"March 25. 1816.
"You are one of the few persons with whom I have lived in what is
called intimacy, and have heard me at times conversing on the
untoward topic of my recent family disquietudes. Will you have the
goodness to say to me at once, whether you ever heard me speak of
her with disrespect, with unkindness, or defending myself at _her_
expense by any serious imputation of any description against
_her_? Did you never hear me say 'that when there was a right or a
wrong, she had the _right_?'--The reason I put these questions to
you or others of my friends is, because I am said, by her and hers,
to have resorted to such means of exculpation.
"Ever very truly yours,
"B."
* * * * *
In those Memoirs (or, more properly, Memoranda,) of the noble poet,
which it was thought expedient, for various reasons, to sacrifice, he
gave a detailed account of all the circumstances connected with his
marriage, from the first proposal to the lady till his own departure,
after the breach, from England. In truth, though the title of "Memoirs,"
which he himself sometimes gave to that manuscript, conveys the idea of
a complete and regular piece of biography, it was to this particular
portion of his life that the work was principally devoted; while the
anecdotes, having reference to other parts of his career, not only
occupied a very disproportionate space in its pages, but were most of
them such as are found repeated in the various Journals and other MSS.
he left behind. The chief charm, indeed, of that narrative, was the
melancholy playfulness--melancholy, from the wounded feeling so visible
through its pleasantry--with which events unimportant and persons
uninteresting, in almost every respect but their connection with such a
man's destiny, were detailed and described in it. Frank, as usual,
throughout, in his avowal of his own errors, and generously just towards
her who was his fellow-sufferer in the strife, the impression his
recital left on the minds of all who perused it was, to say the least,
favourable to him;--though, upon the whole, leading to a persuasion,
which I have already intimated to be my own, that, neither in kind nor
degree, did the causes of disunion between the parties much differ from
those that loosen the links of most such marriages.
With respect to the details themselves, though all important in his own
eyes at the time, as being connected with the subject that superseded
most others in his thoughts, the interest they would possess for others,
now that their first zest as a subject of scandal is gone by, and the
greater number of the persons to whom they relate forgotten, would be
too slight to justify me in entering upon them more particularly, or
running the risk of any offence that might be inflicted by their
disclosure. As far as the character of the illustrious subject of these
pages is concerned, I feel that Time and Justice are doing far more in
its favour than could be effected by any such gossiping details. During
the lifetime of a man of genius, the world is but too much inclined to
judge of him rather by what he wants than by what he possesses, and even
where conscious, as in the present case, that his defects are among the
sources of his greatness, to require of him unreasonably the one without
the other. If Pope had not been splenetic and irritable, we should have
wanted his Satires; and an impetuous temperament, and passions untamed,
were indispensable to the conformation of a poet like Byron. It is by
posterity only that full justice is rendered to those who have paid
such hard penalties to reach it. The dross that had once hung about the
ore drops away, and the infirmities, and even miseries, of genius are
forgotten in its greatness. Who now asks whether Dante was right or
wrong in his matrimonial differences? or by how many of those whose
fancies dwell fondly on his Beatrice is even the name of his Gemma
Donati remembered?
Already, short as has been the interval since Lord Byron's death, the
charitable influence of time in softening, if not rescinding, the harsh
judgments of the world against genius is visible. The utter
unreasonableness of trying such a character by ordinary standards, or of
expecting to find the materials of order and happiness in a bosom
constantly heaving forth from its depths such "lava floods," is--now
that big spirit has passed from among us--felt and acknowledged. In
reviewing the circumstances of his marriage, a more even scale of
justice is held; and while every tribute of sympathy and commiseration
is accorded to her, who, unluckily for her own peace, became involved in
such a destiny,--who, with virtues and attainments that would have made
the home of a more ordinary man happy, undertook, in evil hour, to "turn
and wind a fiery Pegasus," and but failed where it may be doubted
whether even the fittest for such a task would have succeeded,--full
allowance is, at the same time, made for the great martyr of genius
himself, whom so many other causes, beside that restless fire within
him, concurred to unsettle in mind and (as he himself feelingly
expresses it) "disqualify for comfort;"--whose doom it was to be either
thus or less great, and whom to have tamed might have been to
extinguish; there never, perhaps, having existed an individual to whom,
whether as author or man, the following line was more applicable:--
"Si non errâsset, fecerat ille minus."[98]
While these events were going on,--events, of which his memory and heart
bore painfully the traces through the remainder of his short life,--some
occurrences took place, connected with his literary history, to which it
is a relief to divert the attention of the reader from the distressing
subject that has now so long detained us.
The letter that follows was in answer to one received from Mr. Murray,
in which that gentleman had enclosed him a draft for a thousand guineas
for the copyright of his two poems, The Siege of Corinth and Parisina:--
* * * * *