It was the will of Providence that these aristocrats should be unjust towards this young man, this boy, nay, more than unjust, cruel. He entered the House alone, and looked calm, although his face was deadly pale; not one kindly glance encouraged him, not a single hand was held out towards his; he searched in vain for a single friendly look throughout that illustrious assembly, but all heads were turned away. He then made up his mind. He, Lord Byron, would make a fresh claim to nobility for his posterity, since his present title to it was slighted by his contemporaries. He published his Satire, and set out, with Mr. Hobhouse, in the June of that same year 1809. CHAPTER III Byron at Lisbon--How he quarrelled with his own countrymen--His poem _Childe Harold_--His fits of mad folly and subsequent depression--His marriage--His conjugal squabbles--He again quits England--His farewell to wife and child--His life and amours at Venice--He sets out for Greece--His arrival at Missolonghi--His illness and death The first news received from the poet-traveller was from Lisbon, and it bore the mark of that gloomy spirit of mockery which, when fully developed, becomes genius. The letter was addressed to Mr. Hodgson, and began in the following strain:-- "I am very happy here, because I loves oranges, and talk bad Latin to the monks, who understand it, as it is like their own,--and I goes into society (with my pocket-pistols), and I swims in the Tagus all across at once, and I rides on an ass or a mule, and swears Portugese, and have got a diarrhœa and bites from the mosquitoes. But what of that? Comfort must not be expected by folks that go a pleasuring." And yet, while he was mocking in this fashion, he could write such mournful lines as these in _Childe Harold_:-- CANTO I IX "And none did love him: though to hall and bower He gather'd revellers from far and near, He knew them flatt'rers of the festal hour; The heartless parasites of present cheer. Yea! none did love him--not his lemans dear-- But pomp and power alone are woman's care, And where these are light Eros finds a feere; Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his way where Seraphs might despair. X Childe Harold had a mother--not forgot, Though parting from that mother he did shun; A sister whom he loved, but saw her not Before his weary pilgrimage begun: If friends he had, he bade adieu to none. Yet deem not thence his breast a breast of steel: Ye, who have known what 'tis to dote upon A few dear objects, will in sadness feel Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal. XI