Byron was born on 22 January 1788, of so ancient and noble a family that it could take rank with many royal families. At his birth, the child who was predestined to become so famous had his foot dislocated and no one noticed the fact. This accident made him lame, and we shall see what an influence this infirmity had upon his life. Four celebrated men belonging to the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries were lame: Maréchal Soult, M. de Talleyrand, Walter Scott and Lord Byron. A woman writer has said that "Byron would have given half his fame if he could but have been as proud of his feet as he was of his hands." We are assured that Juno's bird, the peacock, forgot his rich plumage and uttered a cry of distress every time he looked down at his feet. And Byron, king of poets, who had a good deal of the peacock about him, was not more philosophical than that king of birds. "What a beautiful child!" some lady once remarked, when Byron was three years old and she saw him, whip in hand, playing at his nurse's knee; "but what a pity he is crippled!" The child turned round, lifted up his whip and lashed the woman with all his might. "Dinna say that!" he said. His mother, strange to say, never understood how proud the child was. Byron was misunderstood by the two beings who, when they understand a man, can shed most happiness upon his life--his mother and his wife. Byron's mother, as we have said, never realised the child's pride, and used to call him "my lame boy." If you would learn what this flaw in maternal love cost the lad, read what Arnold says in the first scene of _The Deformed Transformed_:-- "_A Forest_ _Enter_ ARNOLD _and his mother_ BERTHA _Bert._ Out, hunchback! _Arn._ I was born so, mother! _Bert._ Out, Thou incubus! Thou nightmare! Of seven sons, The sole abortion! _Arn._ Would that I had been so, And never seen the light! _Bert._ I would so too! But as thou _hast_--hence, hence--and do thy best! That back of thine may bear its burthen; 'tis More high, if not so broad as that of others. _Arn._ It _bears_ its burthen:--but, my heart! Will it Sustain that which you lay upon it, mother? I love, or, at the least, I loved you: nothing Save you, in nature, can love aught like me. You nursed me--do not kill me!" At the age of five Byron was sent to school in Aberdeen, where they paid but five shillings a quarter for him. I had thought no child had ever been educated more cheaply than I had; but I was mistaken, and I present my congratulations to Byron as a brother at least in poverty.