Lady Byron Vindicated. Гарриет Бичер-Стоу

to me more interesting than Lord Byron’s.  Lady Byron (if the subject must be discussed) belongs to sentiment and morality (at least as much as Lord Byron); nor is she to be suffered, when compelled to speak, to raise her voice as in a desert, with no friendly voice to respond to her.  Lady Byron could not have outlived her sufferings if she had not wound up her fortitude to the high point of trusting mainly for consolation, not to the opinion of the world, but to her own inward peace; and, having said what ought to convince the world, I verily believe that she has less care about the fashionable opinion respecting her than any of her friends can have.  But we, her friends, mix with the world; and we hear offensive absurdities about her, which we have a right to put down.

      .          .          .          .

      ‘I proceed to deal more generally with Mr. Moore’s book.  You speak, Mr. Moore, against Lord Byron’s censurers in a tone of indignation which is perfectly lawful towards calumnious traducers, but which will not terrify me, or any other man of courage who is no calumniator, from uttering his mind freely with regard to this part of your hero’s conduct.  I question your philosophy in assuming that all that is noble in Byron’s poetry was inconsistent with the possibility of his being devoted to a pure and good woman; and I repudiate your morality for canting too complacently about “the lava of his imagination,” and the unsettled fever of his passions, being any excuses for his planting the tic douloureux of domestic suffering in a meek woman’s bosom.

      ‘These are hard words, Mr. Moore; but you have brought them on yourself by your voluntary ignorance of facts known to me; for you might and ought to have known both sides of the question; and, if the subject was too delicate for you to consult Lady Byron’s confidential friends, you ought to have had nothing to do with the subject.  But you cannot have submitted your book even to Lord Byron’s sister, otherwise she would have set you right about the imaginary spy, Mrs. Clermont.’

      Campbell now goes on to print, at his own peril, he says, and without time to ask leave, the following note from Lady Byron in reply to an application he made to her, when he was about to review Moore’s book, for an ‘estimate as to the correctness of Moore’s statements.’

      The following is Lady Byron’s reply:—

      ‘DEAR MR. CAMPBELL,—In taking up my pen to point out for your private information22 those passages in Mr. Moore’s representation of my part of the story which were open to contradiction, I find them of still greater extent than I had supposed; and to deny an assertion here and there would virtually admit the truth of the rest.  If, on the contrary, I were to enter into a full exposure of the falsehood of the views taken by Mr. Moore, I must detail various matters, which, consistently with my principles and feelings, I cannot under the existing circumstances disclose.  I may, perhaps, convince you better of the difficulty of the case by an example: It is not true that pecuniary embarrassments were the cause of the disturbed state of Lord Byron’s mind, or formed the chief reason for the arrangements made by him at that time.  But is it reasonable for me to expect that you or any one else should believe this, unless I show you what were the causes in question? and this I cannot do.

      1

      The italics are mine.

      2

      The italics are mine.

      3

      In Lady Blessington’s ‘Memoirs’ this name is given Charlemont; in the late ‘Temple Bar’ article on the character of Lady Byron it is given Clermont.  I have followed the latter.

      4

      The italics are mine.

      5

      In Lady Blessington’s conversations with Lord Byron, just before he went to Greece, she records that he gave her this poem in manuscript.  It was published in her ‘Journal.’

      6

      Vol. vi. p.22.

      7

      ‘Byron’s Miscellany,’ vol. ii. p.358.  London, 1853.

      8

      The italics are mine.

      9

      Lord Byron says, in his observations on an article in ‘Blackwood:’ ‘I recollect being much hurt by Romilly’s conduct: he (having a general retainer for me) went over to the adversary, alleging, on being reminded of his retainer, that he had forgotten it, as his clerk had so many.  I observed that some of those who were now so eagerly laying the axe to my roof-tree might see their own shaken.  His fell and crushed him.’

      In the first edition of Moore’s Life of Lord Byron there was printed a letter on Sir Samuel Romilly, so brutal that it was suppressed in the subsequent editions.  (See Part III.)

      10

      Vol. iv. p.40

      11

      Ibid. p.46.

      12

      The italics are mine.

      13

      Vol. iv. p.143.

      14

      Lord Byron took especial pains to point out to Murray the importance of these two letters.  Vol. V. Letter 443, he says: ‘You must also have from Mr. Moore the correspondence between me and Lady B., to whom I offered a sight of all that concerns herself in these papers.  This is important.  He has her letter and my answer.’

      15

      ‘And I, who with them on the cross am placed,

      .          .          .          .    truly

      My savage wife, more than aught else, doth harm me.’

Inferno, Canto, XVI., Longfellow’s translation.

      16

      ‘Conversations,’ p.108.

      17

      Murray’s edition of ‘Byron’s Works,’ vol. ii. p.189; date of dedication to Hobhouse, Jan.

1

The italics are mine.

2

The italics are mine.

3

In Lady Blessington’s ‘Memoirs’ this name is given Charlemont; in the late ‘Temple Bar’ article

22

‘I (Campbell) had not time to ask Lady Byron’s permission to print this private letter; but it seemed to me important, and I have published it meo periculo.’