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 animals have the fewest numbers in their litters, as lions, tigers, &c.”

To this practical orphanhood, and inheritance of feverish passion, there was added another, and to him a heavy and life-long burden.  A physical defect in a healthy nature may either pass without notice or be turned to a high purpose.  No line of his work reveals the fact that Sir Walter Scott was lame.  The infirmity failed to cast even a passing shade over that serene power.  Milton’s blindness is the occasion of the noblest prose and verse of resignation in the language.  But to understand Pope, we must remember that he was a cripple:  and Byron never allows us to forget, because he himself never forgot it.  Accounts differ as to the extent and origin of his deformity; and the doubts on the matter are not removed by the inconsistent accounts of the indelicate post-mortem examination made by Mr. Trelawny at Mesolonghi.  It is certain that one of the poet’s feet was, either at birth or at a very early period, so seriously clubbed or twisted as to affect his gait, and to a considerable extent his habits.  It also appears that the surgical means—­boots, bandages, &c.—­adopted to straighten the limb, only aggravated the evil.  His sensitiveness on the subject was early awakened by careless or unfeeling references.  “What a pretty boy Byron is,” said a friend of his nurse.  “What a pity he has such a leg.”  On which the child,