206—to R. C. Dallas
8, St. James's Street, October 31, 1811.
Dear Sir
,—I have already taken up so much of your time that there needs no excuse on your part, but a great many on mine, for the present interruption. I have altered the passages according to your wish. With this note I send a few stanzas on a subject which has lately occupied much of my thoughts. They refer to the death of one to whose name you are a
stranger
, and, consequently, cannot be interested. I mean them to complete the present volume. They relate to the same person whom I have mentioned in Canto 2nd, and at the conclusion of the poem.
I by no means intend to identify myself with
Harold
, but to
deny
all connection with him. If in parts I may be thought to have drawn from myself, believe me it is but in parts, and I shall not own even to that.
As
to the
Monastic dome
, etc.
, I thought those circumstances would suit him as well as any other, and I could describe what I had seen better than I could invent. I would not be such a fellow as I have made my hero for all the world.
Yours ever,
B.
Footnote 1:
Childe Harold
, Canto II. stanza xlviii.
