Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1869-04-27
Lady Noel Byron.

'AO AO Va Aouy 4NoCI DylOu 40 eehhOh
from a forthcoming volume of Bio
graphical Sketches, by Miss Martin
eau. These sketches were originally
contributed by the author to the Lon
don Daily News at the time OF the
death of the eminent persons whose
lives they commemorate. Leypoldt
q Holt, of this city, are the publish
ers of the work in this country. The
sketches are presented to the public
unaltered by any later annotations of
the author. We have space for only
extracts from the sketch of Lady By
ron
She was born III 1892; married in
January, 1914; returned to her faith
er's house in 1916; and died on the
10th of May, 1860.
When the only child of Sir Ralph
and Lady Milbank was born, it would
have been considered strange proph-
ecy if any seer had told how that in
fant should be in character simply a
good and true woman, without genius
or any remarkable intellectual quail
ties, without ambition or vanity, and
yet that she should twice become an
object Of deep interest to the English
people-her name on the tongues of
millions, and her merits discussed,
once with party heat, and again, after
lapse of more than forty years, with
the warmth Of well-grounded popular
gratitude. Such, however, has been
the lot of that quiet, benefcient, true
hearted Englishwoman, Lady Noel
Byron. Her life began with sunshine !;
then it was shaken by fearful storm,
which clouded the rest of her life; but
she, sitting in the shade, sent a multi
tude into the sunshine, and patiently
wore away the last two-thirds of her
life in making Others happier than she
could be herself.
While everybody assumes to know
Lady Byron's history, none but her
intimate friends seem to have any no.
tion Of her character. The chief rea-
son of this is that Lord Byron gave
forth two irreconcilable accounts oft !;
one when he first lost her, and anoth-
er when it suited him to set up a case
OF incompatibility of temper. The
long tract of time over which she has
passed since his death, would have
settled the matter in all minds if La
dy Byron had desired that it should,
But she desired only quiet; and it is
by her bepefaction8 that the chief
part OF her life has been recognized
and will be remembered.
Her childhood was spent for the
most part at Seaham, in Durham,
where Sir Ralph Mllbank's estate was
situated. She preserved such love
for the place, up to her latest years,
that a pebble from its beach was an
acceptable present to her. She was
carefully reared, and, for the time in
which she lived, well educated. When
Lord Byron first offered to her, she
was, III her girlishneSS, evidently tax
Ell 10y surprise. She refused him, but
desired not to lose him as friend
When he offered himself again she
knew nothing (hOw should she p of
the protligate spirit in which the deed
was done. Moore's account, in his
"Llfe Of Byron" of the way in which
the second proposal was brought
about, and the circumstances under
which the letter was dispatched, was
the first that most people knew about
it. When that book came out, every
one saw how wise and how good was
the silence which the injured woman
had preserved. Her enemies were
then convicted on their own confess.
ion. To say nothing of what the wo.
men of England felt, there was not a
man with all honest heart in his
breast who did not burn with indig-
nation over the shameless narrative
of how the trusting, admiring, and in.
nocent girl, whom the poet had wooed
before, was now made sport of among
prOfigate testers, and deliberately
proposed as a sacrifice to the bare
chances OF the libertine's self-restraint.
What her father was about, to per-
NIT his child to enter into such mar
riage, seems never to have been, ex.
planned. The less his child knew of
Byron's moral entanglements, the
more vigilant should her father have
been over her chances of domestic
peace; and the more generous she
was sure to be about the poverty of
her lover, the more should her parents
have taken care that she should not
leave them for nome which was to
be broken into by nine or ten execu
tions in the first year. Never was a
young creature led to the altar more
truly as a sacrifice. She was rash
no doubt; but she loved him, and who
was not, in the whole business, more
rash than she ?
As long as others called him in
sane, she was glad to do so too; and
when she left him for her fathers
house, she regarded him as mad
When DR.. Baillie and other physi
clans whose opinions were asked (not
by herr declared him sane, she still
abstained from acting on her own i'm
pulses or judgment. AS the publish
ed correspondence made known, the
case was submitted, in an anonymous
form, TO DR.. Lushington and Sir Sam
uel Romilly; and the unhesitating de
cision Of these two great lawyers ano
good men was that the wife-whoevel
she might be-must never see hei
husband again. When they knew
whose case it was, they did not swerye
from their first Judgment, but declar
ed that they would never aid or coun
tenance Lady Byron's return to hel
husband.
Yet she loved him to the last witt
a love which it was not in his owl
i ,,ouor to darfrov Cha clarified ir