No just applause her honour'd name shall lose, As first in freedom, dearest to the muse. Oh, would thy bards but emulate thy fame, And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy name! • What Athens was in science, Rome in power, What Tyre appear'd in her meridian hour, Tis thine at once, fair Albion, to have been, Earth's chief dictatress, Ocean's mighty queen: But Rome decay'd, and Athens strew'd the plain, And Tyre's proud piers lie shatter'd in the main: Like these thy strength may sink in ruin hurl'd, And Britain fall, the bulwark of the world. But let me cease, and dread Cassandra's fate, With warning ever scoff'd at, 'till too late; To themes less lofty still my lay confine, And urge thy bards to gain a name like thine. Then, hapless Britain! be thy rulers blest, Yet once again adieu! ere this the sail But should I back return, no letter'd rage I leave topography to classic GELL;8 And, quite content, no more shall interpose Thus far I've held my undisturb'd career, ↑ A friend of mine being asked why his Grace of P. was likened to an old woman? replied, he supposed it was because he was past bearing.. * Calpe is the ancient name of Gibraltar. * Stamboul is the Turkish word for Constantinople. My voice was heard again, though not so loud; The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes: POSTSCRIPT.' I HAVE been informed, since the present edition went to the press, that my trusty and well beloved cousins, the Edinburgh Reviewers, are preparing a most vehement critique on my poor, gentle, unresisting muse, whom they have already so bedeviled with their ungodly ribaldry: Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ!» I suppose I must say of JEFFREY as Sir ANDREW AGUECHEEK saith, «an I had known he was so cunning of fence, I had seen him damned ere I had fought him.» What a pity it is that I shall be beyond the Bosphorus before the next number has passed the Tweed! But yet I hope to light my pipe with it in Persia. My northern friends have accused me, with justice, of personality towards their great literary Anthropophagus, JEFFREY: but what else was to be done with him and his dirty pack, who feed « by lying and slandering,» and slake their thirst by «evil-speaking?» I have adduced facts already well known, and of Jeffrey's mind I have * Lord Valentia (whose tremendous travels are forthcoming, stated my free opinion; nor has he thence sustained with due decorations, graphical, topographical, and typographical) any injury: what scavenger was ever soiled by being deposed, on Sir Jons Ca's unlucky suit, that Duos satire pre-pelted with mud? It may be said that I quit England 4 Georgia, remarkable for the beauty of its inhabitants. 1 Mount Caucasus. reated his purchase of the Stranger in Ireland.-Oh fie, my Lord! has your lordship no more feeling for a fellow-tourist? but two of a trade, they say, etc. Lord Ecors would fain persuade us that all the figures, with and without noses, in his stone-shop, are the work of Phidias! Credat Judæus.. Mr GELL's Topography of Troy and Ithaca cannot fail to ensure the approbation of every man possessed of classical taste, as well for the information Mr G. conveys to the mind of the reader, as for the ability and research the respective works display. because I have censured there « persons of honour and wit about town;» but I am coming back again, and their vengeance will keep hot till my return. Those who know me can testify that my motives for leaving England are very different from fears, literary or personal; those who do not, may one day be convinced. Published to the Second Edition. Since the publication of this thing, my name has not with him, treated me with kindness when a boy, and been concealed; I have been mostly in London, ready whatever he may say or do, «pour on, I will endure.» to answer for my transgressions, and in daily expecta- I have nothing further to add, save a general note of tion of sundry cartels; but, alas! « The age of chi- | thanksgiving to readers, purchasers, and publisher; and, valry is over;» or, in the vulgar tongue, there is no spirit now-a-days. There is a youth yclept Hewson Clarke (subaudi, Esq.), a sizer of Emanuel College, and I believe a denizen of Berwick upon Tweed, whom I have introduced in these pages to much better company than he has been accustomed to meet; he is, notwithstanding, a very sad dog, and, for no reason that I can discover, except a personal quarrel with a bear, kept by me at Cambridge to sit for a fellowship, and whom the jealousy of his Trinity contemporaries prevented from success, has been abusing me, and, what is worse, the defenceless innocent above mentioned, in the Satirist, for one year and some months. I am utterly unconscious of having given him any provocation; indeed I am guiltless of having heard his name, till it was coupled with the Satirist. He has, therefore, no reason to complain, and I dare say that, like Sir Fretful Plagiary, he is rather pleased than other wise. I have now mentioned all who have done me the honour to notice me and mine, that is, my bear and my book, except the editor of the Satirist, who, it seems, is a gentleman. God wot! I wish he could impart a little of his gentility to his subordinate scribblers. I hear that Mr JERNINGHAM is about to take up the cudgels for his Mecenas, Lord Carlisle: I hope not; he was one of the few who, in the very short intercourse I had in the words of SCOTT, I wish To all and each a fair good night, And rosy dreams and slumbers light. His Lordship accidentally met with the Copy, and 1 Mr FITZGERALD is in the habit of reciting his own poetry.-See note to English Bards, p. 26. Ehilde Harold's Pilgrimage; A ROMAUNT. L'univers est une espèce de livre, dont on n'a lu que la première page, quand on n'a vu que son pays. J'en LE COSMOPOLITE. PREFACE. THE following poem was written, for the most part, amidst the scenes which it attempts to describe. It was begun in Albania; and the parts relative to Spain and Portugal were composed from the author's observations in those countries. Thus much it may be necessary to state for the correctness of the descriptions. The scenes attempted to be sketched are in Spain, Portugal, Epirus, Acarnania, and Greece. There for the present the poem stops its reception will determine whether the author may venture to conduct his readers to the capital of the East, through Ionia and Phrygia these two cantos are merely experimental. A fictitious character is introduced for the sake of giving some connexion to the piece; which, however, makes no pretension to regularity. It has been suggested to me by friends, on whose opinions I set a high value, that in this fictitious character, «Childe Harold,» I may incur the suspicion of having intended some real personage: this I beg leave, once for all, to disclaim Harold is the child of imagination, for the purpose I have stated. In some very trivial particulars, and those merely local, there might be grounds for such a notion; but in the main points, I should hope, none whatever. It is almost superfluous to mention that the appellation « Childe,» as « Childe Waters,» «Childe Childers, » etc., is used as more consonant with the old structure of versification which I have adopted. The « Good Night, » in the beginning of the first canto, was suggested by «Lord Maxwell's Good Night,» in the Border Minstrelsy, edited by Mr Scott. With the different poems which have been published on Spanish subjects, there may be found some slight coincidence in the first part, which treats of the peninsula, but it can only be casual; as, with the exception of a few concluding stanzas, the whole of this poem was written in the Levant. The stanza of Spenser, according to one of our most successful poets, admits of every variety. Dr Beattie makes the following observation: «Not long ago I began a poem in the style and stanza of Spenser, in which I propose to give full scope to my inclination, and be either droll or pathetic, descriptive or sentimental, tender or satirical, as the humour strikes me; for, if I mistake not, the measure which I have adopted, admits equally of all these kinds of composition.» '— Strengthened in my opinion by such authority, and by the example of some in the highest order of Italian poets, I shall make no apology for attempts at similar variations in the following composition; satisfied that, if they are unsuccessful, their failure must be in the execution, rather than in the design sanctioned by the practice of Ariosto, Thomson, and Beattie. ADDITION TO THE PREFACE. per I have now waited till almost all our periodical journals have distributed their usual portion of criticism. To the justice of the generality of their criticisms I have nothing to object; it would ill become me to quarrel with their very slight degree of censure, when perhaps, if they had been less kind they had been more candid. Returning, therefore, to all and each my best thanks for their liberality, on one point alone shall I venture an observation. Amongst the many objections justly urged to the very indifferent character of the | * vagrant Childe» (whom, notwithstanding many hints to the contrary, I still maintain to be a fictitious !sonage), it has been stated that, besides the anachronim, he is very unknightly, as the times of the knights were times of love, honour, and so forth. Now it so happens that the good old times, when «l'amour du bon vieux temps, l'amour antique» flourished, were the most profligate of all possible centuries. Those who have any doubts on this subject may consult St Palaye, passim, and more particularly vol. ii, page 69. The vows of chivalry were no better kept than other vows whatsoever, and the songs of the Troubadours were not more decent, and certainly were much less refined, than those of Ovid.—The «Cours d'amour, parlemens d'amour, ou de courtoisie et de gentilesse,» had much more of love than of courtesy or gentleness.-Sce Roland on the same subject with St Palaye.-Whatever other objection may be urged to that most unamiable personage, Childe Harold, he was so far perfectly knightly in his attributes-« No waiter, but a knight temBy the bye, I fear that Sir Tristram and Sir plar. any and express less, but he never was intended as an example, further than to show that early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that even the beauties of nature, and the stimulus of travel (except ambition, the most powerful of all excitements), are lost on a soul so constituted, or rather misdirected. Had I proceeded with the poem, this character would have deepened as he drew to the close, for the outline which I once meant to fill up for him was, with some exceptions, the sketch of a modern Timon, perhaps a poetical Zeluco. To TO JANTHE.. Nor in those climes where I have late been straying, To paint those charms which varied as they beam'd— Ah! mayst thou ever be what now thou art, Young Peri of the West!-'t is well for me To those whose admiration shall succeed, creed. Lancelot were no better than they should be, although But mix'd with pangs to love's even loveliest hours devery poetical personages and true knights « sans peur,>> though not «sans reproche.»-If the story of the institution of the « Garter» be not a fable, the knights of that order have for several centuries borne the badge of a Countess of Salisbury, of indifferent memory. So much for chivalry. Burke need not have regretted that its days are over, though Marie Antoinette was quite as chaste as most of those in whose honours lances were shivered, and knights unhorsed. Before the days of Bayard, and down to those of Sir Joseph Banks (the most chaste and celebrated of ancient and modern times), few exceptions will be found to this statement, and I fear a little investigation will teach us not to regret those monstrous mummeries of the middle ages. I now leave & Childe Harold» to live his day, such as he is, it had been more agreeable, and certainly more easy, to have drawn an amiable character. It had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him do more • Beattie's Letters. * The Rovers.-Antijacobin. Oh! let that eye, which, wild as the gazelle's, Now brightly bold or beautifully shy, Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it dwells, Glance o'er this page, nor to my verse deny That smile for which my breast might vainly sigh, Could I to thee be ever more than friend: This much, dear maid, accord; nor question why To one so young, my strain I would commend, But bid me with my wreath one matchless lily blend. Such is thy name with this my verse entwined; Of him who hail'd thee, loveliest as thou wast, X Lady Charlotte Harley (Medwin, 11:132). Childe Harold had a mother-not forgot, If friends he had, he bade adieu to none. A few dear objects, will in sadness feel Which seem'd to him more lone than eremite's sad cell. Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal. V. For he through sin's long labyrinth had run, Nor made atonement when he did amiss, Had sigh'd to many, though he loved but one, And that loved one, alas! could ne'er be his. Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss Had been pollution unto aught so chaste; Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss, And spoil'd her goodly lands to gild his waste, Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign'd to taste. XI. His house, his home, his heritage, his lands, Without a sigh he left, to cross the brine, XII. The sails were fill'd, and fair the light winds blew, The silent thought, nor from his lips did come But when the sun was sinking in the sea, He seized his harp, which he at times could string And fleeting shores receded from his sight, Thus to the elements he pour'd his last «Good Night.»> |