1821.]

PRESENTIMENT OF EVIL.

401

I am just setting off for Pisa.1

Favour the enclosed to Mr. Moore.

Address to Pisa.

1. Moore (Life, p. 538) quotes Countess Guiccioli's account of Byron's reluctance to leave Ravenna. "Egli era partito con molto "riverescimento da Ravenna, e col pressentimento che la sua "partenza da Ravenna ci sarebbe cagione di molti mali. In ogni "lettera che egli mi scriveva allora egli mi esprimeva il suo dis"piacere di lasciare Ravenna. Se papà è richiamato (mi scriveva "egli) io torno in quel istante a Ravenna, e se è richiamato prima "della mia partenza, io non parto. In questa speranza egli differ! "varii mesi a partire. Ma, finalmente, non potendo più sperare il "nostro ritorno prossimo, egli mi scriveva-'Io parto molto mal "volontieri prevedendo dei mali assai grandi per voi altri e massimo "per voi ; altro non dico,-lo vedrete.' E in un altra lettera, 'Io "lascio Ravenna così mal volontieri, e così persuaso che la mia "partenza non può che condurre da un male ad un altro più grande "che non ho cuore di scrivere altro in questo punto.' Egli mi "scriveva allora sempre in Italiano e trascrivo le sue precise parole -ma come quei suoi pressentimenti si verificarono poi in appresso!" Of this passage Moore (ibid., pp. 538, 539) gives the following translation :

66

"He left Ravenna with great regret, and with a presentiment "that his departure would be the forerunner of a thousand evils to 66 us. In every letter he then wrote to me, he expressed his displeasure at this step. If your father should be recalled,' he said, "I immediately return to Ravenna; and if he is recalled previous "to my departure, I remain.' In this hope he delayed his journey "for several months; but at last, no longer having any expectation "of our immediate return, he wrote to me, saying, 'I set out most "unwillingly, foreseeing the most evil results for all of you, and "principally for yourself. I say no more, but you will see.' "And in another letter he says, 'I leave Ravenna so unwillingly, "and with such a persuasion on my mind that my departure will "lead from one misery to another, each greater than the former, that "I have not the heart to utter another word on the subject.' He "always wrote to me at that time in Italian, and I transcribe his "exact words. How entirely were these presentiments verified by "the event!"

Another passage from Countess Guiccioli's letter, of which the original has been lost, is given by Moore (ibid., p. 539)—

"This sort of simple life he led until the fatal day of his departure "for Greece, and the few variations he made from it may be said to "have arisen solely from the greater or smaller number of occasions "which were offered him of doing good, and from the generous "actions he was continually performing. Many families (in Ravenna "principally) owed to him the few prosperous days they ever en"joyed. His arrival in that town was spoken of as a piece of

VOL. V.

2 D

"public good fortune, and his departure as a public calamity; and "this is the life which many attempted to asperse as that of a liber"tine! But the world must at last learn how, with so good and 'generous a heart, Lord Byron, susceptible, it is true, of the most energetic passions, yet, at the same time, of the sublimest and "most pure, and rendering homage in his acts to every virtue—how "he, I say, could afford such scope to malice and to calumny. "Circumstances, and also, probably, an eccentricity of disposition "(which, nevertheless, had its origin in a virtuous feeling, an exces"sive abhorrence for hypocrisy and affectation), contributed, perhaps, "to cloud the splendour of his exalted nature in the opinion of many. But you will well know how to analyse these contra"dictions in a manner worthy of your noble friend and of yourself, "and you will prove that the goodness of his heart was not inferior "to the grandeur of his genius."

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1821.] ITALY REPLUNGED INTO BARBARISM.

403

CHAPTER XXIII.

"MY DICTIONARY," MAY, 1821-DETACHED THOUGHTS,1 OCTOBER 15, 1821-MAY 18, 1822.

Ravenna, May 1st 1821.

AMONGST various journals, memoranda, diaries, etc., which I have kept in the course of my living, I began one about three months ago, and carried it on till I had filled one paper-book (thinnish), and two sheets or so of another. I then left off, partly because I thought we should have some business here, and I had furbished up my arms, and got my apparatus ready for taking a turn with the Patriots, having my drawers full of their proclamations, oaths, and resolutions, and my lower rooms of their hidden weapons of most calibres; and partly because I had filled my paper book. But the Neapolitans have betrayed themselves and all the World, and those who would have given their blood for Italy can now only give her their tears.

Some day or other, if dust holds together, I have been enough in the Secret (at least in this part of the country) to cast perhaps some little light upon the atrocious treachery which has replunged Italy into Barbarism. At present I have neither the time nor the

1. In this and previous editions copious extracts have been made from Byron's Detached Thoughts. But the original manuscript is here, for the first time, given in its entirety. The volume bears the inscription "Paper Book of G.G.B, Lo B-. Ravenna, 1821."

temper. However, the real Italians are not to blame -merely the scoundrels at the Heel of the Boot, which the Hun now wears, and will trample them to ashes with for their Servility.

I have risked myself with the others here, and how far I may or may not be compromised is a problem at this moment: some of them like "Craigengelt" would "tell all and more than all to save themselves;" but, come what may, the cause was a glorious one, though it reads at present as if the Greeks had run away from Xerxes.

Happy the few who have only to reproach themselves with believing that these rascals were less rascaille than they proved. Here in Romagna the efforts were necessarily limited to preparations and good intentions, until the Germans were fairly engaged in equal warfare, as we are upon their very frontiers without a single fort, or hill, nearer than San Marino. Whether "Hell will be paved "with" those "good intentions," I know not; but there will probably be good store of Neapolitans to walk upon the pavement, whatever may be it's composition. Slabs of lava from their mountain, with the bodies of their own damned Souls for cement, would be the fittest causeway for Satan's Corso.

But what shall I write? another Journal? I think not. Anything that comes uppermost-and call it "my "Dictionary."

MY DICTIONARY.

Augustus. I have often been puzzled with his character. Was he a great Man? Assuredly. But not one of my great men. I have always looked upon Sylla as the greatest Character in History, for laying down his power at the moment when it was

"too great to keep or to resign,"

1821.]

AUGUSTUS.

405

and thus despising them all. As to the retention of his power by Augustus, the thing was already settled. If he had given it up, the Commonwealth was gone, the republic was long past all resuscitation. Had Brutus and Cassius gained the battle of Philippi, it would not have restored the republic-its days ended with the Gracchi, the rest was a mere struggle of parties. You might as well cure a Consumption, restore a broken egg, as revive a state so long a prey to every uppermost Soldier as Rome had long been.

As for a despotism, if Augustus could have been sure that all his Successors would have been like himself (I mean not as Octavius, but Augustus), or Napoleon would have insured the world that none of his Successors would have been like himself, the antient or modern World might have gone on like the Empire of China-in a state of lethargic prosperity.

Suppose, for instance, that, instead of Tiberius and Caligula, Augustus had been immediately succeeded by Nerva, Trajan, the Antonines, or even by Titus and his father, what a difference in our estimate of himself? So far from gaining by the contrast, I think that one half of our dislike arises from his having been heired by Tiberius, and one half of Julius Cæsar's fame from his having had his empire consolidated by Augustus.

Suppose that there had been no Octavius, and Tiberius. had "jumped the life" between, and at once succeeded Julius? And yet it is difficult to say whether hereditary right, or popular choice, produce the worse Sovereigns. The Roman Consuls make a goodly show, but then they only reigned for a year, and were under a sort of personal obligation to distinguish themselves. It is still more difficult to say which form of Government is the worst -all are so bad. As for democracy, it is the worst