There
remains the perennial mystery of genius, which can put into glowing
words and exquisite phrases emotions which it can conceive but cannot
feel. Leigh Hunt's deliberate view of Byron is that he did everything
for effect, that his vanity was boundless and insatiable, and that even
his raptures were stage raptures. There is little reason to doubt it.
Byron's tumultuous agonies of soul were little more than the rage of
the spoilt child, who cannot bear that things should go contrary to its
desires. Byron, by concealing the causes of his melancholy, and
attaching to it a nobler motive, made himself into a Hamlet when he was
in reality only a Timon. What view are we to take of Byron's
intervention in the affairs of Greece? To fling oneself into a
revolutionary movement, to sacrifice money and health, to suffer, to
die, is surely an evidence of enthusiasm and sincerity? Leigh Hunt
would have us believe that this, too, was nothing but a pose. He tells
us how the gift of ten thousand pounds to the Greek Revolutionaries,
which was publicly announced by Byron's action, was reduced to a loan
of four thousand. He tells the story of the three gilded helmets,
bearing the family motto, "Crede Byron," which the poet offered to show
him, that he had had made for himself and Trelawny and Count Pietro
Gamba. The conclusion is irresistible that there was a large infusion
of vanity in the whole scheme, and that Byron had his eye upon the
world, here as elsewhere.
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