Among those passages which, in the course of revisal, he introduced, like pieces of “rich inlay,” into the poem, was that fine stanza—­

    “Yet if, as holiest men have deem’d, there be
    A land of souls beyond that sable shore,” &c.

through which lines, though, it must be confessed, a tone of scepticism breathes, (as well as in those tender verses—­

    “Yes,—­I will dream that we may meet again,”)

it is a scepticism whose sadness calls far more for pity than blame; there being discoverable, even through its very doubts, an innate warmth of piety, which they had been able to obscure, but not to chill.  To use the words of the poet himself, in a note which it was once his intention to affix to these stanzas, “Let it be remembered that the spirit they breathe is desponding, not sneering, scepticism,”—­a distinction never to be lost sight of; as, however hopeless may be the conversion of the scoffing infidel, he who feels pain in doubting has still alive within him the seeds of belief.

At the same time with Childe Harold, he had three other works in the press,—­his “Hints from Horace,” “The Curse of Minerva,” and a fifth edition of “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.”  The note upon the latter poem, which had been the lucky origin of our acquaintance, was withdrawn in this edition, and a few words of explanation, which he had the kindness to submit to my perusal, substituted in its place.

In the month of January, the whole of the two Cantos being printed off, some of the poet’s friends, and, among others, Mr. Rogers and myself, were so far favoured as to be indulged with a perusal of the sheets.  In adverting to this period in his “Memoranda,” Lord Byron, I remember, mentioned,—­as one of the ill omens which preceded the publication of the poem,—­that some of the literary friends to whom it was shown expressed doubts of its success, and that one among them had told him “it was too good for the age.”  Whoever may have pronounced this opinion,—­and I have some suspicion that I am myself the guilty person,—­the age has, it must be owned, most triumphantly refuted the calumny upon its taste which the remark implied.

It was in the hands of Mr. Rogers I first saw the sheets of the poem, and glanced hastily over a few of the stanzas which he pointed out to me as beautiful.  Having occasion, the same morning, to write a note to Lord Byron, I expressed strongly the admiration which this foretaste of his work had excited in me; and the following is—­as far as relates to literary matters—­the answer I received from him.

[Footnote 40:  If there could be any doubt as to his intention of delineating himself in his hero, this adoption of the old Norman name of his family, which he seems to have at first contemplated, would be sufficient to remove it.]

[Footnote 41:  In the MS. the names “Robin” and “Rupert” had been successively inserted here and scratched out again.]