i Chic To the Editor of The Tribune, Aug 79. CHICAGO, Ang. 5.-THE TRIBUNE of this morning brings us the correspondence between Lady Byron and her sister-in-law, which seems to dispose of Mrs. Stowe's theory of the Byron separation; and one feels, in advance, the stream of obloquy which is to be poured upon this lady. Thousands will condemn, and few consider the circumstances under which she wrote; but fair play" requires that these should not be overlooked. Lord Byron, his wife, and their friends chose to get up a grand mystery,-a mystery certain to pique curiosity to the utmost, and one which left some person to bear a load of guilt. While he lived, the weight of public sentiment was against him; and this sentiment aided to circumscribe the pernicious influence of his pernicious works. After his death, the tide turned, and Lady Byron became the scapegoat. She had become prominent as a friend to Liberty and the cause of emancipation for the American slave; but the stain resting upon her as an unfaithful wife was a large discount on the value of her adherence to any cause,-nay, served to cast ridicule and obloquy upon it. I for one remember the sneers of the Pro-Slavery party of this country hurled at Abolition through Lady Byron. Mrs. Stowe and her family were late converts to the Anti-Slavery cause, and brought into it the zeal of late converts. Mrs. Stowe, as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin," became its representative. As such, sue was received in England; and became intimately acquainted with Lady Byron, who requested a private interview, and, in her own chamber, on her sick bed, with all the solemnities of a death-bed confession, explained the cause of that separation over which "All the world wondered." This cause was a complete vindication of Lady Byron, the friend of the slave, the Christian woman, the active representative of all benevolent enterprises; and lett all the blame with Lord Byron, the persistent corrupter of public morals, the scoffer at religion, the unquestioned debauche. Lady Byron not only made this astounding revelation, but accompanied it with a solemn injunction that her listeuer should do her that justice after her death waich she had never claimed during her life. This certainly placed Mrs. Stowe in a very peculiar position; and it seems to me to be a gross injustice to charge her with willful slander, and all the other dreadful accusations which have already been heared upon her head, and which are now likely to be piled up mountain-high. I cannot for one moment doubt the truth of Mrs. Stowe's statement, so far as her own personal knowledge goes; cannot doubt that Lady Byron told her the tale just as she says she did. No one suspected Mrs. Stowe of insanity at that time; she never had delirium-tremens; and nothing short of actual madness could have induced her to manufacture that story. Nay, more-it does not seem possible that anything short of a profound conviction of duty could have induced her to repeat it. Mrs. Stowe's life ought to lift her above the suspicion of manufacturing any slander,-much more one so gross, so monstrous, so revolting as this. She must baye believed the story,must have felt a solemn obligation to divulge the secret confided to her for the purpose of being divulged. It is true that few people would have consented, under any circumstances, to have performed so revolting a service; but Harriet Beecher Stowe had upheaved the great slimepit of American Slavery, and dragged into the light of the shuddering day crimes immeasurably more gross than that charged on Byron; and a people, a world, which tolerated, and legalized, and covered with the robes of secular law and of the Christian religion the concubinage and incest openly practiced in all our Southera States need not have been so very much shocked at Mrs. Stowe's lack of delicacy in making that revelation. If the American people had not prepared her for that kind of work, by breeding the slimy monsters with which she was then engaged in fierce encounter, she would probably have shruuk from Lady Byron's appeal, like any walk other fine lady whose business it is to through this valley of slime-pits, prattling about flowers, while thousands all around her are sinking to rise no more. I believe Lady Byron told Mrs. Stowe just what she says she did, and nothing she may have written, either before or after, could change this belief. She may have been insane when she told the story; it may have been the talk of a monomaniac; but how could Mrs. Stowe know this? Every life is full of contradictions; but it is much easier to reconcile the letters of Lady Byron to Mrs. Leigh with her afterwards making the most terrible charge against her, than to reconcile the life and character of Mrs. Stowe with the manufacture and publication of so revolting a slander. The world owes Harriet Beecher Stowe too much to turn and trample her name in the dust to save the inysterious Lady Byrou from a charge of inconsistency. If she bad not been a sentimental simpleton, she would have given her reasons for her conduct. The public are supposed to be interested in the marriage of every citizen; and demand reasons for the violation of a contract to which the State is a party. No man liveth to himself"; and no one can form or break a marriage-contract without mak ing the Commonwealth a party to his act. England and the world had a right to know why Lady Byron broke her marriage-vow; and the fine-lady sentimentality which denied that kuowledge is sufficiently indicative of weakness to warrant the belief that whatever falsehood there is in this case lies with her; and that Mrs. Stowe simply made a conscientious blunder in complying with her request and attempting her vindication. She might have known that one too cowardly to vindicate herself in life was not worth vindication after death. JANE GREY SWISSHELM. 1 JUST PUBLISHED. THE ADVENTURES OF CALEB WILLIAM S. BY WILLIAM GODWIN. 8vo, paper, price 50 cents. Readers of "LADY BYRON VINDICATED" will be interested in this famous novel, to which reference is frequently made by Mrs. Stowe. [See pages 243, 343, and 364, of the present volume.] Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price by the Publishers, FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., Boston. |