"April 21. 1813.
"I shall be in town by Sunday next, and will call and have some
conversation on the subject of Westall's designs. I am to sit to
him for a picture at the request of a friend of mine, and as
Sanders's is not a good one, you will probably prefer the other. I
wish you to have Sanders's taken down and sent to my lodgings
immediately--before my arrival. I hear that a certain malicious
publication on Waltzing is attributed to me. This report, I
suppose, you will take care to contradict, as the author, I am
sure, will not like that I should wear his cap and bells. Mr.
Hobhouse's quarto will be out immediately; pray send to the author
for an early copy, which I wish to take abroad with me.
"P.S.--I see the Examiner threatens some observations upon you next
week. What can you have done to share the wrath which has
heretofore been principally expended upon the Prince? I presume all
your Scribleri will be drawn up in battle array in defence of the
modern Tonson--Mr. Bucke, for instance.
"Send in my account to Bennet Street, as I wish to settle it before
sailing."
[Footnote 62: Lady Charlotte Harley, to whom, under the name of Ianthe,
the introductory lines to Childe Harold were afterwards addressed.]
* * * * *
In the month of May appeared his wild and beautiful "Fragment," _The
Giaour_;--and though, in its first flight from his hands, some of the
fairest feathers of its wing were yet wanting, the public hailed this
new offspring of his genius with wonder and delight. The idea of writing
a poem in fragments had been suggested to him by the _Columbus_ of Mr.
Rogers; and, whatever objections may lie against such a plan in general,
it must be allowed to have been well suited to the impatient temperament
of Byron, as enabling him to overleap those mechanical difficulties,
which, in a regular narrative, embarrass, if not chill, the
poet,--leaving it to the imagination of his readers to fill up the
intervals between those abrupt bursts of passion in which his chief
power lay. The story, too, of the poem possessed that stimulating charm
for him, almost indispensable to his fancy, of being in some degree
connected with himself,--an event in which he had been personally
concerned, while on his travels, having supplied the groundwork on which
the fiction was founded. After the appearance of The Giaour, some
incorrect statement of this romantic incident having got into
circulation, the noble author requested of his friend, the Marquis of
Sligo, who had visited Athens soon after it happened, to furnish him
with his recollections on the subject; and the following is the answer
which Lord Sligo returned:--
"Albany, Monday, August 31. 1813.
"My dear Byron,
"You have requested me to tell you all that I heard at Athens about
the affair of that girl who was so near being put an end to while
you were there; you have asked me to mention every circumstance, in
the remotest degree relating to it, which I heard. In compliance
with your wishes, I write to you all I heard, and I cannot imagine
it to be very far from the fact, as the circumstance happened only
a day or two before I arrived at Athens, and, consequently, was a
matter of common conversation at the time.
"The new governor, unaccustomed to have the same intercourse with
the Christians as his predecessor, had of course the barbarous
Turkish ideas with regard to women. In consequence, and in
compliance with the strict letter of the Mahommedan law, he ordered
this girl to be sewed up in a sack, and thrown into the sea,--as
is, indeed, quite customary at Constantinople. As you were
returning from bathing in the Piraeus, you met the procession going
down to execute the sentence of the Waywode on this unfortunate
girl. Report continues to say, that on finding out what the object
of their journey was, and who was the miserable sufferer, you
immediately interfered; and on some delay in obeying your orders,
you were obliged to inform the leader of the escort, that force
should make him comply;--that, on farther hesitation, you drew a
pistol, and told him, that if he did not immediately obey your
orders, and come back with you to the Aga's house, you would shoot
him dead. On this, the man turned about and went with you to the
governor's house; here you succeeded, partly by personal threats,
and partly by bribery and entreaty, to procure her pardon on
condition of her leaving Athens. I was told that you then conveyed
her in safety to the convent, and despatched her off at night to
Thebes, where she found a safe asylum. Such is the story I heard,
as nearly as I can recollect it at present. Should you wish to ask
me any further questions about it, I shall be very ready and
willing to answer them. I remain, my dear Byron,
"Yours, very sincerely,
"SLIGO.
"I am afraid you will hardly be able to read this scrawl; but I am
so hurried with the preparations for my journey, that you must
excuse it."
* * * * *
Of the prodigal flow of his fancy, when its sources were once opened on
any subject, The Giaour affords one of the most remarkable
instances,--this poem having accumulated under his hand, both in
printing and through successive editions, till from four hundred lines,
of which it consisted in his first copy, it at present amounts to nearly
fourteen hundred. The plan, indeed, which he had adopted, of a series of
fragments,--a set of "orient pearls at random strung,"--left him free to
introduce, without reference to more than the general complexion of his
story, whatever sentiments or images his fancy, in its excursions, could
collect; and how little fettered he was by any regard to connection in
these additions, appears from a note which accompanied his own copy of
the paragraph commencing "Fair clime, where every season smiles,"--in
which he says, "I have not yet fixed the place of insertion for the
following lines, but will, when I see you--as I have no copy."
Even into this new passage, rich as it was at first, his fancy
afterwards poured a fresh infusion,--the whole of its most picturesque
portion, from the line "For there, the Rose o'er crag or vale," down to
"And turn to groans his roundelay," having been suggested to him during
revision. In order to show, however, that though so rapid in the first
heat of composition, he formed no exception to that law which imposes
labour as the price of perfection, I shall here extract a few verses
from his original draft of this paragraph, by comparing which with the
form they wear at present[63] we may learn to appreciate the value of
these after-touches of the master.
"Fair clime! where _ceaseless summer_ smiles
Benignant o'er those blessed isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And _give_ to loneliness delight.
There _shine the bright abodes ye seek,
Like dimples upon Ocean's cheek,--
So smiling round the waters lave_
These Edens of the eastern wave.
Or if, at times, the transient breeze
Break the _smooth_ crystal of the seas,
Or _brush_ one blossom from the trees,
How _grateful_ is the gentle air
That wakes and wafts the _fragrance_ there."
Among the other passages added to this edition (which was either the
third or fourth, and between which and the first there intervened but
about six weeks) was that most beautiful and melancholy illustration of
the lifeless aspect of Greece, beginning "He who hath bent him o'er the
dead,"--of which the most gifted critic of our day[64] has justly
pronounced, that "it contains an image more true, more mournful, and
more exquisitely finished, than any we can recollect in the whole
compass of poetry."[65] To the same edition also were added, among other
accessions of wealth[66], those lines, "The cygnet proudly walks the
water," and the impassioned verses, "My memory now is but the tomb."
On my rejoining him in town this spring, I found the enthusiasm about
his writings and himself, which I left so prevalent, both in the world
of literature and in society, grown, if any thing, still more general
and intense. In the immediate circle, perhaps, around him, familiarity
of intercourse might have begun to produce its usual disenchanting
effects. His own liveliness and unreserve, on a more intimate
acquaintance, would not be long in dispelling that charm of poetic
sadness, which to the eyes of distant observers hung about him; while
the romantic notions, connected by some of his fair readers with those
past and nameless loves alluded to in his poems, ran some risk of
abatement from too near an acquaintance with the supposed objects of
his fancy and fondness at present. A poet's mistress should remain, if
possible, as imaginary a being to others, as, in most of the attributes
he clothes her with, she has been to himself;--the reality, however
fair, being always sure to fall short of the picture which a too lavish
fancy has drawn of it. Could we call up in array before us all the
beauties whom the love of poets has immortalised, from the high-born
dame to the plebeian damsel,--from the Lauras and Sacharissas down to
the Cloes and Jeannies,--we should, it is to be feared, sadly unpeople
our imaginations of many a bright tenant that poesy has lodged there,
and find, in more than one instance, our admiration of the faith and
fancy of the worshipper increased by our discovery of the worthlessness
of the idol.
But, whatever of its first romantic impression the personal character of
the poet may, from such causes, have lost in the circle he most
frequented, this disappointment of the imagination was far more than
compensated by the frank, social, and engaging qualities, both of
disposition and manner, which, on a nearer intercourse, he disclosed, as
well as by that entire absence of any literary assumption or pedantry,
which entitled him fully to the praise bestowed by Sprat upon Cowley,
that few could "ever discover he was a great poet by his discourse."
While thus, by his intimates, and those who had got, as it were, behind
the scenes of his fame, he was seen in his true colours, as well of
weakness as of amiableness, on strangers and such as were out of this
immediate circle, the spell of his poetical character still continued
to operate; and the fierce gloom and sternness of his imaginary
personages were, by the greater number of them, supposed to belong, not
only as regarded mind, but manners, to himself. So prevalent and
persevering has been this notion, that, in some disquisitions on his
character published since his death, and containing otherwise many just
and striking views, we find, in the professed portrait drawn of him,
such features as the following:--"Lord Byron had a stern, direct, severe
mind: a sarcastic, disdainful, gloomy temper. He had no light sympathy
with heartless cheerfulness;--upon the surface was sourness, discontent,
displeasure, ill will. Beneath all this weight of clouds and
darkness[67]," &c. &c.
Of the sort of double aspect which he thus presented, as viewed by the
world and by his friends, he was himself fully aware; and it not only
amused him, but, as a proof of the versatility of his powers, flattered
his pride. He was, indeed, as I have already remarked, by no means
insensible or inattentive to the effect he produced personally on
society; and though the brilliant station he had attained, since the
commencement of my acquaintance with him, made not the slightest
alteration in the unaffectedness of his private intercourse, I could
perceive, I thought, with reference to the external world, some slight
changes in his conduct, which seemed indicative of the effects of his
celebrity upon him. Among other circumstances, I observed that, whether
from shyness of the general gaze, or from a notion, like Livy's, that
men of eminence should not too much familiarise the public to their
persons[68], he avoided showing himself in the mornings, and in crowded
places, much more than was his custom when we first became acquainted.
The preceding year, before his name had grown "so rife and celebrated,"
we had gone together to the exhibition at Somerset House, and other such
places[69]; and the true reason, no doubt, of his present reserve, in
abstaining from all such miscellaneous haunts, was the sensitiveness, so
often referred to, on the subject of his lameness,--a feeling which the
curiosity of the public eye, now attracted to this infirmity by his
fame, could not fail, he knew, to put rather painfully to the proof.
Among the many gay hours we passed together this spring, I remember
particularly the wild flow of his spirits one evening, when we had
accompanied Mr. Rogers home from some early assembly, and when Lord
Byron, who, according to his frequent custom, had not dined for the last
two days, found his hunger no longer governable, and called aloud for
"something to eat." Our repast,--of his own choosing,--was simple bread
and cheese; and seldom have I partaken of so joyous a supper. It
happened that our host had just received a presentation copy of a volume
of poems, written professedly in imitation of the old English writers,
and containing, like many of these models, a good deal that was striking
and beautiful, mixed up with much that was trifling, fantastic, and
absurd. In our mood, at the moment, it was only with these latter
qualities that either Lord Byron or I felt disposed to indulge
ourselves; and, in turning over the pages, we found, it must be owned,
abundant matter for mirth. In vain did Mr. Rogers, in justice to the
author, endeavour to direct our attention to some of the beauties of the
work:--it suited better our purpose (as is too often the case with more
deliberate critics) to pounce only on such passages as ministered to the
laughing humour that possessed us. In this sort of hunt through the
volume, we at length lighted on the discovery that our host, in addition
to his sincere approbation of some of its contents, had also the motive
of gratitude for standing by its author, as one of the poems was a warm
and, I need not add, well-deserved panegyric on himself. We were,
however, too far gone in nonsense for even this eulogy, in which we both
so heartily agreed, to stop us. The opening line of the poem was, as
well as I can recollect, "When Rogers o'er this labour bent;" and Lord
Byron undertook to read it aloud;--but he found it impossible to get
beyond the first two words. Our laughter had now increased to such a
pitch that nothing could restrain it. Two or three times he began; but
no sooner had the words "When Rogers" passed his lips, than our fit
burst forth afresh,--till even Mr. Rogers himself, with all his feeling
of our injustice, found it impossible not to join us; and we were, at
last, all three, in such a state of inextinguishable laughter, that, had
the author himself been of the party, I question much whether he could
have resisted the infection.