JUST PUBLISHED. 
 
 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 OF 
 
 I 
 
 CALEB WILLIAMS. 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM GODWIN. 
 
 8vo, paper, price 5O cents. 
 
 Readers of " LADY BYRON VINDICATED " will be interested 
 in this famous novel, to which reference is frequently made by 
 Mrs. Stowe. [See pages 243, 343, and 364, of the present 
 volume.] 
 
 * # * Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price by the Publishers, 
 
 FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., Boston, 
 
LADY BYRON VINDICATED 
 
 A HISTORY 
 
 The Byron Controversy, 
 
 FROM ITS BEGINNING IN 1816 TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO. 
 1870. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
 
 FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 Add to Mb. 
 GIFT 
 
57 
 1070 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 RESUME PF THE CONSPIRACY 77 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH .... 87 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVK S3 
 
 * 
 
 PART II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 "LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER a 01 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD MB . 
 
 828 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS ...... 258 
 
 CHAPTER IV. * 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF THE Two WITNESSES COMPARED . . . 299 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT TO PROVE THE CRIMK .... 325 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT 370 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HOW COULD SHE LOVE HlM? . 393 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 CONCLUSION 403 
 
 PART III. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 THE TRUE STORY OF LADY BYRON S LIFE (AS ORIGINALLY PUB 
 LISHED IN "THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY") 413 
 
 
 
 LORD LINDSAY S LETTER TO "THE LONDON TIMES" . . .451 
 DR. FORBES WINSLOW S LETTER TO "THE LONDON TIMES" . 458 
 EXTRACT FROM LORD BYRON S EXPUNGED LETTER TO MURRAY . 461 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM " BLACKWOOD S MAGAZINE" 462 
 
 LETTERS OF LADY BYRON TO H. C. ROBINSON . . . .468 
 DOMESTIC POEMS BY LORD BYRON 475 
 
PART I 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 nr^HE interval since my publication of "The 
 True Story of Lady Byron s Life" has 
 been one of stormy discussion and of much 
 invective. 
 
 I have not thought it necessary to disturb 
 my spirit and confuse my sense of right by 
 even an attempt at reading the many abusive 
 articles that both here and in England have 
 followed that disclosure. Friends have under 
 taken the task for me, giving me from time to 
 time the substance of anything really worthy of 
 attention which came to view in the tumult. 
 
 It appeared to me essential that this first 
 excitement should in a measure spend itself 
 before there would be a possibility of speaking 
 to any purpose. Now, when all would- seem 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to have spoken who can speak, and, it is to 
 be hoped, have said the utmost they can say, 
 there seems a propriety in listening calmly, if 
 that be possible, to what I have to say in 
 reply. 
 
 And, first, why have I made this disclosure at 
 all? 
 
 To this I answer briefly, because I considered 
 it my duty to make it. 
 
 I made it in defence of a beloved, revered 
 friend, whose memory stood forth in the eyes 
 of the civilized world charged with most re 
 pulsive crimes, of which I certainly knew her 
 innocent. 
 
 I claim, and shall prove, that Lady Byron s 
 reputation has been the victim of a concerted 
 attack, begun by her husband during her life 
 time, and coming to its climax over her grave. 
 I claim, and shall prove, that it was not I who 
 stirred up this controversy in this year 1869. I 
 shall show who did do it, and who is responsi 
 ble for bringing on me that hard duty of making 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 these disclosures, which it appears to me ought 
 to have been made by others. 
 
 I claim that these facts were given to me 
 unguarded by any p romise or seal of secrecy, 
 expressed or implied ; that they were lodged 
 with- me as one sister rests her story with 
 another for sympathy, for counsel, for defence. 
 Never did I suppose the day would come that 
 I should be subjected to so cruel an anguish as 
 this use of them has been to me. Never did 
 I suppose that, when those kind hands, that 
 had shed nothing but blessings, were lying in 
 the helplessness of death, when that gentle 
 heart, so sorely tried and to the last so full of 
 love, was lying cold in the tomb, a country 
 man in England could be found to cast the 
 foulest slanders on her grave, and not one in 
 all England to raise an effective voice in her 
 defence. 
 
 I admit the feebleness of my plea, in point 
 of execution. It was written in a state of 
 exhausted health, when no labor of the kind 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 was safe for me, when my hand had not 
 strength to hold the pen, and I was forced to 
 dictate to another. 
 
 I have been told that I have no reason to 
 congratulate myself on it as a literary effort. 
 
 my brothers and sisters ! is there then nothing 
 in the world to think of but literary efforts ? 
 
 1 ask any man with a heart in his bosom, if he 
 had been obliged to tell a story so cruel, because 
 his mother s grave gave no rest from slander, 
 I ask any woman who had been forced to such 
 a disclosure to free a dead sister s name from 
 grossest insults, whether she would have thought 
 of making this work of bitterness a literary 
 
 >=> 
 success ? 
 
 Are the cries of the oppressed, the gasps of 
 the dying, the last prayers of mothers, are 
 any words wrung like drops of blood from the 
 human heart to be judged as literary efforts ? 
 
 My fellow-countrymen of America, men of the 
 press, I have done you one act of justice, 
 of all your bitter articles, I have read not one. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 I shall never be troubled in the future time 
 by the remembrance of any unkind word you 
 have said of me, for at this moment I recol 
 lect not one. I had such faith in you, such 
 pride in my countrymen, as men with whom, 
 above all others, the cause of woman was safe 
 and sacred, that I was at first astonished and 
 incredulous at what I heard of the course of 
 the American press, and was silent, not merely 
 from the impossibility of being heard, but from 
 grief and shame. But reflection convinces me 
 that you were, in many cases, acting from a mis 
 understanding of facts and through misguided 
 honorable feeling; and I still feel courage, there 
 fore, to ask from you a fair hearing. Now, as I 
 have done you this justice, will you also do me 
 the justice to hear me seriously and candidly ? 
 
 What interest have you or I, my brother and 
 my sister, in this short life of ours, to utter any 
 thing but the truth ? Is not truth between man 
 and man and between man and woman the 
 foundation on which all things rest ? Have 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 you not, every individual of you, who must 
 hereafter give an account yourself alone to God, 
 an interest to know the exact truth in this 
 matter, and a duty to perform as respects that 
 truth ? Hear me, then, while I tell you the 
 position in which I stood, and what was my 
 course in relation to it. 
 
 A shameless attack on my friend s memory 
 had appeared in the Blackwood of July, 1869, 
 branding Lady Byron as the vilest of criminals, 
 and recommending the Guiccioli book to a 
 Christian public as interesting from the very 
 fact that it was the avowed production of Lord 
 Byron s mistress. No efficient protest was made 
 against this outrage in England, and Littell s 
 Living Age reprinted the Blackwood article, 
 and the Harpers, the largest publishing house 
 in America, perhaps in the world, re-published 
 the. book. 
 
 Its statements with those of the Black- 
 wood, Pall Mall Gazette, and other English peri 
 odicals were being propagated through all the 
 
INTRODUCTION. / 
 
 young reading and writing world of America. I 
 was meeting them advertised in dailies, and made 
 up into articles in magazines, and thus the gener 
 ation of to-day, who had no means of judging 
 Lady Byron but by these fables of her slander 
 ers, were being foully deceived. The friends who 
 knew her personally were a small select circle 
 in England, whom death is every day reducing. 
 They were few in number compared with the 
 great world, and were silent. I saw these foul 
 slanders crystallizing into history uncontra- 
 dicted by friends who knew her personally, 
 who, firm in their own knowledge of her vir 
 tues and limited in view as aristocratic circles 
 generally are, had no idea of the width of the 
 world they were living in, and the exigency of 
 the crisis. When time passed on and no voice I 
 was raised, I spoke. I gave at first a simple 
 story, for I knew instinctively that whoever put 
 the first steel point of truth into this dark cloud 
 of slander must wait for the storm to spend itself. 
 I must say the storm exceeded my expectations, 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and has raged loud and long. But now that 
 there is a comparative stillness I shall proceed, 
 first, to prove what I have just been asserting, 
 and, second, to add to my true story such facts 
 and incidents as I did not think proper at first 
 to state. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 T N proving what I asserted in the first chap- 
 ter, I make four points : 1st. A concerted 
 attack upon Lady Byron s reputation, begun by 
 Lord Byron in self-defence. 2d. That he trans 
 mitted his story to friends to be continued after 
 his death. 3d. That they did so continue it. 
 4th. That the accusations reached their climax 
 over Lady Byron s grave in Blackwood of 1869, 
 and the Guiccioli book, and that this reopening 
 of the controversy was my reason for speaking. 
 
 And first I shall adduce my proofs that Lady 
 Bryon s reputation was, during the whole course 
 of her husband s life, the subject of a concen 
 trated, artfully planned attack, commencing at 
 the time of the separation and continuing dur 
 ing his life. By various documents carefully 
 
10 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 prepared, and used publicly or secretly as suited 
 the case, he made converts of many honest men, 
 some of whom were writers and men of letters, 
 who put their talents at his service during his 
 lifetime in exciting sympathy for him, and who, 
 by his own request, felt bound to continue their 
 defence of him after he was dead. 
 
 In order to consider the force and significance 
 of the documents I shall cite, we are to bring 
 to our view just the issues Lord Byron had to 
 meet, both at the time of the separation and for 
 a long time after. 
 
 In Byron s Memoirs, Vol. IV. Letter 350, under 
 date December 10, 1819, nearly four years after 
 the separation, he writes to Murray in a state 
 of great excitement on account of an article 
 in Blackwood, in which his conduct towards 
 his wife had been sternly and justly com 
 mented on, and which he supposed to have been 
 written by Wilson, of the Noc.tes Ambrosianse. 
 
 He says in this letter : " I like and admire W n, 
 
 and he should not have indulged himself in such 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. I I 
 
 outrageous license When he talks of 
 
 Lady Byron s business he talks of what he 
 knows nothing about ; and you may tell him 
 110 man can desire a public investigation of that 
 affair more tJ{an I do! * 
 
 He shortly after wrote and sent to Murray a 
 pamphlet for publication, which was printed, but 
 not generally circulated till some time afterwards. 
 Though more than three years had elapsed 
 since the separation, the current against him at 
 this time was so strong in England that his 
 friends thought it best, at first, to use this article 
 of Lord -Byron s discreetly with influential per 
 sons rather than to give it to the public. 
 
 The writer in Blackwood and the indigna 
 tion of the English public, of which that writer 
 was the voice, were now particularly stirred up 
 by the appearance of the first two cantos of 
 "Don Juan," in which the indecent caricature 
 of Lady Byron was placed in vicinity with 
 other indecencies, the publication of which 
 
 * The italics are mine. 
 
12 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 was justly considered an insult to a Christian 
 community. 
 
 It must here be mentioned, for the honor of 
 Old England, that at first she did her duty quite 
 respectably in regard to " Don Juan." One can 
 still read, in Murray s standard edition of the 
 poems, how every respectable press thundered 
 reprobations, which it would be well enough to 
 print and circulate as tracts for our days. 
 
 Byron, it seems, had thought of returning to 
 England, but he says, in the letter we have 
 quoted, that he has changed his mind, and shall 
 not go back, adding : " I have finished the Third 
 Canto of Don Juan, but the things I have heard 
 and read % discourage all future publication. You 
 may try the copy question, but you 11 lose it ; 
 the cry is up, and the cant is up. I should have 
 no objection to return the price of the copy 
 right, and have written to Mr. Kinnaird on this 
 subject." 
 
 One sentence quoted by Lord Byron from the 
 Blackwood article will show the modern readers 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 13 
 
 what the respectable world of that day were 
 thinking and saying of him : 
 
 " It appears, in short, as if this miserable man, hav 
 ing exhausted every species of sensual gratification, 
 having drained the cup of sin even to its bitterest 
 dregs, were resolved to show us that he is no 
 longer a human being even in his frailties, but a cool, 
 unconcerned fiend, laughing with detestable glee over 
 the whole of the better and worse elements of which 
 human life is composed." 
 
 The defence which Lord Byron makes, in his 
 reply to that paper, is of a man cornered and 
 fighting for his life. He speaks thus of the state 
 of feeling at the time of his separation from his 
 wife : 
 
 " I was accused of every monstrous vice by public 
 rumor and private rancor ; my name, which had been 
 a knightly or a noble one since my fathers helped to 
 conquer the kingdom for William the Norman, was 
 tainted. I felt that, if what was whispered and mut 
 tered and murmured was true, I was unfit for Eng 
 land ; if false, England was unfit for me. I withdrew ; 
 but this was not enough. In other countries in 
 
14 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, and by the 
 blue depth of the lakes, I was pursued and breathed 
 upon by the same blight I crossed the mountains, 
 but it was the same ; so I went a little farther, and 
 settled myself by the waves of the Adriatic, like the 
 stag at bay, who betakes him to the waters. 
 
 " If I may judge by the statements of the few friends 
 who gathered round me, the outcry of the period to 
 which I allude was beyond all precedent, all parallel, 
 even in those cases where political motives have sharp 
 ened slander and doubled enmity. I was advised not 
 to go to the theatres lest I should be hissed, nor to 
 my duty in Parliament, lest I should be insulted by 
 the way ; even on the day of my departure my most 
 intimate friend told me afterwards that he was under 
 the apprehension of violence from the people who might 
 be assembled at the door of the carriage." 
 
 Now Lord Byron s charge against his wife 
 was that SHE was directly responsible for get 
 ting up and keeping up this persecution, which 
 drove him from England, that she did it in 
 a deceitful, treacherous manner, which left him 
 no chance of defending himself. 
 
 He charged against her that, taking advan- 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 15 
 
 tage of a time when his affairs were in confusion, 
 and an execution in the house, she left him sud 
 denly, with treacherous professions of kindness, 
 which were repeated by letters on the road, and 
 that soon after her arrival at her home her par 
 ents sent him word that she would never return 
 to him, and she confirmed the message ; that 
 when he asked the reason why, she refused to 
 state any ; and that when this step gave rise 
 to a host of slanders against him she silently 
 encouraged and confirmed the slanders. His 
 claim was that he was denied from that time 
 forth even the justice of any tangible accusation 
 against himself which he might meet and re 
 fute. 
 
 He observes, in the same article from which 
 we have quoted : 
 
 " When one tells me that I cannot in any way jus 
 tify my own behavior -in that affair, I acquiesce, be 
 cause no man can justify himself until he knows of 
 what he is accused ; and I have never had and, 
 God knows, my whole desire has ever been to obtain 
 
1 6 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 it any specific charge, in a tangible shape, submitted 
 to me by the adversary, nor by others, unless the 
 atrocities of public rumor and the mysterious silence 
 of the lady s legal advisers may be deemed such." 
 
 Lord Byron, his publishers, friends, and biog 
 raphers, thus agree in representing his wife as 
 the secret author and abettor of that persecu 
 tion, which it is claimed broke up his life, and 
 was the source of all his subsequent crimes 
 and excesses. 
 
 Lord Byron wrote a poem in September, 
 1816, in Switzerland, just after the separation, 
 in which he stated, in so many words, these 
 accusations against his wife. Shortly after the 
 poet s death Murray published this poem, to 
 gether with the " Fare thee well," and the lines 
 to his sister, under the title of " Domestic 
 Pieces," in his standard edition of Byron s 
 poetry. It is to be remarked, then, that this 
 was for some time a private document, shown 
 to confidential friends, and made use of judi 
 ciously, as readers or listeners to his story 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. I/ 
 
 were able to bear it. Lady Byron then had a 
 strong party in England. Sir Samuel Rom- 
 illy and Dr. Lushington were her counsel. 
 Lady Byron s parents were living, and the 
 appearance in the public prints of such a 
 piece as this would have brought down an ag 
 gravated storm of public indignation. 
 
 For the general public such documents as 
 the " Fare thee well " were circulating in Eng 
 land, and he frankly confessed his wife s 
 virtues and his own sins to Madame cle Stae l 
 and others in Switzerland, declaring himself 
 in the wrong, sensible of his errors, and long 
 ing to cast himself at the feet of that serene 
 perfection, 
 
 " Which wanted one sweet weakness, to forgive." 
 But a little later he drew for his private par 
 tisans this bitter poetical indictment against 
 her, which, as we have said, was used dis 
 creetly during his life, and published after his 
 death. 
 
 Before we proceed to lay that poem before 
 
1 8 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 the reader we will refresh his memory with 
 some particulars of the tragedy of ^Eschylus, 
 which Lord Byron selected as the exact par 
 allel and proper illustration of his wife s treat 
 ment of himself. In his letters and journals 
 he often alludes to her as Clytemnestra, and 
 the allusion has run the round of a thousand 
 American papers lately, and been read by a 
 thousand good honest people, who had no very 
 clear idea who Clytemnestra was, and what 
 she did which was like the proceedings of 
 Lady Byron. According to the tragedy, 
 Clytemnestra secretly hates her husband 
 Agamemnon, whom she professes to love, and 
 wishes to put him out of the way that she 
 
 
 
 may marry her lover, ^Egistheus. When her 
 husband returns from the Trojan war she 
 receives him with pretended kindness, and 
 officiously offers to serve him at the bath. 
 Inducing him to put on a garment, of which 
 she had adroitly sewed up the sleeves and 
 neck so as to hamper the use of his arms, 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 1 9 
 
 she gives the signal to a concealed band of 
 assassins, who rush upon him and stab him. 
 Clytemnestra is represented by ^Eschylus 
 as grimly triumphing in her success, which 
 leaves her free to marry an adulterous para 
 mour. 
 
 " I did it, too, in such a cunning wise, 
 That he could neither scape nor ward off doom. 
 I staked around his steps an endless net, 
 As for the fishes." 
 
 In the piece entitled " Lines on hearing 
 Lady Byron is ill," Lord Byron charges on 
 his wife a similar treachery and cruelty. 
 The whole poem is in Murray s English edi 
 tion, Vol. IV. p. 207. Of it we quote the 
 following. The reader will bear in mind that 
 it is addressed to Lady Byron on a sick-bed. 
 
 " I am too well avenged, but twas my right ; 
 Whate er my sins might be, thou wert not sent 
 To be the Nemesis that should requite, 
 Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument. 
 Mercy is for the merciful ! If thou 
 
2O THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 Hast been of such, t will be accorded now. 
 
 Thy nights are banished from the realms of sleep, 
 
 For thou art pillowed on a curse too deep ; 
 
 Yes ! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel 
 
 A hollow agony that will not heal. 
 
 Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap 
 
 The bitter harvest in a woe as real. 
 
 I have had many foes, but none like thee j 
 
 For gainst the rest myself I could defend, 
 
 And be avenged, or turn them into friend ; 
 
 But thou, in safe implacability, 
 
 Hast naught to dread, in thy own weakness shielded, 
 
 And in my love, which hath but too much yielded, 
 
 And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare. 
 
 And thus upon the world, trust in thy truth, 
 
 And the wild fame of my ungoverned youth, 
 
 On things that were not and on things that are, 
 
 Even upon such a basis thou hast built 
 
 A monument whose cement hath been guilt ! 
 
 The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord, 
 
 And hewed down with an unsuspected sword 
 
 Fame, peace, and hope, and all that better life 
 
 Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart, 
 
 Might yet have risen from the grave of strife 
 
 And found a nobler duty than to part. 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 21 
 
 But of thy virtues thou didst make a vice, 
 Trafficking in them with a purpose cold, 
 And buying others woes at any price, 
 For present anger and for future gold ; 
 And thus, once entered into crooked ways, 
 The early truth, that was thy proper praise, 
 Did not still walk beside thee, but at times, 
 And with a breast unknowing its own crimes, 
 Deceits, averments incompatible, 
 Equivocations, and the thoughts that dwell 
 In Janus spirits, the significant eye 
 That learns to He with silence* the pretext 
 Of prudence with advantages annexed, 
 The acquiescence in all things that tend, 
 No matter how, to the desired end, 
 All found a place in thy philosophy. 
 The means were worthy and the end is won. 
 I would not do to thee as thou hast done." 
 
 Now, if this language means anything, it 
 means, in plain terms, that, whereas, in her 
 early days, Lady Byron was peculiarly char 
 acterized by truthfulness, she has in her recent 
 dealings with him acted the part of a liar, 
 
 * The italics are mine. 
 
22 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 that she is not only a liar, but that she lies for 
 cruel, mean, and malignant purposes, that she 
 is a moral assassin, and her treatment of her hus 
 band has been like that of the most detestable 
 murderess and adulteress of ancient history, 
 that she has learned to lie skilfully and artfully, 
 that she equivocates, says incompatible things, 
 and crosses her own tracks, that she is double- 
 faced, and has the art to lie even by silence, 
 and that she has become wholly unscrupulous, 
 and acquiesces in anyihmg, no matter what, 
 that tends to the desired end, and that end 
 the destruction of her husband. This is a 
 brief summary of the story that Byron made it 
 his life s business to spread through society, to 
 propagate and make converts to during his life, 
 and which has been in substance reasserted by 
 Blackwood in a recent article this year. 
 
 Now, the reader will please to notice that this 
 poem is dated in September, 1816, and that on 
 the 29th of March, of that same year, he had 
 thought proper to tell quite another story. At 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 23 
 
 that time the deed of separation was not signed, 
 and negotiations between Lady Byron, acting 
 by legal counsel, and himself were still pending. 
 At that time, therefore, he was standing in a 
 community who knew all he had said in former 
 days of his wife s character, who were in an 
 aroused and excited state by the fact that so 
 lovely and good and patient a woman had ac 
 tually been forced for some unexplained cause 
 to leave him. His policy at that " time was to 
 make large general confessions of sin, and to 
 praise and compliment her, with a view of en 
 listing sympathy. Everybody feels for a hand 
 some sinner, weeping on his knees, asking par 
 don for his offences against his wife in the public 
 newspapers. 
 
 The celebrated " Fare thee well," as we are 
 told, was written on the i/th of March, and 
 accidentally found its way into the newspapers 
 at this time "through the imprudence of a 
 friend whom he allowed to take a copy." These 
 " imprudent friends " have all along been such 
 a marvellous convenience to Lord Byron. 
 
24 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 But the question met him on all sides, What 
 is the matter ? This wife you have declared the 
 brightest, sweetest, most amiable of beings, and 
 against whose behavior as a wife you actually 
 never had nor can have a complaint to make, 
 why is she now all of a sudden so inflexibly set 
 against you ? 
 
 This question required an answer, and he 
 answered by writing another poem, which also 
 accidentally fbund its way into the public prints. 
 It is in his "Domestic Pieces," which the reader 
 may refer to at the end of this volume, and is 
 called "A Sketch." 
 
 There was a most excellent, respectable, well- 
 behaved Englishwoman, a Mrs. Clermont,* who 
 had been Lady Byron s governess in her youth, 
 and was still, in mature life, revered as her 
 confidential friend. It appears that this person 
 had been with Lady Byron during a part of 
 
 * In Lady Blessington s Memoirs this name is given Charle- 
 mont ; in the late Temple Bar article on the character of Lady 
 Byron it is given Clermont. I have followed the latter. 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 25 
 
 her married life, especially the bitter hours 
 of her lonely child-bed, when a young wife so 
 much needs a sympathetic friend. This Mrs. 
 Clermont was the person selected by Lord Byron 
 at this time to be the scapegoat to bear away 
 the difficulties of the case into the wilderness. 
 
 We are informed in Moore s Life what a noble 
 pride of rank Lord Byron possessed, and how 
 when the head-master of a school, against whom 
 he had a pique, invited him to dinner, he de 
 clined, saying, " To tell you the truth, Doctor, if 
 you should come to Newstead, I should n t think 
 of inviting you to dine with me, and so I don t 
 care to dine with you here." Different countries, 
 it appears, have different standards as to good 
 taste ; Moore gives this as an amusing instance 
 of a young lord s spirit. 
 
 Accordingly, his first attack against" this 
 "lady," as we Americans should call her, con 
 sists in gross statements concerning her having 
 been born poor and in an inferior rank. He 
 begins by stating that she was 
 
26 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 " Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred, 
 Promoted thence to deck her mistress head ; 
 Next for some gracious service unexpressed 
 And from its wages only to be guessed 
 Raised from the toilet to the table, where 
 Her wondering betters wait behind her chair. 
 With eye unmoved and forehead unabashed, 
 She dines from off the plate she lately washed ; 
 Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, 
 The genial confidante and general spy, 
 Who could, ye gods ! her next employment guess, 
 An only infant s earliest governess ! 
 What had she made the pupil of her art 
 None knows ; but that high soul secured the heart, 
 And panted for the truth it could not hear 
 With longing soul and itndeluded ear ! " * 
 
 The poet here recognizes as a singular trait 
 in Lady Byron her peculiar love of truth, a 
 trait which must have struck every one that 
 had any knowledge of her through life. He 
 goes on now to give what he certainly knew 
 to be the real character of Lady Byron : 
 
 * The italics are mine. 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 2/ 
 
 " Foiled was perversion by that youthful mind, 
 Which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, 
 Deceit infect not, nor contagion soil, 
 Indulgence weaken, or example spoil, 
 Nor mastered science tempt her to look down 
 On humbler talent with a pitying frown, 
 Nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, 
 Nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain." 
 
 We are now informed that Mrs. Clermont, 
 whom he afterwards says in his letters was a 
 spy of Lady Byron s mother, set herself to 
 make mischief between them. He says: 
 " If early habits, those strong links that bind 
 At times the loftiest to the meanest mind, 
 Have given her power too deeply to instil 
 The angry essence of her deadly will ; 
 If like a snake she steal within your walls, 
 Till the black slime betray her as she crawls ; 
 If like a viper to the heart she wind, 
 And leaves the venom there she did not find, 
 What marvel that this hag of hatred works 
 Eternal evil latent- as she lurks." 
 
 The noble lord then proceeds to abuse this 
 woman of inferior rank in the language of the 
 
28 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 upper circles. He thus describes her person 
 and manner: 
 
 " Skilled by a touch to deepen scandal s tints 
 With all the kind mendacity of hints, 
 While mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with smiles, 
 A thread of candor with a web of wiles ; 
 A plain blunt show of briefly spoken scheming ; 
 A lip of lies ; a face formed to conceal, 
 And without feeling mock at all who feel ; 
 With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown, 
 A dieek of parchment and an eye of stone. 
 Mark how the channels of her yellow blood 
 Ooze to her skin and stagnate there to mud, 
 Cased like the centipede in saffron mail, 
 Or darker greenness of the scorpion s scale, 
 (For drawn from reptiles only may we trace 
 Congenial colors in that soul or face,) 
 Look on her features ! and behold her mind 
 As in a mirror of itself defined : 
 Look on the picture ! deem it not o ercharged ; 
 There is no trait which might not be enlarged." 
 
 The poem thus ends: 
 
 " May the strong curse of crushed affections light 
 Back on thy bosom with reflected blight, 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 29 
 
 And make thee in thy leprosy of mind 
 
 As loathsome to thyself as to mankind i 
 
 Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate, 
 
 Black as thy will for others would create ; 
 
 Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust, 
 
 And thy soul welter in its hideous crust. 
 
 O, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed, 
 
 The widowed couch of fire, that thou hast spread ! 
 
 Then when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with prayer, 
 
 Look on thy earthly victims and despair ! 
 
 Down to the dust ! and as thou rott st away, 
 
 Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay. 
 
 But for the love I bore and still must bear 
 
 To her thy malice from all ties would tear, 
 
 Thy name, thy human name, to every eye 
 
 The climax of all scorn, should hang on high, 
 
 Exalted o er thy less abhorred compeers, 
 
 And festering in the infamy of years." 
 
 March 29, 1816. 
 
 Now, on the 2Qth of March, 1816, this was 
 Lord Byron s story. He states that his wife had 
 a truthfulness even from early girlhood that the 
 most artful and unscrupulous governess could 
 
3O THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 not pollute, that she always panted for truth, 
 that flattery could not fool nor baseness blind 
 her, that though she was a genius and master 
 of science, she was yet gentle and tolerant, and 
 one whom no envy could ruffle to retaliate pain. 
 
 In September of the same year she is a mon 
 ster of unscrupulous deceit and vindictive cruelty. 
 Now, what had happened in the five months 
 between the dates of these poems to produce 
 such a change of opinion? Simply this: 
 
 1st. The negotiation between him and his 
 wife s lawyers had ended in his signing a deed 
 of separation in preference to standing a suit 
 for divorce. 
 
 2d. Madame de Stael, moved by his tears 
 of anguish and professions of repentance, had 
 offered to negotiate with Lady Byron on his 
 behalf, and had failed. 
 
 The failure of this application is the only 
 apology given by Moore and Murray for this 
 poem, which gentle Thomas Moore admits was 
 not in quite as generous a strain as the "Fare 
 thee well." 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 31 
 
 But Lord Byron knew perfectly well, when 
 he suffered that application to be made, that 
 Lady Byron had been entirely convinced that 
 her marriage relations with him could never be 
 renewed, and that duty both to man and God 
 required her to separate from him. The allow 
 ing the negotiation was, therefore, an artifice to 
 place his wife before the public in the attitude 
 of a hard-hearted, inflexible woman ; her refusal 
 was what he knew beforehand must inevitably 
 be the result, and merely gave him capital in the 
 sympathy of his friends, by which they should 
 be brought to tolerate and accept the bitter 
 accusations of this poem. 
 
 We have recently heard it asserted that this 
 last-named piece of poetry was the sudden off 
 spring of a fit of ill-temper, and was never in 
 tended to be published at all. There were cer 
 tainly excellent reasons why his friends should 
 have advised him not to publish it at that time. 
 But that it was read with sympathy by the circle 
 of his intimate friends, and believed by them, is 
 
32 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 evident from the frequency with which allusions 
 to it occur in his confidential letters to them.* 
 
 About three months after, under date March 
 10, 1817, he writes to Moore : " I suppose now I 
 shall never be able to shake off my sables in pub 
 lic imagination, more particularly since my moral 
 
 clove down my fame." Again to Murray 
 
 in 1819, three years after, he says: "I never 
 hear anything of Ada, the little Electra of 
 Mycenae," 
 
 Electra was the daughter of Clytemnestra, in 
 the Greek poem, who lived to condemn hei 
 wicked mother, and to call on her brother 
 to avenge the father. There was in this men 
 tion of Electra more than meets the ear. Many 
 passages in Lord Byron s poetry show that he 
 intended to make this daughter a future parti 
 san against her mother, and explain the awful 
 words he is stated in Lady Anne Barnard s 
 diary, to have used when first he looked on his 
 
 * In Lady Blessington s conversations with Lord Byron, just 
 before he went to Greece, she records that he gave her this 
 poem in manuscript. It was published in her Journal. 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 33 
 
 little girl, " What an instrument of torture I 
 have gained in you ! " 
 
 In a letter to Lord Blessington, April 6. 1823, 
 he says, speaking of Dr. Parr : * - 
 
 u He did me the honor once to be a patron of mine, 
 though a great friend of the other branch of the house 
 of Atreus, and the Greek teacher, I believe, of my moral 
 Clytemnestra. I say moral because it is true, and is so 
 useful to the virtuous, that it enables them to do any 
 thing without the aid of an /Egistheus." 
 
 If Lord Byron wrote this poem merely in a 
 momentary fit of spleen, why were there so 
 many persons evidently quite familiar with 
 his allusions to it ? and why was it preserved 
 in Murray s hands ? and why published after 
 his death ? That Byron was in the habit of 
 reposing documents in the hands of Murray, 
 to be used as occasion offered, is evident from 
 a part of a note written by him to Murray 
 respecting some verses so intrusted : " Pray let 
 
 * Vol. VI. p. 22. 
 
34 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 not these versiculi go forth with my name 
 except to the initiated" * 
 
 Murray, in publishing this attack on his wife 
 after Lord Byron s death, showed that he be 
 lieved in it, and, so believing, deemed Lady 
 Byron a woman whose widowed state deserved 
 neither sympathy nor delicacy of treatment. 
 At a time when every sentiment in the heart 
 of the most deeply wronged woman would forbid 
 her appearing to justify herself from such cruel 
 slander of a dead husband, an honest, kind- 
 hearted, worthy Englishman actually thought it 
 right and proper to give these lines to her eyes 
 and the eyes of all the reading world. Noth 
 ing can show more plainly what this poem was 
 written for, and how thoroughly it did its work ! 
 Considering Byron as a wronged man, Murray 
 thought he was contributing his mite towards 
 doing him justice. His editor prefaced the 
 whole set of " Domestic Pieces " with the fol 
 lowing statements : 
 
 * Byron s Miscellany, Vol. II. p. 358. London, 1853. 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 35 
 
 " They all refer to the unhappy separation, of which the 
 precise causes are still a mystery, and which he declared 
 to the last were never disclosed to himself. He admitted 
 that pecuniary embarrassments, disordered health, and 
 dislike to family restraints had aggravated his naturally 
 violent temper and driven him to excesses. He suspect 
 ed that his mother-in-law had fomented the discord, 
 which Lady Byron denies, and that more was due to 
 the malignant offices of a female dependant, who is the 
 subject of the bitterly satirical sketch. 
 
 " To these general statements can only be added the 
 still vaguer allegations of Lady Byron, that she conceived 
 his conduct to be the result of insanity, that, the phy 
 sician pronouncing him responsible for his actions, she 
 could submit to them no longer, and that Dr. Lush- 
 ington, her legal adviser, agreed that a reconciliation 
 was neither proper nor possible. No weight can be 
 attached to the opinions of an opposing counsel upon 
 accusations made by one party behind the back of the 
 other, who urgently demanded and was pertinaciously 
 refused the least opportunity of denial or defence. He 
 rejected the proposal for an amicable separation, but con 
 sented when threatened with a suit in Doctors* Com 
 mons" * 
 
 * The italics are mine. 
 
36 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 Neither honest Murray nor any of Byron s 
 partisans seem to have pondered the admis 
 sion in these last words. 
 
 Here, as appears, was a woman, driven to 
 the last despair, standing with her child in 
 her arms, asking from English laws protec 
 tion for herself and child against her hus 
 band 
 
 She had appealed to the first counsel in 
 England, and was acting under their direc 
 tion. 
 
 Two of the greatest lawyers in England have 
 pronounced that there has been such a cause 
 of offence on his part that a return to him is 
 neither proper nor possible, and that no alter 
 native remains to her but separation or divorce. 
 
 He asks her to state- her charges against him. 
 She, making answer under advice of her coun 
 sel, says, " That if he insists on the specifica 
 tions, he must receive them in open court in 
 a suit for divorce." 
 
 What, now, ought to have been the conduct 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 37 
 
 of any brave, honest man, who believed that 
 his wife was taking advantage of her reputation 
 for virtue to turn every one against him, who 
 saw that she had turned on her side even the 
 lawyer he sought to retain on his ; * that she 
 was an unscrupulous woman, who acquiesced 
 in every and any thing to gain her ends, while 
 he stood before the public, as he says, " accused 
 of every monstrous vice, by public rumor or 
 private rancor " ? When she, under advice of 
 her lawyers, made the alternative legal separa 
 tion or open investigation in court for divorce, 
 what did he do ? 
 
 * Lord Byron says, in his observations on an article in 
 Blackwood : " I recollect being much hurt by Romilly s con 
 duct : he (having a general retainer for me) went over to the 
 adversary, alleging, on being reminded of his retainer, that 
 he had forgotten it, as his clerk had so many. I observed 
 that some of those who were now so eagerly laying the axe 
 to my roof-tree might see their own shaken. His fell and 
 crushed him." 
 
 In the first edition of Moore s Life of Lord Byron there 
 was printed a letter on Sir Samuel Romilly, so brutal that 
 it was suppressed in the subsequent editions. (See Appendix.) 
 
38 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 HE SIGNED THE ACT OF SEPARATION AND 
 LEFT ENGLAND. 
 
 Now, let any man who knows the legal mind 
 of England, let any lawyer who knows the 
 character of Sir Samuel Romilly and Dr. 
 Lushington, ask whether they were the men to 
 take a case into court for a woman that had 
 no evidence but her own statements and im 
 pressions ? Were they men to go to trial 
 without proofs ? Did they not know that there 
 were artful, hysterical women in the world, 
 and would they, of all people, be the men to 
 take a woman s story on her own side, and 
 advise her in the last issue to bring it into 
 open court, without legal proof of the strongest 
 kind ? Now, as long as Sir Samuel Romilly 
 lived, this statement of Byron s that he was 
 condemned unheard, and had no chance of 
 knowing whereof he was accused never ap 
 peared in public. 
 
 It, however, was most actively circulated in 
 private. That Byron was in the habit of intrust- 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 39 
 
 ing to different confidants articles of various 
 kinds to be shown to different circles as they 
 could bear them, we have already shown. We 
 have recently come upon another instance of this 
 kind. In the late eagerness to exculpate Byron, 
 a new document has turned up, of which honest 
 John Murray, it appears, had never heard when, 
 after Byron s death, he published in the preface 
 to his "Domestic Pieces" the sentence: "He 
 rejected the proposal for an amicable separation, 
 but consented when threatened with a suit in Doc 
 tors Commons? It appears that, up to 1853, 
 neither John Murray senior, nor the son who 
 now fills his place, had taken any notice of this 
 newly found document, which we are now in 
 formed " was drawn up by Lord Byron in August, 
 1817, while Mr. Hobhouse was staying with him 
 at La Mira, near Venice, given to Mr. Matthew 
 Gregory Lewis, for circulation among friends in 
 England, found in Mr. Lewis s papers after his 
 death, and now in the possession of Mr, Mur 
 ray." Here it is : 
 
4O THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 " It has been intimated to me that the persons under 
 stood to be the legal advisers of Lady Byron have de 
 clared their lips to be sealed up on the cause of the 
 separation between her and myself. If their lips are 
 sealed up, they are not sealed up by me, and the greatest 
 favor they can confer upon me will be to open them. 
 From the first hour in which I was apprised of the inten 
 tions of the Noel family to the last communication be 
 tween Lady Byron and myself in the character of wife 
 and husband (a period of some months), I called repeat 
 edly and in vain for a statement of their or her charges, 
 and it was chiefly in consequence of Lady Byron s claim 
 ing (in a letter still existing) a promise on my part to 
 consent to a separation, if such was really her wish, 
 that I consented at all ; this claim, and the exasperating 
 and inexpiable manner in which their object was pur 
 sued, which rendered it next to an impossibility that 
 two persons so divided could ever be reunited, induced 
 me reluctantly then, and repentantly still, to sign the 
 deed, which I shall be happy most happy to cancel, 
 and go before any tribunal which may discuss the busi 
 ness in the most public manner. 
 
 " Mr. Hobhouse made this proposition on my part, 
 viz. to abrogate all prior intentions and go into court 
 the very day before the separation was signed, and 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 4! 
 
 it was declined by the other party, as also the publication 
 of the correspondence during the previous discussion. 
 Those propositions I beg here to repeat, and to call 
 upon her and hers to say their worst, pledging myself 
 to meet their allegations, whatever they may be, 
 and only too happy to be informed at last of their real 
 
 nature. 
 
 " BYRON." 
 
 "August 9, 1817. 
 
 " P. S. I have been, and am now, utterly ignorant 
 of what description her allegations, charges, or what 
 ever name they may have assumed, are ; and am as 
 little aware for what purpose they have been kept back, 
 unless it was to sanction the most infamous calumnies 
 
 by silence. 
 
 " BYRON. 
 " LA MIRA, near VENICE." 
 
 It appears the circulation of this document 
 must have been very private, since Moore, not 
 0wr-delicate towards Lady Byron, did not think 
 fit to print it ; since John Murray neglected it, 
 and since it has come out at this late hour for 
 the first time. 
 
 If Lord Byron really desired Lady Byron and 
 
42 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 her legal counsel to understand the facts herein 
 stated, and was willing at all hazards to bring 
 on an open examination, why was this privately 
 circulated ? Why not issued as a card in the 
 London papers ? Is it likely that Mr. Mat 
 thew Gregory Lewis, and a chosen band of 
 friends acting as a committee, requested an 
 audience with Lady Byron, Sir Samuel Romilly, 
 and Dr. Lushington, and formally presented this 
 cartel of defiance ? 
 
 We incline to think not. We incline to 
 think that this small serpent, in company 
 with many others of like kind, crawled secret 
 ly and privately around, and when it found a 
 good chance, bit an honest Briton, whose blood 
 was thenceforth poisoned by an undetected false 
 hood. 
 
 The reader now may turn to the letters that 
 Mr. Moore has thought fit to give us of this stay 
 at La Mira, beginning with Letter 286, dated 
 July I, 1817,* where he says: "I have been 
 
 * Vol. IV. p. 40. 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 43 
 
 working up my impressions into a Fourth Canto 
 of Childe Harold," and also " Mr. Lewis is in- 
 Venice. I am going up to stay a week with 
 him there." 
 
 Next, under date La Mira, Venice, July 10,* 
 he says : " Monk Lewis is here ; how pleasant ! " 
 
 Next, under date July 20, 1817, to Mr. Mur 
 ray : " I write to give you notice that I have 
 completed tJie fourth and ultimate canto of 
 Childe Harold. .... It is yet to be copied and 
 polished, and the notes are to come." 
 
 Under date of La Mira, August 7, 1817, he 
 records that the new canto is one hundred and 
 thirty stanzas in length, and talks about the price 
 for it. He is now ready to launch it on the world ; 
 and, as now appears, on August 9, 1817, two days 
 after, he wrote the document above cited, and put 
 it into the hands of Mr. Lewis, as we are informed, 
 "for circulation among friends in England." 
 
 The reason of this may now be evident. Hav 
 ing prepared a suitable number of those whom 
 
 * Vol. IV. p. 46. 
 
44 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 he calls in his notes to Murray " the initiated, * 
 by private documents and statements, he is now 
 prepared to publish his accusations against his 
 wife, and the story of his wrongs, in a great im 
 mortal poem, which shall have a band of initiated 
 interpreters, shall be read through the civilized 
 world, and stand to accuse her after his death. 
 
 In the Fourth Canto of "Childe Harold," with 
 all his own overwhelming power of language, he 
 sets forth his cause as against the silent woman 
 who all this time had been making no party, and 
 telling no story, and whom the world would there 
 fore conclude to be silent because she had no 
 answer to make. I remember well the time when 
 this poetry, so resounding in its music, so mourn 
 ful, so apparently generous, filled my heart with 
 a vague anguish of sorrow for the sufferer, and 
 of indignation at the cold insensibility that had 
 maddened him. Thousands have felt the power 
 of this great poem, which stands, and must stand 
 to all time, a monument of what sacred and 
 solemn powers God gave to this wicked man, 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 45 
 
 and how vilely he abused this power as a weapon 
 to slay the innocent. 
 
 It is among the ruins of ancient Rome 
 that his voice breaks forth in solemn impre 
 cation : 
 
 " O Time, thou beautifier of the dead, 
 Adorner of the ruin, comforter, 
 And only healer when the heart hath bled ! 
 Time, the corrector when our judgments err, 
 The test of truth, love, sole philosopher, 
 For all besides are sophists, from thy shrift 
 That never loses, though it doth defer ! 
 Time, the avenger ! unto thee I lift 
 
 My hands and heart and eyes, and claim of thee a gift. 
 
 " If thou hast ever seen me too elate, 
 Hear me not ; but if calmly I have borne 
 Good, and reserved my pride against the hate 
 Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn 
 This iron in my soul in vain, shall THEY not 
 
 mourn ? 
 
 And thou who never yet of human wrong 
 Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis, 
 Here where the ancients paid their worship long, 
 
46 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 Thou who didst call the Furies from the abyss, 
 
 And round Orestes bid them howl and hiss 
 
 For that unnatural retribution, just 
 
 Had it but come from hands less near, in this 
 
 Thy former realm I call thee from the dust. 
 
 Dost thou not hear my heart ? awake thou shalt and 
 
 must ! 
 
 Jt is not that I may not have incurred 
 For my ancestral faults, and mine the wound 
 Wherewith I bleed withal, and had it been conferred 
 With a just weapon it had flowed unbound, 
 But now my blood shall not sink in the ground. 
 
 " But in this page a record will I seek ; 
 Not in the air shall these my words disperse, 
 Though I be ashes, a far hour shall wreak 
 The deep prophetic fulness of this verse, 
 And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse. 
 That curse shall be forgiveness. Have I not, 
 Hear me, my Mother Earth ! behold it, Heaven, 
 Have I not had to wrestle with my lot ? 
 Have I not suffered things to be forgiven ? 
 Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven, 
 Hopes sapped, name blighted, life s life lied away, 
 And only not to desperation driven, 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 Because not altogether of such clay 
 
 As rots into the soul of those whom I survey ? 
 
 " From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy, 
 Have I not seen what human things could do, 
 From the loud roar of foaming calumny, 
 To the small whispers of the paltry few, 
 And subtler venom of the reptile crew, 
 The Janus glance of whose significant eye. 
 Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, 
 And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, 
 Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy ? " * 
 
 The reader will please notice that the lines in 
 italics are almost, word for word, a repetition of 
 the lines in italics in the former poem on his 
 wife, where he speaks of a significant eye that 
 has learned to lie in silence, and were evidently 
 meant to apply to Lady Byron and her small 
 circle of confidential friends. 
 
 Before this, in the Third Canto of "Childe 
 Harold," he had claimed the sympathy of the 
 
 * The italics are mine. 
 
48 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 world, as a loving father, deprived by a severe 
 fate of the solace and society of his only child: 
 
 " My daughter, with this name my song began, 
 My daughter, with this name my song shall end, 
 I see thee not and hear thee not, but none 
 Can be so wrapped in thee ; thou art the friend 
 To whom the shadows of far years extend. 
 
 "To aid thy mind s developments, to -watch 
 The dawn of little joys, to sit and see 
 Almost thy very growth, to view thee catch 
 Knowledge of objects, wonders yet to thee, 
 And print on thy soft cheek a parent s kiss, 
 This it should seem was not reserved for me. 
 Yet this was in my nature, as it is, 
 I know not what there is, yet something like to this. 
 
 " Yet though dull hate as duty should be taught, 
 I know that thou wilt love me ; though my name 
 Should be shut out from thee as spell still fraught 
 With desolation and a broken claim, 
 Though the grave close between us, t were the same. 
 I know that thou wilt love me, though to drain 
 My blood from out thy being were an aim 
 And an attainment, all will be in vain." 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 49 
 
 To all these charges against her, sent all over 
 the world in verses as eloquent as the English 
 language is capable of, the wife replied noth 
 ing. As a lamb before her shearers is dumb, 
 so she opened not her mouth. 
 
 " Assailed by slander and the tongue of strife, 
 Her only answer was, a blameless life." 
 
 She had a few friends, a very few, with whom 
 she sought solace and sympathy. One letter 
 from her, written at this time, preserved by acci 
 dent, is the only authentic record of how the 
 matter stood with her. 
 
 We regret to say that the publication of this 
 document was not brought forth to clear Lady 
 Byron s name from her husband s slanders, but 
 to shield him from the worst accusation against 
 him, by showing that this crime was not in 
 cluded in the few private confidential revela- 
 tions that friendship wrung from the young 
 wife at this period. 
 
 Lady Anne Barnard, authoress of "Auld 
 Robin Grey," a friend, whose age and experience 
 3 
 
5O THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 made her a proper confidant, sent for the 
 broken-hearted, perplexed wife, and offered her 
 a woman s sympathy. 
 
 To her Lady Byron wrote many letters, under 
 seal of confidence, and Lady Anne says : " I will 
 give you a few paragraphs transcribed from one 
 of Lady Byron s own letters to me. It is sor 
 rowful to think that in a very little time this 
 young and amiable creature, wise, patient, and 
 feeling, will have her character mistaken by 
 every one who reads Byron s works. To rescue 
 her from this I preserved her letters, and when 
 she afterwards expressed a fear that anything 
 of her writing should ever fall into hands to in 
 jure him (I suppose she meant by publication), 
 I safely assured her that it never should. But 
 here this letter shall be placed, a sacred rec 
 ord in her favor, unknown to herself." 
 
 " I am a very incompetent judge of the impression 
 which the last Canto of Childe Harold may produce on 
 the minds of indifferent readers. 
 
 " It contains the usual trace of a conscience restlessly 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. $1 
 
 awake, though his object has been too long to aggra 
 vate its burden, as if it could thus be oppressed into 
 eternal stupor. I will hope, as you do, that it survives 
 for his ultimate good. 
 
 " It was the acuteness of his remorse, impenitent in 
 its character, which so long seemed to demand from 
 my compassion to spare every semblance of reproach, 
 every look of grief, which might have said to his con 
 science, * You have made me wretched. 
 
 " I am decidedly of opinion that he is responsible. He 
 has wished to be thought partially deranged, or on the 
 brink of it, to perplex observers and prevent them from 
 tracing effects to their real causes through all the intrica 
 cies of his conduct. I was, as I told you, at one time the 
 dupe of his acted insanity, and clung to the former 
 delusions in regard to the motives that concerned me 
 personally, till the whole system was laid bare. 
 
 " He is the absolute monarch of words, and uses 
 them, as Bonaparte did lives, for conquest, without more 
 regard to their intrinsic value, considering them only 
 as ciphers, which must derive all their import from the 
 situation in which he places them, and the ends to 
 which he adapts them, with such consummate skill. 
 
 u Why, then, you will say, does he not employ them 
 to give a better color to his own character ? Because 
 
52 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 he is too good an actor to over-act, or to assume a 
 moral garb, which it would be easy to strip off. 
 
 " In regard to his poetry, egotism is the vital princi 
 ple of his imagination, which it is difficult for him to 
 kindle on any subject with which his own character 
 and interests are not identified ; but by the introduction 
 of fictitious incidents, by change of scene or time, he 
 has enveloped his poetical disclosures in a system impen 
 etrable except to a very few, and his constant desire 
 of creating a sensation makes him not averse to be the 
 object of wonder and curiosity, even though accompanied 
 by some dark and vague suspicions. 
 
 " Nothing has contributed more to the misunderstand 
 ing of his real character than the lonely grandeur in 
 which he shrouds it, and his affectation of being above 
 mankind, when he exists almost in their voice. The 
 romance of his sentiments is another feature of this 
 mask of state. I know no one more habitually destitute 
 of that enthusiasm he so beautifully expresses, and to 
 which he can work up his fancy chiefly by contagion. 
 
 " / had heard he was the best of brothers, the most 
 generous of friends, and I thought such feelings only 
 required to be warmed and cherished into more diffusive 
 benevolence. Though these opinions are eradicated, and 
 could never return but with the decay of my memory. 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 53 
 
 you will not wonder if there are still moments when 
 the association of feelings which arose from them soften 
 and sadden my thoughts. 
 
 " But I have not thanked you, dearest Lady Anne, 
 for your kindness in regard to a principal object, that 
 of rectifying false impressions. I trust you understand 
 my wishes, which never were to injure Lord Byron in 
 any way ; for, though he would not suffer me to re7nain 
 his wife, he cannot prevent me from continuing his friend; 
 and it was from considering myself as such that I silenced 
 the accusations by which my own conduct might have 
 been more fully justified. 
 
 " It is not necessary to speak ill of his heart in gen 
 eral ; it is sufficient that to me it was hard and impen 
 etrable, that my own must have been broken before 
 his could have been touched. I would rather represent 
 this as my misfortune than as his guilt ; but, surely, 
 that misfortune is not to be made my crime ! Such 
 are my feelings ; you will ju&ge how to act. 
 
 " His allusions to me in Childe Harold are cruel and 
 cold, but with such a semblance as to make me appear 
 so, and to attract all sympathy to himself. It is said 
 in this poem that hatred of him will be taught as a 
 lesson to his child. I might appeal to all who have ever 
 heard me speak of him, and still more to my own heart, 
 
54 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 to witness that there has been no moment when I have 
 remembered injury otherwise than affectionately and 
 sorrowfully. 
 
 "It is not my duty to give way to hopeless and wholly 
 unrequited affection ; but, so long as I live, my chief 
 struggle will probably be not to remember him too 
 kindly. I do not seek the sympathy of the world, but 
 I wish to be known by those whose opinion is valuable 
 and whose kindness is dear to me. Among such, my 
 dear Lady Anne, you will ever be remembered by your 
 
 truly affectionate 
 
 "A. BYRON." 
 
 On this letter I observe Lord Lindsay remarks 
 that it shows a noble but rather severe charac 
 ter, and a recent author has remarked that it 
 seemed to be written rather in a " cold spirit of 
 criticism." It seems to strike these gentlemen as 
 singular that Lady Byron did not enjoy the poem ! 
 But there are two remarkable sentences in this 
 letter which have escaped the critics hitherto. 
 Lord Byron, in this, the Third Canto of " Childe 
 Harold," expresses in most affecting words an 
 enthusiasm of love for his sister. So long as he 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 55 
 
 lived he was her faithful correspondent ; he sent 
 her his journals ; and, dying, he left her and her 
 children everything he had in the world. This 
 certainly seems like an affectionate brother ; but 
 in what words does Lady Byron speak of this 
 affection ? 
 
 " I had heard he was the best of brothers, 
 the most generous of friends. I thought these 
 feelings only required to be warmed and cherished 
 into more diffusive benevolence. THESE OPINIONS 
 
 ARE ERADICATED, AND COULD NEVER RETURN BUT 
 
 WITH THE DECAY OF MEMORY." Let me ask those 
 who give this letter as a proof that at this time no 
 idea such as I have stated was in Lady Byron s 
 mind, to account for these words. Let them please 
 answer these questions : Why had Lady Byron 
 ceased to think him a good brother ? Why does 
 she use so strong a word as that the opinion was 
 eradicated, torn up by the roots, and could 
 never grow again in her except by decay of 
 memory ? 
 
 And yet this is a document Lord Lindsay 
 
56 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 vouches for as authentic, and which he brings 
 forward in defence of Lord Byron. 
 
 Again she says, " Though he wotild not suffer 
 me to remain his wife, he cannot prevent me 
 from continuing his friend." Do these words not 
 say that in some past time, in some decided 
 manner, Lord Byron had declared to her his 
 rejection of her as a wife ? I shall yet have 
 occasion to explain these words. 
 
 Again she says, " I silenced accusations by 
 which my conduct might have been more fully 
 justified." 
 
 The people in England who are so very busy 
 in searching out evidence against my true story 
 have searched out and given to the world an 
 important confirmation of this assertion of Lady 
 Byron s. 
 
 It seems that the confidential waiting-maid 
 who went with Lady Byron on her wedding 
 journey has been sought out and interrogated, 
 and, as appears by description, is a venerable, 
 respectable old person, quite in possession of all 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 57 
 
 her senses in general, and of that sixth sense 
 of propriety in particular, which appears not to 
 be a common virtue in our days. 
 
 As her testimony is important, we insert it 
 just here, with a description of her person in 
 full. The ardent investigators thus speak : 
 
 " Having gained admission, we were shown into a 
 small but neatly furnished and scrupulously clean apart 
 ment, where sat the object of our visit. Mrs. Minns is 
 a venerable-looking old lady, of short stature, slight and 
 active appearance, with a singularly bright and intelli 
 gent countenance. Although midway between eighty and 
 ninety years of age, she is in full possession of her fac 
 ulties, discourses freely and cheerfully, hears apparently 
 as well as ever she did, and her sight is so good that, 
 aided by a pair of spectacles, she reads the Chronicle 
 every day with ease. Some idea of her competency to 
 contribute valuable evidence to the subject which now 
 so much engages public attention on three continents 
 may be found from her own narrative of her personal 
 relations with Lady Byron. Mrs. Minns was born in 
 the neighborhood of Seaham, and knew Lady Byron 
 from childhood. During the long period of ten years 
 she was Miss Milbanke s lady s-maid, and in that 
 3* 
 
58 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 capacity became the close confidante of her mistress. 
 There were circumstances which rendered their relation 
 ship peculiarly intimate. Miss Milbanke had no sister 
 or female friend to whom she was bound by the ties of 
 more than a common affection ; and her mother, whatever 
 other excellent qualities she may have possessed, was 
 too high-spirited and too hasty in temper to attract the 
 sympathies of the young. Some months before Miss 
 Milbanke was married to Lord Byron Mrs. Minns had 
 quitted her service on the occasion of her own marriage 
 with Mr. Minns, but she continued to reside in the 
 neighborhood of Seaham, and remained on the most 
 friendly terms with her former mistress. As the court 
 ship proceeded, Miss Milbanke concealed nothing from 
 her faithful attendant, and when the wedding-day was 
 fixed she begged Mrs. Minns to return and fulfil the 
 duties of lady s-maid, at least during the honeymoon. 
 Mrs. Minns at the time was nursing her first child, and 
 it was no small sacrifice to quit her own home at such 
 a moment, but she could not refuse her old mistress s 
 request. Accordingly, she returned to Seaham Hall 
 some days before the wedding, was present at the 
 ceremony, and then preceded Lord and Lady Byron to 
 Halnaby Hall, near Croft, in the North Riding of 
 Yorkshire, one of Sir Ralph Milbanke s seats, where 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 59 
 
 the newly married couple were to spend the honeymoon. 
 Mrs. Minns remained with Lord and Lady Byron during 
 the three weeks they spent at Halnaby Hall, and then 
 accompanied them to Seaham, where they spent the 
 next six weeks. It was during the latter period that 
 she finally quitted Lady Byron s service, but she re 
 mained in the most friendly communication with her 
 Ladyship till the death of the latter, and for some time 
 was living in the neighborhood of Lady Byron s resi 
 dence in Leicestershire, where she had frequent oppor 
 tunities of seeing her former mistress. It may be added 
 that Lady Byron was not unmindful of the faithful 
 services of her friend and attendant in the instruc 
 tions to her executors contained in her will. Such 
 was the position of Mrs. Minns towards Lady Byron, 
 and we think no one will question that it was of a 
 nature to entitle all that Mrs. Minns may say on the 
 subject of the relations of Lord and Lady Byron to 
 the most respectful consideration and credit." 
 
 Such is the chronicler s account of the faithful 
 creature, whom nothing but intense indignation 
 and disgust at Mrs. Beecher Stowe would lead to 
 speak on her mistress s affairs ; but Mrs. Beecher 
 
6O THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 Stowe feels none the less sincere respect for her, 
 and is none the less obliged to her for having 
 spoken. Much of Mrs. Minns s testimony will 
 be referred to in another place ; we only extract 
 one passage, to show that while Lord Byron 
 spent his time in setting afloat slanders against 
 his wife, she spent hers in sealing the mouths of 
 witnesses against him. 
 
 Of the period of the honeymoon Mrs. Minns 
 says : 
 
 "The happiness of Lady Byron, however, was of brief 
 duration ; even during the short three weeks they spent 
 at Halnaby the irregularities of Lord Byron occasioned 
 her the greatest distress, and she even contemplated re 
 turning to her father. Mrs. Minns was her constant 
 companion and confidante through this painful period, 
 and she does not believe that her ladyship concealed a 
 thought from her. With laudable reticence, the old lady 
 absolutely refuses to disclose the particulars of Lord 
 Byron s misconduct at this time j she gave Lady Byron 
 a solemn promise not to do so. 
 
 " So serious did Mrs. Minns consider the conduct of 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 6 1 
 
 Lord Byron, that she recommended her mistress to confide 
 all the circumstances to her father, Sir Ralph Milbanke, a 
 calm, kind, and most excellent parent, and take his advice 
 as to her future course. At one time Mrs. Minns thinks 
 Lady Byron had resolved to follow her counsel and im 
 part her wrongs to Sir Ralph ; but on arriving at Seaham 
 Hall her ladyship strictly enjoined Mrs. Minns to pre 
 serve absolute silence on the subject, a course which 
 she followed herself, so that when, six weeks later, she 
 and Lord Byron left Seaham for London, not a word had 
 escaped her to disturb her parents tranquillity as to their 
 daughter s domestic happiness. As might be expected, 
 Mrs. Minns bears the warmest testimony to the noble and 
 lovable qualities of her departed mistress. She also 
 declares that Lady Byron was by no means of a cold 
 temperament, but that the affectionate impulses of her 
 nature were checked by the unkind treatment she ex 
 perienced from her husband." 
 
 We have already shown that Lord Byron had 
 been, ever since his separation, engaged in a 
 systematic attempt to reverse the judgment of 
 the world against himself, by making converts 
 of all his friends to a most odious view of his 
 
62 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 wife s character, and inspiring them with the zeal 
 of propagandists to spread these views through 
 society. We have seen how he prepared par 
 tisans to interpret the Fourth Canto of " Childe 
 Harold." 
 
 This plan of solemn and heroic accusation was 
 the first public attack on his wife. Next we see 
 him commencing a scurrilous attempt to turn 
 her to ridicule in the First Canto of " Don Juan." 
 
 It is to our point now to show how carefully 
 and cautiously this Don Juan campaign was 
 planned. 
 
 Vol. IV. p. 138, we find Letter 325 to Mr. 
 
 Murray : 
 
 "VENICE, January 25, 1819. 
 
 " You will do me the favor to print privately, for 
 Private distribution, fifty copies of Don Juan? The 
 list of the men to whom 1 wish it presented I will 
 send hereafter." 
 
 The poem, as will be remembered, begins 
 with the meanest and foulest attack on his 
 wife that ever ribald wrote, and put it in close 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 63 
 
 neighborhood with scenes which every pure 
 man or woman must feel to be the beastly utter 
 ances of a man who had lost all sense of decency. 
 Such a potion was too strong to be administered 
 even in a time when great license was allowed, and 
 men were not over-nice. But Byron chooses fifty 
 armor-bearers of that class of men who would find 
 indecent ribaldry about a wife a good joke, and 
 talk about the " artistic merits " of things which 
 we hope would make an honest boy blush. 
 
 At this time he acknowledges that his vices 
 had brought him to a state of great exhaustion, 
 attended by such debility of the stomach that 
 nothing remained on it ; and adds, " I was 
 obliged to reform my way of life, which was 
 conducting me from the yellow leaf to the 
 ground with all deliberate speed." * But as his 
 health is a little better he employs it in making 
 the way to death and hell elegantly easy for other 
 young men, by breaking down the remaining 
 scruples of a society not over-scrupulous. 
 * Vol. IV. p. 143. 
 
64 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 Society revolted, however, and fought stout 
 ly against the nauseous dose. Even his sister 
 wrote to him that she heard such things said 
 of it that she never would read it ; and the 
 outcry against it on the part of all women of 
 his acquaintance was such that for a time he 
 was quite overborne ; and the Countess Guic- 
 cioli finally extorted a promise from him to 
 cease writing it. Nevertheless, there came a 
 time when England accepted " Don Juan," 
 when Wilson, in the Noctes Ambrosianse, praised 
 it as a classic, and took every opportunity to 
 reprobate Lady Byron s conduct. When first 
 it appeared the Blackwood came out with 
 that indignant denunciation of which we have 
 spoken, and to which Byron replied in the 
 extracts we have already quoted. He did 
 something more than reply. He marked out 
 Wilson as one of the strongest literary men 
 of the day, and set his " initiated " with their 
 documents to work upon him. 
 
 One of these documents to which he re- 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 65 
 
 quested Wilson s attention was the private au 
 tobiography, written expressly to give his own 
 story of all the facts of the marriage and sep 
 aration. 
 
 In the indignant letter he writes Murray 
 on the Blackwood article, Vol. IV. Letter 
 350, under date December 10, 1819, he 
 says : 
 
 " I sent home for Moore, and for Moore only (who 
 has my journal also), my memoir written up to 1816, 
 and I gave him leave to show it to whom he pleased, 
 but not to publish on any account You may read it, 
 and you may let Wilson read it if he likes, not for 
 his public opinion, but his private, for I like the man, 
 and care very little about the magazine. . And I could 
 wish Lady Byron herself to read it, that she may have 
 it in her power to mark anything mistaken or mis 
 stated. As it will never appear till after my extinction, it 
 would be but fair she should see it ; that is to say, her 
 self willing. Your Blackwood accuses me of treating 
 women harshly ; but I have been their martyr ; my 
 whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them." 
 
 It was a part of Byron s policy to place 
 
66 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 Lady Byron in positions before the world 
 where she could not speak, and where her 
 silence would be set down to her as haughty, 
 stony indifference and obstinacy. Such was 
 the pretended negotiation through Madame de 
 Stael, and such now this apparently fair and 
 generous offer to let Lady Byron see and mark 
 this manuscript. 
 
 The little Ada is now in her fifth year, 
 a child of singular sensibility and remarkable 
 mental powers, one of those exceptional chil 
 dren who are so perilous a charge for a mother. 
 
 Her husband proposes this artful snare to 
 her, that she shall mark what is false in a 
 statement which is all built on a damning 
 lie, that she cannot refute over that daughter s 
 head, and which would perhaps be her ruin 
 to discuss. 
 
 Hence came an addition of two more docu 
 ments, to be used "privately among friends," 11 
 
 * Lord Byron took especial pains to point out to Murray 
 the importance of these two letters. Vol. V. Letter 443, he 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 6/ 
 
 and which Blackwood uses after Lady Byron 
 is safely out of the world to cast ignominy on 
 her grave, the wife s letter, that of a mother 
 standing at bay for her daughter, knowing that 
 she is dealing with a desperate, powerful, un 
 scrupulous enemy. 
 
 " KIRKBY MALLORY, March 10, 1820. 
 
 " I received your letter of January i, offering to my 
 perusal a Memoir of part of your life. I decline to in 
 spect it. I consider the publication or circulation of 
 such a composition at any time as prejudicial to Ada s 
 future happiness. For my own sake, I have no reason 
 to shrink from publication ; but, notwithstanding the 
 injuries which I have suffered, I should lament some 
 
 of the consequences. 
 
 "A. BYRON. 
 "To LORD BYRON." 
 
 Lord Byron, writing for the public, as is his 
 custom, makes reply : 
 
 says: "You must also have Trom Mr. Moore the correspond 
 ence between me and Lacly B., to whom I offered a sight 
 of all that concerns herself in these papers. This is important. 
 He has her letter and my answer." 
 
68 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 " RAVENNA, April 3, 1820. 
 
 " I received yesterday your answer, dated March 10. 
 My offer was an honest one, and surely could only be 
 construed as such, even by the most malignant casuistry. 
 I could answer you, but it is too late, and it is not worth 
 while. To the mysterious menace of the last sentence, 
 whatever its import maybe, and I cannot pretend to 
 unriddle it, I could hardly be very sensible even if I 
 understood it, as, before it can take place, I shall be 
 where nothing can touch him further. ... .1 advise 
 you, however, to anticipate the period of your intention, 
 for, be assured, no power of figures can avail beyond the 
 present ; and if it could, I would answer with the Floren 
 tine : 
 
 " Ed io, che posto son con loro in croce 
 
 e certo 
 
 La fiera moglie, piii ch altro, mi nuoce. * 
 
 " BYRON. 
 " To LADY BYRON." 
 
 Two things are very evident in this corre 
 spondence. Lady Byron intimates that, if he 
 
 " And I, who with them on the cross am placed, 
 
 ... . . truly 
 
 My savage wife, more than aught else, doth harm me." 
 InfernOy Canto XVI. , Longfellow s translation. 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 69 
 
 publishes his story, some consequences must fol 
 low which she shall regret. 
 
 Lord Byron receives this as a threat, and 
 says he does n t understand it. But directly 
 after he says, " Before IT can take place, I shall 
 be," &c. 
 
 The intimation is quite clear. He does un 
 derstand what the consequences alluded to are. 
 They are evidently that Lady Byron will speak 
 out and tell her story. He says she cannot 
 do this till after he is dead, and then he shall 
 not care. In allusion to her accuracy as to 
 dates and figures, he says : " Be assured no 
 power of figures can avail beyond this pres 
 ent " (life) ; and then ironically advises her to 
 anticipate the period, i. e. to speak out while 
 he is alive. 
 
 In Vol. VI. Letter 518, which Lord Byron 
 wrote to Lady Byron, but did not send, he 
 says : " I burned your last note for two rea 
 sons, firstly, because it was written in a style 
 not very agreeable ; and, secondly, because I 
 
7O THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 wished to take your word without documents, 
 which are the resources of worldly and sus 
 picious people." 
 
 It would appear from this that there was a 
 last letter of Lady Byron to her husband, 
 which he did not think proper to keep on 
 hand, or show to the " initiated " with his 
 usual unreserve ; that this letter contained 
 some kind of pledge for which he preferred to 
 take her word, without documents. 
 
 Each reader can imagine for himself what 
 that pledge might have been ; but from the 
 tenor of the three letters we should infer that 
 it was a promise of silence for his lifetime, on 
 certain conditions, and that the publication of 
 the autobiography would violate those condi 
 tions, and make it her duty to speak out. 
 
 This celebrated autobiography forms so con 
 spicuous a figure in the whole history, that 
 the reader must have a full idea of it, as given 
 by Byron himself, in Vol. IV. Letter 344, to 
 Murray : 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 71 
 
 " I gave to Moore, who is gone to Rome, my life 
 in MS., in seventy-eight folio sheets, brought down to 
 
 1816 Also a journal kept in 1814. Neither are 
 
 for publication during my life, but when I am cold you 
 may do what you please. In the mean time, if you like 
 to read them you may, and show them to anybody you 
 like. I care not " 
 
 He tells him also : 
 
 "You will find in it a detailed account of my marriage 
 and its consequences, as true as a party concerned can 
 make such an account." 
 
 Of the extent to which this autobiography 
 was circulated we have the following testimony 
 of Shelton Mackenzie, in notes to the " Noctes " 
 of June, 1824. 
 
 In the Noctes Odoherty says : 
 
 " The fact is, the work had been copied for the private 
 reading of a great lady in Florence." 
 
 The note says : 
 
 " The great lady in Florence, for whose private read 
 ing Byron s autobiography was copied, was the Countess 
 
72 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 of Westmoreland Lady Blessington had the auto 
 biography in her possession for weeks, and confessed to 
 having copied every line of it. Moore remonstrated, 
 and she committed her copy to the flames, but did not 
 tell him that her sister, Mrs. Home Purvis, now Vis 
 countess of Canterbury, had also made a copy ! . . . . 
 From the quantity of copy I have seen, and others 
 were-more in the way of falling in with it than myself, 
 I surmise that at least half a dozen copies were made, 
 and of these Jive are now in existence. Some particu 
 lar parts, such as the marriage and separation, were 
 copied separately ; but I think there cannot be less than 
 five full copies yet to be found." 
 
 This was written after the original autobi 
 ography was btirned. 
 
 We may see the zeal and enthusiasm of 
 the Byron party, copying seventy-eight folio 
 sheets, as of old Christians copied the Gos 
 pels. How widely, fully, and thoroughly, thus, 
 by this secret process, was society saturated 
 with Byron s own versions of the story that 
 related to himself and wife ! Against her 
 there was only the complaint of an absolute 
 
. THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. ^3 
 
 silence. She put forth no statements, no docu 
 ments ; had no party, sealed the lips of her 
 counsel, and even of her servants ; yet she 
 could not but have known, from time to time, 
 how thoroughly and strongly this web of min 
 gled truth and lies was being meshed around 
 her steps. 
 
 From the time that Byron first saw the im 
 portance of securing Wilson on his side, and 
 wrote to have his partisans attend to him, we 
 may date an entire revolution in the Black- 
 wood. It became Byron s warmest supporter, 
 is to this day the bitterest accuser of his 
 wife. 
 
 Why was this wonderful silence ? It appears 
 by Dr. Lushington s statements, that, when Lady 
 Byron did speak, she had a story to tell that 
 powerfully affected both him and Romilly, a 
 story supported by evidence on which they were 
 willing to have gone to public trial. Supposing, 
 now, she had imitated Lord Byron s example, 
 and, avoiding public trial, had put her story into 
 
74 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 private circulation ; as he sent " Don Juan " to 
 fifty confidential friends, suppose she had sent a 
 written statement of her story to fifty judges as 
 intelligent as the two that had heard it ; or sup 
 pose she had confronted his autobiography with 
 her own, what would have been the result ? 
 
 The first result would have been Mrs. Leigh s 
 utter ruin. The world may finally forgive the 
 man of genius anything ; but for a woman there 
 is no mercy and no redemption. 
 
 This ruin Lady Byron prevented by her utter 
 silence and great self-command. Mrs. Leigh 
 never lost position. Lady Byron never so varied 
 in her manner toward her as to excite the sus 
 picions even of her confidential old servant. 
 
 To protect Mrs. Leigh effectually, it must have 
 been necessary to continue to exclude even her 
 own mother from the secret, as we are assured 
 she did at first ; for, had she told Lady Milbanke, 
 it is not possible that so high-spirited a woman 
 could have restrained herself from such outward 
 expressions as would at least have awakened sus- 
 
THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 75 
 
 picion. There was no resource but this absolute 
 silence. 
 
 Lady Blessington, in her last conversation 
 with Lord Byron, thus describes the life Lady 
 Byron was leading. She speaks of her as 
 "wearing away her youth in almost monastic 
 seclusion, questioned by some, appreciated by 
 few, seeking consolation alone in the discharge 
 of her duties, and avoiding all external demon 
 strations of a grief that her pale cheek and 
 solitary existence alone were vouchers for." * 
 
 The main object of all this silence may be 
 imagined, if we remember that if Lord Byron 
 had not died, had he truly and deeply re 
 pented, and become a thoroughly good man, 
 and returned to England to pursue a course 
 worthy of his powers, there was on record 
 neither word nor deed from his wife to stand 
 in his way. 
 
 His PLACE WAS KEPT IN SOCIETY, ready for 
 him to return to whenever he came clothed 
 
 * Conversations, p. 108. 
 
76 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON. 
 
 and in his right mind. He might have had 
 the heart and confidence of his daughter un 
 shadowed by a suspicion. He might have won 
 the reverence of the great and good in his own 
 lands and all lands. That hope, which was 
 the strong support, the prayer of the silent 
 wife, it did not please God to fulfil. 
 
 Lord Byron died a worn-out man at thirty- 
 six. But the bitter seeds he had sown came 
 up, after his death, in a harvest of thorns 
 over his grave ; and there were not wanting 
 hands to use them as instruments of torture 
 on the heart of his widow. 
 
\ 
 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 RESUME OF THE CONSPIRACY. 
 
 A /I 7E have traced the conspiracy of Lord 
 Byron against his wife up to its latest 
 device. That the reader s mind may be clear, on 
 the points of the process, we shall now briefly 
 recapitulate the documents in the order lof time. 
 
 I. March 17, 1816. While negotiations for 
 separation were pending, " Fare thce well, and 
 if forever r 
 
 While writing these pages, we have received 
 from England the testimony of one who has seen 
 the original draught of that " Fare thee well." 
 This original copy had evidently been subjected 
 to the most careful and acute revision. Scarcely 
 two lines that were not interlined, scarcely an 
 adjective that was not exchanged for a better ; 
 
 77 
 
78 RESUME OF THE CONSPIRACY. 
 
 showing that the noble lord was not so far over 
 come by grief as to have forgotten his reputa 
 tion. (Found its way to the public prints 
 through the imprudence of a friend?} 
 
 II. March 29, 1816. An attack on Lady 
 Byron s old governess for having been born 
 poor, for being homely, and for having unduly 
 influenced his wife against him ; promising that 
 her grave should be a fiery bed, &c. ; also prais 
 ing his wife s perfect and remarkable truthful 
 ness and discernment, that made it impossible 
 for flattery to fool, or baseness blind her ; but 
 ascribing all his woes to her being fooled and 
 blinded by this same governess. (Found its 
 way to the prints by the imprudence of a 
 friend?) 
 
 III. September, 1816. Lines on hearing 
 that Lady Byron is ill. Calls her a Clytemnestra, 
 who has secretly set assassins on her lord ; says 
 she is a mean, treacherous, deceitful liar, and has 
 entirely departed from her early truth, and be 
 come the most unscrupulous and unprincipled 
 
RESUME OF THE CONSPIRACY. 79 
 
 of women. Never printed till after Lord By 
 ron s death, but circulated privately among the 
 " initiated" 
 
 IV. Aug. 9, 1817. Gives to M. G. Lewis 
 a paper for circulation among friends in 
 England, stating that what he most wants is 
 public investigation, which has always been 
 denied him; and daring Lady Byron and her 
 counsel to come out publicly. Found in M. G. 
 Lewis s portfolio after his death ; never heard of 
 before, except among the " initiated." 
 
 Having given M. G. Lewis s document time 
 to work, 
 
 January, 1818. Gives the fourth canto of 
 " Childe Harold " * to the public. 
 
 Jan. 25, 1819. Sends to Murray to print for 
 private circulation among the "initiated" the 
 first canto of " Don Juan." 
 
 Is nobly and severely rebuked for this insult 
 to his wife by the " Blackwood," August, 1819. 
 
 * Murray s edition of Byron s works, vol. ii. p. 189 ; date of dedication 
 to Hobhouse, Jan. 2, 1818. 
 
8O RESUME OF THE CONSPIRACY. 
 
 October, 1819. Gives Moore the manu 
 script Autobiography, with leave to show it to 
 whom he pleases, and print it after his death. 
 
 Oct. 29, 1819, vol. iv. letter 344. Writes to 
 Murray, that he may read all this Autobiogra 
 phy, and show it to anybody he likes. 
 
 Dec. 10, 1819. Writes to Murray on this 
 article in "Blackwood" against " Don Juan " and 
 himself, which, he supposes written by Wilson ; 
 sends a complimentary message to Wilson, and 
 asks him to read his Autobiography sent by 
 Moore. (Letter 350.) 
 
 March 15, 1820. Writes, and dedicates to I. 
 Disraeli, Esq., a vindication of himself in reply 
 to the " Blackwood " on " Don Juan," containing 
 an indignant defence of his own conduct in rela 
 tion to his wife, and maintaining that he never 
 yet has had an opportunity of knowing whereof 
 he has been accused ; accusing Sir S. Romilly of 
 taking his retainer, and then going over to the 
 adverse part , &c. Printed for private circula 
 tion; to be found in the standard English edition 
 of Murray, vol. ix. p. 57. 
 
RESUME OF THE CONSPIRACY. 8 1 
 
 To this condensed account of Byron s strategy 
 we must add the crowning stroke of policy 
 which transmitted this warfare to his friends, to 
 be continued after his death. 
 
 During the last visit Moore made him in Italy, 
 and just before Byron presented to him his 
 Autobiography, the following scene occurred, 
 as narrated by Moore (vol. iv. p. 221) : 
 
 " The chief subject of conversation, when alone, was his 
 marriage, and the load of obloquy which it had brought upon 
 him. He was most anxious to know the worst that had been 
 alleged of his conduct ; and, as this was our first opportunity of 
 speaking together on the subject, I did not hesitate to put his 
 candor most searchingly to the proof, not only by enumerating 
 the various charges I had heard brought against him by others, 
 but by specifying such portions of these chai-ges as I had been 
 inclined to think not incredible myself. 
 
 " To all this he listened with patience, and answered with 
 the most unhesitating frankness ; laughing to scorn the tales of 
 unmanly outrage related of him, but at the same time acknowl 
 edging that there had been in his conduct but too much to 
 blame and regret, and stating one or two occasions during his 
 domestic life when he had been irritated into letting the breath 
 of bitter words escape him, . . . which he now evidently 
 
82 RESUME OF THE CONSPIRACY. 
 
 remembered with a degree of remorse and pain which might 
 well have entitled them to be forgotten by others. 
 
 " It was, at the same time, manifest, that, whatever admis 
 sions he might be inclined to make respecting his own delin 
 quencies, the inordinate measure of the punishment dealt o^lt to 
 him had sunk deeply into his mind, and, with the usual effect of 
 such injustice, drove him also to be unjust himself ; so nmch so, 
 indeed, as to impute to the quarter to which he now traced all his 
 ill fate a feeling of fixed hostility to himself, which would not rest, 
 he thought, even at his grave, lut contimte to persecute his memory 
 as it was now imbittering his life. So strong was this impression 
 upon him, that, during one of our few intervals of seriousness, 
 he conjured me by our friendship, if, as he both felt and hoped, 
 I should survive him, not to let unmerited censure settle upon 
 his name." 
 
 In this same account, page 218, Moore testi 
 fies that 
 
 " Lord Byron disliked his countrymen, but only because he 
 knew that his morals were held in contempt by them. The 
 English, themselves rigid observers of family duties, could not 
 pardon him the neglect of his, nor his trampling on principles : 
 therefore neither did he like being presented to them, nor did 
 they, especially when they had wives with them, like to cultivate 
 his acquaintance. Still there was a strong desire in all of them 
 to see him ; and the women in particular, who did not dare to 
 
RESUME OF THE CONSPIRACY. 83 
 
 look at him but by stealth, said in an under-voice, What a pity 
 it is ! If, however, any of his compatriots of exalted rank and 
 high reputation came forward to treat him with courtesy, he 
 showed himself obviously flattered by it. It seemed, that, to 
 the wound which remained open in his ulcerated heart, such 
 soothing attentions were as drops of healing balm, which com 
 forted him." 
 
 When in society, we are further informed 
 by a lady quoted by Mr. Moore, he was in the 
 habit of speaking of his wife with much respect 
 and affection, as an illustrious lady, distinguished 
 for her qualities of heart and understanding ; 
 saying that all the fault of their cruel separation, 
 lay with himself. Mr. Moore seems at times to, 
 be somewhat puzzled by these contradictory 
 statements of his idol, and speculates not a 
 little on what could be Lord Byron s object in 
 using such language in public ; mentally com 
 paring it, we suppose, with the free handling 
 which he gave to the same subject in his private 
 correspondence. 
 
 The innocence with which Moore gives him 
 self up to be manipulated by Lord Byron, the 
 
84 RESUME OF THE CONSPIRACY. 
 
 naivete with which he shows all the process, 
 let us a little into the secret of the marvellous 
 powers of charming and blinding which this 
 great actor possessed. 
 
 Lord Byron had the beauty, the wit, the 
 genius, the dramatic talent, which have consti 
 tuted the strength of some wonderfully fascinat 
 ing women. 
 
 There have been women able to lead their 
 leashes of blinded adorers ; to make them swear 
 that black was white, or white black, at their 
 word ; to smile away their senses, or weep away 
 their reason. No matter what these sirens may 
 say, no matter what they may do, though caught 
 in a thousand transparent lies, and doing a 
 thousand deeds which would have ruined others, 
 still men madly rave after them in life, and tear 
 their hair over their graves. Such an enchanter 
 in man s shape was Lord Byron. 
 
 He led captive Moore and Murray by be 
 ing beautiful, a genius, and a lord ; calling 
 them " Dear Tom," and " Dear Murray," while 
 
RESUME OF THE CONSPIRACY. 85 
 
 they were only commoners. Pie first insulted 
 Sir Walter Scott, and then witched his heart 
 out of him by ingenuous confessions and poeti 
 cal compliments ; he took Wilson s heart by 
 flattering messages and a beautifully-written 
 letter ; he corresponded familiarly with Hogg ; 
 and, before his death, had made fast friends, 
 in one way or another, of the whole Noctes 
 Ambrosianas Club. 
 
 We thus have given the historical resum of 
 Lord Byron s attacks on his wife s reputation : 
 we shall add, that they were based on philo 
 sophic principles, showing a deep knowledge of 
 mankind. An analysis will show that they can 
 be philosophically classified : 
 
 ist, Those which addressed the sympathetic 
 nature of man, representing her as cold, method 
 ical, severe, strict, unforgiving. 
 
 2d, Those addressed to the faculty of associa 
 tion, connecting her with ludicrous and licen 
 tious images ; taking from her the usual protec 
 tion of womanly delicacy and sacredness. 
 
86 RESUME OF THE CONSPIRACY. 
 
 3d, Those addressed to the moral faculties, 
 accusing her as artful, treacherous, untruthful, 
 malignant. 
 
 All these various devices he held in his hand, 
 shuffling and dealing them as a careful gamester 
 his pack of cards according to the exigencies of 
 the game. He played adroitly, skilfully, with 
 blinding flatteries and seductive wiles, that 
 made his victims willing dupes. 
 
 Nothing can more clearly show the power 
 and perfectness of his enchantments than the 
 masterly way in which he turned back the moral 
 force of the whole English nation, which had 
 risen at first in its strength against him. The 
 victory was complete. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 A T the time of Lord Byron s death, the Eng 
 lish public had been so skilfully manipu 
 lated by the Byron propaganda, that the sympa 
 thy of the whole world was with him. A tide 
 of emotion was now aroused in England by his 
 early death, dying in the cause of Greece and 
 liberty. There arose a general wail for him, as 
 for a lost pleiad, not only in England, but over 
 the whole world ; a great rush of enthu 
 siasm for his memory, to which the greatest 
 literary men of England freely gave voice. By 
 general consent, Lady Byron seems to have 
 been looked upon as the only cold-hearted, un 
 sympathetic person in this general mourning. 
 
 From that time, the literary world of England 
 
 87 
 
88 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 apparently regarded Lady Byron as a woman to 
 whom none of the decorums, nor courtesies of 
 ordinary womanhood, nor even the consideration 
 belonging to common humanity, were due. 
 
 " She that is a widow indeed, and desolate," 
 has been regarded in all Christian countries as 
 an object made sacred by the touch of God s 
 afflicting hand, sacred in her very helplessness ; 
 and the old Hebrew Scriptures give to the 
 Supreme Father no dearer title than " the 
 widow s God." But, on Lord Byron s death, 
 men not devoid of tenderness, men otherwise 
 generous and of fine feeling, acquiesced in in 
 sults to his widow with an obtuseness that 
 seems, on review, quite incredible. 
 
 Lady Byron was not only a widow, but an 
 orphan. She had no sister for confidante ; no 
 father and mother to whom to go in her sor 
 rows, sorrows so much deeper and darker to 
 her than they could be to any other human 
 being.. She had neither son nor brother to 
 uphold and protect her. On all hands it was 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 89 
 
 acknowledged, that, so far, there was no fault to 
 be found in her but her utter silence. Her life 
 was confessed to be pure, useful, charitable ; and 
 yet, in this time of her sorrow, the writers of 
 England issued article upon article not only 
 devoid of delicacy, but apparently injurious and 
 insulting towards her, with a blind unconscious 
 ness which seems astonishing. 
 
 One of the greatest literary powers of that time 
 was the " Blackwood :" the reigning monarch on 
 that literary throne was Wilson, the lion-hearted, 
 the brave, generous, tender poet, and, with some 
 sad exceptions, the noble man. But Wilson had 
 believed the story of Byron, and, by his very 
 generosity and tenderness and pity, was betrayed 
 into injustice. 
 
 In "The Noctes " of November, 1824, there is 
 a conversation of the Noctes club, in which 
 North says, " Byron and I knew each other 
 pretty well ; and I suppose there s no harm in 
 adding, that we appreciated each other pretty 
 tolerably. Did you ever see his letter to me ? " 
 
gO RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 The footnote to this says, " This letter, which 
 was PRINTED in Byroiis lifetime, was not 
 published till 1830, when it appeared in Moore s 
 Life of Byron. It is one of the most vigor 
 ous prose compositions in the language. Byron 
 had the highest opinion of Wilson s genius and 
 noble spirit." 
 
 In the first place, with our present ideas of 
 propriety and good taste, we should reckon 
 it an indecorum to make the private affairs of a 
 pure and good woman, whose circumstances 
 from any point of view were trying, and who 
 evidently shunned publicity, the subject of pub 
 lic discussion in magazines which were read all 
 over the world. 
 
 Lady Byron, as they all knew, had on her 
 hands a most delicate and onerous task, in bring 
 ing up an only daughter, necessarily inheriting 
 peculiarities of genius and great sensitiveness ; 
 and the many mortifications and embarrassments 
 which such intermeddling with her private 
 matters must have given, certainly should have 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 9 1 
 
 been considered by men with any pretensions to 
 refinement or good feeling. 
 
 But the literati of England allowed her no 
 consideration, no rest, no privacy. 
 
 In "The Noctes " of November, 1825, there 
 is the record of a free conversation upon Lord 
 and Lady Byron s affairs, interlarded with exhor 
 tations to push the bottle, and remarks on 
 whiskey-toddy. Medwin s " Conversations with 
 Lord Byron " is discussed, which, we are told in 
 a note, appeared a few months after the noble 
 poet s death. 
 
 There is a rather bold and free discus 
 sion of Lord Byron s character, his fond 
 ness for gin and water, on which stimulus 
 he wrote " Don Juan ; " and James Hogg says 
 pleasantly to Mullion, " O Mullion ! it s a pity 
 you and Byron could na ha been acquaint. 
 There would ha been brave sparring to see 
 who could say the wildest and the dreadfullest 
 things ; for he had neither fear of man or wo 
 man, and would ha his joke or jeer, cost what it 
 
Q2 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 might." And then follows a specimen of one of 
 his jokes with an actress, that, in indecency, cer 
 tainly justifies the assertion. From the other 
 stories which follow, and the parenthesis that 
 occurs frequently, ( " Mind your glass, James, a 
 little more ! " ) it seems evident that the party 
 are progressing in their peculiar kind of civiliza 
 tion. 
 
 It is in this same circle and paper that Lady 
 Byron s private affairs come up for discussion. 
 The discussion is thus elegantly introduced : 
 
 Hogg. " Reach me the black bottle. I say, Christopher, 
 what, after all, is your opinion o Lord and Leddy Byron s 
 quarrel ? Do you yoursel take part with him, or with her ? I 
 wad like to hear your real opinion." 
 
 North. " Oh, dear ! Well, Hogg, since you will have it, I 
 think Douglas Kinnaird and Hobhouse are bound to tell us 
 whether there be any truth, and how much, in this story about 
 the declaration, signed by Sir Ralph " [Milbanke]. 
 
 The note here tells us that this refers to a 
 statement that appeared in " Blackwood " imme 
 diately after Byron s death, to the effect, that, 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 93 
 
 previous to the formal separation from his wife, 
 Byron required and obtained from Sir Ralph 
 Milbanke, Lady Byron s father, a statement to 
 the effect that Lady Byron had no charge of 
 moral delinquency to bring against him."* 
 North continues : 
 
 " And I think Lady Byron s letter, the Dearest Duck one 
 I mean, should really be forthcoming, if her ladyship s friends 
 wish to stand fair before the public. At present, we have noth 
 ing but loose talk of society to go upon ; and certainly, if the 
 things that are said be true, there must be thorough explanation 
 from some quarter, or the tide will continue, as it Jias assuredly 
 begun, toflmu in a direction very opposite to what we were for years 
 accustomed. Sir, they must explain (his business of the letter. 
 You have, of course, heard about the invitation it contained, 
 the warm, affectionate invitation, to Kirkby Mallory " 
 
 Hogg interposes, 
 
 " I clinna like to be intei-ruptin ye, Mr. North ; but I must 
 inquire, Is the jug to stand still while ye re going on at that 
 rate ? " 
 
 * Recently, Lord Lindsay has published another version of this story, 
 which makes it appear that he has conversed with a lady who conversed with 
 Hobhouse during his lifetime, in which this story is differently reported. In 
 the last version, it is made to appear that Hobhouse got this declaration 
 from Lady Byron her?elf. 
 
94 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 North. " There, Porker ! These things are part and par 
 cel of the chatter of every bookseller s shop ; "a fortiori, of every 
 drawing-room in May Fair. Can the matter stop here ? Can a 
 great man s memory be permitted to incur damnation while 
 these saving clauses are afloat anywhere uncontradicted ? " 
 
 And from this the conversation branches off 
 into strong, emphatic praise of Byron s conduct 
 in Greece- during the last part of his life. 
 
 The silent widow is thus delicately and con 
 siderately reminded in the " Blackwood " that 
 she is the talk, not only over the whiskey-jug of 
 the Noctes, but in every drawing-room in Lon 
 don ; and that she must speak out and explain 
 matters, or the whole world will set against her. 
 
 But she does not speak yet. The public per 
 secution, therefore, proceeds. Medwin s book 
 being insufficient, another biographer is to be 
 selected. Now, the person in the Noctes club 
 who was" held to have the most complete informa 
 tion of the Byron affairs, and was, on that ac 
 count, first thought of by Murray to execute this 
 very delicate task of writing a Memoir which 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 95 
 
 should include the most sacred domestic affairs 
 of a noble lady and her orphan daughter, was 
 Maginn. Maginn, the author of the pleasant 
 joke, that " man never reaches the apex of civi 
 lization till he is too drunk to pronounce the 
 word," was the first person in whose hands the 
 Autobiography, Memoirs, and Journals of Lord 
 Byron were placed with this view. 
 
 The following note from Shelton Mackenzie, 
 in the June number of "The Noctes," 1824, 
 says, 
 
 " At that time, had he been so minded, Maginn (Odoherty) 
 could have got up a popular Life of Byron as well as most 
 men in England. Immediately on the account of Byron s death 
 being received in London, John Murray proposed that Maginn 
 should bring out Memoirs, Journals, and Letters of Lord Byron, 
 and, with this intent, placed in his hand every line that he 
 (Murray) possessed in Byron s handwriting. . . . The strong 
 desire of Byron V family and executors that the Autobiography 
 should be burned, to which desire Murray foolishly yielded, 
 made such an hiatus in the materials, that Murray and Maginn 
 agreed it would not answer to bring out the work then. Event 
 ually Moore executed it." 
 
96 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 The character of the times in which this work 
 was to be undertaken will appear from the fol 
 lowing note of Mackenzie s to " The Noctes " of 
 August, 1824, which we copy, with the author s 
 own Italics : 
 
 "In the Blackwood of July, 1824, was a poetical epistle by 
 the renowned Timothy Tickler, to the editor of the John 
 Bull magazine, on an article in his first number. This article 
 . . . professed to be a portion of the veritable Autobiography 
 of Byron which was burned, and was called My Wedding 
 Night. It appeared to relate in detail eicry thing that oc 
 curred in the twenty-four hours immediately succeeding that in 
 which Byron was married. It had plenty of coarseness, 
 and some to spare. It went into particulars such as hitherto 
 had been given only by Faublas ; and it had, notwithstanding, 
 many phrases and some facts which evidently did not belong to 
 a mere fabricator. Some years after, I compared this Wed 
 ding Night with what I had all assurance of having been 
 transcribed from the actual manuscripts of Byron, and was per 
 suaded that the magazine-writer must have had the actual state 
 ment before him, or have had a perusal of it. The writer in 
 Blackwood declared his conviction that it really was Byron s 
 own writing." 
 
 The reader must remember that Lord Byron 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. Q/ 
 
 died April, 1824: so that, according to this, his 
 Autobiography was made the means of this 
 gross insult to his widow three months after his 
 death. 
 
 If some powerful cause had not paralyzed all 
 feelings of gentlemanly honor, and of womanly 
 delicacy, and of common humanity, towards 
 Lady Byron, throughout the whole British 
 nation, no editor would have dared to open a 
 periodical with such an article ; or, if he had, he 
 would have been overwhelmed with a storm 
 of popular indignation, which, like the fire 
 upon Sodom, would have left him a pillar 
 of salt for a warning to all future genera 
 tions. 
 
 " Blackweod " reproves " The John Bull " in a 
 poetical epistle, recognizing the article as 
 coming from Byron, and says to the author, 
 
 " But that_y<?, sir, a wit and a scholar like you, 
 Should not blush to produce what he blushed not to do, 
 Take your compliment, youngster : this doubles, almost, 
 The sorrow tfaat rose when his honor was lost." 
 7 
 
98 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 We may not wonder that the Autobiography 
 was burned, as Murray says in a recent account, 
 by a committee of Byron s friends, including 
 Hobhouse, his sister, and Murray himself. 
 
 Now, the " Blackwood " of July, 1824, thus de 
 clares its conviction that this outrage on every 
 sentiment of human decency came from Lord 
 Byron, and that his honor was lost. Maginn 
 does not undertake the Memoir. No Memoir at 
 all is undertaken ; till finally Moore is selected, 
 as, like Demetrius of old, a well-skilled gilder 
 and " maker of silver shrines," though not for 
 Diana. To Moore is committed the task of 
 doing his best for this battered image, in which 
 even the worshippers recognize foul sulphurous 
 cracks, but which they none the less stand 
 ready to worship as a genuine article that " fell 
 down from Jupiter." 
 
 Moore was a man of no particular nicety as to 
 moralities, but in that matter seems not very 
 much below what this record shows his average 
 associates to be. He is so far superior to 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 99 
 
 Maginn, that his vice is rose-colored and refined. 
 He does not burst out with such heroic stanzas 
 as Maginn s frank invitation to Jeremy Ben- 
 tham : 
 
 " Jeremy, throw your pen aside, 
 
 And come get. drunk with me ; 
 And we ll go where Bacchus sits astride, 
 Perched high on barrels three." 
 
 Moore s vice is cautious, soft, seductive, 
 slippery, and covered at times with a thin, 
 tremulous veil of religious sentimentalism. 
 
 In regard to Byron, he was an unscrupulous, 
 committed partisan : he was as much bewitched 
 by him as ever man has been by woman ; and 
 therefore to him, at last, the task of editing 
 Byron s Memoirs was given. 
 
 This Byron, whom they all knew to be 
 obscene beyond what even their most drunken 
 tolerance could at first endure ; this man, 
 whose foul license spoke out what most 
 men conceal from mere respect to the decent 
 instincts of humanity ; whose " honor was lost," 
 
IOO RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 was submitted to this careful manipulator, to 
 be turned out a perfected idol for a world longing 
 for one, as the Israelites longed for the calf 
 in Horeb. 
 
 The image was to be invested with deceitful 
 glories and shifting haloes, admitted faults 
 spoken of as peculiarities of sacred origin, 
 and the world given to understand that no 
 common rule or measure could apply to such 
 an undoubtedly divine production ; and so the 
 hearts of men were to be wrung with pity for 
 his sorrows as the yearning pain of a god, and 
 with anger at his injuries as sacrilege on the 
 sacredness of genius, till they were ready to 
 cast themselves at his feet, and adore. 
 
 Then he was to be set up on a pedestal, like 
 Nebuchadnezzar s image on the plains of Dura ; 
 and what time the world heard the sound of 
 cornet, sackbut, and dulcimer, in his enchanting 
 verse, they were to fall down and worship. 
 
 For Lady Byron, Moore had simply the respect 
 that a commoner has for a lady of rank, and a 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S BEA TH. IOI 1 
 
 good deal of the feeling that seems to underlie 
 all English literature, that it is no matter what 
 becomes of the woman when the man s story is 
 to be told. But, with all his faults, Moore was 
 not a cruel man ; and we cannot conceive such 
 outrageous cruelty and ungentlemanly indelicacy 
 towards an unoffending woman, as he shows in 
 these Memoirs, without referring them to Lord 
 Byron s own influence in making him an un 
 scrupulous, committed partisan on his side. 
 
 So little pity, so little sympathy, did he sup 
 pose Lady Byron to be worthy of, that he 
 laid before her, in the sight of all the world, 
 selections from her husband s letters and jour 
 nals, in which the privacies of her courtship 
 and married life were jested upon with a vulgar 
 levity ; letters filled, from the time of the act 
 of separation, with a constant succession of 
 sarcasms, stabs, stings, epigrams, and vindictive 
 allusions to herself, bringing her into direct 
 and insulting comparison with his various mis 
 tresses, and implying their superiority over 
 
10n .RTSSULTS AFTBR LORD BYRON*S DEATH. 
 
 her. There, too, were gross attacks on her 
 father and mother, as having been the instiga 
 tors of the separation ; and poor Lady Mil- 
 banke, in particular, is sometimes mentioned 
 with epithets so offensive, that the editor pru 
 dently covers the terms with stars, as intending 
 language too gross to be printed. 
 
 The last mistress of Lord Byron is uniformly 
 brought forward in terms of such respect and 
 consideration, that one would suppose that the 
 usual moral laws that regulate English family 
 life had been specially repealed in his favor. 
 Moore quotes with approval letters from Shel 
 ley, stating that Lord Byron s connection with 
 La Guiccioli has been of inestimable benefit to 
 him; and that he is now becoming what he 
 should be, " a virtuous man." Moore goes on to 
 speak of the connection as one, though somewhat 
 reprehensible, yet as having all those advantages 
 of marriage and settled domestic ties that Byron s 
 affectionate spirit had long sighed for, but never 
 before found ; and in his last resume of the 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. IO3 
 
 poet s character, at the end of the volume, he 
 brings the mistress into direct comparison with 
 the wife in a single sentence : " The woman to 
 whom he gave the love of his maturer years 
 idolizes his name ; and, with a single tmhappy 
 exception, scarce an instance is to be found of 
 one brought . . . into relations of amity with 
 him who did not retain a kind regard for him in 
 life, and a fondness for his memory." 
 
 Literature has never yet seen the instance of 
 a person, of Lady Byron s rank in life, placed 
 before the world in a position more humiliating 
 to womanly dignity, or wounding to womanly 
 delicacy. 
 
 The direct implication is, that she has no feel 
 ings to be hurt, no heart to be broken, and is 
 not worthy even of the consideration which in 
 ordinary life is to be accorded to a widow who 
 has received those awful tidings which generally 
 must awaken many emotions, and call for some 
 consideration, even in the most callous hearts. 
 
 The woman who we are told walked the 
 
IO4 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 room, vainly striving to control the sobs that 
 shook her frame, while she sought to draw from 
 the servant that last message of her husband 
 which she was never to hear, was not thought 
 worthy even of the rights of common hu 
 manity. 
 
 The first volume of the Memoir came out in 
 1830. Then for the first time came one flash 
 of lightning from the silent cloud ; and she who 
 had never spoken before spoke out. The libels 
 on the memory of her dead parents drew from 
 her what her own wrongs never did. During 
 all this time, while her husband had been keep 
 ing her effigy dangling before the public as a 
 mark for solemn curses, and filthy lampoons, and 
 secretly-circulated disclosures, that spared no 
 sacredness and violated every decorum, she had 
 not uttered a word. She had been subjected to 
 nameless insults, discussed in the assemblies of 
 drunkards, and challenged to speak for herself. 
 Like the chaste lady in " Comus," whom the vile 
 wizard had bound in the enchanted seat to be 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 1 05 
 
 " grinned at and chattered at " by all the filthy 
 rabble of his dehumanized rout, she had re 
 mained pure, lofty, and undefiled ; and the stains 
 of mud and mire thrown upon her had fallen 
 from her spotless garments. 
 
 Now that she is. dead, a recent writer in "The 
 London Quarterly " dares give voice to an insin 
 uation which even Byron gave only a suggestion 
 of when he called his wife Clytemnestra ; and 
 hints that she tried the power of youth and 
 beauty to win to her the young solicitor Lushing- 
 ton, and a handsome young officer of high rank. 
 
 At this time, such insinuations had not been 
 thought of; and the only and chief allegation 
 against Lady Byron had been a cruel severity 
 of virtue. 
 
 At all events, when Lady Byron spoke, the 
 world listened with respect, and believed what 
 she said. 
 
 Here let us, too, read her statement, and 
 give it the careful attention she solicits 
 (Moore s Life of Byron, vol. vi. p. 275) : 
 
106 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 " I have disregarded various publications in which facts 
 within my own knowledge have been grossly misrepresented ; 
 but I am called upon to notice some of the erroneous statements 
 proceeding from one who claims to be considered as Lord 
 Byron s confidential and authorized friend. Domestic details 
 ought not to be intruded on the public attention : if, however, 
 they are so intruded, the persons affected by them have a right 
 to refute injurious charges. Mr. Moore has promulgated his 
 own impressions of private events in which I was most nearly 
 concerned, as if he possessed a competent knowledge of the 
 subject. Having survived Lord Byron, I feel increased reluc 
 tance to advert to any circumstances connected with the period 
 of my marriage ; nor is it now my intention to disclose them 
 further than may be indispensably requisite for the end I have 
 in view. Self-vindication is not the motive which actuates me 
 to make this appeal, and the spirit of accusation is unmingled 
 with it ; but when the conduct of my parents is brought for 
 ward in a disgraceful light by the passages selected from Lord 
 Byron s letters, and by the remarks of his biographer, I feel 
 bound to justify their characters from imputations which I 
 know to be false. The passages from Lord Byron s letters, to 
 which I refer, are, the aspersion on my mother s character 
 (p. 648, 1. 4) : * My child is very well and flourishing, I hear ; 
 
 * The references are to the first volume of the first edition of Moore s 
 Life, originally published by itself. 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. IO/ 
 
 but I must see also. I feel no disposition to resign it to the 
 contagion of its grandmother" 1 s society." 1 The assertion of her dis 
 honorable conduct in employing a spy (p. 645, 1. 7, &c.) : A 
 Mrs. C. (now a kind of housekeeper and spy. of Lady Ws), 
 who, in her better days, was a washerwoman, is supposed to be 
 by the learned very much the occult cause of our domestic 
 discrepancies. The seeming exculpation of myself in the 
 extract (p. 646), with the words immediately following it, Her 
 nearest relations are a ; where the blank clearly implies 
 something too offensive for publication. These passages tend 
 to throw suspicion on my parents, and give reason to ascribe 
 the separation either to their direct agency, or to that of offi 
 cious spies employed by them.* From the following part of 
 the narrative (p. 642), it must also be inferred that an undue 
 influence was exercised by them for the accomplishment of this 
 purpose : It was in a few weeks after the latter communication 
 between us (Lord Byron and Mr. Moore) that Lady Byron 
 adopted the determination of parting from him. She had left 
 London at the latter end of January, on a visit to her father s 
 house in Leicestershire ; and Lord Byron was in a short time 
 to follow her. They had parted in the utmost kindness, she 
 wrote him a letter, full of playfulness and affection, on the road ; 
 and, immediately on her arrival at Kirkby Mallory, her father 
 wrote to acquaint Lord Byron that she would return to him no 
 more. 
 
 * " The officious spies f his privacy," p. 650. 
 
IO8 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 " In my observations upon this statement, I shall, as far as 
 possible, avoid touching on any matters relating personally to 
 Lord Byron and myself. The facts are, I left London for 
 Kirkby Mallory, the residence of my father and mother, on the 
 1 5th of January, 1816. Lord Byron had signified to me in 
 writing (Jan. 6) his absolute desire that I should leave 
 London on the earliest day that I could conveniently fix. It 
 was not safe for me to undertake the fatigue of a journey sooner 
 than the I5th. Previously to my departure, it had been strongly 
 impressed on my mind that Lord Byron was under the influence 
 of insanity. This opinion was derived in a great measure from 
 the communications made to me by his nearest relatives and 
 personal attendant, who had more opportunities than myself 
 of observing him during the latter part of my stay in town. It 
 was even represented to me that he was in danger of destroying 
 himself. With the concurrence of his family, I had consulted 
 Dr. Baillie, as a friend (Jan. 8), respecting this supposed mal 
 ady. On acquainting him with the state of the case, and with 
 Lord Byron s desire that I should leave London, Dr. Baillie 
 thought that my absence might be advisable as an experiment, 
 assuming the fact of mental derangement ; for Dr. Baillie, not 
 having had access to Lord Byron, could not pronounce a posi 
 tive opinion on that point. He enjoined, that, in correspond 
 ence with Lord Byron, I should avoid all but light and soothing 
 topics. Under these impressions, I left London, determined to 
 follow the advice given by Dr. Baillie. Whatever might have 
 been the nature of Lord Byron s conduct towards me from the 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. IOQ 
 
 time of my marriage, yet, supposing him to be in a state of 
 mental alienation, it was not for me, nor for any person of com 
 mon humanity, to manifest at that moment a sense of injury. 
 On the day of my departure, and again on my arrival at Kirkby 
 (Jan. 1 6), I wrote to Lord Byron in a kind and cheerful tone, 
 according to those medical directions. 
 
 " The last letter was circulated, and employed as a pretext 
 for the charge of my having been subsequently infliienced to 
 desert * my husband. It has been argued that I parted from 
 Lord Byron in perfect harmony ; that feelings incompatible with 
 any deep sense of injury had dictated the letter which I ad 
 dressed to him ; and that my sentiments must have been 
 changed by persuasion and interference when I was under the 
 roof of my parents. These assertions and inferences are wholly 
 destitute of foundation. When I arrived at Kirkby Mallory, 
 my parents were unacquainted with the existence of any causes 
 likely to destroy my prospects of happiness ; and, when I com 
 municated to them the opinion which had been formed concern 
 ing Lord Byron s state of mind, they were most anxious to 
 promote his restoration by every means in their power. They 
 assured those relations who were with him in London, that 
 they would devote their whole care and attention to the alle 
 viation of his malady ; and hoped to make the best arrange 
 ments for his comfort, if he could be induced to visit them. 
 
 " With these intentions, my mother wrote on the I7th to 
 
 * " The deserted husband," p. 651. 
 
I 10 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 Lord Byron, inviting him to Kirkby Mallory. She had always 
 treated him with an affectionate consideration and indulgence, 
 which extended to every little peculiarity of his feelings. Never 
 did an irritating word escape her lips in her whole intercourse 
 with him. The accounts given me after I left Lord Byron, by 
 the persons in constant intercourse with him, added to those 
 doubts which had before transiently occurred to my mind as to 
 the reality of the alleged disease; and the reports of his medical 
 attendant were far from establishing the existence of any thing 
 like lunacy. Under this uncertainty, I deemed it right to com 
 municate to my parents, that, if I were to consider Lord Byron s 
 past conduct as that of a person of sound mind, nothing could 
 induce me to return to him. It therefore appeared expedient, 
 both to them and myself, to consult the ablest advisers. For 
 that object, and also to obtain still further information respecting 
 the appearances which seemed to indicate mental derangement, 
 my mother determined to go to London. She was empowered 
 by me to take legal opinions on a written statement of mine, 
 though I had then reasons for reserving a part of the case from 
 the knowledge even of my father and mother. Being convinced 
 by the result of these inquiries, and by the tenor of Lord By 
 ron s proceedings, that the notion. of insanity was an illusion, I 
 no longer hesitated to authorize such measures as were necessary 
 in order to secure me from being ever again placed in his power. 
 Conformably with this resolution, my father wrote to him on 
 the 2d of February to propose an amicable separation. Lord 
 Byron at first rejected this proposal ; but when it was distinctly 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. Ill 
 
 notified to him, that, if he persisted in his refusal, recourse must 
 be had to legal measures, he agreed to sign a deed of separation. 
 Upon applying to Dr. Lushington, who was intimately ac 
 quainted with all the circumstances, to state in writing what 
 he recollected upon this subject, I received from him the follow 
 ing letter, by which it will be manifest that my mother cannot 
 have been actuated by any hostile or ungenerous motives towards 
 Lord Byron : 
 
 " MY DEAR LADY BYRON, I can rely upon the accuracy 
 of my memory for the following statement. I was originally 
 consulted by Lady Noel, on your behalf, whilst you were in the 
 country. The circumstances detailed by her were such as justi 
 fied a separation ; but they were not of that aggravated descrip 
 tion as to render such a measure indispensable. On Lady Noel s 
 representation, I deemed a reconciliation with Lord Byron prac 
 ticable, and felt most sincerely a wish to aid in effecting it. 
 There was not on Lady Noel s part any exaggeration of the 
 facts ; nor, so far as I could perceive, any determination to pre 
 vent a return to Lord Byron : certainly none was expressed 
 when I spoke of a reconciliation. When you came to town, in 
 about a fortnight, or perhaps more, after my first interview with 
 Lady Noel, I was for the first time informed by you of facts 
 utterly unknown, as I have no doubt, to Sir Ralph and Lady 
 Noel. On receiving this additional information, my opinion was 
 entirely changed : I considered a reconciliation impossible. I 
 declared my opinion, and added, that, if such an idea should be 
 entertained, I could not, either professionally or otherwise, take 
 any part towards effecting it. 
 
 " Believe me, very faithfully yours, 
 
 " STEPH. LUSHINGTON. 
 
 "GREAT GEORGE STREET, Jan. 31, 1830. 
 
112 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 " I have only to observe, that, if the statements on which my 
 legal advisers (the late Sir Samuel Romilly and Dr. Lushing- 
 ton) formed their opinions were false, the responsibility and the 
 odium should rest with me only. I trust that the facts which I 
 have here briefly recapitulated will absolve my father and 
 mother from all accusations with regard to the part they took in 
 the separation between Lord Byron and myself. 
 
 " They neither originated, instigated, nor advised that sepa 
 ration ; and they cannot be condemned for having afforded to 
 their daughter the assistance and protection which she claimed. 
 There is no other near relative to vindicate their memory from 
 insult. I am therefore compelled to break the silence which I 
 had hoped always to observe, and to solicit from the readers of 
 Lord Byron s Life an impartial consideration of the testimony 
 extorted from me. " A. I. NOEL BYRON. 
 
 "HANGER HILL, Feb. 19, 1830." 
 
 The effect of this statement on the literary 
 world may be best judged by the discussion of 
 it by Christopher North (Wilson) in the suc 
 ceeding May number of " The Noctes," where 
 the bravest and most generous of literary men 
 that then were himself the husband of a gen 
 tle wife thus gives sentence : the conversa 
 tion is between North and the Shepherd : 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 113 
 
 North. " God forbid I should wound the feelings of Lady 
 Byron, of whose character, known to me but by the high esti 
 mation in which it is held by all who have enjoyed her friend 
 ship, I have always spoken with respect ! . . . But may I, 
 without harshness or indelicacy, say, here among ourselves, 
 James, that, by marrying Byron, she took upon herself, with 
 eyes wide open and conscience clearly convinced, duties very 
 different from those of which, even in common cases, the pre 
 saging foresight shadows . . . the light of the first nuptial 
 moon ? " 
 
 Shepherd. " She did that, sir ; by my troth, she did that." 
 
 North. " Miss Milbanke knew that he was reckoned a 
 rake and a roue ; and although his genius wiped off, by impas 
 sioned eloquence in love-letters that were felt to be irresistible, 
 or hid the worst stain of, that reproach, still Miss Milbanke must 
 have believed it a perilous thing to be the wife of Lord Byron. 
 . . . But still, by joining her life to his in marriage, she pledged 
 her troth and her faith and her love, under probabilities of se 
 vere, disturbing, perhaps fearful trials, in the future. . . . 
 
 " But I think Lady Byron ought not to have printed that 
 Narrative. Death abrogates not the rights of a husband to his 
 wife s silence when speech is fatal ... to his character as 
 a man. Has she not flung suspicion over his bones interred, 
 that they are the bones of a monster ? ... If Byron s sins or 
 crimes for we are driven to use terrible terms were unen 
 durable and unforgivable as if against the Holy Ghost, ought 
 
I 14 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 the wheel, the rack, or the stake to have extorted that confession 
 from his widow s breast ? . . . But there was no such pain 
 here, James : the declaration was voluntary, and it was calm. 
 Self-collected, and gathering up all her faculties and feelings 
 into unshrinking strength, she denounced before all the world 
 and throughout all space and all time her husband, as excom 
 municated by his vices from woman s bosom. 
 
 " Twas to vindicate the character of her parents that Lady 
 Byron wrote, a holy purpose and devout, nor do I doubt sin 
 cere. But filial affection and reverence, sacred as they are, may 
 be blamelessly, nay, righteously, subordinate to conjugal duties, 
 which die not with the dead, are extinguished not even by the 
 sins of the dead, were they as foul as the grave s corruption." 
 
 Here is what John Stuart Mill calls the lite 
 rature of slavery for woman, in length and 
 breadth ; and, that all women may understand 
 the doctrine, the Shepherd now takes up his par 
 able, and expounds the true position of the wife. 
 We render his Scotch into English : 
 
 " Not a few such widows do I know, whom brutal, profligate, 
 and savage husbands have brought to the brink of the grave, 
 as good, as bright, as innocent as, and far more forgiving than, 
 Lady Byron. There they sit in their obscure, rarely-visited dwell- 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 115 
 
 ings ; for sympathy instructed by suffering knows well that the 
 deepest and most hopeless misery is least given to complaint." 
 
 Then follows a pathetic picture of one such 
 widow, trembling and fainting for hunger, 
 obliged, on her way to the well for a can of 
 water, her only drink, to sit down on a " knowe" 
 and say a prayer. 
 
 " Yet she s decently, yea, tidily dressed, poor creature ! in 
 sair worn widow s clothes, a single suit for Saturday and Sun 
 day ; her hair, untimely gray, is neatly braided under her crape 
 cap ; and sometimes, when all is still and solitary in the fields, 
 and all labor has disappeared into the house, you may see her 
 stealing by herself, or leading one wee orphan by the hand, with 
 another at her breast, to the kirkyard, where the love of her 
 youth and the husband of her prime is buried." 
 
 "Yet," says the Shepherd, "he was a brute, a ruffian, a mon 
 ster. When drunk, how he raged and cursed and swore ! 
 Often did she dread, that, in his fits of inhuman passion, he 
 would have murdered the baby at her breast ; for she had seen 
 him dash their only little boy, a child of eight years old, on the 
 floor, till the blood gushed from his ears ; and then the madman 
 threw himself down on the body, and howled for the" gallows. 
 Limmers haunted his door, and he theirs ; and it was hers to 
 lie, not sleep, in a cold, forsaken bed, once the bed of peace, 
 
Il6 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON*S DEATH. 
 
 affection, and perfect happiness. Often he struck her ; and 
 once, when she was pregnant with that very orphan now smil 
 ing on her breast, reaching out his wee fingers to touch the flow 
 ers on his father s grave. . . . 
 
 " But she tries to smile among the neighbors, and speaks of 
 her boy s likeness to its father ; nor, when the conversation 
 turns on bygone times, does she fear to let his name escape her 
 white lips, My Robert ; the bairn s not ill-favored, but he will 
 never look like his father, and such sayings, uttered in a 
 calm, sweet voice. Nay, I remember once how her pale coun 
 tenance reddened with a sudden flush of pride, when a gossip 
 ing crone alluded to their wedding ; and the widow s eye 
 brightened through her tears to hear how the bridegroom, sit 
 ting that sabbath in his front seat beside his bonny bride, had 
 not his equal for strength, stature, and all that is beauty in man, 
 in all the congregation. That, I say, sir, whether right or 
 wrong, was forgiveness" 
 
 Here is a specimen of how even generous 
 men had been so perverted by the enchantment 
 of Lord Byron s genius, as to turn all the pathos 
 and power of the strongest literature of that 
 day against the persecuted, pure woman, and for 
 the strong, wicked man. These " Blackwood " 
 writers knew, by Byron s own filthy, ghastly 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 1 1/ 
 
 writings, which had gone sorely against their 
 own moral stomachs, that he was foul to the 
 bone. They could see, in Moore s Memoirs 
 right before them, how he had caught an inno 
 cent girl s heart by sending a love-letter, and 
 offer of marriage, at the end of a long friendly 
 correspondence, a letter that had been written 
 to show to his libertine set, and sent on the toss- 
 up of a copper, because he cared nothing for it 
 one way or the other. 
 
 They admit, that, having won this poor girl, 
 he had been savage, brutal, drunken, cruel. 
 They had read the filthy taunts in " Don Juan," 
 and the nameless abominations in the Auto 
 biography. They had admitted among them 
 selves that his honor was lost ; but still this 
 abused, desecrated woman must reverence her 
 brutal master s memory, and not speak, even to 
 defend the grave of her own kind father and 
 mother. 
 
 That there was no lover of her youth, 
 that the marriage-vow had been a hideous, 
 
IlS RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON*S DEATH. 
 
 shameless cheat, is on the face of Moore s 
 account ; yet the " Blackwood " does not see it 
 nor feel it, and brings up against Lady Byron 
 this touching story of a poor widow, who really 
 had had a true lover once, a lover maddened, 
 imbruted, lost, through that very drunkenness 
 in which the Noctes Club were always glorying. 
 
 It is because of such transgressors as Byron, 
 such supporters as Moore and the Noctes Club, 
 that there are so many helpless, cowering, 
 broken-hearted, abject women, given over to 
 the animal love which they share alike with the 
 poor dog, the dog, who, beaten, kicked, starved, 
 and cuffed, still lies by his drunken master with 
 great anxious eyes of love and sorrow, and 
 with sweet, brute forgiveness nestles upon his 
 bosom, as he lies in his filth in the snowy ditch, 
 to keep the warmth of life in him. Great is the 
 mystery of this fidelity in the poor, loving 
 brute, most mournful and most sacred ! 
 
 But oh, that a noble man should have no higher 
 ideal of the love of a high-souled, heroic woman ! 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 119 
 
 Oh, that men should teach women that they 
 have no higher duties, and are capable of no 
 higher tenderness, than this loving, unquestion 
 ing animal fidelity ! The dog is ever-loving, 
 ever-forgiving, because God has given him no 
 high range of moral faculties, no sense of 
 justice, no consequent horror at impurity and 
 vileness. 
 
 Much of the beautiful patience and for 
 giveness of women is made possible to them 
 by that utter deadness to the sense of justice 
 which the laws, literature, and misunderstood 
 religion of England have sought to induce in 
 woman as a special grace and virtue. 
 
 The lesson to woman in this pathetic piece of 
 special pleading is, that man may sink himself 
 below the brute, may wallow in filth like the 
 swine, may turn his home into a hell, beat and 
 torture his children, forsake the marriage-bed 
 for foul rivals ; yet all this does not dissolve 
 
 r~ 
 
 the marriage-vow on her part, nor free his 
 bounden serf from her obligation to honor his 
 
120 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH.* 
 
 memory, nay, to sacrifice to it the honor due 
 to a kind father and mother, slandered in their 
 silent graves. 
 
 Such was the sympathy, and such the 
 advice, that the best literature of England 
 could give to a young widow, a peeress 
 of England, whose husband, as they verily 
 believed and admitted, might have done 
 worse than all this ; whose crimes might have 
 been "foul, monstrous, unforgivable as the sin 
 against the Holy Ghost." If these things be 
 done in the green tree, what shall be done in 
 the dry ? If the peeress as a wife has no rights, 
 what is the state of the cotter s wife ? 
 
 But, in the same paper, North again blames 
 Lady Byron for not having come out with the 
 whole story before the world at the time she 
 separated from her husband. He says of the 
 time when she first consulted counsel through 
 her mother, keeping back one item, 
 
 " How weak, and worse than weak, at such a juncture, on 
 which hung her whole fate, to ask legal advice on an imperfect 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 121 
 
 document ! Give the delicacy of a virtuous woman its due ; 
 but at such a crisis, when the question was whether her con 
 science was to be free from the oath of oaths, delicacy should 
 have died, and nature was privileged to show unashamed if 
 such there were the records of uttermost pollution." 
 
 Shepherd. " And what think ye, sir, that a this pollution 
 could hae been, that sae electrified Dr. Lushington ? " 
 
 North. " Bad bad bad, James. Nameless, it is horri 
 ble : named, it might leave Byron s memory yet within the 
 range of pity and forgiveness ; and, where they are, their sister 
 affections will not be far ; though, like weeping seraphs, stand 
 ing aloof, and veiling their wings." 
 
 Shepherd. " She should, indeed hae been silent till the 
 grave had closed on her sorrows as on his sins." 
 
 North. "Even now she should speak, or some one else for 
 her, ... and a few words will suffice. Worse the condition of 
 the dead man s name cannot be far, far better it might I 
 believe it would be were all the truth somehow or other 
 declared ; and declared it must be, not for Byron s sake only, 
 but for the sake of humanity itself; and then a mitigated sen 
 tence, or eternal silence." 
 
 We have another discussion of Lady Byron s 
 duties in a further number of " Blackwood." 
 
 The Memoir being out, it was proposed that 
 there should be a complete annotation of 
 
122 RESULTS AFTER LORD LYRON s DEATH. 
 
 Byron s works gotten up, and adorned, for the 
 further glorification of his memory, with portraits 
 of the various women whom he had delighted to 
 honor. 
 
 Murray applied to Lady Byron for her por 
 trait, and was met with a cold, decided negative. 
 After reading all the particulars of Byron s 
 harem of mistresses, and Moore s comparisons 
 between herself and La Guiccioli, one might 
 imagine reasons why a lady, with proper self- 
 respect, should object to appearing in this 
 manner. One would suppose there might have 
 been gentlemen who could well appreciate the 
 motive of that refusal ; but it was only con 
 sidered a new evidence that she was indifferent 
 to her conjugal duties, and wanting in that 
 respect which Christopher North had told her 
 she owed a husband s memory, though his 
 crimes were foul as the rottenness of the grave. 
 
 Never, since Queen Vashti refused to come 
 at the command of a drunken husband to 
 show herself to his drunken lords, was there 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 123 
 
 a clearer case of disrespect to the marital dig 
 nity on the part of a wife. It was a plain act 
 of insubordination, rebellion against law and 
 order ; and how shocking in Lady Byron, who 
 ought to feel herself but too much flattered to 
 be exhibited to the public as the head wife of a 
 man of genius ! 
 
 Means were at once adopted to subdue her 
 contumacy, of which one may read in a note to 
 the "Blackwood" (Noctes), September, 1832. 
 An artist was sent down to Ealing to take her 
 picture by stealth as she sat in church. Two 
 sittings were thus obtained without her knowl 
 edge. In the third one, the artist placed himself 
 boldly before her, and sketched, so that she could 
 not but observe him. We shall give the rest in 
 Mackenzie s own words, as a remarkable speci 
 men of the obtuseness, not to say indelicacy of 
 feeling, which seemed to pervade the literary 
 circles of England at the time : 
 
 " After prayers, Wright and his friend (the artist) were 
 visited by an ambassador from her ladyship to inquire the 
 
124 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 meaning of what she had seen. The reply was, that Mr. Murray 
 irncst have her portrait, and was compelled to take what she re 
 fused to give. The result was, Wright was requested to visit 
 her, which he did ; taking with him, not the sketch, which was 
 very good, but another, in which there was a strong touch of 
 caricature. Rather than allow that to appear as her likeness 
 (a very natural and womanly feeling by the way), she consented 
 to sit for the portrait to W. J. Newton, which was engraved, 
 and is here alluded to." 
 
 The artless barbarism of this note is too good 
 to be lost ; but it is quite borne out by the con 
 versation in the Noctes Club, which it illus 
 trates. 
 
 It would appear from this conversation that 
 these Byron beauties appeared successively in 
 pamphlet form ; and the picture of Lady Byron 
 is thus discussed : 
 
 Mullion. "I don t know if you have seen the last brochure. 
 It has a charming head of Lady Byron, who, it seems, sat on 
 purpose : and that s very agreeable to hear of; for it shows her 
 ladyship has got over any little soreness that Moore s Life 
 occasioned, and is now willing to contribute any thing in her 
 power to the real monument of Byron s genius." 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 125 
 
 North. "I am delighted to hear of this : tis really very 
 noble in the unfortunate lady. I never saw her. Is the face a 
 striking one ? " 
 
 Mullion. " Eminently so, a most calm, pensive, melan 
 choly style of native beauty, and a most touching contrast to 
 the maids of Athens, Annesley, and all the rest of them. I m 
 sure you ll have the proof Finden has sent you framed for 
 the Boudoir at the Lodge." 
 
 North. " By all means. I mean to do that for all the Byron 
 Beauties." 
 
 But it may be asked, Was there not a man in 
 all England with delicacy enough to feel for 
 Lady Byron, and chivalry enough to speak a 
 bold word for her ? Yes : there was one. 
 Thomas Campbell the poet, when he read Lady 
 Byron s statement, believed it, as did Christo 
 pher North ; but it affected him differently. 
 It appears he did not believe it a wife s duty to 
 burn herself on her husband s funeral-pile, as 
 did Christopher North ; and held the singular 
 idea, that a wife had some rights as a human 
 being as well as a husband. 
 
 Lady Byron s own statement appeared in 
 
126 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON s DEATH. 
 
 pamphlet form in 1830: at least, such is the 
 date at the foot of the document. Thomas 
 Campbell, in "The New Monthly Magazine," 
 shortly after, printed a spirited, gentlemanly 
 defence of Lady Byron, and administered a 
 pointed rebuke to Moore for the rudeness and 
 indelicacy he had shown in selecting from 
 Byron s letters the coarsest against herself, her 
 parents, and her old governess Mrs. Clermont, 
 and by the indecent comparisons he had in 
 stituted between Lady Byron and Lord Byron s 
 last mistress. 
 
 It is refreshing to hear, at last, from somebody 
 who is not altogether on his knees at the feet of 
 the popular idol, and who has some chivalry for 
 woman, and some idea of common humanity. 
 He says, 
 
 " I found my right to speak on this painful subject, on its 
 now irrevocable publicity, brought up afresh as it has been by 
 Mr. Moore, to be the theme of discourse to millions, and, if I 
 err not much, the cause of misconception to innumerable minds. 
 I claim to speak of Lady Byron in the right of a man, and of a 
 friend to the rights of woman, and to liberty, and to natural 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. I2/ 
 
 religion. I claim a right, more especially, as one of the many 
 friends of Lady Byron, who, one and all, feel aggrieved by this 
 production. It has virtually dragged her forward from the 
 shade of retirement, where she had hid her sorrows, and com 
 pelled her to defend the heads of her friends and her parents 
 from being crushed under the tombstone of Byron. Nay, in a 
 general view, it has forced her to defend herself ; though, with 
 her true sense and her pure taste, she stands above all special 
 pleading. To plenary explanation she ought not she never 
 shall be driven. Mr. Moore is too much a gentleman not to 
 shudder at the thought of that ; but if other Byronists, of a 
 far different stamp, were to force the savage ordeal, it is her 
 enemies, and not she, that would have to dread the burning 
 ploughshares. 
 
 " We, her friends, have no wish to prolong the discussion : 
 but a few words we must add, even to her admirable statement ; 
 for hers is a cause not only dear to her friends, but having 
 become, from Mr. Moore and her misfortunes, a publicly- 
 agitated cause, it concerns morality, and the most sacred rights 
 of the sex, that she should (and that, too, without more special 
 explanations) be acquitted out and out, and honorably ac 
 quitted, in this business, of all share in the blame, which is one 
 and indivisible. Mr. Moore, on further reflection, may see 
 this ; and his return to candor will surprise us less than his 
 momentary deviation from its path. 
 
 " For the tact of Mr. Moore s conduct in this affair, I have 
 not to answer ; but, if indelicacy be charged upon me, I scorn 
 
128 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 the charge. Neither will I submit to be called Lord Byron s 
 accuser ; because a word against him I wish not to say 
 beyond what is painfully wrung from me by the necessity of 
 owning or illustrating Lady Byron s unblamableness, and. of 
 repelling certain misconceptions respecting her, which are now 
 walking the fashionable world, and which have been fostered 
 (though Heaven knows where they were born) most delicately 
 and warily by the Christian godfathership of Mr. Moore. 
 
 " I write not at Lady Byron s bidding. I have never 
 humiliated either her or myself by asking if I should write, 
 or what I should write ; that is to say, I never applied to her 
 for information against Lord Byron,, though I was justified, as 
 one intending to criticise Mr. Moore, in inquiring into the 
 truth of some of his statements. Neither will I suffer myself 
 to be called her champion, if by that word be meant the 
 advocate of her mere legal innocence ; for that, I take it, 
 nobody questions. 
 
 " Still less is it from the sorry impulse of pity that I speak 
 of this noble woman ; for I look with wonder and even envy at 
 the proud purity of her sense and conscience, that have car 
 ried her exquisite sensibilities in triumph through such poign 
 ant tribulations. But I am proud to be called her friend, 
 the humble illustrator of her cause, and the advocate of those 
 principles which make it to me more interesting than Lord 
 Byron s. Lady Byron (if the subject must be discussed) 
 belongs to sentiment and morality (at least as much as Lord 
 Byron) ; nor is she to be suffered, when compelled to speak, 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 1 29 
 
 to raise her voice as in a desert, with no friendly voice to 
 respond to her. Lady Byron could not have outlived her 
 sufferings if she had not wound up her fortitude to the high 
 point of trusting mainly for consolation, not to the opinion of 
 the world, but to her own inward peace ; and, having said 
 what ought to convince the world, I verily believe that she has 
 less care about the fashionable opinion respecting her than any 
 of her friends can have. But we, her friends, mix with the 
 world ; and we hear offensive absurdities about her, which we 
 have a right to put down. 
 
 " I proceed to deal more generally with Mr. Moore s 
 book. You speak, Mr. Moore, against Lord Byron s censurers 
 in a tone of indignation which is perfectly lawful towards 
 calumnious traducers, but which will not terrify me, or any 
 other man of courage who is no calumniator, from uttering his 
 mind freely with regard to this part of your hero s conduct. I 
 question your philosophy in assuming that all that is noble in 
 Byron s poetry was inconsistent with the possibility of his 
 being devoted to a pure and good woman ; and I repudiate 
 your morality for canting too complacently about the lava of 
 his imagination, and the unsettled fever of his passions, being 
 any excuses for his planting the tic douloureux of domestic 
 suffering in a meek woman s bosom. 
 
 " These are hard words, Mr. Moore ; but you have brought 
 them on yourself by your voluntary ignorance of facts known 
 to me : for you might and ought to have known both sides 
 
I3O RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 of the question ; and, if the subject was too delicate for you 
 to consult Lady Byron s confidential friends, you ought to have 
 had nothing to do with the subject. But you cannot have sub 
 mitted your book even to Lord Byron s sister, otherwise she 
 would have set you right about the imaginary spy, Mrs. 
 Clermont." 
 
 Campbell now goes on to print, at his own 
 peril, he says, and without time to ask leave, the 
 following note from Lady Byron in reply to an 
 application he made to her, when he was about 
 to review Moore s book, for an " estimate as to 
 the correctness of Moore s statements." 
 
 The following is Lady Byron s reply : 
 
 " DEAR MR. CAMPBELL, In taking up my pen to point out 
 for your private information * those passages in Mr. Moore s 
 representation of my part of the story which were open to con 
 tradiction, I find them of still greater extent than I had sup 
 posed ; and to deny an assertion here and there would virtually 
 admit the truth of the rest. If, on the contrary, I were to enter 
 into a full exposure of the falsehood of the views taken by Mr. 
 Moore, I must detail various matters, which, consistently with 
 
 " I [Campbell] had not time to ask Lady Byron s permission to print 
 this private letter ; but it seemed to me important, and I have published it 
 meo periculo." 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 1 3 1 
 
 my principles and feelings, I cannot under the existing circum 
 stances disclose. I may, perhaps, convince you better of the 
 difficulty of the case by an example : It is not true that pecu 
 niary embarrassments were the cause of the disturbed state of 
 Lord Byron s mind, or formed the chief reason for the arrange 
 ments made by him at that time. But is it reasonable for me 
 to expect that you or any one else should believe this, unless I 
 show you what were the causes in question ? and this I cannot 
 do. . " I am, &c., 
 
 "A. I. NOEL BYRON." 
 
 Campbell then goes on to reprove Moore for 
 his injustice to Mrs. Clermont, whom Lord Byron 
 had denounced as a spy, but whose respecta 
 bility and innocence were vouched for by Lord 
 Byron s own family ; and then he pointedly 
 rebukes one false statement of great indelicacy 
 and cruelty concerning Lady Byron s courtship, 
 as follows : 
 
 " It is a further mistake on Mr. Moore s part, and I can 
 prove it to be so, if proof be necessary, to represent Lady 
 Byron, in the course of their courtship, as one inviting her future 
 husband to correspondence by letters after she had at first 
 refused him. She never proposed a correspondence. On the 
 contrary, he sent her a message after that first refusal, stating 
 
132 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 that he meant to go abroad, and to travel for some years in the 
 East ; that he should depart with a heart aching, but not 
 angry ; and that he only begged a verbal assurance that she 
 had still some interest in his happiness. Could Miss Milbanke, 
 as a well-bred woman, refuse a courteous answer to such a 
 message ? She sent him a verbal answer, which was merely 
 kind and becoming, but which signified no encouragement that 
 he should renew his offer of marriage. 
 
 " After that message, he wrote to her a most interesting letter 
 about himself, about his views, personal, moral, and reli 
 gious, to which it would have been uncharitable not to have 
 replied. The result was an insensibly increasing corre 
 spondence, which ended in her being devotedly attached to 
 him. About that time, I occasionally saw Lord Byron ; and 
 though I knew less of him than Mr. Moore, yet I suspect 
 I knew as much of him as Miss Milbanke then knew. At that 
 time, he was so pleasing, that, if I had had a daughter with 
 ample fortune and beauty, I should have trusted her in marriage 
 with Lord Byron. 
 
 " Mr. Moore at that period evidently understood Lord Byron 
 better than either his future bride or myself ; but this speaks 
 more for Moore s shrewdness than for Byron s ingenuousness 
 of character. 
 
 " It is more for Lord Byron s sake than for his widow s that 
 I resort not to a more special examination of Mr. Moore s mis 
 conceptions. The subject would lead me insensibly into hateful 
 disclosures against poor Lord Byron, who is more unfortunate 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 133 
 
 in his rash defenders than in his reluctant accusers. Happily, 
 his own candor turns our hostility from himself against his de 
 fenders. It was only in wayward and bitter remarks that he 
 misrepresented Lady Byron. He would have defended himself 
 irresistibly if Mr. Moore had left only his acknowledging pas 
 sages. But Mr. Moore has produced a Life of him which 
 reflects blame on Lady Byron so dexterously, that more is 
 meant than meets the ear. The almost universal impression 
 produced by his book is, that Lady Byron must be a precise 
 and a wan, unwarming spirit, a blue-stocking of chilblained 
 learning, a piece of insensitive goodness. 
 
 " Who that knows Lady Byron will not pronounce her to be 
 every thing the reverse ? Will it be believed that this person, 
 so unsuitably matched to her moody lord, has written verses 
 that would do no discredit to Byron himself; that her sensi 
 tiveness is surpassed and bounded only by her good sense ; 
 and that she is 
 
 Blest with a temper, whose unclouded ray 
 Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day ? 
 
 " She brought to Lord Byron beauty, manners, fortune, 
 meekness, romantic affection, and every thing that ought to have 
 made her to the most transcendent man of genius had he 
 been what he should have been his pride and his idol. I speak 
 not of Lady Byron in the commonplace manner of attesting 
 character : I appeal to the gifted Mrs. Siddons and Joanna 
 Baillie, to Lady Charlemont, and to other ornaments of their 
 
134 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 sex, whether I am exaggerating in the least when I say, that, in 
 their whole lives, they have seen few beings so intellectual and 
 well-tempered as Lady Byron. 
 
 " I wish to be as ingenuous as possible in speaking of her. 
 Her manner, I have no hesitation to say, is cool at the first 
 interview, but is modestly, and not insolently, cool : she con 
 tracted it, I believe, from being exposed by her beauty and 
 large fortune, in youth, to numbers of suitors, whom she 
 could not have otherwise kept at a distance. But this 
 manner could have had no influence with Lord Byron ; for 
 it vanishes on nearer acquaintance, and has no origin in cold 
 ness. All her friends like her frankness the better for being 
 preceded by this reserve. This manner, however, though not 
 the slightest apology for Lord Byron, has been inimical to Lady 
 Byron in her misfortunes. It endears her to her friends ; but it 
 piques the indifferent. Most odiously unjust, therefore, is Mr. 
 Moore s assertion, that she has had the advantage of Lord 
 Byron in public opinion. She is, comparatively speaking, un 
 known to the world ; for though she has many friends, that is, 
 a friend in every one who knows her, yet her pride and purity 
 and misfortunes naturally contract the circle of her acquaint 
 ance. 
 
 " There is something exquisitely unjust in Mr. Moore com 
 paring her chance of popularity with Lord Byron s, the poet 
 who can command men of talents, putting even Mr. Moore 
 into the livery of his service, and who has suborned the favor 
 of almost all women by the beauty of his person and the volup- 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 135 
 
 tuousness of his verses. Lady Byron has nothing to oppose to 
 these fascinations but the truth and justice of her cause. 
 
 " You said, Mr. Moore, that Lady Byron was unsuitable to 
 her lord : the word is cunningly insidious, and may mean as 
 much or as little as may suit your convenience. But, if she was 
 unsuitable, I remark that it tells all the worse against Lord 
 Byron. I have not read it in your book (for I hate to wade 
 through it) ; but they tell me that you have not only warily 
 depreciated Lady Byron, but that you have described a lady 
 that would have suited him. If this be true, it is the unkindest 
 cut of all, to hold up a florid description of a woman suitable 
 to Lord Byron, as if in mockery over the forlorn flower of vir 
 tue that was drooping in the solitude of sorrow. 
 
 "But I trust there is no such passage in your book. Surely 
 you must be conscious of your woman, with her -virtue loose 
 about her, who would have suited Lord Byron? to be as imagi 
 nary a being as the woman without a head. A woman to suit 
 Lord Byron ! Poo, poo ! I could paint to you the woman 
 that could have matched him, if I had not bargained to say as 
 little as possible against him. 
 
 " If Lady Byron was not suitable to Lord Byron, so much 
 the worse for his lordship ; for let me tell you, Mr. Moore, 
 that neither your poetry, nor Lord Byron s, nor all our poetry 
 put together, ever delineated a more interesting being than the 
 woman whom you have so coldly treated. This was not kick 
 ing the dead lion, but wounding the living lamb, who was 
 already bleeding and shorn, even unto the quick. I know, that, 
 
136 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 collectively speaking, the world is in Lady Byron s favor ; but 
 it is coldly favorable, and you have not warmed its breath. 
 Time, however, cures every thing ; and even your book, Mr. 
 Moore, may be the means of Lady Byron s character being 
 better appreciated. " THOMAS CAMPBELL." 
 
 Here is what seems to be a gentlemanly, high- 
 spirited, chivalric man, throwing down his glove 
 in the lists for a pure woman. 
 
 What was the consequence ? Campbell was 
 crowded back, thrust down, overwhelmed, his 
 eyes filled with dust, his mouth with ashes. 
 
 There was a general confusion and outcry, 
 which re-acted both on him and on Lady Byron. 
 Her friends were angry with him for having 
 caused this re-action upon her ; and he found 
 himself at once attacked by Lady Byron s ene 
 mies, and deserted by her friends. All the lite 
 rary authorities of his day took up against him 
 with energy. Christopher North, professor of 
 moral philosophy in the Edinburgh University, 
 in a fatherly talk in " The Noctes," condemns 
 Campbell, and justifies Moore, and heartily rec- 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 137 
 
 ommends his Biography, as containing nothing 
 materially objectionable on the score either of 
 manners or morals. Thus we have it in " The 
 Noctes " of May, 1830 : - 
 
 " Mr. Moore s biographical book I admired ; and I said so to 
 my little world, in two somewhat lengthy articles, which many 
 approved, and some, I am sorry to know, condemned." 
 
 On the point in question between Moore and 
 Campbell, North goes on to justify Moore alto 
 gether, only admitting that " it would have been 
 better had he not printed any coarse expres 
 sion of Byron s about the old people ; " and, 
 finally, he closes by saying, 
 
 "I do not think, that, under the circumstances, Mr. Camp 
 bell himself, had he written Byron s Life, could have spoken, with 
 the sentiments he then held, in a better., more manly, and more 
 gentlemanly spirit, in so far as regards Lady Byron, than Mr. 
 Moore did : and I am sorry he has been deterred from swim 
 ming through Mr. Moore s work by the fear of wading ; for 
 the waters are clear and deep ; nor is there any mud, either at 
 the bottom or round the margin." 
 
138 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 Of the conduct of Lady Byron s so-called 
 friends on this occasion it is more difficult to 
 speak. 
 
 There has always been in England, as John 
 Stuart Mill says, a class of women who glory in 
 the utter self-abnegation of the wife to the hus 
 band, as the special crown of womanhood. Their 
 patron saint is the Griselda of Chaucer, who, 
 when her husband humiliates her, and treats her 
 as a brute, still accepts all with meek, unquestion 
 ing, uncomplaining devotion. He tears her from 
 her children ; he treats her with personal abuse ; 
 he repudiates her, sends her out to nakedness 
 and poverty ; he installs another mistress in his 
 house, and sends for the first to be her hand 
 maid and his own : and all this the meek saint 
 accepts in the words of Milton, 
 
 " My guide and head, 
 What thou hast said is just and right." 
 
 Accordingly, Miss Martineau tells us, that 
 when Campbell s defence came out, coupled with 
 a note from Lady Byron, 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 139 
 
 " The first obvious remark was, that there was no real 
 disclosure ; and the whole affair had the appearance of a 
 desire, on the part of Lady Byron, to exculpate herself, while 
 yet no adequate information was given. Many, who had re 
 garded her with favor till then, gave her up so far as to believe 
 that feminine weakness had prevailed at last." 
 
 The saint had fallen from he r pedestal ! She 
 had shown a human frailty ! Quite evidently 
 she is not a Griselda, but possessed with a 
 shocking desire to exculpate herself and her 
 friends. 
 
 Is it, then, only to slandered men that the 
 privilege belongs of desiring to exculpate them 
 selves and their families and their friends from 
 unjust censure ? 
 
 Lord Byron had made it a life-long object to 
 vilify and defame his wife. He had used for 
 that one particular purpose every talent that he 
 possessed. He had left it as a last charge to 
 Moore to pursue the warfare after death, which 
 Moore had done to some purpose ; and Christo 
 pher North had informed Lady Byron that her 
 
I4O RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 private affairs were discussed, not only with the 
 whiskey-toddy of the Noctes Club, but in every 
 drawing-room in May Fair; and declared that 
 the " Dear Duck " letter, and various other mat 
 ters, must be explained, and urged somebody to 
 speak ; and then, when Campbell does speak with 
 all the energy of a real gentleman, a general out 
 cry and an indiscriminate melee is the result. 
 
 The world, with its usual injustice, insisted on 
 attributing Campbell s defence to Lady Byron. 
 
 The reasons for this seemed to be, first, that 
 Campbell states that he did not ask Lady By 
 ron s leave, and that she did not authorize him 
 to defend her ; and, second, that, having asked 
 some explanations from her, he prints a note in 
 which she declines to give any. 
 
 We know not how a lady could more gently 
 yet firmly decline to make a gentleman her 
 confidant than in this published note of Lady 
 Byron ; and yet, to this day, Campbell is spoken 
 of by the world as having been Lady Byron s 
 confidant at this time. This simply shows how 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 14! 
 
 very trustworthy are the general assertions about 
 Lady Byron s confidants. 
 
 The final result of the matter, so far as Camp 
 bell was concerned, is given in Miss Martineau s 
 sketch, in the following paragraph : 
 
 " The whole transaction was one of poor Campbell s freaks. 
 He excused himself by saying it was a mistake of his ; that he 
 did not know what he was about when he published the paper." 
 
 It is the saddest of all sad things to see a 
 man, who has spoken from moral convictions, in 
 advance of his day, and who has taken a stand 
 for which he ought to honor himself, thus forced 
 down and humiliated, made to doubt his own 
 
 better nature and his own honorable feelings, 
 
 f 
 
 by the voice of a wicked world. 
 
 Campbell had no steadiness to stand by the 
 truth he saw. His whole story is told inci 
 dentally in a note to " The Noctes," in which 
 it is stated, that in an article in " Blackwood," 
 January, 1825, on Scotch poets, the palm was 
 given to Hogg over Campbell ; " one ground 
 
142 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 being, that he could drink eight and twenty 
 tumblers of punch, while Campbell is hazy upon 
 seven. " 
 
 There is evidence in " The Noctes," that in 
 due time Campbell was reconciled to Moore, and 
 was always suitably ashamed of having tried to 
 be any more generous or just than the men of 
 his generation. 
 
 And so it was settled as a law to Jacob, and 
 an ordinance in Israel, that the Byron worship 
 should proceed, and that all the earth should 
 keep silence before him. " Don Juan," that, 
 years before, had been printed by stealth, without 
 Murray s name on the titlepage, that had been 
 denounced as a book which no woman should 
 read, and had been given up as a desperate enter 
 prise, now came forth in triumph, with banners 
 flying and drums beating. Every great periodi 
 cal in England that had fired moral volleys of 
 artillery against it in its early days, now humbly 
 marched in the glorious procession of admirers 
 to salute this edifying work of genius. 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 143 
 
 " Blackwood," which in the beginning had 
 been the most indignantly virtuous of the whole, 
 now grovelled and ate dust as the serpent in 
 the very abjectness of submission. Odoherty 
 (Maginn) declares that he would rather have 
 written a page of " Don Juan " than a ton of 
 " Childe Harold." * Timothy Tickler informs 
 Christopher North that he means to tender Mur 
 ray, as Emperor of the North, an interleaved 
 copy f of " Don Juan," with illustrations, as the 
 only work of Byron s he cares much about ; and 
 Christopher North, professor of moral philoso 
 phy in Edinburgh, smiles approval ! We are not, 
 after this, surprised to see the assertion, by a 
 recent much-aggrieved writer in " The London 
 Era," that " Lord Byron has been, more than 
 any other man of the age, the teacher of the 
 youth of England ; " and that he has " seen his 
 works on the bookshelves of bishops palaces, no 
 less than the tables of university under-gradu- 
 ates." 
 
 * Noctes, July, 1822. t Noctes, September, 1832. 
 
144 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 A note to "The Noctes " of July, 1822, in 
 forms us of another instance of Lord Byron s 
 triumph over English morals : 
 
 "The mention of this" (Byron s going to Greece) "reminds 
 me, by the by, of what the Guiccioli said in her visit to Lon 
 don, where she was so lionized as having been the lady-love of 
 Byron. She was rather fond of speaking on the subject, des 
 ignating herself by some Venetian pet phrase, which she inter 
 preted as meaning Love-Wife/ " 
 
 What was Lady Byron to do in such a world ? 
 She retired to the deepest privacy, and devoted 
 herself to works of charity, and the education of 
 her only child, that brilliant daughter, to whose 
 eager, opening mind the whole course of current 
 literature must bring so many trying questions in 
 regard to the position of her father and mother, 
 questions that the mother might not answer. 
 That the cruel inconsiderateness of the literary 
 world added thorns to the intricacies of the path 
 trodden by every mother who seeks to guide, 
 restrain, and educate a strong, acute, and preco 
 ciously intelligent child, must easily be seen. 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 145 
 
 What remains to be said of Lady Byron s life 
 shall be said in the words of Miss Martineau, 
 published in " The Atlantic Monthly : " 
 
 " Her life, thenceforth, was one of unremitting bounty to 
 society, administered with as much skill and prudence as be 
 nevolence. She lived in retirement, changing her abode fre 
 quently ; partly for the benefit of her child s education and the 
 promotion of her benevolent schemes, and partly from a rest 
 lessness which was one of the few signs of injury received from 
 the spoiling of associations with home> 
 
 " She felt a satisfaction which her friends rejoiced in when, her 
 daughter married Lord King, at present the Earl of Lovelace, 
 in 1835 ; and when grief upon grief followed, in the appearance 
 of mortal disease in her only child, her quiet patience stood 
 her in good stead as before. She even found strength to ap 
 propriate the blessings of the occasion, and took comfort, as 
 did her dying daughter, in the intimate friendship, which grew 
 closer as the time of parting drew nigh. 
 
 " Lady Lovelace died in 1852 ; and, for her few remaining 
 years, Lady Byron was devoted to her grandchildren. But 
 nearer calls never lessened her interest in remoter objects. 
 Her mind was of the large and clear quality which could com 
 prehend remote interests in their true proportions, and achieve 
 each aim as perfectly as if it were the only one. Her agents 
 used to say that it was impossible to mistake her directions ; 
 
146 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 and thus her business was usually well clone. There was no 
 room, in her case, for the ordinary doubts, censures, and sneers 
 about the misapplication of bounty. 
 
 " Her taste did not lie in the Charity-Ball direction ; 
 her funds were not lavished in encouraging hypocrisy and 
 improvidence among the idle and worthless ; and the quality 
 of her charity was, in fact, as admirable as its quantity. Her 
 chief aim was the extension and improvement of popular 
 education ; but there was no kind of misery that she heard 
 of that she did not palliate to the utmost, and no kind of solace 
 that her quick imagination and sympathy could devise that she 
 did not administer. 
 
 " In her methods, she united consideration and frankness 
 with singular success. For one instance among a thousand : 
 A lady with whom she had had friendly relations some time 
 before, and who became impoverished in a quiet way by hope 
 less sickness, preferred poverty with an easy conscience to a 
 competency attended by some uncertainty about the perfect 
 rectitude of the resource. Lady Byron wrote to an intermediate 
 person exactly what she thought of the case. Whether the 
 judgment of the sufferer was right or mistaken was nobody s 
 business but her own : this was the first point. Next, a vol 
 untary poverty could never be pitied by anybody : that was the 
 second. But it was painful to others to think of the mortifica 
 tion to benevolent feelings which attends poverty; and there 
 could be no objection to arresting that pain. Therefore she, 
 Lady Byron, had lodged in a neighboring bank the sum of 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 147 
 
 one hundred pounds, to be used for benevolent purposes ; and, 
 in order to preclude all outside speculation, she had made 
 the money payable to the order of the intermediate person, 
 so that the sufferer s name need not appear at all. 
 
 " I^ive and thirty years of unremitting secret bounty like this 
 must make up a great amount of human happiness ; but this 
 was only one of a wide variety of methods of doing good. It 
 \vas the unconcealable magnitude of her beneficence, and its 
 wise quality, which made her a second time the theme of Eng 
 lish conversation in all honest households within the four seas. 
 Years ago, it was said far and wide that Lady Byron was doing 
 more good than anybody else in England ; and it was difficult 
 to imagine how anybody could do more. 
 
 " Lord Byron spent every shilling that the law allowed him out 
 of her property while he lived, and left away from her every 
 shilling that he could deprive her of by his will ; yet she 
 had, eventually, a large income at her command. In the 
 management of it, she showed the same wise consideration 
 that marked all her practical decisions. She resolved to spend 
 her whole income, seeing how much the world needed help at 
 the moment. Her care was for the existing generation, rather 
 than for a future one, which would have its own friends. She 
 usually declined trammelling herself with annual subscrip 
 tions to charities ; preferring to keep her freedom from year to 
 year, and to achieve definite objects by liberal bounty, rather 
 than to extend partial help over a large surface which she 
 could not herself superintend. 
 
148 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 " It was her first industrial school that awakened the admira 
 tion of the public, which had never ceased to take an interest 
 in her, while sorely misjudging her character. We hear much 
 now and everybody hears it with pleasure of the spread of 
 education in common things ; but long before Miss Coutts 
 inherited her wealth, long before a name was found for such a 
 method of training, Lady Byron had instituted the thing, and 
 put it in the way of making its own name. 
 
 " She was living at Ealing, in Middlesex, in 1834 ; and there 
 she opened one of the first industrial schools in England, if 
 not the very first. She sent out a master to Switzerland, to be 
 instructed in De Fellenburgh s method. She took, on lease, 
 five acres of land, and spent several hundred pounds in render 
 ing the buildings upon it fit for the purposes of the school. A 
 liberal education was afforded to the children of artisans and 
 laborers during the half of the day when they were not 
 employed in the field or garden. The allotments were rented 
 by the boys, who raised and sold produce, which afforded 
 them a considerable yearly profit if they were good workmen. 
 Those who worked in the field earned wages ; their labor 
 being paid by the hour, according to the capability of the 
 young laborer. They kept their accounts of expenditure and 
 receipts, and acquired good habits of business while learning 
 the occupation of their lives. Some mechanical trades were 
 taught, as well as the arts of agriculture. 
 
 " Part of the wisdom of the management lay in making the 
 pupils pay. Of one hundred pupils, half were boarders. They 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON s DEATH. 149 
 
 paid little more than half the expenses of their maintenance, and 
 the day-scholars paid threepence per week. Of course, a large 
 part of the expense was borne by Lady Byron, besides the pay 
 ments she made for children who could not otherwise have en 
 tered the school. The establishment flourished steadily till 
 1852, when the owner of the land required it back for building- 
 purposes. During the eighteen years that the Ealing schools 
 were in action, they did a world of good in the way of incite 
 ment and example. The poor-law commissioners pointed out 
 their merits. Land-owners and other wealthy persons visited 
 them, and went home and set up similar establishments. Dur 
 ing those years, too, Lady Byron had herself been at work in 
 various directions to the same purpose. 
 
 " A more extensive industrial scheme was instituted on her 
 Leicestershire property, and not far off she opened a girls 
 school and an infant school ; and when a season of distress 
 came, as such seasons are apt to befall the poor Leicestershire 
 stocking-weavers, Lady Byron fed the children for months to 
 gether, till they could resume their payments. These school 
 were opened in 1840. The next year, she built a schoolhouse 
 on her Warwickshire property ; and, five years later, she set up 
 an iron schoolhouse on another Leicestershire estate. 
 
 " By this time, her educational efforts were costing her several 
 hundred pounds a year in the mere maintenance of existing 
 establishments ; but this is the smallest consideration in the 
 case. She has sent out tribes of boys and girls into life fit to do 
 their part there with skill and credit and comfort. Perhaps it is a 
 
150 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 still more important consideration, that scores of teachers and 
 trainers have been led into their vocation, and duly prepared 
 for it, by what they saw and learned in her schools. As for the 
 best and the worst of the Ealing boys, the best have, in a few 
 cases, been received into the Battersea Training School, whence 
 they could enter on their career as teachers to the greatest ad 
 vantage ; and the worst found their school a true reformatory, 
 before reformatory schools were heard of. At Bristol, she 
 bought a house for a reformatory for girls ; and there her 
 friend, Miss Carpenter, faithfully and energetically carries out 
 her own and Lady Byron s aims, which were one and the same. 
 
 " There would be no end if I were to catalogue the schemes 
 of which these are a specimen. It is of more consequence to 
 observe that her mind was never narrowed by her own acts, as 
 the minds of benevolent people are so apt to be. To the last, 
 her interest in great political movements, at home and abroad, 
 was as vivid as ever. She watched every step won in philoso 
 phy, every discovery in science, every token of social change 
 and progress in every shape. Her mind was as liberal as her 
 heart and hand. No diversity of opinion troubled her : she 
 was respectful to every sort of individuality, and indulgent to 
 all constitutional peculiarities. It must have puzzled those who 
 kept up the notion of her being strait-laced to see how indul 
 gent she was even to Epicurean tendencies, the remotest of 
 all from her own. 
 
 " But I must stop ; for I do not wish my honest memorial to 
 degenerate into panegyric. Among her latest known acts were 
 
RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 151 
 
 her gifts to the Sicilian cause, and her manifestations on behalf 
 of the antislavery cause in the United States. Her kindness 
 to Williarft and Ellen Craft must be well known there ; and it is 
 also related in the newspapers, that she bequeathed a legacy to 
 a young American to assist him under any disadvantages he 
 might suffer as an abolitionist. 
 
 " All these deeds were done under a heavy burden of ill 
 health. Before she had passed middle life, her lungs were be 
 lieved to be irreparably injured by partial ossification. She was 
 subject to attacks so serious, that each one, for many years, was 
 expected to be the last. She arranged her affairs in correspond 
 ence with her liabilities : so that the same order would have 
 been found, whether she died suddenly or after long warning. 
 
 " She was to receive one more accession of outward greatness 
 before she departed. She became Baroness Wentworth in 
 November, 1856. This is one of the facts of her history ; but 
 it is the least interesting to us, as probably to her. We care 
 more to know that her last days were bright in honor, and 
 cheered by the attachment of old friends worthy to pay the 
 duty she deserved. Above all, it is consoling to know that she 
 who so long outlived her only child was blessed with the unre 
 mitting and tender care of her grand-daughter. She died on 
 the 1 6th of May, 1860. 
 
 " The portrait of Lady Byron as she was at the time of her 
 marriage is probably remembered by some of my readers. It is 
 very engaging. Her countenance afterwards became much 
 worn ; but its expression of thoughtfulness and composure was 
 
152 RESULTS AFTER LORD BYRON S DEATH. 
 
 very interesting. Her handwriting accorded well with th* 
 character of her mind. It was clear, elegant, and womanly. 
 Her manners differed with circumstances. Her shrinking sen 
 sitiveness might embarrass one visitor ; while another would be 
 charmed with her easy, significant, and vivacious conversation. 
 It depended much on whom she talked with. The abiding cer 
 tainty was, that she had strength for the hardest of human 
 trials, and the composure which belongs to strength. For the 
 rest, it is enough to point to her deeds, and to the mourning of 
 her friends round the chasm which her departure has made in 
 their life, and in the society in which it is spent. All that could 
 be done in the way of personal love and honor was done while 
 she lived : it only remains now to see that her name and fame 
 are permitted to shine forth at last in their proper light." 
 
 We have simply to ask the reader whether a 
 life like this was not the best, the noblest 
 answer that a woman could make to a doubting 
 world. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 have now brought the review of the 
 antagonism against Lady Byron down to 
 the period of her death. During all this time, let 
 the candid reader ask himself which of these two 
 parties seems to be plotting against the other. 
 
 Which has been active, aggressive, unscrupu 
 lous ? which has been silent, quiet, unoffending ? 
 Which of the two has labored to make a party, 
 and to make that party active, watchful, enthusi 
 astic ? 
 
 Have we not proved that Lady Byron re 
 mained perfectly silent during Lord Byron s life, 
 patiently looking out from her retirement to 
 see the waves of popular sympathy, that once 
 bore her up, day by day retreating, while his ac- 
 
 153 
 
1 54 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 cusations against her were resounding in his 
 poems over the whole earth ? And after Lord 
 Byron s death, when all the world with one con 
 sent began to give their memorials of him, and 
 made it appear, by their various " recollections 
 of conversations," how incessantly he had ob 
 truded his own version of the separation upon 
 every listener, did she manifest any similar eager 
 ness ? 
 
 Lady Byron had seen the " Blackwood " 
 coming forward, on the first appearance of " Don 
 Juan," to rebuke the cowardly lampoon in words 
 eloquent with all the unperverted vigor of an 
 honest Englishman. Under the power of the 
 great conspirator, she had seen that " Black- 
 wood " become the very eager recipient and 
 chief reporter of .the stories against her, and 
 the blind admirer of her adversary. 
 
 All this time, she lost sympathy daily by 
 being silent. The world will embrace those 
 who court it ; it will patronize those who seek 
 its favor ; it will make parties for those who 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 155 
 
 seek to make parties : but for the often ac 
 cused who do not speak, who make no con 
 fidants and no parties, the world soon loses sym 
 pathy. 
 
 When at last she spoke, Christopher North 
 says " she astonished tJie world! Calm, clear, 
 courageous, exact as to time, date, and circum 
 stance, was that first testimony, backed by the 
 equally clear testimony of Dr. Lushington. 
 
 It showed that her secret had been kept even 
 from her parents. In words precise, firm, and 
 fearless, she says, " If these statements on 
 which Dr. Lushington and Sir Samuel Romilly 
 formed their opinion were false, the responsi 
 bility and the odium should rest with me only." 
 Christopher North did not pretend to disbelieve 
 this statement. He breathed not a doubt of 
 Lady Byron s word. He spoke of the crime 
 indicated, as one which might have been foul 
 as the grave s corruption, unforgivable as the 
 sin against the Holy Ghost. He rebuked the 
 wife for bearing this testimony, even to save 
 
156 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON*S GRAVE. 
 
 the memory of her dead father and mother, and, 
 in the same breath, declared that she ought now 
 to go farther, and speak fully the one awful word, 
 and then " a mitigated sentence, or eternal 
 silence ! " 
 
 But Lady Byron took no counsel with the 
 world, nor with the literary men of her age. 
 One knight, with some small remnant of Eng 
 land s old chivalry, set lance in rest for her : she 
 saw him beaten back unhorsed, rolled in the 
 dust, and ingloriously vanquished, and perceived 
 that henceforth nothing but injury could come 
 to any one who attempted to speak for her. 
 
 She turned from the judgments of man and 
 the fond and natural hopes of human nature, 
 to lose herself in sacred ministries to the down 
 cast and suffering. What nobler record for 
 woman could there be than that which Miss 
 Martineau has given ? 
 
 Particularly to be noted in Lady Byron was 
 her peculiar interest in reclaiming fallen women. 
 Among her letters to Mrs. Prof. Pollen of 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 157 
 
 Cambridge was one addressed to a society of 
 ladies who had undertaken this difficult work. 
 It was full of heavenly wisdom and of a large 
 and tolerant charity. Fenelon truly says, it is 
 only perfection that can tolerate imperfection ; 
 and the very purity of Lady Byron s nature 
 made her most forbearing and most tender 
 towards the weak and the guilty. This letter, 
 with all the rest of Lady Byron s, was returned 
 to the hands of her executors after her death. 
 Its publication would greatly assist the world in 
 understanding the peculiarities of its writer s 
 character. 
 
 Lady Byron passed to a higher life in 1860.* 
 After her death, I looked for the publication of 
 her Memoir and Letters as the event that 
 should give her the same opportunity of be 
 ing known and judged by her life and writ 
 ings that had been so freely accorded to Lord 
 Byron. 
 
 She was, in her husband s estimation, a woman 
 
 * Miss Martineau s Biographical Sketches. 
 
158 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 of genius. She was the friend of many of the 
 first men and women of her times, and corre 
 sponded with them on topics of literature, morals, 
 religion, and, above all, on the benevolent and 
 philanthropic movements of the day, whose prin 
 ciples she had studied with acute observation, 
 and in connection with which she had acquired a 
 large experience. 
 
 The knowledge of her, necessarily diffused by 
 such a series of letters, would have created in 
 America a comprehension of her character, of 
 itself sufficient to wither a thousand slanders. 
 
 Such a Memoir was contemplated. Lady 
 Byron s letters to Mrs. Pollen were asked for 
 from Boston ; and I was applied to by a person 
 in England, who I have recently learned is one 
 of the existing trustees of Lady Byron s papers, 
 to furnish copies of her letters to me for the 
 purpose of a Memoir. Before I had time to have 
 copies made, another letter came, stating that the 
 trustees had concluded that it was not best to 
 publish any Memoir of Lady Byron at all. 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 159 
 
 This left the character of Lady Byron in our 
 American world precisely where the slanders 
 of her husband, the literature of the Noctes 
 Club, and the unanimous verdict of May Fair 
 as recorded by " Blackwood," had placed it. 
 
 True, Lady Byron had nobly and quietly lived 
 down these slanders in England by deeds 
 that made her name revered as a saint among 
 all those who valued saintliness. 
 
 But in France and Italy, and in these 
 United States, I have had abundant oppor 
 tunity to know that Lady Byron stood 
 judged and condemned on the testimony of 
 her brilliant husband, and that the feeling 
 against her had a vivacity and intensity not 
 to be overcome by mere allusions to a virtuous 
 life in distant England. 
 
 This is strikingly shown by one fact. In the 
 American edition of Moore s " Life of Byron," 
 by Claxton, Remsen, and HafTelfinger, Philadel 
 phia, 1869, which I have been consulting, Lady 
 Byron s statement, which is found in the Appen- 
 
I6O ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 dix of Murray s standard edition, is entirely 
 omitted. Every other paper is carefully pre 
 served. This one incident showed how the tide 
 of sympathy was setting in this New World. 
 Of course, there is no stronger power than a 
 virtuous life ; but, for a virtuous life to bear testi 
 mony to the world, its details must be told, so 
 that the world may know them. 
 
 Suppose the memoirs of Clarkson and Wilber- 
 force had been suppressed after their death, how 
 soon might the coming tide have wiped out the 
 record of their bravery and philanthropy ! Sup 
 pose the lives of Francis Xavier and Henry 
 Martyn had never been written, and we had lost 
 the remembrance of what holy men could do 
 and dare in the divine enthusiasm of Christian 
 faith ! Suppose we had no Fenelon, no Book of 
 Martyrs ! 
 
 Would there not be an outcry through all the 
 literary and artistic world if a perfect statue 
 were allowed to remain buried forever because 
 some painful individual history was connected 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON*S GRAVE. l6l 
 
 with its burial and its recovery ? But is not a 
 noble life a greater treasure to mankind than 
 any work of art ? 
 
 We have heard much mourning over the burned 
 Autobiography of Lord Byron, and seen it treated 
 of in a magazine as " the lost chapter in history." 
 The lost chapter in history is Lady Byron s Auto 
 biography in her life and letters ; and the sup 
 pression of them is the root of this whole 
 mischief. 
 
 We do not in this intend to censure the par 
 ties who came to this decision. 
 
 The descendants of Lady Byron revere her 
 memory, as they have every reason to do. That 
 it was their desire to have a Memoir of her 
 published, I have been informed by an indi 
 vidual of the highest character in England, who 
 obtained the information directly from Lady 
 Byron s grandchildren. 
 
 But the trustees in whose care the papers 
 were placed drew back on examination of them, 
 and declared, that, as Lady Byron s papers could 
 
1 62 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 not be fully published, they should regret any 
 thing that should call public attention once more 
 to the discussion of her history. 
 
 Reviewing this long history of the way in 
 which the literary world had treated Lady Byron, 
 we cannot wonder that her friends should have 
 doubted whether there was left on earth any jus 
 tice, or sense that any thing is due to woman as a 
 human being with human rights. Evidently this 
 lesson had taken from them all faith in the moral 
 sense of the world. Rather than re-awaken the 
 discussion, so unsparing, so painful, and so in 
 delicate, which had been carried on so many 
 years around that loved form, now sanctified by 
 death, they sacrificed the dear pleasure of the 
 memorials, and the interests of mankind, who 
 have an indefeasible right to all the help that 
 can be got from the truth of history as to the 
 living power of virtue, and the reality of that 
 great victory that overcometh the world. 
 
 There are thousands of poor victims suffering 
 in sadness, discouragement, and poverty ; heart- 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 163 
 
 broken wives of brutal, drunken husbands ; 
 women enduring nameless wrongs and horrors 
 which the delicacy of their sex forbids them to 
 utter, to whom the lovely letters lying hidden 
 away under those seals might bring courage and 
 hope from springs not of this world. 
 
 But though the friends of Lady Byron, per 
 haps from despair of their kind, from weariness 
 of the utter injustice done her, wished to cherish 
 her name in silence, and to confine the story of 
 her virtues to that circle who knew her too well 
 to ask a proof, or utter a doubt, the partisans of 
 Lord Byron were embarrassed with no such 
 scruple. 
 
 Lord Byron had artfully contrived during his 
 life to place his wife in such an antagonistic 
 position with regard to himself, that his inti 
 mate friends were forced to believe that one of 
 the two had deliberately and wantonly injured 
 the other. The published statement of Lady 
 Byron contradicted boldly and point-blank all 
 the statement of her husband concerning the 
 
1 64 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 separation : so that, unless she was convicted as 
 a false witness, he certainly was. 
 
 The best evidence of this is Christopher 
 North s own shocked, astonished statement, and 
 the words of the Noctes Club. 
 
 The noble life that Lady Byron lived after 
 this hushed every voice, and silenced even the 
 most desperate calumny, while she was in the 
 world. In the face of Lady Byron as the world 
 saw her, of what use was the talk of Clytemnes- 
 tra, and the assertion that she had been a mean, 
 deceitful conspirator against her husband s honor 
 in life, and stabbed his memory after death? 
 
 But when she was in her grave, when her 
 voice and presence and good deeds no more 
 spoke for her, and a new generation was grow 
 ing up that knew her not, then was the time 
 selected to revive the assault on her memory, 
 and to say over her grave what none would ever 
 have dared to say of her while living. 
 
 During these last two years, I have been grad 
 ually awakening to the evidence of a new crusade 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 165 
 
 against the memory of Lady Byron, which re 
 spected no sanctity, not even that last and 
 most awful one of death. 
 
 Nine years after her death, when it was 
 fully understood that no story on her side or 
 that of her friends was to be forthcoming, then 
 her calumniators raked out from the ashes of 
 her husband s sepulchre all his bitter charges, 
 to state them over in even stronger and more 
 indecent forms. 
 
 There seems to be reason to think that the 
 materials supplied by Lord Byron for such a 
 campaign yet exist in society. 
 
 To " The Noctes " of November, 1824, there is 
 the following note apropos to a discussion of the 
 Byron question : 
 
 " Byron s Memoirs, given by him to Moore, were burned, as 
 everybody knows. But, before this, Moore had lent them to 
 several persons. Mrs. Home Purvis, afterwards Viscountess of 
 Canterbury, is known to have sat up all one night, in which, 
 aided by her daughter, she had a copy made. I have the 
 strongest reason for believing that one other person made a 
 
1 66 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 copy ; for the description of the first twenty-four hours after the 
 marriage ceremonial has been in my hands. Not until after the 
 death of Lady Byron, and Hobhouse, who was the poet s literary 
 executor, can the poet s Autobiography see the light ; but I am 
 certain it will be published. " 
 
 Thus speaks Mackenzie in a note to a volume 
 of "The Noctes," published in America in 1854. 
 Lady Byron died in 1860. 
 
 Nine years after Lady Byron s death, when it 
 was ascertained that her story was not to see 
 the light, when there were no means of judging 
 her character by her own writings, commenced 
 a well-planned set of operations to turn the 
 public attention once more to Lord Byron, and 
 to represent him as an injured man, whose 
 testimony had been unjustly suppressed. 
 
 It was quite possible, supposing copies of the 
 Autobiography to exist, that this might occa 
 sion a call from the generation of to-day, in 
 answer to which the suppressed work might 
 appear. This was a rather delicate operation to 
 commence ; but the instrument was not want- 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. l6/ 
 
 ing. It was necessary that the subject should 
 be first opened by some irresponsible party, 
 whom more powerful parties might, as by 
 accident, recognize and patronize, and on whose 
 weakness they might build something stronger. 
 
 Just such an instrument was to be found in 
 Paris. The mistress of Lord Byron could easily 
 be stirred up and flattered to come before the 
 world with a book which should re-open the 
 whole controversy ; and she proved a facile tool. 
 At first, the work appeared prudently in French, 
 and was called " Lord Byron juge par les Tc- 
 moins de sa Vie," and was rather a failure. Then 
 it was translated into English, and published by 
 Bentley. 
 
 The book was inartistic, and helplessly, child 
 ishly stupid as to any literary merits, a mere 
 mass of gossip and twaddle ; but after all, when 
 one remembers the taste of the thousands of cir 
 culating-library readers, it must not be consid 
 ered the less likely to be widely read on that 
 account. It is only once in a century that a 
 
1 68 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 writer of real genius has the art to tell his story 
 so as to take both the cultivated few and the 
 average many. De Foe and John Bunyan are 
 almost the only examples. But there is a certain 
 class of reading that sells and spreads, and 
 exerts a vast influence, which the upper circles 
 of literature despise too much ever to fairly esti 
 mate its power. 
 
 However, the Guiccioli book did not want 
 for patrons in the high places of literature. The 
 " Blackwood " the old classic magazine of 
 England ; the defender of conservatism and aris 
 tocracy ; the paper of Lockhart, Wilson, Hogg, 
 Walter Scott, and a host of departed grandeurs 
 was deputed to usher into the world this 
 book, and to recommend it and its author to the 
 Christian public of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The following is the manner in which " Black- 
 wood " calls attention to it : 
 
 " ne of the most beautiful of the songs of Beranger is that 
 addressed to his Lisette, in which he pictures her, in old age, 
 narrating to a younger generation the loves of their youth ; deck- 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 169 
 
 ing his portrait with flowers at each returning spring, and 
 reciting the verses that had been inspired by her vanished 
 
 charms : 
 
 When youthful eyes your wrinkles shall explore 
 
 To see what beauties once inspired my lays, 
 Then will they say to thee, " Who was that friend 
 So loved, so wept, so sung in ceaseless praise ? " 
 Paint to their eyes, if possible, my love, 
 Its ardors, its deliriums, e en its fears ; 
 And, good old friend, beside thy peaceful fire 
 Repeat the love-songs of my early years. 
 
 " Ah ! " will they say, " was he so lovely, then ? " 
 
 
 
 And thou without a blush shalt say, " / loved." 
 " Of wrong or evil was he guilty ever? " 
 And thou with noble pride shalt answer, " Never ! " 
 
 " This charming picture," " Blackwood " goes on to say, " has 
 been realized in the case -of a poet greater than Beranger, and 
 by a mistress more famous than Lisette. The Countess Guiccioli 
 has at length given to the world her Recollections of Lord 
 Byron. The book first appeared in France under the title of 
 Lord Byron juge par les Tcmoins de sa Vie, without the 
 name of the countess. A more unfortunate designation could 
 hardly have been selected. The witnesses of his life told 
 us nothing but what had been told before over and over again ; 
 and the uniform and exaggerated tone of eulogy which per 
 vaded the whole book was fatal to any claim on the part of the 
 writer to be considered an impartial judge of the wonderfully 
 mixed character of Byron. 
 
I7O ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 " When, however, the book is regarded as the avowed pro- 
 dttction of the Countess Guiccioli, it derives value and interest 
 from its very faults* There is something inexpressibly 
 touching in the picture of the old lady calling up the phan 
 toms of half a century ago ; not faded and stricken by the hand 
 of time, but brilliant and gorgeous as they were when Byron, in 
 his manly prime of genius and beauty, first flashed upon her 
 enraptured sight, and she gave her whole soul up to an absorb 
 ing passion, the embers of which still glow in her heart. 
 
 " To her there has been no change, no decay. The god 
 whom she worshipped with all the ardor of her Italian nature 
 at seventeen is still the Pythian of the age to her at seventy. 
 To try such a book by the ordinary canons of criticism would 
 be as absurd as to arraign the authoress before a jury of British 
 matrons, or to prefer a bill of indictment against the Sultan for 
 bigamy to a Middlesex grand jury." 
 
 This, then, is the introduction which one of 
 the oldest and most classical periodicals of Great 
 Britain gives to a very stupid book, simply be 
 cause it was written by Lord Byron s mistress. 
 That fact, we are assured, lends grace even to 
 its faults. 
 
 Having brought the authoress upon the stage, 
 
 * The Italics are mine. H. B. S. 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. I/I 
 
 the review now goes on to define her position, 
 and assure the Christian world that 
 
 " The Countess Guiccioli was the daughter of an impover 
 ished noble. At the age of sixteen, she was taken from a con 
 vent, and sold as third wife to the Count Guiccioli, who was old, 
 rich, and profligate. A fouler prostitution never profaned the 
 name of marriage. A short time afterwards, she accidentally 
 met Lord Byron. Outraged and rebellious nature vindicated 
 itself in the deep and devoted passion with which he inspired 
 her. With the full assent of husband, father, and brother, and 
 in compliance with the usages of Italian society, he was shortly 
 afterwards installed in the office, and invested with all the privi 
 leges, of her Cavalier Servente. " 
 
 It has been asserted that the Marquis de 
 Boissy, the late husband of this Guiccioli lady, 
 was in the habit of introducing her in fashiona 
 ble circles as "the Marquise de Boissy, my wife, 
 formerly mistress to Lord Byron " ! We do not 
 give the story as a verity ; yet, in the review 
 of this whole history, we may be pardoned for 
 thinking it quite possible. 
 
 The mistress, being thus vouched for and pre 
 sented as worthy of sympathy and attention by 
 
1/2 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 one of the oldest and most classic organs of 
 English literature, may now proceed in her work 
 of glorifying the popular idol, and casting abuse 
 on the grave of the dead wife. 
 
 Her attacks on Lady Byron are, to be sure, 
 less skilful and adroit than those of Lord Byron. 
 They want his literary polish and tact ; but what 
 of that ? " Blackwood " assures us that even the 
 faults of manner derive a peculiar grace from 
 the fact that the narrator is Lord Byron s mis 
 tress ; and so we suppose the literary world must 
 find grace in things like this : 
 
 " She has been called, after his words, the moral Clytemnes- 
 tra of her husband. Such a surname is severe : but the repug 
 nance we feel to condemning a woman cannot prevent our lis 
 tening to the voice of justice, which tells us that the comparison 
 is still in favor of the guilty one of antiquity ; for she, driven 
 to crime by fierce passion overpowering reason, at least only 
 deprived her husband of physical life, and, in committing the 
 deed, exposed herself to all its consequences ; while Lady Byron 
 left her husband at the very moment that she saw him struggling 
 amid a thousand shoals in the stormy sea of embarrassments 
 created by his marriage, and precisely when he more than 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 1/3 
 
 ever required a friendly, tender, and indulgent hand to save 
 him. 
 
 " Besides, she shut herself up in silence a thousand times more 
 cruel than Clytemnestra s poniard : that only killed the body ; 
 whereas Lady Byron s silence was destined to kill the soul, 
 and such a soul ! leaving the door open to calumny, and making 
 it to be supposed that her silence was magnanimity destined to 
 cover over frightful wrongs, perhaps even depravity. In vain 
 did he, feeling his conscience at ease, implore some inquiry and 
 examination. She refused ; and the only favor she granted 
 was to send him, one fine day, two persons to see whether he 
 were not mad. 
 
 " And why, then, had she believed him mad ? Because she, 
 a methodical, inflexible woman, with that unbendingness which 
 a profound moralist calls the worship rendered to pride by a 
 feelingless soul, because she could not understand the possi 
 bility of tastes and habits different to those of ordinary routine, 
 or of her own starched life. Not to be hungry when she was ; 
 not to sleep at night, but to write while she was sleeping, and 
 to sleep when she was up ; in short, to gratify the require 
 ments of material and intellectual life at hours different to hers, 
 all that was not merely annoying for her, but it must be mad 
 ness ; or, if not, it betokened depravity that she could neither 
 submit to nor tolerate without perilling her own morality. 
 
 " Such was the grand secret of the cruel silence which ex 
 posed Lord Byron to the most malignant interpretations, to 
 all the calumny and revenge of his enemies. 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON s GRAVE. 
 
 " She was, perhaps, the only woman in the world so strangely 
 organized, the only one, perhaps, capable of not feeling 
 happy and proud at belonging to a man superior to the rest of 
 humanity ; and fatally was it decreed that this woman alone of 
 her species should be Lord Byron s wife ! " 
 
 In a note is added, 
 
 " If an imaginary fear, and even an unreasonable jealousy, 
 may be her excuse (just as one excuses a monomania), can one 
 equally forgive her silence ? Such a silence is morally what are 
 physically the poisons which kill at once, and defy all remedies ; 
 thus insuring the culprit s safety. This silence it is which will 
 ever be her crime ; for by it she poisoned the life of her hus 
 band." 
 
 The book has several chapters devoted to 
 Lord Byron s peculiar virtues ; and, under the 
 one devoted to magnanimity and heroism, his 
 forgiving disposition receives special attention. 
 The climax of all is stated to be that he forgave 
 Lady Byron. All the world knew that, since he 
 had declared this fact in a very noisy and impas 
 sioned manner in the fourth canto of "Childe 
 Harold," together with a statement of the wrongs 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 1/5 
 
 which he forgave ; but the Guiccioli thinks his 
 virtue, at this period, has not been enough appre 
 ciated. In her view, it rose to the sublime. She 
 says of Lady Byron, 
 
 " An absolute moral monstrosity, an anomaly in the his 
 tory of types of female hideousness, had succeeded in show 
 ing itself in the light of magnanimity. But false as was this 
 high quality in Lady Byron, so did it shine out in him true and 
 admirable. The position in which Lady Byron had placed him, 
 and where she continued to keep him by her harshness, silence, 
 and strange refusals, was one of those which cause such suffer 
 ing, that the highest degree of self-control seldom suffices to 
 quiet the promptings of human weakness, and to cause persons 
 of even slight sensibility to preserve moderation. Yet, with his 
 sensibility and the knowledge of his worth, how did he act ? 
 what did he say ? I will not speak of his Farewell ; of the 
 care he took to shield her from blame by throwing it on others, 
 by taking much too large a share to himself." 
 
 With like vivacity and earnestness does the 
 narrator now proceed to make an incarnate angel 
 of her subject by the simple process of denying 
 every thing that he himself ever confessed, 
 every thing that has ever been confessed in regard 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRONS GRAVE. 
 
 to him by his best friends. He has been in the 
 world as an angel unawares from his cradle. His 
 guardian did not properly appreciate him, and is 
 consequently mentioned as that wicked Lord Car 
 lisle. Thomas Moore is never to be sufficiently 
 condemned for the facts told in his Biography. 
 Byron s own frank and lawless admissions of 
 evil are set down to a peculiar inability he 
 had for speaking the truth about himself, 
 sometimes about his near relations ; all which 
 does not in the least discourage the authoress 
 from giving a separate chapter on " Lord Byron s 
 Love of Truth." 
 
 In the matter of his relations with women, she 
 complacently repeats (what sounds rather oddly 
 as coming from her) Lord Byron s own assur 
 ance, that he never seduced a woman ; and also 
 the equally convincing statement, that he had told 
 lier (the Guiccioli) that his married fidelity to his 
 wife was perfect. She discusses Moore s account 
 of the mistress in boy s clothes who used to 
 share Byron s apartments in college, and ride 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. I// 
 
 with him to races, and whom he presented to 
 ladies as his brother. 
 
 She has her own view of this matter. The 
 disguised boy was a lady of rank and fashion, 
 who sought Lord Byron s chambers, as we are 
 informed noble ladies everywhere, both in Italy 
 and England, were constantly in the habit of 
 doing ; throwing themselves at his feet, and im 
 ploring permission to become his handmaids. 
 
 In the authoress s own words, " Feminine over 
 tures still continued to be made to Lord Byron ; 
 but the fumes of incense never hid from his sight 
 his IDEAL." We are told, that, in case of these 
 poor ladies, generally " disenchantment took 
 place on his side without a corresponding result 
 on the other : THENCE many heart-breakings." 
 Nevertheless, we are informed that there fol 
 lowed the indiscretions of these ladies " none of 
 those proceedings that the world readily forgives, 
 but which his feelings as a man of honor would 
 have condemned." 
 
 As to drunkenness, and all that, we are in- 
 
1/8 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 formed he was an anchorite. Pages are given to 
 an account of the biscuits and soda-water that 
 on this and that occasion were found to be the 
 sole means of sustenance to this ethereal crea 
 ture. 
 
 As to the story of using his wife s money, the 
 lady gives, directly in the face of his own Letters 
 and Journal, the same account given before by 
 Medwin, and which caused such merriment when 
 talked over in the Noctes Club, that he had 
 with her only a marriage-portion of ; 10,000 ; 
 and that, on the separation, he not only paid it 
 back, but doubled it.* 
 
 So on the authoress goes, sowing right and 
 left the most transparent absurdities and mis- 
 statements with what Carlyle well calls " a com- 
 
 * In the Noctes of November, 1824, Christopher North says, "I don t 
 call Medwin a liar. . . . Whether Byron bammed him, or he, by virtue 
 of his own stupidity, was the sole and sufficient bammifier of himself, I 
 know not." A note says, that Murray had been much shocked by Byron s 
 misstatements to Medwin as to money-matters with him. The note goes on 
 to say, " Medwin could not have invented them, for they were mixed up 
 with acknowledged facts ; and the presumption is, tliat Byron mystified his 
 gallant acquaintance. He was fond of such tricks." 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 179 
 
 posed stupidity, and a cheerful infinitude of 
 ignorance." Who &##/// know, if not she, to be 
 sure ? Had not Byron told her all about it ? and 
 was not his family motto Crede Byron ? 
 
 The " Blackwood," having a dim suspicion that 
 this confused style of attack and defence in 
 reference to the two parties under consideration 
 may not have great weight, itself proceeds to 
 make the book an occasion for re-opening the 
 controversy of Lord Byron with his wife. 
 
 The rest of the review is devoted to a power 
 ful attack on Lady Byron s character, the most 
 fearful attack on the memory of a dead woman 
 we have ever seen made by a living man. The 
 author proceeds, like a lawyer, to gather up, 
 arrange, and restate, in a most workmanlike 
 manner, the confused accusations of the book. 
 
 Anticipating the objection, that such a re 
 opening of the inquiry was a violation of the 
 privacy due to womanhood and to the feelings 
 of a surviving family, he says, that though mar 
 riage usually is a private matter which the 
 
l8O ATTACK ON LADY BYRON s GRAVE. 
 
 world has no right to intermeddle with or dis 
 cuss, yet 
 
 " Lord Byron s was an exceptional case. It is not too much 
 to say, that, had his marriage been a happy one, the course of 
 events of the present century might have been materially 
 changed ; that the genius which poured itself forth in Don 
 Juan and Cain might have flowed in far different channels ; 
 that the ardent love of freedom which sent him to perish at six 
 and thirty at Missolonghi might have inspired a long career at 
 home ; and that we might at this moment have been appealing 
 to the counsels of his experience and wisdom at an age not 
 exceeding that which was attained by Wellington, Lyndhurst, 
 and Brougham. 
 
 " Whether the world would have been a gainer or a loser by 
 the exchange is a question which every man must answer for 
 himself, according to his own tastes and opinions ; but the 
 possibility of such a change in the course of events warrants 
 us in treating what would otherwise be a strictly private matter 
 as one of public interest. 
 
 " More than half a century has elapsed, the actors have 
 departed from the stage, the curtain has fallen ; and whether it 
 will ever again be raised so as to reveal the real facts of the 
 drama, may, as we have already observed, be well doubted. 
 But the time has arrived when we may fairly gather up the 
 fragments of evidence, clear them as far as possible from the 
 incrustations of passion, prejudice, and malice, and place them 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. l8l 
 
 in such order, as, if possible, to enable us to arrive at some 
 probable conjecture as to what the skeleton of the drama 
 originally was." 
 
 Here the writer proceeds to put together all 
 the facts of Lady Byron s case, just as an ad 
 verse lawyer would put them as against her, and 
 for her husband. The plea is made vigorously 
 and ably, and with an air of indignant severity, 
 as of an honest advocate who is thoroughly 
 convinced that he is pleading the cause of a 
 wronged man who has been ruined in name, 
 shipwrecked in life, and driven to an early grave, 
 by the arts of a bad woman, a woman all the 
 more horrible that her malice was disguised 
 under the cloak of religion. 
 
 Having made an able statement of facts, 
 adroitly leaving out ONE,* of which he could not 
 have been ignorant had he studied the case care 
 fully enough to know all the others, he proceeds 
 to sum up against the criminal thus : 
 
 * This one fact is, that Lord Byron might have had an open examination 
 in court, if he had only persisted in refusing the deed of separation. 
 
1 82 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON s GRAVE. 
 
 " We would deal tenderly with the memory of Lady Byron. 
 Few women have been juster objects of compassion. It would 
 seem as if Nature and Fortune had vied with each other which 
 should be most lavish of her gifts, and yet that some malignant 
 power had rendered all their bounty of no effect. Rank, 
 beauty, wealth, and mental powers of no common order, were 
 hers ; yet they were of no avail to secure her happiness. The 
 spoilt child of seclusion, restraint, and parental idolatry, a fate 
 (alike evil for both) cast her into the arms of the spoilt child 
 of genius, passion, and the world. What real or fancied wrongs 
 she suffered, we may never know ; but those which she inflicted 
 are sufficiently apparent. 
 
 " It is said that there are some poisons so subtle that they 
 will destroy life, and yet leave no trace of their action. The 
 murderer who uses them may escape the vengeance of the law ; 
 but he is not the less guilty. So the slanderer who makes no 
 charge ; who deals in hints and insinuations ; who knows 
 melancholy facts he would not willingly divulge, things too 
 painful to state ; who forbears, expresses pity, sometimes even 
 affection, for his victim, shrugs his shoulders, looks with 
 
 The significant eye, 
 Which learns to lie with silence, 
 
 is far more guilty than he who tells the bold falsehood which 
 may be met and answered, and who braves the punishment 
 which must follow upon detection. 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 183 
 
 " Lady Byron has been called 
 
 The moral Clytemnestra of her lord. 
 
 The moral Brinvilliers would have been a truer designation. 
 
 "The conclusion at which we arrive is, that there is no 
 proof whatever that Lord Byron was guilty of any act that 
 need have caused a separation, or prevented a re-union, and 
 that the imputations upon him rest on the vaguest conjecture ; 
 that whatever real or fancied wrongs Lady Byron may have 
 endured are shrouded in an impenetrable mist of her own 
 creation, a poisonous miasma in which she enveloped the 
 character of her husband, raised by her breath, and which 
 her breath only could have dispersed. 
 
 She dies, and makes no sign. O God ! forgive her. " 
 
 As we have been obliged to review accusa 
 tions on Lady Byron founded on old Greek 
 tragedy, so now we are forced to abridge a 
 passage from a modern conversations-lexicon, 
 that we may understand what sort of compari 
 sons are deemed in good taste in a conservative 
 English review, when speaking of ladies of rank 
 in their graves. 
 
 Under the article " Brinvilliers," we find as 
 follows : 
 
184 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 "MARGUERITE D AUBRAI, MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS. 
 
 The singular atrocity of this woman gives her a sort of 
 infamous claim to notice. She was born in Paris in 1651; being 
 daughter of D Aubrai, lieutenant-civil of Paris, who married 
 her to the Marquis of Brinvilliers. Although possessed of 
 attractions to captivate lovers, she was for some time much 
 attached to her husband, but at length became madly in love 
 with a Gascon officer. Her father imprisoned the officer in the 
 Bastille ; and, while there, he learned the art of compounding 
 subtle and most mortal poisons ; and, when he was released, he 
 taught it to the lady, who exercised it with such success, that, in 
 one year, her father, sister, and two brothers, became her victims. 
 She professed the utmost tenderness for her victims, and nursed 
 them assiduously. On her father she is said to have made 
 eight attempts before she succeeded. She was very religious, 
 and devoted to works of charity ; and visited the hospitals a 
 great deal, where it is said she tried her poisons on the sick." 
 
 People have made loud outcries lately, both in 
 America and England, about violating the repose 
 of the dead. We should like to know what they 
 call this. Is this, then, what they mean by 
 respecting the dead ? 
 
 Let any man imagine a leading review coming 
 out with language equally brutal about his own 
 mother, or any dear and revered friend. 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 185 
 
 Men of America, men of England, what do 
 you think of this ? 
 
 When Lady Byron was publicly branded with 
 the names of the foulest ancient and foulest 
 modern assassins, and Lord Byron s mistress was 
 publicly taken by the hand, and encouraged to 
 go on and prosper in her slanders, by one of the 
 oldest and most influential British reviews, what 
 was said and what was done in England ? 
 
 That is a question we should be glad to have 
 answered. Nothing was done that ever reached 
 us. across the water. 
 
 And why was nothing done ? Is this language 
 of a kind to be passed over in silence ? 
 
 Was it no offence to the .house of Wentworth 
 to attack the pure character of its late venera 
 ble head, and to brand her in her sacred grave 
 with the name of one of the vilest of criminals ? 
 
 Might there not properly have been an indig 
 nant protest of family solicitors against this in 
 sult to the person and character of the Baroness 
 Wentworth ? 
 
1 86 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 If virtue went for nothing, benevolence for 
 nothing, a long life of service to humanity for 
 nothing, one would at least have thought, that, 
 in aristocratic countries, rank might have had 
 its rights to decent consideration, and its guar 
 dians to rebuke the violation of those rights. 
 
 We Americans understand little of the advan 
 tages of rank ; but we did understand that it 
 secured certain decorums to people, both while 
 living and when in their graves. From Lady 
 Byron s whole history, in life and in death, it 
 would appear that we were mistaken. 
 
 What a life was hers ! Was ever a woman 
 more evidently desirous of the delicate and se 
 cluded privileges of womanhood, of the sacred- 
 ness of individual privacy ? Was ever a woman 
 so rudely dragged forth, and exposed to the 
 hardened, vulgar, and unfeeling gaze of mere 
 curiosity? her maiden secrets of love thrown 
 open to be handled by roues ; the sanctities of 
 her marriage-chamber desecrated by leering 
 satyrs ; her parents and best friends traduced 
 
1 8 7 
 
 and slandered, till one indignant public protest 
 was extorted from her, as by the rack, a pro 
 test which seems yet to quiver in every word 
 with the indignation of outraged womanly deli 
 cacy ! 
 
 Then followed coarse blame and coarser com 
 ment, blame for speaking at all, and blame for 
 not speaking more. One manly voice, raised 
 for her in honorable protest, was silenced and 
 overborne by the universal roar of ridicule and 
 reprobation ; and henceforth what refuge ? Only 
 this remained : " Let them that suffer according 
 to the will of God commit the keeping of their 
 souls to him as to a faithful Creator." 
 
 Lady Byron turned to this refuge in silence, 
 and filled up her life with a noble record of 
 charities and humanities. So pure was she, so 
 childlike, so artless, so loving, that those who 
 knew her best, feel, to this day, that a memorial 
 of her is like the relic of a saint. And could 
 not all this preserve her grave from insult ? O 
 England, England ! 
 
1 88 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. . 
 
 I speak in sorrow of heart to those who must 
 have known, loved, and revered Lady Byron, 
 and ask them, Of what were you thinking when 
 you allowed a paper of so established literary 
 rank as the " Blackwood " to present and 
 earnestly recommend to our New World such 
 a compendium of lies as the Guiccioli book ? 
 
 Is the great English-speaking community, 
 whose waves toss from Maine to California, 
 and whose literature is yet to come back in 
 a thousand voices to you, a thing to be so 
 despised ? 
 
 If, as the solicitors of the Wentworth family 
 observe, you might be entitled to treat with si 
 lent contempt the slanders of a mistress against 
 a wife, was it safe to treat with equal contempt 
 the indorsement and recommendation of those 
 slanders by one of your oldest and most power 
 ful literary authorities ? 
 
 No European magazine has ever had the 
 weight and circulation in America that the 
 " Blackwood " has held. In the days of my 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON s GRAVE. 189 
 
 youth, when New England was a comparatively 
 secluded section of the earth, the wit and genius 
 of the "Noctcs Ambrosianas " were in the mouths 
 of men and maidens, even in our most quiet 
 mountain-towns. There, years ago, we saw all 
 Lady Byron s private affairs discussed, and felt 
 the weight of Christopher North s decisions 
 against her. Shelton Mackenzie, in his Ameri 
 can edition, speaks of the American circulation 
 of " Blackwood " being greater than that in 
 England.* It was and is now reprinted 
 monthly ; and, besides that, Littell s Magazine 
 reproduces all its striking articles, and they 
 come with the weight of long-established posi 
 tion. From the very fact that it has long 
 been considered the Tory organ, and the sup 
 porter of aristocratic orders, all its admissions 
 
 * In the history of " Blackwood s Magazine." prefaced to the American 
 edition of 1854, Mackenzie says of the " Noctes " papers, "Great as was 
 their popularity in England, it was peculiarly in America that their high 
 merit and undoubted originality received the heartiest recognition and appre 
 ciation. Nor is this wonderful, when it is considered, that, for one reader of 
 Blackwood s Magazine" in the old country, there cannot be less than fifty 
 in the new." 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 against the character of individuals in the privi 
 leged classes have a double force. 
 
 When " Blackwood," therefore, boldly de 
 nounces a lady of high rank as a modern Brin- 
 villiers, and no sensation is produced, and no 
 remonstrance follows, what can people in the 
 New World suppose, but that Lady Byron s 
 character was a point entirely given up ; that 
 her depravity, was so well established and so 
 fully conceded, that nothing was to be said, 
 and that even the defenders of aristocracy were 
 forced to admit it ? 
 
 I have been blamed for speaking on this sub 
 ject without consulting Lady Byron s friends, 
 trustees, and family. More than ten years had 
 elapsed since I had had any intercourse with 
 England, and I knew none of them. How was 
 I to know that any of them were living ? It 
 was perfectly fair for me to conclude that they 
 were not ; for, if they had been, they certainly 
 must have taken some public steps to stop such 
 a scandal. I was astonished to learn, for the 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. IQI 
 
 first time, by the solicitors letters, that there 
 were trustees, who held in their hands all Lady 
 Byron s carefully-prepared proofs and documents, 
 by which this falsehood might immediately have 
 been refuted. 
 
 If they had spoken, they might have saved 
 all this confusion. Even if bound by restric 
 tions for a certain period of time, they still 
 might have called on a Christian public to 
 frown down such a cruel and indecent attack on 
 the character of a noble lady who had been a 
 benefactress to so many in England. They 
 might have stated that the means of wholly 
 refuting the slanders of the " Blackwood " were 
 in their hands, and only delayed in coming forth 
 from regard to the feelings of some in this gen 
 eration. Then might they not have announced 
 her Life and Letters, that the public might have 
 the same opportunity as themselves for knowing 
 and judging Lady Byron by her own writings ? 
 
 Had this been done, I had been most happy 
 to have remained silent. I have been aston- 
 
1 92 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON s GRAVE. 
 
 ished that any one should have supposed this 
 speaking on my part to be any thing less than 
 it is, the severest act of self-sacrifice that 
 one friend can perform for another, and the 
 most solemn and difficult tribute to justice that 
 a human being can be called upon to render. 
 
 I have been informed that the course I have 
 taken would be contrary to the wishes of my 
 friend. I think otherwise. I know her strong 
 sense of justice, and her reverence for truth. 
 Nothing ever moved her to speak to the public 
 but an attack upon the honor of the dead. In 
 her statement, she says of her parents, " There 
 is no other near relative to vindicate their 
 memory from insult : I am therefore compelled 
 to break the silence I had hoped always to have 
 observed." 
 
 If there was any near relative to vindicate 
 Lady Byron s memory, I had no evidence of 
 the fact ; and I considered the utter silence to 
 be strong evidence to the contrary. In all the 
 storm of obloquy and rebuke that has raged in 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. I 93 
 
 consequence of my speaking, I have had two 
 unspeakable sources of joy : first, that they 
 could not touch her ; and, second, that they 
 could not blind the all-seeing God. It is worth 
 being in darkness to see the stars. 
 
 It has been said that / have drawn on Lady 
 Byron s name greater obloquy than ever before. 
 I deny the charge. Nothing fouler has been 
 asserted of her than the charges of the " Black- 
 wood," because nothing fouler could be asserted. 
 No satyr s hoof has ever crushed this pearl 
 deeper in the mire than the hoof of the " Black- 
 wood ; " but none of them have so defiled it or 
 trodden it so deep that God cannot find it in 
 the day "when he maketh up his jewels." 
 
 I have another word, as an American, to say 
 about the contempt shown to our great people 
 in thus suffering the materials of history to be 
 falsified to subserve the temporary purposes of 
 family feeling in England. 
 
 Lord Byron belongs not properly either to 
 the Byrons or the Wentworths. He is not one 
 
194 ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 of their family jewels, to be locked up in their 
 cases. He belongs to the world for which he 
 wrote, to which he appealed, and before which 
 he dragged his reluctant, delicate wife to a 
 publicity equal with his own : the world has, 
 therefore, a right to judge him. 
 
 We Americans have been made accessories, 
 after the fact, to every insult and injury that 
 Lord Byron and the literary men of his day have 
 heaped upon Lady Byron. We have been 
 betrayed into injustice, and a complicity with 
 villany. After Lady Byron had nobly lived down 
 slanders in England, and died full of years and 
 honors, the " Blackwood " takes occasion to 
 re-open the controversy by recommending a 
 book full of slanders to a rising generation who 
 knew nothing of the past. What was the con 
 sequence in America ? My attention was first 
 called to the result, not by reading the " Black- 
 wood " article, but by finding in a popular 
 monthly magazine two long articles, the one 
 an enthusiastic recommendation of the Guiccioli 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 195 
 
 book, and the other a lamentation over the 
 burning of the Autobiography as a lost chapter 
 in history. 
 
 Both articles represented Lady Byron as a 
 cold, malignant, mean, persecuting woman, who 
 had been her husband s ruin. They were so full 
 of falsehoods and misstatements as to astonish 
 me. Not long after, a literary friend wrote to 
 me, " Will you, can you, reconcile it to your 
 , conscience to sit still and allow that mistress so 
 to slander that wife, you, perhaps, the only 
 one knowing the real facts, and able to set them 
 forth ? " 
 
 Upon this, I immediately began collecting 
 and reading the various articles and the book, 
 and perceived that the public of this generation 
 were in a way of having false history created, 
 uncontradicted, under their own eyes. 
 
 I claim for my country men and women our 
 right to true history. For years, the popular 
 literature has held u.p publicly before our 
 eyes the facts as to this man and this woman, 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRONS GRAVE. 
 
 and called on us to praise or condemn. Let us 
 have truth when we are called on to judge. It 
 is our right. 
 
 There is no conceivable obligation on a 
 human being greater than that of absolute 
 justice. It is the deepest personal injury to an 
 honorable mind to be made, through misrepre 
 sentation, an accomplice in injustice. When a 
 noble name is accused, any person who pos 
 sesses truth which might clear it, and withholds 
 that truth, is guilty of a sin against human 
 nature and the inalienable claims of justice. I 
 claim that I have not only a right, but an obliga 
 tion, to bring in my solemn testimony upon this 
 subject 
 
 For years and years, the silence-policy has 
 been tried ; and what has it brought forth ? As 
 neither word nor deed could be proved against 
 Lady Byron, her silence has been spoken of as a 
 monstrous, unnatural crime, "a poisonous mi 
 asma," in which she enveloped the name of her 
 husband. 
 
ATTACK ON LADY BYRON S GRAVE. 
 
 Very well: since silence is the crime, I 
 thought I would tell the world that Lady Byron 
 had spoken. 
 
 Christopher North, years ago, when he con 
 demned her for speaking, said that she should 
 speak further, 
 
 " She should speak, or some one for her. One 
 word would suffice. 5 
 
 That one word I have spoken. 
 
PART II, 
 
PART II. 
 
 A 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 N editorial in " The London Times " of 
 Sept. 1 8 says, 
 
 " The perplexing feature in this True Story is, that it is 
 impossible to distinguish what part in it is the editress s, and 
 what Lady Byron s own. We are given the impression made on 
 Mrs. Stowe s mind by Lady Byron s statements ; but it would 
 have been more satisfactory if the statement itself had been 
 reproduced as bare as possible, and been left to make its own 
 impression on the public." 
 
 In reply to this, I will say, that in my article I 
 gave a brief synopsis of the subject-matter of 
 Lady Byron s communications ; and I think it 
 must be quite evident to the world that the main 
 
2O2 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 fact on which the story turns was one which 
 could not possibly be misunderstood, and the 
 remembrance of which no lapse of time could 
 ever weaken. 
 
 Lady Byron s communications were made to 
 me in language clear, precise, terrible ; and 
 many of her phrases and sentences I could 
 repeat at this day, word for word. But if I 
 had reproduced them at first, as " The Times " 
 suggests, word for word, the public horror and 
 incredulity would have been doubled. It was 
 necessary that the brutality of the story should, 
 in some degree, be veiled and softened. 
 
 The publication, by Lord Lindsay, of Lady 
 Anne Barnard s communication, makes it now 
 possible to tell fully, and in Lady Byron s own 
 words, certain incidents that yet remain untold. 
 To me who know the whole history, the revela 
 tions in Lady Anne s account, and the story re 
 lated by Lady Byron, are like fragments of a 
 dissected map : they fit together, piece by piece, 
 and form one connected whole. 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 2O3 
 
 In confirmation of the general facts of this 
 interview, I have the testimony of a sister who 
 accompanied me on this visit, and to whom, im 
 mediately after it, I recounted the story. 
 
 Her testimony on the subject is as follows : 
 
 " MY DEAR SISTER, I have a perfect recollection of going 
 with you to visit Lady Byron at the time spoken of in your 
 published article. We arrived at her house in the morning ; 
 and, after lunch, Lady Byron and yourself spent the whole 
 time till evening alone together. 
 
 " After we retired to our apartment that night, you related 
 to me the story given in your published account, though with 
 many more particulars than you have yet thought fit to give to 
 the public. 
 
 " You stated to me that Lady Byron was strongly impressed 
 with the idea that it might be her duty to publish a statement 
 during her lifetime, and also the. reasons which induced her to 
 think so. You appeared at that time quite disposed to think 
 that justice required this step, and asked my opinion. We 
 passed most of the night in conversation on the subject, a 
 conversation often resumed, from time to time, during several 
 weeks in which you were considering what opinion to give. 
 
 " I was strongly of opinion that justice required the publica 
 tion of the truth, but felt exceedingly averse to its being done 
 by Lady Byron herself during her own lifetime, when she 
 
2O4 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 personally would be subject to the comments and misconcep 
 tions of motives which would certainly follow such a communi 
 cation. " Your sister, 
 
 " M. F. PERKINS." 
 
 I am now about to complete the account of 
 my conversation with Lady Byron ; but as the 
 credibility of a history depends greatly on the 
 character of its narrator, and as especial pains 
 have been taken to destroy the belief in this 
 story by representing it to be the wanderings of 
 a broken-down mind in a state of dotage and 
 mental hallucination, I shall preface the narra 
 tive with some account of Lady Byron as she 
 was during the time of our mutual acquaintance 
 and friendship. 
 
 This account may, perhaps, be deemed super 
 fluous in England, where so many knew her ; but 
 in America, where, from Maine to California, 
 her character has been discussed and traduced, 
 it is of importance to give interested thousands 
 an opportunity of learning what kind of a wo 
 man Lady Byron was. 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 20$ 
 
 Her character as given by Lord Byron in 
 his Journal, after her first refusal of him, is 
 this : 
 
 " She is a very superior woman, and very little spoiled ; 
 which is strange in an heiress, a girl of twenty, a peeress 
 that is to be in her own right, an only child, and a savante, who 
 has always had her own way. She is a poetess, a mathemati 
 cian, a metaphysician ; yet, withal, very kind, generous, and 
 gentle, with very little pretension. Any other head would be 
 turned with half her acquisitions and a tenth of her advan 
 tages." 
 
 Such was Lady Byron at twenty. I formed 
 her acquaintance in the year 1853, during my 
 first visit in England. I met her at a lunch- 
 party in the house of one of her friends. 
 
 The party had many notables ; but, among 
 them all, my attention was fixed principally on 
 Lady Byron. She was at this time sixty-one 
 years of age, but still had, to a remarkable de 
 gree, that personal attraction which is commonly 
 considered to belong only to youth and beauty. 
 
 Her form was slight, giving an impression of 
 
2O6 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 fragility ; her motions were both graceful and de 
 cided ; her eyes bright, and full of interest and 
 quick observation. Her silvery-white hair seemed 
 to lend a grace to the transparent purity of her 
 complexion, and her small hands had a pearly 
 whiteness. I recollect she wore a plain widow s 
 cap of a transparent material ; arid was dressed 
 in some delicate shade of lavender, which har 
 monized well with her complexion. 
 
 When I was introduced to her, I felt in a mo 
 ment the words of her husband : 
 
 " There was awe in the homage that she drew ; 
 Her spirit seemed as seated on a throne." 
 
 Calm, self-poised, and thoughtful, she seemed to 
 me rather to resemble an interested spectator of 
 the world s affairs, than an actor involved in its 
 trials ; yet the sweetness of her smile, and a 
 certain very delicate sense of humor in her 
 remarks, made the way of acquaintance easy. 
 
 Her first remarks were a little playful ; but in 
 a few moments we were speaking on what every 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 2O/ 
 
 one in those days was talking to me about, the 
 slavery question in America. 
 
 It need not be remarked, that, when any one 
 subject especially occupies the public mind, those 
 known to be interested in it are compelled to 
 listen to many weary platitudes. Lady Byron s 
 remarks, however, caught rny ear and arrested 
 my attention by their peculiar incisive quality, 
 their originality, and the evidence they gave that 
 she was as well informed on all our matters as 
 the best American statesman could be. I had 
 no wearisome course to go over with her as to 
 the difference between the General Government 
 and State Governments, nor explanations of the 
 United-States Constitution ; for she had the whole 
 before her mind with a perfect clearness. Her 
 morality upon the slavery question, too, im 
 pressed me as something far higher and deeper 
 than the common sentimentalism of the day. 
 Many of her words surprised me greatly, and 
 gave me new material for thought. 
 
 I found I was in company with a commanding 
 
2O8 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 mind, and hastened to gain instruction from her 
 on another point where my interest had been 
 aroused. I had recently been much excited by 
 Kingsley s novels, "Alton Locke" and "Yeast," 
 on the position of the religious thought in 
 England. From these works I had gathered, 
 that under the apparent placid uniformity of the 
 Established Church of England, and of " good so 
 ciety " as founded on it, there was moving a secret 
 current of speculative inquiry, doubt, and dissent ; 
 but I had met, as yet, with no person among my. 
 various acquaintances in England who seemed 
 either aware of this fact, or able to guide my 
 mind respecting it. The moment I mentioned 
 the subject to Lady Byron, I received an answer 
 which showed me that the whole ground was fa 
 miliar to her, and that she was capable of giving 
 me full information. She had studied with care 
 ful thoughtfulness all the social and religious 
 tendencies of England during her generation. 
 One of her remarks has often since occurred to 
 me. Speaking of the Oxford movement, she 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 2OQ 
 
 said the time had come when the English Church 
 could no longer remain as it was. It must either 
 restore the past, or create a future. The Oxford 
 movement attempted the former ; and of the 
 future she was beginning to speak, when our 
 conversation was interrupted by the presenta 
 tion of other parties. 
 
 Subsequently, in reply to a note from her on 
 some benevolent business, I alluded to that con 
 versation, and expressed a wish that she would 
 finish giving me her views of the religious state 
 of England. A portion of the letter that she 
 wrote me in reply I insert, as being very charac 
 teristic in many respects : 
 
 " Various causes have been assigned for the decaying state 
 of the English Church ; which seems the more strange, because 
 the clergy have improved, morally and intellectually, in the last 
 twenty years. Then why should their influence be diminished ? 
 I think it is owing to the diffusion of a spirit of free inquiry. 
 
 " Doubts have arisen in the minds of many who are unhap 
 pily bound by subscription not to doubt ; and, in consequence, 
 they are habitually pretending either to believe or to disbelieve. 
 The state of Denmark cannot but be rotten, when to seem is the 
 first object of the witnesses of truth. 
 
2IO LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 " They may lead better lives, and bring forward abler argu 
 ments ; but their efforts are paralyzed by that unsoundness. I 
 see the High Churchman professing to believe in the existence 
 of a church, when the most palpable facts must show him that 
 no such church exists; the Low Churchman professing to 
 believe in exceptional interpositions which his philosophy 
 secretly questions ; the Broad Churchman professing as 
 absolute an attachment to the Established Church as the nar 
 rowest could feel, while he is preaching such principles as will 
 at last pull it down. 
 
 " I ask you, my friend, whether there would not be more 
 faith, as well as earnestness, if all would speak out. There 
 would be more unanimity too, because they would all agree in 
 a certain basis. Would not a wider love supersede the creed- 
 bound charity of setts ? 
 
 " I am aware that I have touched on a point of difference 
 between us, and I will not regret it ; for I think the differences 
 of mind are analogous to those differences of nature, which, in 
 the most comprehensive survey, are the very elements of har 
 mony. 
 
 " I am not at all prone to put forth my own opinions ; but 
 the tone in which you have written to me claims an unusual 
 degree of openness on my part. I look upon creeds of all kinds 
 as chains, far worse chains than those you would break, 
 as the causes of much hypocrisy and infidelity. I hold it to be a 
 sin to make a child say, I believe." 1 Lead it to utter that belief 
 spontaneously. * I also consider the institution of an exclusive 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 2 1 I 
 
 priesthood, though having been of service in some respects, as 
 retarding the progress of Christianity at present. I desire to 
 see a lay ministry. 
 
 " I will not give you more of my heterodoxy at present : 
 perhaps I need your pardon, connected as you are with the 
 Church, for having said so much. 
 
 " There are causes of decay known to be at work in my frame, 
 which lead me to believe I may not have time to grow wiser ; 
 and I must therefore leave it to others to correct the conclusions 
 I have now formed from my life s experience. I should feel 
 happy to discuss them personally with you ; for it would be soul 
 to soul. In that confidence I am yours most truly, 
 
 " A. I. NOEL BYRON." 
 
 % 
 
 It is not necessary to prove to the reader 
 that this letter is not in the style of a broken- 
 down old woman subject to mental hallucinations. 
 It shows Lady Byron s habits of clear, searching 
 analysis, her thoughtfulness, and, above all, 
 that peculiar reverence for truth and sincerity 
 which was a leading characteristic of her 
 moral nature.* It also shows her views of the 
 
 * The reader is here referred to Lady Byron s other letters, printed in 
 Part III.; which also show the peculiarly active and philosophical char 
 acter of her mind, and the class of subjects on which it "habitually dwelt. 
 
212 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 probable shortness of her stay on earth, derived 
 from the opinion of physicians about her disease, 
 which was a gradual ossification of the lungs. 
 It has been asserted that pulmonary diseases, 
 while they slowly and surely sap the physical 
 life, often appear to give added vigor to the 
 play of the moral and intellectual powers. 
 
 I parted from Lady Byron, feeling richer in 
 that I had found one more pearl of great price 
 on the shore of life. 
 
 Three years after this, I visited England to 
 obtain a copyright for the issue of my novel of 
 " Dred." 
 
 The hope of once more seeing Lady Byron 
 was one of the brightest anticipations held out 
 to me in this journey. I found London quite 
 deserted ; but, hearing that Lady Byron was 
 still in town, I sent to her, saying in my note, 
 that, in case she was not well enough to call, I 
 would visit her. Her reply I give : 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, I will be indebted to you for our 
 meeting, as I am barely able to leave my room. It is not a time 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 213 
 
 for small personalities, if they could ever exist with you ; and, 
 dressed or undressed, I shall hope to see you after two o clock. 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 "A. I. NOEL BYRON." 
 
 I found Lady Byron in her sick-room, 
 that place which she made so different from 
 the chamber of ordinary invalids. Her sick 
 room seemed only a telegraphic station whence 
 her vivid mind was flashing out all over the 
 world. 
 
 By her bedside stood a table covered with books, 
 pamphlets, and files of letters, all arranged with 
 exquisite order, and each expressing some of her 
 varied interests. From that sick-bed she still 
 directed, with systematic care, her various works 
 of benevolence, and watched with intelligent 
 attention the course of science, literature, and 
 religion ; and the versatility and activity of her 
 mind, the flow of brilliant and penetrating 
 thought on- all the topics of the day, gave to the 
 conversations of her retired room a peculiar 
 charm. You forgot that she was an invalid ; for 
 
214 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 she rarely had a word of her own personalities, 
 and the charm of her conversation . carried you 
 invariably from herself to the subjects of which 
 she was thinking. All the new books, the litera 
 ture of the hour, were lighted up by her keen, 
 searching, yet always kindly criticism ; and it 
 was charming to get her fresh, genuine, clear-cut 
 modes of expression, so different from the world- 
 worn phrases of what is called good society. 
 Her opinions were always perfectly clear and 
 positive, and given with the freedom of one who 
 has long stood in a position to judge the world 
 and its ways from her own standpoint. But it 
 was not merely in general literature and science 
 that her heart lay : it was following always with 
 eager interest the progress of humanity over the 
 whole world. 
 
 This was the period of the great battle for 
 liberty in Kansas. The English papers were 
 daily filled with the thrilling particulars of that 
 desperate struggle, and Lady Byron entered 
 with heart and soul into it. 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 215 
 
 Her first letter to me, at this time, is on this 
 subject. It was while " Dred " was going 
 through the press. 
 
 "CAMBRIDGE TERRACE, Aug. 15. 
 
 "Mv DEAR MRS. STOWE, Messrs. Chambers liked the 
 proposal to publish the Kansas Letters. The more the public 
 know of these matters, the better prepared they will be for your 
 book. The moment for its publication seems well chosen. 
 There is always in England a floating fund of sympathy for 
 what is above the every-day sordid cares of life ; and these bet 
 ter feelings, so nobly invested for the last two years in Florence 
 Nightingale s career, are just set free. To what will they next 
 be attached ? If you can lay hold of them, they may bring 
 about a deeper abolition than any legislative one, the abolition 
 of the heart-heresy that man s worth comes, not from God, but 
 from man. 
 
 "I have been obliged to give up exertion again, but hope 
 soon to be able to call and make the acquaintance of your 
 daughters. In case you wish to consult H. Martineau s pam 
 phlets, I send more copies. Do not think of answering : I have 
 occupied too much of your time in reading. 
 
 " Yours affectionately, " A. I. NOEL BYRON." 
 
 As soon as a copy of " Dred " was through 
 the press, I sent it to her, saying that I had been 
 
2l6 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 ** 
 
 reproved by some excellent people for repre 
 senting too faithfully the profane language of 
 some of the wicked characters. To this she 
 sent the following reply : 
 
 " Your book, dear Mrs. Stowe, is of the little leaven kind, 
 and must prove a great moral force ; perhaps not manifestly so 
 much as secretly. And yet I can hardly conceive so much power 
 without immediate and sensible effects : only there will be a 
 strong disposition to resist on the part of all hollow-hearted 
 professors of religion, whose heathenisms you so unsparingly 
 expose. They have a class feeling like others. 
 
 " To the young, and to those who do not reflect much on what 
 is offered to their belief, you will do great good by showing how 
 spiritual food is often adulterated. The bread from heaven is in 
 the same case as baker s bread. 
 
 " If there is truth in what I heard Lord Byron say, that works 
 of fiction live only by the amount of tmith which they contain, 
 your story is sure of a long life. Of the few critiques I have 
 seen, the best is in The Examiner/ I find an obtuseness as to 
 the spirit and aim of the book, as if you had designed to make 
 the best novel of the season, or to keep up the reputation of one. 
 You are reproached, as Walter Scott was, with too much scrip 
 tural quotation ; not, that I have heard, with phrases of an 
 opposite character. 
 
 " The effects of such reading till a late hour one evening 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 appeared to influence me very singularly in a dream. The most 
 horrible spectres presented themselves, and I woke in an agony 
 of fear ; but a faith still stronger arose, and I became coura 
 geous from trust in God, and felt calm. Did you do this ? It is 
 very insignificant among the many things you certainly will do 
 unknown to yourself. I know more than ever before how to 
 value communion with you. I have sent Robertson s Sermons 
 for you ; and, with kind regards to your family, am 
 
 "Yours affectionately, "A. I. NOEL BYRON." 
 
 I was struck in this note with the mention 
 of Lord Byron, and, the next time I saw her, 
 alluded to it, and remarked upon the pecu 
 liar qualities of his mind as shown in some 
 of his more serious conversations with Dr. 
 Kennedy. 
 
 She seemed pleased to continue the subject, 
 and went on to say many things of his singular 
 character and genius, more penetrating and 
 more appreciative than is often met with among 
 critics. 
 
 I told her that I had been from childhood 
 powerfully influenced by him ; and began to tell 
 her how much, as a child, I, had been affected 
 
2l8 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 f 
 
 by the news of his death, giving up all my 
 plays, and going off to a lonely hillside, where I 
 spent the afternoon thinking of him. She 
 interrupted me, before I had quite finished, with 
 a quick, impulsive movement. " I know all that," 
 
 she said : " I heard it all from Mrs. ; and it 
 
 was one of the things that made me wish to 
 know you. I think you could understand him." 
 We talked for some time of him then ; she, with 
 her pale face slightly flushed, speaking, as any 
 other great man s widow might, only of what 
 was purest and best in his works, and what 
 were his undeniable virtues and good traits, 
 especially in early life. She told me many pleas 
 ant little speeches made by him to herself ; and, 
 though there was running through all this a 
 shade of melancholy, one could never have con 
 jectured that there were under all any deeper 
 recollections than the circumstances of an ordi 
 nary separation might bring. 
 
 Not many days after, with the unselfishness 
 which was so marked a trait with her, she chose 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 2 19 
 
 a day when she could be out of her room, and 
 invited our family party, consisting of my hus 
 band, sister, and children, to lunch with her. 
 
 What showed itself especially in this inter 
 view was her tenderness for all young people. 
 She had often inquired after mine ; asked about 
 their characters, habits, and tastes ; and on this 
 occasion she found an opportunity to talk with 
 each one separately, and to make them all feel 
 at ease, so that they were able to talk with her. 
 She seemed interested to point out to them what 
 they should see and study in London ; and the 
 charm of her conversation left on their minds an 
 impression that subsequent years have never 
 effaced. I record this incident, because it shows 
 how little Lady Byron assumed the privileges 
 or had the character of an invalid absorbed in 
 herself, and likely to brood over her own woes 
 and wrongs. 
 
 Here was a family of strangers stranded in a 
 dull season in London, and there was no manner 
 of obligation upon her to exert herself to show 
 
22O LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 them attention. Her state of health would have 
 been an all-sufficient reason why she should not 
 do it ; and her doing it was simply a specimen 
 of that unselfish care for others, even down to 
 the least detail, of which her life was full. 
 
 A little while after, at her request, I went, 
 with my husband and son, to pass an evening at 
 her house. 
 
 There were a few persons present whom she 
 thought I should be interested to know, a 
 Miss Goldsmith, daughter of Baron Goldsmith, 
 and Lord Ockham, her grandson, eldest son and 
 heir of the Earl of Lovelace, to whom she in 
 troduced my son. 
 
 I had heard much of the eccentricities of this 
 young nobleman, and was exceedingly struck 
 with his personal appearance. His bodily frame 
 was of the order of the Farnese Hercules, a 
 wonderful development of physical and muscu 
 lar strength. His hands were those of a black 
 smith. He was broadly and squarely made, 
 with a finely-shaped head, and dark eyes of 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 221 
 
 surpassing brilliancy. I have seldom seen a 
 more interesting combination than his whole 
 appearance presented. 
 
 When all were engaged in talking, Lady Byron 
 came and sat down by me, and glancing across 
 to Lord Ockham and my son, who were talking 
 together, she looked at me, and .smiled. I 
 immediately expressed my admiration of his fine 
 eyes and the intellectual expression of his coun 
 tenance, and my wonder at the uncommon mus 
 cular development of his frame. 
 
 She said that that of itself would account for 
 many of Ockham s eccentricities. He had a 
 body that required a more vigorous animal life 
 than his station gave scope for, and this had 
 often led him to seek it in what the world calls 
 low society ; that he had been to sea as a sailor, 
 and was now working as a mechanic on the iron 
 work of " The Great Eastern." He had laid 
 aside his title, and went in daily with the other 
 workmen, requesting them to call him simply 
 Ockham. 
 
222 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 I said that there was something to my mind 
 very fine about this, even though it might show 
 some want of proper balance. 
 
 She said he had noble traits, and that she felt 
 assured- he would yet accomplish something 
 worthy of himself. " The great difficulty with 
 our nobility is apt to be, that they do not 
 understand the working-classes, so as to feel 
 for them properly ; and Ockham is now going 
 through an experience which may yet fit him to 
 do great good when he comes to the peerage. 
 I am trying to influence him to do good among 
 the workmen, and to interest himself in schools 
 for their children. I think," she added, " I have 
 great influence over Ockham, the greater, per 
 haps, that I never make any claim to authority." 
 
 This conversation is very characteristic of 
 Lady Byron, as showing her benevolent analysis 
 of character, and the peculiar hopefulness she 
 always had in regard to the future of every one 
 brought in connection with her. Her moral 
 hopefulness was something very singular ; and in 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 223 
 
 this respect she was so different from the rest 
 of the world, that it would be difficult to make 
 her understood. Her tolerance of wrong-doing 
 would have seemed to many quite latitudinarian, 
 and impressed them as if she had lost all just 
 horror of what was morally wrong in transgres 
 sion ; but it seemed her fixed habit to see faults 
 only as diseases and immaturities, and to expect 
 them to fall away with time. 
 
 She saw the germs of good in what others 
 regarded as only evil. She expected valuable 
 results to come from what the world looked on 
 only as eccentricities ; * and she incessantly de 
 voted herself to the task of guarding those whom 
 the world condemned, and guiding them to 
 those higher results of which she often thought 
 that even their faults were prophetic. 
 
 Before I quit this sketch of Lady Byron as I 
 knew her, I will give one more of her letters. 
 My return from that visit in Europe was met by 
 the sudden death of the son mentioned in the 
 
 * See her character of Dr. King, Part III., p. 469. 
 
224 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 foregoing account. At the time of this sorrow, 
 Lady Byron was too unwell to write to me. 
 The letter given alludes to this event, and 
 speaks also of two colored persons of remarka 
 ble talent, in whose career in England she had 
 taken a deep interest. One of them is the 
 " friend " she speaks of. 
 
 "LONDON, Feb. 6, 1859. 
 
 "DEAR MRS. STOWE, I seem to feel our friend as a 
 bridge, over which our broken outward communication can be 
 renewed without effort. Why broken ? The words I would 
 have uttered at one time were like drops of blood from my 
 heart. Now I sympathize with the calmness you have gained, 
 and can speak of your loss as I do of my own. Loss and resto 
 ration are more and more linked in my mind, but to the pres 
 ent live. As long as they are in God s world, they are in ours. 
 I ask no other consolation. 
 
 " Mrs. W s recovery has astonished me, and her hus 
 band s prospects give me great satisfaction. They have achieved 
 a benefit to their colored people. She had a mission which her 
 burning soul has worked out, almost in defiance of death. But 
 who is called without being crucified, man or woman ? I 
 know of none. 
 
 "I fear that H. Martineau was too sanguine in her persuasion 
 that the slave-power had received a serious check from the ruin 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 225 
 
 of so many of your Mammon-worshippers. With the return 
 of commercial facilities, that article of commerce will again 
 find purchasers enough to raise its value. Not that way is the 
 iniquity to be overthrown. A deeper moral earthquake is 
 needed.* We English had ours in India ; and though the 
 cases are far from being alike, yet a consciousness of what we 
 ought to have been and ought to be toward the natives could 
 not have been awakened by less than the reddened waters of 
 the Ganges. So I fear you will have to look on a day of judg 
 ment worse than has been painted. 
 
 " As to all the frauds and impositions which have been dis 
 closed by the failures, what a want of the sense of personal 
 responsibility they show. It seems to be thought that asso 
 ciation will cover a multitude of sins ; as if and Co. could 
 enter heaven. A firm may be described as a partnership 
 for lowering the standard of morals. Even ecclesiastical bodies 
 are not free from the and Co. ; very different from the goodly 
 fellowship of the apostles. 
 
 " The better class of young gentlemen in England are seized 
 with a mediaeval mania, to which Ruskin has contributed much. 
 The chief reason for regretting it is that taste is made to super 
 sede benevolence. The money that would save thousands from 
 perishing or suffering must be applied to raise the Gothic edifice 
 where their last prayer may be uttered. Charity may be dead, 
 while Art has glorified her. This is worse than Catholicism, 
 
 Alluding to the financial crisis in the United States in 1857. 
 
226 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 which cultivates heart and eye together. The first cathedral 
 was Truth, at the beginning of the fourth century, just as 
 Christianity was exchanging a heavenly for an earthly crown. 
 True religion may have to cast away the symbol for the spirit 
 before the kingdom can come. 
 
 " While I am speculating to little purpose, perhaps you are 
 doing what? Might not a biography from your pen bring 
 forth again some great, half-obscured soul to act on the world ? 
 Even Sir Philip Sidney ought to be superseded by a still nobler 
 type. 
 
 " This must go immediately, to be in time for the bearer, of 
 whose meeting with you I shall think as the friend of both. 
 May it be happy ! 
 
 " Your affectionate " A. I. N. B." 
 
 One letter more from Lady Byron I give, 
 the last I received from her : 
 
 " LONDON, May 3, 1859. 
 
 "DEAR FRIEND, I have found, particularly as to your 
 self, that, if I did not answer from the first impulse, all had 
 evaporated. Your letter came by The Niagara, which brought 
 Fanny Kemble to learn the loss of her best friend, the Miss 
 F whom you saw at my house. 
 
 " Her death, after an illness in which she was to the last a 
 minister of good to others, is a soul-loss to me also ; and your 
 remarks are most appropriate to my feelings. I have been 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 22/ 
 
 taught, however, to accept survivorship ; even to feel it, in some 
 cases, Heaven s best blessing. 
 
 " I have an intense interest in your new novel.* More 
 power in these few numbers than in any of your former writ 
 ings, relating, at least, to my own mind. It would amuse you 
 to hear my grand-daughter and myself attempting to foresee the 
 future of the love-story ; being, for the moment, quite persuaded 
 that James is at sea, and the minister about to ruin himself. 
 We think that Mary will labor to be in love with the self-devot 
 ed man, under her mother s influence, and from that hyper- 
 conscientiousness so common with good girls ; but we don t 
 wish her to succeed. Then what is to become of her older 
 lover ? Time will show. 
 
 " The lady you desired to introduce to me will be welcomed 
 as of you. She has been misled with respect to my having 
 any house in Yorkshire (New Leeds). I am in London now 
 
 to be of a little use to A ; not ostensibly, for I can neither 
 
 go out, nor give parties : but I am the confidential friend to 
 whom she likes to bring her social gatherings, as she can see 
 something of the world with others. Age and infirmity seem 
 to be overlooked in what she calls the harmony between us, 
 not perfect agreement of opinion (which I should regret, with 
 almost fifty years of difference), but the spirit-union: can you 
 say what it is ? 
 
 " I am interrupted by a note from Mrs. K . She says 
 
 * The Minister s Wooing, in the Atlantic Monthly. 
 
228 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 that she cannot write of our lost friend yet, though she is less 
 
 sad than she will be. Mrs. F may like to hear of her 
 
 arrival, should you be in communication with our friend. She 
 is the type of youth in age. 
 
 " I often converse with Miss S , a judicious friend of the 
 
 W s, about what is likely to await them. She would not 
 
 succeed here as well as where she was a novelty. The charac 
 ter of our climate this year has been injurious to the respiratory 
 organs ; but I hope still to serve them. 
 
 " I have just missed Dale Owen, with whom I wished to 
 have conversed on spiritualism.* Harris is lecturing here on 
 religion. I do not hear him praised. 
 
 " People are looking for helps to believe, everywhere but in 
 life, in music, in architecture, in antiquity, in ceremony; 
 and upon all these is written, Thou shalt not believe. At 
 least, if this be faith, happier the unbeliever. I am willing to 
 see through that materialism ; but, if I am to rest there, I would 
 rend the veil. 
 
 "JUNE i. 
 
 " The day of the packet s sailing. I shall hope to be visited 
 by you here. The best flowers sent me have been placed in 
 your little vases, giving life to the remembrance of you, though 
 not, like them, to pass away. 
 
 " Ever yours, " A. I. NOEL BYRON." 
 
 * See her letter on spiritualistic phenomena, Part III. 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 22Q 
 
 Shortly after, I was in England again, and had 
 one more opportunity of resuming our personal 
 intercourse. The first time that I called on Lady 
 Byron, I saw her in one of those periods of utter 
 physical exhaustion to which she was subject on 
 account of the constant pressure of cares beyond 
 her strength. All who knew her will testify, 
 that, in a state of health which would lead most 
 persons to become helpless absorbents of ser 
 vice from others, she was assuming burdens, 
 and making outlays of her vital powers in acts 
 of love and service, with a generosity that often 
 reduced her to utter exhaustion. But none who 
 knew or loved her ever misinterpreted the cold 
 ness of those seasons of exhaustion. We knew 
 that it was not the spirit that was chilled, but 
 only the frail mortal tabernacle. When I 
 called on her at this time, she could not see 
 me at first ; and when, at last, she came, it 
 was evident that she was in a state of utter 
 prostration. Her hands were like ice ; her face 
 was deadly pale ; and she conversed with a 
 
230 LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 restraint and difficulty which showed what ex 
 ertion it was for her to keep up at all. I left as 
 soon as possible, with an appointment for another 
 interview. That interview was my last on earth 
 with her, and is still beautiful in memory. It 
 was a long, still summer afternoon, spent alone 
 with her in a garden, where we walked together. 
 She was enjoying one of those bright intervals 
 of freedom from pain and languor, in which her 
 spirits always rose so buoyant and youthful ; and 
 her eye brightened, and her step became elastic. 
 
 One last little incident is cherished as most 
 expressive of her. When it became time for me 
 to leave, she took me in her carriage to the 
 station. As we were almost there, I missed my 
 gloves, and said, " I must have left them ; but 
 there is not time to go back." 
 
 With one of those quick, impulsive motions 
 which were so natural to her in doing a kind 
 ness, she drew off her own, and said, " Take 
 mine if they will serve you." - 
 
LADY BYRON AS I KNEW HER. 2$ I 
 
 I hesitated a moment ; and then the thought, 
 that I might never see her again, came over me, 
 and I said, " Oh, yes ! thanks." That was the 
 last earthly word of love between us. But, 
 thank God, those who love worthily never meet 
 for the last time : there is always a future. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 T NOW come to. the particulars of that most 
 painful interview which has been the cause 
 of all this controversy. My sister and myself 
 were going from London to Eversley to visit the 
 Rev. C. Kingsley. On our way, we stopped, by 
 Lady Byron s invitation, to lunch with her at 
 her summer residence on Ham Common, near 
 Richmond ; and it was then arranged, that on 
 our return, we should make her a short visit, as 
 she said she had a subject of importance on 
 which she wished to converse with me alone. 
 
 On our return from Eversley, we arrived at 
 her house in the morning. 
 
 It appeared to be one of Lady Byron s well 
 
 days. She was up and dressed, and moved 
 232 
 
LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 233 
 
 about her house with her usual air of quiet sim 
 plicity ; as full of little acts of consideration for 
 all about her as if they were the habitual inva 
 lids, and she the well person. 
 
 There were with her two ladies of her most 
 intimate friends, by whom she seemed to be re 
 garded with a sort of worship. When she left 
 the room for a moment, they looked after her 
 with a singular expression of respect and affec 
 tion, and expressed freely their admiration of her 
 character, and their fears that her unselfishness 
 might be leading her to over-exertion. 
 
 After lunch, I retired with Lady Byron ; and 
 my sister remained with her friends. I should 
 here remark, that the chief subject of the con 
 versation which ensued was not entirely new to 
 me. In the interval between my first and second 
 visits to England, a lady who for many years had 
 enjoyed Lady Byron s friendship and confidence, 
 had, with her consent, stated the case generally 
 to me, giving some of the incidents : so that I 
 was in a manner prepared for what followed. 
 
234 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 
 
 Those who accifse Lady Byron of being a per 
 son fond of talking upon this subject, and apt to 
 make unconsidered confidences, can have known 
 very little of her, of her reserve, and of the 
 apparent difficulty she had in speaking on sub 
 jects nearest her heart. 
 
 Her habitual calmness and composure of man 
 ner, her collected dignity on all occasions, are 
 often mentioned by her husband, sometimes with 
 bitterness, sometimes with admiration. He says, 
 " Though I accuse Lady Byron of an excess of 
 self-respect, I must in candor admit, that, if ever 
 a person had excuse for an extraordinary portion 
 of it, she has ; as, in all her thoughts, words, and 
 deeds, she is the most decorous woman that ever 
 existed, and must appear, what few I fancy could, 
 a perfectly refined gentlewoman even to her 
 femme de chambre^ 
 
 This calmness and dignity were never more 
 manifested than in this interview. In recalling 
 the conversation at this distance of time, I can 
 not remember all the language used. Some 
 
LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 235 
 
 particular words and forms of expression I do 
 remember, and those I give ; and in other cases 
 I give my t recollection of the substance of what 
 was said. 
 
 There was something awful to me in the in 
 tensity of repressed emotion which she showed 
 as she proceeded. The great fact upon which 
 all turned was stated in words that were unmis 
 takable : 
 
 " Mrs. Stowe, he was guilty of incest with his 
 sister ! " 
 
 She here became so deathly pale, that I 
 feared she would faint ; and hastened to say, 
 " My dear friend, I have heard that." She asked 
 quickly, " From whom ? " and I answered, " From 
 
 Mrs. ; " when she replied, " Oh, yes ! " as 
 
 if recollecting herself. 
 
 I then asked her some questions ; in reply to 
 which she said, " I will tell you." 
 
 She then spoke of her first acquaintance with 
 Lord Byron ; from which I gathered that she, an 
 only child, brought up in retirement, and living 
 
236 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 
 
 much within herself, had been, as deep natures 
 often were, intensely stirred by his poetry ; and 
 had felt a deep interest in him personally, as one 
 that had the germs of all that is glorious and 
 noble. 
 
 When she was introduced to him, and per 
 ceived his admiration of herself, and at last 
 received his offer, although deeply moved, she 
 doubted her own power to be to him all that a 
 wife should be. She declined his offer, there 
 fore, but desired to retain still his friendship. 
 After this, as she said, a correspondence ensued, 
 mostly on moral and literary subjects ; and, by 
 this correspondence, her interest in him was 
 constantly increased. 
 
 At last, she said, he sent her a very beautiful 
 letter, offering himself again. " I thought," she 
 added, "that it was sincere, and that I might 
 now show him all I felt. I wrote just what was 
 in my heart. 
 
 " Afterwards," she said, " I found in one of 
 his journals this notice of my letter : A letter 
 from Bell, never rains but it pours. " 
 
LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 237 
 
 There was through her habitual calm a shade 
 of womanly indignation as she spoke these 
 words ; but it was gone in a moment. I said, 
 " And did he not love you, then ? " She an 
 swered, " No, my dear : he did not love me." 
 
 " Why, then, did he wish to marry you ? " 
 She laid her hand on mine, and said in a low 
 voice, " You will see." 
 
 She then told me, that, shortly after the de 
 clared engagement, he came to her father s 
 house to visit her as an accepted suitor. The 
 visit was to her full of disappointment. His 
 appearance was so strange, moody, and unac 
 countable, and his treatment of her so peculiar, 
 that she came to the conclusion that he did not 
 love her, and sought an opportunity to converse 
 with him alone. 
 
 She told him that she saw from his manner 
 that their engagement did not give him pleasure ; 
 that she should never blame him if he wished to 
 dissolve it ; that his nature was exceptional ; and 
 if, on a nearer view of the situation, he shrank 
 
238 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 
 
 from it, she would release him, and remain no 
 less than ever his friend. 
 
 Upon this, she said, he fainted entirely away. 
 
 She stopped a moment, and then, as if speak 
 ing with great effort, added, " Then I was sure 
 he must love me." 
 
 "And did he not?" said I. "What other 
 cause could have led to this emotion ? " 
 
 She looked at me very sadly, and said, " Fear 
 of detection 
 
 " What ! " said I, " did that cause then exist ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said, "it did." And she explained 
 that she now attributed Lord Byron s great 
 agitation to fear, that, in some way, suspicion 
 of the crime had been aroused in her mind, 
 and that on this account she was seeking to 
 break the engagement. She said, that, from 
 that moment, her sympathies were aroused for 
 him, to soothe the remorse and anguish which 
 seemed preying on his mind, and which she 
 then regarded as the sensibility of an unusually 
 exacting moral nature, which judged itself by 
 
LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 239 
 
 higher standards, and condemned itself unspar 
 ingly for what most young men of his times 
 regarded as venial faults. She had every hope 
 for his future, and all the enthusiasm of belief 
 that so many men and women of those times 
 and ours have had in his intrinsic nobleness. 
 She said the gloom, however, seemed to be even 
 deeper when he came to the marriage ; but she 
 looked at it as the suffering of a peculiar being, 
 to whom she was called to minister. I said to 
 her, that, even in the days of my childhood, I 
 had heard of something very painful that had 
 passed as they were in the carriage, immediately 
 after marriage. She then said that it was so ; 
 that almost his first words, when they were 
 alone, were, that she might once have saved 
 him ; that, if she had accepted him when he 
 first offered, she might have made him any thing 
 she pleased ; but that, as it was, she would find 
 she had married a devil. 
 
 The conversation, as recorded in Lady Anne 
 Barnard s Diary, seems only a continuation of 
 
240 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 
 
 the foregoing, and just what might have followed 
 upon it. 
 
 I then asked how she became certain of the 
 true cause. 
 
 She said, that, from the outset of their married 
 life, his conduct towards her was strange and 
 unaccountable, even during the first weeks after 
 the wedding, while they were visiting her friends, 
 and outwardly on good terms. He seemed 
 resolved to shake and combat both her religious 
 principles and her views of the family state. He 
 tried to undermine her faith in Christianity as a 
 rule of life by argument and by ridicule. He 
 set before her the Continental idea of the liberty 
 of marriage ; it being a simple partnership of 
 friendship and property, the parties to which 
 were allowed by one another to pursue their own 
 separate individual tastes. He told her, that, as 
 he could not be expected to confine himself to 
 her, neither should he expect or wish- that she 
 should confine herself to him ; that she was 
 young and pretty, and could have her lovers, 
 
LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 24! 
 
 and he should never object ; and that she must 
 allow him the same freedom. 
 
 She said that she did not comprehend to what 
 this was. tending till after they came to London, 
 and his sister came to stay with them. 
 
 At what precise time the idea of an improper 
 connection between her husband and his sister 
 was first forced upon her, she did not say ; but 
 she told me how it was done. She said that one 
 night, in her presence, he treated his sister with 
 a liberty which both shocked and astonished her. 
 Seeing her amazement and alarm, he came up 
 to her, and said, in a sneering tone, " I suppose 
 you perceive you are not wanted here. Go to 
 your own room, and leave us alone. We can 
 amuse ourselves better without you." 
 
 She said, " I went to my room, trembling. I 
 fell down on my knees, and prayed to my heav 
 enly Father to have mercy on them. I thought, 
 What shall I do ? " 
 
 I remember, after this, a pause in the conver 
 sation, during which she seemed struggling with 
 
242 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 
 
 thoughts and emotions ; and, for my part, I was 
 unable to utter a word, or ask a question. 
 
 She did not tell me what followed immediately 
 upon this, nor how soon after she spoke on the 
 subject with either of the parties. She first 
 began to speak of conversations afterward held 
 with Lord Byron, in which he boldly avow r ed the 
 connection as having existed in time past, and 
 as one that was to continue in time to come ; 
 and implied that she must submit to it. She 
 put it to his conscience as concerning his sister s 
 soul, and he said that it was no sin ; that it was 
 the way the world was first peopled : the Scrip 
 tures taught that all the world descended from 
 one pair ; and how could that be unless brothers 
 married their sisters ? that, if not a sin then, it 
 could not be a sin now. 
 
 I immediately said, " Why, Lady Byron, those 
 are the very arguments given in the drama of 
 Cain. " 
 
 " The very same," was her reply. " He could 
 reason very speciously on this subject." She 
 
LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 243 
 
 went on to say, that, when she pressed him hard 
 with the universal sentiment of mankind as to 
 the horror and the crime, he took another turn, 
 and said that the horror and crime were the very 
 attraction ; that he had worn out all ordinary 
 forms of sin, and that he " longed for the stimu 
 lus of a new kind of vice She set before him 
 the dread of detection ; and then he became 
 furious. She should never be the means of his 
 detection, he said. She should leave him ; that 
 he was resolved upon : but she should always 
 bear all the blame of the separation. In the 
 sneering tone which was common with him, he 
 said, " The world will believe me, and it will not 
 believe you. The world has made up its mind 
 that By is a glorious boy ; and the world will 
 go for By, right or wrong. Besides, I shall 
 make it my life s object to discredit you : I shall 
 use all my powers. Read Caleb Williams, * 
 and you will see that I shall do by you just as 
 Falkland did by Caleb." 
 
 * This novel of Godwin s is a remarkably powerful story. It is related 
 in the first person by the supposed hero, Caleb Williams. He represents 
 
244 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 
 
 I said that all this seemed to me like insanity. 
 She said that she was for a time led to think 
 that it was insanity, and excused and pitied 
 him ; that his treatment of her expressed such 
 hatred and malignity, that she knew not what 
 else to think of it ; that he seemed resolved to 
 drive her out of the house at all hazards, and 
 
 himself as private secretary to a gentleman of high family named Falkland. 
 Caleb accidentally discovers that his patron has, in a moment of passion, 
 committed a murder. Falkland confesses the crime to Caleb, and tells him 
 that henceforth he shall always suspect him, and keep watch over him. 
 Caleb finds this watchfulness insupportable, and tries to escape, but without 
 success. He writes a touching letter to his patron, imploring him to let him 
 go, and promising never to betray him. The scene where Falkland refuses 
 this is the most highly wrought in the book. He says to him, " Do not im- 
 gine that I am afraid of you ! I wear an armor against which all your 
 weapons are impotent. I have dug a pit for you ; and whichever way you 
 move, backward or forward, to the right or the left, it is ready to swallow you. 
 Be still ! If once you Fall, call as loud as you will, no man on earth shall 
 hear your cries : prepare a tale however plausible or however true, the whole 
 world shall execrate you for an impostor. Your innocence shall be of no ser 
 vice to you. I laugh at so feeble a defence. It is I that say it : you may 
 believe what I tell you. Do you know, miserable wretch ! " added he, 
 stamping on the ground with fury, " that I have sworn to preserve my repu 
 tation, whatever be the expense ; that I love it more than the whole world 
 and its inhabitants taken together? and do you think that you shall wound 
 it? " The rest of the book shows how this threat was executed. 
 

 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 245 
 
 threatened her, if she should remain, in a way 
 to alarm the heart of any woman : yet, think 
 ing him insane, she left him at last with the 
 sorrow with which any one might leave a dear 
 friend whose reason was wholly overthrown, 
 and to whom in this desolation she was no 
 longer permitted to minister. 
 
 i inquired in one of the pauses of the con 
 versation whether Mrs. Leigh was a peculiarly 
 beautiful or attractive woman. 
 
 " No, my dear : she was plain." 
 
 " Was she, then, distinguished for genius or 
 talent of any kind ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! Poor woman ! she was weak, rela 
 tively, to him, and wholly under his control." 
 
 " And what became of her ? " I said. 
 
 " She afterwards repented, and became a truly 
 good woman." I think it was here she men 
 tioned that she had frequently seen and con 
 versed with Mrs. Leigh in the latter part of her 
 life ; and she seemed to derive comfort from the 
 recollection. 
 
246 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 
 
 I asked, " Was there a child ? " I had been 
 
 told by Mrs. that there was a daughter, 
 
 who had lived some years. 
 
 She said there was one, a daughter, who 
 made her friends much trouble, being of a very 
 difficult nature to manage. I had understood 
 that at one time this daughter escaped from her 
 friends to the Continent, and that Lady Byron 
 assisted in efforts to recover her. Of Lady 
 Byron s kindness both to Mrs. Leigh and the 
 
 child, I had before heard from Mrs. , who 
 
 gave me my first information. 
 
 It is also strongly impressed on my mind, that 
 Lady Byron, in answer to some question of mine 
 as to whether there was ever any meeting 
 between Lord Byron and his sister after he left 
 England, answered, that she had insisted upon 
 it, or made it a condition, that Mrs. Leigh should 
 not go abroad to him. 
 
 When the conversation as to events was over, 
 as I stood musing, I said, " Have you no evi 
 dence that he repented ? " and alluded to the 
 
LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 247 
 
 mystery of his death, and the message he en 
 deavored to utter. 
 
 She answered quickly, and with great decision, 
 that, whatever might have been his meaning at 
 that hour, she felt sure he had finally repented ; 
 and added with great earnestness, " I do not 
 believe that any child of the heavenly Father is 
 ever left to eternal sin." 
 
 I said that such a hope was most delightful to 
 my feelings, but that I had always regarded the 
 indulgence of it as a dangerous one. 
 
 Her look, voice, and manner, at that moment, 
 are indelibly fixed in my mind. She looked at 
 me so sadly, so firmly, and said, 
 
 " Danger, Mrs. Stowe ! What danger can 
 come from indulging that hope, like the danger 
 that comes from not having it ? " 
 
 I said in my turn, " What danger comes from 
 not having it ? " 
 
 " The danger of losing all faith in God," she 
 said, " all hope for others, all strength to try and 
 save them. I once knew a lady," she added, 
 
248 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 
 
 "who was in a state of scepticism and despair 
 from belief in that doctrine. I think I saved 
 her by giving her my faith." 
 
 I was silent ; and she continued : " Lord Byron 
 believed in eternal punishment fully : for, though 
 he reasoned against Christianity as it is com 
 monly received, he could not reason himself out 
 of it ; and I think it made him desperate. He 
 used to say, The worst of it is, I do believe/ 
 Had he seen God as I see him, I am sure his 
 heart would have relented." 
 
 She went on to say, that his sins, great as they 
 were, admitted of much palliation and excuse ; 
 that he was the child of singular and ill-matched 
 parents ; that he had an organization originally 
 fine, but one capable equally of great good or 
 great evil ; that in his childhood he had only the 
 worst and most fatal influences ; that he grew 
 up into manhood with no guide ; that there was 
 every thing in the classical course of the schools 
 to develop an unhealthy growth of passion, and 
 no moral influence of any kind to restrain it ; 
 
LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 249 
 
 that the manners of his day were corrupt ; that 
 what were now considered vices in society were 
 then spoken of as matters of course among 
 young noblemen ; that drinking, gaming, and 
 licentiousness everywhere abounded ; and that, 
 up to a certain time, he was no worse than mul 
 titudes of other young men of his day, only 
 that the vices of his day were worse for him. 
 The excesses of passion, the disregard of 
 physical laws in eating, drinking, and living, 
 wrought effects on him that they did not on less 
 sensitively organized frames, and prepared him 
 for the evil hour when he fell into the sin which 
 shaded his whole life. All the rest was a strug 
 gle with its consequences, sinning more and 
 more to conceal the sin of the past. But she be 
 lieved he never outlived remorse; that he al 
 ways suffered ; and that this showed that God had 
 not utterly forsaken him. Remorse, she said, 
 always showed moral sensibility ; and, while that 
 remained, there was always hope. 
 
 She now began to speak of her grounds for 
 
250 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 
 
 thinking it might be- her duty fully to publish 
 this story before she left the world. 
 
 First she said, that, through the whole course 
 of her life, she had felt the eternal value of truth, 
 and seen how dreadful a thing was falsehood, 
 and how fearful it was to be an accomplice in it, 
 even by silence. Lord Byron had demoralized 
 the moral sense of England, and he had done it 
 in a great degree by the sympathy excited by 
 falsehood. This had been pleaded in extenua 
 tion of all his crimes and vices, and led to a low 
 ering of the standard of morals in the literary 
 world. Now it was proposed to print cheap edi 
 tions of his works, and sell them among the com 
 mon people, and interest them in him by the 
 circulation of this same story. 
 
 She then said to this effect, that she believed 
 in retribution and suffering in the future life, and 
 that the consequences of sins here follow us there ; 
 and it was strongly impressed upon her mind 
 that Lord Byron must suffer in looking on the 
 evil consequences of what he had done in this 
 
251 
 
 life, and in seeing the further extension of that 
 evil. 
 
 " It has sometimes strongly appeared to me," 
 she said, " that he cannot be at peace until this 
 injustice has been righted. Such is the strong 
 
 feeling that I have when I think of going where 
 
 -w 
 he is." 
 
 These things, she said, had led her to inquire 
 whether it might not be her duty to make a 
 full and clear disclosure before she left the 
 world. 
 
 Of course, I did not listen to this story as one 
 who was investigating its worth. I received it 
 as truth. And the purpose for which it was 
 communicated was not to enable me to prove it 
 to the world, but to ask my opinion whether 
 she should show it to the world before leaving it. 
 The whole consultation was upon the assumption 
 that she had at her command such proofs as 
 could not be questioned. 
 
 Concerning what they were I did not minutely 
 inquire : only, in answer to a general question, 
 
252 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 
 
 she said that she had letters and documents in 
 proof of her story. Knowing Lady Byron s 
 strength of mind, her clear-headedness, her ac 
 curate habits, and her perfect knowledge of the 
 matter, I considered her judgment on this point 
 decisive. 
 
 I told her that I would take the subject into 
 consideration, and give my opinion in a few days. 
 That night, after my sister and myself had re 
 tired to our own apartment, I related to her the 
 whole history, and we spent the night in talking 
 of it. I was powerfully impressed with the jus 
 tice and propriety of an immediate disclosure ; 
 while she, on the contrary, represented the 
 painful consequences that would probably come 
 upon Lady Byron from taking such a step. 
 
 Before we parted the next day, I requested 
 Lady Byron to give me some memoranda of such 
 dates and outlines of the general story as would 
 enable me better to keep it in its connection ; 
 which she did. 
 
 On giving me the paper, Lady Byron requested 
 
LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 253 
 
 me to return it to her when it had ceased to be 
 of use to me for the purpose indicated. 
 
 Accordingly, a day or two after, I enclosed it 
 to her in a hasty note, as I was then leaving 
 London for Paris, and had not yet had time 
 fully to consider the subject. 
 
 On reviewing my note, I can recall that then 
 the whole history appeared to me like one of 
 those singular cases where unnatural impulses to 
 vice are the result of a taint of constitutional in 
 sanity. This has always seemed to me the only 
 way of accounting for instances of utterly mo 
 tiveless and abnormal wickedness and cruelty. 
 These my first impressions were expressed in 
 the hasty note written at the time : 
 
 " LONDON, Nov. 5, 1856. 
 
 " DEAREST FRIEND, I return these. They have held 
 mine eyes waking ! How strange ! how unaccountable ! Have 
 you ever subjected the facts to the judgment of a medical man 
 learned in nervous pathology ? 
 
 " Is it not insanity ? 
 
 Great wits to madness nearly are allied, 
 And thin partitions do their bounds divide. 
 
254 LADY BYRON S STORY A3 TOLD ME. 
 
 " But my purpose to-night is not to write you fully what I 
 think of this matter. I am going to write to you from Paris 
 more at leisure." 
 
 The rest of the letter was taken up in the 
 final details of a charity in which Lady Byron 
 had been engaged with me in assisting an un 
 fortunate artist. It concludes thus : 
 
 " I write now in all haste, en route for Paris. As to America, 
 all is not lost yet.* Farewell ! I love you, my dear friend, as 
 never before, with an intense feeling I cannot easily express. 
 God bless you ! " H. B. S." 
 
 The next letter is as follows : 
 
 " PARIS, Dec. 17, 1856. 
 
 " DEAR LADY BYRON, The Kansas Committee have written 
 
 me a letter desiring me to express to Miss their gratitude 
 
 for the five pounds she sent them. I am not personally ac 
 quainted with her, and must return these acknowledgments 
 through you. 
 
 " I wrote you a day or two since, enclosing the reply of the 
 Kansas Committee to you. 
 
 " On that subject on which you spoke to me the last time we 
 were together, I have thought often and deeply. 
 
 * Alluding to Buchanan s election. 
 
LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 255 
 
 " I have changed my mind somewhat. 
 
 "Considering the peculiar circumstances of the case, I could 
 wish that the sacred veil of silence, so bravely thrown over the 
 past, should never be withdrawn during the time that you remain 
 with us. 
 
 " I would say, then, Leave all with some discreet friends, who, 
 after both have passed from earth, shall say what was due to 
 justice. 
 
 " I am led to think this by seeing how low, how unjust, how 
 unworthy, the judgments of this world are ; and I would not 
 that what I so much respect, love, and revere, should be placed 
 within reach of its harpy claw, which pollutes what it touches. 
 
 "The day will yet come which will bring to light every 
 hidden thing. There is nothing covered that shall not be 
 revealed, neither hid that shall not be known ; and so justice 
 will not fail. 
 
 " Such, my dear friend, are my thoughts ; different from what 
 they were since first I heard that strange, sad history. Mean 
 while, I love you ever, whether we meet again on earth or not. 
 
 " Affectionately yours, " H. B. S." 
 
 The following letter will here be inserted as 
 confirming a part of Lady Byron s story : 
 
 To THE EDITOR OF "MACMILLAN S MAGAZINE." 
 " SIR, 1 trust that you will hold me excused from any 
 desire to be troublesome, or to rush into print. Both these 
 
256 LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 
 
 things are far from my wish. But the publication of a book 
 having for its object the vindication of Lord Byron s character, 
 and the subsequent appearance in your magazine of Mrs. 
 Stowe s article in defence of Lady Byron, having led to so much 
 controversy in the various newspapers of the day, I feel con 
 strained to put in a few words among the rest. 
 
 " My father was intimately acquainted with Lady Byron s 
 family for many years, both before and after her marriage ; being, 
 in fact, steward to Sir Ralph Milbanke at Seaham, where the 
 marriage took place : and, from all my recollections of what he 
 told me of the affair (and he used often to talk of it, up to the 
 time of his death, eight years ago), I fully agree with Mrs. 
 Stowe s view of the case, and desire to add my humble testi 
 mony to the truth of what she has stated. 
 
 " Whilst Byron was staying at Seaham, previous to his mar 
 riage, he spent most of his time pistol-shooting in the planta 
 tions adjoining the hall, often making use of his glove as a 
 mark ; his servant being with him to load for him. 
 
 " When all was in readiness for the wedding-ceremony 
 (which took place in the drawing-room of the hall), Byron had 
 to be sought for in the grounds, where he was walking in his 
 usual surly mood. 
 
 " After the marriage, they posted to Halnaby Lodge in York 
 shire, a distance of about forty miles ; to which place my father 
 accompanied them, and he always spoke strongly of Lady By 
 ron s apparent distress during and at the end of the journey. 
 
 " The insulting words mentioned by Mrs. Stowe were spoken 
 
LADY BYRON S STORY AS TOLD ME. 257 
 
 by Byron before leaving the park at Seaham ; after which he 
 appeared to sit in moody silence, reading a book, for the rest 
 of the journey. At Halnaby, a number of persons, tenants and 
 others, were met to cheer them on their arrival. Of these he 
 took not the slightest notice, but jumped out of the carriage, 
 and walked away, leaving his bride to alight by herself. She 
 shook hands with my father, and begged that he would see that 
 some refreshment was supplied to those who had thus come to 
 welcome them. 
 
 " I have in my possession several letters (which I should be 
 glad to show to any one interested in the matter) both from 
 Lady Byron, and her mother, Lady Milbanke, to my father, all 
 showing the deep and kind interest which they took in the 
 welfare of all connected with them, and directing the distribu 
 tion of various charities, &c. Pensions were allowed both to 
 the old servants of the Milbankes and to several poor persons 
 in the village and neighborhood for the rest of their lives ; and 
 Lady Byron never ceased to take a lively interest in all that 
 concerned them. 
 
 " I desire to tender my humble thanks to Mrs. Stowe for 
 having come forward in defence of one whose character has 
 been much misrepresented ; and to you, sir, for having published 
 the same in your pages. 
 
 " I have the honor to be, sir, yours obediently, 
 
 " G. H. AIRD. 
 
 "DAOURTY, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, Sept. 29, 1869." 
 
 17 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 T HAVE now fulfilled as conscientiously as 
 possible the requests of those who feel that 
 they have a right to know exactly what was 
 said in this interview. 
 
 It has been my object, in doing this, to place 
 myself "just where I should stand were I giving 
 evidence under oath before a legal tribunal. In 
 my first published account, there were given 
 some smaller details of the story, of no particu 
 lar value to the main purpose of it, which I 
 received, not from Lady Byron, but from her 
 confidential friend. One of these was the ac 
 count of her seeing Lord Byron s favorite span 
 iel lying at his door, and the other was the 
 scene of the parting. 
 258 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 259 
 
 The first was communicated to me before I 
 ever saw Lady Byron, and under these circum 
 stances : I was invited to meet her, and had 
 expressed my desire to do so, because Lord 
 Byron had been all my life an object of great 
 interest to me. I inquired what sort of a per 
 son Lady Byron was. My friend spoke of her 
 with enthusiasm. I then said, " But of course 
 she never loved Lord Byron, or she would not 
 have left him." The lady answered, " I can 
 show you with what feelings she left him by 
 relating this story ; " and then followed the 
 anecdote. 
 
 Subsequently, she also related to me the other 
 story of the parting-scene between Lord and 
 Lady Byron. In regard to these two incidents, 
 my recollection is clear. 
 
 It will be observed by the reader that Lady 
 Byron s conversation with me was simply for 
 consultation on one point, and that point whether 
 she herself should publish the story before her 
 death. It was not, therefore, a complete history 
 
26O CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 of all events in their order, but specimens of a 
 few incidents and facts. Her object was, not to 
 prove her story to me, nor to put me in posses 
 sion of it with a view to my proving it, but sim 
 ply and briefly to show me what it was, that I 
 might judge as to the probable results of its pub 
 lication at that time. 
 
 It therefore comprised primarily these 
 points : 
 
 1. An exact statement, in so many words, of 
 the crime. 
 
 2. A statement of the manner in which it was 
 first forced on her attention by Lord Byron s 
 words and actions, including his admissions and 
 defences of it. 
 
 3. The admission of a period when she had 
 ascribed his whole conduct to insanity. 
 
 4. A reference to later positive evidences of 
 guilt, the existence of a child, and Mrs. 
 Leigh s subsequent repentance. 
 
 And here I have a word to say in reference 
 to the alleged inaccuracies of my true story. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 20 I 
 
 The dates that Lady Byron gave me on the 
 memoranda did not relate either to the time of 
 the first disclosure, or the period when her 
 doubts became certainties ; nor did her conversa 
 tion touch either of these points : and, on a care 
 ful review of the latter, I see clearly that it 
 omitted dwelling upon any thing which I might 
 be supposed to have learned from her already 
 published statement. 
 
 I re-enclosed that paper to her from London, 
 and have never seen it since. 
 
 In writing my account, which I designed to 
 do in the most general terms, I took for my 
 guide Miss Martineau s published Memoir of 
 Lady Byron, w r hich has long stood uncontra- 
 dicted before the public, of which Macmillan s 
 London edition is now before me. The reader 
 is referred to page 316, which reads thus : 
 
 " She was born 1792 ; married in January, 
 1814; returned to her father s house in 1816 ; 
 died on May 16, 1860." This makes her mar 
 ried life two years ; but we need not say that 
 
262 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 the date is inaccurate, as Lady Byron was mar 
 ried in 1815. 
 
 Supposing Lady Byron s married life to have 
 covered two years, I could only reconcile its 
 continuance for that length of time to her un 
 certainty as to his sanity ; to deceptions prac 
 tised on her, making her doubt at one time, and 
 believe at another ; and his keeping her in a 
 general state of turmoil and confusion, till at 
 last he took the step of banishing her. 
 
 Various other points taken from Miss Marti- 
 neau have also been attacked as inaccuracies ; 
 for example, the number of executions in the 
 house : but these points, though of no impor 
 tance, are substantially borne out by Moore s 
 statements. 
 
 This controversy, unfortunately, cannot be 
 managed with the accuracy of a legal trial. Its 
 course, hitherto, has rather resembled the course 
 of a drawing-room scandal, where every one 
 freely throws in an assertion, with or without 
 proof. In making out my narrative, however, I 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 263 
 
 shall use only certain authentic sources, some 
 of which have for a long time been before the 
 public, and some of which have floated up from 
 the waves of the recent controversy. I consider 
 as authentic sources, 
 
 Moore s Life of Byron ; 
 
 Lady Byron s own account of the separation, 
 published in 1830 ; 
 
 Lady Byron s statements to me in 1856 ; 
 
 Lord Lindsay s communication, giving an 
 extract from Lady Anne Barnard s diary, and a 
 copy of a letter from Lady Byron dated 1818, 
 about three years after her marriage ; 
 
 Mrs. Minn s testimony as given in a daily 
 paper published at Newcastle, England ; 
 
 And Lady Byron s letters, as given recently 
 in the late " London Quarterly." 
 
 All which documents appear to arrange them 
 selves into a connected series. 
 
 From these, then, let us construct the story. 
 
 According to Mrs. Minn s account, which is 
 likely to be accurate, the time spent by Lord 
 
264 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 and Lady Byron in bridal-visiting was three 
 weeks at Halnaby Hall, and six weeks at 
 Seaham, when Mrs. Minn quitted their ser 
 vice. 
 
 During this first period of three weeks, Lord 
 Byron s treatment of his wife, as testified to by 
 the servant, was such that she advised her 
 young mistress to return to her parents ; and, at 
 one time, Lady Byron had almost resolved to do 
 so. 
 
 What the particulars of his conduct were, the 
 servant refuses to state ; being bound by a prom 
 ise of silence to her mistress. She, however, 
 testifies to a warm friendship existing between 
 Lady Byron and Mrs. Leigh, in a manner which 
 would lead us to feel that Lady Byron received 
 and was received by Lord Byron s sister with 
 the greatest affection. Lady Byron herself 
 says to Lady Anne Barnard, " I had heard that 
 he was the best of brothers ; " and the infer 
 ence is, that she, at an early period of her mar 
 ried life, felt the .greatest confidence in his sister, 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 265 
 
 and wished to have her with them as much as 
 possible. In Lady Anne s account, this wish to 
 have the sister with her was increased by Lady 
 Byron s distress at her husband s attempts to 
 corrupt her principles with regard to religion 
 and marriage. 
 
 In Moore s Life, vol. iii., letter 217, Lord By 
 ron writes from Seaham to Moore, under date 
 of March 8, sending a copy of his verses in 
 Lady Byron s handwriting, and saying, " We 
 shall leave this place to-morrow, and shall stop 
 on our way to town, in the interval of taking a 
 house there, at Col. Leigh s, near Newmarket, 
 where any epistle of yours will find its welcome 
 way. I have been very comfortable here, listen 
 ing to that d d monologue which elderly 
 
 gentlemen call conversation, in which my pious 
 father-in-law repeats himself every evening, save 
 one, when he played upon the fiddle. However, 
 they have been vastly kind and hospitable, and 
 I like them and the place vastly ; and I hope 
 they will live many happy months. Bell is in 
 
266 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 health and unvaried good-humor and behavior ; 
 but we are in all the agonies of packing and 
 parting." 
 
 Nine days after this, under date of March 17, 
 Lord Byron says, " We mean to metropolize 
 to-morrow, and you will address your next to 
 Piccadilly." The inference is, that the days 
 intermediate were spent at Col. Leigh s. The 
 next letters, and all subsequent ones for six 
 months, are dated from Piccadilly. 
 
 As we have shown, there is every reason to 
 believe that a warm friendship had thus arisen 
 between Mrs. Leigh and Lady Byron, and that, 
 during all this time, Lady Byron desired as 
 much of the society of her sister-in-law as pos 
 sible. She was a married woman and a mother, 
 her husband s nearest relative ; and Lady Byron 
 could with more propriety ask, from her r counsel 
 or aid in respect to his "peculiarities than she 
 could from her own parents. If we consider 
 the character of Lady Byron as given by Mrs. 
 Minns, that of a young person of warm but 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 267 
 
 repressed feeling, without sister or brother, long 
 ing for human sympathy, and having so far found 
 no relief but in talking with a faithful depend 
 ant, we may easily see that the acquisition of 
 a sister through Lord Byron might have been 
 all in all to her, and that the feelings which he 
 checked and rejected for himself might have 
 flowed out towards his sister with enthusiasm. 
 The date of Mrs. Leigh s visit does not appear. 
 
 The first domestic indication in Lord Byron s 
 letters from London is the announcement of the 
 death of Lady Byron s uncle, Lord Wentworth, 
 from whom came large expectations of property. 
 Lord Byron had. mentioned him before in his 
 letters as so kind to Bell and himself, that he 
 could not find it in his heart to wish him- in 
 heaven if he preferred staying here. In his let 
 ter of April 23, he mentions going to the play 
 immediately after hearing this news, " although," 
 as he says, " he ought to have staid at home 
 in sackcloth for unc. " 
 
 On June 12, he writes that Lady Byron is 
 
268 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 more than three months advanced in her prog 
 ress towards maternity ; and that they have been 
 out very little, as he wishes to keep her quiet. 
 We are informed by Moore that Lord Byron 
 was at this time a member of the Drury-Lane 
 Theatre Committee ; and that, in this unlucky 
 connection, one of the fatalities of the first year 
 of trial as a husband lay. From the strain of 
 Byron s letters, as given in Moore, it is appar 
 ent, that, while he thinks it best for his wife to 
 remain at home, he does not propose to share 
 the retirement, but prefers running his own sep 
 arate career with such persons as thronged the 
 greenroom of the theatre in those days. 
 
 In commenting on Lord Byron s course, we 
 must not by any means be supposed to indicate 
 that he was doing any more or worse than most 
 gay young men of his time. The license of the 
 day as to getting drunk at dinner-parties, and 
 leading, generally, what would, in these days, be 
 called a disorderly life, was great. We should 
 infer that none of the literary men of Byron s 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 269 
 
 time would have been ashamed of being drunk 
 occasionally. The Noctes Ambrosianae Club 
 of " Blackwood " is full of songs glorying, in the 
 broadest terms, in out-and-out drunkenness, and 
 inviting to it as the highest condition of a civil 
 ized being.* 
 
 But drunkenness upon Lord Byron had a 
 peculiar and specific effect, which he notices 
 
 afterwards, in his Journal, at Venice : " The 
 
 * 
 
 effect of all wines and spirits upon me is, how 
 ever, strange. It settles, but makes me gloomy, 
 gloomy at the very moment of their effect : 
 it composes, however, though sullenly" f And 
 again, in another place, he says, " Wine and 
 spirits make me sullen, and savage to ferocity." 
 
 * Shelton Mackenzie, in a note to the " Noctes " of July, 1822, gives 
 the following saying of Maginn, one of the principal lights of the club: 
 " No man, however much he might tend to civilization, was to be regarded as 
 having absolutely reached its apex until he was drunk." He also records it 
 as a further joke of the club, that a man s having reached this apex was to 
 be tested by his inability to pronounce the -word " civilization," which, he 
 says, after ten o clock at night ought to be abridged to civilation, " by syn 
 cope, or vigorously speaking by hic-cup." 
 
 t Vol. v. pp. 61, 75. 
 
27O CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 It is well known that the effects of alcoholic 
 excitement are various as the natures of the 
 subjects. But by far the worst effects, and the 
 most destructive to domestic peace, are those 
 that occur in cases where spirits, instead of act 
 ing on the nerves of motion, and depriving the 
 subject of power in that direction, stimulate 
 the brain so as to produce there the ferocity, the 
 steadiness, the utter deadness to compassion or 
 conscience, which characterize a madman. How 
 fearful to a sensitive young mother in the period 
 of pregnancy might be the return of such a mad 
 man to the domestic roof! Nor can we account 
 for those scenes described in Lady Anne Bar 
 nard s letters, where Lord Byron returned from 
 his evening parties to try torturing experiments 
 on his wife, otherwise than by his own state 
 ment, that spirits, while they steadied "him, 
 made him " gloomy, and savage to ferocity." 
 Take for example this : 
 
 " One night, coming home from one of his lawless parties, 
 he saw me (Lady B.) so indignantly collected, and bearing all 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 2/1 
 
 with such a determined calmness, that a rush of remorse 
 seemed to come over him. He called himself a monster, and, 
 though his sister was present, threw himself in agony at my 
 feet. I could not, no, I could not, forgiVe him such injuries ! 
 He had lost me forever ! Astonished at this return to virtue, 
 my tears, I believe, flowed over his face ; and I said, Byron, 
 all is forgotten : never, never shall you hear of it more. 
 
 " He started up, and, folding his arms while he looked at 
 me, burst out into laughter. What do you mean? said I. 
 < Only a philosophical experiment ; that s all, said he. I wished 
 to ascertain the value of your resolutions. " 
 
 To ascribe such deliberate cruelty as this to 
 the effect of drink upon Lord Byron, is the most 
 charitable construction that can be put upon his 
 conduct. 
 
 Yet the manners of the period were such, 
 that Lord Byron must have often come to 
 this condition while only doing what many of 
 his acquaintances did freely, and without fear 
 of consequences. 
 
 Mr. Moore, with his usual artlessness, gives 
 us an idea of a private supper between himself 
 and Lord Byron. We give it, with our own 
 Italics, as a specimen of many others : 
 
2/2 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 " Having taken upon me to order the repast, and knowing 
 that Lord Byron for the last two days had done nothing 
 towards sustenance beyond eating a few biscuits and (to 
 appease appetite) chewing mastic, I desired that we should 
 have a good supply of at least two kinds of fish. My com 
 panion, however, confined himself to lobsters ; and of these 
 finished two or three, to his own share, interposing, some 
 times, a small liqueur-glass of strong white brandy, sometimes 
 a tumbler of very hot water, and then pure brandy again, to the 
 amount of near half a dozen small glasses of the latter, without 
 which, alternately with the hot water, he appeared to think the 
 lobster could not be digested. After this, we had claret, of 
 which, having despatched two bottles between us, at about four 
 o clock in the morning we parted. 
 
 " As Pope has thought his delicious lobster-nights worth 
 commemorating, these particulars of one in which Lord Byron 
 was concerned may also have some interest. 
 
 " Among other nights of the same description which I had the 
 happiness of passing -with him, I remember once, in returning 
 home from some assembly at rather a late hour, we saw lights 
 in the windows of his old haunt, Stevens s in Bond Street, and 
 agreed to stop there and sup. On entering, we found an old 
 
 friend of his, Sir G W , who joined our party ; and, the 
 
 lobsters and brandy and water being put in requisition, it was (as 
 usual on such occasions] broad daylight before we separated. 1 
 Vol. iii. p. 83. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 2/3 
 
 During the latter part of Lady Byron s preg 
 nancy, it appears from Moore that Byron was, 
 night after night, engaged out at dinner-parties, 
 in which getting drunk was considered as of 
 course \^Q finale, as appears from the following 
 letters : 
 
 [LETTER 228.] 
 TO MR. MOORE. 
 
 "TERRACE, PICCADILLY, Oct. 31, 1815. 
 
 p 
 
 "I have not been able to ascertain precisely the time of 
 duration of the stock-market ; but I believe it is a good time 
 for selling out, and I hope so. First, because I shall see you ; 
 and, next, because I shall receive certain moneys on behalf of 
 Lady B., the which will materially conduce to my comfort ; I 
 wanting (as the duns say) to make up a sum. 
 
 " Yesterday I dined out with a large-ish party, where were 
 Sheridan and Colman, Harry Harris of C. G., and his brother, 
 Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Ds. Kinnaird, and others of note and 
 notoriety. Like other parties of the kind, it was Jirst silent, then 
 talky, then argumentative, then disputatious % then imintelligible* 
 then altogethery, then inarticulate, and then drunk. When we 
 had reached the last step of this glorious ladder, it was difficult 
 to get down again without stumbling ; and, to crown all, Kin 
 naird and I had to conduct Sheridan down a d d corkscrew 
 
 staircase, which had certainly been constructed before the dis- 
 
 * These Italics are ours. 
 18 
 
2/4 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 covery of fermented liquors, and to which no legs, however 
 crooked, could possibly accommodate themselves. We deposited 
 him safe at home, where his man, evidently used to the business,* 
 waited to receive him in the hall. 
 
 " Both he and Colman were, as usual, very good ; but I 
 carried away much wine, and the wine had previously carried 
 away my memory : so that all was hiccough and happiness for the 
 last hour or so, and I am not impregnated with any of the con 
 versation. Perhaps you heard of a late answer of Sheridan to 
 the watchman who found him bereft of that divine particle 
 of air called reason. . . . He (the watchman) found Sherry 
 in the street, fuddled and bewildered, and almost insensible. 
 Who are you, sir ? No answer. What s your name ? A 
 hiccough. What s your name ? Answer, in a slow, deliber 
 ate, and impassive tone, Wilberforce ! Is not that Sherry 
 all over ? and, to my mind, excellent. Poor fellow ! his very 
 dregs are better than the first sprightly runnings of others. 
 
 " My paper is full, and I have a grievous headache. 
 
 " P.S. Lady B. is in full progress. Next month will bring 
 to light (with the aid of Juno Lucina, fer opem? or rather opes, 
 for the last are most wanted) the tenth wonder of the world ; 
 Gil Bias being the eighth, and he (my son s father) the ninth." 
 
 Here we have a picture of the whole story, 
 Lady Byron within a month of her confinement ; 
 
 * These Italics are ours. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 2/5 
 
 her money being used to settle debts ; her hus 
 band out at a dinner-party, going through the 
 iisual course of such parties, able to keep his 
 legs and help Sheridan down stairs, and going 
 home " gloomy, and savage to ferocity," to his 
 wife. 
 
 Four days after this (letter 229), we find that 
 this dinner-party is not an exceptional one, 
 but one of a series : for he says, " To-day I dine 
 with Kinnaird, we are to have Sheridan and 
 Colman again ; and to-morrow, once more, at Sir 
 Gilbert Heathcote s." 
 
 Afterward, in Venice, he reviews the state 
 of his health at this period in London ; and 
 his account shows that his excesses in the 
 vices of his times had wrought effects on his 
 sensitive, nervous organization, very different 
 from what they might on the more phlegmatic 
 constitutions of ordinary Englishmen. In his 
 journal, dated Venice, Feb. 2, 1821, he says, 
 
 " I have been considering what can be the reason why I 
 always wake at a certain hour in the morning, and always in 
 
2/6 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 very bad spirits, I may say, in actual despair and despond 
 ency, in all respects, even of that which pleased me over night. 
 In about an hour or two this goes off, and I compose either to 
 sleep again, or at least to quiet. In England, five years ago, I 
 had the same kind of hypochondria, but accompanied with so 
 violent a thirst, that I have drunk as many as fifteen bottles of 
 soda-water in one night, after going to bed, and been still 
 thirsty, calculating, however, some lost from the bursting-out 
 and effervescence and overflowing of the soda-water in drawing 
 the corks, or striking off the necks of the bottles from mere 
 thirsty impatience. At present, I have not the thirst ; but the 
 depression of spirits is no less violent." Vol. v. p. 96. 
 
 These extracts go to show what mtist have 
 been the condition of the man whom Lady Byron 
 was called to receive at the intervals when he 
 came back from his various social excitements 
 and pleasures. That his nerves were exacer 
 bated by violent extremes of abstinence and 
 reckless indulgence ; that he was often day 
 after day drunk, and that drunkenness made 
 him savage and ferocious, -such are the facts 
 clearly shown by Mr. Moore s narrative. Of 
 the natural peculiarities of Lord Byron s tern- 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 2// 
 
 per, he thus speaks to the Countess of Blessing- 
 ton : 
 
 " I often think that I inherit my violence and bad temper 
 from my poor mother, not that my father, from all I could 
 ever learn, had a much better : so that it is no wonder I have 
 such a very bad one. As long as I can remember any thing, I 
 recollect being subject to violent paroxysms of rage, so dispro- 
 portioned to the cause as to surprise me when they were over ; 
 and this still continues. I eannot coolly view any thing which 
 excites my feelings ; and, once the lurking devil in me is roused, 
 I lose all command of myself. I do not recover a good fit of 
 rage for days after. Mind, I do not by this mean that the ill 
 humor continues, as, on the contrary, that quickly subsides, ex 
 hausted by its own violence ; but it shakes me terribly, and 
 leaves me low and nervous after." Lady Blessington s Conver 
 sations, p. 142. 
 
 That during this time also his irritation and ill 
 temper were increased by the mortification of 
 duns, debts, and executions, is on the face of 
 Moore s story. Moore himself relates one inci 
 dent, which gives some idea of the many which 
 may have occurred at these times, in a note on 
 p. 215, vol. iv., where he speaks of Lord Byron s 
 destroying a favorite old watch that had been 
 
2/8 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 his companion from boyhood, and gone with him 
 to Greece. " In a fit of vexation and rage, 
 brought upon him by some of these humiliating 
 embarrassments, to which he was now almost 
 daily a prey, he furiously dashed this watch on 
 the hearth, and ground it to pieces with the 
 poker among the ashes." 
 
 It is no wonder, that, with a man of this kind 
 to manage, Lady Byron should have clung to 
 the only female companionship she could dare to 
 trust in the case, and earnestly desired" to retain 
 with her the sister, who seemed, more than her 
 self, to have influence over him. 
 
 The first letter given by " The Quarterly," 
 from Lady Byron to Mrs. Leigh, without a date, 
 evidently belongs to this period, when the sister s 
 society presented itself as a refuge in her ap 
 proaching confinement. Mrs. Leigh speaks of 
 leaving. The young wife, conscious that the 
 house presents no attractions, and that soon she 
 herself shall be laid by, cannot urge Mrs. Leigh s 
 stay as likely to give her any pleasure, but only 
 as a comfort to herself. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 2/9 
 
 " You will think me very foolish ; but I have tried two or 
 three times, and cannot talk to you of your departure with a 
 decent visage : so let me say one word in this way to spare my 
 philosophy. With the expectations which I have, I never will 
 nor can ask you to stay one moment longer than you are in 
 clined to do. It would [be] the worst return for all I ever 
 received from you. But in this at least I am truth itself, 
 when I say, that, whatever the situation may be, there is no 
 one whose society is dearer to me, or can contribute more to 
 my happiness. These feelings will not change under any cir 
 cumstances, and I should be grieved if you did not understand 
 them. Should you hereafter condemn me, I shall not love you 
 less. I will say no more. Judge for yourself about going or 
 staying. I wish you to consider yourself, if you could be wise 
 enough to do that, for the first time in your life. 
 
 " Thine, " A. I. B." 
 
 Addressed on the cover, " To The Hon. Mrs. Leigh." 
 
 This letter not being dated, we have no clew 
 but what we obtain from its own internal evi 
 dence. It certainly is not written in Lady By 
 ron s usual, clear, and elegant style ; and is, in 
 this respect, in striking contrast to all her letters 
 that I have ever seen. 
 
 But the notes written by a young woman under 
 
280 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 such peculiar and distressing circumstances must 
 not be judged by the standard of calmer hours. 
 
 Subsequently to this letter, and during that 
 stormy irrational period when Lord Byron s 
 conduct became daily more and more unaccount 
 able, may have come that startling scene in 
 which Lord Byron took every pains to convince 
 his wife of improper relations subsisting between 
 himself and his sister. 
 
 What an utter desolation this must have been 
 to the wife, tearing from her the last hold of 
 friendship, and the last refuge to which she had 
 clung in her sorrows, may easily be conceived. 
 
 In this crisis, it appears that the sister con 
 vinced Lady Byron that the whole was to be 
 attributed to insanity. It would be a convic 
 tion gladly accepted, and bringing infinite relief, 
 although still surrounding her path with fearful 
 difficulties. 
 
 That such was the case, is plainly asserted 
 by Lady Byron in her statement published in 
 1 830. Speaking of her separation, Lady Byron 
 says, 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 28 1 
 
 " The facts are, I left London for Kirkby Mallory, the resi 
 dence of my father and mother, on the I5th of January, 1816. 
 Lord Byron had signified to me in writing, Jan. 6, his absolute 
 desire that I should leave London on the earliest day that I 
 could conveniently fix. It was not safe for me to encounter the 
 fatigues of a journey sooner than the I5th. Previously to my 
 departtire, it had been strongly impressed on my mind tJiat Lord 
 Byron was under the influence of insanity. 
 
 " This opinion was in a great measure derived from the com 
 munications made to me by his nearest relatives and personal 
 attendant." 
 
 Now, there was no nearer relative than Mrs. 
 Leigh ; and the personal attendant was Fletcher. 
 It was therefore presumably Mrs. Leigh who 
 convinced Lady Byron of her husband s insan 
 ity. 
 
 Lady Byron says, " It was even represented 
 to me that he was in danger of destroying him 
 self. 
 
 " With the concurrence of his family, I had 
 consulted with Dr. Baillie, as a friend, on Jan. 8, 
 as to his supposed malady." Now, Lord Byron s 
 written order for her to leave came on Jan. 6. 
 
282 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 It appears, then, that Lady Byron, acting in con 
 currence with Mrs. Leigh and others of her hus 
 band s family, consulted Dr. Baillie, on Jan. 8, 
 as to what she should do ; the symptoms pre 
 sented to Dr. Baillie being, evidently, insane 
 hatred of his wife on the part of Lord Byron, 
 and a determination to get her out of the house. 
 Lady Byron goes on : 
 
 " On acquainting him with the state of the case, and with 
 Lord Byron s desire that I should leave London, Dr. Baillie 
 thought my absence might be advisable as an experiment, 
 assuming the fact of mental derangement ; for Dr. Baillie, not 
 having had access to Lord Byron, could not pronounce an opin 
 ion on that point. He enjoined, that, in correspondence with 
 Lord Byron, I should avoid all but light and soothing topics. 
 Under these impressions, I left London, determined to follow 
 the advice given me by Dr. Baillie. Whatever might have been 
 the nature of Lord Byron s treatment of me from the time of 
 my marriage, yet, supposing him to have been in a state of 
 mental alienation, it was not for me, nor for any person of com 
 mon humanity, to manifest at that moment a sense of injury." 
 
 It appears, then, that the domestic situation in 
 Byron s house at the time of his wife s expulsion 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 283 
 
 was one so grave as to call for family counsel ; 
 for Lady Byron, generally accurate, speaks in 
 the plural number. " His nearest relatives " 
 certainly includes Mrs. Leigh. " His family " 
 includes more. That some of Lord Byron s own 
 relatives were cognizant of facts at this time, 
 and that they took Lady Byron s side, is shown 
 by one of his own *chance admissions. In vol. 
 vi. p, 394, in a letter on Bowles, he says, speak 
 ing of this time, " All my relations, save one, fell 
 from me like leaves from a tree in autumn." 
 And in Medwin s Conversations he says, " Even 
 my cousin George Byron, who had been brought 
 up with me, and whom I loved as a brother, took 
 my wife s part." The conduct must have been 
 marked in the extreme that led to this result. 
 
 We cannot help stopping here to say that 
 Lady Byron s situation at . this time has been 
 discussed in our days with a want of ordinary 
 human feeling that is surprising. Let any 
 father and mother, reading this, look on their 
 own daughter, and try to make the case their 
 own. 
 
284 -CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 After a few short months of married life, 
 months full of patient endurance of the stran 
 gest and most unaccountable treatment, she 
 comes to them, expelled from her husband s 
 house, an object of hatred and aversion to him, 
 and having to settle for herself the awful ques 
 tion, whether he is a dangerous madman or a 
 determined villain. 
 
 Such was this young wife s situation. 
 
 With a heart at times wrung with compassion 
 for her husband as a helpless maniac, and fearful 
 that all may end in suicide, yet compelled to 
 leave him, she writes on the road the much- 
 quoted letter, beginning " Dear Duck." This is 
 an exaggerated and unnatural letter, it is true, 
 but of precisely the character that might be ex 
 pected from an inexperienced young wife when 
 dealing with a husband supposed to be insane. 
 
 The next day,- she addressed to Augusta this 
 letter : 
 
 " MY DEAREST A., It is my great comfort that you are still 
 in Piccadilly." 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 28$ 
 
 And again, on the 23d : 
 
 " DEAREST A., I know you feel for me, as I do for you ; 
 and perhaps I am better understood than I think. You have 
 been, ever since I knew you, my best comforter ; and will so re 
 main, unless you grow tired of the office, which may well be." 
 
 We can see here how self-denying and heroic 
 appears to Lady Byron the conduct of the sister, 
 who patiently remains to soothe and guide and 
 restrain the moody madman, whose madness 
 takes a form, at times, so repulsive to every wo 
 manly feeling. She intimates that she should 
 not wonder should Augusta grow weary of the 
 office. 
 
 Lady Byron continues her statement thus : 
 
 " When I arrived at Kirkby Mallory, my parents were unac 
 quainted with the existence of any causes likely to destroy my 
 prospects of happiness ; and, when I communicated to them 
 the opinion that had been formed concerning Lord Byron s 
 state of mind, they were most anxious to promote his restora 
 tion by every means in their power. They assured those rela 
 tions that were with him in London that they would devote 
 their whole care and attention to the alleviation of his 
 malady. " 
 
286 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 Here we have a quotation * from a letter 
 written by Lady Milbanke to the anxious " rela 
 tions " who are taking counsel about "Lord 
 Byron in town. Lady Byron also adds, in 
 justification of her mother from Lord Byron s 
 slanders, " She had always treated him with 
 an affectionate consideration and indulgence, 
 which extended to every little peculiarity of 
 his feelings. Never did an irritating word es 
 cape her lips in her whole intercourse with him." 
 
 Now comes a remarkable part of Lady 
 Byron s statement : 
 
 " The accounts given me after I left Lord Byron, by 
 those in constant intercourse with him,t added to those doubts 
 
 * This little incident shows the characteristic carefulness and accuracy of 
 Lady Byron s habits. This statement was written fourteen years after the 
 events spoken of; but Lady Byron carefully quotes a passage from her 
 mother s letter written at that time. This shows that a copy of Lady Mil- 
 banke s letter had been preserved, and makes it appear probable that copies 
 of the whole correspondence of that period were also kept. Great light 
 could be thrown on the whole transaction, could these documents be 
 consulted. 
 
 t Here, again, Lady Byron s sealed papers might furnish light. The 
 letters addressed to her at this time by those in constant intercourse with 
 Lord Byron are doubtless preserved, and would show her ground of action. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 28/ 
 
 which had before transiently occurred to my mind as to the 
 reality of the alleged disease ; and the reports of his medical 
 attendants were far from establishing any thing like lunacy." 
 
 When these doubts arose in her mind, it is 
 not natural to suppose, that they should, at first, 
 involve Mrs. Leigh. She still appears to Lady 
 Byron as the devoted, believing sister, fully con 
 vinced of her brother s insanity, and endeavor 
 ing to restrain and control him. 
 
 But if Lord Byron were sane, if the purposes 
 he had avowed to his wife were real, he must 
 have lied about his sister in the past, and per 
 haps have the worst intentions for the future. 
 
 The horrors of that state of vacillation be 
 tween the conviction of insanity and the com 
 mencing conviction of something worse can 
 scarcely be told. 
 
 At all events, the wife s doubts extend so far, 
 that she speaks out to her parents. " UNDER 
 THIS UNCERTAINTY," says the statement, " I 
 deemed it right to communicate to my parents, 
 that, if I were to consider Lord Byron s past 
 
288 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 conduct as that of a person of sound mind, 
 nothing could induce me to return to him. It 
 therefore appeared expedient, both to them and 
 to myself, to consult the ablest advisers. For 
 that object, and also to obtain still further infor 
 mation respecting appearances which indicated 
 
 mental derangement, my mother determined to 
 
 * 
 go to London. She was empowered by me to 
 
 take legal opinion on a written statement of 
 mine ; though I then had reasons for reserving a 
 part of the case from the knowledge even of my 
 father and mother! 
 
 It is during this time of uncertainty that the 
 next letter to Mrs. Leigh may be placed. It 
 seems to be rather a fragment of a letter than a 
 whole one : perhaps it is an extract ; in which 
 case it would be desirable, if possible, to view it 
 in connection with the remaining text : 
 
 "JAN. 25, 1816. 
 
 " MY DEAREST AUGUSTA, Shall I still be your sister ? I 
 must resign my rights to be so considered ; but I don t think 
 that will make any difference in the kindness I have so uni 
 formly experienced from you." 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 289 
 
 This fragment is not signed, nor finished in 
 any way, but indicates that the writer is about 
 to take a decisive step. 
 
 On the i /th, as we have seen, Lady Milbanke 
 had written, inviting Lord Byron. Subsequently, 
 she went to London to make more particular 
 inquiries into his state. This fragment seems 
 part of a letter from Lady Byron, called forth in 
 view of some evidence resulting from her moth 
 er s observations.* 
 
 Lady Byron now adds, 
 
 " Being convinced by the result of these inquiries, and by 
 the tenor of Lord Byron s proceedings, that the notion of in 
 sanity was an illusion, I no longer hesitated to authorize such 
 measures as were necessary in order to secure me from ever 
 being again placed in his power. 
 
 " Conformably with this resolution, my father wrote to him, 
 on the 2d of February, to request an amicable separation." 
 
 The following letter to Mrs. Leigh is dated 
 the day after this application, and is in many 
 respects a noticeable one : 
 
 * Probably Lady Milbanke s letters are among the sealed papers, and 
 
 would more fully explain the situation. 
 19 
 
2QO CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 " KIRKBY MALLORY, Feb. 3, 1816. 
 
 " MY DEAREST. AUGUSTA, You are desired by your broth 
 er to ask if my father has acted with my concurrence in pro 
 posing a separation. He has. It cannot be supposed, that, in 
 my present distressing situation, I am capable of stating in a 
 detailed manner the reasons which will not only justify this 
 measure, but compel me to take it ; and it never can be my 
 wish to remember Tinnecessarily \sic\ those injuries for which, 
 however deep, I feel no resentment I will now only recall to 
 Lord Byron s mind his avowed and insurmountable aversion to 
 the married state, and the desire and determination he has 
 expressed ever since its commencement to free himself from 
 that bondage, as finding it quite insupportable, though can 
 didly acknowledging that no effort of duty or affection has been 
 wanting on my part. He has too painfully convinced me that 
 all these attempts to contribute towards his happiness were 
 wholly useless, and most unwelcome to him. I enclose this 
 letter to my father, wishing it to receive his sanction. 
 " Ever yours most affectionately, 
 
 " A. I. BYRON." 
 
 We observe in this letter that it is written to 
 be shown to Lady Byron s father, and receive his 
 sanction ; and, as that father was in ignorance 
 of all the deeper causes of trouble in the case, it 
 will be seen that the letter must necessarily be 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 2QI 
 
 a reserved one. This sufficiently accounts for 
 the guarded character of the language when 
 speaking of the causes of separation. One part 
 of the letter incidentally overthrows Lord By 
 ron s statement, which he always repeated dur 
 ing his life, and which is repeated for him now ; 
 namely, that his wife forsook him, instead of 
 being, as she claims, expelled by him. 
 
 She recalls to Lord Byron s mind the " desire 
 and determination he has expressed ever since 
 his marriage to free himself from its bondage." 
 
 This is in perfect keeping with the " absolute 
 desire," signified by writing, that she should 
 leave his house on the earliest day possible ; 
 and she places the cause of the separation on 
 his having " too painfully " convinced her that 
 he does not want her as a wife. 
 
 It appears that Augusta hesitates to show 
 this note to her brother. It is bringing on a 
 crisis which she, above all others, would most wish 
 to avoid. 
 
 In the mean time, Lady Byron receives a let- 
 
2Q2 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 ter from Lord Byron, which makes her feel it 
 more than ever essential to make the decision 
 final. I have reason to believe that this letter 
 is preserved in Lady Byron s papers : 
 
 " FEB. 4, 1816. 
 
 " I hope, my dear A., that you would on no account withhold 
 from your brother the letter which I sent yesterday in answer 
 to yours written by his desire, particularly as one which I have 
 received from himself to-day renders it still more important 
 that he should know the contents of that addressed to you. I 
 am, in haste and not very well, 
 
 " Yours most affectionately, 
 
 "A. I. BYRON." 
 
 The last of this series of letters is less like 
 the style, of Lady Byron than any of them. We 
 cannot judge whether it is a whole consecutive 
 letter, or fragments from a letter, selected and 
 united. There is a great want of that clearness 
 and precision which usually characterized Lady 
 Byron s style. It shows, however, that the de 
 cision is made, a decision which she regrets 
 on account of the sister who has tried so long 
 to prevent it. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 2Q3 
 
 " KIRKBY MALLORY, Feb. 14, 1816. 
 
 "The present sufferings of all may yet be repaid in bless 
 ings. Do not despair absolutely, dearest ; and leave me but 
 enough of your interest to afford you any consolation by par 
 taking of that sorrow which I am most unhappy to cause thus 
 unintentionally. You will be of my opinion hereafter ; and at 
 present your bitterest reproach would be forgiven, though 
 Heaven knows you have considered me more than a thousand 
 would have done, more than any thing but my affection for B., 
 one most dear to you, could deserve. I must not remember 
 these feelings. Farewell ! God bless you from the bottom of 
 my heart ! " A. I. B." 
 
 We are here to consider that Mrs. Leigh has 
 stood to Lady Byron in all this long agony as 
 her only confidante and friend ; that she has 
 denied the charges her brother has made, and 
 referred them to insanity, admitting insane at 
 tempts upon herself which she has been obliged 
 to watch over and control. 
 
 Lady Byron has come to the conclusion that 
 Augusta is mistaken as to insanity ; that there 
 is a real wicked purpose and desire on the part 
 of the brother, not as yet believed in by the sis- 
 
2Q4 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 ter. She regards the sister as one, who, though 
 deceived and blinded, is still worthy of confi 
 dence and consideration ; and so says to her, 
 " You will be of my opinion hereafter" 
 
 She says, " You have considered me more 
 than a thousand would have done." Mrs. Leigh 
 is, in Lady Byron s eyes, a most abused and 
 innocent woman, who, to spare her sister in her 
 delicate situation, has taken on herself the whole 
 charge of a maniacal brother, although suffering 
 from him language and actions of the most inju 
 rious kind. That Mrs. Leigh did not flee the 
 house at once under such circumstances, and 
 wholly decline the management of the case, 
 seems to Lady Byron consideration and self- 
 sacrifice greater than she can acknowledge. 
 
 The knowledge of the whole extent of the 
 truth came to Lady Byron s mind at a later 
 period. 
 
 We now take up the history from Lushing- 
 ton s letter to Lady Byron, published at the 
 close of her statement. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 2Q5 
 
 The application to Lord Byron for an act of 
 separation was positively refused at first ; it 
 being an important part of his policy that all 
 the responsibility and insistance should come 
 from his wife, and that he should appear forced 
 into it contrary to his will. 
 
 Dr. Lushington, however, says to Lady By 
 ron, 
 
 " I was originally consulted by Lady Noel on your behalf 
 while you were in the country. The circumstances detailed by 
 her were such as justified a separation ; but they were not of 
 that aggravated description as to render such a measure indis 
 pensable. On Lady Noel s representations, I deemed a 
 reconciliation with Lord Byron practicable, and felt most sin 
 cerely a wish to aid in effecting it. There was not, on Lady 
 Noel s part, any exaggeration of the facts, nor, so far as I 
 could perceive, any determination to prevent a return to Lord 
 Byron : certainly none was expressed when I spoke of a recon 
 ciliation." 
 
 In this crisis, with Lord Byron refusing the 
 separation, with Lushington expressing a wish 
 to aid in a reconciliation, and Lady Noel not ex 
 pressing any aversion to it, the whole strain of 
 
296 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 the dreadful responsibility comes upon the wife. 
 She resolves to ask counsel of her lawyer, in 
 view of a statement of the whole case. 
 
 Lady Byron is spoken of by Lord Byron 
 (letter 233) as being in town with her father on 
 the 29th of February ; viz., fifteen days after the 
 date of the last letter to Mrs. Leigh. It must 
 have been about this time, then, that she laid 
 her whole case before Lushington ; and he gave 
 it a thorough examination. 
 
 The result was, that Lushington expressed in 
 the most decided terms his conviction that rec 
 onciliation was impossible. The language he 
 uses is very striking : 
 
 " When you came to town in about a fortnight, or perhaps 
 more, after my first interview with Lady Noel, I was, for the 
 first time, informed by you of facts utterly unknown, as I have 
 no doubt, to Sir Ralph and Lady Noel. On receiving this ad 
 ditional information, my opinion was entirely changed. I con 
 sidered a reconciliation impossible. I declared my opinion, 
 and added, that, if such an idea should be entertained, I could 
 not, either professionally or otherwise, take any part towards 
 effecting it." 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 2Q/ 
 
 It does not appear in this note what effect the 
 lawyer s examination of the case had on Lady 
 Byron s mind. By the expressions he uses, we 
 should infer that she may still have been hesi 
 tating as to whether a reconciliation might not 
 be her duty. 
 
 This hesitancy he does away with most deci 
 sively, saying, " A reconciliation is impossible ; " 
 and, supposing Lady Byron or her friends desi 
 rous of one, he declares positively that he can 
 not, either professionally as a lawyer or privately 
 as a friend, have any thing to do with effect 
 ing it. 
 
 The lawyer, it appears, has drawn, from the 
 facts of the case, inferences deeper and stronger 
 than those which presented themselves to the 
 mind of the young woman ; and he instructs 
 her in the most absolute terms. 
 
 Fourteen years after, in 1830, for the first 
 time the world was astonished by this declara 
 tion from Dr. Lushington, in language so pro 
 nounced and positive, that there could be no 
 mistake. 
 
298 CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY OF EVENTS. 
 
 Lady Byron had stood all these fourteen years 
 slandered by her husband, and misunderstood 
 by his friends, when, had she so chosen, this 
 opinion of Dr. Lushington s could have been at 
 once made public, which fully justified her con 
 duct. 
 
 If, as the "Blackwood" of July insinuates, the 
 story told to Lushington was a malignant slan 
 der, meant to injure Lord Byron, why did she 
 suppress the judgment of her counsel at a time 
 when all the world was on her side, and this 
 decision would have been the decisive blow 
 against her husband ? Why, by sealing the lips 
 of counsel, and of all whom she could influence, 
 did she deprive herself finally of the very advan 
 tage for which it has been assumed she fabri 
 cated the story ? 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF THE TWO WITNESSES 
 COMPARED. 
 
 T T will be observed, that, in this controversy, 
 we are confronting two opposing stories, 
 one of Lord and the other of Lady Byron ; and 
 the statements from each are in point-blank con 
 tradiction. 
 
 Lord Byron states that his wife deserted him. 
 Lady Byron states that he expelled her, and re 
 minds him, in her letter to Augusta Leigh, that 
 the expulsion was a deliberate one, and that he 
 had purposed it from the beginning of their 
 marriage. 
 
 Lord Byron always stated that he was ignorant 
 why his wife left him, and was desirous of her 
 return. Lady Byron states that he told her that 
 he would force her to leave him, and to leave 
 
 299 
 
3OO THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 him in such a way that the whole blame of the 
 separation should always rest on her, and not 
 on him. 
 
 To say nothing of any deeper or darker accu 
 sations on either side, here, in the very outworks 
 of the story, the two meet point-blank. 
 
 In considering two opposing stories, we al 
 ways, as a matter of fact, take into account the 
 character of the witnesses. 
 
 If a person be literal and exact in his usual 
 modes of speech, reserved, careful, conscientious, 
 and in the habit of observing minutely the minor 
 details of time, place, and circumstances, we give 
 weight to his testimony from these considera 
 tions. But if a person be proved to have singular 
 and exceptional principles with regard to truth ; 
 if he be universally held by society to be so in 
 the habit of mystification, that large allow 
 ances must be made for his statements ; if 
 his assertions at one time contradict those 
 made at another ; and if his statements, also, 
 sometimes come in collision with those of his 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 30! 
 
 best friends, so that, when his language is re 
 ported, difficulties follow, and explanations are 
 made necessary, all this certainly disqualifies 
 him from being considered a trustworthy wit 
 ness. 
 
 All these disqualifications belong in a remark 
 able degree to Lord Byron, on the oft-repeated 
 testimony of his best friends. 
 
 We shall first cite the following testimony, 
 given in an article from " Under the Crown," 
 which is written by an early friend and ardent 
 admirer of Lord Byron : 
 
 " Byron had one pre-eminent fault, a fault which must be 
 considered as deeply criminal by every one who does not, as I 
 do, believe it to have resulted from monomania. He had a 
 morbid love of a bad reputation. There was hardly an offence 
 of which he would not, with perfect indifference, accuse himself. 
 An old schoolfellow who met him on the Continent told me 
 that he would continually write paragraphs against himself in 
 the foreign journals, and delight in their republication by the 
 English newspapers as in the success of a practical joke. 
 Whenever anybody has related any thing discreditable of Byron, 
 assuring me that it must be true, for he heard it from him- 
 
3O2 THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 self, I always felt that he could not have spoken upon worse 
 authority ; and that, in all probability, the tale was a pure in 
 vention. If I could remember, and were willing to repeat, the 
 various misdoings which I have from time to time heard him 
 attribute to himself, I could fill a volume. But I never believed 
 them. I very soon became aware of this strange idiosyncrasy : 
 it puzzled me to account for it ; but there it was, a sort of dis 
 eased and distorted vanity. The same eccentric spirit would 
 induce him to report things which were false with regard to his 
 family, which anybody else would have concealed, though true. 
 He told" me more than once that his father was insane, and 
 killed himself. I shall never forget the manner in which he 
 first told me this. While washing his hands, and singing a gay 
 Neapolitan air, he stopped, looked round at me, and said, 
 There always was madness in the family. Then, after con 
 tinuing his washing and his song, he added, as if speaking of a 
 matter of the slightest indifference, My father cut his throat. 
 The contrast between the tenor of the subject and the levity of 
 the expression was fearfully painful : it was like a stanza of 
 Don Juan. In this instance, I had no doubt that the fact was 
 as he related it ; but in speaking of it, only a few years since, 
 to an old lady in whom I had perfect confidence, she assured me 
 that it was not so. Mr Byron, who was her cousin, had been 
 extremely wild, but was quite sane, and had died very quietly 
 in his bed. What Byron s reason could have been for thus ca 
 lumniating not only himself, but the blood which was flowing in 
 his veins, who can divine ? But, for some reason or other, it 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 303 
 
 seemed to be his determined purpose to keep himself unknown 
 to the great body of his fellow-creatures ; to present himself to 
 their view in moral masquerade." 
 
 Certainly the character of Lord Byron here 
 given by his friend is not the kind to make him 
 a trustworthy witness in any case : on the con 
 trary, it seems to show either a subtle delight in 
 falsehood for falsehood s sake, or else the wary 
 artifices of a man, who, having a deadly secret 
 to conceal, employs many turnings and windings 
 to throw the world off the scent. What in 
 triguer, having a crime to cover, could devise 
 a more artful course than to send half a dozen 
 absurd stories to the press, which should, after a 
 while, be traced back to himself, till the public 
 should gradually look on all it heard from him 
 as the result of this eccentric humor ? 
 
 The easy, trifling air with which Lord Byron 
 made to this friend a false statement in regard 
 to his father would lead naturally to the inquiry, 
 on what other subjects, equally important to the 
 good name of others, he might give false testi 
 mony with equal indifference. 
 
304 THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 When Medwin s " Conversations with Lord 
 Byron " were first published, they contained a 
 number of declarations of the noble lord affect 
 ing the honor and honesty of his friend and 
 publisher Murray. These appear to have been 
 made in the same way as those about his 
 father, and with equal indifference. So serious 
 were the charges, that Mr. Murray s friends felt 
 that he ought, in justice to himself, to come for 
 ward and confront them with the facts as stated 
 in Byron s letters to himself; and in vol. x., 
 p. 143, of Murray s standard edition, accord 
 ingly, these false statements are confronted with 
 the letters of Lord Byron. The statements, as 
 reported, are of a most material and vital nature, 
 relating to Murray s financial honor and honesty, 
 and to his general truthfulness and sincerity. 
 In reply, Murray opposes to them the accounts 
 of sums paid for different works, and letters 
 from Byron exactly contradicting his own state 
 ments as to Murray s character. 
 
 The subject, as we have seen, was discussed 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 305 
 
 in " The Noctes." No doubt appears to be en 
 tertained that Byron made the statements to 
 Medwin ; and the theory of accounting for them 
 is, that " Byron was bamming him." 
 
 It seems never to have occurred to any of 
 these credulous gentlemen, who laughed at oth 
 ers for being "bammed," that Byron might be 
 doing the very same thing by themselves. How 
 many of his so-called packages sent to Lady 
 Byron were real packages, and how many were 
 mystifications ? We find, in two places at least 
 in his Memoir, letters to Lady Byron, written 
 and shown to others, which, he says, were never 
 sent by him. He told Lady Blessington that he 
 was in the habit of writing to her constantly, 
 Was this " bamming " ? Was he " bamming," 
 also, when he told the world that Lady Byron 
 suddenly deserted him, quite to his surprise, and 
 that he never, to his dying day, could find out 
 why ? 
 
 Lady Blessington relates, that, in one of his 
 conversations with her, he entertained her by 
 
3O6 THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 repeating epigrams and lampoons, in which 
 many of his friends were treated with severity. 
 She inquired of him, in case he should die, and 
 such proofs of his friendship come before the 
 public, what would be the feelings of these 
 friends, who had supposed themselves to stand 
 so high in his good graces. She says, 
 
 " That, said Byron, is precisely one of the ideas that 
 most amuses me. I often fancy the rage and humiliation of 
 my quondam friends in hearing the truth, at least from me, for 
 the first time, and when I am beyond the reach of their malice. 
 . . . What grief, continued Byron, laughing, could resist 
 the charges of ugliness, dulness, or any of the thousand name 
 less defects, personal or mental, that flesh is heir to, when 
 reprisal or recantation was impossible ? . . . People are in 
 such daily habits of commenting on the defects of friends, that 
 they are unconscious of the unkindness of it. ... Now, I 
 write down as well as speak my sentiments of those who think 
 they have gulled me ; and I only wish, in case I die before 
 them, that I might return to witness the effects my posthumous 
 opinions of them are likely to produce in their minds. What 
 good fun this would be ! ... You don t seem to value this 
 as you ought, said Byron with one of his sardonic smiles, see 
 ing I looked, as I really felt, surprised at his avowed insincerity. 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 307 
 
 I feel the same pleasure in anticipating the rage and mor 
 tification of my soi-disant friends at the discovery of my real 
 sentiments of them that a miser may be supposed to feel while 
 making a will that will disappoint all the expectants that have 
 been toadying him for years. Then how amusing it will be to 
 compare my posthumous with my previously given opinions, 
 the one throwing ridicule on the other ! " 
 
 It is asserted, in a note to " The Noctes," that 
 Byron, besides his Autobiography, prepared 
 a voluminous dictionary of all his friends and 
 acquaintances, in which brief notes of their 
 persons and character were given, with his 
 opinion of them. It was not considered that 
 the publication of this would add to the noble 
 lord s popularity ; and it has never appeared. 
 
 In Hunt s Life of Byron, there is similar 
 testimony. Speaking of Byron s carelessness 
 in exposing his friends secrets, and showing or 
 giving away their letters, he says, - 
 
 " If his five hundred confidants, by a reticence as remarkable 
 as his laxity, had not kept his secrets better than he did him 
 self, the very devil might have been played with I don t know 
 how many people. But there v/as always this saving reflection 
 
3O8 THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 to be made, that the man who could be guilty of such extrava 
 gances for the sake of making an impression might be guilty 
 of exaggeration, or inventing what astonished you ; and indeed, 
 though he was a speaker of the truth on ordinary occasions, 
 that is to say, he did not tell you he had seen a dozen horses 
 when he had seen only two, yet, as he professed not to value 
 the truth when in the way of his advantage (and there was 
 nothing he thought more to his advantage than making you 
 stare at him), the persons who were liable to suffer from his 
 incontinence had all the right in the world to the benefit of this 
 consideration." * 
 
 With a person of such mental and moral habits 
 as to truth, the inquiry always must be, Where 
 does mystification end, and truth begin ? 
 
 If a man is careless about his father s reputa 
 tion for sanity, and reports him a crazy suicide ; 
 if he gayly accuses his publisher and good friend 
 of double-dealing, shuffling, and dishonesty ; if 
 he tells stories about Mrs. Clermont,f to which 
 
 * Hunt s Byron, p. 77. Philadelphia, 1828. 
 
 t From the Temple-Bar article, October, 1860. " Mrs. Leigh, Lord 
 Byron s sister, had other thoughts of Mrs Clermont, and wrote to her, offer 
 ing public testimony to her tenderness and forbearance under circumstances 
 which must have been trying to any friend of Lady Byron." Campbell, in 
 the New Monthly Magazine, 1830, p. 380. 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 309 
 
 his sister offers a public refutation, is it to be 
 supposed that he will always tell the truth about 
 his wife, when the world is pressing him hard, 
 and every instinct of self-defence is on the alert ? 
 
 And then the ingenuity that could write and 
 publish false documents about himself, that they 
 might re-appear in London papers, to what 
 other accounts might it not be turned ? Might 
 it not create documents, invent statements, 
 about his wife as well as himself? 
 
 The document so ostentatiously given to M. 
 G. Lewis "for circulation among friends in Eng 
 land " was a specimen of what the Noctes Club 
 would call " bamming." 
 
 If Byron wanted a legal investigation, why 
 did he not take it in the first place, instead of 
 signing the separation ? If he wanted to cancel 
 it, as he said in this document, why did he not 
 go to London, and enter a suit for the restitution 
 of conjugal rights, or a suit in chancery to get 
 possession of his daughter ? That this was in 
 his mind, passages in Medwin s Conversations 
 
3IO THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 show. He told Lady Blessington also that he 
 might claim his daughter in chancery at any time. 
 
 Why did he not do it ? Either of these two 
 steps would have brought on that public inves 
 tigation he so longed for. Can it be possible 
 that all the friends who passed this private docu 
 ment from hand to hand never suspected that 
 they were being "bammed " by it? 
 
 But it has been universally assumed, that 
 though Byron was thus remarkably given to 
 mystification, yet all his statements in regard to 
 this story are to be accepted, simply because he 
 makes them. Why must we accept them, any 
 more than his statements as to Murray or his 
 own father ? 
 
 So we constantly find Lord Byron s incidental 
 statements coming in collision with those of oth 
 ers : for example, in his account of his marriage, 
 he tells Medwin that Lady Byron s maid was put 
 between his bride and himself, on the same seat, 
 in the wedding-journey. The lady s maid her 
 self, Mrs. Minns, says she was sent before them 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 3 I I 
 
 to Halnaby, and was there to receive them 
 when they alighted. 
 
 He said of Lady Byron s mother, " She al 
 ways detested me, and had not the decency to 
 conceal it in her own house. Dining with her 
 one clay, I broke a tooth, and was in great pain; 
 which I could not help showing. It will do 
 you good/ said Lady Noel. I am glad of it ! " 
 
 Lady Byron says, speaking of her mother, 
 " She always treated him with an affectionate 
 consideration and indulgence, which extended 
 to every little peculiarity of his feelings. Never 
 did an irritating word escape her." 
 
 Lord Byron states that the correspondence 
 between him and Lady Byron, after his refusal, 
 was first opened by her. Lady Byron s friends 
 deny the statement, and assert that the direct 
 contrary is the fact. 
 
 Thus we see that Lord Byron s statements 
 are directly opposed to those of his family in 
 relation to his father ; directly against Murray s 
 accounts, and his own admission to Murray ; 
 
312 THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 directly against the statement of the lady s maid 
 as to her position in the journey ; directly 
 against Mrs. Leigh s as to Mrs. Clermont, and 
 against Lady Byron as to her mother. 
 
 We can see, also, that these misstatements 
 were so fully perceived by the men of his times, 
 that Medwin s Conversations were simply 
 laughed at as an amusing instance of how far a 
 man might be made the victim of a mystification. 
 Christopher North thus sentences the book : 
 
 " I don t mean to call Medwin a liar. . . . The captain 
 lies, sir; but it is under a thousand mistakes. Whether Byron 
 bammed him, or he, by virtue of his own egregious stupidity, 
 was the sole and sufficient bammifier of himself, I know not ; 
 neither greatly do I care. This much is certain, . . . that the 
 book throughout is full of things that were not, and most re- 
 splendently deficient quoad the things that were." 
 
 Yet it is on Medwin s Conversations alone that 
 many of the magazine assertions in regard to 
 Lady Byron are founded. 
 
 It is on that authority that Lady Byron is 
 accused of breaking open her husband s writing- 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 313 
 
 desk in his absence, and sending the letters she 
 found there to the husband of a lady compro 
 mised by them ; and likewise that Lord Byron 
 is declared to have paid back his wife s ten- 
 thousand-pound wedding-portion, and doubled 
 it. Moore makes no such statements ; and his 
 remarks about Lord Byron s use of his wife s 
 money are unmistakable evidence to the con 
 trary. Moore, although Byron s ardent partisan, 
 was too well informed to make assertions with 
 regard to him, which, at that time, it would have 
 been perfectly easy to refute. 
 
 All these facts go to show that Lord Byron s 
 character for accuracy or veracity was not such 
 as to entitle him to ordinary confidence as a 
 witness, especially in a case where he had the 
 strongest motives for misstatement. 
 
 And if we consider that the celebrated Auto 
 biography was the finished, careful work of such 
 a practised " mystifier," who can wonder that it 
 presented a web of such intermingled truth and 
 lies, that there was no such thing as disen- 
 
314 THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 tangling it, and pointing out where falsehood 
 ended, and truth began ? 
 
 But, in regard to Lady Byron, what has been 
 the universal impression of the world ? It has 
 been alleged against her that she was a precise, 
 straightforward woman, so accustomed to plain, 
 literal dealings, that she could not understand 
 the various mystifications of her husband ; and 
 that from that cause arose her unhappiness. 
 Byron speaks, in " The Sketch," of her peculiar 
 truthfulness ; and even in the " Clytemnestra " 
 poem, when accusing her of lying, he speaks of 
 her as departing from 
 
 " The early truth that was her proper praise." 
 
 Lady Byron s careful accuracy as to dates, to 
 time, place, and circumstances, will probably 
 be vouched for by all the very large number of 
 persons whom the management of her extended 
 property and her works of benevolence brought 
 to act as co-operators or agents with her. She 
 was not a person in the habit of making exag- 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 315 
 
 gerated or ill-considered statements. Her pub 
 lished statement of 1830 is clear, exact, accurate, 
 and perfectly intelligible. The dates are careful 
 ly ascertained and stated, the expressions are 
 moderate, and all the assertions firm and perfect 
 ly definite. 
 
 It therefore seems remarkable that the whole 
 reasoning on this Byron matter has generally 
 been conducted by assuming all Lord Byron s 
 statements to be true, and requiring all Lady 
 Byron s statements to be sustained by other 
 evidence. 
 
 If Lord Byron asserts that his wife deserted 
 him, the assertion is accepted without proof; 
 but, if Lady Byron asserts that he ordered her 
 to leave, that requires proof. Lady Byron asserts 
 that she took counsel, on this order of Lord 
 Byron, with his family friends and physician, 
 under the idea that it originated in insanity. 
 The " Blackwood " asks, " What family friends ? " 
 says it doesn t know of any ; and asks proof. 
 
 If Lord Byron asserts that he always longed 
 
3l6 THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 for a public investigation of the charges against 
 him, the " Quarterly " and " Blackwood " quote 
 the saying with ingenuous confidence. They 
 are obliged to admit that he refused to stand 
 that public test ; that he signed the deed of 
 separation rather than meet it. They know, 
 also, that he could have at any time instituted 
 suits against Lady Byron that would have 
 brought the whole matter into court, and that he 
 did not. Why did he not? The "Quarterly" 
 simply intimates that such suits would have 
 been unpleasant. Why ? On account of per 
 sonal^ delicacy ? The man that wrote " Don 
 Juan," and furnished the details of his wedding- 
 night, held back from clearing his name by 
 delicacy ! It is astonishing to what extent this 
 controversy has consisted in simply repeating 
 Lord Byron s assertions over and over again, and 
 calling the result proof. 
 
 Now, we propose a different course. As 
 Lady Byron is not stated by her warm admirers 
 to have had any monomania for speaking un- 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 3 I > 
 
 truths on any subject, we rank her value as a 
 witness at a higher rate than Lord Byron s. 
 She never accused her parents of madness or 
 suicide, merely to make a sensation ; never 
 " bammed " an acquaintance by false statements 
 concerning the commercial honor of any one 
 with whom she was in business relations ; never 
 wrote and sent to the press as a clever jest false 
 statements about herself; and never, in any 
 other .ingenious way, tampered with truth. We 
 therefore hold it to be a mere dictate of reason 
 and common sense, that, in all cases where her 
 statements conflict with her husband s, hers are 
 to be taken as the more trustworthy. 
 
 " The London Quarterly," in a late article, 
 distinctly repudiates Lady Byron s statements 
 as sources of evidence, and throughout quotes 
 statements of Lord Byron as if they had the 
 force of self-evident propositions. We con 
 sider such a course contrary to common sense 
 as well as common good manners. 
 
 The state of the case is just this : If Lord 
 
318 THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 .Byron did not make false statements on this 
 subject, it was certainly an exception to his 
 usual course. He certainly did make such on a 
 great variety of other subjects. By his own 
 showing, he had a peculiar pleasure in falsify 
 ing language, and in misleading and betraying 
 even his friends. 
 
 But, if Lady Byron gave false witness upon 
 this subject, it was an exception to the whole 
 course of her life. 
 
 The habits of her mind, the government of 
 her conduct, her life-long reputation, all were 
 those of a literal, exact truthfulness. 
 
 The accusation of her being untruthful was 
 first brought forward by her husband in the 
 " Clytemnestra " poem, in the autumn of 1816; 
 but it never was publicly circulated till after his 
 death, and it was first formally made the basis 
 of a published attack on Lady Byron in the July 
 " Blackwood " of 1869. Up to that time, we 
 look in vain through current literature for any 
 indications that the world regarded Lady Byron 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 319 
 
 otherwise than as a cold, careful, prudent wo 
 man, who made no assertions, and had no confi 
 dants. When she spoke in 1830, it is perfectly 
 evident that Christopher North and his circle 
 believed what she said, though reproving her for 
 saying it at all. 
 
 The " Quarterly " goes on to heap up a num 
 ber of vague assertions, that Lady Byron, 
 about the time of her separation, made a confidant 
 of a young officer ; that she told the clergyman 
 of Ham of some trials with Lord Ockham ; and 
 that she told stories of different things at differ 
 ent times. 
 
 All this is not proof: it is mere assertion, 
 and assertion made to produce prejudice. It is 
 like raising a whirlwind of sand to blind the 
 eyes that are looking for landmarks. It is quite 
 probable Lady Byron told different stories about 
 Lord Byron at various times. No woman could 
 have a greater variety of stories to tell ; and no 
 woman ever was so persecuted and pursued 
 and harassed, both by public literature and pri- 
 
32O THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 vate friendship, to say something. She had 
 plenty of causes for a separation, without the fatal 
 and final one. In her conversations with Lady 
 Anne Barnard, for example, she gives reasons 
 enough for a separation, though none of them 
 are the chief one. It is not different stories, 
 but contradictory stories, that must be relied on 
 to disprove the credibility of a witness. The 
 " Quarterly " has certainly told a great number of 
 different stories, stories which may prove as 
 irreconcilable with each other as any attributed 
 to Lady Byron ; but its denial of all weight to 
 her testimony is simply begging the whole ques 
 tion under consideration. 
 
 A man gives testimony about the causes of a 
 railroad accident, being the only eye-witness. 
 
 The opposing counsel begs, whatever else you 
 do, you will not admit that man s testimony. 
 You ask, " Why ? Has he ever been accused of 
 want of veracity on other subjects ? " " No : he 
 has stood high as a man of probity and honor 
 for years." " Why, then, throw out his testi 
 mony ? " 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 321 
 
 " Because he lies in this instance," says the 
 adversary : " his testimony does not agree with 
 this and that." " Pardon me, that is the very 
 point in question," say you : " we expect to prove 
 that it does agree with this and that," 
 
 Because certain letters of Lady Byron s do 
 not agree with the " Quarterly s " theory of 
 the facts of the separation, it at once assumes 
 that she is an untruthful witness, and proposes 
 to throw out her evidence altogether. 
 
 We propose, on the contrary, to regard Lady 
 Byron s evidence with all the attention due to 
 the statement of a high-minded, conscientious 
 person, never in any other case accused of vio 
 lation of truth ; we also propose to show it to 
 be in strict agreement with all well-authenti 
 cated facts and documents ; and we propose to 
 treat Lord Byron s evidence as that of a man of 
 great subtlety, versed in mystification and de 
 lighting in it, and who, on many other subjects, 
 not only deceived, but gloried in deception ; 
 and then we propose to show that it contra- 
 
322 THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 
 diets well-established facts and received docu 
 ments. 
 
 One thing more we have to say concerning 
 the laws of evidence in regard to documents 
 presented in this investigation. 
 
 This is not a London West-End affair, but a 
 grave historical inquiry, in which the whole 
 English-speaking world are interested to know 
 the truth. 
 
 As it is now too late to have the securities of 
 a legal trial, certainly the rules of historical 
 evidence should be strictly observed. All im 
 portant documents should be presented in an 
 entire state, with a plain and open account of 
 their history, who had them, where they were 
 found, and how preserved. 
 
 There have been most excellent, credible, and 
 authentic documents produced in this case ; and, 
 as a specimen of them, we shall mention Lord 
 Lindsay s letter, and the journal and letter it 
 authenticates. Lord Lindsay at once comes 
 forward, gives his name boldly, gives the history 
 
TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 323 
 
 of the papers he produces, shows how they came 
 to be in his hands, why never produced before, 
 and why now. We feel confidence at once. 
 
 But, in regard to the important series of letters 
 presented as Lady Byron s, this obviously proper 
 course has not been pursued. Though assumed 
 to be of the most critical importance, no such 
 distinct history of them was given in the first 
 instance. The want of such evidence being 
 noticed by other papers, the " Quarterly " ap 
 pears hurt that the high character of the maga 
 zine has not been a sufficient guaranty ; and 
 still deals in vague statements that the letters 
 have been freely circulated, and that two noble 
 men of the highest character would vouch for 
 them if necessary. 
 
 In our view, it is necessary. These noblemen 
 should imitate Lord Lindsay s example, give 
 a fair account of these letters, under their own 
 names ; and then, we would add, it is needful for 
 complete satisfaction to have the letters entire, 
 and not in fragments. 
 
324 THE TWO WITNESSES COMPARED. 
 
 The " Quarterly " gave these letters with the 
 evident implication that they are entirely de 
 structive to Lady Byron s character as a wit 
 ness. Now, has that magazine much reason 
 to be hurt at even an insinuation on its own 
 character when making such deadly assaults on 
 that of another ? The individuals who bring 
 forth documents that they suppose to be deadly 
 to the character of a noble person, always in her 
 generation held to be eminent for virtue, cer 
 tainly should not murmur at being called upon 
 to substantiate these documents in the manner 
 usually expected in historical investigations. 
 
 We have shown that these letters do not con 
 tradict, but that they perfectly confirm the facts, 
 and agree with the dates in Lady Byron s pub 
 lished statements of 1830; and this is our 
 reason for deeming them authentic. 
 
 These considerations with regard to the man 
 ner of conducting the inquiry seem so obviously 
 proper, that we cannot but believe that they will 
 command a serious attention. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT TO PROVE THE CRIME. 
 
 \T ^E shall now proceed to state the argu 
 ment against Lord Byron. 
 
 ist, There is direct evidence that Lord Byron 
 was guilty of some unusual immorality. 
 
 The evidence is .not, as the " Blackwood " 
 says, that Lushington yielded assent to the ex 
 parte statement of a client ; nor, as the " Quar 
 terly" intimates, that he was affected by the 
 charms of an attractive young woman. 
 
 The first evidence of it is the fact that 
 Lushington and Romilly offered to take the 
 case into court, and make there a public exhibi 
 tion of the proofs on which their convictions 
 were founded. 
 
 2d, It is very strong evidence of this fact, 
 
 325 
 
326 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 that Lord Byron, while loudly declaring that he 
 wished to know with what he was charged, de 
 clined this open investigation, and, rather than 
 meet it, signed a paper which he had before 
 refused to sign. 
 
 3d, It is also strong evidence of this fact, that 
 although secretly declaring to all his intimate 
 friends that he still wished open investigation in 
 a court of justice, and affirming his belief that 
 his character was being ruined for want of it, he 
 never afterwards took the means to get it. In 
 stead of writing a private handbill, he might 
 have come to England and entered a suit ; and 
 he did not do it. 
 
 That Lord Byron was conscious of a great 
 crime is further made probable by the peculiar 
 malice he seemed to bear to his wife s legal 
 counsel. 
 
 If there had been nothing to fear in that legal 
 investigation wherewith they threatened him, 
 why did he not only flee from it, but regard with 
 a peculiar bitterness those who advised and pro- 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 
 
 posed it ? To an innocent man falsely accused, 
 the certainties of law are a blessing and a ref 
 uge. Female charms cannot mislead in a court 
 of justice ; and the atrocities of rumor are there 
 sifted, and deprived of power. A trial is not a 
 threat to an innocent man : it is an invitation, 
 an opportunity. Why, then, did he hate Sir 
 Samuel Romilly, so that he exulted like a 
 fiend over his tragical death ? The letter in 
 which he pours forth this malignity was so 
 brutal, that Moore was obliged, by the general 
 outcry of society, to suppress it. Is this the lan 
 guage of an innocent man who has been offered 
 a fair trial under his country s laws ? or of a guil 
 ty man, to whom the very idea of public trial 
 means public exposure ? 
 
 4th, It is probable that the crime was the one 
 now alleged, because that was the most impor 
 tant crime charged against him by rumor at 
 the period. This appears by the following ex 
 tract of a letter from Shelley, furnished by the 
 "Quarterly," dated Bath, Sept. 29, 1816 : 
 
328 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 " I saw Kinnaird, and had a long talk with him. He informed 
 me that Lady Byron was now in perfect health ; that she was 
 living with your sister. I felt much pleasure from this intelli 
 gence. I consider the latter part of it as affording a decisive 
 contradiction to the only important calumny that ever was ad 
 vanced against you. On this ground, at least, it will become 
 the world hereafter to be silent." 
 
 It appears evident here that the charge of 
 improper intimacy with his sister was, in the 
 mind of Shelley, the only important one that 
 had yet been made against Lord Byron. 
 
 It is fairly inferable, from Lord Byron s own 
 statements, that his family friends believed this 
 charge. Lady Byron speaks, in her statement, 
 of " nearest relatives " and family friends who 
 were cognizant of Lord Byron s strange conduct 
 at the time of the separation ; and Lord Byron, 
 in the letter to Bowles, before quoted, says that 
 every one of his relations, except his sister, fell 
 from him in this crisis like leaves from a tree in 
 autumn. There was, therefore, not only this 
 report, but such appearances in support of it as 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. . 329 
 
 convinced those nearest to the scene, and best 
 apprised of the facts ; so that they fell from him 
 entirely, notwithstanding the strong influence of 
 family feeling. The Guiccioli book also men 
 tions this same allegation as having arisen from 
 peculiarities in Lord Byron s manner of treating 
 his sister : 
 
 " This deep, fraternal affection assumed at times, under the 
 influence of his powerful genius, and under exceptional circum 
 stances, an almost too passionate expression, which opened a 
 fresh field to his enemies." * 
 
 It appears, then, that there was nothing in the 
 character of Lord Byron and of his sister, as 
 they appeared before their generation, that pre 
 vented such a report from arising : on the con 
 trary, there was something in their relations that 
 made it seem probable. And it appears that 
 his own family friends were so affected by it, 
 that they, with one accord, deserted him. The 
 " Quarterly " presents the fact, that Lady Byron 
 went to visit Mrs. Leigh at this time, as triumph- 
 
 * My Recollections, p. 238. 
 
33 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 ant proof that she did not then believe it. Can 
 the "Quarterly" show just what Lady Byron s 
 state of mind was, or what her motives were, in 
 making that visit ? 
 
 The " Quarterly " seems to assume, that no 
 woman, without gross hypocrisy, can stand by 
 a sister proven to have been guilty. We can 
 appeal on this subject to all women. We fear 
 lessly ask any wife, " Supposing your husband 
 and sister were involved together in an infamous 
 crime, and that you were the mother of a young 
 daughter whose life would be tainted by a knowl 
 edge of that .crime, what would be your wish ? 
 Would you wish to proclaim it forthwith ? or 
 would you wish quietly to separate from your 
 husband, and to cover the crime from the eye 
 of man ? " 
 
 It has been proved that Lady Byron did not 
 reveal this even to her nearest relatives. It is 
 proved that she sealed the mouths of her coun 
 sel, and even of servants, so effectually, that they 
 remain sealed even to this day. This is evidence 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 33! 
 
 that she did not wish the thing known. It is 
 proved also, that, in spite of her secrecy with 
 her parents and friends, the rumor got out, and 
 was spoken of by Shelley as the only important 
 one. 
 
 Now, let us see how this note, cited by the 
 " Quarterly," confirms one of Lady Byron s own 
 statements. She says to Lady Anne Barnard, 
 
 " I trust you understand my wishes, which never were to 
 injure Lord Byron in any way : for, though he would not suffer 
 me to remain his wife, he cannot prevent me from continuing his 
 friend ; and it was from considering myself as such that I silenced 
 tJie accusations by which my own conduct might have been more 
 fully justified" 
 
 How did Lady Byron silence accusations f 
 First, by keeping silence to her nearest relatives ; 
 second, by shutting the mouths of servants ; 
 third, by imposing silence on her friends, as 
 Lady Anne Barnard ; fourth, by silencing her 
 legal counsel ; fifth, and most entirely, by 
 treating Mrs. Leigh, before the world, with un 
 altered kindness. In the midst of the rumors, 
 
332 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 Lady Byron went to visit her ; and Shelley says 
 that the movement was effectual. Can the 
 " Quarterly" prove, that, at this time, Mrs. Leigh 
 had not confessed all, and thrown herself on 
 Lady Byron s mercy ? 
 
 It is not necessary to suppose great horror 
 and indignation on the part of Lady Byron. 
 She may have regarded her sister as the victim 
 of a most singularly powerful tempter. Lord 
 Byron, as she knew, had tried to corrupt her own 
 morals and faith. He had obtained a power over 
 some women, even in the highest circles in Eng 
 land, which had led them to forego the usual 
 decorums of their sex, and had given rise to 
 great scandals. He was a being of wonderful 
 personal attractions. He had not only strong 
 poetical, but also strong logical power. He was 
 daring in speculation, and vigorous in sophistical 
 argument ; beautiful, dazzling, and possessed of 
 magnetic power of fascination. His sister had 
 been kind and considerate to Lady Byron when 
 Lord Byron was brutal and cruel. She had been 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 333 
 
 overcome by him, as a weaker nature sometimes 
 sinks under the force of a stronger one ; and 
 Lady Byron may really have considered her to 
 be more sinned against than sinning. 
 
 Lord Byron, if we look at it rightly, did not 
 corrupt Mrs. Leigh any more than he did the 
 whole British public. They rebelled at the im 
 morality of his conduct and the obscenity of his 
 writings ; and he resolved that they should ac 
 cept both. And he made them do it. At first, 
 they execrated " Don Juan." Murray was afraid 
 to publish it. Women were determined not to 
 read it. In 1819, Dr. William Maginn of the 
 Noctes wrote a song against it in the following 
 virtuous strain : 
 
 " Be Juan, then, unseen, unknown ; 
 
 It must, or we shall rue it. 
 We may have virtue of our own : 
 
 Ah ! why should we undo it ? 
 The treasured faith of days long past 
 
 We still would prize o er any, 
 And grieve to hear the ribald jeer 
 
 Of scamps like Don Giovanni." 
 
334 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 Lord Byron determined to conquer the virtu 
 ous scruples of the Noctes Club ; and so we find 
 this same Dr. William Maginn, who in 1819 
 wrote so valiantly, in 1822 declaring that he would 
 rather have written a page of " Don Juan " than 
 a ton of " Childe Harold." All English morals 
 were, in like manner, formally surrendered to 
 Lord Byron. Moore details his adulteries in 
 Venice with unabashed particularity : artists 
 send for pictures of his principal mistresses ; the 
 literary world call for biographical sketches 
 of their points ; Moore compares his wife and his 
 last mistress in a neatly-turned sentence ; and 
 yet the professor of morals in Edinburgh Uni 
 versity recommends the biography as pure, and 
 having no mud in it. The mistress is lion 
 ized in London, and in 1869 i s introduced to 
 the world of letters by " Blackwood," and bid, 
 " without a blush, to say she loved " 
 
 This much being done to all England, it is 
 quite possible that a woman like Lady Byron, 
 standing silently aside and surveying the course 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 335 
 
 of things, may have thought that Mrs. Leigh 
 was no more seduced than all the rest of the 
 world, and have said, as we feel disposed to say 
 of that generation, and of a good many in this, 
 " Let him that is without sin among you cast 
 the first stone." 
 
 The peculiar bitterness of remorse expressed 
 in his works by Lord Byron is a further evi 
 dence that he had committed an unusual crime. 
 We are aware that evidence cannot be drawn 
 in this manner from an author s works merely, 
 if unsupported by any external probability. For 
 example, the subject most frequently and power 
 fully treated by Hawthorne is the influence of a 
 secret, unconfessed crime on the soul : neverthe 
 less, as Hawthorne is well known to have al 
 ways lived a pure and regular life, nobody has ever 
 suspected him of any greater sin than a vigorous 
 imagination. But here is a man believed guilty 
 of an uncommon immorality by the two best 
 lawyers in England, and threatened with an 
 open exposure, which he does not dare to meet. 
 
336 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 The crime is named in society ; his own relations 
 fall away from him on account of it ; it is only 
 set at rest by the heroic conduct of his wife. 
 Now, this man is stated by many of his friends 
 to have had all the appearance of a man se 
 cretly laboring under the consciousness of crime. 
 Moore speaks of this propensity in the following 
 language : 
 
 " I have known him more than once, as we sat together after 
 dinner, and he was a little under the influence of wine, to fall 
 seriously into this dark, self-accusing mood, and throw out 
 hints of his past life with an air of gloom and mystery designed 
 evidently to awaken curiosity and interest." 
 
 Moore says that it was his own custom to dis 
 pel these appearances by ridicule, to which his 
 friend was keenly alive. And he goes on to 
 
 say, 
 
 " It has sometimes occurred to me, that the occult causes of 
 his lady s separation from him, round which herself and her 
 legal adviser have thrown such formidable mystery, may have 
 been nothing more than some imposture of this kind, some 
 dimly-hinted confession of undefined horror, which, though in- 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 337 
 
 tended by the relater to mystify and surprise, the hearer so little 
 understood as to take in sober seriousness." * 
 
 All we have to say is, that Lord Byron s con 
 duct in this respect is exactly what might have 
 been expected if he had a crime on his con 
 science. 
 
 The energy of remorse and despair expressed 
 in " Manfred " were so appalling and so vividly 
 personal, that the belief was universal on the 
 Continent that the experience was wrought out 
 of some actual crime. Goethe expressed this 
 idea, and had heard a murder imputed to Byron 
 as the cause. 
 
 The allusion to the crime and consequences^ 
 of incest is so plain in " Manfred," that it isJ 
 astonishing that any one can pretend, as Gait 
 does, that it had any other application. 
 
 The hero speaks of the love between himself 
 and the imaginary being whose spirit haunts 
 him as having been the deadliest sin, and one 
 
 * Vol. vi. p. 242. 
 
338 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 that has, perhaps, caused her eternal destruc 
 tion : 
 
 " What is she now ? A sufferer for my sins ; 
 A thing I dare not think upon." 
 
 He speaks of her blood as haunting him, and 
 as being 
 
 " My blood, the pure, warm stream 
 That ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours 
 When we were in our youth, and had one heart, 
 And loved each other as we should not love." 
 
 This work was conceived in the commotion of 
 mind immediately following his separation. The 
 scenery of it was sketched in a journal sent to 
 his sister at the time. 
 
 In letter 377, defending the originality of the 
 conception, and showing that it did not arise 
 from reading " Faust," he says, - 
 
 " It was the Steinbach and the Jungfrau, and something else, 
 more than Faustus, that made me write Manfred. " 
 
 In letter 288, speaking of the various accounts 
 given by critics of the origin of the story, he 
 says, 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 339 
 
 " The conjecturer is out, and knows nothing of the matter. 
 I had a better origin than he could devise or divine for the soul 
 of him." 
 
 In letter 299, he says, 
 
 " As to the germs of Manfred, they may be found in the 
 journal I sent to Mrs. Leigh, part of which you saw." 
 
 It may be said, plausibly, tkat Lord Byron, if 
 conscious of this crime, would not have expressed 
 it in his poetry. But his nature was such, that 
 he could not help it. Whatever he wrote that 
 had any real power was generally wrought out 
 of self; and, when in a tumult of emotion, he 
 could not help giving glimpses of the cause. It 
 appears that he did know that he had been ac 
 cused of incest, and that Shelley thought that 
 accusation the only really important one ; and 
 yet, sensitive as he was to blame and reproba 
 tion, he ran upon this very subject most likely 
 to re-awaken scandal. 
 
 But Lord Byron s strategy was always of the 
 bold kind. It was the plan of the fugitive, who, 
 instead of running away, stations himself so near 
 
34O THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 to danger, that nobody would ever think of look 
 ing for him there. Pie published passionate 
 verses to his sister, on this principle. He imi 
 tated the security of an innocent man in every 
 thing but the unconscious energy of the agony 
 which seized him when he gave vent to his nature 
 in poetry. The boldness of his strategy is evident 
 through all his life. He began by charging his 
 wife with the very cruelty and deception which 
 he was himself practising. He had spread a 
 net for her feet, and he accused her of spreading 
 a net for his. He had placed her in a position 
 where she could not speak, and then leisurely 
 shot arrows at her ; and he represented her as 
 having done the same by him. When he at 
 tacked her in " Don Juan," and strove to take 
 from her the very protection* of womanly sacred- 
 ness by putting her name into the mouth of every 
 ribald, he did a bold thing, and he knew it. He 
 meant to do a bold thing. There was a general 
 
 * The reader is here referred to the remarks of " Blackwood " on " Don 
 Juan "in Part III. 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 34! 
 
 outcry against it ; and he fought it down, and 
 gained his point. By sheer boldness and perse 
 verance, he turned the public from his wife, and 
 to himself, in the face of their very groans and 
 protests. His "Manfred" and his "Cain" were 
 parts of the same game. But the involuntary cry 
 of remorse and despair pierced even through his 
 own artifices, in a manner that produced a con 
 viction of reality. 
 
 His evident fear and hatred of his wife were 
 other symptoms of crime. There was no ap 
 parent occasion for him to hate her. He ad 
 mitted that she had been bright, amiable, good, 
 agreeable ; that her marriage had been a very un 
 comfortable one ; and he said to Madame de Stael, 
 that he did not doubt she thought him deranged. 
 Why, then, did he hate her for wanting to live 
 peaceably by herself? Why did he so fear her, 
 that not one year of his life passed without his 
 concocting and circulating some public or 
 private accusation against her ? She, by his 
 own showing, published none against him. It 
 
342 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 is remarkable, that, in all his zeal to represent 
 himself injured, he nowhere quotes a -single re 
 mark from Lady Byron, nor a story coming either 
 directly or indirectly from her or her family. 
 He is in a fever in Venice, not from what she has 
 spoken, but because she has sealed the lips of 
 her counsel, and because she and her family do 
 not speak : so that he professes himself utterly 
 ignorant what form her allegations against him 
 may take. He had heard from Shelley that his 
 wife silenced the most important calumny by 
 going to make Mrs. Leigh a visit ; and yet he is 
 afraid of her, so afraid/that he tells Moore he 
 expects she will attack him after death, and 
 charges him to defend his grave. 
 
 Now, if Lord Byron knew that his wife had a 
 deadly secret that she could tell, all this conduct 
 is explicable : it is in the ordinary course of 
 human nature. Men always distrust those who 
 hold facts by which they can be ruined. They 
 fear them ; they are antagonistic to them ; 
 they cannot trust them. The feeling of Falk- 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 343 
 
 land to Caleb Williams, as portrayed in God 
 win s masterly sketch, is perfectly natural ; and it 
 is exactly illustrative of what Byron felt for his 
 wife. He hated her for having his secret ; and, 
 so far as a human being could do it, he tried to 
 destroy her character before the world, that she 
 might not have the power to testify against him. 
 If we admit this solution, Byron s conduct is at 
 least that of a man who is acting as men ordi 
 narily would act under such circumstances : if 
 we do not, he is acting like a fiend. Let us 
 look at admitted facts. He married his wife 
 without love, in a gloomy, melancholy, mo 
 rose state of mind. The servants testify to 
 strange, unaccountable treatment of her imme 
 diately after marriage ; such that her confidential 
 maid advises her return to her parents. In Lady 
 Byron s letter to Mrs. Leigh, she reminds Lord 
 Byron that he always expressed a desire and 
 determination to free himself from the marriage. 
 Lord Byron himself admits to Madame de Stael 
 that his behavior was such, that his wife must 
 
344 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 have thought him insane. Now, we are asked to 
 believe, that simply because, under these circum 
 stances, Lady Byron wished to live separate from 
 her husband, he hated and feared her so that he 
 could never let her alone afterward ; that he 
 charged her with malice, slander, deceit, and 
 deadly intentions against himself, merely out of 
 spite, because she preferred not to live with him. 
 This last view of the case certainly makes Lord 
 Byron more unaccountably wicked than the 
 other. 
 
 The first supposition shows him to us as a 
 man in an agony of self-preservation ; the sec 
 ond as a fiend, delighting in gratuitous deceit 
 and cruelty. 
 
 Again : the evidence of this crime appears in 
 Lord Byron s admission, in a letter to Moore, 
 that he had an illegitimate child born before he 
 left England, and still living at the time. 
 
 In letter 307, to Mr. Moore, under date Ven 
 ice, Feb. 2, 1818, Byron says, speaking of 
 Moore s loss of a child, 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 345 
 
 " I know how to feel with you, because I am quite wrapped 
 up in my own children. Besides my little legitimate, I have 
 made unto myself an illegitimate since [since Ada s birth], to 
 say nothing of one before ; and I look forward to one of these 
 as the pillar of my old age, supposing that I ever reach, as I 
 hope I never shall, that desolating period." 
 
 The illegitimate child that he had made to 
 himself since Ada s birth was Allegra, born 
 about nine or ten months after the separation. 
 The other illegitimate alluded to was born be 
 fore, and, as the reader sees, was spoken of as 
 still living. 
 
 Moore appears to be puzzled to know who 
 this child can be, and conjectures that it may 
 possibly be the child referred to in an early 
 poem, written, while a schoolboy of nineteen, at 
 Harrow. 
 
 On turning back to the note referred to, we 
 find two things : first, that the child there men 
 tioned was not claimed by Lord Byron as his 
 own, but that he asked his mother to care for it 
 as belonging to a schoolmate now dead ; sec- 
 
346 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 ond, that the infant died shortly after, and, con 
 sequently, could not be the child mentioned in 
 this letter. 
 
 Now, beside this fact, that Lord Byron admit 
 ted a living illegitimate child born before Ada, 
 we place this other fact, that there was a child 
 in England which was believed to be his by 
 those who had every opportunity of knowing. 
 
 On this subject we shall cite a passage from 
 a letter recently received .by us from England, 
 and written by a person who appears well in 
 formed on the subject of his letter : 
 
 " The fact is, the incest was first committed, and the child of 
 it born before^ shortly before, the Byron marriage. The child 
 (a daughter) must not be confounded with the natural daughter 
 of Lord Byron, born about a year after his separation. 
 
 " The history, more or less, of that child of incest, is known 
 to many ; for in Lady Byron s attempts to watch over .her, and 
 rescue her from ruin, she was compelled to employ various 
 agents at different times." 
 
 This letter contains a full recognition, by an 
 intelligent person in England, of a child corre- 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 347 
 
 spending well with Lord Byron s declaration of 
 an illegitimate, born before he left England. 
 
 Up to this point, we have, then, the circum 
 stantial evidence against Lord Byron as fol 
 lows : 
 
 A good and amiable woman, who had married 
 him from love, determined to separate from him. 
 
 Two of the greatest lawyers of England con 
 firmed her in this decision, and threatened Lord 
 Byron, that, unless he consented to this, they 
 would expose the evidence against him in a 
 suit for divorce. He fled from this exposure, 
 and never afterwards sought public investiga 
 tion. 
 
 He was angry with and malicious toward the 
 counsel who supported his wife ; he was angry at 
 and afraid of a wife who did nothing to injure him, 
 and he made it a special object to defame and de 
 grade her. He gave such evidence of remorse 
 and fear in his writings as to lead eminent 
 literary men to believe he had committed a great 
 crime. The public rumor of his day specified 
 
34-8 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 what the crime was. His relations, by his own 
 showing, joined against him. The report was 
 silenced by his wife s efforts only. Lord Byron 
 subsequently declares the existence of an illegiti 
 mate child, born before he left England. Cor 
 responding to this, there is the history, known in 
 England, of a child believed to be his, in whom 
 his wife took an interest. 
 
 All these presumptions exist independently 
 of any direct testimony from Lady Byron. They 
 are to be admitted as true, whether she says a 
 word one way or the other. 
 
 From this background of proof, I come for 
 ward, and testify to an interview with Lady By 
 ron, in which she gave me specific information 
 of the facts in the case. That I report the 
 facts just as I received them from her, not 
 altered or misremembered, is shown by the 
 testimony of my sister, to whom I related them 
 at the time. It cannot, then, be denied that I 
 had this interview, and that this communication 
 was made. I therefore testify that Lady Byron, 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 349 
 
 for a proper purpose, and at a proper time, 
 stated to me the following things : 
 
 i; That the crime which separated her from 
 Lord Byron was incest. 2. That she first dis 
 covered it by improper actions towards his 
 sister, which, he meant to make her understand, 
 indicated the guilty relation. 3. That he ad 
 mitted it, reasoned on it, defended it, tried to 
 make her an accomplice, and, failing in that, 
 hated her and expelled her. 4. That he threat 
 ened her that he would make it his life s object 
 to destroy her character. 5. That for a period 
 she was led to regard this conduct as insanity, 
 and to consider him only as a diseased person. 
 6. That she had subsequent proof that the facts 
 were really as she suspected ; that there had 
 been a child born of the crime, whose history 
 she knew ; that Mrs. Leigh had repented. 
 
 The purpose for which this was stated to me 
 was to ask, Was it her duty to make the truth 
 fully known during her lifetime ? 
 
 Here, then, is a man believed guilty of an 
 
35O THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 unusual crime by two lawyers, the best in Eng 
 land, who have seen the evidence, a man who 
 dares not meet legal investigation. The crime 
 is named in society, and deemed so far probable 
 to the men of his generation as to be spoken 
 of by Shelley as the only important allegation 
 against him. He acts through life exactly like a 
 man struggling with remorse, and afraid of de 
 tection ; he has all the restlessness and hatred 
 and fear that a man has who feels that there is 
 evidence which might destroy him. He admits 
 an illegitimate child besides Allegra. A child 
 believed to have been his is known to many in 
 England. Added to all this, his widow, now 
 advanced in years, and standing on the borders 
 of eternity, being, as appears by her writings 
 and conversation, of perfectly sound mind at 
 the time, testifies to me the facts before named, 
 which exactly correspond to probabilities. 
 
 I publish the statement ; and the solicitors 
 who hold Lady Byron s private papers do not 
 deny the truth of the story. They try to cast 
 
* TO PROVE THE CRIME. 351 
 
 discredit on me for speaking ; but they do not say 
 that I have spoken falsely, or that the story is not 
 true. The lawyer who knew Lady Byron s story 
 in 1816 does not now deny that this is the true 
 one. Several persons in England testify, that 
 at various times, and for various purposes, the 
 same story has been told to them. Moreover, 
 it appears from my last letter addressed to Lady 
 Byron on this subject that I recommended her 
 to leave all necessary papers in the hands of 
 some discreet persons, who, after both had passed 
 away, should see that justice was done. The 
 solicitors admit that Lady Byron has left sealed 
 papers of great importance in the hands of trus 
 tees, with discretionary power. I have been 
 informed very directly that the nature of these 
 documents was such as to lead to the suppres 
 sion of Lady Byron s life and writings. This 
 is all exactly as it would be, if the story related 
 by Lady Byron were the true one. 
 
 The evidence under this point of view is so 
 strong, that a great effort has been made to 
 throw out Lady Byron s testimony. 
 
352 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 This attempt has been made on two grounds, 
 ist, That she was under a mental hallucination. 
 This theory has been most ably refuted by the 
 very first authority in England upon the sub 
 ject. He says, 
 
 " No person practically acquainted with the true characteris 
 tics of insanity would affirm, that, had this idea of incest been 
 an insane hallucination, Lady Byron could, from the lengthened 
 period which intervened between her unhappy marriage and 
 death, have refrained from exhibiting it, not only to legal ad 
 visers and trustees (assuming that she revealed to them the 
 fact), but to others, exacting no pledge of secrecy from them as 
 to her mental impressions. Lunatics do for a time, and for 
 some special purpose, most cunningly conceal their delusions ; 
 but they have not the capacity to struggle for thirty-six years, as 
 Lady Byron must have done, with so frightful an hallucination, 
 without the insane state of mind becoming obvious to those 
 with whom they are daily associating. Neither is it consistent 
 with experience to suppose, that, if Lady Byron had been a 
 monomaniac, her state of disordered understanding would have 
 been restricted to one hallucination. Her diseased brain, af 
 fecting the normal action of thought, would, in all probability, 
 have manifested other symptoms besides those referred to of 
 aberration of intellect. 
 
 " During the last thirty years, I have not met with a case of 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 353 
 
 insanity (assuming the hypothesis of hallucination) at all par 
 allel with that of Lady Byron. In my experience, it is unique. 
 I never saw a patient with such a delusion." 
 
 We refer our readers to a careful study 
 of Dr. Forbes Winslow s consideration of this 
 subject given on p. 458 of our Part III. Any 
 one who has been familiar with the delicacy 
 and acuteness of Dr. Winslow, as shown in his 
 work on obscure diseases of the brain and 
 nerves, must feel that his positive assertion on 
 this ground is the best possible evidence. We 
 here gratefully acknowledge our obligations to 
 Dr. Winslow for the corrected proof of his 
 valuable letter, which he has done us the honor 
 to send for this work. We shall consider that 
 his argument, in connection with what the 
 reader may observe of Lady Byron s own writ 
 ings, closes that issue of the case completely. 
 
 The other alternative is, that Lady Byron 
 
 deliberately committed false witness. This was 
 
 the ground assumed by the " Blackwood," when 
 
 in July, 1869, it took upon itself the responsi- 
 
 23 
 
354 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 bility of re-opening the Byron controversy. It 
 is also the ground assumed by " The London 
 Quarterly" of to-day. 
 
 Both say, in so many words, that no crime was 
 imputed to Lord Byron ; that the representa 
 tions made to Lushington in the beginning 
 were false ones ; and that the story told to Lady 
 Byron s confidential friends in later days was 
 also false. 
 
 Let us examine this theory. In the first place, 
 it requires us to believe in the existence of a 
 moral monster, of whom Madame Brinvilliers is 
 cited as the type. The " Blackwood," let it be 
 remembered, opens the controversy with the 
 statement that Lady Byron was a Madame 
 Brinvilliers. The " Quarterly " does not shrink 
 from the same assumption. 
 
 Let us consider the probability of this ques 
 tion. 
 
 If Lady Byron were such a woman, and 
 wished to ruin her husband s reputation in order 
 to save her own, and, being perfectly unscrupu- 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 355 
 
 lous, had circulated against him a story of un 
 natural crime which had no proofs, how came 
 two of the first lawyers of England to assume 
 the responsibility of offering to present her case 
 in open court ? How came her husband, if he 
 knew himself guiltless, to shrink from that pub 
 lic investigation which must have demonstrated 
 his innocence ? Most astonishing of all, when 
 he fled from trial, and the report got abroad 
 against him in England,. and was believed even 
 by his own relations, w r hy did not his wife avail 
 herself of the moment to complete her vic 
 tory ? If at that moment she had publicly 
 broken with Mrs. Leigh, she might have con 
 firmed every rumor. Did she do it ? and why 
 not ? According to the " Blackwood," we have 
 here a woman who has made up a frightful story 
 to ruin her husband s reputation, yet who takes 
 every pains afterward to prevent its being ruined. 
 She fails to do the very thing she undertakes ; 
 and for years after, rather than injure him, she 
 loses public sympathy, and, by sealing the lips 
 
356 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 of her legal counsel, deprives herself of the ad 
 vantage of their testimony. 
 
 Moreover, if a desire for revenge could have been 
 excited in her, it would have been provoked by the 
 first publication of the fourth canto of "Childe 
 Harold," when she felt that Byron was attacking 
 her before the world. Yet we have Lady Anne 
 Barnard s testimony, that, at this time, she was so 
 far from wishing to injure him, that all her commu 
 nications were guarded, by cautious secrecy. At 
 this time, also, she had a strong party in England, 
 to whom she could have appealed. Again : when 
 " Don Juan " was first printed, it excited a vio 
 lent re-action against Lord Byron. Had his wife 
 chosen then to accuse him, and display the evi 
 dence she had shown to her counsel, there is 
 little doubt that all the world would have stood 
 with her ; but she did not. After his death, 
 when she spoke at last, there seems little doubt, 
 from the strength of Dr. Lushington s language, 
 that Lady Byron had a very strong case, and 
 that, had she been willing, her counsel could have 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 357 
 
 told much more than he did. She might then 
 have told her whole story, and been believed. 
 Her word was believed by Christopher North, 
 and accepted as proof that Byron had been a 
 great criminal. Had revenge been her motive, 
 she could have spoken the ONE WORD more 
 that North called for. 
 
 The " Quarterly " asks why she waited till 
 everybody concerned was dead. There is an 
 obvious answer. Because, while there was any 
 body living to whom the testimony would have 
 been utterly destructive, there were the best 
 reasons for withholding it. When all were gone 
 from earth, and she herself was in constant expec 
 tation of passing away, there was a reason, and 
 a proper one, why she should speak. By nature 
 and principle truthful, she had had the oppor 
 tunity of silently watching the operation of a 
 permitted lie upon a whole generation. She had 
 been placed in a position in which it was neces 
 sary, by silence, to allow the spread and propaga 
 tion through society of a radical falsehood. Lord 
 
358 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 Byron s life, fame, and genius had all struck their 
 roots into this lie, been nourished by it, and had 
 derived thence a poisonous power. 
 
 In reading this history, it will be remarked 
 that he pleaded his personal misfortunes in his 
 marriage as excuses for every offence against 
 morality, and that the literary world of England 
 accepted the plea, and tolerated and justified the 
 crimes. Never before, in England, had adultery 
 been spoken of in so respectful a manner, and 
 an adulteress openly praised and feted, and ob 
 scene language and licentious images publicly 
 tolerated ; and all on the plea of a man s private 
 misfortunes. 
 
 There was, therefore, great force in the sug 
 gestion made to Lady Byron, that she owed a 
 testimony in this case to truth and justice, irre 
 spective of any personal considerations. There 
 is no more real reason for allowing the spread of 
 a hurtful falsehood that affects ourselves than 
 for allowing one that affects our neighbor. 
 This falsehood had corrupted the literature and 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 359 
 
 morals of both England and America, and led to 
 the public toleration, by respectable authorities, 
 of forms of vice at first indignantly rejected. 
 The question was, Was this falsehood to go on 
 corrupting literature as long as history lasted ? 
 Had the world no right to true history ? Had 
 she who possessed the truth no responsibility 
 to the world ? Was not a final silence a con 
 firmation of a lie with all its consequences ? 
 
 This testimony of Lady Byron, so far from 
 being thrown out altogether, as the " Quarterly" 
 proposes, has a peculiar and specific value from 
 the great forbearance and reticence which char 
 acterized the greater part of her life. 
 
 The testimony of a person who has shown 
 in every action perfect friendliness to another 
 comes with the more weight on that account. 
 Testimony extorted by conscience from a parent 
 against a child, or a wife against a husband, 
 where all the other actions of the life prove the 
 existence of kind feeling, is held to be the 
 strongest form of evidence. 
 
360 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 The fact that Lady Byron, under the severest 
 temptations and the bitterest insults and inju 
 ries, withheld every word by which Lord Byron 
 could be criminated, so long as he and his sister 
 were living, is strong evidence, that, when she 
 did speak, it was not under the influence of ill- 
 will, but of pure conscientious convictions ; and 
 the fullest weight ought, therefore, to be given 
 to her testimony. 
 
 We are asked now why she ever spoke at all. 
 The fact that her story is known to several per 
 sons in England is brought up as if it were a 
 crime. To this we answer, Lady Byron had an 
 undoubted moral right to have exposed the 
 whole story in a public court in 1816, and thus 
 cut herself loose from her husband by a divorce. 
 For the sake of saving her husband and sister 
 from destruction, she waived this right to self- 
 justification, and stood for years a silent sufferer 
 under calumny and misrepresentation. She de 
 sired nothing but to retire from the whole sub 
 ject ; to be permitted to enjoy with her child the 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 361 
 
 peace and seclusion that belong to her sex. Her 
 husband made her, through his life and after his 
 death, a subject of such constant discussion, that 
 she must either abandon the current literature 
 of her day, or .run the risk of reading more or 
 less about herself in almost every magazine of 
 her time. Conversations with Lord Byron, notes 
 of interviews with Lord Byron, journals of time 
 spent with Lord Byron, were constantly spread 
 before the public. Leigh Hunt, Gait, Medwin, 
 Trelawney, Lady Blessington, Dr. Kennedy, and 
 Thomas Moore, all poured forth their memo 
 rials ; and in all she figured prominently. All 
 these had their tribes of reviewers and critics, 
 who also discussed her. The profound mystery 
 of her silence seemed constantly to provoke in 
 quiry. People could not forgive her for not 
 speaking. Her privacy, retirement, and silence 
 were set down as coldness, haughtiness, and 
 contempt of human sympathy. She was con 
 stantly challenged to say something : as, for ex 
 ample, in the " Noctes " of November, 1825, six 
 
362 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 months after Byron s death, Christopher North 
 says, speaking of the burning of the Autobiog 
 raphy, 
 
 " I think, since the Memoir was burned by these people, 
 these people are bound to put us in possession of the best evi 
 dence they still have the power of producing, in order that 
 we may come to a just conclusion as to a subject upon which, 
 by their act, at least, as much as by any other people s act, we 
 are compelled to consider it our duty to make up our deliberate 
 opinion, deliberate and decisive. Woe be to those who pro 
 voke this curiosity, and will not allay it ! Woe be to them ! 
 say I. Woe to them ! says the world." 
 
 When Lady Byron published her statement, 
 which certainly seemed called for by this lan 
 guage, Christopher North blamed her for doing 
 it, and then again said that she ought to go on 
 and tell the whole story. If she was thus ad 
 jured to speak, blamed for speaking, and adjured 
 to speak further, ail in one breath, by public 
 prints, there is reason to think that there could 
 not have come less solicitation from private 
 sources, from friends who had access to her 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 363 
 
 at all hours, whom she loved, by whom she was 
 beloved, and to whom her refusal to explain 
 might seem a breach of friendship. Yet there 
 is no evidence on record, that we have seen, 
 that she ever had other confidant than her legal 
 counsel, till after all the actors in the events 
 were in their graves, and the daughter, for whose 
 sake largely the secret was guarded, had fol 
 lowed them. 
 
 Now, does any one claim, that because a woman 
 has sacrificed for twenty years all cravings for 
 human sympathy, and all possibility of perfectly 
 free *and unconstrained intercourse with her 
 friends, that she is obliged to go on bearing this 
 same lonely burden to the end of her days ? 
 
 Let any one imagine the frightful constraint 
 and solitude implied in this sentence. Let any 
 one, too, think of its painful complications in 
 life. The roots of a falsehood are far-reaching. 
 Conduct that can only be explained by criminat 
 ing another must often seem unreasonable and 
 unaccountable ; and the most truthful person, 
 
364 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 who feels bound to keep silence regarding a 
 radical lie of another, must often be placed in 
 positions most trying to conscientiousness. The 
 great merit of " Caleb Williams " as a nqyel con 
 sists in its philosophical analysis of the utter 
 helplessness of an innocent person who agrees 
 to keep the secret of a guilty one. One sees 
 there how that necessity of silence produces all 
 the effect of falsehood on his part, and deprives 
 him of the confidence and sympathy of those 
 with whom he would take refuge. 
 
 For years, this unnatural life was forced on 
 Lady Byron, involving her as in a network,^ even 
 in her dearest family relations. 
 
 That, when all the parties were dead, Lady 
 Byron should allow herself the sympathy of a 
 circle of intimate friends, is something so per 
 fectly proper and natural, that we cannot but 
 wonder that her conduct in this respect has ever 
 been called in question. If it was her right 
 to have had a public expose in 1816, it was 
 certainly her right to show to her own intimate 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 365 
 
 circle the secret of her life when all the principal 
 actors were passed from earth. 
 
 The " Quarterly " speaks as if, by thus waiting, 
 she deprived Lord Byron of the testimony of 
 living witnesses. But there were as many wit 
 nesses and partisans dead on her side as on his. 
 Lady Milbanke and Sir Ralph, Sir Samuel Rom- 
 illy and Lady Anne Barnard, were as much dead 
 as Hobhouse, Moore, and others of Byron s par 
 tisans. 
 
 The " Quarterly " speaks of Lady Byron as 
 " running round, and repeating her story to peo 
 ple mostly below her own rank in life." 
 
 To those who know the personal dignity of 
 Lady Byron s manners, represented and dwelt 
 on by her husband in his conversations with 
 Lady Blessington, this coarse and vulgar attack 
 only proves the poverty of a cause which can 
 defend itself by no. better weapons. 
 
 Lord Byron speaks of his wife as " highly cul 
 tivated ; " as having " a degree of self-control I 
 never saw equalled." 
 
366 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 " I am certain," he says, " that Lady Byron s first idea is 
 what is due to herself : I mean that it is the undeviating rule 
 of her conduct. . . . Now, my besetting sin is a want of that 
 self-respect which she has in excess. . . . But, though I 
 accuse Lady Byron of an excess of self-respect, I must, in 
 candor, admit, that, if any person ever had excuse for an ex 
 traordinary portion of it, she has ; as, in all her thoughts, words, 
 and actions, she is the most decorous woman that ever 
 existed." 
 
 This is the kind of woman who has lately 
 been accused in the public prints as a babbler 
 of secrets and a gossip in regard to her private 
 difficulties with children, grandchildren, and ser 
 vants. It is a fair specimen of the justice that 
 has generally been meted out to Lady Byron. 
 
 In 1836, she was accused of having made a 
 confidant of Campbell, on the strength of 
 having written him a note declining to give him 
 any information, or answer any questions. In 
 July, 1869, she was denounced by " Blackwood " 
 as a Madame Brinvilliers for keeping such 
 perfect silence on the matter of her husband s 
 character ; and, in the last " Quarterly," she is 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 367 
 
 spoken of as a gossip "running round, and 
 repeating her story to people below her in 
 - rank." 
 
 While we are upon this subject, we have a 
 suggestion to make. John Stuart Mill says 
 that utter self-abnegation has been preached to 
 women as a peculiarly feminine virtue. It is 
 true ; but there is a moral limit to the value of 
 self-abnegation. 
 
 It is a fair question for the moralist, whether 
 it is right and proper wholly to ignore one s 
 personal claims to justice. The teachings of 
 the Saviour give us warrant for submitting to 
 personal injuries; but both the Saviour and 
 St. Paul manifested bravery in denying false 
 accusations, and asserting innocence. 
 
 Lady Byron was falsely accused of having 
 ruined the man of his generation, and caused 
 all his vices. and crimes, and all their evil effects 
 on society. She submitted to the accusation 
 for a certain number of years for reasons which 
 commended themselves to her conscience ; but 
 
368 THE DIRECT ARGUMENT 
 
 when all the personal considerations were re 
 moved, and she was about passing from life, it 
 was right, it was just, it was strictly in accord 
 ance with the philosophical and ethical character 
 of her mind, and with her habit of considering all 
 things in their widest relations to the good of 
 mankind, that she should give serious attention 
 and consideration to the last duty which she 
 might owe to abstract truth and justice in her 
 generation. 
 
 In her letter on the religious state of Eng 
 land, we find her advocating an absolute frank 
 ness in all religious parties. She would have all 
 openly confess those doubts, which, from the best 
 of motives, are usually suppressed ; and believed, 
 that, as a result of such perfect truthfulness, a 
 wider love would prevail among Christians. This 
 shows the strength of her conviction of the 
 power and the importance of absolute truth ; 
 and shows, therefore, that her doubts and con 
 scientious inquiries respecting her duty on this 
 subject are exactly what might have been ex- 
 
TO PROVE THE CRIME. 369 
 
 pected from a person of her character and prin 
 ciples. 
 
 Having thus shown that Lady Byron s testi 
 mony is the testimony of a woman of strong 
 and sound mind, that it was not given from 
 malice nor ill-will, that it was given at a proper 
 time and in a proper manner, and for a purpose 
 in accordance with the most elevated moral 
 views, and that it is co-incident with all the 
 established facts of this history, and furnishes a 
 perfect solution of every mystery of the case, we 
 think we shall carry the reader with us in say 
 ing that it is to be received as absolute truth. 
 
 This conviction we arrive at while as yet we 
 are deprived of the statement prepared by Lady 
 Byron, and the proof by which she expected to 
 sustain it ; both which, as we understand, are 
 now in the hands of her trustees. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 r I ^HE credibility of the accusation of the 
 unnatural crime charged to Lord Byron is 
 greater than if charged to most men. He was 
 born of parents both of whom were remark 
 able for perfectly ungoverned passions. There 
 appears to be historical evidence that he was 
 speaking literal truth when he says to Medwin 
 of his father, 
 
 " He would have made a bad hero for Hannah More. He 
 ran out three fortunes, and married or ran away with three 
 women. . . . He seemed born for his own ruin and that of the 
 other sex. He began by seducing Lady Carmarthen, and spent 
 her four thousand pounds ; and, not content with one adventure 
 of this kind, afterwards eloped with Miss Gordon." Medwin j 
 Conversations, p. 31. 
 370 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 3/1 
 
 Lady Carmarthen here spoken of was the 
 mother of Mrs. Leigh. Miss Gordon became 
 Lord Byron s mother. 
 
 By his own account, and that of Moore, she 
 was a passionate, ungoverned, though affection 
 ate woman. Lord Byron says to Medwin, 
 
 " I lost my father when I was only six years of age. My 
 mother, when she was in a passion with me (and I gave her 
 cause enough), used to say, " O you little dog ! you are a Byron 
 all over ! you are as bad as your father ! " Ibid., p. 31. 
 
 By all the accounts of his childhood and early 
 youth, it is made apparent that ancestral causes 
 had sent him into the world with a most peril 
 ous and exceptional sensitiveness of brain and 
 nervous system, which it would have required 
 the most judicious course of education to direct 
 safely and happily. 
 
 Lord Byron often speaks as if he deemed 
 himself subject to tendencies which might ter 
 minate in insanity. The idea is so often men 
 tioned and dwelt upon in his letters, journals, 
 
37 2 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 and conversations, that we cannot but ascribe 
 it to some very peculiar experience, and not to 
 mere affectation. 
 
 But, in the history of his early childhood and 
 youth, we see no evidence of any original male- 
 formation of nature. We see only evidence 
 of one of those organizations, full of hope and 
 full of peril, which adverse influences might 
 easily drive to insanity, but wise physiological 
 training and judicious moral culture might have 
 guided to the most splendid results. But of 
 these he had neither. He was alternately the 
 pet and victim of his mother s tumultuous na 
 ture, and equally injured both by her love and 
 her anger. A Scotch maid of religious charac 
 ter gave him early serious impressions of reli 
 gion, and thus added the element of an awakened 
 conscience to the conflicting ones of his char 
 acter. 
 
 Education, in the proper sense of the word, did 
 not exist in England in those days. Physiologi 
 cal considerations of the influence of the body 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 373 
 
 on the soul, of the power of brain and nerve over 
 moral development, had then not even entered 
 the general thought of society. The school and 
 college education literally taught him nothing 
 but the ancient classics, of whose power in 
 exciting and developing the animal passions 
 Byron often speaks. 
 
 The morality of the times is strikingly exem 
 plified even in its literary criticism. 
 
 For example : One of Byron s poems, written 
 while a schoolboy at Harrow, is addressed to 
 " My Son." Mr. Moore, and the annotator of 
 the standard edition of Byron s poems, gravely 
 give the public their speculations on the point, 
 whether Lord Byron first became a father 
 while a schoolboy in Harrow ; and go into par 
 ticulars in relation to a certain infant, the claim 
 to which lay between Lord Byron and another 
 schoolfellow. It is not the nature - of the event 
 itself, so much as the cool, unembarrassed man 
 ner in which it is discussed, that gives the im 
 pression of the state of public morals. There 
 
374 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 is no intimation of any thing unusual, or discred 
 itable to the school, in the event, and no appar 
 ent suspicion that it will be regarded as a serious 
 imputation on Lord Byron s character. 
 
 Modern physiological developments would lead 
 any person versed in the study of the recip 
 rocal influence of physical and moral laws to 
 anticipate the most serious danger to such an 
 organization as Lord Byron s, from a precocious 
 development of the passions. Alcoholic and 
 narcotic stimulants, in the case of such a person, 
 would be regarded as little less than suicidal, 
 and an early course of combined drinking 
 and licentiousness as tending directly to estab 
 lish those unsound conditions which lead towards 
 moral insanity. Yet not only Lord Byron s tes 
 timony, but every probability from the license of 
 society, goes to show that this was exactly what 
 did take place. 
 
 Neither restrained by education, nor warned 
 by any correct physiological knowledge, nor held 
 in check by any public sentiment, he drifted 
 directly upon the fatal rock. 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 375 
 
 Here we give Mr. Moore full credit for all his 
 abatements in regard to Lord Byron s excesses 
 in his early days. Moore makes the point very 
 strongly, that he was not, de facto, even so bad as 
 many of his associates ; and we agree with him. 
 Byron s physical organization was originally as 
 fine and as sensitive as that of the most delicate 
 woman. He possessed the faculty of moral ideali 
 ty in a high degree ; and he had not, in the earlier 
 part of his life, an attraction towards mere brutal 
 vice. His physical sensitiveness was so remark 
 able, that he says of himself, " A dose of salts 
 has the effect of a temporary inebriation, like 
 light champagne, upon me." Yet this excep 
 tionally delicately-organized boy and youth was 
 in a circle where not to conform to the coarse 
 drinking-customs of his day was to incur cen 
 sure and ridicule. That he early acquired the 
 power of bearing large quantities of liquor is 
 manifested by the record in his Journal, that, on 
 the day when he read the severe " Edinburgh " 
 article upon his schoolboy poems, he drank 
 three bottles of claret at a sitting. 
 
3/6 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 Yet Byron was so far" superior to his times, 
 that some vague impulses to physiological pru 
 dence seem to have suggested themselves to 
 him, and been acted upon with great vigor. He 
 never could have lived so long as he did, under 
 the exhaustive process of every kind of excess, 
 if he had not re-enforced his physical nature by 
 an assiduous care of his muscular system. He 
 took boxing-lessons, and distinguished himself 
 in all athletic exercises. 
 
 He also had periods in which he seemed to 
 try vaguely to retrieve himself from dissipation, 
 and to acquire self-mastery by what he called 
 temperance. 
 
 But, ignorant and excessive in all his move 
 ments, his very efforts at temperance were in 
 temperate. From violent excesses in eating 
 and drinking, he would pass to no less unnatural 
 periods of utter abstinence. Thus the very 
 conservative power which Nature has of adapt 
 ing herself to any settled course was lost. The 
 extreme sensitiveness produced by long periods 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 3/7 
 
 of utter abstinence made the succeeding debauch 
 more maddening and fatal. He was like a fine 
 musical instrument, whose strings were every 
 day alternating between extreme tension and 
 perfect laxity. We have in his Journal many 
 passages, . of which the following is a speci 
 men : 
 
 " I have dined regularly to-day, for the first time since Sun 
 day last ; this being sabbath too, all the rest, tea and dry 
 biscuits, six per diem. I wish to God I had not dined, now 1 
 It kills me with heaviness, stupor, and horrible dreams ; and 
 yet it was but a pint of bucellas, and fish. Meat I never touch, 
 nor much vegetable diet. I wish I were* in the country, to take 
 exercise, instead of being obliged to cool by abstinence, in lieu 
 of it. I should not so much mind a little accession of flesh : 
 my bones can well bear it. But the worst -is, the Devil always 
 came with it, till I starved him out ; and I will not be the 
 slave of any appetite. If I do err, it shall be my heart, at 
 least, that heralds the way. O my head ! how it aches ! The 
 horrors of digestion ! I wonder how Bonaparte s dinner 
 agrees with him." Moore s Life> vol. ii. p. 264. 
 
 From all the contemporary history and litera 
 ture of the times, therefore, we have reason to 
 
378 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 believe that Lord Byron spoke the exact truth 
 when he said to Medwin, 
 
 " My own master at an age when I most required a guide, 
 left to the dominion of my passions when they were the strong 
 est, with a fortune anticipated before I came into possession of 
 it, and a constitution impaired by early excesses, I commenced 
 my travels, in 1809, with a joyless indifference to the world and 
 all that was before me." Medwin^s Conversations, p. 42. 
 
 Utter prostration of the whole physical man 
 from intemperate excess, the deadness to temp 
 tation which comes from utter exhaustion, was 
 his condition, according to himself and Moore, 
 when he first left England, at twenty-one years 
 of age. 
 
 In considering his subsequent history, we are 
 to take into account that it was upon the brain 
 and nerve-power, thus exhausted by early excess, 
 that the draughts of sudden and rapid literary 
 composition began to be made. There was 
 something unnatural and unhealthy in the ra 
 pidity, clearness, and vigor with which his va 
 rious works followed each other. Subsequently 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 379 
 
 to the first two cantos of "Childe Harold," "The 
 Bride of Abydos," "The Corsair," "The Giaour," 
 " Lara," " Parisina," and " The Siege of Corinth," 
 all followed close upon each other, in a space 
 of less than three years, and those the three 
 most critical years of his life. " The Bride of 
 Abydos" came out in the autumn of 1813, and 
 was written in a week ; and " The Corsair " was 
 composed in thirteen days. A few months 
 more than a year before his marriage, and the 
 brief space of his married life, was the period in 
 which all this literary labor was performed, while 
 yet he was running the wild career of intrigue 
 and fashionable folly. He speaks of " Lara " as 
 being tossed off in the intervals between mas 
 querades and balls, &c. It is with the physical 
 results of such unnatural efforts that we have 
 now chiefly to do. Every physiologist would 
 say that the demands of such poems on a healthy 
 brain, in that given space, must have been ex 
 hausting ; but when we consider that they were 
 checks drawn on a bank broken by early extrav- 
 
380 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 agance, and that the subject was prodigally 
 spending vital forces in every other direction at 
 the same time, one can scarcely estimate the 
 physiological madness of such a course as Lord 
 Byron s. 
 
 It is evident from his Journal, and Moore s 
 account, that any amount of physical force 
 which was for the time restored by his first for 
 eign travel was recklessly spent in this period, 
 when he threw himself with a mad recklessness 
 into London society in the time just preceding 
 his marriage. The revelations made in Moore s 
 Memoir of this period are sad enough : those 
 to Medwin are so appalling as to the state of 
 contemporary society in England, as to require, 
 at least, the benefit of the doubt for which Lord 
 Byron s habitual carelessness of truth gave 
 scope. His adventures with ladies of the high 
 est rank in England are there paraded with a 
 freedom of detail that respect for womanhood 
 must lead every woman to question. The only 
 thing that is unquestionable is, that Lord Byron 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 381 
 
 made these assertions to Medwin, not as re 
 morseful confessions, but as relations of his 
 bonnes fortunes, and that Medwin published 
 them in the very face of the society to which 
 they related. 
 
 When Lord Byron says, " I have seen a great 
 deal of Italian society, and swum in a gondola ; 
 but nothing could equal the profligacy of high 
 life in England . . . when I knew it," he 
 makes certainly strong assertions, if we remem 
 ber what Mr. Moore reveals of the harem kept 
 in Venice. 
 
 But when Lord Byron intimates that three 
 married women in his own rank in life, who 
 had once held illicit relations with him, made 
 wedding-visits to his wife at one time, we must 
 hope that he drew on his active imagination, 
 as he often did, in his statements in regard to 
 women. 
 
 When he relates at large his amour with Lord 
 Melbourne s wife, and represents her as pursu 
 ing him with an insane passion, to which- he 
 
382 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 with difficulty responded ; and when he says that 
 she tracked a rival lady to his lodgings, and 
 came into them herself, disguised as a carman, 
 one hopes that he exaggerates. And what are 
 we to make of passages like this ? 
 
 " There was a lady at that time, double my own age, the 
 mother of several children who were perfect angels, with whom 
 I formed a liaison that continued without interruption for eight 
 months. She told me she was never in love till she was thirty, 
 and I thought myself so with her when she was forty. I never 
 felt a stronger passion, which she returned with equal ardor. . . . 
 
 " Strange as it may seem, she gained, as all women do, an 
 influence over me so strong, that I had great difficulty in break 
 ing with her." 
 
 Unfortunately, these statements, though prob 
 ably exaggerated, are, for substance, borne out in 
 the history of the times. With every possible 
 abatement for exaggeration in these statements, 
 there remains still undoubted evidence from 
 other sources that Lord Byron exercised a most 
 peculiar and fatal power over the moral sense of 
 the women with whom he was brought in re- 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 383 
 
 lation ; and -that love for him, in many women, 
 became a sort of insanity, depriving them of the 
 just use of their faculties. All this makes his 
 fatal history both possible and probable. 
 
 Even the article in " Blackwood," written in 
 1825 for the express purpose of vindicating his 
 character, admits that his name had been 
 coupled with those of three, four, or more 
 women of rank, whom it speaks of as " licen 
 tious, unprincipled, characterless women." 
 
 That such a course, in connection with alter 
 nate extremes of excess and abstinence in eating 
 and drinking, and the immense draughts on the 
 brain-power of rapid and brilliant composition, 
 should have ended in that abnormal state in 
 which cravings for unnatural vice give indica 
 tions of approaching brain-disease, seems only 
 too probable. 
 
 This symptom of exhausted vitality becomes 
 often a frequent type in periods of very corrupt 
 society. The dregs of the old Greek and Ro 
 man civilization were foul with it ; and the 
 
384 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 apostle speaks of the turning of the use of 
 the natural into that which is against nature, as 
 the last step in abandonment. 
 
 The very literature of such periods marks 
 their want of physical and moral soundness. 
 Having lost all sense of what is simple and nat 
 ural and pure, the mind delights to dwell on 
 horrible ideas, which give a shuddering sense of 
 guilt and crime. All the writings of this fatal 
 period of Lord Byron s life are more or less in 
 tense histories of unrepentant guilt and remorse 
 or of unnatural crime. A recent writer in 
 " Temple Bar " brings to light the fact, that 
 " The Bride of Abydos," the first of the brilliant 
 and rapid series of poems which began in the 
 period immediately preceding his marriage, was, 
 in its first composition, an intense story of love 
 between a brother and sister in a Turkish ha 
 rem ; that Lord Byron declared, in a letter to 
 Gait, that it was drawn from real life ; that, in 
 compliance with the prejudices of the age, he 
 altered the relationship to that of cousins before 
 publication. 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 385 
 
 This same writer goes on to show, by a series 
 of extracts from Lord Byron s published letters 
 and journals, that his mind about this time was 
 in a fearfully unnatural state, and suffering sin 
 gular and inexplicable agonies of remorse ; that, 
 though he was accustomed fearlessly to confide 
 to his friends immoralities which would be 
 looked upon as damning, there was now a secret 
 to which he could not help alluding in his let 
 ters, but which he told Moore he could not tell 
 now, but "some day or other when we are 
 veterans" He speaks of his heart as eating 
 itself out ; of a mysterious person, whom he says, 
 " God knows I love too well, and the Devil prob 
 ably too. He wrote a song, and sent it to Moore, 
 addressed to a partner in some awful guilt, 
 whose very name he dares not mention, because 
 
 " There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame." 
 
 He speaks of struggles of remorse, of efforts 
 at repentance, and returns to guilt, with a sort 
 of horror very different from the well-pleased 
 
386 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 air with which he relates to Medwin his com 
 mon intrigues and adulteries. He speaks of 
 himself generally as oppressed by a frightful, un 
 natural gloom and horror, and, when occasionally 
 happy, " not in a way that can or ought to last." 
 
 " The Giaour," " The Corsair," " Lara," " Pari- 
 sina," " The Siege of Corinth," and " Man 
 fred," all written or conceived about this period 
 of his life, give one picture of a desperate, 
 despairing, unrepentant soul, whom suffering 
 maddens, but cannot reclaim. 
 
 In all these he paints only the one woman, of 
 concentrated, unconsidering passion, ready to 
 sacrifice heaven and defy hell for a guilty man, 
 beloved in spite of religion or reason. In this 
 unnatural literature, the stimulus of crime is 
 represented as intensifying love. Medora, Gul- 
 nare, the Page in " Lara," Parisina, and the lost 
 sister of Manfred, love the more intensely 
 because the object of the love is a criminal, out 
 lawed by God and man. The next step beyond 
 this is madness. 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 387 
 
 The work of Dr. Forbes Winslow on " Ob 
 scure Diseases of the Brain and Nerves " * con 
 tains a passage so very descriptive of the case 
 of Lord Byron, that it might seem to have been 
 written for it. The sixth chapter of his work, 
 on " Anomalous and Masked Affections of the 
 Mind," contains, in our view, the only clew that 
 can unravel the sad tragedy of Byron s life. He 
 says, p. 87, - 
 
 " These forms of unrecognized mental disorder are not 
 always accompanied by any well-marked disturbance of the 
 bodily health requiring medical attention, or any obvious de 
 parture from a normal state of thought and conduct such as 
 to justify legal interference; neither do these affections always 
 incapacitate the party from engaging in the ordinary business 
 of life. . . . The change may have progressed insidiously and 
 stealthily, having slowly and almost imperceptibly induced 
 important molecular modifications in the delicate vesicular 
 neurine of the brain, ultimately resulting in some aberration of 
 the ideas, alteration of the affections, or perversion of the pro 
 pensities or instincts. . . . 
 
 " Mental disorder of a dangerous character has been known 
 
 * The article in question is worth a careful reading. Its industry and 
 accuracy in amassing evidence are worthy attention. 
 
388 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 for years to be stealthily advancing, without exciting the 
 slightest notion of its presence, until some sad and terrible 
 catastrophe, homicide, or suicide, has painfully awakened 
 attention to its existence. Persons suffering from latent 
 insanity often affect singularity of dress, gait, conversation, and 
 phraseology. The most trifling circumstances stimulate their 
 excitability. They are martyrs to ungovernable paroxysms of 
 passion, are inflamed to a state of demoniacal fury by the most 
 insignificant of causes, and occasionally lose all sense of 
 delicacy of feeling, sentiment, refinement of manners and con 
 versation. Such manifestations of undetected mental disorder 
 may be seen associated with intellectual and moral qualities of 
 the highest order." 
 
 In another place, Dr. Winslow again adverts 
 to this latter symptom, which was strikingly 
 marked in the case of Lord Byron : 
 
 " All delicacy and decency of thought are occasionally 
 banished from the mind, so effectually does the principle of 
 thought in these attacks succumb to the animal instincts and 
 passions. . . . 
 
 " Such cases will commonly be found associated with organic 
 predisposition to insanity or cerebral disease. . . . Modifica 
 tions of the malady are seen allied with genius. The biogra 
 phies of Cowper, Burns, Byron, Johnson, Pope, and Haydon, 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 389 
 
 establish that the most exalted intellectual conditions do not 
 escape unscathed. 
 
 " In early childhood, this form of mental disturbance may, in 
 many cases, be detected. To its existence is often to be traced 
 the motiveless crimes of the young." 
 
 No one can compare this passage of Dr. 
 Forbes Winslow with the incidents we have 
 already cited as occurring in that fatal period 
 before the separation of Lord and Lady Byron, 
 and not feel that the hapless young wife was in 
 deed struggling with those inflexible natural 
 
 laws, which, at some stages of retribution, in- 
 
 p 
 volve in their awful sweep the guilty with the 
 
 innocent. She longed to save ; but he was 
 gone past redemption. Alcoholic stimulants 
 and licentious excesses, without doubt, had 
 produced those unseen changes in the brain, of 
 which Dr. Forbes Winslow speaks ; and the re 
 sults were terrible in proportion to the peculiar 
 fineness and -delicacy of the organism deranged. 
 Alas ! the history of Lady Byron is the his 
 tory of too many women in every rank of life 
 
3QO PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 who are called in agonies of perplexity and fear 
 to watch that gradual process by which physical 
 excesses change the organism of the brain, till 
 slow, creeping, moral insanity comes on. The 
 woman who is the helpless victim of cruelties 
 which only unnatural states of the brain could 
 invent ; who is heart-sick to-day, and dreads to 
 morrow, looks in hopeless horror on the fatal 
 process by which a lover and a protector changes 
 under her eyes, from day to day, to a brute and 
 a fiend. 
 
 Lady Byron s married life alas ! it is lived 
 over in many a cottage and tenement-house, 
 with no understanding on either side of the 
 woful misery. 
 
 Dr. Winslow truly says, " The science of these 
 brain-affections is yet in its infancy in England." 
 At that time, it had not even begun to be. Mad 
 ness was a fixed point ; and the inquiries into it 
 had no nicety. Its treatment, if established, had 
 no redeeming power. Insanity simply locked a 
 man up as a dangerous being ; and the very 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 39 1 
 
 suggestion of it, therefore, was resented as an 
 injury. 
 
 A most peculiar and affecting feature of that 
 form of brain-disease which hurries its victim, as 
 by an overpowering mania, into crime, is, that 
 
 often the moral faculties and the affections re- 
 
 
 main to a degree unimpaired, and protest with all 
 
 their strength against the outrage. Hence come 
 conflicts and agonies of remorse proportioned to 
 the strength of the moral nature. Byron, more 
 than any other one writer, may be called the 
 poet of remorse. His passionate pictures of 
 this feeling seem to give new power to the 
 English language : 
 
 " There is a war, a chaos of the mind, 
 When all its elements convulsed combined, 
 Lie dark and jarring with perturbed force, 
 And gnashing with impenitent remorse 
 That juggling fiend, who never spake before, 
 But cries, I -warned thee ! when the deed is o er." 
 
 It was this remorse that formed the only re 
 deeming feature of the case. Its eloquence, its 
 
3Q2 PHYSIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 agonies, won from all hearts the interest that we 
 give to a powerful nature in a state of danger 
 and ruin ; and it may be hoped that this feel 
 ing, which tempers the stern justice of human 
 judgments, may prove only a faint image of the 
 wider charity of Him whose thoughts are as far 
 above ours as the heaven is above the earth. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HOW COULD SHE LOVE HIM f 
 
 T T has seemed, to some, wholly inconsistent, 
 that Lady Byron, if this story were true, 
 could retain any kindly feeling for Lord Byron, 
 or any tenderness for his memory ; that the pro 
 fession implied a certain hypocrisy : but, in this 
 sad review, we may see how the woman who 
 once had loved him, might, in spite of every 
 wrong he had heaped upon her, still have looked 
 on this awful wreck and ruin chiefly with pity. 
 While she stood afar, and refused to justify 
 or join in the polluted idolatry which defended 
 his vices, there is evidence in her writings that 
 her mind often went back mournfully, as a 
 mother s would, to the early days when he might 
 have been saved. 
 
 393 
 
394 HOW COULD SHE LOVE HIM ? 
 
 One of her letters in Robinson s Memoirs, 
 in regard to his religious opinions, shows with 
 what intense earnestness she dwelt upon the 
 unhappy influences of his childhood and youth, 
 and those early theologies which led him to re 
 gard himself as one of the reprobate. She 
 says, 
 
 " Not merely from casual expressions, but from the whole 
 tenor of Lord Byron s feelings, I could not but conclude that he 
 was a believer in the inspiration of the Bible, and had the 
 gloomiest Calvinistic tenets. To that unhappy view of the 
 relation of the creature to the Creator I haVe always ascribed 
 the misery of his life. 
 
 " It is enough for me to know that he who thinks his trans 
 gression beyond forgiveness . . . has righteousness beyond that 
 of the self-satisfied sinner. It is impossible for me to doubt, 
 that, could he once have been assured of pardon, his living faith 
 in moral duty, and love of virtue ( I love the virtues that I can 
 not claim ), would have conquered every temptation. Judge, 
 then, how I must hate the creed that made him see God as an 
 Avenger, and not as a Father ! My own impressions were just 
 the reverse, but could have but little weight ; and it was in vain 
 to seek to turn his thoughts from that fixed idea with which he 
 connected his personal peculiarity as a stamp. Instead of being 
 made happier by any apparent good, he felt convinced that 
 
HOW COULD SHE LOVE HIM ? 395 
 
 every blessing would be turned into a curse to him. . . . The 
 worst of it is, I do believe, he said. 7, like all connected with 
 him, was broken against the rock of predestination. I may be 
 pardoned for my frequent reference to the sentiment (expressed 
 by him), that I was only sent to show him the happiness he was 
 forbidden to enjoy." 
 
 In this letter we have the heart, not of 
 the wife, but of the mother, the love that 
 searches everywhere for extenuations of the 
 guilt it is forced to confess. 
 
 That Lady Byron was not alone in ascribing 
 such results to the doctrines of Calvinism, in 
 certain cases, appears from the language of the 
 Thirty-nine Articles, w,hich says, 
 
 " As the godly consideration of predestination, and our elec 
 tion in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable com 
 fort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the workings 
 of the spirit of Christ ; ... so, for curious and carnal persons, 
 lacking the spirit of Christ, to have continually before their 
 eyes the sentence of God s predestination, is a most dangerous 
 downfall, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into des 
 peration, or into wretchedness of most unclean living, no less 
 perilous than desperation." 
 
39^ HOW COULD SHE LOVE HIM ? 
 
 Lord Byron s life is an exact commentary on 
 these words, which passed under the revision of 
 Calvin himself. 
 
 The whole tone of this letter shows not only 
 that Lady Byron never lost her deep interest in 
 her husband, but that it was by this experience 
 that all her religious ideas were modified. There 
 is another of these letters in which she thus 
 speaks of her husband s writings and charac 
 ter : 
 
 " The author of the article on " Goethe " appears to me to 
 have the mind which could dispel the illusions about another 
 poet, without depreciating his claims ... to the truest inspira 
 tion. 
 
 " Who has sought to distinguish between the holy and the 
 unholy in that spirit ? to prove, by the very degradation of the 
 one, how high the other was ? A character is never done jus 
 tice to by extenuating its faults : so I do not agree to nisi bonum. 
 It is kinder to read the blotted page." 
 
 These letters show that Lady Byron s idea 
 was, that, even were the whole mournful truth 
 about Lord Byron fully told, there was still a 
 foundation left for pity and mercy. She seems 
 
HOW COULD SHE LOVE HIM ? 397 
 
 to have remembered, that if his sins were pecu 
 liar, so also were his temptations ; and to have 
 schooled herself for years to gather up, and set 
 in order in her memory, all that yet remained 
 precious in this great ruin. Probably no Eng 
 lish writer that ever has made the attempt 
 could have done this more perfectly. Though 
 Lady Byron was not a poet par excellence, yet 
 she belonged to an order of souls fully equal to 
 Lord Byron. Hers was more the analytical 
 mind of the philosopher than the creative mind 
 of the poet ; and it was, for that reason, the one 
 mind in our day capable of estimating him fully 
 both with justice and mercy. No person in 
 England had a more intense sensibility to genius, 
 in its loftier acceptation, than Lady Byron ; and 
 none more completely sympathized with what 
 was pure and exalted in her husband s writings. 
 
 There is this peculiarity in Lord Byron, that 
 the pure and the impure in his poetry often 
 run side by side without mixing, as one may 
 see at Geneva the muddy stream of the Arve 
 
398 HOW COULD SHE LOVE HIM ? 
 
 and the blue waters of the Rhone flowing 
 together unmingled. What, for example, can be 
 nobler, and in a higher and tenderer moral 
 strain, than his lines on the dying gladiator, in 
 " Childe Harold " ? What is more like the vigor 
 of the old Hebrew Scriptures than his thunder 
 storm in the Alps ? What can more perfectly 
 express moral ideality of the highest kind than 
 the exquisite descriptions of Aurora Raby, 
 pure and high in thought and language, occur 
 ring, as they do, in a work full of the most utter 
 vileness ? 
 
 Lady Byron s hopes for her husband fastened 
 themselves on all the noble fragments yet re 
 maining in that shattered temple of his mind 
 which lay blackened and thunder-riven ; and she 
 looked forward to a sphere beyond this earth, 
 where infinite mercy should bring all again to 
 symmetry and order. If the strict theologian 
 -must regret this as an undue latitude of charity, 
 let it at least be remembered that it was a char 
 ity which sprang from a Christian virtue, and 
 
HOW COULD SHE LOVE HIM? 399 
 
 which she extended to every human being, how 
 ever lost, however low. In her view, the mercy 
 which took him was mercy that could restore 
 all. 
 
 In my recollections of the interview with Lady 
 Byron, when this whole history was presented, I 
 can remember that it was with a softened and 
 saddened feeling that I contemplated the story, 
 as one looks on some awful, inexplicable ruin. 
 
 The last letter which I addressed to Lady 
 Byron upon this subject will show that such 
 was the impression of the whole interview. It 
 was in reply to the one written on the death of 
 my son : 
 
 "JAN. 30, 1858. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, I did long to hear from you at a 
 time when few knew how to speak, because I knew that ^<? had 
 known every thing that sorrow can teach, you, whose whole 
 life has been a crucifixion, a long ordeal. 
 
 " But I believe that the Lamb, who stands forever in the 
 midst of the throne, as it had been slain, has everywhere his 
 followers, those who seem sent into the world, as he was, to 
 suffer for the redemption of others ; and, like him, they must 
 look to the joy set before them, of redeeming others. 
 
400 HOW COULD SHE LOVE HIM? 
 
 " I often think that God called you to this beautiful and 
 terrible ministry when he suffered you to link your destiny with 
 one so strangely gifted and so fearfully tempted. Perhaps the 
 reward that is to meet you when you enter within the veil 
 where you must so soon pass will be to see that spirit, once 
 chained and defiled, set free and purified ; and to know that to 
 you it has been given, by your life of love and faith, to accom 
 plish this glorious change. 
 
 " I think increasingly on the subject on which you conversed 
 with me once, the future state of retribution. It is evident to 
 me that the spirit of Christianity has produced in the human 
 spirit a tenderness of love which wholly revolts from the old 
 doctrine on this subject ; and I observe, that, the more Christ- 
 like any one becomes, the more difficult it seems for them to 
 accept it as hitherto presented. And yet, on the contrary, it was 
 Christ who said, Fear Him that is able to destroy soul and 
 body in hell ; and the most appalling language is that of Christ 
 himself. 
 
 " Certain ideas, once prevalent, certainly must be thrown 
 off. An endless infliction for past sins was once the doctrine : 
 that we now generally reject. The doctrine now generally 
 taught is, that an eternal persistence in evil necessitates ever 
 lasting "suffering, since evil induces misery by an eternal nature 
 of things ; and this, I fear, is inferrible from the analogies 
 of Nature, and confirmed by the whole implication of the 
 Bible. 
 
 " What attention have you given to this subject ? and is there 
 
HOW COULD SHE LOVE HIM ? 40! 
 
 any fair way of disposing of the current of assertion, and the 
 still deeper under-current of implication, on this subject, without 
 admitting one which loosens all faith in revelation, and throws 
 us on pure naturalism ? But of one thing I always feel sure : 
 probation does not end with this present life ; and the number 
 of the saved may therefore be infinitely greater than the world s 
 history leads us to suppose. 
 
 " I think the Bible implies a great crisis, a struggle, an 
 agony, in which God and Christ and all the good are engaged 
 in redeeming from sin ; and we are not to suppose that the 
 little portion that is done for souls as they pass between the 
 two doors of birth and death is all. 
 
 " The Bible is certainly silent there. The primitive Church 
 believed in the mercies of an intermediate state ; and it was 
 only the abuse of it by Romanism that drove the Church into 
 its present position, which, I think, is wholly indefensible, and 
 wholly irreconcilable with the spirit of Christ. For if it were the 
 case, that probation in all cases begins and ends here, God s ex 
 ample would surely be one that could not be followed, and he 
 would seem to be far less persevering* than even human beings 
 in efforts to save. 
 
 " Nothing is plainer than that it would be wrong to give up 
 any mind to eternal sin till every possible thing had been done 
 for its recovery ; and that is so clearly not the case here, that I 
 can see, that, with thoughtful minds, this belief would cut the 
 very roots of religious faith in God : for there is a difference 
 between facts that we do not understand, and facts which we do 
 26 
 
4O2 HOW COULD SHE LOVE HIM ? 
 
 understand, and perceive to be wholly irreconcilable with a cer 
 tain character professed by God. 
 
 " If God says he is love, and certain ways of explaining 
 Scripture make him less loving and patient than man, then we 
 make Scripture contradict itself. Now, as no passage of 
 Scripture limits probation to this life, and as one passage in 
 Peter certainly unequivocally asserts that Christ preached to 
 the spirits in prison while his body lay in the grave, I am clear 
 upon this point. 
 
 " But it is also clear, that if there be those who persist in 
 refusing God s love, who choose to dash themselves forever 
 against the inflexible laws of the universe, such souls must 
 forever suffer. 
 
 " There may be souls who hate purity because it reveals 
 their vileness ; who refuse God s love, and prefer eternal conflict 
 with it. For such there can be no peace. Even in this life, we 
 see those whom the purest self-devoting love only inflames to 
 madness ; and we have only to suppose an eternal persistence 
 in this to suppose eternal misery. 
 
 " But on this subject we can only leave all reverently in the 
 hands of that Being whose almighty power is declared chiefly 
 in showing mercy. " 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 T N leaving this subject, I have one appeal to 
 make to the men, and more especially to 
 the women, who have been my readers. 
 
 In justice to Lady Byron, it must be remem 
 bered that this publication of her story is not 
 her act, but mine. I trust you have already con 
 ceded, that, in so severe and peculiar a trial, she 
 had a right to be understood fully by her imme 
 diate circle of friends, and to seek of them coun 
 sel in view of the moral questions to which such 
 very exceptional circumstances must have given 
 rise. Her communication to me was not an 
 address to the public : it was a statement of 
 the case for advice. True, by leaving the whole, 
 
 403 
 
404 CONCLUSION. 
 
 unguarded by pledge or promise, it left discre 
 tionary power with me to use if needful. 
 
 You, my sisters, are to judge whether the 
 accusation laid against Lady Byron by the 
 " Blackwood," in 1869, was not of so barbarous 
 a nature as to justify my producing the truth I 
 held in my hands in reply. 
 
 The " Blackwood " claimed a right to re-open 
 the subject because it was not a private but a 
 public matter. It claimed that Lord Byron s 
 unfortunate marriage might have changed not 
 only his own destiny, but that of all England. 
 It suggested, that but for this, instead of wear 
 ing out his life in vice, and corrupting society by 
 impure poetry, he might, at this day, have been 
 leading the counsels of the State, and helping 
 the onward movements of the world. Then 
 directly it charged Lady Byron with meanly for 
 saking her husband in a time of worldly mis 
 fortune ; with fabricating a destructive accusa 
 tion of crime against him, and confirming this 
 accusation by years of persistent silence more 
 guilty than open assertion. 
 
CONCLUSION. 405 
 
 It has been alleged, that, even admitting that 
 Lady Byron s story were true, it never ought to 
 have been told. 
 
 Is it true, then, that a woman has not the same 
 right to individual justice that a man has ? If the 
 cases were reversed, would it have been thought 
 just that Lord Byron should go down in history 
 loaded with accusations of crime because he 
 could be only vindicated by exposing the crime 
 of his wife ? 
 
 It has been said that the crime charged on 
 Lady Byron was comparatively unimportant, and 
 the one against Lord Byron was deadly. 
 
 But the " Blackwood," in opening the contro 
 versy, called Lady Byron by the name of an 
 unnatural female criminal, whose singular atroci 
 ties alone entitle her to infamous notoriety ; and 
 the crime charged upon her was sufficient to 
 warrant the comparison: 
 
 Both crimes are foul, unnatural, horrible ; and 
 there is no middle ground between the admission 
 of the one or the other. 
 
406 CONCLUSION. 
 
 You must either conclude that a woman, all 
 whose other works, words, and deeds were gen 
 erous, just, and gentle, committed this one mon 
 strous exceptional crime, without a motive, and 
 against all the analogies of her character and 
 all the analogies of her treatment of others ; or 
 you must suppose that a man known by all tes 
 timony to have been boundlessly licentious, who 
 took the very course, which, by every physiologi 
 cal law, would have led to unnatural results, did, 
 at last, commit an unnatural crime. 
 
 The question, whether I did right, when Lady 
 Byron was thus held up as an abandoned crimi 
 nal by the " Blackwood," to interpose my knowl 
 edge of the real truth in her defence, is a serious 
 one ; but it is one for which I must account to 
 God alone, and in which, without any contempt 
 of the opinions of my fellow-creatures, I must 
 say, that it is a small thing to be judged of man s 
 judgment. 
 
 I had in the case a responsibility very dif 
 ferent from that of many others. I had been 
 
CONCLUSION. 407 
 
 consulted in relation to the publication of this 
 story by Lady Byron, a-t a time when she had it 
 in her power to have exhibited it with all its 
 proofs, and commanded an instant conviction. 
 I have reason to think that my advice had 
 some weight in suppressing that disclosure. I 
 gave that advice under the impression that the 
 Byron controversy was a thing forever passed, 
 and never likely to return. 
 
 It had never occurred to me, that, nine years 
 after Lady Byron s death, a standard English 
 periodical would declare itself free to re-open 
 this controversy, when all the generation who 
 were her witnesses had passed from earth ; and 
 that it would re-open it in the most savage form 
 of accusation, and with the indorsement and 
 commendation of a book of the vilest slanders, 
 edited by Lord Byron s mistress. 
 
 Let the reader mark the retributions of justice. 
 The accusations of the " Blackwood," in 1869, 
 were simply an intensified form of those first 
 concocted by Lord Byron in his " Clytemnestra " 
 
408 CONCLUSION. 
 
 poem of 1816. He forged that weapon, and be 
 queathed it to his party. The " Blackwood " 
 took it up, gave it a sharper edge, and drove it to 
 the heart of Lady Byron s fame. The result has 
 been the disclosure of this history. It is, then, 
 Lord Byron himself, who, by his network of 
 wiles, his ceaseless persecutions of his wife, his 
 efforts to extend his partisanship beyond the 
 grave, has brought on this tumultuous exposure. 
 He, and he alone, is the cause of this revela 
 tion. 
 
 And now I have one word to say to those in 
 England, who, with all the facts and documents 
 in their hands which could at once have cleared 
 Lady Byron s fame, allowed the barbarous assault 
 of the " Blackwood " to go over the civilized 
 world without a reply. I speak to those, who, 
 knowing that I am speaking the truth, stand 
 silent ; to those who have now the ability to 
 produce the facts and documents by which this 
 cause might be instantly settled, and who do not 
 produce them. 
 
CONCLUSION. 409 
 
 I do not judge them ; but I remind them that 
 a day is coming when they and I must stand 
 side by side at the great judgment-seat, I to 
 give an account for my speaking, they for their 
 silence. 
 
 In that day, all earthly considerations will 
 have vanished like morning mists, and truth or 
 falsehood, justice or injustice, will be the only 
 realities. 
 
 In that day, God, who will judge the secrets 
 of all men, will judge between this man and this 
 woman. Then, if never before, the full truth 
 shall be told both of the depraved and dissolute 
 man who made it his life s object to defame the 
 innocent, the silent, the self-denying woman who 
 made it her life s object to give space for repent 
 ance to the guilty. 
 
PART III. 
 
 CONTAINING MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS REFERRED 
 TO IN THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS. 
 
PART III. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 THE TRUE STORY OF LADY BYRON S LIFE, 
 
 AS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN "THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY." 
 
 THE reading world of America has lately been presented 
 with a book which is said to sell rapidly, and which appears to 
 meet with universal favor; 
 
 The subject of the book may be thus briefly stated : The mis 
 tress of Lord Byron comes before the world for the sake of 
 vindicating his fame from slanders and aspersions cast on him 
 by his wife. The story of the mistress versus wife may be 
 summed up as follows : 
 
 Lord Byron, the hero of the story, is represented as a human 
 being endowed with every natural charm, gift, and grace, who, 
 by the one false step of an unsuitable marriage, wrecked his 
 whole life. A narrow-minded, cold-hearted precisian, without 
 sufficient intellect to comprehend his genius, or heart to feel for 
 his temptations, formed with him one of those mere worldly 
 marriages common in high life ; and, finding that she could not 
 reduce him to the mathematical proprieties and conventional 
 rules of her own mode of life, suddenly, and without warning, 
 abandoned him in the most cruel and inexplicable manner. 
 
 It is alleged that she parted from him in apparent affection 
 and good-humor, wrote him a playful, confiding letter upon the 
 
 413 
 
414 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 way, but, after reaching her father s house, suddenly, and with 
 out explanation, announced to him that she would never see 
 him again ; that this sudden abandonment drew down upon 
 him a perfect storm of scandalous stories, which his wife never 
 contradicted ; that she never in any way or shape stated what 
 the exact reasons for her departure had been, and thus silently 
 gave scope to all the maliqe of thousands of enemies. The 
 sensitive victim was actually driven from England, his home 
 broken up, and he doomed to be a lonely wanderer on foreign 
 shores. 
 
 In Italy, under bluer skies, and among a gentler people, with 
 more tolerant modes of judgment, the authoress intimates that 
 he found peace and consolation. A lovely young Italian count 
 ess falls in love with him, and, breaking her family ties for his 
 sake, devotes herself to him ; and, in blissful retirement with her, 
 he finds at last that domestic life for which he was so fitted. 
 
 Soothed, calmed, and refreshed, he writes " Don Juan," which 
 the world is at this late hour informed was a poem with a high 
 moral purpose, designed to be a practical illustration of the 
 doctrine of total depravity among young gentlemen in high 
 life. 
 
 Under the elevating influence of love, he rises at last to 
 higher realms of moral excellence, and resolves to devote the 
 rest of his life to some noble and heroic purpose ; becomes the 
 savior of Greece ; and dies untimely, leaving a nation to mourn 
 his loss. 
 
 The authoress dwells with a peculiar bitterness on Lady 
 Byron s entire silence during all these years, as the most aggra 
 vated form of persecution and injury. She informs the world 
 that Lord Byron wrote his Autobiography with the purpose of 
 giving a fair statement of the exact truth in the whole matter ; 
 and that Lady Byron bought up the manuscript of the publisher, 
 and insisted on its being destroyed, unread ; thus inflexibly 
 depriving her husband of his last chance of a hearing before 
 the tribunal of the public. 
 
 As a result of this silent, persistent cruelty on the part of a 
 cold, correct, narrow-minded woman, the character of Lord 
 Byron has been misunderstood, and his name transmitted to 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 415 
 
 after-ages clouded with aspersions and accusations which it is 
 the object of this book to remove. 
 
 Such is the story of Lord Byron s mistress, a story which 
 is going the length of this American continent, and rousing up 
 new sympathy with the poet, and doing its best to bring the 
 youth of America once more under the power of that brilliant, 
 seductive genius, from which it was hoped they had escaped. 
 Already we are seeing it revamped in magazine-articles, which 
 take up the slanders of the paramour and enlarge on them, and 
 wax eloquent in denunciation of the marble-hearted, insensible 
 wife. 
 
 All this while, it does not appear to occur to the thousands 
 of unreflecting readers that they are listening merely to the 
 story of Lord Byron s mistress and of Lord Byron ; and that, 
 even by their own showing, their heaviest accusation against 
 Lady Byron is that she has not spoken at all. Her story has 
 never been told. 
 
 For many years after the rupture between Lord Byron and 
 his wife, that poet s personality, fate, and happiness had an 
 interest for the whole civilized world, which, we will venture to 
 say, was unparalleled. It is within the writer s recollection, 
 how, in the obscure mountain-town where she spent her early 
 days, Lord Byron s separation from his wife was, for a season, 
 the all-engrossing topic. 
 
 She remembers hearing her father recount at the breakfast- 
 table the facts as they were given in the public papers, together 
 with his own suppositions and theories of the causes. 
 
 Lord Byron s " Fare thee well," addressed to Lady Byron, 
 was set to music, and sung with tears by young school-girls, 
 even in this distant America. 
 
 Madame de Stael said of this appeal, that she was sure it 
 would have drawn her at once to his heart and his arms ; she 
 could have forgiven every thing : and so said all the young 
 ladies all over the world, not only in England, but in France 
 and Germany, wherever Byron s poetry appeared in transla 
 tion. 
 
 Lady Byron s obdurate cold-heartedness in refusing even to 
 
416 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 listen to his .prayers, or to have any intercourse with him whi^ch 
 might lead to reconciliation, was the one point conceded on all 
 sides. 
 
 The stricter moralists defended her ; but gentler hearts 
 throughout all the world regarded her as a marble-hearted 
 monster of correctness and morality, a personification of the 
 law unmitigated by the gospel. 
 
 Literature in its highest walks busied itself with Lady Byron. 
 Hogg, in the character of the Ettrick Shepherd, devotes sev 
 eral eloquent passages to expatiating on the conjugal fidelity 
 of a poor Highland shepherd s wife, who, by patience and 
 prayer and forgiveness, succeeds in reclaiming her drunken 
 husband, and making a good man of him ; and then points his 
 moral by contrasting with this touching picture the cold-heart 
 ed, pharisaical correctness of Lady Byron. 
 
 Moore, in his " Life of Lord Byron," when beginning the 
 recital of the series of disgraceful amours which formed the 
 staple of his life in Venice, has this passage : 
 
 " Highly censurable in point of morality and decorum as 
 
 was his course of life while under the roof of Madame , 
 
 it was (with pain I am forced to confess) venial in comparison 
 with the strange, headlong career of license to which, when 
 weaned from that connection, he so unrestrainedly, and, it may 
 be added, defyingly abandoned himself. Of the state of his 
 mind on leaving England, I have already endeavored to convey 
 some idea ; and among the feelings that went to make up that 
 self-centred spirit of resistance which he then opposed to his 
 fate was an indignant scorn for his own countrymen for the 
 wrongs lie thought they had done him. For a time, the kindly 
 sentijnents which he still harbored toward Lady Byron, and a sort 
 of vague hope, perhaps, that all would yet come right again, kept 
 his mind in a mood somewhat more softened and docile, as well 
 as sufficiently under the influence of English opinions to pre 
 vent his breaking out into open rebellion against it, as he un 
 luckily did afterward. 
 
 " By the failure of the attempted mediation with Lady Byron, 
 his last link with home was severed : while, notwithstanding the 
 quiet and unobtrusive life which he led at Geneva, there was as 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 yet, he found, no cessation of the slanderous warfare against his 
 character ; the same busy and misrepresenting spirit which had 
 tracked his every step at home, having, with no less malicious 
 watchfulness, dogged him into exile." 
 
 We should like to know what the misrepresentations and 
 slanders must have been, when this sort of thing is admitted in 
 Mr. Moore s justification. It seems to us rather wonderful how 
 anybody, unless it were a person like the Countess Guiccioli, 
 could misrepresent a life such as even Byron s friend admits he 
 was leading. 
 
 During all these years, when he was setting at defiance every 
 principle of morality and decorum, the interest of the female 
 mind all over Europe in the conversion of this brilliant prodigal 
 son was unceasing, and reflects the greatest credit upon the 
 faith of the sex. 
 
 Madame de Stae l commenced the first effort at evangelization 
 immediately after he left England, and found her catechumen in 
 a most edifying state of humility. He was, metaphorically, on 
 his knees in penitence, and confessed himself a miserable sin 
 ner in the loveliest manner possible. Such sweetness and hu 
 mility took all hearts. His conversations with Madame de Stael 
 were printed, and circulated all over the world ; making it to 
 appear that only the inflexibility of Lady Byron stood in the 
 way of his entire conversion. 
 
 Lady Blessington, among many others, took him in hand five 
 or six years afterward, and was greatly delighted with his docil 
 ity, and edified by his frank and free confessions of his miserable 
 offences. Nothing now seemed wanting to bring the wanderer 
 home to the fold but a kind word from Lady Byron. But, 
 when the fair countess offered to mediate, the poet only shook 
 his head in tragic despair ; " he had so many times tried in 
 vain ; Lady Byron s course had been from the first that of 
 obdurate silence." 
 
 Any one who would wish to see a specimen of the skill of 
 the honorable poet in mystification will do well to read a letter 
 to Lady Byron, which Lord Byron, on parting from Lady Bles 
 sington, enclosed for her to read just before he went to Greece. 
 He says, 
 
41 8 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 "The letter which I enclose I was prevented from sending by 
 my despair of its doing any good. I was perfectly sincere when 
 I wrote it, and am so still. But it is difficult for me to with 
 stand the thousand provocations on that subject which both 
 friends and foes have for seven years been throwing in the way 
 of a man whose feelings were once quick, and whose temper 
 was never patient." 
 
 " TO LADY BYRON, CARE OF THE HON. MRS. LEIGH, LONDON. 
 
 " PISA, Nov. 17, 1821. 
 
 " I have to acknowledge the receipt of Ada s hair, which 
 is very soft and pretty, and nearly as dark already as mine was 
 at twelve years old, if I may judge from what I recollect of 
 some in Augusta s possession, taken at that age. But it don t 
 curl, perhaps from its being let grow. 
 
 " I also thank you for the inscription of the date and name ; 
 and I will tell you why : I believe that they are the only two 
 or three words of your handwriting in my possession. For 
 your letters I returned ; and except the two words, or rather 
 the one word, Household, written twice in an old account- 
 book, I have no other. I burnt your last note, for two reasons : 
 firstly, it was written in a style not very agreeable ; and, sec 
 ondly, I wished to take your word without documents, which 
 are the worldly resources of suspicious people. 
 
 " I suppose that this note will reach you somewhere about 
 kAda s birthday, the loth of December, I believe. She will 
 then be six : so that, in about twelve more, I shall have some 
 chance of meeting her ; perhaps sooner, if I am obliged to go 
 to England by business or otherwise. Recollect, however, one 
 thing, either in distance or nearness, every day which keeps 
 us asunder should, after so long a period, rather soften our 
 mutual feelings ; which must always have one rallying-point 
 a* long as our child exists, which, I presume, we both hope will 
 be long after either of her parents. 
 
 " The time which has elapsed since the separation has been 
 considerably more than the whole brief period of our union, 
 and the not much longer one of our prior acquaintance. We 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 419 
 
 both made a bitter mistake ; but now it is over, and irrevocably 
 so. For at thirty-three on my part, and a few years less on 
 yours, though it is no very extended period of life, still it is 
 one when the habits and thought are generally so formed as to 
 admit of no modification ; and, as we could not agree when 
 younger, we should with difficulty do so now. 
 
 " I say all this, because I own to you, that, notwithstanding 
 every thing, I considered our re-union as not impossible for 
 more than a year after the separation ; but then I gave up the 
 hope entirely and forever. But this very impossibility of re 
 union seems to me at least a reason why, on all the few points of 
 discussion which can arise between us, we should preserve the 
 courtesies of life, and as much of its kindness as people who 
 are never to meet may preserve, perhaps more easily than 
 nearer connections. For my own part, I am violent, but not 
 malignant ; for only fresh provocations can awaken my resent 
 ments. To you, who are colder and more concentrated, I would 
 just hint, that you may sometimes mistake the depth of a cold 
 anger for dignity, and a worse feeling for duty. I assure you 
 that I bear you now (whatever I may have done) no resentment 
 whatever. Remember, that, if you have injured me in aught, this 
 forgiveness is something ; and that, if I have injured yoii, it is 
 something more still, if it be true, as the moralists say, that the 
 most offending are the least forgiving. 
 
 " Whether the offence has been solely on my side, or recip 
 rocal, or on yours chiefly, I have ceased to reflect upon any 
 but two things ; viz., that you are the mother of my child, and 
 that we shall never meet again. I think, if you also consider 
 the two corresponding points with reference to myself, it will 
 be better for all three. 
 
 " Yours ever, " NOEL BYRON." 
 
 The artless Thomas Moore introduces this letter in the 
 " Life " with the remark, 
 
 " There are few, I should think, of my readers, who will not 
 agree with me in pronouncing, that, if the author of the follow 
 ing letter had not right on his side, he had at least most of those 
 good feelings which are found in general to accompany it." 
 
42O MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 The reader is requested to take notice of the important ad 
 mission, that the letter was never sent to Lady Byron at all. It 
 was, in fact, never intended for her, but was a nice little dra 
 matic performance, composed simply with the view of acting on 
 the sympathies of Lady Blessington and Byron s numerous 
 female admirers ; and the reader will agree with its, we think, 
 that, in this point of view, it was very neatly done, and deserves 
 immortality as a work of high art. For six years, he had been 
 plunging into every kind of vice and excess, pleading his shat 
 tered domestic joys, and his wife s obdurate heart; as the apol 
 ogy and the impelling cause ; filling the air with his shrieks and 
 complaints concerning the slander which pursued him, while he 
 filled letters to his confidential correspondents with records of 
 new mistresses. During all these years, the silence of Lady 
 Byron was unbroken ; though Lord Byron not only drew in 
 private on the sympathies of his female admirers, but employed 
 his talents and position as an author in holding her up to 
 contempt and ridicule before thousands of readers. We shall 
 quote at length his side of the story, which he published in the 
 first canto of " Don Juan," that the reader may see how much 
 reason he had for assuming the injured tone which he did in 
 the letter to Lady Byron quoted above. That letter never was 
 sent to her ; and the unmanly and indecent caricature of her, 
 and the indelicate exposure of the whole story on his own side, 
 which we are about to quote, were the only communications 
 that could have reached her solitude. 
 
 In the following verses, Lady Byron is represented as Donna 
 Inez, and Lord Byron as Don Jose ; but the incidents and 
 allusions were so very pointed, that nobody for a moment 
 doubted whose history the poet was narrating. 
 
 " His mother was a learned lady, famed 
 
 For every branch of every science known 
 In every Christian language ever named, 
 
 With virtues equalled by her wit alone ; 
 She made the cleverest people quite ashamed ; 
 
 And even the good with inward envy groaned, 
 Finding themselves so very much exceeded 
 In their own way by all the things that she did. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 421 
 
 Her favorite science was the mathematical ; 
 
 Her noblest virtue was her magnanimity ; 
 Her wit (she sometimes tried at wit) was Attic all ; 
 
 Her serious sayings darkened to sublimity : 
 In short, in all things she was fairly what I call 
 
 A prodigy. Her morning-dress was dimity ; 
 Her evening, silk ; or, in the summer, muslin, 
 And other stuffs witl* which I won t stay puzzling. 
 
 Some women use their tongues : she looked a lecture, 
 Each eye a sermon, and her brow a homily, 
 
 An all-in-all sufficient self-director, 
 
 Like the lamented late Sir Samuel Romilly. 
 
 In short, she was a walking calculation, 
 Miss Edgeworth s novels stepping from their covers, 
 
 Or Mrs. Trimmer s books on education, 
 Or Cceleb s wife set out in quest of lovers, 
 
 Morality s prim personification, 
 
 In which not envy s self a flaw discovers. 
 
 To others share let female errors fall ; 
 
 For she had not even one, the worst of all. 
 
 Oh 1 she was perfect, past all parallel 
 Of any modern female saint s comparison ; 
 
 So far above the cunning powers of hell, 
 Her guardian angel had given up his garrison : 
 
 Even her minutest motions went as well 
 As those of the best timepiece made by Harrison ; 
 
 In virtues, nothing earthly could surpass her 
 
 Save thine incomparable oil, Macassar. 
 
 Perfect she was ; but as perfection is 
 Insipid in this naughty world of ours, 
 
 Don Jose, like a lineal son of Eve, 
 
 Went plucking various fruits without her leave. 
 
 He was a mortal of the careless kind, 
 
 With no great love for learning or the learned, 
 
 Who chose to go where er he had a mind, 
 And never dreamed his lady was concerned. 
 
 The world, as usual, wickedly inclined 
 To see a kingdom or a house o erturned, 
 
422 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 Whispered he had a mistress ; some said two: 
 But, for domestic quarrels, one will do. 
 
 Now, Donna Inez had, with all her merit, 
 A great opinion of her own good qualities : 
 
 Neglect, indeed, requires a saint to bear it ; 
 And such indeed she was in her moralities : 
 
 But then she had a devil of a spirit, 
 And sometimes mixed up fancies with realities, 
 
 And let few opportunities escape 
 
 Of getting her liege lord into a scrape. 
 
 This was an easy matter with a man 
 
 Oft in the wrong, and never on his guard : 
 
 And even the wisest, do the best they can, 
 
 Have moments, hours, and days so unprepared, 
 
 That you might brain them with their lady s fan ; 
 And sometimes ladies hit exceeding hard, 
 
 And fans turn into falchions in fair hands, 
 
 And why and wherefore no one understands. 
 
 Tis a pity learned virgins ever wed 
 With persons of no sort of education ; 
 
 Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred, 
 Grow tired of scientific conversation. 
 
 I don t choose to say much upon this head ; 
 I m a plain man, and in a single station : 
 
 But, O ye lords of ladies intellectual ! 
 
 Inform us truly, have they not henpecked you all ? 
 
 Don Jose and the Donna Inez led 
 For some time an unhappy sort of life, 
 
 Wishing each other not divorced, but dead : 
 They lived respectably as man and wife ; 
 
 Their conduct was exceedingly well bred, 
 And gave no outward sign of inward strife ; 
 
 Until at length the smothered fire broke out, 
 
 And put the business past all kind of doubt. 
 
 For Inez called some druggists and physicians, 
 And tried to prove her loving lord was mad ; 
 
 But, as he had some lucid intermissions, 
 She next decided he was only bad. 
 
 Yet, when they asked her for her depositions, 
 No sort of explanation could be had , 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 423 
 
 Save that her duty both to man and God * 
 Required this conduct ; which seemed very odd. 
 
 She kept a journal where his faults were noted, 
 And opened certain trunks of books and letters, 
 
 (All which might, if occasion served, be quoted ;) 
 And then she had all Seville for abettors, 
 
 Besides her good old grandmother (who doted) : 
 The hearers of her case became repeaters, 
 
 Then advocates, inquisitors, and judges, 
 
 Some for amusement, others for old grudges. 
 
 And then this best and meekest woman bore 
 With such serenity her husband s woes ! 
 
 Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore, 
 
 Who saw their spouses killed, and nobly chose 
 
 Never to say a word about them more. 
 Calmly she heard each calumny that rose, 
 
 And saw his agonies with such sublimity, 
 
 That all the world exclaimed, What magnanimity ! 
 
 This is the longest and most elaborate version of his own 
 story that Byron ever published ; but he busied himself with 
 many others, projecting at one time a Spanish romance, in 
 which the same story is related in the same transparent man 
 ner : but this he was dissuaded from printing. The book-sell 
 ers, however, made a good speculation in publishing what they 
 called his domestic poems ; that is, poems bearing more or 
 less relation to this subject. 
 
 Every person with whom he became acquainted with any 
 degree of intimacy was made familiar with his side of the story. 
 Moore s Biography is from first to last, in its representations, 
 founded upon Byron s communicativeness, and Lady Byron s 
 silence ; and the world at last settled down to believing that the 
 account so often repeated, and never contradicted, must be sub 
 stantially a true one. 
 
 The true history of Lord and Lady Byron has long been per 
 fectly understood in many circles in England ; but the facts were 
 of a nature that could not be made public. While there was a 
 young daughter living whose future might be prejudiced by its 
 
424 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 recital, and while there were other persons on whom* the dis 
 closure of the real truth would have been crushing as an ava 
 lanche, Lady Byron s only course was the perfect silence in 
 which she took refuge, and those sublime works of charity and 
 mercy to which she consecrated her blighted earthly life. 
 
 But the time is now come when the truth may be told. All 
 the actors in the scene have disappeared from the stage of mortal 
 existence, and passed, let us have faith to hope, into a world 
 where they would desire to expiate their faults by a late publica 
 tion of the truth. 
 
 No person in England, we think, would as yet take the 
 responsibility of relating the true history which is to clear Lady 
 Byron s memory ; but, by a singular concurrence of circum 
 stances, all the facts of the case, in the most undeniable and 
 authentic form, were at one time placed in the hands of the 
 writer of this sketch, with authority to make such use of them 
 as she should judge best. Had this melancholy history been 
 allowed to sleep, no public use would have been made of them ; 
 but the appearance of a popular attack on the character of Lady 
 Byron calls for a vindication, and the true story of her married 
 life will therefore now be related. 
 
 Lord Byron has described in one of his letters the impres 
 sion left upon his mind by a young person whom he met one 
 evening in society, and who attracted his attention by the sim 
 plicity of her dress, and a certain air of singular purity and 
 calmness with which she surveyed the scene around her. 
 
 On inquiry, he was told that this young person was Miss 
 Milbanke, an only child, and one of the largest heiresses in 
 England. 
 
 Lord Byron was fond of idealizing his experiences in poetry ; 
 and the friends of Lady Byron had no difficulty in recognizing 
 the portrait of Lady Byron, as she appeared at this time of her 
 life, in his exquisite description of Aurora Raby : 
 
 " There was 
 Indeed a certain fair and fairy one, 
 
 Of the best class, and better than her class, 
 Aurora Raby, a young star who shone 
 
 O er life, too sweet an image for such glass ; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 425 
 
 A lovely being scarcely formed or moulded ; 
 A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded. 
 
 Early in years, and yet more infantine 
 In figure, she had something of sublime 
 
 In eyes which sadly shone as seraphs shine ; 
 All youth, but with an aspect beyond time ; 
 
 Radiant and grave, as pitying man s decline ; 
 Mournful, but mournful of another s crime, 
 
 She looked as if she sat by Eden s door, 
 
 And grieved for those who could return no more. 
 
 She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew, 
 
 As seeking not to know it ; silent, lone, 
 As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew, 
 
 And kept her heart serene within its zone. 
 There was awe in the homage which she drew ; 
 
 Her spirit seemed as seated on a throne, 
 Apart from the surrounding world, and strong 
 In its own strength, most strange in one so young ! " 
 
 Some idea of the course which their acquaintance took, and 
 of the manner in which he was piqued into thinking of her, is 
 given in a stanza-or two : 
 
 " The dashing and proud air of Adeline 
 
 Imposed not upon her : she saw her blaze 
 Much as she would have seen a glow-worm shine ; 
 
 Then turned unto the stars for loftier rays. 
 Juan was something she could not divine, 
 
 Being no sibyl in the new world s ways ; 
 Yet she was nothing dazzled by the meteor, 
 Because she did not pin her faith on feature. 
 
 His fame too (for he had that kind of fame 
 Which sometimes plays the deuse with womankind, 
 
 A heterogeneous mass of glorious blame, 
 
 Half virtues and whole vices being combined ; 
 
 Faults which attract because they are not tame ; 
 Follies tricked out so brightly that they blind), 
 
 These seals upon her vrax made no impression, 
 
 Such was her coldness or her self-possession. 
 
426 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 Aurora sat with that indifference 
 
 Which piques a preux chevalier, as it ought. 
 Of all offences, that s the worst offence 
 
 Which seems to hint you are not worth a thought. 
 
 To his gay nothings, nothing was replied, 
 Or something which was nothing, as urbanity 
 
 Required. Aurora scarcely looked aside, 
 Nor even smiled enough for any vanity. 
 
 The Devil was in the girl ! Could it be pride, 
 Or modesty, or absence, or inanity ? 
 
 Juan was drawn thus into some attentions, 
 Slight but select, and just enough to express, 
 
 To females of perspicuous comprehensions, 
 
 That he would rather make them more than less. 
 
 Aurora at the last (so history mentions, 
 Though probably much less a fact than guess) 
 
 So far relaxed her thoughts from their sweet prison 
 
 As once or twice to smile, if not to listen. 
 
 But Juan had a sort of winning way, 
 
 A proud humility, if such there be, 
 Which showed such deference to what females say, 
 
 As if each charming word were a decree. 
 His tact, too, tempered him from grave to gay, 
 
 And taught him when to be reserved or free. 
 He had the art of drawing people out, 
 Without their seeing what he was about. 
 
 Aurora, who, in her indifference, 
 Confounded him in common with the crowd 
 
 Of flatterers, though she deemed he had more sense 
 Than whispering foplings or than witlings loud, 
 
 Commenced (from such slight things will great commence) 
 To feel that flattery which attracts the proud, 
 
 Rather by deference than compliment, 
 
 And wins even by a delicate dissent. 
 
 And then he had good looks ; that point was carried 
 Nem. con. amongst the women. 
 
 Now, though we know of old that looks deceive, 
 And always have done, somehow these good looks 
 Make more impression than the best of books. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 427 
 
 Aurora, who looked more on books than faces, 
 
 Was very young, although so very sage ; 
 Admiring more Minerva than the Graces, 
 
 Especially upon a printed page. 
 But Virtue s self, with all her tightest laces, 
 
 Has not the natural stays of strict old age ; 
 And Socrates, that model of all duty, 
 Owned to a penchant, though discreet, for beauty." 
 
 The presence of this high-minded, thoughtful, unworldly 
 woman is described through two cantos of the wild, rattling 
 " Don Juan," in a manner that shows how deeply the poet was 
 capable of being affected by such an appeal to his higher nature. 
 
 For instance, when Don Juan sits silent and thoughtful amid 
 a circle of persons who are talking scandal, the poet says, 
 
 " Tis true, he saw Aurora look as though 
 
 She approved his silence : she perhaps mistook 
 Its motive for that charity we owe, 
 But seldom pay, the absent. 
 
 He gained esteem where it was worth the most ; 
 
 And certainly Aurora had renewed 
 In him some feelings he had lately lost 
 
 Or hardened, feelings which, perhaps ideal, 
 Are so divine that I must deem them real : 
 
 The love of higher things and better days ; 
 
 The unbounded hope and heavenly ignorance 
 Of what is called the world and the world s ways ; 
 
 The moments when we gather from a glance 
 More joy than from all future pride or praise, 
 
 Which kindled manhood, but can ne er entrance 
 The heart in an existence of its own 
 Of which another s bosom is the zone. 
 
 And, full of sentiments sublime as billows 
 Heaving between this world and worlds beyond, 
 
 Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows 
 Arrived, retired to his." . . . 
 
 In all these descriptions of a spiritual, unworldly nature 
 acting on the spiritual and unworldly part of his own nature, 
 
428 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 every one who ever knew Lady Byron intimately must have 
 recognized the model from which he drew, and the experience 
 from which he spoke, even though nothing was further from his 
 mind than to pay this tribute to the woman he had injured, and 
 though before these lines, which showed how truly he knew her 
 real character, had come one stanza of ribald, vulgar caricature, 
 designed as a slight to her : 
 
 " There was Miss Millpond, smooth as summer s sea, 
 
 That usual paragon, an only daughter, 
 Who seemed the cream of equanimity 
 
 Till skimmed ; and then there was some milk and water ; 
 With a slight shade of blue, too, it might be, 
 
 Beneath the surface : but what did it matter? 
 Love s riotous ; but marriage should have quiet, 
 And, being consumptive, live on a milk diet." 
 
 The result of Byron s intimacy with Miss Milbanke and the 
 enkindling of his nobler feelings was an offer of marriage, which 
 she, though at the time deeply interested in him, declined with 
 many expressions of friendship and interest. In fact, she 
 already loved him, but had that doubt of her power to be to 
 him all that a wife should be which would be likely to arise in 
 a mind so sensitively constituted and so unworldly. They, how 
 ever, continued a correspondence as friends : on her part, the 
 interest continually increased ; on his, the transient rise of bet 
 ter feelings was choked and overgrown by the thorns of base, 
 unworthy passions. 
 
 From the height at which he might have been happy as the 
 husband of a noble woman, he fell into the depths of a secret 
 adultercfus intrigue with a blood relation, so near in consanguin 
 ity, that discovery must have been utter ruin, and expulsion from 
 civilized society. 
 
 From henceforth, this damning guilty secret became the rul 
 ing force in his life ; holding him with a morbid fascination, yet 
 filling him with remorse and anguish, and insane dread of detec 
 tion. Two years after his refusal by Miss Milbanke, his various 
 friends, seeing that for some cause he was wretched, pressed 
 marriage upon him. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 429. 
 
 Marriage has often been represented as the proper goal and 
 terminus of a wild and dissipated career ; and it has been sup 
 posed to be the appointed mission of good women to receive 
 wandering prodigals, with all the rags and disgraces of their old 
 life upon them, and put rings on their hands, and shoes on their 
 feet, and introduce them, clothed and in their right minds, to an 
 honorable career in society. 
 
 Marriage was, therefore, universally recommended to Lord 
 Byron by his numerous friends and well-wishers ; and so he 
 determined to marry, and, in an hour of reckless desperation, 
 sat down and wrote proposals to two ladies. One was declined : 
 the other, which was accepted, was to Miss Milbanke. The 
 world knows well that he had the gift of expression, and will 
 not be surprised that he wrote a very beautiful letter, and that 
 the woman who had already learned to love him fell at once 
 into the snare. 
 
 Her answer was a frank, outspoken avowal of her love for 
 him, giving herself to him heart and hand. The good in Lord 
 Byron was not so utterly obliterated that he could receive such 
 a letter without emotion, or practise such unfairness on a loving, 
 trusting heart without pangs of remorse. He had sent the 
 letter in mere recklessness ; he had not seriously expected to 
 be accepted ; and the discovery of the treasure of affection which 
 he had secured was like a vision of lost heaven to a soul in hell. 
 
 But, nevertheless, in his letters written about the engage 
 ment, there are sufficient evidences that his self-love was flat 
 tered at the preference accorded him by so superior a woman, 
 and one who had been so much sought. He mentions with an 
 air of complacency that she has employed the last two years in 
 refusing five or six of his acquaintance ; that he had no idea 
 she loved him, admitting that it was an old attachment on his 
 part. He dwells on her virtues with a sort of pride of owner 
 ship. There is a sort of childish levity about the frankness 
 of these letters, very characteristic of the man who skimmed 
 over the deepest abysses v with the lightest jests. Before the 
 world, and to his intimates, he was acting the part of the suc 
 cessful fiance, conscious all the while of the deadly secret that 
 lay cold at the bottom of his heart. 
 
43O MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 When he went to visit Miss Milbanke s parents as her ac 
 cepted lover, she was struck with his manner and appearance : 
 she saw him moody and gloomy, evidently wrestling with dark 
 and desperate thoughts, aad any thing but what a happy and 
 accepted lover should be. She sought an interview with him 
 alone, and told him that she had observed that he was not 
 happy in the engagement ; and magnanimously added, that if, on 
 review, he found he had been mistaken in the nature of his 
 feelings, she would immediately release him, and they should 
 remain only friends. 
 
 Overcome with the conflict of his feelings, Lord Byron 
 fainted away. Miss Milbanke was convinced that his heart 
 must really be deeply involved in an attachment with reference 
 to which he showed such strength of emotion, and she spoke 
 no more of a dissolution of the engagement. 
 
 There is no reason to doubt that Byron was, as he relates in 
 his " Dream," profoundly agonized and agitated when he stood 
 before God s altar with the trusting young creature whom he 
 was leading to a fate so awfully tragic ; yet it was not the mem 
 ory of Mary Chaworth, but another guiltier and more damning 
 memory, that overshadowed that hour. 
 
 The moment the carriage-doors were shut upon the bride 
 groom and the bride, the paroxysm of remorse and despair 
 unrepentant remorse and angry despair broke forth upon her 
 gentle head : 
 
 " You might have saved me from this, madam ! You had all 
 in your own power when I offered myself to you first. Then 
 you might have made me what you pleased ; but now you will 
 find that you have married a devil ! " 
 
 In Miss Martineau s Sketches, recently published, is an 
 account of the termination of this wedding -journey, which 
 brought them to one of Lady Byron s ancestral country-seats, 
 where they were to spend the honeymoon. 
 
 Miss Martineau says, 
 
 " At the altar she did not know that she was a sacrifice ; but 
 before sunset of that winter day she knew it, if a judgment may 
 be formed from her face, and attitude of -despair, when she 
 alighted from the carriage on the afternoon of her marriage- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 431 
 
 day. It was not the traces of tears which won the sympathy 
 of the old butler who stood at the open door. The bride 
 groom jumped out of the carriage, and walked away. The 
 bride alighted, and came up the steps alone, with a countenance 
 and frame agonized and listless with evident horror and despair. 
 The old servant longed to offer his arm to the young, lonely 
 creature, as an assurance of sympathy and protection. From 
 this shock she certainly rallied, and soon. The pecuniary diffi 
 culties of her new home were exactly what a devoted spirit like 
 hers was fitted to encounter. Her husband bore testimony, 
 after the catastrophe, that a brighter being, a more sympathiz 
 ing and agreeable companion, never blessed any man s home. 
 When he afterward called her cold and mathematical, and over- 
 pious, and so forth, it was when public opinion had gone 
 against him, and when he had discovered that her fidelity and 
 mercy, her silence and magnanimity, might be relied on, so that 
 he was at full liberty to make his part good, as far as she was 
 concerned. 
 
 " Silent she was even to her own parents, whose feelings she 
 magnanimously spared. She did not act rashly in leaving him, 
 though she had been most rash in marrying him." 
 
 Not all at once did the full knowledge of the dreadful 
 reality into which she had entered come upon the young wife. 
 She knew faguely, from the wild avowals of the first hours of 
 their marriage, that there was a dreadful secret of guilt ; that 
 Byron s soul was torn with agonies of remorse, and that he had 
 no love to give to her in return for a love which was ready to 
 do and dare all for him. Yet bravely she addressed herself to 
 the task of soothing and pleasing and calming the man whom 
 she had taken " for better or for worse." 
 
 Young and gifted ; with a peculiar air of refined and spiritual 
 beauty ; graceful in every movement ; possessed of exquisite 
 taste ; a perfect companion to his mind in all the higher walks 
 of literary culture ; and with that infinite pliability to all his 
 varying, capricious moods which true love alone can give ; 
 bearing in her hand a princely fortune, which, with a woman s 
 uncalculating generosity, was thrown at his feet, there is no 
 wonder that she might feel for a while as if she could enter 
 
432 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 the lists with the very Devil himself, and fight with a woman s 
 weapons for the heart of her husband. 
 
 There are indications scattered through the letters of Lord 
 Byron, which, though brief indeed, showed that his young wife 
 was making every effort to accommodate herself to him, and to 
 give him a cheerful home. One of the poems that he sends to 
 his publisher about this time, he speaks of as being copied by 
 her. He had always the highest regard for her literary judg 
 ments and opinions ; and this little incident shows that she was 
 already associating herself in a wifely fashion with his aims as 
 an author. 
 
 The poem copied by her, however, has a sad meaning, which 
 she afterwards learned to understand only too well : 
 
 " There s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away 
 When the glow of early thought declines in feeling s dull decay : 
 Tis not on youth s smooth cheek the blush alone that fades so fast ; 
 But the tender bloom of heart is gone e er youth itself be past. 
 
 Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness 
 Are driven o er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess : 
 The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain 
 The shore to which-their shivered sail shall never stretch again." 
 
 Only a few days before she left him forever, LorB Byron sent 
 Murray manuscripts, in Lady Byron s handwriting, of the 
 " Siege of Corinth," and Parisina," and wrote, 
 
 " I am very glad that the handwriting was a favorable omen 
 of the morale of the piece : but you must not trust to that ; for 
 my copyist would write out any thing I desired, in all the igno 
 rance of innocence." 
 
 There were lucid intervals in which Lord Byron felt the 
 charm of his wife s mind, and the strength of her powers. 
 " Bell, you could be a poet too, if you only thought so," he 
 would say. There were summer-hours in her stormy life, the 
 memory of which never left her, when Byron was as gentle and 
 tender as he was beautiful ; when he seemed to be possessed 
 by a good angel : and then for a little time all the ideal possibil 
 ities of his nature stood revealed. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 433 
 
 The most dreadful men to live with are those who thus 
 alternate between angel and devil. The buds of hope and love 
 called out by a day or- two of sunshine are frozen again and 
 again, till the tree is killed. 
 
 But there came an hour of revelation, an hour when, in a 
 manner which left no kind of room for doubt, Lady Byron saw 
 the full depth of the abyss of infamy which her marriage was 
 expected to cover, and understood that she was expected to 
 be the cloak and the accomplice of this infamy. 
 
 Many women would have been utterly crushed by such a 
 disclosure ; some would have fled from him immediately, and 
 exposed and denounced the crime. Lady Byron did neither. 
 When all the hope of womanhood, died out of her heart, there 
 arose within her, stronger, purer, and brighter, that immortal 
 kind of love such as God feels for the sinner, the love of 
 which Jesus spoke, and which holds the one wanderer of more 
 account than the ninety and nine that went not astray. She 
 would neither leave her husband nor betray him, nor yet would 
 she for one moment justify his sin ; and hence came two 
 years of convulsive struggle, in which sometimes, for a while, 
 the good angel seemed to gain ground, and then the evil one 
 returned with sevenfold vehemence, 
 
 Lord Byron argued his case with himself and with her 
 with all the sophistries of his powerful mind. He repudiated 
 Christianity as authority ; asserted the right of every human 
 being to follow out what he called " the impulses of nature." 
 Subsequently he introduced into one of his dramas the reason 
 ing by which he justified himself in incest. 
 
 In the drama of " Cain," Adah, the sister and the wife of 
 Cain, thus addresses him : 
 
 " Cain, walk not with this spirit. 
 Bear with what we have borne, and love me : I 
 Love thee. 
 
 Lucifer. More than thy mother and thy sire ? 
 
 Adah. I do. Is that a sin too? 
 
 Lucifer. No, not yet : 
 
 It one day will be in your children. 
 
 Adah. What! 
 
 Must not my daughter love her brother Enoch? 
 28 
 
434 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 Lucifer. Not as thou lovest Cain. 
 
 Adah. O my God I 
 
 Shall they not love, and bring forth things that love 
 Out of their loVe ? Have they not drawn their milk 
 Out of this bosom ? Was not he, their father, 
 Born of the same sole womb, in the same hour 
 With me ? Did we not love each other, and, 
 In multiplying our being, multiply 
 Things which will love each other as we love 
 Them ? And as I love thee, my Cain, go not 
 Forth with this spirit : he is not of ours. 
 
 Lucifer. The sin I speak of is not of my making ; 
 And cannot be a sin in you, whate er 
 It seems in those who will replace ye in 
 Mortality. 
 
 Adah. What is the sin which is not 
 Sin in itself? Can circumstance make sin 
 Of virtue ? If it doth, we are the slaves 
 Of" 
 
 Lady Byron, though slight and almost infantine in her 
 bodily presence, had the soul, not only of an angelic woman, 
 but of a strong, reasoning man. It was the writer s lot to 
 know her at a period when she formed the personal acquaint 
 ance of many of the very first minds of England ; but, among 
 all with whom this experience brought her in connection, there 
 was none who impressed her so strongly as Lady Byron. 
 There was an almost supernatural power of moral divination, 
 a grasp of the very highest and most comprehensive things, 
 that made her lightest opinions singularly impressive. No doubt, 
 this result was wrought out in a great degree from the anguish 
 and conflict of these two years, when, with no one to help or 
 counsel her but Almighty God, she wrestled and struggled 
 with fiends of darkness for the redemption of her husband s 
 soul. 
 
 She followed him through all his sophistical reasonings with 
 a keener reason. She besought and implored, in the name of 
 his better nature, and by all the glorious things that he was 
 capable of being and doing ; and she had just power enough 
 to convulse and shake and agonize, but not power enough to 
 subdue. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 435 
 
 One of the first of living writers, in the novel of " Romola," 
 has given, in her masterly sketch of the character of Tito, the 
 whole history of the conflict of a woman like Lady Byron with 
 a nature like that of her husband. She has described a being 
 full of fascinations and sweetnesses, full of generosities and of 
 good-natured impulses ; a nature that could not bear to give 
 pain, or to see it in others, but entirely destitute of any firm 
 moral principle : she shows how such a being, merely by 
 yielding step by step to the impulses of passjon, and disregard 
 ing the claims of truth and right, becomes involved in a fatality 
 of evil, in which deceit, crime, and cruelty are a necessity, 
 forcing him to persist in the basest ingratitude to the father who 
 has done all for him, and hard-hearted treachery to the high- 
 minded wife who has given herself to him wholly. 
 
 There are few scenes in literature more fearfully tragic than 
 the one between Romola and Tito, when he finally discovers 
 that she knows him fully, and can be deceived by him no more. 
 Some such hour always must come for strong, decided natures 
 irrevocably pledged, one to the service of good, and the other 
 to the slavery of evil. The demoniac cried out, " What have 
 I to do with thee, Jesus of Nazareth ? Art thou come to tor 
 ment me before the time ? " The presence of all-pitying purity 
 and love was a torture to the soul possessed by the demon of 
 evil. 
 
 These two years in which Lady Byron was with all her soul 
 struggling to bring her husband back to his better self were a 
 series of passionate convulsions. 
 
 During this time, such was the disordered and desperate 
 state of his worldly affairs, that there were ten executions for 
 debt levied on their family establishment ; and it was Lady 
 Byron s fortune each time which settled the account. 
 
 Toward the last, she and her husband saw less and less of 
 each other ; and he came more and more decidedly under evil 
 influences, and seemed to acquire a sort of hatred of her. 
 
 Lady Byron once said significantly to a friend who spoke 
 of some* causeless dislike in another, " My dear, I have known 
 people to be -hated for no other reason than because they im 
 personated conscience." 
 
436 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 The biographers of Lord Byron, and all his apologists, are 
 careful to narrate how sweet and amiable and obliging he was 
 to everybody who approached him ; and the saying of Fletcher, 
 his man-servant, that " anybody could do any thing with my 
 Lord, except my Lady," has often been quoted. 
 
 The reason of all this will now be evident. " My Lady " 
 was the only one, fully understanding the deep and dreadful 
 secrets of his life, who had the courage resolutely and persist 
 ently and inflexibly to plant herself in his way, and insist upon 
 it, that, if he went to destruction, it should be in spite of her 
 best efforts. 
 
 He had tried his strength with her fully. The first attempt 
 had been to make her an accomplice by sophistry ; by destroy 
 ing her fait h in Christianity, and confusing her sense of right 
 and wrong, to bring her into the ranks of those convenient 
 women who regard the marriage-tie only as a friendly alliance 
 to cover license on both sides. 
 
 When her husband described to her the Continental latitude 
 (the good-humored marriage, in which complaisant couples 
 mutually agreed to form the cloak for each other s infidelities), 
 and gave her to understand that in this way alone she could 
 have a peaceful and friendly life with him, she answered him 
 simply, " I am too truly your friend to do this." 
 
 When Lord Byron found that he had to do with one who 
 would not yield, who knew him fully, who could not be blinded 
 and could not be deceived, he determined to rid himself of her 
 altogether. 
 
 It was when the state of affairs between herself and her 
 husband seemed darkest and most hopeless, that the only child 
 of this union was born. Lord Byron s treatment of his wife 
 during the sensitive period that preceded the birth of this child, 
 and during her confinement, was marked by paroxysms of un 
 manly brutality, for which the only possible charity on her part 
 was the supposition of insanity. Moore sheds a significant 
 light on this period, by telling us, that, about this time, Byron 
 was often drunk, day after day, with Sheridan. There had been 
 insanity in the family ; and this was the plea which Lady Byron s 
 love put in for him. She regarded him as, if not insane, at 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 437 
 
 least so nearly approaching the boundaries of insanity as to be a 
 subject of forbearance and tender pity ; and ~she loved him with 
 that love resembling a mother s, which good wives often feel 
 when thev have lost all faith in their husbands principles, and 
 all hopes of their affections. Still, she was in heart and soul 
 his best friend ; true to him with a truth which he himself could 
 not shake. 
 
 In the verses addressed to his daughter, Lord Byron speaks 
 of her as 
 
 " The child of iove, though born in bitterness, 
 And nurtured in convulsion." 
 
 A day or two after the birth of this child, Lord Byron came 
 suddenly into Lady Byron s room, and told her that her mother 
 was dead. It was an utter falsehood ; but it was only one of 
 the many nameless injuries and cruelties by which he expressed 
 his hatred of her. A short time after her confinement, she was 
 informed by him, in a note, that, as soon as she was able to 
 travel, she must go ; that he could not and would not longer 
 have her about him ; and, when her child was only five weeks 
 old, he carried this threat of expulsion into effect. 
 
 Here we will insert briefly Lady Byron s own account (the 
 only one she ever gave to the public) of this separation. The 
 circumstances under which this brief story was written are 
 affecting. 
 
 Lord Byron was dead. The whole account between him 
 and her was closed forever in this world. Moore s Life had 
 been prepared, containing simply and solely Lord Byron s 
 own version of their story. Moore sent this version to Lady 
 Byron, and requested to know if she had any remarks to make 
 upon it. In reply, she sent a brief statement to him, the first 
 and only one that had come from her during all. the years of 
 the separation, and which appears to have mainly for its 
 object the exculpation of her father and mother from the charge, 
 made by the poet, of being the instigators of the separation. 
 
 In this letter, she says, with regard to their separation, 
 
 " The facts are, I left London for Kirkby Mallory, the resi 
 dence of my father and mother, on the I5th of January, 1816. 
 
438 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 LORD BYRON HAD SIGNIFIED TO ME IN WRITING, JAN. 6, 
 HIS ABSOLUTE DESIRE THAT I SHOULD LEAVE LONDON ON 
 
 THE EARLIEST DAY THAT I COULD CONVENIENTLY FIX. 
 
 It was not safe for me to undertake the fatigue of a journey 
 sooner than the I5th. Previously to my departure, it had been 
 strongly impressed upon my mind that Lord Byron was under 
 the influence of insanity. This opinion was derived, in a great 
 measure, from the communications made me by his nearest rela 
 tives and personal attendant, who had more opportunity than 
 myself for observing him during the latter part of my stay in 
 town. It was even represented to me that he was in danger of 
 destroying himself. 
 
 " With the concurrence of his family, I had consulted Dr. 
 Baillie as a friend (Jan. 8) respecting the supposed malady. 
 On acquainting him with the state of the case, and with Lord 
 Byron s desire that I should leave London, Dr. Baillie thought 
 that my absence might be advisable as an experiment, assuming 
 the fact of mental derangement ; for Dr. Baillie, not having 
 had access to Lord Byron, could not pronounce a positive 
 opinion on that point. He enjoined, that, in correspondence 
 with Lord Byron, I should avoid all but light and soothing 
 topics. Under these impressions, I left London, determined to 
 follow the advice given by Dr. Baillie. Whatever might have 
 been the conduct of Lord Byron toward me from the time of my 
 marriage, yet, supposing him to be hi a state of mental aliena 
 tion, it was not for me, nor for any person of common humanity, 
 to manifest at that moment a sense of injury." 
 
 Nothing more than this letter from Lady Byron is necessary 
 to substantiate the fact, that she did not leave her husband, but 
 was driven from him, driven from him that he might give 
 himself up to the guilty infatuation that was consuming him, 
 without being tortured by her imploring face, and by the silent 
 power of her presence and her prayers. 
 
 For a long time before this, she had seen little of him. On 
 the day of her departure,. she passed by the door of his room, 
 and stopped to caress his favorite spaniel, which was lying 
 there ; and she confessed to a friend the weakness of feeling a 
 willingness even to be something as humble as that poor little 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 439 
 
 creature, might she only be allowed to remain and watch over 
 him. She went into the room where he and the partner of his 
 sins were sitting together, and said, " Byron, I come to say good- 
 by ; " offering, at the same time, her hand. 
 
 Lord Byron put his hands behind him, retreated to the 
 mantle-piece, and, looking round on the two that stood there, 
 with a sarcastic smile said, " When shall we three meet again ? " 
 Lady Byron answered, * In heaven, I trust." And those were 
 her last words to him on earth. 
 
 Now, if the reader wishes to understand the real talents of 
 Lord Byron for deception and dissimulation, let him read, with 
 this story in his mind, the " Fare thee well," which he addressed 
 to Lady Byron through the printer : 
 
 " Fare thee well ; and if forever, 
 
 Still forever fare thee well ! 
 Even though unforgiving, never 
 Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. 
 
 Would that breast were bared before thee 
 
 Where thy head so oft hath lain, 
 While that placid sleep came o er thee 
 
 Thou canst never know again ! 
 
 Though my many faults defaced me, 
 
 Could no other arm be found 
 
 * Than the one which once embraced me 
 
 To inflict a careless wound ? " 
 
 The re-action of society against him at the time of the sepa 
 ration from his wife was something which he had not expected, 
 and for which, it appears, he was entirely unprepared. It broke 
 up the guilty intrigue, and ,drove him from England. He had 
 not courage to meet or endure it. The world, to be sure, was 
 very far from suspecting what the truth was : but the tide was 
 setting against him with such vehemence as to make him trem 
 ble every hour lest the whole should be known ; and henceforth 
 it became a warfare of desperation to make his story good, no 
 matter at whose expense. 
 
 He had tact enough to perceive at first that the assumption 
 of the pathetic and the magnanimous, and general confessions 
 of faults, accompanied with admissions of his wife s goodness, 
 
440 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 would be the best policy in his case. In this mood, he thus 
 writes to Moore : 
 
 "The fault was not in my choice (unless in choosing at all) ; 
 for I do not believe (and I must say it in the very dregs of all 
 this bitter business) that there ever was a better, or even a 
 brighter, a kinder, or a more amiable, agreeable being than 
 Lady Byron. I never had, nor can have, any reproach to make 
 her while with me. Where there is blame, it belongs to myself." 
 
 As there must be somewhere a scapegoat to bear the sin of 
 the affair, Lord Byron wrote a poem called " A Sketch," in 
 which he lays the blame of stirring up strife on a friend and 
 former governess of Lady Byron s ; but in this sketch he intro 
 duces the following just eulogy on Lady Byron : 
 
 " Foiled was perversion by that youthful mind 
 Which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, 
 Deceit infect not, near contagion soil, 
 Indulgence weaken, nor example spoil, 
 Nor mastered science tempt her to look down 
 On humbler talents with a pitying frown, 
 Nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, 
 Nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain, 
 Nor fortune change, pride raise, nor passion bow, 
 Nor virtue teach austerity, till now ; 
 Serenely purest of her sex that live, 
 But wanting one sweet weakness, to forgive ; 
 Too shocked at faults her soul can never know, 
 She deemed that all could be like her below : 
 Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue s friend ; 
 For Virtue pardons those she would amend." 
 
 In leaving England, Lord Byron first went to Switzerland, 
 where he conceived and in part wrote out the tragedy of " Man 
 fred." Moore speaks of his domestic misfortunes, and the 
 sufferings which he underwent at this time, as having an influ 
 ence in stimulating his genius, so that he was enabled to write 
 with a greater power. 
 
 Anybody who reads the tragedy of " Manfred " with this 
 story in his mind will see that it is true. 
 
 The hero is represented as a gloomy misanthrope, dwelling 
 with impenitent remorse on the memory of an incestuous pas- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 441 
 
 sion which has been the destruction of his sister for this life and 
 the life to come, but which, to the very last gasp, he despair 
 ingly refuses to repent of, even while he sees the fiends of dark 
 ness rising to take possession of his departing soul. That 
 Byron knew his own guilt well, and judged himself severely, 
 may be gathered from passages in this poem, which are as 
 powerful as human language can be made ; for instance, this 
 part of the " incantation," which Moore says was written at 
 this time : 
 
 " Though thy slumber may be deep, 
 
 Yet thy spirit shall not sleep : 
 
 There are shades which will not vanish ; 
 
 There are thoughts thou canst not banish. 
 
 By a power to thee unknown, 
 
 Thou canst never be alone : 
 
 Thou art wrapt as with a shroud ; 
 
 Thou art gathered in a cloud ; 
 
 And forever shalt thou dwell 
 
 In the spirit of this spell. 
 
 From thy false tears I did distil 
 An essence which had strength to kill ; 
 From thy own heart I then did wring 
 The black blood in its blackest spring ; 
 From thy own smile I snatched the snake, 
 For there it coiled as in a brake ; 
 From thy own lips I drew the charm 
 Which gave all these their chiefest harm : 
 In proving every poison known, 
 
 I found the strongest was thine own. 
 
 By thy cold breast and serpent smile, 
 
 By thy unfathomed gulfs of guile, 
 
 By that most seeming virtuous eye, 
 
 By thy shut soul s hypocrisy, 
 
 By the perfection of thine art 
 
 Which passed for human thine own heart, 
 
 By thy delight in others pain, 
 
 And by thy brotherhood of Cain, 
 
 I call upon thee, and compel 
 
 Thyself to be thy proper hell 1 " 
 
 Again : he represents Manfred as saying to the old abbot, 
 who seeks to bring him to repentance, 
 
442 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 " Old man, there is no power in holy men, 
 Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form 
 Of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast, 
 Nor agony, nor, greater than all these, 
 The innate tortures of that deep despair, 
 Which is remorse without the fear of hell, 
 But, all in all sufficient to itself, 
 Would make a hell of heaven, can exorcise 
 From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense 
 Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge 
 Upon itself: there is no future pang 
 Can deal that justice on the self-condemned 
 He deals on his own soul." 
 
 And when the abbot tells him, 
 
 " All this is well ; 
 
 For this will pass away, and be succeeded 
 By an auspicious hope, which shall look up 
 With calm assurance to that blessed place 
 Which all who seek may win, whatever be 
 Their earthly errors," 
 
 He answers, 
 
 Then the old abbot soliloquizes : 
 
 " This should have been a noble creature : he 
 Hath all the energy which would have made 
 A goodly frame of glorious elements, 
 Had they been wisely mingled ; as it is, 
 It is an awful chaos, light and darkness, 
 And mind and dust, and passions and pure thoughts, 
 Mixed, and contending without end or order." 
 
 The world can easily see, in Moore s Biography, what, after 
 this, was the course of Lord Byron s life ; how he went from 
 shame to shame, and dishonor to dishonor, and used the fortune 
 which his wife brought him in the manner described in those 
 private letters which his biographer was left to print. Moore, 
 indeed, says Byron had made the resolution not to touch his 
 lady s fortune; but adds, that it re quired more self-command 
 than he possessed to carry out so honorable a purpose. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 443 
 
 Lady Byron made but one condition with him. She had him 
 in her power ; and she exacted that the unhappy partner of his 
 sins should not follow him out of England, and^that the ruinous 
 intrigue should be given up. Her inflexibility on this point 
 kept up that enmity which was constantly expressing itself in 
 some publication or other, and which drew her and her private 
 relations with him before the public. 
 
 The story of what Lady Byron did with the portion of her 
 fortune .which was reserved to her is a record of noble and 
 skilfully administered charities. Pitiful and wise and strong, 
 there was no form of human suffering or sorrow that did not 
 find with her refuge and help. She gave not only systemati 
 cally, but also impulsively.- 
 
 Miss Martineau claims for her the honor of having first 
 invented practical schools, in which the children of the poor 
 were turned into agriculturists, artisans, seamstresses, and good 
 wives for poor men. While she managed with admirable skill 
 and economy permanent institutions of this sort, she was always 
 ready to relieve suffering in any form. The fugitive slaves 
 William and Ellen Crafts, escaping to England, were fostered 
 by her protecting care. 
 
 In many cases where there was distress or anxiety from 
 poverty among those too self-respecting to make their sufferings 
 known, the delicate hand of Lady Byron ministered to the 
 want with a consideration which spared the most refined feel 
 ings. 
 
 As a mother, her course was embarrassed by peculiar trials. 
 The daughter inherited from the father not only brilliant talents, 
 but a restlessness and morbid sensibility which might be too 
 surely traced to the storms and agitations of the period in which 
 she was born. It was necessary to bring her up in ignorance 
 of the true history of her mother s life ; and the consequence 
 was, that she could not fully understand that mother. 
 
 During her early girlhood, her career was a source of more 
 anxiety than of comfort. She married a man of fashion, ran a 
 brilliant course as a gay woman of fashion, and died early of a 
 lingering and painful disease. 
 
 In the silence and shaded retirement of the sick-room, the 
 
444 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 daughter came wholly back to her mother s arms and heart ; 
 and it was on that mother s bosom that she leaned as she went 
 down into the dark valley. It was that mother who placed her 
 weak and dying hand ih that of her Almighty Saviour. 
 
 To the children left by her daughter, she ministered with the 
 faithfulness of a guardian angel ; and it is owing to her influ 
 ence that those who yet remain are among the best and noblest 
 of mankind. 
 
 The person whose relations with Byron had been so disas 
 trous, also, in the latter years of her life, felt Lady Byron s 
 loving and ennobling influences, and, in her last sickness and 
 dying hours, looked to her for consolation and help. 
 
 There was an unfortunate child of sin, born with the curse 
 upon her, over whose wayward nature Lady Byron watched 
 with a mother s tenderness. She was the one who could have 
 patience when the patience of every one else failed ; and though 
 her task was a difficult one, from the strange, abnormal propen 
 sities to evil in the object of her cares, yet Lady Byron never 
 faltered, and never gave over, till death took the responsibility 
 from her hands. 
 
 During all this trial, strange to say, her belief that the good 
 in Lord Byron would finally conquer was unshaken. 
 
 To a friend who said to her, " Oh ! how could you love 
 him ? " she answered briefly, " My dear, there was the angel in 
 him." It is in us all. 
 
 It was in this angel that she had faith. It was for the deliv 
 erance of this angel from degradation and shame and sin that 
 she unceasingly prayed. She read every work that Byron 
 wrote, read it with a deeper knowledge than any human being 
 but herself could possess. The ribaldry and the obscenity and 
 the insults with which he strove to make her ridiculous in the 
 world fell at her pitying feet unheeded. 
 
 When he broke away from all this unworthy life to devote 
 himself to a manly enterprise for the redemption of Greece, she 
 thought that she saw the beginning of an answer to her prayers. 
 Even although one of his latest acts concerning her was to 
 repeat to Lady Blessington the false accusation which made 
 Lady Byron, the author of all his errors, she still had hopes 
 from the one step taken in the right direction. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 445 
 
 
 
 In the midst of these hopes came the news of his sudden 
 death. On his death-bed, it is well known that he called his 
 confidential English servant to him, and said to him, " Go to 
 my sister; tell her Go to Lady Byron, you will see her, 
 and say " 
 
 Here followed twenty minutes of indistinct mutterings, in 
 which the names of his wife, daughter, and sister, frequently 
 occurred. He then said, " Now I have told you all." 
 
 " My lord," replied Fletcher, " I have not understood a word 
 your lordship has been saying." 
 
 " Not understand me ! " exclaimed Lord Byron with a look 
 of the utmost distress : " what a pity ! Then it is j;oo late, all 
 is over ! " He afterwards, says Moore, tried to utter a few 
 words, of which none were intelligible except " My sister my 
 child." 
 
 When Fletcher returned to London, Lady Byron sent for 
 him, and walked the room in convulsive struggles to repress 
 her tears and sobs, while she over and over again strove to 
 elicit something from him which should enlighten her upon 
 what that last message had been ; but in vain : the gates of 
 eternity were shut in her face, and not- a word had passed to tell 
 her if he had repented. 
 
 For all that, Lady Byron never doubted his salvation. Ever 
 before her, during the few remaining years of her widowhood, 
 was the image of her husband, purified and ennobled, with the 
 shadows of earth forever dissipated, the stains of sin forever 
 removed ; " the angel in him," as she expressed it, " made per 
 fect, according to its divine ideal." 
 
 Never has more divine strength of faith and love existed in 
 woman. Out of the depths of her own loving and merciful 
 nature, she gained such views of the divine love and mercy as 
 made all hopes possible. There was no soul of whose future 
 Lady Byron despaired, such was her boundless faith in the 
 redeeming power of love. 
 
 After Byron s death, the life of this delicate creature so 
 frail in body that she seemed always hovering on the brink of 
 the eternal world, yet so strong in spirit, and so unceasing in 
 her various ministries of mercy was a miracle of mingled 
 weakness and strength. 
 
446 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 To talk with her seemed to the writer of this sketch the 
 nearest possible approach to talking with one of the spirits of 
 the just made perfect. 
 
 She was gentle, artless ; approachable as a little child ; with 
 ready, outflowing sympathy for the cares and sorrows and 
 interests of all who approached her ; with a naive and gentle 
 playfulness, that adorned, without hiding, the breadth and 
 strength of her mind ; and, above all, with a clear, divining, 
 moral discrimination ; never mistaking wrong for right in the 
 slightest shade, yet with a mercifulness that made allowance 
 for every weakness, and pitied every sin. 
 
 There was^so much of Christ in her, that to have seen her 
 seemed to be to have drawrt near to heaven. She was one of 
 those few whom absence cannot estrange from friends ; whose 
 mere presence in this world seems always a help to every gener 
 ous thought, a strength to every good purpose, a comfort in 
 every sorrow. 
 
 Living so near the confines of the spiritual world, she 
 seemed already to see into it : hence the words of comfort 
 which she addressed to a friend who had lost a son : 
 
 " Dear friend, remember, as long as our loved ones are in 
 God s world, they are in ours" 
 
 It has been thought by some friends who have read the 
 proof-sheets of the foregoing that the author should state more 
 specifically her authority for these statements. 
 
 The circumstances which led the writer to England at a 
 certain time originated a friendship and correspondence with 
 Lady Byron, which was always regarded as one of the greatest 
 acquisitions of that visit. 
 
 On the occasion of a second visit to England, in 1856, the 
 writer received a note from Lady Byron, indicating that she 
 wished to have some private, confidential conversation upon 
 important subjects, and inviting her, for that purpose, to spend 
 a day with her at her country-seat near London. 
 
 The writer went and spent a day with Lady Byron alone ; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 447 
 
 and the object of the invitation was explained to her. Lady 
 Byron was in such a state of health, that her physicians had 
 warned her that she had very little time to live. She was 
 engaged in those duties and retrospections which every 
 thoughtful person" finds necessary, when coming deliberately, 
 and with open eyes, to the boundaries of this mortal life* 
 
 At that time, there was a cheap edition of Byron s works in 
 contemplation, intended to bring his writings into circulation 
 among the masses ; and the pathos arising from the story of his 
 domestic misfortunes was one great means relied on for giving 
 it currency. 
 
 Under these circumstances, some of Lady Byron s friends 
 had proposed the question to her, whether she had not a respon 
 sibility to society for the truth ; whether she did right to allow 
 thgse writings to gain influence over the popular mind by giving 
 a silent consent to what she knew to be utter falsehoods. 
 
 Lady Byron s whole, life had been passed in the most heroic 
 self-abnegation and self-sacrifice : and she had now to consider 
 whether one more act of self-denial was not required of her 
 before leaving this world; namely, to declare the absolute 
 truth, no matter at what expense to her own feelings. 
 
 For this reason, it was her desire to recount the whole 
 history to a person of another country, and entirely out of the 
 sphere of personal and local feelings which might be supposed 
 to influence those in the country and station in life where the 
 events really happened, in order that she might be helped by 
 such a person s views in making up an opinion as to her own 
 duty. 
 
 The interview had almost the solemnity of a death-bed 
 avowal. Lady Byron stated the facts which have been em 
 bodied in this article, and gave to the writer a paper containing 
 a brief memorandum of the whole, with the dates affixed. 
 
 We have already spoken of that singular sense of the reality 
 of the spiritual world which seemed to encompass Lady Byron 
 during the last part of her life, and which made her words and 
 actions seem more like those of a blessed being detached from 
 earth than of an ordinary mortal. All her modes of looking 
 at things, all her motives of action, all her involuntary exhi- 
 
44$ MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 bitions of emotion, were so high above any common level, 
 and so entirely regulated by the most unworldly causes, that it 
 would seem difficult to make the ordinary world understand 
 exactly how the thing seemed to lie before her mind. Wnat 
 impressed the writer more strongly than any thing else was 
 Lady Byron s perfect conviction athat her husband was now a 
 redeemed spirit ; that he looked back with pain and shame 
 and regret on all that was unworthy in . his past life ; and that, 
 if he could speak or could act in the case, he would desire to 
 prevent the further circulation of base falsehoods, and of 
 seductive poetry, which had been made the vehicle of morbid 
 and unworthy passions. 
 
 Lady Byron s experience*had led her to apply the powers of 
 her strong philosophical mind to the study of mental pathology : 
 and she had become satisfied that the solution of the painfinl 
 problem which first occurred to her as a young wife, was, after 
 all, the true one ; namely, that Lord Byfon had been one of 
 those unfortunately constituted persons in whom the balance 
 of nature is so critically hung, that it is always in danger of 
 dipping towards insanity ; and that, in certain periods of his 
 life, he was so far under the influence of mental disorder as not 
 to be fully responsible for his actions. 
 
 She went over with a brief and clear analysis the history of 
 his whole life as she had thought it out during the lonely 
 musings of her widowhood. She dwelt on the ancestral causes 
 that gave him a nature of exceptional and dangerous suscepti 
 bility. She went through the mismanagements of his child 
 hood, the history of his school-days, the influence of the 
 ordinary school-course of classical reading on such a mind as 
 his. She sketched boldly and clearly the internal life of the 
 young men of the time, as she, with her purer eyes, had looked 
 through it ; and showed how habits, which, with less susceptible 
 fibre and coarser strength of nature, were tolerable for his com 
 panions, were deadly to him, unhinging his nervous system, and 
 intensifying the dangers of ancestral proclivities. Lady Byron 
 expressed the feeling too, that the Calvinistic theology, as 
 heard in Scotland, had proved in his case, as it often does in 
 certain minds, a subtle poison. He never could either dis- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 449 
 
 believe or become reconciled to it ; and the sore problems it 
 proposes imbittered his spirit against Christianity. 
 
 " The worst of it is, I do believe" he would often say with 
 violence, when he had been employing all his powers of reason, 
 wit, and ridicule upon these subjects. 
 
 Through all this sorrowful history was to be seen, not the 
 care of a slandered woman to make her story good, but the 
 pathetic anxiety of a mother, who treasures every particle of 
 hope, every intimation of good, in the son whom she cannot 
 cease to love. With indescribable resignation, she dwelt on 
 those last hours, those words addressed to her, never to be 
 understood till repeated in eternity. 
 
 But all this she looked upon as fSrever past ; believing, that, 
 with the dropping of the earthly life, these morbid impulses 
 aad influences ceased, and that higher nature which he often 
 so beautifully expressed in his poems became the triumphant 
 one. 
 
 While speaking on this subject, her pale, ethereal face 
 became luminous with a heavenly radiance : there was some 
 thing so sublime in her belief in the victory of love over evil, 
 that faith with her seemed to have become sight. She seemed 
 so clearly to perceive the divine ideal of the man she had loved, 
 and for whose salvation she had been called to suffer and 
 labor and pray, that all memories of his past unworthiness fell 
 away, and were lost. 
 
 Her love was never the doting fondness of weak women ; it 
 was the appreciative and discriminating love by which a higher 
 nature recognized godlike capabilities under all the dust and 
 defilement of misuse and passion : and she never doubted that 
 the love which in her was so strong, that no injury or insult 
 could shake it, was yet stronger in the God who made her 
 capable of such a devotion, and that in him it was accompanied 
 by power to subdue all things to itself. 
 
 The writer was so impressed and excited by the whole scene 
 and recital, that she begged for two or three days to deliberate 
 before forming any opinion. She took the memorandum with 
 her, returned to London, and gave a day or two to the con 
 sideration of the subject. The decision which she made was 
 
45O MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 chiefly influenced by her reverence and affection for Lady 
 Byron. She seemed so frail, she had suffered so much, she 
 stood at such a height above the comprehension of the coarse 
 and common world, that the author had a feeling that it would 
 almost be like violating a shrine to ask her to come forth from 
 the sanctuary of a silence where she had so long abode, and 
 plead her cause. She wrote to Lady Byron, that while this act 
 of justice did seem to be called for, and to be in some respects 
 most desirable, yet, as it would involve so much that was 
 painful to her, the writer considered that Lady Byron would be 
 entirely justifiable in leaving the truth to be disclosed after her 
 death ; and recommended that all the facts necessary should be 
 put in the hands of some person, to be so published. 
 
 Years passed on. Lady Byron lingered four years after 
 this interview, to the wonder of her physicians and all her 
 friends. 
 
 After Lady Byron s death, the writer looked anxiously, 
 hoping to see a Memoir of the person whom she considered the 
 most remarkable woman that England has produced in the 
 century. No such Memoir has appeared on the part of her 
 friends ; and the mistress of Lord Byron has the ear of the 
 public, and is sowing far and wide unworthy slanders, which 
 are eagerly gathered up and read by an undiscriminating com 
 munity. 
 
 There may be family reasons in England which prevent 
 Lady Byron s friends from speaking. But Lady Byron has an 
 American name and an American existence ; and reverence for 
 pure womanhood is, we think, a national characteristic of the 
 American ; and, so far as this country is concerned, we feel that 
 the public should have this refutation of the slanders of the 
 Countess Guiccioli s book. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 45 I 
 
 LORD LINDSAY S LETTER TO "THE LONDON 
 TIMES." 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF " THE TIMES." 
 
 SIR, I have waited in expectation of a categorical denial 
 of the horrible charge brought by Mrs. Beecher Stowe against 
 Lord Byron and his sister on the alleged authority of the la^s 
 Lady Byron. Such denial has been only indirectly given by the 
 letter of Messrs. Wharton and Fords in your impression of 
 yesterday. That letter is sufficient to prove that Lady Byron 
 never contemplated the use made of her name, and that her 
 descendants and representatives disclaim any countenance of 
 Mrs. B. Stowe s article ; but it does not specifically meet Mrs. 
 Stowe s allegation, that Lady Byron, in conversing with her 
 thirteen years ago, affirmed the charge now before -us. It re 
 mains open, therefore, to a scandal-loving world, to credit the 
 calumny through the advantage of this flaw, involuntary, I 
 believe, in the answer produced against it. My object in 
 addressing you is to supply that deficiency by proving that 
 what is now stated on Lady Byron s supposed authority is at 
 variance, in all respects, with what she stated immediately after 
 the separation, when every thing was fresh in her memory in 
 relation to the time during which, according to Mrs. B. Stowe, 
 she believed that Byron and his sister were living together in 
 guilt. I publish this evidence* with reluctance, but in obedience 
 to that higher obligation of justice to the voiceless and defence 
 less dead which bids me break through a reserve that other 
 wise I should have held sacred. The Lady Byron of 1818 
 would, I am certain, have sanctioned my doing so, had she fore 
 seen the present unparalleled occasion, and the bar that the 
 conditions of her will present (as I infer from Messrs. Wharton 
 and Fords letter) against any fuller communication. Calumnies 
 such as the present sink deep and with^sapidity into the public 
 mind, and are not easily eradicated. The fame of one of our 
 greatest poets, and that of the kindest and truest and most 
 constant friend that Byron ever had, is at stake ; and it will 
 not do to wait for revelations from the fountain-head, which are 
 not promised, and possibly may never reach us. 
 
452 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 The late Lady Anne Barnard, who died in 1825, a contem 
 porary and friend of Burke, Windham, Dundas, and a host of 
 the wise and good of that generation, and remembered in 
 letters as the authoress of " Auld Robin Gray," had known the 
 late Lady Byron from infancy, and took a warm interest in her ; 
 holding Lord Byron in corresponding repugnance, not to say 
 jirejudice, in consequence of what she believed to be his harsh 
 and cruel treatment of her young friend. I transcribe the fol 
 lowing passages, and a letter from Lady Byron herself (written 
 in 1818) from ricordi, or private family memoirs, in Lady 
 Anne s autograph, now before me. I include the letter, because, 
 although treating only in general terms of the matter and 
 causes of the separation, it affords collateral evidence bearing 
 strictly upon the point of the credibility of the charge now in 
 question : 
 
 " The separation of Lord and Lady Byron astonished the 
 world, which believed him a reformed man as to his habits, and 
 a becalmed man as to his remorses. He had written nothing 
 that appeared after his marriage till the famous Fare thee well, 
 which had the power of compelling those to pity the writer 
 who were not well aware that he. was not the unhappy person 
 he affected to be. Lady Byron s misery was whispered soon 
 after her marriage and his ill usage ; but no word transpired, 
 no sign escaped, from her. She gave birth, shortly, to a 
 daughter ; and when she went, as soon as she was recovered, 
 on a visit to her father s, taking her little Ada with her, no one 
 knew that it was to return to her lord no more. At that period, 
 a severe fit of illness had confined me to bed for two months. 
 I heard of Lady Byron s distress ; of the pains he took to give 
 a harsh impression of her character to the world. I wrote to 
 her, and entreated her to come and let me see and hear her, if 
 she conceived my symnfithy or counsel could be any comfort to 
 her. She came ; but what a tale was unfolded by this interest 
 ing young creature, who had so fondly hoped to have made a 
 young man of genius and romance (as she supposed) happy ! 
 They had not beeft an hour in the carriage which conveyed 
 them from the church, when, breaking into a malignant sneer, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 453 
 
 Oh ! what a dupe you have been to your imagination ! How 
 is it possible a woman of your sense could form the wild hope 
 of reforming me ? Many are the tears you will have to shed 
 ere that plan is accomplished. It is enough for me that you 
 are my wife for me to hate you. If you were the wife of any 
 other man, I own you might have charms, &c. I who listened 
 was astonished. How could you go on after this, said I, rfly 
 dear ? Why did you not return to your father s ? Because I 
 had not a conception he was in earnest ; because I reckoned it 
 a bad jest, and told him so, that my. opinions of him were 
 very different from his of himself, otherwise he would not find 
 me by his side. He laughed it over when he saw me appear 
 hurt ; and I forgot what had passed, till forced to remember it. 
 I believe he was pleased with me, too, for a little while. I sup 
 pose it had escaped his memory that I was his wife. But she 
 described the happiness they enjoyed to have been unequal and 
 perturbed. Her situation, in- a short time, might have entitled 
 her to some tenderness ; but she made no claim on him for 
 any. He sometimes reproached her for the motives that had 
 induced her to marry him : all was vanity, the vanity of Miss 
 Milbanke carrying the point of reforming Lord Byron ! He 
 always knew her inducements ; her pride shut her eyes to his : 
 he wished to build up his character and his fortunes ; both were 
 somewhat deranged : she had a high name, and would have a 
 fortune worth his attention, let her look to that for his 
 motives! O Byron, Byron! she said, how you desolate 
 me! He would then accuse himself of being mad, and 
 throw himself on the ground in a frenzy, which she believed 
 was affected to conceal the coldness and malignity of his heart, 
 an affectation which at that time never failed to meet with 
 the tenderest commiseration. I could find by some impli- 
 catio ns, not followed up by me, lest she might have condemned 
 herself afterwards for her involuntary disclosures, that he soon 
 attempted to corrupt her principles, both with respect to her 
 own conduct and her latitude for his. She saw the precipice 
 on which she stood, and kept his sister with her as much as 
 possible. He returned in the evenings from the haunts of vice, 
 where he made her understand he had been, with manners so 
 
454 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 profligate ! O the wretch ! said I. And had he no moments 
 of remorse ? Sometimes he appeared to have them. One 
 night, coming home from one of his lawless parties, he saw me 
 so indignantly collected, and bearing all with such a determined 
 calmness, that a rush of remorse seemed to come over him. 
 He called himself a monster, though his sister was present, and 
 threw himself in agony at my feet. "I could not no I 
 could not forgive him such injuries. He had lost me forever ! " 
 Astonished at the return of virtue, my tears, I believe, flowed 
 over his face, and I said, " Byron, all is forgotten : never, 
 never, shall you hear of it more ! " He started up, and, folding 
 his arms while he looked at me, burst into laughter. " What 
 do you mean ? " said I. " Only a philosophical experiment ; 
 that s all," said he. " I wished to ascertain the value of your 
 resolutions." I need not say more of this prince of duplicity, 
 except that varied were his methods of rendering her wretched, 
 even to the last. When her lovely little child was born, and it 
 was laid beside its mother on the bed, and he was informed he 
 might see his daughter, after gazing at it with an exulting 
 smile, this was the ejaculation that broke from him : Oh, what 
 an implement of torture have I acquired in you ! Such he 
 rendered it by his eyes and manner, keeping her in a perpetual 
 alarm for its safety when in his presence. All this reads 
 madder than I believe he was : but she had not then made up 
 her mind to disbelieve his pretended insanity, and conceived it 
 best to intrust her secret with the excellent Dr. Baillie ; telling 
 him* all that seemed to regard the state of her husband s mind, 
 and letting his advice regulate her conduct. Baillie doubted of 
 his derangement ; but, as he did not reckon his own opinion 
 infallible, he wished her to take precautions as if her husband 
 was so. He recommended her going to the country, but to 
 give him no suspicion of her intentions of remaining there, and, 
 for a short time, to show no coldness in her letters, till she 
 could better ascertain his state. She went, regretting, as she 
 told me, to wear any semblance but the truth. A short time 
 disclosed the story to the world. He acted the part of a man 
 driven to despair by her inflexible resentment and by the arts 
 of a governess (once a servant in the family) who hated him. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 455 
 
 I will give you," proceeds Lady Anne, " a few paragraphs 
 transcribed from one of Lady Byron s own letters to me. It is 
 sorrowful to think, that, in a very little time, this young and 
 amiable creature, wise, patient, and feeling, will have her 
 character mistaken by every one who reads Byron s works. To 
 rescue her from this, I preserved her letters ; and, when she 
 a/terwards expressed a fear that any thing of her writings 
 should ever fall into hands to injure him (I suppose she meant 
 by publication), I safely assured her that it never should. But 
 here this letter shall be placed, a sacred record in her favor, 
 unknown to herself: 
 
 " I am a very incompetent judge of the impression which 
 the last canto of " Childe Harold " may produce on the minds 
 of indifferent readers. It contains the usual trace of a con 
 science restlessly awake ; though his object has been too long to 
 aggravate its burden, as if it could thus be oppressed into 
 eternal stupor. I will hope, as you clo, that it survives for his 
 ultimate good. It was the acuteness of his remorse, impenitent 
 in its character, which so long seemed to demand from my 
 compassion to spare every semblance of reproach, every look 
 of grief, which might have said to his conscience, " You have 
 made me wretched." I am decidedly of opinion that he is 
 responsible. He has wished to be thought partially deranged, 
 or on the brink of it, to perplex observers, and prevent them 
 from tracing effects to their real causes through all the intrica 
 cies of his conduct. I was, as I told you, at one time the dupe 
 of his acted insanity, and clung to the former delusions in 
 regard to the motives that concerned me personally, till the 
 whole system was laid bare. He is the absolute monarch of 
 words, and uses them, as Bonaparte did lives, for conquest, 
 without more regard to their intrinsic value ; considering them 
 only as ciphers, which must derive all their import from the 
 situation in which he places them, and the ends to which he 
 adapts them with such consummate skill. Why, then, you will 
 say, does he not employ them to give a better color to his own 
 character ? Because he is too good an actor to over-act, or to 
 assume a moral garb which it would be easy to strip off. In 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 regard to his poetry, egotism is the vital principle of his imagi 
 nation, which it is difficult for him to kindle on any subject 
 with which his own character and interests are not identified : 
 but by the introduction of fictitious incidents, by change of 
 scene or time, he has enveloped his poetical disclosures in a 
 system impenetrable except to a very few ; and his constant 
 desire of creating a sensation makes him not averse to be tie 
 object of wonder and curiosity, even though accompanied by 
 some dark and vague suspicions. Nothing has contributed 
 more to the misunderstanding of his real character than the 
 lonely grandeur in which he shrouds it, and his affectation of 
 being above mankind, when he exists almost in their voice. 
 The romance of -his sentiments is another feature of this mask 
 of state. I know no one more habitually destitute of that 
 enthusiasm he so beautifully expresses, and to which he can 
 work up his fancy chiefly by contagion. I had heard he was 
 the best of brothers, the most generous of friends ; and I 
 thought such feelings only required to be warmed and cherished 
 into more diffusive beVievolence. Though these opinions are 
 eradicated, and could never return but with the decay of 
 my memory, you will not wonder if there are still moments 
 when the association of feelings which arose from them soften 
 and sadden my thoughts. But I have not thanked you, dearest 
 Lady Anne, for your kindness in regard to a principal object, 
 that of rectifying false impressions. I trust you understand my 
 wishes, which never were to injure Lord Byron in any way : 
 for, though he would not suffer me to remain his wife, he cannot 
 prevent me from continuing his friend ; and it was from con 
 sidering myself as such that I silenced the accusations by 
 which my own conduct might have been more fully justified. 
 It is not necessary to speak ill of his heart in general : it is 
 sufficient that to me it was hard and impenetrable ; that my 
 own must have been broken before his could have been 
 touched. I would rather represent this as my misfortune than 
 as his guilt ; but surely that misfortune is not to be made .my 
 crime ! Such are my feelings : you will judge how to act. His 
 allusions to me in "Childe Harold " are cruel and cold, but 
 with such a semblance as to make me appear so, and to attract 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 457 
 
 all sympathy to himself. It is said in this poem that hatred of 
 him will be taught as a lesson to his child. I might appeal to 
 ail who have ever heard me speak of him, and still more to my 
 own heart, to witness that there has been no moment when I 
 have remembered injury otherwise than affectionately and 
 sorrowfully. It is not my duty to give way to hopeless and 
 wholly unrequited affection ; but, so long as I live, my chief 
 struggle will probably be not to remember him too kindly. I 
 do not seek the sympathy of the world ; but I wish to be 
 known by those whose opinion is valuable, and whose kindness 
 is dear to me. Among such, my dear Lady Anne, you will 
 ever be remembered by your truly affectionate, 
 
 " A. BYRON. " 
 
 It is the province of your readers, and of the world at large, 
 to judge between the two testimonies now before them, Lady 
 Byron s in 1816 and 1818, and that put forward in 1869 by Mrs. 
 B. Stowe, as communicated by Lady Byron thirteen years ago. 
 In the face of the evidence now given, positive, negative, and 
 circumstantial, there can be but two alternatives in the case : 
 either Mrs. B. Stowe must have entirely misunderstood Lady 
 Byron, and been thus led into error and misstatement ; or we 
 must conclude, that, under the pressure of a lifelong and secret 
 sorrow, Lady Byron s mind had become clouded with an hallu 
 cination in respect of the particular point in question. 
 
 The reader will admire the noble but severe character dis 
 played in Lady Byron s letter ; but those who keep in view 
 what her first impressions were, as above recorded, may 
 probably place a more lenient interpretation than hers upon 
 some of the incidents alleged to Byron s discredit. I shall 
 conclude with some remarks upon his character, written shortly 
 after his death by a wise, virtuous, and charitable judge, the 
 ki :e Sir Walter Scott, likewise in a letter to. Lady Anne Bar 
 nard : 
 
 " Fletcher s account of poor Byron is extremely interesting. 
 I had always a strong attachment to that unfortunate though 
 most richly-gifted man, because I thought I saw that his virtues 
 
458 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 (and tie had many) were his own ; and his eccentricities the 
 result of an irritable temperament, which sometimes approached 
 nearly to mental disease. Those who are gifted with strong 
 nerves, a regular temper, and habitual self-command, are not, 
 perhaps, aware how much of what they may think virtue they 
 owe to constitution ; and such are but too severe judges of 
 men like Byron, whose mind, like a day of alternate storm and 
 sunshine, is all dark shades and stray gleams of light, instead 
 of the twilight gray which illuminates happier though less 
 distinguished mortals. I always thought, that, when a moral 
 proposition was placed plainly before Lord Byron, his mind 
 yielded a pleased and willing assent to it; but, if there was 
 any side-view given in the way of raillery or otherwise, he was 
 willing enough to evade conviction. ... It augurs ill for the 
 cause of Greece that this master-spirit should have been with 
 drawn from their assistance just as he was obtaining a complete 
 ascendency over their counsels. I have seen several letters 
 from the Ionian Islands, all of which unite in speaking in the 
 highest praise of the wisdom and temperance of his counsels, 
 and the ascendency he was obtaining over the turbulent and 
 ferocious chiefs of the insurgents. I have some verses written 
 by him on his last birthday : they breathe a spirit of affection 
 towards his wife, and a desire of dying in battle, which seems 
 like an anticipation of his approaching fate." 
 
 I remain, sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 LINDSAY. 
 
 DUNECHT, Sept. 3. 
 
 DR. FORBES WINSLOW S LETTER TO "THE 
 LONDON TIMES." 
 
 TO THE EDITOR. 
 
 SIR, Your paper of the 4th of September, containing an 
 able and deeply interesting " Vindication of Lord Byron," has 
 followed me to this place. With the general details of the 
 " True Story " (as it is termed) of Lady Byron s separation from 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 459 
 
 her husband, as recorded in " Macmillan s Magazine," I have no 
 desire or intention to grapple. It is only with the hypothesis 
 of insanity, as suggested by the clever writer of the " Vindica 
 tion " to account for Lady Byron s sad revelations to Mrs. 
 Beecher Stowe, with which I propose to deal. I do not be 
 lieve that the mooted theory of mental aberration can, in this 
 case, be for a moment maintained. If Lady Byron s statement 
 of facts to Mrs. B. Stowe is to be viewed as the creation of a 
 distempered fancy, a delusion or hallucination of an insane 
 mind, at what part of the narrative are we to draw the bounda 
 ry-line between fact and delusion, sanity and insanity ? Where 
 are we to fix the point cTappui of the lunacy ? Again : is the 
 alleged " hallucination " to be considered as strictly confined to 
 the idea that Lord Byron had committed the frightful sin of in 
 cest ? or is the whole of the " True Story " of her married life, 
 as reproduced with such terrible minuteness by Mrs. Beecher 
 Stowe, to be viewed as the delusion of a disordered fancy ? If 
 Lady Byron was the subject of an " hallucination " with regard 
 to her husband, I think it not unreasonable to conclude that the 
 mental alienation existed on the day of her marriage. If this 
 proposition be accepted, the natural inference will be, that the 
 details of the conversation which Lady Byron represents to 
 have occurred between herself and Lord Byron as soon as they 
 entered the carriage never took place. Lord Byron is said to 
 have remarked to Lady Byron, " You might have prevented 
 this (or words to this effect) : you will now find that you have 
 married a devil." Is this alleged conversation to be viewed as 
 facf, or fiction ? evidence of sanity, or insanity ? Is the revelation 
 which Lord Byron is said to have made to his wife of his "in 
 cestuous passion " another delusion, having no foundation ex 
 cept in his wife s disordered imagination ? Are his alleged 
 attempts to justify to Lady Byron s mind the morale of the plea 
 of "Continental latitude, the good-humored marriage, in 
 which complaisant couples mutually agree to form the cloak for 
 each other s infidelities," another morbid perversion of her 
 imagination ? Did this conversation ever take place ? It will be 
 difficult to separate one part of the "True Story " from another, 
 and maintain that this portion indicates insanity, and that por- 
 
460 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 tion represents sanity. If we accept the hypothesis of hallu 
 cination, we are bound to view the whole of Lady Byrou s 
 conversations with Mrs. B. Stowe, and the written statement 
 laid before her, as the wild and incoherent representations of a 
 lunatic. On the day when Lady Byron parted from her hus 
 band, did she enter his private room, and find him with the 
 " object of his guilty passion " ? and did he say, as they parted, 
 " When shall we three meet again ? " Is this to be considered 
 as an actual occurrence, or as another form of hallucination ? 
 It is quite inconsistent with the theory of Lady Byron s insanity 
 to imagine that her delusion was restricted to the idea of his 
 having committed " incest." In common fairness, we are bound 
 to view the aggregate mental phenomena which she exhibited 
 from the day of the marriage to their final separation and her 
 death. No person practically acquainted with the true charac 
 teristics of insanity would affirm, that, had this idea of " incest " 
 been an insane hallucination, Lady Byron could, from the 
 lengthened period which intervened between her unhappy mar 
 riage and death, have refrained from exhibiting her mental alien 
 ation, not only to her legal advisers and trustees, but to others, 
 exacting no pledge of secrecy from them as to her disordered 
 impressions. Lunatics do for a time, and for some special pur 
 pose, most cunningly conceal their delusions ; but they have not 
 the capacity to struggle for thirty-six years with a frightful hal 
 lucination, similar to the one Lady Byron is alleged to have had, 
 without the insane state of mind becoming obvious to those 
 with whom they are daily associating. Neither is it consistent 
 with experience to suppose, that, if Lady Byron had been a 
 monomaniac, her state of disordered understanding would have 
 been restricted to one hallucination. Her diseased brain, affect 
 ing the normal action of thought, would, in all probability, have 
 manifested other symptoms besides those referred to of aberra 
 tion of intellect. 
 
 During the last thirty years, I have not met with a case of 
 insanity (assuming the hypothesis of hallucination) at all paral 
 lel with that of Lady Byron s. In my experience, it is unique. 
 I never saw a patient with such a delusion. If it should be es 
 tablished, by the statements of those who are the depositors of 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 461 
 
 the secret (and they are now bound, in vindication of Lord By 
 ron s memory, to deny, if they have the power of doing so, this 
 most frightful accusation), that the idea of incest did unhappily 
 cross Lady Byron s mind prior to her finally leaving him, it no 
 doubt arose from a most inaccurate knowledge of facts and per 
 fectly unjustifiable data, and was not, in the right psychological 
 acceptation of the phrase, an insane hallucination. 
 
 Sir, I remain your obedient servant, 
 
 FORBES WINSLOW, M.D. 
 ZARINGERHOF, FREBURG-EN-BREISGAU, Sept. 8, 1869. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM LORD BYRON S EXPUNGED 
 LETTER. 
 
 TO MR. MURRAY. 
 
 " BOLOGNA, June 7, 1819. 
 
 ..." Before I left Venice, I had returned to you your late, and 
 Mr. Hobhouse s sheets of Juan. Don t wait for further answers 
 from me, but address yours to Venice as usual. I know nothing 
 of my own movements. I may return there in a few days, or 
 not for some time : all this depends on circumstances. I left 
 Mr. Hoppner very well. My daughter Allegra is well too, and 
 is growing pretty : her hair is growing darker, and her eyes are 
 blue. Her temper and her ways, Mr. Hoppner says, are like 
 mine, as well as her features : she will make, in that case, a 
 manageable young lady. 
 
 " I have never seen any thing of Ada, the little Electra of my 
 Mycenae. . . . But there will come a day of reckoning, even if 
 
 I should not live to see it. I have at least seen shivered, 
 
 who was one of my assassins. When that man was doing his 
 worst to uproot my whole family, tree, branch, and blossoms ; 
 when, after taking my retainer, he went over to them ; when he 
 was bringing desolation on my hearth, and destruction on my 
 household gods, did he think, that, in less than three years, a 
 natural event, a severe domestic, but an expected and com 
 mon calamity, would lay his carcass in a cross-road, or stamp 
 
462 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 his name in a verdict of lunacy ? Did he (who in his sexage 
 nary . . .) reflect or consider what my feelings must have been 
 when wife and child and sister, and name and fame and country, 
 were to be my sacrifice on his legal altar ? and this at a moment 
 when my health was declining, my fortune embarrassed, and my 
 mind had been shaken by many kinds of disappointment ? while 
 I was yet young, and might have reformed what might be wrong 
 in my conduct, and retrieved what was perplexing in my affairs ? 
 But he is in his grave, and " What a long letter I have scrib 
 bled ! " . 
 
 IN order that the reader may measure the change of moral 
 tone with regard to Lord Byron, wrought by the constant efforts 
 of himself and his party, we give the two following extracts from 
 " Blackwood." 
 
 The first is " Blackwood " in 1819, just after the publication 
 of " Don Juan : " the second is " Blackwood " in 1825. 
 
 " In the composition of this work, there is, unquestionably, a 
 more thorough and intense infusion of genius and vice, power 
 and profligacy, than in any poem which had ever before been 
 written in the English, or, indeed, in any other modern language. 
 Had the wickedness been less inextricably mingled with the 
 beauty and the grace and the strength of a most inimitable and 
 incomprehensible Muse, our task would have been easy. Don 
 Juan is by far the most admirable specimen of the mixture of 
 ease, strength, gayety, and seriousness, extant in the whole body 
 of English poetry : the author has devoted his powers to ihe 
 worst of purposes and passions ; and it increases his guilt and 
 our sorrow that he has devoted them entire. 
 
 " The moral strain of the whole poem is pitched in the lowest 
 key. Love, honor, patriotism, religion, are mentioned only to 
 be scoffed at, as if their sole resting-place were, or ought to be, 
 in the bosoms of fools. It appears, in short, as if this misera 
 ble man, having exhausted every species of sensual gratification, 
 having drained the cup of sin even to its bitterest dregs, were 
 resolved to show us that he is no longer a human being, even 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 463 
 
 in his frailties, but a cool, unconcerned fiend, laughing with a 
 detestable glee over the whole of the better and worse elements 
 of which human life is composed ; treating well-nigh with equal 
 derision the most pure of virtues, and the most odious of vices; 
 dead alike to the beauty of the one, and the deformity of the 
 other ; a mere heartless despiser of that frail but noble human 
 ity, whose type was never exhibited in a shape of more deplora 
 ble degradation than in his own contemptuously distinct deline 
 ation of himself. To confess to his Maker, and weep over in 
 secret agonies the wildest and most fantastic transgressions of 
 heart and mind, is the part of a conscious sinner, in whom sin 
 has not become the sole principle of life and action ; but to 
 lay bare to the eye of man and of woman all the hidden con 
 vulsions of a wicked spirit, and to do all this without one symp 
 tom of contrition, remorse, or hesitation, with a calm, careless 
 ferociousness of contented and satisfied depravity, this was an 
 insult which no man of genius had ever before dared to put 
 upon his Creator or his species. Impiously railing against his 
 God, madly and meanly disloyal to his sovereign and his coun 
 try, and brutally outraging all the best feelings of female honor, 
 affection, and confidence, how small a part of chivalry is that 
 which remains to the descendant of the Byrons ! a gloomy 
 visor and a deadly weapon ! 
 
 " Those who are acquainted (as who is not ?) with the main 
 incidents in the private life of Lord Byron, and who have not 
 seen this production, will scarcely believe that malignity should 
 have carried him so far as to make him commence a filthy and 
 impious poem with an elaborate satire on the character and 
 manners of his wife, from whom, even by his own confession, 
 he has been separated only in consequence of his own cruel and 
 heartless misconduct. It is in vain for Lord Byron to attempt 
 in any way to justify his own behavior in that affair ; and, now 
 that he has so openly and audaciously invited inquiry and 
 reproach, we do not see any good reason why he should not 
 be plainly told so by the general voice of his countrymen. It 
 would not be an easy matter to persuade any man who has any 
 knowledge of the nature of woman, that a female such as Lord 
 Byron has himself described his wife to be would rashly or 
 
464 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 hastily or lightly separate herself from the love with which 
 she had once been inspired for such a man as he is or was. 
 Had he not heaped insult upon insult, and scorn upon scorn, 
 had he not forced the iron of his contempt into her very soul, 
 there is no woman of delicacy and virtue, as he admitted Lady 
 Byron to be, who would not have hoped all things, and suffered 
 all things, from one, her love of whom must have been inwoven 
 with so many exalting elements of delicious pride, and more 
 delicious humility. To offend the love of such a woman -was 
 wrong, but it might be forgiven ; to desert her was unmanly, 
 but he might have returned, and wiped forever from her eyes 
 the tears of her desertion : but to injure and to desert, and then 
 to turn back and wound her widowed privacy with unhallowed 
 strains of cold-blooded mockery, was brutally, fiendishly, inex- 
 piably mean. For impurities there might be some possibility 
 of pardon, were they supposed to spring only from the reckless 
 buoyancy of young blood and fiery passions ; for impiety there 
 might at least be pity, were it visible that the misery of the 
 impious soul equalled its darkness : but for offences such as 
 this, which cannot proceed either from the madness of sudden 
 impulse or the bewildered agonies of doubt, but which speak 
 the wilful and determined spite of an unrepenting, unsoftened, 
 smiling, sarcastic, joyous sinner, there can be neither pity nor 
 pardon. Our knowledge that it is committed by one of the most 
 powerful intellects our island ever has produced lends intensity 
 a thousand-fold to the bitterness of our indignation. Every 
 high thought that was ever kindled in our breasts by the Muse 
 of Byron, every pure and lofty feeling that ever responded from 
 within us to the sweep of his majestic inspirations, every re 
 membered moment of admiration and enthusiasm, is up in arms 
 against him. We look back with a mixture of wrath and scorn 
 to the delight with which we suffered ourselves to be filled by 
 one, who, all the while he was furnishing us with delight, must, 
 we cannot doubt it, have been mocking us with a cruel mock 
 ery ; less cruel only, because less peculiar, than that with which 
 he has now turned him from the lurking-place of his selfish and 
 polluted exile to pour the pitiful chalice of his contumely on 
 the surrendered devotion of a virgin bosom, and the holy hopes 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 465 
 
 of the mother of his child. It is indeed a sad and a humiliating 
 thing to know, that, in the same year, there proceeded from the 
 same pen two productions in all things so different as the fourth 
 canto of Childe Harold and this loathsome Don Juan. 
 
 " We have mentioned one, and, all will admit, the worst in 
 stance of the private malignity which has been embodied in so 
 many passages of Don Juan ; and we are quite sure the 
 lofty-minded and virtuous men whom Lord Byron has debased 
 himself by insulting will close the volume which contains their 
 own injuries, with no feelings save those of pity for him that 
 has inflicted them, and for her who partakes so largely in the 
 same injuries." August, 1819. 
 
 " BLACKWOOD," itcrum. 
 
 " WE shall/like all others who say any thing about Lord By 
 ron, begin, sans apologie, with his personal character. This is the 
 great object of attack, the constant theme of open vituperation 
 to one set, and the established mark for all the petty but deadly 
 artillery of sneers, shrugs, groans, to another. Two widely 
 different matters, however, are generally, we might say univer 
 sally, mixed up here, the personal character of the man, as 
 proved by his course of life ; and his personal character, as 
 revealed in or guessed from his books. Nothing can be more 
 unfair than the style in which this mixture is made use of. Is 
 there a noble sentiment, a lofty thought, a sublime conception, 
 in the book ? Ah, yes ! is the answer. But what of that ? 
 It is only the roue Byron that speaks ! Is a kind, a generous 
 action of the man mentioned ? Yes, yes ! comments the 
 sage ; but only remember the atrocities of " Don Juan : " 
 depend on it, this, if it be true, must have been a mere freak 
 of caprice, or perhaps a bit of vile hypocrisy. Salvation is 
 thus shut out at either entrance : the poet damns the man, and 
 the man the poet. 
 
 " Nobody will suspect us of being so absurd as to suppose 
 that it is possible for people to draw no inferences as to the 
 3 
 
466 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 character of an author from his book, or to shut entirely out 
 of view, in judging of a book, that which they may happen to 
 know about the man who writes it. The cant of the day sup 
 poses such things to be practicable ; but they are not. But 
 what we complain of and scorn is the extent to which they are 
 carried in the case of this particular individual, as compared 
 with others ; the impudence with which things are at once 
 assumed to be facts in regard to his private, history ; and the 
 absolute unfairness of never arguing from his writings to him, 
 but for evil. 
 
 " Take the man, in the first place, as unconnected, in so far 
 as we can thus consider him, with his works ; and ask, What, 
 after all, are the bad things we know of him ? Was he dis 
 honest or dishonorable ? had he ever done any thing to forfeit, 
 or even endanger, his rank as a gentleman ? Most assuredly, 
 no such accusations have ever been maintained against Lord 
 Byron the private nobleman, although something of the sort 
 may have been insinuated against the author/ But he was 
 such a profligate in his morals, that his name- cannot be men 
 tioned with any thing like tolerance. Was he so x indeed? 
 We should like extremely to have the catechising of the in 
 dividual man who says so. That he indulged in sensual vices, 
 to some extent, is certain, and to be regretted and condemned. 
 But was he worse, as to such matters, than the enormous 
 majority of those who join in the cry of horror upon this occa 
 sion ? We most assuredly believe exactly the reverse ; and we 
 rest our belief upon very plain and intelligible grounds. First, 
 we hold it impossible that the majority of mankind, or that any 
 thing beyond a very small minority, are or can be entitled to 
 talk of sensual profligacy as having formed a part of the life 
 and character of the man, who, dying at -six and thirty, 
 bequeathed a collection of works such as Byron s to the world. 
 Secondly, we hold it impossible, that laying the. extent of his 
 intellectual labors out of the question, and looking only to the 
 nature of the intellect which generated, and delighted in gene 
 rating, such beautiful and noble conceptions as are to be found 
 in almost all Lord Byron s works, we hold it impossible that 
 very many men can be at once capable of comprehending these 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 467 
 
 conceptions, and entitled to consider sensual profligacy as 
 having formed the principal, or even a principal, trait in Lord 
 Byron s character. Thirdly, and lastly, we have never been 
 able to hear any one fact established which could prove Lord 
 Byron to deserve any thing like the degree or even kind of 
 odium which has, in regard to matters of this class, been 
 heaped upon his name. We have no story of base unmanly 
 seduction, or false -and villanous intrigue, against him, none 
 whatever. It seems to us quite clear, that, if he had been at 
 all what is called in society an unprincipled sensualist, there 
 must have been many such stories, authentic and authenticated. 
 But there are none such, absolutely none. His name has 
 been coupled with the names of three, four, or more women of 
 some rank : but what kind of women ? Every one of them, in 
 the first place, about as old as himself in years, and therefore" 
 a great deal older in character ; every one of them utterly 
 battered in reputation long before he came into contact with 
 them, licentious, unprincipled, characterless women. What 
 father has ever reproached him with the ruin of his daughter ? 
 What husband has denounced him as the destroyer of his 
 peace ? 
 
 "Let us not be mistaken. We are not defending the 
 offences of which Lord Byron unquestionably was guilty ; 
 neither are we finding fault with those, who, after looking 
 honestly within and around themselves, condemn those offences, 
 no matter how severely : but we are speaking of society in 
 general as it now exists ; and we say that there is vile hypocrisy 
 in the tone in which Lord Byron is talked of there. We say, 
 that, although all offences against purity of life are miserable 
 things, and condemnable things, the degrees of guilt attached to 
 different offences of this class are as widely different as are the 
 degrees of guilt between an assault and a murder ; and we con 
 fess our belief, that no man of Byron s station and age could 
 have run much risk in gaining a very bad name in society, had 
 a course of life similar (in so far as we know any thing of that) 
 to Lord Byron s been the only thing chargeable against him. 
 
 " The last poem he wrote was produced upon his birthday, 
 not many weeks before he died. We consider it as one of the 
 
468 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 finest and most touching effusions of his noble genius. We 
 think he who reads it, and can ever after bring himself to 
 regard even the worst transgressions that have been charged 
 against Lord Byron with any feelings but those of humble sor 
 row and manly pity, is not deserving of the name of man. The 
 deep and passionate struggles with the inferior elements of his 
 nature (and ours) which it records ; the lofty thirsting after 
 purity ; the heroic devotion of a soul half weary of life, because 
 unable to believe in its own powers to live up to what it so 
 intensely felt to be, and so reverentially honored as, the right ; 
 the whole picture of this mighty spirit, often darkened, but never 
 sunk, often erring, but never ceasing to see and to worship the 
 beauty of virtue ; the repentance of it ; the anguish ; the aspira 
 tion, almost stifled in despair, the whole of this is such a whole, 
 that we are sure no man can read these solemn verses too often ; 
 and we recommend them for repetition, as the best and most 
 conclusive of all possible answers whenever the name of 
 Byron is insulted by those who permit themselves to forget 
 nothing, either in his life or in his writings, but the good." 
 [1825.] 
 
 THE following letters of Lady Byron s are reprinted from the 
 Memoirs of H. C. Robinson. They are given that the reader 
 may form some judgment of the strength and activity of her 
 mind, and the elevated class of subjects upon which it habitually 
 dwelt. 
 
 LADY BYRON TO H. C. R. 
 
 "DEC. 31, 1853. 
 
 "DEAR MR. CRABB ROBINSON, I have an inclination, if I 
 were not afraid of trespassing on your time (but you can put my 
 letter by for any leisure moment), to enter upon the history of 
 a character which I think less appreciated than it ought to be. 
 Men, I observe, do not understand men in certain points, with 
 out a woman s interpretation. Those points, of course, relate 
 to feelings. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 469 
 
 " Here is a man taken by most of those who come in his way 
 either for Dry-as-dust, Matter-of-fact, or for a vain visionary. 
 There are, doubtless, some defective or excessive characteristics 
 which give rise to those impressions. 
 
 " My acquaintance was made, oddly enough, with him twenty- 
 seven years ago. A pauper said to me of him, * He s the poor 
 man s doctor. Such a recommendation seemed to me a good 
 one : and I also knew that his organizing head had formed the 
 first district society in England (for Mrs. Fry told me she could 
 not have effected it without his aid) ; yet he has always ignored 
 his own share of it. I felt in him at once the curious combina 
 tion of the Christian and the cynic, of reverence for man, and 
 contempt of. men. It was then an internal war, but one in 
 which it was evident to me that the holier cause would be vic 
 torious, because there was deep belief, and, as far as I could 
 learn, a blameless and benevolent life. He appeared only to 
 want sunshine. It was a plant which could not be brought to 
 perfection in darkness. He had begun life by the most painful 
 conflict between filial duty and conscience, a large provision 
 in the church secured for him by his father ; but he could not 
 sign. There was discredit, as you know, attached to such Scru 
 ples. 
 
 " He was also, when I first knew him, under other circum 
 stances of a nature to depress him, and to make him feel that 
 he was unjustly treated. The gradual removal of these called 
 forth his better nature in thankfulness to God. Still the old 
 misanthropic modes of expressing himself obtruded themselves 
 at times. This passed in 48 between him and Robertson. 
 Robertson said to me, I want to know something about 
 ragged schools. I replied, You had better ask Dr.- King : 
 he knows more about them. I? said Dr. King. I 
 take care to know nothing of ragged schools, lest they should 
 make me ragged. Robertson did not see through it. Perhaps 
 I had been taught to understand such suicidal speeches by my 
 cousin, Lord Melbourne. 
 
 " The example of Christ, imperfectly as it may be understood 
 by him, has been ever before his eyes : he woke to the thought 
 of following it, and he went to rest consoled or rebuked by it 
 
47O MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 After nearly thirty years of intimacy, I may, without presump 
 tion, form that opinion. There is something pathetic to me in 
 seeing any one so unknown. Even the other medical friends 
 of Robertson, when I knew that Dr. King felt a woman s 
 tenderness, said on one occasion to him, But we know that 
 you, Dr. King, are above all feeling. 
 
 " If I have made the character more consistent to you by 
 putting in these bits of mosaic, my pen will not have been ill 
 employed, nor unpleasingly to you. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 "A. NOEL BYRON." 
 
 LADY BYRON TO H. C. R. 
 
 "BRIGHTON, Nov. 15, 1854. 
 
 " The thoughts of all this public and private suffering have 
 taken the life out of my pen when I tried to write on matters 
 which would otherwise have been most interesting to me : these 
 seemed the shadows, that the stern reality. It is good, how 
 ever, to be drawn out of scenes in which one is absorbed most 
 unprofitably, and to have one s natural interests revived by such 
 a letter as I have to thank you for, as well as its predecessor. 
 You touch upon the very points which do interest me the most, 
 habitually. The change of form, and enlargement of design, in 
 The Prospective had led me to express to one of the promoters 
 of that object my desire to contribute. The religious crisis is 
 instant ; but the man for it ? The next best thing, if, as I believe, 
 he is not to be found in England, is an association of such men 
 as are to edit the new periodical. An address delivered by 
 Freeman Clarke at Boston, last May, makes me think him bet 
 ter fitted for a leader than any other of the religious Free 
 thinkers. I wish I could send you my one copy ; but you do 
 not need it, and others do. His object is the same as that of 
 the Alliance Universelle : only he is still more free from 
 partialism (his own word) in his aspirations and practical 
 suggestions with respect to an ultimate Christian synthesis. 
 He so far adopts Comte s theory as to speak of religion it 
 self under three successive aspects, historically, i. Thesis; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 4/1 
 
 2. Antithesis ; 3. Synthesis. I made his acquaintance in Eng 
 land ; and he inspired confidence at once by his brave inde 
 pendence (incomptis capillis] and seif-zmconsciousness. J. J. 
 Tayler s address of last month follows in the same path, all 
 in favor of the irenics, instead of polemics. 
 
 " The answer which you gave me so fully and distinctly to 
 the questions I proposed for your consideration was of value in 
 turning to my view certain aspects of the case which I had not 
 before observed. I had begun a second attack on your patience, 
 when all was forgotten in the news of the day." 
 
 LADY BYRON TO H. C. R. 
 
 " BRIGHTON, Dec. 25, 1854. 
 
 " With J. J. Tayler, though almost a stranger to him, I have 
 a peculiar reason for sympathizing. A book of his was a treas 
 ure to my daughter on her death-bed.* 
 
 " I must confess to intolerance of opinion as, to these two 
 points, eternal evil in any form, and (involved in it) eternal 
 suffering. To believe in these would take away my God, who 
 is all-loving. With a God with whom omnipotence and omni 
 science were all, evil might be eternal ; but why do I say to you 
 what has been better said elsewhere ? " 
 
 LADY BYRON TO H. C. R. 
 
 " BRIGHTON, Jan. 31, 1855. 
 
 . . . " The great difficulty in respect to The Review t seems 
 to be to settle a basis, inclusive and exclusive ; in short, a 
 boundary question. From what you said, I think you agreed 
 with me, that a latitudinarian Christianity ought to be the 
 character of the periodical ; but the depth of the roots should 
 correspond with the width of the branches of that tree of 
 knowledge. Of some of those minds one might say, They 
 
 * Probably " The Christian Aspects of Faith and Duty." Mr. Tayler has 
 also written " A Retrospect of the Religious Life of England." 
 i "The National Review." 
 
4/2 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 have no root ; and then, the richer the foliage, the more danger 
 that the trunk will fall. Grounded in Christ has to me a 
 most practical significance and value. I, too, have anxiety 
 about a friend (Miss Carpenter) whose life is of public im 
 portance : she, more than any of the English reformers, un 
 less Nash and Wright, has found the art of drawing out the 
 good of human nature, and proving its existence. She makes 
 these discoveries by the light of love. I hope she may re 
 cover, from to-day s report. The object of a Reformatory in 
 Leicester has just been secured at a county meeting. . . . 
 Now the desideratum is well-qualified masters and mistresses. 
 If you hear of such by chance, pray let me know. The 
 regular schoolmaster is an extinguisher. Heart, and familiarity 
 .with the class to be educated, are all important. At home 
 and abroad, the evidence is conclusive on that point ; for I have 
 for many years attended to such experiments in various parts 
 of Europe. The Irish Quarterly has taken up the subject 
 with rather more zeal than judgment. I had hoped that a 
 sound and temperate exposition of the facts might form an 
 article in the Might-have-been Review. " 
 
 LADY BYRON TO H. C. R. 
 
 " BRIGHTON, Feb. 12, 1855. 
 
 " I have at last earned the pleasure of writing to you by 
 having settled troublesome matters of little moment, except 
 locally ; and I gladly take a wider range by sympathizing in 
 your interests. There is, besides, no responsibility for me 
 at least in canvassing the merits of Russell or Palmerston, 
 but much in deciding whether the village politician Jack 
 son or Thompson shall be leader in the school and public- 
 house. 
 
 " Has not the nation been brought to a conviction that the 
 system should be broken up ? and is Lord Palmerston, who has 
 used it so long and so cleverly, likely to promote that object ? 
 
 " But, whatever obstacles there may be in state affairs, that 
 general persuasion must modify other departments of action 
 and knowledge. * Unroasted coffee will no longer be acceptec 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 4/3 
 
 under the official seal, another reason for a new literary 
 combination for distinct special objects, a review in which 
 every separate article should be convergent. If, instead of the 
 problem to make a circle pass through three given points, it 
 were required to find the centre from which to describe a circle 
 through any three articles in the Edinburgh or Westminster 
 Review, who would accomplish it ? Much force is lost for want 
 of this one-mindedness amongst the contributors. It would 
 not exclude variety or freedom in the unlimited discussion of 
 means towards the ends unequivocally recognized. If St. 
 Paul had edited a review, he might have admitted Peter as well 
 as Luke or Barnabas. . . . 
 
 " Ross gave us an excellent sermon, yesterday, on Hallow 
 ing Hie Name. Though far from commonplace, it might have 
 been delivered in any church. 
 
 " We have had Fanny Kemble here last week. I only heard 
 her Romeo and Juliet," not less instructive, as her readings 
 always are, than exciting ; for in her glass Shakspeare is a 
 philosopher. I know her, and honor her for her truthfulness 
 amidst all trials." 
 
 LADY BYRON TO H. C. R. 
 
 " BRIGHTON, March 5, 1855. 
 
 " I recollect only those passages of Dr. Kennedy s book 
 wh ; " u bear upon the opinions of Lord Byron. Strange as it 
 may seem, Dr. Kennedy is most faithful where you doubt his 
 being so. Not merely from casual expressions, but from the 
 wa 1 : tenor of Lord Byron s feelings, I could not but conclude 
 he was a believer in the inspiration of the Bible, and had the 
 gloomiest Calvinistic tenets. To that unhappy view of the re 
 lation of the creature to the Creator, I have always ascribed the 
 misery of his life. ... It is enough for me to remember, that 
 he who thinks his transgressions beyond forgiveness (and such 
 ws nis own deepest feeling) has righteousness beyond that of 
 the self-satisfied sinner, or, perhaps, of the half-awakened. It 
 was impossible for me to doubt, that, could he have been at once 
 asoured of pardon, his living faith in a moral duty, and love of 
 
4/4 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 virtue ( I love the virtues which I cannot claim ), would have 
 conquered every temptation. Judge, then, how I must hate 
 the creed which made him see God as an Avenger, not a 
 Father ! My own impressions were just the reverse, but could 
 have little weight ; and it was in vain to seek to turn his 
 thoughts for long from that idee fixe with which he connected 
 his physical peculiarity as a stamp. Instead of being made 
 happier by any apparent good, he felt convinced that every 
 blessing would be turned into a curse to him. Who, pos 
 sessed by such ideas, could lead a life of love and service to 
 God or man ? They must, in a measure, realize themselves. 
 The worst of it is, I do believe, he said. I, like all con 
 nected with him, was broken against the rock of predestina 
 tion. I may be pardoned for referring to his frequent expres 
 sion of the sentiment that I was only sent to show him the 
 happiness he was forbidden to enjoy. You will now better 
 understand why The Deformed Transformed is too painful 
 to me for discussion. Since writing the above, I have read Dr. 
 Granville s letter on the Emperor of Russia, some passages of 
 which seem applicable to the prepossession I have described. 
 I will not mix up less serious matters with these, which forty 
 years have not made less than present still to me." 
 
 LADY BYRON TO H. C. R. 
 
 - - " BRIGHTON, April 8, 1855. 
 
 ..." The book which has interested me most, lately, is 
 that on Mosarsm, translated by Miss Goldsmid, and which I 
 read, as you will believe, without any Christian (unchristian?) 
 prejudice. The missionaries of the Unity were always, from 
 my childhood, regarded by me as in that sense the people ; and 
 I believe they were true to that mission, though blind, intel 
 lectually, in demanding the crucifixion. The present aspect of 
 Jewish opinions, as shown in that book, is all but Christian. 
 The author is under the error of taking, as the representatives 
 of Christianity, the Mystics, Ascetics, and Quietists ; and 
 therefore he does not know how near he is to the true spirit of 
 the gospel. If you should happen to see Miss Goldsmid, pray 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 4/5 
 
 tell her what a great service I think she has rendered to us 
 soi-disants Christians in translating a book which must make us 
 sensible of the little we have done, and the much we have to 
 do, to justify our preference of the later to the earlier dispen 
 sation." . . . 
 
 LADY BYRON TO H. C. R. 
 
 "BRIGHTON, April u, 1855. 
 
 " You appear to have more definite information respecting 
 The Review than I have obtained. ... It was also said that 
 The Review would, in fact, be The Prospective amplified, 
 not satisfactory to me, because I have always thought that 
 periodical too Unitarian, in the sense of separating itself from 
 other Christian churches, if not by a high wall, at least by a 
 wire-gauze fence. Now, separation is to me the aipeoie. The 
 revelation through Nature never separates : it is the revelation 
 through the Book which separates. Whewell and Brewster 
 would have been one, had they not, I think, equally dimmed 
 their lamps of science when reading their Bibles. As long as 
 we think a truth better for being shut up in a text, we are not 
 of the wide-world religion, which is to include all in one fold : 
 for that text will not be accepted by the followers of other 
 books, or students of the same ; and separation will ensue. The 
 Christian Scripture should be dear to us, not as the charter of 
 a few, but of mankind ; and to fashion it into cages is to deny 
 its ultimate objects. These thoughts hot, like the roll at break 
 fast, where your letter was so welcome an addition." 
 
 THREE DOMESTIC POEMS BY LORD BYRON. 
 
 FARE THEE WELL. 
 
 FARE thee well ! and if forever, 
 
 Still forever fare thee well ! 
 Even though unforgiving, never 
 
 Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. 
 
476 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 Would that breast were bared before thee 
 Where thy head so oft hath lain, 
 
 While that placid sleep came o er thee 
 Which thou ne er canst know again ! 
 
 Would that breast, by thee glanced over, 
 Every inmost thought could show 1 
 
 Then thou wouldst at last discover * 
 Twas not well to spurn it so. 
 
 Though the world for this commend thee, 
 Though it smile upon the blow, 
 
 Even its praises must offend thee, 
 Founded on another s woe. 
 
 Though my many faults defaced me, 
 Could no other arm be found, 
 
 Than the one which once embraced me, 
 To inflict a cureless wound ? 
 
 Yet, oh ! yet, thyself deceive not : 
 Love may sink by slow decay ; 
 
 But, by sudden wrench, believe not 
 Hearts can thus be torn away : 
 
 Still thine own its life retaineth ; 
 
 Still must mine, though bleeding, beat ; 
 And the undying thought which paineth 
 
 Is that we no more may meet. 
 
 These are words of deeper sorrow 
 Than the wail above the dead : 
 
 Both shall live, but every morrow 
 Wake us from a widowed bed. 
 
 And when thou wouldst solace gather, 
 When our child s first accents flow, 
 
 Wilt thou teach her to say " Father," 
 Though his care she must forego ? 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 477 
 
 When her little hand shall press thee, 
 
 When her lip to thine is pressed, 
 Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee ; 
 
 Think of him thy love had blessed. 
 
 Should her lineaments resemble 
 
 Those thou never more mayst see, 
 Then thy heart will softly tremble 
 
 With a pulse yet true to me. 
 
 All my faults, perchance, thou knowest ; 
 
 All my madness none can know : 
 All my hopes, where er thou goest, 
 
 Wither ; yet with thee they go. 
 
 Every feeling hath been shaken : 
 
 Pride, which not a world could bow, 
 Bows to thee, by thee forsaken ; 
 
 Even my soul forsakes me now. 
 
 But tis done : all words are idle ; 
 
 Words from me are vainer still ; 
 But the thoughts we cannot bridle 
 
 Force their way without the will. 
 
 Fare thee well ! thus disunited, 
 
 Torn from every nearer tie, 
 Seared in heart, and lone and blighted, 
 
 More than this I scarce can die. 
 
 A SKETCH. 
 
 BORN in the garret, in the kitchen bred ; 
 Promoted thence to deck her mistress head ; 
 Next for some gracious service unexpressed, 
 And from its wages only to be guessed 
 Raised from the toilette to the table, where 
 Her wondering betters wait behind her chair. 
 
478 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 > With eye unmoved, and forehead unabashed, 
 She dines from off the plate she lately washed. 
 Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, 
 The genial confidante and general spy, 
 Who could, ye gods ! her next employment guess ? - 
 An only infant s earliest governess ! 
 She taught the child to read, and taught so well, 
 That she herself, by teaching, learned to spell. 
 An adept next in penmanship she grows, 
 As many a nameless slander deftly shows : 
 What she had made the pupil of her art, 
 None know ; but that high soul secured the heart, 
 And panted for the truth it could not hear, 
 With longing breast and undeluded ear. 
 Foiled was perversion by that youthful mind 
 Which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, 
 Deceit infect not, near contagion soil, 
 Indulgence weaken, nor example spoil, 
 Nor mastered science tempt her to look down 
 On humbler talents with a pitying frown, 
 Nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, 
 Nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain, 
 Nor fortune change, pride raise, nor passion bow, 
 Nor virtue teach austerity, till now. 
 Serenely purest of her sex that live ; 
 But wanting one sweet weakness, to forgive ; 
 Too shocked at faults her soul can never know, 
 She deems that all could be like her below : 
 Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue s friend ; 
 For Virtue pardons those she would amend. 
 
 But to the theme, now laid aside too long, 
 The baleful burthen of this honest song. 
 Though all her former functions are no more, 
 She rules the circle which she served before. 
 If mothers none know why before her quake ; 
 If daughters dread her for the mothers sake ; 
 If early habits those false links, which bind 
 At times the loftiest to the meanest mind 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 479 
 
 Have given her power too deeply to instil 
 
 The angry essence of her deadly will ; 
 
 If like a snake she steal within your walls 
 
 Till the black slime betray her as she crawls ; 
 
 If like a viper to the heart she wind, 
 
 And leave the venom there she did not find, 
 
 What marvel that this hag of hatred works 
 
 Eternal evil latent as she lurks, 
 
 To make a Pandemonium where she dwells, 
 
 And reign the Hecate of domestic hells ? 
 
 Skilled by a touch to deepen scandal s tints 
 
 With all the kind mendacity of hints, 
 
 While mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with smiles, 
 
 A thread of candor with a web of wiles ; 
 
 A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming, 
 
 To hide her bloodless heart s soul-hardened scheming ; 
 
 A lip of lies ; a face formed to conceal, 
 
 And, without feeling, mock at all who feel ; 
 
 With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown ; 
 
 A cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone. 
 
 Mark how the channels of her yellow blood 
 
 Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud ! 
 
 Cased like the centipede in saffron mail, 
 
 Or darker greenness of the scorpion s scale, 
 
 ( For drawn from reptiles only may we trace 
 
 Congenial colors in that soul or face,) 
 
 Look on her features ! and behold her mind 
 
 As in a mirror of itself defined. 
 
 Look on the picture ! deem it not o ercharged ; 
 
 There is no trait which might not be enlarged : 
 
 Yet true to " Nature s journeymen," who made 
 
 This monster when their mistress left off trade, 
 
 This female dog-star of her little sky, 
 
 Where all beneath her influence droop or die. 
 
 O wretch without a tear, without a thought, 
 Save joy above the ruin thou hast wrought 1 
 
480 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 The time shall come, nor long remote, when thou 
 
 Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now, 
 
 Feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain, 
 
 And turn thee howling in unpitied pain. 
 
 May the strong curse of crushed affections light 
 
 Back on thy bosom with reflected blight, 
 
 And make thee, in thy leprosy of mind, 
 
 As loathsome to thyself as to mankind, 
 
 Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate 
 
 Black as thy will for others would create ; 
 
 Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust, 
 
 And thy soul welter in its hideous crust ! 
 
 Oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed, 
 
 The widowed couch of fire, that thou hast spread ! 
 
 Then, when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with prayer, 
 
 Look on thine earthly victims, and despair ! 
 
 Down to the dust ! and, as thou rott st away, 
 
 Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay. 
 
 But for the love I bore, and still must bear, 
 
 To her thy malice from all ties would tear, 
 
 Thy name, thy human name, to every eye 
 
 The climax of all scorn, should hang on high, 
 
 Exalted o er thy less abhorred compeers, 
 
 And festering in the infamy of years. 
 
 LINES 
 
 ON HEARING THAT LADY BYRON WAS ILL. 
 
 AND thou wert sad, yet I was not with thee ! 
 
 And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near ! 
 Methought that joy and health alone could be 
 
 Where I was not, and pain and sorrow here. 
 And is it thus ? It is as I foretold, 
 
 And shall be more so ; for the mind recoils 
 Upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold, 
 
 While heaviness collects the shattered spoils. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 481 
 
 It is not in the storm nor in the strife 
 
 We feel benumbed, and wish to be no more, 
 But in the after-silence on the shore, 
 When all is lost except a little life. 
 I am too well avenged ! But twas my right : 
 
 Whate er my sins might be, thou wert not sent 
 To be the Nemesis who should requite ; 
 
 Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument 
 Mercy is for the merciful ! if thou 
 Hast been of such, twill be accorded now. 
 Thy nights are banished from the realms of sleep ! 
 
 Yes ! they may flatter thee ; but thou shalt feel 
 
 A hollow agony which will not heal ; 
 For thou art pillowed on a curse too deep : 
 Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap 
 
 The bitter harvest in a woe as real ! 
 I have had many foes, but none like thee ; 
 
 For gainst the rest myself I could defend, 
 
 And be avenged, or turn them into friend : 
 But thou in safe implacability 
 
 Hadst nought to dread, in thy own weakness shielded ; 
 And in my love, which hath but too much yielded, 
 
 And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare. 
 And thus upon the world, trust in thy truth, 
 And the wild fame of my ungoverned youth, 
 
 On things that were not and on things that are, 
 Even upon such a basis hast thou built 
 A monument, whose cement hath been guilt ! 
 The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord, 
 And hewed down, with an unsuspected sword, 
 Fame, peace, and hope, and all the better life, 
 
 Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart, 
 Might still have risen from out the grave of strife, 
 
 And found a nobler duty than to part. 
 But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice, 
 
 Trafficking with them in a purpose cold, 
 
 For present anger and for future gold, 
 And buying others grief at any price. 
 
482 MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS. 
 
 And thus, once entered into crooked ways, 
 The early truth, which was thy proper praise, 
 Did not still walk beside thee, but at times, 
 And with a breast unknowing its own crimes, 
 Deceit, averments incompatible, 
 Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell 
 
 In Janus-spirits ; the significant eye 
 Which learns to lie with silence ; the pretext 
 Of prudence, with advantages annexed ; 
 The acquiescence in all things which tend, 
 No matter how, to the desired end, 
 
 All found a place in thy philosophy. 
 The means were worthy, and the end is won : 
 I would not do by thee as thou hast done ! 
 
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