PREFACE TO THE THIRD VOLUME.
110 lines✦
he present volume contains the six metrical tales which were composedwithin the years 1812 and 1815, the _Hebrew Melodies_, and the minorpoems of 1809-1816. With the exception of the first fifteen poems(1809-1811)--_Chansons de Voyage_, as they might be called--the volumeas a whole was produced on English soil. Beginning with the _Giaour_;which followed in the wake of _Childe Harold_ and shared its triumph,and ending with the ill-omened _Domestic Pieces_, or _Poems of theSeparation_, the poems which Byron wrote in his own country synchronizewith his popularity as a poet by the acclaim and suffrages of his owncountrymen. His greatest work, by which his lasting fame has beenestablished, and by which his relative merits as a great poet will bejudged in the future, was yet to come; but the work which made his name,which is stamped with his sign-manual, and which has come to be regardedas distinctively and characteristically Byronic, preceded maturity andachievement. No poet of his own or other times, not Walter Scott, not Tennyson, notMr. Kipling, was ever in his own lifetime so widely, so amazinglypopular. Thousands of copies of the "Tales"--of the _Bride of Abydos_,of the _Corsair_, of _Lara_--were sold in a day, and edition followededition month in and month out. Everywhere men talked about the "nobleauthor"--in the capitals of Europe, in literary circles in the UnitedStates, in the East Indies. He was "the glass of fashion ... theobserv'd of all observers," the swayer of sentiment, the master andcreator of popular emotion. No other English poet before or since hasdivided men's attention with generals and sea-captains and statesmen,has attracted and fascinated and overcome the world so entirely andpotently as Lord Byron. It was _Childe Harold_, the unfinished, immature _Childe Harold_, andthe Turkish and other "Tales," which raised this sudden and deafeningstorm of applause when the century was young, and now, at its close (Irefer, of course, to the Tales, not to Byron's poetry as a whole, which,in spite of the critics, has held and still holds its own), are ignoredif not forgotten, passed over if not despised--which but few knowthoroughly, and "very few" are found to admire or to love. _Ubi lapsus,quid feci?_ might the questioning spirit of the author exclaim withregard to his "Harrys and Larrys, Pilgrims and Pirates," who once heldthe field, and now seem to have gone under in the struggle for poeticalexistence! To what, then, may we attribute the passing away of interest andenthusiasm? To the caprice of fashion, to an insistence on a morefaultless _technique_, to a nicer taste in ethical sentiment, to apreference for a subtler treatment of loftier themes? More certainly,and more particularly, I think, to the blurring of outline and theblotting out of detail due to lapse of time and the shifting of theintellectual standpoint. However much the charm of novelty and the contagion of enthusiasm mayhave contributed to the success of the Turkish and other Tales, it is inthe last degree improbable that our grandfathers and great-grandfatherswere enamoured, not of a reality, but of an illusion born of ignoranceor of vulgar bewilderment. They were carried away because they breathedthe same atmosphere as the singer; and being undistracted by ethical, orgrammatical, or metrical offences, they not only read these poems withavidity, but understood enough of what they read to be touched by theirvitality, to realize their verisimilitude. _Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner._ Nay, more, the knowledge, thecomprehension of essential greatness in art, in nature, or in man is notto know that there is aught to forgive. But that sufficing knowledgewhich the reader of average intelligence brings with him for thecomprehension and appreciation of contemporary literature has to bebought at the price of close attention and patient study when thesubject-matter of a poem and the modes and movements of the poet'sconsciousness are alike unfamiliar. Criticism, however subtle, however suggestive, however luminous, willnot bridge over the gap between the past and the present, will notsupply the sufficing knowledge. It is delightful and interesting and, ina measure, instructive to know what great poets of his own time and ofours have thought of Byron, how he "strikes" them; but unless we areourselves saturated with his thought and style, unless we learn tobreathe his atmosphere by reading the books which he read, picturing toourselves the scenes which he saw,--unless we aspire to his ideals andsuffer his limitations, we are in no way entitled to judge his poems,whether they be good or bad. Byron's metrical "Tales" come before us in the guise of light reading,and may be "easily criticized" as melo-dramatic--the heroinesconventional puppets, the heroes reduplicated reflections of theauthor's personality, the Oriental "properties" loosely arranged, andsomewhat stage-worn. A thorough and sympathetic study of these onceextravagantly lauded and now belittled poems will not, perhaps, reversethe deliberate judgment of later generations, but it will display themfor what they are, bold and rapid and yet exact presentations of the"gorgeous East," vivid and fresh from the hand of the great artist whoconceived them out of the abundance of memory and observation, andwrought them into shape with the "pen of a ready writer." They will beonce more recognized as works of genius, an integral portion of ourliterary inheritance, which has its proper value, and will repay a moreassiduous and a finer husbandry. I have once more to acknowledge the generous assistance of the officialsof the British Museum, and, more especially, of Mr. A. G. Ellis, of theOriental Printed Books and MSS. Department, who has afforded meinvaluable instruction in the compilation of the notes to the _Giaour_and _Bride of Abydos_. I have also to thank Mr. R. L. Binyon, of the Department of Prints andDrawings, for advice and assistance in the selection of illustrations. I desire to express my cordial thanks to the Registrar of the CopyrightOffice, Stationers' Hall; to Professor Jannaris, of the University ofSt. Andrews; to Miss E. Dawes, M.A., D.L., of Heathfield Lodge,Weybridge; to my cousin, Miss Edith Coleridge, of Goodrest, Torquay; andto my friend, Mr. Frank E. Taylor, of Chertsey, for information kindlysupplied during the progress of the work. For many of the "parallel passages" from the works of other poets, whichare to be found in the notes, I am indebted to a series of articles byA. A. Watts, in the _Literary Gazette,_ February and March, 1821; and tothe notes to the late Professor E. Kolbing's _Siege of Corinth._ On behalf of the publisher, I beg to acknowledge the kindness of LordGlenesk, and of Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B., who have permitted theexamination and collation of MSS. of the _Siege of Corinth_ and of the"Thyrza" poems, in their possession. The original of the miniature of H.R.H. the Princess Charlotte of Wales(see p. 44) is in the Library of Windsor Castle. It has been reproducedfor this volume by the gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen.
✦