242—to Lady Caroline Lamb

[August, 1812?]

My Dearest Caroline 1

,—If tears which you saw and know I am not apt to shed,—if the agitation in which I parted from you,—agitation which you must have perceived through the whole of this most nervous affair, did not commence until the moment of leaving you approached,—if all I have said and done, and am still but too ready to say and do, have not sufficiently proved what my real feelings are, and must ever be towards you, my love, I have no other proof to offer. God knows, I wish you happy, and when I quit you, or rather you, from a sense of duty to your husband and mother, quit me, you shall acknowledge the truth of what I again promise and vow, that no other in word or deed, shall ever hold the place in my affections, which is, and shall be, most sacred to you, till I am nothing. I never knew till that moment the madness of my dearest and most beloved friend; I cannot express myself; this is no time for words, but I shall have a pride, a melancholy pleasure, in suffering what you yourself can scarcely conceive, for you do not know me. I am about to go out with a heavy heart, because my appearing this evening will stop any absurd story which the event of the day might give rise to. Do you think now I am cold and stern and artful

? Will even others think so? Will your mother ever—that mother to whom we must indeed sacrifice much, more, much more on my part than she shall ever know or can imagine? "Promise not to love you!" ah, Caroline, it is past promising. But I shall attribute all concessions to the proper motive, and never cease to feel all that you have already witnessed, and more than can ever be known but to my own heart,—perhaps to yours. May God protect, forgive, and bless you. Ever, and even more than ever,

Your most attached,

Byron.

P. S.—These taunts which have driven you to this, my dearest Caroline, were it not for your mother and the kindness of your connections, is there anything on earth or heaven that would have made me so happy as to have made you mine long ago? and not less now than then, but more than ever at this time. You know I would with pleasure give up all here and all beyond the grave for you, and in refraining from this, must my motives be misunderstood? I care not who knows this, what use is made of it,—it is to you and to you only that they are yourself (sic). I was and am yours freely and most entirely, to obey, to honour, love,—and fly with you when, where, and how you yourself might and may determine.

Footnote 1:

  Lady Caroline's infatuation for Byron, expressed in various ways—once (in July, 1813) by a self-inflicted stab with a table-knife, or a broken glass—became the talk of society.

"Your little friend, Caro William," writes the Duchess of Devonshire, May 4, 1812, "as usual, is doing all sorts of imprudent things for him and with him."

Again she writes, six days later, of Byron:

"The ladies, I hear, spoil him, and the gentlemen are jealous of him. He is going back to Naxos, and then the husbands may sleep in peace. I should not be surprised if Caro William were to go with him, she is so wild and imprudent" (The Two Duchesses, pp. 362, 364). But Lady Caroline's extravagant adoration wearied Byron, who felt that it made him ridiculous; Lady Melbourne gave him sound advice about her daughter-in-law; and he was growing attached to Miss Milbanke, and, when rejected by her, at first to Lady Oxford, and later to Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster. When Lady Bessborough endeavoured to persuade her daughter to leave London for Ireland, Lady Caroline is said to have forced herself into Byron's room, and implored him to fly with her. Byron refused, conducted her back to Melbourne House, wrote her the letter printed above, and, as she herself admits, kept the secret. In December, 1812, Lady Caroline burned Byron in effigy, with "his book, ring, and chain," at Brocket Hall. The lines which she wrote for the ceremony are preserved in Mrs. Leigh's handwriting, and given in Appendix III, 2.

From Ireland Lady Caroline continued the siege, threatening to follow him into Herefordshire, demanding interviews, and writing about him to Lady Oxford. At length Byron sent her the letter, probably in November, 1812, which she professes to publish in Glenarvon (vol. iii. chap. ix.). The words are acknowledged by Byron to have formed part at least of the real document, which is here quoted as printed in the novel:

"Mortanville Priory, November the 9th.

"Lady Avondale,—I am no longer your lover; and since you oblige me to confess it, by this truly unfeminine persecution, ... learn, that I am attached to another; whose name it would, of course, be dishonourable to mention. I shall ever remember with gratitude the many instances I have received of the predilection you have shown in my favour. I shall ever continue your friend, if your ladyship will permit me so to style myself; and, as a first proof of my regard, I offer you this advice, correct your vanity, which is ridiculous; exert your absurd caprices upon others; and leave me in peace.

"Your most obedient servant,

"Glenarvon."

The first effect of this letter and her unrequited passion was, as she told Lady Morgan, to deprive her temporarily of reason, and it may be added that, when she was a child, her grandmother was so alarmed by her eccentricities as to consult a doctor on the state of her mind. The second effect was to render her temper so ungovernable that William Lamb decided on a separation. All preliminaries were arranged; the solicitor arrived with the documents; but the old charm reasserted itself, and she was found seated by her husband, "feeding him with tiny scraps of transparent bread and butter" (Torrens, Memoirs of Lord Melbourne, vol. i. p. 112). The separation did not take place till 1825.

Throughout 1812-14 Lady Caroline continued to write to Byron, at first asking for interviews. Two of her last letters to him, written apparently on the eve of his leaving England, in 1816, are worth printing, though they increase the mystery of Glenarvon. (See Appendix III., 4 and 5.)

In Isaac Nathan's Fugitive Pieces (1829), a section is devoted to "Poetical Effusions, Letters, Anecdotes, and Recollections of Lady Caroline Lamb."

Lady Caroline wrote three novels: Glenarvon (1816); Graham Hamilton (1822); and Ada Reis; a Tale (1823). Glenarvon, apart from its biographical interest, is unreadable.

"I do not know," writes C. Lemon to Lady H. Frampton (Journal of Mary Frampton, pp. 286, 287), "all the characters in Glenarvon, but I will tell you all I do know. I am not surprised at your being struck with a few detached passages; but before you have read one volume, I think you will doubt at which end of the book you began. There is no connection between any two ideas in the book, and it seems to me to have been written as the sages of Laputa composed their works. 'Glenarvon' is Lord Byron; 'Lady Augusta,' the late Duchess of Devonshire; 'Lady Mandeville'—I think it is Lady Mandeville, but the lady who dictated Glearvon's farewell letter to Calantha—is Lady Oxford. This letter she really dictated to Lord Byron to send to Lady Caroline Lamb, and is now very much offended that she has treated the matter so lightly as to introduce it into her book. The best character in it is the 'Princess of Madagascar' (Lady Holland), with all her Reviewers about her. The young Duke of Devonshire is in the book, but I forget under what name. I need not say that the heroine is Lady Caroline's own self."

In July, 1824, she was out riding, when she accidentally met Byron's funeral on its way to Newstead. "I am sure," she wrote to Murray, July 13, 1824, "I am very sorry I ever said one unkind word against him." Her mind never recovered the shock, and she died in January, 1828, in the presence of her husband, at Melbourne House. (See also Appendix III., 6.)