, though he hazarded the strictures of the world by the indecorum of his conduct on the occasion of the funeral.  Having declined to follow the remains himself, he stood looking from the hall door at the procession, till the whole had moved away; and then, turning to one of the servants, the only person left, he desired him to fetch the sparring-gloves, and proceeded with him to his usual exercise.  But the scene was impressive, and spoke eloquently of a grieved heart; he sparred in silence all the time, and the servant thought that he hit harder than was his habit: at last he suddenly flung away the gloves and retired to his own room.

As soon as the funeral was over the publication of Childe Harold was resumed, but it went slowly through the press.  In the meantime, an incident occurred to him which deserves to be noted—because it is one of the most remarkable in his life, and has given rise to consequences affecting his fame—with advantage.

In English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, he had alluded, with provoking pleasantry, to a meeting which had taken place at Chalk Farm some years before, between Mr Jeffrey, the Edinburgh reviewer, and Mr Moore, without recollecting, indeed without having heard, that Mr Moore had explained, through the newspapers, what was alleged to have been ridiculous in the affair.  This revival of the subject, especially as it called in question the truth of Mr Moore’s statement, obliged that gentleman to demand an explanation; but Lord Byron, being abroad, did not receive this letter, and of course knew not of its contents, so that, on his return, Mr Moore was induced to address his Lordship again.  The correspondence which ensued is honourable to the spirit and feelings of both.

Mr Moore, after referring to his first letter, restated the nature of the insult which the passage in the note to the poem was calculated to convey, adding, “It is now useless to speak of the steps with which it was my intention to follow up that letter, the time which has elapsed since then, though it has done away neither the injury nor the feeling of it, has, in many respects, materially altered my situation, and the only object I have now in writing to your Lordship, is to preserve some consistency with that former letter, and to prove to you that the injured feeling still exists, however circumstances may compel me to be deaf to its dictates at present.  When I say ‘injured feeling,’ let me assure your Lordship that there is not a single vindictive sentiment in my mind towards you; I mean but to express that uneasiness under what I consider to be a charge of falsehood, which must haunt a man of any feeling to his grave, unless the insult be retracted, or atoned for, and which, if I did not feel, I should indeed deserve far worse than your Lordship’s satire could inflict upon me.”  And he concluded by saying, that so far from being influenced by any angry or resentful feeling, it would give him sincere pleasure if, by any satisfactory explanation, his Lordship would enable him to seek the honour of being ranked among his acquaintance.

The answer of Lord Byron was diplomatic but manly.  He declared that he never received Mr Moore’s letter, and assured him that in whatever part of the world it had reached him, he would have deemed it his duty to return and answer it in person; that he knew nothing of the advertisement to which Mr Moore had alluded, and consequently could not have had the slightest idea of “giving the lie” to an address which he had never seen.  “When I put my name to the production,” said his Lordship, “which has occasioned this correspondence, I became responsible to all whom it might concern, to explain where it requires explanation, and where insufficiently or too sufficiently explicit, at all events to satisfy; my situation leaves me no choice; it rests with the injured and the angry to obtain reparation in their own way.  With regard to the passage in question, you were certainly not the person towards whom I felt personally hostile: on the contrary, my whole thoughts were engrossed by one whom I had reason to consider as my worst literary enemy, nor could I foresee that his former antagonist was about to become his champion.  You do not specify what you would wish to have done.  I can neither retract nor apologize for a charge of falsehood which I never advanced.”

In reply, Mr Moore commenced by acknowledging that his Lordship’s letter was upon the whole as satisfactory as he could expect; and after alluding to specific circumstances in the case, concluded thus: “As your Lordship does not show any wish to proceed beyond the rigid formulary of explanation, it is not for me to make any farther advances.  We Irishmen, in business of this kind, seldom know any medium between decided hostility and decided friendship.  But as any approaches towards the latter alternative must now depend entirely on your Lordship, I have only to repeat that I am satisfied with your letter.”  Here the correspondence would probably, with most people, have been closed, but Lord Byron’s sensibility was interested, and would not let it rest.  Accordingly, on the following day, he rejoined: “Soon after my return to England, my friend Mr Hodgson apprised me that a letter for me was in his possession; but a domestic event hurrying me from London immediately after, the letter, which may most probably be your own, is still unopened in his keeping.  If, on examination of the address, the similarity of the handwriting should lead to such a conclusion, it shall be opened in your presence, for the satisfaction of all parties.  Mr H. is at present out of town; on Friday I shall see him, and request him to forward it to my address.  With regard to the latter part of both your letters, until the principal point was discussed between us, I felt myself at a loss in what manner to reply.  Was I to anticipate friendship from one who conceived me to have charged him with falsehood? were not advances under such circumstances to be misconstrued, not perhaps by the person to whom they were addressed, but by others?  In my case such a step was impracticable.  If you, who conceived yourself to be the offended person, are satisfied that you had no cause for offence, it will not be difficult to convince me of it.  My situation, as I have before stated, leaves me no choice.  I should have felt proud of your acquaintance had it commenced under other circumstances, but it must rest with you to determine how far it may proceed after so auspicious a beginning.”

Mr Moore acknowledges that he was somewhat piqued at the manner in which his efforts towards a more friendly understanding were received, and hastened to close the correspondence by a short note, saying that his Lordship had made him feel the imprudence he was guilty of in wandering from the point immediately in discussion between them.  This drew immediately from Lord Byron the following frank and openhearted reply:

“You must excuse my troubling you once more upon this very unpleasant subject.  It would be a satisfaction to me, and I should think to yourself, that the unopened letter in Mr Hodgson’s possession (supposing it to prove your own) should be returned in statu quo to the writer, particularly as you expressed yourself ‘not quite easy under the manner in which I had dwelt on its miscarriage.’

“A few words more and I shall not trouble you further.  I felt, and still feel, very much flattered by those parts of your correspondence which held out the prospect of our becoming acquainted.  If I did not meet them, in the first instance, as perhaps I ought, let the situation in which I was placed be my defence.  You have now declared yourself satisfied, and on that point we are no longer at issue.  If, therefore, you still retain any wish to do me the honour you hinted at, I shall be most happy to meet you when, where, and how you please, and I presume you will not attribute my saying thus much to any unworthy motive.”

The result was a dinner at the house of Mr Rogers, the amiable and celebrated author of The Pleasures of Memory, and the only guest besides the two adversaries was Mr Campbell, author of The Pleasures of Hope: a poetical group of four not easily to be matched, among contemporaries in any age or country.

The meeting could not but be interesting, and Mr Moore has described the effect it had on himself with a felicitous warmth, which showed how much he enjoyed the party, and was pleased with the friendship that ensued.

“Among the impressions,” says he, “which this meeting left on me, what I chiefly remember to have remarked was, the nobleness of his air, his beauty, the gentleness of his voice and manners, and—what was naturally not the least attraction—his marked kindness for myself.  Being in mourning for his mother, the colour as well of his dress as of his glossy, curling, and picturesque hair, gave more effect to the pure spiritual paleness of his features, in the expression of which, when he spoke, there was a perpetual play of lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual character when in repose.”

CHAPTER XXVI

The Libel in “The Scourge”—The general Impression of his Character—Improvement in his Manners, as his Merit was acknowledgement by the Public—His Address in Management—His first Speech in Parliament—The Publication of “Childe Harold”—Its Reception and Effect

During the first winter after Lord Byron had returned to England, I was frequently with him.  Childe Harold was not then published; and although the impression of his satire, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, was still strong upon the public, he could not well be said to have been then a celebrated character.  At that time the strongest feeling by which he appeared to be actuated was indignation against a writer in a scurrilous publication, called The Scourge; in which he was not only treated with unjustifiable malignity, but charged with being, as he told me himself, the illegitimate son of a murderer.  I had not read the work; but the writer who could make such an absurd accusation, must have been strangely ignorant of the very circumstances from which he derived the materials of his own libel.  When Lord Byron mentioned the subject to me, and that he was consulting Sir Vickery Gibbs, with the intention of prosecuting the publisher and the author, I advised him, as well as I could, to desist, simply because the allegation referred to well-known occurrences.  His grand-uncle’s duel with Mr. Chaworth, and the order of the House of Peers to produce evidence of his grandfather’s marriage with Miss Trevannion; the facts of which being matter of history and public record, superseded the necessity of any proceeding.

Knowing how deeply this affair agitated him at that time, I was not surprised at the sequestration in which he held himself—and which made those who were not acquainted with his shy and mystical nature, apply to him the description of his own Lara:

The chief of Lara is return’d again,

And why had Lara cross’d the bounding main?—
Left by his sire too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself; that heritage of woe.
In him, inexplicably mix’d, appear’d
Much to be loved and hated, sought and fear’d,
Opinion varying o’er his hidden lot,
In praise or railing ne’er his name forgot.
His silence form’d a theme for others’ prate;
They guess’d, they gazed, they fain would know his fate,
What had he been? what was he, thus unknown,
Who walk’d their world, his lineage only known?
A hater of his kind? yet some would say,
With them he could seem gay amid the gay;
But own’d that smile, if oft observed and near
Waned in its mirth and wither’d to a sneer;
That smile might reach his lip, but pass’d not by;
None e’er could trace its laughter to his eye:
Yet there was softness, too, in his regard,
At times a heart is not by nature hard.
But once perceived, his spirit seem’d to hide
Such weakness as unworthy of its pride,
And stretch’d itself as scorning to redeem
One doubt from others’ half-withheld esteem;
In self-inflicted penance of a breast
Which tenderness might once have wrung from rest,
In vigilance of grief that would compel
The soul to hate for having loved too well.
There was in him a vital scorn of all,
As if the worst had fall’n which could befall.
He stood a stranger in this breathing world,
An erring spirit from another hurl’d;
A thing of dark imaginings, that shaped
By choice the perils he by chance escaped.

Such was Byron to common observance on his return.  I recollect one night meeting him at the Opera.  Seeing me with a gentleman whom he did not know, and to whom he was unknown, he addressed me in Italian, and we continued to converse for some time in that language.  My friend, who in the meanwhile had been observing him with curiosity, conceiving him to be a foreigner, inquired in the course of the evening who he was, remarking that he had never seen a man with such a Cain-like mark on the forehead before, alluding to that singular scowl which struck me so forcibly when I first saw him, and which appears to have made a stronger impression upon me than it did upon many others.  I never, in fact, could overcome entirely the prejudice of the first impression, although I ought to have been gratified by the friendship and confidence with which he always appeared disposed to treat me.  When Childe Harold was printed, he sent me a quarto copy before the publication; a favour and distinction I have always prized; and the copy which he gave me of The Bride of Abydos was one he had prepared for a new edition, and which contains, in his own writing, these six lines in no other copy:

Bless’d—as the Muezzin’s strain from Mecca’s wall
To pilgrims pure and prostrate at his call,
Soft—as the melody of youthful days
That steals the trembling tear of speechless praise,
Sweet—as his native song to exile’s ears
Shall sound each tone thy long-loved voice endears.

He had not, it is true, at the period of which I am speaking, gathered much of his fame; but the gale was rising—and though the vessel was evidently yielding to the breeze, she was neither crank nor unsteady.  On the contrary, the more he became an object of public interest, the less did he indulge his capricious humour.  About the time when The Bride of Abydos was published, he appeared disposed to settle into a consistent character—especially after the first sale of Newstead.  Before that particular event, he was often so disturbed in his mind, that he could not conceal his unhappiness, and frequently spoke of leaving England for ever.

Although few men were more under the impulses of passion than Lord Byron, there was yet a curious kind of management about him which showed that he was well aware how much of the world’s favour was to be won by it.  Long before Childe Harold appeared, it was generally known that he had a poem in the press, and various surmises to stimulate curiosity were circulated concerning it: I do not say that these were by his orders, or under his directions, but on one occasion I did fancy that I could discern a touch of his own hand in a paragraph in the Morning Post, in which he was mentioned as having returned from an excursion into the interior of Africa; and when I alluded to it, my suspicion was confirmed by his embarrassment.

I mention this incident not in the spirit of detraction; for in the paragraph there was nothing of puff, though certainly something of oddity—but as a tint of character, indicative of the appetite for distinction by which, about this period, he became so powerfully incited, that at last it grew into a diseased crave, and to such a degree, that were the figure allowable, it might be said, the mouth being incapable of supplying adequate means to appease it—every pore became another mouth greedy of nourishment.  I am, however, hastening on too fast.  Lord Byron was, at that time, far indeed from being ruled by any such inordinate passion; the fears, the timidity, and bashfulness of young desire still clung to him, and he was throbbing with doubt if he should be found worthy of the high prize for which he was about to offer himself a candidate.  The course he adopted on the occasion, whether dictated by management, or the effect of accident, was, however, well calculated to attract attention to his début as a public man.

When Childe Harold was ready for publication, he determined to make his first appearance as an orator in the House of Lords: the occasion was judiciously chosen, being a debate on the Nottingham frame-breaking bill; a subject on which it was natural to suppose he possessed some local knowledge that might bear upon a question directed so exclusively against transactions in his own county.  He prepared himself as the best orators do in their first essays, not only by composing, but writing down, the whole of his speech beforehand.  The reception he met with was flattering; he was complimented warmly by some of the speakers on his own side; but it must be confessed that his début was more showy than promising.  It lacked weight in metal, as was observed at the time, and the mode of delivery was more like a schoolboy’s recital than a masculine grapple with an argument.  It was, moreover, full of rhetorical exaggerations, and disfigured with conceits.  Still it scintillated with talent, and justified the opinion that he was an extraordinary young man, probably destined to distinction, though he might not be a statesman.

Mr Dallas gives a lively account of his elation on the occasion.  “When he left the great chamber,” says that gentleman, “I went and met him in the passage; he was glowing with success, and much agitated.  I had an umbrella in my right hand, not expecting that he would put out his hand to me; in my haste to take it when offered, I had advanced my left hand: ‘What!’ said he, ‘give your friend your left hand upon such an occasion?’  I showed the cause, and immediately changing the umbrella to the other, I gave him my right hand, which he shook and pressed warmly.  He was greatly elated, and repeated some of the compliments which had been paid him, and mentioned one or two of the peers who had desired to be introduced to him.  He concluded by saying, that he had, by his speech, given me the best advertisement for Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.”

It is upon this latter circumstance, that I have ventured to state my suspicion, that there was a degree of worldly management in making his first appearance in the House of Lords, so immediately preceding the publication of his poem.  The speech was, indeed, a splendid advertisement, but the greater and brighter merits of the poem soon proved that it was not requisite, for the speech made no impression, but the poem was at once hailed with delight and admiration.  It filled a vacancy in the public mind, which the excitement and inflation arising from the mighty events of the age, had created.  The world, in its condition and circumstances, was prepared to receive a work, so original, vigorous, and beautiful; and the reception was such that there was no undue extravagance in the noble author saying in his memorandum, “I awoke one morning and found myself famous.”

But he was not to be allowed to revel in such triumphant success with impunity.  If the great spirits of the time were smitten with astonishment at the splendour of the rising fire, the imps and elves of malignity and malice fluttered their bat-wings in all directions.  Those whom the poet had afflicted in his satire, and who had remained quietly crouching with lacerated shoulders in the hope that their flagellation would be forgotten, and that the avenging demon who had so punished their imbecility would pass away, were terrified from their obscurity.  They came like moths to the candle, and sarcasms in the satire which had long been unheeded, in the belief that they would soon be forgotten, were felt to have been barbed with irremediable venom, when they beheld the avenger

Towering in his pride of place.

CHAPTER XXVII

Sketches of Character—His Friendly Dispositions—Introduce Prince K—to him—Our last Interview—His continued Kindness towards me—Instance of it to one of my Friends.

For some time after the publication of Childe Harold, the noble author appeared to more advantage than I ever afterwards saw him.  He was soothed by success; and the universal applause which attended his poem seemed to make him think more kindly of the world, of which he has too often complained, while it would be difficult to discover, in his career and fortunes, that he had ever received any cause from it to justify his complaint.

At no time, I imagine, could it be said that Lord Byron was one of those men who interest themselves in the concerns of others.  He had always too much to do with his own thoughts about himself, to afford time for the consideration of aught that was lower in his affections.  But still he had many amiable fits, and at the particular period to which I allude, he evinced a constancy in the disposition to oblige, which proved how little self-control was wanting to have made him as pleasant as he was uniformly interesting.  I felt this towards myself in a matter which had certainly the grace of condescension in it, at the expense of some trouble to him.  I then lived at the corner of Bridge Street, Westminster, and in going to the House of Lords he frequently stopped to inquire if I wanted a frank.  His conversation, at the same time, was of a milder vein, and with the single exception of one day, while dining together at the St Alban’s, it was light and playful, as if gaiety had become its habitude.

Perhaps I regarded him too curiously, and more than once it struck me that he thought so.  For at times, when he was in his comfortless moods, he has talked of his affairs and perplexities as if I had been much more acquainted with them than I had any opportunity of being.  But he was a subject for study, such as is rarely met with—at least, he was so to me; for his weaknesses were as interesting as his talents, and he often indulged in expressions which would have been blemishes in the reflections of other men, but which in him often proved the germs of philosophical imaginings.  He was the least qualified for any sort of business of all men I have ever known; so skinless in sensibility as respected himself, and so distrustful in his universal apprehensions of human nature, as respected others.  It was, indeed, a wild, though a beautiful, error of nature, to endow a spirit with such discerning faculties, and yet render it unfit to deal with mankind.  But these reflections belong more properly to a general estimate of his character, than to the immediate purpose before me, which was principally to describe the happy effects which the splendid reception of Childe Harold had on his feelings; effects which, however, did not last long.  He was gratified to the fullness of his hopes; but the adulation was enjoyed to excess, and his infirmities were aggravated by the surfeit.  I did not, however, see the progress of the change, as in the course of the summer I went to Scotland, and soon after again abroad.  But on my return, in the following spring, it was very obvious.

I found him, in one respect, greatly improved; there was more of a formed character about him; he was evidently, at the first glance, more mannered, or endeavouring to be so, and easier with the proprieties of his rank; but he had risen in his own estimation above the honours so willingly paid to his genius, and was again longing for additional renown.  Not content with being acknowledged as the first poet of the age, and a respectable orator in the House of Lords, he was aspiring to the éclat of a man of gallantry; so that many of the most ungracious peculiarities of his temper, though brought under better discipline, were again in full activity.

Considering how much he was then caressed, I ought to have been proud of the warmth with which he received me.  I did not, however, so often see him as in the previous year; for I was then on the eve of my marriage, and I should not so soon, after my return to London, have probably renewed my visits, but a foreign nobleman of the highest rank, who had done me the honour to treat me as a friend, came at that juncture to this country, and knowing I had been acquainted with Lord Byron, he requested me to introduce him to his Lordship.  This rendered a visit preliminary to the introduction necessary; and so long as my distinguished friend remained in town, we again often met.  But after he left the country my visits became few and far between; owing to nothing but that change in a man’s pursuits and associates which is one among some of the evils of matrimony.  It is somewhat remarkable, that of the last visit I ever paid him, he has made rather a particular memorandum.  I remember well, that it was in many respects an occasion not to be at once forgotten; for, among other things, after lighter topics, he explained to me a variety of tribulations in his affairs, and I urged him, in consequence, to marry, with the frankness which his confidence encouraged; subjoining certain items of other good advice concerning a liaison which he was supposed to have formed, and which Mr Moore does not appear to have known, though it was much talked of at the time.

During that visit the youthful peculiarities of his temper and character showed all their original blemish.  But, as usual, when such was the case, he was often more interesting than when in his discreeter moods.  He gave me the copy of The Bride of Abydos, with a very kind inscription on it, which I have already mentioned; but still there was an impression on my mind that led me to believe he could not have been very well pleased with some parts of my counselling.  This, however, appears not to have been the case; on the contrary, the tone of his record breathes something of kindness; and long after I received different reasons to believe his recollection of me was warm and friendly.

When he had retired to Genoa, I gave a gentleman a letter to him, partly that I might hear something of his real way of life, and partly in the hope of gratifying my friend by the sight of one of whom he had heard so much.  The reception from his Lordship was flattering to me; and, as the account of it contains what I think a characteristic picture, the reader will, I doubt not, be pleased to see so much of it as may be made public without violating the decorum which should always be observed in describing the incidents of private intercourse, when the consent of all parties cannot be obtained to the publication.

Edinburgh, June 3, 1830.

“DEAR GALT,—Though I shall always retain a lively general recollection of my agreeable interview with Lord Byron, at Genoa, in May, 1823, so long a time has since elapsed that much of the aroma of the pleasure has evaporated, and I can but recall generalities.  At that time there was an impression in Genoa that he was averse to receive visits from Englishmen, and I was indeed advised not to think of calling on him, as I might run the risk of meeting with a savage reception.  However, I resolved to send your note, and to the surprise of every one the messenger brought a most polite answer, in which, after expressing the satisfaction of hearing of his old friend and fellow-traveller, he added that he would do himself the honour of calling on me the next day, which he accordingly did; but owing to the officious blundering of an Italian waiter, who mentioned I was at dinner, his Lordship sent up his card with his compliments that he would not deranger the party.  I was determined, however, that he should not escape me in this way, and drove out to his residence next morning, when, upon his English valet taking up my name, I was immediately admitted.

“As every one forms a picture to himself of remarkable characters, I had depicted his Lordship in my mind as a tall, sombre, Childe Harold personage, tinctured somewhat with aristocratic hauteur.  You may therefore guess my surprise when the door opened, and I saw leaning upon the lock, a light animated figure, rather petite than otherwise, dressed in a nankeen hussar-braided jacket, trousers of the same material, with a white waistcoat; his countenance pale but the complexion clear and healthful, with the hair coming down in little curls on each side of his fine forehead.

“He came towards me with an easy cheerfulness of manner, and after some preliminary inquiries concerning yourself, we entered into a conversation which lasted two hours, in the course of which I felt myself perfectly at ease, from his Lordship’s natural and simple manners; indeed, so much so, that, forgetting all my anticipations, I found myself conversing with him with as fluent an intercourse of mind as I ever experienced, even with yourself.

“It is impossible for me at present to overtake a detail of what passed, but as it produced a kind of scene, I may mention one incident.

“Having remarked that in a long course of desultory reading, I had read most of what had been said by English travellers concerning Italy; yet, on coming to it I found there was no country of which I had less accurate notions: that among other things I was much struck with the harshness of the language.  He seemed to jerk at this, and immediately observed, that perhaps in going rapidly through the country, I might not have had many opportunities of hearing it politely spoken.  ‘Now,’ said he, ‘there are supposed to be nineteen dialects of the Italian language, and I shall let you hear a lady speak the principal of them, who is considered to do it very well.’  I pricked up my ears at hearing this, as I considered it would afford me an opportunity of seeing the far-famed Countess Guiccioli.  His Lordship immediately rose and left the apartment, returning in the course of a minute or two leading in the lady, and while arranging chairs for the trio, he said to me, ‘I shall make her speak each of the principal dialects, but you are not to mind how I pronounce, for I do not speak Italian well.’  After the scene had been performed he resumed to me, ‘Now what do you think?’  To which I answered, that my opinion still remained unaltered.  He seemed at this to fall into a little revery, and then said, abruptly, ‘Why ’tis very odd, Moore thought the same.’  ‘Does your Lordship mean Tom Moore?’  ‘Yes.’  ‘Ah, then, my Lord, I shall adhere with more pertinacity to my opinion, when I hear that a man of his exquisite taste in poetry and harmony was also of that opinion.’

“You will be asking what I thought of the lady; I had certainly heard much of her high personal attractions, but all I can say is, that in my eyes her graces did not rank above mediocrity.  They were youth, plumpness, and good-nature.”

CHAPTER XXVIII

A Miff with Lord Byron—Remarkable Coincidences—Plagiarisms of his Lordship

There is a curious note in the memoranda which Lord Byron kept in the year 1813, that I should not pass unnoticed, because it refers to myself, and moreover is characteristic of the excoriated sensibility with which his Lordship felt everything that touched or affected him or his.

When I had read The Bride of Abydos, I wrote to him my opinion of it, and mentioned that there was a remarkable coincidence in the story, with a matter in which I had been interested.  I have no copy of the letter, and I forget the expressions employed, but Lord Byron seemed to think they implied that he had taken the story from something of mine.

The note is:

“Galt says there is a coincidence between the first part of The Bride and some story of his, whether published or not, I know not, never having seen it.  He is almost the last person on whom any one would commit literary larceny, and I am not conscious of any witting thefts on any of the genus.  As to originality, all pretensions are ludicrous; there is nothing new under the sun.”

It is sufficiently clear that he was offended with what I had said, and was somewhat excited.  I have not been able at present to find his answer to my letter, but it would appear by the subjoined that he had written to me something which led me to imagine he was offended at my observations, and that I had in consequence deprecated his wrath.

“Dec. 11, 1813.

“MY DEAR GALT,—There was no offence—there could be none.  I thought it by no means impossible that we might have hit on something similar, particularly as you are a dramatist, and was anxious to assure you of the truth, viz. that I had not wittingly seized upon plot, sentiment, or incident; and I am very glad that I have not in any respect trenched upon your subjects.  Something still more singular is, that the first part, where you have found a coincidence in some events within your observations on life, was drawn from observation of mine also, and I meant to have gone on with the story, but on second thoughts, I thought myself two centuries at least too late for the subject; which, though admitting of very powerful feeling and description, yet is not adapted for this age, at least this country.  Though the finest works of the Greeks, one of Schiller’s and Alfieri’s, in modern times, besides several of our old (and best) dramatists, have been grounded on incidents of a similar cast, I therefore altered it as you perceive, and in so doing have weakened the whole, by interrupting the train of thought; and in composition I do not think second thoughts are the best, though second expressions may improve the first ideas.

“I do not know how other men feel towards those they have met abroad, but to me there seems a kind of tie established between all who have met together in a foreign country, as if we had met in a state of pre-existence, and were talking over a life that has ceased; but I always look forward to renewing my travels; and though you, I think, are now stationary, if I can at all forward your pursuits there as well as here, I shall be truly glad in the opportunity.  Ever yours very sincerely,

“B.

“P.S.  I believe I leave town for a day or two on Monday, but after that I am always at home, and happy to see you till half-past two.”

This letter was dated on Saturday, the 11th of December, 1813.  On Sunday, the 12th, he made the following other note in his memorandum book:

“By Galt’s answer, I find it is some story in real life, and not any work with which my late composition coincides.  It is still more singular, for mine is drawn from existence also.”

The most amusing part of this little fracas is the denial of his Lordship, as to pilfering the thoughts and fancies of others; for it so happens, that the first passage of The Bride of Abydos, the poem in question, is almost a literal and unacknowledged translation from Goethe, which was pointed out in some of the periodicals soon after the work was published.

Then, as to his not thieving from me or mine, I believe the fact to be as he has stated; but there are singular circumstances connected with some of his other productions, of which the account is at least curious.

On leaving England I began to write a poem in the Spenserian measure.  It was called The Unknown, and was intended to describe, in narrating the voyages and adventures of a pilgrim, who had embarked for the Holy Land, the scenes I expected to visit.  I was occasionally engaged in this composition during the passage with Lord Byron from Gibraltar to Malta, and he knew what I was about.  In stating this, I beg to be distinctly understood, as in no way whatever intending to insinuate that this work had any influence on the composition of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, which Lord Byron began to write in Albania; but it must be considered as something extraordinary, that the two works should have been so similar in plan, and in the structure of the verse.  His Lordship never saw my attempt that I know of, nor did I his poem until it was printed.  It is needless to add, that beyond the plan and verse there was no other similarity between the two works; I wish there had been.

His Lordship has published a poem, called The Curse of Minerva, the subject of which is the vengeance of the goddess on Lord Elgin for the rape of the Parthenon.  It has so happened that I wrote at Athens a burlesque poem on nearly the same subject (mine relates to the vengeance of all the gods) which I called The Atheniad; the manuscript was sent to his Lordship in Asia Minor, and returned to me through Mr Hobhouse.  His Curse of Minerva, I saw for the first time in 1828, in Galignani’s edition of his works.

In The Giaour, which he published a short time before The Bride of Abydos, he has this passage, descriptive of the anxiety with which the mother of Hassan looks out for the arrival of her son:

The browsing camels’ bells are tinkling—
   His mother look’d from her lattice high;
She saw the dews of eve besprinkling
   The parterre green beneath her eye:
She saw the planets faintly twinkling—
   ’Tis twilight—sure his train is nigh.
She could not rest in the garden bower,
But gazed through the grate of his steepest tower:
Why comes he not—and his steeds are fleet—
Nor shrink they from the summer heat?
Why sends not the bridegroom his promised gift;
Is his heart more cold or his barb less swift?

His Lordship was well read in the Bible, and the book of Judges, chap. 5, and verse 28, has the following passage:—

“The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming; why tarry the wheels of his chariot?”

It was, indeed, an early trick of his Lordship to filch good things.  In the lamentation for Kirke White, in which he compares him to an eagle wounded by an arrow feathered from his own wing, he says,

So the struck eagle, stretch’d upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View’d his own feather on the fatal dart
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart.

The ancients have certainly stolen the best ideas of the moderns; this very thought may be found in the works of that ancient-modern, Waller:

That eagle’s fate and mine are one,
   Which on the shaft that made him die,
Espied a feather of his own
   Wherewith he wont to soar on high.

His Lordship disdained to commit any larceny on me; and no doubt the following passage from The Giaour is perfectly original:

It is as if the dead could feel
The icy worm around them steal;
And shudder as the reptiles creep
To revel o’er their rotting sleep,
Without the power to scare away
The cold consumers of their clay.

I do not claim any paternity in these lines: but not the most judicious action of all my youth was to publish certain dramatic sketches, and his Lordship had the printed book in his possession long before The Giaour was published, and may have read the following passage in a dream, which was intended to be very hideous:

   Then did I hear around
The churme and chirruping of busy reptiles
At hideous banquet on the royal dead:—
Full soon methought the loathsome epicures
Came thick on me, and underneath my shroud
I felt the many-foot and beetle creep,
And on my breast the cold worm coil and crawl.

However, I have said quite enough on this subject, both as respects myself and his seeming plagiarisms, which might be multiplied to legions.  Such occasional accidental imitations are not things of much importance.  All poets, and authors in general, avail themselves of their reading and knowledge to enhance the interest of their works.  It can only be considered as one of Lord Byron’s spurts of spleen, that he felt so much about a “coincidence,” which ought not to have disturbed him; but it may be thought by the notice taken of it, that it disturbs myself more than it really does; and that it would have been enough to have merely said—Perhaps, when some friend is hereafter doing as indulgently for me, the same kind of task that I have undertaken for Byron, there may be found among my memoranda notes as little flattering to his Lordship, as those in his concerning me.  I hope, however, that friend will have more respect for my memory than to imitate the taste of Mr Moore.

CHAPTER XXIX

Lord Byron in 1813—The Lady’s Tragedy—Miss Milbanke—Growing Uneasiness of Lord Byron’s Mind—The Friar’s Ghost—The Marriage—A Member of the Drury Lane Committee—Embarrassed Affairs—The Separation

The year 1813 was perhaps the period of all Lord Byron’s life in which he was seen to most advantage.  The fame of Childe Harold was then in its brightest noon; and in that year he produced The Giaour and The Bride of Abydos—compositions not only of equal power, but even tinted with superior beauties.  He was himself soothed by the full enjoyment of his political rank and station; and though his manners and character had not exactly answered to the stern and stately imaginations which had been formed of his dispositions and appearance, still he was acknowledged to be no common man, and his company in consequence was eagerly courted.

It forms no part of the plan of this work to repeat the gossip and tattle of private society, but occurrences happened to Lord Byron which engaged both, and some of them cannot well be passed over unnoticed.  One of these took place during the spring of this year, and having been a subject of newspaper remark, it may with less impropriety be mentioned than others which were more indecorously made the topics of general discussion.  The incident alluded to was an extravagant scene enacted by a lady of high rank, at a rout given by Lady Heathcote; in which, in revenge, as it was reported, for having been rejected by Lord Byron, she made a suicidal attempt with an instrument, which scarcely penetrated, if it could even inflict any permanent mark on, the skin.

The insane attachment of this eccentric lady to his Lordship was well known; insane is the only epithet that can be applied to the actions of a married woman, who, in the disguise of her page, flung herself to a man, who, as she told a friend of mine, was ashamed to be in love with her because she was not beautiful—an expression at once curious and just, evincing a shrewd perception of the springs of his Lordship’s conduct, and the acuteness blended with frenzy and talent which distinguished herself.  Lord Byron unquestionably at that time cared little for her.  In showing me her picture, some two or three days after the affair, and laughing at the absurdity of it, he bestowed on her the endearing diminutive of vixen, with a hard-hearted adjective that I judiciously omit.

The immediate cause of this tragical flourish was never very well understood; but in the course of the evening she had made several attempts to fasten on his Lordship, and was shunned: certain it is, she had not, like Burke in the House of Commons, premeditatedly brought a dagger in her reticule, on purpose for the scene; but, seeing herself an object of scorn, she seized the first weapon she could find—some said a pair of scissors—others, more scandalously, broken jelly-glass, and attempted an incision of the jugular, to the consternation of all the dowagers, and the pathetic admiration of every Miss who witnessed or heard of the rapture.

Lord Byron at the time was in another room, talking with Prince K—, when Lord P— came, with a face full of consternation, and told them what had happened.  The cruel poet, instead of being agitated by the tidings, or standing in the smallest degree in need of a smelling-bottle, knitted his scowl, and said, with a contemptuous indifference, “It is only a trick.”  All things considered, he was perhaps not uncharitable; and a man of less vanity would have felt pretty much as his Lordship appeared to do on the occasion.  The whole affair was eminently ridiculous; and what increased the absurdity was a letter she addressed to a friend of mine on the subject, and which he thought too good to be reserved only for his own particular study.

It was in this year that Lord Byron first proposed for Miss Milbanke; having been urged by several of his friends to marry, that lady was specially recommended to him for a wife.  It has been alleged, that he deeply resented her rejection of his proposal; and I doubt not, in the first instance, his vanity may have been a little piqued; but as he cherished no very animated attachment to her, and moreover, as she enjoyed no celebrity in public opinion to make the rejection important, the resentment was not, I am persuaded, either of an intense or vindictive kind.  On the contrary, he has borne testimony to the respect in which he held her character and accomplishments; and an incidental remark in his journal, “I shall be in love with her again, if I don’t take care,” is proof enough that his anger was not of a very fierce or long-lived kind.

The account ascribed to him of his introduction to Miss Milbanke, and the history of their attachment, ought not to be omitted, because it serves to illustrate, in some degree, the state of his feelings towards her, and is so probable, that I doubt not it is in the main correct:—

“The first time of my seeing Miss Milbanke was at Lady ***’s.  It was a fatal day; and I remember, that in going upstairs I stumbled, and remarked to Moore, who accompanied me, that it was a bad omen.  I ought to have taken the warning.  On entering the room, I observed a young lady more simply dressed than the rest of the assembly sitting alone upon a sofa.  I took her for a female companion, and asked if I was right in my conjecture.  ‘She is a great heiress,’ said he, in a whisper, that became lower as he proceeded, ‘you had better marry her, and repair the old place, Newstead.’

“There was something piquant, and what we term pretty, in Miss Milbanke.  Her features were small and feminine, though not regular.  She had the fairest skin imaginable.  Her figure was perfect for her height, and there was a simplicity, a retired modesty about her, which was very characteristic, and formed a happy contrast to the cold artificial formality and studied stiffness which is called fashion.  She interested me exceedingly.  I became daily more attached to her, and it ended in my making her a proposal, that was rejected.  Her refusal was couched in terms which could not offend me.  I was, besides, persuaded, that in declining my offer, she was governed by the influence of her mother; and was the more confirmed in my opinion, by her reviving our correspondence herself twelve months after.  The tenour of her letter was, that, although she could not love me, she desired my friendship.  Friendship is a dangerous word for young ladies; it is love full-fledged, and waiting for a fine day to fly.”

But Lord Byron possessed this sort of irrepressible predilections—was so much the agent of impulses, that he could not keep long in unison with the world, or in harmony with his friends.  Without malice, or the instigation of any ill spirit, he was continually provoking malignity and revenge.  His verses on the Princess Charlotte weeping, and his other merciless satire on her father, begot him no friends, and armed the hatred of his enemies.  There was, indeed, something like ingratitude in the attack on the Regent, for his Royal Highness had been particularly civil; had intimated a wish to have him introduced to him; and Byron, fond of the distinction, spoke of it with a sense of gratification.  These instances, as well as others, of gratuitous spleen, only justified the misrepresentations which had been insinuated against himself, and what was humour in his nature, was ascribed to vice in his principles.

Before the year was at an end, his popularity was evidently beginning to wane: of this he was conscious himself, and braved the frequent attacks on his character and genius with an affectation of indifference, under which those who had at all observed the singular associations of his recollections and ideas, must have discerned the symptoms of a strange disease.  He was tainted with a Herodian malady of the mind: his thoughts were often hateful to himself; but there was an ecstasy in the conception, as if delight could be mingled with horror.  I think, however, he struggled to master the fatality, and that his resolution to marry was dictated by an honourable desire to give hostages to society, against the wild wilfulness of his imagination.

It is a curious and a mystical fact, that at the period to which I am alluding, and a very short time, only a little month, before he successfully solicited the hand of Miss Milbanke, being at Newstead, he fancied that he saw the ghost of the monk which is supposed to haunt the abbey, and to make its ominous appearance when misfortune or death impends over the master of the mansion.—The story of the apparition in the sixteenth canto of Don Juan is derived from this family legend, and Norman Abbey, in the thirteenth of the same poem, is a rich and elaborate description of Newstead.

After his proposal to Miss Milbanke had been accepted, a considerable time, nearly three months, elapsed before the marriage was completed, in consequence of the embarrassed condition in which, when the necessary settlements were to be made, he found his affairs.  This state of things, with the previous unhappy controversy with himself, and anger at the world, was ill-calculated to gladden his nuptials: but, besides these real evils, his mind was awed with gloomy presentiments, a shadow of some advancing misfortune darkened his spirit, and the ceremony was performed with sacrificial feelings, and those dark and chilling circumstances, which he has so touchingly described in The Dream:—

      I saw him stand
Before an altar with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The starlight of his boyhood:—as he stood
Even at the altar, o’er his brow there came
The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock
That in the antique oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then—
As in that hour—a moment o’er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced—and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The faltering vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reeled around him: he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been—
But the old mansion and the accustom’d hall,
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour.
And her, who was his destiny, came back,
And thrust themselves between him and the light.

This is very affectingly described; and his prose description bears testimony to its correctness.  “It had been predicted by Mrs Williams that twenty-seven was to be a dangerous age for me.  The fortune-telling witch was right; it was destined to prove so.  I shall never forget the 2nd of January, 1815, Lady Byron was the only unconcerned person present; Lady Noel, her mother, cried; I trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and after the ceremony called her Miss Milbanke.

“There is a singular history attached to the ring.  The very day the match was concluded a ring of my mother’s, that had been lost, was dug up by the gardener at Newstead.  I thought it was sent on purpose for the wedding; but my mother’s marriage had not been a fortunate one, and this ring was doomed to be the seal of an unhappier union still.

“After the ordeal was over, we set off for a country-scat of Sir Ralph’s (Lady B.’s father), and I was surprised at the arrangements for the journey, and somewhat out of humour, to find the lady’s maid stuck between me and my bride.  It was rather too early to assume the husband; so I was forced to submit, but it was not with a very good grace.  I have been accused of saying, on getting into the carriage, that I had married Lady Byron out of spite, and because she had refused me twice.  Though I was for a moment vexed at her prudery, or whatever you may choose to call it, if I had made so uncavalier, not to say brutal, a speech, I am convinced Lady Byron would instantly have left the carriage to me and the maid.  She had spirit enough to have done so, and would properly have resented the affront.  Our honeymoon was not all sunshine; it had its clouds.

“I was not so young when my father died, but that I perfectly remember him, and had a very early horror of matrimony from the sight of domestic broils: this feeling came over me very strongly at my wedding.  Something whispered me that I was sealing my own death-warrant.  I am a great believer in presentiments: Socrates’s demon was not a fiction; Monk Lewis had his monitor, and Napoleon many warnings.  At the last moment I would have retreated, could I have done so; I called to mind a friend of mine, who had married a young, beautiful, and rich girl, and yet was miserable; he had strongly urged me against putting my neck in the same yoke.”

For some time after the marriage things went on in the usual matrimonial routine, until he was chosen into the managing committee of Drury Lane; an office in which, had he possessed the slightest degree of talent for business, he might have done much good.  It was justly expected that the illiterate presumption which had so long deterred poetical genius from approaching the stage, would have shrunk abashed from before him; but he either felt not the importance of the duty he had been called to perform, or, what is more probable, yielding to the allurements of the moment, forgot that duty, in the amusement which he derived from the talents and peculiarities of the players.  No situation could be more unfit for a man of his temperament, than one which exposed him to form intimacies with persons whose profession, almost necessarily, leads them to undervalue the domestic virtues.

It is said, that the course of life into which he was drawn after he joined the managing committee of Drury Lane was not in unison with the methodical habits of Lady Byron.  But independently of outdoor causes of connubial discontent and incompatibility of temper, their domestic affairs were falling into confusion.

“My income at this period,” says Lord Byron, “was small, and somewhat bespoken.  We had a house in town, gave dinner-parties, had separate carriages, and launched into every sort of extravagance.  This could not last long; my wife’s ten thousand pounds soon melted away.  I was beset by duns, and at length an execution was levied, and the bailiffs put in possession of the very beds we had to sleep on.  This was no very agreeable state of affairs, no very pleasant scene for Lady Byron to witness; and it was agreed she should pay her father a visit till the storm had blown over, and some arrangement had been made with my creditors.”  From this visit her Ladyship never returned; a separation took place; but too much has been said to the world respecting it, and I have no taste for the subject.  Whatever was the immediate cause, the event itself was not of so rare a kind as to deserve that the attention of the public should be indelicately courted to it.

Beyond all question, however, Lord Byron’s notions of connubial obligations were rather philosophical.  “There are,” said he to Captain Parry, “so many undefinable and nameless, and not to be named, causes of dislike, aversion, and disgust in the matrimonial state, that it is always impossible for the public, or the friends of the parties, to judge between man and wife.  Theirs is a relation about which nobody but themselves can form a correct idea, or have any right to speak.  As long as neither party commits gross injustice towards the other; as long as neither the woman nor the man is guilty of any offence which is injurious to the community; as long as the husband provides for his offspring, and secures the public against the dangers arising from their neglected education, or from the charge of supporting them; by what right does it censure him for ceasing to dwell under the same roof with a woman, who is to him, because he knows her, while others do not, an object of loathing?  Can anything be more monstrous, than for the public voice to compel individuals who dislike each other to continue their cohabitation?  This is at least the effect of its interfering with a relationship, of which it has no possible means of judging.  It does not indeed drag a man to a woman’s bed by physical force, but it does exert a moral force continually and effectively to accomplish the same purpose.  Nobody can escape this force, but those who are too high or those who are too low for public opinion to reach; or those hypocrites who are, before others, the loudest in their approbation of the empty and unmeaning forms of society, that they may securely indulge all their propensities in secret.”

In the course of the conversation, in which he is represented to have stated these opinions, he added what I have pleasure in quoting, because the sentiments are generous in respect to his wife, and strikingly characteristic of himself:—

“Lady Byron has a liberal mind, particularly as to religious opinions: and I wish when I married her that I had possessed the same command over myself that I now do.  Had I possessed a little more wisdom and more forbearance, we might have been happy.  I wished, when I was just married to have remained in the country, particularly till my pecuniary embarrassments were over.  I knew the society of London; I knew the characters of many who are called ladies, with whom Lady Byron would necessarily have to associate, and I dreaded her contact with them.  But I have too much of my mother about me to be dictated to; I like freedom from constraint; I hate artificial regulations: my conduct has always been dictated by my own feelings, and Lady Byron was quite the creature of rules.  She was not permitted either to ride, or run, or walk, but as the physician prescribed.  She was not suffered to go out when I wished to go: and then the old house was a mere ghost-house, I dreamed of ghosts and thought of them waking.  It was an existence I could not support.”  Here Lord Byron broke off abruptly, saying, “I hate to speak of my family affairs, though I have been compelled to talk nonsense concerning them to some of my butterfly visitors, glad on any terms to get rid of their importunities.  I long to be again on the mountains.  I am fond of solitude, and should never talk nonsense, if I always found plain men to talk to.”