Letters and Journals of Lord Byron
Lord Byron to John Murray, 26 August 1813
“I have looked over and corrected one proof, but not so
carefully (God knows if you can read it through, but I can’t) as to preclude your
eye from discovering some omission of mine or commission of your ![]()
| A. D. 1813. | LIFE OF LORD BYRON. | 417 |
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printer. If you have patience,
look it over. Do you know any body who can stop—I mean point—commas, and so forth? for I am, I hear, a sad hand at your punctuation. I
have, but with some difficulty, not added any more to this snake of a Poem, which has
been lengthening its rattles every month. It is now fearfully long, being more than a
Canto and a half of Childe Harold, which
contains but 882 lines per book, with all late additions inclusive.
“The last lines Hodgson likes. It is not often he does, and when he don’t, he tells
me with great energy, and I fret and alter. I have thrown them in to soften the ferocity
of our Infidel, and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to say for himself.
* *
* *
“I was quite sorry to hear you say you staid in town on my
account, and I hope sincerely you did not mean so superfluous a piece of politeness.
“Our six critiques!—they would have
made half a Quarterly by themselves; but
this is the age of criticism.”
Francis Hodgson (1781-1852)
Provost of Eton College, translator of Juvenal (1807) and close friend of Byron. He wrote
for the
Monthly and
Critical Reviews, and was
author of (among other volumes of poetry)
Childe Harold's Monitor; or
Lines occasioned by the last Canto of Childe Harold (1818).
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
