The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 56

The poem as it stood was complete, and, as a poem, it lost as well as gained by the insertion of additional stanzas and groups of stanzas, "purple patch" on "purple patch," each by itself so attractive and so splendid. The pilgrim finds himself at Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs."

He beholds in a vision the departed glories of "a thousand years." The "long array of shadows," the "beings of the mind," come to him "like truth," and repeople the vacancy. But he is an exile, and turns homeward in thought to "the inviolate island of the sage and free." He is an exile and a sufferer. He can and will endure his fate, but "ever and anon" he feels the p.r.i.c.k of woe, and with the sympathy of despair would stand "a ruin amidst ruins," a desolate soul in a land of desolation and decay. He renews his pilgrimage. He pa.s.ses Arqua, where "they keep the dust of Laura's lover," lingers for a day at Ferrara, haunted by memories of "Torquato's injured shade," and, as he approaches "the fair white walls" of Florence, he re-echoes the "Italia! oh, Italia!" of Filicaja's impa.s.sioned strains. At Florence he gazes, "dazzled and drunk with beauty," at the "G.o.ddess in stone," the Medicean Venus, but forbears to "describe the indescribable," to break the silence of Art by naming its mysteries. Santa Croce and the other glories "in Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine," he pa.s.ses by unsung, if not unseen; but Thrasymene's "sheet of silver," the "living crystal" of c.l.i.tumnus'

"gentlest waters," and Terni's "matchless cataract," on whose verge "an Iris sits," and "lone Soracte's ridge," not only call forth his spirit's homage, but receive the homage of his Muse.

And now the Pilgrim has reached his goal, "Rome the wonderful," the sepulchre of empire, the shrine of art.

Henceforth the works of man absorb his attention. Pompey's "dread statue;" the Wolf of the Capitol; the Tomb of Cecilia Metella; the Palatine; the "nameless column" of the Forum; Trajan's pillar; Egeria's Grotto; the ruined Colosseum, "arches on arches," an "enormous skeleton," the Colosseum of the poet's vision, a mult.i.tudinous ring of spectators, a b.l.o.o.d.y Circus, and a dying Gladiator; the Pantheon; S.

Nicola in Carcere, the scene of the Romana Caritas; St. Peter's "vast and wondrous dome,"--are all celebrated in due succession. Last of all, he "turns to the Vatican," to view the Laoc.o.o.n and the Apollo Belvidere, the counterfeit presentments of ideal suffering and ideal beauty. His "shrine is won;" but ere he bids us farewell he climbs the Alban Mount, and as the Mediterranean once more bursts upon his sight, he sums the moral of his argument. Man and all his works are as a drop of rain in the Ocean, "the image of eternity, the throne of the Invisible"!

Byron had no sooner completed "this fourth and ultimate canto," than he began to throw off additional stanzas. His letters to Murray during the autumn of 1817 announce these successive lengthenings; but it is impossible to trace the exact order of their composition. On the 7th of August the canto stood at 130 stanzas, on the 21st at 133; on the 4th of September at 144, on the 17th at 150; and by November 15 it had reached 167 stanzas. Of nineteen stanzas which were still to be added, six--on the death of the Princess Charlotte (died November 6, 1817)--were written at the beginning of December, and two stanzas (clxxvii., clxxviii.) were forwarded to Murray in the early spring of 1818.

Of these additions the most notable are four stanzas on Venice (including stanza xiii. on "The Horses of St. Mark"); "The sunset on the Brenta" (stanzas xxvii.-xxix.); The tombs in Santa Croce,--the apostrophe to "the all Etruscan three," Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio (stanzas liv.-lx.); "Rome a chaos of ruins--antiquarian ignorance"

(stanzas lx.x.x.-lx.x.xii.); "The nothingness of Man--the hope of the future--Freedom" (stanzas xciii.-xcviii.); "The Tarpeian Rock--the Forum--Rienzi" (stanzas cxii.-cxiv.); "Love, Life, and Reason" (stanzas cxx.-cxxvii.); "The Curse of Forgiveness" (stanzas cx.x.xv.-cx.x.xvii.); "The Mole of Hadrian" (stanza clii.); "The death of the Princess Charlotte" (stanzas clxvii.-clxxii.); "Nemi" (stanzas clxxiii., clxxiv.); "The Desert and one fair Spirit" (stanzas clxxvii., clxxviii.).

Some time during the month of December, 1817, Byron wrote out a fair copy of the entire canto, numbering 184 stanzas _(MS. D.)_; and on January 7, 1818, Hobhouse left Venice for England, with the "whole of the MSS.," viz. _Beppo_ (begun October, 1817), and the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_, together with a work of his own, a volume of essays on Italian literature, the antiquities of Rome, etc., which he had put together during his residence in Venice (July--December, 1817), and proposed to publish as an appendix to _Childe Harold_. In his preface to _Historical Ill.u.s.trations_, etc., 1818, Hobhouse explains that on his return to England he considered that this "appendix to the Canto would be swelled to a disproportioned bulk," and that, under this impression, he determined to divide his material into two parts. The result was that "such only of the notes as were more immediately connected with the text" were printed as "Historical Notes to Canto the Fourth," and that his longer dissertations were published in a separate volume, under his own name, as _Historical Ill.u.s.trations to the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold_. To these "Historical Notes" an interest attaches apart from any consideration of their own worth and importance; but to understand the relation between the poem and the notes, it is necessary to retrace the movements of the poet and his annotator.

Byron and Hobhouse left the Villa Diodati, October 5, 1816, crossed the Simplon, and made their way together, via Milan and Verona, to Venice.

Early in December the friends parted company. Byron remained at Venice, and Hobhouse proceeded to Rome, and for the next four months devoted himself to the study of Italian literature, in connection with archaeology and art. Byron testifies (September 14, 1817) that his researches were "indefatigable," that he had "more real knowledge of Rome and its environs than any Englishman who has been there since Gibbon." Hobhouse left Rome for Naples, May 21; returned to Rome, June 9; arrived at Terni, July 2; and early in July joined Byron on the Brenta, at La Mira. The latter half of the year (July--December, 1817) was occupied in consulting "the best authorities" in the Ducal Library at Venice, with a view to perfecting his researches, and giving them to the world as an ill.u.s.trative appendix to _Childe Harold_. It is certain that Byron had begun the fourth canto, and written some thirty or more stanzas, before Hobhouse rejoined him at his villa of La Mira on the banks of the Brenta, in July, 1817; and it would seem that, although he had begun by saying "that he was too short a time in Rome for it," he speedily overcame his misgivings, and accomplished, as he believed, the last "fytte" of his pilgrimage. The first draft was Byron's unaided composition, but the "additional stanzas" were largely due to Hobhouse's suggestions in the course of conversation, if not to his written "researches." Hobhouse himself made no secret of it. In his preface (p.

5) to _Historical Ill.u.s.trations_ he affirms that both "ill.u.s.trations"

and notes were "for the most part written while the n.o.ble author was yet employed in the composition of the poem. They were put into the hands of Lord Byron much in the state in which they now appear;" and, writing to Murray, December 7, 1817, he says, "I must confess I feel an affection for it [Canto IV.] more than ordinary, as part of it was begot as it were under my own eyes; for although your poets are as shy as elephants and camels ... yet I have, not unfrequently, witnessed his lords.h.i.+p's coupleting, and some of the stanzas owe their birth to our morning walk or evening ride at La Mira." Forty years later, in his revised and enlarged "Ill.u.s.trations" (_Italy: Remarks made in Several Visits from the year 1816 to 1854_, by the Right Hon. Lord Broughton, G.C.B., 1859, i. p. iv.), he reverts to this collaboration: "When I rejoined Lord Byron at La Mira ... I found him employed upon the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_, and, later in the autumn, he showed me the first sketch of the poem. It was much shorter than it afterwards became, and it did not remark on several objects which appeared to me peculiarly worthy of notice. I made a list of these objects, and in conversation with him gave him reasons for the selection. The result was the poem as it now appears, and he then engaged me to write the notes."

As the "delicate spirit" of Sh.e.l.ley suffused the third canto of _Childe Harold_, so the fourth reveals the presence and co-operation of Hobhouse. To his brother-poet he owed a fresh conception, perhaps a fresh appreciation of nature; to his lifelong friend, a fresh enthusiasm for art, and a host of details, "dry bones ... which he awakened into the fulness of life."

The Fourth Canto was published on Tuesday, April 28, 1818. It was reviewed by [Sir] Walter Scott in the _Quarterly Review_, No. x.x.xvii., April, 1818, and by John Wilson in the _Edinburgh Review_, No. 59, June, 1818. Both numbers were published on the same day, September 26, 1818.

CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO IV. ORIGINAL DRAFT. [MS. M.]

[June 26--July 19. 1817.]

Stanza i. "I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs,"--

Stanza iii.-xi. "In Venice Ta.s.so's echoes are no more,"--"The spouseless Adriatic mourns her Lord,"--

Stanza xv. "Statues of gla.s.s--all s.h.i.+vered--the long file,"--

Stanza xviii.-xxvi. "I loved her from my boyhood--she to me,"--"The Commonwealth of Kings--the Men of Rome!"--

Stanza x.x.x.-x.x.xix. "There is a tomb in Arqua;--reared in air,"--"Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his,"--

Stanza xlii.-xlvi. "Italia! oh, Italia! thou who hast,"--"That page is now before me, and on mine,"--

Stanza xlviii.-l. "But Arno wins us to the fair white walls,"--"We gaze and turn away, and know not where,"--

Stanza liii. "I leave to learned fingers, and wise hands,"--

Stanza lxi.-lxxix. "There be more things to greet the heart and eyes,"--"The Niobe of nations! there she stands,"--

Stanza lx.x.xiii. "Oh, thou, whose chariot rolled on Fortune's wheel,"--

Stanza lx.x.xiv. "The dictatorial wreath--couldst thou divine,"--

Stanza lx.x.xvii.-xcii. "And thou, dread Statue! yet existent in,"--"And would be all or nothing--nor could wait,"--

Stanza xcix.-cviii. "There is a stern round tower of other days,"--"There is the moral of all human tales,"--

Stanza cx. "Tully was not so eloquent as thou,"--

Stanza cxi. "Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,"--

Stanza cxv.-cxix. "Egeria! sweet creation of some heart,"--"And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,"--

Stanza cxxviii.-cx.x.xiv. "Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,"--"And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now,"--

Stanza cx.x.xviii.-cli. "The seal is set.--Now welcome, thou dread Power!"--"The starry fable of the Milky Way,"--

Stanza cliii.-clxvi. "But lo! the Dome--the vast and wondrous Dome,"--"And send us prying into the abyss,"--

Stanza clxxv. "But I forget.--My Pilgrim's shrine is won,"--

Stanza clxxvi. "Upon the blue Symplegades: long years,"--

Stanza clxxix. "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!"--

Stanza clx.x.x. "His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields,"--

Stanza clx.x.xiii.-clx.x.xvi. "Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form,"--"Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been,"--

ADDITIONAL STANZA.

Stanza xl. "Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those,"--

(127 stanzas.)

ADDITIONS BOUND UP WITH MS. M.

Stanza ii. "She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from Ocean,"--

Stanza xii.-xiv. "The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns,"

--(November 10, 1817.)--"In youth She was all glory,--a new Tyre,"--

Stanza xvi. "When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,"--

Stanza xvii. "Thus, Venice! if no stronger claim were thine,"--

Stanza xxvii.-xxix. "The Moon is up, and yet it is not night,"--"Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar,"--