"May 17. 1823.
"My voyage to Greece will depend upon the Greek Committee (in
England) partly, and partly on the instructions which some persons
now in Greece on a private mission may be pleased to send me. I am a
member, lately elected, of the said Committee; and my object in going
up would be to do any little good in my power;--but as there are some
_pros_ and _cons_ on the subject, with regard to how far the
intervention of strangers may be advisable, I know no more than I
tell you; but we shall probably hear something soon from England and
Greece, which may be more decisive.
"With regard to the late person (Lord Londonderry), whom you hear
that I have attacked, I can only say that a bad minister's memory is
as much an object of investigation as his conduct while alive,--for
his measures do not die with him like a private individual's notions.
He is a matter of _history_; and, wherever I find a tyrant or a
villain, _I will mark him._ I attacked him no more than I had been
wont to do. As to the Liberal,--it was a publication set up for the
advantage of a persecuted author and a very worthy man. But it was
foolish in me to engage in it; and so it has turned out--for I have
hurt myself without doing much good to those for whose benefit it was
intended.
"Do _not defend_ me--it will never do--you will only make _yourself_
enemies.
"Mine are neither to be diminished nor softened, but they may be
overthrown; and there are events which may occur, less improbable
than those which have happened in our time, that may reverse the
present state of things--_nous verrons_.
"I send you this gossip that you may laugh at it, which is all it is
good for, if it is even good for so much. I shall be delighted to see
you again; but it will be melancholy, should it be only for a moment.
"Ever yours, N. B."
It being now decided that Lord Byron should proceed forthwith to
Greece, all the necessary preparations for his departure were
hastened. One of his first steps was to write to Mr. Trelawney, who
was then at Rome, to request that he would accompany him. "You must
have heard," he says, "that I am going to Greece--why do you not come
to me? I can do nothing without you, and am exceedingly anxious to
see you. Pray, come, for I am at last determined to go to Greece:--it
is the only place I was ever contented in. I am serious; and did not
write before, as I might have given you a journey for nothing. They
all say I can be of use to Greece; I do not know how--nor do they;
but, at all events, let us go."
A physician, acquainted with surgery, being considered a necessary
part of his suite, he requested of his own medical attendant at
Genoa, Dr. Alexander, to provide him with such a person; and, on the
recommendation of this gentleman, Dr. Bruno, a young man who had just
left the university with considerable reputation, was engaged. Among
other preparations for his expedition, he ordered three splendid
helmets to be made,--with his never forgotten crest engraved upon
them,--for himself and the two friends who were to accompany him. In
this little circumstance, which in England (where the ridiculous is
so much better understood than the heroic) excited some sneers at the
time, we have one of the many instances that occur amusingly through
his life, to confirm the quaint but, as applied to him, true
observation, that "the child is father to the man;"--the
characteristics of these two periods of life being in him so
anomalously transposed, that while the passions and ripened views of
the man developed themselves in his boyhood, so the easily pleased
fancies and vanities of the boy were for ever breaking out among the
most serious moments of his manhood. The same schoolboy whom we
found, at the beginning of the first volume, boasting of his
intention to raise, at some future time, a troop of horse in black
armour, to be called Byron's Blacks, was now seen trying on with
delight his fine crested helmet, and anticipating the deeds of glory
he was to achieve under its plumes.
At the end of May a letter arrived from Mr. Blaquiere communicating
to him very favourable intelligence, and requesting that he would as
much as possible hasten his departure, as he was now anxiously looked
for, and would be of the greatest service. However encouraging this
summons, and though Lord Byron, thus called upon from all sides, had
now determined to give freely the aid which all deemed so essential,
it is plain from his letters that, in the cool, sagacious view which
he himself took of the whole subject, so far from agreeing with these
enthusiasts in their high estimate of his personal services, he had
not yet even been able to perceive any definite way in which those
services could, with any prospect of permanent utility, be applied.
For an insight into the true state of his mind at this crisis, the
following observations of one who watched him with eyes quickened by
anxiety will be found, perhaps, to afford the clearest and most
certain clue. "At this time," says the Contessa Guiccioli, "Lord
Byron again turned his thoughts to Greece; and, excited on every side
by a thousand combining circumstances, found himself, almost before
he had time to form a decision, or well know what he was doing,
obliged to set out for that country. But, notwithstanding his
affection for those regions,--notwithstanding the consciousness of
his own moral energies, which made him say always that 'a man ought
to do something more for society than write verses,'--notwithstanding
the attraction which the object of this voyage must necessarily have
for his noble mind, and that, moreover, he was resolved to return to
Italy within a few months,--notwithstanding all this, every person
who was near him at the time can bear witness to the struggle which
his mind underwent (however much he endeavoured to hide it), as the
period fixed for his departure approached."[1]
[Footnote 1: "Fu allora che Lord Byron rivolse i suoi pensieri alla
Grecia; e stimolato poi da ogni parte per mille combinazioni egli si
trovo quasi senza averlo deciso, e senza saperlo, obbligato di
partire per la Grecia. Ma, non ostante il suo affetto per quelle
contrade,--non ostante il sentimento delle sue forze morali che gli
faceva dire sempre 'che un uomo e obbligato a fare per la societa
qualche cosa di piu che dei versi,--non ostante le attrative che
doveva avere pel nobile suo animo l'oggetto di que viaggio,--e non
ostante che egli fosse determinato di ritornare in Italia fra non
molti mesi,--pure in quale combattimento si trovasse il suo cuore
mentre si avvanzava l'epoca della sua parenza (sebbene cercasse
occultarlo) ognuno che lo ha avvicinato allora puù dirlo."]
In addition to the vagueness which this want of any defined object so
unsatisfactorily threw round the enterprise before him, he had also a
sort of ominous presentiment--natural, perhaps, to one of his
temperament under such circumstances--that he was but fulfilling his
own doom in this expedition, and should die in Greece. On the evening
before the departure of his friends, Lord and Lady B----, from Genoa,
he called upon them for the purpose of taking leave, and sat
conversing for some time. He was evidently in low spirits, and after
expressing his regret that they should leave Genoa before his own
time of sailing, proceeded to speak of his intended voyage in a tone
full of despondence. "Here," said he, "we are all now together--but
when, and where, shall we meet again? I have a sort of boding that we
see each other for the last time; as something tells me I shall never
again return from Greece." Having continued a little longer in this
melancholy strain, he leaned his head upon the arm of the sofa on
which they were seated, and, bursting into tears, wept for some
minutes with uncontrollable feeling. Though he had been talking only
with Lady B----, all who were present in the room observed, and were
affected by his emotion, while he himself, apparently ashamed of his
weakness, endeavoured to turn off attention from it by some ironical
remark, spoken with a sort of hysterical laugh, upon the effects of
"nervousness."
He had, previous to this conversation, presented to each of the party
some little farewell gift--a book to one, a print from his bust by
Bartolini to another, and to Lady B---- a copy of his Armenian
Grammar, which had some manuscript remarks of his own on the leaves.
In now parting with her, having begged, as a memorial, some trifle
which she had worn, the lady gave him one of her rings; in return for
which he took a pin from his breast, containing a small cameo of
Napoleon, which he said had long been his companion, and presented it
to her Ladyship.
The next day Lady B---- received from him the following note.