rent. Most odiously unjust, therefore, is Mr. Moore's
assertion, that she has had the advantage of Lord Byron in public
opinion. She is, comparatively speaking, unknown to the world; for
though she has many friends, that is, a friend in everyone who knows
her, yet her pride and purity and misfortunes naturally contract the
circle of her acquaintance.

'There is something exquisitely unjust in Mr. Moore comparing her
chance of popularity with Lord Byron's, the poet who can command men
of talents,--putting even Mr. Moore into the livery of his
service,--and who has suborned the favour of almost all women by the
beauty of his person and the voluptuousness of his verses. Lady Byron
has nothing to oppose to these fascinations but the truth and justice
of her cause.

'You said, Mr. Moore, that Lady Byron was unsuitable to her lord: the
word is cunningly insidious, and may mean as much or as little as may
suit your convenience. But, if she was unsuitable, I remark that it
tells all the worse against Lord Byron. I have not read it in your
book (for I hate to wade through it); but they tell me that you have
not only warily depreciated Lady Byron, but that you have described a
lady that would have suited him. If this be true, "it is the
unkindest cut of all,"--to hold up a florid description of a woman
suitable to Lord Byron, as if in mockery over the forlorn flower of
virtue that was drooping in the solitude of sorrow.

'But I trust there is no such passage in your book. Surely you must
be conscious of your woman, with her 'virtue loose about her, who
would have suited Lord Byron," to be as imaginary a being as the woman
without a head. A woman to suit Lord Byron! Poo, poo! I could paint
to you the woman that could have matched him, if I had not bargained
to say as little as possible against him.

'If Lady Byron was not suitable to Lord Byron, so much the worse for
his lordship; for let me tell you, Mr. Moore, that neither your
poetry, nor Lord Byron's, nor all our poetry put together, ever
delineated a more interesting being than the woman whom you have so
coldly treated. This was not kicking the dead lion, but wounding the
living lamb, who was already bleeding and shorn, even unto the quick.
I know, that, collectively speaking, the world is in Lady Byron's
favour; but it is coldly favourable, and you have n