Byron, by concealing the causes of his melancholy,
and attaching to it a nobler motive, made himself
into a Hamlet when he was in reality only a Timon.
What view are we to take of Byron’s intervention
in the affairs of Greece? To fling oneself into
a revolutionary movement, to sacrifice money and health,
to suffer, to die, is surely an evidence of enthusiasm
and sincerity? Leigh Hunt would have us believe
that this, too, was nothing but a pose. He tells
us how the gift of ten thousand pounds to the Greek
Revolutionaries, which was publicly announced by Byron’s
action, was reduced to a loan of four thousand.
He tells the story of the three gilded helmets, bearing
the family motto, “Crede Byron,” which
the poet offered to show him, that he had had made
for himself and Trelawny and Count Pietro Gamba.
The conclusion is irresistible that there was a large
infusion of vanity in the whole scheme, and that Byron
had his eye upon the world, here as elsewhere.
The Greek expedition would exhibit him in a chivalrous
and romantic light; it might provide him with some
excitement, though Leigh Hunt maintains that Byron
was physically and morally a coward; and indeed, judging
from what one knows of Byron, it is hard to believe
that his enthusiasm was an unselfish one, or that he
was deeply stirred with patriotic emotions, though
he was perhaps swayed by a certain artistic sympathy.
It may be asked, is it not better to put the most
generous construction upon Byron’s acts, to
believe that his was a nature of high enthusiasms
as well as of violent passions, and that the needle
fluctuated between the two?
All depends upon the mood in which one approaches
a character. I confess myself that the one thing
which seems to me important and interesting is to
get at the truth about a man. In the investigation
of character there is nothing to be said for being
a partisan and for indulging in special pleading,
so as to minimise faults and magnify virtues.
My own belief is that Byron was an essentially worthless
character, the prey of impulse, the slave of desire,
thirsting for distinction above everything. There
is nothing in his letters or in his recorded speech
that would make one think otherwise; his life was
devoted to the pursuit of pleasurable excitement, and
he cared little what price he paid for it He never
seems to me to have admired gentleness or self-restraint
or modesty, or to have desired to attain them.
Indeed, I think he gives the lie to all the theories
that assert that genius and influence must be based
on some essential worthiness and greatness of soul.
XLVIII