Byron: The Last Phase. Edgcumbe Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ you can bring us no news of the Greek Committee? Here we are all waiting orders, and no orders seem likely to come. Ha! ha!” “I have not changed my opinion of the Greeks,” he said. “I know them as well as most people” (a favourite phrase), “but we must not look always too closely at the men who are to benefit by our exertions in a good cause, or God knows we shall seldom do much good in this world. There is Trelawny thinks he has fallen in with an angel in Prince Mavrocordato, and little Bruno would willingly sacrifice his life for the cause, as he calls it. I must say he has shown some sincerity in his devotion, in consenting to join it for the little matter he makes of me.” I ventured to say that, in all probability, the being joined with him in any cause was inducement enough for any man of moderate pretensions. He noticed the compliment only by an indifferent smile. “I find but one opinion,” he continued, “among all people whom I have met since I came here, that no good is to be done for these rascally Greeks; that I am sure to be deceived, disgusted, and all the rest of it. It may be so; but it is chiefly to satisfy myself upon these very points that I am going. I go prepared for anything, expecting a deal of roguery and imposition, but hoping to do some good.”

      ‘“Have you read any of the late publications on Greece?” I asked.

      ‘“I never read any accounts of a country to which I can myself go,” said he. “The Committee have sent me some of their ‘Crown and Anchor’ reports, but I can make nothing of them.”

      ‘The conversation continued in the same familiar flow. To my increased amazement, he led it to his works, to Lady Byron, and to his daughter. The former was suggested by a volume of “Childe Harold” which was on the table; it was the ugly square little German edition, and I made free to characterize it as execrable. He turned over the leaves, and said:

      ‘Yes, it was very bad; but it was better than one that he had seen in French prose in Switzerland. “I know not what my friend Mr. Murray will say to it all. Kinnaird writes to me that he is wroth about many things; let them do what they like with the book – they have been abusive enough of the author. The Quarterly is trying to make amends, however, and Blackwood’s people will suffer none to attack me but themselves. Milman was, I believe, at the bottom of the personalities, but they all sink before an American reviewer, who describes me as a kind of fiend, and says that the deformities of my mind are only to be equalled by those of my body; it is well that anyone can see them, at least.” Our hostess, Mrs. Knox, advanced to us about this moment, and his lordship continued, smiling: “Does not your Gordon blood rise at such abuse of a clansman? The gallant Gordons ‘bruik nae slight.’ Are you true to your name, Mrs. Knox?” The lady was loud in her reprobation of the atrocious abuse that had recently been heaped upon the noble lord, and joined in his assumed clannish regard for their mutual name. “Lady Byron and you would agree,” he said, laughing, “though I could not, you are thinking; you may say so, I assure you. I dare say it will turn out that I have been terribly in the wrong, but I always want to know what I did.” I had not courage to touch upon this delicate topic, and Mrs. Knox seemed to wish it passed over till a less public occasion. He spoke of Ada exactly as any parent might have done of a beloved absent child, and betrayed not the slightest confusion, or consciousness of a sore subject, throughout the whole conversation.

      ‘I now learnt from him that he had arrived in the island from Cephalonia only that morning, and that it was his purpose (as it was mine) to visit its antiquities and localities. A ride to the Fountain of Arethusa had been planned for the next day, and I had the happiness of being invited to join it. Pope’s “Homer” was taken up for a description of the place, and it led to the following remarks:

      “Yes, the very best translation that ever was, or ever will be; there is nothing like it in the world, be assured. It is quite delightful to find Pope’s character coming round again; I forgive Gifford everything for that. Puritan as he is, he has too much good sense not to know that, even if all the lies about Pope were truths, his character is one of the best among literary men. There is nobody now like him, except Watty,12 and he is as nearly faultless as ever human being was.”

      ‘The remainder of the evening was passed in arranging the plan of proceeding on the morrow’s excursion, in the course of which his lordship occasionally interjected a facetious remark of some general nature; but in such fascinating tones, and with such a degree of amiability and familiarity, that, of all the libels of which I well knew the public press to be guilty, that of describing Lord Byron as inaccessible, morose, and repulsive in manner and language, seemed to me the most false and atrocious. I found I was to be accommodated for the night under the same roof with his lordship, and I retired, satisfied in my own mind that favouring chance had that day made me the intimate (almost confidential) friend of the greatest literary man of modern times.

      ‘The next morning, about nine o’clock, the party for the Fountain of Arethusa assembled in the parlour of Captain Knox; but Lord Byron was missing. Trelawny, who had slept in the room adjoining his lordship’s, told us that he feared he had been ill during the night, but that he had gone out in a boat very early in the morning. At this moment I happened to be standing at the window, and saw the object of our anxiety in the act of landing on the beach, about ten or a dozen yards from the house, to which he walked slowly up. I never saw and could not conceive the possibility of such a change in the appearance of a human being as had taken place since the previous night. He looked like a man under sentence of death, or returning from the funeral of all that he held dear on earth. His person seemed shrunk, his face was pale, and his eyes languid and fixed on the ground. He was leaning upon a stick, and had changed his dark camlet-caped surtout of the preceding evening for a nankeen jacket embroidered like a hussar’s – an attempt at dandyism, or dash, to which the look and demeanour of the wearer formed a sad contrast. On entering the room, his lordship made the usual salutations; and, after some preliminary arrangements, the party moved off, on horses and mules, to the place of destination for the day.

      ‘I was so struck with the difference of appearance in Lord Byron that the determination to which I had come, to try to monopolize him, if possible, to myself, without regard to appearances or bienséance, almost entirely gave way under the terror of a freezing repulse. I advanced to him under the influence of this feeling, but I had scarcely received his answer when all uneasiness about my reception vanished, and I stuck as close to him as the road permitted our animals to go. His voice sounded timidly and quiveringly at first; but as the conversation proceeded, it became steady and firm. The beautiful country in which we were travelling naturally formed a prominent topic, as well as the character of the people and of the Government. Of the latter, I found him (to my amazement) an admirer. “There is a deal of fine stuff about that old Maitland,” he said; “he knows the Greeks well. Do you know if it be true that he ordered one of their brigs to be blown out of the water if she stayed ten minutes longer in Corfu Roads?” I happened to know, and told him that it was true. “Well, of all follies, that of daring to say what one cannot dare to do is the least to be pitied. Do you think Sir Tom would have really executed his threat?” I told his lordship that I believed he certainly would, and that this knowledge of his being in earnest in everything he said was the cause, not only of the quiet termination of that affair, but of the order and subordination in the whole of the countries under his government.

      ‘The conversation again insensibly reverted to Sir Walter Scott, and Lord Byron repeated to me the anecdote of the interview in Murray’s shop, as conclusive evidence of his being the author of the “Waverley Novels.” He was a little but not durably staggered by the equally well-known anecdote of Sir Walter having, with some solemnity, denied the authorship to Mr. Wilson Croker, in the presence of George IV., the Duke of York, and the late Lord Canterbury. He agreed that an author wishing to conceal his authorship had a right to give any answer whatever that succeeded in convincing an inquirer that he was wrong in his suppositions.

      ‘When we came within sight of the object of our excursion, there happened to be an old shepherd in the act of coming down from the fountain. His lordship at once fixed upon him for Eumæus, and invited him back with us to “fill СКАЧАТЬ