never an accurate scholar. But he was a great reader, and was fond of declaiming, at which he was remarkably good. In athletic sports, where he figured as a leader, swimming and rowing were his special favorites, for with these his lameness did not interfere. Fighting, it seems, was a pastime with him; and his physical prowess was often exercised in behalf of smaller and weaker boys, whom he characteristically regarded as the victims of tyranny. To one of these he once said, "Harness, if any one bullies you, tell me, and I'll thrash him if I can."

Harrow

The warm friendships that were always to mark Byron's life existed even in his Harrow days. Among these friends were Friends at the Duke of Dorset, his favorite fag; Sir Robert Peel, afterwards the famous statesman; and Lord Clare. For the last named, Byron's affection was peculiarly romantic. Many years later, after contact with the world had somewhat embittered his disposition, his affection for Clare had suffered no change. As late as 1821 he said, "I never hear the name of Clare without a beating of the heart, even now." But none of these friends played any great part in his after life. More romantic than any friendship, and perhaps as lasting as any attachment Byron ever experienced, was his very real Miss Cha- and ardent love for his cousin, Mary Ann Chaworth. The love was all on Byron's side, however, for the young lady was so far from returning the sentiment that she could rather unfeelingly refer to her young lover as "that lame boy," a remark which Byron overheard and bitterly resented. Miss Chaworth married in 1805, and Byron never wholly recovered from this first disappointment. His powerful poem, The Dream, written in 1816, is merely a testimony to the strength and duration of the attachment.

worth

In 1805 Byron regretfully left Harrow for Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he took his M.A. degree three years later, apparently without really earning it; for his studies were

very erratically conducted, and he was absent from college during the entire year of 1807. Though Byron wished to go to Life at Cam- Oxford, and so entered Cambridge in a bad temper, bridge yet he made the most of his life there, from a social standpoint at least. For sports cricket, shooting, boxing, and riding-he felt all his former fondness, and in them showed the same leadership as at Harrow. Again he became the center of a coterie of friends, - this time a brilliant set, some of whom were to influence his later life, and one or two of whom, such as Hobhouse and Hodgson, were to remain forever his ardent champions. Newstead Abbey had been let, and Byron spent his vacations in London, and with Byron's relations with his his mother at Southwell. The scenes that here took mother place between mother and son were surely such as never other poet experienced. At times Mrs. Byron seemed quite insane; and on one occasion both separately made visits to the local apothecary, each begging him not to sell poison to the other. Quarrels and reconciliations alternated, and deserve attention only because such unnatural relations could not fail to have their effect for the worse on Byron's disposition, and should perhaps mitigate our blame for certain features of his after life.

Poetry was an early passion with Byron, and in January, 1807, he privately printed his first volume, Poems on Various Occasions. This was followed in March by a second volume, printed at Newark, which he called Hours of Idleness. In this not very remarkable effort there was still some little promise of genius, but its main importance lies in the fact that Idleness'' it prompted the famous criticism written by Lord Brougham, and printed in The Edinburgh Review for January, 1808. The Edinburgh's onslaught was terrific. The inoffensive little volume of juvenile verse certainly did not deserve the sarcasm and abuse heaped upon it by the distinguished

"'Hours of

critic; but that was often the way of critics in those days. The review stung Byron to fury. He had long been an admirer of the poetry of Pope, and now deliberately planned an elaborate literary satire, after the model of The Dunciad, which should attack, and, as the author hoped, annihilate, not only the Scotch reviewers but the inoffensive English poets as well.

At Cambridge Byron indulged in all kinds of dissipation, which, in accord with his histrionic character, he had the bad taste to boast about. What he told about himself, little as his exploits redounded to his credit, was probably true, and he Life at New- loved to parade it. Such was his tendency almost stead Abbey to the end of his life, until Missolonghi made him a hero. Newstead being now untenanted, he took up his residence there, surrounding himself with a wild and hilarious set, Hobhouse, Matthews, Scrope Davies, and other Cambridge friends. High carnival reigned in the fine old Gothic building; but to such revels it had, perhaps, long been accustomed. All sorts of absurd and outrageous practices were encouraged. The company dressed as monks and drank wine out of a human skull made into a drinking cup; got up in the dead of night to practice pistol shooting; and indulged in many other freaks of the same kind.

Love of ani

Byron loved animals, and surrounded himself now as always with a whole menagerie of pets, dogs, monkeys, parrots, and bears. He once took a pet bear to college with him, and on being asked what he meant to do with it mals: Boat- responded, to the indignation of the college authorities, "He shall sit for a fellowship." To Boatswain, a Newfoundland dog, he was especially attached. When Boatswain died his master's misanthropy, as well as his love for his pet, found expression in the famous epitaph,

swain

To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;

I never knew but one, and here he lies, —

a statement both untrue and affected, but not without some excuse. Such sentiments, if sincere, sprang naturally, even inevitably, from Byron's morbid outlook on life. He alternated between fits of hilarious mirth and moods of profound gloom. His satirical and clear-sighted friend, Scrope Davies, must have proved a wholesome antidote. "I shall go mad," the poet once exclaimed, in one of his despairing and passionate moods. “It is much more like silliness than madness," cuttingly remarked Davies.

Byron's coming of age in 1809 was, on account of lack of means, celebrated very quietly at Newstead; and after this event the young peer went up to London to take his seat in the House of Lords. When introduced, he appeared awkward and ill at ease. "I have taken my seat, and now I will go abroad," was his remark after the ceremony. In the same Byron's com- month English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, the ing of age; the satire on which he had been working for a year, House of Lords; "English was given to the public. Its effect was immediate. Bards and The scathing sarcasm, often merciless and in the worst possible taste, fell alike on the just and on the unjust, on small and on great, even on such famous poets as Scott and Moore. It delighted the public, and forever established Byron's ability to fight his own battles, and the impossibility of attacking him with impunity. The lamb had shown himself a lion. But he soon became heartily ashamed of his boyish satire, and tried to withdraw it from circulation; while some of the poets he so unjustly attacked became afterwards his warmest friends.

Scotch Reviewers"

The third epoch in Byron's life began in 1809, when he borrowed money and left England for an extended tour through southern Europe, accompanied by his friend Hobhouse and several servants. After visiting Portugal and Spain, he stopped at Sardinia and Malta, and spent the greater part

rope; the

"Maid of Ath

ens

of two years wandering about Albania and Greece. He was entertained by the famous Albanian bandit and despot, Ali Pasha ; visited Missolonghi, where some twelve years later he was to die; and spent several months at Athens, where he finished the first canto of Childe Harold and met the young A tour through girl to whom he addressed his Maid of Athens. southern Eu- In March, 1810, he was at Smyrna. Here he completed the second canto of Childe Harold, and shortly after, in April of the same year, accomplished his famous feat of swimming across the Hellespont. Of this achievement Byron was inordinately proud, and he celebrated it both in his letters and in his poems. He took especial delight in the classical associations connected with this exhibition of his prowess and looked upon himself as a second Leander. For over a year he wandered about the adjacent country, visiting Constantinople, and incidentally gathering material for his Eastern romances. Some of his adventures were undoubtedly romantic enough for even his daring disposition, but they gathered around them the most absurd exaggerations, and to this day it is difficult to separate the truth from the falsehood. Whatever may have been the romantic side of this two years' wandering, the experience probably fostered the poet's personal interest in Greece, provided him with new literary material, and certainly greatly enlarged his knowledge of the world.

Tired of this sort of life, Byron finally returned to England by sea in July, 1811. He reached home to find trouble. Not only were his finances in a desperate state, but his mother died on August 1, before he could reach her side. "I now feel the truth of Gray's observation, that we only can have one mother. Peace be with her," he said; and he spoke with sincerity, doubtless, for after all she was his mother, and had loved him.

Return to England; death of Byron's mother