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, inspired by the beauty of the Jewish history, he produced The Hebrew Melodies, some of which are fervent, touching, and melodious.  Late in the same year Lara was published, in the same volume with Mr. Rogers’s Jacqueline, which it threw completely into the shade.  Thus closed one distinct period of his life and of his authorship.  A change came over the spirit of his dream.

UNHAPPY MARRIAGE.—­In 1815, urged by his friends, and thinking it due to his position, he married Miss Milbanke; but the union was without affection on either side, and both were unhappy.  One child, a daughter, was born to them; and a year had hardly passed when they were separated, by mutual consent and for reasons never truly divulged; and which, in spite of modern investigations, must remain mysterious.  He was licentious, extravagant, of a violent temper: