her retirement to see the waves
of popular sympathy, that once bore her up, day by day retreating, while
his accusations against her were resounding in his poems over the whole
earth? And after Lord Byron's death, when all the world with one consent
began to give their memorials of him, and made it appear, by their
various 'recollections of conversations,' how incessantly he had obtruded
his own version of the separation upon every listener, did she manifest
any similar eagerness?

Lady Byron had seen the 'Blackwood' coming forward, on the first
appearance of 'Don Juan,' to rebuke the cowardly lampoon in words
eloquent with all the unperverted vigour of an honest Englishman. Under
the power of the great conspirator, she had seen that 'Blackwood' become
the very eager recipient and chief reporter of the stories against her,
and the blind admirer of her adversary.

All this time, she lost sympathy daily by being silent. The world will
embrace those who court it; it will patronise those who seek its favour;
it will make parties for those who seek to make parties: but for the
often accused who do not speak, who make no confidants and no parties,
the world soon loses sympathy.

When at last she spoke, Christopher North says 'she astonished the
world.' Calm, clear, courageous, exact as to time, date, and
circumstance, was that first testimony, backed by the equally clear
testimony of Dr. Lushington.

It showed that her secret had been kept even from her parents. In words
precise, firm, and fearless, she says, 'If these statements on which Dr.
Lushington and Sir Samuel Romilly formed their opinion were false, the
responsibility and the odium should rest with me only.' Christopher
North did not pretend to disbelieve this statement. He breathed not a
doubt of Lady Byron's word. He spoke of the crime indicated, as one
which might have been foul as the grave's corruption, unforgivable as the
sin against the Holy Ghost. He rebuked the wife for bearing this
testimony, even to save the memory of her dead father and mother, and, in
the same breath, declared that she ought now to go farther, and speak
fully the one awful word, and then--'a mitigated sentence, or eternal
silence!'

But Lady Byron took no counsel with the world, nor with the literary men
of her age. One knight, with some small remnant of England's old
chivalry, set lance in rest for her: she saw him beaten back unhorsed,
rolled in the dust, and inglorious