Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries
Lord Byron.
LORD BYRON
AND
SOME OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES;
WITH
RECOLLECTIONS OF
THE AUTHOR’S LIFE,
AND OF HIS
VISIT TO ITALY.
BY LEIGH HUNT.
“It is for slaves to lie, and for freemen to speak truth.
“In the examples, which I here bring in, of what I have heard,
read, done, or said, I have forbid myself to dare to alter even the most light and
indifferent circumstances. My conscience does not falsify one tittle. What my ignorance
may do, I cannot say.” Montaigne.
LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1828.
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LORD BYRON
AND SOME OF
HIS CONTEMPORARIES.
The first time I saw Lord
Byron, he was rehearsing the part of Leander,
under the auspices of Mr. Jackson the prize-fighter. It
was in the river Thames, before he went to Greece. I had been bathing, and was standing on the
floating machine adjusting my clothes, when I noticed a respectable-looking manly person, who
was eyeing something at a distance. This was Mr. Jackson waiting for his
pupil. The latter was swimming with somebody for a wager. I forget what his tutor said of him;
but he spoke in terms of praise. I saw nothing in Lord Byron at that time,
but a young man who, like myself, had written a bad volume of poems; and though I had a
sympathy with him on this account, and more respect for his rank than I was willing to suppose,
my sympathy was not an agreeable one; so, contenting myself with seeing his Lordship’s
head bob up and down in the water, like a buoy, I came away.
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Lord Byron was afterwards pleased to regret, that I had not stayed. He
told me, that the sight of my volume at Harrow had been one of his
incentives to write verses, and that he had had the same passion for friendship that I had
displayed in it. To my astonishment, he quoted some of the lines, and would not hear me speak
ill of them. This was when I was in prison, where I first became personally acquainted with his
Lordship. His harbinger was Moore. Moore told me, that,
besides liking my politics, he liked “The Feast of
the Poets,” and would be glad to make my acquaintance. I said I felt myself
highly flattered, and should be proud to entertain his Lordship as well as a poor patriot
could. He was accordingly invited to dinner. His friend only stipulated, that there should be
“plenty of fish and vegetables for the noble bard,” his Lordship at that time being
Brahminical in his eating. He came, and we passed a very pleasant afternoon, talking of books,
and school, and the Reverend Mr. Bowles; of the pastoral
innocence of whose conversation some anecdotes were related, that would have much edified the
spirit of Pope, had it been in the room.
I saw nothing at first but single-hearted and agreeable qualities in
Lord Byron. My wife,
with the quicker eyes of a woman, was inclined to doubt them. Visiting me one day, when I had a
friend with me, he seemed uneasy, and asked without ceremony when he should find me alone. My
friend, who was a man of taste and spirit, and the last in the world to intrude his
acquaintance, was not bound to go away because another person had come in; and besides, he
naturally felt anxious to look at so interesting a visitor; which was paying the latter a
compliment. But his Lordship’s will was disturbed, and he vented his spleen accordingly.
I took it at the time for a piece of simplicity, blinded perhaps by the flattery insinuated
towards myself; but my wife ![]()
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was right. Lord
Byron’s nature, from the first, contained that mixture of disagreeable
with pleasanter qualities, which I had afterwards but too much occasion to recognize. He
subsequently called on me in the prison several times, and used to bring books for my Story of Rimini, which I was then writing. He would
not let the footman bring them in. He would enter with a couple of quartos under his arm; and
give you to understand, that he was prouder of being a friend and a man of letters, than a
lord. It was thus that by flattering one’s vanity, he persuaded us
of his own freedom from it; for he could see very well, that I had more value for
lords than I supposed.
In the correspondence at the end of the present memoir, the reader will find
some letters addressed to me at this period by Lord Byron. He was a warm
politician, and thought himself earnest in the cause of liberty. His failure in the House of
Lords is well known. He was very candid about it; said he was much frightened, and should never
be able to do any thing that way. Lords of all parties came about him, and consoled him; he
particularly mentioned Lord Sidmouth, as being unaffectedly
kind. When I left prison, I was too ill to return his visits. He pressed me very much to go to
the theatre with him; but illness, and the dread of committing my critical independence, alike
prevented me. His Lordship was one of a management that governed Drury-lane
Theatre at that time, and that made a sad business of their direction, as
amateur-managers have always done. He got nothing by it but petty vexations, and a good deal of
scandal.
I was then living at Paddington. I had a study looking
over the fields towards Westbourne Green; which I mention, because,
besides the pleasure I took in it after my prison, and the gratitude I owe to a fair cousin,
who saved me from being burnt there one fine morning, I ![]()
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received visits
in it from two persons of a remarkable discrepancy of character—Lord
Byron and Mr. Wordsworth. Of
Mr. Wordsworth I will speak hereafter. Lord
Byron, I thought, took a pleasure in my room, as contrasted with the splendour of
his great house. He had too much reason to do so. His domestic troubles were just about to
become public. His appearance at that time was the finest I ever saw it, a great deal finer
than it was afterwards, when he was abroad. He was fatter than before his marriage, but only
just enough so to complete the manliness of his person; and the turn of his head and
countenance had a spirit and elevation in it, which though not unmixed with disquiet, gave him
altogether a nobler look, than I ever knew him to have, before or since. His dress, which was
black, with white trowsers, and which he wore buttoned close over the body, completed the
succinctness and gentlemanliness of his appearance. I remember one day, as he stood looking out
of the window, he resembled in a lively manner the portrait of him by Phillips, by far the best that has appeared; I mean the best
of him at his best time of life, and the most like him in features as well as expression. He
sat one morning so long, that Lady Byron sent up twice to
let him know she was waiting. Her Ladyship used to go on in the carriage to Henderson’s
Nursery Ground, to get flowers. I had not the honour of knowing her, nor ever saw her but once,
when I caught a glimpse of her at the door. I thought she had a pretty earnest look, with her
“pippin” face; an epithet by which she playfully designated herself.
The first visit I paid Lord Byron was just after their
separation. The public, who took part with the lady, as they ought to do, (women in their
relations with the other sex being under the most unhandsome disadvantages) had, nevertheless,
no idea of the troubles which her husband was suffering at that time. He was very ill, his face
jaundiced with ![]()
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bile; the renouncement of his society by Lady Byron had disconcerted him extremely, and was, I believe,
utterly unlooked for; then the journals and their attacks upon him, were felt severely; and to
crown all, he had an execution in his house. I was struck with the real trouble he manifested,
compared with what the public thought of it. The adherence of his old friends was also
touching. I saw Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. Scrope Davies (college friends of his) almost every time I
called. Mr. Rogers was regular in his daily visits; and
Lord Holland, he said, was very kind to him. Finally,
he took the blame of the quarrel to himself; and he enlisted my self-love so far on the side of
Lady Byron, as to tell me that she liked my poem, and had compared his
temper to that of Giovanni, my heroine’s consort. In
all this I beheld only a generous nature, subject perhaps to ebullitions of ill temper, but
candid, sensitive, extremely to be pitied, and if a woman knew how, or was permitted by others
to love him, extremely to be loved.
What made me come the more warmly to this conclusion, was a letter which he
showed me, written by Lady Byron
after her departure from the house, and when she was on her way to the
relations, who persuaded her not to return. It was signed with the epithet above-mentioned; and
was written in a spirit of good-humour, and even fondness, which though containing nothing but
what a wife ought to write, and is the better for writing, was, I thought, almost too good to
show. But the case was extreme; and the compliment to me, in showing it, appeared the greater.
I was not aware at that time, that with a singular incontinence, towards which it was lucky for
a great many people that his friends were as singularly considerate, his Lordship was in the
habit of making a confidant of every body he came nigh.
I will now tell the reader, very candidly, what I think of the whole ![]()
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of that matter. Every body knows, in the present beautiful state of the
relations between the sexes, what is meant by marriages of convenience. They generally turn out
to be as inconvenient, as persons, who are said to have arrived at years of discretion, are apt
to be indiscreet. Lord Byron’s was a marriage of
convenience,—certainly at least on his own part. The lady, I have no doubt, would never have heard of it under that title. He
married for money, but of course he wooed with his genius; and the lady persuaded herself that
she liked him, partly because he had a genius, and partly because it is natural to love those
who take pains to please us. Furthermore, the poet was piqued to obtain his mistress, because
she had a reputation for being delicate in such matters; and the lady was piqued to become a
wife, not because she did not know the gentleman previously to marriage, but because she did,
and hoped that her love, and her sincerity, and her cleverness, would enable her to reform him.
The experiment was dangerous, and did not succeed. Another couple might have sat still, and
sacrificed their comfort to the vanity of appearing comfortable. Lord
Byron had too much self-will for this, and his lady too much
sincerity,—perhaps too much alarm and resentment. The excess of his moods, which out of
the spleen, and even self-reproach of the moment, he indulged in perhaps beyond what he really
felt, were so terrifying to a young and mortified woman, that she began to doubt whether he was
in possession of his senses. She took measures, which exceedingly mortified him, for solving
this doubt; and though they were on good terms when she left an uneasy house to visit her
friends in the country, and Lady Byron might, I have no doubt, have been
persuaded by him to return, had there been as much love, or even address, on his side, as there
was a wish to believe in his merit on her’s, it is no wonder that others, whom ![]()
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she had known and loved so much longer, and who felt no interest in
being blind to his defects, should persuade her to stay away. The “Farewell” that he wrote, and that set so many tender-hearted white handkerchiefs in motion,
only resulted from his poetical power of assuming an imaginary position, and taking pity on
himself in the shape of another man. He had no love for the object of it, or he would never
have written upon her in so different a stile afterwards. Indeed, I do not believe that he ever
had the good-fortune of knowing what real love is,—meaning by love the desire that is
ennobled by sentiment, and, that seeks the good and exaltation of the person beloved. He could
write a passage now and then, which showed that he was not incapable of it; but the passion on
which he delights to dwell, is either that of boys and girls, extremely prone and
boarding-school; or of heroines, who take a delight in sacrificing themselves to wilful
gentlemen.
I thought differently on this business at the time, though rather to the
exculpation of the gentleman, than blame of the lady. My present conclusions were confirmed
during my visit to Italy. There is no doubt, that Lord Byron felt the
scandal of the separation severely. It is likely, also, that he began to long for his wife’s adherence the more, when he saw that she would not
return. Perhaps he liked her the better. At all events, she piqued his will, which was his
tender side; the circles were loud in his condemnation; and he was in perplexity about his
child; in whom, as his only representative, and the
descendant of two ancient families, he took great pride to the last. But his feelings, whatever
they were, did not hinder him from wreaking his resentment in a manner which every one of his
friends lamented; nor from availing himself, at a future day, of those rights ![]()
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of matrimonial property, which the gallant and chivalrous justice of the
stronger sex has decreed to itself, as a consolation for not being able to make the lady
comfortable.
From the time of my taking leave of Lord Byron in
England, to the moment of our meeting in Italy, I scarcely heard of him, and never
from him. He had become not very fond of his reforming acquaintances. Shelley he knew, and lived a good deal with, in Switzerland;
and he was intimate again with him in Italy; yet, in the list of the only persons whom, on some
occasion or other, he mentioned publicly as having seen in that country, Mr.
Shelley’s name was omitted. I was therefore surprised, when I received the
letter from my friend, which the reader will find in the Correspondence at the end of this
memoir, and which contained a proposal from my former acquaintance, inviting me to go over, and
set up a work with him. Mr. Shelley himself had repeatedly invited me
abroad; and I had as repeatedly declined going, for the reason stated in my account of him.
That reason was done away by the nature of this new proposal. I was ill; it was thought by many
I could not live; my wife was very ill too; my family was
numerous; and it was agreed by my partner in the Examiner, that while a struggle was made in England to reanimate that
paper, injured by the peace, and by a variety of other circumstances, a simultaneous endeavour
should be made in Italy to secure new aid to our diminished fortunes, and new friends to the
cause of liberty. My family, therefore, packed up their books, and prepared to go by sea.
Of my voyage I will give an account hereafter. My business at present is to
speak of Lord Byron, to whose Italian residence I therefore hasten. In the
harbour of Leghorn I found Mr.
Trelawney. ![]()
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He was standing with his knight-errant aspect,
dark, handsome, and mustachio’d, in Lord Byron’s boat, the
Bolivar, of which he had taken charge for his Lordship. In a day or two
I went to see the noble Bard, who was in what the Italians call villeggiatura at Monte-Nero
; that is to say, enjoying a country-house for the season. I there met with a singular
adventure, which seemed to make me free of Italy and stilettos, before I had well set foot in
the country. The day was very hot; the road to
Monte-Nero was very hot, through dusty suburbs; and when I
got there, I found the hottest-looking house I ever saw. Not content with having a red wash
over it, the red was the most unseasonable of all reds, a salmon colour. Think of this, flaring
over the country in a hot Italian sun!
But the greatest of all the heats was within. Upon seeing Lord
Byron, I hardly knew him, he was grown so fat; and he was longer in recognizing
me, I had grown so thin. He was dressed in a loose nankin jacket and
white trowsers, his neckcloth open, and his hair in thin ringlets about his throat;
altogether presenting a very different aspect from the compact, energetic, and curly-headed
person, whom I had known in England.
He took me into an inner-room, and introduced me to a young lady in a state
of great agitation. Her face was flushed, her eyes lit up, and her hair (which she wore in that
fashion) looking as if it streamed in disorder. This was the daughter of Count Gamba, wife of the Cavaliere
Guiccioli, since known as Madame, or the Countess, Guiccioli,—all the children of persons of that rank in Italy bearing the
title of their parents. The Conte Pietro, her brother,
came in presently, also in a state of agitation, and having his arm in a sling. I then learned,
that a quarrel having taken place among the servants, the young Count had interfered, ![]()
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and been stabbed. He was very angry; Madame
Guiccioli was more so, and would not hear of the charitable comments of
Lord Byron, who was for making light of the matter. Indeed there was a
look in the business a little formidable; for, though the stab was not much, the inflictor of
it threatened more, and was at that minute keeping watch under the portico with the avowed
intention of assaulting the first person that issued forth. I looked out of window, and met his
eye glaring upward, like a tiger. The fellow had a red cap on, like a sans-culotte, and a most
sinister aspect, dreary and meagre, a proper caitiff. Thus, it appeared, the house was in a
state of blockade; the nobility and gentry of the interior all kept in a state of impossibility
by a rascally footman.
How long things had continued in this state I cannot say; but the hour was
come when Lord Byron and his friends took their evening ride, and the
thing was to be put an end to somehow. Fletcher, the
valet, had been despatched for the police, and was not returned. It was wondered, among other
things, how I had been suffered to enter the house with impunity. Somebody conceived, that the
man might have taken me for one of the constituted authorities; a compliment which few
Englishmen would be anxious to deserve, and which I must disclaim any pretensions to. At length
we set out, Madame Guiccioli earnestly intreating
“Bairon” to keep back, and all of us waiting to keep in advance of Conte Pietro, who was exasperated. It was a curious moment for
a stranger from England. I fancied myself pitched into one of the scenes in “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” with
Montoni and his tumultuous companions. Every thing was
new, foreign, and violent. There was the lady, flushed and dishevelled, exclaiming against the
“scelerato;” the young Count,
wounded and threatening; the assassin, ![]()
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waiting for us with his knife;
and last, not least, in the novelty, my English friend, metamorphosed, round-looking, and
jacketed, trying to damp all this fire with his cool tones, and an air of voluptuous indolence.
He had now, however, put on his loose riding-coat of mazarin blue, and his velvet cap, looking
more lordly than before, but hardly less foreign. It was an awkward moment for him, not knowing
what might happen; but he put a good face on the matter; and as to myself, I was so occupied
with the novelty of the scene, that I had not time to be frightened. Forth we issue at the
door, all squeezing to have the honour of being the boldest, when a termination is put to the
tragedy by the vagabond’s throwing himself on a bench, extending his arms, and bursting
into tears. His cap was half over his eyes; his face gaunt, ugly, and unshaved; his appearance
altogether more squalid and miserable than an Englishman would conceive it possible to find in
such an establishment. This blessed figure reclined weeping and wailing, and asking pardon for
his offence; and to crown all, he requested Lord Byron to kiss him.
The noble Lord conceived this excess of charity superfluous. He pardoned him,
but said he must not think of remaining in his service; and the man continued weeping, and
kissing his hand. I was then amused with seeing the footing on which the gentry and their
servants stand with each other in Italy, and the good-nature with which the fiercest
exhibitions of anger can be followed up. Conte Pietro, a
generous good-humoured fellow, accepted the man’s hand, and shook it with great
good-will; and Madame Guiccioli, though unable to
subside so quickly from her state of indignant exaltation, looked in relenting sort, as if the
pitying state of excitement would be just as good as the other. In fine, she concluded by
according the man her grace also, seeing my Lord had ![]()
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forgiven him. The
man was all penitence and wailing, but he was obliged to quit. The police would have forced
him, if he had not been dismissed. He left the country, and called in his way on Mr. Shelley, who was shocked at his appearance, and gave him
some money out of his very disgust; for he thought nobody would help such a fellow if he did
not.
The unpleasant part of the business did not end here. It was, remotely, one
of the causes of Lord Byron’s leaving Italy; for it increased the
awkwardness of his position with the Tuscan Government, and gave a farther unsteadiness to his
restless temper. His friends, the Gambas, who all lived with him, father as well as children,
were already only upon sufferance in Tuscany. They had been expelled
their native country, Romagna, for practices with the Carbonari; and
Lord Byron, who identified himself with their fortunes, became a party to their wanderings, and
to the footing on which they stood wherever they were permitted to abide. The Grand-duke’s government had given him to understand, that
they were at liberty to reside in Tuscany, provided as little was heard
of them as possible. The fracas that happened in the street of
Pisa, a little before I came, had given a shock to the tranquillity
of this good understanding, Count Gamba’s retinue
having been the most violent persons concerned in it: and now, another of his men having caused
a second disturbance, the distrust was completed. Lord Byron’s
residence in Tuscany was made uneasy to him. It was desired, that he
should separate himself from the Gambas; and though I believe, that even at that time, he would
have been glad to do so; and though, on the other hand, it was understood that a little
courtesy on his part towards the Grand-duke and Duchess, the latter of whom was said to be
particularly ![]()
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desirous of seeing him at Court, would have given him a
carte-blanche for all parties, yet his pride in that instance, and
his usual tendency to be led by those about him in the other, prevented his taking either of
these steps; and he returned to his house at Pisa, only to reside there
two or three months longer, when he departed for Genoa.
Having settled our friend, the lachrymose ruffian, we took our drive in
the barouche, in the course of which we met the police-officer, and my old
acquaintance Fletcher, with his good-humoured,
lack-a-daisaical face. Fletcher was for being
legitimate, and having his wife out to Italy. I had made an offer to the lady to bring her with
us by sea, which she politely declined; doubtless, out of fear of the water: but I brought him
a box full of goods, which consoled him a little. I fear I am getting a
little gossiping here, beyond the record; such is the contamination of these personal
histories; but Fletcher, having by nature an honest English
face, the round simplicity of which no sophistication had yet succeeded in ruining, ladies of
various ranks in Italy, Venetian countesses, and English cook-maids, had a trick of taking a
liking to it; and the presence of Mrs. Fletcher might afterwards have
saved me some trouble. This, however, is a bold conjecture. Perhaps it might have been worse. O
Beaumont! hadst thou been living in the times of
this the namesake of thy fellow-dramatist—but I am told here, that my apostrophes will be
getting scandalous.
I returned to Leghorn; and, taking leave of our
vessel, we put up at an hotel. Mr. Shelley then came to
us from his villeggiatura at
Lerici. His town abode, as well as Lord
Byron’s, was at Pisa. I will not dwell upon the
moment. We talked of a thousand things, past, present, and to come. He was the same as ever,
with the exception of less hope. He could not be otherwise. But he prepared me to find others
not ![]()
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exactly what I had taken them for. I little thought at the time,
how much reason I should have to remember his words.
Leghorn is a polite Wapping, with a square and a
theatre. The country around is uninteresting, when you become acquainted with it; but to a
stranger, the realization of any thing he has read about is a delight, especially of such
things as vines hanging from trees, and the sight of Apennines.
Mr. Shelley accompanied us from
Leghorn to Pisa, in order to see us fixed in
our new abode. Lord Byron left Monte-Nero at the
same time, and joined us. We occupied the ground-floor of his Lordship’s house, the
Casa Lanfranchi, on the Lung’Arno. The remainder was inhabited by himself and the Gambas; but the father
and son were then absent. Divided tenancies of this kind are common in Italy, where
few houses are in possession of one family. It has been said that Lord Byron portioned off a
part of his own dwelling, handsomely fitted it up for us, and heaped on us in this, as in other
matters, a variety of benefactions. In the course of my narrative I must qualify those
agreeable fictions. In the first place, Lord Byron had never made use of
the ground-floor. Formerly, it was not the custom to do so in great mansions, the splendour of
the abode commencing up-stairs: nor is it now, where the house is occupied by only one family,
and there is room for them without it; unless they descend for coolness in summer-time. Of late
years, especially since the English have recommenced their visits, it is permitted to parlours
to be respectable. In country-houses of a modern standing, I have seen them converted into the
best part of the dwelling; but the old mansions were constructed to a different end; the
retainers of the family, or the youngest branches, if it was very large, being the only persons
who could with propriety live so near their mother earth. The grated ![]()
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windows that are seen in the ground-floors of most private houses in Italy, have survived the
old periods of trouble that occasioned them; and it is doubtless to those periods that we must
refer for the plebeianism of parlours.
The Casa Lanfranchi is said to have been built by
Michael Angelo, and is worthy of him. It is in a
bold and broad style throughout, with those harmonious graces of proportion which are sure to
be found in an Italian mansion. The outside is of rough marble. Lower down the
Lung’Arno, on the same side of the way, is a mansion cased
with polished marble. But I have written of these matters in another work. The furniture of our apartments was good and respectable, but of the
plainest and cheapest description, consistent with that character. It was chosen by
Mr. Shelley, who intended to beg my acceptance of
it, and who knew, situated as he and I were, that in putting about us such furniture as he used
himself, he could not pay us a handsomer or more welcome compliment. When the apartments were
fitted up, Lord Byron insisted upon making us a present of the goods
himself. Mr. Shelley did not choose to contest the point. He explained the
circumstance to me; and this is the amount of the splendour with which some persons have been
pleased to surround me at his Lordship’s expense. I will here mention what I have
happened to omit respecting another and greater matter. Two hundred pounds were sent me from
Italy, to enable me to leave England with comfort. They came from Lord
Byron, and nothing was said to me of security, or any thing like it.
Lord Byron had offered a year or two before, through Mr.
Shelley, to send me four hundred pounds for a similar purpose, which offer I
declined. I now accepted the two hundred pounds; but I found afterwards that his Lordship had
had a bond for the money from Mr. Shelley. I make no ![]()
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comment on these things. I merely state the truth, because others have mis-stated it, and
because I begin to be sick of maintaining a silence, which does no good to others, and is only
turned against one’s self.
We had not been in the house above an hour or two, when my friend brought the
celebrated surgeon, Vaccà, to see Mrs. Hunt. He had a pleasing intelligent face, and was the most
gentlemanlike Italian I ever saw. Vaccà pronounced his patient to be
in a decline; and little hope was given us by others that she would survive beyond the year.
She is now alive, and likely to live many years; and Vaccà is dead. I
do not say this to his disparagement; for he was very skilful, and deserved his celebrity. But
it appears to me, from more than one remarkable instance, that there is a superstition about
what are called declines and consumptions, from which the most eminent of the profession are
not free. I suspect, that people of this tendency, with a proper mode of living, may reach to
as good a period of existence as any other. The great secret in this as in all other cases, and
indeed in almost all moral as well as physical cases of ill, is in diet. If some demi-god could
regulate for mankind what they should eat and drink, he would put an end, at one stroke, to
half the troubles which the world undergo, some of the most romantic sorrows with which they
flatter themselves not excepted. It is by not exceeding in this point, and by keeping natural
hours, that such nations as the Persians are enabled to be cheerful, even under a load of
despotism; while others, among the freest on earth, are proverbial for spleen and melancholy.
Our countrymen, manly as they are, effeminately bewail the same climate, which the gypsy, with
his ruddy cheek, laughs at. But one change is linked with another; there must be more leisure
and other comforts to stand people instead of these ticklings and crammings of their despair;
and the vanity of old patchwork endu-![]()
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rance is loth to see any thing but
vanity in the work of reformation.
The next day, while in the drawing-room with Lord Byron,
I had a curious specimen of Italian manners. It was like a scene in an opera. One of his
servants, a young man, suddenly came in smiling, and was followed by his sister, a handsome
brunette, in a bodice and sleeves, and her own hair. She advanced to his Lordship to welcome
him back to Pisa, and present him with a basket of flowers. In doing this, she took his hand
and kissed it; then turned to the stranger, and kissed his hand also. I thought it a very
becoming, unbecoming action; and that at least it should have been acknowledged by a kiss of
another description; and the girl appeared to be of the same opinion, at least with regard to
one of us, who stood blushing and looking in her eyes, and not knowing well what to be at. I
thought we ought to have struck up a quartett. But there might have ensued a quintett, not so
harmonious; and the scene was hastily concluded.
It is the custom in Italy, as it was in England, for inferiors to kiss your
hand in coming and going. There is an air of good will in it that is agreeable; but the implied
sense of inferiority is not so pleasant. Servants have a better custom of wishing you a good
evening when they bring in lights. To this you may respond in like manner; after which it seems
impossible for the sun to “go down on the wrath,” if there is any, of either party.
In a day or two Mr. Shelley took leave
of us to return to Lerici for the rest of the season, meaning however to
see us more than once in the interval. I spent one delightful afternoon with him, wandering
about Pisa, and visiting the cathedral. On the night of the same day, he
took a post-chaise for Leghorn, intending next morning to sign his will
in ![]()
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that city, and then depart with his friend Captain Williams for Lerici. I
earnestly entreated him, if the weather was violent, not to give way to his daring spirit, and
venture to sea. He promised me he would not; and it seems that he did set off later than he
otherwise would have done, and apparently at a more favourable moment. I never beheld him more.
The superstitious might discern something strange in that connexion of his last will and
testament with his departure; but the will, it seems, was not to be found. The same night there
was a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning, which made us very anxious; but we hoped our
friend had arrived before then. When Mr. Trelawney came
to Pisa, and told us he was missing, I underwent one of the sensations
which we read of in books, but seldom experience: I was tongue-tied with horror. The rest is
told in another part of the work; and I may be spared dwelling on the subject. From that time
Italy was a black place to me.
Lord Byron requested me to look upon him as standing in Mr. Shelley’s place, and said that I should
find him the same friend that the other had been. My heart died within me to hear him; I made
the proper acknowledgment; but I knew what he meant, and I more than doubted whether even in
that, the most trivial part of friendship, he could resemble Mr. Shelley
if he would. Circumstances unfortunately rendered the matter of too much importance to me at
the moment. I had reason to fear:—I was compelled to try:—and things turned out as
I dreaded. The public have been given to understand that Lord
Byron’s purse was at my command, and that I used it according to the
spirit with which it was offered. I did so. Stern necessity, and a large
family, compelled me; and during our residence at Pisa, I had from him,
or rather from his steward, to whom he always sent me for the money, and who doled it me out as
if my ![]()
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disgraces were being counted, the sum of seventy pounds. This
sum, together with the payment of our expenses when we accompanied him from
Pisa to Genoa, and thirty pounds with which
he enabled us subsequently to go from Genoa to
Florence, was all the money I ever received from Lord Byron,
exclusive of the two hundred pounds in the first instance, which he made a debt of
Mr. Shelley’s by taking his bond. I have
some peculiar notions on the subject of money, as the reader will see more fully. They will
be found to involve considerable difference of opinion with the community in a state of
things like the present, particularly in a commercial country; and many may think me
as deficient in spirit on that point, as I think them mistaken in their notions of what spirit
is, and mistakenly educated. I may be wrong (as people say when they think themselves in the
right); but in the mean time, judging even by what they themselves think of the little
happiness and disinterestedness that is to be found in the present state of things, I am sure
they are not right; and that the system of mere bustle and competition ends in little good to
any body. I can see an improvement in it ultimately, when the vicissitude comes which every
body attributes to the nature of human society, and which nobody seems to believe in with
regard to their own customs:—but I shall be digressing too far. Among other things, in
which I differ in point of theory (for in practice I am bound to say that of late, though for
other reasons, I have totally altered in this particular), I have not had that horror of being
under obligation, which is thought an essential refinement in money matters, and which leads
some really generous persons, as well as some who only seek personal importance in their
generosity, to think they have a right to bestow favours which they ![]()
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would be mortified to receive. But at the same time in this as in every thing else, “the
same is not the same.” Men and modes make a difference: and I must say two things for
myself, for which every body may give me credit, who deserves credit himself; first, that
although (to my great sorrow and repentance) I have not been careful enough to enable myself to
be generous in this respect towards others, in any degree worth speaking of, nor even (with
shame I say it) just to my own children (though I trust to outlive that culpability), yet I
have never refused to share my last sixpence (no idle phrase in this instance) with any friend
who was in want of it; and second, that although it has been a delight to me to receive
hundreds from some, I could not receive without anguish as many pence from others; nor should I
ever, by any chance, have applied to them, but for a combination of circumstances that mixed me
up with them at the moment. I do not mean to say that Lord Byron was above
receiving obligations. I know not how it might have been with respect to large ones, and before
all the world. Perhaps he was never reduced to the necessity of making the experiment. But he
could receive some very strange and small ones, such as made people wonder over their wine; and
he could put himself to, at least, a disadvantage in larger matters, usually supposed to be
reciprocal, which made them wonder still more. If I am thought here to touch upon very private
and delicate things, especially regarding a person who is no more, I must offer three more
remarks to the consideration of those, and those only, whom I have just appealed to; I mean,
such as being speakers of truth themselves, have an instinct in discovering those that resemble
them. The first is, that Lord Byron made no scruple of talking very freely
of me and mine; second, ![]()
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that in consequence of this freedom, as well as
from the gratuitous talking of those who knew nothing about the matter, very erroneous
conclusions have been drawn about us on more than one point; and third, that it is a principle
with me never to give others to understand any thing against an acquaintance, not only which I
would not give, but which I have not given himself to understand; a principle, to which this
book will have furnished no exception. It may be judged by this, how little I have been in the
habit of speaking against any body, and what a nuisance it is to me to do it now.
There was another thing that startled me in the Casa
Lanfranchi. I had been led to consider the connexion between
Lord Byron and Madame Guiccioli
as more than warranted by Italian manners. Her husband
was old enough to be her father. Every body knows how shamefully matches of this kind are
permitted to take place, even in England. But in Italy they are often accompanied, and almost
always followed, by compromises of a very singular description, of which nobody thinks ill; and
in fine, I had been given to understand that the attachment was real; that it was rescuing
Lord Byron from worse connexions; and that the lady’s family
(which was true) approved it. I was not prepared to find the father and brother
living in the same house; but taking the national manners into consideration, and
differing very considerably with the notions entertained respecting the intercourse of the
sexes in more countries than one, I was prepared to treat with respect what I conceived to be
founded in serious feelings; and saw,
* If it might appear otherwise with regard to Mr. Moore, whom I have never seen or corresponded with
since his efforts against the Liberal, he
has not been the less aware of the feelings entertained on the subject by myself and
others. |
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even in that arrangement, something which, though it startled my
English habits at first, seemed to be a still farther warrant of innocence of intention, and
exception to general rules. It is true, that when the Pope sanctioned her separation from her
husband, he stipulated that she should live with her father; and as the separation took place
on account of the connexion with Lord Byron, the nullification of the
edict in thus adhering to the letter and violating the spirit of it, may have had an ill look
in a Catholic country. But times are altered in that matter; and what enabled me the better to
have a good opinion of the arrangement, was the conclusion I came to respecting the
dispositions of the old Count and his son, both very natural and amiable persons, with great
simplicity of manners, and such a patriotic regard for their country, as had not only committed
their reputation for wisdom in the eyes of the selfish, but got them into real trouble, and
driven them into banishment. And I am of opinion to this day, that they considered their
conduct, in warranting the intimacy in question, not only to be justifiable but laudable;
advantageous to the habits of a man, of whose acquaintance they felt proud; and perhaps even as
making some amends to the lady, for the connexion which it superseded. The family came from
Ravenna. The people in that quarter are more simple and
unsophisticate than in the more frequented parts of Italy; worse perhaps where they are bad,
that is to say, more gross and violent; but better (at least in the northern sense of the word)
where they are good;—something more allied to the northern character and to the Germans.
The women are apt to be fair, and to have fair tresses, as the lady in question had. The men
also are of lighter complexions than is usual in Italy. The old Count had the look of an
English country gentleman, with a paternal gossiping manner, and apparently no sort of pride.
The young one, ![]()
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who has since been known and esteemed in England, and is
an enthusiast and active partizan in the cause of Greece, was equally pleasing in his manners,
and evinced great interest in all that regarded the progress of freedom and knowledge. He would
ask, with all the zest of an Englishman, what was doing by Lord
Castlereagh and the House of Commons; and when I apologized to him for running
on in my bad Italian, would reassure me with the best grace in the world, and say it was
delightful to him to converse with me, for I gave him “hope.” The Italians are very kind to bad speakers of their language, and ought to
shame us in that matter. I confess, I can never hear a foreigner speak bad English without such
a tendency to laugh as puts me to the torture; whereas I have never known an Italian’s
gravity disturbed by the most ludicrous mistakes, but in one instance, and then it was the idea
and not the word that discommoded him. I have known them even repeat your mistakes with an
unconscious look, as if they were proper expressions. I remember walking once with my young
acquaintance, Luigi Gianetti, of
Pisa, all the way from Florence to
Maiano, and holding a long ethical discourse on the superiority of
the “good clever man” to the “bad clever man,” in the course of which I
must have uttered a thousand malapropisms, not one of which did he give me a sense of by a
smile.
But to return to the Gambas. The
way in which the connexion between the young
Countess and Lord Byron had originated, and was
sanctioned, was, I thought, clear enough; but unfortunately it soon became equally clear, that
there was no real love on either side. The lady, I believe, was not unsusceptible of a real
attachment, and most undoubtedly she was desirous that Lord Byron should
cultivate it, and make her as proud and as affectionate as she was anxious to be. But to hear
her talk of him, she must have pretty soon discerned, that this was impos-![]()
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sible: and the manner of her talking rendered it more than doubtful whether she had ever
loved, or could love him, to the extent that she supposed. I believe she would have taken great
pride in the noble Bard, if he would have let her; and remained a faithful and affectionate
companion as long as he pleased to have her so; but this depended more on his treatment of her,
and still more on the way in which he conducted himself towards others, than on any positive
qualities of his own. On the other hand, he was alternately vexed and gratified by her
jealousies. His regard being founded solely on her person, and not surviving in the shape of a
considerate tenderness, had so degenerated in a short space of time, that if you were startled
to hear the lady complain of him as she did, and that too with comparative strangers, you were
shocked at the licence which he would allow his criticisms on her. The truth is, as I have said
before, that he had never known any thing of love but the animal passion. His poetry had given
this its gracefuller aspect, when young:—he could believe in the passion of Romeo and Juliet. But the
moment he thought he had attained to years of discretion, what with the help of bad companions,
and a sense of his own merits for want of comparisons to check it, he had made the wise and
blessed discovery, that women might love himself though he could not return the passion; and
that all women’s love, the very best of it, was nothing but vanity. To be able to love a
quality for its own sake, exclusive of any reaction upon one’s self-love, seemed a thing
that never entered his head. If at any time, therefore, he ceased to love a woman’s
person, and found leisure to detect in her the vanities natural to a flattered beauty, he set
no bounds to the light and coarse way in which he would speak of her. There was coarseness in
the way in which he would talk to women, even when he was in his best humour with them. I do
not mean on the side of voluptuous-![]()
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ness, which is rather an excess than
a coarseness; the latter being an impertinence, which is the reverse of the former. I have seen
him call their attention to circumstances, which made you wish yourself a hundred miles off.
They were connected with any thing but the graces with which a poet would encircle his
Venus. He said to me once of a friend of his, that he
had been spoilt by reading Swift. He himself had
certainly not escaped the infection.
What completed the distress of this connexion, with respect to the parties
themselves, was his want of generosity in money-matters. The lady was independent of him, and disinterested; and he seemed resolved that she
should have every mode but one, of proving that she could remain so. I
will not repeat what was said and lamented on this subject. I would not say any thing about
it, nor about twenty other matters, but that they hang together more or less, and are
connected with the truth of a portrait which it has become necessary to me to paint. It is
fortunate that there are some which I can omit. But I am of opinion that no woman could have
loved him long. Pride in his celebrity, and the wish not to appear to have been mistaken or
undervalued on their own parts, might have kept up an appearance of love, long after it had
ceased; but the thing would have gone without doubt, and that very speedily. Love may be kept
up in spite of great defects, and even great offences,—offences too against itself.
Lord Byron, out of a certain instinct, was fond of painting this in
his poetry. But there are certain deficiencies, which by depriving a passion of the last
resources of self-love necessary to every thing human, deny to it its last
consolation,—that of taking pity on itself; and without this, it is not in nature that it
should exist. Lord Byron painted his heroes criminal, wilful, even selfish
in great things; but he took care not to paint them mean in little ![]()
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ones. He took care also to give them a great quantity of what he was singularly deficient
in,—which was self-possession: for when it is added, that he had no address, even in the
ordinary sense of the word,—that he hummed and hawed, and looked confused, on very
trivial occasions,—that he could much more easily get into a dilemma than out of it, and
with much greater skill wound the self-love of others than relieve them,—the most
commonplace believers in a poet’s attractions will begin to suspect, that it is possible
for his books to be the best part of him.
From the dilemma into which I thus found myself thrown, I was relieved by a
very trivial circumstance. My wife knew nothing of Italian, and did not care to learn it.
Madame Guiccioli could not speak English. They were
subsequently introduced to one another during a chance meeting, but that was all. No
proposition was made for an intimacy on either side, and the families remained separate. This,
however, was perhaps the first local cause of the diminished cordiality of intercourse between
Lord Byron and myself. He had been told, what
was very true, that Mrs. Hunt, though living in all respects
after the fashion of an English wife, was any thing but illiberal with regard to others; yet he
saw her taking no steps for a farther intimacy. He learnt, what was
equally true, that she was destitute, to a remarkable degree, of all care about rank and
titles. She had been used to live in a world of her own, and was, and is, I really
believe, absolutely unimpressible in that respect. It is possible, that her inexperience of any
mode of life but her own, may have rendered her somewhat jealous in behalf of it, and not
willing to be brought into comparison with pretensions, the defects of which she is acute to
discern; but her indifference to the nominal and conventional part of their importance is
unaffectedly real; and it partakes of that sense of the ludicrous, which is so natural to
persons to whom they are of no ![]()
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consequence, and so provoking to those
who regard them otherwise. Finally, Lord Byron, who was as acute as a
woman in those respects, very speedily discerned that he did not stand very high in her good
graces; and accordingly he set her down to a very humble rank in his own. As I oftener went to
his part of the house, than he came to mine, he seldom saw her; and when he did, the
conversation was awkward on his side, and provokingly self-possessed on her’s. He said to
her one day, “What do you think, Mrs. Hunt? Trelawney has been speaking against my morals! What do you
think of that!”—“It is the first time,” said Mrs.
Hunt, “I ever heard of them.” This, which would have set a
man of address upon his wit, completely dashed, and reduced him to silence. But her greatest offence was in something which I had occasion to tell
him. He was very bitter one day upon some friends of mine, criticising even their
personal appearance, and that in no good taste. At the same time, he was affecting to be very
pleasant and good-humoured, and without any “offence in the world.” All this
provoked me to mortify him, and I asked if he knew what Mrs. Hunt had said
one day to the Shelleys of his picture by Harlowe? (It is the fastidious, scornful portrait of him,
affectedly looking down.) He said he did not, and was curious to know. An engraving of it, I
told him, was shown her, and her opinion asked; upon which she observed, that “it
resembled a great school-boy, who had had a plain bun given him, instead of a plum
one.” I did not add, that our friends shook with laughter at this idea of the noble
original, because it was “so like him.” He looked as blank as possible, and never
again criticised the personal appearance of those whom I regarded. It was on accounts like
these, that he talked of Mrs. Hunt as being “no great things.”
Myself, because I did not take all his worldly common-places for granted, nor enter into the
merit of his ![]()
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bad jokes on women, he represented as a
“proser:” and the children, than whom, I will venture to
say, it was impossible to have quieter or more respectable in the house, or any that
came less in his way, he pronounced to be “impracticable.” But that was the reason.
I very soon found that it was desirable to keep them out of his way; and although this was done
in the easiest and most natural manner, and was altogether such a measure as a person of less
jealousy might have regarded as a consideration for his quiet, he resented it, and could not
help venting his spleen in talking of them. The worst of it was, that when they did come in his
way, they were nothing daunted. They had lived in a natural, not an artificial state of
intercourse, and were equally sprightly, respectful, and self-possessed. My eldest boy surprised him with his address, never losing his
singleness of manner, nor exhibiting pretensions of which he was too young to know any thing,
yet giving him his title at due intervals, and appearing, in fact, as if he had always lived in
the world instead of out of it. This put him out of his reckoning. To the second, who was more
struck with his reputation, and had a vivacity of temperament that rendered such lessons
dangerous, he said, one day, that he must take care how he got notions in his head about truth
and sincerity, for they would hinder his getting on in the world. This, doubtless, was rather
intended to vent a spleen of his own, than to modify the opinions of the child; but the peril
was not the less, and I had warning given me that he could say worse things when I was not
present. Thus the children became “impracticable;” and, luckily, they remained so.
One thing, among others in which he found myself impracticable, annoyed him
exceedingly; so much so, that I would have given it up, and the rest too, if the change would
not have done more harm than good. I the more readily speak of it, because it reminds me of
some-![]()
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thing which I have omitted, and which I might reasonably be
accused of omitting to my own advantage. While I was writing the “Story of Rimini,” Lord Byron saw the
manuscript from time to time, and made his remarks upon it. He spoke also to Murray respecting the publication. Murray
was of an opposite side in politics both to the noble Lord and myself: but he was glad to
publish with his Lordship, for considerations which he found not incompatible with his
political philosophy; and he said that he was willing to publish for me, out of a sense of
liberality and fair dealing. A friend of mine had told me, as an instance of his superiority to
mere party views, that he piqued himself upon a “Life of Napoleon” which he was
about to publish, and which was to be very impartial. In short, Murray had
himself importuned me some years before to write for “The Quarterly Review.” I will not swear, that in putting
the “Story of Rimini” into his hands, I had not something
of an instinctive sense that I was securing myself against the more violent hostilities of that
review. I will not swear this, because there is always something in the “last recesses
of the mind,” of which spectators may be better judges than ourselves. But
Mr. Hazlitt, with his extra-subtleties, was out,
when he thought I put Mr.
Gifford’s& epitaph
on his servant into “The
Examiner,” with a view to that end. The coincidence was curious, I admit; but it
was nothing more. The epitaph was sent me, as things favourable to others of the opposite party
had been sent me before, with a recommendation of it to my attention, and a plain hint, that my
credit for impartiality was concerned in the manner in which I should treat it. It is well
known, and has been sometimes lamented (by Mr. Hazlitt among others), that
the liberal side of politics piqued itself upon the greater degree of generosity with which it
could afford to speak of its enemies, and do justice to what it thought meri-![]()
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torious in them. I may add, that “The
Examiner” was foremost in the display of this piece of knight-errantry; that
it always spoke of Napoleon as a great man, though it held
him up as a betrayer of the cause of freedom; that it was among the foremost to hail Sir Walter Scott as a novelist, though it thought little of him as
a poet, and scornfully as a politician; and that at one time it was almost exclusive as a
journal, in its admiration of the poetical genius of Wordsworth, of whom it nevertheless felt ashamed as a renegado. Lord
Byron used to accuse me of making a diversion on the town in favour of
Wordsworth; and I have reason to believe, that the poet himself was
not without an opinion to the same effect. All I mean to say is, that had the epitaph written
by Mr. Gifford come before me at any time, it would have met with the same
reception, because I thought well of it. That I was not sorry at the coincidence (which is
possible) I cannot pretend to acknowledge, because I have no recollection of the kind; but I
confess, that had I known as much of the impulses of weak men at that time as I do now, I would
not have incurred, by publishing the epitaph, a greater portion of malignity, than the review
was at all events prepared to assail me with. My opinion of Murray’s
conduct is, that he was glad of the opportunity of showing his impartiality so far with regard
to one of his publications, as to allow his review to cut it up; and I can easily enough
imagine, that Gifford, or whoever the poor fellow was that did cut it up,
was the more delighted with his task, in proportion to the sense which he supposed me to
entertain of his power. Lord Byron perhaps may have felt piqued at the
review on his own account. I forget whether he ever alluded to it. I think not. He
condescended, among his other timid deferences to “the town,” to be afraid of
Gifford. There was an interchange of flatteries between them, not ![]()
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the less subtle for Gifford’s occasionally
affecting a paternal tone of remonstrance; and they were “friends” to the last;
though Lord Byron, (to say nothing of that being a reason also) could not
help giving him a secret hit now and then, when the church-and-state review became shy of him.
Gifford thought him a wonderful young man, but wild, &c.; and he
never forgot that he was a lord. He least of all forgot it, when he affected to play the
schoolmaster. On the other hand, Lord Byron was happy to regard
Mr. Gifford as a wonderful old gentleman, not indeed a born gentleman,
but the more honest in his patricianisms on that account, and quite a born critic;
“sound,” as the saying is; learned and all that, and full of “good
sense:” in short, one that was very sensible of his Lordship’s merits, both as a
poet and a peer, and who had the art of making his homage to a man of rank agreeable, by
affecting independence without really feeling it. Murray he laughed at. He
treated him afterwards, as he did most others, with strange alternations of spleen and good
humour, of open panegyric and secret ridicule; but at the period in question, he at least
thought him an honest man—for “the tribe of Barabbas;”
who, said his Lordship, “was unquestionably a bookseller.”
Murray affected to patronize him; and with a simplicity worthy of
Dominie Sampson, lamented that a young man with such
advantages should go counter in opinion to the King and his ministers; otherwise, said he, who
knows but what he might have been made a Viscount, “or even an Earl!” Mr.
Murray once did me the honour, in a stage-coach, to make a similar lamentation
with regard to myself, all of course in due proportion to my rank and pretensions: but, said
he, “There is Leigh Hunt:—what does he mean by writing on
the side of * I quote on the authority of a Quarterly
Reviewer. |
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reform and that kind of thing? what a pity he did not come to us!
he might have made his fortune.” “Oh but,“ said a person present,
who happened to know me, “his principles were against it.”
“Principles!” exclaimed Mr. Murray, foregoing his
character of Dominie Sampson, and with all the airs of
a courtier; “Principles!” as if he had never heard of such things.
The courtiers had the advantage of me in one particular. They
knew what it was to admire lords heartily, and they could see that I admired them more than I
suspected. I dedicated the “Story of
Rimini” to Lord Byron, and the dedication was a foolish one.
I addressed him, as at the beginning of a letter, and as custom allows in private between
friends, without his title; and I proceeded to show how much I thought of his rank, by
pretending to think nothing about it. My critics were right so far; but they were wrong in
thinking that I would have done it to every lord, and that very romantic feelings were not
mixed up with this very childish mistake. I had declined, out of a notion of principle, to
avail myself of more than one opportunity of being intimate with men of rank; opportunities
which, it will easily he conceived, are no very uncommon things in the life of a journalist. I
confess I valued myself a little suspiciously upon my self-denial. In one instance I had reason
to do so, for I missed the company of a man of talents. But talents, poetry, similarity of
political opinion, the flattery of early sympathy with my boyish writings, more flattering
offers of friendship, and the last climax of flattery, an earnest waiving of his rank, were too
much for me in the person of Lord Byron; and I took out, with my new
friend as I thought him, hearty payment for my philosophical abstinence. Now was the time, I
thought, to show, that friendship, and talents, and poetry, were reckoned superior to rank,
even by ![]()
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rank itself; my friend appeared not only to allow me to think
so, but to encourage me to do it. I took him at his word; and I believe he was as much
astonished at it (though nobody could have expressed himself more kindly to me on the
subject*), as at this present writing I am mortified to record it.
I discovered the absurdity I had committed, long before I went to Italy. On renewing my intercourse with Lord Byron, I made
up my mind to put myself on a different footing with him, but in such a manner as he
should construe handsomely towards himself, as well as respectfully towards me. I reckoned upon
his approval of it, because it should be done as a matter of course, and as the result of a
little more experience of the world, and not out of any particular observation of his own
wishes or inconsistencies; and I reckoned upon it the more confidently, because at the time
that I formed the resolution, his own personal character was not so much in my thoughts as that
conventional modification of it which he inherited in common with others of his rank, and of
which it was not to be expected he should get rid. Men do not easily give up any advantages
they possess, real or imaginary; and they have a good deal to say in their favour,—I
mean, as far as any real difference is concerned between what is tangible in substance and
tangible in the apprehension. If a man can be made happy with a title, I do not know why we
should begrudge it him, or why he should think ill of it, any more than of beauty, or riches,
or any thing else that has an influence upon the imagination. The only questions are, whether
he will be the better for it in the long run; and whether his parti-
* See the Correspondence. |
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cular good is harmless or otherwise with respect to the many. Without
stopping to settle this point, I had concluded that Lord Byron had
naturally as much regard for his title as any other nobleman; perhaps more, because he had
professed not to care about it. Besides, he had a poetical imagination. Mr. Shelley, who, though he had not known him longer, had
known him more intimately, was punctilious in giving him his title, and told me very plainly
that he thought it best for all parties. His oldest acquaintances, it is true, behaved in this
respect, as it is the custom to behave in great familiarity of intercourse. Mr.
Shelley did not choose to be so familiar; and he thought, that although I had
acted differently in former times, a long suspension of intercourse would give farther warrant
to a change, desirable on many accounts, quite unaffected, and intended to be acceptable. I
took care, accordingly, not to accompany my new punctilio with any air of study or gravity. In
every other respect, things appeared the same as before. We laughed, and chatted, and rode out,
and were as familiar as need be; and I thought he regarded the matter just as I wished.
However, he did not like it.
This may require some explanation. Lord Byron was very
proud of his rank. M. Beyle (“Count
Stendhal”), when he saw him at the opera in Venice, made this discovery at a glance; and
it was a discovery no less subtle than true. He would appear sometimes as jealous of his title,
as if he had usurped it. A friend told me, that an Italian apothecary having sent him one day a
packet of medicines, addressed to “Mons. Byron,” this
mock-heroic mistake aroused his indignation, and he sent back the physic to learn better
manners. His coat of arms was fixed up in front of his bed. I have heard that it was a joke
with him to mystify the sense of the motto to his fair
friend, who ![]()
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wished particularly to know what
“Crede Byron” meant. The motto, it must be acknowledged, was
awkward. The version, to which her Italian helped her, was too provocative of comment to be
allowed. There are mottoes, as well as scutcheons, of pretence, which must often occasion the
bearers much taunt and sarcasm, especially from indignant ladies. Custom, indeed, and the
interested acquiescence of society, enable us to be proud of imputed merits, though we
contradict them every day of our life: otherwise it would be wonderful how people could adorn
their equipages, and be continually sealing their letters with maxims and stately moralities,
ludicrously inapplicable. It would be like wearing ironical papers in their hats.
But Lord Byron, besides being a lord, was a man of
letters, and he was extremely desirous of the approbation of men of letters. He loved to enjoy
the privileges of his rank, and at the same time to be thought above them. It is true, if he
thought you not above them yourself, he was the better pleased. On this account among others,
no man was calculated to delight him in a higher degree than Thomas
Moore; who with every charm he wished for in a companion, and a reputation for
independence and liberal opinion, admired both genius and title for their own sakes. But his
Lordship did not always feel quite secure of the bon-mots of his brother wit. His conscience
had taught him suspicion; and it was a fault with him and his côterie, as it is with most, that they all talked too much of one another behind
their backs. But “admiration at all events” was his real motto. If he thought you
an admirer of titles, he was well pleased that you should add that homage to the other, without
investigating it too nicely. If not, he was anxious that you should not suppose him anxious
about the matter. When he beheld me, therefore, in the first instance, taking such pains to
show my philosophy, ![]()
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he knew very well that he was secure, address him
as I might; but now that he found me grown older, and suspected from my general opinions and
way of life, that my experience, though it adopted the style of the world when mixing with it,
partook less of it than ever in some respects, he was chagrined at this change in my
appellatives. He did not feel so at once; but the more we associated, and the greater insight
he obtained into the tranquil and unaffected conclusions I had come to on a great many points,
upon which he was desirous of being thought as indifferent as myself, the less satisfied he
became with it. At last, thinking I had ceased to esteem him, he petulantly bantered me on the
subject. I knew, in fact, that, under all the circumstances, neither of us could afford a
change back again to the old entire familiarity: he, because he would have regarded it as a
triumph warranting very peculiar consequences, and such as would by no means have saved me from
the penalties of the previous offence; and I, because I was under certain disadvantages, that
would not allow me to indulge him. With any other man, I would not have stood it out. It would
have ill become the very sincerity of my feelings. But even the genius of Lord
Byron did not enable him to afford being conceded to. He was so annoyed one day
at Genoa at not succeeding in bantering me out of my epistolary
proprieties, that he addressed me a letter beginning, “Dear Lord Hunt.” This sally
made me laugh heartily. I told him so; and my unequivocal relish of the joke pacified him; so
that I heard no more on the subject.
The familiarities of my noble acquaintance, which I had taken at first for a
compliment and a cordiality, were dealt out in equal portions to all who came near him. They
proceeded upon that royal instinct of an immeasurable distance between the parties, the safety
of which, it is thought, can be compromised by no appearance of encouragement. The ![]()
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farther you are off, the more securely the personage may indulge your
good opinion of him. The greater his merits, and the more transporting his condescension, the
less can you be so immodest as to have pretensions of your own. You may be intoxicated into
familiarity. That is excusable, though not desirable. But not to be intoxicated any
how,—not to show any levity, and yet not to be possessed with a seriousness of the
pleasure, is an offence. When I agreed to go to Italy and join in setting up the proposed work,
Shelley, who was fond of giving his friends
appellations, happened to be talking one day with Lord Byron of the
mystification which the name of “Leigh Hunt” would cause the
Italians; and passing from one fancy to another, he proposed that they should translate it into
Leontius. Lord Byron approved of this conceit, and at
Pisa was in the habit of calling me so. I liked it; especially as it
seemed a kind of new link with my beloved friend, then, alas! no more. I was pleased to be
called in Italy, what he would have called me there had he been alive: and the familiarity was
welcome to me from Lord Byron’s mouth, partly because it pleased
himself, partly because it was not of a worldly fashion, and the link with my friend was thus
rendered compatible. In fact, had Lord Byron been what I used to think him, he might have
called me what he chose; and I should have been as proud to be at his call, as I endeavoured to
be pleased. As it was, there was something not unsocial nor even unenjoying in our intercourse,
nor was there any appearance of constraint; but, upon the whole, it was not pleasant: it was
not cordial. There was a sense of mistake on both sides. However, this came by degrees. At
first there was hope, which I tried hard to indulge; and there was always some joking going
forward; some melancholy mirth, which a spectator might have taken for pleasure.
Our manner of life was this. Lord Byron, who used to sit up at ![]()
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night,
writing Don Juan (which he did under the
influence of gin and water), rose late in the morning. He breakfasted; read; lounged
about, singing an air, generally out of Rossini, and in
a swaggering style, though in a voice at once small and veiled; then took a bath, and was
dressed; and coming down-stairs, was heard, still singing, in the court-yard, out of which the
garden ascended at the back of the house. The servants at the same time brought out two or
three chairs. My study, a little room in a corner, with an orange-tree peeping in at the
window, looked upon this court-yard. I was generally at my writing when he came down, and
either acknowledged his presence by getting up and saying something from the window, or he
called out “Leontius!” and came halting up to the window with
some joke, or other challenge to conversation. (Readers of good sense will do me the justice of
discerning where any thing is spoken of in a tone of objection, and where it is only brought in
as requisite to the truth of the picture.) His dress, as at Monte-Nero,
was a nankin jacket, with white waistcoat and trowsers, and a cap, either velvet or linen, with
a shade to it. In his hand was a tobacco-box, from which he helped himself like unto a shipman,
but for a different purpose; his object being to restrain the pinguifying impulses of hunger.
Perhaps also he thought it good for the teeth. We then lounged about,
or sat and talked, Madame Guiccioli with her
sleek tresses descending after her toilet to join us. The garden was small and square, but
plentifully stocked with oranges and other shrubs; and, being well watered, looked very green
and refreshing under the Italian sky. The lady generally attracted us up into it, if we had not
been there before. Her appearance might have reminded an English spectator of Chaucer’s heroine— ![]()
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“Yclothed was she, fresh for to devise. Her yellow hair was braided in a tress Behind her back, a yardè long, I guess: And in the garden (as the sun uprist) She walketh up and down, where as her list:” |
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And then, as Dryden has it: “At every turn she made a little stand, And thrust among the thorns her lily hand.” |
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Madame Guiccioli, who was at that time about twenty, was handsome and
lady-like, with an agreeable manner, and a voice not partaking too much of the Italian fervour
to be gentle. She had just enough of it to give her speaking a grace. None of her graces
appeared entirely free from art; nor, on the other hand, did they betray enough of it to give
you an ill opinion of her sincerity and good-humour. I was told, that her Romagnese dialect was
observable; but to me, at that time, all Italian in a lady’s mouth was Tuscan pearl; and
she trolled it over her lip, pure or not, with that sort of conscious grace, which seems to
belong to the Italian language as a matter of right. I amused her with speaking bad Italian out
of Ariosto, and saying speme for speranza; in which
she goodnaturedly found something pleasant and pellegrino; keeping all the while that considerate countenance, for which a
foreigner has so much reason to be grateful. Her hair was what the poet has described, or
rather blond, with an inclination to yellow; a very fair and delicate
yellow at all events, and within the limits of the poetical. She had regular features, of the
order properly called handsome, in distinction to prettiness or to piquancy; being well
proportioned to one another, large rather than otherwise, but without coarseness, and more
harmonious than in-![]()
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teresting. Her nose was the handsomest of the kind I
ever saw; and I have known her both smile very sweetly, and look intelligently, when
Lord Byron has said something kind to her. I should not say, however,
that she was a very intelligent person. Both her wisdom and her want of wisdom were on the side
of her feelings, in which there was doubtless mingled a good deal of the self-love natural to a
flattered beauty. She wrote letters in the style of the “Academy of Compliments;” and made plentiful use, at
all times, of those substitutes for address and discourse, which flourished in England at the
era of that polite compilation, and are still in full bloom in Italy. “And evermore She strewed a mi rallegro after and before.” |
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In a word, Madame Guiccioli was a kind of buxom parlour-boarder,
compressing herself artificially into dignity and elegance, and fancying she walked, in the
eyes of the whole world, a heroine by the side of a poet. When I saw her at
Monte-Nero, she was in a state of excitement and exaltation, and had
really something of this look. At that time also she looked no older than she was; in which
respect a rapid and very singular change took place, to the surprise of every body. In the
course of a few months she seemed to have lived as many years. It was most likely in that
interval that she discovered she had no real hold on the affections of her companion. The
portrait of her by Mr. West, “In Magdalen’s loose hair and lifted
eye,” |
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is flattering upon the whole; has a look of greater delicacy than she possessed; but it is
also very like, and the studied pretension of the attitude has a moral resemblance. Being a
half-length, it shows her to advantage; for the fault of her person was, that her head and bust
were hardly sustained by limbs of sufficient length. I take her to have been ![]()
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a good-hearted zealous person, capable of being very natural if she had
been thrown into natural circumstances, and able to show a companion, whom she was proud of,
that good-humoured and grateful attachment, which the most brilliant men, if they were wise
enough, would be as happy to secure, as a corner in Elysium. But the greater and more selfish
the vanity, the less will it tolerate the smallest portion of it in another. Lord
Byron saw, in the attachment of any female, nothing but what the whole sex were
prepared to entertain for him; and instead of allowing himself to love and be beloved for the
qualities which can only be realized upon intimacy, and which are the only securers at last of
all attachment, whether for the illustrious or the obscure, he gave up his comfort, out of a
wretched compliment to his self-love. He enabled this adoring sex to discover, that a great man
might be a very small one. It must be owned, however, as the reader will see presently, that
Madame Guiccioli did not in the least know how to manage him, when he
was wrong.
The effect of these and the other faults in his Lordship’s character
was similar, in its proportion, upon all who chanced to come within his sphere. Let the reader
present to his imagination the noble poet and any intimate acquaintance (not a mere man of the
world) living together. He must fancy them, by very speedy degrees, doubting and differing with
one another, how quietly soever, and producing such a painful sense of something not to be
esteemed on one side, and something tormented between the wish not to show it and the
impossibility of not feeling it on the other, that separation becomes inevitable. It has been said in a magazine, that I was always arguing with
Lord Byron. Nothing can be more untrue. I was indeed almost
always differing, and to such a degree, that I was fain to keep the difference to myself. I
differed so much, that I argued as little as possible. His Lordship was so poor a ![]()
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logician, that he did not even provoke argument. When you openly
differed with him, in any thing like a zealous manner, the provocation was caused by something
foreign to reasoning, and not pretending to it. He did not care for argument, and what is
worse, was too easily convinced at the moment, or appeared to be so, to give any zest to
disputation. He gravely asked me one day, “What it was that convinced me in
argument?” I said, I thought I was convinced by the strongest reasoning.
“For my part,” said he, “it is the last speaker that convinces
me.” And I believe he spoke truly; but then he was only convinced, till it was
agreeable to him to be moved otherwise. He did not care for the truth. He admired only the
convenient and the ornamental. He was moved to and fro, not because there was any ultimate
purpose which he would give up, but solely because it was most troublesome to him to sit still
and resist. “Mobility,” he has said, in one of his notes to “Don Juan,” was his weakness; and he calls it
“a very painful attribute.” It is an attribute certainly not very godlike; but it
still left him as self-centered and unsympathising with his movers, as if he had been a statue
or a ball. In this respect he was as totus teres atque rotundus, as Mr.
Hazlitt could desire; and thus it was, that he was rolled out of Mr.
Hazlitt’s own company and the
Liberal.
I shall come to that matter presently. Meanwhile, to return to our mode of
life. In the course of an hour or two, being an early riser, I used to
go in to dinner.
Lord Byron either stayed a little longer, or went up stairs to his books
and his couch. When the heat of the day declined, we rode out,
either on horseback or in a barouche, generally towards the forest. He was a good rider,
graceful, and kept a firm seat. He loved to be told of it; and being true, it was a pleasure to
tell him. Good God! what homage might not that man have received, and what ![]()
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love and pleasure reciprocated, if he could have been content with the
truth, and had truth enough of his own to think a little better of his fellow-creatures! But he
was always seeking for uneasy sources of satisfaction. The first day we were going out on
horseback together, he was joking upon the bad riding of this and that acquaintance of his. He
evidently hoped to have the pleasure of adding me to the list; and finding, when we pushed
forward, that there was nothing particular in the spectacle of my horsemanship, he said in a
tone of disappointment, “Why, Hunt, you ride very
well!” Trelawney sometimes went with us, on a
great horse, smoking a cigar. We had blue frock-coats, white waistcoats and trowsers, and
velvet caps, à la Raphael;
and cut a gallant figure. Sometimes we went as far as a vineyard, where he had been accustomed
to shoot at a mark, and where the brunette lived, who came into his drawing-room with the
basket of flowers. The father was an honest-looking man, who was in trouble with his landlord,
and heaved great sighs; the mother a loud swarthy woman, with hard lines in her face. There was
a little sister, delicate-looking and melancholy, very different from the confident though not
unpleasing countenance of the elder, who was more handsome. They all, however, seemed
good-humoured. We sat under an arbour, and had figs served up to us, the mother being loud in
our faces, and cutting some extraordinary jokes, which made me anything but merry. Upon the
whole, I was glad to come away.
Madame Guiccioli was very curious on these occasions,
but could get no information. Unfortunately, she could not see beyond a common-place of any
sort, nor put up with a distressing one in the hope of doing it away. The worst thing she did
(and which showed to ![]()
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every body else, though not to herself, that she
entertained no real love for Lord Byron) was to indulge in vehement
complaints of him to his acquaintances. The first time she did so to me, I shocked her so
excessively with endeavouring to pay a compliment to her understanding, and leading her into a
more generous policy, that she never made me her confidant again. “No wonder,”
she said, “that my Lord was so bad, when he had friends who could talk so
shockingly.” “Oh, Shelley!”
thought I, “see what your friend has come to with the sentimental Italian whom he was to
assist in reforming our Don Juan!” When
Lord Byron talked freely to her before others, she was not affected by
what would have startled a delicate Englishwoman, (a common Italian defect), but when he
alluded to any thing more pardonable, she would get angry, and remonstrate, and “wonder
at him;” he all the while looking as if he enjoyed her vehemence, and did not believe a
word of it. A delicate lover would have spared her this, and at the same time have elevated her
notions of the behaviour suitable for such occasions; but her own understanding did not inform
her any better; and in this respect I doubt whether Lord Byron’s
could have supplied it; what is called sentiment having been so completely taken out of him by
ill company and the world.
Of an evening I seldom saw him. He recreated himself in the balcony, or
with a book; and at night, when I went to bed, he was just thinking of setting to
work with Don Juan. His favourite reading was history and travels. I think I am correct in
saying that his favourite authors were Bayle and
Gibbon. Gibbon was altogether a
writer calculated to please him. There was a show in him, and at the same time a tone of the
world, a self-complacency and a sarcasm, a love of things aristocratical, with a tendency to be
liberal on other points of opinion ![]()
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and to crown all, a splendid success
in authorship, and a high and piquant character with the fashionable world, which found a
strong sympathy in the bosom of his noble reader. Then, in his private life,
Gibbon was a voluptuous recluse; he had given celebrity to a foreign
residence, possessed a due sense of the merits of wealth as well as rank, and last, perhaps not
least, was no speaker in Parliament. I may add, that the elaborate style of his writing pleased
the lover of the artificial in poetry, while the cynical turn of his satire amused the genius
of Don Juan. And finally, his learning and
research supplied the indolent man of letters with the information which he had left at school.
Lord Byron’s collection of books was poor, and consisted chiefly
of new ones. I remember little among them but the English works published at Basle,
(Kames, Robertson, Watson’s History of Philip II. &c.) and new ones
occasionally sent him from England. He was anxious to show you that he possessed no Shakspeare and Milton;
“because,” he said, “he had been accused of borrowing from
them!” He affected to doubt whether Shakspeare was so great a
genius as he has been taken for, and whether fashion had not a great deal to do with it; an
extravagance, of which none but a patrician author could have been guilty. However, there was a
greater committal of himself at the bottom of this notion than he supposed; and, perhaps,
circumstances had really disenabled him from having the proper idea of
Shakspeare, though it could not have fallen so short of the truth as
he pretended. Spenser, he could not read; at least he
said so. All the gusto of that most poetical of the poets went with him for nothing. I lent him
a volume of the “Fairy Queen,”
and he said he would try to like it. Next day he brought it to my ![]()
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study-window, and said, “Here, Hunt, here is your
Spenser. I cannot see any thing in him:” and he seemed
anxious that I should take it out of his hands, as if he was afraid of being accused of copying
so poor a writer. That he saw nothing in Spenser is not very likely; but I
really do not think that he saw much. Spenser was too much out of the
world, and he too much in it. It would have been impossible to persuade
him, that Sandys’s Ovid was better than Addison’s
and Croxall’s. He wanted faith in the
interior of poetry, to relish it, unpruned and unpopular. Besides, he himself was to be mixed
up somehow with every thing, whether to approve it or disapprove. When he found
Sandys’s “Ovid” among my books, he said, “God! what an unpleasant recollection
I have of this book! I met with it on my wedding-day; I read it while I was waiting to go
to church.” Sandys, who is any thing but an anti-bridal
poet, was thenceforward to be nobody but an old fellow who had given him an unpleasant
sensation. The only great writer of past times, whom he read with avowed satisfaction, was
Montaigne, as the reader may see by an article in
the “New Monthly Magazine.” In the same
article may be seen the reasons why, and the passages that he marked in that author. Franklin he liked. He respected him for his acquisition of
wealth and power; and would have stood in awe, had he known him, of the refined worldliness of
his character, and the influence it gave him. Franklin’s Works, and
Walter Scott’s, were among his favourite reading.
His liking for such of the modern authors as he preferred in general, was not founded in a
compliment to them; but Walter Scott, with his novels, his fashionable
repute, and his ill opinion of the world whom he fell in with, enabled him to enter heartily
into his merits; and he read him over and over again with unaffected delight. Sir
Walter was his correspondent, and appears to ![]()
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have
returned the regard; though, if I remember, the dedication of “The Mystery” frightened him. They did not hold each other
in the less estimation, the one for being a lord, and the other a lover of lords: neither did
Sir Walter’s connexion with the calumniating press of
Edinburgh at all shock his noble friend. It added rather “a
fearful joy” to his esteem; carrying with it a look of something
“bloody, bold, and resolute:” at the same time, more resolute than bold,
and more death-dealing than either;—a sort of available other-man’s weapon, which
increased the sum of his power, and was a set-off against his character for virtue.
The first number of the Liberal
was now on the anvil, and Mr. Shelley’s death had
given me a new uneasiness. The reader will see in Mr. Shelley’s
Letters, that Lord Byron had originally proposed a work of the kind to
Mr. Moore; at least, a periodical work of some sort,
which they were jointly to write. Mr. Moore doubted the beatitude of such
divided light, and declined it. His Lordship then proposed it through Mr.
Shelley to me. I wrote to both of them to say, that I should be happy to take
such an opportunity of restoring the fortunes of a battered race of patriots; and as soon as we
met in Pisa, it was agreed that the work should be political, and assist
in carrying on the good cause. The title of Liberal was given it by Lord
Byron. We were to share equally the profits, the work being printed and
published by my brother; and it was confidently
anticipated that money would pour in upon all of us.
Enemies however, had been already at work. Lord Byron
was alarmed for his credit with his fashionable friends; among whom, although on the liberal
side, patriotism was less in favour, than the talk about it. This man wrote to him, and that
wrote, and ![]()
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another came. Mr.
Hobhouse rushed over the Alps, not knowing which was the more awful, the
mountains, or the Magazine. Mr. Murray wondered,
Mr. Gifford smiled, (a lofty symptom!) and Mr. Moore (tu quoque, Horati!) said
that the Liberal had “a taint” in it!
This however was afterwards. But Lord Byron, who was as fond as a footman
of communicating unpleasant intelligence, told us from the first, that his
“friends” had all been at him; friends, whom he afterwards told me he had
“libelled all round,” and whom (to judge of what he did by some of them) he
continued to treat in the same impartial manner. He surprised my friend, Mr. Brown, at Pisa, by volunteering a
gossip on this matter, in the course of which he drew a comparison between me and one of his
“friends,” to whom, he said, he had been accused of preferring me;
“and,” added he, with an air of warmth, “so I do.” The meaning of this
was, that the person in question was out of favour at the moment, and I was in. Next day the
tables may have been turned. I met Mr. Hobhouse soon after in the
Casa Lanfranchi. He was very polite and complimentary; and then, if
his noble friend was to be believed, did all he could to destroy the connexion between us. One
of the arguments used by the remonstrants with his Lordship was, that the connexion was not
“gentlemanly;” a representation which he professed to treat with great scorn,
whether birth or manners were concerned; and I will add, that he had reason to do so. It was a
ridiculous assumption, which, like all things of that sort, was to tell upon the mere strength
of its being one. The manners of such of his Lordship’s friends
as I ever happened to meet with, were, in fact, with one exception, nothing superior
to their birth, if two such unequal things may be put on a level. It is remarkable (and,
indeed, may account for the cry about gentility, which none are so given to as the vulgar,)
that they ![]()
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were almost all persons of humble origin; one of a race of
booksellers; another the son of a grocer; another, of a glazier; and a fourth, though the son
of a baronet, the grandson of a linen-draper. Readers who know any thing of me, or such as I
care to be known by, will not suspect me of undervaluing tradesmen or the sons of tradesmen,
who may be, and very often are, both as gentlemanly and accomplished as any men in England. It
did not require the Frenchman’s discovery, (that, at a certain remove, every body is
related to every body else,) to make a man think sensibly on this point now-a-days. Pope was a linen-draper’s son, and Cowley a grocer’s. Who would be coxcomb enough to
venture to think the worse on that account of either of those illustrious men, whether for wit
or gentility; and both were gentlemen as well as wits. But when persons bring a charge upon
things indifferent, which, if it attaches at all, attaches to none but themselves who make it,
the thing indifferent becomes a thing ridiculous. Mr.
Shelley, a baronet’s son, was also of an old family: and, as to his
manners, though they were in general those of a recluse, and of an invalid occupied with his
thoughts, they were any thing but vulgar. They could be, if he pleased, in the most received
style of his rank. He was not incapable, when pestered with moral vulgarity, of assuming even
an air of aristocratic pride and remoteness. Some of Lord Byron’s
friends would have given him occasion for this twenty times in a day. They did wisely to keep
out of his way. As to my birth, the reader may see what it was in another part of the volume;
and my manners I leave him to construe kindly or otherwise, according to his own.
There is nothing on the part of others, from which I have suffered so much in
the course of my life, as reserve and disingenuousness. Had Lord Byron,
incontinent in every thing else, told me at once, that in case it did not bring him an influx
of wealth, he could not find it in his ![]()
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heart to persist in what was
objected to by a côterie on the town,—or had his friends,
whom he “libelled all round,” and some of whom returned him the compliment, been
capable of paying me or themselves the compliment of being a little sincere with me, and
showing me any reasons for supposing that the work would be injurious to Lord
Byron (for I will imagine, for the sake of argument, that such might have been
the case), I should have put an end to the design at once. As it was, though his Lordship gave
in before long, and had undoubtedly made up his mind to do so long before he announced it, yet
not only did the immediate influence prevail at first over the remoter one, but it is a mistake to suppose that he was not mainly influenced by the
expectation of profit. He expected very large returns from “The Liberal.” Readers in these days need not be
told that periodical works, which have a large sale, are a mine of wealth. Lord
Byron had calculated that matter well; and when it is added, that he loved
money, adored notoriety, and naturally entertained a high opinion of the effect of any new kind
of writing which he should take in hand, nobody will believe it probable (nobody who knew him
will believe it possible) that he should voluntarily contemplate the rejection of profits which
he had agreed to receive. He would have beheld in them the most delightful of all proofs, that
his reputation was not on the wane. For here, after all, lay the great secret, both of what he
did and what he did not do. He was subject, it is true, to a number of weak impulses; would
agree to this thing and propose another, purely out of incontinence of will; and offer to do
one day what he would bite his fingers off to get rid of the next. But this plan of a
periodical publication was no sudden business; he had proposed it more than once, and to
different persons; and his reasons for it were, that he thought he should get both money and
fame. A pique with “The ![]()
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Quarterly Review,” and his Tory admirers,
roused his regard for the opposite side of the question. He thought to do himself good, and
chagrin his critics, by assisting an enemy. The natural Toryism of some pretended lovers of
liberty first alarmed him by a hint, that he might possibly not succeed. He supported his
resolution by the hopes I have just mentioned, and even tried to encourage himself into a pique
with his friends; but the failure of the large profits—the
non-appearance of the golden visions he had looked for,—of the Edinburgh and Quarterly
returns,—of the solid and splendid proofs of this new country which he should
conquer in the regions of notoriety, to the dazzling of all men’s eyes and his
own,—this it was, this was the bitter disappointment which made him determine to give
way, and which ultimately assisted in carrying him as far as Greece, in the hope of another
redemption of his honours. From the moment he saw the moderate profits of “The Liberal,” (quite enough to encourage perseverance, if he had
had it, but not in the midst of a hundred wounded vanities and inordinate hopes,) he resolved
to have nothing farther to do with it in the way of real assistance. He made use of it only for
the publication of some things which his Tory bookseller was afraid to put forth. Indeed, he
began with a contribution of that sort; but then he thought it would carry every thing before
it. It also enabled him to make a pretence, with his friends, of doing as little as possible;
while he secretly indulged himself in opposition both to them and his enemies. It failed; and
he then made an instrument of the magazine, in such a manner as to indulge his own spleen, and
maintain an appearance of co-operation, while in reality he did nothing for it but hasten its
downfal.
There were undoubtedly other causes which conspired to this end; but they
were of minor importance, and would gradually have been done ![]()
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away, had
he possessed spirit and independence enough to persevere. It was thought that Mr. Shelley’s co-operation would have hurt the magazine;
and so it might in a degree; till the public became too much interested to object to it; but
Mr. Shelley was dead, and people were already beginning to hear good
of him and to like him. Extinctus amabitur. I myself, however, who was expected to write a good deal, and, probably to be inspired
beyond myself by the delight and grandeur of my position, was in very bad health, and as little
conscious of delight and grandeur as possible. I had been used to write under trying
circumstances; but latterly I had been scarcely able to write at all; and at the time I never
felt more oppressed in my life with a sense of what was to be done. Then the publisher was a much better patriot than man of business: he
was also new to his work as a bookseller; and the trade (who can do more in these matters than
people are aware of) set their faces against him; particularly Lord
Byron’s old publisher, who was jealous and in a frenzy. To crown all, an
article (the “Vision of Judgment”)
was sent my brother for insertion, which would have frightened any other publisher, or at least
set him upon garbling and making stars. My brother saw nothing in it but Lord
Byron, and a prodigious hit at the Tories; and he prepared his machine
accordingly for sending forward the blow unmitigated. Unfortunately it recoiled, and played the
devil with all of us. I confess, for my part, having been let a little more into the interior
in these matters, that had I seen the article, before it was published, I should have advised
against the appearance of certain passages; but Lord Byron had no copy in
Italy. It was sent, by his direction, straight from Mr.
Murray to the publisher’s; and the first time I beheld it, was in the work
that I edited.
That first number of “The
Liberal” got us a great number of enemies,![]()
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some of a nature which we would rather have had on our side; a great
many because they felt their self-love wounded as authors, and more out of a national
prejudice. The prejudice is not so strong as it was upon the particular subject alluded to; but
it is the least likely to wear out, because the national vanity is concerned in it, and it can
only be conquered by an admission of defects. What renders the case more inveterate is, that
none partake of it more strongly than the most violent of its opponents. In addition to the
scandal excited by the “Vision of
Judgment,” there was the untimely seasonableness of the epigrams upon poor
Lord Castlereagh. Lord
Byron wrote them. They arose from the impulse of the moment; were intended for a
newspaper, and in that more fugitive medium, would have made a comparatively fugitive
impression. Arrested in a magazine, they were kept longer before the eyes of the public, and
what might have been pardoned as an impulse, was regarded with horror as a thing deliberate.
Politicians in earnest, and politicians not in earnest, were mortified by the preface; all the
real or pretended orthodox, who can admire a startling poem from a state-minister (Goethe), were vexed to see that Mr. Shelley could translate it; and all the pretenders in literature were vexed
by the attack upon Hoole, and the article headed
“Rhyme and Reason;” in which
latter, I fear, even a wit, whom I could name, was capable of finding an ill intention. I began
to think so when I heard of his criticisms, and saw his next poem. But the “Vision of Judgment,” with which none of the articles were to be
compared, and which, in truth, is the best piece of satire Lord Byron ever
put forth, was grudged us the more, and roused greater hostility on that account. Envy of the
silliest kind, and from the silliest people, such as it is really degrading to be the object
of, pursued us at every turn; and when Mr. Hazlitt
joined us, alarm as well as envy was at its height. ![]()
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After all, perhaps,
there was nothing that vexed these people, more than their inability to discover which were
Lord Byron’s articles, and which not. It betrayed a secret in
the shallows of criticism, even to themselves, and was not to be forgiven. The work struggled
on for a time, and then, owing partly to private circumstances, which I had explained in my
first writing of these pages, but which it has become unnecessary to record, was quietly
dropped. I shall only mention, that Lord Byron, after the failure of the
“great profits,” had declared his intention of receiving nothing from the work till
it produced a certain sum; and that I unexpectedly turned out to be in the receipt of the whole
profits of the proprietorship, which I regarded, but too truly, as one of a very ominous
description. All which publickly concerns the origin and downfal of the Magazine the readers
are acquainted with, excepting perhaps the political pique which Mr. Hobhouse may have felt against us, and the critical one which has been
attributed to Mr. Moore. Mr.
Hazlitt is supposed to have had his share in the offence; and certainly, as far
as writing in the work was concerned, he gave stronger reasons for it than I could do. But he
shall speak for himself in a note, at the hazard of blowing up my less gunpowder text.*
Mr. Hobhouse was once called upon by the * “At the time,” says Mr. Hazlitt, “that Lord Byron thought
proper to join with Mr. Leigh Hunt and Mr. Shelley in the publication called The Liberal, Blackwood’s Magazine overflowed, as might be
expected, with tenfold gall and bitterness; the John Bull was outrageous, and Mr. ——
black in the face, at this unheard-of and disgraceful union. But who would have
supposed that Mr. Thomas Moore and Mr. Hobhouse, those staunch friends and partisans
of the people, should also he thrown into almost hysterical agonies of well-bred
horror at the coalition between their noble and ignoble acquaintance—between
the patrician and ‘the newspaper-man?’ Mr. Moore
darted backwards and forwards from Cold-Bath-Fields Prison to the Examiner office, from Mr. Longman’s to Mr. Murray’s shop in a state of ridiculous trepidation, to
see what was to be done to prevent this degradation of the aristocracy of letters,
this indecent encroachment of plebeian pretensions, this undue
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electors of Westminster for an explicit
statement of his opinions on the subject of reform. He gave a statement which was thought not
to be extension of patronage and compromise of privilege. The Tories were shocked that
Lord Byron should grace the popular side by his direct
countenance and assistance; the Whigs were shocked that he should share his
confidence and counsels with any one who did not unite the double recommendations
of birth and genius—but themselves! Mr.
Moore had lived so long among the great, that he fancied himself one
of them, and regarded the indignity as done to himself. Mr. Hobhouse had lately been blackballed by the Clubs, and must
feel particularly sore and tenacious on the score of public opinion. Mr. Shelley’s father, however, was an elder
baronet than Mr. Hobhouse’s; Mr. Leigh
Hunt was ‘to the full as genteel a man’ as Mr.
Moore, in birth, appearance, and education; the pursuits of all four
were the same—the Muse, the public favour, and the public good. Mr.
Moore was himself invited to assist in the undertaking, but he
professed an utter aversion to, and warned Lord Byron against,
having any concern with joint publications, as of a very
neutralizing and levelling description. He might speak from experience. He had
tried his hand in that Ulysses’ bow of
critics and politicians, the Edinburgh
Review, though his secret had never transpired. Mr.
Hobhouse, too, had written Illustrations of Childe Harold (a sort
of partnership concern)—yet, to quash the publication of The Liberal, he seriously proposed that his noble
friend should write once a-week, in his own name, in the Examiner. The Liberal scheme, he was afraid, might succeed; the newspaper one he knew
could not. I have been whispered, that the member for Westminster (for whom I once
gave an ineffectual vote) has also conceived some distaste for me—I do not
know why, except that I was at one time named as the writer of the famous Trecenti Juravimus Letter to
Mr. Canning, which appeared in the Examiner, and was afterwards suppressed. He might feel the
disgrace of such a supposition: I confess I did not feel the honour. The cabal, the
bustle, the significant hints, the confidential rumours were at the height, when,
after Mr. Shelley’s death, I was invited to take a part
in this obnoxious publication (obnoxious alike to friend and foe); and when the
Essay on the Spirit of Monarchy appeared, (which must indeed have operated
like a bomb-shell thrown into the coteries that Mr. Moore
frequented, as well as those that he had left,) this gentleman wrote off to
Lord Byron, to say that, ‘there was a taint in
The Liberal, and that he should lose no time in
getting out of it.’ And this, from Mr. Moore to
Lord Byron—the last of whom had just involved the
publication, against which he was cautioned as having a taint in it, in a
prosecution for libel by his Vision of Judgment, and the first of whom had
scarcely written any thing all his life that had not a taint in it. It is true, the
Holland-house party might be somewhat staggered by a jeu-d’esprit that set their Blackstone and De Lolme
theories at defiance, and that they could as little write as answer. But it was |
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explicit, or even intelligible; and I had the misfortune, in
“The Examiner,” to be compelled to say
that I was among the number of the dull not that. Mr. Moore also complained that
‘I had spoken against Lalla
Rookh,’ though he had just before sent me his ‘Fudge Family.’ Still it was
not that. But at the time he sent me that very delightful and spirited publication,
my little bark was seen ‘hulling on the flood,’ in a kind of
dubious twilight, and it was not known whether I might not prove a vessel of
gallant trim. Mr. Blackwood had not then directed his
Grub-street battery against me: but as soon as this was the case,
Mr. Moore was willing to “whistle me down the
wind and let me prey at fortune;” not that I “proved
haggard,” but the contrary. It is sheer cowardice and want of heart.
The sole object of the rest is not to stem the tide of prejudice and falsehood, but
to get out of the way themselves. The instant another is assailed (however
unjustly,) instead of standing manfully by him, they cut the connection as fast as
possible, and sanction by their silence and reserve the accusations they ought to
repel. Suave qui peut —every one has enough to do to look after his own reputation or safety
without rescuing a friend or propping up a falling cause. It is only by keeping in
the background on such occasions (like Gil
Blas, when his friend Ambrose Lamela
was led by in triumph to the auto-da fe) that they can escape the like honours and a summary punishment. A shower
of mud, a flight of nicknames (glancing a little out of their original direction)
might obscure the last glimpse of royal favour, or stop the last gasp of
popularity. Nor could they answer it to their noble friends and more elegant
pursuits, to be received in such company, or to have their names coupled with
similar outrages. Their sleek, glossy, aspiring pretensions should not be exposed
to vulgar contamination, or to be trodden under foot of a swinish multitude. Their
birthday suits (unused) should not be dragged through the kennel, nor their
“tricksy” laurel wreaths stuck in the pillory. This would make them
equally unfit to be taken into the palaces or the carriages of peers. If excluded
from both, what would become of them? The only way, therefore, to avoid being
implicated in the abuse poured upon others, is to pretend that is just—the
way not to be made the object of the hue and cry raised against a friend, is to aid it by underhand
whispers. It is pleasant neither to participate in disgrace nor to have honours
divided. The more Lord Byron confined his intimacy and
friendship to a few persons of middling rank, but of extraordinary merit, the more
it must redound to his and their credit. The lines of Pope, “To view with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts which caused himself to rise,”— |
might still find a copy in the breast of more than one scribbler of politics
and fashion. Mr. Moore might not think without a pang of the
author of “Rimini,”
sitting at his ease with the author of “Childe Harold;” Mr.
Hobhouse might be averse to see my dogged prose bound up |
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perceptions. A few days afterwards, meeting him in St.
James’s-street, he said he wondered at my coming to that conclusion, and
asked me how it could happen. I did not enter into the origin of the phenomenon, but said that
I could not help it, and that the statement did appear to me singularly obscure. Since that
time, I believe, I never saw him till we met in the Casa Lanfranchi. As
to Mr. Moore, he did not relish, I know, the objection which I had made to
the style of “Lalla Rookh;” but
then he had told me so; he encouraged me to speak freely; he had spoken freely himself; and I
felt all the admiration of him, if not of his poem, which candour, in addition to wit, can
excite. I never suspected that he would make this a ground of quarrel with me in after-times;
nor do I now wish to give more strength to Lord Byron’s way of
representing things on this point than on any other. There may be as little foundation for his
reporting that Mr. Moore would never forgive Hazlitt
for saying that he “ought not to have written ‘Lalla
Rookh,’ even for three thousand guineas;” a condemnation which,
especially with the context that follows it, involves a compliment in its very excess.* But
Mr. Moore was not candid, when he wrote secretly to in the same volume with his Lordship’s splendid verse; and assuredly it would
not facilitate his admission to the Clubs, that his friend Lord
Byron had taken the Editor of “The Examiner” by the hand, and that their common
friend, Mr. Moore, had taken no active steps
to prevent it!”—Plain Speaker, vol. ii. p.
437. |
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“ * Mr. Moore ought not
to have written “Lalla
Rookh,” even for three thousand guineas. His fame is worth more than that.
He should have minded the advice of Fadladeen. It
is not, however, a failure, so much as an evasion and a consequent disappointment of
public expectation. He should have left it to others to break conventions with nations,
and faith with the world. He should, at any rate, have kept his with the public.
“Lalla Rookh” is not what people wanted to
see whether Mr. Moore could do; namely, whether he could write a
long epic poem. It is four short tales. The interest, however, is often high-wrought
and tragic, but the execution still turns to the effeminate and voluptuous side.
Fortitude of mind |
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Lord Byron, to induce him to give up the Magazine; and to tell him, there
was “a taint” in it. He says he ought to have recollected, that Lord
Byron always showed the letters that were written to him. This regret he has
expressed to a mutual friend; but I do not see how it mends the matter. And what did he mean by
“a taint?” Was it a taint of love—(very loth am I to put two such words
together, but it is for him to explain the inconsistency)—Was it a taint of love, or of
libel? or of infidelity? or of independence? And was the taint the greater, because the
independence was true? Yes: Mr. Hazlitt has explained that matter but too
well.
Towards the end of September, Lord Byron and myself, in
different parties, left Pisa for Genoa. He was
restless, as he had always been; Tuscany was uncomfortable to him; and
at Genoa he would hover on the borders of his inclination for Greece.
Perhaps he had already made arrangements for going there. We met at
Lerici on our way. He had an illness at that place; and all my
melancholy was put to its height by seeing the spot my departed friend had lived in, and his
solitary mansion on the sea-shore. The place is wild and retired, with a bay and rocky
eminences; the people suited to it, something between inhabitants of sea and land. In the
summertime they will be up all night, dabbling in the water, and making wild noises. Here
Mr. Trelawney joined us. He took me to the
Villa Magni (the house just alluded to); and we paced over its empty
rooms, and neglected garden. The sea fawned upon the shore, as though it could do no harm.
|
is the first requisite of a tragic or epic writer.
Happiness of nature and felicity of genius are the pre-eminent characteristics of the bard
of Erin. If he is not perfectly contented with what he is, all the world beside is. He had
no temptation to risk any thing in adding to the love and admiration of his age, and more
than one country.”—Lectures on the English Poets
, p. 301.
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At Lerici we had an earthquake. It was the strongest
we experienced in Italy. At Pisa there had been a dull intimation of
one, such as happens in that city about once in three years. In the neighbourhood of
Florence we had another, pretty smart of its kind, but lasting only
for an instant. It was exactly as if somebody with a strong hand had jerked a pole up against
the ceiling of the lower room, right under one’s feet. This was at
Maiano, among the Fiesolan hills. People came out of their rooms,
and inquired of one another what was the matter; so that it was no delusion. At
Lerici nobody could have mistaken. I was awakened at dawn with an
extraordinary sensation, and directly afterwards the earthquake took place. It was strong
enough to shake the pictures on the wall; and it lasted a sufficient time to resemble the
rolling of a waggon under an archway, which it did both in noise and movement. I got up, and
went to the window. The people were already collecting in the open place beneath it; and I
heard, in the clear morning air, the word Terremoto repeated from one to another. The sensation for the next ten minutes or quarter of an
hour, was very great. You expected the shock to come again, and to be worse. However, we had no
more of it. We congratulated ourselves the more, because there was a tower on a rock just over
our heads, which would have stood upon no ceremony with our inn. They told us, if I remember,
that they had an earthquake on this part of the coast of Italy, about once every five years.
Italy is a land of volcanoes, more or less subdued. It is a great grapery, built over a flue.
From Lerici, we proceeded part of our way by water, as far as
Sestri. Lord Byron and Madame Guiccioli went in a private boat; Mr. Trelawney in another; and myself and family in a
felucca. It was pretty to see the boats with their white sails, gliding
by the rocks, ![]()
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over that blue sea. A little breeze coming on, our
gallant seamen were afraid, and put into Porto Venere, a deserted town a
short distance from Lerici. I asked them if they really meant to put in,
upon which they looked very determined on that point, and said, that “Englishmen had no
sense of danger.” I smiled internally to think of the British Channel. I thought also of
the thunder and lightning in this very sea, where they might have seen British tars themselves
astonished with fear. In Italy, Englishmen are called “the mad English,” from the
hazards they run. They like to astonish the natives by a little superfluous peril. If you see a
man coming furiously down the street on horseback, you may be pretty certain he is an
Englishman. An English mail-coach, with that cauliflower of human beings a-top of it, lumping
from side to side, would make the hearts of a Tuscan city die within them.
Porto Venere is like a petrified town in a story-book. The classical
name took us, and we roamed over it. It was curious to pass the houses one after the other, and
meet not a soul. Such inhabitants as there are, confine themselves to the sea-shore. After
resting a few hours, we put forth again, and had a lazy, sunny passage to
Sestri, where a crowd of people assailed us, like savages at an
island, for our patronage and portmanteaus. They were robust, clamorous, fishy fellows, like so
many children of the Tritons in Raphael’s pictures; as if those
plebeian gods of the sea had been making love to Italian chambermaids. Italian goddesses have
shown a taste not unsimilar, and more condescending; and English ones too in Italy, if scandal
is to be believed. But Naples is the head-quarters of this overgrowth of
wild luxury. Marini, a Neapolitan, may have had it in
his eye, when he wrote that fine sonnet of his, full of aboriginal gusto, brawny ![]()
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and bearded, about Proteus pursuing
Cymothoe. (See Parnaso Italiano,
tom. 41, p. 10.) Liking every thing real in
poetry, I should be tempted to give a specimen; but am afraid of Mr. Moore.
From Sestri we proceeded over the maritime part of the
Apennines to Genoa. Their character is of the
least interesting sort of any mountains, being neither distinct nor wooded; but barren, savage,
and coarse; without any grandeur but what arises from an excess of that appearance. They lie in
a succession of great doughy billows, like so much enormous pudding, or petrified mud.
Genoa again! With what different feelings we beheld it the first time!
Mrs. Shelley, who preceded us to the city, had found
houses both for Lord Byron’s family and my own at
Albaro, a neighbouring village on a hill. We were to live in the
same house with her; and in the Casa Negroto we accordingly found an
English welcome. There were forty rooms in it, some of them such as would be considered
splendid in England, and all neat and new, with borders and arabesques. The balcony and
staircase were of marble; and there was a little flower-garden. The rent of this house was
twenty pounds a-year. Lord Byron paid four-and-twenty for his, which was
older and more imposing, with rooms in still greater plenty, and a good piece of ground. It was
called the Casa Saluzzi.* Mr.
Landor and his family had occupied a house in the same village—the
Casa Pallavicini. He has recorded an interesting dialogue that took
place in it.† Of Albaro I have given an account in another work.
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* Any relation to “Saluces,” whose
“Markis“ married the patient
Griselda? Saluces was in the maritime
Apennines, by Piedmont, and might have
originated a family of Genoese nobles. Classical and romantic associations abound so at
every turn in Italy, that upon the least hint a book speaketh.
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The Genoese post brought us the first number of “The Liberal,” accompanied both with hopes
and fears, the latter of which were too speedily realized. Living now in a separate
house from Lord Byron, I saw less of him than before; and under all the
circumstances, it was as well. It was during our residence in this part of Italy, that the
remaining numbers of “The Liberal” were published. I did
what I could to make him persevere; and have to take shame to myself, that in my anxiety on
that point, I persuaded him to send over “The
Blues” for insertion, rather than contribute nothing. It is the only thing
connected with “The Liberal” that I gave myself occasion
to regret. I cannot indeed boast of my communications to it. Illness and unhappiness must be my
excuse. They are things under which a man does not always write his worst. They may even supply
him with a sort of fevered inspiration; but this was not my case at the time. The only pieces I
would save, if I could, from oblivion, out of that work, are the “Rhyme and Reason,” the “Lines to a Spider,” and the copy of verses entitled
“Mahmoud.” The little gibe on
his native place, out of “Al Hamadani,” might
accompany them. I must not omit, that Lord Byron would have put his
“Island” in it, and I believe another poem, if I had thought it of use. It would
all have been so much dead weight; especially as the readers, not being certain it was
contributed by his Lordship, would not have known whether they were to be enraptured or
indifferent. By and by he would have taken them out, published them by themselves, and then
complained that they would have sold before, if it had not been for “The Liberal.” What he should have done for the work was to stand by it openly
and manfully, to make it the obvious channel of his junction with the cause of freedom, to
contribute to it not ![]()
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his least popular or his least clever productions,
but such as the nature of the work should have inspired and recommended, or in default of being
able to do this (for perhaps he was not fitted to write for a periodical work) he should have
gained all the friends for it he could, not among those whom he “libelled all
round,” but among thousands of readers all prepared to admire, and love him, and think it
an honour to fight under his banner. But he had no real heart in the business, nor for any
thing else but a feverish notoriety. It was by this he was to shake at once the great world and
the small; the mountain and the mouse; the imaginations of the public, and the approving nod of
the “men of wit and fashion about town.” Mr.
Hazlitt, habitually paradoxical, sometimes pastoral, and never without the
self-love which he is so fond of discerning in others, believed at the moment that a lord had a
liking for him, and that a lord and a sophisticate poet would put up with his sincerities about
the aristocratical and the primitive. It begat in him a love for the noble Bard; and I am not
sure that he has got rid, to this day, of the notion that it was returned. He was taken in, as
others had been, and as all the world chose and delighted to be, as long as the flattering
self-reflection was allowed a remnant to act upon. The mirror was pieced at
Missolonghi, and then they could expatiate at large on the noble
lord’s image and their own! Sorry cozenage! Poor and melancholy conclusion to come to
respecting great as well as little; and such as would be frightful to think of, if human
nature, after all, were not better than they pretend. Lord Byron in truth
was afraid of Mr. Hazlitt; he admitted him like a courtier, for fear he
should be treated by him as an enemy; but when he beheld such articles as the “Spirit of Monarchy,” where the
“taint” of polite corruption was to be exposed, and the First Acquaint-![]()
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ance with Poets,
where Mr. Wordsworth was to be exalted above
depreciation, “In spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite—” |
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(for such was Mr. Hazlitt’s innocent quotation) his Lordship
could only wish him out again, and take pains to show his polite friends that he had nothing in
common with so inconsiderate a plebeian. Mr. Hazlitt is a little too angry
with Mr. Moore. He ought to include himself, who
undertook to be still more independent of high life, and who can afford better to be mistaken.
A person who knew Mr. Moore well, told me, that asking him one day how he
should feel, if the King were to offer to make him a baronet, the author of the “Irish Melodies” replied,
“Good God! how those people can annihilate us!” I told this answer to
Mr. Hazlitt, who justly admired the candour of it. It would have been
more admirable, however, if the poet were to omit those innocent scoffs at the admirers of
lords and titles, with which he sometimes thinks fit to mystify himself: and the
philosopher’s admiration of candour would be better, if he were always candid himself,
and now and then a little philosophic.
I passed a melancholy time at Albaro,
walking about the stony alleys, and thinking of Mr.
Shelley. My intercourse with Lord Byron,
though less than before, was considerable; and we were always, as the phrase is, “on good
terms.” He knew what I felt, for I said it. I also knew what he thought, for he said
that, “in a manner;” and he was in the habit of giving you a good deal to
understand, in what he did not say. In the midst of all his strange conduct, he professed a
great personal regard. He would do the most humiliating things, insinuate the bitterest, both
of me and my friends, and then affect to do all away with a ![]()
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soft word,
protesting that nothing he ever said was meant to apply to myself.
I will take this opportunity of recording some more anecdotes as they occur
to me. We used to walk in the grounds of the Casa Saluzzi, talking for
the most part of indifferent matters, and endeavouring to joke away the consciousness of our
position. We joked even upon our differences of opinion. It was a jest between us, that the
only book that was unequivocally a favourite on both sides, was Boswell’s “Life of
Johnson.” I used to talk of Johnson
when I saw him out of temper, or wished to avoid other subjects. He asked me one day, how I
should have felt in Johnson’s company. I said it was difficult to
judge; because, living in other times, and one’s character being modified by them, I
could not help thinking of myself as I was now, and Johnson as he was in
times previous: so that it appeared to me that I should have been somewhat Jacobinical in his
company, and not disposed to put up with his ipse
dixits. He said, that “Johnson would have awed
him, he treated lords with so much respect.” This was better said than it was
meant to be, and I have no doubt was very true. Johnson would have made
him a bow like a churchwarden; and Lord Byron would have been in a flutter
of worshipped acquiescence. He liked to imitate Johnson, and say,
“Why, Sir,” in a high mouthing way, rising, and looking about him. Yet he hardly
seemed to relish Peter Pindar’s imitations,
excellent as they were. I used to repeat to him those laughable passages out of “Bozzy and Piozzy.”
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(It is Mrs. Thrale who speaks)
|
“Dear
Dr. Johnson was in size an ox,
And of his uncle Andrew learnt to box,
|
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|
A man to wrestlers and to bruisers dear,
Who kept the ring in Smithfield a whole year.
The Doctor had an uncle too, ador’d
By jumping gentry, called Cornelius Ford;
Who jump’d in boots, which jumpers never choose,
Far as a famous jumper jump’d in shoes.”
|
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See also the next passage in the book—
“At supper rose a dialogue on witches,” |
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which I would quote also, only I am afraid Mr.
Moore would think I was trespassing on the privileges of high life. Again;
Madame Piozzi says, “Once at our house, amidst our Attic feast, We liken’d our acquaintances to beasts: As for example—some to calves and hogs, And some to bears and monkeys, cats, and dogs. |
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We said, (which charm’d the Doctor much, no doubt,) His mind was like, of elephants the snout; That could pick pins up, yet possess’d the vigour Of trimming well the jacket of a tiger.” |
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Bozzy. When Johnson was in
Edinburgh, my wife To please his palate, studied for her life: With ev’ry rarity she fill’d her house, And gave the Doctor, for his dinner, grouse. |
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Piozzi. Dear Doctor Johnson left off
drinks fermented, With quarts of chocolate and cream contented; Yet often down his throat’s prodigious gutter, Poor man! he pour’d whole floods of melted butter.” |
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At these passages, which make me laugh so for the thousandth time, that I can hardly write
them, Lord Byron had too invincible a relish of a good thing not to laugh
also, but he did it uneasily. The cause is left to the reader’s speculation.
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With the commiseration about the melted butter, we agreed heartily. When
Lord Castlereagh killed himself, it was mentioned in
the papers that he had taken his usual tea and buttered toast for breakfast. I said there was
no knowing how far even so little a thing as buttered toast might not have fatally assisted in
exasperating that ill state of stomach, which is found to accompany melancholy. As “the
last feather breaks the horse’s back,” so the last injury done to the organs of
digestion may make a man kill himself. He agreed with me entirely in this; and said, the world
were as much in the wrong, in nine cases out of ten, respecting the immediate causes of
suicide, as they were in their notions about the harmlessness of this and that food, and the
quantity of it.
Like many other wise theorists on this subject, he had wilfully shut
his eyes to the practice, though I do not mean to say he was excessive in eating and
drinking. He had only been in the habit, latterly, of taking too much for his particular
temperament; a fault, in one respect, the most pardonable in those who are most aware of it,
the uneasiness of a sedentary stomach tempting them to the very indulgence that is hurtful. I
know what it is; and beg, in this, as on other occasions, not to be supposed to imply any thing
to my own advantage, when I am upon points that may be construed to the disadvantage of others.
But he had got fat, and then went to the other extreme. He came to me one day out of another
room, and said, with great glee, “Look here! what do you say to this?” at the
same time doubling the lapells of his coat one over the other:—“three months
ago,” added he, “I could not button it.” Sometimes, though rarely,
with a desperate payment of his virtue, he would make an outrageous dinner; eating all sorts of
things that were unfit for him, and suffering accordingly next day. He once sent to Paris for
one of the travelling pies they make there—things that distribute indigestion by ![]()
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return of post, and cost three or four guineas. Twenty crowns, I think,
he gave for it. He tasted, and dined. The next day he was fain to make a present of six-eighths
of it to an envoy:—“Lord Byron’s compliments, and he
sends his Excellency a pasty that has seen the world.” He did not write this; but this
was implied in his compliment. It is to be hoped his Excellency had met the pasty before.
It is a credit to my noble acquaintance, that he was by far the
pleasantest when he had got wine in his head. The only time I invited myself to dine
with him, I told him I did it on that account, and that I meant to push the bottle so, that he
should intoxicate me with his good company. He said he would have a set-to; but he never did
it. I believe he was afraid. It was a little before he left Italy; and there was a point in
contest between us (not regarding myself) which he thought perhaps I should persuade him to
give up. When in his cups, which was not often, nor immoderately, he was inclined to be tender;
but not weakly so, nor lachrymose. I know not how it might have been with every body, but he
paid me the compliment of being excited to his very best feelings; and when I rose late to go
away, he would hold me down, and say with a look of intreaty, “Not yet.” Then it
was that I seemed to talk with the proper natural Byron as he ought to
have been; and there was not a sacrifice I could not have made to keep him in that temper; and
see his friends love him, as much as the world admired. Next morning it was all gone. His
intimacy with the worst part of mankind had got him again in its chilling crust; and nothing
remained but to despair and joke.
In his wine he would volunteer an imitation of somebody, generally of
Incledon. He was not a good mimic in the detail; but
he could give a lively broad sketch; and over his cups his imitations were good-natured, ![]()
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which was seldom the case at other times. His
Incledon was vocal. I made pretensions to the oratorical part; and
between us, we boasted that we made up the entire phenomenon. Mr.
Mathews would have found it defective; or rather, he would not; for had he been
there, we should judiciously have secreted our pretensions, and had the true likeness. We just
knew enough of the matter, to make proper admirers.
Good God! The mention of this imitation makes me recollect under
what frightful circumstances of gaiety we returned from performing an office more than usually
melancholy on the seashore. I dare allow myself only to allude to it. But we dined and drank
after it,—dined little, and drank much. Lord Byron had not shone
that day, even in his cups. For myself, I had bordered upon emotions which I have never
suffered myself to indulge, and which foolishly as well as impatiently render calamity, as
somebody termed it, “an affront, and not a misfortune.“ The barouche drove rapidly
through the forest of Pisa. We sang, we laughed, we shouted. I even felt
a gaiety the more shocking, because it was real and a relief. What the coachman thought of us,
God knows; but he helped to make up a ghastly trio. He was a good-tempered fellow, and an
affectionate husband and father; yet he had the reputation of having offered his master to
knock a man on the head. I wish to have no such waking dream again. It was worthy of a German
ballad.
This servant his Lordship had exalted
into something wonderfully attached to him, though he used to fight hard with the man on some
points. But alive as he was to the mock-heroic in others, he would
commit it with a strange unconscious gravity, where his own importance was concerned.
Another servant of his, a great baby of a fellow, with a florid face and huge whiskers, who,
with very equivocal symptoms of valour, talked highly about Greece and fighting, and who went
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strutting about in a hussar dress, and a sword by his side, gave
himself, all on a sudden, such ludicrous airs at the door, as his Lordship’s porter, that
notice was taken of it. “Poor fellow!” said Lord Byron,
“he is too full of his attachment to me. He is a sort of Dolabella! ” Thus likening a great simpleton
of a footman to the follower of Antony!
“Have you seen my three helmets?” he inquired one day,
with an air between hesitation and hurry. Upon being answered in the negative, he said he would
show them me, and began to enter a room for that purpose, but stopped short, and put it off to
another time. The mock-heroic was a little too strong for him. These three helmets he had got
up in honour of his going to war, and as harbingers of achievement. They were of the proper
classical shape, gilt, and had his motto, “Crede Byron,” upon them. One was for
himself, and the two others were destined to illustrate the heads of the Count Pietro and Mr.
Trelawney, who, I believe, declined the honour. I saw a specimen
afterwards—I never heard any more of them.
It is a problem with the uninitiated, whether lords think much of their
titles or not; whether the fair sound is often present to their minds. Some of them will treat
the notion with contempt, and call the speculation vulgar. You may set these down in particular
for thinking of them often. The chance is, that most of them do, or what is a title worth? They
think of them, as beauties think of their cheeks. Lord Byron, as M. Beyle guessed so well, certainly thought a great deal of his.
I have touched upon this point before; but I may add, that this was one of the reasons why he
was so fond of the Americans, and thought of paying them a visit. He concluded, that having no
titles, they had the higher sense of them; otherwise they were not ![]()
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a
people to his taste. He thought them shrewd, inasmuch as they were money-getters; but vulgar,
and to seek on all other points, and “stubborn dogs.” All their patriotism, in his
mind, was nothing but stubbornness. He laughed at them, sometimes to their faces: which they
were grateful enough to take for companionship and a want of pretence. The homage of one or two
of them, however, he had reason to doubt, whether he did or not. I could mention one who knew
him thoroughly, and who could never sufficiently express his astonishment at having met with so
unpoetical a poet, and so unmajestic a lord. Those who only paid him a short visit, or
communicated with him from a distance, seemed as if they could not sufficiently express their
flattered sense of his greatness; and he laughed at this, while he delighted in it. Receiving
one day a letter from an American, who treated him with a gravity of respect, at once stately
and deferential: “Now,” said he, “this man thinks he has hit the point to
a nicety, and that he has just as proper a notion of a lord as is becoming on both sides;
whereas he is intoxicated with his new correspondent.” I will not mention what he
said of some others, not Americans, who thought themselves at a great advantage with the
uninformed. But so minute was his criticism in these matters, that the most accomplished
dedicators would have had reason to dread him, had they known all the niceties of knowledge,
human and patrician, which he expected, before he could allow the approach to him to be
perfect.
You were not to suppose, however, on your part, that he was more in earnest
than he ought to be upon these matters, even when he was most so. He was to think and say what
he pleased; but his hearers were to give him credit, in spite of himself, only for what squared
with their notions of the graceful. Thus he would make confessions of vanity, or ![]()
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some other fault, or of inaptitude for a particular species of writing,
partly to sound what you thought of it, partly that while you gave him credit for the humility,
you were to protest against the concession. All the perversity of his spoiled nature would then
come into play; and it was in these, and similar perplexities, that the main difficulty of
living with him consisted. If you made every thing tell in his favour, as most people did, he
was pleased with you for not differing with him, but then nothing was gained. The reverse would
have been an affront. He lumped you with the rest; and was prepared to think as little of you
in the particular, as he did of any one else.* If you contested a claim, or allowed him to be
in the right in a concession, he could neither argue the point nor really concede it. He was
only mortified, and would take his revenge. Lastly, if you behaved neither like his admirers in
general, nor in a sulky or disputatious manner, but naturally, and as if you had a right to
your jest and your independence, whether to differ with or admire, and apart from an eternal
consideration of himself, he thought it an assumption, and would perplex you with all the airs
and humours of * The following is an extract from a letter of Lord
Byron’s to Mr. Shelley. It
will puzzle the adorers of his early narrative writing; and furnish a subject of
pleasing doubt to the public, whether to admire such cavalier treatment of them or
not:— “The only literary news that I have heard of the plays
(contrary to your friendly augury), is that the Edinburgh R. has attacked them all three—as
well as it could:—I have not seen the article.—Murray writes discouragingly, and says that
nothing published this year has made the least impression, including, I presume,
what he has published on my account also.—You see what it is to throw pearls
to swine.—As long as I wrote the exaggerated nonsense which has corrupted the
public taste, they applauded to the very echo; and now that I have composed within
these three or four years some things which should ‘not willingly be let
die,’—the whole herd snort and grumble, and return to wallow in
their mire.—However, it is fit I should pay the penalty of spoiling them, as
no man has contributed more than me in my earlier compositions to produce that
exaggerated and false style.—It is a fit retribution that any really
classical production should be received as these plays have been
treated.” |
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an insulted beauty. Thus nobody could rely, for a comfortable
intercourse with him, either upon admissions, or non-admissions, or even upon flattery itself.
An immeasurable vanity kept even his adorers at a distance; like Xerxes enthroned, with his
millions a mile off. And if, in a fit of desperation, he condescended to come closer and be
fond, he laughed at you for thinking yourself of consequence to him, if you were taken in; and
hated you if you stood out, which was to think yourself of greater consequence. Neither would a
knowledge of all this, if you had made him conscious, have lowered his self-admiration a jot.
He would have thought it the mark of a great man,—a noble capriciousness,—an
evidence of power, which none but the Alexanders and
Napoleons of the intellectual world could venture
upon. Mr. Hazlitt had some reason to call him “a
sublime coxcomb.” Who but he (or Rochester perhaps,
whom he resembled) would have thought of avoiding Shakspeare, lest he should be thought to owe him any thing? And talking of
Napoleon, he delighted, when he took the additional name of Noel, in
consequence of his marriage with an heiress, to sign himself N. B.; “because,”
said he, “Bonaparte and I are the only public persons whose
initials are the same.”
I have reason to think, that the opinions I entertained of breeding and
refinement puzzled him extremely. At one time he would pay me compliments on the
score of manners and appearance; at another, my Jacobinical friends had hurt me, and I had
lived too much out of the world. He was not a good judge in either case. His notion of what was
gentlemanly in appearance was a purely conventional one, and could include nothing higher. And
what was essentially unvulgar, he would take for the reverse, because the polite vulgar did not
practise it. I have no doubt he had a poorer opinion of me, from the day that he met me
carrying an old painting, which I had picked up. He had beguiled me ![]()
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formerly by bringing parcels of books under his arm; but I now concluded that he had not
ventured them in the public eye. His footman must have brought them to the door. For my part,
having got rid of some fopperies which I had at that time, I was not going to commence others
which I had never been guilty of. I had seen too much of the world for that; not omitting the
one that he chose for his arbiter.
Lord Byron knew nothing of the Fine Arts, and did not affect to care for
them. He pronounced Rubens a dauber. The only pictures I
remember to have seen in his rooms (with the exception of the Italian family pictures, that
remained in the houses which he occupied) were a print of Jupiter and Antiope, and another of his
little daughter, whom he always mentioned with pride.
Pope, before he spoke of Handel, applied to Arbuthnot to know
whether the composer really deserved what was said of him. It was after making a similar
inquiry, respecting Mozart, that Lord
Byron wrote the passage in his notes to Don Juan, giving him the preference to Rossini. Rossini was his real favourite. He liked his dash
and animal spirits. All the best music, he said, was lively:—an opinion, in which few
lovers of it will agree with him. Mr. Hazlitt, who is a
connoisseur in the spirit of contradiction, may think that he said this out of spleen against
some remark to the contrary; but in this, as in other instances, the critic is misled by his
own practice. It was not difficult to discern the occasions on which Lord
Byron spoke out of perversity; nor when it was that he was merely hasty and
inconsequential; nor at what times he gave vent to an habitual persuasion; that is to say,
translated his own practice and instinct into some sudden opinion. Such was the case in the
present instance. I never knew him attempt any air but a lively one; and he was fondest of such
as were the most blustering. You associated with it the idea of a stage-tyrant, or captain of
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banditti. One day he was splenetic enough on the subject of music.
He said that all lovers of music were effeminate. He was not in good humour, and had heard me,
that morning, dabbling on a piano-forte. This was to provoke me to be out of humour myself; but
I was provoked enough not to oblige him. I was ill, with an internal fever preying upon me, and
full of cares of all sorts. He, the objector to effeminacy, was sitting in health and wealth,
with rings on his fingers, and baby-work to his shirt; and he had just issued, like a sultan,
out of his bath. I was nevertheless really more tranquil than he, ill and provoked as I was. I
said that the love of music might be carried to a pitch of effeminacy, like any other pleasure
but that he would find it difficult to persuade the world, that Alfred, and Epaminondas, and Martin Luther, and Frederick the
Second, all eminent lovers of music, were effeminate men. He made no answer. I
had spoilt a stanza in “Don Juan.”
Speaking of “Don
Juan,” I will here observe that he had no plan with regard to that poem; that he
did not know how long he should make it, nor what to do with his hero. He had a great mind to
make him die a Methodist—a catastrophe which he sometimes anticipated for himself. I said
I thought there was no reason for treating either his hero or himself so ill. That as to his
own case, he would find himself mustering up his intellectual faculties in good style, as the
hour came on, and there was something to do,—barring drugs and a bit of delirium; and
with regard to Don Juan, he was a good, careless,
well-intentioned fellow, (though he might not have liked to be told so in the hearing of every
body); and that he deserved at least to be made a retired country gentleman, very speculative
and tolerant, and fond of his grandchildren. He lent an ear to this, and seemed to like it; but
after all, as he had not himself died or retired, and wanted experience to draw upon, the
termination of the ![]()
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poem would have depended on what he thought the
fashionable world expected of it. His hero in this work was a picture of the better part of his
own nature. When the author speaks in his own person, he is endeavouring to bully himself into
a satisfaction with the worse, and courting the eulogies of the “knowing.”
This reminds me of the cunning way in which he has spoken of that
passion for money in which he latterly indulged. He says, in one of his most
agreeable, off-hand couplets in “Don
Juan,” after telling us what a poor inanimate thing life has become for him—
“So for a good old gentlemanly vice, I think I shall take up with avarice.” |
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This the public were not to believe. It is a specimen of the artifice noticed in another
place. They were to regard it only as a pleasantry, issuing from a generous mouth. However, it
was very true. He had already taken up with the vice, as his friends were too well aware; and
this couplet was at once to baffle them with a sort of confession, and to secure the public
against a suspicion of it. It was curious to see what mastery he suffered the weakest passions
to have over him; as if his public fame and abstract superiority were to bear him out
privately, in every thing. He confessed that he felt jealous of the smallest accomplishments.
The meaning of this was, that supposing every one else, in all probability, to feel so, you
were to give him credit for being candid on a point which others concealed; or if they were
not, the confession was to strike you as a piece of extraordinary acknowledgment on the part of
a great man. The whole truth of the matter was to be found in the indiscriminate admiration he
received. Those who knew him, took him at his word. They thought him so little above the
weakness, that they did not care to exhibit any such accomplishment before him. We have ![]()
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been told of authors who were jealous even of beautiful women, because
they divided attention. I do not think Lord Byron would have entertained a
jealousy of this sort. He would have thought the women too much occupied with himself. But he
would infallibly have been jealous, had the beautiful woman been a wit, or drawn a circle round
her pianoforte. With men I have seen him hold the most childish contests for superiority; so
childish, that had it been possible for him to divest himself of a sense of his pretensions and
public character, they would have exhibited something of the conciliating simplicity of
Goldsmith. He would then lay imaginary wagers; and
in a style which you would not have looked for in high life, thrust out his chin, and give
knowing, self-estimating nods of the head, half nod and half shake, such as boys playing at
chuck-farthing give, when they say, “Come; I tell you what now.” A fat dandy
who came upon us at Genoa, and pretended to be younger than he was, and
to wear his own hair, discomposed him for the day. He declaimed against him in so deploring a
tone, and uttered the word “wig” so often, that my two eldest boys, who were in the
next room, were obliged to stifle their laughter.
His jealousy of Wordsworth and others,
who were not town-poets, was more creditable to him, though he did not indulge it in the most
becoming manner. He pretended to think worse of them than he did. He had the modesty one day to
bring me a stanza, intended for “Don
Juan,” in which he had sneered at them all, adding, with respect to one of them,
that nobody but myself thought highly of him. He fancied I should put up with this, for the
sake of being mentioned in the poem, let the mention be what it might; an absurdity, which
nothing but his own vanity had suggested. I told him, that I should be unable to consider the
introduction of such a stanza as any thing but an affront, and that he ![]()
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had better not put it in. He said he would not, and kept his word. I am now sorry I did not let
it go; for it would have done me honour with posterity, far from what he intended. He did not
equally keep his word, when he promised me to alter what he had said respecting the cause of
Mr. Keats’s death. But I speak more of this
circumstance hereafter. For Southey he had as much
contempt as any man can well have for another, especially for one who can do him an injury. He
thought him a washy writer, and a canting politician; half a mercenary, and half a moral
coxcomb. He was sadly out, however, when he compared his generosities with those of the Lake
poet, and gave himself the preference. Mr. Southey, from all that I have
heard, is a truly generous man, and says nothing about it. Lord Byron was not a generous man; and, in what he did, he contrived
either to blow a trumpet before it himself, or to see that others blew one for him. I
speak of his conduct latterly. What he might have done, before he thought fit to put an end to
his doubts respecting the superiority of being generous, I cannot say; but if you were to
believe himself, he had a propensity to avarice from a child. At Harrow,
he told me, he, would save up his money, not as other boys did, for the pleasure of some great
purchase or jovial expense, but in order to look at it and count it. I was to believe as much
of this, or in such a manner, as to do him honour for the confession; but, unluckily, it had
become too much like the practice of his middle age, not to be believed entirely. It was too
obvious a part of the predominant feature in his character,—which was an indulgence of
his self-will and self-love united, denying himself no pleasure that could add to the intensity
of his consciousness, and the means of his being powerful and effective, with a particular
satisfaction in contributing as little as possible to the same end in others. ![]()
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His love of notoriety was superior even to his love of money; which is
giving the highest idea that can be entertained of it. But he was extremely anxious
to make them go hand in hand. At one time he dashed away in England and got into debt, because
he thought expense became him; but he looked to retrieving all this, and more, by marrying a
fortune. When Shelley lived near him in Switzerland, he
appeared to be really generous, because he had a generous man for his admirer, and one whose
influence he felt extremely. Besides, Mr. Shelley had money himself, or
the expectation of it; and he respected him the more, and was anxious to look well in his eyes
on that account. In Italy, where a different mode of life, and the success of Beppo and Don Juan, had
made him conclude that the romantic character was not necessary to fame, he shocked his
companion one day, on renewing their intimacy, by asking him, whether he did not feel a real
respect for a wealthy man, or, at least, a greater respect for the rich man of the company,
than for any other? Mr. Shelley gave him what Napoleon would have called “a superb no.” It is true, the same
question might have been put at random to a hundred Englishmen; and all, if they were honest,
might have answered “Yes;” but these would have come from the middling ranks, where
the possession of wealth is associated with the idea of cleverness and industry. Among the
privileged orders, where riches are inherited, the estimation is much more equivocal, the
richest man there being often the idlest and stupidest. But
Mr. Shelley had as little respect for the possession or
accumulation of wealth under any circumstances, as Lord Byron had the
reverse; and he would give away hundreds with as much zeal for another man’s
comfort, as the noble Lord would willingly save a guinea even in securing his pleasures.
Perhaps, at one period of his residence ![]()
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there, no man in Italy,
certainly no Englishman, ever contrived to practise more rakery and economy at one and the same
time. Italian women are not averse to accepting presents, or any other
mark of kindness; but they can do without them, and his Lordship put them to the
test. Presents, by way of showing his gratitude, or as another mode of interchanging delight
and kindness between friends, he had long ceased to make. I doubt
whether his fair friend, Madame Guiccioli, ever
received so much as a ring or a shawl from him. It is true, she did not require it.
She was happy to show her disinterestedness in all points unconnected with the pride of her
attachment; and I have as little doubt, that he would assign this as a reason for his conduct,
and say he was as happy to let her prove it. But to be a poet and a wit, and to have had a
liberal education, and write about love and lavishment, and not to find it in his heart, after
all, to be able to put a friend and a woman upon a footing of graceful comfort with him in so
poor a thing as a money-matter,—these were the sides of his character, in which love, as
well as greatness, found him wanting, and in which it could discern no relief to its wounded
self-respect, but at the risk of a greater mortification. The love of money, the pleasure of
receiving it, even the gratitude he evinced when it was saved him, had not taught him the only
virtue upon which lovers of money usually found their claims to a good construction:—he
did not like paying a debt, and would undergo pestering and pursuit to avoid it. “But
what,” cries the reader, “becomes then of the stories of his making presents of
money and manuscripts, and his not caring for the profits of his writings, and his giving
10,000l. to the Greeks?” He did care
for the profits of what he wrote, and he reaped a great deal: but, as I have observed
before, he cared for celebrity still more; and his presents, such as they were, were
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judiciously made to that end. “Good heavens!” said a
fair friend to me the other day, who knew him well,—“if he had but foreseen that
you would have given the world an account of him! What would he not have done to cut a figure
in your eyes!” As to the Greeks, the present of 10,000l. was first of all well trumpeted to the world: it then became a loan of 10,000l.; then a loan of 6000l.; and he told me, in one of his incontinent fits of communication and
knowingness, that he did not think he should “get off under
4000l.” I know not how much was lent after all; but I have
been told, that good security was taken for it; and I was informed the other day, that the
whole money had been repaid. He was so jealous of your being easy upon the remotest points
connected with property, that if he saw you ungrudging even upon so small a tax on your
liberality as the lending of books, he would not the less fidget and worry you in lending his
own. He contrived to let you feel that you had got them, and would insinuate that you had
treated them carelessly, though he did not scruple to make marks and dogs’-ears in
your’s. O Truth! what scrapes of portraiture have you not got me into!
I believe there did exist one person to whom he would have been generous, if
she pleased; perhaps was so. At all events, he left her the bulk of his property, and always
spoke of her with the greatest esteem. This was his sister, Mrs.
Leigh. He told me she used to call him “baby Byron!” It was easy to
see, that of the two persons, she had by far the greater judgment: I will add, without meaning
to impeach her womanhood, the more masculine sense. She has recorded him on his tomb as the
author of “Childe Harold,” which was
not so judicious; but this may have been owing to a fit of affectionate spleen at “Don Juan,” which she could not bear, and (I
was told) would never speak of. She thought he had committed his dignity in it. I believe she
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was the only woman for whom he ever entertained a real respect; a
feeling, which was mixed up perhaps with something of family self-love. The only man he
professed to entertain a real friendship for, was Lord
Clare. I conclude that his Lordship may be excepted from the number of friends
whom he “libelled all round.”
His temper was not good. Reading one day in Montaigne the confession of that philosopher and
“Seigneur,” that a saddle not well fastened, or the flapping of a leather against
his boot, would put him out of sorts for the day, he said it was his own case; and he seemed to
think it that of every body else of any importance, if people would but confess it; otherwise
they were dull or wanted vigour. For he was always mistaking the subtlety of that matter, and
confounding patience with weakness, because there was a weak patience as well as a strong one.
But it was not only in small things that he was “put out.” I have seen the
expression of his countenance on greater occasions, absolutely festered with
ill-temper,—all the beauty of it corrugated and made sore,—his voice at the same
time being soft, and struggling to keep itself in, as if on the very edge of endurance. On such
occasions, having no address, he did not know how to let himself be extricated from his
position; and if I found him in this state, I contrived to make a few remarks, as serious as
possible, on indifferent subjects, and so come away. An endeavour to talk him out of it, as a
weakness, he might have had reason to resent:—sympathy would probably have drawn upon you
a discussion of matters too petty for your respect; and gaiety would have been treated as an
assumption, necessary to be put down by sarcasms, which it would have been necessary to put
down in their turn. There was no living with these eternal assumptions and inequalities. When
he knew me in England, independent and able to do him service, he never ven-![]()
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tured upon a raillery. In Italy, he soon began to treat me with it; and
I was obliged, for both our sakes, to tell him I did not like it, and that he was too much in
earnest. Raillery, indeed, unless it is managed with great delicacy, and borne as well by him
that uses it as it is expected to be borne by its object, is unfit for grown understandings. It
is a desperate substitute for animal spirits; and no more resembles them, than a jostle
resembles a dance. Like boys fighting in sport, some real blow is given, and the rest is
fighting in earnest. A passing, delicate raillery is another matter, and may do us both a good
and a pleasure; but it requires exquisite handling. You can imagine it is Sir Richard Steele, or Garth, or any other good-natured wit, who is not in the habit of objecting. My
friend Charles Lamb has rallied me, and made me love him
the more. So has Mr. Shelley. But in a man of more
doubtful candour or benevolence, in Addison for
instance, with his natural reserve and his born parsonism, you would
begin to suspect the motive to it; and in the case of Swift or Johnson, it no doubt much
oftener produced awkward retaliations, than biographers have thought fit to record.
If Lord Byron had been a man of address, he would
have been a kinder man. He never heartily forgave either you or himself for his
deficiency on this point; and hence a good deal of his ill-temper, and his carelessness of your
feelings. By any means, fair or foul, he was to make up for the disadvantage; and with all his
exaction of conventional propriety from others, he could set it at nought in his own conduct in
the most remarkable manner. He had an incontinence, I believe unique, in talking of his
affairs, and showing you other people’s letters. He would even make you presents of them;
and I have accepted one or two that they might go no farther. But I have mentioned this before.
If his five-hundred confidants, by a retinence as remarkable as his laxity, had ![]()
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not kept his secrets better than he did himself, the very devil might
have been played with I know not how many people. But there was always this saving reflection
to be made, that the man who could be guilty of such extravagances for the sake of making an
impression, might be guilty of exaggerating or inventing what astonished you; and indeed,
though he was a speaker of the truth on ordinary occasions,—that is to say, he did not
tell you he had seen a dozen horses, when he had seen only two,—yet, as he professed not
to value the truth when in the way of his advantage, (and there was nothing he thought more to
his advantage than making you stare at him,) the persons who were liable to suffer from his
incontinence, had all the right in the world to the benefit of this consideration.
His superstition was remarkable. I do not mean in the ordinary sense, because
it was superstition, but because it was petty and old-womanish. He believed in the ill-luck of
Fridays, and was seriously disconcerted if any thing was to be done on that frightful day of
the week. Had he been a Roman, he would have startled at crows, while he made a jest of augurs.
He used to tell a story of somebody’s meeting him, while in Italy, in St.
James’s-street. The least and most childish of superstitions may, it is
true, find subtle corners of warrant in the greatest minds; but as the highest pictures in
Lord Byron’s poetry were imitations, so in the smallest of his
personal superstitions he was maintained by something not his own. His turn of mind was
material egotism, and some remarkable experiences, had given it a compulsory twist the other
way; but it never grew kindly or loftily in that quarter. Hence his taking refuge from uneasy
thoughts, in sarcasm, and trifling, and notoriety. What there is of a good-natured philosophy
in “Don Juan” was not foreign to his
wishes; but it was the commonplace of the age, repeated with an air of ![]()
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discovery by the noble Lord, and as ready to be thrown in the teeth of those from whom he took
it, provided any body laughed at them. His soul might well have been met in St.
James’s-street, for in the remotest of his poetical solitudes it was
there. As to those who attribute the superstition of men of letters to infidelity, and then
object to it for being inconsistent, because it is credulous, there is no greater inconsistency
than their own; for as it is the very essence of infidelity to doubt, so according to the
nature it inhabits, it may as well doubt whether such and such things do not exist, as whether
they do: whereas, on the other hand, belief in particular dogmas, by the very nature of its
tie, is precluded from this uncertainty, perhaps at the expense of being more foolishly
certain.
It has been thought by some, that there was madness in his composition. He
himself talked sometimes as if he feared it would come upon him. It was difficult in his most
serious moments, to separate what he spoke out of conviction, and what he said for effect. In
moments of ill-health, especially when jaded and overwrought by the united effects of
composition, and drinking, and sitting up, he might have had nervous misgivings to that effect;
as more people perhaps are accustomed to have, than choose to talk about it. But I never saw
any thing more mad in his conduct, than what I have just been speaking of; and there was enough
in the nature of his position to account for extravagances in him, that would not have attained
to that head under other circumstances. If every extravagance of which men are guilty, were to
be pronounced madness, the world would be nothing but the Bedlam which
some have called it; and then the greatest madness of all would be the greatest rationality;
which, according to others, it is. There is no end to these desperate modes of settling and
unsettling every thing at a jerk. There was great perversity and self-will in Lord
Byron’s composition. It ![]()
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arose from causes which it
would do honour to the world’s rationality to consider a little closer, and of which I
shall speak presently. This it was, together with extravagant homage paid him, that pampered
into so regal a size every inclination which he chose to give way to. But he did not take a
hawk for a handsaw; nor will the world think him deficient in brain. Perhaps he may be
said to have had something, in little, of the madness which was brought upon the Roman emperors
in great. His real pretensions were mixed up with imaginary ones, and circumstances contributed
to give the whole a power, or at least a presence in the eyes of men, which his temperament was
too feeble to manage properly. But it is not in the light of a madman that the world will ever
seriously consider a man whose productions delight them, and whom they place in the rank of
contributors to the stock of wit. It is not as the madman witty, but as the wit, injured by
circumstances considered to be rational, that Lord Byron is to be
regarded. If his wit indeed would not have existed without these circumstances, then it would
only show us that the perversest things have a tendency to right themselves, or produce their
ultimate downfal: and so far, I would as little deny that his Lordship had a spice of madness
in him, as I deny that he had not every excuse for what was unpleasant in his composition;
which was none of his own making. So far, also, I would admit that a great part of the world
are as mad as some have declared all the rest to be; that is to say, that although they are
rational enough to perform the common offices of life, and even to persuade the rest of mankind
that their pursuits and passions are what they should be, they are in reality but half rational
beings, contradicted in the very outset of existence, and dimly struggling through life with
the perplexity sown within them.
To explain myself very freely. I look upon Lord Byron as
an ![]()
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excessive instance of what we see in hundreds of cases every day;
namely, of the unhappy consequences of a parentage that ought never to have existed,—of
the perverse and discordant humours of those who were the authors of his being. His father was a rake of the wildest description; his mother a violent woman, very unfit to improve the offspring of
such a person. She would vent her spleen by loading her child with reproaches; and add, by way
of securing their bad effect, that he would be as great a reprobate as his father. Thus did his
parents embitter his nature: thus they embittered his memory of them, contradicted his beauty
with deformity, and completed the mischances of his existence. Perhaps both of them had a
goodness at heart, which had been equally perplexed. It is not that individuals are to blame,
or that human nature is bad; but that experience has not yet made it wise enough. Animal beauty
they had at least a sense of. In this our poet was conceived; but contradiction of all sorts
was superadded, and he was born handsome, wilful, and lame. A happy childhood might have
corrected his evil tendencies; but he had it not; and the upshot was, that he spent an uneasy
overexcited life, and that society have got an amusing book or two by his misfortunes. The
books may even help to counteract the spreading of such a misfortune; and so far it may be
better for society that he lived. But this is a rare case. Thousands of such mistakes are round
about us, with nothing to show for them but complaint and unhappiness.
Lord Byron’s face was handsome; eminently so in some
respects. He had a mouth and chin fit for Apollo;
and when I first knew him, there were both lightness and energy all over his aspect. But his
countenance did not improve with age, and there were always some defects in it. The jaw was too
big for the upper part. It had all the wilfulness of ![]()
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a despot in it.
The animal predominated over the intellectual part of his head, inasmuch as the face altogether
was large in proportion to the skull. The eyes also were set too near one another; and the
nose, though handsome in itself, had the appearance when you saw it closely in front, of being
grafted on the face, rather than growing properly out of it. His person was very handsome,
though terminating in lameness, and tending to fat and effeminacy; which makes me remember what
a hostile fair one objected to him, namely, that he had little beard; a fault which, on the
other hand, was thought by another lady, not hostile, to add to the divinity of his
aspect,— imberbis Apollo
. His lameness was only in one foot, the left; and it was so little visible
to casual notice, that as he lounged about a room (which he did in such a manner as to screen
it) it was hardly perceivable. But it was a real and even a sore lameness. Much walking upon it
fevered and hurt it. It was a shrunken foot, a little twisted. This defect unquestionably
mortified him exceedingly, and helped to put sarcasm and misanthropy into his taste of life.
Unfortunately, the usual thoughtlessness of schoolboys made him feel it bitterly at
Harrow. He would wake, and find his leg in a tub of water. The
reader will see in the correspondence at the end of this memoir, how he felt it, whenever it
was libelled; and in Italy, the only time I ever knew it mentioned, he did not like the
subject, and hastened to change it. His handsome person so far rendered the misfortune greater,
as it pictured to him all the occasions on which he might have figured in the eyes of company;
and doubtless this was a great reason, why he had no better address. On the other hand, instead
of losing him any real regard or admiration, his lameness gave a touching character to both.
Certainly no reader would have liked him, or woman loved him, the less, for the thought of this
single contrast ![]()
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to his superiority. But the very defect had taught him
to be impatient with deficiency. Good God! when I think of these things, and of the common
weaknesses of society, as at present constituted, I feel as if I could shed tears over the most
willing of my resentments, much more over the most unwilling, and such as I never intended to
speak of; nor could any thing have induced me to give a portrait of Lord
Byron and his infirmities, if I had not been able to say at the end of it, that
his faults were not his own, and that we must seek the causes of them in mistakes common to us
all. What is delightful to us in his writings will still remain so, if we are wise; and what
ought not to be, will not only cease to be perilous, but be useful. Faults which arise from an
exuberant sociality, like those of Burns, may safely be
left to themselves. They at once explain themselves by their natural candour, and carry an
advantage with them; because any thing is advantageous in the long run to society, which tends
to break up their selfishness. But doctrines, or half-doctrines, or whatever else they may be,
which tend to throw individuals upon themselves, and overcast them at the same time with scorn
and alienation, it is as well to see traced to their sources. In comparing notes, humanity gets
wise; and certainty the wiser it gets, it will not be the less modest or humane, whether it has
to find fault, or to criticise the fault-finder.
I believe if any body could have done good to Lord
Byron, it was Goethe and his correspondence.
It was a pity he did not live to have more of it. Goethe might possibly
have enabled him, as he wished he could, “to know himself,” and do justice to the
yearnings after the good and beautiful inseparable from the nature of genius. But the danger
was, that he would have been influenced as much by the rank and reputation of that great man,
as by the reconciling noble-![]()
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ness of his philosophy; and personal
intercourse with him would have spoilt all. Lord Byron’s nature was
mixed up with too many sophistications to receive a proper impression from any man: and he
would have been jealous, if he once took it in his head that the other was thought to be his
superior.
Lord Byron had no conversation, properly speaking. He could not
interchange ideas or information with you, as a man of letters is expected to do. His thoughts
required the concentration of silence and study to bring them to a head; and they deposited the
amount in the shape of a stanza. His acquaintance with books was very circumscribed. The same
personal experience, however, upon which he very properly drew for his authorship, might have
rendered him a companion more interesting by far than men who could talk better; and the great
reason why his conversation disappointed you was, not that he had not any thing to talk about,
but that he was haunted with a perpetual affectation, and could not talk sincerely. It was by
fits only that he spoke with any gravity, or made his extraordinary disclosures; and at no time
did you well know what to believe. The rest was all quip and crank, not of the pleasantest
kind, and equally distant from simplicity or wit. The best thing to say of it was, that he knew
playfulness to be consistent with greatness; and the worst, that he thought every thing in him
was great, even to his vulgarities.
Mr. Shelley said of him, that he never made you laugh to
your own content. This, however, was said latterly, after my friend had been disappointed by a
close intimacy. Mr. Shelley’s opinion of his natural powers in every
respect was great; and there is reason to believe, that Lord Byron never
talked with any man to so much purpose as he did with him. He looked upon him as his most
ad-![]()
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miring listener; and probably was never less under the influence
of affectation. If he could have got rid of this and his title, he would have talked like a
man; not like a mere man of the town, or a great spoilt schoolboy. It is not to be concluded,
that his jokes were not now and then very happy, or that admirers of his Lordship, who paid him
visits, did not often go away more admiring. I am speaking of his conversation in general, and
of the impression it made upon you, compared with what was to be expected from a man of wit and
experience.
He had a delicate white hand, of which he was proud; and he attracted
attention to it by rings. He thought a hand of this description almost the only mark
remaining now-a-days of a gentleman; of which it certainly is not, nor of a lady either; though
a coarse one implies handiwork. He often appeared holding a handkerchief, upon which his
jewelled fingers lay imbedded, as in a picture. He was as fond of fine linen, as a quaker; and
had the remnant of his hair oiled and trimmed with all the anxiety of a Sardanapalus.
The visible character to which this effeminacy gave rise appears
to have indicated itself as early as his travels in the Levant, where
the Grand Signior is said to have taken him for a woman
in disguise. But he had tastes of a more masculine description.
He was fond of swimming to the last, and used to push out to a good distance in the
Gulf of Genoa. He was also, as I have before mentioned, a good
horseman; and he liked to have a great dog or two about him, which is not a habit observable in
timid men. Yet I doubt greatly whether he was a man of courage. I suspect, that personal
anxiety, coming upon a constitution unwisely treated, had no small hand in hastening his death
in Greece.
The story of his bold behaviour at sea in a voyage to
Sicily, and of ![]()
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Mr. Shelley’s timidity, is just
reversing what I conceive would have been the real state of the matter, had the voyage taken
place. The account is an impudent fiction. Nevertheless, he volunteered voyages by sea, when he
might have eschewed them: and yet the same man never got into a coach without being afraid. In
short, he was the contradiction his father and mother had made him. To lump together some more
of his personal habits, in the style of old Aubrey, he
spelt affectedly, swore somewhat, had the Northumbrian burr in his speech, did not like to see
women eat, and would merrily say that he had another reason for not liking to dine with them;
which was, that they always had the wings of the chicken.
For the rest,
“Ask you why Byron broke through every rule? ’Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool.” |
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He has added another to the list of the Whartons and
Buckinghams, though his vices were in one respect more
prudent, his genius greater, and his end a great deal more lucky. Perverse from his birth,
educated under personal disadvantages, debauched by ill companions, and perplexed between real
and false pretensions, the injuries done to his nature were completed by a success, too great
even for the genius he possessed; and as his life was never so unfortunate as when it appeared
to be most otherwise, so nothing could happen more seasonably for him, or give him what he
would most have desired under any other circumstances, than his death.
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A variety of other recollections of Lord Byron have been
suggested to me by the accounts of him hitherto published; which I accordingly proceed to
notice. They are for the most part ludicrously erroneous; but the examination of them will
furnish us with the truth. They may be divided into five classes:—those which really
contain something both true and new respecting him; those that contain two or three old truths
vamped up in a popular manner to sell; thirdly, criticisms upon his genius, written with more
or less good faith; fourthly, compilations containing all that could be scraped together
respecting him, true or false; and fifthly, pure impudent fictions.
Of the last class is an account of a pretended Voyage to Sicily, which does not contain
a word of truth from beginning to end.
Of the fourth, the most conspicuous, is the Life and Times, a jovial farrago in four
volumes, written by as unparticular a fellow as one should wish to see with a pair of scissors
in his hand.
The best among the third is a volume by Sir
Egerton Brydges, entitled “Letters on the Character and Poetical Genius of Lord
Byron.” They are more elaborate than profound; but not without insight into
the matter; nor uninformed, perhaps, by a certain sympathy with the aristocratical as well as
poetical pretensions of the noble Bard; a feeling, of which his Lordship would have been
quicker to accept the compliment, than acknowledge the reciprocity.
A “Life and
Genius” by “Sir Cosmo Gordon,”
stood at the head of the second class, and was a quick, little, good-humoured supply for the
market, remarkable for the conscientiousness of its material.
The only publications that contained any thing at once new and true
respecting Lord Byron were, Dallas’s Recollections, the Conversations by ![]()
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Captain Medwin, and Parry’s and Gamba’s Accounts of his Last Days. A good deal of the real
character of his Lordship, though not always as the writer viewed it, may be gathered from
most of them; particularly the first two. Parry’s is a more respectable book, than the vulgar
character of the man, and his pot-house buffoonery upon Mr.
Bentham, would lead us to suppose; and Conte Pietro Gamba
is ever the gentleman, worthy of all credit. The frontispiece to Mr.
Parry’s book presents us with a whole-length figure of Lord
Byron, very like his usual style of dress and appearance, after he had grown
thin again. This portrait of him for his latter days (though rather in general aspect than
countenance), the portrait of him by Phillips for his
younger, and a full-length silhouette published by Ackermann, for the turn of his expression and figure when at the fattest,
exhibit the three resemblances of him the most to be relied on. But “the Major’s
book” is that of an humble retainer, grateful for condescension; and Conte
Pietro modestly professes to be nothing but an adherent.
Dallas, who was a sort of lay-priest, errs from
being half-witted. He must have tired Lord Byron to death with blind
beggings of the question, and solemn mistakes. The wild poet ran against him, and scattered
his faculties. To the last he does not seem to have made up his mind, whether his Lordship
was Christian or Atheist. I can settle at least a part of that dilemma. Christian he
certainly was not. He neither wrote nor talked, as any Christian, in the ordinary sense of
the word, would have done: and as to the rest, the strength of his belief probably varied
according to his humour, and was at all times as undecided and uneasy, as the lights
hitherto obtained by mere reason were calculated to render it. The companion, of whom he used to entertain the highest opinion,
he took to be an Atheist. It is remarkable, that ![]()
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when at college, he
had a similar respect for another. But I have known him,
after the death of the former, and when he suspected that the opinion had not been reciprocal,
reproach his memory with the doctrine.
The following is an instance of the way in which Mr. Dallas takes things for granted. “In vain,” says he,
“was Lord Byron led into the defiance of the sacred writings;
there are passages in his letters and in his works, which show, that religion might have
been in his soul. Could he cite the following lines and resist the force of them? It is
true that he marks them for the beauty of the verse, but no less for the sublimity of the
conceptions; and I cannot but hope, that had he lived, he would have proved another
instance of genius bowing to the power of truth.
“Dim as the borrow’d beams of moon and stars, To lonely, wandering, weary travellers, Is reason to the soul.—And as on high Those lonely fires discover but the sky, Not light us here so reason’s glimmering ray Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way, But guide us upwards to a better day. And as those nightly tapers disappear, When day’s bright lord ascends our hemisphere, So pale grows reason at religion’s sights, So dies, and so dissolves, in supernatural light.” |
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Now, the passage here quoted was quoted by myself, one of those
“atheists and scoffers,” according to Mr.
Dallas, by whom “he was led into defiance of the sacred
writings.”
There is a favourite and foolish saying, “Ex uno disce omnes.” which if Mr. Dallas were to be judged by, according to his fondness for
such sayings, his whole book would be pronounced a parcel of lies.
Captain Medwin quotes the saying, and makes an unfounded
asser-![]()
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tion at one and the same time. “To give the
reader,” says he, “an idea of the stories circulated and believed about
Lord Byron, I will state one, as a specimen of the rest, which I heard
the other day:—
“‘Lord Byron, who is an execrably bad horseman, was riding
one evening in the Brenta, spouting ‘Metastasio;’ a Venetian, passing in a close carriage
at the time, laughed at his bad Italian; upon which his Lordship horsewhipped him, and
threw a card in at the window. The nobleman took no notice of the
insult.’—Lord Byron was an excellent horseman, never
read a line of ‘Metastasio,’ and pronounced Italian like a
native. He must have been remarkably ingenious to horsewhip in a close carriage, and find a
nobleman who pocketed the affront! But ‘ex uno disce omnes.’” Vol. i.
Now that Lord Byron was an excellent horseman, is
true:—that he never read a line of “Metastasio,“ I doubt, and should have doubted it, if he had said as
much; for “Metastasio,” an author who had obtained great
reputation with no very great genius, was precisely the sort of man to pique his curiosity;
and he must often have fallen in his way:—but that he “pronounced Italian like
a native,” I deny without fear of contradiction from any body who is at all
acquainted with that language. He spoke it fluently; but his pronunciation was as poor as
that of most foreigners, and worse than many; for he scarcely opened his mouth.
Captain Medwin afterwards tells us that the noble
poet’s “voice had a flexibility, a variety in its tones, a power and a
pathos beyond any I ever heard.”—This is harmless, as an instance of
the effect which his Lordship had upon the Captain; but from all I ever heard of it, I
should form a very different judgment. His voice, as far as I was acquainted with it,
though not incapable of loudness, nor unmelodious in its deeper tones, was confined. He
made an effort when he threw it out. ![]()
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The sound of it in ordinary,
except when he laughed, was petty and lugubrious. He spoke inwardly, and slurred over his
syllables, perhaps in order to hide the burr. In short, it was as
much the reverse of any thing various and powerful, as his enunciation was of any thing
articulate. But I do not know what passion might have made of it. The few times I saw
him in a state of violent emotion, it was lower than ever. I can imagine him to have been loud
in reciting a declamation, if he chose to be so. He could be loud in singing; and he then threw
out at once the best and most powerful tones in his voice; but the effect (as I have already
described it) had always an appearance of effort. After all, there may have been greater
strength in his voice than it was my chance to witness; but the “flexibility,” and
the “variety of tones,” to say nothing of the pathos, were assuredly in the
Captain’s imagination.
Next comes a mistake on a more painful subject. Captain Medwin, in describing the exhumation of Mr.
Shelley’s remains, has the following passage:—“As a
foreground to this picture appeared as extraordinary a group. Lord
Byron and Mr. Trelawney were seen
standing over the burning pile, with some of the soldiers of the guard; and Leigh
Hunt, whose feelings and nerves could not carry him through the scene of
horror, lying back in the carriage,—the four post-horses ready to drop with the
intensity of the noon-day sun.”—I have noticed
this misrepresentation before; but will now do it more at length. Lord
Byron was not present at this scene. He went thither in his carriage, and I
was with him; but on getting out, he studiously kept aloof, and was not in sight while the
melancholy proceedings took place. With regard to myself, “my feelings and
nerves,” however they might have suffered, would have carried me through any thing
where Mr. Shelley was concerned, provided it was necessary. They have
never failed me on very ![]()
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trying occasions. But my assistance was not
required: there were no feelings on the part of another to stand by and soothe; and though
I did not “lie back” in the carriage (as is here made out for the sake of
effect) I confess I could not voluntarily witness the thrustings in of the spade and
pick-axe upon the unburied body of my friend, and have the chance of hearing them strike
against his skull, as they actually did. Let me hasten from this subject.
According to Captain Medwin,
Lord Byron said of the writer of these pages, that till his voyage
to Italy “he had never been ten miles from St.
Paul’s.” The Captain ought to have known enough of his
Lordship’s random way of talking, not to take for granted every thing that he chose
to report of another. I had never been out of England before; except, when a child, to the
coast of France; but I had perhaps seen as much of my native country as most persons
educated in town. I had been in various parts of it, from Devonshire
to Yorkshire. I merely mention these things to show what idle
assertions Lord Byron would repeat, and how gravely the Captain would
echo them. If every body, mentioned in his work, were thus to deduct from it what he knows
to be untrue, how much would remain uncontradicted?
“I never met with any man who shines so much in
conversation.” That is to say, Captain
Medwin never met before with a lord so much the rage. He says a little
afterwards, that his Lordship “never showed the author,” and that he
“prided himself most on being a man of the world and of
fashion;”—that is, to Captain Medwin; whose
admiration, he saw, ran to that side of things. The truth is, as I have before stated, that
he had no conversation in the higher sense of the word, owing to these perpetual
affectations; but instead of never showing the author on that account, he never forgot it.
His sole object was ![]()
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to have an admiring report of himself, as a
genius, who could be lord, author, or what he pleased. “His anecdotes,” says Medwin,
“of life and living characters were inexhaustible.” This was true, if
you chose to listen to them, and to take every thing he said for granted; but every body
was not prepared, like the Captain, to be thankful for stories of the noble Lord and all
his acquaintances, male and female.
“Miserly in trifles—about to lavish
his whole fortune on the Greeks” (oh happy
listener!)—“to-day diminishing his stud—to-morrow taking a large
family under his roof” (an ingenious nicety!), or giving
1000l. for a yacht” (a sum, which it very much
surprised and vexed him to be charged); “dining for a few Pauls when
alone—spending hundreds when he has friends; ‘Nil fuit unquam,’ says the gallant and classical
officer, ’sic impar sibi.’”
But enough of Captain Medwin, his
Latin, and his Greek, for he also quotes Greek, or as he pleasantly says, “adapts”
it; that is—But I shall be making a sorry criticism of a sorry matter. I had the pleasure of a visit from Captain Medwin
while “under the roof” that he speaks of, and should have said nothing
calculated to disturb the innocence of his politesse, had he
abstained from repeating scandals respecting women, and not taken upon himself to criticise
the views and “philosophy” of Mr.
Shelley; a man, of whom he was qualified to know still less, than of
Lord Byron. With the cautions here afforded to the reader, a
better idea of his Lordship may certainly be drawn from his account, than from any other.
The warmth of his homage drew out the noble Bard on some points, upon which he would have
been cautious of committing himself with a less wholesale admirer; and not the least
curious part of the picture, is this mutual excess of their position.
An article was
written in “The Westminster
Review” (Medwin says ![]()
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by Mr. Hobhouse) to show that the Conversations were altogether unworthy of
credit. There are doubtless many inaccuracies in the latter; but the spirit remains
undoubted; and the author of the criticism was only vexed, that such was the fact. He
assumes, that Lord Byron could not have made this or that statement to
Captain Medwin, because the statement was erroneous or untrue; but
an anonymous author has no right to be believed in preference to one who speaks in his own
name: there is nothing to show that Mr. Hobhouse might not have been
as mistaken about a date or an epigram as Mr. Medwin; and when we find
him giving us his own version of a fact, and Mr. Medwin asserting that
Lord Byron gave him another, the only impression left upon the
mind of any body who knew his Lordship is, that the fault most probably lay in the loose
corners of the noble Poet’s vivacity. Such is the impression made upon the author of
an unpublished Letter to Mr.
Hobhouse, which has been shown me in print; and he had a right to it. The
reviewer, to my knowledge, is mistaken upon some points, as well as the person he reviews.
The assumption, that nobody can know any thing about Lord Byron but
two or three persons who were conversant with him for a certain space of time, and whom he
spoke of with as little ceremony, and would hardly treat with more confidence than he did a
hundred others, is ludicrous; and can only end, as the criticism has done, in doing no good
either to him or them.
The Life and Times is a curiosity, if it were only for the title. But in contradicting its heap of
absurdities, some more truths will come out for the reader’s entertainment. The
title-page is worth repeating, as a full-blown specimen of this sort of flourishing.
“The LIFE, WRITINGS, OPINIONS, and TIMES of the RIGHT HON. GEORGE
GORDON NOEL BYRON, LORD ![]()
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BYRON; including in its most extensive
biography, anecdotes and memoirs of the lives of the most eminent and eccentric, public and
noble characters and courtiers of the present polished and enlightened Age and Court of His
Majesty King George the Fourth. In the course of the biography are also separately given
copious recollections of the lately destroyed MS., originally intended for posthumous
publication, and entitled, Memoirs of My Own Life and Times. By the Right Hon. Lord Byron. “Crede Byron.” Motto of the Byron Family.
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“I have, in this rough work, shaped out a man Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug With amplest entertainment: my free drift Halts not particularly, but moves itself In a wide sea of wax; no levelled malice Infects one comma in the course I hold, But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth-on Leaving no track behind. ”—Shakspeare,
Timon of Athens.
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By an English Gentleman in the Greek Military Service, and Comrade of his Lordship.
Compiled from documents, and from long personal acquaintance. In Three Volumes. Vol. I. London:
Matthew Iley, Somerset-street, Portman-square. mdcccxxv.
There may be, it seems, enthusiasm in every thing, even in bookmaking. Here
is a volume of sound in the very types. They are proportioned to the impression intended to be
made on the sensorium. We have the LIFE, WRITINGS, OPINIONS, and TIMES of LORD BYRON very
large: then, after a proper crowd of polite capitals, comes the “age and court of his majesty king george the fourth,” with its greatness
reasonably diminished; then “Copious Recollections of the lately destroyed MS.,
originally intended for posthumous publication,” very nice and particular; then a
flourish of ![]()
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trumpets again in the size of the “RIGHT HON. LORD
BYRON,” a title to admiration which cannot be too often repeated; after which, we have
the Family Motto, asking and receiving trust; then the motto from Shakspeare, really good; and the procession is closed by the Author in person,
who in modest capitals announces himself as an English Gentleman, a comrade of his Lordship,
who has judiciously entered into the Greek military service, and, of course, does not like to
be known. It would have hurt the feelings of the Sultan; whom he is doubtless intimate with,
his Lordship once having spoken with that personage. The writer concludes with informing us, if
we choose to overhear him (for his types on this occasion amount to a whisper), that all this
world of information is “compiled from authentic documents, and from long personal
acquaintance;” and our gratitude is consummated by the information, that we have three
volumes of it; a whole paradise of knowledge.
In a preface full of mistakes, and containing a remarkable mixture of
credulity and puffing, the author discusses the right of Lord
Byron’s connexions to suppress his Memoirs; which right he denies. He says
that his Lordship was public property; that the work was bequeathed by him to posterity; and
that no consideration for individuals ought to have withheld it. Nobody will agree with this,
except persons eager at all hazards to gratify their curiosity, and there is one hazard which
would stop even them;—viz. the mention of themselves. The present times have remarkably
exemplified the old remark, that there are none so furious at being spoken ill of, as those who
delight to hear scandal of others. The question respecting the publication of Lord
Byron’s autobiography is, not whether posterity, that is, our
children’s children, might not have a right to it, if it could be recovered, which it
probably ![]()
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will; but whether the curiosity of his contemporaries had a
right to be gratified at the hazard of wounding the feelings and risking the peace and
reputation of the living; all this, too, on the ipse dixit of a man of violent impulses, who had a false opinion of human nature, and little cared
what feelings he wounded, where his own mortification, or wit, or love of display, was
concerned. In the course of time, when the author becomes better known, and a calmer estimate
can be formed both of his merits and mistakes, readers may take up such a book with no hurt at
all to the feelings of living persons, and perhaps no injustice to those who are dead. Their
knowledge of the writer would qualify what he said of them; and on intimate acquaintance with
himself, beyond what he intended (for such is the inevitable betrayal of all autobiographies),
might repay the world for any injustice hazarded on that score. They would have the benefit
accruing from the anatomy of an extraordinary individual. For I hold it to be certain, that an
exposition of the real feelings and opinions of any body superior to the ordinary run of
mankind, would serve to strike out new lights for the conduct and improvement of the human
race, even, perhaps, from what were considered his errors. The errors of one generation may
turn out to be the virtues of another; just as the virtue of one (religious intolerance for
example) may turn out to be an error. I should like to know every particle of the lives of
Plato and Socrates,
of Brutus and of Cæsar and Marcus Aurelius, of Dante and
Ariosto, of such men as Mazarin and De Retz, of Henry the Fourth,
of Chaucer, Shakspeare, and Milton, of Pope and Swift; and the
more particularly, the more they differed in their conduct from the times they lived in. It is
said, that great men resemble little men in their passions; but perhaps they are not so much
mistaken as little men in the nature of them, and in the ![]()
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greater or
less quantity of judgment with which they are treated by society; and, at all events, we are
more likely to be told something by the passions that accompany the study of a man’s
self, than by those of ignorance and imitation.
“The subject of these Memoirs,” says our author of the
“Life and Times,” “was descended from a family,
which was renowned from the period of the Conquest; several illustrious persons having figured
in the history of England under the name of Buron, Biron, or Byron, which they assumed indiscriminately.”
This reminds me of the disputes respecting Lord
Byron’s pronunciation of his name; some maintaining that he called it
Bŷron, with a short y, others Bӯron with a long one. The
truth is, he pronounced it both ways, but in general the former. Captain Medwin says, that in speaking of Lady
Byron, he pronounced it “Byrn;” but this is a mistake. The
Captain’s ear might not have discerned the second vowel, but it was discernible to
others. “Byrn” is Bŷron, pronounced shortly, with the
northern burr. But he called himself Byron sometimes; and the Italians
always called him so; at least, as nearly as they could. They made it Bairon, as I have noticed in Madame Guiccioli.
Lord Byron was proud of his name, and he had reason to be so. He was
also not unwilling to be reminded of his namesake in Shakspeare, and used to mention with pleasure the quotation attributed to
Mr. Bowles:
“Biron they call him; but a merrier man Within the limits of becoming mirth, I never knew. His eye begets occasion for his wit, While his apt tongue, conceit’s expositor,” &c. |
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I quote from memory, and cannot go on; but the passage was not applicable.
Lord Byron was sometimes witty in conversation, often ![]()
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merry, oftener commonplace. Conversation, as I have said more than
once, was by no means his talent; and none would have thought it so, who had been used to
better.
Our author gives us to understand, that Lord Byron did
not succeed so well in making love, as ladies succeeded in making love to him. This is true;
for reasons which have been explained. But they do not apply to his early love for his cousin
Miss Chaworth, which was that of an imaginative boy
taking a boyish impulse for a serious passion, and fancying himself bound to be silent and
sorrowing. He would have been in love with any other girl that happened to be near him, and
have lost her by the same mistake. It was the Author’s first
error,—a mistake out of book. But he imagined the passion, or has since shown that he
could imagine it, beautifully, (see his poem of the “Dream”); and if the lady had been kind, she might probably
have warmed his heart into real love, and saved him (as he suspected she might) many a cruel
mistake afterwards. As to his literature being in the way, our author is sadly out in his
ponderings on that matter:—
“It is a weakness,” (he tells us,) “peculiar to the
geniuses of imagination, both male and female, to fancy that they must be themselves the
objects of that passion which they so fervently describe, whatever may be their personal
defects. Literary persons are, however, from their very pursuits, the least qualified to
shine in the courts of love. One captain in the Guards will do more execution in an hour
with his small shot (small talk), than all the literati of the Chapter Coffee
House can effect with their critical great guns in twelve months. Sappho
was reduced to take a flying leap to get rid of her disappointed passion. Pope was jeered at by Lady Mary
Wortley Montague, and fascinating Jack
Musters was too much for poor Lord Byron. De gustibus nil disputandum. ![]()
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In fact, a wise man in love becomes a mere, fool; and a Cymon becomes intelligent in the presence of his beloved Iphigène.”
What sort of lovers the Literati of the “Chapter Coffee
House” may be, it is impossible to say; but that their literature (if
worth any thing) is no obstruction to their love-making, may be seen by the histories of the
literati of other coffee-houses, to wit, the Steeles,
and Congreves, and Vanbrughs of
old. Vanbrugh was a Captain of the Guards, and a
favourite of the ladies; but do we suppose that he was less a favourite than any other Captain,
because he could talk better, and because his small shot was good as well as small? Sappho was a great poetess; but she might have set her heart upon
a person incapable of understanding her, or have exhibited a violence and self-will which
belonged to her temperament and not to her wit. One example, or ten, says nothing against the
universal opinion in favour of the union of wit and gallantry, and of the effect that even the
reputation of wit has upon the fair sex. Pope was
deformed, and his letters to Lady Mary partook of the
crookedness of which he was conscious. He had not the heart to give his talents fair play, and
write in a straightforward manner; and she, being surrounded by handsome wits, and gay fellows
about Court, with all their faculties fresh upon them, was not likely to select for her gallant
the least handsome of them all, a little misgiving invalid. Lord Byron did
not fail, because he was wise or witty, or because a wise man is a fool in love, still less
because every fool has the luck of Cymon; but because he
was splenetic and moody, and very different from what a man of his wit ought to have been. Does
our speculative friend think that the Rochesters and
Buckinghams always failed in their gallantry?
In the note to p. 98, vol. I. a suspicion is expressed, that Lord
Byron and Mr. Hobhouse planned and
executed the insurrection of the Greeks, ![]()
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nearly twenty years back! The
subtle nod in Italics by which this discovery is conveyed to us, is really agreeable, and gives
one a favourable opinion of the author’s goodnatured credulity.
“Circumstances,” says Lord Byron, “of little consequence to mention,* led Mr. Hobhouse and myself into that country, before we
visited any other part of the Ottoman dominions; and, with the exception of Major Leake, then officially resident at
Joannina, no other Englishmen have ever advanced beyond the
capital into the interior, as that gentleman very lately assured me. Ali Pacha was at that time (1809) carrying on war against
Ibrahim Pacha, whom he had driven to
Berat, a strong fortress, which he was then besieging. On
our arrival at Joannina, we were invited to
Tepelene, his Highness’s birthplace, and favourite
Serai, only one day’s journey from Berat; at this juncture
the Vizier made it his headquarters.” The author adds, in a note,
“It seems extremely probable, that this expression was made use of to conceal the
real purport of the journey, as Ali Pacha’s subsequent
rupture with the Porte was the signal for the breaking out of the Greek insurrection;
if so, the journey was of the utmost consequence to the cause of
Greece.”
“A most material question,” says he, “now
arises:—What could induce two young men of independent fortune to take such a journey
by sea and land, and to brave the wilds and banditti of Albania, as
rude a country as the interior of Africa, to pay a visit to an infidel, a barbarian, a
monster, execrable for every species of villany, and reeking with blood?“
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* These “circumstances of little consequence,” in which the
author has found something of the “utmost consequence,” were probably nothing
more than a fit of caprice, or the pursuit of a pretty face, or the chances attendant upon
navigation. He seems to think that his hero could not put on his hat, but the universe had
something to do with it.
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Why, because he was a monster and a show, and because
others had travelled in Greece before, especially men from the Universities. Has not our friend
learnt, from his intimacy with courts and people of fashion, that nothing is such a godsend to
gentlemen full of ennui and fond of notoriety, as a spectacle of any sort, the more monstrous
the better? And does he not know, that if Ali had come to
the British metropolis, he would have been the rage for the season, and asked out by every
great person that could venture on such a liberty, to see how such a very decapitating person
drank his coffee and displayed his diamonds? Not to know this, argues him, I fear, still more
unknown than he wishes to be. Joannina, the Pacha’s capital, was
accounted the metropolis of Modern Greece: and besides, Lord Byron, though
young, had had experience enough to begin to philosophize; and he probably thought, that many a
meek personage whom he had known in England would have been as savage as
Ali, had he been born and bred in the same manner; for
Ali was a very soft-spoken gentleman, as quiet as Claverhouse; and, for aught we know, would have made a capital
writer in a Scotch magazine.
“Thus,” quoth our friend, after quoting a couple of stanzas from
Childe Harold,—“thus did this
apostle of liberty preach to the Greeks through eighteen
stanzas, and it should seem that neither his planning nor his preaching was in
vain.” Poor Lord Byron! He would have been a very unwilling
apostle, had he known he was also to be a martyr. He had as little real regard for liberty as
Alfieri, or any other proud man of rank; but he had
an impatience of any despotism not his own; he had also a great love of fame; and even in that
is to be found a link with the social affections, very capable of being turned to good account,
if circumstances are favourable.
Speaking of an alleged residence in the island of
Mytilene, which ![]()
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Lord Byron denied in a public letter, the author says, “The
account is circumstantial; the denial in the letter is positive. If the latter were really
written by Lord Byron, he abominated falsehood, and implicit confidence should be placed in
his assertion.” Of the residence in the island of Mytilene
I know nothing; but as to the abomination of falsehood, Lord Byron once
gave a list of the Englishmen he had seen since he left England, and told the public that the
list was complete. Mr. Shelley’s name was not in
it, and he had seen Mr. Shelley. He had been in habits of intercourse with
him.
The mention of Mr. Nathan, the
composer, at p. 212, reminds me, that I was present one day in
Piccadilly, when that gentleman came to give Lord
Byron a specimen of his “Hebrew
Melodies.” The noble Bard, who was then in the middle of that unpleasant
business about his wife, asked him for the one respecting Herod and Mariamne, which he listened to
with an air of romantic regret. This was a sort of effect that he liked; nor would it have
turned to ill-account, if his rank and worldly connexions could have let him alone. In the very
pretence there was a love of something, that might have become real. Mr.
Nathan had a fine head; and made the grand piano-forte shake like a nut-shell,
under the vehemence of his inspiration.
I remember Polidori also, who is
mentioned at p. 220. He was the son of Polidori, a
teacher of Italian, who made some good translations from Milton. Lord Byron engaged the young Doctor to accompany
him to Greece. He came in one day, and called about him in a strange manner for water and a
towel. Not knowing who he was, I was puzzled to think who it could be, that made himself thus
cavalierly at home. Lord Byron looked disconcerted, but was quite mild and
acquiescent. I have seen him submit in a similar way to others who did not scruple to ![]()
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avail themselves of this weakness. I have known him even hastily
secrete a paper, which he had promised them perhaps not to show. Polidori
and he used afterwards to have loud disputes, as if they were equals. He was a foolish,
boasting fellow, not perhaps without disease in his blood; and came to an impatient end.
Among the hostile criticisms upon Lord Byron, our
author quotes one from “Blackwood’s
Magazine.” The reader remembers the passage in Goldsmith’s “Citizen
of the World,” where a soldier, a prisoner for debt, and a porter, are
deprecating the consequences of a French invasion. The porter says, the French are a parcel of
slaves, fit only to carry burdens; the prisoner, that they have no liberty; and the soldier
wonders what will become of “our religion.”—“May the devil sink me
into flames,” (such, quoth the Citizen of the World, was the solemnity of his
adjuration”)—“may the devil sink me into flames, if I can think, my lads,
what is to become of our religion.” Mr.
Blackwood was agitated in like manner respecting the shocking want of piety and
Christian charity discernible in his Lordship.
“It has been sufficiently manifest,” says he, “that this man is devoid of religion.” (Sir
Walter, by the bye, of “Beacon” fame, must be acquitted of having known any thing of this
passage, where a lord is designated so ignobly.) “At times, indeed,” pursues
Mr. Blackwood, “the power and presence of
the Deity, as speaking in the sterner wakings of the elements, seems to force some
momentary consciousness of their existence into his labouring breast; a spirit in which
there breathes so much of the divine, cannot always resist the majesty of its Maker: but of
true religion, terror is a small part; and of all religion, that founded on mere terror is
the least worthy of such a man as Byron. We may look in vain, through
all his works, for the slightest evidence that his ![]()
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soul had ever
listened to the gentle voice of his oracles. His understanding has
been subdued into conviction by some passing cloud; but his heart has never been touched.
He has never written one line that savours of the spirit of meekness.”
Then follows something about charity, and clay-idols, and, brutal
outrages of all the best feelings; and Mr.
Blackwood, having finished his sermon, retires to count his money, his ribaldry,
and his kicks.
Our book-making and best-of-every-thing-making author puts as much faith in
the celebrated Farewell to Lady Byron, as if he had been one of the numerous
married ladies who wondered how any body could be cruel to the writer of such charming verses.
There never was a greater instance of Lord Byron’s authorship and
love of publicity than that very poem. He sat down to imagine what a husband might say, who had
really loved his wife, to a wife who had really loved him; and he said it so well, that one
regrets he had not been encouraged, when younger, to feel the genuine passion. But the verses
were nothing more. There was no true love on either side, or (without meaning to liken the two
modes of conduct) neither could have behaved to the other as both did afterwards. People may
say bitter things, who love; the things may even be the bitterer at the moment, because they
cannot endure the very dispute that occasions them. Unkind things may be said, precisely
because we do not mean them, and because we like to flatter ourselves with observing their
effect upon the beloved object. But real lovers do not precede their union with a doubting
courtship; still less do they follow it with premature differences, with a hasty separation,
with public libels on one side, and unbroken inattention on the other. It is best, surely, that
there should have been no love in the case; and being no love, it was best that the union
should be put an end ![]()
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to. As to what a man says on his death-bed, we
are first to be certain that he did say it; and next, we are to think what induces him to say
it, and whether it is as likely to be his strength as his weakness. Besides, at that affecting
moment, a man may feel a tenderness towards all whom he is going to leave, especially those
with whom he has been conversant. The writer of the “Life and Times” says, that Lord Byron
in his last moments was frequently bursting forth into most affectionate exclamations of
“My dear wife! my dear child!” Fletcher, in his narrative, says nothing of the epithet bestowed on the former;
and this good-humoured domestic was as believable, I dare say, as any man, when he was not
taking himself for a Leporello. I would not be thought to
speak lightly of such an occasion, or to speak of it without necessity—quite the reverse.
The fact is, that all questions connected with love and marriage are of far deeper concernment,
and will one day be thought so, than to suffer any person who has been deeply struck with them,
to pass over their consideration at any time, out of fear of being mistaken by the vulgar.
A great many stories are related of Lord Byron in the
“Life and Times,” for which there is
no authority; and unluckily, when a reader meets with such as he knows to be untrue, all the
rest go for nothing. In the following account for instance of Madame Guiccioli and her family, there is scarcely a word of truth.
“The Countess of G—
has occasioned some noise both in Italy and England; all the romantic tales of his Lordship
taking her out of a convent are fictions; she is no subject for a nunnery. Her father is at the head of an ancient Roman family much
reduced in its fortunes; he let out his palace for their support, and Lord
Byron by chance occupied it when his daughter was given in marriage to
Count G——, an officer ![]()
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poor in every thing but titles. Lord B—— made the
bride a liberal present of jewels, and in a short time he became the locum tenens of the bridegroom. An amicable
arrangement was made; the Count set off to join the army at Naples,
newly caparisoned, and the Countess remained under the roof of the noble Lord, where her
father acts as regulator of the household. She is a lovely woman, not more than twenty-two
years of age, of a gay, volatile disposition; rides like an Amazon, and fishes, hunts, and
shoots with his Lordship. Nature appears to have formed them for each other. She is beloved
by all the domestics, and is friendly to every one that wants her aid. She speaks English
with propriety, and possesses many accomplishments.”
The author here quoted by our friend of the “Life and Times,” proceeds to give a marvellous account of a
sail from Venice to Ithaca, and of the Countess’s pursuit of her noble lover in a small
boat, in which, with no other company than a boy, she was tossed about for three days and two
nights!
Such are the fictions received into a work professing to be a “full,
true, and particular account.” It is added in a note, that “Count G— was actually with Lord
Byron when he died, and was one of the committee of four persons appointed by
Maurocordato to take care of his property.”
Here Count Pietro Gamba, the brother of the lady, is
confounded with the Cavaliere Guiccioli her husband.
Count Gamba the father was not of a Roman, but a
Ravenna family. For the liberal present or any other present, of
jewels, made by Lord Byron to the bride,—credat Christianus,—for nothing but Christian charity can do
it; and as to the lady’s accomplishments, male as well as female,—hunting, and
shooting, and speaking English,—the writer might as well have said, that the ![]()
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boarding-School young ladies in England all go out hunting every
morning, and speak Latin to the whippers-in.
But intelligent men, in the very act of discrediting fictions respecting
Lord Byron, have shown a tendency to blow up every little spark of
their own fancy into a flame and a lustre. M. Beyle, the
author of some works justly esteemed, a very sprightly and sometimes no unprofound writer, has
given an excellent sketch of Lord Byron, painted from the life, in the
midst of which he introduces the following grotesques:—
“He can speak the ancient Greek, the modern Greek, and the
Arabian.” Of “the Arabian” he did not know a syllable: at least if he
did, I think I should have heard of it during my intercourse with him. Besides, where was he to
pick it up? Probably he knew a few words of the Maltese jargon. Modern Greek he knew more of,
and might have spoken a little, when he was in Greece,—about as much, perhaps, as
ordinary travellers in Italy speak Italian. With the ancient language he was so little
conversant, that I doubt whether he could read “Anacreon” without the help of a dictionary. He had lost it, after he left
Harrow, as I think he somewhere confesses. He was far from familiar
even with any of the Latin writers. It might be said of him with regard to the dead languages,
as it was of Shakspeare (and he would have forgiven the
truth for the sake of the comparison) that he had “little Latin, and less Greek.” I
have little of them myself, having suffered them to slip from me in like manner; but what I do
know, I think I know better than he did; and this is saying nothing either to his advantage or
mine. I mention this, lest the reader, from what I have said of his want of learning, should
receive an undue impression in favour of my own, or think I intended it. Lord
Byron, to the best of my recollection, never quoted an ancient author to me but
once; which, by-the-way, reminds me of a ![]()
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curious evidence of the
childish temper in which he used to indulge himself, to a degree hardly credible. I told him
one day, that his major-domo, Lega, had been quoting
Latin to me. He said, with all the look of a little boy who has missed a piece of flattery or
plum-pudding, “Did he? He never quoted Latin to me.” This was “baby
Byron,” as his sister called him. His mistakes in quantity,—such as his calling
redivīvus, redīvivus—were less evidences perhaps of his want of scholarship,
where the word was as common in poetry. Our villainous way of reading Latin and Greek verses,
with a contempt of short and long that would have made an ancient split his sides, excuses
mistakes of this kind, even in a lover of Horace, not very
learned. In short, it would be difficult, in these days of quotations and indexes, to pronounce
whether a man was a real scholar or not, unless one has lived with him. Mr. Hobhouse, who writes himself A.M., and loaded his
mercurial friend with whole bales of comment, once contended with me, that the accent upon the
word Rimini ought to be upon the second syllable, instead of the
first;—a comfortable piece of information to give a man, who had just been using the word
in public the other way! I had not however been so foolish as to subject myself to the chance
of these good-natured suggestions. I had made surety doubly sure by consulting Lucan, and to him I referred my critic, who was convinced and
happy.*
Our author writes like a man of sense on the mistakes committed by Mr. Bowles during the Pope controversy; but with all due deference to the genius of Mr. Campbell, who, though something better than a critic, has
written a volume of criticism full of beauties,†—and of Lord
Byron,
* “Vicinumque minax invadit Arìminum, ut ignes
Soils Lucifero fugiebant astra relicto.”— Pharsalia, lib.
i. |
|
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who, though an extraordinary person, was no critic at all,—the
only paper that went to the heart of that subject was written by Mr. Hazlitt, in “The London
Magazine.” All the others, like the persons disputing about the cameleon, were
at once right and wrong. Lord Byron thought, or pretended to think, that
people meant to say Pope was no poet; and in justly vindicating him from
that charge, real or supposed, he lost sight of the limits between one kind of poetry and
another. Mr. Bowles, on the other hand, in trying to make out that the two
kinds had nothing in common, confounded materials with the use of them; and forgot the very
soul of poetry he was contending for, in subjecting it to every image it took up. According to
him, Nature did not include Art; and a great poet could not handle his stick or his gloves with
impunity. But see all this question admirably disentangled, and wound up, in the article by
Mr. Hazlitt. As to Pope’s moral character,
Mr. Bowles was ridiculous, and something worse. He there sadly forgot
both his nature and his art: and only ended with proving himself as inferior to
Pope in a social light, notwithstanding his ethics, as he is to him in
the amount of his poetry, notwithstanding his poetics.
It is unnecessary to contradict the numberless idle tales which our author
proceeds to relate respecting Lord Byron’s adventures. Some of the
scenes in which they are laid, his Lordship never beheld; and such of the adventures as have a
foundation in truth, are mixed up with the most ridiculous fables. Every thing which happens to
have come under my own knowledge, is sure to be thus falsified. I do not believe that the
compiler wished to say any thing untrue; but he takes care to doubt only what tells against his
hero, and swallows implicitly every thing else. On both accounts he is repeatedly committing
himself. His scepticism is as warm as his credulity, and gets him into as great mistakes. For
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instance, from denying that the following verses were sent to
Lady Byron (which I believe as little as he does), he
proceeds to abuse what he would otherwise have admired, and discovers that the verses
themselves were not written by Lord Byron, which they certainly were. His
Lordship repeated them to me himself.
“The reader,” says “The Life and Times,” “will recollect, that the marriage of Lord and
Lady Byron took place on the 2d of January, 1815,
and, if we may believe the ‘Literary Gazette,’ his Lordship, on the 2d of January,
1821, sent Lady Byron the following epigram:—
“This day of all hath surely done Its worst to me and you; ’Tis now six years since we were one, And five since we were two.” |
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“The reader,” continues our biographer, “may choose whether he will
believe that Lord Byron could be guilty of so cruel and unmanly an
insult, or that some drivelling scribbler has attempted to palm his own Grub-street wit
upon the proprietor of ‘The Literary Gazette,’ as a genuine effusion of the
noble Bard. Lord Byron once patronized, but ever afterwards turned his
back upon ‘The Literary Gazette,’ which may account
for its enmity.”
Now the epigram is not Grub-street wit, and as the reader has seen, was
really the production of the “noble Bard.” The worst that can be said of it, is the
evidence it affords of the way in which he was accustomed to indulge his petulance on a subject
he had better have let alone, and his carelessness in letting it get abroad. I remember jokes
of his upon others, which I certainly shall not suffer to transpire, and which he used to
defend, by saying that the parties joked in the same manner upon him.
“Now this is worshipful society.” |
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Our author ventures to think that Lord Byron failed in
the drama. His Lordship had a shrewd suspicion of it himself. Speaking one day of a manuscript
tragedy of mine, which in our dearth of books he had asked to read, he said he thought it the
next best thing I had written, to the “Story of
Rimini.” I said, I wished I could think any thing favourable of it, even by
courtesy; but I could not. I was quite sure that I had no faculty for the drama. He reflected
upon this; and observed, in an under-tone between question and
no-question,—“Perhaps I have not succeeded in the drama myself.” I
took advantage of the ambiguity of the tone, to make an answer. Had a stranger been present, he
might have thought his remark a challenge to be candid, and looked upon my silence as not
paying it sufficient honour. I should have thought so once myself; but the time for that
delusion was past. Lord Byron was always acting, even when he capriciously
spoke the truth. He had hampered himself with sophistications, till he could not break through
them; and would have resented the attempt to extricate him, as an assumption of superiority.
At p. 145, vol. ii. is the extraordinary picture I have alluded to
respecting an alleged quarrel of mine with Lord Byron. Our author relates
it in the following easy and assured style:—
“At Pisa,” quoth he, “an
unfortunate difference took place between Lord Byron and Mr. Leigh Hunt, of which the following particulars have been
derived from one of the parties concerned. ‘Parisina’ was considered by Lord Byron as the best
of all his minor poems; in fact it was the only one he ever could be induced to speak of in
company, and when he did so, it was in language that silenced all contradiction: it was so,—and it must be so, seemed to be
the sovereign pleasure of him whose word no man dared to doubt, who wished to retain any
particle of his ![]()
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favour. Mr.
Snelgrove, lieutenant of l’Eclair, was at
Leghorn, and of course a frequent attendant at
Pisa at the time that Mr. Leigh Hunt was
the constant companion of his Lordship. He noticed him on every occasion, and made him at
last so far forget himself, that he considered he had power and ability to criticise the
works of his great benefactor. He presumed to censure ‘Parisina;’ and Mr. Dodd, the Deputy
Consul (formerly clerk to Captain Rowley) traced to
the pen of Leigh Hunt some criticisms that had appeared in the Livourna Gazette and Lucca newspaper. Mr. Hunt ought to have been
aware how jealous an author is of the darling offspring of his muse, and he ought to have
spared the feelings, or, if he pleases, the weaknesses of his friend and benefactor. But
wits, like game cocks, never spare each other. From this time our informant states, that
Lord Byron never saw or spoke to Mr. Leigh
Hunt, or any of his connexions.”
It is worth while to take this grave falsehood to pieces for the sake of the
grave truths with which every particle of it can be set aside.
“At Pisa an unfortunate difference took
place between Lord Byron and Mr. Leigh
Hunt.”
There was no difference.
“The following particulars have been derived from one of the
parties concerned.”
There was no party concerned, except in the invention of the story. Who that
was, I cannot say.
“Parisina was
considered by Lord Byron as the best of all his minor poems; in fact,
it was the only one that he could ever be induced to speak of in company.”
By no means. His companions have heard him speak of the others hundreds of
times.
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“And when he did so, it was in language that silenced all
contradiction: it was so,—and it must
be so, seemed to be the sovereign pleasure of him whose word no man dared to doubt, who
wished to retain any particle of his favours.”
A pretty notion of the tenure by which his friendship was to be held! And a
still prettier specimen of the sort of company that affected to be with him on this occasion!
“Mr. Snelgrove, Lieutenant of l’Eclair,
was at Leghorn, and of course a frequent attendant at
Pisa, at the time that Mr. Leigh Hunt was
the constant companion of his Lordship.”
Why “of course?” Were all the visitors at
Leghorn
duiquitous of necessity? Or did every man who happened to visit
Leghorn at that time, become, as a matter of course, qualified to
know every thing respecting Lord Byron and his friends! If it is meant to be said, that the
story comes from this Mr. Snelgrove, it is here returned
to him, “neat as imported.”
“He (Lord Byron) noticed him (videlicet, myself) on every occasion, and made him at last so far
forget himself, that he considered he had power and ability to criticise the works of his great benefactor!”
The awful darings and “benefactions” I leave in the
reader’s hands: but whatever might have been my “power and ability,” another
thing was wanting to the criticism; to wit, inclination. I am not accustomed to speak ill of
the writings of any body in conversation, and certainly said nothing of them in the instance
alluded to.
“He presumed to censure “Parisina,” and Mr. Dodd, the
Deputy Consul (formerly clerk to Captain Rowley) traced to the pen of
Leigh Hunt some criticisms that had appeared in the Livourna Gazette
and Lucca newspaper.”
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I never before heard of Mr. Snelgrove
the lieutenant, or Mr. Dodd the former clerk; nor did I
ever write any thing about “Parisina,” nor any thing in a foreign paper, nor could any criticisms of mine be
traced to the “Livourna” or Lucca papers, which Lord Byron
himself was not before acquainted with in print. What is remarkable is, that to the best of my
recollection I never even read Parisina, nor is this the only one of
his Lordship’s works, of which I can say as much, acquainted as I am with the others. I
never valued any of his minor poems, with the exception of some of the lyrics, and perhaps
“Lara,” which I recollect thinking
the best of his narratives; and I mention this, because I have also a recollection, that he
agreed with me in that opinion; though it may have been expressed before the appearance of
“Parisina.” Whether he liked “Parisina,” as
they say he did, I cannot tell; nor is it of any consequence. He would have thought it of
little consequence himself, knowing his own versatility that way, and what contradictory
opinions he would utter both of himself and others, a hundred times in a week. But to proceed.
“Mr. Hunt,” quoth our
patron of the “Life and Times,”
“ought to have been aware, how jealous an author is of the darling offspring of his
muse, and he ought to have spared the feelings, or, if he pleases, the weaknesses, of his
friend and benefactor. But wits, like game cocks, never spare each other. From this time, our informant states, that Lord Byron never saw or spoke to
Mr. Leigh Hunt, or any of his connexions!”
“Ex uno,” as the
Captain says, “ disce omnes.” Perhaps, after all, there are no such persons as
Mr. Snelgrove and Mr.
Dodd, (Blackwood, the pious dog, makes
nothing of inventing a few lieutenants); or they may be very respectable people, and know no
more of the story than I did a year and a half ago, when I met with the “Life and Times” by ![]()
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chance. I certainly should not have taken the trouble of contradicting it but for the present
work. Our biographer may have cut it out with his scissors from some other fictitious
narrative, together with the opinions he seems to give upon it; for he is as wonderful an
author in his way as Lord Byron, being a great many other writers besides
himself.
Idle as this story is, it may have been made use of, for aught I know, to
render Lord Byron uneasy in my society. To be sure, he never hinted to me
a syllable of any thing of the sort. He knew, if he did, that he should get at the truth, as
far as I was concerned. But it is not impossible, that, notwithstanding what he knew of me, his
own habit of speaking against his friends might have rendered him doubtful whether
circumstances had not provoked me to do as much for him. At all events, being vicious on that
score, he was naturally suspicious; and if I took no advantage of his weaknesses, others were
not so scrupulous. People came to him from as many quarters as there are foolish and envious
persons, to try and break up our connexion; and they would not stick at a trifle to effect
their purpose.
It would be loss of time, on almost every other subject, to go on
contradicting the heap of absurdities that our compiler has gathered together. But the minutest
details respecting Lord Byron have not yet lost their interest with the
public: it is useful to show how many falsehoods have been told them; and in contradicting this
one publication I contradict twenty others, the scandalous ones included.
Our author has no sooner done with this story, than, as if drunk with
credulity, and resolved to keep it up to the last syllable, he goes on compiling and believing
at a most glorious rate. There is a favourite passage in the Calvinist hymn-books, which tells
the ungodly to stand upon no ceremony in becoming proselytes, not to be ashamed of any ![]()
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contradiction the most barefaced, or to think of waiting to change a
rag of their rascality. “Come wretched, come ragged, come filthy, come bare; You can’t come too filthy; come just as you are.” |
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Just in the same manner our compiler, scissors in hand, calls the gossips and the
anonymous writers about him, proposing not even to cast away their rags when they come, but to
turn them to account, and preserve every particle of them for their mutual honour and
profit;— Come writers on Byron, come liars, come fools; You can’t come too lying:—come, lend us your tools.” |
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The account that follows at p. 146, of Lord
Byron’s residence at Pisa, was probably some direct
invention, made for a magazine at the time, and duly served up hot to the public, after which
our author has it cold for his collation.
“Lord Byron, while at
Pisa, resided near the Leaning Tower, at Signora Dominesia’s, a lady who keeps several small
houses,” &c.
Particular rogue! Lord Byron, while at
Pisa, lived in the Casa Lanfranchi, a palace
in the High Street of that city, called the Lung’Arno. I am not
sure whether he might not have put up at some lodging-house for a night or so.
“With the Grand
Duke Lord Byron was intimate.”
He never exchanged a word with him. He told me he had often been given to
understand that his presence would have been welcome at Court, and that the Grand
Duchess in particular (a princess of the House of Saxony) wished to see him; but
that he had an invincible antipathy to going. I believe his lameness alone gave him a dislike
to appearing at any Court, setting aside the consideration that might have rendered it
unpleasant in Italy, after the connexions he had made with people not in a ![]()
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favour.—Of the story of the banker, which is connected with this
intimacy with the Grand Duke, I know nothing; nor of
twenty others selected with the same confidence; but, as I observed before, the fictions with
which every thing I do know is mixed up and made absurd, hinder one from taking a particle of
any thing else for granted.
“Canova chiselled out four
busts for him.” P. 149.
Canova, to the best of my recollection, never did any
thing for him. It was Bartolini who made his bust, and
very dissatisfied he was with it. He said it made him look old; and could not bear any body to
think it like.
“This second time he fixed his quarters at
Pisa with a Mrs. Wilson,
whose husband had been clerk in a counting-house at Leghorn. With
this old lady he frequently strolled.”
He strolled with nobody. Whenever he went out, it was on horseback, or in a
carriage. He did not like to be seen walking, on account of his lameness; and besides, it would
have put him to bodily pain.
“Lord Byron was every inch an Englishman; a
true-born Briton, of so patriotic a spirit,” &c.
He cared nothing at all for England. He disliked the climate; he disliked
the manners of the people; he did not think them a bit better than other nations: and had he
entertained all these opinions in a spirit of philosophy, he would have been right; for it does
not become a man of genius to “give up,” even to his country, “what is
meant for mankind.” He was not without some of this spirit; but undoubtedly his
greatest dislike of England was owing to what he had suffered there, and to the ill opinion
which he thought was entertained of him. It was this that annoyed him in Southey. I believe if he entertained a mean opinion of the
talents of any body, it was of Southey’s; and he had the greatest
contempt ![]()
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for his political conduct (a feeling which is more common
with men of letters than Mr. Southey fancies);* but he believed that the
formal and the foolish composed the vast body of the middle orders in England; with these he
looked upon Mr. Southey as in great estimation; and whatever he did to
risk individual good opinion,—however he preferred fame and a “sensation,” at
all hazards,—he did not like to be thought ill of by any body of people. Individual
opinion he could dare, could provoke, could put to the most mortifying trials, could childishly
throw away; but after the publication of Beppo
and Don Juan, and the new popularity they gave him
(which I will venture to say was a great surprise to him, and a no less edifying symptom on the
part of the British public), he began to think himself safe again with regard to bodies of
society, and was exceedingly enraged to be waked up out of his dream. He fancied that, in
turning the laugh against Southey, he should have rendered the public
unwilling to hear him; perhaps, have ousted him from the Quarterly Review; forgetting, that all which the public care for on these
occasions, is what the bye-standers care for, when a ring is made for a couple of boxers. He
found that Southey could still write in the “Quarterly,” and read him a lecture; and however sure the Laureat was to make
the lecture an exposure of his own folly and conceit, there were too many hits in it at his
Lordship’s weak points not to distress him sorely, and make him mad with vexation at
having subjected himself to such an antagonist. However, if he had not the last word, he * I know one of the most eminent writers of the day, not implicated
in any violent politics, who looks upon Mr.
Southey as at once a half-witted egotist, and something including every
offence which he is fond of attributing to others. This opinion is not mine, silly as I
hold the Laureat to be in some things, and not half so wise or so good as he takes
himself to be in others;—but it may serve to show him (if any thing can) that he
is not free from as bad a repute with some, as he would cast upon Lord
Byron. |
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had the best. All Southey’s attacks are
commonplaces and fumes of “Malvolio,” compared
with the Vision of Judgment—the most
masterly satire that has appeared since the time of Pope.
Of Lord Byron’s defence of “Cain,” our author says, that “if it
does not wholly exculpate him, it at least proves, that he is less culpable than all the
ancient writers of mysteries; than Milton and
Goëthe;—at all events, that he had no
intention of offending morality, or the tender consciences of timid men.”
Lord Byron’s defence was, that “if ‘Cain’ was blasphemous, ‘Paradise Lost’ was blasphemous.
‘Cain,’“ said he, “was nothing more
than a drama, not a piece of argument. If Lucifer and
Cain speak as the first rebel and the first
murderer may be supposed to speak, nearly all the rest of the personages talk also
according to their character; and the stronger passions have ever been permitted to the
drama.”
This is not sincere. “Cain” was undoubtedly meant as an attack upon the crude notions of the Jews
respecting evil and its origin. Lord Byron might not have thought much
about the matter, when he undertook to write it; but such was his feeling. He was conscious of
it; and if he had not been, Mr. Shelley would not have
suffered him to be otherwise. But the case is clear from internal evidence. Milton, in his “Paradise Lost,” intended
nothing against the religious opinions of his time; Lord Byron did. The
reader of the two poems feels certain of this; and he is right. It is true, the argumentative
part of the theology of Milton was so bad, that a suspicion has crossed
the minds of some in these latter times, whether he was not purposely arguing against himself;
but a moment’s recollection of his genuine character and history does it away.
Milton was as decidedly a Calvinist at the time he wrote “Paradise Lost,” and subject to all the gloomy and degrading
sophistries of his sect, ![]()
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as he certainly altered his opinions
afterwards, and subsided in a more Christian Christianity.
Lord Byron, with a greater show of reason, and doubtless with a
genuine wonder (for he reasoned very little on any thing), asks “what the Methodists
would say to Goethe’s ‘Faust?’ His devil,” says he,
“not only talks very familiarly of heaven, but very familiarly in heaven. What would
they think,” he continues, “of the colloquies of Mephistophiles and his pupil, or the more daring language of the prologue,
which not one of us will venture to translate? And yet this play is not only tolerated and
admired, as every thing he wrote must be, but acted in Germany. Are the Germans then a less
moral people, than we are? I doubt it.”
No: they are not: but they have got beyond us in these speculative matters;
at least, as a nation. It is the case with other nations, to whom we set the example as
individuals. We have something of the practical indecision of first-thinkers about us. We start
a point of knowledge and reformation, and then, out of the very conscience that has forced us
to do it, shrink back from pursuing it through its consequences. Lord
Byron may well question those as to their right of tolerating Goethe, who, without knowing him thoroughly, will put up with
any thing he writes, because he is a foreigner, a great name, and a minister with orders at his
button-hole. But Goethe did not write, as Lord Byron
did, without knowing his subject and himself, or without being prepared with a succedaneum for
the opinions he was displacing,—one, too, that could reconcile those very opinions to the
past condition of society, and even connect them and their very contradictions with the nobler
views by which they are displaced. Lord Byron was a helper in a cause
nobler than he was aware of, and he was not without the comforts of an instinct to that effect;
but his unsubdued and unreflecting passions had not allowed ![]()
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him to be
properly conscious of it. By the same defect be subjected himself to questions which he could
not answer; and because he was not prepared with good arguments, resorted to bad and insincere
ones, which deceived nobody.
The world have been much puzzled by Lord Byron’s
declaring himself a Christian every now and then in some part of his writings or conversations,
and giving them to understand in a hundred others that he was none. The truth is, he did not
know what he was; and this is the case with hundreds of the people who wonder at him. I have
touched this matter before; but will add a word or two, he was a
Christian by education: he was an infidel by reading. He was a Christian by habit; he
was no Christian upon reflection. I use the word here in its ordinary acceptation, and not in
its really Christian and philosophical sense, as a believer in the endeavour and the
universality, which are the consummation of Christianity. His faith was certainly not swallowed
up in charity; but his charity, after all, was too much for it. In short, he was not a
Christian, in the sense understood by that word; otherwise he would have had no doubts about
the matter, nor (as I have before noticed) would he have spoken so irreverently upon matters in
which no Christian of this sort indulges licence of speech. Bigoted Christians of all sects
take liberties enough, God knows. They are much profaner than any devout Deist ever thinks of
being; but still their profanities are not of a certain kind. They would not talk like
Voltaire, or say with Lord
Byron, that upon Mr. Wordsworth’s
shewing, “Carnage must be Christ’s sister.”
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P. 336, vol. ii. “There is no man, nor well educated woman in
Italy, that cannot quote all the finer passages of the favourite author (Dante).” (A great mistake.) “The Guiccioli could repeat almost all the Divine Comedy.”—Three volumes of stern
writing about Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise! Credat Medwin! I remember very well, that his
Lordship’s fair friend was quite horrified at the poem of Andrea di Basso, a writer of a Dantesque order of mind, quoted in “the Indicator.” It was addressed to the
corpse of a proud beauty. Lord Byron showed it her to enjoy her
impatience. She was quite vexed and mortified, and wondered how I could translate so shocking
an author.*
|
Is man, arrayed for mutual slaughter; Yea, Carnage is thy daughter.” |
How poor and wilful, how presumptuous, and at the same time misgiving,—how full
of a pretended right to say the boldest and most shocking things unexplained, in the very
vindication of meekness and humility, and to let us think what we please of it, because he
has might and orthodoxy on his side,—is this sullen ebullition, this thump of a
doubtful fist on a pulpit-cushion, compared with the kindly and noble exposition which
Goethe would have given us of the possible
necessity of past warfare, in one of his transcendant allegories! The more I know of
Goethe, and think of the Lake poets, the more I see how much they
have owed to him, and how ill they have understood it.
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* As Andrea de Basso is not easily
to be met with, the reader is presented with a specimen of what frightened the lady: “Risorga dalla tomba avara e lorda La putrida tua salma, o donna cruda, Or che di spirto nuda E cieca e muta e sorda Ai vermi dai pastura; E da la prima altura Da fiera morte scossa Fai tuo letto una fossa. Notte, continua notte, Ti divora ed inghiotte; E la puzza ti smembra Le si pastose membra, |
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Vol. ii. p. 355. “Byron’s vanity, or to
give it a milder and perhaps more appropriate term, his love of fame, was excessive; but it
was erro-
E ti stai fitta, fitta per dispetto, Come animal immondo al laccio stretto. “Vedrai se ognun di te mettrà paura, E fuggira come garzon la sera Da l’ ombra lunga e nera Che striscia per le mura; Vedrai se a la tua vose Cedran le alme pietose; Vedrai se al tuo invitare Alcun vorrà cascare; Vedrai se seguiranti Le turbe de gli amanti, E se il diii porterai Per dove passerai, O pur se spargerai tenebre e lezzo, Tal che a ti stessa verrai in disprezzo.” |
Rise from the loathsome and devouring tomb, Give up thy body, woman without heart, Now that its worldly part Is over; and deaf, blind, and dumb, Thou servest worms for food, And from thine altitude Fierce death has shaken thee down, and thou dost fit Thy bed within a pit. Night, endless night hath got thee, To clutch and to englut thee; And rottenness confounds Thy limbs and their sleek rounds, And thou art stuck there, stuck there in despite, Like a foul animal in a trap at night. Come in the public path and see how all Shall fly thee, as a child goes shrieking back From something long and black, That mocks along the wall. |
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neous, as well as ungenerous, to attribute to him so inordinate a thirst for it, as to wish
to monopolise it all to himself. It has been stated that he was exorbitantly desirous of
being the sole object of interest, whether in the circle in which he was living, or in the
wider sphere of the world; he could bear no rival; he could not tolerate the person who
attracted attention from himself; he instantly became animated with a bitter interest, and
hated, for the time, every greater or more celebrated man than himself. He carried his
jealousy up even to Buonaparte; and it was the secret
of his contempt of Wellington. It was dangerous for his
friends to rise in the world; if they valued not his friendship more than their own fame,
he hated them. All this is a gross misrepresentation.”
There is a great deal of truth in it.
“Eager as was his appetite for fame, the consciousness of his own
excellence set him above the meanness of envy or jealousy; and he was ever ready to give
every candidate for popularity his due share of merit.”
A mistake, as I have shown before. It is the same with his jealousy. But the
above passages have suggested a farther remark or two. I believe he would not have been so
jealous, had he not taken it for a strength, instead of a weakness, to give way to every thing
in the extreme. He might have allowed it to be a weakness in one sense; but he
See if the kind will stay To hear what thou would’st say; See if thine arms can win One soul to think of sin; See if the tribe of wooers Will now become pursuers; And if where they make way, Thou ’It carry, now, the day; Or whether thou wilt spread not such foul night, That thou thyself shalt feel the shudder and the fright. |
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thought these kind of excesses indicative of greatness; and out of the
concession, the vindication, or whatever else it might be according to circumstances, he
extracted, above all, food for his love of astonishing. Southey hit him rightly there. He did
not care what he did to astonish the world, but then he was shocked if the world did not think
the best of it. He thought they would, because he did it; and was much mortified to discover,
that every body, whose good word he thought worth having, was not of that opinion. He then, in
his spleen, was for thinking himself unjustly diminished in reputation; and so he went on,
between excessive confidence and resenting doubt, playing the spoiled child of fame, and
alternately lording it over the public, or sulking in a corner. I have no doubt he was jealous
at times of every body who interested the world; but as he thought nobody really greater than
himself, he became reconciled the next minute, and could like the favourites of the public, and
relish their works as much as any body, partly because their acceptance of the world reminded
him of his own greater acceptance. For this reason, he was not so jealous of writers whom he
thought popular, as of some, Mr. Wordsworth for
instance, whose claims he could not so well define, and who, he suspected, might turn out some
day or other to be the greater men. In his anxiety, also, to identify his admirers with those
who conferred existing reputation, he was as anxious to acknowledge the merits of all the
writers in fashion, as he was careful of not committing himself with the rest. All his public
praises, it is to be observed, were bestowed upon Scott,
Moore, Campbell, and others, not excepting Rogers; in
short, every body who pleased “the town.” In his eulogies of these, he was warm.
Shelley he did not dare to acknowledge, even as a visitor.
Keats he would never have said a word of, had he not
discovered, that the author of “Hyperion,” besides being dead, was an admirer of “Don
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Juan;” and then he was afraid of committing himself too much. He
must couple his good word with a sarcasm. His latter connexion with myself arose out of
circumstances; out of the secret influence that Shelley had over him, his
immediate quarrel with his publishers and advisers, and his hope of getting money, and striking
a new blow that should astonish both friends and enemies. But this I have explained before.
Connected with me or not, he would never have said a word to my advantage, unless we had
carried all before us, and the côteries themselves had been conquered. He was so cautious
of turning the public attention upon any body whom he considered as not in fashion, and at the
same time so jealous of being thought indebted to any such person for a hint, that he was
disconcerted at the mention I made, in “The
Liberal,” of the Specimen of an intended National Poem, since called, The Monks and the Giants, the precursor of “Beppo” and “Don
Juan.” In vain had “Don Juan” avoided the
mistake which hindered the Specimen from succeeding; in vain it was,
in every sense of the word, a greater work: and in vain, great as it was, were the readers of
Italian aware, that twenty poems existed in that language, which hindered it from being an
original in point of style. He did not like that any thing should be mentioned, which deprived
him of a particle of fame, well or ill grounded. A reference to the Specimen did not please him: I doubt whether he was not sorry that a specimen of
Ricciardetto was given at the same
time; and (with the exception of Coleridge, who had
visited and complimented him, and whom he thought too unpopular to be made otherwise) the only
instance in which I ever knew him to volunteer the mention of an author, not in repute, or to
recommend it to another, was a request he made me to speak well, on the same occasion, of
Lord Glenbervie’s translation of the First Canto
of that poem!—an honour to “The Liberal,” to the
“National Poem,” and to myself, which ![]()
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I was obliged to decline. Lord Glenbervie, who, I
believe, was a very good old gentleman, had done two good things in the eyes of his
recommender; he had quoted a couplet of “Don Juan,” and
written a harmless version.—Such were the little things, which Lord
Byron, in his false estimate of human nature, thought it great to do.
At p. 20, vol. iii. is a pleasant letter from an American,—one of the
best that has been written about Lord Byron, and describing him in one of
his pleasantest moments. I have explained why he was partial to the Americans, and felt at his
ease in their company.
. . . . “I intend to visit America as soon as I can arrange my affairs in Italy. Your
morals are much purer than those of England (there, says the
American, I laughed); those of the higher classes of England are
become very corrupt (I smothered my laugh). Do you think, if I were
to live in America, they would ever make me a Judge of the Ten Pound Court?”
Upon this passage our compiler says, “Whether or not Brother Jonathan intended to quizz Lord
Byron, it seems pretty evident that his Lordship was quizzing Brother Jonathan. His expressing a doubt whether the Americans
would make him a Judge of the Ten Pound Court, conveyed his Lordship’s opinion, that
literary merit met with but very poor encouragement in the United States; and when he talked of
their morals being much purer than those of England, Brother Jonathan
laughed, and well he might; for, take the United States, from northward to southward (we speak
of the coast, not of the inland parts), there is not more licentiousness to be found in any
part of England, not excepting those sinks of vice, the sea-port towns of
Plymouth, Portsmouth, or the
Wapping district of London. A residence of
some years, in all those ![]()
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eastern parts of the United States,
authorizes us to speak pretty decidedly on that point.”
“Now Brother Jonathan” did
not laugh because the Americans were more or less moral than the English, but because
Lord Byron talked about morals at all. He thought it was like a
bon-vivant shaking his head at the gourmands. His Lordship, however, affected nothing on that
point. He might have appeared to over-do the gravity of his ethics, and to intend something
mock-heroical; but he was as little in the habit of defending his own morals, as he did those
of high life in general. He philosophized very ill upon both. On the latter he was accustomed
to express himself very broadly. I have heard him say many times, that for all their
face-making, the morals of the English aristocracy were not a whit better than those of France
or any other nation. At the same time it must be recollected, that he had not been in the habit
of associating with the staider part of it. Nevertheless, I believe it will not be denied by
any body acquainted with the world, that the upper classes are still less restrained in their
conduct on certain points, than their countrymen suppose them to be. The truth is, that
leisure, luxury, and the cultivation of the graces, naturally tend to a relaxation of the
received notions of morality; and hypocrisy being more immediately convenient than
plain-dealing, and therefore in the long run pronounced necessary (which is an opinion
prevalent in more classes than one), it is not considered how far the notions themselves might
be improved and rendered harmless (as in the case, for instance, of a greater facility of
divorce), but education teaching one thing and custom another, the conscience and the heart
become injured; and intrigue in high life has ultimately the same ill effect in producing false
and melancholy impressions of human nature, as tricks of trade do among the middle ![]()
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classes. “But how is the world to be altered?” cry both
classes:—“It is the same as it has ever been, and as it ever will be.” Is it
so? That, I suspect, is more than you or I can tell. Oh profound,
ancient, sure, and unalterable world, that have a history at least four thousand years old, (a
mighty sum in eternity!) and are all as naked as savages, and have not altered a jot of your
customs since polygamy was in fashion, and children were offered to Moloch!—It is as idle to talk of the unalterableness of any thing human,
as it is of the necessity of falsehood. What have become of our own previous
customs,—hundreds of them? Of the conjugal strictness of the Italians? Of the rack and
the inquisition? Of Popery in England, king-worship in France, and hopelessness in South
America? There is a sect among us (the Moravians), whose tradesmen will not tell a lie upon any
consideration, even about a stocking or a Dutch doll. These people do not get a jot the less
money than other tradesmen. It is possible, though not very likely, considering the rarity of
the thing, that they may be slower in getting it; but they are sure, for so is the purchaser;
and they do not spoil, by the way, the enjoyments they look to, because they retain that lively
sense of their own worth, which continues them in a good opinion of others and of existence.
But I digress.—“Lord Byron,” says the author of the
”Thousand and One Byronian bites,” vol. iii. p. 36, “was wandering, during
the autumn of the year 1822, on the eastern shores of Italy, without any settled
determination where to take up his winter quarters, when chance brought him into the town
of Vado, and the Blossom, British sloop-of-war, into the bay, where
she anchored. The captain landed, and as he entered the hotel, met with Lord
Byron, and recognized him through the disguise of a mountain farmer, with a
fowling-piece under his arm. ![]()
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They were old friends, and the
meeting on both sides was cordial and sincere. Captain
Stewart spent several days on the mountains with his friend, who lodged at a
farm-house, perfectly incog. and attended only by one Italian
servant.
“The Blossom, it was intended, should remain for some months at
Genoa to protect the British maritime rights, and proceed to
Smyrna in the Spring with a convoy. Lord Byron agreed to accompany and
pass the winter in the same place in the society of his newly-found friend; they arrived at
Genoa without accident, and his Lordship fixed himself in one
wing of an ancient palace, situated in that part of the city called the
‘Mount of Albaro,’ distant from the noise of the
port and disagreeable effluvia of the markets.”
Not a word of truth in this. He was living quietly at
Albaro, as little wandering, or able to wander, as need be; but
studying, it is true, how he might contrive to wander. Our compiler is in one of his highest
states of the believing, in this part of his work. He proceeds to extract from a magazine one
of the few letters about Lord
Byron that are worth any thing; and then undertakes to convict it of a series of
mistakes, by a series of the most extraordinary mistakes of his own. The letter (to complete
the curiosity of it) appeared in “Blackwood’s
Magazine,”—a strange place in which to recognize my old schoolfellow who wrote it;—but he is a good fellow, and
has a right to his universalities. What is more curious, and shows the absorbing effect which
Lord Byron’s position in society had upon all classes, is, that
one of the few remarks which his visitor has recorded, and which he looks upon as an evidence
of his Lordship’s aristocracy, was made by myself. It is the one upon Cobbett.
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“From the cause of the Spaniards,” says the writer (whom by the way I had introduced to Lord B.,)
“the conversation directed itself to the cause of the Greeks, and the state paper of
the Holy Alliance upon this subject also was brought upon the carpet. Cobbett’s name was introduced, and the aristocratic
poet’s observation was too striking to be forgotten. ‘I should not like to
see Cobbett presiding at a revolutionary green-table, and to be
examined by him; for, if he were to put ten questions to me, and I should answer nine
questions satisfactorily, but were to fail in the tenth—for that he would send me
to the lantern.
”
The following passage is added here, both because it touches upon a point
which has excited attention, and because it refers to a body of men who have given rise to less
of the odium theologicum than any other priesthood on record.
“Lord Byron then turned to me, and asked,
‘are you not afraid of calling upon such an excommunicated heretic as myself?
If you are an ambitious man, you will never get on in the Church after this.’
I replied that he was totally mistaken, if he fancied there was any such jealous or
illiberal spirit at home; and he instantly interrupted me, by saying, ‘Yes, yes,
you are right—there is a great deal of liberal sentiment among Churchmen in
England, and that is why I prefer the Established Church of England to any other in the
world. I have been intimate, in my time, with several clergymen, and never considered
our difference of opinion was any bar to our intimacy. They say I am no Christian, but
I am a Christian.’ I afterwards asked Mr. —— what his Lordship
meant by an assertion so much in contradiction with his writings, and I was told that he
often threw out random declarations of this kind, without any meaning.”
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The Mr. —— here omitted in the magazine, is myself. How much
ought I not to have been elevated and surprised, when I found, by the pages of my friend of the
“Life and Times,” that besides being
myself, I was also “Colonel Burr, formerly
Vice-President of the United States,” and that I had “unfortunately killed
General Hamilton in a duel many years ago!”
What an elegant load on my conscience is here! My friend also, who was with me, besides being
the Rev. Mr. G—, as legitimate a son in every
sense of the word as can be found, was, it seems, the Reverend Mr. J., or “Johnson; a
natural son of Lord Hampden!” There is no knowing how
many people one is to be, before one dies. I have been, in my time, almost all the Hunts that
have been talked of; besides being, at the same instant, a tall man and a short, a man with
black hair and a man with white, a fop and a sloven, a gentleman and no gentleman, a sayer of
things I never said, and a doer of deeds never done; and now, in 1822, it appears I was a civil
person and a colonel, and that I went to see Lord Byron with a legitimate
natural son of the Rev. Mr. G. and my Lord Hampden!
The letter written by this twofold clergyman (who should have taken the
opportunity of enriching our language with the dual number) is, our compiler informs us,
“in many points very correct,” but “requires explanation where he alludes to
subjects of which he is ignorant only from hearsay.” Accordingly, he tells us, that the
palace in which Lord Byron lived on the hill of Albaro, was once the abode
of the celebrated Andrew Doria, Doge of Genoa;
Lord Byron, as he observes, a few pages farther, having “a
strong partiality for fixing his abode in ancient chateaus of romantic celebrity.”
That is to say, Doria’s
residence in the palace is made for the occasion. If Lord Byron lived in a
palace at Genoa, it must, or ought, ![]()
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or he
wished it to have been, Doria’s: therefore it was
Doria’s; which it unfortunately was not. It was the
Saluzzi palace, as I have mentioned before; and was celebrated for
nothing but for his Lordship’s living in it.
At p. 51 of the same volume, is a romantic account of a little groom and his
Lordship, riding about Genoa in fantastic dresses. It is worth quoting,
inasmuch as it shows the vulgar melodramatic idea entertained of Lord
Byron. “This youth,” we are told, “was dressed in a livery,
not unlike the Robin Hood archers: a green coat, and hat flopped down
on the right shoulder, the rim on the left being fastened up to the crown by a buckle and
black feather. When they rode out into the country he had a pouch and powder-horn by his
side, and a carbine slung at his back. His Lordship wore his usual travelling dress, which
we have had occasion before to notice, of brown waistcoat and trowsers, with large silver
buttons, buff coloured boots, white hat, morocco belt and daggers, and a loose flowing
green robe, studded by a small silver star in front. The pair were unique at
Genoa, and created some surprise, which made Lord
Byron, when he sallied forth, proceed at full gallop through the city; and
to avoid, on the high-road, a religious cavalcade, of which there were many every day, he
would clap spurs to his horse, and leaping the first fence near, ride over the fields and
through the vineyards, till he had cut them, and then he returned to the high-road again.
He had several times to pay for these trespasses, and always submitted to it with
good-humour.”
Brown and silver, buff-coloured boots, a green cloak, and a star! And this
was his “usual travelling dress;” and then, in order to avoid being stared at,
which could have been his only object in wearing it, he would leap his horse over the fences,
and ride over the fields and ![]()
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vineyards! If he had, he would have got
knocked on the head. It is unnecessary to tell any body, except Mr.
Southey and the little boys who go to the Circus, that Lord
Byron performed no such feats, and wore no such dress. Farthermore, he had no
servants at Genoa but his old ones, and there are no fences
there—there are only walls.
The falsehoods now thicken so, that to contradict them would be to
contradict almost every page in the book. This is the case, at least, to my knowledge, in every
thing in which Italy is concerned; and the conclusion, respecting what is said of Greece, is a
natural consequence. The fêtes at Genoa, the walking arm-in-arm
with mysterious old gentlemen, the walking at all, the charities to public hospitals, the
frequentations of ships of war, with a thousand etceteras, all are
false. To refute them, for refutation sake, would be a ludicrous waste of time. My object is to
take notice of such passages only, as suggest something either of contradiction or
recollection, capable of adding to Lord Byron’s real history: I
shall, therefore, take leave of the Tempora and Mores of
our friend of the “Life and Times,” by
extracting, first, a summary of the noble Bard’s character in his highest, most
satisfied, and most convincing style; and secondly, a character of the biography itself, worthy
of all the rest, and self-evident to a degree of the dazzling. It is only a pity, that in
addition to the list of Lord Byron’s accomplishments, he did not
mention, that besides being “a scholar,” and “a rock,” and “a
reed shaken by the wind,” he was a rat-catcher and the Pope’s grandson; and that in
recording the truth of his biography, he did not subjoin, the certificate from the Lord Mayor
usual on such occasions.
“The life of a scholar,” says our author, quoting Dr. Johnson, “abounds not with adventure;” in this
he spoke from his own expe-![]()
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rience, and, during his day, men of learning
were not to be found; or, indeed, looked for, amongst the great and titled. The life of
Lord Byron comprises a little of every thing; he was at once a nobleman, (a sufficient passport to fame, without even ability or genius
to recommend any one to notice)—he was an accomplished gentleman,
quite enough to make all he said acceptable in genteel society—he was an admirer of the fair sex, a virtue (I must call it so) that, at all
events, ensured him the smiles of those for whom poets, painters, and heroes, live, labour, and
die;—he was a profound scholar; that ensured him the estimation of
all men of genius,—he was a man of dramatic ability; this ensured
him celebrity amongst buskined enthusiasts—he was a moral man;
that ought to have commanded the praise of religious minds—he was a bard, unequalled
since the days of Shakspeare, and this made every
British heart-pulse throb with pride at his name—he was a lover of constitutional liberty; as such he was reverenced by men of liberal
principles—he was a traveller, a wanderer, an exile, a man of
blighted hopes, and blasted fortunes; at times, a reed shaken by the wind, or a rock of
adamant, according as noble pride or tender passion moved him—his variety of character,
the rapid successions of lights and shades that obscured and illumined all his actions, fixed
the attention of mankind; and whilst the blaze of his genius seemed to raise him in our
estimation to Heaven, his errors reduced him to a level with earthly beings; and we feel a
consolatory exultation in thinking that he was one of us, though so preeminent in talents, that
we may say, ‘He was a man, take him for all in all, We ne’er shall look upon his like again.’ |
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“These observations are here introduced, merely because they occur ![]()
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at the moment, from a contemplation of particular circumstances in
which Lord Byron was engaged. As an excuse for want of connection in
events, we have two precedents, one legal and strong, the other light and amusing, viz.
Montesquieu and Boswell: the former made his Spirit of the Laws agreeable, from being pursued in no
settled form; and Boswell’s Life of Johnson is admired, because
it is ‘a thing of shreds and patches,’ where something must suit every one’s
taste; but in point of fact, Byron’s life was ‘Ever charming, ever new; When will the landscape tire the view!’ |
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And be it remembered by the reader, that the biographer has nought in view but plain
truth.”
In reading such things as these, and thinking that they sell, one almost
ceases to look upon the pathetic epithet bestowed on the public in the Rejected Addresses, as a touch of humour. The existing
British community, after all, are really and truly a “pensive public,” mightily
given to a maudlin credulity and the most villainous compounds. See how melancholy it walks out
on Sundays! What a solemn roar there is in its laughter in the theatre,—grave and
unsocial all the rest of the time, and letting the women stand! See with what avidity it
entertains a prizefight, a mad bull, or a scandalous magazine, which it affects to despise all
the while! Any thing to give it a sensation, and make it think well of itself, and of
humoursome people like it, at the expense of its neighbours. Aristophanes would have made fine work of it, had it been as good-humoured as
the Athenian public; but your gens tristes are apt to
be savage. Every other public, Athenian or French, is to be laughed at but themselves. Bring
home the joke ![]()
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against the English to their own door, high or low; and
instead of laughing, they send for the constable or the Attorney-General. These matters,
however, are mending; and if Mr. Canning’s
politics can be kept up, the popular blood has a chance of being sweetened. John Bull, to say the truth, has not been a very pleasant fellow,
ever since he was John Bull, and took to being a bad,
bolt-headed sort of Dutchman, which was about the time the name was first given him. It is high
time that he should know the better sort of persons of all countries for what they are, Dutch,
French, or Italian; and be as lively and liberal, as he tended to be of old, and as he has
quite enough knowledge to make him. Mr. Southey, in a
fit of ungrateful spleen, (for John has listened to his epics,) degraded him from his title of
Bull, into one which he would have accused me of indecency for mentioning; though of the two I
surely have the greater right, and that which is indecent in the cold and gross Laureat, would
be another thing out of my West-Indian mouth. But our friend, the public, if he knew his own
powers, and would do himself justice, deserves neither the one title nor the other. The more he
listens to such washy antiques as Mr. Southey, the more they will cheat
him one minute, and insult him the next. They want him to know as little, to say as little, and
to share as little, as possible: they, in the mean while, reading him to sleep, picking his
pockets, and laughing at his person. On the contrary, let him learn all he can, compare all the
notes, and ask all the questions possible, taking nothing for granted, and he will ultimately
enjoy all he ought, which is more than the heroes of Mr.
Southey’s Book of the
Church desire him to do, (though they have been all mightily bent on it themselves,)
and a good deal more. Lord Byron has been too much admired by the public,
because he was sulky and wilful, ![]()
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and reflected in his person their own
love of dictation and excitement. They owe his memory a greater regard, and would do it much
greater honour, if they admired him for telling them they were not so perfect a nation as they
supposed themselves, and that they might take as well as give lessons of humanity, by a candid
comparison of notes with civilization at large.
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LETTERS OF LORD BYRON
TO
MR. LEIGH HUNT.
[After what I have related of the intercourse between
Lord Byron and myself, it will not be supposed that these
letters are published with any other view than that of the entertainment to be derived from the
correspondence of a man of wit and celebrity. Had I wished to flatter my vanity, or make a case
out for myself in any way, I might have published them long ago. I confess I am not unwilling
to let some readers see how ill-founded were certain conjectures of theirs at that time. In
other respects, I fear, the letters are not calculated to do me good; for they exhibit his
Lordship in a pleasanter light than truth has obliged me to paint him, and I may seem to be
ungrateful for many kind expressions. Let the result be what it ought to be, whether for me or
against. I have other letters in my possession, written while Lord Byron
was in Italy, and varying in degrees of cordiality, according to the mood ![]()
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he happened to be in. They are for the most part on matters of dispute
between us; and are all written in an uneasy, factitious spirit, as different from the
straight-forward and sincere-looking style of the present, as his aspect in old times varied
with his later one.]
LETTER I.
4, Bennet-Street, Dec. 2d, 1813.
MY DEAR SIR,
Few things could be more welcome than your note; and on Saturday
morning I will avail myself of your permission to thank you for it in person. My
time has not been passed, since we met, either profitably or agreeably. A very
short period after my last visit, an incident occurred, with which, I fear, you are
not unacquainted, as report in many mouths and more than one paper was busy with
the topic. That naturally gave me much uneasiness. Then, I nearly incurred a
lawsuit on the sale of an estate; but that is now arranged: next—but why
should I go on with a series of selfish and silly details? I merely wish to assure
you that it was not the frivolous forgetfulness of a mind occupied by what is
called pleasure (not in the true sense of Epicurus) that kept me away; but a perception of my
then unfitness to share the society of those whom I
value and wish not to displease. I hate being larmoyant, and making a serious face among those who are cheerful.
It is my wish that our acquaintance, or, if you please to accept
it, friendship, may be permanent. I have been lucky enough to preserve some friends
from a very early period, and I hope, as I do not (at least now) select them
lightly, I shall not lose them capriciously. I have a thorough esteem for that
independence of spirit which you have main-![]()
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tained with
sterling talent, and at the expense of some suffering. You have not, I trust,
abandoned the poem you were composing when Moore and I partook of your hospitality
in ye summer? I hope a time will come when he and I may be
able to repay you in kind for the latter;—for the
rhyme, at least in quantity, you are in arrear to both.
Believe me very truly
and affectionately yours,
Byron.
LETTER II.
Dec. 22, 1813.
MY DEAR SIR,
I am indeed “in your debt”—and, what is still
worse, am obliged to follow royal example, (he has just
apprized his creditors that they must wait till ye meeting,) and intreat your indulgence for, I hope, a very
short time. The nearest relation and almost ye only friend
I possess, has been in London for a week, and leaves it
to-morrow with me for her own residence.—I return immediately; but we meet so
seldom, and are so minuted when we meet at all, that I give
up all engagements till now, without reluctance. On my
return, I must see you to console myself for my past disappointments. I should feel
highly honoured in Mr. B—’s permission to make his
acquaintance, and there you are in my
debt—for it is a promise of last summer which I still hope to see performed.
Yesterday I had a letter from Moore:—you have probably heard from him lately; but if not, you
will be glad to learn that he is the same in heart, head, and health.
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LETTER III.
Feb. 9, 1814.
MY DEAR SIR,
I have been snow-bound and thaw-swamped (two compound epithets
for you) in the “valley of the shadow” of Newstead
Abbey for nearly a month, and have not been four hours returned to
London. Nearly the first use I make of my benumbed fingers, is to thank you for
your very handsome note in the volume you have just put forth; only, I trust, to be
followed by others on subjects more worthy your notice than the works of
contemporaries. Of myself, you speak only too highly—and you must think me
strangely spoiled, or perversely peevish, even to suspect that any remarks of yours
in the spirit of candid criticism could possibly prove unpalatable. Had they been
harsh, instead of being written as they are in the indelible ink of good sense and
friendly admiration—had they been the harshest—as I knew and know that
you are above any personal bias, at least against your
fellow bards—believe me, they would not have caused a word of remonstrance
nor a moment of rankling on my part. Your poem* I redde† long ago in the
“Reflector,” and
it is not much to say it is the best “session”
we have—and with a more difficult subject—for we are neither so good
nor so bad (taking the best and worst) as the wits of the olden time.
To your smaller pieces, I have not yet had time to do justice by
perusal—and I have a quantity of unanswered, and, I hope, unanswerable
letters to wade through before I sleep; but tomorrow will see me through your
volume. I am glad to see you have tracked Gray among the Italians. You will perhaps find a friend or two of
yours there
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also, though not to the same extent; but I have always
thought the Italians the only poetical moderns:—our
Milton and Spenser, and Shakspeare,
(the last through translations of their tales) are very Tuscan, and surely it is
far superior to the French school. You are hardly fair enough to Rogers—why “tea?” You might surely have given him supper—if only a sandwich.
Murray has, I hope, sent you my last
bantling, “The Corsair.” I
have been regaled at every inn on the road by lampoons and other merry conceits on
myself in the ministerial gazettes, occasioned by the republication of two stanzas inserted in 1812, in
Perry’s paper.* The hysterics of
the Morning Post are quite interesting;
and I hear (but have not seen) of something terrific in a last week’s Courier—all which I take with
“the calm indifference” of Sir Fretful
Plagiary. The Morning Post has one copy of
devices upon my deformity, which certainly will admit of no “historic
doubts,” like “Dickon my
master’s”—another upon my Atheism, which is not quite so
clear—and another, very downrightly, says I am the devil, (boiteux they might have
added,) and a rebel and what not:—possibly my accuser of diabolism may be
Rosa Matilda; and if so, it would not be
difficult to convince her I am a mere man. I shall break in upon you in a day or
two—distance has hitherto detained me; and I hope to find you well and myself
welcome.
Ever your obliged and sincere,
Byron.
P. S. Since this letter was written, I have been at your
text, which has much good humour in every sense of the
word. Your notes are of a very high order indeed, particularly on Wordsworth.
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LETTER IV.
October 15th, 1814.
MY DEAR HUNT,
I send you some game, of which I beg your acceptance. I specify
the quantity as a security against the porter; a hare, a pheasant, and two brace of
partridges, which, I hope, are fresh. My stay in town has not been long, and I am
in all the agonies of quitting it again next week on business, preparatory to
“a change of condition,” as it is called by the talkers on such
matters. I am about to be married; and am, of course, in all the misery of a man in
pursuit of happiness. My intended is two hundred
miles off; and the efforts I am making with lawyers, &c. &c. to join my
future connexions, are, for a personage of my single and inveterate
habits,—to say nothing of indolence, quite prodigious! I sincerely hope you
are better than your paper intimated lately; and that your approaching freedom will
find you in full health to enjoy it.
Yours, ever.
Byron.
LETTER V.
13, Piccadilly Terrace, May—June 1st, 1815.
MY DEAR HUNT,
I am as glad to hear from as I shall be to see you. We came to
town, what is called late in the season; and since that time, the death of
Lady Byron’s uncle (in the first
place), and her own delicate state of ![]()
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health, have
prevented either of us from going out much; however, she is now better, and in a
fair way of going creditably through the whole process of beginning a family.
I have the alternate weeks of a private box at Drury
Lane Theatre: this is my week, and I send you an admission to it
for Kean’s nights, Friday and Saturday
next, in case you should like to see him quietly:—it is close to the
stage—the entrance by the private box-door—and you can go without the
bore of crowding, jostling, or dressing. I also inclose you a parcel of recent
letters from Paris; perhaps you may find some extracts, that
may amuse yourself or your readers. I have only to beg you will prevent your
copyist, or printer, from mixing up any of the English
names, or private matter contained therein, which might lead
to a discovery of the writer; and as the Examiner is sure to travel back to Paris, might get him into a scrape,
to say nothing of his correspondent at home. At any rate, I hope and think the
perusal will amuse you. Whenever you come this way, I shall be happy to make you
acquainted with Lady Byron, whom you will find
any thing but a fine lady—a species of animal which you probably do not
affect more than myself. Thanks for ye
Mask;—there is not only poetry
and thought in the body, but much research and good old reading in your prefatory
matter. I hope you have not given up your narrative poem, of which I heard you
speak as in progress. It rejoices me to hear of the well-doing and regeneration of
the “Feast,” setting aside
my own selfish reasons for wishing it success. I fear you stand almost single in
your liking of “Lara:” it
is natural that I should, as being my last and most
unpopular effervescence:—passing by its other sins, it is too little
narrative, and too metaphysical to please the greater number of readers. I have,
however, much consolation in the exception with which you furnish me. From ![]()
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Moore I have not heard very lately. I fear
he is a little humourous, because I am a lazy correspondent; but that shall be
mended.
Ever your obliged,
And very sincere friend,
Byron.
P. S. “Politics!” The barking of the war-dogs
for their carrion has sickened me of them for the present.
LETTER VI.
13, Terrace, Piccadilly, Oct. 7th, 1815.
MY DEAR HUNT,
I had written a long answer to your last, which I put into the
fire, partly, because it was a repetition of what I have already said—and
next, because I considered what my opinions are worth, before I made you pay double
postage, as your proximity lays you within the jaws of the tremendous
“Twopenny,” and beyond the verge of franking—the only
parliamentary privilege (saving one other) of much avail in these
“costermonger days.”
Pray don’t make me an exception to the “Long
live King Richard” of your bards
in “the Feast.” I do allow
him to be “prince of the bards of his time,” upon the judgement of
those who must judge more impartially than I probably do. I acknowledge him as I
acknowledge the Houses of Hanover and Bourbon—the—not the
“one-ey’d monarch of the blind,” but the blind monarch of the
one-eyed. I ![]()
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merely take the liberty of a free subject to
vituperate certain of his edicts—and that only in private.
I shall be very glad to see you, or your remaining canto; if
both together, so much the better.
I am interrupted—
LETTER VII.
Oct. 15th, 1815.
DEAR HUNT,
I send you a thing
whose greatest value is its present rarity;* the present copy contains some
manuscript corrections previous to an Edition which was printed, but not published;
and, in short, all that is in the suppressed Edition, the fifth, except twenty
lines in addition, for which there was not room in the copy before me. There are in
it many opinions I have altered, and some which I retain;
upon the whole, I wish that it had never been written, though my sending you this
copy (the only one in my possession, unless one of Lady
B.’s be excepted) may seem at variance with this
statement:—but my reason for this is very different: it is, however, the only
gift I have made of the kind this many a day.†
P. S. You probably know that it is not in print for sale, nor
ever will be (if I can help it) again.
|
* A copy of “English Bards
and Scotch Reviewers.”
† The absence of the signature to this letter, as to others, is
owing to my having given it away. Letters have been given away also, or I should have had
more for the reader’s amusement.
|
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LETTER VIII.
Oct. 22, 1815.
MY DEAR HUNT,
You have excelled yourself—if not all your cotemporaries,
in the Canto* which I have just
finished. I think it above the former books; but that is as it should be; it rises
with the subject, the conception appears to me perfect, and the execution perhaps
as nearly so as verse will admit. There is more originality than I recollect to
have seen elsewhere within the same compass, and frequent and great happiness of
expression. In short, I must turn to the faults, or what appear such to me: these
are not many, nor such as may not be easily altered, being almost all verbal;—and of the same kind as I pretended to point
out in the former cantos, viz. occasional quaintness and obscurity, and a kind of a
harsh and yet colloquial compounding of epithets, as if to avoid saying common
things in the common way; “difficile est proprié communia
dicere,” seems at times to have met with in you a
literal translator. I have made a few, and but a few, pencil marks on the MS. which
you can follow or not, as you please.
The poem, as a whole, will give you a very high station; but
where is the conclusion? Don’t let it cool in the composition! You can always
delay as long as you like revising, though I am not sure, in the very face of
Horace, that the
“nonum,” &c. is attended with advantage,
unless we read “months” for “years.” I am glad the book
sent† reached you. I forgot to tell you the story of its suppression, which
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shan’t be longer than I can make it. My motive for
writing that poem was, I fear, not so fair as you are willing to believe it; I was
angry, and determined to be witty, and, fighting in a crowd, dealt about my blows
against all alike, without distinction or discernment. When I came home from the
East, among other new acquaintances and friends, politics and the state of the
Nottingham rioters,—(of which county I am a
landholder, and Lord Holland Recorder of the
town), led me by the good offices of Mr. Rogers into
the society of Lord Holland, who with Lady Holland was particularly kind to me: about March, 1812, this
introduction took place, when I made my first speech on the Frame Bill, in the same
debate in which Lord Holland spoke. Soon after this, I was
correcting the fifth edition of “E. B.” for
the press, when Rogers represented to me that he knew Lord and
Lady Holland would not be sorry if I
suppressed any farther publication of that poem; and I immediately acquiesced, and
with great pleasure, for I had attacked them upon a fancied and false provocation,
with many others; and neither was, nor am sorry, to have done what I could to
stifle that ferocious rhapsody. This was subsequent to my acquaintance with Lord
Holland, and was neither expressed nor understood, as a condition of that acquaintance. Rogers told me he thought I ought to
suppress it; I thought so too, and did it as far as I could, and that’s all.
I sent you my copy, because I consider your having it much the same as having it
myself. Lady Byron has one; I desire not to have
any other; and sent it only as a curiosity and a memento.
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LETTER IX.
13, Terrace, Piccadilly, Sept.—Oct. 30th, 1815.
MY DEAR HUNT,
Many thanks for your books, of which you already know my
opinion. Their external splendour should not disturb you as
inappropriate—they have still more within than without.
I take leave to differ from you on Wordsworth, as freely as I once agreed with
you; at that time I gave him credit for a promise, which is unfulfilled.
I still think his capacity warrants all you say of it only—but that his
performances since “Lyrical
Ballads,” are miserably inadequate to the ability which lurks
within him: there is undoubtedly much natural talent spilt over “The Excursion;” but it is
rain upon rocks—where it stands and stagnates, or rain upon sands—where
it falls without fertilizing. Who can understand him? Let those who do, make him
intelligible. Jacob Behmen, Swedenborg, and Joanna
Southcote, are mere types of this arch-apostle of mystery and
mysticism; but I have done—no I have not done, for I have too petty, and
perhaps unworthy objections in small matters to make to him, which, with his
pretensions to accurate observation, and fury against Pope’s false translation of the “Moonlight scene in
Homer,” I wonder he should
have fallen into:—these be they:—He says of Greece in the body of his
book—that it is a land of
“Rivers, fertile plains, and sounding shores, Under a cope of variegated sky.” |
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The rivers are dry half the year, the plains are barren, and the
shores still and tideless as the
Mediterranean can make them; the sky is any thing but variegated, being for months
and months but “darkly, deeply, beautifully blue.”—The
next is in his notes, where he talks of our “Monuments crowded together in
the busy, &c. of a large town,” as compared with the “still
seclusion of a Turkish cemetery in some remote place.” This is pure stuff:
for one monument in our church-yards there are ten in the Turkish, and so crowded, that you cannot walk
between them; they are always close to the walls of the towns, that is, merely
divided by a path or road; and as to “remote places,” men never take
the trouble, in a barbarous country, to carry their dead very far; they must have
lived near to where they are buried. There are no cemeteries in “remote places,” except such as have the cypress and
the tombstone still left, where the olive and the habitation of the living have
perished. . . . . . These things I was struck with, as coming peculiarly in my own
way; and in both of these he is wrong; yet I should have noticed neither but for
his attack on Pope for a like blunder, and a peevish affectation about him, of
despising a popularity which he will never obtain. I write in great haste, and, I
doubt, not much to the purpose; but you have it hot and hot,
just as it comes, and so let it go.
By the way, both he and you go too far against Pope’s “So when the Moon,”
&c.: it is no translation, I know; but it is no such false description as
asserted. I have read it on the spot: there is a burst, and a lightness, and a glow
about the night in the Troad, which makes the
“planets vivid,” and the “pole glaring:”
the moon is—at least the sky is clearness itself; and I know no more
appropriate expression for the expansion of such a heaven—o’er the
scene—the plain—the sea—the sky
—Ida—the
Hellespont—Simois—Scamander—and
the Isles,—than that ![]()
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of a “flood of
glory.” I am getting horribly lengthy, and must stop: to the whole of
your letter I say “ditto to Mr.
Burke,” as the Bristol candidate cried by
way of electioneering harangue. You need not speak of morbid feelings and vexations
to me; I have plenty; for I must blame partly the times, and chiefly myself: but
let us forget them. I shall be very apt to do so when I see
you next. Will you come to the Theatre and see our new management? You shall cut it
up to your heart’s content, root and branch, afterwards, if you like; but
come and see it! If not, I must come and see you.
Ever yours,
Very truly and affectionately,
Byron.
P. S. Not a word from Moore for these two months. Pray let me have the rest of Rimini. You have two excellent
points in that poem—originality and Italianism. I will back you as a bard
against half the fellows on whom you have thrown away much good criticism and
eulogy: but don’t let your bookseller publish in quarto; it is the worst size possible for circulation. I say this on
bibliopolical authority.
Again, yours ever,
B.
LETTER X.
January 29th, 1816.
DEAR HUNT,
I return your extract with thanks for the perusal, and hope you
are by this time on the verge of publication. My pencil-marks on the margin of your
former MSS. I never thought worth the trouble of ![]()
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decyphering, but I had no such meaning as you imagine for their being withheld from
Murray, from whom I differ entirely as
to the terms of your agreement; nor do I think you asked a
piastre too much for the poem. However, I doubt not he will deal fairly by you on
the whole: he is really a very good fellow, and his faults are merely the leaven of
his “trade”—“the trade!“ the slave-trade of many an
unlucky writer.
The said Murray and I
are just at present in no good humour with each other; but he is not the worse for
that: I feel sure that he will give your work as fair or a fairer chance in every
way than your late publishers; and what he can’t do for it, it will do for
itself.
Continual laziness and occasional indisposition have been the
causes of my negligence (for I deny neglect) in not writing to you immediately.
These are excuses: I wish they may be more satisfactory to you than they are to me.
I opened my eyes yesterday morning on your compliment of Sunday. If you knew what a
hopeless and lethargic den of dulness and drawling our hospital is during a debate,
and what a mass of corruption in its patients, you would wonder, not that I very
seldom speak, but that I ever attempted it, feeling, as I trust I do,
independently. However, when a proper spirit is manifested “without
doors,” I will endeavour not to be idle within. Do you think such a time is
coming? Methinks there are gleams of it. My forefathers were of the other side of
the question in Charles’s days, and the fruit of it was a title and the loss
of an enormous property.
If the old struggle comes on, I may lose the one and shall
never regain the other, but no matter; there are things, even in this world, better
than either.
Very truly,
Ever yours,
B.
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LETTER XI.
Feb. 26th, 1816.
DEAR HUNT,
Your letter would have been answered before, had I not thought
it probable that, as you were in town for a day or so, I should have seen you. I
don’t mean this as a hint at reproach for not calling, but merely that of
course I should have been very glad if you had called in your way home or abroad,
as I always would have been, and always shall be. With regard to the circumstance
to which you allude, there is no reason why you should not speak openly to me on a
subject already sufficiently rife in the mouths and minds of what is called
“the World.”—Of the “fifty reports,” it follows that
forty-nine must have more or less error and exaggeration; but I am sorry to say,
that on the main and essential point of an intended, and, it may be, an inevitable
separation, I can contradict none. At present I shall say no more—but this is
not from want of confidence; in the meantime, I shall merely request a suspension
of opinion. Your prefatory letter to “Rimini,” I accepted as it was meant—as a public compliment
and a private kindness. I am only sorry that it may perhaps operate against you as
an inducement, and, with some, a pretext, for attack on the part of the political
and personal enemies of both:—not that this can be of much consequence, for
in the end the work must be judged by its merits, and in that respect you are well
armed. Murray tells me it is going on well,
and, you may depend upon it, there is a substratum of poetry which is a foundation
for solid and durable fame. The objections (if there be
objections, for this is a presumption, and not an assumption,) will be ![]()
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merely as to
the mechanical part, and such, as I stated before, the usual consequence of either
novelty or revival. I desired Murray to forward to you a
pamphlet with two things of mine in it, the most part of both of them, and of one
in particular, written before others
of my composing, which have preceded them in publication;
they are neither of them of much pretension, nor intended for it. You will perhaps
wonder at my dwelling so much and so frequently on former subjects and scenes; but
the fact is, that I found them fading fast from my memory; and I was, at the same
time, so partial to their place, (and events connected with
it,) that I have stamped them, while I could, in such colours as I could trust to
now, but might have confused and misapplied hereafter, had I longer delayed the attempted delineation.
LETTER XII.
March 14, 1816.
DEAR HUNT,
I send you six orchestra tickets for Drury
Lane, countersigned by me, which makes the admission free—which I explain, that the doorkeeper may not
impose upon you; they are for the best place in the house, but can only be used one
at a time. I have left the dates unfilled, and you can take
your own nights, which I should suppose would be Kean’s: the seat is in the orchestra. I have inserted the
name of Mr. H——, a friend of
yours, in case you like to transfer to him—do not forget to fill up the dates
for such days as you choose to select.
Yours, ever truly,
Byron.
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FRAGMENTS OF LETTERS,
The rest of which has been mutilated or lost.
FRAGMENT I.
—good of “Rimini.”—Sir Henry
Englefield, a mighty man in the blue circles, and a very clever man any
where, sent to Murray, in terms of the highest
eulogy; and with regard to the common reader, my sister and cousin (who are now all my family, and the last since gone away to
be married) were in fixed perusal and delight with it, and they are “not
critical,” but fair, natural, unaffected, and understanding persons.
Frere, and all the arch-literati, I hear, are also
unanimous in a high opinion of the poem. “I hear this by the way—but I will
send.”
FRAGMENT II.
With regard to the E. B. I have no
concealments, nor desire to have any, from you or yours: the suppression occurred (I am as
sure as I can be of any thing) in the manner stated: I have never regretted ![]()
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that, but very often the composition—that is the humeur of a great deal in it. As to the quotation you allude to, I
have no right, nor indeed desire, to prevent it; but, on the contrary, in common with all
other writers, I do and ought to take it as a compliment.
The paper on the Methodists was sure to raise the bristles of the godly. I redde it, and agree with the writer on one point, in which you and he perhaps
differ; that an addiction to poetry is very generally the result of “an uneasy mind
in an uneasy body;” disease or deformity have been the attendants of many of our
best. Collins mad—Chatterton, I think, mad—Cowper mad—Pope
crooked—Milton blind—Gray—(I have heard that the last was afflicted by an
incurable and very grievous distemper, though not generally known) and others—. I
have somewhere redde, however, that poets rarely go mad. I suppose
the writer means that their insanity effervesces and evaporates in verse—may be
so.
I have not had time nor paper to attack your system, which ought to
be done, were it only because it is a system. So, by and by, have at
you.
Yours ever,
Byron.
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries” in New Monthly Magazine
Vol. NS 22 (January 1828)
Gifted, too, like the subject of his Memoir, with very remarkable talents, he is much more to be relied on, both in
his choice of points of view, and in his manner of handling his subject: he is not likely
to spoil a bon-mot, an epigram, or a conversation and while he can seize all that was
really piquant about his Lordship, he is infinitely above retailing the low gossip and
garbage which same memoir-writers have done, in the true spirit of a waiting-maid or a
lacquey. He possesses, moreover, one eminent qualification for the task which he has
undertaken; he has a stern love of truth; and even his enemies will give him credit for
being uniformly consistent and honest in the expression of his opinions on all subjects. In
his present work he shows himself ready to be devoted as a martyr to Truth, (for that very
word of the book is true, no reader can doubt,) and boldly exposes himself to all the
vituperation of all the slaves who hated and attacked Lord Byron while
living, but who will now come forward with a mock display of generosity, and sympathy with
the illustrious departed, of whom they will represent Mr. Hunt as the
ungrateful reviler. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part I]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 4 (23 January 1828)
Mr. Hunt has done a bold deed
by publishing this work. We are not ourselves quite clear that he was right; but, as he is
doubtless well aware, he has at all events laid himself open to unmeasured
misrepresentation by the literary ruffians from whom he has already suffered so much. The
portion of the book which stands at the beginning, and which is alone particularly
mentioned in the title-page, refers exclusively to Lord
Byron. Mr. Hunt says, and we firmly believe him, that
he has withheld much which might have been told; but he has also told much which many will
think, or say, that he ought to have withheld. He has presented us with a totally different
view of Lord Byron's character from any that has previously appeared
in print, and this not only in general propositions, but by innumerable detailed anecdotes,
which it seems to its quite impossible not to believe, and from which it is equally
impossible not to draw very similar inferences to those which have occurred to
Mr. Hunt.
. . .
[William Jerden?],
“Review of Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries” in Literary Gazette
No. 575 (26 January 1828)
In this quarto the author exhibits himself as a person of
considerable talent, and of much literary conceit and affectation. But his deeper offence
lies in the essence of the design itself, which appears to us to be one at which an
honourable mind would have revolted. To have gone to enjoy the hospitality of a friend and
taste the bounty of a patron, and after his death to have made that visit (for avowedly
mercenary ends) the source of a long libel upon his memory,—does seem to be very base
and unworthy. No resentment of real or fancied ill usage can excuse, far less justify, such
a proceeding; and (without referring to this particular instance, but speaking generally of
the practice, now too prevalent, of eaves-dropping and word-catching, and watching every
minute action exposed in the confidence of private life, for the purpose of book-making,)
we will say that these personal and posthumous injuries are a disgrace to their
perpetrators and to the press of the country. . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
Mr. Leigh Hunt
is so naturally prone to unbosom himself to the public, with whom he always in his
writings strikes up a friendly confidential intercourse, that previous to the appearance of
this work the world was well acquainted with the character of all his friends of public
notoriety—with his opinions on all possible topics, and more particularly with his
opinion of himself. We looked for, and we have found nothing new in this volume, save that
which relates in some way or other to the author’s visit to Italy; for since that
event in his life he has had little opportunity of communicating with his dear friend, his
pensive public, or we should have as little to learn of the latter as of the former part of
his life. It is thus that our attention is chiefly attracted to Mr.
Hunt’s account of Lord Byron; for
he, though not entirely a new acquaintance, only became thoroughly well known to him in
Italy. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
But however we may respect the man for his acquirements, his candour, and
his natural benevolence; however we may sympathise with him through the painful
disappointments, of which he has already numbered too many, we may be allowed, perhaps, to
claim for our literature, and for those who are engaged in supporting it, some portion of
that spirit of dignity and independence, without which they would be deprived of all their
gracefulness and of much of their utility. We are not insensible to the various proofs
which we have lately seen, of a disposition that prevails among certain classes of literary
men, to degrade their pursuits into a mere matter of trade; to produce a given number of
words for a proposed reward; and to praise or to censure according to the interests and
desires of those who employ them. But we own that we were not prepared for the extreme
degree of literary servility—to call it by no severer name—which is stamped
upon the principal pages of the work now before us. Nor does the author attempt to conceal his shame. It would not, perhaps, have been very
difficult for him, by a little address, to make a better appearance in the eye of the
public. It is certain, that if he had spoken less of his obligations to his publisher, and
of his own original plan in the preparation of his volume be would have less exposed
himself, to the censure of the world. He is, however, remarkably communicative upon both
these points, imagining, most probably, that by appearing to have no reservations, his
faults, such as they are, might be more easily forgiven. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Let us not, however, be unjust to Mr. Leigh
Hunt, contemporary of Lord Byron. We
find, on referring to his preface, that he disclaims, though not with
indignation,—that, alas! he durst not—the catchpenny arrangement of the
title-page now before us, and indeed of the contents of the book itself. Had the bookseller
permitted the author to obey the dictates of his own taste and judgment, the newspapers,
instead of announcing for six months, in every variety of puff direct and puff oblique, the
approaching appearance of ‘Lord Byron and some
of his Contemporaries,’ would have told us in plain terms to expect the
advent of Mr. Leigh Hunt and his following; the
‘pale face rescued from insignificance by thought’ which Mr.
Hunt assures us he carries about with him would have fronted Mr.
Hunt’s title-page; and Mr. Hunt’s
recollections of Lord Byron would have been printed by way of modest
appendix to the larger and more interesting part of the work, namely, the autobiography of
Mr. Hunt.
. . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Literary Chronicle
No. 454 (26 January 1828)
We had given Mr.
Hunt credit for a superiority to petty resentments and vindictive feelings,
and here we find, as far at least as concerns Lord Byron, very little
else. We, who have been refreshing our memories as to all that Mr.
Hunt has, on various occasions, written of Lord Byron,
in which his poetical genius, his liberal politics, his ‘rank worn simply,’ and
his ‘total glorious want of vile hypocrisy,’ were earnestly applauded, cannot
help persuading ourselves that the portrait now presented would have been more favorable,
had the painter been freer from impulses, which it is very natural for him to possess, but
which cannot tend to the interests of the public, or to the development of truth. . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
Cause of complaint seems
to have existed between the parties, and the unfortunate death of Mr. Shelley rendered the situation of Mr.
Hunt, in relation to Lord Byron, one of peculiar
delicacy: we cannot allow that these circumstances could in the mind of Mr.
Hunt lead to any wilful misrepresentation; but it is not improbable that
they may have lent an unjust interpretation to circumstances meant to be taken otherwise,
and it is therefore necessary to state in the outset this caution. Mr.
Hunt, too, during their intercourse suffered all the pains of dependance: it
is needless to remark how sensitive and captious such a situation is calculated to make a
man, who if not proud in the ordinary sense of the word, is proud of the levelling claims of genius, and who saw with disgust that such claims
were not allowed to constitute equality with rank and wealth. Mr. Leigh
Hunt’s title to entire belief, when due allowance is made to the
natural influence of these partly unconscious and secretly operating causes, no one will be
hardy enough to deny; and when the denial is made, a look only upon the open, candid,
blushing and animated face of the book itself will be sufficient to contradict it. If ever
internal evidence was strong enough to quell the very thought of a suspicion, an instance
is to be found here. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
He drivels away in
the same mawkish style for several sentences, and what is the upshot? That he would have
written the book long ago, had he not preferred enjoying himself on the money, from time to
time advanced to him by Mr Colburn. He afterwards
acknowledges, “that, had I been rich enough, and could have repaid the handsome
conduct of Mr Colburn, with its proper interest, my first impulse, on
finishing the book, would have been to put it into the fire.” What mean and miserable
contradictions and inconsistencies are crowded and huddled together here! It was for money
that the book was written; he admits it, confesses it, hides it, emblazons it, palliates
it, avows it, and denies it, all in one and the same breath; yet, in the midst of all this
equivocating cowardice, in which he now fears to look the truth in the face, and then
strives to stare her out of countenance, all that he has done is still, in his own ultimate
belief, “wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best;” and a man of higher
principle, more unimpeachable integrity, and loftier disdain of money, never, on a
summer’s morning at Paddington,
Lisson Grove, or Hampstead, pulled on a pair
of yellow breeches! . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
His readers will
perceive that he doe not attempt to justify his account of Lord
Byron upon any public grounds. There are those who will contend that a
public man is public property, and that it is lawful even to corrupt his servants, in order
to obtain disclosures as to his personal and domestic life; inasmuch as such disclosures
may be rendered subservient to the general good. Mr.
Hunt, however, uses no such argument as this; which, infamous though it be, has
at least a specious and unselfish appearance about it, calculated to gain the assent of the
unthinking part of the multitude. He openly avows that he borrowed money, which he could
not repay, except by violating his native feelings of right and honour, by composing a
work, which, otherwise, he would never have thought of, and which, when composed he would
have put into the fire, if his pecuniary circumstances had enabled him to pursue the
dictates of his heart. The wretched woman who, under the veil of night, offers her
attractions to those who are disposed to pay for them, may tell a similar tale. It is not
her love of vice that drives her into the streets; it is not her horror of virtue; for the
human heart is not so radically vicious—particularly not in woman—as some
philosopher have chosen to represent it: No—she must live—dire necessity urges
her to barter, her person for money, and so she goes on in her career of heartless,
ignominious depravity. Such a being we commonly call a prostitute. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Now the questions which we feel ourselves bound to ask of Mr. Hunt, are simply these:—Did the personal intercourse
between him and Lord Byron terminate in an avowal on his
(Mr. Hunt’s) part of hostility? And,
Would he have written and published about Lord Byron in the tone and
temper of this work had Lord Byron been alive? Except when vanity more
egregious than ever perverted a human being’s thoughts and feelings interferes, we
give Mr. Hunt some credit for fairness—and if he can answer
these two questions in the affirmative, we frankly admit that we shall think more
charitably, by a shade or two, of this performance than, in the present state of our
information, we are able to do. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
It appears from the
Preface that he had painted a full-length portrait of that perfect gentleman, Mr Hazlitt—but partly to oblige Mr Colburn, if we do not mistake, and partly because he
must have quarrelled—although he says not—with the amiable original, whom he
now accuses of having “a most wayward and cruel temper,” “which has
ploughed cuts and furrows in his face”—“and capable of being inhuman in
some things”—he has not given the picture a place in the
gallery. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries” in New Monthly Magazine
Vol. NS 22 (January 1828)
From the charge of ingratitude, Mr. Leigh
Hunt, in various passages of his book, successfully vindicates himself, and
shows that the obligations which Lord Byron has been
represented to have heaped on him, have been ludicrously exaggerated both in number and
value. Into matters so delicate, however, we do not intend to enter. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
We own that we do not think that in this and other such passages, the
publisher has been fairly dealt with by the author. The latter seems extremely anxious to
shift upon the shoulders of the former, all the blame which can attach to a work of this
description. It is obvious that Mr. Colburn wished,
and very naturally, to obtain a book that would repay him for his advances and other risks;
but it belonged to the author, if he really held any principles of honour sacred, to take
his stand upon them. If he has abandoned them, and that for the sake of the reward which he
was to get for so doing, it is clear that the taint of the transaction belongs, at least,
as much to him who receives, as to him who gives, under circumstances so humiliating. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
We are constrained to add, however, that on this occasion our
‘pensive hearts’ have withstood the influence both of Burgundy and Moselle. To
our fancy, dropping metaphors, this is one of the most melancholy books that any man can
take up. The coxcombries of Mr. Hunt’s style both
of thought and language, were these things new, and were they all, might indeed furnish
inextinguishable laughter to the most saturnine of readers. But we had supped full with
these absurdities long ago, and have hardly been able to smile for more than a moment at
the most egregious specimens of cockneyism which the quarto presents; and even those who
have the advantage of meeting Mr. Leigh Hunt for the first time upon
this occasion, will hardly, we are persuaded, after a little reflection, be able to draw
any very large store of merriment from his pages. It is the miserable book of a miserable
man: the little airy fopperies of its manner are like the fantastic trip and convulsive
simpers of some poor worn out wanton, struggling between famine and remorse, leering
through her tears. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part I]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 4 (23 January 1828)
Mr. Hunt does not appear before the world to give them an
account of events and connections of which they had previously no idea. We have all heard
quite enough of Lord Byron's munificence in receiving
into his house this distinguished gentleman and his family, to make it a prominent portion
of our general idea of his Lordship's character; and after the many statements and
insinuations, loud, long, and bitterly injurious to Mr. Hunt, which
have been founded upon the universal knowledge of this transaction, it seems to its neither
very wonderful nor very blameable, that he should at last come forward himself, and make
public his own defence. It is evident, from the whole tone of the book, that Mr.
Hunt has not stated in it a word which he does not believe. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Literary Chronicle
No. 454 (26 January 1828)
How anxiously we have looked for a work of
this kind, it would, we fear, be considered beneath the should be imperturbable dignity of
a reviewer to confess. We had assigned to Leigh Hunt the office of
Byron’s biographer, conceiving him on many accounts
eminently calculated for the task. His acquaintance with Byron had
been long and tolerably intimate, and, as a literary man, he was well qualified to draw
forth and accurately estimate the essentially mental qualities of his subject. His style of
composition too, seemed to us the more peculiarly adapted to the purpose, inasmuch as its
very defects in this instance resolved themselves into positive advantages,—such, for
example, as what is by many considered us over-fondness for minute details, his anatomy of
the most trivial of circumstances. We expected him to give not a bold sketchy picture,
‘beslabbered o’er with haste,’ but an elaborate portrait in which
‘each particular hair’ should be apparent, which would he not merely pleasing
to the eye, but in which the philosopher and the phrenologist might find ample materials
for deep and correct speculation. We did not look for unqualified eulogium,—we were
aware that truth would require anything but that,—but we imagined Mr.
Hunt to possess too little ascerbity of disposition for the transmutation
into vices worthy of record, what at most can be considered but insignificant overflowings
of bile, and may frequently bear even an advantageous construction. We have been
disappointed: in the present work, as far as it treats of Lord Byron,
we trace nothing of that vein of genuine and warm-hearted philanthropy by which the
writings of Leigh Hunt have been distinguished even more than by their
fancy and originality. . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
Of Moore,
Lamb, Campbell, &c., we are familiar with all that the author has said or
would repeat for the last or next twenty years. It is a novelty at any rate for one man of
genius honestly to give a minute and apparently honest account of the real private
character of another: but the privileges of the order to which both parties in fact belong,
may excuse the hardihood and the singularity of the scheme. Posterity invariably attempts
to rake up every peculiarity or characteristic trait from the memory of every great man;
and it is always loudly lamented when neither the investigations of antiquaries nor the
researches of ardent admirers can bring to light all that it is wished to discover.
Mr. Leigh Hunt has saved posterity any trouble in the case of
Lord Byron. We have his portrait here drawn by an acute observer
and a shrewd metaphysician, who had the advantage of living with him on terms of
intimacy—under the same roof. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Is not the tone of this passage insolent, unfeeling, and unmanly? The
writer, with flippant impatience to be insulting to the memory of a dead man, vainly tries,
by a poor perversion of the very ordinary, harmless, and pleasant circumstances, in which
he first saw the “Noble Childe,” to throw over him an air of ridicule, and to
make him and his pastime, to a certain degree, an object of contempt. But the ridicule
recoils on the Cockney. The “latter,” that is “Mr Jackson’s pupil,” that is, Lord Byron, was swimming with somebody for a wager, and that
our classic calls “rehearsing the part of Leander!” To
what passage in the life of Leander does the witling refer? “I
had been bathing, and was standing on the floating machine adjusting my clothes!” Ay,
and a pretty fellow, no doubt, you thought yourself, as you were jauntily buttoning your
yellow breeches. You are pleased to say, “so contenting myself with seeing his
lordship’s head bob up and down in the water, like a buoy, I came away.” Now do
you know, sir, that while you were doing so, a whole young ladies’ ambulating
boarding school were splitting their sides with laughter at the truly laughable style in
which you were jerking out first the right leg and then the left, to get into the yellow
breeches; for your legs and thighs had not been sufficiently dried with the pillow-slip,
and for the while a man with moderate haste might count a hundred, in they could not be
persuaded to go, but ever and anon were exhibited, below the draggled shirt-tails, in most
ludicrous exposure? . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Mr Hunt, however, fears he has gone too far in calling
himself a young man who had written a bad volume of poems; and he mentions that Lord Byron, who soon afterwards called upon him in prison,
thought it a good volume of poems; “to my astonishment he quoted some of the lines,
and would not hear me speak ill of them.” We daresay Mr Hunt was
very easily prevented from speaking ill of them; nor is there much magnanimity in now
announcing how little they were thought of by himself, and how much by Lord
Byron. This is mock-modesty; and, indeed, the would-be careless, but most
careful introduction of himself and his versifying at all, on such an occasion, must, out
of Cockaigne, be felt to be not a little disgusting and characteristic. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
We remember once hearing a midshipman giving an account of the death of
Lord Nelson, which consisted almost entirely of a
description of a musket ball that had lodged in his own buttocks, and been extracted
skilfully, but painfully, some months afterwards, as he lay on a sofa in his father’s
house at Lymington,—an account of the whole domestic economy
of which followed a complimentary character of himself and the surgeon. So is it with
Mr Hunt. He keeps perpetually poking and perking
his own face into yours, when you are desirous of looking only at Lord
Byron’s, nor for a single moment ever seems to have the sense to
suspect that the company are all too much disgusted to laugh at the absurdities of his
egotism. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
Under these circumstances it was, that the author obtained the information which gives a tainted zest to his work. He did
not, be it remembered, meet with Lord Byron on the high
road of life, in the general intercourse of society; had that been the case, he might have
been justified in recording his impressions of a character, that is likely to be enquired
into with some degree of curiosity by posterity. But he never would have enjoyed the
opportunity of seeing Lord Byron in Italy, had it not been for the
noble lord’s kind intentions towards him in the first instance, and in the next
place, for an actual advance of money, sufficient to defray his travelling expences from
England to that country; so that while Mr. Hunt resided in Italy, he
could have been considered in no other light than as a dependant on Lord
Byron. For such a person therefore, to take advantage of his situation, in
order to betray to the world all his noble protector’s errors and foibles, seems to
us nothing short of a domestic treason. But to publish those foibles for the sake of gain,
and to publish nothing but those, for the sake of spleen, indicate a dereliction of
principle, and a destitution of honourable feeling, which we shall not venture to
characterize. . . .
William Howitt,
“Leigh Hunt” in Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets (London: Richard Bentley, 1847) 2 Vols
The occasion of Leigh Hunt’s visit to Italy,
and its results, have been placed before the public, in consequence of their singular
nature, and of the high standing of the parties concerned, in a more prominent position
than any other portion of his life. There has been much blame and recrimination thrown
about on all sides. Mr. Hunt has stated his own case, in his work on
Lord Byron and his Contemporaries. The
case of Lord Byron has been elaborately stated by Mr. Moore, in his Life and Letters of the noble poet. It is not the place
here to discuss the question; but posterity will very easily settle it. My simple opinion
is, that Mr. Hunt had much seriously to complain of, and, under the
circumstances, has made his statement with great candour. The great misfortune for him, as
for the world, was, that almost immediately on his arrival in Italy with his family, his
true and zealous friend, Mr. Shelley, perished From
that moment, any indifferent spectator might have foreseen the end of the connexion with
Lord Byron. He had numerous aristocratic friends, who would, and
who did spare no pains to alarm his pride at the union with men of the determined character
of Hunt and Hazlitt for
progress and free opinion. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part I]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 4 (23 January 1828)
But we confess that we have a good deal of doubt whether Mr.
Hunt has judged rightly as to the wisdom of speaking about Lord
Byron in the tone which he has assumed, considering the importance attached
by the world to the kind of favours received by our author from the aristocratic poet. We
do not question for a moment, that Lord Byron's kindnesses or
ostentations were done after a fashion, which very much tended to merge the sense of
obligation in a feeling of insulted self-respect. We are sure, from all we have ever read
or heard of Mr. Hunt, that he is really accustomed to consider his own
money as of much less consequence than money is commonly held to deserve; and that no man
would think less of the inconvenience of giving away any portion of his worldly goods by
which he could benefit a friend. But he would do well to remember that men will judge him
by their rules, and not by his; and that it is mere folly to afford new weapons against an
honourable reputation to those who have uniformly made so malignant a use of previous
opportunities. . . .
[William Jerden?],
“Review of Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries” in Literary Gazette
No. 575 (26 January 1828)
In the career of social life where civilised well depend so much on their
fellow men, it must be that the noblest and proudest natures must often bend (we will not
say stoop) to receive benefits: from the king to the beggar, no one ever got through the
world without being obliged to others; and the receiver is as much to be esteemed and
honoured as the giver. But having once accepted the kindness of a friend, there is no after
act on his part, and far less any slight offence, or the mere cessation of bestowing
favours, which can form an apology for turning about to sting and wound your benefactor.
Silence is imposed, even if gratitude should be forgotten. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of
His Contemporaries [Concluded]” in Literary Chronicle
No. 455 (2 February 1828)
Of all the grave charges brought against Lord Byron by Mr. Hunt, the only one of real and
unquestionable importance, the only one which can at all account for or justify the
soreness of feeling by which the writer is evidently actuated, is contained in the
following passage:—‘The public have been given to understand that
Lord Byron's purse was at my command, and that I used it according
to the spirit with which it was offered. I did so. Stern necessity,
and a large family, compelled me; and, during our residence at Pisa,
I had from him, or rather from his steward, to whom he always sent me for
the money, and who doled it me out as if my disgraces were being counted, the sum
of seventy pounds!’ There is a meanness and an indelicacy
about this, which tends more to lessen Lord Byron, in our estimation,
than any of the peculiarities, strange and wayward as they were, upon which Mr.
Hunt dwells with such minute severity. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
If we rightly understand the drift of this argument, it means that
Mr. Hunt would have received as much of Lord Byron’s money as his lordship might have thought proper to give,
without feeling himself under the slightest obligation; but that he has since changed his
mind on the subject, ‘in practice at least,’ of which we presume the memoir of
his lordship is a sufficient example. There is much in this passage that savours of
Cobbett’s defence of his non-payment of a
loan advanced to him by Sir Francis Burdett. The
upshot of their common doctrine is this; that, whereas Messrs Cobbett
and Hunt have a high opinion of their own talents; and whereas one is
a political, and the other a miscellaneous writer, and they have not as yet amassed
fortunes by their publications—therefore, considering ‘the present state of
society,’ they need never think of refunding to any person who favours them with
pecuniary assistance! Mr. Hunt would, indeed, have us to believe, that
‘in practice at least,’ he has altered those notions of late, thereby affording
a ray of encouragement to those who might be inclined to imitate Lord
Byron’s generosity. But is he certain that if such persons were to be
found, he would not recur to his favourite doctrine? . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
He had been given to understand, forsooth!
that ‘the attachment was real; that it was rescuing Lord Byron
from worse connexions; and that the lady’s family approved of it.’ Supposing
all this to be true, does it follow that their conduct was the less criminal in the sight
of God—or less reprehensible in the opinion of good men?—But we correct
ourselves; it seems that Mr. Hunt has also a peculiar theory on this
subject, as on that of money. He tells us that he differs, very considerably, ‘with
the notions entertained respecting the intercourse of the sexes, in more countries than
one;’ by which, we suspect, he means that such intercourse ought to be subject to no
laws, human or divine. Truly, we have here a philosopher of the most agreeable
description! . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
The portrait will be acknowledged to be one of those which all who do not
know the original subject, from the reality of its look, and the force and nature of its
impression, will pronounce to be a perfect likeness; and they who did know it would place
the question beyond suspicion, unless indeed the picture is too close a resemblance to be
flattering, unless, contrary to the usage of artists, it represents deformities as well as
beauties. The ravages of the small-pox are never copied in a portrait. Biographies are
generally all so much alike, that the changes of a few names and circumstances would make
one pass for another. Eulogies deal in generals, and if a foible is confessed, it is
commonly one possessed by all mankind. Characters are seldom attempted, except by
historians and novelists; in both cases the original dwells only in the author’s
fancy. Viewed in this light, the character of Lord Byron
is perhaps the very first that was ever drawn from life with fidelity and skill; we have
him here as his intimate friends knew him—as those who lived with him felt him to be
by hourly experience. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Dignified historian! Sublime studies! What peering, and prying, what
whisper-listening, what look-eying, what note-jotting, and journalizing must have been
there! What sudden leave-taking of bower, arbour, and parlour, at nod or wink of the
master, whom he served! This was being something worse than a lick-spittle. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
With such a feeling running cold all the while at the bottom of his heart,
does this unfortunate proceed to fill page after page, through a long quarto volume, with
the meatiest details of private gossip,—dirty gabble about men’s wives and
men’s mistresses,—and men’s lackeys, and even the mistresses of the
lackeys (p. 13)—and, inter alia, with anecdotes of the
personal habits of an illustrious poet now no more, such as could never have come to the
knowledge of any man who was not treated by Lord Byron either as a friend or as a menial.
Such is the result of ‘the handsome conduct’ of Mr.
Hunt’s publisher—who, we should not forget, appears to have
exercised throughout* the concoction of this work, a species of authority somewhat new in
the annals of his calling: . . .
[William Jerden?],
“Review of Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries” in Literary Gazette
No. 575 (26 January 1828)
The connexion between Lord Byron and
persons in rank, in intellect, and in every high quality of soul, so inferior to himself as
the coterie which gathered round him in Italy— and the consequences of that
assemblage, may, we think, be very readily accounted for. Lord Byron,
with the fervour of a young poet, imagined Leigh
Hunt—in prison for libelling his King—a sort of political martyr,
and thus prepossessed in his favour was led to estimate his writings by a fictitious
standard. But this fit of fancy must almost instantly have been dispelled, as the author
shews it to have been, when his lordship came into direct and constant contact with the
pert vulgarity and miserable low-mindedness of Cockney-land. We can picture him (the
haughty aristocrat and impatient bard) with Mrs.
Hunt, as painted by her partial husband, with the whole family of bold
brats, as described by their proud papa, and with that papa himself and the rest of the
accompanying annoyances; and we no longer wonder that the Pisan establishment of congenial spirits, brought together from various parts of the world,
should have turned into a den of disagreeable, envious, bickering, hating, slandering,
contemptible, drivelling, and be-devilling wretches. The elements of such an association
were discord; and the result was, most naturally, spleen and secret enmity in life, and
hate and public contumely after death. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Literary Chronicle
No. 454 (26 January 1828)
Few people, we believe, will discover either delicacy or good taste in the
conduct thus complacently described. In the lady we perceive a very unamiable penchant for
saying disagreeable things, not quite so smart as her affectionate husband fancies them,
and which could have lost none of their deformity when repeated by Mr. Hunt to his lordship. Then again, does it tell against Byron that he was vexed because the children were kept out of
the way? We suspect not, and really cannot help thinking that many of the causes of
difference must have originated with the party now complaining. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Mr Hunt, too, had had his midriff tickled by it out of all
measure,—had treasured it up among other bright and original sallies in the
store-house of his memory, and suddenly, and without warning, brought it out to annihilate
the Noble who had dared to criticise the personal appearance of “some friends of
mine.” Poor Byron, how easily wert thou abashed!
Disgust and scorn must have tied his tongue; just as they sicken the very eyes that run
over the low and loath- some recital by a chuckling Cockney, of
his wife’s unmannerly and unwomanly stupidities, mixed up with the poisonous slaver
of his own impotent malice, rendering page 27 of “Lord Byron and
his Contemporaries, by Leigh Hunt,” the most impertinent piece of printed
paper that ever issued from the press. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
There is another subject upon which we must touch, though with unfeigned
reluctance, and with as much delicacy as we can. It is well known that an intimacy of an
improper description took place between Lord Byron and a
Signora Guiccoli, soon after his
lordship’s arrival in Italy, and that that intimacy continued for a considerable
length of time. Mr. Hunt was aware of this; he knew, therefore, that
the parties were living in a state of double adultery, openly violating the most sacred
duties. Yet he never seems to have hesitated an instant, about introducing Mrs. Hunt and his children to a family thus tainted in all
its relations. He complains of having been treated by Lord Byron, on
some oc-casions, with disrespect; we ask, what better
treatment did he deserve, after degrading himself and his children, by such mean
compliances? . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
During this period Lord Byron wrote
occasional letters to Mr Hunt, some of which are highly
complimentary, but they soon wax somewhat cool—“My dear
Hunt,” changes into “Dear Hunt,” “Yours,
most affectionately,” drops off—and it is plain enough that his Lordship is
getting sick and ashamed of the connexion. No wonder. The tone and temper of Mr
Hunt’s character, manners, and pursuits, as given by himself, must
have been most offensive to a man of high breeding and elevated sentiments like
Lord Byron; and his Lordship’s admiration of “Rimini,” was not such as to stand against
the public disgrace of having it dedicated to “My dear
Byron.” The pride of the peer revolted, as was natural and
right, from such an unwarrantable freedom—and with his own pen, it has since
appeared, he erased the nauseous familiarity,—for Leigh Hunt
very properly substituting “impudent varlet.” . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Mr Hunt had been a despicable abuser of all lords, before
he had ever sat in company with one; and even now, he is embued with the rancorous dislike
of high-birth, that is the glory and the shame of the lord-hating gang to which he yet
appertains. But how quickly quailed his paltry heart, and
cringed his servile shoulders, and bent his Cockney knees, and sought the floor the
pertness of his radical-looking eyes, at the very first condescending visit from a lord!
The Examiner died within him,—all his
principles slipt out of being like rain-drops on a window-pane, at the first smiting of the
sun—and, oh! the self-glorification that must have illuminated his face, “saved
only by thought from insignificance,” when, as he even now exults to record it,
Lady Byron continued sitting impatiently in her
carriage at his door at Paddington, and sending message after
message, to the number of Two, to her lord, fascinated by the glitter of mean eyes, and
preferring, to the gentle side of his young and newly-wedded wife, the company of a
Cockney, whose best bits were distributed through the taverns for tenpence every
Sunday! . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Mr. Hunt tells his readers that Lord Byron threw
him back his Spenser, saying ‘he could make
nothing of him’: but whether are we to believe that the noble lord, sickened (as all
Mr. Hunt’s readers have been for twenty years past) with Mr.
Hunt’s endless and meaningless chatter about the half dozen poets, good, bad, and
indifferent, whom he patronizes, was willing to annoy Mr. Hunt by the
cavalier treatment of one of his principal protegés, or that
the author of one of the noblest poems that have been written in the Spenserian stanza was
both ignorant of the Faëry Queen,
and incapable of comprehending anything of its merits? No man who knew anything of
Lord Byron can hesitate for a moment about the answer.
Lord Byron, we have no sort of doubt, indulged his passion for
mystifying, at the expense of this gentleman, to an improper and unjustifiable extent. His delight was at all times in the study of
man. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
It is equally certain, that we have now before us a
voluminous collection of Lord Byron’s private correspondence,
addressed, for the most part, to persons whom Mr. Hunt,
however ridiculously, describes as his own personal enemies—letters written before,
during, and after the period of Mr. Hunt’s intercourse with
Lord Byron in Italy; and although there occur many jokes upon
Mr. Hunt, many ludicrous and quizzical
notices of him, yet we have sought in vain for a single passage indicative of spleen or
resentment of any shape or degree. On the contrary, he always upholds Mr.
Hunt, as a man able, honest, and well-intentioned, and therefore, in spite
of all his absurdities, entitled to a certain measure of respect as well as kindness. The
language is uniformly kind. We shall illustrate what we have said by a few extracts.
Mr. Hunt will perceive that Lord
Byron’s account of his connexion with
The Liberal
is rather different from that given in the book on our table. Mr.
Hunt describes himself as pressed by Lord Byron into
the undertaking of that hapless magazine: Lord Byron, on the contrary,
represents himself as urged to the service by the Messrs. Hunt themselves. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
‘Genoa,
10bre 25th, 1822.—Now do you see what you, and your friends do by your
injudicious rudeness? actually cement a sort of connexion which you strove to prevent,
and which, had the Hunts
prospered, would not, in all probability, have continued. As it
is, I will not quit them in their adversity, though it should cost me character, fame,
money, and the usual et cetera. My original motives I already explained; (in the letter
which you thought proper to show;) they are the true ones, and I
abide by them, as I tell you, and I told Leigh Hunt,
when he questioned me on the subject of that letter. He was violently hurt, and never
will forgive me at the bottom; but I cannot help that. I never meant to make a parade
of it; but if he chose to question me, I could only answer the plain truth, and I
confess, I did not see any thing in the letter to hurt him, unless I said he was
“a bore,” which I don’t remember. Had this
Journal gone on well, and I could have aided to make it better for them, I should then
have left them after a safe pilotage off a lee shore to make a prosperous voyage by
themselves. As it is, I can’t, and would not if I could, leave them among the
breakers. As to any community of feeling, thought, or opinion, between Leigh
Hunt and me, there is little or none. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Before the First Number of this poorest of all Periodicals had left the
anvil, Lord Byron had grown sick and ashamed of the
Editor, and he “only made use of it for the publication of some things which his Tory
bookseller was afraid to put forth.” Hunt
attributes its downfall almost entirely to Lord Byron’s want of
spirit and independence. But Hunt himself, he acknowledges, grew daily
stupider and weaker in mind and body, and could indite nothing but drivel. Poor Shelley was dead—Hazlitt worse than dead—how then could the Liberal live even with “The Vision of Judgement, in which my brother saw nothing
but Byron, and a judicious hit at the Tories, and he prepared his
machine accordingly, for sending forward the blow unmitigated. Unfortunately it recoiled,
and played the devil with all of us.” Mr Hunt then tries to
attribute the death of the monster—which at its birth was little better than an
abortion—to the sneers of Mr Moore and
Mr Hobhouse. Poor blind bat, does he not know
that all Britain loathed it? That it was damned, not by acclamation, but by one hiss and
hoot? That every man who was betrayed by the name of Byron to take it
into his hands, whether in private house, bookseller’s shop, or coffee-room, called
instantly and impatiently for a basin of water, soap and towels. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
We remember to have seen some numbers of the “Liberal,” the periodical publication in the management
of which, Mr. Hunt assisted Lord
Byron; and although it is written, that of the dead nothing that is not good
should be said, yet we must declare, that a more silly, a more vulgar, a more
unentertaining, or at the same time, a more ostentatious work never dishonoured our
literature. In matters of morality, it was at least of a very questionable charac-ter; in matters of religion it was offensively conceited and
profane. It perished in the disgrace it deserved, and let it therefore rest in
contempt. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
He thought, no doubt, that his own compositions
would be easily distinguished from those of Messrs. Hunt and Co.; and
that, therefore, he might benefit these needy people without materially injuring his own
reputation. Humble as was his estimate of the talents of all his coadjutors, except
Mr. Shelley, he had not foreseen that, instead
of his genius floating their dulness, an exactly opposite consequence would attend that
unnatural coalition. In spite of some of the ablest pieces that ever came from
Lord Byron’s pen,—in spite of the magnificent poetry
of heaven and Earth,—the eternal laws of gravitation held their course: Messrs.
Hunt, Hazlitt, and Co.
furnished the principal part of the cargo; and the ‘Liberal’ sunk to the bottom of the waters of oblivion
almost as rapidly as the Table-Talk, or the Foliage, or the Endymion.
. . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Among the other causes of the death of the Liberal, Mr Hunt refers to
one bitterly spoken of by Hazlitt, in a note quoted
from some manuscripts—the attacks on it in Blackwood’s Magazine. So infamous, it appears, had
Hazlitt been rendered by some able articles in this work, that he
had been excommunicated from all decent society, and nobody would touch a dead book of his,
any more than they would the body of a man who had died of the
plague. This is an incredible instance of the power of the press. What! a man of such pure
morals, delightful manners, high intellects, and true religion, as Mr
Hazlitt, to be ruined in soul, body, and estate, pen, pencil, and pallet, by
a work which Mr Hunt himself declared in the Examiner had no sale—almost the entire impression of every
number lying in cellars, in the capacity of dead stock? . . .
[William Jerden?],
“Review of Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries” in Literary Gazette
No. 575 (26 January 1828)
We are not inclined to press this matter beyond its just bounds, nor, to
set a higher value upon pecuniary obligations than they deserve; but surely, in spite of
the cant and wire-drawing distinctions of the author, it must be felt by every
well-constituted and upright mind, that the acceptance of such favours ought, at least, to
prevent their acceptor from violating the grave of his friend; for, as
the world goes, money is the greatest test of friendship; find the man who gives
it liberally and generously, as Lord Byron did to
Mr. Hunt, affords the surest criterion of his regard and
affection. Yet, writhing under a recollection of bounties ill-bestowed, thus does the
quondam worshipper of that noble lord, and of his rank and title, profane his character,
when death has sealed the lips which (if utter scorn did not close them) might have
punished the perfidy with immortal ignominy. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
It is not our province to defend Lord
Byron’s character from the imputations which are here made against it.
They may be all well founded, for aught that we know; but that they are set forth in a
vindictive, not to say a malignant spirit, no man can doubt, who understands that it is the
duty of a biographer to give the lights as well as shades to his portrait, which properly
belong to it. If Mr. Hunt is to be believed,
Lord Byron had not a single virtue, to redeem or palliate the
above formidable list of vices and infirmities; whereas it is notorious, that his lordship
had done many kind and generous acts towards literary friends; that he was never niggardly
of his praise where he thought it deserved; that throughout his too brief existence, he had
been animated by an unquenchable love of liberty, and had essentially served it by his
writings, and that finally he sacrificed his life upon its altar. These things alone, not
to say a word of his transcendant genius, ought to shed a brightness on his history, which
should cast many of his infirmities into the shade. It cannot be denied, that his great
poetical talents were sullied by many impurities, but these will of themselves decay in
time, and leave his name in that fine splendour, in which it was invested when it first
obtained its ascendant in our horizon. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
Much of what Mr. Hunt is pleased to call his account
of Lord Byron, is rather a dissertation upon his
character, than a history of his life. He takes a verse from the noble lord’s poems,
or a confession of an idle moment, and makes it the theme of half a dozen tiresome prosing
pages. There is little that is new in his narrative, and of that little, there is still
less that is important. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part I]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 4 (23 January 1828)
But the great value of this
portion of the work undoubtedly is, that it gives us a far clearer and more consistent view
of the character of the singular man and celebrated writer of whom it treats, than any
other book that has hitherto appeared. We see him in these pages living and moving before
us, not merely with his wings and scars, with the power and desperation, of his poetry, but
with the circumstances and attributes of ordinary humanity. And it is now, indeed, time
that we should begin to judge him calmly and fairly; for the renown, and the all but
disgrace which alike filled the air as with an immeasurable cloud, have shrunk, as did the
gigantic genius of the Arabian Tale, into a narrow urn. It is not more than his errors
deserve to say, that they were the rank produce of a noble soil, the weeds which grow among
Asphodel and Amaranth, on the summit of Olympus, and around the
footsteps of the glorified immortals. It is good for us that books exist which display the
union of poetic ability with a scorn and a selfishness of which literature scarce afforded
us any previous example; for the works of Byron may be a warning to
every mind, the mightiest or the meanest, that there are failings and vices which will even
break the sceptre and scatter to the winds the omnipotence of genius . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
Shall, then,
the public be informed of that which does not concern it; or shall we accuse the publisher
of such information of a breach of faith—of a treacherous betrayal of that which is
only revealed under the sacred confidence of domestic intercourse? We confess that these
fine words fall dead upon our ears. We see no reason that men should not be known as they
really are, but many for it; it is the first step to amendment. Had all the published lives
and characters been written in their true colours, the world would have been much further
advanced in virtue. This hypocrisy in glossing over vice—in smoothing down the
roughness and defects of character, is a kind of premium upon the indulgence of evil
passion. Though the world may have little to do with the private virtues directly; inasmuch
as these constitute by far the greater portion of its aggregate of happiness; there is no
more important subject can be discussed before it than the excellencies and failings of
eminent individuals. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of
His Contemporaries [Concluded]” in Literary Chronicle
No. 455 (2 February 1828)
Mr. Hunt asserts, on more than one occasion, that
Lord Byron had ‘no address,’ no
conversational powers, none, in short, of those little, pleasant, companionable qualities,
for which, we believe, Mr. Hunt himself is so deservedly celebrated.
Any deficiency of this sort, we should set down as no very culpable matter; but it happens
that there are many testimonies on this subject opposed to that of Mr.
Hunt. Some of these, we confess, may not appear either to him or to
ourselves, of a very conclusive order; but what will he say to that of Mr. Shelley? It is known, that in Julian and Maddalo, Mr. Shelley
introduces us to himself and Lord Byron; and thus favorably, both in
prose and verse, does he describe the latter: ‘I say that
Maddalo is proud, because I can find no other word to express the
concentered and impatient feelings which consume him; but it is on his own hopes and
affections only that he seems to trample, for, in social life no human being can be more
gentle, patient, and unassuming than Maddalo. He is cheerful, frank,
and witty. His more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication; men are held by it as by a spell. He has travelled much; and
there is an inexpressible charm in his relation of his adventures in different
countries.’ The whole portrait is worthy of quotation . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
We should, indeed, have reason to blush, could we think for a moment of
entering into the details given by Mr. Leigh Hunt,
concerning the manners, habits, and conversation of Lord
Byron. The witness is, in our opinion, disqualified to give evidence upon
any such subjects; his book proves him to be equally ignorant of what manners are, and
incompetent to judge what manners ought to be: his elaborate portraiture of his own habits
is from beginning to end a very caricatura of absurdity; and the man who wrote this book,
studiously cast, as the whole language of it is, in a
free-and-easy, conversational tone, has no more right to decide about the conversation of
such a man as Lord Byron, than has a pert apprentice to pronounce
ex cathedrá
—from his one shilling gallery, to wit—on the dialogue of a polite
comedy. We can easily believe, that Lord Byron never talked his best
when this was his companion. We can also believe that Lord
Byron’s serious conversation, even in its lowest tone, was often
unintelligible to Mr. Leigh Hunt.
. . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
How insidiously the serpent slides through the folds of these passages,
leaving his slime behind him as he wriggles out of sight! There is a
Sporus-like effeminacy in the loose and languid language in which
he drawls out his sentence into what he thinks the fine-sounding word,
Sardanapalus. What if the Grand
Signior did take the youthful Byron for a woman in
disguise? The mistake of that barbarian no more proved that his lordship had an effeminate
appearance, than a somewhat similar mistake of the Sandwich Islanders proved the jolly crew
of the Endeavour, sailing round the world with Cook,
to be like Gosport-girls. . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
Mr. Hunt enters into an examination of the various publications which
have been broached on the subject of Lord Byron’s
life and character; and as he condescends to criticise some very paltry performances, we
are surprised that he did not bestow some attention on a paper which formerly appeared in
this magazine (for October, 1824). It is the only
sketch that has been written in the same spirit as his own; and since it remarkably
coincides in all leading points with the view above given, may be considered a confirmation
of its truth. This sketch appeared soon after Lord Byron’s
death, and attracted much attention at the time, it having been copied from our pages into
almost every other journal of the day. It was thought much too true, much too
unceremonious, and the very reverse of sentimental, the tone into which the nation struck
after the death of this remarkable person. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
There are upwards of forty pages
out of one hundred and fifty, devoted solely to a dull criticism on a work, entitled,
“The Life, Writings, Opinions, and Times, of
Lord Byron,”—a spurious compilation, known to be such by any man who
has the slightest judgment. Yet does Mr. Hunt set about refuting the
numberless fabrications of this precious publication, with as much solemnity as if it had
proceeded from a respectable quarter. But his motive is evident enough. He wished merely to
eke out his memoir, and give it as imposing an appearance as possible. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
In another part of the book, Hunt
quotes a few sentences, which seem very good ones, from an old article in the Magazine on
Lord Byron,—and adds, “there follows
something about charity, and clay-idols, and brutal outrages of all the best feelings; and
Mr Blackwood, having finished his sermon,
retires to count his money, his ribaldry, and his kicks.” Here
Hunt considers Mr Blackwood as the writer of
the Critique, or Sermon in question, and indeed he often speaks of that gentleman as the
author of the articles that have kicked up such a “stoure” in Cockney-land. On
other occasions, when it suits his purpose, he gives himself the lie direct,—but
probably all this passes for wit behind the counter. Mr
Colburn, however, cannot like it: nor would it be fair, notwithstanding the
judicious erasures which he has made on the MS. in its progress through the press, to
consider that gentleman the author of “Lord Byron and his
Contemporaries,” any more than of those very entertaining but somewhat
personal articles in the Magazine of which he is
proprietor, entitled “Sketches of the
Irish Bar.” That Mr Blackwood should occasionally
retire to count his money, seems not at all unreasonable in a publisher carrying on a
somewhat complicated, extensive, and flourishing trade. It is absolutely necessary that he
should so retire into the Sanctum, at which times even we do not think of disturbing
him . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of
His Contemporaries [Concluded]” in Literary Chronicle
No. 455 (2 February 1828)
With respect to Mr. Hunt's opinion of
Lord Byron's poetical ability, little need be said.
Whatever may be our respect for his general criticisms, in this particular instance we
entertain but little; nor need we stay to consider what he himself would say of a critic
who should acknowledge that he had read only a portion of certain works which he has no
hesitation in condemning, almost unqualifiedly, as a whole. ‘To the
best of my recollection I never even read Parisina, nor is this the only one of
his lordship's works of which I can say as much, acquainted as I am with the
others.’ There is an unpleasant assumption in this passage, which comes very
gracelessly from Mr. Hunt; at all events, it is a question whether our
dislike of the effrontery does not exceed our gratitude for the candour of the
acknowledgment. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Even as to the more solemn subject of
religion, we ought to take shame to ourselves for even for a moment considering Lord Byron and Mr. Leigh
Hunt as brother infidels. The dark doubts which
disturbed to its depths the noble intellect of the one had little, indeed, in common with
the coxcombical phantasies which floated and float on the surface of the other’s
shallowness. Humility,—a most absurd delusion of humility, be it allowed, made the
one majestic creature unhappy: the most ludicrous conceit, grafted on the most deplorable
incapacity, has filled the paltry mind of the gentleman-of the-press now before us, with a
chaos of crude, pert dogmas, which defy all analysis, and which it is just possible to pity
more than despise. . . .
[William Jerden?],
“Review of Hunt, Lord Byron and Some of his Contemporaries” in Literary Gazette
No. 575 (26 January 1828)
The confessions in this passage betray some symptoms of grace, and prove
that the writer could not entirely reconcile his mind to the despicable course of doing
wrong to the memory of his benefactor for the sake of paltry lucre, if not also for the
gratification of still baser passions. Indeed the struggle between a sense of rectitude in
this respect, and the dishonour of publishing these memoirs, is obvious in many
places. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Now a question suggests itself to us, which we are sure Mr. Hunt, with the high feelings thus entertained and expressed
by him, will thank us for asking. It is well known, that Lord
Byron took leave finally of Mr. Leigh Hunt by letter.
The letter in question we never saw, but we have conversed with those who read it; and from
their account of its contents—they describe it as a document of considerable length,
and as containing a full narrative of the whole circumstances under which Lord
Byron and Mr. Hunt met and parted, according to his
lordship’s view of the case—we confess we have been rather surprized to find it
altogether omitted in Mr. Leigh Hunt’s quarto. Mr.
Hunt prints very carefully various letters, in which Lord
Byron treats of matters nowise bearing on the differences which occurred
between these two distinguished contemporaries: and our
question is, was it from humanity to the dead, or from humanity to the living, that
Mr. Leigh Hunt judged it proper to omit in this work the
apparently rather important letter to which we refer? If Mr. Hunt has
had the misfortune to mislay the document, and sought in vain for it amongst his
collections, he ought, we rather think, to have stated that fact, and stated also, in so
far as his memory might serve him, his impression of the character and tendency of this
valedictory epistle. But in case he has both lost the document and totally forgotten what
it contained, we are happy in having this opportunity of informing him, that a copy of it
exists in very safe keeping. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
Of Mr. Moore there is a very lively, pleasant, and
characteristic description. Mr. Hunt’s anecdotes about the
writer of ‘Lalla Rookh’ are,
in general, good-humoured enough; and we scarcely understand why Mr.
Hunt should have quarrelled with so distinguished and amiable a person, for
saying that there was ‘a taint in the Liberal,’
especially as he himself expresses the same thing in other words, when he talks of his
objections to the publication of the parody
on ‘The Vision of
Judgment.’ . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Of Mr
Moore he begins with drawing a favourable likeness—but having
something of the spleen towards him too, he puts on not a few touches, meant to dash its
pleasantness, and leaves it in a very unfinished state—for no other or better reason
that we can discover, than that Mr Moore most justly had said to
Lord Byron that “the Liberal had a taint in
it,” had, at a public dinner in Paris, spoken highly of
England, and in some verses written rather disparagingly of that very indulgent person,
Madame Warrens. On one occasion, he designates
him by the geographic designation of “a Derbyshire poet”—Mr
Moore, we believe, having had a cottage in that county—admitting in a
note, that at the time he had been too angry with Mr Moore to honour
him so highly as to call him by his name—and on many occasions he sneers at him for
living so much it in that high society, from which all Cockneys are of course
excluded—and saw, as has been mentioned, he threatens him with the posthumous satire
of Lord Byron.
. . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
Moreover, his reasoning as to
Mr. Moore’s conduct with regard to Lord
Byron’s
Memoirs, seems to us to be at once vague and
inapplicable. What Mr. Hunt seems to aim at, is to make out an
inconsistency in Mr. Moore’s conduct, because he accepted 2000
guineas’ worth from Lord Byron, but would not accept the same
sum in money from Lord Byron’s family. The difference is obvious. In the one case the
present was a mark of friendship; in the other it was a payment, and might have been
thought and called a bribe. Suppose Mr. Shelley, when he dedicated
‘The Cenci’ to
Mr. Hunt, had given him the copyright; and that, if the Tragedy
had not been already published, our author had seen fit, after his friend’s death, to
throw it into the fire, would he have accepted 200l. or 200 pence
from the Society for the Suppression of Vice as a reward for his conduct? Mr.
Hunt almost always makes blunders when he talks about money-matters. He says
himself that he has no head for them; and he really ought to leave the discussion of them
to calculating stockbrokers or cool reviewers, while he writes (we hope) another
‘Rimini.’ . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
On Shelley there is a long and most
interesting article. He was the greatest man of all those who are mentioned by Mr. Hunt; he was also his most intimate friend; and the notices
we have of him are proportionally valuable. Mr. Hunt’s book,
from bearing the name of Lord Byron on its title-page,
will probably go into the hands of many persons who know nothing of
Shelley but the name. We trust that the delightful, and we are
sure, most accurate portrait drawn by our author in the book before us, and the exquisite
specimens of poetry which he has extracted from Mr. Shelley’s
works, will induce a more detailed acquaintance with the writings of one of the most
benevolent men and powerful poets that have lived in any age or country. Of the errors of
some of his opinions, taken in their broad and obvious import, few men have had the
boldness to profess themselves apologists, and fewer still have had the charity to seek
among those errors for precious, though sometimes latent, germs of truth. We will venture
to assert, that those of his doctrines which are at first sight the most awfully
pernicious, are uniformly objectionable for the form rather than the spirit, the phrase
more than the feeling. It is, on the other hand, undeniable, that his sympathies are the
fondest and the best, his aspirations the purest and most lofty. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
We took a deep interest in Mr
Shelley. Full of admiration of his genius, and pity for his misconduct and
misfortunes, we spoke of him at all times with an earnestness of feeling, which we know he
felt, and for which we received written expressions of gratitude from some by whom he was,
in spite of all his unhappy errors, most tenderly beloved. Mr
Hunt must know this; but he is one of those “lovers of truth,”
who will not, if he can help it, suffer any one single spark of it to spunk out, unless it
shine in his own face, and display its pretty features to the public, “rescued only
by thought from insignificance.” Moreover, he hates this Magazine, not altogether, perhaps, without some little reason
of a personal kind—and, therefore, as a “lover of truth,” is bound never
to see any good in it, even if that good be the cordial praise of the genius of his dearest
friend, and, when it was most needed, a fearless vindication of all that could be
vindicated in his opinions, and conduct. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
Judging of his mind as displayed in
his poetry, his hopes are fierce and rushing longings; his dislike, a curse; his
sympathies, an absorbing passion; the habitual pulses of his frame are the shocks of an
earthquake. Such was the spirit, clothing in the most glorious forms of beauty the one
purpose of purifying and ennobling its kind, on which were poured out all the vials of
muddy wrath in the power of the ‘Quarterly
Review.’ Such was the spirit which, in all
but its productions, is absolutely unknown to us, except through the short notice, at the
beginning of a volume of posthumous poems, and a part of the book with which Mr. Hunt has just enlivened society and enriched literature.
His information is full and consolatory, and we find in every line the authoritative
verification of those conclusions, as to Mr. Shelley’s reverence
and practice of all excellence, and habitual belief in the goodness of the Great Spirit
that pervades the universe, which are at once a triumph of candour and charity, and an
utter confusion and prostration to the whole herd of selfish bigots. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and some of
His Contemporaries [Concluded]” in Literary Chronicle
No. 455 (2 February 1828)
The articles descriptive of Shelley, Keats, Charles Lamb, &c. are worthy of them and of the writer.
They are correct and beautiful sketches, and will do much towards giving popular opinion a
right direction respecting the two first. The portraits of Keats and
Lamb are welcome ornaments to the volume; we regret that they were
not accompanied by one of Shelley. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
The author’s memoir of Mr.
Moore is too scanty, and, we may add, too prejudiced to deserve any
particular notice from us. That of Mr.
Shelley, on the contrary, is nothing but a panegyric. Of the genius of that
ill-starred and eccentric man, we have always thought very highly; his private life offers
little worthy of our admiration, and his religious principles still less. His end was
tragical, and contains a lesson that should appal the most thoughtless of his
disciples. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
So much for Mr. Leigh Hunt versus Lord Byron: the other
contemporaries that figure in this volume are, with two or three exceptions, persons whose
insignificance equals that of the author himself; and as they have had no hand, that we
know of, in this absurd exposure of themselves, we should be sorry either to waste our time
or to wound their feelings by any remarks on Mr. Hunt’s
delineations of them. Mr. Shelley’s portrait
appears to be the most elaborate of these minor efforts of
Mr. Hunt’s pencil. Why does Mr. Hunt
conceal (if he be aware of the fact) that this unfortunate man of genius was bitterly
sensible ere he died of the madness and profligacy of the early career which drew upon his
head so much indignation, reproach, and contumely—that he confessed with tears ‘that he well knew he had been all in the
wrong’? . . .
William Howitt,
“Leigh Hunt” in Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets (London: Richard Bentley, 1847) 2 Vols
Every lover
of true poetry and of an excellent and high-hearted man, must regret that his visit to
Italy was dashed by such melancholy circumstances, for no man was ever made more thoroughly
to enjoy that fine climate and classical land. Yet as the friend of Shelley, Keats,
Charles Lamb, and others of the first spirits of
the age, Mr. Hunt must be allowed, in this respect, to have been one
of the happiest of men. It were no mean boon of providence to have been permitted to live
in the intimacy of men like these; but, besides this, he had the honour to suffer, with
those beautiful and immortal spirits, calumny and persecution. They have achieved justice
through death—he has lived injustice down. As a politician, there is a great debt of
gratitude due to him from the people, for he was their firm champion when reformers
certainly did not walk about in silken slippers. He fell on evil days, and he was one of
the first and foremost to mend them. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
In the memoir which Mr.
Hunt has given of him, we frequently observe the phrase
‘conventional,’ and ‘unconventional.’ It seems, that he imagines
the community divisible into these two classes, the former including those who acknowledge
an allegiance to the general rules of society, the latter consisting of those who would
like to live according to regulations of their own. Mr. Shelley has a
conspicuous place among the unconventional, and, if we mistake not, Mr.
Hunt aspires to a similar honour;—par
nobile-fratres. The author indulges us with a long and tedious
review of his friend’s different poetical works, of course exalting them to the
highest pitch of reputation. It will avail them little. The tendency to corruption and
decay, which in a signal manner is engendered in all obscene things, pervades them to the
core, and has already bowed them to the dust, with which they will soon be covered. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Gentle Reader—Let us so arouse your imagination, that you see a
Lion sleeping in the shade, or rather couched an a conscious slumber, his magnificent mane
spread abroad in the forest gloom, and the growling thunder hushed beneath it as in a
lowering cloud. Suppose him Sir Walter. Among the
branches of a tree, a little way off, sits a monkey, and did you ever hear such a chatter?
The blear-eyed abomination makes his very ugliest mouths at the monarch of the wood; and
shrieking in his rage, not altogether unlike something human, dangles first from one twig,
and then from another, still higher and higher up the tree, with an instinctive though
unnecessary regard for the preservation of his nudities, clinging at once by paw and by
tail, making assurance doubly sure that he shall not lose his hold, and drop down within
range of Sir Leoline. Suppose him Leigh Hunt. The sweet
little cherub that sits up aloft fondly and idly imagines, that the Lion is lying there
meditating his destruction,—that those claws, whose terrors are now tamed in glossy
velvet, and which, if suddenly unsheathed, would be seen blushing perhaps with the blood of
pard or panther, were given him by nature for the express purpose of waging high warfare
with the genus Simia! . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
Of the remaining notices, we are most obliged to the author for that on
Mr. Keats. The names of Coleridge and of Lamb call up to us so much more vivid ideas of the persons in question,
that we learn comparatively little about them even from Mr.
Hunt’s very pleasant sketches. But Mr.
Keats’s reputation is at present but the shadow of a glory,—and
it is also plain enough to be seen that his works, beautiful as they are, are yet but the
faint shadow of his mind. His friend has commemorated his high genius, melancholy fate, and
unmerited contumelies, in a fitting tone of feeling. . . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
His
was another of the bright minds at which a part of the public looked, for a time, only
through the smoky glass of the Quarterly
Reviewers. But by a just and necessary retribution, the abuse of power has
destroyed itself, and we doubt whether two hundred persons in the kingdom would now attach
the slightest importance to the most violent lucubrations of Mr. Murray’s critics. In the case of poor Keats, the mischief was irreparable; for it is clear, that whatever
predisposition to disease may have existed, the brutality of the extra-orthodox Reviewers
was the proximate cause of the death of an amiable man and a great poet, at an age when
most of his contemporaries were thinking of nothing but pounds and shillings, or the
excitements of ballrooms and burgundy, or the pleasure of covering the world with floods of
anonymous calumny. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
We believe we could not illustrate our view of the whole of this business
more effectually than by simply presenting a few extracts from Lord
Byron’s private letters in which this Mr.
Keats is alluded to. Our readers have probably, forgotten all about
‘Endymion, a
poem,’ and the other works of this young man, the all but universal roar
of laughter with which they were received some ten or twelve years ago, and the ridiculous
story (which Mr. Hunt denies) of the author’s death
being caused by the reviewers. Mr. Hunt was the great patron, the
‘guide, philosopher, and friend’ of Mr. Keats; it was he
who first puffed the youth into notice in his newspaper. The youth returned the compliment
in sonnets and canzonets, and presented his patron with a lock of Milton’s hair, and wrote a poem on the occasion. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
This sounds all mighty valiant—and no one can read the words,
without believing that “Hunt sent a challenge to
Dunbar, saying, Charlie meet me if you
daur,” and that his challenge struck a cold terror into the heart of “rough old
General Izzard.” But Mr
Hunt has waxed tea-pot valiant, when recording in old age the bold
achievements of his youth. All that he did was, to ask the General’s name, that he
might bring an action against him for libel. Half a syllable, with any other import, would
have brought the General, without an hour’s delay, before the eyes of the astonished
Cockney. Hunt then kept fiddle-faddling with attorneys, and
solicitors, and barristers, for months together, till finding fees troublesome, and that
there had been no libel, but in his own diseased imagination, or guilty conscience, he
“retreated into his contempt,” and in contempt he has, we believe, ever since
remained. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
There are hundreds of others who lived in the
time of Lord Byron, and had just as much title to notice as of those,
with perhaps one or two exceptions, who are here enumerated. Keats
died at the age of twenty-four, in a state little short of madness.
Campbell still lives to adorn his country, and promote the welfare
of his race. Dubois is scarcely known; Theodore
Hook, too well known for his, at least presumed, connexion with the basest
system of calumny that ever disgraced the public press; Mathews still
delights the town, and one of the Smiths, at least, has retired to Tor Hill, to die with one Reuben Apsley. Coleridge has grown
fat and idle; Charles Lamb has outgrown his visions; and as to the
rest, and even as to most of these, what had they particularly to do with Lord
Byron, that they should be denominated his
contemporaries? . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
To Mr Campbell he is exceedingly
complimentary—and has, he thinks, hit off the character of that delightful poet in
two words; he is a “French Virgil.” What
that means, we do not presume even to conjecture; but be its intents wicked or charitable,
it is a mere parody on Mr Charles Lamb’s not
very prudent or defensible remark about Voltaire,—of which, a word by and by. In the midst even of his
admiration, he cannot help being impertinent; and he tells the world that Mr
Campbell gladly relaxes from the loftiness of
poetry, and delights in Cotton’s Travestie of Virgil, (a most beastly
book) and that his conversation “is as far as may be from any thing like a
Puritan.” In short, he insinuates, that Mr Campbell’s
conversation is what some might call free and. easy, and others indecent,—a
compliment, we believe, as awkward as untrue. He pretends to be enraptured with the
beautiful love and marriage scenes in Gertrude of Wyoming; but we know better, and beg to assure him that he is not.
In confirmation of the correctness of our opinion, we refer him to the Story of Rimini. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
Mr Theodore Hook he also attempts
to characterise; and to us, who know a thing or two, this is about one of the basest bits
of his book. Not a syllable of censure does he pass upon that gentleman, but a wish
“that he had stuck to his humours and farces, for which he had real talent, instead of writing politics.” Now, there is no term of
contumely and abuse allowable in low society, which Mr
Hunt and his brothers, and the rest of the gang, have not heaped upon
Mr Hook’s head, in the Examiner, as if he were excommunicated and outcast from the company of all
honest men. But Mr Colburn is Mr
Hook’s publisher, and he is now also Mr
Hunt’s; and therefore he, who takes for motto, “It is for slaves
to lie, and freemen to speak truth,” thus compromises, we must not say his
conscience, but that which, with him, stands instead of it, party and personal spite, and
winds up a most flattering account of Mr Hook’s delightful,
companionable qualities, with the slightest and faintest expression of dissent,—if it
even amount to that,—from his politics, that, his breath, which is “sweet
air,” can be made to murmur. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
And, by the way, why did Mr.
Hunt inflict on Mr. Horatio Smith so
great an injury as to say, after describing his acts of generous friendship to the
unfortunate Mr. Shelley, that he (Mr. Smith)
differed with Mr. Shelley ‘on some points,’ without stating distinctly what
those points were—namely, every point, whether of religious belief or of moral
opinion, on which Mr. Shelley differed, at the time of his
acquaintance with Mr. Smith, from all the respectable part of the
English community? We are happy to have this opportunity of doing justice, on competent
authority, to a person whom, judging merely from the gentleman-like and moral tone of all
his writings, we certainly should never have expected to meet with in the sort of company
with which this, no doubt, unwelcome eulogist has thought fit to associate his name. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
Availing himself of the comprehensiveness of his title-page, Mr. Hunt has
given us memoirs of Keats, Campbell, Dubois,
Theodore Hook, Mathews, Messrs. James and Horace Smith,
Fuseli, Bonnycastle, Kinnaird, Charles Lamb, and Mr.
Coleridge, many of them it must be owned, respectable names, to whose merits
we offer no objection. But, why they should be set down as the
contemporaries of Lord Byron, we are rather at a loss to
conjecture. . . .
[John Wilson],
“Review of Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries” in Blackwood's Magazine
Vol. 23
No. 136 (March 1828)
All this proves, that Mr Lamb has a
head worthy of Aristotle, and that he ought to have a
face like that of Bacon. The saying about Voltaire is most repulsively narrated; and Mr
Lamb, who took such offence with Mr
Southey for regretting that Elia’s essays had not
a sounder religious feeling, what will he say—or feel, at least—about the sad
jumble of offensive and childish nonsense, which, without having the capacity of
re-creating the circumstances in which the words were uttered, or imparting the slightest
feeling of the spirit in which they were conceived, Hunt
has palmed off upon the public as characteristic specimens of the conversation of
Charles Lamb?
. . .
Anonymous,
“Lord Byron and His Contemporaries [Part II]” in The Athenaeum
Vol. 1
No. 5 (29 January 1828)
The
200 concluding pages are devoted by the author to his own memoirs. These are sparkling and
interesting, and exhibit no falling off of talent, or lack of matter. But the entertainment
to be drawn from them is of so different a kind from that of the previous notices, and so
much less concentrated and engrossing, that Mr. Hunt certainly judged
rightly in his original plan of opening the volume with that which is personal to himself;
and thus giving us a ‘diapason ending full’ in Byron and Shelley. Indeed, we would
advise the readers of the book to proceed after this fashion; and, beginning with the last
division of work, to travel regularly backwards. . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
We come now to Mr. Hunt’s recollections of his
own life, to which we find a portrait prefixed, calculated to do any thing but conciliate
our confidence. We have not the honour of knowing the original; but if this portrait be at
all like him we must confess, that we should have no great fancy for his company. We
understand that he is rather displeased with his painter, or at least, his engraver,
who, he thinks, has made him look like a thief. The picture certainly does warrant the
idea, for we could almost imagine, that he had something under his cloak which he had
purloined, and was making the best of his way home with it. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Mr. Hunt received from the hand of nature talents which,
if properly cultivated and employed, might have raised him to distinction; and, we really
believe, feelings calculated to procure him a kind reception from the world. His vanity, a
vanity to which it is needless to look for any parallel even among the vain race of
rhymers, has destroyed all. Under the influence of that disease—for it deserves no
other name—he has set himself up as the standard in every thing. While yet a
stripling, most imperfectly educated, and lamentably ignorant of men as they are, and have
been, he dared to set his own crude fancies in direct opposition to all that is received
among sane men, either as to the moral government of the world, or the political government
of this nation, or the purposes and conduct of literary enterprise. This was ‘the
Moloch of absurdity’ of which Lord Byron has spoken so justly. The consequences—we
believe we may safely say the last consequences—of all this rash and wicked nonsense
are now before us. The last wriggle of expiring imbecility appears in these days to be a
volume of personal Reminiscences; and we have now heard the feeble death-rattle of the once
loud-tongued as well as brazen-faced Examiner. . . .
[Henry Southern],
“Leigh Hunt's Lord Byron” in London Magazine
Vol. NS 10 (February 1828)
One of
the cleverest sketches of character we remember is that of Mr. Leigh
Hunt’s father, the Rev. Isaac
Hunt, originally a barrister in America, then a fugitive loyalist, and
afterwards a clergyman of the Church of England, who lost a bishopric by his too social
qualities. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Mr. Hunt speaks with no respect of his
father’s talents, but represents him as a graceful elocutionist. He was, we gather,
one of those comely, smooth-tongued, demi-theatrical spouters who sometimes command for a
season or two the rapture of pretty ladies, and the flutter of perfumed
pocket-handkerchiefs. Totally destitute of the learning of his new profession, and by no
means remarkable, if we are to believe his son, for clerical propriety of habits, it is not
wonderful that the creole orator was disappointed in his expectation of church patronage;
or indeed, that, after a little time, his chapel-celebrity was perceptibly on the decline.
Government gave him a moderate pension as an American loyalist; and as soon as he found
that this was to be all, the reverend gentleman began to waver somewhat in his opinions
both as to church and state. In a word, he ended in being an unitarian, and a republican,
and an universalist; and found that this country was as yet far too much in the dark to
approve either of his new opinions, or of the particular circumstances under which he had
abandoned his old ones. Worldly disappointment soon turns a weak mind sour; and stronger
minds than this have had recourse to dangerous stimulants in their afflictions. . . .
William Howitt,
“Leigh Hunt” in Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets (London: Richard Bentley, 1847) 2 Vols
That is a fine filial eulogy; but still finer and more eloquent has been
the practical one of the life and writings of the son. Whoever knows anything of these,
perceives how the qualities of the mother have lived on, not only in the grateful
admiration of the poet, but in his character and works. This is another proud testimony
added to the numerous ones revealed in the biographies of illustrious men, of the vital and
all-prevailing influence of mothers. What does not the world owe to noble-minded women in
this respect? and what do not women owe to the world and themselves in the consciousness of
the possession of this authority? To stamp, to mould, to animate to good, the generation
that succeeds them, is their delegated office. The are admitted to the co-workmanship with
God; his actors in the after age are placed in their hands at the outset of their career,
when they are plastic as wax, and pliant as the green withe. It is they who can shape and
bend as they please. It is they—as the your, beings advance into the world of life,
as passions kindle, as eager desires seize them one after another, as they ire alive with
ardour, and athirst for knowledge and experience of the great scene of existence into which
they are thrown—it is they who can guide, warn, inspire with
the upward or the downward tendency, and cast through them on the future ages the blessings
or the curses of good or evil. They are the gods and prophets of childhood. . . .
William Howitt,
“Leigh Hunt” in Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets (London: Richard Bentley, 1847) 2 Vols
The whole description of this charming and cordial family, is one of those
beautiful and sunny scenes in human life, to which the heart never wearies of turning. It
makes the rememberer exclaim:—“Blessed house! May a blessing be upon your
rooms, and your lawn, and your neighbouring garden, and the quiet old monastic name of your
street; and may it never he a thoroughfare; and may all your inmates he happy! Would to God
one could renew, at a moment’s notice, the happy hours we have enjoyed in last times,
with the same circles, in the same houses!” . . .
Anonymous,
“Review of Lord Byron and some of His Contemporaries” in Monthly Review
Vol. S3 7 (March 1828)
For such education as he has received, he has been
chiefly indebted to Christ Hospital. Whatever reputation he has
earned in literature, he owes, and to his credit be it spoken, entirely to his own
exertions. If we were asked what we think of Mr. Hunt’s
politics, we should answer, that, generally speaking, we approve of them; liberal measures
have always found in him a steady and energetic, and sometimes, even an eloquent defender.
Several of his miscellaneous compositions in light literature, we think favourably of. They
have in them a raciness, occasionally, that reminds us of the elder masters of our
language. His poetry we think verbose, and conceited in its diction, sickly in its imagery,
cockneyfied (to use an expressive phrase) in its descriptive
passages, and poor and tawdry in its sentiments. The most interesting portion of his
memoir, is that which relates to his imprisonment; it has been already before the world in another publication, and therefore we
pass it over. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
We had always understood, that Mr. Hunt,
before he was known by anything but his juvenile verses, obtained some situation in the
War-office; and that he lost this, after many warnings, in consequence of libelling the
Duke of York, then commander-in-chief, in the
newspapers; but of this story, there is no trace in the quarto before us, and we,
therefore, suppose it must have been, at least, an exaggeration. If it were true, it might
account, in some measure, for the peculiar bitterness of personal spleen with which the
Examiner, from the beginning of its career,
was accustomed to treat almost every branch of the Royal family. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
Mr. Hunt then fills several pages of his
quarto with blasphemous extracts from the last number of the Philosophical Dictionary now printing in that
commodious fashion at the Examiner press; and having used his scissars and paste as largely as he
judged right and proper in regard to the interests of the proprietors of that useful work,
he adds, ‘At these passages I used to roll with laughter; and I cannot help laughing
now, writing, as I am, alone, by my fireside,’ (p. 394). . . .
Leigh Hunt,
“Memoir of Mr. James Henry Leigh Hunt. Written by Himself” in Monthly Magazine
Vol. NS 7 (April 1810)
After spending some time in that gloomiest of all “darkness palpable,” a lawyer’s office—and
plunging, when I left it, into alternate study and morbid idleness, studious all night,
and hypochondriac all day, to the great and reprehensible injury of my health and
spirits, it fell into my way to commence theatrical critic in a newly established
paper, called the News, and
I did so with an ardour proportioned to the want of honest newspaper criticism, and to
the insufferable dramatic nonsense which then rioted in public favour. . . .
[John Gibson Lockhart],
“[Hunt's Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries]” in Quarterly Review
Vol. 37
No. 74 (March 1828)
We presume the turnkeys make a pretty penny by showing the spot where the
great Mr. Hunt actually
‘sat amidst his books, and saw the imaginary sky overhead and the paper
roses about him.’—p. 425.
The Raleigh chamber in the
Tower, Galileo’s dungeon at
Rome, and Tasso’s
at Ferrara, are the only scenes of parallel interest that, at this
moment, suggest themselves to our recollection. . . .
Rudolph Ackermann (1764-1834)
London bookseller born in Germany who specialized in illustrated books; he was the
pioneer of the literary annual.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
English politician and man of letters, with his friend Richard Steele he edited
The Spectator (1711-12). He was the author of the tragedy
Cato (1713).
Abulfadhi Ahmed Al Hamadani (d. 398)
Not identified. Leigh Hunt quotes his epigram from Bartholome d'Herbelot's
Bibliothèque orientale (1697) in
The
Liberal.
Alexander the Great (356 BC-323 BC)
Macedonian conqueror; the son of Philip II, he was king of Macedon, 336-323 BC.
Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803)
Italian tragic poet, author of
Saul (1782),
Antigone (1783), and
Maria Stuart (1804); he was the
consort of Louisa, (Jacobite) countess of Albany.
Ali Pasha of Yannina (1740-1822)
Albanian warlord who expanded his territories during the Napoleonic wars but was
eventually suppressed by the Ottoman Turks; he entertained Byron in 1809.
Anacreon (582 BC.-485 BC)
Greek lyric poet of whose writings little survives;
anacreontic
verse celebrates love and wine.
Mark Antony (83 BC-30 BC)
Roman statesman and general; victorious over the republicans at Philippi, defeated by
Octavian at Actium.
Dr. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735)
Tory satirist educated at St. Andrews, physician to Queen Anne, Scriblerian writer and
friend of Jonathan Swift.
Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533)
Italian poet, author of the epic romance
Orlando Furioso
(1532).
Aristophanes (445 BC c.-385 BC c.)
Greek comic poet, the author of eleven surviving plays including
The
Clouds,
Lysistrata, and
The Frogs.
John Aubrey (1626-1697)
English antiquary and virtuoso whose anecdotal “Minutes of Lives” became the basis for
much of the biographical work on seventeenth century personages done by Anthony
Wood.
Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850)
Florentine sculptor patronized by Napoleon who made a bust of Byron in 1822.
Carlo Andrea de Basso (1650 fl.)
Italian religious writer; Leigh Hunt quotes a poem by him in
The
Indicator. Possibly Antonio Basso, ca. 1605-1648?
Pierre Bayle (1647-1706)
Huguenot philosopher; author of
Dictionnaire historique et
critique, 2 vols (1697), 4 vols (1702).
Francis Beaumont (1585-1616)
English playwright, often in collaboration with John Fletcher; author of
The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607).
Jacob Behmen (1575-1624)
German mystic much read in England.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
The founder of Utilitarianism; author of
Principles of Morals and
Legislation (1789).
Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780)
English jurist, the author of
Commentaries on the Laws of England,
4 vols (1765-69).
William Blackwood (1776-1834)
Edinburgh bookseller; he began business 1804 and for a time was John Murray's Scottish
agent. He launched
Blackwood's Magazine in 1817.
James Boswell (1740-1795)
Scottish man of letters, author of
The Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791).
William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850)
English poet and critic; author of
Fourteen Sonnets, elegiac and
descriptive, written during a Tour (1789), editor of the
Works
of Alexander Pope, 10 vols (1806), and writer of pamphlets contributing to the
subsequent Pope controversy.
Charles Armitage Brown (1787-1842)
Russia merchant and friend of John Keats, with whom he traveled to Scotland in 1818; he
later resided in Italy (1822-35).
Marcus Junius Brutus (85 BC c.-42 BC)
The assassin of Julius Caesar, defeated at the Battle of Philippi.
Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, first baronet (1762-1837)
English antiquary, poet, novelist, and critic; the founder of the Lee Priory Press and
editor of
Censura Literaria and other bibliographic periodicals. He
published
An Impartial Portrait of Lord Byron (1824).
Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
Irish politician and opposition leader in Parliament, author of
On the
Sublime and Beautiful (1757) and
Reflections on the Revolution
in France (1790).
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Scottish poet and song collector; author of
Poems, chiefly in the
Scottish Dialect (1786).
Aaron Burr (1756-1836)
American politician educated at the College of New Jersey who was elected vice-president
in 1800; he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804
Allegra Byron (1817-1822)
Byron's illegitimate daughter by Claire Clairmont.
John Byron [Mad Jack] (1756-1791)
The son of Admiral John Byron; he was the father of Lord Byron, and of Augusta Byron by a
prior marriage with Amelia Darcy, Baroness Darcy (1754-84).
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)
Scottish poet and man of letters; author of
The Pleasures of Hope
(1799),
Gertrude of Wyoming (1808) and lyric odes. He edited the
New Monthly Magazine (1821-30).
George Canning (1770-1827)
Tory statesman; he was foreign minister (1807-1809) and prime minister (1827); a
supporter of Greek independence and Catholic emancipation.
Antonio Canova (1757-1822)
Italian neoclassical sculptor who worked at Rome.
Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770)
The “marvelous boy” of Bristol, whose forgeries of medieval poetry deceived many and
whose early death by suicide came to epitomize the fate neglected genius.
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 c.-1400)
English Poet, the author of
The Canterbury Tales (1390 c.).
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
William Collins (1721-1759)
English poet, author of
Persian Eclogues (1742),
Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects (1746), and
Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands (1788).
William Congreve (1670-1729)
English comic dramatist; author of, among others,
The Double
Dealer (1694),
Love for Love (1695), and
The Way of the World (1700).
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)
English royalist poet; his most enduring work was his posthumously-published
Essays (1668).
William Cowper (1731-1800)
English poet, author of
Olney Hymns (1779),
John
Gilpin (1782), and
The Task (1785); Cowper's delicate
mental health attracted as much sympathy from romantic readers as his letters, edited by
William Hayley, did admiration.
Samuel Croxall (1689-1752)
Whig poet and playwright, author of the licentious
Fair Circassian
(1720) and an oft-reprinted translation of Aesop's
Fables
(1722).
Charlotte Dacre [née King] [Rosa Matilda] (1782 c.-1825)
English poetess, daughter of the radical writer John King; she published in the
Morning Post and
Morning Herald under the
name “Rosa Matilda.” In 1815 she married Nicholas Byrne, owner and editor of the
Morning Post.
Robert Charles Dallas (1754-1824)
English poet, novelist, and translator who corresponded with Byron. His sister Charlotte
Henrietta Dallas (d. 1793) married Captain George Anson Byron (1758-1793); their son George
Anson Byron (1789-1868) inherited Byron's title in 1824.
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
Florentine poet, the author of the
Divine Comedy and other
works.
Scrope Berdmore Davies (1782-1852)
Byron met his bosom friend while at Cambridge. Davies, a professional gambler, lent Byron
funds to pay for his travels in Greece and Byron acted as second in Davies' duels.
Deputy Consul Dodd (1820 fl.)
Deputy consul at Pisa, formerly clerk to Captain Rowley, mentioned in
The Life, Writings, Opinions, and Times of Lord Byron (1825).
Andrea Doria (1466-1560)
Genoese admiral and republican who fought in the French service before going over to
Charles V.
John Dryden (1631-1700)
English poet laureate, dramatist, and critic; author of
Of Dramatick
Poesie (1667),
Absalom and Achitophel (1681),
Alexander's Feast; or the Power of Musique (1697),
The Works of Virgil translated into English Verse (1697), and
Fables (1700).
Sir Henry Charles Englefield, seventh baronet (1752 c.-1822)
Of White Knights, Berkshire, the son of the sixth baronet (d. 1780); given a Catholic
education, he was a scientist and antiquary, author of
Picturesque
Beauties of the Isle of Wight (1816).
Epaminondas (418 BC c.-362 BC)
Theban general in the wars with Athens.
Epicurus (341 BC-270 BC)
Greek philosopher who defined the object of his science as the pursuit of
happiness.
John Fitzgibbon, second earl of Clare (1792-1851)
A Harrow friend of Byron's, son of the Lord Chamberlain of Ireland; he once fought a duel
with Henry Grattan's son in response to an aspersion on his father. Lord Clare was Governor
of Bombay between 1830 and 1834.
William Fletcher (1831 fl.)
Byron's valet, the son of a Newstead tenant; he continued in service to the end of the
poet's life, after which he was pensioned by the family. He married Anne Rood, formerly
maid to Augusta Leigh, and was living in London in 1831.
Elizabeth Fox, Lady Holland [née Vassall] (1771 c.-1845)
In 1797 married Henry Richard Fox, Lord Holland, following her divorce from Sir Godfrey
Webster; as mistress of Holland House she became a pillar of Whig society.
Henry Richard Fox, third baron Holland (1773-1840)
Whig politician and literary patron; Holland House was for many years the meeting place
for reform-minded politicians and writers. He also published translations from the Spanish
and Italian;
Memoirs of the Whig Party was published in 1852.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
American printer, scientist, writer, and statesman; author of
Poor
Richard's Almanack (1732-57).
Frederick II of Prussia (1712-1786)
King of Prussia (1740-86) and military commander in the War of the Austrian Succession
and Seven Years War.
John Hookham Frere (1769-1846)
English diplomat and poet; educated at Eton and Cambridge, he was envoy to Lisbon
(1800-02) and Madrid (1802-04, 1808-09); with Canning conducted the
The
Anti-Jacobin (1797-98); author of
Prospectus and Specimen of an
intended National Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft (1817, 1818).
Pietro Gamba (1801-1827)
The brother of Teresa Guiccioli and member of Carbonieri. He followed Byron to Greece and
left a memoir of his experiences.
Sir Samuel Garth (1661-1719)
English physician, poet, and member of the Kit-Kat club; he was author of the burlesque
poem,
The Dispensary (1699).
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
Author of
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(1776-1788).
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
William Stephen Gilly (1789-1855)
A contemporary of Leigh Hunt at Christ's Hospital whose visits to the oppressed Vaudois
resulted in the publication of
Narrative of an Excursion to the Mountains
of Piedmont, and Researches among the Vaudois, or Waldenses (1824).
Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)
German poet, playwright, and novelist; author of
The Sorrows of Young
Werther (1774) and
Faust (1808, 1832).
Oliver Goldsmith (1728 c.-1774)
Irish miscellaneous writer; his works include
The Vicar of
Wakefield (1766),
The Deserted Village (1770), and
She Stoops to Conquer (1773).
Sir Cosmo Gordon (1777-1867)
The fourth son of Alexander, Lord Rockville, of the Aberdeen family; he served in India
and at the Siege of Walcheren; he was made general in 1857.
Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
English poet, author of “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” “Elegy written in a
Country Churchyard,” and “The Bard”; he was professor of history at Cambridge
(1768).
Alessandro Guiccioli (1761-1840)
The richest man in the Romagna and patron of the arts, who in 1818 married Teresa
Guiccioli as his third wife.
Teresa Guiccioli (1800-1873)
Byron's lover, who in 1818 married Alessandro Guiccioli. She composed a memoir of Byron,
Lord Byron,
Jugé par les Témoines de sa Vie (1868).
Alexander Hamilton (1755 c.-1804)
American statesman and first secretary of the treasury; he was killed in a duel in 1804
by his political foe Aaron Burr.
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
German composer who settled in England in 1712 where he composed oratorios, among them
The Messiah, first produced in Dublin in 1742.
George Henry Harlowe (1787-1819)
English painter who exhibited at the Royal Academy and visited Byron at the Palazzo
Mocenigo in 1818 shortly before his early death. He was a friend of William Jerdan.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
English essayist and literary critic; author of
Characters of
Shakespeare's Plays (1817),
Lectures on the English Poets
(1818), and
The Spirit of the Age (1825).
Henry IV, king of England (1366-1413)
Son of John of Gaunt; after usurping the throne from Richard II he was king of England
(1399-1413).
John Cam Hobhouse, baron Broughton (1786-1869)
Founder of the Cambridge Whig Club; traveled with Byron in the orient, radical MP for
Westminster (1820); Byron's executor; after a long career in politics published
Some Account of a Long Life (1865) later augmented as
Recollections of a Long Life, 6 vols (1909-1911).
Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Scottish jurist and Enlightenment philosopher; author of
Elements of
Criticism (1762) and
Sketches of History of Man
(1774).
Homer (850 BC fl.)
Poet of the
Iliad and
Odyssey.
John Hoole (1727-1803)
English translator, playwright, and friend of Dr. Johnson; he published
Jerusalem Delivered (1763), an often-reprinted translation reviled by the
romantics.
Horace (65 BC-8 BC)
Roman lyric poet; author of
Odes,
Epistles, Satires, and the
Ars Poetica.
John Hunt (1775-1848)
English printer and publisher, the elder brother of Leigh Hunt; he was the publisher of
The Examiner and
The Liberal, in
connection with which he was several times prosecuted for libel.
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
English poet, journalist, and man of letters; editor of
The
Examiner and
The Liberal; friend of Byron, Keats, and
Shelley.
Marianne Hunt [née Kent] (1787-1857)
The daughter of Anne Kent and wife of Leigh Hunt; they were married in 1809. Charles
MacFarlane, who knew her in the 1830s, described her as “his mismanaging, unthrifty
wife, the most barefaced, persevering, pertinacious of mendicants.”
Thornton Leigh Hunt (1810-1873)
Journalist and son of Leigh Hunt, who edited his father's
Correspondence,
Autobiography, and
Poetical Works.
Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt (1789-1848)
The son of Muhammad Ali of Egypt; he was the Egyptian general who led Turkish forces
against the Wahabis in Arabia (1816-19) and the revolutionaries in Greece (1825-28).
Charles Incledon (1763-1826)
English actor and singer; made his London stage debut at Covent Garden in 1790; performed
in the first performance of Haydn's
Creation (1800).
John Jackson [Gentleman Jackson] (1769-1845)
Pugilist; champion of England from 1795 to 1804, when he was defeated by Jem Belcher.
After retirement he established a school that became headquarters of the Pugilistic
Club.
William Jerdan (1782-1869)
Scottish journalist who for decades edited the
Literary Gazette;
he was author of
Autobiography (1853) and
Men I
have Known (1866).
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
English man of letters, among many other works he edited
A Dictionary
of the English Language (1755) and Shakespeare (1765), and wrote
Lives of the Poets (1779-81).
Edmund Kean (1787-1833)
English tragic actor famous for his Shakespearean roles.
John Keats (1795-1821)
English poet, author of
Endymion, "The Eve of St. Agnes," and
other poems, who died of tuberculosis in Rome.
Charles Lamb [Elia] (1775-1834)
English essayist and boyhood friend of Coleridge at Christ's Hospital; author of
Essays of Elia published in the
London
Magazine (collected 1823, 1833) and other works.
Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)
English poet and man of letters, author of the epic
Gebir (1798)
and
Imaginary Conversations (1824-29). He resided in Italy from 1815
to 1835.
William Martin Leake (1777-1860)
The British envoy to Ali Pasha in Albania; author of, among other titles,
Researches in Greece (1814),
Travels in the
Morea, 3 vols (1830) and
Travels in Northern Greece, 4 vols
(1835).
Hon. Augusta Mary Leigh [née Byron] (1783-1851)
Byron's half-sister; the daughter of Amelia Darcy, Baroness Conyers, she married
Lieutenant-Colonel George Leigh on 17 August 1807.
Jean Louis de Lolme (1741-1806)
Born in Geneva, the author of
The Constitution of England (1775);
he was called by D'Israeli “the English Montesquieu.”
Thomas Norton Longman (1771-1842)
A leading London publisher whose authors included Southey, Wordsworth, Scott, and
Moore.
Lucan (39-65)
Author of the epic poem
Pharsalia about the Roman civil
wars.
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
German theologian and leader of the Protestant Reformation.
Marcus Aurelius (121-180)
Roman emperor (161-80) and author of twelve books of
Meditations
(printed 1555).
Mariamne (48 BC-29 BC)
The second wife of Herod the Great.
Charles Mathews (1776-1835)
Comic actor at the Haymarket and Covent Garden theaters; from 1818 he gave a series of
performances under the title of
Mr. Mathews at Home.
Charles Skinner Matthews (1785-1811)
The libertine friend of Byron and Hobhouse at Trinity College, Cambridge; he was drowned
in the Cam.
Prince Alexander Mavrocordatos [Αλεξανδρος Μαβροκορδατος] (1791-1865)
Greek statesman and diplomat with Byron at Missolonghi; after study at the University of
Padua he joined the Greek Revolution in 1821 and in 1822 was elected by the National
Assembly at Epidaurus. He commanded forces in western Central Greece and retired in 1826
after the Fall of Messolonghi.
Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602-1661)
Italian cardinal, the protegé of Richelieu and chief minister of Louis XIV.
Thomas Medwin (1788-1869)
Lieutenant of dragoons who was with Byron and Shelley at Pisa; the author of
Conversations of Lord Byron (1824) and
The Life of
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 2 vols (1847).
John Milton (1608-1674)
English poet and controversialist; author of
Comus (1634),
Lycidas (1638),
Areopagitica (1644),
Paradise Lost (1667), and other works.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [née Pierrepont] (1689-1762)
English poet and epistolary writer, daughter of the first duke of Kingston; she quarreled
with Alexander Pope and after living in Constantinople (1716-18) introduced inoculation to
Britain.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
French writer and moralist, magistrate and mayor of Bordeaux (1581-85); he was the author
of
Essais (1580, 1595).
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
John Musters (1777-1849)
Of Colwick; he married Mary Chaworth, the then object of Byron's affections, in
1805.
Mary Ann Musters [née Chaworth] (1785-1832)
The grand-niece of the Chaworth who was killed by “Wicked Jack” Byron; she was the object
of Byron's affections before and after she married John Musters in 1805.
Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his
abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St.
Helena (1815).
Isaac Nathan (1790-1864)
He abandoned a career as a rabbi to become a musician, setting Byron's
Hebrew Melodies (1815) and composing a memoir of Byron before emigrating to
Australia in 1841.
Thomas Noel, second viscount Wentworth (1745-1815)
The son of Edward Noel, first viscount Wentworth of Wellesborough and only brother of
Judith Milbanke; upon his death his heirs took the name Noel.
Ovid (43 BC-17 AD c.)
Roman poet famous for his erotic
Art of Love and his mythological
poem,
The Metamorphoses.
William Parry (1773-1859)
Military engineer at Missolonghi; he was author of
The Last Days of
Lord Byron (1825).
James Perry (1756-1821)
Whig journalist; founder and editor of the
European Magazine
(1782), editor of the
Morning Chronicle (1790-1821).
Thomas Phillips (1770-1845)
English painter who assisted Benjamin West, exhibited at the Royal Academy, and painted
portraits of English poets including Byron, Crabbe, Scott, Southey, and Coleridge.
Hester Piozzi [née Lynch] (1741-1821)
Poet, diarist, and friend of Doctor Johnson; in 1763 married 1) Henry Thrale (1728-1781)
and in 1784 2) Gabriel Mario Piozzi (1740-1809). She contributed to the Della Cruscan
volume,
The Florence Miscellany (1785).
Plato (427 BC-327 BC)
Athenian philosopher who recorded the teachings of his master Socrates in a series of
philosophical dialogues.
Gaetano Polidori (1764-1853)
The father of Byron's acquaintance; after serving as secretary to the Italian poet
Alfieri he emigrated to England where he worked as a miscellaneous writer and established a
press where he published works by his grandchildren Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina
Rossetti.
John William Polidori (1795-1821)
Physician and secretary to Lord Byron who accompanied him to Switzerland; author of
The Vampire (1819) which he attributed to Byron.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
English poet and satirist; author of
The Rape of the Lock (1714)
and
The Dunciad (1728).
Raphael (1483-1520)
Of Urbino; Italian painter patronized by Leo X.
William Robertson (1721-1793)
Educated at Edinburgh University of which he became principal (1762), he was a
highly-regarded historian, the author of
History of Scotland in the Reign
of Queen Mary and of King James VI (1759) and
The History of the
Reign of Charles V (1769).
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855)
English poet, banker, and aesthete, author of the ever-popular
Pleasures of Memory (1792),
Columbus (1810),
Jaqueline (1814), and
Italy (1822-28).
Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)
Italian composer of the
Barber of Seville and other popular
operatic works.
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Flemish baroque painter and diplomat notable for his allegorical depictions of the life
of Marie de Medici.
George Sandys (1578-1644)
English poet and treasurer of the Virginia Company, whither he traveled in 1621; his
translation of Ovid's
Metamorphoses (1621-26) was much
admired.
Sappho (612 BC c.-570 BC c.)
Greek lyric poet, born on the Isle of Lesbos.
Sardanapalus (650 BC fl.)
Assyrian monarch who burned his palace and himself during a siege of Nineveh by the
Medes.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [née Godwin] (1797-1851)
English novelist, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecaft, and the second wife
of Percy Bysshe Shelley. She is the author of
Frankenstein (1818)
and
The Last Man (1835) and the editor of Shelley's works
(1839-40).
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
English poet, with Byron in Switzerland in 1816; author of
Queen
Mab (1813),
The Revolt of Islam (1817),
The Cenci and
Prometheus Unbound (1820), and
Adonais (1821).
Mr. Snelgrove (1820 fl.)
Lieutenant of l’Eclair, mentioned in
The Life, Writings, Opinions, and
Times of Lord Byron (1825).
Socrates (469 BC-399 BC)
Athenian philosopher whose teachings were recorded by Plato and Xenophon.
Joanna Southcott (1750-1814)
English prophet and visionary, originally the daughter of a Devonshire farmer.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
Edmund Spenser (1552 c.-1599)
English poet, author of
The Shepheards Calender (1579) and
The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596).
Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729)
English playwright and essayist, who conducted
The Tatler, and
(with Joseph Addison)
The Spectator and
The
Guardian.
Stendhal (1783-1842)
The author of
The Red and the Black (1830) and
The Charterhouse of Parma (1839).
Captain Stewart (1820 fl.)
Captain of the Blossom; he is mentioned in
The Life, Writings,
Opinions, and Times of Lord Byron (1825).
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
Dean of St Patrick's, Scriblerian satirist, and author of
Battle of the
Books with
Tale of a Tub (1704),
Drapier
Letters (1724),
Gulliver's Travels (1726), and
A Modest Proposal (1729).
Edward John Trelawny (1792-1881)
Writer, adventurer, and friend of Shelley and Byron; author of the fictionalized memoirs,
Adventures of a Younger Son (1831) and
Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron (1858).
Andrea Vacca Berlinghieri (1772-1826)
Italian surgeon at the University of Pisa who had studied in London with William Hunter
and attended Byron in Italy; he was a political liberal.
Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726)
English playwright, author of
The Provoked Wife (1697); as an
architect designed Castle Howard and Blenheim.
Voltaire (1694-1778)
French historian and man of letters; author of, among many other works,
The Age of Louis XIV (1751) and
Candide (1759).
Robert Watson (1730 c.-1781)
Principal of St Andrews University; author of
The History of the Reign
of Philip the Second, King of Spain, 2 vols (1777).
Benjamin West (1738-1820)
American-born historical painter who traveled to Europe in 1760 and was one of the
founders of the Royal Academy in London.
Edward Ellerker Williams (1793-1822)
After service as a lieutenant of dragoons in India he married and traveled to Italy with
Thomas Medwin, becoming part of the Byron-Shelley circle at Pisa.
Mrs. Wilson (1820 fl.)
Byron's supposed landlady at Pisa, mentioned in
The Life, Writings,
Opinions, and Times of Lord Byron (1825).
John Wolcot [Peter Pindar] (1738-1819)
English satirist who made his reputation by ridiculing the Royal Academicians and the
royal family.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
With Coleridge, author of
Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth
survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.
Lega Zambelli (1827 fl.)
Count Guiccioli's steward, afterwards steward to Lord Byron; he married Teresa
Guiccioli's confidant Fanny Sylvestrini.
The Beacon. (1821). A Tory newspaper partly funded by Sir Walter Scott that ceased publication after its
financial backers objected to the scandals its contributors were raising.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. (1817-1980). Begun as the
Edinburgh Monthly Magazine,
Blackwood's assumed the name of its proprietor, William Blackwood after the sixth
number. Blackwood was the nominal editor until 1834.
The Courier. (1792-1842). A London evening newspaper; the original proprietor was James Perry; Daniel Stuart, Peter
Street, and William Mudford were editors; among the contributors were Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and John Galt.
The Examiner. (1808-1881). Founded by John and Leigh Hunt, this weekly paper divided its attention between literary
matters and radical politics; William Hazlitt was among its regular contributors.
Livourna Gazette. (1773-). Or
Gazzetta Universale. The title and date of publication are
uncertain.
John Bull. (1820-1892). A scurrilous Tory weekly newspaper edited by Theodore Hook.
The London Magazine. (1820-1829). Founded by John Scott as a monthly rival to
Blackwood's, the
London Magazine included among its contributors Charles Lamb, John Clare, Allan Cunningham,
Thomas De Quincey, and Thomas Hood.
Morning Chronicle. (1769-1862). James Perry was proprietor of this London daily newspaper from 1789-1821; among its many
notable poetical contributors were Coleridge, Southey, Lamb, Rogers, and Campbell.
Morning Post. (1772-1937). A large-circulation London daily that published verse by many of the prominent poets of
the romantic era. John Taylor (1750–1826), Daniel Stuart (1766-1846), and Nicholas Byrne
(d. 1833) were among its editors.
New Monthly Magazine. (1814-1884). Founded in reaction to the radically-inclined
Monthly Magazine,
the
New Monthly was managed under the proprietorship of Henry
Colburn from 1814 to 1845. It was edited by Thomas Campbell and Cyrus Redding from
1821-1830.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
The Westminster Review. (1824-1914). A radically-inclined quarterly founded by James Mill in opposition to the
Edinburgh Review and
Quarterly Review.
The Academy of Complements. (1639). The original volume by John Gough was reprinted and imitated several times, including
A New Academy of Compliments (1748).
George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)
Don Juan. (London: 1819-1824). A burlesque poem in ottava rima published in installments: Cantos I and II published in
1819, III, IV and V in 1821, VI, VII, and VIII in 1823, IX, X, and XI in 1823, XII, XIII,
and XIV in 1823, and XV and XVI in 1824.
Thomas Medwin (1788-1869)
Hobhouse Pamphlet. (London: Colburn, 1825). Medwin's response to Hobhouse's review of his
Conversations was
printed by Henry Colburn and then suppressed. Although it was seen by Leigh Hunt and John
Galt, no copy appears to have survived.
