Part 15

The letter of Mr. ROBERT LYTTON explains nothing, answers nothing. It does not even show where his mother is. He writes—“My mother is now with me, free from all restraint.” This letter is dated 1, Park-lane, the town residence of Sir BULWER LYTTON, who is now in London. Does Mr. LYTTON mean to say that his mother is or was on Saturday last under the roof of her husband? There is more than meets the eye in this. Is Lady LYTTON free from all restraint? Whatever the “arrangement” is, it was made when she was in durance, and not a free agent, and if that arrangement has taken her from the custody of Mr. HILL, of Brentford, to that of her own son and husband, it is only that her prison-house has been changed. “From the moment my father felt compelled to authorise those steps which have been made the subject of so much misrepresentation, &c., in order that my mother should not be subject to restraint for one moment longer than was strictly justifiable, such was his charge to me.” If Sir EDWARD was so solicitous to procure the opinions of the most able physicians, we may ask how it happened that instead of consulting Dr. FORBES WINSLOW and Dr. CONNOLLY in the first instance, that he employed a Mr. THOMPSON to kidnap the lady at his own residence. Mr. LYTTON says the statements are “exaggerated” and “distorted,” but he does not explain how. He says he has the best right to speak on behalf of his mother, and has “the best means of information,” and that his assertion will be at once believed. It is hard to refuse this to a son, and in ordinary cases one would not feel inclined to do so; but he seems to have acted entirely under the influence of the father, and to have been from first to last so directly opposed to his mother, that before we give him the credence he asks there are several questions he ought to answer. Is it true he has neither sought after nor corresponded with his mother, nor even seen her, for nearly seventeen years, until he met her at the Hustings, at Hertford, during the recent election there? Is it true that on that occasion he made the preliminary attempt which culminated at the house of Mr. THOMPSON, in Clarges-street, to put his mother in a madhouse by sending a physician to the house of the Mayor of Hertford where she was on a visit? Is it true that when his mother was kidnapped in Clarges-street, and Miss RYVES ran out into the street, and seeing Mr. LYTTON waiting outside, entreated him to interfere and procure assistance to prevent his mother being carried off to Brentford, he refused to have anything to do with the matter? Other questions suggest themselves, not directly affecting Mr. LYTTON, but important to an understanding of this painful case. He says, “I put myself in constant communication with my mother.... I carried out the injunctions of my father, who confided in me implicitly, ... enjoined me to avail myself of the advice of Lord SHAFTESBURY in whatever was judged best and kindest for Lady LYTTON.” Is this a solemn farce, a piece of well-acted hypocrisy, or a truth in letter and spirit? Is it conceivable that Sir EDWARD LYTTON, not having set eyes on his wife for seventeen years, and leaving her to live and suffer and complain during all that time on £400 a year, suddenly became tenderly solicitous on her behalf, as to require “all that was best and kindest” should be done for her? Why is Lord SHAFTESBURY introduced? Is it to give the shelter of his sanctity to a cruel outrage? MEPHISTOPHELES might envy the genius which suggested the mention of Lord SHAFTESBURY as the adviser and referee of Sir BULWER LYTTON.

The certificates appended to Mr. LYTTON’S letter are not properly “certificates;” they are intended as apologies for the conduct of Sir BULWER LYTTON. But though put forward with this view, they substantiate that the state of Lady LYTTON’S mind “is such as to justify her liberation from restraint,” and prove nothing to his honour. It is easy to see that the “certificate” of Dr. FORBES WINSLOW is but an answer to certain questions put by Mr. EDWIN JAMES, who was strangely employed by Mr. LYTTON, and whose object was to extract from the doctor everything that he could on behalf of Sir EDWARD. On this part of the question we are all competent to form an opinion, and if it should appear that the facts submitted to Sir EDWARD were facts suggested by himself, and the medical men, on whose certificates he acted, were employed by him, which is the fact, Dr. FORBES WINSLOW’S opinion upon this part of the question goes for nothing.

The more enquiries we make into the matter the more convinced we are that a great wrong was attempted, and has now been glossed over. That wrong was not done to Lady LYTTON alone, but to all society. Her wrath may have been appeased, her personal wounds may have received a plaister, and her friends may have been flattered and cajoled into silence, but is the public satisfied, or the wrong to society been atoned for, while the case of Lady LYTTON remains uninvestigated, and the conduct of her husband escapes official and public censure? Is any one of us safe so long as the law permits the “next of kin” to do what has been done to her?

AN ENGLISHMAN.

_Daily Telegraph, July 21, 1858._

We return unwillingly, and, we trust, for the last time, to the melancholy scandal in which Sir BULWER LYTTON has involved himself. It had been our intention not to carry further this painful controversy, yet additional explanations are extorted from us by the peculiar tactics not only of particular individuals, but of some among our contemporaries. There have been allusions to “misrepresentations” contained in “paragraphs,” and “exaggerated and distorted statements,” circulated with reference to the Lady, who a few days since was spirited away by stratagem to Brentford. Now in respect of the persons principally concerned, nothing more need be said; if the Right Hon. Secretary for the Colonies has effected a settlement agreeable to his conscience and his wife, none has a right to interfere; if the Electors of Hertford are satisfied, the general public has perhaps little reason to complain, and if legality and justice are not to be permanently outraged we rejoice that family negociations have been successful. Yet there are points connected with our own position, which should be clearly set forth. The vague and solemn rebukes that have been set forth were addressed almost exclusively to ourselves, not of paragraphs, but of articles based upon a well-prepared narrative published in a provincial journal, no one assertion, of which to the present moment has been invalidated. But if there has been “exaggeration,” if there has been “falsity,” who was the person and what was the time to correct them? The proper individual was the son of Sir BULWER LYTTON himself, and the proper time was upon one of the occasions, when since the exposure in our columns, he called at the _Daily Telegraph_ office, sometimes not alone. Did we hear then anything about “distortion” or “misrepresentation”? Most certainly not a word. Mr. ROBERT LYTTON acted then as the champion of his mother, and not he only, but her personal friends also appeared delighted that upon public grounds an appeal had been made, bearing so directly upon their private interests. Then, we think, was the moment for substituting accurate for erroneous impressions; but since this retort is forced upon us, what if we suggest if the original case was not one to be explained away? Lady LYTTON was by no means the person interested in a concealment of the facts or in hushing up the affair before it was dragged before a Commission of Lunacy. We are now told, indeed, that the Baronet was satisfied in the course he adopted, which we have never pretended to deny, for we have insisted only on enquiry. We asked whether the allegations against him were true, and we pointed out the impossibility of allowing a public man to remain under an imputation so scathing, and we expressed our hope that the sinister rumours afloat would be set at rest by an ample vindication of the Privy Councillor’s conduct. Is it our fault then that no such vindication has been attempted—that Sir BULWER LYTTON has preferred a private arrangement—that he has defied the written opinion of two professional men, and allowed his so-called insane Wife to be once more at large upon terms to which he had previously refused his consent? Nothing would have been more satisfactory to ourselves and the public than that Lord DERBY’S Colonial Secretary, after a strict judicial investigation, should have demonstrated himself a Man of Honour, incapable of kidnapping an obnoxious Wife.

But upon whose authority was Lady LYTTON captured and sent to Brentford? Not originally, as has been stated, upon that of Dr. CONNOLLY. The certificates were signed by a Mr. HALE THOMPSON, once known at Westminster Hospital, and by a Mr. ROSS, an apothecary of Farringdon-street, whose medical reputation seems to have travelled providentially from east of Temple-bar to an official residence in Downing-street. The sanction of these “eminent” gentlemen enabled the policemen and nurses to place Lady LYTTON by force in a carriage, but through a humane after-thought, Dr. CONNOLLY was ultimately called in and dispatched to the residence of Mr. ROBERT GARDINER HILL, at Brentford. There he certified that Lady LYTTON was a demented patient; there, however, Dr. FORBES WINSLOW, within a day or two, certified in singularly cautious and ambiguous terms, that she was _not_ a demented patient; she was in fact fit and unfit to live without restraint, and the result is that with her son and a female relation, she is to enjoy a continental tour. At all events, it is gratifying to know that whatever has been the effect on the Lady’s nerves, she has been benefitted by the public discussion of her case. Instead of the Brentford process, she will sojourn at the Spas, and Florentine gaiety may compensate her for a week of Middlesex gloom under the Lunacy Law.

Concerning the Brentford question, Mr. ROBERT GARDINER HILL is pleased to think himself aggrieved. We may remark that Mr. HILL claims to have penetrated the secrets of physiological science. That he is not the proprietor of a “notorious Madhouse” we will admit, if he will allow that he is the principal of a “celebrated Lunatic Asylum.”

What consolation would it be to any of our readers, if falsely accused of insanity, that a “lunatic asylum,” and not a “madhouse,” shuts its doors upon them. Would a paltry verbal quibble reconcile them to captivity among maniacs and the mentally afflicted? He is among the proprietors, he confesses, of Wyke House, which, if he will not permit us to describe it as “notorious,” is at least well-known as a Madhouse, or, if the term be offensive, of a Lunatic Asylum.

Though not standing alone in this controversy, we have been solitary among the organs of the press in claiming a public enquiry on behalf of Lady LYTTON. In our main object we have succeeded. The “patient” is no longer in legal or in medical clutches. Her position has totally changed since the protest of public indignation rose against the treatment to which she had been subject. The Taunton people are satisfied that a great wrong is not to be perpetrated, and Lady LYTTON’S friends, who rejoiced in the original exposure, are now at liberty to be as ungrateful as they please. They will not induce us, at all events, to state whence our information was derived, or how far the Right Honourable Baronet is indebted to themselves for the publication of a monstrous scandal. But it was due to ourselves, to our readers, and to the innumerable correspondents whose letters we have felt it necessary to suppress, to remind Mr. ROBERT LYTTON and his colleagues in the negociation just concluded, that they have to thank the press for the publicity which spared them the painful alternative of a judicial investigation. It fell to us, fortunately, to produce a movement of public opinion in favour of Lady LYTTON; and it is not for her personal advocates to blame the persistency with which we have followed it to its final issue. Least of all, whatever gracelessness may be exhibited in Park-lane, do we regret a course of proceedings without which, in all probability, the wife of Sir BULWER LYTTON might have been still, and possibly for the rest of her life, subject to the galling tendernesses of our Asylums for Lunatics.

LORD LYTTON THE FIRST.

This man was once called by his admirers (who were probably well paid for it) “The modern SHAKSPERE.” We now know in what estimation his writings are held. But his private character was so vile and detestable, that it will cause almost incredulity if it ever should be exposed in its true colours to the world. Mr. LABOUCHERE, in _Truth_, has a paragraph upon him, which is truth itself. Here it is:—“A man may be endowed with genius and with numerous amiable qualities, and yet be a Snob. Few of those who have lived during the present century have been gifted with more genius than Lord LYTTON, and yet few have been so arrant a Snob. In his works of fiction he has frequently sought to portray gentlemen, and these gentlemen, each of whom has a family likeness to his creator, are the beau-ideals of Snobs—clever, pushing, conceited, florid Snobs, with Brummagem manners, Brummagem morals, a Brummagem varnish of philosophy, and a Brummagem varnish of poetry.” In Friday’s _Times_ we read this advertisement, anything meaner than which we never perused:—

Herts, Knebworth-park, with 1,500 acres of capital Shooting, three miles from Stevenage and Welwyn Stations (G.N.R.)—A handsome FURNISHED baronial MANSION, surrounded by a fine park and splendid gardens and grounds. Particulars of &c., &c.

Is the son as mean a fellow as the father? Lord LYTTON left him about £300,000; and he is paid as Viceroy of India £100,000 a year, with “pickings;” and he offers to let his family mansion. Would he not do better to let his Mother, that noble, injured Lady, into Knebworth, than hire it out to some stranger?

MR. JOHN FORSTER.

This man, who was one of Lord LYTTON’S tools, and who also played toady for the greater part of his life to a congenial evil spirit, Sir ALEXANDER COCKBURN, is thus described by Lady LYTTON. Under the name of JANUS ALLPUFF, she alludes to her accomplished husband:—“The chief MECÆNAS of this FUDGESTER (FORSTER) is a Sir JANUS ALLPUFF, who not content with having hunted his unhappy Wife nearly to death, and reduced to the lowest ebb of pecuniary destitution, from defending herself against his infamous Conspiracies, also prevents her in every possible way from earning her bread: and who so useful in this way as FUDGESTER? I should tell you, in order to show you the astuteness and diabolical cunning of this Infamous Gang, and the tortuous sneaking measures they adopt to prevent their dirty work being brought home to them, by always employing others, as far a-field as possible, to do it; this FUDGESTER, from being a known tool and toady of that vile old profligate, Sir JANUS ALLPUFF, and a declared enemy of his Victim, never reviews her books, or mentions her name in any way, in his own particular paper, _The Excruciator_ (_The Examiner_), but merely sets on the ramifications of the Gang to attack and malign her in every possible way: and from the wording of some of these attacks, it is quite clear that Sir JANUS gives the substance of what he wishes them to do, as the same internal evidence exists of such being the case, that does as to his furnishing the pith of the puffs about himself to those organs of his myrmidons. But after all there is nothing so silly as your over-cunning people; which the very bungling way in which Sir JANUS gets his dirty work done, will ultimately prove: and indeed some of the anonymous letters which his infamous Literary Myrmidons are set to write to his Victim, strongly resemble, in their little mean cramped characters, his own, or his JACKAL FUDGESTER’S writing.”

THE LATE DUKE OF ATHOL.

One of VICTORIA’S chief favourites, and one who knew a little more of her than we think it well to publish, was one of the BULWER LYTTON Gang, and is thus described:—

Another member of this worshipful clique of Stop-at-nothings, a few grades higher as to station, but quite on a par as to blackguardism, is the Duke of TWILGLENON.

“Ah, I’ve seen that horrid fellow,” broke in Mr. PHIPPEN; “what a horrid-looking Wretch it is—for all the world like a low, drunken Grazier in appearance, looking as if he had just beaten or worried one of the poor animals he had been driving, to death.”

“Well, sir, I believe he does kick and worry the only animal which every Englishman has a right to ill-treat to any amount, which is his wife; for beautiful and amiable as the poor Duchess is, it don’t prevent her being well brutalized by her ruffianly-looking husband. Ah, sir, I often think that had Princess CHARLOTTE lived, _she_ would have had some feeling for her own sex, and that such notoriously profligate men as this Duke of TWILGLENON, and his worthy associate, that Sir JANUS ALLPUFF, would not have disgraced the English Court. But perhaps a man in my sphere of life is no judge of such matters; only I cannot help thinking, according to the Laws of GOD, Vice is Vice, and Infamy is Infamy, all over the world, whether in Queens, or Dukes, or Dustmen, or in Baronets or Bricklayers.”

“To be sure it is,” said Mr. PHIPPEN, “only ten times worse in the Patrician than in the Plebeian, as _they_ have not even the excuses of misery, as provocation, to drive them into low vice.”

But Sir JANUS ALLPUFF had other irons in the fire.

I am not aware, even from the insight I have had into the Sodom and Gomorrah of the literary world, that it is customary for Reviewers (?) previous to reviewing a work, to write _anonymous_ letters to the author, stating that theirs was rather an influential Review, but that before they reviewed her last work, they must first assure her that the world did not care one straw whether she was well-used or ill-used, but _they_ (the _Reviewer_, mind, and the Writer of the _anonymous_ letters, for there were two) wished to know was it possible that she meant Mr. ——, one of the characters in the novel, for her own husband?—as though they should ask, “Is it possible you have dared to blaspheme your GOD!!” though indeed, among _that_ class of notoriously infamous and profligate men, who have left _no_ law of GOD unviolated, Husbands of course are generally given precedence to the Almighty in the awe and reverence such men endeavour to inculcate in the female slaves of Great Britain. Now, with regard to that, the authoress had only to say “that it was impossible to write a novel without having bad characters in it, and it would be equally impossible to mention _any_ vice or any meanness which would not be perfectly applicable, and which therefore might not appear _personal_ to Sir JANUS ALLPUFF, who having taken high degrees in them _all_, was at perfect liberty to take his choice, and fit them on as he pleased; and as for the sacredness of the mere word _husband_, as to _her_ it was only the synonyme of the most extreme personal violence and brutality, terminating in being turned out of her home to make way for her legal tyrant’s mistresses, and to having had one child destroyed physically and the other morally, being swindled out of every shilling, and hunted by a relentless Fiend through the world, it could not be very sacred, _quoique sacré_, to her.” “Oh, but respect to her position,” said Conventionality; _he_ had not left _her any_ save one of honest superiority, which, as it arose from herself, it was not in _his_ nor in his myrmidon’s power to deprive her of. Then what _was_ she to respect? Surely _not_ the iniquitous laws that allowed a woman to be so treated, nor the vicious and immoral society which tolerates such conduct; and least of all the opinion of a certain obsequious clique of the press, which panders to, puffs, and protects such infamy. The silliest thing that ever tyrant did is to leave his slave _nothing_ to lose, to hope, or to fear, for _then_ comes the reaction: the pigmy springs into an armed giant, and the trampled worm is, _for the sake of others_, willing to become a martyr to a cause of which they have been so long a Victim; and of this overreaching folly the clever Sir JANUS ALLPUFF had been guilty. “Oh! but his talents,” simpers some Miss, to whom they no doubt appear, as compared with her own, _very great_; but his Victim, being an exceedingly well-read Woman, could not even bow down to and worship _them_, looking upon him much in the light of the ass which carried the relics, from having read the most of his works _in the authors from whom he transferred them_; and, moreover, having more original ideas in her own head than _he_ ever purloined from anybody else’s. So, finding there was nothing to be done with a Wretch of this kind, and that he could not even hunt her to death, it was necessary to make the Clique set up a hue-and-cry about the _personality_ of her books; but _who_ more personal, pray, without the excuse of gross outrage that _she_ had had, than Sir JANUS himself, even to formerly ridiculing the _Assinæum_ and others of his now obedient vassals, to say nothing of his converting Her Majesty’s ministry into highwaymen? Who more personal, either, than his friend Mr. JERICHO JABBER, in his Caucasian romances? And who _so_ personal, without any regard to _vraisemblance_, much less to _truth_, as my Lady GORGON,[4] in her trashy productions? But because _she_ has made her house _convenient_ to the English aristocracy for the last quarter of a century, she has a pension of three hundred a-year, while poor HAYDON starved on an under-footman’s wages of twenty-five—Shame! Shame! But Sir JANUS had not done with his victim yet. _The New Quarterly_, _The Literary Gazette_, in old SILENUS JERDAN’S most unscrupulous strain, so that his reminiscences seemed to hiccup through every line; _The Assinæum_, and, in short, _all_ Sir JANUS’ _special tools_ and literary bravoes—

“Cursed by the goose’s and the critic’s quill,”