TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

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[v]

PREFACE TO THE THIRD VOLUME.

The present volume contains the six metrical tales which were composed within the years 1812 and 1815, the Hebrew Melodies, and the minor poems of 1809-1816. With the exception of the first fifteen poems (1809-1811)—Chansons de Voyage, as they might be called—the volume as a whole was produced on English soil. Beginning with the Giaour; which followed in the wake of Childe Harold and shared its triumph, and ending with the ill-omened Domestic Pieces, or Poems of the Separation, the poems which Byron wrote in his own country synchronize with his popularity as a poet by the acclaim and suffrages of his own countrymen. His greatest work, by which his lasting fame has been established, and by which his relative merits as a great poet will be judged in the future, was yet to come; but the work which made his name, which is stamped with his sign-manual, and [vi]which has come to be regarded as distinctively and characteristically Byronic, preceded maturity and achievement.

No poet of his own or other times, not Walter Scott, not Tennyson, not Mr. Kipling, was ever in his own lifetime so widely, so amazingly popular. Thousands of copies of the "Tales"—of the Bride of Abydos, of the Corsair, of Lara—were sold in a day, and edition followed edition month in and month out. Everywhere men talked about the "noble author"—in the capitals of Europe, in literary circles in the United States, in the East Indies. He was "the glass of fashion ... the observ'd of all observers," the swayer of sentiment, the master and creator of popular emotion. No other English poet before or since has divided men's attention with generals and sea-captains and statesmen, has attracted and fascinated and overcome the world so entirely and potently as Lord Byron.

It was Childe Harold, the unfinished, immature Childe Harold, and the Turkish and other "Tales," which raised this sudden and deafening storm of applause when the century was young, and now, at its close (I refer, of course, to the Tales, not to Byron's poetry as a whole, which, in spite of the critics, has held and still holds its own), are ignored if not forgotten, passed over if not despised—which but few know thoroughly, and "very few" are found to admire or to love. Ubi lapsus, quid feci? might the questioning spirit of the author exclaim with regard to his "Harrys and Larrys, Pilgrims and[vii] Pirates," who once held the field, and now seem to have gone under in the struggle for poetical existence!

To what, then, may we attribute the passing away of interest and enthusiasm? To the caprice of fashion, to an insistence on a more faultless technique, to a nicer taste in ethical sentiment, to a preference for a subtler treatment of loftier themes? More certainly, and more particularly, I think, to the blurring of outline and the blotting out of detail due to lapse of time and the shifting of the intellectual standpoint.

However much the charm of novelty and the contagion of enthusiasm may have contributed to the success of the Turkish and other Tales, it is in the last degree improbable that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were enamoured, not of a reality, but of an illusion born of ignorance or of vulgar bewilderment. They were carried away because they breathed the same atmosphere as the singer; and being undistracted by ethical, or grammatical, or metrical offences, they not only read these poems with avidity, but understood enough of what they read to be touched by their vitality, to realize their verisimilitude.

Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner. Nay, more, the knowledge, the comprehension of essential greatness in art, in nature, or in man is not to know that there is aught to forgive. But that sufficing knowledge which the reader of average intelligence brings with him for the comprehension and appreciation of contemporary[viii] literature has to be bought at the price of close attention and patient study when the subject-matter of a poem and the modes and movements of the poet's consciousness are alike unfamiliar.

Criticism, however subtle, however suggestive, however luminous, will not bridge over the gap between the past and the present, will not supply the sufficing knowledge. It is delightful and interesting and, in a measure, instructive to know what great poets of his own time and of ours have thought of Byron, how he "strikes" them; but unless we are ourselves saturated with his thought and style, unless we learn to breathe his atmosphere by reading the books which he read, picturing to ourselves the scenes which he saw,—unless we aspire to his ideals and suffer his limitations, we are in no way entitled to judge his poems, whether they be good or bad.

Byron's metrical "Tales" come before us in the guise of light reading, and may be "easily criticized" as melo-dramatic—the heroines conventional puppets, the heroes reduplicated reflections of the author's personality, the Oriental "properties" loosely arranged, and somewhat stage-worn. A thorough and sympathetic study of these once extravagantly lauded and now belittled poems will not, perhaps, reverse the deliberate judgment of later generations, but it will display them for what they are, bold and rapid and yet exact presentations of the "gorgeous East," vivid and fresh from the hand of the great artist who conceived them out of the abundance[ix] of memory and observation, and wrought them into shape with the "pen of a ready writer." They will be once more recognized as works of genius, an integral portion of our literary inheritance, which has its proper value, and will repay a more assiduous and a finer husbandry.

I have once more to acknowledge the generous assistance of the officials of the British Museum, and, more especially, of Mr. A. G. Ellis, of the Oriental Printed Books and MSS. Department, who has afforded me invaluable instruction in the compilation of the notes to the Giaour and Bride of Abydos.

I have also to thank Mr. R. L. Binyon, of the Department of Prints and Drawings, for advice and assistance in the selection of illustrations.

I desire to express my cordial thanks to the Registrar of the Copyright Office, Stationers' Hall; to Professor Jannaris, of the University of St. Andrews; to Miss E. Dawes, M.A., D.L., of Heathfield Lodge, Weybridge; to my cousin, Miss Edith Coleridge, of Goodrest, Torquay; and to my friend, Mr. Frank E. Taylor, of Chertsey, for information kindly supplied during the progress of the work.

For many of the "parallel passages" from the works of other poets, which are to be found in the notes, I am indebted to a series of articles by A. A. Watts, in the Literary Gazette, February and March, 1821; and to the notes to the late Professor E. Kolbing's Siege of Corinth.

On behalf of the publisher, I beg to acknowledge[x] the kindness of Lord Glenesk, and of Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B., who have permitted the examination and collation of MSS. of the Siege of Corinth and of the "Thyrza" poems, in their possession.

The original of the miniature of H.R.H. the Princess Charlotte of Wales (see p. 44) is in the Library of Windsor Castle. It has been reproduced for this volume by the gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen.

ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

April 18, 1900.[xi]

CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

[xvii]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[xix]

INTRODUCTION TO THE OCCASIONAL PIECES (POEMS 1809-1813; POEMS 1814-1816).

The Poems afterwards entitled "Occasional Pieces," which were included in the several editions of the Collected Works issued by Murray, 1819-1831, numbered fifty-seven in all. They may be described as the aggregate of the shorter poems written between the years 1809-1818, which the author thought worthy of a permanent place among his poetical works. Of these the first twenty-nine appeared in successive editions of Childe Harold (Cantos I., II.) «viz. fourteen in the first edition, twenty in the second, and twenty-nine in the seventh edition», while the thirtieth, the Ode on the Death of Sir Peter Parker, was originally attached to Hebrew Melodies. The remaining twenty-seven pieces consist of six poems first published in the Second Edition of the Corsair, 1814; eleven which formed the collection entitled "Poems," 1816; six which were appended to the Prisoner of Chillon, December, 1816; the Very Mournful Ballad, and the Sonnet by Vittorelli, which accompanied the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, 1818; the Sketch, first included by Murray in his edition of 1819;

and the Ode to Venice, which appeared in the same volume as Mazeppa.

Thus matters stood till 1831, when seventy new poems (sixty had been published by Moore, in Letters and Journals, 1830, six were republished from Hobhouse's Imitations and Translations, 1809, and four derived from other sources) were included in a sixth volume of the Collected Works.[xx]

In the edition of 1832-35, twenty-four new poems were added, but four which had appeared in Letters and Journals, 1830, and in the sixth volume of the edition of 1831 were omitted. In the one-volume edition (first issued in 1837 and still in print), the four short pieces omitted in 1832 once more found a place, and the lines on "John Keats," first published in Letters and Journals, and the two stanzas to Lady Caroline Lamb, "Remember thee! remember thee," first printed by Medwin, in the Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, were included in the Collection.

The third volume of the present issue includes all minor poems (with the exception of epigrams and jeux d'esprit reserved for the sixth volume) written after Byron's departure for the East in July, 1809, and before he left England for good in April, 1816.

The "Separation" and its consequent exile afforded a pretext and an opportunity for the publication of a crop of spurious verses. Of these Madame Lavalette (first published in the Examiner, January 21, 1816, under the signature B.B., and immediately preceding a genuine sonnet by Wordsworth, "How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright!") and Oh Shame to thee, Land of the Gaul! included by Hone, in Poems on his Domestic Circumstances, 1816; and Farewell to England, Ode to the Isle of St. Helena, To the Lily of France, On the Morning of my Daughter's Birth, published by J. Johnston, 1816, were repudiated by Byron, in a letter to Murray, dated July 22, 1816. A longer poem entitled The Tempest, which was attached to the spurious Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, published by Johnston, "the Cheapside impostor," in 1817, was also denounced by Byron as a forgery in a letter to Murray, dated December 16, 1816.

The Triumph of the Whale, by Charles Lamb, and the Enigma on the Letter H, by Harriet Fanshawe, were often included in piratical editions of Byron's Poetical Works. Other attributed poems which found their way into newspapers and foreign editions, viz. (i.) To my dear Mary Anne, 1804, "Adieu to sweet Mary for ever;" and (ii.) To Miss Chaworth, "Oh, memory, torture me no more," 1804, published in Works of Lord Byron, Paris, 1828; (iii.) lines written In the Bible, "Within this awful volume lies," quoted[xxi] in Life, Writings, Opinions, etc., 1825, iii. 414; (iv.) lines addressed to (?) George Anson Byron, "And dost thou ask the reason of my sadness?" Nicnac, March 29, 1823; (v.) To Lady Caroline Lamb, "And sayst thou that I have not felt," published in Works, etc., 1828; (vi.) lines To her who can best understand them, "Be it so, we part for ever," published in the Works of Lord Byron, In Verse and Prose, Hartford, 1847; (vii.) Lines found in the Travellers' Book at Chamouni, "How many numbered are, how few agreed!" published Works, etc., 1828;

and (viii.) a second copy of verses with the same title, "All hail, Mont Blanc! Mont-au-Vert, hail!" Life, Writings, etc., 1825, ii. 384; (ix.) Lines addressed by Lord Byron to Mr. Hobhouse on his Election for Westminster, "Would you get to the house by the true gate?" Works, etc., 1828; and (x.) Enigma on the Letter I, "I am not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age," Works, etc., Paris, p. 720, together with sundry epigrams, must, failing the production of the original MSS., be accounted forgeries, or, perhaps, in one or two instances, of doubtful authenticity.

The following poems: On the Quotation, "And my true faith" etc.; [Love and Gold]; Julian [a Fragment]; and On the Death of the Duke of Dorset, are now published for the first time from MSS. in the possession of Mr. John Murray.

[1]

POEMS 1809-1813.

THE GIRL OF CADIZ.[1]

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

1809.

[First published, 1832.][4]

LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, AT MALTA.[e][4]

1.

2.

Malta, September 14, 1809.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

TO FLORENCE.[f]

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

September, 1809.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

STANZAS COMPOSED DURING A THUNDERSTORM.[h][5]

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

October 11, 1809.

[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

STANZAS WRITTEN IN PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GULF.[i]

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

November 14, 1809.

[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

THE SPELL IS BROKE, THE CHARM IS FLOWN![m]

WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY 16, 1810.

[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).][13]

WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOSTO ABYDOS.[7]

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

May 9, 1810.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).][15]

LINES IN THE TRAVELLERS' BOOK AT ORCHOMENUS.[9]

IN THIS BOOK A TRAVELLER HAD WRITTEN:—

BENEATH WHICH LORD BYRON INSERTED THE FOLLOWING:—

1810.

[First published, Life, 1830.]

MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART.[n]

Ζωή μου, σᾶς ἀγαπῶ.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Athens, 1810.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

[18]

FRAGMENT FROM THE "MONK OF ATHOS."[14]

1.

2.

3.

[First published in the Life of Lord Byron, by the Hon. Roden Noel, London, 1890, pp. 206, 207.]

LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE.[15]

1.

2.

Athens, January, 1811.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

[20]

TRANSLATION OF THE FAMOUS GREEK WAR SONG,

"Δεῦτε παῖδες τῶν Ἑλλήνων." [16]

CHORUS.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

[22]

TRANSLATION OF THE ROMAIC SONG,

“Μπένω μεσ' τὸ περιβόλι Ὡραιοτάτη Χαηδή,” κ.τ.λ.[18]

1811.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

ON PARTING.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

March, 1811.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812(4to).]

FAREWELL TO MALTA.[19]

May 26, 1811.[26]

[First published, 1816.]

NEWSTEAD ABBEY.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

August 26, 1811.

[First published in Memoir of Rev. F. Hodgson, 1878, i. 187.]

EPISTLE TO A FRIEND,[27]

IN ANSWER TO SOME LINES EXHORTING THE AUTHOR TO BE CHEERFUL, AND TO "BANISH CARE."

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811.

[First published, Life, 1830.]

TO THYRZA.[t][29]

October 11, 1811.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

[35]

AWAY, AWAY, YE NOTES OF WOE![ac][31]

1.

2.

3.

4.

December 8, 1811.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

ONE STRUGGLE MORE, AND I AM FREE.[ai]

1.

[37]

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

[39]

EUTHANASIA.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition).]

[41]

AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AND FAIR.[aq]

"Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!"[34]

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

February, 1812.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition).]

[45]

LINES TO A LADY WEEPING.[bk][35]

March, 1812.

[MS. M. First published, Morning Chronicle, March 7, 1812 (Corsair, 1814, Second Edition).]

IF SOMETIMES IN THE HAUNTS OF MEN.[bl]

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

March 14, 1812.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition).]

ON A CORNELIAN HEART WHICH WAS BROKEN.[36]

1.

2.

March 16, 1812.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition).]

[49]

THE CHAIN I GAVE.

FROM THE TURKISH.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

[MS. M. First published, Corsair, 1814 (Second Edition).][50]

LINES WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY.[bm]

1.

2.

3.

April 19, 1812.

[First published, Poems, 1816.]

[51]

ADDRESS, SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRURY-LANE THEATRE, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1812.[39]

[First published, Morning Chronicle, Oct. 12, 1812.]

PARENTHETICAL ADDRESS.[44]

BY DR. PLAGIARY.

Half stolen, with acknowledgments, to be spoken in an inarticulate voice by Master —— at the opening of the next new theatre. [Stolen parts marked with the inverted commas of quotation—thus “——”.]

[First published, Morning Chronicle, October 23, 1812.][59]

VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMER-HOUSEAT HALES-OWEN.[46]

[First published, 1832, vol. xvii.]

REMEMBER THEE! REMEMBER THEE![48]

1.

2.

[First published, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824.]

TO TIME.

[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

[62]

TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE SONG.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).][64]

THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT THOU ART FICKLE.[bu][50]

1.

2.

3.

4.

[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

ON BEING ASKED WHAT WAS THE "ORIGIN OF LOVE."[bw]

[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

ON THE QUOTATION,

1.

2.

3.

4.

1812.

[From a MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]

[67]

REMEMBER HIM, WHOM PASSION'S POWER.[51]

1.

2.

3.

4.

[68]

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

1813.

[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND.[52]

September, 1813.

[MS. M. first published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

SONNET.

TO GENEVRA.

December 17, 1813.[53]

[MS. M. First published, Corsair, 1814 (Second Edition).]

[71]

SONNET.

TO GENEVRA.

December 17, 1813.

[MS. M. First published, Corsair, 1814 (Second Edition).]

FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

"TU MI CHAMAS."

1.

1.

[MS. M.]

ANOTHER VERSION.

[Stanzas 1, 2 first published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition). "Another Version," first published, 1832.]

[73]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] [These stanzas were inserted in the first draft of the First Canto of Childe Harold, after the eighty-sixth stanza. "The struggle 'gainst the Demon's sway" (see stanza lxxxiv.) had, apparently, resulted in victory, for the "unpremeditated lay" poured forth at the time betrays the youth and high spirits of the singer. But the inconsistency was detected in time, and the lines, To Inez, dated January 25, 1810, with their "touches of dreariest sadness," were substituted for the simple and cheerful strains of The Girl of Cadiz (see Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 75, note 1; Life, p. 151).]