1817.] LORD CASTLEREAGH. 109 646.-To John Murray. Venice, April 14, 1817. DEAR SIR,-The present proofs (of the whole) begin only at the 17th page; but as I had corrected and sent back the 1st act, it does not signify. political life in 1790, he won County Down from Lord Downshire as a friend of reform; and Irishmen, looking to his conduct before and at the time of the Union, execrated him as a political apostate. O'Connell called him the Assassin of his country, and Moore (Fudge Family in Paris, Letter iv.), rejoicing in the detestation expressed abroad for England, exults— "That 'twas an Irish head, an Irish heart, Made thee the fallen and tarnished thing thou art; In which he died, to rack his conqueror's breast, Apart from Moore's influence, Byron attributed to Castlereagh, and the coalition of Northern Powers that he inspired, the downfall of Napoleon, which the poet professed to deplore. By Liberals and reformers like Hobhouse, Castlereagh was identified with the repressive policy of the Government in domestic affairs. Strong of will, and politically as well as personally fearless, he was known to dominate the Cabinet, and, though Foreign Minister, he had identified himself with such measures as the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act (February, 1817) and the Six Acts (November, 1819), which he introduced in the Lower House. It was his domestic measures which Shelley attacked in the Masque of Anarchy— "I met Murder on his way, He had a mask like Castlereagh." Castlereagh also took a leading part in the divorce proceedings against the Queen, whose cause Byron advocated. Finally, by Byron's Italian friends, who, like the Gambas, were Liberals, Castlereagh was detested for his conduct to Genoa. In 1814 Lord W. Bentinck, contrary to Castlereagh's instructions, proclaimed the re-establishment of the Genoese Constitution. But Castlereagh, to secure Italy against French aggression, repudiated these pledges, and at the Congress of Vienna favoured the annexation of Genoa to Piedmont. These were the causes which moved Byron to write of Castlereagh as he does in his letters, to compose his epigrams alluding to his suicide, to speak of him in his "Irish Avatar" as "a wretch never "named but with curses and jeers," or to attack him in the Dedication to Don Juan as "the intellectual eunuch Castlereagh," the "cold-blooded, smooth-faced, placid miscreant," "the vulgarest "tool that Tyranny could want," "a bungler even in its disgusting "trade," "a tinkering slave-maker," "a second Eutropius." The third act is certainly damned bad, and, like the Archbishop of Grenada's homily1 (which savoured of the palsy), has the dregs of my fever, during which it was written. It must on no account be published in its present state. I will try and reform it, or re-write it altogether; but the impulse is gone, and I have no chance of making any thing out of it. I would not have it published as it is on any account. The speech of Manfred to the Sun is the only part of this act I thought good myself; the rest is certainly as bad as bad can be, and I wonder what the devil possessed me. I am very glad indeed that you sent me Mr. Gifford's opinion without deduction. Do you suppose me such a Sotheby as not to be very much obliged to him? or that in fact I was not, and am not, convinced and convicted in my conscience of this same overt act of nonsense? I shall try at it again: in the mean time, lay it upon the shelf (the whole drama, I mean): but pray correct your copies of the 1st and 2nd acts by the original MS. I am not coming to England; but going to Rome in a few days. I return to Venice in June: so, pray, address all letters, etc. to me here, as usual, that is, to Venice. Dr. Polidori this day left this city with Lord Guilford for England. He is charged with some books to your care (from me), and two miniatures also to the same address, both for my sister. Recollect not to publish, upon pain of I know not what, until I have tried again at the third act. I am not 1. Gil Blas de Santillane, livre vii. cap. 4. The archbishop's homily "savoured" of the apoplexy. 2. Murray (March 28, 1817) sent Byron Gifford's objections to act iii. of Manfred, which, as Murray says, "he does not by any "means like." 3. Byron left Venice towards the middle of April, and, passing through Ferrara, Florence, and Foligno, met Hobhouse at Rome. He returned to Venice towards the end of May. 1817.] THIRD ACT OF MANfred. III sure that I shall try, and still less that I shall succeed, if I do; but I am very sure, that (as it is) it is unfit for publication or perusal; and unless I can make it out to my own satisfaction, I won't have any part published. I write in haste, and after having lately written very often. Yours ever truly, B. CHAPTER XVI. VENICE, ROME, OR LA MIRA, APRIL, 1817— FERRARA AND THE LAMENT OF TASSO-ROME-RETURN TO VENICE-CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO IV.-BEPPO. 647.-To John Murray.1 Foligno, April 26, 1817. DEAR SIR,-I wrote to you the other day from Florence, inclosing a MS. entitled The Lament of Tasso. It was written in consequence of my having been lately at Ferrara. In the last section of this MS. but one (that is, the penultimate), I think that I have omitted a line in the copy sent to you from Florence, viz. after the lineAnd woo compassion to a blighted name, insert, Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim. The context will show you the sense, which is not clear in this quotation. Remember, I write this in the supposition that you have received my Florentine packet. At Florence I remained but a day, having a hurry for Rome, to which I am thus far advanced. However, I 1. The original of this letter cannot be found. It is, therefore, printed as published in Moore's Life (p. 353). 2. The manuscript of The Lament of Tasso is dated April 20, 1817. The poem was published July 17, 1817. 1817.] UFFIZI GALLERY AT FLORENCE. 113 went to the two galleries, from which one returns drunk with beauty. The Venus is more for admiration than love; but there are sculpture and painting, which for the first time at all gave me an idea of what people mean by their cant, and what Mr. Braham calls "entusi"musy" (i.e. enthusiasm) about those two most artificial of the arts. What struck me most were, the Mistress of Raphael, a portrait; the mistress of Titian, a portrait ; a Venus of Titian in the Medici gallery-the Venus; Canova's Venus also in the other gallery: Titian's mistress is also in the other gallery (that is, in the Pitti Palace gallery); the Parca of Michael Angelo, a picture; and the Antinous-the Alexander 2-and one or two not very decent groupes in marble; the Genius of Death, a sleeping figure, etc., etc. I also went to the Medici chapel-fine frippery in great slabs of various expensive stones,3 to commemorate 1. The Venus de' Medici in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. While the statue was at Paris, whither it was carried by Napoleon, its place was occupied by Canova's Venus. By the intervention of the Powers, the Venus was restored to Florence. "Within the pale We stand, and in that form and face behold What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail. . . . * We gaze and turn away, and know not where, Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanzas xlix., 1. 2. Probably the head of Alexander which inspired Alfieri with his Sonnet (Son. xlii.) "Quel già sì fero fiammegiante sguardo Del Macedone invitto emul di Marte," etc., etc. 3. The tombs of the Medici in the Cappella dei Principi and the Cappella dei Depositi of the Church of San Lorenzo at Florence. "What is her Pyramid of precious stones? VOL. IV. Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza lx. |