Life of Lord Byron Volume I Part 30

[Footnote 118: Lord Byron used sometimes to mention a strange story, which the commander of the packet, Captain Kidd, related to him on the pa.s.sage. This officer stated that, being asleep one night in his berth, he was awakened by the pressure of something heavy on his limbs, and, there being a faint light in the room, could see, as he thought, distinctly, the figure of his brother, who was at that time in the naval service in the East Indies, dressed in his uniform, and stretched across the bed. Concluding it to be an illusion of the senses, he shut his eyes and made an effort to sleep. But still the same pressure continued, and still, as often as he ventured to take another look, he saw the figure lying across him in the same position.

To add to the wonder, on putting his hand forth to touch this form, he found the uniform, in which it appeared to be dressed, dripping wet.

On the entrance of one of his brother officers, to whom he called out in alarm, the apparition vanished; but in a few months after he received the startling intelligence that on that night his brother had been drowned in the Indian seas. Of the supernatural character of this appearance, Captain Kidd himself did not appear to have the slightest doubt.]

[Footnote 119: The baggage and part of the servants were sent by sea to Gibraltar.]

[Footnote 120: "This sort of pa.s.sage," says Mr. Hodgson, in a note on his copy of this letter, "constantly occurs in his correspondence. Nor was his interest confined to mere remembrances and enquiries after health. Were it possible to state _all_ he has done for numerous friends, he would appear amiable indeed. For myself, I am bound to acknowledge, in the fullest and warmest manner, his most generous and well-timed aid; and, were my poor friend Bland alive, he would as gladly bear the like testimony;--though I have most reason, of all men, to do so."]

[Footnote 121: The filthiness of Lisbon and its inhabitants.]

[Footnote 122: Colonel Napier, in a note in his able History of the Peninsular War, notices the mistake into which Lord Byron and others were led on this subject;--the signature of the Convention, as well as all the other proceedings connected with it, having taken place at a distance of thirty miles from Cintra.]

[Footnote 123: We find an allusion to this incident in Don Juan:--

"'Tis pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongue By female lips and eyes--that is, I mean, When both the teacher and the taught are young, As was the case, at least, where I have been," &c. &c.

[Footnote 124: The postscript to this letter is as follows:--

P.S. "So Lord G. is married to a rustic! Well done! If I wed, I will bring you home a sultana, with half a dozen cities for a dowry, and reconcile you to an Ottoman daughter-in-law with a bushel of pearls, not larger than ostrich eggs, or smaller than walnuts."]

[Footnote 125: The following stanzas from this little poem have a music in them, which, independently of all meaning, is enchanting:--

"And since I now remember thee In darkness and in dread, As in those hours of revelry, Which mirth and music sped;

"Do thou, amidst the fair white walls, If Cadiz yet be free, At times, from out her latticed halls, Look o'er the dark blue sea;

"Then think upon Calypso's isles, Endear'd by days gone by; To others give a thousand smiles, To me a single sigh," &c. &c.

[Footnote 126: The following is Mr. Hobhouse's loss embellished description of this scene;--"The court at Tepellene, which was enclosed on two sides by the palace, and on the other two sides by a high wall, presented us, at our first entrance, with a sight something like what we might have, perhaps, beheld some hundred years ago in the castle-yard of a great feudal lord. Soldiers, with their arms piled against the wall near them, were a.s.sembled in different parts of the square: some of them pacing slowly backwards and forwards, and others sitting on the ground in groups. Several horses, completely caparisoned, were leading about, whilst others were neighing under the hands of the grooms. In the part farthest from the dwelling, preparations were making for the feast of the night; and several kids and sheep were being dressed by cooks who were themselves half armed.

Every thing wore a most martial look, though not exactly in the style of the head-quarters of a Christian general; for many of the soldiers were in the most common dress, without shoes, and having more wildness in their air and manner than the Albanians we had before seen."

On comparing this description, which is itself sufficiently striking, with those which Lord Byron has given of the same scene, both in the letter to his mother, and in the second Canto of Childe Harold, we gain some insight into the process by which imagination elevates, without falsifying, reality, and facts become brightened and refined into poetry. Ascending from the representation drawn faithfully on the spot by the traveller, to the more fanciful arrangement of the same materials in the letter of the poet, we at length, by one step more, arrive at that consummate, idealised picture, the result of both memory and invention combined, which in the following splendid stanzas is presented to us:--

Amidst no common pomp the despot sate, While busy preparations shook the court, Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons wait; Within, a palace, and without, a fort: Here men of every clime appear to make resort.

"Richly caparison'd, a ready row Of armed horse, and many a warlike store, Circled the wide-extending court below; Above, strange groups adorn'd the corridore; And oft-times through the area's echoing door Some high-capp'd Tartar spurr'd his steed away: The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor, Here mingled in their many-hued array, While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close of day.

"The wild Albanian, kirtled to his knee, With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun, And gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see; The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon; The Delhi, with his cap of terror on, And crooked glaive; the lively, supple Greek; And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son; The bearded Turk that rarely deigns to speak, Master of all around--too potent to be meek,

"Are mix'd, conspicuous: some recline in groups, Scanning the motley scene that varies round; There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops, And some that smoke, and some that play, are found; Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground; Half whispering there the Greek is heard to prate; Hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound, The Muezzin's call doth shake the minaret, There is no G.o.d but G.o.d!--to prayer--lo! G.o.d is great!'"

CHILDE HAROLD, Canto II.

[Footnote 127: In the shape of the hands, as a mark of high birth, Lord Byron himself had as implicit faith as the Pacha: see his note on the line, "Though on more _thorough-bred_ or fairer fingers," in Don Juan.]

[Footnote 128: A few sentences are here and elsewhere omitted, as having no reference to Lord Byron himself, but merely containing some particulars relating to Ali and his grandsons, which may be found in various books of travels.

Ali had not forgotten his n.o.ble guest when Dr. Holland, a few years after, visited Albania:--"I mentioned to him, generally (says this intelligent traveller), Lord Byron's poetical description of Albania, the interest it had excited in England, and Mr. Hobhouse's intended publication of his travels in the same country. He seemed pleased with these circ.u.mstances, and stated his recollections of Lord Byron."]

[Footnote 129: I have heard the poet's fellow-traveller describe this remarkable instance of his coolness and courage even still more strikingly than it is here stated by himself. Finding that, from his lameness, he was unable to be of any service in the exertions which their very serious danger called for, after a laugh or two at the panic of his valet, he not only wrapped himself up and lay down, in the manner here mentioned, but, when their difficulties were surmounted, was found fast asleep.]

[Footnote 130: In the route from Ioannina to Zitza, Mr. Hobhouse and the secretary of Ali, accompanied by one of the servants, had rode on before the rest of the party, and arrived at the village just as the evening set in. After describing the sort of hovel in which they were to take up their quarters for the night, Mr. Hobhouse thus continues:--"Vasilly was despatched into the village to procure eggs and fowls, that would be ready, as we thought, by the arrival of the second party. But an hour pa.s.sed away and no one appeared. It was seven o'clock, and the storm had increased to a fury I had never before, and, indeed, have never since, seen equalled. The roof of our hovel shook under the clattering torrents and gusts of wind. The thunder roared, as it seemed, without any intermission; for the echoes of one peal had not ceased to roll in the mountains, before another tremendous crash burst over our heads; whilst the plains and the distant hills (visible through the cracks of the cabin) appeared in a perpetual blaze. The tempest was altogether terrific, and worthy of the Grecian Jove; and the peasants, no less religious than their ancestors, confessed their alarm. The women wept, and the men, calling on the name of G.o.d, crossed themselves at every repeated peal.

"We were very uneasy that the party did not arrive; but the secretary a.s.sured me that the guides knew every part of the country, as did also his own servant, who was with them, and that they had certainly taken shelter in a village at an hour's distance. Not being satisfied with the conjecture, I ordered fires to be lighted on the hill above the village, and some muskets to be discharged: this was at eleven o'clock, and the storm had not abated. I lay down in my great coat; but all sleeping was out of the question, as any pauses in the tempest were filled up by the barking of the dogs, and the shouting of the shepherds in the neighbouring mountains.

"A little after midnight, a man, panting and pale, and drenched with rain, rushed into the room, and, between crying and roaring, with a profusion of action, communicated something to the secretary, of which I understood only--that they had all fallen down. I learnt, however, that no accident had happened, except the falling of the luggage horses, and losing their way, and that they were now waiting for fresh horses and guides. Ten were immediately sent to them, together with several men with pine-torches; but it was not till two o'clock in the morning that we heard they were approaching, and my friend, with the priest and the servants, did not enter our hut before three.

"I now learnt from him that they had lost their way from the commencement of the storm, when not above three miles from the village; and that, after wandering up and down in total ignorance of their position, they had, at last, stopped near some Turkish tombstones and a torrent, which they saw by the flashes of lightning.

They had been thus exposed for nine hours; and the guides, so far from a.s.sisting them, only augmented the confusion, by running away, after being threatened with death by George the dragoman, who, in an agony of rage and fear, and without giving any warning, fired off both his pistols, and drew from the English servant an involuntary scream of horror, for he fancied they were beset by robbers.

"I had not, as you have seen, witnessed the distressing part of this adventure myself; but from the lively picture drawn of it by my friend, and from the exaggerated descriptions of George, I fancied myself a good judge of the whole situation, and should consider this to have been one of the most considerable of the few adventures that befell either of us during our tour in Turkey. It was long before we ceased to talk of the thunder-storm in the plain of Zitza."]

[Footnote 131: Mr. Hobhouse. I think, makes the number of this guard but thirty-seven, and Lord Byron, in a subsequent letter, rates them at forty.]

[Footnote 132:

"Oh, thou Parna.s.sus! whom I now survey, Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye, Not in the fabled landscape of a lay, But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky, In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!"

CHILDE HAROLD, Canto I.

[Footnote 133: The pa.s.sage of Harris, indeed, contains the pith of the whole stanza:--"Notwithstanding the various fortune of Athens, as a city, Attica is still famous for olives, and Mount Hymettus for honey.

Human inst.i.tutions perish, but Nature is permanent."--_Philolog.

Inquiries_.--I recollect having once pointed out this coincidence to Lord Byron, but he a.s.sured me that he had never even seen this work of Harris.]

[Footnote 134: Travels in Italy, Greece, &c., by H. W. Williams, Esq.]

[Footnote 135: The Miscellany, to which I have more than once referred.]

[Footnote 136: He has adopted this name in his description of the Seraglio in Don Juan, Canto VI. It was, if I recollect right, in making love to one of these girls that he had recourse to an act of courts.h.i.+p often practised in that country,--namely, giving himself a wound across the breast with his dagger. The young Athenian, by his own account, looked on very coolly during the operation, considering it a fit tribute to her beauty, but in no degree moved to grat.i.tude.]

[Footnote 137: Among others, he mentions his pa.s.sage of the Tagus in 1809, which is thus described by Mr. Hobhouse:--"My companion had before made a more perilous, but less celebrated, pa.s.sage; for I recollect that, when we were in Portugal, he swam from old Lisbon to Belem Castle, and having to contend with a tide and counter current, the wind blowing freshly, was but little less than two hours in crossing the river." In swimming from Sestos to Abydos, he was one hour and ten minutes in the water.

In the year 1808, he had been nearly drowned, while swimming at Brighton with Mr. L. Stanhope. His friend Mr. Hobhouse, and other bystanders, sent in some boatmen, with ropes tied round them, who at last succeeded in dragging Lord Byron and Mr. Stanhope from the surf and thus saved their lives.]

[Footnote 138: Alluding to his having swum across the Thames with Mr.

H. Drury, after the Montem, to see how many times they could perform the pa.s.sage backwards and forwards without touching land. In this trial (which took place at night, after supper, when both were heated with drinking,) Lord Byron was the conqueror.]

[Footnote 139: New Monthly Magazine.]

[Footnote 140: In a note upon the Advertis.e.m.e.nt prefixed to his Siege of Corinth, he says,--"I visited all three (Tripolitza, Napoli, and Argos,) in 1810-11, and in the course of journeying through the country, from my first arrival in 1809, crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains, or in the other direction, when pa.s.sing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto."]

[Footnote 141: Given afterwards to Sir Walter Scott.]

[Footnote 142: At present in the possession of Mr. Murray.]