"Pisa, August 27. 1822.
"It is boring to trouble you with 'such small gear;' but it must be
owned that I should be glad if you would enquire whether my Irish
subscription ever reached the committee in Paris from Leghorn. My
reasons, like Vellum's, 'are threefold:'--First, I doubt the
accuracy of all almoners, or remitters of benevolent cash; second,
I do suspect that the said Committee, having in part served its
time to time-serving, may have kept back the acknowledgment of an
obnoxious politician's name in their lists; and third, I feel
pretty sure that I shall one day be twitted by the government
scribes for having been a professor of love for Ireland, and not
coming forward with the others in her distresses.
"It is not, as you may opine, that I am ambitious of having my name
in the papers, as I can have that any day in the week gratis. All I
want is to know if the Reverend Thomas Hall did or did not remit
my subscription (200 scudi of Tuscany, or about a thousand francs,
more or less,) to the Committee at Paris.
"The other day at Viareggio, I thought proper to swim off to my
schooner (the Bolivar) in the offing, and thence to shore
again--about three miles, or better, in all. As it was at mid-day,
under a broiling sun, the consequence has been a feverish attack,
and my whole skin's coming off, after going through the process of
one large continuous blister, raised by the sun and sea together. I
have suffered much pain; not being able to lie on my back, or even
side; for my shoulders and arms were equally St. Bartholomewed. But
it is over,--and I have got a new skin, and am as glossy as a snake
in its new suit.
"We have been burning the bodies of Shelley and Williams on the
sea-shore, to render them fit for removal and regular interment.
You can have no idea what an extraordinary effect such a funeral
pile has, on a desolate shore, with mountains in the background and
the sea before, and the singular appearance the salt and
frankincense gave to the flame. All of Shelley was consumed, except
his _heart_, which would not take the flame, and is now preserved
in spirits of wine.
"Your old acquaintance Londonderry has quietly died at North Cray!
and the virtuous De Witt was torn in pieces by the populace! What a
lucky * * the Irishman has been in his life and end.[87] In him
your Irish Franklin est mort!
"Leigh Hunt is sweating articles for his new Journal; and both he
and I think it somewhat shabby in _you_ not to contribute. Will you
become one of the _properrioters_? 'Do, and we go snacks.' I
recommend you to think twice before you respond in the negative.
"I have nearly (_quite three_) four new cantos of Don Juan ready. I
obtained permission from the female Censor Morum of _my_ morals to
continue it, provided it were immaculate; so I have been as decent
as need be. There is a deal of war--a siege, and all that, in the
style, graphical and technical, of the shipwreck in Canto Second,
which 'took,' as they say, in the Row.
Yours, &c.
"P.S. That * * * Galignani has about ten lies in one paragraph. It
was not a Bible that was found in Shelley's pocket, but John
Keats's poems. However, it would not have been strange, for he was
a great admirer of Scripture as a composition. _I_ did not send my
bust to the academy of New York; but I sat for my picture to young
West, an American artist, at the request of some members of that
Academy to _him_ that he would take my portrait,--for the Academy,
I believe.[88]
"I had, and still have, thoughts of South America, but am
fluctuating between it and Greece. I should have gone, long ago, to
one of them, but for my liaison with the Countess Gi.; for love, in
these days, is little compatible with glory. _She_ would be
delighted to go too; but I do not choose to expose her to a long
voyage, and a residence in an unsettled country, where I shall
probably take a part of some sort."
[Footnote 87: The particulars of this event had, it is evident, not yet
readied him.]
[Footnote 88: This portrait, though destined for America, was, it
appears, never sent thither. A few copies of it have since been painted
by Mr. West, but the original picture was purchased by Mr. Joy, of
Hartham Park, Wilts; who is also the possessor of the original portrait
of Madame Guiccioli, by the same artist.]
* * * * *
Soon after the above letters were written, Lord Byron removed to Genoa,
having taken a house, called the Villa Saluzzo, at Albaro, one of the
suburbs of that city. From the time of the unlucky squabble with the
serjeant-major at Pisa, his tranquillity had been considerably broken in
upon, as well by the judicial enquiries consequent upon that event, as
by the many sinister rumours and suspicions to which it gave rise.
Though the wounded man had recovered, his friends all vowed vengeance
with the dagger: and the sensation which the affair and its various
consequences had produced was,--to Madame Guiccioli more particularly,
from the situation in which her family stood, in regard to
politics,--distressing and alarming. While the impression, too, of this
event was still recent, another circumstance occurred which, though
comparatively unimportant, had the unlucky effect of again drawing the
attention of the Tuscans to their new visitors. During Lord Byron's
short visit to Leghorn, a Swiss servant in his employ having quarrelled,
on some occasion, with the brother of Madame Guiccioli, drew his knife
upon the young Count, and wounded him slightly on the cheek. This
affray, happening so soon after the other, was productive also of so
much notice and conversation, that the Tuscan government, in its horror
of every thing like disturbance, thought itself called upon to
interfere; and orders were accordingly issued, that, within four days,
the two Counts Gamba, father and son, should depart from Tuscany. To
Lord Byron this decision was, in the highest degree, provoking and
disconcerting; it being one of the conditions of the Guiccioli's
separation from her husband, that she should thenceforward reside under
the same roof with her father. After balancing in his mind between
various projects,--sometimes thinking of Geneva, and sometimes, as we
have seen, of South America,--he at length decided, for the present, to
transfer his residence to Genoa.
His habits of life, while at Pisa, had but very little differed, except
in the new line of society into which his introduction to Shelley's
friends led him,--from the usual monotonous routine in which, so
singularly for one of his desultory disposition, the daily course of
his existence had now, for some years, flowed. At two he usually
breakfasted, and at three, or, as the year advanced, four o'clock, those
persons who were in the habit of accompanying him in his rides, called
upon him. After, occasionally, a game of billiards, he proceeded,--and,
in order to avoid starers, in his carriage,--as far as the gates of the
town, where his horses met him. At first the route he chose for these
rides was in the direction of the Cascine and of the pine-forest that
reaches towards the sea; but having found a spot more convenient for his
pistol exercise on the road leading from the Porta alla Spiaggia to the
east of the city, he took daily this course during the remainder of his
stay. When arrived at the Podere or farm, in the garden of which they
were allowed to erect their target, his friends and he dismounted, and,
after devoting about half an hour to a trial of skill at the pistol,
returned, a little before sunset, into the city.
"Lord Byron," says a friend who was sometimes present at their
practising, "was the best marksman. Shelley, and Williams, and
Trelawney, often made as good shots as he--but they were not so certain;
and he, though his hand trembled violently, never missed, for he
calculated on this vibration, and depended entirely on his eye. Once
after demolishing his mark, he set up a slender cane, whose colour,
nearly the same as the gravel in which it was fixed, might well have
deceived him, and at twenty paces he divided it with his bullet. His joy
at a good shot, and his vexation at a failure, was great--and when we
met him on his return, his cold salutation, or joyous laugh, told the
tale of the day's success."
For the first time since his arrival in Italy, he now found himself
tempted to give dinner parties; his guests being, besides Count Gamba
and Shelley, Mr. Williams, Captain Medwin, Mr. Taafe, and Mr.
Trelawney;--and "never," as his friend Shelley used to say, "did he
display himself to more advantage than on these occasions; being at once
polite and cordial, full of social hilarity and the most perfect good
humour; never diverging into ungraceful merriment, and yet keeping up
the spirit of liveliness throughout the evening." About midnight his
guests generally left him, with the exception of Captain Medwin, who
used to remain, as I understand, talking and drinking with his noble
host till far into the morning; and to the careless, half mystifying
confidences of these nocturnal sittings, implicitly listened to and
confusedly recollected, we owe the volume with which Captain Medwin,
soon after the death of the noble poet, favoured the world.
On the subject of this and other such intimacies formed by Lord Byron,
not only at the period of which we are speaking, but throughout his
whole life, it would be difficult to advance any thing more judicious,
or more demonstrative of a true knowledge of his character, than is to
be found in the following remarks of one who had studied him with her
whole heart,--who had learned to regard him with the eyes of good sense,
as well as of affection, and whose strong love, in short, was founded
upon a basis the most creditable both to him and herself,--the being
able to understand him.[89]
"We continued in Pisa even more rigorously to absent ourselves from
society. However, as there were a good many English in Pisa, he could
not avoid becoming acquainted with various friends of Shelley, among
which number was Mr. Medwin. They followed him in his rides, dined with
him, and felt themselves happy, of course, in the apparent intimacy in
which they lived with so renowned a man; but not one of them was
admitted to any part of his friendship, which, indeed, he did not easily
accord. He had a great affection for Shelley, and a great esteem for his
character and talents; but he was not his friend in the most extensive
sense of that word. Sometimes, when speaking of his friends and of
friendship, as also of love, and of every other noble emotion of the
soul, his expressions might inspire doubts concerning his sentiments and
the goodness of his heart. The feeling of the moment regulated his
speech, and, besides, he liked to play the part of singularity,--and
sometimes worse,--more especially with those whom he suspected of
endeavouring to make discoveries as to his real character; but it was
only mean minds and superficial observers that could be deceived in him.
It was necessary to consider his actions to perceive the contradiction
they bore to his words: it was necessary to be witness of certain
moments, during which unforeseen and involuntary emotion forced him to
give himself entirely up to his feelings; and whoever beheld him then,
became aware of the stores of sensibility and goodness of which his
noble heart was full.
"Among the many occasions _I_ had of seeing him thus overpowered, I
shall mention one relative to his feelings of friendship. A few days
before leaving Pisa, we were one evening seated in the garden of the
Palazzo Lanfranchi. A soft melancholy was spread over his countenance;
he recalled to mind the events of his life; compared them with his
present situation, and with that which it might have been if his
affection for me had not caused him to remain in Italy, saying things
which would have made earth a paradise for me, but that even then a
presentiment that I should lose all this happiness tormented me. At this
moment a servant announced Mr. Hobhouse. The slight shade of melancholy
diffused over Lord Byron's face gave instant place to the liveliest joy;
but it was so great, that it almost deprived him of strength. A fearful
paleness came over his cheeks, and his eyes were filled with tears as he
embraced his friend. His emotion was so great that he was forced to sit
down.
"Lord Clare's visit also occasioned him extreme delight. He had a great
affection for Lord Clare, and was very happy during the short visit that
he paid him at Leghorn. The day on which they separated was a melancholy
one for Lord Byron. 'I have a presentiment that I shall never see him
more,' he said, and his eyes filled with tears. The same melancholy came
over him during the first weeks that succeeded to Lord Clare's
departure, whenever his conversation happened to fall upon this
friend."[90]
Of his feelings on the death of his daughter Allegra, this lady gives
the following account:--"On the occasion also of the death of his
natural daughter, I saw in his grief the excess of paternal kindness.
His conduct towards this child was always that of a fond father; but no
one would have guessed from his expressions that he felt this affection
for her. He was dreadfully agitated by the first intelligence of her
illness; and when afterwards that of her death arrived, I was obliged to
fulfil the melancholy task of communicating it to him. The memory of
that frightful moment is stamped indelibly on my mind. For several
evenings he had not left his house, I therefore went to him. His first
question was relative to the courier he had despatched for tidings of
his daughter, and whose delay disquieted him. After a short interval of
suspense, with every caution which my own sorrow suggested, I deprived
him of all hope of the child's recovery. 'I understand,' said he,--'it
is enough, say no more.' A mortal paleness spread itself over his face,
his strength failed him, and he sunk into a seat. His look was fixed,
and the expression such that I began to fear for his reason; he did not
shed a tear, and his countenance manifested so hopeless, so profound, so
sublime a sorrow, that at the moment he appeared a being of a nature
superior to humanity. He remained immovable in the same attitude for an
hour, and no consolation which I endeavoured to afford him seemed to
reach his ears, far less his heart. But enough of this sad episode, on
which I cannot linger, even after the lapse of so many years, without
renewing in my own heart the awful wretchedness of that day. He desired
to be left alone, and I was obliged to leave him. I found him on the
following morning tranquillised, and with an expression of religious
resignation on his features. 'She is more fortunate than we are,' he
said; 'besides, her position in the world would scarcely have allowed
her to be happy. It is God's will--let us mention it no more.' And from
that day he would never pronounce her name; but became more anxious
when he spoke of Ada,--so much so as to disquiet himself when the usual
accounts sent him were for a post or two delayed."[91]
The melancholy death of poor Shelley, which happened, as we have seen,
also during this period, seems to have affected Lord Byron's mind, less
with grief for the actual loss of his friend, than with bitter
indignation against those who had, through life, so grossly
misrepresented him; and never certainly was there an instance where the
supposed absence of all religion in an individual was assumed so eagerly
as an excuse for the absence of all charity in judging him. Though never
personally acquainted with Mr. Shelley, I can join freely with those who
most loved him in admiring the various excellences of his heart and
genius, and lamenting the too early doom that robbed us of the mature
fruits of both. His short life had been, like his poetry, a sort of
bright erroneous dream,--false in the general principles on which it
proceeded, though beautiful and attaching in most of the details. Had
full time been allowed for the "over-light" of his imagination to have
been tempered down by the judgment which, in him, was still in reserve,
the world at large would have been taught to pay that high homage to his
genius which those only who saw what he was capable of can now be
expected to accord to it.
It was about this time that Mr. Cowell, paying a visit to Lord Byron at
Genoa, was told by him that some friends of Mr. Shelley, sitting
together one evening, had seen that gentleman, distinctly, as they
thought, walk into a little wood at Lerici, when at the same moment, as
they afterwards discovered, he was far away in quite a different
direction. "This," added Lord Byron, in a low, awe-struck tone of
voice, "was but ten days before poor Shelley died."
[Footnote 89: My poor Zimmerman, who now will understand thee?"--such
was the touching speech addressed to Zimmerman by his wife, on her
death-bed; and there is implied in these few words all that a man of
morbid sensibility must be dependant for upon the tender and
self-forgetting tolerance of the woman with whom he is united.]
[Footnote 90: "In Pisa abbiamo continuato anche più rigorosaraente a
vivere lontano dalla società. Essendosi però in Pisa molti Inglesi egli
non potè escusarsi dal fare la conoscenza di varii amici di Shelley, fra
i quali uno fu Mr. Medwin. Essi lo seguitavano al passeggio, pranzavono
con lui e certamente si tenevano felici della apparente intimità che
loro accordava un uomo così superiore. Ma nessuno di loro fu ammesso mai
a porta della sua amicizia, che egli non era facile a accordare. Per
Shelley egli aveva dell' affezione, e molta stima pel suo carattere e
pel suo talento, ma non era suo amico nel estensione del senso che si
deva dare alla parola amicizia. Talvolta parlando egli de' suoi amici, e
dell' amicizia, come pure dell' amore, e di ogni altro nobile sentimento
dell' anima, potevano i suoi discorsi far nascere dei dubbii sui veri
suoi sentimenti, e sulla bontà del suo core. Una impressione momentanea
regolava i suoi discorsi; e di più egli amava anche a rappresentare un
personaggio bizzarro, e qualche volta anche peggio,--specialmente con
quelli che egli pensava volessero studiare e fare delle scoperte sul suo
carattere. Ma nell' inganno non poteva cadere che una piccola mente, e
un osservatore superficiale. Bisognava esaminare le sue azioni per
sentire tutta le contraddizione che era fra di esse e i suoi discorsi;
bisognava vederlo in certi momenti in cui per una emozione improvisa e
più forte della sua volontà la sua anima si abbandonava interamente a se
stessa;--bisognava vederlo allora per scoprire i tesori di sensibilità e
di bontà che erano ìn quella nobile anima.
"Fra le tante volte che io l'ho veduto in simili circostanze ne
ricorderò una che risguarda i suoi sentimenti di amicizia. Pochi giorni
prima di lasciare Pisa eravamo verso sera insieme seduti nel giardino
del Palazzo Lanfranchi. Una dolce malinconia era sparsa sul suo viso.
Egli riandava col pensiero gli avvenimenti della sua vita e faceva il
confronto colle attuale sue situazione e quella che avrebbe potuta
essere se la sua affezione per me non lo avesse fatto restare in Italia;
e diceva cose che avrebbero resa per me la terra un paradiso, se giÃ
sino d'allora il pressentimento di perdere tanta felicità non mi avesse
tormentata. In questo mentre un domestico annunciò Mr. Hobhouse. La
leggiera tinta di malinconia sparsa sul viso di Byron fece, luogo
subitamente alia più viva gioia; ma essa fu così forte che gli tolse
quasi le forze. Un pallore commovente ricoperse il suo volto, e nell'
abbracciare il suo amico i suoi occhi erano pieni di lacrime di
contento. E l'emozione fu così forte che egli fu obbligato di sedersi,
sentendosi mancare le forze.
"La venuta pure di Lord Clare fu per lui un epoca di grande felicità.
Egli amava sommamente Lord Clare--egli era così felice in quel breve
tempo che passò presso di lui a Livorno, e il giorno in cui si
separarono fu un giorno di grande tristezza per Lord Byron. 'Io ho il
pressentimento che non lo vedrò piu,' diceva egli; e i suoi occhi si
riempirano di lacrime; e in questo stato l'ho veduto per varii
settimanie dopo la partenza di Lord Clare, ogni qual volta il discorso
cadeva sopra di codesto il suo amico."]
[Footnote 91: "Nell' occasione pure della morire della sua figlia
naturale io ho veduto nel suo dolore tuttociò che vi è di più profondo
nella tenerezza paterna. La sua condotta verso di codesta fanciulla era
stata sempre quella del padre il più amoroso; ma dalle di lui parole non
si sarebbe giudicato che avesse tanta affezione per lei. Alia prima
notizia della di lei malattia egli fu sommamente agitato; giunse poi la
notizia della morte, ed io dovessi esercitare il tristo uficio di
participarla a Lord Byron. Quel sensibile momenta sarà indelebile nella
mia memoria. Egli non usciva da varii giorni la sera: io andai dunque da
lui. La prima domauda che egli mi fece fu relativa al Corriere che egli
aveva spedito per avere notizie della sua figlia, e di cui il retardo lo
inquietava. Dopo qualche momento di sospensione con tutta l'arte che
sapeva suggerirmi il mio proprio dotore gli tolsi ogni speranza della
guarizione della fanciulla. 'Ho inteso,' disse egli--'basta così--non
dite di più'--e un pallore mortale si sparse sul suo volto; le forze gli
mancarono, e cadde sopra una sedia d'appoggio. Il suo sguardo era fisso
e tale che mi fece temere per la sua ragione. Egli rimase in quello
stato d'immobilità un' ora; e nessuna parola dì consolazione che io
potessi indirezzargli pareva penetrare le sue orecchie non che il suo
core. Ma basta così di questa trista detenzione nella quale non posso
fermarmi dopo tanti anni senza risvegliare dì nuovo nel mio animo le
terribile sofferenze di quel giorno. La mattinà lo trovai tranquillo, e
con una espressione di religiosa rassegnazione nel suo volto. 'Ella è
più felice di noi,' diss' egli--'d'altronde la sua situazione nel mondo
non le avrebbe data forse felicità. Dio ha voluto così--non ne parliamo
più.' E da quel giorno in poi non ha più voluto proferire il nome di
quella fanciulla. Ma è divenuto più pensieroso parlando di Adda, al
punto di tormentarsi quando gli ritardavano di qualche ordinario le di
lei notizie."]
* * * * *