The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
General
The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
English poetry
In felicity of expression, the copy, if it be a copy, surpasses the
original; but in the scope and originality of the image, it is vastly
inferior. Nor are these lines, with the possible exception of line
3--"Where things that own not Man's dominion dwell," at all
Wordsworthian. They fail in that imaginative precision which the Lake
poets regarded as essential, and they lack the glamour and passion
without which their canons of art would have profited nothing. Six years
later, when Byron came within sound of Wordsworth's voice, he struck a
new chord--a response, not an echo. Here the motive is rhetorical, not
immediately poetical.]
[ep] {116} ----_and foaming linns to lean_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[130] [There are none to bless us, for when we are in distress the
great, the rich, the gay, shrink from us; and when we are popular and
prosperous those who court us care nothing for us apart from our
success. Neither do they bless us, or we them.]
[eq] _This is to live alone--This, This is solitude_.--[MS. D.]
[131] [The MS. of stanza xxvii. is on the fly-leaf of a bound volume of
proof-sheets entitled "Additions to Childe Harold," It was first
published in the seventh edition, 1814. It may be taken for granted that
Byron had seen what he describes. There is, however, no record of any
visit to Mount Athos, either in his letters from the East or in
Hobhouse's journals.
The actual mount, "the giant height [6350 feet], rears itself in
solitary magnificence, an insulated cone of white limestone." "When it
is seen from a distance, the peninsula [of which the southern portion
rises to a height of 2000 feet] is below the horizon, and the peak rises
quite solitary from the sea." Of this effect Byron may have had actual
experience; but Hobhouse, in describing the prospect from Cape
Janissary, is careful to record that "Athos itself is said to be
sometimes visible in the utmost distance (circ. 90 miles), but it was
not discernible during our stay on the spot." (Murray's _Handbook for
Greece_, p. 843; _Childe Harold_, edited by H. F. Tozer, p. 233;
_Travels in Albania_, 1858, ii. 103. Compare, too, the fragment entitled
the _Monk of Athos_, first published in the Hon. Roden Noel's _Life of
Lord Byron_, 1890.)]
[132] {118} ["Le sage Mentor, poussant Télémaque, qui était assis sur le
bord du rocher, le précipite dans le mer et s'y jette avec lui....
Calypso inconsolable, rentra dans sa grotte, qu'elle remplit de ses
hurlements."--Fénelon's _Télémaque_, vi., Paris, 1837. iii. 43.]
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