My Recollections of Lord Byron
and there can be no affectation in this. I can not be mistaken (except
in taste) in a book I read and lay down and take up again; and no book
can be totally bad, which finds some, even _one_ reader, who can say as
much sincerely."
And elsewhere:
"H---- laughed, as he does at every thing German, in which, however, I
think he goes a little too far. B----, I hear, contemns it too. But
there are fine passages; and, after all, what is a work--any or every
work--but a desert with fountains, and, perhaps, a grove or two every
day's journey? To be sure, in mademoiselle, what we often mistake and
'pant for' as the 'cooling stream,' turns out to be the 'mirage'
(_critice_, verbiage); but we do, at last, get to something like the
temple of Jupiter Ammon, and then the waste we have passed is only
remembered to gladden the contrast."
He who was so sparing of answers to his own detractors, could not allow
a criticism against a friend to be left unanswered. We have seen how he
defended Scott, Shelley, Coleridge, and numerous other remarkable
persons, whenever they were unjustly attacked, although they were alive
to defend themselves. The respect and justice which he claimed for the
dead was equally proportioned. "Do not forget," he wrote to Moore on
hearing that he was about to write the "Life of Sheridan;" "do not
forget _to spare the living without insulting the dead_."
On reading, at Ravenna, that Schlegel said, that Dante was not popular
in Italy, and accused him of want of pathos: "'Tis false," said he, with
indignation; "there have been more editors and commentators (and
imitators ultimately) of Dante, than of all their poets put together.
_Not_ a favorite! Why they talk Dante, write Dante, and think and dream
Dante at this moment (1821) to an excess which would be ridiculous, but
that he deserves it.
"In the same style this German talks of gondolas on the Arno--a precious
fellow to dare to speak of Italy!
"He says, also, that Dante's chief defect is a want, in a word, of
gentle feelings. Of gentle feelings! and this in the face of 'Francesca
of Rimini'--and the father's feelings in 'Ugolino'--and 'Beatrice'--and
'La Pia!' Why, there is a gentleness in Dante beyond all gentleness,
when he is tender. It is true, that in treating of the Christian Hades,
or Hell, there is not much scope or room for gentleness; but who _but_
Dante could have introduced any 'softness' at all into Hell? Is there
any in Milton? No--and Dante's heaven is all _love_, and _glory_, and
_majesty_."
We have alluded to his admiration for Pope. It was such as to appear
almost a kind of filial love. He was sorry, mortified, and humbled, not
to find in Westminster Abbey the monument of so great a man:--
"Of all the disgraces that attach to England, the greatest," said he,
"is that there should be no place assigned to Pope in Poets' Corner. I
have often thought of erecting a monument to him at my own expense in
Westminster Abbey; and hope to do so yet."
To add any thing more to show how totally Byron was free from all
sentiments of an envious nature, would be to exhaust the subject, and to
abuse the reader's patience. This absence of envy in him shows itself so
clearly in all his sayings and doings, that it appears to be impossible
to doubt it, and yet he has not been spared even such a calumny! I do
not allude to the French critics, who neither knew the man nor the
author, and whose systematic attacks have no value; but I allude to a
certain article in the "London Magazine," which appeared shortly before
his death, under the title of "Personal Character of Lord Byron," and
which caused some sensation because it appeared to have been written by
some one who had known Byron intimately. It was all the more perfidious
because it gave an appearance of truth to a great many falsehoods,
derived from the truth with which these falsehoods were mixed. It was
the work of one who had gone to Greece, there to play a great part, but
who, having failed in his attempt and exposed himself to the laughter of
his friends, felt a kind of jealousy for Byron's success in that line,
and revenged himself by saying, among other things, "that it was
dangerous for Byron's friends to rise in the world, if they preferred
his friendship to their glory, because, as soon as they arrived at a
certain pre-eminence, he was sure to hate them."
Such a calumny exasperated Byron's real friends, and among these Count
Gamba, who hastened to reply to it, by publishing an interesting book,
precious from its veracity, and which does equal credit to Byron and to
the young man honored with his friendship. After analyzing the
anonymous article, Count Gamba goes on to say: "My own opinion is just
the contrary to that of the writer in the magazine. I think he prided
himself on the successes of his friends, and cited them as a proof of
discernment in the choice of some of his companions. This I know, that
of envy he had not the least spark in his whole disposition: he had
strong antipathies, certainly, to one or two individuals; but I have
always understood, from those most likely to know, that he never broke
with any of the friends of his youth, and that his earliest attachments
were also his last."
It may be remarked that Byron's popularity made it difficult for him to
indulge sentiments of envy. But without referring to the unstable
character of popularity, was not his own attacked by the jealousy of
those who wished to pull him down from the pedestal of fame, to which
they hoped themselves to rise? Did he not think, some years before his
death, that his popularity was wavering, and that his rivals would
profit by it? Was he less pleased at the success of his friends? Does
not all he said, and all he did, prove that where he blamed he did so
unwillingly, from a sense of justice and truth; but that when he
praised, he did so to satisfy a desire of his heart?
We have dwelt at considerable length upon this subject, because we
believe that a total absence of envy is so rare among poets, and so
conspicuous in Lord Byron, that we can take it to be the criterion of
his nobility of soul. We can sum up, therefore, all we have said, by
declaring, that if Byron has been envied by all his enemies, and even
his friends, with, perhaps, the exception of Shelley, and has not
himself envied one, though he suffered personally from the consequences
of their jealousy, it is because the great kindness of his nature made
him the least envious of men.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 28: Moore, Letter 261.]
[Footnote 29: Venice, 1817.]
[Footnote 30: Why has the passage in the first edition of Stendhall's
works, which treats in enthusiastic terms of Byron's genius, been cut
out of the subsequent editions?]
[Footnote 31: Was this a little irony? I think so, for it was believed
that jealousy was the weak point of Rogers.]
[Footnote 32: Moore, Letter 435.]
[Footnote 33: Moore, Letter 422.]
CHAPTER IX.
BENEVOLENCE AND KINDNESS OF LORD BYRON.
BENEVOLENCE.
The benevolence of Byron's character constitutes the principal
characteristic of his nature, and was particularly remarkable from its
power. All the good qualities in Byron do not show the same force in the
same degree. In all the sentiments which we have analyzed and given in
proof of his goodness, though each may be very strong, and even capable
of inspiring him with the greatest sacrifice, yet one might find in each
that personal element, inherent in different degrees to our purest and
most generous affections, since the impulse which dictates them is
evidently based upon a desire to be satisfied with ourselves. The same
thing might be said of his benevolence, had it been only the result of
habit: but if it had been this, if it had been intermittent, and of that
kind which does not exclude occasional harshness and even cruelty, I
would not venture to present it to the reader as a proof of Byron's
goodness.
His benevolence had nothing personal in its elements. It was a kind of
universal and habitual charity, which gives without hope of return,
which is more occupied with the good of others than with its own, and
which is called for only by the instinctive desire to alleviate the
sufferings of others. If such a quality has no right to be called a
virtue, it nevertheless imprints upon the man who possesses it an
ineffaceable character of greatness.
There was not a single moment in his life in which it did not reveal
itself in the most touching actions. We have seen how neither happiness
nor misfortune could alter it.
As a child, he went one day to bathe with a little school-fellow in the
Don, in Scotland, and having but one very small Shetland pony between
them, each one walked and rode alternately. When they reached the
bridge, at a point where the river becomes sombre and romantic, Byron,
who was on foot, recollected a legendary prophecy, which says:--
"Brig o' Balgounie, black's your wa':
Wi' a wife's ae son and a mare's ae foal
Doun ye shall fa'!"
Little Byron stopped his companion, asked him if he remembered the
prediction, and declared that as the pony might very well be "a mare's
ae foal," he intended to cross first, for although both only sons, his
mother alone would mourn him, while the death of his friend, whose
father and mother were both alive, would cause a twofold grief.[34]
As a stripling, he saw at Southwell a poor woman sally mournfully from a
shop, because the Bible she wished to purchase costs more money than she
possesses. Byron hastens to buy it, and, full of joy, runs after the
poor creature to give it to her. As a young man, at an age when the
effervescence and giddiness of youth forget many things, he never forgot
that to seduce a young girl is a crime. Then, as ever, he was less the
seducer than the seduced.
Moore tells us that Byron was so keenly sensitive to the pleasure or
pain of those with whom he lived, that while in his imaginary realms he
defied the universe, in real life a frown or a smile could overcome him.
Proud, energetic, independent, intrepid, benevolence alone rendered Lord
Byron so flexible, patient, and docile to the remonstrances or
reproaches of those who loved him, and to whom he allowed friendly
motives, that he often sacrificed his own talent to this genial and
kindly sentiment. The Rev. Mr. Beecher, disapproving as too free one of
the poems he had just published at the age of seventeen, in his first
edition of the "Hours of Idleness," Lord Byron _withdrew_ and _burnt_
the whole edition. At the solicitation of Dallas and Gifford he
suppresses, in the second canto of "Childe Harold," the very stanzas he
preferred to all the rest. Madame G----, grieved at the persecution
drawn down on him by the first canto of "Don Juan," begs him to
discontinue the poem, and he ceased to write it.
At the request of Madame de Stael, he consented, in spite of his great
disinclination, to attempt a reconciliation with Lady Byron.
The "Curse of Minerva," a poem written in Greece, while he was still
painfully impressed by the artistic piracies of Lord Elgin in the
"Parthenon," was in the press and on the eve of publication; but Lord
Elgin's friends reminded him of the pain it would inflict on him and on
his family, and the poem was sacrificed. No one ever bore more
generously than he with reproaches made with good-will and kindness.
This amiable disposition, observed in Greece by Mr. Finlay, led him to
say that it amazed him. As regards Lord Byron's tenderness toward his
friends, it was always so great and constant, that we have thought it
right to devote a long article to it. We will, however, quote as another
instance of the delicacy of his friendship and his fear of offending his
friends, or of giving them pain, a letter which Moore also cites as a