Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-08-22

A Canstie but lust Review Of Her
gitfu Latest Sensation. s4tt

lil9iBn Latest Sensation. qgHol
II The louisville Express, probably
not knowing or caring how utterly
impossible it is for words of remon-
STRANGE to touch the sensibilities OF
such women as Harriet Beecher
| Stowe, very severely but not unr
| Justly criticises her latest perform
ance in the sensational line-her
most monstrous outrage in the At
lantic Monthly upon the character
and memory of the late Mrs.
Leigh, the sister of Lord Byron.
In closing a lengthy article on the
subject, the Express says; raic;,
| % Nobody pretends to defend the
character of Lord Byron. Nobody
wishes to see it defended. He him.
self deemed it scarcely capable of
any defense. 1t has not been seri-
ously damaged by Mrs. Stowe. : It
had already been so riddled by the
shots of both friend and foe that
there was little or nothing of it left
to riddle. OF all the crimes of
which man may be guilty, there
were but two, we may almost say,
which had not been imputed to him
that with which Mrs. Stowe has
now charged him, and the coldo
blooded murder of his own grand
mother. For a hundred or two of
dollars, in a greatly deprecated
currency, Mrs. Stowe has striven to
prove him guilty of the one, and
there can be no doubt that, for q
like consideration or even for less,
| if necessary, she would strive quite
as zealously to prove him guilty OF
the other. b553tl. -1l i3 .I4t
We could find it in our hearts to
| forgive Mrs. Stowe for the wholly
uncalIed-for attack upon the al
ready broken and shattered char
acter of the great poet, if she could
have found it in her own heart to
spare the hitherto untarnished rep
utation of his sister, whose devotion
to her erring brother was so beau
tiful and true and steadfast. But of
course Mrs. Stowe could not do
this. The publishers of the ATTAIN
tic Monthly had no money to pay
for assaults upon citadel whose
famished garrison had long since
surrendered at discretion. They
wanted a sensation that would
make their periodical sell, and they
little cared whose character suffer-
edin consequence of its publication.
If the story furnished them had in
yolved the character of Mrs. Martha
Washington instead of that of Mrs.
Augustus Leigh, it would have
been all the same to them. The
only question with them was that
of money. With Mrs. Stowe, how
ever, there was something more.
There was the question Of newspa-
per notoriety at home and abroad,
| in addition to that of money. She
has obtained both. But she has
obtained them at q cost from which
every true woman would shrink as
| from an evil far worse than death.
1t is not improbable that this
woman contrived to obtain an in
terview with Lady Byron at the
time named-for the ingenuity OF
the Yankee is not wholly expended
in the manufacture of wooden hams
and the invention of patent rat
traps-and it is possible that Lady
| Byron, in whose closet the memory
| of her strange separation from her
husband had been a skeleton for
forty years, may have limited some
thing of this mOnstrous story, be,
| lieying, too, under the influence OF
| delicate fancy diseased from a
constant dwelling upon subject
| which so darkly colored her whole
| existence, that the story was true
the nurse whom Byron character
lied as
''Ihe Hecate of domestic hells."
NAV indeed have poisoned her mind
| by "the base mendacity of hints
| this very story may have been
poured into her ear--and she may
have believed it to be true; but
that Mrs. Stowe, who must have
| known something of the character
of Mrs. Leigh, should have accepts
ed as q reality the worse than idle
romance of a mind shattered and
distorted by the action of a dark
specter-haunted dream of half
century, is almost beyond belief
That she, q woman and a mother
with much pity for her unhappy
children we take it for granted sh'
10 a mother-should, at this lat'
day, have repeated, with exagger
| ated details, the story babbled by
,, withered lips that could babble o
nothing but the one recollection o
lifegthat she should have don
? this at so fearful sacrifice OF wo
manly delicacy, and for a trifiini
b | consideration in dollars and cents
. would be wholly beyond belief
we did not know with what a resist
: less eloquence the clink of gold al
g meals to the hearts of the race SD
represents.
Of The experience of more than on
70 American periodical has demon
strated that there is nothing IN Ii
L' erature so marketable now as VIII;
81 is called the sensational" An
n in order to put itself upon an equ
40 footing in popular favor with mag
zines that have grown rich by SUI
err disreputable publications, the A
be lantic Monthly demanded a {" sens
lie tom of its contributors. The VOL
or was not suited to the tastes
Whittier, of Holmes, of Curtis, n
on of Lowell; but Mrs. Stowe, tempt
he bv the reward which infamy oft
ne wins while virtue enjoys only tn
VI which lies within itself, readl
came forward with this satanic
nance of Byron and Mrs. Leig
,st believing, perhaps, in the stupldl
sSt of her ayarice and ignoble thirst
he newspaper notoriety, that the sta
st. ling character of the revelatio
nd she makes would blind the wol
to the blackness of her deed
od' shame -
nee 1t is hard to write thus OF
he man. But when that woman 80
Pc Pc forgets herself as to descend i