fenders than in his
reluctant accusers. Happily, his own candour turns our hostility from
himself against his defenders. It was only in wayward and bitter
remarks that he misrepresented Lady Byron. He would have defended
himself irresistibly if Mr. Moore had left only his acknowledging
passages. But Mr. Moore has produced a "Life" of him which reflects
blame on Lady Byron so dexterously, that "more is meant than meets the
ear." The almost universal impression produced by his book is, that
Lady Byron must be a precise and a wan, unwarming spirit, a
blue-stocking of chilblained learning, a piece of insensitive
goodness.

'Who that knows Lady Byron will not pronounce her to be everything the
reverse? Will it be believed that this person, so unsuitably matched
to her moody lord, has written verses that would do no discredit to
Byron himself; that her sensitiveness is surpassed and bounded only by
her good sense; and that she is

'"Blest with a temper, whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day"?

'She brought to Lord Byron beauty, manners, fortune, meekness,
romantic affection, and everything that ought to have made her to the
most transcendent man of genius--had he been what he should have
been--his pride and his idol. I speak not of Lady Byron in the
commonplace manner of attesting character: I appeal to the gifted Mrs.
Siddons and Joanna Baillie, to Lady Charlemont, and to other ornaments
of their sex, whether I am exaggerating in the least when I say, that,
in their whole lives, they have seen few beings so intellectual and
well-tempered as Lady Byron.

'I wish to be as ingenuous as possible in speaking of her. Her
manner, I have no hesitation to say, is cool at the first interview,
but is modestly, and not insolently, cool: she contracted it, I
believe, from being exposed by her beauty and large fortune, in youth,
to numbers of suitors, whom she could not have otherwise kept at a
distance. But this manner could have had no influence with Lord
Byron; for it vanishes on nearer acquaintance, and has no origin in
coldness. All her friends like her frankness the better for being
preceded by this reserve. This manner, however, though not the
slightest apology for Lord Byron, has been inimical to Lady Byron in
her misfortunes. It endears her to her friends; but it piques the
indiffe