Middletown transcript., 1869-09-18
The stowe-Byron Scandal,

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe courts no.
toriety, and has succeeded in attaining it.
Her late contribution to the atlantic
Monthly, in reference to Lord and Lady
Byron, in which she AYERS that Lady By
ron revealed to her the secret of her sepa-
ration from Lord Byron, which secret was
the alleged crime of incest with his sister
Augusta, and which appears never to have
been revealed to any one but her, has made
her the subject of the sharpest criticism.
Her story, generally discrcdited, is of that
disgusting sort, which the truly refined lady
would shrink from having her name asso-
ciatod with. But Mrs. Stowe has chosen
voluntarily to have her name forever asso-
ciated with revelation which shocks not
only the pure minded of her own sex, but
of the sterner sex.
The following commentary by true
woman is so opposite, that we transfer it
to our columns from the New York World:
Plea for Deccncy ip Litcrature-NIrs.
Stowe Arraigned by a Woman.
To the Editor Of the Ncw York World.
SIR: The thanks of all pure-mindcd
women are due to you for the manner in
which you have condemned the Stowe
Byron repulsive sketch; that it was an
obscene, catch penny attempt to revive
a languishing literary fame is evident
throughout its pages.
These matrimonial wrangles concern
only the belligerents themselves. What
concern have the American people with or
interest in the domestic difficulties of
couple of another generation and another
nation? Simply, none; and Mrs. Stowe
could only awaken any interest in them by
appealing to the bascst imaginations and
shocking tho finest. Whether Or not
Lord Byron was guilty in the manner al
legged zoe can never decide; the matter
lies between him and his Maker, and by
Him he has long ago been judged.
Right or wrong, we owe Mrs. Stowe no
gratitude for depriving us of the belief
that the great poets love for his sister was
the one pure spot in his sad and erring
heart. 1t is very far-fetched for Mrs.
Stowe to quote the shocking lines in
." Cain" to support her accusation. Lord
Byron's lines to Augusta, to my mind.
refute the whole indecent story. What
more touching than the following?
"Though the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined
Thy soft heart refused to discover,
The faults which so many could fnd''
And still continue to find even after the
grave has enclosed him for years. The
gross malignity of a woman of another
nation throws the most heinous odium
upon him yet.
Where is that charity WHICH bids us
speak well of the dead-to let the dead
rest?
But that Mrs. Stoves veracity can
hardly be questioned, no one who knows
anything of English reserve would credit
the story of the interview with Lady By
ron at all. 1t seems so improbable that,
after refusing all her life to confde the
cause of her separation with Byron to
him, her husband, or to her parents and
friends, she should call in a stranger, who
was not even her countrywoman, and re-
veal so horrible tale. Such an act of
lndiscretion, totally at variance with her
previous good judgment, betrays that her
mind was enfeebled by age, and the bab-
blings of dotage should have been pitied
and forgotten, not published, by the ac-