She was like me in lineaments; her eyes, Her hair, her features, all to the very tone Even of her voice, they said were like to mine, But soften'd all and temper'd into beauty. She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind To comprehend the universe; nor these Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, Pity, and smiles, and tears, which I had not; And tenderness—but that I had for her; Humility, and that I never had: Her faults were mine—her virtues were her own; I lov'd her and—destroy'd her—

WITCH

With thy hand?

MANFRED

Not with my hand, but heart, which broke her heart. It gaz'd on mine, and withered. I have shed Blood, but not hers, and yet her blood was shed;— I saw, and could not stanch it.

There is in this little scene, perhaps, the deepest pathos ever expressed; but it is not of its beauty that I am treating; my object in noticing it here is, that it may be considered in connection with that where Manfred appears with his insatiate thirst of knowledge, and manacled with guilt. It indicates that his sister, Astarte, had been self-sacrificed in the pursuit of their magical knowledge. Human sacrifices were supposed to be among the initiate propitiations of the demons that have their purposes in magic—as well as compacts signed with the blood of the self-sold. There was also a dark Egyptian art, of which the knowledge and the efficacy could only be obtained by the novitiate's procuring a voluntary victim—the dearest object to himself and to whom he also was the dearest; {241} and the primary spring of Byron's tragedy lies, I conceive, in a sacrifice of that kind having been performed, without obtaining that happiness which the votary expected would be found in the knowledge and power purchased at such a price. His sister was sacrificed in vain. The manner of the sacrifice is not divulged, but it is darkly intimated to have been done amid the perturbations of something horrible.

Night after night for years He hath pursued long vigils in this tower Without a witness.—I have been within it— So have we all been ofttimes; but from it, Or its contents, it were impossible To draw conclusions absolute of aught His studies tend to.—To be sure there is One chamber where none enter—. . . Count Manfred was, as now, within his tower: How occupied—we know not—but with him, The sole companion of his wanderings And watchings—her—whom of all earthly things That liv'd, the only thing he seem'd to love.

With admirable taste, and its thrilling augmentation of the horror, the poet leaves the deed which was done in that unapproachable chamber undivulged, while we are darkly taught, that within it lie the relics or the ashes of the "one without a tomb."

CHAPTER XXXIII



State of Byron in Switzerland—He goes to Venice—The fourth Canto of "Childe Harold"—Rumination on his own Condition—Beppo—Lament of Tasso—Curious Example of Byron's metaphysical Love

The situation of Lord Byron in Switzerland was comfortless. He found that "the montain palaces of Nature" afforded no asylum to a haunted heart; he was ill at ease with himself, even dissatisfied that the world had not done him enough of wrong to justify his misanthropy.

Some expectation that his lady would repent of her part in the separation probably induced him to linger in the vicinity of Geneva, the thoroughfare of the travelling English, whom he affected to shun. If it were so, he was disappointed, and, his hopes being frustrated, he broke up the establishment he had formed there and crossed the Alps. After visiting some of the celebrated scenes and places in the north of Italy he passed on to Venice, where he domiciled himself for a time.

During his residence at Venice Lord Byron avoided as much as possible any intercourse with his countrymen. This was perhaps in some degree necessary, and it was natural in the state of his mind. He had become an object of great public interest by his talents; the stories connected with his domestic troubles had also increased his notoriety, and in such circumstances he could not but shrink from the inquisition of mere curiosity. But there was an insolence in the tone with which he declares his "utter abhorrence of any contact with the travelling English," that can neither be commended for its spirit, nor palliated by any treatment he had suffered. Like Coriolanus he may have banished his country, but he had not, like the Roman, received provocation: on the contrary, he had been the aggressor in the feuds with his literary adversaries; and there was a serious accusation against his morals, or at least his manners, in the circumstances under which Lady Byron withdrew from his house. It was, however, his misfortune throughout life to form a wrong estimate of himself in everything save in his poetical powers.

A life in Venice is more monotonous than in any other great city; but a man of genius carries with him everywhere a charm, which secures to him both variety and enjoyment. Lord Byron had scarcely taken up his abode in Venice, when he began the fourth canto of Childe Harold, which he published early in the following year, and dedicated to his indefatigable friend Mr Hobhouse by an epistle dated on the anniversary of his marriage, "the most unfortunate day," as he says, "of his past existence."

In this canto he has indulged his excursive moralizing beyond even the wide licence he took in the three preceding parts; but it bears the impression of more reading and observation. Though not superior in poetical energy, it is yet a higher work than any of them, and something of a more resolved and masculine spirit pervades the reflections, and endows, as it were, with thought and enthusiasm the aspect of the things described. Of the merits of the descriptions, as of real things, I am not qualified to judge: the transcripts from the tablets of the author's bosom he has himself assured us are faithful.

"With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line, which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese, in Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted and imagined that I had drawn a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and the disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether—and have done so."

This confession, though it may not have been wanted, gives a pathetic emphasis to those passages in which the poet speaks of his own feelings. That his mind was jarred, and out of joint, there is too much reason to believe; but he had in some measure overcome the misery that clung to him during the dismal time of his sojourn in Switzerland, and the following passage, though breathing the sweet and melancholy spirit of dejection, possesses a more generous vein of nationality than is often met with in his works, even when the same proud sentiment might have been more fitly expressed:

I've taught me other tongues—and in strange eyes Have made me not a stranger; to the mind Which is itself, no changes bring surprise, Nor is it harsh to make or hard to find A country with—aye, or without mankind. Yet was I born where men are proud to be, Not without cause; and should I leave behind Th' inviolate island of the sage and free, And seek me out a home by a remoter sea?

Perhaps I lov'd it well, and should I lay My ashes in a soil which is not mine, My spirit shall resume it—if we may, Unbodied, choose a sanctuary. I twine My hopes of being remember'd in my line, With my land's language; if too fond and far These aspirations in their hope incline— If my fame should be as my fortunes are, Of hasty growth and blight, and dull oblivion bar

My name from out the temple where the dead Are honour'd by the nations—let it be, And light the laurels on a loftier head, And be the Spartan's epitaph on me: "Sparta had many a worthier son than he"; Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need; The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted—they have torn me—and I bleed: I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

It will strike the reader as remarkable, that although the poet, in the course of this canto, takes occasion to allude to Dante and Tasso, in whose destinies there was a shadowy likeness of his own, the rumination is mingled with less of himself than might have been expected, especially when it is considered how much it was a habit with him, to make his own feelings the basis and substratum of the sentiments he ascribed to others. It has also more than once surprised me that he has so seldom alluded to Alfieri, whom of all poets, both in character and conduct, he most resembled; with this difference, however, that Alfieri was possessed of affections equally intense and durable, whereas the caprice of Byron made him uncertain in his partialities, or what was the same in effect, made his friends set less value on them than perhaps they were entitled to.

Before Childe Harold was finished, an incident occurred which suggested to Byron a poem of a very different kind to any he had yet attempted:—without vouching for the exact truth of the anecdote, I have been told, that he one day received by the mail a copy of Whistlecraft's prospectus and specimen of an intended national work; and, moved by its playfulness, immediately after reading it, began Beppo, which he finished at a sitting. The facility with which he composed renders the story not improbable; but, singular as it may seem, the poem itself has the facetious flavour in it of his gaiety, stronger than even his grave works have of his frowardness, commonly believed to have been—I think, unjustly—the predominant mood of his character.

The Ode to Venice is also to be numbered among his compositions in that city; a spirited and indignant effusion, full of his peculiar lurid fire, and rich in a variety of impressive and original images. But there is a still finer poem which belongs to this period of his history, though written, I believe, before he reached Venice—The Lament of Tasso: and I am led to notice it the more particularly, as one of its noblest passages affords an illustration of the opinion which I have early maintained—that Lord Byron's extraordinary pretensions to the influence of love was but a metaphysical conception of the passion.

It is no marvel—from my very birth My soul was drunk with love, which did pervade And mingle with whate'er I saw on earth; Of objects all inanimate I made Idols, and out of wild and lovely flowers, And rocks whereby they grew, a paradise, Where I did lay me down within the shade Of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours.

It has been remarked by an anonymous author of Memoirs of Lord Byron, a work written with considerable talent and acumen, that "this is so far from being in character, that it is the very reverse; for whether Tasso was in his senses or not, if his love was sincere, he would have made the object of his affection the sole theme of his meditation, instead of generalising his passion, and talking about the original sympathies of his nature." In truth, no poet has better described love than Byron has his own peculiar passion.

His love was passion's essence—as a tree On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be Thus enamour'd were in him the same. But his was not the love of living dame, Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams, But of ideal beauty, which became In him existence, and o'erflowing teems Along his burning page, distemper'd though it seems.

In tracing the course of Lord Byron's career, I have not deemed it at all necessary to advert to the instances of his generosity, or to conduct less pleasant to record. Enough has appeared to show that he was neither deficient in warmth of heart nor in less amiable feelings; but, upon the whole, it is not probable that either in his charities or his pleasures he was greatly different from other young men, though he undoubtedly had a wayward delight in magnifying his excesses, not in what was to his credit, like most men, but in what was calculated to do him no honour. More notoriety has been given to an instance of lavish liberality at Venice, than the case deserved, though it was unquestionably prompted by a charitable impulse. The house of a shoemaker, near his Lordship's residence, in St Samuel, was burned to the ground, with all it contained, by which the proprietor was reduced to indigence. Byron not only caused a new but a superior house to be erected, and also presented the sufferer with a sum of money equal in value to the whole of his stock in trade and furniture. I should endanger my reputation for impartiality if I did not, as a fair set-off to this, also mention that it is said he bought for five hundred crowns a baker's wife. There might be charity in this, too.

CHAPTER XXXIV



Removes to Ravenna—The Countess Guiccioli

Although Lord Byron resided between two and three years at Venice, he was never much attached to it. "To see a city die daily, as she does," said he, "is a sad contemplation. I sought to distract my mind from a sense of her desolation and my own solitude, by plunging into a vortex that was anything but pleasure. When one gets into a mill-stream, it is difficult to swim against it, and keep out of the wheels." He became tired and disgusted with the life he led at Venice, and was glad to turn his back on it. About the close of the year 1819 he accordingly removed to Ravenna; but before I proceed to speak of the works which he composed at Ravenna, it is necessary to explain some particulars respecting a personal affair, the influence of which on at least one of his productions is as striking as any of the many instances already described upon others. I allude to the intimacy which he formed with the young Countess Guiccioli.

This lady, at the age of sixteen, was married to the Count, one of the richest noblemen in Romagna, but far advanced in life. "From the first," said Lord Byron, in his account of her, "they had separate apartments, and she always called him, Sir! What could be expected from such a preposterous connection. For some time she was an Angiolina and he a Marino Faliero, a good old man; but young Italian women are not satisfied with good old men, and the venerable Count did not object to her availing herself of the privileges of her country in selecting a cicisbeo; an Italian would have made it quite agreeable: indeed, for some time he winked at our intimacy, but at length made an exception against me, as a foreigner, a heretic, an Englishman, and, what was worse than all, a Liberal.

"He insisted—Teresa was as obstinate—her family took her part. Catholics cannot get divorces; but to the scandal of all Romagna, the matter was at last referred to the Pope, who ordered her a separate maintenance on condition that she should reside under her father's roof. All this was not agreeable, and at length I was forced to smuggle her out of Ravenna, having discovered a plot laid with the sanction of the legate, for shutting her up in a convent for life."

The Countess Guiccioli was at this time about twenty, but she appeared younger; her complexion was fair, with large, dark, languishing eyes; and her auburn hair fell in great profusion of natural ringlets over her shapely shoulders. Her features were not so regular as in their expression pleasing, and there was an amiable gentleness in her voice which was peculiarly interesting. Leigh Hunt's account of her is not essentially dissimilar from any other that I have either heard of or met with. He differs, however, in one respect, from every other, in saying that her hair was YELLOW; but considering the curiosity which this young lady has excited, perhaps it may be as well to transcribe his description at length, especially as he appears to have taken some pains on it, and more particularly as her destiny seems at present to promise that the interest for her is likely to be revived by another unhappy English connection.

"Her appearance," says Mr Hunt, "might have reminded an English spectator of Chaucer's heroine:

Yclothed was she, fresh for to devise, Her yellow hair was braided in a tress Behind her back, a yarde long I guess, And in the garden (as the same uprist) She walketh up and down, where as her list.

And then, as Dryden has it:

At every turn she made a little stand, And thrust among the thorns her lily hand.

Madame Guiccioli, who was at that time about twenty, was handsome and lady-like, with an agreeable manner, and a voice not partaking too much of the Italian fervour to be gentle. She had just enough of it to give her speaking a grace—none of her graces appeared entirely free from art; nor, on the other hand, did they betray enough of it to give you an ill opinion of her sincerity and good-humour . . . Her hair was what the poet has described, or rather BLOND, with an inclination to yellow; a very fair and delicate yellow, at all events, and within the limits of the poetical. She had regular features of the order properly called handsome, in distinction to prettiness or piquancy; being well proportioned to one another, large, rather than otherwise, but without coarseness, and more harmonious than interesting. Her nose was the handsomest of the kind I ever saw; and I have known her both smile very sweetly, and look intelligently, when Lord Byron has said something kind to her. I should not say, however, that she was a very intelligent person. Both her wisdom and her want of wisdom were on the side of her feelings, in which there was doubtless mingled a good deal of the self-love natural to a flattered beauty. . . . In a word, Madame Guiccioli was a kind of buxom parlour-boarder, compressing herself artificially into dignity and elegance, and fancying she walked, in the eyes of the whole world, a heroine by the side of a poet. When I saw her at Monte Nero, near Leghorn, she was in a state of excitement and exultation, and had really something of this look. At that time, also, she looked no older than she was; in which respect, a rapid and very singular change took place, to the surprise of everybody. In the course of a few months she seemed to have lived as many years."

This is not very perspicuous portraiture, nor does it show that Mr Hunt was a very discerning observer of character. Lord Byron himself is represented to have said, that extraordinary pains were taken with her education: "Her conversation is lively without being frivolous; without being learned, she has read all the best authors of her own and the French language. She often conceals what she knows, from the fear of being thought to know too much; possibly because she knows I am not fond of blues. To use an expression of Jeffrey's, 'If she has blue stockings, she contrives that her petticoats shall hide them.'"

Lord Byron was at one time much attached to her; nor could it be doubted that their affection was reciprocal; but in both, their union outlived their affection, for before his departure to Greece his attachment had perished, and he left her, as it is said, notwithstanding the rank and opulence she had forsaken on his account, without any provision. He had promised, it was reported, to settle two thousand pounds on her, but he forgot the intention, or died before it was carried into effect. {255} On her part, the estrangement was of a different and curious kind—she had not come to hate him, but she told a lady, the friend of a mutual acquaintance of Lord Byron and mine, that she feared more than loved him.



CHAPTER XXXV



Residence in Ravenna—The Carbonari—Byron's Part in their Plot—The Murder of the military Commandant—The poetical Use of the Incident— "Marino Faliero"—Reflections—"The Prophecy of Dante"

Lord Byron has said himself, that except Greece, he was never so attached to any place in his life as to Ravenna. The peasantry he thought the best people in the world, and their women the most beautiful. "Those at Tivoli and Frescati," said he, "are mere Sabines, coarse creatures, compared to the Romagnese. You may talk of your English women; and it is true, that out of one hundred Italian and English you will find thirty of the latter handsome; but then there will be one Italian on the other side of the scale, who will more than balance the deficit in numbers—one who, like the Florence Venus, has no rival, and can have none in the North. I found also at Ravenna much education and liberality of thinking among the higher classes. The climate is delightful. I was not broken in upon by society. Ravenna lies out of the way of travellers. I was never tired of my rides in the pine forest: it breathes of the Decameron; it is poetical ground. Francesca lived and Dante was exiled and died at Ravenna. There is something inspiring in such an air.

"The people liked me as much as they hated the government. It is not a little to say, I was popular with all the leaders of the constitutional party. They knew that I came from a land of liberty, and wished well to their cause. I would have espoused it, too, and assisted them to shake off their fetters. They knew my character, for I had been living two years at Venice, where many of the Ravennese have houses. I did not, however, take part in their intrigues, nor join in their political coteries; but I had a magazine of one hundred stand of arms in the house, when everything was ripe for revolt——a curse on Carignan's imbecility! I could have pardoned him that, too, if he had not impeached his partisans.

"The proscription was immense in Romagna, and embraced many of the first nobles: almost all my friends, among the rest the Gambas (the father and brother of the Countess Guiccioli), who took no part in the affair, were included in it. They were exiled, and their possessions confiscated. They knew that this must eventually drive me out of the country. I did not follow them immediately: I was not to be bullied—I had myself fallen under the eye of the government. If they could have got sufficient proof they would have arrested me."

The latter part of this declaration bears, in my opinion, indubitable marks of being genuine. It has that magnifying mysticism about it which more than any other quality characterized Lord Byron's intimations concerning himself and his own affairs; but it is a little clearer than I should have expected in the acknowledgment of the part he was preparing to take in the insurrection. He does not seem HERE to be sensible, that in confessing so much, he has justified the jealousy with which he was regarded.

"Shortly after the plot was discovered," he proceeds to say, "I received several anonymous letters, advising me to discontinue my forest rides; but I entertained no apprehensions of treachery, and was more on horseback than ever. I never stir out without being well armed, nor sleep without pistols. They knew that I never missed my aim; perhaps this saved me."

An event occurred at this time at Ravenna that made a deep impression on Lord Byron. The commandant of the place, who, though suspected of being secretly a Carbonaro, was too powerful a man to be arrested, was assassinated opposite to his residence. The measures adopted to screen the murderer proved, in the opinion of his Lordship, that the assassination had taken place by order of the police, and that the spot where it was perpetrated had been selected by choice. Byron at the moment had his foot in the stirrup, and his horse started at the report of the shot. On looking round he saw a man throw down a carbine and run away, and another stretched on the pavement near him. On hastening to the spot, he found it was the commandant; a crowd collected, but no one offered any assistance. His Lordship directed his servant to lift the bleeding body into the palace—he assisted himself in the act, though it was represented to him that he might incur the displeasure of the government—and the gentleman was already dead. His adjutant followed the body into the house. "I remember," says his Lordship, "his lamentation over him—'Poor devil he would not have harmed a dog.'"

It was from the murder of this commandant that the poet sketched the scene of the assassination in the fifth canto of Don Juan.

The other evening ('twas on Friday last), This is a fact, and no poetic fable— Just as my great coat was about me cast, My hat and gloves still lying on the table, I heard a shot—'twas eight o'clock scarce past, And running out as fast as I was able, I found the military commandant Stretch'd in the street, and able scarce to pant.

Poor fellow! for some reason, surely bad, They had him slain with five slugs, and left him there To perish on the pavement: so I had Him borne into the house, and up the stair; The man was gone: in some Italian quarrel Kill'd by five bullets from an old gun-barrel.

The scars of his old wounds were near his new, Those honourable scars which bought him fame, And horrid was the contrast to the view— But let me quit the theme, as such things claim Perhaps ev'n more attention than is due From me: I gazed (as oft I've gazed the same) To try if I could wrench aught out of death Which should confirm, or shake, or make a faith.

Whether Marino Faliero was written at Ravenna or completed there, I have not ascertained, but it was planned at Venice, and as far back as 1817. I believe this is considered about the most ordinary performance of all Lord Byron's works; but if it is considered with reference to the time in which it was written, it will probably be found to contain many great and impressive passages. Has not the latter part of the second scene in the first act reference to the condition of Venice when his Lordship was there? And is not the description which Israel Bertuccio gives of the conspirators applicable to, as it was probably derived from, the Carbonari, with whom there is reason to say Byron was himself disposed to take a part?

Know, then, that there are met and sworn in secret A band of brethren, valiant hearts and true; Men who have proved all fortunes, and have long Grieved over that of Venice, and have right To do so; having served her in all climes, And having rescued her from foreign foes, Would do the same for those within her walls. They are not numerous, nor yet too few For their great purpose; they have arms, and means, And hearts, and hopes, and faith, and patient courage.

This drama, to be properly appreciated, both in its taste and feeling should be considered as addressed to the Italians of the epoch at which it was written. Had it been written in the Italian instead of the English language, and could have come out in any city of Italy, the effect would have been prodigious. It is, indeed, a work not to be estimated by the delineations of character nor the force of passion expressed in it, but altogether by the apt and searching sarcasm of the political allusions. Viewed with reference to the time and place in which it was composed, it would probably deserve to be ranked as a high and bold effort: simply as a drama, it may not be entitled to rank above tragedies of the second or third class. But I mean not to set my opinion of this work against that of the public, the English public; all I contend for is, that it possesses many passages of uncommon beauty, and that its chief tragic merit consists in its political indignation; but above all, that is another and a strong proof too, of what I have been endeavouring to show, that the power of the poet consisted in giving vent to his own feelings, and not, like his great brethren, or even his less, in the invention of situations or of appropriate sentiments. It is, perhaps, as it stands, not fit to succeed in representation; but it is so rich in matter that it would not be a difficult task to make out of little more than the third part a tragedy which would not dishonour the English stage.

I have never been able to understand why it has been so often supposed that Lord Byron was actuated in the composition of his different works by any other motive than enjoyment: perhaps no poet had ever less of an ulterior purpose in his mind during the fits of inspiration (for the epithet may be applied correctly to him and to the moods in which he was accustomed to write) than this singular and impassioned man. Those who imagine that he had any intention to impair the reverence due to religion, or to weaken the hinges of moral action, give him credit for far more design and prospective purpose than he possessed. They could have known nothing of the man, the main defect of whose character, in relation to everything, was in having too little of the element or principle of purpose. He was a thing of impulses, and to judge of what he either said or did, as the results of predetermination, was not only to do the harshest injustice, but to show a total ignorance of his character. His whole fault, the darkest course of those flights and deviations from propriety which have drawn upon him the severest animadversion, lay in the unbridled state of his impulses. He felt, but never reasoned. I am led to make these observations by noticing the ungracious, or, more justly, the illiberal spirit in which The Prophecy of Dante, which was published with the Marino Faliero, has been treated by the anonymous author of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Byron.

Of The Prophecy of Dante I am no particular admirer. It contains, unquestionably, stanzas of resounding energy, but the general verse of the poem is as harsh and abrupt as the clink and clang of the cymbal; moreover, even for a prophecy, it is too obscure, and though it possesses abstractedly too many fine thoughts, and too much of the combustion of heroic passion to be regarded as a failure, yet it will never be popular. It is a quarry, however, of very precious poetical expression.

It was written at Ravenna, and at the suggestion of the Guiccioli, to whom it is dedicated in a sonnet, prettily but inharmoniously turned. Like all his other best performances, this rugged but masterly composition draws its highest interest from himself and his own feelings, and can only be rightly appreciated by observing how fitly many of the bitter breathings of Dante apply to his own exiled and outcast condition. For, however much he was himself the author of his own banishment, he felt when he wrote these haughty verses that he had been sometimes shunned.



CHAPTER XXXVI



The Tragedy of "Sardanapalus" considered, with Reference to Lord Byron's own Circumstances—"Cain"

Among the mental enjoyments which endeared Ravenna to Lord Byron, the composition of Sardanapalus may be reckoned the chief. It seems to have been conceived in a happier mood than any of all his other works; for, even while it inculcates the dangers of voluptuous indulgence, it breathes the very essence of benevolence and philosophy. Pleasure takes so much of the character of virtue in it, that but for the moral taught by the consequences, enjoyment might be mistaken for duty. I have never been able to satisfy myself in what the resemblance consists, but from the first reading it has always appeared to me that there was some elegant similarity between the characters of Sardanapalus and Hamlet, and my inclination has sometimes led me to imagine that the former was the nobler conception of the two.

The Assyrian monarch, like the Prince of Denmark, is highly endowed, capable of the greatest undertakings; he is yet softened by a philosophic indolence of nature that makes him undervalue the enterprises of ambition, and all those objects in the attainment of which so much of glory is supposed to consist. They are both alike incapable of rousing themselves from the fond reveries of moral theory, even when the strongest motives are presented to them. Hamlet hesitates to act, though his father's spirit hath come from death to incite him; and Sardanapalus derides the achievements that had raised his ancestors to an equality with the gods.

Thou wouldst have me go Forth as a conqueror.—By all the stars Which the Chaldeans read! the restless slaves Deserve that I should curse them with their wishes And lead them forth to glory.

Again:

The ungrateful and ungracious slaves! they murmur Because I have not shed their blood, nor led them To dry into the deserts' dust by myriads, Or whiten with their bones the banks of Ganges, Nor decimated them with savage laws, Nor sweated them to build up pyramids Or Babylonian walls.

The nothingness of kingly greatness and national pride were never before so finely contemned as by the voluptuous Assyrian, and were the scorn not mitigated by the skilful intermixture of mercifulness and philanthropy, the character would not be endurable. But when the same voice which pronounced contempt on the toils of honour says,

Enough For me if I can make my subjects feel The weight of human misery less,

it is impossible to repress the liking which the humane spirit of that thought is calculated to inspire. Nor is there any want of dignity in Sardanapalus, even when lolling softest in his luxury.

Must I consume my life—this little life— In guarding against all may make it less! It is not worth so much—It were to die Before my hour to live in dread of death. . . . Till now no drop of an Assyrian vein Hath flow'd for me, nor hath the smallest coin Of Nineveh's vast treasure e'er been lavish'd On objects which could cost her sons a tear. If then they hate me 'tis because I hate not, If they rebel 'tis because I oppress not.

This is imagined in the true tone of Epicurean virtue, and it rises to magnanimity when he adds in compassionate scorn,

Oh, men! ye must be ruled with scythes, not sceptres, And mow'd down like the grass, else all we reap Is rank abundance and a rotten harvest Of discontents infecting the fair soil, Making a desert of fertility.

But the graciousness in the conception of the character of Sardanapalus, is not to be found only in these sentiments of his meditations, but in all and every situation in which the character is placed. When Salamenes bids him not sheath his sword—

'Tis the sole sceptre left you now with safety,

the king replies—

"A heavy one;" and subjoins, as if to conceal his distaste for war, by ascribing a dislike to the sword itself,

The hilt, too, hurts my hand.

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

At the time when he was occupied with this great work, he was confessedly in the enjoyment of the happiest portion of his life. The Guiccioli was to him a Myrrha, but the Carbonari were around, and in the controversy, in which Sardanapalus is engaged, between the obligations of his royalty and his inclinations for pleasure, we have a vivid insight of the cogitation of the poet, whether to take a part in the hazardous activity which they were preparing, or to remain in the seclusion and festal repose of which he was then in possession. The Assyrian is as much Lord Byron as Childe Harold was, and bears his lineaments in as clear a likeness, as a voluptuary unsated could do those of the emaciated victim of satiety. Over the whole drama, and especially in some of the speeches of Sardanapalus, a great deal of fine but irrelevant poetry and moral reflection has been profusely spread; but were the piece adapted to the stage, these portions would of course be omitted, and the character denuded of them would then more fully justify the idea which I have formed of it, than it may perhaps to many readers do at present, hidden as it is, both in shape and contour, under an excess of ornament.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And when Zarina says,

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

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

My gentle, wrong'd Zarina! I am the very slave of circumstance And impulse—borne away with every breath! Misplaced upon the throne—misplaced in life. I know not what I could have been, but feel I am not what I should be—let it end. But take this with thee: if I was not form'd To prize a love like thine—a mind like thine— Nor dote even on thy beauty—as I've doted On lesser charms, for no cause save that such Devotion was a duty, and I hated All that look'd like a chain for me or others (This even rebellion must avouch); yet hear These words, perhaps among my last—that none E'er valued more thy virtues, though he knew not To profit by them.

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

"Stupendous spirits That mock the pride of man, and people space With life and mystical predominance."

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

A shape like to the angels, Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect, Of spiritual essence. Why do I quake? Why should I fear him more than other spirits Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords Before the gates round which I linger oft In twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those Gardens which are my just inheritance, Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls, And the immortal trees which overtop The cherubim-defended battlements? I shrink not from these, the fire-arm'd angels; Why should I quail from him who now approaches? Yet he seems mightier far than them, nor less Beauteous; and yet not all as beautiful As he hath been, or might be: sorrow seems Half of his immortality.

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

Souls who dare use their immortality,

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

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



CHAPTER XXXVII



Removal to Pisa—The Lanfranchi Palace—Affair with the Guard at Pisa—Removal to Monte Nero—Junction with Mr Hunt—Mr Shelley's Letter

The unhappy distrusts and political jealousies of the times obliged Lord Byron, with the Gambas, the family of the Guiccioli, to remove from Ravenna to Pisa. In this compulsion he had no cause to complain; a foreigner meddling with the politics of the country in which he was only accidentally resident, could expect no deferential consideration from the government. It has nothing to do with the question whether his Lordship was right or wrong in his principles. The government was in the possession of the power, and in self- defence he could expect no other course towards him than what he did experience. He was admonished to retreat: he did so. Could he have done otherwise, he would not. He would have used the Austrian authority as ill as he was made to feel it did him.

In the autumn of 1821, Lord Byron removed from Ravenna to Pisa, where he hired the Lanfranchi palace for a year—one of those massy marble piles which appear

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

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

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

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

The life he led at this period was dull and unvaried. Billiards, conversations, reading, and occasionally writing, constituted the regular business of the day. In the cool of the afternoon, he sometimes went out in his carriage, oftener on horseback, and generally amused himself with pistol practice at a five-paul piece. He dined at half an hour after sunset, and then drove to Count Gamba's, where he passed several hours with the Countess Guiccioli, who at that time still resided with her father. On his return he read or wrote till the night was far spent, or rather till the morning was come again, sipping at intervals spirits diluted with water, as medicine to counteract some nephritic disorder to which he considered himself liable.

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

Lord Byron, on reaching his palace, gave directions to inform the police, and, not seeing his companions coming up, rode back towards the gate. On his way the hussar met him, and said, "Are you satisfied?"—"No: tell me your name!"—"Serjeant-major Masi." One of his Lordship's servants, who at this moment joined them, seized the hussar's horse by the bridle, but his master commanded him to let it go. The hussar then spurred his horse through the crowd, which by this time had collected in front of the Lanfranchi palace, and in the attempt was wounded by a pitchfork. Several of the servants were arrested, and imprisoned: and, during the investigation of the affair before the police, Lord Byron's house was surrounded by the dragoons belonging to Serjeant-major Masi's troop, who threatened to force the doors. The result upon these particulars was not just; all Lord Byron's Italian servants were banished from Pisa; and with them the father and brother of the Guiccioli, who had no concern whatever in the affair. Lord Byron himself was also advised to quit the town, and, as the Countess accompanied her father, he soon after joined them at Leghorn, and passed six weeks at Monte Nero, a country house in the vicinity of that city.

It was during his Lordship's residence at Monte Nero, that an event took place—his junction with Mr Leigh Hunt—which had some effect both on his literary and his moral reputation. Previous to his departure from England, there had been some intercourse between them- -Byron had been introduced by Moore to Hunt, when the latter was suffering imprisonment for the indiscretion of his pen, and by his civility had encouraged him, perhaps, into some degree of forgetfulness as to their respective situations in society.—Mr Hunt at no period of their acquaintance appears to have been sufficiently sensible that a man of positive rank has it always in his power, without giving anything like such a degree of offence as may be resented otherwise than by estrangement, to inflict mortification, and, in consequence, presumed too much to an equality with his Lordship—at least this is the impression his conduct made upon me, from the familiarity of his dedicatory epistle prefixed to Rimini to their riding out at Pisa together dressed alike—"We had blue frock- coats, white waistcoats and trousers, and velvet caps, a la Raphael, and cut a gallant figure." I do not discover on the part of Lord Byron, that his Lordship ever forgot his rank; nor was he a personage likely to do so; in saying, therefore, that Mr Hunt presumed upon his condescension, I judge entirely by his own statement of facts. I am not undertaking a defence of his lordship, for the manner in which he acted towards Mr Hunt, because it appears to me to have been, in many respects, mean; but I do think there was an original error, a misconception of himself on the part of Mr Hunt, that drew down about him a degree of humiliation that he might, by more self-respect, have avoided. However, I shall endeavour to give as correct a summary of the whole affair as the materials before me will justify.

The occasion of Hunt's removal to Italy will be best explained by quoting the letter from his friend Shelley, by which he was induced to take that obviously imprudent step.

"Pisa, Aug. 26, 1821.

"MY DEAREST FRIEND,—Since I last wrote to you, I have been on a visit to Lord Byron at Ravenna. The result of this visit was a determination on his part to come and live at Pisa, and I have taken the finest palace on the Lung' Arno for him. But the material part of my visit consists in a message which he desires me to give you, and which I think ought to add to your determination—for such a one I hope you have formed—of restoring your shattered health and spirits by a migration to these 'regions mild, of calm and serene air.'

"He proposes that you should come, and go shares with him and me in a periodical work to be conducted here, in which each of the contracting parties should publish all their original compositions, and share the profits. He proposed it to Moore, but for some reason it was never brought to bear. There can be no doubt that the profits of any scheme in which you and Lord Byron engage must, for various yet co-operating reasons, be very great. As to myself, I am, for the present, only a sort of link between you and him, until you can know each other, and effectuate the arrangement; since (to intrust you with a secret, which for your sake I withhold from Lord Byron) nothing would induce me to share in the profits, and still less in the borrowed splendour of such a partnership. You and he, in different manners, would be equal, and would bring in a different manner, but in the same proportion, equal stocks of reputation and success. Do not let my frankness with you, nor my belief that you deserve it more than Lord Byron, have the effect of deterring you from assuming a station in modern literature, which the universal voice of my contemporaries forbids me either to stoop or aspire to. I am, and I desire to be, nothing.

"I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in sending a remittance for your journey; because there are men, however excellent, from whom we would never receive an obligation in the worldly sense of the word; and I am as jealous for my friend as for myself. I, as you know, have it not; but I suppose that at last I shall make up an impudent face, and ask Horace Smith to add to the many obligations he has conferred on me. I know I need only ask." . . .

Now, before proceeding farther, it seems from this epistle, and there is no reason to question Shelley's veracity, that Lord Byron was the projector of The Liberal; that Hunt's political notoriety was mistaken for literary reputation, and that there was a sad lack of common sense in the whole scheme.



CHAPTER XXXVIII



Mr Hunt arrives in Italy—Meeting with Lord Byron—Tumults in the House—Arrangements for Mr Hunt's Family—-Extent of his Obligations to Lord Byron—Their Copartnery—Meanness of the whole Business

On receiving Mr Shelley's letter, Mr Hunt prepared to avail himself of the invitation which he was the more easily enabled to do, as his friend, notwithstanding what he had intimated, borrowed two hundred pounds from Lord Byron, and remitted to him. He reached Leghorn soon after his Lordship had taken up his temporary residence at Monte Nero.

The meeting with his Lordship was in so many respects remarkable, that the details of it cannot well be omitted. The day was very hot; and when Hunt reached the house he found the hottest-looking habitation he had ever seen. Not content with having a red wash over it, the red was the most unseasonable of all reds—a salmon-colour; but the greatest of all heats was within.

Lord Byron was grown so fat that he scarcely knew him; and was dressed in a loose nankeen jacket and white trousers, his neckcloth open, and his hair in thin ringlets about his throat; altogether presenting a very different aspect from the compact, energetic, and curly-headed person whom Hunt had known in England.

His Lordship took the stranger into an inner room, and introduced him to a young lady who was in a state of great agitation. This was the Guiccioli; presently her brother also, in great agitation, entered, having his arm in a sling. This scene and confusion had arisen from a quarrel among the servants, in which the young Count, having interfered, had been stabbed. He was very angry, the Countess was more so, and would not listen to the comments of Lord Byron, who was for making light of the matter. Indeed, it looked somewhat serious, for though the stab was not much, the inflicter threatened more, and was at that time revengefully keeping watch, with knotted brows, under the portico, with the avowed intention of assaulting the first person who issued forth. He was a sinister-looking, meager caitiff, with a red cap—gaunt, ugly, and unshaven; his appearance altogether more squalid and miserable than Englishmen would conceive it possible to find in such an establishment. An end, however, was put to the tragedy by the fellow throwing himself on a bench, and bursting into tears—wailing and asking pardon for his offence, and perfecting his penitence by requesting Lord Byron to kiss him in token of forgiveness. In the end, however, he was dismissed; and it being arranged that Mr Hunt should move his family to apartments in the Lanfranchi palace at Pisa, that gentleman returned to Leghorn.

The account which Mr Hunt has given, in his memoir of Lord Byron, is evidently written under offended feeling; and, in consequence, though he does not appear to have been much indebted to the munificence of his Lordship, the tendency is to make his readers sensible that he was, if not ill used, disappointed. The Casa Lanfranchi was a huge and gaunt building, capable, without inconvenience or intermixture, of accommodating several families. It was, therefore, not a great favour in his Lordship, considering that he had invited Mr Hunt from England, to become a partner with him in a speculation purely commercial, to permit him to occupy the ground-floor or flat, as it would be called in Scotland. The apartments being empty, furniture was necessary, and the plainest was provided; good of its kind and respectable, it yet could not have cost a great deal. It was chosen by Mr Shelley, who intended to make a present of it to Mr Hunt; but when the apartments were fitted up, Lord Byron insisted upon paying the account, and to that extent Mr Hunt incurred a pecuniary obligation to his Lordship. The two hundred pounds already mentioned was a debt to Mr Shelley, who borrowed the money from Lord Byron.

Soon after Mr Hunt's family were settled in their new lodgings, Shelley returned to Leghorn, with the intention of taking a sea excursion—in the course of which he was lost: Lord Byron knowing how much Hunt was dependent on that gentleman, immediately offered him the command of his purse, and requested to be considered as standing in the place of Shelley, his particular friend. This was both gentlemanly and generous, and the offer was accepted, but with feelings neither just nor gracious: "Stern necessity and a large family compelled me," says Mr Hunt, "and during our residence at Pisa I had from him, or rather from his steward, to whom he always sent me for the money, and who doled it out to me as if my disgraces were being counted, the sum of seventy pounds."

"This sum," he adds, "together with the payment of our expenses when we accompanied him from Pisa to Genoa, and thirty pounds with which he enabled us subsequently to go from Genoa to Florence, was all the money I ever received from Lord Byron, exclusive of the two hundred pounds, which, in the first instance, he made a debt of Mr Shelley, by taking his bond."—The whole extent of the pecuniary obligation appears certainly not to have exceeded five hundred pounds; no great sum—but little or great, the manner in which it was recollected reflects no credit either on the head or heart of the debtor.

Mr Hunt, in extenuation of the bitterness with which he has spoken on the subject, says, that "Lord Byron made no scruple of talking very freely of me and mine." It may, therefore, be possible, that Mr Hunt had cause for his resentment, and to feel the humiliation of being under obligations to a mean man; at the same time Lord Byron, on his side, may upon experience have found equal reason to repent of his connection with Mr Hunt. And it is certain that each has sought to justify, both to himself and to the world, the rupture of a copartnery which ought never to have been formed. But his Lordship's conduct is the least justifiable. He had allured Hunt to Italy with flattering hopes; he had a perfect knowledge of his hampered circumstances, and he was thoroughly aware that, until their speculation became productive, he must support him. To the extent of about five hundred pounds he did so: a trifle, considering the glittering anticipations of their scheme.

Viewing their copartnery, however, as a mere commercial speculation, his Lordship's advance could not be regarded as liberal, and no modification of the term munificence or patronage could be applied to it. But, unless he had harassed Hunt for the repayment of the money, which does not appear to have been the case, nor could he morally, perhaps even legally, have done so, that gentleman had no cause to complain. The joint adventure was a failure, and except a little repining on the part of the one for the loss of his advance, and of grudging on that of the other for the waste of his time, no sharper feeling ought to have arisen between them. But vanity was mingled with their golden dreams. Lord Byron mistook Hunt's political notoriety for literary reputation, and Mr Hunt thought it was a fine thing to be chum and partner with so renowned a lord. After all, however, the worst which can be said of it is, that formed in weakness it could produce only vexation.

But the dissolution of the vapour with which both parties were so intoxicated, and which led to their quarrel, might have occasioned only amusement to the world, had it not left an ignoble stigma on the character of Lord Byron, and given cause to every admirer of his genius to deplore, that he should have so forgotten his dignity and fame.

There is no disputing the fact, that his Lordship, in conceiving the plan of The Liberal, was actuated by sordid motives, and of the basest kind, inasmuch as it was intended that the popularity of the work should rest upon satire; or, in other words, on the ability to be displayed by it in the art of detraction. Being disappointed in his hopes of profit, he shuffled out of the concern as meanly as any higgler could have done who had found himself in a profitless business with a disreputable partner. There is no disguising this unvarnished truth; and though his friends did well in getting the connection ended as quickly as possible, they could not eradicate the original sin of the transaction, nor extinguish the consequences which it of necessity entailed. Let me not, however, be misunderstood: my objection to the conduct of Byron does not lie against the wish to turn his extraordinary talents to profitable account, but to the mode in which he proposed to, and did, employ them. Whether Mr Hunt was or was not a fit copartner for one of his Lordship's rank and celebrity, I do not undertake to judge; but any individual was good enough for that vile prostitution of his genius, to which, in an unguarded hour, he submitted for money. Indeed, it would be doing injustice to compare the motives of Mr Hunt in the business with those by which Lord Byron was infatuated. He put nothing to hazard; happen what might, he could not be otherwise than a gainer; for if profit failed, it could not be denied that the "foremost" poet of all the age had discerned in him either the promise or the existence of merit, which he was desirous of associating with his own. This advantage Mr Hunt did gain by the connection; and it is his own fault that he cannot be recollected as the associate of Byron, but only as having attempted to deface his monument.



CHAPTER XXXIX



Mr Shelley—Sketch of his Life—His Death—The Burning of his Body, and the Return of the Mourners

It has been my study in writing these sketches to introduce as few names as the nature of the work would admit of; but Lord Byron connected himself with persons who had claims to public consideration on account of their talents; and, without affectation, it is not easy to avoid taking notice of his intimacy with some of them, especially, if in the course of it any circumstance came to pass which was in itself remarkable, or likely to have produced an impression on his Lordship's mind. His friendship with Mr Shelley, mentioned in the preceding chapter, was an instance of this kind.

That unfortunate gentleman was undoubtedly a man of genius—full of ideal beauty and enthusiasm. And yet there was some defect in his understanding by which he subjected himself to the accusation of atheism. In his dispositions he is represented to have been ever calm and amiable; and but for his metaphysical errors and reveries, and a singular incapability of conceiving the existing state of things as it practically affects the nature and condition of man, to have possessed many of the gentlest qualities of humanity. He highly admired the endowments of Lord Byron, and in return was esteemed by his Lordship; but even had there been neither sympathy nor friendship between them, his premature fate could not but have saddened Byron with no common sorrow.

Mr Shelley was some years younger than his noble friend; he was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, Bart., of Castle Goring, Sussex. At the age of thirteen he was sent to Eton, where he rarely mixed in the common amusements of the other boys; but was of a shy, reserved disposition, fond of solitude, and made few friends. He was not distinguished for his proficiency in the regular studies of the school; on the contrary, he neglected them for German and chemistry. His abilities were superior, but deteriorated by eccentricity. At the age of sixteen he was sent to the University of Oxford, where he soon distinguished himself by publishing a pamphlet, under the absurd and world-defying title of The Necessity of Atheism; for which he was expelled from the University.

The event proved fatal to his prospects in life; and the treatment he received from his family was too harsh to win him from error. His father, however, in a short time relented, and he was received home; but he took so little trouble to conciliate the esteem of his friends, that he found the house uncomfortable, and left it. He then went to London; where he eloped with a young lady to Gretna Green. Their united ages amounted to thirty-two; and the match being deemed unsuitable to his rank and prospects, it so exasperated his father, that he broke off all communication with him.

After their marriage the young couple resided some time in Edinburgh. They then passed over to Ireland, which being in a state of disturbance, Shelley took a part in politics, more reasonable than might have been expected. He inculcated moderation.

About this tune he became devoted to the cultivation of his poetical talents; but his works were sullied with the erroneous inductions of an understanding which, inasmuch as he regarded all the existing world in the wrong, must be considered as having been either shattered or defective.

His rash marriage proved, of course, an unhappy one. After the birth of two children, a separation, by mutual consent, took place, and Mrs Shelley committed suicide.

He then married a daughter of Mr Godwin, the author of Caleb Williams, and they resided for some time at Great Marlow, in Buckinghamshire, much respected for their charity. In the meantime, his irreligious opinions had attracted public notice, and, in consequence of his unsatisfactory notions of the Deity, his children, probably at the instance of his father, were taken from him by a decree of the Lord Chancellor: an event which, with increasing pecuniary embarrassments, induced him to quit England, with the intention of never returning.

Being in Switzerland when Lord Byron, after his domestic tribulations, arrived at Geneva, they became acquainted. He then crossed the Alps, and again at Venice renewed his friendship with his Lordship; he thence passed to Rome, where he resided some time; and after visiting Naples, fixed his permanent residence in Tuscany. His acquirements were constantly augmenting, and he was without question an accomplished person. He was, however, more of a metaphysician than a poet, though there are splendid specimens of poetical thought in his works. As a man, he was objected to only on account of his speculative opinions; for he possessed many amiable qualities, was just in his intentions, and generous to excess.

When he had seen Mr Hunt established in the Casa Lanfranchi with Lord Byron at Pisa, Mr Shelley returned to Leghorn, for the purpose of taking a sea excursion; an amusement to which he was much attached. During a violent storm the boat was swamped, and the party on board were all drowned. Their bodies were, however, afterwards cast on shore; Mr Shelley's was found near Via Reggio, and, being greatly decomposed, and unfit to be removed, it was determined to reduce the remains to ashes, that they might be carried to a place of sepulture. Accordingly preparations were made for the burning.

Wood in abundance was found on the shore, consisting of old trees and the wreck of vessels: the spot itself was well suited for the ceremony. The magnificent bay of Spezzia was on the right, and Leghorn on the left, at equal distances of about two-and-twenty miles. The headlands project boldly far into the sea; in front lie several islands, and behind dark forests and the cliffy Apennines. Nothing was omitted that could exalt and dignify the mournful rites with the associations of classic antiquity; frankincense and wine were not forgotten. The weather was serene and beautiful, and the pacified ocean was silent, as the flame rose with extraordinary brightness. Lord Byron was present; but he should himself have described the scene and what he felt.

These antique obsequies were undoubtedly affecting; but the return of the mourners from the burning is the most appalling orgia, without the horror of crime, of which I have ever heard. When the duty was done, and the ashes collected, they dined and drank much together, and bursting from the calm mastery with which they had repressed their feelings during the solemnity, gave way to frantic exultation. They were all drunk; they sang, they shouted, and their barouche was driven like a whirlwind through the forest. I can conceive nothing descriptive of the demoniac revelry of that flight, but scraps of the dead man's own song of Faust, Mephistophiles, and Ignis Fatuus, in alternate chorus.

The limits of the sphere of dream, The bounds of true and false are past; Lead us on, thou wand'ring Gleam; Lead us onwards, far and fast, To the wide, the desert waste.

But see how swift, advance and shift, Trees behind trees—row by row, Now clift by clift, rocks bend and lift, Their frowning foreheads as we go; The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho! How they snort, and how they blow. Honour her to whom honour is due, Old mother Baubo, honour to you. An able sow with old Baubo upon her Is worthy of glory and worthy of honour.

The way is wide, the way is long, But what is that for a Bedlam throng? Some on a ram, and some on a prong, On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along.

Every trough will be boat enough, With a rag for a sail, we can sweep through the sky. Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?



CHAPTER XL



"The Two Foscari"—"Werner"—"The Deformed Transformed"—"Don Juan"— "The Liberal"—Removes from Pisa to Genoa

I have never heard exactly where the tragedy of The Two Foscari was written: that it was imagined in Venice is probable. The subject is, perhaps, not very fit for a drama, for it has no action; but it is rich in tragic materials, revenge and affection, and the composition is full of the peculiar stuff of the poet's own mind. The exulting sadness with which Jacopo Foscari looks in the first scene from the window, on the Adriatic, is Byron himself recalling his enjoyment of the sea.

How many a time have I Cloven with arm still lustier, heart more daring, The wave all roughen'd: with a swimmer's stroke Flinging the billows back from my drench'd hair, And laughing from my lip th' audacious brine Which kiss'd it like a wine-cup.

The whole passage, both prelude and remainder, glows with the delicious recollections of laying and revelling in the summer waves. But the exile's feeling is no less beautifully given and appropriate to the author's condition, far more so, indeed, than to that of Jacopo Foscari.

Had I gone forth From my own land, like the old patriarchs, seeking Another region with their flocks and herds; Had I been cast out like the Jews from Zion, Or like our fathers driven by Attila From fertile Italy to barren islets, I would have given some tears to my late country, And many thoughts; but afterward address'd Myself to those about me, to create A new home and first state.

What follows is still more pathetic:

Ay—we but hear Of the survivors' toil in their new lands, Their numbers and success; but who can number The hearts which broke in silence of that parting, Or after their departure; of that malady {291a} Which calls up green and native fields to view From the rough deep with such identity To the poor exile's fever'd eye, that he Can scarcely be restrained from treading them? That melody {291b} which out of tones and tunes Collects such pastime for the ling'ring sorrow Of the sad mountaineer, when far away From his snow-canopy of cliffs and clouds, That he feeds on the sweet but poisonous thought And dies.—You call this weakness! It is strength, I say—the parent of all honest feeling: He who loves not his country can love nothing.

MARINA

Obey her then, 'tis she that puts thee forth.

JACOPO FOSCARI

Ay, there it is. 'Tis like a mother's curse Upon my soul—the mark is set upon me. The exiles you speak of went forth by nations; Their hands upheld each other by the way; Their tents were pitch'd together—I'm alone— Ah, you never yet Were far away from Venice—never saw Her beautiful towers in the receding distance, While every furrow of the vessel's track Seem'd ploughing deep into your heart; you never Saw day go down upon your native spires So calmly with its gold and crimson glory, And after dreaming a disturbed vision Of them and theirs, awoke and found them not.

All this speaks of the voluntary exile's own regrets, and awakens sympathy for the anguish which pride concealed, but unable to repress, gave vent to in the imagined sufferings of one that was to him as Hecuba.

It was at Pisa that Werner, or The Inheritance, a tragedy, was written, or at least completed. It is taken entirely from the German's tale, Kruitzner, published many years before, by one of the Miss Lees, in their Canterbury Tales. So far back as 1815, Byron began a drama upon the same subject, and nearly completed an act when he was interrupted. "I have adopted," he says himself, "the characters, plan, and even the language of many parts of this story"; an acknowledgment which exempts it from that kind of criticism to which his principal works are herein subjected.

But The Deformed Transformed, which was also written at Pisa, is, though confessedly an imitation of Goethe's Faust, substantially an original work. In the opinion of Mr Moore, it probably owes something to the author's painful sensibility to the defect in his own foot; an accident which must, from the acuteness with which he felt it, have essentially contributed to enable him to comprehend and to express the envy of those afflicted with irremediable exceptions to the ordinary course of fortune, or who have been amerced by nature of their fair proportions. But save only a part of the first scene, the sketch will not rank among the felicitous works of the poet. It was intended to be a satire—probably, at least—but it is only a fragment—a failure.

Hitherto I have not noticed Don Juan otherwise than incidentally. It was commenced in Venice, and afterward continued at intervals to the end of the sixteenth canto, until the author left Pisa, when it was not resumed, at least no more has been published. Strong objections have been made to its moral tendency; but, in the opinion of many, it is the poet's masterpiece, and undoubtedly it displays all the variety of his powers, combined with a quaint playfulness not found to an equal degree in any other of his works. The serious and pathetic portions are exquisitely beautiful; the descriptive have all the distinctness of the best pictures in Childe Harold, and are, moreover, generally drawn from nature, while the satire is for the most part curiously associated and sparklingly witty. The characters are sketched with amazing firmness and freedom, and though sometimes grotesque, are yet not often overcharged. It is professedly an epic poem, but it may be more properly described as a poetical novel. Nor can it be said to inculcate any particular moral, or to do more than unmantle the decorum of society. Bold and buoyant throughout, it exhibits a free irreverent knowledge of the world, laughing or mocking as the thought serves, in the most unexpected antitheses to the proprieties of time, place, and circumstance.

The object of the poem is to describe the progress of a libertine through life, not an unprincipled prodigal, whose profligacy, growing with his growth, and strengthening with his strength, passes from voluptuous indulgence into the sordid sensuality of systematic debauchery, but a young gentleman, who, whirled by the vigour and vivacity of his animal spirits into a world of adventures, in which his stars are chiefly in fault for his liaisons, settles at last into an honourable lawgiver, a moral speaker on divorce bills, and possibly a subscriber to the Society for the Suppression of Vice. The author has not completed his design, but such appears to have been the drift of it, affording ample opportunities to unveil the foibles and follies of all sorts of men—and women too. It is generally supposed to contain much of the author's own experience, but still, with all its riant knowledge of bowers and boudoirs, it is deficient as a true limning of the world, by showing man as if he were always ruled by one predominant appetite.

In the character of Donna Inez and Don Jose, it has been imagined that Lord Byron has sketched himself and his lady. It may be so; and if it were, he had by that time got pretty well over the lachrymation of their parting. It is no longer doubtful that the twenty-seventh stanza records a biographical fact, and the thirty-sixth his own feelings, when,

Poor fellow! he had many things to wound him, Let's own, since it can do no good on earth; It was a trying moment that which found him Standing alone beside his desolate hearth, Where all his household gods lay shiver'd round him: No choice was left his feelings or his pride, Save death or Doctors' Commons.

It has been already mentioned, that while the poet was at Dr Glennie's academy at Dulwich, he read an account of a shipwreck, which has been supposed to have furnished some of the most striking incidents in the description of the disastrous voyage in the second canto in Don Juan. I have not seen that work; but whatever Lord Byron may have found in it suitable to his purpose, he has undoubtedly made good use of his grandfather's adventures. The incident of the spaniel is related by the admiral.

In the licence of Don Juan, the author seems to have considered that his wonted accuracy might be dispensed with.

The description of Haidee applies to an Albanian, not a Greek girl. The splendour of her father's house is altogether preposterous; and the island has no resemblance to those of the Cyclades. With the exception of Zea, his Lordship, however, did not visit them. Some degree of error and unlike description, runs indeed through the whole of the still life around the portrait of Haidee. The fete which Lambro discovers on his return, is, however, prettily described; and the dance is as perfect as true.

And farther on a group of Grecian girls, The first and tallest her white kerchief waving, Were strung together like a row of pearls, Link'd hand in hand and dancing; each too having Down her white neck long floating auburn curls. Their leader sang, and bounded to her song, With choral step and voice, the virgin throng.

The account of Lambro proceeding to the house is poetically imagined; and, in his character, may be traced a vivid likeness of Ali Pasha, and happy illustrative allusions to the adventures of that chief.

The fourth canto was written at Ravenna; it is so said within itself; and the description of Dante's sepulchre there may be quoted for its truth, and the sweet modulation of the moral reflection interwoven with it.

I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid; A little cupola, more neat than solemn, Protects his dust; but reverence here is paid To the bard's tomb and not the warrior's column. The time must come when both alike decay'd, The chieftain's trophy and the poet's volume Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth, Before Pelides' death or Homer's birth.

The fifth canto was also written in Ravenna. But it is not my intention to analyze this eccentric and meandering poem; a composition which cannot be well estimated by extracts. Without, therefore, dwelling at greater length on its variety and merits. I would only observe that the general accuracy of the poet's descriptions is verified by that of the scenes in which Juan is placed in England, a point the reader may determine for himself; while the vagueness of the parts derived from books, or sketched from fancy, as contrasted with them, justifies the opinion, that invention was not the most eminent faculty of Byron, either in scenes or in characters. Of the demerits of the poem it is only necessary to remark, that it has been proscribed on account of its immorality; perhaps, however, there was more of prudery than of equity in the decision, at least it is liable to be so considered, so long as reprints are permitted of the older dramatists, with all their unpruned licentiousness.

But the wheels of Byron's destiny were now hurrying. Both in the conception and composition of Don Juan he evinced an increasing disregard of the world's opinion; and the project of The Liberal was still more fatal to his reputation. Not only were the invidious eyes of bigotry now eagerly fixed upon his conduct, but those of admiration were saddened and turned away from him. His principles, which would have been more correctly designated as paradoxes, were objects of jealousy to the Tuscan Government; and it has been already seen that there was a disorderliness about the Casa Lanfranchi which attracted the attention of the police. His situation in Pisa became, in consequence, irksome; and he resolved to remove to Genoa, an intention which he carried into effect about the end of September, 1822, at which period his thoughts began to gravitate towards Greece. Having attained to the summit of his literary eminence, he grew ambitious of trying fortune in another field of adventure.

In all the migrations of Lord Byron there was ever something grotesque and desultory. In moving from Ravenna to Pisa, his caravan consisted of seven servants, five carriages, nine horses, a monkey, a bulldog, and a mastiff, two cats, three peafowl, a harem of hens, books, saddles, and firearms, with a chaos of furniture nor was the exodus less fantastical; for in addition to all his own clanjamphry, he had Mr Hunt's miscellaneous assemblage of chattels and chattery and little ones.



CHAPTER XLI



Genoa—Change in the Manners of Lord Byron—Residence at the Casa Saluzzi—"The Liberal"—Remarks on the Poet's Works in general and on Hunt's Strictures on his Character

Previously to their arrival at Genoa, a house had been taken for Lord Byron and the Guiccioli in Albaro, a pleasant village on a hill, in the vicinity of the city; it was the Casa Saluzzi, and I have been told, that during the time he resided there, he seemed to enjoy a more uniform and temperate gaiety than in any former period of his life. There might have been less of sentiment in his felicity, than when he lived at Ravenna, as he seldom wrote poetry, but he appeared to some of his occasional visitors, who knew him in London, to have become more agreeable and manly. I may add, at the risk of sarcasm for the vanity, that in proof of his mellowed temper towards me, besides the kind frankness with which he received my friend, as already mentioned, he sent me word, by the Earl of Blesinton, that he had read my novel of The Entail three times, and thought the old Leddy Grippy one of the most living-like heroines he had ever met with. This was the more agreeable, as I had heard within the same week, that Sir Walter Scott had done and said nearly the same thing. Half the compliment from two such men would be something to be proud of.

Lord Byron's residence at Albaro was separate from that of Mr Hunt, and, in consequence, they were more rarely together than when domiciled under the same roof as at Pisa. Indeed, by this time, if one may take Mr Hunt's own account of the matter, they appear to have become pretty well tired of each other. He had found out that a peer is, as a friend, but as a plebeian, and a great poet not always a high-minded man. His Lordship had, on his part, discovered that something more than smartness or ingenuity is necessary to protect patronage from familiarity. Perhaps intimate acquaintance had also tended to enable him to appreciate, with greater accuracy, the meretricious genius and artificial tastes of his copartner in The Liberal. It is certain that he laughed at his affected admiration of landscapes, and considered his descriptions of scenery as drawn from pictures.

One day, as a friend of mine was conversing with his Lordship at the Casa Saluzzi, on the moral impressions of magnificent scenery, he happened to remark that he thought the view of the Alps in the evening, from Turin, the sublimest scene he had ever beheld. "It is impossible," said he, "at such a time, when all the west is golden and glowing behind them, to contemplate such vast masses of the Deity without being awed into rest, and forgetting such things as man and his follies."—"Hunt," said his Lordship, smiling, "has no perception of the sublimity of Alpine scenery; he calls a mountain a great impostor."

In the mean time the materials for the first number of The Liberal had been transmitted to London, where the manuscript of The Vision of Judgment was already, and something of its quality known. All his Lordship's friends were disturbed at the idea of the publication. They did not like the connection he had formed with Mr Shelley—they liked still less the copartnery with Mr Hunt. With the justice or injustice of these dislikes I have nothing to do. It is an historical fact that they existed, and became motives with those who deemed themselves the custodiers of his Lordship's fame, to seek a dissolution of the association.

The first number of The Liberal, containing The Vision of Judgment, was received soon after the copartnery had established themselves at Genoa, accompanied with hopes and fears. Much good could not be anticipated from a work which outraged the loyal and decorous sentiments of the nation towards the memory of George III. To the second number Lord Byron contributed the Heaven and Earth, a sacred drama, which has been much misrepresented in consequence of its fraternity with Don Juan and The Vision of Judgment; for it contains no expression to which religion can object, nor breathes a thought at variance with the Genesis. The history of literature affords no instance of a condemnation less justifiable, on the plea of profanity, than that of this Mystery. That it abounds in literary blemishes, both of plan and language, and that there are harsh jangles and discords in the verse, is not disputed; but still it abounds in a grave patriarchal spirit, and is echo to the oracles of Adam and Melchisedek. It may not be worthy of Lord Byron's genius, but it does him no dishonour, and contains passages which accord with the solemn diapasons of ancient devotion. The disgust which The Vision of Judgment had produced, rendered it easy to persuade the world that there was impiety in the Heaven and Earth, although, in point of fact, it may be described as hallowed with the Scriptural theology of Milton. The objections to its literary defects were magnified into sins against worship and religion.

The Liberal stopped with the fourth number, I believe. It disappointed not merely literary men in general, but even the most special admirers of the talents of the contributors. The main defect of the work was a lack of knowledge. Neither in style nor genius, nor even in general ability, was it wanting; but where it showed learning it was not of a kind in which the age took much interest. Moreover, the manner and cast of thinking of all the writers in it were familiar to the public, and they were too few in number to variegate their pages with sufficient novelty. But the main cause of the failure was the antipathy formed and fostered against it before it appeared. It was cried down, and it must be acknowledged that it did not much deserve a better fate.

With The Liberal I shall close my observations on the works of Lord Byron. They are too voluminous to be examined even in the brief and sketchy manner in which I have considered those which are deemed the principal. Besides, they are not, like them, all characteristic of the author, though possessing great similarity in style and thought to one another. Nor would such general criticism accord with the plan of this work. Lord Byron was not always thinking of himself; like other authors, he sometimes wrote from imaginary circumstances; and often fancied both situations and feelings which had no reference to his own, nor to his experience. But were the matter deserving of the research, I am persuaded, that with Mr Moore's work, and the poet's original journals, notes, and letters, innumerable additions might be made to the list of passages which the incidents of his own life dictated.

The abandonment of The Liberal closed his Lordship's connection with Mr Hunt; their friendship, if such ever really existed, was ended long before. It is to be regretted that Byron has not given some account of it himself; for the manner in which he is represented to have acted towards his unfortunate partner, renders another version of the tale desirable. At the same time—and I am not one of those who are disposed to magnify the faults and infirmities of Byron—I fear there is no excess of truth in Hunt's opinion of him. I judge by an account which Lord Byron gave himself to a mutual friend, who did not, however, see the treatment in exactly the same light as that in which it appeared to me. But, while I cannot regard his Lordship's conduct as otherwise than unworthy, still the pains which Mr Hunt has taken to elaborate his character and dispositions into every modification of weakness, almost justifies us in thinking that he was treated according to his deserts. Byron had at least the manners of a gentleman, and though not a judicious knowledge of the world, he yet possessed prudence enough not to be always unguarded. Mr Hunt informs us, that when he joined his Lordship at Leghorn, his own health was impaired, and that his disease rather increased than diminished during his residence at Pisa and Genoa; to say nothing of the effect which the loss of his friend had on him, and the disappointment he suffered in The Liberal; some excuse may, therefore, be made for him. In such a condition, misapprehensions were natural; jocularity might be mistaken for sarcasm, and caprice felt as insolence.



CHAPTER XLII



Lord Byron resolves to join the Greeks—Arrives at Cephalonia—Greek Factions—Sends Emissaries to the Grecian Chiefs—Writes to London about the Loan—To Mavrocordato on the Dissensions—Embarks at lest for Missolonghi

While The Liberal was halting onward to its natural doom, the attention of Lord Byron was attracted towards the struggles of Greece.

In that country his genius was first effectually developed; his name was associated with many of its most romantic scenes, and the cause was popular with all the educated and refined of Europe. He had formed besides a personal attachment to the land, and perhaps many of his most agreeable local associations were fixed amid the ruins of Greece, and in her desolated valleys. The name is indeed alone calculated to awaken the noblest feelings of humanity. The spirit of her poets, the wisdom and the heroism of her worthies; whatever is splendid in genius, unparalleled in art, glorious in arms, and wise in philosophy, is associated in their highest excellence with that beautiful region.

Had Lord Byron never been in Greece, he was, undoubtedly, one of those men whom the resurrection of her spirit was likeliest to interest; but he was not also one fitted to do her cause much service. His innate indolence, his sedentary habits, and that all- engrossing consideration for himself, which, in every situation, marred his best impulses, were shackles upon the practice of the stern bravery in himself which he has so well expressed in his works.

It was expected when he sailed for Greece, nor was the expectation unreasonable with those who believe imagination and passion to be of the same element, that the enthusiasm which flamed so highly in his verse was the spirit of action, and would prompt him to undertake some great enterprise. But he was only an artist; he could describe bold adventures and represent high feeling, as other gifted individuals give eloquence to canvas and activity to marble; but he did not possess the wisdom necessary for the instruction of councils. I do, therefore, venture to say, that in embarking for Greece, he was not entirely influenced by such exoterical motives as the love of glory or the aspirations of heroism. His laurels had for some time ceased to flourish, the sear and yellow, the mildew and decay, had fallen upon them, and he was aware that the bright round of his fame was ovalling from the full and showing the dim rough edge of waning.

He was, moreover, tired of the Guiccioli, and again afflicted with a desire for some new object with which to be in earnest. The Greek cause seemed to offer this, and a better chance for distinction than any other pursuit in which he could then engage. In the spring of 1823 he accordingly made preparations for transferring himself from Genoa to Greece, and opened a correspondence with the leaders of the insurrection, that the importance of his adhesion might be duly appreciated.

Greece, with a fair prospect of ultimate success, was at that time as distracted in her councils as ever. Her arms had been victorious, but the ancient jealousy of the Greek mind was unmitigated. The third campaign had commenced, and yet no regular government had been organized; the fiscal resources of the country were neglected: a wild energy against the Ottomans was all that the Greeks could depend on for continuing the war.

Lord Byron arrived in Cephalonia about the middle of August, 1823, where he fixed his residence for some time. This was prudent, but it said nothing for that spirit of enterprise with which a man engaging in such a cause, in such a country, and with such a people, ought to have been actuated—especially after Marco Botzaris, one of the best and most distinguished of the chiefs, had earnestly urged him to join him at Missolonghi. I fear that I may not be able to do justice to Byron's part in the affairs of Greece; but I shall try. He did not disappoint me, for he only acted as might have been expected, from his unsteady energies. Many, however, of his other friends longed in vain to hear of that blaze of heroism, by which they anticipated that his appearance in the field would be distinguished.

Among his earliest proceedings was the equipment of forty Suliotes, or Albanians, whom he sent to Marco Botzaris to assist in the defence of Missolonghi. An adventurer of more daring would have gone with them; and when the battle was over, in which Botzaris fell, he transmitted bandages and medicines, of which he had brought a large supply from Italy, and pecuniary succour, to the wounded.

This was considerate, but there was too much consideration in all that he did at this time, neither in unison with the impulses of his natural character, nor consistent with the heroic enthusiasm with which the admirers of his poetry imagined he was kindled.

In the mean time he had offered to advance one thousand dollars a month for the succour of Missolonghi and the troops with Marco Botzaris; but the government, instead of accepting the offer, intimated that they wished previously to confer with him, which he interpreted into a desire to direct the expenditure of the money to other purposes. In his opinion his Lordship was probably not mistaken; but his own account of his feeling in the business does not tend to exalt the magnanimity of his attachment to the cause: "I will take care," says he, "that it is for the public cause, otherwise I will not advance a para. The opposition say they want to cajole me, and the party in power say the others wish to seduce me; so, between the two, I have a difficult part to play; however, I will have nothing to do with the factions, unless to reconcile them, if possible."