except what he learned from books, he owed to the precepts of a faithful Scotch nurse, who also taught him his Bible (in the knowledge of which, indeed, owing to her instructions, he was very proficient). He had a passion for loving; but the only woman he ever really loved — that is, with an enduring love, at once ardent and pure was his half-sister Augusta, and her he was destined rarely ever to see until he had returned from his travels abroad, with a man's full years and with more than a man's full experience. His earlier loves seem always to have been crossed. When yet a young boy he was in love with his cousin, Mary Duff, who afterward married another. When scarcely more than a boy he was in love with another cousin, Margaret Parker, who afterward died. When he was sixteen years of age he loved and would have married Mary Chaworth, a distant relative and the heiress of estates that adjoined his own; but she treated him coldly and disdained his advances, though ever afterward, even to the last year of his life, he treasured his idealization of her memory and made her the subject of some of his finest verse. All these passions were conventional enough; but there were others that were not so conventional. Some of his tenderest poems, some of the sweetest and most pathetic expressions of regret and sorrow he ever wrote, were addressed to the memory of "Thyrza"; but who “Thyrza” was is not known, nor would Byron ever declare. An explanation given by some of his biographers is that "Thyrza' Thyrza" was a young girl, of lower social degree than himself, who made sacrifices of everything for his sake, even so far as to accompany him through England on horseback as his brother. But other biographers do not identify "Thyrza" with this poor girl. some When Byron came back to England from his European tour his experience of the world on all matters of the heart was, at all events, sufficient to entitle him to settle down in quietness and decorum. This, however, he was not permitted to do. The social popularity which the successful publication of "Childe Harold" suddenly thrust upon him would have turned heads much more stably fixed than his. Girls and women of every rank in life literally threw themselves at him. He was handscarcely any one more so, both in face and figure though slightly deformed in one foot, a defect from physical perfection which greatly chafed him. His friends who used to bathe with him used to say that his torso and limbs were as superbly turned as any Apollo's. He was of noble descent and title. His estate, though encumbered, was one of the finest and stateliest in the kingdom. He was a poet, and a great and popular one. He had travelled and seen the world, and was a charming and vivacious companion. Moreover, as the "tang" in the wine gives to it its appetizing flavor, so he had just enough of a reputation for recklessness and wickedness to give to his career, his person, his manners, and his character, an interest so keen and enjoyable that even the properest sort of people felt no scruple in avowing it. In short, he was the lion of the town. His society and his friendship were sought for by every one. Not a family in the kingdom, however old or noble, but would have deemed an alliance with him an honor. And all the time he was the object of secret advances from dames and damsels of the highest social position and the |