Byron, who "had always an idea that
it would be bungled," expressed his fear that the country would be thrown
back for 500 years into barbarism, and the Countess Guiccioli confessed
with tears that the Italians must return to composing and strumming
operatic airs. Carbonarism having collapsed, it of course made way for a
reaction; but the encouragement and countenance of the English poet and
peer helped to keep alive the smouldering fire that Mazzini fanned into a
flame, till Cavour turned it to a practical purpose, and the dreams of the
idealists of 1820 were finally realized.
On the failure of the luckless conspiracy, Byron naturally betook himself
to history, speculation, satire, and ideas of a journalistic propaganda;
but all through, his mind was turning to the renewal of the action which
was his destiny. "If I live ten years longer," he writes in 1822, "you
will see that it is not all over with me. I don't mean in literature, for
that is nothing--and I do not think it was my vocation; but I shall do
something." The Greek war of liberation opened a new field for the
exercise of his indomitable energy.
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