poems were omitted and others added. It was praised in the Critical Review of September 1807, and abused in the first number of the Satirist. A new edition, with some additions and without the prefaces, appeared in March 1808. In January 1808 the famous criticism came out in the Edinburgh (Byron speaks of this as about to appear in a letter dated 26 Feb. 1808). The critique has been attributed both to Brougham and Jeffrey. Jeffrey seems to have denied the authorship, and the ponderous legal facetiousness is certainly not unlike Brougham, whom Byron came to regard as the author. The severity was natural enough. Scott, indeed, says that he remonstrated with Jeffrey, thinking that the poems contained some passages of noble promise." But the want of critical acumen is less obvious than the needless cruelty of the wound inflicted upon a boy's harmless vanity., Byron deeply stung. He often boasted afterwards that he instantly drank three bottles of claret and began a reply. He had already in his desk, on 26 Oct. 1807, 380 lines of his satire, besides 214 pages of a novel, 560 lines in blank verse of a poem on Bosworth Field, and other pieces. He now carefully polished his satire, and had it put in type by Ridge.

was

On leaving Cambridge he had settled at Newstead, given up in ruinous condition by Lord Grey in the previous April, where he had a few rooms made habitable, and celebrated his coming of age by some meagre approach to the usual festivities. A favourable decision in the courts had given him hopes of Rochdale, and made him, he says, £60,000 richer. The suit, however, dragged on through his life. Meanwhile he had to raise money to make repairs and maintain his establishment at Newstead, with which he declares his resolution never to part (Letter of 6 March 1809). The same letter announces the death of his friend Lord

See account of these editions in appendix to English translation of Elz's Byron (1872), P. 446.

66

Falkland in a duel. In spite of his own difficulties Byron tried to help the widow, stood godfather to her infant and left a £500 note for his godchild in a breakfast cup. In a letter from Mrs Byron' this is apparently mentioned a a loan to Lady Falkland. On 13 March he took his seat in the House of Lords Lord Carlisle had acknowledged the receipt of "Hours of Idleness," the second edition of which had been dedi cated to him, in a "tolerably handsom letter," but would take no trouble abou introducing his ward. Byron wa accompanied to the house by no on but Dallas, a small author, whose siste was the wife of Byron's uncle, Georg Anson, and who had recently sough his acquaintance. Byron felt his isola tion, and sulkily put aside a greetin from the chancellor (Eldon). He erase a compliment to Carlisle and substi tuted a bitter attack in his satire whic was now going through the press unde Dallas's superintendence. Englis Bards and Scotch Reviewers" appeare in the middle of March, and at ond made its mark. He prepared a secon edition at the end of April with add tions and a swaggering prose postscrip announcing his departure from Englan and declaring that his motive was no fear of his victims' antipathies. Th satire is vigorously written and mor carefully polished than Byron's late efforts; but has not the bitterness, th keenness, or the fine workmanship Pope. The retort upon his reviewe is only part of a long tirade upon th other poets of the day. In 1816 Byro made some annotations on the poem Geneva, admitting the injustice of mai lines. A third and fourth edition a peared in 1810 and 1811; in the la year he prepared a fifth for the pres He suppressed it, as many of his ad ve saries were now on friendly terms wi him, and destroyed all but one cop from which later editions have be printed. He told Murray (23 O 1817) that he would never consent its republication.

Byron had for some time contemplated making his "grand tour." In the autumn of 1808 he got up a play at Newstead; he buried his Newfoundland, Boatswain, who died of madness 18 Nov. 1808, under a monument with a misanthropical inscription; and in the following spring entertained his college friends. C. S. Matthews describes their amusements in a letter published by Moore. They dressed themselves in theatrical costumes of monks (with a recollection, perhaps, of Medmenham), and drank burgundy out of a human skull found near the abbey, which Byron had fashioned into a cup with an appropriate inscription. (Such revelries suggested extravagant rumours of reckless orgies and "harems" in the abbey. Moore assures us that the life there was in reality "simple and inexpensive," and the scandal of limited application.

Byron took leave of England by some verses to Mrs. Musters about his blighted affections, and sailed from Falmouth in the Lisbon packet on 2 July 1809. Hobhouse accompanied him, and he took three servants, Fletcher (who followed him to the last), Rushton, and Joe Murray. From Lisbon he rode across Spain to Seville and Cadiz, and thence sailed to Gibraltar in the Hyperion frigate in the beginning of August. He sent home Murray and Rushton with instructions for the proper education of the latter at his own expense. He sailed in the packet for Malta on 19 Aug. 1809, in company with Galt, who afterwards wrote his life, and who was rather amused by the affectations of the youthful peer. At Malta he fell in with a Mrs. Spencer Smith with a romantic history,1 to whom he addressed the verses "To Florence," 'stanzas composed during a thunderstorm," and a passage in "Childe Harold" (ii. st. 30-3), explaining that his heart was now past the power of loving. From Malta he reached Prevesa in the Spider, brig of

See Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abrantes (1834), XV. 1-74.

war, on 19 Sept. 1809. He thence visited Ali Pasha at Tepelen, and was nearly lost in a Turkish man-of-war on his return. In November he travelled to Missolonghi (21 Nov.) through Acarnania with a guard of Albanians. He stayed a fortnight at Patras, and thence left for Athens. He reached Athens on Christmas eve and lodged with Theodora Macri, widow of the English vice-consul, who had three lovely daughters. The eldest, Theresa, celebrated by Byron as the Maid of Athens, became Mrs. Black.1 He sailed from Athens for Smyrna in the Pylades, sloop of war, on 5 March 1810; visited Ephesus; and on 11 April sailed in the Salsette frigate for Constantinople, and visited the Troad. On 3 May he repeated Leander's feat of swimming from Sestos to Abydos. In February 1821 he wrote a long letter to Murray, defending his statements against some criticisms in W. Turner's "Tour in the Levant" (see Appendix to Moore).

Byron reached Constantinople on 14 May, and sailed in the Salsette on 14 July. Hobhouse returned to England, while Byron landed at Zea, with Fletcher, two Albanians, and a Tartar, and returned to Athens. Here he professed to have met with the adventure turned to account in the "Giaour" about saving a girl from being drowned in a sack. A letter from Lord Sligo, who was then at Athens, to Byron, proves that some such report was current at Athens a day or two later, and may possibly have had some foundation. Hobhouse 2 says that Byron's Turkish servant was the lover of the girl. He made a tour in the Morea, had a dangerous fever at Patras (which left a liability to malaria), and returned to Athens, where he passed the winter of 1810-11 in the Capuchin convent. Here he met Lady Hester Stanhope, and formed one of his strong attach

She fell into poverty, and an appeal for her support was made in the Times on 23 March 1872. She died in October 1875 (Times, 21, 25, 27 Oct. 1875).

Westminster Review, January 1825.

ments to a youth called Nicolo Giraud. To this lad he gave a sum of money on parting, and left him £700 in a will of August 1811. From Athens Byron went to Malta, and sailed from thence for England in the Volage frigate on 3 June 1811. He reached Portsmouth at the beginning of July, and was met by Dallas at Reddish's Hotel, St. James Street, on 15 July, 1811.

Byron returned to isolation and vexation. He had told his mother that, if compelled to part with Newstead, he should retire to the East. To Hodgson he wrote while at sea that he was returning embarrassed, unsocial, "without a hope and almost without a desire." His financial difficulties are shown by a series of letters published in the Athenæum.1 The court of chancery had allowed him £500 a year at Cambridge, to which his mother had added as much, besides incurring a debt of £1000 on his behalf. He is reduced to his last guinea in December 1807, has obtained loans from Jews, and expects to end by suicide or the marriage of a "golden dolly." His mother was put to the greatest difficulties during his travels, and he seems to have been careless in providing for her wants. The bailiffs were at Newstead in February 1810; a sale was threatened in June. Byron writes from Athens in November refus

ing to sell Newstead. While returning to England he proposed to join the army, and had to borrow money to pay for his journey to London. News of his mother's illness came to him in London, and before he could reach her she died (1 Aug. 1811) of a "fit of rage caused by reading the upholsterer's bills." The loss affected him deeply, and he was found sobbing by her remains over the loss of his one friend in the world. The deaths of his school friend Wingfield (14 May 1811), of C. S. Matthews, and of Eddlestone were nearly simultaneous blows, and he tells Miss Pigot that the last death "made the sixth, within four months, of friends and relatives lost between May and the end of 30 Aug. and 6 Sept. 1884.

August." In February 1812 he mentions Eddlestone to Hodgson as the "only human being that ever loved him in truth and entirely." He adds that where death has set his scal the impression can never be broken. The phrase recurs in the most impressive of the poems to Thyrza, dated in the same month. The coincidence seems to confirm Moore's statement that Thyrza was no more than an impersonation of Byron's melancholy caused by many losses. An apostrophe to a "loved and lovely one" at the end of the second canto of "Childe Harold" (st. 95, 96) belongs to the same series. Attempts to identify Thyrza have failed. Byron spoke to Trelawny of a passion for a cousin who was in a decline when he left England, and whom Trelawny identifies with Thyrza. No one seems to answer to the description. It may be added that he speaks of a "violent, though pure love and passion" which absorbed him while at Cambridge, and writes to Dallas (11 Oct. 1811) of a loss about this time which would have profoundly moved him but that he "has supped full of horrors," and that Dallas understands him as referring to some one who might have made him happy as a wife. Byron had sufficient elasticity of spirit for a defiance of the world, and a vanity keen enough to make a boastful exhibition of premature cynicism and a blighted heart.

At the end of October 1811 he took lodgings in St. James Street. He had shown to Dallas upon his return to England the first two cantos of "Childe Harold" and "Hints from Horace,' a tame paraphrase of the "Ars Poetica.' According to Dallas, he preferred the last, and was unwilling to publish the "Childe." Cawthorn, who had pub lished the "English Bards," accepted the "Hints" (which did no appear till after Byron's death), bu the publication was delayed, apparentl for want of a good classical reviser The Longmans had refused the "Eng lish Bards," which attacked thei friends, and Byron told Dallas to offe

&c.

"Childe Harold" elsewhere. Miller objected to the attack upon Lord Egin (as the despoiler of the Partheno, for whom he published; and it was ultimately accepted by Murray, who thus began a permanent connection with Byron. "Childe Harold" appeared in March 1812. Byron had meanwhile spoken for the first time in the House of Lords, 27 Feb. 1812, against a bill for suppressing ricts of Nottingham frameworkers, and with considerable success. A second and less successful speech against catholic disabilities followed on 21 April 1812. He made one other short speech in presenting a petition from Major Cartwright on I June 1813. Lord Holland helped him in providing materials for the first, and the speeches indicate a leaning towards something more than whiggism. The first two are of rather elaborate rhetoric, and his deEvery was criticised as too theatrical and sing-song. Any political ambition was extinguished by the startling success of "Childe Harold," of which a first edition was immediately sold. Byron "woke one morning and found himself famous." Murray gave £600 for the copyright, which Byron handed over to Dallas, declaring that he would never take money for his poems.

1

The two cantos now published are admittedly inferior to the continuation of the poem; and the affectation of which it set the fashion is obsolete. Byron tells Murray that he is like a tiger. If he misses his first spring, he goes "grumbling back to the jungle again." His poems are all substantially impromptus; but the vigour and descriptive power, in spite of all blemishes, are enough to explain the success of a poem original in conception and setting forth a type of character which embodied a prevailing sentiment.

Byron became the idol of the sentimental part of society. Friends and ters of notoriety gathered round this fascinating rebel. Among the first was Moore, who had sent him a challenge 13 Nov. 1821.

for a passage in "English Bards" ridiculing the bloodless duel with Jeffrey. Hodgson had suppressed the letter during Byron's absence. Moore now wrote a letter ostensibly demanding explanations, but more like a request for acquaintance. The two met at a dinner given by Rogers, where Campbell made a fourth. Byron surprised his new friends by the distinction of his appearance and the eccentricity of his diet, consisting of potatoes and vinegar alone. Moore was surprised at Byron's isolation. Dallas, his solicitor, Hanson, and three or four college friends were at this time (November 1811) his only associates. Moore rapidly became intimate. [Byron liked him as a thorough man of the world and as an expert in the arts which compensate for inferiority of birth, and which enabled Moore to act as an obsequious monitor and to smother gentle admonition in abundant flattery. In his diary' Byron says that Moore was the best-hearted man he knew and with talents equal to his feelings. Byron was now at the height of his proverbial beauty. Coleridge in 1816 speaks enthusiastically of the astonishing beauty and expressiveness of his face. Dark brown locks, curling over a lofty forehead, grey eyes with long dark lashes, a mouth and chin of exquisite symmetry, are shown in his portraits, and were animated by an astonishing mobility of expression, varying from apathy to intense passion. His head was very small; his nose, though well formed, rather too thick; looking, says Hunt (i. 150) in a front view as if "grafted on the face"; his complexion was colourless; he had little beard; his height, he says (iary, 17 March 1814), 5 ft. 8 in. or a little less. He had a broad chest, long muscular arms, with white delicate hands, and beautiful teeth. A tendency to excessive fatness, inherited from his mother, was not only disfiguring but productive of great discomfort, and increased the unwieldiness arising from his lameness. To remedy the evil he 110 Dec. 1813.

resorted to the injurious system of diet often set down to mere affectation. Trelawny observes more justly that Byron was the only human being he knew with self-restraint enough not to get fat. In April 1807 he tells Pigot that he has reduced himself by exercise, physic, and hot baths from 14 st. 7 lbs. to 12 st. 7 lbs; in January 1808 he tells Drury that he has got down to 10 st. 7 lbs. When last weighed at Genoa he was 10 st. 9 lbs. He carried on this system at intervals through life; at Athens he drank vinegar and water, and seldom ate more than a little rice; on his return he gave up wine and meat. He sparred with Jackson for exercise, and took hot baths. In 1813 he lived on six biscuits a day and tea; in December he fasts for forty-eight hours; in 1816 he lived on a thin slice of bread for breakfast and a vegetable dinner, drinking green tea and seltzer water. He kept down hunger by chewing mastic and tobacco. He sometimes took laudanum. He tells Moore in 1821 that a dose of salts gave him most exhilaration. Occasional indulgences varied this course. Moore describes a supper (19 May 1814) when he finished two or three lobsters, washed down by half a dozen glasses of strong brandy, with tumblers of hot water. He wrote "Don Juan" on gin and water, and Medwin speaks of his drinking too much wine and nearly a pint of hollands every night (in 1822). Trelawny, however, declares that the spirits was mere "water bewitched." When Hunt reached Pisa in 1822, he found Byron so fat as to be scarcely recognisable. Medwin, two or three months later, found him starved into "unnatural thinness." Such a diet was no doubt injurious in the long run; but the starvation seems to have stimulated his brain, and Trelawny says that no man had brighter eyes or a clearer voice.

In the spring of 1813 Byron published anonymously the "Waltz," and disowned it on its deserved failure. Various avatars of "Childe Harold," however, repeated his previous success. The "Giaour" appeared in May 1813;

the "Bride of Abydos" in December 1813; the "Corsair" in January 1814 They were all struck off at a white heat The "Giaour" was increased from 400 lines in the first edition to 1400 in the fifth, which appeared in the autumn of 1813. The first sketch of the "Bride' was written in four nights "to distrac his dreams from . . .," and afterwards increased by 200 lines. The "Corsair," written in ten days, or between 18 and 31 Dec., was hardly touched afterwards He boasted afterwards that 14,000 copie of the last were sold in a day. With it first edition appeared the impromptu lines, "Weep, daughter of a royal line" the Princess Charlotte having wept, i was said, on the inability of the whig to form a cabinet on Perceval's death The lines were the cause of vehemen attacks upon the author by the govern ment papers. A satire called "Anti Byron," shown to him by Murray in March 1814, indicated the rise of hostile feeling. Byron was annove by the shift of favour. He had said in the dedication of the "Corsair" to Moore that he should be silent for som years, and on 9 April 1814 tells Moor that he has given up rhyming. Th same letter announces the abdication o Napoleon, and next day he compose and sent to Murray his ode upon tha event. On 29 April he tells Murra that he has resolved to buy back hi copyrights and suppress his poetr but he instantly withdrew the resolutio on Murray's assurance that it would inconvenient. By the middle of Jur he had finished "Lara," which w published in the same volume wi Rogers's "Jacqueline" in August. T 'Hebrew Melodies," written at the r quest of Kinnaird, appeared with mus in January 1815. The "Siege Corinth," begun July 1815 and copi by Lady Byron, and "Parisina," wr ten the same autumn, appeared January and February 1816. Murt gave £700 for "Lara" and 500 guine for each of the others. Dallas wr to the papers in February 1814, defer ing his noble relative from the charge