e true, it would appear that the
Whigs were not altogether so immaculate as they themselves would wish
the world to suppose."

The testimony of the press is instructive from two points of view. In
the first place, it tends to show that the controversy was conducted on
party lines; and, secondly, that the editor of the _Champion_ was in
some degree responsible for the wide diffusion and lasting publicity of
the scandal. The separation of Lord and Lady Byron must, in any case,
have been more than a nine days' wonder, but if the circulation of the
"pamphlet" had been strictly confined to the "initiated," the excitement
and interest of the general public would have smouldered and died out
for lack of material.

In his second letter on Bowles, dated March 25, 1821 (_Observations upon
Observations_, _Life_, 1892, p. 705), Byron alludes to the publication
of these poems in the _Champion_, and comments on the behaviour of the
editor, who had recently (February 16, 1821) been killed in a duel. He
does not minimize the wrong, but he pays a fine and generous tribute to
the courage and worth of his assailant. "Poor Scott is now no more ...he
died like a brave man, and he lived an able one," etc. It may be added
that Byron was an anonymous subscriber to a fund raised by Sir James
Mackintosh, Murray, and others, for "the helpless family of a man of
virtue and ability" (_London Magazine_, April, 1821, vol. iii. p. 359).

For chronological reasons, and in accordance with the precedent of the
edition of 1832, a third poem, _Stanzas to Augusta_, has been included
in this group.

POEMS OF THE SEPARATION

FARE THEE WELL.[432]

"Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth:
And Constancy lives in realms above;
And Life is thorny; and youth is vain:
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain;

* * * * *

But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining--
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been."