  It is one of the commonest of commonplaces that there are certain subjects and persons who and which always cause difference of opinion: and something like a full century has established the fact that Byron is one of them. As far as his poetry is concerned we have nothing to do with this difference or these differences. They affect his letters less, inasmuch as almost everybody admits them to be remarkably good of their kind. But when the further questions are raised, "What is that kind?" and "Is it the best, or even a very good kind?" the old division manifests itself again. That they are extraordinarily clever is again more or less matter of agreement. That they make some people dislike him more than they otherwise might is perhaps not a fatal objection: for the people may be wrong. Besides, as a matter of fact, they sometimes make other people like him more than they would have done without these letters: so the two things at least cancel each other. The chief objection to them, which is hardly removable, is their too frequent artificiality. Byron did not play the tricks that Pope played: for, he was not, like Pope, an invalid with an invalid's weaknesses and excuses. But almost more than in his poems, where the "dramatic" excuse is available, (i.e. that the writer is speaking not for himself but for the character) the letters provoke the question, "Is this what the man thought, felt, did, or what he wished to seem to feel, think, do?" In other words, "Is this persona or res?" The following shows Byron in perhaps as favourable a light as any that could be chosen, and with as little of the artificiality as is anywhere to be 35. To Mr. Murray Bologna, June 7. 1817. Tell Mr. Hobhouse that I wrote to him a few days ago from Ferrara. It will therefore be idle in him or you to wait for any further answers or returns of proofs from Venice, as I have directed that no English letters be sent after me. The publication can be proceeded in without, and I am already sick of your remarks, to which I think not the least attention ought to be paid. Tell Mr. Hobhouse that since I wrote to him I had availed myself of my Ferrara letters, and found the society much younger and better than that at Venice. I am very much pleased with the little the shortness of my stay permitted me to see of the Gonfaloniere Count Mosti, and his family and friends in general. I have been picture-gazing this morning at the famous Domenichino and Guido, both of which are superlative. I afterwards went to the beautiful cemetery of Bologna, beyond the walls and found, besides the superb burial ground, an original of a Custode, who reminded me of the gravedigger in Hamlet. He has a collection of capuchins' skulls, labelled on the forehead, and taking down one of them said "This is Brother Desiderio Birro, who died at forty—one of my best friends. I begged his head of his brethren after his decease, and they gave it me. I put it in lime and then boiled it. Here it is, teeth and all, in excellent preservation. He was the merriest, cleverest fellow I ever knew. Wherever he went he brought joy, and whenever anyone was melancholy, the sight of him was enough to make him cheerful again. He walked so actively, you might have taken him for a dancer—he joked—he laughed—oh! he was such a Frate as I never saw before, nor ever shall again!" He told me that he had himself planted all the cypresses in the cemetery; that he had the greatest attachment to them and to his dead people; that since 1801 they had buried fifty-three thousand persons. In showing some older monuments, there was that of a Roman girl of twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a princess Bartorini, dead two centuries ago: he said that, on opening her grave, they had found her hair complete, and "MARTINI LUIGI "LUCREZIA PICINI Can anything be more full of pathos? Those few words say all that can be said or sought, the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted was rest, and this they implore! There is all the helplessness and humble hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the grave—'implora pace.' I hope, whoever may survive me, and shall see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the Lido, within the fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two words, and no more, put over me. I trust they won't think of "pickling, and bringing me home to clod or Blunderbuss Hall." I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my death-bed, could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to your soil. I would not even feed your worms if I could help it. So, as Shakespeare says of Mowbray, the banished Duke of Norfolk, who died at Venice (see Richard II.), that he, after fighting "Against black Pagans, Turks and Saracens, And toiled with works of war, retired himself His body to that pleasant country's earth. And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long!" Before I left Venice, I had returned to you your late, and Mr. Hobhouse's sheets of Juan. Don't wait for further answers from me, but address yours to Venice as usual. I know nothing of my own movements; I may return there in a few days, or not for some time. All this depends on circumstances. I left Mr. Hoppner very well, as well as his son and Mrs. Hoppner. My daughter Allegra was well too, and is growing pretty; her hair is growing darker, and her eyes are blue. Her temper and her ways, Mrs. H. says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will make, in that case, a manageable young lady. I have never heard anything of Ada, the little Electra of my Mycenae. But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should not live to see it. What a long letter I have scribbled. Yours &c. P.S. Here, as in Greece, they strew flowers on the tombs. I saw a quantity of rose-leaves, and entire roses, scattered over the graves at Ferrara. It has the most pleasing effect you can imagine. FOOTNOTES: |
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