I could defend,
   And be avenged, or turn them into friend;
   But thou, in safe implacability,
   Hast naught to dread,—­in thy own weakness shielded,
   And in my love, which hath but too much yielded,
   And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare. 
   And thus upon the world, trust in thy truth,
   And the wild fame of my ungoverned youth,—­
   On things that were not and on things that are,—­
   Even upon such a basis thou halt built
   A monument whose cement hath been guilt! 
   The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,
   And hewed down with an unsuspected sword
   Fame, peace, and hope, and all that better life
   Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart,
   Might yet have risen from the grave of strife
   And found a nobler duty than to part. 
   But of thy virtues thou didst make a vice,
   Trafficking in them with a purpose cold,
   And buying others’ woes at any price,
   For present anger and for future gold;
   And thus, once entered into crooked ways,
   The early truth, that was thy proper praise,
   Did not still walk beside thee, but at times,
   And with a breast unknowing its own crimes,
   Deceits, averments incompatible,
   Equivocations, and the thoughts that dwell
   In Janus spirits, the significant eye
   That learns to lie with silence, {14} the pretext
   Of prudence with advantages annexed,
   The acquiescence in all things that tend,
   No matter how, to the desired end,—­
   All found a place in thy philosophy. 
   The means were worthy and the end is won. 
   I would not do to thee as thou hast done.’

Now, if this language means anything, it means, in plain terms, that, whereas, in her early days, Lady Byron was peculiarly characterised by truthfulness, she has in her recent dealings with him acted the part of a liar,—­that she is not only a liar, but that she lies for cruel means and malignant purposes,—­that she is a moral assassin, and her treatment of her husband has been like that of the most detestable murderess and adulteress of ancient history, that she has learned to lie skilfully and artfully, that she equivocates, says incompatible things, and crosses her own tracks,—­that she is double-faced, and has the art to lie even by silence, and that she has become wholly unscrupulous, and acquiesces in anything, no matter what, that tends to the desired end, and that end the destruction of her husband.  This is a brief summary of the story that Byron made it his life’s business to spread through society, to propagate and make converts to during his life, and which has been in substance reasserted by ‘Blackwood’ in a recent article this year.