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to be obscure and unknown, that would be my course. But I have a position separate from my woman's destiny; I am known as a writer; and I will not permit that Mr Norton's letter shall remain on the journals of Great Britain, as the uncontradicted record of my actions. I will, as far as I am able, defend a name which might have been only favourably known, but which my husband has rendered notorious. The little world of my chance-readers may say of me after I am dead and gone, and my struggles over and forgotten—'The woman who wrote this book had an unhappy history;' but they shall not say—'The woman who wrote this book was a profligate and mercenary hypocrite.' Since my one gift of writing gives me friends among strangers, I appeal to the opinion of strangers as well as that of friends. Since, in however bounded and narrow a degree, there is a chance that I may be remembered after death, I will not have my whole life misrepresented. Let those women who have the true woman's lot, of being unknown out of the circle of their homes, thank God for that blessing: it is a blessing; but for me, publicity is no longer a matter of choice. Defence is possible to me—not silence. And I must remind those who think the right of a husband so indefeasible, that a wife ought rather to submit to the martyrdom of her reputation, than be justified at his expense, that I have refrained. All I state now, I might have stated at any time during the past unhappy years; and I never did publicly state it till now—now, when I find Mr Norton slandering the mother of his sons, by coarse anecdotes signed with his name and published by his authority; endeavouring thus to overwhelm me with infamy, for no offence but that of having rashly asserted a claim upon Mm, which was found not to be valid in law, but only binding on him 'as a man of honour.'
Mr Norton answered that letter. He answered it by admitting (what indeed he would not deny) the falsehood respecting the appointment Lord Melbourne gave him, which I had disproved by Lord Melbourne's own letters; he called that bold, cunning, and deliberate explanation of his acceptance of favours, a "mistake." He said:—"I had not, at the time of my writing my former letter, refreshed my memory by reference to documents connected with this point, and in writing about a transaction which happened upwards of 22 years ago, I was led into this most unintentional mistake." But he reiterated other "mistakes" about other transactions, which happened not so many years ago. He published (to prove that he had brought the action against Lord Melbourne
