CXV.

not extraordinary that I should recur to one still older My daughter ! with thy name this song begun and better, - to one who has beheld the birth and My daughter! with thy name thus much shaliend- eath of the other, and to whom I am far more inI see thee not, - I hear thee not, - but none debted for the social advantages of an enlightened Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend friendship, than -- though not ungrateful -- I can, or To whom the shadows of far years extend :

could be, to Childe Harold, for any public favour Albeit my brow thou never should'st behold, reflected through the poem on the poet, - to one, My voice shall with thy future visions blend, whom I have known long, and accompanied far,

And reach into thy heart, - when mine is cold, - whom I have found wakeful over my sickness and A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould. kind in my sorrow, glad in iny prosperity and firm

in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril, CXVI.

- to a friend often tried and never found wanting; To aid thy mind's developement,- to watch - to yourself. Thy dawn of little joys, – to sit and see

In so doing, I recur from fiction to truth; and in Almost thy very growth, — to view thee catch dedicating to you, in its complete or at least concluded knowledge of objects, — wonders yet to thee ! state, a poetical work which is the longest, the most To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,

thoughtful and comprehensive of my compositions, I And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss, – wish to do honour to myself by the record of many This, it should seem, was not reserved for me ; years' intimacy with a man of learning, of talent, of Yet this was in my nature : --- as it is,

steadiness, and of honour. It is not for minds like I know not what is there, yet something like to this. ours to give or to receive flattery ; yet the praises of

sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of CXVII.

friendship; and it is not for you, nor even for others,
Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught, but to relieve a heart which has not elsewhere, or
I know that thou wilt love me; though my name lately, been so much accustomed to the encounter
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught of good-will as to withstand the shock firmly, that I
With desolation, — and a broken claim : (same, thus attempt to commemorate your good qualities,
Though the grave closed between us, - 't were the or rather the advantages which I have derived from
I know that thou wilt love me ; though to drain their exertion. Even the recurrence of the date of
My blood from out thy being were an aim, this letter, the anniversary of the most unfortunate

And an attainment, - all would be in vain, - day of my past existence, but which cannot poison Still thou would'st love me, still that more than life my future while I retain the resource of your friend. retain.

ship, and of my own faculties, will henceforth have a CXVIII.

more agreeable recollection for both, inasmuch as it The child of love, — though born in bitterness, will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire

an indefatigable regard, such as few men have ex-
These were the elements, - and thine no less. perienced, -and-no- one could experience -- without
As yet such are around thee, - but thy fire thinking better of his species and of himself.
Shall be more temper'd, and thy hope far higher. It has been our fortune to traverse together, at
Sweet be thy cradled slumbers ! O'er the sea, carious periods, the countries of chivalry, history,
And from the mountains where I now respire, and fable — Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy ;

Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee, (me !! and what Athens and Constantinople were to us a
As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to few years ago, Venice and Rome have been more

recently. The poem also, or the pilgrim, or both, have accompanied me from first to last; and perhaps it may be a pardonable vanity which induces me to reflect with complacency on a composition which in

some degree connects me with the spot where it was Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

produced, and the objects it would fain describe ; and however unworthy it may be deemed of those magical

and memorable abodes, however short it may fall of CANTO THE FOURTH.

our distant conceptions and immediate impressions,

yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and Visto ho Toscana, Lombardia, Romagna,

of feeling for what is glorious, it has been to me a Quel Monte che divide, e quel che serra

source of pleasure in the production, and I part with Italia, e un mare e l'altro, che la bagna.

it with a kind of regret, which I hardly suspected that Ariosto, Satira iii.

events could have left me for imaginary objects.

With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there

will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the TO JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ. A. M. F.R.S. &c.

preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated Venice, January 2, 1818.

from the author speaking in his own person. The MY DEAR HOBHOUSE,

fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line

which every one seemed determined not to perceive : AFTER an interval of eight years between the com

like the Chinese in Goldsmith's “ Citizen of the position of the first and last cantos of Childe Harold,

World," whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese, the conclusion of the poem is about to be submitted

it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined that I to the public. In parting with so old a friend, it is

had drawn, a distinction between the author and the [** Byron, July 4. 1816. Diodati.” – MS.)

pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this dif

ference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, labourers' chorus, “ Roma! Roma! Roma! Roma so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that non è più come era prima," it was difficult not to determined to abandon it altogether — and have done contrast this melancholy dirge with the bacchanal

The opinions which have been, or may be, roar of the songs of exultation still yelled from the formed on that subject, are now a matter of indiffer- London taverns, over the carnage of Mont St. Jean, ence; the work is to depend on itself, and not on the and the betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, of France, and writer; and the author, who has no resources in his of the world, by men whose conduct you yourseif own mind beyond the reputation, transient or per- have exposed in a work worthy of the better days oi manent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, our history. For me, deserves the fate ot' authors.

“ Non movero mai corda In the course of the following canto it was my

Ove la turba di sue ciance assorda." intention, either in the text or in the notes, to have

What Italy has gained by the late transfer of natouched upon the present state of Italian literature,

tions, it were useless for Englishmen to inquire, till and perhaps of manners. But the text, within the

it becomes ascertained that England has acquired limits I proposed, I soon found hardly sufficient for

something more than a permanent army and a susthe labyrinth of external objects, and the consequent

pended Habeas Corpus; it is enough for them to look reflections; and for the whole of the notes, excepting

at home. For what they have done abroad, and espea few of the shortest, I am indebted to yourself, and

cially in the South, “ Verily they will hare their rethese were necessarily limited to the elucidation of

ward," and at no very distant period. the text. It is also a delicate, and no very grateful task, to

Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agree. dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so

able return to that country whose real welfare can be

dearer to none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this dissimilar; and requires an attention and impartiality

poem in its completed state ; and repeat once more which would induce us — - though perhaps no inat

how truly I am ever, tentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or

Your obliged customs of the people amongst whom we have recently

And affectionate friend, abode - to distrust, or at least defer our judgment,

BYRON. and more narrowly examine our information. The state of literary, as well as political party, appears to run, or to hare run, so high, that for a stranger to steer impartially between them is next to impossible. It may be enough, then, at least for my purpose, to quote from their own beautiful language -“ Mi

I. pare che in un paese tutto poetico, che vanta la lin- I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; gua la più nobile ed insieme la più dolce, tutte tutte A palace and a prison on each hand : le vie diverse si possono tentare, e che sinche la I saw from out the wave her structures rise patria di Alfieri e di Monti non ha perduto l'antico As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand : valore, in tutte essa dovrebbe essere la prima.” Italy A thousand years their cloudy wings expand has great names still -- Canova, Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Around me, and a dying Glory smiles Pindemonte, Visconti, Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi, O'er the far times, when many a subject land Mezzophanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Aglietti, and Vacca, Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles, (isles ! will secure to the present generation an honourable Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred place in most of the departments of Art, Science, and Belles Lettres; and in some the very highest –

II. Europe -- the World — has but one Canova.

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that “La Rising with her tiara of proud towers pianta uomo nasce più robusta in Italia che in qua- At airy distance, with majestic motion, lunque altra terra -e che gli stessi atroci delitti che A ruler of the waters and their powers : vi si commettono ne sono una prova.” Without sub- And such she was ; - her daughters had their dowers scribing to the latter part of his proposition, a dan. From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East gerous doctrine, the truth of which may be disputed Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. on better grounds, namely, that the Italians are in no In purple was she robed, and of her feast respect more ferocious than their neighbours, that Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased. man must be wilfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary capacity of

III. this people, or, if such a word be admissible, their In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, s capabilities, the facility of their acquisitions, the ra- And silent rows the songless gondolier ; pidity of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, their sense of beauty, and, amidst all the disadvantages And music meets not always now the ear: of repeated revolutions, the desolation of battles, and Those days are gone — but Beauty still is here. the despair of ages, their still unquenched "longing States fall, arts fade— but Nature doth not die, after immortality," — the immortality of independ- Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, ence. And when we ourselves, in riding round The pleasant place of all festivity, the walls of Rome, heard the simple lament of the The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy !

2

I See Appendix, * Historical Notes," No.1.

• Sabellicus, describing the appearance of Venice, has made use of the above image, which would not be poetical were it not true. -- “ Quo fit ut qui superne urbem contempletur,

turritam telluris imaginem medio Oceano figuratam se putet inspicere.”

3 See Appendix, “ Historical Notes," No. II.