rey de Ruthven. The banqueting hall, the grand
drawing-room, and other parts of the monastic building were uninhabitable,
but by incurring fresh debts, two sets of apartments were refurnished for
Byron and for his mother. Dismantled and ruinous, it was still a splendid
inheritance. In line with the front of the abbey is the west front of the
priory church, with its hollow arch, once a "mighty window," its vacant
niches, its delicate Gothic mouldings. The abbey buildings enclose a grassy
quadrangle [v.04 p.0899] overlooked by two-storeyed cloisters. On the
eastern side are the state apartments occupied by kings and queens not as
guests, but by feudal right. In the park, which is part of Sherwood Forest,
there is a chain of lakes--the largest, the north-west, Byron's "lucid
lake." A waterfall or "cascade" issues from the lake, in full view of the
room where Byron slept. The possession of this lordly and historic domain
was an inspiration in itself. It was an ideal home for one who was to be
hailed as the spirit or genius of romance.

On the 13th of March 1809, he took his seat in the House of Lords. He had
determined, as soon as he was of age, to travel in the East, but before he
sought "another zone" he invited Hobhouse and three others to a
house-warming. One of the party, C.S. Matthews, describes a day at
Newstead. Host and guests lay in bed till one. "The afternoon was passed in
various diversions, fencing, single-stick ... riding, cricket, sailing on
the lake." They dined at eight, and after the cloth was removed handed
round "a human skull filled with Burgundy." After dinner they "buffooned
about the house" in a set of monkish dresses. They went to bed some time
between one and three in the morning. Moore thinks that the picture of
these festivities is "pregnant in character," and argues that there were
limits to the misbehaviour of the "wassailers." The story, as told in
_Childe Harold_ (c. I. s. v.-ix.), need not be taken too seriously. Byron
was angry because Lord De La Warr did not wish him goodbye, and visited his
displeasure on friends and "lemans" alike. May and June were devoted to the
preparation of an enlarged edition of his satire. At length, accompanied by
Hobhouse and a small staff of retainers, he set out on his travels. He
sailed from Falmouth on the 2nd of July and reached Lisbon on the 7th of
July 1809. The first two cantos of _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_ contain a
record of the principal events of hi