Some of Lord Byron's biographers, unable to overcome the difficulty of defining so complete a character, or of explaining, by ordinary rules, certain contradictions apparent in his rich nature, think to excuse their own inefficiency and elude the difficulty, by saying that he did not possess one of those striking points, or decided inclinations, that constitute a man's moral physiognomy. They pretend that his qualities of heart and mind, his passions, inclinations, virtues, faults, are so combined in his ardent, mobile nature, as to make him in reality the sport of chance; and that no inclination or passion whatsoever could ever become mistress of his heart or mind, so as to constitute the basis of a character, and render it possible to define it.

Moore himself, for reasons I have mentioned,[195] and which have been sufficiently spoken of in another chapter, contents himself with saying that Lord Byron's intellectual and moral attributes were so dazzling, contradictory, complicated, and varied, beyond all example, that it may be truly said there was not one man, but several men, in him:—

"So various, indeed, and contradictory, were his attributes, both moral and intellectual, that he may be pronounced to have been, not one, but many; nor would it be any great exaggeration of the truth to say that, out of the mere partition of the properties of his single mind, a plurality of characters, all different and all vigorous, might have been furnished. It was this multiform aspect exhibited by him that led the world, during his short, wondrous career, to compare him with that medley host of personages, almost all differing from each other, which he playfully enumerates in one of his journals."

These observations of Moore's are only true from a certain point of view—the richness of Lord Byron's nature. But even if this exuberance of faculties, united in one individual, had not been already in itself a character, and had not constituted a well-marked distinct personality, almost unique in kind, Moore would have been at variance with the most profound moralists, who agree that human nature never has the simplicity of a geometrical figure, and that, in reality, characters always are mixed, complicated, composed of opposite elements of incompatible inclinations and passions. For Moore appears to think that men are almost always swayed by one chief passion, round which, as round a pivot, life unrolls itself, just as we see in theatrical pieces. But even if this system were correct, intimate, as he was with Lord Byron, and so full of perspicacity, could he not have found, towering above the rich profusion of qualities in his friend, one dominant passion? Yes, he ought to have discovered it; but there was a struggle in Moore between the love of justice and his friendship for Lord Byron on one side, and the desire, alas! of keeping fair with a host of prejudices arrayed against Lord Byron on the other; and on the favor of these persons Moore felt that his own position, or rather his pleasure in society, depended. The master-passion that occupied so great a place in Lord Byron's mind was his love of truth, with all the qualities flowing from it.

It may, perhaps, be said that all beautiful souls love truth more or less. Yes; but seldom does this quality acquire such complete development as in Lord Byron. For with him it was a real passion, since it gave the law, so to say, to his heart, his mind, and all the actions of his life. This extraordinary attraction, coming in contact with the lies, hypocrisy, baseness, cowardice, and deceitfulness of others, often raised indignation to such a pitch that he could not help showing and expressing it. Thus his love of truth affected his social status in England, doing him immense harm; and, if it contributed to his greatness and his heroism, so it likewise added to his sorrows.

This noble quality showed itself in him, we may say, from his birth, under the form of sincerity, frankness, a passion for justice, loyalty, delicacy, honor, and likewise in the shape of special hatred for all hypocrisy, and for that shade of it peculiar to England, called cant.

Amid all the passions and events of life, whatsoever the consequences, Lord Byron always went straight at truth; as the hero marches up under fire, or the saint to martyrdom. A lie was not only a lie to him, it was also an injustice, a cowardice, the mark of a corrupt soul, an inconceivable thing, and not to be forgiven. A child, at Aberdeen, he was taken to the play to see one of Shakspeare's pieces, wherein an actor, showing the sun, says it is the moon. He was a timid child, but (incapable then of understanding Shakspeare's meaning) this outrage on truth excited him so far that he rose from his seat and exclaimed, "I tell you, my dear sir, that it is the sun." With regard to lying, he remained his whole life the child of Aberdeen.

Neither his nurses nor preceptors ever surprised him in a lie. Education, which in England, more than elsewhere, modifies and shapes men according to the requirements of their social position, had no power to affect the fundamental part of his nature. While forming his mind, it did not change his heart. It destroyed some very dear illusions, and made his soul grow sick with disappointment, so that he never ceased regretting his happy childhood. In some respects it even had power to superadd a fictitious character to his real one, but his qualities of soul and his natural character still remained untouched.

The ardent affection he entertained for one of the masters at Harrow—Dr. Drury—made him feel dislike to this gentleman's successor. Having been asked to dinner by him, Lord Byron declined, because, he said, that by accepting, he should belie his heart. At the university, he, like his companions, ran after the young girls of Cambridge and its environs, but he never seduced or deceived any. Early in life he adopted the good habit of examining himself most rigidly; and so strict was his conscience, that, where his companions saw reason to excuse him, he, on the contrary, found cause for self-reproach.

It was this same imperious, innate want of his nature, which, combined with certain circumstances, made him ill for a time. The malady was one quite foreign to his temperament, springing from self-depreciation, and because he did not then find sufficient gratification in society. A sort of misanthropy stole over his soul, chaining him to the East for two years, as a land where both soul and heart were less tried.

On his return home, the impressionability belonging to his ardent, enthusiastic nature may have produced undue excitement, but no bad feeling could ever dim the lustre of the nobler passion that held sway over him.

For him truth was more than a virtue, it was an imperative duty. Indulgent as he ever showed himself toward all weaknesses in general, and especially toward the faults committed by his servants, he could not forgive a lie.

At Ravenna, a young woman attached to the service of his little Allegra, being unwilling to avow, for fear of dismissal, that Allegra had had a fall, though the child bore the mark of it, told an untruth instead. No intercession could prevail on Lord Byron to pardon her, and she was sent away.[196]

Though eager for glory—especially at an age when not having yet arrived at it, he ignored the bite of the serpent that often lurks within a garland of roses—he yet repelled all undue praise, and was much more indignant at receiving it, than when unmerited blame was heaped upon him. Once, having been compared to a man of high standing in French literature, he, anxious to prove that there could be no resemblance between him and this great man, replied:—"If the thing were true, it might flatter me; but it is impossible to accept fictions with pleasure."

When Dallas—who only knew him then by his family name—read his early productions, he was enchanted with poetry that often rose to the sublime, and was always chivalrous in feeling, "which denoted," he said, "a heart full of honorable sentiments, and formed for virtue." This is a precious verdict, coming as it does, from a man so bigoted in all respects as the elder Dallas. He adds afterward that the perusal of these verses, and the sentiments contained in them, made him discover great affinity of mind between the young author and another literary man, who was equally remarkable as a poet, an orator, and a historian—"the great and good Lord Lyttelton of immortal fame." "And I doubt not," added Dallas, "that one day, like him, he will confer more honor on the peerage than it can ever reflect on him." Such a compliment from a man so rigid and respectable might certainly have tempted the most ordinary self-love, but Lord Byron, applying his magnifying-glass to his conscience, and comparing what he saw there with his ideal, did not conceive he merited such praise. Accordingly he answered with candor that enchanted Dallas himself:—

"Though our periodical censors have been uncommonly lenient, I confess a tribute from a man of acknowledged genius is still more flattering. But I am afraid I should forfeit all claim to candor, if I did not decline such praise as I do not deserve, and this is, I am sorry to say, the case in the present instance. My pretensions to virtue are, unluckily, so few, that, though I should be happy to deserve your praise, I can not accept your applause in that respect."

Thus, from fear of being wanting in truth, he exaggerated his youthful imperfections, nor could find any excuse for them. And in the same way throughout life his dread of making himself out better than he was, led him into the opposite defect of representing himself as far inferior to his real worth.

If from considering of the man, we turn to look at the author, we shall still always find the same passion for truth. By degrees, as he observed society around him, this passion increased, for he found the dominant vice was precisely that one most repugnant to his nature. If Lord Byron ever admitted, with La Rochefoucault, that hypocrisy is a homage vice renders to virtue, he did not the less consider this homage as degrading to him who offered it, insulting to those to whom it is addressed, and most corrupting in its effect upon the soul.

Thus, then, he from an early period considered hypocrisy and cant as monsters, in the moral world, to be combated energetically whenever an opportunity should present itself, and he resolved on doing so with all the intrepidity and independence of which his nature was capable. His natural gentleness disappeared in presence of the whited sepulchres, the Pharisees of our day. His whole literary life was one struggle against this vice, "the crying sin of the times,"[197] as he called it.

His conscience was quite as strict with regard to intellectual things as it was in the domain of morals. We might even call it marvellously strict for our epoch, for the decay of truth forms a sadly striking characteristic of the present time. I know not what modern critic it is who says that a general enervation of intelligence and languor of soul now prevail in this respect; that the majesty of truth has been profaned, and the ancient regard in which she was held has been destroyed by religious sects, philosophical systems, the insolent attacks of the press, and by the revolution that has taken place in ideas as well as in deeds. Thence the general tendency to place truth and error on the same footing, in theory and in practice. Thence the equality of rights established between both, and which has become like the normal state of mind general in society.

Certainly, in our day, the love and practice of truth have grown obsolete; dramatic pieces and works of fiction, indeed all kinds of literature, especially biography, and even history, combine to outrage truth with impunity; no compunction is felt in transforming great characters into monsters, and monsters into heroes. People are no longer astonished that travellers' narratives should be like poems, good or bad, works of imagination full of anachronisms, exaggerations, impossibilities, making the sea take the place of mountains, and putting mountains where the sea should be. Truth is hidden as dangerous, not always to humanity, but to private interests to which it might bring smaller gains. Now if, at an epoch like this, we meet with geniuses, or even conscientious talents, sacrificing, both in their works and their actions, every interest or consideration to truth, ought we not to look upon them as real marvels? Undoubtedly we ought, and there can be no question that Lord Byron belonged to the small number of such marvels. Friends and enemies are agreed thereupon.

Galt, who was brought into contact with the poet by chance, at the time of his first journey into Greece, and who travelled with him for several days, when remarking the beauty of Lord Byron's poems on Greece, says, "they possess the great and rare quality of being as true with regard to nature and facts as they are sublime for poetic expression."

He quotes those beautiful lines with which the third canto of the "Corsair" opens, wherein Lord Byron describes the lovely scenery that met his eye on ascending the PirÆus;[198] and to the Cape Colonna, and to the so-called Tomb of Themistocles in the "Giaour;" and Galt fancies he can remember by what circumstance and aspect of nature they were inspired.

Lord Byron did not admit the possibility of describing a site that had not been seen, a sentiment that had not been experienced, or at least well known on certain and direct testimony. Never could people say of him, what M. Sainte-Beuve asserted of Chateaubriand, namely, that he had not visited the places he described, that he lent to some what of right belonged only to others, and that he had not even seen Niagara.

On the contrary, when Lord Byron was writing, the objects described were really present, so to say, as facts rather than in imagination.

Mr. Galt was so persuaded of this that he almost denied him the possession of imagination, and he says that the stamp of personal experience is so strongly marked in many of Lord Byron's productions, usually considered fancies or inventions, that he deems it impossible not to assign for their basis real facts or events wherein he had been either actor or spectator.

To refuse Lord Byron imagination would be absurd; but it is true that his imagination could only have discovered the elements and materials so wonderfully put together, through a scrupulous and profound observation of reality. And it was only afterward, that superadding sentiment and thought, he wrought out such splendid truths, which, if not precisely combined in the living reality, were so far superior that any absence in the original model appeared like a forgetfulness of nature.

Without, then, admitting Mr. Galt's ideas, in their extreme consequences, it is at least certain that Lord Byron's genius required so much to lean on truth in all things, that it may be said he owed far more to facts than to the power of imagination.

Apart from the faculty of combining, which he possessed in a splendid manner, if any one should take the trouble to observe, one by one, the characters he has painted, we should be still more confirmed in the above opinion. For instance, Conrad, that magnificent type of the corsair, that energetic compound of an Albanese warrior and a naval officer, far from being an imaginary character, was entirely drawn from nature and real history. All who have travelled in the Levant, and especially at that period, must have met with personages whose appearance distinctly recalled Conrad.

That peaceful men, leading a regular monotonous life in the midst of civilized Europe, or persons who have only travelled over their maps or their books, quietly seated in their library—that they should find characters like Conrad's eccentric, and the incidents of such a career improbable, may easily be conceived; but it is not the less true that both are in perfect keeping with each other and with truth.

I might say the same thing of "Childe Harold." But having spoken of this character sufficiently elsewhere, in order to repel the unjust identification of the Pilgrim with the author,—for "Childe Harold" appears to me the personification of a moral idea, of the accidental transitory state of a soul placed under certain circumstances, rather than type,—I will only add here, that this unjust identification was also caused by that craving which Lord Byron experienced of leaning, in all things, on reality, on facts acquired through his own experience. For although it is incorrect to imagine that he made use of his looking-glass for drawing the portraits of his heroes, since the glass could not even for a passing moment—such as suffices only for a daguerreotype—have converted his gentle, beautiful expression of face into the dark countenance of a Harold, a Giaour, a Conrad, or a Lara; still it is true that he lent them some of his own noble, fine lineaments, some faint shadow of his beauty, and that more than once he committed the fault of placing them in situations exactly similar to his own, even going so far as to install his heroes within the ancient abbey of Newstead,—a hospitality that cost him dear.

Characters that had produced a strong impression on him easily became models for the personages portrayed in his poems. It was the terrible Ali Pasha of Yanina who furnished the most striking features depicted in the heroes of his Eastern poems. The reports current about Ali Pasha's uncle served to lend their share of truth; and we may say, in general, that those acquainted with Lord Byron and his history possessed the clew to his imaginary personages; they could even recognize his Adelinas, Dudus, Gulbeyazs, Angelinas, Myrrhas, Adahs; and having first taken his stand on earth, it cost his fancy very little to soar and idealize what might else have been too commonplace.

As to the historical characters, we are certain of finding them in the most authentic histories; for it would be impossible to carry scrupulous research further than he did. Some observations on "Marino Faliero," his first historical drama, will suffice for an example.

The impression made on Lord Byron, when he arrived in Venice, by the character of this old man, and the terrible catastrophe that overtook him, first gave rise to his idea of the tragedy. But four years intervened between the project and its execution. During this time he consulted all the histories of Venice, every document and chronicle he could lay his hands on. He passed long hours in the hall of the great council, opposite the gloomy black veil surmounted by that terrible inscription—"Hic est locus Marino Faliero decapitati pro criminibus suis;" on the Giants' staircase, where the Doge had been crowned ere he was degraded and beheaded; he had interrogated the stones forming the monuments raised to the Doges; often was he seen in the church of St. John and St. Paul, seeking out the tomb of Faliero and his family: and still he was not satisfied, for the motives of the conspiracy did not yet present themselves so clearly to his mind as the fact of the conspiracy itself. Then he wrote to Murray, to search him out in England other more authentic documents concerning this tragical end.

"I want it," he said to him in February, 1817, "and can not find so good an account of that business here.... I have searched all their histories; but the policy of the old aristocracy made their writers silent on his motives, which were a private grievance against one of the patricians."

And not only did he seek for truth in books and monuments, but he likewise sought it in the character and manners of all classes inhabiting the lagoons. It was only toward the close of 1820, at Ravenna, that he felt ready to write his magnificent drama.

All the characters in this tragedy, except that admirable one of Angiolina, which he drew from imagination and traced with his heart, were supplied by history. In it Lord Byron has scrupulously respected places, epoch, and the time of duration for the action; points which he considered as elements of truth in art; in short, all essential circumstances were faithfully reproduced in his drama.

Even the faults which critics little versed in psychological science, and obstinately forgetful that this work was not intended for acting, pretend to find in it, were but the necessary results of historical accuracy. These critics wished to meet with the love, jealousy, and other passions common to their age and country; but Lord Byron would only give them what he found in history. Thence, no love and no jealousy; but a proud, violent character, coming in collision with a government proud and violent as itself; one of those men that are exceptional but real, in whom extremes of good and evil meet; one of those dramatic natures that fastened strongly on his imagination, producing a shock which kindled the flame of genius:—

"It is now four years that I have meditated this work, and before I had sufficiently examined the records, I was rather disposed to have made it turn on a jealousy in Faliero. But perceiving no foundation for this in historical truth, and aware that jealousy is an exhausted passion in the drama, I have given it a more historical form."[199]

As to the motives for the conspiracy, the clearness of certainty only came to him a year after his drama had been published. But there was such an attraction between his mind and truth that his intuition had supplied the want of material certainty. And when a year afterward, at Ravenna, he received the document so long desired, he was happy in sending Murray a copy of this document translated from an ancient chronicle by Sir Francis Palgrave, the learned author of the "History of the Anglo-Saxons," to be able to write: —

"Inclosed is the best account of the 'Doge Faliero,' which was only sent to me from an old MS. the other day. Get it translated, and append it as a note to the next edition. You will perhaps be pleased to see that my conceptions of his character were correct, though I regret not having met with this extract before. You will perceive that he himself said exactly what he is made to say about the Bishop of Treviso. You will also see that 'he spoke very little,' and these only words of rage and disdain, after his arrest, which is the case in the play, except when he breaks out at the close of Act V. But his speech to the conspirators is better in the MS. than in the play. I wish that I had met with it in time."

The historical inaccuracies of authors, their carelessness about truth, whether the result of malice or inattention, revolted Lord Byron, and especially if such untruths tended to asperse a great character. The lies of Dr. Moore about the "Doge Faliero" almost made him angry:—

"Where did Dr. Moore find that Marino Faliero begged his life? I have searched the chroniclers, and find nothing of the kind."

Lord Byron observes that this is not only historically, but also logically false:—

"His having shown a want of firmness," said Byron, "indeed, would be as contrary to his character as a soldier, to the age in which he lived, and at which he died, as it is to the truth of history. I know no justification; at any distance of time, for calumniating a historical character: surely truth belongs to the dead, and to the unfortunate; and they who have died upon a scaffold have generally had faults enough of their own, without attributing to them those which the very incurring of the perils which conducted them to their violent death render, of all others, the most improbable."

We know his consideration and sympathy for Campbell, though Campbell had not always behaved well toward him. He forgave him many things, but he could not pardon the indifference this author often showed for historical truth!

At Ravenna he wrote in his journal, on the 10th of January, 1821:—

"Read Campbell's 'Poets.' Marked errors of Tom (the author) for correction.... Corrected Tom Campbell's 'slips of the pen;' a good work, though."

In his appendix to the first canto of "Don Juan," he says, "Being in the humor of criticism, I shall proceed, after having ventured upon the slips of Bacon, to wind up on one or two as trifling in the edition of the 'British Poets,' by the justly celebrated Campbell. But I do this in good-will, and trust it will be so taken. If any thing could add to my opinion of the talents and true feeling of that gentleman it would be his classical, honest, and triumphant defense of Pope against the vulgar cant of the day, as it exists in Grub Street.

"The inadvertencies to which I allude are...."

And after mentioning a few inadvertencies which are faults against justice and truth, he says:—

"A great poet quoting another should be correct: he should also be accurate when he accuses a Parnassian brother of that dangerous charge, 'borrowing:' a poet had better borrow any thing (excepting money) than the thoughts of another—they are always sure to be reclaimed; but it is very hard, having been the lender, to be denounced as the debtor, as is the case of Anstey versus Smollett. As 'there is honor among thieves,' let there be some among poets, and give each his due—none can afford to give it more than Mr. Campbell himself, who, with a high reputation for originality, and a fame which can not be shaken, is the only poet of the times (except Rogers) who can be reproached (and in him it is indeed a reproach) with having written too little."

Hereupon he writes to Murray, half joking, half serious:—

"Murray, my dear, make my respects to Thomas Campbell, and tell him from me, with faith and friendship, three things that he must right in his 'Poets.' First, he says Anstey's 'Bath Guide' characters are taken from Smollett. 'Tis impossible: the 'Guide' was published in 1766, and 'Humphry Clinker' in 1771—dunque, 'tis Smollett who has taken from Anstey. Secondly, he does not know to whom Cowper alludes when he says there was one 'who built a church to God, and then blasphemed His name:' it was 'Deo erexit Voltaire' to whom that mad Calvinist and coddled poet alludes. Thirdly, he misquotes and spoils a passage from Shakspeare,—'To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,' etc.; for lily he puts rose, and bedevils in more words than one the whole quotation.

"Now, Tom is a fine fellow; but he should be correct: for the first is an injustice (to Anstey), the second an ignorance, and the third a blunder. Tell him all this, and let him take it in good part: for I might have chastised him in a review and punished him; instead of which, I act like a Christian.

Byron."

With regard to a quotation, or any circumstance intended to prove a truth, his love of exactness amounted to a scruple. He would have thought himself wanting in honor if he had made a false or an incomplete quotation. In one of the notes to "Don Juan," speaking of Voltaire, he had quoted those famous words:—" ZaÏre, vous pleurez;" but being accustomed at that time to make great use of the familiar pronoun thou, as in the case in Italy, his quotation ran: "ZaÏre, tu pleures." But he hastened to write to Murray, "Voltaire wrote: ZaÏre, vous pleurez; don't forget."

In his tragedy of "Faliero," Lord Byron had said that the Doges, Faliero's predecessors, were buried in the church of St. John and St. Paul; but he afterward ascertained that it was only on the death of Andrea Dandolo, Faliero's predecessor, that the Council of Ten, by a sort of presentiment perhaps, decreed that the Doges should in future be buried with their families in their own church; previously they had all been interred in the church of St. Mark:—

" ... All that I said of his ancestral Doges, as buried at St. John's and Paul's, is a mistake, they being interred in St. Mark's. Make a note of this, by the Editor, to rectify the fact.

"In the notes to 'Marino Faliero,' it may be as well to say that 'Benintende' was not really of the Ten, but merely Grand Chancellor, a separate office (although important); it was an arbitrary alteration of mine.

"As I make such pretentious to accuracy, I should not like to be twitted even with such trifles on that score. Of the play they may say what they please, but not so of my costume and dram. pers.,—they having been real existences."[200]

"As to Sardanapalus," he writes to Murray, "I thought of nothing but Asiatic history. The Venetian play, too, is rigidly historical. My object has been to dramatize, like the Greeks (a modest phrase), striking passages of history.

"All I ask is a preference for accuracy as relating to Italy and other places."

In books, monuments, and the fine arts, it was always truth that interested him. Except Sir Walter Scott's productions, he gave no place in his library to novels; other works of imagination, especially poetry, were excluded; two-thirds of his books were French works. His reading lay chiefly in history, biography, and politics.

Among the books Murray sent him were some travels: "Send me no more of them," he wrote, "I have travelled enough already; and, besides, they lie."[201]

Books with effected sentiment of any kind, imaginary itineraries, made him very impatient. High-sounding phrases jarred on his ears; and I thoroughly believe that the forty centuries' looking down from the Pyramids upon the grand French army somewhat spoilt his hero for him.

What he especially sought for in monuments and among ruins was their authenticity. It was on this sole condition that he took interest in them.

Campbell, in his "Lives of English Poets," had averred that readers cared no more for the truth of the manners portrayed in Collins's "Eclogues" than for the authenticity of the history of Troy:—

"'Tis false," says Lord Byron in his memoranda, after having read Campbell; "we do care about 'the authenticity of the tale of Troy.' I have stood upon that plain daily, for more than a month, in 1810; and if any thing diminished my pleasure, it was that the blackguard Bryant had impugned its veracity. It is true that I read 'Homer Travestied' (the first twelve books), because Hobhouse and others bored me with their learned localities, and I love quizzing. But I still venerated the grand original as the truth of history (in the material facts) and of place: otherwise, it would have given me no delight. Who will persuade me, when I reclined upon a mighty tomb, that it did not contain a hero? Its very magnitude proved this. Men do not labor over the ignoble and petty dead—and why should not the dead be Homer's dead? The secret of Tom Campbell's defense of inaccuracy in costume and description is, that his 'Gertrude,' etc., has no more locality in common with Pennsylvania than with Penmanmawr. It is notoriously full of grossly false scenery, as all Americans declare, though they praise parts of the poem. It is thus that self-love forever creeps out, like a snake, to sting any thing which happens, even accidentally, to stumble upon it."

In order then, that Lord Byron might take an interest in either a place, a monument, or a work of art, he must associate them in his mind with some fact which had really taken place. By what was he most impressed on reaching Venice?

"There is still in the Doge's Palace the black veil painted over Faliero's picture, and the staircase whereon he was first crowned Doge and subsequently decapitated. This was the thing that most struck my imagination in Venice—more than the Rialto, which I visited for the sake of Shylock: and more, too, than Schiller's 'Armenian,' a novel which took a great hold of me when a boy. It is also called the 'Ghost Seer,' and I never walked down St. Mark's by moonlight without thinking of it. And 'at nine o'clock he died.' But I hate things all fiction, and therefore the Merchant and Othello have no great attractions for me, but Pierre has. There should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric, and pure invention is but the talent of a liar."

The little taste which he entertained for painting came from the impression that, of all the arts, it was the most artificial, and the least truthful. In April, 1817, he wrote to Murray as follows, on the subject:—

"Depend upon it, of all the arts it is the most artificial and unnatural, and that by which the folly of mankind is most imposed upon. I never yet saw the picture or the statue which came a league within my conception or expectation: but I have seen many mountains, and seas, and rivers, and views, and two or three women, who went as far beyond it."

But, then, what enthusiasm, whenever he did meet with truth in art! When visiting the Manfrini Gallery at Venice, which is so rich in chefs-d'oeuvre, he admits the charm of painting, and exclaims:—

"Among them there is a portrait of Ariosto by Titian, surpassing all my anticipation of the power of painting or human expression; it is the poetry of portrait and the portrait of poetry. Here was also a portrait of a lady of the olden times, celebrated for her talents, whose name I forget, but whose features must always be remembered. I never saw greater beauty or sweetness, or wisdom; it is the kind of face to go mad about, because it can not detach itself from its frame."

Our readers are aware with what obstinate determination the public voice proclaimed Lord Byron a skeptic, and still does. Nor will we here examine whether that epithet is merited, because a soul has been sometimes visited by the malady always more or less afflicting great minds; we will not ask if disquietude—which constitutes the dignity of our nature; if the torture caused by doubts and universal uncertainty, by the impossibility of explaining what is, or of comprehending what will be, if all this deserve to be called skepticism. It is not necessary to enter into the subject here, because we have already examined in another chapter[202] with what foundation such a name was applied to Lord Byron.

Now, we will content ourselves with adding that it was his love of truth and his delicacy of conscience which caused, in a great measure, what has been called his skepticism. For these sentiments would not allow him to affirm things that many others perhaps affirm, without believing more in them. Moreover, he appears sometimes to have been persuaded that doubt was the feeling least removed from truth.

THIS QUALITY RISES TO A VIRTUE.

If Lord Byron's passion for truth had simply remained within the limits already described, it would have given earnest of a noble soul, more gifted than others, with instincts of a higher order; it would have lighted up his social character, given the charm of that frankness so delightful in his manners, conversation, style; so attractive in the expression of his fine countenance; but still it would only have been a natural quality, without any more right to the name of virtue than all the other beautiful instincts he had received from Heaven; but, when ceasing to be purely natural, it became a distinguishing characteristic of the author, then it went far beyond these limits. In his writings it raised him above all calculations of interest, made him despise all considerations of ambition or of ease, exposed him to terrible party warfare, to slander, and revenge; spurred him on to attack the great and powerful whenever they turned aside from the path of virtue, justice, or simplicity, and made him forget his nationality, that he might better remember his humanity.

Meanwhile he never once yielded to any interest; and thus this innate faculty, which might have been a virtue easily practiced, became one of heroic merit.

We may safely assert that all his griefs through life owed their origin to this rare quality; for perhaps he did not know sufficiently how to reconcile it with a certain amount of that social virtue called prudence; whose office it is to keep silence when advisable, and not to utter dangerous truths.

Certainly Lord Byron never showed that wisdom for himself which he knew well how to practice for others; witness his conduct in Greece, where, according to the account given by all who lived with him there at that time, he displayed the utmost prudence, moderation, and ability.[203]

That social virtue of prudence, which, to our mind, is somewhat akin to a defect, was wholly wanting in him in private life; yet it is a necessary virtue in his country, and especially was so in his day. England then was, in many respects, far from resembling the England of our time. Liberty of opinion was certainly guaranteed by law; but then there were the drawing-room tribunals; very unforgiving with regard to certain truths, and little disposed to admire that inclination which prompts superior minds not to conceal their real thoughts. The earth or the universe might have been conceded as a field open to criticism, he might express his true opinions on all points, provided only some few books, and one island, called England, were excepted. Under show of respect, absolute silence was required on these heads. They constituted the ark of alliance; to speak ill of them was not permissible, and even to praise was almost dangerous.

In the enchanted palace of "Blue beard" one single chamber was reserved; and woe to him who penetrated therein.

Since then, a period of peace and prosperity, together with the effects of time and travel, have greatly improved the noble character of the English nation. In our day, pens, tongues, and consciences are less strictly bound, and many truths may now be avowed without fear of bringing the flush of anger or of indignant modesty to the cheek.

The present, and, still less, the past, are no more considered as sacred ground. Even the Norman conquest is no longer a seditious subject. The dictionary of society has gained many words; and Englishmen no longer fear to see their children lose that patriotism which for them is almost a religion, because they read books not deifying their own country and full of libels on the rest of the globe.

Historians, novel-writers, poets—even theologians—have vied with each other in tearing away the bandages concealing many old wounds, in order to cure them by contact with the vivifying breezes of heaven; and twenty years after Lord Byron, Macaulay has been able, without losing his popularity, to show less filial piety than he, and to blame the past in language so beautiful as to obtain forgiveness for the sacrifice even of truth.

But, in Lord Byron's time, England was carrying on her great struggle against the lion of the age. Separated from the Continent by war still more than by the sea, the cannon's roar booming across the waters added venom to her wounds, and pride made her prefer to conceal rather than to heal them.

The echo of this detested cannon was still sounding when Lord Byron returned to England, from his travels in the East, with the same thirst for truth as heretofore, but having gained much from observation, comparison, and reflection. He believed he had the right to make use of faculties with equal independence, whether as regarded his own nation or the rest of humanity. England then seemed to wish to arrogate to herself the monopoly, of morality, wisdom, and greatness, together with the right of despising the rest of the world. Lord Byron considered this pretension as excessive, and he expressed his generous incredulity in lines proudly independent. He refused to see heroism where he did not believe it to exist, and would not accord glory to victories that seemed to him the result of chance. He refused to see virtue and religion in what he considered calculation or hypocrisy. He demanded justice for Catholic Ireland, and impartiality for enemies; he even went so far as to show sympathy for Napoleon and deplore his fall. He could not allow party spirit to depreciate the genius of Napoleon. Madame de StaËl, who had made Lord Byron's acquaintance in London when he was very young, and had conceived a great liking for him, often wrote to him, and always tried to prove that he was wrong in thinking so highly of Napoleon. But on account of this Lord Byron broke off the correspondence suddenly, which vexed Madame de StaËl not a little. The invasion of France, the humiliation of a great nation, was painful to him; and this generous sentiment even caused him to commit a real fault, which he expressed regret for more than once, says Madame G——, when conversing with her at Pisa and Genoa. The fault was a certain feeling of hostility indulged toward the illustrious Duke of Wellington, whom he yet confessed to be the glory of his country.

"P.S.—If you hear any news of battle or retreat on the part of the Allies (as they call them), pray send it. He has my best wishes to manure the fields of France with an invading army. I hate invaders of all countries, and have no patience with the cowardly cry of exultation over him at whose name you all turned whiter than the snow to which you are indebted for your triumph."

He was too generous an enemy to echo the Archbishop of Canterbury's prayer.[204]

As a Whig, he was indignant at the Prince of Wales's conduct in deserting his political banner and passing over to the Tories when he became regent; so he wrote some hard verses against him,—"Lines to a Lady weeping," addressed to the Princess Charlotte.

This poem was the olive-branch that Robert was about to snatch from the tomb. All evil passions were now let loose against Lord Byron.

The Tory party—so influential then, and which saw with displeasure the future promise of a great orator held out in the person of a young Whig peer—gladly seized a pretext for displaying its hostility. The higher clergy naturally clung to the interests of the aristocracy, as identical with their own: moreover, they were vexed with the young lord for attacking intolerancy, hypocrisy, and similar anti-Christian qualities, and consequently espoused with ardor Tory grievances. Pretending even to discover danger to religion in some philosophical verses,[205] they denounced the young poet as an atheist and a rebel. At the same time his admiration for foreign beauties wounded feminine self-love at home.

In thus placing the interests of truth above every other consideration, not only from the necessity he experienced of expressing it, but also with the design of serving justice, Lord Byron by no means ignored the formidable amount of burning coals he was piling upon his head. He knew well that the secret war going on against him delighted all his rivals, who, not having dared to show their spite at the time of his triumphs, had bided patiently the day of vengeance.

He was aware of it all, but did not therefore draw back; and looking fearlessly at the pile heaped with all these combustible materials intended for his martyrdom, he did not any the more cease from his work. He resisted, and accepted martyrdom like a hero.

"You can have no conception of the uproar the eight lines on the little Royalty's weeping in 1812 (now republished) have occasioned.... The 'Morning Post,' 'Sun,' 'Herald,' 'Courier,' have all been in hysterics.... I am an atheist, a rebel, and at last the devil (boiteux, I presume). My demonism seems to be a female's conjecture.... The abuse against me in all directions is vehement, unceasing, loud."[206]

The editor, alarmed, proposed to have them disavowed.

"Take any course you please to vindicate yourself," Lord Byron answered him; "but leave me to fight my own way, and, as I before said, do not compromise me by any thing which may look like shrinking on my part; as for your own, make the best of it.... I have already done all in my power by the suppression" (of the satire). "If that is not enough, they must act as they please; but I will not 'teach my tongue a most inherent baseness,' come what may.... I shall bear what I can, and what I can not I shall resist. The worst they could do would be to exclude me from society. I have never courted it, nor, I may add, in the general sense of the word, enjoyed it; and there is a world elsewhere!

"Any thing remarkably injurious I have the same means of repaying as other men, with such interest as circumstances may annex to it."

After this first great explosion, of which the verses addressed to the Princess Charlotte had formed the occasion and the pretext, the commotion appeared to subside. But the fire in the mine had not gone out. It still circulated obscurely, gathering strength in the quiet darkness. Another occasion was alone wanting for a second explosion, and a hand to strike the spark. The circumstance of his unhappy marriage, which had taken place in the interval, presented this occasion; and the hand to strike the spark was the one which had received the nuptial ring a year before. The explosion was brutal, abominable, insensate—unworthy of the society that tolerated it.

Then came another interval; the good who had been drawn into this stormy current were seized with regret and remorse. "Why did we thus rise against our spoilt and favorite child?" The wicked knew well wherefore they had done it, but the good did not. Macaulay told it them one day, twenty years afterward, better than any one else has, in one of those passages where the beauty of his style, far from injuring truth, lends it a double charm, enhancing it just as nature's beauty is set off by a profusion of light.

This good feeling stealing over the public conscience alarmed Lord Byron's deadly enemies. They feared lest sentimental remorse should compromise their victory; and they manoeuvred so well, that from that hour persecution took up permanent abode in England, under pretext of offense to religion or morals. It followed him on his heroic journey into Greece, and ceased not with his death. Even after that, the vengeance and rage of his enemies—the indiscretion and timidity of friends—the material or moral speculations of all, together with the assurance of impunity—continued to feed the fire which an end so glorious as his ought to have quenched.[207]

But if the war against him did not cease, his perseverance and courage in saying what he thought did not cease either. Who more than he despised popularity and literary success, if they were to be purchased at the cost of truth?

"Were I alone against the world," said he, "I would not exchange my freedom of thought for a throne." And again: "He who wishes not to be a despot, or a slave, may speak freely."

That such independence of mind, aided by such high genius, should have alarmed certain coteries—not to speak of certain political and religious sets, who were all powerful—may easily be conceived. We can not feel surprise at the scandals they got up in defense of their privileges, when attacked by a new power who made every species of baseness and hypocrisy tremble; nor can we wonder that, unknowing where it would stop, they should have sought to cast discredit on the oracle by slandering the man. That the bark bearing him to exile should have been pushed on by a wind of angry passions in coalition—by a breeze not winged by conscience—may also be conceived; but to conceive is not to absolve, and in using the above expression we only mean to allow due share to human nature in general—to the character, manners, and perhaps to the special requirements of England. And if we ought not to condone party spirit in politics, defending privileges to the death; nor the anti-Christian ferocity displayed by that portion of the clergy who, without reason or sincerity, attacked him from the pulpit; nor yet the malice and revenge displayed in the vile slanders that pursued him to his last hour; we can, on the other hand, comprehend, and even, up to a certain point, excuse this prosperous and noble country of England for not classing her great son among popular poets—for hiding her admiration cautiously: since it must be acknowledged that Lord Byron often acted and wrote rather as belonging to humanity, than merely as belonging to England.

But if he were treated with the same injustice by foreigners, could the same excuse be made for them? Would a man be excusable if laziness and carelessness made him accept, without examination, some type set up for Lord Byron by a country wounded in her self-love, as England had been, or the reserves made by hostile biographers, under the weighty influence of a society organized as English society then was? The vile system which consists in seeking to give a good opinion of one's own morality by being severe on the morality of others, is only too well known. Would it be excusable to apply it ruthlessly to Lord Byron?—to pretend to repeat that in attacking prejudice he wounded morals?—that he injured virtue by warring against hypocrisy?—that by using a right inherent to the human mind in some hypothetical lines of a poem, written at twenty-one years of age, and which is beyond the comprehension of the multitude, since the greater number of mankind neither read elevated poetry nor works of high taste; is it not absurd to pretend that he wished to upset them in their religious belief, and deprive them of truths which are at once their consolation, support, and refuge in time of sorrow and suffering?

Nevertheless, Frenchmen have spoken thus; and in this way, through these united causes, Lord Byron has remained unappreciated as a man and unfairly judged as a poet.

One calls him the poet of evil; another the bard of sorrow. But no! Lord Byron was not exclusively either one or the other. He was the poet of the soul, just as Shakspeare was before him.

Lord Byron, in writing, never had in view virtue rather than vice. To take his stand as a teacher of humanity, at his age, would have seemed ridiculous to him. After having chosen subjects in harmony with his genius, and a point of view favorable to his poetic temperament, which especially required to throw off the yoke of artificial passions and of weak, frivolous sentiments, what he really endeavored was to be powerfully and energetically true. He thought that truth ought always to have precedence over every thing else—that it was the source of the beautiful in art, as well as of all good in souls. To him lies were evil and vice; truth was good and virtue. As a poet, then, he was the bard of the soul and of truth; and as a man, all those who knew him, and all who read his works, must proclaim him the poet who has come nearest to the ideal of truth and sincerity.

And now, after having studied this great soul under every aspect, if there were in happy England men who should esteem themselves higher in the scale of virtue than Lord Byron, because having never been troubled in their belief, either through circumstances or the nature of their own mind, they never admitted or expressed any doubt; because they are the happy husbands of those charming, indulgent, admirable women to be found in England, who love and forgive so much; because, being rich, they have not refused some trifle out of their superfluity to the poor; because, proud and happy in privileges bestowed by their constitution, they have never blamed those in power: if these prosperous ones deemed themselves superior to their great fellow-citizen, would it be illiberal in them to express now a different opinion? Might we not without rashness affirm, that they should rather hold themselves honored in the virtue and glory of their illustrious countryman, humbly acknowledging that their own greater happiness is not the work of their own hands?

[195] See Introduction.