yron's--that he was condemned unheard, and had no chance of knowing
whereof he _was accused--never appeared in public_.

It, however, was most actively circulated in _private_. That Byron was
in the habit of intrusting to different confidants articles of various
kinds to be shown to different circles as they could bear them, we have
already shown. We have recently come upon another instance of this kind.
In the late eagerness to exculpate Byron, a new document has turned up,
of which Mr. Murray, it appears, had never heard when, after Byron's
death, he published in the preface to his 'Domestic Pieces' the sentence:
'_He rejected the proposal for an amicable separation, but consented when
threatened with a suit in Doctors' Commons_.' It appears that, up to
1853, neither John Murray senior, nor the son who now fills his place,
had taken any notice of this newly found document, which we are now
informed was drawn up by Lord Byron in August 1817, while Mr. Hobhouse
was staying with him at La Mira, near Venice, given to Mr. Matthew
Gregory Lewis, _for circulation among friends in England_, found in Mr.
Lewis's papers after his death, and _now_ in the possession of Mr.
Murray.' Here it is:--

'It has been intimated to me that the persons understood to be the
legal advisers of Lady Byron have declared "their lips to be sealed
up" on the cause of the separation between her and myself. If their
lips are sealed up, they are not sealed up by me, and the greatest
favour _they_ can confer upon me will be to open them. From the first
hour in which I was apprised of the intentions of the Noel family to
the last communication between Lady Byron and myself in the character
of wife and husband (a period of some months), I called repeatedly and
in vain for a statement of their or her charges, and it was chiefly in
consequence of Lady Byron's claiming (in a letter still existing) a
promise on my part to consent to a separation, if such was _really_
her wish, that I consented at all; this claim, and the exasperating
and inexpiable manner in which their object was pursued, which
rendered it next to an impossibility that two persons so divided could
ever be reunited, induced me reluctantly then, and repentantly still,
to sign the deed, which I shall be happy--most happy--to cancel, and
go before any tribunal which may discuss the business in the most
public manner.

'Mr. Hobhous