Chapter 2

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

1. PORTRAIT OF LORD BYRON, FROM A DRAWING FROM THE LIFE BY J. HOLMES, FORMERLY THE PROPERTY OF THE LATE HUGH CHARLES TREVANION, ESQ. Frontispiece

2. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, FROM THE PORTRAIT BY H.W. PICKERSGILL, R.A., IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY To face p. 4

3. NINON DE LENCLOS, FROM A MINIATURE IN THE POSSESSION OF SIR J.G. TOLLEMACHE SINCLAIR, BART. 246

4. FOUNTAIN AT NEWSTEAD ABBEY 500

INTRODUCTION TO _DON JUAN_

Byron was a rapid as well as a voluminous writer. His _Tales_ were thrown off at lightning speed, and even his dramas were thought out and worked through with unhesitating energy and rapid achievement. Nevertheless, the composition of his two great poems was all but coextensive with his poetical life. He began the first canto of _Childe Harold_ in the autumn of 1809, and he did not complete the fourth canto till the spring of 1818. He began the first canto of _Don Juan_ in the autumn of 1818, and he was still at work on a seventeenth canto in the spring of 1823. Both poems were issued in parts, and with long intervals of unequal duration between the parts; but the same result was brought about by different causes and produced a dissimilar effect. _Childe Harold_ consists of three distinct poems descriptive of three successive travels or journeys in foreign lands. The adventures of the hero are but the pretext for the shifting of the diorama; whereas in _Don Juan_ the story is continuous, and the scenery is exhibited as a background for the dramatic evolution of the personality of the hero. _Childe Harold_ came out at intervals, because there were periods when the author was stationary; but the interruptions in the composition and publication of _Don Juan_ were due to the disapproval and discouragement of friends, and the very natural hesitation and procrastination of the publisher.