Of his family, noble in name but in nothing else, the least said the better. He was born in London, but spent his childhood in Aberdeen, under the alternate care or negligence of his erratic mother. At ten he fell heir to a title, to the family seat of Newstead Abbey, and to estates yielding an income of some £1400 per year,--a large income for a poet, but as nothing to a lord accustomed to make ducks and drakes of his money. In school and college his conduct was rather wild, and his taste fantastic For example, he kept a bulldog and a bear in his rooms, and read romances instead of books recommended by the faculty. He tells us that he detested poetry; yet he wrote numerous poems which show plainly that he not only read but copied some of the poets. [Footnote: These poems (revised and published as _Hours of Idleness_) were savagely criticized in the _Edinburgh Review_. Byron answered with his satiric _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, which ridiculed not only his Scottish critics but also Wordsworth, Scott,--in fact, most of the English poets, with the exception of Pope, whom he praised as the only poet ancient or modern who was not a barbarian.] [Sidenote: A LITERARY LION] At twenty-one Byron entered the House of Lords, and almost immediately thereafter set sail for Lisbon and the Levant. On his return he published the first two cantos of _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, which made him famous. Though he affected to despise his triumph, he followed it up shrewdly by publishing _The Giaour_, _The Corsair_ and _Lara_, in which the same mysterious hero of his first work reappears, under different disguises, amid romantic surroundings. The vigor of these poems attracted many readers, and when it was whispered about that the author was recounting his own adventures, Byron became the center of literary interest. At home he was a social lion; abroad he was acclaimed the greatest of British poets. But his life tended more and more to shock the English sense of decency; and when his wife (whom he had married for her money) abruptly left him, public opinion made its power felt. Byron's popularity waned; his vanity was wounded; he left his country, vowing never to return. Also he railed against what he called British hypocrisy. [Illustration: LORD BYRON After the portrait by T. Phillips] In Geneva he first met Shelley, admired him, was greatly helped by him, and then grossly abused his hospitality. After a scandalous career in Italy he went to help the Greeks in their fight for independence, but died of fever before he reached the battle line. THE POETRY OF BYRON. There is one little song of Byron which serves well as the measure of his poetic talent. It is found in _Don Juan_, and it begins as follows: