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The Diary of
Dr. John William Polidori
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The Diary of
Dr. John William Polidori
1816
Relating to Byron, Shelley, etc.
Edited and Elucidated by
William Michael Rossetti
"Mi fur mostrati gli spiriti magni
Che del vederli in me stesso n'esalto."—DANTE.
LONDON
ELKIN MATHEWS
VIGO STREET
MCMXI
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
DEDICATED
TO MY TWO DAUGHTERS
HELEN AND MARY
WHO WITH MY LITTLE GRAND-DAUGHTER IMOGENE
KEEP THE HOME OF MY CLOSING YEARS
STILL IN GOOD CHEER
The Diary of
Dr. John William Polidori
INTRODUCTION
A person whose name finds mention in the books about Byron, and to some
extent in those about Shelley, was John William Polidori, M.D.; he was
Lord Byron's travelling physician in 1816, when his Lordship quitted
England soon after the separation from his wife. I, who now act as
Editor of his Diary, am a nephew of his, born after his death. Dr.
Polidori figures not very advantageously in the books concerning Byron
and Shelley. He is exhibited as overweening and petulant, too fond of
putting himself forward face to face with those two heroes of our
poetical literature, and too touchy when either of them declined to take
him at his own estimation. I will allow that this judgment of Polidori
is, so far as it goes, substantially just; and that some of the recorded
anecdotes of him prove him deficient in self-knowledge, lacking prudence
and reserve, and ignoring the distinction between a dignified and a
quarrelsome attitude of mind. He was, in fact, extremely young when he
went abroad in April 1816 with Byron, to whom he had been recommended by
Sir Henry Halford; he was then only twenty years of age (born on
September 7, 1795), Byron being twenty-eight, and Shelley twenty-three.
The recommendation given to so very young a man is a little surprising.
It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that Polidori was without
some solid attainments, and some considerable share of talent. He was
the son of Gaetano Polidori, a Tuscan man of letters who, after being
secretary to the celebrated dramatist Alfieri, had settled in London as
a teacher of Italian, and of his English wife, a Miss Pierce; the
parents (my maternal grand-parents) survived to a great age, only dying
in 1853. John Polidori, after receiving his education in the Roman
Catholic College of Ampleforth (Yorkshire), studied medicine in
Edinburgh, and took his doctor's degree at a singularly early age—I
believe almost unexampled—the age of nineteen. His ambition was fully as
much for literary as for professional distinction; and he published,
besides _The Vampyre_ to which I shall have to recur, a prose tale named
_Ernestus Berchtold_, a volume of verse containing a drama entitled
_Ximenes_, and some other writings.
One of these writings is the text to a volume, published in 1821,
entitled _Sketches Illustrative of the Manners and Costumes of France,
Switzerland, and Italy_, by R. Bridgens. The name of Polidori is not
indeed recorded in this book, but I know as a certainty that he was the
writer. One of the designs in the volume shows the costume of women at
Lerici just about the time when Shelley was staying there, in the
closing months of his life, and a noticeable costume it was. Polidori
himself—though I am not aware that he ever received any instruction in
drawing worth speaking of—had some considerable native gift in sketching
faces and figures with lifelike expression; I possess a few examples to
prove as much. The Diary shows that he took some serious and intelligent
interest in works of art, as well as in literature; and he was clearly a
rapid and somewhat caustic judge of character—perhaps a correct one. He
was a fine, rather romantic-looking young man, as evidenced by his
portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, accepted from me by that
Institution in 1895.
Dr. Polidori's life was a short one. Not long after quitting Lord Byron
in 1816 he returned to London, and in Norwich continued his medical
career, but eventually relinquished this, and began studying for the
Bar. It is said that Miss Harriett Martineau was rather in love with him
in Norwich. In August 1821 he committed suicide with poison—having,
through losses in gambling, incurred a debt of honour which he had no
present means of clearing off. That he did take poison, prussic acid,
was a fact perfectly well known in his family; but it is curious to note
that the easy-going and good-naturedly disposed coroner's jury were
content to return a verdict without eliciting any distinct evidence as
to the cause of death, and they simply pronounced that he had "died by
the visitation of God."
The matter was reported in two papers, _The Traveller_ and _The New
Times_. I possess a copy, made by my mother at the time, of the reports;
and it may perhaps be as well inserted here.
_Copied from The Traveller._
Monday Evening [_August 27th, 1821_].
Melancholy Event.—Mr. Polidori, residing in Great Pulteney Street,
retired to rest about his usual time on Thursday night; the servant, not
finding him rise at the usual hour yesterday, went to his room between
eleven and twelve o'clock, and found him groaning, and apparently in the
last agonies of death. An alarm was given and medical aid was
immediately called, but before the arrival of Surgeons Copeland and
Davies, he was no more. His father was at the time on his journey to
London to see his son, and arrived about three hours after the event. We
understand the deceased was about twenty-six years of age, and had for
some time accompanied Lord Byron in Italy. A Coroner's Inquest will sit
this day to ascertain the cause of his death.
_Copied from The New Times._
Tuesday [_September 11th, 1821_].
Coroner's Inquest on John Polidori, Esquire.—An Inquisition has been
taken before T. Higgs, Esquire, Deputy Coroner, at the residence of the
father of the above unfortunate gentleman, in Great Pulteney Street,
Golden Square, who was discovered lying on his bed in a state nearly
approaching to death, and soon afterwards expired.
Charlotte Reed, the servant to Mr. Gaetano Polidori, the father of the
deceased, said her master's son lived in the house, and for some time
had been indisposed. On Monday the 20th of August last he returned from
Brighton, since which his conduct manifested strong symptoms of
incoherence, and he gave his order for dinner in a very strange manner.
On the Thursday following the deceased dined with a gentleman residing
in the same house, and on that occasion he appeared very much depressed
in his spirits. About nine o'clock the same evening he ordered witness
to leave a glass (tumbler) in his room; this was unusual, but one was
placed as he desired. Deceased told her he was unwell; if therefore he
did not get up by twelve o'clock the next day, not to disturb him.
Witness, however, a few minutes before twelve, went into his room to
open the shutters, and on her return saw the deceased lying in bed; he
was not in any unusual position, but seemed extremely ill. Witness
immediately left the room, went upstairs, and communicated what she had
observed to a gentleman, who instantly came down. Witness then went for
medical assistance. The deceased was about twenty-six years of age.—Mr.
John Deagostini, the gentleman alluded to by the last witness,
corroborated her statement on his giving him the invitation to dine,
which he accepted in a way quite different from his usual conduct.
Witness also observed that, some time since, the deceased had met with
an accident—was thrown out of his gig, and seriously hurt in the head.
On Thursday at dinner he spoke in half sentences; the conversation was
on politics and a future state. The deceased observed rather harshly
that witness would see more than him; he appeared to be deranged in his
mind, and his countenance was haggard. At dinner he ate very little:
soon after left the room, but joined again at tea; hardly spoke a word,
and retired at nine o'clock. After breakfast next morning, witness
inquired of the servant whether Mr. Polidori had gone out. She replied
no, and that he had desired her not to disturb him. About twelve o'clock
the servant came to him very much alarmed. Witness went immediately to
the apartment of the deceased, and observed a tumbler on the chair,
which contained nothing but water, and did not perceive any deleterious
substance that the deceased might have taken; he was senseless, and
apparently in a dying state.—Mr. Thomas Copeland, a surgeon residing in
Golden Square, was sent for suddenly to attend the deceased, and
attempted to discharge the contents of the stomach without effect. He
lingered for about ten minutes, and expired. Another medical gentleman
soon after arrived, but his assistance was also unavailing.—There being
no further evidence adduced to prove how the deceased came to his death,
the jury, under these circumstances, returned a verdict of—Died by the
visitation of God.
Medwin, in his _Conversations with Lord Byron_, gives the following
account of how the poet received the news of Dr. Polidori's death. "I
was convinced" (said Byron) "something very unpleasant hung over me last
night: I expected to hear that somebody I knew was dead. So it turns
out—poor Polidori is gone. When he was my physician he was always
talking of prussic acid, oil of amber, blowing into veins, suffocating
by charcoal, and compounding poisons; but for a different purpose to
what the Pontic monarch did, for he has prescribed a dose for himself
that would have killed fifty Mithridates—a dose whose effect, Murray
says, was so instantaneous that he went off without a spasm or struggle.
It seems that disappointment was the cause of this rash act."—The
evidence of the servant at the inquest shows that death did not come so
very suddenly; and in my own family I always heard the poison spoken of
as simply prussic acid.
This is all that I need say at present to explain who Dr. Polidori was;
but I must add a few words regarding his Diary.
The day when the young doctor obtained the post of travelling physician
to the famous poet and man of fashion, Lord Byron, about to leave
England for the Continent, must, no doubt, have been regarded by him and
by some of his family as a supremely auspicious one, although in fact it
turned out the reverse. The article on Polidori written in _The
Dictionary of National Biography_ by my valued friend, the late Dr.
Garnett, speaks of him as "physician and _secretary_ to Lord Byron"; but
I never heard that he undertook or performed any secretarial work worth
speaking of, and I decidedly believe that he did not. The same statement
occurs in the inscription on his likeness in the National Portrait
Gallery. Polidori's father had foreseen, in the Byronic scheme,
disappointment as only too likely, and he opposed the project, but
without success. To be the daily companion and intimate of so great a
man as Byron, to visit foreign scenes in his society, to travel into his
own father's native land, which he regarded with a feeling of
enthusiasm, and with whose language he was naturally well acquainted, to
be thus launched upon a career promising the utmost development and
satisfaction to his literary as well as professional enterprise—all this
may have seemed like the realization of a dream almost too good to be
true. To crown all, Mr. Murray, Byron's publisher, had offered Polidori
no less a sum than £500 (or 500 guineas) for an account of his
forthcoming tour. Polidori therefore began to keep a Diary, heading it
_Journal of a Journey through Flanders etc., from April 24, 1816,
to_______; and the blank was eventually filled in with the date
"December 28, 1816"; it should rather stand "December 30." Portions of
the Diary are written with some detail, and a perceptible aim at
literary effect—Murray's £500 being manifestly in view; in other
instances the jottings are slight, and merely enough for guiding the
memory. On this footing the Journal goes on up to June 30, 1816. It was
then dropped, as Polidori notes "through neglect and dissipation," for
he saw a great deal of company. On September 5 he wrote up some
summarized reminiscences; and from September 16, the day when he parted
company with Byron at Cologny, near Geneva, and proceeded to journey
through Italy on his own account, he continued with some regularity up
to December 30, when he was sojourning in Pisa. That is the latest day
of which any record remains; but it is known from other evidence that
Dr. Polidori continued in Italy up to April 14, 1817: he then left
Venice in company with the new Earl of Guilford and his mother—being
their travelling physician. Whether the Journal is in any fair degree
interesting or brightly written is a question which the reader will
settle for himself; as a document relevant to the life of two
illustrious poets, it certainly merits some degree of attention.
My own first acquaintance with the Diary of Dr. Polidori dates back to
1869, when I was preparing the Memoir of Shelley which preludes my
edition of his poems, published in 1870; I then availed myself of the
Shelleian information contained in the Diary, and even gave two or three
verbatim extracts from it. The MS. book was at that time the property of
a sister of his, Miss Charlotte Lydia Polidori, a lady of advanced age.
I regret to say that my aunt, on receiving the MS. back from me, took it
into her head to read it through—a thing which I fancy she had never
before done, or certainly had not done for very many years, and that she
found in it some few passages which she held to be "improper," and, with
the severe virtue so characteristic of an English maiden aunt, she
determined that those passages should no longer exist. I can remember
one about Byron and a chambermaid at Ostend, and another, later on,
about Polidori himself. My aunt therefore took the trouble of copying
out the whole Diary, minus the peccant passages, and she then ruthlessly
destroyed the original MS. After her death—which occurred in January
1890, when she had attained the age of eighty-seven years—her transcript
came into my possession. Its authority is only a shade less safe than
that of the original, and it is from the transcript that I have had to
work in compiling my present volume.
I will now refer in some detail to the matter of Dr. Polidori's romantic
tale, _The Vampyre_; not only because this matter is of some literary
interest in itself, but more especially because the account of it given
in _The Dictionary of National Biography_ treats Polidori, in this
regard, with no indulgence, and I believe (however unintentionally on
the part of the late Dr. Garnett) with less than justice. He says: "In
April 1819 he [Polidori] published in _The New Monthly Magazine_, and
also in pamphlet-form, the celebrated story of _The Vampyre_, which he
attributed to Byron. The ascription was fictitious. Byron had in fact,
in June 1816, begun to write at Geneva a story with this title, in
emulation of Mrs. Shelley's _Frankenstein_; but dropped it before
reaching the superstition which it was to have illustrated. He sent the
fragment to Murray upon the appearance of Polidori's fabrication, and it
is inserted in his works. He further protested in a carelessly
good-natured disclaimer addressed to _Galignani's Messenger_."
The facts of the case appear to be as follows. As we shall see in the
Diary, Polidori began, near Geneva, a tale which (according to Mrs.
Shelley) was about a "skull-headed lady," and he was clearly aware that
Byron had commenced a story about a vampyre. After quitting Byron,
Polidori, in conversation with the Countess of Breuss, mentioned in his
Journal, spoke (unless we are to discredit his own account) of the
subject of the great poet's tale; the Countess questioned whether
anything could be made of such a theme, and Polidori then tried his hand
at carrying it out. He left the MS. with the Countess, and thought
little or no more about it. After his departure from that neighbourhood
some person who was travelling there (one might perhaps infer a lady)
obtained the MS. either from the Countess of Breuss or from some person
acquainted with the Countess: this would, I suppose, be the Madame
Gatelier who is named in the Journal along with the Countess. The
traveller then forwarded the tale to the Publisher, Colburn, telling
him—and this statement was printed by Colburn as an _Extract of a Letter
from Geneva_—that certain tales were "undertaken by Lord B[yron], the
physician [Polidori], and Miss M. W. Godwin," and that the writer
received from her female friend "the outline of each of these stories."
She did not say that the completed _Vampyre_ was the production of
Byron; but Colburn inferred this, and in the magazine he attributed it
to Byron, printing his name as author.
Among the papers which were left by Dr. Polidori at the time of his
death, and which have come into my possession, are the drafts of two
letters of his—one addressed to Mr. Henry Colburn, and the other to the
Editor of _The Morning Chronicle_. These letters were actually
dispatched, and (having no sort of reason to suspect the contrary) I
assume that they contain a truthful account of the facts. If so, they
exonerate Polidori from the imputation of having planned or connived at
a literary imposture. In his letter to Mr. Colburn he affirms (as will
be seen) that the following incidents in his tale were borrowed from
Byron's project: the departure of two friends from England, one of them
dying in Greece [but it is in fact near Ephesus] after exacting from his
companion an oath not to mention his death; the revival of the dead man,
and his then making love to the sister of his late companion. The story
begun by Byron and published along with _Mazeppa_ contains the incidents
above named, except only the important incident of the dead man's
revival and his subsequent love-making. Byron's extant writing, which is
a mere fragment, affords no trace of that upshot; but Polidori must have
known that such was the intended sequel. It may be added that the
resemblance between these productions of Byron and of Polidori extends
only to incidents: the form of narrative is different.
I proceed to give the letter of Dr. Polidori to Mr. Colburn, followed by
the letter to the Editor of _The Morning Chronicle_. This latter goes
over a good deal of the same ground as the letter to Colburn, so I
shorten it very considerably.
JOHN POLIDORI TO HENRY COLBURN.
[London], _April 2_ (1819).
SIR,
I received a copy of the magazine of last April (the present
month), and am sorry to find that your Genevan correspondent has led you
into a mistake with regard to the tale of _The Vampyre_—which is _not_
Lord Byron's, but was written _entirely_ by me at the request of a lady,
who (upon my mentioning that his Lordship had said that it was his
intention of writing a ghost story, depending for interest upon the
circumstances of two friends leaving England, and one dying in Greece,
the other finding him alive, upon his return, and making love to his
sister) saying that she thought it impossible to work up such materials,
desired I would write it for her, which I did in two idle mornings by
her side. These circumstances above mentioned, and the one of the dying
man having obtained an oath that the survivor should not in any way
disclose his decease, are the only parts of the tale belonging to his
Lordship. I desire, therefore, that you will positively contradict your
statement in the next number, by the insertion of this note.
With regard to my own tale, it is imperfect and unfinished. I had rather
therefore it should not appear in the magazine; and, if the Editor had
sent his communication, as he mentions, he would have been spared this
mistake.
But, sir, there is one circumstance of which I must request a further
explanation. I observe upon the back of your publication the
announcement of a separate edition. Now, upon buying this, I find that
it states in the title-page that it was entered into Stationers' Hall
upon March 27, consequently before your magazine was published. I wish
therefore to ask for information how this tale passed from the hands of
your Editor into those of a publisher.
As it is a mere trifle, I should have had no objection to its appearing
in your magazine, as I could, in common with any other, have extracted
it thence, and republished it. But I shall not sit patiently by and see
it taken without my consent, and appropriated by any person. As
therefore it must have passed through your hands (as stated in the
magazine) from a correspondent, I shall expect that you will account to
me for the publishers, Messrs. Sherwood and Neely, having possession of
it and appropriating it to themselves; and demand either that a
compensation be made me, or that its separate publication be instantly
suppressed.
Hoping for an immediate answer, which will save me the trouble of
obtaining an injunction, I remain,
Sir,
Your obedient servant,
JOHN POLIDORI.
TO THE EDITOR OF _THE MORNING CHRONICLE_.
SIR,
As you were the first person to whom I wrote to state that the
tale of _The Vampyre_ was not Lord Byron's, I beg you to insert the
following statement in your paper.... The tale, as I stated to you in my
letter, was written upon the foundation of a purposed and begun story of
Lord Byron's.... Lord Byron, in a letter dated Venice, stated that he
knew nothing of the Vampyre story, and hated vampyres; but, while this
letter was busily circulating in all the London and provincial papers,
the fragment at the end of _Mazeppa_ was in the hands of his publishers
in Albemarle Street, with the date of June 17, 1816, attached to it,
being the beginning of his tale upon this very foundation. My
development was written on the Continent, and left with a lady at whose
request it was undertaken; in the course of three mornings by her side
it was produced, and left with her. From her hands, by means of a
correspondent, without my knowledge, it came into those of the Editor of
_The New Monthly_, with a letter stating it to be an _ébauche_ of Lord
Byron's. Mr. Watts, as Editor of that magazine, stated in _his_ notice
that the tale which accompanies the letters "we also present to our
readers without pledging ourselves for its authenticity as the
production of Lord Byron"; and he continues, "We should suppose it to
have been committed to paper rather from the recital of a third person."
This, however, after the publication of 700 copies, was cancelled by the
_publisher_, and another notice inserted stating it to be decidedly his
Lordship's, in direct opposition (as I am informed) to the Editor's
will—who has since retired from the conduct of the magazine.
Immediately it was published I procured a copy; and, upon finding that
it was an almost forgotten trifle of my own, instantly wrote to you as
Editor of _The Morning Chronicle_, stating the little share Lord Byron
had in the work. This was upon the Friday evening after its publication.
I at the same time wrote to the publishers of the tale in its separate
form, and to those of the magazine, to stop its sale under his
Lordship's name. On Monday the publishers of the magazine called upon
me, and promised it should be instantly announced as mine.... When I
came to claim my share in the profits, I was offered £30, instead of
nearly £300....
Your obedient servant,
JOHN POLIDORI.
* * * * *
The prefatory note to _The Vampyre_, in _The New Monthly Magazine_, runs
thus: "We received several private letters in the course of last autumn
from a friend travelling on the Continent, and among others the
following, which we give to the public on account of its containing
anecdotes of an individual concerning whom the most trifling
circumstances, if they tend to mark even the minor features of his mind,
cannot fail of being considered important and valuable by those who know
how to appreciate his erratic but transcendent genius. The tale which
accompanied the letter we have also much pleasure in presenting to our
readers.—Ed." There is also a final note thus: "We have in our
possession the tale of Dr. ——, as well as the outline of that of Miss
Godwin. The latter has already appeared under the title of
_Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus_. The former, however, upon
consulting with its author, we may probably hereafter give to our
readers.—Ed."
Two questions arise as to that prefatory note: (1) Did the Editor really
write it, or did the Publisher Colburn write it? (2) Is the averment
true or false that the Editor (or the Publisher) had received in the
course of the preceding autumn "several private letters" from the same
person who had now forwarded a letter enclosing _The Vampyre_?
Murray wrote to Lord Byron on April 27, 1819. He speaks of the
publication of _The Vampyre_ in _The New Monthly Magazine_, and
afterwards in book-form, and proceeds: "The Editor of that journal has
quarrelled with the Publisher, and has called this morning to exculpate
himself from the baseness of the transaction. He says that he received
it from Dr. Polidori for a small sum; Polidori averring that the whole
plan of it was yours, and that it was merely written out by him. The
Editor inserted it with a short statement to this effect; but, to his
astonishment, Colburn cancelled the leaf.... He informs me that
Polidori, finding that the sale exceeded his expectation and that he had
sold it too cheap, went to the Editor and declared that he would deny
it."
This statement by Murray makes it probable that the paragraph purporting
to come from the Editor, or some substantial part of it, really emanated
from the Publisher, and the same is definitely asserted in Polidori's
letter to _The Morning Chronicle_; but Murray's letter does not settle
the question whether the allegation about a traveller at Geneva was true
or false. The Editor's assertion that "he received it from Dr. Polidori
for a small sum" does not by any means clear up all the facts. It seems
quite possible that there really was a correspondent at Geneva who sent
to the Editor the MS. of _The Vampyre_, along with that of Polidori's
other tale, and an outline of Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_, as
expressly affirmed in the final note signed "Ed."; and that the Editor,
having no right to publish _The Vampyre_ unless by authority of its
writer, spoke to Polidori about it. How could Polidori dispose of it
"for a small sum" if he alleged that it was written by Byron, or by any
one other than himself? He averred "that the whole plan of it was"
Byron's—and this is apparently true; adding "that it was merely written
out by" himself—in the sense not of having written from Byron's
dictation, but of having composed a story founded upon Byron's intended
incidents. Murray's final phrase—that Polidori "went to the Editor, and
declared that he would deny it"—is loosely expressed, but seems to mean
that he would deny Byron's authorship of _The Vampyre_—and so in fact he
did.
If we suppose (as did Murray apparently) that Polidori had in the first
instance planned a deliberate imposture, and had palmed off upon the
Editor _The Vampyre_ as being virtually the writing of Byron, we are
encountered by three difficulties left unexplained: (1) What plea could
Polidori advance for having the MS. and the right of publishing it? (2)
Why did he sell for "a _small_ sum" a work which, if written by the
world-famous Lord Byron, would be worth a very considerable sum? (3) Why
did the Editor pay to Polidori a sum, whether small or large, for a book
which, according to this assumption, was avowedly not the writing of
himself, but the writing and property of Byron? All these difficulties
are avoided, and no other serious difficulties arise, if we assume that
the account given by Polidori is the true one, viz. that he offered the
tale to the Editor as being his own composition, strictly modelled upon
a series of incidents invented by Byron.
Polidori's letter, addressed to the Editor of _The Morning Chronicle_,
was, as I have already said, delivered to the office of that paper. It
was not however published there, as Messrs. Sherwood, Neely, and Jones,
the publishers of _The Vampyre_ in its book-form, represented to
Polidori that the appearance of such a letter would tend to compromise
them, and he therefore, out of consideration for this firm, withdrew the
letter unprinted. This is Polidori's own statement, contained in the
Introduction to another romantic tale of his, _Ernestus Berchtold_,
published in 1819; being the tale by Polidori which, as stated by the
Editor of _The New Monthly Magazine_, had been sent to him along with
_The Vampyre_ and the outline of _Frankenstein_. Besides all this, the
Doctor wrote a brief letter, published in _The Courier_ on May 5, 1819,
saying—what was clearly the fact—"Though the groundwork is certainly
Lord Byron's, its development is mine."
I must now revert for a moment to the "skull-headed lady." In the
Introduction above named, Polidori asserts that that tale, _Ernestus
Berchtold_, was the one which he began at Cologny. It does not contain
any sort of mention of any skull-headed lady. There is some supernatural
machinery in the story, of a rather futile kind; it could be excluded
without affecting the real basis of the narrative, which relates the
love-affair and marriage of a young Swiss patriot with a lady who is
ultimately identified as his sister. As to Mrs. Shelley's allegation
that the (non-existent) skull-headed lady was punished for "peeping
through a keyhole," no such incident exists in _Ernestus Berchtold_;
there is, however, a passage where a certain Julia seeks to solve a
mystery by looking "through the wainscot of a closet for wood." Her
head, after this inspection, remains exactly what it was before.
_The Vampyre_ was in its way a great success. As stated in _The
Dictionary of National Biography_, Byron's name gave Polidori's
production great celebrity on the Continent, where _The Vampyre_ was
held to be quite the thing which it behoved Byron to have written. It
formed the groundwork of Marschner's opera, and nearly half a volume of
Dumas's _Memoirs_ is occupied by an account of the representation of a
French play founded upon it.
THE DIARY
1816. _April 24._—I left London at 10 in the morning, with Lord Byron,
Scrope Davies, Esq., and J. Hobhouse, Esq.
[Mr. Scrope Berdmore Davies had been one of Byron's fellow-students and
intimates at Cambridge University, and had continued familiar with him
at Newstead Abbey and elsewhere. He has been described as "no less
remarkable for elegance of taste than for a generous high-mindedness."
Mr. John Cam Hobhouse (afterwards Sir J. C. Hobhouse, and ultimately
Lord Broughton de Gifford) was, it need hardly be said, a peculiarly
close friend of Byron. He had accompanied him in his travels in Greece
prior to the commencement of _Childe Harold_, wrote notes to that poem,
and to the last upheld the essential fineness of his Lordship's
character. Byron's intention to travel along with Hobhouse in the spring
of 1816 was not a new project conceived in consequence of his
separation, only completed on April 22, from his wife. He had
entertained this scheme before his daughter Ada was born on December 10,
1815, and had announced it to his wife, to whom the notion was not
agreeable.]
The view from Shooter's Hill was extensive and beautiful, being on a
much larger scale than the view from Stirling.
[Polidori mentions Stirling, as being no doubt a reminiscence of his
own, from the days when he had been in Edinburgh to take his medical
degree.]
The plain, enamelled with various colours according to the different
growth of the corn, spread far before our sight, was divided irregularly
by the river. The Thames next, with its majestic waves, flowed in the
plain below, bearing numerous fleets upon its flood. Its banks in many
parts were beautiful. The chalky banks were alternated with the swelling
hills, rising from the waves, of the pleasing green-brown, the effect of
the first dawn of spring on the vegetable creation.
At Canterbury we saw the Cathedral. I know not how it was, whether my
mind had been prepared by the previous sight of glorious nature to
receive pleasing impressions, but the spot where the high altar and
Thomas à Becket's tomb stood seemed to me one of the most beautiful
effects that I had ever seen arising from Saxo-Gothic architecture; for,
though it had not all the airiness and awe-inspiring height that I had
seen in other cathedrals, yet its simple beauty pleased me more than
anything I had yet seen.
Remounting, we soon arrived at Dover, where we slept, when the
packet-boat captain had sufficiently disturbed us.
_April 25._—This day was spent at Dover. The greater part was occupied
in procuring what had been neglected in London, and in seeing the
carriage well packed up. After dinner, however, we went in search of
Churchill's tomb, raised, we had learned, to his memory by his friend
Wilkes. Arrived at the house of the sexton, he led us to a ruined
church, passing through which we came into a churchyard, where children,
heedless and unconscious of what they trampled on, sportively ran amid
the raised turf graves. He pointed out to us a tombstone,
undistinguished from those of the tradesmen near him, having merely,
like them, a square tablet stuck into the ground, whereon was written,
"Here lie the remains of the celebrated Churchill.
"Life to the last enjoyed, here Churchill lies.
_Candidate._"
[By Churchill.] The green turf was beginning already to decay upon his
tomb, which when the sexton heard us lamenting he assured us that his
grave, as well as the rest, would be newly decked as soon as Nature had
vested its fullest green—for that was an old custom. Churchill owed,
then, only to a common hand what the pride of a friend refused—the
safety of his burial-place. Wilkes only sought the gratification of his
vanity. While he consigned his friend's last relics to the keeping of a
tablet, he consigned his own pride in such a friend to the keeping of a
column in his own grounds. Yet I do not know whether the scene was not
more moving, though no vainly pompous inscription pointed out the spot
where this poet was buried.
There were two authors; one, the most distinguished of his age; another,
whose name is rising rapidly; (and a third, ambitious for literary
distinction). What a lesson it was for them when, having asked the
sexton if he knew why so many came to see this tomb, he said: "I cannot
tell; I had not the burying of him."
[Byron, after settling in the Villa Diodati near Geneva, recorded this
same incident in a composition entitled _Churchill's Grave, a Fact
Literally Rendered_. He wrote a memorandum to say that in this poem he
had intentionally imitated the style of Wordsworth, "its beauties and
its defects." The composition therefore is essentially un-Byronic in
method, and perhaps Wordsworth would not have recognized in it many of
his own "beauties." The lines are as follows—
"I stood beside the grave of him who blazed
The comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed
With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name no clearer than the names unknown
Which lay unread around it. And I ask'd
The gardener of that ground why it might be
That for this plant strangers his memory task'd,
Through the thick deaths of half a century.
And thus he answered: 'Well, I do not know
Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so:
He died before my day of sextonship,
And I had not the digging of this grave.'
And is this all? I thought; and do we rip
The veil of immortality, and crave
I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight
So soon and so successless? As I said,
The architect of all on which we tread
(For earth is but a tombstone) did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought,
Were it not that all life must end in one,
Of which we are but dreamers. As he caught
As 'twere the twilight of a former sun,
Thus spoke he: 'I believe the man of whom
You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day;
And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour;—and myself whate'er
Your honour pleases.' Then most pleased I shook
From out my pocket's avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which (as 'twere
Perforce) I gave this man—though I could spare
So much but inconveniently. Ye smile
(I see ye, ye profane ones, all the while)
Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.
You are the fools, not I; for I did dwell
With a deep thought and with a softened eye
On that old sexton's natural homily,
In which there was obscurity and fame—
The glory and the nothing of a name."
Charles Churchill the satirist, a clergyman who had given up his
standing in the Church, had died in 1764 at Boulogne, aged only
thirty-three. It is clear that his renown was still considerable in
1816; it is now barely more than a literary reminiscence.]
We then returned home, where, having delivered my play into their hands,
I had to hear it laughed at—(an author has always a salvo) partly, I
think, from the way in which it was read. One of the party, however—to
smoothe, I suppose, my ruffled spirits—took up my play, and apparently
read part with great attention, drawing applause from those who before
had laughed. He read on with so much attention that the others declared
he had never been so attentive before.
[Further on it would appear that this play was named _Cajetan_. I know
nothing about it. The name Cajetan is in Italian Gaetano, which was the
Christian name of Polidori's father.]
I afterwards went out, and did a very absurd thing, which I told; and
found I had not only hurt myself but might possibly hurt others for whom
I cared much more.
_April 26._—We embarked at 9 o'clock, much hurried, with three servants.
[This means, to judge from a published letter by Byron, 9 o'clock on the
evening of April 25. The three servants were Berger (a Swiss), William
Fletcher, and Robert Rushton. Mr. Davies and Mr. Hobhouse, it will be
understood, remained ashore.]
When at a distance, we waved our hands and hats, bidding adieu. The wind
was completely in our teeth, but we made the passage in sixteen hours.
The coast of Dover is very striking, though miserably barren-looking.
The cliff is steep, though not such as Shakespear paints. The castle—at
a distance, which is the only way I viewed it—is miserable. Sailing from
England, I for a long time kept my eye upon its stern white cliffs,
thinking on her who bade me join her remembrance with the last sight of
my native soil.
[This points pretty clearly to a love-passage, perhaps a matrimonial
engagement. As a fact Polidori never married. The lady may possibly have
been Eliza Arrow, a relative in India, with whom he, at a rather earlier
date, had interchanged various letters.]
They at last faded from my sight, and all on board looked dreary; the
sea dashed over us, and all wore an aspect of grief. Towards night a
most beautiful spectacle was seen by myself, who alone remained on deck.
The stars shedding merely a twilight enabled me to see the phosphoric
light of the broken foam in all its splendour. But the most beautiful
moment was that of its first appearance: no sound around save the sullen
rushing of the vessel, and the hoarse cries of the heaving sailor; no
light save a melancholy twilight, which soothed the mind into
forgetfulness of its grief for a while—a beautiful streak following the
lead through the waves. We arrived at Ostend at 2 o'clock in the
morning.
[Polidori's chronology is a little confusing here. If the party left
Dover at 9 p.m. on April 25, and took sixteen hours in the sea-passage,
they must have reached Ostend at 1 in the _afternoon_. There is also a
confusion immediately afterwards, for he repeats the date for which he
has already accounted, viz.]
_April 26._—We passed through the gates, paying a franc a head, and went
to the Cour Impériale. We were astonished at the excellent inn and good
treatment, except that I got a dreadful headache from the smell of paint
in my bedroom, and that the tea was perfumed.
[It was, I believe, at this point of the narrative that my aunt
Charlotte Polidori cut out a peccant passage. I seem to remember the
precise diction of it, which was this: "As soon as he reached his room,
Lord Byron fell like a thunderbolt upon the chambermaid." Such at any
rate was the substance of the statement. The other statement which my
aunt excluded came somewhat further on, when Dr. Polidori was staying
near Geneva. He gave some account of a visit of his to some haunt of the
local Venus Pandemos. I think the police took some notice of it. The
performance was not decorous, but was related without any verbal
impropriety.]
Arising in the morning, I went upon a stroll round the town. Saw little
girls of all ages with head-dresses; books in every bookseller's window
of the most obscene nature; women with wooden shoes; men of low rank
basking in the sun as if that would evaporate their idleness. The houses
generally good old style, very like a Scotch town, only not quite so
filthy. Very polite custom-house officers, and very civil waiters. Fine
room painted as a panorama, all French-attitudinized. Went into a shop
where no one spoke French. Tried German; half-a-dozen women burst out
laughing at me. Luckily for myself, in a good humour; laughed with them.
Obliged to buy two books I did not want, because I let a quarto fall
upon a fine girl's head while looking at her eyes. Coaches of the most
horrid construction; apparently some fine horses, others small.
Fortifications look miserable. Once stood a fine siege, when 40,000 on
one side and 80 on the other fed fowls and manured the fields. What for?
For religion? No—for money. _There_ was the spring of all. As long as
only religion and rights were affected, bigoted religionists and wild
republicans were alone concerned; but a step too far, and all was
ruined.
[The allusion here is to the great siege of Ostend, 1601 to 1604.]
We set off at 3, with four horses. Postillion with boots to his hips,
nankeens, leather hat with quaker brim, only neatly rounded with black
riband; a blue and red coat, joined to which a most rascally face, with
lips that went a few lines beyond the brim of his hat. A dreadful
smacker of his whip, and a driver of four horses from the back of one of
the hindermost. We were obliged to hire a calèche to send with our
luggage. The rascal made us pay three times too much at each of his
barriers; but, after having (on account of the horses not being ready at
the next post) gone beyond his beat, he allowed the toll-keepers to be
honest, and only take a few centimes instead of a franc. The country
very flat, highly cultivated; sand, no waste. Roads paved in the middle,
with trees on each side. Country, from the interspersion of houses,
spires, cottages, etc., delightful; everything comfortable, no
appearance of discontent.
We got out of our carriage at a place where the horses ate bread and
hay, and walked on to a church-yard, where we found no tombstones, no
funeral-pomp, no flattering eulogy, but simply a wooden cross at each
grave's head and foot. On the side of the church-steeple, at a little
height, was made a niche wherein statues formed a crucifixion, as an
object to excite reverence and adoration of God in every passenger. We
passed on, and arrived at Bruges at the fall of the evening. Our
passports were dispensed with on our mentioning that we were not
stopping. We entered one of the most beautiful towns I ever saw; every
house seemed substantial—had some ornament either of fretwork or
lines—all seem clean and neat. We stopped at the post. We were shown
into the postmaster's parlour on our asking for something to eat—well
furnished—better even than a common middleman's house in London.
N.B.—Everywhere 6 francs for a bottle of Rhenish. Women generally
pretty. Flemish face has no divinity—all pleasing more than beautiful—a
sparkling eye in a full round. Their pictures of every age have the mark
of their country.
As we went from Bruges, twilight softened all the beauty, and I do not
know how to describe the feeling of pleasure we felt in going through
its long roof-fretted streets, bursting on to spots where people were
promenading amidst short avenues of trees. We passed on. At the gates I
saw a boy with sand in his hand let it through his fingers laughingly,
heedless of the myriads whose life hung upon each sand. We passed on at
10. We came to a village where we heard the sound of music. The
innkeeper, on our enquiring what it was, asked us politely in to hear a
concert of amateurs. We descended, and were gratified and surprised at
hearing, in a village of 5000 souls, a full band playing difficult
though beautiful music. One march particularly struck us. But what was
our surprise, when the door opened, to view the group: none apparently
above the rank of labourers, yet they met three times a week. In our
country the amusement is to reel drunk as many. There was one figure
manifestly consumptive, yet he was blowing an enormous trombone.
Within a few miles of Gand, I was wakened from a pleasant fireside in
England by my companion saying "They have lost their way"; and, seeing a
house near me, I jumped out to enquire, when to my great fear I saw it
was deserted. I immediately suspected something, and went back for a
pistol, and then thundered at the door; no one came. Looking round, I
saw other houses; towards which upon my moving the postillion got off,
and, telling me in French, as a consolation, that he could not
understand it, went with me towards a house where there was light, and
suddenly ran off. I immediately went to the carriage, and we gave sabres
to the servants; when he ran back from out of sight, and knocked again
at the door and roused two, who told us the way. By the by, we had
crossed several times the bridge, and from the road and back again,
whereas we had nothing to do but to go straight on, instead of which he
crossed over and was going back in the direction of Bruges, when our
servant stopped him. I cannot explain his conduct; he was dreadfully
frightened.
We arrived at Ghent at 3 in the morning, and knocked some time at the
gates, but at last, by means of a few francs, got through—passports not
asked for. Got to the Hôtel des Pays Bas, where Count Artois resided
while at Ghent. We were ushered into a splendid room, got excellent
Rhenish, butter, cheese, etc., and went to bed.
_April 27._—At Gand Charles the Ist of Spain was born. It was here he
really showed the insufficiency of ambition and all the joys of manhood.
After having at Brussels resigned to Philip his extensive dominions, he
came here, and enjoyed many days while passing over the scenes of his
youth, which neither the splendour attached to a European or an Indian
crown nor to the conquests of his powerful and noble views could efface.
He did not seek Pavia; no, it was at Gand that he sought for his last
draught of worldly joy. The town was worthy of it, if beauty and
antiquity, if riches and liberty with all their train, could render it
worthy of him. This town has all the beauty of Bruges, but more
extensive: finer houses perhaps, fine cathedral, fine paintings, fine
streets, fine canal. The streets are perhaps the finest I have seen; not
so unpleasantly regular as London, not so high, but more rich in
outside.