My Recollections of Lord Byron

by contessa di Teresa Guiccioli

It was at this same period that he wrote in his drama of "Werner:"—

"Glory's pillow is but restless,
If love lay not down his cheek there."

And now to sum up, let us say that, after having considered Lord Byron not only in his actions, and their most apparent motives; not only in the exercise of all his faculties, and in his sentiments sincerely expressed, but that, having likewise confronted him with all the forms of self-love, it is impossible for us to see aught else in him but that legitimate pride belonging to great souls, and the noble passion for glory—sentiments united in him with the peculiar feature of being under control of his affections. Thus, then, when the day came that he was called upon to sacrifice his affections, not only in the name of humanity, but also in the name of his love for glory, which was already a virtue, since he only desired and sought it to become a benefactor of mankind; then, by this new sacrifice, and by that even of life, his noble passion for glory attained to the height of a sublime virtue.

Although our impartial examination of Lord Byron's faults end really in demonstrating their absence, let us beware nevertheless of raising him above humanity by asserting that he had none. La Bruyère thus sums up his portrait of the great Condé:—"A man who was true, simple, and magnanimous, and in whom only the smallest virtues were wanting." This fine sentence may partly apply to Lord Byron also. Only, to be just, we must substitute the singular for the plural. And instead of declaring that the lesser virtues were wanting in him, we must say one of the smaller virtues. In truth, he had not that prudence which proposes for our supreme end the preservation of our prosperity, fortune, popularity, tranquillity, health—in a word, of all our goods—and which constitutes Epicurean wisdom. But this virtue is really so mixed up with personality and egotism, that one may hesitate ere granting it the rank of a virtue; and we ought not to be astonished if it were wanting in Lord Byron, for it can with difficulty be found united to great sensibility of heart and great generosity of character. Nevertheless, had he possessed it, his life might have been much happier. Had he possessed it, instead of devoting his revenue and all his literary gains to friends, disappointed authors, and unfortunates of all kinds, he would have kept them for himself; and thus he might have been able to brave almost all the storms of his sad year of married life, when his annoyances were greatly increased by the embarrassed state of his affairs. Had he possessed this prudence, he would not in his boyish satire have attacked so many powerful persons, nor, at a later period, would he have made to himself idols of truth and justice. He would have spared the powers that be, and respected national prejudices, in order not to draw down on his own head so much rancor and calumny; he would not have given a hold to slander, nor suffered himself to be insulted by being identified with the heroes of his poems; he would not have compromised his fine health by an anchorite's regimen; he would not have depreciated himself; he would have extended to himself the indulgence with which he knew so well how to cloak the faults of others, and instead of confiding to indiscreet companions, as subjects for curiosity and study, adventures somewhat strange, and the usual routine of juvenile follies, he would have profited by the system so current in our day of satisfying inclinations silently and covertly; lastly, and above all, he would not have married Miss Milbank.

All these reproaches are well founded. But if we may say with reason that he wanted prudence for his own interests, we ought at the same time to add that he never wanted it for the interests of others. Did we not see him, even in earliest youth, burn writings, or abstain from writing, through excess of delicacy and fear of wounding his neighbors?

"I have burned my novel and my comedy," said he in 1813. "After all, I see that the pleasure of burning one's self is as great as that of printing. These two works ought not to have been published. I fell too much into realities; some persons would have been recognized, and others suspected."

When he sent Murray his stanzas to the Po, he forbade him to print it, because it gave intimate details.

His greatest fear at Pisa and Genoa was lest the newspapers should have spoken of his feelings for the Countess G——.

But without seeking other examples, it suffices to glance at his conduct in Greece, where his prudence formed matter of astonishment to every body. Monsieur Tricoupi, the best historian of the war of Greek independence, has rendered him the most complete justice on this head.

Let us then sum up by saying that, contrary to what is found in most, even virtuous men, Lord Byron possessed great and sublime virtues in the highest degree, and the lesser ones only in a secondary degree. As to his faults, it is evident they all sprang from his excellent qualities. Endowed with all kinds of genius, except the one of calculating his personal interest, he failed in different ways to discharge his duty toward himself; and though he only harmed himself by his want of prudence, yet was he cruelly punished for it by sorrows, regrets, and even by a fatally premature death.