The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 476, February 12, 1831

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 476, February 12, 1831
Various

Various

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction / Volume 17, No. 476, February 12, 1831

LORD BYRON'S PALACE, AT VENICE.

Scores of readers who have been journeying through Mr. Moore's concluding portion of the Life of Lord Byron, will thank us for the annexed Illustration. It presents a view of the palace occupied by Lord Byron during his residence at Venice. When, after his unfortunate marriage, he left England, "in search of that peace of mind which was never destined to be his," Venice naturally occurred to him as a place where, for a time at least, he should find a suitable residence. He had, in his own language, "loved it from his boyhood;" and there was a poetry connected with its situation, its habits, and its history, which excited both his imagination and his curiosity. His situation at this period is thus feelingly alluded to by Mr. Moore:—"The circumstances under which Lord Byron now took leave of England were such as, in the case of any ordinary person, could not be considered otherwise than disastrous and humiliating. He had, in the course of one short year, gone through every variety of domestic misery;—had seen his hearth eight or nine times profaned by the visitations of the law, and been only saved from a prison by the privileges of his rank. He had alienated, as far as they had ever been his, the affections of his wife; and now, rejected by her, and condemned by the world, was betaking himself to an exile which had not even the dignity of appearing voluntary, as the excommunicating voice of society seemed to leave him no other resource. Had he been of that class of unfeeling and self-satisfied natures from whose hard surface the reproaches of others fall pointless, he might have found in insensibility a sure refuge against reproach: but, on the contrary, the same sensitiveness that kept him so awake to the applauses of mankind rendered him, in a still more intense degree, alive to their censure. Even the strange, perverse pleasure which he felt in painting himself unamiably to the world did not prevent him from being both startled and pained when the world took him at his word; and, like a child in a mask before a looking-glass, the dark semblance which he had half in sport, put on, when reflected back upon him from the mirror of public opinion, shocked even himself. * * *

"Then came the disappointment of his youthful passion,—the lassitude and remorse of premature excess,—the lone friendlessness of his entrance into life, and the ruthless assault upon his first literary efforts,–all links in that chain of trials, errors, and sufferings, by which his great mind was gradually and painfully drawn out;—all bearing their respective shares in accomplishing that destiny which seems to have decreed that the triumphal march of his genius should be over the waste and ruins of his heart. He appeared, indeed, himself to have had an instinctive consciousness that it was out of such ordeals his strength and glory were to arise, as his whole life was passed in courting agitation and difficulties; and whenever the scenes around him were too tame to furnish such excitement, he flew to fancy or memory for 'thorns' whereon to 'lean his breast.'" At the same time, the melancholy with which his heart was filled was soothed and cherished by the associations which every object in Venice inspired. The prospects of dominion subdued, of a high spirit humbled, of splendour tarnished, of palaces sinking into ruins, was but too faithfully in accordance with the dark and mournful mind which the poet bore within him. Nor were other motives of a nature wholly different wanting to draw him to Venice.[1 - Letter-press of the superb "Landscape Annual" for the present year, whence our Engraving is transferred. The Life of the noble Poet at Venice cannot be better described than in his own Letters, for which see pages 43-82 of the present volume.] How beautifully has the poet illustrated this preference:—

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone—but Beauty still is here.
States fall, hearts fade—but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.
But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away—
The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

Her desolation:—

Statues of glass—all shiver'd—the long file
Of her dead Doges are declined to dust;
But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile
Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust;
Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust;
Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls,
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must
Too oft remind her who and what enthrals,
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls.
Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine,
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot,
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine,
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot
Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
Is shameful to the nations,—most of all,
Albion! to thee; the Ocean queen should not
Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.
I loved her from my boyhood—she to me
Was as a fairy city of the heart,
Rising like water-columns from the sea,
Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart;
And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art
Had stamp'd her image in me, and even so,
Although I found her thus, we did not part,
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe
Than when she was a boast, a marvel and a show.
I can repeople with the past—and of
The present there is still for eye, and thought,
And meditation chasten'd down, enough;
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
And of the happiest moments which were wrought
Within the web of my existence, some
From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught:
There are some feelings Time can not benumb,
Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.

Again, in the notes to Childe Harold, where these spirit-breathing lines occur:

"The population of Venice, at the end of the 17th century amounted to nearly two hundred thousand souls. At the last census, taken two years ago, it was no more than about one hundred and three thousand, and it diminishes daily. The commerce and the official employments, which were to be the unexhausted source of Venetian grandeur, have both expired. Most of the patrician mansions are deserted, and would gradually disappear, had not the government, alarmed by the demolition of seventy-two, during the last two years, expressly forbidden this sad resource of poverty. Many remnants of the Venetian nobility are now scattered and confounded with the wealthier Jews upon the banks of the Brenta, whose palladian palaces, have sunk, or are sinking, in the general decay. Of the 'gentil uomo Veneto,' the name is still known, and that is all. He is but the shadow of his former self, but he is polite and kind. The present race cannot be thought to regret the loss of their aristocratical forms, and too despotic government—they think only on their vanished independence. They pine away at the remembrance, and on this subject suspend for a moment their gay good humour. Venice may be said, in the words of the scripture, 'to die daily;' and so general and so apparent is the decline, as to become painful to a stranger, not reconciled to the sight of a whole nation, expiring as it were before his eyes. So artificial a creation having lost that principle which called it into life and supported its existence, must fall to pieces at once, and sink more rapidly than it rose."

Captain Medwin relates Lord Byron's detestation of Venice in unmeasured terms. He likewise tells of his Lordship performing here one of those aquatic feats in which he greatly prided himself; and the Countess Albrizzi mentions a similar incident: "He was seen, on leaving a palace situated on the grand canal, instead of entering his gondola, to throw himself, with his clothes on, into the water, and swim to his house."

The Countess, who became acquainted with his Lordship at Venice, also narrates a few particulars of the mode in which he passed his time in that city: Amongst his peculiar habits was that of never showing himself on foot. "He was never seen to walk through the streets of Venice, nor along the pleasant banks of the Brenta, where he spent some weeks of the summer; and there are some who assert that he has never seen, excepting from a window, the wonders of the Piazza di San Marco,[2 - From some passages in his Lordship's Letters, this would not appear correct.] so powerful in him was the desire of not showing himself to be deformed in any part of his person. I, however," continues the Countess, "believe that he often gazed on those wonders, but in the late and solitary hour, when the stupendous edifices which surrounded him, illuminated by the soft and placid light of the moon, appeared a thousand times more lovely." "During an entire winter, he went out every morning alone, to row himself to the island of the Armenians (a small island, distant from Venice about half a league), to enjoy the society of those learned and hospitable monks, and to learn their difficult language." During the summer, Lord Byron enjoyed the exercise of riding in the evening. "No sunsets," said he, "are to be compared with those of Venice—they are too gorgeous for any painter, and defy any poet."

NATURE REVIVING

(For the Mirror.)

The rills run free, and fetterless, and strong,
Rejoicing that their icy bonds are broke,
The breeze is burthen'd with the grateful song
Of birds innumerous: who from torpor woke,
Cleave the fine air with renovated stroke.
The teeming earth flings up its budding store
Of herbs, and flow'rs, escaping from the yoke.
That Winter's spell had cast around; and o'er
The clear and sun-lit sky, dark clouds are seen no more.

In woody dells, by shallow brooks that stand,
The modest violet, and primrose pale,
(Like youth just bursting into life,) expand,
And cast their perfumes down the dewy vale,
Till laden seems each bland, yet searching gale
That fans the cheek with odours of the Spring.
All living nature rushes to inhale: