There was method in Byron's "rage and resistance and redress." For more than a year he labored upon a satire which he had begun even before the appearance of the _Edinburgh_ article. (See letter of October 26, 1807, in _Letters_, ed. Prothero, I, p. 147.) In the spring of 1809, _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ was given anonymously to the world. The publication of this vigorous satire virtually decided Byron's career. Not only did he abuse Jeffrey, whom he believed responsible for the offending critique, but he flung defiance in the face of almost all his literary contemporaries. The authorship of the satire was soon apparent, and in a flippant note to the second edition, Byron became still more abusive toward Jeffrey and his "dirty pack," and declared that he was ready to give satisfaction to all who sought it. A few years later he regretted his rashness in assailing the authors of his time. He also learned of the injustice done to Jeffrey and had ample reason to feel embarrassed by the tone of the eight reviews of his poems that Jeffrey did write for the _Edinburgh_. (See the list in Prothero, II, p. 248.) In _Don Juan_ (canto X, xvi), he made the following retraction:--
"And all our little feuds, at least all _mine_, Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe (As far as rhyme and criticism combine To make such puppets of us things below), Are over. Here's a health to 'Auld Lang Syne!' I do not know you, and may never know Your face--but you have acted, on the whole, Most nobly; and I own it from my soul."
The other reviews of _Hours of Idleness_ are of little interest. The _Monthly_ and the _Critical_ both praised the book; the _Literary Panorama_, III, p. 273, said the author was no imbecile, but an incautious writer.
98. [Greek: thelo legein],--Anacreon, Ode I. ([Greek: thelô legein Atreidas, k. t. l.])
98. [Greek: mesonyktiois, poth' horais],--Anacreon, Ode III. ([Greek: mesonyktiois poth' hôrais, k. t. l.])
100. _Sancho_,--Sancho Panza in _Don Quixote_. The proverb is of ancient origin. See French, Latin, Italian and Spanish forms in Brewer's _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_.
Shortly after the appearance of the second edition of _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, Byron left England and travelled through the East, at the same time leisurely composing the first two cantos of _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_. Their publication in 1812 placed him at the head of the popular poets of the day. Henceforth the reviews gave extensive notices to all his productions. (For references, see J.P. Anderson's bibliography appended to Hon. Roden Noel's _Life of Byron_.) _Childe Harold_ was reviewed in the _Edinburgh Rev._, XIX (466-477), by Jeffrey; in the _Quarterly_, VII (180-200), by George Ellis; in the _British Review_, III (275-302); and _Eclectic Review_, XV (630-641).