responsibility of offering to present her case in open court? How came
her husband, if he knew himself guiltless, to shrink from that public
investigation which must have demonstrated his innocence? Most
astonishing of all, when he fled from trial, and the report got abroad
against him in England, and was believed even by his own relations, why
did not his wife avail herself of the moment to complete her victory? If
at that moment she had publicly broken with Mrs. Leigh, she might have
confirmed every rumour. Did she do it? and why not? According to the
'Blackwood,' we have here a woman who has made up a frightful story to
ruin her husband's reputation, yet who takes every pains afterwards to
prevent its being ruined. She fails to do the very thing she undertakes;
and for years after, rather than injure him, she loses public sympathy,
and, by sealing the lips of her legal counsel, deprives herself of the
advantage of their testimony.

Moreover, if a desire for revenge could have been excited in her, it
would have been provoked by the first publication of the fourth canto of
'Childe Harold,' when she felt that Byron was attacking her before the
world. Yet we have Lady Anne Barnard's testimony, that, at this time,
she was so far from wishing to injure him, that all her communications
were guarded by cautious secrecy. At this time, also, she had a strong
party in England, to whom she could have appealed. Again: when 'Don
Juan' was first printed, it excited a violent re-action against Lord
Byron. Had his wife chosen then to accuse him, and display the evidence
she had shown to her counsel, there is little doubt that all the world
would have stood with her; but she did not. After his death, when she
spoke at last, there seems little doubt from the strength of Dr.
Lushington's language, that Lady Byron had a very strong case, and that,
had she been willing, her counsel could have told much more than he did.
She might then have told her whole story, and been believed. Her word
was believed by Christopher North, and accepted as proof that Byron had
been a great criminal. Had revenge been her motive, she could have
spoken the ONE WORD more that North called for.

The 'Quarterly' asks why she waited till everybody concerned was dead.
There is an obvious answer. Because, while there was anybody living to
whom the testimony would have been utterly destructive, there were the
best reasons for withholding it. When all