The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 103

[586] {544}[See _The Dream_, line 127, _et pa.s.sim_, _vide ante_, p. 31, _et sq._]

[587] [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]

[588] {545} [There has been some misunderstanding with regard to this poem. According to the statement of the Countess Guiccioli (see _Works of Lord Byron_, ed. 1832, xii. 14), "Stanzas to the Po" were composed about the middle of April, 1819, "while Lord Byron was actually sailing on the Po," _en route_ from Venice to Ravenna. Medwin, who was the first to publish the lines (_Conversations, etc._, 1824, 410, pp. 24-26), says that they were written when Byron was about to "quit Venice to join" the Countess at Ravenna, and, in a footnote, explains that the river referred to is the Po. Now, if the Countess and Medwin (and Moore, who follows Medwin, _Life_, p. 396) are right, and the river is the Po, the "ancient walls" Ravenna, and the "Lady of the land" the Guiccioli, the stanzas may have been written in June (not April), 1819, possibly at Ferrara, and the river must be the Po di Primaro. Even so, the first line of the first stanza and the third and fourth lines of the ninth stanza require explanation. The Po does not "roll by the ancient walls"

of Ravenna; and how could Byron be at one and the same time "by the source" (stanza 9, line 4), and sailing on the river, or on some ca.n.a.lized tributary or effluent? Be the explanation what it may--and it is possible that the lines were _not_ originally designed for the Countess, but for another "Lady of the land" (see letter to Murray, May 18, 1819)--it may be surmised that "the lines written last year on crossing the Po," the "mere verses of society," which were given to Kinnaird (see letter to Murray, May 8, 1820, and _Conversations of Lord Byron with Lady Blessington_, 1834, p. 143), were not the sombre though pa.s.sionate elegy, "River, that rollest," but the bitter and somewhat cynical rhymes, "Could Love for ever, Run like a river" (_vide post_, p.

549).]

[ib] {546}

_But left long wrecks behind them, and again_.

_Borne on our old unchanged career, we move;_ _Thou tendest wildly onward to the main_.--[Medwin.]

[ic] _I near thy source_----.--[Medwin.]

[id] {547}_A stranger loves a lady_----.--[Medwin.]

[ie] _By the bleak wind_----.--[Medwin.]

[if] _I had not left my clime;--I shall not be_.--[Medwin.]

[589] I wrote this sonnet (after tearing the first) on being repeatedly urged to do so by the Countess G. [It was at the house of the Marquis Cavalli, uncle to the countess, that Byron appeared in the part of a fully-recognized "Cicisbeo."--See letter to Hoppner, December 31, 1819, _Letters, 1900_, iv. 393.]

[ig] {548}_To the Prince Regent on the repeal of the bill of attainder against Lord E. Fitzgerald, June, 1819._

[ih] _To leave_----.--[MS. M.]

[ii] _Who_ NOW _would lift a hand_----.--[MS. M.]

[ij]

----_becomes but more complete_ _Thyself a despot_----.--[MS. M.]

[590] ["So the prince has been repealing Lord Fitzgerald's forfeiture?

_Ecco un' Sonetto!_ There, you dogs! there's a Sonnet for you: you won't have such as that in a hurry from Mr. Fitzgerald. You may publish it with my name, an ye wool. He deserves all praise, bad and good; it was a very n.o.ble piece of princ.i.p.ality."--Letter to Murray, August 12, 1819.

For [William Thomas] Fitgerald, see _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 297, note 3; for Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763-1798), see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 345, note 1. The royal a.s.sent was given to a bill for "restoring Edward Fox Fitzgerald and his sisters Pamela and Lucy to their blood," July 13, 1819. The sonnet was addressed to George IV. when Prince Regent. The t.i.tle, "To George the Fourth," affixed in 1831, is incorrect.]

[591] {549}["A friend of Lord Byron's, who was with him at Ravenna when he wrote these stanzas, says, They were composed, like many others, with no view of publication, but merely to relieve himself in a moment of suffering. He had been painfully excited by some circ.u.mstances which appeared to make it necessary that he should immediately quit Italy; and in the day and the hour that he wrote the song was labouring under an access of fever" (_Works_, 1832, xii. 317, note 1). Here, too, there is some confusion of dates and places. Byron was at Venice, not at Ravenna, December 1, 1819, when these lines were composed. They were sent, as Lady Blessington testifies, to Kinnaird, and are probably identical with the "mere verses of society," mentioned in the letter to Murray of May 8, 1820. The last stanza reflects the mood of a letter to the Countess Guiccioli, dated November 25 (1819), "I go to save you, and leave a country insupportable to me without you" (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 379, note 2).]

[ik] _And as a treasure_.--[MS. Guiccioli.]

[il] {550}

_Through every weather_ _We pluck_.--[MS. G.]

[im]

_He'll sadly s.h.i.+ver_ _And droop for ever,_ _Shorn of the plumage which sped his spring_.--[MS. G.]

[in] ----_that sped his Spring_.--[MS. G.]

[io] {551}

_His reign is finished_ _One last embrace, then, and bid good-night_.--[MS. G.]

[ip]

_You have not waited_ _Till tired and hated_ _All pa.s.sions sated_.--[MS. G.]

[iq] {552}_True separations_.--[MS. G.]

[ir] {555}_The enclosed lines, as you will directly perceive, are written by the Rev. W. L. Bowles. Of course it is for him to deny them, if they are not_.--[_Letter to Moore, September_ 17, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 364.]

[592] [A few days before Byron enclosed these lines in a letter to Moore (September 17, 1821) he had written to Murray (September 12): "If ever I _do_ return to England ... I will write a poem to which _English Bards, etc._, shall be New Milk, in comparison. Your present literary world of mountebanks stands in need of such an Avatar." Hence the somewhat ambiguous t.i.tle. The word "Avatar" is not only applied ironically to George IV. as the "Messiah of Royalty," but metaphorically to the poem, which would descend in the "Capacity of Preserver" (see Sir W. Jones, _Asiatic Research_, i. 234).

The "fury" which sent Byron into this "lawless conscription of rhythmus," was inspired partly by an ungenerous attack on Moore, which appeared in the pages of _John Bull_ ("Thomas Moore is not likely to fall in the way of knighthood ... being public defaulter in his office to a large amount.... [August 5]. It is true that we cannot from principle esteem the writer of the _Twopenny Postbag_.... It is equally true that we shrink from the profligacy," etc., August 12, 1821); and, partly, by the servility of the Irish, who had welcomed George IV. with an outburst of enthusiastic loyalty, when he entered Dublin in triumph within ten days of the death of Queen Caroline. The _Morning Chronicle_, August 8-August 18, 1821, prints effusive leading articles, edged with black borders, on the Queen's illness, death, funeral procession, etc., over against a column (in small type) headed "The King in Dublin."

Byron's satire is a running comment on the pages of the _Morning Chronicle_. Moore was in Paris at the time, being, as _John Bull_ said, "obliged to live out of England," and Byron gave him directions that twenty copies of the _Irish Avatar_ "should be carefully and privately printed off." Medwin says that Byron gave him "a printed copy," but his version (see _Conversations_, 1824, pp. 332-338), doubtless for prudential reasons, omits twelve of the more libellous stanzas. The poem as a whole was not published in England till 1831, when "George the despised" was gone to his account. According to Crabb Robinson (_Diary_, 1869, ii. 437), Goethe said that "Byron's verses on George IV. (_Query?

The Irish Avatar_) were the sublime of hatred."]

[593] {556}[The Queen died on the night (10.20 p.m.) of Tuesday, August 7. The King entered Dublin in state Friday, August 17. The vessel bearing the Queen's remains sailed from Harwich on the morning of Sat.u.r.day, August 18, 1821.]

[is] ----_such a hero becomes_.--[MS. M.]

[594] ["Seven covered waggons arrived at the Castle (August 3). They were laden with plate.... Upwards of forty men cooks will be employed."--_Morning Chronicle_, August 8.]

[it] {557}_To enact in the pageant_----.-[MS. M.]

[595] ["Never did I witness such enthusiasm.... Cheer followed cheer--and shout followed shout ... accompanied by exclamation of 'G.o.d bless King George IV.!' 'Welcome, welcome, ten thousand times to these sh.o.r.es!'"--_Morning Chronicle_, August 16.]

[596] {558}["After the stanza on Grattan, ... will it please you to cause insert the following Addenda, which I dreamed of during to-day's Siesta."--Letter to Moore, September 20, 1821.]

[iu] _Aye! back to our theme_----.--[Medwin]

[iv] _Kiss his foot, with thy blessing, for blessings denied!_--[Medwin.]

[iw] _Or if freedom_----.--[Medwin.]

[597] {559}["The Earl of Fingall (Arthur James Plunkett, K.P., eighth earl, d. 1836), the leading Catholic n.o.bleman, is to be created a Knight of St. Patrick."--_Morning Chronicle_, August 18.]

[ix] _Wear Fingal thy ribbon_----.--[MS. M.]

[iy] _And the King is no scoundrel--whatever the Prince_.--[MS. M.]

[598] [There was talk of a testimonial being presented to the King.

O'Connell suggested that if possible it should take the form of "a palace, to which not only the rank around him could contribute, but to the erection of which every peasant could from his cottage contribute his humble mite."--_Morning Chronicle_, August 18.]

[iz] _Till proudly the new_----.--[MS. M.]