LORD BYRON.
[The following letter appeared in the Standard of Wednesday last :—]
"To THE EDITOR.
"Sir,—' The writer of an article in Temple Bar states his disbelief in Mrs. Stowe's specific charge ; his own conjecture is that Byron attempted to poison his wife.'
"So far the Spectator in its last issue. I have not now got Temple Bar by me, but I read the article in question most carefully before leaving England a week ago, and in it the writer distinctly states that he no more believes that Byron attempted to poison his wife than he believes that he committed incest. He says that he uses such a supposition only as a convenient hypothesis, in order to pursue a line of speculative argument, into which I need not enter.
"Comment upon this gross misrepresentation is needless; but it ought to warn the public against the journal which has been guilty of it.—I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
[The blunder pointed out by Mr. Austin in our review of "The Magazines," contained in the Spectator of the 0th October, was certainly made, and never observed till this courteous correction of it appeared in our contemporary,—the reviewer having missed the sentence in which the hypothetical character of the supposi- tion was explained. We add, in justice to our reviewer, that he has taken no part in the Byron controversy, and was precisely as likely to make a slip on one side as the other.—En. Spectator.]
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