My Recollections of Lord Byron
opposed to the idea upon which his entire system is founded. They must
be merged in the energy and greatness of intellect of the poetical
giant.
Unfortunately for M. Taine, facts speak too forcibly and too
inopportunely against him. Not one of the causes which he mentions, not
one of the conclusions which he draws in respect to Lord Byron's
character as a poet, and as a mere mortal, are to be relied upon. He,
who contends that he possesses pre-eminently the power of comprehending
the man and the author, insists that Lord Byron was no exception to the
rule, though his best biographer, Moore, most distinctly opposes this
opinion:--
"In Lord Byron, however, this sort of pivot of character was almost
wholly wanting.... So various indeed, and contradictory, were his
attributes, both moral and intellectual, that he may be pronounced to
have been not one, but many; nor would it be any great exaggeration of
the truth to say that out of the mere partition of the properties of his
single mind a plurality of characters, all different and all vigorous,
might have been furnished."
On the other hand, M. Taine, who generally pays little attention to the
opinion of others, gives as Lord Byron's predominant characteristic that
which phrenologists denominate "_combativite_." Which of the two is
likely to be right? If Moore is right, Lord Byron must have been almost
wanting in consistency of character; if Taine is correct, then Byron was
really of a most passionate nature. But as we have proved that Lord
Byron was not inconsistent, as Moore declares, except in cases where
this want of consistency did not interfere with his character as a man,
and, on the other hand, that no one had a less combative disposition, we
are forced to arrive at the conclusion that if Byron had one dominant
passion, it was most decidedly not that of "_combativite_." It is
impossible to deny that if in his early youth signs of resistance may
have appeared in his character, yet these had so completely disappeared
with the development of his intellect and of his moral sentiments that
no one more than himself hated controversies and discussions of all
kinds. In fact, no one was more obedient to the call of reason and of
friendship; and his whole life is an illustration of it.
In order that Lord Byron should represent the English type, even if we
adopt M. Taine's philosophy, he should have had a deal of Saxon blood in
his veins. But this was not the case. It is the Norman blood which
predominates. He may be said to have been almost borne in France, and to
be of French extraction by his father, and of Scotch origin through his
mother. The total absence of the Saxon element, which was so remarkable
in him, was equally noticeable in his tastes, mind, sympathies, and
inclinations.
He loved France very dearly, and Pouqueville tells a story, that when
Ali Pasha had got over the fright caused by the announcement that a
young traveller, named Byron (his name had been pronounced Bairon, which
made the Pasha believe he was a Turk in disguise), wished to see him, he
received the young lord very cordially. As he had just conquered Preveza
from the French, Ali Pasha thought he should be pleasing the Englishman
by announcing the fact to him. Byron replied--"But I am no enemy of
France. Quite the contrary, I love France."
It might almost be said that he was quite the opposite of what a Saxon
should be. Lord Byron could not remain, and, actually, lived a very
short time, in England. His habits were not English, nor his mode of
living. Far from over-eating, as the English, according to M. Taine, are
said to do, Byron did not eat enough. He was as sober as a monk. His
favorite food was vegetables. His abstinence from meat dated from his
youth. His body was little adapted to the material wants of his country.
This remarkable sobriety was the effect of taste and principle, and was
in no ways broken by excesses which might have acted as compensations.
The excesses of which M. Taine speaks must have been at the utmost some
slight deviations from the real Pythagorean abstinence which he had laid
down as the rule of his life. Abroad, where he lived almost all his
life, he had none of the habits of his countrymen. He lived everywhere
as a cosmopolitan. All that his body craved for was cleanliness, and
this only served to improve his health and the marvellous beauty with
which God had gifted him.
Lord Byron was so little partial to the characteristic features and
customs of the country in which he was born--"but where he would not
die"--that the then so susceptible _amour-propre_ of his countrymen
reproached him with it as a most unpardonable fault.
It was not he who would have placed England and the English above all
foreigners, and Frenchmen in particular; nor was it he who would have
declared them to be the princes of the human race. Justice and truth
forbade his committing himself to such statements in the name of
national pride.
Are the animal rather than moral, and moral rather than intellectual
instincts of energy and will, which M. Taine so much admires in the
Saxon race, defects or qualities in his eyes? It is difficult to say,
for one never knows when he is praising or when he is condemning.
Judging by the very material causes from which he derives this
energy,--namely, the constitution of the people, their climate, their
frequent craving for food, their way of cooking the food they eat, their
drinks, and all the consequences of these necessities visible in the
absence of all sense of delicacy, of all appreciation of the fine arts,
and the comprehension of philosophy,--he must evidently intend to
depreciate them.
But as regards Lord Byron in particular, it is equally certain that he
has no intention of depreciating him. For him alone he finds expressions
of great admiration and real sympathy. He allows him to represent the
whole nation, and to be the incarnation of the English character; but on
one condition,--that of ruling it as its sovereign. Thanks to this
supremacy, the poet escapes more or less the exigencies of M. Taine's
theories.
M. Taine, however, is not subject to the weakness of enthusiasm.
Judging, as he does, in the light of a lover of nature, both of the
merits of virtue and of the demerits of vice, which to him are but fatal
results of the constitution, the climate, and the soil--"in a like
manner will sugar and vitriol"--why care about Lord Byron doing this or
the other _rightly_ or _wrongly_ rather than any one else? Nature
follows its necessary track, seeks its equilibrium, and ends by finding
it.
What pleases him in Lord Byron, is the facility which is offered to him
of proving the truth of this fatalist philosophy which appears at every
page of his book.
No one more than Byron could serve the purpose of M. Taine, and become,
as it were, the basis of his philosophical operations.
His powerful genius, his short but eventful existence, which did not
give time for the cooling down of the ardor of youth, to harmonize it
with the tempered dictates of mature age,--the universality of his mind,
which can furnish arguments to every species of critics,--all
contributed wonderfully to the realization of M. Taine's object.
Thus, thanks to the deceptive but generally received portrait which is
said to be that of Lord Byron, and to his identification with the heroes
of his poems, and in particular with "Manfred" and "Childe Harold,"
aided by the impossibility which the human mind finds in estimating
moral subjects as it would a proposition of "Euclid," M. Taine has been
able to make use of a great name, and to make a fine demonstration of
his system, to call Byron the interpreter of the British genius, and his
poetry the expression of the man himself.
In many respects, however, he has not been able to act in this way
without violating historical facts. This is what I hope to point out in
these pages, the object of which is to describe Byron as he was, and to
substitute, without any derogation to his sublimity of character, the
reality for the fiction created by M. Taine. To refute so brilliant and
so powerful a writer, my only means is to proceed in this work with the
help of positive proofs of the statements which I make, and by invoking
unimpeachable testimonies. These alone constitute weighty arguments,
since they all contribute to produce the same impression. In order that
truth may be restored to history, I shall adopt a system diametrically
opposed to that of M. Taine, or rather I shall abstain from all systems,
and from all pretensions to literary merit, and confine myself entirely
to facts and to reason.
The reader will judge whether I shall be able to accomplish this object;
he will see how really unimportant are the causes which cast a shade
upon the memory of Byron, and how careful one should be not to give
credit too implicitly to the sincerity of that hypocritical praise which
several of his biographers have bestowed upon him. They have, as it
were, generally, taken a kind of pleasure in dwelling upon his age, his
rank, and other extenuating circumstances, as a cover to their censure,
just as if Byron ever required their forgiveness. In thus searching into
the secrets of his heart, and analyzing his life, the reader will soon
be obliged to admit, that if Byron, in common with others, had a few of
the faults of youth, he in return had a host of virtues which belonged
only to him. In short, if Byron is received in the light in which he was
esteemed by those who knew him personally, he will still constitute one
of the finest, most amiable, and grandest characters of his century. As
for ourselves, in summing up the merits of this very humble, but very
conscientious work, we can only repeat with delight the beautiful words
in which Moore sums up his own estimate of Lord Byron's worth: "Should
the effect of my humble labors be to clear away some of those mists that
hung round my friend, and show him, in most respects, as worthy of love
as he was, in all, of admiration, then will the chief and sole aim of
this work have been accomplished."[16]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 10: When political events obliged Count Gamba to quit Romagna,
he thought at first of going with his family to take up his abode at
Geneva.
Lord Byron, on learning this, through a letter from the Countess
Guiccioli, who had rejoined her family at Florence, disapproved of their
design, and begged Shelley--then on a visit to him at Ravenna--to
express for him his disapprobation, and state the reasons of it. Shelley
addressed the following letter in Italian to the countess, and the
project was abandoned:--
"MADAM,--At the request of my friend, Lord Byron, I consider it my duty
to offer you some considerations relative to the proposed journey to
Geneva, so as to give you an idea of the undesirable results likely to
follow. I flatter myself that you will accept this request of his,
together with the motives leading me to acquiesce, as an excuse for the
liberty taken by a total stranger. In acting thus, the sole object I
have in view is my friend's peace of mind, and that of those in whom he
is so deeply interested. I have no other motive, nor can entertain any
other; and let it suffice, in proof of my perfect sincerity, to assure
you that I also have suffered from an intolerant clergy at home, and
from tyranny, and that I like your family, have met with persecution and
calumny as my sole reward for love of country.
"Allow me, madam, to state the reasons for which it seems to me that
Geneva would not be an appropriate residence for your family. Your
circumstances offer some analogy with those existing between my family
and Lord Byron in the summer of 1816. Our dwellings were close together;