nd most hopeless, that the only child of this union was born.
Lord Byron's treatment of his wife during the sensitive period that
preceded the birth of this child, and during her confinement, was marked
by paroxysms of unmanly brutality, for which the only possible charity on
her part was the supposition of insanity. Moore sheds a significant
light on this period, by telling us that, about this time, Byron was
often drunk, day after day, with Sheridan. There had been insanity in
the family; and this was the plea which Lady Byron's love put in for him.
She regarded him as, if not insane, at least so nearly approaching the
boundaries of insanity as to be a subject of forbearance and tender pity;
and she loved him with that love resembling a mother's, which good wives
often feel when they have lost all faith in their husband's principles,
and all hopes of their affections. Still, she was in heart and soul his
best friend; true to him with a truth which he himself could not shake.

In the verses addressed to his daughter, Lord Byron speaks of her as

'The child of love, though born in bitterness,
And nurtured in convulsion.'

A day or two after the birth of this child, Lord Byron came suddenly into
Lady Byron's room, and told her that her mother was dead. It was an
utter falsehood; but it was only one of the many nameless injuries and
cruelties by which he expressed his hatred of her. A short time after
her confinement, she was informed by him, in a note, that, as soon as she
was able to travel, she must go; that he could not and would not longer
have her about him; and, when her child was only five weeks old, he
carried this threat of expulsion into effect.

Here we will insert briefly Lady Byron's own account (the only one she
ever gave to the public) of this separation. The circumstances under
which this brief story was written are affecting.

Lord Byron was dead. The whole account between him and her was closed
for ever in this world. Moore's 'Life' had been prepared, containing
simply and solely Lord Byron's own version of their story. Moore sent
this version to Lady Byron, and requested to know if she had any remarks
to make upon it. In reply, she sent a brief statement to him,--the first
and only one that had come from her during all the years of the
separation, and which appears to have mainly for its object the
exculpation of her father and mother from the charge, made by the poet,
of being the