would recommend the Chief Justice, Sir ALEXANDER COCKBURN, for he is a
friend of mine.” Good heavens! said I, if you want to ruin me outright,
you will not mix him up in the affair, or let him know anything about
it. Now, you must know that although COCKBURN always says I am the
worst-used woman in England, so have all my husband’s doers of dirty
work for that matter; he and Sir L. were at Cambridge together, and in
their green and salad days—when the little carrotty, briefless barrister,
who had nothing to eat but his terms, except when he dined with us—Sir
L. used to lend him money when he was intriguing with some tradesman’s
wife, whom he called “CLARA,” and by whom he had his bastard son and
daughter, whom he has at least the redeeming points of acknowledging
and well-providing for—and I respect him for it. But you comprehend,
this having been the state of affairs between him and Sir L., they,
like literary vice and politics, have their laws and amenities, which
require that dirty work and backstair services should always be paid in
kind, and however dislike and contempt may be and are in the ascendant
in private, homage, deference and friendship (?) is _de riguéur_ in
public. And as astronomers say that it takes two-and-twenty years for a
ray of light to reach the earth from Sirius, the Dog Star; so I suppose
it takes two-and-twenty centuries for a ray of conscience to penetrate
such a lawyer as COCKBURN, or, indeed, most men’s brains. “Humph!” said
H——. “Well, I’d rather have a case tried by COCKBURN than any Judge on
the bench.” “You might,” said I, “but mine is such a hard case that I
don’t want it made harder.” Well, not to bore you longer than need be,
Mr. H—— having started with the _greatest_ energy in the C—— affair,
suddenly came to a dead lock. I could not even get a letter from him,
though I had never had but four, and after _pretending_ to be ill, though
I ascertained he came to his business every day, and, sending Mr. COLE
to hunt him up, who never could find him either in his office or at his
own house, and after fooling me in this manner for thirteen months!
this new addition to the scoundrelocracy flatly refused to give me up
my documents about this iniquitous swindle until I had paid him £60 for
torturing my life out, and doing worse than nothing, as usual selling me
to my ruffianly and dastardly husband. Mr. COLE said his demands were
simply preposterous and absurd. How differently would a French _juris
consulte_ have acted had the commonest woman in the place been so used
by an _Avoué_, to whom he had recommended her; he would very soon have
brought him to book, or have held him up to public scorn. But trust an
English barrister risking a single brief by embroiling himself with any
attorney if all the women in England had been skinned by them to save
parchment. Mr. COLE no doubt thought he was doing great things in getting
me Mr. COMYN of Lincoln’s Inn, his own solicitor (whose bill I had of
course to pay), to cut down that other bird of prey’s extortion to £35,
and at length got me back my papers, when time, and COCKBURN, had given
security and consolidation to that meanest of all ruffians, Sir EDWARD
BULWER LYTTON, and as Mr. COLE refused a fee (as well he might), I gave
him a piece of plate that cost me £20, for the Englishman is not yet born
whom I like sufficiently, or think sufficiently well of, to rest under
the cold shadow of an obligation to.
And here, as I am on COCKBURN, let me mention a curious fact,
which proves the sincerity of that intimacy and friendship which
existed between himself and Sir LIAR. I was one day sitting in the
breakfast-room, when ALEXANDER the Little was suddenly shown in. Poor
small man, how shabby, and how frightened he looked! With tears in his
eyes, he said that he had been hunted about by bailiffs (or duns, I
forget which) all the morning; and had taken refuge here. He said he had
not been to chambers for several days, as he knew he should be arrested;
and having not a sou in his pockets, even to buy him a dinner, he had
called on my husband, as an old Cambridge friend, to ask him for the loan
of only five pounds. And the poor dwarf looked haggard and hungry; and
the tears were in my eyes as I saw his woe-begone and famished face. I
told him my husband was in the next room, and that I had no doubt when
he heard the facts he would be happy to oblige him; and I left C. in
the breakfast-room, having ordered some coffee and rolls for him, for
I really thought he was starving. I then made my way to Sir LIAR, and
asked him for the cash. Oh! what a scene! Sir LIAR swore like a trooper.
He cursed, he raved, he foamed at the mouth; for it seems he had been
previously “not at home” to his small friend, who had then, in despair,
enquired for me, and been shown in. His oaths, his fury were fearful.
He stamped about, raved like a madman, calling COCKBURN every name of
cheat, card-sharper, swindler, scoundrel, adulterer, &c., &c. He poured
forth all the choicest phrases of the _Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue_,
which—I forget the fool’s name—one somebody has published. At length I
was pushed violently out of the room, and I came back to COCKBURN, who by
this time had devoured the rolls and swallowed the coffee. I told him how
sorry I was, that I could do nothing with Sir E., and, as I had no money
of my own, I actually gave him a ring off my finger for his necessities;
and he went down on his knees and thanked me in the most abject manner
that ever I saw in my life.
But to come back to “Very Successful.” Were you here I could soon explain
to you, _viva voce_, Sir LIAR’S _double_ motive in his conspiracy about
this copyright, which does not in any way appear on the _surface_, since
in addition to his usual efforts to crush _all_ my books by the venal
and unscrupulous abuse of his literary gang, and so starve me out that
way, he took especial means to crush and defame that particular book
on its first appearance. But exclusive of the tax upon your time and
patience—having already written so much, and having still so much to
write, I can neither afford the time nor the space to do so. And now
for the Quaker Upholsterer and his £5! He wrote letters innumerable to
Dr. R—— about it (for after the mean and barefaced lies of the latter
in the plot, and about Mr. IRONSIDE’S letters, I of course returned him
his _Normandy presents_, and renounced all further intercourse with
him). OILY GAMMON began by assuring FODEN LAWRENCE, the Quaker, that of
_course_ he ought to be paid, and he _should_ be paid. But, as usual,
the vane did not long remain towards one point. So at last he wrote to
say, he could not possibly recover the debt, not having it included in
the schedule of the other Taunton tradespeople’s claims. I then of course
offered to pay it to the poor man. “No,” said he, “not if thee were
made of gold and swimming in diamonds; I’ll make them pay me and they
shall.” He then wrote to Sir LIAR, who sent him back a demented looking
scrawl, which looked as if an insane spider had tumbled into the ink, and
then the webs of Sir L’S. lies, being too flimsy to make it a straight
waistcoat, it had with _my_ complaint! _delirium tremens!_—from the ink
it had imbibed—frantically dashed itself against the paper; the purport
of its plungings being to inform the Quaker “that I had a most liberal
(very!!) allowance to pay my own debts, and that Sir LIAR was neither
morally nor legally obliged to do so.” The Quaker then wrote to E—— J——
a few _highly spiced_ truths about the infamy of the Madhouse Conspiracy
(for you must know that friend LAWRENCE, albeit a man of peace, was one
of the most bellicose and irate of my many indignant champions here) and
more particularly of himself and his client! Whereupon EDWIN the Unfair
wrote back that neither he, nor Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, were persons
to be _bullied_ into anything.—“Well then,” said the Quaker, making his
_debut_ as a wit, on reading this letter to me, with an expression of
face (as he held the letter at arm’s length in one hand, and shook the
fingers of his other at it), the inimitable comicality of which would
have made the fortune of WEBSTER or SAVASSEUR, “If _bullying_ won’t do,
I’ll try _courting_ you—you precious pair!”—and he accordingly forthwith
cited Sir LIAR to appear before the County Court, at which, by return
of post, on the Sunday, so that LAWRENCE got it on the Monday, a cheque
for the £5 was enclosed! but J——S dying hard—as he had lived—saying with
a flourish on the last trumpet “That although neither he nor Sir EDWARD
LYTTON were either legally or morally bound to pay that £5, Sir EDWARD
with his usual (ahem) generosity (!!!!), rather than Mr. LAWRENCE should
be a loser, sent it!” The Quaker threw up his eyes piously, and said he
hoped he should never want food or raiment till Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
was generous! or E—— J——S!!! and then sat down and wrote the Q.C. the
following letter, of which I took a copy:—“I have to acknowledge the
receipt of the £5 due to me by Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, which he and
thee should have sent long ago, without putting me to the trouble of
County Courting him. If, as he says, he is neither legally nor morally
obliged to pay it; I am very _sure_ it was both _legally_ and _morally
due to me_; or I neither should have demanded it, nor compelled thee and
thy client to pay it.—FODEN LAWRENCE.”
What I would give to have seen Sir LIAR’S face when he read what the
spirit, and a very proper spirit too, had moved the Quaker to write to
him! No wonder that GOD’S judgment overtook him, and that soon after,
being more mad and outrageous than usual, the great man (very) was packed
off to Algiers with two keepers. “_Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord, I
will repay._”
[Illustration: ROBERT, LORD LYTTON.]
It would appear that E—— J——, not having told lies enough, and done dirty
work enough in the country, must needs re-commence after his outlawry;
for it is only last year, in America, that upon a woman being tried for
the murder of her husband, and the defence set up being his barbarous
usage of her, that the Judge said, “If brutal usage and persecution was
an excuse for committing murder, _I_ ought to have murdered Sir EDWARD
BULWER LYTTON long ago, if only _half_ the papers had stated about his
brutal treatment and persecutions of me was true.” Whereupon, that model
of all honour and truth! Mr. E—— J——, rose up in Court and said, “He must
beg to set the Judge right on that point, for that Lady LYTTON had never
complained (!!) of unkindness from Sir EDWARD, and _could_ not!!! and
that it was only last year, just before he (E—— J——) quitted England,
that Sir EDWARD, having been left a large fortune by a relation” (Oh!!
Mr. J——! what next? and next?) “he had _generously_ doubled his wife’s
income”!!!!! There! let his Satanic Majesty beat _that_ if he can! I of
course instantly wrote to the _New York Times_ (as these most infamous
and barefaced lies had appeared in that beastly _Daily Telegraph_),
refuting them, and saying, “that for the many colossal falsehoods, for
which Mr. E—— J—— was proverbial, never had he dared to utter any
equal in magnitude to these!” But as my doing so had of course been
anticipated, and the Press of all countries is equally corrupt and venal,
“_The Editor of the New York Times could not publish my letter, as its
contents referred to strictly private and family matters!!_” This is
quite England over again, where the most horrible lies and calumnies by
a husband (in power) are to be given full and world-wide publicity! but
if the victim wife dares to refute them, ah! _then_ they become strictly
private, and personal affairs, and _no_ newspaper, for fear of the Law
of Libel, will give any refutations admission into their columns! And
so this meanest and cruellest of all Villains and Cowards! Sir EDWARD
BULWER LYTTON, who has not even the courage of his loathsome vices, goes
on for ever, strutting over the ruins of the moral Carthage _he_ has
razed, and heralding forth to posterity, through the brazen trumpet of
mendacity, all the inverse virtues of his hideous and manifold vices. But
let the wretch beware! The last time, a wave of my fan drove the cowardly
reptile from the Hertford hustings, but only let him _dare_ ever again
to parade his physical and moral leprosy upon any hustings; and he shall
find his escape shall not be so _easy_. After I had declined any further
intercourse with my _useful_, and honourable, and veracious trustee, Dr.
R——, his petty spite was to keep me each quarter two or three weeks out
of my beggarly pittance, a most _serious_ inconvenience to me; but their
calculation was, no doubt, that I should, as of old, eat it all up in
paying lawyers to obtain it, _Pas si bete_. So, pondering the matter a
little while, a bright thought struck me. I went down to FODEN LAWRENCE
the Quaker, and asked him “if he would each quarter, _on the day it was
due_, pay me this beggarly £125, and send Dr. R—— my receipt for it,
making him repay him. He said “with pleasure,” and wrote to Dr. R——: “As
I think it a most scandalous shame that, used as she has already been,
Lady LYTTON should be kept one hour out of so scandalously inadequate
a pittance, I have this day paid her the £125 due to her; and _shall
continue to do so punctually_, every quarter when it becomes due, and I
enclose thee her receipt for the £125 paid this day, and will thank thee
to send me a cheque by _return of post_ for the amount.—FODEN LAWRENCE.”
And as, like all knaves, these cowardly wretches are mortally afraid of
an honest, straightforward, and _resolute_ man, and of my fighting Quaker
in particular, he has ever since, now four years, paid me to the day,
and got the money from them by return of post. Meanwhile that dastardly
villain, Sir EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, is comfortably playing out his game of
lies; his victim buried alive, too poor to mix in the society to which
she belongs, and too proud to go upon sponging visits she cannot repay by
invitations in return, to say nothing of _this_ being the _only_ place I
could ever feel _safe_ in while that monster lives, as _here_, after the
uproar there was, he never dare attempt any fresh villainy. I am doubly
crippled by that trapped journey abroad, having done much, which having
known all I _now_ know, I should _not_ have done. I don’t mean about poor
little JEANNE HESTIER, for that is a drop in the sea, and, moreover,
having told good Mrs. CLARKE that as long as I live, whether here or
not, I shall always pay her the same, which I thought was the least I
could do after her kindness and fidelity to me, you may suppose I have no
money to go about with; so being all the same as if I were buried dead,
instead of only being buried alive, of course the outer public believe
(as Sir LIAR has worked _so_ hard for them to do) that I _really am_ mad,
or imbecile, or something, or else I of _course_ should have brought an
action for false imprisonment and conspiracy against those villainous mad
doctors long ago, or got a divorce from that monster, or been seen or
heard of somewhere. It is little matter what they think—GOD and my own
conscience know the truth. But it is hard, bitterly cruelly hard! Still
I would not change with one of the wretches, more especially H—— H——,
and H——, who have now gone to their fearful account! A lady was here the
other day, furious! at that vile wretch, Sir L., having dared to come so
near me as Bath. “Pooh! never mind,” said I, “He can’t be more near than
he has always been.” About six months after my return from that trapped
journey, I heard that Mr. ROBERT LYTTON’S marriage was broken off, his
father having broken faith with him (as I told him he would), and given
him nothing to marry on; and that he had quarrelled with his father. He
was then first paid _attaché_ at Vienna; despite my having written to him
to say all intercourse must cease between us, when he was trying with
that vile Miss R—— to purloin those letters; now that he was in such
deep misery, and I know in such deep humiliation, at the unworthy part
he had acted when so noble a one was before him, I felt I was still his
mother; and wrote to him a letter, which, if he had had a heart of stone,
provided it were only in the shape of a heart! and a conscience, even
if no bigger than a midje’s egg, he would have answered! but he never
has. I then thought that if he could not trust the Embassy bag, and was
equally afraid of the post with such a father, whose Jesuitical influence
he believes to be ubiquitous—that as he was at Copenhagen when his great
friend Sir AUGUSTUS PAGET came over here for the Prince of Wales’s
marriage, that surely he might have trusted him;—but no—nothing. Never
mind, he’ll want me, before I want.
And now, sir, I ought to, and would make you many apologies for
inflicting upon you such a long, and to you—necessarily uninteresting
history—but that I read and _believed_ the “Notice” appended to your
last (_every_ one says) “masterly work,” and have done you the honour
of taking you for an honest man. And hence this otherwise unwarrantable
infliction. As I told you at the commencement of this letter, I want you
to do nothing for me; for nothing _can_ now be done; and yet for three
things in your power to do, without in any way compromising yourself, I
should be _very_ grateful to you:—
Firstly. To _tell_ the facts herein contained as far, and as wide as you
can.
Secondly. In telling them, to say nothing of, or _nothing against_ my
truly unfortunate son, who, GOD knows, is _well_ punished! for the
fearful weakness in which he has been _purposely_ trained, by his
relentless and unscrupulous father, that he _might_ effectually crush by
moulding him resistlessly to his will.
Thirdly. As a man of real genius, as you are, you must be in the habit
of analysing human nature, by a sort of psychological vivisection, or
you never could produce the photographs of characters you do. Can you
then conjecture, or suggest any clue, to my unhappy son’s contradictory
conduct? Emanating as it were from two distinctly _opposite natures_;
the one almost angelic, the other almost the reverse. But putting his
weakness, and more than Hamletish _dreamy irresolution_ out of the
analysis; you must not seek a solution of his unworthy conduct in the
equally unworthy and mundane fear of being disinherited. No doubt his
vile father! _would_ leave him a beggar, if he could, but that he might
not immolate all to his own Juggernaut selfishness, Knebworth is not only
strictly entailed upon his son, but luckily, stringently 12 deep after
him, or Sir L. might have got his poor weak victim to cut off the entail.
If you can solve this enigma, I should be so grateful.
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
ROSINA BULWER LYTTON.
Wednesday, February 10th, 1864.
P.S.—One thing I forgot to mention to you, which was, that the last time
I saw that double-dealing sneak, Dr. R——, which was the day that upon
leaving town I asked him to write to Mr. IRONSIDE about the swindle of
my book; he said suddenly, _apropos de bottes_, “the fact is we have
been _completely sold_!” which solitary truth from him was, as you may
suppose, a great consolation to me, seeing how indefatigably _he_ had
assisted in selling me. He then added, clenching his hand, and muttering
to himself, “Well, I think I’d have begged my bread before I could have
used _my_ mother so!” It is _he_ that would! But it is _so_ easy always
to _say_ the right and _do_ the wrong thing, which is the compromise most
men make with the Devil.—R.B.L.
Appendix.
All my Lord LYTTON’S infamy, and my fame as a patient Grizzle was pretty
well established—and even acknowledged by the wretch who benefitted by
it—for one day at a dinner at our house, when some vituperative humbug
was going on about poor Lord BYRON, and someone said, “No woman could
have lived with such a man,” my Lord LYTTON pointed to me, and said,
“There is one that could, for she has lived with me.” And in that letter
he wrote about his going abroad and changing his name (why the—Lady SYKES
didn’t he)—all of which is from beginning to end as usual—after biting
my cheek, though of course he began it with a well-studied colossal lie
about the “visible restraint he had tried to put upon himself, and his
doubting whether it was humane to goad a man with his terrible infirmity
(to wit, a diabolical and unbridled temper), but being himself to blame,
God forbid he should judge others.” Sweet, patient, virtuous, just
creature! Now the goading and provocation I had given him was this.
Having asked him before dinner for a little money to pay some of the
housebills left owing before we went to Italy—where he had so beggared
himself _on himself_ buying statues, &c., &c., that he had to retrench
in every way upon me and the children, and began by taking away my
carriage horses—and I had been ordered to stand sponsor to that vulgar
Mrs. FONBLANQUE’S child, I had to ask Lady STEPNEY to take me! He said at
dinner, How are you going to FONBLANQUE’S to-night? I told him, whereupon
he began with a sardonic grin, and repeating a dozen times, humming,
“My mother calls Lady STEPNEY that ugly old woman.” I made no reply,
when he thundered out, “Do you hear me, madame?” “Yes, of course I hear
you.” “Then why the d——l in h—ll” (which being _his_ strong language,
of course that concrete ass, the British public, would consider as fine
writing!) “Then why the d——l in h—ll don’t you answer me?” “I did not
consider it required an answer.” Whereupon he rose, seizing a carving
knife, and crying as he darted at me, “D——n your soul, madam, I’ll have
you to know that whenever _I_ do you the honour of addressing you it
requires an answer.” Seeing the glitter of the knife, I cried out “For
GOD’S sake, EDWARD, take care of what you are about,” at which he dropped
the knife, and springing on me like a tiger, made his hideous teeth meet
in my left cheek. My screams brought the servants back into the room,
one of whom tried to collar him, but he broke from him, and putting
on one of the footmen’s hats! rushed down Piccadilly, and from thence
betook himself to Richmond, from whence four days after he wrote me that
letter, which from being read and re-read is in too worn a state to be
trusted to the casualties of the Post. Well, in _that_ letter, occurs the
following paragraph _underlined_, “You have for the last six years” (the
whole time of our marriage), “_been to me an incomparable wife_, and if
for the last year, you have judged my character too harshly,” &c., &c.,
&c., &c., &c. Now this too harsh judgment here alluded to rose from a
mere trifle, which of course a “ladylike,” feminine, lachrymose, clever
woman carrying on her _own_ game, would have thought nothing of. He had
been intriguing with a Mrs. ROBERT STANHOPE, and exhibiting himself and
her in every drawing-room. But it was not I, patient Grizzle, who made
the scandal about it—but her husband’s relations—Lady TAVISTOCK at the
head, whereupon that charming man gave me his solemn oath (his! or his
son’s oath!!) that everything was at an end between them, and went on his
knees to me, to go to Italy with him. When I did so, the vessel had not
sailed an hour, when who should I see but Mrs. ROBERT STANHOPE sitting
wrapped up—my Lord LYTTON at her feet, and her contemptible little wretch
of a husband (who my Lord LYTTON afterwards told me used to sell her to
men[2]) looking on. Nor was this enough—I was forced by brutal threats,
and personal violence—to offer this woman a seat in my carriage to
Paris—and the brutality I endured there—it would take reams of paper to
describe. Oh! oh! oh! cries manly, and “ladylike” conventionality. “You
should have returned to England, instantly from Calais.” “Very true,
my dear madam, there was only one little, but still _insurmountable_
impediment, viz., the same which at this moment prevents my leaving
Taunton, and freeing myself from one of the cruel and degrading tortures
I am enduring, and which are so truly, though, alas! so slowly killing
me—that all-powerful one of not having a shilling!” Many years ago—two
or three after it was written, I showed that cheek-biting letter to Dr.
LUSHINGTON, who was, of course, too busy to give a pauper anything but
the English parish order of verbal sympathy; but never so long as I live
shall I forget the probing, searching, expression of those keen analytic
eyes of his, as looking up from the very first page of that letter, he
said, “This man has been in the habit of ill-using you?” “What makes you
think so?” said I. “Two circumstances. First, the great and palpably
artful pains he takes to convey the idea—knowing, of course, such a
letter would be read—that he put every possible restraint upon himself,
as—if you had been exasperating him—he proves rather too much there. The
second is: the equally artful pains he takes to talk of this outrage, as
a first and _solitary_ one! Now, _no_ man ever got to such a pitch of
brutality at a _first_ essay.” And yet, what was all this, compared to
his perversion of the only child his brutality had left me—oh! the black,
fiendish cruelty of it! As this great genius (?) has nothing original
about him but his sin, and therefore must always plagiarise from someone,
I can fancy him giving his instructions to his son, and when I was
entrapped abroad in 1858, saying to him, with a sardonic grin, which it
is to be hoped his worthy pupil reflected—as he borrowed ISAAC WALTON’S
receipt for impaling a wretched frog—only substituting her for him, “Use
her as though you loved her!” And so the hook was baited with my own
heart.