"The Two Foscari"--"Werner"--"The Deformed Transformed"--"Don Juan"--
"The Liberal"--Removes from Pisa to Genoa
I have never heard exactly where the tragedy of The Two Foscari was
written: that it was imagined in Venice is probable. The subject
is, perhaps, not very fit for a drama, for it has no action; but it
is rich in tragic materials, revenge and affection, and the
composition is full of the peculiar stuff of the poet's own mind.
The exulting sadness with which Jacopo Foscari looks in the first
scene from the window, on the Adriatic, is Byron himself recalling
his enjoyment of the sea.
How many a time have I
Cloven with arm still lustier, heart more daring,
The wave all roughen'd: with a swimmer's stroke
Flinging the billows back from my drench'd hair,
And laughing from my lip th' audacious brine
Which kiss'd it like a wine-cup.
The whole passage, both prelude and remainder, glows with the
delicious recollections of laying and revelling in the summer waves.
But the exile's feeling is no less beautifully given and appropriate
to the author's condition, far more so, indeed, than to that of
Jacopo Foscari.
Had I gone forth
From my own land, like the old patriarchs, seeking
Another region with their flocks and herds;
Had I been cast out like the Jews from Zion,
Or like our fathers driven by Attila
From fertile Italy to barren islets,
I would have given some tears to my late country,
And many thoughts; but afterward address'd
Myself to those about me, to create
A new home and first state.
What follows is still more pathetic:
Ay--we but hear
Of the survivors' toil in their new lands,
Their numbers and success; but who can number
The hearts which broke in silence of that parting,
Or after their departure; of that malady {291a}
Which calls up green and native fields to view
From the rough deep with such identity
To the poor exile's fever'd eye, that he
Can scarcely be restrained from treading them?
That melody {291b} which out of tones and tunes
Collects such pastime for the ling'ring sorrow
Of the sad mountaineer, when far away
From his snow-canopy of cliffs and clouds,
That he feeds on the sweet but poisonous thought
And dies.--You call this weakness! It is strength,
I say--the parent of all honest feeling:
He who loves not his country can love nothing.
MARINA
Obey her then, 'tis she that puts thee forth.
JACOPO FOSCARI
Ay, there it is. 'Tis like a mother's curse
Upon my soul--the mark is set upon me.
The exiles you speak of went forth by nations;
Their hands upheld each other by the way;
Their tents were pitch'd together--I'm alone--
Ah, you never yet
Were far away from Venice--never saw
Her beautiful towers in the receding distance,
While every furrow of the vessel's track
Seem'd ploughing deep into your heart; you never
Saw day go down upon your native spires
So calmly with its gold and crimson glory,
And after dreaming a disturbed vision
Of them and theirs, awoke and found them not.
All this speaks of the voluntary exile's own regrets, and awakens
sympathy for the anguish which pride concealed, but unable to
repress, gave vent to in the imagined sufferings of one that was to
him as Hecuba.
It was at Pisa that Werner, or The Inheritance, a tragedy, was
written, or at least completed. It is taken entirely from the
German's tale, Kruitzner, published many years before, by one of the
Miss Lees, in their Canterbury Tales. So far back as 1815, Byron
began a drama upon the same subject, and nearly completed an act when
he was interrupted. "I have adopted," he says himself, "the
characters, plan, and even the language of many parts of this story";
an acknowledgment which exempts it from that kind of criticism to
which his principal works are herein subjected.
But The Deformed Transformed, which was also written at Pisa, is,
though confessedly an imitation of Goethe's Faust, substantially an
original work. In the opinion of Mr Moore, it probably owes
something to the author's painful sensibility to the defect in his
own foot; an accident which must, from the acuteness with which he
felt it, have essentially contributed to enable him to comprehend and
to express the envy of those afflicted with irremediable exceptions
to the ordinary course of fortune, or who have been amerced by nature
of their fair proportions. But save only a part of the first scene,
the sketch will not rank among the felicitous works of the poet. It
was intended to be a satire--probably, at least--but it is only a
fragment--a failure.
Hitherto I have not noticed Don Juan otherwise than incidentally. It
was commenced in Venice, and afterward continued at intervals to the
end of the sixteenth canto, until the author left Pisa, when it was
not resumed, at least no more has been published. Strong objections
have been made to its moral tendency; but, in the opinion of many, it
is the poet's masterpiece, and undoubtedly it displays all the
variety of his powers, combined with a quaint playfulness not found
to an equal degree in any other of his works. The serious and
pathetic portions are exquisitely beautiful; the descriptive have all
the distinctness of the best pictures in Childe Harold, and are,
moreover, generally drawn from nature, while the satire is for the
most part curiously associated and sparklingly witty. The characters
are sketched with amazing firmness and freedom, and though sometimes
grotesque, are yet not often overcharged. It is professedly an epic
poem, but it may be more properly described as a poetical novel. Nor
can it be said to inculcate any particular moral, or to do more than
unmantle the decorum of society. Bold and buoyant throughout, it
exhibits a free irreverent knowledge of the world, laughing or
mocking as the thought serves, in the most unexpected antitheses to
the proprieties of time, place, and circumstance.
The object of the poem is to describe the progress of a libertine
through life, not an unprincipled prodigal, whose profligacy, growing
with his growth, and strengthening with his strength, passes from
voluptuous indulgence into the sordid sensuality of systematic
debauchery, but a young gentleman, who, whirled by the vigour and
vivacity of his animal spirits into a world of adventures, in which
his stars are chiefly in fault for his liaisons, settles at last into
an honourable lawgiver, a moral speaker on divorce bills, and
possibly a subscriber to the Society for the Suppression of Vice.
The author has not completed his design, but such appears to have
been the drift of it, affording ample opportunities to unveil the
foibles and follies of all sorts of men--and women too. It is
generally supposed to contain much of the author's own experience,
but still, with all its riant knowledge of bowers and boudoirs, it is
deficient as a true limning of the world, by showing man as if he
were always ruled by one predominant appetite.
In the character of Donna Inez and Don Jose, it has been imagined
that Lord Byron has sketched himself and his lady. It may be so; and
if it were, he had by that time got pretty well over the lachrymation
of their parting. It is no longer doubtful that the twenty-seventh
stanza records a biographical fact, and the thirty-sixth his own
feelings, when,
Poor fellow! he had many things to wound him,
Let's own, since it can do no good on earth;
It was a trying moment that which found him
Standing alone beside his desolate hearth,
Where all his household gods lay shiver'd round him:
No choice was left his feelings or his pride,
Save death or Doctors' Commons.
It has been already mentioned, that while the poet was at Dr
Glennie's academy at Dulwich, he read an account of a shipwreck,
which has been supposed to have furnished some of the most striking
incidents in the description of the disastrous voyage in the second
canto in Don Juan. I have not seen that work; but whatever Lord
Byron may have found in it suitable to his purpose, he has
undoubtedly made good use of his grandfather's adventures. The
incident of the spaniel is related by the admiral.
In the licence of Don Juan, the author seems to have considered that
his wonted accuracy might be dispensed with.
The description of Haidee applies to an Albanian, not a Greek girl.
The splendour of her father's house is altogether preposterous; and
the island has no resemblance to those of the Cyclades. With the
exception of Zea, his Lordship, however, did not visit them. Some
degree of error and unlike description, runs indeed through the whole
of the still life around the portrait of Haidee. The fete which
Lambro discovers on his return, is, however, prettily described; and
the dance is as perfect as true.
And farther on a group of Grecian girls,
The first and tallest her white kerchief waving,
Were strung together like a row of pearls,
Link'd hand in hand and dancing; each too having
Down her white neck long floating auburn curls.
Their leader sang, and bounded to her song,
With choral step and voice, the virgin throng.
The account of Lambro proceeding to the house is poetically imagined;
and, in his character, may be traced a vivid likeness of Ali Pasha,
and happy illustrative allusions to the adventures of that chief.
The fourth canto was written at Ravenna; it is so said within itself;
and the description of Dante's sepulchre there may be quoted for its
truth, and the sweet modulation of the moral reflection interwoven
with it.
I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid;
A little cupola, more neat than solemn,
Protects his dust; but reverence here is paid
To the bard's tomb and not the warrior's column.
The time must come when both alike decay'd,
The chieftain's trophy and the poet's volume
Will sink where lie the songs and wars of earth,
Before Pelides' death or Homer's birth.
The fifth canto was also written in Ravenna. But it is not my
intention to analyze this eccentric and meandering poem; a
composition which cannot be well estimated by extracts. Without,
therefore, dwelling at greater length on its variety and merits. I
would only observe that the general accuracy of the poet's
descriptions is verified by that of the scenes in which Juan is
placed in England, a point the reader may determine for himself;
while the vagueness of the parts derived from books, or sketched from
fancy, as contrasted with them, justifies the opinion, that invention
was not the most eminent faculty of Byron, either in scenes or in
characters. Of the demerits of the poem it is only necessary to
remark, that it has been proscribed on account of its immorality;
perhaps, however, there was more of prudery than of equity in the
decision, at least it is liable to be so considered, so long as
reprints are permitted of the older dramatists, with all their
unpruned licentiousness.
But the wheels of Byron's destiny were now hurrying. Both in the
conception and composition of Don Juan he evinced an increasing
disregard of the world's opinion; and the project of The Liberal was
still more fatal to his reputation. Not only were the invidious eyes
of bigotry now eagerly fixed upon his conduct, but those of
admiration were saddened and turned away from him. His principles,
which would have been more correctly designated as paradoxes, were
objects of jealousy to the Tuscan Government; and it has been already
seen that there was a disorderliness about the Casa Lanfranchi which
attracted the attention of the police. His situation in Pisa became,
in consequence, irksome; and he resolved to remove to Genoa, an
intention which he carried into effect about the end of September,
1822, at which period his thoughts began to gravitate towards Greece.
Having attained to the summit of his literary eminence, he grew
ambitious of trying fortune in another field of adventure.
In all the migrations of Lord Byron there was ever something
grotesque and desultory. In moving from Ravenna to Pisa, his caravan
consisted of seven servants, five carriages, nine horses, a monkey, a
bulldog, and a mastiff, two cats, three peafowl, a harem of hens,
books, saddles, and firearms, with a chaos of furniture nor was the
exodus less fantastical; for in addition to all his own clanjamphry,
he had Mr Hunt's miscellaneous assemblage of chattels and chattery
and little ones.