Life of Lord Byron Volume I Part 20

"BYRON."

On the second of July the packet sailed from Falmouth, and, after a favourable pa.s.sage of four days and a half, the voyagers reached Lisbon, and took up their abode in that city.[118]

The following letters, from Lord Byron to his friend Mr. Hodgson, though written in his most light and schoolboy strain, will give some idea of the first impressions that his residence in Lisbon made upon him. Such letters, too, contrasted with the n.o.ble stanzas on Portugal in "Childe Harold," will show how various were the moods of his versatile mind, and what different aspects it could take when in repose or on the wing.

LETTER 37.

TO MR. HODGSON.

"Lisbon, July 16. 1809.

"Thus far have we pursued our route, and seen all sorts of marvellous sights, palaces, convents, &c.;--which, being to be heard in my friend Hobhouse's forthcoming Book of Travels, I shall not antic.i.p.ate by smuggling any account whatsoever to you in a private and clandestine manner. I must just observe, that the village of Cintra in Estremadura is the most beautiful, perhaps, in the world.

"I am very happy here, because I loves oranges, and talk bad Latin to the monks, who understand it, as it is like their own,--and I goes into society (with my pocket-pistols), and I swims in the Tagus all across at once, and I rides on an a.s.s or a mule, and swears Portuguese, and have got a diarrhoea and bites from the musquitoes.

But what of that? Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a pleasuring.

"When the Portuguese are pertinacious, I say, 'Carracho!'--the great oath of the grandees, that very well supplies the place of 'Damme,'--and, when dissatisfied with my neighbour, I p.r.o.nounce him 'Ambra di merdo.' With these two phrases, and a third, 'Avra bouro,'

which signifieth 'Get an a.s.s,' I am universally understood to be a person of degree and a master of languages. How merrily we lives that travellers be!--if we had food and raiment. But in sober sadness, any thing is better than England, and I am infinitely amused with my pilgrimage as far as it has gone.

"To-morrow we start to ride post near 400 miles as far as Gibraltar, where we embark for Melita and Byzantium. A letter to Malta will find me, or to be forwarded, if I am absent. Pray embrace the Drury and Dwyer, and all the Ephesians you encounter. I am writing with Butler's donative pencil, which makes my bad hand worse. Excuse illegibility.

"Hodgson! send me the news, and the deaths and defeats and capital crimes and the misfortunes of one's friends; and let us hear of literary matters, and the controversies and the criticisms. All this will be pleasant--'Suave mari magno,' &c. Talking of that, I have been sea-sick, and sick of the sea.

"Adieu. Yours faithfully," &c.

LETTER 38.

TO MR. HODGSON.

"Gibraltar, August 6. 1809.

"I have just arrived at this place after a journey through Portugal, and a part of Spain, of nearly 500 miles. We left Lisbon and travelled on horseback[119] to Seville and Cadiz, and thence in the Hyperion frigate to Gibraltar. The horses are excellent--we rode seventy miles a day. Eggs and wine, and hard beds, are all the accommodation we found, and, in such torrid weather, quite enough. My health is better than in England.

"Seville is a fine town, and the Sierra Morena, part of which we crossed, a very sufficient mountain; but d.a.m.n description, it is always disgusting. Cadiz, sweet Cadiz!--it is the first spot in the creation. The beauty of its streets and mansions is only excelled by the loveliness of its inhabitants. For, with all national prejudice, I must confess the women of Cadiz are as far superior to the English women in beauty as the Spaniards are inferior to the English in every quality that dignifies the name of man. Just as I began to know the princ.i.p.al persons of the city, I was obliged to sail.

"You will not expect a long letter after my riding so far 'on hollow pampered jades of Asia.' Talking of Asia puts me in mind of Africa, which is within five miles of my present residence. I am going over before I go on to Constantinople.

"Cadiz is a complete Cythera. Many of the grandees who have left Madrid during the troubles reside there, and I do believe it is the prettiest and cleanest town in Europe. London is filthy in the comparison. The Spanish women are all alike, their education the same.

The wife of a duke is, in information, as the wife of a peasant,--the wife of a peasant, in manner, equal to a d.u.c.h.ess. Certainly they are fascinating; but their minds have only one idea, and the business of their lives is intrigue.

"I have seen Sir John Carr at Seville and Cadiz, and, like Swift's barber, have been down on my knees to beg he would not put me into black and white. Pray remember me to the Drurys and the Davies, and all of that stamp who are yet extant.[120] Send me a letter and news to Malta. My next epistle shall be from Mount Caucasus or Mount Sion.

I shall return to Spain before I see England, for I am enamoured of the country.

Adieu, and believe me," &c.

In a letter to Mrs. Byron, dated a few days later, from Gibraltar, he recapitulates the same account of his progress, only dwelling rather more diffusely on some of the details. Thus, of Cintra and Mafra:--"To make amends for this,[121] the village of Cintra, about fifteen miles from the capital, is, perhaps in every respect, the most delightful in Europe; it contains beauties of every description, natural and artificial. Palaces and gardens rising in the midst of rocks, cataracts, and precipices; convents on stupendous heights--a distant view of the sea and the Tagus; and, besides (though that is a secondary consideration), is remarkable as the scene of Sir H.D.'s Convention.[122] It unites in itself all the wildness of the western highlands, with the verdure of the south of France. Near this place, about ten miles to the right, is the palace of Mafra, the boast of Portugal, as it might be of any other country, in point of magnificence without elegance. There is a convent annexed; the monks, who possess large revenues, are courteous enough, and understand Latin, so that we had a long conversation: they have a large library, and asked me if the _English_ had _any books_ in their country?"

An adventure which he met with at Seville, characteristic both of the country and of himself, is thus described in the same letter to Mrs.

Byron:--

"We lodged in the house of two Spanish unmarried ladies, who possess _six_ houses in Seville, and gave me a curious specimen of Spanish manners. They are women of character, and the eldest a fine woman, the youngest pretty, but not so good a figure as Donna Josepha. The freedom of manner, which is general here, astonished me not a little; and in the course of further observation, I find that reserve is not the characteristic of the Spanish belles, who are, in general, very handsome, with large black eyes, and very fine forms. The eldest honoured your _unworthy_ son with very particular attention, embracing him with great tenderness at parting (I was there but three days), after cutting off a lock of his hair, and presenting him with one of her own, about three feet in length, which I send, and beg you will retain till my return. Her last words were, 'Adios, tu hermoso! me gusto mucho.'--'Adieu, you pretty fellow! you please me much.' She offered me a share of her apartment, which my _virtue_ induced me to decline; she laughed, and said I had some English "amante" (lover), and added that she was going to be married to an officer in the Spanish army."

Among the beauties of Cadiz, his imagination, dazzled by the attractions of the many, was on the point, it would appear from the following, of being fixed by _one_:--

"Cadiz, sweet Cadiz, is the most delightful town I ever beheld, very different from our English cities in every respect except cleanliness (and it is as clean as London), but still beautiful and full of the finest women in Spain, the Cadiz belles being the Lancas.h.i.+re witches of their land. Just as I was introduced and began to like the grandees, I was forced to leave it for this cursed place; but before I return to England I will visit it again.

"The night before I left it, I sat in the box at the opera, with admiral ----'s family, an aged wife and a fine daughter, Sennorita ----. The girl is very pretty, in the Spanish style; in my opinion, by no means inferior to the English in charms, and certainly superior in fascination. Long, black hair, dark languis.h.i.+ng eyes, clear olive complexions, and forms more graceful in motion than can be conceived by an Englishman used to the drowsy listless air of his countrywomen, added to the most becoming dress, and, at the same time, the most decent in the world, render a Spanish beauty irresistible.

"Miss ---- and her little brother understood a little French, and, after regretting my ignorance of the Spanish, she proposed to become my preceptress in that language. I could only reply by a low bow, and express my regret that I quitted Cadiz too soon to permit me to make the progress which would doubtless attend my studies under so charming a directress. I was standing at the back of the box, which resembles our Opera boxes, (the theatre is large and finely decorated, the music admirable,) in the manner which Englishmen generally adopt, for fear of incommoding the ladies in front, when this fair Spaniard dispossessed an old woman (an aunt or a duenna) of her chair, and commanded me to be seated next herself, at a tolerable distance from her mamma. At the close of the performance I withdrew, and was lounging with a party of men in the pa.s.sage, when, _en pa.s.sant_, the lady turned round and called me, and I had the honour of attending her to the admiral's mansion. I have an invitation on my return to Cadiz, which I shall accept if I repa.s.s through the country on my return from Asia."

To these adventures, or rather glimpses of adventures, which he met with in his hasty pa.s.sage through Spain, he adverted, I recollect, briefly, in the early part of his "Memoranda;" and it was the younger, I think, of his fair hostesses at Seville, whom he there described himself as making earnest love to, with the help of a dictionary.

"For some time," he said, "I went on prosperously both as a linguist and a lover,[123] till at length, the lady took a fancy to a ring which I wore, and set her heart on my giving it to her, as a pledge of my sincerity. This, however, could not be;--anything but the ring, I declared, was at her service, and much more than its value,--but the ring itself I had made a vow never to give away." The young Spaniard grew angry as the contention went on, and it was not long before the lover became angry also; till, at length, the affair ended by their separating unsuccessful on both sides. "Soon after this," said he, "I sailed for Malta, and there parted with both my heart and ring."

In the letter from Gibraltar, just cited, he adds--"I am going over to Africa to-morrow; it is only six miles from this fortress. My next stage is Cagliari in Sardinia, where I shall be presented to his majesty. I have a most superb uniform as a court-dress, indispensable in travelling." His plan of visiting Africa was, however, relinquished. After a short stay at Gibraltar, during which he dined one day with Lady Westmoreland, and another with General Castanos, he, on the 19th of August, took his departure for Malta, in the packet, having first sent Joe Murray and young Rushton back to England,--the latter being unable, from ill health, to accompany him any further.

"Pray," he says to his mother, "show the lad every kindness, as he is my great favourite."[124]

He also wrote a letter to the father of the boy, which gives so favourable an impression of his thoughtfulness and kindliness that I have much pleasure in being enabled to introduce it here.

LETTER 39.

TO MR. RUSHTON.

"Gibraltar, August 15. 1809.

"Mr. Rushton,

"I have sent Robert home with Mr. Murray, because the country which I am about to travel through is in a state which renders it unsafe, particularly for one so young. I allow you to deduct five-and-twenty pounds a year for his education for three years, provided I do not return before that time, and I desire he may be considered as in my service. Let every care be taken of him, and let him be sent to school. In case of my death I have provided enough in my will to render him independent. He has behaved extremely well, and has travelled a great deal for the time of his absence. Deduct the expense of his education from your rent.

"BYRON."

It was the fate of Lord Byron, throughout life, to meet, wherever he went, with persons who, by some tinge of the extraordinary in their own fates or characters, were prepared to enter, at once, into full sympathy with his; and to this attraction, by which he drew towards him all strange and eccentric spirits, he owed some of the most agreeable connections of his life, as well as some of the most troublesome. Of the former description was an intimacy which he now cultivated during his short sojourn at Malta. The lady with whom he formed this acquaintance was the same addressed by him under the name of "Florence" in Childe Harold; and in a letter to his mother from Malta, he thus describes her in prose:--"This letter is committed to the charge of a very extraordinary woman, whom you have doubtless heard of, Mrs. S---- S----, of whose escape the Marquis de Salvo published a narrative a few years ago. She has since been s.h.i.+pwrecked, and her life has been from its commencement so fertile in remarkable incidents that in a romance they would appear improbable. She was born at Constantinople, where her father, Baron H----, was Austrian amba.s.sador; married unhappily, yet has never been impeached in point of character; excited the vengeance of Buonaparte by a part in some conspiracy; several times risked her life; and is not yet twenty-five.

She is here on her way to England, to join her husband, being obliged to leave Trieste, where she was paying a visit to her mother, by the approach of the French, and embarks soon in a s.h.i.+p of war. Since my arrival here. I have had scarcely any other companion. I have found her very pretty, very accomplished, and extremely eccentric.

Buonaparte is even now so incensed against her, that her life would be in some danger if she were taken prisoner a second time."

The tone in which he addresses this fair heroine in Childe Harold is (consistently with the above dispa.s.sionate account of her) that of the purest admiration and interest, unwarmed by any more ardent sentiment:--

"Sweet Florence! could another ever share This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine: But, check'd by every tie, I may not dare To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine, Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine.

"Thus Harold deem'd as on that lady's eye He look'd, and met its beam without a thought, Save admiration, glancing harmless by," &c. &c.