had shown in selecting from Byron's letters
the coarsest against herself, her parents, and her old governess Mrs.
Clermont, and by the indecent comparisons he had instituted between Lady
Byron and Lord Byron's last mistress.

It is refreshing to hear, at last, from somebody who is not altogether on
his knees at the feet of the popular idol, and who has some chivalry for
woman, and some idea of common humanity. He says,--

'I found my right to speak on this painful subject on its now
irrevocable publicity, brought up afresh as it has been by Mr. Moore,
to be the theme of discourse to millions, and, if I err not much, the
cause of misconception to innumerable minds. I claim to speak of Lady
Byron in the right of a man, and of a friend to the rights of woman,
and to liberty, and to natural religion. I claim a right, more
especially, as one of the many friends of Lady Byron, who, one and
all, feel aggrieved by this production. It has virtually dragged her
forward from the shade of retirement, where she had hid her sorrows,
and compelled her to defend the heads of her friends and her parents
from being crushed under the tombstone of Byron. Nay, in a general
view, it has forced her to defend herself; though, with her true sense
and her pure taste, she stands above all special pleading. To plenary
explanation she ought not--she never shall be driven. Mr. Moore is
too much a gentleman not to shudder at the thought of that; but if
other Byronists, of a far different stamp, were to force the savage
ordeal, it is her enemies, and not she, that would have to dread the
burning ploughshares.

'We, her friends, have no wish to prolong the discussion: but a few
words we must add, even to her admirable statement; for hers is a
cause not only dear to her friends, but having become, from Mr. Moore
and her misfortunes, a publicly-agitated cause, it concerns morality,
and the most sacred rights of the sex, that she should (and that, too,
without more special explanations) be acquitted out and out, and
honourably acquitted, in this business, of all share in the blame,
which is one and indivisible. Mr. Moore, on further reflection, may
see this; and his return to candour will surprise us less than his
momentary deviation from its path.

'For the tact of Mr. Moore's conduct in this affair, I have not to
answer; but, if indelicacy be charged upo