number of 'The Noctes,' where the bravest and most generous of literary
men that then were--himself the husband of a gentle wife--thus gives
sentence: the conversation is between North and the Shepherd:--

North.--'God forbid I should wound the feelings of Lady Byron, of
whose character, known to me but by the high estimation in which it is
held by all who have enjoyed her friendship, I have always spoken with
respect! . . . But may I, without harshness or indelicacy, say, here
among ourselves, James, that, by marrying Byron, she took upon
herself, with eyes wide open and conscience clearly convinced, duties
very different from those of which, even in common cases, the
presaging foresight shadows. . . the light of the first nuptial moon?'

Shepherd.--'She did that, sir; by my troth, she did that.'

. . . .

North.--'Miss Milbanke knew that he was reckoned a rake and a roue;
and although his genius wiped off, by impassioned eloquence in love-
letters that were felt to be irresistible, or hid the worst stain of,
that reproach, still Miss Milbanke must have believed it a perilous
thing to be the wife of Lord Byron. . . . But still, by joining her
life to his in marriage, she pledged her troth and her faith and her
love, under probabilities of severe, disturbing, perhaps fearful
trials, in the future. . . .

'But I think Lady Byron ought not to have printed that Narrative.
Death abrogates not the rights of a husband to his wife's silence when
speech is fatal. . . to his character as a man. Has she not flung
suspicion over his bones interred, that they are the bones of