TRAVELS IN ALBANIA, GREECE, ETC.--DEATH OF MRS. BYRON.
1809-1811.
123.--To his Mother.
Falmouth, June 22, 1809.
DEAR MOTHER,--I am about to sail in a few days; probably before this
reaches you. Fletcher begged so hard, that I have continued him in my
service. If he does not behave well abroad, I will send him back in a
_transport_. I have a German servant (who has been with Mr. Wilbraham
in Persia before, and was strongly recommended to me by Dr. Butler, of
Harrow), Robert and William; [1] they constitute my whole suite. I
have letters in plenty:--you shall hear from me at the different ports
I touch upon; but you must not be alarmed if my letters miscarry. The
Continent is in a fine state--an insurrection has broken out at Paris,
and the Austrians are beating Buonaparte--the Tyrolese have risen.
There is a picture of me in oil, to be sent down to Newstead soon. [2]
--I wish the Miss Pigots had something better to do than carry my
miniatures to Nottingham to copy. Now they have done it, you may ask
them to copy the others, which are greater favourites than my own. As
to money matters, I am ruined--at least till Rochdale is sold; and if
that does not turn out well, I shall enter into the Austrian or
Russian service--perhaps the Turkish, if I like their manners. The
world is all before me, and I leave England without regret, and
without a wish to revisit any thing it contains, except _yourself_,
and your present residence.
Believe me, yours ever sincerely.
P.S.--Pray tell Mr. Rushton his son is well, and doing well; so is
Murray, [3] indeed better than I ever saw him; he will be back in
about a month. I ought to add the leaving Murray to my few regrets, as
his age perhaps will prevent my seeing him again. Robert I take with
me; I like him, because, like myself, he seems a friendless animal.
[Footnote 1: Robert Rushton and William Fletcher, the "little page" and
"staunch yeoman" of Childe Harold's "Good Night," Canto I. stanza xiii.]
[Footnote 2: By George Sanders.]
[Footnote 3: "Joe" Murray was sent back from Gibraltar, and with him
returned the homesick Robert Rushton.
124.--To the Rev. Henry Drury.
Falmouth, June 28, 1809.
MY DEAR DRURY,--We sail to-morrow in the Lisbon packet, having been
detained till now by the lack of wind, and other necessaries. These
being at last procured, by this time tomorrow evening we shall be
embarked on the vide vorld of vaters, vor all the vorld like Robinson
Crusoe. The Malta vessel not sailing for some weeks, we have
determined to go by way of Lisbon, and, as my servants term it, to see
"that there "'Portingale'"--thence to Cadiz and Gibraltar, and so on
our old route to Malta and Constantinople, if so be that Captain Kidd,
our gallant, or rather gallows, commander, understands plain sailing
and Mercator, and takes us on a voyage all according to the chart.
Will you tell Dr. Butler that I have taken the treasure of a servant,
Friese, the native of Prussia Proper, into my service from his
recommendation? He has been all among the Worshippers of Fire in
Persia, and has seen Persepolis and all that.
Hobhouse has made woundy preparations for a book on his return; 100
pens, two gallons of Japan Ink, and several volumes of best blank, is
no bad provision for a discerning public. I have laid down my pen, but
have promised to contribute a chapter on the state of morals, and a
further treatise on the same to be intituled "..., 'Simplified,... or
Proved to be Praiseworthy from Ancient Authors and Modern Practice.'"
Hobhouse further hopes to indemnify himself in Turkey for a life of
exemplary chastity at home. Pray buy his 'Missellingany', as the
Printer's Devil calls it. I suppose it is in print by this time.
Providence has interposed in our favour with a fair wind to carry us
out of its reach, or he would have hired a Faqui to translate it into
the Turcoman lingo.
"The cock is crowing,
I must be going,
And can no more."
'Ghost of Gaffer Thumb'. [1]
Adieu.--Believe me, etc., etc.
[Footnote 1: In Fielding's burlesque tragedy, 'The Tragedy of Tragedies;
or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great'(1730), occur the lines--
"Arthur, beware; I must this moment hence,
Not frighted by your voice, but by the cock's."
The burlesque was altered by Kane O'Hara, and published as performed at
the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, in 1805. In this prompt-book version (act
i.) appear the lines quoted by Byron.
"'Ghost'. Grizzle's Rebellion,
What need I tell you on?
Or by a red cow
Tom Thumb devoured?
('cock crows') Hark the cock crowing!
I must be going:
I can no more {'vanishes'}."]
125.--To Francis Hodgson.
Falmouth, June 25, 1809.
MY DEAR HODGSON,--Before this reaches you, Hobhouse, two officers'
wives, three children, two waiting-maids, ditto subalterns for the
troops, three Portuguese esquires and domestics, in all nineteen
souls, will have sailed in the Lisbon packet, with the noble Captain
Kidd, a gallant commander as ever smuggled an anker of right Nantz.
We are going to Lisbon first, because the Malta packet has sailed,
d'ye see?--from Lisbon to Gibraltar, Malta, Constantinople, and "all
that," as Orator Henley said, when he put the Church, and "all that,"
in danger. [1]
This town of Falmouth, as you will partly conjecture, is no great ways
from the sea. It is defended on the sea-side by tway castles, St. Maws
and Pendennis, extremely well calculated for annoying every body
except an enemy. St. Maws is garrisoned by an able-bodied person of
fourscore, a widower. He has the whole command and sole management of
six most unmanageable pieces of ordnance, admirably adapted for the
destruction of Pendennis, a like tower of strength on the opposite
side of the Channel. We have seen St. Maws, but Pendennis they will
not let us behold, save at a distance, because Hobhouse and I are
suspected of having already taken St. Maws by a coup de main.
The town contains many Quakers and salt fish--the oysters have a taste
of copper, owing to the soil of a mining country--the women (blessed
be the Corporation therefor!) are flogged at the cart's tail when they
pick and steal, as happened to one of the fair sex yesterday noon. She
was pertinacious in her behaviour, and damned the mayor.
This is all I know of Falmouth. Nothing occurred of note in our way
down, except that on Hartford Bridge we changed horses at an inn,
where the great----, Beckford, [2] sojourned for the night. We tried
in vain to see the martyr of prejudice, but could not. What we thought
singular, though you perhaps will not, was that Ld Courtney [3]
travelled the same night on the same road, only one stage _behind_ him.
Hodgson, remember me to the Drury, and remember me to yourself when
drunk. I am not worth a sober thought. Look to my satire at
Cawthorn's, Cockspur Street, and look to the 'Miscellany' of the
Hobhouse. It has pleased Providence to interfere in behalf of a
suffering public by giving him a sprained wrist, so that he cannot
write, and there is a cessation of ink-shed.
I don't know when I can write again, because it depends on that
experienced navigator, Captain Kidd, and the "stormy winds that
(don't) blow" at this season. I leave England without regret--I shall
return to it without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first convict
sentenced to transportation, but I have no Eve, and have eaten no
apple but what was sour as a crab;--and thus ends my first chapter.
Adieu. [4]
Yours, etc.
[Footnote 1: Henley, in one of his publications entitled 'Oratory
Transactions', engaged
"to execute singly what would sprain a dozen of modern doctors of the
tribe of Issachar--to write, read, and study twelve hours a day, and
yet appear as untouched by the yoke as if he never wore it--to teach
in one year what schools or universities teach in five;" and he
furthermore pledged himself to persevere in his bold scheme until he
had "put the church,--and all that--, in danger."
(Moore).]
[Footnote 2: William Beckford (1760-1844), son of Chatham's friend who
was twice Lord Mayor of London, at the age of eleven succeeded it is
said, to a million of ready money and a hundred thousand a year. Before
he was seventeen he wrote his 'Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary
Painters', designed as a satire on the 'Vies des Peintres Flamands',
('Memoirs of William Beckford', by Cyrus Redding, vol. i. p. 96.) His
travels (1777-82) in Switzerland, the Low Countries, and Italy are
described in his 'Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents, in a series of
letters from various parts of Europe', published anonymously in 1783,
and reprinted, with additions and omissions, in 1834 and 1840. In the
previous year he had written 'Vathek' in French, in "three days and two
nights," without, as he says, taking off his clothes; "the severe
application made me very ill." This statement, if made by Beckford, as
Redding implies, is untrue. Evidence exists to prove that 'Vathek' was a
careful and elaborate composition. The book was published with his name
in 1787; but a translation, made and printed without his leave, had
already (1784) appeared, and was often mistaken for the original. In
1783 he married Lady Margaret Gordon, with whom he lived in Switzerland
till her death in 1786. One of his two daughters--he had no son--became
Mrs. Orde, the other the Duchess of Hamilton. From 1787 to 1791, and
again from 1794 to 1796, he visited Portugal and Spain, and to this
period belong his 'Sketches of Spain and Portugal' (1834), and his
'Recollections of an Excursion to the 'Monasteries of Alobaca and
Batalha' (1835). Between his two visits to Portugal, on the last of
which he occupied the retreat at Cintra celebrated by Byron ('Childe
Harold', Canto I. stanzas xviii.-xxii.), he saw the destruction of the
Bastille, bought Gibbon's library at Lausanne (in 1796), and, shutting
himself up in it "for six weeks, from early in the morning until night,
only now and then taking "a ride," read himself "nearly blind" (Cyrus
Redding's "Recollections of the Author of Vathek," 'New Monthly
Magazine', vol. lxxi. p. 307). He also wrote two burlesque novels, to
ridicule, it is said, those written by his sister, Mrs. Henry: 'Azemia;
a Descriptive and Sentimental Novel. By Jacquetta Agneta Mariana Jenks
of Bellgrove Priory in Wales' (1796); and 'Modern Novel-Writing, or the
Elegant Enthusiast. By the Rt. Hon. Lady Harriet Marlow'(1797). He
represented Wells from 1784 to 1790, and Hindon from 1806 to 1820; but
took no part in political life. He was now settled at Fonthill
(1796-1822), absorbed in collecting books, pictures, and engravings,
laying out the grounds, indulging his architectural extravagances, and
shutting himself and his palace out from the world by a gigantic wall.
When Rogers visited him at Fonthill, and arrived at the gate, he was
told that neither his servant nor his horses could be admitted, but that
Mr. Beckford's attendants and horses would be at his service
('Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers', p. 217). Beckford
had been taught music by Mozart, and Rogers says ('ibid'.) that "in the
evening Beckford would amuse us by reading one of his unpublished works;
or he would extemporize on the pianoforte, producing the most novel and
charming melodies."
In 1822 his gigantic fortune had dwindled; he was in embarrassed
circumstances; Fonthill and most of its contents were sold, and Beckford
settled in Lansdowne Terrace, Bath, where he still collected books and
works of art, laid out the grounds, and built the tower on Lansdowne
Hill, which are now the property of the city. At Bath he died in 1844.
'Vathek' is a masterpiece, which, as an Eastern tale, is unrivalled in
European literature.
"For correctness of costume," says Byron, in one of his diaries,
"beauty of description, and power of imagination, it far surpasses all
European imitations; and bears such marks of originality, that those
who have visited the East will find some difficulty in believing it to
be a translation. As an Eastern tale, even 'Rasselas' must bow before
it: his 'Happy Valley' will not bear a comparison with the Hall of
Eblis."
Beckford's letters are, in their way, equally masterpieces, and, like
'Vathek', have the appearance of being struck off without labour.
Reprinted, as their writer says (Preface to the edition of 1840),
because "some justly admired Authors... condescended to glean a few
stray thoughts from these letters," they suggest, in some respects,
comparison with Byron's own work. There is the same prodigality of
power, the same simple nervous style, the same vein of melancholy, the
same cynical contempt for mankind. In both writers there is a passionate
feeling for the grander aspects of nature, though Beckford was also
thrilled, as Byron was not, by the beauties of art. In both there are
similar inconsistencies and incongruities of temperament, and the same
vein of reckless self-indulgence appears to run by the side of nobler
enthusiasms. In both there is a taste for Oriental magnificence, which,
in Beckford, was to some degree corrected by his artistic perceptions.
Both, finally, described not so much the objects they saw, as the
impression which those objects produced on themselves, and thus steeped
their pictures, clear and vivid though they are, in an atmosphere of
their own personality.]
[Footnote 3: William, third Viscount Courtenay, died unmarried in 1835,
and with him the viscountcy became extinct. In 1831 he proved before
Parliament his title to the earldom of Devon, which passed at his death
to a cousin, William, tenth Earl of Devon (1777-1859).]
[Footnote 4: In this letter the following verses were enclosed:--
"Falmouth Roads, June 30, 1809.
"Huzza! Hodgson, we are going,
Our embargo's off at last;
Favourable breezes blowing
Bend the canvass o'er the mast.
From aloft the signal's streaming,
Hark! the farewell gun is fired,
Women screeching, tars blaspheming,
Tell us that our time's expired.
Here's a rascal
Come to task all,
Prying from the Custom-house;
Trunks unpacking,
Cases cracking,
Not a corner for a mouse
'Scapes unsearch'd amid the racket,
Ere we sail on board the Packet.
Now our boatmen quit their mooring,
And all hands must ply the oar;
Baggage from the quay is lowering,
We're impatient--push from shore.
'Have a care! that case holds liquor--
Stop the boat--I'm sick--oh Lord!'
'Sick, ma'am, damme, you'll be sicker
Ere you've been an hour on board.'
Thus are screaming
Men and women,
Gemmen, ladies, servants, Jacks;
Here entangling,
All are wrangling,
Stuck together close as wax.
Such the general noise and racket,
Ere we reach the Lisbon Packet.
Now we've reach'd her, lo! the captain,
Gallant Kidd, commands the crew;
Passengers their berths are clapt in,
Some to grumble, some to spew.
'Hey day! call you that a cabin?
Why 'tis hardly three feet square;
Not enough to stow Queen Mab in--
Who the deuce can harbour there?'
'Who, sir? plenty--
Nobles twenty--
Did at once my vessel fill'--
'Did they? Jesus,
How you squeeze us!
Would to God they did so still:
Then I'd 'scape the heat and racket,
Of the good ship, Lisbon Packet.'
Fletcher! Murray! Bob! where are you?
Stretch'd along the deck like logs--
Bear a hand, you jolly tar you!
Here's a rope's end for the dogs.
Hobhouse muttering fearful curses,
As the hatchway down he rolls;
Now his breakfast, now his verses,
Vomits forth--and damns our souls.
'Here's a stanza
On Braganza--
Help!'--'A couplet?'--'No, a cup
Of warm water.'--
'What's the matter?'
'Zounds! my liver's coming up;
I shall not survive the racket
Of this brutal Lisbon Packet.'
Now at length we're off for Turkey,
Lord knows when we shall come back!
Breezes foul and tempests murky
May unship us in a crack.
But, since life at most a jest is,
As philosophers allow,
Still to laugh by far the best is,
Then laugh on--as I do now.
Laugh at all things,
Great and small things,
Sick or well, at sea or shore;
While we're quaffing,
Let's have laughing--
Who the devil cares for more?--
Some good wine! and who would lack it,
Ev'n on board the Lisbon Packet?
"BYRON."
126.--To Francis Hodgson.
Lisbon, July 16, 1809.
Thus far have we pursued our route, and seen all sorts of marvellous
sights, palaces, convents, etc.;--which, being to be heard in my
friend Hobhouse's forthcoming Book of Travels, I shall not anticipate
by smuggling any account whatsoever to you in a private and
clandestine manner. I must just observe, that the village of Cintra in
Estremadura is the most beautiful, perhaps, in the world.
I am very happy here, because I loves oranges, and talks bad Latin to
the monks, who understand it, as it is like their own,--and I goes
into society (with my pocket-pistols), and I swims in the Tagus all
across at once, and I rides on an ass or a mule, and swears
Portuguese, and have got a diarrhoea and bites from the mosquitoes.
But what of that? Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a
pleasuring.
When the Portuguese are pertinacious, I say 'Carracho!'--the great
oath of the grandees, that very well supplies the place of
"Damme,"--and, when dissatisfied with my neighbour, I pronounce him
'Ambra di merdo'. With these two phrases, and a third, 'Avra louro',
which signifieth "Get an ass," I am universally understood to be a
person of degree and a master of languages. How merrily we lives that
travellers be!--if we had food and raiment. But, in sober sadness, any
thing is better than England, and I am infinitely amused with my
pilgrimage as far as it has gone.
To-morrow we start to ride post near 400 miles as far as Gibraltar,
where we embark for Melita and Byzantium. A letter to Malta will find
me, or to be forwarded, if I am absent. Pray embrace the Drury and
Dwyer, and all the Ephesians you encounter. I am writing with Butler's
donative pencil, which makes my bad hand worse. Excuse illegibility.
Hodgson! send me the news, and the deaths and defeats and capital
crimes and the misfortunes of one's friends; and let us hear of
literary matters, and the controversies and the criticisms. All this
will be pleasant--'Suave mari magno', etc. Talking of that, I have
been sea-sick, and sick of the sea. Adieu.
Yours faithfully, etc.
127.--To Francis Hodgson.
Gibraltar, August 6, 1809.
I have just arrived at this place after a journey through Portugal,
and a part of Spain, of nearly 500 miles. We left Lisbon and travelled
on horseback to Seville and Cadiz, and thence in the 'Hyperion'
frigate to Gibraltar. The horses are excellent--we rode seventy miles
a day. Eggs and wine, and hard beds, are all the accommodation we
found, and, in such torrid weather, quite enough. My health is better
than in England.
Seville is a fine town, and the Sierra Morena, part of which we
crossed, a very sufficient mountain; but damn description, it is
always disgusting. Cadiz, sweet Cadiz! [1]--it is the first spot in
the creation. The beauty of its streets and mansions is only excelled
by the loveliness of its inhabitants. For, with all national
prejudice, I must confess the women of Cadiz are as far superior to
the English women in beauty as the Spaniards are inferior to the
English in every quality that dignifies the name of man. Just as I
began to know the principal persons of the city, I was obliged to
sail.
You will not expect a long letter after my riding so far "on hollow
pampered jades of Asia." Talking of Asia puts me in mind of Africa,
which is within five miles of my present residence. I am going over
before I go on to Constantinople.
Cadiz is a complete Cythera. Many of the grandees who have left Madrid
during the troubles reside there, and I do believe it is the prettiest
and cleanest town in Europe. London is filthy in the comparison. The
Spanish women are all alike, their education the same. The wife of a
duke is, in information, as the wife of a peasant,--the wife of
peasant, in manner, equal to a duchess. Certainly they are
fascinating; but their minds have only one idea, and the business of
their lives is intrigue.
I have seen Sir John Carr [2] at Seville and Cadiz, and, like Swift's
barber, have been down on my knees to beg he would not put me into
black and white [3]. Pray remember me [4] to the Drurys and the Davies,
and all of that stamp who are yet extant. Send me a letter and news to
Malta. My next epistle shall be from Mount Caucasus or Mount Sion. I
shall return to Spain before I see England, for I am enamoured of the
country. Adieu, and believe me, etc.
[Footnote 1: In 'Childe Harold' (Canto I., after stanza lxxxiv.),
instead of the song "To Inez," Byron originally wrote the song beginning
"Oh never talk again to me
Of northern climes and British ladies,
It has not been your lot to see,
Like me, the lovely girl of Cadiz."]
[Footnote 2: Sir John Carr (1772-1832), a native of Devonshire, and a
barrister of the Middle Temple, was knighted by the Duke of Bedford as
Viceroy of Ireland about 1807. He published 'The Fury of Discord, a
Poem' (1803); 'The Sea-side Hero, a Drama in 3 Acts' (1804); and
'Poems'(1809). But he is best known by his travels, which gained him the
nickname of "Jaunting Carr," and considerable profit. 'The Stranger in
France' (1803) was bought by Johnson for £100. 'A Northern Summer, or
Travels round the Baltic, etc._(1805), 'The Stranger in Ireland'
(1806), and 'A Tour through Holland_(1807), were bought for £500,
£700, and £600 respectively by Sir Richard Phillips, who, but for the
ridicule cast upon Carr by Edward Dubois (in 'My Pocket Book; or Hints
for a Ryhte Merrie and Conceited Tour in Quarto, to be called "The
Stranger in Ireland in 1805," by a Knight Errant'), would have given
£600 for his 'Caledonian Sketches' (1808). In spite, however, of this
proof of damages, the jury found, in Carr's action against Messrs. Hood
and Sharpe, the publishers of 'My Pocket Book', that the criticism was
fair and justifiable (1808). Carr published, in 1811, his 'Descriptive
Travels in the Southern and Eastern Parts of Spain', without mentioning
Byron's name. Byron concluded his MS. of 'Childe Harold', Canto I. with
three stanzas on "Green Erin's Knight and Europe's Wandering Star" (see,
for the lines, 'Childe Harold', at the end of Canto I.). In letter vii.
of 'Intercepted Letters; or the Twopenny Post-bag', by Thomas Brown the
Younger (1813), occur the following lines:--
"Since the Chevalier C--rr took to marrying lately,
The Trade is in want of a 'Traveller' greatly--
No job, Sir, more easy--your 'Country' once plann'd,
A month aboard ship and a fortnight on land
Puts your Quarto of Travels, Sir, clean out of hand."]
[Footnote 3:
"Once stopping at an inn at Dundalk, the Dean was so much amused with
a prating barber, that rather than be alone he invited him to dinner.
The fellow was rejoiced at this unexpected honour, and being dressed
out in his best apparel came to the inn, first inquiring of the groom
what the clergyman's name was who had so kindly invited him. 'What the
vengeance!' said the servant,' don't you know Dean Swift?' At which
the barber turned pale, and, running into the house, fell upon his
knees and intreated the Dean 'not to put him into print; for that he
was a poor barber, had a large family to maintain, and if his
reverence put him into black and white he should lose all his
customers.' Swift laughed heartily at the poor fellow's simplicity,
bade him sit down and eat his dinner in peace, for he assured him he
would neither put him nor his wife in print."
Sheridan's 'Life of Swift'.--(Moore).]
[Footnote 4:
"This sort of passage," says the Rev. Francis Hodgson, in a note on
his copy of this letter, "constantly occurs in his correspondence. Nor
was his interest confined to mere remembrances and inquiries after
health. Were it possible to state 'all' he has done for numerous
friends, he would appear amiable indeed. For myself, I am bound to
acknowledge, in the fullest and warmest manner, his most generous and
well-timed aid; and, were my poor friend Bland alive, he would as
gladly bear the like testimony;--though I have most reason, of all
men, to do so."
(Moore).]
128.--To his Mother.
Gibraltar, August 11th, 1809.
Dear Mother,-I have been so much occupied since my departure from
England, that till I could address you at length I have forborne
writing altogether. As I have now passed through Portugal, and a
considerable part of Spain, and have leisure at this place, I shall
endeavour to give you a short detail of my movements.
We sailed from Falmouth on the 2nd of July, reached Lisbon after a
very favourable passage of four days and a half, and took up our abode
in that city. It has been often described without being worthy of
description; for, except the view from the Tagus, which is beautiful,
and some fine churches and convents, it contains little but filthy
streets, and more filthy inhabitants. To make amends for this, the
village of Cintra, about fifteen miles from the capital, is, perhaps
in every respect, the most delightful in Europe; it contains beauties
of every description, natural and artificial. Palaces and gardens
rising in the midst of rocks, cataracts, and precipices; convents on
stupendous heights--a distant view of the sea and the Tagus; and,
besides (though that is a secondary consideration), is remarkable as
the scene of Sir Hew Dalrymple's Convention.[1] It unites in itself
all the wildness of the western highlands, with the verdure of the
south of France. Near this place, about ten miles to the right, is the
palace of Mafra, the boast of Portugal, as it might be of any other
country, in point of magnificence without elegance. There is a convent
annexed; the monks, who possess large revenues, are courteous enough,
and understand Latin, so that we had a long conversation: they have a
large library, and asked me if the _English_ had _any books_ in their
country?
I sent my baggage, and part of the servants, by sea to Gibraltar, and
travelled on horseback from Aldea Galbega (the first stage from
Lisbon, which is only accessible by water) to Seville (one of the most
famous cities in Spain), where the Government called the Junta is now
held. The distance to Seville is nearly four hundred miles, and to
Cadiz almost ninety farther towards the coast. I had orders from the
governments, and every possible accommodation on the road, as an
English nobleman, in an English uniform, is a very respectable
personage in Spain at present. The horses are remarkably good, and the
roads (I assure you upon my honour, for you will hardly believe it)
very far superior to the best English roads, without the smallest toll
or turnpike. You will suppose this when I rode post to Seville, in
four days, through this parching country in the midst of summer,
without fatigue or annoyance.
Seville is a beautiful town; though the streets are narrow, they are
clean. We lodged in the house of two Spanish unmarried ladies, who
possess _six_ houses in Seville, and gave me a curious specimen of
Spanish manners. They are women of character, and the eldest a fine
woman, the youngest pretty, but not so good a figure as Donna Josepha.
The freedom of manner, which is general here, astonished me not a
little; and in the course of further observation, I find that reserve
is not the characteristic of the Spanish belles, who are, in general,
very handsome, with large black eyes, and very fine forms. The eldest
honoured your _unworthy_ son with very particular attention, embracing
him with great tenderness at parting (I was there but three days),
after cutting off a lock of his hair, and presenting him with one of
her own, about three feet in length, which I send, and beg you will
retain till my return. Her last words were, _Adios, tu hermoso! me
gusto mucho_--"Adieu, you pretty fellow! you please me much." She
offered me a share of her apartment, which my _virtue_ induced me to
decline; she laughed, and said I had some English _amante_ (lover),
and added that she was going to be married to an officer in the
Spanish army.
I left Seville, and rode on to Cadiz, through a beautiful country. At
_Xeres_, where the sherry we drink is made, I met a great merchant--a
Mr. Gordon of Scotland--who was extremely polite, and favoured me with
the inspection of his vaults and cellars, so that I quaffed at the
fountain head.
Cadiz, sweet Cadiz, is the most delightful town I ever beheld, very
different from our English cities in every respect except cleanliness
(and it is as clean as London), but still beautiful, and full of the
finest women in Spain, the Cadiz belles being the Lancashire witches
of their land. Just as I was introduced and began to like the
grandees, I was forced to leave it for this cursed place; but before I
return to England I will visit it again. The night before I left it, I
sat in the box at the opera with Admiral Cordova's family; [2] he is
the commander whom Lord St. Vincent defeated in 1797, and has an aged
wife and a fine daughter, Sennorita Cordova. The girl is very pretty,
in the Spanish style; in my opinion, by no means inferior to the
English in charms, and certainly superior in fascination. Long black
hair, dark languishing eyes, _clear_ olive complexions, and forms more
graceful in motion than can be conceived by an Englishman used to the
drowsy, listless air of his countrywomen, added to the most becoming
dress, and, at the same time, the most decent in the world, render a
Spanish beauty irresistible.
I beg leave to observe that intrigue here is the business of life;
when a woman marries she throws off all restraint, but I believe their
conduct is chaste enough before. If you make a proposal, which in
England will bring a box on the ear from the meekest of virgins, to a
Spanish girl, she thanks you for the honour you intend her, and
replies, "Wait till I am married, and I shall be too happy." This is
literally and strictly true.
Miss Cordova and her little brother understood a little French, and,
after regretting my ignorance of the Spanish, she proposed to become
my preceptress in that language. I could only reply by a low bow, and
express my regret that I quitted Cadiz too soon to permit me to make
the progress which would doubtless attend my studies under so charming
a directress. I was standing at the back of the box, which resembles
our Opera boxes, (the theatre is large and finely decorated, the music
admirable,) in the manner which Englishmen generally adopt, for fear
of incommoding the ladies in front, when this fair Spaniard
dispossessed an old woman (an aunt or a duenna) of her chair, and
commanded me to be seated next herself, at a tolerable distance from
her mamma. At the close of the performance I withdrew, and was
lounging with a party of men in the passage, when, _en passant,_ the
lady turned round and called me, and I had the honour of attending her
to the admiral's mansion. I have an invitation on my return to Cadiz,
which I shall accept if I repass through the country on my return from
Asia. [3]
I have met Sir John Carr, Knight Errant, at Seville and Cadiz. He is a
pleasant man. I like the Spaniards much. You have heard of the battle
near Madrid, [4] and in England they would call it a victory--a pretty
victory! Two hundred officers and five thousand men killed, all
English, and the French in as great force as ever. I should have
joined the army, but we have no time to lose before we get up the
Mediterranean and Archipelago. I am going over to Africa tomorrow; it
is only six miles from this fortress. My next stage is Cagliari in
Sardinia, where I shall be presented to His Majesty. I have a most
superb uniform as a court dress, indispensable in travelling.
_August 13._--I have not yet been to Africa--the wind is contrary--but
I dined yesterday at Algesiras, with Lady Westmorland, [5] where I met
General Castanos, the celebrated Spanish leader in the late and
present war. To-day I dine with him. He has offered me letters to
Tetuan in Barbary, for the principal Moors, and I am to have the house
for a few days of one of the great men, which was intended for Lady
W., whose health will not permit her to cross the Straits.
_August 15_.--I could not dine with Castanos [6] yesterday, but this
afternoon I had that honour. He is pleasant and, for aught I know to
the contrary, clever. I cannot go to Barbary. The Malta packet sails
to-morrow, and myself in it. Admiral Purvis, with whom I dined at
Cadiz, gave me a passage in a frigate to Gibraltar, but we have no
ship of war destined for Malta at present. The packets sail fast, and
have good accommodation. You shall hear from me on our route.
Joe Murray delivers this; I have sent him and the boy back. Pray show
the lad kindness, as he is my great favourite; I would have taken him
on. And say this to his father, who may otherwise think he has behaved
ill. I hope this will find you well. Believe me,
Yours ever sincerely,
BYRON.
P.S.--So Lord G----[7] is married to a rustic. Well done! If I wed, I
will bring home a Sultana, with half a dozen cities for a dowry, and
reconcile you to an Ottoman daughter-in-law, with a bushel of pearls
not larger than ostrich eggs, or smaller than walnuts.
[Footnote 1: Sir Hew Whitefoord Dalrymple (1750-1830) took command of
the British forces in the Peninsular War, August 22, 1808, and signed
the Convention of Cintra (August 31), by which Junot, whom Sir Arthur
Wellesley had defeated at Vimeira, evacuated Portugal, and surrendered
Elvas and Lisbon. The Convention was approved by a court of general
officers ordered to sit at Chelsea Hospital; but Dalrymple never again
obtained a command.
The so-called Convention of Cintra was signed at the palace of the
Marquis de Marialva, thirty miles distant.]
[Footnote 2: Admiral Cordova commanded the Spanish Fleet, defeated,
February 14, 1797, off Cape St. Vincent, by Sir John Jervis, afterwards
Earl St. Vincent.]
[Footnote 3: To these adventures in his hasty passage through Spain
Byron briefly alludes in the early part of his _Memoranda._
"For some time," he said, "I went on prosperously both as a linguist
and a lover, till at length the lady took a fancy to a ring which I
wore, and set her heart on my giving it to her, as a pledge of my
sincerity. This, however, could not be:--any thing but the ring, I
declared, was at her service, and much more than its value,--but the
ring itself I had made a vow never to give away." The young Spaniard
grew angry as the contention went on, and it was not long before the
lover became angry also; till, at length, the affair ended by their
separating. "Soon after this," said he, "I sailed for Malta, and there
parted with both my heart and ring."
('Life', p.93). He also alludes to the incident in 'Don Juan', Canto II,
stanza clxiv.--
"'Tis pleasing to be school'd in a strange tongue
By female lips and eyes--that is, I mean,
When both the teacher and the taught are young,
As was the case, at least, where I have been,"
etc.]
[Footnote 4: The battle of Talavera, July 27 and 28, 1809, in which Sir
Arthur Wellesley defeated Marshal Victor. In Cuesta's despatch to the
Spanish Government, dated Seville, August 7, the British loss is
mentioned as 260 officers and 5000 men.]
[Footnote 5: Lady Westmorland, _nee_ Jane Saunders, daughter of Dr. R.
H. Saunders, married, in 1800, as his second wife, John, tenth Earl of
Westmorland (1759-1841). At her house Lady Caroline Lamb refused to be
introduced to Byron (_Life of Lord Melbourne,_ vol. i. p.103).
[Footnote 6: General Francisco de Castanos, Duke of Baylen (1758-1852)
defeated General Dupont at Baylen in 1808, and distinguished himself at
Vittoria in 1813. He was guardian to Queen Isabella in 1843.]
[Footnote 7: Lord Grey de Ruthyn. (See page 23 [Letter 8], [Foot]note 1.)]
129.--To Mr. Rushton.
Gibraltar, August 15, 1809.
Mr. Rushton,--I have sent Robert home with Mr. Murray, because the
country which I am about to travel through is in a state which renders
it unsafe, particularly for one so young. I allow you to deduct
five-and-twenty pounds a year for his education for three years,
provided I do not return before that time, and I desire he may be
considered as in my service. Let every care be taken of him, and let
him be sent to school. In case of my death I have provided enough in
my will to render him independent. He has behaved extremely well, and
has travelled a great deal for the time of his absence. Deduct the
expense of his education from your rent.
BYRON.
130.--To his Mother.
Malta, September 15, 1809.
Dear Mother,--Though I have a very short time to spare, being to sail
immediately for Greece, I cannot avoid taking an opportunity of
telling you that I am well. I have been in Malta [1] a short time, and
have found the inhabitants hospitable and pleasant.
This letter is committed to the charge of a very extraordinary woman,
whom you have doubtless heard of, Mrs. Spencer Smith, of whose escape
the Marquis de Salvo published a narrative a few years ago. [2] She
has since been shipwrecked, and her life has been from its
commencement so fertile in remarkable incidents, that in a romance
they would appear improbable. She was born at Constantinople, where
her father, Baron Herbert, was Austrian Ambassador; married unhappily,
yet has never been impeached in point of character; excited the
vengeance of Buonaparte by a part in some conspiracy; several times
risked her life; and is not yet twenty-five. She is here on her way to
England, to join her husband, being obliged to leave Trieste, where
she was paying a visit to her mother, by the approach of the French,
and embarks soon in a ship of war. Since my arrival here, I have had
scarcely any other companion. I have found her very pretty, very
accomplished, and extremely eccentric. Buonaparte is even now so
incensed against her, that her life would be in some danger if she
were taken prisoner a second time.
You have seen Murray and Robert by this time, and received my letter.
Little has happened since that date. I have touched at Cagliari in
Sardinia, and at Girgenti in Sicily, and embark to-morrow for Patras,
from whence I proceed to Yanina, where Ali Pacha holds his court. So I
shall soon be among the Mussulmans. Adieu. Believe me, with sincerity,
yours ever,
BYRON.
[Footnote 1: At Gibraltar, John Galt, who was travelling for his health,
met Byron, whom he did not know by sight, but by whose appearance he was
attracted.
"His dress indicated a Londoner of some fashion, partly by its
neatness and simplicity, with just so much of a peculiarity of style
as served to show that, although he belonged to the order of
metropolitan beaux, he was not altogether a common one ... His
physiognomy was prepossessing and intelligent, but ever and anon his
brows lowered and gathered--a habit, as I then thought, with a degree
of affectation in it, probably first assumed for picturesque effect
and energetic expression, but which I afterwards discovered was
undoubtedly the scowl of some unpleasant reminiscence; it was
certainly disagreeable, forbidding, but still the general cast of his
features was impressed with elegance and character."
Afterwards Galt was a fellow-passenger on board the packet from
Gibraltar to Malta.
"In the little bustle and process of embarking their luggage, his
Lordship affected, as it seemed to me, more aristocracy than befitted
his years, or the occasion; and then I thought of his singular scowl,
and suspected him of pride and irascibility. The impression that
evening was not agreeable, but it was interesting; and that forehead
mark, the frown, was calculated to awaken curiosity, and beget
conjectures ... Byron held himself aloof, and sat on the rail, leaning
on the mizzen shrouds, inhaling, as it were, poetical sympathy from
the gloomy rock, then dark and stern in the twilight. There was, in
all about him that evening, much waywardness. He spoke petulantly to
Fletcher, his valet, and was evidently ill at ease with himself, and
fretful towards others. I thought he would turn out an unsatisfactory
shipmate; yet there was something redeeming in the tones of his voice,
and when, some time after having indulged his sullen meditation he
again addressed Fletcher; so that, instead of finding him ill-natured,
I was soon convinced he was only capricious."
On the voyage,
"about the third day, Byron relented from his rapt mood, as if he felt
it was out of place, and became playful, and disposed to contribute
his fair proportion to the general endeavour to while away the
tediousness of the dull voyage."
But yet throughout the whole passage,
"if," says Galt, "my remembrance is not treacherous, he only spent one
evening in the cabin with us--the evening before we came to anchor at
Cagliari; for, when the lights were placed, he made himself a man
forbid, took his station on the railing, between the pegs on which the
sheets are belayed and the shrouds, and there, for hours, sat in
silence, enamoured, it may be, of the moon. All these peculiarities,
with his caprices, and something inexplicable in the cast of his
metaphysics, while they served to awaken interest, contributed little
to conciliate esteem. He was often strangely rapt--it may have been
from his genius; and, had its grandeur and darkness been then
divulged, susceptible of explanation; but, at the time, it threw, as
it were, around him the sackcloth of penitence. Sitting amid the
shrouds and rattlings, in the tranquillity of the moonlight, churning
an inarticulate melody, he seemed almost apparitional, suggesting dim
reminiscences of him who shot the albatross"
(Galt's 'Life of Byron', pp. 57-61).]
[Footnote 2: Byron's "new Calypso." Mrs. Spencer Smith (born about 1785)
was the daughter of Baron Herbert, Austrian Ambassador at
Constantinople, wife of Spencer Smith, the British Minister at
Stuttgart, and sister-in-law of Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of Acre. In
1805 she was staying, for her health, at the baths of Valdagno, near
Vicenza, when the Napoleonic wars overspread Northern Italy, and she
took refuge with her sister, the Countess Attems, at Venice. In 1806
General Lauriston took over the government of the city in the name of
Napoleon, and M. de La Garde was appointed Prefect of the Police. A few
days after their arrival, on April 18, Mrs. Smith was arrested, and,
guarded by 'gendarmes', conveyed towards the Italian frontier, to be
confined, as La Garde told a Sicilian nobleman, the Marquis de Salvo, at
Valenciennes. Mrs. Smith's beauty and impending fate deeply impressed
the marquis, who determined to rescue her. The prisoner and her guard
had reached Brescia, and were lodged at the 'Albergo delle due Torre',
The opportunity seemed favourable. Once across the Guarda Lake, and in
the passes of Tyrol, it would be easy to reach Styria. The marquis made
his arrangements--hired two boats, one for the fugitives, the other for
their post-chaise and horses; procured for Mrs. Smith a boy's dress, as
a disguise; made a ladder long enough to reach her window in the inn,
and succeeded in making known his plan to the prisoner. The escape was
effected; but all along the road the danger continued, for their way lay
through a country which was practically French territory. It was not
till they reached Gratz, and Mrs. Smith was under the roof of her
sister, the Countess Strassoldo, that she was safe. The story is told in
detail by the Marquis de Salvo, in his 'Travels in the Year 1806 from
Italy to England' (1807), and by the Duchesse d'Abrantes ('Memoires,'
vol. xv. pp. 1-74).
To Mrs. Spencer Smith are addressed the "Lines to Florence," the
"Stanzas composed during a Thunderstorm" (near Zitza, in October, 1809),
and stanzas xxx.-xxxii. of the second canto of 'Childe Harold.' The
Duchesse d'Abrantés ('Mémoires', vol. xv. pp. 4, 5) thus describes her:
"Une jeune femme, dont la délicate et elégante tournure, la peau
blanche et diaphane, les cheveux blonds, les mouvemens onduleux, toute
une tournure impossible à décrire autrement qu'en disant qu'elle était
de toutes les créatures la plus gracieuse, lui donnaient l'aspect
d'une de ces apparitions amenées par un rêve heureux... il y avail de
la Sylphide en elle. Sa vue excessivement basse n'etait qu'un charme
de plus."
Moore ('Life,' p. 95) thinks that Byron was less in love with Mrs.
Smith than with his recollection of her. According to Gait ('Life of
Byron,' p. 66),
"he affected a passion for her, but it was only Platonic. She,
however, beguiled him of his valuable yellow diamond ring."]
131.--To his Mother.
Prevesa, November 12, 1809.
My Dear Mother,--I have now been some time in Turkey: this place is on
the coast, but I have traversed the interior of the province of
Albania on a visit to the Pacha. I left Malta in the _Spider,_ a brig
of war, on the 21st of September, and arrived in eight days at
Prevesa. I thence have been about 150 miles, as far as Tepaleen, his
Highness's country palace, where I stayed three days. The name of the
Pacha is _Ali_ [1] and he is considered a man of the first abilities:
he governs the whole of Albania (the ancient Illyricum), Epirus, and
part of Macedonia. His son, Vely Pacha, [2] to whom he has given me
letters, governs the Morea, and has great influence in Egypt; in
short, he is one of the most powerful men in the Ottoman empire. When
I reached Yanina, the capital, after a journey of three days over the
mountains, through a country of the most picturesque beauty, I found
that Ali Pacha was with his army in Illyricum, besieging Ibrahim Pacha
in the castle of Berat. He had heard that an Englishman of rank was in
his dominions, and had left orders in Yanina with the commandant to
provide a house, and supply me with every kind of necessary _gratis_;
and, though I have been allowed to make presents to the slaves, etc.,
I have not been permitted to pay for a single article of household
consumption.
I rode out on the vizier's horses, and saw the palaces of himself and
grandsons: they are splendid, but too much ornamented with silk and
gold. I then went over the mountains through Zitza, [3] a village with
a Greek monastery (where I slept on my return), in the most beautiful
situation (always excepting Cintra, in Portugal) I ever beheld. In
nine days I reached Tepaleen. Our journey was much prolonged by the
torrents that had fallen from the mountains, and intersected the
roads. I shall never forget the singular scene on entering Tepaleen at
five in the afternoon, as the sun was going down. It brought to my
mind (with some change of _dress_, however) Scott's description of
Branksome Castle in his _Lay_, and the feudal system. [4] The
Albanians, in their dresses, (the most magnificent in the world,
consisting of a long _white kilt_, gold-worked cloak, crimson velvet
gold-laced jacket and waistcoat, silver-mounted pistols and daggers,)
the Tartars with their high caps, the Turks in their vast pelisses and
turbans, the soldiers and black slaves with the horses, the former in
groups in an immense large open gallery in front of the palace, the
latter placed in a kind of cloister below it, two hundred steeds ready
caparisoned to move in a moment, couriers entering or passing out with
the despatches, the kettle-drums beating, boys calling the hour from
the minaret of the mosque, altogether, with the singular appearance of
the building itself, formed a new and delightful spectacle to a
stranger. I was conducted to a very handsome apartment, and my health
inquired after by the vizier's secretary, 'à-la-mode Turque'!
The next day I was introduced to Ali Pacha. I was dressed in a full
suit of staff uniform, with a very magnificent sabre, etc. The vizier
received me in a large room paved with marble; a fountain was playing
in the centre; the apartment was surrounded by scarlet ottomans. He
received me standing, a wonderful compliment from a Mussulman, and
made me sit down on his right hand. I have a Greek interpreter for
general use, but a physician of Ali's named Femlario, who understands
Latin, acted for me on this occasion. His first question was, why, at
so early an age, I left my country?--(the Turks have no idea of
travelling for amusement). He then said, the English minister, Captain
Leake, [5] had told him I was of a great family, and desired his
respects to my mother; which I now, in the name of Ali Pacha, present
to you. He said he was certain I was a man of birth, because I had
small ears, curling hair, and little white hands, and expressed
himself pleased with my appearance and garb. He told me to consider
him as a father whilst I was in Turkey, and said he looked on me as
his son. Indeed, he treated me like a child, sending me almonds and
sugared sherbet, fruit and sweetmeats, twenty times a day. He begged
me to visit him often, and at night, when he was at leisure. I then,
after coffee and pipes, retired for the first time. I saw him thrice
afterwards. It is singular that the Turks, who have no hereditary
dignities, and few great families, except the Sultans, pay so much
respect to birth; for I found my pedigree more regarded than my title.
To-day I saw the remains of the town of Actium, [6] near which Antony
lost the world, in a small bay, where two frigates could hardly
manoeuvre: a broken wall is the sole remnant. On another part of the
gulf stand the ruins of Nicopolis, built by Augustus in honour of his
victory. Last night I was at a Greek marriage; but this and a thousand
things more I have neither time nor _space_ to describe.
His highness is sixty years old, very fat, and not tall, but with a
fine face, light blue eyes, and a white beard; his manner is very
kind, and at the same time he possesses that dignity which I find
universal amongst the Turks. He has the appearance of anything but his
real character, for he is a remorseless tyrant, guilty of the most
horrible cruelties, very brave, and so good a general that they call
him the Mahometan Buonaparte. Napoleon has twice offered to make him
King of Epirus, but he prefers the English interest, and abhors the
French, as he himself told me. He is of so much consequence, that he
is much courted by both, the Albanians being the most warlike subjects
of the Sultan, though Ali is only nominally dependent on the Porte; he
has been a mighty warrior, but is as barbarous as he is successful,
roasting rebels, etc., etc. Buonaparte sent him a snuff-box with his
picture. He said the snuff-box was very well, but the picture he could
excuse, as he neither liked it nor the original. His ideas of judging
of a man's birth from ears, hands, etc., were curious enough. To me he
was, indeed, a father, giving me letters, guards, and every possible
accommodation. Our next conversations were of war and travelling,
politics and England. He called my Albanian soldier, who attends me,
and told him to protect me at all hazard; his name is Viseillie, and,
like all the Albanians, he is brave, rigidly honest, and faithful; but
they are cruel, though not treacherous, and have several vices but no
meannesses. They are, perhaps, the most beautiful race, in point of
countenance, in the world; their women are sometimes handsome also,
but they are treated like slaves, _beaten_, and, in short, complete
beasts of burden; they plough, dig, and sow. I found them carrying
wood, and actually repairing the highways. The men are all soldiers,
and war and the chase their sole occupations. The women are the
labourers, which after all is no great hardship in so delightful a
climate. Yesterday, the 11th of November, I bathed in the sea; to-day
is so hot that I am writing in a shady room of the English consul's,
with three doors wide open, no fire, or even _fireplace_, in the
house, except for culinary purposes.
I am going to-morrow, with a guard of fifty men, to Patras in the
Morea, and thence to Athens, where I shall winter. [7] Two days ago I
was nearly lost in a Turkish ship of war, owing to the ignorance of
the captain and crew, though the storm was not violent. Fletcher
yelled after his wife, the Greeks called on all the saints, the
Mussulmans on Alla; the captain burst into tears and ran below deck,
telling us to call on God; the sails were split, the main-yard
shivered, the wind blowing fresh, the night setting in, and all our
chance was to make Corfu, which is in possession of the French, or (as
Fletcher pathetically termed it) "a watery grave." I did what I could
to console Fletcher, but finding him incorrigible, wrapped myself up
in my Albanian capote (an immense cloak), and lay down on deck to wait
the worst. I have learnt to philosophise in my travels; and if I had
not, complaint was useless. Luckily the wind abated, and only drove us
on the coast of Suli, on the main land, where we landed, and
proceeded, by the help of the natives, to Prevesa again; but I shall
not trust Turkish sailors in future, though the Pacha had ordered one
of his own galliots to take me to Patras. I am therefore going as far
as Missolonghi by land, and there have only to cross a small gulf to
get to Patras.
Fletcher's next epistle will be full of marvels. We were one night
lost for nine hours in the mountains in a thunder-storm, and since
nearly wrecked. In both cases Fletcher was sorely bewildered, from
apprehensions of famine and banditti in the first, and drowning in the
second instance. His eyes were a little hurt by the lightning, or
crying (I don't know which), but are now recovered. When you write,
address to me at Mr. Strané's, English consul, Patras, Morea.
I could tell you I know not how many incidents that I think would
amuse you, but they crowd on my mind as much as they would swell my
paper, and I can neither arrange them in the one, nor put them down on
the other, except in the greatest confusion. I like the Albanians
much; they are not all Turks; some tribes are Christians. But their
religion makes little difference in their manner or conduct. They are
esteemed the best troops in the Turkish service. I lived on my route,
two days at once, and three days again, in a barrack at Salora, and
never found soldiers so tolerable, though I have been in the garrisons
of Gibraltar and Malta, and seen Spanish, French, Sicilian, and
British troops in abundance. I have had nothing stolen, and was always
welcome to their provision and milk. Not a week ago an Albanian chief,
(every village has its chief, who is called Primate,) after helping us
out of the Turkish galley in her distress, feeding us, and lodging my
suite, consisting of Fletcher, a Greek, two Athenians, a Greek priest,
and my companion, Mr. Hobhouse, refused any compensation but a written
paper stating that I was well received; and when I pressed him to
accept a few sequins, "No," he replied; "I wish you to love me, not to
pay me." These are his words.
It is astonishing how far money goes in this country. While I was in
the capital I had nothing to pay by the vizier's order; but since,
though I have generally had sixteen horses, and generally six or seven
men, the expense has not been _half_ as much as staying only three
weeks in Malta, though Sir A. Ball, [8] the governor, gave me a house
for nothing, and I had only _one servant_. By the by, I expect Hanson
to remit regularly; for I am not about to stay in this province for
ever. Let him write to me at Mr. Strané's, English consul, Patras. The
fact is, the fertility of the plains is wonderful, and specie is
scarce, which makes this remarkable cheapness. I am going to Athens,
to study modern Greek, which differs much from the ancient, though
radically similar. I have no desire to return to England, nor shall I,
unless compelled by absolute want, and Hanson's neglect; but I shall
not enter into Asia for a year or two, as I have much to see in
Greece, and I may perhaps cross into Africa, at least the Egyptian
part. Fletcher, like all Englishmen, is very much dissatisfied, though
a little reconciled to the Turks by a present of eighty piastres from
the vizier, which, if you consider every thing, and the value of
specie here, is nearly worth ten guineas English. He has suffered
nothing but from cold, heat, and vermin, which those who lie in
cottages and cross mountains in a cold country must undergo, and of
which I have equally partaken with himself; but he is not valiant, and
is afraid of robbers and tempests. I have no one to be remembered to
in England, and wish to hear nothing from it, but that you are well,
and a letter or two on business from Hanson, whom you may tell to
write. I will write when I can, and beg you to believe me,
Your affectionate son,
BYRON.
P.S.--I have some very "magnifiques" Albanian dresses, the only
expensive articles in this country. They cost fifty guineas each, and
have so much gold, they would cost in England two hundred. I have been
introduced to Hussein Bey, [9] and Mahmout Pacha, [9] both little
boys, grandchildren of Ali, at Yanina; they are totally unlike our
lads, have painted complexions like rouged dowagers, large black eyes,
and features perfectly regular. They are the prettiest little animals
I ever saw, and are broken into the court ceremonies already. The
Turkish salute is a slight inclination of the head, with the hand on
the heart; intimates always kiss. Mahmout is ten years old, and hopes
to see me again; we are friends without understanding each other, like
many other folks, though from a different cause. He has given me a
letter to his father in the Morea, to whom I have also letters from
Ali Pacha.
[Footnote 1: Ali Pasha (1741-1822) was born in Albania, at Tepeleni, a
town 75 miles north of Janina, of which his father was governor. This
"Mahometan Buonaparte," or "Rob Roy of Albania," made himself the
supreme ruler of Epirus and Albania, acquired a predominance over the
Agas of Thessaly, and pushed his troops to the frontiers of ancient
Attica (see Raumer's 'Historisches Taschenbuch,' pp. 87-175). A
merciless and unscrupulous tyrant, he was also a fine soldier and a born
administrator. Intriguing now with the Porte, now with Buonaparte, now
with the English, using the rival despots of the country against each
other, hand in glove with the brigands while commanding the police for
their suppression, he extended his power by using conflicting interests
to aggrandize himself. The Venetian possessions on the eastern shores of
the Adriatic, which had passed in 1797 to France, by the treaty of Campo
Formio, were wrested from the French by Ali, who defeated General La
Salsette (1798) in the plains of Nicopolis, and, with the exception of
Parga, seized and held the principal towns in the name of the Sultan.
Byron speaks of his "aged venerable face" in 'Childe Harold' (Canto II.
stanza lxii.; see also stanza xlvii.), and of the delicacy of his hand
in 'Don Juan' (Canto IV. stanza xlv.), and finds in his treatment of
"Giaffir, Pacha of Argyro Castro or Scutari (I am not sure which)," the
material for stanzas xiv., xv. of Canto II. of 'The Bride of Abydos'.
Hobhouse ('Journey through Albania', edit. 1854, vol. i. pp. 96, 97)
describes Ali as
"a short man, about five feet five inches in height, and very fat,
though not particularly corpulent. He had a very pleasing face, fair
and round, with blue quick eyes, not at all settled into a Turkish
gravity. His beard was long and white, and such a one as any other
Turk would have been proud of; though he, who was more taken up with
his guests than himself, did not continue looking at it, nor smelling
and stroking it, as is usually the custom of his country-men, to fill
up the pauses of conversation."
Dr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Holland, in his 'Travels in the Ionian Isles,
Albania, Thessaly, and Greece in 1812-13', pp. 125, 126 (1815), gives an
account of his first interview with Ali:
"Were I to attempt a description of Ali, I should speak of his face as
large and full; the forehead remarkably broad and open, and traced by
many deep furrows; the eye penetrating, yet not expressive of
ferocity; the nose handsome and well formed; the mouth and lower part
of the face concealed, except when speaking, by his mustachios and the
long beard which flows over his breast. His complexion is somewhat
lighter than that usual among the Turks, and his general appearance
does not indicate more than his actual age ... The neck is short and
thick, the figure corpulent and unwieldy; his stature I had afterwards
the means of ascertaining to be about five feet nine inches. The
general character and expression of the countenance are unquestionably
fine, and the forehead especially is a striking and majestic feature.
Much of the talent of the man may be inferred from his exterior; the
moral qualities, however, may not equally be determined in this way;
and to the casual observation of the stranger I can conceive from my
own experience, that nothing may appear but what is open, placid, and
alluring. Opportunities were afterwards afforded me of looking beneath
this exterior of expression; it is the fire of a stove burning
fiercely under a smooth and polished surface.... The inquiries he made
respecting our journey to Joannina, gave us the opportunity of
complimenting him on the excellent police of his dominions, and the
attention he has paid to his roads. I mentioned to him generally Lord
Byron's poetical description of Albania, the interest it had excited
in England, and Mr. Hobhouse's intended publication of his travels in
the same country. He seemed pleased with these circumstances, and
stated his recollection of Lord Byron."
Dr. Holland brought back to England a letter to Byron from Ali (see
Letter to Moore, September 8, 1813).
A further account of Ali, together with a portrait, will be found in
Hughes's 'Travels in Sicily, etc.' (pp. 446-449). He again (1813) "asked
with much apparent interest respecting Lord Byron." At the close of the
Napoleonic struggle, the interest of this country was excited by the
resistance of Parga to his arms, especially as, during the late war, the
Pargiotes had received the protection of Great Britain. After the fall
of Parga (1819), Ali's power roused the jealousy of the Sultan, and it
was partly in consequence of his open defiance of the Porte, that
insurrections broke out in Wallachia, and that Ypsilanti proclaimed
himself the liberator of Greece. The Turkish troops, under Kurchid
Pasha, gradually overpowered Ali, and, at the end of 1821, shut him up
in his citadel of Janina. In the following January he surrendered, and
was at first treated with respect. But on February 5, 1822, Ali was
informed that the Sultan demanded his head. His answer was to fire his
pistol at the messenger. In the fray that followed he was killed.
Another and better account (Walsh's 'Narrative of a Journey from
Constantinople to England', p. 62) says that he was stabbed in the back
as he was bowing to the departing messenger, who had solemnly assured
him of the Sultan's pardon and favour. His head was cut off, sent to
Constantinople, and fixed on the grand gate of the Seraglio, with the
sentence of death by its side. Recently fresh interest has been aroused
in Ali by the publication of Mr. Bain's translation of Maurus Jókai's
semi-historical novel 'Janicsárok végnapjai', under the title of 'The
Lion of Janina' (1897).]
[Footnote 2: Veli Pasha was the son of Ali by a daughter of Coul Pasha,
the governor of Berat, in whose army Ali had served as a young man. He
was married (1798) to a daughter of Ibrahim Pasha, who had succeeded
Coul Pasha in the pashalik of Berat. The war with Ibrahim, to which
Byron alludes, ended in his defeat, and the transference of his pashalik
to Ali. Veli, at this time Vizier of the Morea, resided at Tripolizza,
when he was visited by Galt, who describes him as sitting
"on a crimson velvet cushion, wrapped in a superb pelisse; on his head
was a vast turban, in his belt a dagger encrusted with jewels, and on
the little finger of his right hand he wore a solitaire which was said
to have cost two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. In his left
hand he held a string of small coral beads, a comboloio which he
twisted backwards and forwards during the greater part of the visit."
"In his manners," says Galt, "I found him free and urbane, with a
considerable tincture of humour and drollery"
('Life of Byron', p. 83). Hobhouse ('Journey through Albania, etc.',
vol. i. p. 193) says,
"The Vizier, for he is a Pasha of three tails, is a lively young man;
and besides the Albanian, Greek, and Turkish languages, speaks
Italian--an accomplishment not possessed, I should think, by any other
man of his high rank in Turkey. It is reported that he, as well as his
father, is preparing, in case of the overthrow of the Ottoman power,
to establish an independent sovereignty."
Veli, in his father's struggle with the Sultan, betrayed Prevesa to the
Turks. He was executed in 1822, and is buried at the Silivria Gate of
Constantinople.
[Footnote 3: For "monastic Zitza," see 'Childe Harold', Canto II. stanza
xlviii., and Byron's note.]
[Footnote 4: See 'Lay of the Last Minstrel', canto i.]
[Footnote 5: William Martin Leake (1777-1860) received his commission as
second lieutenant in the artillery in 1794, became a captain in 1799,
major in 1809, and lieutenant-colonel in 1813. His professional life, up
to 1815, was spent abroad, chiefly at Constantinople, in Egypt, or in
various parts of European Turkey. In 1808 he had been sent by the
British Government with stores of artillery, ammunition, and Congreve
rockets, to Ali, Pasha of Albania, and he remained at Preveza, or
Janina, as the representative of Great Britain, till 1810. During his
travels he collected the vases, gems, bronzes, marbles, and coins now
placed in the British Museum, and in the Fitzwilliam Museum at
Cambridge. At the same time, he accumulated the materials which, during
his literary life (1815-59), he embodied in numerous books. Of these the
more important are--'The Topography of Athens' (1821); 'Journal of a
Tour in Asia Minor' (1824); 'An Historical Outline of the Greek
Revolution' (1825); 'Travels in the Morea' (1830); 'Travels in Northern
Greece' (1835); 'Numismata Hellenica' (1854-59). As a diplomatist he was
remarkably successful; but his reputation mainly rests on his
topographical works. With his antiquarian labours Byron would have had
little sympathy; but Leake was also a warm-hearted advocate of the
Christian population of Greece against their Turkish rulers.]
[Footnote 6: The battle of Actium (B.C. 31) was fought at the entrance
of the Gulf of Arta, and Nicopolis, the city of victory, the
'Palaio-Kastro' of the modern Greek, was founded by Augustus on an
isthmus connecting Prevesa with the mainland to commemorate his triumph.
Leake ('Travels in Northern Greece', vol. i. p. 175) identifies Actium
with Punda ([Greek (transliterated: aktae], "the head of a promontory")
on the headland opposite Prevesa (see 'Childe Harold', Canto II. stanza
xlv.).]
[Footnote 7: "Upon Parnassus going to the fountain of Delphi (Castri) in
1809," writes Byron, in his 'Diary' for 1821 ('Life', pp. 99, 100),
"I saw a flight of twelve eagles (H. says they were vultures--at least
in conversation), and I seized the omen. On the day before I composed
the lines to Parnassus (in 'Childe Harold'), and, on beholding the
birds, had a hope that Apollo had accepted my homage. I have at least
had the name and fame of a poet during the poetical part of life (from
twenty to thirty);--whether it will 'last' is another matter."
(For the lines to Parnassus, see 'Childe Harold', Canto I. stanzas
lx.-lxii.) To this journey belongs another incident, recorded by Byron.
"The last bird I ever fired at was an eaglet, on the shore of
the Gulf of Lepanto, near Vostizza. It was only wounded, and I tried
to save it,--the eye was so bright. But it pined, and died in a few
days; and I never did since, and never will, attempt the death of
another bird."]
[Footnote 8: Rear-Admiral Sir Alexander John Ball (1757-1809), who
belonged to a Gloucestershire family, entered the navy, inspired by
'Robinson Crusoe'. A lieutenant in 1778, he distinguished himself with
Rodney in 1782 (post-captain, 1783; rear-admiral, 1805), and at the
battle of the Nile, when he commanded the 'Alexander'. Nelson had no
liking for Ball until the latter saved the dismasted 'Vanguard' from
going on shore by taking her in tow. Henceforward they were friends, and
Nelson spoke of him as one of his "three right arms." By his skill in
blockading Valetta (1798-1800), Ball was the hero of the siege of Malta,
and (June 6, 1801) was created a baronet for his services, and received
the Order of Merit from Ferdinand IV of Naples. When Byron met him, Ball
was "His Majesty's Civil Commissioner for the Island of Malta and its
Dependencies, and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Order of St. John."
S.T. Coleridge, who was with him as secretary from May, 1804, to
October, 1805, wrote enthusiastically of him in his letters, and in 'The
Friend' (3rd edit., vol. i. essay i., and vol. iii. pp. 226-301). But
his picture of the admiral would have been more definite had he
remembered the spirit of the remark (quoted in 'The Friend') which Ball
once made to him:
"The distinction is just, and, now I understand you, abundantly
obvious; but hardly worth the trouble of your inventing a puzzle of
words to make it appear otherwise."]
[Footnote 9: Hussein Bey, then a boy of ten years old, son of Mouctar
Pasha, the eldest son of Ali, in after years (1820-22) remained faithful
to his grandfather, when his father, uncles, and cousin had gone over to
the Sultan, and held Tepeleni for Ali in his last struggle against the
Turks. Mahomet Pasha, son of Veli Pasha, second son of Ali, though only
twelve years old, was already in possession of a pashalik. In Ali's
contest with Turkey, he betrayed Parga to the Sultan, and persuaded his
father to surrender Prevesa. He was, however, rewarded for his treachery
by execution, and is among the five members of his family who lie buried
at the Silivria Gate at Constantinople (Walsh's 'Narrative', p. 67).]
132.--To his Mother.
Smyrna, March 19, 1810.
DEAR MOTHER,--I cannot write you a long letter; but as I know you will
not be sorry to receive any intelligence of my movements, pray accept
what I can give. I have traversed the greatest part of Greece, besides
Epirus, etc., etc., resided ten weeks at Athens, and am now on the
Asiatic side on my way to Constantinople. I have just returned from
viewing the ruins of Ephesus, a day's journey from Smyrna. [1] I
presume you have received a long letter I wrote from Albania, with an
account of my reception by the Pacha of the Province.
When I arrive at Constantinople, I shall determine whether to proceed
into Persia or return, which latter I do not wish, if I can avoid it.
But I have no intelligence from Mr. Hanson, and but one letter from
yourself. I shall stand in need of remittances whether I proceed or
return. I have written to him repeatedly, that he may not plead
ignorance of my situation for neglect. I can give you no account of
any thing, for I have not time or opportunity, the frigate sailing
immediately. Indeed the further I go the more my laziness increases,
and my aversion to letter-writing becomes more confirmed. I have
written to no one but to yourself and Mr. Hanson, and these are
communications of business and duty rather than of inclination.
Fletcher is very much disgusted with his fatigues, though he has
undergone nothing that I have not shared. He is a poor creature;
indeed English servants are detestable travellers. I have, besides
him, two Albanian soldiers and a Greek interpreter; all excellent in
their way. Greece, particularly in the vicinity of Athens, is
delightful;--cloudless skies and lovely landscapes. But I must reserve
all account of my adventures till we meet. I keep no journal, but my
friend Hobhouse scribbles incessantly. Pray take care of Murray and
Robert, and tell the boy it is the most fortunate thing for him that
he did not accompany me to Turkey. Consider this as merely a notice of
my safety, and believe me,
Yours, etc., etc.,
BYRON.
[Footnote 1: It was at Smyrna that the two first cantos of 'Childe
Harold' were completed. To his original MS. of the poem is prefixed the
following memorandum:--
"Byron, Ioannina in Albania.
Begun October 31st, 1809;
Concluded Canto 2d, Smyrna,
March 28th, 1810.
--BYRON."]
133.--To his Mother.
Smyrna, April 9, 1810.
Dear Mother,--I know you will be glad to hear from me: I wish I could
say I am equally delighted to write. However, there is no great loss
in my scribbles, except to the portmanteau-makers, who, I suppose,
will get all by and by.
Nobody but yourself asks me about my creed,--what I am, am not, etc.,
etc. If I were to begin _explaining_, God knows where I should leave
off; so we will say no more about that, if you please.
I am no "good soul," and not an atheist, but an English gentleman, I
hope, who loves his mother, mankind, and his country. I have not time
to write more at present, and beg you to believe me,
Ever yours, etc.,
BYRON.
P.S.-Are the Miss----anxiously expecting my arrival and
contributions to their gossip and _rhymes_, which are about as bad as
they can be?
B.
134.--To his Mother.
Smyrna, April 10, 1810.
Dear Mother,--To-morrow, or this evening, I sail for Constantinople in
the 'Salsette' frigate, of thirty-six guns. She returns to England
with our ambassador, [1] whom she is going up on purpose to receive. I
have written to you short letters from Athens, Smyrna, and a long one
from Albania. I have not yet mustered courage for a second large
epistle, and you must not be angry, since I take all opportunities of
apprizing you of my safety; but even that is an effort, writing is so
irksome.
I have been traversing Greece, and Epirus, Illyria, etc., etc., and
you see by my date, have got into Asia. I have made but one excursion
lately to the ruins of Ephesus. Malta is the rendez-vous of my
letters, so address to that island. Mr. Hanson has not written, though
I wished to hear of the Norfolk sale, [2] the Lancashire law-suit,
etc., etc., I am anxiously expecting fresh remittances. I believe you
will like Nottinghamshire, at least my share of it. [3] Pray accept my
good wishes in lieu of a long letter, and believe me,
Yours sincerely and affectionately,
BYRON.
[Footnote 1: Robert (afterwards the Right Hon. Sir Robert) Adair
(1763-1855), son of Sergeant-Surgeon Adair and Lady Caroline Keppel,
described by an Austrian aristocrat as "le fils du plus grand 'Seigneur'
d'Angleterre," was educated at Westminster and the University of
Gottingen." At the latter place Adair, always, as his kinsman Lord
Albemarle said of him, "an enthusiastic admirer of the fair sex"
('Recollections', vol. i. p. 229), fell in love with his tutor's
daughter. He did not, however, marry "Sweet Matilda Pottingen," but
Angélique Gabrielle, daughter of the Marquis d'Hazincourt. He is
supposed to have contributed to the 'Rolliad'; and the "Dedication to
Sir Lloyd Kenyon," "Margaret Nicholson" ('Political Eclogues', p. 207),
and the "Song of Scrutina" ('Probationary Odes', p. 285), have been
attributed to him. He, however, denied (Moore's 'Journal and
Correspondence', vol. ii. p. 304) that he wrote any part of the
'Rolliad'. A Whig, and an intimate friend and follower of Fox, he was in
1791 at St. Petersburg, where the Tories believed that he had been sent
by his chief on "half a mission" to intrigue with Russia against Pitt.
The charge was published by Dr. Pretyman, Bishop of Winchester, in his
'Life of Pitt' (1821), who may have wished to pay off old scores, and to
retaliate on one of the reputed authors of the 'Rolliad' for the
"Pretymaniana," and was answered in 'Two Letters from Mr. Adair to the
Bishop of Winchester'. It is to this accusation that Ellis and Frere, in
the 'Anti-Jacobin', refer in "A Bit of an Ode to Mr. Fox" ('Poetry of
the Anti-Jacobin', edit. 1854, pp. 71-73):--
"I mount, I mount into the sky,
Sweet bird, to 'Petersburg' I'll fly,
Or, if you bid, to 'Paris'.
Fresh missions of the 'Fox' and 'Goose'
Successful 'Treaties' may produce,
Though Pitt in all miscarries."
Sir James Mackintosh, speaking of the story, told Moore ('Journals and
Correspondence', vol. iv. p. 267) that a private letter from Adair,
reporting his conversations with a high official in St. Petersburg, fell
into the hands of the British Government; that some members of the
Council were desirous of taking proceedings upon it; but that Lord
Grenville and Pitt threatened to resign, if any use was made of such a
document so obtained. (See also the "Translation of a Letter from
Bawba-Dara-Adul-Phoola," etc.--'i.e.' "Bob Adair, a dull fool"--in the
'Anti-Jacobin', p. 208.) Adair was in 1806 sent by Fox as Ambassador to
Vienna, and in 1809 was appointed by Canning Ambassador Extraordinary at
Constantinople, where, with Stratford Canning as his secretary, he
negotiated the Treaty of the Dardanelles. For his services, on his
return in 1810, he was made a K.C.B. He was subsequently (1831-35)
employed on a mission to the Low Countries, when war appeared imminent
between William, Prince of Orange and King Leopold. He was afterwards
sworn a member of the Privy Council, and received a pension. George
Ticknor ('Life', vol. i. p. 269), who met him at Woburn in 1819, speaks
of his great conversational charms, and Moore ('Journals and
Correspondence', vol. vii. p. 216) describes him, in 1838, as a man
"from whom one gets, now and then, an agreeable whiff of the days of
Fox, Tickell, and Sheridan." Many years after Fox's death, Adair was at
a fête at Chiswick House. "'In which room,' he asked of Samuel Rogers,
'did Fox expire?' 'In this very room,' I replied. Immediately, Adair
burst into tears with a vehemence of grief such as I hardly ever saw
exhibited by a man" ('Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers',
p. 97).]
[Footnote 2: The sale of Wymondham and other property in Norfolk, which
had come to him through his great-uncle.]
[Footnote 3: Probably an allusion to his mother leaving Burgage Manor
and taking up her residence at Newstead.]
135.--To his Mother.
_Salsette Frigate, off the Dardanelles_, April 17, 1810.
Dear Madam,--I write at anchor (on our way to Constantinople) off the
Troad, which I traversed ten days ago. All the remains of Troy are the
tombs of her destroyers, amongst which I saw that of Antilochus from my
cabin window. These are large mounds of earth, like the barrows of the
Danes in your island. There are several monuments, about twelve miles
distant, of the Alexandrian Troas, which I also examined, but by no
means to be compared with the remnants of Athens and Ephesus. This will
be sent in a ship of war, bound with despatches for Malta. In a few days
we shall be at Constantinople, barring accidents. I have also written
from Smyrna, and shall, from time to time, transmit short accounts of my
movements, but I feel totally unequal to long letters.
Believe me, yours very sincerely,
BYRON.
P.S.--No accounts from Hanson!!! Do not complain of short letters; I
write to nobody but yourself and Mr. H.
136.--To Henry Drury.
_Salsette_ frigate, May 3, 1810.
My Dear Drury,--When I left England, nearly a year ago, you requested
me to write to you--I will do so. I have crossed Portugal, traversed
the south of Spain, visited Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, and thence passed
into Turkey, where I am still wandering. I first landed in Albania,
the ancient Epirus, where we penetrated as far as Mount Tomarit--
excellently treated by the chief Ali Pacha,--and, after journeying
through Illyria, Chaonia, etc., crossed the Gulf of Actium, with a
guard of fifty Albanians, and passed the Achelous in our route through
Acarnania and Ætolia. We stopped a short time in the Morea, crossed
the Gulf of Lepanto, and landed at the foot of Parnassus;--saw all
that Delphi retains, and so on to Thebes and Athens, at which last we
remained ten weeks.
His Majesty's ship, _Pylades_, brought us to Smyrna; but not before we
had topographised Attica, including, of course, Marathon and the
Sunian promontory. From Smyrna to the Troad (which we visited when at
anchor, for a fortnight, off the tomb of Antilochus) was our next
stage; and now we are in the Dardanelles, waiting for a wind to
proceed to Constantinople.
This morning I _swam_ from _Sestos_ to _Abydos_. [1] The immediate
distance is not above a mile, but the current renders it
hazardous;--so much so that I doubt whether Leander's conjugal
affection must not have been a little chilled in his passage to
Paradise. I attempted it a week ago, and failed,--owing to the north
wind, and the wonderful rapidity of the tide,--though I have been from
my childhood a strong swimmer. But, this morning being calmer, I
succeeded, and crossed the "broad Hellespont" in an hour and ten
minutes.
Well, my dear sir, I have left my home, and seen part of Africa and
Asia, and a tolerable portion of Europe. I have been with generals and
admirals, princes and pashas, governors and ungovernables,--but I have
not time or paper to expatiate. I wish to let you know that I live
with a friendly remembrance of you, and a hope to meet you again; and
if I do this as shortly as possible, attribute it to any thing but
forgetfulness.
Greece, ancient and modern, you know too well to require description.
Albania, indeed, I have seen more of than any Englishman (except a Mr.
Leake), for it is a country rarely visited, from the savage character
of the natives, though abounding in more natural beauties than the
classical regions of Greece,--which, however, are still eminently
beautiful, particularly Delphi and Cape Colonna in Attica. Yet these
are nothing to parts of Illyria and Epirus, where places without a
name, and rivers not laid down in maps, may, one day, when more known,
be justly esteemed superior subjects, for the pencil and the pen, to
the dry ditch of the Ilissus and the bogs of Boeotia.
The Troad is a fine field for conjecture and snipe-shooting, and a
good sportsman and an ingenious scholar may exercise their feet and
faculties to great advantage upon the spot;--or, if they prefer
riding, lose their way (as I did) in a cursed quagmire of the
Scamander, who wriggles about as if the Dardan virgins still offered
their wonted tribute. The only vestige of Troy, or her destroyers, are
the barrows supposed to contain the carcasses of Achilles, Antilochus,
Ajax, etc.;--but Mount Ida is still in high feather, though the
shepherds are now-a-days not much like Ganymede. But why should I say
more of these things? are they not written in the _Boke_ of _Gell_?
[2] and has not Hobhouse got a journal? I keep none, as I have
renounced scribbling.
I see not much difference between ourselves and the Turks, save that
we have----and they have none--that they have long dresses, and we
short, and that we talk much, and they little. They are sensible
people. Ali Pacha told me he was sure I was a man of rank, because I
had _small ears_ and _hands_, and _curling hair_. By the by, I speak
the Romaic, or modern Greek, tolerably. It does not differ from the
ancient dialects so much as you would conceive; but the pronunciation
is diametrically opposite. Of verse, except in rhyme, they have no
idea.
I like the Greeks, who are plausible rascals,--with all the Turkish
vices, without their courage. However, some are brave, and all are
beautiful, very much resembling the busts of Alcibiades;--the women
not quite so handsome. I can swear in Turkish; but, except one
horrible oath, and "pimp," and "bread," and "water," I have got no
great vocabulary in that language. They are extremely polite to
strangers of any rank, properly protected; and as I have two servants
and two soldiers, we get on with great éclat. We have been
occasionally in danger of thieves, and once of shipwreck,--but always
escaped.
Of Spain I sent some account to our Hodgson, but have subsequently
written to no one, save notes to relations and lawyers, to keep them
out of my premises. I mean to give up all connection, on my return,
with many of my best friends--as I supposed them-and to snarl all my
life. But I hope to have one good-humoured laugh with you, and to
embrace Dwyer, and pledge Hodgson, before I commence cynicism.
Tell Dr. Butler I am now writing with the gold pen he gave me before I
left England, which is the reason my scrawl is more unintelligible
than usual. I have been at Athens, and seen plenty of these reeds for
scribbling, some of which he refused to bestow upon me, because
topographic Gell had brought them from Attica. But I will not
describe,--no--you must be satisfied with simple detail till my
return, and then we will unfold the floodgates of colloquy. I am in a
thirty-six gun frigate, going up to fetch Bob Adair from
Constantinople, who will have the honour to carry this letter.
And so Hobhouse's _boke_ is out, [3] with some sentimental sing-song
of my own to fill up,--and how does it take, eh? and where the devil
is the second edition of my Satire, with additions? and my name on the
title page? and more lines tagged to the end, with a new exordium and
what not, hot from my anvil before I cleared the Channel? The
Mediterranean and the Atlantic roll between me and criticism; and the
thunders of the Hyperborean Review are deafened by the roar of the
Hellespont.
Remember me to Claridge, [4] if not translated to college, and present
to Hodgson assurances of my high consideration. Now, you will ask,
what shall I do next? and I answer, I do not know. I may return in a
few months, but I have intents and projects after visiting
Constantinople. Hobhouse, however, will probably be back in September.
On the 2d of July we have left Albion one year--_oblitus meorum
obliviscendus et illis_. I was sick of my own country, and not much
prepossessed in favour of any other; but I "drag on my chain" without
"lengthening it at each remove." [5] I am like the Jolly Miller,
caring for nobody, and not cared for. [6] All countries are much the
same in my eyes. I smoke, and stare at mountains, and twirl my
mustachios very independently. I miss no comforts, and the musquitoes
that rack the morbid frame of H. have, luckily for me, little effect
on mine, because I live more temperately.
I omitted Ephesus in my catalogue, which I visited during my sojourn
at Smyrna; but the Temple has almost perished, and St. Paul need not
trouble himself to epistolise the present brood of Ephesians, who have
converted a large church built entirely of marble into a mosque, and I
don't know that the edifice looks the worse for it.
My paper is full, and my ink ebbing--good afternoon! If you address to
me at Malta, the letter will be forwarded wherever I may be. H. greets
you; he pines for his poetry,--at least, some tidings of it. I almost
forgot to tell you that I am dying for love of three Greek girls at
Athens, sisters. I lived in the same house. Teresa, Mariana, and
Katinka, [7] are the names of these divinities,--all of them under
fifteen.
Your [Greek (transliterated): tapeinotatos doulos], BYRON.
[Footnote 1: Byron made two attempts to swim across the Hellespont from
Abydos to Sestos. The first, April 16, failed; the second, May 3, in
warmer weather, succeeded.
"Byron was one hour and ten minutes in the water; his companion, Mr.
Ekenhead, five minutes less ... My fellow-traveller had before made a
more perilous, but less celebrated, passage; for I recollect that,
when we were in Portugal, he swam from Old Lisbon to Belem Castle,
and, having to contend with a tide and counter-current, the wind
blowing freshly, was but little less than two hours in crossing the
river"
(Hobhouse, 'Travels in Albania', etc., vol. ii. p. 195). In Hobhouse's
journal, Byron made the following note:
"The whole distance E. and myself swam was more than four miles--the
current very strong and cold--some large fish near us when half
across--we were not fatigued, but a little chilled--did it with little
difficulty.--May 26, 1810. BYRON."
Of his feat Byron was always proud. See the "Lines Written after
Swimming from Sestos to Abydos" ("by the by, from Abydos to Sestos would
have been more correct"), and 'Don Juan', Canto II. stanza cv.:--
"A better swimmer you could scarce see ever;
He could, perhaps, have pass'd the Hellespont,
As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided)
Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did."
In a note to the "Lines Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos,"
Byron writes,
"Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his
mistress; and Oliver mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan;
but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances,
and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the
'Salsette''s crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance;
and the only thing that surprised me was that, as doubts had been
entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever
endeavoured to ascertain its practicability."
Lieutenant Ekenhead, of the Marines, was afterwards killed by a fall
from the fortifications of Malta.]
[Footnote 2: Sir William Gell (1777-1836) published the 'Topography of
Troy' (1804); 'Geography and Antiquities of Ithaca' (1807); the
'Itinerary of Greece' (1810); and many other subsequent works. (For
Byron's review of 'Ithaca' and 'Greece', in the 'Monthly Review' for
August, 1811, see Appendix III.) In the MS. of 'English Bards, and
Scotch Reviewers' (line 1034) he called him "coxcomb Gell;" but, having
made his personal acquaintance before the Satire was printed, he changed
the epithet to "classic." After seeing the country himself, he again
altered the epithet--
"Of Dardan tours let Dilettanti tell,
I leave topography to rapid Gell."
To these lines is appended the following note:
"'Rapid,' indeed! He topographised and typographised King Priam's
dominions in three days! I called him 'classic' before I saw the
Troad, but since have learned better than to tack to his name what
don't belong to it."
To this passage Byron, in 1816, added the further expression of his
opinion, that "Gell's survey was hasty and superficial." One of two
suppressed stanzas in 'Childe Harold' (Canto II. stanza xiii.) refers to
Gell and his works:--
"Or will the gentle Dilettanti crew
Now delegate the task to digging Gell?
That mighty limner of a bird's-eye view,
How like to Nature let his volumes tell;
Who can with him the folio's limits swell
With all the Author saw, or said he saw?
Who can topographise or delve so well?
No boaster he, nor impudent and raw,
His pencil, pen, and shade, alike without a flaw."]
[Footnote 3: 'Imitations and Translations from the Ancient and Modern
Classics, etc.' (London, 1809, 8vo). Of the sixty-five pieces, nine were
by Byron (see 'Poems', vol. i., Bibliographical note; and vol. vi.,
Bibliographical note). The second and enlarged edition of 'English
Bards, and Scotch Reviewers', with Byron's name attached, appeared in
October, 1809.]
[Footnote 4: Two boys of this name, sons of J. Claridge, of Sevenoaks,
entered Harrow School in April, 1805. George became a. solicitor, and
died at Sevenoaks in 1841; John (afterwards Sir John) went to Christ
Church, Oxford, became a barrister, and died in 1868. John Claridge
seems to have been one of Byron's "juniors and favourites," whom he
"spoilt by indulgence."]
[Footnote 5:
"Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain."
GOLDSMITH'S Traveller, lines 9, 10.]
[Footnote 6: The allusion is to the familiar lines inserted by Isaac
Bickerstaffe in 'Love in a Village' (1762), act i. sc. 3--
"There was a jolly miller once,
Liv'd on the river Dee;
He work'd and sung from morn till night;
No lark more blithe than he.
"And this the burden of his song,
For ever us'd to be--
I care for nobody, not I,
If no one cares for me."]
[Footnote 7:
"During our stay at Athens," writes Hobhouse ('Travels in Albania,
etc.', vol. i. pp. 242, 243), "we occupied two houses separated from
each other only by a single wall, through which we opened a doorway.
One of them belongs to a Greek lady, whose name is Theodora Macri, the
daughter of the late English Vice-Consul, and who has to show many
letters of recommendation left in her hands by several English
travellers. Her lodgings consisted of a sitting-room and two bedrooms,
opening into a court-yard where there were five or six lemon-trees,
from which, during our residence in the place, was plucked the fruit
that seasoned the pilaf and other national dishes served up at our
frugal table."
The beauty of the Greek women is transient. Hughes ('Travels
in Sicily, etc.', vol. i. p. 254, published in 1820) speaks of the three
daughters of Madame Macri as "the 'belles' of Athens." Of Theresa,
the eldest, he says that "her countenance was extremely interesting,
and her eye retained much of its wonted brilliancy; but the roses
had already deserted the cheek, and we observed the remains only
of that loveliness which elicited such strains from an impassioned
poet." Walsh, in his 'Narrative of a Resident in Constantinople'
(vol. i. p. 122), speaks of Theresa Macri, the "Maid of Athens,"
whom he saw in 1821, as "still very elegant in her person, and
gentle and ladylike in her manners," but adds that "she has
lost all pretensions to beauty, and has a countenance singularly
marked by hopeless sadness." On the other hand, Williams, in
his 'Travels in Italy, etc.' (vol. ii. pp. 290, 291), speaks, in 1820,
with an artist's enthusiasm, of the beauty of the three daughters of
Theodora Macri. He quotes from the "Visitors' Book," to which
Hobhouse alludes, four lines written by Byron in answer to an
anonymous versifier--
"This modest bard, like many a bard unknown,
Rhymes on our names, but wisely hides his own;
But yet, whoe'er he be, to say no worse,
His name would bring more credit than his verse."
Theresa and Mariana Macri were dark; Katinka was fair. The latter name
Byron uses as that of the fair Georgian in 'Don Juan' (Canto VI. stanza
xli.).
"It was," says Moore, "if I recollect right, in making love to one of
these girls that he had recourse to an act of courtship often
practised in that country;--namely, giving himself a wound across the
breast with his dagger. The young Athenian, by his own account, looked
on very coolly during the operation, considering it a fit tribute to
her beauty, but in no degree moved to gratitude."