North.—­’God forbid I should wound the feelings of Lady Byron, of whose character, known to me but by the high estimation in which it is held by all who have enjoyed her friendship, I have always spoken with respect! . . .  But may I, without harshness or indelicacy, say, here among ourselves, James, that, by marrying Byron, she took upon herself, with eyes wide open and conscience clearly convinced, duties very different from those of which, even in common cases, the presaging foresight shadows. . . the light of the first nuptial moon?’

Shepherd.—­’She did that, sir; by my troth, she did that.’

. . . .

North.—­’Miss Milbanke knew that he was reckoned a rake and a roue; and although his genius wiped off, by impassioned eloquence in love- letters that were felt to be irresistible, or hid the worst stain of, that reproach, still Miss Milbanke must have believed it a perilous thing to be the wife of Lord Byron. . . .  But still, by joining her life to his in marriage, she pledged her troth and her faith and her love, under probabilities of severe, disturbing, perhaps fearful trials, in the future. . . .

’But I think Lady Byron ought not to have printed that Narrative.  Death abrogates not the rights of a husband to his wife’s silence when speech is fatal. . . to his character as a man.  Has she not flung suspicion over his bones interred, that they are the bones of a—­monster? . . .  If Byron’s sins or crimes—­for we are driven to use terrible terms—­were unendurable and unforgivable as if against the Holy Ghost, ought the wheel, the rack, or the stake to have extorted that confession from his widow’s breast? . . .  But there was no such pain here, James:  the declaration was voluntary, and it was calm.  Self- collected, and gathering up all her faculties and feelings into unshrinking strength, she denounced before all the world—­and throughout all space and all time—­her husband, as excommunicated by his vices from woman’s bosom.

. . . .

’’Twas to vindicate the character of her parents that Lady Byron wrote,—­a holy purpose and devout, nor do I doubt sincere.  But filial affection and reverence, sacred as they are, may be blamelessly, nay, righteously, subordinate to conjugal duties, which die not with the dead, are extinguished not even by the sins of the dead, were they as foul as the grave’s corruption.’

Here is what John Stuart Mill calls the literature of slavery for woman, in length and breadth; and, that all women may understand the doctrine, the Shepherd now takes up his parable, and expounds the true position of the wife.  We render his Scotch into English:—­