ve just been asserting, and, second, to add to my true
story such facts and incidents as I did not think proper at first to
state.

CHAPTER II. THE ATTACK ON LADY BYRON.

In proving what I asserted in the first chapter, I make four points:

1st. A concerted attack upon Lady Byron's reputation, begun by Lord
Byron in self-defence.

2nd. That he transmitted his story to friends to be continued after his
death.

3rd. That they did so continue it.

4th. That the accusations reached their climax over Lady Byron's grave
in 'Blackwood' of 1869, and the Guiccioli book, and that this re-opening
of the controversy was my reason for speaking.

And first I shall adduce my proofs that Lady Byron's reputation was,
during the whole course of her husband's life, the subject of a
concentrated, artfully planned attack, commencing at the time of the
separation and continuing during his life. By various documents
carefully prepared, and used publicly or secretly as suited the case, he
made converts of many honest men, some of whom were writers and men of
letters, who put their talents at his service during his lifetime in
exciting sympathy for him, and who, by his own request, felt bound to
continue their defence of him after he was dead.

In order to consider the force and significance of the documents I shall
cite, we are to bring to our view just the issues Lord Byron had to meet,
both at the time of the separation and for a long time after.

In Byron's 'Memoirs,' Vol. IV. Letter 350, under date December 10, 1819,
nearly four years after the separation, he writes to Murray in a state of
great excitement on account of an article in 'Blackwood,' in which his
conduct towards his wife had been sternly and justly commented on, and
which he supposed to have been written by Wilson, of the 'Noctes
Ambrosianae.' He says in this letter: 'I like and admire W---n, and he
should not have indulged himself in such outrageous license. . . . . When
he talks of Lady Byron's business he talks of what he knows nothing
about; and you may tell him _no man can desire a public investigation of
that affair more than I do_.' {7}

He shortly after wrote and sent to Murray a pamphlet for publication,
which was printed, but not generally circulated till some time
afterwards. Though more than three years had elapsed since the
separation, the current against him at this time was so strong in England
that his friends thought it best, at firs