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THE WORKS,

OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD BYRON,

IN SEVEN VOLUMES.

OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD BYRON,

IN SEVEN VOLUMES.

III.

CHILDE HAROLDS PILGRIMAGE, FIRST AND SECOND CANTOS

WITH NOTES.

BRUSSELS,

PUBLISHED AT THE ENGLISH REPOSITORY OF ARTS, N.o 602,
RUE DE L'IMPÉRATRICE.

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AN

20 JAN 1930

LIBRARY

PREFACE.

THE following poem was written, for the most part, amidst the scenes which it attempts to describe. It was begun in Albania; and the parts relative to Spain and Portugal were composed from the author's observations in those countries. Thus much it may be necessary to state for the correctness of the descriptions. The scenes attempted to be sketched are in Spain, Portugal, Epirus, Acarnania, and Greece. There for the present the poem stops: its reception will determine whether the author may venture to conduct his readers to the capital of the East, through Ionia and Phrygia: these two cantos are merely experimental.

A fictitious character is introduced for the sake of giving some connexion to the piece; which, however, makes no pretension to regularity. It has been suggested to me by friends, on whose opinions I set a high value, that in this fictitious character, «Childe Harold,» I may incur the suspicion of having intended some real personage: this I beg leave, once for all, to disclaim-Harold is the child of imagination, for the purpose I have stated. In some very trivial particulars, and those merely, local, there might be grounds for such a notion; but in the main points, I should hope, none whatever.

It is almost superfluous to mention that the appellation «Childe,» as « Childe Waters,» «Childe Childers, » etc. is used as more consonant with the old structure of versification

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