e.
Mark how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze to her skin and stagnate there to mud,
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,
Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale,--
(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace
Congenial colours in that soul or face,)
Look on her features! and behold her mind
As in a mirror of itself defined:
Look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged
There is no trait which might not be enlarged.'

The poem thus ends:--

'May the strong curse of crushed affections light
Back on thy bosom with reflected blight,
And make thee in thy leprosy of mind
As loathsome to thyself as to mankind!
Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate,
Black--as thy will for others would create;
Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust,
And thy soul welter in its hideous crust.
O, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed,
The widowed couch of fire, that thou hast spread
Then when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with prayer,
Look on thy earthly victims--and despair!
Down to the dust! and as thou rott'st away,
Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.
_But for the love I bore and still must bear_
To her thy malice from all ties would tear,
Thy name,--thy human name,--to every eye
The climax of all scorn, should hang on high,
Exalted o'er thy less abhorred compeers,
And festering in the infamy of years.'
March 16, 1816.

Now, on the 29th of March 1816, this was Lord Byron's story. He states
that his wife had a truthfulness even from early girlhood that the most
artful and unscrupulous governess could not pollute,--that she always
_panted_ for truth,--that flattery could not fool nor baseness blind
her,--that though she was a genius and master of science, she was yet
gentle and tolerant, and one whom no envy could ruffle to retaliate pain.

In September of the same year she is a monster of unscrupulous deceit and
vindictive cruelty. Now, what had happened in the five months between
the dates of these poems to produce such a change of opinion? Simply
this:--

1st. The negotiation between him and his wife's lawyers had ended in his
signing a deed of separation in preference to standing a suit for
divorce.

2nd. Madame de Stael, moved by his tears of anguish and professions of
repentance, had offered to negotiate with Lady Byron on his behalf, and
had failed.

The failure of this application