Notices of the Life of Lord Byron by Mr. MooreNew Monthly MagazineThomas Campbell Markup and editing by David Hill Radcliffe Completed January 2011 ThCampb.Moore Center for Applied Technologies in the Humanities Virginia Tech
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Notices of the Life of Lord Byron by Mr. Moore, and Remarks on those Notices
by Lady ByronNew Monthly MagazineCampbell, Thomas, 1777-1844LondonApril 183028377-382NINES categories for Genre and Material Form at
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THE New Monthly Magazine. APRIL 1, 1830. ORIGINAL PAPERS. NOTICES OF THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON BY MR. MOORE, AND REMARKS ON THOSE NOTICES
BY LADY BYRON.
Mr. Moore’sLife of the noble bard was reviewed in our last
Number: it must now be reviewed again. Among the literary notices of the New Monthly, I consented to the insertion of a laudatory account of
the work; nay, more, I expunged a portion of the manuscript critique, in which Mr.
Moore was censured for unfairness towards Lady
Byron. This I did from unwillingness to blame my friend Mr.
Moore, and from having scarcely dipped into the censured parts of the book.
Besides, I did not then believe Lady Byron to be so
perfectly justifiable in the separation as I now know her to be. Such
were the circumstances under which I circulated among thousands the little warranty of my
approbation of a work, which I find, on closer inspection, to be one of the most injudicious
books that was ever published. But since that time, the state of circumstances has wholly
changed. Lady Byron has spoken out. As her friend, I could not keep my
mind quiet about her feelings under this ill-starred resuscitation of the question concerning
her. I consulted several of her friends, and it was their joint opinion, that since the ice of
reserve had been broken by Lord Byron’s biographer on
the luckless topic, it would be the duty of some one of her friends to say in answer to
Mr. Moore something more than Lady Byron could
with propriety say for herself. A female friend offered to do this, and she would have probably
done it better than I can. But I could not be such a craven as to let a woman come forward in
my place. I went to Lady Byron for such general circumstances of truth as
might not involve her in accusing Lord Byron. For more particular facts
respecting the separation, I applied to a different but perfectly authentic quarter, and there
I learnt a few facts, which, though my readers need not fear that I shall inflict them on their
delicacy, suffice to convince me that Lady Byron was justified in the
parting by circumstances, which Lord Byron had either forgot, or,
“with all his manly candour,” had failed to
state to Mr. Moore.
My plainness in speaking of Mr. Moore is a
compliment to his importance and popularity, which would make a weak or timid remonstrance
incapable of reaching him. My interest in a suffering woman needs no apology.
I found my right to speak on this painful subject on its now irrevocable publicity, brought up afresh, as it has been by Mr. Moore, to be the theme of discourse to millions, and, if I
err not much, the cause of misconception to innumerable minds. I claim to speak of Lady Byron in the right of a man, and of a friend to the rights of
woman, and to liberty, and to natural religion. I claim a right, more especially, as one of the
many friends of Lady Byron, who, one and all, feel aggrieved by this
production. It has virtually dragged her forward from the shade of retirement, where she had
hid her sorrows, and compelled her to defend the heads of her friends and her parents from
being crushed under the tombstone of Byron. Nay, in a
general view, it has forced her to defend herself; though with her true
sense, and her pure taste, she stands above all special pleading. To plenary explanation she
ought not—she never shall be driven.
Mr. Moore is too much a gentleman not to shudder at the thought of
that; but if other Byronists, of a far different stamp, were to force the savage ordeal, it is
her enemies, and not she, that would have to dread the burning ploughshares.
We, her friends, have no wish to prolong the discussion; but a few words we must add, even to her admirable statement—for her’s is a
cause not only dear to her friends, but having become, from Mr.
Moore and her misfortunes, a publicly agitated cause, it concerns morality, and
the most sacred rights of the sex, that she should (and that, too, without more special
explanations,) be acquitted out and out, and honourably acquitted in this business, of all
share in the blame, which is one and indivisible. Mr. Moore, on farther
reflection, may see this, and his return to camlour will surprise us less than his momentary
deviation from its path.
For the tact of Mr. Moore’s conduct
in this affair, I have not to answer; but, if indelicacy be charged upon me, I scorn the
charge. Neither will I submit to be called Lord
Byron’s accuser,—because a word against him I wish not to say,
beyond what is painfully wrung from me by the necessity of owning or illustrating Lady
Byron’s unblamableness, and of repelling certain misconceptions respecting her, which are
now walking the fashionable world; and which have been fostered, (though Heaven knows where
they were born) most delicately and warily by the Christian godfathership of Mr.
Moore.
I write not at Lady Byron’s
bidding—I have never humiliated either her or myself by asking if
I should write—or what I should write—that is to say, I
never applied to her for information against Lord Byron,
though I was justified, as one intending to criticize Mr.
Moore, to enquire into the truth of some of his statements. Neither will I
suffer myself to be called her champion, if by that word be meant the advocate of her mere
legal innocence, for that, I take it, nobody questions. Still less is it from the sorry impulse
of pity that I speak of this noble woman, for I look with wonder and even envy at the proud
purity of her sense and conscience, that have carried her exquisite sensibilities in triumph
through such poignant tribulations. But I am proud to be called her friend—the humble
illustrator of her cause, and the advocate of those principles which make it to me more
interesting than Lord Byron’s. Lady Byron (if
the subject must be discussed) belongs to sentiment and morality—at least as much as
Lord Byron—nor is she to be suffered, when compelled to speak,
to raise her voice as in a desert with no friendly voice to respond to her. Lady
Byron could not have outlived her sufferings, if she had not wound up her
fortitude to the high point of trusting mainly for consolation, not to the opinion of the
world, but to her own inward peace; and having said what ought to convince the world, I verily
believe that she has less care about the fashionable opinion respecting her than any of her
friends can have. But we, her friends, mix with the world, and we hear offensive absurdities
about her which we have a right to put down.
What Lady Byron professes to be her main aim
in her Remarks on the Life of her Husband, it
seems to me that she very clearly accomplishes. I am not sure that I should feel my esteem for
Byron, or for any man, much enhanced by finding that a
foolish relative or two could sever from him a wife once doatingly fond of him. But we have not
a tittle of fair evidence against this pack of ——, as his Lordship politely calls
them; and, to throw the blame on her parents is proved ridiculous by Dr. Lushington’s letter, for it shows that the deepest
cause, or causes, of the separation were not imparted to her parents. I dismiss, therefore,
this hinted plea of palliation with contempt.
I proceed to deal more generally with Mr. Moore’s book—You speak, Mr. Moore, against Lord
Byron’s censurers in a tone of indignation which is perfectly lawful
towards calumnious traducers, but which will not terrify me, or any other man of courage, who
is no calumniator, from uttering his mind freely with regard to this part of your hero’s
conduct. I think your whole theory about the unmarriageableness of genius a twaddling little
hint for a compliment to yourself, and a theory refuted by the wedded lives of Scott and Flaxman. I
question your philosophy in assuming that all that is noble in
Byron’s poetry was inconsistent with the possibility of his
being devoted to a pure and good woman—and I repudiate your morality for canting too
complacently about “the lava of his imagination,” and the unsettled fever of
his passions being any excuses for his planting the tic
douloureux of domestic suffering in a meek woman’s bosom. These
are hard words, Mr. Moore, but you have brought them on yourself by your
voluntary ignorance of facts known to me—for you might, and ought to have known both
sides of the question, and if the subject was too delicate for you to consult Lady
Byron’s confidential friends, you ought to have had nothing to do with the
subject. But you cannot have submitted your book even to Lord
Byron’s sister, otherwise she would have set you right about the imaginary
spy, Mrs. Clermont.
Hence arose your misconceptions, which are so numerous, that having applied to
Lady Byron (you will please to observe that I applied
not for facts against Lord Byron, for these I got elsewhere,
but for an estimate of the correctness of your statements,) I received
the following letter from her Ladyship:—
“Dear Mr.
Campbell,—In taking up my pen to point out for your private
information* those passages in Mr.
Moore’s representation of my part of the story which were open
to contradiction, I find them of still greater extent than I had supposed—and
to deny an assertion here and there would virtually admit the truth of the
rest.—If, on the contrary, I were to enter into a full exposure of the
falsehood of the views taken by Mr. Moore, I must detail
various matters, which, consistently with my principles and feelings, I cannot
under the existing circumstances disclose. I may, perhaps, convince you better of
the difficulty of the case by an example.—‘It is
not true that pecuniary embarrassments were the cause of the disturbed
state of Lord Byron’s mind, or
formed the chief reason for the arrangements made by him at that time. But
is it reasonable for me to expect that you, or any one else, should believe
this, unless I show you what were the causes in question? and this I cannot
do.’ I am, &c. &c.—E. Noel Byron.”
Excellent woman! honoured by all who know her, and injured only by those who
know her not, I will believe her on her own testimony.
What I regret most in Mr.
Moore’sLife of Lord
Byron is, that he had in his own hands the only pure means of serving Lord Byron’s character—which was his Lordship’s
own touching confession, and that he has thrown away the said means by garnishing that fair
confession with unfair attempts at blaming others. In Letter 235 Lord
Byron takes all the blame on himself. “The fault, he
says, was not, no, nor even the misfortune in my choice, (unless in choosing at all,)
but I must say it in the very dregs of all this bitter business, that there never was a
better, or even a kinder or more amiable and agreeable bring than Lady Byron. I never
had, nor ever can have any reproach to make her while with me.”
* I had not time to ask Lady
Byron’s permission to print this private letter, but it seemed to
me important, and I have published it meo
periculo.
Now nothing in Lord Byron’s poetry is finer
than this. But why, Mr. Moore, have you frozen the effect of this melting
candour by dishing up the inconsistencies of Lord Byron on the same
subject, and by showing your own ungallant indifference to the thus acquitted Lady
Byron? In the name of both of them I reprove you. Byron
confesses, but you try to explain away his confession; and by your hints at spies,
unsuitableness, &c. you dirty and puddle the holy water of acknowledgment that alone will
wash away the poor penitent man’s transgressions. You resort to
Byron’s letter to Mr.
Rogers for the means of inculpating Lady Byron and her
friends, as blamers of Lord Byron. But they never said more than that
Lord Byron’s temper was intolerable to Lady
Byron. That was true, and they never circulated any calumnies against him.
There is equal injustice in the allusion to Lord
Byron having been ever surrounded by spies. What spy was near him? The only
person denounced in that odious capacity by Lord Byron himself was
Mrs. Clermont; and what was the fact with regard to
her? If Mrs. Clermont was a spy, surely the last person in the world to
have acquitted her would have been Mrs. Leigh, the
sister of Lord Byron; but I have in my possession the authentic copy of a
letter from Mrs. Leigh to the same Mrs. Clermont,
earnestly acquitting her of the calumny, and offering even public testimony to her
(Mrs. Clermont’s) tenderness and forbearance (I copy
Mrs. Leigh’s words) under circumstances that must have been
trying to any friend of Lady Byron. Another unworthy expression of
Mr. Moore’s is that of calling Lord
Byron “a deserted husband.” Let him
read Lady Byron’s remarks, and blot out this absurdity from his
volume. Dr. Lushington, versed in the harshest cases of
justifiable separation, and bound to admit none of a slight nature, thought that it was
impossible she could live with him.
You should have paused, Mr. Moore, before
you compelled any friend of Lady Byron to bring out this
truth.
It is a farther mistake on Mr.
Moore’s part, and I can prove it to be so, if proof be necessary, to
represent Lady Byron, in the course of their courtship, as
one inviting her future husband to correspondence by letters, after she had at first refused
him. She never proposed a correspondence. On the contrary, he sent her a message, after that
first refusal, stating that he meant to go abroad, and to travel for some years in the East;
that he should depart with a heart aching, but not angry; and that he only begged a verbal
assurance that she had still some interest in his happiness. Could Miss
Milbank, as a well-bred woman, refuse a courteous answer to such a message? She
sent him a verbal answer, which was merely kind and becoming, but which signified no
encouragement that he should renew his offer of marriage. After that message, he wrote to her a
most interesting letter about himself—about his views, personal, moral, and religious, to
which it would have been uncharitable not to have replied. The result was an insensibly
increasing correspondence, which ended in her being devotedly attached to him. About that time,
I occasionally saw Lord Byron, and though I knew less of him than
Mr. Moore, yet I suspect I knew as much of him as Miss
Milbank then knew. At that time, he was so pleasing, that if I had had a
daughter with ample fortune and beauty, I should have trusted her in marriage with
Lord Byron.
Mr. Moore at that period evidently understood Lord Byron better than either his future
bride, or myself; but this speaks more for Mr. Moore’s shrewdness,
than for Byron’s ingenuousness of character.
It is another improper insinuation, when Mr.
Moore hints at a resemblance between the first wife
of Milton and the widow of Byron. The
parallel is disgustingly unfair. Of Milton’s
married life we know not much; but, upon the whole, it is clear that his wife could not have
got two honourable men to justify her departure. She went away from him, to all appearance, in
rashness, and returned, for her own convenience, in repentance. Lady
Byron acted no such part. Produce on Mrs. Milton’s
part a Dr. Lushington to speak for her, and we will meet
you in the parallel: but beware of the ploughshare!
It is more for Lord Byron’s sake than
for his widow’s, that I resort not to a more special examination of Mr. Moore’s misconceptions. The subject would lead me
insensibly into hateful disclosures against poor Lord Byron, who is more
unfortunate in his rash defenders, than his reluctant accusers. Happily his own candour turns
our hostility from himself against his defenders. It was only in wayward and bitter remarks
that he misrepresented Lady Byron. He would have defended
himself irresistibly if Mr. Moore had left only his acknowledging
passages. But Mr. Moore has produced a Life of him which reflects blame on
Lady Byron—so dextrously that more is meant than meets the ear.
The almost universal impression produced by his book is, that Lady Byron
must be a precise, and a wan unwarming spirit—a blue stocking of chilblained learning, a
piece of insensitive goodness. Who that knows Lady Byron, will not
pronounce her to be every thing the reverse? Will it be believed that this person, so
unsuitably matched to her moody Lord, has written verses that would do no discredit to Byron
himself—that her sensitiveness is surpassed and bounded only by her good sense, and that
she is Blest with a temper, whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day. She brought to Lord Byron, beauty, manners, fortune, meekness,
romantic affection, and every thing that ought to have made her to the most transcendant man of
genius—had he been what he should have been—his pride
and his idol. I speak not of Lady Byron in the commonplace manner of
attesting character, I appeal to the gifted Mrs.
Siddons, and Joanna Baillie, to Lady Charlemont, and to other ornaments of their sex, whether I
am exaggerating in the least when I say, that in their whole lives they have seen few beings so
intellectual and well tempered, as Lady Byron. I wish to be as ingenuous
as possible in speaking of her. Her manner, I have no hesitation to say, is cool at the first
interview, but it is modestly, and not insolently cool: she contracted it, I believe, from
being exposed by her beauty and large fortune in youth, to numbers of suitors, whom she could
not have otherwise kept at a distance. But this manner could have had no influence with
Lord Byron, for it vanishes on nearer acquaintance, and has no origin
in coldness. All her friends like her frankness the better for being preceded by this reserve.
This manner, however, though not the slightest apology for Lord Byron, has
been inimical to Lady Byron in her misfortunes. It endears her to her
friends, but it piques the indifferent. Most odiously unjust, therefore, is Mr.
Moore’s assertion, that she has had the advantage of Lord
Byron in public opinion. She is, comparatively speaking, unknown to the world;
for though she has many friends, that is, a friend in every one who knows her, yet her pride, and purity, and misfortunes, naturally contract the circle of her
acquaintance. There is something exquisitely unjust in Mr. Moore comparing
her chance of popularity with Lord Byron’s: the poet who can command
men of talents, putting even Mr. Moore into the livery of his service, and
who has suborned the favour of almost all women by the beauty of his person and the
voluptuousness of his verses. Lady Byron has nothing to oppose to these
fascinations but the truth and justice of her cause.
The true way of bringing off Byron from this
question of his conjugal unhappiness would be his own way, namely, to acknowledge frankly this
one, and, perhaps, the only one great error of his life. Acknowledge it, and after all, what a
space is still left in our minds for allowance and charity, and even for admiration of him! All
men, as they are frail and fallible beings, are concerned in palliating his fault—to a
certain degree they are concerned; though if you reduce the standard of duty too low, the
meanest man may justly refuse to sympathize with your apology for a bad husband, and disdain to
take the benefit of an insolvent act in favour of debtors to morality. But pay the due homage
to moral principle, frankly own that the child of genius is, in this particular, not to be
defended—abstain from absolving Byron on false grounds, and you will
do him more good than by idle attempts at justification. Above all, keep off your sentimental
mummeries from the hallowed precincts of his widow’s character. There, Mr. Moore, you must not fish for compliments, or poach for the
pathetic.—Byron acquitted at Lady
Byron’s expense, can be taken home to no honest heart’s sympathy,
though there is no saying how much the heart yearns to forgive him when there is no sophistry
used in his defence.
You said, Mr. Moore, that Lady Byron was unsuitable to her Lord—the word is cunningly
insidious, and may mean as much or as little as may suit your convenience. But if she was
unsuitable, I remark that it tells all the worse against Lord
Byron. I have not read it in your book, for I hate to wade through it; but they
tell me, that you have not only warily depreciated Lady Byron, but that
you have described a lady that would have suited him. If this be true, it is the unkindest cut
of all—to hold up a florid description of a woman suitable to Lord
Byron, as if in mockery over the forlorn flower of Virtue, that was drooping in
the solitude of sorrow. But I trust there is no such passage in your book. Surely you must be
conscious of your woman, with her “virtue loose about her, who would
have suited Lord Byron,” to be as imaginary a being
as the woman without a head.—A woman to suit Lord
Byron!!!—Poo! poo! I could paint to you the woman that could have matched him, if I had not bargained to say as little as possible against
him.
If Lady Byron was not suitable to Lord Byron, so much the worse for his Lordship; for let me tell
you, Mr. Moore, that neither your poetry, nor
Lord Byron’s, nor all our poetry put together, ever delineated a
more interesting being than the woman whom you have so coldly treated. This was not kicking the
dead lion, but wounding the living lamb, who was already bleeding and shorn even unto the
quick. I know that, collectively speaking, the world is in Lady
Byron’s favour; but it is coldly favourable, and you have not warmed its
breath. Time, however, cures every thing, and even your book, Mr. Moore,
may be the means of Lady Byron’s character being better appreciated.