Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1869-09-17

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The London Times IndOrses MRS.
Stoves Byron Article" The True
story Of lady Byron's Life"
From the London Times of August 80.
An article under this title, written by
Mrs. Beecher Stowe, commences the
Septem ber number of Nacmillan's Aaga-
zine. It vill be read with worldwide
interest, for though forty five years have
worn out the spell which once belonged
. to .Byron's verse, though criticism has
dealt coldly and calmly with it, rejecting
it's meretricious sentiment and determin.
ing its sterling qualities, the man himself
remains much the same as he was first
pictured to US in Moores biography and
Macaulay Is brilliant and pathetic essay.
To those who cannot rest content with
an authors writings, hut must concern
themselves with his individuality, he is
still the beau ideal of poet. BE stands
out from, them all with his handsome
face, his susceptible and impetuous tenn
perament, his sorrows and dissipations,
his loves and hatreds. Condemned at
the bar of opinion as o adissolute man, Of
violent, uncontrolled passions, his mis-
fortunes to this day have averted judg-
ment. By virtue Of them he has, like
bis predecessor, ~ tho wicked Lord,
claimed benefit of clergy, and not got
off scot free.
There is no doubt that Mrs. Stoves
narrative will owe much Of its universal
interest to the fact that 1t gratifies the
lowest kind OF curiosity but it was not
written and ought not to be read with
this end in view. tbs late and neces-
sary act of justice--of justice to the wife,
clearing her from the accusations Of cold
hesrtedness and uncharitable prudery
made so repeatedly during her life and
since her death--and of Justice on the
husband, destroying at once and forever
the romance which has so long been
allowed to drape the fasehood and mean
ness of his character. Leaving the pres
ent revelation cut of the question, the
fact that those interesting misfortunes
which at one time the world delighted to
weep over, we're the natural consequence
of the vices Of their victim, has all along
been clear enough, yet seldom, if ever,
has this been boldly insisted on, while 10
nearly every extant biographical notice
of the poet--and their name is leglon-hls
wretchedness has been pleaded in mitl-
CATION of his errors.
His domestic quarrels have been dis
Gu ssed wherever English poetry is read,
and the public, forced reluctantly to take
Lady Byrons part, has done so with the
worst grace. To blame her was, indeed,
impossible; but it was easy to pity him
TO condole with this genius thrown away
on a woman who could not understand
him, and paying SO dearly for his mis-
take. Men, and women, too, made haste
to revile the cold and ungenerous prude,
who left her husband TO make what wreck
he pleased of his life, when, by bearing
with his faults, as the good wife of
great man ought to bear, she might have
saved him from himself, and done the
duty she owed no less to the world than
to its poet.
The public, however, has had some ex-
cuse for it's tacit condemnation of the
most devoted wife that ever sacrihced
herself to an unworthy man; fer Lady
Byron never uttered q word in her own
justification, and it is only now, when
she herself and all those whom the dread
fol revelation would oyerwhelm are in
their graves, that IL is given to the world.
As it is, the seals of it would have re-
mained unbroken, perhaps tassver, were |
it not for the recent pHbhcatioG by
Byron mistress Of book reviving the
old and threadbare calumniss against his
wife, and referring his reckless indul-
gen6e and miserable lille 10 the despair
which took possession of him when he
found himself abandoned by the woman
on whom be rested his hopes Of better
tbinus - - -
Mrs. Stowe states fully her unimpeach-
able authority for the narrative laid be-
fore us. When, as the authoress Of
"' Uncle Tom Cabin, she first came to
England, she formed friendship with
Lady Byron; crossing the Atlantic a
second time, in 1856, this was renewed,
and Mrs Stowe received one day an in
vitation, in which her friend indicated
that abe wished to have some private con-
versation upon important subjects.
Lady Byron, Of delicate health for many
years, had at that time been warned by
her physicians that she had not long TO
live: she considered that the time had
come when her long silence should at
last be broken, or when, at least, the
means OF breaking it should ha placed IN
other hands than her own.
! The daylight has thus at last streamed
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