This Mrs.Clermont was the person selected by Lord Byron at this time to be the scapegoat to bear away the difficulties of the case into the wilderness.
We are informed in Moore's Life what a noble pride of rank Lord Byron possessed, and how when the headmaster of a school, against whom he had a pique, invited him to dinner, he declined, saying, 'To tell you the truth, Doctor, if you should come to Newstead, I shouldn't think of inviting _you_ to dine with _me_, and so I don't care to dine with you here.' Different countries, it appears, have different standards as to good taste; Moore gives this as an amusing instance of a young lord's spirit.
Accordingly, his first attack against this 'lady,' as we Americans should call her, consists in gross statements concerning her having been born poor and in an inferior rank.

He begins by stating that she was 'Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred, Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head; Next--for some gracious service unexpressed And from its wages only to be guessed-- Raised from the toilet to the table, where Her wondering betters wait behind her chair.
With eye unmoved and forehead unabashed, She dines from off the plate she lately washed: Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, The genial confidante and general spy,-- Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess,-- An _only infant's earliest governess_! What had she made the pupil of her art None knows; _but that high soul secured the heart, And panted for the truth it could not hear With longing soul and undeluded ear_!' {17} The poet here recognises as a singular trait in Lady Byron her peculiar love of truth,--a trait which must have struck everyone that had any knowledge of her through life.

He goes on now to give what he certainly knew to be the real character of Lady Byron:-- 'Foiled was perversion by that youthful mind, Which flattery fooled not, baseness could not blind, _Deceit infect_ not, nor contagion soil, Indulgence weaken, or example spoil, Nor mastered science tempt her to look down On humbler talent with a pitying frown, Nor genius swell, nor beauty render vain, Nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain.' We are now informed that Mrs.Clermont, whom he afterwards says in his letters was a spy of Lady Byron's mother, set herself to make mischief between them.

He says:-- 'If early habits,--those strong links that bind At times the loftiest to the meanest mind, Have given her power too deeply to instil The angry essence of her deadly will; If like a snake she steal within your walls, Till the black slime betray her as she crawls; If like a viper to the heart she wind, And leaves the venom there she did not find,-- What marvel that this hag of hatred works Eternal evil latent as she lurks.' The noble lord then proceeds to abuse this woman of inferior rank in the language of the upper circles.

He thus describes her person and manner:-- 'Skilled by a touch to deepen scandal's tints With all the kind mendacity of hints, While mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with smiles, A thread of candour with a web of wiles; A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming, To hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming; A lip of lies; a face formed to conceal, And without feeling mock at all who feel; With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown,-- A cheek of parchment and an eye of stone.
Mark how the channels of her yellow blood Ooze to her skin and stagnate there to mud, Cased like the centipede in saffron mail, Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale,-- (For drawn from reptiles only may we trace Congenial colours in that soul or face,) Look on her features! and behold her mind As in a mirror of itself defined: Look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged There is no trait which might not be enlarged.' The poem thus ends:-- 'May the strong curse of crushed affections light Back on thy bosom with reflected blight, And make thee in thy leprosy of mind As loathsome to thyself as to mankind! Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate, Black--as thy will for others would create; Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust, And thy soul welter in its hideous crust.
O, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed, The widowed couch of fire, that thou hast spread Then when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with prayer, Look on thy earthly victims--and despair! Down to the dust! and as thou rott'st away, Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.
_But for the love I bore and still must bear_ To her thy malice from all ties would tear, Thy name,--thy human name,--to every eye The climax of all scorn, should hang on high, Exalted o'er thy less abhorred compeers, And festering in the infamy of years.' March 16, 1816.
Now, on the 29th of March 1816, this was Lord Byron's story.