The exuberance and variety of the gifts which nature had bestowed upon Byron, together with the universality of his genius, which created in him such apparently singular contrasts, no doubt inspired Mr. Disraeli with the idea that to make him better known it was necessary to make two persons of one, each of a different age, so as to be able to divide his qualities according to their suitableness to those ages, and to make him act and speak in accordance with each given character: to show us the man in his moral, social, and intellectual capacity during his transition from early youth to a maturer age, after the experience of those hardships of life which have purified and strengthened his soul. The first period is represented by the ardent and passionate Lord Cadurcis, the other by the wise and philosophical Herbert. In making Herbert live to a mature age, and in centring in him every grace, every quality, every perfection with which a mortal can be gifted, he wished to show to what degree of moral perfection Lord Byron might have attained, and how happy he might have been in the peace and quiet of domestic life had he been joined to another wife in matrimony, since notwithstanding Lady Annabel's faults, happiness was not out of Herbert's reach. The conclusion to which Disraeli no doubt points is the inward avowal by Lady Annabel herself that she, not Herbert, was the cause of their separation, and of their useless misfortunes. Again, when young Lord Cadurcis returns from Greece, and when Disraeli recounts his conversation with Herbert, his intention, no doubt, was to show us the intellectual and moral progress which time has caused him to make,—the transition from the "Childe Harold" of twenty-one to the "Childe Harold" of "Manfred" of twenty-nine; and from the "Childe Harold" of thirty to the "Don Juan" and "Sardanapalus" of thirty-three; he thus was able to put in relief that mobility of character which existed in him as regards a certain order of ideas, and which blended itself so well with the depth and the constancy of other of his views, enabling us to penetrate into the recesses of that beautiful soul, and displaying to our admiring gaze its numberless springs of action,—at times his constant aspiration to come to the aid of humanity, and his little hope of succeeding in modifying our corrupt nature; his love of glory, and how little he cared for the appreciation of the public of which he had experienced the fickle favors; his knowledge of life, his simple tastes, his love of nature, and the greatness of his mind, of which no ambition or worldly feeling could tarnish the simplicity and even sublimity. In giving him two individualities the novelist was better able to combine the passionate sarcasms of Cadurcis with the smiles of goodness and tolerance of Herbert, and to show him to us as he was wont to converse, mixing the wittiest remarks with the most serious reflections. He had made him express a number of opinions apparently contradictory, but which belonged to his peculiar character, which was equally simple and complex, alike sensible and passionate, subject to a thousand influences of weather and seasons; and though inflexible in his principles of honor as in the whole course of his existence, yet changeable in things of minor importance. He loves to mystify, and writes, without reflecting as to the possible consequences, a number of things which cross his mind, and in which he does not believe, but of which his love of humor forces the expression to his lips. Again, Disraeli tells us of a number of his real ideas, initiates us into his literary tastes, his philosophical views, his preferences, his admiration for the great men of antiquity and of modern times; tells us why his favorite philosophers are Plato and Epicurus, his favorite characters in antiquity Alexander and Alcibiades, both young and handsome conquerors; in modern times, Milton and Sir Philip Sydney, Bayle and Montaigne; what his opinions respecting Shakspeare and Pope, what Cadurcis, and what Herbert thinks of these; and finally he gives us his views upon the love which we should have for truth, upon the influence which political situations bear upon the grandeur of country, not only in literature and in arts, but likewise in philosophy, and in a number of other ways.
All these means employed by the great novelist certainly succeed in making of "Venetia" a most delightful book; but notwithstanding its charms, as we read, it is impossible not to ask one's self at times whether a historical novel is thus entitled to encroach upon the biography of great men. Without pretending to settle the question, I own that I rather appreciate the truth of a historical work than all the pleasure which the talent of an author can afford me, and it appears to me that if Mr. Disraeli, with his admirable talent, had chosen to write the life of Lord Byron, he would have done better. We should not, it is true, have had in the biography either the pleasant life at Cherbury, or the scene at Newstead, neither the duel nor its consequences; but we should have had almost a similar Lady Mounteagle, and we should have seen the rise of that same base spirit in his colleague which greeted him at one period of his life, the same wickedness which assailed him, the same jealousy with which he was looked upon, the same cruel persecution to which he was subjected, the same hatred which assailed him on the part of the people who had a little before so idolized him, and, in short, the same reaction in the public mind which actually took place. We should, on the other hand, have equally seen the same noble mind, too proud again to submit to the curb under the yoke of popular public feeling. He would not have shown us a charming Lady Annabel styled a virtuous woman, though she abandons her husband simply because she believes he no longer entertains for her all the ardent love which he had evinced during the honey-moon!—a Lady Annabel, indeed, who constitutes in herself a being morally impossible, who though she does abandon her husband, spends her night in bewailing his loss at the foot of his portrait; who, though she adores her daughter, nearly causes her death with grief from the fear which she has that the child will not marry a man of genius like her father. Instead of such a woman we should have had, if not one more logical in her acts, at least more real and historical, and exemplifying the painful and murderous effects of silence in the condemnation of a man against whom the venom of calumny has been directed—that man being no less a person than her own husband. Instead of a Lady Annabel repentant at last, and self-accusing, truth and reality would have presented us with an insensible, hard-hearted, and inexorable woman, who remains inflexible to the last, and who deserves that the effects should be applied to her of the words which Cadurcis, in a moment of despair, pronounces against Venetia's mother, when the former declares that she is the victim of her mother, but that nevertheless she will do her duty:
"Then my curse upon your mother's head! May Heaven rain all its plagues upon her! The Hecate!"
We should not have had a Venetia who is truly a delicious emanation from a poet's mind, and the only woman worthy of becoming the wife of Lord Byron, who sums up in herself all the tenderness which he must have inspired in or felt for a woman, a sister, or a daughter. But we should have had, instead of her, three persons who really existed, and who exercised a great influence over Lord Byron's life. The one a young lady of eighteen, whom Lord Byron styled light and coquettish, but who really possessed his heart at fifteen years of age; the other his dear Augusta, who was truly a Venetia toward him; and finally, his beloved little Ada, for whom he had such a paternal tenderness. Instead of an elderly Herbert returning to domestic happiness, which would simply have been impossible with the wife whom Fate had chosen for Lord Byron, we should have had a handsome young man who has not waited until he had reached the mature age of Herbert to be adorned with every virtue, in whom reason is not the effect of growing years, whose wisdom is not that of the old; and instead of the pathetic catastrophe which is attributed to Herbert and Cadurcis together, and which really occurred to Shelley, we should have had Lord Byron's real death, which was infinitely more pathetic, and could have been described in equally beautiful and heartrending language. How sublime would have been the history of the death of that young man who at the age of thirty-four heroically sacrifices his life for the independence of a country which is not his own, and whose patriotism is greater than that of his countrymen, since he prefers the cause of humanity to the interests of the little spot on the globe where he was born!
If, then, instead of a novel, Mr. Disraeli had given us a true history, the work would have been an everlasting monument erected to the memory of two noble beings, and would have been transmitted to posterity as a valuable testimony of the virtues of Lord Byron.
As the book stands, and written by such a man as Mr. Disraeli, it will ever remain a study worthy of being quoted among those whose object it is to proclaim the truth respecting Lord Byron.
Paris, November, 1868.