Did you ever see his letter to me ?' The footnote to this says, '_This letter, which was_ PRINTED _in Byron's lifetime, was not published till_ 1830, when it appeared in Moore's "Life of Byron." It is one of the most vigorous prose compositions in the language.

Byron had the highest opinion of Wilson's genius and noble spirit.' In the first place, with our present ideas of propriety and good taste, we should reckon it an indecorum to make the private affairs of a pure and good woman, whose circumstances under any point of view were trying, and who evidently shunned publicity, the subject of public discussion in magazines which were read all over the world.
Lady Byron, as they all knew, had on her hands a most delicate and onerous task, in bringing up an only daughter, necessarily inheriting peculiarities of genius and great sensitiveness; and the many mortifications and embarrassments which such intermeddling with her private matters must have given, certainly should have been considered by men with any pretensions to refinement or good feeling.
But the literati of England allowed her no consideration, no rest, no privacy.
In 'The Noctes' of November 1825 there is the record of a free conversation upon Lord and Lady Byron's affairs, interlarded with exhortations to push the bottle, and remarks on whisky-toddy.

Medwin's 'Conversations with Lord Byron' is discussed, which, we are told in a note, appeared a few months after the _noble_ poet's death.
There is a rather bold and free discussion of Lord Byron's character--his fondness for gin and water, on which stimulus he wrote 'Don Juan;' and James Hogg says pleasantly to Mullion, 'O Mullion! it's a pity you and Byron could na ha' been acquaint.

There would ha' been brave sparring to see who could say the wildest and the dreadfullest things; for he had neither fear of man or woman, and would ha' his joke or jeer, cost what it might.' And then follows a specimen of one of his jokes with an actress, that, in indecency, certainly justifies the assertion.

From the other stories which follow, and the parenthesis that occurs frequently ('Mind your glass, James, a little more!'), it seems evident that the party are progressing in their peculiar kind of _civilisation_.
It is in this same circle and paper that Lady Byron's private affairs come up for discussion.