n
independent state; but in the following months the tide seemed to turn;
dissensions broke out among the leaders, the spirit of intrigue seemed to
stifle patriotism, and the energies of the insurgents were hampered for
want of the sinews of war. There was a danger of the movement being
starved out, and the committee of London sympathizers--of which the poet's
intimate friend and frequent correspondent, Mr. Douglas Kinnaird, and
Captain Blaquiere, were leading promoters--was impressed with the
necessity of procuring funds in support of the cause. With a view to this
it seemed of consequence to attach to it some shining name, and men's
thoughts almost inevitably turned to Byron. No other Englishman seemed so
fit to be associated with the enterprise as the warlike poet, who had
twelve years before linked his fame to that of "grey Marathon" and
"Athena's tower," and, more recently immortalized the isles on which he
cast so many a longing glance. Hobhouse broke the subject to him early in
the spring of 1823: the committee opened communications in April. After
hesitating through May, in June Byron consented to meet Blaquiere at
Zante, and, on hearing the results of the captain's expedition to the
Morea, to decide on future steps. His share in this enterprise has been
assigned to purely personal and comparatively mean motives. He was, it is
said, disgusted with his periodical, sick of his editor, tired of his
mistress, and bent on any change, from China to Peru, that would give him
a new theatre for display. One grows weary of the perpetual half-truths of
inveterate detraction. It is granted that Byron was restless, vain,
imperious, never did anything without a desire to shine in the doing of
it, and was to a great degree the slave of circumstances. Had the
_Liberal_ proved a lamp to the nations, instead of a mere "red flag
flaunted in the face of John Bull," he might have cast anchor at Genoa;
but the whole drift of his work and life demonstrates that he was capable
on occasion of merging himself in what he conceived to be great causes,
especially in their evil days. Of the Hunts he may have had enough; but
the invidious statement about La Guiccioli has no foundation, other than a
somewhat random remark of Shelley, and the fact that he left her nothing
in his will. It is distinctly ascertained that she expressly prohibited
him from doing so; they continued to correspond to the last, and her
affectionate, though unreadable, rem