title of lady. Byron
was born in Holles Street, Cavendish Square, on 22nd January 1788; and
his early youth, which was spent with his mother at Aberdeen, was one of
not much indulgence or happiness. But he came to the title, and to an
extremely impoverished succession, at ten years old, and three years
later was sent to Harrow. Here he made many friends, distinguishing
himself by obtruding mentions and memories of his rank in a way not
common with the English aristocracy, and hence, in 1805, he proceeded to
Trinity College, Cambridge. He spent about the usual time there, but
took no degree, and while he was still an undergraduate printed his
_Hours of Idleness_, first called _Juvenilia_. It appeared publicly in
March 1807, and a year later was the subject of a criticism, rather
excessive than unjust, in the _Edinburgh Review_. Byron, who had plenty
of pluck, and who all his life long inclined in his heart to the Popian
school, spent a considerable time upon a verse-answer, _English Bards
and Scotch Reviewers_, in which he ran amuck generally, but displayed
ability which it was hopeless to seek in his first production. Then he
went abroad, and the excitement of his sojourn in the countries round
the Mediterranean for the next two years not only aroused, but finally
determined and almost fully developed, his genius.

On his return home he took his seat and went into society with the
success likely to attend an extremely handsome young man of
twenty-three, with a vague reputation both for ability and naughtiness,
a fairly old title, and something of an estate. But his position as a
"lion" was not thoroughly asserted till the publication, in February
1812, of _Childe Harold_, which with some difficulty he had been induced
by his friend Dallas, his publisher Murray, and the critic Gifford to
put before some frigid and trivial _Hints from Horace_. Over _Childe
Harold_ the English public went simply mad, buying seven editions in
five weeks; and during the next three years Byron produced, in rapid
succession, _The Giaour_, _The Bride of Abydos_, _The Corsair_, _Lara_,
_The Siege of Corinth_, and _Hebrew Melodies_. He could hardly write
fast enough for the public to buy. Then the day after New Year's Day
1814, he married Miss Milbanke, a great heiress, a future baroness in
her own right, and handsome after a fashion, but of a cold, prim, and
reserved disposition, as well as of a very unforgiving temper. It
probably did not surp