"Yours,
"CAROLINE LAMB."
(2) Lady Caroline Lamb to Captain Thomas Medwin.
[Endorsed, "This copy to be carefully preserved." Hy. Cn. (Henry
Colburn?).]
"[November (?), 1824.]
"SIR,--I hope you will excuse my intruding upon your time, with the most
intense interest I have just finished your book which does you credit as
to the manner in which it is executed and after the momentary pain in
part which it excites in many a bosom, will live in despight of
censure--and be gratefully accepted by the Public as long as Lord
Byron's name is remembered--yet as you have left to one who adored him a
bitter legacy, and as I feel secure the lines 'remember thee--thou false
to him thou fiend to me'--were his--and as I have been very ill & am not
likely to trouble any one much longer--you will I am sure grant me one
favour--let me to you at least confide the truth of the past--you owe it
to me--you will not I know refuse me.
"It was when the first Child Harold came out upon Lord Byron's return
from Greece that I first had the misfortune to be acquainted with
him--at that time I was the happiest and gayest of human beings I do
believe without exception--_I had married for love_ and love the most
romantic and ardent--my husband and I were so fond of each other that
false as I too soon proved he never would part with me. Devonshire House
was at that time closed from my Uncle's death for one year--at Melbourne
House where I lived the Waltzes and Quadrilles were being daily
practised, Lady Jersey, Lady Cowper, the Duke of Devonshire, Miss
Milbanke and a number of foreigners coming there to learn--You may
imagine what forty or fifty people dancing from 12 in the morning until
near dinner time all young gay and noisy were--in the evenings we either
had opposition suppers or went out to Balls and routs--such was the life
I then led when Moore and Rogers introduced Lord Byron to me--What you
say of his falling upstairs and of Miss Milbanke is all true.
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