But it is true that anomalous energies are sources of incessant irritation to their possessor, until they have found their proper vent in the free exercise of his highest faculties. Byron had not yet done, this, when he was rushing about between London, Brighton, Cambridge, and Newstead--shooting, gambling, swimming, alternately drinking deep and trying to starve himself into elegance, green-room hunting, travelling with disguised companions,[1] patronizing D'Egville the dancing-master, Grimaldi the clown, and taking lessons from Mr. Jackson, the distinguished professor of pugilism, to whom he afterwards affectionately refers as his "old friend and corporeal pastor and master." There is no inducement to dwell on amours devoid of romance, further than to remember that they never trenched on what the common code of the fashionable world terms dishonour. We may believe the poet's later assertion, backed by want of evidence to the contrary, that he had never been the first means of leading any one astray--a fact perhaps worthy the attention of those moral worshippers of Goethe and Burns who hiss at Lord Byron's name. [Footnote 1: In reference to one of these, see an interesting letter from Mr. Minto to the _Athenaeum_ (Sept. 2nd, 1876), in which with considerable though not conclusive ingenuity, he endeavours to identify the girl with "Thyrza," and with "Astarté," whom he regards as the same person.] Though much of this year of his life was passed unprofitably, from it dates the impulse that provoked him to put forth his powers. The _Edinburgh_, with the attack on the _Hours of Idleness_, appeared in March, 1808. This production, by Lord Brougham, is a specimen of the tomahawk style of criticism prevalent in the early years of the century, in which the main motive of the critic was, not to deal fairly with his author, but to acquire for himself an easy reputation for cleverness, by a series of smart contemptuous sentences. Taken apart, most of the strictures of the _Edinburgh_ are sufficiently just, and the passages quoted for censure are all bad. Byron's genius as a poet was not remarkably precocious. The _Hours of Idleness_ seldom rise, either in thought or expression, very far above the average level of juvenile verse; many of the pieces in the collection are weak imitations, or commonplace descriptions; others suggested by circumstances of local or temporary interest, had served their turn before coming into print. Their prevailing sentiment is an affectation of misanthropy, conveyed in such lines as these:-- Weary of love, of life, devour'd with spleen, I rest, a perfect Timon, not nineteen.