"April 7.
"The Greeks here of the Government have been boring me for more
money.[1] As I have the brigade to maintain, and the campaign is
apparently now to open, and as I have already spent 30,000 dollars in
three months upon them in one way or another, and more especially as
their public loan has succeeded, so that they ought not to draw from
individuals at that rate, I have given them a refusal, and--as they
would not take _that,--another_ refusal in terms of considerable
sincerity.
[Footnote 1: In consequence of the mutinous proceedings of
Cariascachi's people, most of the neighbouring chieftains hastened to
the assistance of the Government, and had already with this view
marched to Anatolico near 2000 men. But, however opportune the
arrival of such a force, they were a cause of fresh embarrassment, as
there was a total want of provisions for their daily maintenance. It
was in this emergency that the Governor, Primates, and Chieftains had
recourse, as here stated, to their usual source of supply.]
"They wish now to try in the Islands for a few thousand dollars on
the ensuing Loan. If you can serve them, perhaps you will, (in the
way of information, at any rate,) and I will see that you have fair
play; but still I do not _advise_ you, except to act as you please.
Almost every thing depends upon the arrival, and the speedy arrival,
of a portion of the Loan to keep peace among themselves. If they can
but have sense to do this, I think that they will be a match and
better for any force that can be brought against them for the
present. We are all doing as well as we can."
It will be perceived from these letters, that besides the great and
general interests of the cause, which were in themselves sufficient
to absorb all his thoughts, he was also met on every side, in the
details of his duty, by every possible variety of obstruction and
distraction that rapacity, turbulence, and treachery could throw in
his way. Such vexations, too, as would have been trying to the most
robust health, here fell upon a frame already marked out for death;
nor can we help feeling, while we contemplate this last scene of his
life, that, much as there is in it to admire, to wonder at, and glory
in, there is also much that awakens sad and most distressful
thoughts. In a situation more than any other calling for sympathy and
care, we see him cast among strangers and mercenaries, without either
nurse or friend;--the self-collectedness of woman being, as we shall
find, wanting for the former office, and the youth and inexperience
of Count Gamba unfitting him wholly for the other. The very firmness
with which a position so lone and disheartening was sustained,
serves, by interesting us more deeply in the man, to increase our
sympathy, till we almost forget admiration in pity, and half regret
that he should have been great at such a cost.
The only circumstances that had for some time occurred to give him
pleasure were, as regarded public affairs, the news of the successful
progress of the Loan, and, in his personal relations, some favourable
intelligence which he had received, after a long interruption of
communication, respecting his sister and daughter. The former, he
learned, had been seriously indisposed at the very time of his own
fit, but had now entirely recovered. While delighted at this news, he
could not help, at the same time, remarking, with his usual tendency
to such superstitious feelings, how strange and striking was the
coincidence.
To those who have, from his childhood, traced him through these
pages, it must be manifest, I think, that Lord Byron was not formed
to be long-lived. Whether from any hereditary defect in his
organisation,--as he himself, from the circumstance of both his
parents having died young, concluded,--or from those violent means he
so early took to counteract the natural tendency of his habit, and
reduce himself to thinness, he was, almost every year, as we have
seen, subject to attacks of indisposition, by more than one of which
his life was seriously endangered. The capricious course which he at
all times pursued respecting diet,--his long fastings, his expedients
for the allayment of hunger, his occasional excesses in the most
unwholesome food, and, during the latter part of his residence in
Italy, his indulgence in the use of spirituous beverages,--all this
could not be otherwise than hurtful and undermining to his health;
while his constant recourse to medicine,--daily, as it appears, and
in large quantities,--both evinced and, no doubt, increased the
derangement of his digestion. When to all this we add the wasteful
wear of spirits and strength from the slow corrosion of sensibility,
the warfare of the passions, and the workings of a mind that allowed
itself no sabbath, it is not to be wondered at that the vital
principle in him should so soon have burnt out, or that, at the age
of thirty-three, he should have had--as he himself drearily expresses
it--"an old feel." To feed the flame, the all-absorbing flame, of his
genius, the whole powers of his nature, physical as well as moral,
were sacrificed;--to present that grand and costly conflagration to
the world's eyes, in which,
"Glittering, like a palace set on fire,
His glory, while it shone, but ruin'd him!"[1]
[Footnote 1: Beaumont and Fletcher.]
It was on the very day when, as I have mentioned, the intelligence of
his sister's recovery reached him, that, having been for the last
three or four days prevented from taking exercise by the rains, he
resolved, though the weather still looked threatening, to venture out
on horseback. Three miles from Missolonghi Count Gamba and himself
were overtaken by a heavy shower, and returned to the town walls wet
through and in a state of violent perspiration. It had been their
usual practice to dismount at the walls and return to their house in
a boat, but, on this day, Count Gamba, representing to Lord Byron how
dangerous it would be, warm as he then was, to sit exposed so long to
the rain in a boat, entreated of him to go back the whole way on
horseback. To this however, Lord Byron would not consent; but said,
laughingly, "I should make a pretty soldier indeed, if I were to care
for such a trifle." They accordingly dismounted and got into the boat
as usual.
About two hours after his return home he was seized with a
shuddering, and complained of fever and rheumatic pains. "At eight
that evening," says Count Gamba, "I entered his room. He was lying on
a sofa restless and melancholy. He said to me, 'I suffer a great deal
of pain. I do not care for death, but these agonies I cannot bear.'"
The following day he rose at his accustomed hour,--transacted
business, and was even able to take his ride in the olive woods,
accompanied, as usual, by his long train of Suliotes. He complained,
however, of perpetual shudderings, and had no appetite. On his return
home he remarked to Fletcher that his saddle, he thought, had not
been perfectly dried since yesterday's wetting, and that he felt
himself the worse for it. This was the last time he ever crossed the
threshold alive. In the evening Mr. Finlay and Mr. Millingen called
upon him. "He was at first (says the latter gentleman) gayer than
usual; but on a sudden became pensive."
On the evening of the 11th his fever, which was pronounced to be
rheumatic, increased; and on the 12th he kept his bed all day,
complaining that he could not sleep, and taking no nourishment
whatever. The two following days, though the fever had apparently
diminished, he became still more weak, and suffered much from pains
in the head.
It was not till the 14th that his physician, Dr. Bruno, finding the
sudorifics which he had hitherto employed to be unavailing, began to
urge upon his patient the necessity of being bled. Of this, however,
Lord Byron would not hear. He had evidently but little reliance on
his medical attendant; and from the specimens this young man has
since given of his intellect to the world, it is, indeed,
lamentable,--supposing skill to have been, at this moment, of any
avail,--that a life so precious should have been intrusted to such
ordinary hands. "It was on this day, I think," says Count Gamba,
"that, as I was sitting near him, on his sofa, he said to me, 'I was
afraid I was losing my memory, and, in order to try, I attempted to
repeat some Latin verses with the English translation, which I have
not endeavoured to recollect since I was at school. I remembered them
all except the last word of one of the hexameters.'"
To the faithful Fletcher, the idea of his master's life being in
danger seems to have occurred some days before it struck either Count
Gamba or the physician. So little, according to his friend's
narrative, had such a suspicion crossed Lord Byron's own mind, that
he even expressed himself "rather glad of his fever, as it might cure
him of his tendency to epilepsy." To Fletcher, however, it appears,
he had professed, more than once, strong doubts as to the nature of
his complaint being so slight as the physician seemed to suppose it,
and on his servant renewing his entreaties that he would send for Dr.
Thomas to Zante, made no further opposition; though still, out of
consideration for those gentlemen, he referred him on the subject to
Dr. Bruno and Mr. Millingen. Whatever might have been the advantage
or satisfaction of this step, it was now rendered wholly impossible
by the weather,--such a hurricane blowing into the port that not a
ship could get out. The rain, too, descended in torrents, and between
the floods on the land-side and the sirocco from the sea, Missolonghi
was, for the moment, a pestilential prison.
It was at this juncture that Mr. Millingen was, for the first time,
according to his own account, invited to attend Lord Byron in his
medical capacity,--his visit on the 10th being so little, as he
states, professional, that he did not even, on that occasion, feel
his Lordship's pulse. The great object for which he was now called
in, and rather, it would seem, by Fletcher than Dr. Bruno, was for
the purpose of joining his representations and remonstrances to
theirs, and prevailing upon the patient to suffer himself to be
bled,--an operation now become absolutely necessary from the increase
of the fever, and which Dr. Bruno had, for the last two days, urged
in vain.
Holding gentleness to be, with a disposition like that of Byron, the
most effectual means of success, Mr. Millingen tried, as he himself
tells us, all that reasoning and persuasion could suggest towards
attaining his object. But his efforts were fruitless:--Lord Byron,
who had now become morbidly irritable, replied angrily, but still
with all his accustomed acuteness and spirit, to the physician's
observations. Of all his prejudices, he declared, the strongest was
that against bleeding. His mother had obtained from him a promise
never to consent to being bled; and whatever argument might be
produced, his aversion, he said, was stronger than reason. "Besides,
is it not," he asked, "asserted by Dr. Reid, in his Essays, that less
slaughter is effected by the lance than the lancet:--that minute
instrument of mighty mischief!" On Mr. Millingen observing that this
remark related to the treatment of nervous, but not of inflammatory
complaints, he rejoined, in an angry tone, "Who is nervous, if I am
not? And do not those other words of his, too, apply to my case,
where he says that drawing blood from a nervous patient is like
loosening the chords of a musical instrument, whose tones already
fail for want of sufficient tension? Even before this illness, you
yourself know how weak and irritable I had become;--and bleeding, by
increasing this state, will inevitably kill me. Do with me whatever
else you like, but bleed me you shall not. I have had several
inflammatory fevers in my life, and at an age when more robust and
plethoric: yet I got through them without bleeding. This time, also,
will I take my chance."[1]
[Footnote 1: It was during the same, or some similar conversation,
that Dr. Bruno also reports him to have said, "If my hour is come, I
shall die, whether I lose my blood or keep it."]
After much reasoning and repeated entreaties, Mr. Millingen at length
succeeded in obtaining from him a promise, that should he feel his
fever increase at night, he would allow Dr. Bruno to bleed him.
During this day he had transacted business and received several
letters; particularly one that much pleased him from the Turkish
Governor, to whom he had sent the rescued prisoners, and who, in this
communication, thanked him for his humane interference, and requested
a repetition of it.
In the evening he conversed a good deal with Parry, who remained some
hours by his bedside. "He sat up in his bed (says this officer), and
was then calm and collected. He talked with me on a variety of
subjects connected with himself and his family; he spoke of his
intentions as to Greece, his plans for the campaign, and what he
should ultimately do for that country. He spoke to me about my own
adventures. He spoke of death also with great composure; and though
he did not believe his end was so very near, there was something
about him so serious and so firm, so resigned and composed, so
different from any thing I had ever before seen in him, that my mind
misgave me, and at times foreboded his speedy dissolution."
On revisiting his patient early next morning, Mr. Millingen learned
from him, that having passed, as he thought, on the whole, a better
night, he had not considered it necessary to ask Dr. Bruno to bleed
him. What followed, I shall, in justice to Mr. Millingen, give in his
own words.[1] "I thought it my duty now to put aside all
consideration of his feelings, and to declare solemnly to him, how
deeply I lamented to see him trifle thus with his life, and show so
little resolution. His pertinacious refusal had already, I said,
caused most precious time to be lost;--but few hours of hope now
remained, and, unless he submitted immediately to be bled, we could
not answer for the consequences. It was true, he cared not for life;
but who could assure him that, unless he changed his resolution, the
uncontrolled disease might not operate such disorganisation in his
system as utterly and for ever to deprive him of reason?--I had now
hit at last on the sensible chord; and, partly annoyed by our
importunities, partly persuaded, he cast at us both the fiercest
glance of vexation, and throwing out his arm, said, in the angriest
tone, 'There,--you are, I see, a d--d set of butchers,--take away as
much blood as you like, but have done with it.'
[Footnote 1: MS.--This gentleman is, I understand, about to publish
the Narrative from which the above extract is taken.]
"We seized the moment (adds Mr. Millingen), and drew about twenty
ounces. On coagulating, the blood presented a strong buffy coat; yet
the relief obtained did not correspond to the hopes we had formed,
and during the night the fever became stronger than it had been
hitherto. The restlessness and agitation increased, and the patient
spoke several times in an incoherent manner."
On the following morning, the 17th, the bleeding was repeated; for,
although the rheumatic symptoms had been completely removed, the
appearances of inflammation on the brain were now hourly increasing.
Count Gamba, who had not for the last two days seen him, being
confined to his own apartment by a sprained ankle, now contrived to
reach his room. "His countenance," says this gentleman, "at once
awakened in me the most dreadful suspicions. He was very calm; he
talked to me in the kindest manner about my accident, but in a
hollow, sepulchral tone. 'Take care of your foot,' said he; 'I know
by experience how painful it must be.' I could not stay near his bed:
a flood of tears rushed into my eyes, and I was obliged to withdraw."
Neither Count Gamba, indeed, nor Fletcher, appear to have been
sufficiently masters of themselves to do much else than weep during
the remainder of this afflicting scene.
In addition to the bleeding, which was repeated twice on the 17th, it
was thought right also to apply blisters to the soles of his feet.
"When on the point of putting them on," says Mr. Millingen, "Lord
Byron asked me whether it would answer the purpose to apply both on
the same leg. Guessing immediately the motive that led him to ask
this question, I told him that I would place them above the knees.
'Do so,' he replied."
It is painful to dwell on such details,--but we are now approaching
the close. In addition to most of those sad varieties of wretchedness
which surround alike the grandest and humblest deathbeds, there was
also in the scene now passing around the dying Byron such a degree of
confusion and uncomfort as renders it doubly dreary to contemplate.
There having been no person invested, since his illness, with
authority over the household, neither order nor quiet was maintained
in his apartment. Most of the comforts necessary in such an illness
were wanting; and those around him, either unprepared for the danger,
were, like Bruno, when it came, bewildered by it; or, like the
kind-hearted Fletcher and Count Gamba, were by their feelings
rendered no less helpless.
"In all the attendants," says Parry, "there was the officiousness of
zeal; but, owing to their ignorance of each other's language, their
zeal only added to the confusion. This circumstance, and the want of
common necessaries, made Lord Byron's apartment such a picture of
distress and even anguish during the two or three last days of his
life, as I never before beheld, and wish never again to witness."
The 18th being Easter day,--a holiday which the Greeks celebrate by
firing off muskets and artillery,--it was apprehended that this noise
might be injurious to Lord Byron; and, as a means of attracting away
the crowd from the neighbourhood, the artillery brigade were marched
out by Parry, to exercise their guns at some distance from the town;
while, at the same time, the town-guard patrolled the streets, and
informing the people of the danger of their benefactor, entreated
them to preserve all possible quiet.
About three o'clock in the afternoon, Lord Byron rose and went into
the adjoining room. He was able to walk across the chamber, leaning
on his servant Tita; and, when seated, asked for a book, which the
servant brought him. After reading, however, for a few minutes, he
found himself faint; and, again taking Tita's arm, tottered into the
next room, and returned to bed.
At this time the physicians, becoming still more alarmed, expressed a
wish for a consultation; and proposed calling in, without delay, Dr.
Freiber, the medical assistant of Mr. Millingen, and Luca Vaya, a
Greek, the physician of Mavrocordato. On hea[r]ing this, Lord Byron
at first refused to see them; but being informed that Mavrocordato
advised it, he said,--"Very well, let them come; but let them look at
me and say nothing." This they promised, and were admitted; but when
one of them, on feeling his pulse, showed a wish to
speak--"Recollect," he said, "your promise, and go away."
It was after this consultation of the physicians[1], that, as it
appeared to Count Gamba, Lord Byron was, for the first time, aware of
his approaching end. Mr. Millingen, Fletcher, and Tita had been
standing round his bed; but the two first, unable to restrain their
tears, left the room. Tita also wept; but, as Byron held his hand,
could not retire. He, however, turned away his face; while Byron,
looking at him steadily, said, half smiling, "Oh questa è una bella
scena!" He then seemed to reflect a moment, and exclaimed, "Call
Parry." Almost immediately afterwards, a fit of delirium ensued; and
he began to talk wildly, as if he were mounting a breach in an
assault,--calling out, half in English, half in Italian,
"Forwards--forwards--courage--follow my example," &c. &c.
[Footnote 1: For Mr. Millingen's account of this consultation, see
Appendix.]
On coming again to himself, he asked Fletcher, who had then returned
into the room, "whether he had sent for Dr. Thomas, as he desired?"
and the servant answering in the affirmative, he replied, "You have
done right, for I should like to know what is the matter with me." He
had, a short time before, with that kind consideration for those
about him which was one of the great sources of their lasting
attachment to him, said to Fletcher, "I am afraid you and Tita will
be ill with sitting up night and day." It was now evident that he
knew he was dying; and between his anxiety to make his servant
understand his last wishes, and the rapid failure of his powers of
utterance, a most painful scene ensued. On Fletcher asking whether he
should bring pen and paper to take down his words--"Oh no," he
replied--"there is no time--it is now nearly over. Go to my
sister--tell her--go to Lady Byron--you will see her, and say ----"
Here his voice faltered, and became gradually indistinct;
notwithstanding which he continued still to mutter to himself, for
nearly twenty minutes, with much earnestness of manner, but in such a
tone that only a few words could be distinguished. These, too, were
only names,--"Augusta,"--"Ada,"--"Hobhouse,"--"Kinnaird." He then
said, "Now, I have told you all." "My Lord," replied Fletcher, "I
have not understood a word your Lordship has been saying."--"Not
understand me?" exclaimed Lord Byron, with a look of the utmost
distress, "what a pity!--then it is too late; all is over."--"I hope
not," answered Fletcher; "but the Lord's will be done!"--"Yes, not
mine," said Byron. He then tried to utter a few words, of which none
were intelligible, except "my sister--my child."
The decision adopted at the consultation had been, contrary to the
opinion of Mr. Millingen and Dr. Freiber, to administer to the
patient a strong antispasmodic potion, which, while it produced
sleep, but hastened perhaps death. In order to persuade him into
taking this draught, Mr. Parry was sent for[1], and, without any
difficulty, induced him to swallow a few mouthfuls. "When he took my
hand," says Parry, "I found his hands were deadly cold. With the
assistance of Tita I endeavoured gently to create a little warmth in
them; and also loosened the bandage which was tied round his head.
Till this was done he seemed in great pain, clenched his hands at
times, gnashed his teeth, and uttered the Italian exclamation of 'Ah
Christi!' He bore the loosening of the band passively, and, after it
was loosened, shed tears; then taking my hand again, uttered a faint
good night, and sunk into a slumber."
[Footnote 1: From this circumstance, as well as from the terms in
which he is mentioned by Lord Byron, it is plain that this person
had, by his blunt, practical good sense, acquired far more influence
over his Lordship's mind than was possessed by any of the other
persons about him.]
In about half an hour he again awoke, when a second dose of the
strong infusion was administered to him. "From those about him," says
Count Gamba, who was not able to bear this scene himself, "I
collected that, either at this time, or in his former interval of
reason, he could be understood to say--'Poor Greece!--poor town!--my
poor servants!' Also, 'Why was I not aware of this sooner?' and 'My
hour is come!--I do not care for death--but why did I not go home
before I came here?' At another time he said, 'There are things which
make the world dear to me _Io lascio qualche cosa di caro nel mondo_:
for the rest, I am content to die.' He spoke also of Greece, saying,
'I have given her my time, my means, my health--and now I give her my
life!--what could I do more?'"[1]
[Footnote 1: It is but right to remind the reader, that for the
sayings here attributed to Lord Byron, however natural and probable
they may appear, there is not exactly the same authority of credible
witnesses by which all the other details I have given of his last
hours are supported.]
It was about six o'clock on the evening of this day when he said,
"Now I shall go to sleep;" and then turning round fell into that
slumber from which he never awoke. For the next twenty-four hours he
lay incapable of either sense or motion,--with the exception of, now
and then, slight symptoms of suffocation, during which his servant
raised his head,--and at a quarter past six o'clock on the following
day, the 19th, he was seen to open his eyes and immediately shut them
again. The physicians felt his pulse--he was no more!
To attempt to describe how the intelligence of this sad event struck
upon all hearts would be as difficult as it is superfluous. He, whom
the whole world was to mourn, had on the tears of Greece peculiar
claim,--for it was at her feet he now laid down the harvest of such a
life of fame. To the people of Missolonghi, who first felt the shock
that was soon to spread through all Europe, the event seemed almost
incredible. It was but the other day that he had come among them,
radiant with renown,--inspiring faith, by his very name, in those
miracles of success that were about to spring forth at the touch of
his ever-powerful genius. All this had now vanished like a short
dream:--nor can we wonder that the poor Greeks, to whom his coming
had been such a glory, and who, on the last evening of his life,
thronged the streets, enquiring as to his state, should regard the
thunder-storm which, at the moment he died, broke over the town, as a
signal of his doom, and, in their superstitious grief, cry to each
other, "The great man is gone!"[1]
[Footnote 1: Parry's "Last Days of Lord Byron," p. 128.]
Prince Mavrocordato, who of all best knew and felt the extent of his
country's loss, and who had to mourn doubly the friend of Greece and
of himself, on the evening of the 19th issued this melancholy
proclamation:--
"PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF WESTERN GREECE.
"ART. 1185.
"The present day of festivity and rejoicing has become one of sorrow
and of mourning. The Lord Noel Byron departed this life at six
o'clock in the afternoon, after an illness of ten days; his death
being caused by an inflammatory fever. Such was the effect of his
Lordship's illness on the public mind, that all classes had forgotten
their usual recreations of Easter, even before the afflicting event
was apprehended.
"The loss of this illustrious individual is undoubtedly to be
deplored by all Greece; but it must be more especially a subject of
lamentation at Missolonghi, where his generosity has been so
conspicuously displayed, and of which he had even become a citizen,
with the further determination of participating in all the dangers of
the war.
"Every body is acquainted with the beneficent acts of his Lordship,
and none can cease to hail his name as that of a real benefactor.
"Until, therefore, the final determination of the National Government
be known, and by virtue of the powers with which it has been pleased
to invest me, I hereby decree,--
"1st, To-morrow morning, at daylight, thirty seven minute guns will
be fired from the Grand Battery, being the number which corresponds
with the age of the illustrious deceased.
"2d, All the public offices, even the tribunals, are to remain closed
for three successive days.
"3d, All the shops, except those in which provisions or medicines are
sold, will also be shut; and it is strictly enjoined that every
species of public amusement, and other demonstrations of festivity at
Easter, shall be suspended.
"4th, A general mourning will be observed for twenty-one days.
"5th, Prayers and a funeral service are to be offered up in all the
churches.
(Signed) "A. MAVROCORDATO.
"GEORGE PRAIDIS, Secretary.
"Given at Missolonghi,
this 19th day of April, 1824."
Similar honours were paid to his memory at many other places through
Greece. At Salona, where the Congress had assembled, his soul was
prayed for in the Church; after which the whole garrison and the
citizens went out into the plain, where another religious ceremony
took place, under the shade of the olive trees. This being concluded,
the troops fired; and an oration, full of the warmest praise and
gratitude, was pronounced by the High Priest.
When such was the veneration shown towards him by strangers, what
must have been the feelings of his near associates and attendants?
Let one speak for all:--"He died (says Count Gamba) in a strange
land, and amongst strangers; but more loved, more sincerely wept he
never could have been, wherever he had breathed his last. Such was
the attachment, mingled with a sort of reverence and enthusiasm, with
which he inspired those around him, that there was not one of us who
would not, for his sake, have willingly encountered any danger in the
world."
Colonel Stanhope, whom the sad intelligence reached at Salona, thus
writes to the Committee:--"A courier has just arrived from the Chief
Scalza. Alas! all our fears are realised. 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!"
Mr. Trelawney, who was on his way to Missolonghi at the time,
describes as follows the manner in which he first heard of his
friend's death:--"With all my anxiety I could not get here before the
third day. It was the second, after having crossed the first great
torrent, that I met some soldiers from Missolonghi. I had let them
all pass me, ere I had resolution enough to enquire the news from
Missolonghi. I then rode back, and demanded of a straggler the news.
I heard nothing more than--Lord Byron is dead,--and I proceeded on in
gloomy silence." The writer adds, after detailing the particulars of
the poet's illness and death, "Your pardon, Stanhope, that I have
thus turned aside from the great cause in which I am embarked. But
this is no private grief. The world has lost its greatest man; I my
best friend."
Among his servants the same feeling of sincere grief prevailed:--"I
have in my possession (says Mr. Hoppner, in the Notices with which he
has favoured me,) a letter written by his gondolier Tita, who had
accompanied him from Venice, giving an account to his parents of his
master's decease. Of this event the poor fellow speaks in the most
affecting manner, telling them that in Lord Byron he had lost a
father rather than a master; and expatiating upon the indulgence with
which he had always treated his domestics, and the care he expressed
for their comfort and welfare."
His valet Fletcher, too, in a letter to Mr. Murray, announcing the
event, says, "Please to excuse all defects, for I scarcely know what
I either say or do; for, after twenty years' service with my Lord, he
was more to me than a father, and I am too much distressed to give
now a correct account of every particular."
In speaking of the effect produced on the friends of Greece by this
event, Mr. Trelawney says,--"I think Byron's name was the great means
of getting the Loan. A Mr. Marshall, with 8000_l_. per annum, was as
far as Corfu, and turned back on hearing of Lord Byron's death.
Thousands of people were flocking here: some had arrived as far as
Corfu, and hearing of his death, confessed they came out to devote
their fortunes not to the Greeks, or from interest in the cause, but
to the noble poet; and the 'Pilgrim of Eternity[1]' having departed,
they turned back."[2]
[Footnote 1: The title given by Shelley to Lord Byron in his Elegy on
the death of Keats.
"The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame
Over his living head like Heaven is bent,
An early but enduring monument,
Came veiling all the lightnings of his song
In sorrow."]
[Footnote 2: Parry, too, mentions an instance to the same
effect:--"While I was on the quarantine-house at Zante, a gentleman
called on me, and made numerous enquiries as to Lord Byron. He said
he was only one of fourteen English gentlemen, then at Ancona, who
had sent him on to obtain intelligence, and only waited his return to
come and join Lord Byron. They were to form a mounted guard for him,
and meant to devote their personal services and their incomes to the
Greek cause. On hearing of Lord Byron's death, however, they turned
back."]
The funeral ceremony, which, on account of the rains, had been
postponed for a day, took place in the church of St. Nicholas, at
Missolonghi, on the 22d of April, and is thus feelingly described by
an eye-witness:--
"In the midst of his own brigade, of the troops of the Government,
and of the whole population, on the shoulders of the officers of his
corps, relieved occasionally by other Greeks, the most precious
portion of his honoured remains were carried to the church, where lie
the bodies of Marco Bozzari and of General Normann. There we laid
them down: the coffin was a rude, ill-constructed chest of wood; a
black mantle served for a pall; and over it we placed a helmet and a
sword, and a crown of laurel. But no funeral pomp could have left the
impression, nor spoken the feelings, of this simple ceremony. The
wretchedness and desolation of the place itself; the wild and
half-civilised warriors around us; their deep-felt, unaffected grief;
the fond recollections; the disappointed hopes; the anxieties and sad
presentiments which might be read on every countenance;--all
contributed to form a scene more moving, more truly affecting, than
perhaps was ever before witnessed round the grave of a great man.
"When the funeral service was over, we left the bier in the middle of
the church, where it remained until the evening of the next day, and
was guarded by a detachment of his own brigade. The church was
crowded without cessation by those who came to honour and to regret
the benefactor of Greece. In the evening of the 23d, the bier was
privately carried back by his officers to his own house. The coffin
was not closed till the 29th of the month. Immediately after his
death, his countenance had an air of calmness, mingled with a
severity, that seemed gradually to soften; for when I took a last
look of him, the expression, at least to my eyes, was truly sublime."
We have seen how decidedly, while in Italy, Lord Byron expressed his
repugnance to the idea of his remains resting upon English ground;
and the injunctions he so frequently gave to Mr. Hoppner on this
point show his wishes to have been,--at least, during that
period,--sincere. With one so changing, however, in his impulses, it
was not too much to take for granted that the far more cordial
feeling entertained by him towards his countrymen at Cephalonia would
have been followed by a correspondent change in this antipathy to
England as a last resting-place. It is, at all events, fortunate that
by no such spleen of the moment has his native country been deprived
of her natural right to enshrine within her own bosom one of the
noblest of her dead, and to atone for any wrong she may have
inflicted upon him, while living, by making his tomb a place of
pilgrimage for her sons through all ages.
By Colonel Stanhope and others it was suggested that, as a tribute to
the land he celebrated and died for, his remains should be deposited
at Athens, in the Temple of Theseus; and the Chief Odysseus
despatched an express to Missolonghi to enforce this wish. On the
part of the town, too, in which he breathed his last, a similar
request had been made by the citizens; and it was thought advisable
so far to accede to their desires as to leave with them, for
interment, one of the vessels, in which his remains, after
embalmment, were enclosed.
The first step taken, before any decision as to its ultimate
disposal, was to have the body conveyed to Zante; and every facility
having been afforded by the Resident, Sir Frederick Stoven, in
providing and sending transports to Missolonghi for that purpose, on
the morning of the 2d of May the remains were embarked, under a
mournful salute from the guns of the fortress:--"How different," says
Count Gamba, "from that which had welcomed the arrival of Byron only
four months ago!"
At Zante, the determination was taken to send the body to England;
and the brig Florida, which had just arrived there with the first
instalment of the Loan, was engaged for the purpose. Mr. Blaquiere,
under whose care this first portion of the Loan had come, was also
the bearer of a Commission for the due management of its disposal in
Greece, in which Lord Byron was named as the principal Commissioner.
The same ship, however, that brought this honourable mark of
confidence was to return with him a corpse. To Colonel Stanhope, who
was then at Zante, on his way homeward, was intrusted the charge of
his illustrious colleague's remains; and on the 25th of May he
embarked with them on board the Florida for England.
In the letter which, on his arrival in the Downs, June 29th, this
gentleman addressed to Lord Byron's executors, there is the following
passage:--"With respect to the funeral ceremony, I am of opinion that
his Lordship's family should be immediately consulted, and that
sanction should be obtained for the public burial of his body either
in the great Abbey or Cathedral of London." It has been asserted, and
I fear too truly, that on some intimation of the wish suggested in
this last sentence being conveyed to one of those Reverend persons
who have the honours of the Abbey at their disposal, such an answer
was returned as left but little doubt that a refusal would be the
result of any more regular application.[1]
[Footnote 1: A former Dean of Westminster went so far, we know, in
his scruples as to exclude an epitaph from the Abbey, because it
contained the name of Milton:--"a name, in his opinion," says
Johnson, "too detestable to be read on the wall of a building
dedicated to devotion."--_Life of_ MILTON.]
There is an anecdote told of the poet Hafiz, in Sir William Jones's
Life, which, in reporting this instance of illiberality, recurs
naturally to the memory. After the death of the great Persian bard,
some of the religious among his countrymen protested strongly against
allowing to him the right of sepulture, alleging, as their objection,
the licentiousness of his poetry. After much controversy, it was
agreed to leave the decision of the question to a mode of divination,
not uncommon among the Persians, which consisted in opening the
poet's book at random and taking the first verses that occurred. They
happened to be these:--
"Oh turn not coldly from the poet's bier,
Nor check the sacred drops by Pity given;
For though in sin his body slumbereth here,
His soul, absolved, already wings to heaven."
These lines, says the legend, were looked upon as a divine decree;
the religionists no longer enforced their objections, and the remains
of the bard were left to take their quiet sleep by that "sweet bower
of Mosellay" which he had so often celebrated in his verses.
Were our Byron's right of sepulture to be decided in the same manner,
how few are there of his pages, thus taken at hazard, that would not,
by some genial touch of sympathy with virtue, some glowing tribute to
the bright works of God, or some gush of natural devotion more
affecting than any homily, give him a title to admission into the
purest temple of which Christian Charity ever held the guardianship.
Let the decision, however, of these Reverend authorities have been,
finally, what it might, it was the wish, as is understood, of Lord
Byron's dearest relative to have his remains laid in the family vault
at Hucknall, near Newstead. On being landed from the Florida, the
body had, under the direction of his Lordship's executors, Mr.
Hobhouse and Mr. Hanson, been removed to the house of Sir Edward
Knatchbull in Great George Street, Westminster, where it lay in state
during Friday and Saturday, the 9th and 10th of July, and on the
following Monday the funeral procession took place. Leaving
Westminster at eleven o'clock in the morning, attended by most of his
Lordship's personal friends and by the carriages of several persons
of rank, it proceeded through various streets of the metropolis
towards the North Road. At Pancras Church, the ceremonial of the
procession being at an end, the carriages returned; and the hearse
continued its way, by slow stages, to Nottingham.
It was on Friday the 16th of July that, in the small village church
of Hucknall, the last duties were paid to the remains of Byron, by
depositing them, close to those of his mother, in the family vault.
Exactly on the same day of the same month in the preceding year, he
had said, it will be recollected, despondingly, to Count Gamba,
"Where shall we be in another year?" The gentleman to whom this
foreboding speech was addressed paid a visit, some months after the
interment, to Hucknall, and was much struck, as I have heard, on
approaching the village, by the strong likeness it seemed to him to
bear to his lost friend's melancholy deathplace, Missolonghi.
On a tablet of white marble in the chancel of the Church of Hucknall
is the following inscription:--
IN THE VAULT BENEATH,
WHERE MANY OF HIS ANCESTORS AND HIS MOTHER ARE
BURIED,
LIE THE REMAINS OF
GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON,
LORD BYRON, OF ROCHDALE,
IN THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER,
THE AUTHOR OF "CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE."
HE WAS BORN IN LONDON ON THE
22D OF JANUARY, 1788.
HE DIED AT MISSOLONGHI, IN WESTERN GREECE, ON THE
19TH OF APRIL, 1824,
ENGAGED IN THE GLORIOUS ATTEMPT TO RESTORE THAT
COUNTRY TO HER ANCIENT FREEDOM AND RENOWN.
* * * * *
HIS SISTER, THE HONOURABLE
AUGUSTA MARIA LEIGH,
PLACED THIS TABLET TO HIS MEMORY.
From among the tributes that have been offered, in prose and verse,
and in almost every language of Europe, to his memory, I shall select
two which appear to me worthy of peculiar notice, as being, one of
them,--so far as my limited scholarship will allow me to judge,--a
simple and happy imitation of those laudatory inscriptions with which
the Greece of other times honoured the tombs of her heroes; and the
other as being the production of a pen, once engaged controversially
against Byron, but not the less ready, as these affecting verses
prove, to offer the homage of a manly sorrow and admiration at his
grave.
[Greek:
Eis
Ton en tê Helladi têleutêsanta
Poiêtên
* * * * *
Ou to zên tanaon biou euklees oud' enarithmein
Arxaiax progonôn eunxneôn aretas
Ton d' eudaimonias moir' amphepei, hosper apantôn
Aien aristeuôn gignetai athanatos.--
Eudeis oun su, teknon, xaritôn ear? ouk eti thallei
Akmaios meleôn hêdupnoôn stephanos?--
Alla teon, tripophête, moron penphousin Aphênê,
Mousai, patris, Arês, Ellas, eleupheria.[1]]
[Footnote 1: By John Williams, Esq.--The following translation of
this inscription will not be unacceptable to my readers:--
"Not length of life--not an illustrious birth,
Rich with the noblest blood of all the earth;--
Nought can avail, save deeds of high emprize,
Our mortal being to immortalise.
"Sweet child of song, thou deepest!--ne'er again
Shall swell the notes of thy melodious strain:
Yet, with thy country wailing o'er thy urn,
Pallas, the Muse, Mars, Greece, and Freedom mourn."