My Recollections of Lord Byron Part 61

"_There_ chiefly I sought thee, _there_ only I found thee: Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee: When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory."

Some days before setting out for Genoa, while walking in the garden with Countess G----, he went into a retrospective view of his mode of life in England. She, on hearing how he pa.s.sed his time in London, perceiving what an animated existence it was, so full of variety and occupation, showed some fears lest his stay in Italy, leading such a peaceful, retired, concentrated sort of life, away from the political arena presented by his own country, might entail too great a sacrifice offered on the altar of affection. "Oh no," said he, "I regret nothing belonging to that great world, where all is artificial, where one can not live to one's self, where one is obliged to be too much occupied with what others think, and too little with what we ought to think ourselves. What should I have done there? Made some opposition speeches in the House of Lords, that would not have produced any good, since the prevailing policy is not mine. Been obliged to frequent, without pleasure or profit, society that suits me not. Have had more trouble in keeping and expressing my independent opinions. I should not have met you.... Ah, well! I am much better pleased to know you. What is there in the world worth a true affection? Nothing. And if I had to begin over again, I would still do what I have done." When Lord Byron thus unfolded the treasures concealed in his heart, his countenance spoke quite as much as his words.

It was at this same period that he wrote in his drama of "Werner:"--

"Glory's pillow is but restless, If love lay not down his cheek there."

And now to sum up, let us say that, after having considered Lord Byron not only in his actions, and their most apparent motives; not only in the exercise of all his faculties, and in his sentiments sincerely expressed, but that, having likewise confronted him with all the forms of self-love, it is impossible for us to see aught else in him but that legitimate pride belonging to great souls, and the n.o.ble pa.s.sion for glory--sentiments united in him with the peculiar feature of being under control of his affections. Thus, then, when the day came that he was called upon to sacrifice his affections, not only in the name of humanity, but also in the name of his love for glory, which was already a virtue, since he only desired and sought it to become a benefactor of mankind; then, by this new sacrifice, and by that even of life, his n.o.ble pa.s.sion for glory attained to the height of a sublime virtue.

Although our impartial examination of Lord Byron's faults end really in demonstrating their absence, let us beware nevertheless of raising him above humanity by a.s.serting that he had none. La Bruyere thus sums up his portrait of the great Conde:--"_A man who was true, simple, and magnanimous, and in whom only the smallest virtues were wanting._" This fine sentence may partly apply to Lord Byron also. Only, to be just, we must subst.i.tute the singular for the plural. And instead of declaring that the lesser virtues were wanting in him, we must say _one_ of the smaller virtues. In truth, he had not that prudence which proposes for our supreme end the preservation of our prosperity, fortune, popularity, tranquillity, health--in a word, of all our goods--and which const.i.tutes Epicurean wisdom. But this virtue is really so mixed up with personality and egotism, that one may hesitate ere granting it the rank of a virtue; and we ought not to be astonished if it were wanting in Lord Byron, for it can with difficulty be found united to great sensibility of heart and great generosity of character. Nevertheless, had he possessed it, his life might have been much happier. Had he possessed it, instead of devoting his revenue and all his literary gains to friends, disappointed authors, and unfortunates of all kinds, he would have kept them for himself; and thus he might have been able to brave almost all the storms of his sad year of married life, when his annoyances were greatly increased by the embarra.s.sed state of his affairs. Had he possessed this prudence, he would not in his boyish satire have attacked so many powerful persons, nor, at a later period, would he have made to himself idols of truth and justice. He would have spared the powers that be, and respected national prejudices, in order not to draw down on his own head so much rancor and calumny; he would not have given a hold to slander, nor suffered himself to be insulted by being identified with the heroes of his poems; he would not have compromised his fine health by an anchorite's regimen; he would not have depreciated himself; he would have extended to himself the indulgence with which he knew so well how to cloak the faults of others, and instead of confiding to indiscreet companions, as subjects for curiosity and study, adventures somewhat strange, and the usual routine of juvenile follies, he would have profited by the system so current in our day of satisfying inclinations silently and covertly; lastly, and above all, he would not have married Miss Milbank.

All these reproaches are well founded. But if we may say with reason that he wanted prudence for his own interests, we ought at the same time to _add that he never wanted it for the interests of others_. Did we not see him, even in earliest youth, burn writings, or abstain from writing, through excess of delicacy and fear of wounding his neighbors?

"I have burned my novel and my comedy," said he in 1813. "After all, I see that the pleasure of burning one's self is as great as that of printing. These two works ought not to have been published. I fell too much into realities; some persons would have been _recognized_, and others _suspected_."

When he sent Murray his stanzas to the Po, he forbade him to print it, because it gave intimate details.

His greatest fear at Pisa and Genoa was lest the newspapers should have spoken of his feelings for the Countess G----.

But without seeking other examples, it suffices to glance at his conduct in Greece, where his prudence formed matter of astonishment to every body. Monsieur Tricoupi, the best historian of the war of Greek independence, has rendered him the most complete justice on this head.

Let us then sum up by saying that, contrary to what is found in most, even virtuous men, Lord Byron possessed great and sublime virtues in the highest degree, and the lesser ones only in a secondary degree. As to his faults, it is evident they all sprang from his excellent qualities.

Endowed with all kinds of genius, except the one of calculating his personal interest, he failed in different ways to discharge his duty toward himself; and though he only harmed himself by his want of prudence, yet was he cruelly punished for it by sorrows, regrets, and even by a fatally premature death.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 131: Letter 68, to Dallas, 17th September, 1811.]

[Footnote 132: Dallas, Letter 45.]

[Footnote 133: Lord Byron to Dallas, Letter 66; Moore, vol. ii.]

[Footnote 134: See Moore, Letter 456.]

[Footnote 135: See Moore, Letter 456 (Ravenna, 24th September, 1821).]

[Footnote 136: See his "Life in Italy."]

[Footnote 137: Letter 436, Moore.]

CHAPTER XXII.

LORD BYRON'S MARRIAGE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Lord Byron's marriage exercised such a deplorable influence over his destiny, that it is impossible to speak of it succinctly, and without entering into details; for this one great misfortune proved the fruitful source of all others.

If we were permitted to believe that Providence sometimes abandons men here below to the influence of an evil genius, we might well conceive this baneful intervention in the case of Lord Byron's conjugal union, and all the circ.u.mstances that led to it.

It was but a few months after having returned from his travels in the East, that Lord Byron published his first cantos of "Childe Harold," and obtained triumphs as an orator in the House of Lords. Presenting himself thus for the first time to the public, surrounded by all the prestige belonging to a handsome person, rank, and youth,--in a word, with such an a.s.semblage of qualities as are seldom if ever found united in one person--he immediately became the idol of England. The enemies created by his boyish satire, and augmented by the jealousy his success could not fail to cause, now hid themselves like those vile insects that slink back into their holes on the first appearance of the sun's rays, ready to creep out again when fogs and darkness return. Living then in the midst of the great world, in the closest intimacy with many of the fair s.e.x, and witnessing the small amount of wedded happiness enjoyed by aristocratic couples within his observation, intending also to wing his flight eventually toward climes more in unison with his tastes, he no longer felt that attraction for marriage which he had experienced in boyhood (like most youths), and he said, quite seriously, that if his cousin, George Byron, would marry, he, on his part, would willingly engage not to enter into wedlock. But his friends saw with regret that his eyes were still seeking through English clouds the blue skies of the East; and that he was kept in perpetual agitation by the fair ones who would cast themselves athwart his path, throwing themselves at his head when not at his feet. Vainly did he distort himself, give himself out to the public as a true "Childe Harold," malign himself; his friends knew that his heart was overflowing with tenderness, and they could not thus be duped. If he had wished to cull some flowers idly, for the sake of scattering their leaves to the breeze, as youth so often does, this sort of amus.e.m.e.nt would have been difficult for him, for the fine ladies of his choice, if once they succeeded in inspiring him with some kind of tender feeling, fastened themselves upon him in such a pa.s.sionate way that his freedom became greatly shackled, and they generally ended by making the public the confidante of their secret.

Lord Byron had some adventures that brought him annoyance and grief.

They made him fall into low spirits,--a sort of moral apathy and indifference for every thing. His best friends, and the wisest among them, thought that the surest way of settling him in England, and getting him out of the sc.r.a.pes into which he was being dragged by female enthusiasm, would be for him to marry, and they advised him to it pertinaciously. Lord Byron, ever docile to the voice of affection, did not repel the counsels given, but he made them well understand that he should marry from reason rather than choice; and the letter he wrote, when Moore insisted on his choosing a certain beautiful girl of n.o.ble birth,[138] well explains his whole state of mind at this time:--

"I believe," said he, "that you think I have not been quite fair with that Alpha and Omega of beauty with whom you would willingly have united me. Had Lady ---- appeared to wish it, I would have gone on, and very possibly married with the same indifference which has frozen over the Black Sea of almost all my pa.s.sions. It is that very indifference which makes me so uncertain and apparently capricious. It is not eagerness of new pursuits, but that nothing impresses me _sufficiently_ to fix. I do not feel disgusted, but simply indifferent to almost all excitements; and the proof of this is that obstacles, the slightest even, stop me. This can hardly be timidity, for I have done some imprudent things, too, in my time; and in almost all cases opposition is a stimulus. In this circ.u.mstance it is not; if a straw were in my way I could not stoop to pick it up. I have sent you this long tirade, because I would not have you suppose that I have been trifling designedly with you or others. If you think so, in the name of St. Hubert (the patron of antlers and hunters) _let me be married out of hand, I don't care to whom_, so it amuses any body else, and don't interfere with me much in the daytime."

But that to which Lord Byron most aspired was always to wing his flight to brighter skies.

"Your climate kills me," he wrote to Hodgson, directly after his return from the East. And then again, "My inclinations and my health make me wish to leave England; neither my habits nor const.i.tution are improved by your customs or your climate. I shall find employment in making myself a good Oriental scholar. I shall buy a mansion in one of the fairest islands, and describe, at intervals, the most interesting portions of the East."

Lord Byron wrote this before he had attained great celebrity, but this did not change either his sentiments or his tastes. Notwithstanding the embarra.s.sments arising from the legacy left him by his great uncle, and which were princ.i.p.ally caused by the action brought against him on account of the illegal sale of the Rochdale mines (a suit which Lord Byron gained, but the expenses of which were ruinous), he was nevertheless sufficiently rich to live at ease, to let his needy friends enjoy the profits arising from his works, and to allow himself acts of beneficence and generosity that were the joy of his heart. And when he had done all that, he still found that he could not spend the surplus in England according to his tastes. After the death of his mother, no longer bound by his promise to her of not selling Newstead, he resolved on effecting the sale so as to settle his affairs definitively. The sale having failed, the forfeit brought him in 25,000; and he wrote to Moore, in September, 1814:--

"I shall know to-morrow whether a circ.u.mstance, of importance enough to change all my plans, will occur or not.[139] If it does not, I am off for Italy next month.

"I have a few thousand pounds which I can't spend after my own heart in this climate, and so I shall go back to the south. Hobhouse, I think and hope, will go with me; but whether he will or not, I shall. I want to see Venice and the Alps, and Parmesan cheeses, and look at the coasts of Greece, or rather Epirus, from Italy as I once did, or fancied I did, that of Italy, when off Corfu."

A few days before writing this letter, his evil destiny had led him to take a step fatal to all his future happiness.

A person, for whom he entertained both affection and deference, observing one day how unsettled he appeared in his state of mind and projects for the future, again reiterated, with more earnestness than ever, the advice to marry.

After long discussions Lord Byron promised to do so. But who should be the object of his choice? A young lady was named who seemed to possess all the qualities requisite for giving happiness in marriage. Lord Byron, on his side, suggested Miss Milbank, with whom he was then in correspondence. She was a niece of Lady Melbourne, who had thought of this union a year before; a circ.u.mstance which probably decided Lord Byron's preference, for he liked Lady Melbourne very much.

On hearing Miss Milbank's name his friend protested with great energy, begging him to remark, among other things, that Miss Milbank had no actual fortune, that his affairs were too much embarra.s.sed for him to be able to marry a woman without money, and moreover that Miss Milbank was a learned lady, a _blue-stocking_, who could not possibly suit him. Ever docile to the voice of friends.h.i.+p, Lord Byron yielded, and allowed his friend to write a proposal to the other lady. Soon after a negative answer arrived, one morning, that the two friends were together.

"You see," said Lord Byron, "that after all it is Miss Milbank I am to marry; I shall write to her!" He did so immediately; and when the letter was finished, his friend feeling more and more opposed to such a choice, took it from him. After having read it, he exclaimed:--

"Truly, this letter is so charming that it is a pity for it not to go. I never read a better effusion." "Then go it shall," replied Lord Byron, who sealed and sent it off, thus signing his own misfortune!

We have said that he was in correspondence with Miss Milbank. This is how he had made her acquaintance.

Two years previously, at a London _soiree_, he saw sitting in the corner of a sofa a young girl whose simplicity of dress made her look as if she belonged to a less elevated position than most of the other girls in the room; Moore told him, however, that she was a rich heiress, Miss Milbank, and that if he would marry her she might help him to restore the old Abbey of Newstead. Her modest look, in striking contrast with the stiffness and formality common to the aristocracy, interested Lord Byron. He had himself introduced, and some time after ended by asking her to marry him. His proposal, from motives that could not wound him, was not accepted then. But a year later Miss Milbank testified the desire of entering into correspondence with him. Thus the ground was prepared. When he sent his letter with a fresh proposal, it was accepted all the more eagerly that a report had been spread of his wis.h.i.+ng to marry a young and beautiful Irish girl, which did not please Miss Milbank. Her answer was couched in very flattering terms, and the fatal marriage was thus decided on. This was perhaps the only time in his life that Lord Byron did not follow the counsels of friends.h.i.+p. It would indeed seem as if an evil genius had taken possession of his will.

Warnings were not wanting; but he refused to listen to them. "If you have any thing to say against my decision," wrote he to Moore, in his usual jesting way, after the marriage had been agreed on, "I beg you to say it. My resolve is taken, so positively, fixed, and irrevocably, that I can very well listen to reason, since now it can do me no more harm."

And so he married Miss Milbank three months afterward. During the interval between the promise exchanged and the ceremony concluded, Lord Byron saw his betrothed frequently. Had he no warning, no inspiration from his good genius during all that time? Had he no fear of such perfection? Did he not feel that a faultless coat of mail, like hers, might so have pressed upon her heart that no pulse would be left giving earnest of life? Might not tenderness, piety, indulgence, forbearance, the most amiable and sublime virtues belonging to a Christian woman, have their place filled in the breast of this perfect creature by another kind of sublimity? and was it not very possible that she would increase by one the number of those chaste wives who judge, condemn, punish, and never forgive any thing that does not enter into the category of their virtues, or rather of the single virtue they practice, and under shadow of which they consider themselves able to dispense with all others? Did he not fear that the profound mathematical knowledge of that learned person might have slightly deadened her heart and given a dogmatic tone to her mind, of which he doubtless with his usual penetration suspected the narrowness, likely to render its science pernicious to the heart? All this is easily to be believed, when we see how preoccupied he was before marriage.

"At the beginning of the month of December, being called up to town by business, I had opportunities, from being a good deal in my n.o.ble friend's society, of observing the state of his mind and feelings under the prospect of the important change he was now about to undergo; and it was with pain I found that those sanguine hopes with which I had sometimes looked forward to the happy influence of marriage, in winning him over to the brighter and better side of life, were, by a view of all the circ.u.mstances of his present destiny considerably diminished. While, at the same time, not a few doubts and misgivings, which had never before so strongly occurred to me, with regard to his own fitness, under any circ.u.mstances, for the matrimonial tie, filled me altogether with a degree of foreboding anxiety as to his fate, which the unfortunate events that followed but too fully justified."

Lord Byron might still have avoided this misfortune by giving up marriage; but the die was cast. His evil genius presented him with no other alternative than to rush on to the catastrophe.

We must add that if, unfortunately, the halo of perfection supposed to encircle the heiress was calculated to make him tremble, it was also of a nature to flatter his self-love. This reputation was, in the eyes of Moore, the princ.i.p.al cause of his preference for Miss Milbank. However that may be, in the last days of December, accompanied by his friend Mr.

Hobhouse, he set out for Seaham, the residence of Sir Ralph, Miss Milbank's father. And on the morning of the 2d of January, surrounded by visions of the past, by gloomy forebodings, having in his hand the fatal ring that had been dug up in his garden at the moment when Miss Milbank's consent arrived; with a beating heart, and eyes all dizzy, that would have made him draw back, if his honor had not been too far engaged, Lord Byron advanced toward the altar. From that fatal day, if his star of glory did not cease to s.h.i.+ne, or even if it shone more brightly seen through the atmosphere of misfortune, nevertheless repose and lasting happiness were gone for him.

An heiress for a wife, but who had no actual fortune, naturally forced him into great expenses, that soon went beyond his resources. His creditors, lured by the riches said to belong to Miss Milbank, came down upon him, as if the wife's fortune could be used to pay the husband's debts.

His marriage had taken place in January, and already, in October, he was obliged to sell his library. Shortly afterward his furniture was seized, and he had to undergo humiliations, all the more keenly felt, that they were quite unmerited, since his debts were inherited with the property.