My Recollections of Lord Byron
Diodati by frequent visits to Madame de Stael at her country-seat,
"Coppet." She was the first who mentioned "Glenarvon" to him, and when
Murray wrote to him on the subject, Byron simply replied,--
"Of Glenarvon, Madame de Stael told me (ten days ago at Coppet)
marvellous and grievous things; but I have seen nothing of it but the
motto, which promises amiably 'for us and for our tragedy' ... 'a name
to all succeeding,' etc. The generous moment selected for the
publication is probably its kindest accompaniment, and, truth to say,
the time _was_ well chosen."[11]
"I have not even a guess at its contents," said he, and he really
attached no importance to its publication. But a few days later he had a
proof of the bad effect which its appearance had produced, for all this
venom against him had so poisoned the mind of a poor old woman of
sixty-three, an authoress, that on Lord Byron entering Madame de Stael's
drawing-room one afternoon, she fainted, or feigned to do so. Poor soul!
a writer of novels herself, and probably most partial to such reading,
she had, no doubt, from the perusal of "Glenarvon" gleaned the idea that
she had before her eyes that hideous monster of seduction and
perpetrator of crimes who was therein depicted!
At last Lord Byron read this too famous novel, and wrote to Moore as
follows on the subject:--
"Madame de Stael lent me 'Glenarvon' last autumn. It seems to me that if
the author had written the truth, and nothing but the truth, and the
whole truth, the novel might not only have been more romantic but more
amusing. As for the likeness, it can not be good, I did not sit long
enough for it."
From Venice Byron wrote as follows to Murray, in consequence of a series
of articles which appeared in Germany, where a serious view had been
taken of the novel of "Glenarvon:"--
"An Italian translation of 'Glenarvon' was lately printed at Venice. The
censor (Sgr. Petrolini) refused to sanction the publication till he had
seen me on the subject. I told him that I did not recognize the
slightest relation between that book and myself; but that, whatever
opinions might be held on that subject, I would never prevent or oppose
the publication of any book in any language, on my own private account,
and desired him (against his inclination) to permit the poor translator
to publish his labors. It is going forward in consequence. You may say
this, with my compliments, to the author."[12]
Madame de Stael had a great affection for Lord Byron, but his detractors
had found their way into her house.[13] Among these was a distinguished
lawyer, who had never been injured by any speech or word of Lord Byron,
but who, setting himself up as an amateur enemy of the poet, had, under
an anonymous designation, been one of his bitterest detractors in the
"Edinburgh Review," on the occasion of the publication of his early
poems. This same lawyer endeavored to gain Madame de Stael over to his
opinion of Byron's merit, probably on account of the very knowledge that
he had of the harm he had done him; hatred, like nobility, has its
obligations. But Madame de Stael, who, on reading "Farewell," was wont
to say that she wished almost she had been as unfortunate as Lady Byron,
was too elevated in mind and too noble in character to listen quietly to
the abuse of Byron in which his enemies indulged. She, however, tried to
induce Lord Byron to become reconciled to his wife, on the ground that
one should never struggle against the current of public opinion. Madame
de Stael actually succeeded in obtaining his permission to endeavor to
effect this reconciliation; but the lawyer before mentioned used every
argument to prevent her pursuing this project of mediation.
Lord Byron's biographers have told how Lady Byron received this
proposal; which, after the way in which he had been treated, appears to
have been, on the part of Byron, an act of almost superhuman generosity.
Such an offer should have moved any being gifted with a heart and a
soul. But I will not here speak of her refusal and of its consequences;
all I wish to state is, that the calumnies put forward against him being
too absurd for Byron to condescend to notice, assumed a degree of
consistency which deceived the public, and even made dupes of superior
men, who in their turn contributed to make dupes of others. At this
time, then, when the war and the continental blockade were at an end,
when each and every one came pouring on to the Continent, did the star
of Byron begin to shine on the European horizon; but, instead of
appearing as a sublime and bountiful star, it appeared surrounded by
dark and ominous clouds.
Lamartine, who was then travelling in Switzerland, was able to find in
this sad state of things materials for his fine poem "Meditation," and
for doubts whether Byron was "an angel, or a demon," according to the
manner in which he was viewed, be it as a poet or as a man; and, as if
all this were not enough, a host of bad writings were attributed to his
pen, which brought forth the following expressions in a letter to
Murray, his publisher:--
"I had hoped that some other lie would have replaced and succeeded to
the thousand and one falsehoods amassed during the winter. I can forgive
all that is said of or against me, but not what I am made to say or sing
under my own name. I have quite enough to answer for my own writings. It
would be too much even for Job to bear what he has not said. I believe
that the Arabian patriarch, when he wished his enemies had written a
book, did not go so far as to be willing to sign his name on the first
page."
But the public mind was so disposed to look at Byron in the light of a
demon, as traced by Lamartine, that when some young scattered-brain
youth published out of vanity, or perhaps for speculative motives,
another monstrous invention, in the hope of passing it off as a work of
Byron, he actually succeeded for some time in his object without being
discovered.
"Strange destiny both of books and their authors!" exclaims the writer
of the "Essai sur Lord Byron," published in 1823,--"an evidently
apocryphal production, which was at once seen not to be genuine by all
persons of taste, notwithstanding the forgery of the title, has
contributed as much to make Byron known in France as have his best
poems. A certain P---- had impudence enough to attribute indirectly to
the noble lord himself the absurd and disgusting tale of the 'Vampire,'
which Galignani, in Paris, hastened to publish as an acknowledged work
of Byron. Upon this Lord Byron hastened to remonstrate with Messieurs
Galignani; but unfortunately too late, and after the reputation of the
book was already widespread. Our theatres appropriated the subject, and
the story of Lord Ruthven swelled into two volumes which created some
sensation."[14]
Goethe also believed the novels to be true stories, and was especially
impressed with "Glenarvon."[15] It is reported that he became jealous
of Byron on the appearance of the poem of "Manfred." If he were not, it
is at least certain that the pagan patriarch never could sympathize with
the new generation of Christian geniuses.
On the 7th of June, however, of the year 1820, Byron writes as follows
to Murray, from Ravenna:--
"Inclosed is something which will interest you, to wit, the opinion of
the greatest man of Germany, perhaps of Europe, upon one of the great
men of your advertisements (all 'famous hands,' as Jacob Tonson used to
say of his ragamuffins)--in short, a critique of Goethe's upon
'Manfred.' There is the original, an English translation, and an Italian
one; keep them all in your archives, for the opinions of such a man as
Goethe, whether favorable or not, are always interesting; and this more
so, as being favorable. His 'Faust' I never read, for I don't know
German; but Matthew Monk Lewis, in 1816, at Geneva, translated most of
it to me _viva voce_, and I was naturally much struck with it: but it
was the 'Steinbach,' and the 'Yungfrau,' and something else, much more
than 'Faustus,' that made me write 'Manfred.' The first scene, however,
and that of 'Faustus' are very similar."
One can scarcely conceive how so great a mind as that of Goethe could
have been duped by such mystifications. And yet this is what he wrote at
that time in a German paper relative to Byron's "Manfred:"--
"We find in this tragedy the quintessence of the most astonishing talent
borne to be its own tormentor. The character of Lord Byron's life and
poetry hardly permits a just and equitable appreciation. He has often
enough confessed what it is that torments him. He has repeatedly
portrayed it, and scarcely any one feels compassion for this intolerable
suffering over which he is ever laboriously ruminating. There are,
properly speaking, two females whose phantoms forever haunt him, and
which, in this piece also, perform principal parts, one under the name
of Astarte, the other without form or actual presence, and merely a
voice. Of the horrid occurrence which took place with the former the
following is related. When a bold and enterprising young man, he won the
affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered the amour, and
murdered his wife; but the murderer was the same night found dead in
the street, and there was no one to whom any suspicion could be
attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and these spirits haunted
him all his life after.
"This romantic incident is rendered highly probable by innumerable
allusions to it in his poems."
And Moore adds:--"The grave confidence with which the venerable critic
traces the fancies of his brother poet to real persons and events,
making no difficulty even of a double murder at Florence, to furnish
grounds for his theory, affords an amusing instance of the disposition,
so prevalent throughout Europe, to picture Byron as a man full of
marvels and mysteries, as well in his life as his poetry. To these
exaggerated or wholly false notions of him, the numerous fictions palmed
upon the world, of his romantic tours and wonderful adventures in places
he never saw, and with persons who never existed, have, no doubt,
considerably contributed, and the consequence is, so utterly out of
truth and nature are the representations of his life and character long
current upon the Continent, that it may be questioned whether the real
'flesh and blood' hero of these pages (the social, practical-minded,
and, with all his faults and eccentricities, English Lord Byron) may
not, to the over-exalted imaginations of most of his foreign admirers,
appear only an ordinary, unromantic, and prosaic personage."
Then, quoting some of the falsehoods which were spread everywhere about
Byron, Moore says:--
"Of this kind are the accounts, filled with all sorts of circumstantial
wonders, of his residence in the island of Mytilene; his voyages to
Sicily, to Ithaca, with the Countess Guiccioli, etc. But the most
absurd, perhaps, of all these fabrications are the stories told by
Pouqueville, of the poet's religious conferences in the cell of Father
Paul, at Athens; and the still more unconscionable fiction in which Rizo
has indulged, in giving the details of a pretended theatrical scene, got
up (according to this poetical historian) between Lord Byron and the
Archbishop of Arta, at the tomb of Botzaris, at Missolonghi."
As the numerous causes which led to the false judgment of Byron's true
character never ceased to exist during his lifetime, one consequence has
been that those who never knew him have never been able to arrive at
the truth of matters concerning him. The contrast which existed between
the real and imaginary personage was such as to cause the greatest
astonishment to all those who, having hitherto adopted the received
notions about him, at last came to know him at Ravenna, at Pisa, at