Chapter X: Letter 403: To Mr. Moore (1)

"Ravenna, Dec. 25. 1820.

"You will or ought to have received the packet and letters which I
remitted to your address a fortnight ago (or it may be more days),
and I shall be glad of an answer, as, in these times and places,
packets per post are in some risk of not reaching their
destination.

"I have been thinking of a project for you and me, in case we both
get to London again, which (if a Neapolitan war don't suscitate)
may be calculated as possible for one of us about the spring of
1821. I presume that you, too, will be back by that time, or never;
but on that you will give me some index. The project, then, is for
you and me to set up jointly a _newspaper_--nothing more nor
less--weekly, or so, with some improvement or modifications upon
the plan of the present scoundrels, who degrade that
department,--but a _newspaper_, which we will edite in due form,
and, nevertheless, with some attention.

"There must always be in it a piece of poesy from one or other of
us _two_, leaving room, however, for such dilettanti rhymers as may
be deemed worthy of appearing in the same column; but _this_ must
be a _sine quâ non_; and also as much prose as we can compass. We
will take an _office_--our names _not_ announced, but
suspected--and, by the blessing of Providence, give the age some
new lights upon policy, poesy, biography, criticism, morality,
theology, and all other _ism_, _ality_, and _ology_ whatsoever.

"Why, man, if we were to take to this in good earnest, your debts
would be paid off in a twelvemonth, and by dint of a little
diligence and practice, I doubt not that we could distance the
common-place blackguards, who have so long disgraced common sense
and the common reader. They have no merit but practice and
impudence, both of which we may acquire; and, as for talent and
culture, the devil's in't if such proofs as we have given of both
can't furnish out something better than the 'funeral baked meats'
which have coldly set forth the breakfast table of all Great
Britain for so many years. Now, what think you? Let me know; and
recollect that, if we take to such an enterprise, we must do so in
good earnest. Here is a hint,--do you make it a plan. We will
modify it into as literary and classical a concern as you please,
only let us put out our powers upon it, and it will most likely
succeed. But you must _live_ in London, and I also, to bring it to
bear, and _we must keep it a secret_.

"As for the living in London, I would make that not difficult to
you (if you would allow me), until we could see whether one means
or other (the success of the plan, for instance) would not make it
quite easy for you, as well as your family; and, in any case, we
should have some fun, composing, correcting, supposing, inspecting,
and supping together over our lucubrations. If you think this worth
a thought, let me know, and I will begin to lay in a small literary
capital of composition for the occasion.

"Yours ever affectionately,

"B.

"P.S. If you thought of a middle plan between a _Spectator_ and a
newspaper, why not?--only not on a _Sunday_. Not that Sunday is not
an excellent day, but it is engaged already. We will call it the
'Tenda Rossa,' the name Tassoni gave an answer of his in a
controversy, in allusion to the delicate hint of Timour the Lame,
to his enemies, by a 'Tenda' of that colour, before he gave battle.
Or we will call it 'Gli,' or 'I Carbonari,' if it so please you--or
any other name full of 'pastime and prodigality,' which you may
prefer. Let me have an answer. I conclude poetically, with the
bellman, 'A merry Christmas to you!'"

* * * * *

The year 1820 was an era signalised, as will be remembered, by the many efforts of the revolutionary spirit which, at that time, broke forth, like ill-suppressed fire, throughout the greater part of the South of Europe. In Italy, Naples had already raised the Constitutional standard, and her example was fast operating through the whole of that country. Throughout Romagna, secret societies, under the name of Carbonari, had been organised, which waited but the word of their chiefs to break out into open insurrection. We have seen from Lord Byron's Journal in 1814, what intense interest he took in the last struggles of Revolutionary France under Napoleon; and his exclamations, "Oh for a Republic!--'Brutus, thou sleepest!'" show the lengths to which, in theory at least, his political zeal extended. Since then, he had but rarely turned his thoughts to politics; the tame, ordinary vicissitude of public affairs having but little in it to stimulate a mind like his, whose sympathies nothing short of a crisis seemed worthy to interest. This the present state of Italy gave every promise of affording him; and, in addition to the great national cause itself, in which there was every thing that a lover of liberty, warm from the pages of Petrarch and Dante, could desire, he had also private ties and regards to enlist him socially in the contest. The brother of Madame Guiccioli, Count Pietro Gamba, who had been passing some time at Rome and Naples, was now returned from his tour; and the friendly sentiments with which, notwithstanding a natural bias previously in the contrary direction, he at length learned to regard the noble lover of his sister, cannot better be described than in the words of his fair relative herself.

"At this time," says Madame Guiccioli, "my beloved brother, Pietro, returned to Ravenna from Rome and Naples. He had been prejudiced by some enemies of Lord Byron against his character, and my intimacy with him afflicted him greatly; nor had my letters succeeded in entirely destroying the evil impression which Lord Byron's detractors had produced. No sooner, however, had he seen and known him, than he became inspired with an interest in his favour, such as could not have been produced by mere exterior qualities, but was the result only of that union he saw in him of all that is most great and beautiful, as well in the heart as mind of man. From that moment every former prejudice vanished, and the conformity of their opinions and studies contributed to unite them in a friendship, which only ended with their lives."[15]

The young Gamba, who was, at this time, but twenty years of age, with a heart full of all those dreams of the regeneration of Italy, which not only the example of Naples, but the spirit working beneath the surface all around him, inspired, had, together with his father, who was still in the prime of life, become enrolled in the secret bands now organising throughout Romagna, and Lord Byron was, by their intervention, admitted also among the brotherhood. The following heroic Address to the Neapolitan Government (written by the noble poet in Italian,[16] and forwarded, it is thought, by himself to Naples, but intercepted on the way,) will show how deep, how earnest, and expansive was his zeal in that great, general cause of Political Freedom, for which he soon after laid down his life among the marshes of Missolonghi.

"An Englishman, a friend to liberty, having understood that the Neapolitans permit even foreigners to contribute to the good cause, is desirous that they should do him the honour of accepting a thousand louis, which he takes the liberty of offering. Having already, not long since, been an ocular witness of the despotism of the Barbarians in the States occupied by them in Italy, he sees, with the enthusiasm natural to a cultivated man, the generous determination of the Neapolitans to assert their well-won independence. As a member of the English House of Peers, he would be a traitor to the principles which placed the reigning family of England on the throne, if he were not grateful for the noble lesson so lately given both to people and to kings. The offer which he desires to make is small in itself, as must always be that presented from an individual to a nation; but he trusts that it will not be the last they will receive from his countrymen. His distance from the frontier, and the feeling of his personal incapacity to contribute efficaciously to the service of the nation, prevents him from proposing himself as worthy of the lowest commission, for which experience and talent might be requisite. But if, as a mere volunteer, his presence were not a burden to whomsoever he might serve under, he would repair to whatever place the Neapolitan Government might point out, there to obey the orders and participate in the dangers of his commanding officer, without any other motive than that of sharing the destiny of a brave nation, defending itself against the self-called Holy Alliance, which but combines the vice of hypocrisy with despotism."[17]

It was during the agitation of this crisis, while surrounded by rumours and alarms, and expecting, every moment, to be summoned into the field, that Lord Byron commenced the Journal which I am now about to give; and which it is impossible to peruse, with the recollection of his former Diary of 1814 in our minds, without reflecting how wholly different, in all the circumstances connected with them, were the two periods at which these records of his passing thoughts were traced. The first he wrote at a time which may be considered, to use his own words, as "the most poetical part of his whole life,"--_not_ certainly, in what regarded the powers of his genius, to which every succeeding year added new force and range, but in all that may be said to constitute the poetry of character,--those fresh, unworldly feelings of which, in spite of his early plunge into experience, he still retained the gloss, and that ennobling light of imagination, which, with all his professed scorn of mankind, still followed in the track of his affections, giving a lustre to every object on which they rested. There was, indeed, in his misanthropy, as in his sorrows, at that period, to the full as much of fancy as of reality; and even those gallantries and loves in which he at the same time entangled himself partook equally, as I have endeavoured to show, of the same imaginative character. Though brought early under the dominion of the senses, he had been also early rescued from this thraldom by, in the first place, the satiety such excesses never fail to produce, and, at no long interval after, by this series of half-fanciful attachments which, though in their moral consequences to society, perhaps, still more mischievous, had the varnish at least of refinement on the surface, and by the novelty and apparent difficulty that invested them served to keep alive that illusion of imagination from which such pursuits derive their sole redeeming charm.

With such a mixture, or rather predominance, of the ideal in his loves, his hates, and his sorrows, the state of his existence at that period, animated as it was, and kept buoyant, by such a flow of success, must be acknowledged, even with every deduction for the unpicturesque associations of a London life, to have been, in a high degree, poetical, and to have worn round it altogether a sort of halo of romance, which the events that followed were but too much calculated to dissipate. By his marriage, and its results, he was again brought back to some of those bitter realities of which his youth had had a foretaste. Pecuniary embarrassment--that ordeal, of all others, the most trying to delicacy and high-mindedness--now beset him with all the indignities that usually follow in its train; and he was thus rudely schooled into the advantages of _possessing_ money, when he had hitherto thought but of the generous pleasure of _dispensing_ it. No stronger proof, indeed, is wanting of the effect of such difficulties in tempering down even the most chivalrous pride, than the necessity to which he found himself reduced in 1816, not only of departing from his resolution never to profit by the sale of his works, but of accepting a sum of money, for copyright, from his publisher, which he had for some time persisted in refusing for himself, and, in the full sincerity of his generous heart, had destined for others.

The injustice and malice to which he soon after became a victim had an equally fatal effect in disenchanting the dream of his existence. Those imaginary, or, at least, retrospective sorrows, in which he had once loved to indulge, and whose tendency it was, through the medium of his fancy, to soften and refine his heart, were now exchanged for a host of actual, ignoble vexations, which it was even more humiliating than painful to encounter. His misanthropy, instead of being, as heretofore, a vague and abstract feeling, without any object to light upon, and losing therefore its acrimony in diffusion, was now, by the hostility he came in contact with, condensed into individual enmities, and narrowed into personal resentments; and from the lofty, and, as it appeared to himself, philosophical luxury of hating mankind in the gross, he was now brought down to the self-humbling necessity of despising them in detail.

By all these influences, so fatal to enthusiasm of character, and forming, most of them, indeed, a part of the ordinary process by which hearts become chilled and hardened in the world, it was impossible but that some material change must have been effected in a disposition at once so susceptible and tenacious of impressions. By compelling him to concentre himself in his own resources and energies, as the only stand now left against the world's injustice, his enemies but succeeded in giving to the principle of self-dependence within him a new force and spring which, however it added to the vigour of his character, could not fail, by bringing Self so much into action, to impair a little its amiableness. Among the changes in his disposition, attributable mainly to this source, may be mentioned that diminished deference to the opinions and feelings of others which, after this compulsory rally of all his powers of resistance, he exhibited. Some portion, no doubt, of this refractoriness may be accounted for by his absence from all those whose slightest word or look would have done more with him than whole volumes of correspondence; but by no cause less powerful and revulsive than the struggle in which he had been committed could a disposition naturally diffident as his was, and diffident even through all this excitement, have been driven into the assumption of a tone so universally defying, and so full, if not of pride in his own pre-eminent powers, of such a contempt for some of the ablest among his contemporaries, as almost implied it. It was, in fact, as has been more than once remarked in these pages, a similar stirring up of all the best and worst elements of his nature, to that which a like rebound against injustice had produced in his youth;--though with a difference in point of force and grandeur, between the two explosions, almost as great as between the outbreaks of a firework and a volcano.

Another consequence of the spirit of defiance now roused in him, and one that tended, perhaps, even more fatally than any yet mentioned, to sully and, for a time, bring down to earth the romance of his character, was the course of life to which, outrunning even the licence of his youth, he abandoned himself at Venice. From this, as from his earlier excesses, the timely warning of disgust soon rescued him; and the connection with Madame Guiccioli which followed, and which, however much to be reprehended, had in it all of marriage that his real marriage wanted, seemed to place, at length, within reach of his affectionate spirit that union and sympathy for which, through life, it had thirsted. But the treasure came too late;--the pure poetry of the feeling had vanished; and those tears he shed so passionately in the garden at Bologna flowed less, perhaps, from the love which he felt at that moment, than from the saddening consciousness how differently he could have felt formerly. It was, indeed, wholly beyond the power, even of an imagination like his, to go on investing with its own ideal glories a sentiment which,--more from daring and vanity than from any other impulse,--he had taken such pains to tarnish and debase in his own eyes. Accordingly, instead of being able, as once, to elevate and embellish all that interested him, to make an idol of every passing creature of his fancy, and mistake the form of love, which he so often conjured up, for its substance, he now degenerated into the wholly opposite and perverse error of depreciating and making light of what, intrinsically, he valued, and, as the reader has seen, throwing slight and mockery upon a tie in which it was evident some of the best feelings of his nature were wrapped up. That foe to all enthusiasm and romance, the habit of ridicule, had, in proportion as he exchanged the illusions for the realities of life, gained further empire over him; and how far it had, at this time, encroached upon the loftier and fairer regions of his mind may be seen in the pages of Don Juan,--that diversified arena, on which the two Genii, good and evil, that governed his thoughts, hold, with alternate triumph, their ever-powerful combat.

Even this, too, this vein of mockery,--in the excess to which, at last, he carried it,--was but another result of the shock his proud mind had received from those events that had cast him off, branded and heart-stricken, from country and from home. As he himself touchingly says,

"And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'Tis that I may not weep."

This laughter,--which, in such temperaments, is the near neighbour of tears,--served as a diversion to him from more painful vents of bitterness; and the same philosophical calculation which made the poet of melancholy, Young, declare that "he preferred laughing at the world to being angry with it," led Lord Byron also to settle upon the same conclusion; and to feel, in the misanthropic views he was inclined to take of mankind, that mirth often saved him the pain of hate.

That, with so many drawbacks upon all generous effusions of sentiment, he should still have preserved so much of his native tenderness and ardour as is conspicuous, through all disguises, in his unquestionable love for Madame Guiccioli, and in the still more undoubted zeal with which he now entered, heart and soul, into the great cause of human freedom, wheresoever or by whomsoever asserted[18],--only shows how rich must have been the original stores of sensibility and enthusiasm which even a career such as his could so little chill or exhaust. Most consoling, too, is it to reflect that the few latter years of his life should have been thus visited with a return of that poetic lustre, which, though it never had ceased to surround the bard, had but too much faded away from the character of the man; and that while Love,--reprehensible as it was, but still Love,--had the credit of rescuing him from the only errors that disgraced his maturer years, for Liberty was reserved the proud but mournful triumph of calling the last stage of his glorious course her own, and lighting him, amidst the sympathies of the world, to his grave.

Having endeavoured, in this comparison between his present and former self, to account, by what I consider to be their true causes, for the new phenomena which his character, at this period, exhibited, I shall now lay before the reader the Journal by which these remarks were more immediately suggested, and from which I fear they will be thought to have too long detained him.

[Footnote 15: "In quest' epoca venne a Ravenna di ritorno da Roma e Napoli il mio diletto fratello Pietro. Egli era stato prevenuto da dei nemeci di Lord Byron contro il di lui carattere; molto lo affligeva la mia intimità con lui, e le mie lettere non avevano riuscito a bene distruggere la cattiva impressione ricevuta dei detrattori di Lord Byron. Ma appena lo vidde e lo conobbe egli pure ricevesse quella impressione che non può essere prodotta da dei pregi esteriori, ma solamente dall unione di tuttociò che vi è di più bello e di più grande nel cuore e nella mente dell uomo. Svani ogni sua anteriore prevenzione contro di Lord Byron, e la conformità della loro idee e dei studii loro contribuì a stringerli in quella amicizia che non doveva avere fine che colla loro vita."]

[Footnote 16: A draft of this Address, in his own handwriting, was found among his papers. He is supposed to have intrusted it to a professed agent of the Constitutional Government of Naples, who had waited upon him secretly at Ravenna, and, under the pretence of having been waylaid and robbed, induced his Lordship to supply him with money for his return. This man turned out afterwards to have been a spy, and the above paper, if confided to him, fell most probably into the hands of the Pontifical Government.]

[Footnote 17: "Un Inglese amico della libertà avendo sentito che i Napolitani permettono anche agli stranieri di contribuire alia buona causa, bramerebbe l'onore di vedere accettata la sua offerta di mille luigi, la quale egli azzarda di fare. Già testimonio oculare non molto fa della tirannia dei Barbari negli stati da loro occupati nell' Italia, egli vede con tutto l'entusiasmo di un uomo ben nato la generosa determinazione dei Napolitani per confermare la loro bene acquistata indipendenza. Membro della Camera dei Pari della nazione Inglese egli sarebbe un traditore ai principii che hanno posto sul trono la famiglia regnante d'Inghilterra se non riconoscesse la bella lezione di bel nuovo data ai popoli ed ai Re. L'offerta che egli brama di presentare è poca in se stessa, come bisogna che sia sempre quella di un individuo ad una nazione, ma egli spera che non sarà l'ultima dalla parte dei suoi compatriotti. La sua lontananza dalle frontiere, e il sentimento della sua poca capacità personale di contribuire efficacimente a servire la nazione gl' impedisce di proporsi come degno della più piccola commissione che domanda dell' esperienza e del talento. Ma, se come semplice volontario la sua presenza non fosse un incomodo a quello che l'accetasse egli riparebbe a qualunque luogo indicato dal Governo Napolitano, per ubbidire agli ordini e participare ai pericoli del suo superiore, senza avere altri motivi che quello di dividere il destino di una brava nazione resistendo alla se dicente Santa Allianza la quale aggiunge l'ippocrisia al despotismo."]

[Footnote 18: Among his "Detached Thoughts" I find this general passion for liberty thus strikingly expressed. After saying, in reference to his own choice of Venice as a place of residence, "I remembered General Ludlow's domal inscription, 'Omne solum forti patria,' and sat down free in a country which had been one of slavery for centuries," he adds, "But there is _no_ freedom, even for _masters_, in the midst of slaves. It makes my blood boil to see the thing. I sometimes wish that I was the owner of Africa, to do at once what Wilberforce will do in time, viz. sweep slavery from her deserts, and look on upon the first dance of their freedom.

"As to political slavery, so general, it is men's own fault: if they _will_ be slaves, let them! Yet it is but 'a word and a blow.' See how England formerly, France, Spain, Portugal, America, Switzerland, freed themselves! There is no one instance of a long contest in which men did not triumph over systems. If Tyranny misses her _first_ spring, she is cowardly as the tiger, and retires to be hunted."]

* * * * *

EXTRACTS FROM A DIARY OF LORD BYRON. 1821.

"Ravenna, January 4. 1821.

"'A sudden thought strikes me.' Let me begin a Journal once more. The last I kept was in Switzerland, in record of a tour made in the Bernese Alps, which I made to send to my sister in 1816, and I suppose that she has it still, for she wrote to me that she was pleased with it. Another, and longer, I kept in 1813-1814, which I gave to Thomas Moore in the same year.

"This morning I gat me up late, as usual--weather bad--bad as England--worse. The snow of last week melting to the sirocco of to-day, so that there were two d----d things at once. Could not even get to ride on horseback in the forest. Stayed at home all the morning--looked at the fire--wondered when the post would come. Post came at the Ave Maria, instead of half-past one o'clock, as it ought, Galignani's Messengers, six in number--a letter from Faenza, but none from England. Very sulky in consequence (for there ought to have been letters), and ate in consequence a copious dinner; for when I am vexed, it makes me swallow quicker--but drank very little.

"I was out of spirits--read the papers--thought what _fame_ was, on reading, in a case of murder, that 'Mr. Wych, grocer, at Tunbridge, sold some bacon, flour, cheese, and, it is believed, some plums, to some gipsy woman accused. He had on his counter (I quote faithfully) a _book_, the Life of _Pamela_, which he was _tearing_ for _waste_ paper, &c. &c. In the cheese was found, &c. and a _leaf_ of _Pamela wrapt round the bacon._' What would Richardson, the vainest and luckiest of _living_ authors (_i.e._ while alive)--he who, with Aaron Hill, used to prophesy and chuckle over the presumed fall of Fielding (the prose Homer of human nature) and of Pope (the most beautiful of poets)--what would he have said, could he have traced his pages from their place on the French prince's toilets (see Boswell's Johnson) to the grocer's counter and the gipsy-murderess's bacon!!!

"What would he have said? what can any body say, save what Solomon said long before us? After all, it is but passing from one counter to another, from the bookseller's to the other tradesman's--grocer or pastry-cook. For my part, I have met with most poetry upon trunks; so that I am apt to consider the trunk-maker as the sexton of authorship.

"Wrote five letters in about half an hour, short and savage, to all my rascally correspondents. Carriage came. Heard the news of three murders at Faenza and Forli--a carabinier, a smuggler, and an attorney--all last night. The two first in a quarrel, the latter by premeditation.

"Three weeks ago--almost a month--the 7th it was--I picked up the commandant, mortally wounded, out of the street; he died in my house; assassins unknown, but presumed political. His brethren wrote from Rome last night to thank me for having assisted him in his last moments. Poor fellow! it was a pity; he was a good soldier, but imprudent. It was eight in the evening when they killed him. We heard the shot; my servants and I ran out, and found him expiring, with five wounds, two whereof mortal--by slugs they seemed. I examined him, but did not go to the dissection next morning.

"Carriage at 8 or so--went to visit La Contessa G.--found her playing on the piano-forte--talked till ten, when the Count, her father, and the no less Count, her brother, came in from the theatre. Play, they said, Alfieri's Filippo--well received.

"Two days ago the King of Naples passed through Bologna on his way to congress. My servant Luigi brought the news. I had sent him to Bologna for a lamp. How will it end? Time will show.

"Came home at eleven, or rather before. If the road and weather are comfortable, mean to ride to-morrow. High time--almost a week at this work--snow, sirocco, one day--frost and snow the other--sad climate for Italy. But the two seasons, last and present, are extraordinary. Read a Life of Leonardo da Vinci by Rossi--ruminated--wrote this much, and will go to bed.

"January 5. 1821.

"Rose late--dull and drooping--the weather dripping and dense. Snow on the ground, and sirocco above in the sky, like yesterday. Roads up to the horse's belly, so that riding (at least for pleasure) is not very feasible. Added a postscript to my letter to Murray. Read the conclusion, for the fiftieth time (I have read all W. Scott's novels at least fifty times), of the third series of 'Tales of my Landlord,'--grand work--Scotch Fielding, as well as great English poet--wonderful man! I long to get drunk with him.

"Dined versus six o' the clock. Forgot that there was a plum-pudding, (I have added, lately, _eating_ to my 'family of vices,') and had dined before I knew it. Drank half a bottle of some sort of spirits--probably spirits of wine; for what they call brandy, rum, &c. &c. here is nothing but spirits of wine, coloured accordingly. Did _not_ eat two apples, which were placed by way of dessert. Fed the two cats, the hawk, and the tame (but _not tamed_) _crow_. Read Mitford's History of Greece--Xenophon's Retreat of the Ten Thousand. Up to this present _moment writing, 6 minutes before eight o' the clock_--French hours, not Italian.

"Hear the carriage--order pistols and great coat, as usual--necessary articles. Weather cold--carriage open, and inhabitants somewhat savage--rather treacherous and highly inflamed by politics. Fine fellows, though, good materials for a nation. Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people.

"Clock strikes--going out to make love. Somewhat perilous, but not disagreeable. Memorandum--a new screen put up to-day. It is rather antique, but will do with a little repair.

"Thaw continues--hopeful that riding may be practicable to-morrow. Sent the papers to Alli.--grand events coming.

"11 o' the clock and nine minutes. Visited La Contessa G. Nata G.G. Found her beginning my letter of answer to the thanks of Alessio del Pinto of Rome for assisting his brother the late Commandant in his last moments, as I had begged her to pen my reply for the purer Italian, I being an ultra-montane, little skilled in the set phrase of Tuscany. Cut short the letter--finish it another day. Talked of Italy, patriotism, Alfieri, Madame Albany, and other branches of learning. Also Sallust's Conspiracy of Catiline, and the War of Jugurtha. At 9 came in her brother, Il Conte Pietro--at 10, her father, Conte Ruggiero.

"Talked of various modes of warfare--of the Hungarian and Highland modes of broad-sword exercise, in both whereof I was once a moderate 'master of fence.' Settled that the R. will break out on the 7th or 8th of March, in which appointment I should trust, had it not been settled that it was to have broken out in October, 1820. But those Bolognese shirked the Romagnuoles.

"'It is all one to Ranger.' One must not be particular, but take rebellion when it lies in the way. Come home--read the 'Ten Thousand' again, and will go to bed.

"Mem.--Ordered Fletcher (at four o'clock this afternoon) to copy out seven or eight apophthegms of Bacon, in which I have detected such blunders as a school-boy might detect rather than commit. Such are the sages! What must they be, when such as I can stumble on their mistakes or misstatements? I will go to bed, for I find that I grow cynical.

"January 6. 1821.

"Mist--thaw--slop--rain. No stirring out on horseback. Read Spence's Anecdotes. Pope a fine fellow--always thought him so. Corrected blunders in _nine_ apophthegms of Bacon--all historical--and read Mitford's Greece. Wrote an epigram. Turned to a passage in Guinguené--ditto in Lord Holland's Lope de Vega. Wrote a note on Don Juan.

"At eight went out to visit. Heard a little music--like music. Talked with Count Pietro G. of the Italian comedian Vestris, who is now at Rome--have seen him often act in Venice--a good actor--very. Somewhat of a mannerist; but excellent in broad comedy, as well as in the sentimental pathetic. He has made me frequently laugh and cry, neither of which is now a very easy matter--at least, for a player to produce in me.

"Thought of the state of women under the ancient Greeks--convenient enough. Present state a remnant of the barbarism of the chivalry and feudal ages--artificial and unnatural. They ought to mind home--and be well fed and clothed--but not mixed in society. Well educated, too, in religion--but to read neither poetry nor politics--nothing but books of piety and cookery. Music--drawing--dancing--also a little gardening and ploughing now and then. I have seen them mending the roads in Epirus with good success. Why not, as well as hay-making and milking?

"Came home, and read Mitford again, and played with my mastiff--gave him his supper. Made another reading to the epigram, but the turn the same. To-night at the theatre, there being a prince on his throne in the last scene of the comedy,--the audience laughed, and asked him for a _Constitution_. This shows the state of the public mind here, as well as the assassinations. It won't do. There must be an universal republic,--and there ought to be.

"The crow is lame of a leg--wonder how it happened--some fool trod upon his toe, I suppose. The falcon pretty brisk--the cats large and noisy--the monkeys I have not looked to since the cold weather, as they suffer by being brought up. Horses must be gay--get a ride as soon as weather serves. Deuced muggy still--an Italian winter is a sad thing, but all the other seasons are charming.

"What is the reason that I have been, all my lifetime, more or less _ennuyé?_ and that, if any thing, I am rather less so now than I was at twenty, as far as my recollection serves? I do not know how to answer this, but presume that it is constitutional,--as well as the waking in low spirits, which I have invariably done for many years. Temperance and exercise, which I have practised at times, and for a long time together vigorously and violently, made little or no difference. Violent passions did;--when under their immediate influence--it is odd, but--I was in agitated, but _not_ in depressed, spirits.

"A dose of salts has the effect of a temporary inebriation, like light champagne, upon me. But wine and spirits make me sullen and savage to ferocity--silent, however, and retiring, and not quarrelsome, if not spoken to. Swimming also raises my spirits,--but in general they are low, and get daily lower. That is _hopeless_; for I do not think I am so much _ennuyé_ as I was at nineteen. The proof is, that then I must game, or drink, or be in motion of some kind, or I was miserable. At present, I can mope in quietness; and like being alone better than any company--except the lady's whom I serve. But I feel a something, which makes me think that, if I ever reach near to old age, like Swift, 'I shall die at top' first. Only I do not dread idiotism or madness so much as he did. On the contrary, I think some quieter stages of both must be preferable to much of what men think the possession of their senses.

"January 7. 1821, Sunday.

"Still rain--mist--snow--drizzle--and all the incalculable combinations of a climate where heat and cold struggle for mastery. Head Spence, and turned over Roscoe, to find a passage I have not found. Read the fourth vol. of W. Scott's second series of 'Tales of my Landlord.' Dined. Read the Lugano Gazette. Read--I forget what. At eight went to conversazione. Found there the Countess Geltrude, Betti V. and her husband, and others. Pretty black-eyed woman that--_only_ nineteen--same age as Teresa, who is prettier, though.

"The Count Pietro G. took me aside to say that the Patriots have had notice from Forli (twenty miles off) that to-night the government and its party mean to strike a stroke--that the Cardinal here has had orders to make several arrests immediately, and that, in consequence, the Liberals are arming, and have posted patroles in the streets, to sound the alarm and give notice to fight for it.

"He asked me 'what should be done?' I answered, 'Fight for it, rather than be taken in detail;' and offered, if any of them are in immediate apprehension of arrest, to receive them in my house (which is defensible), and to defend them, with my servants and themselves (we have arms and ammunition), as long as we can,--or to try to get them away under cloud of night. On going home, I offered him the pistols which I had about me--but he refused, but said he would come off to me in case of accidents.

"It wants half an hour of midnight, and rains;--as Gibbet says, 'a fine night for their enterprise--dark as hell, and blows like the devil.' If the row don't happen _now_, it must soon. I thought that their system of shooting people would soon produce a re-action--and now it seems coming. I will do what I can in the way of combat, though a little out of exercise. The cause is a good one.

"Turned over and over half a score of books for the passage in question, and can't find it. Expect to hear the drum and the musquetry momently (for they swear to resist, and are right,)--but I hear nothing, as yet, save the plash of the rain and the gusts of the wind at intervals. Don't like to go to bed, because I hate to be waked, and would rather sit up for the row, if there is to be one.

"Mended the fire--have got the arms--and a book or two, which I shall turn over. I know little of their numbers, but think the Carbonari strong enough to beat the troops, even here. With twenty men this house might be defended for twenty-four hours against any force to be brought against it, now in this place, for the same time; and, in such a time, the country would have notice, and would rise,--if ever they _will_ rise, of which there is some doubt. In the mean time, I may as well read as do any thing else, being alone.

"January 8. 1821, Monday.

"Rose, and found Count P.G. in my apartments. Sent away the servant. Told me that, according to the best information, the Government had not issued orders for the arrests apprehended; that the attack in Forli had not taken place (as expected) by the Sanfedisti--the opponents of the Carbonari or Liberals--and that, as yet, they are still in apprehension only. Asked me for some arms of a better sort, which I gave him. Settled that, in case of a row, the Liberals were to assemble _here_ (with me), and that he had given the word to Vincenzo G. and others of the _Chiefs_ for that purpose. He himself and father are going to the chase in the forest; but V.G. is to come to me, and an express to be sent off to him, P.G., if any thing occurs. Concerted operations. They are to seize--but no matter.

"I advised them to attack in detail, and in different parties, in different _places_ (though at the _same_ time), so as to divide the attention of the troops, who, though few, yet being disciplined, would beat any body of people (not trained) in a regular fight--unless dispersed in small parties, and distracted with different assaults. Offered to let them assemble here, if they choose. It is a strongish post--narrow street, commanded from within--and tenable walls.

"Dined. Tried on a new coat. Letter to Murray, with corrections of Bacon's Apophthegms and an epigram--the _latter not_ for publication. At eight went to Teresa, Countess G. At nine and a half came in Il Conte P. and Count P.G. Talked of a certain proclamation lately issued. Count R.G. had been with * * (the * *), to sound him about the arrests. He, * *, is a _trimmer_, and deals, at present, his cards with both hands. If he don't mind, they'll be full. * * pretends (_I_ doubt him--_they_ don't,--we shall see) that there is no such order, and seems staggered by the immense exertions of the Neapolitans, and the fierce spirit of the Liberals here. The truth is, that * * cares for little but his place (which is a good one), and wishes to play pretty with both parties. He has changed his mind thirty times these last three moons, to my knowledge, for he corresponds with me. But he is not a bloody fellow--only an avaricious one.

"It seems that, just at this moment (as Lydia Languish says), there will be no elopement after all. I wish that I had known as much last night--or, rather, this morning--I should have gone to bed two hours earlier. And yet I ought not to complain; for, though it is a sirocco, and heavy rain, I have not _yawned_ for these two days.

"Came home--read History of Greece--before dinner had read Walter Scott's Rob Roy. Wrote address to the letter in answer to Alessio del Pinto, who has thanked me for helping his brother (the late Commandant, murdered here last month) in his last moments. Have told him I only did a duty of humanity--as is true. The brother lives at Rome.

"Mended the fire with some 'sgobole' (a Romagnuole word), and gave the falcon some water. Drank some Seltzer-water. Mem.--received to-day a print, or etching, of the story of Ugolino, by an Italian painter--different, of course, from Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and I think (as far as recollection goes) _no worse_, for Reynolds's is not good in history. Tore a button in my new coat.

"I wonder what figure these Italians will make in a regular row. I sometimes think that, like the Irishman's gun (somebody had sold him a crooked one), they will only do for 'shooting round a corner;' at least, this sort of shooting has been the late tenor of their exploits. And yet, there are materials in this people, and a noble energy, if well directed. But who is to direct them? No matter. Out of such times heroes spring. Difficulties are the hotbeds of high spirits, and Freedom the mother of the few virtues incident to human nature.

"Tuesday, January 9. 1821.

"Rose--the day fine. Ordered the horses; but Lega (my _secretary_, an Italianism for steward or chief servant) coming to tell me that the painter had finished the work in fresco, for the room he has been employed on lately, I went to see it before I set out. The painter has not copied badly the prints from Titian, &c. considering all things.

"Dined. Read Johnson's 'Vanity of Human Wishes,'--all the examples and mode of giving them sublime, as well as the latter part, with the exception of an occasional couplet. I do not so much admire the opening. I remember an observation of Sharpe's, (the _Conversationist_, as he was called in London, and a very clever man,) that the first line of this poem was superfluous, and that Pope (the best of poets, _I_ think) would have begun at once, only changing the punctuation--

"'Survey mankind from China to Peru.'

The former line, 'Let observation,' &c. is certainly heavy and useless. But 'tis a grand poem--and _so true!_--true as the 10th of Juvenal himself. The lapse of ages _changes_ all things--time--language--the earth--the bounds of the sea--the stars of the sky, and every thing 'about, around, and underneath' man, _except man himself_, who has always been, and always will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment. All the discoveries which have yet been made have multiplied little but existence. An extirpated disease is succeeded by some new pestilence; and a discovered world has brought little to the old one, except the p---- first and freedom afterwards--the _latter_ a fine thing, particularly as they gave it to Europe in exchange for slavery. But it is doubtful whether 'the Sovereigns' would not think the _first_ the best present of the two to their subjects.

"At eight went out--heard some news. They say the King of Naples has declared, by couriers from Florence, to the _Powers_ (as they call now those wretches with crowns) that his Constitution was compulsive, &c. &c. and that the Austrian barbarians are placed again on _war_ pay, and will march. Let them--'they come like sacrifices in their trim,' the hounds of hell! Let it still be a hope to see their bones piled like those of the human dogs at Morat, in Switzerland, which I have seen.

"Heard some music. At nine the usual visiters--news, _war_, or rumours of war. Consulted with P.G. &c. &c. They mean to _insurrect_ here, and are to honour me with a call thereupon. I shall not fall back; though I don't think them in force or heart sufficient to make much of it. But, _onward!_--it is now the time to act, and what signifies _self_, if a single spark of that which would be worthy of the past can be bequeathed unquenchedly to the future? It is not one man, nor a million, but the _spirit_ of liberty which must be spread. The waves which dash upon the shore are, one by one, broken, but yet the _ocean_ conquers, nevertheless. It overwhelms the Armada, it wears the rock, and, if the _Neptunians_ are to be believed, it has not only destroyed, but made a world. In like manner, whatever the sacrifice of individuals, the great cause will gather strength, sweep down what is rugged, and fertilise (for _sea-weed_ is _manure_) what is cultivable. And so, the mere selfish calculation ought never to be made on such occasions; and, at present, it shall not be computed by me. I was never a good arithmetician of chances, and shall not commence now.

"January 10. 1821.

"Day fine--rained only in the morning. Looked over accounts. Read Campbell's Poets--marked errors of Tom (the author) for correction. Dined--went out--music--Tyrolese air, with variations. Sustained the cause of the original simple air against the variations of the Italian school.

"Politics somewhat tempestuous, and cloudier daily. To-morrow being foreign post-day, probably something more will be known.

"Came home--read. Corrected Tom Campbell's slips of the pen. A good work, though--style affected--but his defence of Pope is glorious. To be sure, it is his _own cause_ too,--but no matter, it is very good, and does him great credit.

"Midnight.

"I have been turning over different _Lives_ of the Poets. I rarely read their works, unless an occasional flight over the classical ones, Pope, Dryden, Johnson, Gray, and those who approach them nearest (I leave the _rant_ of the rest to the _cant_ of the day), and--I had made several reflections, but I feel sleepy, and may as well go to bed.

"January 11. 1821.

"Read the letters. Corrected the tragedy and the 'Hints from Horace.' Dined, and got into better spirits. Went out--returned--finished letters, five in number. Read Poets, and an anecdote in Spence.

"Alli. writes to me that the Pope, and Duke of Tuscany, and King of Sardinia, have also been called to Congress; but the Pope will only deal there by proxy. So the interests of millions are in the hands of about twenty coxcombs, at a place called Leibach!

"I should almost regret that my own affairs went well, when those of nations are in peril. If the interests of mankind could be essentially bettered (particularly of these oppressed Italians), I should not so much mind my own 'suma peculiar.' God grant us all better times, or more philosophy!

"In reading, I have just chanced upon an expression of Tom Campbell's;--speaking of Collins, he says that no reader cares any more about the _characteristic manners_ of his Eclogues than about the authenticity of the tale of Troy.' 'Tis false--we _do_ care about the authenticity of the tale of Troy. I have stood upon that plain _daily_, for more than a month in 1810; and if any thing diminished my pleasure, it was that the blackguard Bryant had impugned its veracity. It is true I read 'Homer Travestied' (the first twelve books), because Hobhouse and others bored me with their learned localities, and I love quizzing. But I still venerated the grand original as the truth of _history_ (in the material _facts_) and of _place_. Otherwise, it would have given me no delight. Who will persuade me, when I reclined upon a mighty tomb, that it did not contain a hero?--its very magnitude proved this. Men do not labour over the ignoble and petty dead--and why should not the _dead_ be _Homer_'s dead? The secret of Tom Campbell's defence of _inaccuracy_ in costume and description is, that his Gertrude, &c. has no more locality in common with Pennsylvania than with Penmanmaur. It is notoriously full of grossly false scenery, as all Americans declare, though they praise parts of the poem. It is thus that self-love for ever creeps out, like a snake, to sting any thing which happens, even accidentally, to stumble upon it.

"January 12. 1821.

"The weather still so humid and impracticable, that London, in its most oppressive fogs, were a summer-bower to this mist and sirocco, which has now lasted (but with one day's interval), chequered with snow or heavy rain only, since the 30th of December, 1820. It is so far lucky that I have a literary turn;--but it is very tiresome not to be able to stir out, in comfort, on any horse but Pegasus, for so many days. The roads are even worse than the weather, by the long splashing, and the heavy soil, and the growth of the waters.

"Read the Poets--English, that is to say--out of Campbell's edition. There is a good deal of taffeta in some of Tom's prefatory phrases, but his work is good as a whole. I like him best, though, in his own poetry.

"Murray writes that they want to act the Tragedy of Marino Faliero--more fools they, it was written for the closet. I have protested against this piece of usurpation, (which, it seems, is legal for managers over any printed work, against the author's will,) and I hope they will not attempt it. Why don't they bring out some of the numberless aspirants for theatrical celebrity, now encumbering their shelves, instead of lugging me out of the library? I have written a fierce protest against any such attempt, but I still would hope that it will not be necessary, and that they will see, at once, that it is not intended for the stage. It is too regular--the time, twenty-four hours--the change of place not frequent--nothing _melo_dramatic--no surprises, no starts, nor trap-doors, nor opportunities 'for tossing their heads and kicking their heels'--and no _love_--the grand ingredient of a modern play.

"I have found out the seal cut on Murray's letter. It is meant for Walter Scott--or _Sir_ Walter--he is the first poet knighted since Sir Richard Blackmore. But it does not do him justice. Scott's--particularly when he recites--is a very intelligent countenance, and this seal says nothing.

"Scott is certainly the most wonderful writer of the day. His novels are a new literature in themselves, and his poetry as good as any--if not better (only on an erroneous system)--and only ceased to be so popular, because the vulgar learned were tired of hearing 'Aristides called the Just,' and Scott the Best, and ostracised him.

"I like him, too, for his manliness of character, for the extreme pleasantness of his conversation, and his good-nature towards myself, personally. May he prosper!--for he deserves it. I know no reading to which I fall with such alacrity as a work of W. Scott's. I shall give the seal, with his bust on it, to Madame la Contesse G. this evening, who will be curious to have the effigies of a man so celebrated.

"How strange are our thoughts, &c. &c. &c.[19]

[Footnote 19: Here follows a long passage, already extracted, relative to his early friend, Edward Noel Long.]

"Midnight.

"Read the Italian translation by Guido Sorelli of the German Grillparzer--a devil of a name, to be sure, for posterity; but they _must_ learn to pronounce it. With all the allowance for a _translation_, and above all, an _Italian_ translation (they are the very worst of translators, except from the Classics--Annibale Caro, for instance--and _there_, the bastardy of their language helps them, as, by way of _looking legitimate_, they ape their father's tongue);--but with every allowance for such a disadvantage, the tragedy of Sappho is superb and sublime! There is no denying it. The man has done a great thing in writing that play. And _who is he?_ I know him not; but _ages will_. 'Tis a high intellect.

"I must premise, however, that I have read _nothing_ of Adolph Müllner's (the author of 'Guilt'), and much less of Goethe, and Schiller, and Wieland, than I could wish. I only know them through the medium of English, French, and Italian translations. Of the _real_ language I know absolutely nothing,--except oaths learnt from postilions and officers in a squabble. I can _swear_ in German potently, when I like--'Sacrament--Verfluchter--Hundsfott'--and so forth; but I have little of their less energetic conversation.