their friends, and Byron told Dallas to offer ‘Childe Harold’ elsewhere. Miller objected to the attack upon Lord Elgin (as the despoiler of the Parthenon), for whom he published; and it was ultimately accepted by Murray, who thus began a permanent connection with Byron. ‘Childe Harold’ appeared in March 1812. Byron had meanwhile spoken for the first time in the House of Lords, 27 Feb. 1812, against a bill for suppressing riots of Nottingham frameworkers, and with considerable success. A second and less successful speech against catholic disabilities followed on 21 April 1812. He made one other short speech in presenting a petition from Major Cartwright on 1 June 1813. Lord Holland helped him in providing materials for the first, and the speeches indicate a leaning towards something more than whiggism. The first two are of rather elaborate rhetoric, and his delivery was criticised as too theatrical and sing-song. Any political ambition was extinguished by the startling success of ‘Childe Harold,’ of which a first edition was immediately sold. Byron ‘woke one morning and found himself famous.’ Murray gave 600l. for the copyright, which Byron handed over to Dallas, declaring that he would never take money for his poems.
The two cantos now published are admittedly inferior to the continuation of the poem; and the affectation of which it set the fashion is obsolete. Byron tells Murray (3 Nov. 1821) that he is like a tiger. If he misses his first spring, he goes ‘grumbling back to the jungle again.’ His poems are all substantially impromptus; but the vigour and descriptive power, in spite of all blemishes, are enough to explain the success of a poem original in conception and setting forth a type of character which embodied a prevailing sentiment.
Byron became the idol of the sentimental part of society. Friends and lovers of notoriety gathered round this fascinating rebel. Among the first was Moore, who had sent him a challenge for a passage in ‘English Bards’ ridiculing the bloodless duel with Jeffrey. Hodgson had suppressed the letter during Byron's absence. Moore now wrote a letter ostensibly demanding explanations, but more like a request for acquaintance. The two met at a dinner given by Rogers, where Campbell made a fourth. Byron surprised his new friends by the distinction of his appearance and the eccentricity of his diet, consisting of potatoes and vinegar alone. Moore was surprised at Byron's isolation. Dallas, his solicitor, Hanson, and three or four college friends were at this time (November 1811) his only associates. Moore rapidly became intimate. Byron liked him as a thorough man of the world and as an expert in the arts which compensate for inferiority of birth, and which enabled Moore to act as an obsequious monitor and to smother gentle admonition in abundant flattery. In his diary (10 Dec. 1813) Byron says that Moore was the best-hearted man he knew and with talents equal to his feelings. Byron was now at the height of his proverbial beauty. Coleridge in 1816 speaks enthusiastically of the astonishing beauty and expressiveness of his face (Gillman, p. 267). Dark brown locks, curling over a lofty forehead, grey eyes with long dark lashes, a mouth and chin of exquisite symmetry are shown in his portraits, and were animated by an astonishing mobility of expression, varying from apathy to intense passion. His head was very small; his nose, though well formed, rather too thick; looking, says Hunt (i. 150), in a front view as if ‘grafted on the face;’ his complexion was colourless; he had little beard. His height, he says (Diary, 17 March 1814), 5ft. 8½ in. or a little less (Medwin, p. 5). He had a broad chest, long muscular arms, with white delicate hands, and beautiful teeth. A tendency to excessive fatness, inherited from his mother, was not only disfiguring but productive of great discomfort, and increased the unwieldiness arising from his lameness. To remedy the evil he resorted to the injurious system of diet often set down to mere affectation. Trelawny (ii. 74) observes more justly that Byron was the only human being he knew with self-restraint enough not to get fat. In April 1807 he tells Pigot that he has reduced himself by exercise, physic, and hot baths from 14st. 7lbs. to 12st. 7lbs.; in January 1808 he tells Drury that he has got down to 10st. 7lbs. When last weighed at Genoa he was 10st. 9lbs. (Trelawny). He carried on this system at intervals through life; at Athens he drank vinegar and water, and seldom ate more than a little rice; on his return he gave up wine and meat. He sparred with Jackson for exercise, and took hot baths. In 1813 he lived on six biscuits a day and tea; in December he fasts for forty-eight hours; in 1816 he lived on a thin slice of bread for breakfast and a vegetable dinner, drinking green tea and seltzer-water. He kept down hunger by chewing mastic and tobacco (Hunt, i. 65). He sometimes took laudanum (Diary, 14 Jan. 1821; and Lady Byron's Letter, 18 Jan. 1816). He tells Moore (Letter 461) in 1821 that a dose of salts gave him most exhilaration. Occasional indulgences varied this course. Moore describes a supper (19 May 1814) when he
