Certain it is, that in proportion to the admiration which Byron's poetic
genius excited, was the severity of the censure which his
fellow-countrymen bestowed on his defects as a man. The humour of the
situation no doubt appealed to Byron's acute sense of proportion, and
induced him to feed the calumnies against himself, by painting his own
portrait in the darkest colours. Unfortunately, the effects of such
conduct long survived him; for the world is prone to take a man at his own
valuation, and 'hypocrisy reversed' does not enter into human
calculations. It is unfortunate for the fame of Byron that his whole
conduct after the separation was a glaring blunder, for which no
subsequent act of his, no proof of his genius, could by any possibility
atone.
Truth told, the obloquy which Byron had to endure, after Lady Byron left
him, was such as might well have changed his whole nature. It must indeed
have been galling to that proud spirit, after having been humbly asked
everywhere, to be ostentatiously asked nowhere. The injustice he suffered
at the hands of those who were fed on baseless calumnies raised in his
breast a feeling of profound contempt for his fellow-creatures--a contempt
which led him into many follies; thus, instead of standing up against the
storm and meeting his detractors face to face, as he was both capable of
and justified in doing, he chose to leave England under a cloud, and, by a
system of mystification, to encourage the belief that he thoroughly
deserved the humiliation which had been cast upon him. As a consequence,
to employ the words of Macaulay,
'all those creeping things that riot in the decay of nobler natures
hastened to their repast; and they were right; they did after their
kind. It is not every day that the savage envy of aspiring dunces is
gratified by the agonies of such a spirit, and the degradation of such
a name.'
Lady Blessington tells us that Byron had an excellent heart, but that it
was running to waste for want of being allowed to expend itself on his
fellow-creatures. His heart teemed with affection, but his past
experiences had checked its course, and left it to prey on the aching void
in his breast. He could never forget his sorrows, which in a certain sense
had unhinged his mind, and caused him to deny to others the justice that
had been denied to himself. He affected to disbelieve in either love or
friendship, and yet was capable of making great sacrifices for both.
'He has an unaccountable passion for misrepresenting his own feelings
and motives, and exaggerates his defects more than an enemy could do;
and is often angry because we do not believe all he says against
himself. If Byron were not a great poet, the charlatanism of affecting
to be a Satanic character, in this our matter-of-fact nineteenth
century, would be very amusing: but when the genius of the man is
taken into account, it appears too ridiculous, and one feels mortified
that he should attempt to pass for something that all who know him
rejoice that he is not. If Byron knew his own power, he would disdain
such unworthy means of attracting attention, and trust to his merit
for commanding it.'
As Lady Blessington remarks in her 'Conversations of Lord Byron,' from
which we have largely quoted, Byron's pre-eminence as a poet gives an
interest to details which otherwise would not be worth mentioning. She
tells us, for instance, that one of the strongest anomalies in Byron was
the exquisite taste displayed in his descriptive poetry, and the total
want of it that was so apparent in his modes of life.
'Fine scenery seemed to have no effect upon him, though his
descriptions are so glowing, and the elegancies and comforts of
refined life Byron appeared to as little understand as value.'
Byron appeared to be wholly ignorant of what in his class of life
constituted its ordinary luxuries.
'I have seen him,' says Lady Blessington, 'apparently delighted with
the luxurious inventions in furniture, equipages, plate, etc., common
to all persons of a certain station or fortune, and yet after an
inquiry as to their prices--an inquiry so seldom made by persons of
his rank--shrink back alarmed at the thought of the expense, though
there was nothing alarming in it, and congratulate himself that he had
no such luxuries, or did not require them. I should say that a bad and
vulgar taste predominated in all Byron's equipments, whether in dress
or in furniture. I saw his bed at Genoa, when I passed through in
1826, and it certainly was the most vulgarly gaudy thing I ever saw;
the curtains in the worst taste, and the cornice having his family
motto of "Crede Byron" surmounted by baronial coronets. His carriages
and his liveries were in the same bad taste, having an affectation of
finery, but _mesquin_ in the details, and tawdry in the _ensemble_. It
was evident that he piqued himself on them, by the complacency with
which they were referred to.'
In one of Byron's expansive moods--and these were rare with men, though
frequent in the society of Lady Blessington--Byron, speaking of his wife,
said:
'I am certain that Lady Byron's first idea is, what is due to herself;
I mean that it is the undeviating rule of her conduct. I wish she had
thought a little more of what is due to others. Now, my besetting sin
is a want of that self-respect which she has in _excess_; and that
want has produced much unhappiness to us both. But though I accuse
Lady Byron of an excess of self-respect, I must in candour admit, that
if any person ever had an excuse for an extraordinary portion of it,
she has; as in all her thoughts, words, and deeds, she is the most
decorous woman that ever existed, and must appear a perfect and
refined gentlewoman even to her _femme-de-chambre_. This extraordinary
degree of self-command in Lady Byron produced an opposite effect on
me. When I have broken out, on slight provocations, into one of my
ungovernable fits of rage, her calmness piqued, and seemed to reproach
me; it gave her an air of superiority, that vexed and increased my
wrath. I am now older and wiser, and should know how to appreciate her
conduct as it deserved, as I look on self-command as a positive
virtue, though it is one I have not the courage to adopt.'
In speaking of his sister, shortly before his departure for Greece, Byron
maintained that he owed the little good which he could boast, to her
influence over his wayward nature. He regretted that he had not known her
earlier, as it might have influenced his destiny.
'To me she was, in the hour of need, as a tower of strength. Her
affection was my last rallying point, and is now the only bright spot
that the horizon of England offers to my view.' 'Augusta,' said Byron,
'knew all my weaknesses, but she had love enough to bear with them.
She has given me such good advice, and yet, finding me incapable of
following it, loved and pitied me the more, because I was erring.
This is true affection, and, above all, true Christian feeling.'
But we should not be writing about Byron and his foibles eighty-four years
after his death, if he had not been wholly different to other men in his
views of life. Shortly after his marriage, for no sufficient, or at least
for no apparent reason, Byron chose to immolate himself, and took a sort
of Tarpeian leap, passing the remainder of his existence in bemoaning his
bruises, and reviling the spectators who were not responsible for his
fall. One of the main results of this conduct was his separation from his
child, for whom he seems to have felt the deepest affection. We find him,
at the close of his life, constantly speaking of Ada, 'sole daughter of
his heart and house,' and prophesying the advent of a love whose
consolations he could never feel.
'I often, in imagination, pass over a long lapse of years,' said
Byron, 'and console myself for present privations, in anticipating the
time when my daughter will know me by reading my works; for, though
the hand of prejudice may conceal my portrait from her eyes,[9] it
cannot hereafter conceal my thoughts and feelings, which will talk to
her when he to whom they belonged has ceased to exist. The triumph
will then be mine; and the tears that my child will drop over
expressions wrung from me by mental agony--the certainty that she will
enter into the sentiments which dictated the various allusions to her
and to myself in my works--consoles me in many a gloomy hour.'
This prophecy was amply fulfilled. It appears that, after Ada's marriage
to Lord King, Colonel Wildman met her in London, and invited her to pay
him a visit at Newstead Abbey. One morning, while Ada was in the library,
Colonel Wildman took down a book of poems. Ada asked the name of the
author of these poems, and when shown the portrait of her
father--Phillips's well-known portrait--which hung upon the wall, Ada
remained for a moment spell-bound, and then remarked ingenuously: 'Please
do not think that it is affectation on my part when I declare to you that
I have been brought up in complete ignorance of all that concerns my
father.' Never until that moment had Ada seen the handwriting of her
father, and, as we know, even his portrait had been hidden from her. When
Byron's genius was revealed to his daughter, an enthusiasm for his memory
filled her soul. She shut herself up for hours in the rooms which Byron
had used, absorbed in all the glory of one whose tenderness for her had
been so sedulously concealed by her mother. On her death-bed she dictated
a letter to Colonel Wildman, begging that she might be buried at
Hucknall-Torkard, in the same vault as her illustrious father. And there
they sleep the long sleep side by side--separated during life, united in
death--the prophecy of 1816 fulfilled in 1852:
'Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,
I know that thou wilt love me; though my name
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught
With desolation, and a broken claim:
Though the grave closed between us,--'twere the same,
I know that thou wilt love me; though to drain
_My_ blood from out thy being were an aim
And an attainment,--all would be in vain,--
Still thou wouldst love me, still that more than life retain.'