The Sun.
London, England, 1830-04-15 00:00:00

LORD AND LADY BYRON.

(From the Edinburgh Advertiser.)
We took an opportunity, in our paper of Tuesday
last, of expressing our opinion regarding the treat-
ment which this lady has met with at the hands of
her husband's biographer, and the public press in
general.

- Our remarks have had the effect of procuring for
us two documents illustrative of the question—do•
cuments never before printed, and which, with the
exception of Lady Byron's letter, may be termed the
first that have ever appeared on the side of the in-
jured arid enduring party. Before laying them be-
fore the publiz, we beg to make it understood that
we entertain no despiteful feelings regarding the il-
lustrious poet to whom they refer : as we stated
last week, we regard him, with all his faults, proved
and suspected, rather with pity than any other feel-
ing—pity, to think that one possessed of such mag-
nificent powers of mind should have been in other
respects so unhappily organised. The first document
is a letter which Mrs. Leigh, Byron's surviving half-
sister, addressed to Mrs. Clermont, in answer to a
letter by that individual, in which she had called
upon Mrs. Leigh for her testimony as to her (Mrs.
Clermont's) innocence in the affair of the separation.
Mrs. Clermont is the individual to whom Byron al-
luded in the ver(es beginning—" Born in a garret, in
a kitchen bred." She was induced to call for Mrs.
Leigh's testimony in her favour by a revival of the
scandal which took place after the noble poet's death.,
" St. James's Palace, Ist June, 1821.
" My dear Mrs. Clermont,

" In answer to the letter I hare this morning received
from you, I must beg to assure you haw very sorry I am
for the annoyance you are now feeling, owing to the
calumnies revived against your character in the news-
!: •pers..

-"
I have, whenever opportunity presented itself, not
only contradicted them, but also done justice to the kind
forbearance I have invariably observed in you, upon occa-
sions the most trying to every friend to Lady Byron's ; and
you may depend upon my continuing to do so.
" You are quite at liberty to show this letter to any of
your friends, and to express my entire conviction of your
being perfectly innocent of the charges brought against
you, in any way most satisfactory to yourself, except that
of the channel of the newspapers, in which it would, on
every account, be extremely painful and unpleasant to me
to he brought forward.
" You are, perhaps, not aware (nor was I myself till
this day) that, two days after the paragraph to which you
allude, and which was copied into the English from an
Irish paper, it was contradicted from authority in the
same paper. If I can get the paper, I will cut it out and
send it to you. Believe me,
" Dear Mrs. Clermont, most truly yours,
" AUGUSTA LEIGH."

Our second document is an extract from a letter
addressed by a lady, who forms one of Lady Byron's
circle of friends, to a genticy..,,tnan of this town, who
has placed it in our hands :
" My dear
,E., when you know as much of
Lord Byron as we do, you will call him only a great poet.
He certainly was the greatest that England has ever pro-
duced ; but I cannot go farther with you. In my opinion,
Mr. Moore has lowered him considerably even as a literary
mats. What are his letters but the most coarse and vulgar
—full of oaths and foolish boasting of his intemperance ?
And his apparent liberality and generosity is any thing
but what one is at first tempted to "relieve it. How could
a man be so unjust as to be giving away money which
was not his to bestow? From whom did he take it ?
from his creditors. And some of it, which Moore glosses
over as proceeding from deep feeling, was to silei,e an
affair which would have utterly disgraced him. I ~wn
correspondence about Lady Byron shows that she never
had his affection ; and his manner of speaking about her
after his marriage, at a time when all other men displayed
some tenderness, is disgusting. As to Moore, I have no
words to express what I feel about his endeavour to throw
odium upon Lady Byron. He well knows that the latter
part of this work, upon the subject of the separation, is
utterly false / There were no executions in his house
previous to the separation, nor did poor Mrs. Clermont in-
terfere in any way between them. When she left the house,
Lord Byron parted with kind words to her, and he so com-
ple,ely deceived her by his specious manner that she was
perfectly astonished when those cruel verses came out
against her. I send you a copy of a letter from Mrs. Leigh,
which ought to be made known, although it is not wished
to be inserted in the newspapers. Mrs. Cleremont is the
daughter of a clergyman, and not, as Lord Byron says, of
a washerwoman, and the most mild and well-conducted
woman that can be. Of course she is suffering from
these base memoirs once more ; and poor Lady Byron,
whose conduct is trulfexemplary, is to have her wounds
opened again, which were scarcely healed. She save that
she can subniit to whatever concerns herself; but that her
mother should be attacked, distresses her beyond all expres-
sion. Would you believe it, my dear E—, that-Lord
Byron made a will before the birth of his child, (at least
two months,) disinheriting it, if it should prove to be a
daughter. This will now 'wade; and his Ada, about
whom he could write verses, has nothing from her father at
all. It is not true that he and Lady Byron parted in friend-
ship. She was suffering and ill from her confinement, and
he was requested to permit her to stay until she had gain-
ed a little strength—a request which he had the barba-
rity to refuse. Those lettere from Mr. W. Harness
read well, and Lord Byron did like him at one time; but
Mr. W. Harness himself told —, that when he went to
reside with him, he found it impossible to remain, his con-
duct was so intolerable and disgusting in every respect.—
It would be the duty of those who are interested in Lady
Byron's affairs to make them known now, after such a
cruel work : but she has suffered too much—her health is
ruined--all she now implores is to have peace; and this
alone restrains her friends from coming forward."
If such are the sincere and unstudied sentiments
of those whose causa scientice is apparent and un-
questionable, what must we think of Byron ? Can
he have been only the wayward generous being
whom Moore represents him to have been; or is it
possible that he can have been guilty of the mis-
deeds here stated and hinted at ? No man, dead or
alive, should escape the scrutiny of his fellow-
creatures, if his name be a public one. It is not
salutary for society that he should, and it is only
cant and false taste to say trttherwise.

CAPILLARY ATTRACTION.---A weight
being suspended by a dry rope, will be drawn upwards
through a considerable height, if the rope be moistened
with a wet sponge. The attraction of the particles com-
posing the rope for the water is in this case so powerful,
that the tension produced by several hundred weight can-
not expel theta.---Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia,
Vol. V