Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/681

Rh sensitiveness to the impressions of the present which was the secret of much of the weakness of his character and much of the power of his poetry.

In November 1813 Byron proposed for the hand of Miss Milbanke, only daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke, a wealthy baronet, and granddaughter and heiress of Lord Wentworth, "an eligible party," he owned in a letter to Moore, though he "did not address her with these views." His suit was rejected, but she expressed a desire to correspond with him. In September 1814 he made another proposal, which was accepted, and the marriage took place on January 2, 1815. On 10th December a daughter, named Augusta Ida, was born. On 15th January 1816 Lady Byron left her husband's house in London on a visit to her father at Kirkby Mallory. On the way she wrote an affectionate letter to Byron, beginning "Dear Duck," and signed "Your Pippin." A few days after he heard from her father that she had resolved never to return to him, and this intelligence was soon confirmed by a letter from herself. In the course of next month a formal deed of separation was drawn up and signed. This is Moore's account of the affair. Lady Byron's account, published on the appearance of Moore's Life, differs chiefly as regards the part taken by her parents in bringing about the separation. Byron suspected her mother's influence. Lady Byron took the whole responsibility on herself. Before she left town she thought Byron mad, and consulted Dr Baillie. Dr Baillie persuaded her that this was an illusion. She then told her parents that she desired a separation. The grounds on which she desired this were submitted by her mother to Dr Lushington, who wrote that they justified a separation, but advised a reconciliation. Then Lady Byron had an interview with Dr Lushington, and communicated certain facts, after which he declared a reconciliation impossible. A celebrated living authoress, who was slightly acquainted with Lady Byron, has, it is well known, made a definite statement on this subject, implicating a member of Lord Byron's own family. It is enough, however, to say that there is no evidence in support of the statement, and that it is virtually contradicted by Lady Byron's own behaviour, as she remained on intimate terms with the relative referred to after the separation from her husband.

The real causes of the separation between Byron and his wife must always remain more or less matter of debate, no absolute proof being possible, and disputants reasoning on the presumptions according to temperament and prepossession. Byron's own statement that "the causes were too simple ever to be found out," probably comes nearest the truth. That their tempers were incompatible, that without treating her with deliberate cruelty he tried her forbearance in many ways, and behaved as no husband ought to do, that for her own happiness she had every reason to demand a separation, will readily be believed. After his marriage a huge accumulation of debtors began to press their claims; no less than nine executions were put in force in his house during the year; and Byron, under the indignities to which he had daily to submit, acted with an insane violence which might have justified any woman in believing that she was not safe under the same roof with him. It would have required a very peculiar temper to be compatible with his under the circumstances. A placid, good-tempered woman, with strong good sense, and a boundless affection, which could forget and forgive his most unreason able outbreaks, might have lived with him happily enough, finding in his sunny moods of playfulness and endearment ample compensation for his fits of gloominess and violence. But Lady Byron was very far from being a woman of that mould. A wife who could coldly ask Byron "when he meant to give up his bad habit of making verses," possessed a terrible power of annoying such a man; her perfect self-command and imperturbable outward serenity, her power of never forgetting an injury and taking revenge with angelic sweetness and apparent innocence of vindictive intention, must have been maddening. The serene way in which she clung to and promoted the maid, Mrs Clermont, in the face of Byron's intolerable dislike to the woman, was gall and wormwood to him. An even-tempered man might have lived with such a person comfortably on terms of mutual politeness; but for a haughty-tempered, violent, fitful, moody man it would have been impossible to find a more incompatible partner.

Why, at the time of the separation, did not the public look upon Byron and his wife as simply an ill-assorted pair who could not agree, and were better to separate 1 From the first it was rumoured that Lady Byron refused to tell the cause of their separation, whence the public naturally inferred that it must be too terrible to be revealed, and busied themselves inventing and circulating crimes of suitable magnitude. Retribution fell upon Byron for his identifying himself with crime-stained buccaneers. The publication, by an indiscreet friend, of his Farewell to Lady Byron, and the verses entitled A Sketch, let loose the flood-gates of popular indignation in the press. On the Fareivell indeed, there was some difference of opinion. A lady correspondent of the Courier declared that "if her husband had bidden her such a farewell she could not have helped running into his arms and being reconciled immediately." If Lady Byron had been such a woman we have no right to blame her because she was not the separation, in all probability, would never have taken place. The vast majority in English society resented the publication of the Farewell as an unworthy attempt to put his wife in the wrong, by holding up her unforgiving temper for public reprobation. We now know that the Farewell was written in all sincerity and bitterness of heart, with the tears falling on the paper as he wrote, and that it was published by the indiscreet zeal of a friend to whom he had sent the verses. The fierce attack upon Mrs Clermont in the Sketch was universally condemned as unmanly. The two poems are chiefly interesting now as showing the poet's ungovernable incontinence, his passionate craving for sympathy, and the utter distemper of his mind in the bewilderment of misfortune.

Byron took final leave of England in April 1816. From that date the external events of his life, down to his memorable interference in the cause of Greek independence present comparatively little variety, and excite comparatively little interest. Nothing occurred after this to give a new turn or a new colour to his poetic career; the powerful influences which had conspired to torture music out of him were modified by the lapse of time, but very little, if at all, by the incidents of his life. The bitter feelings with which he left England, the angry sense of injustice and spirit of proud and revengeful defiance, alternating hysterically with humble self-reproach and generous forgive ness, passed into lighter forms, but they never ceased to rankle. Like Manfred, he asked in vain for oblivion.

In the thick of his troubles, before leaving England, Byron conceived that he had never been "in a situation so completely uprooting of present pleasure, or rational life for the future." But his going abroad was really a most fortunate step both for his happiness and for the exercise of his genius. Abroad he consented to the sale of Newstead, and his income enabled him to live without being subject to the constant indignities which were such a torture to him at home. There also he found the solitude which he had always desired. "Society," he wrote in a letter to Moore, "as now constituted, is fatal to all great original undertakings of every kind," and in his case certainly this was true. His first place of residence abroad was Diodati, Rh