Booking the Luddites

After having lived by my wits all my life and made a living, too, by using words, I gave away many of the accumulated books some years ago to a research institute. Since time and circumstance (highfalutin fancy words for old age and illness) have brought to an end my days of writing, I certainly do not need so many books around me. The serendipitous aspect of the book for me was the revival of memories that I had forgotten of Byron's acknowledgement of, and tribute to, the Luddites (workers in English textile mills who took the name of a real or imagined textile mill worker called Ludd from the previous century who is supposed to have resisted installation of new textile machinery), the speech he made in the House of Lords in support of the rebellious workers even as the full might of the government was deployed to suppress the revolt. [...]to end, a poem attributed to Byron celebrating Luddite uprisings: