Richard Edgcumbe - Byron - The Last Phase

This book has no pretensions; it is merely a record of events and impressions which nearly forty years of close study have accumulated. There seems to be a general agreement that the closing scenes of Byron’s short life have not been adequately depicted by his biographers. From the time of Byron’s departure from Ravenna, in the autumn of 1821, his disposition and conduct underwent a transformation so complete that it would have been difficult to recognize, in the genial, unselfish personality who played so effective a rôle at Missolonghi, the gloomy misanthrope of 1811, or the reckless libertine of the following decade.

The conduct of Byron in Greece seems to have come as a revelation to his contemporaries, and his direction of complex affairs, in peculiarly trying circumstances, certainly deserves more attention than it has received. Records made on the spot by men whose works are now, for the most part, out of print have greatly simplified my task, and I hope that the following pages may be acceptable to those who have not had an opportunity of studying that picturesque phase of Byron’s career. I should have much preferred to preserve silence on the subject of his separation from his wife. Unfortunately, the late Lord Lovelace, in giving his sanction to the baseless and forgotten slanders of a bygone age, has recently assailed the memory of Byron’s half-sister, and has set a mark of infamy upon her which cannot be erased without referring to matters which ought never to have been mentioned.

In order to traverse statements made in ‘Astarte,’ it was necessary to reveal an incident which, during Byron’s lifetime, was known only by those who were pledged to silence. With fuller knowledge of things hidden from Byron’s contemporaries, we may realize the cruelty of those futile persecutions to which Mrs. Leigh was subjected by Lady Byron and her advisers, under the impression that they could extract the confession of a crime which existed only in their prurient imaginations. Mrs. Leigh, in one of her letters to Hobhouse, says, ‘I have made it a rule to be silent – that is to say, As Long As I Can.’ Although the strain must have been almost insupportable she died with her secret unrevealed, and the mystery which Byron declared ‘too simple to be easily found out’ has hitherto remained unsolved. I regret being unable more precisely to indicate the source of information embodied in the concluding portions of this work. The reader may test the value of my statements by the light of citations which seem amply to confirm them. At all events, I claim to have shown by analogy that Lord Lovelace’s accusation against Mrs. Leigh is groundless, and therefore his contention, that Byron’s memoirs were destroyed because they implicated Mrs. Leigh , is absolutely untenable. Those memoirs were destroyed, as we now know, because both Hobhouse and Mrs. Leigh feared possible revelations concerning another person, whose feelings and interests formed the paramount consideration of those who were parties to the deed. Lord John Russell, who had read the memoirs, stated in 1869 that Mrs. Leigh was not implicated in them, a fact which proves that they were not burned for the purpose of shielding her .

Lord Lovelace tells us that Sir Walter Scott, who had heard full particulars from Thomas Moore, remarked, ‘It is a pity, but there was a reason — premat nox alta .’ Facts which they hoped deep oblivion would hide have come to the surface at last, and I deeply regret that circumstances should have imposed upon me a duty which is repugnant both to my inclination and instincts. After all is said, the blame rightly belongs to Lady Byron’s grandson, who, heedless of consequences, stirred the depths of a muddy pool. He tells us, in ‘Astarte,’ (1) that the papers concerning Byron’s marriage have been carefully preserved; (2) that they form a complete record of all the causes of separation ; and (3) that they contain full information on every part of the subject .

In those circumstances it is strange that, with the whole of Lady Byron’s papers before him, Lord Lovelace should have published only documents of secondary importance which do not prove his case. After saying, ‘It should be distinctly understood that no misfortunes, blunders, or malpractices, have swept away Lady Byron’s papers, or those belonging to the executors of Lord Byron,’ he leaves the essential records to the imagination of his readers, and feeds us on hints and suggestions which are not borne out by extracts provided as samples of the rest. It is impossible not to suspect that Lord Lovelace, in arranging the papers committed to his charge, discarded some that would have told in favour of Mrs. Leigh, and selected others which colourably supported his peculiar views.

In matters of this kind everything depends upon the qualifications of the accuser and the reliability of the witness. Lord Lovelace in a dual capacity certainly evinced an active imagination.

As an example, ‘Astarte,’ which was designed to blast the fair fame of Mrs. Leigh, was used by him to insult the memory of the late Mr. Murray (who he admits showed him many acts of kindness), and to repudiate promises which he undoubtedly made, to edit his grandfather’s works. Rambling statements are made with design to discredit both Mr. Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly , and Mr. Murray, the friend of Lord Byron. Even personal defects are dragged in to prejudice the reader and embitter the venom of irrelevant abuse. It was as if Plutarch, in order to enhance the glory of Antony, had named ‘the Last of the Romans’ Cassius the Short-sighted. Fortunately, written proofs were in existence to controvert Lord Lovelace’s assertions – proofs which were used with crushing effect – otherwise Mr. Murray might have found himself in a position quite as helpless as that of poor Mrs. Leigh herself. So unscrupulous a use of documents in that case suggests the possibility that a similar process may have been adopted in reference to Mrs. Leigh. It is indeed unfortunate that Lady Byron’s papers cannot be inspected by some unprejudiced person, for we have nothing at present beyond Lord Lovelace’s vague assertions. Were those papers thoroughly sifted they would surely acquit Mrs. Leigh of the crime that has been so cruelly laid to her charge. Meanwhile I venture to think that the following pages help to clear the air of much of that mystery which surrounds the lives of Lord Byron and his sister.

In conclusion, I desire to record my personal obligation to the latest edition of the ‘Poems,’ editvvved by Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge; and of the ‘Letters and Journals,’ edited by Mr. Rowland Prothero, volumes which together form the most comprehensive and scholarly record of Byron’s life and poetry that has ever been issued.

R. E.

August, 1909.

‘A large disagreeable city, almost without inhabitants’ – such was the poet Shelley’s description of Pisa in 1821. The Arno was yellow and muddy, the streets were empty, and there was altogether an air of poverty and wretchedness in the town. The convicts, who were very numerous, worked in the streets in gangs, cleaning and sweeping them. They were dressed in red, and were chained together by the leg in pairs. All day long one heard the slow clanking of their chains, and the rumbling of the carts they were forced to drag from place to place like so many beasts of burden. A spectator could not but be struck by the appearance of helpless misery stamped on their yellow cheeks and emaciated forms.