"There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,And mine were nothing, had I such to give.But, when I stood beneath the fresh green treeWhich living waves where thou didst cease to live,And saw around me the wide field reviveWith fruits and fertile promise, and the SpringCome forth her work of gladness to contrive,With all her reckless birds upon the wing,I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not bring."
"There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,And mine were nothing, had I such to give.But, when I stood beneath the fresh green treeWhich living waves where thou didst cease to live,And saw around me the wide field reviveWith fruits and fertile promise, and the SpringCome forth her work of gladness to contrive,With all her reckless birds upon the wing,I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not bring."
"There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,And mine were nothing, had I such to give.But, when I stood beneath the fresh green treeWhich living waves where thou didst cease to live,And saw around me the wide field reviveWith fruits and fertile promise, and the SpringCome forth her work of gladness to contrive,With all her reckless birds upon the wing,I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not bring."
"There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,
And mine were nothing, had I such to give.
But, when I stood beneath the fresh green tree
Which living waves where thou didst cease to live,
And saw around me the wide field revive
With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring
Come forth her work of gladness to contrive,
With all her reckless birds upon the wing,
I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not bring."
2. The statement that "the coach was jogged"refers to that calèche which had been just bought in Brussels for the servants—not to the elaborate travelling-carriage. Some trouble ensued over the calèche. The coachmaker who had sold it tried to make Lord Byron pay up the balance of the price. Not carrying his point, he got a warrant-officer to seize a different vehicle, a chaise, belonging to the poet. The latter, so far as appears, took no further steps.
3. To write twenty-six stanzas in one day is no small feat; especially if these are the nine-line stanzas ofChilde Harold, and if the substantial work of the day consisted in riding from Brussels to Waterloo and back, and deliberately inspecting the field of battle. The entry, as written by Charlotte Polidori, stands thus—"26 st.," which I apprehend can only mean "stanzas." If one were to suppose that the stanzas thus written on May 4 were the first twenty-six stanzas ofChilde Harold, canto 3 (but this of course is not a necessary inference), Byron now got up to the stanza which begins
"And wild and high the 'Camerons' gathering' rose."
"And wild and high the 'Camerons' gathering' rose."
"And wild and high the 'Camerons' gathering' rose."
I made up my accounts, and was not a little startled by a deficit of 10 napoleons, which I at last found was a mere miscalculation. Rode about thirty miles in all.
Forgot to say I saw Sir Nath[aniel] Wraxall atDover, who, having introduced himself to Lord Byron as a friendde famille, began talking, knocking his feet in rattattat, still all the while oppressed by feeling very awkward.
[I do not find in Byron's correspondence any reference to this interview, on April 25 or 26, with Sir Nathaniel Wraxall. But, in his letter of April 25 to his half-sister, he mentions that he met on the 24th with Colonel Wildman, an old school-fellow, and later on the purchaser of Newstead Abbey, who gave him some details concerning the death of Colonel Howard at Waterloo.]
At Brussels, the people were in a great stew, the night of the battle of Waterloo—their servants and others waking them every minute to tell them the French were at the gates. Some Germans went there with mighty great courage, in flight. Lord W[ellington?] sent to a colonel to enquire whether he was going to fly from or to the battle, giving him his choice to act in either way. On hearing this, the said colonel boldly faced about, and trotted to Brussels with his troop. A supernumerary aide-de-camp, the brother of N., with two others, was riding between the ranks while the French were firing; when, ours crying out "They aim at you," all three were struck in the jaw, much in the same place, dead. After the battle, a friend asking what was become of N., theserjeant pointed to his feet, saying "There," which was fact. Dacosta, the guide, says that Buonaparte was cool and collected till the Prussians arrived; that then he said to Bertrand, "That appears to be the Prussian eagle"; and, upon Bertrand's assenting, his face became momentarily pale. He says that, when he led up the Imperial Guard, on arriving at the red-tiled house, he went behind a hillock, so as not to be seen, and so gave them the slip. Wellington acted the soldier when he should have acted the general, and the light-limbed dancer when he should have been the soldier. I cannot, after viewing the ground, and bearing in mind the men's superior courage, give Wellington the palm of generalship that has been snatched for him by so many of his admirers. Napoleon only took one glass of wine from the beginning of the battle to the end of his flight.
May 5.—Got up at ten from fatigue. Whilst at breakfast, there came a Mr. Pryse Gordon for L[ord] B[yron]. I entertained him. He has been to Italy, and travelled a great deal—a good-natured gentleman. Took him to see the carriage: there he introduced me to his son by means of a trumpet. After his departure we set off for the Château du Lac, where we found the hind front much finer than the other for want of the startling (?) dome and low windows. It has all its master-apartments on theground-floor: they are extremely well laid out both with regard to comfort and magnificence—they were furnished by Nap[oleon]. We saw the bed where Josephine, Marie Louise, and the Queen of Holland, have been treading fast on one another's heels. The hall for concerts divides the Emperor's from the Empress' rooms—it has a rich appearance, and is Corinthian. The flooring of the Emperor's is all wood of different colours—checked—having to my eye a more pleasing appearance than the carpeted ones of the Empress. I sat down on two chairs on which had sat he who ruled the world at one time. Some of his eagles were yet remaining on the chairs. The servant seemed a little astonished at our bowing before them.
We returned, it raining all the while. After dinner Mr. G[ordon] came for us to go to coffee. We went, and were graciously received; Lord B[yron] as himself, I as a tassel to the purse of merit. I there saw a painting of Rembrandt's wife or mother by himself, which was full of life, and some verses by Walter Scott written in the hostess' album, where he says Waterloo will last longer than Cressy and Agincourt. How different! They only agree in one thing—that they were both in the cause of injustice. The novels of Casti were presented to me by Mr. Gordon, which I was rather surprised at. We came over. Scott writes in M[rs]. G[ordon's] book—
"For one brief hour of deathless fame" [Scott].
"For one brief hour of deathless fame" [Scott].
"For one brief hour of deathless fame" [Scott].
"Oh Walter Scott, for shame, for shame" [Byron].
"Oh Walter Scott, for shame, for shame" [Byron].
"Oh Walter Scott, for shame, for shame" [Byron].
[The novels of the Abate Casti (who died in 1803) are notoriously licentious: hence, I suppose, Polidori's surprise at the presentation of them by Mr. Gordon. Byron, it is stated by this gentleman, was asked by Mrs. Gordon on May 5 to write some lines in her album. He took the volume away with him, and on the following day brought it back, having inserted in it the two opening stanzas on Waterloo forming part of canto 3 ofChilde Harold—from
"Stop, for thy tread is on an empire's dust,"
"Stop, for thy tread is on an empire's dust,"
"Stop, for thy tread is on an empire's dust,"
to
"He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain"]
"He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain"]
"He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain"]
May 6.—Mr. G[ordon] and son came while at breakfast; gave us letters, etc. Saw the little child again; B[yron] gave it a doll.
It may be excusable to suppose that this trifling incident is not wholly foreign to a stanza, 54, in the 3rd canto ofChilde Harold. This stanza comes immediately after Byron has begun to speak of the Rhine, and incidentally of the affection which his half-sister bore him. Then he proceeds—
"And he had learn'd to love—I know not why,For this in such as him seems strange of mood—The helpless looks of blooming infancy,Even in its earliest nurture. What subdued,To change like this, a mind so far imbuedWith scorn of man, it little boots to know:But thus it was; and, though in solitudeSmall power the nipp'd affections have to grow,In him this glow'd when all beside had ceased to glow."
"And he had learn'd to love—I know not why,For this in such as him seems strange of mood—The helpless looks of blooming infancy,Even in its earliest nurture. What subdued,To change like this, a mind so far imbuedWith scorn of man, it little boots to know:But thus it was; and, though in solitudeSmall power the nipp'd affections have to grow,In him this glow'd when all beside had ceased to glow."
"And he had learn'd to love—I know not why,For this in such as him seems strange of mood—The helpless looks of blooming infancy,Even in its earliest nurture. What subdued,To change like this, a mind so far imbuedWith scorn of man, it little boots to know:But thus it was; and, though in solitudeSmall power the nipp'd affections have to grow,In him this glow'd when all beside had ceased to glow."
"And he had learn'd to love—I know not why,
For this in such as him seems strange of mood—
The helpless looks of blooming infancy,
Even in its earliest nurture. What subdued,
To change like this, a mind so far imbued
With scorn of man, it little boots to know:
But thus it was; and, though in solitude
Small power the nipp'd affections have to grow,
In him this glow'd when all beside had ceased to glow."
Thecarrossiercame. Set off at two, passing through a country increasing in inequalities. We arrived first at Louvain, where we saw the outside of a beautiful Town-hall, which is one of the prettiest pieces of external fretwork I have seen. Thence we went to Tirlemont, where was a Jubilee. Saints and sinners under the red canopy (the sky dirty Indian-ink one) were alike in the streets. Every street had stuck in it, at a few paces from the house-walls, fir-branches 16 or 17 feet high, distant from one another 5 or 6 feet. Thence to St. Trond, where we ate—and slept, I suppose. The country is highly cultivated, and the trees older. The avenues have a more majestic appearance from the long swells of ground and the straight roads, but there is more squalid misery than I have seen anywhere. The houses are many of them mud, and the only clean part about them is the white-wash on the external walls. Dunghills before some must be trodden on before entering the houses. The towns also fall off greatly in neat and comfortable looks. The walls round them look ruined and desolate, and give a great idea of insecurity. We put the servants on board-wages.
May 7.—Set off from St. Trond at 11. The country is highly cultivated; continual hill and dale; lower orders miserable in perfection; houses built of mud, the upper storeys of which are only built of beams, the mud having fallen off. Bridges thrown over the dirt they were too idle to remove. Dunghills at their doors, and ditches with black fetid water before their first step. Liège has a pretty neighbourhood, but the town itself is filthy and disagreeable. They visited our passports here at three different places. The hill above the town is enormously steep; and from some way beyond it has a beautiful view of Liège with its towers and domes—of the country with its many cots and villas—and of the Meuse. The road now lies through a scene where cottages are spread like trees, and hedges like furrows of corn, the fields are so minutely divided. A little farther still we had a most splendid view through many miles. From a valley we could see everything clearly, crowded in a blue tint, and in a river through it we could see the shadows of the trees. The cottages are improving, and the roads becoming the worst ever seen; paved still, but so horridly hilled and vallied that the rolling of the carriage is like the rolling of a ship.
We came at last to Battice; but before entering we passed by a village where beggar little cherubscame to the carriage-side, and running cried out, "Donnez-nous quelque chose, Monsieur le chef de bataillon"; another, "Monsieur le général." And a third little urchin, who gesticulated as well as cried, perceiving the others had exhausted the army, cried, "Un sou, Messieurs les rois des Hanovériens!" We arrived at Battice, where beggars, beggars. There we found horses just come in.
After debate (wherein I was for Aix-la-Chapelle, L[ord] B[yron] for stopping) we set off; and such a jolting, rolling, knocking, and half-a-dozen etc., as our carriage went through, I never saw, which put L[ord] B[yron] to accusing me of bad advice; clearing however as the road mended. The rain fell into a pond, to be illuminated by sunshine before we reached Aix-la-Chapelle at half-past twelve.
May 8.—Got up late. Went to see the Cathedral: full of people, lower ranks, hearing mass. Miserable painting, architecture, etc. Saw also a church wherein was no particular picture or anything. At Liège the revolutionists had destroyed the fine Cathedral.
A German boy who led me about Aix-la-Chapelle, on my asking him in broken German about the baths, led me to a very different place. I was astonished to find myself in certain company. The baths are hot sulphuretted-hydrogen-impregnated water. The sulphur-beds are only shown to dukesand kings: so a kingdom is good for something. I saw the baths themselves: like others, not very clean-looking.
We left Aix-la-Chapelle at twelve, going through a fine country, with no hedges but fine woods in the distance. We arrived at St. Juliers, strongly fortified, where they took our names at entering and at exiting. It is a neat town, and was besieged last year. We were at the post taken by a man for Frenchmen, and he told us we had been driven from Russia by a band of the Emperor. He seemed to be very fond of them, and gave as a reason that he had been employed by them for many years. And, I forgetfully saying, "What! were they here?"—"Yes, and farther." I answered, "Jusqu'à Moscou." "Oui, et presque plus loin." That "presque" means much. The French were not generally liked, I believe. The lower orders perhaps liked them, but the middle, I doubt. But I cannot say; I may perhaps be influenced by the opinion of a beautiful face of this town, who, on my asking her whether thedames n'aimaient pas beaucoup les Français, answered, "Oui, les dames publiques."
We find it a great inconvenience that the Poste is a separate concern, and generally pretty distant from the inn. The women are many of them very beautiful, and many of them, as well as the men, have finedark eyes and hair. The men wear ear-rings, and curl their hair; which, if I remember rightly, was the custom in the time of Tacitus. Many of the women wear their hair combed quite back, and upon it a little square piece of linen. The French were particularly polite during the siege.
We entered the dominions of the King of Prussia a little beyond Battice. It causes a strange sensation to an Englishman to pass into one state from another without crossing any visible line. Indeed, we should not have perceived that we had, if we had not been stopped by a Belgian guard who asked us if we had anything to declare. The difference is, however, very striking. The men, the women, everything, improve—except the cottages. The people look cleaner, though everything else is dirty; contrary to the Belgians, they seem to collect their cleanliness upon themselves, instead of throwing it upon their cots, tins, trees, and shrubs.
We arrived at Cologne after much bad, sandy, heavy road, at 11. The pavement begins to be interrupted after Aix, but ends almost entirely after St. Juliers. Cologne is upon a flat on the Rhine. We were groaning at having no sight of far-famed Cologne, when we came suddenly under its battlements and towers. We passed through its fortifications without question. After having found the gatesshut, and feed the porter, we found inns full, and at last got into the Hôtel de Prague.
May 9.—Got up very bad.[2]Sat down to breakfast. Just done, we heard some singing. Enquiry told us, buyable. Got them up. A harp played by a dark-haired German, pretty, and two fiddlers. She played and sangThe Troubadour, which brought back a chain of Scotch recollections, and a German song; then a beautiful march, in which the music died away and then suddenly revived. After a waltz we dismissed them. We both mounted a voiture, and drove through the town to the Cathedral. Great part pulled down by the revolutionists, and the roof of the nave obliged to be restored with plain board—a staring monument over Gallic ruin. There is fine stained glass, and the effect of its being very high and variegated in the choir is beautiful. We saw a fine painting here by Kalf: videTaschbuch. The tomb of the three kings said to be worth three millions of francs, and an immensely rich treasury wherein was a sacrament worth one million of francs. In falling down a step I broke a glass, for which they at first would not take anything—which at last cost me three francs. Kept countenance amazingly well.
Went to see St. Ursula's Church, where we were shown virgins' skulls of ninety years old, male and female, all jumbled into a mass of 11,000 virgins' bones arranged all in order—some gilt, etc. A whole room bedecked with them. All round, indeed, whatever we saw were relics, skulls; some in the heads of silver-faced busts, some arranged in little cells with velvet cases, wherein was worked the name of each. Paintings of St. Ursula, etc. Asked for a piece out of the masses: only got a smile, and a point of a finger to an interdiction in Latin, which I did not read.
We went to see a picture of Rubens,The Nailing of St. Peter to a Cross; the best design, though not very good, I yet have seen of his. A German artist copying it spoke English to us.
Returned home. Sent my name to Professor Wallraf: got admission. Found a venerable old man who has spent his life in making a collection of paintings and other objects of vertù belonging to his country, Cologne, which he intends leaving to his native town.
[This is no doubt the Wallraf who was joint founder of the celebrated Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. The statement which ensues as to an early oil-painter named Kaft is noticeable; whether correct I am unable to say. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum does not contain any painting by Tintoretto to which the nameCampavellacould apply: there is a fine picture by him ofOvid and Corinna.]
Many pictures were extremely good, especially painting of individuals. Kaft was a native of this town, who painted in oil before oil-painting was known. Saw some Poussins, Claude Lorraines. Some moderate. A Tintoretto ofCampavellabeautiful: colouring and drawing strong and expressive. A Rembrandt and a Teniers, etc. A master of Rubens. A copy in colours from the drawing of Raphael by one of his disciples. Cologne has stamped more coins than some empires, and has coined twenty-six kinds of gold. He had made drawings of them, but the revolution stopped it. The revolutionary Gauls, he said with a tear in his eye, had destroyed many very valuable relics of Cologne; and, pointing to a leaf of a missal with another tear, he said: "Many like this once adorned our churches: this is all." He had the original manuscript of Albert le Grand,History of Animals; Titian's four designs of the Cæsars at Polenham, with his own handwriting; the Albert Durer's sketch of Christ's head which belonged to Charles II; and a painting of Albert Durer's Master.[3]He wishes for a copy of any of Caxton's printing in England.
Went to buy some books. Found Miss Helmhoft, a fine woman. Had a long confab. Bought more books than I wanted. Heard her spout German poetry that I did not understand; and laughed at the oddity of her gesticulation, which she took for laughter at the wit of a poet who was describing the want of a shirt—and was highly pleased.
The French destroyed convents, and made of them public places for walking.
Have been taken for servants, Frenchmen, merchants—never hardly for English. Saw the Rhine last night—fine mass of water, wide as the Thames some way below Blackwall; but no tide, and very deep. Town dirty, very decayed, badly paved, worse lighted, and few marks of splendour and comfort.
May 10.—We have seen crucifixes for these four days at every turn, some made of wood, some of stone, etc. Set off, after having defeated the imposition of a postman, to Bonn; the scenery not anything particular till we see the Seven Hills, a large amphitheatre on the right, glimpses on the left of the Rhine, and the Seven Hills. Bonn at last appeared, with its steeples, and on the neighbouring hills castles and cots, towers, and (not) towns.[4]
I saw yesterday a picture of Rembrandt's with three lights in it very well managed, at Wallraf's.
Saw R. Simmons' writing in the police-book at Bonn, and wrote to Soane.
[This was John, the son of Sir John Soane, founder of the Soane Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.]
The innkeeper makes you put your name—whence—whither—profession and age—every night. Rogues all of them, charging much.
May 11.—We saw the first vines a little before entering Cologne some days ago. We left Bonn at eleven, the town having nothing in particular. The Seven Hills were the first that struck our sight on one of the highest pinnacles in Drachenfels, now a mere ruin, formerly a castle of which many a tale is told. There was by the roadside a monument raised upon the spot where one noble brother killed another. Crucifixes all the way. We had the river on one side, whence rose hills (not mountains) cultivated halfway for vines—and the rest, nuts, shrubs, oak, etc. Towers on pinnacles, in ruin; villages (with each its spire) built of mud.
Cultivation in a high degree; no hedges, ground minutely divided into beds rather than fields; women working in the fields; ox and horse ploughing; oxen draw by their heads alone. Peasantry happy-looking and content. Two points particularly struck us—theDrachenfels, and the view at a distance before coming to Videnhar when the distant hills were black with the rain. But the whole way it is one of the finest scenes, I imagine, in the world. The large river with its massy swells and varied towered banks.
We changed horses at Bemagne, and passed over a road first cut by Aurelius, Theodoric, and Buonaparte. B[uonaparte]'s name is everywhere. Who did this? N[apoleon] B[uonaparte].—Who that?—He. There is an inscription to record this. Andernach—a fine entrance from Bemagne, with its massy towers and square-spired church. From Andernach we passed on. Saw on the other side Neuwied, a town owing its existence to the mere toleration of religion. It is the finest and [most] flourishing we have seen since Ghent and Antwerp. We saw the tomb of Hoche at a distance; went to it. There was inscribed "The army of the Sambre and the Moselle to its general-in-chief Hoche." The reliefs are torn off, the marble slabs broken, and it is falling. But—
"Glory of the fallen braveShall men remember though forgot their grave,"
"Glory of the fallen braveShall men remember though forgot their grave,"
"Glory of the fallen braveShall men remember though forgot their grave,"
"Glory of the fallen brave
Shall men remember though forgot their grave,"
and the enemies may launch malicious darts against it. After Andernach the Rhine loses much. The valley is wider, and the beautiful, after the almost sublime, palls, and man is fastidious.
[The celebrated lyric by Byron introduced intoChilde Harold, an address to his half-sister, is stated farther on to have been written on this very day. I cite the first stanza—
"The castled crag of DrachenfelsFrowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,Whose breast of waters broadly swellsBetween the banks which bear the vine;And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,And fields which promise corn and wine,And scatter'd cities crowning these,Whose far white walls along them shine,Have strew'd a scene which I should seeWith double joy wert thou with me."]
"The castled crag of DrachenfelsFrowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,Whose breast of waters broadly swellsBetween the banks which bear the vine;And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,And fields which promise corn and wine,And scatter'd cities crowning these,Whose far white walls along them shine,Have strew'd a scene which I should seeWith double joy wert thou with me."]
"The castled crag of DrachenfelsFrowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,Whose breast of waters broadly swellsBetween the banks which bear the vine;And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,And fields which promise corn and wine,And scatter'd cities crowning these,Whose far white walls along them shine,Have strew'd a scene which I should seeWith double joy wert thou with me."]
"The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine;
And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scatter'd cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strew'd a scene which I should see
With double joy wert thou with me."]
About a mile from Coblentz we saw Marceau's tomb—too dark. Crossed the bridge over the Moselle, entered Coblentz; asked of military, no pass; went to inns, rascals. Went to the Trois Suisses—well served; fine view of Ehrenbreitstein fortress in sight. When French besieged it, Marceau was here at this inn, and the cannon-ball pierced it several times.—There were 84 French officers here, when they would not believe the Cossacks would pass; they had to fly as quick as horses could convey them, for the C[ossacks], getting into boats, made their horses swim across. C[ossack]s rascals—ate and drank and never paid. The general of them mean into the bargain; for he sent the waiter in search of a louis he had never dropped, and went off.—A flying bridge in face of me.
[Marceau died in 1796 of a wound received near Altenkirchen, at the age of only twenty-seven. High honours were paid to his remains both by his own army and by the Austrians whom he had been combating. Polidori passes rapidly from the affair of Marceau to that of eighty-four French officers and a body of Cossacks: but it is clear that these two matters have no real connexion: the latter must relate to 1815 or 1814. Byron devotes to Marceau two stanzas ofChilde Harold—
"By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,There is a small and simple pyramidCrowning the summit of the verdant mound.Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid,Our enemy's: but let not that forbidHonour to Marceau; o'er whose early tombTears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid,Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume."Brief, brave, and glorious, was his young career," etc.
"By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,There is a small and simple pyramidCrowning the summit of the verdant mound.Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid,Our enemy's: but let not that forbidHonour to Marceau; o'er whose early tombTears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid,Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume."Brief, brave, and glorious, was his young career," etc.
"By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,There is a small and simple pyramidCrowning the summit of the verdant mound.Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid,Our enemy's: but let not that forbidHonour to Marceau; o'er whose early tombTears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid,Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.
"By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,
There is a small and simple pyramid
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound.
Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid,
Our enemy's: but let not that forbid
Honour to Marceau; o'er whose early tomb
Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid,
Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,
Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.
"Brief, brave, and glorious, was his young career," etc.
"Brief, brave, and glorious, was his young career," etc.
General Hoche, although a separate monument to him was observed by Byron and Polidori, was in fact buried in the same tomb with Marceau. He died at Wetzlar in 1797, aged twenty-nine. It may be noticed that Byron (line 4) writes "heroes'," plural, followed by "enemy's," singular. "Heroes'" must be intended for both Marceau and Hoche, and I suspect that "enemy's" is a misprint for "enemies'."]
May 12.—Got up. Looked at the fine view, and went to the bath, which was at a maltster's—30 sous. Thence entered a Catholic church—organ—children singing, which had a fine effect. A copy of Rubens—lineal. Breakfasted.
Mounted a calèche, and went to Marceau's monument. The tomb of heroes made into a certain place very much expressed the flickering flame of fame. Thence to the Chartreuse: deserted, ruined, windowless, roofless, and tenantless—with another in sight in the same state. Plenty of reliefs on the roadside belonging to the Road to Calvary, an oratory on the hillside, where were many peasants bowing in reverence. Thence to the flying bridge managed by boats fastened in the stream with a rope, and by the rudder.
Saw a motley group of peasants with their head-dresses of gold and crimson or green with the steel pin. Cocked hat, blue coat and stockinged heroes with a fork. Officers, artillery-men, etc.; crosses given apparently with as profuse a hand to the soldiers as to the roadside.
Went to Ehrenbreitstein. Everything broken by gunpowder; immense masses of solid stone and mortar thrown fifty yards from their original situation; ruined walls, gateways, and halls—nothing perfect. Splendid views thence—Coblentz, Rhine, Mosellewith its bridge, mountains, cultivation, vines, wilderness, everything below my feet. Mounted again. Passed the Rhine in a boat (rowed), looking very like the Otaheitan canoes. Into the carriage—set off. Scenes increasing in sublimity. The road raised from the side of the river without parapet: two precipices coming to the road headlong. Indeed the river reaches foot to foot—splendid, splendid, splendid. Saw the fort belonging once to Muhrfrey, where he raised customs, and resisted in consequence sixty cities. Arrived at St. Goar. At the first post saw the people in church; went to hear them sing—fine.
May 13.—Left St. Goar. Found scenery sublime to Bingen. Men with cocked hats and great buckles hacking at the vines. The scenery after Bingen gains in beauty what it loses in sublimity. Immense plain to the mounts, with the Rhinein medio, covered with trees, woods, and forests. Fine road to Mayence made by Nap[oleon]; his name has been erased from the inscription on the column commemorative of the work. Insolence of power!
Mayence a fine town, with a cathedral raised above it of red sandstone. Bavarians, Austrians, and Prussians, all in the town—belonging to all. The best town we have seen since Ghent.
[Mayence was at this date, locally, in the GrandDuchy of Hesse: but as a fortress it appertained to the German Confederation, and was garrisoned by Austrians, Prussians, and Hessians (hardly perhaps Bavarians)].
One of our postillions blew a horn. Saw yesterday a beautiful appearance—two rainbows, one on the top of trees where the colours of the foliage pierced the rainbow-hues.
Arrived at Mayence at 6-1/2. Saw along the Rhine many fine old castles. This below is what L[ord] B[yron] wrote to Mrs. L[eigh] some days ago: written May 11 on Rhine-banks. SeeChilde Harold, from "The Castled Crag of Drachenfels" to "Still sweeten more these Banks of Rhine."[5]
May 14.—From Mayence, where I saw the spot where they said lately stood the house where printing was invented; it had been pulled down by the French. The gallery I could not see, because the keeper had taken it into his head to make a promenade. Saw the cathedral, pierced at the roof by bombs in the last siege the town underwent. The reliefs—some of which were in a good style—many decapitated. There was a German marshal who was represented as gravely putting forth his powdered head from under a tombstone he has just lifted up—with an inscription saying "I am here."
From Mayence we went to Mannheim through a fine country. Crossed the Rhine on a bridge of boats. Taken very ill with a fever at Mannheim—could not write my Journal.
May 15.—Being a little recovered, set off. Fine alleys of Lombardy-poplars and horse-chestnuts—neat villages. Entered Carlsruhe through a grove of Scotch firs and other trees that had a fine effect. Saw the Palace.
Entered the inn, and was very ill. Took ipecac and op. gr. 15. Headache, vertigo, tendency to fainting, etc. Magnesia and lemon acid—a little better, no effect.
Went a drive about the town. Saw the neatest town we have yet met with: the only objection is the houses stuccoed white—bad for the eyes. Saw the outside of the Palace, and went into the garden laid out in the English manner.
Went home: dreadful headaches: ate some stewed apples; took some more magn[esia] and acid; had no effect; lay down; got up after two hours. Was just going out when L[ord] B[yron] came to take from my hand a plated candlestick, to give me a brass one. Got on a few steps; fainted. My fall brought the servants to me. Took 4 pills; going out again, whenL[ord] B[yron] made the servant put down the plated candlestick, to take up a brass one; went to bed.
[This, as Polidori evidently thought, was an odd incident, not easily accounted for. One cannot suppose that Byron simply aimed at humiliating or mortifying his physician. There must have been a candle in each candlestick; and it is conceivable that the candle in the brass one was the longer, and therefore the more suitable for an invalid who might have needed it throughout the night.]
Medicine had violent effect: better on the whole, though weak.
Just as we were going out I met Sir C. Hunter at my chamber-door, who told me he had heard so bad an account of my positively dying that he came to enquire how I found myself. I asked him in. He took care to tell us he was a great friend of the Grand Duke, who had sent his groom of the stole (he called it stool) in search of lodgings for the worthy Mayor;[6]gave us a long sermon about rheumatism, routes, etc.; left us. In the evening he sent in theGuide du Voyageur en les pays de l'Europe, begging in return some of L[ord] B[yron's] poems.
Went out. Saw a church. Columns like firs—Corinthian, golden capitals: loaded everywhere with gilt, perhaps tawdry, but fine-tawdry. The environs are beautiful. Drove a great deal about: fine trees and fine cultivation.
May 18.—From Carlsruhe to Offenberg; much better. Slept halfway: blinds down the other, so nothing to mention except fine trees, fine cocked hats, fine women, and yellow-coated postillions.
May 19.—Set off from Offenberg; saw some scenes that pleased me much; hills and clouds upon them; woods with mists. Passed through Freiburg, where we saw the steeple pervious to the top with trellis-work showing the light, which had to my eyes a beautiful appearance.
I think Charles, when he said, "The German for his horse," remembered the G[erman] postillions; for they talk to theirs, and the horses on their part listen and seem to understand. The greater part of to-day I have found the ladies in a strange costume of short wide red petticoats with many folds, and a hat of straw as wide as a wheel. Arrived at Krolzingen to sleep. Left Krolzingen: got to a hill. Fine view thence: the Alps, the Rhine, the Jura mountains, and a fine plain before us—fine country. Crossed the Rhine, and were in Switzerland. The town upon unequal ground—some parts very high, and somelow; the greater part very narrow streets. After tea went to take a walk: went upon the Rhine bridge—upon a hill in the town [Bâle presumably].
May 21.—Went to see a panorama of Thun, the first Swiss one: crowded foolishly with people, and too small. Saw a gallery that the artist had formed. A fine Raphael, not his; a good Rembrandt, the first I saw historical; aCircumcision; a head of the caricaturist David; two heads of Divinity; aChrist and Virgin—mere pieces of flesh and drapery. Went to a marchand d'estampes. Saw thereNelson's Death, Chatham's ditto, and other pictures of England.The Dance of Deathhas been destroyed: but it was not Holbein's, but his restorer's. The collection is dispersed, that once was here, of his paintings.
Agreed with a voiturier to take our carriages to Geneva in five days. Set off. Country increases from hills to mountains with great beauty. Passed through Lipstadt and came to ——. Went before supper to climb a hill where we found a goatherd who could not understand the French that asked for milk till it had the commentary, "We will pay for it." The scene was very fine: to the right, beautiful; to the left, it had a tendency to sublimity; on one side, hills covered to the top with trees; on the other, mountains with bald pates. Came down. Found the servants playing at bowls. They were obliged torun the bowls along a narrow board to the men. Supper: readArabian Nights; went to bed.
May 22.—Left —— at 9; passed the Jura mountains, where we saw some fine castellated scenery, and women ornamented strangely—amazingly short petticoats, not below the knee, with black crape rays round their heads that make them look very spidery. Soleure is a neat town with stone fortifications, and a clean church with fountains before it. The houses in this neighbourhood have a pleasing strange appearance on account of the roofs, which slant out on every side a great way. Immense number of Scotch firs—roads fine. Voituriers slow, and have eight francs of drink-money a day, being two; which being too much according to theGuide du Voyageur en Europe, where it is said 1-1/2 fr., we showed it to our courier, who was in a passion. Came to ——, where we slept.
May 23.—Left ——: got a sight of some fine Alpine snow-capped mountains. Came to Berne; delightfully situated; beautiful streets with arcades all their length. Dined there. Saw a splendidly beautiful view coming down a hill, with hills covered with fir, ash, beech, and all the catalogue of trees; Morat at the bottom, and the Jura mounts behind, with snowy hair and cloudy night-caps. Arrived at Morat; neat with arcades. Stopped at the Crowninn. All the way had debates whether clouds were mountains, or mountains clouds.
May 24.—The innkeeper at Morat, being a little tipsy, and thinking every Englishman (being a philosophe) must be a philosophe like himself, favoured us with some of his infidel notions while serving us at supper. Near Morat was fought the battle wherein the Burgundians were so completely thrashed. Their bones, of which we took pieces, are now very few; once they formed a mighty heap in the chapel, but both were destroyed by the Burgundian division when in Switzerland, and a tree of liberty was planted over it, which yet flourishes in all its verdure—the liberty has flown from the planters' grasp. Saw Aventicum; there remains sufficient of the walls to trace the boundaries of the ancient town; but of all the buildings, both for Gods and men, nothing but a column remains, and that the only remnant for more than a hundred years. There are mosaic pavements, and even the streets may be perceived in a dry summer by the grass being thinner. The mosaic in a barn, probably once of a temple, was pretty perfect till the Gallic cavalry came and turned it into a stable. It is formed of little pieces of black, white, and red bricks; little now remains. There was also a copper vessel in the middle; that too has disappeared. The townis shamefully negligent of the antiquities of their fathers, for there is another more beautiful and perfect mosaic pavement discovered, but which they have allowed the proprietor to cover again with mould rather than buy it. We found in a barn heads, plinths, capitals, and shafts, heaped promiscuously. The Corinthian-column capital is deeply, sharply, and beautifully cut. A head of Apollo in all the rudeness of first art—a capital of a strange mixed order. There is the Amphitheatre, hollow yet pretty perfect, but no stonework visible; overgrown with trees; the size, my companion told me, was larger than common. In the town there were some beautiful fragments of ornament-sculpture incorporated in the walls; all marble. In the walls of the church we sought in vain for the inscription that Mathison mentions to Julia Alpinula.
[Both to Morat and to Aventicum (Avenches) Byron devotes some stanzas inChilde Harold, 63 to 67, and notes to correspond. Morat he terms "the proud, the patriot field." He speaks of the hoard of bones, and says: "I ventured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter of a hero," for "careful preservation." His reference to Aventicum and the inscription to Julia Alpinula reads rather curiously in the light of Polidori's avowal that "we sought in vain for the inscription." Byron'sreaders must always, I apprehend, have inferred the contrary.
"By a lone wall a lonelier column rearsA grey and grief-worn aspect of old days.'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,And looks as with the wild bewildered gazeOf one to stone converted by amaze,Yet still with consciousness: and there it stands,Making a marvel that it not decays,When the coeval pride of human hands,Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands."And there—oh sweet and sacred be the name!—Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gaveHer youth to Heaven: her heart, beneath a claimNearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.Justice is sworn 'gainst tears; and hers would craveThe life she lived in; but the judge was just,—And then she died on him she could not save.Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust."
"By a lone wall a lonelier column rearsA grey and grief-worn aspect of old days.'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,And looks as with the wild bewildered gazeOf one to stone converted by amaze,Yet still with consciousness: and there it stands,Making a marvel that it not decays,When the coeval pride of human hands,Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands."And there—oh sweet and sacred be the name!—Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gaveHer youth to Heaven: her heart, beneath a claimNearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.Justice is sworn 'gainst tears; and hers would craveThe life she lived in; but the judge was just,—And then she died on him she could not save.Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust."
"By a lone wall a lonelier column rearsA grey and grief-worn aspect of old days.'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,And looks as with the wild bewildered gazeOf one to stone converted by amaze,Yet still with consciousness: and there it stands,Making a marvel that it not decays,When the coeval pride of human hands,Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands.
"By a lone wall a lonelier column rears
A grey and grief-worn aspect of old days.
'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,
And looks as with the wild bewildered gaze
Of one to stone converted by amaze,
Yet still with consciousness: and there it stands,
Making a marvel that it not decays,
When the coeval pride of human hands,
Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands.
"And there—oh sweet and sacred be the name!—Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gaveHer youth to Heaven: her heart, beneath a claimNearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.Justice is sworn 'gainst tears; and hers would craveThe life she lived in; but the judge was just,—And then she died on him she could not save.Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust."
"And there—oh sweet and sacred be the name!—
Julia, the daughter, the devoted, gave
Her youth to Heaven: her heart, beneath a claim
Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.
Justice is sworn 'gainst tears; and hers would crave
The life she lived in; but the judge was just,—
And then she died on him she could not save.
Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,
And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust."
Byron's note runs thus: "Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavour to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Cæcina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago. It is thus: 'Julia Alpinula hic jaceo. Infelicis patris infelix proles. Deæ Aventiæ Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui: Male mori in fatis illi erat. Vixi annos XXIII.' I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of greater interest. These are the names and actions," etc.]
I copied the one below on account of its medical tendency. The letters in this as well as in all the other inscriptions are formed like our Roman print, not in the least imperfect: "Nvminib. Avg. et Genio Col. I. El. Apollini Sagr. 9. Postum Hermes lib. Medicis et Professorib, D.S.D."
From Aventicum or Avenches we went to Payerne. We have seen in many places boys leading goats just in the antique style. Thence we went to Moudon—dirty town. Stopped for refreshments. One fine view we have had all the way, but nothing equal to the view descending to Morat.
Darkness came on. We saw the Castle wherein —— defended himself against the French who besieged it for a month: looks so weak, it seems a wonder. The Swiss castles are not nearly so interesting as the Rhine ones. They are very conical-roofed and no battlements. We saw the lake, but for a long time doubted whether it was a cloud below, a mist before, or water beneath us. Entered Lausanne.
May 25.—Left Lausanne, after having looked at a bookseller's, who showed me a fine collection of bad books for four louis. Enquired for Dewar: name not known. We went along the lake, that a little disappointed me, as it does not seem so broad as it really is, and the mountains near it, thoughcovered with snow, have not a great appearance on account of the height [of the] lake itself. We saw Mont Blanc in the distance; ethereal in appearance, mingling with the clouds; it is more than 60 miles from where we saw it. It is a classic ground we go over. Buonaparte, Joseph, Bonnet, Necker, Staël, Voltaire, Rousseau, all have their villas (except Rousseau). Genthoud, Ferney, Coppet, are close to the road.
[Perhaps some readers may need to be reminded who Bonnet was. He was a great physicist, both practical and speculative, Charles Bonnet, author of aTraité d'Insectologie, aTraité de l'usage des Feuilles,Contemplations de la Nature,Palingénésie Philosophique, and other works. Born in Geneva in 1720, he died in 1793.]
We arrived at Sécheron—where Lord Byron, having put his age down as 100, received a letter half-an-hour after from Inn Keeper?—a thing that seems worthy of a novel. It begins again to be the land of the vine. Women, who till the Pays de Vaud were ugly, improving greatly.
May 26.—After breakfast, and having made up the accounts to to-day, and having heard that the voituriers made a claim of drink-money all the way back, we ordered a calèche; but, happening to go into the garden, we saw a boat, into which entering,we pushed out upon the Leman Lake. After rowing some time, happening to come to the ferry, we found the waiter with a direful look to tell us that it waspris pour un monsieur Anglais, who happened to be ——.[7]We got another, and went out to bathe. Irodefirst with L[ord] B[yron] upon the field of Waterloo;walkedfirst to see Churchill's tomb;bathed and rowedfirst on the Leman Lake.—It did us much good. Dined; entered the calèche; drove through Geneva, where I saw an effect of building that pleased me: it was porticoes from the very roof of the high houses to the bottom.
Went to the house beyond Cologny that belonged to Diodati. They ask five-and-twenty louis for it a month. Narrow, not true. The view from his house is very fine; beautiful lake; at the bottom of the crescent is Geneva. Returned. Pictet called, but L[ord] B[yron] said "not at home."
[There were two Genevan Pictets at this date, both public men of some mark. One was Jean Marc Jules Pictet de Sergy, 1768 to 1828; the other, the Chevalier Marc Auguste Pictet, 1752 to 1825. As Polidori speaks farther on of Pictet as being aged about forty-six, the former would appear to be meant. He had been in Napoleon's legislative chamber from 1800 to 1815, and was afterwards a member of the representative council of Geneva.—The Villa Diodati was the house where Milton, in 1639, had visited Dr. John Diodati, a Genevese Professor of Theology. Polidori's compact phrase, "narrow, not true," is by no means clear; perhaps he means that some one had warned him that the Villa Diodati (called also the Villa Belle Rive) was inconveniently narrow, but, on inspecting the premises, he found the statement incorrect.]
May 27.—Got up; went about a boat; got one for 3 fr. a day; rowed to Sécheron. Breakfasted. Got into a carriage. Went to Banker's, who changed our money, and afterwards left his card. To Pictet—not at home. Home, and looked at accounts: bad temper on my side. Went into the boat, rowed across to Diodati; cannot have it for three years; English family. Crossed again; I went; L[ord] B[yron] back. Getting out, L[ord] B[yron] met M[ary] Wollstonecraft Godwin, her sister, and Percy Shelley. I got into the boat into the middle of Leman Lake, and there lay my length, letting the boat go its way.
[Here I find it difficult to understand the phrase—"Cannot have it (Villa Diodati) for three years—English family." It must apparently mean either that an English family were occupying or had bespoken Villa Diodati, and would remain there for three yearsto come (which is in conflict with the fact that Byron soon afterwards became the tenant); or else that Byron thought of renting it for a term as long as three years, which was barred by the previous claim of some English family. On the whole, the latter supposition seems to me the more feasible; but one is surprised to think that Byron had any—even remote—idea of remaining near Geneva for any such great length of time. This sets one's mind speculating about Miss Clairmont, with whom (as is well known) Byron's amour had begun before he left London, and who had now just arrived to join him at Sécheron; had he at this time any notion of settling down with her in the neighbourhood for three years, more or less? It is a curious point to consider for us who know how rapidly he discarded her, and how harshly he treated her ever afterwards. Miss Clairmont, we see, was now already on the spot, along with Percy and Mary Shelley; in fact, as we learn from other sources, they had arrived at Sécheron, Dejean's Hôtel de l'Angleterre, as far back as May 18, or perhaps May 15—and Byron now for the first time encountered the three. It appears that he must have met Mary Godwin in London, probably only once—not to speak of Clare. Shelley, to the best of our information, he had never till now seen at all. Polidori here terms Clare Clairmont the "sister" of "M. Wollstonecraft Godwin"; and inthe entry for May 29 he even applies the name Wollstonecraft Godwin to Clare; and it will be found as we proceed that for some little while he really supposed the two ladies to be sisters in the right sense of the term, both of them bearing the surname of Godwin. In point of fact, there was no blood-relationship—Mary being the daughter of Mr. and the first Mrs. Godwin, and Clare the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clairmont. It may be as well to add that the letters addressed by Miss Clairmont to Byron, before they actually met in London, have now (1904) been published inThe Works of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, vol. iii, pp. 429-437; and they certainly exhibit a degree of forwardness and importunity which accounts in some measure for his eventual antipathy to her.]
Found letter from De Roche inviting me to breakfast to-morrow; curious with regard to L[ord] B[yron]. Dined; P[ercy] S[helley], the author ofQueen Mab, came; bashful, shy, consumptive; twenty-six; separated from his wife; keeps the two daughters of Godwin, who practise his theories; one L[ord] B[yron]'s.
[This is a very noticeable jotting. Shelley appears to have come in alone on this occasion, and we may infer that some very confidential talk ensued between him and Byron, in the presence of Polidori. He was not at this date really twenty-six years of age, butonly twenty-three. "Bashful, shy," is an amusingly simple description of him. As to "consumptive," we know that Shelley left England under the impression that consumption had him in its grip, but this hardly appears to have been truly the case. Polidori, as a medical man, might have been expected to express some doubt on the subject, unless the poet's outward appearance looked consumptive. Next we hear that Shelley "keeps the two daughters of Godwin, who practise his theories"—i.e.set the marriage-laws at defiance, or act upon the principle of free love. One might suppose, from this phrase, that Polidori believed Shelley to be the accepted lover of Miss Clairmont as well as of Mary Godwin; but the addition of those very significant words—"One, Lord Byron's"—tells in the opposite direction. These words can only mean (what was the fact) that one of these ladies, viz. Miss Clairmont, was Lord Byron's mistress. Therefore Polidori, in saying that Shelley "kept the two daughters of Godwin," may presumably have meant that he housed and maintained Clare, while he was thequasi-husband of Mary. Whether Polidori now for the first time learned, from the conversation of Byron and Shelley, what was the relation subsisting between Clare and Byron, or whether Byron had at some earlier date imparted the facts to him, is a question which must remain unsolved. The latterappears to me extremely probable; for Byron had certainly arranged to meet Clare near Geneva, and he may very likely have given the requisite notice beforehand to his travelling physician and daily associate. My aunt Charlotte Polidori was not an adept in Shelleian detail: if she had been, I fear that these sentences would have shocked her sense of propriety, and they would have been left uncopied. They form the only passage in her transcript which bears in any way upon the amour between Lord Byron and Miss Clairmont; to the best of my recollection and belief there was not in the original Diary any other passage pointing in the same direction.—I may observe here that there is nothing in Polidori's Journal to show that the Shelley party were staying in the same Sécheron hotel with Lord Byron. Professor Dowden says that they were—I suppose with some sufficient authority; and I think other biographers in general have assumed the same.]
Into the calèche; horloger's at Geneva; L[ord] B[yron] paid 15 nap. towards a watch; I, 13: repeater and minute-hand; foolish watch.
[This means (as one of Polidori's letters shows) that Byron made him a present of £15 towards the price of the watch.]
Went to see the house of Madame Necker, 100 a half-year; came home, etc.
May 28.—Went to Geneva, to breakfast with Dr. De Roche; acute, sensible, a listener to himself; good clear head. Told me that armies on their march induce a fever (by their accumulation of animal dirt, irregular regimen) of the most malignant typhoid kind; it is epidemic. There was a whole feverish line from Moscow to Metz, and it spread at Geneva the only almost epidemic typhus for many years. He is occupied in the erection of Lancaster schools, which he says succeed well. He is a Louis Bourbonist. He told me my fever was not an uncommon one among travellers. He came home with me, and we had a chat with L[ord] B[yron]; chiefly politics, where of course we differed. He had a system well worked out, but I hope only hypothetical, about liberty of the French being Machiavellianly not desirable by Europe. He pointed out Dumont in the court, the rédacteur of Bentham.
Found a letter from Necker to the hotel-master, asking 100 nap. for three months; and another from Pictet inviting L[ord] B[yron] and any friend to go with him at 8 to Madame Einard, a connection of his. We then, ascending our car, went to see some other houses, none suiting.
When we returned home, Mr. Percy Shelley came in to ask us to dinner; declined; engaged for tomorrow. We walked with him, and got into hisboat, though the wind raised a little sea upon the lake. Dined at four. Mr. Hentsch, the banker, came in; very polite; told L[ord] B[yron] that, when he saw him yesterday, he had not an idea that he was speaking to one of the most famous lords of England.
Dressed and went to Pictet's: an oldish man, about forty-six, tall, well-looking, speaks English well. His daughter showed us a picture, by a young female artist, of Madame Lavallière in the chapel; well executed in pencil—good lights and a lusciously grieving expression.
Went to Madame Einard. Introduced to a room where about 8 (afterwards 20), 2 ladies (1 more). L[ord] B[yron]'s name was alone mentioned; mine, like a star in the halo of the moon, invisible. L[ord] B[yron] not speaking French, M. Einard spoke bad Italian. A Signor Rossi came in, who had joined Murat at Bologna. Manly in thought; admired Dante as a poet more than Ariosto, and a discussion about manliness in a language. Told me Geneva women amazingly chaste even in thoughts. Saw the Lavallière artist. A bonny, rosy, seventy-yeared man, called Bonstetten, the beloved of Gray and the correspondent of Mathison.
[I find "40" in the MS.: apparently it ought to be "70," for Bonstetten was born in 1745. He lived on till 1832. Charles Victor de Bonstetten was aBernese nobleman who had gone through various vicissitudes of opinion and adventure, travelling in England and elsewhere. To Englishmen (as indicated in Polidori's remark) he is best known as a friend of the poet Thomas Gray, whom he met in 1769. He said: "Jamais je n'ai vu personne qui donnât autant que Gray l'idée d'un gentleman accompli." Among the chief writings of Bonstetten areRecherches sur la Nature et les Lois de l'Imagination;Etudes d'Hommes;L'Homme du Midi et l'Homme du Nord.]
Madame Einard made tea, and left all to take sugar with the fingers. Madame Einard showed some historical pieces of her doing in acquerella, really good, a little too French-gracish. Obliged to leave before ten for the gates shut. Came home, went to bed.
Was introduced by Shelley to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, called here Mrs. Shelley. Saw picture by Madame Einard of a cave in the Jura where in winter there is no ice, in summer plenty. No names announced, no ceremony—each speaks to whom he pleases. Saw the bust of Jean Jacques erected upon the spot where the Geneva magistrates were shot. L[ord] B[yron] said it was probably built of some of the stones with which they pelted him.[8]The walk is deserted. They are now mending their roads. Formerly they could not, because the municipal money always went to the public box.
May 29.—Went with Mr. Hentsch to see some houses along the valley in which runs the Rhone: nothing. Dined with Mr. and Mrs. Percy Shelley and Wollstonecraft Godwin. Hentsch told us that the English last year exported corn to Italy to a great amount.
May 30.—Got up late. Went to Mr. and Mrs. Shelley; breakfasted with them; rowed out to see a house together. S[helley] went from Lucerne with the two, with merely £26, to England along the Rhine in bateaux. Gone through much misery, thinking he was dying; married a girl for the mere sake of letting her have the jointure that would accrue to her; recovered; found he could not agree; separated; paid Godwin's debts, and seduced his daughter; then wondered that he would not see him. The sister left the father to go with the other. Got a child. All clever, and no meretricious appearance. He is very clever; the more I read hisQueen Mab, the more beauties I find. Published at fourteen a novel; got £30 for it; by his second work £100.Mabnot published.—Went in calèche with L[ord] B[yron] to see a house; again after dinner to leave cards; then on lake with L[ord] B[yron]. I, Mrs.S[helley], and Miss G[odwin], on to the lake till nine. Drank tea, and came away at 11 after confabbing. The batelier went to Shelley, and asked him as a favour not to tell L[ord] B[yron] what he gave for his boat, as he thought it quite fit that Milord's payment be double; we sent Berger to say we did not wish for the boat.
[The statement that "Shelley went from Lucerne with the two, with merely £26, to England, along the Rhine in bateaux," refers of course to what had taken place in 1814, on the occasion of Shelley's elopement with Mary Godwin, and has no bearing on the transactions of 1816; it must be cited by Polidori as showing how inexpensively three persons could, if so minded, travel from Switzerland to England. The other references to Shelley's domestic affairs etc. are very curious. Except as to his own personal admiration forQueen Mab, Polidori is here evidently putting down (but not in the words of Shelley himself, who would assuredly not have said that he had "seduced" Mary Godwin) such details as the poet imparted to him. They are far from accurate. To some extent, Polidori may have remembered imperfectly what Shelley told him, but I think the latter must have been responsible for most of the fables; and generally it would appear that Shelley gave free rein to his inclination forromancing or for over-stating matters, possibly perceiving that Polidori was credulous, and capable of swallowing whatever he was told, the more eccentric the better. To say that Shelley, before he, at the age of barely 19, married Harriet Westbrook in 1811, thought that he was dying, and that his only practical motive for marrying her was that she might come in for a jointure after his decease, is no doubt highly fallacious, and even absurd. We have other sources of information as to these occurrences, especially the letters of Shelley addressed at the time to Jefferson Hogg, and they tell a very different tale. As to his reason for separating from Harriet, Shelley, we perceive, simply told Polidori that he "found he could not agree" with her; he said nothing as to his knowing or supposing that she had been unfaithful to him. Again, Shelley was not so boyish as 14 when he published a novel—his first novel, the egregiousZastrozzi; the publication took place in 1810, when he was eighteen, or at lowest seventeen. The statement that he got £100 by "his second work" is worth considering. If "his second work" means, as one might naturally suppose in this connexion, the romance ofSt. Irvyne, the suggestion that he got anything at all by it, except a state of indebtedness, is a novelty. But our mind recurs to that rumoured and apparently really publishedthough wholly untraced work of his,A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things. This poem was published, we are told, for the benefit of an Irish agitator or patriot, Peter Finnerty, and it has been elsewhere averred that the publication produced a sum of nearly £100. The mention by Polidori of £100 may be surmised to refer to the same matter, and it tends so far to confirm the idea that the book really existed, and even secured a fair measure of success.—Berger (who is named in connexion with Byron and the hire for the boat) was, as already noted, the Swiss servant of Byron, brought from London.]
May 31.—Breakfasted with Shelley; read Italian with Mrs. S[helley]; dined; went into a boat with Mrs. S[helley], and rowed all night till 9; tea'd together; chatted, etc.
June 1.—Breakfasted with S[helley]; entered a calèche; took Necker's house for 100 louis for 8 or 365 days. Saw several houses for Shelley; one good. Dined; went in the boat; all tea'd together.
[Necker's house, here mentioned, would apparently be the same as the Villa Diodati, or Villa Belle Rive—for that is the house which Byron did in fact rent. "Necker" may be understood as meaning (rather than the famous Minister of Finance in France) his widow, since Necker himself had died a dozen yearsbefore. The sum of 100 louis seems to be specified here as the rent for a year, and the phrase about 8 days must indicate that the house could be tenanted for that short space of time—or let us say a week—at a proportionate payment. This rate of rental appears low, and it differs both from what was said under the date of May 26, and from what we shall find noted shortly afterwards, June 6. Thus I feel a little doubt whether "Necker's house" is not in reality something quite different from the Villa Diodati. Byron's proposed tenancy of the former might possibly have been cancelled.]
Rogers the subject: L[or]d B[yron] thinks good poet; malicious. Marquis of Lansdowne being praised by a whole company as a happy man, having all good, R[ogers] said, "But how horridly he carves turbot!" Ward having reviewed his poems in theQuarterly, having a bad heart and being accused of learning his speeches, L[ord] B[yron], upon malignantly hinting to him [Rogers] how he had been carved, heard him say: "I stopped his speaking though by my epigram, which is—