ADDITION TO THE PREFACE.

I HAVE now waited till almost all our periodical journals have distributed their usual portion of criticism. To the justice of the generality of their criticisms I have nothing to object; it would ill become me to quarrel with their very slight degree of censure, when, perhaps, if they had been less kind they had been more candid. Returning, therefore, to all and each my best thanks for their liberality, on one point alone shall I venture an observation. Amongst the many objections justly urged to the very indifferent character of the "vagrant Childe," (whom, notwithstanding many hints to the contrary, I still maintain to be a fictitious personage,) it has been stated, that besides the anachronism, he is very unknightly, as the times of the Knights were times of Love, Honor, and so forth. Now, it so happens that the good old times, when "l'amour du bon vieux tems, l'amour antique" flourished, were the most profligate of all possible centuries. Those who have any doubts on this subject may consult Sainte-Palaye, passim, and more particularly vol. ii. p. 69. The vows of chivalry were no better kept than any other vows whatsoever; and the songs of the Troubadours were not more decent, and certainly were much less refined, than those of Ovid. The "Cours d'amour, parlemens d'amour, ou de courtésie et de gentilesse" had much more of love than of courtesy or gentleness. See Roland on the same subject with Sainte-Palaye. Whatever other objection may be urged to that most unamiable personage Childe Harold, he was so far perfectly knightly in his attributes-" No waiter, but a knight templar." By the by, I fear that Sir Tristrem and Sir Lancelot were no better than they should be, although very poetical personages and true knights "sans peur," though not "sans reproche." If the story of the institution of the "Garter" be not a fable, the knights of that order have for several centuries borne the badge of a Countess of Salisbury, of indifferent memory. So much for chivalry. Burke need not have regretted that its days are over, though Marie-Antoinette was quite as chaste as most of those in whose honors lances were shivered, and knights unhorsed.

Before the days of Bayard, and down to those of Sir Joseph Banks, (the most chaste and celebrated of ancient and modern times,) few exceptions will be found to this statement; and I fear a little investigation will teach us not to regret these monstrous mummeries of the middle ages.

I now leave" Childe Harold" to live his day, such as he is; it had been more agreeable, and certainly more easy, to have drawn an amiable character. It had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him

do more and express less; but he never was intended as an example, further than to show, that early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that even the beauties of nature, and the stimulus of travel, (except ambition, the most powerful of all excitements,) are lost on a soul so constituted, or rather misdirected. Had I proceeded with the poem, this character would have deepened as he drew to the close; for the outline which I once meant to fill up for him was, with some exceptions, the sketch of a modern Timon, perhaps a poetical Zeluco.* London, 1813.

TO IANTHE.

Nor in those climes where I have late been straying, Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deem'd;

Not in those visions to the heart displaying
Forms which it sighs but to have only dream'd,
Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seem'd:
Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek

To paint those charms which varied as they beam'd—
To such as see thee not my words were weak;
To those who gaze on thee what language could they
speak?

Ah! mayst thou ever be what now thou art,
Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring,
As fair in form, as warm yet pure in heart,
Love's image upon earth without his wing,
And guileless beyond Hope's imagining!
And surely she who now so fondly rears
Thy youth, in thee, thus hourly brightening,
Beholds the rainbow of her future years,
Before whose heavenly hues all sorrow disappears.

Young PeriR of the West!-'tis well for me
My years already doubly number thine;
My loveless eye unmoved may gaze on thee,
And safely view thy ripening beauties shine;
Happy, I ne'er shall see them in decline;
Happier, that while all younger hearts shall bleed,
Mine shall escape the doom thine eyes assign
To those whose admiration shall succeed,
But mix'd with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours

decreed.

4 [It was Dr. Moore's object, in this powerful romance, (now unjustly neglected,) to trace the fatal effects resulting from a fond mother's unconditional compliance with the humors and passions of an only child. With high advantages of person, birth, fortune, and ability, Zeluco is repre

2 The Rovers, or the Double Arrangement.-By Canning and Frere; first published in the Anti-jacobin, or Weekly Examiner.j

3 [In one of his early poems-"Childish Recollections," Lord Byron compares himself to the Athenian misanthrope, of whose bitter apothegms many are upon record, though no authentic particulars of his life have come down to us ;

"Weary of love, of life, devour'd with spleen,
I rest a perfect Timon, not nineteen," &c.]

the spirit of unbridled self-indulgence thus pampered fancy.]

in

5 [The Lady Charlotte Harley, second daughter of Edward fifth Earl of Oxford, (now Lady Charlotte Bacon,) in the autumn of 1812, when these lines were addressed to her, had not completed her eleventh year. Mr. Westall's portrait of the juvenile beauty, painted at Lord Byron's request, is engraved in Finden's Illustrations of the Life and Works of Lord Byron."]

[Peri, the Persian term for a beautiful intermediate order of beings, is generally supposed to be another form of our own word Fairy.]

1[A species of the antelope. "You have the eyes of a gazelle," is considered all over the East as the greatest coraphment that can be paid to a woman.]

The little village of Castri stands partly on the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn in and from the rock. "One," said the guide, "of a king who broke his neck huntng." His majesty had certainly chosen the fittest spot for sch an achievement. A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the Pythian, of immense depth; the upper part of it is paved, and now a cowhouse. On the other side of Castri stands a Greek monastery; some way above which is the cleft in the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, and apparently leading to the interior of the mountain; probably to the Corycian Cavern mentioned by Pausanias. From this part descend the fountain and the "Dews of Castabe." "We were sprinkled," says Mr. Hobhouse, “with the spray of the immortal rill, and here, if anywhere, should have felt the poetic inspiration: we drank deep, too, of the | spring; but I can answer for myself)-without feeling sensible of any extraordinary effect."]

III.

Childe Harold' was he hight:-but whence his name
And lineage long, it suits me not to say;
Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame,
And had been glorious in another day:
But one sad losel soils a name for aye,
However mighty in the olden time;
Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay,
Nor florid prose, nor honey'd lies of rhyme,
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.
IV.

Childe Harold bask'd him in the noontide sun,
Disporting there like any other fly,
Nor deem'd before his little day was done
One blast might chill him into misery.
But long ere scarce a third of his pass'd by,
Worse than adversity the Childe befell;
He felt the fulness of satiety:

Then loathed he in his native land to dwell,
Which seem'd to him more lone than Eremite's sad cell.

V.

For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run,
Nor made atonement when he did amiss,
Had sigh'd to many though he loved but one,
And that loved one, alas! could ne'er be his.
Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss
Had been pollution unto aught so chaste;
Who soon had left her charins for vulgar bliss,
And spoil'd her goodly lands to gild his waste,
Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign'd to taste.
VI.

And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart,
And from his fellow bacchanals would flee;
"Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start,
But Pride congeal'd the drop within his ee:
Apart he stalk'd in joyless revery,

And from his native land resolved to go,
And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;
With pleasure drugg'd, he almost long'd for wo,
And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades
below.

VII.

The Childe departed from his father's hall;
It was a vast and venerable pile;
So old, it seemed only not to fall,

Yet strength was pillar'd in each massy aisle.
Monastic dome! condemn'd to uses vile!
Where Superstition once had made her den
Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile;
And monks might deem their time was come agen,
If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men.

3 [This stanza is not in the original MS.]

4 ["Childe Buron."-MS.]

5 [In these stanzas, and indeed throughout his works, we must not accept too literally Lord Byron's testimony against himself-he took a morbid pleasure in darkening every shadow of his self-portraiture. His interior at Newstead had, no doubt, been, in some points, loose and irregular enough; but it certainly never exhibited any thing of the profuse and Satanic luxury which the language in the text might seem to indicate. In fact, the narrowness of his means at the time the verses refer to would alone have precluded this. His household economy, while he remained at the abbey, is known to have been conducted on a very moderate scale; and, besides, his usual companions, though far from being averse to convivial indulgences, were not only, as Mr. Moore says, " of habits and tastes .oo intellectual for mere vulgar debauchery," but assuredly, quite incapable of playing the parts of flatterers and parasites.]

"Yet deem him not from this with breast of steel."MS.] 2 ["His house, his home, his vassals, and his lands, The Dalilahs," &c.-MS.]

[Lord Byron originally intended to visit India.] [See "Lord Maxwell's Good Night," in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Poetical Works, vol. ii. p. 141, ed. 1834.-" Adieu, madam, my mother dear," &c.-MS.]

[This "little page" was Robert Rushton, the son of one of Lord Byron's tenants. "Robert I take with me," says the poet, in a letter to his mother; "I like him, because, like myself, he seems a friendless animal: tell his father he is well, and doing well."]

["Our best goss-hawk can hardly fly

So merrily along."-MS.]

7 ["Oh, master dear! I do not cry

From fear of waves or wind."-MS.]

[Seeing that the boy was "sorrowful" at the separation from his parents, Lord Byron, on reaching Gibraltar, sent him back to England under the care of his old servant Joe

XIII.

But when the sun was sinking in the sea

He seized his harp, which he at times could string,
And strike, albeit with untaught melody,
When deem'd he no strange ear was listening:
And now his fingers o'er it he did fling,
And tuned his farewell in the dim twilight.
While flew the vessel on her snowy wing,
And fleeting shores receded from his sight,
Thus to the elements he pour'd his last "Good Night."

"ADIEU, adieu! my native shore
Fades o'er the waters blue;

The Night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild sea-mew.
Yon Sun that sets upon the sea
We follow in his flight;
Farewell awhile to him and thee,

My native Land-Good Night!

"A few short hours and He will rise
To give the morrow birth;
And I shall hail the main and skies,
But not my mother earth.
Deserted is my own good hall,

Its hearth is desolate;

Wild weeds are gathering on the wall;
My dog howls at the gate.

"Come hither, hither, my little page!
Why dost thou weep and wail?
Or dost thou dread the billow's rage,
Or tremble at the gale?

But dash the tear-drop from thine eye;
Our ship is swift and strong:
Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly

More merrily along.

6

'Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high, I fear not wave nor wind:"

Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I

Am sorrowful in mind;

For I have from my father gone,

A mother whom I love,

And have no friend, save these alone,
But thee-and one above.

'My father bless'd me fervently,

Yet did not much complain; But sorely will my mother sigh Till I come back again.'"Enough, enough, my little lad! Such tears become thine eye; If I thy guileless bosom had,

Mine own would not be dry."

Murray. "Pray," he says to his mother, "show the lad
every kindness, as he is my great favorite." He also wrote
a letter to the father of the boy, which leaves a most favor-
able impression of his thoughtfulness and kindliness. "I
have," he says, "sent Robert home, because the country
which I am about to travel through is in a state which
renders it unsafe, particularly for one so young. I allow
you to deduct from your rent five and twenty pounds a year
for his education, for three years, provided I do not return
before that time, and I desire he may be considered as in
my service. He has behaved extremely well."]
[Here follows in the MS. :—

"My Mother is a high-born dame,
And much misliketh me;
She saith my riot bringeth shame
On all my ancestry:

I had a sister once I ween,
Whose tears perhaps will flow;
But her fair face I have not seen
For three long years and moe."]

"Come hither, hither, my stanch yeoman,1

Why dost thou look so pale?

Or dost thou dread a French foeman?

Or shiver at the gale ?"

'Deem'st thou I tremble for my life?

Sir Childe, I'm not so weak; But thinking on an absent wife

Will blanch a faithful cheek.

My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall,
Along the bordering lake,

And when they on their father call,
What answer shall she make?—
"Enough, enough, my yeoman good,
Thy grief let none gainsay;
But I, who am of lighter mood,
Will laugh to flee away.

"For who would trust the seeming sighs Of wife or paramour?

Fresh feres will dry the bright blue eyes
We late saw streaming o'er."

For pleasures past I do not grieve,
Nor perils gathering near;
My greatest grief is that I leave
No thing that claims a tear.*

"And now I'm in the world alone,
Upon the wide, wide sea:
But why should I for others groan,
When none will sigh for me?
Perchance my dog will whine in vain,
Till fed by stranger hands;

But long ere I come back again

He'd tear me where he stands.

1[William Fletcher, the faithful valet ;-who, after a service of twenty years, (" during which," he says, "his Lord was more to him than a father,") received the Pilgrim's last Words at Missolonghi, and did not quit his remains, until he had seen them deposited in the family vault at Hucknall. This unsophisticated "yeoman" was a constant source of pleasantry to his master:-e. g. " Fletcher," he says, in a letter to his mother, "is not valiant, he requires comforts that I can dispense with, and sighs for beer, and beef, and tea, and his wife, and the devil knows what besides. We were one night lost in a thunder-storm, and since, nearly Wrecked In both cases he was sorely bewildered; from apprehensions of famine and banditti in the first, and drowning in the second instance. His eyes were a little hurt by the lightning, or crying, I don't know which. I did what I could to console him, but found him incorrigible. He sends SX vighs to Sally. I shall settle him in a farm; for he has served me faithfully, and Sally is a good woman." After all his adventures by flood and field, short commons included, this humble Achates of the poet has now established himself as the keeper of an Italian warehouse, in Charles-street, Berkeley Square, where, if he does not thrive, every one who nows any thing of his character will say he deserves to ¡ do so.]

*["Enough, enough, my yeoman good,

All this is well to say;

But if I in thy sandals stood,

I'd laugh to get away."-MS.]

["For who would trust a paramour,

Or e'en a wedded freere,

Though her blue eyes were streaming o'er,
And torn her yellow hair ?"-MS.]

"I leave England without regret-I shall return to it without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first convict sentenced to transportation; but I have no Eve, and have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab."-Lord B. to Mr. Hodgson.] [From the following passage in a letter to Mr. Dallas, it would appear that that gentleman had recommended the suppression or alteration of this stanza:-"I do not mean to exchange the ninth verse in the Good Night.' I have no reason to suppose my dog better than his brother brutes, mankind; and Argus, we know to be a fable."] [Here follows, in the original MS. :

Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see

What Heaven hath done for this delicious land! What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree! What goodly prospects o'er the hills expand! But man would mar them with an impious hand: And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge 'Gainst those who most transgress his high command, With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge Gaul's locust host, and earth from fellest foemen purge. XVI.

What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold!

Her image floating on that noble tide,
Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold,10
But now whereon a thousand keels did ride
Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied,

"Methinks it would my bosom glad,

To change my proud estate, And be again a laughing lad With one beloved playmate.

Since youth I scarce have pass'd an hour Without disgust or pain,

Except sometimes in Lady's bower,

Or when the bowl I drain."]

[Originally, the "little page" and the "yeoman" were introduced in the following stanzas:

"And of his train there was a henchman page,
A peasant boy, who served his master well;
And often would his pranksome prate engage
Childe Harold's ear, when his proud heart did swell
With sable thoughts that he disdain'd to tell.
Then would he smile on him, and Alwin smiled,
When aught that from his young lips archly fell
The gloomy film from Harold's eye beguiled;
And pleased for a glimpse appear'd the woful Childe.
Him and one yeoman only did he take

To travel eastward to a far countrie;
And, though the boy was grieved to leave the lake
On whose fair banks he grew from infancy,
Eftsoons his little heart beat merrily

With hope of foreign nations to behold,
And many things right marvellous to see,

Of which our vaunting voyagers oft have told,

In many a tome as true as Mandeville's of old."]

8 ["These Lusian brutes, and earth from worst of

9

wretches purge."-MS.]

["A friend advises Ulissipont; but Lisboa is the Portuguese word, consequently the best. Ulissipont is pedantic; and as I had lugged in Hellas and Eros not long before, there would have been something like an affectation of Greek terms, which I wished to avoid. On the submission of Lust. tania to the Moors, they changed the name of the capital, which till then had been Ulisipo, or Lispo; because, in the Arabic alphabet, the letter p is not used. Hence, I believe, Lisboa; whence again, the French Lisbonne, and our Lisbon,-God knows which the earlier corruption!" Byron, MS.]

10" Which poets, prone to lie, have paved with gold."MS.]

Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, And marvel men should quit their easy chair, The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace, Oh! there is sweetness in the mountain air, And life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share.

XXXI.

More bleak to view the hills at length recede,
And, less luxuriant, smoother vales extend;
Immense horizon-bounded plains succeed!
Far as the eye discerns, withouten end,

Spain's realms appear whereon her shepherds tend Flocks, whose rich fleece right well the trader knows

Now must the pastor's arm his lambs defend For Spain is compass'd by unyielding foes, And all must shield their all, or share Subjection's

woes.

XXXII.

Where Lusitania and her Sister meet,

Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide?
Or ere the jealous queens of nations greet,
Doth Tayo interpose his mighty tide?
Or dark Sierras rise in craggy pride?
Or fence of art, like China's vasty wall?—

Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide,

Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall, Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's land from Gaul:

XXXIII.

But these between a silver streamlet glides, And scarce a name distinguisheth the brook, Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides. Here Jeans the idle shepherd on his crook, And vacant on the rippling waves doth look, That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foemen flow; For proud each peasant as the noblest duke: Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know "Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low.'

XXXIV.

But ere the mingling bounds have far been pass'd,
Dark Guadiana rolls his power along
In sullen billows, murmuring and vast,
So noted ancient roundelays among.3
Whilome upon his banks did legions throng

convent, and most superb church. The six organs are the most beautiful I ever beheld, in point of decoration : we did not hear them, but were told that their tones were correspondent to their splendor. Mafra is termed the Escurial of Portugal. [About ten miles to the right of Cintra," says Lord Byron, in a letter to his mother, "is the palace of Mafra, the boast of Portugal, as it might be of any country, in point of magnificence, without elegance. There is a convent annexed: the monks, who possess large revenues, are courteous enough, and understand Latin; so that we had a long conversation. They have a large library, and asked me if the English had any books in their country."-Mafra was erected by John V., in pursuance of a vow, made in a dangerous fit of illness, to found a convent for the use of the poorest friary in the kingdom. Upon inquiry, this poorest was found at Mafra; where twelve Franciscans lived together in a hut. There is a magnificent view of the existing edifice in "Finden's Illustrations."]

As I found the Portuguese, so I have characterized them. That they are since improved, at least in courage, is evident. The late exploits of Lord Wellington have effaced the follies of Cintra. He has, indeed, done wonders: he has, perhaps, changed the character of a nation, reconciled rival superstitions, and baffled an enemy who never retreated before his predecessors.-1812.

2" But ere the bounds of Spain have far been pass'd, Forever famed in many a noted song."-MS.] [Lord Byron seems to have thus early acquired enough of Spanish to understand and appreciate the grand body of

Of Moor and Knight, in mailed splendor dress'd: Here ceased the swift their race, here sunk the strong; The Paynim turban and the Christian crest Mix'd on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts oppress'd. XXXV.

Oh, lovely Spain! renown'd, romantic land! Where is that standard which Pelagio bore, When Cava's traitor-sire first call'd the band That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore! Where are those bloody banners which of yore Waved o'er thy sons, victorious to the gale, And drove at last the spoilers to their shore? Red gleam'd the cross, and waned the crescent pale, While Afric's echoes thrill'd with Moorish matrons' wail.

XXXVI.

Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale?
Ah! such, alas! the hero's amplest fate!
When granite moulders and when records fail,
A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date.
Pride! bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate,
See how the mighty shrink into a song!

Can Volume, Pillar, Pile, preserve thee great?
Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue,
When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee
wrong?

XXXVII.

Awake, ye sons of Spain! awake! advance!
Lo! Chivalry, your ancient goddess, cries;
But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance,
Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies:
Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she flies,
And speaks in thunder through yon engine's roar!
In every peal she calls-" Awake! arise!"
Say, is her voice more feeble than of yore,
When her war-song was heard on Andalusia's shore?
XXXVIII.

Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note?
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath?
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote;
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves?-the fires of death,
The bale-fires flash on high-from rock to rock
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe;
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,

Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock.

ancient popular poetry,-unequalled in Europe,-which must ever form the pride of that magnificent language. See his beautiful version of one of the best of the ballads of the Granada war-the "Romance muy doloroso del sitio y toma de Alhama."]

4 Count Julian's daughter, the Helen of Spain. Pelagius preserved his independence in the fastnesses of the Asturias, and the descendants of his followers, after some centuries, completed their struggle by the conquest of Granada.— ["Almost all the Spanish historians, as well as the voice of tradition, ascribe the invasion of the Moors to the forcible violation by Roderick upon Florinda, called by the Moors Caba, or Cava. She was the daughter of Count Julian, one of the Gothic monarch's principal lieutenants, who, when the crime was perpetrated, was engaged in the defence of Ceuta, against the Moors. In his indignation at the ingratitude of his sovereign, and the dishonor of his daughter, Count Julian forgot the duties of a Christian and a patriot, and, forming an alliance with Musa, then the Caliph's lieutenant in Africa, he countenanced the invasion of Spain by a body of Saracens and Africans, commanded by the celebrated Tarik; the issue of which was the defeat and death of Roderick, and the occupation of almost the whole peninsula by the Moors. The Spaniards, in detestation of Florinda's memory, are said, by Cervantes, never to bestow that name upon any human female, reserving it for their dogs."-SIR WALTER SCOTT.] "from rock to rock

Blue columns soar aloft in sulphurous wreath, Fragments on fragments in confusion knock."-MS.]