Year: 1869

THE TRUE STORY OF LADY BYRoN's LIFE"


An article under this title, written by
Mrs. Beecher Stowe, commences the SEN
tember number Of Mdcmiuan's Mn0o-
zine. II will be read with worldwide
interest, for though forty-fvc years have
worn out the spell which once belonged
to Ryron's verso, though criticism has
dealt coldly and calmly with 1t, rejecting
its meretricious sentiment and determin-
ing its sterling qualities, the man himself
remains much the same as he was first
pictured to us in Moor's biography and
Macaulay's brilliant and pathetic essay.
To those who can not rest content with
an authors writings, but must concern
themselves with his individuality, he is
still the beau ideal Of poet. He stands
out from them all with his handsome
face, his susceptible aud impetuous tenn
permanent, his sorrows and dissipations,
his loves and hatreds. Condemned at
the bar of opinion a. dissoute man, Of
violent, uncontrolled passions, his misfor-
tunes to this day have averted judgment.
By virtue Of them he has, like his prede-
cessor, "the wicked Lord" claimed o
benefit of clergy, and not got Off scot
free.


There is no doubt that Mrs. Stoves
narrative will owe much Of its 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 neces-
sary act of justice-of justice 20 the
wife, clearing her from the accusations of
cold-heartedness and uncharitable pru.
dery made so repeatedly during her lite
and since her death-and of justice on
the husband, destroying at once and for
ever the romance which has so long been
allowed to drape the talsehood and mean
ness of bis character. Leaving the pres
ent revelation out of the question, the
fact that those interesting misfortunes,
which at one time the world delighted to
weep over, were the natural consequence
of the vices of their victim, has all along
been clear enough, yet seldom, if ever,
has this been boldly insisted on, while in
nearly every extant biographical notice
OF the pOet-and their name is legion
his wretchedness has 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 with the
worst grace. To blame her was, indeed,
impossible; but it was easy to pity him;
to condSle with this genius thrown away
on woman who could not understand
him, and paying SO dearly for his mis-
take Men, and women, too, made haste
to revils the cold and ungenerous prude,
who left her husband to make what
wreck he pleased of his life, when, by
bearing with his faults, as the good wife
of 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 tor its tacit condemnation of the
most devoted wife that ever sacrificed her.
self to an unworthy man, for Lady Byron
never uttered a word in her own justifi-
cation, and it is ouly now, when she her.
self and all those whom the dreadful
revelation would Overwhelm are in their
graves, that it is given to the world. AS
it is, the seals of it would have remained
unbroken, perhaps forever, were it not
for the recent publication by Byron's
mistress of book reviving the old and
threadbare calumnies against his wife,
and referring his reckless indulgence and
miserable life to the despair which took
possession of him when he found himself
abandoned by the woman on whom he
rested his hopes of better things. \


Mrs. Stowe states fully her unimpeach-
able authority for the narrative laid be-
fore us. When, as the authoress OF 81 y.
Gle Toms Cabin" she first came to Eng
land, she formed a friendship with Lady
Byron; crossing the Atlantic a second
time, in 1856, this was renewed, and
Mrs. Stowe received one day an invita-
ton, III which her friend indicated that
she wished to have some private CONVEX
sation upon important subjects" Lady
Byron, of delicate health for many years,
had at that time been warned by her
physicians that she had not long to live !;
she considered that the time had 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 streamed
IN on the stage romance of Lord Byron's
life, has struck the thin tinsel and the
dirty paint, and now the curtain may be
dropped, and the play, still dragging on,
put an end to. AS far rs Lord Byron
himself is concerned, we do not regret
il; 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 every thing how black
a mark is 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 new


divulged, the unuttsrable meanness of the


man is still more despicable. When we
learn that the author of Childe Harold


not only brutally iIl-used his wife, and
turned her out of his house, but ehal-
lenged her before the world to say word
against him, well knowing that her noble
nature sealed her lips, and that he all the
, while kept her money, which she had
scorncd to secure to herself, 10 be the
) means of his debaucheries, We almost
: feel that we can never open his works