as the "wicked Lord," and many tales, true and apocryphal, were told to his discredit (Life of Lord Byron, by Karl Elze, 1872, pp. 5, 6).]
q ———nor honied glose of rhyme.—[D. pencil.]
r Childe Burun———.—[MS.]
s For he had on the course too swiftly run.—[MS. erased.]
t Had courted many——.—[MS. erased.]
24 [Mary Chaworth. (Compare "Stanzas to a Lady, on leaving England," passim: Poetical Works, 1898, i. 285.)]
u ——Childe Burun——.—[MS.]
25 [Compare The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I, stanza ix. 9— "And burning pride and high disdain Forbade the rising tears to flow."]
v And strait he fell into a reverie.—[MS.] ——sullen reverie.—[D.]
26 [Vide post, stanza xi. line 9, note.]
w Strange fate directed still to uses vile.—[MS. erased.]
x Now Paphian jades were heard to sing and smile.—[MS. erased.] Now Paphian nymphs——.—[D. pencil.]
27 [The brass eagle which was fished out of the lake at Newstead in the time of Byron's predecessor contained, among other documents, "a grant of full pardon from Henry V. of every possible crime ... which the monks might have committed previous to the 8th of December preceding (Murdris, per ipsos post decimum nonum Diem Novembris, ultimo præteritum perpetratis, si quæ fuerint, exceptis)" (Life, p. 2, note). The monks were a constant source of delight to the Newstead "revellers." Francis Hodgson, in his "Lines on a Ruined Abbey in a Romantic Country" (Poems, 1809), does not spare them—
"'Hail, venerable pile!' whose ivied walls
Proclaim the desolating lapse of years:
And hail, ye hills, and murmuring waterfalls,
Where yet her head the ruin'd Abbey rears.
No longer now the matin tolling bell,
Re-echoing loud among the woody glade,
Calls the fat abbot from his drowsy cell,
And warns the maid to flee, if yet a maid.
No longer now the festive bowl goes round,
Nor monks get drunk in honour of their God."]
y The original MS. inserts two stanzas which were rejected during the composition of the poem:—
Of all his train there was a henchman page, peasant served A dark eyed boy, who loved his master well; And often would his pranksome prate engage Harold's Childe Burun's ear, when his proud heart did swell With sable thoughts that he disdained to tell. Alwin Then would he smile on him, as Rupert smiled, Robin When aught that from his young lips archly fell Harold's The gloomy film from Burun's eye beguiled; And pleased the Childe appeared nor ere the boy reviled. And pleased for a glimpse appeared the woeful Childe. } Him and one yeoman only did he take To travel Eastward to a far countree; And though the boy was grieved to leave the lake On whose firm banks he grew from Infancy, Eftsoons his little heart beat merrily With hope of foreign nations to behold, And many things right marvellous to see, vaunting Of which our lying voyagers oft have told, From Mandevilles' and scribes of similar mold. or, In tomes pricked out with prints to monied ... sold In many a tome as true as Mandeville's of old. }
z ——Childe Burun——.—[MS.]
aa Stanza ix. was the result of much elaboration. The first draft, which was pasted over the rejected stanzas (vide supra, p. 20, var. i.), retains the numerous erasures and emendations. It ran as follows:—
And none did love him though to hall and bower few could Haughty he gathered revellers from far and near An evil smile just bordering on a sneer He knew them flatterers of the festal hour Curled on his lip The heartless Parasites of present cheer, As if And deemed no mortal wight his peer Yea! none did love him not his lemmans dear To gentle Dames still less he could be dear Were aught But pomp and power alone are Woman's care But And where these are let no Possessor fear The sex are slaves Maidens like moths are ever caught by glare Love shrinks outshone by Mammons dazzling glare And Mammon That Demon wins his [MS. torn] where Angels might despair.
28 The "trivial particular" which suggested to Byron the friendlessness and desolation of the Childe may be explained by the refusal of an old schoolfellow to spend the last day with him before he set out on his travels. The friend, possibly Lord Delawarr, excused himself on the plea that "he was engaged with his mother and some ladies to go shopping." "Friendship!" he exclaimed to Dallas. "I do not believe I shall leave behind me, yourself and family excepted, and, perhaps, my mother, a single being who will care what becomes of me" (Dallas, Recollections, etc., pp. 63, 64). Byron, to quote Charles Lamb's apology for Coleridge, was "full of fun," and must not be taken too seriously. Doubtless he was piqued at the moment, and afterwards, to heighten the tragedy of Childe Harold's exile, expanded a single act of negligence into general abandonment and desertion at the hour of trial.
ab No! none did love him——.—[D. pencil.]
29 The word "lemman" is used by Chaucer in both senses, but more frequently in the feminine.—[MS. M.]
30 "Feere," a consort or mate. [Compare the line, "What when lords go with their feires, she said," in "The Ancient Fragment of the Marriage of Sir Gawaine" (Percy's Reliques, 1812, iii. 416), and the lines—
"As with the woful fere, And father of that chaste dishonoured dame."
Titus Andronicus, act iv. sc. 1.
Compare, too, "That woman and her fleshless
