XX INTRODUCTION TO THE OCCASIONAL PIECES. In the edition of 1832-35, twenty-four new poems were added, but four which had appeared in Letters and Journals, 1830, and in the sixth volume of the edition of 1831 were omitted. In the one-volume edition (first issued in 1837 and still in print), the four short pieces omitted in 1832 once more found a place, and the lines on "John Keats," first published in Letters and Journals, and the two stanzas to Lady Caroline Lamb, "Remember thee! remember thee," first printed by Medwin, in the Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, were included in the Collection. The third volume of the present issue includes all minor poems (with the exception of epigrams and jeux d'esprit reserved for the seventh volume) written after Byron's departure for the East in July, 1809, and before he left England for good in April, 1816. The "Separation" and its consequent exile afforded a pretext and an opportunity for the publication of a crop of spurious verses. Of these Madame Lavalette (first published in the Examiner, January 21, 1816, under the signature B.B., and immediately preceding a genuine sonnet by Wordsworth, "How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright!") and Oh Shame to thee, Land of the Gaul! included by Hone, in Poems on his Domestic Circumstances, 1816; and Farewell to England, Ode to the Isle of St. Helena, To the Lily of France, On the Morning of my Daughter's Birth, published by J. Johnston, 1816, were repudiated by Byron, in a letter to Murray, dated July 22, 1816. A longer poem entitled The Tempest, which was attached to the spurious Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, published by Johnston, "the Cheapside impostor," in 1817, was also denounced by Byron as a forgery in a letter to Murray, dated December 16, 1816. The Triumph of the Whale, by Charles Lamb, and the Enigma on the Letter H, by Harriet Fanshawe, were often included in piratical editions of Byron's Poetical Works. Other attributed poems which found their way into newspapers and foreign editions, viz. (i.) lines written In the Bible, Within this awful volume lies," quoted in Life, Writings, Opinions, etc., 1825, iii. 414; (ii.) lines addressed to (?) George Anson Byron, "And dost thou ask the reason of my sadness?" Nicnac, March 29, 1823; (iii.) To Lady Caroline Lamb, "And sayst thou that I have not felt," published in Works, etc., 1828; (iv.) lines To her who can best understand them, "Be it so, we part for ever," published in the Works of Lord Byron, In Verse and Prose, Hartford, 1847; (v.) Lines found in the Travellers' Book at Chamouni. "How many numbered are, how few agreed!" published Works, etc., 1828; and (vi.) a second copy of verses with the same title," All hail, Mont Blanc! Mont-au-Vert, hail!" Life, Writings, etc., 1825, ii. 384; and (vii.) Enigma on the Letter I, "I am not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age," Works, etc., Paris, p. 720, together with sundry epigrams, must, failing the production of the original MSS., be accounted forgeries, or, perhaps, in one or two instances, of doubtful authenticity. true The following poems: On the Quotation, And my faith," etc.; [Love and Gold]; and Julian [a Fragment], are now published for the first time from MSS. in the possession of Mr. John Murray. POEMS 1809-1813. THE GIRL OF CADIZ.1 I. Oн never talk again to me Of northern climes and British ladies; It has not been your lot to see,i Like me, the lovely Girl of Cadiz. Although her eye be not of blue, Nor fair her locks, like English lasses, How far its own expressive hue The languid azure eye surpasses! 2. Prometheus-like from heaven she stole The fire that through those silken lashes In darkest glances seems to roll, From eyes that cannot hide their flashes: i. For thou hast never lived to see.-[MS. M. erased.] 1. [These stanzas were inserted in the first draft of the First Cantc of Childe Harold, after the eighty-sixth stanza. "The struggle 'gainst the Demon's sway" (see stanza lxxxiv.) had, apparently, resulted in victory, for the " unpremeditated lay" poured forth at the time betrays the youth and high spirits of the singer. But the inconsistency was detected in time, and the lines, To Inez, dated January 25, 1810, with their "touches of dreariest sadness," were substituted for the simple and cheerful strains of The Girl of Cadiz (see Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 75, note 1; Life, p. 151).] VOL. III. B LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, AT MALTA."1 I. As o'er the cold sepulchral stone Some name arrests the passer-by; Thus, when thou view'st this page alone, i. Written in an Album.-[Editions 1812-1831.] Written in Mrs. Spencer S.'s -.-[MS. M. erased.] Written at the request of a lady in her memorandum book.— [MS. B. M. "Mrs. S. S.'s request."—Erased. MS. B. M.} 1. [The possessor of the album was, doubtless, Mrs. Spencer Smith, the "Lady" of the lines To Florence, “the sweet Florence of the Stanzas composed during a Thunderstorm, and of the Stanzas written in passing through the Ambracian Gulf, and, finally, when "The Spell is broke, the Charm is flown," the "fair Florence" of stanzas xxxii., xxxiii. of the Second Canto of Childe Harold. In a letter to his mother, dated September 15, 1809, Byron writes, "This letter is committed to the charge of a very extraordinary woman, whom you have doubtless heard of, Mrs. Spencer Smith, of whose escape the Marquis de Salvo published a narrative a few years ago (Travels in the Year 1806, from Italy to England through the Tyrol, etc., containing the particulars of the liberation of Mrs. Spencer Smith from the hands of the French Police. London: 12mo, 1807). She has since been shipwrecked, and her life has been from its commencement so fertile in remarkable incidents, that in a romance they would appear improbable. She was born at Constantinople [circ. 1785], where her father, Baron Herbert, was Austrian Ambassador; married unhappily, yet has never been impeached in point of character; excited the vengeance of Buonaparte by a part in some conspiracy; several times risked her life; and is not yet twentyfive. John Spencer Smith, the "Lady's" husband, was a younger brother of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of the siege of Acre. He began life as a Page of Honour to Queen Charlotte, was, afterwards, attached to the Turkish Embassy, and (May 4, 1798) appointed Minister Plenipotentiary. On January 5, 1799, he concluded the treaty of defensive alliance with the Porte; and, October 30, 1799, obtained the freedom of the Black Sea for the English flag (see Remains of the late John Tweddell. London: 1815. See, too, for Mrs. Spencer Smith, Letters, 1898, i. 244, 245, note 1).] |