The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 9

[e] _My readers will observe that where the author speaks in his own person he a.s.sumes 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 n.o.ble awaiting knighthood, e.g. in the romances of _Ipomydon_, _Sir Tryamour_, etc. It is frequently used by our old writers as a t.i.tle, and is repeatedly given to Prince Arthur in the _Faerie Queene_"--(_N. Eng.

Dict._, art. "Childe").

Byron uses the word in the Spenserian sense, as a t.i.tle implying youth and n.o.bility.]

[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 n.o.ble 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 s.e.x, and, apparently, disposed to consider all religions as different modes of superst.i.tion." 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 _Memoires sur l'Ancienne Chevalerie_, par M. De la Curne de Sainte-Palaye, Paris, 1781: "Qu'on lise dans l'auteur du roman de Gerard de Roussillon, en Provencal, les details tres-circonstancies dans lesquels il entre sur la reception faite par le Comte Gerard a l'amba.s.sadeur du roi Charles; on y verra des particularites singulieres qui donnent une etrange idee des moeurs et de la politesse de ces siecles aussi corrompus qu'ignorans" (ii. 69). See, too, _ibid., ante_, p. 65: "Si l'on juge des moeurs d'un siecle par les ecrits qui nous en sont restes, nous serons en droit de juger que nos ancetres observerent mal les loix que leur prescrivirent la decence et l'honnetete."]

[8] [See _Recherches sur les Prerogatives des Dames chez les Gaulois sur les Cours d'Amours_, par M. le President Rolland [d'Erceville], de l'Academie 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] [Pa.s.sages 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 authors.h.i.+p is a.s.signed 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 emanc.i.p.ation 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 Herefords.h.i.+re, in October-November, 1812.

Her portrait, by Westall, which was painted at his request, is included among the ill.u.s.trations in Finden's _Ill.u.s.trations 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'Amitie 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 t.i.tle 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 Sh.e.l.ley'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] {13} _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 subst.i.tution 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 gla.s.ses, 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 "wa.s.sailers" 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 "wa.s.sailers" 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 pa.s.sive "hote," and means "was called." "Childe Harold he hight" would be more correct. Compare Spenser's _Faerie 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).]