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CHAPTER V.

WHILE Lord Byrou was thus adding to his poetical reputation his domestic affairs became gradually more embroiled. From little dissensions complaints and altercations arose; and, without venturing to say whether the fault was on the one side or on the other-or, as is more probable, because it is more common in the disputes of married folks that the blame should be equally divided between both parties, certain it is that a very considerable share of discord prevailed.

The intervention of friends was talked of, but it was not resorted to. The quarrels were sometimes made up, and sometimes they continued for longer or shorter periods, until Lady Byron's accouchement, which took place at the close of the year in which they were married.

Lord Byron had become concerned in the management of the Drury Lane theatre during the time that a committee of noblemen and gentlemen thought they would be able to conduct it. This was very much as if they had set up the trade of making shoes, and they probably knew as much of the one as the other: some of them (for Mr. Peter Moore was among the number) might have been even better qualified for the latter than for that task which he so rashly undertook. Every body knows that a short period sufficed to dissipate the money of the unlucky subscribers, and to make the committee themselves ashamed of their folly. Lord Byron was among the first to get tired, and renounce the honorable post he had assumed; but not before he had done to his. own happiness a wrong far less likely to be repaired than the bankruptcy which he and his wise co-mates had brought upon the affairs of the theatre. A playhouse, like misery, acquaints a man with strange bedfellows ;' and no man can haunt the green-rooms and the coulisses without falling into very bad company. Lord Byron made some acquaintances at Drury Lane, whom, in a moment of indiscretion, he was thoughtless enough to invite to his own house. It is true that this invitation was given and accepted just at the period, when Lady Byron was confined to her chamber: it was of course im · possible that she could have come in contact with her husband's guests; and, rash and inexcusable as his conduct was, it is quite certain that he never meant she should be acquainted with the circumstance. It was, however, repeated to her with a great many exaggerations. A mere frolic-no doubt a very foolish one, and conceived in the worst possible

taste--was magnified into a premeditated outrage on the decency and decorum of Lady Byron's home. It was represented to her that her lord, not content with indulging his taste for certain companions of a very questionable character, brought them, as it were, insultingly under his lady's nose; and, in short, all that malice and falsehood could invent were brought in to the aid of persons, who, for some reason or other, were assiduously employed to effect a breach between Lord and Lady Byron.

These attempts, unfortunately for the noble pair, succeeded ton well. Lady Byron would not forgive the last affront, which she was made to believe had been stu liously offered to her; but she was too proud to complain of it. The pecuniary difficulties continued, and it was agreed that her ladyship should go into the country to her father's seat, on her recovery from her confinement, and pass there a short time, until some arrangements for the payment of his lordship's debts, which were then in progress, should be completed. This agreement was carried into effect without either of the parties, or, at all events, without Lord Byron's expecting that their parting on the occasion was to be for any long period-still less that it was to be, as it turned out, for ever.

Her ladyship went to her father's house with her infaut. On the road she wrote to Lord Byron one of those letters which the occasion commanded; and which was quite cordial, if not very passionately fond, and was, perhaps, therefore, at once the more sincere and the more sensible. Soon after her arrival, however, at the place of her destination, a very different impression seemed to have been made on her. A formal complaint was made of his lordship's conduct all his faults and errors, and follies, were drawn out in regular catalogue, and laid before some friends of the family (damned good-natured friends,' Sir Fretful Plagiary calls them) to advise upon.

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It can answer no good purpose at this time to penetrate further into the progress of this painful affair, in which the conduct of neither party seems to have been very wise. The final result was a proposal for a separation, which Lord Byron acceded to. Deeds were drawn up to specify the terms upon which this married pair should for the future live asunder, and they parted never to meet again.

Lord Byron believed-and he continued in that belief to the end of his life—that, although his lady had been more unforgiving than he had expected to find her, and than perhaps his faults, even in the worst shape that was imputed to them, had deserved, yet she was induced to continue in this uncharitable temper in consequence of the

falsehoods and the mischievous influence of some person, whose name it is not worth while to inquire into.

This is the person whom his lordship had in view in the following satire :

A SKETCH.

Honest-honest Iago!

If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.'

SHAKSPEARE.

Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;
Next for some gracious service unexprest,
And from its wages only to be guessed—
Raised from the toilet to the table,-where
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair.
With eye unmoved, and forehead unabashed,
She dines from off the plate she lately washed.
Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie-
The genial confidante, and general spy-
Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess?-
An only infant's earliest governess!

She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself, by teaching, learned to spell.
An adept next in penmanship she grows,
As many a nameless slander deftly shows:
What she had made the pupil of her art

None know-but that high Soul secured the heart,
And panted for the truth it could not hear

With longing breast and undeluded ear.

Foiled was perversion by that youthful mind,
Which Flattery fooled not-Baseness could not bliud-
Deceit infect not-near Contagion soil-

Indulgence weaken-nor Example spoil

Nor mastered Science tempt her to look down
On humbler talents with a pitying frown-
Nor Genius swell-nor Beauty render vain-

Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain

Nor Fortune change-Pride raise-nor Passion bow,
Nor Virtue teach austerity-till now.

Serenely purest of her sex that live,

But wanting one sweet weakness-to forgive:

Too shocked at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below:
Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue's friend,
For Virtue pardons those she would amend.

But to the theme :-now laid aside too long
The baleful burden of this honest song-
Though all her former functions are no more,
She rules the circle which she served before.
If mothers-none know why-before her quake;
If daughters dread her for the mothers' sake;
If early habits-those false links, which bind
At times the loftiest to the meanest mind-
Have given her power too deeply to instil
The angry essence of her deadly will;
If like a snake she steal within your walls,
Till the black slime betray her as she crawls;
If like a viper to the heart she wind,

And leave the venom there she did not find;
What marvel that this hag of hatred works
Eternal evil latent as she lurks,

To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,
And reign the Hecate of domestic hells?
Skilled by a touch to deepen scandal's tints
With all the kind mendacity of hints

While mingling truth with falsehood-sneers with smilesA thread of candour with a web of wiles;

A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming,

To hide her bloodless heart's soul-hardened scheming ;
A lip of lies-a face formed to conceal;
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel:
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown;
A cheek of parchment-and an eye of stone.
Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud,
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,
Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale-
(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace
Congenial colours in that soul or face)-
Look on her features! and behold her mind
As in a mirror of itself defined:

Look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged-
There is no trait which might not be enlarged:
Yet true to Nature's journeymen,' who made
This monster when their mistress left off trade,
This female dog-star of her little sky,
Where all beneath her influence droop or die.

Oh! wretch without a tear-without a thought,
Save joy above the ruin thou hast wrought-
The time shall come, nor long remote, when thou
Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now;
Feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain,
And turn thee howling in unpitied pain.

May the strong curse of crushed affections light
Back on thy bosom with reflected blight!
And make thee in thy leprosy of mind
As loathsome to thyself as to mankind!
Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate,
Black-as thy will for others would create:
Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust,
And thy soul welter in its hideous crust!
Oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed-

The widowed couch of fire-that thou hast spread !

Then, when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with prayer,
Look on thine earthly victims-and despair!!

Down to the dust!-and, as thou rott'st away,
E'en worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.
But for the love I bore, and still must bear,
To her thy malice from all ties would tear,
Thy name-thy human name-to every cyc
The climax of all scorn, should hang on high,
Exalted o'er thy less abhorred compeers,

And festering in the infamy of years.

Some of the newspapers took a very unwarrantable and indecent part in this domestic quarrel, and, without knowing any thing of the affair, presumed to censure one or the other party as their caprice dictated. The editor of The Morning Chronicle,' among others, took up the cudgels for Lord Byron, and seemed to think that he served the nobleman whom he condescended to patronise by obscurely hinting that Lady Byron was chiefly, if not alone, to be blamed in the dispute. If Lord Byron had really disclosed any of his domestic

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