At a time when every sentiment in the heart of the most deeply wronged woman would forbid her appearing to justify herself from such cruel slander of a dead husband, an honest, kind-hearted, worthy Englishman actually thought it right and proper to give these lines to her eyes and the eyes of all the reading world.

Nothing can show more plainly what this poem was written for, and how thoroughly it did its work! Considering Byron as a wronged man, Murray thought he was contributing his mite towards doing him justice.

His editor prefaced the whole set of 'Domestic Pieces' with the following statements:-- 'They all refer to the unhappy separation, of which the precise causes are still a mystery, and which he declared to the last were never disclosed to himself.

He admitted that pecuniary embarrassments, disordered health, and dislike to family restraints had aggravated his naturally violent temper, and driven him to excesses.

He suspected that his mother-in-law had fomented the discord,--which Lady Byron denies,--and that more was due to the malignant offices of a female dependant, who is the subject of the bitterly satirical sketch.
* * * * 'To these general statements can only be added the still vaguer allegations of Lady Byron, that she conceived his conduct to be the result of insanity,--that, the physician pronouncing him responsible for his actions, she could submit to them no longer, and that Dr.
Lushington, her legal adviser, agreed that a reconciliation was neither proper nor possible.