cedent,
all parallel, even in those cases where political motives have sharpened
slander and doubled enmity."

One regrets not being able to go on reproducing these fine pages written
by Lord Byron, but the limits we have assigned ourselves force the
sacrifice.

And now, after all that has been placed before the reader, will he not
be curious to learn whether Lord Byron truly loved Lady Byron. The
answer admits of no doubt. Could love exist between two natures so
widely dissonant? But then it will be said, why did he marry her? This
question may be answered by the simple observation that two-thirds of
the marriages in high life, and indeed in all classes, are contracted
without any love, nor are the parties, therefore, condemned to
unhappiness. Still it is as well to recall that not only it did not
enter into Lord Byron's views to marry for love and to satisfy passion,
but that he married rather for the sake of escaping from the yoke of his
passions! "If I were in love I should be jealous," said he, "and then I
could not render happy the woman I married." "Let her be happy," added
he, "and then, for my part, I shall also be so." Then again we find,
"Let them only leave me my mornings free." Lastly, he wrote in his
journal, before marrying Miss Milbank, and while in correspondence with
her, "It is very singular, but there is not a spark of love between me
and Miss Milbank." If, then, Miss Milbank married Lord Byron out of
self-love, and to prevent his marrying a young and beautiful Irish girl,
Lord Byron, on his part, married Miss Milbank from motives the most
honorable to human nature. It was her _simple modest_ air that attracted
him and caused his delusion, and the fame of her virtues quite decided
him. As to interested motives, they were at most but secondary; and his
disinterestedness was all the more meritorious, since the embarrassed
state of his affairs made him really require money, and Miss Milbank had
none at that period. She was an only daughter, it is true; but her
parents were still in the prime of life, and her uncle, Lord Wentworth,
from whom her mother was to inherit before herself, might yet live many
years. His marriage with Miss Milbank was thus not only disinterested as
regards fortune, but even _imprudently generous_; for she only brought
him a small dowry of L10,000--a mere trifle compared to the life of
luxury she was to lead, in accordance with their mutual rank.[147] And
these L10,000 were not