Lady Byron Vindicated | Page 4

short, as if this miserable man, having exhausted every
species of sensual gratification--having drained the cup of sin even to
its bitterest dregs--were resolved to show us that he is no longer a
human being even in his frailties, but a cool, unconcerned fiend,
laughing with detestable glee over the whole of the better and worse
elements of which human life is composed.'
The defence which Lord Byron makes, in his reply to that paper, is of a
man cornered and fighting for his life. He speaks thus of the state of
feeling at the time of his separation from his wife:--
'I was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and private
rancour; my name, which had been a knightly or a noble one since my
fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for William the Norman, was
tainted. I felt that, if what was whispered and muttered and murmured
was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was unfit for me. I
withdrew; but this was not enough. In other countries--in Switzerland,
in the shadow of the Alps, and by the blue depth of the lakes--I was
pursued and breathed upon by the same blight. I crossed the mountains,
but it was the same; so I went a little farther, and settled myself by the

waves of the Adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes him to the
waters.
'If I may judge by the statements of the few friends who gathered round
me, the outcry of the period to which I allude was beyond all precedent,
all parallel, even in those cases where political motives have sharpened
slander and doubled enmity. I was advised not to go to the theatres lest
I should be hissed, nor to my duty in parliament lest I should be
insulted by the way; even on the day of my departure my most intimate
friend told me afterwards that he was under the apprehension of
violence from the people who might be assembled at the door of the
carriage.'
Now Lord Byron's charge against his wife was that SHE was directly
responsible for getting up and keeping up this persecution, which drove
him from England,--that she did it in a deceitful, treacherous manner,
which left him no chance of defending himself.
He charged against her that, taking advantage of a time when his affairs
were in confusion, and an execution in the house, she left him suddenly,
with treacherous professions of kindness, which were repeated by
letters on the road, and that soon after her arrival at her home her
parents sent him word that she would never return to him, and she
confirmed the message; that when he asked the reason why, she refused
to state any; and that when this step gave rise to a host of slanders
against him she silently encouraged and confirmed the slanders. His
claim was that he was denied from that time forth even the justice of
any tangible accusation against himself which he might meet and
refute.
He observes, in the same article from which we have quoted:--
'When one tells me that I cannot "in any way justify my own behaviour
in that affair," I acquiesce, because no man can "_justify_" himself
until he knows of what he is accused; and I have never had--and, God
knows, my whole desire has ever been to obtain it--any specific charge,
in a tangible shape, submitted to me by the adversary, nor by others,
unless the atrocities of public rumour and the mysterious silence of the

lady's legal advisers may be deemed such.'
Lord Byron, his publishers, friends, and biographers, thus agree in
representing his wife as the secret author and abettor of that persecution,
which it is claimed broke up his life, and was the source of all his
subsequent crimes and excesses.
Lord Byron wrote a poem in September 1816, in Switzerland, just after
the separation, in which he stated, in so many words, these accusations
against his wife. Shortly after the poet's death Murray published this
poem, together with the 'Fare thee well,' and the lines to his sister,
under the title of 'Domestic Pieces,' in his standard edition of Byron's
poetry. It is to be remarked, then, that this was for some time a private
document, shown to confidential friends, and made use of judiciously,
as readers or listeners to his story were able to bear it. Lady Byron then
had a strong party in England. Sir Samuel Romilly and Dr. Lushington
were her counsel. Lady Byron's parents were living, and the appearance
in the public prints of such a piece as this would have brought down an
aggravated storm of public indignation.
For the general public such documents as the 'Fare thee well' were
circulating in England, and he frankly