he nurse that if he kept him
over one night he would not do so another, she consented. On inquiring
next morning after the child, she was told by Captain Byron that he had
had quite enough of his young visitor." After a short stay in the north,
the Captain, extorting enough money from his wife to enable him to fly
from his creditors, escaped to France. His absence must have been a
relief; but his death is said to have so affected the unhappy lady, that
her shrieks disturbed the neighbourhood. The circumstance recalls an
anecdote of a similar outburst--attested by Sir W. Scott, who was present
on the occasion--before her marriage. Being present at a representation,
in Edinburgh, of the _Fatal Marriage_, when Mrs. Siddons was personating
Isabella, Miss Gordon was seized with a fit, and carried out of the
theatre, screaming out "O my Biron, my Biron." All we know of her
character shows it to have been not only proud, impulsive, and wayward,
but hysterical. She constantly boasted of her descent, and clung to the
courtesy title of "honourable," to which she had no claim. Her affection
and anger were alike demonstrative, her temper never for an hour secure.
She half worshipped, half hated, the blackguard to whom she was married,
and took no steps to protect her property; her son she alternately petted
and abused. "Your mother's a fool!" said a school companion to him years
after. "I know it," was his unique and tragic reply. Never was poet born
to so much illustrious, and to so much bad blood. The records of his
infancy betray the temper which he preserved through life--passionate,
sullen, defiant of authority, but singularly amenable to kindness. On
being scolded by his first nurse for having soiled a dress, without
uttering a word he tore it from top to seam, as he had seen his mother
tear her caps and gowns; but her sister and successor in office, May Gray,
acquired and retained a hold over his affections, to which he has borne
grateful testimony. To her training is attributed the early and remarkable
knowledge of the Scriptures, especially of the Psalms, which he possessed:
he was, according to her later testimony, peculiarly inquisitive and
puzzling about religion. Of the sense of solitude, induced by his earliest
impressions, he characteristically makes a boast. "My daughter, my wife,
my half-sister, my mother, my sister's mother, my natural daughter, and
myself, are or were all only children. But the fiercest animal