said jestingly that some of the
verses in the "Hours of Idleness" were calculated to make schoolboys
rebellious, Lord Byron answers--"If my songs have produced the
glorious effects you mention, I shall be a complete Tyrtaeus;--though
I am sorry to say I resemble that interesting harper more in his
person than in his poesy." Sometimes, too, even an allusion to this
infirmity by others, when he could perceive that it was not
offensively intended, was borne by him with the most perfect good
humour. "I was once present," says the friend I have just mentioned,
"in a large and mixed company, when a vulgar person asked him
aloud--'Pray, my Lord, how is that foot of yours?'--'Thank you, sir,'
answered Lord Byron, with the utmost mildness--'much the same as
usual.'"

The following extract, relating to a reverend friend of his Lordship,
is from another of his letters to Mr. Hodgson, this year:--

"A few weeks ago I wrote to ----, to request he would receive the son
of a citizen of London, well known to me, as a pupil; the family
having been particularly polite during the short time I was with them
induced me to this application. Now, mark what follows, as somebody
sublimely saith. On this day arrives an epistle signed ----,
containing not the smallest reference to tuition or _in_tuition, but a
_pe_tition for Robert Gregson, of pugilistic notoriety, now in bondage
for certain paltry pounds sterling, and liable to take up his
everlasting abode in Banco Regis. Had the letter been from any of my
_lay_ acquaintance, or, in short, from any person but the gentleman
whose signature it bears, I should have marvelled not. If ---- is
serious, I congratulate pugilism on the acquisition of such a patron,
and shall be most happy to advance any sum necessary for the
liberation of the captive Gregson. But I certainly hope to be
certified from you, or some respectable housekeeper, of the fact,
before I write to ---- on the subject. When I say the _fact_, I mean
of the letter being written by ----, not having any doubt as to the
authenticity of the statement. The letter is now before me, and I keep
it for your perusal."

His time at Newstead during this autumn was principally occupied in
enlarging and preparing his Satire for the press; and with the view,
perhaps, of mellowing his own judgment of its merits, by keeping it
some time before his eyes in a printed form,[99] he had proofs taken
off from the manuscript by his former publisher at New