LORD BYRON'S MARRIAGE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
Lord Byron's marriage exercised such a deplorable influence over his
destiny, that it is impossible to speak of it succinctly, and without
entering into details; for this one great misfortune proved the fruitful
source of all others.
If we were permitted to believe that Providence sometimes abandons men
here below to the influence of an evil genius, we might well conceive
this baneful intervention in the case of Lord Byron's conjugal union,
and all the circumstances that led to it.
It was but a few months after having returned from his travels in the
East, that Lord Byron published his first cantos of "Childe Harold," and
obtained triumphs as an orator in the House of Lords. Presenting himself
thus for the first time to the public, surrounded by all the prestige
belonging to a handsome person, rank, and youth,--in a word, with such
an assemblage of qualities as are seldom if ever found united in one
person--he immediately became the idol of England. The enemies created
by his boyish satire, and augmented by the jealousy his success could
not fail to cause, now hid themselves like those vile insects that slink
back into their holes on the first appearance of the sun's rays, ready
to creep out again when fogs and darkness return. Living then in the
midst of the great world, in the closest intimacy with many of the fair
sex, and witnessing the small amount of wedded happiness enjoyed by
aristocratic couples within his observation, intending also to wing his
flight eventually toward climes more in unison with his tastes, he no
longer felt that attraction for marriage which he had experienced in
boyhood (like most youths), and he said, quite seriously, that if his
cousin, George Byron, would marry, he, on his part, would willingly
engage not to enter into wedlock. But his friends saw with regret that
his eyes were still seeking through English clouds the blue skies of the
East; and that he was kept in perpetual agitation by the fair ones who
would cast themselves athwart his path, throwing themselves at his head
when not at his feet. Vainly did he distort himself, give himself out to
the public as a true "Childe Harold," malign himself; his friends knew
that his heart was overflowing with tenderness, and they could not thus
be duped. If he had wished to cull some flowers idly, for the sake of
scattering their leaves to the breeze, as youth so often does, this sort
of amusement would have been difficult for him, for the fine ladies of
his choice, if once they succeeded in inspiring him with some kind of
tender feeling, fastened themselves upon him in such a passionate way
that his freedom became greatly shackled, and they generally ended by
making the public the confidante of their secret.
Lord Byron had some adventures that brought him annoyance and grief.
They made him fall into low spirits,--a sort of moral apathy and
indifference for every thing. His best friends, and the wisest among
them, thought that the surest way of settling him in England, and
getting him out of the scrapes into which he was being dragged by female
enthusiasm, would be for him to marry, and they advised him to it
pertinaciously. Lord Byron, ever docile to the voice of affection, did
not repel the counsels given, but he made them well understand that he
should marry from reason rather than choice; and the letter he wrote,
when Moore insisted on his choosing a certain beautiful girl of noble
birth,[138] well explains his whole state of mind at this time:--
"I believe," said he, "that you think I have not been quite fair with
that Alpha and Omega of beauty with whom you would willingly have
united me. Had Lady ---- appeared to wish it, I would have gone on, and
very possibly married with the same indifference which has frozen over
the Black Sea of almost all my passions. It is that very indifference
which makes me so uncertain and apparently capricious. It is not
eagerness of new pursuits, but that nothing impresses me _sufficiently_
to fix. I do not feel disgusted, but simply indifferent to almost all
excitements; and the proof of this is that obstacles, the slightest
even, stop me. This can hardly be timidity, for I have done some
imprudent things, too, in my time; and in almost all cases opposition is
a stimulus. In this circumstance it is not; if a straw were in my way I
could not stoop to pick it up. I have sent you this long tirade, because
I would not have you suppose that I have been trifling designedly with
you or others. If you think so, in the name of St. Hubert (the patron of
antlers and hunters) _let me be married out of hand, I don't care to
whom_, so it amuses any body else, and don't interfere with me much in
the daytime."
But that to which Lord Byron most aspired was always to wing his flight
to brighter skies.
"Your climate kills me," he wrote to Hodgson, directly after his return
from the East. And then again, "My inclinations and my health make me
wish to leave England; neither my habits nor constitution are improved
by your customs or your climate. I shall find employment in making
myself a good Oriental scholar. I shall buy a mansion in one of the
fairest islands, and describe, at intervals, the most interesting
portions of the East."
Lord Byron wrote this before he had attained great celebrity, but this
did not change either his sentiments or his tastes. Notwithstanding the
embarrassments arising from the legacy left him by his great uncle, and
which were principally caused by the action brought against him on
account of the illegal sale of the Rochdale mines (a suit which Lord
Byron gained, but the expenses of which were ruinous), he was
nevertheless sufficiently rich to live at ease, to let his needy friends
enjoy the profits arising from his works, and to allow himself acts of
beneficence and generosity that were the joy of his heart. And when he
had done all that, he still found that he could not spend the surplus
in England according to his tastes. After the death of his mother, no
longer bound by his promise to her of not selling Newstead, he resolved
on effecting the sale so as to settle his affairs definitively. The sale
having failed, the forfeit brought him in L25,000; and he wrote to
Moore, in September, 1814:--
"I shall know to-morrow whether a circumstance, of importance enough to
change all my plans, will occur or not.[139] If it does not, I am off
for Italy next month.
"I have a few thousand pounds which I can't spend after my own heart in
this climate, and so I shall go back to the south. Hobhouse, I think and
hope, will go with me; but whether he will or not, I shall. I want to
see Venice and the Alps, and Parmesan cheeses, and look at the coasts of
Greece, or rather Epirus, from Italy as I once did, or fancied I did,
that of Italy, when off Corfu."
A few days before writing this letter, his evil destiny had led him to
take a step fatal to all his future happiness.
A person, for whom he entertained both affection and deference,
observing one day how unsettled he appeared in his state of mind and
projects for the future, again reiterated, with more earnestness than
ever, the advice to marry.
After long discussions Lord Byron promised to do so. But who should be
the object of his choice? A young lady was named who seemed to possess
all the qualities requisite for giving happiness in marriage. Lord
Byron, on his side, suggested Miss Milbank, with whom he was then in
correspondence. She was a niece of Lady Melbourne, who had thought of
this union a year before; a circumstance which probably decided Lord
Byron's preference, for he liked Lady Melbourne very much.
On hearing Miss Milbank's name his friend protested with great energy,
begging him to remark, among other things, that Miss Milbank had no
actual fortune, that his affairs were too much embarrassed for him to be
able to marry a woman without money, and moreover that Miss Milbank was
a learned lady, a _blue-stocking_, who could not possibly suit him. Ever
docile to the voice of friendship, Lord Byron yielded, and allowed his
friend to write a proposal to the other lady. Soon after a negative
answer arrived, one morning, that the two friends were together.
"You see," said Lord Byron, "that after all it is Miss Milbank I am to
marry; I shall write to her!" He did so immediately; and when the letter
was finished, his friend feeling more and more opposed to such a choice,
took it from him. After having read it, he exclaimed:--
"Truly, this letter is so charming that it is a pity for it not to go. I
never read a better effusion." "Then go it shall," replied Lord Byron,
who sealed and sent it off, thus signing his own misfortune!
We have said that he was in correspondence with Miss Milbank. This is
how he had made her acquaintance.
Two years previously, at a London _soiree_, he saw sitting in the corner
of a sofa a young girl whose simplicity of dress made her look as if she
belonged to a less elevated position than most of the other girls in the
room; Moore told him, however, that she was a rich heiress, Miss
Milbank, and that if he would marry her she might help him to restore
the old Abbey of Newstead. Her modest look, in striking contrast with
the stiffness and formality common to the aristocracy, interested Lord
Byron. He had himself introduced, and some time after ended by asking
her to marry him. His proposal, from motives that could not wound him,
was not accepted then. But a year later Miss Milbank testified the
desire of entering into correspondence with him. Thus the ground was
prepared. When he sent his letter with a fresh proposal, it was accepted
all the more eagerly that a report had been spread of his wishing to
marry a young and beautiful Irish girl, which did not please Miss
Milbank. Her answer was couched in very flattering terms, and the fatal
marriage was thus decided on. This was perhaps the only time in his life
that Lord Byron did not follow the counsels of friendship. It would
indeed seem as if an evil genius had taken possession of his will.
Warnings were not wanting; but he refused to listen to them. "If you
have any thing to say against my decision," wrote he to Moore, in his
usual jesting way, after the marriage had been agreed on, "I beg you to
say it. My resolve is taken, so positively, fixed, and irrevocably,
that I can very well listen to reason, since now it can do me no more
harm."
And so he married Miss Milbank three months afterward. During the
interval between the promise exchanged and the ceremony concluded, Lord
Byron saw his betrothed frequently. Had he no warning, no inspiration
from his good genius during all that time? Had he no fear of such
perfection? Did he not feel that a faultless coat of mail, like hers,
might so have pressed upon her heart that no pulse would be left giving
earnest of life? Might not tenderness, piety, indulgence, forbearance,
the most amiable and sublime virtues belonging to a Christian woman,
have their place filled in the breast of this perfect creature by
another kind of sublimity? and was it not very possible that she would
increase by one the number of those chaste wives who judge, condemn,
punish, and never forgive any thing that does not enter into the
category of their virtues, or rather of the single virtue they practice,
and under shadow of which they consider themselves able to dispense with
all others? Did he not fear that the profound mathematical knowledge of
that learned person might have slightly deadened her heart and given a
dogmatic tone to her mind, of which he doubtless with his usual
penetration suspected the narrowness, likely to render its science
pernicious to the heart? All this is easily to be believed, when we see
how preoccupied he was before marriage.
"At the beginning of the month of December, being called up to town by
business, I had opportunities, from being a good deal in my noble
friend's society, of observing the state of his mind and feelings under
the prospect of the important change he was now about to undergo; and it
was with pain I found that those sanguine hopes with which I had
sometimes looked forward to the happy influence of marriage, in winning
him over to the brighter and better side of life, were, by a view of all
the circumstances of his present destiny considerably diminished. While,
at the same time, not a few doubts and misgivings, which had never
before so strongly occurred to me, with regard to his own fitness, under
any circumstances, for the matrimonial tie, filled me altogether with a
degree of foreboding anxiety as to his fate, which the unfortunate
events that followed but too fully justified."
Lord Byron might still have avoided this misfortune by giving up
marriage; but the die was cast. His evil genius presented him with no
other alternative than to rush on to the catastrophe.
We must add that if, unfortunately, the halo of perfection supposed to
encircle the heiress was calculated to make him tremble, it was also of
a nature to flatter his self-love. This reputation was, in the eyes of
Moore, the principal cause of his preference for Miss Milbank. However
that may be, in the last days of December, accompanied by his friend Mr.
Hobhouse, he set out for Seaham, the residence of Sir Ralph, Miss
Milbank's father. And on the morning of the 2d of January, surrounded by
visions of the past, by gloomy forebodings, having in his hand the fatal
ring that had been dug up in his garden at the moment when Miss
Milbank's consent arrived; with a beating heart, and eyes all dizzy,
that would have made him draw back, if his honor had not been too far
engaged, Lord Byron advanced toward the altar. From that fatal day, if
his star of glory did not cease to shine, or even if it shone more
brightly seen through the atmosphere of misfortune, nevertheless repose
and lasting happiness were gone for him.
An heiress for a wife, but who had no actual fortune, naturally forced
him into great expenses, that soon went beyond his resources. His
creditors, lured by the riches said to belong to Miss Milbank, came down
upon him, as if the wife's fortune could be used to pay the husband's
debts.
His marriage had taken place in January, and already, in October, he was
obliged to sell his library. Shortly afterward his furniture was seized,
and he had to undergo humiliations, all the more keenly felt, that they
were quite unmerited, since his debts were inherited with the property.
Lord Byron--who had a real horror of debt--with his spirit of justice,
moderate desires, simple tastes, detached as he was from material
enjoyments, and even, perhaps, through pride, would never have fallen
into such embarrassments if he had remained _unmarried_. Indeed, his
creditors were patiently awaiting the sale of some property. Besides, he
was rich enough while unmarried; he could exercise hospitality, travel
in good style, not even keep for himself the produce of his works, and,
above all, never refuse to perform works of charity and benevolence. He
wrote to one of his friends before marriage that his affairs were about
to be settled, that he could live comfortably in England, and buy a
principality, if he wished, in Turkey.
Thus, then, marriage alone drew upon him this new disaster, which he
must have felt severely, and which, doubtless, led him to make
reflections little favorable to the tie so fatally contracted. Then it
was that he would have required to meet with kindness, indulgence, and
peace at home; thus supported, his heart would have endured every thing.
Instead of that, what did he find? A woman whose jealousy was extreme,
and who had her own settled way of living, and was unflinching in her
ideas; who united a conviction of her own wisdom to perfect ignorance of
the human heart,[140] all the while fancying that she knew it so well;
who, far from consenting to modify her habits, would fain have imposed
them on others. In short, a woman who had nothing in common with him,
who was unable to understand him, or to find the road to his heart or
mind; finally, one to whom forgiveness seemed a weakness, instead of a
virtue. Is it, then, astonishing that he should have suffered in such a
depressing atmosphere; that he should sometimes have been irritable, and
have even allowed to escape him a few words likely to wound the
susceptible self-love of his wife?
Lady Byron possessed one of those minds clever at reasoning, but weak in
judgment; that can _reason_ much without being _reasonable_, to use the
words of a great philosophical moralist of our day; one of those minds
that act as if life were a problem in jurisprudence or geometry; who
argue, distinguish, and, by dint of syllogisms, _deceive themselves
learnedly_. She always deceived herself in this way about Lord Byron.
When she was in the family way, and her confinement drawing near, the
storm continued to gather above her husband's head. He was in
correspondence with Moore, then absent from London. Moore's
apprehensions with regard to the happiness likely to result from a union
that had never appeared suitable in his eyes, had, nevertheless, calmed
down on receiving letters from Lord Byron that expressed satisfaction.
Yet during the first days of what is vulgarly termed the "honey-moon,"
Lord Byron sent Moore some very melancholy verses, to be set to music,
said he, and which begin thus:--
"There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away."
Moore had already felt some vague disquietude, and he asked why he
allowed his mind to dwell on such sorrowful ideas? Lord Byron replied
that he had written these verses on learning the death of a friend of
his childhood, the Duke of Dorset, and, as his subsequent letters were
full of jests, Moore became reassured. Lord Byron said he was happy, and
so he really was; for Lady Byron, not being jealous then, continued to
be gentle and amiable.
"But these indications of a contented heart soon ceased. His mention of
the partner of his home became more rare and formal, and there was
observable, I thought, through some of his letters, a feeling of unquiet
and weariness that brought back all those gloomy anticipations which I
had, from the first, felt regarding his fate."
Above all, there were expressions in his letters that seemed of sad
augury. For instance, in announcing the birth of his little girl, Lord
Byron said that he was absorbed in five hundred contradictory
contemplations, although he had only one single object in view, which
would probably come to nothing, as it mostly happens with all we
desire:--
"But never mind," he said, "as somebody says, '_for the blue sky bends
over all_.' I only could be glad if it bent over me where it is a little
bluer, like _skyish top of blue Olympus_."
On reading this letter, dated the 5th of January, full of aspirations
after a blue sky, Moore was struck with the tone of melancholy pervading
it; and, knowing that it was Lord Byron's habit when under the pressure
of sorrow and uneasiness, to seek relief in expressing his yearnings
after freedom and after other climes, he wrote to him in these terms:--
"Do you know, my dear Byron, there was something in your last letter--a
sort of mystery, as well as a want of your usual elasticity of
spirits--which has hung upon my mind unpleasantly ever since. I long to
be near you, that I might know how you really look and feel, for these
letters tell nothing, and one word _a quattr' occhi_, is worth whole
reams of correspondence. But only do tell me you are happier than that
letter has led me to fear, and I shall be satisfied."
"It was," says Moore, "only a few weeks after the exchange of these
letters, that Lady Byron took the resolution of separating from him. She
had left London at the end of January, on a visit to her parents, in
Leicestershire, and Lord Byron was to come and join her there soon
after. They had parted with mutual demonstrations of attachment and of
good understanding. On the journey Lady Byron wrote a letter to her
husband, couched in playful, affectionate language. What, then, must
have been his astonishment when, directly after her arrival at Kirby
Mallory, her father, Sir Ralph, wrote to tell Lord Byron that his
daughter was going to remain with them, and would return to him no
more."
This unexpected stroke fell heavily upon him. The pecuniary
embarrassments growing up since his marriage (for he had already
undergone eight or nine executions in his own house), had then reached
their climax. He was then, to use his own energetic expression, _alone
at his hearth, his penates transfixed around_; and then was he also
condemned to receive the unaccountable intelligence that the wife who
had just parted from him in the most affectionate manner, had abandoned
him forever.
His state of mind can not be told, nor, perhaps, be imagined. Still he
describes it in some passages of his letters, showing at the same time
the firmness, dignity, and strength of mind that always distinguished
him. For example, he wrote to Rogers, two weeks after this thunderbolt
had fallen upon him:--
"I shall be very glad to see you if you like to call, though I am at
present contending with the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,'
some of which have struck me from a quarter whence I did not, indeed,
expect them; but, no matter, there is a 'world elsewhere,' and I will
cut my way through this as I can. If you write to Moore, will you tell
him that I shall answer his letter the moment I can muster time and
spirits. Ever yours,
BYRON."
This strength of mind he only found a month afterward, and then he wrote
to him:--
"I have not answered your letter for a time, and at present the reply to
it might extend to such a length that I shall delay it till it can be
made in person, and then I will shorten it as much as I can. I am at war
_with all the world and my wife_, or, rather, all the world and my wife
are at war with me, and have not yet crushed me, and shall not crush me,
whatever they may do. I don't know that in the course of a hair-breadth
existence I was ever, at home or abroad, in a situation so completely
uprooted of present pleasure, or rational hope for the future, as this
time. I say this because I think so, and feel it. But I shall not sink
under it the more for that mode of considering the question. I have made
up my mind.
"By the way, however, you must not believe all you hear on the subject;
but don't attempt to defend me. If you succeeded in that it would be a
mortal, or an immortal, offense. Who can bear refutation?"[141]
And, after having spoken of his wife's family, he concludes in these
terms:--
"Those who know what is going on say that the mysterious cause of our
domestic misunderstandings is a Mrs. C----, now a kind of house-keeper
and spy of Lady N----, who was a washer-woman in former days."
Swayed by this idea, he went so far then in his generosity as to
exonerate his wife, and accuse himself; whereupon Moore answered that,
"_after all, his misfortunes lay in the choice he had made of a wife,
which he_ (Moore) _had never approved_."
Lord Byron hastened to reply that he was wrong, and that Lady Byron's
conduct while with him had not deserved the smallest reproach, giving
her, at the same time, great praise. But this answer, which, according
to Moore, _forces admiration for the generous candor of him who wrote it
while adding to the sadness and strangeness of the whole affair_--this
answer, of such extraordinary generosity, will better find its place
elsewhere. It contains expressions that show his real state of soul
under the cruel circumstances:--
"I have to battle with all kinds of unpleasantness, including private
and pecuniary difficulties, etc.
" ...It is nothing to bear the _privations_ of adversity, or, more
properly, ill-fortune, but my pride recoils from its _indignities_.
However, I have no quarrel with that same pride, which will, I think, be
my buckler through every thing. If my heart could have been broken it
would have been so years ago, and by events more afflicting than
these.... Do you remember the lines I sent you early last year? I don't
wish to claim the character of 'Vates' the prophet, but were they not a
little prophetic? I mean those beginning: 'There's not a joy the world
can,' etc. They were the truest, though the most melancholy, I ever
wrote."
To this letter Moore answered immediately:--
"I had certainly no right to say any thing about the _unluckiness of
your choice_, though I rejoice now that I did, as it has drawn from you
a tribute which, however unaccountable and mysterious it renders the
whole affair, is highly honorable to both parties. What I meant in
hinting a doubt with respect to the object of your selection, did not
imply the least impeachment of that perfect amiableness which the world,
I find, by common consent, allows to her. I only feared that she might
have been too perfect, too _precisely_ excellent, _too matter-of-fact a
paragon for you to coalesce with comfortably_, ... and that a person
whose perfection hung in more easy folds about her, whose brightness was
softened down by some of 'those fair defects which best conciliate
love,' would, by appealing more dependently to your protection, have
stood a much better chance with your good-nature. All these
suppositions, however, I have been led into by my intense anxiety to
acquit you of any thing like a capricious abandonment of your wife; and,
totally in the dark as I am with respect to all but the fact of your
separation, you can not conceive the solicitude--the fearful
solicitude--with which I look forward to a history of the transaction
from your own lips when we meet--a history in which I am sure of at
least one virtue, manly candor."
Those who knew Lord Byron, gifted as he was with so much that seemed to
render it impossible for any woman to resign herself to the loss of his
love; with so much to make a wife proud of bearing his name; may well
ask what strange sort of nature Lady Byron could have possessed to act
as she did toward him; and whether, if she really married out of vanity
(as Lord Byron one day told Medwin, at Pisa), and her heart being full
of pride only, she found some greater satisfaction for her vanity in the
courage and perseverance she fancied displayed in deserting him. But, in
order to view her inexplicable conduct with any sort of indulgence, we
must say that Lady Byron was an only and a spoilt child, a slave to
rule, to habits and ideas as unchanging and inflexible as the figures
she loved to study; that, being accustomed to the comforts of a rich
house, where she was idolized, she could not do without her regular
comforts, so generally appreciated and considered necessary by English
people. But it was no easy matter to satisfy all her tastes with
mathematical regularity, to let her keep up all her habits, and, above
all, to make Lord Byron share them in their married life. In the first
place, Lord Byron, who was naturally un-English in taste, had, moreover,
through his long stay abroad, given up the peculiarities of English
habits. He did not dine every day, and when he did it was a cenobite's
meal, little suited to the taste of a true Englishman. He breakfasted on
a cup of green tea, without sugar, and the yolk of an egg, which was
swallowed standing. The comfortable fireside, the indispensable
roast-beef, and the regular evening tea, were not appreciated by him;
and, indeed, it was a real pain to him to see women eat at all. Not one
of his young wife's habits was shared by him. He did not think his soul
lost by going to bed at dawn, for he liked to write at night; or by
doing other things at what she called irregular hours; and he must have
been at least astonished on hearing himself asked, three weeks after
marriage, _when he intended giving up his versifying habits_?
But he did not give them up; nor could he have done so had he wished it.
Lady Byron must have flattered herself with the idea of ruling him, of
showing the world her power over her husband. As long as their resources
sufficed for a life of luxury, both parties might have cherished
illusion, and put off reflection. But when creditors, attracted by the
name of the wealthy heiress--who in reality had only brought her
expectations with her--began to pour in, and that pecuniary
embarrassment and humiliations were added to home incompatibilities,
then, perhaps, Lord Byron became irritable sometimes, and Lady Byron
must have felt more than ever the painful absence of those comforts
whose enjoyment cause many other annoyances to be forgotten. She must
often have compared her life then, full of mortifications, and, perhaps,
of solitude, with the one so comfortable and agreeable (for her) she
formerly led at Kirby Mallory, in the midst of her relatives. Indeed,
they had spent two months there, both saying they were happy; for at
this period of the honey-moon, Lord Byron, kind as he was, doubtless
yielded to all the caprices and habits of his hosts. Nevertheless,
through the veil of his customary jests and assurances to Moore that he
was quite satisfied, it is easy to see how tired he was, and how little
the life at Seaham was suited to him.
"I am in such a state of sameness and stagnation, and so totally
occupied in consuming the fruits, and sauntering, and playing dull games
at cards, and yawning, and trying to read old 'Annual Registers' and the
daily papers, and gathering shells on the shore, and watching the growth
of stunted gooseberry bushes in the garden, that I have neither time nor
sense to say more than yours ever,
BYRON."
And then another time he wrote,--
"I have been very comfortable here, listening to that d----d monologue
which elderly gentlemen call conversation, and in which my pious
father-in-law repeats himself every evening, except when he plays upon
the fiddle. However, they have been very kind and hospitable, and I like
them and the place vastly."
Again, feeling his thought in bondage at Seaham, when it would fain have
wandered free beneath some sunny sky, he wrote to Moore, "By the way,
don't engage yourself in any travelling expedition, as I have a plan of
travel into Italy, which we will discuss. And then, think of the poesy
wherewithal we should overflow from Venice to Vesuvius, to say nothing
of Greece, through all which--God willing--we might perambulate."
But on quitting Seaham to return home, without preventing Lady Byron
from continuing to follow her own tastes, it is likely that he wished to
resume his old habits: his beloved solitude, so necessary to him, his
fasts, his hours for study and rest, very different from those of
Seaham. And then she must have found it troublesome to have a husband,
who was not only indifferent to English comforts, but who even disliked
to see women eat! who, despite his embarrassments, continued to refuse
appropriating for his own use the money given and offered by his
publisher, making it over instead to the poor, and even borrowing to
help his friends and indigent authors.[142] She could not have known how
he would ever get disentangled. Being _extremely jealous_, she became
the easy dupe of malicious persons; and under the influence of that
wicked woman, Mrs. Claremont, allowed herself to be persuaded that her
husband committed grave faults, though in reality they were but slight
or even imaginary ones. She forced open his writing-desk, and found in
it several proofs of intrigues that had taken place _previous_ to his
marriage. In the frenzy of her jealousy, Lady Byron sent these letters
to the husband of the lady compromised, but he had the good sense to
take no notice of them. Such a revolting proceeding on the part of Lady
Byron requires no commentary: it can not be justified. Meanwhile the
conjugal abode was given up to bailiffs, and desolation reigned in Lord
Byron's soul. He had lately become a father. This was the moment that
his wife chose for leaving him; and the first proof of love she gave
their daughter, as soon as she set foot in her own home, was to abandon
that child's father and the house where she could no longer find the
mode of life to which she had been accustomed. At Kirby Mallory, the
vindictive Lady Noel, who detested Lord Byron, doubtless did the rest,
together with the governess. And the young heiress, just enriched by a
legacy inherited from an uncle, thus newly restored to wealth, had not
courage to leave it and them all again. With the kind of nature she
possessed, she must have taken pride in a sort of exaggerated firmness;
thus seeking to gain strength for trampling under foot all
heart-emotions, as if they were so many weaknesses, incompatible with
the stern principles that she considered virtues. By assuming the point
of view proper to some minds, it is easy to conceive all this,
especially when one knows England.
But was it really for the purpose of allowing her to give such a
spectacle to the world, and to secure for herself the comforts of life,
that God had given to her keeping Lord Byron's noble spirit? Did she
forget that it was not simply a good, honest, ordinary man, like the
generality of husbands, that she had married; but that Heaven, having
crowned his brow with the rays of genius, imposed far other obligations
on his companion? Did she forget that she was responsible before God and
before that country whose pride he was about to become? Ought she to
have preferred an easy life to the honor of being his wife; of
sustaining him in his weaknesses; of consoling and forgiving him, if
necessary; in short, of being his guardian angel? If she aspired to the
reputation of a virtuous woman, could true virtue have done otherwise?
Ere this God has judged her above; but, here below, can those possessing
hearts have any indulgence for her?
We hear constantly repeated--because it was once said--that men of great
genius are less capable than ordinary individuals of experiencing calm
affections and of settling down into those easy habits which help to
cement domestic life. By dint of repeating this it has become an axiom.
But on what grounds is it founded? Because these privileged beings give
themselves to studies requiring solitude, in order to abstract and
concentrate their thoughts; because, their mental riches being greater,
they are more independent of the outer world and the intellectual
resources of their fellow-creatures; because, through the abundance of
their own resources, their mind acquires a certain refinement, likely to
make them deem the society of ordinary persons tiresome; does it
therefore necessarily follow that the goodness and sensibility of their
hearts are blunted, and that there may not be, amid the great variety of
women, hearts and minds worthy of comprehending them, and of making it
their duty to extend a larger amount of forbearance and indulgence in
return for the glory and happiness of being the companions of these
noble beings? It is remarked, in support of the above theory, that
almost all men of genius who have married--Dante, Milton, Shakspeare,
Dryden, Byron, and many others--were unhappy. But have these observers
examined well on which side lay the cause of unhappiness? Who will say
that if Dante, instead of Gemma Donati, "the ferocious wife" (a thought
expressed by Lord Byron in his "Prophecy," evidently to appropriate it
to himself, speaking of "_the cold companion who brought him ruin for
her dowry_);" who will say that if Dante, instead of Gemma Donati, had
married his Beatrice Portinari, she would not have been the companion
and soother of his exile? that the bread of the foreigner shared with
her would not have seemed _less bitter_? and that he would not have
found it _less fatiguing to mount, leaning on her, the staircase leading
to another's dwelling_?--
"Lo scendere e il salio per l'altrin scale."--DANTE.
And can we doubt that Milton's misfortune was caused by his unhappy
choice of a wife, since almost directly after her arrival at their
conjugal home she became alarmed at her husband's literary habits and
also at the solitude and poverty reigning in the house, and finally
abandoned him after a month's trial? To speak only of England, was it
not from similar causes, or nearly so, that the amiable Shakspeare's
misfortune arose--also that of Dryden, Addison, Steele? And, indeed, the
same may be said of all the great men belonging to whatsoever age or
country.
If we were to enter into a polemic on this subject, or simply to make
conscientious researches, there would be many chances of proving, in
opposition to the axiom, that the fault of these great men lay in the
bad choice of their helpmates. In truth, if there have been a Gemma
Donati and a Milbank, we also find in ancient times a Calpurnia and a
Portia among the wives of great men; and, in modern times, wives of
poets, who have been the honor of their sex, proud of their husbands,
and living only for them. Ought not these examples at least to destroy
the absolute nature of the theory, making it at best conditional? The
larger number of great men, it is true, did not marry; of this number
we find, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, Cervantes,
Voltaire, Pope, Alfieri, and Canova; and many others among the poets and
philosophers, Bacon, Newton, Galileo, Descartes, Bayle, and Leibnitz.
What does that prove, if not that they either would not or could not
marry, but certainly not that they were incapable of being good
husbands? Besides, a thousand causes--apart from the fear of being
unhappy in domestic life, considerations of fortune, prior attachments,
etc.--may have prevented them. But as to Lord Byron, at least, it is
still more certain with regard to him than to any other, that he might
have been happy had he made a better choice: if circumstances had only
been tolerable, as he himself says. Lord Byron had none of those faults
that often disturb harmony, because they put the wife's virtue to too
great a trial. If the best disposition, according to a deep moralist, is
that which gives much and exacts nothing, then assuredly his deserves to
be so characterized. Lord Byron exacted nothing for himself. Moreover,
discussion, contradiction, teasing, were insupportable to him; his
amiable jesting way even precluded them. In all the circumstances and
all the details of his life he displayed that high generosity, that
contempt of petty, selfish, material calculations so well adapted for
gaining hearts in general, and especially those of women. Add to that
the _prestige_ belonging to his great beauty, his wit, his grace, and it
will be easy to understand the love he must have inspired as soon as he
became known.
"Pope remarks," says Moore, "that extraordinary geniuses have the
misfortune to be admired rather than loved; but I can say, from my own
personal experience, that Lord Byron was an exception to this
rule."[143]
Nevertheless, Lord Byron, though exceptional in so many things, yet
belonged to the first order of geniuses. Therefore he could not escape
some of the laws belonging to these first-rate natures: certain habits,
tendencies, sentiments--I may almost say infirmities--of genius deriving
their _origin from the same sympathies, the same wants_.
He required to have certain things granted to him: his hours for
solitude, the silence of his library, which he sometimes preferred to
every thing, even to the society of the woman he loved. It was wrong to
wish by force to shut him up to read the Bible, or to make him come to
tea and regulate all his hours as a good priest might do. When he was
plunged in the delights of Plato's "Banquet," or conversing with his own
ideas, it was folly to interrupt him. But this state was exceptional
with him. "_One does not have fever habitually_," said he of himself,
characterizing this state of excitement that belongs to composition; and
as soon as he returned to his usual state, and that his mind, disengaged
from itself, came down from the heights to which it had soared, what
amiability then, what a charm in all he said and did! Was not one hour
passed with him then a payment with rich usury for all the little
concessions his genius required? And lastly, if we descend well into the
depths of his soul, by all he said and did, by all his sadness, joy,
tenderness, we may be well convinced that none more than he was
susceptible of domestic happiness.
"If I could have been the husband of the Countess G----," said he to
Mrs. B----, a few days only before setting out for Greece, "we should
have been cited, I am certain, as samples of conjugal happiness, and our
retired domestic life would have made us respectable! But alas! I can
not marry her."
It is also by his latest affections that he proved how, if he had been
united to a woman after his own heart, he might have enjoyed and given
all the domestic happiness that God vouchsafes us here below, and that
when love should have undergone the transformations produced by time and
custom, he would have known how to replace the poetic enchantments of
love's first days, by feelings graver, more unchanging too, and no less
tender and sacred.
But we must interrogate those who knew and saw him personally, and in
the first place Moore; for not only was Moore acquainted with Lord
Byron's secret soul, but to him had the poet confided the treasure of
his memoirs, whose principal object was to throw light on the most fatal
event of his life, and whose sacrifice, made in deference to the
susceptibilities of a few living nullities, will be an eternal remorse
for England. Now this is how Moore expresses himself on this subject:--
"With respect to the causes that may be supposed to have led to this
separation, it seems needless, with the characters of both parties
before our eyes, to go in quest of any very remote or mysterious reasons
to account for it."
After observing that men of great genius have never seemed made for
domestic happiness, through certain habits, certain wants of their
nature, and certain faults, which appear, he says, like the shade thrown
by genius in proportion to its greatness, Moore adds that Lord Byron
still was, in many respects, _a singular exception to this rule_, for
his heart was so sensitive and his passions so ardent, that the world of
reality never ceased to hold a large place in his sympathies; that for
the rest, his imagination could never usurp the place of reality,
neither in his feelings nor in the objects exciting them.
"The poet in Lord Byron," says Moore, "never absorbed the man. From this
very mixture has it arisen that his pages bear so deeply the stamp of
real life, and that in the works of no poet with the exception of
Shakspeare, can every various mood of the mind--whether solemn or gay,
whether inclined to the ludicrous or the sublime, whether seeking to
divert itself with the follies of society or panting after the grandeur
of solitary nature--find so readily a strain of sentiment in accordance
with its every passing tone."
Nevertheless he did not completely escape the usual fate of great
geniuses, since he also experienced, though rarely, and always with good
cause, that sadness which, as Shakspeare says,--
"Sicklies the face of happiness itself."
"To these faults, and sources of faults, inherent in his own sensitive
nature, he added also many of those which a long indulgence of self-will
generates--the least compatible, of all others, with that system of
mutual concession and sacrifice by which the balance of domestic peace
is maintained. In him they were softened down by good-nature. When we
look back, indeed, to the unbridled career, of which this marriage was
meant to be the goal--to the rapid and restless course in which his life
had run along, like a burning train, through a series of wanderings,
adventures, successes, and passions, the fever of all which was still
upon him, when, with the same headlong recklessness, he rushed into
this marriage, it can but little surprise us that, in the space of one
short year, he should not have been able to recover all at once from his
bewilderment, or to settle down into that _tame level_ of conduct which
the close observers of his every action required. As well might it be
expected that a steed like his own Mazeppa's--
'Wild as the wild deer and untaught,
With spur and bridle undefiled,'
should stand still, when reined, without chafing or champing the
bit.[144]
"Even had the new condition of life into which he passed been one of
prosperity and smoothness, some time, as well as tolerance, must still
have been allowed for the subsiding of so excited a spirit into rest.
But, on the contrary, his marriage was at once a signal for all the
arrears and claims of a long-accumulating state of embarrassment to
explode upon him; his door was almost daily beset by duns, and his house
nine times during that year in possession of bailiffs; while, in
addition to these anxieties, he had also the pain of fancying that the
eyes of enemies and spies were upon him, even under his own roof, and
that his every hasty word and look were interpreted in the most
perverted light.
"He saw but little society, his only relief from the thoughts which a
life of such embarrassment brought with it was in those avocations which
his duty, as a member of the Drury Lane Committee, imposed upon him. And
here, in this most unlucky connection with the theatre, one of the
fatalities of his short year of trial, as husband, lay. From the
reputation which he had previously acquired for gallantries, and the
sort of reckless and boyish levity to which--often in very bitterness of
soul--he gave way, it was not difficult to bring suspicion upon some of
those acquaintances which his frequent intercourse with the green-room
induced him to form, or even (as in one instance was the case) to
connect with his name injuriously that of a person to whom he had
scarcely ever addressed a single word.
"Notwithstanding, however, this ill-starred concurrence of
circumstances, which might have palliated any excesses either of temper
or conduct into which they drove him, it was, after all, I am persuaded,
to no such serious causes that the unfortunate alienation, which so soon
ended in disunion, is to be traced.
"'In all the unhappy marriages I have ever seen,' says Steele, 'the
great cause of evil has proceeded from slight occasions,' and to this
remark, I think, the marriage under our consideration would not be
found, upon inquiry, to be an exception. Lord Byron himself, indeed,
when at Cephalonia, a short time before his death, seems to have
expressed, in a few words, the whole pith of the mystery.
"An English gentleman, with whom he was conversing on the subject of
Lady Byron, having ventured to enumerate to him the various causes he
had heard alleged for the separation, the noble poet, who had seemed
much amused with their absurdity and falsehood, said, after listening to
them all: 'The causes, my dear sir, were too simple to be easily found
out.'
"In truth, the circumstances, so unexampled, that attended their
separation, the last words of the wife to the husband being those of the
most playful affection, while the language of the husband toward the
wife was in a strain, as the world knows, of tenderest eulogy, are in
themselves a sufficient proof that, at the time of their parting, there
could have been no very deep sense of injury on either side. It was not
till afterward that, in both bosoms, the repulsive force came into
operation, when, to the party which had taken the first decisive step in
the strife, it became naturally a point of pride to persevere in it with
dignity, and this unbendingness provoked, as naturally, in the haughty
spirit of the other, a strong feeling of resentment which overflowed, at
last, in acrimony and scorn. If there be any truth, however, in the
principle, that they never pardon who have done the wrong, Lord Byron,
who was, to the last, disposed to reconciliation, proved, at least, that
his conscience was not troubled by any very guilty recollections.
"But though it would have been difficult perhaps, for the victims of
this strife themselves to have pointed out the real cause for their
disunion, beyond that general incompatibility which is the canker _of
all such marriages_, the public, which seldom allows itself to be at
fault on these occasions, was, as usual, ready with an ample supply of
reasons for the breach, all tending to blacken the already-darkly
painted character of the poet, and representing him, in short, as a
finished monster of cruelty and depravity. The reputation of the object
of his choice for every possible virtue, was now turned against him by
his assailants, as if the excellences of the wife were proof positive of
every enormity they chose to charge upon the husband. Meanwhile, the
unmoved silence of Lady Byron under the repeated demands made for a
specification of her charges against him, left to malice and imagination
the fullest range for their combined industry. It was accordingly
stated, and almost universally believed, that the noble lord's second
proposal to Miss Milbank had been but with a view to revenge himself for
the slight inflicted by her refusal of the first, and that he himself
had confessed so much to her on their way from the church. At the time
when, as the reader has seen from his own honey-moon letters, he in all
faith fancied himself happy, and even boasted, in the pride of his
imagination, that if marriage were to be upon lease, he would gladly
renew his own for a term of ninety-nine years!
"At this very time, according to these veracious chronicles, he was
employed in darkly following up the aforesaid scheme of revenge, and
tormenting his lady by all sorts of unmanly cruelties--such as firing
off pistols, to frighten her as she lay in bed, and other such
freaks.[145] To the falsehoods concerning his green-room intimacies, and
particularly with respect to one beautiful actress, with whom, in
reality, he had hardly ever exchanged a single word, I have already
adverted; and the extreme confidence with which this tale was circulated
and believed affords no unfair specimen of the sort of evidence with
which the public, in all such fits of moral wrath, is satisfied. It is,
at the same time, very far from my intention to allege that, in the
course of the noble poet's intercourse with the theatre, he was not
sometimes led into a line of acquaintance and converse, unbefitting, if
not dangerous to, the steadiness of married life. But the imputations
against him on this head were not the less unfounded, as the sole case
in which he afforded any thing like real grounds for such an accusation
did not take place till after the period of the separation.
"Not content with such ordinary and tangible charges, the tongue of
rumor was emboldened to proceed still further; and, presuming upon the
mysterious silence maintained by one of the parties, ventured to throw
out dark hints and vague insinuations, of which the fancy of every
hearer was left to fill up the outline as he pleased. In consequence of
all this exaggeration, such an outcry was now raised against Lord Byron
as, in no case of private life, perhaps, was ever before witnessed; nor
had the whole amount of fame which he had gathered, in the course of the
last four years, much exceeded in proportion the reproach and obloquy
that were now, within the space of a few weeks, heaped upon him. In
addition to the many who, no doubt, conscientiously believed and
reprobated what they had but too much right, whether viewing him as poet
or man of fashion, to consider credible excesses, there were also
actively on the alert that large class of persons who seem to think that
inveighing against the vices of others is equivalent to virtue in
themselves, together with all those natural haters of success who,
having long been disgusted with the splendor of the poet, were now
enabled, in the guise of champions for innocence, to wreak their spite
on the man. In every various form of paragraph, pamphlet, and
caricature, both his character and person were held up to odium. Hardly
a voice was raised, or at least listened to, in his behalf; and though a
few faithful friends remained unshaken by his side, the utter
hopelessness of stemming the torrent was felt as well by them as by
himself, and, after an effort or two to gain a fair hearing, they
submitted in silence."
As to Lord Byron, he hardly attempted to defend himself. Among all these
slanders, he only wished to repel one that wounded his generous pride
beyond endurance; and so he wrote to Rogers:--
"You are of the few persons with whom I have lived in what is called
intimacy, and have heard me at times conversing on the untoward topic of
my recent family disquietudes. Will you have the goodness to say to me
at once, whether you ever heard me speak of her with disrespect, with
unkindness, or defending myself at her expense by any serious imputation
of any description against her? Did you never hear me say, 'that when
there was a right or a wrong, she had the right?' The reason I put these
questions to you or others of my friends is, because I am said, by her
and hers, to have resorted to such means of exculpation."
It makes one's heart bleed to see this noble intellect forced by the
stupid cruel persecution of wicked fools to descend into the arena and
justify himself. But he soon ceased all kind of defense. A struggle of
this sort was most repugnant to him. At first Lord Byron had counted on
his wife's return, which would, indeed, have proved his best
justification. When he saw this return deferred, he asked simply for an
inquiry, but could not obtain what he solicited. His accusers, unable to
state any thing definite against him, naturally preferred calumny and
_magnanimous_ silence to inquiry! At last, when he felt that reunion had
become improbable, and that his friends, for want of moral courage and
independence, confined themselves to mere condolence, he sought for
strength in the testimony of conscience and in his determination of one
day making the whole truth known. And he did so in effect, a year later,
while he was in Italy, and when all hope of reunion was over. Then it
was that he wrote his memoirs.
Here perhaps I ought to speak of one of England's greatest crimes, or
rather, of the crime committed by a few Englishmen: I mean _the
destruction of his memoirs_, a deed perpetrated for the sake of
screening the self-love and the follies, if not the crimes, of a whole
host of insignificant beings. But, having already spoken of that in
another chapter, I will content myself with repeating here that these
memoirs were all the more precious, as their principal object was to
make known the truth; that the impression they left on the mind was a
perfect conviction of the writer's sincerity; that Lord Byron possessed
the most generous of souls, and that the separation had no other cause
but incompatibility of disposition between the two parties. Had he not
given irrefragable proof of the truth of these memoirs, by sending them
to be read and _commented on_ by Lady Byron? We know with what cruel
disdain she met this generous proceeding. As to their morality, I will
content myself with quoting the exact expressions used by Lady B----,
wife of the then ambassador in Italy, to whom Moore gave them to read,
and who had copied them out entirely:--
"_I read these memoirs at Florence_," said she to Countess G----, "_and
I assure you that I might have given them to my daughter of fifteen to
read, so perfectly free are they from any stain of immorality._"
Let us then repeat once more, that they, as well as the last cantos of
"Don Juan," and the journal he kept in Greece, were sacrificed for the
sole purpose of destroying all memento of the guilty weakness of persons
calling themselves his friends, and also of hiding the opinions, not
always very flattering, entertained by Lord Byron about a number of
living persons, who had unfortunately survived him. It is difficult to
conceive in any case, how these memoirs written at Venice, when his
heart was torn with grief and bitterness, could possibly have been
silent as to the injustice and calumny overwhelming him, or even as to
the pusillanimous behavior of so-called friends; while even writers
generally hostile no longer took part against him.
For example, this is how Macaulay speaks of him,--Macaulay who was not
over-lenient toward Lord Byron, whom he never personally knew, and who
is seldom just as well from party spirit as from his desire of shining
in antithesis and high-sounding phrases:--
"At twenty-four he found himself on the highest pinnacle of literary
fame, along with Walter Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, and a crowd of other
distinguished writers. There is scarcely an instance in history of so
sudden a rise to so dizzy an eminence. Every thing that could stimulate,
and every thing that could gratify the strongest propensities of our
nature, the gaze of a hundred drawing-rooms, the acclamation of the
whole nation, the applause of applauded men, the love of lovely
women,--all this world, and all the glory of it, were at once offered to
a youth 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 excuse to plead for their faults. But his countrymen and
countrywomen would love and admire him. They were resolved to see in his
excesses only the flash and outbreak of that 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. Every thing, it seemed,
was to be forgiven to youth, rank, and genius.[146]
"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 is, nothing ever was, positively known to the public but
this,--that he quarrelled 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_."
And after having said how the persons consulted by Lady Byron, and who
had advised her to separate from her husband, formed their opinion
without hearing both parties, and that it would be quite unjust and
irrational to pronounce, or even to form, an opinion on an affair so
imperfectly known, Mr. Macaulay continues in these words:--
"We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its
periodical fits 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 repressed. It is equally clear that they can not be repressed
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. Decimation 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 practice, 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 should 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 remember to have seen a mob assembled in Lincoln's Inn
to hoot a gentleman against whom the most oppressive proceeding known to
the English law was then in progress. He was hooted because he had been
an unfaithful husband, as if some of the most popular men of the age,
Lord Nelson for example, had not been unfaithful husbands. We remember a
still stronger case. Will posterity believe that, in an age in which men
whose gallantries were universally known, and had been legally proved,
filled some of the highest offices in the state and in the army,
presided at the meetings of religious and benevolent institutions, were
the delight of every society, and the favorites of the multitude, a
crowd of moralists went to the theatre, in order to pelt a poor actor
for disturbing the conjugal felicity of an alderman? What there was in
the circumstances either of the offender or of the sufferer to vindicate
the zeal of the audience we could never conceive. It has never been
supposed that the situation of an actor is peculiarly favorable to the
rigid virtues, or that an alderman enjoys any special immunity from
injuries such as that which on this occasion roused the anger of the
public. But such is the justice of mankind. In these cases the
punishment was excessive, but the offense was known and proved. The case
of Lord Byron was harder. True Jedwood justice was dealt out to him.
First came the execution, then the investigation, and last of all, or
rather not at all, the accusation. The public, without knowing any thing
whatever about the transactions in his family, flew into a violent
passion with him, and proceeded to invent stories which might justify
its anger. Ten or twenty different accounts of the separation,
inconsistent with each other, with themselves, and with common sense,
circulated at the same time. What evidence there might be for any one of
these the virtuous people who repeated them neither knew nor cared. For
in fact these stories were not the causes, but the effects of the public
indignation. They resembled those loathsome slanders which Lewis
Goldsmith, and other abject libellers of the same class, were in the
habit of publishing about Bonaparte; such as that he poisoned a girl
with arsenic when he was at the military school, that he hired a
grenadier to shoot Desaix at Marengo, that he filled St. Cloud with all
the pollutions of Capreae. There was a time when anecdotes like these
obtained some credence from persons who, hating the French Emperor
without knowing why, were eager to believe any thing which might justify
their hatred.
"Lord Byron fared in the same way. His countrymen were in a bad humor
with him. His writings and his character had lost the charm of novelty.
He had been guilty of the offense which, of all offenses, is punished
most severely; he had been overpraised; he had excited too warm an
interest; and the public, with its usual justice, chastised him for its
own folly. The attachments of the multitude bear no small resemblance to
those of the wanton enchantress in the Arabian Tales, who, when the
forty days of her fondness were over, was not content with dismissing
her lovers, but condemned them to expiate, in loathsome shapes, and
under cruel penances, the crime of having once pleased her too well.
"The obloquy which Byron had to endure was such as might well have
shaken a more constant mind. The newspapers were filled with lampoons.
The theatres shook with execrations. He was excluded from circles where
he had lately been the _observed_ of all _observers_. All those creeping
things that riot in the decay of nobler natures hastened to their
repast; and they were right; they did after their kind. It is not every
day that the savage envy of aspiring dunces is gratified by the agonies
of such a spirit, and the degradation of such a name. The unhappy man
left his country forever. The howl of contumely followed him across the
sea, up the Rhine, over the Alps; it gradually waxed fainter; it died
away; those who had raised it began to ask each other, what, after all,
was the matter about which they had been so clamorous, and wished to
invite back the criminal whom they had just chased from them. His poetry
became more popular than it had ever been; and his complaints were read
with tears by thousands and tens of thousands who had never seen his
face."
These observations of Macaulay are applied by Mr. Disraeli to Lord
Cadurcis, who, in his novel called "Venetia," is no other than Lord
Byron:--
"Lord Cadurcis," says he, "was the periodical victim, the scapegoat of
English morality, sent into the wilderness with all the crimes and
curses of the multitude on his head. Lord Cadurcis had certainly
committed a great crime, not his intrigue with Lady Monteagle, for that
surely was not an unprecedented offense; nor his duel with her husband,
for after all it was a duel in self-defense: and, at all events,
divorces and duels, under any circumstances, would scarcely have excited
or authorized the storm which was now about to burst over the late
spoiled child of society. But Lord Cadurcis had been guilty of the
offense which, of all offenses, is punished most severely. Lord Cadurcis
had been overpraised. He had excited too warm an interest; and the
public, with its usual justice, was resolved to chastise him for its own
folly. There are no fits of caprice so hasty and so violent as those of
society. Cadurcis, in allusion to his sudden and singular success, had
been in the habit of saying to his intimates that he 'woke one morning
and found himself famous.' He might now observe, 'I woke one morning and
found myself infamous.' Before twenty-four hours had passed over his
duel with Lord Monteagle, he found himself branded by every journal in
London as an unprincipled and unparalleled reprobate. The public,
without waiting to think, or even to inquire after the truth, instantly
selected as genuine the most false and the most flagrant of the fifty
libellous narratives that were circulated of the transaction. Stories,
inconsistent with themselves, were all alike eagerly believed, and what
evidence there might be for any one of them, the virtuous people, by
whom they were repeated, neither knew nor cared. The public, in short,
fell into a passion with their daring, and, ashamed of their past
idolatry, nothing would satisfy them but knocking the divinity on the
head."
And this same Mr. Disraeli, whose testimony is all the more precious as
coming from a Tory celebrity, after having described the shameful
reception given by the noble House to Lord Cadurcis, when he presented
himself there after the duel, and the atrocious conduct of the stupid
populace clamoring against him outside, goes on in these terms:--
"And indeed to witness this young, and noble, and gifted creature, but a
few days back the idol of the nation, and from whom a word, a glance
even, was deemed the greatest and most gratifying distinction--whom all
orders, classes, and conditions of men had combined to stimulate with
multiplied adulation, with all the glory and ravishing delights of the
world, as it were, forced upon him--to see him thus assailed with the
savage execrations of all those vile things who exult in the fall of
every thing that is great and the abasement of every thing that is
noble, was indeed a spectacle which might have silenced malice and
satisfied envy!"
To these just appreciations formed by some of Lord Byron's biographers
we might add many more; but the limits we have assigned to this work not
admitting of it, we will only add, as a last testimony, the most severe
of all; him of whom Moore said, "that, if one wished to speak against
Lord Byron, one had only to apply to him," that is, to Lord Byron
himself.
In 1820, when Lord Byron was at Ravenna, an article from "Blackwood's
Magazine," entitled "Observations on Don Juan," was sent him.
It contained such unfounded strictures on his matrimonial conduct, that,
for once, Lord Byron infringed his rule and could not help answering it.
The extracts from his defense, "_if defense it can be called_," says
Moore, "_where there has never yet been any definite charge, will be
read with the liveliest interest._" Here, then, is a part of these
extracts:--
"It is in vain, says my learned brother, that Lord Byron attempts in any
way to justify his own behavior with regard to Lady Byron.
"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 voice of his countrymen."
"How far the openness of an anonymous poem, and the audacity of an
imaginary character, which the writer supposes to be meant for Lady
Byron, may be deemed to merit this formidable denunciation from their
most sweet voices, I neither know nor care; but when he tells me that I
can not 'in any way justify my own behavior in that affair,' I
acquiesce, because 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 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.
"But is not the writer content with what has been already said and done?
Has not the general voice of his countrymen long ago pronounced upon the
subject sentence without trial, and condemnation without a charge? Have
I not been exiled by ostracism, except that the shells which proscribed
me were anonymous? Is the writer ignorant of the public opinion and the
public conduct upon that occasion? If he is, I am not: the public will
forget both long before I shall cease to remember either.
"The man who is exiled by a faction has the consolation of thinking that
he is a martyr; he is upheld by hope and the dignity of his cause, real
or imaginary: he who withdraws from the pressure of debt may indulge in
the thought that time and prudence will retrieve his circumstances; he
who is condemned by the law as a term to his banishment, or a dream of
his abbreviation; or, it may be, the knowledge or the belief of some
injustice of the law, or of its administration, in his own particular.
But he who is outlawed by general opinion, without the intervention of
hostile politics, illegal judgment, or embarrassed circumstances,
whether he be innocent or guilty, must undergo all the bitterness of
exile, without hope, without pride, without alleviation. This case was
mine. Upon what grounds the public founded their opinion I am not aware;
but it was general, and it was decisive. Of me or of mine they knew
little, except that I had written what is called poetry, was a nobleman,
had married, became a father, and was involved in differences with my
wife and her relatives, no one knew why, because the persons complaining
refused to state their grievances. The fashionable world was divided
into parties, mine consisting of a very small minority; the reasonable
world was naturally on the stronger side, which happened to be the
lady's, as was most proper and polite. The press was active and
scurrilous; and such was the rage of the day that the unfortunate
publication of two copies of verses rather complimentary than otherwise
to the subjects of both, was tortured into a species of crime, or
constructive petty treason. 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 muttered,
and murmured, was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was
unfit for me. I withdrew: but this was not enough. In other countries,
in Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, and by the blue depth of the
lakes, I was pursued and breathed upon by the light. 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 sharpened
slander and doubled enmity."
One regrets not being able to go on reproducing these fine pages written
by Lord Byron, but the limits we have assigned ourselves force the
sacrifice.
And now, after all that has been placed before the reader, will he not
be curious to learn whether Lord Byron truly loved Lady Byron. The
answer admits of no doubt. Could love exist between two natures so
widely dissonant? But then it will be said, why did he marry her? This
question may be answered by the simple observation that two-thirds of
the marriages in high life, and indeed in all classes, are contracted
without any love, nor are the parties, therefore, condemned to
unhappiness. Still it is as well to recall that not only it did not
enter into Lord Byron's views to marry for love and to satisfy passion,
but that he married rather for the sake of escaping from the yoke of his
passions! "If I were in love I should be jealous," said he, "and then I
could not render happy the woman I married." "Let her be happy," added
he, "and then, for my part, I shall also be so." Then again we find,
"Let them only leave me my mornings free." Lastly, he wrote in his
journal, before marrying Miss Milbank, and while in correspondence with
her, "It is very singular, but there is not a spark of love between me
and Miss Milbank." If, then, Miss Milbank married Lord Byron out of
self-love, and to prevent his marrying a young and beautiful Irish girl,
Lord Byron, on his part, married Miss Milbank from motives the most
honorable to human nature. It was her _simple modest_ air that attracted
him and caused his delusion, and the fame of her virtues quite decided
him. As to interested motives, they were at most but secondary; and his
disinterestedness was all the more meritorious, since the embarrassed
state of his affairs made him really require money, and Miss Milbank had
none at that period. She was an only daughter, it is true; but her
parents were still in the prime of life, and her uncle, Lord Wentworth,
from whom her mother was to inherit before herself, might yet live many
years. His marriage with Miss Milbank was thus not only disinterested as
regards fortune, but even _imprudently generous_; for she only brought
him a small dowry of L10,000--a mere trifle compared to the life of
luxury she was to lead, in accordance with their mutual rank.[147] And
these L10,000 were not only returned by Lord Byron on their separation,
but generously doubled.
And now let us hasten to add that although Lord Byron was not in love
with Miss Milbank, he had no dislike to her person, for she was rather
pretty and pleasing in appearance. Her reputation for moral and
intellectual qualities, standing on such a high pedestal, Lord Byron
naturally conceived that esteem might well suffice to replace
tenderness. It is certain that, if she had lent herself to it more, and
if circumstances had only been endurable, their union might have
presented the same character common to most aristocratic couples in
England, and that even Lord Byron might have been able to act from
virtue in default of feeling; but that little requisite for him was
wholly wanting.
His celebrated and touching "Farewell" might be brought up as an
objection to what we have just advanced. It might be said that the word
_sincere_ is a proof of love, and _insincere_ a proof of _falsehood_.
Lastly, that in all cases there was a want of delicacy and refinement in
thus confiding his domestic troubles to the public. Well, all that would
be ill-founded, unjust, and contrary to truth. This is the truth of the
matter. Lord Byron had just been informed that Lady Byron, having sent
off by post the letter wherein she confirmed all that her father, Sir
Ralph, had written, namely, her resolution of not returning to the
conjugal roof, had afterward caused this letter to be sought for, and on
its being restored, had given way to almost mad demonstrations of joy.
Could he see aught else in this account save a certainty of the evil
influences weighing on her, and making her act in contradiction to her
real sentiments? He pitied her then as a victim, thought of all the
virtues _said_ to crown her, the illusive belief in which he was far
then from having lost; he forgot the wrongs she had inflicted on
him--the spying she had kept up around him--the calumnies spread against
him--the use she had made of the letters subtracted from his desk. Yes,
all was forgotten by his generous heart; and, according to custom, he
even went so far as to accuse himself--to see in the victim only his
wife, the mother of his little Ada! Under this excitement he was walking
about at night in his solitary apartments, and suddenly chanced to
perceive in some corner different things that had belonged to Lady
Byron--dresses and other articles of attire. It is well known how much
the sight of these inanimate mementoes has power to call up
recollections even to ordinary imaginations. What, then, must have been
the vividness with which they acted on an imagination like Lord Byron's?
His heart softened toward her, and he recollected that one day, under
the influence of sorrows which well-nigh robbed him of consciousness, he
had answered her harshly. Thinking himself in the wrong, and full of the
anguish that all these reflections and objects excited in his breast, he
allowed his tears to flow, and, snatching a pen, wrote down that
touching effusion, which somewhat eased his suffering.
The next day one of his friends found these beautiful verses on his
desk; and, judging of Lady Byron's heart and that of the public
according to his own, he imprudently gave them to the world. Thus we
can no more doubt Lord Byron's sincerity in writing them than we can
accuse him of publishing them. But what may cause astonishment is that
they could possibly have been ill-interpreted, as they were; and, above
all, that this touching "Farewell"--which made Madame de Stael say she
would gladly have been unhappy, like Lady Byron, to draw it forth--that
it should not have had power to rescue her heart from its apathy, and
bring her to the feet of her husband, or at least into his arms. Let us
add, in conclusion, that the most atrocious part of this affair, and
doubtless the most wounding for him, was precisely Lady Byron's conduct;
and in this conduct the worst was _her cruel silence_!
She has been called, after his words, the moral Clytemnestra[148] of her
husband. Such a surname is severe; but the repugnance we feel to
condemning a woman can not prevent our listening 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
ever required a friendly, tender, and indulgent hand to save him from
the tempests of life. 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. Happily Lord Byron only discovered at a later
period the purport of this strange visit.
In vain did Lord Byron's friend, the companion of all his travels, throw
himself at Lady Byron's feet, imploring her to give over this fatal
silence. The only reply she deigned was, that she had thought him 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 possibility 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
requirements of material and intellectual life at hours different to
hers:--all that was not merely annoying for her, but it must be
_madness!_ 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 exposed Lord Byron
to the most malignant interpretations--to all the calumny and revenge of
his enemies.
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!
Before closing this chapter it remains for us to examine if it be true,
as several of his biographers have pretended, that he wished to be
reunited to his wife. We must here declare that Lord Byron's intention,
in the last years of his life, was, on the contrary, not to see Lady
Byron again. This is what he wrote from Ravenna, to Moore, in June,
1820:--
"I have received a Parisian letter from W. W----, which I prefer
answering through you, as that worthy says he is an occasional visitor
of yours. In November last he wrote to me a well-meaning letter, stating
for some reasons of his own, his belief that a _reunion_ might be
effected between Lady Byron and myself.
"To this I answered as usual; and he sent me a second letter, repeating
his notions, which letter I have never answered, having had a thousand
other things to think of. He now writes as if he believed that he had
offended me by touching on the topic; and I wish you to assure him that
I am not at all so, but on the contrary, obliged by his good-nature. At
the same time _acquaint him the thing is impossible. You know this as
well as I, and there let it end._"
A year later, at Pisa, he again said to M----"_that he never would have
been reunited_ to Lady Byron; that the time for such a possibility was
passed, and he had made _quite sufficient advances_."
Let us add likewise that during the last period of his stay at Genoa, a
person whose acquaintance he had just made, thought fitting, for several
reasons and even by way of winning golden opinions among a certain set
in England, to insist on this matter with Lord Byron.
In order to succeed, this person represented Lady Byron as a victim,
telling him she was very ill physically and morally, and declaring the
secret cause to be, no doubt, grief at her separation from him and dread
of his asserting his rights over Ada.
Lord Byron, kind and impressionable as he was, may have been moved at
this; but assuredly his resolution of not being reunited to Lady Byron
was not shaken. His only reply was to show me a letter he had written
some little time before:--
"The letter I inclose," said he, "may help to explain my sentiments....
I was perfectly sincere when I wrote it, and am so still. But it is
difficult for me to withstand 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. But 'returning were as tedious as go o'er.' I feel this as much
as ever Macbeth did; and it is a dreary sensation, which at least
avenges the real or imaginary wrongs of one of the two unfortunate
persons whom it concerns."
Here is the letter he wrote from Pisa to Lady Byron:--
"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,
secondly, 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 Ada's
birthday--the 10th 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 as 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 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 thoughts 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 reunion 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 reunion 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 resentment. 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 you, it is
something more still, if it be true, as moralists say, that the most
offending are the least forgiving.
"Whether the offense has been solely on my side or reciprocal, 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."
This letter, though never sent, requires no further proofs. It can now
be understood, although the contrary has been said, that Lord Byron's
resolution never again to unite with Lady Byron was irrevocable; but
that, however, a reconciliation would have pleased him, on account of
his daughter, and because no feeling of hatred could find room in his
great _soul_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 138: "In none of the persons he admired," says Moore, "did I
meet with a union of qualities so well fitted to succeed in the
difficult task of winning him into fidelity and happiness as in the lady
in question. Combining beauty of the highest order with a mind
intelligent and ingenuous, having just learning enough to give
refinement to her taste, and far too much taste to make pretensions to
learning; with a patrician spirit proud as Lord Byron's, but showing it
only in a delicate generosity of spirit, a feminine high-mindedness,
which would have led her to tolerate the defects of her husband in
consideration of his noble qualities and his glory, and even to
sacrifice silently her own happiness rather than violate the
responsibility in which she stood pledged to the world for his."]
[Footnote 139: This circumstance was his proposal for Miss Milbank; we
shall see presently how it had taken place.]
[Footnote 140: "Lady Byron," said Lord Byron at Pisa, "and Mr. Medwin
were continually making portraits of me; each one more unlike than the
other."]
[Footnote 141: Moore, Letter 233.]
[Footnote 142: At this time of embarrassment he borrowed a large sum to
give to Coleridge.]
[Footnote 143: Moore, p. 389.]
[Footnote 144: Moore's Life, vol. iii. p. 209.]
[Footnote 145: It is true that once Lord Byron discharged a pistol, by
accident, in Lady Byron's room, when she was _enciente_. This action,
coupled with the preoccupations and sadness overwhelming Lord Byron's
mind at this time, and further aided by the insinuation of Mrs.
Claremont, made Lady Byron begin and continue to suspect that he was
mad, and so fully did she believe it, that from that hour, she could
never see him come near her without trembling. It was under the
influence of this absurd idea that she left him. Lady Byron was not
guilty of the reports then current against him. They were spread abroad
by her parents: she, on the contrary, as long as she thought him mad,
felt great sorrow at it. It was only when she had to persuade herself
that he was not mad, that she vowed hatred against him, convinced as she
was that he had only married her out of revenge, and not from love. But
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 husband.]
[Footnote 146: All this is either _false_ or _exaggerated_. Religious
criticisms were not so mild, though he had not in any way _attacked
religion_, and the Tories _never forgave_ his attack on the prince
regent, which they made a great noise about.]
[Footnote 147: See the description of her life made by him to Medwin
during his stay at Pisa.]
[Footnote 148: Lord Byron, in lines wrung from him by anguish and anger,
says _the moral Clytemnestra of thy lord_.]