Lady Byron Vindicated | Page 6

for cruel means and
malignant purposes,--that she is a moral assassin, and her treatment of
her husband has been like that of the most detestable murderess and
adulteress of ancient history, that she has learned to lie skilfully and
artfully, that she equivocates, says incompatible things, and crosses her
own tracks,--that she is double-faced, and has the art to lie even by
silence, and that she has become wholly unscrupulous, and acquiesces
in _any_thing, no matter what, that tends to the desired end, and that
end the destruction of her husband. This is a brief summary of the story
that Byron made it his life's business to spread through society, to
propagate and make converts to during his life, and which has been in
substance reasserted by 'Blackwood' in a recent article this year.
Now, the reader will please to notice that this poem is dated in
September 1816, and that on the 29th of March of that same year, he
had thought proper to tell quite another story. At that time the deed of
separation was not signed, and negotiations between Lady Byron,

acting by legal counsel, and himself were still pending. At that time,
therefore, he was standing in a community who knew all he had said in
former days of his wife's character, who were in an aroused and excited
state by the fact that so lovely and good and patient a woman had
actually been forced for some unexplained cause to leave him. His
policy at that time was to make large general confessions of sin, and to
praise and compliment her, with a view of enlisting sympathy.
Everybody feels for a handsome sinner, weeping on his knees, asking
pardon for his offences against his wife in the public newspapers.
The celebrated 'Fare thee well,' as we are told, was written on the 17th
of March, and accidentally found its way into the newspapers at this
time 'through the imprudence of a friend whom he allowed to take a
copy.' These 'imprudent friends' have all along been such a marvellous
convenience to Lord Byron.
But the question met him on all sides, What is the matter? This wife
you have declared the brightest, sweetest, most amiable of beings, and
against whose behaviour as a wife you actually never had nor can have
a complaint to make,--why is she now all of a sudden so inflexibly set
against you?
This question required an answer, and he answered by writing another
poem, which also accidentally found its way into the public prints. It is
in his 'Domestic Pieces,' which the reader may refer to at the end of this
volume, and is called 'A Sketch.'
There was a most excellent, respectable, well-behaved Englishwoman,
a Mrs. Clermont, {16} who had been Lady Byron's governess in her
youth, and was still, in mature life, revered as her confidential friend. It
appears that this person had been with Lady Byron during a part of her
married life, especially the bitter hours of her lonely child-bed, when a
young wife so much needs a sympathetic friend. This Mrs. Clermont
was the person selected by Lord Byron at this time to be the scapegoat
to bear away the difficulties of the case into the wilderness.
We are informed in Moore's Life what a noble pride of rank Lord
Byron possessed, and how when the headmaster of a school, against

whom he had a pique, invited him to dinner, he declined, saying, 'To
tell you the truth, Doctor, if you should come to Newstead, I shouldn't
think of inviting you to dine with me, and so I don't care to dine with
you here.' Different countries, it appears, have different standards as to
good taste; Moore gives this as an amusing instance of a young lord's
spirit.
Accordingly, his first attack against this 'lady,' as we Americans should
call her, consists in gross statements concerning her having been born
poor and in an inferior rank. He begins by stating that she was
'Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred, Promoted thence to deck her
mistress' head; Next--for some gracious service unexpressed And from
its wages only to be guessed-- Raised from the toilet to the table, where
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair. With eye unmoved and
forehead unabashed, She dines from off the plate she lately washed:
Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, The genial confidante and
general spy,-- Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess,-- An
_only infant's earliest governess_! What had she made the pupil of her
art None knows; _but that high soul secured the heart, And panted for
the truth it could not hear With longing soul and undeluded ear_!' {17}
The poet here recognises as a singular trait in Lady Byron her peculiar
love