with experience to suppose, that, if Lady Byron had been a monomaniac,
her state of disordered understanding would have been restricted to
one hallucination. Her diseased brain, affecting the normal action of
thought, would, in all probability, have manifested other symptoms
besides those referred to of aberration of intellect.

'During the last thirty years, I have not met with a case of insanity
(assuming the hypothesis of hallucination) at all parallel with that
of Lady Byron. In my experience, it is unique. I never saw a patient
with such a delusion.'

We refer our readers to a careful study of Dr. Forbes Winslow's
consideration of this subject given in Part III. Anyone who has been
familiar with the delicacy and acuteness of Dr. Winslow, as shown in his
work on obscure diseases of the brain and nerves, must feel that his
positive assertion on this ground is the best possible evidence. We here
gratefully acknowledge our obligations to Dr. Winslow for the corrected
proof of his valuable letter, which he has done us the honour to send for
this work. We shall consider that his argument, in connection with what
the reader may observe of Lady Byron's own writings, closes that issue of
the case completely.

The other alternative is, that Lady Byron deliberately committed false
witness. This was the ground assumed by the 'Blackwood,' when in July,
1869, it took upon itself the responsibility of re-opening the Byron
controversy. It is also the ground assumed by 'The London Quarterly' of
to-day.

Both say, in so many words, that no crime was imputed to Lord Byron; that
the representations made to Lushington in the beginning were false ones;
and that the story told to Lady Byron's confidential friends in later
days was also false.

Let us examine this theory. In the first place, it requires us to
believe in the existence of a moral monster of whom Madame Brinvilliers
is cited as the type. The 'Blackwood,' let it be remembered, opens the
controversy with the statement that Lady Byron was a Madame Brinvilliers.
The 'Quarterly' does not shrink from the same assumption.

Let us consider the probability of this question.

If Lady Byron were such a woman, and wished to ruin her husband's
reputation in order to save her own, and, being perfectly unscrupulous,
had circulated against him a story of unnatural crime which had no
proofs, how came two of the first lawyers of England to assume the