His pursuits at Harrow continued to be of the same truant description during the whole of his stay there;—­“always,” as he says himself, “cricketing, rebelling,[40] rowing, and in all manner of mischiefs.”  The “rebelling,” of which he here speaks, (though it never, I believe, proceeded to any act of violence,) took place on the retirement of Dr. Drury from his situation as head master, when three candidates for the vacant chair presented themselves,—­Mark Drury, Evans, and Butler.  On the first movement to which this contest gave rise in the school, young Wildman was at the head of the party for Mark Drury, while Byron at first held himself aloof from any.  Anxious, however, to have him as an ally, one of the Drury faction said to Wildman—­“Byron, I know, will not join, because he doesn’t choose to act second to any one, but, by giving up the leadership to him, you may at once secure him.”  This Wildman accordingly did, and Byron took the command of the party.

The violence with which he opposed the election of Dr. Butler on this occasion (chiefly from the warm affection which he had felt towards the last master) continued to embitter his relations with that gentleman during the remainder of his stay at Harrow.  Unhappily their opportunities of collision were the more frequent from Byron’s being a resident in Dr. Butler’s house.  One day the young rebel, in a fit of defiance, tore down all the gratings from the window in the hall; and when called upon by his host to say why he had committed this violence, answered, with stern coolness, “Because they darkened the hall.”  On another occasion he explicitly, and so far manfully, avowed to this gentleman’s face the pique he entertained against him.  It has long been customary, at the end of a term, for the master to invite the upper boys to dine with him; and these invitations are generally considered as, like royal ones, a sort of command.  Lord Byron, however, when asked, sent back a refusal, which rather surprising Dr. Butler, he, on the first opportunity that occurred, enquired of him, in the presence of the other boys, his motive for this step:—­“Have you any other engagement?”—­“No, sir.”—­“But you must have some reason, Lord Byron.”—­“I have.”—­“What is it?”—­“Why, Dr. Butler,” replied the young peer, with proud composure, “if you should happen to come into my neighbourhood when I was staying at Newstead, I certainly should not ask you to dine with me, and therefore feel that I ought not to dine with you."[41]

The general character which he bore among the masters at Harrow was that of an idle boy, who would never learn anything; and, as far as regarded his tasks in school, this reputation was, by his own avowal, not ill-founded.  It is impossible, indeed, to look through the books which he had then in use, and which are scribbled over with clumsy interlined translations, without being struck with the narrow extent of his classical attainments.  The most ordinary Greek