e left him, and
was desirous of her return. Lady Byron states that he told her that he
would force her to leave him, and to leave him in such a way that the
whole blame of the separation should always rest on her, and not on him.

To say nothing of any deeper or darker accusations on either side, here,
in the very outworks of the story, the two meet point-blank.

In considering two opposing stories, we always, as a matter of fact, take
into account the character of the witnesses.

If a person be literal and exact in his usual modes of speech, reserved,
careful, conscientious, and in the habit of observing minutely the minor
details of time, place, and circumstances, we give weight to his
testimony from these considerations. But if a person be proved to have
singular and exceptional principles with regard to truth; if he be
universally held by society to be so in the habit of mystification, that
large allowances must be made for his statements; if his assertions at
one time contradict those made at another; and if his statements, also,
sometimes come in collision with those of his best friends, so that, when
his language is reported, difficulties follow, and explanations are made
necessary,--all this certainly disqualifies him from being considered a
trustworthy witness.

All these disqualifications belong in a remarkable degree to Lord Byron,
on the oft-repeated testimony of his best friends.

We shall first cite the following testimony, given in an article from
'Under the Crown,' which is written by an early friend and ardent admirer
of Lord Byron:--

'Byron had one pre-eminent fault,--a fault which must be considered as
deeply criminal by everyone who does not, as I do, believe it to have
resulted from monomania. He had a morbid love of a bad reputation.
There was hardly an offence of which he would not, with perfect
indifference, accuse himself. An old schoolfellow who met him on the
Continent told me that he would continually write paragraphs against
himself in the foreign journals, and delight in their republication by
the English newspapers as in the success of a practical joke. Whenever
anybody has related anything discreditable of Byron, assuring me that
it must be true, for he heard it from himself, I always felt that he
could not have spoken upon worse authority; and that, in all
probability, the tale was a pure invention. If I could remember, and
were willing