. . . . It is yet to be copied and polished, and the notes are to
come.'

Under date of La Mira, August 7, 1817, he records that the new canto is
one hundred and thirty stanzas in length, and talks about the price for
it. He is now ready to launch it on the world; and, as now appears, on
August 9, 1817, _two days after_, he wrote the document above cited, and
put it into the hands of Mr. Lewis, as we are informed, 'for circulation
among friends in England.'

The reason of this may now be evident. Having prepared a suitable number
of those whom he calls in his notes to Murray 'the initiated,' by private
documents and statements, he is now prepared to publish his accusations
against his wife, and the story of his wrongs, in a great immortal poem,
which shall have a band of initiated interpreters, shall be read through
the civilised world, and stand to accuse her after his death.

In the Fourth Canto of 'Childe Harold,' with all his own overwhelming
power of language, he sets forth his cause as against the silent woman
who all this time had been making no party, and telling no story, and
whom the world would therefore conclude to be silent because she had no
answer to make. I remember well the time when this poetry, so resounding
in its music, so mournful, so apparently generous, filled my heart with a
vague anguish of sorrow for the sufferer, and of indignation at the cold
insensibility that had maddened him. Thousands have felt the power of
this great poem, which stands, and must stand to all time, a monument of
what sacred and solemn powers God gave to this wicked man, and how vilely
he abused this power as a weapon to slay the innocent.

It is among the ruins of ancient Rome that his voice breaks forth in
solemn imprecation:--

'O Time, thou beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin, comforter,
And only healer when the heart hath bled!--
Time, the corrector when our judgments err,
The test of truth, love,--sole philosopher,
For all besides are sophists,--from thy shrift
That never loses, though it doth defer!--
Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift
My hands and heart and eyes, and claim of thee a gift.

* * * *

'If thou hast ever seen me too elate,
Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne
Good, and reserved my pride against the hate
Which shall not whelm me, _let me not have worn
This iron in my soul in vain, shall_ THEY _not mourn_