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CHAPTER 17.
BEREAVEMENT.
1821—1822.
On the journey to Pisa he encountered the friend of his boyhood, Lord Clare. This chance meeting, to which reference was made in the early part of this book, gave him great delight. “It annihilated,” he said, “for a moment all the years between the present time and the days of Harrow.”
He also met on this journey his old acquaintance, Samuel Rogers, and they spent some little time together at Florence.
Upon arriving at his destination he took up his residence at the Palazzo Lanfranchi. It was beautifully situated, overlooking the river Amo, but somewhat too spacious for his requirements. He entertained Teresa as a rule in the morning, and in the afternoon he went out riding with his friends—Shelley, Captain Williams, Prince Mavrocordato (who was teaching Greek to Mary Shelley), and Thomas Medwin, Shelley’s cousin.
Most of his work was done at the end of the day, and not infrequently he would sit writing until three o’clock in the morning.
On April 20, Allegra died. Countess Guiccioli broke the news to him. “A mortal paleness spread itself over his face, his strength failed him, and he sank into a seat. His look was fixed, and the expression such that I feared for his reason; he did not shed a tear; and his countenance manifested so hopeless, so profound, so sublime a sorrow that at the moment he appeared a being superior to humanity. He remained immovable in the same attitude for an hour . . . . I found him on the following morning tranquillized, and with an expression of religious resignation on his features.”
“She is more fortunate than we are,” he said, “besides, her position in the world would scarcely have allowed her to be happy. It is God’s will—let us mention it no more.”
He desired that her body should be buried in Harrow Church, “near the door, on the left hand as you enter,” and that on the wall a tablet should be placed with these words:
In memory of
Allegra
daughter of G. G. Lord Byron,
who died at Bagnacavallo,
in Italy, April 20, 1822,
aged five years and three months.
“I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me.”
2nd Samuel xii, 23.
The Church authorities thought it to be unfitting that the body of a natural child should be buried in Church, and they would not give their consent to a tablet being erected. Allegra was buried in the churchyard, and a rose-tree planted on her grave to mark the spot.
At the end of April the Shelleys left Pisa and went to Lerici for the summer. Byron left shortly afterwards, and joined the Guiccioli at Montenero, near Leghorn.
In June Leigh Hunt arrived with his wife and six children. Shelley, hearing of their arrival, came to Leghorn, and took them to Pisa. Rooms were found for them in the Palazzo Lanfranchi. He made himself responsible for their installation, and went out with them to choose furniture, the cost of which was generously borne by Byron.
The three poets discussed the question of the journal. It was decided that they should call it The Liberal, Byron promising a free gift of The Vision of Judgment to the first number.
When Shelley thought that everything was satisfactorily settled, he returned to Lerici, leaving Byron with a family of eight in his house!
For some time previously both Byron and Shelley had made yachting a pastime, and in the choice and management of their yachts, they found Edward John Trelawny, who had been in the Navy, very useful to them. On July 8, 1822, Shelley, with his friend Williams, and a boy, named Vivian, put to sea in a new boat called The Ariel, which Shelley had recently purchased. They ran into a sea-fog, and it was not long before a short, but very violent thunder-storm broke over them. The fog cleared, and the storm passed, but The Ariel was no more to be seen. Then followed a terrible week of suspense. Mary Shelley and Jane Williams cherished a sinking hope, but on July 16 the body of Williams was washed ashore, and on July 18, three miles away, the body of Shelley was found.
The authorities insisted on the bodies being cremated on the spot in accordance with their health regulations. A small wooden hut, called “Bagno di Shelley,” now marks the place of Shelley’s cremation. His ashes were taken by Trelawny, and afterwards deposited in the cemetery of Rome near the grave of Keats.
Byron felt the death of Shelley very keenly, but he steeled himself against any emotional expression of loss, as he thought that any exhibition of feeling was a sign of weakness and womanliness. There was no doubt whatever about his affection for, and admiration of, Shelley—“the best and least selfish man I ever knew.” Shelley had appointed him one of his executors, and had left him a legacy of two thousand pounds. The legacy he refused in the interests of Mary Shelley. He was most careful to fulfil his duties as an executor faithfully, and employed Hanson to assist him.
Upon the death of Shelley, Byron found himself saddled with the Hunt family—rather a predicament! but he admitted that he was more or less responsible for the position. He was too generous to let Hunt down—at the same time he found him very unreasonable and difficult. Hunt bitterly complained that he had not given him the support he might have done in his journalistic enterprise. The Liberal had failed. The Press heaped upon it the most scathing criticisms, and Byron’s friends protested most strongly against his association with it. The entire blame for its failure was, of course, laid at Byron’s door. But he had never had any heart in the venture from the first, and it was only out of sympathy for Hunt and his family that he had seriously entertained the proposal in the first instance. Hunt’s disappointment made both him and his wife thoroughly discontented, but they stayed on at the Palazzo Lanfranchi, and accepted Byron’s favours with little show of gratitude. Byron had a sincere wish to assist Hunt, but he found it exasperatingly difficult to give him any effectual help. “I cannot describe to you,” he wrote to Moore, “the despairing sensation of trying to do something for a man who seems incapable, or unwilling, to do anything further for himself—at least to the purpose. It is like pulling a man out of a river, who directly throws himself in again.”
Things did not go very well for Byron at this juncture; his life was full of worries. The Gambas were again banished, and this time from all Tuscan territory. Of course, the Countess Guiccioli insisted that Byron should accompany them, and arrangements were made for them to sail to Genoa.
Byron accordingly set out in the Bolivar with his friends, and with Hunt, Marianne Hunt, and the six children in tow!