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CHAPTER IX.

[1821-1823.]

PISA. GENOA.-DON JUAN.

On one

BYRON, having arrived at Pisa with his troop of carriages, horses, dogs, fowls, monkeys, and servants, settled himself quietly in the Palazzo Lanfranchi for ten months, interrupted only by a sojourn of six weeks in the neighbourhood of Leghorn. His life in the old feudal building followed in the main the tenour of his life at Ravenna. He rose late, received visitors in the afternoons, played billiards, rode or practised with his pistols in concert with Shelley, whom he refers to at this time as "the most companionable man under thirty" he had ever met. Both poets were good shots, but Byron the safest; for, though his hand often shook, he made allowance for the vibration, and never missed his mark. occasion he set up a slender cane, and at twenty paces divided it with his bullet. The early part of the evening he gave to a frugal meal and the society of La Guiccioli-now apparently, in defiance of the statute of limitations, established under the same roof-and then sat late over his verses. He was disposed to be more sociable than at Venice or Ravenna, and occasionally entertained strangers; but his intimate acquaintanceship was confined to Captain Williams and his wife, and Shelley's cousin, Captain Medwin. The latter used frequently to dine and sit with his host till the morning, collecting materials for the Conversations which he afterwards gave to the world. The value of these reminiscences is impaired by the fact of their recording, as serious revelations, the absurd confidences in which the poet's humour for mystification was wont to indulge. Another of the group, an Irishman, called Taafe, is made, in his lordship's correspondence of the period, to cut a somewhat comical figure. The master-passion of this worthy and genial fellow was to get a publisher for a fair commentary on Dante, to which he had firmly linked a very bad translation, and for about six months Byron pesters Murray with constant appeals to satisfy him; e. g., November 16, "He must be gratified, though the reviewers will make him suffer more tortures than there are in his original." March 6, "He will die if he is not published; he will be damned if he is; but that he don't mind.”

March 8, "I make it a point that he shall be in print; it will make the man so exuberantly happy. He is such a good-natured Christian that we must give him a shove through the press. Besides, he has had another fall from his horse into a ditch." Taafe, whose horsemanship was on a par with his poetry, can hardly have been consulted as to the form assumed by these apparently fruitless recommendations, so characteristic of the writer's frequent kindli ness and constant love of mischief. About this time Byron received a letter from Mr. Shepherd, a gentleman in Somersetshire, referring to the death of his wife, among whose papers he had found the record of a touching, because evidently heart-felt, prayer for the poet's reformation, conversion, and restored peace of mind. To this letter he at once returned an answer, marked by much of the fine feeling of his best moods. Pisa, December 8: “Sir, I have received your letter. I need not say that the extract which it contains has affected me, because it would imply a want of all feeling to have read it with indifference. . . . Your brief and simple picture of the excellent person, whom I trust you will again meet, cannot be contemplated without the admiration due to her virtues and her pure and unpretending piety. I do not know that I ever met with anything so unostentatiously beautiful. Indisputably, the firm believers in the Gospel have a great advantage over all others -for this simple reason, that if true they will have their reward hereafter; and if there be no hereafter, they can but be with the infidel in his eternal sleep. . . But a man's creed does not depend upon himself: who can say, I will believe this, that, or the other? and least of all that which he least can comprehend. . . . I can assure you that not all the fame which ever cheated humanity into higher notions of its own importance would ever weigh in my mind against the pure and pious interest which a virtuous being may be pleased to take in my behalf. In this point of view Ï would not exchange the prayer of the deceased in my behalf for the united glory of Homer, Cæsar, and Napoleon.”

The letter to Lady Byron, which he afterwards showed to Lady Blessington, must have borne about the same date; and we have a further indication of his thoughts reverting homeward in an urgent request to Murray-written on December 10th, Ada's sixth birthday to send his daughter's miniature. After its arrival nothing gave him greater pleasure than to be told of its strong likeness to himself. In the course of the same month an event occurred which strangely illustrates the manners of the place, and the character of the two poets. An unfortunate fanatic having taken it into his head to steal the wafer-box out of a church at Lucca, and being detected, was, in accordance with the ecclesiastical law till lately maintained against sacrilege, condemned to be burnt alive. Shelley, who believed that the sentence would really be carried into effect, proposed to Byron that they should gallop off together, and by aid of their servants rescue by force the intended victim. Byron, however, preferred, in the first place, to rely on diplomacy; some vigorous letters passed; ultimately a representation, conveyed by

Taafe to the English Ambassador, led to a commutation of the sentence, and the man was sent to the galleys.

The January of 1822 was marked by the addition to the small circle of Captain E. J. Trelawny, the famous rover and bold freelance (now sole survivor of the remarkable group), who accompanied Lord Byron to Greece, and has recorded a variety of incidents of the last months of his life. Trelawny, who appreciated Shelley with an intensity that is often apt to be exclusive, saw, or has reported, for the most part the weaker side of Byron. We are constrained to accept as correct the conjecture that his judgment was biassed by their rivalry in physical prowess, and the political differences which afterwards developed between them. Letters to his old correspondents-to Scott about the Waverleys, to Murray about the Dramas, and the Vision of Judgment, and Cain-make up almost the sole record of the poet's pursuits during the five following months. On February 6 he sent, through Mr. Kinnaird, the challenge to Southey, of the suppression of which he was not aware till May 17. The same letter contains a sheaf of the random cynicisms, as-"Cash is virtue," "Money is power; and when Socrates said he knew nothing, he meant he had not a drachma " -by which he sharpened the shafts of his assailants. A little later, on occasion of the death of Lady Noel, he expresses himself with natural bitterness on hearing that she had in her will recorded a wish against his daughter Ada seeing his portrait. In March he sat, along with La Guiccioli, to the sculptor Bartolini. On the 24th, when the company were on one of their riding excursions outside the town, a half-drunken dragoon on horseback broke through them, and by accident or design knocked Shelley from his seat. Byron, pursuing him along the Lung' Arno, called for his name, and, taking him for an officer, flung his glove. The sound of the fray brought the servants of the Lanfranchi to the door; and one of them, it was presumed-though in the scuffle everything remained uncertain-seriously wounded the dragoon in the side. An investigation ensued, as the result of which the Gambas were ultimately exiled from Tuscany, and the party of friends was practically broken up. Shelley and his wife, with the Williamses and Trelawny, soon after settled at the Villa Magni at Lerici, in the Gulf of Spezia. Byron, with the Countess and her brother, established themselves in the Villa Rossa, at Monte Nero, a suburb of Leghorn, from which port at this date the remains of Allegra were conveyed to England.

Among the incidents of this residence were, the homage paid to the poet by a party of Americans; the painting of his portrait and that of La Guiccioli by their compatriot, West, who has left a pleasing account of his visits; Byron's letter making inquiry about the country of Bolivar (where it was his fancy to settle); and another of those disturbances by which he seemed destined to be harassed. One of his servants--among whom were unruly spirits, apparently selected with a kind of Corsair bravado-had made an assault on Count Pietro, wounding him in the face. This outburst,

though followed by tears and penitence, confirmed the impression of the Tuscan police that the whole company were dangerous, and made the Government press for their departure. In the midst of the uproar, there suddenly appeared at the villa Mr. Leigh Hunt, with his wife and six children. They had taken passage to Genoa, where they were received by Trelawny, in command of the "Bolivar "-a yacht constructed in that port for Lord Byron, simultaneously with the "Don Juan" for Shelley. The latter, on hearing of the arrival of his friends, came to meet them at Leghorn, and went with them to Pisa. Early in July they were all established on the Lung' Arno, having assigned to them the ground-floor of the palazzo.

We have now to deal briefly-amid conflicting asseverations it is hard to deal fairly-with the last of the vexatiously controverted episodes which need perplex our narrative. Byron, in wishing Moore from Ravenna a merry Christmas for 1820, proposes that they shall embark together in a newspaper, "with some improvement on the plan of the present scoundrels." "to give the age some new lights on policy, poesy, biography, criticism, morality, theology," &c. Moore absolutely refusing to entertain the idea, Hunt's name was brought forward in connexion with it, during the visit of Shelley. Shortly after the return of the latter to Pisa, he writes (August 26) to Hunt, stating that Byron was anxious to start a periodical work, to be conducted in Italy, and had proposed that they should both go shares in the concern, on which follow some suggestions of difficulties about money. Nevertheless, in August, 1821, he presses Hunt to come. Moore, on the other hand, strongly remonstrates against the project. "I heard some days ago that Leigh Hunt was on his way to you with all his family; and the idea seems to be that you and he and Shelley are to conspire together in the Examiner. I deprecate such a plan with all my might. Partnerships in fame, like those in trade, make the strongest party answer for the rest. I tremble even for you with such a bankrupt Co.! You must stand alone." Shelley-who had in the meantime given his bond to Byron for an advance of 200l. towards the expenses of his friends, besides assisting them himself to the utmost of his power-began, shortly before their arrival, to express grave doubts as to the success of the alliance. His last published letter, written July 5, 1822, after they have settled at Pisa, is full of forebodings. On the 8th he set sail in the " Don Juan "—

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"That fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in th' eclipse, and rigg’d with curses dark,”

and was overtaken by the storm in which he perished. Three days after, Trelawny rode to Pisa, and told Byron of his fears, when the poet's lips quivered, and his voice faltered. On the 22nd of July the bodies of Shelley, Williams, and Vivian were cast ashore. On the 16th August, Hunt, Byron, and Trelawny were present at the terribly weird cremation, which they have all de

scribed, and after which they were seized with a fit of the hilarious delirium which is one of the phases of the tension of grief. Byron's references to the event are expressions less of the loss which he indubitably felt, than of his indignation at the "world's wrong." "Thus," he writes, "there is another man gone, about whom the world was ill-naturedly and ignorantly and brutally mistaken. It will, perhaps, do him justice now, when he can be no better for it." Towards the end of the same letter the spirit of his dead friend seems to inspire the sentence-" With these things and these fellows it is necessary, in the present clash of philosophy and tyranny, to throw away the scabbard. I know it is against fearful odds, but the battle must be fought."

Meanwhile, shortly after the new settlement at the Lanfranchi, the preparations for issuing the Liberal-edited by Leigh Hunt in Italy, and published by John Hunt in London-progressed. The first number, which appeared in September, was introduced, after a few words of preface, by the Vision of Judgment, with the signature, Quevedo Redivivus, and adorned by Shelley's translation of the "May-Day Night," in Faust. It contained, besides, the Letter to the Editor of my Grandmother's Review, an indifferent Florentine story, a German apologue, and a gossipping account of Pisa, presumably by Hunt. Three others followed, containing Byron's Heaven and Earth, his translation of the Morgante Maggiore, and The Blues-a very slight, if not, silly, satire on literary ladies; some of Shelley's posthumous minor poems, among them "I arise from dreams of thee," and a few of Hazlitt's essays, including, however, none of his best. Leigh Hunt himself wrote most of the rest, one of his contributions being a palpable imitation of Don Juan, entitled the Book of Beginnings; but he confesses that, owing to his weak health and low spirits at the time, none of these did justice to his ability; and the general manner of the magazine being insufficiently vigorous to carry off the frequent eccentricity of its matter, the prejudices against it prevailed, and the enterprise came to an end. Partners in failing concerns are apt to dispute; in this instance the unpleasantness which arose at the time rankled in the mind of the survivor, and gave rise to his singularly tasteless and injudicious book-a performance which can be only in part condoned by the fact of Hunt's afterwards expressing regret, and practically withdrawing it. He represents himself throughout as a much-injured man, lured to Italy by misrepresentations that he might give the aid of his journalistic experience and undeniable talents to the advancement of a mercenary enterprise, and that when it failed he was despised, insulted, and rejected. Byron, on the other hand, declares, "The Hunts pressed me to engage in this work, and in an evil hour I consented;" and his subsequent action in the matter-if not always gentle, never unjust goes to verify his statements in the letters of the period. "I am afraid," he writes from Genoa, October 9, 1822, the journal is a bad business. I have done all I can for Leigh Hunt since he came here; but it is almost useless.