I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me.
2 Samuel, xii. 23.
The funeral he desired to be “as private as is consistent with decency;” and he expressed a hope that his friend, the Rev. Henry Drury, would read the church service.
Murray found himself beset by unexpected difficulties. The vicar of Harrow, the Rev. J. W. Cunningham, objected strenuously to the erection of Allegra’s tablet, and stated his objections at length;—not to Lord Byron (which was prudent), but to the unhappy publisher, who, all his life, had everybody’s business to attend to. Mr. Cunningham declared that the proposed inscription “would be felt by every man of refined taste, to say nothing of sound morals, to be an offence against taste and propriety.” He explained cautiously that, as he did not dare to say this to Byron, he expected Murray to do so. “My correspondence with his Lordship has been so small that I can scarcely venture myself to urge these objections. You, perhaps, will feel no such scruple. I have seen no person who did not concur in the propriety of stating them. I would intreat, however, that, should you think it right to introduce my name into any statement made to Lord Byron” (as if it could well have been left out), “you will not do so without assuring him of my unwillingness to oppose the smallest obstacle to his wishes, or give the slightest pain to his mind. The injury which, in my judgment, he is from day to day inflicting upon society is no justification for measures of retaliation and unkindness.”
Even the expansive generosity of this last sentiment failed to soften Byron’s wrath, when the vicar’s scruples were communicated to him. He anathematized the reverend gentleman in language too vigorous for repetition, and he demanded of Murray, “what was the matter with the inscription,”—apparently under the impression that he had mistaken his dates, or misquoted his text. His anger deepened into fury when he was subsequently informed that Allegra’s interment in Harrow Church was held to be a deliberate insult to Lady Byron, who occasionally attended the services there. He wrote passionately that of his wife’s church-goings he knew nothing; but that, had he known, no power would have induced him to bury his poor infant where her foot might tread upon its grave. Meanwhile, Mr. Cunningham had marshalled his church-wardens, who obediently withheld their consent to the erection of the tablet; so that matter was settled forever. Two years later, Dr. Ireland, Dean of Westminster, refused to permit Lord Byron’s body to be buried in Westminster Abbey. Even Thorwaldsen’s statue of the poet, now in Trinity College, Cambridge, was rejected by this conscientious dignitary. “I do indeed greatly wish for a figure by Thorwaldsen here,” he wrote piously to Murray; “but no taste ought to be indulged to the prejudice of a duty.” The statue lay unheeded for months in a shed on the Thames wharf, and was finally transferred to the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. Comment is superfluous. Byron was denied a grave in Westminster Abbey; but Gifford, through Dr. Ireland’s especial insistence, was buried within its walls.
Allegra lies in Harrow Church, with no tablet to mark her resting-place, or to preserve her memory. Visitors searching sentimentally for “Byron’s tomb,”—by which they mean a stone in the churchyard, “on the brow of the hill, looking towards Windsor,” where, as a boy, he was wont to sit and dream for hours,—seldom know the spot where his little daughter sleeps.
The Riverside Press
Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.