He talked of Mr. ——, who was then our Minister at Genoa. "H——," said he, "is a thorough good-natured and hospitable man, keeps an excellent table, and is as fond of good things as I am, but has not my forbearance. I received, some time ago, a Pâté de Perigord, and finding it excellent, I determined on sharing it with H——; but here my natural selfishness suggested that it would be wiser for me, who had so few dainties, to keep this for myself, than to give it to H——, who had so many. After half an hour's debate between selfishness and generosity, which do you think" (turning to me) "carried the point?"—I answered, "Generosity, of course."—"No, by Jove!" said he, "no such thing; selfishness in this case, as in most others, triumphed; I sent the pâté to my friend H——, because I felt another dinner off it would play the deuce with me; and so you see, after all, he owed the pâté more to selfishness than generosity." Seeing us smile at this, he said:—"When you know me better, you will find that I am the most selfish person in the world; I have, however, the merit, if it be one, of not only being perfectly conscious of my faults, but of never denying them; and this surely is something, in this age of cant and hypocrisy."
In all his conversations relative to Lady Byron, and they are frequent, he declares that he is totally unconscious of the cause of her leaving him, but suspects that the illnatured interposition of Mrs. Charlemont led to it. It is a strange business! He declares that he left no means untried to effect a reconciliation, and always adds with bitterness, "A day will arrive when I shall be avenged. I feel that I shall not live long, and when the grave has closed over me, what must she feel?" All who wish well to Lady Byron must desire that she should not survive her husband, for the all-atoning grave that gives oblivion to the errors of the dead, clothes those of the living in such sombre colours to their own too-late awakened feelings, as to render them wretched for life, and more than avenges the real, or imagined wrongs of those we have lost for ever.
When Lord Byron was praising the mental and personal qualifications of Lady Byron, I asked him how all that he now said agreed with certain sarcasms supposed to bear a reference to her, in his works. He smiled, shook his head, and said they were meant to spite and vex her, when he was wounded and irritated at her refusing to receive or answer his letters; that he was not sincere in his implied censures, and that he was sorry he had written them; but notwithstanding this regret, and all his good resolutions to avoid similar sins, he might on renewed provocation recur to the same vengeance, though he allowed it was petty and unworthy of him. Lord Byron speaks of his sister, Mrs. Leigh, constantly, and always with strong expressions of affection; he says she is the most faultless person he ever knew, and that she was his only source of consolation in his troubles on the separation.
Byron is a great talker, his flippancy ceases in a tête-à-tête, and he becomes sententious, abandoning himself to the subject and seeming to think aloud, though his language has the appearance of stiffness, and is quite opposed to the trifling chit-chat that he enters into when in general society. I attribute this to his having lived so much alone, as also to the desire he now professes of applying himself to prose writing. He affects a sort of Johnsonian tone, likes very much to be listened to, and seems to observe the effect he produces on his hearer. In mixed society his ambition is to appear the man of fashion, he adopts a light tone of badinage and persiflage that does not sit gracefully on him, but is always anxious to turn the subject to his own personal affairs, or feelings, which are either lamented with an air of melancholy, or dwelt on with playful ridicule, according to the humour he happens to be in.
Byron has remarkable penetration in discovering the characters of those around him, and he piques himself extremely on it: he also thinks he has fathomed the recesses of his own mind; but he is mistaken: with much that is little (which he suspects) in his character, there is much that is great, that he does not give himself credit for: his first impulses are always good, but his temper, which is impatient, prevents his acting on the cool dictates of reason; and it appears to me, that in judging himself, Byron mistakes temper for character, and takes the ebullitions of the first, for the indications of the nature of the second. He declares, that in addition to his other failings, avarice is now established. This new vice, like all the others, he attributes to himself, he talks of as one would name those of an acquaintance, in a sort of deprecating, yet half mocking tone; as much as to say, you see I know all my faults better than you do, though I don't choose to correct them: indeed, it has often occurred to me, that he brings forward his defects, as if in anticipation of some one else exposing them, which he would not like; as though he affects the contrary, he is jealous of being found fault with, and shows it in a thousand ways.
He affects to dislike hearing his works praised or referred to; I say affects, because I am sure it is not real or natural; as he who loves praise, as Byron evidently does, in other things, cannot dislike it for that in which he must be conscious it is deserved. He refers to his feats in horsemanship, shooting at a mark, and swimming, in a way that proves he likes to be complimented on them; and nothing appears to give him more satisfaction than being considered a man of fashion, who had great success in fashionable society in London, when he resided there. He is peculiarly compassionate to the poor; I remarked that he rarely, in our rides, passed a mendicant without giving him charity, which was invariably bestowed with gentleness and kindness; this was still more observable if the person was deformed, as if he sympathized with the object.
Byron is very fond of gossiping, and of hearing what is going on in the London fashionable world; his friends keep him au courant, and any little scandal amuses him very much. I observed this to him one day, and added, that I thought his mind had been too great to descend to such trifles! he laughed and said with mock gravity, "Don't you know that the trunk of an elephant that can lift the most ponderous weights, disdains not to take up the most minute? This is the case with my great mind, (laughing anew,) and you must allow the simile is worthy the subject. Jesting apart, I do like a little scandal—I believe all English people do. An Italian lady, Madame Benzoni, talking to me on the prevalence of this taste among my compatriots, observed, that when she first knew the English, she thought them the most spiteful and ill-natured people in the world, from hearing them constantly repeating evil of each other; but having seen various amiable traits in their characters, she had arrived at the conclusion, that they were not naturally méchant; but that living in a country like England, where severity of morals punishes so heavily any dereliction from propriety, each individual, to prove personal correctness, was compelled to attack the sins of his or her acquaintance, as it furnished an opportunity of expressing their abhorrence by words, instead of proving it by actions, which might cause some self-denial to themselves. This," said Byron, "was an ingenious, as well as charitable supposition; and we must all allow that it is infinitely more easy to decry and expose the sins of others, than to correct our own; and many find the first so agreeable an occupation, that it precludes the second—this, at least, is my case."
"The Italians do not understand the English," said Byron; "indeed, how can they? for they (the Italians) are frank, simple, and open in their natures, following the bent of their inclinations, which they do not believe to be wicked; while the English, to conceal the indulgence of theirs, daily practise hypocrisy, falsehood, and uncharitableness; so that to one error is added many crimes." Byron had now got on a favourite subject, and went on decrying hypocrisy and cant, mingling sarcasms and bitter observations on the false delicacy of the English. It is strange, but true as strange, that he could not, or at least did not, distinguish the distinction between cause and effect, in this case. The respect for virtue will always cause spurious imitations of it to be given; and what he calls hypocrisy, is but the respect to public opinion that induces people, who have not courage to correct their errors, at least to endeavour to conceal them; and Cant is the homage that Vice pays to Virtue. [1] We do not value the diamond less, because there are so many worthless imitations of it, and Goodness loses nothing of her intrinsic value because so many wish to be thought to possess it. That nation may be considered to possess the most virtue, where it is the most highly appreciated; and that the least, where it is so little understood, that the semblance is not even assumed.
Byron is, I believe, sincere in his belief in supernatural appearances; he assumes a grave and mysterious air when he talks on the subject, which he is fond of doing, and has told me some extraordinary stories relative to Mr. Shelley, who, he assures me, had an implicit belief in ghosts. He also told me that Mr. Shelley's spectre had appeared to a lady, walking in a garden, and he seemed to lay great stress on this. Though some of the wisest of mankind, as witness Johnson, shared this weakness in common with Byron; still there is something so unusual in our matter-of-fact days in giving way to it, that I was at first doubtful that Byron was serious in his belief. He is also superstitious about days, and other trifling things,—believes in lucky and unlucky days,—dislikes undertaking any thing on a Friday, helping or being helped to salt at table, spilling salt or oil, letting bread fall, and breaking mirrors; in short, he gives way to a thousand fantastical notions, that prove that even l'esprit le plus fort has its weak side.