Byron on his accession to the peerage having become a ward in Chancery, was handed over by the Court to the guardianship of Lord Carlisle, nephew of the admiral, and son of the grand aunt of the poet.  Like his mother this Earl aspired to be a poet, and his tragedy, The Father’s Revenge, received some commendation from Dr. Johnson; but his relations with his illustrious kinsman were from the first unsatisfactory.  In answer to Dr. Glennie’s appeal, he exerted his authority against the interruptions to his ward’s education; but the attempt to mend matters led to such outrageous exhibitions of temper that he said to the master, “I can have nothing more to do with Mrs. Byron; you must now manage her as you can.”  Finally, after two years of work, which she had done her best to mar, she herself requested his guardian to have her son removed to a public school, and accordingly he went to Harrow, where he remained till the autumn of 1805.  The first vacation, in the summer of 1801, is marked by his visit to Cheltenham, where his mother, from whom he inherited a fair amount of Scotch superstition, consulted a fortune-teller, who said he would be twice married, the second time to a foreigner.

Harrow was then under the management of Dr. Joseph Drury, one of the most estimable of its distinguished head-masters.  His account of the first impressions produced by his pupil, and his judicious manner of handling a sensitive nature, cannot with advantage be condensed.  “Mr. Hanson,” he writes, “Lord Byron’s solicitor, consigned him to my care at the age of thirteen and a half, with remarks that his education had been neglected; that he was ill prepared for a public school; but that he thought there was a cleverness about him.  After his departure I took my young disciple into my study, and endeavoured to bring him forward by inquiries as to his former amusements, employments, and associates, but with little or no effect, and I soon found that a wild mountain colt had been submitted to my management.  But there was mind in his eye.  In the first place, it was necessary to attach him to an elder boy; but the information he received gave him no pleasure when he heard of the advances of some much younger than himself.  This I discovered, and assured him that he should not be placed till by diligence he might rank with those of his own age.  His manner and temper soon convinced me that he might be led by a silken string to a point, rather than a cable:  on that principle I acted.”

After a time, Dr. Drury tells us that he waited on Lord Carlisle, who wished to give some information about his ward’s property and to inquire respecting his abilities, and continues:  “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 feeling, did not express in it all the satisfaction I expected.”  With, perhaps, unconscious humour on the part of the writer, we are left in doubt as to whether the indifference proceeded from the jealousy that clings to poetasters, from incredulity, or a feeling that no talent could add lustre to rank.