The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1869-08-20

The same shrewd Yankees who induced Dickens
to make second voyage to America and peraEn-
bulate the country as living advertisement OF
their miniature edition Of his works, have in
weighed several journals into gratuitously copy
Ing from advance sheets OF thor u,agaAine inc
latest sensational STORY by the author Of ''Uncle
Toms Cabin" 1t is a story that contains but
single addition to the innumerabIe tales
which Lord Macaulay stigmatized as '1oath-
some ISLANDERS" on Lord Byron's character.
This addition consists In the horrible state
ment that the mysterious separation Of Lord
and Lady Byron was caused by the discovery
on the part of the poets wife that he began be-
roof "a secret adulterous intrigue" with his
own sister, and that the fruit of their incestu-
GUS intercourse was IAN unfortunate child of
sin, born with the curse upon her, over whose
hayward nature Lady Byron watched with a
mothers tenderness, although her task was
difficult one from the strange, abnormal pro-
pensities to evil in the object of her care"
Now, Lord Byron had no own sister. Little
Is publicly known Of the Hon. Mrs. Leigh,
his half sister, whom he never saw after he left
England, save that her constant sympathy
with him In his exile offered a striking and
agreeable contrast to the malignity with which
''hls marble hearted, insensible wife" (these
words are applied by Mrs. Stowe to Countess
Guiccioli's portrait Of Lady Byron) always
sought to injure bis reputation.
In telling her strange story Mrs. Stowe
betrays the usual inaccuracy as to dates which
proverbially characterizes works of fiction by
women writer's. Thus she says that Lady
Byron lived with her husband and his sister
for two years after the discovery Of their guilty
secret, whereas the marriage took place on
January 8, 1915, and the separation on
January IL, 1916. Mrs. Stowe draws upon
her Imagination or upon that Of Lady Byron
for an altogether apocryphal anecdote Of the
farewell scene between Lord Byron, his wife
and ''the partner of his SINS" If Lady Byron,
after lapse Of forty years and with ''almost
the solemnity of death bed avowal, actually
told stranger from New England this mon
strous story, which she had previously dis
closed to none of her intimate friends, supply
ing this stranger with memoranda of the
whole, with dates affixed" why does not Mrs.
Stowe produce some authorization to publish
the particulars with corroboratory proof2
The frightful charges rest solely on Lady
Byrons assertion, which may have been made
under hallucinatlon due to jealousy, anger
and memory weakened by age and disease.
Lady Byron Is represented by Mrs. Stowe as a
monomaniac on the subject of mental pathology.
She believed that Lord Byron had been one Of
those unfortunately constituted persons In
whom the balance Of nature is 80 critically
hung that 1t Is always In danger Of dipping
towards insanity. She also thought ''that the
Calvinistic theology, as heard in Scotland had
proved In his case, as it often does in certain
minds, subtle poison" In fine, she deemed
him mad. She once tried to have him inoar-
cerated in q madhouse. 1t Is by no means
unlikely that Lord and Lady Byron were
both Iunatics. She imagined that she was
can inoarnated conscience" and was therefore
''hated." If she believed the shocking story
which Mrs. Stowe has repeated she must have
been as mad az she deemed her husband
They were crazy pair. The history of their
welded life was as sad as that of many
another couple unequaily yoked, whose incom-
patibility of temper and consequent miserles
have never attracted 80 much public attention.
Lord Byron was no better than countless other
bad husbands. But Mrs. Stoves story that
L. at In
credibllity from the circumstance that 1t now
first startles the world-although, somewhat
inconsistently, she says Il is well known in
England-long after all the parties directly
interested in it are dead, and long after the
public mind has settled down to pretty fair
balancing of the case between Lord and Lady
Byron.
Mrs. Stowe ekes out her sensational maya
zine article by quotations and Interpretations
from Byron's Incompatible verse, the influence
of which over the popular mind 1t was, she
intimates, one object of her friend, Lady By
ron, and herself to diminish and destroy by
making these awful disclosures Whether this
object will be attained remains to be seen.
But when Mrs. Stowe tries to prove by the
language of certain characters in the drama,
''Cain," that Byron was guilty of incest her
logic Is equal TO that Of the Boston publishe
who firmly believed that "Ned Buntlire," a
contributor to his weekly paper, was gui ty OF
all the crimes attributed to the piratical heroes
who figured in It's columns. From Shakespeare
and Byron TO "Ned Buntline" no dramatist can
safely be exposed to being thus condemned
out Of The mouth of his characters. Not even
the author of ''Uncle Toms Cabin" nor any
other romancing member of the Beecher fami-
ly, could stand such Ere.
A lame excuse is made by Mrs. Stowe fol-
divulging the secrets conaded to her by Lady