Life of Lord Byron Volume I Part 23

"BYRON."

LETTER 43.

TO MR. HODGSON.

"Salsette frigate, in the Dardanelles, off Abydos, May 5. 1810.

"I am on my way to Constantinople, after a tour through Greece, Epirus, &c., and part of Asia Minor, some particulars of which I have just communicated to our friend and host, H. Drury. With these, then, I shall not trouble you; but as you will perhaps be pleased to hear that I am well, &c., I take the opportunity of our amba.s.sador's return to forward the few lines I have time to despatch. We have undergone some inconveniences, and incurred partial perils, but no events worthy of communication, unless you will deem it one that two days ago I swam from Sestos to Abydos. This, with a few alarms from robbers, and some danger of s.h.i.+pwreck in a Turkish galliot six months ago, a visit to a Pacha, a pa.s.sion for a married woman at Malta, a challenge to an officer, an attachment to three Greek girls at Athens, with a great deal of buffoonery and fine prospects, form all that has distinguished my progress since my departure from Spain.

"H. rhymes and journalises; I stare and do nothing--unless smoking can be deemed an active amus.e.m.e.nt. The Turks take too much care of their women to permit them to be scrutinised; but I have lived a good deal with the Greeks, whose modern dialect I can converse in enough for my purposes. With the Turks I have also some male acquaintances--female society is out of the question. I have been very well treated by the Pachas and Governors, and have no complaint to make of any kind.

Hobhouse will one day inform you of all our adventures,--were I to attempt the recital, neither _my_ paper nor _your_ patience would hold out during the operation.

"n.o.body, save yourself, has written to me since I left England; but indeed I did not request it. I except my relations, who write quite as often as I wish. Of Hobhouse's volume I know nothing, except that it is out; and of my second edition I do not even know _that_, and certainly do not, at this distance, interest myself in the matter. I hope you and Bland roll down the stream of sale with rapidity.

"Of my return I cannot positively speak, but think it probable Hobhouse will precede me in that respect. We have been very nearly one year abroad. I should wish to gaze away another, at least, in these ever-green climates; but I fear business, law business, the worst of employments, will recall me previous to that period, if not very quickly. If so, you shall have due notice.

"I hope you will find me an altered personage,--do not mean in body, but in manner, for I begin to find out that nothing but virtue will do in this d----d world. I am tolerably sick of vice, which I have tried in its agreeable varieties, and mean, on my return, to cut all my dissolute acquaintance, leave off wine and carnal company, and betake myself to politics and decorum. I am very serious and cynical, and a good deal disposed to moralise; but fortunately for you the coming homily is cut off by default of pen and defection of paper.

"Good morrow! If you write, address to me at Malta, whence your letters will be forwarded. You need not remember me to any body, but believe me yours with all faith,

"BYRON."

From Constantinople, where he arrived on the 14th of May, he addressed four or five letters to Mrs. Byron, in almost every one of which his achievement in swimming across the h.e.l.lespont is commemorated. The exceeding pride, indeed, which he took in this cla.s.sic feat (the particulars of which he has himself abundantly detailed) may be cited among the instances of that boyishness of character, which he carried with him so remarkably into his maturer years, and which, while it puzzled distant observers of his conduct, was not among the least amusing or attaching of his peculiarities to those who knew him intimately. So late as eleven years from this period, when some sceptical traveller ventured to question, after all, the practicability of Leander's exploit, Lord Byron, with that jealousy on the subject of his own personal prowess which he retained from boyhood, entered again, with fresh zeal, into the discussion, and brought forward two or three other instances of his own feats in swimming,[137] to corroborate the statement originally made by him.

In one of these letters to his mother from Constantinople, dated May 24th, after referring, as usual, to his notable exploit, "in humble imitation of Leander, of amorous memory, though," he adds, "I had no Hero to receive me on the other side of the h.e.l.lespont," he continues thus:--

"When our amba.s.sador takes his leave I shall accompany him to see the sultan, and afterwards probably return to Greece. I have heard nothing of Mr. Hanson but one remittance, without any letter from that legal gentleman. If you have occasion for any pecuniary supply, pray use my funds as far as they _go_ without reserve; and, lest this should not be enough, in my next to Mr. Hanson I will direct him to advance any sum you may want, leaving it to your discretion how much, in the present state of my affairs, you may think proper to require. I have already seen the most interesting parts of Turkey in Europe and Asia Minor, but shall not proceed further till I hear from England: in the mean time I shall expect occasional supplies, according to circ.u.mstances; and shall pa.s.s my summer amongst my friends, the Greeks of the Morea."

He then adds, with his usual kind solicitude about his favourite servants:--

"Pray take care of my boy Robert, and the old man Murray. It is fortunate they returned; neither the youth of the one, nor the age of the other, would have suited the changes of climate, and fatigue of travelling."

LETTER 44.

TO MR. HENRY DRURY.

"Constantinople, June 17. 1810.

"Though I wrote to you so recently, I break in upon you again to congratulate you on a child being born, as a letter from Hodgson apprizes me of that event, in which I rejoice.

"I am just come from an expedition through the Bosphorus to the Black Sea and the Cyanean Symplegades, up which last I scrambled with as great risk as ever the Argonauts escaped in their hoy. You remember the beginning of the nurse's dole in the Medea, of which I beg you to take the following translation, done on the summit:--

"Oh how I wish that an embargo Had kept in port the good s.h.i.+p Argo!

Who, still unlaunch'd from Grecian docks, Had never pa.s.sed the Azure rocks; But now I fear her trip will be a d.a.m.n'd business for my Miss Medea, &c. &c.,

as it very nearly was to me;--for, had not this sublime pa.s.sage been in my head, I should never have dreamed of ascending the said rocks, and bruising my carca.s.s in honour of the ancients.

"I have now sat on the Cyaneans, swam from Sestos to Abydos (as I trumpeted in my last), and, after pa.s.sing through the Morea again, shall set sail for Santo Maura, and toss myself from the Leucadian promontory;--surviving which operation, I shall probably join you in England. H., who will deliver this, is bound straight for these parts; and, as he is bursting with his travels, I shall not antic.i.p.ate his narratives, but merely beg you not to believe one word he says, but reserve your ear for me, if you have any desire to be acquainted with the truth.

"I am bound for Athens once more, and thence to the Morea; but my stay depends so much on my caprice, that I can say nothing of its probable duration. I have been out a year already, and may stay another; but I am quicksilver, and say nothing positively. We are all very much occupied doing nothing, at present. We have seen every thing but the mosques, which we are to view with a firman on Tuesday next. But of these and other sundries let H. relate with this proviso, that _I_ am to be referred to for authenticity; and I beg leave to contradict all those things whereon he lays particular stress. But, if he soars at any time into wit, I give you leave to applaud, because that is necessarily stolen from his fellow-pilgrim. Tell Davies that H. has made excellent use of his best jokes in many of his Majesty's s.h.i.+ps of war; but add, also, that I always took care to restore them to the right owner; in consequence of which he (Davies) is no less famous by water than by land, and reigns unrivalled in the cabin as in the 'Cocoa Tree.'

"And Hodgson has been publis.h.i.+ng more poesy--I wish he would send me his 'Sir Edgar,' and 'Bland's Anthology,' to Malta, where they will be forwarded. In my last, which I hope you received, I gave an outline of the ground we have covered. If you have not been overtaken by this despatch, H.'s tongue is at your service. Remember me to Dwyer, who owes me eleven guineas. Tell him to put them in my banker's hands at Gibraltar or Constantinople. I believe he paid them once, but that goes for nothing, as it was an annuity.

"I wish you would write. I have heard from Hodgson frequently. Malta is my post-office. I mean to be with you by next Montem. You remember the last,--I hope for such another; but after having swam across the 'broad h.e.l.lespont,' I disdain Datchett.[138] Good afternoon!

I am yours, very sincerely,

"BYRON."

About ten days after the date of this letter, we find another addressed to Mrs. Byron, which--with much that is merely a repet.i.tion of what he had detailed in former communications--contains also a good deal worthy of being extracted.

LETTER 45.

TO MRS. BYRON.

"Dear Mother,

"Mr. Hobhouse, who will forward or deliver this and is on his return to England, can inform you of our different movements, but I am very uncertain as to my own return. He will probably be down in Notts, some time or other; but Fletcher, whom I send back as an inc.u.mbrance (English servants are sad travellers), will supply his place in the interim, and describe our travels, which have been tolerably extensive.

"I remember Mahmout Pacha, the grandson of Ali Pacha, at Yanina, (a little fellow of ten years of age, with large black eyes, which our ladies would purchase at any price, and those regular features which distinguish the Turks,) asked me how I came to travel so young, without anybody to take care of me. This question was put by the little man with all the gravity of threescore. I cannot now write copiously; I have only time to tell you that I have pa.s.sed many a fatiguing, but never a tedious moment; and all that I am afraid of is that I shall contract a gipsylike wandering disposition, which will make home tiresome to me: this, I am told, is very common with men in the habit of peregrination, and, indeed, I feel it so. On the third of May I swam from _Sestos_ to _Abydos_. You know the story of Leander, but I had no _Hero_ to receive me at landing.

"I have been in all the princ.i.p.al mosques by the virtue of a firman: this is a favour rarely permitted to infidels, but the amba.s.sador's departure obtained it for us. I have been up the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, round the walls of the city, and, indeed, I know more of it by sight than I do of London. I hope to amuse you some winter's evening with the details, but at present you must excuse me;--I am not able to write long letters in June. I return to spend my summer in Greece.

"F. is a poor creature, and requires comforts that I can dispense with. He is very sick of his travels, but you must not believe his account of the country. He sighs for ale, and idleness, and a wife, and the devil knows what besides. I have not been disappointed or disgusted. I have lived with the highest and the lowest. I have been for days in a Pacha's palace, and have pa.s.sed many a night in a cowhouse, and I find the people inoffensive and kind. I have also pa.s.sed some time with the princ.i.p.al Greeks in the Morea and Livadia, and, though inferior to the Turks, they are better than the Spaniards, who, in their turn, excel the Portuguese. Of Constantinople you will find many descriptions in different travels; but Lady Wortley errs strangely when she says, 'St. Paul's would cut a strange figure by St.

Sophia's.' I have been in both, surveyed them inside and out attentively. St. Sophia's is undoubtedly the most interesting from its immense antiquity, and the circ.u.mstance of all the Greek emperors, from Justinian, having been crowned there, and several murdered at the altar, besides the Turkish sultans who attend it regularly. But it is inferior in beauty and size to some of the mosques, particularly 'Soleyman,' &c., and not to be mentioned in the same page with St.

Paul's (I speak like a _c.o.c.kney_). However, I prefer the Gothic cathedral of Seville to St. Paul's, St. Sophia's, and any religious building I have ever seen.

"The walls of the Seraglio are like the walls of Newstead gardens, only higher, and much in the same order; but the ride by the walls of the city, on the land side, is beautiful. Imagine four miles of immense triple battlements, covered with ivy, surmounted with 218 towers, and, on the other side of the road, Turkish burying-grounds (the loveliest spots on earth), full of enormous cypresses. I have seen the ruins of Athens, of Ephesus, and Delphi. I have traversed great part of Turkey, and many other parts of Europe, and some of Asia; but I never beheld a work of nature or art which yielded an impression like the prospect on each side from the Seven Towers to the end of the Golden Horn.

"Now for England. I am glad to hear of the progress of 'English Bards,' &c.;--of course, you observed I have made great additions to the new edition. Have you received my picture from Sanders, Vigo Lane, London? It was finished and paid for long before I left England: pray, send for it. You seem to be a mighty reader of magazines: where do you pick up all this intelligence, quotations, &c. &c.? Though I was happy to obtain my seat without the a.s.sistance of Lord Carlisle, I had no measures to keep with a man who declined interfering as my relation on that occasion, and I have done with him, though I regret distressing Mrs. Leigh, poor thing!--I hope she is happy.

"It is my opinion that Mr. B---- ought to marry Miss R----. Our first duty is not to do evil; but, alas! that is impossible: our next is to repair it, if in our power. The girl is his equal: if she were his inferior, a sum of money and provision for the child would be some, though a poor, compensation: as it is, he should marry her. I will have no gay deceivers on my estate, and I shall not allow my tenants a privilege I do not permit myself--_that_ of debauching each other's daughters. G.o.d knows, I have been guilty of many excesses; but, as I have laid down a resolution to reform, and lately kept it, I expect this Lothario to follow the example, and begin by restoring this girl to society, or, by the beard of my father! he shall hear of it. Pray take some notice of Robert, who will miss his master: poor boy, he was very unwilling to return. I trust you are well and happy. It will be a pleasure to hear from you.

Believe me yours very sincerely,

"BYRON.

"P.S.--How is Joe Murray?

"P.S.--I open my letter again to tell you that Fletcher having pet.i.tioned to accompany me into the Morea, I have taken him with me, contrary to the intention expressed in my letter."