Byron: The Last Phase. Edgcumbe Richard
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Название: Byron: The Last Phase
Автор: Edgcumbe Richard
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары
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‘As he sprang out and rejoined us, he said: “Hamlet, as a whole, is original; but I do not admire him to the extent of the common opinion. More than all, he requires the very best acting. Kean did not understand the part, and one could not look at him after having seen John Kemble, whose squeaking voice was lost in his noble carriage and thorough right conception of the character. Rogers told me that Kemble used to be almost always hissed in the beginning of his career. ‘The best actor on the stage,’ he said, ‘is Charles Young. His Pierre was never equalled, and never will be.’” Amid such flying desultory conversation we entered the monastery, and took coffee for lack of anything else, while our servants were preparing our beds. Lord Byron retired almost immediately from the sala. Shortly afterwards we were astonished and alarmed by the entry of Dr. Bruno, wringing his hands and tearing his hair – a practice much too frequent with him – and ejaculating: “O Maria, santissima Maria, se non è già morto – cielo, perchè non son morto io!” It appeared that Lord Byron was seized with violent spasms in the stomach and liver, and his brain was excited to dangerous excess, so that he would not tolerate the presence of any person in his room. He refused all medicine, and stamped and tore all his clothes and bedding like a maniac. We could hear him rattling and ejaculating. Poor Dr. Bruno stood lamenting in agony of mind, in anticipation of the most dire results if immediate relief were not obtained by powerful cathartics, but Lord Byron had expelled him from the room by main force. He now implored one or more of the company to go to his lordship and induce him, if possible, to save his life by taking the necessary medicine. Trelawny at once proceeded to the room, but soon returned, saying that it would require ten such as he to hold his lordship for a minute, adding that Lord Byron would not leave an unbroken article in the room. The doctor again essayed an entrance, but without success. The monks were becoming alarmed, and so, in truth, were all present. The doctor asked me to try to bring his lordship to reason; “he will thank you when he is well,” he said, “but get him to take this one pill, and he will be safe.” It seemed a very easy undertaking, and I went. There being no lock on the door, entry was obtained in spite of a barricade of chairs and a table within. His lordship was half undressed, standing in a far corner like a hunted animal at bay. As I looked determined to advance in spite of his imprecations of “Back! out, out of my sight! fiends, can I have no peace, no relief from this hell! Leave me, I say!” and he lifted the chair nearest to him, and hurled it direct at my head; I escaped as I best could, and returned to the sala. The matter was obviously serious, and we all counselled force and such coercive measures as might be necessary to make him swallow the curative medicine. Mr. Hamilton Browne, one of our party, now volunteered an attempt, and the silence that succeeded his entrance augured well for his success. He returned much sooner than expected, telling the doctor that he might go to sleep; Lord Byron had taken both the pills, and had lain down on my mattress and bedding, prepared for him by my servant, the only regular bed in the company, the others being trunks and portable tressels, with such softening as might be procured for the occasion. Lord Byron’s beautiful and most commodious patent portmanteau bed, with every appliance that profusion of money could provide, was mine for the night.
‘On the following morning Lord Byron was all dejection and penitence, not expressed in words, but amply in looks and movements, till something tending to the jocular occurred to enliven him and us. Wandering from room to room, from porch to balcony, it so happened that Lord Byron stumbled upon their occupants in the act of writing accounts, journals, private letters, or memoranda. He thus came upon me on an outer roof of a part of the building, while writing, as far as I recollect, these very notes of his conversation and conduct. What occurred, however, was not of much consequence – or none – and turned upon the fact that so many people were writing, when he, the great voluminous writer, so supposed, was not writing at all. The journey of the day was to be over the Black Mountain to Argostoli, the capital of Cephalonia. We set out about noon, struggling as we best could over moor, marsh ground, and water wastes. Lord Byron revived; and, lively on horseback, sang, at the pitch of his voice, many of Moore’s melodies and stray snatches of popular songs of the time in the common style of the streets. There was nothing remarkable in the conversation. On arrival at Argostoli, the party separated – Lord Byron and Trelawny to the brig of the former, lying in the offing, the rest to their several quarters in the town.’
CHAPTER VI
After an absence of eight days the party returned to Argostoli, and went on board the Hercules. The messenger whom Byron had sent to Corfu brought the unwelcome intelligence that Mr. Blaquière had sailed for England, without leaving any letters for Byron’s guidance. News also reached him that the Greeks were split up into factions, and more intent on persecuting and calumniating each other than on securing the independence of their country. This was depressing news for a man who had sacrificed so much, and would have damped the enthusiasm of most people in Byron’s position; but it neither deceived nor disheartened him. He was, and had always been, prepared for the worst. He made up his mind not to enter personally into the arena of contending factions, but to await further developments at Cephalonia, hoping to acquire an influence which might eventually be employed in settling their internal discords. As he himself remarked, ‘I came not here to join a faction, but a nation. I must be circumspect.’ Trelawny, in his valuable record of events at this time, is hard on Byron. He mistook Byron’s motives, and thought that he was ‘shilly-shallying and doing nothing.’ But Trelawny, though mistaken, was sincere. He was in every sense of the word a man of action, and full of a wild enthusiasm for the Greek cause. It was not in his nature to await events, but rather to create them, and Byron’s wise decision made him restive. He determined to proceed to the Morea, and induced Hamilton Browne to go with him. Byron gave them letters to the Greek Government, if they could find any such authority, expressing his readiness to serve them when they had satisfied him how he could do so.
Gamba takes a calmer view of Byron’s hesitation. He says that Byron well knew that prudence had never been in the catalogue of his virtues; that he knew the necessity of such a virtue in his present situation, and was determined to attain it. He carefully avoided every appearance of ostentation, and dreaded being suspected of being a mere hunter after adventures.
‘By perseverance and discernment,’ says Gamba, ‘Byron hoped to assist in the liberation of Greece. To know and to be known was consequently, from the outset, his principal object.’
How far he succeeded we shall see later. From the time of Byron’s arrival at Argostoli until September 6 he lived on board the Hercules. Colonel Napier had frequently begged him to take up his quarters with him, but Byron declined the hospitality; mainly because he feared that he might thereby embroil the British authorities on the island with their own Government, whose dispositions were yet unknown. Early in September Byron removed with Gamba to a village named Metaxata, in a healthy situation and amidst magnificent scenery. A month later letters arrived from Edward Trelawny, saying that things were not so bad as had been reported. It was evident that great apathy and total disorganization prevailed among those who had got the upper hand, but that the mass of the people – well disposed towards the revolution – was beginning to take an interest in the war. A general determination of never again submitting to the Turkish yoke had taken deep root. The existing Greek Government sent pressing letters to Byron inviting him to set out immediately, but Byron still thought it wiser not to move; for the reasons which had governed his conduct hitherto still prevailed. He was determined neither to waste his services nor his money on furthering the greed of some particular chieftain, or at best of some faction. Letters arrived from the Greek Committee in London, informing Byron that arrangements had been made for the floating of a Greek loan. Meanwhile Mavrocordato wrote to Byron from Hydra, whither he had fled, inviting him to that island. Lord Byron replied that so long as the dissensions between the factions continued he would remain a mere spectator, as he was resolved not to be mixed up in quarrels whose effects were so disastrous to the cause. He at the same time begged Mavrocordato to expedite the departure of the fleet, and to send the Greek deputies to London. The Turkish fleet meanwhile had sailed for the Dardanelles, leaving a squadron of fourteen vessels for the blockade СКАЧАТЬ