1. to Mrs. Parker

Newstead Abbey, Nov. 8th, 1798.

Dear Madam, — My Mamma being unable to write herself desires I will let you know that the potatoes are now ready and you are welcome to them whenever you please.

She begs you will ask Mrs. Parkyns if she would wish the poney to go round by Nottingham or to go home the nearest way as it is now quite well but too small to carry me.

I have sent a young Rabbit which I beg Miss Frances will accept off and which I promised to send before. My Mamma desires her best compliments to you all in which I join.

I am, Dear Aunt, yours sincerely,

Byron

I hope you will excuse all blunders as it is the first letter I ever wrote.

Footnote 1:

This letter, the first that Byron wrote, was written when he was ten years and ten months old. It is preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a facsimile is given by Elze, in his

Life of Lord Byron

It is apparently addressed to his aunt, Mrs. Parker. Charlotte Augusta Byron, daughter of Admiral the Hon. John Byron, married Christopher Parker (1761-1804), Vice-Admiral 1804, the son of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Peter Parker, Bart. (1721-1811). Her son, who, on the death of his grandfather, succeeded to the baronetcy as Sir Peter Parker, second Bart. (1786-1814), commanded H.M.S.

Menelaus

, and was killed in an attack on a body of American militia encamped near Baltimore. (See Byron's

Elegy on the Death of Sir Peter Parker

, and his letter to Moore, October 7, 1814.) Her daughter Margaret, one of Byron's early loves, inspired, as he says, his "first dash into poetry" (see

Poems

, vol. i, p. 5,

note

1).

return to footnote mark

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