2 —to his Mother

Nottingham, 13 March, 1799.

Dear

Mama, — I am very glad to hear you are well. I am so myself, thank God; upon my word I did not expect so long a Letter from you; however I will answer it as well as I can. Mrs. Parkyns and the rest are well and are much obliged to you for the present. Mr. Rogers

could attend me every night at a separate hour from the Miss Parkynses, and I am astonished you do not acquiesce in this Scheme which would keep me in Mind of what I have almost entirely forgot. I recommend this to you because, if some plan of this kind is not adopted, I shall be called, or rather branded with the name of a dunce, which you know I could never bear. I beg you will consider this plan seriously and I will lend it all the assistance in my power. I shall be very glad to see the Letter you talk of, and I have time just to say I hope every body is well at Newstead,

And remain, your affectionate Son,

Byron

P.S

. — Pray let me know when you are to send in the Horses to go to Newstead. May

desires her Duty and I also expect an answer by the miller.

Footnote 1:

Dummer Rogers, "Teacher of French, English, Latin, and "Mathematicks," was, according to

Notes and Queries

(4th series, vol. iii. p. 561), an American loyalist, pensioned by the English Government. He lived at Hen Cross, Nottingham, when Byron was staying in that city, partly with Mrs. Parkyns, partly at Mr. Gill's, in St. James's Lane, to be attended by a man named Lavender, "trussmaker to the general hospital," who had some local reputation for the treatment of misshapen limbs. Lavender, in 1814 (

Nottingham Directory

for 1814), appears as a "surgeon." Rogers, who read parts of Virgil and Cicero with Byron, represents him as, for his age, a fair scholar. He was often, during his lessons, in violent pain, from the position in which his foot was kept; and Rogers one day said to him, "It makes me uncomfortable, my Lord, to see you sitting there in such pain as I know you must be suffering." "Never mind, Mr. Rogers," answered the boy; "you shall not see any signs of it in

." Many years after, when in the neighbourhood of Nottingham, Byron sent a kind message to his old instructor, bidding the bearer tell him that he could still recite twenty verses of Virgil which he had read with Rogers when suffering torture all the time.

return to footnote mark

cross-reference: return to footnote of Letter 4

Footnote 2:

Byron's nurse, who had accompanied him from Aberdeen (see p. 10,

note

1).

List of Letters