‘B. and Lady Byron arrived here last Sunday on their way from the North to London, where they have taken a very good house of the Duke of Devonshire in Piccadilly. I hope they will stay some days longer with me, and I shall regret their departure, whenever it takes place, as much as I now delight in their society. Byron is looking remarkably well, and of Lady B. I scarcely know how to write, for I have a sad trick of being struck dumb when I am most happy and pleased. The expectations I had formed could not be exceeded, but at least they are fully answered.
‘I think I never saw or heard or read of a more perfect being in mortal mould than she appears to be, and scarcely dared flatter myself such a one would fall to the lot of my dear B. He seems quite sensible of her value, and as happy as the present alarming state of public and the tormenting uncertainties of his own private affairs will admit of. Colonel Leigh is in the North.’
On March 31, 1815, Mrs. Leigh again writes to Hodgson:
‘Byron and Lady B. left me on Tuesday for London. B. will probably write to you immediately. He talked of it while here after I received your last letter, which was the cause of my being silent.... I am sorry to say his nerves and spirits are very far from what I wish them, but don’t speak of this to him on any account.
‘I think the uncomfortable state of his affairs is the cause; at least, I can discern no other. He has every outward blessing this world can bestow. I trust that the Almighty will be graciously pleased to grant him those inward feelings of peace and calm which are now unfortunately wanting. This is a subject which I cannot dwell upon, but in which I feel and have felt all you express. I think Lady Byron very judiciously abstains from pressing the consideration of it upon him at the present moment. In short, the more I see of her the more I love and esteem her, and feel how grateful I am, and ought to be, for the blessing of such a wife for my dear, darling Byron.’
Augusta’s next letter is written from 13, Piccadilly Terrace, on April 29, 1815, about three weeks after her arrival there on a visit to the Byrons. It also is addressed to Hodgson, and conveys the following message from Byron:
‘I am desired to add: Lady B. is ——, and that Lord Wentworth has left all to her mother, and then to Lady Byron and children; but Byron is, he says, “a very miserable dog for all that.”’
At the end of June, 1815, Augusta Leigh ended her visit, and returned to Six Mile Bottom. There seems to have been some unpleasantness between Augusta and Lady Byron during those ten weeks.
Two months later, on September 4, 1815, Augusta Leigh writes again to Hodgson:
‘Your letter reached me at a time of much hurry and confusion, which has been succeeded by many events of an afflicting nature, and compelled me often to neglect those to whom I feel most pleasure in writing.... My brother has just left me, having been here since last Wednesday, when he arrived very unexpectedly. I never saw him so well, and he is in the best spirits, and desired me to add his congratulations to mine upon your marriage.’