least), she probably neither contemplated nor conceived to what she became the means of conducting the father of her child, and the husband of her choice.' Byron knew of the charge that had been whispered against his sister and himself, and, knowing it to be false, it stung him to the heart. And yet he dared not speak, because a solution of the mystery that surrounded the separation from his wife would have involved the betrayal of one whom he designated as the soul of his thought: 'Invisible but gazing, as I glow Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings dearth.' Augusta Leigh, the selfless martyr, the most loyal friend that Byron ever possessed, his 'tower of strength in the hour of need,' assisted her brother, so to speak, to place the pack on a false scent, and the whole field blindly followed. There never was a nobler example of self-immolation than that of the sister who bravely endured the odium of a scandal in which she had no part. For Byron's sake she was content to suffer intensely during her lifetime; and after she had ceased to feel, her name was branded by Lady Byron and her descendants with the mark of infamy. A curious feature in the case is that, with few exceptions, those who knew Byron and Mrs. Leigh intimately came gradually to accept the story which Lady Caroline Lamb had insidiously whispered, a libel which flourished exceedingly in the noxious vapours of a scandal-loving age. As Nature is said to abhor a vacuum, so falsehood rushed in to fill the void which silence caused. It is with a deep searching of heart and with great reluctance that we re-open this painful subject. The entire responsibility must rest with the late Lord Lovelace, whose loud accusation against Byron's devoted sister deprives us of any choice in the matter. In order to understand the full absurdity of the accusation brought against Augusta Leigh, we have but to contrast the evidence brought against her in 'Astarte' with allusions to her in Byron's poems, and with the esteem in which she was held by men and women well known in society at the time of the separation. Lord Stanhope, the historian, in a private letter written at the time of the Beecher Stowe scandals, says: