It matters little what we now think of Byron as a man. After eighty-four
years, his personality is of less public interest than his achievements,
while our capacity for forming an adequate judgment of his character is
necessarily dependent on second-hand evidence, some of which is false, and
much tainted by prejudice. But what did those hard men of action who stood
at his side in those terrible days in Greece--Stanhope, Parry, Finlay,
Blaquière, Millingen, Trelawny--what did they think of Byron?
Stanhope, who was at Salona, wrote to Bowring on April 30:
'A courier has just arrived from the chief Scalza. Alas! all our fears
are realized. The soul of Byron has taken its last flight. England has
lost her brightest genius--Greece her noblest friend. To console them
for the loss, he has left behind the emanations of his splendid mind.
If Byron had faults, he had redeeming virtues too--he sacrificed his
comfort, fortune, health, and life, to the cause of an oppressed
nation. Honoured be his memory! Had I the disposal of his ashes, I
would place them in the Temple of Theseus, or in the Parthenon at
Athens.'
Three days later Stanhope wrote again to Bowring:
'Byron would not refuse to an entire people the benefit of his
virtues; he condescended to display them wherever Humanity beckoned
him to her aid. This single object of devotion to the well-being of a
people has raised him to a distinguished pitch of glory among
characters dignified by their virtues, of which the illustrious
British nation can make so ample a display, and of whom Greece hopes
to behold many co-operating in her regeneration. Having here paid the
tribute of admiration due to the virtues of Lord Byron, eternal may
his memory remain with the world!'
Parry says:
'Thus died the truest and greatest poet England has lately given birth
to, the warmest-hearted of her philanthropists, the least selfish of
her patriots. That the disappointment of his ardent hopes was the
primary cause of his illness and death cannot, I think, be doubted.
The weight of that disappointment was augmented by the numerous
difficulties he met with. He was fretted and annoyed, but he disdained
to complain. As soon as it was known that Lord Byron was dead, sorrow
and grief were generally felt in Greece. They spread from his own
apartments over the town of Missolonghi, through the whole of Greece,
and over every part of civilized Europe. No persons, perhaps, after
his domestics and personal friends, felt his loss more acutely than
the poor citizens of Missolonghi. His residence among them procured
them food, and insured their protection. But for him they would have
been first plundered by the unpaid Suliotes, and then left a prey to
the Turks. Not only were the Primates and Mavrocordato affected on the
occasion, but the poorest citizen felt that he had lost a friend.
Mavrocordato spoke of Lord Byron as the best friend of Greece, and
said that his conduct was admirable. "Nobody knows," he was heard to
say, "except perhaps myself, the loss Greece has suffered. Her safety
even depended on his life. His presence at Missolonghi has checked
intrigues which will now have uncontrolled sway. By his aid alone have
I been able to preserve this city; and now I know that every
assistance I derived from and through him will be withdrawn."
'At other cities and places of Greece--at Salona, where the Congress
had just assembled; at Athens--the grief was equally sincere. Lord
Byron was mourned as the best benefactor to Greece. Orations were
pronounced by the priests, and the same honours were paid to his
memory as to the memory of one of their own revered chiefs.'
After Byron's death Finlay wrote these words:
'Lord Byron's death has shed a lustre on both his writings and his
actions; they are in accordance. His life was sacrificed in the cause
for which he had early written, and which he constantly supported. His
merit would not have been greater had he breathed his last on the
isthmus of Corinth at the conclusion of a baffled siege. Yet such a
death would certainly have been more fortunate; for it would have
recalled his name oftener to the memory, at least, of those who have
no souls. Time will put an end to all undue admiration and malicious
cant, and the world will ultimately form an estimate of Byron's
character from his writings and his public conduct. It will then be
possible to form a just estimate of the greatness of his genius and
his mind, and the real extent of his faults. The ridiculous calumnies
which have found a moment's credit will then be utterly forgotten. Nor
will it be from the cursory memoirs or anecdotes of his contemporaries
that his character can be drawn.'
Blaquière, who had brought out the first instalment of the Greek loan,
arrived at Zante on April 24, and was there informed of Byron's death. He
had been among the first to urge Byron to hasten his projected visit to
Greece, and had held a long conversation with him at Genoa on the state of
affairs in the Morea. The following extract is taken from a letter which
he wrote to a friend in England:
'Thus terminated the life of Lord Byron, at a moment the most glorious
for his own fame, but the most unfortunate for Greece; since there is
no doubt but, had he lived, many calamities would have been avoided,
while his personal credit and guarantee would have prevented the
ruinous delay which has taken place with regard to transferring the
loan. In thus devoting his life and fortune to the cause of religion
and humanity, when he might have continued to enjoy the enthusiastic
praises of his contemporaries, he has raised the best monument to his
own fame, and has furnished the most conclusive reply to calumny and
detraction. When all he had done, and was about to do for the cause,
is considered, no wonder that Lord Byron's death should have produced
such an effect. It was, in fact, regarded not only as a national
calamity, but as an irreparable loss to every individual in the town
of Missolonghi, and the English volunteers state that hundreds of the
Greeks were seen to shed tears when the event was announced.
'With respect to Prince Mavrocordato, to whom Lord Byron had rendered
the most important services, both as a personal friend and in his
capacity of Governor-General of Western Greece, it is unnecessary to
say that he could not have received a severer blow. When I saw Lord
Byron at Genoa last year, I well remember with what enthusiasm he
spoke of his intended visit, and how much he regretted not having
joined the standard of freedom long before. When once in Greece, he
espoused her most sacred cause with zeal. Up to the time of his fatal
illness he had not advanced less than fifty thousand dollars, and
there is no doubt but he intended to devote the whole of his private
income to the service of the confederation.'
Millingen says:
'The most dreadful public calamity could not have spread more general
consternation, or more profound and sincere grief, than the unexpected
news of Lord Byron's death. During the few months he had lived among
the people of Missolonghi, he had given so many proofs of the
sincerity and extent of his zeal for the advancement of their best
interests. He had, with so much generosity, sacrificed considerable
sums to that purpose; he had relieved the distress of so many
unfortunate persons, that everyone looked upon him as a father and
public benefactor. These titles were not, as they mostly are, the
incense of adulation, but the spontaneous tribute of overflowing
gratitude. He had succeeded in inspiring the soldiers with the
brightest and most sanguine expectations. Full of confidence in a
chief they loved, they would have followed him in the boldest
enterprises. To-day they must follow the corpse of him whom they
received but yesterday with the liveliest acclamations.'
Trelawny, who arrived at Missolonghi four days after Byron's death, thus
writes to Stanhope at Salona:
'Lord Byron is dead. With all his faults, I loved him truly; he is
connected with every event of the most interesting years of my
wandering life. His everyday companion, we lived in ships, boats, and
in houses, together; we had no secrets, no reserve, and though we
often differed in opinion, we never quarrelled. It gave me pain
witnessing his frailties; he only wanted a little excitement to awaken
and put forth virtues that redeemed them all.... This is no private
grief; the world has lost its greatest man, I my best friend.'
On April 28 Trelawny wrote again to Stanhope:
'I think Byron's name was the great means of getting the loan. A Mr.
Marshall with £8,000 per annum was as far as Corfu, and turned back on
hearing of Byron's death.... The greatest man in the world has
resigned his mortality in favour of this sublime cause; for had he
remained in Italy he had lived!'
Such was Trelawny's opinion of Byron in April, 1824. From all that the
present writer has been able to gather, both from Trelawny's lips and from
his 'Recollections,' published thirty-four years after Byron's death, such
was his real opinion to the last.
Mrs. Julian Marshall, having called attention[24] to the fact that, four
months after Byron's death, Trelawny, in a letter to Mary Shelley, spoke
in contemptuous terms of Byron, we feel bound to refer to it here. It
must be remembered that the letter in question was of a strictly private
nature. In making it public, Mrs. Marshall _unintentionally_ dealt a
severe blow at Trelawny, which, in justice to his memory, we will
endeavour to soften.
To anyone acquainted with the character of this remarkable man--the
fearless soul of honour--such a _volte-face_ seems absurd, except on the
hypothesis that something had transpired, since Byron's death, sufficient
to destroy a long-tried friendship. The fact is that during those four
months the whole situation had changed. Trelawny, no longer a free-lance,
was practically a prisoner in a cave on Mount Parnassus. His friend
Odysseus went about in daily fear of assassination, and was persecuted by
the active hostility of a Government which both Odysseus and Trelawny
thought was inspired by Mavrocordato. Trelawny's opinion of the latter,
whose cause Byron had espoused, may be gathered from his letter to Mary
Shelley:
'A word as to your wooden god Mavrocordato. He is a miserable Jew, and
I hope ere long to see his head removed from his worthless and
heartless body. He is a mere shuffling soldier, an aristocratic
brute--wants Kings and Congresses--a poor, weak, shuffling,
intriguing, cowardly fellow; so no more about him.'
It will be seen that Trelawny, when fairly warmed up, did not mince his
words. It is indeed a pity that these heated adjectives were served up to
the public. It was only because Byron had consistently supported
Mavrocordato as the Governor of Western Greece that Trelawny, in his
indiscriminative manner, assailed his memory. But his letter was evidently
only the peevish outburst of an angry man, and closed with these words:
'I would do much to see and talk to you, but, as I am now too much
irritated to disclose the real state of things, I will not mislead you by
false statements.'
The state of things at the time may be gathered from a letter addressed to
Colonel Stanhope by Captain Humphreys, who was then serving the Greek
cause as a volunteer.
'I write, not from a land of liberty and freedom, but from a country
at present a prey to anarchy and confusion, with the dismal prospect
of future tyranny.... Odysseus is at his fortress of Parnassus;
bribery, assassination, and every provocation, have been employed
against him. An English officer, Captain Fenton, who is with Odysseus,
as well as Trelawny, has been twice attempted to be assassinated,
after refusing to accept a bribe of 10,000 dollars, to deliver up the
fortress. _Mavrocordato's agents principally influence the Government;
the executive body remains stationary; and part of the loan has been
employed to secure their re-election._'
There is enough in this letter to account for Trelawny's irritation; but
he was entirely wrong in thinking that Byron was in any sense subservient
to the man whom he then regarded as the real author of his misfortunes.
Trelawny had made the mistake of joining the faction of Odysseus, but
Byron was never connected with any faction whatever. Odysseus seems to
have persuaded Trelawny that Byron had become a mere tool of Mavrocordato,
and it was under that erroneous impression that his letter to Mary Shelley
was written.
If, as Mrs. Julian Marshall says, 'Trelawny's mercurial and impulsive
temperament--ever in extremes--was liable to the most sudden revulsion of
feeling,' it would surely have been wiser, and certainly fairer, to have
withheld the publication of opinions which were not intended for
publication, and which he had, in later life, openly disavowed. In his
estimate of the character and policy of Mavrocordato, he was also
mistaken. It would be quite easy to show that Mavrocordato was perhaps the
only man of his nation, then in Greece, who united in an eminent degree
unadulterated patriotism with the talents which form a statesman.
Millingen, who knew him well, tells us that it was fortunate for Greece
that Mavrocordato was so well acquainted with the character of those with
whom he had to deal. That knowledge preserved Missolonghi, until the
arrival of reinforcements enabled it to hold out against Omer Pacha's
assault. Mavrocordato, he tells us, never pursued any other object than
the good of his country, and never sacrificed her interests to his own
ambition. He alone was capable of organizing a civil administration; in
fact, he created a stable form of government from the ashes of chaos. So
far from his having been a coward, as Trelawny asserts, Mavrocordato, in
his intense desire to serve his country, often placed himself at the head
of troops and fought bravely. Having held the position of Governor-General
of Western Greece in very trying times, he relinquished his command in
1825, in compliance with the orders of his Government, which recalled him
to Anapli, there to fill the post of Secretary of State. He sacrificed the
whole of his fortune in the service of Greece. According to Millingen, he
was occasionally so distressed for money as to be unable to provide for
his daily expenses.
Enough has been said to show that Trelawny's abuse of Byron must not be
taken too seriously, and that his opinion of Mavrocordato was not
endorsed by those whose opportunities for judging the Prince's conduct
were far greater than Trelawny's.
Let us dismiss from our minds the recollection of hasty words written in
anger, and let us remember those truer and deeper sentiments which
Trelawny expressed in his old age:
'I withdrew the black pall and the white shroud, and beheld the body
of the Pilgrim--more beautiful in death than in life. The contraction
of the muscles and skin had effaced every line that Time or Passion
had ever traced upon it. Few marble busts would have matched its
stainless white, the harmony of its proportions, and perfect finish.
And yet he had been dissatisfied with that body, and longed to cast
its slough! He was jealous of the genius of Shakespeare--that might
well be--but where had he seen the face or the form worthy to excite
his envy?'