CHAPTER III.

FRENCH PORTRAIT.

"I see that the greater part of the men of my time endeavor to

blemish the glory of the generous and fine actions of olden days by

giving to them some vile interpretation, or by finding some vain

cause or occasion which produced them--very clever, indeed! I shall

use a similar license, and take the same trouble to endeavor to

raise these great names."--MONTAIGNE, chap. "Glory."

The portrait of Lord Byron, in a moral point of view, is still to be

drawn. Many causes have conspired to make the task difficult, and the

portrait unlike. Physically speaking, on account of his matchless

beauty--mentally, owing to his genius--and morally, owing to the rare

qualities of his soul, Lord Byron was certainly a phenomenon. The world

agrees in this opinion; but is not yet agreed upon the nature and moral

value of the phenomenon. But as all phenomena have, besides a primary

and extraordinary cause, some secondary and accidental causes, which it

is necessary to examine in order that they may be understood; so, to

explain Byron's nature, we must not neglect to observe the causes which

have contributed chiefly to the formation of his individuality.

His biographers have rather considered the results than the causes.

Even Moore, the best among them, if not, indeed, the only one who can

claim the title of biographer, grants that the nature of Lord Byron and

its operations were inexplicable, but does not give himself the trouble

to understand them.

Here are his own words:--"So various indeed, and contradictory were his

attributes, both moral and intellectual, that he may be pronounced to

have been not one, but many: nor would it be any great exaggeration of

the truth to say, that out of the mere partition of the properties of

his single mind, a plurality of characters, all different and all

vigorous, might have been furnished. It was this multiform aspect

exhibited by him that led the world, during his short, wondrous career,

to compare him with the medley host of personages, almost all differing

from each other, which he playfully enumerates in one of his journals.

"The object of so many contradictory comparisons must probably be like

something different from them all; but what _that_ is, is more than I

know, or any body else."

But, while merely explaining the extraordinary richness of this nature

by the analysis of its results, by his changeable character, by the

frankness which ever made his heart speak that which it felt, by his

excessive sensitiveness, which made him the slave of momentary

impressions, by his almost childlike delight and astonishment at things,

Moore does not arrive at the true causes of the phenomenon. He

registers, it is true, certain effects which become causes when they

draw upon the head of Lord Byron certain false judgments, and open the

door to every calumny.

Without adopting the system of the influence of races on mankind--which,

if pushed to its extreme consequences, must lead to the disastrous and

deplorable doctrine of fatalism, and would make of man a mere

machine--it is, however, impossible to deny that races and their

amalgamation do exercise a great influence over our species.

It is to this very influence of race, which was so evident in Lord

Byron, that we attribute, in a measure, the exceptional nature of the

great English poet.

As the reader knows, Lord Byron was descended, by his father, from the

noble race of the Birons of France. His ancestors accompanied William

the Conqueror to England, aided him in the conquest of that country, and

distinguished themselves in the various fields of battle which

ultimately led to the total subjugation of the island.

In his family, the sympathies of the original race always remained

strong.

His father, a youthful and brilliant officer, was never happy except in

France. He was very intimate with the Marechal de Biron, who looked upon

him as a connection. He even settled in Paris with his first wife, the

Marchioness of Carmarthen. Soon after his second marriage, he brought

his wife over to France, and it was in France that she conceived the

future poet. When obliged to return to England to be confined, she was

so far advanced in pregnancy that she could not reach London in time,

but gave birth to Lord Byron at Dover. It was in France that Byron's

father died at thirty-five years of age. Through his mother--a Scotch

lady connected with the royal house of Stuart--he had Scotch blood in

his veins.

The powerful influence exercised by the Norman Conquest, in the

modification of all the old habits of Great Britain, and in making the

English that which they now are, has descended as an heirloom to some

old aristocratic families of the kingdom, where it discovers itself at

different times in different individuals. Nowhere, perhaps, did this

influence show itself more clearly than in the person of Lord Byron.

His duplicate or triplicate origin was already visible in the cast of

his features. Without any analogy to the type of beauty belonging to the

men of his country (a beauty seldom found apart from a kind of cold

reserve), Lord Byron's beauty appeared to unite the energy of the

western with the splendor and the mildness of the southern climes.

The influence of this mixture of races was equally visible in his moral

and intellectual character.

He belonged to the Gallic race (modified by the Latin and Celtic

elements) by his vivacity and mobility of character, as well as by his

wit and his keen appreciation of the ridiculous, by those smiles and

sarcasms which hide or discover a profound philosophy, by his perception

of humor without malice, by all those amiable qualities which in the

daily intercourse of life made of him a being of such irresistible

attraction. He belonged to that race likewise by his great

sensitiveness, by his expansive good-nature, by his politeness, by his

tractableness, by his universal character which rendered every species

of success easy to him; by his great generosity, by his love of glory,

by his passion for honor, his intuitive perception of great deeds, by a

courage which might have appeared rash, had it not been heroic, and

which, in presence of the greatest perils and even of death, ever

preserved for him that serenity of mind which allowed him to laugh, even

at such times; by his energy, and also by his numerous mental and bodily

requirements; and by his defects,--which were, a slight tendency to

indiscretion, a want of prudence injurious to his interests,

impatience, and a kind of intermittent and apparent fickleness.

He belonged to the western race by his vast intellect, by his practical

common sense, which formed the basis of his intellect, and which never

allowed him to divorce sublime conceptions from sound sense and good

reason,--two qualities, in fact, which so governed his imagination as to

make people say he had not any; by the depth of his feelings, the extent

of his learning, his passion for independence, his contempt of death,

his thirst for the infinite, and by that kind of melancholy which seemed

to follow him into the midst of every pleasure. All these various

elements, which belonged separately to individuals in France, in

England, and in various countries, being united in Lord Byron, produced

a kind of anomaly which startled systematic critics, and even honest

biographers. The apparent contradiction of all these qualities caused

his critics to lose their psychological compass in their estimate of his

charming nature, and justice, together with truth, suffered by the

result. Thus a portrait, drawn over and over again, still remains to be

painted.

The most imaginary portrait, however, of Lord Byron, and certainly the

least like him, is that which has general currency in France: not only

has that portrait not been drawn from nature, not only is it a

caricature, but it is also a calumny. Those who drew it took romance for

history. They charged or exaggerated incidents in his life and

peculiarities of his character; thus the harmony of the _tout ensemble_

was lost. Ugliness and eccentricity, which amuse, succeeded beauty and

truth, which are sometimes wearisome.

Those who knew and loved Lord Byron even more as a man than a genius

(and, after all, these are those who knew him personally) suffer by this

injustice done to him, and feel the absurdity of making so privileged a

being act so whimsical a part, and one so contrary to his nature as well

as to the reality of his life.

If this imaginary portrait, however, were more like those which his best

biographers have drawn of him, justice to his memory would become so

difficult a task as to be almost impossible. Happily it is not so; and

those who would conscientiously consult Moore, Parry, and Gamba, must

at least give up the idea that this admirable genius was the eccentric

and unamiable being he has been represented. To reach this point would,

perhaps, require a greater respect for truth.

Even in France there are many superior persons who, struck by the force

of facts, have at times endeavored to seize certain features which might

lead to the discovery of truth, and have attempted to show that Lord

Byron's noble character and beauty of soul, as well as his genius, did

honor to humanity. But their efforts have been vain in presence of the

absurd and contradictory creation of fancy which has been styled "Lord

Byron," and which with few modifications, continues to be called so to

this day.

How has this occurred? what gave rise to it? ignorance, or carelessness?

Both causes in France, added to revenge in England, which found its

expression in cant,--a species of scourge which is becoming quite the

fashion.

The first of these French biographers (I mean of those who have written

upon and wished to characterize Lord Byron), without knowing the man

they were writing about, set to work with a ready-made Byron. This, no

doubt, they found to be an easier method to follow, and one of which the

results must prove at least original. But where had they found, and from

whose hands did they receive this ready-made poet, whose features they

reproduced and offered to the world? Probably from a few lines, not

without merit, of Lamartine, who by the aid of his rich imagination had

identified Byron with the types which he had conceived for his Oriental

poems, mixing up the whole with a heap of calumnies which had just been

circulated about him.

Perhaps also from certain critics who believed in the statements of

various calumniators, and who themselves had probably not had any better

authority than a few articles in badly informed papers, or in newspapers

politically opposed to Lord Byron. We all know, by what we see daily in

France, how little we can trust the moderation of these, and the justice

they render to their adversaries; what must it not have been in England

at that time, when passions ran so high?--Perhaps also from the jealousy

of dethroned rivals!--the echoes, perhaps, of the revenge of a woman

equally distinguished by her rank and by her talent, but whose passion

approached the boundaries of madness, or of the implacable hatred of a

few fanatics who, substituting in the most shameless manner their

worldly and sectarian interests for the Gospel, denounced him as an

atheist because he himself had proclaimed them hypocrites. Finally,

perhaps, from a host of absurd rumors, equally odious and vague, caused

by his separation from his wife, and by the articles published in

newspapers printed at Venice and at Milan.

For Byron's noble, simple, and sublime person was therefore substituted

an imaginary being, formed out of these prejudices and these

contradictory elements, too outrageous even to be believed, and by dint

of sheer malice.

Thus enveloped in a dense atmosphere, which became an obstacle to the

disclosure of truth as the clouds are to the rays of the sun, his image

only appeared in fantastical outlines borrowed from "Conrad the

Corsair," or "Childe Harold," or "Lara," or "Manfred," or indeed "Don

Juan." Analogies were sought which do not exist, and to the poet were

attributed the sentiments, and even the acts, of these imaginary beings,

albeit without any of the great qualities which constituted his great

and noble soul, and which he has not imparted to any of his poetical

creations.

Upon him were heaped every possible and most contradictory

accusation--of skepticism and pantheism, of deism and atheism, of

superstition and enthusiasm, of irony and passion, of sensuality and

ideality, of generosity and avarice. These went to form his portrait,

presenting every contrast and every antagonism, which God Himself, the

Father and Creator of all things, but also the Author of all harmony,

could not have assembled in one and the same being unless He made of him

a species of new Frankenstein, incapable of treading the ordinary paths

of physical, moral, or intellectual, nay, of the most ordinary

existence.

After thus producing such an eccentric character,--the more

extraordinary that they entirely forgot to consult the true and most

simple history of his life, where if some of the ordinary excusable

faults of youth are to be found, "some remarkable qualities, however,

must be noticed,"--these wonderful biographers exclaim, astonished as it

were at their own conclusions:--"This is indeed a most singular,

extraordinary, and not-to-be-defined being!"

I should think so: it is their own work, not the noble, amiable, and

sublime mind, the work of God, and which he always exhibited in himself,

"Per far di colassa fede fra noi."--PETRARCH.

Happily, if to paint the portrait of Byron has become impossible, now

that

"Poca terra e rimasto il suo belviso,"

it is easy to describe his moral character. His invisible form is, it is

true, above, but a conscientious examination of his whole life will give

us an idea of it. He knew this so well himself, that a few days before

his death he begged, as a favor, of his friend Lord Harrington, then

Colonel Stanhope, at Missolonghi, to judge him only by his deeds. "Judge

me by my deeds."

All bombastic expressions, all systematic views should be discarded, and

attention paid only to facts, in order to discover the fine intellectual

figure of Lord Byron so completely lost sight of by his detractors.

Since the imaginary creations of his pen in moments of exalted passion

should not be taken as the real manifestation of his character, the

latter is to be found in his own deeds, and in the testimony of those

who knew him personally. Herein shall we seek truth by which we are to

deal with the fanciful statements which have too long been received as

facts. Let us consider the opinions of those who by their authority have

a right to portray him, while we study the various causes which have

contributed to lead the public into errors which time has nearly

consecrated, but which shall be corrected in France, and indeed in every

country where passion and animosity have no interest in maintaining

them.

"Public opinion," says M. Cousin, "has its errors, but these can not be

of long duration." They lasted a long time, however, as regards Lord

Byron; but, thanks to God, they will not be eternal. He depended upon

this himself, for he once at Ravenna wrote these prophetic words in a

memorandum:--

"Never mind the wicked, who have ever persecuted me with the help of

Lady Byron: triumphant justice will be done to me when the hand which

writes this is as cold as the hearts that have wounded me."

In England, Lord Byron triumphed over many jealous enemies whom his

first satire earned for him, no less than the rapid and wonderful rise

of his genius, which, instead of appearing by degrees, burst forth at

once, as it were, and towering over many established reputations. The

prestige which he acquired was such that every obstacle was surmounted,

and in one day he saw himself raised against his will, and without his

having ever sought the honor, to the highest pinnacle of fashion and

literary fame.

In a country where success is all, his enemies, and those who were

jealous of his name, were obliged to fall back; but they did not give up

their weapons nor their spite. One curious element was introduced in the

national veneration for the poet. It was agreed that never had such an

accumulation of various gifts been heaped upon the head of one man: he

was to be revered and honored, but on one condition. He was to be a

mysterious being whose genius should not transgress the boundaries of

the East; who was to allow himself to be identified with the imaginary

beings of his own fancy, however disagreeable, nay, even criminal they

might be in reality. True, his personal conduct (at twenty-four) was to

be above all human weakness; if not, he was to be treated, as certain

superstitious votaries treat their idols if they do not obtain at once

the miracles they ask for. His secret enemies perfidiously made use of

these stupid demands of the public.

Insinuating and giving out at times one calumny after another, they

always kept behind the scenes, resolved, however, to ruin him in the

public esteem on the first opportunity, which they knew they would not

have long to wait for from one so open, so passionate, so generous as

Lord Byron. The greatest misfortune of his life--his marriage--gave them

their opportunity. Then they came forth, threw down the mask which they

had hitherto worn, to put on one more hideous still; overturned the

statue from the pedestal upon which the public had raised it, and tried

to mutilate its remains. But as the stuff of which it was made was a

marble which could not be broken, they only defiled, insulted, and

outlawed it.

Then it was that France made acquaintance with Lord Byron. She saw him

first mysteriously enveloped in the romantic semblance of a Corsair, of

a skeptical Harold, of a young lord who had despised and wounded his

mother-country, from which he had almost been obliged to exile himself,

in consequence of a series of eccentricities, faults, and--who

knows?--of crimes, perhaps. Thus caught in a perfidious net, Lord Byron

left England for Switzerland.

He found Shelley, whom he only knew by name, at Geneva, where he

stopped. Shelley was another victim of English fanatical and intolerant

opinions; but he, it may be allowed at least, had given cause for this

by some reprehensible writings, in which he had declared himself an

atheist. No allowance had been made for his youth, for he was only

seventeen when he wrote "Queen Mab," and he found himself expelled not

only from the university but also from his home, which was to him a real

cause of sorrow and misfortune.

Between these two great minds there existed a wide gulf--that which

exists between pantheism and spiritualism; but they had one great point

of resemblance, their mutual passionate love for justice and humanity,

their hatred of cant and hypocrisy, in fact, all the elevated sentiments

of the moral and social man. With Lord Byron these noble dispositions of

the heart and mind were naturally the consequence of his tastes and

opinions, which were essentially spiritualistic. With Shelley, though in

contradiction with his metaphysics, they were notwithstanding in harmony

with the beautiful sentiments of his soul, which, when he was only

twenty-three years of age, had already experienced the unkindness of

man. Their respective souls, wounded and hurt by the perfidiousness and

injustice of the world, felt themselves attracted to each other. A real

friendship sprang up between them. They saw one another often, and it

was in the conversations which they held together at this time that the

seed was sown which shortly was to produce the works of genius which

were to see the day at the foot of the Alps and under the blue sky of

Italy.

Although Lord Byron's heart was mortally wounded, still no feeling of

hatred could find its way into it. The sorrow which he felt, the painful

knowledge which he had of cruel and perfidious wrongs done to him, the

pain of finding out the timidity of character of his friends, and the

recollection of the many ungrateful people of whom he was the victim,

all and each of these sentiments found their echo in the "Prisoner of

Chillon," in the third canto of "Childe Harold," in "Manfred," in the

pathetic stanzas addressed to his sister, in the admirable and sublime

monody on the death of Sheridan, and in the "Dream," which according to

Moore, he must have written while shedding many bitter tears. According

to the same authority, the latter poem is the most melancholy and

pathetic history that ever came forth from human pen.

I shall not mention here the persecution to which Byron was subjected

then, nor the ever-manly, dignified, but heartrending words which it

drew forth from the noble poet in the midst of his retired, studious,

regular, and virtuous existence. I shall speak of it elsewhere; but I

will say now that so unexampled, atrocious, and foolish was this

persecution, that his enemies must have feared the awakening of the

public conscience and the effects of a reaction, which might make them

lose all the fruits of their victory, if they tarried in their efforts

to prevent it. The most cruel among them was the poet laureate, in whose

eyes Byron could have had but one defect--that of being superior to him.

True, Byron had mentioned him in the famous satire which was the work of

his youth; but he had most generously expiated his crime by confessing

it, in buying up the fifth edition so as to annihilate it, and by

declaring that he would have willingly suppressed even the memory of it.

This noble action had gained for him the forgiveness and even the

friendship of the most generous among them; but the revengeful poet

laureate was not, as Byron said, "of those who forgive."

This man arrived at Geneva, and at once set about his hateful work of

revenge. This was all the easier on account of the spirit of cant which

reigned in that country, and owing to the intimacy which he found to be

existing between Byron and Shelley, for whom likewise he had conceived a

malignant hatred. It must be said, however, that the laureate having to

account for, among other works, his "Wat Tyler" (which had been

pronounced to be an immoral book, and had been prohibited on that

account), rather trusted to his hypocrisy to regain for him the former

credit he enjoyed.

The intimacy between Byron and the spurned atheist Shelley presented a

capital opportunity for this man to take his revenge. He circulated in

Geneva all the false reports which had been current in London, and

described Byron under the worst colors. Switzerland was at that time

overrun by the English, whom the recently-signed Peace had attracted to

the Continent. The laureate took the lead of those who tried to make the

good but bigoted people of Geneva believe in all the tittle-tattle

against Byron which was passed about in London, and actually attempted

to make a scandal of his very presence in their town. When he passed in

the streets they stopped to stare at him insolently, putting up their

glasses to their eyes. They followed him in his rides; they reported

that he was seducing all the girls in the "Rue Basse," and, in fact,

although his life was perfectly virtuous, one would have said that his

presence was a contagion. Having found in a travellers' register the

name of Shelley, accompanied by the qualification of "atheist!" which

Byron had amiably struck out with his pen, the laureate caught at this

and gave out that the two friends had declared themselves to be

atheists. He attributed their friendship to infamous motives; he spoke

of incest and of other abominations, so odious, that Byron's friends

deemed it prudent not to speak to him a word of all this at the time. He

only learned it at Venice later.[10]

Loaded with this very creditable amount of falsehoods, most of which

were believed in Geneva, the laureate returned to London to spread them

in England, so as to prevent the effects of the beautiful and touching

poems which were poured forth from the great and wounded soul of Byron,

and which might have restored him to the esteem of all the honest and

just minds of his country.

Meanwhile Lady C. L---- having failed to discover any one who would

accept the reward she offered to the person who would take Byron's life,

had recourse to another means of injuring him--to a kind of moral

assassination--which she effected by the publication of her revengeful

sentiments in the three volumes entitled "Glenarvon." Such a work might

justify a biographer in passing it over with contempt without even

mentioning it; but as enemies of Lord Byron have made capital out of

this book,--as it found credence even with some superior minds, such as

Goethe's--as the intimacy which prefaced this revenge caused great

sensation all over England, and was a source of continual vexation and

pain for Byron--it must not be passed over without comment, as Moore did

to spare the susceptibility of living personages.

Lady C. L---- (afterward Lady M----) belonged to the high aristocracy of

England. Young, clever, and fashionable, but a little eccentric, she had

been married some years when she fell so desperately in love with Lord

Byron that she braved every thing for him. It was not Byron who made the

first advances, for his powers of seduction were only the attractions

with which nature had endowed him. His person, his voice, his look,--all

in him was irresistible. In presenting himself anywhere, he could very

well say with Shakspeare, in "Othello,"--

"This only is the witchcraft I have used."

Lord Byron, who was then only twenty-three years of age, and not

married, was flattered, and more than pleased, by this preference shown

to him. Although Lady C. L----'s beauty was not particularly attractive

to him, and although her character was exactly opposite to the ideal

which he had formed of what woman's character should be, yet she

contrived to interest him, to captivate him by the power of her love,

and in a very short time to persuade him that he loved her.

This sort of love could not last. It was destined to end in a

catastrophe. Lady L----'s jealousy was ridiculous. Dressed sometimes as

a page, sometimes in another costume, she was wont to follow him by

means of these disguises. She quarrelled and played the heroine, etc.

Byron, who disliked quarrels of all kinds (and perhaps even the lady

herself), besides being intimate with all her family, was too much the

sufferer by this conduct not to endeavor to bring her back to a sense of

reason and of her duty. He was indulging in the hope that he had

succeeded in these endeavors when, at a ball given by Lady Heathcote,

Lady L----, after vain efforts to attract Byron's attention, went up to

him and asked him whether she might waltz. Byron replied, half-absently,

that he saw no reason why she should not; upon which her pride and her

passion became so excited that she seized hold of a knife, and feigned

to commit suicide. The ball was at once at an end, and all London was

soon filled with accounts of this incident. Lady L---- had scarcely

recovered from the slight wound she had inflicted on herself, when she

wrote to a young peer, and made him all kinds of extravagant promises,

if he would consent to call out Byron and kill him. This, however, did

not prevent her calling again upon Lord Byron, not, however, says

Medwin, with the intention of blowing his brains out; as he was not at

home, she wrote on one of his books

"Remember me."

On returning home, Byron read what she had written, and, filled with

disgust and indignation, he wrote the famous lines

"Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not,"

and sent her back several of her letters sealed up. "Glenarvon" was her

revenge. She painted Byron in fiendish colors, giving herself all the

qualities he possessed, so as to appear an angel, and to him all the

passions of the "Giaour," of the "Corsair," and of "Childe Harold," so

that he might be taken for a demon.

In this novel, the result of revenge, truth asserts its rights,

notwithstanding all the contradictions of which the book is full. Thus

Lady L---- can not help depicting Byron under some of his real

characteristics. She was asked, for instance, what she thought of him,

when she met him for the first time after hearing of his great

reputation, and she answers, while gazing at the soft loveliness of his

smile,--

"What do I think? I think that never did the hand of God imprint upon a

human form so lovely, so glorious an expression."

And further she adds:--

"Never did the Sculptor's hand, in the sublimest product of his talent,

imagine a form and a face so exquisite, so full of animation or so

varied in expression. Can one see him without being moved? Oh! is there

in the nature of woman the possibility of listening to him, without

cherishing every word he utters? and having listened to him once, is it

possible for any human heart ever to forget those accents which awaken

every sentiment and calm every fear?"

Again:--

"Oh better far to have died than to see or listen to Glenarvon. When he

smiled, his smile was like the light of heaven; his voice was more

soothing from its softness than the softest music. In his manner there

was such a charm, that it would have been vain to affect even to be

offended by its sweetness."

But while she was obliged to obey the voice of passion and of truth, she

took on the other hand as a motto to her novel that of the "Corsair,"

which even applied to the "Corsair" is not altogether just, for he was

gifted with more than "one virtue:--"

"He left a Corsair's name to other times,

Link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes."

It is, however, fair to add, that this revenge became the punishment of

the heroine; she never again found any rest, struggled against a

troubled mind, and never succeeded in forgetting her love. It is even

said that, diseased in mind and body, she was one day walking along one

of the alleys of her beautiful place, on the road to Newstead Abbey,

when she saw a funeral procession coming up the road in the direction of

Newstead. Having inquired whose funeral it was, and being told it was

that of the great poet, whose mortal remains were being conveyed to

their last resting-place, she fainted, and died a few days afterward.

His name was the last word she uttered, and this she did with love and

despair. In London, and wherever the authoress was known, the book had

no success, but the case was different abroad and in the provinces.

Attracted as he always was toward all that is good, great, and sincere,

Byron was wont to break the monotony of his retired life in the villa

Diodati by frequent visits to Madame de Stael at her country-seat,

"Coppet." She was the first who mentioned "Glenarvon" to him, and when

Murray wrote to him on the subject, Byron simply replied,--

"Of Glenarvon, Madame de Stael told me (ten days ago at Coppet)

marvellous and grievous things; but I have seen nothing of it but the

motto, which promises amiably 'for us and for our tragedy' ... 'a name

to all succeeding,' etc. The generous moment selected for the

publication is probably its kindest accompaniment, and, truth to say,

the time _was_ well chosen."[11]

"I have not even a guess at its contents," said he, and he really

attached no importance to its publication. But a few days later he had a

proof of the bad effect which its appearance had produced, for all this

venom against him had so poisoned the mind of a poor old woman of

sixty-three, an authoress, that on Lord Byron entering Madame de Stael's

drawing-room one afternoon, she fainted, or feigned to do so. Poor soul!

a writer of novels herself, and probably most partial to such reading,

she had, no doubt, from the perusal of "Glenarvon" gleaned the idea that

she had before her eyes that hideous monster of seduction and

perpetrator of crimes who was therein depicted!

At last Lord Byron read this too famous novel, and wrote to Moore as

follows on the subject:--

"Madame de Stael lent me 'Glenarvon' last autumn. It seems to me that if

the author had written the truth, and nothing but the truth, and the

whole truth, the novel might not only have been more romantic but more

amusing. As for the likeness, it can not be good, I did not sit long

enough for it."

From Venice Byron wrote as follows to Murray, in consequence of a series

of articles which appeared in Germany, where a serious view had been

taken of the novel of "Glenarvon:"--

"An Italian translation of 'Glenarvon' was lately printed at Venice. The

censor (Sgr. Petrolini) refused to sanction the publication till he had

seen me on the subject. I told him that I did not recognize the

slightest relation between that book and myself; but that, whatever

opinions might be held on that subject, I would never prevent or oppose

the publication of any book in any language, on my own private account,

and desired him (against his inclination) to permit the poor translator

to publish his labors. It is going forward in consequence. You may say

this, with my compliments, to the author."[12]

Madame de Stael had a great affection for Lord Byron, but his detractors

had found their way into her house.[13] Among these was a distinguished

lawyer, who had never been injured by any speech or word of Lord Byron,

but who, setting himself up as an amateur enemy of the poet, had, under

an anonymous designation, been one of his bitterest detractors in the

"Edinburgh Review," on the occasion of the publication of his early

poems. This same lawyer endeavored to gain Madame de Stael over to his

opinion of Byron's merit, probably on account of the very knowledge that

he had of the harm he had done him; hatred, like nobility, has its

obligations. But Madame de Stael, who, on reading "Farewell," was wont

to say that she wished almost she had been as unfortunate as Lady Byron,

was too elevated in mind and too noble in character to listen quietly to

the abuse of Byron in which his enemies indulged. She, however, tried to

induce Lord Byron to become reconciled to his wife, on the ground that

one should never struggle against the current of public opinion. Madame

de Stael actually succeeded in obtaining his permission to endeavor to

effect this reconciliation; but the lawyer before mentioned used every

argument to prevent her pursuing this project of mediation.

Lord Byron's biographers have told how Lady Byron received this

proposal; which, after the way in which he had been treated, appears to

have been, on the part of Byron, an act of almost superhuman generosity.

Such an offer should have moved any being gifted with a heart and a

soul. But I will not here speak of her refusal and of its consequences;

all I wish to state is, that the calumnies put forward against him being

too absurd for Byron to condescend to notice, assumed a degree of

consistency which deceived the public, and even made dupes of superior

men, who in their turn contributed to make dupes of others. At this

time, then, when the war and the continental blockade were at an end,

when each and every one came pouring on to the Continent, did the star

of Byron begin to shine on the European horizon; but, instead of

appearing as a sublime and bountiful star, it appeared surrounded by

dark and ominous clouds.

Lamartine, who was then travelling in Switzerland, was able to find in

this sad state of things materials for his fine poem "Meditation," and

for doubts whether Byron was "an angel, or a demon," according to the

manner in which he was viewed, be it as a poet or as a man; and, as if

all this were not enough, a host of bad writings were attributed to his

pen, which brought forth the following expressions in a letter to

Murray, his publisher:--

"I had hoped that some other lie would have replaced and succeeded to

the thousand and one falsehoods amassed during the winter. I can forgive

all that is said of or against me, but not what I am made to say or sing

under my own name. I have quite enough to answer for my own writings. It

would be too much even for Job to bear what he has not said. I believe

that the Arabian patriarch, when he wished his enemies had written a

book, did not go so far as to be willing to sign his name on the first

page."

But the public mind was so disposed to look at Byron in the light of a

demon, as traced by Lamartine, that when some young scattered-brain

youth published out of vanity, or perhaps for speculative motives,

another monstrous invention, in the hope of passing it off as a work of

Byron, he actually succeeded for some time in his object without being

discovered.

"Strange destiny both of books and their authors!" exclaims the writer

of the "Essai sur Lord Byron," published in 1823,--"an evidently

apocryphal production, which was at once seen not to be genuine by all

persons of taste, notwithstanding the forgery of the title, has

contributed as much to make Byron known in France as have his best

poems. A certain P---- had impudence enough to attribute indirectly to

the noble lord himself the absurd and disgusting tale of the 'Vampire,'

which Galignani, in Paris, hastened to publish as an acknowledged work

of Byron. Upon this Lord Byron hastened to remonstrate with Messieurs

Galignani; but unfortunately too late, and after the reputation of the

book was already widespread. Our theatres appropriated the subject, and

the story of Lord Ruthven swelled into two volumes which created some

sensation."[14]

Goethe also believed the novels to be true stories, and was especially

impressed with "Glenarvon."[15] It is reported that he became jealous

of Byron on the appearance of the poem of "Manfred." If he were not, it

is at least certain that the pagan patriarch never could sympathize with

the new generation of Christian geniuses.

On the 7th of June, however, of the year 1820, Byron writes as follows

to Murray, from Ravenna:--

"Inclosed is something which will interest you, to wit, the opinion of

the greatest man of Germany, perhaps of Europe, upon one of the great

men of your advertisements (all 'famous hands,' as Jacob Tonson used to

say of his ragamuffins)--in short, a critique of Goethe's upon

'Manfred.' There is the original, an English translation, and an Italian

one; keep them all in your archives, for the opinions of such a man as

Goethe, whether favorable or not, are always interesting; and this more

so, as being favorable. His 'Faust' I never read, for I don't know

German; but Matthew Monk Lewis, in 1816, at Geneva, translated most of

it to me _viva voce_, and I was naturally much struck with it: but it

was the 'Steinbach,' and the 'Yungfrau,' and something else, much more

than 'Faustus,' that made me write 'Manfred.' The first scene, however,

and that of 'Faustus' are very similar."

One can scarcely conceive how so great a mind as that of Goethe could

have been duped by such mystifications. And yet this is what he wrote at

that time in a German paper relative to Byron's "Manfred:"--

"We find in this tragedy the quintessence of the most astonishing talent

borne to be its own tormentor. The character of Lord Byron's life and

poetry hardly permits a just and equitable appreciation. He has often

enough confessed what it is that torments him. He has repeatedly

portrayed it, and scarcely any one feels compassion for this intolerable

suffering over which he is ever laboriously ruminating. There are,

properly speaking, two females whose phantoms forever haunt him, and

which, in this piece also, perform principal parts, one under the name

of Astarte, the other without form or actual presence, and merely a

voice. Of the horrid occurrence which took place with the former the

following is related. When a bold and enterprising young man, he won the

affections of a Florentine lady. Her husband discovered the amour, and

murdered his wife; but the murderer was the same night found dead in

the street, and there was no one to whom any suspicion could be

attached. Lord Byron removed from Florence, and these spirits haunted

him all his life after.

"This romantic incident is rendered highly probable by innumerable

allusions to it in his poems."

And Moore adds:--"The grave confidence with which the venerable critic

traces the fancies of his brother poet to real persons and events,

making no difficulty even of a double murder at Florence, to furnish

grounds for his theory, affords an amusing instance of the disposition,

so prevalent throughout Europe, to picture Byron as a man full of

marvels and mysteries, as well in his life as his poetry. To these

exaggerated or wholly false notions of him, the numerous fictions palmed

upon the world, of his romantic tours and wonderful adventures in places

he never saw, and with persons who never existed, have, no doubt,

considerably contributed, and the consequence is, so utterly out of

truth and nature are the representations of his life and character long

current upon the Continent, that it may be questioned whether the real

'flesh and blood' hero of these pages (the social, practical-minded,

and, with all his faults and eccentricities, English Lord Byron) may

not, to the over-exalted imaginations of most of his foreign admirers,

appear only an ordinary, unromantic, and prosaic personage."

Then, quoting some of the falsehoods which were spread everywhere about

Byron, Moore says:--

"Of this kind are the accounts, filled with all sorts of circumstantial

wonders, of his residence in the island of Mytilene; his voyages to

Sicily, to Ithaca, with the Countess Guiccioli, etc. But the most

absurd, perhaps, of all these fabrications are the stories told by

Pouqueville, of the poet's religious conferences in the cell of Father

Paul, at Athens; and the still more unconscionable fiction in which Rizo

has indulged, in giving the details of a pretended theatrical scene, got

up (according to this poetical historian) between Lord Byron and the

Archbishop of Arta, at the tomb of Botzaris, at Missolonghi."

As the numerous causes which led to the false judgment of Byron's true

character never ceased to exist during his lifetime, one consequence has

been that those who never knew him have never been able to arrive at

the truth of matters concerning him. The contrast which existed between

the real and imaginary personage was such as to cause the greatest

astonishment to all those who, having hitherto adopted the received

notions about him, at last came to know him at Ravenna, at Pisa, at

Genoa, and in Greece, up to the very last days of his life. But, before

quoting some of these fortunate travellers, I must transcribe a few more

passages from Moore:

"On my rejoining him in town this spring, I found the enthusiasm about

his writings and himself, which I had left so prevalent, both in the

world of literature and society, grown, if any thing, still more genuine

and intense. In the immediate circle perhaps around him, familiarity of

intercourse must have begun to produce its usual disenchanting effect."

"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."

"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 friends, he was seen in his true colors, in his

weakness and in his strength, to strangers, and such as were out of this

immediate circle, the 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 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 sympathy with a flippant cheerfulness: upon the

surface was sourness, discontent, displeasure, ill-will. Of this sort of

double aspect which he presented, the aspect in which he was viewed by

the world and by his friends, he was himself fully aware; and it not

only amused him, but indeed to a certain extent, flattered his pride."

"And if there was ever any tendency to derangement in his mental

conformation, on this point alone could it be pronounced to have

manifested itself. In the early part of my acquaintance with him, when

he most gave way to this humor, I have known him more than once, as we

have sat together after dinner, to fall seriously into this sort of dark

and self-accusing mood, and throw out hints of his past life with an air

of gloom and mystery designed evidently to awaken curiosity and

interest.... It has sometimes occurred to me that the occult cause of

his lady's separation from him, round which herself and her legal

adviser have thrown such formidable mystery, may have been nothing more,

after all, than some imposture of this kind, intended only to mystify

and surprise, while it was taken in sober seriousness."

I have mentioned elsewhere how Moore, while justly appreciating the

consequences of this youthful eccentricity,--of which later, but too

late, Byron corrected himself,--does not equally appreciate the motives,

or rather the principal motive, which gave rise to it. As, however, he

judges rightly of the results, I shall continue to quote him for the

reader's benefit.

"M. Galignani, having expressed a wish to be furnished with a short

memoir of Lord Byron for the purpose of prefixing it to the French

edition of his works, I had said jestingly, in a preceding letter to his

lordship, that it would but be a fair satire on the disposition of the

world to 'remonster his features' if he would write for the public,

English as well as French, a sort of mock heroic account of himself,

outdoing in horrors and wonders all that had been yet related or

believed of him, and leaving even Goethe's story of the double murder at

Florence far behind."

Lord Byron replied from Pisa, on the 12th of December, 1821:--"What you

say about Galignani's two biographies is very amusing; and, if I were

not lazy, I would certainly do what you desire. But I doubt my present

stock of facetiousness--that is, of good serious humor--so as not to let

the cat out of the bag. I wish you would undertake it. I will forgive

and _indulge_ you (like a pope) beforehand, for any thing ludicrous that

might keep those fools in their own dear belief that a man is a

_loup-garou_.

"I suppose I told you that the 'Giaour' story had actually some

foundation in fact.... I should not like marvels to rest upon any

account of my own, and shall say nothing about it.... The worst of any

real adventures is that they involve living people."

He at last tired of always appearing in the guise of a corsair, or of a

mysterious criminal, or of a hero of melodrama. These various disguises

had afforded him too much pain, and one day he said to Mr. Medwin:--

"When Galignani thought of publishing a fresh edition of my works he

wrote to Moore to ask him to give him some anecdotes respecting me: and

we thought of composing a narrative filled with the most impossible and

incredible adventures, to amuse the Parisians. But I reflected that

there were already too many ready-made stories about me, to puzzle my

brain to invent new ones."

Mr. Medwin adds:--

"The reader will laugh when he hears that one of my friends assured me

that the lines of Thyrza, published with the first canto to 'Childe

Harold,' were addressed by Byron to his bear! There is nothing too

wicked to be invented by hatred, or believed by ignorance."

Moore often refers to the wonderful contrast which existed between the

real and imaginary Byron. Thus, in speaking of his incredibly active and

sublime genius at Venice, he says:--

"While thus at this period, more remarkably than at any other during his

life, the unparalleled versatility of his genius was unfolding itself,

those quick, chameleon-like changes of which his character, too, was

capable, were, during the same time, most vividly and in strongest

contrast, drawn out. To the world, and more especially to England,--the

scene at once of his glories and his wrongs,--he presented himself in

no other aspect than that of a stern, haughty misanthrope, self-banished

from the fellowship of men, and most of all from that of Englishmen...."

How totally all this differed from the Byron of the social hour, they

who lived in familiar intercourse with him may be safely left to tell.

The reputation which he had acquired for himself abroad, prevented

numbers, of course, of his countrymen, whom he would most cordially have

welcomed, from seeking his acquaintance. But as it was, no "English

gentleman ever approached him, with the common forms of introduction,

that did not come away at once surprised and charmed by the kind

courtesy and facility of his manners, the unpretending play of his

conversation, and, on a nearer intercourse, the frank youthful spirits,

to the flow of which he gave way with such a zest as even to deceive

some of those who best knew him into the impression that gayety was,

after all, the true bent of his disposition."

I must confine myself to these quotations, as it is not in my power to

reproduce all that Moore has said on the subject. His statements,

however, prove two things:--

First, that Lord Byron, instead of being a dark and gloomy hero of

romance, was a man full of amiability, goodness, grace, sociability, and

liveliness. Of the impression produced upon all those who knew him in

these combined qualities, I shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

Secondly, that since even after Byron's death the fantastical notions

about him were entertained even by so impartial and so enlightened a

person as Sir Edward Brydges, it is not surprising (nor should they be

blamed for it) that Frenchmen, and all foreigners in general, and even a

great portion of Englishmen, should have believed in this fallacy. There

was no means at that time of clearing up the mystery, nor can one see in

this belief, however exaggerated, especially in France and on the

Continent, any spirit either of direct hostility, or even ill-will

toward him. The error was exported from England, and upon it they

reasoned, logically and oftentimes wittily. But surely those can not be

absolved who still adhere to the old errors, after the true state of

things had been disclosed at the poet's death in the writings of such

biographers as Moore, Parry, Medwin himself, Count Gamba, and others

who knew Byron personally.

That a portion of the British public should maintain certain prejudices,

and preserve a certain animosity against Byron, is not matter of

astonishment to those who have at all studied the English character. The

spirit of tolerance which exists in the laws, is far from pervading the

habits of the people; cant is on the decrease, but not quite gone, and

may still lead one to a very fair social position. There still live a

host of enemies whom Byron had made during his lifetime, and the number

of whom (owing to a bona fide treachery, by the indiscreet publication

of a correspondence which was destined to be kept secret and in the

dark), increased greatly after his death from the number of people whose

pride he had therein wounded.

He may be liable to the punishment due to his having trespassed on

certain exclusively English notions of virtue, as intimated in the

condemnation of the _imaginary_ immorality of some of his works. He may

be accused, with some truth, of having been too severe toward several

persons and things. But not one of these reasons has any _locus standi_

in France,--a country which might claim a certain share in the honor of

having been his mother-country. Besides having a French turn of mind in

many respects, Byron, descended directly from a French stock, had been

conceived in France, and had long lived in its neighborhood. If those,

therefore, may be absolved who falsely appreciated Byron's character

both before and immediately after his death, the same indulgence can not

be extended to those who persist in their unjust conclusions. Such men

were greatly to blame; for, in writing about Byron, they were bound in

conscience to consult the biographers who had known him, and having

neglected to do so, either from idleness or from party spirit, they

failed in their duty as just and honorable men.

Before finishing this chapter, we must add to these pages, which were

written many years ago, a few remarks suggested by the perusal of a

recent work which has caused great sensation by the talent which

pervades it, by its boldness, and original writing. I allude to the work

of M. Taine upon English literature; therein he appreciates, in a manly,

fine style, all the loftiness of Lord Byron's poetry, but always under

the influence of a received, and not self-formed, opinion. He likewise

deserves, by his appreciations and conclusions, the reproaches addressed

to the other critics of the illustrious and calumniated poet. In this

work, which is rather magnificent than solid, and which contains a whole

psychological system, one note is ever uppermost,--that of disdain.

Contempt, however, is not his object, but only his means. All must be

sacrificed to the triumph of his opinions.

The glory of nations, great souls, great minds, their works, their

deeds, all must serve to complement his victory. Bossuet, Newton, Dante,

Shakspeare, Corneille, Byron, all have erred. If he despises them, if he

blames them, it is only to show that they have not been able to discover

the logical conclusions which M. Taine at last reveals to

us,--conclusions which are to transform and change the soul as well as

the understanding. This doctrine has hitherto been but a dream, and

society has, up to the present time, walked in darkness.

This philosophical system is so beautifully set forth, that it can only

be compared to a skeleton, upon which a profusion of lovely-scented

flowers and precious jewels have been heaped, so that, notwithstanding

the horror it inspires, one is unable to leave it.

Here, then, we find that M. Taine comes forth resolutely, by the help of

a vigorous understanding and a surpassing talent, to review all that

England has produced in a literary sense,--authors as well as their

works. The type which he has conceived alone escapes his censure. This

type must be the result of three primeval causes, viz., race, centre and

time. History must prove its correctness. History and logic might in

vain claim his indulgence on behalf of other types. He has conceived his

system in his own mind, and, to establish it, facts and characters are

made subservient to it; history's duty is to prove their correctness.

Indulgence can be shown to one type only.

All he says is, however, so well said, that if he offended truth a

little less, if he only spoke for beings in another planet, and above

all, if, under these beautiful surroundings, one failed to notice the

gloom of a heaven without God, the work would enchant one.

It must be allowed that the charms of truth are still to be preferred;

we must therefore be allowed to say a few words about M. Taine's system.

It can only be in one sense; not on account of any philosophical

pretension, nor in the hope of restoring nature to its rights, however

much we may grieve at seeing it reduced to a mere animal, nay, a

vegetable, and alas! may be, a mineral system.

Many able pens will repeat the admirable words of one of the cleverest

men of the day, who, in his criticism upon M. Taine's book, has so

thoroughly examined how far a physiological method could be applied to

the comprehension of moral and intellectual phenomena, and has shown to

what fatal consequences such a method must lead. The analysis of the

moral world, the study of souls and of talent, of doctrines and of

characters, become in M. Taine's mind only a branch of zoology, and

psychology ends by being only a part of natural history.

Many other able writers will echo the noble words of M. Caro, and will

not fail to point out the numerous contradictions which exist between

the work itself and history proper, between it and natural history, and,

finally, between it and the author himself.

Thus, men who have never allowed that a thistle could produce a rose,

will question also whether those young Englishmen, whom M. Taine depicts

in such glowing colors,--"So active," says he, "just like harriers on

the beat flaring the air in the midst of the hunt," can be transformed

in a few years "into beings resembling animals good for slaughter, with

appearances equally anxious, vacant, and stupid; gentlemen six feet

high, with long and stout German bodies, issuing from their forests with

savage-looking whiskers and rolling eyes of pale earthenware-blue

color."

Such critics will question whether the "pale earthenware-blue eyes" of

these ugly sires can possibly be those of the fathers of the candid-eyed

girls, the fairest among the fair treasures of this earth, whom M. Taine

describes in such exquisite terms:--

"Delightful creatures, whose freshness and innocence can not be

conceived by those who have never seen them! full-blown flowers, of

which a morning rose, with its delicious and delicate color, with its

petals dipped in dew, can alone give an idea."

Critics will deny the possibility of the existence of such a phenomenon,

so contrary to the laws of creation does it seem to be. Such airy-like

forms can not be produced by such heavy brutes as he describes. Say what

he likes, nature can not act in the manner indicated by M. Taine. Nature

must ever follow the same track.

We, however, shall confine ourselves to oppose the real Lord Byron to

the fanciful one of M. Taine; and we say that the portrait of the poet

drawn by the latter is drawn systematically, in such a manner as to

contribute to the general harmony of his work. But truth can not be

subservient to systems. As M. Taine views Lord Byron from a false

starting point, it follows that, of course, the whole portrait of him is

equally unreal.

All the colors in his picture are too dark. What he says of the poet is

not so false as it is exaggerated. This is a method peculiar to him. He

decidedly perceives the real person, but exaggerates him, and thus fails

to realize the original.

If the facts are not always entirely false, his conclusions, and the

consequences suggested to him by them, are always eminently so.

When the facts seem ever so little to lend themselves to his reasoning,

when the proportions of his victim allow of their being placed in the

_bed of Procrustes_, the magnificent draperies of which do not hide the

atrocious torture; then, indeed, does M. Taine respect history more or

less; when this is not the case, his imagination supplies the

deficiency. On this principle he gives us his details of Lord Byron's

parents and of the poet's childhood.

He makes use of Lord Byron as an artist makes use of a machine: he

places him in the position which he has chosen himself, gives him the

gesture he pleases, and the expression he wishes. The portrait he shows

us of him may be a little like Lord Byron; but a very distant likeness,

one surrounded by a world of caprice of fancy and eccentricity which

serve to make up a powerful picture. It is the effect of a well-posed

manikin, with its very flexible articulations, all placed at the

disposal of M. Taine's system. The features may be slightly those of

Lord Byron, but the gestures and the general physiognomy are the clever

creations of the artist.

This is how he proceeds, in order to obtain the triumph of his views:--

He selects some quarter of an hour from the life of a man, probably that

during which he obeyed the impulses of nature, and judges his whole

existence and character by this short space of time.

He takes from the author's career one page, perhaps that which he may

have written in a moment of hallucination or of extreme passion; and by

this single page he judges the author of ten volumes.

Take Lord Byron, for instance. With regard to his infancy, M. Taine

takes care to set aside all that he knows to be admirable in the boy,

and only notices one instance of energy, one fit of heroic passion, into

which the unjust reprimand of a maid had driven him. The touching tears

which the little Byron sheds when, in the midst of his playmates, he is

informed that he has been raised to the dignity of a peer of the realm,

are no sign to M. Taine of a character equally timid, sensitive, and

good, but the result of pride. In this trait alone, M. Taine sees almost

sufficient ground to lay thereon the foundations of his work, and to

show us in the boy what the man was to be. A similar process is used in

the examination of Byron as an author. He analyzes "Manfred," which is

most decidedly a work of prodigious power, and all he says of it is

certainly both true and worthy of his own great talent; but is it fair

to say that the poet and the man are entirely revealed in this work, and

to dismiss all the other creations of the poet, wherein milder

qualities, such as feeling, tenderness, and goodness are revealed, and

shine forth most prominently? "Manfred" is the cry of an ulcerated

heart, still struggling, with all the energy of a most powerful soul,

against the brutal decrees of a recent persecution. Lord Byron felt

himself to be the victim of the relentless conduct of Lady Byron, and if

his mind was not deranged, at least his soul was wounded and ill at

ease, and it was this spirit that dictated "Manfred." Did he not clearly

confess it himself? When he sent "Manfred" to Murray, did he not say

that it was a drama as mad as the tragedy of "Lee Bedlam," in

twenty-five acts, and a few comic scenes--his own being only in three

acts?

Did he not write to Moore as follows?--

"I wrote a sort of mad drama for the sake of introducing the Alpine

scenery. Almost all the _dramatis personae_ are spirits, ghosts, or

magicians; and the scene is in the Alps and the other world, so you may

suppose what a Bedlam tragedy it must be.... The third act, like the

Archbishop of Grenada's homily (which savored of the palsy), has the

dregs of my fever, during which it was written. It must on no account be

published in its present state.... The speech of Manfred to the sun is

the only part of this act I thought good myself; the rest is certainly

as bad as bad can be, and I wonder what the devil possessed me."

But let Byron's ideas take a different turn, as the lovely blue Italian

sky and the refreshing breezes from the Adriatic waters contribute to

quicken his blood, and other tones will be heard, wherein no longer

shall the excesses, but the beauties only of energy be discernible.

What does M. Taine say then? This new aspect does not, evidently,

satisfy him! but what of that? He goes on to say that Byron's genius is

falling off. If the poet takes advantage of a few moments of melancholy

common to all poetical and feeling souls, M. Taine declares that the

melancholy English nature is always associated with the epicurean. What

is it to him, that England thinks differently? that in her opinion Lord

Byron's grandest and noblest conceptions are the poems which he wrote in

Italy, and even on the eve of his death? and that she finds his

liveliness "too real and too ultramontane to suit her national tastes?"

Nothing of this troubles M. Taine.

Is it quite fair to judge so powerful a mind, so great and yet so simple

a being as Lord Byron, only by his "Manfred," or by some other passages

of his works, and especially of "Don Juan?" Can his amiable, docile,

tender, and feeling nature honestly be seen in the child of three years

of age, who tears his clothes because his nurse has punished him

unfairly? No; all that we see is what M. Taine wishes us to see for the

purpose he has in view, that is, admiration of the Lord Byron he has

conceived, and who is necessary to his cause,--a Byron only to be

likened to a furious storm.

Wishing Byron to appear as the type of energy, M. Taine exhibits him to

our eyes in the light of Satan defying all powers on earth and in

heaven. The better to mould him to the form he has chosen, he begins by

disfiguring him in the arms of his mother, whom with his father and his

family he scruples not to calumniate. Storms having their origin in the

rupture of the elements, and a violent character being, according to M.

Taine, the result of several forces acting internally and mechanically;

it follows that its primary cause is to be found in the disturbed moral

condition of those who have given birth to him in the circumstances

under which the child was born, and in the influence under which he has

been brought up. Hence the necessity of supplementing from imagination

the historical and logical facts which otherwise might be at fault.

As for Lord Byron's softness of manner, and as to that tenderness of

character which was the bane of his existence,--as to his real and great

goodness, which made him loved always and everywhere, and which caused

such bitter tears to be shed at the news of his death,--these qualities

are not to be sought in the strange, fanciful being who is styled Byron

by M. Taine. These qualities would be out of place; they would be

opposed to the idea upon which his entire system is founded. They must

be merged in the energy and greatness of intellect of the poetical

giant.

Unfortunately for M. Taine, facts speak too forcibly and too

inopportunely against him. Not one of the causes which he mentions, not

one of the conclusions which he draws in respect to Lord Byron's

character as a poet, and as a mere mortal, are to be relied upon. He,

who contends that he possesses pre-eminently the power of comprehending

the man and the author, insists that Lord Byron was no exception to the

rule, though his best biographer, Moore, most distinctly opposes this

opinion:--

"In Lord Byron, however, this sort of pivot of character was almost

wholly wanting.... So various indeed, and contradictory, were his

attributes, both moral and intellectual, that he may be pronounced to

have been not one, but many; nor would it be any great exaggeration of

the truth to say that out of the mere partition of the properties of his

single mind a plurality of characters, all different and all vigorous,

might have been furnished."

On the other hand, M. Taine, who generally pays little attention to the

opinion of others, gives as Lord Byron's predominant characteristic that

which phrenologists denominate "_combativite_." Which of the two is

likely to be right? If Moore is right, Lord Byron must have been almost

wanting in consistency of character; if Taine is correct, then Byron was

really of a most passionate nature. But as we have proved that Lord

Byron was not inconsistent, as Moore declares, except in cases where

this want of consistency did not interfere with his character as a man,

and, on the other hand, that no one had a less combative disposition, we

are forced to arrive at the conclusion that if Byron had one dominant

passion, it was most decidedly not that of "_combativite_." It is

impossible to deny that if in his early youth signs of resistance may

have appeared in his character, yet these had so completely disappeared

with the development of his intellect and of his moral sentiments that

no one more than himself hated controversies and discussions of all

kinds. In fact, no one was more obedient to the call of reason and of

friendship; and his whole life is an illustration of it.

In order that Lord Byron should represent the English type, even if we

adopt M. Taine's philosophy, he should have had a deal of Saxon blood in

his veins. But this was not the case. It is the Norman blood which

predominates. He may be said to have been almost borne in France, and to

be of French extraction by his father, and of Scotch origin through his

mother. The total absence of the Saxon element, which was so remarkable

in him, was equally noticeable in his tastes, mind, sympathies, and

inclinations.

He loved France very dearly, and Pouqueville tells a story, that when

Ali Pasha had got over the fright caused by the announcement that a

young traveller, named Byron (his name had been pronounced Bairon, which

made the Pasha believe he was a Turk in disguise), wished to see him, he

received the young lord very cordially. As he had just conquered Preveza

from the French, Ali Pasha thought he should be pleasing the Englishman

by announcing the fact to him. Byron replied--"But I am no enemy of

France. Quite the contrary, I love France."

It might almost be said that he was quite the opposite of what a Saxon

should be. Lord Byron could not remain, and, actually, lived a very

short time, in England. His habits were not English, nor his mode of

living. Far from over-eating, as the English, according to M. Taine, are

said to do, Byron did not eat enough. He was as sober as a monk. His

favorite food was vegetables. His abstinence from meat dated from his

youth. His body was little adapted to the material wants of his country.

This remarkable sobriety was the effect of taste and principle, and was

in no ways broken by excesses which might have acted as compensations.

The excesses of which M. Taine speaks must have been at the utmost some

slight deviations from the real Pythagorean abstinence which he had laid

down as the rule of his life. Abroad, where he lived almost all his

life, he had none of the habits of his countrymen. He lived everywhere

as a cosmopolitan. All that his body craved for was cleanliness, and

this only served to improve his health and the marvellous beauty with

which God had gifted him.

Lord Byron was so little partial to the characteristic features and

customs of the country in which he was born--"but where he would not

die"--that the then so susceptible _amour-propre_ of his countrymen

reproached him with it as a most unpardonable fault.

It was not he who would have placed England and the English above all

foreigners, and Frenchmen in particular; nor was it he who would have

declared them to be the princes of the human race. Justice and truth

forbade his committing himself to such statements in the name of

national pride.

Are the animal rather than moral, and moral rather than intellectual

instincts of energy and will, which M. Taine so much admires in the

Saxon race, defects or qualities in his eyes? It is difficult to say,

for one never knows when he is praising or when he is condemning.

Judging by the very material causes from which he derives this

energy,--namely, the constitution of the people, their climate, their

frequent craving for food, their way of cooking the food they eat, their

drinks, and all the consequences of these necessities visible in the

absence of all sense of delicacy, of all appreciation of the fine arts,

and the comprehension of philosophy,--he must evidently intend to

depreciate them.

But as regards Lord Byron in particular, it is equally certain that he

has no intention of depreciating him. For him alone he finds expressions

of great admiration and real sympathy. He allows him to represent the

whole nation, and to be the incarnation of the English character; but on

one condition,--that of ruling it as its sovereign. Thanks to this

supremacy, the poet escapes more or less the exigencies of M. Taine's

theories.

M. Taine, however, is not subject to the weakness of enthusiasm.

Judging, as he does, in the light of a lover of nature, both of the

merits of virtue and of the demerits of vice, which to him are but fatal

results of the constitution, the climate, and the soil--"in a like

manner will sugar and vitriol"--why care about Lord Byron doing this or

the other _rightly_ or _wrongly_ rather than any one else? Nature

follows its necessary track, seeks its equilibrium, and ends by finding

it.

What pleases him in Lord Byron, is the facility which is offered to him

of proving the truth of this fatalist philosophy which appears at every

page of his book.

No one more than Byron could serve the purpose of M. Taine, and become,

as it were, the basis of his philosophical operations.

His powerful genius, his short but eventful existence, which did not

give time for the cooling down of the ardor of youth, to harmonize it

with the tempered dictates of mature age,--the universality of his mind,

which can furnish arguments to every species of critics,--all

contributed wonderfully to the realization of M. Taine's object.

Thus, thanks to the deceptive but generally received portrait which is

said to be that of Lord Byron, and to his identification with the heroes

of his poems, and in particular with "Manfred" and "Childe Harold,"

aided by the impossibility which the human mind finds in estimating

moral subjects as it would a proposition of "Euclid," M. Taine has been

able to make use of a great name, and to make a fine demonstration of

his system, to call Byron the interpreter of the British genius, and his

poetry the expression of the man himself.

In many respects, however, he has not been able to act in this way

without violating historical facts. This is what I hope to point out in

these pages, the object of which is to describe Byron as he was, and to

substitute, without any derogation to his sublimity of character, the

reality for the fiction created by M. Taine. To refute so brilliant and

so powerful a writer, my only means is to proceed in this work with the

help of positive proofs of the statements which I make, and by invoking

unimpeachable testimonies. These alone constitute weighty arguments,

since they all contribute to produce the same impression. In order that

truth may be restored to history, I shall adopt a system diametrically

opposed to that of M. Taine, or rather I shall abstain from all systems,

and from all pretensions to literary merit, and confine myself entirely

to facts and to reason.

The reader will judge whether I shall be able to accomplish this object;

he will see how really unimportant are the causes which cast a shade

upon the memory of Byron, and how careful one should be not to give

credit too implicitly to the sincerity of that hypocritical praise which

several of his biographers have bestowed upon him. They have, as it

were, generally, taken a kind of pleasure in dwelling upon his age, his

rank, and other extenuating circumstances, as a cover to their censure,

just as if Byron ever required their forgiveness. In thus searching into

the secrets of his heart, and analyzing his life, the reader will soon

be obliged to admit, that if Byron, in common with others, had a few of

the faults of youth, he in return had a host of virtues which belonged

only to him. In short, if Byron is received in the light in which he was

esteemed by those who knew him personally, he will still constitute one

of the finest, most amiable, and grandest characters of his century. As

for ourselves, in summing up the merits of this very humble, but very

conscientious work, we can only repeat with delight the beautiful words

in which Moore sums up his own estimate of Lord Byron's worth: "Should

the effect of my humble labors be to clear away some of those mists that

hung round my friend, and show him, in most respects, as worthy of love

as he was, in all, of admiration, then will the chief and sole aim of

this work have been accomplished."[16]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: When political events obliged Count Gamba to quit Romagna,

he thought at first of going with his family to take up his abode at

Geneva.

Lord Byron, on learning this, through a letter from the Countess

Guiccioli, who had rejoined her family at Florence, disapproved of their

design, and begged Shelley--then on a visit to him at Ravenna--to

express for him his disapprobation, and state the reasons of it. Shelley

addressed the following letter in Italian to the countess, and the

project was abandoned:--

"MADAM,--At the request of my friend, Lord Byron, I consider it my duty

to offer you some considerations relative to the proposed journey to

Geneva, so as to give you an idea of the undesirable results likely to

follow. I flatter myself that you will accept this request of his,

together with the motives leading me to acquiesce, as an excuse for the

liberty taken by a total stranger. In acting thus, the sole object I

have in view is my friend's peace of mind, and that of those in whom he

is so deeply interested. I have no other motive, nor can entertain any

other; and let it suffice, in proof of my perfect sincerity, to assure

you that I also have suffered from an intolerant clergy at home, and

from tyranny, and that I like your family, have met with persecution and

calumny as my sole reward for love of country.

"Allow me, madam, to state the reasons for which it seems to me that

Geneva would not be an appropriate residence for your family. Your

circumstances offer some analogy with those existing between my family

and Lord Byron in the summer of 1816. Our dwellings were close together;

our mode of life was quiet and retired; it would be impossible to

imagine an existence simpler than ours, less calculated to draw down the

aspersions cast upon us.

"These calumnies were of the most unheard-of nature,--really too

infamous to permit us to treat them with disdain. Both Genevans and

English established at Geneva affirmed that we were leading a life of

the most unblushing profligacy. They said that we had made a compact

together for outraging all held most sacred in human society. Pardon me,

madam, if I spare you the details. I will only say that _incest_,

_atheism_, and many other things equally ridiculous or horrible, were

imputed to us. The English newspapers were not slow in propagating the

scandal, and the nation lent entire faith.

"Hardly any mode of annoying us was neglected. Persons living on the

borders of the lake opposite Lord Byron's house made use of telescopes

to spy out all his movements. An English lady fainted, or pretended to

faint, with horror on seeing him enter a saloon. The most outrageous

caricatures of him and his friends were circulated; and all this took

place in the short period of three months.

"The effect of this, on Lord Byron's mind, was most unhappy. His natural

gayety abandoned him almost entirely. A man must be more or less than a

stoic to bear such injuries with patience.

"Do not flatter yourself, madam, with the idea, that because Englishmen

acknowledge Lord Byron as the greatest poet of the day, they would

therefore abstain from annoying him, and, as far as it depended on them,

from persecuting him. Their admiration for his works is unwillingly

extorted, and the pleasure they experience in reading them does not

allay prejudice nor stop calumny.

"As to the Genevans, they would not disturb him, if there were not a

colony of English established in the town,--persons who have carried

with them a host of mean prejudices and hatred against all those who

excel or avoid them; and as these causes would continue to exist, the

same effects would doubtless follow.

"The English are about as numerous at Geneva as the natives, and their

riches cause them to be sought after; for the Genevans, compared to

their guests, are like valets, or, at best, like hotel-keepers, having

let their whole town to foreigners.

"A circumstance, personally known to me, may afford proof of what is to

be expected at Geneva. The only inhabitant on whose attachment and honor

Lord Byron thought he had every reason to count, turned out one of those

who invented the most infamous calumnies. A friend of mine, deceived by

him, involuntarily unveiled all his wickedness to me, and I was

therefore obliged to inform my friend of the hypocrisy and perversity we

had discovered in this individual. You can not, madam, conceive the

excessive violence with which Englishmen, of a certain class, detest

those whose conduct and opinions are not exactly framed on the model of

their own. This system of ideas forms a superstition unceasingly

demanding victims, and unceasingly finding them. But, however strong

theological hatred may be among them, it yields in intensity to social

hatred. This system is quite the order of the day at Geneva; and, having

once been brought into play for the disquiet of Lord Byron and his

friends, I much fear that the same causes would soon produce the same

effects, if the intended journey took place. Accustomed as you are,

madam, to the gentler manners of Italy, you will scarcely be able to

conceive to what a pitch this social hatred is carried in less favored

regions. I have been forced to pass through this hard experience, and to

see all dearest to me entangled in inextricable slanders. My position

bore some resemblance to that of your brother, and it is for that reason

I hasten to write you, in order to spare you and your family the evil I

so fatally experienced. I refrain from adding other reasons, and I pray

you to excuse the freedom with which I have written, since it is

dictated by sincerest motives, and justified by my friend's request. To

him I leave the care of assuring you of my devotion to his interests,

and to all those dear to him.

"Deign, madam, to accept the expression of my highest esteem.

"Your sincere and humble servant,

"PERCY B. SHELLEY.

"P.S.--You will forgive a barbarian, madam, for the bad Italian in which

the honest sentiments of his letter are couched."]

[Footnote 11: Moore, vol. ii. p. 8.]

[Footnote 12: When that extravagant book "Glenarvon" appeared, Moore

wrote a comic review on it, and sent the paper to Jeffrey, who thought

it a good caricature, and wanted to publish it in the "Edinburgh

Review." But the friends of the author of "Glenarvon" interfered to such

purpose that Jeffrey gave up the idea of mentioning the novel at all,

which was also approved by Lord Byron's friends as the best means of

proving, by silence, the contempt such a book merited.]

[Footnote 13: Madame de Stael said one day at Coppet, with an air of

mystery, "You are often seen at night, Lord Byron, in your bark upon the

lake, accompanied by a white phantom." "Yes," answered he, "'tis my

dog." Madame de Stael shook her head, not at all convinced that he kept

such innocent company, for her head had been filled with fantastic tales

and lies about him. In this instance, however, she was somewhat right;

for the white phantom was not only his dog, but often Mrs. Shelley, and

even sometimes a young woman intimate with her. This lady, with whom he

had, and would have, nothing to do, was bent on running after him,

although he did all in his power to avoid her. She succeeded sometimes

in getting into the boat with the Shelleys, and thus made inquisitive

people talk. But Lord Byron was very innocent in it all, and even

victimized, for the _ennui_ it caused him made him quit Switzerland and

the Alps, he loved so well, before the season was even over.]

[Footnote 14: "Essai sur Lord Byron," p. 177.]

[Footnote 15: Lord Byron wrote to Moore in November, 1820:--

"Pray, where did you get hold of Goethe's 'Florentine' husband-killing

story? Upon such matters, in general, I may say, with Beau Clinker, in

reply to Erraud's wife:--

"'Oh, the villain, he hath murdered my poor Timothy!'

"_Clinker._--'Damn your Timothy! I tell you, woman, your husband has

murdered me--he has carried away my fine jubilee clothes.'"]

[Footnote 16: Moore, vol. ii. p. 782]