ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges the scholarship demanded by her dissertation committee. As chairman,

Dr. Kenneth W. Davis patiently guided through labyrinthine details and generously shared his own expertise as he encour aged my attempt to voice a new concept and to assert my own authority as a scholar-in-the-making. Dr. Thomas Langford carefully reviewed drafts and redrafts, perceptively analyz­ ing and tendering valuable observations. Dr. Donald Rude cheerfully encouraged and tendered suggestions for appropri­ ate scholarly realization. Both Dr. Richard Crider and

Dr. Mike Schoenecke faithfully labored over the tedium of proofreading this dissertation.

I dedicate this literary work to my husband of many years, Blake, who lovingly supported and encouraged this effort.

11 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 11

CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION 1

II. NINETEENTH CENTURY CRITICS 11

III TWENTIETH CENTURY CRITICS 48

IV, POETS AND PRELATES 90

RUINS AND RELICS 121

VI CONCLUSION 158

WORKS CITED 167

111 ABSTRACT

Canto IV of Childe Harold' s PiIgrimage resulted from a

collaborative effort of Lord Byron and John Cam Hobhouse wher

Hobhouse resolved to duplicate their joint project for Canto

I and II. He spent a year and half in occupied with

viewing ruins, monuments, and statues; tediously researching

historical and ecclesiastical sources in private and Vatican

libraries; and compiling explanatory materials on Italian

history, art and archaeology for Canto IV. Although Byron

denied that he would resume the poem, Hobhouse influenced hin

to write the longest canto of the series, and to include spe­

cific subject matter relative to his own researched notes.

This interdependent subject matter appeared in the canto, in

the attached historical notes, and in a separate text accom­

panying the poem.

This dissertation used the 1818 editions of both Canto

IV and Hi stori cal Illustrati ons to elucidate the canto

by analytically comparing the texts. Chapter one sum­

marily identifies the relationship between the two writers

and details the purpose of illuminating elusive poetic refer­

ences and allusions through comparative analysis. The seconc

and third chapters summarize reviews by nineteenth and twen­

tieth century critics. A comprehensive survey of critical

ma terial revealed three facts: the lack of recognition for Hobhouse's influence on the poem; a negation of the benefits from examining the canto in company with the text meant to

1 V elucidate its poetic allusions or literary and historical figures; and a general illiteracy about the history of the composition of Canto IV. Chapters four and five summarily recount Hobhouse's material contribution to understanding

Byron's expressions. Chapter six assesses the lack of crit­ ical recognition for Hobhouse's influence on the subject matter and format of the canto, and recounts some benefits of

Historical Illustrations to the modern reader of Canto IV.

While critics pondered over classical poetics and cata­ logued Byron's introspective meditations, or insisted that the meaning derives from the form of a literary work, they missed the obvious explanation for Canto IV being primarily a historical travelogue correlated with its own explanatory notes and dissertations. A study of the history of its com­ position suggests a deeper connotation behind numerous sur­ face ideas of the poem, and a profound significance behind the dedicatory preface. CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Occasionally a master work of art speaks so eloquently to the human condition that one does not have to comprehend its full consequence to dote on the beauty and meditate on its essence. This process of reader-identification with lit­ erary creations applied particularly to Lord Byron's poetic masterpieces. Even though Chi 1 dQ H^rp^i;!' ? Pi Igri mage traced continental travels over a nine year period, one might skim any canto for majestic descriptions or profound meditations.

And the reader would never realize what a windfall he neg­ lected by not utilizing the travelogues penned to accompany three of the four cantos. These explanatory texts inter­ preted poetic allusions, and identified strange people and places for readers unfamiliar with continental culture and history.

For the first two cantos, John Cam Hobhouse wrote a travelogue detailing archaeological, historical and cultural aspects of their tour as he and Byron traveled through

Portugal, Spain, Greece and Albania. His Journe.v Through

Albania and Other Provinces sJi Turkey UL EurOPg^ aJld Asift

Duri ng the Years 1809 and 1810 coincided with the subject ma tter of Canto I and II and capitalized on both the English reading public's infatuation with travelogues at that time and the exotic tour that the pair of young Englishmen had completed. The outstanding literary success of their earlier venture prompted Hobhouse' s vision of a canto-travelogue combination detailing the jaunt through Italy that he and

Byron had long anticipated. Both Canto IV with its appended notes and Hi stori cal Illustrati ons of the Fourth Canto of

ChiIde Harold grew out of their travels in Italy in 1816-

1817, and were published in 1818. In fact, Byron considered

Hobhouse's historical material so essential to interpreting

Canto IV that he threatened to refuse to publish the poem if

Hobhouse's guide was not also published. By letter, he

vetoed the publisher's separation of notes and poetry: "the

text shall not be published without the Notes--& if this is contemplated--It shan't be published at all--" (Marchand L&J

6.14). Murray published part of the voluminous notes with

the canto, but retained the bulk of them for a separate volume, Histori cal Illustrati ons.

However, in numerous letters (the last one to John

Murray dated June 17, 1817) Byron had repeatedly denied that he would resume Childe Harold' s PiIgrimage "or any other" poem (Marchand 5.157). One could explain Byron's reluctance to revert to the pilgrim guise by considering his life status in 1816. He sought a new identity as he adjusted to agoniz­ ing personal problems that entailed a self-imposed exile.

Also during the year, he had produced a tremendous amount of poetry. He wrote Canto III of "Childe Harold," finished the Turkish tales, worked on "Beppo" and "Manfred; he was translating an Armenian grammar and writing a novel about

Don Julian that became his poetic satire "Don Juan."

However, this dissertation points to one aspect of the

poet's composition of Canto IV that no critic has yet con­

sidered. After comparing the canto with Hi stori cal Illus-

trations, and paralleling Hobhouse' s journal with Byron's

letters, I determined that without Hobhouse's persistent

urging, and his articulate command of subject matter, Byron

probably would never have written Canto IV, at least not as

a historical travelogue. What emerged was his longest canto

supported by two companion pieces. Notes appended to the

canto explained numerous places, monuments and events about

which readers in 1818 knew little, and added appreciably to

an understanding of the poem. But the separate text. Hi sto­

ri cal Illustrati ons of the Fourth Canto of ChiIde Harold:

Containi ng Pi ssertati ons on the Rui ns of : and an Essav

on Italian Li terature. told something about the composition

of the poetry. Its treatises (on art, architecture and

history) correlated with poetic references, interpreted vague

allusions and increased a reader's grasp of various aspects of Italian culture. Also, Hobhouse edited the accompanying m aterial to avoid repetition in the notes and Illustrations For the curious scholar, Hobhouse provided an account of the exhaustive research behind the compilation of the explanatory material. While he specifically stated that he did not intend to interpret or explain Byron's poetry, he obviously felt that poetry should instruct, and therefore edited both the notes and Illustrati ons as enrichment for the canto. His natural antiquarian interest and knowledge of Italian history led him to produce scholarly and authoritative discourses that added detail and background for readers interested in classical literature, Italian history, or relics discovered

in nineteenth-century excavations of Rome and its surrounding

terri tory.

Through Hobhouse' s journal, one might easily recreate

the calendar of travels as he and Byron explored the Bernese

Alps in Switzerland and then journeyed to Italy in the autumn

of 1816. Whereas most nineteenth century English tourists

visited Naples and , Byron and Hobhouse traveled to

Milan and Venice. A partial gap occurred in the report

(because of missing diaries) when Hobhouse went to Rome

without Byron. After he returned to Venice, he edited both

notes and Illustrati ons, and probably contributed to the text

of Canto IV. For the purpose of this dissertation, a summary

account of their travels will demonstrate the time frame in relation to the poetic composition and establish the basis for the influential role Hobhouse played in both subject m atter and format of the poem. As the sightseer, Hobhouse led Byron through museums and ca thedrals, art galleries and private libraries, all the while amassing notes about everything from contemporary lit­ erary figures and ancient marble statues to the antiquarian subjects included in Illustrati ons. The pair spent several weeks in Milan visiting libraries and art galleries, attend­ ing the opera, and meeting some of Italy's most impressive literary and historical figures. In the social whirl of din­ ner parties, conversation among the intelligentia turned on politics--Napoleon and his eighteenth century invasion of

Italy, Castlereagh and the current repressive regime in

England, personal liberty and political freedom--literature and the literati.

In November, the pair reached Venice and Byron became infatuated with the city as well as its inhabitants. He refused to leave, so in December Hobhouse set off for Rome without him. In Bologna Hobhouse met Cardinal Mezzofanti, an

Oriental scholar and linguist, who conducted the Englishman through the Vatican library with its 150,000 books and 40,000 manuscripts, and gave him samples of the Lord's Prayer that he had translated into 157 languages. Needless to say, Hob­ house was indelibly moved by this scholarly achievement. In

Florence he met the poet Conte Vittorio Alfieri's widowed mistress, who was more admired "by that bastard title" than as "the wife of a [living] Prince" ( Recollecti ons 2.69).

When alive, Alfieri had poetically championed the people's desire for liberty after the Italian states' support of the

French Revolution led to Napoleon's repressive invasion.

Of course with his mania for trivia, Hobhouse recorded the historical aspects of his journey. Once he reached Rome (before Christmas, 1816), he spent about six months viewing ruins and monuments as he collected archival notes from reputable historical and ecclesiastical scholars in both private and Vatican libraries. Byron arrived for a whirlwind tour of the city in April, 1817, and stayed three weeks before he returned to Venice. Hobhouse went back to Venice in July, and from July until January 8, 1818, he remained with Byron. During the entire timespan he patiently con­ tinued to amass notes, visit art galleries and pore over historical texts in the best ducal and ecclesiastical libraries, doggedly compiling historical notes and Illus­ trati ons pertaining to the subjects being poetically depicted in Canto IV. Although Byron asserted on June 17, 1817 that he had no intention of writing a line of poetry about Rome, or of "re­ commencing that poem" (Marchand L&J 5. 240), within two weeks of Hobhouse's return to Venice, he had more than thirty stan­ zas "roughened off" into a fourth canto (5. 244). By the end of July, he had "completed" the canto with 126 stanzas. But, the poem continued to grow--by November it had 167 stanzas. When Hobhouse left Venice in January, 1818, with the final draft of the poem that Byron never intended to write, it contained 184 stanzas.

Hobhouse spent much of his time in Milan, Venice and

Rome absorbed in research, and compiled volumes of historical notes and treatises before Byron began composing poetry to correspond. When it became obvious that the canto had to be

expanded to cover the notes, Hobhouse dictated a number of

subjects for coverage, and observed Byron's composition and

revision as the poet added stanzas related to important top­

ics of historical significance or literary interest. Several

stanzas echoed Hobhouse's journal entries of the pair "philo­

sophizing on ill- and good-luck" ( Recollecti ons 2. 22) or

debating the political situation in Europe including England.

And of course Byron did what writers have done from the

beginning of time if they did not feel creatively inspired--

he copied ideas from others, including Hobhouse. During this

compilation process, Hobhouse carefully collated both the

notes and 111 ustrati ons with the canto to provide full

coverage, yet refrain from repetition.

A secondary facet of examining the compositional history

of Canto IV revealed a rather startling sidelight about

Byron's creative genius--viz. a Wordsworthian quality and

influence. Because Byron wrote the canto after his return to

Venice instead of while he viewed the majestic scenery and

magnificent Roman ruins, he exemplified Wordsworth's concept of poetry as emotions recollected in tranquillity. And he seemed to adopt Wordsworth's technique of using journal entries to stimulate past emotions and to recreate them.

Hobhouse also kept a diary and several stanzas reiterate his entries, but a number of stanzas echoed splendid scenic descriptions in Byron's journal kept for Augusta Leigh as he 8

and Hobhouse traversed Switzerland before going to Italy. In

one entry, Byron marveled at a glacial waterfall forming a

torrent "nine hundred feet" high which curved over the rocks

like the tail of a white horse streaming in the wind-- such as it might be conceived would be that of the pale horse on which Death is mounted in the Apocalypse. --It is neither mist nor water but a something between both [with] a wave--a curve--. . . wonderful--& indescrib­ able. (Marchand 5. 101)

He depicted a cloud "curling up perpendicular precipices

like the foam of the Ocean of Hell during a Springtide--it

was white & sulphury--and immeasurably deep in appearance"

(5.102), or "clouds foaming up from the valleys below us--

like the spray of the ocean of hell" (5.106). Poetically, he

sharply detailed the "matchless" Velino cataract cleaving

"the wave-worn precipice" from its "headlong height" in a

"hell of waters!" howling and hissing "in endless torture"

(Ixix), and "charming the eye with dread" (Ixxi).

This dissertation has two purposes relative to the col­

laborative efforts of Byron and Hobhouse producing a poetic masterpiece accompanied by explanatory notes and treatises on art, architecture and history. First, this document aims to demonstrate the influential role of Hobhouse in both the poe­ tic subject matter and structural format of the poem. While critics generally have assumed Canto IV to be Byron's own personal observations of the Italian scene and his responses to it, that assumption is mostly untrue. Byron did express the same narcissistic affectation of melancholy and self-concern. However, Hobhouse effectively coerced Byron into writing the poem and prescribed numerous subjects for i nclusi on.

A second purpose for this dissertation is to assess critically Hobhouse' s own significant contribution to an intelligent interpretation of Canto IV through a comparative elucidation of the canto by using his tome Hi stori cal Illus­ trati ons. While the importance of the historical notes originally appended to the poem should not be minimized, the second volume added much pertinent information generally not available to an inquiring reader. The notes accompanying

Canto IV remained generally available without undue problems, but Illustrati ons became virtually unattainable, except in the musty corners of a few rare book rooms, out of reach of even scholarly readers who would examine Canto IV in the light of its illuminating treatises. Whereas Journev Through

Albania attained record sales for a travelogue, the limited sale of Historical ^llustrati ons disappointed both Byron and

Hobhouse.

Although critics have ignored the contextual signifi­ cance of Hobhouse's tome, this dissertation will demonstrate the deliberate parallel subject matter of Canto IV and Illus­ trations. The first chapter summarily identifies the rela­ tionship between the two writers and details the purpose of illuminating elusive poetic references and allusions. The second chapter summarizes contemporary reviews of Canto IV 10 while the third covers twentieth-century critical reactions.

Chapters four and five form the body of this text as they re­ late the copious minutiae of Hi stori cal Illustrati ons to an interpretation of Canto IV, highlighting the contributions of

Illustrations. Chapter six assesses the lack of critical recognition for Hobhouse*s reciprocal part in the canto and the benefits of Illustrati ons to the modern reader of the poem. This study used the 1818 editions of both Canto IV and

Illustrati ons. Because inquiring readers can generally secure complete notes explicating the canto without undue difficulty, this study did not include these notational references. The canto's subject matter itself controlled the format of this dissertation, and inclusions in Illustrationg determined the topics considered. A number of other scholar­ ly works contributed to the examination of the canto, including Leslie Marchand* s comprehensive edition of Bvron' s

Letters and Journals and E. H. Coleridge's 1898 edition of

The Works of Lord Bvron. volume II detailing the revision of

Canto IV. Probably the most indispensable secondary text, which is not readily available but can be attained after some searching, is John Cam Hobhouse*s personal reminiscences edited by his daughter in 1909 as a six volume diary and journal entitled Recollections of.a Long Li fe. CHAPTER II

NINETEENTH-CENTURY CRITICS

Ideally any critical response embodies an eclectic and multidimensional approach. In actuality, every critic echoes a cultural background predetermined by personal exper­ iences that create a sensitivity to specific aspects of a piece of literature. A comprehensive survey of critical com­ ments about Canto IV of C h] i, ] j ^ Harold* s Pi Igrimage reveals a variety of judgments based on diversified standards of social conduct and literary accomplishment. Nineteenth-century critics did not concentrate on finding meaning in the poem.

Instead they blindly groped through their own personal as­ sumptions to focus on one of two factors. Either they judged

Byron the person by the prevalent social gossip as they read his poetry, or they judged his poetry by classical standards of rhetorical analysis going back to Plato and Aristotle.

Most nineteenth-century commentators, and especially the

Romantic critics, concentrated on the organic form of a lite­ rary work--how the parts mutually supported each other. But they never ignored the association between poetic harmony and sublime language as they affirmed the principles and aesthet­ ics of rhyme, rhythm, tone, setting, imagery and imagination.

In fact, organicism stressed two specific concepts: the poem's power to evoke feelings in the reader and the poet's creative imagination as the shaping force and unifying vision of the work. Also, since the Romantics were generally

11 12 fascinated with nature, the poetic passages on nature stirred the greatest critical response (with almost universal approval) .

When Lord Byron's first volume of juvenile verse came out in 1807, Romantic critics began responding to his poetic techniques with both praise and censure. As his popularity increased, so did the number of reviewers commenting on vari­ ous aspects of his work and life. By the time Byron produced

Canto IV of ChiIde Harold' s PiIgri mage, contemporary critics had generally divided into two groups, one favorable to Byron and the other hostile. The friendly critics saw merit in all of his poetry and they ignored his reputation for a moody temperament, disregarded the gossip and rumors about his illicit affairs, and scorned the innuendoes about his private life. They accepted him as a master poet and popular writer who fascinated his reading public. Also, any article on

Byron guaranteed a larger sale of the journal and enticed new readers. On the other hand, reviewers hostile to Byron har­ bored prejudices against his lack of conventional moral prin­ ciples and could not objectively evaluate the quality of any literary work to which Byron's name was attached. A number had ignored his previous poetic pieces, including the first three cantos of ChiIde Harold, but the poet's popularity prompted them to jump on the bandwagon when Byron published

Canto IV. This begrudging admission of the public's 13

fascination with Byronic works did not mitigate their harsh

judgment and condemnation as they maligned his artistic

abi li ty.

As contemporary critics vied to dissect Canto IV, most

commentators focused on the poetic conventions of rhythm and

rhyme, the meaning of thematic patterns, and the nature of

audience response. The critics ignored the composite of

poetic elements and narrative devices, the meaning of images

and verbal patterns, and the poetic language specifically

oriented to Byron's situation at the time he wrote Canto

IV. Instead, these reviewers interpreted literally some

rambling poetic speculations, and refused to accept at face

value the stream-of-consciousness poetry written as a per­

sonal reaction to the scenery, ruins and monuments he had

viewed sometime before he wrote about them. While these

responses occurred as poetic digressions, critics dwelt on

them as the message of the poem. Contemporary critics

expected the same impassioned utterances as usual to erupt

spontaneously from the self-exiled poet, and searched dili­

gently until they found them, always citing lengthy excerpts

in support of their mistaken assumptions. They failed to

consider the state of mind excited in the poet by Hobhouse' s

insisting that he record their tour, and they neglected to

research the history of composition for Canto IV. As the pair collated the poetic travelogue with historical notes and T1lustrati ons. Byron inserted numerous allusions that 14 even classically educated critics probably could not under­ stand. Certainly they jumped to foregone conclusions in attempting to derive objective data from the subjective persona addressing a British audience he never expected to see Byron had the flair of a showman and was always aware of his audience and sensitively alert to the response gene­ rated by his poetry. To a great degree, the tremendous appeal of his poetry came from a reading public's vicarious perception of the honest and impassioned poetic assertions of ordinary feelings including both misery and ecstasy. Because these feelings could not be properly expressed through the formal social modes open to individuals, the public responded fervently and sympathetically as Byron voiced what they also yearned to express. While Byron was as aware as the critics that the English reading public found a fascination in any­ thing Italian, his combination of subject matter and brilli­ ant eloquence created a sympathetic bond of communion between bard and reader. This gave Byron's poetry the profound power lacking in the works of other contemporary writers. Assured­ ly, the conversational babble in the local coffee houses at this time probably included lengthy recitations and disputed interpretations of Canto IV as the average nobleman displayed his articulate discernment of poetic artistry--via whatever critic he perused. For certain, the nineteenth-century

English reading public had ample opportunity to acquire a 15 multitude of perceptive insights before they even read the canto because critics also reacted passionately to Byron's poetry and raced to voice their opinions.

Canto IV was published on April 28, 1818, and four days later the first reviews appeared. This quick reponse of critics testified to both the incredible popularity of a

Byronic work and the illustrious recognition accorded by a reading public to contemporary reviewers. Two literary rivals and jealous competitors of one another and of Byron,

George Croly (one of Byron's fellow Tories) and William

Hazlitt (essayist and political champion of unpopular causes) dashed off the first commentaries.

On Saturday, May 2, The Li terarv Gazette and Journal of

Belles Lettres. Arts, Poli ti cs, etc. published George Croly s formal critique, which enumerated strengths of the canto in grudging praise and weaknesses in aggressive criticism. As one familiar with Byron's personal life, Croly injected slanderous jibes while he purportedly concentrated on literary matters only. Also, he tried to demonstrate both a familiarity with ancient Italian poets and a political awareness of momentous historical milestones of his own times, but he missed Byron's notice of Princess Charlotte's death in England.

Eager to demonstrate his own infallible expertise and authoritative astuteness, Croly reacted to the values and implications of Byron's words and allusions. He denounced 16 the sentimentality in the dedicatory preface and mocked the flattery and vanity in the dedication. If he had actually read this part, he would have recognized that Hobhouse was more than a traveling companion on this tour. Croly attacked

Byron's entering Italian politics as a loss of patriotism ill-becoming an Englishman. Then he scolded Byron for daring

to compare the fall of Venice with Britain's part in estab­

lishing the Holy Alliance.

After dispensing with his censorious overall impres­

sions, Croly shredded the canto stanza by stanza. He copied,

but did not prove his expertise by translating, Byron's "well

chosen" (273) epigraph from the Italian poet Ariosto. As he

attempted to demonstrate his personal acuity, Croly traced

the poet's itinerary by cataloging famed Italian literary

figures mentioned by Byron. With cool Irish enmity, he

castigated the poet for the ludicrous and facetious

address to Venice. Strangely enough, other contemporary critics regarded that passage as one of the most beautiful ever penned by an Englishman. In a chilling tone of animo­ sity, Croly cited Byron's impassioned meditations on melan­ choly as run-on stanzas of poetic drivel (viii-x and xxii-

XXV). As a truly Romantic nature lover himself, Croly be­ grudged a word of praise for Byron's finely structured description of an Italian evening ( xxvi-xxviii).

Croly s one and only almost unqualified approval con­ cerned the poetic address to Rome (Ixxviii-Ixxxi) and Roman 17 heroes (Ixxxix-xcii), which was not Byron's idea at all. As

Byron's letters indicated, he found Rome "delightful" and

"finer than Greece," but he remained apathetic about "poring over its churches & antiquities" (Marchand 5. 231) and recom­ mended that "as for the Coliseum, Pantheon, St. Peter's, the

Vatican, Palatine, &c. &c.--vide Guide-book" (5. 224). The poet also informed John Murray that he had been in Rome too short a time to consider writing about it (5. 240). Thus,

Croly miscued (as usual) in another statement because he wrongly assumed that Byron's response was genuinely the poet's own thought.

Croly concluded his tediously hostile review by quoting the last two stanzas (clxxxv-clxxxvi) . At this point, one could dare hope that he recognized more than a poetic truth in "My task is done--my song hath ceased--my theme/ Hath died into an echo . . . and what is writ is writ. "

Equally anxious to prove his literary prowess to one and all along with his sophisticated skills as a critical con­ noisseur, William Hazlitt also published a critique on May 2,

1818 (the same day that Croly s critique appeared). He began with an epigraph from Shakespeare and a quotation from

Wordsworth before belittling the fourth canto without mentioning a single passage covered by Croly. Hazlitt perceived the poem as a disturbed, confused, tormented and disjointed work that portrayed the Childe as a pampered, arrogant, ill-humored, complaining character 18 who loved misery and looked down his nose at his admiring public. Continuing the unflattering assessment, he accused Byron of creating a hero who worshipped his own egotism. Hazlitt ridiculed the poetic vow in stanzas cxxxv- cxxvii to avenge himself (on his wife) by forgiving her for the hurt he endured because of her. [Byron had expressed this forgiveness in several letters before he began writing the canto. J He censored Byron's opinionated judgments, extravagant expressions, perverse style, capricious versi­ fication, run-on stanzas, peculiar metaphors, uncouth rhymes, and repetitious gloom. Furthermore, he took offense at both

Byron's criticism of France and condemnation of his

( Hazlitt* s) own personal hero Napoleon. These were the topics of the day, and Hobhouse recorded long conversations about them with various intelligentia in both Switzerland and Italy. In spite of a general disapproval for Canto IV,

Hazlitt noted some outstanding passages on the basis of how they affected him. First, the section on Venice (i-iii) was fair poetry; the passage on *s tomb (xxx-xxxiii) and the poetic eulogy to Tasso (xxxv-xxxviii) had great force.

Other passages that received a reluctant approval included the imagined last moments of the dying gladiator (cxl-cxli) and the apostrophe to the ocean (clxxxv-clxxxvi).

Not to be outdone by Croly and Hazlitt, the Li terarv

Journal dated Sunday, May 3 was deliberately distributed on

Saturday, May 2, 1818, with its own review penned by an 19 unidentified writer. This anonymous critic briefly described

Byron's poetic life before he bemoaned the poet's failure to fulfill his early promise as a creative genius. Even today twentieth-century American readers of this review would sense possible hypocrisy behind this veneer of regret. The critic then followed the same pattern that others used of balancing antitheses, bitterly attacking Byron before he accorded a word of commendation for the creation of some beautiful poetry. First, he scornfully deplored the gloomy intrusions of blighted passion that intertwined personal feelings and descriptive scenes. According to the reviewer, the poet's personal confessions disrupted the beauty of exquisite description and striking allusions (an oblique admission by an unnamed critic that a master poet had accomplished his goal). The critic continued by ineptly, and quite unintentionally, revealing his ignorance of when and where Byron wrote the canto--he imputed an innate vigor to the poem as a result of its being written among the scenes it depicted. In continuing a general critical denunciation, he reprimanded Byron for writing a dull canto devoid of incident and lacking spirit and originality. Lest there be some misunderstanding of his own emotional perceptions, the anonymous critic charged the poet with using absurd language to voice the same miserable disaffection associated with earlier cantos. Surely anyone familiar with Byron's personal anguish at this time would understand his preoccupation with 20 a sense of hopeless despair. Although the unnamed censor did not compete with the eloquent denunciations of Hazlitt or the astute observations of Croly, he criticized the preface as Croly did and commended the opening passage as

Hazlitt did. He also parroted Croly in denouncing the meditative passage on existence and suffering (xxi-xxiii).

Then, in a contradictory mode, the critic commended the elegant beauty in the nature passages (the sunset scene xxvii-xxix and the waterfall at Terni Ixix-lxxii).

The critic inadvertently complimented Hobhouse when he praised the stanzas on Rome since they most conspicuously un­ veiled the tremendous influence of Hobhouse on the finished canto. Although the anonymous reviewer never acknowledged

His tori cal 111 ust rati ons. he digressed from other critics when he applauded Hobhouse' s accompanying note for the first lines (explicating the historical significance in the Bridge of Sighs). Also, the reviewer added several new notes to the critiques of Canto IV. First, he conceded Byron's candid and sincere sorrow in Princess Charlotte's death (clxvii-clxxii).

Both Croly and Hazlitt inauspiciously failed to appreciate the poetic acknowledgement of that particular contemporary event, which Hobhouse described in a diary entry for November 23,

1817. He and Byron learned of her death (two weeks before as she birthed a stillborn son) while on their daily ride along the beach. Hobhouse recorded how deeply touched both were. and how they speculated about the meaning of the event 21

The anonymous critic surpassed Croly and Hazlitt in admiring other poetic passages, particularly the one that questioned the identity of a lady entombed in Rome (c-ciii).

Most definitely he commended Hobhouse in this since Byron felt only detachment and indifference in "bothering over its

(Rome's! marvels" (Marchand 5. 233).

Finally, the critic proved his literary perspicacity when he recognized Felicaja's sonnet that Byron had plagia­ rized (stanza xlii). Not even Croly observed that.

During the month of May, 1818, several other literary journals also carried critiques on Canto IV. In fact as if proving the magic in a name (Byron's), the Catholi c Gentle­ man* s Magazi ne ran a two-part notice that extended into June.

After all, how could any contemporary journal better guaran­ tee a continuing readership than by serializing a critique on the poetic hero of a nation? Unfortunately, another writ­ er who defied identification continued the series of hostile reviews begun by Croly and Hazlitt. This anonymous reviewer denounced Byron for wallowing in grief and pursuing despair in his poetic quest for melancholy. Also in accord with other critics, he reveled that finally the Childe*s pilgrimage was complete, and "his Lordship's readers" could

"rest during the remainder of their lives from the fatigue of the journey" (514). However, he blatantly condemned the ruling principle of the series--what he called a public dis­ play of sentiment. Of course, any reader today would 22 recognize Byron's honest emotional expression as the magnetic attraction that seduced so many readers and earnestly bound their affections and loyalty to the intrepid bard. However, according to the unnamed critic, the poet's discordant meta­ physical digressions and dismal meditations detracted from the elegant expressions while they added nothing to the body of English poetry. This critic perceptively realized that a loyal reading public would allow a limited censure of their hero if it was accompanied by a critically favorable appraisal of some passages. Therefore, he safely concurred with others in praising the poetic description of Venice and the moving apostrophe to Italy. To prove to the public that he was familiar with the canto, he then quoted many stanzas to support his claim (ii, xii, xxi, xxiii, xxix, xxxviii, xxxix, xlii, xlvi, xlvii, Ixii, Ixiv). Acting like the authoritative and omniscient judge of poetic endeavors, this reviewer went along with Croly in criticizing Byron's use of the metrically imperfect Spenserian stanza. However, he isolated himself among the critics when he commended the funeral orations for a dead empire, damned Byron's lack of sobriety when viewing Italian art, and voiced a moral censure of his poetry. Obviously recognizing that his offensive remarks would alienate many English readers, the critic apologized for denouncing so fashionable an artist and attempted to balance his moral censure of Byron with praise for the historical notes that Hobhouse appended to the 23

various stanzas. He demonstrated a scholarly erudition

beyond other critics when he identified the passage on

Thrasimene as an excerpt from Livy. As a matter of course,

Hobhouse had carried a personal library including Livy's

historical text when he went to Italy, and had repeatedly

referred to the Livy text. However, the anonymous critic

unknowingly acclaimed the effective dominance of Hobhouse

on the canto when he conceded that the poetry in this section

had a particularly vigorous reality to those cognizant of

ancient Italian history. No previous critic had remarked on

Hobhouse' s Hi stori cal Illustrati or^s. but this one conjectured

that Catholics had a particular interest in the text because

of its subject matter--the birthplace of their religion. The

critic had obviously not read Hobhouse' s comments mocking and

condemning the Catholic Church's promulgation and encourage­

ment of ignorance and superstition among its membership.

In his critical recognition of the historical value of the

volume, he failed to commend the true contribution or to

communicate the full significance of 111ustrati ons to

any reader of Canto IV in any historical era.

One more significant critical article appeared in May,

1818, written by an anonymous reviewer for Scots Magazine.

Like a sheep following the herd, he cited the same poetic

defects that other critics had enumerated--straggling stanzas, scornful digressions and morbid emotions; trans­ gressions which would doom any poet lacking Byron's 24

extraordinary popularity. The anonymous critic also echoed

the common critical opinion of Byron's egotistical nature,

and concurred with others in praise of various passages.

For one, the poetic meditations on Princess Charlotte's

death (clxvii-clxxii) represented a classical model of

beautiful poetry destined to live forever. Second, the

moving depiction of a historically verified earthquake

(Ixii-lxvi) that neither army noticed during the battle of

Thrasimene and the magnificent description of an Italian

sunset (xxvii-xxix) attested to Byron's poetic genius. But

no passage proved so stirring to the reviewer as the passage

on filial piety when the Roman daughter nourished her

imprisoned father with milk from her breast (cxlviii-cli).

Again, a critic unwittingly commended Hobhouse' s exhaustive

research and creative ideas in the canto while he either

totally ignored or deliberately disregarded Hobhouse's

elucidation of the canto through both the notes and the

separate text accompanying the poem.

Reviews continued throughout 1818 in a variety of

different literary journals and revealed a wide range of

divergent critical opinions about the same topics. As

critics competed to articulate creative and original ideas,

some strayed from literary principles to encompass nonaes-

thetic values of biography and history rather than art, but

without acknowledging what Hobhouse contributed to their understanding of the canto. However, this continued 25 publicity attested to the intense popular appeal of the canto. Naturally, in the interim between January (when Hob­ house returned to England with the manuscript) and the end of

April (when Canto IV was issued), Byron anxiously waited in

Venice, hoping to hear of the reading public's response (not what the critics said) to the poem. In a flurry of letters requesting information, Byron fluctuated from despair to hopeful elation. In June, Hobhouse reported in a letter to the poet that the poem was selling "prodigiously" (Graham

231). Also, Byron had no conception of the intense public approval for his liberal political ideology at a time when the Tories had suspended the right to habeas corpus. In fact, the Morni ng Chronj cle invited the exile to return to

England and lead the struggle opposing the despotic forces that he warned against in the canto (244).

Of course, during this time Hobhouse also felt the same nervous apprehension about the public's reception of both

Canto IV and his own volume. He felt that Canto IV contained the best poetry Byron had ever written, but that did not mitigate his own agitation over the notes and Illustrati ons,

On April 28, he remarked that "Childe Harold" had been pub­ lished, and he continued with this entry: "God knows what will be the fate of Notes and Illustrations. I have worked like a horse, and perhaps like an ass, at them." And again on May 10, he anxiously speculated that "there are not two people in England capable of appreciating the book." The 26 critics never conceded that much of the pith of Canto IV lingered in ambiguous enigmas defying interpretation, and that Hobhouse's tome contributed the missing information.

Many contemporary critics could not resist the popular pastime of taking Byron to task morally and philosophically as they reviewed his literary art. But Wilson (sources dis­ agreed whether his first name was David or John) wrote anony­ mously to praise Byron's achievement in the June, 1818 issue of Edinburgh Revi ew. He introduced a new element to the criticism of the canto when he identified Byron with other poetic figures starting with Plato, Cicero and Claudian.

According to Wilson, these authors had done the same thing as Byron--contemplated subjects of dark skepticism, and wrote out of a personal response to them. The critic also likened

Byron to two modern intellectual giants who poetically depicted skepticism and suffering. The prominent German

Goethe disguised himself as Faustus to express his doubts and discontent. And Schiller, likewise a German, expressed personal agony and anguish through a literary character named

Wallenstein. However, Wilson contended that Byron succeeded beyond any of the classical figures or German Romantics as he achieved a meditative majesty, even in melancholy, that ennobled the readers. Continuing the comparison between

Byron and contintental writers, Wilson then elaborated on

Byron and Rousseau. First, through passionate language, personal genius, reader influence and kindred contemplation. 27 both men disclosed the utter depths of vivid feeling and intimate thoughts. Also, both writers plumbed the limits of man's universal nature, and each became an idol to his public admirers.

In Byron's case, according to Wilson, these entranced readers felt a kinship with this "fellow-voyager on the stream of life" (92), and responded with the personal bond of love and friendship. Finally, a contemporary critic had granted Byron a place among other artistic geniuses of the

European literary world. Wilson also dared to stand alone among peers when he affirmed character rather than narration as the basic premise in "Childe Harold." Of course, this rationalization negated Hobhouse' s notes and Illustrati ons and refuted the obvious travelogue context of the canto. In another respect Wilson differed with popular critical notions of the nineteenth century. He cited the Aristotelian dramatic elements of time and place, and then lauded Byron's unfettered movement "from hilltop to hilltop, and from tower to tower, over all the solitude of nature, and all the magnificence of art" (98), unhindered by the conventional unities. Furthermore, he uniquely asserted that the fourth canto reflected a nobler vision as Byron abandoned the imaginary pilgrim character and capitalized on the public's infatuation with any adventure in southern Europe. While the critic confirmed the opinion of others that Byron attained absolute poetic perfection in some stanzas, 28 he specifically cited the nature passages and the emotional expressions--the moonscape (xxvii-xxix which echoed two of

Hobhouse' s journal entries), ecstasy and scorn ( clx-clxiii) , and realism in description (Ixix-lxxiv, cxiv, clxxviii- clxxxvi, xlviii-lii, Ixxiii-Ixxxiv, Ixii-lxvi, and cxliii- cxliv). These included meditative passages on the Velino cataract, St. Peter's, the ocean, art masterpieces and statues, the Thrasimene battlefield, and Roman ruins (mostly

Hobhouse's subject matter). In addition, he commended the poetic qualities in Byron's remorse over the lost grandeur of

Venice (xv-xviii), depiction of Petrarch's home in Arqua, and meditations over his sepulchre. Would he have changed his mind if he had realized how many of these inclusions occurred because of Hobhouse's insistence?

During this time of intense competition to acknowledge every composition of Byron's, the June issue of Mont hiv Maga­ zi ne carried a brief review with an anonymous critic comment­ ing on the "Lament of Tasso" before he dealt with Canto IV.

He did not realize that Byron penned the lament after visiting Tasso's prison cell and learning about Alphonso*s role in abusing the poet. Of course, at this time Byron could identify with a persecuted poet whom the Italian people still reverenced. Also, when he composed this short poem,

Byron vehemently contended that he would not write a fourth canto. While the critic found the canto lacking in colorful language and character delineation, he could find no fault 29 with Byron's use of classical poetic principles. He conceded that Canto IV contained some of the most eloquent poetry ever written, especially when Byron defended freedom and mourned over Princess Charlotte's death in childbirth. (Hobhouse was again surreptitiously commended.)

Obviously, and no doubt because of the reading public, the critical climate changed after the first reviews of Canto

IV appeared on May 2. After other critics had acclaimed the brilliance of Byron's accomplishments, an unnamed review­ er in the June, 1818, issue of Northern Star endorsed the poetic achievement and called "Childe Harold" the most beau- tiul poem in the English language. Like other critics, he judged by classical standards but found Byron's use of the

Spenserian stanza perfect for the subject matter--it produced a pleasing rhythmic harmony. Further, he asserted that only a cultivated mind (little did he know that mind was Hob- house's) could produce such distinctive poetry. This commentary belied the general opinion just a month earlier that a perverted personality sick of life generated the canto. Unlike most critics, this reviewer (even though anonymous) defended Byron's character against rumors of gross misconduct and rash insolence. As one personally familiar with the charm of a Venetian gondola ride, he lamented that Venetians no longer recognized the familiar strains of "Jerusalem" and he shared Byron' s regret that the gondoliers no longer sang Tasso's chants (iii). He admired 30 the description of Lake Thrasimene and its nearby battlefield

(Ixv)--included because of Hobhouse. This reviewer along with others, especially Croly, saw a classical attainment of poetic perfection in the depiction of Rome and its ruins.

He lauded the eloquence in the treatise on love (cxxv) and on remorse at Princess Charlotte's death (clxii), along with the articulate statement on melancholy and pleasure (clxxvii- clxxviii). In accord with others, he cited the poetic description of an Italian evening and sunset (xxix--which even the harshest reviewers also admired). He surpassed other critics in eulogizing the tribute to Petrarch and various literary figures who deserved acclaim (it was

Hobhouse's idea to include them), and completed his laudatory survey by praising the Englishman's revival of Tasso's name as an Italian patriot (again Hobhouse deserves credit). The critic displayed his own liberal political bent when he con­ curred with Byron's warning about Britain losing its freedom through the despotic reign it currently sustained. He revealed his familiarity with classical literature when he commended Byron's allusions and classical associations. He obviously did not know that Hobhouse was the historical genius that Byron consulted.

In spite of other critics commending limited passages in Hobouse' s notes, no previous commentator had referred to the specific note detailing Laura's "platonic" (473) attach- m ent to the Italian poet Petrarch. An anonymous critic for 31

Northern Star questioned the so-called "platonic" nature, and viewed the affair as a passionate storybook relationship. He further acknowledged Hobhouse' s literary accomplishments and political ambitions, as well as his longstanding intimate association with Byron. Using the same passage in the dedi­ catory preface that Croly used to jeer at the friendship, the anonymous reviewer supported the fraternal idealism ex­ pressed in the passage. Finally, he expressed gratitude for the inclusion of the notes with Canto IV as he repeated the critical assessment that more captious critics voiced--the notes contained eloquent language, useful information and interesting anecdotes, but too many political reflections.

Although he credited Hobhouse with the separate material supporting the canto, he failed to perceive that Hobhouse influenced the entire canto in its subject matter and stanzaic arrangement.

Since critics must maintain an independent voice in relation to other critical commentators, one would expect and await a changed tone among critics after several compli­ mentary reviews of Canto IV. One did not have to wait long before Joseph Conder appended his name to a jarring review written in July, 1818, for c Review. He echoed

Croly s biting sarcasm as he questioned the poet-pilgrim's separate existence. According to Conder, this pretense of an imaginary character had gone on far too long even though the disguise fascinated readers. He also scolded Byron for 32 lacking the foresight to develop the childe through planned action and dramatic incidents. Conder obviously anticipated an epic rather than a travelogue, and in this judgment he revealed an eclipsed critical vision since the public wanted travelogues. In further chastisement, he echoed the bitter­ ness of other poetic rivals when he attacked the poet for incompetence, vanity and monotony in a poetic tale of "ineff­ able miseries" (51) by a poet who did not deserve the reputa­ tion he had. However, Conder recognized the limit of public endurance for abuse of their hero, and conceded that some passages revealed a slight touch of poetic genius. He quoted lengthy excerpts (several that Croly commended and many that

Hobhouse insisted on) even though he clearly disapproved of the person who penned them. Conder saved his most scathing comments for Hobhouse and the notes that occupied two-thirds of the pages in the Fourth Canto volume. He ridiculed a poem needing essay-length dissertations ( Illustrati ons) and cen­ sured the notes as entertaining but only slightly connected to the subject.

In the July, 1818, issue of Gentleman' s Magazi ne an anonymous reviewer, probably John Nichols, attacked Byron as a talented poet who revealed prejudices when the public expected a generous nature. He also accused the poet of squandering his opportunity to be an auspicious political leader at a critical time in history. Instead of distin­ guishing himself as a noble man of circumstance, Byron 33 plunged into officious politics that dishonored his country of birth; he further accused Byron of writing a pathetic passage on the laborers of Rome that couched a disapproval of the English support for Europe's monarchial condition (the

Holy Alliance that England helped organize). Revealing a rare illiteracy for a critic, he criticized the inclusion of

"obscure" writers in the canto (Dante, Boccaccio, Tasso,

Ariosto, Petrarch, etc.). He conceded one note of praise for eloquent language and commanding metaphysical concepts, but he failed to note Byron's traditional romantic subjecti­ vity as a traveler meditating on what he had seen.

Using formal rhetoric and commanding literary language,

Sir Walter Scott penned one of Byron's friendliest critiques for the July issue of Quarterlv Revi ew. Since he signed the review, he obviously expected and invited readers to consider his own expertise and accomplishments as a poet and balladeer while they pondered his comments. Also as a rival poet,

Scott recognized the qualities demanded by the art, and treasured the overwhelming merit in brilliant poetry. He commended Byron as the first poet since Cowper to express without disguise universal emotions and argued that the reading public felt awe in sharing these emotions as he reluctantly conceded the end of a pilgrimage that had both delighted and provoked readers. Scott commended the setting in Venice (i). As an antiquarian at heart, he probably felt the magnetic attraction of history when Byron mourned for 34

the city's past glories (iv-v). As a classically educated

Englishman, Scott recognized the vast array of literary

figures mentioned in Canto IV, and felt that the passages on

Arqua and Petrarch, Ferrara and Tasso, Thrasimene and Clitum-

nus sustained Byron's poetic reputation. With the sensi­

tivity of one who appreciated nature, he praised Byron's

description of the overgrown landscape of ruins in the Holy

City (cvii-cxvi) and also attested to the poetic power in

language as he commented on the realistic descriptions of the

Pantheon, Mole of Hadrian and St. Peter's. Byron also hit on

another of Scott's deep personal concerns when he mused on

liberty and freedom (clxvii-clxx) . After all, Scott had

written novels about these very subjects. In support of By­

ron* s warning, Scott bitterly denounced religious quacks and

political dupes who hoodwinked the English people into be­

lieving that extending political rights would solve the prob­

lems of vice and misery endured by a crowded population.

If he had perceptively identified Hobhouse*s influence,

Scott might have tempered his criticism of this fellow

English peer. However, when he turned his attention to

Illustrations, Scott became unjustly critical. He admonished

Hobhouse for authoring a text filled with political senti­ ments of democracy and egalitarianism--the same topic for which he had commended Byron. He further charged that these sentiments catered to the lawless emotions of metropolitan mobs who would "vindicate freedom of election by knocking out 35 the brains of the candidate of whom they disapprove" (231).

However, he jestingly concluded that Hobhouse was a member of the gentry, and would probably mature into a man of judg­ ment befitting his station in life.

In contrast, William Roberts critiqued Canto IV for the Bri ti sh Revi ew (August, 1818) in what must be one of the most scathing reviews ever written. He began with the preface where Byron's remarks about the pilgrim and his

"diseased and perverted view of life" (2) negated his God- given talents. Derisively dismissing the holy purpose implied by the pious Childe reaching the pilgrim's shrine

( clxxv) , Roberts defamed Byron as a pilgrim of "passion, infidelity, and debauchery" who plagued the already "thorny" path of other pilgrims (3). He voiced disgust with the libertine sentiments of a poem produced by a mind sick with satiety--hardly the appaisal expected for a travelogue with historical overtones. After finishing with the "drivelling epistle dedicatory" (10), Roberts attacked Byron as the same egotistical, angry, ill-humored creature he had always been, one dissatisfied with conventional social and civic arrange­ ments and a lascivious profligate who failed to find con­ tinuing delight in dissipation. He asserted that Byron reflected failure as a sentimental poet whose distressing me ditation portrayed a man who could not stand himself (viii-x). According to Roberts, Canto IV expressed wanton irreverence, superficial splendor and disgusting imagery. 36 It was too long, too repetitious, and too rambling as it traced the whimsical travels of an imaginary pilgrim. In a bitter tirade, Roberts questioned Byron's intellectual integ­ rity, poetic sincerity and patriotic loyalty. (If he had known how decadent Byron's life really was, he probably would have crucified the poet.) He denounced the poet for regrett­ ing Napoleon's defeat, for expressing contempt of civil authorities, for favoring oppressive despotic states, and for uttering phrases of Jacobin revolutionary sympathy. Most assuredly, Roberts assumed a different context than other critics for Byron*s condemnation of the Holy Alliance and England*s part in that pact. Finally, Roberts admitted that in spite of such personal and political perversions, the public felt an incredible infatuation for Byron and the Childe Harold series. This admission opened an assault on readers and hack-worshippers who made such absurd works popular. Roberts unfettered his embittered rage to condemn the press as a tool of iniquity supplying the reading public with rubbish on which they could gorge themselves. Probably without intending to, Roberts revealed his own romantic sensitivity to nature and his infatuation with motifs of the past by citing several descriptive passages (xxii-xxiv, xxvii-xxix, Ixvii-lxxi and Ixxviii-Ixxx) . These included the mo onlight scene, the Clitumnus River and cataract, and ancient Rome with its magnificent splendor. Roberts asserted that in these stanzas Byron demonstrated a classical taste. 37

The critic mocked Byron's reference (in the dedicatory preface) to the "enlightened friendship" (5) of Hobhouse, labeling him as another privileged individual endowed with revolutionary principles and the perverted sentiments of a reformer espousing republican government. At length he re­ called continental events that bombarded the average mod­ ern Englishman, and praised the national institutions and authorities who saved England from enlightened men like Hob­ house. Roberts fondly remembered Hobhouse's earlier volume on Albania and Turkey, but, in evaluating Illustrati OnS- he accused Hobhouse of producing an "extremely ponderous and spiritless" (26) volume. He quoted lengthy excerpts on Rome, the Coliseum and the Forum of Trajan, declared the essay on

Italian literary figures to be a meager biography by an imbe­ cile, and concluded by evaluating the notes attached to Canto

IV as inferior in sense and expression, difficult to read and inelegant in style. He argued that these notes added nothing to Hobhouse' s literary reputation or to the poetic text they accompani ed.

Even the most censorious critics manifested a sensitive appreciation for the eloquent passages in Canto IV that included Romantic concepts. However, the anonymous reviewer for Literar.v Panorama for August, 1818, reacted to fewer passages than other critics. He questioned the genius of

Byron's imagination, and then reproached him for producing a mediocre poem inspired by the god of wealth rather than bv 38 the muse of poetry. Although he considered Canto IV inferior to the first three cantos, a few passages triggered the romanticist attitude in the unnamed writer. He appreciated the beauty expressed in the opening view of Venice (i-iii, viii-x), the pathos in the poetic apostrophe to Rome

( Ixxviii-Ixxxi), and the eloquence in reflections on ancient ruins ( cxxi-cxxiv) . He commended Hobhouse' s production of

Hi stori cal Illustrati ons. but accused a wealthy bookseller of motivating the collaboration between the two Englishmen.

Also, he questioned the value of a six hundred page volume of explanations. Following other critics, he blindly over­ looked the valuable correlation explaining numerous concepts in the canto.

The New Monthiv Magazi ne disregarded both the preceding cantos of ChiIde Harold' s Pilgrimage and other works by By­ ron. However, recognizing (just as William Roberts did) the reading public's infatuation with the traveling pilgrim, competition with other journals forced them to acknowledge

Canto IV in the September, 1818, issue. The anonymous critic reacted to Byron's subjective meditations when he toasted

Byron's uncanny ability to associate the heart*s passions with the mind*s yearnings, and of expressing them so clearly that the reader was shocked into awareness and understand­ ing. Also, the poetic meditations (xxiii-xxiv, viii-x), the vivid description of an Italian sunset (xxvii-xxix), the brilliant apostrophe to Tasso (xxxix), and the elegant 39 address to Time (cxxx-cxxxv) struck that same chord to which other critics responded. He cited the same lengthy excerpts in praise of Byron's poetic genius and agreed with Byron's assessment of the canto. Then, without knowing he had al­ ready commended Hobhouse, the anonymous reviewer reflected on Hobhouse' s contribution in both the notes and Hi stori cal

Illustrati ons. The notes (which were too lengthy, too detailed, and an irksome distraction from the poetry) sufficiently elucidated the canto, according to the critic, and made the separate text superfluous. He asserted that the general reader would ignore all but a few lines of the tediously long-winded notes, and would never read the bulky

Illustrations.

Another anonymous critic who defied identification pon­ dered the intrinsic merit of Canto IV in the September-Octob­ er issue of Theatri cal Inqui si tor and Monthly Mi rror. He tacitly admitted (but did not acknowledge) that the reading public identified with Byron when he postulated that British readers had always viewed the pilgrim as a living creature rather than as an abstract imaginary personage. Again tacitly (and without admitting it), he endorsed the requisite concepts of romanticism by detailing his approval of the poet's admirable descriptions that pictured an "unexplored region of the human soul" (218), never before regarded and with which every man identified. The critic also credited

Byron with elegant expression and striking descriptions of 40 the Greek statues and the cataract of Velino (xlix-lii and

Ixix-lxxii). Although the critic doubted the succession of historical stages that Byron detailed, he admitted that both the intense feeling and restless energy of the passage on

Britain were typical of the intrinsic merits of Byron's poe­ try ( clxvii-clxx) . He also praised Byron for touching the heart of civilization when he lamented Rome's downfall and disrepair ( Ixviii-Ixxxi ) . This critic echoed David Wilson who wrote anonymously for the Edi nburgh Revi ew as he compared

Byron to Rousseau.

As many other critics had, Francis Jeffrey writing anonymously for the Monthly Revi ew (November, 1818) com­ mented on the previous cantos before expressing an opinion on

Canto IV. He became frustrated when classical standards did not apply to the poem. For instance, he stated that Byron used epic language but the poem lacked incident and plot.

Instead of action, a lone traveler stalked about in "fits of sullen misanthropy" (296), moralizing on a perverted nature.

In addition, Jeffrey charged that tiresome descriptions and idle repetitions added to the extravagant diction and indiscriminate mechanics to create an artificial style.

Also, these qualities made the work struggle towards a plane of thought that it never reached. The critic exhibited little romantic appreciation when he found the poetic descriptions to be just the "lamentations of a wandering sp irit" (290). Totally insensitive to the power of language 41 to inspire reverence for beauty, he condemned the lines on

Venice and moved from expressions of disgust with Byron's

lines on Tasso to statements of delight with the ones on

Petrarch. The "zealous" (290) description of Venus de Medici

disintegrated into "awful" (290) depiction of the Thrasimene

battlefield and "labored" (292) remarks on Roman ruins. He

quoted several stanzas (Ixiii-Ixxii) to point out grammatical

problems and "dislocated" (292) stanzas. He charged that

exaggerated emotions distracted from the impressive descrip­

tion of St. Peter's grandeur and the Pantheon's simplicity.

Then he reproached Byron for moping in dejection amidst

desolation, and whining when he should show his manly nature.

According to the critic, the poet showed contempt for his

admiring public by indulging in daydreams and dissipation.

Jeffrey diverged from the general critical attitude when he

appraised the passage on Princess Charlotte as tasteless and

disappointing. He also accused the poet of attempting to

surpass what others described before him--specifically, the

exaggerated devotion of the daughter nurturing her father

(cl), the peculiar sentiments expressed at Metella' s tomb,

the personal feelings attributed to the dying gladiator, and

the lackluster description of the Laocoon (clx). Continuing

to cite excerpts, he attested to poetic accomplishments of

beauty when Byron described the Egeria (cxv-cxviii and cxi)

and meditated on the ocean (clxxviii-clxxix, clxxxiii).

In a more comprehensive consideration than most contemporary 42 critics, Jeffrey denounced Hobhouse for reducing Byron's magnificent poetry to commonest prose through Illustrati ons.

If he had known that what he commended in the canto owed its

existence to Hobhouse, he might have abstained from further

commentary. However, he asserted that, after mangling

Byron's work, Hobhouse buried the reader in a chaos of

frivolous detail. Sarcastically, he charged that Hobhouse

elaborately eulogized Cicero, amplified Parini's poetry and

renounced the submission of Italian citizens to the Austrian

monarchy. He quoted from the notes on Pompey s statue to

demonstrate Hobhouse's style of affectation and disapproved

of the arrangement of material in Illustrati ons, a misnomer

for a volume that only displayed encyclopedic knowledge.

Among the few reviewers who managed to maintain a neu­

tral attitude by both praising and criticizing Byron's work,

an anonymous critic for the November-December, 1818, issue of

Bri ti sh Lady s Magazi ne jeeringly taunted Byron for

restringing his lyre to enchant his reading public "with its

melodious sounds" and to carry them "away by some fairy wand"

(371). Then he touched on the down-to-earth connection

between the fictitious pilgrim and the poet. He quarreled

with Byron's prefatory remarks dedicating the canto to

Hobhouse, but conceded that Hobhouse demonstrated profound knowledge of antiquity and history in the choice of material in both the notes and Illustrations. After admitting that

"England's greatest poet" (221) had again charmed his reading 43 public, he criticized the same aspects that a number of other critics had: Canto IV whisked the reader from scene to scene without warning; it digressed in authorial intrusions of

"misanthropical gloom and regret" (222); it had an irregu­ lar meter with run-on stanzas. The anonymous critic then commented on Byron's mature poetic development and credited him with creating sublime poetry. He responded to the same passages that others commended--the dying day (xxvii-xxix), the roar of a mountain river cataract (Ixix-lxxii), the apos­ trophe to Rome and its past heroes (Ixxvii-Ixxxi) , and the paraphrase of one of Felicaja's sonnets about Italy (xlii- xliii). Displaying his own classical education, the critic drew an artistic parallel between Byron as an exile far from home and various political and literary heroes that he wrote about--Tasso and Ariosto, Alfieri and Cicero. The critic anticipated that Byron's statement on love (cxx-cxxi) would be the most controversial passage among readers. He cited a lengthy passage (cxxx-cxxxvi) in which Byron depicted an anguished state of mind and concluded (as many others had) by quoting the poet's farewell (clxxxv-clxxxvi).

Among definitely friendly commentators the critic writ­ ing for an 1818 supplement to Bftlla Assemble^ concluded the available material on Canto IV during its first year of pub­ lication. By the following year, critics had other Byronic works to dissect. The unidentifiable and anonymous critic lauded Byron as the modern epitome of poetic genius whom 44 every hack poet imitated. In this statement he acknowledged through inference what other critics had partially conceded.

The elements to which readers and poets alike responded were

Byron's motivating principles which included an honest expression of passion and feelings, a revolt against conven­ tional standards, a philosophical idealism seeking spiritual

values in nature, a meditative musing on solitude, and a per­ ceptive recognition of the broad humanitarian principles of

democracy. The anonymous reviewer defended Byron's excep­

tional ability to write captivating passages of eloquent de­ scriptions, and quoted a number of the same stanzas commended by other critics--passages dealing with the pilgrim on the

Bridge of Sighs, meditations in front of St. Mark's and St.

Peter's, and reflections on solitude. The critic never acknowledged Hobhouse' s influence or literary works pertain­ ing to Canto IV.

Perhaps the last critical expression of the nineteenth century concerning Canto IV appeared in Ernest Hartley

Coleridge's comments in 1898. He considered the canto a complete and separate poem, independent in both subject matter and in poetic treatment from earlier cantos. This accorded with Byron's estimation, expressed in the preface.

With a formality surpassing other critics, Coleridge shifted from the common regard for romanticism to focus primarily on semantics. He commended Byron's precise language uniting philosophical meditations with emotional responses, and found 45 a firm harmony between Byron's exile and anguish, with the pilgrimage a symbolic trek (the first critic foreshadowing twentieth-century concerns). He praised some of the more notable passages: the sunset scene (xxvii-xxix); Santa Croce

(liv-lx); Rome (Ixxx-lxxxii); the death of Princess Charlotte

( clxvii-clxxii); and various meditations on shrines, ruins and monuments. Coleridge traced the composition and revision of the canto from its beginning in June to its completion in

December or January, and pinpointed the stanzas added to the original draft. Uniquely among nineteenth-century critics, he credited Hobhouse with inspiring Byron's addition of some stanzas (apparently only twenty-one of the sixty added); he faintly acknowledged Hobhouse as the one who provided "dry bones" (315) that Byron wakened into life. Unfortunately he did not pursue this far-reaching insight although he had access to everything that today's scholars have. He authen­ ticated Hobhouse*s diligent research in archaeology, art and

Italian literature for both notes and Illustrati ons. and recalled the intimate collaboration between the two writers as they linked the poem, notes and illustrations. But, shamefully, he never accorded Hobhouse credit for the infor- ma tion about revision even though he used Hobhouse as the source for the manuscript*s history. Also, he never grasped the value of Illustrations as Hobhouse' s own contribution to elucidating the canto. Coleridge could have directed the twentieth century critics toward a new path, but he did not. 46

Since Coleridge also edited separate editions of Byron's works in 1902 and 1904 and included introductory remarks in each, he became the transitional critic between nineteenth and twentieth-century concerns. While he maintained the former critics' focus on elements of subjective expression in Canto IV, he focused on twentieth century concerns of semantics and diction. If he had pursued his insight about

Hobhouse's effective control of Canto IV, he might have

influenced today's critical voices to seriously consider the

total relationship of Byron and Hobhouse. Thus, Coleridge could have directed twentieth century critics toward an as yet unexplored domain of the poem rather than toward a sophisticated analysis of language.

Most nineteenth-century English critics, including

Coleridge, subscribed to the values of the Romantic period.

Indulgence in sentient perceptions and a responsive preoccu­ pation with natural values led to the ascension of the imagination, a concept that furthered the subjective medita­ tions of both poets and critics. But whether a critic esteemed the poetry or demeaned the poet, he sanctioned the classical elements of poetic harmony and judged by classical standards of excellence. As Byron categorically encompassed the themes of romanticism in Canto IV--melancholy, nature, solitude, humanitarian concerns, reverence for the past-- critics responded in a comprehensive fashion. Some were also 47 alert to the political disposition of the time--a revolu­ tionary fervor accompanied by the encroachment of democratic standards--and reacted to Byron's empathy with the movement.

Whether critics approved or censured Byron and Canto IV, their criticism did not exhaust the interpretations or pinpoint the undisguised influence of the friend immortalized in the dedicatory epistle of the canto. CHAPTER III

TWENTIETH-CENTURY CRITICS

Although nineteenth-century critics lacked the sophis­ ticated techniques of analysis developed by modern critics for examining literary works, the earlier critics pointed to autobiographical and contemporary historical elements in the canto. They commiserated with Byron's subjective reactions whether the responses grew out of viewing majesties of nature or sculpted figures in the moonlight; they catalogued his personal woes and introspective meditations on anger, self- pity, melancholy, pessimism, despondency and grief along with his poetic reflections on life and the beauty in nature.

They evaluated his political sentiments and the parallel be­ tween his poetic perspective and Italy's as they enumerated grammatical mistakes and rhythmic weaknesses in the canto.

Many concentrated on a factual account of the tour, recounted the general themes of ruin and decay, and associated

Austria's tyranny in Italy with Byron's sympathy for an oppressed people. None of these themes needed a rehash by twentieth-century commentators as they rummaged for some credible insight into Canto IV. Yet most modern critics trod the well-traveled paths to reflect on these same critical perspectives, and without acknowledging that they simply transliterated these insights into a technical jargon of me talanguage. Although some lacked a scholar's integrity as they repeated the same old cliches, twentieth-century

48 49 scholars refreshingly signed their names to critical comments instead of hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. Also, few demanded accountability of others who made unjustifiable clai ms.

Aside from a common concern with thematic statements expressed through artistic and evocative language, twentieth- century commentators diverged into multiple approaches to re-examine Canto IV. Even though no single perspective be­ came definitive, the multiple approaches encouraged serious scholarship and the specialized interpretations expanded the ripples of meaning to create a variety of views. Most modern critics disregarded Hobhouse' s role in the travelogue master­ piece, but a few casually mentioned his influence on part of the subject matter of Canto IV. Not one scrutinized the significant influence and consequence of Histori cal Illustra­ ti ons or bothered to consider the history of Byron's compo- si ti on.

Although a few twentieth-century critics adhered to a single critical technique with its textbook patterns, most used a composite of methods. The greatest number implemented the traditional biographical-historical perspective. Accord­ ing to this viewpoint, the literal syntax of the poem incor­ porated the author's reactions and experiences, which in turn accounted for the poem's tone, allusions and meaning. This critical perspective reduced a literary work to content only, deemphasizing the artistic effect. Because many of Byron's 50 works reflected his life and were related to contemporary

happenings, this method of analysis simply confirmed nine­

teenth-century opinions instead of furnishing new insights.

John Drinkwater was one of the first critics to apply

this literary method to Canto IV, and was strangely affirmed

as a credible scholar for simply repeating what his nine­

teenth century colleagues had cited as delightful poetic

passages although the poet was "senselessly adrift" (287) in

his life of dissipation. Drinkwater's critical text recapped

Byron's excursions and notorious life style as a thirty-year

old with no purpose that would "satisfy a rational being and

give him self-respect" (287). Without deliberating on this

decadence, Drinkwater cited the astounding production of

9,000 lines of poetry in less than two years (including

Canto IV of "Childe Harold") as proof that Byron still

possessed immense creative energy. He argued that a pervert­

ed mind or debauched spirit could never produce the eloquent

expressions and relaxed tone of the canto. Drinkwater echoed

the familiar allusion to Byron's defiant contempt for a

soc iety that expected him to produce poetry in spite of a tragic isolation from his homeland. Then, in a digression,

he acknowledged Hobhouse' s Illustrati ons as a survey of early

Italian history that added an extra depth to the poem if read

in conjunction with it. But, alarmingly, he never credited

Hobhouse's actual influence on the canto or explained how the

Illustrations would enrich the poetic meaning. 51

Another critique delineating the traditional biographi­ cal and historical concepts inherent to Canto IV appeared in

1939 when G. Wilson Knight published his essay "The Two Eter­ nities." In his quest for a new critical viewpoint on Byron,

the scholar revealed an unprecedented vision of ambiguities

in the canto and indicated several contradictions between

Byron's life and his poetic expressions. First, Knight

recorded the lonely individualism of the poet, and cited the

example of Byron enjoying human society yet remaining an

outsider and exile; the poet used platitudes and apologetics

to reflect on poetic consciousness and intellectual immor­

tality; also, he portrayed the "clang and fury of world

affairs" as the antithesis of "simple, often sensuous, joys"

(188). Knight cited another contradiction between the

poet's aristocratic birth and dramatic temperament leading

him to respect history yet defy tradition. In still another paradox, according to the critic, Byron was superbly conscious of modern Europe, but felt close to the historic past; his examples of this contradiction included Byron's admiration for the gladiator (clxxxix) which did not preclude his fascination with the Coliseum ruins and the dead empire he envisioned; the grandeur of the architecture in St.

Peter*s excited a religious fervor and the poet felt torn between the grandeur of the past and the religious institu­ tions of the present; the poet bridged the gap between past and present with a detailed passage describing the roar 52 of a mountain waterfall and an invocation to the unfathomable and elemental ocean. Finally, Knight envisioned a paradox in

Byron's love for mankind and his agony over the tyranny of

Napoleon; he gloried in Thrasimene as a battlefield yet re­ mained a pacifist uncommitted to revolutionary ideals. The critic praised Byron's resolution of these personal contra­ dictions and cited passages relevant to Hobhouse' s influence without crediting his contributions to the canto. With a little research, the critic would have recognized that Hob­ house' s thoughtful insights in the canto explained the contradictions.

Assuming a different tone and taking a different per­ spective of the autobiographical elements in Canto IV,

Andrew Rutherford, in 1961, analyzed Byron's reactions and concerns in the light of Hobhouse' s influence on the poem.

He particularly cited Byron's enthusiasm for sculptures and antiquities as a direct result of his friend's interest and concern. Then, this most unreliable of all Byronic scholars became an incredibly unreliable critic. Although Hobhouse cited subjects for inclusion in the canto when Byron revised it and added sixty-six stanzas, Rutherford argued that Hob­ house was responsible for only nine additional stanzas.

Ignoring the facts that the pair ate, slept, and worked compatibly together for weeks in Rome and months in Venice, the critic argued that Hobhouse exaggerated his influence on the canto. Then, he quoted some phrases in letters that 53 supposedly refuted what Hobhouse claimed--a personal effect on the poet's newly acquired interest in painting and sculpture. Any reader could ascertain in the same letters an enthusiasm for art that Byron had never before shown. In a final brazen denial that contradicted Hobhouse' s personal journal, Rutherford claimed that although the two viewed a sunset scene in Venice, Hobhouse had no influence on its inclusion in the canto. However, he did concede that one could not estimate the indirect influence of Hobhouse on the final draft.

By means of a definitive technique that expanded the use of biographical material in criticism, Peter Thorslev, Jr. added one of the original and ingenious concepts to the crit­ ical canon in 1962 when he authored a unique text on the

Byronic hero, and applied the concept to Byron's poetry.

In spite of the poet's prefatory remarks in Canto IV about dropping all pretence of separation between persona-poet,

Thorslev considered them as two different beings and gave reasons for regarding the persona as a fabrication of the imagination. He recalled the poet's scandalous past along wih his imaginary rather than real exile and charged that autobigraphical elements in Canto IV relegated Byron to the status of a discouraged "Hero of Sensibility" (141) searching for absolutes and projecting his suffering onto the external world of ruin and decay. He then defined the Hero of Sensi­ bility as a combination of the "Gloomy Egotist" and an 54

"ethically uncommitted Man of Feeling" (141) given to morbid introspection. Though he used different words, he echoed earlier criticisms as he charged Byron with morbid self-cen- teredness and a world-weary attitude, all diagnostic symptoms of the Byronic hero and evident in Canto IV. Thorslev cited the passage on self-sufficiency ( x) as characteristic of one unable either to lose himself in his vision of absolutes or to assert himself in an alien external world. He diagnosed this dilemma as the central problem dominating the poetry of

Arnold, Tennyson, Clough, and Pater in the Victorian age.

Also, he complained that Byron echoed inconsistent ideals and defiant anguish as he sought absolute truth without resolving his inner conflict. The critic considered the passage on personal suffering and the petty curse of for­ giveness ( cxxxi-cxxxv) too specifically emotional and personal to be literary, and felt that Byron's humanistic reasoning and self-analysis (cxxvii) marked him as a recalcitrant hero lacking cosmic vision. However, he commended the poet's loss of ego and annihilation of self in the address to the ocean (clxxviii).

Differing from other critics, M. K. Joseph comprehen­ sively incorporated multiple modes of analysis with the biographical considerations. But he became another critic who missed the point of Canto IV as a travelogue recorded by a sensitive Romantic. Also he failed to appreciate the true significance of the historical overtones of the canto because 55 he disregarded the bulky materials explicating the canto.

Joseph (in an essay penned in 1964) concentrated on both historical poetic elements and the relationship of Italian poetics to Canto IV. He identified Harold as a character study of what not to be, and categorized Byron's description of Roman ruins as a Renaissance tradition; in this tradition, thematic significance lay in tracing the evolution of empires to recall past glory, in lamenting lost love, and in admitt­ ing time's triumph over mortality. The critic also cited

Byron's use of the classical Petrarchan tradition of develop­ ing themes begun in previous cantos, namely immortality and decay. Of course, this was only a rehash of nineteenth-cen­ tury ideas connecting Byron to his poetic predecessors.

Evidently Joseph sensed that Canto IV conveyed meaning beyond the surface syntax, but he did not delve into the im­ plications of his own pronouncements. As he shifted critical tone, he noted Byron's normal disparagement toward sculpture and unknowingly commended Hobhouse's influence when he re­ marked that several passages revealed a new sensitivity to sculpted works of art. Joseph cited examples to support this thesis: first, the poet developed the Venus de Medici into a goddess who celebrated sexual love as a convergence between human and divine love in a mortal world; he imagined the dy­ ing gladiator's thoughts of home and family, which revealed the poet's capacity to express human affection and sorrow; finally, the Laocoon image led to a vision of human suffering 56 and another depiction of deity incarnate. To the critic, these same passages revealed a subjective response denoting a sensitive spirit. In grasping for some significant truth

that evaded his comprehension, Joseph examined the ambivalent

language in the Nature passages and cited the ocean setting

where Byron voiced his delight in solitude (which to Joseph

suggested a reconciliation with human imperfection). Joseph

considered the Coliseum passage the clearest statement that

Byron had ever made on man's immortality as he mirrored the

architectural ruins in a mental landscape that the critic

labeled a "ruinscape" (207). If he had determined where

Byron wrote the canto, he could have averted this misstate­

ment. To the critic, this ruinscape became the poetic image

for human identification of the poet himself as a ruin, which

expanded the nineteenth-century concept. Joseph also echoed

the nineteenth-century idea that ruins poetically linked the

past and present and reflected the inevitable pattern of all

human history. Groping for a transcendent meaning that he sensed, Joseph like others missed the essence of the canto.

But in a later article, he identified part of that essence.

Joseph was the only one to seriously consider Hob­ house' s role and to faithfully credit his influence in the structural format of Canto IV. In 1966, Joseph analyzed the symmetrical shape of the poem and found two equal halves with stanza Ixi marking the transition between the two sec­ tions after the numerous additions dictated by Hobhouse. Any 57 critic who properly did his homework would never accept less than this obvious inference. Also, any astute reader who knew

Hobhouse's propensity for regimentation and literal conformity would expect him to demand a uniform symmetry and circumspect balance between parts. In one of the most insightful articles written, Joseph came close to the crux of the canto when he pinpointed the almost equal division of the poem between passages on Venice and the journey to Rome, and Rome itself with the concluding apostrophe to the ocean. This insight almost penetrated to the secret of Hobhouse determin­ ing many facets of the canto's formation and subject matter.

When Joseph divided the added stanzas into general cate­ gories, three types prevailed--accretive, expansive, and loosely linked. By his analysis, the accretive stanzas deve­ loped previously stated themes or introduced new ones. He cited the example of the ruined Rome passage leading into a section on Sulla, which emphasized the sensuousness of the

Venus statue. Accretive passages also included the descrip­ tion of the sunset on the Brenta, the forgiveness curse, and the address to the ocean. Continuing the definitive analysis of alterations, Joseph cited the expansive stanzas as those which developed political and contemporary scenes and includ­ ed historical material--added because his friend insisted that he had overlooked topics. These stanzas smoothed pass­ ages or connected ideas--for instance, the lines on Dante and Ariosto alongside the ones on Tasso; the guidebook 58 stanzas on Santa Croce, the Palatine and St. Angelo's Castle; the addition on Dandolo, Doria and Lepanto; the passage on the Capitol and Forum; and the description of Lake Nemi.

Finally, Joseph defined the loosely linked stanzas as those developing contemporary elements and embodying irrelevant digressions on Cromwell, on love and reason, on Egeria and

solitude, on literary immortality, on revolutions and free­

dom, and on Napoleon. Also the anti-Austrian stanza and the

lament for Princess Charlotte, along with the reflections on

battlefields and fallen empires formed loosely linked stan­

zas. Joseph sensed Hobhouse as a controlling force for

the added stanzas, but he failed to follow his own intimation

to conclude with the valuable enrichment offered by Hob­

house' s own work.

Concentrating on biographical elements of subjectivity, an impeccably reliable Byron scholar, Leslie Marchand, devot­ ed a chapter of a critical text edited in 1965 to analyzing personal elements of subjective expression that Byron includ­ ed in the last canto. These comprised the poet's view of the beauty and decay in Venice and Italy, his brooding over the city's lost glory associated with a boyhood fascination for

Venice (xviii), his own exile (xxi), and his sense of total desolation and unfulfilled yearning for love. Also, Marchand charged that the poet subjectively interwove his personal life into the historical pageant of Italy--Tasso' s prison cell reminded him of all poets' oppression, Florence aroused 59 images of Dante and Ariosto exiled, and the Venus statue prodded him to recall Greek legends about the goddess and love. He also classed as subjective other passages where the poet developed the theme of the inevitable downfall of ambitious tyrants, contemplated the ideal versus the real yet found no solace for his frustrations, expressed yearning and loneliness when the fountain of Egeria reminded him of divine love for mortal man, digressed to his own suffering when the image of the slain gladiator revealed a troubled mind that voiced the frustrations of all men. Marchand asserted that stanza cxxvii indicated Byron's transcendental leap of faith, accepting the intellect as the only escape from both actual and symbolic desolation that surrounded him.

Marchand's comments sounded fresh as he reworded nineteenth- century ideas, but he plumbed new depths in his striking and commendable insights about transcendentalism. However, he missed a greater insight concerning the personal friend­ ship that guaranteed momentous beauty in phenomenal poetic expressions. He used Hobhouse' s journal to make several points, but never hinted that Hobhouse influenced Canto IV.

As another scholar critiquing Byron's poetry with tradi tional vernacular, Francis Doherty (in 1969) isolated and identified some biographical and historical components in

Canto IV, but added nothing to the canon of nineteenth-cen­ tury critics. First, he recalled Byron's youthful fascina­ tion with Italy and praised Byron's use of analogies to 60 project himself into the historical context of his tour.

These included the association of the birth and death of

specific Italian poets with various cities and villages, from

which the poet drew an analogy between his own exile and the

mistreatment of Dante and Tasso. Describing the Coliseum in

the moonlight prompted a recreation of the gladiator's bloody

death separated from his loved ones, and became an analogy of

Byron's personal situation; viewing the permanent and change­

less ocean, the poet found an image for eternity and meditat­

ed on love as an unattainable ideal (cxxi).

In a broader perspective, Doherty cited the passage on

Venice as an appropriate starting place for the overall

theme of si 9 f, ip ''^" ^ i t gloria mundi with Byron simultaneously

viewing the destruction and seeing the irony of his own per­

sonal experiences. He cited stanza v as Byron's acceptance

of memory as the key to immortal survival and his acknow­

ledgement of the ruins and ancient poetic voices as all that

survived of the past grandeur of a civilization. According

to Doherty, when the poet resigned himself to life and recon­

ciled himself to fate, he could express distress both for

Italy's enslavement and England*s attitude of unconcern.

Continuing the same mode of analysis that other modern

critics used, Paul Trueblood focused on a factual account of

Byron's Italian tour and the poet*s subjective response to a

variety of inspirations. Perhaps he had never heard of

Wordsworth's theory of poetic creativity, and obviously he 61 did not study the relationship between the poet's responses and the time of writing the canto. As he retraced Byron's journey with Hobhouse from Switzerland through Italy, he reminded readers of the close collaboration between the two in writing both the notes and Historical Illustrations, but he failed to explore the meaning inherent in the cooperative enterprise. He added a new note to the old song when he commended Byron's harmonious blend of Augustan style and

Romantic subject matter. However, he joined the nineteenth- century chorus in acclaiming Byron's awareness of Austrian tyranny in Italy and sensitivity to recent repressive meas­

ures passed by England's parliament. Trueblood alluded to

the same elements dwelt on by multiple sources when he mentioned Byron's natural affinity for oppressed people.

According to Trueblood, as a result of sifting through his deepest feelings and inner anxieties, the poet objectively transmuted his personal remorse, melancholy and pride as he recognized the transcendence of human dignity over decay.

Finally, Trueblood repetitiously surveyed several other per­ spectives examined innumerable times by countless critics-- nature lost its mystical sense for Byron; the Coliseum ruin inspired reflections that celebrated man's achievement in a past civilization; art reflected an immortal transcendence in the Venus, Laocoon and Apollo sculptures.

In a 1988 essay, Michael Foot analyzed a different biographical aspect of Byron's life by questioning how the 62 poet's lengthy residence in Venice affected Canto IV. But he added nothing new to critical insights. He recalled the reluctance with which Byron left Venice to join Hobhouse in

Rome and then enumerated sundry lessons that Byron learned on the tour. One familiar with the composition pattern of Canto

IV would doubt the validity of his conjecture. But Foot con­ tended that the poet discovered that each village celebrated some event of historical or literary significance, and that he recognized the contribution of all to the national glory.

Second, he advanced in political thinking; he hated the

Austrian occupation of Italy and condemned England's part in devising the Treaty of Paris that allowed Austria to subju­ gate Italy, Further, to accentuate this assertion, he incor­ porated a sonnet by Vincenzo da Filicaja, a contemporary

Italian poet. This deed, according to Foot, annoyed the

Austrian police who responded by censuring and confiscating

Italian versions of Canto IV. He quoted the plagiarized sonnet (xlii-xliii) and numerous other stanzas in which Byron detailed his hatred of tyranny (xlvii, xciii-xcv, xcvii- xcviii, cxxi, cxxv-cxxix). Overall, the critic felt that

Byron learned to face his dilemmas and struggled to find answers by weaving skepticism into his religous faith and candidly defying despair.

Foot echoed others in recalling that Byron knew the

Italian language, even to slang, before he went to Italy; that he had been steeped in the classics, had translated 63 classical texts, and had read poetry by a variety of contem­ porary Italian writers. However, these critics mistakenly credited Byron with an intellectual inquisitiveness and zeal for learning that he did not have. If anything, he was in­ tellectually lazy, yet the critics saw no contradiction between their acceptance of Byron's dissipation and their assumption that he deserved credit for every intellectual tidbit in the poem. Foot did note one new fact--Byron plag­ iarized Mary Ann Radcliffe's Mvsteries of Udolpho in his vision of Venice from the Bridge of Sighs.

Although not every critical technique would apply to

Byron's poetry, a number of critics approached Canto IV from the psychological perspective. Romanticism's orientation to the unconscious certainly invited this subjective examina­ tion, and one of the first to seek clues to new meanings for

Byron's themes and symbols was William Calvert. He believed that when Byron dropped his pilgrim disguise, completing the journey was the only possible ending for the work. He par­ roted nineteenth-century voices in criticizing the poem's

"loose" structure, yet praising "its poetry, its force, the splendor of its diction, and its perfect sincerity" (144).

Calvert randomly wandered through a field of jargon in grasp­ ing for some significant insight into Byron's thinking. He surmised that as an exile Byron felt a new freedom, and travel stimulated his emotions and reactions. Calvert also felt that the poet deliberately and conscientiously kept his 64 imagination earthbound as he investigated a personal commit­ ment to truth and reason. Perhaps the critic unwittingly touched on another influence of the down-to-earth Hobhouse with his mundane philosophical viewpoint.

In a second critical article and another modern analysis of Byron's consciousness, Andrew Rutherford (in 1967) dis­ cussed the poetic mood and viewpoint of the tourist poet writing Canto IV. He did not add a new note as he directed the reader's attention to the weaknesses that nineteenth-cen­ tury voices harped on--a journey format and the familiar themes of "ranting pessimism" (96), "wild indignation and self-pity" (95), anger, melancholy, despondency and grief.

Rutherford continued to parrot earlier reviews when he deduced that the passage on forgiveness was not genuine, but a poet's admiration for his own behavior (cxxxiv-cxxxv) .

Nineteenth-century critics had long before identified the psychological perceptions of Rutherford. Every critic had acknowleged the poet's despondency and self-satisfaction

(cxxiv) and the characteristic pessimism which colored the poetic reflections on life (cxxiv, cxxvi). Again parroting earlier voices without crediting them, Rutherford claimed that the digressions (such as li-lii) detracted from coherent thought and that, when the poet discussed his own ruin, he lapsed into anger and self-pity. Rutherford continued echoing earlier critics who described how Byron identified with Tasso as an exiled and persecuted poet, and how the 65 greatness of Tasso in persecution transcended mutability and death. Citing Byron's guidebook exclamations over Venice (i) as the nineteenth-century critics did, and his victim-tourist meditating over sad surroundings (xxv), Rutherford tediously redefined the same subjective and contradictory emotions

Byron treated in verse--delight and melancholy, failure and success. Rutherford's comments left the reader with a prosaic sense of dei a vu.

Another modern psychological analysis also failed to enlighten or inform beyond the earliest critics' insights as M. G. Cooke supported Calvert's analysis of Canto IV as a psychological assertion of identity expressed through musings and narrations. According to Cooke, in proposing imagination and awareness to counteract resignation and jadedness, the poet reversed his previously expressed atti­ tude. Also, he psychologically discarded his hostility by pronouncing the curse of forgiveness, but his affirmation of love created more turbulent emotions. Cooke saw a curious duality between Byron's hostility and despair with each cre­ ating its own chaos. Although the poet's meditative method clarified his transcendence of self, it betrayed a spiritual vacuum rather than self-approval (xxxiii, cxliii, clxi).

Cooke interpreted the opening lines* focus on the narrator as an attempt to come to terms with human history, including

Byron's own life. He saw significance in Byron's proposing imagination ( v), reality ( vi) , Reason (vii) and resignation 66

( X, xxi) as the vantage points for achieving harmony in his life, and cited Byron's use of Art, Empire and Nature as the nucleus for organizing the canto. In a broader perspective,

Cooke noted that Byron used the canto to proclaim a new attitude as he grappled with the perplexities of his own existence, and theorized that reason tempered Byron's pain and led him to conclude that suffering comprised the root of man's existence. Only in the death of Princess Charlotte could the poet come to grips with his own mortality. As a consequence, in the ocean passage, he could dispassionately compare man's life to a bubble either sinking or floating on the surface.

Continuing the search for new meaning in Canto IV, Peter

Manning verbalized the same theory as Thorslev relative to the persona-poet relationship, and went one step further than

Thorslev. Manning contended that the pilgrim was a necessary psychological device; when Byron discarded Harold as a poetic voice, he could no longer distance himself from the poem; when he lost his alter ego, he became responsible for the scandal that made him an outcast and exile. Thus, according to Manning, Byron used the gladiator as the "para­ digm" (92) of history and associated his own suffering with the desolation around him. Manning also reiterated what others had said--the art in St. Peter's reminded Byron of the delusion of love; the Egeria reminded him of human love he had been denied; in vacillating between hope and despair, the 67 poet enjoyed the dramatic isolation of his misery; he demand­ ed that the world view his suffering but did not include the details one must know to understand it.

One psychological critic, Philip Martin (1982), examined

the rhetorical devices of Canto IV by which Byron attempted

to regain the mental balance lost in recent misfortunes.

Martin considered the reversion to nature (clxxviii) as an

admission of failure in achieving the equilibrium the poet

sought. Instead, he saw the poet committed to penning what

the public wanted him to write; thus the extreme distractions

(everything from the horses at St. Mark's to the beauty of

the ocean) reduced the poet to a sightseeing tourist, and ab­

solutely nobody but a critic would fault Byron for this. He

diagnosed Byron's compulsion to express his feelings as the

tool that welded gestures and words into a conglomerated con­

text and led to a disaster of poetic expression. According

to Martin, the gulf between metaphor and meaning, between

context and reference, and between emotions and sensory

experiences resulted in confused discussions and indistinct

impressions. He concluded that the ending showed Byron's dissatisfaction with the poem (clxxv-clxxxvi) . As Byron tried to meet the demands of contemporary critics, he made a desperate attempt to reconcile personal frustrations and poetic perceptions.

Another psychological treatise concentrated on Byron's self-analysis of personal and historical matters. Alan Bold 68

(1983) made a number of straightforward indictments of Byron.

First, in seeking release from melancholy and disappointment, the poet let nostalgia, political themes and self-disgust color his view of history in Canto IV; by linking his person­ al disaster with the Fall (xcvii), he viewed his alienation as a natural consequence of exaggerated pride. However, By­ ron credited literature with a redemptive quality ( v) , and analyzed the effect of Tasso's literary power in persecution over his patron prince (xxxv-xxix); he linked reflections on love and heroism with a discussion of power. He formulated

ideas on the intellect's immortality through his own mind-

heart dilemma; he examined his current political idea about

liberty and linked his emotional ideal about love and self-

sacrifice to it (cxxv-cxxcii) . Nineteenth-century critics

expressed similar concepts in the same context that Bold did. However, Bold saw a new perspective in Byron's not

perceiving that his personal life shaped his literary exigencies--a Romantic discontent with actual conditions, abandonment of political ambitions for a literary career, loss of social position in exile, and the inability to reconcile the real with the ideal.

In 1986, another modern critic named James L. Hill ana­ lyzed the psychological consciousness poetically expressed in Canto IV. He defined a double awareness that both redir­ ected the narrative and revived the epic while it projected mind and self into the historical past and its ruins. He 69 recalled the classical education which prompted Byron to find his subject matter in nature and man, and refreshingly added a new insight into Byron's correlation between feeling and locality. Hill claimed that Byron appropriated Words­ worth' s technique for "Tintern Abbey" and cited two speci­ fic elements of this poetic technique: the introduction took place in the narrator's mind; then the poet moved outward to the landscape and then back into memories aroused by the scene. At this point, according to Hill, Byron departed from the pattern to explore his consciousness. The critic sensed that a heightened consciousness of creative awareness in­ spired Byron's description to transcend the physical world he viewed (which was another Wordswort hi an technique, but

Hill did not pursue the implications of his claim). Accord­ ing to him, in the opening section on Venice Byron particu­ larly asserted this poetic consciousness, seeing Venice as both a human creation and a city of his mind. When he medi­ tated on the mind's activity, a chance stimulus triggered a memory, and, in Hill's analysis, Byron equated the city's past historical fortune to his own past. When the poet medi­ tated on the psychological resilience of mankind in general, he used Venice as a microcosm for the struggles and failures of Italy. Hill asserted that this sequence led the poet to establish a parallel between the city and his own past.

Strangely, he did not sense a more significant Words- worthian aspect and influence in Canto IV, and he did not 70 explore any influential connection between Hobhouse and the subject matter that he commended in the poem. He considered the passage on the sunset, with its dramatic struggle between night and day, Byron's most vivid description of the natural world. According to Hill, this conflict in nature led the poet to struggle with his own self-identity and his past history as a ruin; such introspection led to Byron's psycho­ logical projection of mind and self into the ruins in Rome, and placed Byron at least a century ahead of his time.

However, in short. Hill simply cloned what most nineteenth- century critics parroted.

One of the most recent psychological treatises on Byron provided another rehash of the same insights. Vincent Newey

(in 1988) critically viewed Byron's perception of self and self-identity in Canto IV by focusing on the poet's sense of becoming and the act of self-definition proclaimed when Byron asserted his supremacy over the ocean (clxxxiv). The critic traced the stages of this climactic expression by beginning with Byron's reflections on love at Metella' s tomb as he examined the psychological dimensions of submission and artistic limitations in his shattered life; torn between his quest and his aspirations, he sought a higher truth as the focus for his imagination. But, according to Newey, wherever he turned he found patterns of glory and decay and viewed everything in both perspectives. Newey next cited the blending of celestial and human in Byron's assertion that art 71 nourishes the spirit (cxxii). The critic analyzed the association of the discord between man and his cosmos and cited Byron's philosophical idealism (cxxvi-cxxvii) . He remarked that as Byron felt challenged by his helplessness, he asserted the creative capacity of contemplation (cxxviii) and faced the dark reality of his own fragmented life. The voiceless and empty Rome mirrored the poet's own darkness and ruin, according to Newey and most nineteenth-century critics.

Newey concluded that as Byron became liberated from himself, he questioned his desires and commitments,, and reconstructed his life as a set of symbolic attitudes; in perceiving history as a dramatic pageant, he understood the gladiator's sacrifice as an amusing diversion, but he saw the death as the epitome of man's inhumanity to a fellow human. In contemplating the ruins of the Coliseum, the poet speculated on the legendary power of love (cl), and found the affirma­ tion he sought in the magnificent perfection of the Apollo

Belvedere (clxi-clxiii). This, according to Newey, allowed

Byron to psychologically transfer his concerns about dignity in suffering to a symbolic attitude toward life where he could question the immortality of art and the gap between man and deity that art bridged. Newey concluded that Byron never renounced a transcendental hope although he realized that the unspeakable realm of the Spirit remained beyond man's earthbound state of being--the human intellect could intimate the grandeur of the divine, but constraints of 72 nature prevented comprehension (civ). The critic noted the pilgrim fading (clxiv-clxv) and Byron echoing his own inconsequence as he viewed the ocean.

Several modern critics were concerned with thematic statements in Canto IV. Certainly Byron's artistic use of images, symbols and themes elicited an appreciation for his evocative verbal patterns and their associated connotations, but citing the same elements in critical verbiage did not appreciably add to critical insights. As critics examined verbal patterns, they separated ideas from motifs that contributed to themes and thematic meaning.

Robert F. Gleckner, who had achieved recognition as a scholar-expert on Don Juan but knew little about

ChiIde Harold' s PiIgri mage, focused on motifs in

Canto IV as he also examined the skeletal structure. In jargon transliterating nineteenth century concepts, he cited a section of the canto where Byron moved from motifs of personal meditation on Venice to meditations on Tasso's poe­ try and poetry in general to contemplating himself as a poet, and then launched into more meditations on Venice to conclude the passage. Thus the city's history intertwined with his personal history and he envisioned himself as a ruin among ruins. Gleckner also cited Byron's use of Rome as a mental landscape, and he used Metella' s tomb to work through personal memories and desolation to his own death. In a uniquely refeshing digression, Gleckner conceded that 73

Hobhouse influenced the additional stanzas on Italian art and literature; those emphasizing vanished power (xii-xiv), correlating the historical aspects of men and art (xlvii), lamenting the irreplaceable loss of Alfieri (xcvi-cxviii, cxx-cxxvii), improving the unity (xciii-xcv), and eulogizing

Princess Charlotte ( clxvii-clxxii) . Contradicting others,

Gleckner contended that the Nature images constituted the weakest part of the canto. Again repeating nineteenth- century notions without crediting the sources, he applauded the imagery in the description of the Coliseum, of the dying gladiator, and of the Caritas Romana; he particularly commended the poetic vision of the gladiator's agony encom­ passing the agony of all men, and his death as the fate of all. Gleckner applauded the thematic statements on grandeur and ruin ( cxlvi-cxlvii), the St. Peter's passage (cliii- clix), and the powerful images embodying themes of exile and despair, of ideal and lost love. Gleckner argued that no other poet had ever projected himself so completely into images to depict a personal desolation and to assimilate himself with mankind both past and present.

The poem's one and only female critic, Alice Levine, used a thematic analysis to outline correlations between

Byron and T. S, Eliot, antithetical figures with classical taste and linked to Augustan poets by rhetoric and theme.

Levine, in 1978, declared that Eliot's "Waste Land" was a mo dern day metaphor for Childe Harold both in statement and 74 in theme--both poems recorded a quest for meaning in life amid images of ruin. By this new insight she gave Canto IV a cosmic significance beyond other critics' perceptions, and expanded Byron's authoritative influence to a new generation of poets. Continuing to blaze a new path, she labeled ChiIde

Harold a social satire and envisioned Byron as a compulsive role-player using Harold to mouth spontaneous and contradic­ tory reflections. However, she joined the multitude of voices when she described the poem as an open-ended pil­ grimage with diverse episodes and fragmented digressions, no plot and no unity although Byron used a religious title and alluded to a religous theme. Levine focussed on Time as both a thematic expression of the poet's awareness of death- in-life (cxxiv) and as the renewal force in nature. For instance, when meditating among ruins and decay, the poet indulged in the subjective style of the romantic coping with the dilemma of his past, present and future (civ-cv). And his curse of forgiveness represented the climactic awareness of the ambiguous relation between the poet and his personal life. Also according to Levine, the poet questioned know­ ledge and the lesson of history much as Eliot had in his poetic work. The critic cited numerous personality and poetic similarities: each poet became a symbol of his age; both used themes of history, art and religion to comment on contemporary life and to make a personal statement; both wrote in an aftermath of heavy bloodshed in war; both held 75

shattered illusions and discovered meaningless existence and

empty failure; both affirmed the search for self-identity in

the midst of personal disappointment and disillusion; both

expressed concern with the problems of temporal existence

and an ambivalent attitude toward subjective experiences as

poetic subject matter; both had problems in maintaining

coherence between the poet and his persona; both used poetry

as a means of escape from the emotional turmoil of life.

Continuing contemporary criticism of Canto IV's thematic

devices, Bruce Haley in 1983 concentrated on the art for ms used in constructing the canto (another voice hiding behind

jargon to echo nineteenth-century articulations). Particu­

larly through sculpture and architecture, according to Haley,

Byron paralleled his personal perspective with Italy's.

Also, in Haley's view, the poet symbolically projected the

stone figures as an illusion of reality, and this projection

blurred the distinction between Byron's mental images and

the tangible forms of sculpture. In this disorientation,

the characters, the scene, and the poet's feelings merged

while vivid reflections triggered the poetic imagination to

create its own reality. In this loss of perspective, the

poet made ambiguous statements open to a variety of interpre­

tations ( Ixxxviii-xciii) . Haley cited Byron externalizing his vision through figures of stone and then relating man's history to the marble pieces. Since the poet could not comprehend the entire panorama, he concentrated on one object 76 at a time, asking baffling questions (xcix). According to the critic, when he found no answers, he withdrew into his subjective imagination and created his own structures from the temples, statues and tombs that recalled past glories and suggested the isolation and spiritual death that Byron lamented. As separate images in the general theme of ruin, these figures prompted context building. According to Haley, they became assertive, dynamic symbols suggesting human yearning and struggle, but symbolizing human triumph and achi evement.

Another critic, Michael Vicario (1984), concentrated on the thematic implications of the subtitle "A Romaunt" append­ ed to the entire poem. After concentrating on each canto, he suggested some recurring thematic images and digressions in

Canto IV as Byron moved from revery to wisdom and from inno­ cence to experience. He dismissed the first eight stanzas as an eighteenth-century romance writer's dilemma of illusion and reason. Also he cited stanzas (1-lxiii) that endorsed the power of imagination to amplify and enhance a life of bondage. He suggested that the water scenes ( Ixii-Ixxiii ) showed a complex fusion of style, but considered the descrip­ tion of St. Peter's the crowning accomplishment whose hiero­ glyphic meaning lay in the effect it elicited. Also, accord­ ing to Vicario, in the passages dealing with traditional romance themes--love, war and religion--Byron substituted personal themes for the historical realm and readjusted the 77

traditional meaning of history. Furthermore, the Coliseum

stanzas (cxliii-cxliv) demonstrated the subjective nature

that Byron imposed on objective historical fact. Thus,

according to the critic, Byron expanded history to por­

tray the progess of a human soul through gradual stages of

vision, knowledge and comprehension. He cited the central

problem of Byron's romance--trying to find meaning in history

while viewing history in a romantic revery, and concluded

that the poem was an anti-romance.

Several twentieth-century critics examined the philoso­

phical statements of the canto. This method precluded a

study of form and of figurative language as well as other

aesthetic considerations, but it offered one more way to par­

rot others' insights. One of the earliest critics to philo­

sophize about Canto IV was Solomon Francis Gingerich in 1929.

He interpreted Canto IV as a song of defiant hopelessness

about man's predestined fate. Gingerich accepted the time as

one of personal pain and suffering for Byron, but he credited

Hobhouse with helping the poet to escape from his bleak des­

pair. He cited Byron's boyhood fascination with Venice as an

objective influence toward creating the calm tone of the can­

to. He particularly cited the beauty of expression in stanza cxxxv where Byron expressed his personal woe and philoso­ phized on faith in ideology. While the poet confirmed a be­ lief in the Calvinist viewpoint (cxxvi) concerning the de­ structive force of original sin on one's life, the critic 78 felt that Byron accepted the transcendental concept of an indestructible immortality in man's intellect (civ). Ginger­ ich believed that the poet's outlook on life (as a violent struggle for happiness unattainable) perverted Byron's gen­ ius. But, he also perceived a keen understanding of the political situation in nineteenth-century Italy as Byron philosophized about the general state of affairs, contrasted tyranny and freedom, and asserted his support for Italy's struggle to attain independence. Thus, unknowingly, Ginger­ ich commended the most influential facets of Hobhouse' s rela­

tionship to the canto as he selected at random some earlier

commentary and repeated the ideas by covering them in new

syntax.

Also following the philosophical bent of Byron's poetic

expressions as he expanded others' ideas, Hoxie Neal Fair-

child (in 1931) examined two facets of Canto IV: transcen­

dental aspects of the poet's struggle to mediate the ideal

with reality and to explain the conflict between reason and

illusion; and ^eltschmerz as the psychic state of one unable

to reconcile his ideals with his personal situation. Fair- child considered the eighteenth-century poetic tradition of romantic melancholy as one preeminent theme: Byron found himself alone in a world not related to his desires and wav­ ered between irony and melancholy when he recognized the gap between reality and ideal. The critic contended that the poet took his idealism too seriously (that was what Croly and 79

Hazlitt seemed to say), and was too realistic to reconcile

the actual situation with Utopian visions. Although Byron

approached transcendentalism in his attempt to reconcile the

contraries (observed in cxxi-cxxii, according to Fairchild),

melancholy was the pervasive and central theme. Again Byron

explored the transcendental avenue (the critic cited cxvi as

proof) when he rationalized on his Calvinist background with

its doctrine of fatalism and predestination. Although he

expressed a need for bridging the gap between reality and

faith (cxvii), Byron never asserted his faith, Fairchild con­

cluded. The critic reasoned that he came close to the trans­

cendental approach when he declared his trust in the immor­

tality of the mind, but he never resolved the head and heart

controversy; thus, he never achieved the peace promised by

transcendentalism.

Ward Pafford (in 1962) also examined transcendental for­

ces in Canto IV. He commended the eloquent language and

impressive sobriety of the work and affirmed the head-heart

conflict that nineteenth century critics perceived, He

examined the paradoxical tension between imagination and

reason as Byron expressed it through thought and feeling.

However, as he recalled how Byron used poetic composition

as a creative refuge from an alien society, Pafford expanded

the scope of earlier philosophical ideas to view a construc­

tive imagination as a link between man and his maker. He cited several stanzas expressing the poet's thoughts on 80 creativity and imagination ( v, vi, vi i i, xx, xxiii, xxiv), and interpreted them to enforce his viewpoint. His first conclusion was that Byron's self-imposed exile from England, along with the resumption of travel, stimulated a renewed burst of creative energy--a backhanded acknowledgement of

Hobhouse's influential friendship. Third, when the poet verbalized the paradox of creative composition becoming a permanent refuge from wretched mortality, he acknowledged man's intellect as the supreme human asset. As his mind grew, he developed a defiant strength that overcame all the obstructions placed in his way by society; he actively fathomed memories and responded to past experiences to shape a reality that linked past and present. Finally, through contemplation the poet increased his sensitivity until it afforded the creation of fruitful thought through art. After tracing the development of Byron through these stages,

Pafford postulated that historical scenes provided the stimulus for Byron's poetic imagination until he recreat­ ed mental images of various events. Thus, he sympathized with the mysterious fate of Cecilia Metella (civ-cv) as he brooded over his personal woes. The critic cited the poetic use of famous names aligned with historical ruins to comment on personal problems. In this self-indulgence the poet emphasized the restrictions of the imagination when he asso­ ciated Tasso as a spokesman for freedom with the decline of

Venice under tyranny (xvi-xvii); also, according to Pafford, 81 he praised Michaelangelo, Alfieri, Galileo and Machiavelli as creative intellects and ranked Dante, Petrarch and Boccac­ cio above the richest princes of Florence (Ix). Furthermore, in Rome Byron resurrected the memory of Cicero, Virgil and

Livy (Ixxxii), and Caesar superseded Napoleon (xc) as a fig­ ure of accomplishment. Also, as further proof of Byron's transcendence, the critic recalled how St. Peter's stimulat­ ed an aesthetic response of overwhelming wonder and a poetic insight of psychological transcendence (civ); in the Laocoon

(clx), Byron reconciled opposites of the essence of art and the beauty of feeling; in the Apollo Belvedere, he envisioned a perfect blending of human and divine (clxii-clxiii). Even though Byron defined ideal love, Pafford declared that the poet never resolved the tension between illusions of the imaginative mind and his own poignant memories and feelings.

As Byron described the ruins of Rome, which should suggest forgetting personal woes, the poet contemplated his own past and rejected the imagination as a comfort to mortal man.

Pafford saw this rationalism echoing throughout Byron's poe­ try whenever he focused on problems of the mind. Although, as the critic stated, reason sounded a clear voice, Byron felt seductively tempted to follow imagination and to ideal­ ize rather than surrender to reality. Pafford contended that Byron's fascination with Italy showed in the poetry of

Canto IV, but Hobhouse served as the agent responsible for recreating the historical scenes that stimulated Byron's 82 brooding imagination; however, Hobhouse received no credit as the creative force behind Canto IV.

As a matter of course. Romantic age idealism resulted in a renewed humanistic concern about the perfection of man and society. Byron naively believed in the ideals of this concept even though he erratically wavered between hope and despair. Edward Bostetter, in 1963, examined the poetic voice in Canto IV and reached several conclusions about By­ ron' s personal convictions about humanism (using a new jar­ gon to recast the same old salmagundi). Although the poet questioned both religion and philosophy, Bostetter labeled

Calvinism's doctrines on depravity and predestination as basic and inconsistent influences on Byron's thinking. Ac­ cording to the critic, the poet vacillated from Calvinism to deism, to pantheism, to Platonism, to Catholicism, and back to deism. He concluded that an acceptance of human­ ism led the poet to an unending quest for a benevolent socie­ ty and an ordered universe that he never found. However,

Byron's acute awareness of man's hypocrisy, and his sensi­ tivity to rational answers, led Bostetter to conclude that

Byron never believed for any length of time in his own con­ victions. A further critical deduction concerned Byron's extraordinary understanding of human nature and his compul­ sive introspection. According to Bostetter, when Byron found the universe meaningless and his world a mass of contradic­ tions, he attempted to reshape his own world by symbolic 83 projections of himself into various aspects of the external

world. Also, because suffering stimulated creativity in the

poet, he used poetry as a medium for brooding over his own

personal experiences and man's imperfections. Thus, accord­

ing to Bostetter, he pronounced his curse of forgiveness

(which degenerated into negative sentimentality) as he mulled

over the discrepancy between idealism and reality in love.

The critic pointed out the poet's brooding voice of disil­

lusionment (cxxii, cxxiv, and cxxvii); but, in the apostrophe

to the ocean, Byron admitted man's puniness and through this

fundamental vision identified with the power symbolized by

the ocean. Through this, according to Bostetter, Byron para­

doxically found a philosophical means for affirming his exis­

tence. Once again, a twentieth-century scholar applied a new

set of idioms to the previous century's ideas and created a

small ripple of new meaning.

In a further refinement of specialization, a critical

technique originating in the 1950's offered one more perspec­

tive from which to examine Byron's poetry. Many outstanding

scholars joined forces to make the formalistic critical

m ethod a dominant influence in interpreting literary works. This method disregarded all elements of biography or history,

all psychological implications and every other factor except

the shape and effect achieved through imagery and metaphori­

cal statements. By this standard, form alone preserved sub­ stance. The formalists insisted that any literary work was 84 an autonomous creation, so what a work meant and how that meaning was achieved became the two primary factors for crit­ ical consideration. Of course, these critics sensitively examined the denotations and connotations of every reference or allusion; they looked for structural relationships between

words, grammatical patterns, and specific images. Supposed­

ly, these internal features revealed the external form, and

the work's meaning arose from the interrelationship of these

elements. In their absorption with details, these critics

often undervalued poetry that did not readily respond to

this approach. Only one formalistic critic attempted to deal

with Byron's philosophical meditations, and he did so jest­

ingly. Using organicism (the analogy between a living

organism and a literary work), Bernard Blackstone (1971)

humorously evaluated the complexity of spatio-temporal pat­

terns in the canto using an analogy of a free-swimming

jellyfish expanding and contracting. He examined Byron's

use of rhetorical devices as an organizing principle that

dramatically expanded the meaning of the poem. According to

Blackstone, the poet always related to his environment, and

in Italy he summed up his insights by focusing on the eter­

nity dimension that he lived out in the historical ruins.

The critic cited the Coliseum and St. Peter's passages as

examples of classical perfection; specifically, in the dying

gladiator sculpture, an "ideogram," the poet distanced

himself from the ruins of his personal world, and used the 85

Coliseum, a "greater ideogram" (16), to identify with the suffering of the gladiator. Blackstone further declared that in the blend of architecture and nature, the poet created the eternal dimension of past-present and personal-universal. As he transmuted the eternity dimension into the physical world surrounding him (particularly in the Forum passage, according to the critic), he moved through the medusan rhythm of the jellyfish.

In a more mundane but still unique approach, Harold

Bloom used Jungian concepts to analyze Canto IV. He cited the archetypal motif of the quest with the hero as an archetypal "Pilgrim of Eternity" (237) seeking immortality.

According to Bloom, Byron turned to art in the Apollo

Belvedere as an image of "aesthetic immortality" (237). Yet

Bloom also considered the pilgrim-poet as a mythic figure representing the condition of modern man in Europe "in the

Age of Metternich" (234). Byron had been fascinated with

Italy from a young age and Rome was the pilgrim's goal. Yet when the poet found his voice in Rome, his "litany" became introspective meditations "obsessed" with "disease, death, bondage" (236). According to Bloom, in the midst of time­ less art and beauty, Byron could express the conflict he felt between his Calvinist teachings and his Rousseauan vision.

Bloom cited several stanzas demonstrating Byron's creative vision and energetic imagination (cxxvi, cxxxvii). Also, according to Bloom, the poet deliberately produced a theme 86 of spiritual emptiness by philosophizing on the bonds of mortality and sin. Bloom legitimately found other Jungian concepts in the immortality that Byron saw in the Promethean vitality of the literary artist (clxiii quoted) and the spiritual renewal found in the beauty of the ocean as the poet bid farewell to the weary pilgrim (clxxxvi quoted).

Certainly these twentieth-century scholars added new insights into Byron's artistic life and personality as they integrated refined analytical techniques with modern psychological principles, explored the underlying signif­ icance of various expressions, and expanded a reader's under­ standing of the poetic emotions and mental reactions expressed in Canto IV. Most of their conclusions could be confirmed through other Byronic utterances, particularly the poet's letters. However, modern critics missed one facet of extreme significance to a complete interpretation of Canto

IV, namely the underlying relationship between Byron and

Hobhouse. Byron clearly delineated his affection and respect for his friend in the preface to Canto IV (and this expression also can be verified through letters and journals). Surely this specifically detailed affirmation of the depth and breadth of the association would have an inter­ pretative bearing on Canto IV. A secondary aspect pertinent to the preface further intensified and confirmed its unaffected sincerity--Byron expressed this sentiment for the person who knew to the nth degree about his philandering 87 and who rejected his lecherous lifestyle. Without a mutual devoted willingness to forego confrontations, either Byron or

Hobhouse could have shattered the prospects for an outstand­ ing masterpiece, such as Canto IV with its perceptive historical notes and striking travelogue qualities.

From early schooldays onward, Byron had trusted

Hobhouse's sound judgment, scrupulous integrity, candid criticism, and uncompromising devotion. Hobhouse had a great gift for friendship, but he never formed such a familiar intimacy with another person after Byron's death. He lucidly detailed his own affection for the poet in soliciting a place of honor for Byron in Westminster Abbey as he acknowledged his friend's vices and applauded his virtues.

Hobhouse's one major folly relative to Byron occurred when he destroyed the poet's memoirs without reading them; jealously he sought to guard Byron's reputation by concealing secrets that might reflect unjustly on his memory and posthumous fame.

Byron's contemporary critics lacked these documents and worked in a vacuum compared to the flood of material relevant to Canto IV and available to modern commentators. However,

Hobhouse had already acquired a literary reputation from the popular success of his travelogue related to Canto I and II.

As a result, contemporary critics could not deliberately ignore his textual supplement for Canto IV, but they did negate his influence and contribution when they refused to 88 credit the volume's validity as a beneficial complement to the poetic expressions. Perhaps this set the context for twentieth-century reviewers neglecting and rejecting the

Illustrations. If one accepted this theory, then the rejection of specific journal entries or letters would become more acceptable. By no means could one excuse modern commen­ tators for their failure to investigate, but one might believe that it resulted from a literary concept of avoiding and neglecting any text outside of the poem itself. While

this type of criticism did serve a purpose with some literary

works, it could never fully explicate an artistic creation

with Canto IV*s history and explanatory supplements. In

addition, any psychological elucidation of reactive expres­ sions that did not include relationships pertinent to its composition would always miss part of the poem's meaning.

This concept came to light for Hobhouse in Florence when he marvelled that Alfieri's "bastard" widow [mistress] received more honor as a dead poet's beloved than she did as the wife of a surviving prince. Before beginning the cooperative composition process, he recognized that relationships did control poetic utterances. Surely modern psychological critics would be the first to deny the authenticity of another's comments if he negated effective relationships that influenced a literary work. Yet by default, they have done exactly that by overlooking Hobhouse's contribution to the subject matter and his control of the stanzaic formation 89 in Canto IV and by rejecting Byron's own statement about this influential and beneficial companionship.

Of course, if the relationship had been less sincere or devoted, Byron's commitment to dissipation along with his disinterest in continuing the poetic pilgrimage would have doomed any coherent expression. His letters clearly depicted the emotional agony he endured at this stage of his life, and suggested his quest to escape through dissipation. Also,

Byron previously had expressed a detached concern for rubble and ruins of the classical past. Therefore, it seems reason­ able to surmise that only Hobhouse' s probing intellect and stabilizing influence (rather than an acquired appreciation for Roman or Venetian ruins at this time of personal upheaval) precipitated Byron's inclusion of so many classical structures and monuments in Canto IV. Today or in any historical period, if one compared the subject matter of

Canto IV with its explanatory text Illustrati ons, one would find a marvelous affirmation of cooperative enterprise between these two literary figures, and an inquisitive reader would increasingly enjoy plumbing the depths of both the poem and the relationship that so markedly effected the canto's total configuration. CHAPTER IV

POETS AND PRELATES

Canto IV opened with some of the most famous and famili­ ar lines in English poetry: "I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;/ A palace and a prison on each hand." Critics and scholars have examined these lines and the rest of the canto from every perspective of language and thought except the original one intended by Byron. Although Byron eloquently expressed his deepest feelings and temperamental moods in poetry, he wrote Canto IV as a tourist reporting on the sights he had seen and how he reacted to the various scenic displays. Even though any reader could recreate the calendar and retrace the itinerary of his trek through Italy, the important account of the journey lay in Canto IV, along with the extensive notes and explanatory text for the canto. By­ ron arranged the poetry to correspond with his route across mountains into little traveled and remote areas where the

"pestilent" Englishmen--"a parcel of staring boobies" (Mar­ chand 5. 187)--did not interfere with the pilgrimage. In

Illustrati ons. Hobhouse detailed additional reports pertaining to the area that he traversed. One of the first characteristics of the Italy both came to know was the jealousy with which every mountain village guarded its claim to some famous historical or literary figure. Hobhouse asserted that every settlement had an altar or shrine honor­ ing the birth, death, or abode of a renowned person. He

90 91 continued by describing how rival towns fervently competed, both to attract the occasional European pilgrim and to pre­ serve for posterity the special recognition for their heroes.

Even the lowliest citizens took pride in noteworthy people associated with their locality, and tenderly identified them as "our" Ariosto, Tasso, etc. (JH 2). Byron implied this same swaggering attitude that Hobhouse so clearly defined:

X X X i :

They keep his [Petrarch's] dust in Arqua, where he died; The mountain-village where his latter days Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride--

An honest pride--and let it be their praise.

To offer to the passing stranger's gaze

His mansion and his sepulchre;

In a series of stanzas recording their visit to the remote village of Ferrara, Byron suggested what Hobhouse again clarified--two reasons for Ferrara's notoriety. It gained fame as the patriarchial home of the Este family and scandalous infamy for persecuting perhaps the greatest poet ancient Italy ever produced, Torquato Tasso.

XXXV

Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets.

Whose symmetry was not for solitude,

There seems as ' twere a curse upon the seats

Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood

Of Este, which for many an age made good 92

Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore

Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood

Of petty power impell'd, of those who wore

The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before.

One must consult Hobhouse to find that Ferrara claimed both of the great poets Ariosto and Tasso. Citing the auth­ oritative biographers of Tasso, the Englishman stated that the Italian poet arrived in Ferrara in 1565 to find a city thronged with "all forms of gaiety and splendour" ( HT. 28).

At that time, the populace prospered from construction work on a canal leading to the Po, and from a saltpetre manufac­ turing concern. In 1817, however, the Englishmen found only a few paupers removing the grass that grew in the streets.

Hobhouse continued the explication that added depth and insight to various poetic denotations. For instance, the

"curse" mentioned by Byron lay in the treacherous betrayal and persecution of Tasso along with the infamous relationship between Tasso and Ariosto. In fact, Tasso' s biographer and friend, Manso, considered the poet a victim of treachery from his own household, especially Horatio Ariosto, the poet's great nephew and rival court poet (and creator of Orlando

Furioso). After scanning Hobhouse' s account of the affair, a reader found much more purpose in the poetic expression as

Byron continued. And if the reader recalled Byron' s own 93 exile, he could imagine a sympathetic chord in the strains of praise for a fellow poet suffering unjust persecution:

xxxvi

And Tasso is their glory and their shame.

Hark to his strain! and then survey his cell!

And see how dearly earn'd Torquato's [Tasso] fame

And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell:

The miserable despot could not quell

The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend

With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell

Where he had plung'd it.

As tourists, both Englishmen visited the "cell," and

Hobhouse proceeded to depict the precise measurements and

exact location of a dungeon chamber in St. Anna's Hospital,

Ferrara. Hobhouse reported that long before officials ar­

ranged for an inscribed plaque over the chamber's door, leg­

end and tradition identified the cell as Tasso's. In 1817, souvenir hunters had removed every vestige of the poet's furniture--a small piece at a time--and were in the process of destroying the door to the room, a small sliver at a time.

In succeeding stanzas, Byron pursued the subject of

Tasso and Alphonso, and the explanatory text continued to closely follow the poetic expression. Hobhouse traced the influence and power of the Este family, and explored various reasons for the imprisonment of Tasso. First, he cited

Manso who specified Tasso*s passion for Princess Leonora of 94 the Este family as the cause of confinement. The vengeful

Duke, who took the Princess for his mistress, imprisoned

Tasso when scandal developed about the poet's affair with the

Duke' s beloved.

Not satisfied with this report, Hobhouse delved into

Abate Serassi's report dated 1785, which used actual docu­

ments from the Este archives. These confirmed that Tasso

wanted to be free from servitude to Alphonso. Amid rumors

that he was seeking a new master, and in spite of the Duchess

of Urbino advising him not to, Tasso left the Este court for

Rome during the jubilee of 1575. But he never got there.

Alerted by conspirators that the poet wanted a new patron, the

duke detained Tasso at Ferrara, confiscated his manuscript of

Jerusalem, and refused to return it. Enraged by the treach­

ery, Tasso scuffled with a member of the court and pulled a

knife on him. Supposedly for this, Alphonso denied him

access to the manuscript, and refused to let him have an

audience with other members of the court. Seeing himself

abandoned by friends and mocked by enemies, Tasso began to

eat and drink to excess, and immoderately cursed the Duke and

the house of Este. Publicly retracting the verses of praise

he had written earlier, Tasso angrily declared that the

entire house of princes was a "gang of poltroons, ingrates,

and scoundrels" (18). According to the Abate, this offense

led to his arrest and confinement as a madman.

Continuing the summary from Manso and other biographers. 95

Hobhouse recounted the conspiracy, with the intriguers bent

on proving Tasso*s insanity and their betrayal of him serving

as an emblem of loyalty to their Este sovereign Prince

Alphonso. Hobhouse implied that with Tasso's love of freedom

and dread of solitude, no punishment could so effectively

break his spirit as solitary confinement. In addition, the

Duke repeatedly promised liberation, but for seven years Tas­

so endured the deplorable imprisonment. Although the poet

did not flourish in prison, he expectantly awaited justice

from the Este sovereign, and occasionally his creative genius

shone through the gloom of seclusion. Hobhouse recounted how

Tasso poetically reminded his fellow villagers that an uncon-

quered spirit still persevered in the misfortune and injus­

tice of confinement while literary pirates greedily competed

to publish his every composition, even unfinished ones.

Citing the biographers, Hobhouse related how authorities

finally heeded the persistent intercession of the Duke of

Mantua in December 1580, and moved Tasso to larger and more

comfortable quarters. Although Alphonso confined him for

seven years, allegedly for madness, Hobhouse referred the

inquiring reader to Gibbon's characterizaion of Muratori,

librarian for the Duke, who declared that Tasso was not in­

sane. However, the librarian reflected that a poet loyal to his patron prince did not serve well if "his first and para­ mo unt object" was "the establishment of truth" (9). Hobhouse credited the Prince of Mantua with repeated 96 intercessions that finally resulted in securing Tasso' s free­ dom. Nonetheless, the Prince demanded that Tasso purchase

his freedom with poetry and, like Alphonso, the Prince con­

fiscated the manuscript. He considered the composition of

Jerusalem Deli vered a pledge of Tasso' s attachment to his

court. Although he gave the poet a small sum of money and a

few new clothes to be worn in the court, he kept the manu­

script and surreptitiously published it. Like the Duke of

Este, the Prince considered Tasso's poetic genius a personal

property to be jealously guarded.

While Byron lamented in stanza iii that "In Venice

Tasso's echoes are no more,/ And silent rows the songless

gondolier," Hobhouse clarified the connotative significance

of the poetry. The gondoliers' traditional songs came from

Tasso's poem Jerusalem. When Venice lost its independence,

the boatmen quit singing strophes from the poem. Hobhouse

recorded that in 1817 only the older gondoliers even remem­

bered the familiar stanzas.

Without the explanation from Hi stori cal 111ustrati ons

how could any modern reader interpret Byron's forceful con­ demnation when he related how glory attended Tasso*s name, but

Alfonso* s xxxvi1 Would rot in its oblivion--in the sink

Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line

Is shaken into nothing; but the link

Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think 97

Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn--

Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink

From thee! If in another station born.

Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn; xxxvi i i

Thou! form' d to eat, and be despis'd, and die,

Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou

Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty:

Although many educated readers probably knew the legend,

Hobhouse explained that the Duke of Este, Alfonso, outlived the affection and loyalty of his subjects, even his depen­ dents. By the time he died, the Church had excommunicated him and his heirs had deserted him, leaving him to be in­ terred without princely honor or even a decent burial rite.

Continuing to expound on Italy's famous literary fig­ ures, Hobhouse enlarged on this poetic expression from stanza liv:

In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie

Ashes which make it holier, dust which is

Even itself an immortality, . . . here repose

Angelo' s, Alfieri' s bones, and his.

The starry Galileo, with his woes;

Here Machiavelli' s earth, return' d to whence it rose.

The notes explained that Santa Croce was the mecca of Italy, the burial place of an assortment of world famous figures. 98

Adding to the notes but not repeating them, Hobhouse recorded

several anecdotes about Count Alfieri's haughty irascibility.

On one occasion, Alfieri had gone to a formal tea and acci­

dentally broken a cup. When his hostess moaned that he had

spoiled the set and might as well break the entire service,

Alfieri did just that--he pushed the entire set onto the

floor (32). On another occasion, a lady seated behind the

poet in the theater admired his long auburn curls. To her

surprise, the following morning a messenger arrived with a

package containing his shorn locks. Hobhouse included other

anecdotes, but these demonstrated both the temperamental and

impulsive nature of Alfieri (a nature usually associated with

an artistic genius), and also the kind of legends Italians

treasured about literary figures whom they idealized. Hob­

house described Alfieri's tomb sculpted by a contemporary,

Canova--a badly placed, top-heavy monument projecting into

the church aisle. An oversize plaque identifying Alfieri's

patron. Princess Stolberg, dwarfed the inscription honoring

the poet.

When tourists left Santa Croce, they traveled through

striking scenic displays of nature's grandeur. In diary en­

tries Hobhouse repeatedly raved about the exquisite majesty

and spectacular beauty in the natural terrain. Although Hob-

house's constrained sense of propriety tempered his utteran­

ces, Byron the Romantic was "dazzled and drunk with beauty"

( 1) , and showed no inhibitions months later when he wrote 99 about the scenic majesty in a subjectively artistic reaction.

He poetically retraced the tour to the headwaters of the

Clitumnus River and acclaimed the beauty of the crystal clear mountain stream to be particularly intoxicating after passing through the sadly historic battlefield of Thrasimene.

Thrasimene was

Ixi i i

Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds;

And such the storm of battle on this day,

. . . [such the] carnage that, beneath the fray.

An earthquake reel'd unheededly away!

On that day, blood ran so profusely that it "made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters red" (Ixv). On the other hand, the Clitumnus stream rhymically spoke of the tranquillity of meditation with its "finny darter with the glittering scales," and its scattered water lily blooms.

Byron called it "the prettiest little stream in all poesy" and caught "some famous trout . . . close to the temple by its banks" (Marchand 5.233). He depicted the peaceful environment and included the temple in his poetic descrip- ti on; Ixvi

But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave

Of the most living crystal that was e'er

The haunt of river nymph . . .

. . . the purest god of gentle waters! 100 And most serene of aspect, and most clear;

Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters

Ixvi i

And on thy happy shore a temple still.

Of small and delicate proportion, keeps.

Upon a mild declivity of hill.

Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps

Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps

The finny darter with the glittering scales

Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;

While the Romantic poet responded to the muse that in­ spired Virgil, Claudian, Pliny and untold others, Hobhouse mundanely responded by factually tracing the river to its source in the nearby mountains of Spoleto. He also recalled the ancient historical tradition of the Clitumnus as a holy stream celebrated for its beauty and consulted for its ora­ cle. He described the remains of the ancient temple which still stood when he passed the site in 1817. Fish scales, sculpted on the antique columns, still alluded to the river god honored by the structure, and in 1817 the mountain people still held annual festivals honoring their river god.

According to Hobhouse, after an earthquake partially destroyed the ancient temple in 446, the Catholic Church confiscated it from the mountain people under the guise of repairing it. The Church built a small chapel nearby, which contained some fragments and carved moldings from the ruined 101 edifice. Hobhouse cited church historians who claimed that two bishops and a friar removed columns and marble statuary

from the temple and sold them to the count of Trevi for his

private chapel. Hobhouse charged that the same greedy friar

also destroyed part of the ancient oracle's underground cell

in a search for fancied buried treasure. The Englishman

recorded several defaced but legible names carved on the sub­

terranean roof--"Septimius, Plebeius" (42), etc. --of people

who had consulted the ancient oracle. After this explanation

about the ancient temple "of small and delicate proportion,"

a modern reader could envision Coleridge's metaphor of Hob­

house adding flesh to the "dry bones" of Byron's poetry.

As curious travelers neared Rome, they tried to see

every fragmented aqueduct and arch, and Hobhouse depicted

the topography mile by mile. The Englishman threaded his

way through wooded plains and rolling hills; he traversed

pine forests of thick evergreens, and crossed the Campagna

and Tiber rivers. Finally, the gates of the city became

visible. During the last fifteen miles, tourists saw magnificent gardens and luxurious villas on the city's out­ skirts. In the suburbs, wide paved streets passed between summer houses and vineyard gateways with impressive Latin inscriptions over them. These inscriptions, and beggars ask­ ing alms in Latin, reminded classically educated tourists of

Rome's historical significance and widespread moral influ­ ence. Hobhouse did not cite a personal experience, but he 102 cautioned the casual traveler to practice extreme care in evaluating the antiques available in markets, especially near

Rome where most antiques were genuine fakes. He also warned the discreet tourist against placing complete confidence in any of the guide books related to Italy, but granted that every astute traveler soon developed a natural skepticism as a result of the population's "national inclination to fable"

(45) and deception. On the other hand, Byron indicated his general unconcern for historical accuracy by repeatedly recommending (in his letters) the guidebooks for descriptions of various structures.

He reluctantly visited Rome but, as a result of viewing sites familiar to him from school days, he poetically pro­ claimed Rome the "Mother of Arts" and "Parent of our Reli­ gion! whom the wide/ Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven!" (xlvii). Byron knew classical and Italian history but lacked the expansive knowledge of his friend. As an antiquarian and Italian Renaissance scholar, Hobhouse asso­ ciated the legendary and historical sites with their classi­ cal significance. Nevertheless, when Byron recalled the

Roman scene, from both his head and his heart came the inspired expressions: Ixxvi i i

Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul!

The orphans of the heart must turn to thee.

Lone mother of dead empires! . . .

Come and see 103 The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way

0'er steps of broken thrones and temples.

As a result of the magnitude of ruins, Byron expressed

awe over the "crush'd relics" that "Time hath not rebuilt."

In fact, both Englishmen obviously felt for "fair Ital y" a reverent fascination which Byron clearly indicated:

XXVI

Thou art the garden of the world, the home

Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;

Even in thy desart, what is like to thee?

Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste

More rich than other climes' fertility;

Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced

With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.

Although Byron poetically detailed specific destructive

forces (in one verse) that acted through endless ages to lay

waste to this land of former glory, one must consult Hobhouse to find the extended connotative significance in that single verse: Ixxx

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire,

Have dealt upon the seven-hill' d city's pride;

She saw her glories star by star expire,

And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,

, . . far and wide 104

Temple and tower went down, nor left a site:--

Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,

. . . And say, "here was, or is"?

Deliberately following the order cited by Byron, Hob­ house devoted a lenghty chapter to clarifying the riddle pro­ posed as causes for the poet's "marble wilderness" and to de­ tailing the eons of history in the destruction of Rome by:

"the Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood and Fire." Once again, he resorted to research among texts by ancient and reputable historians for authentic confirmation. Hobhouse mentioned several ancient architects, including Marcellinus,

Procopius, Cassiodorus and Olympiodorus who described the ravage and destruction by Goths and Visigoths. Among the many ecclesiastical authors available, Hobhouse relied on church historian Donatus as the specialist on church con­ struction during the early days of Christianity, and on

Anastasius as an authority on papal activity. A modern historical scholar could scarcely duplicate the authenticated names, dates and events that the Englishman reproduced.

Hobhouse especially relied on Procopius and Cassiodorus for a description of the devastation by Alaric and the Goths,

Genserick and the Vandals, as well as Ricimer, Vitiges, Toti- la and numerous other invaders (whom only a historian could appreciate). By following the detailed accounts, Hobhouse retraced centuries of invasions when every marauder de­ spoiled, destroyed, burned, ravaged and looted, leaving 105 behind a wasteland of ruins that included destroyed aque­ ducts, baths and temples. Once ornaments had been removed from above ground, plunderers tore up lead conduits searching for buried treasures. Through the ages, this repeated plun­ der of monuments and architectural decorations, both public and private structures, emptied the city of its wealth.

Hobhouse openly expressed his highest admiration for Rome's magnificent human accomplishments in its age of glory, and condemned the destructive indulgence of "Barbarians, Arians, and Infidels" (66)--that is, Byron's all inclusive "Goth."

As Hobhouse proceeded to clarify Byron's "Christian" as a destructive force, he cited a Tuscan historian and friend of Tasso (Angelio Pietro da Barga) , who asserted that Goths and Vandals actually did less damage to public buildings than

Christians did. In spite of the ravage left behind by bar­ barians, Hobhouse agreed that historians confirmed that

Christian clergy did paradoxically destroy more complete­ ly and fanatically than any of the invaders. Historians generally affirmed that this devastation appeared in two forms--first, in dismantling ancient relics to repair or re­ build other structures; and second, in a radical destruction of pagan edifices and ornaments as the clergy concentrated on building churches from the materials unearthed on the exact sites of pagan structures. Using specific examples, Hobhouse recounted how the Church confiscated materials to decorate the tombs of Christian martyrs. Also, he recorded how 106 superstition combined with ignorance and necessity during this era to make the veneration of apostles the true test of patriotism and cited several reports of the Church distorting

pagan deities to Christian saints. For example, Romulus

(with all of his specific qualities) became St. Theodo re (with the identical virtues of the pagan god), and Mars

reemerged as St. Martina. Also, the superstitious clergy

attached fables to the sites of confiscated relics.

Hobhouse recorded one particularly interesting story of a

fountain springing up on the site of a jailer's baptism by

an apostle confined in the Mamertine dungeon.

Marveling that any relic of antiquity had survived, he

detailed how Christians methodically destroyed temple statues

and idols along with porticos and baths. He voiced the con­

clusion that early popes did little except build churches at

the expense of ancient structures. However, he charged the

lower clergy with destroying and stealing more than the

pontiffs as they led Christians to loosely interpret the law

that forbade destroying pagan edifices. This laxity allowed them to embellish their religious structures with remnants of the ancient buildings. In this kind of sanctioned de­ struction, zealots enthusiastically broke idols and pulled down ancient structures. The sacrilege of destroying nation­ al treasures (such as the ancient temple on the banks of the

Clitumnus) was only one of the ploys the Church used to gain control of past history and to brainwash the people. In 107

Illustrati ons Hobhouse related many such blasphemous deeds, reported by credible and official ecclesiastical sources. He maintained a relatively objective historical tone, but his language denoted a subjective response that the reader sensed as an underlying disapproval or disenchantment with the

Catholic religion. As a genuinely concerned archivist, he resented the widespread destruction in the name of religion.

As a nominal Protestant, his faith looked to a transcendent deity rather than to physical artifacts for its substantia- t i on.

Continuing to highlight the destructive influence of

Byron's "Christians," he reconstructed the history of zealots ravaging every sarcophagus in their prowl for relics. He also related how they dumped burial ashes found in ancient mausoleums and unscrupulously unearthed bodies, removed urns and precious materials from tombs, devastating graves in the search for ornaments buried with the dead. Hobhouse subtly ridiculed the despoilers' ignorance of the meaning implied by sarcophagi decorated with mythological sculptures. These were transported whole to basilicas or churches and both Pope

Clement XII and Innocent II lay in marble slabs previously occupied by heathen bodies. Hobhouse reported viewing the memorial plaque of a bishop interred in a stone coffin with pagan marriage bas reliefs carved on its surface. While "the bones and ashes of emperors" (176) had been dispersed in the wind, less pure ashes had been preserved. 108

Byron recalled a mythic legend at a specific sepulchre as he also discoursed on this unholy emptying of graves:

Ixxi X

The Niobe of nations! there she stands.

Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;

An empty urn within her withered hands,

Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago;

The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;

The very sepulchres lie tenantless

Of their heroic dwellers ....

Hobhouse recalled how, after years of searching, anti­ quarians discovered and identified Scipio's tomb in 1780. He elaborated on the eloquent family inscriptions inside the sarcophagus of Barbatus Scipio that told more about the virtues of style and language in ancient Rome than Livy did.

Of course, Livy was his absolute authority if historians could not agree about ancient Rome and its ruins, and he examined his personal copy at every ruin or monument. He conceded that antiquarians disputed about every object exca­ vated or discovered and expressed approval for using convict labor in excavations as he encouraged others to follow the

Duchess of Devonshire's example of financing such digs.

Plodding through the ages century by century, Hobhouse laboriously recited minute details from historical sources available in the Vatican and other papal libraries that confirmed the vandalism, ravage and demolition by "the 109

Christian." Tragically, vandalism sanctioned by papal decree resulted in organized destruction that Church historians confirmed. However, in a fourth-century inventory, Pope

Valentine could still record twelve pages (in double columns) naming public monuments. Hobhouse accepted this inventory as concrete proof of the former glory and beauty in the eternal city. Byron considered them "wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm" (xlvi). Several fourth- century historians also verified that during the reign of

Constantine, Rome's architectural wonders still astounded and fascinated visitors.

Nevertheless, Hobhouse named Constantine as the most successful of all plunderers; he sold so-called pagan idols and statues, changed the purpose of many public structures to accomodate the new state religion, and despoiled monuments and arches for use in churches, monasteries and other build­ ings dedicated to the new religion. Yet, this kind of devas­ tation also became a preservation. A thousand years after this despoliation, Byron and Hobhouse viewed Leda and the

Swan still ornamenting the bronze doors of St. Peter's, and

Proserpine's pomegranates still decorating the altar at St.

Agnes.

Hobhouse also detailed the additional devastation of

Constantine when he established Constantinople as the seat of Roman emperors. Many leading families followed his move and left behind their empty palaces, which fell into decay 110 as lack of repair and upkeep hastened their deterioration.

In addition, the emigrants carried many of the best trophies and ornaments with them, further depleting the national trea­ sure of ancient relics. Although edicts in the fourth centu­ ry outlawed removing lead, brass and iron from abandoned buildings, those rebuilding houses had little recourse except plundering habitations deserted by former residents. As the various public structures declined, private individuals razed them, and transported columns and marbles from one city to another for use in new buildings. Byron called it by its real name, devastation: "The world hath rear'd cities from out their sepulchres" (Ixxxix). As Hobhouse so aptly implied, public policy decreed not to restore, but to pillage the deteriorating monuments and buildings. Certain­ ly, as he stated, a wretched population struggling for mere existence could not be expected to respect trophies of former grandeur. Or as Byron bewailed: "Alas! the lofty city! and alas! . . ./ Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,/ And

Livy's pictur' d page!. . . all besi de--decay" (Ixxxii).

Hobhouse recalled the Justinian Code of the fourth cen­ tury that referred to an Old and a New Rome as it indicated ruins for which the Senate refused to appropriate money. The lack of funds to restore monuments and to maintain public buildings hastened the spoil of ancient structures and added to the dilapidation caused by ages of neglect and decay as general unconcern conspired with forces of nature to destroy Ill every piece left by marauders. As sculptures lay where they fell, silt buried the remains and only buried relics escaped looters. An additional factor in national despair came from the emperor's living in Constantinople, and viewing Rome as a special domain to be exploited, not protected or helped.

Continuing a lenghty analysis of the Christian's de­

struction, Hobhouse recalled that popes assumed rule over

the city in the absence of emperors. Much to the credit of

the pontiffs involved, he confirmed that once religious

history became Rome's history, a reconstruction program be­

gan. During peacetime, pontiffs forced the people to rebuild

the city walls and to construct churches and shrines for

martyrs. But as always, the building material could come

from only one place--the deserted ruins. Indeed, papal rule

proved to be a two-edged sword that both preserved and devas­

tated. Hobhouse cited numerous examples of the magnificence

of papal courts leading ambitious conquerors to invade and

tyrannize before they plundered. It also led popes to appeal

to emperors to prop their papal regimes in Rome. Were they

"victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene?"

( Ixxxvi i).

In the ninth century, Leo IX used the protection of

settlers near St. Peter's as an excuse to build a wall around

the Vatican. As apathetic survivors moved to the secure

area, the population became concentrated at opposite sides of

the city with a vast wasteland of deserted ruins between. 112

As Rome once again became a center of power, sieges and civil protests added to the dilapidation of the old city while the new city rose in importance. According to Hob­ house, "the edifices of old Rome" were lost for two centuries, but a "regionary" of the ninth century indicated

that a variety of hot baths, monuments, temples, arches and amphitheaters still survived. Also "the Capitol, the Septi- zonium of Severus, a Palace of Nero, another attributed to

Pontius Pilate, and a third near Santa Croce in Gerusalemme"

( HI 118) had miraculously escaped destruction (at least for

the inventory). Of course, the statuary and obelisks were

broken or in decay and ruins, but some survived for another thousand years. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they still served as landmarks for ecclesiastical pilgrims.

And some still partially survived when Hobhouse and Byron visited Rome in 1817, and still served as landmarks.

Continuing to trace the destructive bent of popes, Hob­ house detailed further demolition-preservation movements as

Gregory III removed columns from ancient structures to build St. Peter's Cathedral and Hadrian concentrated on rebuilding the aqueducts from whatever material he could lay his hands on. Later pontiffs used stones from the

Coliseum to build private palaces; Byron included this bit of lore in the Coliseum passage: "from its mass,/ Walls, palaces, half cities, have been reared" (cxliii). Pontiffs leveled temples, arches, theaters, and forums to widen city 113 streets; they stripped bronze from the Pantheon for the con­ fessional at St. Peter's and to make cannon for the castle of

St. Angelo; they used marble from Cecilia Metella' s sepulchre to build the fountain of Trevi; and they utilized materials from an ancient bridge to make four hundred cannon balls (to defend the castle of St. Angelo).

In addition to this and much more cataloging of destruc­ tion, Hobhouse recorded a final tragic decimation of "the

Christians" that resulted in irreparable damage. When the

Romans discovered that cement mortar made from white marble lasted much longer than that made from other stones, no mar­ ble fragment was safe. Popes and pontiffs ordered massive fragments from ruins thrown into the lime kilns and converted to masonry lime. By the fifteenth century, much of the Coli­ seum had been used to make lime, yet as Byron viewed the structure, he questioned whether it had "been plundered, or but cleared?" (cxliii). Hobhouse again voiced awe that any­ thing survived, and moaned that between the barbarians and the Catholic religion, there was sufficient cause for little to remain. However, he reported that miraculously, in spite of this, religious pilgrims in the sixteenth century still viewed Roman monuments, fragments, marble blocks and ruins as the wonder of the civilized world. But in direct contrast, he picturesquely described how a pope of that time made the prescribed stations of a ceremonial by picking his way from ruin to ruin because the entire city lay in such desolation. 114

After appraising the long history of destruction, Hob­ house concluded that by the Middle Ages Rome was a city built with rubble among the ruins of ancient civilizations. He also rendered a rare judgmental commentary that revealed his grasp of ancient as well as modern Italian; he asserted that the language used in describing both the church rituals and the primitive culture of the period was as crude as invading barbarians must have been. Hobhouse reported an anecdote that especially revealed this as another age of ignorance and superstition. First, he cited a report from the personal secretary of Pope Eugenius who indicated some of the most

valued religious relics: It [Rome] has the handkerchief of St. Veronica; it has the place called Domi ne quo vadis, where Christ met St. Peter and left the marks of his feet in the stone. It has the heads of Peter and Paul, the milk of the Virgin, the cradle and foreskin of our Saviour, the chains of St. Peter, the spousal ring sent from heaven to the maiden Agnes. To see, to touch, to venerate all which and many more things, more than fifty thousand strangers from all parts of the world come to Rome at the time of Lent. (151)

Then the scribe reported how a heretic of Bourbon's army stole the foreskin of Jesus, but miraculously a noble lady found it in an underground cave and returned it to the Vati­ can. Its return was attended by repeated miracles, all authenticated by the famous ecclesiastical writer Marangoni.

To say the least, Hobhouse proved his point about the superstition and ignorance of the age.

Of course, as Byron designated, invaders and Christians did not cause all the destruction. Forces of nature aided by 115

"Time, War, Flood, and Fire" also took a toll in the destruc­ tive process of Rome. Hobhouse catalogued wars, fires, civil

wars and riots--with each becoming part of the natural decay

process--and recalled various other problems, also. By mid-

fifth century, the city's population had diminished from

recurring pestilence and famine, yet Rome's wells could not

supply enough water for the city and the ancient aqueducts

remained broken. During the seventh century alone, histori­

ans recorded famine, earthquake, plague and five successive

inundations of the Tiber. Each one contributed to the deso­

lation of ancient sites and to making life miserable for the

city's residents. Hobhouse recorded how several rulers tried

to deal with the repeated flooding. In spite of efforts to

control the river--August us cleaned it, Trajan deepened it,

and Aurelian built a levee along its banks--later city annals

recorded repeated inundations, which continued to add to the

devastations of time and war. Overall, during the untold

ages of Rome's existence, what neglect did not deface, earth­

quake, storms and floods did.

Historical sources also confirmed the destructive in­

fluence of "War" on the magnificence of the eternal city.

Hobhouse reported that as the dispute between the Empire

and the Church reached its climax in the eleventh century

the entire nation became embroiled with Rome as the center

of combat between pope and emperor. Encamped armies moved

to fortified places and prepared to attack other partisan 116

forces who occupied private palaces. German immigrant

dukes--"a barbarian tide"--(xlvii) had converted many of

the larger buildings into live-in forts and strongholds. As

Hobhouse reported, these immigrants pretended to descend from

Roman soldiers who had served in the provinces under the

Caesars. They moved their families to Rome where they

claimed Roman citizenship and occupied whole sections of the

city. He named specific families (Frangipani, Orsini, and

numerous others) and described their construction of fort­

resses and strongholds on the site of ruins. According to

Byron, "Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear' d/ Barbaric

dwellings on their shattered site" (xlv). Finally, during

the twelfth century one revolution resulted in a reformation

of the senate.

This particular rebellion began when Pope Paschal II

angered a mob and they assaulted him during a Holy Week

service. Although he escaped, rival families capitalized on

the turmoil and divided the offices of the senate government

so that the Colonni and Orsini families administered both the

criminal and civil justice systems. During this period, ev­ ery trace of popular rule was abolished and the baron sena­

tors showed their contempt for the Pope by ceremoniously humiliating him. They carried sacramental vessels on Easter

Sunday, sat on a level with the papal throne during services. mo nitored the Pope's rulings, and wore robes sporting gold broc ade on purple (the cardinal's robe) or the multi-fold 117 robes like the Pope's. Eventually ambition and intrigue

doomed the senate rebellion, and popes resumed their power

and revived their despotism. Byron commented on the twisted

state of affairs with pontiffs ruling instead of advising

rulers: xcv I speak not of men' s creeds--they rest between

Man and his Maker--but of things allowed,

Averr' d, and known . . .

The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed,

And the intent of tyranny avowed,

The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown

The apes of him who humbled once the proud,

And shook them from their slumbers on the throne;

According to Hobhouse, the people despised the papal mon­

archy as much as they hated the nobility's despotic rule. The

papal contenders also behaved like the power-hungry senators

as they engaged in murder and sedition, inflamed passions and

aligned factions under their mitre. In one struggle between

papal and imperial forces in the thirteenth century, fero­

cious battles resulted when Henry VII was crowned and Pope

John refused to submit to Henry. However, eventually the

ongoing contention between the Senate and Vatican led to

the Pope's yielding to the senators and fleeing the city.

Hobhouse recounted how the bishops reigned with a popu­ lar government when popes were absent in the fourteenth 118 century. Without a papal yoke, the people's love for liberty emerged and Rome recovered some of its past magnificence.

Byron interpreted this aspect of history in xcviii:

Thy [Freedom's] tree hath lost its blossoms, and the ri nd, Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth.

But the sap lasts,--and still the seed we find

Sown deep ....

So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.

However, government alternated from republican to anarchy and despotism. Hobhouse recounted the rhythm of Rome's history from tyranny to freedom in the same cycles that Byron depi ct ed: CVl 1 1

There is the moral of all human tales;

'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.

First Freedom, and then Glory--when that fails.

Wealth, vice, corruption,--barbarism at last.

And History, with all her volumes vast.

Hath but one page--, 'tis better written here.

Where gorgeous Tyranny had thus amass'd

All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear.

Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask--

As young people, both Byron and Hobhouse became perma­ nently enamored with the democratic principles underlying the

French Revolution, and they never lost their admiration for them. Hobhouse clearly stated some of his ideals when he 119 philosophized on the glorious freedom of Rome's republican days versus the servile submissiveness of modern Italians who felt no compulsion to struggle for freedom. He cited words from Tacitus and Agricola, among others, relative to indivi­ dual dignity. Continuing this perceptive meditation, Byron also reflected on freedom and Italy in a lengthy passage:

xci i i

Opinion an omnipotence, --whose veil

Mantles the earth with darkness, until right

And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale

Lest their own judgments should become too bright.

And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light.

xci V And thus they plod in sluggish misery.

Rotting from sire to son, and age to age.

Proud of their trampled nature, and so die

Bequeathing their hereditary rage

To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage

War for their chains

xcVI11

Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,

Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;

Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying.

The loudest still the tempest leaves behind. 120

In the fifteenth century popes were restored, and Hob­ house traced the schisms as conflicting factions raged in struggles between pope and anti-pope, citizen revolts and

revolutions, subjugated people and noblemen senators. All of these took a toll on surviving monuments and castles.

Church historian Donatus reported that when Pope Urban

VIII rebuilt the city in the seventeenth century, he took an

unheard of step that offered real hope for saving whatever

relics remained. He made it a capital offense to tear down

ruins, and appointed a committee to enforce the law. Then

he immediately contradicted his own mandate by using archi­

tectural remains to construct modern buildings. According

to Hobhouse's sources, at the same time various prominent

families adorned their homes with ancient marble slabs,

searched for antique statues to fill their museums, and col­

lected fragments of every available type.

Hobhouse understood that historians had to maintain an

objective voice, but some things prompted him to react. In

a strongly judgmental and condemnatory passage, he let his

disbelief and disgust show as he noted the elegant taste and

splendid magnificence in which popes had lived and continued

to live. Also, all through these distressing situations,

Vatican museums displayed without apology their priceless artifacts of grandeur and glory. The luxurious taste of both prelate and nobleman supported sculptors who cut statues from columns, sawed temple marbles into church steps, and robbed 121 empty palaces to adorn churches and shrines. Many remains from outlying provinces became incorporated into St. Peter's as baptistry, altar and other embellishments. In disbelief

Hobhouse noted that paradoxically, after all of these cen­ turies of ravage and destruction of national monuments,

Romans in 1817 still had no inclination or public means to protect antiquities from either violence or time's ravages Chapter V

RUINS AND RELICS

As a severely pedantic historian, Hobhouse had no toler­ ance for sloppy research or inaccurate statements by other historians. Some of his severest criticism concerned three of his own countrymen who wrote histories of Italy that con­ tained erroneous information. He enumerated specific mis­ takes of Forsyth and Gibbon in their respective histories, but jeered at Millin's four volume work that described places the author had never been and monuments he had never seen.

He also detailed many examples of counterfeit inscrip­ tions and errors in other published histories, and again cau­ tioned the traveler to discount the exaggerations of contem­ porary guide books and the ignorance of tour guides. He con­ demned the Church's practice of labeling classical sites without regard for truth and, in a rare display of humor, explained how Pope Paschal II totally disregarded credibility in one instance. In 1103, he issued a Bullari um Romanum designating a convenient site for Horace's Bandusian fountain

(which inspired one of his famous odes). Paschal fixed the location, not in the natural geographical locale, but in Hor­ ace's birthplace. This explained Byron's tongue-in-cheek observation: "Then farewell, Horace Yet fare thee well--upon Soracte's ridge we part" (Ixxvii). Thus the two travelers took leave of Horace through a papal ruling but, as men familiar with the ancient poet, they found haunting

122 123 allusions to him in various places. Byron had not appreci­ ated schoolboy exercises in translation, but he valued the odes.

Continuing his account of historical mistakes, Hobhouse cited specific monuments, tombs, statuaries, and other relics that in 1817 bore misnomers, forged inscriptions, erroneous dates and wrong locations. He contended that the identity of every bust or inscription had to be questioned. While names and locations remained as dubious in 1817 as at any time, he ma intained that few structures even existed without reason­ able doubts concerning their original function. Neverthe­ less, the Coliseum, a number of tombs, mausoleums and arches seemed correctly identified. Even so, he warned that one must suspect every inscription, including those that appeared to be true antiquities. Byron repeated the same idea in

"Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,/ O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,/ And say, 'here was, or is,' where all is doubly night? (Ixxx). He echoed the same uncer­ tainty so eloquently as he continued:

Ixxxi

The double night of ages, and of her,

Night's daughter. Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap

All round us; we but feel our way to err:

The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map.

And knowledge spreads them on her ample lap;

But Rome is as the desart, where we steer 124

Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap

Our hands, and cry "Eureka!" it is clear--

When but some false mirage of ruin rises near.

xci X

There is a stern round tower of other days.

Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone.

Such as an army' s baffled strength delays,

Standing with half its battlements alone.

And with two thousand years of ivy grown,

The garland of eternity . . .

What was this tower of strength? within its cave

What treasure lay so lock' d, so hid?-- . . .

cvi i

Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown

Matted and mass' d together, hillock heap' d

On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column strown

In fragments, chok' d up vaults, and frescos steep' d

In subterranean damps, where the owl peep' d.

Deeming it midnight: --Temples, baths, or halls?

Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reap'd

From her research hath been, that these are walls--

Hobhouse asserted that in the incertitude, fourteenth- century historians could not locate the seven hills on which ancient Rome stood; and, in the fifteenth century, Augustan monks labeled at random numerous ancient ruins with no con­ sideration of history or regard for veracity. Further 125 confusing the issue, through the ages names on monuments varied depending on which antiquarian named them. Hobhouse confirmed that, at one time, the group identifying remains designated all vaulted ruins as baths while at another time they called them temples. He insisted that modern topogra­ phers felt embarrassment from the inexact nomenclature.

"Temples, baths, or halls? Pronounce who can" (cvii).

Hobhouse accused contemporary archaeological societies of unethically capitalizing on a lucrative trade with unsus­

pecting tourists who had no idea of the false information pawned onto them. He charged that in a hundred years of existence, the societies had produced neither an integrated survey of the excavated ruins and antiquities nor a satis­ factory city map. But, they had done some good things also-- antiquarians located several burial chambers of early promi­ nent familes along the original Appian Way, and by 1817 had restored a section of the ancient Way complete with villas, public walks, decorated tombs and other memorabilia. Hob­ house described how one could view concurrently ruins of an ancient metropolis in the midst of a modern city and feel the aura of both civilizations.

He regretted, however, that a nineteenth-century tourist wanting to find monuments to Rome's mythic heroes could see so few whole objects among the vestiges of early ages. In his judgment, one did not visit Rome to view the Flavian princes' shrines or to read Aurelius's philosophy. He 126 asserted that the modern tourist came to Rome to view sites and objects related to those institutions that civilized a barbaric world. To him, fragments of Cicero's house or monuments to early patriots overshadowed all the lofty ruins of Trajan and Julian.

Although the two tourists could never be sure that the

ruins represented the actual sites, Byron alluded to many

legendary and historical marvels. As he wandered through the

"marble wilderness," he designated specific sites for about

forty stanzas, describing ruins in the ancient city.

Hobhouse, however, added the information that brought meaning

to the poetic perspective. In his explication on the expanse

and history of ruins, a modern reader could almost visualize

the magnificence of Augustus's obelisk and the theater of

Palladio, sense the solitude felt in the vaults of the Pala­

tine, and understand the veneration inspired by the magni­

tude, grandeur and variety of relics. Hobhouse sensed that

any traveler, even one lacking education and curiosity, would

feel a rapturous awe and ask how to understand what he felt

in the midst of the "broken thrones and temples" (51). Byron

voiced the same awe: cxxxvi i i

--Now welcome, thou dread power!

Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here

Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour

With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear; 127

Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear

Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene

Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear

That we become a part of what has been

And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen.

Byron began the lengthy poetic passage on ruins by mus­

ing on the identity and cause of death for a nameless Roman

lady whose tomb was a splendid memorial structure:

But who was she, the lady of the dead.

Tombed in a palace? Was she chaste and fair?

Worthy a king's--or more--a Roman's bed?

What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear?

What daughter of her beauties was the heir?

How lived--how loved--how died she?

He continued reflecting on the unidentified woman through

several stanzas, and then meditated on Cecilia Metella's

tomb: "Metella died,/ The wealthiest Roman's wife; Behold his

love or pride!" (ciii).

Hobhouse commented on the brevity of the inscription--

four words and two initials--marking the sepulchre of a be­

loved wife, but surmised that pride, not love dictated build­

ing such a sepulchre. Only a few disfigured blocks remained of the original tomb, yet he said it was still one of the most striking ruins in Rome. He could learn nothing about 128 the family whose name was carved on the sepulchre, but that name appeared several times in Augustan court documents and in the annals of Tacitus.

He described the deliberate demolition of this kind of structure when feudal lords converted tombs and mausoleums to military fortresses where they lived. That fact affirmed

Byron's expression, "Ages and realms are crowded in this span,/ This mountain, whose obliterated plan/ The pyramid of empires pinnacled" (cix). Hobhouse could only surmise when

Metella's tomb became a fortress, and a military garrison walked through her ashes. Historical sources confirmed that a German family named Savelli claimed the tomb until 1312 when Henry VII, with a German army, attacked it. Later, a

Gaetani family became owners (for 20,000 marks) and raised walls near the tomb, added a superstructure, and joined it to their nearby mansion. Still later. Urban VIII cut away some of the marble blocks for the fountain of Trevi, and consigned others to lime kilns.

Byron and Hobhouse saw the most massive ruins in the

Palatine region that originally incorporated the Circus Maxi- m us and Caesar's palace. Hobhouse described the area as a sea of ruins where even the soil was a mass of rubble. Byron depicted the spot as a roosting place for owls:

cvi

Then let the winds howl on! their harmony

Shall henceforth be my music, and the night 129

The sound shall temper with the owlet's cry.

As I now hear them, in the fading light

Dim O'er the bird of darkness' native site,

Answering each other on the Palatine,

With their large eyes, all glistening grey and bright.

And sailing pinions. --Upon such a shrine

What are our petty griefs?--let me not number mine.

While Byron lost himself in revery and awe, Hobhouse could only think of the historical chronicles of destruction and restoration as Anastasius described invasions, civil wars, and uprisings. Although a thirteenth-century pilgrim wrote about Palatine mansions and palaces, by the beginning of the fifteenth century not a single building stood in the area except a ruined Church of St. Nicholas. Hobhouse ex­ plained how one could walk through the Palatine ruins for days, exploring corridors of imperial ruins above ground or below, and meditate all the while on the original purpose of the structures. In 1817, the main inhabitants of the area were owls, foxes and jackasses while one footpath crossed the Palatine and led through the stations of the vi a c r u c i s to a church and monastery dedicated to St. Bonaventura.

The Farnese family served as one example in Hobhouse's account of Naples dukes who wanted a summer house in the

Palatine area. To embellish their finished villa, they did what others had done for centuries in scrounging 130 ancient sculpture, statues and colored marbles from baths, amphitheaters, deserted palaces and ruined churches. They hired Michael Angelo to design, and Raphael to paint fres­ coes in their palace and hippodrome built to house an entire court. In fact, it was so large that a Neapolitan ambassador became "lost in one of the suites of one of the stories of one of the sides" (209) of the building. Less than fifty years later, the family abandoned it and pilferers stripped it of its treasures. In the nineteenth century, residents called a sunken part of the Farnese vineyard by the name

Baths of Li via, but no one could tell Hobhouse why. Also, a subterranean chamber in the same area, and reputed to be

Nero's baths, had been excavated by antiquarians. A few huge marble blocks with Apollo's name sculpted on them lay about, and he surmised that they could have come from Apollo's temple, which originally stood somewhere near the Circus

Maxi mus. The forum area was at one time the most spectacular exhibit of ancient Rome. According to historians, two forums, the Roman and Trajan's, occupied the site. The

Englishman conceded that antiquarians of different ages had located the forum at various places, none of them with certainty. Hobhouse said that early Christian zealots spared the area because it contained statues of young men who had fallen in war, along with memorials to poets and literary heroes. 131

Byron described the Forum as a place of free speech before a "lawless soldier" rendered the senate mute.

CXI 1 1

The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood:

Here a proud people's passions were exhaled.

From the first hour of empire in the bud

To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd;

But long before had Freedom's face been veil'd.

And Anarchy assumed her attributes;

Two authors commented on the Forum in the twelfth century but, according to Hobhouse, it was probably in ruins at that time. Historians reported that by the end of the twelfth century, a church stood on part of Trajan's Forum.

In the thirteenth century, Boniface VIII built three churches with towers on the site. In the sixteenth century, Paul III leveled two hundred cottages in the area in order to dig an arch from under Trajan's column (as Byron indicated, "Thou nameless column with the buried base!" ex). In the excava­ tion, diggers discovered the original Forum floor, statues, a basilica and a portico. When Hobhouse visited the spot. mo dern excavators had exposed the floor in all of its mag­ nificent beauty, and had restored marble columns, porticos and a basilica to create a splendor that Hobhouse considered a rival to Pompeii's. In the sixteenth century, Cassidorius reported Trajan's statue still atop the column. The histo­ rian also explained that an emperor's ashes traditionally 132 were put into the head of a spear held in the hand of the statue. Hadrian, however, buried Trajan's ashes beneath the column in a golden urn. Without explaining what happened to

Trajan's statue, the historian reported that in the seven­

teenth-century, Sixtus Quintus placed St. Peter's statue on

top of Trajan's column. After learning what Hobhouse ferret­

ed out from ancient sources, the reader could understand By­

ron' s poetic riddle about "apostolic statues":

ex

Tully was not so eloquent as thou.

Thou nameless columns with the buried base!

What are the laurels of the Caesar's brow?

Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face,

Titus or Trajan's? No--'tis that of Time:

Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace

Scoffing; and apostolic statues climb

To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime,

cxi

Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,

And looking to the stars:

Many gaps existed in historians' accounts, but according

to a ninth-century anecdote Gregory the Great prayed for and

liberated Trajan's soul from hell. Thus Trajan's column and

Forum became a holy place that would not be pillaged or de­

faced. Byron included a tribute to Trajan in cxi:

he was more 133

Than a mere Alexander, and, unstain'd

With household blood and wine, serenely wore

His sovereign virtues--sti11 we Trajan's name adore

No classically educated Englishman could forget the

association of Cicero and the Roman Forum. Both Byron and

Hobhouse recalled past events in the Forum and remembered

Cicero's rhetorical vigor. Byron included a tribute to the

rhetori ci an: CXI 1:

Yes: and in yon field below,

A thousand years of silenced factions sleep--

The Forum, where the immortal accents glow.

And still the eloquent air breathes--burns with Ci cero!

Although the village of Mola di Gaeta claimed Cicero's

tomb, villa and artifacts, Hobhouse cited the ancient writer

Plutarch who mentioned a temple of Cicero in the region of

the Forum. During Constanti ne' s time (i. e. fourth century),

Roman senators restored a temple in the name of Cicero, ac­

cording to Donatus. In the fifteenth century, historian

Poggio witnessed the destruction of a portico said to be part

of Cicero's temple. Although repeated fires, earthquakes

and invasions left little trace of the temple where Cicero

assembled the senate, Hobhouse viewed two inscribed plaques marking the spot. He expressed awe in knowing that he stood

where Cicero once spoke. In terms of true veneration, he 134 praised Cicero as "the wisest and best man of all antiquity"

(225), and theorized that the most unknowing observer would be sensitive to the memory of the great orator because even the most ignorant Roman still revered him.

Continuing to ponder the ruins, Byron created another poetic enigma for the uneducated, and again Hobhouse clari­ fied it cxi 1 Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place

Where Rome embraced her heroes? where the steep

Tarpeian? fittest goal of Treason's race.

The promontory whence the Traitor's leap

Cured all ambition.

Hobhouse first explained that Capitol Hill and the Tar­ peian Rock were the same high ground and originally Capitol

Hill combined with the Forum as a single section of Rome.

He speculated that the Athenaeum originally covered the whole hill, but historians disagreed on the location of the struc­ ture. One topographer located it on the site of St. Salva- tor' s church, but that church no longer existed when Hobhouse visited the spot.

Again resorting to ancient historians, he traced the deep historical roots of Capitol Hill where students learned rhetoric in a true university. Through the centuries, each revolutionary faction battled to control the high ground of the hill. Muratori reported that from the hill, the antipope 135

John was thrown to his death after he had his ears chopped off, his eyes pulled out, his tongue removed, and had been paraded about Rome on an ass (facing the tail).

Continuing to trace the history, Hobhouse reported on repeated assaults by pontiffs and senators. By the fif­ teenth century, noblemen (Hobhouse called them barons), popes and senators had fought over the hill, and various plunderers had removed the gilded doors and tiles from all of the ancient structures. When Paul III reestablished papal power in the sixteenth century, he hired Michael Angelo to make the citadel both accessible and attractive. Michael Angelo had to lower the hill enough for one to reach the top with one hundred steps maximum--fewer steps than the nearby Benedic­ tine church used, one hundred twenty-four. After this levelling process, the Coliseum towered over the Tarpeian

Rock, and Capitol Hill lost its prominence as high ground.

In spite of elucidating many enigmas, Hobhouse could not so Ive one riddle about Capitol Rock. No historian recorded from which precipice traitors were thrown. However, he did incorporate the story of one of the most interesting and sue cessful revolutions against the tyranny of noblemen who did not know how to rule. Byron included the basic details, which were meaningless until Hobhouse filled the gaps.

cxi V

Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,

From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee. 136

Redeemer of dark centuries of shame--

The friend of Petrarch--hope of Italy--

Rienzi! last of Romans! While the tree

Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf.

Even for thy tomb a garland let it be--

The forum's champion, and the people's chief--

Her new-born Numa thou--with reign alas! too brief.

Could any scholar except a diligent student of ancient history recognize the name Rienzi? Because both Byron and

Hobhouse revered freedom and knew Italian history, they dei­ fied Rienzi, a fourteenth-century citizen leader, poet and friend of Petrarch. In fact, during this tumultous era, Pet­ rarch' s poetry carried the message of patriotism and freedom throughout the region as he applauded Rienzi's acts. Not only did Rienzi have the famous poet as a fellow-citizen voicing concerns; he also had Giovanni Villani as a reliable biographer witnessing his exploits and recording them.

In 1817, Byron and Hobhouse viewed two articles that reminded them of this revolution. First, Constantine's bronze horse still stood where Rienzi had arranged for wine to flow from one nostril and water from the other on his coronation day. Also, in the Capitoline Museum, Hobhouse saw fragments of tablets conferring on Vespasian his authority to reign. According to superstitious legend, Rienzi was the only Roman able to interpret the tablets. Both Vespasian and

Rienzi were of plebian birth, and this supernatural ability 137 to read indecipherable tablets indicated the heavens' plea­ sure with Rienzi's role in human affairs as liberator and ruler.

Hobhouse referred to Gibbon's characterization of

Rienzi, but his historical summary came from the historian

Muratori. Rienzi served as a senate tribune popularly elect­ ed, the "hope of Italy" to protect ordinary citizens from patrician magistrates. As a persuasive orator, he capital­ ized on the people's resentment of the pleasure-loving nobil­ ity and aroused the citizenry to open rebellion--"the tree/

Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf." When a faction of the church supported him, Rienzi and his fellow rebels celebrated an all-night mass in St. Angelo' s Church before they marched through the streets under religious banners and proclaimed their intentions. Rienzi, as the

"forum's champion and the people's chief," envisioned a constitutionally federated republic with the blessings of peace and justice for all citizens. His battle cry of peace, majesty and justice must have sounded like the call of the

French Revolution to Byron and Hobhouse who firmly supported that cause as young men. Feudal wars between noblemen were part of the treachery of the times, but Rienzi's total suc­ cess proved to Hobhouse that Roman citizens still treasured freedom. As Byron proclaimed, Rienzi redeemed "dark centu­ ries of shame" in overthrowing the nobility's rule, imposing a system of justice, and creating a free republic. 138

Hobhouse confirmed the forceful rule of Rienzi. In one of his first acts, he restored Clement VI to papal power.

Then he concentrated on ridding the city government of cor­ ruption and restored dignity to honest labor. Although he renamed the Holy Roman Empire the Holy Roman Republic and identified himself as a citizen tribune, the vanity of suc­ cess prompted him to assume "fopperies of royalty" (256).

He soon ordained a lengthy title for himself, established a chivalric court of horsemen, wore pompous robes, and general­ ly indulged an insatiable hunger for power and recognition.

According to Hobhouse's analysis, when he returned Rome to the lascivious public feasts of the Caesars, the vice of ex­ travagant conduct and pride alienated him from the root of his political strength in the common citizens of Rome. His downfall became eminent when he set himself up as dictator and ordered himself crowned with seven crowns (representing the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit). He demanded that the cardinals and pope attend his coronation (from Avignon where they lived and officiated over church matters from 1306 to

1376). Within a month of his coronation, he was dethroned and exiled. Even though Byron was probably not referring to

Rienzi, the words fit as he defined "Ambition, that built up between/ Man and his hopes an adamantine wall, and dooms man's worst--his second fall" (scvii).

Hobhouse reported that Rienzi took refuge in St. Angelo

Castle and ignominiously escaped at night in the guise of a 139 peasant beggar. After seven years of aimless wandering, he identified himself, became a political prisoner of the inqui­ sition in Avignon, and was charged with heresy and rebellion.

However, as the historians recorded, the cardinals judged that his trial would expose embarrassing clerical secrets, and both Clement and Innocent VI considered his ability to reform the anarchy of Rome worthy of restoring him to power as a senator. Admittedly, Rienzi did "redeem centuries of shame" in the overthrow of the despotic nobility and the restoration of individual freedom. However, four months after his return as a patriot senator, a mob of Roman citi­ zens massacred him. From a twentieth-century vantage point, one' could say that he proved the modern maxim that revolution perpetuates revolution. Byron expressed a similar nine­ teenth century perspective:

xc vi:

Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,

And Freedom find no champion and no child

Such as Columbia saw arise when she

Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled?

Hobhouse relied on historians to confirm a personal con­ viction that humans could bear neither the servitude of slav­ ery nor the latitude of complete freedom. He asserted that in Italy a national tendency to revolt created an impatience with control that found its outlet in violent conduct. When

Rienzi capitalized on this tendency and harangued against the 140 unpopular tyranny, and the popular bard Petrarch endorsed his campaign for liberty, the revolt could not fail. To Hob­

house, the ease of this success proved the ageless allure of

freedom while Rienzi's fall from fortune only proved the in­

constancy of the Roman citizenry.

Continuing to catalogue individual ruins methodically,

Byron began the Coliseum passage by recalling gladiators

fighting and dying as "the playthings of a crowd":

cxxxi X

And here the buzz of eager nations run.

In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause.

As man was slaughtered by his fellow man.

And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but because

Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws,

And the imperial pleasure. . . .

cxli i

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam;

And here, where burning nations choked the ways.

And roar' d or murmur' d like a mountain stream

Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;

Here where the Roman million's blame or praise

Was death in life, the playthings of a crowd.

Then he included a passage on the impressive ruin as it was

in 1817 and confirmed Hobhouse' s account of popes and

senators using its massive blocks for private palaces: 141

clxiii

A ruin--yet what ruin! from its mass

Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared;

Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass

And marvel where the spoil could have appeared.

Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared?

Hobhouse reported seeing Vatican letters that offered stones from the Coliseum for sale in 1362, and again in

1531. Although many of its stones found their way into the lime kilns, some of the finest palaces in Italy were built from them, just as Byron said.

Hobhouse reported that the ancient historian Marangoni credibly asserted that an architect named Gaudentius built the matchless structure, and was executed in it for his

Christian faith. One historian explained the purpose of the structure--to house gladiator shows where men battled wild beasts--while another calculated that the entire facility could hold over 10,000 wild beasts at the same time that it accommodated 87,000 seated spectators and 22,000 standing.

Another historian reported that under Domitian second-century spectators became glutted with the crucifixions and burnings that followed the gladiators' being "butcher"d to make a

Roman holiday" (cxli). Byron expressed disapproval of this slaughter and called on them to revolt: "Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!" (cxli). 142

In continuing his poetic treatise, Byron included a citation from Gibbon, in which Gibbon referred to Bede for

proof that seventh and eighth-century pilgrims saw the

Coliseum whole even though Rome was partially destroyed.

(Hobhouse identified and interpreted the citation.) Few

readers then or now would recognize the ancient citation

or its source and few would understand its significance

relative to the ruin. cxl V

While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;

"When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;

And when Rome falls--the World." From our own land

Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall

In Saxon times, which we are wont to call

Ancient;

In his detailed history of the Coliseum, Hobhouse re­

ported destructive forces that assailed the ancient struc­

ture. In 219, a fire destroyed an upper section occupied by

brothels. When lightning damaged the structure, Constantine

repaired it to its original height, 108 feet of solid stone.

However, seventh-century earthquakes, along with neglect and

floods proved to be more than the durable structure could

withstand and the entire south wall collapsed. Through

several stanzas Byron confirmed the structure's majesty in

"arches on arches," a "vast and wondrous monument" of "ruined

battlement./ For which the palace of the present hour/ Must

yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower" (cxxix). 143

Once again Byron posed the question (of meaning) and

Hobhouse interpreted the significance: "Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine/ And temple more divinely desolate" (cxxxi). Hobhouse commented on the piety accorded the Coliseum but denied to other pagan structures. Because of the faithful who died there, even the pontiffs could not agree on a proper attitude toward the structure. Pius V considered the earth from the Coliseum the most holy relic in Rome while other pontiffs sanctioned bull fights there, established a wool manufacturing plant and artisan shops, and consecrated the structure as a shrine to martyrs. Voic­ ing neither praise nor censure, Hobhouse recalled the seven­ teenth century philosophizing of Sir Francis Bacon in London at the same time that a Roman mystic named Neri was raising the dead and being tempted by the devil in the Coliseum.

Also, if one was not too skeptical to believe the ecclesiati- cal sources, in the consecrated Coliseum Saint Ignatius Loy­ ola received one hundred gold crowns from an angelic messen­ ger (sent by the slain martyrs who had been in Loyola's medi­ tations). Byron was probably recalling the courage and valor of countless gladiators when he perceived a hallowed, though not necessarily sacred aura in the ancient ruin. Part of his expression created an insoluble enigma without Hobhouse' s lucid clarification: "Then in this magic circle raise the dead:/ Heroes have trod this spot--'tis in their dust ye tread" ( cxliv) . 144

Following Byron's sequence in the catalogue of ruins.

Hobhouse reminisced about another architectural wonder--the

Pantheon whose ruin still enraptured the spectator and exem­ plified every art and science known to man. He could find no historical confirmation for the original purpose of the edifice, and no historian supported the thirteenth-century pilgrim's contention that the temple originally belonged to Cybele and Neptune. Pliny contended that it was dedicated

to Jove in spite of its resemblance to the temples of Venus

and Mars. Early Christian writers argued that the structure

was dedicated to all gods. As Hobhouse quipped, the church

could not admit that a pagan temple still stood. If early

Christians had thought of it as a temple, they would have

destroyed it as they did other pagan structures. In 1749,

Abate Lazeri published a treatise to prove the Pantheon

was either a bath or a tomb. Although Hobhouse felt that

Italians should be interested in preserving the illustrious

Augustan monument, he expressed shock to see superstitious

worshippers sitting and staring at a cobweb covered block,

awaiting a message from God in the design of the cobweb.

Byron also felt awed by the beautiful "relic of nobler

days": cxl vi

Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime--

Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,

From Jove to Jesus--spared and blest by time; 145

Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods

Arch, empire, each thing around thee, and man plods

His way through thorns to ashes--glorious dome!

Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods

Shiver upon thee--santuary and home

Of art and piety--Pantheon! --pride of Rome!

cxlvi i

Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts!

Despoiled yet perfect, with thy circle spreads

A holiness appealing to all hearts--

To art a model; and to him who treads

Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds

Her light through thy sole aperture; to those

Who worship, here are altars for their beads;

And they who feel for genius may here repose

Their eyes on honoured forms.

Incorporating both religious and secular history, Hob­ house carefully detailed the full story of the structure to indicate the importance of the building through the ages from a Christian monument dedicated to all martyrs to a fortified site. Boniface insisted that before its consecration, demons hid there and attacked passersby.

As the pair wandered through the tangled landscape of ruins, both responded in the same way to many of the relics.

One of Byron's most moving depictions occurred in his 146 description of a prison dungeon where legend said that a

Roman daughter fed her dying father with milk from her own breast.

cxlvi i i

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light

What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again!

Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight--

Two insulated phantoms of the brain:

It is not so; I see them full and plain--

An old man, and a female young and fair,

Fresh as a nursing mother.

. . but what doth she there?

With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?

cl

But here youth offers to old age the food.

The milk of his own gift: --it is her sire

To whom she renders back the debt of blood

Born with her birth. No; he shall not expire

While in those warm and lovely veins the fire

Of health and holy feeling can provide

Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher

Than Egypt's river:--from that gentle side

Drink, drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm holds no such tide.

This passage would remind a modern American reader of

John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath. It reminded 147

Hobhouse of a famous battle as he explained the legend re­ peated by tour guides on the site of St. Nicholas Church.

Originally a Temple of Piety built by Glabrio and dedicated to his father's victory at Thermopylae stood there. Anti­ quarians identified some columns and wall fragments as rem­

nants of Glabrio's Temple of Piety raised to the Roman

maid. Historians confirmed that for centuries tourists had

been led by torch to see an ancient dungeon at the base of

the columns, but Hobhouse argued that the columns he saw did

not come from a prison. He cited Pliny who indicated only

one temple, that of Juno, in the area. Regardless of the

original structure, Hobhouse accepted the presence of a

Christian church as proof that some pagan temple once stood

there.

Hobhouse reported on another impressive ruin with a rich

tradition and long history as he cited early historians' de­

scriptions of a mausoleum built to honor Hadrian, a soldier,

statesman and scholar. Originally it was a square structure

of Parian marble blocks fitted without cement and topped with

marble statues of men and horses--Hobhouse called it an "imi­

tation of Egyptian deformity" (300). Ancient historians al­

luded to a fortress with a church on top--St. Angelo's--and

later a castle. Since it controlled the principal entry into the city, the significance of its capture would rank with the devastation of famine or earthquake. The ruin that Byron and 148

Hobhouse saw resulted from a powder magazine blowing up inside the Mole in 1479. Byron included his impressions of the Mole in majestic poetry unsurpassed by other travelogues

cli i

Turn to the Mole which Hadrian rear'd on high.

Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles.

Colossal copyist of deformity.

Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile's

Enormous model, doom' d the artist's toils

To build for giants, and for his vain earth

His shrunken ashes raise this dome: How smiles

The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth.

To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth!

Using his customary style of detailing both minor and major historical figures, Hobhouse described the construction of the Mole, reported how feudal defenders joined the Mole to

the city wall during the seige by the Goths, and traced its ownership to the nineteenth century. Few historians even

would relish the tedious account, but it revealed a peculiar

attitude and atmosphere in history of that time period. When

the Patrician Theodora seized the castle as the first step in establishing her rule, control of the castle also allowed her lover, the Bishop of Ravenna, to become Pope John X. Also in the tenth-century, within the castle walls Cardinal Francone assassinated Benedict VI. Consequently, Benedict VII drove 149 the murderous cardinal from Rome, and left his own band of ruffians in the castle while he went to Constantinople to slay another pope, John XIV.

During the eleventh century, intrigue led both popes and anti-popes to control and beseige the castle, and Hobhouse traced a sequence of ownerships and seiges, assaults and sur­ renders. In 1096 crusaders futilely assaulted it. In the fourteenth century after Rienzi's death. Innocent VI feared that rebel dukes would seize the Mole, so he installed

Lusignan, king of Cyprus and a Roman senator, in it. Even

though various tenants changed, adorned, and strengthened

it. Urban VIII did the most major renovation when he added a

moat and a hundred cannons.

The one sight to which the pair responded quite differ­

ently was the spectacular structure, St. Peter's Cathedral.

Byron eloquently described how its majestic beauty surpassed

Sophia's sanctuary where Moslems prayed. His introspective

meditations during the entire tour suggested a sensitive

spirit seeking answers to a Gordian knot dilemma, and prob­

ably explained the tremendous impact on him of "the dome--the

vast and wondrous dome, . . . Christ's mighty shrine above

his martyr's tomb!" (cliii).

cli V

But thou, of temples old, or altars new,

Standest alone--with nothing like to thee--

Worthiest of God, the holy and the true. 150

Since Zion's desolation, when that He

Forsook his former city, what could be.

Of earthly structures, in his honour piled.

Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,

Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled

In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.

cl vi

Vastness which grows--but grows to harmonize--

All musical in its immensities;

Rich marbles--riCher painting--shrines where flame

The lamps of gold--and haughty dome which vies

In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame

Sits on the firm-set ground--and this the clouds must claim, clvi i i

even so this

Outshining and overwhelming edifice

Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great

Defies at first our Nature's littleness.

Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate

Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate.

In much more mundane language, Hobhouse recorded impressions of frenzied activity and a cacophony of sound wi t hi n:

A noisy school for children in one corner; a sermon preached to a moveable audience in another; a concert in 151

this chapel; a ceremony. . . in another quarter; a ceaseless crowd sauntering along the nave, and circulat­ ing through all the aisles; listeners and gazers walk­ ing, sitting, kneeling; some rubbing their foreheads against the worn toes of the bronze St. Peter, others smiling at them; confessors in boxes absolving peni­ tents; lacquey ^e Places expounding pictures. (316)

Although Hobhouse reacted to the architectural beauty and accomplishment in the structure, he felt that nothing could resemble primitive Christianity less than the present activities in St, Peter's. Since he felt no reverential awe as Byron did, he could objectively critique the common Itali­ an' s indifferent participation in ceremonies, and noted that only foreigners and clerical figures flocked to the "papal shows" (318). Hobhouse conjectured that these pagan cere­ monies and ridiculous superstitions would continue because the elderly, the poor, the uneducated, and the clergy main­ tained devout obedience to the Catholic religion. As a nomi­ nally religious individual, he viewed any religious ceremony as a harmless ritual, and cynically remarked that St. Peter's could never stir nineteenth-century worshippers with the fer­ vor that early Christians felt in their catacombs.

In a bitter treatise detailing practices of the Catholic

Church Hobhouse reported how cardinals examined modern mira­ cles according to the rules of the council of Trent, and sub­ stantiated them by sixteenth-century standards. Then, they were published and people thronged to either witness or experience them. Ceremonial floggings still piously demonstrated the 152 penance of convent inhabitants, and Hobhouse witnessed a ves­ pers service whose kneeling audience lashed themselves in penance for secret sins and in memory of martyrs as they uttered prayers to the Virgin Mary. He humorously considered this flagellation as a remedy for atheism, but also a refine­ ment of barbaric mutilations practiced by pagan priests. As he wittily commented, in primitive cultures beating oneself was more expedient than beating another.

Historically, flagellation began in 1260 with pilgrims bound for Rome flogging themselves as an act of piety. It soon became a national penance sanctioned by the clergy.

Hobhouse concluded that as a bond of brotherhood among re­ ligious institutions, it would continue for generations with papal sponsorship although civilized nations humanely prohib­ ited it everywhere except in Rome.

During their time in Rome, Byron and Hobhouse took the usual tourist jaunts listed in all the guidebooks. One of these included an area above Rome where a tunnel two miles long had been cut in solid stone in 398 B. C. before the

Veian War (what Byron called the "Epic war"). As a memor­ ial to perseverance, the shaft had no equal in the modern world, according to Hobhouse. The tunnel drainage had creat­ ed a beautiful mountain lake--Nemi. Knowing this, any reader could partially interpret Byron's description of natural beauty viewed from the mountains west of Rome. 153

clxxi i i

Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills

So far, that the uprooting wind which tears

The oak from his foundation, and which spills

The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears

Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares

The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;

And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears

A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake.

All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.

According to Hobhouse, the tunnel builders knew all the

arts of civilization, but their society was buried when a

volcano erupted and collapsed inward, creating a second lake

nearby--Albano, which Byron also portrayed:

clxxi V

And near Albano's scarce divided waves

Shine from a sister valley; and afar

The Tyber winds, and the broad ocean laves

The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war;

The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight

The classically educated Englishmen appreciated the

Arician grove (from the Aenei d) near Lake Nemi, and "the weary bard's delight" (i. e. Cicero's ruined villa near

Albano which still had its mosaic floor intact). Also, 154

Pompey s villa and tomb along with other ruins intrigued the sensitive antiquarian spirit of Hobhouse.

While Byron was disinterested, Hobhouse was fascinated by the most intriguing and mysterious artifacts ever recov­ ered from any ancient civilization in Italy that were coming to light in 1817 near Lake Albano. Hobhouse described how excavators worked in the volcanic debris covering ruins of villas and tombs. The layers of volcanic peperine under which excavators found assorted relics were deposited through several eruptions before the Christian era began. Hobhouse viewed many articles reportedly recovered from the ancient civilizations including figured vases, terra cotta shards, iron nails, metal mirrors and lead conduits. The excavations had also unearthed antique bronze and brass utensils and as­ sorted dinnerware with various other artifacts. Cremated bones and burial urns indicated ancient burial practices among the mysterious civilization. Hobhouse read a treatise in which Dr. Alexander Visconti theorized on the objects and commented on the peculiar composition of iron oxide and clay enriched by volcanic sand in the glass of the vases. Also the various shapes indicated a variety of uses--for perfume, ointment, honey, water and wine.

Hobhouse questioned the authenticity of several of the relics, which were in a private museum and for sale at an exaggerated price. He recognized the workmanship on the utensils as much later than Visconti projected and of the 155 same type frequently discovered in both Greece and Italy among burial relics. He further displayed his intensive education as an antiquarian when he judged the larger pottery as not a Roman type. In his own hypothesizing, Hobhouse relied on private historical sources of Cato and others who surmised that an aboriginal society moved from Greece to Ita­ ly several generations before the Trojan War. They intermar­ ried with other races who lived along the Tiber. Although

the Greeks were barbarians, they introduced Greek music,

language and customs to the area. Hobhouse argued that the

makers of the bronze vases represented a higher level of

civilization than authorities assumed possible at that time,

but the pottery was crude enough to fit that era. He charged

that nobody had verified whether the relics had been found

together, and reminded antiquarians that artifacts collected

over a vast area did not necessarily come from the same per­

iod of time. So, for him, the Alban vases created a plethora

of unanswered questions.

Citing an English excavator who worked part of the site,

Hobhouse conjectured on the strange runic characters on the

pottery. Rooted in a cross, they resembled the "cruciform

hammer" (343) used on remote Scandinavian monuments to denote

Thor's battle axe and the horn of mead. To both the English­

man and Hobhouse, this similarity raised interesting ques­

tions of an interchange much earlier than historians had

thought possible. Hobhouse admitted that throughout Europe 156 a runic alphabet was once widely used, but cautioned that many antiquarians let their enthusiasm override their judg­ ment when they fancied a connection between the widely dif­ fused characters.

Hobhouse reported how the excavators looked to mythology for an affinity between the two distant cultures after they had exhausted other resources. Their mythic explanation concluded that the Romans' Jupiter was the "thunderer of the

Northmen" (343), and Celtic aborigines could have left the remote antiquities in Italy. Hobhouse recalled that a hammer of Thor inscription had been found in Spain, and it also ap­ peared in many magical books. But, he anticipated Jung's theory of certain universal mythic characters when he theo­ rized that it was a mythological character common to mankind in general. To prove his point, he used the example of the five-pointed star drawn by English shepherds who had never heard of Antiochus, had never seen a replica of his coin, and had no knowledge of its connection with mysticism.

Overall, modern readers would understand little of the connotative implications in the names of people and places cited by Byron. Certainly Hobhouse succeeded in explicating vague allusions and in adding a depth of interpretation few historians could duplicate. He also selectively outlined what he judged as important background information to enhance his poet friend's travelogue masterpiece, and insisted on a unity between the canto and the explanatory material. While 157 a few critics admitted that he influenced the canto, none ever conceded that he made the canto a meaningful reading experience for everyone willing to delve into the historical allusions underlying the surface poem. CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

Nineteenth-century critics contributed little to litera­ ry values as they reprimanded Byron and implicated his moral reputation with his poetic expressions. Some concentrated on a factual account of his tour, the poetic themes of ruin and decay, and recapped Austria's tyranny in Italy. They pointed to either real or imagined autobiographical and historical elements in the canto, commiserated with Byron's subjective responses, catalogued his personal woes and introspective meditations on anger, self-pity, melancholy, pessimism,

despondency, and grief along with his poetic reflections on

life and the beauty in nature. They evaluated his political

sentiments and the parallel between his poetic perspective

and Italy's as they enumerated grammatical mistakes and

rhythmic weaknesses in the canto. None of these themes

required reiteration by twentieth-century commentators, yet most modern critics used their newly coined jargon of meta­ language to tread the familiar path and reflect on these same specifics.

However, some twentieth-century scholars added new or deeper dimensions to the canon of critical treatises on Canto

IV. These scholars identified a transcendental quality overlooked by nineteenth-century critics and traced the transcendental vision of hope and transmutation; they noted the influence of Calvinism on Byron's expressions and his

158 159 psychological projection of self into the scene viewed; they analyzed his orientation to the subconscious with the result­ ing symbolic attitude toward life; some noted the thematic nucleus of organization and the perfect symmetry of the can­ to; a few examined Byron's introspective analysis and self- definition; others concentrated on his use of images and sym­ bols along with specific connotations and verbal patterns. A few dared to extend analytical techniques to search for mean­ ing in unusual trajectories. One found an amazing correla­ tion between T. S. Eliot and Byron, while another analyzed the archetypal qualities of the pilgrim character and the mythic significance in the journey as a quest. One creative­ ly compared Byron's rhetorical devices as an organizing prin­ ciple to the expanding-contracting rhythm of a free swimming jellyfish. An unusually astute critic defined a Byronic hero and analyzed the poetic persona by these qualities. Another pointed to the humanistic reasoning and expressions of inner conflict that influenced Victorian poets; several recognized an increased appreciation for artistic works and credited

Hobhouse's influence; in addition, they recognized the can­ to's symmetry and part of the stanzaic inclusions that Hob­ house insisted on.

Although some modern critics acknowledged that Canto IV reflected Hobhouse's influence, one felt that this factor had been considerably exaggerated. On the contrary, Hobhouse probably controlled or influenced all aspects of Byron's 160 composition of Canto IV. An examination of his journal in combination with Byron's letters, and a comprehensive comparative analysis of Canto IV and Historical Illustra­ ti QDH., by the author of this dissertation indicated a more pervasive influence and persuasive domination than any critic suspected. A serious contradiction exists if one attempts to reconcile the scholarly aspects of the travelogue with

Byron's dissipated life style and his self-proclaimed disinterest in Roman ruins and monuments. On the other hand, one finds perfect harmony between the canto's subject matter and Hobhouse's intensive research and scholarly analysis.

In previous cantos of ChiIde Harold' s PiIgri mage. Byron had indulged in outbursts about the baseness of human nature and dwelt on melancholy and pessimism, gloom and misanthropy.

Canto IV contained these same familiar elements, but a close examination by this author revealed important modifications from previous cantos. In expressing the same narcissistic concerns, he also revealed a detached aspect of what some critics called a divided consciousness, and for the first time revealed a mature awareness of the disparity between reality and the ideal of his imagination. His letters indicated a new depth of serious introspective meditation and a new sense of purpose. While he poetically idealized those past glories of human accomplishment that Hobhouse idolized, he voiced serious religious pronouncements and clearly revealed a quest for wisdom within the historical 161 context. For the first time, Byron looked beyond himself

to see a larger world where glorious accomplishments often

transpired under great duress. Because of this insight, he

identified by poetic analogy with Tasso as an arch-example of the exiled and persecuted poet still venerated by his

countrymen. Even though Byron failed to achieve a true

historic consciousness through this detached contemplation

(as Hobhouse so explicitly manifested), he did attain a fresh

insight into his own intellectual nature. This insight

prompted a transcendent leap of faith in which he dedicated

himself to a principle by which he lived the rest of his

life--a personal commitment to the humanitarian aspects of

political freedom. He conjectured about achieving recogni­

tion, not in literature--"I do not think it my vocation"--

but doing "something or other--the times and fortune permitt-

ing--that, like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will

puzzle the philosophers of all ages" (Marchand 5. 177).

Various poetic meditations hinted at this search for mission

as he praised the banner of Freedom for streaming "against

the wind;" condemned Europe for its "parricide" of Italy and

England for chaining Venice to tyrants; and predicted that

the nation would be redeemed from this barbaric "tide" of

history--can "Freedom find no champion?"

Much of Byron's divided consciousness probably resulted

from Hobhouse' s influence. Certainly the subject matter of

Canto IV reflected Hobhouse' s exhaustive research after 162 little known facts and minor historical figures. Further­ more, the emotional expressions of affectation could have resulted, at least partly, from Hobhouse' s persuasion that what made Canto I and II tremendously popular was Byron's daring "to give utterance to certain feelings which everyone must have encouraged in the melancholy and therefore morbid history of his existence" ( Recollecti ons 1.100). If

Byron again expressed those honest emotions, Hobhouse probab­ ly thought the same readers would respond to make Canto IV just as successful.

While Byron was a creative genius of consummate skill, he did not write Canto IV as a spontaneous reaction to ruins and beauty (as the critics indicated), but as a meditative travelogue with historical overtones. His own learning was sketchy, but he enjoyed the stimulating company of scholars such as Hobhouse. He was a man of feeling and eloquent lan­ guage, and many poetic expressions arose from conversations with Hobhouse over significant cultural preservations and historical changes. He verified that his friend thoroughly researched the various subjects in remote volumes, and that

Hobhouse devotedly affirmed his (Byron's) dignity under the worst of social conditions. Thus, one could not wonder that

Byron included such high praise in the prefatory dedication of Canto IV. He also achieved two other purposes in the preface--he immortalized Hobhouse while he honestly expressed his personal gratitude for a true friend who accepted him so 163 totally in all circumstances. If Canto IV owed its creation to Hobhouse, as much evidence suggests, then the dedication assumes an even greater significance than previously suspected.

On the other hand, Hobhouse was as much a contradiction as Byron. Although he belonged to the wealthy, privileged class, he pushed for social and legal reforms and supported democratic movements. He was straitlaced and prudish, yet accepted Byron's rakish lifestyle without condemnation. He was anxious about his own shyness and reluctant to reveal his deep feelings, but intimately involved in the social whirl of the gentry. As a historian he envisioned in history a dram­ atic pageant of man's struggles. As an antiquarian he was interested in awesome trivia and discovered such details as the name of a seventeenth-century Roman who allegedly raised the dead. As a scholar he was interested in credibility and truth, and intently examined ancient manuscripts and modern texts delving for unusual facts and verifying small details.

Not a genius, but broadly educated and highly specialized, he compiled treatises on famous literary and historical figures, discoursed on destructive forces that laid waste to Rome, chronicled the history of many ruins, and reported on archaeological excavations in an authoritative manner.

Through tireless analysis of archaeology, art and history, he tediously developed a text that supplied subject matter for Canto IV, and then amplified Byron's poetic expressions. 164

Yet he had a puckish wit and love for humorous anecdotes, enjoyed bull sessions with male friends, and recorded a full social schedule during the era of grand dinner parties. Even though he was Byron's harshest critic, he developed a literary affinity with the poet that resulted in three of the four cantos of g^ildg Harold' s Pilgrimagq.

Critics have universally overlooked Hobhouse' s absolute influence and direct persuasive force on both the structure and subject matter of Canto IV. They have also denied him credible recognition for enlightening readers about vague poetic allusions or remote historical events. Obviously those who professed to be Byronic scholars never examined the most revealing of all works connected to Canto IV.

Those scholars who insisted that form was all and that meaning came from within a literary work seriously deprived their audiences of the most distinctive and unique impli­ cations underlying Canto IV. When they failed to reach beyond the surface language, they missed the connotative intimations that reenforced the poem's dedication "to a friend often tried and never found wanting ... a man of learning, of talent, of steadiness, and of honour. "

Few if any modern scholars could manifest the profound knowledge that Hobhouse displayed or reproduce his diligent research techniques. Few poems have ever provided their own elucidating text that would resolve misinterpretations or illuminate critics' ignorance. Scholars who blindly assumed 165 that the poem expressed Byron's personal observations never examined Byron's correspondence or the accompanying text meant to elucidate the poem. Those who looked for the total meaning within the canto itself missed the point, even though they found eloquent poetry and majestic description. For both the critic and the average reader, Hobhouse clarified obscure writers, recited anecdotes that humanized histori­ cal figures and generated awesome admiration for any civili­ zation that had survived for so long. He reported on my­ sterious artifacts that would challenge today's scientists.

His perfect knowledge of ancient and modern Italian allowed him access to thousands of volumes unavailable to less spe­ cialized scholars. Hobhouse did not receive critical acco­ lades for his achievements, but his work illuminates Byron's true poetic pilgrimage in ways mere surface readings can never equal. The Canto may have been a battle of wits between Byron and Hobhouse but, after comparing the various supportive documents, one would question whether Canto IV explicated Illustrati ons or whether Illustrations glossed the canto. Was Canto IV Byron" s or Hobhouse' s observations . of Italy? Certainly a variety of evidence suggests that the commonly accepted assumptions about the poetic production could be wrong.

In the accrued benefits of using Hobhouse' s text to elucidate the canto, the modern reader would not puzzle over the poetic inclusion of places like Nemi or Albano. He 166 could understand the significance of apostles' statues con­ nected with the Mole of Hadrian, or why Byron praised some­ body named Rienzi. An especial benefit would accrue in the incredibly detailed church history gleaned from papal scribes and Vatican volumes.

Hobhouse never received the credit he deserved for his patient labor, but the reader of Canto IV who missed his text was the poorer for it. However, a few disadvantages hinder a studious appraisal of Hobhouse' s volume. For one, no American reader could possibly be sensitive to all the allusions of literary and historical figures included in the poem. A serious study of Hi stori cal 111ustrations would require more time than most (even scholars) would will­ ingly devote to a poem. Also, Hobhouse' s penchant for abso­ lute truth and whimsical detail would saturate the reader's mind as he waded through the grammatical exactness of complex convoluted sentences. Even so, Hobhouse' s scholarly inter­ pretations and eloquent reflections on the land of Dante and

Petrarch might stimulate a modern tourist to take a copy of

Hobhouse's book when touring Italy--if the traveler could get one. No one who has read Illustrations can doubt that

Hobhouse was as fascinated with Italy as was Byron, though for totally different reasons, and that he echoed Byron' s sentiments: "With all its sinful doings, I must say,/

That Italy's a pleasant place to be." WORKS CITED

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