| 34 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON |
Soon after the separation had actually taken place, and Byron had left his native land for ever, his faithful friend and devoted sister resumed their correspondence on the same sad subject.
Dear Mr.
Hodgson,—Your kind letter found me here, and was most
acceptable, for I began to marvel at your silence. But don’t suppose this
to be a reproach, for I know how numerous must be the claims and calls upon
your time, and I feel how kind you are to devote any part of it to me. I
don’t know why I should intrude on you so soon again, except that you
desire I will write, or that I can tell you of B.’s safe arrival at Geneva. I have not had any letter
since that from Coblentz, dated 11th May, which I believe I mentioned in my
last ’GLENARVON.’ 35
I have written to Mr. Hobhouse to know what this new publication1 means, and to hope it is nothing that can revive the dying embers. Would that I could talk to you! I think it might calm my mind; it is impossible by letter to give you any idea of the proceedings and confusion after you left Town. I suppose you have heard of Lady C. L.’s extraordinary production—‘Glenarvon,’ a novel. The hero and heroine you may guess; the former painted in the most atrocious colours. If you have not, pray read it. You foretold mischief in that quarter, and much has occurred, if only that I hear this horrid book is supposed and believed a true delineation of his character; and the letters true copies of originals, etc., etc., etc.! I can’t think of her with Christian charity, so I won’t dwell upon the subject, but pray read it. I had a letter from
| 36 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
| LETTER FROM MRS. LEIGH. | 37 |
Dear Mr. H.,—I have a frank, and no time to write. What a trial of temper, particularly to a Byronic one! I must say, however, how very glad I was to receive the intelligence of your piece of good fortune, which followed me here, and I wished to say so immediately, but my time is very little at my own disposal in this land of confusion. I cannot tell you half my joy at this (your living),1 and I have lost no time in sending it to dear B., who is still near Geneva. Direct à Milord B., Poste Restante, à Genève en Suisse. I heard from him (date 29 July) well—at least he says nothing to the contrary—complains of the weather—has been visiting Madame de Staël, and so on. I’ve not a moment now to write comfortably, so will only beg you and Mrs. H. to accept my best congratulations, and good wishes and thanks for wishing to see me and mine in your new abode. I should be delighted
1 Hodgson had lately been presented to the living of Bakewell. |
| 38 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
Adieu, dear Mr. H. I came here a month ago for my Court duties, and shall perhaps remain in Town a week or two longer. Can I do anything for you or Mrs. H.? Pray command me if I can.
Dear Mr. H.,—I have many a time
resolved and intended to write to you, since my last promise to do so again,
but I have doubted how I ought to direct till the other day I heard from the
Dowager Duchess of Rutland that you
were settled at Bakewell. I took the opportunity of saying how much you had
been pleased and benefited by the D. of
R.’s kindness, which I thought was what you would wish me
to do; and I had the great pleasure of hearing all the
good (no not all) that I think of
you repeated, and how much her grandson liked being with you, etc., etc., etc.
My husband has just asked me to whom I
am writing, and desires me to say that the Duke of R. has spoken very kindly and
highly of you to him, and hopes to make your acquaintance SISTERLY ANXIETIES. 39
Mr. Davies,1 perhaps you have heard, has come home. He was with B. at Geneva, and gives very good accounts of his health and spirits, though he confesses he found him gloomy. Mr. Hobhouse is still with him. He has not mixed much in society; report says from necessity, his friends from choice. You may have heard also that another Canto of ‘Childe Harold’ is about to appear. From the little I know of it I wish it may not contain allusions to his own domestic concerns, which had better have been omitted; and I fear he indulges
| 40 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
I will finish my letter in hopes of a frank, and have to add that this day’s post has brought me one from B. of the 15th Oct., telling me of his having passed the Simplon safely, and arrived at Milan. He appears delighted with the beauty of the scenery on his road, and was seeing all worth seeing at Milan. He writes cheerfully. Now adieu, dear Mr. H.
With best regards to Mrs. H.,
| IMPARTIALITY. | 41 |
Dear Mr.
Hodgson,—I am so glad of an excuse to write to you, that I
avail myself of that of our last letters having crossed,
and there being many points in yours upon which mine would not satisfy you. To
begin with dear B. The last tidings of him
were from Milan, the 13th October, having just arrived there without disasters,
or encounter of robbers on the Simplon. The style struck me as being more
cheerful than former letters. I told you something, and indeed I daresay all I
know, of the Canto, etc. I see
they make their appearance on the 23rd. The story of their being sent to
Lady B. I think I may safely say is
untrue. She was, as well as me, on the eve of leaving Town when Murray received them, and he paid her the compliment of showing them. I think he had scarcely
time to look them over. This may by some means have been twisted into the tale
you have heard; but perhaps you had better keep my information to yourself. I am afraid to open my lips, though all I say
to you I know is secure from misinterpretation. On the opinions expressed by
Mr. M. I am not surprised. I
have seen letters written to him which could not but
give rise to such, or confirm them. If I may give you mine, it is that in his own mind there were and are recollections, fatal
to
| 42 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
| FRESH ANXIETIES. | 43 |
I am obliged to finish this letter, which was begun some days ago, rather in haste, for a frank and the post. I hope you will give me the pleasure of hearing from you when you can. B. desires me to direct to him ‘à Genève, Poste Restante.’ His banker there forwards his letters. I quite dread the Poems. So afraid of their renewing unpleasant recollections in the public mind, and containing bitterness towards her who has already suffered too much. Mind, whatever you hear pray tell me. B. has once or twice said he thought of returning to England in the spring; but I don’t indulge much hope on the subject, nor do I know that it would be desirable. You have probably heard by this time all that is known about the dreadful fire at B. Castle:1 I felt so sorry for it, as knowing the duke and duchess, and the
1 Belvoir. |
| 44 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
Pray write to B. I have much more to say, but cannot say it now.
Dear Mr. H.,—Thank you many thousand times for your
very kind and most welcome letter, which followed me to Town, where I went on
the 6th and remained till the 24th of February, on Court duty. FRESH ANXIETIES. 45
| 46 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
It appears that the child is a ward in
Chancery, BYRON’S LATEST POEMS. 47
I am glad you were rather agreeably surprised in the Poems. I
own I was so; but the different opinions, and
impressions, and reflections of different people are enough to drive one mad.
Your approbation of the lines on poor Major
Howard (our very particular friend)
delighted me very much. They were what I was most anxious should be approved.
Of course you know to whom the
| 48 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
We are not likely to remove till May or June, so pray direct as usual whenever you have a moment to spare, and, believe me that I am always most delighted to receive a letter from you. My children are well; Georgey is really a very dear little girl. You will easily believe that my hands are quite full, with five to teach and nurse. But it is fortunate I have such an imperious demand upon my time and attention. I do not know what
1 Mrs. Leigh here must either mean Miss Chaworth, afterwards Mrs. Musters, or must have written the ‘Dream’ for the ‘Sketch,’ and have meant Mrs. Clermont, Lady Byron’s confidential maid. |
| BYRON’S LONG SILENCE. | 49 |
Dear Mr.
Hodgson,—Your kind letter, which travelled a little in pursuit
of me, began with the very sentence I have been thinking of writing you for an
age at least! It appeared to me very long since I had heard of or from you, so
I was for ever intending and wishing to write, but I had
so little to say on what is most interesting to you,
poor B.’s subject. He was nine long
months silent to me, and you know that in spite of all one’s reason one
must feel such a silence very much. However, he has written at last, making
many lame excuses for not doing so during that period. I could wish not to be
selfish on this subject, and I have long been too sure that I can neither do or
say anything for his comfort. Indeed, dear Mr. H., I
don’t know who can in his very unhappy state of
feeling and perverted way of
| 50 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
‘Beppo’ is his, at least; though he has
never said so, one may infer it from a thousand things. The 4th Canto is forthcoming, and I rather dread
it for fear of more bitterness on the old subject. Lady
B. is at Kirkby Mallory, in Leicestershire, but writes me word
she intends being at Seaham during the summer months. She was some time ago in
very bad health, but I am happy to hear now better than for some time past. The
little girl is always well, and
represented as the finest and most intelli-SALE OF NEWSTEAD. 51
| 52 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
Pray give my best remembrances to Mrs. H., and believe me
Dear Mr.
Hodgson,—I have very long been reproaching myself for my
silence towards you, and your kind letter really fills me with remorse. I well
recollect my promise of writing should I have good to relate, and, having been
eight months established in apartments of my own here, contrary to my most
sanguine expectations and hopes, it appears to me downright ingratitude to have
omitted telling one who would have rejoiced so sincerely in my good fortune. I
can only confess my fault and beg forgiveness. A hundred times at least have I
resolved upon despatching an epistle to Bakewell, and always something or other
has interfered with my resolve. But I won’t trouble you with excuses, but
proceed to thank you a thousand times for your kind indulgence and interest. It
would give me the greatest pleasure, dear Mr. H., to make
you a visit according to your kind invitation, and Col. L. will, I am sure, feel as grateful as I do. He is now at
Belvoir Castle. If I could find myself there during NEWS OF BYRON. 53
| 54 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
The preceding letters have been given consecutively, without more comment
than was absolutely required for immediate illustration, in order that the narrative which
they so graphically relate might not be interrupted, and that the fresh light which they
throw upon the much vexed question of Lord and Lady Byron’s separation might not for a moment be
obscured by the clouds of unnecessary observation. But a collective consideration of their
general import, no less than of the significance of certain particular sentences, will
probably suggest to the minds of most
| CAUSES OF THE SEPARATION. | 55 |
What, then, were the incompatibilities, magnified by Lady Byron’s persistent silence into one unutterable
criminality, which destroyed the domestic happiness of these two highly-gifted beings?
Among the chief causes of disagreement it appears that it will not be wrong (however
material such a consideration may seem) to place the condition of the noble poet’s
health, both at the commencement, and, with short intervals, during the continuance, of his
married life. The melancholy and dejection which were more
| 56 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
Such frantic paroxysms of passion, occasioned by
1 This jar alighted upon a figure of a muse in the garden beneath the poet’s window, and for some time afterwards traces of this poetical outburst were visible. |
| MISUNDERSTANDING. | 57 |
But Lady Byron had not so read her
husband’s character. Accustomed to draw her conclusions with mathematical accuracy
from the premisses placed before her, she was incapable of making allowance for the
slightest deviation from the precise code of morals which she had adopted as her infallible
standard of propriety. Thus she mistook her husband’s genuine candour for hypocrisy,
and regarded the character which he so foolishly assumed as really belonging to him. She
was quite young, only twenty-four, at the time of the separation, but she was, like her
husband, an only child, and while he, partly through his love of mystery and the strange
fondness for representing himself as far worse than
| 58 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
| INCOMPATIBILITIES. | 59 |
Another source of disputation was the subject of religion, on which she appears to have been as intolerant as he was culpably compliant. He doubted everything; she would countenance nothing which was beyond the pale of her individual prejudices. He was still, perhaps unconsciously, influenced by that gloomy Calvinism which veiled the brightness of his boyhood; she was inclined to Socinianism. He considered his salvation hopeless; she knew that she was saved.
Nor must we lose sight of those pecuniary difficulties which, entirely in
consequence of mismanagement, caused him at this trying time such unceasing annoyance, and
involved the sale of that ancestral home to which he was so ardently attached. Nor,
| 60 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
With regard to her parents, it is easy enough to understand, and impossible
not to admire, Lady Byron’s anxiety, doubtless
perfectly sincere, to shield them from the imputation of having in any way interfered in
the matter; but it is not so easy to believe that Byron,
who was not at all naturally inclined to take strong dislikes to men or women, should have
been deceived into the belief that they were interested in the separation, unless they were
indeed in some way concerned in it. Certain it is
| ABSENCE OF SYMPATHY. | 61 |
But when every due allowance has been made for the tedium of his visits to
Seaham, and for the want of genial sympathy and cordial appreciation of his character in
all its strength and weakness displayed constantly by his wife, it is still, of course,
impossible to palliate the culpable folly which induced him to threaten her with acts of
violence, and to give the reins to his wanton love of mischief, when he must have seen that
his ill-chosen jests were entirely misunderstood. But, on the whole, it is difficult to
understand by what chain of reasoning Lady Byron
contrived to reconcile her sense of duty with the Apostolic injunction, ‘Let not
the wife depart from her husband.’ No one was more ready than Byron himself to admit his excessive irritability, and the
criminal extravagances into which his fondness for mystifying and startling others too
often betrayed him.
| 62 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
With every attribute of moral excellence, enhanced by education and
restrained by the most absolute self-control, Lady
Byron’s otherwise perfect womanhood was marred and defaced by the want
of that one ‘sweet weakness,’ the divine power of forgiveness. Her
Christianity, otherwise complete, was rendered imperfect by the conspicuous absence of two
most essential qualities: the one humility, the other charity. It is impossible to imagine
that she ever entertained for her husband any feeling worthy of the sacred name of love,
any sentiment deeper than regard and interest. She herself states that she married him with
the settled determination to endure everything, and this is further corroborated by Mrs.
| POSSIBILITY OF RECONCILIATION. | 63 |
That Lady Byron did at first
contemplate a reunion as within the bounds of eventual possibility is proved by the
concluding sentence of those letters to Hodgson,
which, though enigmatical enough in parts, have yet sufficient clearness to prove the
vindictive spirit of wounded pride which prompted her to complete the massacre of her
lord’s moral nature by deliberately dissecting it, and which rendered all attempts at
reconciliation wholly ineffectual. But of such a reunion, if early effected, what might not
have been the results? Lady Byron might have been a happy wife and
mother, the honoured companion of the greatest genius of his age and country; while he
might have achieved a nobler fame as an orator, a statesman, and a philanthropist, even
than that imperishable glory which his own and all succeeding generations have accorded to
him as a poet. And what was the miserable alternative? To her a weary widowhood, during
which she continually
| 64 | MEMOIR OF REV. F. HODGSON. |
From the part played in this terrible tragedy by his loving sister and by the truest and most loyal of friends it is manifest that if anything could have averted the impending disaster it would have been the judicious zeal of their united efforts in the cause of affection and of friendship.
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