ite of plentiful resolutions gave little sign of reformation.
For a considerable time their life, which, after the "treacle moon," as
the bridegroom called it, spent at Halnaby, near Darlington, was divided
between residence at Seaham and visits to London, seemed to move smoothly.
In a letter, evidently mis-dated the 15th December, Mrs. Leigh writes to
Hodgson: "I have every reason to think that my beloved B. is very happy
and comfortable. I hear constantly from him and _his rib_. It appears to
me that Lady B. sets about making him happy in the right way. I had many
fears. Thank God that they do not appear likely to be realized. In short,
there seems to me to be but one drawback to all our felicity, and that,
alas, is the disposal of dear Newstead. I never shall feel reconciled to
the loss of that sacred revered Abbey. The thought makes me more
melancholy than perhaps the loss of an inanimate object ought to do. Did
you ever hear that _landed property_, the GIFT OF THE CROWN, could not be
sold? Lady B. writes me word that she never saw her father and mother so
happy; that she believes the latter would go to the bottom of the sea
herself to find fish for B.'s dinner, &c." Augusta Ada was born in London
on the 10th of December, 1815. During the next months a few cynical
mutterings are the only interruptions to an ominous silence; but these
could be easily explained by the increasing embarrassment of the poet's
affairs, and the importunity of creditors, who in the course of the last
half-year had served seven or eight executions on his house and furniture.
Their expectations were raised by exaggerated reports of his having
married money; and by a curious pertinacity of pride he still declined,
even when he had to sell his books, to accept advances from his publisher.
In January the storm which had been secretly gathering suddenly broke. On
the 15th, i.e. five weeks after her daughter's birth, Lady Byron left home
with the infant to pay a visit, as had been agreed, to her own family at
Kirkby Mallory in Leicestershire. On the way she despatched to her husband
a tenderly playful letter, which has been often quoted. Shortly afterwards
he was informed--first by her father, and then by herself--that she did
not intend ever to return to him. The accounts of their last interview, as
in the whole evidence bearing on the affair, not only differ but flatly
contradict one another. On behalf of Lord Byron it is asserted, that his
wife, i