man of fashion, to consider credible excesses, there were also
actively on the alert that large class of persons who seem to think that
inveighing against the vices of others is equivalent to virtue in
themselves, together with all those natural haters of success who,
having long been disgusted with the splendor of the poet, were now
enabled, in the guise of champions for innocence, to wreak their spite
on the man. In every various form of paragraph, pamphlet, and
caricature, both his character and person were held up to odium. Hardly
a voice was raised, or at least listened to, in his behalf; and though a
few faithful friends remained unshaken by his side, the utter
hopelessness of stemming the torrent was felt as well by them as by
himself, and, after an effort or two to gain a fair hearing, they
submitted in silence."

As to Lord Byron, he hardly attempted to defend himself. Among all these
slanders, he only wished to repel one that wounded his generous pride
beyond endurance; and so he wrote to Rogers:--

"You are of the few persons with whom I have lived in what is called
intimacy, and have heard me at times conversing on the untoward topic of
my recent family disquietudes. Will you have the goodness to say to me
at once, whether you ever heard me speak of her with disrespect, with
unkindness, or defending myself at her expense by any serious imputation
of any description against her? Did you never hear me say, 'that when
there was a right or a wrong, she had the right?' The reason I put these
questions to you or others of my friends is, because I am said, by her
and hers, to have resorted to such means of exculpation."

It makes one's heart bleed to see this noble intellect forced by the
stupid cruel persecution of wicked fools to descend into the arena and
justify himself. But he soon ceased all kind of defense. A struggle of
this sort was most repugnant to him. At first Lord Byron had counted on
his wife's return, which would, indeed, have proved his best
justification. When he saw this return deferred, he asked simply for an
inquiry, but could not obtain what he solicited. His accusers, unable to
state any thing definite against him, naturally preferred calumny and
_magnanimous_ silence to inquiry! At last, when he felt that reunion had
become improbable, and that his friends, for want of moral courage and
independence, confined themselves to mere condolence, he sought for
strength in the testimony of conscie