Since the appearance of Moore's Life, and even since the appearance of Cordy Jeaffreson's "Real Lord Byron," a good deal of new information has been made available. The biographer has to take cognisance of the various documents brought together in Mr. Murray's latest edition of Byron's Writings and Letters; of Hobhouse's "Account of the Separation"; of the "Confessions," for whatever they may be worth, elicited from Jane Clairmont and first printed in the _Nineteenth Century_; of Mr. Richard Edgcumbe's "Byron: the Last Phase"; and of the late Lord Lovelace's privately printed work, "Astarte." The importance of each of these authorities will appear when reference is made to it in the text. It will be seen, then, that some of the Murray MSS. give precision to the narrative of Byron's relations with Lady Caroline Lamb, and that others effectually dispose of Cordy Jeaffreson's theory that Lady Byron's mysterious grievance--the grievance which caused her lawyer to declare reconciliation impossible--was her husband's intimacy with Miss Clairmont. Others of them, again, as effectually confute Cordy Jeaffreson's amazing doctrine that Byron only brought railing accusations against his wife because he loved her, and that at the time when he denounced her as "the moral Clytemnestra of thy lord," he was in reality yearning to be recalled to the nuptial bed. Concerning "Astarte" some further remarks may be made. It is a disgusting and calumnious compilation, designed, apparently, to show that Byron's descendants accept the worst charges preferred against him by his enemies during his lifetime. Those charges are such that one would have expected a member of the family to hold his tongue about them, even if he were in possession of evidence conclusively demonstrating their truth. That a member of the family should have revived the charges on the strength of evidence which may justly be described as not good enough to hang a dog on almost surpasses belief. Still, the thing has been done, and the biographer's obligations are affected accordingly. Unpleasant though the subject is, he must examine the so-called evidence for fear lest he should be supposed to feel himself unable to rebut it; and he is under the stronger compulsion to do so because the mud thrown by Lord Lovelace is not thrown at Byron only, but also at Augusta Leigh, a most worthy and womanly woman, and the best of sisters and wives. It is the hope and belief of the present writer that he has succeeded in definitely clearing her character, together with that of her brother, and demonstrated that the legend of the crime, so industriously inculated by Byron's grandson, has no shadow of foundation in fact. FRANCIS GRIBBLE CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. ANCESTORS, PARENTS, AND HEREDITARY INFLUENCES 1 II. CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS AT ABERDEEN, DULWICH, AND HARROW 10