My Recollections of Lord Byron
where one may say that people are content with simply showing
themselves, intending concealment all the while; or where they show
themselves _what they are not_; where set forms, or a vocabulary of
their own, so far limits allowable subjects of conversation, that fools
may easily have the advantage over clever men (for intellect is looked
upon as suspicious, dangerous, bold, and called an eccentricity). Lord
Byron, so frank, and open-hearted, loving fame, and having a sort of
presentiment that Heaven would not accord him sufficient time to reap
his full harvest of genius, consequently regretting the moments he was
forced to lose; must he not, after seeking amusement in these
assemblies, soon have found that they lasted too long, and were too
fatiguing? Must he not often have well-nigh revolted against himself,
felt something cold and heavy restraining his outburst of soul,
something like a sort of slavery; must he not have understood that it
was requisite for him to escape from such useless pastimes in order to
re-invigorate himself by study, in the society of his own thoughts, and
those of the master-spirits of ages? Yes, Lord Byron did experience all
that. _Ennui_ of the world called him back to solitude. We can not doubt
it, he said so himself:--
"Last night, _party_ at Lansdowne House; to-night, party at Lady
Charlotte Greville's--_deplorable waste of time_, and loss of _temper,
nothing imparted, nothing acquired_--_talking without ideas_--if any
thing like thought were in my mind, it was not on the subjects on which
we were gabbling. Heigho! and in this way half London pass what is
called life. To-morrow, there is Lady Heathcote's--shall I go? Yes; to
punish myself for not having a pursuit."
And, elsewhere:--
"Shall I go to Lansdowne's? to the Berry's? They are all pleasant; but I
don't know, I don't think that _soirees_ improve one."
He will not go into the world:--
"I don't believe this worldly life does any good; how could such a world
ever be made? Of what use are dandies, for instance, and kings, and
fellows at college, and women of a certain age, and many men of my age,
myself foremost?"
Having changed his apartments, he had not yet got all his books; was
reading without order, composing nothing; and he suffered in
consequence. "I must set myself to do something directly; my heart
already begins to feed on itself." He accuses himself of not profiting
enough by time. "Twenty-six years of age! I might and ought to be a
Pasha at that age. '_I 'gin to be weary of the sun._'" But let him be
with a clever friend, like Moore, for instance, and, oh! then the
_ennui_ of salons becomes metamorphosed into pleasure for him, without
taking away his clearsightedness as to the world's worth.
"Are you going this evening," writes he to Moore, "to Lady Cahir's? I
will, if you do; and wherever we can unite in follies, let us embark on
the _same ship of fools_. I went to bed at five, and got up at nine."
And elsewhere, after having expressed his disappointment at seeing Moore
so little during the season, he calls London "a populous desert, where
one should be able to keep one's thirst like the camel. _The streams are
so few, and for the most part so muddy._"
And ten years later, in the fourteenth canto of "Don Juan," he said,
speaking of fashionable London society:--
"Although it seems both prominent and pleasant,
There is a sameness in its gems and ermine,
A dull and family likeness through all ages,
Of no great promise for poetic pages.
XVI.
"With much to excite, there's little to exalt;
Nothing that speaks to all men and all times;
A sort of varnish over every fault;
A kind of commonplace, even in their crimes;
Factitious passions, wit without much salt,
A want of that true nature which sublimes
Whate'er it shows with truth; a smooth monotony
Of character, in those at least who have got any.
XVII.
"Sometimes, indeed, like soldiers off parade,
They break their ranks and gladly leave the drill;
But then the roll-call draws them back afraid,
And they must be or seem what they were: still
Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade;
But when of the first sight you have had your fill,
It palls--at least it did so upon me,
This paradise of _pleasure and ennui_."
It was thus that he judged what is called the great world, the
fashionable crowd. Yet never having ceased to frequent it, he also might
have said, with Plutarch:--"My taste leads me to fly the world; but the
gentleness of my nature brings me back to it again."
The best proof, however, of his sociable disposition does not lie in
this fact of his going much to great assemblies, since he submitted to,
rather than sought after that: it consists in the pleasure he always
took in the society of friends, and those whom he loved; in the want of
_intimacy_ which he ever experienced. In such quiet little circles he
was truly himself, quite different to what he appeared in salons. Then
only could he be really known. His wit, gayety, and simplicity were
unveiled solely for friends and intimates. He, so light-hearted, became
serious amid the forced laughter of drawing-rooms; he, so witty, waxed
silent and gloomy amid unmeaning conventional talkativeness. Those who
only saw him in salons, or on fashionable staircases, during the four
years he passed in England, did not really know him; is it surprising
that he should have been wrongly judged? Moore alone has tolerably well
described the agreeable, sociable, gay, kind being Lord Byron was.
When he quitted England, his sociable disposition did not abandon him,
though his soul was filled with bitterness. He had scarcely arrived at
Geneva, when he became intimate with Shelley. He made him the companion
of his walks, passed whole days and evenings in his society, and that of
his amiable wife. Several London friends came to join him in
Switzerland. In his excursions over the Alps, Lord Broughton (then Mr.
Hobhouse) was always his faithful companion. He frequented and
appreciated then, more than he had ever done before in England, the
society of Madame de Stael at Coppet, because it was there and not in
drawing-rooms that this noble-hearted woman showed herself what she was.
Always attracted by high intellect, he became intimate with Count Rossi,
entertaining so great a sympathy for him, that often when the count was
about to leave him and return to Geneva, Lord Byron retained him by his
entreaties. As to the natives of Geneva, as he detested Calvinism, and
knew that they believed the calumnies wickedly spread abroad against him
by some of his country-people, he did not see them often, for he did not
like them. "What are you going to do in that den of honest men," said he
one day to Count Rossi, who was preparing to leave. On arriving at
Milan, he immediately adopted the style of life usual there. Every
evening he went to the theatre, occupying M. de Breme's box, together
with a group of young and clever men; among them I may name Silvio
Pellico, Abbe de Breme, Monti, Porro, and Stendhal (Beyle), who have all
unanimously testified to his amiability, social temper, and fascinating
conversation. At Venice, he allowed himself to be presented in the most
hospitable mansions of the nobility; particularly distinguishing those
where Countess Albruzzi and Countess Benzoni presided, for he always
went to one or other of these ladies after leaving the theatre. Nor did
he disdain, during the early part of his stay at Venice, even the
official salon of the Comtesse de Goetz. But his aversion for Austrian
oppression and the perfidy of the official press soon obliged him to
withdraw; for the oppressors of Venice, knowing him to be a formidable
enemy, sought to discredit him by spreading all sorts of calumnious
reports against him and his private character.[121]
It has been seen in his "Life in Italy" how he divided his time at
Venice, and the impression he made wherever there had not been a
preconceived purpose of judging him unfavorably. In the morning, his
first walk was always directed toward the convent of the Armenian
Fathers, in the island of San Lazzaro. He went there to study their
language; and these good monks conceived an extreme affection for him.
Afterward he would cross the Laguna going to the Lido, where his stables
were. He was accustomed to ride on horseback with the different friends
who chanced to arrive from England: such as Hobhouse, Monk Lewis, Rose,
Kinnaird, Shelley, and more particularly still with Mr. Hoppner,
Consul-general for England at Venice, a man of the noblest stamp, much
beloved by Lord Byron, and who, in the account he has left of this
intercourse, can not find words adequate for expressing all he wished to
say of the charming social qualities Lord Byron displayed at Venice.
"_People have no idea_," says he, "_of Lord Byron's gayety, vivacity,
and_ amiability." He followed Italian customs, went every evening to the
theatre, where his box was always filled with friends and acquaintances;
and after that, generally spent the remainder of the evening or night,
according to the then custom of Venice, in the most distinguished
circles of the town, principally at the houses of Countess Albruzzi and
Countess Benzoni, where he was not only welcome, but so much liked, that
these salons were voted dull when he did not appear. Lastly, his social
qualities and amiability gave so much pleasure at Venice, and the
inhabitants were so desirous of keeping him among them, that his
departure for Ravenna actually stirred up malice, quite foreign to the
usual simplicity characterizing Venetian society.[122]
The friends who came to see him there,--Hobhouse, Lewis, Kinnaird,
Shelley, Rose, etc.,--succeeded each other at short intervals, and their
arrivals were so many fetes for him. But while he was leading this
sociable life, vulgar tourists, who had not been able to succeed in
getting presented to him, took their revenge, by repeating in every
direction fables they had gleaned from the gondoliers for a few
pence--viz., that Lord Byron was a misanthrope and hated his countrymen.
Mr. Hoppner, who was an ocular witness of the life which Lord Byron led
at Venice, and whose testimony is so worthy of respect, told Moore how
much annoyance Lord Byron endured from English travellers, bent on
following him everywhere, eyeglass in hand, staring at him with
impertinence or affectation during his walks, getting into his palace
under some pretext, and even penetrating into his bedroom.
"Thence," says he, "his bitterness toward them. The sentiments he has
expressed in a note termed cynical, as well as the misanthropical
expressions to be found in his first poems, _are not at all his natural
sentiments_."
And then he adds that he is very certain "_never to have met with in his
lifetime more real goodness than in Lord Byron_."
Moore, also, is indignant at all these perfidious inventions:--
"Among those minor misrepresentations," says he, "of which it was Lord
Byron's fate to be the victim, advantage was at this time taken of his
professed distaste to the English, to accuse him of acts of
inhospitality, and even rudeness, toward some of his fellow-countrymen.
How far different was his treatment of all who ever visited him, many
grateful testimonies might be collected to prove; but I shall here
content myself with selecting a few extracts from an account given to me
by Mr. Joy, of a visit which, in company with another English gentleman,
he paid to the noble poet, during the summer of 1817, at his villa on
the banks of the Brenta. After mentioning the various civilities they
had experienced from Lord Byron; and, among others, his having requested
them to name their own day for dining with him:--'We availed ourselves,'