ving 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 yea