Life of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 19

"Matter is eternal, always changing, but reproduced, and, as far as we can comprehend eternity, eternal; and why not _mind_? Why should not the mind act with and upon the universe, as portions of it act upon, and with, the congregated dust called mankind? See how one man acts upon himself and others, or upon mult.i.tudes! The same agency, in a higher and purer degree, may act upon the stars, &c. ad infinitum.

"I have often been inclined to materialism in philosophy, but could never bear its introduction into _Christianity_, which appears to me essentially founded upon the _soul_. For this reason Priestley's Christian Materialism always struck me as deadly. Believe the resurrection of the _body_, if you will, but _not without_ a _soul_.

The deuce is in it, if after having had a soul, (as surely the _mind_, or whatever you call it, _is,_) in this world, we must part with it in the _next_, even for an immortal materiality! I own my partiality for _spirit_.

"I am always most religious upon a suns.h.i.+ny day, as if there was some a.s.sociation between an internal approach to greater light and purity and the kindler of this dark lantern of our external existence.

"The night is also a religious concern, and even more so when I viewed the moon and stars through Hersch.e.l.l's telescope, and saw that they were worlds.

"If, according to some speculations, you could prove the world many thousand years older than the Mosaic chronology, or if you could get rid of Adam and Eve, and the apple, and serpent, still, what is to be put up in their stead? or how is the difficulty removed? Things must have had a beginning, and what matters it _when_ or _how_?

"I sometimes think that _man_ may be the relic of some higher material being wrecked in a former world, and degenerated in the hards.h.i.+p and struggle through chaos into conformity, or something like it,--as we see Laplanders, Esquimaux, &c. inferior in the present state, as the elements become more inexorable. But even then this higher pre-Adamite supposit.i.tious creation must have had an origin and a _Creator_--for a _creation_ is a more natural imagination than a fortuitous concourse of atoms: all things remount to a fountain, though they may flow to an ocean.

"Plutarch says, in his Life of Lysander, that Aristotle observes 'that in general great geniuses are of a melancholy turn, and instances Socrates, Plato, and Hercules (or Herac.l.i.tus), as examples, and Lysander, though not while young, yet as inclined to it when approaching towards age.' Whether I am a genius or not, I have been called such by my friends as well as enemies, and in more countries and languages than one, and also within a no very long period of existence. Of my genius, I can say nothing, but of my melancholy, that it is 'increasing, and ought to be diminished.' But how?

"I take it that most men are so at bottom, but that it is only remarked in the remarkable. The d.u.c.h.esse de Broglio, in reply to a remark of mine on the errors of clever people, said that 'they were not worse than others, only, being more in view, more noted, especially in all that could reduce them to the rest, or raise the rest to them.' In 1816, this was.

"In fact (I suppose that) if the follies of fools were all set down like those of the wise, the wise (who seem at present only a better sort of fools) would appear almost intelligent.

"It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be _constantly_ before us: a year impairs; a l.u.s.tre obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory. _Then_, indeed, the lights are rekindled for a moment; but who can be sure that imagination is not the torch-bearer? Let any man try at the end of _ten_ years to bring before him the features, or the mind, or the sayings, or the habits of his best friend, or his _greatest_ man, (I mean his favourite, his Buonaparte, his this, that, or t'other,) and he will be surprised at the extreme confusion of his ideas. I speak confidently on this point, having always pa.s.sed for one who had a good, ay, an excellent memory. I except, indeed, our recollection of womankind; there is no forgetting _them_ (and be d--d to them) any more than any other remarkable era, such as 'the revolution,' or 'the plague,' or 'the invasion,' or 'the comet,' or 'the war' of such and such an epoch,--being the favourite dates of mankind who have so many _blessings_ in their lot that they never make their calendars from them, being too common. For instance, you see 'the great drought,'

'the Thames frozen over,' 'the seven years' war broke out,' 'the English, or French, or Spanish revolution commenced,' 'the Lisbon earthquake,' 'the Lima earthquake,' 'the earthquake of Calabria,'

'the plague of London,' ditto 'of Constantinople,' 'the sweating sickness,' 'the yellow fever of Philadelphia,' &c. &c. &c.; but you don't see 'the abundant harvest,' 'the fine summer,' 'the long peace,' 'the wealthy speculation,' 'the wreckless voyage,' recorded so emphatically! By the way, there has been a _thirty years' war_ and a _seventy years' war_; was there ever a _seventy_ or a _thirty years' peace_? or was there even a DAY'S _universal_ peace? except perhaps in China, where they have found out the miserable happiness of a stationary and unwarlike mediocrity. And is all this because nature is n.i.g.g.ard or savage? or mankind ungrateful? Let philosophers decide. I am none.

"In general, I do not draw well with literary men; not that I dislike them, but I never know what to say to them after I have praised their last publication. There are several exceptions, to be sure, but then they have either been men of the world, such as Scott and Moore, &c.

or visionaries out of it, such as Sh.e.l.ley, &c.: but your literary every-day man and I never went well in company, especially your foreigner, whom I never could abide; except Giordani, and--and--and--(I really can't name any other)--I don't remember a man amongst them whom I ever wished to see twice, except perhaps Mezzophanti, who is a monster of languages, the Briareus of parts of speech, a walking Polyglott and more, who ought to have existed at the time of the Tower of Babel as universal interpreter. He is indeed a marvel--una.s.suming, also. I tried him in all the tongues of which I knew a single oath, (or adjuration to the G.o.ds against post-boys, savages, Tartars, boatmen, sailors, pilots, gondoliers, muleteers, camel-drivers, vetturini, post-masters, post-horses, post-houses, post every thing,) and egad! he astounded me--even to my English.

"'No man would live his life over again,' is an old and true saying which all can resolve for themselves. At the same time, there are probably _moments_ in most men's lives which they would live over the rest of life to _regain_. Else why do we live at all? because Hope recurs to Memory, both false--but--but--but--but--and this _but_ drags on till--what? I do not know; and who does? 'He that died o'

Wednesday.'"

In laying before the reader these last extracts from the papers in my possession, it may be expected, perhaps, that I should say something,--in addition to what has been already stated on this subject,--respecting those Memoranda, or Memoirs, which, in the exercise of the discretionary power given to me by my n.o.ble friend, I placed, shortly after his death, at the disposal of his sister and executor, and which they, from a sense of what they thought due to his memory, consigned to the flames. As the circ.u.mstances, however, connected with the surrender of that ma.n.u.script, besides requiring much more detail than my present limits allow, do not, in any respect, concern the character of Lord Byron, but affect solely my own, it is not here, at least, that I feel myself called upon to enter into an explanation of them. The world will, of course, continue to think of that step as it pleases; but it is, after all, on a man's _own_ opinion of his actions that his happiness chiefly depends, and I can only say that, were I again placed in the same circ.u.mstances, I would--even at ten times the pecuniary sacrifice which my conduct then cost me--again act precisely in the same manner.

For the satisfaction of those whose regret at the loss of that ma.n.u.script arises from some better motive than the mere disappointment of a prurient curiosity, I shall here add, that on the mysterious cause of the separation, it afforded no light whatever;--that, while some of its details could never have been published at all[1], and little, if any, of what it contained personal towards others could have appeared till long after the individuals concerned had left the scene, all that materially related to Lord Byron himself was (as I well knew when I made that sacrifice) to be found repeated in the various Journals and Memorandum-books, which, though not all to be made use of, were, as the reader has seen from the preceding pages, all preserved.

[Footnote 1: This description applies only to the Second Part of the Memoranda; there having been but little unfit for publication in the First Part, which was, indeed, read, as is well known, by many of the n.o.ble author's friends.]

As far as suppression, indeed, is blamable, I have had, in the course of this task, abundantly to answer for it; having, as the reader must have perceived, withheld a large portion of my materials, to which Lord Byron, no doubt, in his fearlessness of consequences, would have wished to give publicity, but which, it is now more than probable, will never meet the light.

There remains little more to add. It has been remarked by Lord Orford[1], as "strange, that the writing a man's life should in general make the biographer become enamoured of his subject, whereas one should think that the nicer disquisition one makes into the life of any man, the less reason one should find to love or admire him."

On the contrary, may we not rather say that, as knowledge is ever the parent of tolerance, the more insight we gain into the springs and motives of a man's actions, the peculiar circ.u.mstances in which he was placed, and the influences and temptations under which he acted, the more allowance we may be inclined to make for his errors, and the more approbation his virtues may extort from us?

[Footnote 1: In speaking of Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Life of Henry VIII.]

The arduous task of being the biographer of Byron is one, at least, on which I have not obtruded myself: the wish of my friend that I should undertake that office having been more than once expressed, at a time when none but a boding imagination like his could have foreseen much chance of the sad honour devolving to me. If in some instances I have consulted rather the spirit than the exact letter of his injunctions, it was with the view solely of doing him more justice than he would have done himself, there being no hands in which his character could have been less safe than his own, nor any greater wrong offered to his memory than the subst.i.tution of what he affected to be for what he was. Of any partiality, however, beyond what our mutual friends.h.i.+p accounts for and justifies, I am by no means conscious; nor would it be in the power, indeed, of even the most partial friend to allege any thing more convincingly favourable of his character than is contained in the few simple facts with which I shall here conclude,--that, through life, with all his faults, he never lost a friend;--that those about him in his youth, whether as companions, teachers, or servants, remained attached to him to the last;--that the woman, to whom he gave the love of his maturer years, idolises his name; and that, with a single unhappy exception, scarce an instance is to be found of any one, once brought, however briefly, into relations of amity with him, that did not feel towards him a kind regard in life, and retain a fondness for his memory.

I have now done with the subject, nor shall be easily tempted to recur to it. Any mistakes or misstatements I may be proved to have made shall be corrected;--any new facts which it is in the power of others to produce will speak for themselves. To mere opinions I am not called upon to pay attention--and still less to insinuations or mysteries. I have here told what I myself know and think concerning my friend; and now leave his character, moral as well as literary, to the judgment of the world.

APPENDIX.

TWO EPISTLES FROM THE ARMENIAN VERSION.

THE EPISTLE OF THE CORINTHIANS TO ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE.[1]

1 STEPHEN[2], and the elders with him, Dabnus, Eubulus, Theophilus, and Xinon, to Paul, our father and evangelist, and faithful master in Jesus Christ, health.[3]

2 Two men have come to Corinth, Simon by name, and Cleobus[4], who vehemently disturb the faith of some with deceitful and corrupt words;

3 Of which words thou shouldst inform thyself:

4 For neither have we heard such words from thee, nor from the other apostles:

5 But we know only that what we have heard from thee and from them, that we have kept firmly.

6 But in this chiefly has our Lord had compa.s.sion, that, whilst thou art yet with us in the flesh, we are again about to hear from thee.

7 Therefore do thou write to us, or come thyself amongst us quickly.

8 We believe in the Lord, that, as it was revealed to Theonas, he hath delivered thee from the hands of the unrighteous.[5]

9 But these are the sinful words of these impure men, for thus do they say and teach:

10 That it behoves not to admit the Prophets.[6]

11 Neither do they affirm the omnipotence of G.o.d: