copy, with the author's own Italics:--

'In the "Blackwood" of July 1824 was a poetical epistle by the
renowned Timothy Tickler to the editor of the "John Bull" magazine, on
an article in his first number. This article. . . professed to be a
portion of the veritable "Autobiography" of Byron which was burned,
and was called "My Wedding Night." It appeared to relate in detail
everything that occurred in the twenty-four hours immediately
succeeding that in which Byron was married. It had plenty of
coarseness, and some to spare. It went into particulars such as
hitherto had been given only by Faublas; and it had, notwithstanding,
many phrases and some facts which evidently did not belong to a mere
fabricator. Some years after, I compared this "Wedding Night" with
what I had all assurance of having been transcribed from the actual
manuscripts of Byron, and was persuaded that the magazine-writer must
have had the actual statement before him, or have had a perusal of it.
The writer in "Blackwood" declared his conviction that it really was
Byron's own writing.'

The reader must remember that Lord Byron died April 1824; so that,
according to this, his 'Autobiography' was made the means of this gross
insult to his widow three months after his death.

If some powerful cause had not paralysed all feelings of gentlemanly
honour, and of womanly delicacy, and of common humanity, towards Lady
Byron, throughout the whole British nation, no editor would have dared to
open a periodical with such an article; or, if he had, he would have been
overwhelmed with a storm of popular indignation, which, like the fire
upon Sodom, would have made a pillar of salt of him for a warning to all
future generations.

'Blackwood' reproves the 'John Bull' in a poetical epistle, recognising
the article as coming from Byron, and says to the author,--

'But that you, sir, a wit and a scholar like you,
Should not blush to produce what he blushed not to do,--
Take your compliment, youngster; this doubles, almost,
The sorrow that rose when his honour was lost.'

We may not wonder that the 'Autobiography' was burned, as Murray says in
a recent account, by a committee of Byron's friends, including Hobhouse,
his sister, and Murray himself.

Now, the 'Blackwood' of July 1824 thus declares its conviction that this
outrage on every sentiment of human decency came from Lord Byron, and
that his ho