Life of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 24

"The Ferrara story is of a piece with all the rest of the Venetian manufacture,--you may judge. I only changed horses there since I wrote to you, after my visit in June last. '_Convent_' and '_carry off_', quotha! and '_girl_.' I should like to know _who_ has been carried off, except poor dear _me_. I have been more ravished myself than anybody since the Trojan war; but as to the arrest and its causes, one is as true as the other, and I can account for the invention of neither. I suppose it is some confusion of the tale of the F * * and of Me. Guiccioli, and half a dozen more; but it is useless to unravel the web, when one has only to brush it away. I shall settle with Master E. who looks very blue at your _in-decision_, and swears that he is the best arithmetician in Europe; and so I think also, for he makes out two and two to be five.

"You may see me next week. I have a horse or two more (five in all), and I shall repossess myself of Lido, and I will rise earlier, and we will go and shake our livers over the beach, as heretofore, if you like--and we will make the Adriatic roar again with our hatred of that now empty oyster-sh.e.l.l, without its pearl, the city of Venice.

"Murray sent me a letter yesterday: the impostors have published _two_ new _third_ Cantos of _Don Juan_;--the devil take the impudence of some blackguard bookseller or other _therefor_!

Perhaps I did not make myself understood; he told me the sale had been great, 1200 out of 1500 quarto, I believe (which is nothing after selling 13,000 of the Corsair in one day); but that the 'best judges,' &c. had said it was very fine, and clever, and particularly good English, and poetry, and all those consolatory things, which are not, however, worth a single copy to a bookseller: and as to the author, of course I am in a d----ned pa.s.sion at the bad taste of the times, and swear there is nothing like posterity, who, of course, must know more of the matter than their grandfathers. There has been an eleventh commandment to the women not to read it, and, what is still more extraordinary, they seem not to have broken it. But that can be of little import to them, poor things, for the reading or non-reading a book will never * * * *.

"Count G. comes to Venice next week, and I am requested to consign his wife to him, which shall be done. What you say of the long evenings at the Mira, or Venice, reminds me of what Curran said to Moore:--'So I hear you have married a pretty woman, and a very good creature, too--an excellent creature. Pray--um! _how do you pa.s.s your evenings?_' It is a devil of a question that, and perhaps as easy to answer with a wife as with a mistress.

"If you go to Milan, pray leave at least a _Vice-Consul_--the only vice that will ever be wanting in Venice. D'Orville is a good fellow. But you shall go to England in the spring with me, and plant Mrs. Hoppner at Berne with her relations for a few months. I wish you had been here (at Venice, I mean, not the Mira) when Moore was here--we were very merry and tipsy. He _hated_ Venice, by the way, and swore it was a sad place.[59]

"So Madame Albrizzi's death is in danger--poor woman! Moore told me that at Geneva they had made a devil of a story of the Fornaretta:--'Young lady seduced!--subsequent abandonment!--leap into the Grand Ca.n.a.l!'--and her being in the 'hospital of _fous_ in consequence!' I should like to know who was nearest being made '_fou_,' and be d----d to them I Don't you think me in the interesting character of a very ill used gentleman? I hope your little boy is well. Allegrina is flouris.h.i.+ng like a pomegranate blossom. Yours," &c.

[Footnote 59: I beg to say that this report of my opinion of Venice is coloured somewhat too deeply by the feelings of the reporter.]

LETTER 346. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, November 8. 1819.

"Mr. Hoppner has lent me a copy of 'Don Juan,' Paris edition, which he tells me is read in Switzerland by clergymen and ladies with considerable approbation. In the second Canto, you must alter the 49th stanza to

"'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters, like a veil Which if withdrawn would but disclose the frown Of one whose hate is mask'd but to a.s.sail; Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown, And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale And the dim desolate deep; twelve days had Fear Been their familiar, and now Death was here.

"I have been ill these eight days with a tertian fever, caught in the country on horseback in a thunderstorm. Yesterday I had the fourth attack: the two last were very smart, the first day as well as the last being preceded by vomiting. It is the fever of the place and the season. I feel weakened, but not unwell, in the intervals, except headach and la.s.situde.

"Count Guiccioli has arrived in Venice, and has presented his spouse (who had preceded him two months for her health and the prescriptions of Dr. Aglietti) with a paper of conditions, regulations of hours and conduct, and morals, &c. &c. &c. which he insists on her accepting, and she persists in refusing. I am expressly, it should seem, excluded by this treaty, as an indispensable preliminary; so that they are in high dissension, and what the result may be I know not, particularly as they are consulting friends.

"To-night, as Countess Guiccioli observed me poring over 'Don Juan,' she stumbled by mere chance on the 137th stanza of the first Canto, and asked me what it meant. I told her, 'Nothing--but "your husband is coming."' As I said this in Italian, with some emphasis, she started up in a fright, and said, '_Oh, my G.o.d, is_ he _coming_?' thinking it was _her own_, who either was or ought to have been at the theatre. You may suppose we laughed when she found out the mistake. You will be amused, as I was;--it happened not three hours ago.

"I wrote to you last week, but have added nothing to the third Canto since my fever, nor to 'The Prophecy of Dante.' Of the former there are about 100 octaves done; of the latter about 500 lines--perhaps more. Moore saw the third Juan, as far as it then went. I do not know if my fever will let me go on with either, and the tertian lasts, they say, a good while. I had it in Malta on my way home, and the malaria fever in Greece the year before that. The Venetian is not very fierce, but I was delirious one of the nights with it, for an hour or two, and, on my senses coming back, found Fletcher sobbing on one side of the bed, and La Contessa Guiccioli[60] weeping on the other; so that I had no want of attendance. I have not yet taken any physician, because, though I think they may relieve in chronic disorders, such as gout and the like, &c. &c. &c. (though they can't cure them)--just as surgeons are necessary to set bones and tend wounds--yet I think fevers quite out of their reach, and remediable only by diet and nature.

"I don't like the taste of bark, but I suppose that I must take it soon.

"Tell Rose that somebody at Milan (an Austrian, Mr. Hoppner says) is answering his book. William Bankes is in quarantine at Trieste.

I have not lately heard from you. Excuse this paper: it is long paper shortened for the occasion. What folly is this of Carlile's trial? why let him have the honours of a martyr? it will only advertise the books in question. Yours, &c.

"P.S. As I tell you that the Guiccioli business is on the eve of exploding in one way or the other, I will just add that, without attempting to influence the decision of the Contessa, a good deal depends upon it. If she and her husband make it up, you will, perhaps, see me in England sooner than you expect. If not, I shall retire with her to France or America, change my name, and lead a quiet provincial life. All this may seem odd, but I have got the poor girl into a sc.r.a.pe; and as neither her birth, nor her rank, nor her connections by birth or marriage are inferior to my own, I am in honour bound to support her through. Besides, she is a very pretty woman--ask Moore--and not yet one and twenty.

"If she gets over this and I get over my tertian, I will, perhaps, look in at Albemarle Street, some of these days, _en pa.s.sant_ to Bolivar."

[Footnote 60: The following curious particulars of his delirium are given by Madame Guiccioli:--"At the beginning of winter Count Guiccioli came from Ravenna to fetch me. When he arrived, Lord Byron was ill of a fever, occasioned by his having got wet through;--a violent storm having surprised him while taking his usual exercise on horseback. He had been delirious the whole night, and I had watched continually by his bedside.

During his delirium he composed a good many verses, and ordered his servant to write them down from his dictation. The rhythm of these verses was quite correct, and the poetry itself had no appearance of being the work of a delirious mind. He preserved them for some time after he got well, and then burned them."--"Sul cominciare dell' inverno il Conte Guiccioli venne a prendermi per ricondurmi a Ravenna. Quando egli giunse Ld. Byron era ammalato di febbri prese per essersi bagnato avendolo sorpreso un forte temporale mentre faceva l' usato suo esercizio a cavallo. Egli aveva delirato tutta la notte, ed io aveva sempre vegliato presso al suo letto. Nel suo delirio egli compose molti versi che ordin al suo domestico di scrivere sotto la sua dittatura. La misura dei versi era esatissima, e la poesia pure non pareva opera di una mente in delirio. Egli la conserv lungo tempo dopo restabilito--poi l' abbrucci."

I have been informed, too, that, during his ravings at this time, he was constantly haunted by the idea of his mother-in-law,--taking every one that came near him for her, and reproaching those about him for letting her enter his room.]

LETTER 347. TO MR. BANKES.

"Venice, November 20. 1819.

"A tertian ague which has troubled me for some time, and the indisposition of my daughter, have prevented me from replying before to your welcome letter. I have not been ignorant of your progress nor of your discoveries, and I trust that you are no worse in health from your labours. You may rely upon finding every body in England eager to reap the fruits of them; and as you have done more than other men, I hope you will not limit yourself to saying less than may do justice to the talents and time you have bestowed on your perilous researches. The first sentence of my letter will have explained to you why I cannot join you at Trieste. I was on the point of setting out for England (before I knew of your arrival) when my child's illness has made her and me dependent on a Venetian Proto-Medico.

"It is now seven years since you and I met;--which time you have employed better for others and more honourably for yourself than I have done.

"In England you will find considerable changes, public and private,--you will see some of our old college contemporaries turned into lords of the Treasury, Admiralty, and the like,--others become reformers and orators,--many settled in life, as it is called,--and others settled in death; among the latter, (by the way, not our fellow collegians,) Sheridan, Curran, Lady Melbourne, Monk Lewis, Frederick Douglas, &c. &c. &c.; but you will still find Mr. * * living and all his family, as also * * * * *.

"Should you come up this way, and I am still here, you need not be a.s.sured how glad I shall be to see you; I long to hear some part from you, of that which I expect in no long time to see. At length you have had better fortune than any traveller of equal enterprise (except Humboldt), in returning safe; and after the fate of the Brownes, and the Parkes, and the Burckhardts, it is hardly less surprise than satisfaction to get you back again.

"Believe me ever

"And very affectionately yours,

"BYRON."

LETTER 348. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Venice, December 4. 1819.

"You may do as you please, but you are about a hopeless experiment.

Eldon will decide against you, were it only that my name is in the record. You will also recollect that if the publication is p.r.o.nounced against, on the grounds you mention, as _indecent and blasphemous_, that _I_ lose all right in my daughter's _guardians.h.i.+p_ and _education_, in short, all paternal authority, and every thing concerning her, except * * * * * * * * It was so decided in Sh.e.l.ley's case, because he had written Queen Mab, &c.

&c. However, you can ask the lawyers, and do as you like: I do not inhibit you trying the question; I merely state one of the consequences to me. With regard to the copyright, it is hard that you should pay for a nonent.i.ty: I will therefore refund it, which I can very well do, not having spent it, nor begun upon it; and so we will be quits on that score. It lies at my banker's.

"Of the Chancellor's law I am no judge; but take up Tom Jones, and read his Mrs. Waters and Molly Seagrim; or Prior's Hans Carvel and Paulo Purganti: Smollett's Roderick Random, the chapter of Lord Strutwell, and many others; Peregrine Pickle, the scene of the Beggar Girl; Johnson's _London_, for coa.r.s.e expressions; for instance, the words '* *,' and '* *;' Anstey's Bath Guide, the 'Hearken, Lady Betty, hearken;'--take up, in short, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Dryden, Fielding, Smollett, and let the counsel select pa.s.sages, and what becomes of _their_ copyright, if his Wat Tyler decision is to pa.s.s into a precedent? I have nothing more to say: you must judge for yourselves.

"I wrote to you some time ago. I have had a tertian ague; my daughter Allegra has been ill also, and I have been almost obliged to run away with a married woman; but with some difficulty, and many internal struggles, I reconciled the lady with her lord, and cured the fever of the child with bark, and my own with cold water.

I think of setting out for England by the Tyrol in a few days, so that I could wish you to direct your next letter to Calais. Excuse my writing in great haste and late in the morning, or night, whichever you please to call it. The third Canto of 'Don Juan' is completed, in about two hundred stanzas; very decent, I believe, but do not know, and it is useless to discuss until it be ascertained if it may or may not be a property.

"My present determination to quit Italy was unlooked for; but I have explained the reasons in letters to my sister and Douglas Kinnaird, a week or two ago. My progress will depend upon the snows of the Tyrol, and the health of my child, who is at present quite recovered; but I hope to get on well, and am

"Yours ever and truly.

"P.S. Many thanks for your letters, to which you are not to consider this as an answer, but as an acknowledgment."

The struggle which, at the time of my visit to him, I had found Lord Byron so well disposed to make towards averting, as far as now lay in his power, some of the mischievous consequences which, both to the object of his attachment and himself, were likely to result from their connection, had been brought, as the foregoing letters show, to a crisis soon after I left him. The Count Guiccioli, on his arrival at Venice, insisted, as we have seen, that his lady should return with him; and, after some conjugal negotiations, in which Lord Byron does not appear to have interfered, the young Contessa consented reluctantly to accompany her lord to Ravenna, it being first covenanted that, in future, all communication between her and her lover should cease.

"In a few days after this," says Mr. Hoppner, in some notices of his n.o.ble friend with which he has favoured me, "he returned to Venice, very much out of spirits, owing to Madame Guiccioli's departure, and out of humour with every body and every thing around him. We resumed our rides at the Lido; and I did my best not only to raise his spirits, but to make him forget his absent mistress, and to keep him to his purpose of returning to England. He went into no society; and having no longer any relish for his former occupation, his time, when he was not writing, hung heavy enough on hand."

The promise given by the lovers not to correspond was, as all parties must have foreseen, soon violated; and the letters Lord Byron addressed to the lady, at this time, though written in a language not his own, are rendered frequently even eloquent by the mere force of the feeling that governed him--a feeling which could not have owed its fuel to fancy alone, since now that reality had been so long subst.i.tuted, it still burned on. From one of these letters, dated November 25th, I shall so far presume upon the discretionary power vested in me, as to lay a short extract or two before the reader--not merely as matters of curiosity, but on account of the strong evidence they afford of the struggle between pa.s.sion and a sense of right that now agitated him.

"You are," he says, "and ever will be, my first thought. But, at this moment, I am in a state most dreadful, not knowing which way to decide;--on the one hand, fearing that I should compromise you for ever, by my return to Ravenna and the consequences of such a step, and, on the other, dreading that I shall lose both you and myself, and all that I have ever known or tasted of happiness, by never seeing you more. I pray of you, I implore you to be comforted, and to believe that I cannot cease to love you but with my life." [61] In another part he says, "I go to save you, and leave a country insupportable to me without you. Your letters to F * * and myself do wrong to my motives--but you will yet see your injustice. It is not enough that I must leave you--from motives of which ere long you will be convinced--it is not enough that I must fly from Italy, with a heart deeply wounded, after having pa.s.sed all my days in solitude since your departure, sick both in body and mind--but I must also have to endure your reproaches without answering and without deserving them. Farewell! in that one word is comprised the death of my happiness." [62]

He had now arranged every thing for his departure for England, and had even fixed the day, when accounts reached him from Ravenna that the Contessa was alarmingly ill;--her sorrow at their separation having so much preyed upon her mind, that even her own family, fearful of the consequences, had withdrawn all opposition to her wishes, and now, with the sanction of Count Guiccioli himself, entreated her lover to hasten to Ravenna. What was he, in this dilemma, to do? Already had he announced his coming to different friends in England, and every dictate, he felt, of prudence and manly fort.i.tude urged his departure. While thus balancing between duty and inclination, the day appointed for his setting out arrived; and the following picture, from the life, of his irresolution on the occasion, is from a letter written by a female friend of Madame Guiccioli, who was present at the scene:--"He was ready dressed for the journey, his gloves and cap on, and even his little cane in his hand. Nothing was now waited for but his coming down stairs,--his boxes being already all on board the gondola. At this moment, my Lord, by way of pretext, declares, that if it should strike one o'clock before every thing was in order (his arms being the only thing not yet quite ready), he would not go that day. The hour strikes, and he remains!"[63]