sphodra orexei]. The absurdity of Moore's frequent declaration, that all
great poets are inly wrapt in perpetual gloom, is only to be excused by
the modesty which, in the saying so obviously excludes himself from the
list. But it is true that anomalous energies are sources of incessant
irritation to their possessor, until they have found their proper vent in
the free exercise of his highest faculties. Byron had not yet done, this,
when he was rushing about between London, Brighton, Cambridge, and
Newstead--shooting, gambling, swimming, alternately drinking deep and
trying to starve himself into elegance, green-room hunting, travelling
with disguised companions,[1] patronizing D'Egville the dancing-master,
Grimaldi the clown, and taking lessons from Mr. Jackson, the distinguished
professor of pugilism, to whom he afterwards affectionately refers as his
"old friend and 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 "Astarté," 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