Lady Byron Vindicated

This plan of solemn and heroic accusation was the first public attack on his wife.  Next we see him commencing a scurrilous attempt to turn her to ridicule in the First Canto of ‘Don Juan.’

It is to our point now to show how carefully and cautiously this Don Juan campaign was planned.

Vol. IV. p.138, we find Letter 325 to Mr. Murray:—

‘Venice: January 25, 1819.

‘You will do me the favour to print privately, for private distribution, fifty copies of “Don Juan.”  The list of the men to whom I wish it presented I will send hereafter.’

The poem, as will be remembered, begins with the meanest and foulest attack on his wife that ever ribald wrote, and puts it in close neighbourhood with scenes which every pure man or woman must feel to be the beastly utterances of a man who had lost all sense of decency.  Such a potion was too strong to be administered even in a time when great license was allowed, and men were not over-nice.  But Byron chooses fifty armour-bearers of that class of men who would find indecent ribaldry about a wife a good joke, and talk about the ‘artistic merits’ of things which we hope would make an honest boy blush.

At this time he acknowledges that his vices had brought him to a state of great exhaustion, attended by such debility of the stomach that nothing remained on it; and adds, ‘I was obliged to reform my way of life, which was conducting me from the yellow leaf to the ground with all deliberate speed.’¹³  But as his health is a little better he employs it in making the way to death and hell elegantly easy for other young men, by breaking down the remaining scruples of a society not over-scrupulous.

Society revolted, however, and fought stoutly against the nauseous dose.  His sister wrote to him that she heard such things said of it that she never would read it; and the outcry against it on the part of all women of his acquaintance was such that for a time he was quite overborne; and the Countess Guiccioli finally extorted a promise from him to cease writing it.  Nevertheless, there came a time when England accepted ‘Don Juan,’—when Wilson, in the ‘Noctes Ambrosianae,’ praised it as a classic, and took every opportunity to reprobate Lady Byron’s conduct.  When first it appeared the ‘Blackwood’ came out with that indignant denunciation of which we have spoken, and to which Byron replied in the extracts we have already quoted.  He did something more than reply.  He marked out Wilson as one of the strongest literary men of the day, and set his ‘initiated’ with their documents to work upon him.

One of these documents to which he requested Wilson’s attention was the private autobiography, written expressly to give his own story of all the facts of the marriage and separation.

In the indignant letter he writes Murray on the ‘Blackwood’ article, Vol. IV., Letter 350—under date December 10, 1819—he says:—

‘I sent home for Moore, and for Moore only (who has my journal also), my memoir written up to 1816, and I gave him leave to show it to whom he pleased, but not to publish on any account.  You may read it, and you may let Wilson read it if he likes—not for his public opinion, but his private, for I like the man, and care very little about the magazine.  And I could wish Lady Byron herself to read it, that she may have it in her power to mark any thing mistaken or misstated.  As it will never appear till after my extinction, it would be but fair she should see it; that is to say, herself willing.  Your “Blackwood” accuses me of treating women harshly; but I have been their martyr; my whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them.’

It was a part of Byron’s policy to place Lady Byron in positions before the world where she could not speak, and where her silence would be set down to her as haughty, stony indifference and obstinacy.  Such was the pretended negotiation through Madame de Staël, and such now this apparently fair and generous offer to let Lady Byron see and mark this manuscript.

The little Ada is now in her fifth year—a child of singular sensibility and remarkable mental powers—one of those exceptional children who are so perilous a charge for a mother.

Her husband proposes this artful snare to her,—that she shall mark what is false in a statement which is all built on a damning lie, that she cannot refute over that daughter’s head,—and which would perhaps be her ruin to discuss.

Hence came an addition of two more documents, to be used ‘privately among friends,’¹⁴ and which ‘Blackwood’ uses after Lady Byron is safely out of the world to cast ignominy on her grave—the wife’s letter, that of a mother standing at bay for her daughter, knowing that she is dealing with a desperate, powerful, unscrupulous enemy.

‘Kirkby Mallory: March 10, 1820.

‘I received your letter of January 1, offering to my perusal a Memoir of part of your life.  I decline to inspect it.  I consider the publication or circulation of such a composition at any time as prejudicial to Ada’s future happiness.  For my own sake, I have no reason to shrink from publication; but, notwithstanding the injuries which I have suffered, I should lament some of the consequences.

‘A. Byron.

‘To Lord Byron.’

Lord Byron, writing for the public, as is his custom, makes reply:—

‘Ravenna: April 3, 1820.

‘I received yesterday your answer, dated March 10.  My offer was an honest one, and surely could only be construed as such even by the most malignant casuistry.  I could answer you, but it is too late, and it is not worth while.  To the mysterious menace of the last sentence, whatever its import may be—and I cannot pretend to unriddle it—I could hardly be very sensible even if I understood it, as, before it can take place, I shall be where “nothing can touch him further.” . . .  I advise you, however, to anticipate the period of your intention, for, be assured, no power of figures can avail beyond the present; and if it could, I would answer with the Florentine:—

 
‘“Ed io, che posto son con loro in croce
.     .     .     .     .     e certo
La fiera moglie, più ch’altro, mi nuoce.”¹⁵
 

‘BYRON.

‘To Lady Byron.’

Two things are very evident in this correspondence: Lady Byron intimates that, if he publishes his story, some consequences must follow which she shall regret.

Lord Byron receives this as a threat, and says he doesn’t understand it.  But directly after he says, ‘Before IT can take place, I shall be,’ etc.

The intimation is quite clear.  He does understand what the consequences alluded to are.  They are evidently that Lady Byron will speak out and tell her story.  He says she cannot do this till after he is dead, and then he shall not care.  In allusion to her accuracy as to dates and figures, he says: ‘Be assured no power of figures can avail beyond the present’ (life); and then ironically advises her to anticipate the period,—i.e. to speak out while he is alive.

In Vol. VI. Letter 518, which Lord Byron wrote to Lady Byron, but did not send, he says: ‘I burned your last note for two reasons,—firstly, because it was written in a style not very agreeable; and, secondly, because I wished to take your word without documents, which are the resources of worldly and suspicious people.’

It would appear from this that there was a last letter of Lady Byron to her husband, which he did not think proper to keep on hand, or show to the ‘initiated’ with his usual unreserve; that this letter contained some kind of pledge for which he preferred to take her word, without documents.

Each reader can imagine for himself what that pledge might have been; but from the tenor of the three letters we should infer that it was a promise of silence for his lifetime, on certain conditions, and that the publication of the autobiography would violate those conditions, and make it her duty to speak out.

This celebrated autobiography forms so conspicuous a figure in the whole history, that the reader must have a full idea of it, as given by Byron himself, in Vol. IV.  Letter 344, to Murray:—

‘I gave to Moore, who is gone to Rome, my life in MS.,—in seventy-eight folio sheets, brought down to 1816 . . . also a journal kept in 1814.  Neither are for publication during my life, but when I am cold you may do what you please.  In the mean time, if you like to read them you may, and show them to anybody you like.  I care not. . . . ’

He tells him also:—

‘You will find in it a detailed account of my marriage and its consequences, as true as a party concerned can make such an account.’

Of the extent to which this autobiography was circulated we have the following testimony of Shelton Mackenzie, in notes to ‘The Noctes’ of June 1824.

In ‘The Noctes’ Odoherty says:—

‘The fact is, the work had been copied for the private reading of a great lady in Florence.’

The note says:—

‘The great lady in Florence, for whose private reading Byron’s autobiography was copied, was the Countess of Westmoreland. . . .  Lady Blessington had the autobiography in her possession for weeks, and confessed to having copied every line of it.  Moore remonstrated, and she committed her copy to the flames, but did not tell him that her sister, Mrs. Home Purvis, now Viscountess of Canterbury, had also made a copy! . . .  From the quantity of copy I have seen,—and others were more in the way of falling in with it than myself,—I surmise that at least half a dozen copies were made, and of these five are now in existence.  Some particular parts, such as the marriage and separation, were copied separately; but I think there cannot be less than five full copies yet to be found.’

This was written after the original autobiography was burned.

We may see the zeal and enthusiasm of the Byron party,—copying seventy-eight folio sheets, as of old Christians copied the Gospels.  How widely, fully, and thoroughly, thus, by this secret process, was society saturated with Byron’s own versions of the story that related to himself and wife!  Against her there was only the complaint of an absolute silence.  She put forth no statements, no documents; had no party, sealed the lips of her counsel, and even of her servants; yet she could not but have known, from time to time, how thoroughly and strongly this web of mingled truth and lies was being meshed around her steps.

From the time that Byron first saw the importance of securing Wilson on his side, and wrote to have his partisans attend to him, we may date an entire revolution in the ‘Blackwood.’  It became Byron’s warmest supporter,—is to this day the bitterest accuser of his wife.

Why was this wonderful silence?  It appears by Dr. Lushington’s statements, that, when Lady Byron did speak, she had a story to tell that powerfully affected both him and Romilly,—a story supported by evidence on which they were willing to have gone to public trial.  Supposing, now, she had imitated Lord Byron’s example, and, avoiding public trial, had put her story into private circulation; as he sent ‘Don Juan’ to fifty confidential friends, suppose she had sent a written statement of her story to fifty judges as intelligent as the two that had heard it; or suppose she had confronted his autobiography with her own,—what would have been the result?

The first result might have been Mrs. Leigh’s utter ruin.  The world may finally forgive the man of genius anything; but for a woman there is no mercy and no redemption.

This ruin Lady Byron prevented by her utter silence and great self-command.  Mrs. Leigh never lost position.  Lady Byron never so varied in her manner towards her as to excite the suspicions even of her confidential old servant.

To protect Mrs. Leigh effectually, it must have been necessary to continue to exclude even her own mother from the secret, as we are assured she did at first; for, had she told Lady Milbanke, it is not possible that so high-spirited a woman could have restrained herself from such outward expressions as would at least have awakened suspicion.  There was no resource but this absolute silence.

Lady Blessington, in her last conversation with Lord Byron, thus describes the life Lady Byron was leading.  She speaks of her as ‘wearing away her youth in almost monastic seclusion, questioned by some, appreciated by few, seeking consolation alone in the discharge of her duties, and avoiding all external demonstrations of a grief that her pale cheek and solitary existence alone were vouchers for.’¹⁶

The main object of all this silence may be imagined, if we remember that if Lord Byron had not died,—had he truly and deeply repented, and become a thoroughly good man, and returned to England to pursue a course worthy of his powers, there was on record neither word nor deed from his wife to stand in his way.

HIS PLACE WAS KEPT IN SOCIETY, ready for him to return to whenever he came clothed and in his right mind.  He might have had the heart and confidence of his daughter unshadowed by a suspicion.  He might have won the reverence of the great and good in his own lands and all lands.  That hope, which was the strong support, the prayer of the silent wife, it did not please God to fulfil.

Lord Byron died a worn-out man at thirty-six.  But the bitter seeds he had sown came up, after his death, in a harvest of thorns over his grave; and there were not wanting hands to use them as instruments of torture on the heart of his widow.

CHAPTER III.  RÉSUMÉ OF THE CONSPIRACY

We have traced the conspiracy of Lord Byron against his wife up to its latest device.  That the reader’s mind may be clear on the points of the process, we shall now briefly recapitulate the documents in the order of time.

I.  March 17, 1816.—While negotiations for separation were pending,—‘Fare thee well, and if for ever.’

While writing these pages, we have received from England the testimony of one who has seen the original draught of that ‘Fare thee well.’  This original copy had evidently been subjected to the most careful and acute revision.  Scarcely two lines that were not interlined, scarcely an adjective that was not exchanged for a better; showing that the noble lord was not so far overcome by grief as to have forgotten his reputation.  (Found its way to the public prints through the imprudence of a friend.)

II.  March 29, 1816.—An attack on Lady Byron’s old governess for having been born poor, for being homely, and for having unduly influenced his wife against him; promising that her grave should be a fiery bed, etc.; also praising his wife’s perfect and remarkable truthfulness and discernment, that made it impossible for flattery to fool, or baseness blind her; but ascribing all his woes to her being fooled and blinded by this same governess.  (Found its way to the prints by the imprudence of a friend.)

III.  September 1816.—Lines on hearing that Lady Byron is ill.  Calls her a Clytemnestra, who has secretly set assassins on her lord; says she is a mean, treacherous, deceitful liar, and has entirely departed from her early truth, and become the most unscrupulous and unprincipled of women.  (Never printed till after Lord Byron’s death, but circulated privately among the ‘initiated.’)

IV.  Aug. 9, 1817.—Gives to M. G. Lewis a paper for circulation among friends in England, stating that what he most wants is public investigation, which has always been denied him; and daring Lady Byron and her counsel to come out publicly.  (Found in M. G. Lewis’s portfolio after his death; never heard of before, except among the ‘initiated.’)

Having given M. G. Lewis’s document time to work,—

January 1818.—Gives the Fourth Canto of ‘Childe Harold’¹⁷ to the public.

Jan. 25, 1819.—Sends to Murray to print for private circulation among the ‘initiated’ the First Canto of ‘Don Juan.’

Is nobly and severely rebuked for this insult to his wife by the ‘Blackwood,’ August 1819.

October 1819.—Gives Moore the manuscript ‘Autobiography,’ with leave to show it to whom he pleases, and print it after his death.

Oct. 29, 1819, Vol. IV. Letter 344.—Writes to Murray, that he may read all this ‘Autobiography,’ and show it to anybody he likes.

Dec. 10, 1819.—Writes to Murray on this article in ‘Blackwood’ against ‘Don Juan’ and himself, which he supposes written by Wilson; sends a complimentary message to Wilson, and asks him to read his ‘Autobiography’ sent by Moore.  (Letter 350.)

March 15, 1820.—Writes and dedicates to I. Disraeli, Esq., a vindication of himself in reply to the ‘Blackwood’ on ‘Don Juan,’ containing an indignant defence of his own conduct in relation to his wife, and maintaining that he never yet has had an opportunity of knowing whereof he has been accused; accusing Sir S. Romilly of taking his retainer, and then going over to the adverse party, etc.  (Printed for private circulation; to be found in the standard English edition of Murray, vol. ix. p.57.)

To this condensed account of Byron’s strategy we must add the crowning stroke of policy which transmitted this warfare to his friends, to be continued after his death.

During the last visit Moore made him in Italy, and just before Byron presented to him his ‘Autobiography,’ the following scene occurred, as narrated by Moore (vol. iv. p.221):—

‘The chief subject of conversation, when alone, was his marriage, and the load of obloquy which it had brought upon him.  He was most anxious to know the worst that had been alleged of his conduct; and, as this was our first opportunity of speaking together on the subject, I did not hesitate to put his candour most searchingly to the proof, not only by enumerating the various charges I had heard brought against him by others, but by specifying such portions of these charges as I had been inclined to think not incredible myself.

‘To all this he listened with patience, and answered with the most unhesitating frankness; laughing to scorn the tales of unmanly outrage related of him, but at the same time acknowledging that there had been in his conduct but too much to blame and regret, and stating one or two occasions during his domestic life when he had been irritated into letting the “breath of bitter words” escape him,. . .  which he now evidently remembered with a degree of remorse and pain which might well have entitled them to be forgotten by others.

‘It was, at the same time, manifest, that, whatever admissions he might be inclined to make respecting his own delinquencies, the inordinate measure of the punishment dealt out to him had sunk deeply into his mind, and, with the usual effect of such injustice, drove him also to be unjust himself; so much so, indeed, as to impute to the quarter to which he now traced all his ill fate a feeling of fixed hostility to himself, which would not rest, he thought, even at his grave, but continue to persecute his memory as it was now embittering his life.  So strong was this impression upon him, that, during one of our few intervals of seriousness, he conjured me by our friendship, if, as he both felt and hoped, I should survive him, not to let unmerited censure settle upon his name.’

In this same account, page 218, Moore testifies that

‘Lord Byron disliked his countrymen, but only because he knew that his morals were held in contempt by them.  The English, themselves rigid observers of family duties, could not pardon him the neglect of his, nor his trampling on principles; therefore, neither did he like being presented to them, nor did they, especially when they had wives with them, like to cultivate his acquaintance.  Still there was a strong desire in all of them to see him; and the women in particular, who did not dare to look at him but by stealth, said in an under-voice, “What a pity it is!”  If, however, any of his compatriots of exalted rank and high reputation came forward to treat him with courtesy, he showed himself obviously flattered by it.  It seemed that, to the wound which remained open in his ulcerated heart, such soothing attentions were as drops of healing balm, which comforted him.’

 

When in society, we are further informed by a lady quoted by Mr. Moore, he was in the habit of speaking of his wife with much respect and affection, as an illustrious lady, distinguished for her qualities of heart and understanding; saying that all the fault of their cruel separation lay with himself.  Mr. Moore seems at times to be somewhat puzzled by these contradictory statements of his idol, and speculates not a little on what could be Lord Byron’s object in using such language in public; mentally comparing it, we suppose, with the free handling which he gave to the same subject in his private correspondence.

The innocence with which Moore gives himself up to be manipulated by Lord Byron, the naïveté with which he shows all the process, let us a little into the secret of the marvellous powers of charming and blinding which this great actor possessed.

Lord Byron had the beauty, the wit, the genius, the dramatic talent, which have constituted the strength of some wonderfully fascinating women.

There have been women able to lead their leashes of blinded adorers; to make them swear that black was white, or white black, at their word; to smile away their senses, or weep away their reason.  No matter what these sirens may say, no matter what they may do, though caught in a thousand transparent lies, and doing a thousand deeds which would have ruined others, still men madly rave after them in life, and tear their hair over their graves.  Such an enchanter in man’s shape was Lord Byron.

He led captive Moore and Murray by being beautiful, a genius, and a lord; calling them ‘Dear Tom’ and ‘Dear Murray,’ while they were only commoners.  He first insulted Sir Walter Scott, and then witched his heart out of him by ingenuous confessions and poetical compliments; he took Wilson’s heart by flattering messages and a beautifully-written letter; he corresponded familiarly with Hogg; and, before his death, had made fast friends, in one way or another, of the whole ‘Noctes Ambrosianae’ Club.

We thus have given the historical résumé of Lord Byron’s attacks on his wife’s reputation: we shall add, that they were based on philosophic principles, showing a deep knowledge of mankind.  An analysis will show that they can be philosophically classified:—

1st.  Those which addressed the sympathetic nature of man, representing her as cold, methodical, severe, strict, unforgiving.

2nd.  Those addressed to the faculty of association, connecting her with ludicrous and licentious images; taking from her the usual protection of womanly delicacy and sacredness.

3rd.  Those addressed to the moral faculties, accusing her as artful, treacherous, untruthful, malignant.

All these various devices he held in his hand, shuffling and dealing them as a careful gamester his pack of cards according to the exigencies of the game.  He played adroitly, skilfully, with blinding flatteries and seductive wiles, that made his victims willing dupes.

Nothing can more clearly show the power and perfectness of his enchantments than the masterly way in which he turned back the moral force of the whole English nation, which had risen at first in its strength against him.  The victory was complete.