His coming of age, in 1809, was celebrated at Newstead by such
festivities as his narrow means and society could furnish. Besides the
ritual roasting of an ox, there was a ball, it seems, given on the
occasion,--of which the only particular I could collect, from the old
domestic who mentioned it, was, that Mr. Hanson, the agent of her
lord, was among the dancers. Of Lord Byron's own method of
commemorating the day, I find the following curious record in a letter
written from Genoa in 1822:--"Did I ever tell you that the day I came
of age I dined on eggs and bacon and a bottle of ale?--For once in a
way they are my favourite dish and drinkable; but as neither of them
agree with me, I never use them but on great jubilees,--in four or
five years or so." The pecuniary supplies necessary towards his
outset, at this epoch, were procured from money-lenders at an
enormously usurious interest, the payment of which for a long time
continued to be a burden to him.
It was not till the beginning of this year that he took his
Satire,--in a state ready, as he thought, for publication,--to London.
Before, however, he had put the work to press, new food was unluckily
furnished to his spleen by the neglect with which he conceived himself
to have been treated by his guardian, Lord Carlisle. The relations
between this nobleman and his ward had, at no time, been of such a
nature as to afford opportunities for the cultivation of much
friendliness on either side; and to the temper and influence of Mrs.
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