Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/515

 BYRON 509 and spent the money in idle whims. Suits at law were instituted by Byron to recover this property, which after many years were success- ful, and toward the close of his life he be- came a rich man ; but on coming of age, with an income of 1,500, he owed 10,000. His dissipations had impaired his health ; his nar- row fortunes had rendered England distaste- ful to him ; and in June, 1809, he set out for a long tour in the East. Barely touch- ing at Lisbon, he went into Spain as far as Cadiz and Seville, and thence by way of Gibraltar and Malta to Albania, where he commenced the composition of " Ohilde Ha- rold." The year 1810 and a part of 1811 were spent mainly in Greece, where he wrote " Hints from Horace" and "The Curse of Minerva," and completed the first and second cantos of " Childe Harold." During this time he scarcely saw a fellow countryman^ and was fond of hinting afterward that he had been engaged in strange adventures, shadowed forth in some of his later poems, of which pirates and other outlaws are the heroes. He was on the point of sailing for Egypt when remittances from home failed, and he returned to England in July, 1811, after an absence of a little more than two years. He had scarcely landed be- fore he began to prepare to print the poems which he had written during his absence. He showed the " Hints from Horace " to his kins- man Robert Charles Dallas, who was disap- pointed with them. Byron then said that he had written many stanzas in the Spenserian measure, describing the countries which he had visited ; that a friend who had seen the verses had found little to praise and much to. con- demn ; .but if Dallas wanted the rhymes, he was welcome to them. Dallas took the manuscript, read it, and urged its immediate publication. This manuscript was only the rough draught of the first and second cantos of " Childe Harold ; " for while the poem was passing through the press many feeble stanzas were ex- punged, and many of the finest passages writ- ten and added. Byron meanwhile had not gone to see his mother, from whom he had parted more than two years before in no plea- sant way. Almost her last words were an im- precation that he might become as deformed in mind as he was in body. A month after his arrival at London he learned that she was ill, and the next day that she was dead. She had died from the effects of a fit of rage arising from a quarrel with a tradesman. " Childe Harold " passed slowly through the process of printing, and almost of rewriting. It was published Feb. 29, 1812. He had made his first speech in the house of peers two days before, in opposition to a bill imposing severe penalties upon weavers who had broken the newly invented weaving machines. The speech was written out and recited, and, notwithstanding its schoolboy manner of delivery, excited some attention. Burdett said that it was " the best speech made by a lord since the Lord knows when ; " and Lord Harrowby declared that " some of the periods were very like those of Burke." By- ron spoke twice more in the house of peers, but these speeches were of no account. The publication of the first two cantos of " Childe Harold " formed an epoch in literature. He became at once a celebrity. As he himself said, " I awoke one morning and found myself fa- mous ; " and not only famous but the fashion. His table was loaded with letters from states- men and philosophers, and with billets from women of high rank and easy virtue ; Holland house opened its doors to him ; the prince re- gent requested a special introduction ; instead of the prize fighters and grooms who had heretofore been his associates, Sheridan and Moore and Rogers became his friends and com- panions. Notwithstanding his slight lameness and his constitutional tendency to obesity, he had grown to be the handsomest man of his day. Heretofore his way of life had not been worse than that of other young men of his rank and time ; but he now trod the down- ward path with swift steps. For weeks he lived upon fare which would have starved an anchorite ; then for weeks he plunged into the wildest debauchery. His liaisons, mostly with married women almost old enough to be his mother, were numerous, and report multiplied them tenfold. Though poor and loaded with debt, he was lavish in giving. To Dallas he presented the 600 which Murray paid him for "Childe Harold," to another person he gave 500, and so on. During the remainder of the year in which " Childe Harold " was published he wrote little. In 1813 he fairly began that career of literary activity which lasted nearly through the remaining 11 years of his life. In May, 1813, " The Giaour" appeared, and before another year had passed he had written " The Waltz," "The Bride of Abydos," "The Blues," " The Corsair," and several smaller poems. He then declared his intention to write no more poe- try, and to suppress all that he had written ; but within three weeks he commenced "Lara." Meanwhile Newstead Abbey had been sold for 140,000, the purchaser paying down 25,000, to be forfeited unless he should meet the suc- ceeding payments. He was unable to raise the money, and Byron retained the 25,000, with which he paid some of his debts, but contracted more new ones. His friends grew alarmed, and urged him to marry. Any wife might mend his morals ; a rich wife would repair his fortunes. He was jaded with excess, and hearkened to the suggestion. Eighteen months before he had been struck with the beauty and modesty of Anne Isabella Milbanke. She was the daughter of a baronet with large though somewhat encumbered estates ; she was more- over the presumed heiress of an uncle, Noel, Vis- count Wentworth, whose landed estates yield- ed 8,000 a year. Byron proposed to her and was refused ; but a correspondence sprung up from which he inferred that a second offer would be accepted. He was inclined to renew