Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/33

Rh or false. The Editor's assertion that "he received it from Dr. Polidori for a small sum" does not by any means clear up all the facts. It seems quite possible that there really was a correspondent at Geneva who sent to the Editor the MS. of The Vampyre, along with that of Polidori's other tale, and an outline of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as expressly affirmed in the final note signed "Ed."; and that the Editor, having no right to publish The Vampyre unless by authority of its writer, spoke to Polidori about it. How could Polidori dispose of it "for a small sum" if he alleged that it was written by Byron, or by any one other than himself? He averred "that the whole plan of it was" Byron's—and this is apparently true; adding "that it was merely written out by" himself—in the sense not of having written from Byron's dictation, but of having composed a story founded upon Byron's intended incidents. Murray's final phrase—that Polidori "went to the Editor, and declared that he would deny it"—is loosely expressed, but seems to mean that he would deny Byron's authorship of The Vampyre—and so in fact he did.

If we suppose (as did Murray apparently) that Polidori had in the first instance planned a deliberate imposture, and had palmed off upon the Editor The Vampyre as being virtually the writing of Byron, we are encountered by three difficulties left unexplained: