Life of Lord Byron Volume III Part 24

The following are the lines alluded to in this note. They are written in the loosest form of that rambling style of metre which his admiration of Mr. Coleridge's "Christabel" led him, at this time, to adopt; and he judged rightly, perhaps, in omitting them as the opening of his poem.

They are, however, too full of spirit and character to be lost. Though breathing the thick atmosphere of Piccadilly when he wrote them, it is plain that his fancy was far away, among the sunny hills and vales of Greece; and their contrast with the tame life he was leading at the moment, but gave to his recollections a fresher spring and force.

"In the year since Jesus died for men, Eighteen hundred years and ten, We were a gallant company, Riding o'er land, and sailing o'er sea.

Oh! but we went merrily!

We forded the river, and clomb the high hill, Never our steeds for a day stood still; Whether we lay in the cave or the shed, Our sleep fell soft on the hardest bed; Whether we couch'd in our rough capote, On the rougher plank of our gliding boat, Or stretch'd on the beach, or our saddles spread As a pillow beneath the resting head, Fresh we woke upon the morrow: All our thoughts and words had scope, We had health, and we had hope, Toil and travel, but no sorrow.

We were of all tongues and creeds;-- Some were those who counted beads, Some of mosque, and some of church, And some, or I mis-say, of neither; Yet through the wide world might ye search Nor find a mother crew nor blither.

"But some are dead, and some are gone, And some are scatter'd and alone, And some are rebels on the hills[89]

That look along Epirus' valleys Where Freedom still at moments rallies, And pays in blood Oppression's ills: And some are in a far countree, And some all restlessly at home; But never more, oh! never, we Shall meet to revel and to roam.

But those hardy days flew cheerily; And when they now fall drearily, My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main And bear my spirit back again Over the earth, and through the air, A wild bird, and a wanderer.

'Tis this that ever wakes my strain, And oft, too oft, implores again The few who may endure my lay, To follow me so far away.

"Stranger--wilt thou follow now, And sit with me on Acro-Corinth's brow?"

[Footnote 89: "The last tidings recently heard of Dervish (one of the Arnaouts who followed me) state him to be in revolt upon the mountains, at the head of some of the bands common in that country in times of trouble."]

LETTER 232. TO MR. MOORE.

"January 5. 1816.

"I hope Mrs. M. is quite re-established. The little girl was born on the 10th of December last; her name is Augusta _Ada_ (the second a very antique family name,--I believe not used since the reign of King John). She was, and is, very flouris.h.i.+ng and fat, and reckoned very large for her days--squalls and sucks incessantly. Are you answered? Her mother is doing very well, and up again.

"I have now been married a year on the second of this month--heigh-ho! I have seen n.o.body lately much worth noting, except S * * and another general of the Gauls, once or twice at dinners out of doors. S * * is a fine, foreign, villanous-looking, intelligent, and very agreeable man; his compatriot is more of the _pet.i.t-maitre_, and younger, but I should think not at all of the same intellectual calibre with the Corsican--which S * *, you know, is, and a cousin of Napoleon's.

"Are you never to be expected in town again? To be sure, there is no one here of the 1500 fillers of hot-rooms, called the fas.h.i.+onable world. My approaching papa-s.h.i.+p detained us for advice, &c. &c. though I would as soon be here as any where else on this side of the Straits of Gibraltar.

"I would gladly--or, rather, sorrowfully--comply with your request of a dirge for the poor girl you mention.[90] But how can I write on one I have never seen or known? Besides, you will do it much better yourself. I could not write upon any thing, without some personal experience and foundation; far less on a theme so peculiar. Now, you have both in this case; and, if you had neither, you have more imagination, and would never fail.

"This is but a dull scrawl, and I am but a dull fellow. Just at present, I am absorbed in 500 contradictory contemplations, though with but one object in view--which will probably end in nothing, as most things we wish do. But never mind,--as somebody says, 'for the blue sky bends over all.' I only could be glad, if it bent over me where it is a little bluer; like the 'skyish top of blue Olympus,'

which, by the way, looked very white when I last saw it.

"Ever," &c.

[Footnote 90: I had mentioned to him, as a subject worthy of his best powers of pathos, a melancholy event which had just occurred in my neighbourhood, and to which I have myself made allusion in one of the Sacred Melodies--"Weep not for her."]

On reading over the foregoing letter, I was much struck by the tone of melancholy that pervaded it; and well knowing it to be the habit of the writer's mind to seek relief, when under the pressure of any disquiet or disgust, in that sense of freedom which told him that there were homes for him elsewhere, I could perceive, I thought, in his recollections of the "blue Olympus," some return of the restless and roving spirit, which unhappiness or impatience always called up in his mind. I had, indeed, at the time when he sent me those melancholy verses, "There's not a joy this world can give," &c. felt some vague apprehensions as to the mood into which his spirits then seemed to be sinking, and, in acknowledging the receipt of the verses, thus tried to banter him out of it:--"But why thus on your stool of melancholy again, Master Stephen?--This will never do--it plays the deuce with all the matter-of-fact duties of life, and you must bid adieu to it. Youth is the only time when one can be melancholy with impunity. As life itself grows sad and serious we have nothing for it but--to be as much as possible the contrary."

My absence from London during the whole of this year had deprived me of all opportunities of judging for myself how far the appearances of his domestic state gave promise of happiness; nor had any rumours reached me which at all inclined me to suspect that the course of his married life hitherto exhibited less smoothness than such unions,--on the surface, at least,--generally wear. The strong and affectionate terms in which, soon after the marriage, he had, in some of the letters I have given, declared his own happiness--a declaration which his known frankness left me no room to question--had, in no small degree, tended to still those apprehensions which my first view of the lot he had chosen for himself awakened. I could not, however, but observe that these indications of a contented heart soon ceased. His mention of the partner of his home became more rare and formal, and there was observable, I thought, through some of his letters a feeling of unquiet and weariness that brought back all those gloomy antic.i.p.ations with which I had, from the first, regarded his fate. This last letter of his, in particular, struck me as full of sad omen, and, in the course of my answer, I thus noticed to him the impression it had made on me:--"And so you are a whole year married!--

'It was last year I vow'd to thee That fond impossibility.'

Do you know, my dear B., there was a something in your last letter--a sort of unquiet mystery, as well as a want of your usual elasticity of spirits--which has hung upon my mind unpleasantly ever since. I long to be near you, that I might know how you really look and feel; for these letters tell nothing, and one word, _a quattr'occhi_, is worth whole reams of correspondence. But only _do_ tell me you are happier than that letter has led me to fear, and I shall be satisfied."

It was in a few weeks after this latter communication between us that Lady Byron adopted the resolution of parting from him. She had left London about the middle of January, on a visit to her father's house, in Leicesters.h.i.+re, and Lord Byron was, in a short time after, to follow her. They had parted in the utmost kindness,--she wrote him a letter, full of playfulness and affection, on the road, and, immediately on her arrival at Kirkby Mallory, her father wrote to acquaint Lord Byron that she would return to him no more. At the time when he had to stand this unexpected shock, his pecuniary embarra.s.sments, which had been fast gathering around him during the whole of the last year (there having been no less than eight or nine executions in his house within that period), had arrived at their utmost; and at a moment when, to use his own strong expressions, he was "standing alone on his hearth, with his household G.o.ds s.h.i.+vered around him," he was also doomed to receive the startling intelligence that the wife who had just parted with him in kindness, had parted with him--for ever.

About this time the following note was written:--

TO MR. ROGERS.

"February 8. 1816.

"Do not mistake me--I really returned your book for the reason a.s.signed, and no other. It is too good for so careless a fellow. I have parted with all my own books, and positively won't deprive you of so valuable 'a drop of that immortal man.'

"I shall be very glad to see you, if you like to call, though I am at present contending with 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,' some of which have struck at me from a quarter whence I did not indeed expect them--But, no matter, 'there is a world elsewhere,' and I will cut my way through this as I can.

"If you write to Moore, will you tell him that I shall answer his letter the moment I can muster time and spirits? Ever yours,

"BN."

The rumours of the separation did not reach me till more than a week afterwards, when I immediately wrote to him thus:--"I am most anxious to hear from you, though I doubt whether I ought to mention the subject on which I am so anxious. If, however, what I heard last night, in a letter from town, be true, you will know immediately what I allude to, and just communicate as much or as little upon the subject as you think proper;--only _something_ I should like to know, as soon as possible, from yourself, in order to set my mind at rest with respect to the truth or falsehood of the report." The following is his answer:--

LETTER 233. TO MR. MOORE.

"February 29. 1816.

"I have not answered your letter for a time; and, at present, the reply to part of it might extend to such a length, that I shall delay it till it can be made in person, and then I will shorten it as much as I can.

"In the mean time, I am at war 'with all the world and his wife;'

or rather, 'all the world and _my_ wife' are at war with me, and have not yet crushed me,--whatever they _may_ do. I don't know that in the course of a hair-breadth existence I was ever, at home or abroad, in a situation so completely uprooting of present pleasure, or rational hope for the future, as this same. I say this, because I think so, and feel it. But I shall not sink under it the more for that mode of considering the question--I have made up my mind.

"By the way, however, you must not believe all you hear on the subject; and don't attempt to defend me. If you succeeded in that, it would be a mortal, or an immortal, offence--who can bear refutation? I have but a very short answer for those whom it concerns; and all the activity of myself and some vigorous friends have not yet fixed on any tangible ground or personage, on which or with whom I can discuss matters, in a summary way, with a fair pretext;--though I nearly had _nailed one_ yesterday, but he evaded by--what was judged by others--a satisfactory explanation. I speak of _circulators_--against whom I have no enmity, though I must act according to the common code of usage, when I hit upon those of the serious order.

"Now for other matters--poesy, for instance. Leigh Hunt's poem is a devilish good one--quaint, here and there, but with the substratum of originality, and with poetry about it, that will stand the test.

I do not say this because he has inscribed it to me, which I am sorry for, as I should otherwise have begged you to review it in the Edinburgh.[91] It is really deserving of much praise, and a favourable critique in the E.R. would but do it justice, and set it up before the public eye where it ought to be.

"How are you? and where? I have not the most distant idea what I am going to do myself, or with myself--or where--or what. I had, a few weeks ago, some things to say that would have made you laugh; but they tell me now that I must not laugh, and so I have been very serious--and am.

"I have not been very well--with a _liver_ complaint--but am much better within the last fortnight, though still under Iatrical advice. I have latterly seen a little of * * * *

"I must go and dress to dine. My little girl is in the country, and, they tell me, is a very fine child, and now nearly three months old. Lady Noel (my mother-in-law, or, rather, _at_ law) is at present overlooking it. Her daughter (Miss Milbanke that was) is, I believe, in London with her father. A Mrs. C. (now a kind of housekeeper and spy of Lady N.'s) who, in her better days, was a washerwoman, is supposed to be--by the learned--very much the occult cause of our late domestic discrepancies.

"In all this business, I am the sorriest for Sir Ralph. He and I are equally punished, though _magis pares quam similes_ in our affliction. Yet it is hard for both to suffer for the fault of one, and so it is--I shall be separated from my wife; he will retain his.

"Ever," &c.

[Footnote 91: My reply to this part of his letter was, I find, as follows:--"With respect to Hunt's poem, though it is, I own, full of beauties, and though I like himself sincerely, I really could not undertake to praise it _seriously_. There is so much of the _quizzible_ in all he writes, that I never can put on the proper pathetic face in reading him."]

In my reply to this letter, written a few days after, there is a pa.s.sage which (though containing an opinion it might have been more prudent, perhaps, to conceal,) I feel myself called upon to extract on account of the singularly generous avowal,--honourable alike to both the parties in this unhappy affair,--which it was the means of drawing from Lord Byron.

The following are my words:--"I am much in the same state as yourself with respect to the subject of your letter, my mind being so full of things which I don't know how to write about, that _I_ too must defer the greater part of them till we meet in May, when I shall put you fairly on your trial for all crimes and misdemeanors. In the mean time, you will not be at a loss for judges, nor executioners either, if they could have their will. The world, in their generous ardour to take what they call the weaker side, soon contrive to make it most formidably the strongest. Most sincerely do I grieve at what has happened. It has upset all my wishes and theories as to the influence of marriage on your life; for, instead of bringing you, as I expected, into something like a regular orbit, it has only cast you off again into infinite s.p.a.ce, and left you, I fear, in a far worse state than it found you. As to defending you, the only person with whom I have yet attempted this task is myself; and, considering the little I know upon the subject, (or rather, perhaps, _owing_ to this cause,) I have hitherto done it with very tolerable success. After all, your _choice_ was the misfortune. I never liked,--but I'm here wandering into the [Greek: aporreta], and so must change the subject for a far pleasanter one, your last new poems, which," &c. &c.