ly the respect that a commoner has for a
lady of rank, and a good deal of the feeling that seems to underlie all
English literature,--that it is no matter what becomes of the woman when
the man's story is to be told. But, with all his faults, Moore was not a
cruel man; and we cannot conceive such outrageous cruelty and
ungentlemanly indelicacy towards an unoffending woman, as he shows in
these 'Memoirs,' without referring them to Lord Byron's own influence in
making him an unscrupulous, committed partisan on his side.

So little pity, so little sympathy, did he suppose Lady Byron to be
worthy of, that he laid before her, in the sight of all the world,
selections from her husband's letters and journals, in which the
privacies of her courtship and married life were jested upon with a
vulgar levity; letters filled, from the time of the act of separation,
with a constant succession of sarcasms, stabs, stings, epigrams, and
vindictive allusions to herself, bringing her into direct and insulting
comparison with his various mistresses, and implying their superiority
over her. There, too, were gross attacks on her father and mother, as
having been the instigators of the separation; and poor Lady Milbanke, in
particular, is sometimes mentioned with epithets so offensive, that the
editor prudently covers the terms with stars, as intending language too
gross to be printed.

The last mistress of Lord Byron is uniformly brought forward in terms of
such respect and consideration, that one would suppose that the usual
moral laws that regulate English family life had been specially repealed
in his favour. Moore quotes with approval letters from Shelley, stating
that Lord Byron's connection with La Guiccioli has been of inestimable
benefit to him; and that he is now becoming what he should be, 'a
virtuous man.' Moore goes on to speak of the connection as one, though
somewhat reprehensible, yet as having all those advantages of marriage
and settled domestic ties that Byron's affectionate spirit had long
sighed for, but never before found; and in his last resume of the poet's
character, at the end of the volume, he brings the mistress into direct
comparison with the wife in a single sentence: 'The woman to whom he gave
the love of his maturer years idolises his name; and, with a single
unhappy exception, scarce an instance is to be found of one brought. . .
into relations of amity with him who did not retain a kind regard for him
in