publicly taken by the hand, and encouraged to go on and prosper in her
slanders, by one of the oldest and most influential British reviews, what
was said and what was done in England?

That is a question we should be glad to have answered. Nothing was done
that ever reached us across the water.

And why was nothing done? Is this language of a kind to be passed over
in silence?

Was it no offence to the house of Wentworth to attack the pure character
of its late venerable head, and to brand her in her sacred grave with the
name of one of the vilest of criminals?

Might there not properly have been an indignant protest of family
solicitors against this insult to the person and character of the
Baroness Wentworth?

If virtue went for nothing, benevolence for nothing, a long life of
service to humanity for nothing, one would at least have thought, that,
in aristocratic countries, rank might have had its rights to decent
consideration, and its guardians to rebuke the violation of those rights.

We Americans understand little of the advantages of rank; but we did
understand that it secured certain decorums to people, both while living
and when in their graves. From Lady Byron's whole history, in life and
in death, it would appear that we were mistaken.

What a life was hers! Was ever a woman more evidently desirous of the
delicate and secluded privileges of womanhood, of the sacredness of