isely
where the slanders of her husband, the literature of the Noctes Club, and
the unanimous verdict of May Fair as recorded by 'Blackwood,' had placed
it.

True, Lady Byron had nobly and quietly lived down these slanders in
England by deeds that made her name revered as a saint among all those
who valued saintliness.

But in France and Italy, and in these United States, I have had abundant
opportunity to know that Lady Byron stood judged and condemned on the
testimony of her brilliant husband, and that the feeling against her had
a vivacity and intensity not to be overcome by mere allusions to a
virtuous life in distant England.

This is strikingly shown by one fact. In the American edition of Moore's
'Life of Byron,' by Claxton, Remsen, and Haffelfinger, Philadelphia,
1869, which I have been consulting, Lady Byron's statement, which is
found in the Appendix of Murray's standard edition, is entirely omitted.
Every other paper is carefully preserved. This one incident showed how
the tide of sympathy was setting in this New World. Of course, there is
no stronger power than a virtuous life; but, for a virtuous life to bear
testimony to the world, its details must be told, so that the world may
know them.

Suppose the memoirs of Clarkson and Wilberforce had been suppressed after
their death, how soon might the coming tide have wiped out the record of
their bravery and philanthropy! Suppose the lives of Francis Xavier and
Henry Martyn had never been written, and we had lost the remembrance of
what holy men could do and dare in the divine enthusiasm of Christian
faith! Suppose we had no Fenelon, no Book of Martyrs!

Would there not be an outcry through all the literary and artistic world
if a perfect statue were allowed to remain buried for ever because some
painful individual history was connected with its burial and its
recovery? But is not a noble life a greater treasure to mankind than any
work of art?

We have heard much mourning over the burned Autobiography of Lord Byron,
and seen it treated of in a magazine as 'the lost chapter in history.'
The lost chapter in history is Lady Byron's Autobiography in her life and
letters; and the suppression of them is the root of this whole mischief.

We do not in this intend to censure the parties who came to this
decision.

The descendants of Lady Byron revere her memory, as they have every
reason to do. That it was their desire to have a Memoir of her
published