Book: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4

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Towards the close of the year he made friends with Moore. Some lines in
_English Bards_, &c. (ii. 466-467), taunting Moore with fighting a duel
with Jeffrey with "leadless pistol" had led to a challenge, and it was not
till Byron returned to England that explanations ensued, and that the
challenge was withdrawn. As a poet Byron outgrew Moore, giving back more
than he had received, but the friendship which sprang up between them still
serves Byron in good stead. Moore's _Life of Byron_ (1830) is no doubt a
picture of the man at his best, but it is a genuine likeness. At the end of
October Byron moved to London and took up his quarters at 8 St James's
Street. On the 27th of February 1812 he made his first speech in the House
of Lords on a bill which made the wilful destruction of certain newly
invented stocking-frames a capital offence, speaking in defence of the
riotous "hands" who feared that their numbers would be diminished by
improved machinery. It was a brilliant speech and won the praise of Burdett
and Lord Holland. He made two other speeches during the same session, but
thenceforth pride or laziness kept him silent. _Childe Harold_ (4to) was
published on Tuesday, the loth of March 1812. "The effect," says Moore,
"was ... electric, his fame ... seemed to spring, like the palace of a
fairy king, in a night." A fifth edition (8vo) was issued on the 5th of
December 1812. Just turned twenty-four he "found himself famous," a great
poet, a rising statesman. Society, which in spite of his rank had neglected
him, was now at his feet. But he could not keep what he had won. It was not
only "villainous company," as he put it, which was to prove his "spoil,"
but the opportunity for intrigue. The excitement and absorption of one
reigning passion after another destroyed his peace of mind and put him out
of conceit with himself. His first affair of any moment was with Lady
Caroline Lamb the wife of William Lamb, better known as Lord Melbourne, a
delicate, golden-haired sprite, who threw herself in his way, and
afterwards, when she was shaken off, involved him in her own disgrace. To
her succeeded Lady Oxford, who was double his own age, and Lady Frances
Wedderburn Webster, the "Ginevra" of his sonnets, the "Medora" of _The
Corsair_.

His "way of life" was inconsistent with an official career, but there was
no slackening of his poetical energies. In February 1813 he published _The
Waltz_ (anonymously), he wrote and [v.04 p.0900] published _The Giaour_
(published June 5, 1813) and _The Bride of Abydos_ (published November 29,
1813), and he wrote _The Corsair_ (published February 1, 1814). The
_Turkish Tales_ were even more popular than _Childe Harold_. Murray sold
10,000 copies of _The Corsair_ on the day of publication. Byron was at
pains to make his accessories correct. He prided himself on the accuracy of
his "costume." He was under no delusion as to the ethical or artistic value
of these experiments on "public patience."

In the summer of 1813 a new and potent influence came into his life. Mrs
Leigh, whose home was at Newmarket, came up to London on a visit. After a
long interval the brother and sister met, and whether there is or is not
any foundation for the dark story obscurely hinted at in Byron's lifetime,
and afterwards made public property by Mrs Beecher Stowe (_Macmillan's
Magazine_, 1869, pp. 377-396), there is no question as to the depth and
sincerity of his love for his "one relative,"--that her well-being was more
to him than his own. Byron passed the "seasons" of 1813, 1814 in London.
His manner of life we know from his journals. Socially he was on the crest
of the wave. He was a welcome guest at the great Whig houses, at Lady
Melbourne's, at Lady Jersey's, at Holland House. Sheridan and Moore, Rogers
and Campbell, were his intimates and companions. He was a member of the
Alfred, of Watier's, of the Cocoa Tree, and half a dozen clubs besides.
After the publication of _The Corsair_ he had promised an interval of
silence, but the abdication of Napoleon evoked "An Ode," &c., in his
dishonour (April 16); _Lara, a Tale_, an informal sequel to _The Corsair_,
was published anonymously on August 6, 1814.

Newstead had been put up for sale, but pending the completion of the
contract was still in his possession. During his last visit but one, whilst
his sister was his guest, he became engaged to Miss Anna Isabella Milbanke
(b. May 17, 1792; d. May 16, 1860), the only daughter of Sir Ralph
Milbanke, Bart., and the Hon. Judith (born Noel), daughter of Lord
Wentworth. She was an heiress, and in succession to a peerage in her own
right (becoming Baroness Wentworth in 1856). She was a pretty girl of "a
perfect figure," highly educated, a mathematician, and, by courtesy, a
poetess. She had rejected Byron's first offer, but, believing that her
cruelty had broken his heart and that he was an altered man, she was now
determined on marriage. High-principled, but self-willed and opinionated,
she believed that she held her future in her own hands. On her side there
was ambition touched with fancy--on his, a wish to be married and some hope
perhaps of finding an escape from himself. The marriage took place at
Seaham in Durham on the 2nd of January 1815. Bride and bridegroom spent
three months in paying visits, and at the end of March settled at 13
Piccadilly Terrace, London.

Byron was a member of the committee of management of Drury Lane theatre,
and devoted much of his time to his professional duties. He wrote but
little poetry. _Hebrew Melodies_ (published April 1815), begun at Seaham in
October 1814, were finished and given to the musical composer, Isaac
Nathan, for publication. _The Siege of Corinth_ and _Parisina_ (published
February 7, 1816) were got ready for the press. On the loth of December
Lady Byron gave birth to a daughter christened Augusta Ada. To judge from
his letters, for the first weeks or months of his marriage things went
smoothly. His wife's impression was that Byron "had avowedly begun his
revenge from the first." It is certain that before the child was born his
conduct was so harsh, so violent, and so eccentric, that she believed, or
tried to persuade herself, that he was mad.

On the 15th of January 1816 Lady Byron left London for her father's house,
claimed his protection, and after some hesitation and consultation with her
legal advisers demanded a separation from her husband. It is a matter of
common knowledge that in 1869 Mrs Beecher Stowe affirmed that Lady Byron
expressly told her that Byron was guilty of incest with his half-sister,
Mrs Leigh; also that in 1905 the second Lord Lovelace (Lord Byron's
grandson) printed a work entitled _Astarte_ which was designed to uphold
and to prove the truth of this charge. It is a fact that neither Lady Byron
nor her advisers supported their demand by this or any other charge of
misconduct, but it is also a fact that Lord Byron yielded to the demand
reluctantly, under pressure and for large pecuniary considerations. It is a
fact that Lady Byron's letters to Mrs Leigh before and after the separation
are inconsistent with a knowledge or suspicion of guilt on the part of her
sister-in-law, but it is also a fact (see _Astarte_, pp. 142-145) that she
signed a document (dated March 14, 1816) to the effect that any renewal of
intercourse did not involve and must not be construed as a withdrawal of
the charge. It cannot be doubted that Lady Byron's conviction that her
husband's relations with his half-sister before his marriage had been of an
immoral character was a factor in her demand for a separation, but whether
there were other and what issues, and whether Lady Byron's conviction was
founded on fact, are questions which have not been finally answered. Lady
Byron's charge, as reported by Mrs Beecher Stowe and upheld by the 2nd earl
of Lovelace, is "non-proven." Mr Robert Edgcome, in _Byron: the Last Phase_
(1909), insists that Mary Chaworth was the real object of Byron's passion,
and that Mrs Leigh was only shielding her.

The separation of Lord and Lady Byron was the talk of the town. Two poems
entitled "Fare Thee Well" and "A Sketch," which Byron had written and
printed for private circulation, were published by _The Champion_ on
Sunday, April 14. The other London papers one by one followed suit. The
poems, more especially "A Sketch," were provocative of criticism. There was
a balance of opinion, but politics turned the scale. Byron had recently
published some pro-Gallican stanzas, "On the 'Star of the Legion of
Honour,'" in the _Examiner_ (April 7), and it was felt by many that private
dishonour was the outcome of public disloyalty. The Whigs defended Byron as
best they could, but his own world, with one or two exceptions, ostracized
him. The "excommunicating voice of society," as Moore put it, was loud and
insistent. The articles of separation were signed on or about the 18th of
April, and on Sunday, the 25th of April, Byron sailed from Dover for
Ostend. The "Lines on Churchill's Grave" were written whilst he was waiting
for a favourable wind. His route lay through the Low Countries, and by the
Rhine to Switzerland. On his way he halted at Brussels and visited the
field of Waterloo. He reached Geneva on the 25th of May, where he met by
appointment at Dejean's Hotel d'Angleterre, Shelley, Mary Godwin and Clare
(or "Claire") Clairmont. The meeting was probably at the instance of
Claire, who had recently become, and aspired to remain, Byron's mistress.
On the 10th of June Byron moved to the Villa Diodati on the southern shore
of the lake. Shelley and his party had already settled at an adjoining
villa, the Campagne Montalegre. The friends were constantly together. On
the 23rd of June Byron and Shelley started for a yachting tour round the
lake. They visited the castle of Chillon on the 26th of June, and, being
detained by weather at the Hotel de l'Ancre, Ouchy, Byron finished (June
27-29) the third canto of _Childe Harold_ (published November 18), and
began the _Prisoner of Chillon_ (published December 5, 1816). These and
other poems of July-September 1816, _e.g._ "The Dream" and the first two
acts of _Manfred_ (published June 16, 1817), betray the influence of
Shelley, and through him of Wordsworth, both in thought and style. Byron
knew that Wordsworth had power, but was against his theories, and resented
his criticism of Pope and Dryden. Shelley was a believer and a disciple,
and converted Byron to the Wordsworthian creed. Moreover he was an
inspiration in himself. Intimacy with Shelley left Byron a greater poet
than he was before. Byron passed the summer at the Villa Diodati, where he
also wrote the _Monody on the Death of Sheridan_, published September 9,
1816. The second half of September was spent and devoted to "an excursion
in the mountains." His journal (September 18-29), which was written for and
sent to Mrs Leigh, is a great prose poem, the source of the word pictures
of Alpine scenery in _Manfred_. His old friend Hobhouse was with him and he
enjoyed himself, but at the close he confesses that he could not lose his
"own wretched identity" in the "majesty and the power and the glory" of
nature. Remorse was scotched, not [v.04 p.0901] killed. On the 6th of
October Byron and Hobhouse started via Milan and Verona for Venice, which
was reached early in November. For the next three years Byron lived in or
near Venice--at first, 1816-1817, in apartments in the Frezzeria, and after
January 1818 in the central block of the Mocenigo palace. Venice appealed
both to his higher and his lower nature. He set himself to study her
history, to understand her constitution, to learn her language. The sights
and scenes with which Shakespeare and Otway, Schiller's _Ghostseer_, and
Madame de Stael's _Corinne_ had made him familiar, were before his eyes,
not dreams but realities. He would "repeople" her with her own past, and
"stamp her image" on the creations of his pen. But he had no one to live
for but himself, and that self he gave over to a reprobate mind. He planned
and pursued a life of deliberate profligacy. Of two of his amours we learn
enough or too much from his letters to Murray and to Moore--the first with
his landlord's wife, Marianna Segati, the second with Margarita Cogni (the
"Fornarina"), a Venetian of the lower class, who amused him with her
savagery and her wit. But, if Shelley may be trusted, there was a limit to
his candour. There is abundant humour, but there is an economy of detail in
his pornographic chronicle. He could not touch pitch without being defiled.
But to do him justice he was never idle. He kept his brains at work, and
for this reason, perhaps, he seems for a time to have recovered his spirits
and sinned with a good courage. His song of carnival, "So we'll go no more
a-roving," is a hymn of triumph. About the middle of April he set out for
Rome. His first halt was at Ferrara, which inspired the "Lament of Tasso"
(published July 17, 1817). He passed through Florence, where he saw "_the_
Venus" (of Medici) in the Uffizi Gallery, by reedy Thrasymene and Term's
"matchless cataract" to "Rome the Wonderful." At Rome, with Hobhouse as
companion and guide, he stayed three weeks. He returned to Venice on the
28th of May, but shortly removed to a villa at Mira on the Brenta, some 7
m. inland. A month later (June 26) when memory had selected and reduced to
order the first impressions of his tour, he began to work them up into a
fourth canto of _Childe Harold_. A first draft of 126 stanzas was finished
by the 29th of July; the 60 additional stanzas which made up the canto as
it stands were written up to material suggested by or supplied by Hobhouse,
"who put his researches" at Byron's disposal and wrote the learned and
elaborate notes which are appended to the poem. Among the books which
Murray sent out to Venice was a copy of Hookham Frere's _Whistlecraft_.
Byron took the hint and produced _Beppo, a Venetian Story_ (published
anonymously on the 28th of February 1818). He attributes his choice of the
mock heroic _ottava-rima_ to Frere's example, but he was certainly familiar
with Casti's _Novelle_, and, according to Stendhal, with the poetry of
Buratti. The success of _Beppo_ and a growing sense that "the excellent
manner of _Whistlecraft_" was the manner for him, led him to study Frere's
masters and models, Berni and Pulci. An accident had led to a great
discovery.

The fourth canto of _Childe Harold_ was published on the 28th of April
1818. Nearly three months went by before Murray wrote to him, and he began
to think that his new poem was a failure. Meanwhile he completed an "Ode on
Venice," in which he laments her apathy and decay, and contrasts the
tyranny of the Old World with the new birth of freedom in America. In
September he began _Don Juan_. His own account of the inception of his last
and greatest work is characteristic but misleading. He says (September 9)
that his new poem is to be in the style of _Beppo_, and is "meant to be a
little quietly facetious about everything." A year later (August 12, 1819),
he says that he neither has nor had a _plan_--but that "he had or has
_materials_." By materials he means books, such as Dalzell's _Shipwrecks
and Disasters by Sea_, or de Castelnau's _Histoire de la nouvelle Russie_,
&c., which might be regarded as poetry in the rough. The dedication to
Robert Southey (not published till 1833) is a prologue to the play. The
"Lakers" had given samples of their poetry, their politics and their
morals, and now it was his turn to speak and to speak out. He too would
write "An Excursion." He doubted that _Don Juan_ might be "too free for
these modest days." It _was_ too free for the public, for his publisher,
even for his mistress; and the "building up of the drama," as Shelley puts
it, was a slow and gradual process. Cantos I., II. were published (4to) on
the 15th of July 1819; Cantos III., IV., V., finished in November 1820,
were not published till the 8th of August 1821. Cantos VI.-XVI., written
between June 1822 and March 1823, were published at intervals between the
15th of July 1823 and the 26th of March 1824. Canto XVII. was begun in May
1823, but was never finished. A fragment of fourteen stanzas, found in his
room at Missolonghi, was first published in 1903.

He did not put all his materials into _Don Juan_. "Mazeppa, a tale of the
Russian Ukraine," based on a passage in Voltaire's _Charles XII._, was
finished by the 30th of September 1818 and published with "An Ode" (on
Venice) on the 28th of June 1819. In the spring of 1819 Byron met in
Venice, and formed a connexion with, an Italian lady of rank, Teresa (born
Gamba), wife of the Cavaliere Guiccioli. She was young and beautiful,
well-read and accomplished. Married at sixteen to a man nearly four times
her age, she fell in love with Byron at first sight, soon became and for
nearly four years remained his mistress. A good and true wife to him in all
but name, she won from Byron ample devotion and a prolonged constancy. Her
volume of _Recollections_ (_Lord Byron juge par les temoins de sa vie_,
1869), taken for what it is worth, is testimony in Byron's favour. The
countess left Venice for Ravenna at the end of April; within a month she
sent for Byron, and on the 10th of June he arrived at Ravenna and took
rooms in the Strada di Porto Sisi. The house (now No. 295) is close to
Dante's tomb, and to gratify the countess and pass the time he wrote the
"Prophecy of Dante" (published April 21, 1821). According to the preface
the poem was a metrical experiment, an exercise in _terza rima_; but it had
a deeper significance. It was "intended for the Italians." Its purport was
revolutionary. In the fourth canto of _Childe Harold_, already translated
into Italian, he had attacked the powers, and "Albion most of all" for her
betrayal of Venice, and knowing that his word had weight he appeals to the
country of his adoption to strike a blow for freedom--to "unite." It is
difficult to realize the force or extent of Byron's influence on
continental opinion. His own countrymen admired his poetry, but abhorred
and laughed at his politics. Abroad he was the prophet and champion of
liberty. His hatred of tyranny--his defence of the oppressed--was a word
spoken in season when there were few to speak but many to listen. It
brought consolation and encouragement, and it was not spoken in vain. It
must, however, be borne in mind that Byron was more of a king-hater than a
people-lover. He was against the oppressors, but he disliked and despised
the oppressed. He was aristocrat by conviction as well as birth, and if he
espoused a popular cause it was _de haut en bas_. His connexion with the
Gambas brought him into touch with the revolutionary movement, and
thenceforth he was under the espionage of the Austrian embassy at Rome. He
was suspected and "shadowed," but he was left alone.

Early in September Byron returned to La Mira, bringing the countess with
him. A month later he was surprised by a visit from Moore, who was on his
way to Rome. Byron installed Moore in the Mocenigo palace and visited him
daily. Before the final parting (October 11) Byron placed in Moore's hands
the MS. of his _Life and Adventures_ brought down to the close of 1816.
Moore, as Byron suggested, pledged the MS. to Murray for 2000 guineas, to
be Moore's property if redeemed in Byron's lifetime, but if not, to be
forfeit to Murray at Byron's death. On the 17th of May 1824, with Murray's
assent and goodwill, the MS. was burned in the drawing-room of 50 Albemarle
Street. Neither Murray nor Moore lost their money. The Longmans lent Moore
a sufficient sum to repay Murray, and were themselves repaid out of the
receipts of Moore's _Life of Byron_. Byron told Moore that the memoranda
were not "confessions," that they were "the truth but not the whole truth."
This, no doubt, was the truth, and the whole truth. Whatever they may or
may [v.04 p.0902] not have contained, they did not explain the cause or
causes of the separation from his wife.[1]

At the close of 1819 Byron finally left Venice and settled at Ravenna in
his own apartments in the Palazzo Guiccioli. His relations with the
countess were put on a regular footing, and he was received in society as
her _cavaliere servente_. At Ravenna his literary activity was greater than
ever. His translation of the first canto of Pulci's _Morgante Maggiore_
(published in the _Liberal_, No. IV., July 30, 1832), a laborious and
scholarly achievement, was the work of the first two months of the year.
From April to July he was at work on the composition of _Marino Faliero,
Doge of Venice_, a tragedy in five acts (published April 21, 1821). The
plot turns on an episode in Venetian history known as _La Congiura_, the
alliance between the doge and the populace to overthrow the state. Byron
spared no pains in preparing his materials. In so far as he is
unhistorical, he errs in company with Sanudo and early Venetian chronicles.
Moved by the example of Alfieri he strove to reform the British drama by "a
severer approach to the rules." He would read his countrymen a "moral
lesson" on the dramatic propriety of observing the three unities. It was an
heroic attempt to reassert classical ideals in a romantic age, but it was
"a week too late"; Byron's "regular dramas" are admirably conceived and
finely worded, but they are cold and lifeless.

Eighteen additional sheets of the _Memoirs_ and a fifth canto of _Don Juan_
were the pastime of the autumn, and in January 1821 Byron began to work on
his second "historical drama," _Sardanapalus_. But politics intervened, and
little progress was made. He had been elected _capo_ of the "_Americani_,"
a branch of the Carbonari, and his time was taken up with buying and
storing arms and ammunition, and consultations with leading conspirators.
"The poetry of politics" and poetry on paper did not go together. Meanwhile
he would try his hand on prose. A controversy had arisen between Bowles and
Campbell with regard to the merits of Pope. Byron rushed into the fray. To
avenge and exalt Pope, to decry the "Lakers," and to lay down his own
canons of art, Byron addressed two letters to **** ****** (_i.e._ John
Murray), entitled "Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope." The first
was published in 1821, the second in 1835.

The revolution in Italy came to nothing, and by the 28th of May, Byron had
finished his work on _Sardanapalus_. The _Two Foscari_, a third historical
drama, was begun on the 12th of June and finished on the 9th of July. On
the same day he began _Cain, a Mystery_. _Cain_ was an attempt to dramatize
the Old Testament; Lucifer's apology for himself and his arraignment of the
Creator startled and shocked the orthodox. Theologically the offence lay in
its detachment. _Cain_ was not irreverent or blasphemous, but it treated
accepted dogmas as open questions. _Cain_ was published in the same volume
with the _Two Foscari_ and _Sardanapalus_, December 19, 1821. The "Blues,"
a skit upon literary coteries and their patronesses, was written in August.
It was first published in _The Liberal_, No. III., April 26, 1823, When
_Cain_ was finished Byron turned from grave to gay, from serious to
humorous theology. Southey had thought fit to eulogize George III. in
hexameter verse. He called his funeral ode a "Vision of Judgment." In the
preface there was an obvious reference to Byron. The "Satanic School" of
poetry was attributed to "men of diseased hearts and depraved
imaginations." Byron's revenge was complete. In his "Vision of Judgment"
(published in _The Liberal_, No. I., October 15, 1822) the tables are
turned. The laureate is brought before the hosts of heaven and rejected by
devils and angels alike. In October Byron wrote _Heaven and Earth, a
Mystery_ (_The Liberal_, No. II., January 1, 1823), a lyrical drama based
on the legend of the "Watchers," or fallen angels of the Book of Enoch. The
countess and her family had been expelled from Ravenna in July, but Byron
still lingered on in his apartments in the Palazzo Guiccioli. At length
(October 28) he set out for Pisa. On the road he met his old friend, Lord
Clare, and spent a few minutes in his company. Rogers, whom he met at
Bologna, was his fellow-traveller as far as Florence. At Pisa he rejoined
the countess, who had taken on his behalf the Villa Lanfranchi on the Arno.
At Ravenna Byron had lived amongst Italians. At Pisa he was surrounded by a
knot of his own countrymen, friends and acquaintances of the Shelleys.
Among them were E.J. Trelawny, Thomas Medwin, author of the well-known
_Conversations of Lord Byron_ (1824), and Edward Elliker Williams. His
first work at Pisa was to dramatize Miss Lee's _Kruitzner, or the German's
Tale_. He had written a first act in 1815, but as the MS. was mislaid he
made a fresh adaptation of the story which he rechristened _Werner, or the
Inheritance_. It was finished on the 20th of January and published on the
23rd of November 1822. _Werner_ is in parts _Kruitzner_ cut up into loose
blank verse, but it contains lines and passages of great and original
merit. Alone of Byron's plays it took hold of the stage. Macready's
"Werner" was a famous impersonation.

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