y Byron, though slight and almost infantine in her bodily presence,
had the soul, not only of an angelic woman, but of a strong reasoning
man. It was the writer's lot to know her at a period when she formed the
personal acquaintance of many of the very first minds of England; but,
among all with whom this experience brought her in connection, there was
none who impressed her so strongly as Lady Byron. There was an almost
supernatural power of moral divination, a grasp of the very highest and
most comprehensive things, that made her lightest opinions singularly
impressive. No doubt, this result was wrought out in a great degree from
the anguish and conflict of these two years, when, with no one to help or
counsel her but Almighty God, she wrestled and struggled with fiends of
darkness for the redemption of her husband's soul.

She followed him through all his sophistical reasonings with a keener
reason. She besought and implored, in the name of his better nature, and
by all the glorious things that he was capable of being and doing; and
she had just power enough to convulse and shake and agonise, but not
power enough to subdue.

One of the first of living writers, in the novel of 'Romola,' has given,
in her masterly sketch of the character of Tito, the whole history of the
conflict of a woman like Lady Byron with a nature like that of her
husband. She has described a being full of fascinations and sweetnesses,
full of generosities and of good-natured impulses; a nature that could
not bear to give pain, or to see it in others, but entirely destitute of
any firm moral principle; she shows how such a being, merely by yielding
step by step to the impulses of passion, and disregarding the claims of
truth and right, becomes involved in a fatality of evil, in which deceit,
crime, and cruelty are a necessity, forcing him to persist in the basest
ingratitude to the father who has done all for him, and hard-hearted
treachery to the high-minded wife who has given herself to him wholly.

There are few scenes in literature more fearfully tragic than the one
between Romola and Tito, when he finally discovers that she knows him
fully, and can be deceived by him no more. Some such hour always must
come for strong decided natures irrevocably pledged--one to the service
of good, and the other to the slavery of evil. The demoniac cried out,
'What have I to do with thee, Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to
torment me before the tim