set his 'initiated' with their documents to work upon him.

One of these documents to which he requested Wilson's attention was the
private autobiography, written expressly to give his own story of all the
facts of the marriage and separation.

In the indignant letter he writes Murray on the 'Blackwood' article, Vol.
IV., Letter 350--under date December 10, 1819--he says:--

'I sent home for Moore, and for Moore only (who has my journal also),
my memoir written up to 1816, and I gave him leave to show it to whom
he pleased, but _not to publish_ on any account. _You_ may read it,
and you may let Wilson read it if he likes--not for his public
opinion, but his private, for I like the man, and care very little
about the magazine. And I could wish Lady Byron herself to read it,
that she may have it in her power to mark any thing mistaken or
misstated. As it will never appear till after my extinction, it would
be but fair she should see it; that is to say, herself willing. Your
"Blackwood" accuses me of treating women harshly; but I have been
their martyr; my whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them.'

It was a part of Byron's policy to place Lady Byron in positions before
the world where she _could_ not speak, and where her silence would be set
down to her as haughty, stony indifference and obstinacy. Such was the
pretended negotiation through Madame de Stael, and such now this
apparently fair and generous offer to let Lady Byron see and mark this
manuscript.

The little Ada is now in her fifth year--a child of singular sensibility
and remarkable mental powers--one of those exceptional children who are