Withholding, as he was bound to do, the names of the gentleman and two ladies, and all particulars touching the peculiar nature of their real intimacy, the writer of the words (here printed in italics) shows how fully and precisely he was informed, immediately on his coming to Diodati, of the rumour, which, affecting the reputation of either poet so injuriously during his life, and influencing in peculiar and different ways the poetical labours of both authors, had for its echo the hideous story given to the world by Mrs. Beecher Stowe. How the scandal stirred Byron’s imagination may be seen in _Manfred_ and _Cain_. How it affected Shelley’s fancy and spurred him to the most extravagant of his conclusions respecting the intercourse of the sexes appears in _Laon and Cythna_. Had it not been for the Genevese scandal, _Laon and Cythna_ would not have been brother and sister of the same parents, and Byron would not have written the poems that vexed poor Lady Byron’s troubled mind in her later time. But for that scandal both poets would have escaped the still darker suspicions it generated long afterwards in the minds of men. But for that scandal, Claire would never have been suspected of the wickedness imputed to her by later calumny, and the Hon. Mrs. Leigh would never have been charged with crime of which she was absolutely incapable. Reverberating far and wide through time, slander is repeated variously by near and distant echoes. The scandal, that agitated Shelley so profoundly at Ravenna in 1821, was a revival and development of one-half of the slander that came to his ears at Geneva in 1816. The scandal, that preyed for a while on Mrs. Leigh’s reputation till the present writer killed it, was the distorted outgrowth of the old vile Genevese tattle about her brother’s intimacy with the two sisters at Diodati. The base story, that came to Shelley’s ears at Ravenna, was the near echo, the vile story of Mrs. Beecher Stowe’s book was the distant echo, of the same slanderous report.