The hydraulic press., 1860-07-28
Lady Byron.

Has the knowledge of the real cause of
separation between the greatest poet Of the
age and the lady of the irreyocable marri-
age bond passed away in her death forever? ?
g If foreyer@fare thee well.D She was a
digniHed, self-respecting woman, or the spe-
cialities of the family difference would have
been in the chronicles Of the day forty years
ago. Not hers the Lady Bulwcr idea of car
featuring an offending husband in a rival
novel. The lady that had once been linked
in the noble chain of the Byron, disdained
any other career than that of strength in
suffering. If the man whose6ntensity of ge-
Mus blazed over all civilization, scorned the
quiet hour by the calm light of the home
hearth-if he could better lead a world
than guide one heart---if he was acute to the
dlscernment of all loveliness, except that of
virtue-if he better initiated hismother than
assimlated to his wife, lie showed that there
was higher reality of nobility in the de
scendant of Sir Ralph Mibank than in the
blood of the mingled Gordon and Byron
In her silence there was a grandeur of ex-
ample to her sex, the like of which they sell
dom see.
The life of Lady Byron has not been. since
the brief period in which she lived with the
Poet, out ofthe quiet and unobserved routine.
While Ada lived the reading world consider
ed themselves as guardian over her, asd the
daughter of Byron was as a familiar name
wherever the English language was uttered.
What was her bias toward her father is not
certain. On one occasion she thanked an
American gentlesaan that Tie had not intrud-
ed on her "that disagreeable subject" 1t
was with the family of Byron, as with that
of Scott and Moore and Burns. The world
would accept nothing but gold, thrice ne
fined, from such mint, and that they had not
to give. Ada never knew the father whose
illustrious name made hers aheusenold word
of literature, but as she, in her instinct as
a woman, felt the wrong that forced wife
to leave her husband-and in the pages
which even fame could not entirely illu-
innate The fannfly of Lord Byron knew
least of him, CIR it may bet must have
been-tllat which they knew truer than any
other, might better not have been known.
Lady Byron found among Americans,
those to whom her hospitality was gener-
ously and pcrseverfngFy extended. To He. ~
Colman, the pleasant and amiable, but ra-
tier weak and worldly, Unitarian clergyman
she was constantly kind. Hername seems
to have been cherished by him as one of his
best English friends, As associated with the
great poet, her own name in England was
one of its celebrities, however unwittingly
Oh her own part Perhaps if any feeling of
surprise was awakened in society by any act
of hers, it was that the widow of Lord By
rcn should write verse and believe it poetry.
one would look, at least, for some nicely of
Judgment respecting sculpture, from the son
of Canova. Yet the most brilliant of exam
Piles seems not always the most efficient of
teachers.
Out of the circle whose grief it is not for
the stranger to profane by disturbing-the
chief loss in the decease of this lady is, that
it removes out of her own time one of the
precious living witnesses of the great Era
of Literature, when the miners of Thought
dclved in nuggets, and the ore, in the heat
of criticism, showed no alloy.
OF that time the record cannot, for the
qualification Of mankind, be too minute. 1t
is not that we care for all that belongs to
their affairs as individuals, for in that there
would be but curiosity; but we do care
and all men who leok into the laboratory of
thought, desire this-to know what acts of
their life gave parentage to the works which
they have given to US, to interest, instruct,
delight us; to do more than this, to mould
the mind of intelligent men so that the Age
has visible impress of their will and way
George Borrow tells us of the excitement of
the streets of London, as the funeral of By
ron passed on. Yet, with all this fer
vor of feeling, the public heart knew we'll
that it was the premature fracture of pre-
cious vase that the vice, who Sc shrine he
had gilded, crushed her worshipper while his
years were yet young. Thirty-six years a
widow-like Sarah Jennings, disdaining to
take any other name to the heart that had
once been of Marlborough--th Lady Byron
goes in her own land, ,surroundedsby friends,
to peaceful grave. This is better than Mis-
solonghi.