The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 58

PREFACE TO CANTOS VI., VII., AND VIII.

THE details of the siege of Ismail in two of the following cantos (_i.e._ the seventh and eighth) are taken from a French Work, ent.i.tled _Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie._[319] Some of the incidents attributed to Don Juan really occurred, particularly the circ.u.mstance of his saving the infant, which was the actual case of the late Duc de Richelieu, then a young volunteer in the Russian service, and afterward the founder and benefactor of Odessa, where his name and memory can never cease to be regarded with reverence.

In the course of these cantos, a stanza or two will be found relative to the late Marquis of Londonderry,[320] but written some time before his decease. Had that person's oligarchy died with him, they would have been suppressed; as it is, I am aware of nothing in the manner of his death or of his life to prevent the free expression of the opinions of all whom his whole existence was consumed in endeavouring to enslave. That he was an amiable man in _private_ life, may or may not be true: but with this the public have nothing to do; and as to lamenting his death, it will be time enough when Ireland has ceased to mourn for his birth.

As a minister, I, for one of millions, looked upon him as the most despotic in intention, and the weakest in intellect, that ever tyrannised over a country. It is the first time indeed since the Normans that England has been insulted by a _minister_ (at least) who could not speak English, and that Parliament permitted itself to be dictated to in the language of Mrs. Malaprop.

Of the manner of his death little need be said, except that if a poor radical, such as Waddington or Watson,[321] had cut his throat, he would have been buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances of the stake and mallet. But the minister was an elegant lunatic--a sentimental suicide--he merely cut the "carotid artery," (blessings on their learning!) and lo! the pageant, and the Abbey! and "the syllables of dolour yelled forth"[322] by the newspapers--and the harangue of the Coroner in a eulogy over the bleeding body of the deceased--(an Anthony worthy of such a Caesar)--and the nauseous and atrocious cant of a degraded crew of conspirators against all that is sincere and honourable. In his death he was necessarily one of two things by the law[323]--a felon or a madman--and in either case no great subject for panegyric.[324] In his life he was--what all the world knows, and half of it will feel for years to come, unless his death prove a "moral lesson" to the surviving Sejani[325] of Europe. It may at least serve as some consolation to the nations, that their oppressors are not happy, and in some instances judge so justly of their own actions as to antic.i.p.ate the sentence of mankind. Let us hear no more of this man; and let Ireland remove the ashes of her Grattan from the sanctuary of Westminster. Shall the patriot of humanity repose by the Werther of politics!!!

With regard to the objections which have been made on another score to the already published cantos of this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations from Voltaire:--"La pudeur s'est enfuite des coeurs, et s'est refugiee sur les levres." ... "Plus les moeurs sont depraves, plus les expressions deviennent mesurees; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu."

This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded and hypocritical ma.s.s which leavens the present English generation, and is the only answer they deserve. The hackneyed and lavished t.i.tle of Blasphemer--which, with Radical, Liberal, Jacobin, Reformer, etc., are the changes which the hirelings are daily ringing in the ears of those who will listen--should be welcome to all who recollect on _whom_ it was originally bestowed. Socrates and Jesus Christ were put to death publicly as _blasphemers_, and so have been and may be many who dare to oppose the most notorious abuses of the name of G.o.d and the mind of man.

But persecution is not refutation, nor even triumph: the "wretched infidel," as he is called, is probably happier in his prison than the proudest of his a.s.sailants. With his opinions I have nothing to do--they may be right or wrong--but he has suffered for them, and that very suffering for conscience' sake will make more proselytes to deism than the example of heterodox[326] Prelates to Christianity, suicide statesmen to oppression, or overpensioned homicides to the impious alliance which insults the world with the name of "Holy!"[327] I have no wish to trample on the dishonoured or the dead; but it would be well if the adherents to the cla.s.ses from whence those persons sprung should abate a little of the cant which is the crying sin of this double-dealing and false-speaking time of selfish spoilers, and----but enough for the present.

FOOTNOTES:

{264}[319] [The Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau, author of an _Essai sur L'Histoire ancienne et moderne de la Nouvelle Russie_ (Sec. Ed. 3 tom.

1827), was, at one time, resident at Odessa, where he met and made the acquaintance of Armand Emanuel, Duc de Richelieu, who took part in the siege of Ismail. M. Leon de Crousaz-Cretet describes him as "ancien surintendant des theatres sous l'Empereur Paul."--_Le Duc de Richelieu_, 1897, p. 83.]

[320] [For Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, second Marquis of Londonderry (1769-1822), see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 108, 109, note 1.]

{266}[321] [Samuel Ferrand Waddington, born 1759, hop-grower and radical politician, first came into notice as the chairman of public meetings in favour of making peace with the French in 1793. He was the author, _inter alia_, of _A Key to a Delicate Investigation_, 1812, and _An Address to the People of the United Kingdom_, 1812. He was alive in 1822. James Watson (1766-1838), a radical agitator of the following of Thomas Spence, was engaged, in the autumn of 1816, in an abortive conspiracy to blow up cavalry barracks, barricade the streets, and seize the Bank and the Tower. He was tried for high treason before Lord Ellenborough, and acquitted.]

[322] [_Macbeth_, act iv. sc. 3, lines 7, 8.]

[323] I say by the _law_ of the _land_--the laws of humanity judge more gently; but as the legitimates have always the law in their mouths, let them here make the most of it.

[324] [Mr. Joseph Carttar, of Deptford, coroner for the County of Kent, addressed the jury at some length. The following sentences are taken from the report of the inquest, contained in _The Annual Biography and Obituary for the year 1823_, vol. vii. p. 57: "As a public man, it is impossible for me to weigh his character in any scales that I can hold.

In private life I believe the world will admit that a more amiable man could not be found.... If it should unfortunately appear that there is not sufficient evidence to prove what is generally considered the indication of a disordered mind, I trust that the jury will pay some attention to my humble opinion, which is, that no man can be in his proper senses at the moment he commits so rash an act as self-murder.

...The Bible declares that a man clings to nothing so strongly as his own life, I therefore view it as an axiom, and an abstract principle, that a man must necessarily be out of his mind at the moment of destroying himself." Byron, probably, read the report of the inquest in Cobbett's _Weekly Register_ (August 17, 1822, vol. 43, pp. 389-425). The "eulogy" was in perfectly good taste, but there can be little doubt that if "Waddington or Watson" had cut _their_ "carotid arteries," the verdict would have been different.]

[325] From this number must be excepted Canning. Canning is a genius, almost a universal one, an orator, a wit, a poet, a statesman; and no man of talent can long pursue the path of his late predecessor, Lord C.

If ever man saved his country, Canning _can_, but _will_ he? I for one, hope so.

[The phrase, "great moral lesson," was employed by the Duke of Wellington, _a propos_ of the restoration of pictures and statues to their "rightful owners," in a despatch addressed to Castlereagh, under date, Paris, September 19, 1815 (_The Dispatches, etc._ (ed. by Colonel Gurwood), 1847, viii. 270). The words, "moral lesson," as applied to the French generally, are to be found in Scott's _Field of Waterloo_ (conclusion, stanza vi. line 3), which was written about the same time as the despatch. Byron quotes them in his "Ode from the French," stanza iv. line 8 (see _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 434, note 1). There is a satirical allusion to the Duke's "a.s.sumption of the didactic" about teaching a "great moral lesson" in the Preface to the first number of the _Liberal_ (1822, p. xi.).]

{267}[326] When Lord Sandwich said "he did not know the difference between orthodoxy and heterodoxy," Warburton, the bishop, replied, "Orthodoxy, my lord, is _my doxy_, and heterodoxy is _another man's_ doxy." A prelate of the present day has discovered, it seems, a _third_ kind of doxy, which has not greatly exalted in the eyes of the elect that which Bentham calls "Church-of-Englandism."

[For the "prelate," see _Letters_, 1902, vi. 101, note 2.]

[327] [For the Duke of Wellington and the Holy Alliance, see the Introduction to _The Age of Bronze, Poetical Works_, 1901, v. 538, 561.]

CANTO THE SIXTH.[328]

I.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which,--taken at the flood,"--you know the rest,[329]

And most of us have found it now and then: At least we think so, though but few have guessed The moment, till too late to come again.

But no doubt everything is for the best-- Of which the surest sign is in the end: When things are at the worst they sometimes mend.

II.

There is a tide in the affairs of women, Which, taken at the flood, leads--G.o.d knows where: Those navigators must be able seamen Whose charts lay down its currents to a hair; Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen[330]

With its strange whirls and eddies can compare: Men with their heads reflect on this and that-- But women with their hearts on Heaven knows what![gb]

III.

And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright She, Young, beautiful, and daring--who would risk A throne--the world--the universe--to be Beloved in her own way--and rather whisk The stars from out the sky, than not be free[gc]

As are the billows when the breeze is brisk-- Though such a She's a devil (if there be one), Yet she would make full many a Manichean.

IV.

Thrones, worlds, _et cetera_, are so oft upset By commonest ambition, that when Pa.s.sion O'erthrows the same, we readily forget, Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one.

If Anthony be well remembered yet, 'T is not his conquests keep his name in fas.h.i.+on, But Actium, lost for Cleopatra's eyes, Outbalances all Caesar's victories.[gd]

V.

He died at fifty for a queen of forty; I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty,[ge]

For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds are but a sport--I Remember when, though I had no great plenty Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I Gave what I had--a heart;[331] as the world went, I Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never Restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever.

VI.

'T was the boy's "mite," and, like the "widow's," may Perhaps be weighed hereafter, if not now; But whether such things do or do not weigh, All who have loved, or love, will still allow Life has nought like it. G.o.d is Love, they say, And Love's a G.o.d, or was before the brow Of Earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears Of--but Chronology best knows the years.

VII.

We left our hero and third heroine in A kind of state more awkward than uncommon, For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman: Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin, And don't agree at all with the wise Roman, Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious, Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.[332]

VIII.

I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong; I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it; But I detest all fiction even in song, And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it.

Her reason being weak, her pa.s.sions strong, She thought that her Lord's heart (even could she claim it) Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine.

IX.

I am not, like Ca.s.sio, "an arithmetician,"

But by "the bookish theoric"[333] it appears, If 't is summed up with feminine precision, That, adding to the account his Highness' years, The fair Sultana erred from inanition; For, were the Sultan just to all his dears, She could but claim the fifteen-hundredth part Of what should be monopoly--the heart.

X.

It is observed that ladies are litigious Upon all legal objects of possession, And not the least so when they are religious, Which doubles what they think of the transgression: With suits and prosecutions they besiege us, As the tribunals show through many a session, When they suspect that any one goes shares In that to which the law makes them sole heirs.

XI.

Now, if this holds good in a Christian land, The heathen also, though with lesser lat.i.tude,[gf]