Notes
1] When Byron's publisher, John Murray, asked him to provide a "dehcate declension" for a tragedy submitted by Byron's erstwhile friend, Dr. J. W. Polidori, he responded with these verses in a letter of August 21, 1817, first published by Moore in Letters and Journals of Lord Byron (1830). In 1816 Polidori (1795--1821) accompanied Byron to Switzerland and rejoined him in Italy, his vanity was the cause of much amusement, as well as much annoyance. He later advertised his novel The Vampyre (1819) as Byron's.
23-96] Byron refers to a number of unsuccessful recent plays, including the Orestes, Ivan, and Death of Darnley of William Sotheby; the Manuel of Charles Robert Maturin; and the Ina of Mrs. Wilmot; and to his own Manfred, published two months previously.
45] My room's so full: the drawing room at 50 Albemarle Street, where Murray transacted business. Gifford: William Gifford (1756-1826), satiric poet and, from 1809 to 1824, editor of the Quarterly Review, an influential Tory periodical published by Murray.
46] Hookham Frere: John Hookham Frere (1769-1841), minister to Spain in Pitt's government, translator of Aristophanes, and author of The Monks and the Giants (1818), a burlesque whose poetic technique was soon to influence Byron's Beppo and Don Juan.
56] Less commonly known than the poets George Crabbe and Thomas Campbell are: John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), for many years secretary of the Admiralty, a founder of, and frequent contributor to, the Quarterly Review, originator of the term "Conservative" instead of "Tory" as a party designation; and John William Ward (1781-1833), a scholarly and eccentric Canningite M.P., who ultimately became Canning's foreign minister and was created Earl of Dudley (both in 1827).
60] Mr. Hammond: George Hammond (1763-1853), a diplomatist, founder of the Quarterly Review and associate of Murray.
Dog Dent: the nickname of John Dent, an M.P. concerned in the introduction of the Dog-tax Bill in 1796.
63] Malcolm: Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833), soldier, historian, Anglo-Indian statesman and friend of Murray.
Hamilton. It is uncertain which of a number of possible Hamiltons is intended.
Chantrey: Sir Francis Chantrey (1781-1841), British sculptor, who made a large fortune out of producing busts of his distinguished contemporaries.
66] De Staël's late dissolution. Madame de Staël (1766-1817), most famous of French women writers, whom Byron had first met in England and more recently at Coppet, her Swiss home, had just died.
67-68] Madame de Staël's last book would be posthumously published as Considerations sur la Révolution Française, but not by Murray, to whom she had offered it.
70] Rocca: her second husband, a Swiss cavalry officer, whom she married secretly in 1811.
75] Schlegel: August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845), German critic, poet and translator, a convert to Roman Catholicism, who was living at Coppet during Byron's visit in 1816.
88] O'Neill: Elizabeth O'Neill, the reigning tragic actress at Covent Garden.
Online text copyright © 2011, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: George Gordon, lord Byron, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, ed. Thomas Moore (London: J. Murray, 1830). E-10 2736 Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto). Byron, Works. 17 vols. London: John Murray, 1832-33. PR 4351 M6 1832 ROBA
First publication date:
1830
RPO poem editor: M. T. Wilson
RP edition: 3RP 2.516.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/21*1:2011/11/8
Composition date:
21
August
1817
Form: couplets