by Thomas Moore
Darvell had already travelled extensively; and to him I had applied for information with regard to the conduct of my intended journey. It was my secret wish that he might be prevailed on to accompany me; it was also a probable hope, founded upon the shadowy restlessness which I observed in him, and to which the animation which he appeared to feel on such subjects, and his apparent indifference to all by which he was more immediately surrounded, gave fresh strength. This wish I first hinted, and then expressed: his answer, though I had partly expected it, gave me all the pleasure of surprise — he consented; and, after the requisite arrangement, we commenced our voyages. After journeying through various countries of the south of Europe, our attention was turned towards the East, according to our original destination; and it was in my progress through those regions that the incident occurred upon which will turn what I may have to relate.
The constitution of Darvell, which must from his appearance have been in early life more than usually robust, had been for some time gradually giving way, without the intervention of any apparent disease: he had neither cough nor hectic, yet he became daily more enfeebled: his habits were temperate, and he neither declined nor complained of fatigue; yet he was evidently wasting away: he became more and more silent and sleepless, and at length so seriously altered, that my alarm grew proportionate to what I conceived to be his danger.
We had determined, on our arrival at Smyrna, on an excursion to the ruins of Ephesus and Sardis, from which I endeavoured to dissuade him in his present state of indisposition — but in vain: there appeared to be an oppression on his mind, and a solemnity in his manner, which ill corresponded with his eagerness to proceed on what I regarded as a mere party of pleasure, little suited to a valetudinarian; but I opposed him no longer — and in a few days we set off together, accompanied only by a serrugee and a single janizary.
We had passed halfway towards the remains of Ephesus, leaving behind us the more fertile environs of Smyrna, and were entering upon that wild and tenantless track through the marshes and defiles which lead to the few huts yet lingering over the broken columns of Diana — the roofless walls of expelled Christianity, and the still more recent but complete desolation of abandoned mosques — when the sudden and rapid illness of my companion obliged us to halt at a Turkish cemetery, the turbaned tombstones of which were the sole indication that human life had ever been a sojourner in this wilderness. The only caravansera we had seen was left some hours behind us, not a vestige of a town or even cottage was within sight or hope, and this “city of the dead” appeared to be the sole refuge for my unfortunate friend, who seemed on the verge of becoming the last of its inhabitants.
In this situation, I looked round for a place where he might most conveniently repose: — contrary to the usual aspect of Mahometan burial-grounds, the cypresses were in this few in number, and these thinly scattered over its extent: the tombstones were mostly fallen, and worn with age: — upon one of the most considerable of these, and beneath one of the most spreading trees, Darvell supported himself, in a half-reclining posture, with great difficulty. He asked for water. I had some doubts of our being able to find any, and prepared to go in search of it with hesitating despondency: but he desired me to remain; and turning to Suleiman, our janizary, who stood by us smoking with great tranquillity, he said, “Suleiman, verbana su,” (i.e. bring some water,) and went on describing the spot where it was to be found with great minuteness, at a small well for camels, a few hundred yards to the right: the janizary obeyed. I said to Darvell, “How did you know this?” — He replied, “From our situation; you must perceive that this place was once inhabited, and could not have been so without springs: I have also been here before.”
“You have been here before! — How came you never to mention this to me? and what could you be doing in a place where no one would remain a moment longer than they could help it?”
To this question I received no answer. In the mean time Suleiman returned with the water, leaving the serrugee and the horses at the fountain. The quenching of his thirst had the appearance of reviving him for a moment; and I conceived hopes of his being able to proceed, or at least to return, and I urged the attempt. He was silent — and appeared to be collecting his spirits for an effort to speak. He began.
“This is the end of my journey, and of my life; — I came here to die: but I have a request to make, a command — for such my last words must be. — You will observe it?”
“Most certainly; but have better hopes.”
“I have no hopes, nor wishes, but this — conceal my death from every human being.”
“I hope there will be no occasion; that you will recover, and — —”
“Peace! — it must be so: promise this.”
“I do.”
“Swear it, by all that” —— He here dictated an oath of great solemnity.
“There is no occasion for this — I will observe your request; and to doubt me is — —”
“It cannot be helped, — you must swear.”
I took the oath: it appeared to relieve him. He removed a seal ring from his finger, on which were some Arabic characters, and presented it to me. He proceeded —
“On the ninth day of the month, at noon precisely (what month you please, but this must be the day), you must fling this ring into the salt springs which run into the Bay of Eleusis: the day after, at the same hour, you must repair to the ruins of the temple of Ceres, and wait one hour.”
“Why?”
“You will see.”
“The ninth day of the month, you say?”
“The ninth.”
As I observed that the present was the ninth day of the month; his countenance changed, and he paused. As he sat, evidently becoming more feeble, a stork, with a snake in her beak, perched upon a tombstone near us; and, without devouring her prey, appeared to be steadfastly regarding us. I know not what impelled me to drive it away, but the attempt was useless; she made a few circles in the air, and returned exactly to the same spot. Darvell pointed to it, and smiled: he spoke — I know not whether to himself or to me — but the words were only, “’Tis well!”
“What is well? what do you mean?”
“No matter: you must bury me here this evening, and exactly where that bird is now perched. You know the rest of my injunctions.”
He then proceeded to give me several directions as to the manner in which his death might be best concealed. After these were finished, he exclaimed, “You perceive that bird?”
“Certainly.”
“And the serpent writhing in her beak?”
“Doubtless: there is nothing uncommon in it; it is her natural prey. But it is odd that she does not devour it.”
He smiled in a ghastly manner, and said, faintly, “It is not yet time!” As he spoke, the stork flew away. My eyes followed it for a moment — it could hardly be longer than ten might be counted. I felt Darvell’s weight, as it were, increase upon my shoulder, and, turning to look upon his face, perceived that he was dead!
I was shocked with the sudden certainty which could not be mistaken — his countenance in a few minutes became nearly black. I should have attributed so rapid a change to poison, had I not been aware that he had no opportunity of receiving it unperceived. The day was declining, the body was rapidly altering, and nothing remained but to fulfil his request. With the aid of Suleiman’s ataghan and my own sabre, we scooped a shallow grave upon the spot which Darvell had indicated: the earth easily gave way, having already received some Mahometan tenant. We dug as deeply as the time permitted us, and throwing the dry earth upon all that remained of the singular being so lately departed, we cut a few sods of greener turf from the less withered soil around us, and laid them upon his sepulchre.
Between astonishment and grief, I was tearless.
LETTER TO JOHN MURRAY, ESQ. ON THE REV. W.L. BOWLES’S STRICTURES ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF POPE.
“I’ll play at Bowls with the sun and moon.” — OLD SONG.
“M
y mither’s auld, Sir, and she has rather forgotten hersel in speaking to my Leddy, that canna weel bide to be contradickit, (as I ken nobody likes it, if they could help themsels.)”
TALES OF MY LANDLORD, Old Mortality, vol. ii. p. .
Ravenna, February 7. 1821.
Dear Sir,
In the different pamphlets which you have had the goodness to send me, on the Pope and Bowles’ controversy, I perceive that my name is occasionally introduced by both parties. Mr. Bowles refers more than once to what he is pleased to consider “a remarkable circumstance,” not only in his letter to Mr. Campbell, but in his reply to the Quarterly. The Quarterly also and Mr. Gilchrist have conferred on me the dangerous honour of a quotation; and Mr. Bowles indirectly makes a kind of appeal to me personally, by saying, “Lord Byron, if he remembers the circumstance, will witness” — (witness IN ITALICS, an ominous character for a testimony at present).
I shall not avail myself of a “non mi ricordo,” even after so long a residence in Italy; — I do “remember the circumstance,” — and have no reluctance to relate it (since called upon so to do), as correctly as the distance of time and the impression of intervening events will permit me. In the year 1812, more than three years after the publication of “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” I had the honour of meeting Mr. Bowles in the house of our venerable host of “Human Life,” &c. the last Argonaut of classic English poetry, and the Nestor of our inferior race of living poets. Mr. Bowles calls this “soon after” the publication; but to me three years appear a considerable segment of the immortality of a modern poem. I recollect nothing of “the rest of the company going into another room,” — nor, though I well remember the topography of our host’s elegant and classically furnished mansion, could I swear to the very room where the conversation occurred, though the “taking down the poem” seems to fix it in the library. Had it been “taken up” it would probably have been in the drawing-room. I presume also that the “remarkable circumstance” took place after dinner; as I conceive that neither Mr. Bowles’s politeness nor appetite would have allowed him to detain “the rest of the company” standing round their chairs in the “other room,” while we were discussing “the Woods of Madeira,” instead of circulating its vintage. Of Mr. Bowles’s “good humour” I have a full and not ungrateful recollection; as also of his gentlemanly manners and agreeable conversation. I speak of the whole, and not of particulars; for whether he did or did not use the precise words printed in the pamphlet, I cannot say, nor could he with accuracy. Of “the tone of seriousness” I certainly recollect nothing: on the contrary, I thought Mr. Bowles rather disposed to treat the subject lightly: for he said (I have no objection to be contradicted if incorrect), that some of his good-natured friends had come to him and exclaimed, “Eh! Bowles! how came you to make the Woods of Madeira?” &c. &c. and that he had been at some pains and pulling down of the poem to convince them that he had never made “the Woods” do any thing of the kind. He was right, and I was wrong, and have been wrong still up to this acknowledgment; for I ought to have looked twice before I wrote that which involved an inaccuracy capable of giving pain. The fact was, that, although I had certainly before read “the Spirit of Discovery,” I took the quotation from the review. But the mistake was mine, and not the review’s, which quoted the passage correctly enough, I believe. I blundered — God knows how — into attributing the tremors of the lovers to “the Woods of Madeira,” by which they were surrounded. And I hereby do fully and freely declare and asseverate, that the Woods did not tremble to a kiss, and that the lovers did. I quote from memory —
—— — “A kiss
Stole on the listening silence, &c. &c.
They [the lovers] trembled, even as if the power,” &c.
And if I had been aware that this declaration would have been in the smallest degree satisfactory to Mr. Bowles, I should not have waited nine years to make it, notwithstanding that “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” had been suppressed some time previously to my meeting him at Mr. Rogers’s. Our worthy host might indeed have told him as much, as it was at his representation that I suppressed it. A new edition of that lampoon was preparing for the press, when Mr. Rogers represented to me, that “I was now acquainted with many of the persons mentioned in it, and with some on terms of intimacy;” and that he knew “one family in particular to whom its suppression would give pleasure.” I did not hesitate one moment, it was cancelled instantly; and it is no fault of mine that it has ever been republished. When I left England, in April, 1816, with no very violent intentions of troubling that country again, and amidst scenes of various kinds to distract my attention, — almost my last act, I believe, was to sign a power of attorney, to yourself, to prevent or suppress any attempts (of which several had been made in Ireland) at a republication. It is proper that I should state, that the persons with whom I was subsequently acquainted, whose names had occurred in that publication, were made my acquaintances at their own desire, or through the unsought intervention of others. I never, to the best of my knowledge, sought a personal introduction to any. Some of them to this day I know only by correspondence; and with one of those it was begun by myself, in consequence, however, of a polite verbal communication from a third person.
I have dwelt for an instant on these circumstances, because it has sometimes been made a subject of bitter reproach to me to have endeavoured to suppress that satire. I never shrunk, as those who know me know, from any personal consequences which could be attached to its publication. Of its subsequent suppression, as I possessed the copyright, I was the best judge and the sole master. The circumstances which occasioned the suppression I have now stated; of the motives, each must judge according to his candour or malignity. Mr. Bowles does me the honour to talk of “noble mind,” and “generous magnanimity;” and all this because “the circumstance would have been explained had not the book been suppressed.” I see no “nobility of mind” in an act of simple justice; and I hate the word “magnanimity,” because I have sometimes seen it applied to the grossest of impostors by the greatest of fools; but I would have “explained the circumstance,” notwithstanding “the suppression of the book,” if Mr. Bowles had expressed any desire that I should. As the “gallant Galbraith” says to “Baillie Jarvie,” “Well, the devil take the mistake, and all that occasioned it.” I have had as great and greater mistakes made about me personally and poetically, once a month for these last ten years, and never cared very much about correcting one or the other, at least after the first eight and forty hours had gone over them.
I must now, however, say a word or two about Pope, of whom you have my opinion more at large in the unpublished letter on or to (for I forget which) the editor of “Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine;” — and here I doubt that Mr. Bowles will not approve of my sentiments.
Although I regret having published “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” the part which I regret the least is that which regards Mr. Bowles with reference to Pope. Whilst I was writing that publication, in 1807 and 1808, Mr. Hobhouse was desirous that I should express our mutual opinion of Pope, and of Mr. Bowles’s edition of his works. As I had completed my outline, and felt lazy, I requested that he would do so. He did it. His fourteen lines on Bowles’s Pope are in the first edition of “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers;” and are quite as severe and much more poetical than my own in the second. On reprinting the work, as I put my name to it, I omitted Mr. Hobhouse’s lines, and replaced them with my own, by which the work gained less than Mr. Bowles. I have stated this in the preface to the second edition. It is many years since I have read that poem; but the Quarterly Review, Mr. Octavius Gilchrist, and Mr. Bowles himself, have been so obliging as to refresh my memory, and that of the public. I am grieved to say, that in reading over those lines, I repent of their having so far fallen short of what I meant to express upon the subject of Bowles’s edition of Pope’s Works. Mr. Bowles says, that “Lord Byron knows he does not deserve this character.” I know no such thing. I
have met Mr. Bowles occasionally, in the best society in London; he appeared to me an amiable, well-informed, and extremely able man. I desire nothing better than to dine in company with such a mannered man every day in the week: but of “his character” I know nothing personally; I can only speak to his manners, and these have my warmest approbation. But I never judge from manners, for I once had my pocket picked by the civilest gentleman I ever met with; and one of the mildest persons I ever saw was All Pacha. Of Mr. Bowles’s “character” I will not do him the injustice to judge from the edition of Pope, if he prepared it heedlessly; nor the justice, should it be otherwise, because I would neither become a literary executioner nor a personal one. Mr. Bowles the individual, and Mr. Bowles the editor, appear the two most opposite things imaginable.
