Italy

I should not, indeed, have ventured upon such a publication but for the following circumstance.

When I rejoined Lord Byron at La Mira, on the banks of the Brenta, in the summer of 1817, I found him employed upon the fourth canto of Childe Harold,' and, later in the autumn, he showed me the first sketch of the poem. It was much shorter than it afterwards became, and it did not remark on several objects which appeared to me peculiarly worthy of notice. I made a list of those objects, and, in conversation with him, gave him reasons for the selection. The result was the poem as it now appears, and he then engaged me to write notes for the whole canto. I performed this task chiefly at Venice, where I had the advantage of consulting the Ducal library, and was seduced by the attractions of the inquiry, and, if I may say so much, by my love for it, into a commentary too bulky for an appendix to the Poem. The consequence was the division of the notes into two parts, one of which was appended to the canto in the form of notes, the other appeared in a separate volume of Historical Illustrations.' I mentioned this in the Preface to that volume, and I repeat it now to another generation, to account for venturing to write about Italy at all.

I have been given to understand that both the Notes

and the Illustrations have been received favourably by those qualified to form a judgment on such subjects; and having been enabled, by subsequent visits to Italy and some researches at home, to make amendments and explanatory comments on them, I have added much new matter, which, I hope, may contribute, in some degree, to their general interest, and make them more useful to the traveller.

I am aware that this new portion of my volumes requires most excuse, but that excuse will, I hope, suggest itself to the reader; for, if it does not, nothing that the writer might say would be of any avail.

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