memory in St. Paul's Cathedral. Howard's son, who never recovered from his malady, died in April 1799, in his thirty-fifth year.
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON.
George Gordon, the only son of Captain John Byron, by his second
wife, Miss Gordon, of Gight, and grandson of the celebrated Admiral
Byron, was born in Holles Street, London, on the 22d of January, 1788.
His ancestry, of which he is said to have been more proud than of having
been the author of Childe Harold and Manfred, was composed of persons
of distinction, but possessing much of that daring recklessness of character
which so early displayed itself in the subject of our memoir. His great
uncle, Lord William, to whom he succeeded, was tried for killing his relation,
Mr. Chaworth, in a duel; and his father, who had caused his first
wife to die of a broken heart, after having seduced her, when Marchioness
of Carmarthen, became the husband of our poet's mother, as he openly
avowed, for her fortune alone; after the dissipation of which, he separated
from her, and died at Valenciennes, in 1791. At this time, young Byron
resided, with his mother, at Aberdeen, where in November, 1792, he was
sent to a day school; but, according to his own account, 'learned little
there, except to repeat by rote the first lesson of monosyllables.' After
remaining a year in this school, he was placed with a clergyman, named
Ross, under whom, he says, he made astonishing progress; and observes,
that the moment he could read, his grand passion was history. His next
tutor was named Paterson; with him, he adds, 'I began Latin in Ruddiman's
grammar, and continued till I went to the grammar-school, where
I threaded all the classes to the fourth, when I was recalled to England by
the demise of my uncle.
The anecdotes which are told of him at this time, display his temper in an unfavorable light, both in his infancy and boyhood. Mr. Moore relates, that whilst yet in petticoats, being angrily reprimanded by his nurse for having soiled or torn a new frock, in which he had just been dressed, he got into one of his 'silent rages' (as he himself has described them), seized the frock with both his hands, rent it from top to bottom, and stood, in sullen stillness, setting his censurer and her wrath at defiance. The same authority tells us, that once, in returning home from school at Aberdeen, Byron fell in with a boy who had, on some former occasion, insulted him, but had then got off unpunished; little Byron, however, at the time, promising to 'pay him off' whenever they should meet again. Accordingly, on this second encounter, though there were some other boys to take his opponent's part, he succeeded in inflicting upon him a hearty beating. On his return home, breathless, the servant inquired what he had been about, and was answered by him, with a mixture of rage and humor, that he had been paying a debt, by beating a boy according to promise; for that he was a Byron and would not belie his motto. Other anecdotes are told of him, which show him to have been passionate and resentful to that degree, as to leave it doubtful whether the description of him as 'a malignant imp' is not more applicable to his early years, than that of 'a lively, warm-*hearted, and high-spirited boy.' Before closing our account of his infancy, we should not omit to state that he suffered much from the malformation of one of his feet, which gave him much pain and mortification throughout his
