The “Sketch from Private Life” was one of the most bitter and satirical things Byron had ever written.  In sending it to Mr. Murray (March 30, 1816), he wrote:  “I send you my last night’s dream, and request to have fifty copies struck off for private distribution.  I wish Mr. Gifford to look at it; it is from life.”  Afterwards, when Lord Byron called upon Mr. Murray, he said:  “I could not get to sleep last night, but lay rolling and tossing about until this morning, when I got up and wrote that; and it is very odd, Murray, after doing that, I went to bed again, and never slept sounder in my life.”

The lines were printed and sent to Lord Byron.  But before publishing them, Mr. Murray took advice of his special literary adviser and solicitor, Mr. Sharon Turner.  His reply was as follows: 

Mr. Turner to John Murray.

April 3, 1816.

There are some expressions in the Poem that I think are libellous, and the severe tenor of the whole would induce a jury to find them to be so.  The question only remains, to whom it is applicable.  It certainly does not itself name the person.  But the legal pleadings charge that innuendo must mean such a person.  How far evidence extrinsic to the work might be brought or received to show that the author meant a particular person, I will not pretend to affirm.  Some cases have gone so far on this point that I should not think it safe to risk.  And if a libel, it is a libel not only by the author, but by the printer, the publisher, and every circulator.

I am, dear Murray, yours most faithfully,

SHN.  TURNER.

Mr. Murray did not publish the poems, but after their appearance in the newspapers, they were announced by many booksellers as “Poems by Lord Byron on his Domestic Circumstances.”  Among others, Constable printed and published them, whereupon Blackwood, as Murray’s agent in Edinburgh, wrote to him, requesting the suppression of the verses, and threatening proceedings.  Constable, in reply, said he had no wish to invade literary property, but the verses had come to him without either author’s name, publisher’s name, or printer’s name, and that there was no literary property in publications to which neither author’s, publisher’s, nor printer’s name was attached.  Blackwood could proceed no farther.  In his letter to Murray (April 17, 1816), he wrote: 

“I have distributed copies of ‘Fare Thee Well’ and ‘A Sketch’ to Dr. Thomas Brown, Walter Scott, and Professor Playfair.  One cannot read ‘Fare Thee Well’ without crying.  The other is ‘vigorous hate,’ as you say.  Its power is really terrible; one’s blood absolutely creeps while reading it.”

Byron left England in April 1816, and during his travels he corresponded frequently with Mr. Murray.

The MSS. of the third canto of “Childe Harold” and “The Prisoner of Chillon” duly reached the publisher.  Mr. Murray acknowledged the MSS.: