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CHAPTER 14.
VENICE.
1816—1819.
Hobhouse accompanied Byron to Venice, but a month after their arrival the former left for Rome.
Byron’s first lodging was with a certain Signor Segati, who was a Venetian draper. His wife Marianna was young and attractive—“not two and twenty, with great black eastern eyes, and a variety of subsidiary charms.”
She sang beautifully, and on account of her wonderful voice she was received by the aristocracy of Venice.
Byron was very much attracted by her—he found her an obliging companion. She could adapt herself to his varying moods, and had a soothing effect upon him.
Shortly after his arrival in Venice he struck up a friendship with the fathers of an Armenian Convent.
During the winter months he set himself the task of learning the Armenian language, and helped one of the fathers in composing an English-Armenian grammar. He found the fathers of the Convent good company, and he was tremendously impressed by the quiet peacefulness of their lives.
Early in 1817 he had an attack of malaria, and for some weeks he was in bed. He was not altogether idle, for during his illness he finished the last act of Manfred.
Upon his recovery he was advised by his doctors to leave Venice, and seek a change of air. Hobhouse was still in Rome, and Byron accepted an invitation to join him. In Rome he found some more material for the fourth Canto of Childe Harold. We gather from one of his letters to Moore that he and Hobhouse spent most of their time on horseback, galloping daily over the Campus Martius. He was evidently somewhat anxious about his health, and felt the necessity of daily exercise.
Upon returning to Venice he rented a villa at La Mira, on the Brenta, some little distance out of the city. Hobhouse rejoined him, and they spent five delightful months together.
When Byron had finished the fourth Canto of Childe Harold, he dedicated it on his wedding anniversary to “John Hobhouse Esqre., A.M.F.R.S., one whom I have known long and accompanied far . . . . . a friend often tried and never found wanting.” If it does not come up to the standard of the third Canto, it contains some beautiful stanzas, which reveal to us the real Byron: —
Shall on their soften’d spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.”
It was an evil day for Byron when Hobhouse left him, and returned to London. Could the restraining hand of his friend have been upon him throughout the whole time of his stay in these parts, things would have been very different. During the period that followed he put no restraint upon himself whatever. He felt lonely, and no doubt thoughts of his early years—thoughts of what might have been if only . . . .—began to torture him again. He had tried before to escape from them in a whirl of gaiety and excitement, but had not been altogether successful. He would try again—but this time the spirit of recklessness should possess him entirely—he would let himself go. His passions should be indulged to the full. The opportunity was there, he would seize it.
Venice was a city of easy morals. A life such as he contemplated would provide no time for reflection. It would be impossible for agonising thoughts to come to the surface of his mind, and torture him. It was “the way out,” so it seemed to him, and he took it.
Marianna Segati, who for a year or more had held sway in his life, was deposed, and another, Margarita. Cogni a baker’s wife, reigned in her stead. She was a loud boisterous woman, and of a very jealous nature.
Byron associated with her, and with other women of her type.
When Shelley visited him he was shocked to find him in a miserable condition, “familiar with the lowest sort of women—wretches who seem almost to have lost the gait and physiognomy of man. He says he disapproves, but he endures. He is heartily and deeply discontented with himself.”
Strange to say, the dissipated life which he was now living did not affect the power and activity of his mind. His letters home at this time were among the most brilliant, and his poetry of the highest order.
He now began to put a monetary value upon his poetical exertions. For Manfred and The Lament of Tasso he received six hundred pounds, and for the fourth Canto of Childe Harold two thousand guineas. He candidly admits “I once wrote from the fulness of my mind and love of fame .... now from habit and from avarice.”
His financial position at this time was also improved by the sale of Newstead. The purchaser was his old school friend, Tom Wildman, and the purchase price £94,500. Annabella claimed two-thirds of this sum under the marriage settlement, and a considerable amount went towards payment of Byron’s debts, but Kinnaird, his friend and banker, was able to give him the information that his bank account had for the first time a credit balance.
His attorney, Hanson, undertook the journey to Venice to see him with reference to the sale of Newstead, and did not report favourably of his appearance. He looked at least forty years of age. His face had become pale, bloated and sallow, and he had, moreover, grown very fat.
In April, 1818, he was a little affected by the news of the death of Lady Melbourne, although he declared “the time is past in which I could feel for the dead.” He refers to Lady Melbourne as “the best, kindest, and ablest female I ever knew.”
When the Shelleys left him at Diodati on August 29, 1817, taking Clare Clairmont with them, he knew that she was to become a mother. A little daughter was born on January 12, 1817, and of this child he was the father. On hearing of the birth of the child he promised to take charge of her.
For some months she remained with the Shelleys, but at last Byron received a letter reminding him of his promise, and arrangements were made for the child to be brought to him.
He was now installed in the Palazzo Mocenigo on the Grand Canal with Margarita Cogni as his housekeeper and Tita Falcieri as his gondolier.
For a short time Allegra—that was the name chosen by him for his little daughter—was in the charge of Margarita, but afterwards Richard Hoppner, the Consul, and his wife, who had shown great kindness to Byron, rescued her from the very undesirable surroundings of the Palazzo, and she found a home at the Consulate.
Byron’s life of dissipation continued in spite of repeated warnings from his friends. They saw his health failing, and did their best to bring him to a better mind, but he seemed determined to pursue his course of recklessness whatever the consequences might be.
Circumstances, however, were combining to check him on his downward path. He had begun Don Juan. His intellect was as clear and vigorous as ever, and his interest became more and more absorbed in this work. With this new interest he had a vision of better things— the society of Margarita Cogni, or the Fornarina as he called her, began to pall. The consequences of his folly dawned upon him. If he had escaped from the agony of early memories, he realised that memories, far more agonising, memories of the last two years, would torment him to his dying day. The early memories were at least pure and undefiled—the memories of the Frezzeria—La Mira—the Palazzo Mocenigo were bestial and hauntingly shameful. He took up his pen and wrote—the words are pathetic in the extreme:
Then again his health was failing; dissipation was exacting its toll. In January, 1819, he became seriously ill, and by doctor’s orders he dismissed the Fornarina from the Palazzo Mocenigo. There was a scene. She first stabbed herself, and then threw herself into the canal, but gondoliers were at hand to rescue her.
With the arrival of Spring, he recovered his health, and a new chapter in his life began.