Chapter 2

[49] [An old servant of the Chaworth family, Mary Marsden, told Washington Irving (_Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey_, 1835, p. 204) that Byron used to call Mary Chaworth "his bright morning star of Annesley." Compare the well-known lines--

"She was a form of Life and Light, That, seen, became a part of sight; And rose, where'er I turned mine eye, The Morning-star of Memory!"

_The Giaour_, lines 1127-1130, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 136, 137.]

[50] ["This touching picture agrees closely, in many of its circumstances, with Lord Byron's own prose account of the wedding in his Memoranda; in which he describes himself as waking, on the morning of his marriage, with the most melancholy reflections, on seeing his wedding-suit spread out before him. In the same mood, he wandered about the grounds alone, till he was summoned for the ceremony, and joined, for the first time on that day, his bride and her family. He knelt down--he repeated the words after the clergyman; but a mist was before his eyes--his thoughts were elsewhere: and he was but awakened by the congratulations of the bystanders to find that he was--married."--_Life_, p. 272.

Medwin, too, makes Byron say (_Conversations, etc._, 1824, p. 46) that he "trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and after the ceremony called her (the bride) Miss Milbanke." All that can be said of Moore's recollection of the "memoranda," or Medwin's repetition of so-called conversations (reprinted almost _verbatim_ in _Life, Writings, Opinions, etc._, 1825, ii. 227, _seq._, as "Recollections of the Lately Destroyed Manuscript," etc.), is that they tend to show that Byron meant _The Dream_ to be taken literally as a record of actual events. He would not have forgotten by July, 1816, circumstances of great import which had taken place in December, 1815: and he's either lying of malice prepense or telling "an ower true tale."]

[j] {40}

----_the glance_ _Of melancholy is a fearful gift;_ _For it becomes the telescope of truth,_ _And shows us all things naked as they are_.--[MS.]

[51] [Compare--

"Who loves, raves--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cure Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor Worth nor Beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such."

_Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cxxiii. lines 1-5, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 420.]

[52] Mithridates of Pontus. [Mithridates, King of Pontus (B.C. 120-63), surnamed Eupator, succeeded to the throne when he was only eleven years of age. He is said to have safeguarded himself against the designs of his enemies by drugging himself with antidotes against poison, and so effectively that, when he was an old man, he could not poison himself, even when he was minded to do so--"ut ne volens quidem senex veneno mori potuerit."--Justinus, _Hist._, lib. xxxvii. cap. ii.

According to Medwin (_Conversations_, p. 148), Byron made use of the same illustration in speaking of Polidori's death (April, 1821), which was probably occasioned by "poison administered to himself" (see _Letters_, 1899, iii. 285).]

[53] {41}[Compare--

"Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends."

_Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza xiii. line 1.

"...and to me High mountains are a feeling."

_Ibid._, stanza lxxii. lines 2,3, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 223, 261.]

[54] [Compare--

"Ye Spirits of the unbounded Universe!"

_Manfred_, act i. sc. 1, line 29, _vide post_, p. 86.]

[55] [Compare _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 2, lines 79-91; and _ibid._, act iii. sc. 1, lines 34-39; and sc. 4, lines 112-117, _vide post_, pp. 105, 121, 135.]

[k] {42}In the original MS. _A Dream_.

[56] [Sir Walter Scott (_Quarterly Review_, October, 1816, vol. xvi. p. 204) did not take kindly to _Darkness_. He regarded the "framing of such phantasms" as "a dangerous employment for the exalted and teeming imagination of such a poet as Lord Byron. The waste of boundless space into which they lead the poet, the neglect of precision which such themes may render habitual, make them in respect to poetry what mysticism is to religion." Poetry of this kind, which recalled "the wild, unbridled, and fiery imagination of Coleridge," was a novel and untoward experiment on the part of an author whose "peculiar art" it was "to show the reader where his purpose tends." The resemblance to Coleridge is general rather than particular. It is improbable that Scott had ever read _Limbo_ (first published in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817), an attempt to depict the "mere horror of blank nought-at-all;" but it is possible that he had in his mind the following lines (384-390) from _Religious Musings_, in which "the final destruction is impersonated" (see Coleridge's note) in the "red-eyed Fiend:"--

"For who of woman born may paint the hour, When seized in his mid course, the Sun shall wane, Making the noon ghastly! Who of woman born May image in the workings of his thought, How the black-visaged, red-eyed Fiend outstretched Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans In feverous slumbers?"

_Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 60.

Another and a less easily detected source of inspiration has been traced (see an article on Campbell's _Last Man_, in the _London Magazine and Review_, 1825, New Series, i. 588, seq.) to a forgotten but once popular novel entitled _The Last Man, or Omegarus and Syderia, a Romance in Futurity_ (two vols. 1806). Kölbing (_Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., pp. 136-140) adduces numerous quotations in support of this contention. The following may serve as samples: "As soon as the earth had lost with the moon her guardian star, her decay became more rapid.... Some, in their madness, destroyed the instruments of husbandry, others in deep despair summoned death to their relief. Men began to look on each other with eyes of enmity" (i. 105). "The sun exhibited signs of decay, its surface turned pale, and its beams were frigid. The northern nations dreaded perishing by intense cold ... and fled to the torrid zone to court the sun's beneficial rays" (i. 120). "The reign of Time was over, ages of Eternity were going to begin; but at the same moment Hell shrieked with rage, and the sun and stars were extinguished. The gloomy night of chaos enveloped the world, plaintive sounds issued from mountains, rocks, and caverns,--Nature wept, and a doleful voice was heard exclaiming in the air, 'The human race is no more!'"(ii. 197).

It is difficult to believe that Byron had not read, and more or less consciously turned to account, the imagery of this novel; but it is needless to add that any charge of plagiarism falls to the ground. Thanks to a sensitive and appreciative ear and a retentive memory, Byron's verse is interfused with manifold strains, but, so far as _Darkness_ is concerned, his debt to Coleridge or the author of _Omegarus and Syderia_ is neither more nor less legitimate than the debt to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Joel, which a writer in the _Imperial Magazine_ (1828, x. 699), with solemn upbraidings, lays to his charge.

The duty of acknowledging such debts is, indeed, "a duty of imperfect obligation." The well-known lines in Tennyson's _Locksley Hall_--

"Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue!"

is surely an echo of an earlier prophecy from the pen of the author of _Omegarus and Syderia_: "In the center the heavens were seen darkened by legions of armed vessels, making war on each other!... The soldiers fell in frightful numbers.... Their blood stained the soft verdure of the trees, and their scattered bleeding limbs covered the fields and the roofs of the labourers' cottages" (i. 68). But such "conveyings" are honourable to the purloiner. See, too, the story of the battle between the Vulture-cavalry and the Sky-gnats, in Lucian's _Veræ Historiæ_, i. 16.]

[57] {44}

["If thou speak'st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, Till famine cling thee."

_Macbeth_, act V. sc. 5, lines 38-40.

Fruit is said to be "clung" when the skin shrivels, and a corpse when the face becomes wasted and gaunt.]

[58] {45}[So, too, Vathek and Nouronihar, in the Hall of Eblis, waited "in direful suspense the moment which should render them to each other ... objects of terror."--_Vathek_, by W. Beckford, 1887, p. 185.]

[59] [Charles Churchill was born in February, 1731, and died at Boulogne, November 4, 1764. The body was brought to Dover and buried in the churchyard attached to the demolished church of St. Martin-le-Grand ("a small deserted cemetery in an obscure lane behind [i.e. above] the market"). See note by Charles De la Pryme, _Notes and Queries_, 1854, Series I. vol. x. p. 378. There is a tablet to his memory on the south wall of St. Mary's Church, and the present headstone in the graveyard (it was a "plain headstone" in 1816) bears the following inscription:--

"1764. Here lie the remains of the celebrated C. Churchill. 'Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies.'"

Churchill had been one of Byron's earlier models, and the following lines from _The Candidate_, which suggested the epitaph (lines 145-154), were, doubtless, familiar to him:--

"Let one poor sprig of Bay around my head Bloom whilst I live, and point me out when dead; Let it (may Heav'n indulgent grant that prayer) Be planted on my grave, nor wither there; And when, on travel bound, some rhyming guest Roams through the churchyard, whilst his dinner's drest, Let it hold up this comment to his eyes; Life to the last enjoy'd, _here_ Churchill lies; Whilst (O, what joy that pleasing flatt'ry gives) Reading my Works he cries--_here_ Churchill lives."

Byron spent Sunday, April 25, 1816, at Dover. He was to sail that night for Ostend, and, to while away the time, "turned to Pilgrim" and thought out, perhaps began to write, the lines which were finished three months later at the Campagne Diodati.

"The Grave of Churchill," writes Scott (_Quarterly Review_, October, 1816), "might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for, though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance between their history and character.... both these poets held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed by the fame and popularity which they seemed to despise. The writings of both exhibit an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity of mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed to extremes. Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond the verge of prudence, and indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness."

Save for the affectation of a style which did not belong to him, and which in his heart he despised, Byron's commemoration of Churchill does not lack depth or seriousness. It was the parallel between their lives and temperaments which awoke reflection and sympathy, and prompted this "natural homily." Perhaps, too, the shadow of impending exile had suggested to his imagination that further parallel which Scott deprecated, and deprecated in vain, "death in the flower of his age, and in a foreign land."]

[60] {46}[On the sheet containing the original draft of these lines Lord Byron has written, "The following poem (as most that I have endeavoured to write) is founded on a fact; and this detail is an attempt at a serious imitation of the style of a great poet--its beauties and its defects: I say the _style_; for the thoughts I claim as my own. In this, if there be anything ridiculous, let it be attributed to me, at least as much as to Mr. Wordsworth: of whom there can exist few greater admirers than myself. I have blended what I would deem to be the beauties as well as defects of his style; and it ought to be remembered, that, in such things, whether there be praise or dispraise, there is always what is called a compliment, however unintentional." There is, as Scott points out, a much closer resemblance to Southey's "_English Eclogues,_ in which moral truths are expressed, to use the poet's own language, 'in an almost colloquial plainness of language,' and an air of quaint and original expression assumed, to render the sentiment at once impressive and _piquant_."]

[61] {47}[Compare--

"The under-earth inhabitants--are they But mingled millions decomposed to clay?"

_A Fragment_, lines 23, 24, _vide post_, p. 52.

It is difficult to "extricate" the meaning of lines 19-25, but, perhaps, they are intended to convey a hope of immortality. "As I was speaking, the sexton (the architect) tried to answer my question by taxing his memory with regard to the occupants of the several tombs. He might well be puzzled, for 'Earth is but a tombstone,' covering an amalgam of dead bodies, and, unless in another life soul were separated from soul, as on earth body is distinct from body, Newton himself, who disclosed 'the turnpike-road through the unpaved stars' (_Don Juan_, Canto X. stanza ii. line 4), would fail to assign its proper personality to any given lump of clay."]

[62] {48}[Compare--

"But here [i.e. in 'the realm of death'] all is So shadowy and so full of twilight, that It speaks of a day past."

_Cain_, act ii. sc. 2.

[63] ["Selected," that is, by "frequent travellers" (_vide supra_, line 12).]

[l]

----_then most pleased, I shook_ _My inmost pocket's most retired nook,_ _And out fell five and sixpence_.--[MS.]

[64] [Byron was a lover and worshipper of Prometheus as a boy. His first English exercise at Harrow was a paraphrase of a chorus of the _Prometheus Vinctus_ of Æschylus, line 528, _sq._ (see _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 14). Referring to a criticism on _Manfred_ (_Edinburgh Review_, vol xxviii. p. 431) he writes (October 12, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 174): "The _Prometheus_, if not exactly in my plan, has always been so much in my head, that I can easily conceive its influence over all or any thing that I have written." The conception of an immortal sufferer at once beneficent and defiant, appealed alike to his passions and his convictions, and awoke a peculiar enthusiasm. His poems abound with allusions to the hero and the legend. Compare the first draft of stanza xvi. of the _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_ (_Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 312, var. ii.); _The Prophecy of Dante_, iv. 10, seq.; the _Irish Avatar_, stanza xii. line 2, etc.]

[65] {49}[Compare--

Τοιαῦτ' ἐπηύρου τοῦ φιλανθρώπου τρόπου

_P. V._, line 28.

Compare, too--

Θνητὸυς δ' ἐν οἴ.κtῳ προθέμενος, τούτου τυχεῖν Οὐκ ἠξιώθην αὐτὸς

Ibid., lines 241, 242.]

[66] [Compare--

Διὸς γὰρ δυσπαραίτητοι φρένες.

Ibid., line 34.

Compare, too--

...γιγνώσκονθ' ὅτι Τὸ τῆς ἀνάγκης ἐστ' ἀδήριτον σθένος

Ibid., line 105.]

[67] {50}[Compare--

"The maker--call him Which name thou wilt; he makes but to destroy."

_Cain_, act i. sc. 1.

Compare, too--

"And the Omnipotent, who makes and crushes."

_Heaven and Earth_, Part I. sc. 3.]

[68] [Compare--

Ὄτῳ θανεῖν μέν ἐστιν οὐ πεπρωμένον

_P. V._, line 754.]

[69][Compare--

...πάντα προὐξεπίσταμαι Σκεθρῶς τά μέλλοντα

Ibid., lines 101, 102.]

[70] [Compare--

Θνητοῖς δ' ἀήγων αὐτὸς εὑρόμην πόνους.

Ibid., line 269.]

[71] {51}[Compare--

"But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity."

_Manfred_, act i. sc. 2, lines 39, 40, _vide post_, p. 95.]

[m] ----_and equal to all woes_.--[Editions 1832, etc.]

[72] [The edition of 1832 and subsequent issues read "and equal." It is clear that the earlier reading, "an equal," is correct. The spirit opposed by the spirit is an equal, etc. The spirit can also oppose to "its own funereal destiny" a firm will, etc.]

[73] [_A Fragment_, which remained unpublished till 1830, was written at the same time as _Churchill's Grave_ (July, 1816), and is closely allied to it in purport and in sentiment. It is a questioning of Death! O Death, _what_ is thy sting? There is an analogy between exile end death. As Churchill lay in his forgotten grave at Dover, one of "many millions decomposed to clay," so he the absent is dead to the absent, and the absent are dead to him. And what are the dead? the aggregate of nothingness? or are they a multitude of atoms having neither part nor lot one with the other? There is no solution but in the grave. Death alone can unriddle death. The poet's questioning spirit would plunge into the abyss to bring back the answer.]

[74] {52}[Compare--

"'Tis said thou holdest converse with the things Which are forbidden to the search of man; That with the dwellers of the dark abodes, The many evil and unheavenly spirits Which walk the valley of the Shade of Death, Thou communest."

_Manfred_, act iii. sc. 1, lines 34, seq., _vide post_, p. 121.]

[75] {53}Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne. [For Rousseau, see _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 277, note 1, 300, 301, note 18; for Voltaire and Gibbon, _vide ibid._, pp. 306, 307, note 22; and for De Staël, see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 223, note 1. Byron, writing to Moore, January 2, 1821, declares, on the authority of Monk Lewis, "who was too great a bore ever to lie," that Madame de Staël alleged this sonnet, "in which she was named with Voltaire, Rousseau, etc.," as a reason for changing her opinion about him--"she could not help it through decency" (_Letters_, 1901, v. 213). It is difficult to believe that Madame de Staël was ashamed of her companions, or was sincere in disclaiming the compliment, though, as might have been expected, the sonnet excited some disapprobation in England. A writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (February, 1818, vol. 88, p. 122) relieved his feelings by a "Retort Addressed to the Thames"--

"Restor'd to my dear native Thames' bank, My soul disgusted spurns a Byron's lay,-- * * * * * Leman may idly boast her Staël, Rousseau, Gibbon, Voltaire, whom Truth and Justice shun-- * * * * * Whilst meekly shines midst Fulham's bowers the sun O'er Sherlock's and o'er Porteus' honour'd graves, Where Thames Britannia's choicest meads exulting laves."]

[76] [Compare--

"Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face."

_Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza lxviii. line 1, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 257.]

[n] {54}_Stanzas To_----.--[Editions 1816-1830.]

"Though the Day."--[MS. in Mrs. Leigh's handwriting.]

[77] [The "Stanzas to Augusta" were written in July, at the Campagne Diodati, near Geneva. "Be careful," he says, "in printing the stanzas beginning, 'Though the day of my Destiny's,' etc., which I think well of as a composition."--Letter to Murray, October 5, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 371.]

[o]

_Though the days of my Glory are over,_ _And the Sun of my fame has declined._--[Dillon MS.]

[p] ----_had painted._--[MS.]

[78] [Compare--

"Dear Nature is the kindest mother still!... To me by day or night she ever smiled."

_Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza xxxvii. lines 1, 7, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 122.]

[q] _I will not_----.--[MS. erased.]

[r] {55}_As the breasts I reposed in with me._--[MS.]

[s]

_Though the rock of my young hope is shivered,_ _And its fragments lie sunk in the wave._--[MS. erased.]

[t]

_There is many a pang to pursue me,_ _And many a peril to stem;_ _They may torture, but shall not subdue me;_ _They may crush, but they shall not contemn._--[MS. erased.] _And I think not of thee but of them._--[MS. erased.]

[u] _Though tempted_----.--[MS.]

[79] [Compare _Childe Harold,_ Canto III. stanzas liii., lv., _Poetical Works,_ 1899, ii. 247, 248, note 1.]

[v]

_Though watchful, 'twas but to reclaim me,_ _Nor, silent, to sanction a lie._--[MS.]

[80] {56}[Compare--

"Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be."

_Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xii. lines 5, 6, _vide post_, p. 61.

Compare, too--

"But soon he knew himself the most unfit Of men to herd with Man."

_Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza xii. lines 1, 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 223.]

[w]

_And more than I then could foresee._ _I have met but the fate that hath crost me._--[MS.]

[x] _In the wreck of the past_--[MS.]

[y]

_In the Desert there still are sweet waters,_ _In the wild waste a sheltering tree._--[MS.]

[81] [Byron often made use of this illustration. Compare--

"My Peri! ever welcome here! Sweet, as the desert fountain's wave."

_The Bride of Abydos_, Canto I. lines 151, 152, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 163.]

[82] [For Hobhouse's parody of these stanzas, see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 73,74.]

[83] {57}[These stanzas--"than which," says the _Quarterly Review_ for January, 1831, "there is nothing, perhaps, more mournfully and desolately beautiful in the whole range of Lord Byron's poetry," were also written at Diodati, and sent home to be published, if Mrs. Leigh should consent. She decided against publication, and the "Epistle" was not printed till 1830. Her first impulse was to withhold her consent to the publication of the "Stanzas to Augusta," as well as the "Epistle," and to say, "Whatever is addressed to me do not publish," but on second thoughts she decided that "the _least objectionable_ line will be _to let them be published_."--See her letters to Murray, November 1, 8, 1816, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 366, note 1.]

[z]

_Go where thou wilt thou art to me the same_-- _A loud regret which I would not resign_.--[MS.]

[84] [Compare--

"Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister!"

_Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza clxxvii. lines 1, 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 456.]

[aa] _But other cares_----.--[MS.]

[ab] _A strange doom hath been ours, but that is past_.--[MS.]

[85] ["Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a voyage without a tempest. He was known to the sailors by the facetious name of 'Foul-weather Jack' [or 'Hardy Byron'].

"'But, though it were tempest-toss'd, Still his bark could not be lost.'

He returned safely from the wreck of the _Wager_ (in Anson's voyage), and many years after circumnavigated the world, as commander of a similar expedition" (Moore). Admiral the Hon. John Byron (1723-1786), next brother to William, fifth Lord Byron, published his _Narrative_ of his shipwreck in the _Wager_ in 1768, and his _Voyage round the World_ in the _Dolphin_, in 1767 (_Letters_, 1898, i. 3).]

[ac] {58}

_I am not yet o'erwhelmed that I shall ever lean_ _A thought upon such Hope as daily mocks_.--[MS. erased.]

[86] [For Byron's belief in predestination, compare _Childe Harold_,