My Recollections of Lord Byron
friends against friends, and pupils against masters.
Great minds in France have not been altogether free from it. Corneille,
Racine, Voltaire, became a prey to its disastrous influences. In England
Dryden, Addison, Swift, Shaftesbury, were its victims. So it has been
everywhere, and in Italy even Petrarch, the meek and excellent Petrarch,
was not exempted from it.
This moral infirmity is of so subtle a nature, that not only does it
injure those who are devoted to those works of the mind, which can not
be said to establish a solid claim to glory inasmuch as public opinion
is judge, but also those whose influence being confined to a more
limited sphere, should be less anxious about obtaining it. It finds so
easy an access into the souls of men, that it is said that even Plato
was jealous of Socrates, Aristotle of Plato, Leibnitz of Locke, and so
forth.
When we behold so many great minds at all times unable to avoid this
jealousy, and that we see nowadays jealousy animating the pen of some of
the best writers, and completely changing their moral sense, must we not
admire the great goodness of him whom, though living in such a heated
atmosphere of jealous rivalry, contrived wholly to escape its effects?
This right I claim for Lord Byron, that he was the least jealous of any
man, as the proofs which I shall bring forward will abundantly attest.
If Byron was jealous of the living, of whom could he have been so? Of
course of such who may have become his rivals in the sphere of
literature which he had adopted. When Byron appeared in the literary
world, those who were most in repute were Sir Walter Scott, Rogers,
Moore, Campbell, and the lakers Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and,
later, Shelley.
On one occasion, in 1813, Byron amused himself by tracing what he called
a "triangular gradus ad Parnassum," in which the names of the principal
poets then in renown are thus classified:--
SIR W. SCOTT,
ROGERS,
MORRE, CAMPBELL,
SOUTHEY, WORDSWORTH, COLERIDGE,
THE MANY
To know best his feelings with respect to his rivals, we must listen to
himself; and to preserve the order given in the triangle, let us begin
by Walter Scott. We read in Byron's memorandum of the 17th of September,
1813:--
"George Ellis and Murray have been talking something about Scott and me,
George _pro_ Scoto--and very right too. If they want to depose him, I
only wish they would not set me up as a competitor. Even if I had my
choice, I would rather be the Earl of Warwick than all the kings he ever
made! Jeffrey and Gifford I take to be the monarch-makers in poetry and
prose. I like Scott--and admire his works to what Mr. Braham calls
Entusymusy. All such stuff can only vex him, and do me no good."
And elsewhere: "I have not answered W. Scott's last letter, but I will.
I regret to hear from others that he has lately been unfortunate in
pecuniary involvements. He is undoubtedly the Monarch of Parnassus, and
the most English of bards."
When these expressions were written, Byron did not know Scott
personally; but notwithstanding his satire, of which he had often made a
generous retractation, he had always felt a great sympathy for Scott,
who, on the other hand, appeared to have forgotten the wound inflicted
by Byron's youthful pen, only to remember the latter's heartfelt
praises.
A few years after the publication of "English Bards" and just after that
of "Childe Harold," Byron and Sir W. Scott manifested a mutual desire to
make each other's acquaintance through the medium of Murray, who was
then travelling in Scotland. An exchange of letters full of mutual
generosity had taken place, when George IV., then regent, expressed the
wish to make Byron's acquaintance.
After speaking to him of "Childe Harold," in terms which Byron was
always proud to recall, the prince went on to speak of Walter Scott in
the most enthusiastic terms. Byron seemed almost as pleased as if the
praise had been addressed to himself, and hastened to make his
illustrious rival acquainted with the flattering words used by royalty
with regard to him.
It was only in the summer of 1815 that they became personally
acquainted. Scott was then passing through London on his way to France.
Their sympathy was mutual. Byron, who had been married seven months,
already foresaw that a storm was brewing in his domestic affairs, which
explains the mysterious melancholy, observed by Scott, upon the
countenance of his young friend. Scott's liveliness, however, always
brought about a return of Byron's spirits, and their meetings were
always very gay, "the gayest even," says Scott, "that I ever spent."
Byron's handsomeness produced a great impression upon Scott. "It is a
beauty," said he, "which causes one to reflect and to dream;" as if he
wished one to understand that he thought Byron's beauty superhuman.
"Report had prepared me to meet a man of peculiar habits and a quick
temper, and I had some doubt whether we were likely to suit each other
in society. I was most agreeably disappointed in this respect. I found
Lord Byron in the highest degree courteous, and even kind.
"Like the old heroes in Homer, we exchanged gifts: I gave Byron a
beautiful dagger mounted with gold, which had been the property of the
redoubted Elfi Bey. But I was to play the part of Diomed in the Iliad,
for Byron sent me, some time after, a large sepulchral vase of silver.
It was full of dead men's bones, and had inscriptions on the sides of
the base. One ran thus:--"The bones contained in this urn were found in
certain ancient sepulchres within the land walls of Athens in the month
of February, 1811. The other face bears the lines of Juvenal--
'Expende quot libras in duce summo invenies.
Mors sola fatetur quantula hominum corpuscula.'
"A letter," adds W. Scott, "accompanied this vase, which was more
valuable to me than the gift itself, from the kindness with which the
donor expressed himself toward me. I left it, naturally, in the urn with
the bones, but it is now missing. As the theft was not of a nature to be
practiced by a mere domestic, I am compelled to suspect the
inhospitality of some individual of higher station,--most gratuitously
exercised certainly, since, after what I have here said, no one will
probably choose to boast of possessing this literary curiosity."
Their mutual sympathy increased upon improved acquaintance with one
another. When at Venice Byron was informed that Scott was ill, he said
that he would not for all the world have him ill. "I suppose it is from
sympathy that I have suffered from fever at the same time." At Ravenna a
little later, on the 12th of January, 1821, he wrote down in his
memoranda:--
"Scott is certainly the most wonderful writer of the day. His novels are
a new literature in themselves, and his poetry as good as any, if not
better (only on an erroneous system), and only ceased to be so popular,
because the vulgar learned were tired of hearing Aristides called the
Just, and Scott the Best, and ostracized them.
"I like him, too, for his manliness of character, for the extreme
pleasantness of his conversation, and his good-nature toward myself
personally. May he prosper! for he deserves it.
"I know no reading to which I fall with such alacrity as a work of W.
Scott's. I shall give the seal with his bust on it to Mlle. la Comtesse
Guiccioli this evening, who will be curious to have the effigies of a
man so celebrated."
He did take the seal to the Countess Guiccioli, and she said that
Byron's expressions about Scott were always most affectionate. "How I
wish you knew him!" he often repeated.
He used to say that it was not the poetry of "Child Harold," but Scott's
own superior prose that had done his poetry harm, and that if ever the
public could by chance get tired of his novels, Scott might write in
verse with equal success. He insisted that Scott had a dramatic talent,
"talent," he said, "which people are loth to grant me." He said that the
success of Scott's novels was not in the least due to the anonymous
character he had adopted, and that he could not understand why he would
not sign his name to works of such merit. He likewise asserted that of
all the authors of his period, Scott was the least jealous. "He is too
sure of his fame to fear any rivals, nor does he think of good works as
Tuscans do of fever; that there is only a certain amount of it in the
world, and that in communicating it to others, one gets rid of it."
"I never travel without taking Scott's novels with me," said Byron to
Medwin, at Pisa; "it is a real library, a literary treasure; I can read
them yearly with renewed pleasure."
A few days before his departure for Greece, he learned that M. Stendhall
had published an article upon Racine and Shakspeare, wherein there were
some unfavorable remarks about Walter Scott.
Notwithstanding his occupations preparatory to departure, he found time
to write to Stendhall, and tell him how much he felt the injustice of
these remarks, and to request that they should be rectified.
This letter of Byron's to M. Beyle will no doubt be read with universal
admiration, as it points out most prominently all the goodness of his
character:--
"SIR,--Now that I know to whom I am indebted for a very flattering
mention in the 'Rome, Naples, and Florence, in 1817,' by Monsieur
Stendhall, it is fit that I should return my thanks (however undesired
or undesirable) to Monsieur Beyle, with whom I had the honor of being
acquainted at Milan in 1816.[30] You only did me too much honor in what
you were pleased to say in that work, but it has hardly given
me less pleasure than the praise itself, to become at length aware
(which I have done by mere accident) that I am indebted for it to one of
whose good opinion I was really ambitious. So many changes have taken
place since that period in the Milan circle, that I hardly dare recur to
it--some dead, some banished, and some in the Austrian dungeons. Poor
Pelico! I trust that in his iron solitude his muse is consoling him in
some measure, one day to delight us again, when both she and her poet
are restored to freedom.
"There is one part of your observations in the pamphlet, which I shall
venture to remark upon: it regards Walter Scott. You say that 'his
character is little worthy of enthusiasm,' at the same time that you
mention his productions in the manner they deserve. I have known Walter
Scott long and well, and in occasional situations which call forth the
real character, and I can assure you that his character _is_ worthy of
admiration; that of all men, he is the most open, the most honorable,
the most amiable," etc.
BYRON."
Even at Missolonghi, where certainly literary thoughts were little in
harmony with his occupations, Byron found occasion to speak of his
sentiments as regards Scott, since even the simple and anti-poetic Parry
tells us, in his interesting narrative of "The Last Days of Lord Byron,"
of the admiration and affection with which Byron always spoke of Walter
Scott. "He never wearied of his praise of 'Waverley,' and continually
quoted passages from it."
May we be allowed to observe, in conclusion, that such a generous desire
on the part of Byron constantly to put forward the merits of Scott
deserved from the latter a warmer acknowledgment. The homage paid to his
memory by Scott came late, and is cold. Be it from a Tory or Protestant
spirit, Scott in his eulogy of Lord Byron did not disclaim openly the
calumnies uttered against the great poet's fame, but almost sided with
his hypocritical apologists, by assuming a kind of tone of indulgence in
speaking of him.
ROGERS.
Rogers comes next in the triangular order.
Byron's esteem for Rogers was such, that not only did he spare him in