[1] "The first and second cantos of Childe Harold were written in separate portions by the noble author. They were afterwards arranged for publication; and when thus arranged, the whole was copied. This copy was placed in Lord Byron's hands, and he made various alterations, corrections, and large additions. These, together with the notes, are in his Lordship's own handwriting. The manuscript thus corrected was sent to the press, and was printed under the direction of Robt. Chas. Dallas, Esq., to whom Lord Byron had given the copyright of the poem. The MS., as it came from the printers, was preserved by Mr. Dallas, and is now in the possession of his son, the Rev. Alex. Dallas."

[See Dallas Transcript, p. 1. Mus. Brit. Bibl. Egerton, 2027. Press 526. H. T.]

[a] {3} Advertisement to be prefixed ye Poem.—[MS. B.M.]

[b] Professes to describe.—[MS. B.M.]

[c] ——that in the fictitious character of "Childe Harold" I may incur the suspicion of having drawn "from myself." This I beg leave once for all to disclaim. I wanted a character to give some connection to the poem, and the one adopted suited my purpose as well as any other.—[MS. B.M.]

[d] {4} Such an idea.—[MS. B.M.]

[e] My readers will observe that where the author speaks in his own person he assumes a very different tone from that of

"The cheerless thing, the man without a friend,"

at least, till death had deprived him of his nearest connections.

I crave pardon for this Egotism, which proceeds from my wish to discard any probable imputation of it to the text.—[MS. B.M.]

[2] ["In the 13th and 14th centuries the word 'child,' which signifies a youth of gentle birth, appears to have been applied to a young noble awaiting knighthood, e.g. in the romances of Ipomydon, Sir Tryamour, etc. It is frequently used by our old writers as a title, and is repeatedly given to Prince Arthur in the Faërie Queene"—(N. Eng. Dict., art. "Childe").

Byron uses the word in the Spenserian sense, as a title implying youth and nobility.]

[3] [John, Lord Maxwell, slew Sir James Johnstone at Achmanhill, April 6, 1608, in revenge for his father's defeat and death at Dryffe Sands, in 1593. He was forced to flee to France. Hence his "Good Night." Scott's ballad is taken, with "some slight variations," from a copy in Glenriddel's MSS.—Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 1810, i. 290-300.]

[4] [Amongst others, The Battle of Talavera, by John Wilson Croker, appeared in 1809; The Vision of Don Roderick, by Walter Scott, in 1811; and Portugal, a Poem, by Lord George Grenville, in 1812.]

[f] Some casual coincidence.—[MS. B.M.]

[5] {5} Beattie's Letters. [See letter to Dr. Blacklock, September 22, 1766 (Life of Beattie, by Sir W. Forbes, 1806, i. 89).]

[g] Satisfied that their failure.—[MS. B.M.]

[6] [See Quarterly Review, March, 1812, vol. vii. p. 191: "The moral code of chivalry was not, we admit, quite pure and spotless, but its laxity on some points was redeemed by the noble spirit of gallantry which courted personal danger in the defence of the sovereign ... of women because they are often lovely, and always helpless; and of the priesthood.... Now, Childe Harold, if not absolutely craven and recreant, is at least a mortal enemy to all martial exertion, a scoffer at the fair sex, and, apparently, disposed to consider all religions as different modes of superstition." The tone of the review is severer than the Preface indicates. Nor does Byron attempt to reply to the main issue of the indictment, an unknightly aversion from war, but rides off on a minor point, the licentiousness of the Troubadours.]

[7] {6} [See Mémoires sur l'Ancienne Chevalerie, par M. De la Curne de Sainte-Palaye, Paris, 1781: "Qu'on lise dans l'auteur du roman de Gérard de Roussillon, en Provençal, les détails très-circonstanciés dans lesquels il entre sur la réception faite par le Comte Gérard à l'ambassadeur du roi Charles; on y verra des particularités singulières qui donnent une etrange idée des moeurs et de la politesse de ces siècles aussi corrompus qu'ignorans" (ii. 69). See, too, ibid., ante, p. 65: "Si l'on juge des moeurs d'un siècle par les écrits qui nous en sont restés, nous serons en droit de juger que nos ancêtres observèrent mal les loix que leur prescrivirent la décence et l'honnêteté."]

[8] [See Recherches sur les Prérogatives des Dames chez les Gaulois sur les Cours d'Amours, par M. le Président Rolland [d'Erceville], de l'Académie d'Amiens. Paris, 1787, pp. 18-30, 117, etc.]

[9] [The phrase occurs in The Rovers, or the Double Arrangement (Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, 1854, p. 199), by J. Hookham Frere, a skit on the "moral inculcated by the German dramas—the reciprocal duties of one or more husbands to one or more wives." The waiter at the Golden Eagle at Weimar is a warrior in disguise, and rescues the hero, who is imprisoned in the abbey of Quedlinburgh.]

[10] {7} ["But the age of chivalry is gone—the unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations," etc. (Reflections on the Revolution in France, by the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, M.P., 1868, p. 89).]

[11] [Passages relating to the Queen of Tahiti, in Hawkesworth's Voyages, drawn from journals kept by the several commanders, and from the papers of Joseph Banks, Esq. (1773, ii. 106), gave occasion to malicious and humorous comment. (See An Epistle from Mr. Banks, Voyager, Monster-hunter, and Amoroso, To Oberea, Queen of Otaheite, by A.B.C.) The lampoon, "printed at Batavia for Jacobus Opani" (the Queen's Tahitian for "Banks"), was published in 1773. The authorship is assigned to Major John Scott Waring (1747-1819).]

[12] {8} [Compare Childish Recollections: Poetical Works, 1898, i. 84, var. i.—

"Weary of love, of life, devour'd with spleen,

I rest a perfect Timon, not nineteen."]

[13] [John Moore (1729-1802), the father of the celebrated Sir John Moore, published Zeluco. Various views of Human Nature, taken from Life and Manners, Foreign and Domestic, in 1789. Zeluco was an unmitigated scoundrel, who led an adventurous life; but the prolix narrative of his villanies does not recall Childe Harold. There is, perhaps, some resemblance between Zeluco's unbridled childhood and youth, due to the indulgence of a doting mother, and Byron's early emancipation from discipline and control.]

[h] {11} To the Lady Charlotte Harley.—[MS. M.]

[14] [The Lady Charlotte Mary Harley, second daughter of Edward, fifth Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, was born 1801. She married, in 1823, Captain Anthony Bacon (died July 2, 1864), who had followed "young, gallant Howard" (see Childe Harold, III. xxix.) in his last fatal charge at Waterloo, and who, subsequently, during the progress of the civil war between Dom Miguel and Maria da Gloria of Portugal (1828-33), held command as colonel of cavalry in the Queen's forces, and finally as a general officer. Lady Charlotte Bacon died May 9, 1880. Byron's acquaintance with her probably dated from his visit to Lord and Lady Oxford, at Eywood House, in Herefordshire, in October-November, 1812. Her portrait, by Westall, which was painted at his request, is included among the illustrations in Finden's Illustrations of the Life and Works of Lord Byron, ii. See Gent. Mag., N.S., vol. xvii. (1864) p. 261; and an obituary notice in the Times, May 10, 1880, See, too, letter to Murray, March 29, 1813 (Letters, 1898, ii. 200).]

[15] {12} [The reference is to the French proverb, L'Amitié est l'Amour sans Ailes, which suggested the last line (line 412) of Childish Recollections, "And Love, without his pinion, smil'd on youth," and forms the title of one of the early poems, first published in 1832 (Poetical Works, 1898, i. 106, 220).]

[16] [In 1814, when the dedication was published, Byron completed his twenty-sixth year, Ianthe her thirteenth.]

[17] {13} [For the modulation of the verse, compare Pope's lines—

"Correctly cold, and regularly low."

Essay on Criticism, line 240.

"Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes."

Ibid., line 198.]

[18] [Ianthe ("Flower o' the Narcissus") was the name of a Cretan girl wedded to one Iphis (vid. Ovid., Metamorph., ix. 714). Perhaps Byron's dedication was responsible for the Ianthe of Queen Mab (1812, 1813), who in turn bestowed her name on Shelley's eldest daughter (Mrs. Esdaile, d. 1876), who was born June 28, 1813.]

[i]

And long as kinder eyes shall deign to cast

A look along my page, that name enshrined

Shalt thou be first beheld, forgotten last.—[MS.]

[j] {14} Though more than Hope can claim—Ah! less could I require?—[MS.]

[19] {15} [The MS. does not open with stanza i., which was written after Byron returned to England, and appears first in the Dallas Transcript (see letter to Murray, September 5, 1811). Byron and Hobhouse visited Delphi, December 16, 1809, when the First Canto (see stanza lx.) was approaching completion (Travels in Albania, by Lord Broughton, 1858, i. 199).]

[k] Oh, thou of yore esteemed——.—[D.]

[l] Since later lyres are only strung on earth.—[D.]

[20] [For the substitution of the text for vars. ii., iii., see letter to Dallas, September 21, 1811 (Letters, 1898, ii. 43).]

[m]

——thy glorious rill.—[D.]

or, —wooed thee, drank the vaunted rill.—[D.]

[n] {16} Sore given to revel and to Pageantry.—[MS. erased.]

[o]

He chused the bad, and did the good affright

With concubines——.—[MS.]

No earthly things——.—[D.]

[21] ["We [i.e. Byron and C.S. Matthews] went down [April, 1809] to Newstead together, where I had got a famous cellar, and Monks' dresses from a masquerade warehouse. We were a company of some seven or eight, ... and used to sit up late in our friars' dresses, drinking burgundy, claret, champagne, and what not, out of the skull-cup, and all sorts of glasses, and buffooning all round the house, in our conventual garments" (letter to Murray, November 19, 1820. See, too, the account of this visit which Matthews wrote to his sister in a letter dated May 22, 1809 [Letters, 1898, i. 150-160, and 153, note]). Moore (Life, p. 86) and other apologists are anxious to point out that the Newstead "wassailers" were, on the whole, a harmless crew of rollicking schoolboys "—were, indeed, of habits and tastes too intellectual for mere vulgar debauchery." And as to the "alleged 'harems,'" the "Paphian girls," there were only one or two, says Moore, "among the ordinary menials." But, even so, the "wassailers" were not impeccable, and it is best to leave the story, fact or fable, to speak for itself.

[22] {17} ["Hight" is the preterite of the passive "hote," and means "was called." "Childe Harold he hight" would be more correct. Compare Spenser's Faërie Queene, bk. i. c. ix. 14. 9, "She Queene of Faeries hight." But "hight" was occasionally used with the common verbs "is," "was." Compare The Ordinary, 1651, act iii. sc. 1—

" ... the goblin

That is hight Good-fellow Robin."

Dodsley (ed. Hazlitt), xii. 253.]

[p] Childe Burun———.—[MS.]

[23] [William, fifth Lord Byron (the poet's grand-uncle), mortally wounded his kinsman, Mr. Chaworth, in a duel which was fought, without seconds or witnesses, at the Star and Garter Tavern, Pall Mall, January 29, 1765. He was convicted of wilful murder by the coroner's jury, and of manslaughter by the House of Lords; but, pleading his privilege as a peer, he was set at liberty. He was known to the country-side as the "wicked Lord," and many tales, true and apocryphal, were told to his discredit (Life of Lord Byron, by Karl Elze, 1872, pp. 5, 6).]

[q] ———nor honied glose of rhyme.—[D. pencil.]

[r] Childe Burun———.—[MS.]

[s] {18} For he had on the course too swiftly run.—[MS. erased.]

[t] Had courted many——.—[MS. erased.]

[24] [Mary Chaworth. (Compare "Stanzas to a Lady, on leaving England," passim: Poetical Works, 1898, i. 285.)]

[u] ——Childe Burun——.—[MS.]

[25] {19} [Compare The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I, stanza ix. 9—

"And burning pride and high disdain

Forbade the rising tears to flow."]

[v]

And strait he fell into a reverie.—[MS.]

——sullen reverie.—[D.]

[26] [Vide post, stanza xi. line 9, note.]

[w] Strange fate directed still to uses vile.—[MS. erased.]

[x]

Now Paphian jades were heard to sing and smile.—[MS. erased.]

Now Paphian nymphs——.—[D. pencil.]

[27] [The brass eagle which was fished out of the lake at Newstead in the time of Byron's predecessor contained, among other documents, "a grant of full pardon from Henry V. of every possible crime ... which the monks might have committed previous to the 8th of December preceding (Murdris, per ipsos post decimum nonum Diem Novembris, ultimo præteritum perpetratis, si quæ fuerint, exceptis)" (Life, p. 2, note). The monks were a constant source of delight to the Newstead "revellers." Francis Hodgson, in his "Lines on a Ruined Abbey in a Romantic Country" (Poems, 1809), does not spare them—

"'Hail, venerable pile!' whose ivied walls

Proclaim the desolating lapse of years:

And hail, ye hills, and murmuring waterfalls,

Where yet her head the ruin'd Abbey rears.

No longer now the matin tolling bell,

Re-echoing loud among the woody glade,

Calls the fat abbot from his drowsy cell,

And warns the maid to flee, if yet a maid.

No longer now the festive bowl goes round,

Nor monks get drunk in honour of their God."]

[y] {20} The original MS. inserts two stanzas which were rejected during the composition of the poem:—

Of all his train there was a henchman page,

peasant                served

A dark eyed boy, who loved his master well;

And often would his pranksome prate engage

Harold's

Childe Burun's ear, when his proud heart did swell

With sable thoughts that he disdained to tell.

Alwin

Then would he smile on him, as Rupert smiled,

Robin

When aught that from his young lips archly fell

Harold's

The gloomy film from Burun's eye beguiled;

And pleased the Childe appeared nor ere the boy reviled. And pleased for a glimpse appeared the woeful Childe. } Him and one yeoman only did he take

To travel Eastward to a far countree;

And though the boy was grieved to leave the lake

On whose firm 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,

vaunting

Of which our lying voyagers oft have told,

From Mandevilles' and scribes of similar mold. or, In tomes pricked out with prints to monied ... sold In many a tome as true as Mandeville's of old. }

[z] ——Childe Burun——.—[MS.]

[aa] {21} Stanza ix. was the result of much elaboration. The first draft, which was pasted over the rejected stanzas (vide supra, p. 20, var. i.), retains the numerous erasures and emendations. It ran as follows:—

And none did love him though to hall and bower

few could

Haughty he gathered revellers from far and near

An evil smile just bordering on a sneer

He knew them flatterers of the festal hour

Curled on his lip

The heartless Parasites of present cheer,

As if

And deemed no mortal wight his peer

Yea! none did love him not his lemmans dear

To gentle Dames still less he could be dear

Were aught But pomp and power alone are Woman's care

But And where these are let no Possessor fear

The sex are slaves Maidens like moths are ever caught by glare

Love shrinks outshone by Mammons dazzling glare

And Mammon

That Demon wins his [MS. torn] where Angels might despair.

[28] The "trivial particular" which suggested to Byron the friendlessness and desolation of the Childe may be explained by the refusal of an old schoolfellow to spend the last day with him before he set out on his travels. The friend, possibly Lord Delawarr, excused himself on the plea that "he was engaged with his mother and some ladies to go shopping." "Friendship!" he exclaimed to Dallas. "I do not believe I shall leave behind me, yourself and family excepted, and, perhaps, my mother, a single being who will care what becomes of me" (Dallas, Recollections, etc., pp. 63, 64). Byron, to quote Charles Lamb's apology for Coleridge, was "full of fun," and must not be taken too seriously. Doubtless he was piqued at the moment, and afterwards, to heighten the tragedy of Childe Harold's exile, expanded a single act of negligence into general abandonment and desertion at the hour of trial.

[ab] {22} No! none did love him——.—[D. pencil.]

[29] The word "lemman" is used by Chaucer in both senses, but more frequently in the feminine.—[MS. M.]

[30] "Feere," a consort or mate. [Compare the line, "What when lords go with their feires, she said," in "The Ancient Fragment of the Marriage of Sir Gawaine" (Percy's Reliques, 1812, iii. 416), and the lines—

"As with the woful fere,

And father of that chaste dishonoured dame."

Titus Andronicus, act iv. sc. 1.

Compare, too, "That woman and her fleshless Pheere" (The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, line 180 of the reprint from the first version in the Lyrical Ballads, 1798; Poems by S. T. Coleridge, 1893, App. E, p. 515).]

[ac] {23} Childe Burun——.—[MS.]

[31] [In a suppressed stanza of "Childe Harold's Good Night" (see p. 27, var. ii.), the Childe complains that he has not seen his sister for "three long years and moe." Before her marriage, in 1807, Augusta Byron divided her time between her mother's children, Lady Chichester and the Duke of Leeds; her cousin, Lord Carlisle; and General and Mrs. Harcourt. After her marriage to Colonel Leigh, she lived at Newmarket. From the end of 1805 Byron corresponded with her more or less regularly, but no meeting took place. In a letter to his sister, dated November 30, 1808 (Letters, 1898, i. 203), he writes, "I saw Col. Leigh at Brighton in July, where I should have been glad to have seen you; I only know your husband by sight." Colonel Leigh was his first cousin, as well as his half-sister's husband, and the incidental remark that "he only knew him by sight" affords striking proof that his relations and connections were at no pains to seek him out, but left him to fight his own way to social recognition and distinction. (For particulars of "the Hon. Augusta Byron," see Letters, 1898, i. 18, note.)]

[ad] Of friends he had but few, embracing none.—[MS. erased.]

[ae] Yet deem him not from this with breast of steel.—[MS. D.]

[32] [Compare Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming, ii. 8. 1—"Yet deem not Gertrude sighed for foreign joy."]

[af] {24} His house, his home, his vassals, and his lands.—[MS. D.]

[ag]

The Dalilahs——.—[MS. D.]

His damsels all——.—[MS. erased.]

[ah] ——where brighter sunbeams shine.—[MS. erased.]

[33] "Your objection to the expression 'central line' I can only meet by saying that, before Childe Harold left England, it was his full intention to traverse Persia, and return by India, which he could not have done without passing the equinoctial" (letter to Dallas, September 7, 1811; see, too, letter to his mother, October 7, 1808: Letters, 1898, i. 193; ii. 27).

[ai] The sails are filled——.—[MS.]

[34] He experienced no such emotion on the resumption of his Pilgrimage in 1816. With reference to the confession, he writes (Canto III. stanza i. lines 6-9)—

" ... I depart,

Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by,

When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye."

[35] {25} [See Lord Maxwell's "Good Night" in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (Poetical Works, ii. 141, ed. 1834): "Adieu, madam, my mother dear," etc. [MS.]. Compare, too, Armstrong's "Good Night" ibid.—

"This night is my departing night,

For here nae langer mun I stay;

There's neither friend nor foe of mine,

But wishes me away.

What I have done thro' lack of will,

I never, never can recall;

I hope ye're a' my friends as yet.

Good night, and joy be with you all."]

[36] {26} [Robert Rushton, the son of one of the Newstead tenants. "Robert I take with me; I like him, because, like myself, he seems a friendless animal. Tell Mr. Rushton his son is well, and doing well" (letter to Mrs. Byron, Falmouth, June 22, 1809: Letters, 1898, i. 224).]

[aj] {27}

Our best gos-hawk can hardly fly

So merrily along.—[MS.]

Our best greyhound can hardly fly.—[D. erased.]

[ak] Here follows in the MS. the following erased stanza:—

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.

[al]

Oh master dear I do not cry

From fear of wave or wind.—[MS.]

[37] [Robert was sent back from Gibraltar under the care of Joe Murray (see letter to Mr. Rushton, August 15, 1809: Letters, 1898, i. 242).]

[38] {28} [William Fletcher, Byron's valet. He was anything but "staunch" in the sense of the song (see Byron's letters of November 12, 1809, and June 28, 1810) (Letters, 1898, i. 246, 279); but for twenty years he remained a loyal and faithful servant, helped to nurse his master in his last illness, and brought his remains back to England.]

[am] {29}

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. erased, D.]

[an]

For who would trust a paramour

Or e'en a wedded feere—

Though her blue eyes were streaming o'er,

And torn her yellow hair?—[MS.]

[39] ["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" (letter to F. Hodgson, Falmouth, June 25, 1809, Letters, 1898, i. 230). If this Confessio Amantis, with which compare the "Stanzas to a Lady, on leaving England," is to be accepted as bonâ fide, he leaves England heart-whole, but for the bitter memory of Mary Chaworth.]

[ao] {30} Here follows in the MS., erased:—

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.

[40] ["I do not mean to exchange the ninth verse of 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" (letter to Dallas, September 23, 1811: Letters, 1898, ii. 44).

Byron was recalling an incident which had befallen him some time previously (see letter to Moore, January 19, 1815): "When I thought he was going to enact Argus, he bit away the backside of my breeches, and never would consent to any kind of recognition, in despite of all kinds of bones which I offered him." See, too, for another thrust at Argus, Don Juan, Canto III. stanza xxiii. But he should have remembered that this particular Argus "was half a wolf by the she side." His portrait is preserved at Newstead (see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 280, Edition de Luxe).

For the expression of a different sentiment, compare The Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog (first published in Hobhouse's Imit. and Transl., 1809), and the prefatory inscription on Boatswain's grave in the gardens of Newstead, dated November 16, 1808 (Life, p. 73).]

[41] {31} [Cintra's "needle-like peaks," to the north-west of Lisbon, are visible from the mouth of the Tagus.]

[42] [Compare Ovid, Amores, i. 15, and Pliny, Hist. Nat., iv. 22. Small particles of gold are still to be found in the sands of the Tagus, but the quantity is, and perhaps always was, inconsiderable.]

[ap] ——where thronging rustics reap.—[MS. erased.]