Life of Lord Byron Volume V Part 20

"This country being in a state of proscription, and all my friends exiled or arrested--the whole family of Gamba obliged to go to Florence for the present--the father and son for politics--(and the Guiccioli, because menaced with a _convent_, as her father is _not_ here,) I have determined to remove to Switzerland, and they also.

Indeed, my life here is not supposed to be particularly safe--but that has been the case for this twelvemonth past, and is therefore not the primary consideration.

"I have written by this post to Mr. Hentsch, junior, the banker of Geneva, to provide (if possible) a house for me, and another for Gamba's family, (the father, son, and daughter,) on the _Jura_ side of the lake of Geneva, furnished, and with stabling (for _me_ at least) for eight horses. I shall bring Allegra with me. Could you a.s.sist me or Hentsch in his researches? The Gambas are at Florence, but have authorised me to treat for them. You know, or do not know, that they are great patriots--and both--but the son in particular--very fine fellows. _This_ I know, for I have seen them lately in very awkward situations--_not_ pecuniary, but personal--and they behaved like heroes, neither yielding nor retracting.

"You have no idea what a state of oppression this country is in--they arrested above a thousand of high and low throughout Romagna--banished some and confined others, without _trial_, _process_, or even _accusation_!! Every body says they would have done the same by me if they dared proceed openly. My motive, however, for remaining, is because _every one_ of my acquaintance, to the amount of hundreds almost, have been exiled.

"Will you do what you can in looking out for a couple of houses _furnished_, and conferring with Hentsch for us? We care nothing about society, and are only anxious for a temporary and tranquil asylum and individual freedom.

"Believe me, &c.

"P.S. Can you give me an idea of the comparative expenses of Switzerland and Italy? which I have forgotten. I speak merely of those of decent _living, horses_, &c. and not of luxuries or high living. Do _not_, however, decide any thing positively till I have your answer, as I can then know how to think upon these topics of transmigration, &c. &c. &c."

LETTER 441. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, July 30. 1821.

"Enclosed is the best account of the Doge Faliero, which was only sent to me from an old MS. the other day. Get it translated, and append it as a note to the next edition. You will perhaps be pleased to see that my conceptions of his character were correct, though I regret not having met with this extract before. You will perceive that he himself said exactly what he is made to say about the Bishop of Treviso. You will see also that' he spoke very little, and those only words of rage and disdain,' _after_ his arrest, which is the case in the play, except when he breaks out at the close of Act Fifth. But his speech to the conspirators is better in the MS. than in the play. I wish that I had met with it in time. Do not forget this note, with a translation.

"In a former note to the Juans, speaking of Voltaire, I have quoted his famous 'Zaire, tu pleures,' which is an error; it should be 'Zaire, _vous pleures_.' Recollect this.

"I am so busy here about those poor proscribed exiles, who are scattered about, and with trying to get some of them recalled, that I have hardly time or patience to write a short preface, which will be proper for the two plays. However, I will make it out on receiving the next proofs.

"Yours ever, &c.

"P.S. Please to append the letter about _the h.e.l.lespont_ as a note to your next opportunity of the verses on Leander, &c. &c. &c. in Childe Harold. Don't forget it amidst your mult.i.tudinous avocations, which I think of celebrating in a Dithyrambic Ode to Albemarle Street.

"Are you aware that Sh.e.l.ley has written an Elegy on Keats, and accuses the Quarterly of killing him?

"'Who kill'd John Keats?"

'I,' says the Quarterly, So savage and Tartarly; 'Twas one of my feats.'

"'Who shot the arrow?'

The poet-priest Milman (So ready to kill man), Or Southey or Barrow.'

"You know very well that I did not approve of Keats's poetry, or principles of poetry, or of his abuse of Pope; but, as he is dead, omit _all_ that is said _about him_ in any MSS. of mine, or publication. His Hyperion is a fine monument, and will keep his name. I do not envy the man who wrote the article;--you Review people have no more right to kill than any other footpads. However, he who would die of an article in a Review would probably have died of something else equally trivial. The same thing nearly happened to Kirke White, who died afterwards of a consumption."

LETTER 442. TO MR. MOORE.

"Ravenna, August 2. 1821.

"I had certainly answered your last letter, though but briefly, to the part to which you refer, merely saying, 'd.a.m.n the controversy;'

and quoting some verses of George Colman's, not as allusive to you, but to the disputants. Did you receive this letter? It imports me to know that our letters are not intercepted or mislaid.

"Your Berlin drama [44] is an honour, unknown since the days of Elkanah Settle, whose 'Emperor of Morocco' was represented by the Court ladies, which was, as Johnson says, 'the last blast of inflammation' to poor Dryden, who could not bear it, and fell foul of Settle without mercy or moderation, on account of that and a frontispiece, which he dared to put before his play.

"Was not your showing the Memoranda to * * somewhat perilous? Is there not a facetious allusion or two which might as well be reserved for posterity?

"I know S * * well--that is to say, I have met him occasionally at Copet. Is he not also touched lightly in the Memoranda? In a review of Childe Harold, Canto 4th, three years ago, in Blackwood's Magazine, they quote some stanzas of an elegy of S * *'s on Rome, from which they say that I _might_ have taken some ideas. I give you my honour that I never saw it except in that criticism, which gives, I think, three or four stanzas, sent them (they say) for the nonce by a correspondent--perhaps himself. The fact is easily proved; for I don't understand German, and there was, I believe, no translation--at least, it was the first time that I ever heard of, or saw, either translation or original.

"I remember having some talk with S * * about Alfieri, whose merit he denies. He was also wroth about the Edinburgh Review of Goethe, which was sharp enough, to be sure. He went about saying, too, of the French--'I meditate a terrible vengeance against the French--I will prove that Moliere is no poet[45].'

"I don't see why you should talk of 'declining.' When I saw you, you looked thinner, and yet younger, than you did when we parted several years before. You may rely upon this as fact. If it were not, I should say _nothing_, for I would rather not say unpleasant _personal_ things to anyone--but, as it was the pleasant _truth_, I tell it you. If you had led my life, indeed, changing climates and connections--_thinning_ yourself with fasting and purgatives--besides the wear and tear of the vulture pa.s.sions, and a very bad temper besides, you might talk in this way--but _you_! I know no man who looks so well for his years, or who deserves to look better and to be better, in all respects. You are a * * *, and, what is perhaps better for your friends, a good fellow. So, don't talk of decay, but put in for eighty, as you well may.

"I am, at present, occupied princ.i.p.ally about these unhappy proscriptions and exiles, which have taken place here on account of politics. It has been a miserable sight to see the general desolation in families. I am doing what I can for them, high and low, by such interest and means as I possess or can bring to bear.

There have been thousands of these proscriptions within the last month in the Exarchate, or (to speak modernly) the Legations.

Yesterday, too, a man got his back broken, in extricating a dog of mine from under a mill-wheel. The dog was killed, and the man is in the greatest danger. I was not present--it happened before I was up, owing to a stupid boy taking the dog to bathe in a dangerous spot. I must, of course, provide for the poor fellow while he lives, and his family, if he dies. I would gladly have given a much greater sum than that will come to that he had never been hurt. Pray, let me hear from you, and excuse haste and hot weather.

"Yours, &c.

"You may have probably seen all sorts of attacks upon me in some gazettes in England some months ago. I only saw them, by Murray's bounty, the other day. They call me 'Plagiary,' and what not. I think I now, in my time, have been accused of _every_ thing.

"I have not given you details of little events here; but they have been trying to make me out to be the chief of a conspiracy, and nothing but their want of proofs for an _English_ investigation has stopped them. Had it been a poor native, the suspicion were enough, as it has been for hundreds.

"Why don't you write on Napoleon? I have no spirits, nor 'estro' to do so. His overthrow, from the beginning, was a blow on the head to me. Since that period, we have been the slaves of fools. Excuse this long letter. _Ecco_ a translation literal of a French epigram.

"Egle, beauty and poet, has two little crimes, She makes her own face, and does _not_ make her rhymes.

"I am going to ride, having been warned not to ride in a particular part of the forest, on account of the ultra-politicians.

"Is there no chance of your return to England, and of _our_ Journal? I would have published the two plays in it--two or three scenes per number--and, indeed, _all_ of mine in it. If you went to England, I would do so still."

[Footnote 44: There had been, a short time before, performed at the Court of Berlin a spectacle founded on the Poem of Lalla Rookh, in which the present Emperor of Russia personated Feramorz, and the Empress, Lalla Rookh.]

[Footnote 45: This threat has been since acted upon;--the critic in question having, to the great horror of the French literati, p.r.o.nounced Moliere to be a "farceur."]

About this time Mr. Sh.e.l.ley, who had now fixed his residence at Pisa, received a letter from Lord Byron, earnestly requesting to see him, in consequence of which he immediately set out for Ravenna; and the following extracts from letters, written during his stay with his n.o.ble friend, will be read with that double feeling of interest which is always sure to be excited in hearing one man of genius express his opinions of another.

"Ravenna, August 7. 1821.

"I arrived last night at ten o'clock, and sat up talking with Lord Byron until five this morning: I then went to sleep, and now awake at eleven; and having despatched my breakfast as quick as possible, mean to devote the interval until twelve, when the post departs, to you.

"Lord Byron is very well, and was delighted, to see me. He has in fact completely recovered his health, and lives a life totally the reverse of that which he led at Venice. He has a permanent sort of liaison with the Contessa Guiccioli, who is now at Florence, and seems from her letters to be a very amiable woman. She is waiting there until something shall be decided as to their emigration to Switzerland or stay in Italy, which is yet undetermined on either side. She was compelled to escape from the Papal territory in great haste, as measures had already been taken to place her in a convent, where she would have been unrelentingly confined for life. The oppression of the marriage contract as existing in the laws and opinions of Italy, though less frequently exercised, is far severer than that of England.

"Lord Byron had almost destroyed himself at Venice. His state of debility was such that he was unable to digest any food: he was consumed by hectic fever, and would speedily have perished but for this attachment, which reclaimed him from the excesses into which he threw himself, from carelessness and pride, rather than taste.

Poor fellow I he is now quite well, and immersed in politics and literature. He has given me a number of the most interesting details on the former subject; but we will not speak of them in a letter. Fletcher is here, and--as if, like a shadow, he waxed and waned with the substance of his master--has also revived his good looks, and from amidst the unseasonable grey hairs, a fresh harvest of flaxen locks has put forth.

"We talked a great deal of poetry and such matters last night; and, as usual, differed--and I think more than ever. He affects to patronise a system of criticism fit only for the production of mediocrity; and, although all his finer poems and pa.s.sages have been produced in defiance of this system, yet I recognise the pernicious effects of it in the Doge of Venice; and it will cramp and limit his future efforts, however great they may be, unless he gets rid of it. I have read only parts of it, or rather he himself read them to me, and gave me the plan of the whole.

"Ravenna, August 15. 1821.

"We ride out in the evening through the pine forests which divide the city from the sea. Our way of life is this, and I have accommodated myself to it without much difficulty:--Lord Byron gets up at two--breakfasts--we talk, read, &c. until six--then we ride at eight, and after dinner sit talking until four or five in the morning. I get up at twelve, and am now devoting the interval between my rising and his to you.