Immediately, on Lord Byron’s arrival in London, Mr. Dallas called upon him.  “On the 15th of July,” says this gentleman, “I had the pleasure of shaking hands with him at Reddish’s Hotel in St. James’s Street.  I thought his looks belied the report he had given me of his bodily health, and his countenance did not betoken melancholy, or displeasure at his return.  He was very animated in the account of his travels, but assured me he had never had the least idea of writing them.  He said he believed satire to be his forte, and to that he had adhered, having written, during his stay at different places abroad, a Paraphrase of Horace’s Art of Poetry, which would be a good finish to English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.  He seemed to promise himself additional fame from it, and I undertook to superintend its publication, as I had done that of the Satire.  I had chosen the time ill for my visit, and we had hardly any time to converse uninterruptedly, he therefore engaged me to breakfast with him next morning.”

In the interval Mr. Dallas looked over this Paraphrase, which he had been permitted by Lord Byron to take home with him for the purpose, and his disappointment was, as he himself describes it, “grievous,” on finding, that a pilgrimage of two years to the inspiring lands of the East had been attended with no richer poetical result.  On their meeting again next morning, though unwilling to speak disparagingly of the work, he could not refrain, as he informs us, from expressing some surprise that his noble friend should have produced nothing else during his absence.—­“Upon this,” he continues, “Lord Byron told me that he had occasionally written short poems, besides a great many stanzas in Spenser’s measure, relative to the countries he had visited.  ’They are not worth troubling you with, but you shall have them all with you if you like.’  So came I by Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.  He took it from a small trunk, with a number of verses.  He said they had been read but by one person, who had found very little to commend and much to condemn:  that he himself was of that opinion, and he was sure I should be so too.  Such as it was, however, it was at my service; but he was urgent that ‘The Hints from Horace’ should be immediately put in train, which I promised to have done.”

The value of the treasure thus presented to him, Mr. Dallas was not slow in discovering.  That very evening he despatched a letter to his noble friend, saying—­“You have written one of the most delightful poems I ever read.  If I wrote this in flattery, I should deserve your contempt rather than your friendship.  I have been so fascinated with Childe Harold that I have not been able to lay it down.  I would almost pledge my life on its advancing the reputation of your poetical powers, and on its gaining you great honour and regard, if you will do me the credit and favour of attending to my suggestions respecting,” &c.&c.&c.

Notwithstanding this just praise, and the secret echo it must have found in a heart so awake to the slightest whisper of fame, it was some time before Lord Byron’s obstinate repugnance to the idea of publishing Childe Harold could be removed.