which the infamy,' or the 'sin,' or the crime,' whatever it was (or was not) could have been 'revealed' or 'disclosed,' and she left him complaining of no immorality, but of ill-treatment, within nine months from their first coming to town. If this statement emanates from Lady Byron what are we to think of her? If from Mrs. Stowe what are we to think of her? But this is not all. When she left, she remained, as we have shown, in friendly correspondence with the lady who is now so foully slandered; and remained in correspondence with her until her death. It will be observed there is no statement of any proof or evidence of the charge. Mrs. Stowe says merely : Lord Byron argued his case with her: he asserted the right of every human being to follow out what he called the impulse of nature. Subsequently he introduced into one of his dramas the reasoning with which he justified himself in incest.1 It is all arguing' and 'reasoning;' and the last line is rather put as an inference from the supposed justification of incest in the poem. It may mean no more than that Lady Byron or Mrs. Stowe conceived that the poem justified incest, and rushed to the conclusion that this was the crime of which he was guilty. But even if it does mean that Lady Byron said that he had lived in incest, what does that amount to but a mere accusation; and where on earth is the evidence of it? Many an accusation is false and malicious, and false without being malicious. There is not an atom of evidence of anything of the kind. There is no statement, as is supposed, that Byron ever confessed the fact even to his wife (as if that were probable); nothing of the kind is stated, nor is any single fact stated whence guilt could be inferred. Macmillan's Magazine, p. 388. VOL. LXXX.-NO. CCCCLXXIX. A respectable legal periodical, the Law Journal, observes very truly: That the accuser is an interested and not a reliable witness, and that she offers no other evidence than her dressed-up recollection of conversations with Lady Byron, and which is indeed no evidence at all, and that Lady Byron's charge is based upon the alleged confession of Byron; that it was natural Lady Byron should, as the separated wife, be mortified and suspicious; that she offers no evidence in support of her suspicions; and that her conduct, as represented by Mrs. Stowe, was not consistent with her alleged belief in the incest of her husband. The Law Journal, however, has been misled by the equivocal style of Mrs. Stowe's article, in which there is no statement of a confession of the crime, though it is so framed as to convey the impression. Let us, however, give the only other two passages which at all touch upon the alleged crime: Lady Byron made but one condition with him, that the unhappy partner of his sins should not follow him out of England, and that the crime or intrigue should be given up. sepa dition with him except that of Utterly untrue; she made no conration from herself. She says so herself: When it was distinctly notified to Lord Byron that if he persisted in his refusal [to execute the deed] recourse must be had to legal measures, he agreed to sign a deed of separation.2 That was all Lady Byron enforced; separation from herself. So far from exacting separation from his sister, she left his sister with him and corresponded with her in confidential terms until the separation between her husband and herself, and to the end of her life. It is impossible, therefore, that Lady Byron ever stated what Mrs. Stowe has written. But let us come to the last passage upon the subject of this abominable charge. 2 Moore, vi. app. 279. X X This is the sort of language one would use of one of the unfortunates who had become a Magdalen, and it is the language in which we are led to suppose Lady Byron spoke of Mrs. Leigh, a married lady who was living with her husband at the time and had a family, all apparently born in wedlock, and with whom Lady Byron was in friendly correspondence from the time she left her husband's house until that lady died! But there is something worse. There is this sentence added, and it is the last upon the subject of the specific charge: There was an unfortunate child of sin born with the curse upon her, over whose wretched nature Lady Byron watched with a mother's tenderness, and never gave over until death took the responsibility from her hands." 3 In other words, a child of Mrs. Leigh, the sister, left with Lady Byron (at what time and at what age is not stated) to be taken care of! A contemporary has put the extravagance of this supposition point so clearly and forcibly, that we will extract the passage: Mrs. Leigh-who, by the way, was five years older than Byron-was married in 1807, had several children by her husband, and was living with him as his wife during the years of her brother's courtship and marriage. If, therefore, Mrs. Leigh had had a child within the period stated, it would have been putatively and legally the child of her husband, Colonel Leigh; and there seems no conceivable reason why this child should have been brought up as the illegitimate offspring of Lord Byron. Colonel Leigh attained a mature age, and his wife died in 1851, in St. James's Palace, where apartments had been assigned to her. Under these circumstances it is needless to say, that if Mrs. Leigh had an illegitimate child, the fact was unknown to the world and to her husband. Yet, taking Mrs. Stowe's statements for granted, we are asked to believe, either that Mrs. Leigh, being the mother of a child by her own brother, had called attention to the dreadful secret by not having the child brought up as born in lawful wedlock, or else, that she wantonly and needlessly confided the tale of its true parentage to Lady Byron. Either supposition is so extravagant that we must decline to accept it without absolute proof.“ But still further, Mrs. Stowe does not state plainly that Lady Byron told her any one distinct fact, nor told her any part of what she has stated. She says, indeed, 'Lady Byron recounted the history which has been embodied in this article, and gave to the writer a paper containing a brief memorandum of the whole, with the dates affixed." But the phrase 'history embodied in this article' is so vague that it may apply to the general account of Byron's life and conduct, which, no doubt, is founded on fact, with the single exception of this particular matter, as to which Lady Byron is nowhere said to have stated it. That she could not have stated it consistently with truth has been proved out of her own mouth. But there is the strongest proof remaining under her own handwriting that she never did or could have stated anything of the kind. For Lord Wentworth writes: This About three years ago, a manuscript in Lady Noel Byron's handwriting was found among her papers, giving an account of some circumstances connected with her marriage, and apparently intended for publication after her death; but, as this seemed not quite certain, no decision as to its publication was come to. statement, in Lady Byron's own handwriting, does not contain any accusation of So grave a nature as that which Mrs. Stowe asserts was told her; and Mrs. Stowe's story of the separation is inconsistent with what I have seen in various letters, &c., of Lady Byron's. Lord Lindsay calls this decisive, and we should think most people 1 Macmillan's Magazine, p. 393: Who, by the bye, has left two daughters, both living. Was Mrs. Stowe aware of this? Daily Telegraph. 2 Ibid. 393. • Macmillan's Magazine, p. 355. will think it is so; showing that Lady Byron never could have made such a statement, but that if she made it, then that it was not true. Whether or not she made it, we venture to think that we have proved out of her own acts and words that it is not true in fact. We have shown out of Lady Byron's own mouth, by her own conduct and her own acts, that it was not true, that she did not and could not know it, that she could not even have believed it, for that her conduct was not consistent with any such belief; and that, on the contrary, she gave a totally different account at the time, and put her separation on a totally different ground. Therefore we say she never could have made this statement; and in vindicating him we have also vindicated her. As we have shown the perfect consistency of Lady Byron's undoubted statements with the view we have here presented, so it is equally supported, with remarkable consistency, by every line Lord Byron ever wrote upon the subject, from first to last, either in his letters or his poems. The readers of his poetry are well aware of numerous passages in which he bewails, with bitter self-reproach, the faults arising from want of early discipline, and admits the retribution would have been just, Had it but been from hands less dear; and had it been less rancorous, and not by means of a cruel silence which exposed him to suspicions far worse than the reality— Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre, Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now, the late remorse of love. And let us now turn to the deathbed of the dying poet, and see what yearnings of affection and tenderness he gave utterance to with his latest breath. We will close with the passage in which Lord Lindsay concludes his admirable letter on behalf of Lord Byron: His dying words to Fletcher, as recorded by that faithful old servant and friend, show that Lady Byron, his daughter, and his sister engrossed-with no guilty dis-. tinction or remembrance the tenderest emotions of his heart when passing, at that supreme moment, through the deep waters of his last affliction:-Oh! my poor, dear child!'-such is the simple record-'my dear Ada. My God! could I but have seen her. Give her my blessing, and my dear sister Augusta and her children; and you will go to Lady Byron and say-tell her everything; you are friends with her.' His lordship made several efforts to speak, but could only repeat two or three words at a time, such as My wife! my child! my sister! you know all-you must say allyou know my wishes.' The rest was quite unintelligible. NOTE.Since the above was in type we have seen the admirable article in the Quarterly on the subject: written evidently by one who has had access to the best sources of information, and who has taken a view very much resembling our own, only followed out far more fully and elaborately: the basis of it being the acts and words and conduct of the parties at the time. We are happy to have had the opportunity of adding this brief notice of so able and exhaustive a confirmation of the view which we have ventured to take. COM JABEZ OLIPHANT; OR, THE MODERN PRINCE. BOOK IV.-MR. OLIPHANT DEPOSED. CHAPTER I. MR. OLIPHANT TAKES FURTHER PROCEEDINGS AGAINST JOHN HAWTREY. YOMPLETELY successful in alienating the common people, Mr. Oliphant for the future turned his arms mainly against the aristocracy of his little empire. It is always necessary,' says Machiavelli, 'to live with the same people; but a prince has no occasion to continue the same set of nobles, whom he can at pleasure disgrace or honour, elevate or destroy.' If Jabez could not take vengeance on the whole neighbourhood for the late proceedings, he thought he could at any rate punish their prime author, John Hawtrey, and for this purpose he seized on a malicious report first originated by the three Saints of Stainton. In starting a slander, these ladies had always shown a skill which was only matched by their ingenuity in keeping it afoot. They were not bad-hearted people; but with them, and therefore with the majority of the Stainton world (for at Reinsber their influence had waned, as we saw, before the rising star of Oliphant), there was always at any given time some one person who like the king could do no wrong, and some one else who served as a sort of foil to the other, and was an incarnation of all the vices. The first was usually a pet curate, some silky-mannered and bland-spoken man, who was also required (for the Saints were strict as to his qualifications) to be young and unmarried, to have a good figure and a handsome face, and to possess unlimited powers of endurance in the way of being stroked, purred round and adored; other points, such as sincerity, zeal or abilities, were of comparatively small importance, and it was really touching to see out of what extraordinary materials the ladies sometimes contrived to make their male-Madonna. The set-off to the reigning favourite was generally to be found in a candid, blunt, or impetuous man, to whom for some reason or no reason at all, except perhaps that he tried to go his own way re gardless of the world or of them, they had taken a decided dislike. The poor scapegoat had a rather hard time of it. If he went to church less frequently than the old maids, he was a godless infidel who did not care for sacred things; if he went oftener, he was a hypocritical Pharisee; if he went just the same number of times as themselves, why, they wondered how he could do it. When thrown into their society, if he talked, he was a bear; if he were silent, a bore; while if he took the wiser course and avoided such hostile company altogether, then he was a sour and sullen misanthrope. In the long run, by snubbing him to his face and abusing him behind his back, by calumniating him to the few friends he had, and by setting the whole neighbourhood against him, they generally did him the unintentional service of driving him away to seek a freer atmosphere and kinder judgments elsewhere. As Fothergill used to say, therefore, the Saints were extremely religious, but their religion mainly consisted in having a visible god to worship and a visible devil to hate. Between these two extremes, however, the black and the white, lay the rest of their acquaintance, with all of whose names, by way of a 1869] Mr. Oliphant takes further proceedings against John Hawtrey. 619 change, they made free occasionally, though not persistently. In this intermediate group were Hawtrey and Mrs. Mansfield, and very soon after the latter left the Hall, Miss Beecroft having ascertained from the servants the full details of certain visits of the old schoolmaster, the maiden ladies began to whisper abroad that it was very strange Mr. Hawtrey should be so much at Mrs. Mansfield's; he stayed the other night till eleven o'clock; it seemed very improper and even indelicate; they wondered how a lady of Mrs. Mansfield's good taste could allow him to do so.' By and by 'they had proof positive that there the magnet was not Dora, so it must be Mrs. Mansfield-an old lady of seventyridiculous-shocking!' But their horror reached a climax when Letitia reported that Mrs. Mansfield's servant had actually gone into the room one night and found her mistress seated on the same sofa with the aged widower. From that time, whenever they mentioned the fatal visits, it was with a little shrug of pious abhorrence, more convincing than the direct evidence of a dozen witnesses. The two delinquents, however, had either never heard of the scandal or were resolved to brave it; and as people grow tired of constantly harping on the same topic, the malicious comments of the neighbourhood had almost ceased. About the beginning of December, however, Mr. Oliphant chanced to hear an allusion to the matter, and, though before his correspondence with the schoolmaster he had laughed at the very same thing as absurd tittle-tattle and had forgotten it directly, it now began to assume great proportions in his mind and to appear inexpressibly shocking. Thinking it only generous to give even an enemy the opportunity of reformation before he was publicly exposed, he wrote to Mr. Hawtrey. After protesting that he was actuated only by public and not at all by personal motives, he said it was reported in the village that the schoolmaster frequently stayed at Mrs. Mansfield's till late at night, and had even been surprised when sitting on the same sofa with the lady, and that in consequence grave and most injurious inferences had been drawn, much to his and the lady's prejudice. Jabez begged to be informed if the above particulars were correct, and trusted, if they were, that Mr. Hawtrey would give him an assurance the visits should cease; otherwise he would feel bound, in the interests of morality, justice, and I know not what, to take other steps. Mr. Hawtrey replied that Mr. Oliphant's protestation about his disinterestedness was unnecessary, for it was superfluous to defend what had never been attacked, though it was certainly unfortunate (so far as appearances went) that his regard for morality should have slumbered in this case till there was a dispute between them. But he begged to inform him that the facts, as stated, were perfectly correct, and he did not doubt the old women of the village, male or female, would make excellent capital out of them when subjects were few or talk was dull; further, that if Mr. Oliphant so pleased, he was quite at liberty to draw any inferences he liked from the said facts. As to his own future conduct, however, he intended to visit Mrs. Mansfield that very night, and hoped, in the lack of better matter, to have a good laugh with her over the epistle he had just received from the Hall; and in conclusion, he expressed a pretty strong opinion that it would be as well if Mr. Oliphant, besides attending to the public business, would occasionally mind his own.' Mr. Oliphant indignantly rejoined that it was very well known he had now no business to mind, and |