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 exhibitions 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. What impressed the writer more
strongly than anything else was Lady Byron's perfect conviction that 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 painful problem which first occurred
to her as a young wife, was, after all, the true one; namely, that Lord
Byron 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 susceptibility. She went through the
mismanagements of his childhood, 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 companions, 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 disbelieve or become reconciled to it; and the sore problems it
proposes embittered 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 for ever past; believing, that, with the
dropping of the earthly life, these morbid impulses and 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 something 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
labour 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 recognised
god-like 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 consideration of the subject. The decision which she
made was 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 community.
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.
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 late 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 remains 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
everything 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
defenceless dead which bids me break through a reserve that otherwise I
should have held sacred. The Lady Byron of 1818 would, I am certain,
have sanctioned my doing so, had she foreseen 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 rapidity 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.
The late Lady Anne Barnard, who died in 1825, a contemporary 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 prejudice, in consequence of what she believed to be his harsh and
cruel treatment of her young friend. I transcribe the following
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
sympathy or counsel could be any comfort to her. She came; but what a
tale was unfolded by this interesting young creature, who had so fondly
hoped to have made a young man of genius and romance (as she supposed)
happy! They had not been an hour in the carriage which conveyed them
from the church, when, breaking into a malignant sneer, "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," etc. I who listened was
astonished. "How could you go on after this," said I, "my 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 suppose 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 implications, 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 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 for ever!
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 were 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. "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 afterwards 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 favour, 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 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 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 resemblance 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 intricacies 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 colour 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 regard to his poetry, egotism is the vital principle 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 impenetrable 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
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 benevolence. 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 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 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 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, 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 clear 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 hallucination in respect of the
particular point in question.
The reader will admire the noble but severe character displayed 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 late Sir
Walter Scott, likewise in a letter to Lady Anne Barnard:--
'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 (and he 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 withdrawn from their assistance just as he
was obtaining a complete ascendancy 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 ascendancy 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 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
'Vindication' to account for Lady Byron's sad revelations to Mrs. Beecher
Stowe, with which I propose to deal. I do not believe 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, what part of the narrative are we to
draw the boundary-line between fact and delusion, sanity and insanity?
Where are we to fix the point d'appui 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 incest? 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 fact, or fiction? evidence of sanity, or insanity? Is the
revelation which Lord Byron is said to have made to his wife of his
'incestuous passion' another delusion, having no foundation except 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-humoured 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 portion
represents sanity. If we accept the hypothesis of hallucination, we are
bound to view the whole of Lady Byron'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
husband, 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 characteristics 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 her mental
alienation, 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 purpose, most cunningly
conceal their delusions; but they have not the capacity to struggle for
thirty-six years with a frightful hallucination, 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, affecting 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 insanity
(assuming the hypothesis of hallucination) at all parallel 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 established, by the statements of
those who are the depositors of the secret (and they are now bound, in
vindication of Lord Byron'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 perfectly
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, FREIBURG-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 anything 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 common calamity, would lay
his carcass in a cross-road, or stamp his name in a verdict of lunacy?
Did he (who in his sexagenary . . .) 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 scribbled!' . . .
* * * * *
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, gaiety, and seriousness, extant in the whole body of English
poetry: the author has devoted his powers to the 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,
honour, 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 miserable 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 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 humanity, whose type was never
exhibited in a shape of more deplorable degradation than in his own
contemptuously distinct delineation 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 convulsions of a
wicked spirit, and to do all this without one symptom 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 country, and brutally outraging all the best feelings of female
honour, 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 (and 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 behaviour 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 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 for ever 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,
inexpiably 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 remembered 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 mockery; 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 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 his loathsome "Don Juan."
'We have mentioned one, and, all will admit, the worst instance 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,'--iterum.
'We shall, like all others who say anything about Lord Byron, 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 universally, 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 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 supposes 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 dishonest or dishonourable? had he ever
done anything 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 mentioned with anything like tolerance."
Was he so, indeed? We should like extremely to have the catechising of
the individual 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 occasion? 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 anything 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 labours out of the
question, and looking only to the nature of the intellect which
generated, and delighted in generating, 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 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 anything 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 villainous 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 confess our belief, that no man of Byron's station
or 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 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
sorrow 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
honoured 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
aspiration, 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.]
LETTERS OF LADY BYRON TO H. C. ROBINSON
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, without a woman's interpretation. Those points, of
course, relate to feelings.
'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 combination 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 victorious, 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 scruples.
'He was also, when I first knew him, under other circumstances 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. After nearly thirty years of
intimacy, I may, without presumption, 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, however, 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 better 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 itself under three successive aspects, historically,--1. Thesis;
2. Antithesis; 3. Synthesis. I made his acquaintance in England; and he
inspired confidence at once by his brave independence (incomptis
capillis) and self-unconsciousness. J. J. Tayler's address of last month
follows in the same path,--all in favour 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 sympathising. A book of his was a treasure to my daughter on
her death-bed. {320a}
'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 omniscience 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" {320b} 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 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 importance: she, more than any
of the English reformers, unless 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 recover,
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" Jackson
or Thompson shall be leader in the school or 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 accepted 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 "Hallowing the 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
honour 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 which 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 whole 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
relation 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 was his 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 assured of pardon, his living
faith in a moral duty, and love of 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, possessed 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 connected with him, was broken against the rock of
predestination. I may be pardoned for referring to his frequent
expression 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
"Mosaism," 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, intellectually, 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 tell her what a
great service I think she has rendered to us soi-disant 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 dispensation.' . . .
* * * * *
LADY BYRON TO H. C. R.
BRIGHTON, April 11, 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 [Greek
text]. 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 breakfast, where
your letter was so welcome an addition.'
THREE DOMESTIC POEMS BY LORD BYRON.
FARE THEE WELL.
Fare thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever 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
Which thou ne'er canst know again!
Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show!
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?
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 unexpress'd,
And from its wages only to be guessed--
Raised from the toilette 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!
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--
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 candour 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 colours 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!
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.
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.
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!
FOOTNOTES.
{7} The italics are mine.
{14} The italics are mine.
{16} In Lady Blessington's 'Memoirs' this name is given Charlemont; in
the late 'Temple Bar' article on the character of Lady Byron it is given
Clermont. I have followed the latter.
{17} The italics are mine.
{21} 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.'
{22a} Vol. vi. p.22.
{22b} 'Byron's Miscellany,' vol. ii. p.358. London, 1853.
{23} The italics are mine.
{24} Lord Byron says, in his observations on an article in 'Blackwood:'
'I recollect being much hurt by Romilly's conduct: 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 Part III.)
{28a} Vol. iv. p.40
{28b} Ibid. p.46.
{31} The italics are mine.
{41} Vol. iv. p.143.
{43} Lord Byron took especial pains to point out to Murray the importance
of these two letters. Vol. V. Letter 443, he says: 'You must also have
from Mr. Moore the correspondence between me and Lady 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.'
{44} 'And I, who with them on the cross am placed,
. . . . truly
My savage wife, more than aught else, doth harm me.'
Inferno, Canto, XVI., Longfellow's translation.
{49} 'Conversations,' p.108.
{51} Murray's edition of 'Byron's Works,' vol. ii. p.189; date of
dedication to Hobhouse, Jan. 2, 1818.
{61} 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 herself.
{70a} The references are to the first volume of the first edition of
Moore's 'Life,' originally published by itself.
{70b} 'The officious spies of his privacy,' p.65O.
{72} 'The deserted husband,' p.651.
{86} '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.'
{95a} 'Noctes,' July 1822.
{95b} 'Noctes,' September 1832.
{105} Miss Martineau's Biographical Sketches.
{113} The italics are mine.--H. B. S.
{119} 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 that Byron mystified his
gallant acquaintance. He was fond of such tricks.'
{121} 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.
{126} 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
appreciation. 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.'
{139} The reader is here referred to Lady Byron's other letters, in Part
III.; which also show the peculiarly active and philosophical character
of her mind, and the class of subjects on which it habitually dwelt.
{147} See her character of Dr. King, Part III.
{148} Alluding to the financial crisis in the United States in 1857.
{149} 'The Minister's Wooing.'
{150} See her letter on spiritualistic phenomena, Part III.
{161} 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 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 imagine that I am afraid of you; I wear an
armour 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 service 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 reputation, 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.
{168} Alluding to Buchanan's election.
{178a} 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 civilisation, 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
'civilisation,' which, he says, after ten o'clock at night ought to be
abridged to civilation, 'by syncope, or vigorously speaking by hic-cup.'
{178b} Vol. v. pp.61, 75.
{181} These italics are ours.
{190a} 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 Milbanke'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.
{190b} 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.
{192} Probably Lady Milbanke's letters are among the sealed papers, and
would more fully explain the situation.
{205a} Hunt's Byron, p.77. Philadelphia, 1828.
{205b} From the Temple Bar article, October 1869. 'Mrs. Leigh, Lord
Byron's sister, had other thoughts of Mrs. Clermont, and wrote to her
offering 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, 183O, p.38O.
{219} 'My Recollections,' p.238.
{225} Vol. vi. p.242.
{227} The reader is here referred to the remarks of 'Blackwood' on 'Don
Juan' in Part III.
{258} The article in question is worth a careful reading. Its industry
and accuracy in amassing evidence are worthy attention.
{320a} Probably 'The Christian Aspects of Faith and Duty.' Mr. Tayler
has also written 'A Retrospect of the Religious Life of England.'
{320b} 'The National Review.'