The Express.
London, England, 1860-05-24 00:00:00

(Stamped Id. Additional.) [TWOPENCE,

!Lid npostperlui,oza so forth. wdhat hewratah. Lad
about when
Byron a friendshenhe,published
knew all the while that she had no concern what-
ever an the transaction. The world did not know
it ; for she refused to recognise the world's inter-
ference in her affairs. She had 'made no explana- 1
tions hitherto ; and she made none now.
She suffered, perhaps, as much as a weaker
woman could have done ; but she did not
complain. Many years after she wrote to a friend
who bad been no less unjustifiably betrayed—"
am grieved for you, as regards the actual position.
But it will come right. I was myself made to
appear responsible for a publication by Campbell
most unfairly, sonic years ago, so that if I had
not imagination enough to enter into your case,
experience would have taught me to do so." We
are not disposed to countenance the cant of the
time about ours being an age of materialism in
oomparison with others, but if any one case could
bring us to such a conclusion, it would be this.
All can honour the women, of any age, who have
borne the racking of the limbs rather than speak
the word which would release them : but few. have
fitly honoured this long endurance, through forty
years, of the racking of the tenderest feelings,
rather than gain absolution by the simplest dia-
-1 ()lecture. The source of this strength was un-
doubtedly her love for her husband. She loved
,•kin to aim last With a lore *lf & ft Wien& %Ms
Own power to destroy. She gloried in his fame ; and she
would not interfere between hire and the public who
adored him, any more than she wonlcl admit the
public to judge between him and her. As we have
said, her love endured to the last. It was her for-
tune which gave him the means of pursuing his
mode of life abroad. He spent the utmost shilling
of her property that the law gave him while he
lived ; and he left away from her every shilling
that he could deprive her of by his will ; and what
the course of life was which he thus supported he
himself has left on record. Yet, after all this, the
interview which she had with his servant after his
death shows what a depth of passion lay concealed
under the calm surface of her reserve. It will be
remembered that when Byron knew himself to be
dying he called to his man Fletcher and desired him
to "go to Lady Byron," and . . . Here his
utterance became unintelligible, till he said "You
will tell her this ;" and Fletcher was obliged to
reply, " I have not heard one syllable that you
have been saying." " Good God !" exclaimed the
dying man • ' but it was too late for more. Fletcher
did 'go to Lady Byron ; " but, during the whole
interview, she walked up and down the room,
striving to stifle her sobs, and obtain power to ask
the questions which were surging in her heart. She
could not speak, and he was obliged to leave her.
Since that time there have been many who have
believed and said that no one person m England
was doing so much good as Lady Byron. It was
not done as her husband gave out, by attending
charity balls, or dispensing soups and blankets and
maudlin sentiment. Among the multitude of ways
in which she did good, the chief and the beet was
by instituting and encouraging popular education.
We hear at present (and glad we are to hear it)
much about the teaching of "common things;'
but, years before such a process was publicly dis-
owned, Lady Byron's schools were turning the chil-
dren of the poorest into agriculturists, artisans,
sempetresses, and good poor men's wives. She
spent her income (such as her husband left of it)
in fostering every sound educational scheme, and
every germ of noble science and useful art, as well
as in easing solitary hearts, and making many
a desert place cheerful with the secret
streams of her bounty. There was a singular
grace in the way in which she did these things.
For one instance :—A lady, impoverished by hope-
less sickness, preferred poverty with a clear con-
science to a competency under some uncertainty
about the perfect rectitude of the resource. Lady
Byron, hearing of the case, wrote to an interme-
diate person to say that the poor invalid could
never be a subject of pity, as the poverty was
voluntary, but that it seemed hard that the suf-
ferer's benevolent feelings should be baulked - and
she had, therefore, ventured to place at her Call in
a certain bank 1001. for benevolent purposes ; and,
in order to avoid all risk of unpleasant remarks,
she had made the money payable to this interme-
diate correspondent. This was her way of cheering
the sick room ; and the name spirit ran through all
her transactions of beneficence.

No one could be more thoroughly liberal towards
other people's persuasions, while duly valuing her
own. No one could be further from pedantry,
while eagerly and industriously inquiring after
all new science and literature,—in order to learn,
and by no means to display. When we say,
as we truly may, that her life was devoted, after
family claims, to the silent promotion of public
morality (without the slightest mixture of cant or
dogmatism), of science, of education, of human,
and especially of domestic, happiness, wherever
she could oonfer her blessings, we may ask how a
much-tried woman's life could be better spent 1
and, perhaps, how many women so tried could so
have spent their lives 1 What domestic life might
and should have been to her all must feel who saw
her devotion to her daughter, not only in youth,
but yet more in attendance on the slow dying of
that one child, and even more still in her labours
and sacrifices for her grandchildren. It might
have been said that she lived for them, if she had
not at the same time been doing so much for the
world beyond. Those who are gifted with insight
and with a 'true heart might also see by other
tokens what domestic life might and should
have been to her. They might see it in
tke countenance, so worn, while so calm,
steady, and thoughtful. They might see it in the
wretched health which made her living from year
to year a wonder even to her physicians ; and in
the restlessness which indisposed her to have a set-
tled home, after the name of home had been so
spoiled to her ; and in the few and small peculiari-
ties which told of strained affections and of irreme-
diable loneliness in life. They might see it, too, in
Ithe love which she won and unconsciously com-
manded ; and especially in the solace and the care
which surrounded her in her decline, and the love
and gratitude which watched by her pillow as her
life ebbed away. This one child of a happy home
grew up almost unconscious of anything beyond it.
In her youth she found herself suddenly the subject
of the world's conversation, if not of the interest of
all England ; and she could not but know, when
dying, that, notwithstanding her love of privacy,
and the steadfast silence of a long life, she would
be mourned from end to end of the kingdom, and
that her death would create a sensation wherever
our language is spoken, and referred to with ten-
derness in all future time, when popular education,
and the power of woman to bless society with all
gentle and quiet blessings, engage the attention of
lovers of their kind.
She was born in 1792 ; married in January, 1814 ;
returned to her father's house in 1816 ; and died on
the 16th of May, 1800.

TH2 ELLI9ON Warn Comma Cow:error,/ or
Pm/mimic—This valuable gift has sow been deposited in
the South Kensington Kamm, and will be Met exhibited
to the public on Saturday next.
GHOLOGICAL Floctsry.—The next meeting of the
will be held (at Burlington-house) on Ma, 30, when
the following papers will be read :-1. "On certain Rocks
of Miocene and Eocene age in Tuscany, including serpen-
tine, copper ores, rock salt, lignite, and the pure alabaster
used in sculpture." By W. P. Jervis, Fiq. F.Cf.S. 2. "On
the Oesiferoua Caves of the Peninsula of Gower, in GlL-
morganehire." By H. Falconer, M.D., F.A.S., F. 0.8.
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The ladies of India, whether tunmeen or native, have found
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and may be taken freely and safely by persons of the most deli-
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odium habits, pursuits, or pleasures, while taking a course,