My Recollections of Lord Byron
past and proverbial magnanimity, and deserve the pen of a Plutarch to
transmit them to posterity.
When we are told, with such admiring comments, of Alexander's
magnanimity in respecting and restoring to freedom the mother and the
wife of Darius, we do not learn whether those noble women were beautiful
and in love with the Macedonian hero. But Lord Byron succored, and
restored to the right path, many girls, young and gifted with every
charm, who were so subjugated by the beauty, goodness, and generosity of
their benefactor, that they fall at his feet, not to implore that they
might be sent back to their homes, but ready to become what he bade
them. And yet this young man of six-and-twenty, thinking them fair, was
touched, and tempted perhaps, yet sent them home, rescued, and
enlightened by the counsels of wisdom.
There is more than generosity in such actions, and we therefore hold
back details for another chapter, in which we will examine this quality
under various aspects. Here we will content ourselves with stating that
these noble traits became known, almost in spite of himself; for his
benevolence was also remarkable in this respect, that it was exercised
with a truly Christian spirit, and in obedience to the Divine precept
that "the left hand shall not know what the right doeth." Having
conferred a great favor on one of his friends, Mr. Hodgson, who was
about to take orders, he wrote in the evening in his journal:--
"H---- has been telling that I ... I am sure, at least, I did not
mention it, and I wish he had not. He is a good fellow, and I oblige
myself ten times more by being of use than I did him,--and there's an
end on't."[37]
It was said of Chateaubriand that if he wished to do any thing generous,
he liked to do so on his balcony; the contrary may be said of Byron, who
would have preferred to have his good action hid in the cellars.
"If we wished to dwell," says Count Gamba in a letter to Kennedy, "on
his many acts of charity, a volume would not suffice to tell you of
those alone to which I have been a witness. I have known in different
Italian towns several honorable families, fallen into poverty, with whom
Lord Byron had not the slightest acquaintance, and to whom he
nevertheless _secretly_ sent large sums of money, sometimes 200 dollars
and more; and these persons never knew the name of their benefactor."
Count Gamba also tells us that, to his knowledge, in Florence, a
respectable mother of a family, being reduced to great penury by the
persecution of a malignant and powerful man, from whom she had protected
the honor of one of her _protegees_, Lord Byron, to whom the lady and
her persecutor were equally unknown, sent her assistance, which was
powerful enough to counteract the evil designs of her foes. He adds
that, having learnt at Pisa that a great number of vessels had been
shipwrecked during a violent storm, in the very harbor of Genoa, and
that several respectable families were thereby completely ruined, Lord
Byron _secretly_ sent them money, and to some more than 300 dollars.
Those who received it never knew their benefactor's name. His charity
provided above all for absent ones, for the old, infirm, and retiring.
At Venice, where it was difficult to elude the influence of the climate,
and of the manners of the time, and where he shared for a time the mode
of life of its young men, it was still charity, and not pleasure, that
absorbed the better part of his income. Not satisfied with his casual or
out-of-the-way charities, he granted a large number of small monthly and
weekly pensions. On definitely leaving Venice to reside in Ravenna, he
decided that, in spite of his absence, these pensions should continue
until the expiration of his lease of the Palazzo Mocenigo. Venice
watched him as jealously as a miser watches his treasure, and when he
left it the honest poor were grieved and the dishonest vexed. Listening
to these, one might have been led to believe, that Lord Byron had by a
vow bound himself and his fortune to the service of Venice, and that his
departure was a spoliation of their rights.[38]
In Ravenna his presence had been such a blessing, that his departure was
considered a public calamity, and the poor of the city addressed a
petition to the legate, that he might be entreated to remain.
Not a quarter of his fortune, as Shelley said in extolling his
munificence, but the half of it, did he expend in alms. In Pisa, in
Genoa, in Greece, his purse was ever open to the needy.
"Not a day of his life in Greece," says his physician, Doctor Bruno,
"but was marked by some charitable deed: not an instance is there on
record of a beggar having knocked at Lord Byron's door who did not go on
his way comforted; so prominent among all his noble qualities was the
tenderness of his heart, and its boundless sympathy with suffering and
affliction. His purse was always opened to the poor." After quoting
several traits of benevolence, he goes on to say:--"Whenever it came to
the knowledge of Lord Byron that any poor persons were lying ill,
whatever the maladies or their cause, without even being asked to do it,
my lord immediately sent me to attend to the sufferers. He provided the
medicines, and every other means of alleviation. He founded at his own
expense a hospital in Missolonghi."[39]
This noble quality of his heart had the ring of true generosity; that
generosity which springs from the desire and pleasure to do good, and
which is so admirable, that in his own estimate of benevolence he always
linked it with a sense of order. It never had any thing in common with
the capricious munificence of a spendthrift. His exceeding delicacy, the
loyalty and noble pride of his soul, inspired him with the deepest
aversion for that egotism and vanity which alike ignores its own duties
and the rights of others.
Lord Byron was, therefore, very methodical in his expenditure. Without
stooping to details, he was most careful to maintain equilibrium between
his outlay and his income. He attended scrupulously to his bills, and
said he could not go to sleep without being on good terms with his
friends, and having paid all his debts.[40]
He was often tormented, if his agents were tardy in making remittances,
with the dread of not being able to meet his engagements. Of his own
gold he was liberal, but he respected the coffers of his creditors.
"I have the greatest respect for money," he often said in jest. He cared
for it, indeed, but as a means of obtaining rest for his mind, and
especially of helping the poor. Although so generous, he was sometimes
annoyed and sorry at the thought of having ill-spent his money, because
he had in the same ratio diminished his power of doing good.
We should have given but an unfair idea of the lofty nature of his
generosity, if we did not add that it was not sustained by any illusory
hopes of gratitude. These illusions his confiding heart had entertained
in early manhood, and were those the loss of which he most regretted;
but their flight, though causing bitter disappointment, left his conduct
uninfluenced. He expected ingratitude, and was prepared for it; he
_gave_, he said, and _did not lend_; and preferred to expose himself to
ingratitude rather than to forsake the unhappy.
We fain would have concluded this long chapter, devoted to the proofs of
his goodness in all its manifestations, by gathering the principal
testimonies of that goodness which were received after Byron's death,
and show it in its original character and in its modifications through
life. But we must confine ourselves to the mention of a few testimonies
only, taken from among those borne him at the outset and at the end of
his life, so as to extend throughout its course, and to show what those
who knew him personally, and well, thought of it.
Mr. Pigott, a friend and companion of Byron's, who lived at Southwell,
in the neighborhood of Newstead, who travelled with Byron during his
holidays, told Moore that few people understood Byron; but that he knew
well how naturally sensitive and kind-hearted he was, and that there was
not the slightest particle of malignity in his whole composition. Mr.
Pigott, who thus spoke of Byron, was one of the most revered magistrates
of his county, and the head of that family with whom Byron was wont to
spend his holidays, and who loved him, both before and after his death,
as good people only can love and mourn. "Never," says Moore, "did any
member of that family allow that Byron had a single fault."
Mr. Lake, another biographer of Byron, says, "I have frequently asked
the country people what sort of a man Lord Byron was. The impression of
his eccentric but energetic character was evident in the reply. 'He's
the devil of a fellow for comical fancies--He flogs th' oud laird to
nothing, but he's a hearty good fellow for all that.'"
Here is Dallas's opinion, which can not be suspected of partiality, for
reasons which we have elsewhere given; for he believed himself
aggrieved, and considered as a great culprit the man who, ever so
slightly, could depart from the orthodox religious teachings; who had
not a blind admiration of his country; who could suffer his heart to be
possessed by an affection which marriage had not legitimatized; who
preferred to family pride the satisfaction of paying the debts
bequeathed to him by his ancestors, and who could make use of his right
of selling his lands. Yet, notwithstanding all this, Mr. Dallas
expresses himself to the following effect:--"At this time (1809), when
on the eve of publishing his first satire, and before taking his seat in
the House of Lords, I saw Lord Byron every day. (This was the epoch of
his misanthropy). Nature had gifted him with most amiable sentiments,
which I frequently had occasion to notice, and I have often seen these
imprint upon his fine countenance a really sublime expression. His
features seemed made expressly to depict the conceptions of genius and
the storms of passion. I have often wondered with admiration at these
curious effects. I have seen his face lighted up by the fire of poetical
inspiration, and, under the influence of strong emotions, sometimes
express the highest degree of energy, and at others all the softness and
grace of mild and gentle affection. When his soul was a prey to passion
and revenge, it was painful to observe the powerful effect upon his
features; but when, on the contrary, he was conquered by feelings of
tenderness and benevolence (which was the natural tendency of his
heart), it was delightful to contemplate his looks. I went to see Lord
Byron the day after Lord Falkland's death. He had just seen the
inanimate body of the man with whom, a few days before, he had spent
such an agreeable time. At intervals, I heard him exclaim to himself,
and half aloud, 'Poor Falkland!' His look was even more expressive than
were his words. 'But his wife,' added he, 'she is to be pitied!' One
could see his soul filled with the most benevolent intentions, which
were sterile.[41] If ever pure action was done, it was that which he
then meditated; and the man who conceived it, and who accomplished it,
was then progressing through thorns and thistles, toward that free but
narrow path which leads to heaven."
Several years later, Mr. Hoppner, English Consul at Venice, and who
spent his life with Byron in that city, wrote in a narrative of the
causes which created so much disgust in Byron for English travellers,
that Byron's affected misanthropy, as observable in his first poems, was
by no means natural to him; and he adds, that he is certain that he
never met with a man so kind as Byron.
We might stop here, certain as we are that all loyal and reasonable
readers are not only convinced of Byron's goodness, but experience a