LV.

"And therefore was she kind and gentle as The Age of Gold (when gold was yet unknown)."

As to Neuha, the daughter of Ocean (in "The Island"), his last creation, she is, indeed, the daughter of Nature also, and no less admirable than her sister Haidee, but she is still more highly endowed in a moral sense:--

"The infant of an infant world, as pure From nature--lovely, warm, and premature; Dusky like night, but night with all her stars, Or cavern sparkling with its native spars; With eyes that were a language and a spell, A form like Aphrodite's in her shell, With all her loves around her on the deep, Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep; Yet full of life--for through her tropic cheek The blush would make its way, and all but speak: The sun-born blood suffused her neck, and threw O'er her clear nut-brown skin a lucid hue, Like coral reddening through the darken'd wave, Which draws the diver to the crimson cave. Such was this daughter of the southern seas, Herself a billow in her energies, To bear the bark of others' happiness. Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less: Her wild and warm yet faithful bosom knew No joy like what it gave; her hopes ne'er drew Aught from experience, that chill touchstone, whose Sad proof reduces all things from their hues: She fear'd no ill, because she knew it not."

When, after the combat, she arrives in her bark to save Torquil, the poet exclaims:

"And who the first that springing on the strand, Leap'd like a nereid from her shell to land, With dark but brilliant skin, and dewy eye Shining with love, and hope, and constancy? Neuha--the fond, the faithful, the adored-- Her heart on Torquil's like a torrent pour'd; And smiled, and wept, and near, and nearer clasp'd As if to be assured 'twas _him_ she grasp'd; Shuddered to see his yet warm wound, and then, To find it trivial, smiled and wept again. She was a warrior's daughter, and could bear Such sights, and feel, and mourn, but not despair. Her lover lived,--nor foes nor fears could blight, That full-blown moment in its all delight: Joy trickled in her tears, joy filled the sob That rock'd her heart till almost heard to throb; And paradise was breathing in the sigh Of nature's child in nature's ecstasy."

"All these sweet creations realize the idea, formed from all time, of surpassing loveliness, of gentleness with passion," justly observes Monsieur Nisard--he who, in his very clever sketch of the illustrious poet, so often forms erroneous judgments of Lord Byron. For he also accepted him as he was presented--namely, as the victim of calumny and prejudice; or else he considered him after a system, examining only some _passages and one single period_ of the man's and the _poet's_ life, instead of taking the whole career and the general spirit of his writings,--a method also perceivable in his appreciation of Lord Byron's female characters.

Indeed Monsieur Nisard evidently only speaks of the Medoras, Zuleikas, Leilas, and in general of all the types in his Eastern poems, and appertaining to his first period: most fascinating beings undoubtedly, true emanations of the purest and most passionate love, but yet as morally inferior to the Angiolinas, Myrrhas, Josephines, Auroras, as his poems of the first period are intellectually inferior to those of the second, beginning with the third canto of "Childe Harold," and as civilized Christian woman is superior to a woman in the harem. But Monsieur Nisard, who has a very systematic way of judging things--wishing to prove that Lord Byron's loves were quite lawless in their ungovernable strength, filling the whole soul to the absorption of every other sentiment and interest (which might, indeed, perhaps be said of the personages in his Eastern poems), and not able, without contradicting himself, to assert the same as regards the love and devotion shown by the heroic Myrrhas and virtuous Angiolinas, and other dramatic types, all so different one from the other--has been obliged to omit all mention of them, thus sharing an error common to vain, ignorant critics. Yet these delightful creatures all resemble each other in the one faculty of _loving passionately and chastely_, for that is a quality which constitutes the very essence of woman, and Lord Byron's own qualities must always have drawn it out in her. But there is something far beyond beauty and passion in these noble and heroic creations of his second manner.

"Where shall we find," says Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, "a purer, higher character than that of Angiolina, in the 'Doge of Venice?' Among all Shakspeare's female characters there is certainly not one more true, and not only true and natural, which would be slight merit, but true as a type of the highest, rarest order in human nature. Let us stop here for a moment, we are on no common ground; the character of Angiolina has not yet been understood."

Bulwer then quotes the scene between Marian and Angiolina, and after having pointed out its moral beauty, exclaims:--

"What a deep sentiment of the dignity of virtue! Angiolina does not even conceive that she can be suspected, or that the insult offered her required any other justification than the indignation of public opinion."

And Bulwer goes on to quote the verses where Marian asks Angiolina if, when she gave her hand to a man of age so disproportioned, and of a character so opposite to her own, she loved this spouse, this friend of her family; and whether, before marriage, her heart had not beat for some noble youth more worthy to be the husband of beauty like hers; or whether since, she had met with some one who might have aspired to her lovely self. And after Angiolina's admirable reply, Bulwer says:--

"Is not this conception equal at least to that of Desdemona? Is not her heart equally pure, serene, tender, and at the same time passionate, yet with love, not material but _actual_, which, according to Plato, gives a visible form to virtue, and then admits of no other rival. Yet this sublime noble woman had no cold stiffness in her nature; she forgives Steno, but not from the cold height, of her chastity.

"'If,' said she to the indignant page, 'oh! if this false and light calumniator were to shed his blood on account of this absurd calumny, never from that moment would my heart experience an hour's happiness, nor enjoy a tranquil slumber.'"

"Here," says Bulwer, "the reader should remark with what delicate artifice the tenderness of sex and charity heighten and warm the snowy coldness of her ethereal superiority. What a union of all woman's finest qualities! Pride that disdains calumny; gentleness that forgives it! Nothing can be more simply grand than the whole of this character, and the story which enhances it. An old man of eighty is the husband of a young woman, whose heart preserves the calmness of purity; no love episode comes to disturb her serene course, no impure, dishonorable jealousy casts a shade on her bright name. She treads her path through a life of difficulties, like some angelic nature, though quite human by the form she wears."

Wishing only to call attention to the beauty of the female characters he created, without reference to the other beauties contained in the work, we shall continue to quote Bulwer for the second of these admirable creations of womankind in his dramas, namely, Myrrha. After having praised that magnificent tragedy "Sardanapalus," he adds:--

"But the principal beauty of this drama is the conception of Myrrha. This young Greek slave, so tender and courageous, in love with her lord and master, yet sighing after her liberty; adoring equally her natal land and the gentle barbarian: what a new and dramatic combination of sentiments! It is in this conflict of emotions that the master's hand shows itself with happiest triumph.

"The heroism of this beautiful Ionian never goes beyond nature, yet stops only at sublimest limits. The proud melancholy that blends with her character, when she thinks of her fatherland; her ardent, generous, _unselfish_ love, her passionate desire of elevating the soul of Sardanapalus, so as to justify her devotion to him, the earnest yet sweet severity that reigned over her gentlest qualities, showing her faithful and fearless, capable of sustaining with, a firm hand the torch that was to consume on the sacred pile (according to her religion) both Assyrian and Greek; all these combinations are the result of the purest sentiments, the noblest art. The last words of Myrrha on the funereal pyre are in good keeping with the grand conception of her character. With the natural aspirations of a Greek, her thoughts turn at this moment to her distant clime; but still they come back at the same time to her lord, who is beside her, and blending almost in one sigh the two contrary affections of her soul, Myrrha cries:--

"Then farewell, thou earth! And loveliest spot of earth! farewell, Ionia! Be thou still free and beautiful, and far Aloof from desolation! My last prayer Was for thee, my last thoughts, save _one_, were of thee! _Sar._ And that? _Myr._ Is yours."

"The principal charm," says Moore, "and the life-giving angel of this tragedy, is Myrrha, a beautiful, heroic, devoted, ethereal creature, enamored of the generous, infatuated monarch, yet ashamed of loving a barbarian, and using all her influence over him to elevate as well as gild his life, and to arm him against the terror of his end. Her voluptuousness is that of the heart, her heroism that of the affections."

Another admirable character, full of Christian beauty, is that of Josephine in "Werner."

"Josephine," said the "Review," when "Werner" appeared, "is a model of real spotless virtue. A true woman in her perfection, not only does she preserve the character of her sex by her general integrity, but she also possesses a wife's tender, sweet, and constant affection. She cherishes and consoles her afflicted husband through all the adversities of his destiny and the consequences of his faults.

"Italian by birth, the contrast between the beauties and circumstances of her native country compared with the frontiers of Silesia, where a pretty feudal tyranny exists, displays still more the fine sentiments that characterize her."

We shall close this long list of admirable conceptions (which one quits with regret, so great is their charm) by giving some extracts from the portrait he was engaged on, when death, alas! caused the pencil to drop from his fingers: we mean Aurora Raby in "Don Juan:"--

"Aurora Raby, a young star who shone O'er life, too sweet an image for such glass; A lovely being, scarcely form'd or moulded, A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded; * * * * * * * "Early in years, and yet more infantine In figure, she had something of sublime In eyes which sadly shone, as seraphs' shine. All youth--but with an aspect beyond time; Radiant and grave as pitying man's decline; Mournful--but mournful of another's crime, She look'd as if she sat by Eden's door, And grieved for those who could return no more."

And then:--

"She was a Catholic, too, sincere, austere, As far as her own gentle heart allow'd."

And again:--

"She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew, As seeking not to know it; silent, lone, As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew, And kept her heart serene within its zone. There was awe in the homage which she drew: Her spirit seem'd as seated on a throne Apart from the surrounding world, and strong In its own strength--most strange in one so young!" * * * * * * * "High, yet resembling not his lost Haidee; Yet each was radiant in her proper sphere." * * * * * * * "The difference in them Was such as lies between a flower and gem."

"_Don Juan_," canto xv.

Now that we have seen Lord Byron's ideal of womankind, let us mark with what sentiments they inspired him, and in what way love always presented itself to his heart or his imagination. Ever dealing out toward him the same measure of justice and truth, people have gone on complacently repeating that his love sometimes became a very frenzy, or anon degenerated into a sensation rather than a sentiment. And his poetry has been asserted to contain proof of this in the actions, characters, and words of the persons there portrayed. I think, then, that the best way of ascertaining the degree of truth belonging to these asseverations, is to let him speak himself, on this sentiment, at all the different periods of his life:--

"Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire With angels shared, by Allah given To lift from earth our low desire. Devotion wafts the mind above, But Heaven itself descends in love; A feeling from the Godhead caught, To wean from self each sordid thought; A Ray of Him who form'd the whole; A Glory circling round the soul! I grant _my_ love imperfect, all That mortals by the name miscall; Then deem it evil, what thou wilt; But say, oh say, _hers_ was not guilt! She was my life's unerring light: That quench'd, what beam shall break my night?" "_The Giaour._"

In 1817, at Venice, when his heart, at twenty-nine years of age, was devoid of any real love, and had even arrived at never loving, although suffering deeply from the void thus created, Lord Byron giving vent to his feelings wrote thus:--

"Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her! Ye elements!--in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted--Can ye not Accord me such a being? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot."[49]

At the same period, he also unveils his soul, in guessing that of Tasso:--

"And with my years my soul began to pant With feelings of strange tumult and soft pain; And the whole heart exhaled into One Want, But undefined and wandering, till the day I found the thing I sought--and that was thee; And then I lost my being, all to be Absorb'd in thine; the world was pass'd away; _Thou_ didst annihilate the earth to me!" "_The Lament of Tasso._"

A short time after, having described the charm of the pine forest at Ravenna, seen by twilight, he begins to paint the happiness of two loving hearts--of Juan and Haidee, and says:--