Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ................................................................................................................................1

George Gordon, Lord Byron ....................................................................................................................1

L'Univers est une sep�ce de livre, dont on n'a lu que la primi�re page quand on n'a vu que son pays.

J'en ai feullet� un assez grand nombre, que j'ai trouv� �galement mauvaises. Cet examen ne m'a point

�t� infructueux. Je ha�ssais ma patrie. Toutes les impertinences des pueples divers, parmil lesquels,

The following poem was written, for the most part, amidst the scenes which it attempts to describe. It was

parts relative to Spain and Portugal were composed from the author's observations in those countries. Thus

necessary to state for the correctness of the descriptions. The scenes attempted to be sketched are in Spain,

Acarnania, and Greece. There, for the present, the poem stops; its reception will determine whether the author

his readers to the capital of the East, through Ionia and Phrygia: these two cantos are merely experimental.

A fictitious characer is introduced for the sake of giving some connexion to the piece; which, however, makes

regularity. It has been suggested to me by friends, on whose opinion I set a high value, that in this fictitious

I may incur the suspicion of having intended some real personage; this I beg leave, once for all, to disclaim

imagination, for the purpose I have stated. In some very trivial particulars, and those merely local, there

It is almost superfluous to mention that the appelation 'Childe,' as 'Childe Waters,' 'Childe Childers,' is used

with the old structure of versification which I have adopted. The 'Good Night,' in the beginning of the first

With the different poems which have been published on Spanish subjects, there may be found some slight

part, which treats of the Peninsula, but it can only be casual; as, with the exception of a few concluding

The stanza of Spenser, according to one of our most successful poets, admits of every variety. Dr. Beattie

observation: 'Not long ago, I began a poem in the style and stanza of Spenser, in which I propose to give

and be either droll or pathetic, descriptive or sentimental, tender or satirical, as the humour strikes me; for, if I

measure which I have adopted admits equally of all these kinds of composition'. Strengthened in my

by the example of some in the highest order of Italian poets, I shall make no apology for attempts at similar

composition; satisfied that if they are unsuccessful, their failure must be in the execution, rather than in the

I have now waited till almost all our periodical journals have distributed their usual portion of criticism. To

of their criticisms I have nothing to object: it would ill become me to quarrel with their very slight degree of

they had been less kind they had been more candid. Returning, therefore, to all and each my best thanks for

point alone shall I venture an observation. Amongst the many objections justly urged to the very indifferent

Childe' (whom, notwithstanding many hints to the contrary, I still maintain to be a fictitious personage), it has

besides the anachronism, he is very unknightly, as the times of the Knights were times of Love, Honour, and

happens that the good old times, when ' l'amour du bon vieux tems, l'amour antique, ' flourished, were the

possible centuries. Those who have any doubts on this subject may consult SaintePalaye, passim, and more

69. The vows of chivalry were no better kept than any other vows, whatsoever; and the songs of the

decent, and certainly were much less refined, than those of Ovid. The 'Cours d'amour, parlemens d'amour, ou

gentilesse' had much more of love than of courtesy or gentleness. See Rolland on the same subject with

other objection may be urged to that most unamiable personage Childe Harold, he was so far perfectly

waiter, but a knight templar.' By the by, I fear that Sir Tristem and Sir Lancelot were not better than they

personages and true knights, 'sans peur,' though not 'sans reproche.' If the story of the institution of the

knights of that order have for several centuries borne the badge of a Countess of Salsbury, of indifferent

chivalry. Burke need not have regretted that its days are over, though MarieAntoinette was quite as chaste

I now leave 'Childe Harold' to live his day, such as he is; it had been more agreeable, and certainly more easy,

amiable character. It had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him do more and express less, but he

an example, further than to show, that early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past pleasures

new ones, and that even the beauties of nature and the stimulus of travel (except ambition, the most powerful

lost on a soul so constituted, or rather misdirected. Had I proceeded with the poem, this character would have

to the close; for the outline which I once meant to fill up for him was, with some exceptions, the sketch of a

After an interval of eight years between the composition of the first and last cantos of Childe Harold, the

about to be submitted to the public. In parting with so old a friend, it is not extraordinary that I should recur

to one who has beheld the birth and death of the other, and to whom I am far more indebted for the social

enlightened friendship, than though not ungrateful I can, or could be, to Childe Harold, for any public

poem on the poet, to one, whom I have known long and accompanied far, whom I have found wakeful

my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril, to a friend

In so doing, I recur from fiction to truth; and in dedicating to you in its complete, or at least concluded state, a

the longest, the most thoughtful and comprehensive of my compositions, I wish to do honour to myself by the

intimacy with a man of learning, or talent, of steadiness, and of honour. It is not for minds like ours to give or

praises of sincerity have ever been permitted to the voices of friendship; and it is not for you, nor even for

which has not elsewhere, or lately, been so much accustomed to the encounter of goodwill as to withstand

thus attempt to commemorate your good qualities, or rather the advantages which I have derived from their

recurrance of the date of this letter, the anniversary of the most unfortunate day of my past existence, but

future while I retain the resource of your friendship, and of my own faculties, will henceforth have a more

both, inasmuch as it will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for an indefatigable regard, such as few

and no one could experience without thinking better of his species and of himself.

It has been our good fortune to traverse together, at various periods, the countries of chivalry, history, and

Minor, and Italy; And what Athens and Constantinople were a few years ago, Venice and Rome have been

also, or the pilgrim, or both, have accompanied me from first to last; and perhaps it may be pardonable vanity

reflect with complacency on a composition which in some degree connects me with the spot where it was

it would fain describe; and however unworthy it may be deemed of those magical and memorable abodes,

our distant conceptions and immediate impressions, yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and of

glorious, it has been to me a source of pleasure in the production, and I part with it with a kind of regret,

With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the

at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing

seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese in Goldsmith's 'Citizen of the World,' whom nobody

Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined that I had drawn, a distinction between the author and the

anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in

determined to abandon it altogether and have done so. The opinions which have been, or may be, formed

a matter of indifference; the work is to depend on itself, and not on the writer; and the author, who has no

beyond the reputation, transient or permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate of

In the course of the following canto it was my intention, either in the text or in the notes, to have touched

Italian literature, and perhaps of manners. But the text, within the limits I proposed, I soon found hardly

external objects, and the consequent reflections; and for the whole of the notes, excepting a few of the

It is also a delicate, and no very grateful task, to dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so

attention and impartiality which would induce us though perhaps no inattentive observers, nor ignorant of

of the people amongst whom we have recently abode to distrust, or a least defer our judgment, and more

information. The state of literary, as well as political party, appears to run, or to have run, so high, that for a

impartially between them is next to impossible. It may be enough, then, at least for my purpose, to quote

language 'Mi pare che in un paese tutto poetico, che vanta la lingua la pi� nobile ed insieme la pi� dolce,

possono tentare, e che sinche la patria di Alfieri e di Monti non ha perduto l' antici, valore, in tutte essa

has great names still Canova, Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Pindemonte, Visconti, Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi,

Alietti, and Vacca, will secure to the present generation an honourable place in most of the departments of

It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that 'La pianta uomo nasce pi� robusta in Italia che in qualunque altra

atroci delitti che vi si commettono ne sono una prova.' Without subscribing to the latter part of his

the truth of which may be disputed on better grounds, namely, that the Italians are in no repsect more

neighbours, that man must be wilfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary

if such a word be admissible, their capabilities, the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity of their

genius, their sense of beauty, and, amidst all the disadvantages of repeated revolutions, the desolation of

ages, their still unquenched 'longing after immortality,' the immortality of independence. And when we

walls of Rome, heard the simple lament of the labourers' chorus, 'Roma! Roma! Roma! Roma no � pi� come

difficult not to contrast the songs of exultation still yelled from the London taverns, over the carnage of Mont

of Genoa, of Italy, or France, and of the world, by men whose conduct you yourself have exposed in a work

What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were useless for Englishmen to inquire, till it becomes

England has acquired something more than a permanent army and a suspended Habeas Corpus; it is enough

home. For what they have done abroad, and especially in the South, 'Verily they will have their reward,' and

Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agreeable return to that country whose real welfare can be dearer

yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its completed state; and repeat once more how truly I am ever