In the summer of the year 1801 he accompanied his mother to Cheltenham, and the account which he himself gives of his sensations at that period[26] shows at what an early age those feelings that lead to poetry had unfolded themselves in his heart.  A boy, gazing with emotion on the hills at sunset, because they remind him of the mountains among which he passed his childhood, is already, in heart and imagination, a poet.  It was during their stay at Cheltenham that a fortune-teller, whom his mother consulted, pronounced a prediction concerning him which, for some time, left a strong impression on his mind.  Mrs. Byron had, it seems, in her first visit to this person, (who, if I mistake not, was the celebrated fortune-teller, Mrs. Williams,) endeavoured to pass herself off as a maiden lady.  The sibyl, however, was not so easily deceived;—­she pronounced her wise consulter to be not only a married woman, but the mother of a son who was lame, and to whom, among other events which she read in the stars, it was predestined that his life should be in danger from poison before he was of age, and that he should be twice married,—­the second time, to a foreign lady.  About two years afterwards he himself mentioned these particulars to the person from whom I heard the story, and said that the thought of the first part of the prophecy very often occurred to him.  The latter part, however, seems to have been the nearer guess of the two.

To a shy disposition, such as Byron’s was in his youth—­and such as, to a certain degree, it continued all his life—­the transition from a quiet establishment, like that of Dulwich Grove, to the bustle of a great public school was sufficiently trying.  Accordingly, we find from his own account, that, for the first year and a half, he “hated Harrow.”  The activity, however, and sociableness of his nature soon conquered this repugnance; and, from being, as he himself says, “a most unpopular boy,” he rose at length to be a leader in all the sports, schemes, and mischief of the school.

For a general notion of his dispositions and capacities at this period, we could not have recourse to a more trust-worthy or valuable authority than that of the Rev. Dr. Drury, who was at this time head master of the school, and to whom Lord Byron has left on record a tribute of affection and respect, which, like the reverential regard of Dryden for Dr. Busby, will long associate together honourably the names of the poet and the master.  From this venerable scholar I have received the following brief, but important statement of the impressions which his early intercourse with the young noble left upon him:—­