OF THE

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.




Having landed the young pilgrim once more in England, it may be worth
while, before we accompany him into the scenes that awaited him at home,
to consider how far the general character of his mind and disposition
may have been affected by the course of travel and adventure, in which
he had been, for the last two years, engaged. A life less savouring of
poetry and romance than that which he had pursued previously to his
departure on his travels, it would be difficult to imagine. In his
childhood, it is true, he had been a dweller and wanderer among scenes
well calculated, according to the ordinary notion, to implant the first
rudiments of poetic feeling. But, though the poet may afterwards feed on
the recollection of such scenes, it is more than questionable, as has
been already observed, whether he ever has been formed by them. If a
childhood, indeed, passed among mountainous scenery were so favourable
to the awakening of the imaginative power, both the Welsh, among
ourselves, and the Swiss, abroad, ought to rank much higher on the
scale of poetic excellence than they do at present. But, even allowing
the picturesqueness of his early haunts to have had some share in giving
a direction to the fancy of Byron, the actual operation of this
influence, whatever it may have been, ceased with his childhood; and the
life which he led afterwards during his school-days at Harrow, was,--as
naturally the life of so idle and daring a schoolboy must be,--the very
reverse of poetical. For a soldier or an adventurer, the course of