ropriety of
keeping our correspondence secret.

"I have the honour to be

"Your Lordship's very humble servant,

"THOMAS MOORE.

"22. Molesworth Street."

[Footnote 31: This is the only entire letter of my own that, in the
course of this work, I mean to obtrude upon my readers. Being short, and
in terms more explanatory of the feeling on which I acted than any
others that could be substituted, it might be suffered, I thought, to
form the single exception to my general rule. In all other cases, I
shall merely give such extracts from my own letters as may be necessary
to elucidate those of my correspondent.]

* * * * *

In the course of a week, the friend to whom I intrusted this letter
wrote to inform me that Lord Byron had, as he learned on enquiring of
his publisher, gone abroad immediately on the publication of his Second
Edition; but that my letter had been placed in the hands of a gentleman,
named Hodgson, who had undertaken to forward it carefully to his
Lordship. Though the latter step was not exactly what I could have
wished, I thought it as well, on the whole, to let my letter take its
chance, and again postponed all consideration of the matter.

During the interval of a year and a half which elapsed before Lord
Byron's return, I had taken upon myself obligations, both as husband and
father, which make most men,--and especially those who have nothing to
bequeath,--less willing to expose themselves unnecessarily to danger.
On hearing, therefore, of the arrival of the noble traveller from
Greece, though still thinking it due to myself to follow up my first
request of an explanation, I resolved, in prosecuting that object, to
adopt such a tone of conciliation as should not only prove my sincere
desire of a pacific result, but show the entire freedom from any angry
or resentful feeling with which I took the step. The death of Mrs.
Byron, for some time, delayed my purpose. But as soon after that event
as was consistent with decorum, I addressed a letter to Lord Byron, in
which, referring to my former communication, and expressing some doubts
as to its having ever reached him, I re-stated, in pretty nearly the
same words, the nature of the insult, which, as it appeared to me, the
passage in his note was calculated to convey. "It is now useless," I
continued, "to speak of the steps with which it was my intention to
follow up that letter. The time which h