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PORTRAIT of Byron painted by Vincenzo Camuccini.

Now in gallery of S. Luca, Rome.

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THE YEARS 1822 AND 1823

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PISA: LEGHORN: GENOA

INTRODUCTORY

IT about the time of Byron's removal to Pisa, the three dramas" Sardanapalus,” “The Two Foscari," and "Cain" - were published together in a single volume. "Cain" aroused at once a tremendous outcry. Although Goethe praised it extravagantly and Shelley called it " apocalyptic," Byron's countrymen in England denounced it as blasphemous, devilish, satanic, and every similar adjective in the language. Abuse was heaped not only on author, but on publisher. John Murray not only was attacked in journals and pamphlets, but he was also threatened with prosecution in the courts for “disseminating moral poison." Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review," called it "an argument directed against the goodness and power of the Deity and against the reasonableness of religion in general." This was the attitude of the English public at large. Byron, in his early letters to his friends from Pisa, makes eloquent defence.

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To the reader of "Cain," in the year 1906, when so many things in controversy in 1822 have become accepted beliefs, the excitement seems out of all pro

portion to the cause.

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Cain was indeed a protest against the prevailing theology of the day; but Wordsworth had already led the way by his revolt against the mechanical interpretation of the universe, Shelley was prophesying a regeneration through the gentle means of faithfulness and love, and Byron's note, although of sterner and more defiant tone, was in unison with these other poets, and with advanced thinkers generally.

With the publication of Byron's next drama, "Werner," his connection with Murray as publisher and, except at rare intervals, as correspondent, is at an end. Murray had no wish to encounter fresh obloquy by publishing the new cantos (VI-XI) of "Don Juan," and he held the manuscript of "The Vision of Judgment" so long that Byron naturally grew impatient and recalled it. The copyrights of future poems were transferred to John Hunt.

But by this time that "Journal of his own," of which he had been dreaming for years, and for which he and Shelley had been preparing the way for months, was now ready, and the first issue of "The Liberal" appeared October 15, 1822. The articles from Byron were " The Vision of Judgment," a prose "Letter to the Editor of My Grandmother's Review"" (the British), and some" Epigrams on Lord Castlereagh." Shelley, whose death, however, occurred before the day of publication, had contributed "Mayday Night," a translation from Goethe's "Faust";

the remainder of the articles were by the editor, Leigh Hunt. It was published in England by the editor's brother, John Hunt, and it was at once fiercely attacked on all sides. The "Literary Gazette" in describing its contents said, "Lord Byron has contributed impiety, vulgarity, inhumanity, and heartlessness; Mr. Shelley, a burlesque upon Goethe; and Mr. Leigh Hunt, conceit, trumpery, ignorance, and wretched verse." The daily press was even more violent," The Courier " calling it a "scoundrel-like publication," " a foul blot upon our national literature." The periodical was short-lived, ceasing with its fourth number in July, 1823; — were any similar number of pages ever printed at a greater price of happiness, friendship, even life itself? Leigh Hunt with invalid wife and seven children had been brought from England and settled in the lower floor of Byron's palace at Pisa, where the two families speedily became so obnoxious to each other that future co-operation became almost impossible; the voyage which cost Shelley his life was made in returning to his own home after going to greet his friend and to help establish him in his new home; and Leigh Hunt, after the deaths of both his partners, found himself and family stranded, almost a beggar, in a foreign land.

But notwithstanding all misadventures, the nearly two years which Byron spent at Pisa, including his summer residence at Leghorn, are the years of his life which the admirers of his poetry can regard with

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