Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I | Page 7

had beggared; and so far was he successful, that, during his
last visit, narrow as were her means, she contrived to furnish him with
the money necessary for his journey to Valenciennes,[12] where, in the
following year, 1791, he died. Though latterly Mrs. Byron would not
see her husband, she entertained, it is said, a strong affection for him to
the last; and on those occasions, when the nurse used to meet him in
her walks, would enquire of her with the tenderest anxiety as to his
health and looks. When the intelligence of his death, too, arrived, her
grief, according to the account of this same attendant, bordered on
distraction, and her shrieks were so loud as to be heard in the street.
She was, indeed, a woman full of the most passionate extremes, and her
grief and affection were bursts as much of temper as of feeling. To
mourn at all, however, for such a husband was, it must be allowed, a
most gratuitous stretch of generosity. Having married her, as he openly
avowed, for her fortune alone, he soon dissipated this, the solitary
charm she possessed for him, and was then unmanful enough to taunt
her with the inconveniences of that penury which his own extravagance
had occasioned.
When not quite five years old, young Byron was sent to a day-school at
Aberdeen, taught by Mr. Bowers,[13] and remained there, with some
interruptions, during a twelvemonth, as appears by the following
extract from the day-book of the school:--
George Gordon Byron. 19th November, 1792. 19th November,
1793--paid one guinea.
The terms of this school for reading were only five shillings a quarter,
and it was evidently less with a view to the boy's advance in learning

than as a cheap mode of keeping him quiet that his mother had sent him
to it. Of the progress of his infantine studies at Aberdeen, as well under
Mr. Bowers as under the various other persons that instructed him, we
have the following interesting particulars communicated by himself, in
a sort of journal which he once began, under the title of "My
Dictionary," and which is preserved in one of his manuscript books.
"For several years of my earliest childhood, I was in that city, but have
never revisited it since I was ten years old. I was sent, at five years old,
or earlier, to a school kept by a Mr. Bowers, who was called 'Bodsy
Bowers,' by reason of his dapperness. It was a school for both sexes. I
learned little there except to repeat by rote the first lesson of
monosyllables ('God made man'--'Let us love him'), by hearing it often
repeated, without acquiring a letter. Whenever proof was made of my
progress, at home, I repeated these words with the most rapid fluency;
but on turning over a new leaf, I continued to repeat them, so that the
narrow boundaries of my first year's accomplishments were detected,
my ears boxed, (which they did not deserve, seeing it was by ear only
that I had acquired my letters,) and my intellects consigned to a new
preceptor. He was a very devout, clever, little clergyman, named Ross,
afterwards minister of one of the kirks (East, I think). Under him I
made astonishing progress; and I recollect to this day his mild manners
and good-natured pains-taking. The moment I could read, my grand
passion was history, and, why I know not, but I was particularly taken
with the battle near the Lake Regillus in the Roman History, put into
my hands the first. Four years ago, when standing on the heights of
Tusculum, and looking down upon the little round lake that was once
Regillus, and which dots the immense expanse below, I remembered
my young enthusiasm and my old instructor. Afterwards I had a very
serious, saturnine, but kind young man, named Paterson, for a tutor. He
was the son of my shoemaker, but a good scholar, as is common with
the Scotch. He was a rigid Presbyterian also. With him I began Latin in
'Ruddiman's Grammar,' and continued till I went to the 'Grammar
School, (Scoticè, 'Schule; Aberdonicè, 'Squeel,') where I threaded all
the classes to the fourth, when I was recalled to England (where I had
been hatched) by the demise of my uncle. I acquired this handwriting,
which I can hardly read myself, under the fair copies of Mr. Duncan of

the same city: I don't think he would plume himself much upon my
progress. However, I wrote much better then than I have ever done
since. Haste and agitation of one kind or another have quite spoilt as
pretty a scrawl as ever scratched over a frank. The grammar-school
might consist of a hundred and fifty of all ages under age. It was
divided into five