It has been remarked by an anonymous author of Memoirs of Lord Byron, a work written with considerable talent and acumen, that “this is so far from being in character, that it is the very reverse; for whether Tasso was in his senses or not, if his love was sincere, he would have made the object of his affection the sole theme of his meditation, instead of generalising his passion, and talking about the original sympathies of his nature.”  In truth, no poet has better described love than Byron has his own peculiar passion.

His love was passion’s essence—as a tree
   On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame
   Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be
   Thus enamour’d were in him the same.
   But his was not the love of living dame,
   Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,
   But of ideal beauty, which became
   In him existence, and o’erflowing teems
   Along his burning page, distemper’d though it seems.

In tracing the course of Lord Byron’s career, I have not deemed it at all necessary to advert to the instances of his generosity, or to conduct less pleasant to record.  Enough has appeared to show that he was neither deficient in warmth of heart nor in less amiable feelings; but, upon the whole, it is not probable that either in his charities or his pleasures he was greatly different from other young men, though he undoubtedly had a wayward delight in magnifying his excesses, not in what was to his credit, like most men, but in what was calculated to do him no honour.  More notoriety has been given to an instance of lavish liberality at Venice, than the case deserved, though it was unquestionably prompted by a charitable impulse.  The house of a shoemaker, near his Lordship’s residence, in St Samuel, was burned to the ground, with all it contained, by which the proprietor was reduced to indigence.  Byron not only caused a new but a superior house to be erected, and also presented the sufferer with a sum of money equal in value to the whole of his stock in trade and furniture.  I should endanger my reputation for impartiality if I did not, as a fair set-off to this, also mention that it is said he bought for five hundred crowns a baker’s wife.  There might be charity in this, too.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Table of Contents

Removes to Ravenna—The Countess Guiccioli