corporeal pastor and master.”  There is no inducement to dwell on amours devoid of romance, further than to remember that they never trenched on what the common code of the fashionable world terms dishonour.  We may believe the poet’s later assertion, backed by want of evidence to the contrary, that he had never been the first means of leading any one astray—­a fact perhaps worthy the attention of those moral worshippers of Goethe and Burns who hiss at Lord Byron’s name.

[Footnote 1:  In reference to one of these, see an interesting letter from Mr. Minto to the Athenaeum (Sept. 2nd, 1876), in which with considerable though not conclusive ingenuity, he endeavours to identify the girl with “Thyrza,” and with “Astarte,” whom he regards as the same person.]

Though much of this year of his life was passed unprofitably, from it dates the impulse that provoked him to put forth his powers.  The Edinburgh, with the attack on the Hours of Idleness, appeared in March, 1808.  This production, by Lord Brougham, is a specimen of the tomahawk style of criticism prevalent in the early years of the century, in which the main motive of the critic was, not to deal fairly with his author, but to acquire for himself an easy reputation for cleverness, by a series of smart contemptuous sentences.  Taken apart, most of the strictures of the Edinburgh are sufficiently just, and the passages quoted for censure are all bad.  Byron’s genius as a poet was not remarkably precocious.  The Hours of Idleness seldom rise, either in thought or expression, very far above the average level of juvenile verse; many of the pieces in the collection are weak imitations, or commonplace descriptions; others suggested by circumstances of local or temporary interest, had served their turn before coming into print.  Their prevailing sentiment is an affectation of misanthropy, conveyed in such lines as these:—­

  Weary of love, of life, devour’d with spleen,
  I rest, a perfect Timon, not nineteen.

This mawkish element unfortunately survives in much of the author’s later verse.  But even in this volume there are indications of force, and command.  The Prayer of Nature, indeed, though previously written, was not included in the edition before the notice of the critic; but the sound of Loch-na-Gair and some of the stanzas on Newstead ought to have saved him from the mistake of his impudent advice.  The poet, who through life waited with feverish anxiety for every verdict on his work, is reported after reading the review to have looked like a man about to send a challenge.  In the midst of a transparent show of indifference, he confesses to have drunk three bottles of claret on the evening of its appearance.  But the wound did not mortify into torpor; the Sea-Kings’ blood stood him in good stead, and he was not long in collecting his strength for the panther-like spring, which, gaining strength by its delay, twelve months later made it impossible for him to be contemned.