MRS. STOWE AND LORD BYRON.
ITo THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—In reference to the charge made by Mrs. Stowe against the character of Lord Byron, would it not be well to remember the following words of Sir Thomas Browne ? They are quoted by the Rev. Rufus W. Griswold in his memoir of Edgar Allan Poe, in reference to a horrible crime of which that poet was accused. Its archaisms are somewhat perplexing, but it is, in my humble opinion, an admirable passage, and well worthy of careful reflec- tion, as showing how dangerous and, indeed, how criminal a thing it is to disturb "moral cesspools" :— "Verities whose truth we fear and heartily wish there were no truth therein whose relations honest minds do deprecate. For of sins heteroclital, and such as want name or precedent, there is ofttimes sin even in their history. We desire no record of enormities: sins should be accounted new. They omit of their monstrosity as they fall from their rarity ; for men count it venial to err with their forefathers, and foolishly conceive they divide a sin in society. . . . . . In things of thia nature, silence comtnendeth history ; 'tis the veniable part of things lost;. wherein there must never arise a Pancirollus, nor remain any register but that of hell."
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