69.-Lady Byron to the Hon. Mrs. George Lamb. [Morrison MSS.] 327 "Monday, April 1st, 1816. "I assure you I do not trust less to your discretion than your zeal, and whatever you think best has great weight with me, nor did I mean to prevent the mention of those qualities of his character in general terms, without giving the particular instances. In regard to the child, it appears to my advisers most advantageous that it should not be made a subject of discussion at present, or in any way suggested to him as such, because it is highly improbable that he would resign the power in a formal manner; and, by not making any particular provision for it, if he goes abroad, he will virtually, to a certain extent, acknowledge my guardianship. To let him know these reasons would be to defeat them. I am glad that you think of her with the feelings of pity which prevail in my mind, and surely if in mine there must be some cause for them. I never was, nor never can be, so mercilessly virtuous as to admit no excuse for even the worst of errors. "I want to see you very much. Can you call upon me tomorrow evening? "I will send the carriage for you at any hour you will name." 70.-John Cam Hobhouse to John Hanson. [Murray MSS.] "April 13, 1816. "DEAR SIR,-You have asked me whether, in assisting Colonel Doyle to draw up the original paper to be referred to the arbitration of Sir Samuel Shepherd, concerning the future arrangement of the Noel property, I contemplated assigning a share of the property itself to Lady Byron, or merely providing that her Ladyship should receive from Lord Byron, when that property fell in, a certain rent charge. In answer to this question I have to state that by referring to a copy of that paper, I find the words made use of as follows:To give Lady Byron for her own use out of the Property when it should devolve to her upon Lady Noel's death, such a provision as arbitrators then appointed should deem reasonable.' "I have no hesitation in stating that by the words 'provision out of the property'. . . I conceived would be understood an allowance from the profits of the property to be granted to Lady Byron by Lord Byron as the holder of the estate. I must at the same time mention that the point was not at all discussed or made a question in any way between Colonel Doyle and myself, and that my past and present impressions are derived merely from my own conception, and the notion that in similar cases the words 'provision out of the property' would not have any other interpretation than that above assigned to them. "I remain, dear Sir, your obedient servant, 71.-Lord Byron to John Hanson. [Murray MSS.] "April 17th 1816. "DEAR SIR,-It is a question for you, and Mr. Wharton, and the Solicitor General, settle it amongst you. I am ready to sign, only let it be soon, for I go on Sunday. "Pray, conclude, and believe me, "Ever yours very truly, "BYRON. "P.S.-I am sorry to hear you have been ill. When you and Wharton are ready, I am at home every day till 4 in the afternoon. "Col. Doyle might as well have repeated the whole as well as 'part' of Mr. H.'s letter: it contained (I believe, for I did not see it) a repetition of Mr. H.'s interpretation of the paper when drawn up.' 72.-Lady Byron to the Hon. Augusta Leigh.1 [Murray MSS.] "Beckenham, Sept! 21st. "DEAREST A.,-I had meant to thank you vocally for your satisfactory information about the funeral, but will not so long defer my communication, as I shall not be in London till the middle of next week. "I have directed a supply of game to be sent to you weekly from Kirkby. For this you need not thank me, because, if I had no pleasure in sending them to you, I should think it proper to send them to the nearest connection of him who has the same property in the Estate as myself. Whenever you write to him, it may perhaps be as well to mention that this direction has been given by me, that he may be sensible of a disposition to do whatever shows respect for his claims. "As to the impressions of my parents towards you, I feel that I ought to say a few words on their accounts, lest they should appear to have been actuated by an irrational spirit of resentment. After they became acquainted with what had been his habits of life, and decided propensities, previous to my marriage, and during a time when his general proceedings must have been known to you (and indeed he made it clear that they were known), it was their opinion that in allowing any young woman to be united to him, and still more in endeavoring to smooth the apparent obstacles, you were sacrificing her to the most remote possibility of doing him service in any but a worldly point of view. As I was willing to be sacrificed, I of course do not partake in their feeling; but I acknowledge that 1. The contents of this letter afford no certain clue to its date. The envelope is lost. 1816.] BYRON'S STATEMENT. 329 in their situation the inference appears to me very natural, and their conduct not inconsistent, however concerned I may feel for some of the consequences. 66 Pray do not think this unkind. It would perhaps have saved you some uncomfortable speculation, if I had been more explicit sooner. I trust that between you and me individually no explanations can be necessary. "Yours most affecly, "A. I. B." 73.-LORD BYRON'S STATEMENT. [Murray MSS., and Academy, October 9, 1869.] "It has been intimated to me, that the persons understood to be the legal advisers of Lady Byron, have declared 'their lips to be sealed up' on the cause of the separation between her and myself. If their lips are sealed up, they are not sealed up by me, and the greatest favour they can confer upon me will be to open them. From the first hour in which I was apprized of the intentions of the Noel family to the last communication between Lady Byron and myself in the character of wife and husband (a period of some months), I called repeatedly and in vain for a statement of their or her charges, and it was chiefly in consequence of Lady Byron's claiming (in a letter still existing) a promise on my part to consent to a separation if such was really her wish, that I consented at all; this claim and the exasperating and inexplicable manner in which their object was pursued, which rendered it next to an impossibility that two persons so divided could ever be re-united, induced me reluctantly then, and repentantly still, to sign the deed, which I shall be happy-most happy to cancel, and go before any tribunal which may discuss the business in the most public manner. "Mr. Hobhouse made this proposition on my part, viz., to abrogate all prior intentions--and go into Court--the very day before the separation was signed, and it was declined by the other party, as also the publication of the correspondence during the previous discussion. Those propositions I beg here to repeat, and to call upon her and hers to say their worst, pledging myself to meet their allegations--whatever they may be and only too happy to be informed at last of their real nature. "August 9, 1817. "BYRON. "P.S., I have been, and am now, utterly ignorant of what description her allegations, charges, or whatever name they may have assumed, are; and am as little aware for what purpose they have been kept back--unless it was to sanction the most infamous calumnies by silence. "La Mira, near Venice." "BYRON. CHAPTER XIII. MAY-OCTOBER, 1816. SWITZERLAND CHILDe harold, CANTO III.—PRISONER OF CHILLON-MANFred. 597. To the Hon. Augusta Leigh. Bruxelles,' [Wednesday,] May 1st, 1816. MY HEART,-We are detained here for some petty carriage repairs,2 having come out of our way to 1. The two first stanzas of the verses on Waterloo, "Stop! for "thy tread is on an empire's dust' (Childe Harold, Canto III. stanzas xvii. and xviii.), were written at Brussels, after a visit to the field with Pryse Lockhart Gordon (Personal Memoirs, etc., vol. ii. p. 325). Mrs. Gordon asked Byron to write some lines in her scrapbook. He "readily consented, saying, 'If she would trust him with "her book, he would insert a verse in it before he slept.' He "marched off with it under his arm, and next morning returned with "the two beautiful stanzas which were soon after published in his "third canto of Childe Harold." "A few weeks after he had written them," continues Gordon (ibid., p. 327), “the well-known artist, R. R. Reinagle, a friend of "mine, arrived in Brussels, when I invited him to dine with me, "and showed him the lines, requesting him to embellish them with 'an appropriate vignette to the following passage: "Here his last flight the haughty eagle flew, Then tore, with bloody beak, the fatal plain,' etc., etc. "Mr. Reinagle sketched with a pencil a spirited chained eagle, "grasping the earth with his talons. "I had occasion to write to his Lordship, and mentioned having "got this clever artist to draw a vignette to his beautiful lines, and "the liberty he had taken by altering the action of the eagle. In "reply to this, he wrote to me: 'Reinagle is a better poet and a 1816.] JOURNEY THROUGH BELGIUM. 331 the Rhine on purpose, after passing through Ghent, Antwerp, and Mechlin. I have written to you twice,— "better ornithologist than I am; eagles and all birds of prey "attack with their talons, and not with their beaks, and I have "altered the line thus "Then tore, with bloody talon, the rent plain. "This is, I think, a better line, besides its poetical justice."" 2. In the Courier for May 13, 1816, appeared the following paragraph: "The following is an extract from the Dutch Mail, dated Brussels, "May 8th: In the Journal de Belgique, of this date, is a petition "from a coachmaker at Brussels to the President of the Tribunal de "Premier Instance, stating that he has sold to Lord Byron a carriage, "etc., for 1882 francs, of which he has received 847 francs; but "that his Lordship, who is going away the same day, refuses to pay "him the remaining 1035 francs; he begs permission to seize the "carriage, etc. This being granted, he put it into the hands of a "proper officer, who went to signify the above to Lord Byron, and 66 was informed by the landlord of the hotel that his Lordship was gone without having given him anything to pay the debt, on which "the officer seized a chaise belonging to his Lordship as security for "the amount." 66 66 "Lord Byron," says Pryse Gordon (Personal Memoirs, etc., vol. ii. pp. 328-330), "travelled in a huge coach, copied from the cele"brated one of Napoleon taken at Genappe, with additions. Besides "a lit de repos, it contained a library, a plate-chest, and every apparatus for dining." But he also bought a calèche at Brussels for his servants, and it was this carriage which broke down, and became the subject of dispute. Hobhouse, writing to Murray, May 22, 1816, says, "Let one of your young men write out the little "article below, and do you get it inserted in the Courier." The "little article" was as follows: "An article from the Brussells Gazette, published in a London "journal, having mentioned the seizure of a carriage belonging to "Lord Byron, in lieu of the purchase money of another carriage "bought by the noble Lord at that place, we have authority to "state that the difference between the fact, as represented in the "Gazette, and the real transaction is merely this: Instead of his "Lordship endeavouring to defraud the coachmaker of one thousand "francs, it was the coachmaker who unfairly procured from his "Lordship eight hundred, by taking that sum for a chariot which "Lord Byron was to try by a day's journey to Waterloo, which "broke down on that journey, and which, together with the 800 francs, "was left for the honest tradesman, who came to take by force what was given to him voluntarily. His Lordship made no effort to 66 recover any portion of his 800 francs; but leaving him that sum "as an indemnity for a damage which it might cost the coachmaker |