My Recollections of Lord Byron
their friendship a like friendship with his own? Has it ever gone so far
as to make sacrifices for his sake, and has not Lord Byron ever given
more as a friend than he ever received in return? Had he found in his
friendship among men that reciprocity of feeling which he ever found
among women, would so many injuries and calumnies have been heaped upon
his head? Would not his friends, had they shown a little more warmth of
affection, have been able to silence those numerous rivals who rendered
his life a burden to him? Had they been conscientious in their opinions,
they would certainly not have drawn upon them the rather bitter lines in
"Childe Harold:"--
"I do believe,
Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave
Snares for the failing; I would also deem
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve,
That two, or one, are almost what they seem,
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream."
And later, in "Don Juan," Byron would not have said with a smile, but
also with a pain which sprang from the heart:--
"O Job! you had two friends: one's quite enough,
Especially when we are ill at ease;
They are but bad pilots when the weather's rough,
Doctors less famous for their cures than fees.
Let no man grumble when his friends fall off,
As they will do like leaves at the first breeze;
When your affairs come round, one way or t'other,
Go to the coffee-house and take another."
It is, however, also true that he would not have had the opportunity of
showing us so perfectly the beauty of his mind, and his admirable
constancy, notwithstanding the conduct of those on whom he had bestowed
his friendship. This constancy is shown even by his own words, for
immediately after the lines quoted above, he adds:--
"But this is not my maxim; had it been,
Some heart-aches had been spared me."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 24: Mossop, a contemporary of Garrick, famous for his
performance of Zanga.]
[Footnote 25: His marriage.]
[Footnote 26: Lord Holland's youngest son, in speaking of Byron, styled
him "the gentleman with the beautiful voice."]
CHAPTER VII.
LORD BYRON CONSIDERED AS A FATHER, AS A BROTHER, AND AS A SON.
HIS GOODNESS SHOWN BY THE STRENGTH OF HIS INSTINCTIVE AFFECTIONS.
LORD BYRON AS A FATHER.
If, as a great moralist has said, our natural affections have power only
upon sensitive and virtuous natures, but are despised by men of corrupt
and dissipated habits, then must we find a proof again of Lord Byron's
excellence in the influence which his affections exercised over him.
His tenderness for his child, and for his sister, was like a ray of
sunshine which lit up his whole heart, and in the moments of greatest
depression prevented desolation from completely absorbing his nature.
His thoughts were never far from the objects of his affection.
CXV.
"My daughter! with thy name this song begun;
My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end;
I see thee not, I hear thee not, but none
Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend
To whom the shadows of far years extend:
Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold,
My voice shall with thy future visions blend.
And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold,
A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.
CXVI.
"To aid thy mind's development, to watch
Thy dawn of little joys, to sit and see
Almost thy very growth, to view thee catch
Knowledge of objects,--wonders yet to thee!
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,
And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,
This, it should seem, was not reserved for me,
Yet this was in my nature: as it is,
I know not what is there, yet something like to this.
CXVIII.
* * * * * * *
"Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er the sea
And from the mountains where I now respire,
Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,
As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to me."
Who ever read "Childe Harold" and was not touched by the delightful
stanzas of the third canto,--a perfect _chef-d'oeuvre_ of tenderness
and kindness, inclosed, as it were, in another master-piece, like, were
it possible, a jewel found in a diamond?
Those only, however, who lived with him in Greece and in Italy are able
to bear witness to his paternal tenderness. This sentiment really
developed itself on his leaving England, and only appears from that time
forward in his poems. Byron loved all children, but his heart beat
really when he met children of Ada's age.
Hearing at Venice that Moore had lost a child, he wrote to him, "I enter
fully into your misery, for I feel myself entirely absorbed in my
children. I have such tenderness for my little Ada."
Both at Ravenna and at Pisa he was miserable if he did not hear from
Ada. Whenever he received any portraits of her or a piece of her hair,
these were solemn days of rejoicing for him, but they usually increased
his melancholy. When in Greece he heard of Ada's illness, he was seized
with such anxiety that he could no longer give his attention to any
thing. "His journal (which, by-the-by, was lost or destroyed after his
death) was interrupted on account of the news of his child's illness,"
says Count Gamba, in his narrative of Byron's last voyage to Greece.
The thought of his child was ever present to him when he wrote, and she
was the centre of all his hopes and his fears.
The persecution to which he was subjected for having written "Don Juan,"
having made him fear one day at Pisa that its effect upon his daughter
might be to diminish her affection for him, he said:--
"I am so jealous of my daughter's entire sympathy, that, were this work,
'Don Juan'--(written to while away hours of pain and sorrow),--to
diminish her affection for me, I would never write a word more; and
would to God I had not written a word of it!"
He likewise said that he was often wont to think of the time when his
daughter would know her father by his works. "Then," said he, "shall I
triumph, and the tears which my daughter will then shed, together with
the knowledge that she will share the feelings with which the various
allusions to herself and me have been written, will console me in my
darkest hours. Ada's mother may have enjoyed the smiles of her youth and
childhood, but the tears of her maturer age will be for me."
He distinctly foresaw that his daughter would be brought up to look
indifferently upon her father; but he never could have believed that
such means would be adopted, as were used, to alienate from him the
heart of his own child. We will give one instance only, mentioned by
Colonel Wildman, the companion and friend of Byron, who had bought
Newstead, of which he took the most religious care. Having in London
made the acquaintance of Ada, then Lady Lovelace, the colonel invited
her to pay a visit to the late residence of her illustrious father, and
she went to see it sixteen months before Byron's death. As Lady Lovelace
was looking over the library one morning, the colonel took a book of
poems and read out a poem with all the force of the soul and heart. Lady
Lovelace, in rapture with this poem, asked the name of its writer.
"There he is," said the colonel, pointing to a portrait of Byron,
painted by Phillips, which hung over the wall, and he accompanied his
gesture by certain remarks which showed what he felt at the ignorance of
the daughter. Lady Lovelace remained stupefied, and, from that moment, a
kind of revolution took place in her feelings toward her father. "Do not
think, colonel," she said, "that it is affectation in me to declare that
I have been brought up in complete ignorance of all that concerned my
father."
Never had Lady Lovelace seen even the writing of her father; and it was
Murray who showed it to her for the first time.
From that moment an enthusiasm for her father filled her whole soul. She
shut herself up for hours in the rooms which he had inhabited, and which
were still filled with the things which he had used. Here she devoted
herself to her favorite studies. She chose to sleep in the apartments
which were most particularly hallowed by the reminiscences of her
father, and appeared never to have been happier than during this stay at
Newstead, absorbed as she had become for the first time in all the glory
of him whose tenderness for her had been so carefully concealed from
her. From that time all appeared insipid and tasteless to her; existence
became a pain. Every thing told her of her father's renown, and nothing
could replace it. All these feelings so possessed her that she fell ill,
and when she was on the point of death she wrote to Colonel Wildman to
beg that she might be buried next to her illustrious father. There, in
the modest village church of Hucknell, lie the father and the daughter,
who, separated from one another during their lifetime, became united in
death, and thus were realized, in a truly prophetic way, the words which
close the admirable third canto of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." Words
of consolation for those who loved Byron, and whom religion and
philosophy inspire with hope; for they think that, despite his enemies,
this union of their mortal remains must be the symbol of their union
above, and that the prophetic sense of the words pronounced in the agony
of despair will be realized by an eternal happiness.
CXVII.
"Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,
I know that thou wilt love me; though my name
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught
With desolation, and a broken claim:
Though the grave closed between us,--'twere the same,
I know that thou wilt love me; though to drain
_My_ blood from out thy being were an aim
And an attainment,--all would be in vain,--
Still thou would'st love me, still that more than life retain."
LORD BYRON AS A BROTHER.
Fraternal love was no less conspicuous in him than his paternal
affection. It may be easily conceived how great must have been the
influence over one who cared so much for friends in general, of that
affection which is the perfection of love, and, at the same time, the
most delicate, peaceful, and charming of sentiments. Such a love has
neither misunderstandings to dread, nor misrepresentations to fear. It
is above the caprices, ennui, and changes which often rule the
friendships of our choice.
From his return from his first travels in the East, to the time of his
publishing the first two cantos of "Childe Harold," Byron may be said
not to have known his sister. The daughter of another mother, and older
by several years than himself,--living as she did with relations of her
mother, brought up as she was by her grandmother, Lady Carmarthen, and
married as she had been at an early age to the Hon. Colonel Leigh, Lord
Byron had had very few opportunities of seeing her. It was only on his
return from the East that he began to have some correspondence with her,
on the occasion of his publication of "Childe Harold." Notwithstanding
all these circumstances, which might tend to lessen in him his love for
his sister, his affection for her on the contrary increased.
The reader has observed that about this time, under the pressure of
repeated sorrows, a shade of misanthropy had spread itself over his
character, notwithstanding that such a failing was totally contrary to
his nature. The acquaintance with his sister helped greatly to dispel
this veil, and, thanks to it, he was able to get rid of the first
sorrowful impressions of youth.
His dear Augusta became the confidant of his heart; and his pen on the