have written to Mr. Kinnaird on this subject.'

One sentence quoted by Lord Byron from the 'Blackwood' article will show
the modern readers what the respectable world of that day were thinking
and saying of him:--

'It appears, in short, as if this miserable man, having exhausted
_every species_ of sensual gratification--having drained the cup of
sin even to its bitterest dregs--were resolved to show us that he is
no longer a human being even in his frailties, but a cool, unconcerned
fiend, laughing with detestable glee over the whole of the better and
worse elements of which human life is composed.'

The defence which Lord Byron makes, in his reply to that paper, is of a
man cornered and fighting for his life. He speaks thus of the state of
feeling at the time of his separation from his wife:--

'I was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and private
rancour; my name, which had been a knightly or a noble one since my
fathers helped to conquer the kingdom for William the Norman, was
tainted. I felt that, if what was whispered and muttered and murmured
was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was unfit for me.
I withdrew; but this was not enough. In other countries--in
Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, and by the blue depth of the
lakes--I was pursued and breathed upon by the same blight. I crossed
the mountains, but it was the same; so I went a little farther, and
settled myself by the waves of the Adriatic, like the stag at bay, who
betakes him to the waters.

'If I may judge by the statements of the few friends who gathered