n, that the domestic situation in Byron's house at the
time of his wife's expulsion was one so grave as to call for family
counsel; for Lady Byron, generally accurate, speaks in the plural number.
'His nearest relatives' certainly includes Mrs. Leigh. 'His family'
includes more. That some of Lord Byron's own relatives were cognisant of
facts at this time, and that they took Lady Byron's side, is shown by one
of his own chance admissions. In vol. vi. p.394, in a letter on Bowles,
he says, speaking of this time, 'All my relations, save one, fell from me
like leaves from a tree in autumn.' And in Medwin's Conversations he
says, 'Even my cousin George Byron, who had been brought up with me, and
whom I loved as a brother, took my wife's part.' The conduct must have
been marked in the extreme that led to this result.

We cannot help stopping here to say that Lady Byron's situation at this
time has been discussed in our days with a want of ordinary human feeling
that is surprising. Let any father and mother, reading this, look on
their own daughter, and try to make the case their own.

After a few short months of married life,--months full of patient
endurance of the strangest and most unaccountable treatment,--she comes
to them, expelled from her husband's house, an object of hatred and
aversion to him, and having to settle for herself the awful question,
whether he is a dangerous madman or a determined villain.

Such was this young wife's situation.

With a heart at times wrung with compassion for her husband as a helpless
maniac, and fearful that all may end in suicide, yet compelled to leave
him, she writes on the road the much-quoted letter, beginning 'Dear
Duck.' This is an exaggerated and unnatural letter, it is true, but of
precisely the character that might be expected from an inexperienced
young wife when dealing with a husband supposed to be insane.

The next day, she addressed to Augusta this letter:--

'MY DEAREST A.,--It is my great comfort that you are still in
Piccadilly.'

And again, on the 23rd:--

'DEAREST A.,--I know you feel for me, as I do for you; and perhaps I
am better understood than I think. You have been, ever since I knew
you, my best comforter; and will so remain, unless you grow tired of
the office,--which may well be.'

We can see here how self-denying and heroic appears to Lady Byron the
conduct of the sister, who patiently remains to soothe and guide and
res