INTRODUCTION TO CANTO IV.

THE first Canto of Childe Harold treats chiefly of Spain, the second of Greece, the third of the Rhine and Switzerland. In the autumn of 1816 Lord Byron removed to Italy, and it is to Italy that he devoted the fourth Canto,-which in the opinion of many is the noblest effort of his genius. It was begun at Venice in June 1817, and there finished in January 1818; and having been bought for 2000 guineas, and shortly afterwards published, carried the author's fame to its utmost height. The decaying prisons and palaces of Venice, the ruins and relies of ancient Rome, the contrast between what they were and what they had been, were eminently adapted for majestic description and mournful moralising. His contemplations had gone on increasing in power, and the fourth Canto-the most thoughtful, and the most solemn of all his pieces-would alone justify the inscription on his tombstone-"Here lies the Author of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." The defects of the poem, taken as a whole, are not very serious. In places it is obscure; the language is sometimes a little laboured and exaggerated; a few of the sentiments are repeated; and for all its conciseness of phrase, the incidents are occasionally dwelt on too long. There was one subject to which his perpetual recurrence only kept alive interest. As the lyre of Anacreon, whatever topic he tried reverted to love, so every theme conducted Lord Byron to his sorrows and wrongs. He often alludes to the pride of a heart which would rather break than reveal its woes, but in truth his passions found vent in verse, and he confided them to the public even while daring its decrees. The most general objection was to the sombre misanthropy which pervades the poem. He held, with Horace Walpole, that life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel. Man was but miserable dust and ashes; honour and friendship but a name; all pursuits but vanity and vexation, and he argued that Solomon and a host of divines had declared the same. But Lord Byron did not show the emptiness of earth that he might lead to the skies, nor expose the frailty of our natures that we might tolerate it in others and subdue it in ourselves. His was that dreary, blighting philosophy

"Which will not look beyond the tomb,

And cannot hope for rest before."

A multitude of imitators borrowed his creed and personated his character. They imagined they became more interesting by seeming to be miserable, and that pretending to despise the world was to place themselves above it. But this has passed away, and however much we may still be carried along by the dark heavings of his tempestuous soul, we stand safe at the conclusion upon the firm-set shore.

ΤΟ

JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ., A.M., F.R.S.,

ETC. ETC. ETC.

VENICE, January 2, 1818.

MY DEAR HOBHOUSE,

After an interval of eight years between the composition of the first and last cantos of Childe Harold, the conclusion of the poem is about to be submitted to the public. In parting with so old a friend, it is not extraordinary that I should recur to one still older and better,—to one who has beheld the birth and death of the other, and to whom I am far more indebted for the social advantages of an enlightened friendship, thanthough not ungrateful-I can or could be, to Childe Harold, for any public favour reflected through the poem on the poet,—to one whom I have known long and accompanied far, whom I have found wakeful over my sickness and kind in my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril,—to a friend often tried and never found wanting;-to yourself.

In so doing, I recur from fiction to truth; and in dedicating to you in its complete, or at least concluded state, a poetical work which is the longest, the most thoughtful and comprehensive of my compositions, I wish to do honour to myself by the record of many years' intimacy with a man of learning, of talent, of steadiness, and of honour. It is not for minds like ours to give or to receive flattery; yet the praises of sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of friendship; and it is not for you, nor even for others, but to relieve a heart which has not elsewhere, or lately, been

so much accustomed to the encounter of good-will as to withstand the shock firmly, that I thus attempt to commemorate your good qualities, or rather the advantages which I have derived from their exertion. Even the recurrence of the date of this letter, the anniversary of the most unfor

*

tunate day of my past existence, but which cannot poison my future while I retain the resource of your friendship, and of my own faculties, will henceforth have a more agreeable recollection for both, inasmuch as it will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for an indefatigable regard, such as few men have experienced, and no one could experience without thinking better of his species and of himself.

It has been our fortune to traverse together, at various periods, the countries of chivalry, history, and fable- ·Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy; and what Athens and Constantinople were to us a few years ago, Venice and Rome have been more recently. The poem also, or the pilgrim, or both, have accompanied me from first to last; and perhaps it may be a pardonable vanity which induces me to reflect with complacency on a composition which in some degree connects me with the spot where it was produced, and the objects it would fain describe; and however unworthy it may be deemed of those magical and memorable abodes, however short it may fall of our distant conceptions and immediate impressions, yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and of feeling for what is glorious, it has been to me a source of pleasure in the production, and I part with it with a kind of regret, which I hardly suspected that events could have left me for imaginary objects.

With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese in Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World," whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted

* His marriage.