because of the alimony, which has been assigned with all her goods, chattels, carriage, etc, to be restored by him. In Italy, they can't divorce. He insisted on her giving me up, and he would forgive everything—even the adultery, which he swears he can prove . . . . But, in this country, the very courts hold such proofs in abhorrence, the Italians being as much more delicate in public than the English, as they are more passionate in private.

"It is but to let the women alone, in the way of conflict, for they are sure to win against the field. She returns to her father's house, and I can only see her under great restrictions --such is the custom of the country. The relations behave very well I offered any settlement, but they refused to accept it,1 and swear she shan't live with G. (as he has tried to prove her faithless), but that he shall maintain her; and, in fact, a judgment to this effect came yesterday. I am, of course, in an awkward situation enough ".

Decidedly, Count Guiccioli had not managed well. How little sincerity there had been in the citation of Byron's traffic with the Carbonari as a cause of offence, is shown by the fact that the English Milord remained at the Palazzo Guiccioli all through the movement (which came to its abortive end early in 1821), and for many months afterwards.

The decree was published at Ravenna in the middle of July. Teresa left the city at once, and withdrew to her father's villa, fifteen miles outside. Byron's arrangements were not altered. He remained at the Guiccioli Palace until October 29, 1821. While Teresa was still at her father's villa, he visited her-about once or twice, perhaps, in a month, says Moore; but Byron's diary records visits much more frequent. The odd life suited him not too ill; but for the woman who had given up riches-her alimony from the Count was only £200 a year, and the Gambas were very needy-social standing, pleasant and cultured surroundings, for love of him, it must have been a mournful period. And worse was to come. The revolutionary movement collapsed in February -March 1821. By July, all activity was at an end. The country was in a state of proscription, and all Byron's friends were exiled or arrested. The Gambas went to Florence-that is, Count Gamba, Teresa, and Pietro Gamba, her brother."

1 And refused to the end, as did the Countess herself. She even declined to allow Byron to include her name in his will.

2 Byron had become very intimate with Teresa's brother, Count Pietro Gamba, who had been hand-in-glove with him in all the Carbonari doings. They were together in Greece, and the Count was by the sick-bed at Missolonghi.

At this time, Teresa heard that her husband was in Rome, petitioning the authorities to insist upon her either returning to him or going into retreat. Her terror and despair were extreme. She instantly wrote to Byron (in Italian) these moving and significant words:

"Help me, my dear Byron, for I am in a situation most terrible; and without you, I can resolve upon nothing. . . I must not speak of this to any one,-I must escape by night; for, if my project should be discovered, it will be impeded, and my passport (which the goodness of Heaven has permitted me, I know not how, to obtain) will be taken from me. Byron ! I am in despair!—If I must leave you here without knowing when I shall see you again, if it is your will that I should suffer so cruelly, I am resolved to remain. They may put me in a convent; I shall die,-but-but then you cannot aid me, and I cannot reproach you. I know not what they tell me, for my agitation overwhelms me;-and why? Not because I fear my present danger, but solely, I call Heaven to witness, solely because I must leave you".

All her pleading, at that period, failed. He did not go to her. She left for Florence in the end of July, while he remained in the husband's Palace at Ravenna. He wrote to her on her way once or twice.

The matter of the heaven-sent passport was easily and soon explained. There was no danger of her being forced into a convent, for the object of the authorities in banishing the Gamba family was to draw the dangerous English Milord after them. It was earnestly desired to get him out of Ravenna, where his benevolence among the poorer classes had made him immensely popular; moreover, he had provided money and arms for the Movement. The Countess explains: "Not daring to exact [his departure] by any direct measure, they were in hopes of being able indirectly to force him into the step ". And, sure enough, the woman in the end prevailed. On October 29 he left Ravenna and joined her at Pisa, writing to Moore, more than a month before he actually set off: "I am in all the sweat, dust, and blasphemy of an universal packing. . . . As I could not say, with Hamlet, 'Get thee to a nunnery', I am preparing to follow. It is awful work, this love, and prevents all a man's projects of good or glory. I wanted to go to Greece lately . . . with her brother, who is a very fine, brave fellow and wild about liberty. But the tears of a woman who has left her husband for a man, and the weakness of one's own heart, are paramount to these projects, and I can hardly indulge them ".

To her he wrote: "I set out most unwillingly, foreseeing the most evil results for all of you, and principally for yourself ".

And again: "I leave Ravenna so unwillingly, and with such a persuasion in 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 ".

She, publishing these letters in after-years, commented: "How entirely were those presentiments fulfilled by the event ! "' This assists us to understand the length of Byron's relation with her, and his impatience during most of its four years. A woman at once so insensitive and so sentimental was, perhaps, the only one who could have held him to her; or for that matter have endured him herself. For she had the art of self-deception. The event-his death in Greece-which she describes as the fulfilment of his "presentiment" was brought about in no way by his rejoining her; and the presentiment was not presentiment at all, but simply ill-temper at having to set off. Indeed, her comment is so evidently stupid that it is worth recording only as a trait of character which helps to solve the puzzle of Byron's long slavery. She was so obtuse that he could not shake her off.

CHAPTER XXIII

RAVENNA: LITERARY WORK

Byron's industry-Marino Faliero: Anger with Murray; Encouragement; The performance at Drury Lane; Byron's anguish-Goethe: Lost dedications; Manfred and the German Jove; Praise of Marino -Analogy of the Doge's fate with Byron's-Cursory review of the dramas -Don Juan: cantos iii. iv. v.; The Countess Guiccioli intervenes, and Juan is discontinued; The furore in England; More anger with Murray

B

YRON'S industry during the Ravenna period-December 1819 to the end of October 1821-was stupendous. Besides the works already considered, he wrote Marino Faliero, Sardanapalus,1 The Two Foscari, Cain, Heaven and Earth, the fifth canto of Don Juan, The Vision of Judgment, The Blues and The Irish Avatar-a squib on George IV's visit to Ireland in 1821. This is a vast record of manual labour alone, and there were the diaries and many letters as well. The story of Marino Faliero-first of the dramas over which he was to waste many months of energy-had struck his imagination so long ago as the spring of 1817; but the project slumbered until 1820. He spent three months in composition, and the final draft was sent to England in September or October. He had again been infuriated by Murray's delays and he again threatened to desert to Paternoster Row. "You must not treat a bloodhorse as you do your hacks, otherwise he'll bolt out of the course.

Now you have spoken out, are you any the worse for it?' We discover from a letter to Moore directly afterwards, what Murray had said. "He almost insinuated that my last productions are dull. Dull, sir !—damme, dull! I believe he is right".

1 Sardanapalus, The Two Foscari, and Cain were published in a single volume on December 19, 1821; Heaven and Earth was not published by Murray, but by John Hunt in the second number of The Liberal on January 1, 1823; the fifth canto of Don Juan (Murray) appeared with cantos iii. and iv. on August 8, 1821; The Vision of Judgment in the first number of The Liberal, October 15, 1822; The Blues in the third number, April 26, 1823. The Irish Avatar was first published in Paris, under Moore's supervision (he was then living there), on September 19, 1821. Murray did not publish it in any collected edition until 1831.

"I don't know", he wrote to Murray, in the midst of the loathed task of copying, "what your parlour-boarders will think of it. . . . You'll write now, because you will want to keep me in a good humour, till you can see what the tragedy is fit for. I know your ways, my Admiral ". The whole was sent to England, with the adjuration: "None of your damned proofs, now recollect. Print, paste, plaster, and destroy-but don't let me have any of your cursed printers' trash to pore over. For the rest, I neither know nor care". Again: “I have put my soul into the tragedy (as you if it); but you know that there are damned souls as well as tragedies". The report of the first act was favourable. "What Gifford says is very consolatory English-sterling genuine English'. I am glad that I have got so much left. I hear none but from my valet, and I see none but in your new publications, and theirs is no language at all, but jargon. Even your 'New Jerusalem' is terribly stilted and affected, with very, very '-so soft and pamby.

Oh! if ever I do come amongst you again, I will give you such a 'Baviad and Mæviad 'I not as good as the old, but even better merited. There never was such a set as your ragamuffins (I mean not yours only, but everybody's). What with the Cockneys, and the Lakers, and the followers of Scott, and Moore, and Byron, you are in the very uttermost decline and degradation of literature. I can't think of it without all the remorse of a murderer. I wish that Johnson were alive again to crush them ! "

After more delay "What! not a line? Well, have it your own way "-came further encouragement. "Gifford says it is good sterling genuine English', and Foscolo says that the characters are right Venetian. Shakespeare and Otway had a million of advantages over me, besides the incalculable one of being dead for from one to two centuries, and having been both born blackguards (which ARE such attractions to the gentle living reader): let me then preserve the only one which I could possibly have that of having been at Venice, and entered more into the local spirit of it. I claim no more".

The suspense he had been in great suspense about this new venture was over; but there was something still more agonising to come. Byron had been from the first urgent in declaring his tragedy not an acting play. "It is too regular, and too simple, and of too remote an interest"; and "I will not be exposed to the insolences of an audience without a remonstrance ".

1 Murray was publisher to the Board of Admiralty. This letter, much mutilated by Moore, is one of the most amusing that Byron wrote to Murray, particularly at the close, where a contemporary poetaster is criticised. See L. and J. v. 55.