"Far distant he goes, with the same emulation,
The fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget.
That fame, and that memory still will he cherish;
He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown;
Like you will he live, or like you will he perish."
And when the Rev. Mr. Beecher, his friend and guide during the college vacation passed at Southwell, reproached him with not going enough into the world, young Byron answered, that retirement suited him better, but that when his boyhood and years of trial should be over, if the senate or the camp claimed his presence, he should endeavor to render himself worthy of his birth:—
"Oh! thus, the desire in my bosom for fame
Bids me live but to hope for posterity's praise;
Could I soar with the phoenix on pinions of flame,
With him I could wish to expire in the blaze."
But the fame to which he aspired was not literary fame. Garlands weaved on Mount Parnassus had no perfume for him, and to seek after them would have appeared in his eyes a frivolous, unmeaning pastime. This severe and unjust judgment, this sort of antipathy, could they have been a presentiment of the dangers with which the glory obtained by literary fame threatened his repose? However that may be, it is certain that he endured rather than sought after it; and we may be equally sure that the glory to which his soul aspired was such as could be reaped in the senate, the camp, or amid the difficulties of an active, virtuous life. At sixteen he wrote:—
"For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death,
What censure, what danger, what woe would I brave!
Their lives did not end when they yielded their breath;
Their glory illumines the gloom of their grave." 1806.
We find the following in his examination of conscience, written when he was given up to fashionable London life, and in the heyday of his poetic fame:—
"To be the first man—not the dictator, not the Sylla, but the Washington or the Aristides—the leader in talent and truth—is next to the Divinity!" (1813.)
These lines show that he did not feel himself in the position he could have wished to occupy, and that he would fain have achieved other success.
But the destiny that was evidently contrary to his tastes, and which through a thousand circumstances carried him away both from a military and a parliamentary career, to keep him almost perforce in the high walks of literature, was this destiny in accordance at least with his nature? Lord Byron's brilliant début in the senate, and his whole conduct in Greece when that country was one great military camp, prove certainly that he might have reaped full harvest in other fields, if fate had so allowed. But nevertheless when we see how prodigious were his achievements, concentrated within the domain of poetry; when we see that, despite himself, despite the resolution he occasionally took of writing no more, that yet, tortured by the energy of his genius, there was no remedy for him but to seize his pen; that he wrote sometimes under the influence of fever; that sleep did not still his imagination, nor travelling interrupt his works; that sorrow did not damp his ardor, nor amusement and pleasure weaken his wondrous energy. When we think that he united to this formidable vigor of genius such a luxuriant poetic vein; that his poems, unrivalled for depth of thought, conciseness, and magic beauty of style, were composed with all the ease of ordinary prose; that he could write them while conversing, interrupt his thread of ideas, and take it up again without difficulty, carry on his theme without previous preparation, not stay his pen except to turn the leaf, not change a single word in whole pages, generally only correcting when the proof-sheets came. When we know that a poem like the "Bride of Abydos" was written in four nights of a London season, the "Corsair" in ten days, "Lara" in three weeks, his fourth Canto of "Childe Harold" in twenty days, the "Lament of Tasso" in the space of time requisite for going from Ferrara to Florence; the "Prisoner of Chillon" by way of pastime during the day bad weather forced him to spend at a hotel on the borders of the Lake of Geneva; when we know that he wrote the "Siege of Corinth" and "Parisina" amid the torments caused by his separation, and when besieged with creditors; that at Ravenna, in the space of one year, while torn by many sorrows, and annoyed by conspiracies, though he generously aided the conspirators, he yet found leisure to write "Marino Faliero," the "Foscari," "Sardanapalus," "Cain," the "Vision of Judgment," and many other things; that the fifth act of "Sardanapalus" was the work of forty-eight hours, and the fifth act of "Werner" of one night; that during another year passed between Pisa and Genoa, in the midst of annoyances, sorrows, perpetual changes, he wrote ten cantos of "Don Juan," his admirable mystery of "Heaven and Earth," his delightful poem of the "Island," the "Age of Bronze," etc. When we see all that, it must be acknowledged that if Lord Byron, in devoting himself to poetry, took a false step for his own happiness, it did not mar the manifestation of his genius. But if the world had cause to applaud, he did not share this sentiment. It might almost be said that he always wrote unwillingly; and certainly it may be added that fame never inspired him with vanity. That noble desire might, doubtless, have made his heart beat for a while, but it yielded to his philosophical spirit. If at twenty-six, being repelled from public business by the political bias of the day, and from a military career by other circumstances, he could write in his memoranda "I am not ambitious," how much more disposed did he feel to renounce every kind of ambition two years later, when he was leaving England, full of disgust, and having sounded all the depths of the human soul.
"The wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself," says La Bruyère; "he tends toward such great things that he can not confine himself to what are called treasures, high posts, fortune, and favor. He sees nothing in such poor advantages good or solid enough to fill his heart, to deserve his cares and desires; and it even requires strong efforts for him not to disdain them too much. The only good capable of tempting him is that sort of fame which ought to be the meed of pure, simple virtue; but men are not wont to give it, and he is fain to go without it."