ith the poker.]

[Footnote 97: Of the abuse lavished upon him, the following extract from
a poem, published at this time, will give some idea:--

"From native England, that endured too long
The ceaseless burden of his impious song;
His mad career of crimes and follies run,
And grey in vice, when life was scarce begun;
He goes, in foreign lands prepared to find
A life more suited to his guilty mind;
Where other climes new pleasures may supply
For that pall'd taste, and that unhallow'd eye;--
Wisely he seeks some yet untrodden shore,
For those who know him less may prize him more."

In a rhyming pamphlet, too, entitled "A Poetical Epistle from Delia,
addressed to Lord Byron," the writer thus charitably expresses
herself:--

"Hopeless of peace below, and, shuddering thought!
Far from that Heav'n, denied, if never sought,
Thy light a beacon--a reproach thy name--
Thy memory "damn'd to everlasting fame,"
Shunn'd by the wise, admired by fools alone--
The good shall mourn thee--and the Muse disown."
]

* * * * *

LETTER 235. TO MR. ROGERS.

"March 25. 1816.

"You are one of the few persons with whom I have lived in what is
called intimacy, and have heard me at times conversing on the
untoward topic of my recent family disquietudes. Will you have the
goodness to say to me at once, whether you ever heard me speak of
her with disrespect, with unkindness, or defending myself at _her_
expense by any serious imputation of any description against
_her_? Did you never hear me say 'that when there was a right or a
wrong, she had the _right_?'--The reason I put these questions to
you or others of my friends is, because I am said, by her and hers,
to have resorted to such means of exculpation.

"Ever very truly yours,

"B."

* * * * *

In those Memoirs (or, more properly, Memoranda,) of the noble poet,
which it was thought expedient, for various reasons, to sacrifice, he
gave a detailed account of all the circumstances connected with his
marriage, from the first proposal to the lady till his own departure,
after the breach, from England. In truth, though the title of "Memoirs,"
which he himself sometimes gave to that manuscript, conveys the idea of
a complete and regular piece of biography, it was to this particular
portion of hi