her side or that of her friends was to be forthcoming, then her
calumniators raked out from the ashes of her husband's sepulchre all his
bitter charges, to state them over in even stronger and more indecent
forms.

There seems to be reason to think that the materials supplied by Lord
Byron for such a campaign yet exist in society.

To 'The Noctes' of November 1824, there is the following note apropos to
a discussion of the Byron question:--

'Byron's Memoirs, given by him to Moore, were burned, as everybody
knows. But, before this, Moore had lent them to several persons. Mrs.
Home Purvis, afterwards Viscountess of Canterbury, is known to have
sat up all one night, in which, aided by her daughter, she had a copy
made. I have the strongest reason for believing that one other person
made a copy; for the description of the first twenty-four hours after
the marriage ceremonial has been in my hands. Not until after the
death of Lady Byron, and Hobhouse, who was the poet's literary
executor, can the poet's Autobiography see the light; but I am certain
it will be published.'

Thus speaks Mackenzie in a note to a volume of 'The Noctes,' published in
America in 1854. Lady Byron died in 1860.

Nine years after Lady Byron's death, when it was ascertained that her
story was not to see the light, when there were no means of judging her
character by her own writings, commenced a well-planned set of operations
to turn the public attention once more to Lord Byron, and to represent
him as an injured man, whose testimony had been unjustly suppressed.