"Among the impressions which this meeting left upon me, what I chiefly remember to have remarked was the nobleness of his air, his beauty, the gentleness of his voice and manners. Being in mourning for his mother, the color, as well of his dress as of his glossy, curling, and picturesque hair, gave more effect to the pure, spiritual paleness of his features, in the expression of which, when he spoke, there was a perpetual play of lively thought, though melancholy was their habitual character when in repose."
But this melancholy, having become habitual to him through accident, began then to disperse, as snow melts beneath the soft and warm breath of spring. The first symptom was that he judged better of himself; for, writing to his friend Harness, to express his general opinion on human selfishness, he said, "But I do not think we are born of this disposition."
"From the time of our first meeting," says Moore, "there seldom elapsed a day that Lord Byron and I did not see each other, and our acquaintance ripened into intimacy and friendship with a rapidity of which I have seldom known an example."[177]
Moore's company was a great consolation to him then, and Providence willed that the first balsam applied to his wounds, after that of time, should come from the hand of one whom he had lashed in his satire. He passed in this way the last months of 1811, and the first two of the following year. Meanwhile his star was about to rise, soon to transform, without any transition, his misty sky into brightest light, too dazzling, alas! to endure. For the sun, when it shines so radiantly in early morning, absorbs too many bad vapors. But we will not anticipate events which I am not relating here.
The parliamentary session being opened, Lord Byron resumed his seat in the upper House. But he was only known there by the satire that had raised him up such a host of enemies; otherwise, the handsome young man who had come among them three years before, but who had since appeared to disdain their labors, preferring foreign travel in Spain and the East, was scarcely remembered. When they saw him return, still so young and handsome, but with a grave melancholy brow, and that he immediately distinguished himself as an orator, general admiration was excited. Even those he had offended generously forgot their anger in sympathy for a fellow-countryman, and pride in such a colleague; pride and enthusiasm were so general that both parties, Tories and Whigs, shared it equally. Lord Holland told him that as an orator he would beat them all, if he persevered. Lord Grenville remarked that for the construction of his phrases he already resembled Burke. Sir Francis Burdett declared that his discourse was the best pronounced by a lord in parliamentary memory. Several other noblemen asked to be presented, and even those he had offended came round to shake hands. Generous natures showed themselves on this occasion. The success of the orator heralded that of the poet, for "Childe Harold" appeared a few days after.
"The effect was," said Moore, "accordingly electric; his fame had not to wait for any of the ordinary gradations, but seemed to spring up like the palace of a fairy tale, in a night. As he himself briefly described it in his memoranda:—'I awoke one morning, and found myself famous.'
"The first edition of his work was disposed of instantly; and, as the echoes of its reputation multiplied on all sides, 'Childe Harold' and 'Lord Byron' became the theme of every tongue. At his door most of the leading names of the day presented themselves. From morning till night the most flattering testimonies of his success crowded his table from the grave tributes of the statesman and the philosopher down to (what flattered him still more) the romantic billet of some incognita, or the pressing note of invitation from some fair leader of fashion; and, in place of the desert which London had been to him but a few weeks before, he now not only saw the whole splendid interior of high life thrown open to receive him, but found himself among its illustrious crowds the most distinguished object."
I may also mention Dallas, who in speaking of this unexampled success, says:—
"Lord Byron had become the subject of every conversation in town.
"He was surrounded with honors. From the regent and his admirable daughter, down to the editor and his clerk; from Walter Scott and Jeffrey down to the anonymous authors of the 'Satirist' and the 'Scourge,' all and each extolled his merits. He was the admiration of the old, and the marvel of the fashionable circles of which he had become the idol."