scene, and run away with his own wife. The lovers had for a time not only to acquiesce in the separation, but to agree to cease their correspondence. In December Byron, in a fit of spleen, had packed up his belongings, with a view to return to England. "He was," we are told, "ready dressed for the journey, his boxes on board the gondola, his gloves and cap on, and even his little cane in his hand, when my lord declares that if it should strike one-which it did-before everything was in order, he would not go that day. It is evident he had not the heart to go. Next day he heard that Madame Guiccioli was again seriously ill, received and accepted the renewed invitation which bound him to her and to the south. He left Venice for the last time almost by stealth, rushed along the familiar roads, and was welcomed at Ravenna. gr CHAPTER VIII. [1820-1821.] RAVENNA.-DRAMAS.-CAIN.-VISION OF JUDGMENT. BYRON'S life at Ravenna was during the first months compara tively calm; nevertheless, he mingled in society, took part in the Carnival, and was received at the parties of the Legate. "I may stay, he writes in January, 1820, “a day—a week-a year—all my life." Meanwhile, he imported his movables from Venice, hired a suite of rooms in the Guiccioli palace, executed his marvellously close translation of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, wrote his version of the story of Francesca of Rimini, and received visits from his old friend Bankes and from Sir Humphry Davy. At this time he was accustomed to ride about armed to the teeth, apprehending a possible attack from assassins on the part of Count Guiccioli. In April his letters refer to the insurrectionary movements then beginning against the Holy Alliance. "We are on the verge of a row here. Last night they have over-written all the city walls with 'Up with the Republic!' and 'Death to the Pope!' The police have been searching for the subscribers, but have caught none as yet. The other day they confiscated the whole translation of the fourth cantos of Childe Harold, and have prosecuted the translator." In July a Papal decree of separation between the Countess and her husband was obtained, on condition of the latter paying from his large income a pittance to the lady of 200l. a year, and her undertaking to live in her father's house -an engagement which was, first in the spirit, and subsequently in the letter, violated. For a time, however, she retired to a villa about fifteen miles from Ravenna, where she was visited by Byron at comparatively rare intervals. By the end of July he had finished Marino Faliero, and ere the close of the year the fifth canto of Don Juan. In September he says to Murray, "I am in a fierce humour at not having Scott's Monastery. No more Keats,* * In a note on a similar passage, bearing the date November 12, 1821, he, however, confesses: My indignation at Mr. Keats' depreciation of Pope has hardly permitted me to do justice to his own genius, which malgré all the fantastic fopperies of his style was undoubtedly of great promise. His fragment of Hyperion seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as Æschylus. He is a loss to our literature." I entreat. There is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the manikin. I don't feel inclined to care further about Don Juan. What do you think a very pretty Italian lady said to me the other day, when I remarked that 'it would live longer than Childe Harold?' Ah! but I would rather have the fame of Childe Harold for three years than an immortality of D. J." This is to-day the common female judgment; it is known to have been La Guiccioli's, as well as Mrs. Leigh's, and by their joint persuasion Byron was for a season induced to lay aside "that horrid, wearisome Don." About this time he wrote the memorable reply to the remarks on that poem in Blackwood's Magazine, where he enters on a defence of his life, attacks the Lakers, and champions Pope against the new school of poetry, lamenting that his own practice did not square with his precept; and adding, "We are all wrong, except Rogers, Crabbe, and Campbell." In November he refers to reports of his letters being opened by the Austrian officials, and the unpleasant things the Huns, as he calls them, are likely to find therein. Early in the next month he tells Moore that the commandant of their troops, a brave officer, but obnoxious to the people, had been found lying at his door, with five slugs in him, and, bleeding inwardly, had died in the palace, where he had been brought to be nursed. This incident is versified in Don Juan, v. 33-39, with anatomical minuteness of detail. After trying in vain to wrench an answer out of death, the poet ends in his accustomed strain "But it was all a mystery. Here we are, And there we go:-but where? Five bits of lead- Assassination has sometimes been the prelude to revolution, but it may be questioned if it has ever promoted the cause of liberty. Most frequently it has served as a pretext for reaction, or a red signal. In this instance-as afterwards in 1848-overt acts of violence made the powers of despotism more alert, and conduced, with the half-hearted action of their adversaries, to the suppression of the rising of 1820-21. Byron's sympathy with the movement seems to have been stimulated by his new associations. Theresa's brother, Count Pietro, an enthusiastic young soldier, having returned from Rome and Naples, surmounting a prejudice not wholly unnatural, became attached to him, and they entered into a partnership in behalf of what-adopting a phrase often flaunted in opposite camps-they called constitutional principles. Finally, the poet so committed himself to the party of insurrection that, though his nationality secured him from direct attack, his movements were necessarily affected by the fiasco. In July the Gambas were banished from the Romagna, Pietro being actually carried by force over the frontier; and, according to the articles of her separation, the Countess had to follow them to Florence. Byron lingered for some months, partly from a spirit of defiance, and partly from his 93 affection towards a place where he had enlisted the regards of numerous beneficiaries. The Gambas were for some time bent on migrating to Switzerland; but the poet, after first acquiescing, subsequently conceived a violent repugnance to the idea, and early in August wrote to Shelley, earnestly requesting his presence, aid, and counsel. Shelley at once complied, and, entering into a correspondence with Madame Guiccioli, succeeded in inducing her relatives to abandon their transmontane plans, and agree to take up their headquarters at Pisa. This incident gave rise to a series of interesting letters, in which the younger poet gives a vivid and generous account of the surroundings and condition of his friend. On the 2nd of August he writes from Ravenna: "I arrived last night at ten o'clock, and sat up talking with Lord B. till five this morning. He was delighted to see me. He has, in fact, completely recovered his health, and lives a life totally the reverse of that which he led at Venice. . . . Poor fellow! he is now quite well, and immersed in politics and literature. We talked a great deal of poetry and such matters last night, and, as usual, differed, I think, more than ever. He affects to patronise a system of criticism fit only for the production of mediocrity; and, although all his finer poems and passages have been produced in defiance of this system, yet I recognise the pernicious effects of it in the Doge of Venice." Again, on the 15th: "Lord B. is greatly improved in every respect-in genius, in temper, in moral views, in health and happiness. His connection with La Guiccioli has been an inestimable benefit to him. He lives in considerable splendour, but within his income, which is now about 4000l. a year, 1000l. of which he devotes to purposes of charity. Switzerland is little fitted for him; the gossip and the cabals of those Anglicised coteries would torment him as they did before. Ravenna is a miserable place. He would in every respect be better among the Tuscans. read to me one of the unpublished cantos of Don Juan. It sets him not only above, but far above, all the poets of the day. Every word has the stamp of immortality. . . . I have spoken to him of Hunt, but not with a direct view of demanding a contribution. I am sure, if I asked, it would not be refused; yet there is something in me that makes it impossible. Lord B. and I are excellent friends; and were I reduced to poverty, or were I a writer who had no claim to a higher position than I possess, I would freely ask him any favour. Such is not now the case." Later, after stating that Byron had decided upon Tuscany, he says, in reference to La Guiccioli: "At the conclusion of a letter, full of all the fine things she says she has heard of me, is this request, which I transcribe: Signore, la vostra bontà mi fa ardita di chiedervi un favore, me lo accordarete voi? Non partite da Ravenna senza milord. Of course, being now by all the laws of knighthood captive to a lady's request, I shall only be at liberty on my parole until Lord Byron is settled at Pisa." He has Shelley took his leave, after a visit of ten days' duration, about the 17th or 18th of April. In a letter, dated August 26, he men tions having secured for his lordship the Palazzo Lanfranchi, an old spacious building on the Lung' Arno, once the family residence of the destroyers of Ugolino, and still said to be haunted by their ghosts. Towards the close of October, he says they have been expecting him any day these six weeks. Byron, however, did not leave till the morning of the 29th. On his road, there occurred at Imola the accidental meeting with Lord Clare. Clare-who on this occasion merely crossed his friend's path on his way to Rome -at a later date came on purpose from Geneva before returning to England to visit the poet, who, then at Leghorn, recorded in a letter to Moore his sense of this proof of old affection undecayed. At Bologna-his next stage-he met Rogers by appointment, and the latter has preserved his memory of the event in well-known lines. Together they revisited Florence and its galleries, where they were distracted by the crowds of sight-seeing visitors. Byron must have reached Pisa not later than the 2nd of November (1821), for his first letter from there bears the date of the 3rd. The later months of the poet's life at Ravenna were marked by intense literary activity. Over a great part of the year was spread the controversy with Bowles about Pope, i. e., between the extremes of Art against Nature, and Nature against Art. It was a controversy for the most part free from personal animus, and on Byron's part the genuine expression of a reaction against a reaction. To this year belong the greater number of the poet's Historical Dramas. What was said of these at the time by Jeffrey, Heber, and others, was said with justice; it is seldom that the criticism of our day finds so little to reverse in that of sixty years ago. The author, having shown himself capable of being pathetic, sarcastic, sentimental, comical, and sublime, we would be tempted to think that he had written these plays to show, what no one before suspected, that he could also be dull, were it not for his own exorbitant estimation of them. Lord Byron had few of the powers of a great dramatist; he had little architectural imagination, or capacity to conceive and build up a whole. His works are mainly masses of fine, splendid, or humorous writing, heaped together; the parts are seldom forged into one, or connected by any indissoluble link. His so-called Dramas are only poems divided into chapters. Further, he had little of what Mr. Ruskin calls Penetrative Imagination. So it has been plausibly said that he made his men after his own image, his women after his own heart. The former are, indeed, rather types of what he wished to be than what he was. They are better, and worse, than himself. They have stronger wills, more definite purposes, but less genial and less versatile natures. But it remains true, that when he tried to represent a character totally different from himself, the result is either unreal or uninteresting. Marino Faliero, begun April, finished July, 1820, and prefixed by a humorous dedication to Goethe-which was, however, suppressed-was brought on the stage of Drury Lane Theatre early in 1821 badly mangled, appointed, and acted-and damned. |