Lady Byron Vindicated | Page 5

confessed his wife's virtues and
his own sins to Madame de Stael and others in Switzerland, declaring
himself in the wrong, sensible of his errors, and longing to cast himself
at the feet of that serene perfection,
'Which wanted one sweet weakness--to forgive.'
But a little later he drew for his private partisans this bitter poetical
indictment against her, which, as we have said, was used discreetly
during his life, and published after his death.
Before we proceed to lay that poem before the reader we will refresh
his memory with some particulars of the tragedy of AEschylus, which
Lord Byron selected as the exact parallel and proper illustration of his
wife's treatment of himself. In his letters and journals he often alludes
to her as Clytemnestra, and the allusion has run the round of a thousand
American papers lately, and been read by a thousand good honest

people, who had no very clear idea who Clytemnestra was, and what
she did which was like the proceedings of Lady Byron. According to
the tragedy, Clytemnestra secretly hates her husband Agamemnon,
whom she professes to love, and wishes to put him out of the way that
she may marry her lover, AEgistheus. When her husband returns from
the Trojan war she receives him with pretended kindness, and
officiously offers to serve him at the bath. Inducing him to put on a
garment, of which she had adroitly sewed up the sleeves and neck so as
to hamper the use of his arms, she gives the signal to a concealed band
of assassins, who rush upon him and stab him. Clytemnestra is
represented by AEschylus as grimly triumphing in her success, which
leaves her free to marry an adulterous paramour.
'I did it, too, in such a cunning wise, That he could neither 'scape nor
ward off doom. I staked around his steps an endless net, As for the
fishes.'
In the piece entitled 'Lines on hearing Lady Byron is ill,' Lord Byron
charges on his wife a similar treachery and cruelty. The whole poem is
in Murray's English edition, Vol. IV. p. 207. Of it we quote the
following. The reader will bear in mind that it is addressed to Lady
Byron on a sick-bed:--
'I am too well avenged, but 't was my right; Whate'er my sins might be,
thou wert not sent To be the Nemesis that should requite, Nor did
Heaven choose so near an instrument. Mercy is for the merciful! If thou
Hast been of such, 't will be accorded now. Thy nights are banished
from the realms of sleep, For thou art pillowed on a curse too deep; Yes!
they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel A hollow agony that will not
heal. Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap The bitter harvest in
a woe as real. _I have had many foes, but none like thee_; For 'gainst
the rest myself I could defend, And be avenged, or turn them into friend;
But thou, in safe implacability, Hast naught to dread,--in thy own
weakness shielded, And in my love, which hath but too much yielded,
And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare. And thus upon the
world, trust in thy truth, And the wild fame of my ungoverned youth,--
On things that were not and on things that are,-- Even upon such a basis

thou halt built A monument whose cement hath been guilt! The moral
Clytemnestra of thy lord, And hewed down with an unsuspected sword
Fame, peace, and hope, and all that better life Which, but for this cold
treason of thy heart, Might yet have risen from the grave of strife And
found a nobler duty than to part. But of thy virtues thou didst make a
vice, Trafficking in them with a purpose cold, And buying others' woes
at any price, For present anger and for future gold; And thus, once
entered into crooked ways, The early truth, that was thy proper praise,
Did not still walk beside thee, but at times, And with a breast
unknowing its own crimes, Deceits, averments incompatible,
Equivocations, and the thoughts that dwell _In Janus spirits, the
significant eye That learns to lie with silence_, {14} the pretext Of
prudence with advantages annexed, The acquiescence in all things that
tend, No matter how, to the desired end,-- All found a place in thy
philosophy. The means were worthy and the end is won. I would not do
to thee as thou hast done.'
Now, if this language means anything, it means, in plain terms, that,
whereas, in her early days, Lady Byron was peculiarly characterised by
truthfulness, she has in her recent dealings with him acted the part of a
liar,--that she is not only a liar, but that she lies