‘From those about him,’ says Gamba, ‘I collected that, either at this time or in his former interval of reason, Byron could be understood to say, “Poor Greece! Poor town! My poor servants!” Also, “Why was I not aware of this sooner?” and, “My hour is come! I do not care for death. But why did I not go home before I came here?” At another time he said: “There are things which make the world dear to me.”’
He said this in Italian, and Parry may of course not have understood him. ‘Io lascio qualche cosa di caro nel mondo.’ He also said: ‘I am content to die.’ In speaking of Greece, he said: ‘I have given her my time, my means, my health, and now I give her my life! What could I do more?’
Byron remained insensible, immovable, for twenty-four hours. There were occasional symptoms of suffocation, and a rattling in the throat, which induced his servants occasionally to raise his head. Gamba says:
‘Means were taken to rouse him from his lethargy, but in vain. A great many leeches were applied to his temples, and the blood flowed copiously all night. It was exactly a quarter past six on the next day, the 19th April, that he was seen to open his eyes, and immediately close them again. The doctors felt his pulse – he was gone!’
CHAPTER XIV
It matters little what we now think of Byron as a man. After eighty-four years, his personality is of less public interest than his achievements, while our capacity for forming an adequate judgment of his character is necessarily dependent on second-hand evidence, some of which is false, and much tainted by prejudice. But what did those hard men of action who stood at his side in those terrible days in Greece – Stanhope, Parry, Finlay, Blaquière, Millingen, Trelawny – what did they think of Byron?
Stanhope, who was at Salona, wrote to Bowring on April 30:
‘A courier has just arrived from the chief Scalza. Alas! all our fears are realized. The soul of Byron has taken its last flight. England has lost her brightest genius – Greece her noblest friend. To console them for the loss, he has left behind the emanations of his splendid mind. If Byron had faults, he had redeeming virtues too – he sacrificed his comfort, fortune, health, and life, to the cause of an oppressed nation. Honoured be his memory! Had I the disposal of his ashes, I would place them in the Temple of Theseus, or in the Parthenon at Athens.’
Three days later Stanhope wrote again to Bowring:
‘Byron would not refuse to an entire people the benefit of his virtues; he condescended to display them wherever Humanity beckoned him to her aid. This single object of devotion to the well-being of a people has raised him to a distinguished pitch of glory among characters dignified by their virtues, of which the illustrious British nation can make so ample a display, and of whom Greece hopes to behold many co-operating in her regeneration. Having here paid the tribute of admiration due to the virtues of Lord Byron, eternal may his memory remain with the world!’
Parry says:
‘Thus died the truest and greatest poet England has lately given birth to, the warmest-hearted of her philanthropists, the least selfish of her patriots. That the disappointment of his ardent hopes was the primary cause of his illness and death cannot, I think, be doubted. The weight of that disappointment was augmented by the numerous difficulties he met with. He was fretted and annoyed, but he disdained to complain. As soon as it was known that Lord Byron was dead, sorrow and grief were generally felt in Greece. They spread from his own apartments over the town of Missolonghi, through the whole of Greece, and over every part of civilized Europe. No persons, perhaps, after his domestics and personal friends, felt his loss more acutely than the poor citizens of Missolonghi. His residence among them procured them food, and insured their protection. But for him they would have been first plundered by the unpaid Suliotes, and then left a prey to the Turks. Not only were the Primates and Mavrocordato affected on the occasion, but the poorest citizen felt that he had lost a friend. Mavrocordato spoke of Lord Byron as the best friend of Greece, and said that his conduct was admirable. “Nobody knows,” he was heard to say, “except perhaps myself, the loss Greece has suffered. Her safety even depended on his life. His presence at Missolonghi has checked intrigues which will now have uncontrolled sway. By his aid alone have I been able to preserve this city; and now I know that every assistance I derived from and through him will be withdrawn.”
‘At other cities and places of Greece – at Salona, where the Congress had just assembled; at Athens – the grief was equally sincere. Lord Byron was mourned as the best benefactor to Greece. Orations were pronounced by the priests, and the same honours were paid to his memory as to the memory of one of their own revered chiefs.’
After Byron’s death Finlay wrote these words:
‘Lord Byron’s death has shed a lustre on both his writings and his actions; they are in accordance. His life was sacrificed in the cause for which he had early written, and which he constantly supported. His merit would not have been greater had he breathed his last on the isthmus of Corinth at the conclusion of a baffled siege. Yet such a death would certainly have been more fortunate; for it would have recalled his name oftener to the memory, at least, of those who have no souls. Time will put an end to all undue admiration and malicious cant, and the world will ultimately form an estimate of Byron’s character from his writings and his public conduct. It will then be possible to form a just estimate of the greatness of his genius and his mind, and the real extent of his faults. The ridiculous calumnies which have found a moment’s credit will then be utterly forgotten. Nor will it be from the cursory memoirs or anecdotes of his contemporaries that his character can be drawn.’
Blaquière, who had brought out the first instalment of the Greek loan, arrived at Zante on April 24, and was there informed of Byron’s death. He had been among the first to urge Byron to hasten his projected visit to Greece, and had held a long conversation with him at Genoa on the state of affairs in the Morea. The following extract is taken from a letter which he wrote to a friend in England:
‘Thus terminated the life of Lord Byron, at a moment the most glorious for his own fame, but the most unfortunate for Greece; since there is no doubt but, had he lived, many calamities would have been avoided, while his personal credit and guarantee would have prevented the ruinous delay which has taken place with regard to transferring the loan. In thus devoting his life and fortune to the cause of religion and humanity, when he might have continued to enjoy the enthusiastic praises of his contemporaries, he has raised the best monument to his own fame, and has furnished the most conclusive reply to calumny and detraction. When all he had done, and was about to do for the cause, is considered, no wonder that Lord Byron’s death should have produced such an effect. It was, in fact, regarded not only as a national calamity, but as an irreparable loss to every individual in the town of Missolonghi, and the English volunteers state that hundreds of the Greeks were seen to shed tears when the event was announced.
‘With respect to Prince Mavrocordato, to whom Lord Byron had rendered the most important services, both as a personal friend and in his capacity of Governor-General of Western Greece, it is unnecessary to say that he could not have received a severer blow. When I saw Lord Byron at Genoa last year, I well remember with what enthusiasm he spoke of his intended visit, and how much he regretted not having joined the standard of freedom long before. When once in Greece, he espoused her most sacred cause with zeal. Up to the time of his fatal illness he had not advanced less than fifty thousand dollars, and there is no doubt but he intended to devote the whole of his private income to the service of the confederation.’
Millingen says:
‘The most dreadful public calamity could not have spread more general consternation, or more profound and sincere grief, than the unexpected news of Lord Byron’s death. During the few months he had lived among the people of Missolonghi, he had given so many proofs of the sincerity and extent of his zeal for the advancement of their best interests. He had, with so much generosity, sacrificed considerable sums to that purpose; he had relieved the distress of so many unfortunate persons, that everyone looked upon him as a father and public benefactor. These titles were not, as they mostly are, the incense of adulation, but the spontaneous tribute of overflowing gratitude. He had succeeded in inspiring the soldiers with the brightest and most sanguine expectations. Full of confidence in a chief they loved, they would have followed him in the boldest enterprises. To-day they must follow the corpse of him whom they received but yesterday with the liveliest acclamations.’
Trelawny, who arrived at Missolonghi four days after Byron’s death, thus writes to Stanhope at Salona:
‘Lord Byron is dead. With all his faults, I loved him truly; he is connected with every event of the most interesting years of my wandering life. His everyday companion, we lived in ships, boats, and in houses, together; we had no secrets, no reserve, and though we often differed in opinion, we never quarrelled. It gave me pain witnessing his frailties; he only wanted a little excitement to awaken and put forth virtues that redeemed them all… This is no private grief; the world has lost its greatest man, I my best friend.’
On April 28 Trelawny wrote again to Stanhope:
‘I think Byron’s name was the great means of getting the loan. A Mr. Marshall with £8,000 per annum was as far as Corfu, and turned back on hearing of Byron’s death… The greatest man in the world has resigned his mortality in favour of this sublime cause; for had he remained in Italy he had lived!’
Such was Trelawny’s opinion of Byron in April, 1824. From all that the present writer has been able to gather, both from Trelawny’s lips and from his ‘Recollections,’ published thirty-four years after Byron’s death, such was his real opinion to the last.
Mrs. Julian Marshall, having called attention24 to the fact that, four months after Byron’s death, Trelawny, in a letter to Mary Shelley, spoke in contemptuous terms of Byron, we feel bound to refer to it here. It must be remembered that the letter in question was of a strictly private nature. In making it public, Mrs. Marshall unintentionally dealt a severe blow at Trelawny, which, in justice to his memory, we will endeavour to soften.
To anyone acquainted with the character of this remarkable man – the fearless soul of honour – such a volte-face seems absurd, except on the hypothesis that something had transpired, since Byron’s death, sufficient to destroy a long-tried friendship. The fact is that during those four months the whole situation had changed. Trelawny, no longer a free-lance, was practically a prisoner in a cave on Mount Parnassus. His friend Odysseus went about in daily fear of assassination, and was persecuted by the active hostility of a Government which both Odysseus and Trelawny thought was inspired by Mavrocordato. Trelawny’s opinion of the latter, whose cause Byron had espoused, may be gathered from his letter to Mary Shelley:
‘A word as to your wooden god Mavrocordato. He is a miserable Jew, and I hope ere long to see his head removed from his worthless and heartless body. He is a mere shuffling soldier, an aristocratic brute – wants Kings and Congresses – a poor, weak, shuffling, intriguing, cowardly fellow; so no more about him.’
It will be seen that Trelawny, when fairly warmed up, did not mince his words. It is indeed a pity that these heated adjectives were served up to the public. It was only because Byron had consistently supported Mavrocordato as the Governor of Western Greece that Trelawny, in his indiscriminative manner, assailed his memory. But his letter was evidently only the peevish outburst of an angry man, and closed with these words:
‘I would do much to see and talk to you, but, as I am now too much irritated to disclose the real state of things, I will not mislead you by false statements.’
The state of things at the time may be gathered from a letter addressed to Colonel Stanhope by Captain Humphreys, who was then serving the Greek cause as a volunteer.
‘I write, not from a land of liberty and freedom, but from a country at present a prey to anarchy and confusion, with the dismal prospect of future tyranny… Odysseus is at his fortress of Parnassus; bribery, assassination, and every provocation, have been employed against him. An English officer, Captain Fenton, who is with Odysseus, as well as Trelawny, has been twice attempted to be assassinated, after refusing to accept a bribe of 10,000 dollars, to deliver up the fortress. Mavrocordato’s agents principally influence the Government; the executive body remains stationary; and part of the loan has been employed to secure their re-election.’
There is enough in this letter to account for Trelawny’s irritation; but he was entirely wrong in thinking that Byron was in any sense subservient to the man whom he then regarded as the real author of his misfortunes. Trelawny had made the mistake of joining the faction of Odysseus, but Byron was never connected with any faction whatever. Odysseus seems to have persuaded Trelawny that Byron had become a mere tool of Mavrocordato, and it was under that erroneous impression that his letter to Mary Shelley was written.
If, as Mrs. Julian Marshall says, ‘Trelawny’s mercurial and impulsive temperament – ever in extremes – was liable to the most sudden revulsion of feeling,’ it would surely have been wiser, and certainly fairer, to have withheld the publication of opinions which were not intended for publication, and which he had, in later life, openly disavowed. In his estimate of the character and policy of Mavrocordato, he was also mistaken. It would be quite easy to show that Mavrocordato was perhaps the only man of his nation, then in Greece, who united in an eminent degree unadulterated patriotism with the talents which form a statesman. Millingen, who knew him well, tells us that it was fortunate for Greece that Mavrocordato was so well acquainted with the character of those with whom he had to deal. That knowledge preserved Missolonghi, until the arrival of reinforcements enabled it to hold out against Omer Pacha’s assault. Mavrocordato, he tells us, never pursued any other object than the good of his country, and never sacrificed her interests to his own ambition. He alone was capable of organizing a civil administration; in fact, he created a stable form of government from the ashes of chaos. So far from his having been a coward, as Trelawny asserts, Mavrocordato, in his intense desire to serve his country, often placed himself at the head of troops and fought bravely. Having held the position of Governor-General of Western Greece in very trying times, he relinquished his command in 1825, in compliance with the orders of his Government, which recalled him to Anapli, there to fill the post of Secretary of State. He sacrificed the whole of his fortune in the service of Greece. According to Millingen, he was occasionally so distressed for money as to be unable to provide for his daily expenses.
Enough has been said to show that Trelawny’s abuse of Byron must not be taken too seriously, and that his opinion of Mavrocordato was not endorsed by those whose opportunities for judging the Prince’s conduct were far greater than Trelawny’s.
Let us dismiss from our minds the recollection of hasty words written in anger, and let us remember those truer and deeper sentiments which Trelawny expressed in his old age:
‘I withdrew the black pall and the white shroud, and beheld the body of the Pilgrim – more beautiful in death than in life. The contraction of the muscles and skin had effaced every line that Time or Passion had ever traced upon it. Few marble busts would have matched its stainless white, the harmony of its proportions, and perfect finish. And yet he had been dissatisfied with that body, and longed to cast its slough! He was jealous of the genius of Shakespeare – that might well be – but where had he seen the face or the form worthy to excite his envy?’
CHAPTER XV
The news of Byron’s death spread like wildfire through the streets and bazaars of Missolonghi. The whole city seemed stunned by the unexpected blow. Byron’s illness had been known, but no one dreamed that it would end so fatally. As Gamba has well said: ‘He died in a strange land, and amongst strangers; but more loved, more sincerely wept, he could never have been wherever he had breathed his last.’
On the day of Byron’s death, Mavrocordato issued the following proclamation, which forms a real and enduring tribute to the memory of one who, in the prime of life, died in a great cause:
Provisional Government of Western Greece
The present day of festivity and rejoicing is turned into one of sorrow and mourning.
The Lord Noel Byron departed this life at eleven o’clock last night, after an illness of ten days, his death being caused by an inflammatory fever. Such was the effect of his lordship’s illness on the public mind, that all classes had forgotten their usual recreations of Easter, even before the afflicting end was apprehended.
The loss of this illustrious individual is undoubtedly to be deplored by all Greece; but it must be more especially a subject of lamentation at Missolonghi, where his generosity has been so conspicuously displayed, and of which he had even become a citizen, with the ulterior determination of participating in all the dangers of the war.
Everybody is acquainted with the beneficent acts of his lordship, and none can cease to hail his name as that of a real benefactor.
Until, therefore, the final determination of the National Government be known, and by virtue of the powers with which it has been pleased to invest me, I hereby decree:
1st. To-morrow morning at daylight, 37 minute-guns shall be fired from the grand battery, being the number which corresponds with the age of the illustrious deceased.
2nd. All the public offices, even to the tribunals, are to remain closed for three successive days.
3rd. All the shops, except those in which provisions or medicines are sold, will also be shut; and it is strictly enjoined, that every species of public amusement and other demonstrations of festivity at Easter may be suspended.
4th. A general mourning will be observed for twenty-one days.
5th. Prayers and a funeral service are to be offered up in all the churches.
(Signed) A. Mavrocordato.Giorgius Praidis,Secretary.
Given at Missolonghi, this 19th day of April, 1824.
At sunrise, on the day following Byron’s death, thirty-seven minute-guns were fired from the principal battery; and one of the batteries belonging to the corps immediately under his orders fired a gun every half-hour during the day. We take the following from Gamba’s journal:
‘April 21.– For the remainder of this day and the next, a silence, like that of the grave, prevailed over the city. We had intended to perform the funeral ceremony on the 21st, but the continued rain prevented us. On the 22nd, however, we acquitted ourselves of that sad duty, so far as our humble means would permit. In the midst of his own brigade, of the Government troops, and of the whole population, on the shoulders of his own officers, the most precious portion of his honoured remains was carried to the church, where lie the bodies of Marco Bozzari and of General Normann. There we laid them down. The coffin was a rude, ill-constructed chest of wood; a black mantle served for a pall; and over it we placed a helmet and sword, with a crown of laurels. No funeral pomp could have left the impression, nor spoken the feelings, of this simple ceremony. The wretchedness and desolation of the place itself; the wild, half-civilized warriors around us; their deep, unaffected grief; the fond recollections and disappointed hopes; the anxieties and sad presentiments depicted on every countenance, contributed to form a scene more moving, more truly affecting, than perhaps was ever before witnessed round the coffin of a great man.’
Spiridion Tricoupi, a son of one of the Primates of Missolonghi, pronounced the funeral oration in the following words, translated from the modern Greek by an inhabitant of Missolonghi:
‘Unlooked-for event! Deplorable misfortune! But a short time has elapsed since the people of this deeply suffering country welcomed, with unfeigned joy and open arms, this celebrated individual to their bosoms. To-day, overwhelmed with grief and despair, they bathe his funeral couch with tears of bitterness, and mourn over it with inconsolable affliction. On Easter Sunday, the happy salutation of the day, “Christ is risen,” remained but half spoken on the lips of every Greek; and as they met, before even congratulating one another on the return of that joyous day, the universal question was, “How is Lord Byron?” Thousands assembled in the spacious plain outside the city, to commemorate the sacred day, appeared as if they had assembled for the sole purpose of imploring the Saviour of the world to restore to health him who was a partaker with us in our present struggle for the deliverance of our native land. And how is it possible that any heart should remain unmoved, any lip closed, upon the present occasion? Was ever Greece in greater want of assistance than when Lord Byron, at the peril of his life, crossed over to Missolonghi? Then, and ever since he has been with us, his liberal hand has been opened to our necessities – necessities which our own poverty would have otherwise rendered irremediable. How many and much greater benefits did we not expect from him! And to-day, alas! to-day, the unrelenting grave closes over him and all our hopes.
‘Residing out of Greece, and enjoying all the pleasures and luxuries of Europe, he might have contributed materially to the success of our cause without coming personally amongst us; and this would have been sufficient for us, for the well-proved ability and profound judgment of our Governor, the President of the Senate, would have insured our safety with the means so supplied. But if this was sufficient for us, it was not so for Lord Byron. Destined by Nature to uphold the rights of man whenever he saw them trampled upon; born in a free and enlightened country; early taught, by reading the works of our ancestors, which teach all who can read them, not only what man is, but what he ought to be, and what he may be, he saw the persecuted and enslaved Greek determined to break the heavy chains with which he was bound, and to convert the iron into sharp-edged swords, that he might regain by force what force had torn from him. He came to share our sufferings; assisting us, not only with his wealth, of which he was profuse; not only with his judgment, of which he has given us so many salutary examples; but with his sword, which he was preparing to unsheath against our barbarous and tyrannical oppressors. He came – according to the testimony of those who were intimate with him – with a determination to die in Greece and for Greece. How, therefore, can we do otherwise than lament with deep sorrow the loss of such a man! How can we do otherwise than bewail it as the loss of the whole Greek nation! Thus far, my friends, you have seen him liberal, generous, courageous, a true Philhellenist; and you have seen him as your benefactor. This is indeed a sufficient cause for your tears, but it is not sufficient for his honour. It is not sufficient for the greatness of the undertaking in which he had engaged. He, whose death we are now so deeply deploring, was a man who, in one great branch of literature, gave his name to the age in which we live: the vastness of his genius and the richness of his fancy did not permit him to follow the splendid though beaten track of the literary fame of the ancients; he chose a new road – a road which ancient prejudice had endeavoured, and was still endeavouring, to shut against the learned of Europe: but as long as his writings live, and they must live as long as the world exists, this road will remain always open; for it is, as well as the other, a sure road to true knowledge. I will not detain you at the present time by expressing all the respect and enthusiasm with which the perusal of his writings has always inspired me, and which, indeed, I feel much more powerfully now than at any other period. The learned men of all Europe celebrate him, and have celebrated him; and all ages will celebrate the poet of our age, for he was born for all Europe and for all ages.
‘One consideration occurs to me, as striking and true as it is applicable to the present state of our country: listen to it, my friends, with attention, that you may make it your own, and that it may become a generally acknowledged truth. There have been many great and splendid nations in the world, but few have been the epochs of their true glory: one phenomenon, I am inclined to believe, is wanting in the history of these nations, and one the possibility of the appearance of which the all-considering mind of the philosopher has much doubted. Almost all the nations of the world have fallen from the hands of one master into those of another; some have been benefited, others have been injured by the change; but the eye of the historian has not yet seen a nation enslaved by barbarians, and more particularly by barbarians rooted for ages in their soil – has not yet seen, I say, such a people throw off their slavery unassisted and alone. This is the phenomenon; and now, for the first time in the history of the world, we witness it in Greece – yes, in Greece alone! The philosopher beholds it from afar, and his doubts are dissipated; the historian sees it, and prepares his citation of it as a new event in the fortunes of nations; the statesman sees it, and becomes more observant and more on his guard. Such is the extraordinary time in which we live. My friends, the insurrection of Greece is not an epoch of our nation alone; it is an epoch of all nations: for, as I before observed, it is a phenomenon which stands alone in the political history of nations.
‘The great mind of the highly gifted and much lamented Byron observed this phenomenon, and he wished to unite his name with our glory. Other revolutions have happened in his time, but he did not enter into any of them – he did not assist any of them; for their character and nature were totally different: the cause of Greece alone was a cause worthy of him whom all the learned men of Europe celebrate. Consider then, my friends, consider the time in which you live – in what a struggle you are engaged; consider that the glory of past ages admits not of comparison with yours: the friends of liberty, the philanthropists, the philosophers of all nations, and especially of the enlightened and generous English nation, congratulate you, and from afar rejoice with you; all animate you; and the poet of our age, already crowned with immortality, emulous of your glory, came personally to your shores, that he might, together with yourselves, wash out with his blood the marks of tyranny from our polluted soil.
‘Born in the great capital of England, his descent noble on the side of both his father and his mother, what unfeigned joy did his Philhellenic heart feel when our poor city, in token of our gratitude, inscribed his name among the number of her citizens! In the agonies of death – yes, at the moment when eternity appeared before him; as he was lingering on the brink of mortal and immortal life; when all the material world appeared but as a speck in the great works of the Divine Omnipotence; in that awful hour, but two names dwelt upon the lips of this illustrious individual, leaving all the world besides – the names of his only and much-beloved daughter, and of Greece: these two names, deeply engraven on his heart, even the moment of death could not efface. “My daughter!” he said; “Greece!” he exclaimed; and his spirit passed away. What Grecian heart will not be deeply affected as often as it recalls this moment?
‘Our tears, my friends, will be grateful, very grateful, to his shade, for they are the tears of sincere affection; but much more grateful will be our deeds in the cause of our country, which, though removed from us, he will observe from the heavens, of which his virtues have doubtless opened to him the gates. This return alone does he require from us for all his munificence; this reward for his love towards us; this consolation for his sufferings in our cause; and this inheritance for the loss of his invaluable life. When your exertions, my friends, shall have liberated us from the hands which have so long held us down in chains; from the hands which have torn from our arms, our property, our brothers, our children – then will his spirit rejoice, then will his shade be satisfied. Yes, in that blessed hour of our freedom the Archbishop will extend his sacred and free hand, and pronounce a blessing over his venerated tomb; the young warrior sheathing his sword, red with the blood of his tyrannical oppressors, will strew it with laurel; the statesman will consecrate it with his oratory; and the poet, resting upon the marble, will become doubly inspired; the virgins of Greece (whose beauty our illustrious fellow-citizen Byron has celebrated in many of his poems), without any longer fearing contamination from the rapacious hands of our oppressors, crowning their heads with garlands, will dance round it, and sing of the beauty of our land, which the poet of our age has already commemorated with such grace and truth. But what sorrowful thought now presses upon my mind! My fancy has carried me away; I had pictured to myself all that my heart could have desired; I had imagined the blessing of our Bishops, the hymns, and laurel crowns, and the dance of the virgins of Greece round the tomb of the benefactor of Greece; – but this tomb will not contain his precious remains; the tomb will remain void; but a few days more will his body remain on the face of our land – of his new chosen country; it cannot be given over to our arms; it must be borne to his own native land, which is honoured by his birth.
‘Oh daughter! most dearly beloved by him, your arms will receive him; your tears will bathe the tomb which shall contain his body; and the tears of the orphans of Greece will be shed over the urn containing his precious heart, and over all the land of Greece, for all the land of Greece is his tomb. As in the last moments of his life you and Greece were alone in his heart and upon his lips, it was but just that she (Greece) should retain a share of the precious remains. Missolonghi, his country, will ever watch over and protect with all her strength the urn containing his venerated heart, as a symbol of his love towards us. All Greece, clothed in mourning and inconsolable, accompanies the procession in which it is borne; all ecclesiastical, civil, and military honours attend it; all his fellow-citizens of Missolonghi and fellow-countrymen of Greece follow it, crowning it with their gratitude and bedewing it with their tears; it is blessed by the pious benedictions and prayers of our Archbishop, Bishop, and all our clergy. Learn, noble lady, learn that chieftains bore it on their shoulders, and carried it to the church; thousands of Greek soldiers lined the way through which it passed, with the muzzles of their muskets, which had destroyed so many tyrants, pointed towards the ground, as though they would war against that earth which was to deprive them for ever of the sight of their benefactor; – all this crowd of soldiers, ready at a moment to march against the implacable enemy of Christ and man, surrounded the funeral couch, and swore never to forget the sacrifices made by your father for us, and never to allow the spot where his heart is placed to be trampled upon by barbarous and tyrannical feet. Thousands of Christian voices were in a moment heard, and the temple of the Almighty resounded with supplications and prayers that his venerated remains might be safely conveyed to his native land, and that his soul might repose where the righteous alone find rest.’
‘When the funeral service was over,’ says Gamba, ‘we left the bier in the middle of the church, where it remained until the evening of the next day, guarded by a detachment of his own brigade. The church was crowded without cessation by those who came to honour and to regret the benefactor of Greece.
‘On the evening of the 23rd the bier was privately carried back by Byron’s officers to his own house. The coffin was not closed until the 29th April.
‘Immediately after death Byron’s countenance had an air of calmness, mingled with a severity that seemed gradually to soften. When I took a last look at him, the expression, at least to my eyes, was truly sublime.’
Soon after death, Byron’s body was embalmed, and a report of the autopsy will be found in the Appendix.