LETTER 522. TO LADY ——.

"May 17. 1823.

"My voyage to Greece will depend upon the Greek Committee (in England) partly, and partly on the instructions which some persons now in Greece on a private mission may be pleased to send me. I am a member, lately elected, of the said Committee; and my object in going up would be to do any little good in my power;—but as there are some pros and cons on the subject, with regard to how far the intervention of strangers may be advisable, I know no more than I tell you; but we shall probably hear something soon from England and Greece, which may be more decisive.

"With regard to the late person (Lord Londonderry), whom you hear that I have attacked, I can only say that a bad minister's memory is as much an object of investigation as his conduct while alive,—for his measures do not die with him like a private individual's notions. He is a matter of history; and, wherever I find a tyrant or a villain, I will mark him. I attacked him no more than I had been wont to do. As to the Liberal,—it was a publication set up for the advantage of a persecuted author and a very worthy man. But it was foolish in me to engage in it; and so it has turned out—for I have hurt myself without doing much good to those for whose benefit it was intended.

"Do not defend me—it will never do—you will only make yourself enemies.

"Mine are neither to be diminished nor softened, but they may be overthrown; and there are events which may occur, less improbable than those which have happened in our time, that may reverse the present state of things—nous verrons.

"I send you this gossip that you may laugh at it, which is all it is good for, if it is even good for so much. I shall be delighted to see you again; but it will be melancholy, should it be only for a moment.

"Ever yours, N. B."

It being now decided that Lord Byron should proceed forthwith to Greece, all the necessary preparations for his departure were hastened. One of his first steps was to write to Mr. Trelawney, who was then at Rome, to request that he would accompany him. "You must have heard," he says, "that I am going to Greece—why do you not come to me? I can do nothing without you, and am exceedingly anxious to see you. Pray, come, for I am at last determined to go to Greece:—it is the only place I was ever contented in. I am serious; and did not write before, as I might have given you a journey for nothing. They all say I can be of use to Greece; I do not know how—nor do they; but, at all events, let us go."

A physician, acquainted with surgery, being considered a necessary part of his suite, he requested of his own medical attendant at Genoa, Dr. Alexander, to provide him with such a person; and, on the recommendation of this gentleman, Dr. Bruno, a young man who had just left the university with considerable reputation, was engaged. Among other preparations for his expedition, he ordered three splendid helmets to be made,—with his never forgotten crest engraved upon them,—for himself and the two friends who were to accompany him. In this little circumstance, which in England (where the ridiculous is so much better understood than the heroic) excited some sneers at the time, we have one of the many instances that occur amusingly through his life, to confirm the quaint but, as applied to him, true observation, that "the child is father to the man;"—the characteristics of these two periods of life being in him so anomalously transposed, that while the passions and ripened views of the man developed themselves in his boyhood, so the easily pleased fancies and vanities of the boy were for ever breaking out among the most serious moments of his manhood. The same schoolboy whom we found, at the beginning of the first volume, boasting of his intention to raise, at some future time, a troop of horse in black armour, to be called Byron's Blacks, was now seen trying on with delight his fine crested helmet, and anticipating the deeds of glory he was to achieve under its plumes.

At the end of May a letter arrived from Mr. Blaquiere communicating to him very favourable intelligence, and requesting that he would as much as possible hasten his departure, as he was now anxiously looked for, and would be of the greatest service. However encouraging this summons, and though Lord Byron, thus called upon from all sides, had now determined to give freely the aid which all deemed so essential, it is plain from his letters that, in the cool, sagacious view which he himself took of the whole subject, so far from agreeing with these enthusiasts in their high estimate of his personal services, he had not yet even been able to perceive any definite way in which those services could, with any prospect of permanent utility, be applied.

For an insight into the true state of his mind at this crisis, the following observations of one who watched him with eyes quickened by anxiety will be found, perhaps, to afford the clearest and most certain clue. "At this time," says the Contessa Guiccioli, "Lord Byron again turned his thoughts to Greece; and, excited on every side by a thousand combining circumstances, found himself, almost before he had time to form a decision, or well know what he was doing, obliged to set out for that country. But, notwithstanding his affection for those regions,—notwithstanding the consciousness of his own moral energies, which made him say always that 'a man ought to do something more for society than write verses,'—notwithstanding the attraction which the object of this voyage must necessarily have for his noble mind, and that, moreover, he was resolved to return to Italy within a few months,—notwithstanding all this, every person who was near him at the time can bear witness to the struggle which his mind underwent (however much he endeavoured to hide it), as the period fixed for his departure approached."[1]

[Footnote 1: "Fu allora che Lord Byron rivolse i suoi pensieri alla Grecia; e stimolato poi da ogni parte per mille combinazioni egli si trovo quasi senza averlo deciso, e senza saperlo, obbligato di partire per la Grecia. Ma, non ostante il suo affetto per quelle contrade,—non ostante il sentimento delle sue forze morali che gli faceva dire sempre 'che un uomo e obbligato a fare per la societa qualche cosa di piu che dei versi,—non ostante le attrative che doveva avere pel nobile suo animo l'oggetto di que viaggio,—e non ostante che egli fosse determinato di ritornare in Italia fra non molti mesi,—pure in quale combattimento si trovasse il suo cuore mentre si avvanzava l'epoca della sua parenza (sebbene cercasse occultarlo) ognuno che lo ha avvicinato allora puù dirlo."]

In addition to the vagueness which this want of any defined object so unsatisfactorily threw round the enterprise before him, he had also a sort of ominous presentiment—natural, perhaps, to one of his temperament under such circumstances—that he was but fulfilling his own doom in this expedition, and should die in Greece. On the evening before the departure of his friends, Lord and Lady B——, from Genoa, he called upon them for the purpose of taking leave, and sat conversing for some time. He was evidently in low spirits, and after expressing his regret that they should leave Genoa before his own time of sailing, proceeded to speak of his intended voyage in a tone full of despondence. "Here," said he, "we are all now together—but when, and where, shall we meet again? I have a sort of boding that we see each other for the last time; as something tells me I shall never again return from Greece." Having continued a little longer in this melancholy strain, he leaned his head upon the arm of the sofa on which they were seated, and, bursting into tears, wept for some minutes with uncontrollable feeling. Though he had been talking only with Lady B——, all who were present in the room observed, and were affected by his emotion, while he himself, apparently ashamed of his weakness, endeavoured to turn off attention from it by some ironical remark, spoken with a sort of hysterical laugh, upon the effects of "nervousness."

He had, previous to this conversation, presented to each of the party some little farewell gift—a book to one, a print from his bust by Bartolini to another, and to Lady B—— a copy of his Armenian Grammar, which had some manuscript remarks of his own on the leaves. In now parting with her, having begged, as a memorial, some trifle which she had worn, the lady gave him one of her rings; in return for which he took a pin from his breast, containing a small cameo of Napoleon, which he said had long been his companion, and presented it to her Ladyship.

The next day Lady B—— received from him the following note.