made him unhappy under any circumstances in which he could be placed.  This temper, which he inherited from his mother—­passionate, fitful, defiant, restless, wayward, melancholy—­inclined him naturally to solitude, and often isolated him even from his friends and companions.  He brooded upon supposed wrongs, and created in his soul strong likes and dislikes.  What is worse, he took no pains to control this temperament; and at last it mastered him, drove him into every kind of folly and rashness, and made him appear worse than he really was.

This inborn tendency to moodiness, pride, and recklessness should be considered in our estimate of Byron, and should modify any harshness of judgment in regard to his character, which, in some other respects, was interesting and noble.  He was not at all envious, but frank, warm-hearted, and true to those he loved, who were, however, very few.  If he had learned self-control, and had not been spoiled by his mother, his career might have been far different from what it was, and would have sustained the admiration which his brilliant genius called out from both high and low.

As it was, Byron left college with dangerous habits, with no reputation for scholarship, with but few friends, and an uncertain future.  His bright and witty bursts of poetry, wonderful as the youthful effusions of Dryden and Pope, had made him known to a small circle, but had not brought fame, for which his soul passionately thirsted from first to last.  For a nobleman he was poor and embarrassed, and his youthful extravagances had tied up his inherited estate.  He was cast upon the world like a ship without a rudder and without ballast.  He was aspiring indeed, but without a plan, tired out and disgusted before he was twenty-one, having prematurely exhausted the ordinary pleasures of life, and being already inclined to that downward path which leadeth to destruction.  This was especially marked in his relations with women, whom generally he flattered, despised, and deserted, as the amusements of an idle hour, and yet whose society he could not do without in the ardor of his impulsive and ungoverned affections.  In that early career of unbridled desire for excitement and pleasure, nowhere do we see a sense of duty, a respect for the opinions of the good, a reverence for religious institutions, or self-restraint of any kind; but these defects were partly covered over by his many virtues and his exalted rank.

Thus far Byron was comparatively unknown.  Not yet was he even a favorite in society, beautiful and brilliant as he was; for he had few friends, not much money, and many enemies, whom he made by his scorn and defiance,—­a born aristocrat, without having penetrated those exclusive circles to which his birth entitled him.  He was always quarrelling with his mother, and was treated with indifference by his guardian.  He was shunned by those who adhered to the conventionalities of life, and was pursued by bailiffs and creditors,—­since his ancestral estates, small for his rank, were encumbered and mortgaged, and Newstead Abbey itself was in a state of dilapidation.