e
had not the courage to pursue it. In a letter to his brother Henry
respecting the career of his son, Goldsmith wrote: "Teach, my dear sir,
to your son, thrift and economy. Let his poor wandering uncle's example
be placed before his eyes. I had learned from books to be disinterested
and generous before I was taught from experience the necessity of being
prudent. I had contracted the habits and notions of a philosopher, while
I was exposing myself to the insidious approaches of cunning; and often
by being, even with my narrow finances, charitable to excess, I forgot
the rules of justice, and placed myself in the very situation of the
wretch who thanked me for my bounty."

Byron had scarcely reached manhood when he became involved in debt.
Writing to Mr. Becher, in his twentieth year, he said, "_Entre nous_, I
am cursedly dipped; my debts, everything inclusive, will be nine or ten
thousand before I am twenty-one." On his coming of age, the festivities
at Newstead were celebrated by means supplied by money-lenders at
enormously usurious rates of interest. His difficulties did not
diminish, but only increased with time. It is said that his mother's
death was occasioned by a fit of rage, brought on by reading the
upholsterer's bills.[1] When the first canto of "Childe Harold" was
published, Byron presented the copyright to Mr. Dallas, declaring that
he would never receive money for his writings,--a resolution which he
afterwards wisely abandoned. But his earnings by literature at that time
could not have lightened the heavy load of debt under which he
staggered. Newstead was sold, and still the load accumulated. Then he
married, probably in the expectation that his wife's fortune would
release him; but her money was locked up, and the step, instead of
relieving him, brought only an accession of misery. Every one knows the
sad result of the union; which was aggravated by the increasing assaults
of duns and sheriffs' officers.

[Footnote 1: MOORE--_Life of Byron_, ed. 1860. p. 127.]

Byron was almost driven to sell the copyright of his books, but he was
prevented from doing so by his publisher, who pressed upon him a sum of
money to meet his temporary wants. During the first year of his
marriage, his house was nine times in the possession of bailiffs, his
door was almost daily beset by duns, and he was only saved from gaol by
the privileges of his rank. All this, to a sensitive nature such as his,
must have been gall and b