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Title: The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 4
Author: Baron George Gordon Byron Byron
Editor: Ernest Hartley Coleridge
Release date: December 22, 2006 [eBook #20158]
Most recently updated: February 25, 2026
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20158
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF LORD BYRON. VOL. 4 ***
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
This etext contains some multi-byte characters in UTF-8 format. The
original work contained a few phrases or lines of Greek text. These are
shown here as UTF characters followed by a Beta-code transliteration,
for example: Οῖμοι [Greek: Oi~moi].
The original text also contains two characters not supported by UTF. In
note [463], [=N] and [=S] represent letters N and S with a bar above.
In a few places superscript letters are shown by carets: May 27^th^.
An important feature of this edition is its copious footnotes. Footnotes
indexed with letters (e.g. [c], [bf]) show variant forms of Byron's text
from manuscripts and other sources. Footnotes indexed with arabic
numbers (e.g. [17], [221]) are informational. Text in notes and
elsewhere in square brackets is the work of editor E. H. Coleridge. Text
not in brackets is by Byron himself.
In the original, footnotes were printed at the foot of the page on which
they were referenced, and their indices started over on each page. In
this etext, footnotes have been collected at the ends of each major
section, and have been consecutively numbered throughout. Within each
block of footnotes are numbers in braces: {321}. These represent the
page number on which following notes originally appeared. To find a note
that was originally printed on page 27, search for {27}.
In the work "Francesca di Rimini" the original printed lines of the
Italian on facing pages opposite the matching lines of Byron's
translation. In this etext, the lines of the Italian original have been
collected following the translation.
Two minor corrections were made in this etext, both in the note following
the title of MANFRED: the year 1348 was corrected to 1834, and the word
"Tschairowsky" was corrected to "Tschaikowsky."
THE WORKS
OF
LORD BYRON.
A NEW, REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION,
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
Poetry. Vol. IV.
EDITED BY
ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE, M.A., HON. F.R.S.L.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
1901
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH VOLUME.
The poems included in this volume consist of thirteen longer or more
important works, written at various periods between June, 1816, and
October, 1821; of eight occasional pieces (_Poems of July-September_,
1816), written in 1816; and of another collection of occasional pieces
(_Poems_ 1816-1823), written at intervals between November, 1816, and
September, 1823. Of this second group of minor poems five are now
printed and published for the first time.
The volume is not co-extensive with the work of the period. The third
and fourth cantos of _Childe Harold_ (1816-1817), the first five cantos
of _Don Juan_ (1818, 1819, 1820), _Sardanapalus_, _The Two Foscari_,
_Cain_, and _Heaven and Earth_ (1821), form parts of other volumes, but,
in spite of these notable exceptions, the fourth volume contains the
work of the poet's maturity, which is and must ever remain famous. Byron
was not content to write on one kind of subject, or to confine himself
to one branch or species of poetry. He tracked the footsteps now of this
master poet, now of another, far outstripping some of his models; soon
spent in the pursuit of others. Even in his own lifetime, and in the
heyday of his fame, his friendliest critics, who applauded him to the
echo, perceived that the "manifold motions" of his versatile and
unsleeping talent were not always sanctioned or blessed by his genius.
Hence the unevenness of his work, the different values of this or that
poem. But, even so, in width of compass, in variety of style, and in
measure of success, his achievement was unparalleled. Take such poems as
_Manfred_ or _Mazeppa_, which have left their mark on the literature of
Europe; as _Beppo_, the _avant courrier_ of _Don Juan_, or the
"inimitable" _Vision of Judgment_, which the "hungry generations" have
not trodden down or despoiled of its freshness. Not one of these poems
suggests or resembles the other, but each has its crowd of associations,
a history and almost a literature of its own.
The whole of this volume was written on foreign soil, in Switzerland or
Italy, and, putting aside _The Dream_, _The Monody on the Death of
Sheridan_, _The Irish Avatar_, and _The Blues_, the places, the persons
and events, the _matériel_ of the volume as a whole, to say nothing of
the style and metre of the poems, are derived from the history and the
literature of Switzerland and Southern Europe. An unwilling, at times a
vindictive exile, he did more than any other poet or writer of his age
to familiarize his own countrymen with the scenery, the art and letters
of the Continent, and, conversely, to make the existence of English
literature, or, at least, the writings of one Englishman, known to
Frenchmen and Italians; to the Teuton and the Slav. If he "taught us
little" as prophet or moralist; as a guide to knowledge; as an educator
of the general reader--"your British blackguard," as he was pleased to
call him--his teaching and influence were "in widest commonalty spread."
Questions with regard to his personality, his morals, his theological
opinions, his qualifications as an artist, his grammar, his technique,
and so forth, have, perhaps inevitably, absorbed the attention of friend
and foe, and the one point on which all might agree has been overlooked,
namely, the fact that he taught us a great deal which it is desirable
and agreeable to know--which has passed into common knowledge through
the medium of his poetry. It is true that he wrote his plays and poems
at lightning speed, and that if he was at pains to correct some obvious
blunders, he expended but little labour on picking his phrases or
polishing his lines; but it is also true that he read widely and studied
diligently, in order to prepare himself for an outpouring of verse, and
that so far from being a superficial observer or inaccurate recorder,
his authority is worth quoting in questions of fact and points of
detail.
The appreciation of poetry |