Life of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 1

Life of Lord Byron.

Vol. 6.

by Thomas Moore.

LETTER 508. TO MR. MOORE.

"Genoa, February 20. 1823.

"My Dear Tom,

"I must again refer you to those two letters addressed to you at Pa.s.sy before I read your speech in Galignani, &c., and which you do not seem to have received.[1]

[Footnote 1: I was never lucky enough to recover these two letters, though frequent enquiries were made about them at the French post-office.]

"Of Hunt I see little--once a month or so, and then on his own business, generally. You may easily suppose that I know too little of Hampstead and his satellites to have much communion or community with him. My whole present relation to him arose from Sh.e.l.ley's unexpected wreck. You would not have had me leave him in the street with his family, would you? and as to the other plan you mention, you forget how it would _humiliate_ him--that his writings should be supposed to be dead weight![1] Think a moment--he is perhaps the vainest man on earth, at least his own friends say so pretty loudly; and if he were in other circ.u.mstances, I might be tempted to take him down a peg; but not now,--it would be cruel. It is a cursed business; but neither the motive nor the means rest upon my conscience, and it happens that he and his brother _have_ been so far benefited by the publication in a pecuniary point of view. His brother is a steady, bold fellow, such as _Prynne_, for example, and full of moral, and, I hear, physical courage.

[Footnote 1: The pa.s.sage in one of my letters to which he here refers shall be given presently.]

"And _you_ are _really_ recanting, or softening to the clergy! It will do little good for you--it is _you_, not the poem, they are at.

They will say they frightened you--forbid it, Ireland!

"Yours ever,

"N.B."

Lord Byron had now, for some time, as may be collected from his letters, begun to fancy that his reputation in England was on the wane. The same thirst after fame, with the same sensitiveness to every pa.s.sing change of popular favour, which led Ta.s.so at last to look upon himself as the most despised of writers[1], had more than once disposed Lord Byron, in the midst of all his triumphs, if not to doubt their reality, at least to distrust their continuance; and sometimes even, with that painful skill which sensibility supplies, to extract out of the brightest tributes of success some omen of future failure, or symptom of decline. New successes, however, still came to dissipate these bodings of diffidence; nor was it till after his unlucky coalition with Mr. Hunt in the Liberal, that any grounds for such a suspicion of his having declined in public favour showed themselves.

[Footnote 1: In one of his letters this poet says:--"Non posso negare che io mi doglio oltramisura di esser stato tanto disprezzato dal mondo quanto non e altro scrittore di questo secolo." In another letter, however, after complaining of being "perseguitato da molti piu che non era convenevole," he adds, with a proud prescience of his future fame, "Laonde stimo di poter mene ragionevolmente richiamare alla posterita."]

The chief inducements, on the part of Lord Byron, to this unworthy alliance were, in the first place, a wish to second the kind views of his friend Sh.e.l.ley in inviting Mr. Hunt to join him in Italy; and, in the next, a desire to avail himself of the aid of one so experienced, as an editor, in the favourite project he had now so long contemplated, of a periodical work, in which all the various offspring of his genius might be received fast as they sprung to light. With such opinions, however, as he had long entertained of Mr.

Hunt's character and talents[1], the facility with which he now admitted him--_not_ certainly to any degree of confidence or intimacy, but to a declared fellows.h.i.+p of fame and interest in the eyes of the world, is, I own, an inconsistency not easily to be accounted for, and argued, at all events, a strong confidence in the antidotal power of his own name to resist the ridicule of such an a.s.sociation.

[Footnote 1: See Letter 317. p. 103.]

As long as Sh.e.l.ley lived, the regard which Lord Byron entertained for him extended its influence also over his relations with his friend; the suavity and good-breeding of Sh.e.l.ley interposing a sort of softening medium in the way of those unpleasant collisions which afterwards took place, and which, from what is known of both parties, may be easily conceived to have been alike trying to the patience of the patron and the vanity of the dependent. That even, however, during the lifetime of their common friend, there had occurred some of those humiliating misunderstandings which money engenders,--humiliating on both sides, as if from the very nature of the dross that gives rise to them,--will appear from the following letter of Sh.e.l.ley's which I find among the papers in my hands.

TO LORD BYRON.

"February 15. 1823.

"My dear Lord Byron.

"I enclose you a letter from Hunt, which annoys me on more than one account. You will observe the postscript, and you know me well enough to feel how painful a task is set me in commenting upon it. Hunt had urged me more than once to ask you to lend him this money. My answer consisted in sending him all I could spare, which I have now literally done. Your kindness in fitting up a part of your own house for his accommodation I sensibly felt, and willingly accepted from you on his part, but, believe me, without the slightest intention of imposing, or, if I could help it, allowing to be imposed, any heavier task on your purse. As it has come to this in spite of my exertions, I will not conceal from you the low ebb of my own money affairs in the present moment,--that is, my absolute incapacity of a.s.sisting Hunt farther.

"I do not think poor Hunt's promise to pay in a given time is worth very much; but mine is less subject to uncertainty, and I should be happy to be responsible for any engagement he may have proposed to you. I am so much annoyed by this subject that I hardly know what to write, and much less what to say; and I have need of all your indulgence in judging both my feelings and expressions.

"I shall see you by and by. Believe me

"Yours most faithfully and sincerely,

"P.B. Sh.e.l.lEY."

Of the book in which Mr. Hunt has thought it decent to revenge upon the dead the pain of those obligations he had, in his hour of need, accepted from the living, I am luckily saved from the distaste of speaking at any length, by the utter and most deserved oblivion into which his volume has fallen. Never, indeed, was the right feeling of the world upon such subjects more creditably displayed than in the reception given universally to that ungenerous book;--even those the least disposed to think approvingly of Lord Byron having shrunk back from such a corroboration of their own opinion as could be afforded by one who did not blush to derive his authority, as an accuser, from those facilities of observation which he had enjoyed by having been sheltered and fed under the very roof of the man whom he maligned.

With respect to the hostile feeling manifested in Mr. Hunt's work towards myself, the sole revenge I shall take is, to lay before my readers the pa.s.sage in one of my letters which provoked it; and which may claim, at least, the merit of not being a covert attack, as throughout the whole of my remonstrances to Lord Byron on the subject of his new literary allies, not a line did I ever write respecting either Mr. Sh.e.l.ley or Mr. Hunt which I was not fully prepared, from long knowledge of my correspondent, to find that he had instantly, and as a matter of course, communicated to them. That this want of retention was a fault in my n.o.ble friend, I am not inclined to deny; but, being undisguised, it was easily guarded against, and, when guarded against, harmless. Besides, such is the penalty generally to be paid for frankness of character; and they who could have flattered themselves that one so open about his own affairs as Lord Byron would be much more discreet where the confidences of others were concerned, would have had their own imprudence, not his, to blame for any injury that their dependence upon his secrecy had brought on them.

The following is the pa.s.sage, which Lord Byron, as I take for granted, showed to Mr. Hunt, and to which one of his letters to myself (February 20.) refers:--

"I am most anxious to know that you mean to emerge out of the Liberal. It grieves me to urge any thing so much against Hunt's interest; but I should not hesitate to use the same language to himself, were I near him. I would, if I were you, serve him in every possible way but this--I would give him (if he would accept of it) the profits of the same works, published separately--but I would _not_ mix myself up in this way with others. I would _not_ become a partner in this sort of miscellaneous '_pot au feu_,' where the bad flavour of one ingredient is sure to taint all the rest. I would be, if I were _you_, alone, single-handed, and, as such, invincible."

While on the subject of Mr. Hunt, I shall avail myself of the opportunity it affords me of introducing some portions of a letter addressed to a friend of that gentleman by Lord Byron, in consequence of an appeal made to the feelings of the latter on the score of his professed "friends.h.i.+p" for Mr. Hunt. The avowals he here makes are, I own, startling, and must be taken with more than the usual allowance, not only for the particular mood of temper or spirits in which the letter was written, but for the influence also of such slight casual piques and resentments as might have been, just then, in their darkening transit through his mind,--indisposing him, for the moment, to those among his friends whom, in a sunnier mood, he would have proclaimed as his most chosen and dearest.

LETTER 509. TO MRS. ----.

"I presume that you, at least, know enough of me to be sure that I could have no intention to insult Hunt's poverty. On the contrary, I honour him for it; for I know what it is, having been as much embarra.s.sed as ever he was, without perceiving aught in it to diminish an honourable man's self-respect. If you mean to say that, had he been a wealthy man, I would have joined in this Journal, I answer in the negative. * * * I engaged in the Journal from good-will towards him, added to respect for his character, literary and personal; and no less for his political courage, as well as regret for his present circ.u.mstances: I did this in the hope that he might, with the same aid from literary friends of literary contributions (which is requisite for all journals of a mixed nature), render himself independent.

"I have always treated him, in our personal intercourse, with such scrupulous delicacy, that I have forborne intruding advice which I thought might be disagreeable, lest he should impute it to what is called 'taking advantage of a man's situation.'

"As to friends.h.i.+p, it is a propensity in which my genius is very limited. I do not know the _male_ human being, except Lord Clare, the friend of my infancy, for whom I feel any thing that deserves the name. All my others are men-of-the-world friends.h.i.+ps. I did not even feel it for Sh.e.l.ley, however much I admired and esteemed him, so that you see not even vanity could bribe me into it, for, of all men, Sh.e.l.ley thought highest of my talents,--and, perhaps, of my disposition.

"I will do my duty by my intimates, upon the principle of doing as you would be done by. I have done so, I trust, in most instances. I may be pleased with their conversation--rejoice in their success--be glad to do them service, or to receive their counsel and a.s.sistance in return. But as for friends and friends.h.i.+p, I have (as I already said) named the only remaining male for whom I feel any thing of the kind, excepting, perhaps, Thomas Moore. I have had, and may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called, in _life_, who are like one's partners in the waltz of this world--not much remembered when the ball is over, though very pleasant for the time. Habit, business, and companions.h.i.+p in pleasure or in pain, are links of a similar kind, and the same faith in politics is another." * * *

LETTER 510. TO LADY ----.

"Genoa, March 28. 1823.

"Mr. Hill is here: I dined with him on Sat.u.r.day before last; and on leaving his house at S. P. d'Arena, my carriage broke down. I walked home, about three miles,--no very great feat of pedestrianism; but either the coming out of hot rooms into a bleak wind chilled me, or the walking up-hill to Albaro heated me, or something or other set me wrong, and next day I had an inflammatory attack in the face, to which I have been subject this winter for the first time, and I suffered a good deal of pain, but no peril. My health is now much as usual. Mr. Hill is, I believe, occupied with his diplomacy. I shall give him your message when I see him again.

"My name, I see in the papers, has been dragged into the unhappy Portsmouth business, of which all that I know is very succinct. Mr.

H---- is my solicitor. I found him so when I was ten years old--at my uncle's death--and he was continued in the management of my legal business. He asked me, by a civil epistle, as an old acquaintance of his family, to be present at the marriage of Miss H----. I went very reluctantly, one misty morning (for I had been up at two b.a.l.l.s all night), to witness the ceremony, which I could not very well refuse without affronting a man who had never offended me. I saw nothing particular in the marriage. Of course I could not know the preliminaries, except from what he said, not having been present at the wooing, nor after it, for I walked home, and they went into the country as soon as they had promised and vowed. Out of this simple fact I hear the Debats de Paris has quoted Miss H. as 'autrefois tres liee avec le celebre,' &c. &c. I am obliged to him for the celebrity, but beg leave to decline the liaison, which is quite untrue; my liaison was with the father, in the unsentimental shape of long lawyers' bills, through the medium of which I have had to pay him ten or twelve thousand pounds within these few years. She was not pretty, and I suspect that the indefatigable Mr. A---- was (like all her people) more attracted by her t.i.tle than her charms. I regret very much that I was present at the prologue to the happy state of horse-whipping and black jobs, &c. &c.; but I could not foresee that a man was to turn out mad, who had gone about the world for fifty years, as competent to vote, and walk at large; nor did he seem to me more insane than any other person going to be married.

"I have no objection to be acquainted with the Marquis Palavicini, if he wishes it. Lately I have gone little into society, English or foreign, for I had seen all that was worth seeing in the former before I left England, and at the time of life when I was more disposed to like it; and of the latter I had a sufficiency in the first few years of my residence in Switzerland, chiefly at Madame de Stael's, where I went sometimes, till I grew tired of _conversazioni_ and carnivals, with their appendages; and the bore is, that if you go once, you are expected to be there daily, or rather nightly. I went the round of the most noted soirees at Venice or elsewhere (where I remained not any time) to the Benzona, and the Albrizzi, and the Mich.e.l.li, &c. &c. and to the Cardinals and the various potentates of the Legation in Romagna, (that is, Ravenna,) and only receded for the sake of quiet when I came into Tuscany. Besides, if I go into society, I generally get, in the long run, into some sc.r.a.pe of some kind or other, which don't occur in my solitude. However, I am pretty well settled now, by time and temper, which is so far lucky, as it prevents restlessness; but, as I said before, as an acquaintance of yours, I will be ready and willing to know your friends. He may be a sort of connection for aught I know; for a Palavicini, of _Bologna_, I believe, married a distant relative of mine half a century ago. I happen to know the fact, as he and his spouse had an annuity of five hundred pounds on my uncle's property, which ceased at his demise; though I recollect hearing they attempted, naturally enough, to make it survive him. If I can do any thing for you here or elsewhere, pray order, and be obeyed."

LETTER 511. TO MR. MOORE.

"Genoa, April 2. 1823.

"I have just seen some friends of yours, who paid me a visit yesterday, which, in honour of them and of you, I returned to-day;--as I reserve my bear-skin and teeth, and paws and claws, for our enemies.

"I have also seen Henry F----, Lord H----'s son, whom I had not looked upon since I left him a pretty, mild boy, without a neckcloth, in a jacket, and in delicate health, seven long years agone, at the period of mine eclipse--the third, I believe, as I have generally one every two or three years. I think that he has the softest and most amiable expression of countenance I ever saw, and manners correspondent. If to those he can add hereditary talents, he will keep the name of F---- in all its freshness for half a century more, I hope. I speak from a transient glimpse--but I love still to yield to such impressions; for I have ever found that those I liked longest and best, I took to at first sight; and I always liked that boy--perhaps, in part, from some resemblance in the less fortunate part of our destinies--I mean, to avoid mistakes, his lameness. But there is this difference, that _he_ appears a halting angel, who has tripped against a star; whilst I am _Le Diable Boiteux_,--a soubriquet, which I marvel that, amongst their various _nominis umbrae_, the Orthodox have not hit upon.

"Your other allies, whom I have found very agreeable personages, are Milor B---- and _epouse_, travelling with a very handsome companion, in the shape of a 'French Count' (to use Farquhar's phrase in the Beaux Stratagem), who has all the air of a _Cupidon dechaine_, and is one of the few specimens I have seen of our ideal of a Frenchman _before_ the Revolution--an old friend with a new face, upon whose like I never thought that we should look again. Miladi seems highly literary,--to which, and your honour's acquaintance with the family, I attribute the pleasure of having seen them. She is also very pretty, even in a morning,--a species of beauty on which the sun of Italy does not s.h.i.+ne so frequently as the chandelier. Certainly, English-women wear better than their continental neighbours of the same s.e.x. M---- seems very good-natured, but is much tamed, since I recollect him in all the glory of gems and snuff-boxes, and uniforms, and theatricals, and speeches in our house--'I mean, of peers,'--(I must refer you to Pope--who you don't read and won't appreciate--for that quotation, which you must allow to be poetical,) and sitting to Stroeling, the painter, (do you remember our visit, with Leckie, to the German?) to be depicted as one of the heroes of Agincourt, 'with his long sword, saddle, bridle, Whack fal de, &c. &c.'