vindictive. Still it could not have been to any inveterate degree;
for, undoubtedly, in his younger years, he was susceptible of warm
impressions from gentle treatment, and his obstinacy and arbitrary
humour were perhaps more the effects of unrepressed habit than of
natural bias; they were the prickles which surrounded his genius in
the bud.

At Harrow he acquired no distinction as a student; indeed, at no
period was he remarkable for steady application. Under Dr Glennie he
had made but little progress; and it was chiefly in consequence of
his backwardness that he was removed from his academy. When placed
with Dr Drury, it was with an intimation that he had a cleverness
about him, but that his education had been neglected.

The early dislike which Byron felt towards the Earl of Carlisle is
abundantly well known, and he had the magnanimity to acknowledge that
it was in some respects unjust. But the antipathy was not all on one
side; nor will it be easy to parallel the conduct of the Earl with
that of any guardian. It is but justice, therefore, to Byron, to
make the public aware that the dislike began on the part of Lord
Carlisle, and originated in some distaste which he took to Mrs
Byron's manners, and at the trouble she sometimes gave him on account
of her son.

Dr Drury, in his communication to Mr Moore respecting the early
history of Byron, mentions a singular circumstance as to this
subject, which we record with the more pleasure, because Byron has
been blamed, and has blamed himself, for his irreverence towards Lord
Carlisle, while it appears that the fault lay with the Earl.