. Your Te part ly men -Self. enough Out for pt no In DEDICATION. 131 With regard to my story, and stories in general, I louded should have been glad to have rendered my personages more perfect and amiable, if possible, inasmuch as I have been sometimes criticised, and considered no less responsible for their deeds and qualities than if all had been personal. Be it so if I have deviated into the gloomy vanity of « drawing from self,» the pictures are probably like, since they are unfavourable; and if not, those who know me are undeceived, and those who do not, I have little interest in undeceiving. I have no particular desire that any but my acquaintance should think the author better than the beings of his imagining; but I cannot help a little surprise, and perhaps amusement, at some odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when I see several bards (far more deserving, I allow), in very reputable plight, and quite exempted from all participation in the faults of those heroes, who, nevertheless, might be found with little more morality than << The Giaour,» and perhaps—but no-I must admit Childe Harold to be a very repulsive personage; and as to his identity, those who like it must give him whatever << alias»> they please. e most to our Duplet. e most gene e fatal e least verse, eacons rough heroic ; but flatter ithout with lished on is If, however, it were worth while to remove the impression, it might be of some service to me, that the man who is alike the delight of his readers and his friends, the poet of all circles, and the idol of his own, permits me here and elsewhere to subscribe myself, most truly, and affectionately, January 2, 1814. TH Ch On the glad wa From toil to rest, a Whose soul would s That for itself can woo the approaching fight, Its hope awaken and its spirit soar? No dread of death-if with us die our foes- II. Such were the notes that from the Pirate's isle, |