Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 | Page 2

into that painful subject; and the following extracts from his
defence,--if defence it can be called, where there has never yet been
any definite charge,--will be perused with strong interest:--
"My learned brother proceeds to observe, that 'it is in vain for Lord B.
to attempt in any way to justify his own behaviour in that affair: and
now that he has so openly and audaciously invited enquiry and
reproach, we do not see any good reason why he should not be plainly
told so by the voice of his countrymen.' How far the 'openness' of an
anonymous poem, and the 'audacity' of an imaginary character, which
the writer supposes to be meant for Lady B. may be deemed to merit

this formidable denunciation from their 'most sweet voices,' I neither
know nor care; but when he 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.[2]
But is not the writer content with what has been already said and done?
Has not 'the general voice of his countrymen' long ago pronounced
upon the subject--sentence without trial, and condemnation without a
charge? Have I not been exiled by ostracism, except that the shells
which proscribed me were anonymous? Is the writer ignorant of the
public opinion and the public conduct upon that occasion? If he is, I am
not: the public will forget both long before I shall cease to remember
either.
"The man who is exiled by a faction has the consolation of thinking
that he is a martyr; he is upheld by hope and the dignity of his cause,
real or imaginary: he who withdraws from the pressure of debt may
indulge in the thought that time and prudence will retrieve his
circumstances: he who is condemned by the law has a term to his
banishment, or a dream of its abbreviation; or, it may be, the
knowledge or the belief of some injustice of the law or of its
administration in his own particular: but he who is outlawed by general
opinion, without the intervention of hostile politics, illegal judgment, or
embarrassed circumstances, whether he be innocent or guilty, must
undergo all the bitterness of exile, without hope, without pride, without
alleviation. This case was mine. Upon what grounds the public founded
their opinion, I am not aware; but it was general, and it was decisive.
Of me or of mine they knew little, except that I had written what is
called poetry, was a nobleman, had married, became a father, and was
involved in differences with my wife and her relatives, no one knew
why, because the persons complaining refused to state their grievances.
The fashionable world was divided into parties, mine consisting of a
very small minority; the reasonable world was naturally on the stronger
side, which happened to be the lady's, as was most proper and polite.

The press was active and scurrilous; and such was the rage of the day,
that the unfortunate publication of two copies of verses rather
complimentary than otherwise to the subjects, of both, was tortured into
a species of crime, or constructive petty treason. 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