Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (With Byron's Biography) - Lord Byron

Скачать книгу

lxxiii. lines 5-9, lxxix., lxxx., lxxxi., lxxxii., xxvii. of the Second Canto of Childe Harold are imbedded; and these form part of the ten additional stanzas which were first published in the seventh edition. There is, too, the fragment entitled The Monk of Athos, which was first published (Life of Lord Byron, by the Hon. Roden Noel) in 1890, which may have formed part of this projected Third Canto.

      No further alterations were made in the text of the poem; but an eleventh edition of Childe Harold, Cantos I., II., was published in 1819.

      The demerits of Childe Harold lie on the surface; but it is difficult for the modern reader, familiar with the sight, if not the texture, of "the purple patches," and unattracted, perhaps demagnetized, by a personality once fascinating and always "puissant," to appreciate the actual worth and magnitude of the poem. We are "o'er informed;" and as with Nature, so with Art, the eye must be couched, and the film of association removed, before we can see clearly. But there is one characteristic feature of Childe Harold which association and familiarity have been powerless to veil or confuse—originality of design. "By what accident," asks the Quarterly Reviewer (George Agar Ellis), "has it happened that no other English poet before Lord Byron has thought fit to employ his talents on a subject so well suited to their display?" The question can only be answered by the assertion that it was the accident of genius which inspired the poet with a "new song." Childe Harold's Pilgrimage had no progenitors, and, with the exception of some feeble and forgotten imitations, it has had no descendants. The materials of the poem; the Spenserian stanza, suggested, perhaps, by Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming, as well as by older models; the language, the metaphors, often appropriated and sometimes stolen from the Bible, from Shakespeare, from the classics; the sentiments and reflections coeval with reflection and sentiment, wear a familiar hue; but the poem itself, a pilgrimage to scenes and cities of renown, a song of travel, a rhythmical diorama, was Byron's own handiwork—not an inheritance, but a creation.

      But what of the eponymous hero, the sated and melancholy "Childe," with his attendant page and yeoman, his backward glances on "heartless parasites," on "laughing dames," on goblets and other properties of "the monastic dome"? Is Childe Harold Byron masquerading in disguise, or is he intended to be a fictitious personage, who, half unconsciously, reveals the author's personality? Byron deals with the question in a letter to Dallas (October 31): "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." He adds, with evident sincerity, "I would not be such a fellow as I have made my hero for all the world." Again, in the preface, "Harold is the child of imagination." This pronouncement was not the whole truth; but it is truer than it seems. He was well aware that Byron had sate for the portrait of Childe Harold. He had begun by calling his hero Childe Burun, and the few particulars which he gives of Childe Burun's past were particulars, in the main exact particulars, of Byron's own history. He had no motive for concealment, for, so little did he know himself, he imagined that he was not writing for publication, that he had done with authorship. Even when the mood had passed, it was the imitation of the Ars Poetica, not Childe Harold, which he was eager to publish; and when Childe Harold had been offered to and accepted by a publisher, he desired and proposed that it should appear anonymously. He had not as yet come to the pass of displaying "the pageant of his bleeding heart" before the eyes of the multitude. But though he shrank from the obvious and inevitable conclusion that Childe Harold was Byron in disguise, and idly "disclaimed" all connection, it was true that he had intended to draw a fictitious character, a being whom he may have feared he might one day become, but whom he did not recognize as himself. He was not sated, he was not cheerless, he was not unamiable. He was all a-quiver with youth and enthusiasm and the joy of great living. He had left behind him friends whom he knew were not "the flatterers of the festal hour"—friends whom he returned to mourn and nobly celebrate. Byron was not Harold, but Harold was an ideal Byron, the creature and avenger of his pride, which haunted and pursued its presumptuous creator to the bitter end.

      Childe Harold's Pilgrimage was reviewed, or rather advertised, by Dallas, in the Literary Panorama for March, 1812. To the reviewer's dismay, the article, which appeared before the poem was out, was shown to Byron, who was paying a short visit to his old friends at Harrow. Dallas quaked, but "as it proved no bad advertisement," he escaped censure. "The blunder passed unobserved, eclipsed by the dazzling brilliancy of the object which had caused it" (Recollections, p. 221).

      Of the greater reviews, the Quarterly (No. xiii., March, 1812) was published on May 12, and the Edinburgh (No. 38, June, 1812) was published on August 5, 1812.

       Table of Contents

      I.

      The following notes in Byron's handwriting are on the outside of the cover of the original MS.:—

      "Byron—Joannina in Albania

       Begun Oct. 31st. 1809.

       Concluded, Canto 2d, Smyrna,

       March 28th, 1810. BYRON.

      The marginal remarks pencilled occasionally were made by two friends who saw the thing in MS. sometime previous to publication. 1812."

      On the verso of the single bluish-grey cover, the lines, "Dear Object of Defeated Care," have been inscribed. They are entitled, "Written beneath the picture of J. U. D." They are dated, "Byron, Athens, 1811."

      The following notes and memoranda have been bound up with the MS.:—

      "Henry Drury, Harrow. Given me by Lord Byron. Being his original autograph MS. of the first canto of Childe Harold, commenced at Joannina in Albania, proceeded with at Athens, and completed at Smyrna."

      "How strange that he did not seem to know that the volume contains Cantos I., II., and so written by Ld. B.!" [Note by J. Murray.]

      "Sir,—I desire that you will settle any account for Childe Harold with Mr. R. C. Dallas, to whom I have presented the copyright.

      Yr. obedt. Servt.,

       BYRON.

       To Mr. John Murray,

       Bookseller,

       32, Fleet Street,

       London, Mar. 17, 1812."

      "Received, April 1st, 1812, of Mr. John Murray, the sum of one hundred pounds 15/8, being my entire half-share of the profits of the 1st Edition of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 4to.

      R. C. DALLAS.

      £101:15:8.

      Mem.: This receipt is for the above sum, in part of five hundred guineas agreed to be paid by Mr. Murray for the Copyright of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."

      The following poems are appended to the MS. of the First and Second Cantos of Childe Harold:—

      1. "Written at Mrs. Spencer Smith's request, in her memorandum-book—

      "'As o'er the cold sepulchral stone.'"

      2. "Stanzas written in passing the Ambracian Gulph, November 14, 1809."

      3. "Written at Athens, January 16th, 1810—

      "'The spell is broke, the charm is flown.'"

      4. "Stanzas

Скачать книгу