Mr. Croker's opinion was as follows:
"As to what you say of Byron's volume, no doubt there are _longueurs_,
but really not many. The most teasing part is the blanks, which perplex
without concealing. I also think that Moore went on a wrong principle,
when, publishing _any_ personality, he did not publish _all_. It is like
a suppression of evidence. When such horrors are published of Sir S.
Romilly, it would have been justice to his memory to show that, on the
_slightest_ provocation, Byron would treat his dearest friend in the
same style. When his sneers against Lady Byron and her mother are
recorded, it would lessen their effect if it were shown that he sneered
at all man and womankind in turn; and that the friend of his choicest
selection, or the mistress of his maddest love, were served no better,
when the maggot (selfishness) bit, than his wife or his mother-in-law."
The appearance of the Life induced Captain Medwin to publish his
"Conversations with Lord Byron," a work now chiefly remembered as having
called forth from Murray, who was attacked in it, a reply which, as a
crashing refutation of personal charges, has seldom been surpassed.
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