1830.] Lady Byron, Campbell, and Moore. 513 



that the world, in general, no more required to be told that her lady- 

 ship's father and mother were well meaning people to Lord Byron, than 

 that they were man and wife. 



However, the tempter prevailed over the lady ; and she wrote, and not 

 merely wrote, but printed her writing, sent it through her circle of cor- 

 respondents, friends, lovers, and haters, and finally saw it (we can con- 

 ceive, with no great surprise) fairly flourishing as a regular piece of 

 publication. The Literary Gazette had it first, and by its extensive cir- 

 culation settled the affair of publicity without loss of time. The letter 

 was at the Land's End in twenty-four hours, and has long before this 

 been read in Calcutta, if it have not been already on the break fast- table 

 of his Majesty of Pekin. 



People wondered why the lady should take so much trouble to prove 

 points that nobody doubted ; and the result of this superfluous trouble 

 was that they began to doubt. But there was something more than met 

 the ear. Lord Byron had been so long known to indulge himself, with- 

 out any kind of ceremony, in any pursuit that amused his tastes, good 

 or bad, that people had begun to think no more of vices, which, as he 

 never took the slightest trouble to conceal them ; deprived scandal of all 

 the piquancy belonging to a secret. It was at length said, that his lordship 

 was not worse than nine-tenths of our spoiled children of rank, nor half 

 so bad as some who had been cabinet ministers. But this vindicatory 

 letter seemed to strike some blows on his reputation severer than even 

 common scandal had ever menaced; and there were hints of crimes 

 which, according to the common conception of such matters, would 

 have fitted his lordship less for the House of Peers than for the 

 gallows. We by no means desire to worm out secrets of this nature ; but 

 the general impression of the public certainly is, that the mysterious 

 crime, which her ladyship could not communicate to her own mother, 

 but which she finally dropped in the judicial ear of Doctor Lushington, 

 was any thing but an every day offence. 



However, bad as the business looked, the public were weary of 

 the perpetual harping on " My daughter!" the follies of Byron the 

 wrongs of his lady and the rustic virtues of Sir Ralph and Lady 

 Milbanke. The thing was fairly yawned away, when Campbell took it 

 up, and flung the ball before the public again. We give a few extracts 

 from his letter : 



" You speak," says Campbell, " Mr. Moore, against Lord Byron's 

 censurers in a tone of indignation which is perfectly lawful towards 

 calumnious traducers, but which will not terri/y 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 your- 

 self by your voluntary ig norn nee of" facts known to me for you might 

 and ought to have known both sides of the question ; and if the subject 



M. M. New Series. VOL. IX. No. 53. 3 U 



