CHAPTER XIV.

Extracts from other Letters and authentic Documents, containing Lord Byron's Opinions of the different foreign Countries through which he travelled.—The Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants;-Eminent Persons, &c. &c.-Foreigners prejudiced against him by Glenarvon.-Switzerland.-Original poetical Effusion inscribed in the Album, at Mont Auvert.Milan.-Ferrara.-Venice.-Rome.-Canova, Sgricci.--Rome an unhealthy Spot.-Ravenna. Florence.-Alfieri.-Fiesole, celebrated by Boccacio, Milton, and Galileo.-Thoughts on the Regeneration of Italy.

IN proportion as Lord Byron's character was blazed over Europe as the first poet of the age, so were the reports to the discredit of his morals circulated and read with avidity. When it was known that he had again left his country, and was arrived in Switzerland, every eye was strained to get a peep at so strange a compound of talents and vice, as they deemed the hero of that absurd, malignant, and mendacious novel, "Glenarron," to be, yet all fled away at his approach, as dreading contagion. Even the strong mind of Madame de Staël was at first shaken, until, finding from frequent communications, that the Bard was not the Monster he had been represented to be, she not only did him justice herself, but endeavoured to

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efface the injurious impressions from the minds of others. Such a state of things, however, could not be pleasant, or even tolerable, to a mind constituted as Byron's was. Switzerland," said he, "is a country that I have been satisfied with seeing once." It was not the country, but the manners of the people that he disliked. There cannot be a more mistaken idea than that Switzerland is a land of liberty. At Geneva and Berne there are 400 surveillans, or petty tyrants, who, to make a parade of their power, are taking offence at every trifle, and making every one an object of persecution. The prudery of the women is, besides, incredible and truly ridiculous. They address the same round of formalities, or what they mistake for compliments, to every one they meet, and would think their virtue in danger, or at least decorum violated, if they deviated from this dull routine in which they are trained from the nursery. There is nothing of that natural manner, that easy vivacity, and social intercourse, that form the charm of society; all is frigidity, and even English prudery vanishes to air before it. It may readily be supposed that such a state of society was not suited to Byron's taste. "I knew very few of the Genevese." said he, "Polidori once asked a couple of the Professors to dine with me. I had gone out to sail early in the morning, and the wind prevented my returning in time for his engagement. Polidori did the honours in my stead; but I was given to understand that I had mortally, though unintentionally,

I saw.

MADAME DE STAEL'S COTERIE.

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offended these guests. Among our countrymen I made no new acquaintances. Shelley, Monk Lewis, and Hobhouse, were almost the only English people No wonder; I shewed a distaste for society at that time, and went little among the Genevese; besides I could not speak French. Who would wish to make a show-bear of himself, and dance to whatever tune any fool likes to play? Madame de Staël said, I think, speaking of Goëthe, that people who did not wish to be judged by what they said, did not deserve that the world should trouble itself about what they said. She herself was tormented with a most insatiable desire for talking and shining. If she had talked less, she might have written more and better. For me, it is indifferent what the world says or thinks of me. Let them know me from my works. I do not shine in conversation."

Had Byron felt an inclination for society, never was there a fairer opportunity to have indulged it. There were at that time 500 or 600 persons, many of them the most distinguished in Europe for titles, wealth, and talents, who were all to be met with in the drawing-room at Copet; Mesdames de Staël, Necker, Saussure, de Broglie, &c. &c. &c.; Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr. Brougham, Lord Byron, Shelley, Hobhouse, Monk Lewis, Bonstetten, Dumont, Prevot, Pictet, de Breme, Schlezel, &c. &c.&c. formed an assemblage of characters, such as, perhaps, never was, and never will be again gathered together, around the shores of the Lake of Ge

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MADAME DE STAEL'S CHARACTER.

neva, all playing, like so many planets, around Madame de Staël, their sun, of whom Byron draws the following portrait :

"Madame de Staël had great talent in conversation, and an uncommon flow of speech. It was once said of a large party that were all trying to shine- There is not one who can go home and think.' Such was not her case. She was often troublesome; some thought her rude in her questions; but she never offended me, because I knew that her inquisitiveness did not proceed from idle curiosity, but from a wish to sift characters. Women never see consequences-never look at things straight forward, or as they ought. Like figurantes at the opera, they make a hundred pirouettes and return to where they set out. With Madame de Staël this was sometimes the case. She was very indefinite and vague in her manner of expression. In endeavouring to be novel, she was often obscure, and sometimes unintelligible. What did she mean by saying that Napoleon was a system, and not a man? Napoleon mortally wounded her vanity by his expression of 'Gardez vos enfans; but I cannot believe he persecuted her, as she was always saying, or that he deemed her of sufficient importance to be dangerous. Like me, he had too great a contempt for women; he treated them as puppets, and thought he could make them dance at any time by pulling the wires. He was his own antithesis: but a glorious tyrant withal. Look at his public works; compare his

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face, on his coins, with those of other sovereigns of Europe. And yet I blame the manner of his death; he shewed that he possessed much of the Italian character in consenting to live. There he lost himself in his dramatic character, in my estimation. He should have gone off the stage like a hero, as was expected of him; he should have died on the field of battle.* Perhaps that was what Madame de Staël meant, or something like it. She was always aiming to be brilliant-to produce an effect, no matter how. She wished to make all her ideas, like figures in the modern French school of painting, prominent and showy, standing out of the canvass, and glittering with light. She was vain, but who has an excuse for vanity, if she had not?"

The following poetical effusion was written by Lord Byron, in the Travellers' Album," at the valley of Chamouni, in Switzerland. Some person, possessed of more curiosity than correctness of principle, had torn out the leaf of the book on which it was inscribed; but the lines having been copied by some Englishman, were re-written

* It was from the deck of the Northumberland, on his passage to St. Helena, that Napoleon last saw his beloved France. As the land he had swayed so long glided from his steadfastly fixed eye, gazing with affection on its shores, and wrapped in the deepest thought, he bade it adieu; then turning to the generals who shared his captivity, he spoke of his unjustifiable exile, adding, that many, under similar circumstances, would commit suicide, but, exclaimed he-" Je ferai plus !Je vivrai !"