The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1870-01-06
lwas made. We are not given the exact

was made. We are not given the exact
date-Mrs. Stowe erndes her dates in
most unsatisfactory manner-but she is
obliged to admit that when the great con-
versation took place Lady Byron was Ge-
riously ill. When she WAS acell she spoke
of her dead husband to Mrs. Stowe just az
she had always written Of him to Mrs.
Leigh-that is to say, with sorrow and re-
spect. We regard this as o most important
piece Of evidence, although Mrs. Stowe msn-
tions 1t in cursory manner. 1t was not
until Lady Byron was 'prostrated !" with
illness that she accused her husband of in
cest. Before that time, Mrs. Stowe herself
declarea that no one would have conjec-
tured from Lady ,Byron's remarks concern
ing her husband :" that there we're under all
any deeper recollections than the circum-
stances of an ordinary separation might
bring" But at the time the secret" was
divulged all was different with Lady Byron.
Mrs. Stowe says of her state at this period :
7" Her hands were like ice; her face was
deadly pale, and she conversed with o
restraint md difficulty which showed what
an exertion it was for her to keep up at
ALL" page 230.) Again, she says that
she found her Gin one Of those periods of
utter physical exhaustion to which she was
subject, on account of the constant pressure
Of care beyond her strength" page
229.) On the,.lvery day of the unfortu-
nate conversation there were two other
visitors with Lady Byron at the moment
Mrs. Stowe entered the room. When Lady
Byron got up to go out, says Mrs. Stowe,
they (thc other guests) "looked after her
,oith q singular expression of respect and
Affection" and gaye utterance to fears
lest "her unselfshness might be leading
her to over-exertion." When lady Byron
made the revelation "she became" says
Mrs. Stowe, so deadly pale that I feared
she would faint" As for the paper which
Lady Byron afterwards lent to her visitor,
Mrs. Stowe seems to be unable to give Us
any account whatever of it. Lady Byron
told Mrs. Stowe that she thought of making
her story public some day, because Lord
Byron was looking on from another world
at the mischief lie had done, and he could
not :: be at peace until this injustice" was
righted. Now take these facts in connec-
ton with the letters of Lady Byron to Mrs.
Leigh and others, and which becomes the
more probable conjecture-that Lord Byron
and Mrs. Leigh were guilty, or that Lady
Byron, towards the end of herlife, was not
in full possession of her faculties?
We have passed by all minor points in
Mrs. Stoves second narrative. We shall
not criticise the manner in which she has
performed her task. Her strange rhapso-
dies, her spasmodic bursts Of sentiment,
her disordered array of such facts as she
has to offer, We will put wholly aside. But
there is one particular in which her moral
sense is strangely Mt fault, and we must
call her attention to it ere we leave the sub
ject, as we trust, forever. She vindicatcs
herself for publishing her unsupported and
repulsive "storyi' upon the ground that
she wished to defend "a wife and mo-
thcr." Is it possible, then, that she does
forward to defnme wife and mother?
But Mrs. Stowe has charged Mrs. Leigh
with the most shocking of all offences, and
she thinks that it is enough to sub6tantiate
her charge if che shows that Lord Byron
was man Of very bad character. She
has asked whether Lord Byron was
capnble Of committing this crime, and,
having satisfied herself that he was.
she. proclains that the whole case is
proved. But, by an incredible perversity,
she makes no account Of the fact that there
must have been two parties to the sin. Ii
Lord Byron was prohigate, does that prove
his half sister was as bad, o. worse? Mrs.
stowe has not yet said one word against
MIS-. Leigh. She merely assumes that if
Lord Byron wished TO commit the specified
crime. Mrs Leigh would have readily be-
come !lis accomplice. Is a sister to be con-
dclnned because her brother happens to be
lcentious fcoundrel? Cannot Mrs. Stowe
see that she lis attacking Mrs. Leigh more
than Lord Byron, and that she is not de-
Tending Lady Byron at ell p? Surely Mrs.
Leigh ought to be held innocent until she is
proved guilty andpf proof, Mrs. Stowe has
not particle to give the world.
Since, indeed, it was Impossible from the
first that her charge could be proved, and
since it was charge fraught with cruelty
and wrong to the memory of Mrs. Lcigh
and all her survivors and relatives, Mrs.
Stowe never ought to have made it. Even
if Dr.. Lushington. would tell us what were
the exact circumstances disclosed to him
by Lady Byron, it would be important evil
dence, hut not absolutely decisive on either
side. For wcsbould still have Lady Byron's
letters to Lady Anne Bernard, written more
than year after the separation, distinctly
acquitting her husband of any graver faults
than neglect and cruelty. We should still
have the fact before us that Lord Wentworth,
Lady Byron's nearest representative, de-
clares that manuscript was found among
that lady's papers giving an account of her
marriage, and that it "does not contain
any accusation Of so grave q nature as
that which Mrs. Stowe asserts was told
her" Mrs. Stowe takes no notice of this
most weighty information. She is aware
that Lady Byron's letters deny and dis
prove her own accusation-she suppresses
mass Of unimpeachable testimony in favor
of Mrs. Leigh's innocence. Her RESPONSE
bility for these defects Of judgment, to use
no harsher language, is great. We deeply
regret that Mrs. Stowe has been willing to
have her name handed down to posterity as
the authority for one of the most revolving
and indecent slanders ever concocted against
either the living or the dead.
A curious discrepancy drops out in Mrs.
Stoves new version of her conversation
with Lady Byron, 1t is this: Lady Byron
saws that OH one occasion, in her presence,
before marriage, Lord Byron tainted away,
and attributes his emotion to 'Jedr OF de-