Life of Lord Byron Volume II Part 18

"When I arrived at majority in 1809, I offered my own security on _legal_ interest, and it was refused. _Now_, I will not accede to this. This man I may have seen, but I have no recollection of the names of any parties but the _agents_ and the securities. The moment I can it is a.s.suredly my intention to pay my debts. This person's case may be a hard one; but, under all circ.u.mstances, what is mine? I could not foresee that the purchaser of my estate was to demur in paying for it.

"I am glad it happens to be in my power so far to accommodate my Israelite, and only wish I could do as much for the rest of the Twelve Tribes.

"Ever yours, dear R., BN."

[Footnote 61:

"Tis said that persons living on annuities Are longer lived than others,--G.o.d knows why, Unless to plague the grantors,--yet so true it is, That some, I really think, _do_ never die.

Of any creditors, the worst a Jew it is; And _that_'s their mode of furnis.h.i.+ng supply: In my young days they lent me cash that way, Which I found very troublesome to pay."

DON JUAN, Canto II ]

At the beginning of this year, Mr. Murray having it in contemplation to publish an edition of the two Cantos of Childe Harold with engravings, the n.o.ble author entered with much zeal into his plan; and, in a note on the subject to Mr. Murray, says,--"Westall has, I believe, agreed to ill.u.s.trate your book, and I fancy one of the engravings will be from the pretty little girl you saw the other day[62], though without her name, and merely as a model for some sketch connected with the subject. I would also have the portrait (which you saw to-day) of the friend who is mentioned in the text at the close of Canto 1st, and in the notes,--which are subjects sufficient to authorise that addition."

Early in the spring he brought out, anonymously, his poem on Waltzing, which, though full of very lively satire, fell so far short of what was now expected from him by the public, that the disavowal of it, which, as we see by the following letter, he thought right to put forth, found ready credence:--

LETTER 120. TO MR. MURRAY.

"April 21. 1813.

"I shall be in town by Sunday next, and will call and have some conversation on the subject of Westall's designs. I am to sit to him for a picture at the request of a friend of mine, and as Sanders's is not a good one, you will probably prefer the other. I wish you to have Sanders's taken down and sent to my lodgings immediately--before my arrival. I hear that a certain malicious publication on Waltzing is attributed to me. This report, I suppose, you will take care to contradict, as the author, I am sure, will not like that I should wear his cap and bells. Mr.

Hobhouse's quarto will be out immediately; pray send to the author for an early copy, which I wish to take abroad with me.

"P.S.--I see the Examiner threatens some observations upon you next week. What can you have done to share the wrath which has heretofore been princ.i.p.ally expended upon the Prince? I presume all your Scribleri will be drawn up in battle array in defence of the modern Tonson--Mr. Bucke, for instance.

"Send in my account to Bennet Street, as I wish to settle it before sailing."

[Footnote 62: Lady Charlotte Harley, to whom, under the name of Ianthe, the introductory lines to Childe Harold were afterwards addressed.]

In the month of May appeared his wild and beautiful "Fragment," _The Giaour_;--and though, in its first flight from his hands, some of the fairest feathers of its wing were yet wanting, the public hailed this new offspring of his genius with wonder and delight. The idea of writing a poem in fragments had been suggested to him by the _Columbus_ of Mr.

Rogers; and, whatever objections may lie against such a plan in general, it must be allowed to have been well suited to the impatient temperament of Byron, as enabling him to overleap those mechanical difficulties, which, in a regular narrative, embarra.s.s, if not chill, the poet,--leaving it to the imagination of his readers to fill up the intervals between those abrupt bursts of pa.s.sion in which his chief power lay. The story, too, of the poem possessed that stimulating charm for him, almost indispensable to his fancy, of being in some degree connected with himself,--an event in which he had been personally concerned, while on his travels, having supplied the groundwork on which the fiction was founded. After the appearance of The Giaour, some incorrect statement of this romantic incident having got into circulation, the n.o.ble author requested of his friend, the Marquis of Sligo, who had visited Athens soon after it happened, to furnish him with his recollections on the subject; and the following is the answer which Lord Sligo returned:--

"Albany, Monday, August 31. 1813.

"My dear Byron,

"You have requested me to tell you all that I heard at Athens about the affair of that girl who was so near being put an end to while you were there; you have asked me to mention every circ.u.mstance, in the remotest degree relating to it, which I heard. In compliance with your wishes, I write to you all I heard, and I cannot imagine it to be very far from the fact, as the circ.u.mstance happened only a day or two before I arrived at Athens, and, consequently, was a matter of common conversation at the time.

"The new governor, unaccustomed to have the same intercourse with the Christians as his predecessor, had of course the barbarous Turkish ideas with regard to women. In consequence, and in compliance with the strict letter of the Mahommedan law, he ordered this girl to be sewed up in a sack, and thrown into the sea,--as is, indeed, quite customary at Constantinople. As you were returning from bathing in the Piraeus, you met the procession going down to execute the sentence of the Waywode on this unfortunate girl. Report continues to say, that on finding out what the object of their journey was, and who was the miserable sufferer, you immediately interfered; and on some delay in obeying your orders, you were obliged to inform the leader of the escort, that force should make him comply;--that, on farther hesitation, you drew a pistol, and told him, that if he did not immediately obey your orders, and come back with you to the Aga's house, you would shoot him dead. On this, the man turned about and went with you to the governor's house; here you succeeded, partly by personal threats, and partly by bribery and entreaty, to procure her pardon on condition of her leaving Athens. I was told that you then conveyed her in safety to the convent, and despatched her off at night to Thebes, where she found a safe asylum. Such is the story I heard, as nearly as I can recollect it at present. Should you wish to ask me any further questions about it, I shall be very ready and willing to answer them. I remain, my dear Byron,

"Yours, very sincerely,

"SLIGO.

"I am afraid you will hardly be able to read this scrawl; but I am so hurried with the preparations for my journey, that you must excuse it."

Of the prodigal flow of his fancy, when its sources were once opened on any subject, The Giaour affords one of the most remarkable instances,--this poem having acc.u.mulated under his hand, both in printing and through successive editions, till from four hundred lines, of which it consisted in his first copy, it at present amounts to nearly fourteen hundred. The plan, indeed, which he had adopted, of a series of fragments,--a set of "orient pearls at random strung,"--left him free to introduce, without reference to more than the general complexion of his story, whatever sentiments or images his fancy, in its excursions, could collect; and how little fettered he was by any regard to connection in these additions, appears from a note which accompanied his own copy of the paragraph commencing "Fair clime, where every season smiles,"--in which he says, "I have not yet fixed the place of insertion for the following lines, but will, when I see you--as I have no copy."

Even into this new pa.s.sage, rich as it was at first, his fancy afterwards poured a fresh infusion,--the whole of its most picturesque portion, from the line "For there, the Rose o'er crag or vale," down to "And turn to groans his roundelay," having been suggested to him during revision. In order to show, however, that though so rapid in the first heat of composition, he formed no exception to that law which imposes labour as the price of perfection, I shall here extract a few verses from his original draft of this paragraph, by comparing which with the form they wear at present[63] we may learn to appreciate the value of these after-touches of the master.

"Fair clime! where _ceaseless summer_ smiles Benignant o'er those blessed isles, Which, seen from far Colonna's height, Make glad the heart that hails the sight, And _give_ to loneliness delight.

There _s.h.i.+ne the bright abodes ye seek, Like dimples upon Ocean's cheek,-- So smiling round the waters lave_ These Edens of the eastern wave.

Or if, at times, the transient breeze Break the _smooth_ crystal of the seas, Or _brush_ one blossom from the trees, How _grateful_ is the gentle air That wakes and wafts the _fragrance_ there."

Among the other pa.s.sages added to this edition (which was either the third or fourth, and between which and the first there intervened but about six weeks) was that most beautiful and melancholy ill.u.s.tration of the lifeless aspect of Greece, beginning "He who hath bent him o'er the dead,"--of which the most gifted critic of our day[64] has justly p.r.o.nounced, that "it contains an image more true, more mournful, and more exquisitely finished, than any we can recollect in the whole compa.s.s of poetry."[65] To the same edition also were added, among other accessions of wealth[66], those lines, "The cygnet proudly walks the water," and the impa.s.sioned verses, "My memory now is but the tomb."

On my rejoining him in town this spring, I found the enthusiasm about his writings and himself, which I left so prevalent, both in the world of literature and in society, grown, if any thing, still more general and intense. In the immediate circle, perhaps, around him, familiarity of intercourse might have begun to produce its usual disenchanting effects. His own liveliness and unreserve, on a more intimate acquaintance, would not be long in dispelling that charm of poetic sadness, which to the eyes of distant observers hung about him; while the romantic notions, connected by some of his fair readers with those past and nameless loves alluded to in his poems, ran some risk of abatement from too near an acquaintance with the supposed objects of his fancy and fondness at present. A poet's mistress should remain, if possible, as imaginary a being to others, as, in most of the attributes he clothes her with, she has been to himself;--the reality, however fair, being always sure to fall short of the picture which a too lavish fancy has drawn of it. Could we call up in array before us all the beauties whom the love of poets has immortalised, from the high-born dame to the plebeian damsel,--from the Lauras and Sacharissas down to the Cloes and Jeannies,--we should, it is to be feared, sadly unpeople our imaginations of many a bright tenant that poesy has lodged there, and find, in more than one instance, our admiration of the faith and fancy of the wors.h.i.+pper increased by our discovery of the worthlessness of the idol.

But, whatever of its first romantic impression the personal character of the poet may, from such causes, have lost in the circle he most frequented, this disappointment of the imagination was far more than compensated by the frank, social, and engaging qualities, both of disposition and manner, which, on a nearer intercourse, he disclosed, as well as by that entire absence of any literary a.s.sumption or pedantry, which ent.i.tled him fully to the praise bestowed by Sprat upon Cowley, that few could "ever discover he was a great poet by his discourse."

While thus, by his intimates, and those who had got, as it were, behind the scenes of his fame, he was seen in his true colours, as well of weakness as of amiableness, on strangers and such as were out of this immediate circle, the spell of his poetical character still continued to operate; and the fierce gloom and sternness of his imaginary personages were, by the greater number of them, supposed to belong, not only as regarded mind, but manners, to himself. So prevalent and persevering has been this notion, that, in some disquisitions on his character published since his death, and containing otherwise many just and striking views, we find, in the professed portrait drawn of him, such features as the following:--"Lord Byron had a stern, direct, severe mind: a sarcastic, disdainful, gloomy temper. He had no light sympathy with heartless cheerfulness;--upon the surface was sourness, discontent, displeasure, ill will. Beneath all this weight of clouds and darkness[67]," &c. &c.

Of the sort of double aspect which he thus presented, as viewed by the world and by his friends, he was himself fully aware; and it not only amused him, but, as a proof of the versatility of his powers, flattered his pride. He was, indeed, as I have already remarked, by no means insensible or inattentive to the effect he produced personally on society; and though the brilliant station he had attained, since the commencement of my acquaintance with him, made not the slightest alteration in the unaffectedness of his private intercourse, I could perceive, I thought, with reference to the external world, some slight changes in his conduct, which seemed indicative of the effects of his celebrity upon him. Among other circ.u.mstances, I observed that, whether from shyness of the general gaze, or from a notion, like Livy's, that men of eminence should not too much familiarise the public to their persons[68], he avoided showing himself in the mornings, and in crowded places, much more than was his custom when we first became acquainted.

The preceding year, before his name had grown "so rife and celebrated,"

we had gone together to the exhibition at Somerset House, and other such places[69]; and the true reason, no doubt, of his present reserve, in abstaining from all such miscellaneous haunts, was the sensitiveness, so often referred to, on the subject of his lameness,--a feeling which the curiosity of the public eye, now attracted to this infirmity by his fame, could not fail, he knew, to put rather painfully to the proof.

Among the many gay hours we pa.s.sed together this spring, I remember particularly the wild flow of his spirits one evening, when we had accompanied Mr. Rogers home from some early a.s.sembly, and when Lord Byron, who, according to his frequent custom, had not dined for the last two days, found his hunger no longer governable, and called aloud for "something to eat." Our repast,--of his own choosing,--was simple bread and cheese; and seldom have I partaken of so joyous a supper. It happened that our host had just received a presentation copy of a volume of poems, written professedly in imitation of the old English writers, and containing, like many of these models, a good deal that was striking and beautiful, mixed up with much that was trifling, fantastic, and absurd. In our mood, at the moment, it was only with these latter qualities that either Lord Byron or I felt disposed to indulge ourselves; and, in turning over the pages, we found, it must be owned, abundant matter for mirth. In vain did Mr. Rogers, in justice to the author, endeavour to direct our attention to some of the beauties of the work:--it suited better our purpose (as is too often the case with more deliberate critics) to pounce only on such pa.s.sages as ministered to the laughing humour that possessed us. In this sort of hunt through the volume, we at length lighted on the discovery that our host, in addition to his sincere approbation of some of its contents, had also the motive of grat.i.tude for standing by its author, as one of the poems was a warm and, I need not add, well-deserved panegyric on himself. We were, however, too far gone in nonsense for even this eulogy, in which we both so heartily agreed, to stop us. The opening line of the poem was, as well as I can recollect, "When Rogers o'er this labour bent;" and Lord Byron undertook to read it aloud;--but he found it impossible to get beyond the first two words. Our laughter had now increased to such a pitch that nothing could restrain it. Two or three times he began; but no sooner had the words "When Rogers" pa.s.sed his lips, than our fit burst forth afresh,--till even Mr. Rogers himself, with all his feeling of our injustice, found it impossible not to join us; and we were, at last, all three, in such a state of inextinguishable laughter, that, had the author himself been of the party, I question much whether he could have resisted the infection.

A day or two after, Lord Byron sent me the following:--

"My dear Moore,

"'When Rogers' must not see the enclosed, which I send for your perusal. I am ready to fix any day you like for our visit. Was not Sheridan good upon the whole? The 'Poulterer' was the first and best.[70]

"Ever yours," &c.

1.

"When T * * this d.a.m.n'd nonsense sent, (I hope I am not violent), Nor men nor G.o.ds knew what he meant.

2.

"And since not ev'n our Rogers' praise To common sense his thoughts could raise-- Why _would_ they let him print his lays?

3.

4.

5.