Harriet Stowe - Lady Byron Vindicated - A History of the Byron Controversy

Campbell then goes on to reprove Moore for his injustice to Mrs. Clermont, whom Lord Byron had denounced as a spy, but whose respectability and innocence were vouched for by Lord Byron's own family; and then he pointedly rebukes one false statement of great indelicacy and cruelty concerning Lady Byron's courtship, as follows: —

'It is a further 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 Milbanke, 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.

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The italics are mine.

The italics are mine.

In Lady Blessington's 'Memoirs' this name is given Charlemont; in the late 'Temple Bar' article on the character of Lady Byron it is given Clermont. I have followed the latter.

The italics are mine.

In Lady Blessington's conversations with Lord Byron, just before he went to Greece, she records that he gave her this poem in manuscript. It was published in her 'Journal.'

Vol. vi. p. 22.

'Byron's Miscellany', vol. ii. p. 358. London, 1853.

The italics are mine.

Lord Byron says, in his observations on an article in 'Blackwood': 'I recollect being much hurt by Romilly's conduct: he (having a general retainer for me) went over to the adversary, alleging, on being reminded of his retainer, that he had forgotten it, as his clerk had so many. I observed that some of those who were now so eagerly laying the axe to my roof-tree might see their own shaken. His fell and crushed him.'

In the first edition of Moore's Life of Lord Byron there was printed a letter on Sir Samuel Romilly, so brutal that it was suppressed in the subsequent editions. (See Part III.)

Vol. iv. p. 40.

Ibid. p. 46.

The italics are mine.

Vol. iv. p 143.

Lord Byron took especial pains to point out to Murray the importance of these two letters. Vol. V. Letter 443, he says: 'You must also have from Mr. Moore the correspondence between me and Lady B., to whom I offered a sight of all that concerns herself in these papers. This is important. He has her letter and my answer.'

'Conversations,' p. 108.

Murray's edition of 'Byron's Works,' Vol. ii. p. 189; date of dedication to Hobhouse, Jan. 2, 1818.

Recently, Lord Lindsay has published another version of this story, which makes it appear that he has conversed with a lady who conversed with Hobhouse during his lifetime, in which this story is differently reported. In the last version, it is made to appear that Hobhouse had this declaration from Lady Byron herself.

The references are to the first volume of the first edition of Moore's Life', originally published by itself.

'The officious spies of his privacy,' p. 650.

'The deserted husband,' p. 651.

'I (Campbell) 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 .'