"mittee of Drury-lane Theatre, I have "no doubt that several actresses, called

on me but as to Mrs. Mardyn, who was

a beautiful woman, and might have been a dangerous visitress, I was scarcely acquainted (to speak) with her. I might

even make a more serious charge against than employing spies to watch

suspected amours,

"I had been shut up in a dark street "in London, writing (I think he said) The Siege of Corinth,' and had refused myself to every one till it was finished.

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I was surprised one day by a Doctor and a Lawyer almost forcing themselves

at the same time into my room. I did "not know till afterwards the real ob

"ject of their visit. I thought their

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questions singular, frivolous, and some"what importunate, if not impertinent: "but what should I have thought, if I "had known that they were sent to provide proofs of my insanity?

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(+)

(†) "For Inez call'd some druggists and phy

sicians,

"And tried to prove her loving lord was

mad;

"But as he had some lucid intermissions,

"She next decided he was only bad.

"Yet when they ask'd her for her depositions,

"No sort of explanation could be had,

"Save that her duty both to man and God

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Required this conduct,-which seem'd very

odd.

"She

"I have no doubt that my answers "to these emissaries' interrogations were "not very rational or consistent, for my

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imagination was heated by other things.

"But Dr. Bailey could not conscientiously make me out a certificate for "Bedlam; and perhaps the Lawyer gave a more favourable report to his employ

ers. The Doctor said afterwards, he "had been told that I always looked

"She kept a journal where his faults were

noted,

"And opened certain trunks of books and

letters,

"All which might, if occasion served, be

quoted:

"And then she had all Seville for abettors,

"Besides her good old grandmother

Don Juan, Canto I. Stanzas 27 and 28.

"down when Lady Byron bent her eyes

on me, and exhibited other symptoms

equally infallible, particularly those that "marked the late King's case so strongly. "I do not, however, tax Lady Byron "with this transaction; probably she was

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not privy to it. She was the tool of

others. Her mother always detested me; she had not even the decency to "conceal it in her own house. Dining one day at Sir Ralph's, (who was a good "sort of man, and of whom you may form

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some idea, when I tell you that a leg "of mutton was always served at his table, that he might cut the same joke

upon it,) I broke a tooth, and was in

great pain, which I could not avoid

shewing. 'It will do you good,' said "Lady Noel; I am glad of it!' I gave "her a look!

"You ask if Lady Byron were ever in "love with me-I have answered that

question already-No! I was the fashion "when she first came out: I had the "character of being a great rake, and was a great dandy-both of which young "ladies like. She married me from va

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nity, and the

fixing me.

hope of reforming and

She was a spoiled child, and naturally of a jealous disposition; "and this was increased by the infernal "machinations of those in her confi❝dence.

"She was easily made the dupe of "the designing, for she thought her knowledge of mankind infallible: she

had got some foolish idea of Madame "de Staël's into her head, that a per"son may be better known in the first