by Thomas Moore
“He told me that he had himself planted all the cypresses in the cemetery; that he had the greatest attachment to them and to his dead people; that since 1801 they had buried fifty-three thousand persons. In showing some older monuments, there was that of a Roman girl of twenty, with a bust by Bernini. She was a princess Bartorini, dead two centuries ago: he said that, on opening her grave, they had found her hair complete, and ‘as yellow as gold.’ Some of the epitaphs at Ferrara pleased me more than the more splendid monuments at Bologna; for instance: —
“Martini Luigi Implora pace;
“Lucrezia Picini Implora eterna quiete.
Can any thing be more full of pathos? Those few words say all that can be said or sought: the dead had had enough of life; all they wanted was rest, and this they implore! There is all the helplessness, and humble hope, and deathlike prayer, that can arise from the grave— ‘implora pace.’ I hope, whoever may survive me, and shall see me put in the foreigners’ burying-ground at the Lido, within the fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two words, and no more, put over me. I trust they won’t think of ‘pickling, and bringing me home to Clod or Blunderbuss Hall.’ I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to your soil. I would not even feed your worms, if I could help it.
“So, as Shakspeare says of Mowbray, the banished Duke of Norfolk, who died at Venice (see Richard II.) that he, after fighting
“‘Against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens, And toiled with works of war, retired himself To Italy, and there, at Venice, gave His body to that pleasant country’s earth, And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long.’
“Before I left Venice, I had returned to you your late, and Mr. Hobhouse’s sheets of Juan. Don’t wait for further answers from me, but address yours to Venice, as usual. I know nothing of my own movements; I may return there in a few days, or not for some time. All this depends on circumstances. I left Mr. Hoppner very well. My daughter Allegra was well too, and is growing pretty; her hair is growing darker, and her eyes are blue. Her temper and her ways, Mr. Hoppner says, are like mine, as well as her features: she will make, in that case, a manageable young lady.
“I have never heard any thing of Ada, the little Electra of Mycenae. But there will come a day of reckoning, even if I should not live to see it. What a long letter I have scribbled! Yours, &c.
“P.S. Here, as in Greece, they strew flowers on the tombs. I saw a quantity of rose-leaves, and entire roses, scattered over the graves at Ferrara. It has the most pleasing effect you can imagine.”
While he was thus lingering irresolute at Bologna, the Countess Guiccioli had been attacked with an intermittent fever, the violence of which, combining with the absence of a confidential person to whom she had been in the habit of intrusting her letters, prevented her from communicating with him. At length, anxious to spare him the disappointment of finding her so ill on his arrival, she had begun a letter, requesting that he would remain at Bologna till the visit to which she looked forward should bring her there also; and was in the act of writing, when a friend came in to announce the arrival of an English lord in Ravenna. She could not doubt for an instant that it was her noble friend; and he had, in fact, notwithstanding his declaration to Mr. Hoppner that it was his intention to return to Venice immediately, wholly altered this resolution before the letter announcing it was despatched, — the following words being written on the outside cover:— “I am just setting off for Ravenna, June 8. 1819. — I changed my mind this morning, and decided to go on.”
The reader, however, shall have Madame Guiccioli’s own account of these events, which, fortunately for the interest of my narration, I am enabled to communicate.
“On my departure from Venice, he had promised to come and see me at Ravenna. Dante’s tomb, the classical pine wood, the relics of antiquity which are to be found in that place, afforded a sufficient pretext for me to invite him to come, and for him to accept my invitation. He came, in fact, in the month of June, arriving at Ravenna on the day of the festival of the Corpus Domini; while I, attacked by a consumptive complaint, which had its origin from the moment of my quitting Venice, appeared on the point of death. The arrival of a distinguished foreigner at Ravenna, a town so remote from the routes ordinarily followed by travellers, was an event which gave rise to a good deal of conversation. His motives for such a visit became the subject of discussion, and these he himself afterwards involuntarily divulged; for having made some enquiries with a view to paying me a visit, and being told that it was unlikely that he would ever see me again, as I was at the point of death, he replied, if such were the case, he hoped that he should die also; which circumstance, being repeated, revealed the object of his journey. Count Guiccioli, having been acquainted with Lord Byron at Venice, went to visit him now, and in the hope that his presence might amuse, and be of some use to me in the state in which I then found myself, invited him to call upon me. He came the day following. It is impossible to describe the anxiety he showed, — the delicate attentions that he paid me. For a long time he had perpetually medical books in his hands; and not trusting my physicians, he obtained permission from Count Guiccioli to send for a very clever physician, a friend of his, in whom he placed great confidence. The attentions of Professor Aglietti (for so this celebrated Italian was called), together with tranquillity, and the inexpressible happiness which I experienced in Lord Byron’s society, had so good an effect on my health, that only two months afterwards I was able to accompany my husband in a tour he was obliged to make to visit his various estates.”
LETTER 332. TO MR. HOPPNER.
“Ravenna, June 20. 1819.
“I wrote to you from Padua, and from Bologna, and since from Ravenna. I find my situation very agreeable, but want my horses very much, there being good riding in the environs. I can fix no time for my return to Venice — it may be soon or late — or not at all — it all depends on the Donna, whom I found very seriously in bed with a cough and spitting of blood, &c. all of which has subsided. I found all the people here firmly persuaded that she would never recover; — they were mistaken, however.
“My letters were useful as far as I employed them; and I like both the place and people, though I don’t trouble the latter more than I can help She manages very well — but if I come away with a stiletto in my gizzard some fine afternoon, I shall not be astonished. I can’t make him out at all — he visits me frequently, and takes me out (like Whittington, the Lord Mayor) in a coach and six horses. The fact appears to be, that he is completely governed by her — for that matter, so am I. The people here don’t know what to make of us, as he had the character of jealousy with all his wives — this is the third. He is the richest of the Ravennese, by their own account, but is not popular among them. Now do, pray, send off Augustine, and carriage and cattle, to Bologna, without fail or delay, or I shall lose my remaining shred of senses. Don’t forget this. My coming, going, and every thing, depend upon HER entirely, just as Mrs. Hoppner (to whom I remit my reverences) said in the true spirit of female prophecy.
“You are but a shabby fellow not to have written before. And I am truly yours,” &c.
LETTER 333. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, June 29. 1819.
“The letters have been forwarded from Venice, but I trust that you will not have waited for further alterations — I will make none.
“I have no time to return you the proofs — publish without them. I am glad you think the poesy good; and as to ‘thinking of the effect,’ think you of the sale, and leave me to pluck the porcupines who may point their quills at you.
“I have been here (at Ravenna) these four weeks, having left Venice a month ago; — I came to see my ‘Amica,’ the Countess Guiccioli, who has been, and still continues, very unwell. * * She is only in her seventeenth, but
not of a strong constitution. She has a perpetual cough and an intermittent fever, but bears up most gallantly in every sense of the word. Her husband (this is his third wife) is the richest noble of Ravenna, and almost of Romagna; he is also not the youngest, being upwards of three-score, but in good preservation. All this will appear strange to you, who do not understand the meridian morality, nor our way of life in such respects, and I cannot at present expound the difference; — but you would find it much the same in these parts. At Faenza there is Lord * * * * with an opera girl; and at the inn in the same town is a Neapolitan Prince, who serves the wife of the Gonfaloniere of that city. I am on duty here — so you see ‘Così fan tutti e tutte.’
“I have my horses here, saddle as well as carriage, and ride or drive every day in the forest, the Pineta, the scene of Boccaccio’s novel, and Dryden’s fable of Honoria, &c. &c.; and I see my Dama every day; but I feel seriously uneasy about her health, which seems very precarious. In losing her, I should lose a being who has run great risks on my account, and whom I have every reason to love — but I must not think this possible. I do not know what I should do if she died, but I ought to blow my brains out — and I hope that I should. Her husband is a very polite personage, but I wish he would not carry me out in his coach and six, like Whittington and his cat.
“You ask me if I mean to continue D.J. &c. How should I know? What encouragement do you give me, all of you, with your nonsensical prudery? publish the two Cantos, and then you will see. I desired Mr. Kinnaird to speak to you on a little matter of business; either he has not spoken, or you have not answered. You are a pretty pair, but I will be even with you both. I perceive that Mr. Hobhouse has been challenged by Major Cartwright — Is the Major ‘so cunning of fence?’ — why did not they fight? — they ought.
“Yours,” &c.
LETTER 334. TO MR. HOPPNER.
“Ravenna, July 2. 1819.
“Thanks for your letter and for Madame’s. I will answer it directly. Will you recollect whether I did not consign to you one or two receipts of Madame Mocenigo’s for house-rent — (I am not sure of this, but think I did — if not, they will be in my drawers) — and will you desire Mr. Dorville to have the goodness to see if Edgecombe has receipts to all payments hitherto made by him on my account, and that there are no debts at Venice? On your answer, I shall send order of further remittance to carry on my household expenses, as my present return to Venice is very problematical; and it may happen — but I can say nothing positive — every thing with me being indecisive and undecided, except the disgust which Venice excites when fairly compared with any other city in this part of Italy. When I say Venice, I mean the Venetians — the city itself is superb as its history — but the people are what I never thought them till they taught me to think so.
“The best way will be to leave Allegra with Antonio’s spouse till I can decide something about her and myself — but I thought that you would have had an answer from Mrs. V —— r. You have had bore enough with me and mine already.
“I greatly fear that the Guiccioli is going into a consumption, to which her constitution tends. Thus it is with every thing and every body for whom I feel any thing like a real attachment;— ‘War, death, or discord, doth lay siege to them.’ I never even could keep alive a dog that I liked or that liked me. Her symptoms are obstinate cough of the lungs, and occasional fever, &c. &c. and there are latent causes of an eruption in the skin, which she foolishly repelled into the system two years ago: but I have made them send her case to Aglietti; and have begged him to come — if only for a day or two — to consult upon her state.
“If it would not bore Mr. Dorville, I wish he would keep an eye on E —— and on my other ragamuffins. I might have more to say, but I am absorbed about La Gui. and her illness. I cannot tell you the effect it has upon me.
“The horses came, &c. &c. and I have been galloping through the pine forest daily.
“Believe me, &c.
“P.S. My benediction on Mrs. Hoppner, a pleasant journey among the Bernese tyrants, and safe return. You ought to bring back a Platonic Bernese for my reformation. If any thing happens to my present Amica, I have done with the passion for ever — it is my last love. As to libertinism, I have sickened myself of that, as was natural in the way I went on, and I have at least derived that advantage from vice, to love in the better sense of the word. This will be my last adventure — I can hope no more to inspire attachment, and I trust never again to feel it.”
The impression which, I think, cannot but be entertained, from some passages of these letters, of the real fervour and sincerity of his attachment to Madame Guiccioli, would be still further confirmed by the perusal of his letters to that lady herself, both from Venice and during his present stay at Ravenna — all bearing, throughout, the true marks both of affection and passion. Such effusions, however, are but little suited to the general eye. It is the tendency of all strong feeling, from dwelling constantly on the same idea, to be monotonous; and those often-repeated vows and verbal endearments, which make the charm of true love-letters to the parties concerned in them, must for ever render even the best of them cloying to others. Those of Lord Byron to Madame Guiccioli, which are for the most part in Italian, and written with a degree of ease and correctness attained rarely by foreigners, refer chiefly to the difficulties thrown in the way of their meetings, — not so much by the husband himself, who appears to have liked and courted Lord Byron’s society, as by the watchfulness of other relatives, and the apprehension felt by themselves lest their intimacy should give uneasiness to the father of the lady, Count Gamba, a gentleman to whose good nature and amiableness of character all who know him bear testimony.
In the near approaching departure of the young Countess for Bologna, Lord Byron foresaw a risk of their being again separated; and under the impatience of this prospect, though through the whole of his preceding letters the fear of committing her by any imprudence seems to have been his ruling thought, he now, with that wilfulness of the moment which has so often sealed the destiny of years, proposed that she should, at once, abandon her husband and fly with him:— “c’è uno solo rimedio efficace,” he says,— “cioè d’ andar vià insieme.” To an Italian wife, almost every thing but this is permissible. The same system which so indulgently allows her a friend, as one of the regular appendages of her matrimonial establishment, takes care also to guard against all unseemly consequences of this privilege; and in return for such convenient facilities of wrong exacts rigidly an observance of all the appearances of right. Accordingly, the open step of deserting the husband for the lover instead of being considered, as in England, but a sign and sequel of transgression, takes rank, in Italian morality, as the main transgression itself; and being an offence, too, rendered wholly unnecessary by the latitude otherwise enjoyed, becomes, from its rare occurrence, no less monstrous than odious.
The proposition, therefore, of her noble friend seemed to the young Contessa little less than sacrilege, and the agitation of her mind, between the horrors of such a step, and her eager readiness to give up all and every thing for him she adored, was depicted most strongly in her answer to the proposal. In a subsequent letter, too, the romantic girl even proposed, as a means of escaping the ignominy of an elopement, that she should, like another Juliet, “pass for dead,” — assuring him that there were many easy ways of effecting such a deception.
LETTER 335. TO MR. MURRAY.
“Ravenna, August 1. 1819.
[Address your Answer to Venice, however.]
“Don’t be alarmed. You will see me defend myself gaily — that is, if I happen to be in spirits; and by spirits, I don’t mean your meaning of the word, but the spirit of a bull-dog when pinched, or a bull when pinned; it is then that they make best sport; and as my sensations under an attack are probably a happy compound of the united energies of these amiable animals, you may perhaps see what Marrall calls ‘rare sport,’ and some good tossing and goring, in the course of the controversy. But I must be in the
right cue first, and I doubt I am almost too far off to be in a sufficient fury for the purpose. And then I have effeminated and enervated myself with love and the summer in these last two months.
“I wrote to Mr. Hobhouse, the other day, and foretold that Juan would either fall entirely or succeed completely; there will be no medium. Appearances are not favourable; but as you write the day after publication, it can hardly be decided what opinion will predominate. You seem in a fright, and doubtless with cause. Come what may I never will flatter the million’s canting in any shape. Circumstances may or may not have placed me at times in a situation to lead the public opinion, but the public opinion never led, nor ever shall lead, me. I will not sit on a degraded throne; so pray put Messrs. * * or * *, or Tom Moore, or * * * upon it; they will all of them be transported with their coronation.
“P.S. The Countess Guiccioli is much better than she was. I sent you, before leaving Venice, the real original sketch which gave rise to the ‘Vampire,’ &c. — Did you get it?”
This letter was, of course (like most of those he addressed to England at this time), intended to be shown; and having been, among others, permitted to see it, I took occasion, in my very next communication to Lord Byron, to twit him a little with the passage in it relating to myself, — the only one, as far as I can learn, that ever fell from my noble friend’s pen during our intimacy, in which he has spoken of me otherwise than in terms of kindness and the most undeserved praise. Transcribing his own words, as well as I could recollect them, at the top of my letter, I added, underneath, “Is this the way you speak of your friends?” Not long after, too, when visiting him at Venice, I remember making the same harmless little sneer a subject of raillery with him; but he declared boldly that he had no recollection of having ever written such words, and that, if they existed, “he must have been half asleep when he wrote them.”
