The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1869-08-21
LADY uyrou and wrs. stowe.

q narrative such as that when Mrs. Sto"'
has thought proper to lay before the world
It sets no question at rest, and consequently
it will not even satisfy the morbid CURIOSITY
of those rersops who are more interested IT
the scandals of Lord Byron's life than IN his
works. Mrs. Stowe has been made the
means Of circulating n revolving aspcrsion or
Lord Byron's half-sister,-sister Mrs. Stowe
calls her-of whom all that is known is that
she was faithful to him in the darkest hours
of his life, and followed him with her sym
pathy in his exile. It is no justification Of
the course which Mrs. Stowe has unfor-
tunately been advised TO adopt that Lady
Byron originated the calumny on an inno-
cent lady. Lady Byron pursued the poet
with a systematic malignity which was
sometimes scarcely compatible with the
theory of her sanity. There was no offence
of which she did not accuse him. 1T was
only after he and his half-sister had both
been buried for years that she venfured &c
link their names together in intamy. linen
il was done in a conversation with a com
parative stranger, and no proofs whatever
were given in support oil the odions charge
Mrs. Stowe was not called upon to revive
this miserable story of domestic unhappi-
ness. She can produce no evidence in sub
sanitation Of the narrative. All the 1acts
and all the probabilities contradict it. Re-
spect for the memory of Lady Byron would
certainly have suggested the propriety OF
allowing a mystery which can never be
cleared I'D |, sink into oblivion. She has
now stepped forward with unsupported
allegations of a character so abominable as
to compel US to receive them with incre-
dulity and it is but little extenuation Of
her fault that she suffered herself to be
imposed upon By q woman OF implacable
DISPOSITION and relentless temper.
1t is quite evident that Mrs. Stowe ap-
proached her task in the spirit of a novel
list. Her account Of Lord Byron's affection
for Miss Chaworth is Of the gushing and
sentimental order which certain writers Of
fiction habitually affect. Her moralizing,
her frequent digrcssions on the subject Of
angels, her reflections, which are meant to
he pious and narrowly escape being p~rofane,
her ~ecstatic account of Lady Byron's strug-
cles with "fends of darkness :" for the re-
dcmption of her Husbands SOUL" may
also be tolerated on the ground that they
are part of the common stock in trade OF
an imaginative writer. When Mrs. Stowe
comes to deal with facts we get upon ground
where We at once discover her singular in
cautiousness in dealing with a subject OF
extreme dclicacy. Every detail of her story
is contradicted by the circumstances at
tending the separation of Lord and Lady
Byron. She is wrong in her quotations,
wrong in her dates, wrong IN the account
which she gives of the mode in which Lady
Byron quilted her husbands roof. She
speaks OF Lady Byron as having lived two
wears with her husband. The truth is that
they we're married on the Sd of January,
1915, and on the 18th Of the following
January they were separated. She states
that Lord Byron wrote n note to his wife
ordering her to leave him. He could not
and would not" says Mrs. Stowe, "haye
her about him, and when her child was only
five weeks old he carried his threat Of eX-
p~ulsion into effect" This is quite contrary
to the actual facts. The child was born on
the 10th of December. Lady Byron went to
hcrfather's house at Kirkby Mallory, in the
ensuing month, for the benefit of her health.
She wrote o letter from thence to her hus-
band, which has always been deemed II
strong presumptive proof that Lord Byron
was guilty of TO gross offence toward
her. Leigh Hunt, Captain Mcdwin, and
Tom Moore, read this letter. \ writer
in a recent No. of Blach1r0Od'S -Mnga-
zine recalls their testimony with regard to
it.. Leigh Hunt says that it was written
in n spirit of good humor, and ever fond
ness, which, though containing nothing but
what a wife ought TO write, and is the bet
ter for writing, was, | thought, almost too
good to show" Moore describes it as "full
OF playfulness and affection" Captain
Medwin states that it began Dear Duck"
\. few days aftcrward Lord Byron received
another letter from his wife's mother, invi-
ting him to Kirkby Mallory. The very
next letter he received was one from her
father, informing him that Lady Byron had
left him forever. Let it be remembered
that Lady Byron parted from her husband
on good terms, that she wrote to him III II
very afFectionate manner, and that without
seeing him again she suddenly cast him off.
These are facts which have never been dis
putcd. Now listen to the romance which
Lady Byron appearsto have foisted on Mrs.
Stowe:
"On the day of her departure she passed
by the door of his room, and stopped to
curcss his ~favorite spaniel, which was lying
there; and she confessed to O friend the
weakness Of feeling a willingness even to
he something as humble as that poor little
creature might she only be allowed to re-
main and watch over him. She went into
his room, where he and the partner Of his
sins were sitting together, and said, By
ron, | come to say good-bye,' offering at the
same time her hand. Lord Byron put his
.l. Ii L.. .,,+n - tln, nn ntal-
piece, and looking around on the two that
stood there with Il sarcastic smile, said
when shall we three meet again?' Lady
Byron answered, In Heaven, l trust
and these were the last words to him on
earth"
We have no hesitation in asserting that
whenever and wherever this story was in
vented it is entirely without foundation,
and we believe that it now makes its APP
pearance for the first time. If, however, it
has been published before, it must be one
of those tales which Lord Macaulay refers
to as "loathsome ISLANDERS" on Lord By
ron's character, and Macaulay's common
upon them is singularly appropriate to this
particular specimen III is not every day
that the savage envy Of aspiring ounces Is
gratifed by the agonies Of such 4 spirit and
the degradation of such a name"
But the b&sencss of the present Islander
upon the memory of the great poet cannot
be conveyed except in the words which we
must assume were put into Mrs. Stoves
mouth. We decline to do more than con-
dense the statements for which she has
made herself responsible:
From the height at which he might
have been happy, as the husband Of q no.
bic woman, he fell into the depths of a Sc
cret adulterous intrigue with Il blood rela-
ton. SO near in consanguinity that dis