What Lord Byron said

Madam, - George O'Brien, in his review (Nov 11th) of Linda Kelly's biography of Thomas Moore, Ireland's Minstrel, stated that…

Madam, - George O'Brien, in his review (Nov 11th) of Linda Kelly's biography of Thomas Moore, Ireland's Minstrel, stated that it was Lord Byron who first said in regard to Moore that "Tommy loved a lord". This is a very unsafe claim. It was the vindictive and treacherous Leigh Hunt who first put that statement into the public domain. There is no evidence, other than Leigh Hunt's very doubtful word, that Byron, who was a good friend of Moore, ever made such a statement. - Yours, etc,

HUGH McFADDEN, Clareville Road, Dublin 6W.