THE BYRON SCANDAL.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 620, 8 January 1870, Page 4

THE BYRON SCANDAL.

Speaking of Venice, in the fourth canto of Childe Harold, Byron says :■- --• "Statues of glass — all shiver'd — the long tile Of her dead Doges are declined to dust; and the words are applicable to the ghastly array of charges marshalled against the deceased poet by Mrs Beecher Stowe, now that the Quarterly Beview, the natural guardian of his reputation, has spoken the last word on this painful subject. Seven letters are published for the first time from Lady By»on to Mrs Leigh, six of them written after the date of the separation of the former from her husr band. In these, Lady Byron tells Mrs Leigh that "there is no one whose society is dearer to her, or who can contribute more to her happiness ;" says, " you have been, ever since I knew you, my best comforter, and will so remain, unless yon grow tired of the office ;" hopes that the separation from Lord Byron will make no difference in the kindness which Lady Byron has so uniformly experienced from Mrs Leigh, and entreats the latter not to reproach her, adding, "Heaven knows you have considered me more than a -thousand would have' done — more than anything but my afftcAon for 8., one most dear to you, could deserve. 1 must not remember these things. Farewell! God bless you from the bottom of my heart !"' To believe that the writer of these letters suspected her correspondent of incest with her (the writer's) own husband, and that this suspicion had been the cause of their separation, would imply" an amount of credulity that is in itself incredible. Aa the rev.'ewer puts it, "Lady Byron could at first account for her gifted Husband's conduct mno hypothesis but insanity ; and now, by a sort of Nen c is, there is no other hypothesis on which the moralist can charitably account for hers. But there is this marked difference in their maladies, he niorbidly exaggerated his vices, and she her virtues ; Ihj monomania lay in being an impossible sinner, and here in being an impossible saint. He was the faulty, and she the faultless, monster the world ne'er saw."