In this world of grief and pain,
I will hope that those who sever
Here, will meet elsewhere again.
Lyrics and Lays, by Pips. Wyman Bros.,
Hare Street, Calcutta, 1867.
Whatever were the causes of the separation of Lady Byron from her husband (and many reasons have been assigned) will probably never be known, nor do they concern us here, except in so far as regards the statements made by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. In 1869 it pleased this American authoress to contribute an article to a London magazine, in which she deliberately accused Lord Byron of having committed the foulest crimes imaginable, and stated that although Lady Byron was aware of his depravity from their very wedding day, she yet continued to reside with him until after the birth of their daughter. A violent controversy ensued, many old scandals were revived, and whilst Mrs. Stowe’s statements were generally disbelieved, Byron’s reputation suffered considerably. For this result Thomas Moore was mainly to blame, he having destroyed the memoirs entrusted to him by Lord Byron. Had these memoirs been published, it is very improbable that Mrs. Stowe’s article would have ever have been written. Moore was imprudent enough to show these memoirs to several people, as well as the concluding five Cantos of Don Juan, before he destroyed them, and it is said that Lady Burghersh made copies of them. It is possible, therefore that Byron’s view of the circumstances may yet be given to the world, but however that may be, nothing can excuse the action of Mrs. Stowe, whose article could serve no other purpose than that of blackening the memory of a great but ill-used and unfortunate man:—
The Un-True Story.
Dedicated to Mrs. Stowe.
Know ye the land where the novelists blurt all
The family secrets they learn in our clime;