My Recollections of Lord Byron
he was wont say, "is the most ancient of worships; and as for our own
heresy, it unquestionably had its origin in vice. With regard to those
difficulties which baffle our understanding, are they more easily
explained by Protestants than by Catholics?
"Catholicism, at least, is a consoling religion, and its belief in
Purgatory conciliates the justice of the Almighty with His goodness. Why
has Protestantism given up so human a belief? To intercede for and do
good to beings whom we have loved here below, is to be not altogether
separated from them."
"I often regretted," he said on one occasion at Pisa, "that I was not
born a Catholic. Purgatory is a consoling doctrine. I am surprised that
the Reformers gave it up, or that they did not at least substitute for
it something equally consoling." "It is," he remarked to Shelley, "a
refinement of the doctrine of transmigration taught by your stupid
philosophers."
It was, therefore, chiefly this doctrine, and his abhorrence of Calvin,
which attracted Byron toward Catholicism. A comparison was made before
him, on one occasion, between Catholicism and Protestantism. "What
matters," said Byron, "that Protestantism has decreased the number of
its obligations, and reduced its articles of faith? Both religions
proceed from the same origin,--authority and examination. It matters
little that the measures of either be different; but why does the
Protestant deny to the Catholic the privilege, which he claims more than
he uses, of free examination? Catholics also claim the right of proving
the soundness of their belief, and, therefore, admit likewise the right
of discussion and examination. As for authority, if the Catholic obeys
the Church and considers it infallible, does not the Protestant do the
same with the Bible? And while recognizing the authority of the Church
on the one hand, on the other he claims a right to free examination,
does he not incur the liability of being thought inconsistent? And,
after all, is not the authority of the Church the better of the two?
There seems to greater peace for the mind who confides in it, than in
the belief in the authority of a book, where one must ever seek the way
to salvation by becoming a theologian, as it were. And is it not fairer
to have certain books, such, for instance, as the 'Apocalypse,'
explained to us by the Church, than to have them expounded by people
more or less well informed or prejudiced?"
Such were Byron's views, if not his very words. Before Byron left for
Greece, Kennedy had several other conversations with him; but as the
limits of this chapter do not allow of my entering into them, I will
merely add that they all prove the great charm of Byron's mind, and the
gentleness of his nature in dealing with persons of contrary opinions to
his own, but who argued honestly and from conviction. So it came about
that, although the most docile of the doctor's pupils, he refused to
change his views concerning eternal punishment. During one of the last
of Kennedy's visits to him, he found several young men with Lord Byron,
and among these M. S----, and M. F----. The former, seated at one corner
of the table, was explaining to Count Gamba certain views which were any
thing but orthodox. Lord Byron turned to the doctor, and said:--
"Have you heard what S---- said? I assure you, he has not made one step
toward conversion; he is worse than I am."
M. F---- having joined in the conversation, and said that there were
many contradictions in the Scriptures, Byron replied:--
"This is saying too much: I am a sufficiently good believer not to
discover any contradictions in the Scriptures which can not, upon
reflection, be explained; what most troubles me is eternal punishment: I
am not prepared to believe in so terrible a dogma, and this is my only
difference with the doctor's views; but he will not allow that I am an
orthodox Christian, unless I agree with him in that matter."
This was said half-seriously, half-jestingly, but in so amiable a
manner, and in a tone which was so free from mockery, that even the
austere doctor was fain to forgive him for entertaining such erroneous
views.
When Byron left for Missolonghi, he carried away with him a real regard
for Kennedy, notwithstanding their differences of opinion. Kennedy, on
the other hand, had conceived for Byron the greatest liking, and,
indeed, shows it in his book. His portrait of Lord Byron is so good,
that we have thought it right to reproduce it, together with his general
impressions in another chapter.
Byron's death plunged Kennedy into the deepest grief; and it was then
that he gathered all his conversations which he had had with Lord Byron
into one volume, which he published. But his friends, or so-called
friends, showed themselves hostile to the publication. Some feared that
he would exaggerate either Lord Byron's faith or want of it, and others,
less disinterested, apprehended the revelation of some of their own
views, which might fail to meet with the approval of the public at home.
When, therefore, Kennedy applied to several of these who were at
Missolonghi to know in what religious frame of mind Byron died, he met
with rebukes of all kinds, and his credit was attacked by articles in
newspapers, endeavoring to show that Byron had all along been laughing
at the doctor. All these attacks might have influenced Kennedy's picture
of Byron, but it will be seen that, with the exception of a few
puritanical touches, the artist's picture is not unworthy of the
original.
In the preface to his book, the doctor, not knowing whether he should
make use of the conversation he had had with Byron to give a greater
interest to his work, the object of which was to be of use to the
public, answers his own objections in the following words:--
"If my doing so would injure his character or fame, there could not be a
moment's hesitation in deciding on the baseness of the measure. But, as
far as I can judge, a true statement of what occurred will place his
lordship's character in a fairer light than he has himself done in many
of his writings, or than can, perhaps, be done by a friendly biographer.
The brightest parts of his life were those which he spent in Cephalonia
and Missolonghi, and the fact of his wishing to hear Christianity
explained by one, simply because he believed him to be sincere,
confessing that he derived no happiness from his unsettled notions on
religion, expressing a desire to be convinced, and his carrying with
him religious books, and promising to give the subject a more attentive
study than he had ever done, will throw a certain lustre over the darker
side of his fame, ... and deprive deists of the right of quoting him as
a cool, deliberate rejecter of Christianity."
To these very significant declarations, coming as they do from so
conscientious a believer as Kennedy, I shall add the testimony of a few
persons who have been conspicuous by their hostility to Byron. Mr. Galt
is one of these, and yet he says:--
"I am persuaded, nevertheless, that to class him among absolute infidels
were to do injustice to his memory, and that he has suffered
uncharitably in the opinion of the 'rigidly righteous,' who, because he
had not attached himself to any particular sect or congregation, assumed
that he was an adversary to religion. To claim for him any credit as a
pious man would be absurd; but, to suppose he had not as deep an
interest as other men 'in his soul's health and welfare,' was to impute
to him a nature which can not exist."
And elsewhere, after showing, first, what Byron did not believe in;
secondly, what he would have liked to believe, but which had not
sufficient grounds to satisfy his reason; thirdly, what he did actually
believe, Mr. Galt adds:--
"Whatever was the degree of Lord Byron's dubiety as to points of faith
and doctrine, he could not be accused of gross ignorance, nor described
as animated by any hostile feeling against religion."
The same biographer says elsewhere:--
"That Byron was deeply imbued with the essence of natural piety; that he
often felt the power and being of a God thrilling in all his frame, and
glowing in his bosom, I declare my thorough persuasion; and that he
believed in some of the tenets and in the philosophy of Christianity, as
they influence the spirit and conduct of men, I am as little disposed to
doubt; especially if those portions of his works which only trench upon
the subject, and which bear the impression of fervor and earnestness,
may be admitted as evidence. But he was not a member of any particular
church."
Medwin, who might be considered to be an authority, before his vanity
was wounded by the publication of writings wherein his good faith was
questioned, and it was shown that Lord Byron had no great esteem for his
talents, says,--
"It is difficult to judge, from the contradictory nature of his
writings, what the religious opinions of Lord Byron were. But on the
whole, if he were occasionally skeptical, yet his wavering never
amounted to a disbelief in the divine Founder of Christianity. 'I always
took great delight,' observed he, 'in the English Cathedral service. It
can not fail to inspire every man who feels at all, with devotion.
Notwithstanding which, Christianity is not the best source of
inspiration for a poet. No poet should be tied down to a direct
profession of faith. Metaphysics open a vast field. Nature and
heterodoxy present to the poet's imagination fertile sources from which
Christianity forbids him to draw;' and he exemplified his meaning by a
review of the works of Tasso and Milton.
"'Here is a little book somebody has sent me about Christianity," he
said to Shelley and me, 'that has made me very uncomfortable. The
reasoning seems to me very strong, the proofs are very staggering. I
don't think you can answer it, Shelley; at least, I am sure I can't,
and, what is more, I don't wish to do so.'"
Speaking of Gibbon, he says,--"L---- B---- thought the question set at
rest in the 'History of the Decline and Fall,' but I am not so easily
convinced. It is not a matter of volition to unbelieve. Who likes to own
that he has been a fool all his life,--to unlearn all that he has been
taught in his youth? Or can think that some of the best men that ever
lived have been fools?" And again,--
"You believe in Plato's three principles, why not in the Trinity? One is
not more mystical than the other. I don't know why I am considered an
enemy to religion, and an unbeliever. I disowned the other day that I
was of Shelley's school in metaphysics, though I admired his poetry."
"Although," says Lord Harrington, "Byron was no Christian, he was a firm
believer in the existence of a God. It is, therefore, equally remote
from truth to represent him as either an atheist or a Christian. He was,
as he has often told me, a confirmed Deist." Further on, the same
writer adds:--
"Byron always maintained that he was a skeptic, but he was not so at
all. During a ride at Cephalonia, which lasted two or three hours almost
without a pause, he began to talk about 'Cain' and his religious
opinions, and he condemned all atheists, and maintained the principles
of Deism." Mr. Finlay, who used to see Lord Byron in Greece, says, in a
letter to his friend Lord Harrington:--
"Lord Byron liked exceedingly to converse upon religious topics, but I
never once heard him openly profess to be a Deist."
These quotations are sufficiently numerous, and all point to the same
conclusion, but I must quote the words of Gamba before I conclude this
subject. He was, as it is known, the great friend of Byron, and alas!
sacrificed his noble self, at the age of twenty-four, to the cause of
Greece. To Kennedy's inquiries respecting Lord Byron's religious
tendencies at Missolonghi, P. Gamba replied as follows:--