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