Notes and Queries/Series 5/Volume 11/Number 279/The Byron Separation
Replies.
THE BYRON SEPARATION.
(5th S. xi. 266, 311.)
The question of the Byron separation has had much new light thrown upon it by the recent publication of Mr. Hodgson’s Memoirs, and as some correspondence has recently been carried on in the columns of “N. & Q.” on this subject, I imagine the subjoined document may be considered worthy of being again recorded. It was originally published by one of your contemporaries (Oct., 1869), but appears to have escaped the notice of many who are interested in all matters relating to Lord Byron.
This statement (the original autograph of which is in the possession of Mr. Murray) was drawn up by Lord Byron in August, 1817, while Mr. Hobhouse was staying with him at La Mira, near Venice, and was given by him to Mr. Matthew Gregory Lewis (commonly known as “Monk” Lewis), among whose papers it was found at the time of his death:—
“It has been intimated to me, that the persons understood to be the legal advisers of Lady Byron, have declared ‘their lips to be sealed up’ on the cause of the separation between her and myself. If their lips are sealed up, they are not sealed up by me, and the greatest favour they can confer upon me will be to open them. From the first hour in which I was apprized of the intentions of the Noel family to the last communication between Lady Byron and myself in the character of wife and husband (a period of some months) I called repeatedly and in vain for a statement of their or her charges, and it was chiefly in consequence of Lady Byron’s claiming (in a letter still existing) a promise on my part to consent to a separation if such was really her wish, that I consented at all; this claim and the exasperating and inexpiable manner in which their object was pursued, which rendered it next to an impossibility that two persons so divided could ever be re-united, induced me reluctantly then, and repentantly still, to sign the deed, which I shall be happy—most happy—to cancel, and go before any tribunal which may discuss the business in the most public manner.
“Mr. Hobhouse made this proposition on my part, viz. to abrogate all prior intentions—and go into Court—the very day before the separation was signed, and it was declined by the other party, as also the publication of the correspondence during the previous discussion. Those propositions I beg here to repeat, and to call upon her and hers to say their worst, pledging myself to meet their allegations—whatever they may be—and only too happy to be informed at last of their real nature.
“August 9, 1817.
“P.S. I have been, and am now, utterly ignorant of what description her allegations, charges, or whatever name they may have assumed, are; and am as little aware for what purpose they have been kept back—unless it was to sanction the most infamous calumnies by silence.
“La Mira, near Venice.”
The purport of this document was reiterated by Byron verbally to friends, and has never been contradicted. J. M., Jun.
The version said to have been given by Mrs. Morrell of the separation of Lord and Lady Byron recalls to me a passage in Medwin’s Conversations of Lord Byron, pp. 42–3. Conversing with Capt. Medwin, Byron says:—
“I have prejudices about women: I do not like to see them eat. Rousseau makes Julie un peu gourmande; but that is not at all according to my taste. I do not like to be interrupted when I am writing. Lady Byron did not attend to these whims of mine. The only harsh thing I ever remember saying to her was one evening shortly before our parting. I was standing before the fire, ruminating upon the embarrassment of my affairs and other annoyances, when Lady Byron came up to me and said, ‘Byron, am I in your way?’ To which I replied, ‘Damnably!’ I was afterwards sorry, and reproached myself for the expression: but it escaped me unconsciously—involuntarily; I hardly knew what I said.”
Without more information on the point, it is difficult to know whether to take Mrs. Morrell’s statement as a corroboration of the above or as simply a repetition of it. Medwin’s Conversations were published in 1824, the year of Byron’s death, and it is not at all unlikely that this old servant of Lady Byron’s family, who may naturally be supposed to have interested herself in the circumstances of the separation, either read or heard related the incident above mentioned. The “standing before the fire ruminating” of Byron, and the “leaning against the mantelpiece” of Mrs. Morrell, are to me wonderfully suggestive of a common origin. J. Russell.
Galashiels, N.B.