dency 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 r