testimony to the world, its details must be told, so that the world may
know them.

Suppose the memoirs of Clarkson and Wilberforce had been suppressed after
their death, how soon might the coming tide have wiped out the record of
their bravery and philanthropy! Suppose the lives of Francis Xavier and
Henry Martyn had never been written, and we had lost the remembrance of
what holy men could do and dare in the divine enthusiasm of Christian
faith! Suppose we had no Fenelon, no Book of Martyrs!

Would there not be an outcry through all the literary and artistic world
if a perfect statue were allowed to remain buried for ever because some
painful individual history was connected with its burial and its
recovery? But is not a noble life a greater treasure to mankind than any
work of art?

We have heard much mourning over the burned Autobiography of Lord Byron,
and seen it treated of in a magazine as 'the lost chapter in history.'
The lost chapter in history is Lady Byron's Autobiography in her life and
letters; and the suppression of them is the root of this whole mischief.

We do not in this intend to censure the parties who came to this
decision.

The descendants of Lady Byron revere her memory, as they have every
reason to do. That it was their desire to have a Memoir of her
published, I have been informed by an individual of the highest character
in England, who obtained the information directly from Lady Byron's
grandchildren.