, "only a few weeks after the exchange of these
letters, that Lady Byron took the resolution of separating from him. She
had left London at the end of January, on a visit to her parents, in
Leicestershire, and Lord Byron was to come and join her there soon
after. They had parted with mutual demonstrations of attachment and of
good understanding. On the journey Lady Byron wrote a letter to her
husband, couched in playful, affectionate language. What, then, must
have been his astonishment when, directly after her arrival at Kirby
Mallory, her father, Sir Ralph, wrote to tell Lord Byron that his
daughter was going to remain with them, and would return to him no
more."

This unexpected stroke fell heavily upon him. The pecuniary
embarrassments growing up since his marriage (for he had already
undergone eight or nine executions in his own house), had then reached
their climax. He was then, to use his own energetic expression, _alone
at his hearth, his penates transfixed around_; and then was he also
condemned to receive the unaccountable intelligence that the wife who
had just parted from him in the most affectionate manner, had abandoned
him forever.

His state of mind can not be told, nor, perhaps, be imagined. Still he
describes it in some passages of his letters, showing at the same time
the firmness, dignity, and strength of mind that always distinguished
him. For example, he wrote to Rogers, two weeks after this thunderbolt
had fallen upon him:--

"I shall be very glad to see you if you like to call, though I am at
present contending with the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,'
some of which have struck me from a quarter whence I did not, indeed,
expect them; but, no matter, there is a 'world elsewhere,' and I will
cut my way through this as I can. If you write to Moore, will you tell
him that I shall answer his letter the moment I can muster time and
spirits. Ever yours,

BYRON."

This strength of mind he only found a month afterward, and then he wrote
to him:--

"I have not answered your letter for a time, and at present the reply to
it might extend to such a length that I shall delay it till it can be
made in person, and then I will shorten it as much as I can. I am at war
_with all the world and my wife_, or, rather, all the world and my wife
are at war with me, and have not yet crushed me, and shall not crush me,
whatever they may do. I don't know that in the course of a hair-breadth
existence I wa