his studies without
interruption, Mrs. Byron had neither sense nor self-denial enough to
act up to these professions; but, in spite of the remonstrances of Dr.
Glennie, and the injunctions of Lord Carlisle, continued to interfere
with and thwart the progress of the boy's education in every way that
a fond, wrong-headed, and self-willed mother could devise. In vain was
it stated to her that, in all the elemental parts of learning which
are requisite for a youth destined to a great public school, young
Byron was much behind other youths of his age, and that, to retrieve
this deficiency, the undivided application of his whole time would be
necessary. Though appearing to be sensible of the truth of these
suggestions, she not the less embarrassed and obstructed the teacher
in his task. Not content with the interval between Saturday and
Monday, which, contrary to Dr. Glennie's wish, the boy generally
passed at Sloane Terrace, she would frequently keep him at home a week
beyond this time, and, still further to add to the distraction of such
interruptions, collected around him a numerous circle of young
acquaintances, without exercising, as may be supposed, much
discrimination in her choice. "How, indeed, could she?" asks Dr.
Glennie--"Mrs. Byron was a total stranger to English society and
English manners; with an exterior far from prepossessing, an
understanding where nature had not been more bountiful, a mind almost
wholly without cultivation, and the peculiarities of northern
opinions, northern habits, and northern accent, I trust I do no great
prejudice to the memory of my countrywoman, if I say Mrs. Byron was
not a Madame de Lambert, endowed with powers to retrieve the fortune,
and form the character and manners, of a young nobleman, her son."

The interposition of Lord Carlisle, to whose authority it was found
necessary to appeal, had more than once given a check to these
disturbing indulgences. Sanctioned by such support, Dr. Glennie even
ventured to oppose himself to the privilege, so often abused, of the
usual visits on a Saturday; and the scenes which he had to encounter
on each new case of refusal were such as would have wearied out the
patience of any less zealous and conscientious schoolmaster. Mrs.
Byron, whose paroxysms of passion were not, like those of her son,
"silent rages," would, on all these occasions, break out into such
audible fits of temper as it was impossible to keep from reaching the
ears of the s