ormed that opinion without hearing both sides.
We do not say, we do not mean to insinuate, that Lady Byron was in any
respect to blame. We think that those who condemn her on the evidence
which is now before the public are as rash as those who condemn her
husband. We will not pronounce any judgment; we can not, even in our
own minds, form any judgment on a transaction which is so imperfectly
known to us. It would have been well if, at the time of the
separation, all those who knew as little about the matter then as we
know about it now, had shown that forbearance, which, under such
circumstances, is but common justice.

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its
periodical lifts of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and
family quarrels pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk
about it for a day, and forget it. But once in six or seven years, our
virtue becomes outrageous. We can not suffer the laws of religion and
decency to be violated. We must make a stand against vice. We must
teach libertines that the English people appreciate the importance of
domestic ties. Accordingly, some unfortunate man, in no respect more
depraved than hundreds whose offenses have been treated with lenity,
is singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he has children, they are
to be taken from him. If he has a profession, he is to be driven from
it. He is cut by the higher orders, and hissed by the lower. He is, in
truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the
other transgressors of the same class are, it is supposed,
sufficiently chastised. We reflect very complacently on our own
severity, and compare with great pride the high standard of morals
established in England, with the Parisian laxity. At length our anger
is satiated. Our victim is ruined and heart-broken. And our virtue
goes quietly to sleep for seven years more.

It is clear that those vices which destroy domestic happiness ought to
be as much as possible represt. It is equally clear that they can not
be represt by penal legislation. It is therefore right and desirable
that public opinion should be directed against them. But it should be
directed against them uniformly, steadily, and temperately, not by
sudden fits and starts. There should be one weight and one measure.
Declamation is always an objectionable mode of punishment. It is the
resource of judges too indolent and hasty to investigate facts, and to
discri