that laying the extent of his intellectual labours out of the
question, and looking only to the nature of the intellect which
generated, and delighted in generating, such beautiful and noble
conceptions as are to be found in almost all Lord Byron's works,--we hold
it impossible that very many men can be at once capable of comprehending
these conceptions, and entitled to consider sensual profligacy as having
formed the principal, or even a principal, trait in Lord Byron's
character. Thirdly, and lastly, we have never been able to hear any one
fact established which could prove Lord Byron to deserve anything like
the degree or even kind of odium which has, in regard to matters of this
class, been heaped upon his name. We have no story of base unmanly
seduction, or false and villainous intrigue, against him,--none whatever.
It seems to us quite clear, that, if he had been at all what is called in
society an unprincipled sensualist, there must have been many such
stories, authentic and authenticated. But there are none
such,--absolutely none. His name has been coupled with the names of
three, four, or more women of some rank: but what kind of women? Every
one of them, in the first place, about as old as himself in years, and
therefore a great deal older in character; every one of them utterly
battered in reputation long before he came into contact with
them,--licentious, unprincipled, characterless women. What father has
ever reproached him with the ruin of his daughter? What husband has
denounced him as the destroyer of his peace?

'Let us not be mistaken. We are not defending the offences of which Lord
Byron unquestionably was guilty; neither are we finding fault with those,
who, after looking honestly within and around themselves, condemn those
offences, no matter how severely: but we are speaking of society in
general as it now exists; and we say that there is vile hypocrisy in the
tone in which Lord Byron is talked of there. We say, that, although all
offences against purity of life are miserable things, and condemnable
things, the degrees of guilt attached to different offences of this class
are as widely different as are the degrees of guilt between an assault
and a murder; and we confess our belief, that no man of Byron's station
or age could have run much risk in gaining a very bad name in society,
had a course of life similar (in so far as we know any thing of that) to
Lord Byron's been the only thing char