At that time, therefore, he was standing in a community who knew all he had said in former days of his wife's character, who were in an aroused and excited state by the fact that so lovely and good and patient a woman had actually been forced for some unexplained cause to leave him.

His policy at that time was to make large general confessions of sin, and to praise and compliment her, with a view of enlisting sympathy.

Everybody feels for a handsome sinner, weeping on his knees, asking pardon for his offences against his wife in the public newspapers.
The celebrated 'Fare thee well,' as we are told, was written on the 17th of March, and accidentally found its way into the newspapers at this time 'through the imprudence of a friend whom he allowed to take a copy.' These 'imprudent friends' have all along been such a marvellous convenience to Lord Byron.
But the question met him on all sides, What is the matter?
This wife you have declared the brightest, sweetest, most amiable of beings, and against whose behaviour as a wife you actually never had nor can have a complaint to make,--why is she _now_ all of a sudden so inflexibly set against you?
This question required an answer, and he answered by writing another poem, which also _accidentally_ found its way into the public prints.

It is in his 'Domestic Pieces,' which the reader may refer to at the end of this volume, and is called 'A Sketch.' There was a most excellent, respectable, well-behaved Englishwoman, a Mrs.Clermont, {16} who had been Lady Byron's governess in her youth, and was still, in mature life, revered as her confidential friend.

It appears that this person had been with Lady Byron during a part of her married life, especially the bitter hours of her lonely child-bed, when a young wife so much needs a sympathetic friend.