is accused of breaking open her
husband's writing-desk in his absence, and sending the letters she found
there to the husband of a lady compromised by them; and likewise that
Lord Byron is declared to have paid back his wife's ten-thousand-pound
wedding portion, and doubled it. Moore makes no such statements; and his
remarks about Lord Byron's use of his wife's money are unmistakable
evidence to the contrary. Moore, although Byron's ardent partisan, was
too well informed to make assertions with regard to him, which, at that
time, it would have been perfectly easy to refute.

All these facts go to show that Lord Byron's character for accuracy or
veracity was not such as to entitle him to ordinary confidence as a
witness, especially in a case where he had the strongest motives for
misstatement.

And if we consider that the celebrated Autobiography was the finished,
careful work of such a practised 'mystifier,' who can wonder that it
presented a web of such intermingled truth and lies that there was no
such thing as disentangling it, and pointing out where falsehood ended
and truth began?

But in regard to Lady Byron, what has been the universal impression of
the world? It has been alleged against her that she was a precise,
straightforward woman, so accustomed to plain, literal dealings, that she
could not understand the various mystifications of her husband; and from
that cause arose her unhappiness. Byron speaks, in 'The Sketch,' of her
peculiar truthfulness; and even in the 'Clytemnestra' poem, when accusing
her of lying, he speaks of her as departing from

'The early truth that was her proper praise.'

Lady Byron's careful accuracy as to dates, to time, place, and
circumstances, will probably be vouched for by all the very large number
of persons whom the management of her extended property and her works of
benevolence brought to act as co-operators or agents with her. She was
not a person in the habit of making exaggerated or ill-considered
statements. Her published statement of 1830 is clear, exact, accurate,
and perfectly intelligible. The dates are carefully ascertained and
stated, the expressions are moderate, and all the assertions firm and
perfectly definite.

It therefore seems remarkable that the whole reasoning on this Byron
matter has generally been conducted by assuming all Lord Byron's
statements to be true, and requiring all Lady Byron's statements to be
sustained by other evidence.