CHAPTER XIV
It matters little what we now think of Byron as a man. After eighty-four years, his personality is of less public interest than his achievements, while our capacity for forming an adequate judgment of his character is necessarily dependent on second-hand evidence, some of which is false, and much tainted by prejudice. But what did those hard men of action who stood at his side in those terrible days in Greece—Stanhope, Parry, Finlay, Blaquière, Millingen, Trelawny—what did they think of Byron?
Stanhope, who was at Salona, wrote to Bowring on April 30:
‘A courier has just arrived from the chief Scalza. Alas! all our fears are realized. The soul of Byron has taken its last flight. England has lost her brightest genius—Greece her noblest friend. To console them for the loss, he has left behind the emanations of his splendid mind. If Byron had faults, he had redeeming virtues too—he sacrificed his comfort, fortune, health, and life, to the cause of an oppressed nation. Honoured be his memory! Had I the disposal of his ashes, I would place them in the Temple of Theseus, or in the Parthenon at Athens.’
Three days later Stanhope wrote again to Bowring:
‘Byron would not refuse to an entire people the benefit of his virtues; he condescended to display them wherever Humanity beckoned him to her aid. This single object of devotion to the well-being of a people has raised him to a distinguished pitch of glory among characters dignified by their virtues, of which the illustrious British nation can make so ample a display, and of whom Greece hopes to behold many co-operating in her regeneration. Having here paid the tribute of admiration due to the virtues of Lord Byron, eternal may his memory remain with the world!’
Parry says:
‘Thus died the truest and greatest poet England has lately given birth to, the warmest-hearted of her philanthropists, the least selfish of her patriots. That the disappointment of his ardent hopes was the primary cause of his illness and death cannot, I think, be doubted. The weight of that disappointment was augmented by the numerous difficulties he met with. He was fretted and annoyed, but he disdained to complain. As soon as it was known that Lord Byron was dead, sorrow and grief were generally felt in Greece. They spread from his own apartments over the town of Missolonghi, through the whole of Greece, and over every part of civilized Europe. No persons, perhaps, after his domestics and personal friends, felt his loss more acutely than the poor citizens of Missolonghi. His residence among them procured them food, and insured their protection. But for him they would have been first plundered by the unpaid Suliotes, and then left a prey to the Turks. Not only were the Primates and Mavrocordato affected on the occasion, but the poorest citizen felt that he had lost a friend. Mavrocordato spoke of Lord Byron as the best friend of Greece, and said that his conduct was admirable. “Nobody knows,” he was heard to say, “except perhaps myself, the loss Greece has suffered. Her safety even depended on his life. His presence at Missolonghi has checked intrigues which will now have uncontrolled sway. By his aid alone have I been able to preserve this city; and now I know that every assistance I derived from and through him will be withdrawn.”
‘At other cities and places of Greece—at Salona, where the Congress had just assembled; at Athens—the grief was equally sincere. Lord Byron was mourned as the best benefactor to Greece. Orations were pronounced by the priests, and the same honours were paid to his memory as to the memory of one of their own revered chiefs.’
After Byron’s death Finlay wrote these words: