"VENETIA:"
A SEMI-BIOGRAPHY OF LORD BYRON.
Is Mr. Disraeli to be classed among the biographers of Lord Byron because in his preface to "Venetia" he declares that his object is to portray Lord Byron? We do not think so. Truth and error, romance and history, are too much intermixed, and the author himself confesses this fact in calling his work a novel. But while denying to "Venetia" the right of being styled a biography, we must admit that it is both a deep, true, and at times admirable study of the fine and so ill-judged character of Lord Byron. The extraordinary qualities with which he was gifted, both in heart and in mind, his genius, his amiability, his irresistible attractions, his almost supernatural beauty, are all set forth with consummate ability, and the greatest penetration. He has made all his other characters, which are for the most part imaginary, subservient to this end; and he has created some (such as Lady Annabel) which moralists will not easily admit to be possible, it being granted that all the characters in the book are mentally sane. It is questionable whether the virtues and qualities which adorn Lady Annabel are compatible with the defects of her nature. Mr. Disraeli has acted in the same way as regards the circumstances of Byron's life; he has heaped them together without any regard to what may or may not be true in their supposed occurrence, some of them being founded on reality and others not so.
He has given Byron two individualities. Lord Cadurcis represents Byron from his infancy to the time of his marriage, and Mr. Herbert equally represents Lord Byron from that fatal epoch till his death. The selection of two persons to represent one same character and to allow of Byron's simple yet complex nature being better understood was a very happy philosophical notion.
He portrays Lord Byron as he was, or as he would have been in the given circumstances; and he pictures the others as they should or might have been, not as they were. In reading "Venetia" it is impossible not to like Lord Cadurcis, and to admire him, just as all those who knew Lord Byron loved and esteemed him, or not to respect Mr. Herbert, whom he styles "the best and greatest of men," as he would have been revered had Byron reached a greater age. He depicts Byron at every epoch of his life, and as circumstances develop his latent predispositions.
He first shows him to us as the innocent child, whose heart is full of tenderness, meekness, sensibility, and docility, such as his tutor, Dr. Drury, said he was: "rather easier to be led with a silken string than with a cable;" who is gifted with a noble and proud nature, which is easily moved; who possesses a great sense of justice and an undaunted courage; who scorns excuse and cares not to lessen his fault. He then shows him as the thoughtful boy, both when alone and with others; and as the gayest and wildest of creatures when in the company of the beloved companion of his childish sports; a boy full of kindness, and of the desire to please; whose absence is ever a subject of regret, so great is the love he inspires, both in his master and in his servants, and indeed in all who come near him. At his early age can already be traced the germs of those qualities which foretell that brilliant mind which is to win some day the heart of a nation, and dazzle the fancy of a world of admirers. The sight of the fair hair and of the angelic beauty of the little Venetia is enough to dry his tears; and herein we not only perceive already the extreme impressionable disposition of his nature, but also the power and influence which beauty is destined to exercise over him. The love of solitude and meditation is already traceable in the child. He loves to wander at night among the dark and solitary cloisters of his Abbey; he loves to listen to the whistling of the wind re-echoed by the cloisters; he delights in the murmurs of the waters of his lake when the winter storms disturb their serenity, and uproot the strongest oaks of his park. Proud of his race, his whole nature sympathizes with the glorious deeds of his ancestors, and one feels that he would fain rather die than show himself unworthy of them.
One sees the germs of poetry sown in his mind—but one feels that the heart alone can make them fructify, and give them an outward form. Nothing is more touching than the tenderness which he feels and inspires wherever he goes.
Mr. Disraeli then shows him in his youth, just at the time when he is to leave college for the university, and presents him to the reader as a remarkably well-educated young man, in whom the best principles have been inculcated, and whose conduct and conversation bear evidence of a pure, generous, and energetic soul "that has acquired at a very early age much of the mature and fixed character of manhood without losing any thing of that boyish sincerity and simplicity that are too often the penalty of experience.
"He was indeed sincerely religious, and as he knelt in the old chapel that had been the hallowed scene of his boyish devotions, he offered his ardent thanksgiving to his Creator who had mercifully kept his soul pure and true, and allowed him, after so long an estrangement from the sweet spot of his childhood, once more to mingle his supplications with his kind and virtuous friends."
"He is what I always hoped he would be," says Lady Annabel. "Remember what a change his life had to endure; few, after such an interval, would have returned with feelings so kind and so pure. I always fancied that I observed in him the seeds of great virtues and great talents, but I was not so sanguine that they would have flourished as they appear to have done."