th a rapidity of which I have
seldom known an example."[177]

Moore's company was a great consolation to him then, and Providence
willed that the first balsam applied to his wounds, after that of time,
should come from the hand of one whom he had lashed in his satire. He
passed in this way the last months of 1811, and the first two of the
following year. Meanwhile his star was about to rise, soon to transform,
without any transition, his misty sky into brightest light, too
dazzling, alas! to endure. For the sun, when it shines so radiantly in
early morning, absorbs too many bad vapors. But we will not anticipate
events which I am not relating here.

The parliamentary session being opened, Lord Byron resumed his seat in
the upper House. But he was only known there by the satire that had
raised him up such a host of enemies; otherwise, the handsome young man
who had come among them three years before, but who had since appeared
to disdain their labors, preferring foreign travel in Spain and the
East, was scarcely remembered. When they saw him return, still so young
and handsome, but with a grave melancholy brow, and that he immediately
distinguished himself as an orator, general admiration was excited.
Even those he had offended generously forgot their anger in sympathy for
a fellow-countryman, and pride in such a colleague; pride and enthusiasm
were so general that both parties, Tories and Whigs, shared it equally.
Lord Holland told him that _as an orator he would beat them all, if he
persevered_. Lord Grenville remarked that for the construction of his
phrases _he already resembled Burke_. Sir Francis Burdett declared that
his discourse was the _best_ pronounced by a lord in parliamentary
memory. Several other noblemen asked to be presented, and even those he
had offended came round to shake hands. Generous natures showed
themselves on this occasion. The success of the orator heralded that of
the poet, for "Childe Harold" appeared a few days after.

"The effect was," said Moore, "accordingly electric; his fame had not to
wait for any of the ordinary gradations, but seemed to spring up like
the palace of a fairy tale, in a night. As he himself briefly described
it in his memoranda:--'I awoke one morning, and found myself famous.'

"The first edition of his work was disposed of instantly; and, as the
echoes of its reputation multiplied on all sides, 'Childe Harold' and
'Lord Byron' became the theme of every tongue. At