Byron and Allegra

Sir: I read your editorial on Byron and Allegra with interest and some disagreement. It is evident from Byron’s correspondence that he did what he thought was best for his daughter. Several of Shelley’s children had died of food poisoning. Byron did not approve of the Shelley ménage and did not consider Shelley an authority on child care. It seems to me that Byron has been too readily tagged with abnormal egotism by a succession of critics from William Hazlitt onwards. I suggest that they have been misled by thepage 391 Byron legend, a dramatic and literary construction, necessary to his work, in which Byron himself never more than half believed. It is absurd to call Byron an egotist (as Hazlitt does, comparing him unfavourably with Walter Scott) because his poems take the form of the dramatic confession. And what about his private faults? Byron drank heavily; he wrote a few savage lampoons; he leant at times on his rank; he treated a number of women badly.

These are the kind of faults circumstances engender. The last has been interminably discussed and publicised – but what man has ever succeeded in treating a number of women well? Or even one woman to the entire satisfaction of herself and his biographers? Byron’s personal friends testified almost unanimously to his loyalty, magnanimity, and sense of obligation to others. He showed a devoted, protective care for those who worked for him and marched under him. His last letter (I think it was his last) is a plea for the clement treatment of war prisoners and refugees. Many men and some women sincerely mourned his death. He wore his faults on his sleeve – but there is a largeness of mind and largeness of character in Byron which does not fit the portrait of a full-blown egotist.

1959 (195)