"I sent home for Moore, and for Moore only (who has my journal also), my memoir written up to 1816, and I gave him leave to show it to whom he pleased, but _not to publish_ on any account. _You_ may read it, and you may let Wilson read it if he likes--not for his public opinion, but his private, for I like the man, and care very little about the magazine. And I could wish Lady Byron herself to read it, that she may have it in her power to mark any thing mistaken or misstated. As it will never appear till after my extinction, it would be but fair she should see it; that is to say, herself willing. Your "Blackwood" accuses me of treating women harshly; but I have been their martyr; my whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them."
It was a part of Byron"s policy to place Lady Byron in positions before the world where she _could_ not speak, and where her silence would be set down to her as haughty, stony indifference and obstinacy. Such was the pretended negotiation through Madame de Stael, and such now this apparently fair and generous offer to let Lady Byron see and mark this ma.n.u.script.
The little Ada is now in her fifth year--a child of singular sensibility and remarkable mental powers--one of those exceptional children who are so perilous a charge for a mother.
Her husband proposes this artful snare to her,--that she shall mark what is false in a statement which is all built on a d.a.m.ning lie, that she cannot refute over that daughter"s head,--and which would perhaps be her ruin to discuss.
Hence came an addition of two more doc.u.ments, to be used "privately among friends," {43} and which "Blackwood" uses after Lady Byron is safely out of the world to cast ignominy on her grave--the wife"s letter, that of a mother standing at bay for her daughter, knowing that she is dealing with a desperate, powerful, unscrupulous enemy.
"Kirkby Mallory: March 10, 1820.
"I received your letter of January 1, offering to my perusal a Memoir of part of your life. I decline to inspect it. I consider the publication or circulation of such a composition at any time as prejudicial to Ada"s future happiness. For my own sake, I have no reason to shrink from publication; but, notwithstanding the injuries which I have suffered, I should lament some of the consequences.
"A. Byron.
"To Lord Byron."
Lord Byron, writing for the public, as is his custom, makes reply:--
"Ravenna: April 3, 1820.
"I received yesterday your answer, dated March 10. My offer was an honest one, and surely could only be construed as such even by the most malignant casuistry. I could answer you, but it is too late, and it is not worth while. To the mysterious menace of the last sentence, whatever its import may be--and I cannot pretend to unriddle it--I could hardly be very sensible even if I understood it, as, before it can take place, I shall be where "nothing can touch him further." . .
. I advise you, however, to antic.i.p.ate the period of your intention, for, be a.s.sured, no power of figures can avail beyond the present; and if it could, I would answer with the Florentine:--
""Ed io, che posto son con loro in croce . . . . . e certo La fiera moglie, piu ch"altro, mi nuoce." {44}
"BYRON.
"To Lady Byron."
Two things are very evident in this correspondence: Lady Byron intimates that, if he publishes his story, some _consequences_ must follow which she shall regret.
Lord Byron receives this as a threat, and says he doesn"t understand it.
But directly after he says, "Before IT can take place, I shall be," etc.
The intimation is quite clear. He _does_ understand what the consequences alluded to are. They are evidently that Lady Byron will speak out and tell her story. He says she cannot do this till _after he is dead_, and then he shall not care. In allusion to her accuracy as to dates and figures, he says: "Be a.s.sured no power of figures can avail beyond the present" (life); and then ironically _advises_ her to _antic.i.p.ate the period_,--i.e. to speak out while he is alive.
In Vol. VI. Letter 518, which Lord Byron wrote to Lady Byron, but did not send, he says: "I burned your last note for two reasons,--firstly, because it was written in a style not very agreeable; and, secondly, because I wished to take your word without doc.u.ments, which are the resources of worldly and suspicious people."
It would appear from this that there was a last letter of Lady Byron to her husband, which he did not think proper to keep on hand, or show to the "initiated" with his usual unreserve; that this letter contained some kind of _pledge_ for which he preferred to take her word, _without doc.u.ments_.
Each reader can imagine for himself what that _pledge_ might have been; but from the tenor of the three letters we should infer that it was a promise of silence for his lifetime, on _certain conditions_, and that the publication of the autobiography would violate those conditions, and make it her duty to speak out.
This celebrated autobiography forms so conspicuous a figure in the whole history, that the reader must have a full idea of it, as given by Byron himself, in Vol. IV. Letter 344, to Murray:--
"I gave to Moore, who is gone to Rome, my life in MS.,--in seventy- eight folio sheets, brought down to 1816 . . . also a journal kept in 1814. Neither are for publication during my life, but when I am cold you may do what you please. In the mean time, if you like to read them you may, and show them to anybody you like. I care not. . . . "
He tells him also:--
"You will find in it a detailed account of my marriage and its consequences, as true as a party concerned can make such an account."
Of the extent to which this autobiography was circulated we have the following testimony of Shelton Mackenzie, in notes to "The Noctes" of June 1824.
In "The Noctes" Odoherty says:--
"The fact is, the work had been copied for the private reading of a great lady in Florence."
The note says:--
"The great lady in Florence, for whose private reading Byron"s autobiography was copied, was the Countess of Westmoreland. . . . Lady Blessington had the autobiography in her possession for weeks, and confessed to having copied every line of it. Moore remonstrated, and she committed her copy to the flames, but did not tell him that her sister, Mrs. Home Purvis, now Viscountess of Canterbury, had also made a copy! . . . From the quant.i.ty of copy I have seen,--and others were more in the way of falling in with it than myself,--I surmise that at least half a dozen copies were made, and of these _five_ are now in existence. Some particular parts, such as the marriage and separation, were copied separately; but I think there cannot be less than five full copies yet to be found."
This was written _after the original autobiography was burned_.
We may see the zeal and enthusiasm of the Byron party,--copying seventy- eight folio sheets, as of old Christians copied the Gospels. How widely, fully, and thoroughly, thus, by this secret process, was society saturated with Byron"s own versions of the story that related to himself and wife! Against her there was only the complaint of an absolute silence. She put forth no statements, no doc.u.ments; had no party, sealed the lips of her counsel, and even of her servants; yet she could not but have known, from time to time, how thoroughly and strongly this web of mingled truth and lies was being meshed around her steps.
From the time that Byron first saw the importance of securing Wilson on his side, and wrote to have his partisans attend to him, we may date an entire revolution in the "Blackwood." It became Byron"s warmest supporter,--is to this day the bitterest accuser of his wife.
Why was this wonderful silence? It appears by Dr. Lushington"s statements, that, when Lady Byron did speak, she had a story to tell that powerfully affected both him and Romilly,--a story supported by evidence on which they were willing to have gone to public trial. Supposing, now, she had imitated Lord Byron"s example, and, avoiding public trial, had put her story into private circulation; as he sent "Don Juan" to fifty confidential friends, suppose she had sent a written statement of her story to fifty judges as intelligent as the two that had heard it; or suppose she had confronted his autobiography with her own,--what would have been the result?
The first result might have been Mrs. Leigh"s utter ruin. The world may finally forgive the man of genius anything; but for a woman there is no mercy and no redemption.
This ruin Lady Byron prevented by her utter silence and great self-command. Mrs. Leigh never lost position. Lady Byron never so varied in her manner towards her as to excite the suspicions even of her confidential old servant.
To protect Mrs. Leigh effectually, it must have been necessary to continue to exclude even her own mother from the secret, as we are a.s.sured she did at first; for, had she told Lady Milbanke, it is not possible that so high-spirited a woman could have restrained herself from such outward expressions as would at least have awakened suspicion. There was no resource but this absolute silence.
Lady Blessington, in her last conversation with Lord Byron, thus describes the life Lady Byron was leading. She speaks of her as "wearing away her youth in almost monastic seclusion, questioned by some, appreciated by few, seeking consolation alone in the discharge of her duties, and avoiding all external demonstrations of a grief that her pale cheek and solitary existence alone were vouchers for." {49}
The main object of all this silence may be imagined, if we remember that if Lord Byron had not died,--had he truly and deeply repented, and become a thoroughly good man, and returned to England to pursue a course worthy of his powers, there was on record neither word nor deed from his wife to stand in his way.
HIS PLACE WAS KEPT IN SOCIETY, ready for him to return to whenever he came clothed and in his right mind. He might have had the heart and confidence of his daughter unshadowed by a suspicion. He might have won the reverence of the great and good in his own lands and all lands. That hope, which was the strong support, the prayer of the silent wife, it did not please G.o.d to fulfil.
Lord Byron died a worn-out man at thirty-six. But the bitter seeds he had sown came up, after his death, in a harvest of thorns over his grave; and there were not wanting hands to use them as instruments of torture on the heart of his widow.
CHAPTER III. RESUME OF THE CONSPIRACY.
We have traced the conspiracy of Lord Byron against his wife up to its latest device. That the reader"s mind may be clear on the points of the process, we shall now briefly recapitulate the doc.u.ments in the order of time.
I. March 17, 1816.--While negotiations for separation were pending,--"_Fare thee well, and if for ever_."
While writing these pages, we have received from England the testimony of one who has seen the original draught of that "Fare thee well." This original copy had evidently been subjected to the most careful and acute revision. Scarcely two lines that were not interlined, scarcely an adjective that was not exchanged for a better; showing that the n.o.ble lord was not so far overcome by grief as to have forgotten his reputation. (Found its way to the public prints through the imprudence of _a friend_.)
II. March 29, 1816.--An attack on Lady Byron"s old governess for having been born poor, for being homely, and for having unduly influenced his wife against him; promising that her grave should be a fiery bed, etc.; also praising his wife"s perfect and remarkable truthfulness and discernment, that made it impossible for flattery to fool, or baseness blind her; but ascribing all his woes to her being fooled and blinded by this same governess. (Found its way to the prints by the imprudence of _a friend_.)
III. September 1816.--Lines on hearing that Lady Byron is ill. Calls her a Clytemnestra, who has secretly set a.s.sa.s.sins on her lord; says she is a mean, treacherous, deceitful liar, and has entirely departed from her early truth, and become the most unscrupulous and unprincipled of women. (Never printed till after Lord Byron"s death, but circulated _privately_ among the "_initiated_.")
IV. Aug. 9, 1817.--Gives to M. G. Lewis a paper for circulation among friends in England, stating that what he most wants is _public investigation_, which has always been denied him; and daring Lady Byron and her counsel to come out publicly. (Found in M. G. Lewis"s portfolio after his death; never heard of before, except among the "initiated.")