Byron on his accession to the peerage having become a ward in Chancery,
was handed over by the Court to the guardianship of Lord Carlisle, nephew
of the admiral, and son of the grand aunt of the poet. Like his mother
this Earl aspired to be a poet, and his tragedy, _The Father's Revenge_,
received some commendation from Dr. Johnson; but his relations with his
illustrious kinsman were from the first unsatisfactory. In answer to Dr.
Glennie's appeal, he exerted his authority against the interruptions to
his ward's education; but the attempt to mend matters led to such
outrageous exhibitions of temper that he said to the master, "I can have
nothing more to do with Mrs. Byron; you must now manage her as you can."
Finally, after two years of work, which she had done her best to mar, she
herself requested his guardian to have her son removed to a public school,
and accordingly he went to Harrow, where he remained till the autumn of
1805. The first vacation, in the summer of 1801, is marked by his visit to
Cheltenham, where his mother, from whom he inherited a fair amount of
Scotch superstition, consulted a fortune-teller, who said he would be
twice married, the second time to a foreigner.
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