The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2

e first published in the seventh edition. There is, too, the fragment entitled The Monk of Athos, which was first published (Life of Lord Byron, by the Hon. Roden Noel) in 1890, which may have formed part of this projected Third Canto.

No further alterations were made in the text of the poem; but an eleventh edition of Childe Harold, Cantos I., II., was published in 1819.

The demerits of Childe Harold lie on the surface; but it is difficult for the modern reader, familiar with the sight, if not the texture, of "the purple patches," and unattracted, perhaps demagnetized, by a personality once fascinating and always "puissant," to appreciate the actual worth and magnitude of the poem. We are "o'er informed;" and as with Nature, so with Art, the eye must be couched, and the film of association removed, before we can see clearly. But there is one characteristic feature of Childe Harold which association and familiarity have been powerless to veil or confu