Surely the name that Byron dared not write, even in his own journal, was

not that of Lady Frances Webster, whose name appears often in his

correspondence. The 'sacred name' was that of one of whom he afterwards

wrote, 'Thou art both Mother and May.'

During October, November, and December, 1813, Byron's mind was in a

perturbed condition. We gather, from a letter which he wrote to Moore on

November 30, that his thoughts were centred on a lady living in

Nottinghamshire[41], and that the scrape, which he mentions in his letter

to Augusta on November 8, referred to that lady and the dreaded prospects

of maternity.

Mr. Coleridge believes that the verses, 'Remember him, whom Passion's

power,' were addressed to Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster. There is

nothing, so far as the present writer knows, to support that opinion.

There is no evidence to show the month in which they were written; and, in

view of the statement that the lady in question had lived in comparative

retirement, 'Thy soul from long seclusion pure,' and that she had, because

of his presumption, banished the poet in 1813, it could not well have been

Lady Frances Webster, who in September of that year had asked Byron to be

godfather to her child, and in October had invited him to her house. It is

noteworthy that Byron expressly forbade Murray to publish those verses

with 'The Corsair,' where, it must be owned, they would have been sadly

out of place. 'Farewell, if ever fondest prayer,' was decidedly more

appropriate to the state of things existing at that time.

The motto chosen for his 'Bride of Abydos' is taken from Burns:

'Had we never loved sae kindly,

Had we never loved sae blindly,

Never met--or never parted,

We had ne'er been broken-hearted.'

The poem was written early in November, 1813.

Byron has told us that it was written to divert his mind,[42] 'to wring

his thoughts from reality to imagination, from selfish regrets to vivid

recollections'; to 'distract his thoughts from the recollection of * * * *

"Dear sacred name, rest ever unrevealed,"' and in a letter to John Galt

(December 11, 1813) he says that parts of the poem were drawn 'from

existence.' He had been staying at Newstead, in close proximity to

Annesley, from October 10 to November 8, during which time, as he says, he

regretted the absence of his sister Augusta, 'who might have saved him

much trouble.' He says, 'All convulsions end with me in rhyme,' and that

'The Bride of Abydos' was 'the work of a week.' In speaking of a 'dear

sacred name, rest ever unrevealed,' he says: 'At least even here my hand

would tremble to write it'; and on November 30 he writes to Moore: 'Since

I last wrote' (October 2), 'much has happened to me.' On November 27 he

writes in his journal: 'Mary--dear name--thou art both Mother and

May.'[43] At the end of November, after he had returned to town, he writes

in his journal:

'* * * * is distant, and will be at * * * *, still more distant, till

the spring. No one else, except Augusta, cares for me.... I am

tremendously in arrears with my letters, except to * * * *, and to her

my thoughts overpower me--my words never compass them.'

On November 14 Byron sends a device for the seals of himself and * * * *;

the seal in question is at present in the possession of the

Chaworth-Musters family. On December 10, we find from one of Byron's

letters that he had thoughts of committing suicide, and was deterred by

the idea that 'it would annoy Augusta, and perhaps * * * *.'

Byron seems to have put into the mouth of Zuleika words which conveyed his

own thoughts:

'Think'st thou that I could bear to part

With thee, and learn to halve my heart?

Ah! were I severed from thy side,

Where were thy friend--and who my guide?

Years have not seen, Time shall not see,

The hour that tears my soul from thee:

Ev'n Azrael, from his deadly quiver

When flies that shaft, and fly it must,

That parts all else, shall doom for ever

Our hearts to undivided dust!

* * * * *

What other can she seek to see

Than thee, companion of her bower,

The partner of her infancy?

These cherished thoughts with life begun,

Say, why must I no more avow?'

Selim suggests that Zuleika should brave the world and fly with him:

'But be the Star that guides the wanderer, Thou!

Thou, my Zuleika, share and bless my bark;

The Dove of peace and promise to mine ark!

Or, since that hope denied in worlds of strife,

Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!

The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,

And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!

* * * * *

Not blind to Fate, I see, where'er I rove,

Unnumbered perils,--but one only love!

Yet well my toils shall that fond breast repay,

Though Fortune frown, or falser friends betray.'

Zuleika, we are told, was the 'last of Giaffir's race.'[44] Selim tells

her that 'life is hazard at the best,' and there is much to fear:

'Yes, fear! the doubt, the dread of losing thee.

That dread shall vanish with the favouring gale;

Which Love to-night has promised to my sail.

No danger daunts the pair his smile hath blest,

Their steps still roving, but their hearts at rest.

With thee all toils are sweet, each clime hath charms;

Earth--Sea alike--our world within our arms!'

'The Corsair' was written between December 18, 1813, and January 11, 1814.

While it was passing through the press, Byron was at Newstead. He gives a

little of his own spirit to Conrad, and all Mary's virtues to Medora--a

name which was afterwards given to his child. Conrad

'Knew himself a villain--but he deemed

The rest no better than the thing he seemed;

And scorned the best as hypocrites who hid

Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.

Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt

From all affection and from all contempt.

None are all evil--quickening round his heart,

One softer feeling would not yet depart.

Yet 'gainst that passion vainly still he strove,

And even in him it asks the name of Love!

Yes, it was Love--unchangeable--unchanged,

Felt but for one from whom he never ranged.

Yes--it was Love--if thoughts of tenderness,

Tried in temptation, strengthened by distress,

Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime,

And yet--oh! more than all! untired by Time.

If there be Love in mortals--this was Love!

He was a villain--aye, reproaches shower

On him--but not the Passion, nor its power,

Which only proved--all other virtues gone--

Not Guilt itself could quench this _earliest_ one!'

The following verses are full of meaning for the initiated:

I.

'Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells,

Lonely and lost to light for evermore,

Save when to thine my heart responsive swells,

Then trembles into silence as before.

II.

'There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp

Burns the slow flame, eternal--but unseen;

Which not the darkness of Despair can damp,

Though vain its ray as it had never been.

III.

'Remember me--oh! pass not thou my grave

Without one thought whose relics there recline:

The only pang my bosom dare not brave

Must be to find forgetfulness in thine.

IV.

'My fondest--faintest--latest accents hear--

Grief for the dead not Virtue can reprove;

Then give me all I ever asked--a tear,

The first--last--sole reward of so much love!'

Conrad and Medora part, to meet no more in life

'But she is nothing--wherefore is he here?...

By the first glance on that still, marble brow--

It was enough--she died--what recked it how?

_The love of youth, the hope of better years_,

The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears,

The only living thing he could not hate,

Was reft at once--_and he deserved his fate_,

But did not feel it less.'

The blow he feared the most had fallen at last. The only woman whom he

loved had withdrawn her society from him, and his heart,

'Formed for softness--warped to wrong,

Betrayed too early, and beguiled too long,'

was petrified at last!

'Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock;

If such his heart, so shattered it the shock.

There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow,

Though dark the shade--it sheltered--saved till now.

The thunder came--that bolt hath blasted both,

The Granite's firmness, and the Lily's growth:

The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell

Its tale, but shrunk and withered where it fell;

And of its cold protector, blacken round

But shivered fragments on the barren ground!'

In moments of deep emotion, even the most reticent of men may sometimes

reveal themselves. 'The Giaour,' 'The Bride of Abydos,' and 'The Corsair,'

formed a trilogy, through which the tragedy of Byron's life swept like a

musical theme. Those poems acted like a recording instrument which, by

registering his transient moods, was destined ultimately to betray a

secret which he had been at so much pains to hide. In 'The Giaour' we see

remorse for a crime, which he was at first willing to expiate in sorrow

and repentance. In 'The Bride of Abydos' we find him, in an access of

madness and passion, proposing to share the fate of his victim, if she

will but consent to fly with him. Happily for both, Mary would never have

consented to an act of social suicide. In 'The Corsair' we behold his

dreams dispelled by the death of his Love and the hope of better years.

'He asked no question--all were answered now!'

With the dramatic fate of Medora the curtain falls, and the poet, in whom

'I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno,'

crosses the threshold of a new life. He reappears later on the scene of

all his woes, a broken, friendless stranger, in the person of Lara--that

last phase, in which the poet discloses his identity with characteristic

insouciance, brings the tragedy abruptly to a close.[45]

On January 6, 1814, Byron wrote a remarkable letter to Moore, at that time

in Nottinghamshire:

'... I have a confidence for you--a perplexing one to me, and just at

present in a state of abeyance in itself.... [Here probably follows

the disclosure.] However, we shall see. In the meantime you may amuse

yourself with my suspense, and put all the justices of peace in

requisition, in case I come into your county [Nottinghamshire] with

hackbut bent.[46] Seriously, whether I am to hear from her or him, it

is a pause, which I can fill up with as few thoughts of my own as I

can borrow from other people. Anything is better than stagnation; and

now, in the interregnum of my autumn and a strange summer adventure,

which I don't like to think of.... Of course you will keep my secret,

and don't even talk in your sleep of it. Happen what may, your

dedication is ensured, being already written; and I shall copy it out

fair to-night, in case business or amusement--_Amant alterna

Camoenæ_.'

Byron here refers to 'The Corsair,' which he dedicated to Thomas Moore. In

order to understand this letter, it may be inferred that one of the

letters he had written to his lady-love had remained so long unanswered

that Byron feared it might have fallen into her husband's hands. Writing

to Moore on the following day, Byron says:

'My last epistle would probably put you in a fidget. But the devil,

who _ought_ to be civil on such occasions, proved so, and took my

letter to the right place.... Is it not odd? the very fate I said she

had escaped from * * * * she has now undergone from the worthy * * *

*.'

An undated letter from Mary Chaworth, preserved among the Byron letters in

Mr. Murray's possession, seems to belong to this period:

'Your kind letter, my dear friend, relieved me much, and came

yesterday, when I was by no means well, and was a most agreeable

remedy, for I fancied a thousand things.... I shall set great value by

your _seal_, and, if you come down to Newstead before we leave

Annesley, see no reason why you should not call on us and bring

it....[47] I have lately suffered from a pain in my side, which has

alarmed me; but I will not, in return for your charming epistle, fill

mine with complaints.... I am surprised you have not seen Mr.

Chaworth, as I hear of him going about a good deal. We [herself and

Miss Radford] are now visiting very near Nottingham, but return to

Annesley to-morrow, I _trust_, where I have left all my little dears

except the eldest, whom _you_ saw, and who is with me. We are very

anxious to see you, and yet know not how we shall feel on the

occasion--_formal_, I dare say, at the _first_; but our meeting must

be confined to our trio, and then I think we shall be more at our

ease. _Do write_ me, and make a _sacrifice_ to _friendship_, which I

shall consider your visit. You _may_ always address your letters to

Annesley perfectly safe.

'Your sincere friend,

'MARY ----'

On or about January 7, 1814, Byron writes to his sister Augusta in

reference to Mary Chaworth:

'I shall write to-morrow, but did _not_ go to Lady M.'s [Melbourne]

twelfth cake banquet. M. [Mary] has written again--_all

friendship_--and really very simple and pathetic--_bad

usage_--_paleness_--_ill-health_--old _friendship_--_once_--_good

motive_--virtue--and so forth.'

Five days later Byron again writes to Augusta Leigh:

'On Sunday or Monday next, with leave of your lord and president, you

will be _well_ and ready to accompany me to Newstead, which you

_should_ see, and I will endeavour to render as comfortable as I can,

for both our sakes.... Claughton is, I believe, inclined to settle....

More news from Mrs. [Chaworth], _all friendship_; you shall see her.'

Medora was born on or about April 15, 1814. 'Lara' was written between May

4 and 14. The opening lines, which would have set every tongue wagging,

were withheld from publication until January, 1887. They were written in

London early in May, and were addressed to the mother of Medora:

'When thou art gone--the loved, the lost--the one

Whose smile hath gladdened, though perchance undone--

_Whose name too dearly cherished to impart_

Dies on the lip, but trembles in the heart;

Whose sudden mention can almost convulse,

And lightens through the ungovernable pulse--

Till the heart leaps so keenly to the word

We fear that throb can hardly beat unheard--[48]

Then sinks at once beneath that sickly chill

That follows when we find her absent still.

When thou art gone--too far again to bless--

Oh! God--how slowly comes Forgetfulness!

Let none complain how faithless and how brief

The brain's remembrance, or the bosom's grief,

Or ere they thus forbid us to forget

Let Mercy strip the memory of regret;

Yet--selfish still--we would not be forgot,

What lip dare say--"My Love--remember not"?

Oh! best--and dearest! Thou whose thrilling name

My heart adores too deeply to proclaim--

My memory, almost ceasing to repine,

Would mount to Hope if once secure of thine.

Meantime the tale I weave must mournful be--

As absence to the heart that lives on thee!'

Lord Lovelace has told us that 'nothing is too stupid for belief.' We are

disposed to agree with him, especially as he produces these lines in

support of his accusation against Augusta Leigh. The absurdity of

supposing that they were addressed to Byron's sister appears to us to be

so evident that it seems unnecessary to waste words in disputation. There

is abundant proof that during this period Mrs. Leigh and Byron were in

constant correspondence, and that he visited her almost daily during her

simulated confinement and convalescence. When Murray sent her some books

to while away the time, Byron wrote (April 9) on her behalf to thank him.

And finally, as Augusta Leigh had no intention whatever of leaving London,

she could in no sense have been 'the lost one' whose prospective departure

filled Byron with despair. The poet and his sister--whom he was accustomed

to address as 'Goose'[49]--were then, and always, on most familiar terms.

The 'mention of her name' (which was often on his lips) would certainly

not have convulsed him, nor have caused his heart to beat so loudly that

he feared lest others should hear it! The woman to whom those lines were

addressed was Mary Chaworth, whose condition induced him, on April 18, to

begin a fragment entitled 'Magdalen'--she of whom he wrote on May 4:

'I speak not--I trace not--I breathe not thy name--

There is Love in the sound--there is Guilt in the fame.'

Lord Lovelace, in his impetuosity, and with very imperfect knowledge of

Byron's life-story, ties every doubtful scrap of his grandfather's poetry

into his bundle of proofs against Augusta Leigh, without perceiving any

discrepancy in the nature of his evidence. A moment's reflection might

have convinced him that the lines we have quoted could not, by any

possibility, have applied to one whom he subsequently addressed as:

'My sister! my sweet sister! if a name

Dearer and purer were, it should be thine;

* * * * *

Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,

I had been better than I now can be;

The passions which have torn me would have slept;

_I_ had not suffered, and _thou_ hadst not wept.'

It must be admitted that Byron, through indiscreet confidences and

reckless mystifications, was partly the cause of the suspicions which

afterwards fell upon his sister. Lady Byron has left it on record that

Byron early in 1814--before the birth of Medora--told Lady Caroline Lamb

that a woman he passionately loved was with child by him, and that if a

daughter was born it should be called Medora.[50] At about the same time

'he advanced, at Holland House, the most extraordinary theories about the

relations of brother and sister, which originated the reports about Mrs.

Leigh.'

That, after ninety years, such nonsense should be regarded as evidence

against a woman so well known in the society of her day as was Mrs. Leigh,

justifies our concurrence with Lord Lovelace's opinion that 'nothing is

too stupid for belief.'

It appears that one day Lady Byron was talking to her husband about

'Lara,' which seemed to her to be 'like the darkness in which one fears to

behold spectres.' This bait was evidently too tempting for Byron to

resist. He replied: '"Lara"--there's more in _that_ than in any of them.'

As he spoke he shuddered, and turned his eyes to the ground.

Before we examine that poem to see how much it may contain of illuminating

matter, we will touch upon a remark Byron made to his wife, which Lord

Lovelace quotes without perceiving its depth and meaning. We will quote

'Astarte':

'He told Lady Byron that if she had married him when he first

proposed, he should not have written any of the poems which followed

[the first and second Cantos] "Childe Harold."'

This is perfectly true. Byron proposed to Miss Milbanke in 1812. If she

had married him then, he would not have renewed his intimacy with Mary

Chaworth in June, 1813. There would have been no heart-hunger, no misery,

no remorse, and, in short, no inspiration for 'The Giaour,' 'The Bride,'

'The Corsair,' and 'Lara.' Miss Milbanke's refusal of his offer of

marriage in 1812 rankled long in Byron's mind, and provoked those

ungenerous reproaches which have been, with more or less exaggeration,

reported by persons in Lady Byron's confidence. The mischief was done

between the date of Miss Milbanke's refusal and her acceptance of his

offer, which occurred after the fury of his passion for Mary Chaworth had

burnt itself out. No blame attaches to Lady Byron for this misfortune.

When Byron first proposed, her affections were elsewhere engaged; she

could not, therefore, dispose of her heart to him. When she at last

accepted him, it was too late for happiness.

In a letter which Byron wrote to Miss Milbanke previous to his

marriage,[51] he unconsciously prophesied the worst:

'The truth is that could I have foreseen that your life was to be

linked to mine--had I even possessed a distinct hope, however

distant--I would have been a different and better being. As it is, I

have sometimes doubts, even if I should not disappoint the future, nor

act hereafter unworthily of you, whether the past ought not to make

you still regret me--even that portion of it with which you are not

unacquainted. I did not believe such a woman existed--at least for

me--_and I sometimes fear I ought to wish that she had not_.'

When Byron said that he had doubts whether the past would not eventually

reflect injuriously upon his future wife, he referred, not to Augusta

Leigh, but to his fatal intercourse with Mary Chaworth. The following

sentences taken from Mrs. Leigh's letters to Francis Hodgson, who knew the

truth, prove that the mystery only incidentally affected Augusta. The

letters were written February, 1816.

'From what passed [between Captain Byron and Mrs. Clermont] _now_, if

_they_ choose it, it must come into court! God alone knows the

consequences.'

'It strikes me that, if their pecuniary proposals are favourable,

Byron will be too happy to escape the exposure. _He must_ be anxious.

It is impossible he should not in some degree.'

These are the expressions, not of a person connected with a tragedy, but

rather of one who was a spectator of it. Every impartial person must see

that. When, on another occasion, Byron told his wife that he wished he

had gone abroad--as he had intended--in June, 1813, he undoubtedly implied

that the fatal intimacy with Mary Chaworth would have been avoided. This

seems so clear to us that we are surprised that Byron's statement on the

subject of his poems should have made no impression on the mind of Lord

Lovelace, and should have elicited nothing from him in 'Astarte,' except

the _banale_ suggestion that Byron's literary activity _must have been

accidental_!

Lara, like Conrad, is a portion of Byron himself, and the poem opens with

his return to Newstead after some bitter experiences, at which he darkly

hints:

'Short was the course his restlessness had run,

But long enough to leave him half undone.'

He tells us that 'Another chief consoled his destined bride.' 'One is

absent that most might decorate that gloomy pile.'

'Why slept he not when others were at rest?

Why heard no music, and received no guest?

All was not well, they deemed--but where the wrong?

Some knew perchance.'

In stanzas 17, 18, and 19, Byron draws a picture of himself, so like that

his sister remarked upon it in a letter to Hodgson. After telling us that

'his heart was not by nature hard,' he says that

'His blood in temperate seeming now would flow:

Ah! happier if it ne'er with guilt had glowed,

But ever in that icy smoothness flowed!'

The poet tells us that after Lara's death he was mourned by one whose

quiet grief endured for long.

'Vain was all question asked her of the past,

And vain e'en menace--silent to the last.'

'Why did she love him? Curious fool!--be still--

Is human love the growth of human will?

To her he might be gentleness; the stern

Have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern,

And when they love, your smilers guess not how

Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow.

They were not common links, that formed the chain

That bound to Lara Kaled's heart and brain;

But that wild tale she brooked not to unfold,

_And sealed is now each lip that could have told_.

* * * * *

'The tempest of his heart in scorn had gazed

On that the feebler Elements hath raised.

The Rapture of his Heart had looked on high,

And asked if greater dwelt beyond the sky:

Chained to excess, the slave of each extreme,

How woke he from the wildness of that dream!

Alas! he told not--_but he did awake

To curse the withered heart that would not break_.'

On September 8, 1814, four months after Byron had finished 'Lara,' while

he was at Newstead with his sister and her children--the little Medora

among them--he wrote his fragment 'Harmodia.' The rough draft was given

after his marriage to Lady Byron, who had no idea to what it could

possibly refer. When the scandal about Augusta was at its height, this

fragment was impounded among other incriminating documents, and eventually

saw the light in 'Astarte.' Lord Lovelace was firmly convinced that it was

addressed to Augusta Leigh!

Between September 7 and 15 Byron and Mary Chaworth were considering the

desirability of marriage for Byron, and letters were passing between the

distracted poet and two young ladies--Miss Milbanke and another--with that

object in view. Although Byron was still in love with Mary Chaworth, he

had come to understand that her determination to break the dangerous

intimacy was irrevocable, so he resolved to follow her advice and marry.

The tone of his letter to Moore, written on September 15, shows that he

was not very keen about wedlock. He was making plans for a journey to

Italy in the event of his proposal being rejected.

It is possible that, in a conversation between Mary and himself, the

former may have spoken of the risks they had incurred in the past, and of

her resolve never to transgress again. To which Byron replied:

HARMODIA.

'The things that were--and what and whence are they?

Those clouds and rainbows of thy yesterday?

Their path has vanish'd from th' eternal sky,

And now its hues are of a different dye.

Thus speeds from day to day, and Pole to Pole,

The change of parts, the sameness of the whole;

And all we snatch, amidst the breathing strife,

But gives to Memory what it takes from Life:

Despoils a substance to adorn a shade--

And that frail shadow lengthens but to fade.

Sun of the sleepless! Melancholy Star!

Whose tearful beam shoots trembling from afar--

_That chang'st_ the darkness thou canst not dispel--

How like art thou to Joy, remembered well!

Such is the past--the light of other days

That shines, but warms not with its powerless rays--

A moonbeam _Sorrow_ watcheth to behold,

Distinct, but distant--clear, but _death-like_ cold.

'Oh! as full thought comes rushing o'er the Mind

Of all we saw before--to leave behind--

Of all!--but words, what are they? Can they give

A trace of truth to thoughts while yet they live?

No--Passion--Feeling speak not--or in vain--

The tear for Grief--the Groan must speak for Pain--

Joy hath its smile--and Love its blush and sigh--

Despair her silence--Hate her lip and eye--

These their interpreters, where deeply lurk--

The Soul's despoilers warring as they work--

The strife once o'er--then words may find their way,

Yet how enfeebled from the forced delay!

'But who could paint the progress of the wreck--

Himself still clinging to the dangerous deck?

Safe on the shore the artist first must stand,

And then the pencil trembles in his hand.'

When, four years later, Byron was writing the first canto of 'Don Juan,'

with feelings chastened by suffering and time, he recurred to that

period--never effaced from his memory--the time when he wrote:

'When thou art gone--the loved--the lost--the one

Whose smile hath gladdened--though, perchance, undone!'

Time could not change the feelings of his youth, nor keep his thoughts for

long from the object of his early love.

'They tell me 'tis decided you depart:

'Tis wise--'tis well, but not the less a pain;

I have no further claim on your young heart,

Mine is the victim, and would be again:

To love too much has been the only art

I used.'

'I loved, I love you, for this love have lost

State, station, Heaven, Mankind's, my own esteem,

And yet can not regret what it hath cost,

_So dear is still the memory of that dream_;

Yet, if I name my guilt, 'tis not to boast,

None can deem harshlier of me than I deem.'

'All is o'er

For me on earth, except some years to hide

My shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core:

These I could bear, but cannot cast aside

The passion which still rages as before--

And so farewell--forgive me, love me--No,

That word is idle now--but let it go.'

* * * * *

'My heart is feminine, nor can forget--

To all, except one image, madly blind;

So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,

As vibrates my fond heart to my fixed soul.'

It was early in 1814 that Byron also wrote his farewell verses to Mary

Chaworth, which appeared in the second edition of 'The Corsair':

I.

'Farewell! if ever fondest prayer

For other's weal availed on high,

Mine will not all be lost in air,

But waft thy name beyond the sky.

'Twere vain to speak--to weep--to sigh:

Oh! more than tears of blood can tell,

_When wrung from Guilt's expiring eye_,

Are in that word--Farewell! Farewell!

II.

'These lips are mute, these eyes are dry;

But in my breast, and in my brain,

Awake the pangs that pass not by,

_The thought that ne'er shall sleep again_.

My soul nor deigns nor dares complain,

Though Grief and Passion there rebel:

I only know we loved in vain--

I only feel--Farewell! Farewell!'

Even in the 'Hebrew Melodies,' which were probably begun in the autumn of

1814, and finished after Byron's marriage in January, 1815, there are

traces of that deathless remorse and love, whose expression could not be

altogether repressed. We select some examples at random. In the poem 'Oh,

snatched away in Beauty's bloom,' the poet had added two verses which were

subsequently suppressed:

'Nor need I write to tell the tale,

My pen were doubly weak.

Oh! what can idle words avail,

Unless my heart could speak?

'By day or night, in weal or woe,

That heart, no longer free,

Must bear the love it cannot show,

And silent turn for thee.'

In 'Herod's Lament for Mariamne' we find:

'She's gone, who shared my diadem;

She sunk, with her my joys entombing;

I swept that flower from Judah's stem,

Whose leaves for me alone were blooming;

And mine's the guilt, and mine the Hell,

This bosom's desolation dooming;

And I have earned those tortures well,

Which unconsumed are still consuming!'

While admitting that Byron's avowed object was to portray the remorse of

Herod, we suspect that the haunting image of one so dear to him--one who

had suffered through guilt which he so frequently deplored in verse--must

have been in the poet's mind when these lines were written.

On January 17, 1814, Byron went to Newstead with Augusta Leigh, and stayed

there one month.

'A busy month and pleasant, at least three weeks of it.... "The

Corsair" has been conceived, written, published, etc., since I took up

this journal. They tell me it has great success; it was written _con

amore_, and much from _existence_.'

On the following day Byron wrote to his friend Wedderburn Webster:

'I am on my way to the country on rather a melancholy expedition. A

very old and early connexion [Mary Chaworth], or rather friend of

mine, has desired to see me; and, as now we can never be more than

friends, I have no objection. She is certainly unhappy and, I fear,

ill; and the length and circumstances attending our acquaintance

render her request and my visit neither singular nor improper.'

This strange apology for what might have been considered a very natural

act of neighbourly friendship, inevitably reminds us of a French proverb,

_Qui s'excuse s'accuse_. It is worthy of note that, after Byron had been

ten days at Newstead with his sister, he wrote to his lawyer--who must

have been surprised at the irrelevant information--to say that Augusta

Leigh was 'in the family way.' The significance of this communication has

hitherto passed unnoticed. We gather from Byron's letters that he was much

depressed by Mary Chaworth's state of health, involving all the risks of

discovery.

'My rhyming propensity is quite gone,' he writes, 'and I feel much as

I did at Patras on recovering from my fever--weak, but in health, and

only afraid of a relapse.'

Soon after his return to London Byron wrote to Moore: 'Seriously, I am in

what the learned call a dilemma, and the vulgar, a scrape....'

Moore took care, with his asterisks, that we should not know the nature of

that scrape, which certainly had nothing to do with his 'Lines to a Lady

Weeping' which appeared in the first edition of 'The Corsair.' If the

reader has any doubts on this point, let him refer to Byron's letters to

Murray, notably to that one in which the angry poet protests against the

suppression of those lines in the second edition of 'The Corsair':

'You have played the devil by that injudicious _suppression_, which

you did totally without my consent.... Now, I _do not_, and _will_ not

be supposed to shrink, although myself and everything belonging to me

were to perish with my memory.'

Moore's asterisks veiled the record of a deeper scrape, as Byron's letter

to him, written three weeks later, plainly show.

On April 10, 1814, Byron wrote in his journal:

'I do not know that I am happiest when alone; but this I am sure of,

that I am never long in the society even of _her_ I love (God knows

too well, and the Devil probably too), without a yearning for the

company of my lamp, and my utterly confused and tumbled-over library.'

The latter portion of the journal at this period is much mutilated. There

is a gap between April 10 and 19, when, four days after the birth of

Medora, he writes in deep dejection:

'There is ice at both poles, north and south--all extremes are the

same--misery belongs to the highest and the lowest, only.... I will

keep no further journal ... and, to prevent me from returning, like a

dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this

volume.... "O! fool! I shall go mad."'

It was at this time that Byron wrote the following lines, in which he

tells Mary Chaworth that all danger of the discovery of their secret is

over:

'There is no more for _me_ to hope,

_There is no more for thee to fear_;

And, if I give my sorrow scope,

That sorrow _thou_ shalt never hear.

Why did I hold thy love so dear?

Why shed for such a heart one tear?

Let deep and dreary silence be

My only memory of thee!

When all are fled who flatter now,

Save thoughts which will not flatter then;

And thou recall'st the broken vow

To him who must not love again--

_Each hour of now forgotten years_

Thou, then, shalt number with thy tears;

And every drop of grief shall be

A vain remembrancer of me!'

On May 4, 1814, Byron sent to Moore the following verses. We quote from

Lady Byron's manuscript:

'I speak not--I trace not--I breathe not thy name--

There is love in the sound--there is Guilt in the fame--

But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart

The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.

'Too brief for our passion--too long for our peace--

Was that hour--can its hope--can its memory cease?

We repent--we abjure--we will break from our chain:

We must part--we must fly to--unite it again!

'Oh! thine be the gladness--and mine be the Guilt!

Forgive me--adored one--forsake if thou wilt--

But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased,

And Man shall not break it whatever _thou_ mayst.

'Oh! proud to the mighty--but humble to thee

This soul in its bitterest moment shall be,

And our days glide as swift--and our moments more sweet

With thee at my side--than the world at my feet.

'One tear of thy sorrow--one smile of thy love--

Shall turn me or fix--shall reward or reprove--

And the heartless may wonder at all I resign:

Thy lip shall reply--not to them--but to mine.'

These verses were not published until Byron had been five years in his

grave. They tell the story plainly, and the manuscript in Mr. Murray's

possession speaks plainer still. Before Byron gave the manuscript to his

wife, he erased the following lines:

'We have loved--and oh! still, my adored one, we love!'

'Oh! the moment is past when that passion might cease.'

'But I cannot repent what we ne'er can recall.'

After Medora's birth Byron became more and more dejected, and on April 29

he wrote a remarkable letter to Murray, enclosing a draft to redeem the

copyrights of his poems, and releasing Murray from his engagement to pay

£1,000, agreed on for 'The Giaour' and 'The Bride of Abydos.' Byron was

evidently afraid that Mr. Chaworth Musters would discover the truth, and

that a duel and disgrace would be the inevitable consequence.

'_If any accident occurs to me_, you may do then as you please; but,

with the exception of two copies of each for _yourself_ only, I expect

and request that the advertisements be withdrawn, and the remaining

copies of _all_ destroyed; and any expense so incurred I will be glad

to defray. For all this it may be well to assign some reason. I have

none to give except my own caprice, and I do not consider the

circumstance of consequence enough to require explanation. Of course,

I need hardly assure you that they never shall be published with my

consent, directly or indirectly, by any other person whatsoever, and

that I am perfectly satisfied, and have every reason so to be, with

your conduct in all transactions between us, as publisher and author.

It will give me great pleasure to preserve your acquaintance, and to

consider you as my friend.'

Two days later Byron seems to have conquered his immediate apprehensions,

and, in reply to an appeal from Murray, writes:

'If your present note is serious, and it really would be inconvenient,

there is an end of the matter; tear my draft, and go on as usual: in

that case we will recur to our former basis. That _I_ was perfectly

_serious_ in wishing to suppress all future publication is true; but

certainly not to interfere with the convenience of others, and more

particularly your own. _Some day I will tell you the reason of this

apparently strange resolution._'

It had evidently dawned on Byron's mind that a sudden suppression of his

poems would have aroused public curiosity, and that a motive for his

action would either have been found or invented. This would have been

fatal to all concerned. If trouble were to come, it would be wiser not to

meet it halfway. Happily, the birth of Medora passed unnoticed.

As time wore on, Byron's hopes that Mary would relent grew apace. But he

was doomed to disappointment. Mary Chaworth had the courage and the

wisdom to crush a love so disastrous to both. Byron in his blindness

reproached her:

'Thou art not false, but thou art fickle.'

He tells her that he would despise her if she were false; but he knows

that her love is sincere:

'When _she_ can change who loved so truly!'

'Ah! sure such grief is _Fancy's_ scheming,

And all the Change can be but dreaming!'

He could not believe that her resolve was serious. Time taught him better.

Love died, and friendship took its place. The same love that tempted her

to sin was that true love that works out its redemption.

Between April 15 and 21, 1816, before signing the deed of separation,

Byron went into the country to take leave of Mary Chaworth. It was their

last meeting, and the parting must have been a sad one. The hopes that

Mary had formed for his peace and happiness in marriage had suddenly been

dashed to the ground. And now he was about to leave England under a cloud,

which threatened for a time to overwhelm them both. A terrible anxiety as

to the issue of investigations, which were being made into his conduct

previous to and during his marriage, oppressed her with the gravest

apprehension. Everything seemed to depend upon the silence both of Byron

and Augusta. Under this awful strain the mind of Mary Chaworth was

flickering towards collapse. By the following verses, which must have been

written soon after their final meeting, we find Byron,

'Seared in heart--and lone--and blighted,'

reproaching, with a lover's injustice, the woman he adored, for that act

of renunciation which, under happier auspices, might have proved his own

salvation:

I.

'When we two parted

In silence and tears,

Half broken-hearted

To sever for years,

Pale grew thy cheek and cold,

Colder thy kiss;

Truly that hour foretold

Sorrow to this.

II.

'The dew of the morning

Sunk chill on my brow--

It felt like the warning

Of what I feel now.

Thy vows are all broken,

And light is thy fame:

I hear thy name spoken,

And share in its shame.

III.

'They name thee before me,

A knell to mine ear;

A shudder comes o'er me--

Why wert thou so dear?

They know not I knew thee,

Who knew thee too well:

Long, long shall I rue thee,

Too deeply to tell.

IV.

'In secret we met--

In silence I grieve,

_That thy heart could forget,

Thy spirit deceive_.

If I should meet thee

After long years,

How should I greet thee?

With silence and tears.'

In the first draft Byron had written, after the second verse, the

following words:

'_Our secret lies hidden,

But never forgot._'

In 'Fare Thee Well,' written on March 17, 1816, there are only four lines

which have any bearing on the point under consideration.

Byron tells his wife that if she really knew the truth, if every inmost

thought of his breast were bared before her, she would _not_ have forsaken

him.

That is true. Lady Byron might, in time, have forgiven everything if the

doctors had been able to declare that her husband was not wholly

accountable for his actions. But when they pronounced him to be of sound

mind, and, as will be seen presently, she subsequently convinced herself

that he had committed, and might even then be committing adultery with his

sister under her own roof, she resolved never again to place herself in

his power. If, in the early stages of disagreement, without betraying Mary

Chaworth, it could have been avowed that Mrs. Leigh _was not the mother of

Medora_, Lady Byron might not have seen in her husband's strange conduct

towards herself 'signs of a deep remorse.' She would certainly have been

far more patient under suffering, and the separation might have been

avoided. But this avowal was impracticable. Augusta had committed herself

too far for that, and the idle gossip of her servants _subsequently_

convinced Lady Byron that Byron was the father of Augusta's child. It is

clear that neither Augusta nor Byron made any attempts to remove those

suspicions; in fact, they acted in a manner most certain to confirm them.

Whether the secret, which they had pledged themselves to keep, could long

have been withheld from Lady Byron, if matters had been patched up, is

doubtful. Meanwhile, as everything depended on _premat nox alta_, they

dared not risk even a partial avowal of the truth.

The separation was inevitable, and in this case it was eternal. It is hard

to believe that there had ever been any real love on either side. Under

these circumstances we feel sure that any attempts at reconciliation would

have ended disastrously for both. Byron's love for Mary Chaworth was

strong as death. Many waters could not have quenched it, 'neither could

the floods drown it.'

The last verses written by Byron before he left England for ever were

addressed to his sister. The deed of separation had been signed, and

Augusta Leigh, who had stood at his side in those dark hours when all the

world had forsaken him, was about to leave London.

'When all around grew drear and dark,

And Reason half withheld her ray--

And Hope but shed a dying spark

Which more misled my lonely way;

When Fortune changed, and Love fled far,

And Hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,

Thou wert the solitary star

Which rose, and set not to the last.

And when the cloud upon us came

_Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray_--

Then purer spread its gentle flame

And dashed the darkness all away.

Still may thy Spirit dwell on mine,

_And teach it what to brave or brook_--

There's more in one soft word of thine

Than in the world's defied rebuke.

* * * * *

_Then let the ties of baffled love

Be broken_--thine will never break;

Thy heart can feel.'

These ingenuous words show that Byron's affection for his sister, and his

gratitude for her loyalty, were both deep and sincere. If, as Lord

Lovelace asserts, Byron had been her lover, we know enough of his

character to be certain that he would never have written these lines. He

was not a hypocrite--far from it--and it was foreign to his naturally

combative nature to attempt to conciliate public opinion. These lines were

written _currente calamo_, and are only interesting to us on account of

the light they cast upon the situation at the time of the separation.

Evidently Byron had heard a rumour of the baseless charge that was

afterwards openly made. He reminds Augusta that a cloud threatened to

darken her existence, but the bright rays of her purity dispelled it. He

hopes that even in absence she will guide and direct him as in the past;

and he compliments her by saying that one word from her had more influence

over him than the whole world's censure. Although his love-episode with

Mary was over, yet so long as Augusta loves him he will still have

something to live for, as she alone can feel for him and understand his

position.

In speaking of his sister, in the third canto of 'Childe Harold,' he says:

'For there was soft Remembrance, _and sweet Trust_

In one fond breast, to which his own would melt.'

'_And he had learned to love_--I know not why,

For this in such as him seems strange of mood--

_The helpless looks of blooming Infancy_,

Even in its earliest nurture; what subdued,

To change like this, a mind so far imbued

With scorn of man, it little boots to know;

But thus it was; and though in solitude

Small power the nipped affections have to grow,

In him this glowed when all beside had ceased to glow.'

If these words bear any significance, Byron must mean that, since the

preceding canto of 'Childe Harold' was written, he had formed (learned to

love) a strong attachment to some child, and, in spite of absence, this

affection still glowed. That child may possibly have been Ada, as the

opening lines seem to suggest. But this is not quite certain. According to

Lord Lovelace, Byron never saw his child after January 3, 1816, when the

babe was only twenty-four days old. Byron himself states that it was not

granted to him 'to watch her dawn of little joys, or hold her lightly on

his knee, and print on her soft cheek a parent's kiss.' All this, he tells

us, 'was in his nature,' but was denied to him. His sole consolation was

the hope that some day Ada would learn to love him. On the other hand, the

child mentioned in 'Childe Harold' had won his love by means which 'it

little boots to know.' If Byron had alluded to his daughter Ada, there

need have been no ambiguity. Possibly the child here indicated may have

been little Medora, then three years old, with whom he had often played,

and who was then living with that sister of 'Soft Remembrance and sweet

Trust.'

If that conjecture be correct, this is the only allusion to Medora in

Byron's poetry. But she is indicated in prose. In reference to the death

of one of Moore's children, Byron wrote (February 2, 1818):

'I know how to feel with you, because I am quite wrapped up in my own

children. Besides my little legitimate, I have made unto myself an

illegitimate since, _to say nothing of one before_; and I look forward

to one of them as the pillar of my old age, supposing that I ever

reach, as I hope I never shall, that desolating period.'

In the _one before_ Moore will have recognized Medora. In spite of the

'scarlet cloak and double figure,' Moore had no belief in the story that

Byron became a father while at Harrow School!

'The Dream,' which was written in July, 1816, is perhaps more widely known

than any of Byron's poems. Its theme is the remembrance of a hopeless

passion, which neither Time nor Reason could extinguish. Similar notes of

lamentation permeate most of his poems, but in 'The Dream' Byron, for the

first time, takes the world into his confidence, and tells his tale of woe

with such distinctness that we realize its truth, its passion, and its

calamity. The publication of that poem was an indiscretion which must have

been very disconcerting to his sister. Fortunately, it had no disastrous

consequences. It apparently awakened no suspicions, and its sole effect

was to incense Mary Chaworth's husband, who, in order to stop all prattle,

caused the 'peculiar diadem of trees' to be cut down. In Byron's early

poems we see how deeply Mary Chaworth's marriage affected him; but this

was known only to a small circle of Southwell friends. In 'The Dream' we

realize that she was in fact a portion of his life, and that his own

marriage had not in the least affected his feelings towards her. He had

tried hard to forget her, but in vain; she was his destiny. Whether Byron,

when he wrote this poem, had any idea of publishing it to the world is not

known. It may possibly have been written to relieve his overburdened mind,

and would not have seen the light but for Lady Byron's treatment of Mrs.

Leigh on the memorable occasion when she extracted, under promise of

secrecy, the so-called 'Confession,' to which we shall allude presently.

In any case, Byron became aware of what had happened in September, 1816.

In some lines addressed to his wife, he tells her that she bought others'

grief at any price, adding:

'The means were worthy, and the end is won;

I would not do by thee as _thou_ hast done.'

Possibly, Byron may have thought that the publication of this poem would

act as a barb, and would wound Lady Byron's stubborn pride. Its appearance

in the circumstances was certainly _contra bonos mores_, but we must

remember that 'men in rage often strike those who wish them best.'

Whatever may have been Byron's intention, 'The Dream' affords a proof that

Mary Chaworth was never long absent from his thoughts. At this time, when

he felt a deep remorse for his conduct towards Mary Chaworth, he asks

himself:

'What is this Death? a quiet of the heart?

The whole of that of which we are a part?

For Life is but a vision--what I see

Of all which lives alone is Life to me,

And being so--the absent are the dead

Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread

A dreary shroud around us, and invest

With sad remembrancers our hours of rest.

The absent are the dead--for they are cold,

And ne'er can be what once we did behold;

And they are changed, and cheerless,--or if yet

_The unforgotten do not all forget,

Since thus divided_--equal must it be

_If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea_;

_It may be both_--but one day end it must

In the dark union of insensate dust.'

It was at this time also that Byron wrote his 'Stanzas to Augusta,' which

show his complete confidence in her loyalty:

'Though human, thou didst not deceive me,

Though woman, thou didst not forsake,

Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,

Though tempted, thou never couldst shake;

_Though trusted, thou didst not betray me_,

Though parted, it was not to fly,

Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,

_Nor, mute, that the world might belie_.'

Byron's remorse also found expression in 'Manfred,' where contrition is

but slightly veiled by words of mysterious import, breathed in an

atmosphere of mountains, magic, and ghost-lore. People in society, whose

ears had been poisoned by insinuations against Mrs. Leigh, and who knew

nothing of Byron's intercourse with Mary Chaworth, came to the conclusion

that 'Manfred' revealed a criminal attachment between Byron and his

sister. Byron was aware of this, and, conscious of his innocence, held his

head in proud defiance, and laughed his enemies to scorn. He did not deign

to defend himself; and the public--forgetful of the maxim that where there

is a sense of guilt there is a jealousy of drawing attention to

it--believed the worst. When a critique of 'Manfred,' giving an account of

the supposed origin of the story, was sent to Byron, he wrote to Murray:

'The conjecturer is out, and knows nothing of the matter. I had a better

origin than he can devise or divine for the soul of him.'

That was the simple truth. The cruel allegation against Mrs. Leigh seemed

to be beneath contempt. As Sir Egerton Brydges pointed out at the time,

Byron, being of a strong temperament, did not reply to the injuries heaped

upon him by whining complaints and cowardly protestations of innocence; he

became desperate, and broke out into indignation, sarcasm, and exposure of

his opponents, in a manner so severe as to seem inexcusably cruel to those

who did not realize the provocation. It was 'war to the knife,' and Byron

had the best of it.

We propose to examine 'Manfred' closely, to see whether Astarte in any

degree resembles the description which Lord Lovelace has given of Augusta

Leigh.

Manfred tells us that his slumbers are 'a continuance of enduring

thought,' since that 'all-nameless hour' when he committed the crime for

which he suffers. He asks 'Forgetfulness of that which is within him--a

crime which he cannot utter.' When told by the Seven Spirits that he

cannot have self-oblivion, Manfred asks if Death would give it to him; and

receives the sad reply that, being immortal, the spirit after death cannot

forget the past.

Eventually the Seventh Spirit--typifying, possibly, a Magdalen--appears

before Manfred, in the shape of a beautiful woman.

'MANFRED. Oh God! if it be thus, and _thou_

Art not a madness and a mockery,

I yet might be most happy.'

When the figure vanishes, Manfred falls senseless. In the second act,

Manfred, in reply to the chamois-hunter, who offers him a cup of wine,

says:

'Away, away! there's blood upon the brim!

Will it then never--never sink in the earth?

'Tis blood--my blood! the pure warm stream

Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours

When we were in our youth, and had one heart,

And loved each other as we should not love,

And _this_ was shed: but still it rises up.

Colouring the clouds that shut me out from Heaven.'

One may well wonder what all this has to do with Augusta. The blood that

ran in Byron's veins also ran in the veins of Mary Chaworth, and that

blood, shed by Byron's kinsman, had caused a feud, which was not broken

until Byron came upon the scene, and fell hopelessly in love with 'the

last of a time-honoured race.' Byron from his boyhood always believed

that there was a blood-curse upon him.

When, two years later, he wrote 'The Duel' (December, 1818), he again

alludes to the subject:

'I loved thee--I will not say _how_,

Since things like these are best forgot:

Perhaps thou mayst imagine now

Who loved thee and who loved thee not.

And thou wert wedded to another,

And I at last another wedded:

I am a father, thou a mother,

To strangers vowed, with strangers bedded.

* * * * *

'Many a bar, and many a feud,

Though never told, well understood,

Rolled like a river wide between--

_And then there was the curse of blood_,

Which even my Heart's can not remove.

* * * * *

'I've seen the sword that slew him; he,

The slain, stood in a like degree

To thee, as he, the Slayer stood

(Oh, had it been but other blood!)

In Kin and Chieftainship to me.

Thus came the Heritage to thee.'

Clearly, then, the Spirit, which appeared to Manfred in the form of a

beautiful female figure, was Mary Chaworth; the crime for which he

suffered was his conduct towards her; and the blood, which his fancy

beheld on the cup's brim, was the blood of William Chaworth, which his

predecessor, Lord Byron, had shed. When asked by the chamois-hunter

whether he had wreaked revenge upon his enemies, Manfred replies:

'No, no, no!

My injuries came down on those who loved me--

On those whom I best loved: I never quelled

An enemy, save in my just defence--

But my embrace was fatal.'

In speaking of the 'core of his heart's grief,' Manfred says:

'Yet there was One--

She was like me in lineaments--her eyes--

Her hair--her features--all, to the very tone

Even of her voice, they said were like to mine;

But softened all, and tempered into beauty:

She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,[52]

The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind

To comprehend the Universe: nor these

Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine,

Pity, and smiles, and tears--which I had not;

And tenderness--but that I had for her;

Humility--and that I never had.

Her faults were mine--her virtues were her own--

I loved her, and destroyed her!

Not with my hand, but heart, _which broke her heart_;

_It gazed on mine, and withered_.'

In order to appreciate the absurdity of connecting this description with

Augusta, we will quote her noble accuser, Lord Lovelace:

'The character of Augusta is seen in her letters and actions. She was

a woman of that great family which is vague about facts, unconscious

of duties, impulsive in conduct. The course of her life could not be

otherwise explained, by those who had looked into it with close

intimacy, than by a kind of moral idiotcy from birth. She was of a

sanguine and buoyant disposition, childishly fond and playful, ready

to laugh at anything, loving to talk nonsense.'

In fact,

'_She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,

The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind

To comprehend the Universe._'

Lord Lovelace further tells us that Augusta Leigh 'had a refined species

of comic talent'; that she was 'strangely insensible to the nature and

magnitude of the offence in question [incest] even as an imputation;' and

that 'there was apparently an absence of all deep feeling in her mind, of

everything on which a strong impression could be made.' We are also told

that 'Byron, after his marriage, generally spoke of Augusta as "a fool,"

with equal contempt of her understanding and principles.'

In short, Byron's description of the woman, whom he had 'destroyed,'

resembles Augusta Leigh about as much as a mountain resembles a haystack.

How closely Manfred's description resembles Mary Chaworth will be seen

presently. Augusta Leigh had told Byron that, in consequence of his

conduct, Mary Chaworth was out of her mind.

Manfred says that if he had never lived, that which he loved had still

been living:

'... Had I never loved,

That which I love would still be beautiful,

Happy, and giving happiness. What is she?

What is she now? _A sufferer for my sins_--

_A thing I dare not think upon_--or nothing.'

When Nemesis asks Manfred whom he would 'uncharnel,' he replies:

'One without a tomb--

Call up Astarte.'

The name, of course, suggests a star. As we have seen, Byron often

employed that metaphor in allusion to Mary Chaworth.

When the phantom of Astarte rises, Manfred exclaims:

'Can this be death? there's bloom upon her cheek;

But now I see it is no living hue,

But a strange hectic.'

He is afraid to look upon her; he cannot speak to her, and implores

Nemesis to intercede:

'Bid her speak--

Forgive me, or condemn me.'

Nemesis tells him that she has no authority over Astarte:

'She is not of our order, but belongs

To the other powers.'[53]

The fine appeal of Manfred cannot have been addressed by Byron to his

sister:

'Hear me, hear me--

Astarte! my belovéd! speak to me:

I have so much endured--so much endure--

Look on me! the grave hath not changed thee more

Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst me

Too much, as I loved thee: we were not made

To torture thus each other--though it were

The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.

Say that thou loath'st me not--that I do bear

This punishment for both--that thou wilt be

One of the blesséd--and that I shall die.

* * * * *

'I cannot rest.

I know not what I ask, nor what I seek:

_I feel but what thou art_, and what I am;

And I would hear yet once before I perish

The voice which was my music[54]--speak to me!

* * * * *

Speak to me! I have wandered o'er the earth,

And never found thy likeness.'

When Manfred implores Astarte to forgive him, she is silent. It is not a

matter for forgiveness. He entreats her to speak to him, so that he may

once more hear that sweet voice, even though it be for the last time. The

silence is broken by the word 'Farewell!' Manfred, whose doom is sealed,

cries in agony:

'What I have done is done; I bear within

A torture which could nothing gain (from others).

The Mind, which is immortal, makes itself

Requital for its good or evil thoughts,--

Is its own origin of ill and end--

And its own place and time:

I was my own destroyer, and will be

My own hereafter...

The hand of Death is on me...

All things swim around me, and the Earth

Heaves, as it were, beneath me. Fare thee well!'

So far as we know, there is nothing in the whole length of this poem to

suggest anything abnormal; and it is hard to understand what resemblance

Byron's contemporaries could have discovered between the Astarte of

'Manfred' and Augusta Leigh! Enough has been quoted to show that Byron was

not thinking of his sister when he wrote 'Manfred,' but of her whose life

he had blasted, and whose 'sacred name' he trembled to reveal.

In April, 1817, Byron was informed by Mrs. Leigh that Mary Chaworth and

her husband had made up their differences. The 'Lament of Tasso' was

written in that month, and Byron's thoughts were occupied, as usual, with

the theme of all his misery.

'That thou wert beautiful, and I not blind,

Hath been the sin that shuts me from mankind;

But let them go, or torture as they will,

My heart can multiply thine image still;

Successful Love may sate itself away;

The wretched are the faithful; 'tis their fate

To have all feeling, save the one, decay,

And every passion into one dilate,

As rapid rivers into Ocean pour;

But ours is fathomless, and hath no shore.'

In 'Mazeppa' Byron tells how he met 'Theresa' in that month of June, and

how 'through his brain the thought did pass that there was something in

her air which would not doom him to despair.' This incident is again

referred to in 'Don Juan.' The Count Palatine is, probably, intended as a

sketch of Mary's husband.

'The Duel,' which was written in December, 1818, is addressed to Mary

Chaworth:

'I loved thee--I will not say _how_,

Since things like these are best forgot.'

Byron alludes to 'the curse of blood,' with, 'many a bar and many a feud,'

which 'rolled like a wide river between them':

'Alas! how many things have been

Since we were friends; for I alone

Feel more for thee than can be shown.'

In the so-called 'Stanzas to the Po,' we find the same prolonged note of

suffering. Writing to Murray (May 8, 1820), Byron says:

'I sent a copy of verses to Mr. Kinnaird (they were written last year

on crossing the Po) which must _not_ be published. Pray recollect

this, as they were mere verses of society, and written from private

feelings and passions.'

In view of the secrecy which Byron consistently observed, respecting his

later intimacy with Mary Chaworth, the publication of these verses would

have been highly indiscreet. They were written in June, 1819, after Mary

had for some time been reconciled to her husband. She was then living with

him at Colwick Hall, near Nottingham.

Ostensibly these stanzas form an apostrophe to the River Po, and the 'lady

of the land' was, of course, the Guiccioli. Medwin, to whom Byron gave the

poem, believed that the river apostrophized by the poet was the River Po,

whose 'deep and ample stream' was 'the mirror of his heart.' But it seems

perfectly clear that, if this poem referred only to the Countess

Guiccioli, there could have been no objection to its publication in

England. The reading public in those days knew nothing of Byron's liaisons

abroad, and his mystic allusion to foreign rivers and foreign ladies would

have left the British public cold.

A scrutiny of these perplexing stanzas suggests that they were adapted,

from a fragment written in early life, to meet the conditions of 1819.

Evidently Mary Chaworth was once more 'the ocean to the river of his

thoughts,' and the stream indicated in the opening stanza was not the Po,

but the River Trent, which flows close to the ancient walls of Colwick,

where 'the lady of his love' was then residing. To assist the reader, we

insert the poem, having merely transposed three stanzas to make its

purport clearer

I.

'River, that rollest by the ancient walls,

Where dwells the Lady of my love, when she

Walks by the brink, _and there perchance recalls

A faint and fleeting memory of me_:

II.

'She will look on thee--I have looked on thee,

Full of that thought: and from that moment ne'er

Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see

Without the inseparable sigh for her!

III.

'But that which keepeth us apart is not

Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,

But the distraction of a various lot,

As various the climates of our birth.

IV.

'What if thy deep and ample stream should be

A mirror of my heart, where she may read

The thousand thoughts _I now betray to thee_,

Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!

V.

'What do I say--a mirror of my heart?

Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?

Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;

And such as thou art were my passions long.

VI.

'Time may have somewhat tamed them--not for ever;

Thou overflowest thy banks, and not for aye

Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!

Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away:

VII.

'But left long wrecks behind, and now again,

Borne on our old unchanged career, we move:

Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,

And I,--to loving _one_ I should not love.

VIII.

'My blood is all meridian; were it not,

I had not left my clime, nor should I be,

In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot,

A slave again to Love--at least of thee.

IX.

'The current I behold will sweep beneath

Her native walls,[55] and murmur at her feet;

Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe

The twilight air, unharmed by summer's heat.

X.

'Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream.

Yes, they will meet the wave I gaze on now:

Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,

That happy wave repass me in its flow!

XI.

'The wave that bears my tears returns no more:

Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?

Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,

I near thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.[56]

XII.

'A stranger loves the Lady of the land,

Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood

Is all meridian, as if never fanned

By the bleak wind that chills the polar flood.

XIII.

''Tis vain to struggle--let me perish young--

Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;

To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,

And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved.'

In the first stanza, Byron says that when his lady-love walks by the

river's brink 'she may perchance recall a faint and fleeting memory' of

him. Those words, which might have been applicable to Mary Chaworth, whom

he had not seen for at least three years, could not possibly refer to a

woman from whom he had been parted but two short months, and with whom he

had since been in constant correspondence. Only a few days before these

verses were written, Countess Guiccioli had told him by letter that she

had prepared all her relatives and friends to expect him at Ravenna. There

must surely have been something more than 'a faint and fleeting' memory of

Byron in the mind of the ardent Guiccioli. In the second stanza, Byron,

in allusion to the river he had in his thoughts, says:

'She will look on thee--_I have looked on thee_, full of that thought:

_and from that moment_ ne'er thy waters could I dream of, _name, or

see_, without the inseparable sigh for her.'

Now, while there was nothing whatever to connect the River Po with tender

recollections, there was Byron's association in childhood with the River

Trent, a memory inseparable from his boyish love for Mary Chaworth.

'But in his native stream, the Guadalquivir,

Juan to lave his youthful limbs was wont;

And having learnt to swim in that sweet river

Had often turned the art to some account.'

In the fourth stanza we perceive that the poet, while thinking of the

Trent, 'betrays his thoughts' to the Po, a river as wild and as swift as

his native stream.

The ninth stanza has puzzled commentators exceedingly. It has been pointed

out that the River Po does not sweep beneath the walls of Ravenna. That

is, of course, indisputable. But Byron, in all probability, did not then

know the exact course of that river, and blindly followed Dante's

geographical description, and almost used his very words:

'Siede la terra, _dove nata fui,

Su la marina dove il Po discende_,

Per aver pace co' seguaci sui.'

It is, of course, well known that the Po branches off into two streams to

the north-west of Ferrara, and flows both northward and southward of that

city. The southern portion--the Po di Primaro--is fed by four

affluents--the Rheno, the Savena, the Santerno, and the Lamone--and flows

into the Adriatic south of Comachio, about midway between that place and

Ravenna. It was obviously to the _Po di Primaro_ that Dante referred when

he wrote _seguaci sui_.

Unless Francesca was born close to the mouth of the Po, which is not

impossible, Byron erred in good company. In any case, we may fairly plead

poetic licence. That Byron crossed the Po di Primaro as well as the main

river admits of no doubt.

In the eleventh stanza Byron is wondering what will be the result of his

journey? Will the Guiccioli return to him? Will all be well with the

lovers, or will he return to Venice alone? In his fancy they are both

wandering on the banks of that river. He is near its source, where the Po

di Primaro branches off near Pontelagascuro, while she was on the shore of

the Adriatic.

The twelfth stanza would perhaps have been clearer if the first and second

lines had been,

'A stranger, born far beyond the mountains,

Loves the Lady of the land,'

which was Byron's meaning. The poet excuses himself for his fickleness on

the plea that 'his blood is all meridian'--in short, that he cannot help

loving someone. But we plainly see that his love for Mary Chaworth was

still paramount. 'In spite of tortures ne'er to be forgot'--tortures of

which we had a glimpse in 'Manfred'--he was still her slave. Finally,

Byron tells us that it was useless to struggle against the misery his

heart endured, and that all his hopes were centred on an early death.

The episode of Francesca and Paolo had made a deep impression on Byron. He

likened it to his unfortunate adventure with Mary Chaworth in June and

July, 1813. In 'The Corsair'--written after their intimacy had been

broken off--Byron prefixes to each canto a motto from 'The Inferno' which

seemed to be appropriate to his own case. In the first canto we find:

'Nessun maggior dolore,

Che ricordarsi del tempo felice

Nella miseria.'

In the second canto:

'Conoscesti i dubbiosi desire?'

In the third canto:

'Come vedi--ancor non m' abbandona.'

That Byron had Francesca in his mind when he wrote the stanzas to the Po

seems likely; and in the letter which he wrote to Mary from Venice, in the

previous month, he compares their misfortunes with those of Paolo and

Francesca in plain words.[57]

'Don Juan' was begun in the autumn of 1818. That poem, Byron tells us, was

inspired almost entirely by his own personal experience. Perhaps he drew a

portrait of Mary Chaworth when he described Julia:

'And she

Was married, charming, chaste, and twenty-three.'

When they parted in 1809, that was exactly Mary's age.

'Her eye was large and dark, suppressing half its fire until she

spoke. Her glossy hair was clustered over a brow bright with

intelligence. Her cheek was purple with the beam of youth, mounting at

times to a transparent glow; and she had an uncommon grace of manner.

She was tall of stature. Her husband was a good-looking man, neither

much loved nor disliked. He was of a jealous nature, though he did not

show it. They lived together, as most people do, suffering each

other's foibles.'

On a summer's eve in the month of June, Juan and Julia met:

'How beautiful she looked! her conscious heart

Glowed in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong.'

For her husband she had honour, virtue, truth, and love. The sun had set,

and the yellow moon arose high in the heavens:

'There is a dangerous silence in that hour,

A stillness which leaves room for the full soul.'

Several weeks had passed away:

'Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds,--

Alfonso's loves with Inez were well known.'

Then came the parting note:

'They tell me 'tis decided you depart:

'Tis wise--'tis well, but not the less a pain;

I have no further claim on your young heart,

Mine is the victim, and would be again:

To love too much has been the only art

I used.'

Julia tells Juan that she loved him, and still loves him tenderly:

'I loved, I love you, for this love have lost

State, station, Heaven, mankind's, my own esteem,

And yet cannot regret what it hath cost,

So dear is still the memory of that dream.'

'All is o'er

For me on earth, except some years to hide

My shame and sorrow deep in my heart's core.'

The seal to this letter was a sunflower--_Elle vous suit partout_. It may

be mentioned here that Byron had a seal bearing this motto.

When Juan realized that the parting was final, he exclaims:

'No more--no more--oh! never more, my heart,

Canst thou be my sole world, my universe!

Once all in all, but now a thing apart,

Thou canst not be my blessing or my curse:

The illusion's gone for ever.'

In the third canto we have a hint of Byron's feelings after his wife had

left him:

'He entered in the house no more his home,

A thing to human feelings the most trying,

And harder for the heart to overcome,

Perhaps, than even the mental pangs of dying;

To find our hearthstone turned into a tomb,

And round its once warm precincts palely lying

The ashes of our hopes.'

'But whatsoe'er he had of love reposed

On that beloved daughter; she had been

The only thing which kept his heart unclosed

Amidst the savage deeds he had done and seen,

A lonely pure affection unopposed:

There wanted but the loss of this to wean

His feelings from all milk of human kindness,

And turn him like the Cyclops mad with blindness.'

In the fourth canto we are introduced to Haidée, who resembled Lambro in

features and stature, even to the delicacy of their hands. We are told

that owing to the violence of emotion and the agitation of her mind she

broke a bloodvessel, and lay unconscious on her couch for days. Like

Astarte in 'Manfred,' 'her blood was shed: I saw, but could not stanch

it':

'She looked on many a face with vacant eye,

On many a token without knowing what:

She saw them watch her without asking why,

And recked not who around her pillow sat.

* * * * *

'Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall

In time to the harper's tune: he changed the theme

And sang of Love; the fierce name struck through all

Her recollection; on her flashed the dream

Of what she was, and is, if ye could call

To be so being; in a gushing stream

The tears rushed forth from her o'erclouded brain,

Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain.'

'Short solace, vain relief! Thought came too quick,

And whirled her brain to madness.'

'She died, but not alone; she held within,

A second principle of Life, which might

Have dawned a fair and sinless child of sin;

But closed its little being without light.'

'Thus lived--thus died she; never more on her

Shall Sorrow light, or Shame.'

In the fifth canto, written in 1820, after the 'Stanzas to the Po,' we

find Byron once more in a confidential mood:

'I have a passion for the name of "Mary,"

For once it was a magic sound to me;

And still it half calls up the realms of Fairy,

Where I beheld what never was to be;

All feelings changed, but this was last to vary

A spell from which even yet I am not quite free.'

And there is a sigh for Mary Chaworth in the following lines:

'To pay my court, I

Gave what I had--a heart; as the world went, I

Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never

Restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever.

'Twas the boy's mite, and like the widow's may

Perhaps be weighed hereafter, if not now;

But whether such things do or do not weigh,

All who have loved, or love, will still allow

Life has naught like it.'

Early in 1823, little more than a year before his death, Byron refers to

'the fair most fatal Juan ever met.' Under the name of the Lady Adeline,

this most fatal fair one is introduced to the reader:

'Although she was not evil nor meant ill,

Both Destiny and Passion spread the net

And caught them.'

'Chaste she was, to Detraction's desperation,

And wedded unto one she had loved well.'

'The World could tell

Nought against either, and both seemed secure--

She in her virtue, he in his hauteur.'

Here we have a minute description of Newstead Abbey, the home of the

'noble pair,' where Juan came as a visitor:

'What I throw off is ideal--

Lowered, leavened, like a history of Freemasons,

Which bears the same relation to the real

As Captain Parry's Voyage may do to Jason's.

The grand _Arcanum's_ not for men to see all;

My music has some mystic diapasons;

And there is much which could not be appreciated

In any manner by the uninitiated.'

Adeline, we are told, came out at sixteen:

'At eighteen, though below her feet still panted

A Hecatomb of suitors with devotion,

She had consented to create again

That Adam called "The happiest of Men."'

It will be remembered that when Mary Chaworth married she was exactly

eighteen. Her husband was:

'Tall, stately, formed to lead the courtly van

On birthdays. The model of a chamberlain.'

'But there was something wanting on the whole--

don't know what, and therefore cannot tell--

Which pretty women--the sweet souls!--call _Soul_.

_Certes_ it was not body; he was well

Proportioned, as a poplar or a pole,

A handsome man.'

This description would answer equally well for 'handsome Jack Musters,'

who married Mary Chaworth. Adeline, we are told, took Juan in hand when

she was about seven-and-twenty. That was Mary's age in 1813. But this may

have been a mere coincidence.

'She had one defect,' says Byron, in speaking of Adeline: 'her heart

was vacant. Her conduct had been perfectly correct. She loved her

lord, or thought so; but _that_ love cost her an effort. She had

nothing to complain of--no bickerings, no connubial turmoil. Their

union was a model to behold--serene and noble, conjugal, but cold.

There was no great disparity in years, though much in temper. But they

never clashed. They moved, so to speak, apart.'

Now, when once Adeline had taken an interest in anything, her impressions

grew, and gathered as they ran, like growing water, upon her mind. The

more so, perhaps, because she was not at first too readily impressed. She

did not know her own heart:

'I think not she was _then_ in love with Juan:

If so, she would have had the strength to fly

The wild sensation, unto her a new one:

She merely felt a common sympathy

In him.'

'She was, or thought she was, his friend--and this

Without the farce of Friendship, or romance

Of Platonism.'

'Few of the soft sex,' says Byron, 'are very stable in their resolves.'

She had heard some parts of Juan's history; 'but women hear with more good

humour such aberrations than we men of rigour':

'Adeline, in all her growing sense

Of Juan's merits and his situation,

Felt on the whole an interest intense--

Partly perhaps because a fresh sensation,

Or that he had an air of innocence,

Which is for Innocence a sad temptation--

As Women hate half-measures, on the whole,

She 'gan to ponder how to save his soul.'

After a deal of thought, 'she seriously advised him to get married.'

'There was Miss Millpond, smooth as summer's sea,

That usual paragon, an only daughter,

Who seemed the cream of Equanimity,

Till skimmed--and then there was some milk and water,

With a slight shade of blue too, it might be

Beneath the surface.'

The mention of Aurora Raby, to whom Juan in the first instance proposed,

and by whom he was refused, suggests an incident in his life which is well

known. Aurora was very young, and knew but little of the world's ways. In

her indifference she confounded him with the crowd of flatterers by whom

she was surrounded. Her mind appears to have been of a serious caste; with

poetic vision she 'saw worlds beyond this world's perplexing waste,' and

'those worlds

Had more of her existence; for in her

There was a depth of feeling to embrace

Thoughts, boundless, deep, but silent too as Space.'

She had 'a pure and placid mien'; her colour was 'never high,'

'Though sometimes faintly flushed--and always clear

As deep seas in a sunny atmosphere.'

We cannot be positive, but perhaps Byron had Aurora Raby in his mind when

he wrote:

'I've seen some balls and revels in my time,

And stayed them over for some silly reason,

And then I looked (I hope it was no crime)

To see what lady best stood out the season;

And though I've seen some thousands in their prime

Lovely and pleasing, and who still may please on,

I never saw but one (the stars withdrawn)

Whose bloom could after dancing dare the Dawn.'[58]

Perhaps Aurora Raby may have been drawn from his recollection of Miss

Mercer Elphinstone, who afterwards married Auguste Charles Joseph, Comte

de Flahaut de la Billarderie, one of Napoleon's Aides-de-Camp, then an

exile in England. This young lady was particularly gracious to Byron at

Lady Jersey's party, when others gave him a cold reception. We wonder how

matters would have shaped themselves if she had accepted the proposal of

marriage which Byron made to her in 1814! But it was not to be. That

charming woman passed out of his orbit, and as he waited upon the shore,

gazing at the dim outline of the coast of France, the curtain fell upon

the first phase of Byron's existence. The Pilgrim of Eternity stood on the

threshold of a new life:

'Between two worlds life hovers like a star,

'Twixt Night and Morn, upon the horizon's verge.

How little do we know that which we are!

How less what we may be! The eternal surge

Of Time and Tide rolls on and bears afar

Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge,

Lashed from the foam of Ages.'

And after eight years of exile, in his 'Last Words on Greece,' written in

those closing days at Missolonghi, with the shadow of Death upon him, his

mind reverts to one whom, in 1816, he had called 'Soul of my thought':

'What are to me those honours or renown

Past or to come, a new-born people's cry?

Albeit for such I could despise a crown

Of aught save laurel, or for such could die.

I am a fool of passion, and a frown

Of thine to me is as an adder's eye--

To the poor bird whose pinion fluttering down

Wafts unto death the breast it bore so high--

Such is this maddening fascination grown,

So strong thy magic or so weak am I.'

'The flowers and fruits of Love are gone; the worm,

The canker, and the grief, are mine alone!'

PART III

'ASTARTE'

'The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones.'

SHAKESPEARE: _Julius Cæsar_.

CHAPTER I

From the moment when Lord Byron left England until the hour of his death,

the question of his separation from his wife was never long out of his

thoughts. He was remarkably communicative on the subject, and spoke of it

constantly, not only to Madame de Staël, Hobhouse, Lady Blessington, and

Trelawny, but, as we have seen, even in casual conversation with

comparative strangers. There is no doubt that he felt himself aggrieved,

and bitterly resented a verdict which he knew to be unjust. In a pamphlet

which was subsequently suppressed, written while he was at Ravenna, Byron

sums up his own case. In justice to one who can no longer plead his own

cause, we feel bound to transcribe a portion of his reply to strictures on

his matrimonial conduct, which appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_:

'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 has a term to his

banishment, or a dream of its 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, become 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 rumour and private rancour; 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 depths of the lakes, I was pursued and breathed

upon by the same blight. I crossed the mountains, but it was the same:

so I went a little farther, and settled myself by the waves of the

Adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes him to the waters.... I

have heard of, and believe, that there are human beings so constituted

as to be insensible to injuries; but I believe that the best mode to

avoid taking vengeance is to get out of the way of temptation. I do

not in this allude to the party, who might be right or wrong; but to

many who made her cause the pretext of their own bitterness. She,

indeed, must have long avenged me in her own feelings, for whatever

her reasons may have been (and she never adduced them, to me at

least), she probably neither contemplated nor conceived to what she

became the means of conducting the father of her child, and the

husband of her choice.'

Byron knew of the charge that had been whispered against his sister and

himself, and, knowing it to be false, it stung him to the heart. And yet

he dared not speak, because a solution of the mystery that surrounded the

separation from his wife would have involved the betrayal of one whom he

designated as the soul of his thought:

'Invisible but gazing, as I glow

Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth,

And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings dearth.'

Augusta Leigh, the selfless martyr, the most loyal friend that Byron ever

possessed, his 'tower of strength in the hour of need,' assisted her

brother, so to speak, to place the pack on a false scent, and the whole

field blindly followed. There never was a nobler example of

self-immolation than that of the sister who bravely endured the odium of a

scandal in which she had no part. For Byron's sake she was content to

suffer intensely during her lifetime; and after she had ceased to feel,

her name was branded by Lady Byron and her descendants with the mark of

infamy.

A curious feature in the case is that, with few exceptions, those who knew

Byron and Mrs. Leigh intimately came gradually to accept the story which

Lady Caroline Lamb had insidiously whispered, a libel which flourished

exceedingly in the noxious vapours of a scandal-loving age. As Nature is

said to abhor a vacuum, so falsehood rushed in to fill the void which

silence caused.

It is with a deep searching of heart and with great reluctance that we

re-open this painful subject.

The entire responsibility must rest with the late Lord Lovelace, whose

loud accusation against Byron's devoted sister deprives us of any choice

in the matter.

In order to understand the full absurdity of the accusation brought

against Augusta Leigh, we have but to contrast the evidence brought

against her in 'Astarte' with allusions to her in Byron's poems, and with

the esteem in which she was held by men and women well known in society at

the time of the separation.

Lord Stanhope, the historian, in a private letter written at the time of

the Beecher Stowe scandals, says:

'I was very well acquainted with Mrs. Leigh about forty years ago, and

used to call upon her at St. James's Palace to hear her speak about

Lord Byron, as she was very fond of doing. That fact itself is a

presumption against what is alleged, since, on such a supposition, the

subject would surely be felt as painful and avoided. She was extremely

unprepossessing in her person and appearance--more like a nun than

anything--and never can have had the least pretension to beauty. I

thought her shy and sensitive to a fault in her mind and character,

and, from what I saw and knew of her, I hold her to have been utterly

incapable of such a crime as Mrs. Beecher Stowe is so unwarrantably

seeking to cast upon her memory.'

Frances, Lady Shelley, a woman of large experience, penetration, and

sagacity, whose husband was a personal friend of the Prince Regent, stated

in a letter to the _Times_ that Mrs. Leigh was like a mother to Byron, and

when she knew her intimately--at the time of the separation--was 'not at

all an attractive person.' Her husband was very fond of her, and had a

high opinion of her.

These impressions are confirmed by all those friends and acquaintances of

Mrs. Leigh who were still living in 1869.

In 1816 Augusta Leigh was a married woman of thirty-two years of age, and

the mother of four children. She had long been attached to the Court,

moved in good society, and was much liked by those who knew her

intimately. Since her marriage in 1807 she had been more of a mother than

a sister to Byron, and her affection for him was deep and sincere. She

made allowances for his frailties, bore his uncertain temper with

patience, and was never afraid of giving him good advice. In June, 1813,

she tried to save him from the catastrophe which she foresaw; and having

failed, she made the supreme sacrifice of her life, by adopting his

natural child, thus saving the reputation of a woman whom her brother

sincerely loved. Henceforward, under suspicions which must have been

galling to her pride, she faced the world's 'speechless obloquy,' heedless

of consequences. In the after-years, when great trouble fell upon her

through the misconduct of that adopted child, she bore her sorrows in

silence. Among those who were connected with Byron's life, Hobhouse,

Hodgson, and Harness--three men of unimpeachable character--respected and

admired her to the last.