Life of Lord Byron Volume V Part 7

clerk of this parish.' The other little petty vexations of the year--overturns in carriages--the murder of people before one's door, and dying in one's beds--the cramp in swimming--colics--indigestions and bilious attacks, &c. &c. &c.--

Many small articles make up a sum, And hey ho for Caleb Quotem, oh!"

"January 25. 1821.

"Received a letter from Lord S.O. state secretary of the Seven Islands--a fine fellow--clever--dished in England five years ago, and came abroad to retrench and to renew. He wrote from Ancona, in his way back to Corfu, on some matters of our own. He is son of the late Duke of L. by a second marriage. He wants me to go to Corfu. Why not?--perhaps I may, next spring.

"Answered Murray's letter--read--lounged. Scrawled this additional page of life's log-book. One day more is over of it and of me:--but 'which is best, life or death, the G.o.ds only know,' as Socrates said to his judges, on the breaking up of the tribunal. Two thousand years since that sage's declaration of ignorance have not enlightened us more upon this important point; for, according to the Christian dispensation, no one can know whether he is _sure_ of salvation--even the most righteous--since a single slip of faith may throw him on his back, like a skaiter, while gliding smoothly to his paradise. Now, therefore, whatever the certainty of faith in the facts may be, the certainty of the individual as to his happiness or misery is no greater than it was under Jupiter.

"It has been said that the immortality of the soul is a 'grand peut-etre'--but still it is a _grand_ one. Every body clings to it--the stupidest, and dullest, and wickedest of human bipeds is still persuaded that he is immortal.

"January 26. 1821.

"Fine day--a few mares' tails portending change, but the sky clear, upon the whole. Rode--fired pistols--good shooting. Coming back, met an old man. Charity--purchased a s.h.i.+lling's worth of salvation. If that was to be bought, I have given more to my fellow-creatures in this life--sometimes for _vice_, but, if not more _often_, at least more _considerably_, for virtue--than I now possess. I never in my life gave a mistress so much as I have sometimes given a poor man in honest distress; but no matter. The scoundrels who have all along persecuted me (with the help of * * who has crowned their efforts) will triumph;--and, when justice is done to me, it will be when this hand that writes is as cold as the hearts which have stung me.

"Returning, on the bridge near the mill, met an old woman. I asked her age--she said '_Trecroci_.' I asked my groom (though myself a decent Italian) what the devil _her_ three crosses meant. He said, ninety years, and that she had five years more to boot!! I repeated the same three times, not to mistake--ninety-five years!!!--and she was yet rather active--_heard_ my question, for she answered it--_saw_ me, for she advanced towards me; and did not appear at all decrepit, though certainly touched with years. Told her to come to-morrow, and will examine her myself. I love phenomena. If she _is_ ninety-five years old, she must recollect the Cardinal Alberoni, who was legate here.

"On dismounting, found Lieutenant E. just arrived from Faenza. Invited him to dine with me to-morrow. Did _not_ invite him for to-day, because there was a small _turbot_, (Friday, fast regularly and religiously,) which I wanted to eat all myself. Ate it.

"Went out--found T. as usual--music. The gentlemen, who make revolutions and are gone on a shooting, are not yet returned. They don't return till Sunday--that is to say, they have been out for five days, buffooning, while the interests of a whole country are at stake, and even they themselves compromised.

"It is a difficult part to play amongst such a set of a.s.sa.s.sins and blockheads--but, when the sc.u.m is skimmed off, or has boiled over, good may come of it. If this country could but be freed, what would be too great for the accomplishment of that desire? for the extinction of that Sigh of Ages? Let us hope. They have hoped these thousand years. The very revolvement of the chances may bring it--it is upon the dice.

"If the Neapolitans have but a single Ma.s.saniello amongst them, they will beat the b.l.o.o.d.y butchers of the crown and sabre. Holland, in worse circ.u.mstances, beat the Spains and Philips; America beat the English; Greece beat Xerxes; and France beat Europe, till she took a tyrant; South America beats her old vultures out of their nest; and, if these men are but firm in themselves, there is nothing to shake them from without.

"January 28. 1821.

"Lugano Gazette did not come. Letters from Venice. It appears that the Austrian brutes have seized my three or four pounds of English powder.

The scoundrels!--I hope to pay them in _ball_ for that powder. Rode out till twilight.

"Pondered the subjects of four tragedies to be written (life and circ.u.mstances permitting), to wit, Sardanapalus, already begun; Cain, a metaphysical subject, something in the style of Manfred, but in five _acts_, perhaps, with the chorus; Francesca of Rimini, in five acts; and I am not sure that I would not try Tiberius. I think that I could extract a something, of _my_ tragic, at least, out of the gloomy sequestration and old age of the tyrant--and even out of his sojourn at Caprea--by softening the _details_, and exhibiting the despair which must have led to those very vicious pleasures. For none but a powerful and gloomy mind overthrown would have had recourse to such solitary horrors,--being also, at the same time, _old_, and the master of the world.

"_Memoranda._

"What is Poetry?--The feeling of a Former world and Future.

"_Thought Second._

"Why, at the very height of desire and human pleasure,--worldly, social, amorous, ambitious, or even avaricious,--does there mingle a certain sense of doubt and sorrow--a fear of what is to come--a doubt of what _is_--a retrospect to the past, leading to a prognostication of the future? (The best of Prophets of the future is the Past.) Why is this?

or these?--I know not, except that on a pinnacle we are most susceptible of giddiness, and that we never fear falling except from a precipice--the higher, the more awful, and the more sublime; and, therefore, I am not sure that Fear is not a pleasurable sensation; at least, _Hope_ is; and _what Hope_ is there without a deep leaven of Fear? and what sensation is so delightful as Hope? and, if it were not for Hope, where would the Future be?--in h.e.l.l. It is useless to say _where_ the Present is, for most of us know; and as for the Past, _what_ predominates in memory?--_Hope baffled_. Ergo, in all human affairs, it is Hope--Hope--Hope. I allow sixteen minutes, though I never counted them, to any given or supposed possession. From whatever place we commence, we know where it all must end. And yet, what good is there in knowing it? It does not make men better or wiser. During the greatest horrors of the greatest plagues, (Athens and Florence, for example--see Thucydides and Machiavelli,) men were more cruel and profligate than ever. It is all a mystery. I feel most things, but I know nothing, except ------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------[21]

"_Thought for a speech of Lucifer, in the tragedy of Cain:_--

"Were _Death_ an _evil_, would _I_ let thee _live_?

Fool! live as I live--as thy father lives, And thy son's sons shall live for evermore.

[Footnote 21: Thus marked, with impatient strokes of the pen, by himself in the original.]

"Past Midnight. One o' the clock.

"I have been reading W.F.S * * (brother to the other of the name) till now, and I can make out nothing. He evidently shows a great power of words, but there is nothing to be taken hold of. He is like Hazlitt, in English, who _talks pimples_--a red and white corruption rising up (in little imitation of mountains upon maps), but containing nothing, and discharging nothing, except their own humours.

"I dislike him the worse, (that is, S * *,) because he always seems upon the verge of meaning; and, lo, he goes down like sunset, or melts like a rainbow, leaving a rather rich confusion,--to which, however, the above comparisons do too much honour.

"Continuing to read Mr. F. S * *. He is not such a fool as I took him for, that is to say, when he speaks of the North. But still he speaks of things _all over the world_ with a kind of authority that a philosopher would disdain, and a man of common sense, feeling, and knowledge of his own ignorance, would be ashamed of. The man is evidently wanting to make an impression, like his brother,--or like George in the Vicar of Wakefield, who found out that all the good things had been said already on the right side, and therefore 'dressed up some paradoxes' upon the wrong side--ingenious, but false, as he himself says--to which 'the learned world said nothing, nothing at all, sir.' The 'learned world,'

however, _has_ said something to the brothers S * *.

"It is high time to think of something else. What they say of the antiquities of the North is best.

"January 29. 1821.

"Yesterday, the woman of ninety-five years of age was with me. She said her eldest son (if now alive) would have been seventy. She is thin--short, but active--hears, and sees, and talks incessantly. Several teeth left--all in the lower jaw, and single front teeth. She is very deeply wrinkled, and has a sort of scattered grey beard over her chin, at least as long as my mustachios. Her head, in fact, resembles the drawing in crayons of Pope the poet's mother, which is in some editions of his works.

"I forgot to ask her if she remembered Alberoni (legate here), but will ask her next time. Gave her a louis--ordered her a new suit of clothes, and put her upon a weekly pension. Till now, she had worked at gathering wood and pine-nuts in the forest,--pretty work at ninety-five years old!

She had a dozen children, of whom some are alive. Her name is Maria Montanari.

"Met a company of the sect (a kind of Liberal Club) called the 'Americani' in the forest, all armed, and singing, with all their might, in Romagnuole--'_Sem_ tutti soldat' per la liberta' ('we are all soldiers for liberty'). They cheered me as I pa.s.sed--I returned their salute, and rode on. This may show the spirit of Italy at present.

"My to-day's journal consists of what I omitted yesterday. To-day was much as usual. Have rather a better opinion of the writings of the Schlegels than I had four-and-twenty hours ago; and will amend it still further, if possible.

"They say that the Piedmontese have at length risen--_ca ira!_

"Read S * *. Of Dante he says, 'that at no time has the greatest and most national of all Italian poets ever been much the favourite of his countrymen.' 'Tis false! There have been more editors and commentators (and imitators, ultimately) of Dante than of all their poets put together. _Not_ a favourite! Why, they talk Dante--write Dante--and think and dream Dante at this moment (1821) to an excess, which would be ridiculous, but that he deserves it.

"In the same style this German talks of gondolas on the Arno--a precious fellow to dare to speak of Italy!

"He says also that Dante's chief defect is a want, in a word, of gentle feelings. Of gentle feelings!--and Francesca of Rimini--and the father's feelings in Ugolino--and Beatrice--and 'La Pia!' Why, there is gentleness in Dante beyond all gentleness, when he is tender. It is true that, treating of the Christian Hades, or h.e.l.l, there is not much scope or site for gentleness--but who _but_ Dante could have introduced any 'gentleness' at all into _h.e.l.l_? Is there any in Milton's? No--and Dante's Heaven is all love, and glory, and majesty.

"One o'clock.

"I have found out, however, where the German is right--it is about the Vicar of Wakefield. 'Of all romances in miniature (and, perhaps, this is the best shape in which romance can appear) the Vicar of Wakefield is, I think, the most exquisite.' He thinks!--he might be sure. But it is very well for a S * *. I feel sleepy, and may as well get me to bed.

To-morrow there will be fine weather.

"'Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay."

"January 30. 1821.

"The Count P.G. this evening (by commission from the Ci.) transmitted to me the new _words_ for the next six months. * * * and * * *. The new sacred word is * * *--the reply * * *--the rejoinder * * *. The former word (now changed) was * * *--there is also * * *--* * *.[22] Things seem fast coming to a crisis--_ca ira!_

"We talked over various matters of moment and movement. These I omit;--if they come to any thing, they will speak for themselves. After these, we spoke of Kosciusko. Count R.G. told me that he has seen the Polish officers in the Italian war burst into tears on hearing his name.

"Something must be up in Piedmont--all the letters and papers are stopped. n.o.body knows any thing, and the Germans are concentrating near Mantua. Of the decision of Leybach nothing is known. This state of things cannot last long. The ferment in men's minds at present cannot be conceived without seeing it.