rds of the Noctes Club.

The noble life that Lady Byron lived after this hushed every voice, and
silenced even the most desperate calumny, while she was in the world. In
the face of Lady Byron as the world saw her, of what use was the talk of
Clytemnestra, and the assertion that she had been a mean, deceitful
conspirator against her husband's honour in life, and stabbed his memory
after death?

But when she was in her grave, when her voice and presence and good deeds
no more spoke for her, and a new generation was growing up that knew her
not; then was the time selected to revive the assault on her memory, and
to say over her grave what none would ever have dared to say of her while
living.

During these last two years, I have been gradually awakening to the
evidence of a new crusade against the memory of Lady Byron, which
respected no sanctity,--not even that last and most awful one of death.

Nine years after her death, when it was fully understood that no story on
her side or that of her friends was to be forthcoming, then her
calumniators raked out from the ashes of her husband's sepulchre all his
bitter charges, to state them over in even stronger and more indecent
forms.

There seems to be reason to think that the materials supplied by Lord
Byron for such a campaign yet exist in society.

To 'The Noctes' of November 1824, there is the following note apropos to
a discussion of the Byron question:--

'Byron's Memoirs, given by him to Moore, were burned, as everybody
knows. But, before this, Moore had lent them to several persons. Mrs.
Home Purvis, afterwards Viscountess of Canterbury, is known to have
sat up all one night, in which, aided by her daughter, she had a copy
made. I have the strongest reason for believing that one other person
made a copy; for the description of the first twenty-four hours after
the marriage ceremonial has been in my hands. Not until after the
death of Lady Byron, and Hobhouse, who was the poet's literary
executor, can the poet's Autobiography see the light; but I am certain
it will be published.'

Thus speaks Mackenzie in a note to a volume of 'The Noctes,' published in
America in 1854. Lady Byron died in 1860.

Nine years after Lady Byron's death, when it was ascertained that her
story was not to see the light, when there were no means of judging her
character by her own writings, commenced a well-planned set of operations
to turn the publ