Lord Byron had artfully contrived during his life to place his wife in
such an antagonistic position with regard to himself, that his intimate
friends were forced to believe that one of the two had deliberately and
wantonly injured the other. The published statement of Lady Byron
contradicted boldly and point-blank all the statement of her husband
concerning the separation; so that, unless she was convicted as a false
witness, he certainly was.

The best evidence of this is Christopher North's own shocked, astonished
statement, and the words of the Noctes Club.

The noble life that Lady Byron lived after this hushed every voice, and
silenced even the most desperate calumny, while she was in the world. In
the face of Lady Byron as the world saw her, of what use was the talk of
Clytemnestra, and the assertion that she had been a mean, deceitful
conspirator against her husband's honour in life, and stabbed his memory
after death?

But when she was in her grave, when her voice and presence and good deeds
no more spoke for her, and a new generation was growing up that knew her
not; then was the time selected to revive the assault on her memory, and
to say over her grave what none would ever have dared to say of her while
living.

During these last two years, I have been gradually awakening to the
evidence of a new crusade against the memory of Lady Byron, which
respected no sanctity,--not even that last and most awful one of death.

Nine years after her death, when it was fully understood that no story on