The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1870-01-06
Alrllmond 4lispattk.
THURSDAY. JANUARY 6, 1870.
TIE CIRCULATION OF THE "DIsPATCH'
ls LARGER THAN THE COMBINED CIRCU-
LATlOs OF ALL TIE oTHER DArTYN NEWS
PAPERS OF THIS CITY
From the Now York Times.
Mira. Stove,s Second Narrative

which will suffer most by this new "reve-
lationH Mrs. Stoves vind;cation of her
statement concerning Lord Byron and Mrs.
Leigh is that of Mrs. Stowe herself. Not
onlv has she no ncw-cvidence OF any kind
to offer, bat she involves herself in SO
strange mesh OF contradictions and incon-
sistencica that at last she stands before lie
like prosecutor who feels himself bound
10 press the charge even after he has dis.
covered the innocence Of the accused. She
seizcs upon every straw that comes in her
way. She puts her own Interpretation
upon passages in Lord Byron's writings fol-
tic purpose of identifying the poet with
the creations CT his fancy. She eontradicts
her former "truc story; she contradcts
the story which she now declares that Lady
Byron told her; and lastly, she contra.
diets, in tie last part of her present
volume, the accusations which she makes
in the first part. We are far from enter
tanning any desire to give pain to lady
from whom the whole civilized world has
received substantial benefits. But We are
compelled to believe that Mrs. Stowe is as
much the victim of morbid delusion as
ever Lady Byron herself was, and that on
this particular subject she has lost the
ROVER to discriminate between truth and
fiction.
We invite the reader to form an inde-
pendent judgment upon Mrs. Stoves Sc
cond story by closely analyzing ii and COM
paring it with the first. In her first story
the distinctly and repeatedly assured us
that Lady Byron knew Of the intimacy
,l
sister from the time she was married t,li
the day when she could support her i'll
treatment no longer, and Gaitted her hus-
bands roof. Everybody who has read the
first "s;ory" will remember the stress
which Mrs Stowe lays upon this know
ledge of the guilty secret" To quote one
passage only; 1.-The two years (SiC) in
which Lady Byron was struggling to bring
her husband back to his better self were q
series OF passionate convulSions." The
astounding fact has now TO be told that
Mrs. Stowe ignores the whole Of this state
mcnt, and, without word Of explanation,
substitutes totally different and irrecon-
cilable series Of alleged facts. In an elabo-
srse argument she shows that Lady
Byron did not discover the "full ex-
later pcriod.n No new circumstances
have come to Mrs. Stoves knowledge
20 induce her to change her opinion
,hus suddenly on vital part Of her case.
But letters of I.ady Byron to Mrs. Leigh
have been published hy third pcrsons-let-
tcrs written after the scparation-So full OF
aflcctionatc andtrustful expressions towards
the ''guilty" sister that Mrr. Stowe can
not quite close her mind TO the evidence
ihcv present She feels herself obliged to
acc0llnt for those letters, and IA she instinct
iyely disccrns that a wife couli not write to
her husbands mistress as Lady Byron
wrcte 70 Mrs. Leigh, she at once presents EE
with a totally new set Of conjrcturcs. We
are asked to discard that picture presented
in the ,Jjr5t story Of Lady Byron wrestling
with Lord Byron for his soul, &ad 20 believe
that not until after thc separation-hou
long Mrs. Stowe j. cautious enough not 10
say-dil the wife learn Of the husbands
guilt.
Gut now comes tie most startling and in
explicahle part OF this second narrative.
In putting forward the hypothesis just men
self, but she fatty altcrs or rcpudiates the
disclosure made TO her hy Lady Byron. In
the extended relation which she now gives
OF her conversation on the day when the
secret was confdcd to her, we are expressly
toll hat Lady B?ron found out the init
macy soon after her marriage. Lady
3yrGu told Mrs. Stove, as the latter now
declares, that one daY n!tc sew Lord Byron
taking liberties with Ills sister, that she
ithc wife) demonstrated, and that Lord
Byr0n exultcd in his crime, saying that the
depth and horror of it "were the very at
tractions-that he had worn out oil ordi-
nary forms Of sin, and that he longcd for
the stimulus OF new kind of vice" These
wore Lord Byron's words to Lady Byron,
as reported by the latter to Mrs. Stowe.
nut now Mrs. Stowe sees plainly that Lady
Dyron's letters to Mrs. Leigh alone disprovc
her charge, and she seeks TO explain away
the Inconsistency by assi @ning the discovery
of tie guilty secret toa vague and unknown
period.
Nor is this all. Mrs. Stowe, having first
depicted Lord Byron us monster Of de-
I1avity, now submits to the world a singu-
lar medical argument to prove that he was
rot in his right mind. Then, even sup
posing her charge 10 be true, what becomes
Of the criminals moral accountability
She says that the poets excesseE, combined
with q" immense draughts on the brain
power ot rapid and brilliant composition,'
probably " ended in that abnormal state III
which cravings for unnatural vice give in,
dications of approaching brain disease"
In fact, she constructs two or three totally
new theories to meet the circumstances re-
yealed to her by Lady Byron's own letters
those letters in which, after the separation,
she implores Mrs. Leigh to he with ber
brother as much as she possibly could, and
ascribes the separation itself to Lord By
ron's "aversion to the married state"
First, then, we have Mrs Stowe alleging
that Lady Byron knew Of her husbands
intercourse with his sister directly after
the marriage; now Mrs. Stowe asserts that
she did not find it out till later period" "
Thirdly, she quotes Lady Byron's own
words, showing that she had discovered the
crime at an early stage Of her married life.
Fourthly, Mrs. Stowe tries to prove that
Lord Byrsn was insane. May we not fairly
ask what it is that Mrs. Stowe really be-
licye$ about this affair in her own mind I
Mrs. Stowe makes it an additional charge
against Lord Byron that he wrote the verses
20 Fare thee well, and if for ever" on
March II, 1916, '.while negotiations for
separation. were pendinq." Mrs Stoves
forgctfulness and confusion are simply un-
accountable. Lady Byron quilted Lord
Byron's house, "never to return" on Janu-
airy 18th, 1916, and DR.. Lushington's letter
declaring that the wife never could be re-
conciled to her husband was dated January
3lst.
We have said that Mrs. Stowe has no
Yroof of her first story to offer. But in