My Recollections of Lord Byron
Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe,
And from its immortality look forth
In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,
Imperishably pure beyond all things below."
As a note to the above, Byron writes:
"Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain
attempt to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus
Coecina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago; it is thus:
"JULIA ALPINULA:
HIC JACEO.
INFELICIS PATRIS, INFELIX PROLES.
DEAE AVENTIAE SACERDOS.
EXORARE PATRIS NECEM NON POTUI:
MALE MORI IN FATIS ILLE ERAT.
VIXI ANNOS XXIII.
"I know," adds Byron, "of no human composition so affecting as this, nor
a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions which
ought not to perish, and to which we turn with a true and healthy
tenderness."
His father having died in 1793, when Byron was only four years of age,
he could not know him; but to show how keen were his sentiments toward
his memory, I must transcribe a note of Murray's after the following
lines in "Hours of Idleness:"--
"Stern Death forbade my orphan youth to share
The tender guidance of a father's care;
Can rank, or e'en a guardian's name supply
The love which glistens in a father's eye?"
"In all the biographies which have yet been published of Byron," remarks
Murray, "undue severity has been the light by which the character of
Byron's father has been judged. Like his son, he was unfortunately
brought up by a mother only. Admiral Byron, his father, being compelled
by his duties to live away from his family, the son was brought up in a
French military academy, which was not likely at that time to do his
morals much good. He passed from school into the Coldstream Guards,
where he was launched into every species of temptation imaginable, and
likely to present themselves to a young man of singular beauty, and heir
to a fine name, in the metropolis of England."
The unfortunate intrigue, of which so much has been said, as if it had
compromised his reputation as a man of honor, took place when he was
just of age, and he died in France at the age of thirty-five. One can
hardly understand why the biographers of Byron have insisted upon
depreciating the personal qualities of his father, apart from the
positively injurious and wicked assertions made against him in memoirs
of Lord Byron's life, and in reviews of such memoirs.
Some severe reflections of this kind having found their way into the
preface to a French translation of Byron's works, which appeared shortly
before the latter's departure for Greece, called for an expostulation by
the son himself on behalf of his father, in a letter addressed to Mr.
Coulmann, who had been charged to offer to the poet the homage of the
French literary men of the day. This letter is interesting in more than
one particular, as it re-establishes in their true light several facts
wrongly stated with regard to Byron's family, and because it is,
perhaps, the last letter which Byron wrote from Italy. It is quoted _in
extenso_ in the chapter entitled "Byron's Life in Italy."[27] I can only
repeat here the words which apply more particularly to his father:--
"The author of the essay (M. Pichot) has cruelly calumniated my father.
Far from being brutal, he was, according to the testimony of all those
who knew him, extremely amiable, and of a lively character, though
careless and dissipated. He had the reputation of being a good officer,
and had proved himself such in America. The facts themselves belie the
assertion. It is not by brutal means that a young officer seduces and
elopes with a marchioness, and then marries two heiresses in succession.
It is true that he was young, and very handsome, which is a great point.
"His first wife, Lady Conyers, Marchioness of Carmarthen, did not die of
a broken heart, but of an illness which she contracted because she
insisted on following my father out hunting before she had completely
recovered from her confinement, immediately after the birth of my sister
Augusta. His second wife, my mother, who claims every respect, had, I
assure you, far too proud a nature ever to stand ill-treatment from any
body, and would have proved it had it been the case. I must add, that my
father lived a long time in Paris, where he saw a great deal of the
Marechal de Biron, the commander of the French Guards, who, from the
similarity of our names, and of our Norman extraction, believed himself
to be our cousin. My father died at thirty-seven years of age, and
whatever faults he may have had, cruelty was not one of them. If the
essay were to be circulated in England, I am sure that the part relating
to my father would pain my sister Augusta even more than myself, and she
does not deserve it; for there is not a more angelic being on earth.
Both Augusta and I have always cherished the memory of our father as
much as we cherished one another,--a proof, at least, that we had no
recollection of any harsh treatment on his part. If he dissipated his
fortune, that concerns us, since we are his heirs; but until we reproach
him with the fact, I know of no one who has a right to do so.
BYRON."
From all that has been said it will be seen that Byron's sensitive heart
was eminently adapted to family affections. Affection alone made him
happy, and his nature craved for it. He was often rather influenced by
passion than a seeker of its pleasures, and whenever he found relief in
the satisfaction of his passions, it was only because there was real
affection at the bottom,--an affection which tended to give him those
pleasures of intimacy in which he delighted.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 27: This chapter is to be published separately, at no very
distant period, by the author.--_Note of the translator._]
CHAPTER VIII.
QUALITIES OF LORD BYRON'S HEART.
Gratitude,--that honesty of the soul which is even greater than social
honesty, since it is regulated by no express law, and that most uncommon
virtue, since it proscribes selfishness,--was pre-eminently conspicuous
in Lord Byron.
To forget a kindness done, a service rendered, or a good-natured
proceeding, was for him an impossibility. The memories of his heart were
even more astonishing than those of his mind.
His affection for his nurses, for his masters, for all those who had
taken care of him when a boy, is well known; and how great was his
gratitude for all that Doctor Drury had done for him! His early poems
are full of it. His grateful affection for Drury he felt until his last
hour.
This quality was so strong in him, that it not only permitted him to
forget all past offenses, but even rendered him blind to any fresh
wrongs. It sufficed to have been kind to him once, to claim his
indulgence. The reader remembers that Jeffrey had been the most cruel of
the persecutors of his early poems, but that later he had shown more
impartiality. This act of justice appeared to Byron a generous act, and
one sufficient for him in return to forget all the harm done to him in
the past. We accordingly find in his memoranda of 1814:--
"It does honor to the editor (Jeffrey), because he once abused me: many
a man will retract praise; none but a high-spirited mind will revoke its
censure, or _can_ praise the man it has once attacked."
Yet Jeffrey, who was eminently a critic, gave fresh causes of
displeasure to Byron at a later period, and then it was that he forgot
the present on recalling the past.
In speaking of this Scotch critic, he considered himself quite disarmed.
When at Venice, he heard that he had been attacked about Coleridge in
the "Edinburgh Review," he wrote as follows to Murray:--
"The article in the 'Edinburgh Review' on Coleridge, I have not seen;
but whether I am attacked in it or not, or in any other of the same
journal, I shall never think ill of Mr. Jeffrey on that account, nor
forget that his conduct toward me has been certainly most handsome
during the last four or more years."[28]
And instead of complaining of this attack, he laughed at it with
Moore:--
"The 'Edinburgh Review' had attacked me.... Et tu, Jeffrey! 'there is
nothing but roguery in villainous man.' But I absolve him of all
attacks, present and future; for I think he had already pushed his
clemency in my behoof to the utmost, and I shall always think well of
him. I only wonder he did not begin before, as my domestic destruction
was a fine opening for all who wished to avail themselves of the
opportunity."[29]
His great sympathy for Walter Scott became quite enthusiastic, owing
also to a feeling of gratitude for a service rendered to him by Scott.
Shortly after his arrival in Italy, and the publication of the third
canto of "Childe Harold," public opinion in England went completely
against him, and an article appeared in the "Quarterly Review," by an
anonymous pen, in his defense. Byron was so touched by this, that he
endeavored to find out the name of its writer.
"I can not," he said to Murray, "express myself better than in the words
of my sister Augusta, who (speaking of it) says, 'that it is written in
a spirit of the most feeling and kind nature.' It is, however, something
more: it seems to me (as far as the subject of it may be permitted to
judge) to be very well written as a composition, and I think will do the
journal no discredit; because, even those who condemn its partiality,
must praise its generosity. The temptations to take another and a less
favorable view of the question have been so great and numerous, that
what with public opinion, politics, etc., he must be a gallant as well
as a good man, who has ventured in that place, and at this time, to
write such an article even anonymously.
"Perhaps, some day or other, you will know or tell me the writer's name.
Be assured, had the article been a harsh one, I should not have asked
it."
He afterward learnt that the article had been written by Walter Scott,
and his sympathy was so increased by his gratitude for the service
rendered, that he never after seemed happier than when he could extol
Scott's talents and kindness.
Gratitude, which often weighs upon one as a duty, so captivated his
soul, that the remembrance of the kindness done to him was wont to turn
into an affectionate devotion, which time could not change. Long after
the appearance of the article, he wrote as follows to Scott from Pisa:--
"I owe to you far more than the usual obligations for the courtesies of
literature and common friendship, for you went out of your way in 1817
to do me a service, when it required, not merely kindness, but courage
to do so; to have been mentioned by you, in such a manner, would have
been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a time, 'when all the
world and his wife,' as the proverb goes, were trying to trample upon
me, was something still more complimentary to my self-esteem. Had it
been a common criticism, however eloquent or panegyrical, I should have
felt pleased, undoubtedly, and grateful, but not to the extent which the
extraordinary good-heartedness of the whole proceeding must induce in
any mind capable of such sensations. The very tardiness of this
acknowledgment will, at least, show that I have not forgotten the
obligation; and I can assure you, that my sense of it has been out at
compound interest during the delay."
Gratitude, with him, was oftentimes a magnifying-glass which he used
when he had to appreciate certain merits. No doubt Gifford was a
judicious, clear-sighted, and impartial critic, but Byron extolled him
as an oracle of good taste, and submitted like a child to his decisions.
Gratitude levelled every social condition in his eyes, as we may see by
his correspondence with Murray, where the proud aristocrat considers his