Certainly there was an ironical discordance between the inner history of the man and his apparent fortunes.

He owed all he had to his birth, and his birth was shameful; it was known well enough that his mother had passionately loved Lord Egremont, and that Lord Melbourne was not his father.

His marriage, which had seemed to be the crown of his youthful ardours, was a long, miserable, desperate failure: the incredible Lady Caroline, "With pleasures too refined to please, With too much spirit to be e'er at ease, With too much quickness to be ever taught, With too much thinking to have common thought," was very nearly the destruction of his life.

When at last he emerged from the anguish and confusion of her folly, her extravagance, her rage, her despair, and her devotion, he was left alone with endless memories of intermingled farce and tragedy, and an only son, who was an imbecile.

But there was something else that he owed to Lady Caroline.