The problem has been discussed in detail by Albert Eichler in his treatise, _John Hookham Frere, Sein Leben und seine Werke, Sein Einfluss auf Lord Byron_ (1905), and his conclusions are, in many respects, trustworthy. After comparing _Beppo_ with Frere’s poem, Dr. Eichler maintains that Byron’s inspiration may be traced to _The Monks, and the Giants_, and makes the following assertion regarding the sources of Byron’s work:--“Die Italien duerfen wir als Quellen hiebei mit Recht nach des Dichters eigenen Auesserungen und auch aus zeitlichen Gruenden ausschliessen.” This statement, which is certainly stronger than the evidence warrants, may be controverted on two grounds: first, that, in spite of some superficial resemblances between the two poems, there is much in _Beppo_ that Byron could not have gained from Frere, indeed which he could have learned only from a close study of the Italian poets; secondly, that Byron actually knew the work of Casti well at the time when he composed _Beppo_. The likeness in stanza form and Byron’s own acknowledgment of his model have, in all probability, been somewhat over-emphasized. So much do the two works differ in plot that there is no single case in which Byron could have adopted a situation or an incident from Frere. The story of _The Monks, and the Giants_ is told by an imaginary personage, Robert Whistlecraft, just as _The Waltz_ is supposed to have been composed by the fictitious “Horace Hornem, Esq.,” and the language of the poem is fitted to the station and education of this figure, who is thoroughly British and entirely Frere’s creation. The poem itself, fragmentary and amorphous even in its final state, is a jumble of poorly organized themes. Beginning in Canto I with a description of Arthur’s court and of his three valorous knights, Lancelot, Tristram, and Gawain, it proceeds to treat in Canto II of an attack of the banded Arthurian chivalry on the castle of the Giants, a race who resemble, in some respects, the giants in Pulci’s _Morgante Maggiore_. At this point the knights disappear from the story, Arthur being mentioned only once during the rest of the tale, and Frere, imitating in part the first canto of the _Morgante Maggiore_, takes a monastery for his scene and a siege of the religious brethren by the Giants for his main action. Friar John’s quarrel with the Tintinabularians, his enforced leadership after the death of the venerable abbot, the assault of the Giants, the successful defence of the Monks, and the eventual retreat of the assailing party:--these are the significant incidents in the second half of a work which obviously depends little on the unity of its plot.