de in the course of printing,
some of the most beautiful passages of the work owe their existence. On
comparing, indeed, his rough draft of the two Cantos with the finished
form in which they exist at present, we are made sensible of the power
which the man of genius possesses, not only of surpassing others, but of
improving on himself. Originally, the "little Page" and "Yeoman" of the
Childe were introduced to the reader's notice in the following tame
stanzas, by expanding the substance of which into their present light,
lyric shape, it is almost needless to remark how much the poet has
gained in variety and dramatic effect:--

"And of his train there was a henchman page,
A peasant boy, who serv'd his master well;
And often would his pranksome prate engage
Childe Burun's[40] ear, when his proud heart did swell
With sullen thoughts that he disdain'd to tell.
Then would he smile on him, and Alwin[41] smiled,
When aught that from his young lips archly fell,
The gloomy film from Harold's eye beguiled....

"Him and one yeoman only did he take
To travel eastward to a far countrie;
And, though the boy was grieved to leave the lake,
On whose fair banks he grew from infancy,
Eftsoons his little heart beat merrily,
With hope of foreign nations to behold,
And many things right marvellous to see,
Of which our vaunting travellers oft have told,
From Mandeville....[42]"

In place of that mournful song "To Ines," in the first Canto, which
contains some of the dreariest touches of sadness that even his pen ever
let fall, he had, in the original construction of the poem, been so
little fastidious as to content himself with such ordinary sing-song as
the following:--

"Oh never tell again to me
Of Northern climes and British ladies,
It has not been your lot to see,
Like me, the lovely girl of Cadiz,
Although her eye be not of blue,
Nor fair her locks, like English lasses," &c. &c.

There were also, originally, several stanzas full of direct personality,
and some that degenerated into a style still more familiar and ludicrous
than that of the description of a London Sunday, which still disfigures
the poem. In thus mixing up the light with the solemn, it was the
intention of the poet to imitate Ariosto. But it is far easier to rise,
with grace, from the level of a strain generally familiar, into an