The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-06-15
Death Of Lady Byron.

relict of Lord Byron, died on the 10th o
May, in London, in the sixty eighth year O
her age. She was the only daughter of Sil
Ralph Milbank, and was connected by BLOOD
with many of the English nobility. Oh
the I'd of January, 1915, she was married
to Lord Noel Byron. The New Yorl
Herald sketches her lite as follows
Lord Byron addressed her about year
previous, and, although his suit was not at
that time accepted, yet her refusal was &C.
companied with every assurance of esteem
and regard, and friendly correspondence
was kept up between them. A second ap-
plcation, in September, proved more suc~
cessful.
Prior to the marriage, in letter to
Leigh Hunt, dated October Is, 1914, By.
ron wrote:
am about to be married, and am,
of course, in all the misery of man in pursuit
of happiness. My intended is two hundred
miles off, and the efforts / am making with law
yers, &c, &c, to join my future connections,
are, for parsonage of my single and invete.
rate habits, to say nothing of Incidence, quite
prodigious.
In letter, speaking of Lady B. during
the term of his engagement, be said
What an odd situation and friendship is ours !
Without one spark of love on either side, and
produced by circumstances which, in general,
lead to GOODNESS on one side and aversion on
the other. She is very superior woman, and
very little spoiled, which is strange in an heir.
ess-a girl of twenty-a peeress that is to be in
her own rght--an only child and a sacan'e who
has always had her own way. She is poetess,
a mathematician. and. withal, very kind. gen.
erous and gentle, and with very little preten.
sion. Amy other head would be turned with
half her acquisitions and tenth of her advan-
tages.
Lord Byron, in a letter to Mr.. Murray,
dated Kirby, June 6, 1915, four days SUBJ
sequent to the marriage, says:
The marriage took place on the I'd inst. so
pray, make haste and congratulate away.
In letter to Mr.. Moore, dated the 10th
of the same month, Byron alluded to bis
marriage in these words
L was married this day week. The parson
has pronounced it, Perry has pronounced it.
and the newspapers also. under the head of
Lord ByrOns Marriage" as if it were fab.
rication, or puff direct of a new story maker.
The disastrous result of the marriage ap-
pears to have been anticipated by Byron at
the bridal altar. The " coming events cast
their shadows BEFORE" Lord Byron's prose
account of the wedding in his suppressed
memoirs, is said by Mr.. Moore to have
agreed closely in all its circumstances with
the poetical description of it in "The
Dream" 1t is to be inferred from Byron
published correspondence that, even at his
wedding, the thoughts Of bis first love of
Mary Chaworth. of Annesley Hall, whom
he 80 POLITICALLY termed his Bright Morn
ing Star OF Aunesley," were present to his
imagination. Annesley Hall and all its
fond associations foated like vision before
his thoughts, and on the point of pronounc-
ing his nuptal VOWS. A marriage contract
under such circumstances could not but be
unhappy.
After the marriage, or towards the month
of March following that event, Lord Byron
and lady took up their residence in London,
where they lived in splendor and expense,
far beyond Byron's income, and he soon be-
came deeply involved in the most distressing
pecuniary embarrassments.
About the first of February, 1916, a
separation between Lady Byron and her hus.
band took place. She had left London a
few days before on visit to her father in
Leicestershire, and Lord Byron was to fol-
low her as soon as he could make some ar
rangements of his financial affairs. The two
parted in kindness. She wrote him on the
road letter in a style of the most playful
fondness imaginable, but Immediately on
her arrival at Kirby Mullory-the seat of
her iamily-her father wrote, informing him
(Byron) that she would not again return.
They never afterwards met.
The particular causes OF this event still
remain in obscurity and in all that can be
gathered from the epistles and poems of the
great poet, although somewhat contradicting
10 themselves, he takes the onus of blame OF
the separation from his wife on himself
This unfortunate alliance, and its conse-
quent unhappy results have become a part
of the poets history, and probably from the
facts connected with the separation of Lord
Byron and his wife have too often caused
ungenerous speculations on the conduct OF
the latter. We, therefore, in Justice to the
memory of the departed lady, and from the
fact of the letters having been published in
the standard work of Byron's poems, take
the following extracts from it, which will
speak for themselves:
la letter to Moore, June, 1915, Byron
said
Lord Westmeath died last week. The bulk
OF his property (frOm seven to eight thousand
pounds per annum) is entailed on Lady Mil
banke and Lady Byron.
In letter to Leigh Hunt, dated June l.
1915, he alludes to Lady Byron in very
coarse terms
In another letter to Moore, dated Feb
ruary 90. 1916, he wrote:
In the meantime, am at war with all the
world land his wife," or rather all the world
and my wife are at war with me, and have not
yet crushed me, whatever they may do. don't
know that in the course of a hair breadth ex.
istence was ever, at home or abroad, in a
situation so completely uprooting OF present
pleasure, or natural hope for the future, as this
same. say this because l think SO and feel
it. But shall not sink under it the more for
that mode OF considering the question: have
made up my mind. By the way, however, you
must not believe all you hear on the subject;
and don't attempt to defend me.
In another letter to Moore, dated March
6, 1916, he says:
must set you right in one point however.
The fault was nOt-nO, nor even the misfortune
in my choice (unless in choosing at ally, for
do not believe, and must say it, in the very
dregs of all this bitter business, that there was
never a better, or even brighter, q kinder OF
more amiable and agreeable being than Lady
B. never had, nor can have. any reproach
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