The pretty fable by which the Duchess of Orleans illustrates the
character of her son, the regent, might, with little change, be
applied to Byron. All the fairies, save one, had been bidden to his
cradle. All the gossips had been profuse of their gifts. One had
bestowed nobility, another genius, a third beauty. The malignant elf
who had been uninvited came last, and, unable to reverse what her
sisters had done for their favorite, had mixt up a curse with every
blessing.
He was sprung of a house, ancient indeed and noble, but degraded and
impoverished by a series of crimes and follies, which had attained a
scandalous publicity. The kinsman whom he succeeded had died poor,
and, but for merciful judges, would have died upon the gallows. The
young peer had great intellectual powers; yet there was an unsound
part in his mind. He had naturally a generous and tender heart; but
his temper was irritable and wayward. He had a head which statuaries
loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the
street mimicked. Distinguished at once by the strength and by the
weakness of his intellect, affectionate yet perverse, a poor lord, and
a handsome cripple, he required, if ever man required, the firmest
and the most judicious training. But, capriciously as nature had
dealt with him, the relative to whom the office of forming his
character was entrusted was more capricious still. She passed from
paroxysms of rage to paroxysms of fondness. At one time she stifled
him with her caresses, at another time she insulted his deformity.
He came into the world, and the world treated him as his mother
treated him--sometimes with kindness, sometimes with severity, never
with justice. It indulged him without discrimination, and punished him
without discrimination. He was truly a spoilt child; not merely the
spoilt child of his parents, but the spoilt child of nature, the
spoilt child of fortune, the spoilt child of fame, the spoilt child of
society. His first poems[62] were received with a contempt which,
feeble as they were, they did not absolutely deserve. The poem which
he published on his returns from his travels[63] was, on the other
hand, extolled far above its merits. At twenty-four he found himself
on the highest pinnacle of literary fame, with Scott, Wordsworth,
Southey, and a crowd of other distinguished writers, beneath his feet.
There is scarcely an instance in history of so sudden a rise to so
dizzy an eminence.
Everything that could stimulate, and everything that could gratify the
strongest propensibilities of our nature--the gaze of a hundred
drawing-rooms, the acclamations of the whole nation, the applause of
applauded men, the love of the loveliest women--all this world, and
the glory of it, were at once offered to a young man, to whom nature
had given violent passions, and whom education had never taught to
control them. He lived as many men live who have no similar excuses to
plead for his faults. But his countrymen and his countrywomen would
love him and admire him. They were resolved to see in his excesses
only the flash and outbreak of the same fiery mind which glowed in his
poetry. He attacked religion; yet in religious circles his name was
mentioned with fondness, and in many religious publications his works
were censured with singular tenderness. He lampooned the Prince
Regent; yet he could not alienate the Tories. Everything, it seems,
was to be forgiven to youth, rank, and genius.
Then came the reaction. Society, capricious in its indignation as it
had been capricious in its fondness, flew into a rage with its froward
and petted darling. He had been worshiped with an irrational idolatry.
He was persecuted with an irrational fury. Much has been written about
those unhappy domestic occurrences which decided the fate of his life.
Yet nothing ever was positively known to the public but this--that he
quarreled with his lady, and that she refused to live with him. There
have been hints in abundance, and shrugs and shakings of the head, and
"Well, well, we know," and "We could if we would," and "If we list to
speak," and "There be that might an they list." But we are not aware
that there is before the world, substantiated by credible, or even by
tangible evidence, a single fact indicating that Lord Byron was more
to blame than any other man who is on bad terms with his wife. The
professional men whom Lady Byron consulted were undoubtedly of the
opinion that she ought not to live with her husband. But it is to be
remembered that they formed that opinion without hearing both sides.
We do not say, we do not mean to insinuate, that Lady Byron was in any
respect to blame. We think that those who condemn her on the evidence
which is now before the public are as rash as those who condemn her
husband. We will not pronounce any judgment; we can not, even in our
own minds, form any judgment on a transaction which is so imperfectly
known to us. It would have been well if, at the time of the
separation, all those who knew as little about the matter then as we
know about it now, had shown that forbearance, which, under such
circumstances, is but common justice.
We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its
periodical lifts of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and
family quarrels pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk
about it for a day, and forget it. But once in six or seven years, our
virtue becomes outrageous. We can not suffer the laws of religion and
decency to be violated. We must make a stand against vice. We must
teach libertines that the English people appreciate the importance of
domestic ties. Accordingly, some unfortunate man, in no respect more
depraved than hundreds whose offenses have been treated with lenity,
is singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he has children, they are
to be taken from him. If he has a profession, he is to be driven from
it. He is cut by the higher orders, and hissed by the lower. He is, in
truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the
other transgressors of the same class are, it is supposed,
sufficiently chastised. We reflect very complacently on our own
severity, and compare with great pride the high standard of morals
established in England, with the Parisian laxity. At length our anger
is satiated. Our victim is ruined and heart-broken. And our virtue
goes quietly to sleep for seven years more.
It is clear that those vices which destroy domestic happiness ought to
be as much as possible represt. It is equally clear that they can not
be represt by penal legislation. It is therefore right and desirable
that public opinion should be directed against them. But it should be
directed against them uniformly, steadily, and temperately, not by
sudden fits and starts. There should be one weight and one measure.
Declamation is always an objectionable mode of punishment. It is the
resource of judges too indolent and hasty to investigate facts, and to
discriminate nicely between shades of guilt. It is an irrational
practise, even when adopted by military tribunals. When adopted by the
tribunal of public opinion, it is infinitely more irrational. It is
good that a certain portion of disgrace should constantly attend on
certain bad actions. But it is not good that the offenders merely have
to stand the risks of a lottery of infamy that ninety-nine out of
every hundred should escape; and that the hundredth, perhaps the most
innocent of the hundred, should pay for all....
We can not even now retrace those events without feeling something of
what was felt by the nation when it was first known that the grave had
closed over so much sorrow and so much glory--something of what was
felt by those who saw the hearse, with its long train of coaches, turn
slowly northward, leaving behind it that cemetery, which had been
consecrated by the dust of so many great poets, but of which the doors
were closed against all that remained of Byron. We well remember that,
on that day, rigid moralists could not refrain from weeping for one so
young, so illustrious, so unhappy, gifted with such rare gifts and
tried by such strong temptations. It is unnecessary to make any
reflections. The history carries its moral with it. Our age has indeed
been fruitful of warnings to the eminent, and of consolation to the
obscure. Two men have died within our recollection, who at a time of
life at which few people have completed their education, had raised
themselves, each in his own department, to the height of glory. One of
them died at Longwood,[64] the other at Missolonghi.[65]