Life of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 23

"'Tis but a portrait of his son and wife, And self; but such a woman! love in life!"

BEPPO, Stanza xii.

This seems, by the way, to be an incorrect description of the picture, as, according to Vasari and others, Giorgione never was married, and died young.]

[Footnote 56: "Egli viene per vedere le meraviglie di questa Citta, e sono certa che nessuno meglio di lui saprebbe gustarle. Mi sara grato che vi facciate sua guida come potrete, e voi poi me ne avrete obbligo.

Egli e amico de Lord Byron--sa la sua storia a.s.sai piu precisamente di quelli che a voi la raccontarono. Egli dunque vi raccontera se lo interrogherete _la forma, le dimensioni_, e tuttoci che vi piacera del _Castello ove tiene imprigionata una giovane innocente sposa_, &c. &c.

Mio caro Pietro, quando ti sei bene sfogato a ridere, allora rispondi due righe alla tua sorella, che t' ama e t' amera sempre colla maggiore tenerezza."]

LETTER 341. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"October 22. 1819.

"I am glad to hear of your return, but I do not know how to congratulate you--unless you think differently of Venice from what I think now, and you thought always. I am, besides, about to renew your troubles by requesting you to be judge between Mr. E * * * and myself in a small matter of imputed peculation and irregular accounts on the part of that phoenix of secretaries. As I knew that you had not parted friends, at the same time that _I_ refused for my own part any judgment but _yours_, I offered him his choice of any person, the _least_ scoundrel native to be found in Venice, as his own umpire; but he expressed himself so convinced of your impartiality, that he declined any but _you_. This is in his favour.--The paper within will explain to you the default in his accounts. You will hear his explanation, and decide if it so please you. I shall not appeal from the decision.

"As he complained that his salary was insufficient, I determined to have his accounts examined, and the enclosed was the result.--It is all in black and white with doc.u.ments, and I have despatched Fletcher to explain (or rather to perplex) the matter.

"I have had much civility and kindness from Mr. Dorville during your journey, and I thank him accordingly.

"Your letter reached me at your departure[57], and displeased me very much:--not that it might not be true in its statement and kind in its intention, but you have lived long enough to know how useless all such representations ever are and must be in cases where the pa.s.sions are concerned. To reason with men in such a situation is like reasoning with a drunkard in his cups--the only answer you will get from him is, that he is sober, and you are drunk.

"Upon that subject we will (if you like) be silent. You might only say what would distress me without answering any purpose whatever; and I have too many obligations to you to answer you in the same style. So that you should recollect that you have also that advantage over me. I hope to see you soon.

"I suppose you know that they said at Venice, that I was arrested at Bologna as a _Carbonaro_--story about as true as their usual conversation. Moore has been here--I lodged him in my house at Venice, and went to see him daily; but I could not at that time quit La Mira entirely. You and I were not very far from meeting in Switzerland. With my best respects to Mrs. Hoppner, believe me ever and truly, &c.

"P.S. Allegra is here in good health and spirits--I shall keep her with me till I go to England, which will perhaps be in the spring.

It has just occurred to me that you may not perhaps like to undertake the office of judge between Mr. E. and your humble servant.--Of course, as Mr. Liston (the comedian, not the amba.s.sador) says, '_it is all hoptional_;' but I have no other resource. I do not wish to find him a rascal, if it can be avoided, and would rather think him guilty of carelessness than cheating.

The case is this--can I, or not, give him a character for _honesty_?--It is not my intention to continue him in my service."

[Footnote 57: Mr. Hoppner, before his departure from Venice for Switzerland, had, with all the zeal of a true friend, written a letter to Lord Byron, entreating him "to leave Ravenna while yet he had a whole skin, and urging him not to risk the safety of a person he appeared so sincerely attached to--as well as his own--for the gratification of a momentary pa.s.sion, which could only be a source of regret to both parties." In the same letter Mr. Hoppner informed him of some reports he had heard lately at Venice, which, though possibly, he said, unfounded, had much increased his anxiety respecting the consequences of the connection formed by him.]

LETTER 342. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"October 25. 1819.

"You need not have made any excuses about the letter: I never said but that you might, could, should, or would have reason. I merely described my own state of inapt.i.tude to listen to it at that time, and in those circ.u.mstances. Besides, you did not speak from your _own_ authority--but from what you said you had heard. Now my blood boils to hear an Italian speaking ill of another Italian, because, though they lie in particular, they speak truth in general by speaking ill at all;--and although they know that they are trying and wis.h.i.+ng to lie, they do not succeed, merely because they can say nothing so bad of each other, that it _may_ not, and must not be true, from the atrocity of their long debased national character.[58]

"With regard to E., you will perceive a most irregular, extravagant account, without proper doc.u.ments to support it. He demanded an increase of salary, which made me suspect him; he supported an outrageous extravagance of expenditure, and did not like the dismission of the cook; he never complained of him--as in duty bound--at the time of his robberies. I can only say, that the house expense is now under _one half_ of what it then was, as he himself admits. He charged for a comb _eighteen_ francs,--the real price was _eight_. He charged a pa.s.sage from Fusina for a person named Iambelli, who paid it _herself_, as she will prove if necessary. He fancies, or a.s.serts himself, the victim of a domestic complot against him;--accounts are accounts--prices are prices;--let him make out a fair detail. _I_ am not prejudiced against him--on the contrary, I supported him against the complaints of his wife, and of his former master, at a time when I could have crushed him like an earwig; and if he is a scoundrel, he is the greatest of scoundrels, an ungrateful one. The truth is, probably, that he thought I was leaving Venice, and determined to make the most of it. At present he keeps bringing in _account after account_, though he had always money in hand--as I believe you know my system was never to allow longer than a week's bills to run. Pray read him this letter--I desire nothing to be concealed against which he may defend himself.

"Pray how is your little boy? and how are you?--I shall be up in Venice very soon, and we will be bilious together. I hate the place and all that it inherits.

"Yours," &c.

[Footnote 58: "This language" (says Mr. Hoppner, in some remarks upon the above letter) "is strong, but it was the language of prejudice; and he was rather apt thus to express the feelings of the moment, without troubling himself to consider how soon he might be induced to change them. He was at this time so sensitive on the subject of Madame * *, that, merely because some persons had disapproved of her conduct, he declaimed in the above manner against the whole nation. I never"

(continues Mr. Hoppner) "was partial to Venice; but disliked it almost from the first month of my residence there. Yet I experienced more kindness in that place than I ever met with in any country, and witnessed acts of generosity and disinterestedness such as rarely are met with elsewhere."]

LETTER 343. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"October 28. 1819.

"I have to thank you for your letter, and your compliment to Don Juan. I said nothing to you about it, understanding that it is a sore subject with the moral reader, and has been the cause of a great row; but I am glad you like it. I will say nothing about the s.h.i.+pwreck, except that I hope you think it is as nautical and technical as verse could admit in the octave measure.

"The poem has _not sold well_, so Murray says--'but the best judges, &c. say, &c.' so says that worthy man. I have never seen it in print. The third Canto is in advance about one hundred stanzas; but the failure of the two first has weakened my _estro_, and it will neither be so good as the two former, nor completed, unless I get a little more _riscaldato_ in its behalf. I understand the outcry was beyond every thing.--Pretty cant for people who read Tom Jones, and Roderick Random, and the Bath Guide, and Ariosto, and Dryden, and Pope--to say nothing of Little's Poems! Of course I refer to the _morality_ of these works, and not to any pretension of mine to compete with them in any thing but decency. I hope yours is the Paris edition, and that you did not pay the London price. I have seen neither except in the newspapers.

"Pray make my respects to Mrs. H., and take care of your little boy. All my household have the fever and ague, except Fletcher, Allegra, and my_sen_ (as we used to say in Nottinghams.h.i.+re), and the horses, and Mutz, and Moretto. In the beginning of November, perhaps sooner, I expect to have the pleasure of seeing you. To-day I got drenched by a thunder-storm, and my horse and groom too, and his horse all bemired up to the middle in a cross-road. It was summer at noon, and at five we were bewintered; but the lightning was sent perhaps to let us know that the summer was not yet over.

It is queer weather for the 27th October.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 344. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, October 29. 1819.

"Yours of the 15th came yesterday. I am sorry that you do not mention a large letter addressed to _your care_ for Lady Byron, from me, at Bologna, two months ago. Pray tell me, was this letter received and forwarded?

"You say nothing of the vice-consulate for the Ravenna patrician, from which it is to be inferred that the thing will not be done.

"I had written about a hundred stanzas of a _third_ Canto to Don Juan, but the reception of the two first is no encouragement to you nor me to proceed.

"I had also written about 600 lines of a poem, the Vision (or Prophecy) of Dante, the subject a view of Italy in the ages down to the present--supposing Dante to speak in his own person, previous to his death, and embracing all topics in the way of prophecy, like Lycophron's Ca.s.sandra; but this and the other are both at a stand-still for the present.

"I gave Moore, who is gone to Rome, my Life in MS., in seventy-eight folio sheets, brought down to 1816. But this I put into his hands for _his_ care, as he has some other MSS. of mine--a Journal kept in 1814, &c. Neither are for publication during my life; but when I am cold you may do what you please. In the mean time, if you like to read them you may, and show them to anybody you like--I care not.

"The Life is _Memoranda_, and not _Confessions_ I have left out all my _loves_ (except in a general way), and many other of the most important things (because I must not compromise other people), so that it is like the play of Hamlet--'the part of Hamlet omitted by particular desire.' But you will find many opinions, and some fun, with a detailed account of my marriage, and its consequences, as true as a party concerned can make such account, for I suppose we are all prejudiced.

"I have never read over this Life since it was written, so that I know not exactly what it may repeat or contain. Moore and I pa.s.sed some merry days together.

"I probably must return for business, or in my way to America.

Pray, did you get a letter for Hobhouse, who will have told you the contents? I understand that the Venezuelan commissioners had orders to treat with emigrants; now I want to go there. I should not make a bad South-American planter, and I should take my natural daughter, Allegra, with me, and settle. I wrote, at length, to Hobhouse, to get information from Perry, who, I suppose, is the best topographer and trumpeter of the new republicans. Pray write.

"Yours ever.

"P.S. Moore and I did nothing but laugh. He will tell you of 'my whereabouts,' and all my proceedings at this present; they are as usual. You should not let those fellows publish false 'Don Juans;'

but do not put _my name_, because I mean to cut R----ts up like a gourd, in the preface, if I continue the poem."

LETTER 345. TO MR. HOPPNER.

"October 29. 1819.