Between a temper at all resembling this, and the loud hurricane bursts of Mrs. Byron, the collision, it may be supposed, was not a little formidable; and the age at which the young poet was now arrived; when—­as most parents feel—­the impatience of youth begins to champ the bit, would but render the occasions for such shocks more frequent.  It is told, as a curious proof of their opinion of each other’s violence, that, after parting one evening in a tempest of this kind, they were known each to go privately that night to the apothecary’s, enquiring anxiously whether the other had been to purchase poison, and cautioning the vender of drugs not to attend to such an application, if made.

It was but rarely, however, that the young lord allowed himself to be provoked into more than a passive share in these scenes.  To the boisterousness of his mother he would oppose a civil and, no doubt, provoking silence,—­bowing to her but the more profoundly the higher her voice rose in the scale.  In general, however, when he perceived that a storm was at hand, in flight lay his only safe resource.  To this summary expedient he was driven at the period of which we are speaking; but not till after a scene had taken place between him and Mrs. Byron, in which the violence of her temper had proceeded to lengths, that, however outrageous they may be deemed, were not, it appears, unusual with her.  The poet, Young, in describing a temper of this sort, says—­

    “The cups and saucers, in a whirlwind sent,
    Just intimate the lady’s discontent.”

But poker and tongs were, it seems, the missiles which Mrs. Byron preferred, and which she, more than once, sent resounding after her fugitive son.  In the present instance, he was but just in time to avoid a blow aimed at him with the former of these weapons, and to make a hasty escape to the house of a friend in the neighbourhood; where, concerting the best means of baffling pursuit, he decided upon an instant flight to London.  The letters, which I am about to give, were written, immediately on his arrival in town, to some friends at Southwell, from whose kind interference in his behalf, it may fairly be concluded that the blame of the quarrel, whatever it may have been, did not rest with him.  The first is to Mr. Pigot, a young gentleman about the same age as himself, who had just returned, for the vacation, from Edinburgh, where he was, at that time, pursuing his medical studies.

LETTER 2.

TO MR. PIGOT.

“16.  Piccadilly, August 9. 1806.

“My dear Pigot,

“Many thanks for your amusing narrative of the last proceedings of ——­, who now begins to feel the effects of her folly.  I have just received a penitential epistle, to which, apprehensive of pursuit, I have despatched a moderate answer, with a kind of promise to return in a fortnight;—­this, however (entre nous), I never mean to fulfil.  Seriously, your mother has laid me under great obligations, and you, with the rest of your family, merit my warmest thanks for your kind connivance at my escape.