nd fairness better. He is perhaps "a little
kind" to Campbell, who was, one fears, an extra-irritable
specimen of the irritable race: but this is venial. And
probably he did not mean the stigma which might be inferred
from the conjunction of "Aphra _and_ Orinda." They were
certainly both of Charles II.'s time: but while poor Aphra
was, if not wholly vicious, far from virtuous, the
"matchless Orinda" (Katherine Philips) bears no stain on her
character.

28. TO JOANNA BAILLIE

(End of April 1816)

My dear friend,

I am glad you are satisfied with my reasons for declining a direct
interference with Lord B[yron]. I have not, however, been quite idle,
and as an old seaman have tried to go by a side wind when I had not the
means of going before it, and this will be so far plain to you when I
say that I have every reason to believe the good intelligence is true
that a separation is signed between Lord and Lady Byron. If I am not as
angry as you have good reason to expect every thinking and feeling man
to be, it is from deep sorrow and regret that a man possessed of such
noble talents should so utterly and irretrievably lose himself. In
short, I believe the thing to be as you state it, and therefore Lord
Byron is the object of anything rather than indignation. It is a cruel
pity that such high talents should have been joined to a mind so wayward
and incapable of seeking control where alone it is to be found, in the
quiet discharge of domestic duties and filling up in peace and affection
his station in society. The idea of his ultimately resisting that which
should be fair and honourable to Lady B. did not come within my view of
his character--at least of his natural character; but I hear that, as
you intimated, he has had execrable advisers. I hardly know a more
painful object of consideration than a man of genius in such a
situation; those of lower minds do not feel the degradation, and become
like pigs, familiarised with the filthy elements in which they grovel;
but it is impossible that a man of Lord Byron's genius should not often
feel the want of that which he has forfeited--the fair esteem of those
by whom genius most naturally desires to be admired and cherished.

I am much obliged to Mrs. Baillie for excluding me in her general
censure of authors; but I should have hoped for a more general spirit of
toleration from my good friend, who had in her own family and under her
o