last interview with her he
has powerfully described in his poem called _The Dream_. From Harrow he
went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he lived an idle and
self-indulgent life, reading discursively, but not studying the prescribed
course. As early as November, 1806, before he was nineteen, he published
his first volume, _Poems on Various Occasions_, for private distribution,
which was soon after enlarged and altered, and presented to the public as
_Hours of Idleness, a Series of Poems Original and Translated, by George
Gordon, Lord Byron, A Minor_. These productions, although by no means
equal to his later poems, are not without merit, and did not deserve the
exceedingly severe criticism they met with from the _Edinburgh Review_.
The critics soon found that they had bearded a young lion: in his rage, he
sprang out upon the whole literary craft in a satire, imitated from
Juvenal, called _The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, in which he
ridicules and denounces the very best poets of the day furiously but most
uncritically. That his conduct was absurd and unjust, he himself allowed
afterwards; and he attempted to call in and destroy all the copies of this
work.

CHILDE HAROLD AND EASTERN TALES.--In March, 1809, he took his seat in the
House of Lords, where he did not accomplish much. He took up his residence
at Newstead Abbey, his ancestral seat, most of which was in a ruinous
condition; and after a somewhat disorderly life there, he set out on his
continental tour, spending some time at Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta,
and in Greece. On his return, after two years' absence, he brought a
summary of his travels in poetical form,--the first part of _Childe
Harold_; and also a more elaborated poem entitled _Hints from Horace_.
Upon the former he set little value; but he thought the latter a noble
work. The world at once reversed his decision. The satire in the Latin
vein is scarcely read; while to the first cantos of _Childe Harold_ it was
due that, in his own words, "he woke up one morning and found himself
famous." As fruits of the eastern portion of his travels, we have the
romantic tale, _The Giaour_, published in 1811, and _The Bride of Abydos_,
which appeared in 1813. The popularity of these oriental stories was
mainly due to their having been conceived on the spots they describe. In
1814 he issued _The Corsair_, perhaps the best of these sensational
stories; and with singular versatility, in the same year,