My Recollections of Lord Byron

great superiority, by all the sufferings he endured. Soon after his arrival at Pisa, his little daughter Allegra, whom he was having educated at a convent in Romagna, died of fever, and shortly afterward Shelley was drowned! About the same time the publication of "Cain," then going on, raised a perfect storm, furnishing his enemies with pretexts for attacking and slandering him more than ever. They did it in a manner so violent and unjust, bringing in likewise his publisher Murray, that Lord Byron thought it incumbent on him to send a challenge to the poet laureate, the most perfidious among them all. At this same period, Hunt, who had lost all means of existence by the death of Shelley, forced himself on Lord Byron in such a disagreeable way as to become the plague of his life. Lastly, in consequence of a quarrel that arose between Sergeant Masi and Lord Byron's riding companions, an arbitrary measure was taken, which again compelled his friends--the Counts Gamba--to leave Pisa for Genoa; and he, though free to remain, resolved on sharing their fate and quitting Pisa likewise. For the Government, though subservient to Austrian rule, did not dare to apply the same unjust decree to an English subject of such high rank. Nevertheless, if we except the death of his little girl, which caused him profound sorrow--although he bore it with all the fortitude belonging to his great soul--and the death of Shelley, which also afflicted him greatly, none of the other annoyances had power to grieve him or to create melancholy. "It seems to me," he wrote to Murray, "that what with my own country and other lands, there has been _hot water enough_ for some time." This manner of announcing so many disagreeables, shows what self-possession he had arrived at, and how he viewed all things calmly and sagely, as Disraeli portrays him with truth in "Venetia," when he makes him say:--"'_As long as the world leaves us quiet, and does not burn us alive, we ought to be pleased. I have grown callous to all they say_,' observed Herbert. '_And I also_,' replied Lord Cadurcis." Cadurcis and Herbert both represent Lord Byron; for Disraeli, like Moore, having felt that Lord Byron had enough in him to furnish several individualities, all equally powerful, thought it necessary to call in the aid of this double personification, in order to paint his nature in all its richness, with the changes to be wrought by time and events. If the war waged against Lord Byron by envy, bigotry, and wickedness, had had power to create emotion during youth, and even later, the gentle, wise philosophy he afterward acquired in the school of adversity, so elevated his mind, that he could no longer suffer, except from wounds of heart, provided his conscience were at rest. When the stupid persecution raised against him on the appearance of "Cain" took place, he wrote to Murray from Pisa, on the 8th of February:-- "All the _row_ about _me_ has no otherwise affected me than by the attack upon yourself, which is ungenerous in Church and State.... I can only say, 'Me, me; en adeum qui feci;'--that any proceedings directed against you, I beg may be transferred to me, who am willing, and _ought_, to endure them all." And then he ends his letter, saying, "I write to you about all this row of bad passions and absurdities, with the _summer_ moon (for here our winter is clearer than your dog-days), lighting the winding Arno, with all her buildings and bridges,--so quiet and still!--_What nothings are we before the least of these stars!_" Soon after, and while still suffering under the same persecution from his enemies and weak fools, he wrote to Moore from Montenero, recalling in his usual vein of pleasantry, their mutual adventures in fashionable London life, and saying, that he should have done better while listening to Moore as he tuned his harp and sang, _to have thrown himself out of the window, ere marrying a Miss Milbank_. "I speak merely of my marriage, and its consequences, distresses, and calumnies; for I have been much more happy, on the whole, _since_, than I ever could have been with her." And some time after, conversing with Madame G----, examining and analyzing all he might have done as an orator and a politician, if he had remained in England, he added:-- "That then he would not have known her, and that no other advantages could have given him the happiness which he found in real affection." This conversation, interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Mr. Hobhouse, and which, but for the inexplicable sadness arising from presentiments, would have made earth a paradise for the person to whom it was addressed, took place at Pisa, in Lord Byron's garden, a few days before his departure for Genoa. At Genoa he continued to lead the same retired, studious, simple kind of life; and, although the winter was this year again extremely rigorous, and although his health had been slightly affected since the day of Shelley's funeral, and his stay at Genoa made unpleasant by the ennui proceeding from Mr. Hunt's presence there,[193] still he had no fit of what can be called melancholy until he decided on leaving for Greece. Then the sadness that he would fain have concealed, but could not, which he betrayed in the parting hour, acknowledged while climbing the hill of Albano, and which often brought tears to his eyes on board the vessel--this sadness had its source in the deepest sentiments of his heart. In Greece, we know, by the unanimous and constant testimony of all who saw him there, that the rare fits of melancholy he experienced, all arose from the same cause. During his sojourn in the Ionian Islands, as soon as letters from Italy had calmed his uneasiness, finding himself surrounded by general esteem, affection, and admiration, seeing justice dawn for him, and confusion for his enemies, being consoled also with the prospect of a future, and that, with heart at ease, he might at last shed happiness around him; then he was ever to be found full of serenity and even gayety, _only intent on noble virtuous actions_. One day, however, a great melancholy seized upon him, and all the good around suddenly appeared to vanish. Whence did this arise? His letters tell us:-- "Poor Byron!" wrote Count Gamba, to his sister, on the 14th of October, "he has been much concerned by the news which reached him some fortnight ago about the headache of his dear Ada. You may imagine how _triste_ were the workings of his fancy, to which he added the fear of having to spend several months without hearing any further tidings of her; besides the suspicion that the truth was either kept back from him or disguised. Happily, another bulletin has reached him, to say that she is all right again,--and one more, to announce that the child is in good health, with the exception of a slight pain in the eyes. His melancholy is, therefore, a little mitigated, though it has not completely disappeared." The pre-occupation, disquietude, and anxiety, which he experienced more or less continuously in Greece, and above all, at Missolonghi, and which I have mentioned elsewhere, certainly did agitate, trouble, and even irritate him sometimes; but then it was in such a passing way, on account of the great empire he had acquired over himself, that every one during his sojourn in the islands, and often even at Missolonghi, unanimously pronounced gayety to be his predominant disposition. And, truly, it was only to griefs proceeding from the heart that he granted power to cloud his brow with any kind of melancholy. After this long analysis, and before summing up, it still remains for us to examine a species of melancholy that seems not to come within our limits, but which occasionally seized upon him on his first waking in the morning:-- "I have been considering what can be the reason why I always wake at a certain hour in the morning, and always in very bad spirits--I may say, in actual despair and despondency, in all respects--even of that which pleased me over-night. In about an hour or two, this goes off, and I compose myself either to sleep again, or at least, to quiet.... What is it?--liver?... I suppose that it is all hypochondriasis." What name shall we give to this physiological phenomenon? Was it hypochondriasis, as he imagined? That Lord Byron's temperament, so sensitive to all moral causes, so vulnerable to all atmospherical influences, should likewise have contained a vein of hypochondriasis, is not only possible, but likely. And were we as partial as we wish to be just, there would certainly be no reason for denying it. Hypochondriasis is an infirmity, not a fault. Lord Byron himself, when informed that such a one complained of being called hypochondriacal, replied somewhat to the following effect: "I can not conceive how a man in perfect good health can feel wounded by being told that he is hypochondriacal, since his face and his conduct refute the accusation. Were this accusation ever to prove correct, to what does it amount, except to say that he has a liver complaint? "'I shall publish it before the whole world,' said the clever Smelfungus. 'I should prefer telling my doctor,' said I. There is nothing dishonorable in such an illness, which is more especially that of people who are studious. It has been the illness of those who are good, wise, clever, and even light-hearted. Regnard, Moliere, Johnson, Gray, Burns, were all more or less given to it. Mendelssohn and Bayle were often so afflicted with it, that they were obliged to have recourse to toys, and to count the slates on the roof of the houses opposite, in order to distract their attention. Johnson says, that oftentimes he would have given a limb to raise his spirits." But, nevertheless, when we seek truth for itself, and not for its results, nor to make it help out a system, we must go to the bottom of things, and reveal all we discover. Thus, after having spoken of this physiological phenomenon, which he suspects to be hypochondriasis, Byron adds, that he came upon him, accompanied with great thirst, that the London chemist, Mann, had cured him of it in three days, that it always yielded to a few doses of salts, and that the phenomenon always recurred and ended at the same hours. It appears, then, to me, that all these symptoms are far from indicating a serious and incurable hereditary malady, which would not be likely to have yielded to doses of salts, and which his general good health would seem to exclude. I consider them rather to point, for their cause, to his diet, which was _quite insufficient for him, and even hurtful, likely to affect the most robust health, and much more that of a man whose organization was so sensitive and delicate_. And, as this system of denying his body what was necessary for it increased the demands of his mind, which in its turn revenged itself on the body, the result was that Lord Byron voluntarily failed in the duties which every man owes to himself. Therefore, I think it more just to rank the melancholy arising from such causes, among his _faults_, and not among the accidents of life, or his natural disposition.[194] Now, having examined his melancholy under all its phases, having proved more what it was not than what it was, we shall sum up with saying, that Lord Byron really experienced, during his short life, every kind of sadness. First, in early youth, he had to encounter disappointments, mortifications, disenchantments, deep moral suffering; then the constant warfare of envy, resulting in cruel, unceasing slanders: then, all the philosophical sadness arising in great minds, the best endowed and the noblest, from the emptiness of earthly things; then that unslakable thirst for the true, the just, the perfect; that sort of nostalgia which