159 — To John M. B. Pigot

Newport Pagnell, August 2, 1811.

My Dear Doctor

, — My poor mother died yesterday! and I am on my way from town to attend her to the family vault.

I

heard

one

day of her illness, the

next

of her death

. Thank God her last moments were most tranquil. I am told she was in little pain, and not aware of her situation.

I

now feel the truth of Mr. Gray's observation, "That we can only have

one

mother."

Peace be with her! I have to thank you for your expressions of regard; and as in six weeks I shall be in Lancashire on business, I may extend to Liverpool and Chester, — at least I shall endeavour.

If

it will be any satisfaction, I have to inform you that in November next the Editor of the

Scourge

will be tried for two different libels on the late Mrs. B. and myself (the decease of Mrs. B. makes no difference in the proceedings); and as he is guilty, by his very foolish and unfounded assertion of a breach of privilege, he will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour.

I inform you of this, as you seem interested in the affair, which is now in the hands of the Attorney-general.

I shall remain at Newstead the greater part of this month, where I shall be happy to hear from you, after my two years' absence in the East.

I am, dear Pigot, yours very truly,

Byron

Footnote 1:

On the night after his arrival at Newstead, Mrs. Byron's maid, passing the room where the body lay, heard a heavy sigh from within. Entering the room, she found Byron sitting in the dark beside the bed. When she spoke to him, he burst into tears, and exclaimed,

"Oh, Mrs. By, I had but one friend in the world, and she is gone!"

On the day of the funeral he refused to follow the corpse to the grave, but watched the procession move away from the door of Newstead; then, turning to Rushton, bade him bring the gloves, and began his usual sparring exercise. Only his silence, abstraction, and unusual violence betrayed to his antagonist, says Moore (

Life

, p. 128), the state of his feelings.

return to footnote mark

Footnote 2:

"I had discovered a thing very little known, which is, that in one's whole life one can never have more than a single mother. You may think this is obvious, and (what you call) a trite observation. You are a green gosling! I was at the same age (very near) as wise as you, and yet I never discovered this (with full evidence and conviction, I mean) till it was too late. It is thirteen years ago, ... and every day I live it sinks deeper into my heart."

Gray to Nicholls,

Works

, vol. i. p. 482.

Footnote 3:

One of Byron's first acts on returning to England was to buy a copy of the

Scourge

, In Ridgway's bill for books supplied from Piccadilly to Byron on July 24, 1811, is a copy of the

Scourge

at 2

s

. 6

d

. Hewson Clarke (1787-1832) was entered at Emanuel College, Cambridge, apparently as a sizar, in 1806. Obliged to leave the University before he had taken his degree, he supported himself in London by his pen. He wrote two historical works — a continuation of Hume's

History of England

(1832), and an

Impartial History of the Naval, etc., Events in Europe

from the French Revolution to the Peace of 1815. It was, however, as a journalist that he came into collision with Byron. In the

Satirist

, a monthly magazine, illustrated with coloured cartoons, three attacks were made on Byron, which he attributed to Clarke:

1. October, 1807 (vol. i pp. 77-81), a review of Hours of Idleness;
2. June, 1808 (vol. ii p. 368), verses on "Lord B — n to his Bear. To the tune of 'Lo chin y gair;'"
3. August, 1808 (vol. iii pp. 78-86), a review of Poems Original and Translated.

Byron's reply was the passage in

English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers

(lines 973-980; see also the notes), where Clarke is described as

"A would-be satirist, a hired Buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low Lampoon," etc.;

and also the Postscript to the second edition (see

Poems

, vol. i p. 382). In the

Scourge

for March, 1811 (vol. i. pp. 191,

et seqq

.}, appeared an article headed "Lord Byron," in which the alleged libel occurred.

"We are unacquainted," says the article, "with any act of cowardice that can be compared with that of keeping a libel ready cut and dried till some favourable opportunity enable its author to disperse it without the hazard of personal responsibility, and under circumstances which deprive the injured party of every means of reparation ... He confined the knowledge of his lampoon, therefore, to the circle of his own immediate friends, and left it to be given to the public as soon as he should have bid adieu to the shores of Britain. Whether his voyage was in reality no further than to Paris, in search of the proofs of his own legitimacy, or, as he asserts, to 'Afric's coasts, and Calpe's adverse height', was of little consequence to Mr. Clarke, who felt that to recriminate during his absence would be unworthy of his character ... Considering the two parties not as writers, but as men, Mr. Clarke might confidently appeal to the knowledge and opinion of the whole university; but a character like his disdains comparison with that of his noble calumniator; a temper unruffled by malignant passions, a mind superior to vicissitude, are gifts for which the pride of doubtful birth, and the temporary possession of Newstead Abbey are contemptible equivalents ...

"It may be reasonably asked whether to be a denizen of Berwick- upon-Tweed be more disgraceful than to be the illegitimate descendant of a murderer; whether to labour in an honourable profession for the peace and competence of maturer age be less worthy of praise than to waste the property of others in vulgar debauchery; whether to be the offspring of parents whose only crime is their want of title, be not as honourable as to be the son of a profligate father, and a mother whose days and nights are spent in the delirium of drunkenness; and, finally, whether to deserve the kindness of his own college, to obtain its prizes, and to prepare himself for any examination that might entitle him to share the highest honours which the university can bestow, be less indicative of talent and virtue than to be held up to the derision and contempt of his fellow-students, as a scribbler of doggerel and a bear-leader; to be hated for malignity of temper and repulsiveness of manners, and shunned by every man who did not want to be considered a profligate without wit, and trifling without elegance. ... We ... shall neither expose the infamy of his uncle, the indiscretions of his mother, nor his personal follies and embarrassments. But let him not again obtrude himself on our attention as a moralist, etc."

The Attorney-General, Sir Vicary Gibbs, gave his opinion against legal proceedings, on the two grounds that a considerable time had elapsed since the publication, and Byron himself had provoked the attack.

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