My Recollections of Lord Byron
noble pleasure in admiring it. We can not, however, close this chapter,
without calling the attention of our readers to the last and painful
proofs given of this kindness and goodness of Byron's nature: we allude
to the extraordinary grief, caused by his death.
"Never can I forget the stupefaction," says an illustrious writer, "into
which we were plunged by the news of his death, so great a part of
ourselves died with him, that his death appeared to us almost
impossible, and almost not natural. One would have said that a portion
of the mechanism of the universe had been stopped. To have questioned
him, to have blamed him, became a remorse for us, and all our
veneration for his genius was not half so energetically felt as our
tenderness for him.
"'His last sigh dissolved the charm, the disenchanted earth
Lost all her lustre. Where her glittering towers?
Her golden mountains where? All darkened, down
To naked waste a dreary vale of years!
The great magician's dead!'"--YOUNG.
Such griefs are certainly reasonable, just, and honorable: for the
deaths which bury such treasures of genius are real public calamities.
On hearing of Byron's death, one might repeat the beautiful and eloquent
words of M. de Saint Victor:
"What a great crime death has committed! It is something like the
disappearance of a star, or the extinction of a planet, with all the
creation it supposed. When great minds have accomplished their task,
like Shakspeare, Dante, Goethe, their departure from the scene of the
world leaves in the soul the sublime melancholy which presides over the
setting of the sun, after it has poured out all its rays. But when we
hear of the death of a Raphael, of a Mozart, and especially of Byron,
struck down in their flight, just at the time when they were extending
their course, we can not refrain from calling these an eternal cause for
mourning, irreparable losses, and inconsolable regrets! A genius who
dies prematurely carries treasures away with him! How many ideal
existences were linked with his own! What sublime thoughts vanish from
his brow! What great and charming characters die with him, even before
they are born! How many truths postponed, at least, for humanity!"
And we will add: to how many great and noble actions his death has put
an end!
Such regrets do honor as much to those who experience them as to those
who give them rise. But it is not to the enthusiasm created by his
genius, nor to the grief evinced by the Greek nation, for whom he died,
that we will turn for a last proof of the goodness of his nature. Such
regrets might almost be called interested,--emanating, as they do, from
the knowledge of the loss of a treasure. Of the tears of the heart,
which were shed for the man without his genius, shall we ask that last
proof.
These are the words by which Count Gamba describes his affliction:--
"In vain should I attempt to describe the deep, the distressing sorrow
that overwhelmed us all. I will not speak of myself, but of those who
loved him less, because they had seen him less. Not only Mavrocordato
and his immediate circle, but the whole city and all its inhabitants
were, as it seemed, stunned by the blow--it had been so sudden, so
unexpected. His illness, indeed, had been known; and for the three last
days, none of us could walk in the streets, without anxious inquiries
from every one who met us, of 'How is my lord?' We did not mourn the
loss of the great genius,--no, nor that of the supporter of Greece--our
first tears were for our father, our patron, our friend. He died in a
strange land, and among strangers: but more loved, more sincerely wept,
he could never have been, wherever he had breathed his last.
"Such was the attachment, mingled with a sort of reverence and
enthusiasm, with which he inspired those around him, that there was not
one of us who would not, for his sake, have willingly encountered any
danger in the world. The Greeks of every class and every age, from
Mavrocordato to the meanest citizen, sympathized with our sorrows. It
was in vain that, when we met, we tried to keep up our spirits--our
attempts at consolation always ended in mutual tears."
None but beautiful souls, and those who are really thoroughly good, can
be thus regretted; and heartfelt tears are only shed for those who have
spent their life in drying those of others.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 34: Galt's Life of Byron, p. 329.]
[Footnote 35: See chapter "Generosity raised to a Virtue."]
[Footnote 36: When travelling in Greece, he often found himself in
straitened circumstances, merely because he had helped a friend.
"It is probable," he wrote to his mother from Athens in 1811, "I may
steer homeward in spring: but, to enable me to do that, I must have
remittances. My own funds would have lasted me very well: but I was
obliged to assist a friend, who I know will pay me, but in the mean time
I am out of pocket."]
[Footnote 37: It may be observed here, that he was not willing, even to
confide to paper, the nature and degree of the act of kindness. Hodgson
wanted thirty-five thousand francs to establish himself. Byron actually
borrowed this amount, to give it to him, as he had not the sum at his
disposal.]
[Footnote 38: See his "Life in Italy."]
[Footnote 39: Vide Kennedy.]
[Footnote 40: "Yesterday I paid him (to Scroope Davies) four thousand
eight hundred pounds, ... and my mind is much relieved by the removal of
that debt," he says in his memorandum of 1813. All his difficulties were
inherited from his father, and not contracted by him personally.]
[Footnote 41: Although not rich, and on the point of undertaking a long
and expensive journey, he devoted a large sum to the alleviation of the
wants of that family.]
CHAPTER X.
QUALITIES AND VIRTUES OF SOUL.
ANTIMATERIALISM.
Among Lord Byron's natural qualities we may rank his antipathy, not only
for any thing like low sensuality or gross vice, but even for those
follies to which youth and human nature are so prone. Whatever may have
been said on this head, and notwithstanding the countenance Lord Byron's
own words may have lent to calumnies too widely believed, it will be
easy to prove the truth of our assertion. Let us examine his actions,
his words (when serious), the testimony of those who knew him through
life, and it will soon appear that this natural antipathy with him often
attained to the height of rare virtue.
Lord Byron had a passionate nature, a feeling heart, a powerful
imagination; and it can not be denied that, after the disappointment he
experienced in his ethereal love entertained at fifteen, he fell into
the usual round of university life. But as he possessed great refinement
of mind, never losing sight of an ideal of moral beauty, such an
existence speedily became odious to him. His companions thought it all
quite natural and pleasant; but he disapproved of it and blamed himself,
feeling ashamed in his own conscience.
It is well known that Lord Byron never spared himself. He invented
faults rather than sought to extenuate them. And so he fully merits
belief, when he happens to do himself justice. Let us attend to the
following:--
"I passed my degrees in vice," he says, "very quickly, _but they were
not after my taste_. For my juvenile passions, though most violent, were
concentrated, and did not willingly tend to divide and expand on several
objects. I could have renounced every thing in the world with those I
loved, or lost it all for them; but fiery though my nature was, _I
could not share without disgust in the dissipation common to the place,
and time._"
This makes Moore say, that even at the period to which we are alluding,
his irregularities were much less sensual, much less gross and varied
than those of his companions.
Nevertheless it was his boyish university life that caused Lord Byron to
be suspected of drawing his own likeness, when two years later, after
his return from the East, he brought out "Childe Harold"--an imaginary
hero, whom he imprudently surrounded with real circumstances personal to
himself.
Moore, with his usual good sense, protests strongly against such
injustice, saying that, however dissipated his college and university
life might have been during the two or three years previous to his first
travels, no foundation exists, except in the imagination of the poet,
and the credulity or malice of the world, for such disgraceful scenes as
were represented to have taken place at Newstead, by way of inferences
drawn from "Childe Harold." "In this poem," adds Moore, "he describes
the habitation of his hero as a monastic dwelling----
'Condemn'd to uses vile!
Where Superstition once had made her den
Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile.'"
These exaggerated, if not imaginary descriptions, were, nevertheless,
taken for serious, and literally believed by the greater part of his
readers.
Moore continues: "Mr. Dallas, giving way to the same exaggerated tone,
says, in speaking of the preparations for departure made by the young
lord, 'He was already satiated with pleasure, and disgusted with those
comrades who possessed no other resource, so he resolved to overcome his
senses, and accordingly dismissed his harem.' The truth is, that Lord
Byron did not then even possess sufficient fortune to allow himself this
Oriental luxury; his manner of living at Newstead was plain and simple.
His companions, without being insensible to the pleasures afforded by
liberal hospitality, were all too intellectual in their tastes and
habits to give themselves up to vulgar debauchery. As to the allusions
regarding his _harem_, it appears certain that one or two women were
suspected _subintroductae_--to use the style of the old monks of the
Abbey--but that even these belonged to the servants of the house. This
is the utmost that scandal could allege as the groundwork for suspicion
and accusation."
These assertions of Moore have been corroborated by many other
testimonies. I will only relate that mentioned by Washington Irving, in
the account of his visit to Newstead Abbey in 1830. Urged by
philosophical curiosity, Washington Irving managed to get into
conversation with a certain Nanny Smith, who had passed all her life at
Newstead as house-keeper. This old woman, after having chattered a great
deal about Lord Byron and the ghosts that haunted the Abbey, asserting
that though she had not seen them, she had heard them quite well, was
particularly questioned by Mr. Irving as to the mode of life her young
master led. She certified to his sobriety, and positively denied that he
had led a licentious life at Newstead with his friends, or brought
mistresses with him from London.
"Once, it is true," said the old lady, "he had a pretty _youth_ for a
_page_ with him. The maids declared it was a young woman. But as for me,
I never could verify the fact, and all these servant-girls were jealous,
especially one of them called Lucy. For Lord Byron being kind to her,
and a fortune-teller having predicted a high destiny for her, the poor
little thing dreamed of nothing else but becoming a great lady, and
perhaps of rising to be mistress of the Abbey. Ah, well! but her dreams
came to nothing."[42]
"Lord Byron," added the old lady, "passed the greater part of his time
seated on his sofa reading. Sometimes he had young noblemen of his
acquaintance with him. Then, it is true, they amused themselves in
playing all sorts of tricks--youthful frolics, that was all; they did
nothing improper for young gentlemen, nothing that could harm any
body."[43]
"Lord Byron's only amusements at Newstead," says Mr. Irving, "were
boating, boxing, fencing, and his dogs."
"His constant occupation was to write, and for that he had the habit of