The author gratefully acknowledges the scholarship

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

demanded by her dissertation committee. As chairman,

Dr. Kenneth W. Davis patiently guided through labyrinthine

details and generously shared his own expertise as he encour

aged my attempt to voice a new concept and to assert my own

authority as a scholar-in-the-making. Dr. Thomas Langford

carefully reviewed drafts and redrafts, perceptively analyz­

ing and tendering valuable observations. Dr. Donald Rude

cheerfully encouraged and tendered suggestions for appropri­

ate scholarly realization. Both Dr. Richard Crider and

Dr. Mike Schoenecke faithfully labored over the tedium of

proofreading this dissertation.

I dedicate this literary work to my husband of many

years, Blake, who lovingly supported and encouraged this

effort.

11

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 11

CHAPTER

INTRODUCTION 1

II. NINETEENTH CENTURY CRITICS 11

III TWENTIETH CENTURY CRITICS 48

IV, POETS AND PRELATES 90

RUINS AND RELICS 121

VI CONCLUSION 158

WORKS CITED 167

111

ABSTRACT

Canto IV of Childe Harold' s PiIgrimage resulted from a

collaborative effort of Lord Byron and John Cam Hobhouse wher

Hobhouse resolved to duplicate their joint project for Canto

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

viewing ruins, monuments, and statues; tediously researching

historical and ecclesiastical sources in private and Vatican

libraries; and compiling explanatory materials on Italian

history, art and archaeology for Canto IV. Although Byron

denied that he would resume the poem, Hobhouse influenced hin

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

cific subject matter relative to his own researched notes.

This interdependent subject matter appeared in the canto, in

the attached historical notes, and in a separate text accom­

panying the poem.

This dissertation used the 1818 editions of both Canto

IV and Hi stori cal Illustrati ons to elucidate the canto

by analytically comparing the texts. Chapter one sum­

marily identifies the relationship between the two writers

and details the purpose of illuminating elusive poetic refer­

ences and allusions through comparative analysis. The seconc

and third chapters summarize reviews by nineteenth and twen­

tieth century critics. A comprehensive survey of critical

ma terial revealed three facts: the lack of recognition for

Hobhouse's influence on the poem; a negation of the benefits

from examining the canto in company with the text meant to

1 V

elucidate its poetic allusions or literary and historical

figures; and a general illiteracy about the history of the

composition of Canto IV. Chapters four and five summarily

recount Hobhouse's material contribution to understanding

Byron's expressions. Chapter six assesses the lack of crit­

ical recognition for Hobhouse's influence on the subject

matter and format of the canto, and recounts some benefits of

Historical Illustrations to the modern reader of Canto IV.

While critics pondered over classical poetics and cata­

logued Byron's introspective meditations, or insisted that

the meaning derives from the form of a literary work, they

missed the obvious explanation for Canto IV being primarily a

historical travelogue correlated with its own explanatory

notes and dissertations. A study of the history of its com­

position suggests a deeper connotation behind numerous sur­

face ideas of the poem, and a profound significance behind

the dedicatory preface.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Occasionally a master work of art speaks so eloquently

to the human condition that one does not have to comprehend

its full consequence to dote on the beauty and meditate on

its essence. This process of reader-identification with lit­

erary creations applied particularly to Lord Byron's poetic

masterpieces. Even though Chi 1 dQ H rp i;!' ? Pi Igri mage traced

continental travels over a nine year period, one might skim

any canto for majestic descriptions or profound meditations.

And the reader would never realize what a windfall he neg­

lected by not utilizing the travelogues penned to accompany

three of the four cantos. These explanatory texts inter­

preted poetic allusions, and identified strange people and

places for readers unfamiliar with continental culture

and history.

For the first two cantos, John Cam Hobhouse wrote a

travelogue detailing archaeological, historical and cultural

aspects of their tour as he and Byron traveled through

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

Albania and Other Provinces sJi Turkey UL EurOPg^ aJld Asift

Duri ng the Years 1809 and 1810 coincided with the subject

ma tter of Canto I and II and capitalized on both the English

reading public's infatuation with travelogues at that time

and the exotic tour that the pair of young Englishmen had

completed.

The outstanding literary success of their earlier

venture prompted Hobhouse' s vision of a canto-travelogue

combination detailing the jaunt through Italy that he and

Byron had long anticipated. Both Canto IV with its appended

notes and Hi stori cal Illustrati ons of the Fourth Canto of

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

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

Hobhouse's historical material so essential to interpreting

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

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

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

text shall not be published without the Notes--& if this is

contemplated--It shan't be published at all--" (Marchand L&J

6.14). Murray published part of the voluminous notes with

the canto, but retained the bulk of them for a separate

volume, Histori cal Illustrati ons.

However, in numerous letters (the last one to John

Murray dated June 17, 1817) Byron had repeatedly denied that

he would resume Childe Harold' s PiIgrimage "or any other"

poem (Marchand 5.157). One could explain Byron's reluctance

to revert to the pilgrim guise by considering his life status

in 1816. He sought a new identity as he adjusted to agoniz­

ing personal problems that entailed a self-imposed exile.

Also during the year, he had produced a tremendous amount of

poetry. He wrote Canto III of "Childe Harold," finished

the Turkish tales, worked on "Beppo" and "Manfred; he was

translating an Armenian grammar and writing a novel about

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

However, this dissertation points to one aspect of the

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

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

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

letters, I determined that without Hobhouse's persistent

urging, and his articulate command of subject matter, Byron

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

a historical travelogue. What emerged was his longest canto

supported by two companion pieces. Notes appended to the

canto explained numerous places, monuments and events about

which readers in 1818 knew little, and added appreciably to

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

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

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

on Italian Li terature. told something about the composition

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

history) correlated with poetic references, interpreted vague

allusions and increased a reader's grasp of various aspects

of Italian culture. Also, Hobhouse edited the accompanying

m aterial to avoid repetition in the notes and Illustrations

For the curious scholar, Hobhouse provided an account of the

exhaustive research behind the compilation of the explanatory

material. While he specifically stated that he did not

intend to interpret or explain Byron's poetry, he obviously

felt that poetry should instruct, and therefore edited both

the notes and Illustrati ons as enrichment for the canto. His

natural antiquarian interest and knowledge of Italian history

led him to produce scholarly and authoritative discourses

that added detail and background for readers interested in

classical literature, Italian history, or relics discovered

in nineteenth-century excavations of Rome and its surrounding

terri tory.

Through Hobhouse' s journal, one might easily recreate

the calendar of travels as he and Byron explored the Bernese

Alps in Switzerland and then journeyed to Italy in the autumn

of 1816. Whereas most nineteenth century English tourists

visited Naples and Florence, Byron and Hobhouse traveled to

Milan and Venice. A partial gap occurred in the report

(because of missing diaries) when Hobhouse went to Rome

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

notes and Illustrati ons, and probably contributed to the text

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

account of their travels will demonstrate the time frame in

relation to the poetic composition and establish the basis

for the influential role Hobhouse played in both subject

m atter and format of the poem.

As the sightseer, Hobhouse led Byron through museums and

ca thedrals, art galleries and private libraries, all the

while amassing notes about everything from contemporary lit­

erary figures and ancient marble statues to the antiquarian

subjects included in Illustrati ons. The pair spent several

weeks in Milan visiting libraries and art galleries, attend­

ing the opera, and meeting some of Italy's most impressive

literary and historical figures. In the social whirl of din­

ner parties, conversation among the intelligentia turned on

politics--Napoleon and his eighteenth century invasion of

Italy, Castlereagh and the current repressive regime in

England, personal liberty and political freedom--literature

and the literati.

In November, the pair reached Venice and Byron became

infatuated with the city as well as its inhabitants. He

refused to leave, so in December Hobhouse set off for Rome

without him. In Bologna Hobhouse met Cardinal Mezzofanti, an

Oriental scholar and linguist, who conducted the Englishman

through the Vatican library with its 150,000 books and 40,000

manuscripts, and gave him samples of the Lord's Prayer that

he had translated into 157 languages. Needless to say, Hob­

house was indelibly moved by this scholarly achievement. In

Florence he met the poet Conte Vittorio Alfieri's widowed

mistress, who was more admired "by that bastard title" than

as "the wife of a [living] Prince" ( Recollecti ons 2.69).

When alive, Alfieri had poetically championed the people's

desire for liberty after the Italian states' support of the

French Revolution led to Napoleon's repressive invasion.

Of course with his mania for trivia, Hobhouse recorded

the historical aspects of his journey. Once he reached Rome

(before Christmas, 1816), he spent about six months viewing

ruins and monuments as he collected archival notes from

reputable historical and ecclesiastical scholars in both

private and Vatican libraries. Byron arrived for a whirlwind

tour of the city in April, 1817, and stayed three weeks

before he returned to Venice. Hobhouse went back to Venice

in July, and from July until January 8, 1818, he remained

with Byron. During the entire timespan he patiently con­

tinued to amass notes, visit art galleries and pore over

historical texts in the best ducal and ecclesiastical

libraries, doggedly compiling historical notes and Illus­

trati ons pertaining to the subjects being poetically depicted

in Canto IV.

Although Byron asserted on June 17, 1817 that he had no

intention of writing a line of poetry about Rome, or of "re­

commencing that poem" (Marchand L&J 5. 240), within two weeks

of Hobhouse's return to Venice, he had more than thirty stan­

zas "roughened off" into a fourth canto (5. 244). By the end

of July, he had "completed" the canto with 126 stanzas. But,

the poem continued to grow--by November it had 167 stanzas.

When Hobhouse left Venice in January, 1818, with the final

draft of the poem that Byron never intended to write, it

contained 184 stanzas.

Hobhouse spent much of his time in Milan, Venice and

Rome absorbed in research, and compiled volumes of historical

notes and treatises before Byron began composing poetry to

correspond. When it became obvious that the canto had to be

expanded to cover the notes, Hobhouse dictated a number of

subjects for coverage, and observed Byron's composition and

revision as the poet added stanzas related to important top­

ics of historical significance or literary interest. Several

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

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

debating the political situation in Europe including England.

And of course Byron did what writers have done from the

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

he copied ideas from others, including Hobhouse. During this

compilation process, Hobhouse carefully collated both the

notes and 111 ustrati ons with the canto to provide full

coverage, yet refrain from repetition.

A secondary facet of examining the compositional history

of Canto IV revealed a rather startling sidelight about

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

influence. Because Byron wrote the canto after his return to

Venice instead of while he viewed the majestic scenery and

magnificent Roman ruins, he exemplified Wordsworth's concept

of poetry as emotions recollected in tranquillity. And he

seemed to adopt Wordsworth's technique of using journal

entries to stimulate past emotions and to recreate them.

Hobhouse also kept a diary and several stanzas reiterate

his entries, but a number of stanzas echoed splendid scenic

descriptions in Byron's journal kept for Augusta Leigh as he

8

and Hobhouse traversed Switzerland before going to Italy. In

one entry, Byron marveled at a glacial waterfall forming a

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

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

He depicted a cloud "curling up perpendicular precipices

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

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

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

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

sharply detailed the "matchless" Velino cataract cleaving

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

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

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

This dissertation has two purposes relative to the col­

laborative efforts of Byron and Hobhouse producing a poetic

masterpiece accompanied by explanatory notes and treatises on

art, architecture and history. First, this document aims to

demonstrate the influential role of Hobhouse in both the poe­

tic subject matter and structural format of the poem. While

critics generally have assumed Canto IV to be Byron's own

personal observations of the Italian scene and his responses

to it, that assumption is mostly untrue. Byron did express

the same narcissistic affectation of melancholy and

self-concern. However, Hobhouse effectively coerced Byron

into writing the poem and prescribed numerous subjects for

i nclusi on.

A second purpose for this dissertation is to assess

critically Hobhouse' s own significant contribution to an

intelligent interpretation of Canto IV through a comparative

elucidation of the canto by using his tome Hi stori cal Illus­

trati ons. While the importance of the historical notes

originally appended to the poem should not be minimized, the

second volume added much pertinent information generally not

available to an inquiring reader. The notes accompanying

Canto IV remained generally available without undue problems,

but Illustrati ons became virtually unattainable, except

in the musty corners of a few rare book rooms, out of reach

of even scholarly readers who would examine Canto IV in the

light of its illuminating treatises. Whereas Journev Through

Albania attained record sales for a travelogue, the limited

sale of Historical ^llustrati ons disappointed both Byron and

Hobhouse.

Although critics have ignored the contextual signifi­

cance of Hobhouse's tome, this dissertation will demonstrate

the deliberate parallel subject matter of Canto IV and Illus­

trations. The first chapter summarily identifies the rela­

tionship between the two writers and details the purpose of

illuminating elusive poetic references and allusions. The

second chapter summarizes contemporary reviews of Canto IV

10

while the third covers twentieth-century critical reactions.

Chapters four and five form the body of this text as they re­

late the copious minutiae of Hi stori cal Illustrati ons to an

interpretation of Canto IV, highlighting the contributions of

Illustrations. Chapter six assesses the lack of critical

recognition for Hobhouse*s reciprocal part in the canto and

the benefits of Illustrati ons to the modern reader of the

poem.

This study used the 1818 editions of both Canto IV and

Illustrati ons. Because inquiring readers can generally

secure complete notes explicating the canto without undue

difficulty, this study did not include these notational

references. The canto's subject matter itself controlled the

format of this dissertation, and inclusions in Illustrationg

determined the topics considered. A number of other scholar­

ly works contributed to the examination of the canto,

including Leslie Marchand* s comprehensive edition of Bvron' s

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

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

Canto IV. Probably the most indispensable secondary text,

which is not readily available but can be attained after some

searching, is John Cam Hobhouse*s personal reminiscences

edited by his daughter in 1909 as a six volume diary and

journal entitled Recollections of.a Long Li fe.

CHAPTER II

NINETEENTH-CENTURY CRITICS

Ideally any critical response embodies an eclectic

and multidimensional approach. In actuality, every critic

echoes a cultural background predetermined by personal exper­

iences that create a sensitivity to specific aspects of a

piece of literature. A comprehensive survey of critical com­

ments about Canto IV of C h] i, ] j Harold* s Pi Igrimage reveals a

variety of judgments based on diversified standards of social

conduct and literary accomplishment. Nineteenth-century

critics did not concentrate on finding meaning in the poem.

Instead they blindly groped through their own personal as­

sumptions to focus on one of two factors. Either they judged

Byron the person by the prevalent social gossip as they read

his poetry, or they judged his poetry by classical standards

of rhetorical analysis going back to Plato and Aristotle.

Most nineteenth-century commentators, and especially the

Romantic critics, concentrated on the organic form of a lite­

rary work--how the parts mutually supported each other. But

they never ignored the association between poetic harmony and

sublime language as they affirmed the principles and aesthet­

ics of rhyme, rhythm, tone, setting, imagery and imagination.

In fact, organicism stressed two specific concepts: the

poem's power to evoke feelings in the reader and the poet's

creative imagination as the shaping force and unifying vision

of the work. Also, since the Romantics were generally

11

12

fascinated with nature, the poetic passages on nature stirred

the greatest critical response (with almost universal

approval) .

When Lord Byron's first volume of juvenile verse came

out in 1807, Romantic critics began responding to his poetic

techniques with both praise and censure. As his popularity

increased, so did the number of reviewers commenting on vari­

ous aspects of his work and life. By the time Byron produced

Canto IV of ChiIde Harold' s PiIgri mage, contemporary critics

had generally divided into two groups, one favorable to Byron

and the other hostile. The friendly critics saw merit in all

of his poetry and they ignored his reputation for a moody

temperament, disregarded the gossip and rumors about his

illicit affairs, and scorned the innuendoes about his private

life. They accepted him as a master poet and popular writer

who fascinated his reading public. Also, any article on

Byron guaranteed a larger sale of the journal and enticed new

readers. On the other hand, reviewers hostile to Byron har­

bored prejudices against his lack of conventional moral prin­

ciples and could not objectively evaluate the quality of any

literary work to which Byron's name was attached. A number

had ignored his previous poetic pieces, including the first

three cantos of ChiIde Harold, but the poet's popularity

prompted them to jump on the bandwagon when Byron published

Canto IV. This begrudging admission of the public's

13

fascination with Byronic works did not mitigate their harsh

judgment and condemnation as they maligned his artistic

abi li ty.

As contemporary critics vied to dissect Canto IV, most

commentators focused on the poetic conventions of rhythm and

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

audience response. The critics ignored the composite of

poetic elements and narrative devices, the meaning of images

and verbal patterns, and the poetic language specifically

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

IV. Instead, these reviewers interpreted literally some

rambling poetic speculations, and refused to accept at face

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

sonal reaction to the scenery, ruins and monuments he had

viewed sometime before he wrote about them. While these

responses occurred as poetic digressions, critics dwelt on

them as the message of the poem. Contemporary critics

expected the same impassioned utterances as usual to erupt

spontaneously from the self-exiled poet, and searched dili­

gently until they found them, always citing lengthy excerpts

in support of their mistaken assumptions. They failed to

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

insisting that he record their tour, and they neglected to

research the history of composition for Canto IV. As the

pair collated the poetic travelogue with historical notes

and T1lustrati ons. Byron inserted numerous allusions that

14

even classically educated critics probably could not under­

stand. Certainly they jumped to foregone conclusions in

attempting to derive objective data from the subjective

persona addressing a British audience he never expected to

see

Byron had the flair of a showman and was always aware

of his audience and sensitively alert to the response gene­

rated by his poetry. To a great degree, the tremendous

appeal of his poetry came from a reading public's vicarious

perception of the honest and impassioned poetic assertions of

ordinary feelings including both misery and ecstasy. Because

these feelings could not be properly expressed through the

formal social modes open to individuals, the public responded

fervently and sympathetically as Byron voiced what they also

yearned to express. While Byron was as aware as the critics

that the English reading public found a fascination in any­

thing Italian, his combination of subject matter and brilli­

ant eloquence created a sympathetic bond of communion between

bard and reader. This gave Byron's poetry the profound power

lacking in the works of other contemporary writers. Assured­

ly, the conversational babble in the local coffee houses at

this time probably included lengthy recitations and disputed

interpretations of Canto IV as the average nobleman displayed

his articulate discernment of poetic artistry--via whatever

critic he perused. For certain, the nineteenth-century

English reading public had ample opportunity to acquire a

15

multitude of perceptive insights before they even read the

canto because critics also reacted passionately to Byron's

poetry and raced to voice their opinions.

Canto IV was published on April 28, 1818, and four days

later the first reviews appeared. This quick reponse of

critics testified to both the incredible popularity of a

Byronic work and the illustrious recognition accorded by a

reading public to contemporary reviewers. Two literary

rivals and jealous competitors of one another and of Byron,

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

Hazlitt (essayist and political champion of unpopular causes)

dashed off the first commentaries.

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

Belles Lettres. Arts, Poli ti cs, etc. published George Croly s

formal critique, which enumerated strengths of the canto in

grudging praise and weaknesses in aggressive criticism. As

one familiar with Byron's personal life, Croly injected

slanderous jibes while he purportedly concentrated on

literary matters only. Also, he tried to demonstrate both

a familiarity with ancient Italian poets and a political

awareness of momentous historical milestones of his own

times, but he missed Byron's notice of Princess Charlotte's

death in England.

Eager to demonstrate his own infallible expertise and

authoritative astuteness, Croly reacted to the values and

implications of Byron's words and allusions. He denounced

16

the sentimentality in the dedicatory preface and mocked the

flattery and vanity in the dedication. If he had actually

read this part, he would have recognized that Hobhouse was

more than a traveling companion on this tour. Croly attacked

Byron's entering Italian politics as a loss of patriotism

ill-becoming an Englishman. Then he scolded Byron for daring

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

lishing the Holy Alliance.

After dispensing with his censorious overall impres­

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

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

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

attempted to demonstrate his personal acuity, Croly traced

the poet's itinerary by cataloging famed Italian literary

figures mentioned by Byron. With cool Irish enmity, he

castigated the poet for the ludicrous and facetious

address to Venice. Strangely enough, other contemporary

critics regarded that passage as one of the most beautiful

ever penned by an Englishman. In a chilling tone of animo­

sity, Croly cited Byron's impassioned meditations on melan­

choly as run-on stanzas of poetic drivel (viii-x and xxii-

XXV). As a truly Romantic nature lover himself, Croly be­

grudged a word of praise for Byron's finely structured

description of an Italian evening ( xxvi-xxviii).

Croly s one and only almost unqualified approval con­

cerned the poetic address to Rome (Ixxviii-Ixxxi) and Roman

17

heroes (Ixxxix-xcii), which was not Byron's idea at all. As

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

"finer than Greece," but he remained apathetic about "poring

over its churches & antiquities" (Marchand 5. 231) and recom­

mended that "as for the Coliseum, Pantheon, St. Peter's, the

Vatican, Palatine, &c. &c.--vide Guide-book" (5. 224). The

poet also informed John Murray that he had been in Rome too

short a time to consider writing about it (5. 240). Thus,

Croly miscued (as usual) in another statement because he

wrongly assumed that Byron's response was genuinely the

poet's own thought.

Croly concluded his tediously hostile review by quoting

the last two stanzas (clxxxv-clxxxvi) . At this point, one

could dare hope that he recognized more than a poetic truth

in "My task is done--my song hath ceased--my theme/ Hath died

into an echo . . . and what is writ is writ. "

Equally anxious to prove his literary prowess to one and

all along with his sophisticated skills as a critical con­

noisseur, William Hazlitt also published a critique on May 2,

1818 (the same day that Croly s critique appeared). He

began with an epigraph from Shakespeare and a quotation from

Wordsworth before belittling the fourth canto without

mentioning a single passage covered by Croly. Hazlitt

perceived the poem as a disturbed, confused, tormented

and disjointed work that portrayed the Childe as a

pampered, arrogant, ill-humored, complaining character

18

who loved misery and looked down his nose at his admiring

public. Continuing the unflattering assessment, he

accused Byron of creating a hero who worshipped his own

egotism. Hazlitt ridiculed the poetic vow in stanzas cxxxv-

cxxvii to avenge himself (on his wife) by forgiving her for

the hurt he endured because of her. [Byron had expressed

this forgiveness in several letters before he began writing

the canto. J He censored Byron's opinionated judgments,

extravagant expressions, perverse style, capricious versi­

fication, run-on stanzas, peculiar metaphors, uncouth rhymes,

and repetitious gloom. Furthermore, he took offense at both

Byron's criticism of France and condemnation of his

( Hazlitt* s) own personal hero Napoleon. These were the

topics of the day, and Hobhouse recorded long conversations

about them with various intelligentia in both Switzerland

and Italy. In spite of a general disapproval for Canto IV,

Hazlitt noted some outstanding passages on the basis of how

they affected him. First, the section on Venice (i-iii) was

fair poetry; the passage on Petrarch*s tomb (xxx-xxxiii) and

the poetic eulogy to Tasso (xxxv-xxxviii) had great force.

Other passages that received a reluctant approval included

the imagined last moments of the dying gladiator (cxl-cxli)

and the apostrophe to the ocean (clxxxv-clxxxvi).

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

Journal dated Sunday, May 3 was deliberately distributed on

Saturday, May 2, 1818, with its own review penned by an

19

unidentified writer. This anonymous critic briefly described

Byron's poetic life before he bemoaned the poet's failure to

fulfill his early promise as a creative genius. Even today

twentieth-century American readers of this review would sense

possible hypocrisy behind this veneer of regret. The

critic then followed the same pattern that others used of

balancing antitheses, bitterly attacking Byron before he

accorded a word of commendation for the creation of some

beautiful poetry. First, he scornfully deplored the gloomy

intrusions of blighted passion that intertwined personal

feelings and descriptive scenes. According to the reviewer,

the poet's personal confessions disrupted the beauty of

exquisite description and striking allusions (an oblique

admission by an unnamed critic that a master poet had

accomplished his goal). The critic continued by ineptly,

and quite unintentionally, revealing his ignorance of when

and where Byron wrote the canto--he imputed an innate vigor

to the poem as a result of its being written among the scenes

it depicted. In continuing a general critical denunciation,

he reprimanded Byron for writing a dull canto devoid of

incident and lacking spirit and originality. Lest there be

some misunderstanding of his own emotional perceptions, the

anonymous critic charged the poet with using absurd language

to voice the same miserable disaffection associated with

earlier cantos. Surely anyone familiar with Byron's personal

anguish at this time would understand his preoccupation with

20

a sense of hopeless despair. Although the unnamed censor

did not compete with the eloquent denunciations of Hazlitt

or the astute observations of Croly, he criticized the

preface as Croly did and commended the opening passage as

Hazlitt did. He also parroted Croly in denouncing the

meditative passage on existence and suffering (xxi-xxiii).

Then, in a contradictory mode, the critic commended the

elegant beauty in the nature passages (the sunset scene

xxvii-xxix and the waterfall at Terni Ixix-lxxii).

The critic inadvertently complimented Hobhouse when he

praised the stanzas on Rome since they most conspicuously un­

veiled the tremendous influence of Hobhouse on the finished

canto. Although the anonymous reviewer never acknowledged

His tori cal 111 ust rati ons. he digressed from other critics

when he applauded Hobhouse' s accompanying note for the first

lines (explicating the historical significance in the Bridge

of Sighs). Also, the reviewer added several new notes to the

critiques of Canto IV. First, he conceded Byron's candid and

sincere sorrow in Princess Charlotte's death (clxvii-clxxii).

Both Croly and Hazlitt inauspiciously failed to appreciate the

poetic acknowledgement of that particular contemporary event,

which Hobhouse described in a diary entry for November 23,

1817. He and Byron learned of her death (two weeks before as

she birthed a stillborn son) while on their daily ride along

the beach. Hobhouse recorded how deeply touched both were.

and how they speculated about the meaning of the event

21

The anonymous critic surpassed Croly and Hazlitt in

admiring other poetic passages, particularly the one that

questioned the identity of a lady entombed in Rome (c-ciii).

Most definitely he commended Hobhouse in this since Byron

felt only detachment and indifference in "bothering over its

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

Finally, the critic proved his literary perspicacity

when he recognized Felicaja's sonnet that Byron had plagia­

rized (stanza xlii). Not even Croly observed that.

During the month of May, 1818, several other literary

journals also carried critiques on Canto IV. In fact as if

proving the magic in a name (Byron's), the Catholi c Gentle­

man* s Magazi ne ran a two-part notice that extended into June.

After all, how could any contemporary journal better guaran­

tee a continuing readership than by serializing a critique

on the poetic hero of a nation? Unfortunately, another writ­

er who defied identification continued the series of hostile

reviews begun by Croly and Hazlitt. This anonymous reviewer

denounced Byron for wallowing in grief and pursuing despair

in his poetic quest for melancholy. Also in accord with

other critics, he reveled that finally the Childe*s

pilgrimage was complete, and "his Lordship's readers" could

"rest during the remainder of their lives from the fatigue of

the journey" (514). However, he blatantly condemned the

ruling principle of the series--what he called a public dis­

play of sentiment. Of course, any reader today would

22

recognize Byron's honest emotional expression as the magnetic

attraction that seduced so many readers and earnestly bound

their affections and loyalty to the intrepid bard. However,

according to the unnamed critic, the poet's discordant meta­

physical digressions and dismal meditations detracted from

the elegant expressions while they added nothing to the

body of English poetry. This critic perceptively realized

that a loyal reading public would allow a limited censure of

their hero if it was accompanied by a critically favorable

appraisal of some passages. Therefore, he safely concurred

with others in praising the poetic description of Venice and

the moving apostrophe to Italy. To prove to the public that

he was familiar with the canto, he then quoted many stanzas

to support his claim (ii, xii, xxi, xxiii, xxix, xxxviii,

xxxix, xlii, xlvi, xlvii, Ixii, Ixiv). Acting like the

authoritative and omniscient judge of poetic endeavors, this

reviewer went along with Croly in criticizing Byron's use of

the metrically imperfect Spenserian stanza. However, he

isolated himself among the critics when he commended the

funeral orations for a dead empire, damned Byron's lack of

sobriety when viewing Italian art, and voiced a moral censure

of his poetry. Obviously recognizing that his offensive

remarks would alienate many English readers, the critic

apologized for denouncing so fashionable an artist and

attempted to balance his moral censure of Byron with praise

for the historical notes that Hobhouse appended to the

23

various stanzas. He demonstrated a scholarly erudition

beyond other critics when he identified the passage on

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

Hobhouse had carried a personal library including Livy's

historical text when he went to Italy, and had repeatedly

referred to the Livy text. However, the anonymous critic

unknowingly acclaimed the effective dominance of Hobhouse

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

had a particularly vigorous reality to those cognizant of

ancient Italian history. No previous critic had remarked on

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

that Catholics had a particular interest in the text because

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

critic had obviously not read Hobhouse' s comments mocking and

condemning the Catholic Church's promulgation and encourage­

ment of ignorance and superstition among its membership.

In his critical recognition of the historical value of the

volume, he failed to commend the true contribution or to

communicate the full significance of 111ustrati ons to

any reader of Canto IV in any historical era.

One more significant critical article appeared in May,

1818, written by an anonymous reviewer for Scots Magazine.

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

defects that other critics had enumerated--straggling

stanzas, scornful digressions and morbid emotions; trans­

gressions which would doom any poet lacking Byron's

24

extraordinary popularity. The anonymous critic also echoed

the common critical opinion of Byron's egotistical nature,

and concurred with others in praise of various passages.

For one, the poetic meditations on Princess Charlotte's

death (clxvii-clxxii) represented a classical model of

beautiful poetry destined to live forever. Second, the

moving depiction of a historically verified earthquake

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

Thrasimene and the magnificent description of an Italian

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

no passage proved so stirring to the reviewer as the passage

on filial piety when the Roman daughter nourished her

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

Again, a critic unwittingly commended Hobhouse' s exhaustive

research and creative ideas in the canto while he either

totally ignored or deliberately disregarded Hobhouse's

elucidation of the canto through both the notes and the

separate text accompanying the poem.

Reviews continued throughout 1818 in a variety of

different literary journals and revealed a wide range of

divergent critical opinions about the same topics. As

critics competed to articulate creative and original ideas,

some strayed from literary principles to encompass nonaes-

thetic values of biography and history rather than art, but

without acknowledging what Hobhouse contributed to their

understanding of the canto. However, this continued

25

publicity attested to the intense popular appeal of the

canto. Naturally, in the interim between January (when Hob­

house returned to England with the manuscript) and the end of

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

Venice, hoping to hear of the reading public's response (not

what the critics said) to the poem. In a flurry of letters

requesting information, Byron fluctuated from despair to

hopeful elation. In June, Hobhouse reported in a letter to

the poet that the poem was selling "prodigiously" (Graham

231). Also, Byron had no conception of the intense public

approval for his liberal political ideology at a time when

the Tories had suspended the right to habeas corpus. In

fact, the Morni ng Chronj cle invited the exile to return to

England and lead the struggle opposing the despotic forces

that he warned against in the canto (244).

Of course, during this time Hobhouse also felt the same

nervous apprehension about the public's reception of both

Canto IV and his own volume. He felt that Canto IV contained

the best poetry Byron had ever written, but that did not

mitigate his own agitation over the notes and Illustrati ons,

On April 28, he remarked that "Childe Harold" had been pub­

lished, and he continued with this entry: "God knows what

will be the fate of Notes and Illustrations. I have worked

like a horse, and perhaps like an ass, at them." And again

on May 10, he anxiously speculated that "there are not two

people in England capable of appreciating the book." The

26

critics never conceded that much of the pith of Canto IV

lingered in ambiguous enigmas defying interpretation, and

that Hobhouse's tome contributed the missing information.

Many contemporary critics could not resist the popular

pastime of taking Byron to task morally and philosophically

as they reviewed his literary art. But Wilson (sources dis­

agreed whether his first name was David or John) wrote anony­

mously to praise Byron's achievement in the June, 1818 issue

of Edinburgh Revi ew. He introduced a new element to the

criticism of the canto when he identified Byron with other

poetic figures starting with Plato, Cicero and Claudian.

According to Wilson, these authors had done the same thing

as Byron--contemplated subjects of dark skepticism, and wrote

out of a personal response to them. The critic also likened

Byron to two modern intellectual giants who poetically

depicted skepticism and suffering. The prominent German

Goethe disguised himself as Faustus to express his doubts

and discontent. And Schiller, likewise a German, expressed

personal agony and anguish through a literary character named

Wallenstein. However, Wilson contended that Byron succeeded

beyond any of the classical figures or German Romantics as he

achieved a meditative majesty, even in melancholy, that

ennobled the readers. Continuing the comparison between

Byron and contintental writers, Wilson then elaborated on

Byron and Rousseau. First, through passionate language,

personal genius, reader influence and kindred contemplation.

27

both men disclosed the utter depths of vivid feeling and

intimate thoughts. Also, both writers plumbed the limits

of man's universal nature, and each became an idol to his

public admirers.

In Byron's case, according to Wilson, these entranced

readers felt a kinship with this "fellow-voyager on the

stream of life" (92), and responded with the personal bond

of love and friendship. Finally, a contemporary critic had

granted Byron a place among other artistic geniuses of the

European literary world. Wilson also dared to stand alone

among peers when he affirmed character rather than narration

as the basic premise in "Childe Harold." Of course, this

rationalization negated Hobhouse' s notes and Illustrati ons

and refuted the obvious travelogue context of the canto. In

another respect Wilson differed with popular critical notions

of the nineteenth century. He cited the Aristotelian

dramatic elements of time and place, and then lauded Byron's

unfettered movement "from hilltop to hilltop, and from tower

to tower, over all the solitude of nature, and all the

magnificence of art" (98), unhindered by the conventional

unities. Furthermore, he uniquely asserted that the fourth

canto reflected a nobler vision as Byron abandoned the

imaginary pilgrim character and capitalized on the public's

infatuation with any adventure in southern Europe. While

the critic confirmed the opinion of others that Byron

attained absolute poetic perfection in some stanzas,

28

he specifically cited the nature passages and the emotional

expressions--the moonscape (xxvii-xxix which echoed two of

Hobhouse' s journal entries), ecstasy and scorn ( clx-clxiii) ,

and realism in description (Ixix-lxxiv, cxiv, clxxviii-

clxxxvi, xlviii-lii, Ixxiii-Ixxxiv, Ixii-lxvi, and cxliii-

cxliv). These included meditative passages on the Velino

cataract, St. Peter's, the ocean, art masterpieces and

statues, the Thrasimene battlefield, and Roman ruins (mostly

Hobhouse's subject matter). In addition, he commended the

poetic qualities in Byron's remorse over the lost grandeur of

Venice (xv-xviii), depiction of Petrarch's home in Arqua, and

meditations over his sepulchre. Would he have changed his

mind if he had realized how many of these inclusions occurred

because of Hobhouse's insistence?

During this time of intense competition to acknowledge

every composition of Byron's, the June issue of Mont hiv Maga­

zi ne carried a brief review with an anonymous critic comment­

ing on the "Lament of Tasso" before he dealt with Canto IV.

He did not realize that Byron penned the lament after

visiting Tasso's prison cell and learning about Alphonso*s

role in abusing the poet. Of course, at this time Byron

could identify with a persecuted poet whom the Italian people

still reverenced. Also, when he composed this short poem,

Byron vehemently contended that he would not write a fourth

canto. While the critic found the canto lacking in colorful

language and character delineation, he could find no fault

29

with Byron's use of classical poetic principles. He conceded

that Canto IV contained some of the most eloquent poetry ever

written, especially when Byron defended freedom and mourned

over Princess Charlotte's death in childbirth. (Hobhouse was

again surreptitiously commended.)

Obviously, and no doubt because of the reading public,

the critical climate changed after the first reviews of Canto

IV appeared on May 2. After other critics had acclaimed

the brilliance of Byron's accomplishments, an unnamed review­

er in the June, 1818, issue of Northern Star endorsed the

poetic achievement and called "Childe Harold" the most beau-

tiul poem in the English language. Like other critics, he

judged by classical standards but found Byron's use of the

Spenserian stanza perfect for the subject matter--it produced

a pleasing rhythmic harmony. Further, he asserted that only

a cultivated mind (little did he know that mind was Hob-

house's) could produce such distinctive poetry. This

commentary belied the general opinion just a month earlier

that a perverted personality sick of life generated the

canto. Unlike most critics, this reviewer (even though

anonymous) defended Byron's character against rumors of

gross misconduct and rash insolence. As one personally

familiar with the charm of a Venetian gondola ride, he

lamented that Venetians no longer recognized the familiar

strains of "Jerusalem" and he shared Byron' s regret that the

gondoliers no longer sang Tasso's chants (iii). He admired

30

the description of Lake Thrasimene and its nearby battlefield

(Ixv)--included because of Hobhouse. This reviewer along

with others, especially Croly, saw a classical attainment of

poetic perfection in the depiction of Rome and its ruins.

He lauded the eloquence in the treatise on love (cxxv) and

on remorse at Princess Charlotte's death (clxii), along with

the articulate statement on melancholy and pleasure (clxxvii-

clxxviii). In accord with others, he cited the poetic

description of an Italian evening and sunset (xxix--which

even the harshest reviewers also admired). He surpassed

other critics in eulogizing the tribute to Petrarch and

various literary figures who deserved acclaim (it was

Hobhouse's idea to include them), and completed his laudatory

survey by praising the Englishman's revival of Tasso's name

as an Italian patriot (again Hobhouse deserves credit). The

critic displayed his own liberal political bent when he con­

curred with Byron's warning about Britain losing its freedom

through the despotic reign it currently sustained. He

revealed his familiarity with classical literature when he

commended Byron's allusions and classical associations. He

obviously did not know that Hobhouse was the historical

genius that Byron consulted.

In spite of other critics commending limited passages

in Hobouse' s notes, no previous commentator had referred to

the specific note detailing Laura's "platonic" (473) attach-

m ent to the Italian poet Petrarch. An anonymous critic for

31

Northern Star questioned the so-called "platonic" nature, and

viewed the affair as a passionate storybook relationship. He

further acknowledged Hobhouse' s literary accomplishments and

political ambitions, as well as his longstanding intimate

association with Byron. Using the same passage in the dedi­

catory preface that Croly used to jeer at the friendship,

the anonymous reviewer supported the fraternal idealism ex­

pressed in the passage. Finally, he expressed gratitude for

the inclusion of the notes with Canto IV as he repeated the

critical assessment that more captious critics voiced--the

notes contained eloquent language, useful information and

interesting anecdotes, but too many political reflections.

Although he credited Hobhouse with the separate material

supporting the canto, he failed to perceive that Hobhouse

influenced the entire canto in its subject matter and

stanzaic arrangement.

Since critics must maintain an independent voice in

relation to other critical commentators, one would expect

and await a changed tone among critics after several compli­

mentary reviews of Canto IV. One did not have to wait long

before Joseph Conder appended his name to a jarring review

written in July, 1818, for c Review. He echoed

Croly s biting sarcasm as he questioned the poet-pilgrim's

separate existence. According to Conder, this pretense of an

imaginary character had gone on far too long even though the

disguise fascinated readers. He also scolded Byron for

32

lacking the foresight to develop the childe through planned

action and dramatic incidents. Conder obviously anticipated

an epic rather than a travelogue, and in this judgment he

revealed an eclipsed critical vision since the public wanted

travelogues. In further chastisement, he echoed the bitter­

ness of other poetic rivals when he attacked the poet for

incompetence, vanity and monotony in a poetic tale of "ineff­

able miseries" (51) by a poet who did not deserve the reputa­

tion he had. However, Conder recognized the limit of public

endurance for abuse of their hero, and conceded that some

passages revealed a slight touch of poetic genius. He quoted

lengthy excerpts (several that Croly commended and many that

Hobhouse insisted on) even though he clearly disapproved of

the person who penned them. Conder saved his most scathing

comments for Hobhouse and the notes that occupied two-thirds

of the pages in the Fourth Canto volume. He ridiculed a poem

needing essay-length dissertations ( Illustrati ons) and cen­

sured the notes as entertaining but only slightly connected to

the subject.

In the July, 1818, issue of Gentleman' s Magazi ne an

anonymous reviewer, probably John Nichols, attacked Byron

as a talented poet who revealed prejudices when the public

expected a generous nature. He also accused the poet of

squandering his opportunity to be an auspicious political

leader at a critical time in history. Instead of distin­

guishing himself as a noble man of circumstance, Byron

33

plunged into officious politics that dishonored his country

of birth; he further accused Byron of writing a pathetic

passage on the laborers of Rome that couched a disapproval of

the English support for Europe's monarchial condition (the

Holy Alliance that England helped organize). Revealing a

rare illiteracy for a critic, he criticized the inclusion of

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

Ariosto, Petrarch, etc.). He conceded one note of praise

for eloquent language and commanding metaphysical concepts,

but he failed to note Byron's traditional romantic subjecti­

vity as a traveler meditating on what he had seen.

Using formal rhetoric and commanding literary language,

Sir Walter Scott penned one of Byron's friendliest critiques

for the July issue of Quarterlv Revi ew. Since he signed the

review, he obviously expected and invited readers to consider

his own expertise and accomplishments as a poet and balladeer

while they pondered his comments. Also as a rival poet,

Scott recognized the qualities demanded by the art, and

treasured the overwhelming merit in brilliant poetry. He

commended Byron as the first poet since Cowper to express

without disguise universal emotions and argued that the

reading public felt awe in sharing these emotions as he

reluctantly conceded the end of a pilgrimage that had both

delighted and provoked readers. Scott commended the setting

in Venice (i). As an antiquarian at heart, he probably felt

the magnetic attraction of history when Byron mourned for

34

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

Englishman, Scott recognized the vast array of literary

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

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

nus sustained Byron's poetic reputation. With the sensi­

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

description of the overgrown landscape of ruins in the Holy

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

language as he commented on the realistic descriptions of the

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

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

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

written novels about these very subjects. In support of By­

ron* s warning, Scott bitterly denounced religious quacks and

political dupes who hoodwinked the English people into be­

lieving that extending political rights would solve the prob­

lems of vice and misery endured by a crowded population.

If he had perceptively identified Hobhouse*s influence,

Scott might have tempered his criticism of this fellow

English peer. However, when he turned his attention to

Illustrations, Scott became unjustly critical. He admonished

Hobhouse for authoring a text filled with political senti­

ments of democracy and egalitarianism--the same topic for

which he had commended Byron. He further charged that these

sentiments catered to the lawless emotions of metropolitan

mobs who would "vindicate freedom of election by knocking out

35

the brains of the candidate of whom they disapprove" (231).

However, he jestingly concluded that Hobhouse was a member

of the gentry, and would probably mature into a man of judg­

ment befitting his station in life.

In contrast, William Roberts critiqued Canto IV for

the Bri ti sh Revi ew (August, 1818) in what must be one of

the most scathing reviews ever written. He began with the

preface where Byron's remarks about the pilgrim and his

"diseased and perverted view of life" (2) negated his God-

given talents. Derisively dismissing the holy purpose

implied by the pious Childe reaching the pilgrim's shrine

( clxxv) , Roberts defamed Byron as a pilgrim of "passion,

infidelity, and debauchery" who plagued the already "thorny"

path of other pilgrims (3). He voiced disgust with the

libertine sentiments of a poem produced by a mind sick with

satiety--hardly the appaisal expected for a travelogue with

historical overtones. After finishing with the "drivelling

epistle dedicatory" (10), Roberts attacked Byron as the same

egotistical, angry, ill-humored creature he had always been,

one dissatisfied with conventional social and civic arrange­

ments and a lascivious profligate who failed to find con­

tinuing delight in dissipation. He asserted that Byron

reflected failure as a sentimental poet whose distressing

me ditation portrayed a man who could not stand himself

(viii-x). According to Roberts, Canto IV expressed wanton

irreverence, superficial splendor and disgusting imagery.

36

It was too long, too repetitious, and too rambling as it

traced the whimsical travels of an imaginary pilgrim. In a

bitter tirade, Roberts questioned Byron's intellectual integ­

rity, poetic sincerity and patriotic loyalty. (If he had

known how decadent Byron's life really was, he probably would

have crucified the poet.) He denounced the poet for regrett­

ing Napoleon's defeat, for expressing contempt of civil

authorities, for favoring oppressive despotic states, and for

uttering phrases of Jacobin revolutionary sympathy. Most

assuredly, Roberts assumed a different context than other

critics for Byron*s condemnation of the Holy Alliance and

England*s part in that pact. Finally, Roberts admitted that

in spite of such personal and political perversions, the

public felt an incredible infatuation for Byron and the

Childe Harold series. This admission opened an assault on

readers and hack-worshippers who made such absurd works

popular. Roberts unfettered his embittered rage to condemn

the press as a tool of iniquity supplying the reading public

with rubbish on which they could gorge themselves. Probably

without intending to, Roberts revealed his own romantic

sensitivity to nature and his infatuation with motifs of the

past by citing several descriptive passages (xxii-xxiv,

xxvii-xxix, Ixvii-lxxi and Ixxviii-Ixxx) . These included the

mo onlight scene, the Clitumnus River and cataract, and

ancient Rome with its magnificent splendor. Roberts asserted

that in these stanzas Byron demonstrated a classical taste.

37

The critic mocked Byron's reference (in the dedicatory

preface) to the "enlightened friendship" (5) of Hobhouse,

labeling him as another privileged individual endowed with

revolutionary principles and the perverted sentiments of a

reformer espousing republican government. At length he re­

called continental events that bombarded the average mod­

ern Englishman, and praised the national institutions and

authorities who saved England from enlightened men like Hob­

house. Roberts fondly remembered Hobhouse's earlier volume

on Albania and Turkey, but, in evaluating Illustrati OnS-

he accused Hobhouse of producing an "extremely ponderous and

spiritless" (26) volume. He quoted lengthy excerpts on Rome,

the Coliseum and the Forum of Trajan, declared the essay on

Italian literary figures to be a meager biography by an imbe­

cile, and concluded by evaluating the notes attached to Canto

IV as inferior in sense and expression, difficult to read and

inelegant in style. He argued that these notes added nothing

to Hobhouse' s literary reputation or to the poetic text they

accompani ed.

Even the most censorious critics manifested a sensitive

appreciation for the eloquent passages in Canto IV that

included Romantic concepts. However, the anonymous reviewer

for Literar.v Panorama for August, 1818, reacted to fewer

passages than other critics. He questioned the genius of

Byron's imagination, and then reproached him for producing

a mediocre poem inspired by the god of wealth rather than bv

38

the muse of poetry. Although he considered Canto IV inferior

to the first three cantos, a few passages triggered the

romanticist attitude in the unnamed writer. He appreciated

the beauty expressed in the opening view of Venice (i-iii,

viii-x), the pathos in the poetic apostrophe to Rome

( Ixxviii-Ixxxi), and the eloquence in reflections on ancient

ruins ( cxxi-cxxiv) . He commended Hobhouse' s production of

Hi stori cal Illustrati ons. but accused a wealthy bookseller

of motivating the collaboration between the two Englishmen.

Also, he questioned the value of a six hundred page volume

of explanations. Following other critics, he blindly over­

looked the valuable correlation explaining numerous concepts

in the canto.

The New Monthiv Magazi ne disregarded both the preceding

cantos of ChiIde Harold' s Pilgrimage and other works by By­

ron. However, recognizing (just as William Roberts did) the

reading public's infatuation with the traveling pilgrim,

competition with other journals forced them to acknowledge

Canto IV in the September, 1818, issue. The anonymous critic

reacted to Byron's subjective meditations when he toasted

Byron's uncanny ability to associate the heart*s passions

with the mind*s yearnings, and of expressing them so clearly

that the reader was shocked into awareness and understand­

ing. Also, the poetic meditations (xxiii-xxiv, viii-x), the

vivid description of an Italian sunset (xxvii-xxix), the

brilliant apostrophe to Tasso (xxxix), and the elegant

39

address to Time (cxxx-cxxxv) struck that same chord to which

other critics responded. He cited the same lengthy excerpts

in praise of Byron's poetic genius and agreed with Byron's

assessment of the canto. Then, without knowing he had al­

ready commended Hobhouse, the anonymous reviewer reflected

on Hobhouse' s contribution in both the notes and Hi stori cal

Illustrati ons. The notes (which were too lengthy, too

detailed, and an irksome distraction from the poetry)

sufficiently elucidated the canto, according to the critic,

and made the separate text superfluous. He asserted that the

general reader would ignore all but a few lines of the

tediously long-winded notes, and would never read the bulky

Illustrations.

Another anonymous critic who defied identification pon­

dered the intrinsic merit of Canto IV in the September-Octob­

er issue of Theatri cal Inqui si tor and Monthly Mi rror. He

tacitly admitted (but did not acknowledge) that the reading

public identified with Byron when he postulated that British

readers had always viewed the pilgrim as a living creature

rather than as an abstract imaginary personage. Again

tacitly (and without admitting it), he endorsed the requisite

concepts of romanticism by detailing his approval of the

poet's admirable descriptions that pictured an "unexplored

region of the human soul" (218), never before regarded and

with which every man identified. The critic also credited

Byron with elegant expression and striking descriptions of

40

the Greek statues and the cataract of Velino (xlix-lii and

Ixix-lxxii). Although the critic doubted the succession of

historical stages that Byron detailed, he admitted that both

the intense feeling and restless energy of the passage on

Britain were typical of the intrinsic merits of Byron's poe­

try ( clxvii-clxx) . He also praised Byron for touching the

heart of civilization when he lamented Rome's downfall and

disrepair ( Ixviii-Ixxxi ) . This critic echoed David Wilson

who wrote anonymously for the Edi nburgh Revi ew as he compared

Byron to Rousseau.

As many other critics had, Francis Jeffrey writing

anonymously for the Monthly Revi ew (November, 1818) com­

mented on the previous cantos before expressing an opinion on

Canto IV. He became frustrated when classical standards did

not apply to the poem. For instance, he stated that Byron

used epic language but the poem lacked incident and plot.

Instead of action, a lone traveler stalked about in "fits of

sullen misanthropy" (296), moralizing on a perverted nature.

In addition, Jeffrey charged that tiresome descriptions and

idle repetitions added to the extravagant diction and

indiscriminate mechanics to create an artificial style.

Also, these qualities made the work struggle towards a plane

of thought that it never reached. The critic exhibited

little romantic appreciation when he found the poetic

descriptions to be just the "lamentations of a wandering

sp irit" (290). Totally insensitive to the power of language

41

to inspire reverence for beauty, he condemned the lines on

Venice and moved from expressions of disgust with Byron's

lines on Tasso to statements of delight with the ones on

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

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

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

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

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

exaggerated emotions distracted from the impressive descrip­

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

Then he reproached Byron for moping in dejection amidst

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

According to the critic, the poet showed contempt for his

admiring public by indulging in daydreams and dissipation.

Jeffrey diverged from the general critical attitude when he

appraised the passage on Princess Charlotte as tasteless and

disappointing. He also accused the poet of attempting to

surpass what others described before him--specifically, the

exaggerated devotion of the daughter nurturing her father

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

the personal feelings attributed to the dying gladiator, and

the lackluster description of the Laocoon (clx). Continuing

to cite excerpts, he attested to poetic accomplishments of

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

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

In a more comprehensive consideration than most contemporary

42

critics, Jeffrey denounced Hobhouse for reducing Byron's

magnificent poetry to commonest prose through Illustrati ons.

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

existence to Hobhouse, he might have abstained from further

commentary. However, he asserted that, after mangling

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

frivolous detail. Sarcastically, he charged that Hobhouse

elaborately eulogized Cicero, amplified Parini's poetry and

renounced the submission of Italian citizens to the Austrian

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

demonstrate Hobhouse's style of affectation and disapproved

of the arrangement of material in Illustrati ons, a misnomer

for a volume that only displayed encyclopedic knowledge.

Among the few reviewers who managed to maintain a neu­

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

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

Bri ti sh Lady s Magazi ne jeeringly taunted Byron for

restringing his lyre to enchant his reading public "with its

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

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

between the fictitious pilgrim and the poet. He quarreled

with Byron's prefatory remarks dedicating the canto to

Hobhouse, but conceded that Hobhouse demonstrated profound

knowledge of antiquity and history in the choice of material

in both the notes and Illustrations. After admitting that

"England's greatest poet" (221) had again charmed his reading

43

public, he criticized the same aspects that a number of other

critics had: Canto IV whisked the reader from scene to scene

without warning; it digressed in authorial intrusions of

"misanthropical gloom and regret" (222); it had an irregu­

lar meter with run-on stanzas. The anonymous critic then

commented on Byron's mature poetic development and credited

him with creating sublime poetry. He responded to the same

passages that others commended--the dying day (xxvii-xxix),

the roar of a mountain river cataract (Ixix-lxxii), the apos­

trophe to Rome and its past heroes (Ixxvii-Ixxxi) , and the

paraphrase of one of Felicaja's sonnets about Italy (xlii-

xliii). Displaying his own classical education, the critic

drew an artistic parallel between Byron as an exile far from

home and various political and literary heroes that he wrote

about--Tasso and Ariosto, Alfieri and Cicero. The critic

anticipated that Byron's statement on love (cxx-cxxi) would

be the most controversial passage among readers. He cited a

lengthy passage (cxxx-cxxxvi) in which Byron depicted an

anguished state of mind and concluded (as many others had)

by quoting the poet's farewell (clxxxv-clxxxvi).

Among definitely friendly commentators the critic writ­

ing for an 1818 supplement to Bftlla Assemble^ concluded the

available material on Canto IV during its first year of pub­

lication. By the following year, critics had other Byronic

works to dissect. The unidentifiable and anonymous critic

lauded Byron as the modern epitome of poetic genius whom

44

every hack poet imitated. In this statement he acknowledged

through inference what other critics had partially conceded.

The elements to which readers and poets alike responded were

Byron's motivating principles which included an honest

expression of passion and feelings, a revolt against conven­

tional standards, a philosophical idealism seeking spiritual

values in nature, a meditative musing on solitude, and a per­

ceptive recognition of the broad humanitarian principles of

democracy. The anonymous reviewer defended Byron's excep­

tional ability to write captivating passages of eloquent de­

scriptions, and quoted a number of the same stanzas commended

by other critics--passages dealing with the pilgrim on the

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

Peter's, and reflections on solitude. The critic never

acknowledged Hobhouse' s influence or literary works pertain­

ing to Canto IV.

Perhaps the last critical expression of the nineteenth

century concerning Canto IV appeared in Ernest Hartley

Coleridge's comments in 1898. He considered the canto a

complete and separate poem, independent in both subject

matter and in poetic treatment from earlier cantos. This

accorded with Byron's estimation, expressed in the preface.

With a formality surpassing other critics, Coleridge shifted

from the common regard for romanticism to focus primarily

on semantics. He commended Byron's precise language uniting

philosophical meditations with emotional responses, and found

45

a firm harmony between Byron's exile and anguish, with the

pilgrimage a symbolic trek (the first critic foreshadowing

twentieth-century concerns). He praised some of the more

notable passages: the sunset scene (xxvii-xxix); Santa Croce

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

( clxvii-clxxii); and various meditations on shrines, ruins

and monuments. Coleridge traced the composition and revision

of the canto from its beginning in June to its completion in

December or January, and pinpointed the stanzas added to the

original draft. Uniquely among nineteenth-century critics,

he credited Hobhouse with inspiring Byron's addition of some

stanzas (apparently only twenty-one of the sixty added); he

faintly acknowledged Hobhouse as the one who provided "dry

bones" (315) that Byron wakened into life. Unfortunately he

did not pursue this far-reaching insight although he had

access to everything that today's scholars have. He authen­

ticated Hobhouse*s diligent research in archaeology, art and

Italian literature for both notes and Illustrati ons. and

recalled the intimate collaboration between the two writers

as they linked the poem, notes and illustrations. But,

shamefully, he never accorded Hobhouse credit for the infor-

ma tion about revision even though he used Hobhouse as the

source for the manuscript*s history. Also, he never grasped

the value of Illustrations as Hobhouse' s own contribution to

elucidating the canto. Coleridge could have directed the

twentieth century critics toward a new path, but he did not.

46

Since Coleridge also edited separate editions of Byron's

works in 1902 and 1904 and included introductory remarks in

each, he became the transitional critic between nineteenth

and twentieth-century concerns. While he maintained the

former critics' focus on elements of subjective expression

in Canto IV, he focused on twentieth century concerns of

semantics and diction. If he had pursued his insight about

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

influenced today's critical voices to seriously consider the

total relationship of Byron and Hobhouse. Thus, Coleridge

could have directed twentieth century critics toward an as

yet unexplored domain of the poem rather than toward a

sophisticated analysis of language.

Most nineteenth-century English critics, including

Coleridge, subscribed to the values of the Romantic period.

Indulgence in sentient perceptions and a responsive preoccu­

pation with natural values led to the ascension of the

imagination, a concept that furthered the subjective medita­

tions of both poets and critics. But whether a critic

esteemed the poetry or demeaned the poet, he sanctioned the

classical elements of poetic harmony and judged by classical

standards of excellence. As Byron categorically encompassed

the themes of romanticism in Canto IV--melancholy, nature,

solitude, humanitarian concerns, reverence for the past--

critics responded in a comprehensive fashion. Some were also

47

alert to the political disposition of the time--a revolu­

tionary fervor accompanied by the encroachment of democratic

standards--and reacted to Byron's empathy with the movement.

Whether critics approved or censured Byron and Canto IV,

their criticism did not exhaust the interpretations or

pinpoint the undisguised influence of the friend immortalized

in the dedicatory epistle of the canto.

CHAPTER III

TWENTIETH-CENTURY CRITICS

Although nineteenth-century critics lacked the sophis­

ticated techniques of analysis developed by modern critics

for examining literary works, the earlier critics pointed to

autobiographical and contemporary historical elements in the

canto. They commiserated with Byron's subjective reactions

whether the responses grew out of viewing majesties of nature

or sculpted figures in the moonlight; they catalogued his

personal woes and introspective meditations on anger, self-

pity, melancholy, pessimism, despondency and grief along

with his poetic reflections on life and the beauty in nature.

They evaluated his political sentiments and the parallel be­

tween his poetic perspective and Italy's as they enumerated

grammatical mistakes and rhythmic weaknesses in the canto.

Many concentrated on a factual account of the tour, recounted

the general themes of ruin and decay, and associated

Austria's tyranny in Italy with Byron's sympathy for an

oppressed people. None of these themes needed a rehash by

twentieth-century commentators as they rummaged for some

credible insight into Canto IV. Yet most modern critics trod

the well-traveled paths to reflect on these same critical

perspectives, and without acknowledging that they simply

transliterated these insights into a technical jargon of

me talanguage. Although some lacked a scholar's integrity

as they repeated the same old cliches, twentieth-century

48

49

scholars refreshingly signed their names to critical comments

instead of hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. Also, few

demanded accountability of others who made unjustifiable

clai ms.

Aside from a common concern with thematic statements

expressed through artistic and evocative language, twentieth-

century commentators diverged into multiple approaches to

re-examine Canto IV. Even though no single perspective be­

came definitive, the multiple approaches encouraged serious

scholarship and the specialized interpretations expanded the

ripples of meaning to create a variety of views. Most modern

critics disregarded Hobhouse' s role in the travelogue master­

piece, but a few casually mentioned his influence on part of

the subject matter of Canto IV. Not one scrutinized the

significant influence and consequence of Histori cal Illustra­

ti ons or bothered to consider the history of Byron's compo-

si ti on.

Although a few twentieth-century critics adhered to a

single critical technique with its textbook patterns, most

used a composite of methods. The greatest number implemented

the traditional biographical-historical perspective. Accord­

ing to this viewpoint, the literal syntax of the poem incor­

porated the author's reactions and experiences, which in turn

accounted for the poem's tone, allusions and meaning. This

critical perspective reduced a literary work to content only,

deemphasizing the artistic effect. Because many of Byron's

50

works reflected his life and were related to contemporary

happenings, this method of analysis simply confirmed nine­

teenth-century opinions instead of furnishing new insights.

John Drinkwater was one of the first critics to apply

this literary method to Canto IV, and was strangely affirmed

as a credible scholar for simply repeating what his nine­

teenth century colleagues had cited as delightful poetic

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

his life of dissipation. Drinkwater's critical text recapped

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

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

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

decadence, Drinkwater cited the astounding production of

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

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

possessed immense creative energy. He argued that a pervert­

ed mind or debauched spirit could never produce the eloquent

expressions and relaxed tone of the canto. Drinkwater echoed

the familiar allusion to Byron's defiant contempt for a

soc iety that expected him to produce poetry in spite of a

tragic isolation from his homeland. Then, in a digression,

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

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

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

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

Illustrations would enrich the poetic meaning.

51

Another critique delineating the traditional biographi­

cal and historical concepts inherent to Canto IV appeared in

1939 when G. Wilson Knight published his essay "The Two Eter­

nities." In his quest for a new critical viewpoint on Byron,

the scholar revealed an unprecedented vision of ambiguities

in the canto and indicated several contradictions between

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

recorded the lonely individualism of the poet, and cited the

example of Byron enjoying human society yet remaining an

outsider and exile; the poet used platitudes and apologetics

to reflect on poetic consciousness and intellectual immor­

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

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

(188). Knight cited another contradiction between the

poet's aristocratic birth and dramatic temperament leading

him to respect history yet defy tradition. In still

another paradox, according to the critic, Byron was superbly

conscious of modern Europe, but felt close to the historic

past; his examples of this contradiction included Byron's

admiration for the gladiator (clxxxix) which did not preclude

his fascination with the Coliseum ruins and the dead empire

he envisioned; the grandeur of the architecture in St.

Peter*s excited a religious fervor and the poet felt torn

between the grandeur of the past and the religious institu­

tions of the present; the poet bridged the gap between

past and present with a detailed passage describing the roar

52

of a mountain waterfall and an invocation to the unfathomable

and elemental ocean. Finally, Knight envisioned a paradox in

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

Napoleon; he gloried in Thrasimene as a battlefield yet re­

mained a pacifist uncommitted to revolutionary ideals. The

critic praised Byron's resolution of these personal contra­

dictions and cited passages relevant to Hobhouse' s influence

without crediting his contributions to the canto. With a

little research, the critic would have recognized that Hob­

house' s thoughtful insights in the canto explained the

contradictions.

Assuming a different tone and taking a different per­

spective of the autobiographical elements in Canto IV,

Andrew Rutherford, in 1961, analyzed Byron's reactions and

concerns in the light of Hobhouse' s influence on the poem.

He particularly cited Byron's enthusiasm for sculptures and

antiquities as a direct result of his friend's interest and

concern. Then, this most unreliable of all Byronic scholars

became an incredibly unreliable critic. Although Hobhouse

cited subjects for inclusion in the canto when Byron revised

it and added sixty-six stanzas, Rutherford argued that Hob­

house was responsible for only nine additional stanzas.

Ignoring the facts that the pair ate, slept, and worked

compatibly together for weeks in Rome and months in Venice,

the critic argued that Hobhouse exaggerated his influence on

the canto. Then, he quoted some phrases in letters that

53

supposedly refuted what Hobhouse claimed--a personal effect

on the poet's newly acquired interest in painting and

sculpture. Any reader could ascertain in the same letters an

enthusiasm for art that Byron had never before shown. In a

final brazen denial that contradicted Hobhouse' s personal

journal, Rutherford claimed that although the two viewed a

sunset scene in Venice, Hobhouse had no influence on its

inclusion in the canto. However, he did concede that one

could not estimate the indirect influence of Hobhouse on the

final draft.

By means of a definitive technique that expanded the use

of biographical material in criticism, Peter Thorslev, Jr.

added one of the original and ingenious concepts to the crit­

ical canon in 1962 when he authored a unique text on the

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

In spite of the poet's prefatory remarks in Canto IV about

dropping all pretence of separation between persona-poet,

Thorslev considered them as two different beings and gave

reasons for regarding the persona as a fabrication of the

imagination. He recalled the poet's scandalous past along

wih his imaginary rather than real exile and charged that

autobigraphical elements in Canto IV relegated Byron to the

status of a discouraged "Hero of Sensibility" (141) searching

for absolutes and projecting his suffering onto the external

world of ruin and decay. He then defined the Hero of Sensi­

bility as a combination of the "Gloomy Egotist" and an

54

"ethically uncommitted Man of Feeling" (141) given to morbid

introspection. Though he used different words, he echoed

earlier criticisms as he charged Byron with morbid self-cen-

teredness and a world-weary attitude, all diagnostic symptoms

of the Byronic hero and evident in Canto IV. Thorslev cited

the passage on self-sufficiency ( x) as characteristic of one

unable either to lose himself in his vision of absolutes or

to assert himself in an alien external world. He diagnosed

this dilemma as the central problem dominating the poetry of

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

Also, he complained that Byron echoed inconsistent ideals

and defiant anguish as he sought absolute truth without

resolving his inner conflict. The critic considered the

passage on personal suffering and the petty curse of for­

giveness ( cxxxi-cxxxv) too specifically emotional and

personal to be literary, and felt that Byron's humanistic

reasoning and self-analysis (cxxvii) marked him as a

recalcitrant hero lacking cosmic vision. However, he

commended the poet's loss of ego and annihilation of self

in the address to the ocean (clxxviii).

Differing from other critics, M. K. Joseph comprehen­

sively incorporated multiple modes of analysis with the

biographical considerations. But he became another critic

who missed the point of Canto IV as a travelogue recorded by

a sensitive Romantic. Also he failed to appreciate the true

significance of the historical overtones of the canto because

55

he disregarded the bulky materials explicating the canto.

Joseph (in an essay penned in 1964) concentrated on both

historical poetic elements and the relationship of Italian

poetics to Canto IV. He identified Harold as a character

study of what not to be, and categorized Byron's description

of Roman ruins as a Renaissance tradition; in this tradition,

thematic significance lay in tracing the evolution of empires

to recall past glory, in lamenting lost love, and in admitt­

ing time's triumph over mortality. The critic also cited

Byron's use of the classical Petrarchan tradition of develop­

ing themes begun in previous cantos, namely immortality and

decay. Of course, this was only a rehash of nineteenth-cen­

tury ideas connecting Byron to his poetic predecessors.

Evidently Joseph sensed that Canto IV conveyed meaning

beyond the surface syntax, but he did not delve into the im­

plications of his own pronouncements. As he shifted critical

tone, he noted Byron's normal disparagement toward sculpture

and unknowingly commended Hobhouse's influence when he re­

marked that several passages revealed a new sensitivity to

sculpted works of art. Joseph cited examples to support this

thesis: first, the poet developed the Venus de Medici into a

goddess who celebrated sexual love as a convergence between

human and divine love in a mortal world; he imagined the dy­

ing gladiator's thoughts of home and family, which revealed

the poet's capacity to express human affection and sorrow;

finally, the Laocoon image led to a vision of human suffering

56

and another depiction of deity incarnate. To the critic,

these same passages revealed a subjective response denoting

a sensitive spirit. In grasping for some significant truth

that evaded his comprehension, Joseph examined the ambivalent

language in the Nature passages and cited the ocean setting

where Byron voiced his delight in solitude (which to Joseph

suggested a reconciliation with human imperfection). Joseph

considered the Coliseum passage the clearest statement that

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

architectural ruins in a mental landscape that the critic

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

Byron wrote the canto, he could have averted this misstate­

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

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

expanded the nineteenth-century concept. Joseph also echoed

the nineteenth-century idea that ruins poetically linked the

past and present and reflected the inevitable pattern of all

human history. Groping for a transcendent meaning that he

sensed, Joseph like others missed the essence of the canto.

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

Joseph was the only one to seriously consider Hob­

house' s role and to faithfully credit his influence in the

structural format of Canto IV. In 1966, Joseph analyzed

the symmetrical shape of the poem and found two equal halves

with stanza Ixi marking the transition between the two sec­

tions after the numerous additions dictated by Hobhouse. Any

57

critic who properly did his homework would never accept less

than this obvious inference. Also, any astute reader who knew

Hobhouse's propensity for regimentation and literal conformity

would expect him to demand a uniform symmetry and circumspect

balance between parts. In one of the most insightful

articles written, Joseph came close to the crux of the canto

when he pinpointed the almost equal division of the poem

between passages on Venice and the journey to Rome, and Rome

itself with the concluding apostrophe to the ocean. This

insight almost penetrated to the secret of Hobhouse determin­

ing many facets of the canto's formation and subject matter.

When Joseph divided the added stanzas into general cate­

gories, three types prevailed--accretive, expansive, and

loosely linked. By his analysis, the accretive stanzas deve­

loped previously stated themes or introduced new ones. He

cited the example of the ruined Rome passage leading into a

section on Sulla, which emphasized the sensuousness of the

Venus statue. Accretive passages also included the descrip­

tion of the sunset on the Brenta, the forgiveness curse, and

the address to the ocean. Continuing the definitive analysis

of alterations, Joseph cited the expansive stanzas as those

which developed political and contemporary scenes and includ­

ed historical material--added because his friend insisted

that he had overlooked topics. These stanzas smoothed pass­

ages or connected ideas--for instance, the lines on Dante

and Ariosto alongside the ones on Tasso; the guidebook

58

stanzas on Santa Croce, the Palatine and St. Angelo's Castle;

the addition on Dandolo, Doria and Lepanto; the passage on

the Capitol and Forum; and the description of Lake Nemi.

Finally, Joseph defined the loosely linked stanzas as those

developing contemporary elements and embodying irrelevant

digressions on Cromwell, on love and reason, on Egeria and

solitude, on literary immortality, on revolutions and free­

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

lament for Princess Charlotte, along with the reflections on

battlefields and fallen empires formed loosely linked stan­

zas. Joseph sensed Hobhouse as a controlling force for

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

to conclude with the valuable enrichment offered by Hob­

house' s own work.

Concentrating on biographical elements of subjectivity,

an impeccably reliable Byron scholar, Leslie Marchand, devot­

ed a chapter of a critical text edited in 1965 to analyzing

personal elements of subjective expression that Byron includ­

ed in the last canto. These comprised the poet's view of the

beauty and decay in Venice and Italy, his brooding over the

city's lost glory associated with a boyhood fascination for

Venice (xviii), his own exile (xxi), and his sense of total

desolation and unfulfilled yearning for love. Also, Marchand

charged that the poet subjectively interwove his personal

life into the historical pageant of Italy--Tasso' s prison

cell reminded him of all poets' oppression, Florence aroused

59

images of Dante and Ariosto exiled, and the Venus statue

prodded him to recall Greek legends about the goddess and

love. He also classed as subjective other passages where

the poet developed the theme of the inevitable downfall of

ambitious tyrants, contemplated the ideal versus the real

yet found no solace for his frustrations, expressed yearning

and loneliness when the fountain of Egeria reminded him of

divine love for mortal man, digressed to his own suffering

when the image of the slain gladiator revealed a troubled

mind that voiced the frustrations of all men. Marchand

asserted that stanza cxxvii indicated Byron's transcendental

leap of faith, accepting the intellect as the only escape

from both actual and symbolic desolation that surrounded him.

Marchand's comments sounded fresh as he reworded nineteenth-

century ideas, but he plumbed new depths in his striking

and commendable insights about transcendentalism. However,

he missed a greater insight concerning the personal friend­

ship that guaranteed momentous beauty in phenomenal poetic

expressions. He used Hobhouse' s journal to make several

points, but never hinted that Hobhouse influenced Canto IV.

As another scholar critiquing Byron's poetry with tradi

tional vernacular, Francis Doherty (in 1969) isolated and

identified some biographical and historical components in

Canto IV, but added nothing to the canon of nineteenth-cen­

tury critics. First, he recalled Byron's youthful fascina­

tion with Italy and praised Byron's use of analogies to

60

project himself into the historical context of his tour.

These included the association of the birth and death of

specific Italian poets with various cities and villages, from

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

mistreatment of Dante and Tasso. Describing the Coliseum in

the moonlight prompted a recreation of the gladiator's bloody

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

Byron's personal situation; viewing the permanent and change­

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

ed on love as an unattainable ideal (cxxi).

In a broader perspective, Doherty cited the passage on

Venice as an appropriate starting place for the overall

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

viewing the destruction and seeing the irony of his own per­

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

of memory as the key to immortal survival and his acknow­

ledgement of the ruins and ancient poetic voices as all that

survived of the past grandeur of a civilization. According

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

ciled himself to fate, he could express distress both for

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

Continuing the same mode of analysis that other modern

critics used, Paul Trueblood focused on a factual account of

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

variety of inspirations. Perhaps he had never heard of

Wordsworth's theory of poetic creativity, and obviously he

61

did not study the relationship between the poet's responses

and the time of writing the canto. As he retraced Byron's

journey with Hobhouse from Switzerland through Italy, he

reminded readers of the close collaboration between the two in

writing both the notes and Historical Illustrations, but he

failed to explore the meaning inherent in the cooperative

enterprise. He added a new note to the old song when he

commended Byron's harmonious blend of Augustan style and

Romantic subject matter. However, he joined the nineteenth-

century chorus in acclaiming Byron's awareness of Austrian

tyranny in Italy and sensitivity to recent repressive meas­

ures passed by England's parliament. Trueblood alluded to

the same elements dwelt on by multiple sources when he

mentioned Byron's natural affinity for oppressed people.

According to Trueblood, as a result of sifting through his

deepest feelings and inner anxieties, the poet objectively

transmuted his personal remorse, melancholy and pride as he

recognized the transcendence of human dignity over decay.

Finally, Trueblood repetitiously surveyed several other per­

spectives examined innumerable times by countless critics--

nature lost its mystical sense for Byron; the Coliseum ruin

inspired reflections that celebrated man's achievement in a

past civilization; art reflected an immortal transcendence

in the Venus, Laocoon and Apollo sculptures.

In a 1988 essay, Michael Foot analyzed a different

biographical aspect of Byron's life by questioning how the

62

poet's lengthy residence in Venice affected Canto IV. But he

added nothing new to critical insights. He recalled the

reluctance with which Byron left Venice to join Hobhouse in

Rome and then enumerated sundry lessons that Byron learned on

the tour. One familiar with the composition pattern of Canto

IV would doubt the validity of his conjecture. But Foot con­

tended that the poet discovered that each village celebrated

some event of historical or literary significance, and that

he recognized the contribution of all to the national glory.

Second, he advanced in political thinking; he hated the

Austrian occupation of Italy and condemned England's part in

devising the Treaty of Paris that allowed Austria to subju­

gate Italy, Further, to accentuate this assertion, he incor­

porated a sonnet by Vincenzo da Filicaja, a contemporary

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

Austrian police who responded by censuring and confiscating

Italian versions of Canto IV. He quoted the plagiarized

sonnet (xlii-xliii) and numerous other stanzas in which Byron

detailed his hatred of tyranny (xlvii, xciii-xcv, xcvii-

xcviii, cxxi, cxxv-cxxix). Overall, the critic felt that

Byron learned to face his dilemmas and struggled to find

answers by weaving skepticism into his religous faith and

candidly defying despair.

Foot echoed others in recalling that Byron knew the

Italian language, even to slang, before he went to Italy;

that he had been steeped in the classics, had translated

63

classical texts, and had read poetry by a variety of contem­

porary Italian writers. However, these critics mistakenly

credited Byron with an intellectual inquisitiveness and zeal

for learning that he did not have. If anything, he was in­

tellectually lazy, yet the critics saw no contradiction

between their acceptance of Byron's dissipation and their

assumption that he deserved credit for every intellectual

tidbit in the poem. Foot did note one new fact--Byron plag­

iarized Mary Ann Radcliffe's Mvsteries of Udolpho in his

vision of Venice from the Bridge of Sighs.

Although not every critical technique would apply to

Byron's poetry, a number of critics approached Canto IV from

the psychological perspective. Romanticism's orientation to

the unconscious certainly invited this subjective examina­

tion, and one of the first to seek clues to new meanings for

Byron's themes and symbols was William Calvert. He believed

that when Byron dropped his pilgrim disguise, completing the

journey was the only possible ending for the work. He par­

roted nineteenth-century voices in criticizing the poem's

"loose" structure, yet praising "its poetry, its force, the

splendor of its diction, and its perfect sincerity" (144).

Calvert randomly wandered through a field of jargon in grasp­

ing for some significant insight into Byron's thinking. He

surmised that as an exile Byron felt a new freedom, and

travel stimulated his emotions and reactions. Calvert also

felt that the poet deliberately and conscientiously kept his

64

imagination earthbound as he investigated a personal commit­

ment to truth and reason. Perhaps the critic unwittingly

touched on another influence of the down-to-earth Hobhouse

with his mundane philosophical viewpoint.

In a second critical article and another modern analysis

of Byron's consciousness, Andrew Rutherford (in 1967) dis­

cussed the poetic mood and viewpoint of the tourist poet

writing Canto IV. He did not add a new note as he directed

the reader's attention to the weaknesses that nineteenth-cen­

tury voices harped on--a journey format and the familiar

themes of "ranting pessimism" (96), "wild indignation and

self-pity" (95), anger, melancholy, despondency and grief.

Rutherford continued to parrot earlier reviews when he

deduced that the passage on forgiveness was not genuine, but

a poet's admiration for his own behavior (cxxxiv-cxxxv) .

Nineteenth-century critics had long before identified the

psychological perceptions of Rutherford. Every critic had

acknowleged the poet's despondency and self-satisfaction

(cxxiv) and the characteristic pessimism which colored the

poetic reflections on life (cxxiv, cxxvi). Again parroting

earlier voices without crediting them, Rutherford claimed

that the digressions (such as li-lii) detracted from coherent

thought and that, when the poet discussed his own ruin, he

lapsed into anger and self-pity. Rutherford continued

echoing earlier critics who described how Byron identified

with Tasso as an exiled and persecuted poet, and how the

65

greatness of Tasso in persecution transcended mutability and

death. Citing Byron's guidebook exclamations over Venice (i)

as the nineteenth-century critics did, and his victim-tourist

meditating over sad surroundings (xxv), Rutherford tediously

redefined the same subjective and contradictory emotions

Byron treated in verse--delight and melancholy, failure and

success. Rutherford's comments left the reader with a

prosaic sense of dei a vu.

Another modern psychological analysis also failed to

enlighten or inform beyond the earliest critics' insights

as M. G. Cooke supported Calvert's analysis of Canto IV as

a psychological assertion of identity expressed through

musings and narrations. According to Cooke, in proposing

imagination and awareness to counteract resignation and

jadedness, the poet reversed his previously expressed atti­

tude. Also, he psychologically discarded his hostility by

pronouncing the curse of forgiveness, but his affirmation of

love created more turbulent emotions. Cooke saw a curious

duality between Byron's hostility and despair with each cre­

ating its own chaos. Although the poet's meditative method

clarified his transcendence of self, it betrayed a spiritual

vacuum rather than self-approval (xxxiii, cxliii, clxi).

Cooke interpreted the opening lines* focus on the narrator as

an attempt to come to terms with human history, including

Byron's own life. He saw significance in Byron's proposing

imagination ( v), reality ( vi) , Reason (vii) and resignation

66

( X, xxi) as the vantage points for achieving harmony in his

life, and cited Byron's use of Art, Empire and Nature as the

nucleus for organizing the canto. In a broader perspective,

Cooke noted that Byron used the canto to proclaim a new

attitude as he grappled with the perplexities of his own

existence, and theorized that reason tempered Byron's pain

and led him to conclude that suffering comprised the root

of man's existence. Only in the death of Princess Charlotte

could the poet come to grips with his own mortality. As a

consequence, in the ocean passage, he could dispassionately

compare man's life to a bubble either sinking or floating on

the surface.

Continuing the search for new meaning in Canto IV, Peter

Manning verbalized the same theory as Thorslev relative to

the persona-poet relationship, and went one step further than

Thorslev. Manning contended that the pilgrim was a necessary

psychological device; when Byron discarded Harold as a

poetic voice, he could no longer distance himself from the

poem; when he lost his alter ego, he became responsible for

the scandal that made him an outcast and exile. Thus,

according to Manning, Byron used the gladiator as the "para­

digm" (92) of history and associated his own suffering with

the desolation around him. Manning also reiterated what

others had said--the art in St. Peter's reminded Byron of the

delusion of love; the Egeria reminded him of human love he

had been denied; in vacillating between hope and despair, the

67

poet enjoyed the dramatic isolation of his misery; he demand­

ed that the world view his suffering but did not include the

details one must know to understand it.

One psychological critic, Philip Martin (1982), examined

the rhetorical devices of Canto IV by which Byron attempted

to regain the mental balance lost in recent misfortunes.

Martin considered the reversion to nature (clxxviii) as an

admission of failure in achieving the equilibrium the poet

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

the public wanted him to write; thus the extreme distractions

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

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

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

diagnosed Byron's compulsion to express his feelings as the

tool that welded gestures and words into a conglomerated con­

text and led to a disaster of poetic expression. According

to Martin, the gulf between metaphor and meaning, between

context and reference, and between emotions and sensory

experiences resulted in confused discussions and indistinct

impressions. He concluded that the ending showed Byron's

dissatisfaction with the poem (clxxv-clxxxvi) . As Byron

tried to meet the demands of contemporary critics, he made

a desperate attempt to reconcile personal frustrations and

poetic perceptions.

Another psychological treatise concentrated on Byron's

self-analysis of personal and historical matters. Alan Bold

68

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

First, in seeking release from melancholy and disappointment,

the poet let nostalgia, political themes and self-disgust

color his view of history in Canto IV; by linking his person­

al disaster with the Fall (xcvii), he viewed his alienation

as a natural consequence of exaggerated pride. However, By­

ron credited literature with a redemptive quality ( v) , and

analyzed the effect of Tasso's literary power in persecution

over his patron prince (xxxv-xxix); he linked reflections on

love and heroism with a discussion of power. He formulated

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

heart dilemma; he examined his current political idea about

liberty and linked his emotional ideal about love and self-

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

expressed similar concepts in the same context that Bold

did. However, Bold saw a new perspective in Byron's not

perceiving that his personal life shaped his literary

exigencies--a Romantic discontent with actual conditions,

abandonment of political ambitions for a literary career,

loss of social position in exile, and the inability to

reconcile the real with the ideal.

In 1986, another modern critic named James L. Hill ana­

lyzed the psychological consciousness poetically expressed

in Canto IV. He defined a double awareness that both redir­

ected the narrative and revived the epic while it projected

mind and self into the historical past and its ruins. He

69

recalled the classical education which prompted Byron to find

his subject matter in nature and man, and refreshingly added

a new insight into Byron's correlation between feeling and

locality. Hill claimed that Byron appropriated Words­

worth' s technique for "Tintern Abbey" and cited two speci­

fic elements of this poetic technique: the introduction took

place in the narrator's mind; then the poet moved outward to

the landscape and then back into memories aroused by the

scene. At this point, according to Hill, Byron departed from

the pattern to explore his consciousness. The critic sensed

that a heightened consciousness of creative awareness in­

spired Byron's description to transcend the physical world

he viewed (which was another Wordswort hi an technique, but

Hill did not pursue the implications of his claim). Accord­

ing to him, in the opening section on Venice Byron particu­

larly asserted this poetic consciousness, seeing Venice as

both a human creation and a city of his mind. When he medi­

tated on the mind's activity, a chance stimulus triggered a

memory, and, in Hill's analysis, Byron equated the city's

past historical fortune to his own past. When the poet medi­

tated on the psychological resilience of mankind in general,

he used Venice as a microcosm for the struggles and failures

of Italy. Hill asserted that this sequence led the poet to

establish a parallel between the city and his own past.

Strangely, he did not sense a more significant Words-

worthian aspect and influence in Canto IV, and he did not

70

explore any influential connection between Hobhouse and the

subject matter that he commended in the poem. He considered

the passage on the sunset, with its dramatic struggle between

night and day, Byron's most vivid description of the natural

world. According to Hill, this conflict in nature led the

poet to struggle with his own self-identity and his past

history as a ruin; such introspection led to Byron's psycho­

logical projection of mind and self into the ruins in Rome,

and placed Byron at least a century ahead of his time.

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

century critics parroted.

One of the most recent psychological treatises on Byron

provided another rehash of the same insights. Vincent Newey

(in 1988) critically viewed Byron's perception of self and

self-identity in Canto IV by focusing on the poet's sense of

becoming and the act of self-definition proclaimed when Byron

asserted his supremacy over the ocean (clxxxiv). The critic

traced the stages of this climactic expression by beginning

with Byron's reflections on love at Metella' s tomb as he

examined the psychological dimensions of submission and

artistic limitations in his shattered life; torn between his

quest and his aspirations, he sought a higher truth as the

focus for his imagination. But, according to Newey, wherever

he turned he found patterns of glory and decay and viewed

everything in both perspectives. Newey next cited the

blending of celestial and human in Byron's assertion that art

71

nourishes the spirit (cxxii). The critic analyzed the

association of the discord between man and his cosmos and

cited Byron's philosophical idealism (cxxvi-cxxvii) . He

remarked that as Byron felt challenged by his helplessness,

he asserted the creative capacity of contemplation (cxxviii)

and faced the dark reality of his own fragmented life. The

voiceless and empty Rome mirrored the poet's own darkness and

ruin, according to Newey and most nineteenth-century critics.

Newey concluded that as Byron became liberated from himself,

he questioned his desires and commitments,, and reconstructed

his life as a set of symbolic attitudes; in perceiving

history as a dramatic pageant, he understood the gladiator's

sacrifice as an amusing diversion, but he saw the death as

the epitome of man's inhumanity to a fellow human. In

contemplating the ruins of the Coliseum, the poet speculated

on the legendary power of love (cl), and found the affirma­

tion he sought in the magnificent perfection of the Apollo

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

Byron to psychologically transfer his concerns about dignity

in suffering to a symbolic attitude toward life where he

could question the immortality of art and the gap between

man and deity that art bridged. Newey concluded that Byron

never renounced a transcendental hope although he realized

that the unspeakable realm of the Spirit remained beyond

man's earthbound state of being--the human intellect could

intimate the grandeur of the divine, but constraints of

72

nature prevented comprehension (civ). The critic noted

the pilgrim fading (clxiv-clxv) and Byron echoing his own

inconsequence as he viewed the ocean.

Several modern critics were concerned with thematic

statements in Canto IV. Certainly Byron's artistic use of

images, symbols and themes elicited an appreciation for his

evocative verbal patterns and their associated connotations,

but citing the same elements in critical verbiage did not

appreciably add to critical insights. As critics examined

verbal patterns, they separated ideas from motifs that

contributed to themes and thematic meaning.

Robert F. Gleckner, who had achieved recognition as

a scholar-expert on Don Juan but knew little about

ChiIde Harold' s PiIgri mage, focused on motifs in

Canto IV as he also examined the skeletal structure. In

jargon transliterating nineteenth century concepts, he cited

a section of the canto where Byron moved from motifs of

personal meditation on Venice to meditations on Tasso's poe­

try and poetry in general to contemplating himself as a poet,

and then launched into more meditations on Venice to conclude

the passage. Thus the city's history intertwined with his

personal history and he envisioned himself as a ruin among

ruins. Gleckner also cited Byron's use of Rome as a mental

landscape, and he used Metella' s tomb to work through

personal memories and desolation to his own death. In a

uniquely refeshing digression, Gleckner conceded that

73

Hobhouse influenced the additional stanzas on Italian art and

literature; those emphasizing vanished power (xii-xiv),

correlating the historical aspects of men and art (xlvii),

lamenting the irreplaceable loss of Alfieri (xcvi-cxviii,

cxx-cxxvii), improving the unity (xciii-xcv), and eulogizing

Princess Charlotte ( clxvii-clxxii) . Contradicting others,

Gleckner contended that the Nature images constituted the

weakest part of the canto. Again repeating nineteenth-

century notions without crediting the sources, he applauded

the imagery in the description of the Coliseum, of the dying

gladiator, and of the Caritas Romana; he particularly

commended the poetic vision of the gladiator's agony encom­

passing the agony of all men, and his death as the fate of

all. Gleckner applauded the thematic statements on grandeur

and ruin ( cxlvi-cxlvii), the St. Peter's passage (cliii-

clix), and the powerful images embodying themes of exile and

despair, of ideal and lost love. Gleckner argued that no

other poet had ever projected himself so completely into

images to depict a personal desolation and to assimilate

himself with mankind both past and present.

The poem's one and only female critic, Alice Levine,

used a thematic analysis to outline correlations between

Byron and T. S, Eliot, antithetical figures with classical

taste and linked to Augustan poets by rhetoric and theme.

Levine, in 1978, declared that Eliot's "Waste Land" was a

mo dern day metaphor for Childe Harold both in statement and

74

in theme--both poems recorded a quest for meaning in life

amid images of ruin. By this new insight she gave Canto IV

a cosmic significance beyond other critics' perceptions, and

expanded Byron's authoritative influence to a new generation

of poets. Continuing to blaze a new path, she labeled ChiIde

Harold a social satire and envisioned Byron as a compulsive

role-player using Harold to mouth spontaneous and contradic­

tory reflections. However, she joined the multitude of

voices when she described the poem as an open-ended pil­

grimage with diverse episodes and fragmented digressions, no

plot and no unity although Byron used a religious title and

alluded to a religous theme. Levine focussed on Time as

both a thematic expression of the poet's awareness of death-

in-life (cxxiv) and as the renewal force in nature. For

instance, when meditating among ruins and decay, the poet

indulged in the subjective style of the romantic coping with

the dilemma of his past, present and future (civ-cv). And

his curse of forgiveness represented the climactic awareness

of the ambiguous relation between the poet and his personal

life. Also according to Levine, the poet questioned know­

ledge and the lesson of history much as Eliot had in his

poetic work. The critic cited numerous personality and

poetic similarities: each poet became a symbol of his age;

both used themes of history, art and religion to comment on

contemporary life and to make a personal statement; both

wrote in an aftermath of heavy bloodshed in war; both held

75

shattered illusions and discovered meaningless existence and

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

the midst of personal disappointment and disillusion; both

expressed concern with the problems of temporal existence

and an ambivalent attitude toward subjective experiences as

poetic subject matter; both had problems in maintaining

coherence between the poet and his persona; both used poetry

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

Continuing contemporary criticism of Canto IV's thematic

devices, Bruce Haley in 1983 concentrated on the art for ms

used in constructing the canto (another voice hiding behind

jargon to echo nineteenth-century articulations). Particu­

larly through sculpture and architecture, according to Haley,

Byron paralleled his personal perspective with Italy's.

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

stone figures as an illusion of reality, and this projection

blurred the distinction between Byron's mental images and

the tangible forms of sculpture. In this disorientation,

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

while vivid reflections triggered the poetic imagination to

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

poet made ambiguous statements open to a variety of interpre­

tations ( Ixxxviii-xciii) . Haley cited Byron externalizing

his vision through figures of stone and then relating man's

history to the marble pieces. Since the poet could not

comprehend the entire panorama, he concentrated on one object

76

at a time, asking baffling questions (xcix). According to

the critic, when he found no answers, he withdrew into his

subjective imagination and created his own structures from

the temples, statues and tombs that recalled past glories

and suggested the isolation and spiritual death that Byron

lamented. As separate images in the general theme of ruin,

these figures prompted context building. According to Haley,

they became assertive, dynamic symbols suggesting human

yearning and struggle, but symbolizing human triumph and

achi evement.

Another critic, Michael Vicario (1984), concentrated on

the thematic implications of the subtitle "A Romaunt" append­

ed to the entire poem. After concentrating on each canto, he

suggested some recurring thematic images and digressions in

Canto IV as Byron moved from revery to wisdom and from inno­

cence to experience. He dismissed the first eight stanzas

as an eighteenth-century romance writer's dilemma of illusion

and reason. Also he cited stanzas (1-lxiii) that endorsed

the power of imagination to amplify and enhance a life of

bondage. He suggested that the water scenes ( Ixii-Ixxiii )

showed a complex fusion of style, but considered the descrip­

tion of St. Peter's the crowning accomplishment whose hiero­

glyphic meaning lay in the effect it elicited. Also, accord­

ing to Vicario, in the passages dealing with traditional

romance themes--love, war and religion--Byron substituted

personal themes for the historical realm and readjusted the

77

traditional meaning of history. Furthermore, the Coliseum

stanzas (cxliii-cxliv) demonstrated the subjective nature

that Byron imposed on objective historical fact. Thus,

according to the critic, Byron expanded history to por­

tray the progess of a human soul through gradual stages of

vision, knowledge and comprehension. He cited the central

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

while viewing history in a romantic revery, and concluded

that the poem was an anti-romance.

Several twentieth-century critics examined the philoso­

phical statements of the canto. This method precluded a

study of form and of figurative language as well as other

aesthetic considerations, but it offered one more way to par­

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

sophize about Canto IV was Solomon Francis Gingerich in 1929.

He interpreted Canto IV as a song of defiant hopelessness

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

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

Hobhouse with helping the poet to escape from his bleak des­

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

objective influence toward creating the calm tone of the can­

to. He particularly cited the beauty of expression in stanza

cxxxv where Byron expressed his personal woe and philoso­

phized on faith in ideology. While the poet confirmed a be­

lief in the Calvinist viewpoint (cxxvi) concerning the de­

structive force of original sin on one's life, the critic

78

felt that Byron accepted the transcendental concept of an

indestructible immortality in man's intellect (civ). Ginger­

ich believed that the poet's outlook on life (as a violent

struggle for happiness unattainable) perverted Byron's gen­

ius. But, he also perceived a keen understanding of the

political situation in nineteenth-century Italy as Byron

philosophized about the general state of affairs, contrasted

tyranny and freedom, and asserted his support for Italy's

struggle to attain independence. Thus, unknowingly, Ginger­

ich commended the most influential facets of Hobhouse' s rela­

tionship to the canto as he selected at random some earlier

commentary and repeated the ideas by covering them in new

syntax.

Also following the philosophical bent of Byron's poetic

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

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

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

with reality and to explain the conflict between reason and

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

to reconcile his ideals with his personal situation. Fair-

child considered the eighteenth-century poetic tradition of

romantic melancholy as one preeminent theme: Byron found

himself alone in a world not related to his desires and wav­

ered between irony and melancholy when he recognized the gap

between reality and ideal. The critic contended that the

poet took his idealism too seriously (that was what Croly and

79

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

the actual situation with Utopian visions. Although Byron

approached transcendentalism in his attempt to reconcile the

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

melancholy was the pervasive and central theme. Again Byron

explored the transcendental avenue (the critic cited cxvi as

proof) when he rationalized on his Calvinist background with

its doctrine of fatalism and predestination. Although he

expressed a need for bridging the gap between reality and

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

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

cendental approach when he declared his trust in the immor­

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

controversy; thus, he never achieved the peace promised by

transcendentalism.

Ward Pafford (in 1962) also examined transcendental for­

ces in Canto IV. He commended the eloquent language and

impressive sobriety of the work and affirmed the head-heart

conflict that nineteenth century critics perceived, He

examined the paradoxical tension between imagination and

reason as Byron expressed it through thought and feeling.

However, as he recalled how Byron used poetic composition

as a creative refuge from an alien society, Pafford expanded

the scope of earlier philosophical ideas to view a construc­

tive imagination as a link between man and his maker. He

cited several stanzas expressing the poet's thoughts on

80

creativity and imagination ( v, vi, vi i i, xx, xxiii, xxiv),

and interpreted them to enforce his viewpoint. His first

conclusion was that Byron's self-imposed exile from England,

along with the resumption of travel, stimulated a renewed

burst of creative energy--a backhanded acknowledgement of

Hobhouse's influential friendship. Third, when the poet

verbalized the paradox of creative composition becoming a

permanent refuge from wretched mortality, he acknowledged

man's intellect as the supreme human asset. As his mind

grew, he developed a defiant strength that overcame all the

obstructions placed in his way by society; he actively

fathomed memories and responded to past experiences to shape

a reality that linked past and present. Finally, through

contemplation the poet increased his sensitivity until it

afforded the creation of fruitful thought through art. After

tracing the development of Byron through these stages,

Pafford postulated that historical scenes provided the

stimulus for Byron's poetic imagination until he recreat­

ed mental images of various events. Thus, he sympathized

with the mysterious fate of Cecilia Metella (civ-cv) as he

brooded over his personal woes. The critic cited the poetic

use of famous names aligned with historical ruins to comment

on personal problems. In this self-indulgence the poet

emphasized the restrictions of the imagination when he asso­

ciated Tasso as a spokesman for freedom with the decline of

Venice under tyranny (xvi-xvii); also, according to Pafford,

81

he praised Michaelangelo, Alfieri, Galileo and Machiavelli

as creative intellects and ranked Dante, Petrarch and Boccac­

cio above the richest princes of Florence (Ix). Furthermore,

in Rome Byron resurrected the memory of Cicero, Virgil and

Livy (Ixxxii), and Caesar superseded Napoleon (xc) as a fig­

ure of accomplishment. Also, as further proof of Byron's

transcendence, the critic recalled how St. Peter's stimulat­

ed an aesthetic response of overwhelming wonder and a poetic

insight of psychological transcendence (civ); in the Laocoon

(clx), Byron reconciled opposites of the essence of art and

the beauty of feeling; in the Apollo Belvedere, he envisioned

a perfect blending of human and divine (clxii-clxiii). Even

though Byron defined ideal love, Pafford declared that the

poet never resolved the tension between illusions of the

imaginative mind and his own poignant memories and feelings.

As Byron described the ruins of Rome, which should suggest

forgetting personal woes, the poet contemplated his own past

and rejected the imagination as a comfort to mortal man.

Pafford saw this rationalism echoing throughout Byron's poe­

try whenever he focused on problems of the mind. Although,

as the critic stated, reason sounded a clear voice, Byron

felt seductively tempted to follow imagination and to ideal­

ize rather than surrender to reality. Pafford contended

that Byron's fascination with Italy showed in the poetry of

Canto IV, but Hobhouse served as the agent responsible for

recreating the historical scenes that stimulated Byron's

82

brooding imagination; however, Hobhouse received no credit

as the creative force behind Canto IV.

As a matter of course. Romantic age idealism resulted in

a renewed humanistic concern about the perfection of man

and society. Byron naively believed in the ideals of this

concept even though he erratically wavered between hope and

despair. Edward Bostetter, in 1963, examined the poetic

voice in Canto IV and reached several conclusions about By­

ron' s personal convictions about humanism (using a new jar­

gon to recast the same old salmagundi). Although the poet

questioned both religion and philosophy, Bostetter labeled

Calvinism's doctrines on depravity and predestination as

basic and inconsistent influences on Byron's thinking. Ac­

cording to the critic, the poet vacillated from Calvinism

to deism, to pantheism, to Platonism, to Catholicism, and

back to deism. He concluded that an acceptance of human­

ism led the poet to an unending quest for a benevolent socie­

ty and an ordered universe that he never found. However,

Byron's acute awareness of man's hypocrisy, and his sensi­

tivity to rational answers, led Bostetter to conclude that

Byron never believed for any length of time in his own con­

victions. A further critical deduction concerned Byron's

extraordinary understanding of human nature and his compul­

sive introspection. According to Bostetter, when Byron found

the universe meaningless and his world a mass of contradic­

tions, he attempted to reshape his own world by symbolic

83

projections of himself into various aspects of the external

world. Also, because suffering stimulated creativity in the

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

personal experiences and man's imperfections. Thus, accord­

ing to Bostetter, he pronounced his curse of forgiveness

(which degenerated into negative sentimentality) as he mulled

over the discrepancy between idealism and reality in love.

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

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

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

fundamental vision identified with the power symbolized by

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

doxically found a philosophical means for affirming his exis­

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

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

small ripple of new meaning.

In a further refinement of specialization, a critical

technique originating in the 1950's offered one more perspec­

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

scholars joined forces to make the formalistic critical

m ethod a dominant influence in interpreting literary works.

This method disregarded all elements of biography or history,

all psychological implications and every other factor except

the shape and effect achieved through imagery and metaphori­

cal statements. By this standard, form alone preserved sub­

stance. The formalists insisted that any literary work was

84

an autonomous creation, so what a work meant and how that

meaning was achieved became the two primary factors for crit­

ical consideration. Of course, these critics sensitively

examined the denotations and connotations of every reference

or allusion; they looked for structural relationships between

words, grammatical patterns, and specific images. Supposed­

ly, these internal features revealed the external form, and

the work's meaning arose from the interrelationship of these

elements. In their absorption with details, these critics

often undervalued poetry that did not readily respond to

this approach. Only one formalistic critic attempted to deal

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

ingly. Using organicism (the analogy between a living

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

humorously evaluated the complexity of spatio-temporal pat­

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

jellyfish expanding and contracting. He examined Byron's

use of rhetorical devices as an organizing principle that

dramatically expanded the meaning of the poem. According to

Blackstone, the poet always related to his environment, and

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

nity dimension that he lived out in the historical ruins.

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

examples of classical perfection; specifically, in the dying

gladiator sculpture, an "ideogram," the poet distanced

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

85

Coliseum, a "greater ideogram" (16), to identify with the

suffering of the gladiator. Blackstone further declared that

in the blend of architecture and nature, the poet created the

eternal dimension of past-present and personal-universal. As

he transmuted the eternity dimension into the physical world

surrounding him (particularly in the Forum passage, according

to the critic), he moved through the medusan rhythm of the

jellyfish.

In a more mundane but still unique approach, Harold

Bloom used Jungian concepts to analyze Canto IV. He cited

the archetypal motif of the quest with the hero as an

archetypal "Pilgrim of Eternity" (237) seeking immortality.

According to Bloom, Byron turned to art in the Apollo

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

Bloom also considered the pilgrim-poet as a mythic figure

representing the condition of modern man in Europe "in the

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

Italy from a young age and Rome was the pilgrim's goal. Yet

when the poet found his voice in Rome, his "litany" became

introspective meditations "obsessed" with "disease, death,

bondage" (236). According to Bloom, in the midst of time­

less art and beauty, Byron could express the conflict he felt

between his Calvinist teachings and his Rousseauan vision.

Bloom cited several stanzas demonstrating Byron's creative

vision and energetic imagination (cxxvi, cxxxvii). Also,

according to Bloom, the poet deliberately produced a theme

86

of spiritual emptiness by philosophizing on the bonds of

mortality and sin. Bloom legitimately found other Jungian

concepts in the immortality that Byron saw in the Promethean

vitality of the literary artist (clxiii quoted) and the

spiritual renewal found in the beauty of the ocean as the

poet bid farewell to the weary pilgrim (clxxxvi quoted).

Certainly these twentieth-century scholars added

new insights into Byron's artistic life and personality

as they integrated refined analytical techniques with modern

psychological principles, explored the underlying signif­

icance of various expressions, and expanded a reader's under­

standing of the poetic emotions and mental reactions

expressed in Canto IV. Most of their conclusions could be

confirmed through other Byronic utterances, particularly the

poet's letters. However, modern critics missed one facet of

extreme significance to a complete interpretation of Canto

IV, namely the underlying relationship between Byron and

Hobhouse. Byron clearly delineated his affection and respect

for his friend in the preface to Canto IV (and this

expression also can be verified through letters and

journals). Surely this specifically detailed affirmation of

the depth and breadth of the association would have an inter­

pretative bearing on Canto IV. A secondary aspect pertinent

to the preface further intensified and confirmed its

unaffected sincerity--Byron expressed this sentiment for

the person who knew to the nth degree about his philandering

87

and who rejected his lecherous lifestyle. Without a mutual

devoted willingness to forego confrontations, either Byron or

Hobhouse could have shattered the prospects for an outstand­

ing masterpiece, such as Canto IV with its perceptive

historical notes and striking travelogue qualities.

From early schooldays onward, Byron had trusted

Hobhouse's sound judgment, scrupulous integrity, candid

criticism, and uncompromising devotion. Hobhouse had a great

gift for friendship, but he never formed such a familiar

intimacy with another person after Byron's death. He

lucidly detailed his own affection for the poet in soliciting

a place of honor for Byron in Westminster Abbey as he

acknowledged his friend's vices and applauded his virtues.

Hobhouse's one major folly relative to Byron occurred when he

destroyed the poet's memoirs without reading them; jealously

he sought to guard Byron's reputation by concealing secrets

that might reflect unjustly on his memory and posthumous

fame.

Byron's contemporary critics lacked these documents and

worked in a vacuum compared to the flood of material relevant

to Canto IV and available to modern commentators. However,

Hobhouse had already acquired a literary reputation from the

popular success of his travelogue related to Canto I and II.

As a result, contemporary critics could not deliberately

ignore his textual supplement for Canto IV, but they did

negate his influence and contribution when they refused to

88

credit the volume's validity as a beneficial complement to

the poetic expressions. Perhaps this set the context for

twentieth-century reviewers neglecting and rejecting the

Illustrations. If one accepted this theory, then the

rejection of specific journal entries or letters would become

more acceptable. By no means could one excuse modern commen­

tators for their failure to investigate, but one might

believe that it resulted from a literary concept of avoiding

and neglecting any text outside of the poem itself. While

this type of criticism did serve a purpose with some literary

works, it could never fully explicate an artistic creation

with Canto IV*s history and explanatory supplements. In

addition, any psychological elucidation of reactive expres­

sions that did not include relationships pertinent to its

composition would always miss part of the poem's meaning.

This concept came to light for Hobhouse in Florence when he

marvelled that Alfieri's "bastard" widow [mistress] received

more honor as a dead poet's beloved than she did as the wife

of a surviving prince. Before beginning the cooperative

composition process, he recognized that relationships did

control poetic utterances. Surely modern psychological

critics would be the first to deny the authenticity of

another's comments if he negated effective relationships

that influenced a literary work. Yet by default, they have

done exactly that by overlooking Hobhouse's contribution to

the subject matter and his control of the stanzaic formation

89

in Canto IV and by rejecting Byron's own statement about this

influential and beneficial companionship.

Of course, if the relationship had been less sincere or

devoted, Byron's commitment to dissipation along with his

disinterest in continuing the poetic pilgrimage would have

doomed any coherent expression. His letters clearly depicted

the emotional agony he endured at this stage of his life, and

suggested his quest to escape through dissipation. Also,

Byron previously had expressed a detached concern for rubble

and ruins of the classical past. Therefore, it seems reason­

able to surmise that only Hobhouse' s probing intellect and

stabilizing influence (rather than an acquired appreciation

for Roman or Venetian ruins at this time of personal

upheaval) precipitated Byron's inclusion of so many classical

structures and monuments in Canto IV. Today or in any

historical period, if one compared the subject matter of

Canto IV with its explanatory text Illustrati ons, one would

find a marvelous affirmation of cooperative enterprise

between these two literary figures, and an inquisitive

reader would increasingly enjoy plumbing the depths of both

the poem and the relationship that so markedly effected

the canto's total configuration.

CHAPTER IV

POETS AND PRELATES

Canto IV opened with some of the most famous and famili­

ar lines in English poetry: "I stood in Venice, on the Bridge

of Sighs;/ A palace and a prison on each hand." Critics and

scholars have examined these lines and the rest of the canto

from every perspective of language and thought except the

original one intended by Byron. Although Byron eloquently

expressed his deepest feelings and temperamental moods in

poetry, he wrote Canto IV as a tourist reporting on the

sights he had seen and how he reacted to the various scenic

displays. Even though any reader could recreate the calendar

and retrace the itinerary of his trek through Italy, the

important account of the journey lay in Canto IV, along with

the extensive notes and explanatory text for the canto. By­

ron arranged the poetry to correspond with his route across

mountains into little traveled and remote areas where the

"pestilent" Englishmen--"a parcel of staring boobies" (Mar­

chand 5. 187)--did not interfere with the pilgrimage. In

Illustrati ons. Hobhouse detailed additional reports

pertaining to the area that he traversed. One of the first

characteristics of the Italy both came to know was the

jealousy with which every mountain village guarded its claim

to some famous historical or literary figure. Hobhouse

asserted that every settlement had an altar or shrine honor­

ing the birth, death, or abode of a renowned person. He

90

91

continued by describing how rival towns fervently competed,

both to attract the occasional European pilgrim and to pre­

serve for posterity the special recognition for their heroes.

Even the lowliest citizens took pride in noteworthy people

associated with their locality, and tenderly identified them

as "our" Ariosto, Tasso, etc. (JH 2). Byron implied this

same swaggering attitude that Hobhouse so clearly defined:

X X X i :

They keep his [Petrarch's] dust in Arqua, where he

died; The mountain-village where his latter days

Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride--

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

To offer to the passing stranger's gaze

His mansion and his sepulchre;

In a series of stanzas recording their visit to the

remote village of Ferrara, Byron suggested what Hobhouse

again clarified--two reasons for Ferrara's notoriety. It

gained fame as the patriarchial home of the Este family and

scandalous infamy for persecuting perhaps the greatest poet

ancient Italy ever produced, Torquato Tasso.

XXXV

Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets.

Whose symmetry was not for solitude,

There seems as ' twere a curse upon the seats

Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood

Of Este, which for many an age made good

92

Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore

Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood

Of petty power impell'd, of those who wore

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

One must consult Hobhouse to find that Ferrara claimed

both of the great poets Ariosto and Tasso. Citing the auth­

oritative biographers of Tasso, the Englishman stated that

the Italian poet arrived in Ferrara in 1565 to find a city

thronged with "all forms of gaiety and splendour" ( HT. 28).

At that time, the populace prospered from construction work

on a canal leading to the Po, and from a saltpetre manufac­

turing concern. In 1817, however, the Englishmen found only

a few paupers removing the grass that grew in the streets.

Hobhouse continued the explication that added depth and

insight to various poetic denotations. For instance, the

"curse" mentioned by Byron lay in the treacherous betrayal

and persecution of Tasso along with the infamous relationship

between Tasso and Ariosto. In fact, Tasso' s biographer and

friend, Manso, considered the poet a victim of treachery from

his own household, especially Horatio Ariosto, the poet's

great nephew and rival court poet (and creator of Orlando

Furioso). After scanning Hobhouse' s account of the affair,

a reader found much more purpose in the poetic expression as

Byron continued. And if the reader recalled Byron' s own

93

exile, he could imagine a sympathetic chord in the strains of

praise for a fellow poet suffering unjust persecution:

xxxvi

And Tasso is their glory and their shame.

Hark to his strain! and then survey his cell!

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

And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell:

The miserable despot could not quell

The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend

With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell

Where he had plung'd it.

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

Hobhouse proceeded to depict the precise measurements and

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

Ferrara. Hobhouse reported that long before officials ar­

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

end and tradition identified the cell as Tasso's. In 1817,

souvenir hunters had removed every vestige of the poet's

furniture--a small piece at a time--and were in the process

of destroying the door to the room, a small sliver at a time.

In succeeding stanzas, Byron pursued the subject of

Tasso and Alphonso, and the explanatory text continued to

closely follow the poetic expression. Hobhouse traced the

influence and power of the Este family, and explored various

reasons for the imprisonment of Tasso. First, he cited

Manso who specified Tasso*s passion for Princess Leonora of

94

the Este family as the cause of confinement. The vengeful

Duke, who took the Princess for his mistress, imprisoned

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

Duke' s beloved.

Not satisfied with this report, Hobhouse delved into

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

ments from the Este archives. These confirmed that Tasso

wanted to be free from servitude to Alphonso. Amid rumors

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

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

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

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

duke detained Tasso at Ferrara, confiscated his manuscript of

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

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

knife on him. Supposedly for this, Alphonso denied him

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

audience with other members of the court. Seeing himself

abandoned by friends and mocked by enemies, Tasso began to

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

the house of Este. Publicly retracting the verses of praise

he had written earlier, Tasso angrily declared that the

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

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

led to his arrest and confinement as a madman.

Continuing the summary from Manso and other biographers.

95

Hobhouse recounted the conspiracy, with the intriguers bent

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

as an emblem of loyalty to their Este sovereign Prince

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

and dread of solitude, no punishment could so effectively

break his spirit as solitary confinement. In addition, the

Duke repeatedly promised liberation, but for seven years Tas­

so endured the deplorable imprisonment. Although the poet

did not flourish in prison, he expectantly awaited justice

from the Este sovereign, and occasionally his creative genius

shone through the gloom of seclusion. Hobhouse recounted how

Tasso poetically reminded his fellow villagers that an uncon-

quered spirit still persevered in the misfortune and injus­

tice of confinement while literary pirates greedily competed

to publish his every composition, even unfinished ones.

Citing the biographers, Hobhouse related how authorities

finally heeded the persistent intercession of the Duke of

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

comfortable quarters. Although Alphonso confined him for

seven years, allegedly for madness, Hobhouse referred the

inquiring reader to Gibbon's characterizaion of Muratori,

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

sane. However, the librarian reflected that a poet loyal to

his patron prince did not serve well if "his first and para­

mo unt object" was "the establishment of truth" (9).

Hobhouse credited the Prince of Mantua with repeated

96

intercessions that finally resulted in securing Tasso' s free­

dom. Nonetheless, the Prince demanded that Tasso purchase

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

fiscated the manuscript. He considered the composition of

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

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

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

script and surreptitiously published it. Like the Duke of

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

property to be jealously guarded.

While Byron lamented in stanza iii that "In Venice

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

gondolier," Hobhouse clarified the connotative significance

of the poetry. The gondoliers' traditional songs came from

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

the boatmen quit singing strophes from the poem. Hobhouse

recorded that in 1817 only the older gondoliers even remem­

bered the familiar stanzas.

Without the explanation from Hi stori cal 111ustrati ons

how could any modern reader interpret Byron's forceful con­

demnation when he related how glory attended Tasso*s name, but

Alfonso* s xxxvi1

Would rot in its oblivion--in the sink

Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line

Is shaken into nothing; but the link

Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think

97

Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn--

Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink

From thee! If in another station born.

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

xxxvi i i

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

Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou

Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty:

Although many educated readers probably knew the legend,

Hobhouse explained that the Duke of Este, Alfonso, outlived

the affection and loyalty of his subjects, even his depen­

dents. By the time he died, the Church had excommunicated

him and his heirs had deserted him, leaving him to be in­

terred without princely honor or even a decent burial rite.

Continuing to expound on Italy's famous literary fig­

ures, Hobhouse enlarged on this poetic expression from stanza

liv:

In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie

Ashes which make it holier, dust which is

Even itself an immortality, . . . here repose

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

The starry Galileo, with his woes;

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

The notes explained that Santa Croce was the mecca of Italy,

the burial place of an assortment of world famous figures.

98

Adding to the notes but not repeating them, Hobhouse recorded

several anecdotes about Count Alfieri's haughty irascibility.

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

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

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

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

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

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

surprise, the following morning a messenger arrived with a

package containing his shorn locks. Hobhouse included other

anecdotes, but these demonstrated both the temperamental and

impulsive nature of Alfieri (a nature usually associated with

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

treasured about literary figures whom they idealized. Hob­

house described Alfieri's tomb sculpted by a contemporary,

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

the church aisle. An oversize plaque identifying Alfieri's

patron. Princess Stolberg, dwarfed the inscription honoring

the poet.

When tourists left Santa Croce, they traveled through

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

tries Hobhouse repeatedly raved about the exquisite majesty

and spectacular beauty in the natural terrain. Although Hob-

house's constrained sense of propriety tempered his utteran­

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

( 1) , and showed no inhibitions months later when he wrote

99

about the scenic majesty in a subjectively artistic reaction.

He poetically retraced the tour to the headwaters of the

Clitumnus River and acclaimed the beauty of the crystal clear

mountain stream to be particularly intoxicating after passing

through the sadly historic battlefield of Thrasimene.

Thrasimene was

Ixi i i

Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds;

And such the storm of battle on this day,

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

An earthquake reel'd unheededly away!

On that day, blood ran so profusely that it "made the earth

wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters red" (Ixv). On the

other hand, the Clitumnus stream rhymically spoke of the

tranquillity of meditation with its "finny darter with the

glittering scales," and its scattered water lily blooms.

Byron called it "the prettiest little stream in all poesy"

and caught "some famous trout . . . close to the temple by

its banks" (Marchand 5.233). He depicted the peaceful

environment and included the temple in his poetic descrip-

ti on; Ixvi

But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave

Of the most living crystal that was e'er

The haunt of river nymph . . .

. . . the purest god of gentle waters!

100

And most serene of aspect, and most clear;

Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters

Ixvi i

And on thy happy shore a temple still.

Of small and delicate proportion, keeps.

Upon a mild declivity of hill.

Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps

Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps

The finny darter with the glittering scales

Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;

While the Romantic poet responded to the muse that in­

spired Virgil, Claudian, Pliny and untold others, Hobhouse

mundanely responded by factually tracing the river to its

source in the nearby mountains of Spoleto. He also recalled

the ancient historical tradition of the Clitumnus as a holy

stream celebrated for its beauty and consulted for its ora­

cle. He described the remains of the ancient temple which

still stood when he passed the site in 1817. Fish scales,

sculpted on the antique columns, still alluded to the river

god honored by the structure, and in 1817 the mountain people

still held annual festivals honoring their river god.

According to Hobhouse, after an earthquake partially

destroyed the ancient temple in 446, the Catholic Church

confiscated it from the mountain people under the guise of

repairing it. The Church built a small chapel nearby, which

contained some fragments and carved moldings from the ruined

101

edifice. Hobhouse cited church historians who claimed that

two bishops and a friar removed columns and marble statuary

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

private chapel. Hobhouse charged that the same greedy friar

also destroyed part of the ancient oracle's underground cell

in a search for fancied buried treasure. The Englishman

recorded several defaced but legible names carved on the sub­

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

who had consulted the ancient oracle. After this explanation

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

a modern reader could envision Coleridge's metaphor of Hob­

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

As curious travelers neared Rome, they tried to see

every fragmented aqueduct and arch, and Hobhouse depicted

the topography mile by mile. The Englishman threaded his

way through wooded plains and rolling hills; he traversed

pine forests of thick evergreens, and crossed the Campagna

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

visible. During the last fifteen miles, tourists saw

magnificent gardens and luxurious villas on the city's out­

skirts. In the suburbs, wide paved streets passed between

summer houses and vineyard gateways with impressive Latin

inscriptions over them. These inscriptions, and beggars ask­

ing alms in Latin, reminded classically educated tourists of

Rome's historical significance and widespread moral influ­

ence. Hobhouse did not cite a personal experience, but he

102

cautioned the casual traveler to practice extreme care in

evaluating the antiques available in markets, especially near

Rome where most antiques were genuine fakes. He also warned

the discreet tourist against placing complete confidence in

any of the guide books related to Italy, but granted that

every astute traveler soon developed a natural skepticism as

a result of the population's "national inclination to fable"

(45) and deception. On the other hand, Byron indicated his

general unconcern for historical accuracy by repeatedly

recommending (in his letters) the guidebooks for descriptions

of various structures.

He reluctantly visited Rome but, as a result of viewing

sites familiar to him from school days, he poetically pro­

claimed Rome the "Mother of Arts" and "Parent of our Reli­

gion! whom the wide/ Nations have knelt to for the keys of

heaven!" (xlvii). Byron knew classical and Italian history

but lacked the expansive knowledge of his friend. As an

antiquarian and Italian Renaissance scholar, Hobhouse asso­

ciated the legendary and historical sites with their classi­

cal significance. Nevertheless, when Byron recalled the

Roman scene, from both his head and his heart came the

inspired expressions: Ixxvi i i

Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul!

The orphans of the heart must turn to thee.

Lone mother of dead empires! . . .

Come and see

103

The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way

0'er steps of broken thrones and temples.

As a result of the magnitude of ruins, Byron expressed

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

In fact, both Englishmen obviously felt for "fair Ital

reverent fascination which Byron clearly indicated:

y" a

XXVI

Thou art the garden of the world, the home

Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;

Even in thy desart, what is like to thee?

Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste

More rich than other climes' fertility;

Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced

With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.

Although Byron poetically detailed specific destructive

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

waste to this land of former glory, one must consult Hobhouse

to find the extended connotative significance in that single

verse: Ixxx

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

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

She saw her glories star by star expire,

And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,

, . . far and wide

104

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

Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,

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

Deliberately following the order cited by Byron, Hob­

house devoted a lenghty chapter to clarifying the riddle pro­

posed as causes for the poet's "marble wilderness" and to de­

tailing the eons of history in the destruction of Rome by:

"the Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood and Fire." Once

again, he resorted to research among texts by ancient and

reputable historians for authentic confirmation. Hobhouse

mentioned several ancient architects, including Marcellinus,

Procopius, Cassiodorus and Olympiodorus who described the

ravage and destruction by Goths and Visigoths. Among the

many ecclesiastical authors available, Hobhouse relied on

church historian Donatus as the specialist on church con­

struction during the early days of Christianity, and on

Anastasius as an authority on papal activity. A modern

historical scholar could scarcely duplicate the authenticated

names, dates and events that the Englishman reproduced.

Hobhouse especially relied on Procopius and Cassiodorus

for a description of the devastation by Alaric and the Goths,

Genserick and the Vandals, as well as Ricimer, Vitiges, Toti-

la and numerous other invaders (whom only a historian could

appreciate). By following the detailed accounts, Hobhouse

retraced centuries of invasions when every marauder de­

spoiled, destroyed, burned, ravaged and looted, leaving

105

behind a wasteland of ruins that included destroyed aque­

ducts, baths and temples. Once ornaments had been removed

from above ground, plunderers tore up lead conduits searching

for buried treasures. Through the ages, this repeated plun­

der of monuments and architectural decorations, both public

and private structures, emptied the city of its wealth.

Hobhouse openly expressed his highest admiration for Rome's

magnificent human accomplishments in its age of glory, and

condemned the destructive indulgence of "Barbarians, Arians,

and Infidels" (66)--that is, Byron's all inclusive "Goth."

As Hobhouse proceeded to clarify Byron's "Christian" as

a destructive force, he cited a Tuscan historian and friend

of Tasso (Angelio Pietro da Barga) , who asserted that Goths

and Vandals actually did less damage to public buildings than

Christians did. In spite of the ravage left behind by bar­

barians, Hobhouse agreed that historians confirmed that

Christian clergy did paradoxically destroy more complete­

ly and fanatically than any of the invaders. Historians

generally affirmed that this devastation appeared in two

forms--first, in dismantling ancient relics to repair or re­

build other structures; and second, in a radical destruction

of pagan edifices and ornaments as the clergy concentrated on

building churches from the materials unearthed on the exact

sites of pagan structures. Using specific examples, Hobhouse

recounted how the Church confiscated materials to decorate

the tombs of Christian martyrs. Also, he recorded how

106

superstition combined with ignorance and necessity during

this era to make the veneration of apostles the true test of

patriotism and cited several reports of the Church distorting

pagan deities to Christian saints. For example, Romulus

(with all of his specific qualities) became St. Theodo re

(with the identical virtues of the pagan god), and Mars

reemerged as St. Martina. Also, the superstitious clergy

attached fables to the sites of confiscated relics.

Hobhouse recorded one particularly interesting story of a

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

an apostle confined in the Mamertine dungeon.

Marveling that any relic of antiquity had survived, he

detailed how Christians methodically destroyed temple statues

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

clusion that early popes did little except build churches at

the expense of ancient structures. However, he charged the

lower clergy with destroying and stealing more than the

pontiffs as they led Christians to loosely interpret the law

that forbade destroying pagan edifices. This laxity allowed

them to embellish their religious structures with remnants

of the ancient buildings. In this kind of sanctioned de­

struction, zealots enthusiastically broke idols and pulled

down ancient structures. The sacrilege of destroying nation­

al treasures (such as the ancient temple on the banks of the

Clitumnus) was only one of the ploys the Church used to gain

control of past history and to brainwash the people. In

107

Illustrati ons Hobhouse related many such blasphemous deeds,

reported by credible and official ecclesiastical sources. He

maintained a relatively objective historical tone, but his

language denoted a subjective response that the reader sensed

as an underlying disapproval or disenchantment with the

Catholic religion. As a genuinely concerned archivist, he

resented the widespread destruction in the name of religion.

As a nominal Protestant, his faith looked to a transcendent

deity rather than to physical artifacts for its substantia-

t i on.

Continuing to highlight the destructive influence of

Byron's "Christians," he reconstructed the history of zealots

ravaging every sarcophagus in their prowl for relics. He

also related how they dumped burial ashes found in ancient

mausoleums and unscrupulously unearthed bodies, removed urns

and precious materials from tombs, devastating graves in the

search for ornaments buried with the dead. Hobhouse subtly

ridiculed the despoilers' ignorance of the meaning implied by

sarcophagi decorated with mythological sculptures. These

were transported whole to basilicas or churches and both Pope

Clement XII and Innocent II lay in marble slabs previously

occupied by heathen bodies. Hobhouse reported viewing the

memorial plaque of a bishop interred in a stone coffin with

pagan marriage bas reliefs carved on its surface. While "the

bones and ashes of emperors" (176) had been dispersed in the

wind, less pure ashes had been preserved.

108

Byron recalled a mythic legend at a specific sepulchre

as he also discoursed on this unholy emptying of graves:

Ixxi X

The Niobe of nations! there she stands.

Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;

An empty urn within her withered hands,

Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago;

The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;

The very sepulchres lie tenantless

Of their heroic dwellers . . . .

Hobhouse recalled how, after years of searching, anti­

quarians discovered and identified Scipio's tomb in 1780. He

elaborated on the eloquent family inscriptions inside the

sarcophagus of Barbatus Scipio that told more about the

virtues of style and language in ancient Rome than Livy did.

Of course, Livy was his absolute authority if historians

could not agree about ancient Rome and its ruins, and he

examined his personal copy at every ruin or monument. He

conceded that antiquarians disputed about every object exca­

vated or discovered and expressed approval for using convict

labor in excavations as he encouraged others to follow the

Duchess of Devonshire's example of financing such digs.

Plodding through the ages century by century, Hobhouse

laboriously recited minute details from historical sources

available in the Vatican and other papal libraries that

confirmed the vandalism, ravage and demolition by "the

109

Christian." Tragically, vandalism sanctioned by papal decree

resulted in organized destruction that Church historians

confirmed. However, in a fourth-century inventory, Pope

Valentine could still record twelve pages (in double columns)

naming public monuments. Hobhouse accepted this inventory

as concrete proof of the former glory and beauty in the

eternal city. Byron considered them "wrecks of another

world, whose ashes still are warm" (xlvi). Several fourth-

century historians also verified that during the reign of

Constantine, Rome's architectural wonders still astounded

and fascinated visitors.

Nevertheless, Hobhouse named Constantine as the most

successful of all plunderers; he sold so-called pagan idols

and statues, changed the purpose of many public structures

to accomodate the new state religion, and despoiled monuments

and arches for use in churches, monasteries and other build­

ings dedicated to the new religion. Yet, this kind of devas­

tation also became a preservation. A thousand years after

this despoliation, Byron and Hobhouse viewed Leda and the

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

Proserpine's pomegranates still decorating the altar at St.

Agnes.

Hobhouse also detailed the additional devastation of

Constantine when he established Constantinople as the seat

of Roman emperors. Many leading families followed his move

and left behind their empty palaces, which fell into decay

110

as lack of repair and upkeep hastened their deterioration.

In addition, the emigrants carried many of the best trophies

and ornaments with them, further depleting the national trea­

sure of ancient relics. Although edicts in the fourth centu­

ry outlawed removing lead, brass and iron from abandoned

buildings, those rebuilding houses had little recourse except

plundering habitations deserted by former residents. As the

various public structures declined, private individuals razed

them, and transported columns and marbles from one city to

another for use in new buildings. Byron called it by its

real name, devastation: "The world hath rear'd cities from

out their sepulchres" (Ixxxix). As Hobhouse so aptly

implied, public policy decreed not to restore, but to

pillage the deteriorating monuments and buildings. Certain­

ly, as he stated, a wretched population struggling for mere

existence could not be expected to respect trophies of former

grandeur. Or as Byron bewailed: "Alas! the lofty city! and

alas! . . ./ Alas for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,/ And

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

Hobhouse recalled the Justinian Code of the fourth cen­

tury that referred to an Old and a New Rome as it indicated

ruins for which the Senate refused to appropriate money. The

lack of funds to restore monuments and to maintain public

buildings hastened the spoil of ancient structures and added

to the dilapidation caused by ages of neglect and decay as

general unconcern conspired with forces of nature to destroy

Ill

every piece left by marauders. As sculptures lay where they

fell, silt buried the remains and only buried relics escaped

looters. An additional factor in national despair came from

the emperor's living in Constantinople, and viewing Rome as

a special domain to be exploited, not protected or helped.

Continuing a lenghty analysis of the Christian's de­

struction, Hobhouse recalled that popes assumed rule over

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

the pontiffs involved, he confirmed that once religious

history became Rome's history, a reconstruction program be­

gan. During peacetime, pontiffs forced the people to rebuild

the city walls and to construct churches and shrines for

martyrs. But as always, the building material could come

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

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

tated. Hobhouse cited numerous examples of the magnificence

of papal courts leading ambitious conquerors to invade and

tyrannize before they plundered. It also led popes to appeal

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

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

( Ixxxvi i).

In the ninth century, Leo IX used the protection of

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

the Vatican. As apathetic survivors moved to the secure

area, the population became concentrated at opposite sides of

the city with a vast wasteland of deserted ruins between.

112

As Rome once again became a center of power, sieges and

civil protests added to the dilapidation of the old city

while the new city rose in importance. According to Hob­

house, "the edifices of old Rome" were lost for two

centuries, but a "regionary" of the ninth century indicated

that a variety of hot baths, monuments, temples, arches and

amphitheaters still survived. Also "the Capitol, the Septi-

zonium of Severus, a Palace of Nero, another attributed to

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

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

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

broken or in decay and ruins, but some survived for another

thousand years. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,

they still served as landmarks for ecclesiastical pilgrims.

And some still partially survived when Hobhouse and Byron

visited Rome in 1817, and still served as landmarks.

Continuing to trace the destructive bent of popes, Hob­

house detailed further demolition-preservation movements as

Gregory III removed columns from ancient structures to

build St. Peter's Cathedral and Hadrian concentrated on

rebuilding the aqueducts from whatever material he could

lay his hands on. Later pontiffs used stones from the

Coliseum to build private palaces; Byron included this bit of

lore in the Coliseum passage: "from its mass,/ Walls,

palaces, half cities, have been reared" (cxliii). Pontiffs

leveled temples, arches, theaters, and forums to widen city

113

streets; they stripped bronze from the Pantheon for the con­

fessional at St. Peter's and to make cannon for the castle of

St. Angelo; they used marble from Cecilia Metella' s sepulchre

to build the fountain of Trevi; and they utilized materials

from an ancient bridge to make four hundred cannon balls (to

defend the castle of St. Angelo).

In addition to this and much more cataloging of destruc­

tion, Hobhouse recorded a final tragic decimation of "the

Christians" that resulted in irreparable damage. When the

Romans discovered that cement mortar made from white marble

lasted much longer than that made from other stones, no mar­

ble fragment was safe. Popes and pontiffs ordered massive

fragments from ruins thrown into the lime kilns and converted

to masonry lime. By the fifteenth century, much of the Coli­

seum had been used to make lime, yet as Byron viewed the

structure, he questioned whether it had "been plundered, or

but cleared?" (cxliii). Hobhouse again voiced awe that any­

thing survived, and moaned that between the barbarians and

the Catholic religion, there was sufficient cause for little

to remain. However, he reported that miraculously, in spite

of this, religious pilgrims in the sixteenth century still

viewed Roman monuments, fragments, marble blocks and ruins as

the wonder of the civilized world. But in direct contrast,

he picturesquely described how a pope of that time made the

prescribed stations of a ceremonial by picking his way from

ruin to ruin because the entire city lay in such desolation.

114

After appraising the long history of destruction, Hob­

house concluded that by the Middle Ages Rome was a city built

with rubble among the ruins of ancient civilizations. He

also rendered a rare judgmental commentary that revealed his

grasp of ancient as well as modern Italian; he asserted that

the language used in describing both the church rituals and

the primitive culture of the period was as crude as invading

barbarians must have been. Hobhouse reported an anecdote

that especially revealed this as another age of ignorance and

superstition. First, he cited a report from the personal

secretary of Pope Eugenius who indicated some of the most

valued religious relics:

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

Then the scribe reported how a heretic of Bourbon's army

stole the foreskin of Jesus, but miraculously a noble lady

found it in an underground cave and returned it to the Vati­

can. Its return was attended by repeated miracles, all

authenticated by the famous ecclesiastical writer Marangoni.

To say the least, Hobhouse proved his point about the

superstition and ignorance of the age.

Of course, as Byron designated, invaders and Christians

did not cause all the destruction. Forces of nature aided by

115

"Time, War, Flood, and Fire" also took a toll in the destruc­

tive process of Rome. Hobhouse catalogued wars, fires, civil

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

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

fifth century, the city's population had diminished from

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

supply enough water for the city and the ancient aqueducts

remained broken. During the seventh century alone, histori­

ans recorded famine, earthquake, plague and five successive

inundations of the Tiber. Each one contributed to the deso­

lation of ancient sites and to making life miserable for the

city's residents. Hobhouse recorded how several rulers tried

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

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

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

recorded repeated inundations, which continued to add to the

devastations of time and war. Overall, during the untold

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

quake, storms and floods did.

Historical sources also confirmed the destructive in­

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

Hobhouse reported that as the dispute between the Empire

and the Church reached its climax in the eleventh century

the entire nation became embroiled with Rome as the center

of combat between pope and emperor. Encamped armies moved

to fortified places and prepared to attack other partisan

116

forces who occupied private palaces. German immigrant

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

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

Hobhouse reported, these immigrants pretended to descend from

Roman soldiers who had served in the provinces under the

Caesars. They moved their families to Rome where they

claimed Roman citizenship and occupied whole sections of the

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

numerous others) and described their construction of fort­

resses and strongholds on the site of ruins. According to

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

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

the twelfth century one revolution resulted in a reformation

of the senate.

This particular rebellion began when Pope Paschal II

angered a mob and they assaulted him during a Holy Week

service. Although he escaped, rival families capitalized on

the turmoil and divided the offices of the senate government

so that the Colonni and Orsini families administered both the

criminal and civil justice systems. During this period, ev­

ery trace of popular rule was abolished and the baron sena­

tors showed their contempt for the Pope by ceremoniously

humiliating him. They carried sacramental vessels on Easter

Sunday, sat on a level with the papal throne during services.

mo nitored the Pope's rulings, and wore robes sporting gold

broc ade on purple (the cardinal's robe) or the multi-fold

117

robes like the Pope's. Eventually ambition and intrigue

doomed the senate rebellion, and popes resumed their power

and revived their despotism. Byron commented on the twisted

state of affairs with pontiffs ruling instead of advising

rulers:

xcv

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

Man and his Maker--but of things allowed,

Averr' d, and known . . .

The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed,

And the intent of tyranny avowed,

The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown

The apes of him who humbled once the proud,

And shook them from their slumbers on the throne;

According to Hobhouse, the people despised the papal mon­

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

papal contenders also behaved like the power-hungry senators

as they engaged in murder and sedition, inflamed passions and

aligned factions under their mitre. In one struggle between

papal and imperial forces in the thirteenth century, fero­

cious battles resulted when Henry VII was crowned and Pope

John refused to submit to Henry. However, eventually the

ongoing contention between the Senate and Vatican led to

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

Hobhouse recounted how the bishops reigned with a popu­

lar government when popes were absent in the fourteenth

118

century. Without a papal yoke, the people's love for liberty

emerged and Rome recovered some of its past magnificence.

Byron interpreted this aspect of history in xcviii:

Thy [Freedom's] tree hath lost its blossoms, and the ri nd,

Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth.

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

Sown deep . . . .

So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth.

However, government alternated from republican to anarchy and

despotism. Hobhouse recounted the rhythm of Rome's history

from tyranny to freedom in the same cycles that Byron

depi ct ed: CVl 1 1

There is the moral of all human tales;

'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.

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

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

And History, with all her volumes vast.

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

Where gorgeous Tyranny had thus amass'd

All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear.

Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask--

As young people, both Byron and Hobhouse became perma­

nently enamored with the democratic principles underlying the

French Revolution, and they never lost their admiration for

them. Hobhouse clearly stated some of his ideals when he

119

philosophized on the glorious freedom of Rome's republican

days versus the servile submissiveness of modern Italians who

felt no compulsion to struggle for freedom. He cited words

from Tacitus and Agricola, among others, relative to indivi­

dual dignity. Continuing this perceptive meditation, Byron

also reflected on freedom and Italy in a lengthy passage:

xci i i

Opinion an omnipotence, --whose veil

Mantles the earth with darkness, until right

And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale

Lest their own judgments should become too bright.

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

xci V

And thus they plod in sluggish misery.

Rotting from sire to son, and age to age.

Proud of their trampled nature, and so die

Bequeathing their hereditary rage

To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage

War for their chains

xcVI11

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

Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;

Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying.

The loudest still the tempest leaves behind.

120

In the fifteenth century popes were restored, and Hob­

house traced the schisms as conflicting factions raged in

struggles between pope and anti-pope, citizen revolts and

revolutions, subjugated people and noblemen senators. All

of these took a toll on surviving monuments and castles.

Church historian Donatus reported that when Pope Urban

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

unheard of step that offered real hope for saving whatever

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

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

he immediately contradicted his own mandate by using archi­

tectural remains to construct modern buildings. According

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

families adorned their homes with ancient marble slabs,

searched for antique statues to fill their museums, and col­

lected fragments of every available type.

Hobhouse understood that historians had to maintain an

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

a strongly judgmental and condemnatory passage, he let his

disbelief and disgust show as he noted the elegant taste and

splendid magnificence in which popes had lived and continued

to live. Also, all through these distressing situations,

Vatican museums displayed without apology their priceless

artifacts of grandeur and glory. The luxurious taste of both

prelate and nobleman supported sculptors who cut statues from

columns, sawed temple marbles into church steps, and robbed

121

empty palaces to adorn churches and shrines. Many remains

from outlying provinces became incorporated into St. Peter's

as baptistry, altar and other embellishments. In disbelief

Hobhouse noted that paradoxically, after all of these cen­

turies of ravage and destruction of national monuments,

Romans in 1817 still had no inclination or public means to

protect antiquities from either violence or time's ravages

Chapter V

RUINS AND RELICS

As a severely pedantic historian, Hobhouse had no toler­

ance for sloppy research or inaccurate statements by other

historians. Some of his severest criticism concerned three

of his own countrymen who wrote histories of Italy that con­

tained erroneous information. He enumerated specific mis­

takes of Forsyth and Gibbon in their respective histories,

but jeered at Millin's four volume work that described places

the author had never been and monuments he had never seen.

He also detailed many examples of counterfeit inscrip­

tions and errors in other published histories, and again cau­

tioned the traveler to discount the exaggerations of contem­

porary guide books and the ignorance of tour guides. He con­

demned the Church's practice of labeling classical sites

without regard for truth and, in a rare display of humor,

explained how Pope Paschal II totally disregarded credibility

in one instance. In 1103, he issued a Bullari um Romanum

designating a convenient site for Horace's Bandusian fountain

(which inspired one of his famous odes). Paschal fixed the

location, not in the natural geographical locale, but in Hor­

ace's birthplace. This explained Byron's tongue-in-cheek

observation: "Then farewell, Horace Yet fare thee

well--upon Soracte's ridge we part" (Ixxvii). Thus the two

travelers took leave of Horace through a papal ruling but,

as men familiar with the ancient poet, they found haunting

122

123

allusions to him in various places. Byron had not appreci­

ated schoolboy exercises in translation, but he valued the

odes.

Continuing his account of historical mistakes, Hobhouse

cited specific monuments, tombs, statuaries, and other relics

that in 1817 bore misnomers, forged inscriptions, erroneous

dates and wrong locations. He contended that the identity of

every bust or inscription had to be questioned. While names

and locations remained as dubious in 1817 as at any time, he

ma intained that few structures even existed without reason­

able doubts concerning their original function. Neverthe­

less, the Coliseum, a number of tombs, mausoleums and arches

seemed correctly identified. Even so, he warned that one

must suspect every inscription, including those that appeared

to be true antiquities. Byron repeated the same idea in

"Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,/ O'er the dim

fragments cast a lunar light,/ And say, 'here was, or is,'

where all is doubly night? (Ixxx). He echoed the same uncer­

tainty so eloquently as he continued:

Ixxxi

The double night of ages, and of her,

Night's daughter. Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap

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

The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map.

And knowledge spreads them on her ample lap;

But Rome is as the desart, where we steer

124

Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap

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

When but some false mirage of ruin rises near.

xci X

There is a stern round tower of other days.

Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone.

Such as an army' s baffled strength delays,

Standing with half its battlements alone.

And with two thousand years of ivy grown,

The garland of eternity . . .

What was this tower of strength? within its cave

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

cvi i

Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown

Matted and mass' d together, hillock heap' d

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

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

In subterranean damps, where the owl peep' d.

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

Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reap'd

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

Hobhouse asserted that in the incertitude, fourteenth-

century historians could not locate the seven hills on which

ancient Rome stood; and, in the fifteenth century, Augustan

monks labeled at random numerous ancient ruins with no con­

sideration of history or regard for veracity. Further

125

confusing the issue, through the ages names on monuments

varied depending on which antiquarian named them. Hobhouse

confirmed that, at one time, the group identifying remains

designated all vaulted ruins as baths while at another time

they called them temples. He insisted that modern topogra­

phers felt embarrassment from the inexact nomenclature.

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

Hobhouse accused contemporary archaeological societies of

unethically capitalizing on a lucrative trade with unsus­

pecting tourists who had no idea of the false information

pawned onto them. He charged that in a hundred years of

existence, the societies had produced neither an integrated

survey of the excavated ruins and antiquities nor a satis­

factory city map. But, they had done some good things also--

antiquarians located several burial chambers of early promi­

nent familes along the original Appian Way, and by 1817 had

restored a section of the ancient Way complete with villas,

public walks, decorated tombs and other memorabilia. Hob­

house described how one could view concurrently ruins of an

ancient metropolis in the midst of a modern city and feel

the aura of both civilizations.

He regretted, however, that a nineteenth-century tourist

wanting to find monuments to Rome's mythic heroes could see

so few whole objects among the vestiges of early ages. In

his judgment, one did not visit Rome to view the Flavian

princes' shrines or to read Aurelius's philosophy. He

126

asserted that the modern tourist came to Rome to view sites

and objects related to those institutions that civilized a

barbaric world. To him, fragments of Cicero's house or

monuments to early patriots overshadowed all the lofty

ruins of Trajan and Julian.

Although the two tourists could never be sure that the

ruins represented the actual sites, Byron alluded to many

legendary and historical marvels. As he wandered through the

"marble wilderness," he designated specific sites for about

forty stanzas, describing ruins in the ancient city.

Hobhouse, however, added the information that brought meaning

to the poetic perspective. In his explication on the expanse

and history of ruins, a modern reader could almost visualize

the magnificence of Augustus's obelisk and the theater of

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

tine, and understand the veneration inspired by the magni­

tude, grandeur and variety of relics. Hobhouse sensed that

any traveler, even one lacking education and curiosity, would

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

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

voiced the same awe:

cxxxvi i i

--Now welcome, thou dread power!

Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here

Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour

With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear;

127

Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear

Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene

Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear

That we become a part of what has been

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

Byron began the lengthy poetic passage on ruins by mus­

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

lady whose tomb was a splendid memorial structure:

But who was she, the lady of the dead.

Tombed in a palace? Was she chaste and fair?

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

What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear?

What daughter of her beauties was the heir?

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

He continued reflecting on the unidentified woman through

several stanzas, and then meditated on Cecilia Metella's

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

love or pride!" (ciii).

Hobhouse commented on the brevity of the inscription--

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

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

ing such a sepulchre. Only a few disfigured blocks remained

of the original tomb, yet he said it was still one of the

most striking ruins in Rome. He could learn nothing about

128

the family whose name was carved on the sepulchre, but that

name appeared several times in Augustan court documents and

in the annals of Tacitus.

He described the deliberate demolition of this kind of

structure when feudal lords converted tombs and mausoleums

to military fortresses where they lived. That fact affirmed

Byron's expression, "Ages and realms are crowded in this

span,/ This mountain, whose obliterated plan/ The pyramid of

empires pinnacled" (cix). Hobhouse could only surmise when

Metella's tomb became a fortress, and a military garrison

walked through her ashes. Historical sources confirmed that

a German family named Savelli claimed the tomb until 1312

when Henry VII, with a German army, attacked it. Later, a

Gaetani family became owners (for 20,000 marks) and raised

walls near the tomb, added a superstructure, and joined it

to their nearby mansion. Still later. Urban VIII cut away

some of the marble blocks for the fountain of Trevi, and

consigned others to lime kilns.

Byron and Hobhouse saw the most massive ruins in the

Palatine region that originally incorporated the Circus Maxi-

m us and Caesar's palace. Hobhouse described the area as a

sea of ruins where even the soil was a mass of rubble. Byron

depicted the spot as a roosting place for owls:

cvi

Then let the winds howl on! their harmony

Shall henceforth be my music, and the night

129

The sound shall temper with the owlet's cry.

As I now hear them, in the fading light

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

Answering each other on the Palatine,

With their large eyes, all glistening grey and bright.

And sailing pinions. --Upon such a shrine

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

While Byron lost himself in revery and awe, Hobhouse

could only think of the historical chronicles of destruction

and restoration as Anastasius described invasions, civil

wars, and uprisings. Although a thirteenth-century pilgrim

wrote about Palatine mansions and palaces, by the beginning

of the fifteenth century not a single building stood in the

area except a ruined Church of St. Nicholas. Hobhouse ex­

plained how one could walk through the Palatine ruins for

days, exploring corridors of imperial ruins above ground or

below, and meditate all the while on the original purpose of

the structures. In 1817, the main inhabitants of the area

were owls, foxes and jackasses while one footpath crossed

the Palatine and led through the stations of the vi a c r u c i s

to a church and monastery dedicated to St. Bonaventura.

The Farnese family served as one example in Hobhouse's

account of Naples dukes who wanted a summer house in the

Palatine area. To embellish their finished villa, they

did what others had done for centuries in scrounging

130

ancient sculpture, statues and colored marbles from baths,

amphitheaters, deserted palaces and ruined churches. They

hired Michael Angelo to design, and Raphael to paint fres­

coes in their palace and hippodrome built to house an entire

court. In fact, it was so large that a Neapolitan ambassador

became "lost in one of the suites of one of the stories of

one of the sides" (209) of the building. Less than fifty

years later, the family abandoned it and pilferers stripped

it of its treasures. In the nineteenth century, residents

called a sunken part of the Farnese vineyard by the name

Baths of Li via, but no one could tell Hobhouse why. Also,

a subterranean chamber in the same area, and reputed to be

Nero's baths, had been excavated by antiquarians. A few huge

marble blocks with Apollo's name sculpted on them lay about,

and he surmised that they could have come from Apollo's

temple, which originally stood somewhere near the Circus

Maxi mus.

The forum area was at one time the most spectacular

exhibit of ancient Rome. According to historians, two

forums, the Roman and Trajan's, occupied the site. The

Englishman conceded that antiquarians of different ages had

located the forum at various places, none of them with

certainty. Hobhouse said that early Christian zealots spared

the area because it contained statues of young men who had

fallen in war, along with memorials to poets and literary

heroes.

131

Byron described the Forum as a place of free speech

before a "lawless soldier" rendered the senate mute.

CXI 1 1

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

Here a proud people's passions were exhaled.

From the first hour of empire in the bud

To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd;

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

And Anarchy assumed her attributes;

Two authors commented on the Forum in the twelfth

century but, according to Hobhouse, it was probably in ruins

at that time. Historians reported that by the end of the

twelfth century, a church stood on part of Trajan's Forum.

In the thirteenth century, Boniface VIII built three churches

with towers on the site. In the sixteenth century, Paul III

leveled two hundred cottages in the area in order to dig an

arch from under Trajan's column (as Byron indicated, "Thou

nameless column with the buried base!" ex). In the excava­

tion, diggers discovered the original Forum floor, statues,

a basilica and a portico. When Hobhouse visited the spot.

mo dern excavators had exposed the floor in all of its mag­

nificent beauty, and had restored marble columns, porticos

and a basilica to create a splendor that Hobhouse considered

a rival to Pompeii's. In the sixteenth century, Cassidorius

reported Trajan's statue still atop the column. The histo­

rian also explained that an emperor's ashes traditionally

132

were put into the head of a spear held in the hand of the

statue. Hadrian, however, buried Trajan's ashes beneath the

column in a golden urn. Without explaining what happened to

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

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

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

ed out from ancient sources, the reader could understand By­

ron' s poetic riddle about "apostolic statues":

ex

Tully was not so eloquent as thou.

Thou nameless columns with the buried base!

What are the laurels of the Caesar's brow?

Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face,

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

Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace

Scoffing; and apostolic statues climb

To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime,

cxi

Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,

And looking to the stars:

Many gaps existed in historians' accounts, but according

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

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

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

faced. Byron included a tribute to Trajan in cxi:

he was more

133

Than a mere Alexander, and, unstain'd

With household blood and wine, serenely wore

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

No classically educated Englishman could forget the

association of Cicero and the Roman Forum. Both Byron and

Hobhouse recalled past events in the Forum and remembered

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

rhetori ci an: CXI 1:

Yes: and in yon field below,

A thousand years of silenced factions sleep--

The Forum, where the immortal accents glow.

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

Although the village of Mola di Gaeta claimed Cicero's

tomb, villa and artifacts, Hobhouse cited the ancient writer

Plutarch who mentioned a temple of Cicero in the region of

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

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

cording to Donatus. In the fifteenth century, historian

Poggio witnessed the destruction of a portico said to be part

of Cicero's temple. Although repeated fires, earthquakes

and invasions left little trace of the temple where Cicero

assembled the senate, Hobhouse viewed two inscribed plaques

marking the spot. He expressed awe in knowing that he stood

where Cicero once spoke. In terms of true veneration, he

134

praised Cicero as "the wisest and best man of all antiquity"

(225), and theorized that the most unknowing observer would

be sensitive to the memory of the great orator because even

the most ignorant Roman still revered him.

Continuing to ponder the ruins, Byron created another

poetic enigma for the uneducated, and again Hobhouse clari­

fied it cxi 1

Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place

Where Rome embraced her heroes? where the steep

Tarpeian? fittest goal of Treason's race.

The promontory whence the Traitor's leap

Cured all ambition.

Hobhouse first explained that Capitol Hill and the Tar­

peian Rock were the same high ground and originally Capitol

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

He speculated that the Athenaeum originally covered the whole

hill, but historians disagreed on the location of the struc­

ture. One topographer located it on the site of St. Salva-

tor' s church, but that church no longer existed when Hobhouse

visited the spot.

Again resorting to ancient historians, he traced the

deep historical roots of Capitol Hill where students learned

rhetoric in a true university. Through the centuries, each

revolutionary faction battled to control the high ground of

the hill. Muratori reported that from the hill, the antipope

135

John was thrown to his death after he had his ears chopped

off, his eyes pulled out, his tongue removed, and had been

paraded about Rome on an ass (facing the tail).

Continuing to trace the history, Hobhouse reported on

repeated assaults by pontiffs and senators. By the fif­

teenth century, noblemen (Hobhouse called them barons), popes

and senators had fought over the hill, and various plunderers

had removed the gilded doors and tiles from all of the

ancient structures. When Paul III reestablished papal power

in the sixteenth century, he hired Michael Angelo to make the

citadel both accessible and attractive. Michael Angelo had

to lower the hill enough for one to reach the top with one

hundred steps maximum--fewer steps than the nearby Benedic­

tine church used, one hundred twenty-four. After this

levelling process, the Coliseum towered over the Tarpeian

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

In spite of elucidating many enigmas, Hobhouse could not

so Ive one riddle about Capitol Rock. No historian recorded

from which precipice traitors were thrown. However, he did

incorporate the story of one of the most interesting and sue

cessful revolutions against the tyranny of noblemen who did

not know how to rule. Byron included the basic details,

which were meaningless until Hobhouse filled the gaps.

cxi V

Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,

From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee.

136

Redeemer of dark centuries of shame--

The friend of Petrarch--hope of Italy--

Rienzi! last of Romans! While the tree

Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf.

Even for thy tomb a garland let it be--

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

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

Could any scholar except a diligent student of ancient

history recognize the name Rienzi? Because both Byron and

Hobhouse revered freedom and knew Italian history, they dei­

fied Rienzi, a fourteenth-century citizen leader, poet and

friend of Petrarch. In fact, during this tumultous era, Pet­

rarch' s poetry carried the message of patriotism and freedom

throughout the region as he applauded Rienzi's acts. Not

only did Rienzi have the famous poet as a fellow-citizen

voicing concerns; he also had Giovanni Villani as a reliable

biographer witnessing his exploits and recording them.

In 1817, Byron and Hobhouse viewed two articles that

reminded them of this revolution. First, Constantine's

bronze horse still stood where Rienzi had arranged for wine

to flow from one nostril and water from the other on his

coronation day. Also, in the Capitoline Museum, Hobhouse saw

fragments of tablets conferring on Vespasian his authority to

reign. According to superstitious legend, Rienzi was the

only Roman able to interpret the tablets. Both Vespasian and

Rienzi were of plebian birth, and this supernatural ability

137

to read indecipherable tablets indicated the heavens' plea­

sure with Rienzi's role in human affairs as liberator and

ruler.

Hobhouse referred to Gibbon's characterization of

Rienzi, but his historical summary came from the historian

Muratori. Rienzi served as a senate tribune popularly elect­

ed, the "hope of Italy" to protect ordinary citizens from

patrician magistrates. As a persuasive orator, he capital­

ized on the people's resentment of the pleasure-loving nobil­

ity and aroused the citizenry to open rebellion--"the tree/

Of Freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf." When a

faction of the church supported him, Rienzi and his fellow

rebels celebrated an all-night mass in St. Angelo' s Church

before they marched through the streets under religious

banners and proclaimed their intentions. Rienzi, as the

"forum's champion and the people's chief," envisioned

a constitutionally federated republic with the blessings of

peace and justice for all citizens. His battle cry of peace,

majesty and justice must have sounded like the call of the

French Revolution to Byron and Hobhouse who firmly supported

that cause as young men. Feudal wars between noblemen were

part of the treachery of the times, but Rienzi's total suc­

cess proved to Hobhouse that Roman citizens still treasured

freedom. As Byron proclaimed, Rienzi redeemed "dark centu­

ries of shame" in overthrowing the nobility's rule, imposing

a system of justice, and creating a free republic.

138

Hobhouse confirmed the forceful rule of Rienzi. In one

of his first acts, he restored Clement VI to papal power.

Then he concentrated on ridding the city government of cor­

ruption and restored dignity to honest labor. Although he

renamed the Holy Roman Empire the Holy Roman Republic and

identified himself as a citizen tribune, the vanity of suc­

cess prompted him to assume "fopperies of royalty" (256).

He soon ordained a lengthy title for himself, established a

chivalric court of horsemen, wore pompous robes, and general­

ly indulged an insatiable hunger for power and recognition.

According to Hobhouse's analysis, when he returned Rome to

the lascivious public feasts of the Caesars, the vice of ex­

travagant conduct and pride alienated him from the root of

his political strength in the common citizens of Rome. His

downfall became eminent when he set himself up as dictator

and ordered himself crowned with seven crowns (representing

the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit). He demanded that the

cardinals and pope attend his coronation (from Avignon where

they lived and officiated over church matters from 1306 to

1376). Within a month of his coronation, he was dethroned

and exiled. Even though Byron was probably not referring to

Rienzi, the words fit as he defined "Ambition, that built up

between/ Man and his hopes an adamantine wall,

man's worst--his second fall" (scvii).

and dooms

Hobhouse reported that Rienzi took refuge in St. Angelo

Castle and ignominiously escaped at night in the guise of a

139

peasant beggar. After seven years of aimless wandering, he

identified himself, became a political prisoner of the inqui­

sition in Avignon, and was charged with heresy and rebellion.

However, as the historians recorded, the cardinals judged

that his trial would expose embarrassing clerical secrets,

and both Clement and Innocent VI considered his ability to

reform the anarchy of Rome worthy of restoring him to power

as a senator. Admittedly, Rienzi did "redeem centuries of

shame" in the overthrow of the despotic nobility and the

restoration of individual freedom. However, four months

after his return as a patriot senator, a mob of Roman citi­

zens massacred him. From a twentieth-century vantage point,

one' could say that he proved the modern maxim that revolution

perpetuates revolution. Byron expressed a similar nine­

teenth century perspective:

xc vi:

Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,

And Freedom find no champion and no child

Such as Columbia saw arise when she

Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled?

Hobhouse relied on historians to confirm a personal con­

viction that humans could bear neither the servitude of slav­

ery nor the latitude of complete freedom. He asserted that

in Italy a national tendency to revolt created an impatience

with control that found its outlet in violent conduct. When

Rienzi capitalized on this tendency and harangued against the

140

unpopular tyranny, and the popular bard Petrarch endorsed his

campaign for liberty, the revolt could not fail. To Hob­

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

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

constancy of the Roman citizenry.

Continuing to catalogue individual ruins methodically,

Byron began the Coliseum passage by recalling gladiators

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

cxxxi X

And here the buzz of eager nations run.

In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause.

As man was slaughtered by his fellow man.

And wherefore slaughtered? wherefore, but because

Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws,

And the imperial pleasure. . . .

cxli i

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam;

And here, where burning nations choked the ways.

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

Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;

Here where the Roman million's blame or praise

Was death in life, the playthings of a crowd.

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

in 1817 and confirmed Hobhouse' s account of popes and

senators using its massive blocks for private palaces:

141

clxiii

A ruin--yet what ruin! from its mass

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

Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass

And marvel where the spoil could have appeared.

Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared?

Hobhouse reported seeing Vatican letters that offered

stones from the Coliseum for sale in 1362, and again in

1531. Although many of its stones found their way into the

lime kilns, some of the finest palaces in Italy were built

from them, just as Byron said.

Hobhouse reported that the ancient historian Marangoni

credibly asserted that an architect named Gaudentius built

the matchless structure, and was executed in it for his

Christian faith. One historian explained the purpose of the

structure--to house gladiator shows where men battled wild

beasts--while another calculated that the entire facility

could hold over 10,000 wild beasts at the same time that it

accommodated 87,000 seated spectators and 22,000 standing.

Another historian reported that under Domitian second-century

spectators became glutted with the crucifixions and burnings

that followed the gladiators' being "butcher"d to make a

Roman holiday" (cxli). Byron expressed disapproval of this

slaughter and called on them to revolt: "Arise! ye Goths,

and glut your ire!" (cxli).

142

In continuing his poetic treatise, Byron included a

citation from Gibbon, in which Gibbon referred to Bede for

proof that seventh and eighth-century pilgrims saw the

Coliseum whole even though Rome was partially destroyed.

(Hobhouse identified and interpreted the citation.) Few

readers then or now would recognize the ancient citation

or its source and few would understand its significance

relative to the ruin. cxl V

While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;

"When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;

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

Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall

In Saxon times, which we are wont to call

Ancient;

In his detailed history of the Coliseum, Hobhouse re­

ported destructive forces that assailed the ancient struc­

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

brothels. When lightning damaged the structure, Constantine

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

However, seventh-century earthquakes, along with neglect and

floods proved to be more than the durable structure could

withstand and the entire south wall collapsed. Through

several stanzas Byron confirmed the structure's majesty in

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

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

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

143

Once again Byron posed the question (of meaning) and

Hobhouse interpreted the significance: "Amidst this wreck,

where thou hast made a shrine/ And temple more divinely

desolate" (cxxxi). Hobhouse commented on the piety accorded

the Coliseum but denied to other pagan structures. Because

of the faithful who died there, even the pontiffs could not

agree on a proper attitude toward the structure. Pius V

considered the earth from the Coliseum the most holy relic

in Rome while other pontiffs sanctioned bull fights there,

established a wool manufacturing plant and artisan shops,

and consecrated the structure as a shrine to martyrs. Voic­

ing neither praise nor censure, Hobhouse recalled the seven­

teenth century philosophizing of Sir Francis Bacon in London

at the same time that a Roman mystic named Neri was raising

the dead and being tempted by the devil in the Coliseum.

Also, if one was not too skeptical to believe the ecclesiati-

cal sources, in the consecrated Coliseum Saint Ignatius Loy­

ola received one hundred gold crowns from an angelic messen­

ger (sent by the slain martyrs who had been in Loyola's medi­

tations). Byron was probably recalling the courage and valor

of countless gladiators when he perceived a hallowed, though

not necessarily sacred aura in the ancient ruin. Part of his

expression created an insoluble enigma without Hobhouse' s

lucid clarification: "Then in this magic circle raise the

dead:/ Heroes have trod this spot--'tis in their dust ye

tread" ( cxliv) .

144

Following Byron's sequence in the catalogue of ruins.

Hobhouse reminisced about another architectural wonder--the

Pantheon whose ruin still enraptured the spectator and exem­

plified every art and science known to man. He could find

no historical confirmation for the original purpose of the

edifice, and no historian supported the thirteenth-century

pilgrim's contention that the temple originally belonged

to Cybele and Neptune. Pliny contended that it was dedicated

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

and Mars. Early Christian writers argued that the structure

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

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

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

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

Abate Lazeri published a treatise to prove the Pantheon

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

Italians should be interested in preserving the illustrious

Augustan monument, he expressed shock to see superstitious

worshippers sitting and staring at a cobweb covered block,

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

Byron also felt awed by the beautiful "relic of nobler

days": cxl vi

Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime--

Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,

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

145

Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods

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

His way through thorns to ashes--glorious dome!

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

Shiver upon thee--santuary and home

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

cxlvi i

Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts!

Despoiled yet perfect, with thy circle spreads

A holiness appealing to all hearts--

To art a model; and to him who treads

Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds

Her light through thy sole aperture; to those

Who worship, here are altars for their beads;

And they who feel for genius may here repose

Their eyes on honoured forms.

Incorporating both religious and secular history, Hob­

house carefully detailed the full story of the structure to

indicate the importance of the building through the ages from

a Christian monument dedicated to all martyrs to a fortified

site. Boniface insisted that before its consecration, demons

hid there and attacked passersby.

As the pair wandered through the tangled landscape of

ruins, both responded in the same way to many of the relics.

One of Byron's most moving depictions occurred in his

146

description of a prison dungeon where legend said that a

Roman daughter fed her dying father with milk from her own

breast.

cxlvi i i

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light

What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again!

Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight--

Two insulated phantoms of the brain:

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

An old man, and a female young and fair,

Fresh as a nursing mother.

. . but what doth she there?

With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?

cl

But here youth offers to old age the food.

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

To whom she renders back the debt of blood

Born with her birth. No; he shall not expire

While in those warm and lovely veins the fire

Of health and holy feeling can provide

Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher

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

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

This passage would remind a modern American reader of

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

147

Hobhouse of a famous battle as he explained the legend re­

peated by tour guides on the site of St. Nicholas Church.

Originally a Temple of Piety built by Glabrio and dedicated

to his father's victory at Thermopylae stood there. Anti­

quarians identified some columns and wall fragments as rem­

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

maid. Historians confirmed that for centuries tourists had

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

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

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

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

original structure, Hobhouse accepted the presence of a

Christian church as proof that some pagan temple once stood

there.

Hobhouse reported on another impressive ruin with a rich

tradition and long history as he cited early historians' de­

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

statesman and scholar. Originally it was a square structure

of Parian marble blocks fitted without cement and topped with

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

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

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

later a castle. Since it controlled the principal entry into

the city, the significance of its capture would rank with the

devastation of famine or earthquake. The ruin that Byron and

148

Hobhouse saw resulted from a powder magazine blowing up

inside the Mole in 1479. Byron included his impressions of

the Mole in majestic poetry unsurpassed by other travelogues

cli i

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

Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles.

Colossal copyist of deformity.

Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile's

Enormous model, doom' d the artist's toils

To build for giants, and for his vain earth

His shrunken ashes raise this dome: How smiles

The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth.

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

Using his customary style of detailing both minor and

major historical figures, Hobhouse described the construction

of the Mole, reported how feudal defenders joined the Mole to

the city wall during the seige by the Goths, and traced its

ownership to the nineteenth century. Few historians even

would relish the tedious account, but it revealed a peculiar

attitude and atmosphere in history of that time period. When

the Patrician Theodora seized the castle as the first step in

establishing her rule, control of the castle also allowed her

lover, the Bishop of Ravenna, to become Pope John X. Also in

the tenth-century, within the castle walls Cardinal Francone

assassinated Benedict VI. Consequently, Benedict VII drove

149

the murderous cardinal from Rome, and left his own band of

ruffians in the castle while he went to Constantinople to

slay another pope, John XIV.

During the eleventh century, intrigue led both popes and

anti-popes to control and beseige the castle, and Hobhouse

traced a sequence of ownerships and seiges, assaults and sur­

renders. In 1096 crusaders futilely assaulted it. In the

fourteenth century after Rienzi's death. Innocent VI feared

that rebel dukes would seize the Mole, so he installed

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

though various tenants changed, adorned, and strengthened

it. Urban VIII did the most major renovation when he added a

moat and a hundred cannons.

The one sight to which the pair responded quite differ­

ently was the spectacular structure, St. Peter's Cathedral.

Byron eloquently described how its majestic beauty surpassed

Sophia's sanctuary where Moslems prayed. His introspective

meditations during the entire tour suggested a sensitive

spirit seeking answers to a Gordian knot dilemma, and prob­

ably explained the tremendous impact on him of "the dome--the

vast and wondrous dome, . . . Christ's mighty shrine above

his martyr's tomb!" (cliii).

cli V

But thou, of temples old, or altars new,

Standest alone--with nothing like to thee--

Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.

150

Since Zion's desolation, when that He

Forsook his former city, what could be.

Of earthly structures, in his honour piled.

Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,

Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled

In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.

cl vi

Vastness which grows--but grows to harmonize--

All musical in its immensities;

Rich marbles--riCher painting--shrines where flame

The lamps of gold--and haughty dome which vies

In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame

S i t s on t h e f i r m - s e t g r o u n d - - a n d t h i s t h e c l o u d s must c l a i m ,

c l v i i i

even so t h i s

O u t s h i n i n g and o v e r w h e l m i n g e d i f i c e

Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great

Defies at first our Nature's littleness.

Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate

Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate.

In much more mundane language, Hobhouse recorded

impressions of frenzied activity and a cacophony of sound

wi t hi n:

A noisy school for children in one corner; a sermon preached to a moveable audience in another; a concert in

151

this chapel; a ceremony. . . in another quarter; a ceaseless crowd sauntering along the nave, and circulat­ing through all the aisles; listeners and gazers walk­ing, sitting, kneeling; some rubbing their foreheads against the worn toes of the bronze St. Peter, others smiling at them; confessors in boxes absolving peni­tents; lacquey ^e Places expounding pictures. (316)

Although Hobhouse reacted to the architectural beauty

and accomplishment in the structure, he felt that nothing

could resemble primitive Christianity less than the present

activities in St, Peter's. Since he felt no reverential awe

as Byron did, he could objectively critique the common Itali­

an' s indifferent participation in ceremonies, and noted that

only foreigners and clerical figures flocked to the "papal

shows" (318). Hobhouse conjectured that these pagan cere­

monies and ridiculous superstitions would continue because

the elderly, the poor, the uneducated, and the clergy main­

tained devout obedience to the Catholic religion. As a nomi­

nally religious individual, he viewed any religious ceremony

as a harmless ritual, and cynically remarked that St. Peter's

could never stir nineteenth-century worshippers with the fer­

vor that early Christians felt in their catacombs.

In a bitter treatise detailing practices of the Catholic

Church Hobhouse reported how cardinals examined modern mira­

cles according to the rules of the council of Trent, and sub­

stantiated them by sixteenth-century standards. Then, they were

published and people thronged to either witness or experience

them. Ceremonial floggings still piously demonstrated the

152

penance of convent inhabitants, and Hobhouse witnessed a ves­

pers service whose kneeling audience lashed themselves in

penance for secret sins and in memory of martyrs as they

uttered prayers to the Virgin Mary. He humorously considered

this flagellation as a remedy for atheism, but also a refine­

ment of barbaric mutilations practiced by pagan priests. As

he wittily commented, in primitive cultures beating oneself

was more expedient than beating another.

Historically, flagellation began in 1260 with pilgrims

bound for Rome flogging themselves as an act of piety. It

soon became a national penance sanctioned by the clergy.

Hobhouse concluded that as a bond of brotherhood among re­

ligious institutions, it would continue for generations with

papal sponsorship although civilized nations humanely prohib­

ited it everywhere except in Rome.

During their time in Rome, Byron and Hobhouse took the

usual tourist jaunts listed in all the guidebooks. One of

these included an area above Rome where a tunnel two miles

long had been cut in solid stone in 398 B. C. before the

Veian War (what Byron called the "Epic war"). As a memor­

ial to perseverance, the shaft had no equal in the modern

world, according to Hobhouse. The tunnel drainage had creat­

ed a beautiful mountain lake--Nemi. Knowing this, any reader

could partially interpret Byron's description of natural

beauty viewed from the mountains west of Rome.

153

clxxi i i

Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills

So far, that the uprooting wind which tears

The oak from his foundation, and which spills

The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears

Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares

The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;

And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears

A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake.

All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.

According to Hobhouse, the tunnel builders knew all the

arts of civilization, but their society was buried when a

volcano erupted and collapsed inward, creating a second lake

nearby--Albano, which Byron also portrayed:

clxxi V

And near Albano's scarce divided waves

Shine from a sister valley; and afar

The Tyber winds, and the broad ocean laves

The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war;

The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight

The classically educated Englishmen appreciated the

Arician grove (from the Aenei d) near Lake Nemi, and "the

weary bard's delight" (i. e. Cicero's ruined villa near

Albano which still had its mosaic floor intact). Also,

154

Pompey s villa and tomb along with other ruins intrigued the

sensitive antiquarian spirit of Hobhouse.

While Byron was disinterested, Hobhouse was fascinated

by the most intriguing and mysterious artifacts ever recov­

ered from any ancient civilization in Italy that were coming

to light in 1817 near Lake Albano. Hobhouse described how

excavators worked in the volcanic debris covering ruins of

villas and tombs. The layers of volcanic peperine under

which excavators found assorted relics were deposited through

several eruptions before the Christian era began. Hobhouse

viewed many articles reportedly recovered from the ancient

civilizations including figured vases, terra cotta shards,

iron nails, metal mirrors and lead conduits. The excavations

had also unearthed antique bronze and brass utensils and as­

sorted dinnerware with various other artifacts. Cremated

bones and burial urns indicated ancient burial practices

among the mysterious civilization. Hobhouse read a treatise

in which Dr. Alexander Visconti theorized on the objects and

commented on the peculiar composition of iron oxide and clay

enriched by volcanic sand in the glass of the vases. Also

the various shapes indicated a variety of uses--for perfume,

ointment, honey, water and wine.

Hobhouse questioned the authenticity of several of the

relics, which were in a private museum and for sale at an

exaggerated price. He recognized the workmanship on the

utensils as much later than Visconti projected and of the

155

same type frequently discovered in both Greece and Italy

among burial relics. He further displayed his intensive

education as an antiquarian when he judged the larger pottery

as not a Roman type. In his own hypothesizing, Hobhouse

relied on private historical sources of Cato and others who

surmised that an aboriginal society moved from Greece to Ita­

ly several generations before the Trojan War. They intermar­

ried with other races who lived along the Tiber. Although

the Greeks were barbarians, they introduced Greek music,

language and customs to the area. Hobhouse argued that the

makers of the bronze vases represented a higher level of

civilization than authorities assumed possible at that time,

but the pottery was crude enough to fit that era. He charged

that nobody had verified whether the relics had been found

together, and reminded antiquarians that artifacts collected

over a vast area did not necessarily come from the same per­

iod of time. So, for him, the Alban vases created a plethora

of unanswered questions.

Citing an English excavator who worked part of the site,

Hobhouse conjectured on the strange runic characters on the

pottery. Rooted in a cross, they resembled the "cruciform

hammer" (343) used on remote Scandinavian monuments to denote

Thor's battle axe and the horn of mead. To both the English­

man and Hobhouse, this similarity raised interesting ques­

tions of an interchange much earlier than historians had

thought possible. Hobhouse admitted that throughout Europe

156

a runic alphabet was once widely used, but cautioned that

many antiquarians let their enthusiasm override their judg­

ment when they fancied a connection between the widely dif­

fused characters.

Hobhouse reported how the excavators looked to mythology

for an affinity between the two distant cultures after they

had exhausted other resources. Their mythic explanation

concluded that the Romans' Jupiter was the "thunderer of the

Northmen" (343), and Celtic aborigines could have left the

remote antiquities in Italy. Hobhouse recalled that a hammer

of Thor inscription had been found in Spain, and it also ap­

peared in many magical books. But, he anticipated Jung's

theory of certain universal mythic characters when he theo­

rized that it was a mythological character common to mankind

in general. To prove his point, he used the example of the

five-pointed star drawn by English shepherds who had never

heard of Antiochus, had never seen a replica of his coin, and

had no knowledge of its connection with mysticism.

Overall, modern readers would understand little of the

connotative implications in the names of people and places

cited by Byron. Certainly Hobhouse succeeded in explicating

vague allusions and in adding a depth of interpretation few

historians could duplicate. He also selectively outlined

what he judged as important background information to enhance

his poet friend's travelogue masterpiece, and insisted on a

unity between the canto and the explanatory material. While

157

a few critics admitted that he influenced the canto, none

ever conceded that he made the canto a meaningful reading

experience for everyone willing to delve into the historical

allusions underlying the surface poem.

CHAPTER VI

CONCLUSION

Nineteenth-century critics contributed little to litera­

ry values as they reprimanded Byron and implicated his moral

reputation with his poetic expressions. Some concentrated on

a factual account of his tour, the poetic themes of ruin and

decay, and recapped Austria's tyranny in Italy. They pointed

to either real or imagined autobiographical and historical

elements in the canto, commiserated with Byron's subjective

responses, catalogued his personal woes and introspective

meditations on anger, self-pity, melancholy, pessimism,

despondency, and grief along with his poetic reflections on

life and the beauty in nature. They evaluated his political

sentiments and the parallel between his poetic perspective

and Italy's as they enumerated grammatical mistakes and

rhythmic weaknesses in the canto. None of these themes

required reiteration by twentieth-century commentators, yet

most modern critics used their newly coined jargon of meta­

language to tread the familiar path and reflect on these

same specifics.

However, some twentieth-century scholars added new or

deeper dimensions to the canon of critical treatises on Canto

IV. These scholars identified a transcendental quality

overlooked by nineteenth-century critics and traced the

transcendental vision of hope and transmutation; they noted

the influence of Calvinism on Byron's expressions and his

158

159

psychological projection of self into the scene viewed; they

analyzed his orientation to the subconscious with the result­

ing symbolic attitude toward life; some noted the thematic

nucleus of organization and the perfect symmetry of the can­

to; a few examined Byron's introspective analysis and self-

definition; others concentrated on his use of images and sym­

bols along with specific connotations and verbal patterns. A

few dared to extend analytical techniques to search for mean­

ing in unusual trajectories. One found an amazing correla­

tion between T. S. Eliot and Byron, while another analyzed

the archetypal qualities of the pilgrim character and the

mythic significance in the journey as a quest. One creative­

ly compared Byron's rhetorical devices as an organizing prin­

ciple to the expanding-contracting rhythm of a free swimming

jellyfish. An unusually astute critic defined a Byronic hero

and analyzed the poetic persona by these qualities. Another

pointed to the humanistic reasoning and expressions of inner

conflict that influenced Victorian poets; several recognized

an increased appreciation for artistic works and credited

Hobhouse's influence; in addition, they recognized the can­

to's symmetry and part of the stanzaic inclusions that Hob­

house insisted on.

Although some modern critics acknowledged that Canto IV

reflected Hobhouse's influence, one felt that this factor had

been considerably exaggerated. On the contrary, Hobhouse

probably controlled or influenced all aspects of Byron's

160

composition of Canto IV. An examination of his journal in

combination with Byron's letters, and a comprehensive

comparative analysis of Canto IV and Historical Illustra­

ti QDH., by the author of this dissertation indicated a more

pervasive influence and persuasive domination than any critic

suspected. A serious contradiction exists if one attempts to

reconcile the scholarly aspects of the travelogue with

Byron's dissipated life style and his self-proclaimed

disinterest in Roman ruins and monuments. On the other hand,

one finds perfect harmony between the canto's subject matter

and Hobhouse's intensive research and scholarly analysis.

In previous cantos of ChiIde Harold' s PiIgri mage. Byron

had indulged in outbursts about the baseness of human nature

and dwelt on melancholy and pessimism, gloom and misanthropy.

Canto IV contained these same familiar elements, but a close

examination by this author revealed important modifications

from previous cantos. In expressing the same narcissistic

concerns, he also revealed a detached aspect of what some

critics called a divided consciousness, and for the first

time revealed a mature awareness of the disparity between

reality and the ideal of his imagination. His letters

indicated a new depth of serious introspective meditation

and a new sense of purpose. While he poetically idealized

those past glories of human accomplishment that Hobhouse

idolized, he voiced serious religious pronouncements and

clearly revealed a quest for wisdom within the historical

161

context. For the first time, Byron looked beyond himself

to see a larger world where glorious accomplishments often

transpired under great duress. Because of this insight, he

identified by poetic analogy with Tasso as an arch-example

of the exiled and persecuted poet still venerated by his

countrymen. Even though Byron failed to achieve a true

historic consciousness through this detached contemplation

(as Hobhouse so explicitly manifested), he did attain a fresh

insight into his own intellectual nature. This insight

prompted a transcendent leap of faith in which he dedicated

himself to a principle by which he lived the rest of his

life--a personal commitment to the humanitarian aspects of

political freedom. He conjectured about achieving recogni­

tion, not in literature--"I do not think it my vocation"--

but doing "something or other--the times and fortune permitt-

ing--that, like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will

puzzle the philosophers of all ages" (Marchand 5. 177).

Various poetic meditations hinted at this search for mission

as he praised the banner of Freedom for streaming "against

the wind;" condemned Europe for its "parricide" of Italy and

England for chaining Venice to tyrants; and predicted that

the nation would be redeemed from this barbaric "tide" of

history--can "Freedom find no champion?"

Much of Byron's divided consciousness probably resulted

from Hobhouse' s influence. Certainly the subject matter of

Canto IV reflected Hobhouse' s exhaustive research after

162

little known facts and minor historical figures. Further­

more, the emotional expressions of affectation could have

resulted, at least partly, from Hobhouse' s persuasion that

what made Canto I and II tremendously popular was Byron's

daring "to give utterance to certain feelings which everyone

must have encouraged in the melancholy and therefore morbid

history of his existence" ( Recollecti ons 1.100). If

Byron again expressed those honest emotions, Hobhouse probab­

ly thought the same readers would respond to make Canto IV

just as successful.

While Byron was a creative genius of consummate skill,

he did not write Canto IV as a spontaneous reaction to ruins

and beauty (as the critics indicated), but as a meditative

travelogue with historical overtones. His own learning was

sketchy, but he enjoyed the stimulating company of scholars

such as Hobhouse. He was a man of feeling and eloquent lan­

guage, and many poetic expressions arose from conversations

with Hobhouse over significant cultural preservations and

historical changes. He verified that his friend thoroughly

researched the various subjects in remote volumes, and that

Hobhouse devotedly affirmed his (Byron's) dignity under the

worst of social conditions. Thus, one could not wonder that

Byron included such high praise in the prefatory dedication

of Canto IV. He also achieved two other purposes in the

preface--he immortalized Hobhouse while he honestly expressed

his personal gratitude for a true friend who accepted him so

163

totally in all circumstances. If Canto IV owed its creation

to Hobhouse, as much evidence suggests, then the dedication

assumes an even greater significance than previously

suspected.

On the other hand, Hobhouse was as much a contradiction

as Byron. Although he belonged to the wealthy, privileged

class, he pushed for social and legal reforms and supported

democratic movements. He was straitlaced and prudish, yet

accepted Byron's rakish lifestyle without condemnation. He

was anxious about his own shyness and reluctant to reveal his

deep feelings, but intimately involved in the social whirl of

the gentry. As a historian he envisioned in history a dram­

atic pageant of man's struggles. As an antiquarian he was

interested in awesome trivia and discovered such details as

the name of a seventeenth-century Roman who allegedly raised

the dead. As a scholar he was interested in credibility and

truth, and intently examined ancient manuscripts and modern

texts delving for unusual facts and verifying small details.

Not a genius, but broadly educated and highly specialized, he

compiled treatises on famous literary and historical figures,

discoursed on destructive forces that laid waste to Rome,

chronicled the history of many ruins, and reported on

archaeological excavations in an authoritative manner.

Through tireless analysis of archaeology, art and history,

he tediously developed a text that supplied subject matter

for Canto IV, and then amplified Byron's poetic expressions.

164

Yet he had a puckish wit and love for humorous anecdotes,

enjoyed bull sessions with male friends, and recorded a full

social schedule during the era of grand dinner parties. Even

though he was Byron's harshest critic, he developed a

literary affinity with the poet that resulted in three of

the four cantos of g^ildg Harold' s Pilgrimagq.

Critics have universally overlooked Hobhouse' s absolute

influence and direct persuasive force on both the structure

and subject matter of Canto IV. They have also denied him

credible recognition for enlightening readers about vague

poetic allusions or remote historical events. Obviously

those who professed to be Byronic scholars never examined

the most revealing of all works connected to Canto IV.

Those scholars who insisted that form was all and that

meaning came from within a literary work seriously deprived

their audiences of the most distinctive and unique impli­

cations underlying Canto IV. When they failed to reach

beyond the surface language, they missed the connotative

intimations that reenforced the poem's dedication "to a

friend often tried and never found wanting . . . a man of

learning, of talent, of steadiness, and of honour. "

Few if any modern scholars could manifest the profound

knowledge that Hobhouse displayed or reproduce his diligent

research techniques. Few poems have ever provided their own

elucidating text that would resolve misinterpretations or

illuminate critics' ignorance. Scholars who blindly assumed

165

that the poem expressed Byron's personal observations never

examined Byron's correspondence or the accompanying text

meant to elucidate the poem. Those who looked for the total

meaning within the canto itself missed the point, even though

they found eloquent poetry and majestic description. For

both the critic and the average reader, Hobhouse clarified

obscure writers, recited anecdotes that humanized histori­

cal figures and generated awesome admiration for any civili­

zation that had survived for so long. He reported on my­

sterious artifacts that would challenge today's scientists.

His perfect knowledge of ancient and modern Italian allowed

him access to thousands of volumes unavailable to less spe­

cialized scholars. Hobhouse did not receive critical acco­

lades for his achievements, but his work illuminates Byron's

true poetic pilgrimage in ways mere surface readings can

never equal. The Canto may have been a battle of wits

between Byron and Hobhouse but, after comparing the various

supportive documents, one would question whether Canto IV

explicated Illustrati ons or whether Illustrations glossed

the canto. Was Canto IV Byron" s or Hobhouse' s observations .

of Italy? Certainly a variety of evidence suggests that the

commonly accepted assumptions about the poetic production

could be wrong.

In the accrued benefits of using Hobhouse' s text to

elucidate the canto, the modern reader would not puzzle

over the poetic inclusion of places like Nemi or Albano. He

166

could understand the significance of apostles' statues con­

nected with the Mole of Hadrian, or why Byron praised some­

body named Rienzi. An especial benefit would accrue in the

incredibly detailed church history gleaned from papal scribes

and Vatican volumes.

Hobhouse never received the credit he deserved for

his patient labor, but the reader of Canto IV who missed his

text was the poorer for it. However, a few disadvantages

hinder a studious appraisal of Hobhouse' s volume. For

one, no American reader could possibly be sensitive to all

the allusions of literary and historical figures included in

the poem. A serious study of Hi stori cal 111ustrations

would require more time than most (even scholars) would will­

ingly devote to a poem. Also, Hobhouse' s penchant for abso­

lute truth and whimsical detail would saturate the reader's

mind as he waded through the grammatical exactness of complex

convoluted sentences. Even so, Hobhouse' s scholarly inter­

pretations and eloquent reflections on the land of Dante and

Petrarch might stimulate a modern tourist to take a copy of

Hobhouse's book when touring Italy--if the traveler could get

one. No one who has read Illustrations can doubt that

Hobhouse was as fascinated with Italy as was Byron, though

for totally different reasons, and that he echoed Byron' s

sentiments: "With all its sinful doings, I must say,/

That Italy's a pleasant place to be."

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