LETTER 523. TO MR. BOWRING.
"July 7. 1823.
"We sail on the 12th for Greece.—I have had a letter from Mr, Blaquiere, too long for present transcription, but very satisfactory. The Greek Government expects me without delay.
"In conformity to the desires of Mr. B. and other correspondents in Greece, I have to suggest, with all deference to the Committee, that a remittance of even 'ten thousand pounds only' (Mr. B.'s expression) would be of the greatest service to the Greek Government at present. I have also to recommend strongly the attempt of a loan, for which there will be offered a sufficient security by deputies now on their way to England. In the mean time, I hope that the Committee will be enabled to do something effectual.
"For my own part, I mean to carry up, in cash or credits, above eight, and nearly nine thousand pounds sterling, which I am enabled to do by funds I have in Italy, and credits in England. Of this sum I must necessarily reserve a portion for the subsistence of myself and suite; the rest I am willing to apply in the manner which seems most likely to be useful to the cause—having of course some guarantee or assurance, that it will not be misapplied to any individual speculation.
"If I remain in Greece, which will mainly depend upon the presumed probable utility of my presence there, and of the opinion of the Greeks themselves as to its propriety—in short, if I am welcome to them, I shall continue, during my residence at least, to apply such portions of my income, present and future, as may forward the object—that is to say, what I can spare for that purpose. Privations I can, or at least could once bear—abstinence I am accustomed to—and as to fatigue, I was once a tolerable traveller. What I may be now, I cannot tell—but I will try.
"I await the commands of the Committee—Address to Genoa—the letters will be forwarded me, wherever I may be, by my bankers, Messrs. Webb and Barry. It would have given me pleasure to have had some more defined instructions before I went, but these, of course, rest at the option of the Committee.
I have the honour to be,
"Yours obediently, &c.
"P.S. Great anxiety is expressed for a printing press and types, &c. I have not the time to provide them, but recommend this to the notice of the Committee. I presume the types must, partly at least, be Greek: they wish to publish papers, and perhaps a Journal, probably in Romaic, with Italian translations."
All was now ready; and on the 13th of July himself and his whole party slept on board the Hercules. About sunrise the next morning they succeeded in clearing the port; but there was little wind, and they remained in sight of Genoa the whole day. The night was a bright moonlight, but the wind had become stormy and adverse, and they were, for a short time, in serious danger. Lord Byron, who remained on deck during the storm, was employed anxiously, with the aid of such of his suite as were not disabled by sea-sickness from helping him in preventing further mischief to the horses, which, having been badly secured, had broken loose and injured each other. After making head against the wind for three or four hours, the captain was at last obliged to steer back to Genoa, and re-entered the port at six in the morning. On landing again, after this unpromising commencement of his voyage, Lord Byron (says Count Gamba) "appeared thoughtful, and remarked that he considered a bad beginning a favourable omen."
It has been already, I believe, mentioned that, among the superstitions in which he chose to indulge, the supposed unluckiness of Friday, as a day for the commencement of any work, was one by which he, almost always, allowed himself to be influenced. Soon after his arrival at Pisa, a lady of his acquaintance happening to meet him on the road from her house as she was herself returning thither, and supposing that he had been to make her a visit, requested that he would go back with her. "I have not been to your house," he answered; "for, just before I got to the door, I remembered that it was Friday; and, not liking to make my first visit on a Friday, I turned back." It is even related of him that he once sent away a Genoese tailor who brought him home a new coat on the same ominous day.
With all this, strange to say, he set sail for Greece on a Friday:—and though, by those who have any leaning to this superstitious fancy, the result maybe thought but too sadly confirmatory of the omen, it is plain that either the influence of the superstition over his own mind was slight, or, in the excitement of self-devotion under which he now acted, was forgotten, In truth, notwithstanding his encouraging speech to Count Gamba, the forewarning he now felt of his approaching doom seems to have been far too deep and serious to need the aid of any such accessory. Having expressed a wish, on relanding, to visit his own palace, which he had left to the care of Mr. Barry during his absence, and from which Madame Guiccioli had early that morning departed, he now proceeded thither, accompanied by Count Gamba alone. "His conversation," says this gentleman, "was somewhat melancholy on our way to Albaro: he spoke much of his past life, and of the uncertainty of the future. 'Where,' said he, 'shall we be in a year?'—It looked (adds his friend) like a melancholy foreboding; for, on the same day, of the same month, in the next year, he was carried to the tomb of his ancestors."
It took nearly the whole of the day to repair the damages of their vessel; and the greater part of this interval was passed by Lord Byron, in company with Mr. Barry, at some gardens near the city. Here his conversation, as this gentleman informs me, took the same gloomy turn. That he had not fixed to go to England, in preference, seemed one of his deep regrets; and so hopeless were the views he expressed of the whole enterprise before him, that, as it appeared to Mr. Barry, nothing but a devoted sense of duty and honour could have determined him to persist in it.
In the evening of that day they set sail;—and now, fairly launched in the cause, and disengaged, as it were, from his former state of existence, the natural power of his spirit to shake off pressure, whether from within or without, began instantly to display itself. According to the report of one of his fellow-voyagers, though so clouded while on shore, no sooner did he find himself, once more, bounding over the waters, than all the light and life of his better nature shone forth. In the breeze that now bore him towards his beloved Greece, the voice of his youth seemed again to speak. Before the titles of hero, of benefactor, to which he now aspired, that of poet, however pre-eminent, faded into nothing. His love of freedom, his generosity, his thirst for the new and adventurous,—all were re-awakened; and even the bodings that still lingered at the bottom of his heart but made the course before him more precious from his consciousness of its brevity, and from the high and self-ennobling resolution he had now taken to turn what yet remained of it gloriously to account.
"Parte, e porta un desio d'eterna ed alma
Gloria che a nobil cuor e sferza e sprone;
A magnanime imprese intenta ha l'alma,
Ed insolite cose oprar dispone.
Gir fra i nemici—ivi o cipresso o palma
Acquistar."
After a passage of five days, they reached Leghorn, at which place it was thought necessary to touch, for the purpose of taking on board a supply of gunpowder, and other English goods, not to be had elsewhere.
It would have been the wish of Lord Byron, in the new path he had now marked out for himself, to disconnect from his name, if possible, all those poetical associations, which, by throwing a character of romance over the step he was now taking, might have a tendency, as he feared, to impair its practical utility; and it is, perhaps, hardly saying too much for his sincere zeal in the cause to assert, that he would willingly at this moment have sacrificed his whole fame, as poet, for even the prospect of an equivalent renown, as philanthropist and liberator. How vain, however, was the thought that he could thus supersede his own glory, or cause the fame of the lyre to be forgotten in that of the sword, was made manifest to him by a mark of homage which reached him, while at Leghorn, from the hands of one of the only two men of the age who could contend with him in the universality of his literary fame.
Already, as has been seen, an exchange of courtesies, founded upon mutual admiration, had taken place between Lord Byron and the great poet of Germany, Goethe. Of this intercourse between two such men,—the former as brief a light in the world's eyes, as the latter has been long and steadily luminous,—an account has been by the venerable survivor put on record, which, as a fit preliminary to the letter I am about to give, I shall here insert in as faithful a translation as it has been in my power to procure.