Local Pleasures--Byron's Grecian Poems--His Departure from Athens--
Description of Evening in "The Corsair"--The Opening of "The Giaour"-
-State of Patriotic Feeling then in Greece--Smyrna--Change in Lord
Byron's Manners
The genii that preside over famous places have less influence on the
imagination than on the memory. The pleasures enjoyed on the spot
spring from the reminiscences of reading; and the subsequent
enjoyment derived from having visited celebrated scenes, comes again
from the remembrance of objects seen there, and the associations
connected with them.
A residence at Athens, day after day, is but little more interesting
than in a common country town: but afterwards, in reading either of
the ancient or of the modern inhabitants, it is surprising to find
how much local knowledge the memory had unconsciously acquired on the
spot, arising from the variety of objects to which the attention had
been directed.
The best of all Byron's works, the most racy and original, are
undoubtedly those which relate to Greece; but it is only travellers
who have visited the scenes that can appreciate them properly. In
them his peculiar style and faculty are most eminent; in all his
other productions, imitation, even mere translation may be often
traced, and though, without question, everything he touched became
transmuted into something more beautiful and precious, yet he was
never so masterly as in describing the scenery of Greece, and
Albanian manners. In a general estimate of his works, it may be
found that he has produced as fine or finer passages than any in his
Grecian poems; but their excellence, either as respects his own, or
the productions of others, is comparative. In the Grecian poems he
is only truly original; in them the excellence is all his own, and
they possess the rare and distinguished quality of being as true to
fact and nature, as they are brilliant in poetical expression.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is the most faithful descriptive poem
which has been written since the Odyssey; and the occasional scenes
introduced into the other poems, when the action is laid in Greece,
are equally vivid and glowing.
When I saw him at Athens, the spring was still shrinking in the bud.
It was not until he returned from Constantinople in the following
autumn, that he saw the climate and country with those delightful
aspects which he has delineated with so much felicity in The Giaour
and The Corsair. It may, however, be mentioned, that the fine
description of a calm sunset, with which the third canto of The
Corsair opens, has always reminded me of the evening before his
departure from Athens, owing to the circumstance of my having, in the
course of the day, visited the spot which probably suggested the
scene described.
It was the 4th of March, 1810; the Pylades sloop of war came that
morning into the Piraeus, and landed Dr Darwin, a son of the poet,
with his friend, Mr Galton, who had come out in her for a cruise.
Captain Ferguson, her commander, was so kind as to offer the English
then in Athens, viz., Lord Byron, Mr Hobhouse, and myself, a passage
to Smyrna. As I had not received my luggage from Specia, I could not
avail myself of the offer, but the other two did: I accompanied
Captain Ferguson, however, and Dr Darwin, in a walk to the Straits of
Salamis; the ship, in the meantime, after landing them, having been
moored there.
It was one of those serene and cloudless days of the early spring,
when the first indications of leaf and blossom may just be discerned.
The islands slept, as it were, on their glassy couch, and a slight
dun haze hung upon the mountains, as if they too were drowsy. After
an easy walk of about two hours, passing through the olive groves,
and along the bottom of the hill on which Xerxes sat to view the
battle, we came opposite to a little cove near the ferry, and made a
signal to the ship for a boat. Having gone on board and partaken of
some refreshment, the boat then carried us back to the Piraeus, where
we landed, about an hour before sundown--all the wide landscape
presenting at the time the calm and genial tranquillity which is
almost experienced anew in reading these delicious lines:
Slow sinks more lovely e'er his race be run,
Along Morea's hills, the setting sun
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light.
O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it flows.
On old Egina's rock, and Idra's isle,
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering, loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine;--
Descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquer'd Salamis!
Their azure arches, through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven;
Till darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.
The opening of The Giaour is a more general description, but the
locality is distinctly marked by reference to the tomb above the
rocks of the promontory, commonly said to be that of Themistocles;
and yet the scene included in it certainly is rather the view from
Cape Colonna, than from the heights of Munychia.
No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tomb, which, gleaming o'er the cliff,
First greets the homeward-veering skiff,
High o'er the land he saved in vain--
When shall such hero live again!
The environs of the Piraeus were indeed, at that time, well
calculated to inspire those mournful reflections with which the poet
introduces the Infidel's impassioned tale. The solitude, the relics,
the decay, and sad uses to which the pirate and the slave-dealer had
put the shores and waters so honoured by freedom, rendered a visit to
the Piraeus something near in feeling to a pilgrimage.
Such is the aspect of this shore,
'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there.
Hers is the loveliness in death,
That parts not quite with parting breath;
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb,
Expression's last receding ray,
A gilded halo hov'ring round decay,
The farewell beam of feeling past away.
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish'd earth.
At that time Lord Byron, if he did pity the condition of the Greeks,
evinced very little confidence in the resurrection of the nation,
even although symptoms of change and reanimation were here and there
perceptible, and could not have escaped his observation. Greece had
indeed been so long ruined, that even her desolation was then in a
state of decay. The new cycle in her fortunes had certainly not
commenced, but it was manifest, by many a sign, that the course of
the old was concluding, and that the whole country felt the assuring
auguries of undivulged renovation. The influence of that period did
not, however, penetrate the bosom of the poet; and when he first
quitted Athens, assuredly he cared as little about the destinies of
the Greeks, as he did for those of the Portuguese and Spaniards, when
he arrived at Gibraltar.
About three weeks or a month after he had left Athens, I went by a
circuitous route to Smyrna, where I found him waiting with Mr
Hobhouse, to proceed with the Salsette frigate, then ordered to
Constantinople, to bring away Mr Adair, the ambassador. He had, in
the meantime, visited Ephesus, and acquired some knowledge of the
environs of Smyrna; but he appeared to have been less interested by
what he had seen there than by the adventures of his Albanian tour.
Perhaps I did him injustice, but I thought he was also, in that short
space, something changed, and not with improvement. Towards Mr
Hobhouse, he seemed less cordial, and was altogether, I should say,
having no better phrase to express what I would describe, more of a
Captain Grand than improved in his manners, and more disposed to hold
his own opinion than I had ever before observed in him. I was
particularly struck with this at dinner, on the day after my arrival.
We dined together with a large party at the consul's, and he seemed
inclined to exact a deference to his dogmas, that was more lordly
than philosophical. One of the naval officers present, I think the
captain of the Salsette, felt, as well as others, this overweening,
and announced a contrary opinion on some question connected with the
politics of the late Mr Pitt with so much firm good sense, that Lord
Byron was perceptibly rebuked by it, and became reserved, as if he
deemed that sullenness enhanced dignity. I never in the whole course
of my acquaintance saw him kithe so unfavourably as he did on that
occasion. In the course of the evening, however, he condescended to
thaw, and before the party broke up, his austerity began to leaf, and
hide its thorns under the influence of a relenting temperament. It
was, however, too evident--at least it was so to me--that without
intending wrong, or any offence, the unchecked humour of his temper
was, by its caprices, calculated to prevent him from ever gaining
that regard to which his talents and freer moods, independently of
his rank, ought to have entitled him. Such men become objects of
solicitude, but never of esteem.
I was also on this occasion struck with another new phase in his
character; he seemed to be actuated by no purpose--he spoke no more
of passing "beyond Aurora and the Ganges," but seemed disposed to let
the current of chances carry him as it might. If he had any specific
object in view, it was something that made him hesitate between going
home and returning to Athens when he should have reached
Constantinople, now become the ultimate goal of his intended travels.
To what cause this sudden and singular change, both in demeanour and
design, was owing, I was on the point of saying, it would be
fruitless to conjecture; but a letter to his mother, written a few
days before my arrival at Smyrna, throws some light on the sources of
his unsatisfied state. He appears by it to have been disappointed of
letters and remittances from his agent, and says:
"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 H., 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."
Here is sufficient evidence that the cause of the undetermined state
of his mind, which struck me so forcibly, was owing to the
incertitude of his affairs at home; and it is easy to conceive that
the false dignity he assumed, and which seemed so like arrogance, was
the natural effect of the anxiety and embarrassment he suffered, and
of the apprehension of a person of his rank being, on account of his
remittances, exposed to require assistance among strangers. But as
the scope of my task relates more to the history of his mind, than of
his private affairs, I shall resume the narrative of his travels, in
which the curiosity of the reader ought to be more legitimately
interested.