Returned to the ancestral Abbey, and finding it half ruined and desolate,
they migrated for a time to the neighbouring Nottingham. Here the child's
first experience was another course of surgical torture. He was placed
under the charge of a quack named Lavender, who rubbed his foot in oil,
and screwed it about in wooden machines. This useless treatment is
associated with two characteristic anecdotes. One relates to the endurance
which Byron, on every occasion of mere physical trial, was capable of
displaying. Mr. Rogers, a private tutor, with whom he was reading passages
of Virgil and Cicero, remarked, "It makes me uncomfortable, my lord, to
see you sitting them in such pain as I know you must be suffering." "Never
mind, Mr. Rogers." said the child, "you shall not see any signs of it in
me." The other illustrates his precocious delight in detecting imposture.
Having scribbled on a piece of paper several lines of mere gibberish, he
brought them to Lavender, and gravely asked what language it was; and on
receiving the answer "It is Italian," he broke into an exultant laugh at
the expense of his tormentor.
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