to you, a thing to be so despised?

If, as the solicitors of the Wentworth family observe, you might be
entitled to treat with silent contempt the slanders of a mistress against
a wife, was it safe to treat with equal contempt the indorsement and
recommendation of those slanders by one of your oldest and most powerful
literary authorities?

No European magazine has ever had the weight and circulation in America
that the 'Blackwood' has held. In the days of my youth, when New England
was a comparatively secluded section of the earth, the wit and genius of
the 'Noctes Ambrosianae' were in the mouths of men and maidens, even in
our most quiet mountain-towns. There, years ago, we saw all Lady Byron's
private affairs discussed, and felt the weight of Christopher North's
decisions against her. Shelton Mackenzie, in his American edition,
speaks of the American circulation of 'Blackwood' being greater than that
in England. {126} It was and is now reprinted monthly; and, besides
that, 'Littell's Magazine' reproduces all its striking articles, and they
come with the weight of long established position. From the very fact
that it has long been considered the Tory organ, and the supporter of
aristocratic orders, all its admissions against the character of
individuals in the privileged classes have a double force.

When 'Blackwood,' therefore, boldly denounces a lady of high rank as a
modern Brinvilliers, and no sensation is produced, and no remonstrance
follows, what can people in the New World suppose, but that Lady Byron's
character was a point entirely given up; that her depravity was so well
established and so fully conceded, that nothing was to be said, and that
even the defenders of aristocracy were forced to admit it?