ith Dr Drury, it was with an intimation that he had a cleverness
about him, but that his education had been neglected.
The early dislike which Byron felt towards the Earl of Carlisle is
abundantly well known, and he had the magnanimity to acknowledge that
it was in some respects unjust. But the antipathy was not all on one
side; nor will it be easy to parallel the conduct of the Earl with
that of any guardian. It is but justice, therefore, to Byron, to
make the public aware that the dislike began on the part of Lord
Carlisle, and originated in some distaste which he took to Mrs
Byron's manners, and at the trouble she sometimes gave him on account
of her son.
Dr Drury, in his communication to Mr Moore respecting the early
history of Byron, mentions a singular circumstance as to this
subject, which we record with the more pleasure, because Byron has
been blamed, and has blamed himself, for his irreverence towards Lord
Carlisle, while it appears that the fault lay with the Earl.
"After some continuance at Harrow," says Dr Drury, "and when the
powers of his mind had begun to expand, the late Lord Carlisle, his
relation, desired to see me in town. I waited on his Lordship. His
object was to inform me of Lord Byron's expectations of property when
he came of age, which he represented as contracted, and to inquire
respecting his abilities. On the former circumstance I made no
remark; as to the latter, I replied, 'He has talents, my Lord, which
will add lustre to his rank.' 'Indeed,' said his Lordship, with a
degree of surprise, that, according to my feelings, did not express
in it all the satisfaction I expected."
Lord Carlisle had, indeed, much of the Byron humour in him. His
mother was a sister of the homicidal lord, and possessed some of the
family peculiarity: she was endowed with great talent, and in her
latter days she exhibited great singularity. She wrote beautiful
verses and piquant epigrams among others, there is a poetical
effusion of her pen addressed to Mrs Greville, on her Ode to
Indifference, which, at the time, was much admired, and has been,
with other poems of her Ladyship's, published in Pearch's collection.
After moving, for a long time, as one of the most brilliant orbs in
the sphere of fashion, she suddenly retired, and like her morose
brother, shut herself up from the world. While she lived in this
seclusion, she became an object of the sportive satire of the late Mr
Fox, who characteri
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