58 SATIRE ON THE UNIVERSITY. they could be procured. The same indolence that characterized him at school, distinguished him in college; but though he paid little attention to the classics, and had an abhorrence for mathematics, he read the English poets with avidity, and exercised his genius in writing verses, chiefly of an amatory description. His turn for satire also at this period appears in the sketches which he has drawn of a collegiate life, and of the labours of the candidate for public prizes. But however excusable these light productions may be, no palliative can be found for the author, who after leaving the university could vent his spleen against her in these venemous lines : "Oh! dark asylum of a Vandal race, At once the boast of learning, and disgrace.' As an illustration of this foul aspersion, a passage from Gibbon is quoted where the historian says, that "into Cambridgeshire the emperor Probus transported a considerable body of Vandals :”—after giving which notable extract the satirist observes, that "there is no reason to doubt the truth of this assertion; for the breed is still in high perfection." SATIRE ON THE UNIVERSITY. 59 There are four other lines in the same poem, which betray a malignity of mind, that is difficult to account for, but on the ground of its having been excited by resentment of coercion inflicted or distinctions withheld: 66 surpass, Ye, who in Granta's honours would Instances of similar calumny upon a University, by one of its members, are of rare occurrence; for in general men, however irregular their conduct may have been, feel interested in the glory of the seminary where they were bred. Milton, it is true, who had been subjected to the severity of academic discipline, complained in some Latin verses, that the banks of the Cam were unpropitious to Phoebus; but this querulousness arose from a hatred of the government, and not a dislike to the studies, of the University. Gibbon, in the Memoirs of his own life, has done 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, 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 |