row, still it must have been
richly fraught with incidents of inconceivable value to the genius of
the poet.

CHAPTER III

Arrival at Newstead--Find it in Ruins--The old Lord and his Beetles--
The Earl of Carlisle becomes the Guardian of Byron--The Poet's acute
Sense of his own deformed Foot--His Mother consults a Fortune-teller

Mrs Byron, on her arrival at Newstead Abbey with her son, found it
almost in a state of ruin. After the equivocal affair of the duel,
the old lord lived in absolute seclusion, detested by his tenantry,
at war with his neighbours, and deserted by all his family. He not
only suffered the abbey to fall into decay, but, as far as lay in his
power, alienated the land which should have kept it in repair, and
denuded the estate of the timber. Byron has described the conduct of
the morose peer in very strong terms:--"After his trial he shut
himself up at Newstead, and was in the habit of feeding crickets,
which were his only companions. He made them so tame that they used
to crawl over him, and, when they were too familiar, he whipped them
with a wisp of straw: at his death, it is said, they left the house
in a body."

However this may have been, it is certain that Byron came to an
embarrassed inheritance, both as respected his property and the
character of his race; and, perhaps, though his genius suffered
nothing by the circumstance, it is to be regretted that he was still
left under the charge of his mother: a woman without judgment or
self-command; alternately spoiling her child by indulgence,
irritating him by her self-willed obstinacy, and, what was still
worse, amusing him by her violence, and disgusting him by fits of
inebriety. Sympathy for her misfortunes would be no sufficient
apology for concealing her defects; they undoubtedly had a material
influence on her son, and her appearance was often the subject of his
childish ridicule. She was a short and corpulent person. She rolled
in her gait, and would, in her rage, sometimes endeavour to catch him
for the purpose of inflicting punishment, while he would run round
the room, mocking her menaces and mimicking her motion.

The greatest weakness in Lord Byron's character was a morbid
sensibility to his lameness. He felt it with as much vexation as if
it had been inflicted ignominy. One of the most striking passages in
some memoranda which he has left of his early days, is where, in
speaking of his own sensitiveness on th