1 articles in the 'Quarterly Review' in 1869 and 1870, clear up the matter. The only existing clue to the identity of 'Thyrza' to be found in the materials for investigation, which, up to the present date, are at the disposal of a student of Byron's life, is, that "Thyrza' probably inspired the 'pure love and passion' in 1806. That she was neither Eddlestone, Margaret Parker, nor the girl in boy's clothing, it seems unnecessary to repeat. II. On the Probability of Byron's having had an illegitimate Child before the Birth of 'Allegra'. If the stanzas "To my Son' and the date affixed [1870] be founded on fact, which their simple and heartfelt character. 1 'Quarterly Review' for January 1870, p. 228. Extract."From his (Byron's) leaving England till his death, the sister was the recognised medium of communication between him and his wife; and all his letters to his sister, no matter what their character, appear to have been regularly submitted to Lady Byron, who took copies of them. It does not appear that this was done with his knowledge. He wrote not less than twice a month on an average; and, with passing intervals of irritation and despondency rattled on in much the same manner as in his published letters to his friends. He mentions in more guarded language, his principal liasons, especially that which gave birth to 'Allegra', and the first which seriously occupied him at Venice; and his account of his first meeting with the Countess Guiccioli is as glowing as if it was written for an unconcerned reader. The general tone towards Lady Byron is kind and even affectionate. It is only when the galling consequences of the separation, his exile and shirred name come back upon him that he breaks out." 2 Murray's 1 vol. ed. of Byron's poetical works. London, 1864, p. 537. Byron writes to Moore on January 5th 1816 (Moores' Life' etc., letter 232): "I would gladly-or, rather, sorrowfully comply with your request of a dirge for the poor girl you mention. But how can I write on one I have never seen or known? ... . . I could not write upon any thing, without some personal experience and foundation. besides a passage in the 12th and one in the 16th canto of 'Don Juan',' "There was a country girl in a close cap And scarlet cloak (I hate the sight to see, since- "A reel within a bottle is a mystery, Had bagged this poacher upon Nature's manor.” 4 several passages in the poet's letters to his mother, 2 and two passages in letters written to Moore3 seem to vouchsafe, Byron was a father in his twentieth year, some months, possibly not a year, after the first glow of his passion for Thyrza'. He writes to Moore from Venice on February 2nd 1818. "I know how to feel with you, because (selfishness being always the substratum of our damnable clay) I am quite wrapt up in my own children. Besides my little legitimate, I have made unto myself an illegimate since (to say nothing of one before)."5 Now either the poem To my Son' must be altogether fictitious, or Medora Leigh cannot have been Lord Byron's child, or Byron must have written Moore that he had had one illegitimate child before the birth of 'Allegra', whereas 1 Canto 16, stanzas 61, 62,-see also canto 12, stanzas 17, 18. 2 Moore's Life' etc., letters 45, 52. 3 Moore's Life' etc, letters 137, 307. 4 The mother of this child he calls Helen, and writes of her as dead in 1807. See verses To my Son'. 5 'Moore's Life' etc., letter 307. in fact, he had had two,-a very unlikely thing for a man of Byron's temperament to do, who from his fondness for describing himself as romantically naughty, would have been more inclined to increase than diminish the number. It will appear to those who consider what Charles Mackay wrote in the preface to his book on Medora Leigh, after carefully studying the documents in his possession (that she, Medora Leigh, 'was the undoubted daughter of Lord Byron's sister') and who knows the utter absurdity of the Beecher Stowe scandal, that this girl, whoever she may have been, was no child of Lord Byron, although Bleibtreu 2 considers it certain that she was. 3 Bleibtreu gives as one of his reasons for considering Medora Leigh as a child of Byron, the peculiarity of her name. What could be more natural for Mrs. Leigh, than to christen her child 'Medora', after the beloved of the 'Corsair' of the same name, out of honour to her brother, whose poem "The Corsair', which had so prodigious a success, was published in the beginning of 1815? Medora Leigh, according to her own statement, was born in 1814. That Lady Byron told this unfortunate girl in 1840 at Fontainebleau, that Lord Byron had been her father, cannot by any means be taken as fact without any further evidence, when one considers how Lady Byron hated Mrs. Leigh ever since they quarreled in 1829, and with what utter disregard for truth she slandered her dead husband's half-sister in her latter days. Two passages in Byron's unpublished letters to his half-sister, written just before leaving England in 1816, show 1 'Medora Leigh: A History and an Autobiography'. London 1869, p. 6. 2 Bleibtreu: Geschichte der Englischen Litteratur im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert', 2nd ed. p. 227. 3 Geschichte der Englischen Litteratur im 19ten Jahrhundert, 2nd ed. p. 245. 4 'Medora Leigh', p. 91. 5 Medora Leigh', pp. 135, 36. that he possessed a strong interest in Medora Leigh. He writes Mrs. Leigh on the 15th of April 1816,-"Tell me how is Georgey and Do [abbreviation for Medora], and on April 22nd 1816, three days before leaving England,-"Of the child you will inform me and write about poor dear little Do."1 Mrs. Leigh wrote to Hodgson on March 18th 18152 (3) "If I may give you mine [opinion] it is, that in his [Byron's] own mind, there were and are recollections fatal to his peace, and which would have prevented his being happy with any woman whose excellence equalled or approached that of Lady B., from the consciousness of being unworthy of it." What these recollections fatal to his peace' were, is known, if known at all, to but few individuals. At any rate, Bleibtreu, according to Mrs. Leigh's testimony, was probably correct in stating that Byron had substantial reasons for his melancholy, and for writing the self-accusatory passages in Manfred, which made Goethe think that Byron had committed a murder. 3 Man. Not with my hand but heart-which broke her heart It gazed on mine and withered. I have shed Blood, but not hers-and yet her blood was shed I saw and could not staunch it." Makes one involuntarily recall the fate which the second Mrs. Shelley so nearly underwent on the 16th of June 1822 1 Add. MS. 31 037 pp. 35,37 British Museum. 2 Probably falsely dated 1815 instead of 1816. Athenæum' September 19th 1885. 3 Bleibtreu: Englische Litteraturgeschichte im 19. Jahrhundert.' 2nd ed. p. 191. at San Terenzo.1 This passage to judge from that immediately preceeding, "Man. She was like me in lineaments-her eyes Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone Even of her voice, they said were like to mine." Probably refers to 'brother Gordon' the 'girl in boy's clothing, whose face so much ressembled Byron's, as Minto first suggested in the Athenæum in 1876,2 and whose sudden disappearance from the field of Byronic biography after Dallas saw her in the spring of 1812, is such a mystery. 3 III. Some Remarks on the Article in The Edinburgh Review' on Hours of Idleness'. 5 That the 'Edinburgh Review' article on 'Hours of Idleness' was not published in January 1808, as Jeaffreson has it,' is evident from Byron's letter to Beecher, dated February 26th 1808, in which he writes, "I am of so much importance that a most violent attack is preparing for me in the next number of the 'Edinburgh Review'. This I had from the authority of a friend who has seen the proof and manuscript of the critique." The general opinion is that Brougham wrote the article. James Henry Dixon in Notes and Queries' for December 8th 1870, writes, "It is beyond all dispute that the Late Lord Brougham did write the famous article in "The Edinburgh Review',"-he also mentions a Paris edition of Byron's works edited by Galt, in which a dictum of Brougham's is Dowden's 'Life of Shelley' vol 2, p. 514,-or Jeaffreson's "The Real Shelley' vol 2, p. 439. 2 'Athenæum' 1876, II, p. 306. 3 Dallas' 'Recollections' pp. 248, 49. 4 The Real Lord Byron' standard ed. p. 97. 5 'Moore's Life' etc, letter 24. |