If their lips are sealed up, they are not sealed up by me, and the greatest favour _they_ can confer upon me will be to open them.

From the first hour in which I was apprised of the intentions of the Noel family to the last communication between Lady Byron and myself in the character of wife and husband (a period of some months), I called repeatedly and in vain for a statement of their or her charges, and it was chiefly in consequence of Lady Byron's claiming (in a letter still existing) a promise on my part to consent to a separation, if such was _really_ her wish, that I consented at all; this claim, and the exasperating and inexpiable manner in which their object was pursued, which rendered it next to an impossibility that two persons so divided could ever be reunited, induced me reluctantly then, and repentantly still, to sign the deed, which I shall be happy--most happy--to cancel, and go before any tribunal which may discuss the business in the most public manner.
'Mr.Hobhouse made this proposition on my part, viz.

to abrogate all prior intentions--and go into court--the very day before the separation was signed, and it was declined by the other party, as also the publication of the correspondence during the previous discussion.
Those propositions I beg here to repeat, and to call upon her and hers to say their worst, pledging myself to meet their allegations,--whatever they may be,--and only too happy to be informed at last of their real nature.
'BYRON.' 'August 9, 1817.
'P.S .-- I have been, and am now, utterly ignorant of what description her allegations, charges, or whatever name they may have assumed, are; and am as little aware for what purpose they have been kept back,--unless it was to sanction the most infamous calumnies by silence.
'BYRON.' 'La Mira, near Venice.' It appears the circulation of this document must have been _very private_, since Moore, not _over_-delicate towards Lady Byron, did not think fit to print it; since John Murray neglected it, and since it has come out at this late hour for the first time.
If Lord Byron really desired Lady Byron and her legal counsel to understand the facts herein stated, and was willing at all hazards to bring on an open examination, why was this _privately_ circulated?
Why not issued as a card in the London papers?
Is it likely that Mr.Matthew Gregory Lewis, and a chosen band of friends acting as a committee, requested an audience with Lady Byron, Sir Samuel Romilly, and Dr.
Lushington, and formally presented this cartel of defiance?
We incline to think not.

We incline to think that this small serpent, in company with many others of like kind, crawled secretly and privately around, and when it found a good chance, bit an honest Briton, whose blood was thenceforth poisoned by an undetected falsehood.
The reader now may turn to the letters that Mr.Moore has thought fit to give us of this stay at La Mira, beginning with Letter 286, dated July 1, 1817, {28a} where he says: 'I have been working up my impressions into a _Fourth_ Canto of Childe Harold,' and also 'Mr.Lewis is in Venice.

I am going up to stay a week with him there.' Next, under date La Mira, Venice, July 10, {28b} he says, 'Monk Lewis is here; how pleasant!' Next, under date July 20, 1817, to Mr.Murray: 'I write to give you notice that I have _completed the fourth and ultimate canto of Childe Harold_.