Year: 1869

Byron Article.


from the London Times Of August 3d.


THE TRUE STORY OF LADY BYRoN's LIFE


An article under this title. written by
Mrs. Beecher Stowe, commences the
september number of Macmillan's
Magazine. 1t will be read with world
wide interest," for though forty-five wears
nave worn out the spell which once
belonged to Byron's verse, though crit
lcism has dealt coldly and calmly with
1t. rejecting its meretricious sentiment
and determining its sterling qualities.
the man himself remains much the
same as he was first pictured to us i'm
Moors biography and Macaulay's bril-
liant and pathetic essay. To those who
can not rsst content with an authors
writings, but mast concern themselves
with his individuality, he is still the
oeoe adeaS of a poet. He stands out from
them all with his handsom face, his sus-
ceptioie and impetuous Temperament, his
sorrows and dissipations, his loves and
hatreds. Condemned at the bar of
opinion as disolute man. of violent.
uncontrolled passions, his misfortunes
to this day have averted iudgment.-
BY virtue of them he has, like his pre-
decessor, 'the wicked Lord,u claimed a
beneht of clergy, and not get off scot
free.


There is no doubt that Mrs. Stoves
narrative will owe much ofits universal
interest to the fact that it gratifies the
lowest KIND OF curiosity but it was not
written and ought not to be- read with
this end in view. 1t is late and n.ces-
sary act OF ofjustice-ofjustice to the wife.
clearing her from the accusations of
coid-heartedness and uncharatable pru-
derry made so repeatedly during her life
ana since her Geath-and of iustiee on
the husband. destroying at once and for
ever the romance which has so long
been allowed to drape the falsehood and
meanness OF his character. Leaving the
present revelation out of the question,
the Tact that those Interesting misfor-
tunes which at one time the world
Delighted to weep over where the natu-
raj consequence of he vices of their
victim, has all long been clear enough,
yet seldom. if ever. has this been boldly
insisted on, while i'm nearly every extant
biographical notice of the poet-and
their name is legion--his wretchedness
mas been pleaded in mitigation of his
errors.


His domestic quarrels have been dis
cussed wherever English poetry is read,
and the public, forced reluctantly to
take Lady ByrOn's part, has done so
win the worst grace. To blame her,
was, indeed, impossible but it was
easy TO pity him to condole with his
genius thrown away on woman who
could not understand him, and paving
SO dearly for his mistake. Men, ana wo-
man, toe, made haste to revile the cold
and ungenerOus prude who left her hus-
band to make what wreck he pleased of
his life, when, by bearing with his
faults, as the good wife of a great man
ought to bear, she might have saved
him from himself, and done the duty
she owed no less to the world than to its
poet.


The public, however, has had some
excuse for its tacit condemnation of the
most devoted wife that ever sacrificed
herself to an unworthy man, for Lady
Byron never uttered . word in her own
Justification. and it is only now, when
she herself and all those whom the
dreadful revelation would overwheln
are in their graves, that it is given to
the world. AS it is, the seals of it would
have remained unbroken, perhaps for
ever, We're it not for the recent publica-
tiOn by Byr0n's mistress of book re-
Vlving the old and threadbare calum-
MES against his wife, and referring his
reckless indulgence and miserable life
to the despair which took possession of
him when he found himself abandoned
Dy the woman on whom he rested his
hopes of better things.


Mrs. Stowe states fully her unim-
peachable authority for the narrative
laid before us. When, as the authoress
of Uncle Toms Cabin" she formed a
friendship with Lady Byron; crossing
the Atlantic second time, in 1856, this
was renewed, and Mrs. Stowe received
one day an invitation, in which her
friend indicated that she wished to have
some private conversation upon impor-
tant subjects" Lady Byron, of delicate
health for many years, had at that time
been warned by her physicians that she
mad not long to live, she considered that
the time mad come when her long silence
should at last be broken, or when, at
least, the means of breaking it should
be placed in other hands than her own.


The daylight has thus at last stream
ed in on the stage romance of Lord By
ron's life, has struck the thin tinsel and
the dirty paint, and now thecurtain may
be dropped. and the play, still dragging
on, put an emu to. AS far as Lord Byron
himself is concerned, we do not regret it:
the truth is the truth, and we would
sooner know him for what he was than
take him for what he might have been.
Sad it Is beyond everything how black
Il mark it forever set against some of the
most perfect poems-those to his half
sister Augusta-in this, our mother
Tongue; but, horrible as is the crime now
diVulged, the unutterable meanness of
the man is still more despicable. When
we learn that he author of Childe Har-
old NOT only brutality i'll used his wife,
and turned her out of his house. but
challenged her before the world to say
a word against him, well knowing that
her noble nature sealed her lips, and
that he all the while kept her money,
which she had scorned to secure to her.
self, to be the means of his debaucher-
les, We almost feel that we can never
open his works again.


IT is reported In Boston, says the New
York San, that Mrs. Stowe Is so over
come by the unexpected reception of her
On Nrl purnp that ha L.. ,,,,.>