Life of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 32

"There is a revolution at Naples. If so, it will probably leave a card at Ravenna in its way to Lombardy.

"Your publishers seem to have used you like mine. M. has shuffled, and almost insinuated that my last productions are _dull_. Dull, sir!--damme, dull! I believe he is right. He begs for the completion of my tragedy on Marino Faliero, none of which is yet gone to England. The fifth act is nearly completed, but it is dreadfully long--40 sheets of long paper of 4 pages each--about 150 when printed; but 'so full of pastime and prodigality' that I think it will do.

"Pray send and publish your _Pome_ upon me; and don't be afraid of praising me too highly. I shall pocket my blushes.

"'Not actionable!'--_Chantre d'enfer!_[78]--by * * that's 'a speech,' and I won't put up with it. A pretty t.i.tle to give a man for doubting if there be any such place!

"So my Gail is gone--and Miss Mah_ony_ won't take _Mo_ney. I am very glad of it--I like to be generous free of expense. But beg her not to translate me.

"Oh, pray tell Galignani that I shall send him a screed of doctrine if he don't be more punctual. Somebody _regularly detains two_, and sometimes _four_, of his Messengers by the way. Do, pray, entreat him to be more precise. News are worth money in this remote kingdom of the Ostrogoths.

"Pray, reply. I should like much to share some of your Champagne and La Fitte, but I am too Italian for Paris in general. Make Murray send my letter to you--it is full of _epigrams_.

"Yours," &c.

[Footnote 77: An Irish phrase for being in a sc.r.a.pe.]

[Footnote 78: The t.i.tle given him by M. Lamartine, in one of his Poems.]

In the separation that had now taken place between Count Guiccioli and his wife, it was one of the conditions that the lady should, in future, reside under the paternal roof:--in consequence of which, Madame Guiccioli, on the 16th of July, left Ravenna and retired to a villa belonging to Count Gamba, about fifteen miles distant from that city.

Here Lord Byron occasionally visited her--about once or twice, perhaps, in a month--pa.s.sing the rest of his time in perfect solitude. To a mind like his, whose world was within itself, such a mode of life could have been neither new nor unwelcome; but to the woman, young and admired, whose acquaintance with the world and its pleasures had but just begun, this change was, it must be confessed, most sudden and trying. Count Guiccioli was rich, and, as a young wife, she had gained absolute power over him. She was proud, and his station placed her among the highest in Ravenna. They had talked of travelling to Naples, Florence, Paris,--and every luxury, in short, that wealth could command was at her disposal.

All this she now voluntarily and determinedly sacrificed for Byron. Her splendid home abandoned--her relations all openly at war with her--her kind father but tolerating, from fondness, what he could not approve--she was now, upon a pittance of 200_l._ a year, living apart from the world, her sole occupation the task of educating herself for her ill.u.s.trious friend, and her sole reward the few brief glimpses of him which their now restricted intercourse allowed. Of the man who could inspire and keep alive so devoted a feeling, it may be p.r.o.nounced with confidence that he could not have been such as, in the freaks of his own wayward humour, he represented himself; while, on the lady's side, the whole history of her attachment goes to prove how completely an Italian woman, whether by nature or from her social position, is led to invert the usual course of such frailties among ourselves, and, weak in resisting the first impulses of pa.s.sion, to reserve the whole strength of her character for a display of constancy and devotedness afterwards.

LETTER 380. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, July 17. 1820.

"I have received some books, and Quarterlies, and Edinburghs, for all which I am grateful: they contain all I know of England, except by Galignani's newspaper.

"The tragedy is completed, but now comes the task of copy and correction. It is very long, (42 _sheets_ of long paper, of four pages each,) and I believe must make more than 140 or 150 pages, besides many historical extracts as notes, which I mean to append.

History is closely followed. Dr. Moore's account is in some respects false, and in all foolish and flippant. _None_ of the chronicles (and I have consulted Sanuto, Sandi, Navagero, and an anonymous Siege of Zara, besides the histories of Laugier, Daru, Sismondi, &c.) state, or even hint, that he begged his life; they merely say that he did not deny the conspiracy. He was one of their great men,--commanded at the siege of Zara,--beat 80,000 Hungarians, killing 8000, and at the same time kept the town he was besieging in order,--took Capo d'Istria,--was amba.s.sador at Genoa, Rome, and finally Doge, where he fell for treason, in attempting to alter the government, by what Sanuto calls a judgment on him for, many years before (when Podesta and Captain of Treviso), having knocked down a bishop, who was sluggish in carrying the host at a procession. He 'saddles him,' as Thwack.u.m did Square, 'with a judgment;' but he does not mention whether he had been punished at the time for what would appear very strange, even now, and must have been still more so in an age of papal power and glory. Sanuto says, that Heaven took away his senses for this buffet, and induced him to conspire. 'Per fu permesso che il Faliero perdette l'intelletto,' &c.

"I do not know what your parlour-boarders will think of the Drama I have founded upon this extraordinary event. The only similar one in history is the story of Agis, King of Sparta, a prince _with_ the commons against the aristocracy, and losing his life therefor. But it shall be sent when copied.

"I should be glad to know why your Quarter_ing_ Reviewers, at the close of 'The Fall of Jerusalem,' accuse me of Manicheism? a compliment to which the sweetener of 'one of the mightiest spirits'

by no means reconciles me. The poem they review is very n.o.ble; but could they not do justice to the writer without converting him into my religious antidote? I am not a Manichean, nor an _Any_-chean. I should like to know what harm my 'poes.h.i.+es' have done? I can't tell what people mean by making me a hobgoblin."

LETTER 381. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, August 31. 1820.

"I have '_put my soul_' into the tragedy (as you _if_ it); but you know that there are d----d souls as well as tragedies. Recollect that it is not a political play, though it may look like it: it is strictly historical. Read the history and judge.

"Ada's picture is her mother's. I am glad of it--the mother made a good daughter. Send me Gifford's opinion, and never mind the Archbishop. I can neither send you away, nor give you a hundred pistoles, nor a better taste: I send you a tragedy, and you ask for 'facetious epistles;' a little like your predecessor, who advised Dr. Prideaux to 'put some more humour into his Life of Mahomet.'

"Bankes is a wonderful fellow. There is hardly one of my school or college contemporaries that has not turned out more or less celebrated. Peel, Palmerstone, Bankes, Hobhouse, Tavistock, Bob Mills, Douglas Kinnaird, &c. &c. have all talked and been talked about.

"We are here going to fight a little next month, if the Huns don't cross the Po, and probably if they do. I can't say more now. If any thing happens, you have matter for a posthumous work, in MS.; so pray be civil. Depend upon it, there will be savage work, if once they begin here. The French courage proceeds from vanity, the German from phlegm, the Turkish from fanaticism and opium, the Spanish from pride, the English from coolness, the Dutch from obstinacy, the Russian from insensibility, but the _Italian_ from _anger_; so you'll see that they will spare nothing."

LETTER 382. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, August 31, 1820.

"D----n your 'mezzo cammin[79]'--you should say 'the prime of life,' a much more consolatory phrase. Besides, it is not correct.

I was born in 1788, and consequently am but thirty-two. You are mistaken on another point. The 'Sequin Box' never came into requisition, nor is it likely to do so. It were better that it had, for then a man is not _bound_, you know. As to reform, I did reform--what would you have? 'Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.' I verily believe that nor you, nor any man of poetical temperament, can avoid a strong pa.s.sion of some kind. It is the poetry of life. What should I have known or written, had I been a quiet, mercantile politician, or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence. Besides, I only meant to be a Cavalier Servente, and had no idea it would turn out a romance, in the Anglo fas.h.i.+on.

"However, I suspect I know a thing or two of Italy--more than Lady Morgan has picked up in her posting. What do Englishmen know of Italians beyond their museums and saloons--and some hack * *, _en pa.s.sant_? Now, I have lived in the heart of their houses, in parts of Italy freshest and least influenced by strangers,--have seen and become (_pars magna fui_) a portion of their hopes, and fears, and pa.s.sions, and am almost inoculated into a family. This is to see men and things as they are.

"You say that I called you 'quiet [80]'--I don't recollect any thing of the sort. On the contrary, you are always in sc.r.a.pes.

"What think you of the Queen? I hear Mr. Hoby says, 'that it makes him weep to see her, she reminds him so much of Jane Sh.o.r.e.'

"Mr. Hoby the bootmaker's heart is quite sore, For seeing the Queen makes him think of Jane Sh.o.r.e; And, in fact, * *

Pray excuse this ribaldry. What is your poem about? Write and tell me all about it and you.

"Yours, &c.

"P.S. Did you write the lively quiz on Peter Bell? It has wit enough to be yours, and almost too much to be any body else's now going. It was in Galignani the other day or week."

[Footnote 79: I had congratulated him upon arriving at what Dante calls the "mezzo cammin" of life, the age of thirty-three.]

[Footnote 80: I had mistaken the concluding words of his letter of the 9th of June.]

LETTER 383. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, September 7. 1820.

"In correcting the proofs you must refer to the _ma.n.u.script_, because there are in it various readings. Pray attend to this, and choose what Gifford thinks best, Let me hear what he thinks of the whole.

"You speak of Lady * *'s illness; she is not of those who die:--the amiable only do; and those whose death would _do good_ live.

Whenever she is pleased to return, it may be presumed she will take her 'divining rod' along with her: it may be of use to her at home, as well as to the 'rich man' of the Evangelists.

"Pray do not let the papers paragraph me back to England. They may say what they please, any loathsome abuse but that. Contradict it.

"My last letters will have taught you to expect an explosion here: it was primed and loaded, but they hesitated to fire the train. One of the cities s.h.i.+rked from the league. I cannot write more at large for a thousand reasons. Our 'puir hill folk' offered to strike, and raise the first banner, but Bologna paused; and now 'tis autumn, and the season half over. 'O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!' The Huns are on the Po; but if once they pa.s.s it on their way to Naples, all Italy will be behind them. The dogs--the wolves--may they perish like the host of Sennacherib! If you want to publish the Prophecy of Dante, you never will have a better time."