Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1878-07-02
Byron AND LADY CAROLINE
LAMB.
Temple Bar.

ApmFlo bhItl
Rogers, Moore and Spencer "were
all my lovers" she tells Lady Nor
gan, "and wrote me up to the skies.
l was in the clouds" Moore, de-
voted to his quiet Bessy, and Rogl
ers to his cynical bachelorhood,
would have smiled at this assertion.
While she was still :" the cynosure
of neighboring eyes," Byron-called
by Hepworth Dixon " beautiful
and deadly as nightshade "-re-
turned from Italy. The manuscript
of "Childe Harold" was lent to
Lady Caroline by Rogers, and she
became crazy to see the poet. =" he
has club-foot and bites his nails y
said Rogers. "If he is ugly as
Esop, must know him." she an
swered. Lady Westmoreland offered
to introduce them at a ball, bu
with an impulse of aversion Lady
Caroline turned away, noting hin
in her diary as "mad, bad and dan
gerous to know" She changed hel
opinion when, on Byron's first cal
at Melbourne House, he held hel
sleeping child on his knee for more
than an hour, lest by moving he
should wake him. For nearly 6
year his visits were incessant. He
had a real regard for Lady Mel
bourne, whom he called "the best
friend be ever had-a second
mother" yet played at being in
love with her daughter-in-law. Or
Lady Caroline's part it was not play
bat lamentable earnest. There wai
much gratifed vanity at first or
both sides. Rank and ton had al
irresistible devotion of a woman
brilliant and beloved, whose wildest
rollies had never compromised
her before, was q triumph
even for the fashionable Apollo
whom "the women suffocated.'
But it was a triumph of which
he speedily tired. " "rhese violent
delights have violent ends" Blu
the misery brought by this extrav
agance on her husband and herself
was only too genuine. Byron,with
his mock madness and callous hear
could pass unscathed through many
such entanglements; at the root o.
Lady Caroline'S follies lay the germ
of real insanity and the misguided
fervor of a loving nature. Byron
in after years, with his customary
cynicism, deliberately misstateC
facts in order somewhat to exoner
ate his own conduct. He said tt
Medwin "She possessed an in
finite vivacity, and an imagination
heated by novel-reading, which
made her fancy herself a heroine o
romance, and led her into all sort
of eccentricities. She was married
but it was a match of convenience
and no couple could be more fash
ionably Indifferent to or Independent
of one another than she and he
husband" AS regards her crimi
nality with Byron, out of their owl
mouths we might, indeed, judg,
them guilty; for the exaggerated
self.oondemnation in which both S,
morbidly INDUCED cannot be for
gotten. Rogers-never suspected
; of too lenient judgments-thougl
describing how Lady Caroline cab
solutely beSieged" Byron, offering
, him in her first letter call he
Jewels" if he were in want of money
and whenever practicable going t
, and from parties in his carriage, OF
! if he went where she was not in
vited, waiting in the street for hi
return-d declares, Gin spite of al
this absurdity," his firm belief i
their innocence. And it has bee
p shrewdly remarked that where s
, much was on the surface friend
!. did not suspect anything beneath
, Nevertheless, a hundred strang
stories were current about th
a strange liaison.
--rd.-f ur--asaa1-.--aa-
: Aa,erfcau I,Ohsrapa IA Prauco