BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, 6TH LORD BYRON (1788-1824).--Poet, was _b._ in London, the _s._ of Captain John B. and of Catherine Gordon, heiress of Gight, Aberdeenshire, his second wife, whom he _m._ for her money and, after squandering it, deserted. He was also the grand-nephew of the 5th, known as the "wicked" Lord B. From his birth he suffered from a malformation of the feet, causing a slight lameness, which was a cause of lifelong misery to him, aggravated by the knowledge that with proper care it might have been cured. After the departure of his _f._ his mother went to Aberdeen, where she lived on a small salvage from her fortune. She was a capricious woman of violent temper, with no fitness for guiding her volcanic son, and altogether the circumstances of his early life explain, if they do not excuse, the spirit of revolt which was his lifelong characteristic. In 1794, on the death of a cousin, he became heir-presumptive to the title and embarrassed estates of the family, to which, on the death of his great-uncle in 1798, he succeeded. In 1801 he was sent to Harrow, where he remained until 1805, when he proceeded to Trinity Coll., Camb., where he read much history and fiction, lived extravagantly, and got into debt. Some early verses which he had _pub._ in 1806 were suppressed. They were followed in 1807 by _Hours of Idleness_, which was savagely attacked in the _Edinburgh Review_. In reply he sent forth _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_ (1800), which created considerable stir and shortly went through 5 ed. Meanwhile, he had settled at Newstead Abbey, the family seat, where with some of his cronies he was believed to have indulged in wild and extravagant orgies, the accounts of which, however, were probably greatly exaggerated. In 1809 he left England, and passing through Spain, went to Greece. During his absence, which extended over two years, he wrote the first two cantos of _Childe Harold_, which were _pub._ after his return in 1812, and were received with acclamation. In his own words, "he awoke one morning and found himself famous." He followed up his success with some short poems, _The Corsair_, _Lara_, etc. About the same time began his intimacy with his future biographer, Thomas Moore (_q.v._), and about 1815 he married Anne Isabella Milbanke, who had refused him in the previous year, a union which, owing to the total incompatibility of the parties, and serious provocations on the part of B., proved unhappy, and was in 1816 dissolved by a formal deed of separation. The only fruit of it was a _dau._, Augusta Ada. After this break-up of his domestic life, followed as it was by the severe censure of society, and by pressure on the part of his creditors, which led to the sale of his library, B. again left England, as it turned out, for ever, and, passing through Belgium and up the Rhine, went to Geneva, afterwards travelling with Shelley through Switzerland, when he wrote the third canto of _Childe Harold_. He