1821-1824.
POLITICS--THE CARBONARI--EXPEDITION TO GREECE--DEATH.
In leaving Venice for Ravenna, Byron passed from the society of gondoliers
and successive sultanas to a comparatively domestic life, with a mistress
who at least endeavoured to stimulate some of his higher aspirations, and
smiled upon his wearing the sword along with the lyre. In the last episode
of his constantly chequered and too voluptuous career, we have the waking
of Sardanapalus realized in the transmutation of the fantastical Harold
into a practical strategist, financier, and soldier. No one ever lived
who, in the same space, more thoroughly ran the gauntlet of existence.
Having exhausted all other sources of vitality and intoxication--travel,
gallantry, and verse--it remained for the despairing poet to become a
hero. But he was also moved by a public passion, the genuineness of which
there is no reasonable ground to doubt. Like Alfieri and Rousseau, he had
taken for his motto, "I am of the opposition;" and, as Dante under a
republic called for a monarchy, Byron, under monarchies at home and
abroad, called for a commonwealth. Amid the inconsistencies of his
political sentiment, he had been consistent in so much love of liberty as
led him to denounce oppression, even when he had no great faith in the
oppressed--whether English, or Italians, or Greeks.
Byron regarded the established dynasties of the continent with a sincere
hatred. He talks of the "more than infernal tyranny" of the House of
Austria. To his fancy, as to Shelley's, New England is the star of the
future. Attracted by a strength or rather force of character akin to his
own, he worshipped Napoleon, even when driven to confess that "the hero
had sunk into a king." He lamented his overthrow; but, above all, that he
was beaten by "three stupid, legitimate old dynasty boobies of regular
sovereigns." "I write in ipecacuanha that the Bourbons are restored."
"What right have we to prescribe laws to France? Here we are retrograding
to the dull, stupid old system, balance of Europe--poising straws on
kings' noses, instead of wringing them off." "The king-times are fast
finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but
the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I
foresee it." "Give me a republic. Look in the history of the earth--Rome,
Greece, Venice, Holland, France, America, our too short Commonwealth--and
compare it with what they did under masters."
His serious political verses are all in the strain of the lines on
Wellington--
Never had mortal man such opportunity--
Except Napoleon--or abused it more;
You might have freed fallen Europe from the unity
Of tyrants, and been blessed from shore to shore.
An enthusiasm for Italy, which survived many disappointments, dictated
some of the most impressive passages of his _Harold_, and inspired the
_Lament of Tasso_ and the _Ode on Venice_. The _Prophecy of Dante_
contains much that has since proved prophetic--
What is there wanting, then, to set thee free,
And show thy beauty in its fullest light?
To make the Alps impassable; and we,
Her sons, may do this with one deed--_Unite_!
His letters reiterate the same idea, in language even more emphatic. "It
is no great matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated, who or what
is sacrificed. It is a grand object--the very poetry of politics; only
think--a free Italy!" Byron acted on his assertion that a man ought to do
more for society than write verses. Mistrusting its leaders, and detesting
the wretched lazzaroni, who "would have betrayed themselves and all the
world," he yet threw himself heart and soul into the insurrection of 1820,
saying, "Whatever I can do by money, means, or person, I will venture
freely for their freedom." He joined the secret society of the Carbonari,
wrote an address to the Liberal government set up in Naples, supplied arms
and a refuge in his house, which he was prepared to convert into a
fortress. In February, 1821, on the rout of the Neapolitans by the
Austrians, the conspiracy was crushed. Byron, who "had always an idea that
it would be bungled," expressed his fear that the country would be thrown
back for 500 years into barbarism, and the Countess Guiccioli confessed
with tears that the Italians must return to composing and strumming
operatic airs. Carbonarism having collapsed, it of course made way for a
reaction; but the encouragement and countenance of the English poet and
peer helped to keep alive the smouldering fire that Mazzini fanned into a
flame, till Cavour turned it to a practical purpose, and the dreams of the
idealists of 1820 were finally realized.
On the failure of the luckless conspiracy, Byron naturally betook himself
to history, speculation, satire, and ideas of a journalistic propaganda;
but all through, his mind was turning to the renewal of the action which
was his destiny. "If I live ten years longer," he writes in 1822, "you
will see that it is not all over with me. I don't mean in literature, for
that is nothing--and I do not think it was my vocation; but I shall do
something." The Greek war of liberation opened a new field for the
exercise of his indomitable energy. This romantic struggle, begun in
April, 1821, was carried on for two years with such remarkable success,
that at the close of 1822 Greece was beginning to be recognized as an
independent state; but in the following months the tide seemed to turn;
dissensions broke out among the leaders, the spirit of intrigue seemed to
stifle patriotism, and the energies of the insurgents were hampered for
want of the sinews of war. There was a danger of the movement being
starved out, and the committee of London sympathizers--of which the poet's
intimate friend and frequent correspondent, Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, and
Captain Blaquière, were leading promoters--was impressed with the
necessity of procuring funds in support of the cause. With a view to this
it seemed of consequence to attach to it some shining name, and men's
thoughts almost inevitably turned to Byron. No other Englishman seemed so
fit to be associated with the enterprise as the warlike poet, who had
twelve years before linked his fame to that of "grey Marathon" and
"Athena's tower," and, more recently immortalized the isles on which he
cast so many a longing glance. Hobhouse broke the subject to him early in
the spring of 1823: the committee opened communications in April. After
hesitating through May, in June Byron consented to meet Blaquière at
Zante, and, on hearing the results of the captain's expedition to the
Morea, to decide on future steps. His share in this enterprise has been
assigned to purely personal and comparatively mean motives. He was, it is
said, disgusted with his periodical, sick of his editor, tired of his
mistress, and bent on any change, from China to Peru, that would give him
a new theatre for display. One grows weary of the perpetual half-truths of
inveterate detraction. It is granted that Byron was restless, vain,
imperious, never did anything without a desire to shine in the doing of
it, and was to a great degree the slave of circumstances. Had the
_Liberal_ proved a lamp to the nations, instead of a mere "red flag
flaunted in the face of John Bull," he might have cast anchor at Genoa;
but the whole drift of his work and life demonstrates that he was capable
on occasion of merging himself in what he conceived to be great causes,
especially in their evil days. Of the Hunts he may have had enough; but
the invidious statement about La Guiccioli has no foundation, other than a
somewhat random remark of Shelley, and the fact that he left her nothing
in his will. It is distinctly ascertained that she expressly prohibited
him from doing so; they continued to correspond to the last, and her
affectionate, though unreadable, reminiscences, are sufficient proof that
she at no time considered herself to be neglected, injured, or aggrieved.
Byron indeed left Italy in an unsettled state of mind: he spoke of
returning in a few months, and as the period for his departure approached,
became more and more irresolute. A presentiment of his death seemed to
brood over a mind always superstitious, though never fanatical. Shortly
before his own departure, the Blessingtons were preparing to leave Genoa
for England. On the evening of his farewell call he began to speak of his
voyage with despondency, saying, "Here we are all now together; but when
and where shall we meet again? I have a sort of boding that we see each
other for the last time, as something tells me I shall never again return
from Greece:" after which remark he leant his head on the sofa, and burst
into one of his hysterical fits of tears. The next week was given to
preparations for an expedition, which, entered on with mingled
motives--sentimental, personal, public--became more real and earnest to
Byron at every step he took. He knew all the vices of the "hereditary
bondsmen" among whom he was going, and went among them, with yet
unquenched aspirations, but with the bridle of discipline in his hand,
resolved to pave the way towards the nation becoming better, by devoting
himself to making it free.
On the morning of July 14th (1823) he embarked in the brig "Hercules,"
with Trelawny, Count Pietro Gamba, who remained with him to the last,
Bruno a young Italian doctor, Scott the captain of the vessel, and eight
servants, including Fletcher, besides the crew. They had on board two
guns, with other arms and ammunition, five horses, an ample supply of
medicines, with 50,000 Spanish dollars in coin and bills. The start was
inauspicious. A violent squall drove them back to port, and in the course
of a last ride with Gamba to Albaro, Byron asked, "Where shall we be in a
year?" On the same day of the same month of 1824 he was carried to the
tomb of his ancestors. They again set sail on the following evening, and
in five days reached Leghorn, where the poet received a salutation in
verse, addressed to him by Goethe, and replied to it. Here Mr. Hamilton
Brown, a Scotch gentleman with considerable knowledge of Greek affairs,
joined the party, and induced them to change their course to Cephalonia,
for the purpose of obtaining the advice and assistance of the English
resident, Colonel Napier. The poet occupied himself during the voyage
mainly in reading--among other books, Scott's _Life of Swift_, Grimm's
_Correspondence_, La Rochefoucauld, and Las Casas--and watching the
classic or historic shores which they skirted, especially noting Elba,
Soracte, the Straits of Messina, and Etna. In passing Stromboli he said to
Trelawny, "You will see this scene in a fifth canto of _Childe Harold_."
On his companions suggesting that he should write some verses on the spot,
he tried to do so, but threw them away, with the remark, "I cannot write
poetry at will, as you smoke tobacco." Trelawny confesses that he was
never on shipboard with a better companion, and that a severer test of
good fellowship it is impossible to apply. Together they shot at gulls or
empty bottles, and swam every morning in the sea. Early in August they
reached their destination. Coming in sight of the Morea, the poet said to
Trelawny, "I feel as if the eleven long years of bitterness I have passed
through, since I was here, were taken from my shoulders, and I was
scudding through the Greek Archipelago with old Bathurst in his frigate."
Byron remained at or about Cephalonia till the close of the year. Not long
after his arrival he made an excursion to Ithaca, and, visiting the
monastery at Vathi, was received by the abbot with great ceremony, which,
in a fit of irritation, brought on by a tiresome ride on a mule, he
returned with unusual discourtesy; but next morning, on his giving a
donation to their alms-box, he was dismissed with the blessing of the
monks. "If this isle were mine," he declared on his way back, "I would
break my staff and bury my book." A little later, Brown and Trelawny being
sent off with letters to the provisional government, the former returned
with some Greek emissaries to London, to negotiate a loan; the latter
attached himself to Odysseus, the chief of the republican party at Athens,
and never again saw Byron alive. The poet, after spending a month on board
the "Hercules," dismissed the vessel, and hired a house for Gamba and
himself at Metaxata, a healthy village about four miles from the capital
of the island. Meanwhile, Blaquière, neglecting his appointment at Zante,
had gone to Corfu, and thence to England. Colonel Napier being absent from
Cephalonia, Byron had some pleasant social intercourse with his deputy,
but, unable to get from him any authoritative information, was left
without advice, to be besieged by letters and messages from the factions.
Among these there were brought to him hints that the Greeks wanted a king,
and he is reported to have said, "If they make me the offer, I will
perhaps not reject it."
The position would doubtless have been acceptable to a man who never--amid
his many self-deceptions--affected to deny that he was ambitious: and who
can say what might not have resulted for Greece, had the poet lived to add
lustre to her crown? In the meantime, while faring more frugally than a
day-labourer, he yet surrounded himself with a show of royal state, had
his servants armed with gilt helmets, and gathered around him a body-guard
of Suliotes. These wild mercenaries becoming turbulent, he was obliged to
despatch them to Mesolonghi, then threatened with siege by the Turks and
anxiously waiting relief. During his residence at Cephalonia, Byron was
gratified by the interest evinced in him by the English residents. Among
these the physician, Dr. Kennedy, a worthy Scotchman, who imagined himself
to be a theologian with a genius for conversion, was conducting a series
of religious meetings at Argostoli, when the poet expressed a wish to be
present at one of them. After listening, it is said, to a set of
discourses that occupied the greater part of twelve hours, he seems, for
one reason or another, to have felt called on to enter the lists, and
found himself involved in the series of controversial dialogues afterwards
published in a substantial book. This volume, interesting in several
respects, is one of the most charming examples of unconscious irony in the
language, and it is matter of regret that our space does not admit of the
abridgment of several of its pages. They bear testimony, on the one hand,
to Byron's capability of patience, and frequent sweetness of temper under
trial; on the other, to Kennedy's utter want of humour, and to his
courageous honesty. The curiously confronted interlocutors, in the course
of the missionary and subsequent private meetings, ran over most of the
ground debated between opponents and apologists of the Calvinistic faith,
which Kennedy upheld without stint. The _Conversations_ add little to what
we already know of Byron's religious opinions; nor is it easy to say where
he ceases to be serious and begins to banter, or vice versa. He evidently
wished to show that in argument he was good at fence, and could handle a
theologian as skilfully as a foil. At the same time he wished if possible,
though, as appears, in vain, to get some light on a subject with regard to
which in his graver moods he was often exercised. On some points he is
explicit. He makes an unequivocal protest against the doctrines of eternal
punishment and infant damnation, saying that if the rest of mankind were
to be damned, he "would rather keep them company than creep into heaven
alone." On questions of inspiration, and the deeper problems of human
life, he is less distinct, being naturally inclined to a speculative
necessitarianism, and disposed to admit original depravity; but he did not
see his way out of the maze through the Atonement, and held that prayer
had only significance as a devotional affection of the heart. Byron showed
a remarkable familiarity with the Scriptures, and with parts of Barrow,
Chillingworth, and Stillingfleet; but on Kennedy's lending for his
edification Boston's _Fourfold State_, he returned it with the remark that
it was too deep for him. On another occasion he said, "Do you know I am
nearly reconciled to St. Paul, for he says there is no difference between
the Jews and the Greeks? and I am exactly of the same opinion, for the
character of both is equally vile." The good Scotchman's religious
self-confidence is throughout free from intellectual pride; and his own
confession, "This time I suspect his lordship had the best of it," might
perhaps be applied to the whole discussion.
Critics who have little history and less war have been accustomed to
attribute Byron's lingering at Cephalonia to indolence and indecision;
they write as if he ought on landing on Greek soil to have put himself at
the head of an army and stormed Constantinople. Those who know more,
confess that the delay was deliberate, and that it was judicious. The
Hellenic uprising was animated by the spirit of a "lion after slumber,"
but it had the heads of a Hydra hissing and tearing at one another. The
chiefs who defended the country by their arms, compromised her by their
arguments, and some of her best fighters were little better than pirates
and bandits. Greece was a prey to factions--republican, monarchic,
aristocratic--representing naval, military, and territorial interests, and
each beset by the adventurers who flock round every movement, only
representing their own. During the first two years of success they were
held in embryo; during the later years of disaster, terminated by the
allies at Navarino, they were buried; during the interlude of Byron's
residence, when the foes were like hounds in the leash, waiting for a
renewal of the struggle, they were rampant. Had he joined any one of them
he would have degraded himself to the level of a mere condottiere, and
helped to betray the common cause. Beset by solicitations to go to Athens,
to the Morea, to Acarnania, he resolutely held apart, biding his time,
collecting information, making himself known as a man of affairs,
endeavouring to conciliate rival clamants for pension or place, and
carefully watching the tide of war. Numerous anecdotes of the period
relate to acts of public or private benevolence, which endeared him to the
population of the island; but he was on the alert against being fleeced or
robbed. "The bulk of the English," writes Colonel Napier, "came expecting
to find the Peloponnesus filled with Plutarch's men, and returned thinking
the inhabitants of Newgate more moral. Lord Byron judged the Greeks
fairly, and knew that allowance must be made for emancipated slaves."
Among other incidents we hear of his passing a group, who were "shrieking
and howling as in Ireland" over some men buried in the fall of a bank; he
snatched a spade, began to dig, and threatened to horsewhip the peasants
unless they followed his example. On November 30th he despatched to the
central government a remarkable state paper, in which he dwells on the
fatal calamity of a civil war, and says that unless union and order are
established all hopes of a loan--which being every day more urgent, he was
in letters to England constantly pressing--are at an end. "I desire," he
concluded, "the well being of Greece, and nothing else. I will do all I
can to secure it; but I will never consent that the English public be
deceived as to the real state of affairs. You have fought gloriously; act
honourably towards your fellow-citizens and the world, and it will then no
more be said, as has been repeated for two thousand years, with the Roman
historians, that Philopoemen was the last of the Grecians."
Prince Alexander Mavrocordatos--the most prominent of the practical
patriotic leaders--having been deposed from the presidency, was sent to
regulate the affairs of Western Greece, and was now on his way with a
fleet to relieve Mesolonghi, in attempting which the brave Marco Bozzaris
had previously fallen. In a letter, opening communication with a man for
whom he always entertained a high esteem, Byron writes, "Colonel Stanhope
has arrived from London, charged by our committee to act in concert with
me.... Greece is at present placed between three measures--either to
reconquer her liberty, to become a dependence of the sovereigns of Europe,
or to return to a Turkish province. She has the choice only of these three
alternatives. Civil war is but a road that leads to the two latter."
At length the long looked-for fleet arrived, and the Turkish squadron,
with the loss of a treasure-ship, retired up the Gulf of Lepanto.
Mavrocordatos on entering Mesolonghi lost no time in inviting the poet to
join him, and placed a brig at his disposal, adding, "I need not tell you
to what a pitch your presence is desired by everybody, or what a
prosperous direction it will give to all our affairs. Your counsels will
be listened to like oracles."
At the same date Stanhope writes, "The people in the streets are looking
forward to his lordship's arrival as they would to the coming of the
Messiah." Byron was unable to start in the ship sent for him; but in spite
of medical warnings, a few days later, i.e. December 28th, he embarked in
a small fast-sailing sloop called a mistico, while the servants and
baggage were stowed in another and larger vessel under the charge of Count
Gamba. From Gamba's graphic account of the voyage we may take the
following:--"We sailed together till after ten at night; the wind
favourable, a clear sky, the air fresh, but not sharp. Our sailors sang
alternately patriotic songs, monotonous indeed, but to persons in our
situation extremely touching, and we took part in them. We were all, but
Lord Byron particularly, in excellent spirits. The mistico sailed the
fastest. When the waves divided us, and our voices could no longer reach
each other, we made signals by firing pistols and carbines. To-morrow we
meet at Mesolonghi--to morrow. Thus, full of confidence and spirits, we
sailed along. At twelve we were out of sight of each other."
Byron's vessel, separated from her consort, came into the close proximity
of a Turkish frigate, and had to take refuge among the Scrofes' rocks.
Emerging thence, he attained a small seaport of Acarnania, called
Dragomestri, whence sallying forth on the 2nd of January under the convoy
of some Greek gunboats, he was nearly wrecked. On the 4th Byron made, when
violently heated, an imprudent plunge in the sea, and was never afterwards
free from a pain in his bones. On the 5th he arrived at Mesolonghi, and
was received with salvoes of musketry and music. Gamba was waiting him.
His vessel, the "Bombarda," had been taken by the Ottoman frigate, but the
captain of the latter, recognizing the Count as having formerly saved his
life in the Black Sea, made interest in his behalf with Yussuf Pasha at
Patras, and obtained his discharge. In recompense, the poet subsequently
sent to the Pasha some Turkish prisoners, with a letter requesting him to
endeavour to mitigate the inhumanities of the war. Byron brought to the
Greeks at Mesolonghi the 4000_l_. of his personal loan (applied, in the
first place, to defraying the expenses of the fleet), with the spell of
his name and presence. He was shortly afterwards appointed to the command
of the intended expedition against Lepanto, and, with this view, again
took into his pay five hundred Suliotes. An approaching general assembly
to organize the forces of the west, had brought together a motley crew,
destitute, discontented, and more likely to wage war upon each other than
on their enemies. Byron's closest associates during the ensuing months,
were the engineer Parry, an energetic artilleryman, "extremely active, and
of strong practical talents," who had travelled in America, and Colonel
Stanhope (afterwards Lord Harrington) equally with himself devoted to the
emancipation of Greece, but at variance about the means of achieving it.
Stanhope, a moral enthusiast of the stamp of Kennedy, beset by the fallacy
of religious missions, wished to cover the Morea with Wesleyan tracts, and
liberate the country by the agency of the Press. He had imported a
converted blacksmith, with a cargo of Bibles, types, and paper, who on
20_l_. a year, undertook to accomplish the reform. Byron, backed by the
good sense of Mavrocordatos, proposed to make cartridges of the tracts,
and small shot of the type; he did not think that the turbulent tribes
were ripe for freedom of the press, and had begun to regard Republicanism
itself as a matter of secondary moment. The disputant allies in the common
cause occupied each a flat of the same small house, the soldier by
profession was bent on writing the Turks down, the poet on fighting them
down, holding that "the work of the sword must precede that of the pen,
and that camps must be the training schools of freedom." Their
altercations were sometimes fierce--"Despot!" cried Stanhope, "after
professing liberal principles from boyhood, you when called to act prove
yourself a Turk." "Radical!" retorted Byron, "if I had held up my finger I
could have crushed your press,"--but this did not prevent the recognition
by each of them of the excellent qualities of the other.
Ultimately Stanhope went to Athens, and allied himself with Trelawny and
Odysseus and the party of the Left. Nothing can be more statesmanlike than
some of Byron's papers of this and the immediately preceding period;
nothing more admirable than the spirit which inspires them. He had come
into the heart of a revolution, exposed to the same perils as those which
had wrecked the similar movement in Italy. Neither trusting too much nor
distrusting too much, with a clear head and a good will he set about
enforcing a series of excellent measures. From first to last he was
engaged in denouncing dissension, in advocating unity, in doing everything
that man could do to concentrate and utilize the disorderly elements with
which he had to work. He occupied himself in repairing fortifications,
managing ships, restraining licence, promoting courtesy between the foes,
and regulating the disposal of the sinews of war.
On the morning of the 22nd of January, his last birthday, he came from his
room to Stanhope's, and said, smiling, "You were complaining that I never
write any poetry now," and read the familiar stanzas beginning--
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
and ending--
Seek out--less often sought than found--
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.
High thoughts, high resolves; but the brain that was over-tasked, and the
frame that was outworn, would be tasked and worn little longer. The lamp
of a life that had burnt too fiercely was flickering to its close. "If we
are not taken off with the sword," he writes on February 5th, "we are like
to march off with an ague in this mud basket; and, to conclude with a very
bad pun, better _martially_ than _marsh-ally_. The dykes of Holland when
broken down are the deserts of Arabia, in comparison with Mesolonghi." In
April, when it was too late, Stanhope wrote from Salona, in Phocis,
imploring him not to sacrifice health, and perhaps life, "in that bog."
Byron's house stood in the midst of the exhalations of a muddy creek, and
his natural irritability was increased by a more than usually long ascetic
regimen. From the day of his arrival in Greece he discarded animal food
and lived mainly on toast, vegetables, and cheese, olives and light wine,
at the rate of forty paras a day. In spite of his strength of purpose, his
temper was not always proof against the rapacity and turbulence by which
he was surrounded. About the middle of February, when the artillery had
been got into readiness for the attack on Lepanto--the northern, as
Patras was the southern, gate of the gulf, still in the hands of the
Turks--the expedition was thrown back by the unexpected rising of the
Suliotes. These peculiarly Irish Greeks, chronically seditious by nature,
were on this occasion, as afterwards appeared, stirred up by emissaries of
Colocatroni, who, though assuming the position of the rival of
Mavrocordatos, was simply a brigand on a large scale in the Morca.
Exasperation at this mutiny, and the vexation of having to abandon a
cherished scheme, seem to have been the immediately provoking causes of a
violent convulsive fit which, on the evening of the 15th, attacked the
poet, and endangered his life. Next day he was better, but complained of
weight in the head; and the doctors applying leeches too close to the
temporal artery, he was bled till he fainted. And now occurred the last of
those striking incidents so frequent in his life, in reference to which we
may quote the joint testimony of two witnesses. Colonel Stanhope writes,
"Soon after his dreadful paroxysm, when he was lying on his sick-bed, with
his whole nervous system completely shaken, the mutinous Suliotes, covered
with dirt and splendid attires, broke into his apartment, brandishing
their costly arms and loudly demanding their rights. Lord Byron,
electrified by this unexpected act, seemed to recover from his sickness;
and the more the Suliotes raged, the more his calm courage triumphed. The
scene was truly sublime." "It is impossible," says Count Gamba, "to do
justice to the coolness and magnanimity which he displayed upon every
trying occasion. Upon trifling occasions he was certainly irritable; but
the aspect of danger calmed him in an instant, and restored him the free
exercise of all the powers of his noble nature. A more undaunted man in
the hour of peril never breathed." A few days later, the riot being
renewed, the disorderly crew were, on payment of their arrears, finally
dismissed; but several of the English artificers under Parry left about
the same time, in fear of their lives.
On the 4th, the last of the long list of Byron's letters to Moore resents,
with some bitterness, the hasty acceptance of a rumour that he had been
quietly writing _Don Juan_ in some Ionian island. At the same date he
writes to Kennedy, "I am not unaware of the precarious state of my health.
But it is proper I should remain in Greece, and it were better to die
doing something than nothing." Visions of enlisting Europe and America on
behalf of the establishment of a new state, that might in course of time
develope itself over the realm of Alexander, floated and gleamed in his
fancy; but in his practical daily procedure the poet took as his text the
motto "festina lente," insisted on solid ground under his feet, and had no
notion of sailing balloons over the sea. With this view he discouraged
Stanhope's philanthropic and propagandist paper, the _Telegrapho_, and
disparaged Dr. Mayor, its Swiss editor, saying, "Of all petty tyrants he
is one of the pettiest, as are most demagogues." Byron had none of the
Sclavonic leanings, and almost personal hatred of Ottoman rule, of some of
our statesmen; but he saw on what side lay the forces and the hopes of the
future. "I cannot calculate," he said to Gamba, during one of their latest
rides together, "to what a height Greece may rise. Hitherto it has been a
subject for the hymns and elegies of fanatics and enthusiasts; but now it
will draw the attention of the politician.... At present there is little
difference, in many respects, between Greeks and Turks, nor could there
be; but the latter must, in the common course of events, decline in power;
and the former must as inevitably become better.... The English Government
deceived itself at first in thinking it possible to maintain the Turkish
Empire in its integrity; but it cannot be done, that unwieldy mass is
already putrified, and must dissolve. If anything like an equilibrium is
to be upheld, Greece must be supported." These words have been well
characterized as prophetic. During this time Byron rallied in health, and
displayed much of his old spirit, vivacity, and humour, took part in such
of his favourite amusements as circumstances admitted, fencing, shooting,
riding, and playing with his pet dog Lion. The last of his recorded
practical jokes is his rolling about cannon balls, and shaking the
rafters, to frighten Parry in the room below with the dread of an
earthquake.
Towards the close of the month, after being solicited to accompany
Mavrocordatos, to share the governorship of the Morea, he made an
appointment to meet Colonel Stanhope and Odysseus at Salona, but was
prevented from keeping it by violent floods which blocked up the
communication. On the 30th he was presented with the freedom of the city
of Mesolonghi. On the 3rd of April he intervened to prevent an Italian
private, guilty of theft, from being flogged by order of some German
officers. On the 9th, exhilarated by a letter from Mrs. Leigh with good
accounts of her own and Ada's health, he took a long ride with Gamba and a
few of the remaining Suliotes, and after being violently heated, and then
drenched in a heavy shower, persisted in returning home in a boat,
remarking with a laugh, in answer to a remonstrance, "I should make a
pretty soldier if I were to care for such a trifle." It soon became
apparent that he had caught his death. Almost immediately on his return,
he was seized with shiverings and violent pain. The next day he rose as
usual, and had his last ride in the olive woods. On the 11th a rheumatic
fever set in. On the 14th, Bruno's skill being exhausted, it was proposed
to call Dr. Thomas from Zante, but a hurricane prevented any ship being
sent. On the 15th, another physician, Mr. Milligen, suggested bleeding to
allay the fever, but Byron held out against it, quoting Dr. Reid to the
effect that "less slaughter is effected by the lance than the lancet--that
minute instrument of mighty mischief;" and saying to Bruno, "If my hour is
come I shall die, whether I lose my blood or keep it." Next morning
Milligen induced him to yield, by a suggestion of the possible loss of his
reason. Throwing out his arm, he cried, "There! you are, I see, a d----d
set of butchers. Take away as much blood as you like, and have done with
it." The remedy, repeated on the following day with blistering, was either
too late or ill-advised. On the 18th he saw more doctors, but was
manifestly sinking, amid the tears and lamentations of attendants who
could not understand each other's language. In his last hours his delirium
bore him to the field of arms. He fancied he was leading the attack on
Lepanto, and was heard exclaiming, "Forwards! forwards! follow me!" Who is
not reminded of another death-bed, not remote in time from his, and the
_Tête d'armée_ of the great Emperor who with the great Poet divided the
wonder of Europe? The stormy vision passed, and his thoughts reverted
home. "Go to my sister," he faltered out to Fletcher; "tell her--go to
Lady Byron--you will see her, and say"--nothing more could be heard but
broken ejaculations: "Augusta--Ada--my sister, my child. Io lascio qualche
cosa di caro nel mondo. For the rest, I am content to die." At six on the
evening of the 18th he uttered his last words, "[Greek: _Dei me nun
katheudein_];" and on the 19th he passed away.
Never perhaps was there such a national lamentation. By order of
Mavrocordatos, thirty-seven guns--one for each year of the poet's life--
were fired from the battery, and answered by the Turks from Patras with an
exultant volley. All offices, tribunals, and shops were shut, and a
general mourning for twenty-one days proclaimed. Stanhope wrote, on
hearing the news, "England has lost her brightest genius--Greece her
noblest friend;" and Trelawny, on coming to Mesolonghi, heard nothing in
the streets but "Byron is dead!" like a bell tolling through the silence
and the gloom. Intending contributors to the cause of Greece turned back
when they heard the tidings, that seemed to them to mean she was headless.
Her cities contended for the body, as of old for the birth of a poet.
Athens wished him to rest in the Temple of Theseus. The funeral service
was performed at Mesolonghi. But on the 2nd of May the embalmed remains
left Zante, and on the 29th arrived in the Downs. His relatives applied
for permission to have them interred in Westminster Abbey, but it was
refused; and on the 16th July they were conveyed to the village church of
Hucknall.