notes in her 2002 biography that Lady Melbourne "would have understood his partner to be female". In a survey of the various biographical opinions and disagreements about Byron's relationships, including Giraud, written before 2004, Douglass points out that "despite the greater certainty about his sexual ambivalence, the exact nature of those relationships remains elusive". Don Leon An unknown author anonymously wrote a poem called Don Leon that, according to Bernard Grebanier, "depicts Byron as having wooed Giraud with gifts when they first met, and to have busied himself with developing the boy's mind". The narrator of Don Leon praises Giraud and claims that Giraud was so beautiful that he: Gave pleasing doubts of what his sex might be; And who that saw him would perplexed have been, For beauty marked his gender epicoene. Throughout the poem, the narrator describes how Byron (Don Leon) spent his time with Giraud: Spent half in love and half in poetry! The muse each morn I wooed, each eve the boy, And tasted sweets that never seemed to cloy. The poem ends with Giraud's beauty conquering any fears that Byron may have about their relationship: But thou, Giraud, whose beauty would unlock The gates of prejudice, and bid me mock The sober fears that timid minds endure, Whose ardent passions women only cure, Receive this faithful tribute to thy charms, Not vowed alone, but paid too in thy arms. For here the wish, long cherished, long denied, Within that monkish cell was gratified. G. Wilson Knight, unlike most early critics, thought the poem was worthy of response, although he says that it was from "the most indecent poet of high quality in our literature". Grebanier believes that Colman, as "a recipient of Byron's confidence during a crucial period of the poet's life, and as a man who shared Byron's hatred of pretense ... must have seen an ideal subject in presenting ruthlessly, even brutally, the basic truths about Byron's moral dilemma, as a powerful means of blasting once more that sanctimoniousness which has always been fashionable in Britain." Colman's purpose was not necessarily to discuss Giraud, but to respond to those who spread rumours about Byron and criticized Byron for his failed marriage, the reason for his exile. The poem does focus on Giraud, and, as Grebanier argues, "If, the poem says, our hero's affections were fastened upon Nicolo Giraud" then Byron's actions are acceptable