As early as November, 1806, before he was nineteen, he published
his first volume, _Poems on Various Occasions_, for private distribution,
which was soon after enlarged and altered, and presented to the public as
_Hours of Idleness, a Series of Poems Original and Translated, by George
Gordon, Lord Byron, A Minor_. These productions, although by no means
equal to his later poems, are not without merit, and did not deserve the
exceedingly severe criticism they met with from the _Edinburgh Review_.
The critics soon found that they had bearded a young lion: in his rage, he
sprang out upon the whole literary craft in a satire, imitated from
Juvenal, called _The English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, in which he
ridicules and denounces the very best poets of the day furiously but most
uncritically. That his conduct was absurd and unjust, he himself allowed
afterwards; and he attempted to call in and destroy all the copies of this
work.
CHILDE HAROLD AND EASTERN TALES.--In March, 1809, he took his seat in the
House of Lords, where he did not accomplish much.
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