In the lake below the abbey, the artificial rock, which he piled at a vast expense, still reared its lofty head; but the frigate which fulfilled old Mother Shipton’s prophecy, by sailing on dry land to this place from a distant port, had long vanished; and the only relics of his naval whim were this rock, and his ship-boy, the venerable old Murray, who accompanied me round the premises. The dark, haughty, impetuous, and mad deeds of this nobleman, the poet’s grandfather, no doubt, by making a vivid impression on his youthful fancy, furnished some of the principal materials for the formation of his lordship’s favourite and ever-recurring poetical hero. His manners and acts are the theme of many a winter’s evening in that neighbourhood. In one of his paroxysms of wrath, he shot his coachman, for giving, in his opinion, an improper precedence, threw the corpse into the carriage, to his lady, mounted, and drove himself. In a quarrel, which originally arose out of a dispute between their gamekeepers, he killed his neighbour, Mr. Chaworth, the lord of the adjoining manor. This rencontre took place at the Star and Garter, Pall-Mall, after a convivial meeting--a club of Nottinghamshire gentlemen. His lordship was committed to the Tower, and on April 16th, 1765, placed at the bar of the House of Lords, and without one dissentient voice, convicted of manslaughter, and discharged on paying his fees, having pleaded certain privileges under a statute of Queen Anne. The particulars may be seen in Vol. X. of State Trials, published by order of the House of Peers. The old lord, from some cause of irritation against his son, said to be on account of his marriage, who died before coming to the title, did all he could to injure the estate. He is said to have pulled down a considerable part of the house, and sold the materials; he cut down very extensive plantations, and sold the young trees to the bakers of Nottingham to heat their ovens with, or to the nurserymen; two of which, Lombardy poplars, bought at that time, now stand at the head of a fish-pond of my father’s, grown to an immense size. Mr. Moore has justly remarked, that Lord Byron derived the great peculiarities of his character from his ancestors. After I came away from the abbey, I asked many people in the neighbourhood what sort of a man the noble poet had been. The impression of his energetic but eccentric character was obvious in their reply. “He is the deuce of a fellow for strange fancies; he flogs the old lord to nothing: but he is a hearty good fellow for all that.”