Both say, in so many words, that no crime was imputed to Lord Byron; that the representations made to Lushington in the beginning were false ones; and that the story told to Lady Byron’s confidential friends in later days was also false.

Let us examine this theory.  In the first place, it requires us to believe in the existence of a moral monster of whom Madame Brinvilliers is cited as the type.  The ‘Blackwood,’ let it be remembered, opens the controversy with the statement that Lady Byron was a Madame Brinvilliers.  The ‘Quarterly’ does not shrink from the same assumption.

Let us consider the probability of this question.

If Lady Byron were such a woman, and wished to ruin her husband’s reputation in order to save her own, and, being perfectly unscrupulous, had circulated against him a story of unnatural crime which had no proofs, how came two of the first lawyers of England to assume the responsibility of offering to present her case in open court?  How came her husband, if he knew himself guiltless, to shrink from that public investigation which must have demonstrated his innocence?  Most astonishing of all, when he fled from trial, and the report got abroad against him in England, and was believed even by his own relations, why did not his wife avail herself of the moment to complete her victory?  If at that moment she had publicly broken with Mrs. Leigh, she might have confirmed every rumour.  Did she do it? and why not?  According to the ‘Blackwood,’ we have here a woman who has made up a frightful story to ruin her husband’s reputation, yet who takes every pains afterwards to prevent its being ruined.  She fails to do the very thing she undertakes; and for years after, rather than injure him, she loses public sympathy, and, by sealing the lips of her legal counsel, deprives herself of the advantage of their testimony.

Moreover, if a desire for revenge could have been excited in her, it would have been provoked by the first publication of the fourth canto of ‘Childe Harold,’ when she felt that Byron was attacking her before the world.  Yet we have Lady Anne Barnard’s testimony, that, at this time, she was so far from wishing to injure him, that all her communications were guarded by cautious secrecy.  At this time, also, she had a strong party in England, to whom she could have appealed.  Again:  when ’Don Juan’ was first printed, it excited a violent re-action against Lord Byron.  Had his wife chosen then to accuse him, and display the evidence she had shown to her counsel, there is little doubt that all the world would have stood with her; but she did not.  After his death, when she spoke at last, there seems little doubt from the strength of Dr. Lushington’s language, that Lady Byron had a very strong case, and that, had she been willing, her counsel could have told much more than he did.  She might then have told her whole story, and been believed.  Her word was believed by Christopher North, and accepted as proof that Byron had been a great criminal.  Had revenge been her motive, she could have spoken the ONE WORD more that North called for.