ercourse with England, and I knew none of them.
How was I to know that any of them were living? I was astonished to
learn, for the first time, by the solicitors' letters, that there were
trustees, who held in their hands all Lady Byron's carefully prepared
proofs and documents, by which this falsehood might immediately have been
refuted.

If they had spoken, they might have saved all this confusion. Even if
bound by restrictions for a certain period of time, they still might have
called on a Christian public to frown down such a cruel and indecent
attack on the character of a noble lady who had been a benefactress to so
many in England. They might have stated that the means of wholly
refuting the slanders of the 'Blackwood' were in their hands, and only
delayed in coming forth from regard to the feelings of some in this
generation. Then might they not have announced her Life and Letters,
that the public might have the same opportunity as themselves for knowing
and judging Lady Byron by her own writings?

Had this been done, I had been most happy to have remained silent. I
have been astonished that any one should have supposed this speaking on
my part to be anything less than it is,--the severest act of
self-sacrifice that one friend can perform for another, and the most
solemn and difficult tribute to justice that a human being can be called
upon to render.

I have been informed that the course I have taken would be contrary to
the wishes of my friend. I think otherwise. I know her strong sense of
justice, and her reverence for truth. Nothing ever moved her to speak to
the public but an attack upon the honour of the dead. In her statement,
she says of her parents, 'There is no other near relative to vindicate
their memory from insult: I am therefore compelled to break the silence I
had hoped always to have observed.'

If there was any near relative to vindicate Lady Byron's memory, I had no
evidence of the fact; and I considered the utter silence to be strong
evidence to the contrary. In all the storm of obloquy and rebuke that
has raged in consequence of my speaking, I have had two unspeakable
sources of joy; first, that they could not touch her; and, second, that
they could not blind the all-seeing God. It is worth being in darkness
to see the stars.

It has been said that I have drawn on Lady Byron's name greater obloquy
than ever before. I deny the charge. Nothing fouler has been asserted
of her t