happened to read aloud a speech which had been delivered in the House of Commons, a friend who was present remarked to 'Geordie,' 'We shall have the pleasure, some time or other, of reading your speeches in the House;' 'I hope not'-was his answer; if you read any speeches of mine, it will be in the House of Lords." The day after the arrival of the news of the death of the old lord, the boy ran into his mother's room, and asked her whether she perceived any difference in him since he had been made a lord, as he perceived none himself."2 Not externally, indeed, but that the lame boy who lived at Aberdeen was not unconscious of the great change which had taken place in his position, is shown by his conduct in the school. Next morning when the names of the boys were called out, and his was pronounced with the title 'Dominus' prefixed, such an impression was made on him, that he was unable to utter the usual answer 'Adsum,' and at last burst into tears.3 Moore' very rightly remarks that it would have been a decided advantage for the formation of Byron's character, if he had had to wait ten years longer ere he inherited the peerage, and had continued to live in his limited circumstances and been obliged to struggle against them. The elevation of rank at his tender age acted the more prejudicially, as it did not extend to his mother, he standing above her in rank and property, while she was and continued simply Mrs. Byron. The family, i.e. mother, son, and faithful maid-servant, had now only to set out (in the autumn of 1798) for the new inheritance of Newstead. With the exception of the silver plate and linen, Mrs. Byron sold all the furniture before their departure, the proceeds of the whole amounting to less than 757.; little enough for

1 Moore's Life, i. 29. 2 Ibid. i. 30. 3 Ibid. i. 30. 4 Ibid. i. 29.

the mother of a peer and a descendant of the royal house of Scotland. In what way the journey was made is not related: only Byron mentions in one of his last letters, that he recollected Loch Leven, by which they passed, 'as if it were but yesterday.'1

1 Moore's Life, i. 37.

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY.

1798-1808.

WHEN the travellers arrived at the Newstead toll-bar, his mother, affecting ignorance, asked the woman of the toll-house to whom the park and house belonged; she answered, that Lord Byron, the owner of it, had been dead for some months. And who is the next heir?' asked the proud and happy mother. "They say,' answered the woman, it is a little boy who lives at Aberdeen.' 'And this is he, bless him!' exclaimed the nurse, no longer able to contain herself, and turning to kiss with delight the young lord who was seated on her lap.1

Thus did the young lord, in his eleventh year, make his entrance into Newstead Abbey. There, everything wore a dreary and desolate look; and though Mrs. Byron had not been accustomed to luxury, she could not bring herself to make Newstead her home, but retired with her son to the neighbouring town of Nottingham, a step which was moreover rendered needful from a regard to the young peer's training both of body and mind. Byron himself, as soon as he inherited the peerage, had become a ward of the Court of Chancery, which appointed the Earl of Carlisle his guardian. This nobleman (1784-1826) was a near relation, his mother, Isabella Byron (1721-1795), being a

1 Moore s Life, i. 37.

sister of the fifth Lord Byron, the duellist. This lady belied in nowise the family character; she was full of talent and wit, wrote tolerable verses' and some pungent epigrams. In eccentricity she equalled her brother, and, like him, though without the grounds he had, secluded herself in her later years entirely from the world, in which she had shone in earlier life as one of the stars of society. Fox, to whom she was known, characterised her in a satire as

Carlisle, recluse in pride and rags; 2

3

and they are said to have spoken or written yet coarser things of each other. Her son was distinguished in the world of fashion, made a figure in Parliament, and had been Viceroy of Ireland in the year 1780. He was, moreover, a wit and a poet, who soared even to the lofty regions of tragedy. His tragedy, 'The Father's Revenge,' which had been submitted to Dr. Johnson, met with some favour from the great critic. It is well known that Byron, who, not without reason, believed himself neglected by his guardian, so harshly criticised his poetry in the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' that he endeavoured, at a later period, to make every reparation for the wrong he had been guilty of. To him he dedicated the second edition of 'The Hours of Idleness,' as his obliged ward and affectionate kinsman. The two men were evidently, both poetically and otherwise, of minds too much opposed as not mutually to repel each other. The Earl of Carlisle appears at first to have little concerned

1 One or two in Pearch's Collection are ascribed to her; she composed also a small treatise on Education.

2 Galt's Life of Byron, chap. iv. p. 33.

3 He was the author of the following works:-Poems, 1773; Unite or Fall, 1798; The Step-mother, a tragedy, 1800; Tragedies and Poems, 1801; Verses on the Death of Lord Nelson, 1806; Thoughts on the Stage.

himself in the education of his ward, but to have entrusted it to his mother, who directed her attention chiefly to the cure of the deformed foot. She, like Scott's parents, who hoped to succeed in removing his lameness by the socalled earth-bath of Dr. Graham, applied to a quack of the name of Lavender' with a like object. This man, rubbing the foot with oil, forcibly twisted it round, and then screwed it up in a wooden machine, causing of course dreadful suffering to the poor boy.2

That he might lose no ground in the studies of the school, Byron received instruction in Latin from a respectable teacher of the name of Rogers, who read Virgil and Cicero with him-rather prematurely, certainly, for a boy of eleven years of age. Teacher and scholar were, however, mutually satisfied. Mr. Rogers, remarking one day the pain which Byron endured with his foot in the machine while he was teaching him, could not withhold his sympathy: 'It makes me uncomfortable, my Lord, to see you sitting there in such pain, as I know you must be suffering '—'Never mind, Mr. Rogers,' answered the boy, 'you shall not see any signs of it in me.'4 Of him, as of almost all his masters, he preserved a respectful and kindly recollection, while for his tormentor Lavender he had nothing but hatred, and delighted to practise jokes upon him. Thus on one occasion writing down all the letters of the alphabet and putting them together at random in the form of words, he asked the pompous ignoramus what language it was: 'Italian,' he answered with his

1 It is said that Lavender often sent the boy across the street for a jug of beer. (Notes and Queries, 4th series, vol. iii. pp. 284, 418, 561.) The thing seems scarcely credible.

2 Moore's Life, i. 41.

3 According to Notes and Queries, 4th series, vol. iii. p. 561, Rogers was an American royalist, who enjoyed a pension from the English Government.