The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 29

_Rosalind_. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; Look, you lisp, and wear strange suits: disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your Nativity, and almost chide G.o.d for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have swam in a _Gondola_.

_As You Like It_, act iv, sc. I, lines 33-35.

_Annotation of the Commentators_.

That is, _been at Venice_, which was much visited by the young English gentlemen of those times, and was _then_ what _Paris_ is _now_--the seat of all dissoluteness.--S. A.[191]

[The initials S. A. (Samuel Ayscough) are not attached to this note, but to another note on the same page (see _Dramatic Works_ of William Shakspeare, 1807, i. 242).]

INTRODUCTION TO _BEPPO_

_BEPPO_ was written in the autumn (September 6--October 12, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 172) of 1817, whilst Byron was still engaged on the additional stanzas of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_. His new poem, as he admitted from the first, was "after the excellent manner" of John Hookham Frere's _jeu d'esprit_, known as _Whistlecraft_ (_Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work_ by William and Robert Whistlecraft, London, 1818[192]), which must have reached him in the summer of 1817. Whether he divined the ident.i.ty of "Whistlecraft" from the first, or whether his guess was an after-thought, he did not hesitate to take the water and shoot ahead of his unsuspecting rival. It was a case of plagiarism _in excelsis_, and the superiority of the imitation to the original must be set down to the genius of the plagiary, unaided by any profound study of Italian literature, or an acquaintance at first hand with the parents and inspirers of _Whistlecraft_.

It is possible that he had read and forgotten some specimens of Pulci's _Morgante Maggiore_, which J. H. Merivale had printed in the _Monthly Magazine_ for 1806-1807, vol. xxi. pp. 304, 510, etc., and it is certain that he was familiar with his _Orlando in Roncesvalles_, published in 1814. He distinctly states that he had not seen W. S. Rose's[193]

translation of Casti's _Animali Parlanti_ (first edition [anonymous], 1816), but, according to Pryse Gordon (_Personal Memoirs_, ii. 328), he had read the original. If we may trust Ugo Foscolo (see "Narrative and Romantic Poems of the Italians" in the _Quart. Rev_., April, 1819, vol.

xxi. pp. 486-526), there is some evidence that Byron had read Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_ (translated in 1819 by Sylvester (Douglas) Lord Glenbervie, and again, by John Herman Merivale, under the t.i.tle of _The Two First Cantos of Richardetto_, 1820), but the parallel which he adduces (_vide post_, p. 166) is not very striking or convincing.

On the other hand, after the poem was completed (March 25, 1818), he was under the impression that "Berni was the original of _all_ ... the father of that kind [i.e. the mock-heroic] of writing;" but there is nothing to show whether he had or had not read the _rifacimento_ of Orlando's _Innamorato_, or the more distinctively Bernesque _Capitoli_.

Two years later (see Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 407; and "Advertis.e.m.e.nt" to _Morgante Maggiore_) he had discovered that "Pulci was the parent of _Whistlecraft_, and the precursor and model of Berni," but, in 1817, he was only at the commencement of his studies. A time came long before the "year or two"

of his promise (March 25, 1818) when he had learned to simulate the _vera imago_ of the Italian Muse, and was able not only to surpa.s.s his "immediate model," but to rival his model's forerunners and inspirers.

In the meanwhile a tale based on a "Venetian anecdote" (perhaps an "episode" in the history of Colonel Fitzgerald and the Marchesa Castiglione,--see Letter to Moore, December 26, 1816, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 26) lent itself to "the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft," and would show "the knowing ones," that is, Murray's advisers, Gifford, Croker, Frere, etc., that "he could write cheerfully," and "would repel the charge of monotony and mannerism."

Eckermann, mindful of Goethe's hint that Byron had too much _empeiria_ (an excess of _mondanite_--a _this_-worldliness), found it hard to read _Beppo_ after _Macbeth_. "I felt," he says, "the predominance of a nefarious, empirical world, with which the mind which introduced it to us has in a certain measure a.s.sociated itself" (_Conversations of Goethe, etc._, 1874, p. 175). But _Beppo_ must be taken at its own valuation. It is _A Venetian Story_, and the action takes place behind the scenes of "a comedy of Goldoni." A less subtle but a more apposite criticism may be borrowed from "Lord Byron's Combolio" (_sic_), _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, 1822, xi. 162-165.

"The story that's in it May be told in a minute; But _par parenthese_ chatting, On this thing and that thing, Keeps the shuttlec.o.c.k flying, And attention from dying."

_Beppo, a Venetian Story_ (xcv. stanzas) was published February 28, 1818; and a fifth edition, consisting of xcix. stanzas, was issued May 4, 1818.

Jeffrey, writing in the _Edinburgh Review_ (February, 1818, vol. xxix.

pp. 302-310), is unconcerned with regard to _Whistlecraft_, or any earlier model, but observes "that the nearest approach to it [_Beppo_]

is to be found in some of the tales and lighter pieces of Prior--a few stanzas here and there among the trash and burlesque of Peter Pindar, and in several pa.s.sages of Mr. Moore, and the author of the facetious miscellany ent.i.tled the _Twopenny Post Bag_."

Other notices, of a less appreciative kind, appeared in the _Monthly Review_, March, 1818, vol. 85, pp. 285-290; and in the _Eclectic Review_, N.S., June, 1818, vol. ix. pp. 555-557.

BEPPO.[194]

I.

'Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout All countries of the Catholic persuasion,[195]

Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday comes about, The People take their fill of recreation, And buy repentance, ere they grow devout, However high their rank, or low their station, With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masquing, And other things which may be had for asking.

II.

The moment night with dusky mantle covers The skies (and the more duskily the better), The Time less liked by husbands than by lovers Begins, and Prudery flings aside her fetter; And Gaiety on restless tiptoe hovers, Giggling with all the gallants who beset her; And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming, Guitars, and every other sort of strumming.[196]

III.

And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical, Masks of all times and nations, Turks and Jews, And harlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical, Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos; All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical, All people, as their fancies. .h.i.t, may choose, But no one in these parts may quiz the Clergy,-- Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers! I charge ye.

IV.

You'd better walk about begirt with briars, Instead of coat and smallclothes, than put on A single st.i.tch reflecting upon friars, Although you swore it only was in fun; They'd haul you o'er the coals, and stir the fires Of Phlegethon with every mother's son, Nor say one ma.s.s to cool the cauldron's bubble That boiled your bones, unless you paid them double.

V.

But saving this, you may put on whate'er You like by way of doublet, cape, or cloak, Such as in Monmouth-street, or in Rag Fair, Would rig you out in seriousness or joke; And even in Italy such places are, With prettier name in softer accents spoke, For, bating Covent Garden, I can hit on No place that's called "Piazza" in Great Britain.[197]

VI.

This feast is named the Carnival, which being Interpreted, implies "farewell to flesh:"

So called, because the name and thing agreeing, Through Lent they live on fish both salt and fresh.

But why they usher Lent with so much glee in, Is more than I can tell, although I guess 'Tis as we take a gla.s.s with friends at parting, In the Stage-Coach or Packet, just at starting.

VII.

And thus they bid farewell to carnal dishes, And solid meats, and highly spiced ragouts, To live for forty days on ill-dressed fishes, Because they have no sauces to their stews; A thing which causes many "poohs" and "pishes,"

And several oaths (which would not suit the Muse), From travellers accustomed from a boy To eat their salmon, at the least, with soy;

VIII.

And therefore humbly I would recommend "The curious in fish-sauce," before they cross The sea, to bid their cook, or wife, or friend, Walk or ride to the Strand, and buy in gross (Or if set out beforehand, these may send By any means least liable to loss), Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar, and Harvey, Or, by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh starve ye;

IX.

That is to say, if your religion's Roman, And you at Rome would do as Romans do, According to the proverb,--although no man, If foreign, is obliged to fast; and you, If Protestant, or sickly, or a woman, Would rather dine in sin on a ragout-- Dine and be d--d! I don't mean to be coa.r.s.e, But that's the penalty, to say no worse.

X.

Of all the places where the Carnival Was most facetious in the days of yore, For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball, And Masque, and Mime, and Mystery, and more Than I have time to tell now, or at all, Venice the bell from every city bore,-- And at the moment when I fix my story, That sea-born city was in all her glory.

XI.

They've pretty faces yet, those same Venetians, Black eyes, arched brows, and sweet expressions still; Such as of old were copied from the Grecians, In ancient arts by moderns mimicked ill; And like so many Venuses of t.i.tian's[198]

(The best's at Florence--see it, if ye will,) They look when leaning over the balcony, Or stepped from out a picture by Giorgione,[199]

XII.

Whose tints are Truth and Beauty at their best; And when you to Manfrini's palace go,[200]