II.] MOORE'S EXTRACTS FROM RITRATTO XXIII. 44i una Dama, la quale aveva osato criticare un suo verso, che l'avrebbe voluta annegare nell' Oceano; quasi che la laguna di Venezia non gli paresse abbastanza profonda. Quando udiva che un tale o un tale altro disponevasi a tradurre i suoi versi impallidiva, e quasi tremava pel timore che non fosse traduttore adeguato. La sua mano era pronta a soccorrere il misero, ma i suoi severi compatriotti lo accusavano di non istenderla bastantemente in secreto: quasi che la mancanza di una seconda virtù distruggere potesse la prima: e poi, se tutto ciò che Lord Byron faceva era soverchiamente investigato, di chi la colpa? Tirteo novello, i rinnovati Greci col canto maggiormente eccitava alla pugna e alla vittoria. Morì fra di loro, che amava, ed ottenne da una Nazione, che conscia era solo delle sue virtù, e della propria gratitudine, immenso, puro e generoso compianto. La sua patria, onorando altamente il suo poeta, contrasto alla Grecia il possedimento della sua spoglia mortale. Ebbela: alla seconda rimase ciò, che meglio appartenevale... il Cuore ! Grecia... egli disse, e più non disse." 2. Moore's extracts from Ritratto xxiii. (Life, pp. 413415). "Toi, dont le monde encore ignore le vrai nom, LAMARTINE. "It would be to little purpose to dwell upon the mere beauty of a countenance in which the expression of an extraordinary mind was so conspicuous. What serenity was seated on the forehead, adorned with the finest chestnut hair, light, curling, and disposed with such art, that the art was hidden in the imitation of most pleasing nature! What varied expression in his eyes! They were of the azure colour of the heavens, from which they seemed to derive their origin. His teeth, in form, in colour, in transparency, resembled pearls; but his checks were too delicately tinged with the hue of the pale rose. His neck, which he was in the habit of keeping uncovered as much as the usages of society permitted, seemed to have been formed in a mould, and was very white. His hands were as beautiful as if they had been the works of art. His figure left nothing to be desired, particularly by those who found rather a grace than a defect in a certain light and gentle undulation of the person when he entered a room, and of which you hardly felt tempted to enquire the cause. Indeed it was scarcely perceptible,—the clothes he wore were so long. "He was never seen to walk through the streets of Venice, nor along the pleasant banks of the Brenta, where he spent some weeks of the summer; and there are some who assert that he has never seen, excepting from a window, the wonders of the 'Piazza di San Marco; so powerful in him was the desire of not showing himself to be deformed in any part of his person. I, however, believe that he has often gazed on those wonders, but in the late and solitary hour, when the stupendous edifices which surrounded him, illuminated by the soft and placid light of the moon, appeared a thousand times more lovely. "His face appeared tranquil like the ocean on a fine spring morning; but, like it, in an instant became changed into the tempestuous and terrible, if a passion, (a passion did I say?) a thought, a word, occurred to disturb his mind. His eyes then lost all their sweetness, and sparkled so that it became difficult to look on them. So rapid a change would not have been thought possible; but it was impossible to avoid acknowledging that the natural state of his mind was the tempestuous. "What delighted him greatly one day annoyed him the next; and whenever he appeared constant in the practice of any habits, it arose merely from the indifference, not to say contempt, in which he held them all: whatever they might be, they were not worthy that he should occupy his thoughts with them. His heart was highly sensitive, and suffered itself to be governed in an extraordinary degree by sympathy; but his imagination carried him away, and spoiled every thing. He believed in presages, and delighted in the recollection that he held this belief in common with Napoleon. It appeared that, in proportion as his intellectual education was cultivated, his moral education was neglected, and that he never suffered himself to know or observe other restraints than those imposed by his inclinations. Nevertheless, who could believe that he had a constant, and almost infantine timidity, of which the evidences were so apparent as to render its existence indisputable, notwithstanding the difficulty experienced in associating with Lord Byron a sentiment which had the appearance of modesty? Conscious as he was that, wherever he presented himself, all eyes were fixed on him, and all lips, particularly those of the women, were opened to say, 'There he is; that is Lord Byron,'-he necessarily found himself in the situation of an actor obliged to sustain a character, and to render an account, not to others (for about them he gave himself no concern), but to himself, of his every action and word. This occasioned him a feeling of uneasiness which was obvious to every one. "He remarked on a certain subject (which in 1814 was the topic of universal discourse) that 'the world was worth neither the trouble taken in its conquest, nor the regret felt at its loss,' which saying (if the worth of an expression could ever equal that of many and great actions) would almost show the thoughts and feelings of Lord Byron to be more stupendous and unmeasured than those of him respecting whom he spoke. "His gymnastic exercises were sometimes violent, and at others almost nothing. His body, like his spirit, readily accommodated itself to all his inclinations. During an entire winter, he went out every morning alone to row himself to the island of Armenians, (a small island situated in the midst of the tranquil lagune, and distant from Venice about a half a league,) to enjoy the society of those learned and hospitable monks, and to learn their difficult language; and, in the evening, entering again into his gondola, II.] MOORE'S EXTRACTS FROM RITRATTO XXIII. 443 he went, but only for a couple of hours, into company. A second winter, whenever the water of the lagune was violently agitated, he was observed to cross it, and, landing on the nearest terra firma, to fatigue at least two horses with riding. "No one ever heard him utter a word of French, although he was perfectly conversant with that language. He hated the nation and its modern literature; in like manner, he held the modern Italian literature in contempt, and said it possessed but one living author, a restriction which I know not whether to term ridiculous, or false and injurious. His voice was sufficiently sweet and flexible. He spoke with much suavity, if not contradicted, but rather addressed himself to his neighbour than to the entire company. "Very little food sufficed him; and he preferred fish to flesh for this extraordinary reason, that the latter, he said, rendered him ferocious. He disliked seeing women eat; and the cause of this extraordinary antipathy must be sought in the dread he always had, that the notion he loved to cherish of their perfection and almost divine nature might be disturbed. Having always been governed by them, it would seem that his very self-love was pleased to take refuge in the idea of their excellence,-a sentiment which he knew how (God knows how) to reconcile with the contempt in which, shortly afterwards, almost with the appearance of satisfaction, he seemed to hold them. But contradictions ought not to surprise us in characters like Lord Byron's; and then, who does not know that the slave holds in detestation his ruler? "Lord Byron disliked his countrymen, but only because he knew that his morals were held in contempt by them. The English, themselves rigid observers of family duties, could not pardon him the neglect of his, nor his trampling on principles; therefore neither did he like being presented to them, nor did they, especially when they had their wives with them, like to cultivate his acquaintance. Still there was a strong desire in all of them to see him, and the women in particular, who did not dare to look at him but by stealth, said, in an under voice, 'What a pity it is!' If, however, any of his compatriots of exalted rank and of high reputation came forward to treat him with courtesy, he showed himself obviously flattered by it, and was greatly pleased with such association. It seemed that to the wound which remained always open in his ulcerated heart such soothing attentions were as drops of healing balm, which comforted him. "Speaking of his marriage,-a delicate subject, but one still agreeable to him, if it was treated in a friendly voice,-he was greatly moved, and said it had been the innocent cause of all his errors and all his griefs. Of his wife he spoke with much respect and affection. He said she was an illustrious lady, distinguished for the qualities of her heart and understanding, and that all the fault of their cruel separation lay with himself. Now, was such language dictated by justice or by vanity? Does it not bring to mind the saying of Julius, that the wife of Cæsar must not even be suspected? What vanity in that saying of Cæsar! In fact, if it had not been from vanity, Lord Byron would have admitted this to no one. Of his young daughter, his dear Ada, he spoke with great tenderness, and seemed to be pleased at the great sacrifice he had made in leaving her to comfort her mother. The intense hatred he bore his mother-in-law, and a sort of Euryclea of Lady Byron, two women to whose influence he, in a great measure, attributed her estrangement from him,-demonstrated clearly how painful the separation was to him, notwithstanding some bitter pleasantries which occasionally occur in his writings against her also, dictated rather by rancour than by indifference." THE following letter appeared in the Morning Chronicle for December 19, 1816, and is an answer to the article in the Quarterly Review for January, 1816, which reviewed Waterloo and other Poems, by J. Wedderburn Webster. Paris, 1816 "To MR. W. Gifford, "Editor of the Quarterly Review. "Tristius haud illis monstrum, nec sævior ulla VIRGIL. "SIR,-This address will the less surprize you, having so lately received one of a similar nature from Dr. Clarke, in which with so much reason he complains of your obliquity of fair criticism,' in the Review of his Travels, and I am fortunate in the warranty of that precedent to repel your invidious attack upon myself in the last number of the Quarterly Review. "That those high talents which deservedly placed the Baviad in the first School of Criticism, should be lent to the construction of such matter as that which now too frequently deforms the pages of your Review, must excite the indignation of your friends, and cannot fail to ensure the contempt of your enemies. "In support of this position, with a moderation to which you are a stranger, I shall add for the present but one instance to that of Dr. Clarke's and my own, wherein you display a wanton desertion of those principles upon which you pretend, and upon which you can alone have a right to criticise the works of others. |