[38] ["There is some doubt about this."—[H.] "What has the 'doubt' to do with the poem? it is, at least, poetically true. Why apply everything to that absurd woman? I have no reference to living characters."—[B.].—[Revise.] Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 54) attributes the "breaking open my writing-desk" to Mrs. Charlment (i.e. Mrs. Clermont) the original of "A Sketch," Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 540-544. It is evident from Byron's reply to Hobhouse's remonstrance that Medwin did not invent this incident, but that some one, perhaps Fletcher's wife, had told him that his papers had been overhauled.]
[E] {23}First their friends tried at reconciliation.—[MS.]
[F] The lawyers recommended a divorce.—[MS.]
[G] {24}
| He had been ill brought up, | { | besides was besides being | } | bilious. |
or, The reason was, perhaps, that he was bilious.—[MS.]
| And we may own—since he is | { | now but laid in | } | earth.—[MS.] |
[39] ["I could have forgiven the dagger or the bowl,—any thing but the deliberate desolation piled upon me, when I stood alone upon my hearth, with my household gods shivered around me.... Do you suppose I have forgotten it? It has, comparatively swallowed up in me every other feeling, and I am only a spectator upon earth till a tenfold opportunity offers."—Letter to Moore, September 19, 1818, Letters, 1900, iv, 262, 263. Compare, too—
"I had one only fount of quiet left,