Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/145

 Halnaby and previously, is that Lady Byron arrived there in a state ‘buoyant and cheerful;’ but that Byron's ‘irregularities’ began there and caused her misery, which she tried to conceal from her mother. Lady Byron also wrote to Hodgson (15 Feb. 1816) that Byron had married her ‘with the deepest determination of revenge, avowed on the day of my marriage and executed ever since with systematic and increasing cruelty’ (Byron contradicts some report to this effect to Medwin, p. 39). The letters written at the time, however, hardly support these statements. Byron speaks of his happiness to Moore, though he is terribly bored by his ‘pious father-in-law’ (see a reference to this in, i. 72). Lady Milbanke speaks of their happiness at Seaham (Bland-Burgess Papers, p. 339). Mrs. Leigh tells Hodgson that Lady Byron's parents were pleased with their son-in-law, and reports favourably of the pair on their visit to Six Mile Bottom. In April Lord Wentworth died. The bulk of his property was settled upon Lady Milbanke (who, with her husband, now took the name of Noel) and Lady Byron. On 29 July 1815 Byron executed the will proved after his death. He left all the property of which he could dispose in trust for Mrs. Leigh and her children, his wife and any children he might have by her being now amply provided for. Lady Byron fully approved of this provision, and communicates it in an affectionate letter to Mrs. Leigh.

Harness says that when the Byrons first came to London no couple could be apparently more devoted (, p. 14); but troubles approached. Byron's expenses were increased. He had agreed to sell Newstead for 140,000l. in September 1812; but two years later the purchaser withdrew, forfeiting 25,000l., which seems to have speedily vanished. In November 1815 Byron had to sell his library, though he still declined Murray's offers for his copyrights. Creditors (at whose expense this questionable delicacy must have been exercised) dunned the husband of an heiress, and there were nine executions in his house within the year. He found distractions abroad. He was a zealous playgoer; Kean's performance of Sir Giles Overreach gave him a kind of convulsive fit—a story which recalls his mother's at the Edinburgh theatre, and of the similar effect afterwards produced upon himself by Alfieri's ‘Mirra’ (, chap. xxii.). He became member of the committee of management of Drury Lane, and was brought into connections of which Moore says that they gave no real cause of offence, though the circumstances were dangerous to the ‘steadiness of married life.’ We hear, too, of parties where all ended in ‘hiccup and happiness;’ and it seems that Byron's dislike of seeing women eat led to a separation at the domestic board. The only harsh action to which he confessed was that Lady Byron once came upon him when he was musing over his embarrassments and asked ‘Am I in your way?’ to which he replied ‘Damnably’ (, p. 43).

On 10 Dec. 1815 Lady Byron gave birth to her only child, Augusta Ada. On 6 Jan. 1816 Byron gave directions to his wife ‘in writing’ to leave London as soon as she was well enough. It was agreed, he told Medwin (p. 40), that she should stay with her father till some arrangement had been made with the creditors. On 8 Jan. Lady Byron consulted Dr. Baillie, ‘with the concurrence of his family,’ that is, apparently, Mrs. Leigh and his cousin, George Byron, with whom she constantly communicated in the following period. Dr. Baillie, on her expressing doubts of Byron's sanity, advised her absence as an ‘experiment.’ He told her to correspond with him on ‘light and soothing’ topics. She even believed that a sudden excitement might bring on a ‘fatal crisis.’ She left London on 15 Jan. 1816, reaching her parents at Kirkby Mallory on the 16th. She wrote affectionately to her husband on starting and arriving. The last letter, she says, was circulated to support the charge of desertion. It began, as Byron told Medwin, ‘Dear Duck,’ and was signed by her pet name ‘Pippin’ (, Autobiogr. 1860, pp. 247, 254). She writes to Mrs. Leigh on the same day that she has made ‘the most explicit statement’ to her parents. They are anxious to do everything in their power for the ‘poor sufferer.’ He was to be invited at once to Kirkby Mallory, and her mother wrote accordingly on the 17th. He would probably drop a plan, already formed, for going abroad with Hobhouse on her parents' remonstrance. On 18 Jan. she tells Mrs. Leigh that she hopes that Byron will join her for a time and not leave her till there is a prospect of an heir. Lady Noel has suggested that Mrs. Leigh might dilute a laudanum bottle with water without Byron's knowledge. She still writes as an affectionate wife, hoping that her husband may be cured of insanity. An apothecary, Le Mann, is to see the patient, and Lady Noel will go to London, consult Mrs. Leigh, and procure advice.

The medical advisers could find no proof of insanity, though a list of sixteen symptoms had been submitted to them. The strongest, according to Moore, was the dashing to pieces of a ‘favourite old watch’ in an excess of fury. A similar anecdote (, ii. 6) was told of his throwing a jar of