anderings through Greece he had
leisure and seclusion to look within himself, and there catch the first
glimpses of his glorious mind. His deep passion for solitude grew to
full power; the varied excitement of his travels invigorated his
character and stored his imagination with impressions, and his inborn
sadness rose from a querulous bitterness to the grandeur of his later
melancholy.

His letters show him on Parnassus, where a flight of eagles seemed an
omen of his destiny; at Athens, where he lodged with the mother of the
"Maid of Athens"; standing among the ruins of Ephesus and the mounds of
Troy; swimming the Hellespont in honour of Leander; at Constantinople,
where the prospect of the Golden Horn seemed the fairest of all; at
Patras, in the woeful debility of fever; and again at Athens, making
acquaintance with Lady Hester Stanhope and "Abyssinian" Bruce. Through
all these varied scenes his mind was brooding on the verses of the
"Childe Harold."

On Byron's return to England, in July, 1811, that poem was placed in Mr.
Murray's hands, and thus was laid the foundation of a long connection
between author and publisher. Mrs. Byron died on August 1. With all her
faults she had loved her son deeply, and he could at least look back
upon dutiful and kindly behaviour to her. It was in November that I
first had the pleasure of meeting the poet at dinner, and what I chiefly
remarked was the nobleness of his air, his beauty, the gentleness of his
voice and manner, and his marked kindness. From our first meeting our
acquaintance quickly ripened into friendship.

On February 27, 1812, a day or two before the appearance of "Childe
Harold," Byron made the first trial of his eloquence in the House of
Lords, and it was on this occasion that he made the acquaintance of Lord
Holland. The subject of debate was the Nottingham Frame-breaking Bill.
Workmen were rioting and wrecking because their labour had been
displaced by the introduction of machinery, and Byron's view was that
"we must not allow mankind to be sacrificed to improvements in
mechanism"--"the maintenance of the industrious poor is of greater
consequence than the enrichment of monopolists"--"I have seen the state
of these miserable men, and it is a disgrace to a civilised country."
The speech was well received. The impression produced two days later by
Byron's "Childe Harold" was as instantaneous as it has proved deep and
lasting. Even the dashes of scepticism, with wh