Lady Byron Vindicated

to state the argume

e that Lord Byron was guilty

ssent to the ex parte statement of a client; nor, as the 'Quarterly' in

y offered to take the case into court, and make there a public

ing that he wished to know with what he was charged, declined this open investigat

nvestigation in a court of justice, and affirming his belief that his character was being ruined for want of it, he never afterwards t

is further made probable by the peculiar malice

annot mislead in a court of justice; and the atrocities of rumour are there sifted, and deprived of power. A trial is not a threat to an innocent man: it is an invitation, an opportunity. Why, then, did he hate Sir Samuel Romilly, so that he exulted like a fiend over his tragical death? The letter in w

ortant crime charged against him by rumour at the period. This appears by the following e

r sister. I felt much pleasure from this intelligence. I consider the latter part of it as affording a decisive contradiction to the

acy with his sister was, in the mind of Shelley, the only

yron, in the letter to Bowles, before quoted, says that every one of his relations, except his sister, fell from him in this crisis like leaves from a tree in autumn. There was, therefore, not only this report, but such appearances in support of it as convinced those nearest

his powerful genius, and under exceptional circumstances, an almost too

hing in their relations that made it seem probable. And it appears that his own family friends were so affected by it, that they, with one accord, deserted him. The 'Quarterly' presents the fact that Lady Byr

k any wife, 'Supposing your husband and sister were involved together in an infamous crime, and that you were the mother of a young daughter whose life would be tainted by a knowledge

d even of servants, so effectually, that they remain sealed even to this day. This is evidence that she did not wish the thing known. It is prov

'Quarterly,' confirms one of Lady Byron's ow

t suffer me to remain his wife, he cannot prevent me from continuing his friend; and it was from considering

nne Barnard; fourth, by silencing her legal counsel; fifth, and most entirely, by treating Mrs. Leigh, before the world, with unaltered kindness. In the midst of the rumours, Lady Byron we

ngland, which had led them to forego the usual decorums of their sex, and had given rise to great scandals. He was a being of wonderful personal attractions. He had not only strong poetical, but also strong logical power. He was daring in speculation, and vigorous in sophistical argument; beautiful, dazzling, and pos

t and the obscenity of his writings; and he resolved that they should accept both. And he made them do it. At first, they execrated 'Don Juan.' Murray was af

then, unse

or we sha

e virtue o

should w

d faith of d

ould prize

to hear the

like Don

e manner, formally surrendered to Lord Byron. Moore details his adulteries in Venice with unabashed particularity: artists send for pictures of his principal mistresses; the literary world call for biographical sketches of their points; Moore compares his wife and his last mistress in a

he course of things, may have thought that Mrs. Leigh was no more seduced than all the rest of the world, and have said as we f

e of a secret, unconfessed crime on the soul: nevertheless, as Hawthorne is well known to have always lived a pure and regular life, nobody has ever suspected him of any greater sin than a vigorous imagination. But here is a man believed guilty of an uncommon immorality by the two best lawyers in England, and threatened with an open exposure, which he does

influence of wine, to fall seriously into this dark, self-accusing mood, and throw out hints of h

l these appearances by ridicule, to which his

thrown such formidable mystery, may have been nothing more than some imposture of this kind, some dimly-hinted confession of undefined hor

t in this respect is exactly what might have be

nal, that the belief was universal on the Continent that the experience was wrought out of some

plain in 'Manfred,' that it is astonishing that any one c

being whose spirit haunts him as having been the deadliest s

now? A suffer

dare not t

blood as haunting

-the pure,

veins of my fath

our youth, and

other as we s

iately following his separation. The scenery of it was

of the conception, and showing that it di

au, and something else, more than Fa

ious accounts given by critics of

f the matter. I had a better origin than he

r 299, h

may be found in the journal I sent t

any real power was generally wrought out of self; and, when in a tumult of emotion, he could not help giving glimpses of the cause. It appears that he did know that he had been accused of inces

fe. He began by charging his wife with the very cruelty and deception which he was himself practising. He had spread a net for her feet, and he accused her of spreading a net for his. He had placed her in a position where she could not speak, and then leisurely shot arrows at her; and he represented her as having done the same by him. When he attacked her in 'Don Juan,' and strove to take from her the very protection {227}of womanly sacredness by putting her name into the mouth of ever

r of his life passed without his concocting and circulating some public or private accusation against her? She, by his own showing, published none against him. It is remarkable, that, in all his zeal to represent himself injured, he nowhere quotes a single remark from Lady Byron, nor a story coming either directly or indirectly from her or her family. He is in a fever in Venice, not from what she has spoken, but because she

might not have the power to testify against him. If we admit this solution, Byron's conduct is at least that of a man who is acting as men ordinarily would act under such circumstances: if we do not, he is acting like a fiend. Let us look at admitted facts. He married his wife without love, in a gloomy, melancholy, morose state of mind. The servants testify to strange, unaccountable treatment of her immediately after marriage; such that her confidential maid advises her return to her parents. In Lady Byron's letter to Mrs. Leigh, she reminds Lord Byron that he always expressed a desire and determinati

an agony of self-preservation; the second as a f

mission, in a letter to Moore, that he had an illegitimate ch

te Venice, Feb. 2, 1818, Byron says,

made unto myself an illegitimate since [since Ada's birth] to say nothing of one before; and I look forward to one

, born about nine or ten months after the separation. The other illegitimate all

conjectures that it may possibly be the child referred to in an

med by Lord Byron as his own, but that he asked his mother to care for it as belonging to a schoolmate now dead

born before Ada, we place this other fact, that there was a child in Englan

ently received by us from England, and written by a perso

hortly before, the Byron marriage. The child (a daughter) must not be confounded

; for in Lady Byron's attempts to watch over her, and rescue her from

son in England, of a child corresponding well with Lord Byron'

n, the circumstantial evidence

had married him from love, d

yron, that, unless he consented to this, they would expose the evidence against him in a sui

in his writings as to lead eminent literary men to believe he had committed a great crime. The public rumour of his day specified what the crime was. His relations, by his own showing, joined against him. The report was silenced by his wife's

ct testimony from Lady Byron. They are to be admitted

facts just as I received them from her, not altered or misremembered, is shown by the testimony of my sister, to whom I related them at the time. It cannot, then, be denied tha

ch separated her from

ions towards his sister, which, he meant to mak

ded it, tried to make her an accomplice, and,

he would make it his life's o

gard this conduct as insanity, and to

as she suspected; that there had been a child born of the

me was to ask, Was it her duty to make

allegation against him. He acts through life exactly like a man struggling with remorse, and afraid of detection; he has all the restlessness and hatred and fear that a man has who feels that there is evidence which might destroy him. He admits an illegitimate child besides Allegra. A child believed to h

England testify that, at various times, and for various purposes, the same story has been told to them. Moreover, it appears from my last letter addressed to Lady Byron on this subject, that I recommended her to leave all necessary papers in the hands of some discreet persons, who, after both had passed away, should see that justice was done. The solic

so strong, that a great effort has been

r a mental hallucination. This theory has been most ably refuted

to others, exacting no pledge of secrecy from them as to her mental impressions. Lunatics do for a time, and for some special purpose, most cunningly conceal their delusions; but they have not the capacity to struggle for thirty-six years, as Lady Byron must have done, with so frightful an hallucination, without the insane state of mind becoming obvious to those with whom the

ing the hypothesis of hallucination) at all parallel with that of Lady Byron

e diseases of the brain and nerves, must feel that his positive assertion on this ground is the best possible evidence. We here gratefully acknowledge our obligations to Dr. Winslow for the corrected proof of his valuabl

und assumed by the 'Blackwood,' when in July, 1869, it took upon itself the responsibility of re

epresentations made to Lushington in the beginning were false ones; and that th

whom Madame Brinvilliers is cited as the type. The 'Blackwood,' let it be remembered, opens the controversy with

the probability

public investigation which must have demonstrated his innocence? Most astonishing of all, when he fled from trial, and the report got abroad against him in England, and was believed even by his own relations, why did not his wife avail herself of the moment to complete her victory? If at that moment she had publicly broken with Mrs. Leigh, she might have confirmed every rumour. Did she do it? and why no

d a strong party in England, to whom she could have appealed. Again: when 'Don Juan' was first printed, it excited a violent re-action against Lord Byron. Had his wife chosen then to accuse him, and display the evidence she had shown to her counsel, there is little doubt that all the world would have stood with her; but she did not. After his death, when she spoke at last, there seems little doubt from the stre

and she herself was in constant expectation of passing away, there was a reason, and a proper one, why she should speak. By nature and principle truthful, she had had the opportunity of silently watching the operation of a permitted lie upon a whole generation. She had been

literary world of England accepted the plea, and tolerated and justified the crimes. Never before, in England, had adultery been spoken of in so respectful a mann

ts ourselves than for allowing one that affects our neighbour. This falsehood had corrupted the literature and morals of both England and America, and led to the public toleration, by respectable authorities, of forms of vice at first indignantly rejected. The que

the 'Quarterly' proposes, has a peculiar and specific value from the great

on that account. Testimony extorted by conscience from a parent against a child, or a wife against a husband, where

ron could be criminated, so long as he and his sister were living, is strong evidence, that, when she did speak, it was not under the

tted to enjoy with her child the peace and seclusion that belong to her sex. Her husband made her, through his life and after his death, a subject of such constant discussion, that she must either abandon the current literature of her day, or run the risk of reading more or less about herself in almost every magazine of her time. Conversations with Lord Byron, notes of interviews with Lord Byron, journals of time spent with Lord Byron, were constantly spread before the public. Leigh Hunt, Galt, Medwin, Trelawney, Lady Blessington, Dr. Kennedy, and Thomas Moore, all p

hat we may come to a just conclusion as to a subject upon which, by their act, at least, as much as by any other people's act, we are compelled to consider it our duty to ma

k further, all in one breath, by public prints, there is reason to think that there could not have come less solicitation from private sources,-from friends who had access to her at all hours, whom she loved, by whom she was beloved, and to whom her refusal to explain might seem

r human sympathy, and all possibility of perfectly free and unconstrained intercourse with he

and unaccountable; and the most truthful person, who feels bound to keep silence regarding a radical lie of another, must often be placed in positions most trying to conscientiousness. The great merit of 'Caleb Williams' as a novel consists in its philosophical analysis of

on Lady Byron, involving her as in a net

nd natural, that we cannot but wonder that her conduct in this respect has ever been called in question. If it was her right to have had a public expo

But there were as many witnesses and partisans dead on her side as on his. Lady Milbanke and Sir Ralph, Sir

running round, and repeating her story to

on by her husband in his conversations with Lady Blessington, this coarse and vulgar a

hly cultivated;' as having 'a degree

n is a want of that self-respect which she has in excess . . . . But, though I accuse Lady Byron of an excess of self-respect, I must, in candour, admit, that, if a

crets and a gossip in regard to her private difficulties with children, grandchildren, and se

or answer any questions. In July, 1869, she was denounced by 'Blackwood' as a Madame Brinvilliers for keeping such perfect silence on the matter of h

ays that utter self-abnegation has been preached to women as a peculiarly femini

claims to justice. The teachings of the Saviour give us warrant for submitting to personal injuries; bu

ed themselves to her conscience; but when all the personal considerations were removed, and she was about passing from life, it was right, it was just, it was strictly in accordance with the philosophical and ethical character of her mind

usually suppressed; and believed, that, as a result of such perfect truthfulness, a wider love would prevail among Christians. This shows the strength of her conviction of the power and the importance of a

a proper time and in a proper manner, and for a purpose in accordance with the most elevated moral views, and that it is coincident with all the established facts of thi

nt prepared by Lady Byron, and the proof by which she expected to sustai