Chapter XIV: Introduction: To the Third Canto

The Third Canto of _Childe Harold_ was begun early in May, and finished at Ouchy, near Lausanne, on the 27th of June, 1816. Byron made a fair copy of the first draft of his poem, which had been scrawled on loose sheets, and engaged the services of "Claire" (Jane Clairmont) to make a second transcription. Her task was completed on the 4th of July. The fair copy and Claire's transcription remained in Byron's keeping until the end of August or the beginning of September, when he consigned the transcription to "his friend Mr. Shelley," and the fair copy to Scrope Davies, with instructions to deliver them to Murray (see Letters to Murray, October 5, 9, 15, 1816). Shelley landed at Portsmouth, September 8, and on the 11th of September he discharged his commission.

"I was thrilled with delight yesterday," writes Murray (September 12), "by the announcement of Mr. Shelley with the MS. of _Childe Harold_. I had no sooner got the quiet possession of it than, trembling with auspicious hope, ... I carried it ... to Mr. Gifford.... He says that what you have heretofore published is nothing to this effort.... Never, since my intimacy with Mr. Gifford, did I see him so heartily pleased, or give one fiftieth part of the praise, with one thousandth part of the warmth."

The correction of the press was undertaken by Gifford, not without some remonstrance on the part of Shelley, who maintained that "the revision of the proofs, and the retention or alteration of certain particular passages had been entrusted to his discretion" (Letter to Murray, October 30, 1816).

When, if ever, Mr. Davies, of "inaccurate memory" (Letter to Murray, December 4, 1816), discharged his trust is a matter of uncertainty. The "original MS." (Byron's "fair copy") is not forthcoming, and it is improbable that Murray, who had stipulated (September 20) "for all the original MSS., copies, and scraps," ever received it. The "scraps" were sent (October 5) in the first instance to Geneva, and, after many wanderings, ultimately fell into the possession of Mrs. Leigh, from whom they were purchased by the late Mr. Murray.

The July number of the _Quarterly Review_ (No. XXX.) was still in the press, and, possibly, for this reason it was not till October 29 that Murray inserted the following advertisement in the _Morning Chronicle:_ "Lord Byron's New Poems. On the 23^d of November will be published The Prisoners (_sic_) of Chillon, a Tale and other Poems. A Third Canto of Childe Harold...." But a rival was in the field. The next day (October 30), in the same print, another advertisement appeared: "_The R. H. Lord Byron's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land...._ Printed for J. Johnston, Cheapside.... Of whom may be had, by the same author, a new ed. (the third) of _Farewell to England: with three other poems...._" It was, no doubt, the success of his first venture which had stimulated the "Cheapside impostor," as Byron called him, to forgery on a larger scale.

The controversy did not end there. A second advertisement (_Morning Chronicle_, November 15) of "Lord Byron's Pilgrimage," etc., stating that "the copyright of the work was consigned" to the Publisher "exclusively by the Noble Author himself, and for which he gives 500 guineas," precedes Murray's second announcement of _The Prisoners of Chillon_, and the Third Canto of _Childe Harold_, in which he informs "the public that the poems lately advertised are not written by Lord Byron. The only bookseller at present authorised to print Lord Byron's poems is Mr. Murray...." Further precautions were deemed necessary. An injunction in Chancery was applied for by Byron's agents and representatives (see, for a report of the case in the _Morning Chronicle_, November 28, 1816, _Letters_, vol. iv., Letter to Murray, December 9, 1816, note), and granted by the Chancellor, Lord Eldon. Strangely enough, Sir Samuel Romilly, whom Byron did not love, was counsel for the plaintiff.

In spite of the injunction, a volume entitled "_Lord Byron's Pilgrimage to the Holy Land_, a Poem in Two Cantos. To which is attached a fragment, _The Tempest_," was issued in 1817. It is a dull and, apparently, serious production, suggested by, but hardly an imitation of, _Childe Harold_. The notes are descriptive of the scenery, customs, and antiquities of Palestine. _The Tempest_, on the other hand, is a parody, and by no means a bad parody, of Byron at his worst; e.g.--

"There was a sternness in his eye,
Which chilled the soul--one knew not why--
But when returning vigour came,
And kindled the dark glare to flame,
So fierce it flashed, one well might swear,
A thousand souls were centred there."

It is possible that this _Pilgrimage_ was the genuine composition of some poetaster who failed to get his poems published under his own name, or it may have been the deliberate forgery of John Agg, or Hewson Clarke, or C. F. Lawler, the _pseudo_ Peter Pindar--"Druids" who were in Johnston's pay, and were prepared to compose pilgrimages to any land, holy or unholy, which would bring grist to their employer's mill. (See the _Advertisements_ at the end of _Lord Byron's Pilgrimage, etc._)

The Third Canto was published, not as announced, on the 23rd, but on the 18th of November. Murray's "auspicious hope" of success was amply fulfilled. He "wrote to Lord Byron on the 13th of December, 1816, informing him that at a dinner at the Albion Tavern, he had sold to the assembled booksellers 7000 of his Third Canto of _Childe Harold_...." The reviews were for the most part laudatory. Sir Walter Scott's finely-tempered eulogium (_Quart. Rev_., No. xxxi., October, 1816 [published February 11, 1817]), and Jeffrey's balanced and cautious appreciation (_Edin. Rev_., No. liv., December, 1816 [published February 14, 1817]) have been reprinted in their collected works. Both writers conclude with an aspiration--Jeffrey, that

"This puissant spirit
Yet shall reascend,
Self-raised, and repossess its native seat!"

Scott, in the "tenderest strain" of Virgilian melody--

"I decus, i nostrum, melioribus utere fatis!"

NOTE ON MSS. OF THE THIRD CANTO.

[The following memorandum, in Byron's handwriting, is prefixed to the Transcription:--

"This copy is to be printed from--subject to comparison with the
original MS. (from which this is a transcription) in such parts as
it may chance to be difficult to decypher in the following. The
notes in this copy are more complete and extended than in the
former--and there is also _one stanza more_ inserted and added to
this, viz. the 33d. B.
Byron. July 10th, 1816.
Diodati, near y^e Lake of Geneva."

The "original MS." to which the memorandum refers is not forthcoming (_vide ante_, p. 212), but the "scraps" (MS.) are now in Mr. Murray's possession. Stanzas i.-iii., and the lines beginning, "The castled Crag of Drachenfels," are missing.

Claire's Transcription (C.) occupies the first 119 pages of a substantial quarto volume. Stanzas xxxiii. and xcix.-cv. and several of the notes are in Byron's handwriting. The same volume contains _Sonnet on Chillon_, in Byron's handwriting; a transcription of the _Prisoners_ (_sic_) _of Chillon_ (so, too, the advertisement in the _Morning Chronicle_, October 29, 1816); _Sonnet_, "Rousseau," etc., in Byron's handwriting, and transcriptions of _Stanzas to_----, "Though the day of my destiny's over;" _Darkness_; _Churchill's Grave_; _The Dream_; _The Incantation_ (_Manfred_, act ii. sc. 1); and _Prometheus_.]