294

BYRON SINGULARLY COMPARED.

epithet that language afforded, or that history gave rise to. He amused himself with extracting from the journals the different worthies, ancient and modern, to whom he was supposed to furnish a parallel; Nero, Apicius, Epicurus, Caligula, Heliogabalus, Domitian, Henry VIII, and a certain great personage. All his former friends, even his cousin, George Byron, who had been brought up with him, and whom he regarded as a brother, sided with his wife against him. He followed the stream when it was strongest against him, and Byron declared, that as he could never expect, so he should never receive any benefit from him. He was represented as the vilest of husbands, the most abandoned of men, and his lady as a suffering angel,-an incarnation of all the virtues and perfections of her sex. He was abused in all the public prints-made the common tea-table talk-hissed as he went to the House of Lords-insulted in the streets, and exiled from the theatre, whence the unfortunate Mrs. Mardyn had been driven with insult. Amidst all this torrent of malevolent abuse, the proprietor of The Examiner newspaper, Hunt, was the only man that dared to offer a word in his defence, and Lady Jersey the only female in the fashionable world, who did not regard him as a monster. Byron had addressed some lines to her, on her being excluded from a certain cabinet of court beauties, which made her his friend for

ever.

REPAYS HIS WIFE'S PORTION AND DOUBLES IT. 295

As an addition to all these accumulated misfor tunes, his affairs were so irretrievably involved as almost to render him the wretch they wished to make him. He was reduced to the necessity of parting with Newstead Abbey, which he never could have ventured to have done in his mother's life time. Indeed, he never reconciled it to himself that he had done so, although it was allowed that the estate was sold to the best advantage. It was a step that was taken only from the last necessity. He had his wife's portion to repay, and had resolved to double it, as he actually did, out of his own money.

The moment he had put his affairs in train, and in less than eighteen months after his marriage, he left England a second time, an involuntary exile, without any intention, or, at least hope, of ever revisiting it.

After the Memoirs were completed, Lord Byron wrote to Lady Byron, proposing to send them for her perusal, in order that any mis-statements or inaccuracies might be pointed out and corrected. She declined the offer, without assigning any reason, but only her desire, if not on her account, for the sake of her daughter, that they might never appear, and concluding with a threat in case of disobedience. His Lordship's reply was the severest thing he ever wrote: he told her that she knew that all he had written was incontrovertible

296.

MOORE'S BREACH OF TRUST.

truth, and that she did not wish the truth to be made known to the public. He ended by declaring that she might depend on the Memoirs being published. It was not till after this correspondence that Moore was made the depository of the MS. with injunctions, which he took care-not to fulfil !

END OF THE RECOLLECTIONS.

( 297 ).

CHAPTER XI.

Extracts from various Letters of Lord Byron, explanatory of certain parts of his conduct, and illustrative of his opinions. -His Portrait, by Holmes.-His Reflexions on the striking coincidence of Southern's Tragedy of "The Fatal Marriage," with an eventful period of his own Life.-Anniversary of his Wedding Day.-Melancholy Reflexions on his Separation.His advances to a Reconciliation rejected.-He prophecies his Death in Greece. He deprecates the forming any judgment of him from his Writings.-Injustice of such a measure.— Immense profits of his Works.-Admiration of them in foreign countries. Glenarvon, full of falsehood.-Madame de Staël, and the Germans misled by it.-Cain.-Byron's Defence of that work.-Parody on Southey's Vision of Judgment.-Southey's malignity, and Byron's generosity to Southey's brother-inlaw, Coleridge.-Byron's Epigram on Southey.-His reflexions on Religion. He is stigmatized as an Infidel; but declares himself a true Christian.-His Remarks on the injustice done to Pope. His exemplary conduct in matters of Religion procures him respect in foreign countries.

ALTHOUGH Mr. Dallas was restrained (and undoubtedly very properly) from publishing Lord Byron's confidential correspondence with his mother and family, yet the public must regret that they should be withheld (at least for the present), as they contain the most exact delineations of as singular a character as ever existed. They would develope the natural expression of his feelings, at a time when he had no idea of their publication;

298

LORD BYRON'S CHARACTER,

no view to the support of a character, which was not then established in the world, as pre-eminent in literary fame. They were, therefore, natural, familiar, and unrestrained. At a subsequent period, when his fame was blazed abroad, he became more careful of expressing his opinions, although, even then, he wrote what he thought without disguise, which he ever despised and detested as derogatory from the dignity of manhood. He was, in himself open, almost to a fault, and so great a stickler for truth, that his most intimate friends were obliged to be upon their guard with him; a want of candour would have deprived them of his good opinion without redemption. Fearless himself, and wholly independent of the world, he loved only the bold, manly, straightforward course; and his conversations and epistolary correspondence were a faithful index of his mind. It is to be hoped, therefore, that, at some future period, when delicacy towards certain individuals shall no longer oppose their publication, a collection will be made of these dispersed treasures, which will afford a mine of entertainment to the public.

Byron's letters are truly delightful, because they were never intended for publication; he never composed them with a view to their appearing in a half-dozen octavo or quarto volumes, in royal foolscap, with morocco bindings, as is the case with most other letter-writing ladies and gentlemen of the present day. He never sat down in