60

ANECDOTE OF GIBBON.

Oxford the honour of abusing her entire constitution, as monastic; but the diatribe of the luminous historian is rendered nugatory by his own confession that he was an unfledged school-boy when he became a gentleman-commoner of Magdalen College; that he knew little Latin, and no Greek; and that of his whole academic life, which consisted only of fourteen months, one half was wasted in truant excursions.

With respect to Lord Byron, we have his own admission, that neither his habits nor connexions were such as to ensure him the esteem of those of his contemporaries who, valuing most highly their relation to the University, could not but feel hurt at every in dignity put upon its institutes.

In the same poem which has called forth these remarks, his Lordship, to make his sting more severe against the reputation of Cambridge, throws out a far-fetched compliment upon Oxford, in these lines:

"But where fair Isis rolls her purer wave,
The partial Muse delighted loves to lave;
On her green banks a greener wreath is wove,
To crown the Bards that haunt her classic grove."

ENCOMIUM ON OXFORD.

61

Reflecting, however, upon the purpose for which this comparison was made, and sensible that the character of one learned establishment is not to be supported by an invidious contrast with another, the friends of Oxford could hardly be gratified by praises which so forcibly reminded them of Gibbon's illiberal sarcasms, and the truth of the maxim that,

Non talis auxilio, nec defensoribus istis.

CHAPTER III.

Publication of the "Hours of Idleness ;”—Critique of the Edinburgh Reviewers thereon; and the noble Author's severe retort.

AT the age of nineteen, Lord Byron left the University for Newstead Abbey, the seat of his ancestors, where, at the importunity of friends, he made a small collection of those poems which having been circulated privately had excited considerable interest. The volume accordingly appeared the same year, from the neighbouring printing-press of Newark; to which however the execution did little honour in point of correctness or elegance. The title "Hours of Idleness," given to the book, cannot be considered otherwise than as an affectation unworthy of the author; inasmuch as it implies a contempt of poesy, while at the same time the

HOURS OF IDLENESS.

63

very publication manifested the importance attached to the art in his estimation, and the laudable ambition of excellency in it, by which he was actuated. That a noble youth in his minority could conceive himself to be "idly employed," when cultivating an intimacy with the Muses, is too ridiculous to be believed; and the keen resentment which he afterwards felt against the critics who endeavoured to blight these early blossoms of his genius, afforded a decisive proof that he was not sincere in his humility. Neither indeed would it have been much to his honour if the title which he adopted had corresponded with his real sentiments; since writing verses is at all events as good an application of time, to say nothing of the exercise of the mind, as chasing a fox, driving a coach, or rattling the dice. Whether a young man of family and rank may be better employed than in poetic composition is not the question; but certain it is that the hours so devoted, cannot in any sense be called those of idleness. This designation of the juvenile performances of Lord Byron, bears some resemblance to the behaviour of Congreve, who told Voltaire that he wished to be visited as a gentleman, and not as a poet. "Had I considered you only as a gentleman," ob

64

SATIRE ON LORD CARLISLE,

served the French wit, "I certainly should never have visited you at all."

The volume bearing this unlucky title was inscribed ery properly, and very respectfully, to the author's noble relative and guardian the Earl of Carlisle, himself a poet and a man of learning. But though the dedication is highly complimentary to his lordship's virtues and genius, on some account or other, for which it would be difficult to assign a satisfactory reason, the young poet in his next and most vigorous performance, thought proper to abuse the noble earl, in the bitterest gall and worinwood of satire; as one

"Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow worse."

In justification of this marvellous inconsistency the author offers the following plea:

"It may be asked why I have censured the Earl of Carlisle, my guardian and relative, to whom I dedicated a volume of puerile poems some years ago. The guardianship was nominal, at least as far as I have been able to discover; the relationship I cannot help, and am very sorry for it; but, as his lordship