sign in sign up
<<
Home , Cain (play), Isaac Nathan, Religious philosophy

Lord 's religious ; with emphasis on and

Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic)

Authors Marcus, Joseph Fred, 1929-

Publisher The University of Arizona.

Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

Download date 11/10/2021 09:19:51

Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/319042 *S RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY: WITH EMPHASIS ON MANFRED AND CAIN

by Joseph F. Marcus

A Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Graduate College, University of Arizona

1954

Approved: L j—GL 9 MW Director of Thesis V D&te * '. ' 3%' v. TABLE OP OOMTENTa

Chapter - , . ; . . - v " . -- .

lif TRODU OTI ON o O O O O O O O 43 O O O O O O O 0 o o o ‘ o 1 CHAPTER I Ca'ueeB of Byron^s and Skept 1 el sm o 5

P art , X’ O O O O O k O 0 O O O O O O O O O O O o- 5

Part XX O 0.0 O O O 0 O 000 OT O o O 6 0 O O O 2 0

OHABTER IX . The Nature of ByronAa Religious Phxlo sophy o © © © o © o o. © © © o 52

P ar G X O O O ' o O © O O O .0 6 0 0 O o 6 0 O 6 0 ’ 52

Bart XX © o © © © o © o © © © © o o © © © © © © 52

Bart XXX © o © © © o © o © © © © © © © © © . © © © ^ 0

P art X*V Q O O O 6 O. o ;; O ' O O O © O O ,0. 0 O © O O • 8 j A

Bart V o o .0 o 0 o o' o 0 © © 00 00 00 00 o 22 CHAPTER XIX Byron*8 Catholicism <, * o/© * © © © * © gg

B art X o o o o o o O 0 0 © e o © o o o o oo.o- 22

Baft XX - o 0 o o o o o o o o o o 6 o o o o o © O H 3

GOHCLUBXON o © o o © © © © o ©

SIGNED: / v . ■ : IIxTTRODUOTION : ■ ' ' " /. /- Vv

The st-ude^it of Romantic poetry$, and especially the student of Byronj, will find that a study of Lord Byron’s is a rich and rewarding;experience0. More than a cursory knowledge of this aspect of his life is;almost in- .dispensable for a mo re thorough understanding of the poetg' : . since it throws much light not only on his works in general;,' but on his personality in particular. For Byron8s reli- : ■ ■ gious viewsg attitudesg and.sentiments are an.astonishingly : accurate f eflectibn of the man. him self a The facets of hi s • character which were:important in determining the substance of his religious philosophy are many and varied; and often quite oontradiotory o 1 will not dwellL on them here; but1 merely direct the reader’s attention to themo -Suffice it to say that some of the.more important characteristics were his duality of personality9 . neurotic anxietiess sentiments cyni­ cism; and independence of willo His early religious train­ ing and the later environmental conditions were also very importanto 1 ' / ' ; ' ; Chapter/One of this the si s 1 s cono erned mainly with the psychological problems - and early Protestant (i<>e=> Galvin- istic) backgroundo His philosophic temperament; however, : isv not siightedo. ;Ghapter Two is concerned with the various aspects-of : his:’;reiigious‘ views per seo Both the psychological

1 ■and philosophic attitudes of the poet are discussedo The em­ phasis heres however9 is on his philosophyq ■ Chapter Three takes Up the problem of Byron8s dual attitude toward Oatholicism, and again the two approaches predominatec I have saved the dis­ cussion of his views on the Anglican Ghurch for the conclusion of this paper9 since scarcity of material indicated its best insertion therea

The emphasis on-Manfred and Gain is made especially in the second chapters They are discussed in the first chapter . as well9 however, but Manfred alone is dwelt upon in the third chapter, since Gain throws no light on the subject of his Gatholdclsmq • Wherever these two poetic dramas add to our under­ standing of his religious philosophy, I have referred to them at the length I felt they deservedo Other works,-of cours®, have not been slightede : - ' ' i' ■ : ' i ' h Because of Byron8 s prominence in his own day, contemporary material is voluminous= A controversial poet then and now, he has been the subject of many books and articles o In the use of evidence, reliability of source is always the main consider- ationo Moore and Farry are highly regarded» Lady Blessing- ton, too, has contributed much worthwhile information0 1 would also urge the student not to ignore Mrs0 Shelley ils lettefs and journals® Leigh Hunt and Countess Guieeiolis / . hpweverp are less reliable, the former because of his ob~ . . vious prejudice, the latter because of her equally obvious biaso Among modern writers, Stopford Brooke, Edward Wayne Mar j arumg arid Ethel poll3u m Mayne are especially to be recommendedo Mrs, Mayne‘a-Important biography of Lady. ? Byron haB-rriti'liz;ed;;::eome- significant new material on the - poets drawn, mostly from Amabella' s papers g and much light is shed on'his personality o Iri order to keep this thesis within reasonable lengths :

I hay© had to condense a- good deal$ but none of the essentials have been Id si in the process.o Extensive use o f footnotes .'(especially in the first chapter) and of evidence has helped a good deal iri the problem of being as olmclusive yet brief "as possible in the body of the paper0 ; ';;V - ; As for bibliograph!es 9 1 have utilized material from a wealth 0f writerss ;ranging ; from important primary,arid second™ ary sources to less knowrig and indeedg some unchronicled writerso An anonymous correspondent In Blackwood8 s Edin­ burgh Magazlnes for instance, has contributed some sigriifi^ cant information on Byroh'g but to my recollection, Leigh Hunt was •the orily person to refer to any of this materials Moore8 s. rioted for his Life of Byron include some personal reflections on the poet not utilized in his monumental biographyg: andg to my knowledge, unmentioned by later eriticso

The student of Byron should examine Dr= Ohew8 s invaluable bibliography appended to his Byron in • England : His Fame and ; After-Pameo He will finds there = an all but exhaustive list : of important books and articles9 contemporary , and later® In­ cluded in this list are the anonymous article from Blackwoodra and Hoore Ss notes for the Life mentioned above« The former*/ howeverg has been misleadingly paginated in Chew1 a bihlio-* graphjo But in other respects5 Chew is meticulously ac~ curate0

JOSEPH Fo MARCUS' June 169 1954 OECftgR 01E

Oauses of Byron11 s' Belief and Skeptieism ' ■

, •v. ■: . Part One ■ ' -

To tke world in generals:Lord Byron was the perfect skeptico Indeed he often referred, to himself as. such.^5 and oertainly he succeeded In giving others that impression® Bht careful investigation indicates not only that Byron was basically a believer but that/ if fears and conflicts (which I shall . discuss later in this ; chapter ) had not beset himg he would have been a most zealously' religious man@ Isaac Hathan was quite- justified in his statement that i$no sub« : . ■ ject has been more frequently canvassed/end more - entirely. - misunderstood than the religious sentiments of Lord Bef-: And though the poet himself contributed much to this mis/- understandings, it is doubtful whether he fully .understoqd the nature of his own problemo That he was aware/ however^ that his diffieulty was psychological as well as_philosophi- cal'is attested by a number of statements Such as the one

.”1 Byron told Colonel Leicester Stanhope$ “I am a perfect sceptic.o' I- have no fixed. opinions °a that is my . characterssi. (Richard Bdgcumbe, Byronf The Last Phase [Hew York, 190%/: . pi 210-0)' ,;AS;' we - shall see* it -was indeed his character to .have 88no fixed opinionson . ' v ' 2 Isaac hathann Fugitive Pieces and'RemInisoences of Lord Byron (London, 18291, p®. 5-0. • - . : . . <

5 ' ' . ' 6 he made to dountess Q-uicclolio “After all9tt he told her9 "I believe my doubts to be but the effects of some mental lllnesso"^ Byron’s mind was constantly waverings for every reli­ gious "yea" there was a "nayo68 But he was persistent in his belief in Godo At no time did he ever doubt the existence of a First Cause, and the poet often emphasized this facto "I am no Bigot to Infidelity,81 he wrote in 1813s "and did not expect that, because I doubted the Immortality of maaa> I should be charged with denying the existence of a God0 His earliest poems show an attitude of awe toward the Deity9 and this attitude seldom radically changeds: even thoughg ' under Shelley ” a influence he arraignedg in Gain and in some passages of Heaven and Barth0 the man-made (i0e® Calvinist!e) concept of God6 It is true, however, that his Indictment was not entirely directed against man’s Interpretation of , but against the Lord Himself9 becauses as I shall show in this and the next chapter, he could not fully convince ‘him­ self that Jehovah was not created in man6 s image, and Since he did fear, at times, that God and Jehovah were indeed the same9 his arraignment was surely a proud and daring defiance, a courageous criticism of God the Omnipotento In

;3CQuntess Gulceioli, My Recollections of Lord Byron* tranSo Hubert Ec Ho Jerningham (London, 1869TT vol* I, po 149o. . . - ^ . ^ Rowland Eo Brother#%(Lord Ernie) 9 ed=> 9 The Works of Lord Byrong Letters and Journals (Hew-York, 1898-1904T, volo II,. pp0 221^222 «=! hereafter .cited as Letters and Journal So that respect j he waS guilty of the blasphemy which his comi«= . ' / "5 iV ■ ■ ■' : _ < trymen accused him of0 ■ But I emphatically agree with Marjarum that, though these dramas -show most markedly By­ ron 0 s concern with the Divine purposes !S there is *5iio question that C he 2 assumed the existence of divine willo! y • In 1807g he made a list of secular and religious books which he had re ado- ftI abhor hooks'of religion^84 he wrote in. the ma,rgin9 "though I revere and love my God0 o ; According to Dallas9 Byron'considered offensive, and: he maintained this attitude all, his life0 At Harrow - ‘ he ::fgughtt.a,-classmateLord Galthorpe, for calling him an. : atheist| In college he criticized his friend Charles Skinner

Matthews for being too "noxiously" atheistical®• "Matthews, he wrote Dallas (August 21, 1811)g "was a man of the most astonishing powers, = o .= | ;but: Ihe was] a most decided V t atheists, Ihdeed noxiously so, . for he proclaimed his principles

'pAn anonymous reviewer in Blackwoodis magazine, echo- ~ ing the; sentiments of his ifellow. critics, - referred' to Dain asi"a wicked and blasphemous performance. ("Lord Byron^s™™ Thr ee I’ew -lragedies <, " Blackwood1 s Edinburgh - Magazine s . . j - January, 1822 ] , , pi :91 = 1 .Wot .only the critics but the "par-:; sons", as; well were in an outrage, and Byron ’ s publisher, Murray, Was even "threatened with a prosecution by the Anti- .. Constitutional Society®18 (Thomas Medwin, Journal of the .d- COhversatlohs;of Lord. Byron, fLondon® 18241,, po ITOl”” ; ; V;'' ."'^Edward Wayne Mar J arum, ~ Byron . as Skeptic and "Believer

i' ;/7 Quoted by ",;-; The Life,: Letters and Journals of Lord- Byron (London, 1901), p ® -47-^-hereafter-cited as Life® "Dallas,. RecOliectlons of the Life of Lord; (London,; 1824), p. 325c in all societieso Later9 in 1818^ he wrote to Murray5 his. publisherg concerning a typographical errors: ; : I take the opportunity.to desire that in future9 . - In all parts of my writings relating to religion, you will he more careful$, and not forget that it is pos.sihle that :ih addressing the Deity a hlun~ - der may hedome a blasphetoyj and I do hot choose .: ■ to suffer such infamous [italics.mine] perversions ; . ’ ' of my words or of ..my Intentions*^® •' . 1 f : 1 One Of Byron8s principal objections to Claire Glair- ' mont has that -she was an ;''atheist irs it is not surprising^ ., therefore9 that., the poet, . in letters discussing :the education; of his natural daughter Allegra, insisted that she- should be taken from her ‘"atheistic mother’1 (Claire) because he did not want her to be ■ taught to .believe . that there is no: • Deityo o h. * The child was taken from her mother and hit; placed in a convent. where she died: a short time later at the age o f ; f iyee: V ilways, the^ opportunist £I: -Byrpn<, ‘ it. ' r suited his purposes attempted to prove that his reiigipus fidelity, was evidenced.by the fact that he was giving his

■■ Letters and Journals 0 volo , I q Po 338o It should be remembered» however,, that Byron probably blamed Matthews as much for professing his, atheism ih public^ which no • - • ' gentleman was supposed to do, as for being an atheist in . the. first.p Byron.wahr^ the: aristocrat*.; ::.10Ibido 9. volo IVp po 264o : . - .. ’ :v-B^lbido-:Vol>:;fy-p* 15* - The letter is dated April 22s ' 1820 o ■ daughter a conventual education0 • Though he probably aid ,. ■ consider this in the back of; his, mind =■ and Byron," it is • i ■ . v: true, bell eyed in' a' religl ous upbringing fo r glrls^^ be oaUse.' he believed that religious sentiment in wornen"Inculcates mildness, forbearance, and charity, those graces that adorn • them more than all others =- it should be noted that a year before his letter toMoore, he gave an entirely dif­ ferent reason, for his deelsibnfc. -Ih October 1820. lie wrote August a § "I am so sensible that, a man ought to have nothing .to do with such matters [of bringing u p 'children^s that I

shall in - another year, ■either put Allegra «. = f into a Gon<=> vent, or send or bring her to .England,: to put her in some

good way of lust ruction* .■^' In another letter from .Mrs* Shelley to Olaire, some six months later, we find that "he

; g 12one of several letters on the subject was this one which he sent Moore, March 4, 1822: "I .am no; enemy to re«. , h llgions but the contrary^ ils a proof s I am educating my ; . n atural daught e r a stri ct Gat hoi ic in a ■ convent o f Romagna; for I :think - people can. never have, enough of •religion,; if they. are::to have any*'" (Letters and ,Journals* vol. VI, p* 32* ) :13"There is somethihg unMminlne- in. the want of reli­ gion, f he; told Lady.Blesslngton, "that takes off the peculiar Chafm.of womano " (Lady r Byron with the OouhteSS 2nd edition, p* ° ■ Quoted by Lady Blessington, p® 377* •; f ' :? h f; . •.■ Ralph Miibanke, Earl of Lovelace, .Astarte (Londona 1921)., p* 302= ’ , : 10 vowed that if you annoyed him he would place A^llegrajj in some secret convent 9 he declared that you should have ,no« thing to do with hero o 0 on The fact that he had other motives besides ones (and Byron’s motives were seldom umaixed) does not necessarily invalidate the sins cerity of his statements to Moore and others9 nor does it necessarily detract from the strength of evidence concerning his hatred of atheism from both the psychological and the 17 .philosophical 1)0int, of vlew@ To the end of his life he maintained a firm belief in God, and9 according to Fletcher and Count G-amba9 his last wordsp uttered on his -bedg .were. “Not my wills but the will of God be doneo.18^ ■ Throughout his llfetime9 Byron left scattered 'sent!** ments of a positive religious tendency whichg despite con­ stant reversals and savage criticismsg remained with him to the endo “I seldom talk of religion^11 he told Lady Blesslngtong "but I feel it5 perhaps more than those who dOti11 indeedg one is impressed by the numerous occasions

Frederick do- Jones, edo o The Letters of Mary Wo Shelley (University of Oklahoma PressP 1944)9 volt ls"po Ta o „

i W Psychologicallys he'was. probably influenced by the attitude of contempt which others held toward the word it­ self as with the believers in atheisms philosophically9 he was convinced of the necessity of a First Cause9 which h© called Godo l^®5atoes Kennedy$, Conversations on Religion with Lord Byron (London9. 1830)s p0 .379o . Quoted .in a letter from. Count Gamba to Dr0 Kennedy9 May 21 g 1824& X^Lady Blesslngtong p* 106o he takes to prove to 'others (as well as to. himself „ I sus­ pect ) that he is .both religious and a good Ghris11 ahe .MI ; don 8t know why I am considered an enemy to reilgion; and an "

unhelieverp *’ he complained to Medwin0 "They say p I am .no Ghristlan," he told an anonymous reviewer soon after- wardss "hut I am a Christian0" His zeal at times leads him to vSuspeet" that he is "a more orthodox Christian" ; than Moores and a • Mhetter Christi an thani the j parsonsg vand that he ;hasg• ;as far as the world is concerned,, "the ‘ properest notion / Of getting into heaven the shortest

w a y o ,”2^- Of courses it is true that;Byron hated to he eon® . sidered "different =11 Individualist, though he was9 he suf­ fered from a more than mild form of inferiority* and his shyness was often apparent to those who knew him0^ In additions he was "keenly alive to censure" as well as some-* '-whatv 1 aekihg;>dh pohfideneht'" His/constant attempts to justify himself ih respect to the . in Gain, for \

- ^ y : ; : :: . v : ' - y ;■ ' 't :y ' v ;::; ^"Lord Byrons" anonymous o Blackwood -s Edinburgh Maga^ " • zlne, ,XV.. (June, 1824)9: p 0 7000 ; ii.g, . : / / : t ' - ^^Letter to /Moore, dated April 2, 1823= Letters and Journals, vo 1 Vi, Po 182= , t: , -. , f -y . ' ^^hetter to/hurrayg Oct = 9» 1821c IMd= s vol0 Vs ps 391o ^ D o n Juan, 111, clVo ■ y / ' y'' ;' ^After her first meeting with Byron, Annahella, noted in her diary that "he very often hides his mouth.with his ■" hand' when speakingo « . v" ' (Ethel Colhurn Maynes. The Life:/- if and Letters of Anne Isabella .Lady Noel Byron ^hew York,- 1929] g:, pv 36 hereafter cited /as .Life .of .) This habit is sometimes observed In people whp. a re very •shy and self-con*” SclOU'Sd iff - ' //y ' •' -y'^ / ' ' ; //''/V'V ;fn ; insta^eea ©xeinpltfy this fear of criticism<, His. repeated defense was "I have no such opinions as the characters in - that dramas ,which seems: to have frightened every body0.“ The same psychological uncertainty which prompted, him to . attack religion was also> in some respects9 the cause of

his reneging in the face of criticism % but then these criti- ' cisms; also had an opposite effect: in that he was often im=»

peliedby anger.to renew and redouble his attacks= Such was the vacillating temper of Lord Byron that one hardly knew , . what to expect from hims but. despite the theatrically .arro™ ... gant attitude -which"he often displayed^ he was actually "obsesSed^ to his:own handicap in.actiong with the fear that the world; his English' worlds, miturn., or had turned9 = ' against himo " It is natural s therefore 9 that, during these; moods of uncertainty he should Want to convince others that : •he.Was, like those around him, a Christian^ But his con- Cezni nevertheless^ did go beyond Worldly showo ZLetcher9 in a letter to Kennedy, tells us that Byron often, in prl^ V vate, discussed this matter with his Servant as well -as with

■ ^ Letters and Journals, vole VI, pp0 31=32» • See also9 r in the same .work,, wolo ,pp. 23 and 470 j Medwin * s Journal • of Conversations, pi 1271 and Kennedy8 s Conversations on . Religion, :.p* :159e 7 : 1 1 ; f ^; V - v ft .if , . -x; ; ; . William J = Calvert:, Byronli Romantic Paradox (The

hniversity of North Carolina ..Press,. 1935).9, -po . 1. > r ';' : : V;,:; 15 otherse Do you think me exactly what they say ofmef11 he ■; asked .Fletcher0' When, the' latter replied that he did not5 ‘ • Byron continuedv H1 supposes ■because I do not go to churchy / " 1 cannot any longer he a Christian; "but i :0' ila man must be a great "beast5 who cannot he .a good Christian without al« - . ways being, in, churcho ■ . . f.;.'; I /,/;:! ■'" i '■v; - ■■ • . :- ,. Evidence of a.. different nature shows Byron1 s ' leanings; . toward religi on I this is the poet8 s love of the , . - which he read avidly from the time he was a chi Id» Aside ' ' from the purely po et'i'c V quail tie s which he must have enjoyed - - i i f - ' ' 29 It..-.;... ■.; ■■■ r v " ; In ■ the Old Testamentg- there was a religious attraction ■ held pyer from his childhood: whens according to Dro Glennle9 his teacher at Dulwi ch9 he'"showed »«, =. an int imat e: ac- v ' ; ■ quaintance with the historical parts of the Holy Scriptures, upon which he seemed delighted to converse with me, especial- ly after'ourvreligious exercises of a Sunday evening6 His (half-sister Augusta gave him a Bible which was always to he

' ; Fletcher8 s letter to Kennedy0 . Obhversatlons -on Reli- gion with Lord Byron» p 0 37:0s (- The. words' .are .ELeteherTs , d. probablyg, but .l.ihave no doubt that the sentiment was Byron*s;g ' nor do (I doubt. the latter8s sincerity here0 ’ . : z- op- -' " / r; : u u-r: ; a . .. ^He often said that he preferred: the Old Testament to = the lie Wo I doubt 9. as Wayne, Taylor suggests (Byron8 s Religious Views With, Special Reference, to the Hebrew 'Melodies.,: . a the si s £Un:i ve rs ity . o. f .Arizona^ .19423 »:• Pt',S5l. that this - arise s . from . any Hebraic sympathies *:; The. Old Teslament mahes more "excit- , ing" reading than, the New's, which is more philosophic2 and " Byron,. though often ■inclined toward ("hardy speculationss " i (( often attests ■his dislike for sophy 0 Also, the.(He w. T© si a- ment was probably too uncomfortably close a. reminder of the Ghrlstian (especially the Calvlnisite) doctrine of hell.which he, hatedo ■ I . % , l -.; ( ■. ' _ ( : ' ^Pquoted by Moo re 9 Life, ;p, 15» found near his bedside and which he read every morning by customo His knowledge of the Bible was phenomenal and he is said to h a W been able to quote almost any passage at randomg^. aSg: indeed? tils letters and poetry showo James Hodgson3 in his memoirs of his father has published a poem of Byron’s written on the fly-leaf of an earlier Bible of his s ’ . ; ; : ' - Within thi s awful volume lies The mystery of mysteries^ : , - - • • : OH:’ happie st 'they of human race a To. whom our God has given grace To hearp to .read3 to fears to :prays ■ : To lift the latch5 and force the way? : But better had they ne’er been b o m tlho read to doubt D or read , to seorn0 The style of the poem Indieates that it was written immediate ly before or..after fiA Prayer of Mature" when he began to express , the earliest doubts: that beset hlmi In this short poem on the Bible it is possible that the seeming envy of those to whom "God has given grace to hear," etc= and the apparent disgust toward those who "read to doubtg or read to scorn" may be due to an incipient I. sti?uggle with himself on the question of beliefp whiehp it is likely$ he did not want , to admit even , to himself0 One may still rightfully ask whether the mature poet did not consider the Bible only a beautiful example of r -^See Fletcher8 s letter to Kennedy9 p<- 373o ; :' ^^ReVo James ' P<> Hodgson, Memoir of the Rev* = Francis Hodgson :(hondons 1878) P vol 0 IIS pp» 150”151». • . . manllss I’ather than God’s^ .handiwork9 since this poem was undoulDtedly written before the periods of savage skepticism® On this matterg as on everything else* he vacillatedo But in moods of reverence - a mood which was evoked mainly by the sentimental side of his nature9 and which despite his cynicism Was nevertheless a sincere one^ 9 he expressed not only in the authenticity of the Bible but in the possible reconciliation of its contradictions as well® " I am so much of ax bell ever s 11 he told Kennedy/ Mas to be of opinion/that there is no contradiction in Scripture, which cannot be reconciled by an attentive consideration and oo3i~ parison of passages*Strangely enough, his attitude toward the Bible, besides that of reverence, seemed occasion" ally one of awe and even prudishness* In his published letter to the Reverend Bowles on the Pope controversy, for .instance, he refers to certain “parodies upon the Psalms" composed by the former "in certain jovial meetings of the youth of Edinburgh

33»Byron seems to take a'peculiar pleasure in ridiculing sentiment and romantic feelings, " writes Lady .Blessingtoni "and yet the day after will betray both, to an extent that appears impossible to be sincere, to those who had heard his previous sarcasms that he is sineere, is evident, as his eyes fill with tears, his voice becomes tremulous, and his whole manner evinces that he feels what he says* w-. Con­ versations of Lord Byron with the Countess of Blessihgton* p* 45 , v Conversations on Religion with Lord Byron, p* 235o Isaac Nathan .tells .us .that .Byron ’"professed, to me, that he had always considered the fall of;Jerusalem, as the most re" markable event of all history; 6for* » 0who can behold the entire destruction of that mighty pile, the desolate wander­ ings of its inhabitants, and compare these positive occurrences with the distant prophesies which foreran them, and be an In­ fidel?*" Fugitive Pieces and Reminiscences of Lord Byron, p* 61 / ' ■ ; 16 He goes on to say that "all depends.npon the Intention of such a parody0 If it be meant to throw ridicule on the sa= bred originalg it is a sin0 « » 0 In a mood of cynicism^ howevers his remarks were likely to be something like that he made to Kennedys w|fhe Sbciniansj draw their doctrine from the Bible<> Yess so do all the foolsg enthusiastSg and fanaticso o o 0M^ But there is other evidence that despite his disparage-* ment of Ghriatianity9 and aside from his desires to be ac­ cepted by the very multitudes he effected to despise Byron8 s ^profound sentiments were ' religious 0 Shelley $ for instance$, was almost aghast at the sudden discovery that ,#By what he said last night in talking over his 8Gain8 > „ 0

^ Letters and Journals, vol0 ¥IS p» 495= ^^Gonversations on Religion with Lord Byron0 Po 195o ^'His occasional snobbishness arises as much from his aristocratic sentiments as from ego* The ^Regency,man-about- town tradition to which he remained somewhat anachroni stically loyal*! affected his religious sentiments in that it "gave him an equal dislike for radical system mongers and doctrin­ aire infidelson (Hoxie Heale Fairehlldg Religious Trends In Engli sh Bo e t ry* Volume III g Romantic Faith IT Hew Yorkj, 1949Jg p* 4361) . Concerning Lady. Byronrs .assertion that he allowed no disrespectful remark against.religion to pass at the din­ ner tables Mr* Fairchild says that "as a part of his aristo­ cratic role $ Byron had acquired the vGhesterf ieldian, view;: that open attacks upon pious flummery disrupt the urbanity of dinner-parties * = o =11 ( Ibid *« p* 406 )<, The democratic side of his nature is attested .to by his defense of Catholic freedom (a speech made in parliament) and his open exertions on behalf of Italian and Greek independence* • 1 ^Count Gambag quoted by Kennedy9 p0 376* • I do "belleveg Mary = I do believe9 Maryg that he is little better than a Christian! andP if he could, would have

used his powers *’to eradicate from his great mind the de^ ‘lusions of , which, in spite of his reasons seem perpetually to recur, and to lay ([sic] in ambush for the hours of sickness and distress*^' In such an hour. Count • C-amba finds that contradictions against the reasonableness of Christianity give him pain0 4l In such an hour, he assures Medwin that "every great poet is necessarily a religious man0 His "." flow with the rhythmical assurance of such a belief0 "It must be so," he says, r©w ferring to the existence of a Christian concept of heaven, "His not for self/That we so tremble on the brinko And in poem after beautiful poem he echoes these feelings of a believing poet* Reading them, one can easily forget the pangs of a struggle so harshly expressed elsewhere and lose himself in the lyric expression of resignation and brief con­ viction sensitively expressed and exquisitely ignoring the

• - " - 3Q - ' -.... v Quo ted from Trelamy" s Records of Shelley 0 Byron* and the Author by John Gordy Jeaffreson, The Real Lord Byron (London,, ;1883), void I, pp« 54-55o _ ...... ^Quoted from Shelley8s letter to Horace Smith (April 11, 1822) by Bdgcumbe, p® 13° - . , '^Kennedy, pe 577° ^ Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron, p» 197° ^ " i f That High World, " stanza II, 11° 1-2° . 18 "blatant skepticism that springs defiantly through works of less lyric Intent and9 often9 of less lofty sentimentc Here, as In no other poem or group of poems9 "Devotion and her daughter Iiov'e/Stlll hid the "bursting spirit soar/To sounds that seem as "from above9/in dreams that day’s broad light can not removeoM - Even In his professedly skeptical worksp we find signs of a lurking belief0 During his (or Child© Harold5s) wan­ derings he regrets that the cross is "sadly scoff$d at by the circumcised"^ even though the next lines refer to religion as a superstition; earlier, he rejoices in the beauty of the countryside, and exclaims, "Oh, ChristI it is a goodly sight to see/iihat heaven hath done for this delicious lando."^ Elsewhere, he can sentimentalize a monastery^ or rhapsodize a statue of the VirginQ In his letters he ponders on the folly of not' believing and conjectures that "to have no religion at alii all sense, and senses, are a,gainst it; but • hO all belief and much evidence is for it ® " „ <, « H or he warns his bride-to-be that he "could never have had perfect

- - ' - r 2jL&X^ ^ ^ : "The Harp the Monarch Minstrel"Swept,"stanza II,

11 0 ; 7 — 10 P . -

Child© Haro Id 8s Pilgrimage, " canto 11, xliVe

-Qlbldo, canto i, xv0 ^"Fragment from the rMonk of Athos0 5" Eirst published in the Life of Lord Byron,-by the Honorable Roden Hoel0

with Lady Melbourne 9 Mr° Hobhouse, The Hon. Douglas E.innalrdo and Po bT Shelley (Hew -York, 1922) , vole Ml, p 0 - hereafter . cited as Byron8 s Correspondence =. confidence in .any woman who was slightly impressed with its £l>e0 religion8s"J truth. „ = , or. sentimentalizes over a woman who prayed for his spiritual recovery. And in moments of painful conflict9 he cries out to the priest­ hoods Mi am no sneerer at thy Hiantasy|/Thou pitiest me9 ~ alas! f I envy the©,-”^® or muses "How sweet it were in con­ cert to•adores/¥ith those who made our mortal labours light and in heaven "To hear each voice we feared to hear no more» All in all9 we must agree with Moores that$ if he is often skeptical, and if he yet feels such pain in that very skepticism thats as Medwin maintainss "he was always afraid to confess to himself his own infidelity„ then "It is a scepticism whose sadness calls far more for pity than blame 9 and through whose, very doubts is discerni­ ble an inborn warmth of piety9 which they [ I .e. his doubts3 have been- able to obscure9 but not to chill9 and which even under .this cloud is worth all the cold9 shallow belief of the dignities in religion who as little reason as they feel

^Quoted by Mayne* p. 444. 5^Quoted by Dallas as the first version of a stanza which he later altered in Ghilde Harold$, IIs YIIIo Recol­ lections, p 8 169o , ’ - ...... ~51ChiIde Harold8s PilgrimaKe. II, VIII. . ..' Medwin 7 The TGife of" (New Xoffej, 1913')j revised .edition^ p. 331 ° . .. . . ^Sfhomas Moore9 '’Nptes for Life of Lord Byron* " in Prose and Verse - Humorous,, Satirical.) and Sentimental. Richard -Heme .Shepherd^, edo %New York; 1878”) . p p 427-428 - hereafter cited as Notes for.Life. 20 Bart Two

The greatest problem in the study of Byron’s religion is not so much what he was as what caused him to be what he was $ for he was both everything and nothings a deist and a Christian» a skeptic and a believer; a protestantg Catholics realistg idealist9 and pantheist0 His wavering mind was both an amusement and an annoyance to those who knew him, and caused Leigh Hunt to conclude that he didn’t know what he waso Huntg of course? was somewhat prejudiced against Byrons by his own admission^ -5 but his conclusion that Byron was never steady in any one belief is a fair on@0 The factors which produced Byron’s total religious philosophy were many® and of importance not only in an understanding of his re** liglon but of his poetry and his life as wello One of the.,most important factors was his birthplace*56

" A A ■' ‘ " ' ' v,'' - Leigh Hunt9. Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries„ (London^ 1828), p» 1280. “ rEe was ,a Christian .by educations n Hunt continues; "he was an by reading. He was Christian by habit; he was no Christian upon reflection." Xbido Unfortunately9 this statements though substantially true9 is overly simplified and adds but little to our under­ standing of the poet’s position in regard to religion* 55Y@ars later, in his Autobiography, he admitted that some of the statements made .in his earlier work were some­ what rash and unduly derogatory* They were prompted by ill feelings caused by Byron’s testy humour when he, his wife, and his children lodged with Byron during work on! The Liberal° -^Actually he was bom, according to latest reeordss in England while his mother was en route to Scotland* But since he was only an infant when he.arrived there, it is fair to qonsider Scotland his first home* - ■' ■■■■ ' : : ■■■■■> 21 Scotland, was then■ primarily Presbyterian, 10e0 Calvinistic0 The influence of this Calvinistic trainings, at least upon his religious life, can. hardly be over-statech As a boy# he received a strict religious training both at home and in.churcho The story of his learning the first and twenty- third psalms from May Gray, his nurse, while she applied the appurtenances to his lame foot is well known0 Though - it is true, as Jeaffreson states, that "at this tender age • the nervous child accepted with the trustfulness of infancy all the nurse8s Calvinistic views on matters of religion# it is unlikely that he developed any real love for May Grayo Mayne and Maurois describe the nights spent by the young Byron in the darkened house by himself while she went out to meet her lover, and these fearful hours in the dark must have been almost unbearable to the-superstitious, suggestible, and imaginative chi Id» Be had been taught the doe trines of predestination, election, original sin, depravity, and ever­ lasting damnation, and because of his suggestible nature, had developed a. terrifying fear that he himself was pre­ destined to hello His own impulsive nature was such that he felt that he couldn81 help doing the mischievous things he did, and consequently he concluded, in his young mind, that he was predestined to do these things, and so predestined to hello "He himself felt the Inward surge of sudden

The Real Lord Byron9 vol I, .p0 54o ; ■■■' 22 involuntary furies? the blood rose, to his face,, and for an instant he knew not what he dido Could this be diabolic possession?”58

Calvinismp of course,, was a religion greatly at; odds with ByronSs temperament and,- in place of the brightness which his poetic mind sought, cast an atmosphere of gloom over everything he did® Furthermore it aggravated and in­ creased his s.dmewhat Xmarkedtendoney toward melancholia# It caused him.many painful;fears,and often made him brood about man's prospects both in this life, and, if possible, in the next® This life, it taught, is one of corruption and depravity|and man Is unable to do anything of his own ® In fact, he has no free will at all sinoe everything he does is predestined from the beginning® Be- cause of the sin of and (Original Bin) man is liable to transgression and therefore to eternal damnation® Further-* more not only the sin of our first parents but all the sub­ sequent sIns~=of every human being are predestined, for "Cod . not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity, but also at his own pleasure arranged

Maurois, Byron, trans® Bamish Miles (New York, 1930), p0 27o _ ^ "As .we are all vitiated by sin, we cannot "but be hate­ ful to Cod, and that not from tyrannical cruelty, but the strictest justice®81 (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion in library o f .the World's Best -Literature@.^Charles : Dudley .Warner,, -edo.,. f^New -York, l B 9 7 1 9- -vols VI, .p» -3125e Ho translator mentioned®) We are thus made evil by the "corrupt mass" from which "all-are taken®" Ibid® : , - ■ ;■ ■ ■■ ; ' 23 ■ 60 it0 85 From the graee of @ods which mahifested. itself in the.life and sacrifice of Jesus^ certain people are granted salvation (the doctrine of ZLeetion) ^ a salvation which no one deserves on his own merits « and the restj, a large ma« jorityg are doomed to everlasting hell fir®n weren Indeed0

““rejected before the foundation of the worldo811^^; There is no pufgatorjg and no one can Jdaow for sure whether he is one_ of the elect = There is9 however^ an indication of grace and salvation in the inner feelings of an individual© For one thing9 if he has an absolute faith «• firm9 steady9 go unswerving - he has one indication of grace? M-se9 he who feels prompted to do only goods he who feels'real joy in his religious devotion and love of dodp 'is granted9 by that very feeling9 another indication of grace and salvation^ but' an indication is the most any one can hope fors and this

Ibidop p0 31260 And God predestined man8 s fall 68that:out of he might extract materials for his own glory ,9 88 Ibido o po 3128o ^John. Gal vine, -Instruction in Faith n trahSo' Paul F, Fuhrmannp @de (Phi1adelphia9 19497$ P® 3 6 0 62 This is an important doetrinep for it partially ac« counts for'Byron®s expressed desires for faith© 'If he could be .certains, he too might have an indication, of grace9 for9 as Galvin maintained, faith is "’a firm and sure knowledge of the divine favour; towards u s . M (Quoted by A» Dakln0 G.al” vini sin T Phil adelphi a9 19 4 6 jp p Q 56) though it does not ne” ees.sarily'.““count as „in any sense meriting, our salvation®88 (Pakin9 Po TO.) Still9 ““only the elect can possess ito The reprobate in spite of all appearances to the contrary are not able to penetrate to the secret revelation which Scrips tur© reserves for the elect alone ©88 (Ibid© © p© 59o) ■ ■ ■' ■- 24 may9 ty Sod's will9. change at any timeo^3 Galvert summarizes the nature of Calvinism thus:: Prom the point of view of .the humanist 9 there was never a eraeler religion^ : Its purpose is to make • ' man 111;.at ease in' 21on0 It denies the full9 healthyg rich life o It destroys a sens® of "beauty and proportion in conduct^ hy Isolating these quali* ties from the moral ordero By ascribing natural instincts to the malevolence of the Devil9 it.makes suffering inevitableg creates a morbid sense of sino o o suppresses or dams up In man those very emotions that are precious to the catholic artiste The worst of it is that Byron8s zest, for the full9 healthy9 rich life" was frustrated and darkenedg 1 and thlsp no doubt9 increased his restlessness as well as contributed to the' excesses of his passionate natures for9 paradoxicallys the very life condemned: by Galv'ln (and. Christ) was often almost helplessly pursued by him in the necessity of release ing the nervous and sexual energies psychologically and physically produe©d9 and aggravated9 besides9 by goading fears and anxieties = Also.9 in his despair9 he must haVe felt that he might as well give in to his desires9 since he was damned anyway0 The moral (and Gglvinistie) side

• ^3Byron himself recorded, these observations in his diary s M0 .* o according to the Ghristian dispensation^ no one can know whether he is sure of salvation - even the most righteous ~ sine© a single slip of faith may throw him'on his backg like a skaiter fhiej a while gliding smoothly to his pa,radis© 0 H0W 9 therefore9 whatever the certainty of faith in the facts may hep the certainty of the;individual as to his happiness or misery Is no;greater than It was under' Jupiter0" (Letters and Journals Q vol 0 ¥.s Po 186b) Dated Jan0. 25? 18210 " ■j ^Byrons Romantic Paradoxa p© 80 . ■ of M s .nature9 however9 are exemplified by such things as V his attitude that "the highest of all poetry is ethical p o e t r y a M his statement that "Our first, duty is not to do evils butp alas! that is iiipossihles our next is to repair itp if in our power0 In Sardanatalus^ Salemenes speaks for the poet §

■ . The despot ism of vice g, ' - The weakness and the wickedness of luxury9. The negligencep the apathy9 the evils , ' Of sensual sloth ^ produce ten thousand tyrants o t The false and fond examples of thy lusts- Corrupt no less than they oppress, o « He considers % h e moral of Christianity . 0 . perfectly heautiftil = and the very sublime of virtue. . , 0«j68 he. often justifies his satires on the grounds that those shafts of ridicule were unloosed for the benefit9 improver mentp and instruction of mankind that men might see their follies9 repentp and "mend their ways." His attitude is ;• even somewhat prudish at times. In his journal entry for Dec. 170 1813a for instance? he writes. "Went to. my box at Covent Carden to-night| and my delicacy felt a little shocked at seeing S mistress. . . sitting with her mother. . . 0

^%etters and Journals, vol. V s p. 554= • ^Quoted by Moo re p hlfe. p. 108 0 • " . I9 lip 66-75® These very qualities9 thou,gh perhaps somewhat exaggerated;by Salemenes8 constitute the tragic flaw of Sardanapalus9 who9 despite his assertion that he has -sated his' country "with peace and joys" has' nevertheless "steep8d" himself "in deep voluptuousness" (l91 plj)^ and they lead p. in the endp to his own destruction^ significantly enough9 by fire ^%etters and JournalS;. vol. IT9 p. 403. : ■ ' 26 I felt rather Indignant0 ind a month earlier3 he wrote9 concerning the help he had given two peoples. *1 wish there had heen more convenience £i0ee in giving that help] and less gratification to mj self-love in it9 for then there had been more merit 0 We are all selfisho o. , oHis generosity and sympathy for the underdog (whom he may have associated with himself ) are well known and led 'Knight to summarlze 18the key to both his personality and his poetry59 in the rather exaggerated statement that it was , 63a Christian.-, mothering cares rising to a Catholic sweetness

At first Byron, must have fought both the fears of hell and the doubts which assailed him9 at least to such an ex* tent that he was able to write confidently in his early poetry t ' ■ ■ • And shall presumptions mortals Heaven arraign9 ':'v: : And9 madly 9 godlike Providence accuse.# ■ Ah! no9 far fly from me attempts -so vain; 1*11 ne8er submission to my God refuseo‘2 The,very zealousness of these lines leads one to suspect. that already he was facing early doubts and conflictss eon* fliets brought about9 most likely9 from an innate desire to believe in a Just God and from an innates sentimental urge

' ^ Ibldo-o volo II9 p 0 3T8 o

70Ibidoo volo lip p. 325 0 - " ' ' ■ . . 71Go - Wilson' Knight a Lord Byron 8 Christian 'Virtues (Hew Xorkp 1953)p P p 85o M0n the Death of a Young Lady 9 89 written when he was fourteen^ toward religious devotions, both of which were frustrated by his morbid fears of daianationo His concern with the prob- -; - lem oif' good and evil descending from GodT? probably begins . about the. time, of vlSte; adoleseenee or early maturity<,. It is perhapb sl^ifleaht; that three years after writing the ' above-quoted linesg the still immature poet repeats his : solemn promise "I ne8er shall presume to arraign the decree/ Which God has proclaim’d as the fate of his creatures«, » 0 The-poems of this early period contain many references to • y .' fate and; predestination as well as: to a grave concern with the problem of death* and this concern9 we shall see* re- , mained with Byron all ;hi8 life«. . : ; , y These affirmations of faith occur mainly between the years 1802 and 1806s the periods;of 1ate puberty* adolescences . fand early maturity 0 Urban Nagle has written a d i ss er t at ion • y, • . . concerned with the religious thinking of youths between the. . ages of twelve and sixteen^ Part of what he .says, deserves • ’ quoting in full I

liberty brings with it a feeling of insecurity and f ■ helplessnesss and this leadsthe individual to - ' : strive for personal union with Godg not .for the purpose of obtaining some external good* but for

See .Shapter. $ w g:yPage.r 5 7 f f ® . ; ' y - 'r Garolineg “ 110 14-15= The irony of these lines.v : is evident in the "blasphemous118 arraignments in' Gain of I this very 'decreeo'“ And the irony is not one of coincidence* y for at this very time (1805) he was already coneerned with ’’decay and disease” as well as with . . .. . ; 28 , strength^and support in distress0 Thus there is a deepening or an intensification of religious fe@l= ing between the ages of thirteen and sixteen* =, « * The real religious conflict for both boys and girls begins about the age of sixteen* .» , • * At that age feeling and intellect are in conflict* The youth . feels the need of religion9 but his intellect re™ jests what his reason cannot grasp0 o * othls phenomenon is part of the developmental processo^6 What Father Nagle says here is particularly true of Byron* the only difference being that his conflictsp perhaps@ be« gan somewhat earlier than the age mentioned and; that he never fully outgrew them* Moore tells us that in him there was much of the man in the boy and the boy in the man>7T both of which qualities explain the differences0 in Byron8s de™ veldpment9 from Father Nagievs “norm9M and the latter part of his statement .especially explains Byron8 s religious atti^ ■ tudes in later years9 since there is miple evidence that he never outgrew his early religious impressions * Dr* CBenni@ 9 for instahc©p told Moore» “That the impressions * o * thus ■ imbibed in his boyhood8 had9 notwithstanding the irregulari™ ties of his after lifes sunk deep into his mindg .will appear9 I think9 to every impartial reader of his works-, in general» , »

< ^^Thusg in “A Prayer of Nature9 “ though written when . Byronwas well out of the stage of puberty9 we find these lines« . ‘ Father of Lights on thee I call! ■ - - Thou seest my is dark within $ Thou who dtanst mark the sparrow6s fall9 . Avert from me the death of Sino ■ ^ Urban Nagles M FmBlrioal Study of the•Development of Religious Thinking in Boys from Twelve to Sixteen Tears Old*; a dissertatT^'lOatholic University of America^ 193^7T"5P« IB* ; ^ “Notes: ..for Life of lord Byron> M R* > A22# • ■ ; ' 7^The life, Betters and jburnali #f Lord By:ron» p* ' In December, 1311a Byron's friend William Harness wrote to their mutual friend Hddgsong "Byron, from his early edueac­ tion in Scotland, had been taught to identify the princi~ pies of Ghristianity with the extreme dogmas of Calvlnlsm0 His mind had thus imbibed a most miserable prejudice, which appeared to be the only obstacle to his hearty acceptance of the Gospelo And. Byron himself, in the period of his early acquaintance with jbihabella, wrote s MI was bred in Scotland among Calvinists the first part of my life - which gave me a dislike to that persuasion0 The dread of hell remained with him all his life, though there were periods of relief when he was able for a time to throw off that anxietyo For the most part, however, he suffered Intensely0 . Lady Byron, many years after her husband's death, wrote to drabb Robinson, "To that unhappy view of the relation of the creature to the CreatorTlo©o the CalvinistIc view of predestination and election,I,I

• Q”| have always ascribed the misery of his. lif@o95 S© perplexed

and Journal So volo I , p, 179 (footnote)0 In the same letter quoted earlier concerning his thoughts that "all sense, and senses are against fir religion]}, M he further states that, as for "some of the articles of faith,M he has "such a detestation" that he "would not subscribe to them if were as sure as St; Peter after the dock tirewo" (.Byron's . ______, volo II, Po'46) Such was Byron's sens© of justice as against Calvin'so., - Quoted by Mayne, Po 69° - - 8lLetters and JoumalSo vol0 VI, p» 262o "It was impossible for me to doubtT^she continues, "that, could he have been at ■ once assured of pardon, his living faith in a moral duty and love of virtue would have conquered every temptation=" Her- statement brings to mind Byron's assertion that^"I love the virtues which I cannot claimo" was he by this "idee fixethat9 In the end5 he. was forced to admit to his wife § 8!irhe worst of it is, I do believe^ His biographers ^ halre described three examples of his later concern with hell, which deserve repeating hereo On his honeymoon at Halnaby he is reported to have awakened in the middle of the night9 and, seeing.the red glow of a firelight behind the bed curtains, shouted, "GOod God, I am surely in Hell I .= <> A mo re serious incident is rela­ ted in a letter from Annabel la to Lady Melbourne i • ' He was ;in. the habit of sitting up writing till near one in th^ Having been annoyed by - a large fire in the small room when he was thus s'. - occupied, he threw, a quantity of water on the coals, and some kind of-gas was produced by which he was nearly suf focatedo When he came; into the bedroom, he staggered, and was in a state Of stupor^ I : ; did not then know the cause, but lost no time in - . taking him' to an open window, using Ban de Cologne etc o' to revive him o As so oh as he recovered his consciousness, the idea that he was dying presented Itself to his i imagination, and he broke, into the

-Letters and Joumals g loc0 elf a ■ O'? ' ' . . . - ; " Ibido Some early examples of his expressed concern with hell in his poetry ares "The Prayer of Hature11 (1806) ("Shall man condemn his race to hell,/Unless they bend in pompous fomff etco.,' stanzas six, seven, and eight), “'The Adieu'V (1807) (where, thinking he will soon die, he turns his “thoughts to Heaven" where his’ sprite;' o. ® must .soon direct thy fl 1 ght 0/lf errors. are forgiven" pLtalios min^ . Manfred and Cain ere both later and more subtle examples of this very same concem0 (Of,,■ for instance, the last scene of Manfred and the whole matter of .Gain8s fear of death, ,/ • e0g"o "Cursed be/He who invented, life that leads to death!11 II, ii, 18-19 , and his sight of Hades, Helenistically described as "Interminable, gloomy realms/Of swimming sha- ' dows and enormous shapes,/Some fully shown, some indistinct, and all/Mighty and melancholy0 0. ® " |II, ii, 30-33jo) '■ Q/j. * . Mayne, p® 3» See also p 0 1610 / •. ■ v . .■ v ■. -■ ■ ^ - . wildest ravings of despairs,. saying that he knew h@ was going to Hell 8 "but that he would defy his Maker to the last9 with other expressions of a.revenge­ ful nature = « c o 'if terwa,rds9 reeoveringg he "became : softenedg and said MI have tried everything - I will try virtue9 I thinks Perhaps 1 shaLX_go to '.Heaven, holding by the hem of your garmento -5 fhe third incident is related by Maurois0 Ihen in Italy he saw a painting by Panieli drespi in which a deceased canons. shorn emerging from a coffin in the middle of a church while the choir is singing a burial service over his body, ex­

claims • am dammed by a'Just judgment 16i MH@ was moved even to tearsg and his companions^ respectful of genius9 silently mounted their horses again and rod© off to await

©zf ' * - him a mile or so awayoM The inevitable result was what we would expect of By- rono He tried to free himself from the tyranny of.Calvin­ ism by denouncing it and by trying to convince himself that it was falseo He read avidly the works of the skeptics Vol­ taire 9 Hume9 and Gibbon9 as well as Boyle9 Rousseau^ and Bo eke o To these were added the strong -Influence of Charles Skinner Matthews,, a fellow student at ;Cambridge9 and of the coterie of young heretics who strengthened Byron®s zeal for breaking from past traditiono His admiration9' or rather aw© of'Matthews was intense p and his influence seems quit®

. . ®5Mayn@p Po 172o ■ ^ , • , 8^Maurolss 'pa 375» goon after Matthews6 death, Byron wrote to Dallas (Sept =, 7» 1811) ”In Matthews I have lost my ^guide9. philosopher, and friend* ° o « *1 did not love him quite so much as I honoured him? I was indeed so sensible of his. infinite superiority9 that though I did not envy9 I stood in awe of it0 88 (Letters and Journals0 voQj, II, p0 29o)- evident in that it was during this period that Bynon9 especial" ly in his letters9 wrote some of his most savage attacks against Christianity and religion => MI will have nothing to do with your immortality9M he wrote Francis Hodgson» Mw©

are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon anothero If men are to live,- why die at all? ' and if they die9. why disturb the sweet and sound sleep that 8knows no waking81# As for revealed religion^ he writes s "I do not believe in any revealed religion^ because;, no religion is revealed8 : and if it pleases the Church to damn me for not allowing a mon^entityy I throw myself on the. mercy of the aGreat First Cause a least understood^8 who must do what is most proper? though I conceive He:never made anything to be tortured in another llfeg whatever it may In ttilBoByron was very sensitive to his environments

ands because of that tendency toward 'suggestiMsness-g' was -' -■ peculiarly susceptible to influences® “A perfect chameleon85 is what Lady Blessington called himg and she was right® The poet was himself quite aware of this quality in his personality o "My character^89 he writes Annabella9 "takes its colourso » ofrom the circumstances in which I am placed® It is because of this defect that Calvinism^ May Grays, his

^ Letters and Journals® vol® IIs pp® 18-20® 89Ibid®o volo II® ppo 35-36®

90Ibid® ® vol® III9; p® 159® 5 mother9 his teachers, and, the general religious attitude of society played sueh an important part in shaping and encour­ aging the positive religious leanings within him0 On the other hahds his reading from the philosophers^ his acquain­ tance with the Oambrldge•heretics, and his friendship for Shelley contributed strongly to the skeptical side of his natureo ' It may seem strange at first that one as individual­ istic as Byron9 could be9 at the same time9 so susceptible to'influencesp in shortg when his defenses were.not upa so traetableo Aside from his sensitivity and suggestibl@nessa an important factor was: his decidedly dual natureo Each side of his personality was apparently awakened, and streng­ thened by circumstances and by people of one kind or another, and the particular mood he was in often determined the side he would take in a discussion or a problem = A unified per­ sonality is perhaps less open to influences than a divided one, because the latter is often less sure of himself0 What made him the champion of individuality was prdbably the com- 91 " . bination of a strong ego with a passionate personality which would not brook interference, and the romantic

9-^As Fairchild says, = = his egotism was too blatant to be-enwrapped in apparent self-abnegations * (Romantic Faltho p 0 421)", The quality is quite common in his major poetic figureSo Ofo, for instance, Manfred^s consciousness of his superior!tyo . - v'-.V, - ■■ /.■ ■■ : 34 proclamation of Indiiddual freedom.,.^2 What Hr= R, Eucken said- of G-erman Romanticism was equally true of English Ro­ manticism hy Byron’s times t!0 p 0 the older Romanticism asserted that the great end of life was to he an individual9 a personalitys and to invest every action with one’s own individual ityo,,^3

So marked was Byron’s duality9 that Moore was led to exclaims "’Hot even the ancient fancy of the existence of two within one bosom would seem at all adequately ' to account for .the varieties9 both of power and character^ which the course of his 'conduct and writings 0 o =>- dis- playedo Among these antithetical qualities '..was “a baffling mixture of,vanity? modesty? petulance? repentance? aristocratic pride? and democratic sentiment» His wit and gaiety were often countered by melancholy and depres­ sion? both characteristics being conspicuous in his poetry

. - OO •" ' 19 o •= o he developed a horror of being confined orV ruled? an impatience of check? an obsession with liberty? which was abetted by the romantic dogmas of the. time? stim^ ulated by the French.Revolution? 0 0 oM (Calvert? p? 8 ?)

^ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics9 James Hastings? edo? (New fork? 192077 volo ¥11? p? 223» Britain itself as Mr0 Eo Ehrhardt points out? "was for a long time the only country where - serious precautions were taken to ensure impre* scriptible liberties for the Individual0 British tradi­ tions^ the Anglo-Saxon temperament? and the Calvinist educa# .lion Cl hat man was responsible only to Godj all tended to the enfranchisement of the individualoV (Ibldo? po 2210)' ^^'The LifeP Letters and Journals of Lord Byrons, p0. 582» and letters! and though he was among the radicals of his dayB : his sentiment s and feelings were of ten conserratlve < ; Often digressing Into - somewhat long philosophic speculations, he never­

theless: expressed more: than once an antagonistic attitude ’ ■ ' ■ toward philosophy and metaphysics09° His attitude changed

so often that Madame Albrizzl,was moved to writes “What de­ lighted him greatly one day annoyed him the nextj and whenever 1 he appeared constant in the practice of any habits, it arose , ‘ merely from the Indifference, not to say contempt, in which he , held them all« The: effect on his thought IS exactly what '"we would expect g / He contradicted himself so much that there was

■ -hardly a single opinion whose opposite he did not hold with equal warmth*-,. . Hazlitt, for instance, laments the want of consistency " : - ' ' V ' . : - - 11 ' ' ' 98 ' : ■ ' . . in his attitude toward Napoleon, and, though he often made dis- . paraging remarks against England and Englishmen, one occasionally finds,especially when he was in Italy' and Greece, re­ marks savoring of both homesickness and affection for his

^ “lonce thought myself a philosopher, and talked nonsense with great decorums 1 defied pain, and preached up equanimity^ ? At last, a fall from my horse convinced me bodily suffering was - an evil!;' and the worst of an argument overset my maxims and my temper at the same moment0 o .o = “ (Letters.and Journals, vol0 I, p* 173o) Later, he several times “di so wed* o » that I was of Shelley8 s school in meta- physicSd * o , o . (Medwin, Journal of Oonversations0 p* 81,) ^Quoted from her Eltratti di Uomini Illustrl by Moore, Life, p 0 4l4o Byron himself admitted that “I am so change^ . = able, being everything by turns and nothing long, 0 V cthat . it would be difficult to describe me0“ (Blesslhgton, pp» 389- 390d) / : 1 /' Y '--'-/bi' .' ; iv V. P®William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Poets (Lon^ . don, 1933)* PP= 236-237= ^ . 99 count ryo His dual nature was probably the one characteristic most directly responsible for his conflicting religious atti“ tudes0 On the one sideg we find a sentimental attachment for religion in generalg and when in this moods he expressed thoughts of a,: rather deeply religious nature« This mood was often awakened by the circumstances of the moment0, A. beautiful nightor a sunshiny day1^ = the one conducive to* romantic impulses9 the other evoking pleasant sensations =* might engender thoughts savoring of religious sentiment all ty«, Oount Samba told Kennedy that Min the contemplation of a fine and tranquil night of summer <=■ and in the midst of a solitudeg ^pie hai^ observed his emotions and his thoughts to b© deeply tinctured with religionpDuring a short canter in Ravenna, in springy amidst a “wood of pines915 he remarkedg :!8Howa- o o raising our eyes to heaven,, or direct® ing them, to the earths can we doubt, of the ? ~-

^ T h e next chapter will take up in detail his contra® dictory religious opinionso 1 100Mipke night iso » o.a religious concern^ ” he recorded in his diary; “and even more so9 when 1 viewed the Soon and Stars through He:rsehell3s telescop©s and saw that they were worldso 61 (Letters and Journals0 volo Y s p 0 4580 ) lOlssj am always most religious upon a sunshiny day9 h© wrote in his journal in 1821g “as if there, was some associa® tion between an internal approach to greater light and purify9 and the kindler of this dark lanthom of our external existencec.88 ftbidoo V, p. 458.) ^^Letter from Oount Gamba to Kennedys p. 3/77 = 37 or howg turning them, to what is within us9 can we doubt that there is something within us more noble and more durable than the clay of which we are formed? Those who do not hear9 or are unwilling to listen to those feelingsP must necessarily be of a vile nature® A great' cathedral like St0 Peter's could evoke an outpouring of; religious sentiment almost equals in its conviction, and sincerityr to some of the most religious poems in the English languageo The grandeur of St° Peter's and the immensity of its beauty uplifts him to a pitch of restrained religious fervor^ and he is convinced of the mercy of Enters its grandeur overwhelms thee not| And why? It is not lessen’d 9 but thy minds Expanded by the genius of the spotp Has grown,colossal9 and can only find A fit abode wherein appear enshrined Thy hopes of immortality; and thou ' Shalt one dayg if found worthyp so .defined9 See thy God face to facep'. as thou dostnnow His Holy of Holies9 nor be blasted by his browo On the other handp there was theeynical, side of his naturep which might be expressed in witty aphbrisms^®^ of

^Q^Ibido <, loco cit® ^®^Childe Harold’s Pilgrimageo Ganto 1%: clvo His specie fications Mif found worthy** and his denial of God’s wrath are both derived from his Calvin!stie trainingo The latter denial iSp of course9 his positive repudiation of Galvin’s dicta concerning the horrible wrath of God= 0 0 0The;words of Fair­ child (Romantic po 3) that 8,romanticism9 at its deep® est and most intense9 is'essentially a religious experienceM are brought to mind here* 1(^ 0 „ ,my turn of minds “ he told Moorea 8$is so given- . to taking things in the absurd point of view9 that it breaks ; out in spite of me every now and thene M; (Xsetters and Journals# vole, .Tip p0 3 9 o'). which Bon Juan abounds or in savagely sarcastic remarkso His very wit was closely allied to melancholyd and9 it was quite true, as he himself said, 6S0 „ o if I laugh at any mortal thing9 8Tie that I may not weepo 0 „ » xn this mood) he concentrated mostly on the faults and follies of Christianitya as in Vision of Judgmentn Beppon and Age of

Bronzeo In a more serious vein, he might be either mildly critical or almost fiercely defiant0 There were almost no lengths to which he might net go9 and if his contemporaries - were shocked, it is no wonder9 when we recall suchstatements as “Garnage must be Christ8 S ’sister Though Byron tried to rationalize himself into a state of contentment with his doubts - he more than once, claimed that he was more fortunate in his doubts than the most eon* tented believer-^"® there can. be no question that he suf­ fered from them0 If he had made a break once and for all with Ghristianity and revealed religionp and if he had been unswerving in that d©cision9 he probably would have been eon* tento His first break from Christianity during his days at Cambridge probably gave him great reliefs because the divided

' 106Don Juann Canto III9 ivo Quoted by Leigh Huntp p 0 128o- ’ ' 108 ‘ ^ dfo: the words of § . There8 a something sweet in my uncertainty I would not change for your Chaldean,lorec «_ »'e . ^SardanaPalus„ IIg lg 263-2641 f . personalitys, - aceordiEig to William Jamesa sometimes finds that “religion is only one out of many ways of reaching unityo o o 0 the new birth may be away from religion into incredulitya or it may be from moral scrupulosity into freedom and license = 1 <, <, In these non=>religious oases the new man. may also be b o m either gradually or suddenlyo *^ 9

Some such process may have taken place in his mind at firstP and for a while9 at least9 helped him out of his dilemma* But his relief was short-lived* Such was the persistence of his uncertainty that whatever unity he may have gained was soon lost* He became and remained the skeptic of emo­ tion “whose confidence in his own conclusions sinks as his ’ 11© pulse subsides9M and he vacillated from doctrine to doctrine according to the mood of the moment* He enjoyed no real satisfaction from his doubtsg nor from his beliefs$, and the conflict of. religious sentiment with irreligious disparagement must have frustrated him immenselyg: and this frttstration9 of course,, was intensified by his fear of hell# Be told Kennedy that he had no ‘"happiness in my present un­ settled notions .on religion* "H I In fact, he seems to have

suffered real pain at timesp. relieved only by occasional outbursts of defiance* Hodgson tells us of repeated times

■^^William dames9 The Varieties of Religious (Hew York9 1915)9 PP* 175-176. ^^deaffresons vol. I9 p. 177» ^^^Oonversations on Religion with Lord Byron. p e 134, ■ ' ■ v • ' 40 ; when Byrong among his frien:ds9 and “absorbed In thought and Indulging in reckless speculations$, used; often, as he expressed it^ to suffer from a ’’confusion of ideas,. * and. would some-*- times exclaim in his most melodramatic manner, ”1 shall go mado1’ Serope Davies* 0 , used quietly to remark in answer, tMuch more like silliness than madness*8 8H 2 There is little likelihood, however, that Byron was -“acting silly 111 in his journal and elsewhere he expressed fears that he was not in his right mind or that he would, like Swift, die “from the top down *81 And his distressing religious concern sometimes manifested itself during one or another of his many bouts with fevero “You have no conception,“ he told Parry, “of the unaccountable thoughts which come into my mind when the fever attacks me» 1 fancy myself a Jew, a Mahomedan9 and a Christian of every profession of faith*’ , r .. The eonsequence was that he who had such a zest for life hated his very existence* It was not only the r el le­ gions conflict, of - course, that produced this result* Bather, it was that total conflict within his whole personality, which was hut increased by the religious dilemma, that made life unbearable* And the worst of it, perhaps, was that though he often expressed yearnings for death, he nevertheless

. ^^Rev* Hodgson, Memoirsn p* 104* ’ ^^William Parry* The last Days of lord Byron (London* 1825)9 P° 1220: Of* these lines from (Canto XIS vers® v) 8 M* o * as I suffer from the shocks Of illness, I grow much more orthodox*“ ‘ . • ' 4 1 ■ _ ' - - ; ' / feared ite Vihen Manfred says9 “Yet we 1 ive^ioathlng o.ur life9 and dreading still to diej, w h© speaks for the poet as wello It is true thatj, in the Romantio tradition^ he broods over death and finds himself half in love with it* It is also true that when mentally exhausted9 he "looks; upon death as a welcome prospeetp hecause in death there is rest from weari^

. 11 A. ness and escape from the evils of mortalityo83 Butp for one thingp he could never he absolutely sure of this-, and for another9 it is quest!onabl© whether a mind so sensitive to existencep so aware of itself 9 in a wordy.,so egoistic-, „ could really accept the prospect of annihilationIf one seeks beyond superficial appearances (and Byrons the roman*# tie poseur9 was fond of presenting certain sub«=consciously

lade Rubyp A Study of the Influence of Mortality on Byron ° s Thought and,Poetry* a dissertation (University of Southern California-, 19441p p 0 67o great, object of life'is sensation “ to feel that we exist even though in pain9 83 he wrote to Annabella-, (Quoted by DuBosp Byron and the Need'of Fatality0 trans0 Ethel Golburn Mayne |Hew York9 1932]] P p P Silo) 4 promi^ nent characteristic of his personality was a, kind of 8iha= bitual passion for Excitement^83 as Lady Byron said* Motiyated by a need for seething activity and by a passion* ate temperament9 be'could not bear to live in a vacuums as it' were* To him/ lifeP with all it implies^ was every- thing$, and it must have been the constant frustrations of his life and personality that m&de him look upon death as a welcome relief* * 0 Significantlyg in Don Juan* he "covets" "a sleep without dreams“"but adds I ;"and.yet/How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay*" (Oanto XIV9 ivo) ' 42 11& calculated appearances he .will find evidence of this fear0 here is to me something, so incomprehensible in.: de.athp tha,t I can neither speak nor think on the • subject", ' he wrote soon after the death of his mother and his friend Matthewso Elsewhere9 he speaks of death as Showing the $,dread realityo 88^"^ In. his youth he had an almost morbid HQ" attraction for graveyards9 and the poems of this same period^ refer to death as i8the king of t©rrors8s8^® "the tyrants,$a and "spectre" who seeks human beings as his prey9 etCo Xn late adolescences, he substitutes the roman#*' tie attitude that "In the grave is our hopes for in life is

^^The matter of Byron®s sincerity was im.derstandably questioned by those who didn®t know him9 as. well as by some , who did9 but it is doubtful whether there was a more sincere poet,than he0 He himself stated that his very nontradiea tions were an expression of this sincerity9 and'all who, knew him agreedo His hatred of cant and hypocrisy IS; well knownD and he himself consistently refused to "give, the lie to sy own thoughts and doubts9 come what m a y o - ( Letters and Jour6-' nals0 volo 1I9 p 0 3510 ) He has9 however9 been justly called the "sincere poseur" (Fairchilds, p* 389) because9 though he had a distinctly theatrical bent in his every-day lifeg his "poses" were more or less mere exaggerations of qualities and sentiments inherent to his personality0 ^ ^ Letters and Journals0 volo I9 p 0 44o. Further in this same letters, he gains his composure. and adds; that he has "nei* ther-hopes nor fears beyond the grave„81 - .; i ’^^Blessingtonp p0 339 o j H 9 fflThe sentiment that drove Byron, thus perpetually to-= ward. the. graveyards " writes Mau.rois9 "was somewhat complex®. He was troubled by the idea.of death! terrified in childhood by so many accounts of Hell5 he preferred to-picture the dead as entering on a dreamless sleep & ».' « Byrong p=. 47 o .120»Qn the Death of a Young LadyQ11 . 121"Epitaph on a Friends" our fear9 m3='22 and begins to long for deatho M03a? when9 my adoreds in the tomb will they place mea/Slncep in lifep- love and friendship for ever are fledfHis attitude at this time was probably more that of romantic sentiment than of sincere convict lone In this same poem 9 he thinks of death as a means of reconciliation between himself and his belovedo The theme of annihilation had not yet appeared in his po@try0 ■ In Gain % Byron6 s protagonist is troubled about deatho Sllhat is death!811 h© asks Luelfero S,I fear9 I feelg it is a dreadful thingo From the very beginning: one of Gain$s chief complaints is "Must I not die!81 and he is almost ob« sessed with the desire to learn, what death is0 When Luci<=> fer appears9 Gain speaks of the beauty of the earth and regrets that he cannot "proflt/By what it bears of beautl« ftil o o o/Nor gratify my thousand swelllng^tboughts/¥ith , knowledge9 nor allay my thousand fears/pf death and life0 M His joys of fatherhood are embittered by the fact that his progeny must die9 and to bring to life generations of human beings who must later die9 he feels9 is little less than murdero For CainB as well as for ByronB the real terror of death lay in its myste^i it was the fear of the unknown . that made it a "dreadful thing»81 And this wasp perhapsg

■ 122»j0 Caroline81 (poem '111=) ,123Ibido . ‘ 124l9 281-282o .. 44 what . impelled both Ga5,n and. -Byron to seek knowledge so fever« ishljo^^^ His frustration in not being able to lift the veil of ignorance was a strong factor in his apparent re« jeetion of knowledge as a source of happiness» Whatever general knowledge he did gain9' however9 seems to have had no effect whatsoever on the superstitious side of his natur©0 The sourees of this aberration are manyo Raised in one of the most superstitious of countries9 and being impressionable as well as imaginative9 he acquired a superstitious nature from his mothery who was preposter* ously so inclined^ and probably from his nurse and from many of the neighbors in the vicinity0 Dulwichs Harrows and Cambridg© combined do not seem to have removed any of his superstitionso Furthermores his Intellectual attitude toward

^ThuSp suggests that the greatest advantage of knowledge is that it dispels fearo When Gain sayss"1 scarcely now know what it [i<,e0. deathj isg/And yet I fear ito s » ,0518 Lucifer replies9 "And I9 who know all things9 fear nothings see/tfhat is true knowledge»88 [19295=298J Whatever disappointments the poet may have suffered in search of knowledges whatever sorrows he may have acquired through it9 and however insignificant he may have felt as his indi= viduality shrunk in the vastness of the wholes he at least concedes that knowledge can give one a greater freedom from fear» ' .. „ : could not9 however, accept the idea -of an 18Immortal Materiality o88 "The devil8s in it, 88 he wrote in his journal of 18219 "if9 after having had a Soul (as surely the Mind0 ; - or whatever you call it, is,) in this world, we must part with it in the next, even for an Immortal Materialityo I own my partiality for Spirit o'18 Letters and Journal sn volo V„ p6 458# ■ , ■ . ; ; ... 45 the latter seems to be totally disjoined from his emotional susceptibility^ He can9 ther@foreg refer to "some instances of superst.ition [in Italy], which were at once amSsing and ridiculouss or he can emphasise the superstitious nature of religion^^ (which attitude^ I suspect9 he acquired from his Cambridge friends) without seeing any absurdity in his own weaknesso At his departure from Lady Blessingtons for instance^ he gave her a pin containing a small cameo of Napoleon0 The next day9 he wrote to hers ail am supersti^ tlousn and have recollected that memorials with a point are of less fortunate augury! I wills, .therefore, request you : to accept, instead of the pinp the enclosed chaing which is of so slight a value that you need not he sit ate 0 „ = = You will perhaps have the goodness to acknowledge the receipt of this notes and send back the pin (for good luck6s sake)^ which 1 •shall value much more for having been a night in your custodyo His superstitions were many® Among them were a be<® lief in lucky and unlucky days as well as numbersa fear of Fridays as being undesirable for doing anything

■^^Keimedyp p= 15© o Qhllde Harold6s Pilgrimage„ canto IIs %llv« 11 o 5- where he calls religion a "Foul Superstition0 fl ^^Qnoted by-Moorep M f e s p 0 591« ^^^Medwin4s Journal of Gonve fsat ion s« p 0 104o .. . ' ' ■ ' : : " 46 construotlves’3"^1 belief in fortune-tellers $ omen a P presently mentSg ete0 Hia invocation of Nemesis in Oanto IV of Childe Harold is an expression of this very superst it ion o "And thoUg who never yet of human wrong/Left the unbalaneed scale9 great Nemesis!/Herea where the ancient paid thee homage long «=> o o o in thls/lhy former re aim s I call thee from the dust I/Dost thou not hear my heart f •= Awake! thou shalt9 and mwstc "^ ^ The victim of this invocation was intendedp probablyp to be Sir Samuel Roirilly0. Lady Byron8 s lawyer in her suit for separationo Whether .or not the for­ mer was definitely intended at the timeP the poet wrote seriously to I»ady Byronp concerning Sir Samuel11 s recent - suieid©p; "It was not in vain that I invoked Nemesis in the midnight of Home from- the awfullest of her ruinso"^

If early education was responsible for inculcating Byron9 s superstitious attitude9 perhaps emotional instability; was responsible for his retaining this attitude all his life? Superstition is often an expression of inner fears and un= certainties of undetermined nature (e0go vague anxieties) which are attached to and .symbolized by agents and conditions» Belief in and fear of the supernatural {and

. 131Moore9 .£»ife<, p„ 592 d v. ' ^320anto IVp cxxxiio . ^33Quot®d" by' Ethel dolbum Mayne, Byron (New Yorkp 1913) p vole H p p 0 130o ;/ ' ' : • m . Byron: believed in ghosts) may be emotionally derived from fear of the unknowns as well as of forces outside himself : which the individual cannot control or govern and which he hopes‘W dispel tor propitiate) by means of certain form-*- mla© and antidoteso One who lacks confidence might9 espe=. cially in an environment already clouded by superstition^ seek the help of charms and "good-luck pieces88 orP in Christ^ Ian countries9 the Bible to alleviate unpleasant conditions^ or to dispel evil influencess or to assist in any under­ taking of which he is uncertaino And a person of advanced education and of highly developed intellect .who maintains and continues to practice superstitions aetsP and who re­ tains a fear of the supernatural as well as a belief in charms and omensg ete0 9 surely does so because of a general lack of confid©nc@o. There may also be9 in such a person9 negative drives and impulsesj, unacceptable to the, mindP and only vaguely9 if at all9 consciouss which he transfers and attributes to supernatural or evil agencies .(e«g» the devil) and which may be actually physically1symbolized by the subconscious j, in the form of a ghost (or "bogle55}.*

'134 ■ i Moore tells us that9 according to Augusta9 who was with Byron at the time j, the youthful poet used to refuse to spend the night with the Ohaworths at Annesiey because he fancied that "the family pictures of the Ohaworths* «, = had taken a grudge to him on account of the duel between his great^unel® and the former master of the estate* who was killed], and would come down from their frames at night to haunt him* At length9 one evenings he said: gravely to Hiss Ohaworth and her cousins 8 In going home last night I saw a bogle* 8 " (Mf e o p©. 27* See also Moore8 s Notes for Life of Lord Byron* p» 431® 48 These conditions ^ plus the almost certain existence of guilt-’ . feel-ihgs within himself, indicated by the self== accusative . moods into which he so often fell as well as by hi a propen- „ : - vsity for self “malign in gend making himself out as worse - ; h ' : " ■ V : t -y h,: ' ■ than he wasP are no doubt of considerable importance as factors in his f e ara 6 f hell p in hi a concept of - Sod as the f avengerg and in his religious; leanings in general, which wer@p at least partiallyp of a superstitious naturet-^ Byron8 s concern with oonf 11 ptIng, "passions11 and- "desiresM in his nature -.6s perhaps an. indication of feelings of guilts "I hardly know one passion which has hot some share ^"of

good and ' diabolicalin ;themB he wrote ; Murray i-': . "My if '

135«>o 0 0 from the strangest perversion that pride ever created p. he endeavours to disguise., the best points of his Charactero" (Letter from Annabella, quoted'by Mayneg The Life an.d Letters of Anne Isabella Lady ho el; Byrona: p 0 A 9 o ) : He .^exaggerates his defects more, than an enemy could: do p " writes Lady Blessington (p = 293)o Chapter Eleven of Miss Mayne-s excellent biography of Lady Byron Contains some descriptions of Byron^s self^accusationsp among which are even hints of murder0 (The reader should also note the guilt-theme in Manfredo) Though these selfraccusations may have been partly made to forestall criticisms from others and were probably mixed with his melodramatic and theatrical love of mystif1 cationg and may even oecasiohally have been partly of'humorous intehtp I see no reason to doubt that they, were-p in the: mainP .projections of a not-too~wel 1- . . hidden guilt Gomplexo . ' - . f' ■ ^^See. pagei;53 .fie- i: ; .. . 2-37110 c his unwillingness to deny the faith which ■ he could.never accept arose from his;interwoven scepticism ; , and- superstitidno. « o '-' . (Pairchildp Po' .39^#) '"''ft ^ ^ Byron^s Correspondence, vol0 Ip p0 255o : • good aiid evil are at perpetual wars he says elsewhereo -?y And it is t m e 9 as Chew maintains9 that he was himself Mto m - aad. 'Shattered? hy ; %h e ethhnal eohflict of good and evil" ■ V - ' *T -■ portrayed in many of his works0 Beside a naturally generouss kind9 and 'benevolent nature, there was an avari* elous ' (only oecasionally displayed) selfish* “remorse­ less” side whicheaused Mrs* Shelley, tp describe him as a man reckless of the ill he does others:$ obstinate to desperation in the pursuance of his plans or his revenge# ^4 2 In the same letter^ she says that his "cruelty rousej(sjj one8s soul from it s depths a "3-43 Yet 9 as has; been already pointed out g he could be almost prudish in his mpral attitude® 1 Though Byron w s superstitious and though he wass . at timesg, easily Influencedp let it not be supposed, that he

abandoned: the use Of his intellect* Emotional and some“ what immature he may have; been in ; cert ain re spectS g but , . ■ he never allowed his- intellect to stagnateh On the contrary 8 he was most.zealous in his determination to; reason out his„ as well as man8Sg relation to God and to the universe0 Truey his very fears almost, necessitated the .use of reason to : think his way out of the dilemmag but it is; likewise true

^^^Quoted by Samuel Go Ohewg Jr* s The Dramas of lord Byron (Baltimoreg; 1915) 9 P*: 154o ' : :L40M d <39 !55o ; : - -^-^-Bee Bless in gt on 9: p* 44 0 and The Letters of Mary ih Bhellev* volo lP p, 231, -'i:;- y:'--: ' I - - ^Betters9 vol0.Ig p» l40o v^45dMp,v;r voXv'^ &*/i4l^; ; ; 1. ; , : ■ that his re at courage lay in, his refusal to .submit to hie fears or to acquiesee in an easily eon.fprmativ@ pattern0 ;:As''Professor: Ohew. m a i n t a i n $9coTnfortable acquiescenoe can be bought only at'the price of stilling the ceaseless and" restless activity of the intellect<, Such a: prostitution of; the reason Byron never submitted to# - ‘ Oountess Buiccibli tells us that s for hims to reason was a ^positive necessity11 and that "he could not .admit that God had .given us the power of thought not to make use of itg and obliged us to. believe that which in religiong as in other thingsP appears ridicu^ lous to our reason and- shocks our sense of justice# In Manfred and Gain he emphasised Ms- pbsition in respect-to freedom of thoughto Manfred refuses to "bow to both human authority (as represented by the Abbot) and 'spiritual aU® thorify less than God himselfo In the presence of Jrimanes

■ - - ,■ 144 . - " - ' . - . - : - .. Dramas of Lord Byron0 p 0 133= Recollections of Lord ByronQ volo I# pe 198# In - Ganto IVg cxxvii» of Ghilde Harold3 Byron succinctly summar­ izes his position in respect to freedom of thoughts . Yet let us ponder boldly y ; ■tis a base Abandonment of reason to .resign • , Our right of thought =- our.last and only place ' 1 Of refuges this, at least? shall still be. mine0 This was" a very important reason for his not conforming to any - religlbn9 including Oatholicismo ..Pride?, as well as courage? were the main Byronlo qualities which led him to refuse any checks whatsoever on his inteilectual and emotional excesses«, He would not s'ubmit ' to any human authority beeause he was too - much the individualp and because he was strongly tinctured with "the romantic desire for self-exp an s 1 on o = :» . " (Pair chi Id? p.# 420,) . What he told Gaptaln Parry at Missolonghi. was perfectly true s MI hafe too much of my mother about me to be dictated to; I like freedom from constraintl I hate artificial regu^ .1 at ion#,, o »: o "■ (Parry? p 0 219 o) "/ ' . . .. (who: perhaps symbolizeSj, - like Shelley s_s„ Jupiter8 the mar- : ; mah© concept or invention of God.)' he is ordered to 8,bow d o m and worship9,1 to "tremble and obey.I 81 ■ and is taunted'

with hase?,epithets$, such as “wretchg " "slave, " "child of ‘ . :, e a r t h * M a n d g . f i n a l l y 9- "wo m l ” But Manfred s the prot agohi st' : ■ oi .the poetp refuses to submito "Bid himn " .he demands of .ArimaneSp "bow down to. that which is above him 2/The over­ ruling Infinite - the Maker/lfho made him. not for worship e ;; ' let him kneel^/ind w® will kneel together^ If Byron , : . may be said to have made, any single definite stands his re- fusal to bow to authorityp arising from his "passionate 16 - I

: and, egoistic.naturep may be .said to be that stands Mane I. f re d refuses' to submit hi a power g v hi s will 9 or his intele lect to the lesser deities» ' He is the -Gothic embodiment of the poet 8s Prometheus^ and'/J|yron, 1 s -hims e l f , t h e . p r o t o t y p e of Manfred and •Prometheusp Satan and Cain 0 He also@ to the vezyend, 'refused to submit his Intellects or his willP : to authoritarian Christianityo And that was the Byronie courage; that was the Byronie triuapho G E M B r m m o

The Sature of Byron's Religious Philosophy

■ r v

• We.have seen that Byron never dented the existence of ra God, whom he considered primarily as the First Oa,use0 . . His concept of God, however, went heyond this and-was mainly

Christian^Hehraie in natureo Both and as : ’ >we ;shall>::See> were, emhraced "by him, hu$ the former was . . :

strongest^, especially during the early years of his skepticism and the latter, sporadic and.occasional, was more Words# worth!an than, truly Byronic, though it was sincere, never**" , theless* His pantheistic philosophy occurs mostly in the poetry of the first few years after his departure from Eng­ land for Italy,, It is perhaps significant that his first departure from England - for Greece, =* hnought with it a ■ ■ delstlc Ohilde Harold (I and II)| his second departure ^ for Italy r. brought, with it a- pantheistie Ohilde Harold : : (1II and ' iv)* . : ^ ; - ' .' :■■■■ ' .. ; The attrlbut@s whieh he assigned to: God were many :and ' ^ .contradictory, depending upon, his moods0’ God is conceived as . a monistic beings, omnipotent and omnipresent 0 These

traits' are consistent In Boron's writings, eveu -'though':.

: ■ ^"All men believe, in the great first cause, which we call Almighty Godo '' Quoted by Farry, Po 2G8a '. ■ : 53 Cain9 in hi 8: uncertainty 0 may occasionally address the Ore a- ' tor as "God" or “G-odsI. what so e ler ye are 188 Byron has been accused of ^maintaining'. M:.aniehaeistic principlesB but though the concept ^ or at least the c on side rati on-- ris\pre sent at times in Oain@ it may Safely he said that his denials of Maniehaeism were true; and sincere o God was conceived as ' : ; ■ being basically omnipotent9 omnipresentp ands perhaps9 .omni= sclent<, If God is omnipotentg however, this does not nebes- earily mean that he is all-goodo In his poetic drama Gain! though he no •. doubt had. in mindthe man°made concept of God, there is little: doubt that Byron8 s ;defiance was de~ ; ' ; liberately directed toward the Deity Himself. Saturated with Oalvihlstic doctrines and uncertain of their truth or falser ness, ' he was outraged by the existence of a God who could condemn human beings, before their very conception, to an ;■ Ijeverlhstihg hbll despite, their'own virtues and misfortunes, and do so merely for His own glory„ He. was outraged by a

God who "made thlhgs but to bend/Before hid sullen, sole

eternityoIn this melancholy mood (whether acquiescent tor defiant ), he: conceived God as an ivenger who mercilessly:. f ©xacts punishments and sacrifices v an unforgiving Tyrant® -

■f:. : 2Galn0 I, 76-77387=388= r'7?:: '".tv V .t 3£ains : I,' 235-236® : v/,: : - d. ; ’ :.v: "/ ^To ingiolina’s assertion that J'Heaven bids us to for^ igiye our enemies, " .Marino PalierO. replies 8 ‘’Both Heaven for* give her ownf - Is there not Hell/For wrath eternal?'b (Marino- ■ 'Faliero® II, i,■260*262®) His concept of God as an avenger was derived,-, of course, from Galvin and from the Old Testa- . ment, though the former regards Jehovah® s actions as entirely :< just®: t : ' f ;;ty , f yt: ■ vt: There is little in Manfred, concerninpT God alone o The "main;, ^ttfoynaiipn: we find ‘ there ih-hliat the true God is a . mo ni sh Te he in g far greater than .mazt,8 s eonGeption of Him (II, iv5 46-49)° It is mostly in Gain that Byron expressed his fnry against "a Go& rejoicing In the sufferings of His creatureso « 0 Such a God is to he feared, not loved, in worship (I, 428)o He can he propitiated only by prayer, worship^' and the blood of"the. lamb; in. sacrifice, which, . ■ though repugnant;to the gentle Cain, is pleasing to Jehovah* M a m and. consider Him merciful in having permitted the trangressors to live and bear children after the disobedience^ but to Gain this seeming mercj Is .mere tyranny , sinceithe

: tree, fair and beautiful, was dellberately ;.placed before . beings already created 8,curious/By their own innocence" (I, 1984199)* As Rainwater points out, "the whole Garden of ; .Eden plan wore the aspect, of a trap* *■ '. Such, at least. It';;' f seemed to Gain* Furthermore, the.very "gift" of bringing • ; forth children is only a curse, since they,too must suffer by toil and death for a deed Hot of their own doing* Gain cannot be grateful to a God who exacts toll and sweat as a curse upon those who were not even b o m when the sin was cbmmlhte.de> But the most terrible punishment to him is that • of death* "For what must I be grateful?" he asks* "For

^Maurois, p'o 287*

:' ■ 6 ■ ; . . ■ ; ... ' : . ; - Frank Rainwater, lord Byrons A Study of the Development - Of His Philosophy*;With Special Emphasis Upon the Dramas: A Summary of a Thesis I Vanderbilt University Summaries of Theses (Hashviile:, 1949), P» 21* "being dust 9 and grovelling in 'the dusts/Till I return to ■■ idustrfo■ o o For what should l/Be contrite? for my father’s ' sin, already/Expiate with what we all have undergone = . „ . o11 (lll9 113rll^) 0 The tree stood ccons$)5iduous and Inviting ;; /,in the gardeno Since it was planted, why not for them? ^XT. ' not, why place him near It, where it grew9/The fairest in the; centre?1’ ■ (I, 73-’74) 0 Byron was particularly repelled "by : this doctrine of Original Sih, hut he could not wholly con# d - . ■ - - . < ’ : ■ 7 - ' - ' - :yince^ himself'that it was false0 Even in his letters and conversations, he occasionally betrayed this belief. Thus, -writing to Scott about the recent death of his natural daugh- terp Allegra, he told him that "she 1s either at rest or hap™ pyl for her few years h o ^ prevented 'her from haying" incurred any sin, except what we inherit, from Adam = Pain is pri­ marily an arraignment against Original Sin. and its conse^ • quenses, not a denials, '. . ' : , On the other,hand, . Byron also, portrays, especially in his earlier poems and letters,” asG-odlwhose '’principal attribute

;; ;^‘-In the depths of his mind," writes Calvert, "the tenets of original sin were immovably intrenchedo m: (Byron g Romantic Paradox,' p. 71) "In this vile and abominable doctrine, he believed, while he hated ito t! (Stopford Brooke, MByron8 s Gain,85 Hlbbert Journalo XVIII Xflctober, 1910, -P.-. 82.) . : -Letters and Johrnais. vol. yi0 pp. .56157. And in a conr yersation .with Lady Blessingtdn he remarked that "some taints of the; original evil of our natures remain" • (Conversations of Lord Byron with the Countess of Blessington0‘ P. 550°) ' .

...'O' ' ; - - ■ . ' - ' . Eennedy, however, has recorded some statements by Byron which indicate that this attitude was held by the poet even in the last year of his Ilfe. r i - is ''Ioy©.” ;as well, as c ' B© i s a benignant 9 guid­ ing Deity @ a "Father of light I great God of Heaven.68 who :Mcanst - mark the .sparrow1 s fall;tt^- and who is Incapable of such an in justice as condemning His 'creatures to everlast­

ing Hello He does not even expect humility from his crea** tures^^:: but; rathe r me ribs - ■ the! r' love - and reverence =. ; Be sides , that of “Love? - Byron •believed His main attribute to be ■ f ruthl; He is a .God of majesty and benevolence in whose pro- ; tecfion the poet places- himself : These two concepts were always in juxtaposition to each othersihe never basically unified'or merged them, nor could he reconcile within himself the idea of a benevolent creator Who could ah the same time do evil - the evil inherent@ to his mindi, in Galvin1 s doctrines9 and the evil apparent in this. worldo Hls. ovm lameness he. considered .a signal mark . .of the injustice of Providence which wass at the same ' timeo inconsistent with the attributes of a benevolent Gods yet the signs of such InconsistencleS were f' all. around himg

: • - ^Kennedy, ppo 220 and 2281 ■ . . • - bl»The Prayer of Nature9 " lie, 1 and To ' ■ ■■■■■■ IP : V - - -. •. fht T,'./ • :/,• v -v . : ' '“Lord Byron2 M anonymousb B1ackwood s Edinburgh Maga” ;dihg? Xy (Junes 1824), pp= 700-701= y-u /-'f;. < / ; • ^ 51 The Prayer of Hature.s'? 11 o 51^52= “By thy c o mm and I rise or falls/lh thy protection I confide o '1. - f ^ ^ o t e d by Blessington.a; p» 128 0' - •: ■ ; and these tended to increase M s fears that Calvinism.might he true6 For instance, he did see that -men .were often im^ pelded hy soitie foree- to do things seemingly at variance

With thelf own natnre' ^ he himself was an example of this ?

■ and he did see the mass of. corruption and depravity in human Vheingso "I already believe in predestination,, ” he told : Kennedy p ' "'and In the depravity of the human heart in general p and of my own in particular^ = » = Oould Gal'vins thenP have been right ? When he thought ; of such things he brooded or rebelledg but he could not entirely deny them® Cainn then9 Was the inevitable result# . Z:-

H©: often thought about the problem of Good and Evil in. Godo .- If dod is the creator of mans and therefore the ori« : ginatbr of his virtues as 'well as: his defects 9 then He must be responsible for both| evil9 theng ,as well as virtueg must

descend;from Him» •whether you accept’Batah or notg since the

. IMtte-'p too was created by God0^^ If man was v l rtuous in Z some respectsg and if there was some good in the worids still the ezlstence of evilp which seemed more commong overbalanced the scales5 and if this was true, then "Even he who made us ; mus t be O’wre t chedB g as the maker/Of things unhappy 111 ^ He

•^^Conversations bn Religion with Lord Byron0 Po 172o- . ^Lucifer probably expressed Byron1s own feelings in his argument that .1'If/Evil springs from him, do not name it mine ®/lill- ye know better its true fount® 0- « " (lip U p :mm 56,y: : z : . zzz.... z; ;; , ; , , - ; ; ; ■; ^ Oaln (281-282.) /fneirei’;; fully' solved M s problem, sine© sji even wavering b©«

lief in Calvinisil ■ wa,s In itself totally incompatible with . ; ;, ■belie# in a "God of light" whose "principal attribute is love" and in whom he understandably questions whether; “rage and , justice £ cam join in the same path?11"*"® But he did find - % some tentative answers o In ManfredQ he cdmpletelv rejects the idea of hel^ at . least intellectuallyp - since it may be -. ' ■ argued that the 'very presenee of the awful spirit at: the ' - ; end of the play implies its existen00, but this- may be :‘ me rely a symbol of man's conception of hell "(as Arimanes is man8 s conception of God) and does not in itself imply the . n :actual existence of hell0 But Manfred8 s argument allows no ' . doubt of what Byron8 s position Was „ If man commits evil ~ h at least s a man like Manfred or Byron - there are still re» /' morse and consciences which create their own hello . Besidesg as Manfred asks$.“Must.crimes be punish'd but by other crimesg/And greater criminalsf" (III9 ,lv8 : 1:23-124,) There is no expressed answer to this .quastion9 but the,disappearance , : of the demons is as final. and triumphant an answer as the . poet could give * Hell is an injustice =■ isg indeed s a super**: fluous punishment >= since man8 s own sufferings and tormentsg which may “out^torture time" and which "compelM him "to be ' |hi^ proper Hellg" are punishment enougho No other Hell could exceed themo ,Gertainlys if man thus suffers on earth9

. 1 ^Heaven and Barth (Ip iii, 762,) . ; ■ • ' ' how is 'it possible to believe that tliis does not cancel out ' tlib'iaecessity» the. very .existences of Hellt Byron ’ s conclusion - .""^t1 i a ^ ^^5li■ ''i's.'■. it sel f/Requital for its good dr evil thoughts@/is its own origin of 111 and . endo o o yn (ill9 iva 129“131o) This does not/negate the possibility of suffering after deathg howevers but such suf­ fering can. only be self-willed and self-infll cted by one, " such as Manfred> who: ' "was my own destroyers and.will be/My : d m hereafter*8 (Ills,; ivP 139“140) If this Is true9 then death itself IS: not a fearful thing, and ManfredE s last words, /*Oid wan I ^ t is not ;so dlf f Idult to die c, ** are perfectly ; jUstifiedb^0 ; ■ i-'Ll t' ' / 1 - ' i- V % r r ' Another conclusion he seems to have made, in Cairo is . that If evil does exist9 it may be a means, of effecting good : : in the end0 For one. thingp ’’goodnessi} is known only by eon- . trast with its' ppposlte p y-’eyilo “ Without theone, we . could v not knowi o r at least perceives, the: ptheho ' Life, then, would

1 As Fairchild noted p. "The only salvation Or damnation : which can apply to him tioeoManfredl must be shaped by his own: mindo ” (Romantic Faith<, p 0 418 o ) :. ^°Manfred is Byron's most ringing denunciation of h@ll9 1 and its conclusion is a-magnificent one0 But he did.nots • , unfortunately 8: .hold to this for long, though he continued - In his denuhciations = In Cainn there is no doubt of Hell, / . It is fixedly therep dark .and eternalo In his later con­ versations with Kennedy and Barry, he may condSmn it as; - "wicked and Unjust9" but he does not reject9 explicitly, ^ its existence. The most, he,does is to deny the "eternity of hell punishment0 " (Kennedyp p 0 235o) ' • 1 , 60 e@ase to be one of growth (or degenerations as the case may be)9 since there could be no criterion or goalo When Cain

- ' Pi kills Abel9 he Is "stunned into anew sense of humanityo” He. finds himself 61 awake at last" « awakened from "a dreary • dream" '|whlcli|/Had. madden'd-8 him (1118 378-379») His great : ' sin was9 perhapss not so much the murdering of Abel- which ■ was but the climax of other sins - but the goading thirst for knowledge9 to which he had no rightP the ambitions and the egotistic- concern with his own insignificance after Lucifer had shown him the vastness of the universe= If one loses him­ self in the persistent dream of ambitIons he may eventually awake with a shock into the less elevated everyday8 mundane realityo Cain * s crime of ambition and dissatisfaction be­ gets crime6 These goading preoccupations were self-willed9 ands, to that extent9 his own responsibility0 If Cod allows such weaknesSg man need not give ih to it 9 and in this sense man is responsible for his crimes» Thus9 in Caln0 as in Manfredo there isg in: the end at least9 an implied freedom of'the willo .Only- by acknowledging such freedomP can Byron Og at the same time acknowledge man’s individual culpability0 • Still9 Cain9 like Manfreds both of whom are basically responsible

^Solomon Francis Gingerich9 Essays in the Romantic Poets9 chapter IVS ’"Byron” (Hew York, 192?) 9 P« 27P» . Op ■ " ■ For a fuller discussion of free-willa see page 6,6 ff= for their own crimesg must suffer the tortures of conscience and remorse = and more* Condemned to wander comfortless in the desertg he can never have peace in this life^ and he feels that God can never forgive him, as he cannot forgive himselfo His earlier defiance is changed to remorses M0h9 earth!81 h@ sighsP "For all the fruits thou hast rendered to mep l/G-ive thee back thiso M There may. be, then9 one pur* pose of crime to awaken man9 by contract g and to shock him into using his potentialities:for goods which all the more merits admirations in relation to the seriousness of - his misdemeanors« As Stopford Brooke maintainsg "Bin is the cloudy porch which opens into the Temple of Good? and if we do not sin ourselves9 others have sinn?d for us9 that we might know good as goodo

23"Byron's Gains M po 94= i, few years later he told Kennedy that it "is more consistent with the notions of our reason9 to believe-9 that if Sod9 for wise purposes9 . permitted sin to exist for a while9 in order9 perhaps, to bring about a greater good than could have been effected without itg that his goodness will be more strikingly: . manifestedg In anticipating the time when every intelligent creature will be purified from sin9 and relieved from misery and rendered permanently happy»88 . (Conversations on Relj*- 'glon•with Lord Byron9 pp0 221«222o) Though Gain"timidly askSg in the endg^But who hath dug that grave? "3 his own answer is implied in the following lines s "0h 9 earthI/For all the fruits thou hast rendered to me9 l/div© thee back thisow (Illg 542-544, ) 62

Part Two

.. One doctrine whieti Byron .never directly .denied was that .of Predestination, the,-Galvlnistlo dogma which says that everything a human being feelss saySs or does Is pre«= ' : destimed from the beginning0 There were several reasons • why the poet could not escape this/ One was attributable directly to his own nature® Often rash and #olerl% waveringr h between one mood and another despite his wills he.felts oftenP helpless in the things he said or dido Sometimes he would make a biting^ sarpastic remark and regret it al« most immediatelyo He would resolve to reform and. the next day do the same thing all over again® Because of these factors9 he admi tted to Kennedy § ' 11 o o 0 it appears to me9 just from my own_reflections and experiences9 that 1 am Influenced in a way which is incomprehensible9 and am led to do things which I never intended® ® » I have never entered into the depths of the subject* but contented myself with believing that there is a predestination of events* and that that pre- destination depends on the will of Go do81 ^ If* as he claims* he “never entered into the depths of the subject 9 rl the rea- ' son can only be that it was an; unpleasant and an upsetting one® His disawwalB of Christianity9 in his more defiant works* may or may not imply a disavowal of Predestination®

...... "—T - ^Kennedy* p® 189® ‘ • 63 The elosest he could come to denying the latter doctrine was in such a statement as that he made in Ghilde Harold (llgVili)s "Each hath his pang9 but feehle sufferers groano <> 0/Pursue what Ghanee or Fate prOolaimeth hesto84 inother traitg and even more Importantg which increased his "belief in Predestination9 was a hroodings, morbid sense of fatality^ Whether attrihutable directly to Sod or to, some such vague agent as fortune or destiny9 things * happened P ' Byron feltg hecause of-some fixed necessity0 This theme occurs again and again in his poetry and letters9 ahds in­ deed s is so recurrent that one esnnot escape the conclusion • that this fatalism was an. inherent part of his natureo $iLike Syllas,44 he writes in his diary 9 881 have always believed that all things depend upon Fortune9 and nothing upon our- s e l v e s * ^25 This conviction was partly responsible for his belief in fortune-tellerss though it is equally true that his superstitious leanings impinged upon It as well and tended to intensify those feelingsHothing is a coincidence to himp for whom all things are almost childishly considered . fated* Both in his letters and in his conversations he

-^Letters and Journals* volo V* p* 451* ^ "It had been predicted by Mrs* Williams9 11 he told ■Medwin^ ' "that twenty-seven was to be a dangerous age for me* The fortune telling witch was right; it was destined to p r o W so©" (Journal- of Conversations^, p 0 ST*) Other statements of this nature were made elsewhere^ . . 34 expressed wonder at the fact that hes his motherg his half* sisterp wife, daughter9 and natural daughter were eaeh an only childo MI can8t help thinking it was destined to he .sOo o o Finallyp his belief in may hare been given im* petus by his lack of confidence•and by a certain weakness ■ of character* For one thingp as Wayne Taylor pointed out9 he was able to excuse his own acts (and relieve his .feel* ings of guilt) by attributing them to fate»2® For another9 uncertainty and anxiety about himself9 the future9 etoo, may have been relieved by feelings that he himself had no* thing directly to do with them9 that all was in the hands of dodo In MarlhO Fall ere „ for instaneep the Doge finds Ma comfort in/The thoughts that these things are the work of Fateo o o o M (V9 '65*66o) . ,.Et is true that Marino Faliero8a thoughts are comforting ones in view of his approach* ing executiono His thoughts are comforting also because he himself has been vanquished by men of inferior powers whom he refuses to consider as'"more than instruments/Of an © 8errullng power0 85 (ibid., 71*72.) But some such thoughts may have been Byron8s as well. If he has suffered from human beingsp he too could derive comfort in the possibility that

^ rbldg P. 97. 1 !• ' ' '1'V ^ Byron8 s Religious Views With Special Reference to the Hebrew Melodies„ p. 57o .V ■ 65 ' those whom lie conslderea “worthless as the dusta/And weak as worthlessw were themselves no,more than “instruments/Of an overruling power» 0 o <,M In one of the major crises of his life during those last days of stress ooeasioned by Caroline Lamb9 he wrotel “As to taking care of myself9 that I must leave to Providence; there Is no guarding against : .her e0 Co Laml?|<=r I have done my best0!8^ Since there was little/ if anye absolute questioning of Predestination^ the problem was more a matter of question**- ing its nature o If Byron did waver on that matter^ his vacillations took the form of positive and negative attic? tudes toward it0 In the former moods/ his decision was that predestination is a “good thingp11 and he concluded that ' 30 everything happens for the besto Such considerations^ however» were rare9 and for the most'parts Byron felt that Predestination was some terrible trap prepared for men by a ruthless Cod « such9 at least s was his attitudeg specific cally9 toward the Calvin!stic dogmao In such a state? from youth to maturity9 his language is phrased in such words as

“dread decrees of f a t e g “31 the “deaf tyranny of Pates “ ^ "and

Byron Correspondence o vole la p 0 l66o „ . ' " ■ 3°"dod knows and does best for us all; at least9 so they sayp and I have nothing to object; as* on the whole@ 1 have . no reason to complain of my loto “ (letters and Journalss volt, Is P O JxlO 0 )

31 “On the Death of a Young L a d y * “ l 0 100 32 “Prometheus^ *• II* 1® 18 0 "overwhelming d o o m e, "53 If Manfred is "Fatal and fated in

thy sufferings" (II, iig 3 6 ), then so is all mankind, and that is the "tyranny" of fate I if man is fated to suffer, for what reason would a just God allow that? Depraved the human race may be, but even so, man was created thus0 Byron could find no answer to thisj and so he ragedo His poetry is saturated with meditations on fate and fatality,, Manfred, we have seen, was "fatal and fated," in his sufferings,, .The entire play centers on this consider a60 tiono From the entrance of the Seventh Spirit in the first scene of act one, through the cursethe scene with Astarte and the final triumphant conclusions the poet“s attention is. centered on the problem of Predestination and free will* For him, the very heart of the problem was the question of free will within predestination* During moments of pessimism, he concludes that man has no free will at all* Like the Doge in The Two Fas car in he feels that 88 => „ nothing rest s/Upon our will, the will itself no 1@as/Depends upon a straw than on a Stormj/And when we think we lead, we are most led9/And ;still towards death* = * o" (ll9 i, 358-362o) But Byron ' the egoist, the fierce individualist, could never for long hold to this conclusiono He would defy it at all costed

- 53iiHeaYerL Earthsw ' (lfl ii, lo 67=) : . ' 54nKor to slumber, nor to die,/Shall be in thy destinyo 89 (I9 1 » 254=2550.) ' • . : . ■ . ^Prometheus11 was his first major tackling of the problem^ wherein he concluded that despite destinyp the 11 spirit may oppose/itself =» and equal to all woess/And a firm will , = o make Death a Victory,11 (111$, 53=59o) Such .a conclusion was also the one he arrived at in Manfreds and it is indeed probable that “Prometheus9 N composed a very short time be­ fore the former, was the direct forerunner and intellectual prototype of Manfred0 in which0 as Gountess Guiccloli" says, the poet pointed out, "our right of judgment81 and “liberty of thoughtp and hence our moral responsibility®'1-'^® Manfredp thou#i fated, was a being of tremendous will and power. Able to control the spirits of the nether worlds he defied their scorn and compelled them to his will a .Great as the power of these spirits was9. Manfred maintained,, and indeed showed9 that "the Promethean sp^rks/The lightning of my beingg is as bright9/Pervading9 and far darting as your own,/And shall not yield to yours, though cooped in clay*11 (I, 1, 154-157® ) . In the end, he pitted his powers against the very legions of hell, against his own hellish “genius,88 and won® It was thus that ByrOn maintained the victory of will over destiny| it was here that he asserted the dignity of spirit over the powers of fate and mortality® Gain itself is something of'an enigma on this point, for the protagonist, though crying out against the tyranny

®®My Recollections; of Lord Byron® volo I, p® -216® : - 68 : .:f of an unjust Jehovahp who can predestine His creatures to do evil and then condemn them for it? is forced in the end to admit his own .eulpahilityo If it is trues as he him- self admits^ that his amhitions and the crime itself stemmed . from {!this stern hlood of mine88 (lilp 559) 9 then he owns the fault as partly his0 His brother could perhaps fbrgire him for being "what I am9 # but Jehovah cannot <> Gain admits his

own. culpability when he cries out to the earth that for all its beauty and all "the fruits thou hast renderrd ing of desolation9 a question unanswered9 and unlikely to be otherwiseo If such was the case9 then 8,Prometheus68 and Man­ fred were only brief flashes of light in the of

his dilemma9 and we must dolefully concludes with Marjarum9 • . ' ' . 69 that 81 It seems unlikely . » 0 that Byron ever arrived at any solution of the old dilemma implied "between the doc­ trines of predestination and free-willo = = » And If Manfred did overleap his destinys if he did control the powers around him "by his - will 9 it is also true that he stood alone from the rest of the world in that respect 9 and he remains one• whos in ‘’knowledgeg68 “powerss u and 8Swill9 88 as well as in "aspirations" is “beyond the dwellers of the eartho“ The significance of his achievement applies to man only in that such a victory is possible# The question Is* how probablef Then9. toog Manfred®s very triumph is lessened in the mystery of his ultimate fateo If Manfred8s last words are9 “Old man.I rtis not so difficult to die9 M it is also true that the Abbot ° s last words9 and the very last words of the play9 are s “He8s gone - his soul hath ta$en its ©arthless flight|/Whither? I drbad to think - but he is gone0n After Manfred0 Byron sinks back into doubt0 : He can only question9 like Cain9 the injustice of it all| he can only ask “who dug that grave?“

^^Byron as Skeptic and Believer0 p 0 9= Part Three If Byron8s morbid sense of fatality can be said to have ^ increased his belief in predestination,, then his melancholy tendency toward misanthropy may be said to be equally respond sible for his acceptance of the doctrine of mania depravityo This misanthropy, though it may, #s Dallas claims,'have led "to scepticism and impiety, iUT was also partly responsible for his inability to reject Oalvlnism, since, as I have ale ready pointed out, it Increased his fears that Oalvin may have been righto He told Kennedy near the end of his life that "Of the wickedness and depravity of human nature, I have no doubto o o ol have seen too much of it in all classes of .societyo ;» « oM- At times, his condemnation of man is indeed terribleo His hatred

of cant and hypocrisy, arising, especially from; the -Smug dhristian attitude toward hell,59 leads him to write in the margin of

^ R e c ollections of the life of Lord Byron™ p6 61 o ^^dQnversa,t 1 ons on Religion with Lord Byron, pc 139»

^ % i s indignation against this smug attitude is expressed again and again (and often with unconcealed contempt}, '.espe­ cially in his satireso A few examples are not out of place here § "Shall man .condemn hi s. race to hell,/Unless they bend in pompous formf o l = Shall those, who live for self alone,/ Whose years, float on in daily, crime = /Shall they by Faith for guilt atone,/And live beyond the bounds of Timef" ("The Prayer of Hature," 110 21*®22j 33~36), "Their throats were ovens, their swo1 tn:tongues were black,/As the rich manrs in hell, who vainly scream8 d/To beg the beggar e, = o/A drop of dew I, o =, >- If this be true, indeed,/Some Ghrlstians have a comfortable" creed" (Don Juan, 11, Ixxxvl) , "I know this is- . unpopular ; I know/ ^Ti s blasphemous; I know one may - be damn®d/ For hoping no one else may e 8er be so" (Vision of Judgment„ stanza xiVci) v . • - . : ; ; 7i Ruffheaals Life of Pope that mankind is RA malignant race with Christian.ity in their mouths and Molochism in their hearts« ' And in his poetry9 men are “reptiles, grovelling .

■ 41 ■ ' ' ■ . on the ground,M derived from a “Degraded mass of animated dust I “^2 go "corrupt by power1- are they, so merciless in

their thirst for death and destruction, that Byron can find

no better epithet for mankind than "That loathesorae volume" whose heart, and brain are mere "black and bloody leaves"^ which conceive but "brain~born dreams of evil all their own. In the poet9s very laughter is; a bitter sarcasm as serious as it is humorous. And though we may laugh at his amusing picture of the recording angel stripping off "both his wings. in quills,/And yet was in arrear of human ills9 we are soon sobered by the realization that Byron was, at he art 9 quite serious e ./■ ' ■ But, oddly enough, this is the same poet who in

^Quoted by the Rev, James F, Hodgson in his Memoirs * vol, . I,9 'pp0 100“101o ^"The Prayer of Mature," lo 31o r : 7 4p - . ' • " , v ; - i "Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog," 1= l8 e ^ The Two Tbscari (II, 1, 110 35 and 36,) ^ ■Ohilde Haroldgs Pilgrimage, II, vii, lo 5= Vision of Judgment a III, 11= 7a8o . . ■ 72 58Proineth©ua s 88 Manfred„ and Oal&^ and In other wo rks;5 upholds the dignity and no hill ty of the human rae@o It may he ar=» gued that in such works only the hero and heroine shine forth in such a light; it may also be argued that most of Byron1'© heroes are guilty of some terrible9 nameless crime for which they themselves are unforgiving = But even soif these heroes are superior in other respects to the massess if they are ^greater than ^thei^ kind911 ■ it is nevertheless true that Byron-g who could at one and the same time scorn the masses yet throw himself whole-heartedly in their de* fensSg conceived of mankind in two lights. On the one side^ man is; a creature of "clayM and "dust, " unworthy of being called humang inferior to the faithful dog who will defend his master to the Very end! oh the other sidej, matt is also a spiritual creatureP capable of "high thought “ and contain­

ing "that spark of celestial fire which illumines j, yet burns s 6 . '7 - this frail tenement o48- These conditions exist on both the psychological and the religious planep In the former$> man.8s thoughts and acts, may be of the lowest form of degradations or he may be responsible for works and deeds of the highest

dignity and worth0 In the latter^ his bodyp a."frail tene­ ment 48 of dust and elay@ is almost worthless! is the cause of numerous griefs and even atrocities! decomposes into atoms after deathc His soulp however9,is eternal! it is the im­ petus to great deeds and works of arto After death9 it exists "t V V ’ ' . : ' .■ \ ■ ■ ^ Letters and JournalSp volo Ilj, p0 3.52o ' ' in a pure, and beautiful state, passionless, indestructible^ Depending on his mood, Byron emphasizes one or the other of these planeSo His attitudes on this point may he divided into three stages t I) the concern with pure MELay<>M which is "degraded,11 which decomposes after death, and which has ho "Material resurrection"!’ 2 ) the concern with pure spirit, which is "all formless =• but divine"; 3 ) his concern with the juxtaposition of, and conflict between, the twoa These three attitudes are, of course, very closely allied to his attitudes toward immortality, which is like- wise dividable into three stagess; l) a near denial of immortality; 2 ) a; skeptical, questioning attitude which neither denies nor accepts, and a tendency to consider man®s immortality as existing in his works and deeds alone; 3 ) a positive belief in the immortality of the soul, ex­ pressed as a preferred belief0 The word "clay" appears in Byron8s works about 98 times, and the wc^rd "dust" is used about an equal number of times*® Having derived them from the Bible and from the Calvinistic concept of man's creation from a mass of corruption, Byron takes these words to himself and makes them his ownc. He 1 uses them in a variety of ways8 to emphasize man's material nature! to taunt him with his mortality; to point out his

Rainwater, pQ 74 gro-sa and beastly natures or merely' to remind him of his frailtya They are used to represent his material exist" enee9 his bodyp his limitations^ instability* and perish* ability = are responsibles in shorty for his “most gross and petty paltry wants$,/All: foul and fulsome, » , ■ 6 He uses them sometimes contemptuously9 sometimes dolefully0 If the Bible has the word "flesh" to symbolize manrs bodily9 mundane> sinful wants9 Byron has the word "clay11 to sym* bolize the destructiveness and destructibleness of the human species, . He never flatly denied the immortality of man9 but he camep at "times, close to it. In Chllde Harold. II, for in* stance, he ponders, Hamlet^like, on an empty skull and wonders. "Is that a temple where a God may dwellf/Why ev 6n the worm at last disdains her shattered cell1/Look on its broken archy its ruin’d wall, .= 6/0an all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ/People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?" (verses V and Tl), This consideration was most important during the transitional stage of his poetry, the period of the Cambridge days and, later, of the first two cantos of Child© Harold, when, "as the belief in a personal survival weakened, he tended more and more to entertain

480aln (lip ip 54-550) 75 the; idea that, death would "be followed' by extinctions ^49 attitudej, though it re-=ocourred occasionally later,, he grad«- ually toned down afterwards» By no meansg however, did he completely abandon'., it* In The Two FQ.scari for instance, Marina describes death to her.husband as a state in which 8,we shall/Be ignorant of eadh o.there • = = .11 (HI,.. 42-^3), and in Sardanapalus he concludes that l$the worms are gods0 M But this consideration.was usually short"liveda and by 1814 he was ready to write the Hebrew Meiidieso - . He could never completely abandon his belief in the soul, which he Identified with the mind and .which manifested it“ self in man8s conscience, as well as in his works and "deeds of worths 61 As has been said before, he never fully accepted . death as annihilation, though he did at times express exas^ perated yearnings for it» His early training, however, and his poetic sentiment, drew him toward belief in a spiritual counterpart to the body • - the' soul« "My restlessness,88 he wrote in his journal of 1813, when his strongest antagonism toward religion had worn off, "tells me that I have something 8within that passeth showo8 It is for Him who made it, to

^Marjarum, p0 38o This is the period when he was writing to Dallas (Jan0 21, 1808) that he believed “death an eternal sleep, at. least of the bodyo83 (Letters and JournalSo vol0 ,1, p 0 173o) That his misanthropy was at least an added impetus to his expressed rejection of im^ mortality is indicated by this statement in a letter to Ensign Long, written about the time of his entrance into Cambridge# ° "o , > all the virtues and pious Deeds per^ formed on Earth can never entitle a man to Everlasting hap™ piness in a. future State«w (lbid0, vol0 21 , .p0 19 |foot= note3)0 f " ' ' .prolong that spark of celestial fire0 0 „ . =MJ . • But if man does have a soul? it eontrasts strangely with his physical counterpart «- the body, this piece of clay which.vies strongly with it, tending to overwhelm and sink the spirite^^ Man, from this point of view, is a, being ’"half dust, half deity, alike unfit/fo sink or soar,*1^ a creature t8eoop8d in clay" and yet "in part divine»/& ' T" ' - ' " “V. . troubled stream from a pure sourceo " These two forces clash with each other, each one at times dominant over the othero As if analyzing himself, he finds in Manfred that "our mix1d make/A conflict of its elements, and breathe/The breath of degradation and of pride,/Contending with low wants and lofty will,/Till our mortality predomi==

.nateso * * »" (I, ii, 4l«-45o;) In his calmer, more sentimental moods, however, he admits that he is more.partial toward the soulo^^1" As for the resurrection of the soul, that is another

^ Letters and Journals, volo .II, ppo 351-3520 Four years later, he wrote to Moores "One certainly has a soul, • but how it came to allow itself to be enclosed in a body is more than I can imagine»" (Ibido a vol., IV, p» 102o ) ^ Childe Harold ?s Pilgrimage o Canto III, verse xiv® - ^%anfredo I, 41, 40^41, • ; • . . .

^"Prometheus/ 8 III, 4V^48w : 54(1% own my partiality for Spirit," he wrote in his diary, for 1821,. the. Detached Thoughts» (Letters and Journalsf, volo V, p 0 458,) : . 77

iaattero There may be no resurrection at all - -i«..©©' the spiritual part may disintegrate with the body in which ease man is immortal only in so far as he can create great works which will live after him0 This attitude, was strongest during the period of Cantos 1 and II of Childe Harold» :: W© n 9, mo st skeptical s. he was still unwilling to drop en­ tirely the matter of immortalityo He compromises with him­ self then and exemplifies this conclusion by the poetess Sappho9 whose “verse immortal” reserved true Immortality for herself - an earthly immortality of "well^recorded Worth” s “That only Heaven, to which Earth8 s children may aspire” (Canto Il9 xxxixo)^ Hot only his works may earn immortality for him; history has shown that his deeds may also live after him. If Byron8s own poetry passed out of existences, then perhaps the memory of his labours on behalf of Italian and Greek independence would live on. His ex- . pressed concern for .action and “deeds of daring’9 over the writing of poetry may have been motivated more by a desire to be remembered as a man of action. One recalls his admir­ ation for Washington9 Kosciuskos, and Napoleon9 and wonders whether he did not envy as well as admire.them. At any rate®

^Byron did not entirely drop this concept after the period 1811-1812. It occurs .later* though less prominently and less sarcastically. See* for instance* his “Monody on the Death of The Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan” ■ - ■ “the enduring produce of immortal Mind68 (1. 107) - and Canto IV of Childe Harold - “The Beings of the Mind are not of clayj/Essentially immortal* they create/And multiply in us a brighter ray/And more beloved existence0 . P 0 M (verse v 9 11 o 1-4. ) . - : : . . to . .lie was convinced that Mfhey never fall who dle/ln a great . eause0 0 o <> Astutely»_ Byron recognizes that one reason for man8s belief In Immortality arises from an innate revulsion toward . the prdspeot of annlhi1at!on« - From earliest times men have striven for recognition and remembrance both during their lifetimes and after0 The very existence of the grave™stone and epitaph' is a pro dp ot of this ambition^ Mankind'8 s eonoeptioD of immortality9 Byron feelss is also due to the rigours of this Ilfe9 for men '-must have something to look forward to in. the morrow of the futures so unsatisfying is the today of the present»88^ - -

The most suooinot expressions of Byron8s skepticism, are to be found In Don Juan0 especially in Ganto XIV9 verse ill “For me9 I know nought| nothing I denyg/Admit9 rejects con- temn» and what know you/Except perhaps that you were bora to diet Yet even there he expresses the possibility that MAn age may come9 Font of Eternitys/When nothing shall be either old or new o'8 As for the question of immortality 9 he will not, in such a mood, admit anythingI yet the constant recurrence of his expressed concern with death and the pos­ sibility of an after-life implies9 perhaps, more than.he was

56Marlno FalierQo II, 11, 95-94. ^Blessington, p 0 187Q Bhrewdlyg he remarks that "The belief in the immortality of the soul is the only true pan a- / eea for the ills of lifeo" (lblda n loc* cito) 79 ■willing to admit = perhaps more than he was aware of0 Again and again he ponders the problem to see 11 if I could wrench aught out of death,s (Ganto verse xxxviii)s but his philo­ sophic temperament obliges him to admit that it is “all a mystery* . Here w© are9/And there we go s *■ but where# (Ganto Vp verse xxxix*) Pinally@ he summarizes his skepti­ cal position,thus in his diary Detached Thoughtsg “It. has been said that the immortality of the soul is a grand peut-etre « but still it is a grand one*. Every body clings to it '» the stupidest p and dullest $ and wickedest of human bipeds is still persuaded that he is immortal* As I have already said, Byron's, skeptical mind9 unable' to accept complete annihilation^ compromises on the im=»; mortality of man's works and deeds * But this is not fully satisfyingp either* And so, he turns to the mind itself as proof of immortality* There is first of all the existence . of a conscience, Which, as Countess Guiccioli pointed out, 60 convinced him in his youth of the immortality of the soul© This conviction, though intermittently supplanted by other

5®0nce more, his conclusion seems to dissatisfy him, and he adds § " ' J' “And is this blood, then, form'd but to be shed# Gan. every element our elements mart . ; And air^earth^water-fire live «* and we dead? We3 whose minds comprehend all things* Ho more *“ Such was the ByroniO conflict* . " 59iietters and journals* vol* V,' pp* 186-187* My Recollections of Lord Byron* vol* I, p* 215* She is probably referring to the period preceding his entrance into Gambridge* . . : ; - : : v . • v v 80 ; creeds9 never remained for-gotteno He later claimed that con­ science was ‘’proof of the Divine Origin of Man” and ; that ”Wiatever creed he taught, or land be trod3/Man’s conscience is the .oracle of Ood,Then9 too9 there is the intellect and the wondrous workings of the minds which he often regards not only as; proof of divinity hut as synonymous with the soul itself® He meditates on this quite often® “Of the immor= tality of the Souls ” he wrote in his’ diary of 1821 g t!it ap­ pears to me that there can be little doubt9 if we attend for a moment to the action of Mind® = » - «• I used to doubt of its but reflection has taught me better0“ ■ And in his poetry too he took up the matter6 fhe - “immortal mlnd9“ he writess is bound to the body in this, existences but. after- wardss it “leaves its darken’d dust behind®“ Where'it goesg one cannot say for sure 9 but it mays a la Dante9 “trace/By steps each planet8s heavenly way“ or "fill at one© the realms of space® In such a state9 there will be self awareness9 and what here on earth are mere momentary gleams of immor­ tality will there be the fullness and purity of immortality

6lThe Island® Canto If vi, 11. 123“124o ^ Letters and Journals0 vol® V® pp® 456-457a Further ons he meditates® ."How far our future life will be. indi— vidualg 0rp rathers how far it will at all resemble our .present existence9 is another questions but that the Mind is eternalo seems as probable as that the body is not so®“ "VJhen Coldness Wraps This Suffering Clay, " Ip 11 o. 4 and To ; ; : :; ;. ■ . . ■ ' ■ itselfs) "less dazzling, but more, warm,11 the soml existing purely as a "bodiless thoughto In neither Manfred nor Cain is there any direct question**

ing of immortality-o'. As Rainwater points out P "the idea per­ sists throughout the drama' [Manfred^ that ?the mindo 0,: 0is immortalManfred8s summoning and control of the spirits, the appearance, of Astarte, his concern whether she "will be /One of the blessed,:" his struggle with his "genius-" « all confirm here the poet8 s unquestioning attitude toward the existence of an immortal it y0 . After the publication of Gain, perhaps his greatest drama, Byron ceaselessly pointed but that "fhere is nothing against the immortality of the soul in CainP" He was quite justified In this statemento "I hold no such opinions9 he added9 but , though he may have been sincere then, he seems to have conveniently forgotten his expressed skepticism toward immortality earlier© In Cainn however, he clearly speaks of the mind, not alone in its existence, but even more.specifically in its daring defiance and questioning attitude,. which are "the thoughts of all

/Worthy of thought," as the manifestation and indication of

^Chllde Harold8 s Pilgrimage# Canto XIIn verse Ixxiv, ll6 ffVS# He considers a' ^material resurrectionw to be "strange and even absurd, except for purposes of punishment =" (Guiccioli, p0 215#) And that is probably one reason why its possibility was repellent to him# 5g . ' . -■ ' Lord Byron $ A Study of the Development of His Phllo« s o ^ s p# 28= ■ : - ■ ^Letter to Thomas Moore, Feb# 20, 1822# Letters and JournalSo vol# VI, p# 23= . '' ' ■ 8 2 immortality,, the reflection of 8your Immortal part/ifhleh speaks within yotio M (I, . 102-104») ^ Lueifer assures the very man he had taunted with the word ^mortal” that he cannot all die'j,- that part of him must live on eternally {Xls 19 71-72e ) He' then shows him the dark realms of hell a,s fur­ ther proof of the existence of another worid= Byron here expresses no doubts as to the existence of hades9 but his protagoniBt?; Gain9 clearly expresses his own attitude s S’0M, GodI I dare not think on !t! Gursed be/H© who invented life that leads to death®®' If these lines are blasphemous9 they are nevertheless iri his protest against Galvlnism the courageous expression of. one of those few Msouls who dare use their immortality - /Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant In/His everlasting face., and tell him that/His evil is not g o o d ! ;

67I9 137“140o 83

Part Pour

We have seen that Byron8 s concept of God was primarily Ohristian^HehraiCs, and therefore theistle0 But it was a darkened by the Oalviriistic interpretation in which he had been indoctrinated from childhoods and which was repugnant to a mind of his morbid and melancholy tendency9 which sought beauty and light as relief and escape. But because of his peculiarly susceptible and suggestible nature9 he could not disregard or throw off these teachings entirely«, It was naturalg therefore, that the poet would seek other systemso His reading Of the skeptics and of the deists led him for a while into a deistlc philosophy which he maintained off and on over a long periods but which he could not steads fastly hold to partly because of his poetic need for a feel-V. ing of union with a personal God, Such a feeling was not only poetically necessary for himp but philosophically and psychologically as wellp,since belief in a personal God tended to relieve his neurotic feelings of insufficiency and give greater confidence by believing that God over-saw and . gullied all things (ef» his linesP 11 Thou who eanst mark the sparrow8 s fall, , ,Thou % who canst guide the wandering star, and that God was - therefore spiritually present with (and within) him. It was only when: the belief in a personal God

6 8 he Prayer of Mature,11 11 s 7 and 410 swerved toward Calvinism9 wherein he saw God as an Avenger (for9 if he held the one Christian concept of G-od, he was eventually drawn toward the other)3 that he sought relief "by defying or denying. And so he embraced^, at various timess the doctrine of deismg which accepts the existence of a God who transcends reality and who ignores this world and the beings' of his creation^ The obvious advantage- of this doc­ trine was that it removed the possibility of an avenging G-odg but at the same time it removed the possibility of a personal God with whom one could establish any sort of union. Byron"s own letters and poetry9 as well as his re­ corded conversations with others ^indicate that 9 though he may have returned to deism from time to time9 he could never maintain it for any length of time9 with the exception of - the Cambridge period and a few years after. He told Count G-amba that "He made no disguise of the difficulties which he found in admitting.the doctrine of a God, Creator of the world, and entirely distinct from it, but he added,:SI pre« fer even that mystery to the contradictions by which: other systems eiideavour to replace it0fH^ It is nevertheless true, however, that Byron often professed to others, such as Lord Harringtong that he was a deist. Countess G-uiccioli quotes a letter from a certain Mr. Finlay addressed to Lord Harrington, wherein the former maintains that he Mnever once

^Quoted;by Countess Guiccioll. My Recollections of Lord Byron, vol. I, p. 177o > / ;■/ ■' 85 heard him opemly profess to he a Beist0 If the Gountess and Hr0 Finlay had their doubts9 they would have had them answered could they have seen this letter from Byron to Ensign liOngg dated ipril 16, 1807% Sli have Ii"fed. a Deist, what I shall die I know not0 o pantheism> I say "poetic pantheism” because the system he adopted, though perhaps originally de­ rived from Spinoza, was much closer to Wordsworth8 s, was, indeed, evidently influenced by .him* A distinction should be made between philosophic pantheism and poetic pantheism of the Wordsworth-Byron type =, Pantheism is itself generally classified into two divisions° (the more usually held philosophic approach) and paheoSmism0 The former is the

7QIbido0 vol6 lo Po 209e ^•^hetters and -' Journals@ vol * II, p* 19o view '&coordlng to which "the unlirerae.» as known to human experienceg possesses no reality in itself9 but is dependent upon9 or Is a manifestation of9 an underlying real being which is Godo According to some philosophers^ reality as we see it is the last of several stages descending from the infinite essence of God and is therefore least pure or es* / sentialp and is9 ,tii ''comparison with the essence of ultimate realityp mere illusiono It is not inconsistent with acos=- mismo which is5 according to Garvies a form of theistlc philosphy9 to state that God not only emanates reality but 73 that he transcends it as well = 0 „ On the other hand9 Pancosmlsm is a purely material pantheism maintaining no transeendence = It is the view according to which "the world is conceived as a unity and God is lost, in the world =65 This is primarily an atheistic philosophy in which "the & € O S *7 A becomes but a name for the unity of the world* % Acosmlsmq when its theistlc implications are carried further9 becomes the. poetic pantheism of Wordsworth and .Byrbns a philosophy which? strictly, speakings is a form of

^^Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics0 James Hastings9 edo (Mew York9 1917-1924) s vol J 1XS p 0 609o 8?0 = =• there still survives as a rule a vague apprehension of God as the- ism conceives Him=> «> o „M 73xbldo $, loco cito The "divine natureo = o ‘ possesses an infinite number of attributes9 and so he :|i0e0 , Spinossj. asserts the transcendence by God as He is of the world as we kno w it> " 74lbido panenthelsm-o in which God is a unity' enclosing the worlds : 1 hut superior to it0 It is the view9 according to whichp God ;Nls neither the world;, nor yet outside the world;, but o ;o o the world is in him, and « = e he extends beyond its limltso*^ Byronss poetic pantheism is a mixture of the two in that the world is a manifestation (and immanence)

of God, but God Himself maintains his Oim independent be= ingo -According to Pace, the pantheist God is not a tsper*

sonal beingo H# is not an Intelligent Gause of the world, • designing, creating, and governing it in accordance with the

' free determination of his wisdom° Byronss pantheism, however, does not imply such a Godo His pantheism seems to be of the type whiehg according to Havens, is basically acceptahle to orthodox Christianityg a phllosphy in which the immanence of God does not deny His transcendence - 81His . existence apart from the universe and his freedom from depen-? dence on it a

^ Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology« James Mark Baldwin," ed» (New~?ork"9" 1911)7 vol0 IIg p 0 255o ^^Edward A= Face, MFantheisms w The Oatholic Encyclo^ paedia, Charles G» Herbermann §€ alo, ed0 (Hew York, 1907- 1912) $. volo XI, po 449= Father-Face makes no distinction between aeosmism and pancosmism =" though his discussion seems to refer primarily to the latter=

^Raymond Dexter Havens = The Mind of a Foet i A Study of Wordsworth8s Thought with Particular Reference to The Prelude TBaltimbre9 1941), p= ISS'o As Mr» Garvje (Encyclopaedia of Religion and ;‘n vol= IX, p= 612) states § "We must hot call pantheism the sense which poets have had of Gdd8s pre63 sence in nature = = = = a vivid sense of God in nature may lead to a poetic pantheism=n 88 There can be little doubt that Byron8s love of nature was as'sincere as it was intenseo Even if he did express his relief in seeking the solitude of nature after too much human society it is equally true^ howeverg that his nature was such that he could not have been happy for long without

some human association =>' P X doubt that this love, of nature .-was a pose, though he may have been somewhat theatrical in M s emphasis on nature as superior to society0 Certain as^ pects of nature were conducive to stimulating his sentiment■= alisnu Her wild moods may have aroused his fiercer poetic tempestuqusness j but her calmer moods evolsed Byron8 s more sentimental feelings, which in turn evoked sentimental re­ ligious expressionSo -"A fine day, a moonlight night, or any other fine Object in the phenomena of nature, excites » o strong feelings of religion in all elevated minds, and an outpouring of the spirit to the Creator, that, call it what we may, .is the essence of innate love and gratitude to the

Divinityo These sentimental religious feelings, when interfused with the. successive Spinoza«Wordsworth«0helley. , influences, w## to become a kind of mystic poetic pantheism which inspired some of Byron8s best lineso His earliest pan- the!stie expression, if it can really be called that, appears in The Prayer of Mature, in which the poet rejects man-made temples in favor of nature8s »

^Quoted by Lady Blessington, p 0 106» 89 Shall man,, confine his maker1 s: sway - • To Gothic domes of mouldering stonef Thy temple is the face of days Earth* ocean9 heaven* thy boundless throne* Nature is not yet expressly conceived as an immanence of Gods,, rather it is merely a manifestation (or evidence) of His existence and of His lawss79 Italian sky speaks to

■ O A the poet of heaven* the ocean mirrors the presence of God*®*®- and the sun becomes His shadowo®^ These exampless though not chosen chronologically* and though the first two were written well into the period of pantheistic fervor* may nevertheless illustrate the steps by which his pantheism finally emerged» Nature is first conceived as the manifesta® tion of God8s existence and of His laws ^ in which case the various aspects of nature may be said to speak to the poet of God„ to remind him of His existenceo The next step is that in which nature becomes a mirror of Go do And finally* it becomes an immanation of God* The sun* once worshipped by the "noble savage" as the true "material God*" is now seen as the "shadow of God*" possibly referring to the stages of descent * as the world is revealed to our eyes* from the glorious essence of its ultimate nature to. the reality which

7^"Thy laws in Nature f s works appear*66 "The Prayer of Nature*"lo 38= ^ Child® Harold1s Pilgrimage0 IV„ oxxix* I* 1*

Ibid <. t, 1¥* clxxxiilg 11* .1-2* . . '

' ' 82 : - ' ' ’ ■■ , , ■ - : - .Manfred* III* ii* 1* 16* 90 we see » a mere shadow of its originalo Byron's pantheism, besides its mystic implications in aehieving ■union or oneness with the great whole =» ultimate™ lyg of courses in the identification of nature with deitys achieving union with the Godhead “ is also part of that poetic need for self~expansfono By mingling his spirit with that of the universe? his soul expands into an all-pervading fusion p-ith naturep and the poet becomes Portion of that around me0 It is a comfort to him to find affinity with the greater aspects of nature9 and so he asks9 “Are not the mountainsp waves9 and skiess a part/Of me and of my soul9 as 1 of themfIn such moments of intimate self-expansion,, the poet was probably happiest§ certainly most contento He doffs the passionateg restlessg sensational side of his characters and* in almost ecstatic mysticism9 mingles "with the- skys the peaks the heaving piain/Of oceans or the starsa •. Though he may mingle with the universes and though allg to himp may appear to "spring from the great Whole?"85 there is no explicit expression of God and nature as one» The implication may be there9 but for the most part? he con* tents himself with expressing his pantheistic views of nature as a "sense/Of that which is of all Oreator® .« His

^ Ghjld® Harold9s Pilgrimage* III? Ixxii9 lo 2o Xbido <, Ills Ixxvp llo 1~20 , , ' • Q^Pon Juano canto 1IIS ciVo _ ; ^^Ohilde Harold1s Pilgrimagea Ganto III9 Ixxxixo ; ; \ ■ .■ ■ . . 91 fervid love of nature is such that9 Wordsworth^like;, he for a .time entertains a kind of nature-animism0 In The Island he one© more describes the mystic thrill of mingling with nature^ of losing himself in the *great ifhole911 and of r©*= spending to "the intense/Reply of hers jjL@o nature8 s] to our intelligence” (Ganto I9 verse xvi9 ll.o 384*385)o In his enthusiasm9 he sees into the very spirit of the universe9 and,• carrying the pantheistic expression of God in nature to its ultimate9 asks» "Live not the stars and mountainst Are the waves/Without a spirit?11 One© again the mystic experience is felt and expressedg % . 0. ■>/ they woo and clasp us to r . their spheress/Bissolve this clog and clod Of clay before /its .hours and merge our soul in the great shore" (110 389s* 391) o The ultimate of all we can, know of heaven here on earth is achieved* The mystic union having been felt and expressed9 the poet is content and, drops back into the everyday world of spoiety and men* From this pointg we hear no more of pantheistic fervour-o^ '

^Gritics have noted the fact that Byron8s pantheism drops out after 1817o Marjarums for InstanceP says that "After 18179 his pantheism was no longer pure or active*", (Byron as Skeptic and Believer* p* 64=) The above^quoted lines from The Island* however9 show that this was hot en= t.irely true* Indeed, more of such expressions might have appeared afterwards had not the poet died within a year after the composition of the poem0 ‘ : . Part Five

Because of his hatred of Calvinism-, and because belief in Christ would have meant9 tohim3 an acceptance of Gal­ vin! sm9 Byron rejected the doctrine of Christ’s divinity ' At times he came close to accepting Christ’s Godhood, but he never went all the wayo The nearest he came to it Was in these two statements he made in later years s 61 If ever God was man ™ or man God he was both9 and "What proved Jesus Christ the Son of God hardly less than his '? Bis moral precepts*"^ The first statement is obviously not an unequivocal embracing of Christ’s divinity, and the second statements though^ it may seem like a more direct avowal, is not necessarily to be taken as such* One must consider that Byron, writing with the public in mind, was trying to prove the superiority of didactic poetryo It was natural that he should appeal to the public’s (and the Rev1 Bowies8 s) belief in Christ to point out the Biblical refer-® ence to ethics0 His argument is that if ethics made Socrates "the first of men,11 and. if God Himself made it "an adjunct to his Gospel," then its importance in poetry cannot be underestimated;, Me must remember, however, that Byron was

88pootnote to verse xviii. Canto XV, of Don Juano ^Published letter to Murray on the Pope controversy, letters and Journals, vol, V, p, 554= 93 closely drawn toward Catholicism at this tlme9 partly be­ cause of the Italian Influence,, and that In this respect he may have considered more seriously Christ % s divinity0 He appears, at any rate* to have had much esteem for the moral teachings of Christ, an esteem closely, related to the moral side of his nature» Thus9 he speaks of 89the liberal prln® clples of Ohrlstlanltyg what Ohrlst taughtwhich to him was Inconsistent with the doctrine of hell-fire0 But Byron could never deny to himself, nor to anyone else, that Christ did preach the immanence of hell to worldly transgressors, that one was in danger of such punishment even if he called his brother !,raeaM (fool) or if he so much as looked at a woman lustfullyo Byronfs misanthropy, too, played a part in M s reject 91 tion of Chrlstlanity» Man, he feels, has not changed at all since the crueifixiPni: of Christo If Christ had been

God, then man surely would, have been made wiser and greater by such a sacrlficeo Instead-^ he finds that ,%an is the same rancorous beast now that he was from the beginning, and if the Christ they profess to worship re-appeared, they would again crucify hlm'o , He was troubled by the doctrine that

-^Quoted by Parry,, p., 208»

^ " I f I do not at 'present place implicit faith in tradi tion and revelation of any human creed, 118 he wrote imabella in 1813, "I hope it is not from want of reverence for the Ore at or but the created* =. 0 *,s. (Letters and Journal s, volo III po 403=) ^Quoted by Bo JV Trelawny, Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron (London, 1858), P= 63o 94 those who had nevery heard of Ghrlst were automatically doomed, if not to hells, "then to limboo If such had been the dictum of the true G-od, then He would have made His son8s divinity known immediately to the whole woridWay should a wicked Christian be sanctified* he asks? and an ignorant savage = . even if saintly - be damned? And so he concludes that t8a .

good pagan will go to heavenP and a bad Hazarene to h e l l * -*94 If it were true that non^Ohristians could not go to heaven, then /’why are not all men Christians?58 Since all-men are not Christiansn and since such a dogmatic supposition by the priesthood that non^Christians are condemned is unfair, and9 in the endj, unethical, his final conclusion is? If mankind may be saved-who never heard or dreamt, at Timbuctpoj, Otahectet, P 0ete0 s of C-aXilee and its ■ Prophet9 Christianity is of no availI if they cahnot be saved without9 why are not all orthodox? It is a little hard to send a man preaching to Judaea, and leave the rest of the"world - Eegers and what not - dark as their complexions, without, a ray of light . for so many years to lead them"on highj and who will believe that God will damn men for not knowing what they were never taught?95 Another question that bothered the poet was that of the ncrubifikiono. He had already shown, especially in Gain, his feelings of repugnance toward any kind of sacrifice,,, To

o 0 had He £'ioe.e God] come or sent9 [He] would have made •Himself mahifestdo nations, and intelligible to allo88 ((Letters and Journals3 volo IIn pp* 22-23. )

9^Letters and Journals0 volp XI, p* 21* 95ibido, loco.cito 96 kill an innocent animal simply to appease an angry God was to him an abominable act* No just -God would require such injusticeo But furthers, the idea of a mans whether he be God or not9 being sacrificed for a genus of creatures al~ ready eril and grasping$, was totally repulsive to tiitte Ihen he asked DallasP "Are you aware that your religion is im= pi0usft!^ he no doubt had this in mindo To Byron it must have been the height of impiety to vest God with the attri» butes of vengeance and injustice (even if he himself could not escape such a beliefor to suppose that the majestic God of omnipotence could require the awful sacrifice of the - innocent for the guilty o "One remark; and X have done9116 he wrote Hodgson in 1811; "the basis of your religion is in# .justice; the Son of God, the pure9 the immaculate/ the inno­ cent 9 is sacrificed for the Guiltyo 0 = o You degrade the Ore at or 9 in the first place, by making Him a begetter of children; and in the next you convert him into- a Tyrant over an -'immaculate and injured Being9 who is sent into existence to suffer death for the benefit of so^ie millions of scoundrels,, whos after all9 seem' as likely to be damned as ever, One

^%uoted by Dallas, p..134,. . . - ^'Letters and Journals, volo 11*'p0 35e The problem is also touched upon in OainHTxTxT"'111 85m92) & W e n Adah refers to the possible coming of a redeemer who may atone for the sin of , Gain replies« I ; . - ■ By saerlflclng The harmless for, the guilty.f what atonement . Were'theref why , we are innocent s what have we Done, that we must-be victims for a deed Before our birth, or need have victims to . Atone for this mysterious, nameless sin ^ If it be such a sin to seek for knowledge? 97 sees how Byron * s. misanthropy touched and "blighted everything, how much his Inherent melancholy, despite the wit which was often mere cynicism, darkened his conception of mankind and the world in general= . If Byron did not believe in Christ, then it is natural to expect the same of his attitude toward the Trinityd For; the most part, that Is exactly what happened, yet there was in this doctrine a poetic which may have appealed to him0 "You believe in Plato1s three principles," he told Medwini “why not in the ? One' is not more mystical than the other0 - At the same time, he seems to have been somewhat awed by it* He told Kennedy in Gephalonia that such a doctrine was "quite appalling = But while it may have been an awesome and even fascinating doctrine, it is probah* ly safe to say that, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, he could never fully accept it for the same reason that he could not fully accept Christs the Calvinist 'iinplica*6; tion» ..." : ’ ' ■

o 900 o c ,Byron's skepticism was the natural result of his own charactero If he could not find happiness in a religion which he feared and hated, he could find relief only In a total denunciation thereofo .Religion may have consoled other

Journal of the 0onversations of Lord Byron, p 0 80@

^^Conversations on Religion with Lord Byron9 p, 17'6° ' 98 - m©n9 butg in the end, it could, only outrage him and increase his morbidity^- and mainly because he could not fully convince himself that it might not be true* He could not positively deny it to himself or to others9 unjust though it wass and to him religion meant Calvinism* • He could denounce9 he • could profess incredulity, but he could not deny iti ,He vacillated from one side to another, professing now belief, nOw disbelief => "I have no fixed opinions9 ” he told Colonel . Leicester Stanhope|cthat is my character* Like others, I am not in love with what I possess, but with that which I do not possesso « 0 It would be difficult to summary ise his views (and his character) more suecinatly0 For Byron, it may all have been a "grand peutWtre," but as he himself admitted, it was "a grand one" nevertheleAs, And such was his individuality, "chamelSOn" though he was, that not for one moment would he give up his right to speculate, proudly and defiantly, upon mortality and Immortality, dr. rouse the Deity Himself with self-righteous taunts that "his evil is not goodo11 The essence of Byronism consisted of using his own "immortality" to brood upon infinity, and loudly, theatrically, to pile up grand but "daring doubts."

10Q^uoted by Edgcumbe, p 0 210» CHAPTER THREE

Byron^s Catholicism.

Fart One

To a poetic mind such as ByronIs3 the austerity and barrenness of Calvinistic worship must have been anything but satisfyingp The tendency of had been more and more away from visible distractions of any sort,, Calvin: himself being much against the use of art in the churcheso It was quite natural,, therefore, that the poetic beauty of the Catholic ritual would appeal to Byrons who disliked austerity of any kinde In the beginning9 how™ ever, his Protestant upbringing had inculcated an antagonism toward Catholicism which he took little pains to hide* = He never fully outgrew this attitudes which appears, again and again even during the strongest period of avowed sentiment for the Catholic church9 but this latter feeling occasionally eradicated any other feeling ~ at least for a timee. It was the same old story of two diametrically opposed sentiments juxtaposed against each other,, first oneg then the other in the aseerdaneys but neither one eventually displacing the other or merging with it into a position mid-way between the two. extremeso When Byron wrote to Dallas bn Jane 21g 18089 his

-.99 - .

. ' yn$y.„ of Arizona Ubrarf Frotestant influenee had not yet been altered by the Gatho~ lico At this time9 he does not believe that ^eating bread or drinking wine from the hand of an earthly vicar will make me an inheritor of heaven* ^ His antagonism toward the Pope9 and9 in parts his dislike for priests, is also, probably9 a result of his Protestant background<>. At the same tlme9 however, he was quite sympathetic with the Ga- ■ tholic struggle for political freedom in Englando A short time later9 he was to make a ringing appeal on their be« half in the House of Lords, an appeal9 which in its pow­ erful rhetottie yet obvious sincerity brought early atten­ tion to himselfo His concern for.Catholic freedom remained with him all his life, and even in his satires he could not forbear to make another appeal; oh behalf of the Catholics s Five millions of the primitive, who hold The faith which makes ye great on earth, implored A part of that vast all they held of old. Freedom to worship0 V: =, a As long as he stayed in England, his Catholic propen­ sities probably remained, for the most part, dormant9 though he told Medwin later that he had often wished he had been b o m a, CatholicThen too he was at no time indifferent to the beauties of its ritual

•^Letters and Journalsn vol0 I0 Pe 173* ; i ^Vision of Judgmenta ELVXII, 11= l-40. ^Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron„ p# 80o 101 to Annabella that "As a speetacleg the Oatholle is more fascinating than the Greek: or Hoslemo 0 « , And Sir Walter Sootts realizing that despite his expressed skepti= cism,Byron had a "basically religious sentiments told him that he expected him one day to join some .church that would- "exercise a strong power on the imagination^ " that 9. in the ends he expected to see him "retreat upon the Catholic faith9 and distinguish yourself hy the austerity of your penancesG M5 Byron did not deny this0 Though he himself said little in favor of Catholicism at this time, one sees that he wasP in

a senseg ready to imbibe the religious atmosphere of Italy when he crossed the channel and the alps and went to Venice ■early in 1817-9 We must not forgets toos that Byron was quite sensitive to his surroundings and susceptible to in=> fluenees from both environment and circumstance0 It is quite natural 9 therefore9' that once in Italy we find more and more favorable references to Catholicism^ It Is here that he decides to place his daughter in a convent9 and though his religious motives may have been second to more worldly one89 he nevertheless looks upon Roman Catholicism "as the best religion9 as it is assuredly the oldest of

.^Letters and Journals9 volo 111# p°. 402* ^Quoted by MauroiSp pa 304= 102 the ".various' branches of Christianity»fS^ This last con­ sideration may have been an Important on@s since9 As Mar- : jarum has pointed outs' Byran*s interest in history and his "respect for institutions or practices which could claim an impressive antiquity" could not but have;been an added

■ T attraction to this oldest of Christian sectso . Fletcher tells us of two striking, incidents in Italy which show not only his Catholic propensities but his re­ ligious rationalization So The first incident is actually related to his habits of abstaining from meat as much as possible in order to keep his weight down0 Even when not ,,, however, he kept Fridays aside as a day of abstin­ ence o Just as he opportunely used his decision to place Hlegra in a convent as an illustration to others of his religious inclinations when it suited him to do go* he was also fo make use of this habit of abstinence as an illus­ trations, to Fletcher anyway<, of religious sympathies0 When the servant had placed before his master a plate of "beoca- ficcas15 one. Friday afternoons, the poet exclaimedy "half in angery fIs not this Fridayt How could you be so extremely lost to your duty9 to make such a, request to met8 At the same time saying, a man that can so much forget his duty

^Letters and Journals, vol0 V, p, 2640 ^Byron As Skeptic and Believer* p* 77o 103 as a Christianp who cannot, for one day in seven forbid him=* self of these luxuriess is no longer worthy to be called a: O ' Ghristiano The other incident is far more sincere and truly illustrative of his poetic tendency toward religious sentimento dust as a great church like St» Peter6 s- filled him with feelings of religious devotiong so a religious processions rich in ceremonyf pageantry§ and solemnity$, inspired him to "dismount his horse and fall on his knees® and remain in that posture till the procession had passed; and one of his lordshipis grooms9 who was backward in fol­ lowing the example of his lordship® my lord gave a; violent reproof to© The man in his defense said; 8I am no Catholics and by this means thought I.ought not to follow any of their waySof My lord answered very sharply upon the subject9 saying® fHor am I a Catholics but a Christian? which I should, not be® were I to make the same objections which you . make $ for all religions are good when properly attended to g without making It a mask to cover villainy9 which I am fully

^Kennedy 9 p» 370« One remembers Byron^s remarks in his diary and in a letter to William Bankes® dated Febo 19® 1820© In the former, he wrote® "Meat I never touch©« » .11 (Letters and Journals0 volo II® p© 327)j and in the latterI ' "jyl and you will find me eating fleshs too® like yourself or any other cannibal® exeept it be upon Fridays©" (Ibid© ® volo p© 4040 ) . V '• ^ ' ; ■ V ' ' '■ ■ V 104 . persuaded is too often the case® n<^ ... There were ro any re a sons why Byron*, as he wrote Moo re s was Inclined "very much to the Oathollc doctrines = ■<.■<* » :The main reasohs pnohahlyj was the strong stand it took against Galvinismc. The Oathollc church had always heen opposed to Galvin8s teachingss and such opposition was bound to attract the poet0 It maintained man1s free wills rejected the doctrines of prede at inat£on 9 depravltyP and elections strongly opposed the 11 supralapsarian fdogma-rtha^ the Fall was necessary| and our. first parents like ourselves could not have avoided sinning,, and condemned "the main proposi­ tions of-Geneva j,.. that the grace of justification, comes only . to the predestinateo Whereas Calvin had upheld Faith" as more important than Works9 the Oathollc churGhMaintained -r • that faith without good works was useless,, Furthermore it granted graces9 and proclaimed a system whereby the sanctl- . fled pray for the living, to- help them to eventual salvatione

. ^Ibldo n pp0 371-372o One must3 of courses distinguish . between Fletcher8 6 rather simple and naive wording and the general idea which Byron-ewpressedQ Neither the incident ■ nor the ideas expressed are contrary to what one might ex­ pect of the poetP such were the contrarieties of his moodso As Mar j: arum points out9 "Byron6 s inclination toward Catholi­ cism was not the result of logical convict ion,. It was rather a recurrent mood in which he paid small attention to details0 !8 fByron As Bkeptic and BelleverP p 0 79°) ■ • . ^ Letters and Journals9 vol0 IIIP p» 32o '. ^^William Bar^yp. "Calvinism,88 The Catholic Encyclopaedia„ volp III, p, 200o • : : u ; " . l2lbid0 0 pa 201o " But most important of all it maintained the existence of : a purgatory where all but the wholly unregenerate could hope to go = and from there, eventuallys to heaveno It upheld a loving God: who granted His subjeots every possible chance for salvationp even unto creating a guardian angel for each and every human, beingo : Byron could not. but feel that "The religion that prays and hopes for the erring is the true religion, and the’ only one: that could make a con­ vert of meo88*^ He told Oountess Guiceioli that such a re^ ligioh. gave "greater peace for the .mind who confides, in it3 and what he wanted more than anything else was a religion that could give him peace of mindo = t . Galvin, far more than Luther, had rejected not only many Gathoiic practices and sacraments, but, most important of all would not recognize the possibility of purgatory0 I is true that Catholicism had always preached the doctrine of hell, but more and more as the Primitive church grew, it stressed the mercies of God, the graces, and the. many : possibilities open for salvation0 Purgatory was a kind of . punishment, whereby one had to work off his sins, but it was . not eternal and everyone there would eventually go to hea­ ven o We are not surprised, therefore, that Byron would find that "That purgatory of theirs is a. comforting

^Blessingtdn, p0 1050 ■ ■' - Recollections of Lord Byron, volo I, .p0 .203o - . ■ : .. : , ' 106 doctrlnet, He often expressed regret that the ‘‘reformers81 had rejected ito Furthermores he was attracted to the dee= trine of intercession9 and felt, no douht> a rather senti^ mental charm in the idea that "beings whom we have loved here below" were praying for and helping their loved ones . on eartho . Manfred like other heroes of Byron, rejects the aid offered by a Catholic priesto But;, the speeches of the abbot, gentle and enconraging9 possibly show Byron8 s sympathy for Catholicisms Certainly the Abbot points.out doctrines that were not unacceptable'to the poet o He never "speak |sj|

of punishment,/But penitence and pardon0 = 0 " (Illy i5 57*=58)» Hor does he denounce Manfred or threaten him with the absolute : immanence , of hell| rather, he assures him that % = = all

who seek may win., fiieaveiQ;,; whatever be/Their earthly errors, . Sp: they be. atonedG <, ; > " (ill, 1, 82=83) o Calvinism had not

^Medwing Journal of the Con vers at ions of Lord Byron,, voIp I, pp 80o • • ^•%f the protagonist rejects the proffered aid of the Abbot, we need not suppose that this suggests antagonism toward Catholicismo Manfred, like Byron, must reject such aid because of his proud determination not to be, subordinate to. any human being. He who had commanded the spirits of the other world, he who had the demeanor, the power, and will of one who. was greater than his kind," naturally could not "Shoose a mortal/To be my mediateb " (III, 1e 54=55=) This9 however $ was also Byron8 s stand,, and, as we shall. see, was - one of the strongest factors in his remaining outside the . See page 117 f0 . / ; • . ■ i o7 taught . that atonement was a. hey to- salvation| no PTeaby- terlanGlergyman would say 0 all we can ahsolve thee . shall "be pardon8d “ (ill9 i9 85=*86)o Byron8 s abbot Is not an unsympathetic character° We feel, as we read, that his proffers are in vain9 but he is, neverthelessj, a worthy personage in the dramao His determination may make him something of a nuisance to Manfred9 but his motivation is not only Just but pious» He does notP like the chamois hunter $ think--Manfred mad | wiser than the form erg he_ re a l i z e s . that Manfred Is but a confusion of "light and darknesss/And mind and.'dusts and passions and pure thoughts/Mix8d s. and, contending without end or order*" neither awed nor repelled by him9 the Abbot feels that Manfred is "worth redemption*“ - Nor is he discouraged by Manfred8 s repudiationo ■ Whether we sympathize with him or not0 we cannot but admire his attitude that 8,my duty/is to dare 'all things for a righteous end.* (lllp iP 169=17(1)° At no time does the pbet show any scorn for himg nor does he seem to wish the reader to feel such® Bynon8s attitudep rathers is that such efforts are of no avail to one who could command the aid of spirits greater than himselfthat priestly intercession was useless

^ Manfred is especially noteworthy in that it indicates Byron8s thorough knowledge of the precepts and attitudes of the Oatholie church* The lines of the Abbot are signi­ ficant not only in showing Byron8 s knowledge of Catholic dogma but in indicating what doctrines he chose to make note ofo There is a conspicuous absence of doctrines toward which he may have had a derogatory attitudeo Manfred8 s attitudes toward the Abbot were those he would have felt toward any . , worldly mediatoro to those who prefer to stand alone in their greatness0 Another: factor almost as Important as the encouraging compromise of purgatory was the more “tangible18 and aes­ thetic aspects of Catholic worship and devotlon0 As William. James saysp * o => the aesthetic motive £ln reli- glonl must never be forgotten0 88 Compared with the more austere kirks of the Calvinistss Catholic churchess though, not without solemnity and even a certain amount of somber- : nessp were majestic edifices rich in artistic deeoratlohsg pleasing in their use of candless music and incenseo- - Saint Peter^s is a great church “Of a sublimer aspect 0 Majesty $ /Powers Glory9 Strength^ and Beauty all are aisled/ln this - TO eternal ark of worship unde filed = H Byron is moved; by the sonorous harmonies of the organs, which, when he hears them9 stir him to “feel a great vocation « * o ^towardj1 Catholic churches= The sacraments too are poetically significantG - Intellectually9 he may not be able to accept them -especial­ ly the Eucharist - a s signs of grace and indication pf sal­ vations, but poetically he is awake to their spiritual

^ Varieties of Religious Experienceq p 0 459o James makes note of the Oathdllc appeal to. “fancyg 88 its aesthetic qualities, and its “appeals to human nature, “all of which must have attracted Byron8sattentiono Furthermore, James, contrasting Protestantism with Qathollcism notes that “The bitter negativity of. it [l&eo Proteatantism2 is to the 6a- tholic mind incomprehensible =. M (ibido „ Po 461») ■^^Ghilde Harold8s Pilgrimage,, Canto IV9 verse elivi, 11> T-ST- ' ^ Letters and Journals, volo IV, p 0 98= . . ' : ■ ' ; ’ : v ■ : . - 109 beautleso The sacrament of Penance, the granting of a,bso= lutlon,. may, in the end9 be uhacceptable to one who could recognize no earthly mediator^ but certainly they are an

improvement over the peremptory dismissal by Calvin of any :such personal means of salvation* They are9 at any rates important factors in a rellgioh which offered to Byron those ' beautiesjWhlch^. in contrast with the Scottish kirks,1 made it ^the most, elegant worshipg hardly excepting the Greek my.th== , •'

'•Qlogye Emitting to Moore that he was "really a great admirer of tangible religions" he could not but have responded; to the vivid tangibles and symbols which appeal especially / to the poetic mindj, he could not but have been impressed by the poetic symbolism of the holy Mass with its spiritual and dramatic climax of the Elevation of the Host 1 or by the grandeur of the church itself with its lofty nave., multi= colored glass windowss statues9 paintings9 stations of the cross9 and the various minor altarsp each dedicated to a particular saint whose "imageH stands; directly above the myriad commemorative candles? the immaculately covered center altar with its many glowing candles on each end and the Tabernacle in the center9 the ever-present eucharist withine In comparing the Protestant with the Catholic religion, he concluded that the former was "barren of consolation for the

^ letters and Journalsg volo ¥I9 p. 39o Calvert adds that the Catholic ritual as well as the decorative trappings of the churches "seemed to satisfy a longing in his soul that beauty and goodness should Ro hand in hando" .(Byrong Romantic Paradoxo po 7o) - '"V: ' H O

s o u l ”2 2 'but that the latter was “hy far the most elegant

worships, o o 6 What with incense5, ■* picthres9 statutes, altarss shrines, relics, and the real presence, confession, ah so lu«® , tion, — there is something sensible to grasp at &

At. times Byron, who tended to exalt women in his poetry even though he could sometimes remark cynically on their ' frailties (such were the contrarieties of his views}., felt a sentimental devotion toward the Virgin Maryo.Sensitive to his surroundings, he could not be indifferent to a twi­ light hour in the soft glow b'f ■sunset, with the ringing of the. angelus and the devotional prayers to the Virgin, or to - the sight of a statue of. the Virgin in the ruins of .an old monastery, both of which inspired some very beautiful star-

zaSo In the third canto of Don Juan (verses 01, CII, and G U I ) he ■Inserted some very delicate lines, beginning "ive Marlai 0 fer the earth and sea,/That heavenliest hour of Heaven-i s worthiest thee 115 It is possible that he had writ­ ten these lines separately and then decided to insert them in the larger work, possibly to avoid calling attention to themo 'Their simplicity, beauty, and devotional tones almost prohibit questioning their sircerltyo Some have doubted this

2^Q,uoted by Oountess Guiccioli, po 165° . '

^ Letters and . Journal So vol» VI, p* 39° The latter statement was made sometime after the formero ' . Ill sliioerlty but 1 see no reason for. doubto- FairchildP for Instances, wonders at the juxtaposition between Oat ho lie wor­ ship in the first three stanzas and nature-worship in the following verse<, ^ Fairchild forgetsg howeverg that Byron1 s religious sentitoent had its veiy springs in his love of na*-: tureo Nature beings, - to M m , . a manifestation of God, and at lea,'at some traces of mysticism being inherent in his 11 altar o o 0 £OfJ the mountains and the oceans/Sarth, air, stars. o . he could find nothing strange or discordant in juxtaposing a Gatholic hymn and a verse to naiures especially when the ■ nature-elemehts were already present in the former0 The • - same sincerity, it seems to me, is also evident in verse 1x1, Oanto XIII of Don JuanP where the statue of ’’The Virgin-Mother of the God-born Ohilds/Vith her son in her blessed arms = 0.o made the earth below seem holy ground„” Such expressions, t of.course, were the result of feeling rather than logical conviction, since,, as has been said, he could not consciously accept Christ as a "God-born child»" But this must not be taken to cast doubt on his sincerity, since sentiment and conviction were often diametrically opposed, sincere though each undoubtedly waso In this same stanza (Ixi), he checks' himself with the thought that "This may be a superstition, weak or wild," but he justifies himself with the consideration that "even the faintest relics of a shrine/Of any worship"

^Romantic Faith,, p* 439o ■ , ...... ; 112 may evoke religious sentiment,8= Hovr; typically Byronic those lines are! In their contrast they bring to mind the essence of Byron8 S religious temperament !<= that within the harshness of bitter sarcasm and wild cynicism, there were moments, caused by a mood, a circumstance, an hour, when .all . such bitterness, all fears, all doubts disappeared, and there were only such feelings' as inspired "thoughts divine0 n . . • ■ vv. - . ■ ' • .. - \ ^ 113

• \ : ; ■ Part Two

However strong his leanings toward Oatholiolsm may' have heeng Byron never. Joined the Catholic church as Scott pr@« .' dieted he wouldo He.was held hack for several reasons9 im« portant among them being his dualityg which caused such strangely ambivalent attitudes toward almost everything and everyoneQ His sentiments, as has been stated, were often moods of -the moment which, when they wore off s left him still

cynicalstill tending to see the absurd in most human affairso The Catholic religion, like other Christian sects., could . .... not escape the sting of his acid witticisms» True 9 he had known of incidents which must have increased the force of his satiric observation a» Even he must have gravely doubted the efficacy of the Virgin Mary when he heard such anecdotes : as that of na person engaged.’ in sin, fwhoj when the vesper- . bell 0iadl. rungg stop |ped3 and repeat fed} the Aye Maria, . . and then proceed^dl in the sinb -., * 0!l^ How could one expect strict adherence to Christian sexual standards among the people when the Cardinal himself "has kept his house­ keeper these forty years3 for his carnal recreationo o . o "26

In a country like Italy, the most Catholic of nations,

: 25Kennedy9 p, 1506 t u ; v - ^^Letters and Journalso vol0 V 9 p 0 60 Byron adds that he "is reckoned a. pious man, and a moral liver0 ts : .■ ■ ; ■ \ n 4 extrTa^inarital relations were both mmer-ous and aceep™ table “ at least tacitlj-acceptado Byron cynically noted that almost.every woman had her cavalier servente; he him­ self had become one.0 It was not a coincidence^ perhaps, that in Venice he Ipd a more notoriously promiscuous life than anywhere else9 and Shelley was shocked by-Byron8s excesses thereo He wrote of, Byron*s Venetian exploits in very disap­ proving -termso He felt almost relieved when Byron formed : a liasin with the Count ess Guicclolis who9 Shelley felt,,: was a beneficent influence on the poeto . .. y One is not surprised^ then* to find that despite his . “inclination" toward "Gatholic doctrinesp" there is much in the poetry of this time in reference to the irony in­ herent in the contrast between Catholic teachings and the practices of the peopleo : is one of his most organised attacks =; Here he refers to the "little slips" which9 "in Christian countries" are viewed "with eyes more lenient" (iXp. 110 1-3)9 and Don Juan0 even more than Beppo 3 i s full • of human follies and foibles, from which few Catholics are exempto One cannot help smiling at the picture of Donna - Julia praying to the Virgin to help her in her resolutions made "For honourlss, pride*89 religion8sP virtuefs sake" ands next day9 sighting Juan with the result that "That night ' V ■ ■ . 115 the Virgin was no "further, praiy Sd0-M (l9 Ixxvlo- V . Glergymen of all faiths were attacked by the poet 9 as ; - : • ■lie had been attached by them o' Priests too. were satirized^ though-he. seldom-made distinction between them and the-Pro* testant clergy0 For one thing9 he was antagonistic toward their rigid ban on independence of thought, as far as re* - . ligion especially was 'concerned = Dogma was irritating to - ■ him .since.it-allowed of no dissent whatsoevero Furthermore, Byron felt that the priesthood, encouraged ignorance and su*’ perstitiono In Beppo he warns the freethinker that "no one in these parts may quiz the Clergy” (III, 7-8)o He felt that they were nhrrow. and patronizing, towhrd their flocks And since they were so dogmatic and uncompromising in their attitudes, so antagonistic toward, any intellectual advance which: was counter to their own.-doctrines, 'his conclusion was that Mthe scoundrels of priests « 0 . do more harm to religion than: all the that ever forgot their catechisms<>

27cf0 his earlier lines of Ghllde Harold 1 s.-.Pllgrimage (I, Ixxi), -where he writes of the’inhabitants of Cadizc ' Soon as-the matin bell proclaimeth nine, Thy Saint^adorers count the;rosaryi Much is the Virgin_ teased to shrive them free (Well do I ween the only virgin there) From crimes, as numerous as - her beadsmen be. , = <, '■ ^ Letters and Journals3 vol. VI, p. 24. It must be remembered, however, that the harshness of this statement was at least partly due to the priestly outcry against Cain, which had just been . . published. Medwin tells us that ."a clergyman at Kentish Town " treated his congregation with: two sermons against Cain . . . and there was a third at Pisa who followed in his wake0 *' ; (The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley3 p a 360.) For a fuller account, - see Chew. Byron in England s His Fame and After"Fame (Hew. Yorks ' 1924,) - ~ ■; 116 One must not overlook the political factor either^ For the most part9 the priesthood seemed opposed to the movements of the Oahbonari in behalf of .Italian freedom from the Austrian yokeo Byron’s efforts on their behalf were not top well received by the police - who had sent,secret agents to spy oh him ~ or by the priesthood, who represented the conservative faction* His antagonism toward them was, per­ haps, as much due to this as to other reasonse . As has been-mentioned,. his Protestant ■ training must have played an Important part in his attacks, on the: Catholic churcho His criticisms are often not dissimilar to the common Protestant cri11cisms0 A typical Protestant rebuke is his remark that ,sthe Catholics* o 0place the Virgin Mary before Christ, -and Christ before Go do .» 6 01}29 jn

his published letter to Murray on the Rev* We h* Bowles8 a Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope, possibly con­ sidering the •attitude of the English toward ilPapis)Sfl he refers to Catholicism as the "most bigoted of sects, and, like many Protestants, he refers elsewhere to sums paid by Catholics to "-Ibny•'!repentanceM51 or to have, a Requiem

-Quoted by Parry, p 0 207* ' ^ Letters and Journals, vol* V, p* 558» ^ Beppoe I, lo, 5o ; : n r ■ Hass heldHis attitude toward niiraoles reflected not only the Protestant attitude but that of the skeptics like Hume and...Paine as well* He agrees with the former that ,5it is more probable men should lie or herdeceived than that : things out of the course of nature should so happen* Byron comes closest to the Protestant viewpoint in his refusal to accept any human being as his mediator between God and himself s This attitude9 howeverP is a purely per** sonal one, and it is possible that he would have felt the same way regardless of the Protestant attitude* It was his fierce individualism" and strong ego that determined this stand* He could not in the end accept Catholic dogma'

32pon Juan3 Canto 11, verse Iv, 11* 7-8o "They won't lay out their money on the dead - /it costs three francs for every mass that's said*" There is, in this same stanza, a sly reference to. the use of the Mass as a kind of bribe to relieve the recently deceased from the harsher rigours of Purgatory o M1fJhen-over Catholics the ocean rolls,/They must wait several weeks before a mass/Takes off one peck of pur- gat o rial coal So .» > * H (11 * 3-5«) ^ Letters and Journalss vblo II, p* 35o This statement was made in a letter to Hodgson, dated. Sept* 139 18110 Countess Guieeioll tells us thats at least when she.knew him, "Mysteries and dogmas = = » were hot objectionable to.Byron*• * » »However little disposed he may have been to believe in mysteries, he, neverthelessj, bowed in submission before their existence, ' and respected the faith which they inspire in minds’ more happily constituted than his own * (My Recollections of lord Byron* . p* 198o) Though this latter statement is essentially in . agreement with what we know of Byron, I have never found any statements of intellectual .acceptance by Byron of masteries . or dogmas* It must be remembered that the Countess is not always.reliables there being times when she has deliberately distorted his words, in her favor* I have quoted her only :: when her statements are substantially backed by reliable in­ formation and by. Byron's own letters and poetry* "because of the restrictions it placed upon his independence of thought! he could not accept the priest8s intercession "between the spiritual and mundane worlds because he9 like Manfredg would "not choose a mortal/Tq be my mediator0" He would rather confess his sins publicly in diaries intended^ •perhaps9 for publication lateps than submit to the humilia® tion of confessing privately to a priestg who isa like him­ self 9 a mere human beingo His decision on that point isa againg like .'Manfred^s §6 6 owhate^er/l may have been> Or am9 doth rest between/Heaven and myself61 (IIIS i9 52—54) 0 This fierce spirit of independence would not allow him to sub­ ject his individuality and freedom to the power or authority of any human institutions and it was this spirit which domi­ nated everything he thoughts did9 or wrotes which9 Indeed, •' made.him one of the truly great figures In the Romantic Movement and one of the most striking poets of all time0 CONCLUSION

The key to an •understanding of Byron$ s religion^; as well as of his works In general9 is a full realization of that marked duality of character which caused wavering opinions and attitudes toward almost everything around hinio By na** ture he was hoth melancholy and gayV idealistic and real-4 1 stic9 sentimental and cynical9 one mood or attitude rapid™ ly following the othero So:pronounced are these charac­ teristics that a competent psychiatrist might well find both schizophrenic and manic-depressive 'tendencies within the poet o Many of. Byron9 s he roe 89 being, like Manfred, 11 an awful chaos - light and darkness,/o . ..and passions and pure thoughts'1 were projections and reflections of his own personalityo That Byron recognized his own duality is evi* dent not only by what he told Countess Blessington but also by what he wrote in his diary? 88 0 = » I can't read it £l»©e' the diaryTj overg and Cod knows what contradictions it may • containo If I am sincere with myself 0 0 « every page should. confute9 refute, and utterly abjure Its predecessor^" It . ■ was that very sincerity which caused him to express so freely the thoughts and attitudes arising from his various moods, :

Letters and Journals* yolo II, p. 366.

119 oontradlotory# though they were0. ' His religion was a conflict of those two strong By- ronic characteristics § sentiment:-' and cynicismo From the one came his nature worship (and pantheism)9 Oatholic propen­ sities 9 and-the positive views o:f ."both God and religions from the other came: his skepticism with its savage denials9 accusations^ and witticismsa Other characterlst1 cs9 however, were important» Amdng these were his philosophic tempera- i :, ments "chameleon"-like susceptihility to influences from people, environmentand circumstances I marked; individuality and ego? superstitious tendencies? and neurotic anxietys - ; lack of confidence, and suggestibility0 From•these latter traits, plus his vivid imagination, he conceived a fear that he was predestined to everlasting hell by the Galvinistic

God of his childhoodo He had been seriously taught that God created man from a mass of corruption, predestined .Adam and Eve*8 transgression as well as the transgressions of their depraved progeny, - selected only a small minority for lMaVe% and condemned the rest of • mankind to hell6 . Because his own nature was.such that he tended to see the corruption - of the human race,, .occasionally did and' said things unintended, and considered everything as necessitated by fate, Byron felt "even less certain that Galvin, might be wrong? and when the poet, found himself impetuously giving in to impulses and desires specifically condemned by >Galvin and by. Jehovah-, he ,;: couldn111 help regarding himself as damned for eternity* . : v;: V -h. , •; ' ; ■ . 121 Courageously9 he rebelled against bobh Calvini sm and reli» gion. in generalP' mostly in the hopes of freeing, himself from - his own torments, but, unable to attain this desirable re­ sult, he could only frankly admit„ "The worst of it is, I do believe 181 ' : ' ■ : His religious.tenets and attitudes were markedly duals; Cod, whose, existence he never doubted, was either a deistio Creator exiSt ingc apart '"from the world of his creations or he was a very personal.Deity, sometimes avenging and condemn­ ing, sometimes lovingly guiding and helpingo Bynon8 s'eyni- cal or satirical views toward religion were offset by moods of religious reverence, awe, or even mysticism, as in the' base of his pantheistic '(or panentheistic) views of nature, wherein he occasionally experienced"a kind of mystic fusion with the Whole., and consequently achieved union or oneness with G-odo . His fatalistic nature, evident in .many of his larger works, took a religious form of belief in p rede st in at i on„ Manfred reflects this latter view; but here Byrbn was able to triumph over his Calvlnistic training by asserting the

Promethean strength of will and dignity9 which overcome not only the evils of predestination, though suffering is inr . herent in the struggle, but also the negative aspects of

"self" and the doom of hello Conscience, remorse,; and des^ pair compel Manfred to be his '’proper hell, H and in the end, his power and will triumph over the threat of damnation's • . ' : 122 G aln g tdOp is' Byron 8: s rebellion against Calvinism®, But he rep though his arraignment is more thorough and better organizeE9 his triumph is not so greats Gain does not achieve a vic­ tory over the forces of destiny’ and hell; in the end he is forced to admit not only his own defeat9 but his Culpabili­ ty as wells This latter admission seems a contradiction to

the doctrine of predestinations If one is doomed from the beginning to be what he is and to do what he does5 how can , he logically be blamed? : The conflict between predestination and free will can be resolved only by admitting that though God predestines circumstances and even perhaps9 character9 man act s independently within % or at least has some freedom

Of ' willo : ; | Mankind is regarded by Byron in two respectSo In one

respect man Is a weak creature,, depraved,, lo at he some s and •mortalo This aspect of the human 'race is characterized as well as symbolized by 11 cl ay81 and Hdust,,;o In another respect man is a noble creature capable of great deeds and worksig which are at times held by Byron to be the only kind of ; immortality possible^. But Byron's "partiality for spirit81 and his egoistic Individuality- caused him basically to shrink from the prospect of annihilation and led him to maintain . the possibility of a spiritual Immortality« His fear of hell made extinction seem. desi ra-ble only by comparisons but he was really unable to accept either» He could compromise only by accepting a vague Christian-Hebraic concept of immortality ' ■ ■ - v. .' : - . ' ; • -, 123 while either Ignoring or denylzig the existence of hell, or "by adopting a poetically pantheistic concept of death as the full mingling of the soul•with the substance of the universe9 a reunion of the soul with "the whole of that of which we are

a part-*"2 .. " ::X;: Byronfs pantheistic approach to religion was strongest - during the last seven years of his life, spent mostly in Italy? which.exercised a strong influence on his Catholic propen si ties o On the subject of Catholicism? he was, again? dividedp On one side? he was the scoffing cynic? the, critical Protestant? the. philosophic skeptic® G$ the other sides he expressed the wish that he had been born Catholic?, spoke approvingly of Catholicism? maintained an appreciation of Catholic ritual? and even addressed some devotional stanzas to the Virgin Maryo The Catholic Church appealed to . him . : not only because of the poetic "tangibles and symbols11 of its ritual but also be"cause- of the stand it took against

Calvinism? especially against the doctrines of predestina­ tion? election? and depravityp Also? it offered the eom« promise of purgatory= Byron never joined the Church? however? because of his independent spirit? antagonism toward the . r- priesthood? and proud unwillingness to subordinate himself to any human being or human institutiono

2 "A Fragment ?11 1= Bo : : ■ 124 Toward the Anglloazt rellgion9 he likewise held con­ trasting opinions and attitudeso : In conversations with; ■ . others9- as well as in such poems:as The Age of Bronzeg he maintained9 oh the one hands a cynically disparaging atti­ tude toward;"Mother Ohurchs^ and satirized hoth Anglican : . - 3 - ■' ■ . ' ■ . ■ . 4 ■. . ; smugness -and Anglican concern with titheso Cn the other hand9 he expressed wgreat delight V = » in the English Ca­ thedral serviceo It cannot fail to inspire every mans who feels at ally with devotion»“5. The Anglican church combined Catholic beauty of ritual with a certain amount of Protest- ant Independence o It.upheld purgatory but ,toned. down dog- ma. Free of the anathema called down by Protestants upon Catholicismg it was a "sanctioned" compromlset When.a

countryman, visited him one day in Italy9 Byron expressed &' sentimental regard not only for England.but for the Angli- - can Church as well0 He had first made an implied cynicism in reference to the English attitude toward himself, but

^"I know What. all save England8 s' church: have shamm ed. And that the other twice two hundred churches And synagogues have'made a d'amh^d bad purchase«11 ’ (Vision of Judgment9 XIV, Ifo 6^8°.) "Ho s down with- everything, and up with rent I- Their good, ill, health, wealth,']oy, or discontent9 Being, end, aim, religlon - rent, rent, rent! *, <, 0 LG, Mother'Church 9 while all religion writhes s Like Hiobe, weeps oser her offspring, ..Tithes (The Age o f .Bronze^ XIV, 629-631s 642-643,) ^Quoted by Medwin, Journal of the: Conversations- of Lord Byrona p» T5o < : : ■ ' , . ■ ' ; 125 ■ when M s visitor denied “any such jealous or illiberal spirit at home9 o » » he instantly interrupted me, by sayingg fXesa' yes, you are right « there is a great deal of liberal senti­ ment among churchmen in England,; and that is why I prefer the Established Ohurch of Engl arid to any other in the wo rid 0 i!. His sentiments expressed here were, of course, partly caused by homes!cfeneas which must have been revived when he met his English visitoro It is doubtful whether Byron would have joined the Anglican church had he livedo One thing that : ^ -■ ■ ' _ ' ' , • ■ might have held him back in the end was the similarity be­ tween some of the Thirty-nine Articles and some of the Gal* vinistic doctrines0" Had he accepted “the Established Ghurch of England“ he might have been thrown back into his bid fears of hell and predestination^ - Byron did not become converted to any single religion; before his deatho I seriously doubt Dr0 Bruno 8s assertion . to Kennedy that ,8My lordi0 e0 Byrdnl principally9 and all of us in- his house, are fully converted to Methodism* « * >

Quoted by the anonymous writer of the article “Lord Byron* “ in Blackwood8 s Edinburgh Magazine9 XV .(Jmxe9 1824), p = T o o o . . ■ . '; . b v : . ; - ; ; * o o the fundamental.articles of belief ^ in' the “Ghurch o f Scot land ”3 ° ° are precisely the same as those contained in the Thirty-nine Articles of the Ghurch of . Engl and o» .Quoted by Barry s p0 .208 0 ^Letter dated March 3 S 1824s and quoted by Kennedy in his book Conversations on Religion with Lord Byron* p 0 362* More likely9 Byron had jokingly referred to the subject and the doctor took him seriously6 It is also likely that he diedP as Dr<> Millingen said, l,llke a man without reli<~ Sion# o .. calthough I saw him almost: dailyp I never could perceive any. change in his religious bpinionso He was not^: howeverp without any religious sentiments at the endo There is considerable evidence attesting to several refers ences to religion and immortality which he made at the time# Fletcher told Kennedy that in his deliriu|8g Byron, uttered, se

- ' i ' . - ; ' ' ■ ■’ " ' :: : , . i Q ■ :... ' - % . % ' veral phrases and passages from the Biblep" , .and all who have reported on his death testify that he expressed no fear of deatho According to Parry s the dying poet spoke reassuringly of the prospects of immortality« ."Eternity and space are before me," he saidP "but on this subject5 thank G-odp 1 am happy and at ease# The thought of living" eternallyp of again reviving9 is a great pleasure» We cannot know for sure, what his thoughts® were then p. but I, see no reason to doubt Parry * s report0 His reliability is about as certain as Moore8 s and much more than Guiccioli.# » .» • ,Byron's death was on the whole a tranquil oneo He gaye ' last-minute instructions to Pietcherp spoke of death with

^From a letter to Kennedy9 July 129 18249 ibid.* Pe 369

l i b i d o * p. 575o h / . llQueted by Barrya pp. 122-123# . : - . • . ' - . : 127 i!great composures expressed resignation In the will of G-ods and Mih as composed a way as a child9 without moving ' ' ■' • „13 : ■ ' ' ■ : head on footj, ■ closed his eyes and died? England vand Greece were shocked "by the news of his death, Greece devoted a 'day of homage.and reverence to the Englishman who. had given so much in her cause for free­ dom 0 His body was later sent to England,, where he was . buried in the church of Hucknall Torkardo A statue was erected in his memorys and many of his countrymen paid their respects to the poet who, eight years be fore $, and be» side the grave of another poet much like himself in some ways9 had learned and recorded the simple lesson pertaining, to "the Glory and the Nothing of a Name 0 83 "

12Ibido0 Po 636o ^Account by Fletcher in a letter to KennedyP Conversa­ tions on Religion with Lord Byron, p, 3740 ■ • ■ '' VBijBLioomm: ; v . lo Articles - - ' •• - Anonymous6 . "Lord, Byrong ".BlaGBwood^s Edinburgh. Magazineg X^r (June 9 1824) 9. ppc "69.6-7010 Brooke, Stopfordo "Byron1s Gain«" Hibbert Journalo XVIII (October;, 1919)s PPo 74-94= Evans, Bertrand® "Hanfred®s Remorse and Dramatic Tradition, BMLAo LXII (September, 194T59 pp0 752-773« Jeffreys Branci So .-“Lord Byron^s Manfred, " The Edinburgh Reviewo XXVIII (August 0 l8l7)T^Pp7?18-431o ; . . 0 “Lord Byron8 s Tragedies9 81 The Edinburgh Review, XXXVI (February, 1822)9 pp® 413-452e Siegel, Paulo !l 6 A Paradise Within Thee3 in Mi It on s Byron, .and Shelley,“ Modern Language Botes, LVI (1941)9 . PPo 6l5-6l7o ■ : Wilson, Johns “Reviewo # Manfred," ; Blackwood8s Edinburgh Magazine, I (June, 1817), PPo 289-295a

IIo Books • : . Baldwin „ James Mark0: ed0 . ■ Dictionary of Philosophy • and ' Psychologyo 3 volso , lew York 8 The MacMillan Go =,, ■ 1905-1911O Blessington, Countess, Conversat ions of Lord Byron with the Countess of Blesslhgtono 2nd Edition, Londons Henry Colburn, I85O 0 409 Pp7 Boyd, Ernest=; Literary Blasphemieso lew Yorks. Harper and Brothers, 1927e 265 ppe Chapter Fives “Lord Byron,11 ppo 106-135= Brandes , Geo rge 0 . Main Current s in Hlpet eent h Century Lit era- ture, 6 volsclew York s The MacMillan Co,, 1901-1905 = Volume Vis laturalism in England, 1905o . 366 pp® Briscoe, Walter Ao, ed® Byron, The Poet s A Collection of Addresses and Essays® Ldhdons Geo rge Routledge and W Sons, 1924® 287 pp® " • 128 : ■ ■ ■ • ' . ■ 3.29 : Lord Byron9 G-eorge Gordon = The Poetical Works of Lord Byroho ; Hew Yorks Oxford tihlverslty Fressp 1946o 923 PPo : -' : -; - 1 The Works of Lord Byrons Letters and Jour- - nalSo edo Rowland Eo Pro the ro (Lord Ernie d) 6 volso s Hew Yorks Oharles; S6rihnerfs Sons9 1898“1904o / o Lord Byron ' s Oorrespondenoe s Ghlefly with - ' Lady Melbourne,, Mr*. Hobhouseg The HOno Douglas Kinnalrda and'.'Po Bo Shelley 0 edo John Murray* 2 volso 9 Hew York s Charres’^Scrlhner s Sons9 1922# ■ Calvertp Wlllla'm J0 Byrons Romantic Paradox* Ghapel HI 111 - The University of Worth (h,.rollna Presss 1935o xl 235 ppo - ' tw,. .

Galvlng John0 Institutes of the Ghrlstlan RellKlono " Library of the World^s Mest- Literatureg edo Charles Dudley Warner0 30 volso9 Hew YorkS Ho 0o Beale'and Jo/-Ao, ■ Hill9. 1896*1898 = Two Selectionss "Election and Hre- destination1' (pp0 . 3i23«3l26) and "Freedom .of the Will" (ppo 3127-3128)s volo VIg 1897= - ' ' , . . o Instruction In.Faith„ tranSo and edo Haul To Fuhrmann= Philadelphia s. The Westminster Pressg . 1949 o 96 pp- ; " ./ - Ghew, Samuel 0. Byron in Engl and S His Fame and Aft er-Fame o': ' Hew .Yorks Charles Spribner^s Sons9 1924o 415 PP° ' : . ' ' ' ' '.o The Dramas of Lord Byron's 4 -Gritleal Study* Baltimore § The Johns Hopkins Hressp 1915« 181 pp* Courthope? Wo.J» A History of English Poetry* ' 6 vdlsa> Lon- . ; dons ' MacMillan and Go0,9 1895«19100 Vol. VIS' The Romantic Movement in EnKllsh Poetryg 19100 Ohapt@ VIIIS - "Romantic 1 sm In English Poetry Byrong " pp# 232-277* . Dakinj A. Galvin.ismo ; Philadelphias The Westminster Presss : ' I9460 228 W T ~

Dallas9 Ro' Go Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron* London s . Charles Knight^ ' l824o X0V1I e™344 pp« DuBos9, Gharleso Byron and ' the Heed of' Fat all ty 0 trans Ethel - Oolburn Mayne. Hew Yorks Putnam, 1932o 288 pp* Edgcumbe9 Richard0 Byrons The Last Phaseo. , Hew York § Charles Bcribnerrs Sons9 ‘1909o ”^ 1 pp0 . . .

Fairchilds Hoxie Heale= Religious Trends in English Poetry* 3 volso9 Hew Yorks Columbia.University'Pressj 1939“1949o Volo Ills Romantic Faith0 1949* 549 PPo (Specifically9• ppB 388-45i7r~~" G-altg Jbhno The Life of Lord Byron0 New York 0 Jo and Je.. ' Harper$ 1830 = 3 3 ^ pp0 - , G-arrodp H® ¥o.. • Byrons 1824-1924 S A Leoture Dellyered Be# fore the University of Oxford onrMay "T^o 19246 Oxfords 'Olarendoh Press,, 192^7 22 pp0 . , ' : Oingerlchg Solomon Brandso -Essays in the Romantlo Poetso New YorkS The MacMlllaB- Go 0 s- ■ 1924 0 27 6 pp0 Chap to IV '’ByronjM pp0 243”27S®v : : . G-uicciolij Gountesso My; Reoolieotlons of Lord Byron0 transo 1 Hubert E. H0 Jernlnghamo 2 volso, -Londons Richard ' • .. Bentley, T869o (Specifically^ volt I*) Hastings, Jamies0 edo Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethicso. . 12 vols o j, New Yorks Oharles Scribner * s Sons , 1917 d 924

Havens, Raymond Dextero The Mind of a Poet s k Study of Wordsworth8 s Thought with Particular Reference to The Prelude6 Baltimore s The Johns. Hopkins Press," 194lo - • PpT^ - - ; ;.: - 7'^ Hazlitt, William® Lectures on the English Poetso Londons ; Oxford University Press, 1933? 256 pp® : Herbermahn, Charles Go, eta ale, edo . The Catholic EncyclO” Paediao 15 volso, New York s Robert Appleton Goo , ' 1907-1912. - - - Hodgson, Re Vo James T., Memoir, of the Rev. Francis Hodgsont 2 volso , Londons MacMillan -and Co.o ? iBtBT-™” ■

Hunt, Leigh. Lord Byron and Some of His. Contemporaries« ' London s- Henry ' Colburn, 1828. 513 :ppv^(pp. 1-1) • James, William. The Varieties of Religions Experience. : New Xprks Longmans, Green, and Co., 1915o 534 pp. Jeaffreson, John Gordy. The Real Lord Byron. ; 2 vols., Londong Hurst and Blackett, 1883. * JOnes, Frederi ck L. ,■ ed. Mari a Gisbourne and Edward E. Wil­ liams, Shelley%s Friends8 '.Their Journals and Letters. Norman, Oklahoma's University of Oklahoma Press, 1951. : - ■ 189 PP. : : - 7 ; ; ■ 7- ; . ' .:: v '»; The Letters of Marr W° Shelley. ■ - 2 vols., Norman, Oklahoma 8 University of Oklahoma Press, 1944. / - : . ■ : V . - : \ ^ -■ : - ■' ■:: " _ ; .. > * 8 Journal* Normang Oklahoma § University of. Oklahoma Press9 1947c 257 PPo KennedyBlameso Oonversations on Religion with. Lord Byron0 London 8 John Murray 9 1830b 461. pp6 Knight s So Wilson. Lord Byrons Christ Ian Virtues c, Hew York , Oxford University Pressg 1953° 304 pp0 • Mar j arum s. Edward Wayne o Byron as Skeptic and B'elieVera. Princeton $ Princeton University Press9 19380 XI =» 89 p p » . ; - ~ Maurois0 Andre& ' Byron3 trans.o Hamlsh 'Miles» Hew York8 . B® Appleton and Company; 1930« 597 PPo

Mayne, Ethel Colburn6 Byr&n0 2 vei3.Be 9 Hew York I Charles Scribner-8 s S o n s 1913o - :' . v • ' o. The Life and Letters of Anne ISabella ; Lady Ho el 'Byron o Hew York 8. Charles Scribner" s’” Sonss 1929o 501 PPo Med win 9 Thom as 0 Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron# Londons Henry Colburn^ 18240 345 pp#. . ■ . - •v o The Life of Percy Bysshe ghelleyo . Revised Edition, Hew York § Oxford University Press9 1913o 542 PPo ' . ' : ... fv ' ■ y'L ' ■ ' Milbanke, Ralph, Earl of Lovelace = Astarte8 A Fragment of London 8 Christophers 9 1921V 3 ^ p p 0 Moore, Thoma,SoThe Life# Letters and Journals of Lord Byron# London 8. John Murray s 1901» 735 PP» . . ' : ' o Prose and Verse ~ Humorous, Satirlcalo and Sentimental9 ed# Richard Herne Shepherd® Hew York $ Scribner, Armstrong, and Go.„ 1878. 444 pp. "Notes : for Life of ..Lord Byron, " PPo 409”4400 Nagle, Urbane An Empirical Study of the Development of Re­ ligious Thinking in Boys from Twelve to Sixteen Years 01do A Dissertationo Catholic University of America# Washington, D. G«9 1934# 126 pp# Nathan, Isaac. Fugitive Pieces' and Reminiscences of Lord Byron® Londont vWhittaker, Treacher, and Go., 1829« : 196 pp. ' : . . ' Hichol, John. Byron» . English Men of Letters Series. New . Yorks The MacMillan Co., 1926. 223 PP# OrigOp IriSo The East Attaohmento New York s .:Gharlea . . Scribner?s Sons, ' 19^-9o 533 pp0 V: .Parrys Williamo The Last Days of Lord Byrono London § Knight and Laceys 1825® ,3So ppc:_ • Rainwater9 Frank= Lord Byron° A Study of the Development of His Philosophyq With Special Emphasis Upon the. Dramaso A Summary of a Thesiso Vanderbilt University Summaries 1 of Thesesc. Nashville § The Joint University Libraries9 1949o 4l pp0 > : -

Ruby9 ¥ade0 A Study of the Influence of Mortality on Byronfs " ' Thought ac.d: Poetry & A Dissert at ion» University of . Southern Galifomiap 1944o : 339 PP° Stoddard, Richard Henryedc, ■ 'Personal Reminiscences by Moore and Jerdan« New York.: Scribnerp Armstrongp and Go>p 1875® 293 PP» StOwe, Harriet. Beecherp. Lady Byron Vindicatedl■ 4 History . of The Byron Controversy® Londons Sampson Low9 Sonp • arid Marston9 1870s 328 ppo ... •Symons9 Arthuro , The Romantic Movement in English Poetry@ New Yorks E c “?0 Dutton^and LOos 1909» 339 PP® . ... (Chapter on Lord Byrong ppe 239-263,) ; faine.p Ho A® History of. English Literature0 trans, H® van Laun0 2 volso in one9 New fork s Henry Holt and Go 05 . . 1886o Volo IIS pp. 271-3120 ,f ■■••: 3:;:: ;

T a y l o r , Wayne W. Byron's Religious Views With Special Reference to the Hebrew Melodies. The.slia University . of Arizona9. l^Ro' . 70 ppo Trelawny9 E. J. Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron. LondonI Edward: Moxon3 1858. 304 pp.