Byron

(George Gordon Noel) Lord, b. London, 22 Jan. 1788. He succeeded his grand-uncle William in 1798; was sent to Harrow and Cambridge. In 1807 he published his Hours of Idlene , and awoke one morning to find himself famous. His power was, however, first shown in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers , in which he satirised his critics, 1809. He then travelled on the Continent, the result of which was seen in his Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and other works. He married 2 Jan. 1815, but a separation took place in the following year. Lord Byron then resided in Italy, where he made the acquaintance of Shelley. In 1823 he devoted his name and fortune to the cause of the Greek revolution, but was seized with fever and died at Mis so long hi, 19 April, 1824. His drama of Cain: a Mystery , 1822, is his most serious utterance, and it shows a profound contempt for religious dogma. This feeling is also exhibited in his magnificent burlesque poem, The Vision of Judgment , which places him at the head of English satirists. In his letters to the Rev. Francis Hodgson, 1811, he distinctly says: “I do not believe in any revealed religion.... I will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without the absurdity of speculating upon another.... The basis of your religion is injustice; the Son of God, the pure, the immaculate, the innocent, is sacrificed for the guilty,” etc.