as so _misjudged_. To write this history is a
great happiness for me; since I know that, in so doing, I render him
that justice so often denied him by the envious and the wicked.

"His conduct toward me was always so beautiful and noble, that I would
fain make it known to the whole world. I think they are beginning to
render him the justice that is his due; everywhere now he is
quoted--_Byron said this, Byron thought that_--that is what I hear
continually, and many persons who formerly spoke against him, now
testify in his favor.

"They say we ought not to speak evil of the dead; that is very well, but
as this maxim was not observed toward Lord Byron, I also will repeat
what I have heard said of his wife--I mean that the blame was hers--that
her temper was so bad, her manners so harsh and disagreeable, that no
one could endure her society; that she was avaricious, wicked, scolding;
that people hated to wait upon her or live near her. How dared this lady
to marry a man so distinguished, and then to treat him ill and
tyrannically? Truly it is inconceivable. If she were charitable for the
poor (as some one has pretended), she certainly wanted Christian
charity. And I also am wanting in it perhaps; but, when I think of her,
I lose all patience."

On announcing to Mrs. B---- the sequel of her narrative, she says:--

"It contains the history of the two days that passed after my first
interview with him whom I ever found the _noblest and most generous_ of
men, whose memory lives in my heart like a brilliant star amid the dark
and gloomy clouds that have often surrounded me in life; it is the
single ray of sunshine illumining my remembrances of the past."

Miss S---- had not forgotten a look, a word, not even the material
external part of things; and when Mrs. B---- expressed her astonishment
at this lively recollection,--

"All that concerned Lord Byron," said she, "has been retained by my
heart. I recall his words, gestures, looks, now, as if it had all taken
place yesterday. I believe this is owing to his great and beautiful
qualities, such a rare assemblage of which I never saw in any other
human being.

"There was so much truth in all he said, so much simplicity in all he
did, that every thing became indelibly engraven on heart and memory."

After having said that Lord Byron gave her the best counsels, and among
others that of living with her mother ("not knowing," she adds, "to what
it would expose me"), she cont