The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1869-10-09
Count Johannes on the Byron Scandal

1t is not surprising that George, " Count
Johannes should be prompted by the spirit of
the age of chivalry to defend a dead and slandered
lady against the shameless, malignant attack
which has recently been made upon the memory
of the Hon. Mrs. Leigh. Count Johannes was
personally acquainted with the half-sister of Lord
Byron, and some of his revelations are based on
her own statements during one of his interviews
with her at st. James Palace. The intimacy of
Count Johannes with La Belle GuicciOli, with the
Countess of Blessington, "Trelawney the Terri
ble," the Count D'Orsay, the Earl of Harrington
formerly the Hon. Leicester Stanhope), who
were all intimate with Lord Byron, certainly en-
titles him to speak with Mt least equal authority
on the points at issue as Mrs. Harriet Beecher
Stowe.
Count Johannes has been singularly fortunate
in enjoying the hospitality of Emperors, Kings,
Cardinals and Arc bishops, and there is some
thing impressive in lis manner of s~killfully re-
serving to the last, IN his mastery refutation Of
Mrs. Stoves libel against the Hon. Mrs. Leigh,
his strongest moral evidence, and citing the Queen
Of England, that model of chastity and all matronly
virtues, rs a chief witness in favor of his client.
Our readers cannot fail to be struck with the fact
that Lady Byron herself lis brought forward as a
witness in behalf Of the Hon. Mrs. Leigh. That
the name of this much injured lady was bestowed
upon Ada Augusta, the only child of Lord and
Lady Byron, as n token of Lady Byron's belief in
the innocence of the relations between her hus-
band and his half-sister, is an interesting and
significant fact. Mrs. Stoves account OF the
parting interview of Lord Byron, his wife and his
sister, is shown to be a mere fiction. The cause
of separation, as assigned by Mrs. Stowe, is
equally false, and the true and natural reasons
are given in the Counts letter, which defines
6. Byron's curse of life'' and portrays, with
graphic power, the melancholy issue of" woman's
malignant tongue and temper conjoined."
Lord Byron's death-bed scene is presented by
Count Johannes with great effect. Byron's dying
declaration to his intimate friend, Stanhope, is
conclusive, taken in connection with the incident
as to the second name of the poets daughter.
Light is thrown upon the broken sentences add
dressed by Lord Byron to his valet. In fine, the
letter Of Count Johannes is the first complete and
conclusive refutation of the most atrocious and
Puritanical libel upon the dead which has ever
defled the history of literature. 1t is rather an
aggravation than q justification of that libel that
it was designed simply as an advertising dodge,
~eclipsing all that Bonner or even Barnum ever at
tempted in the advertising line. No wonder that
Bonner declares he would not have published it for
n million of dollars. Mr.. Bonner emphatically
expresses our own opinion of Mrs. Stoves SLAM
derous article on Lord Byron in the Atlantic
Monthly, when he says 81 know of no article
published in my lifetime calculated to exert n
more injurious and demoralizing influence on the
rising generation" Happily, Count Johannes
letter supplies an antidote for the poison with
which Mrs. Stowe and her publishers have tried
to infect the public mind.-N. y. Herald, Sept. /.