Page:The Diary of Dr John William Polidori.djvu/83

Rh "For one brief hour of deathless fame" [Scott]. "Oh Walter Scott, for shame, for shame" [Byron].

[The novels of the Abate Casti (who died in 1803) are notoriously licentious: hence, I suppose, Polidori's surprise at the presentation of them by Mr. Gordon. Byron, it is stated by this gentleman, was asked by Mrs. Gordon on May 5 to write some lines in her album. He took the volume away with him, and on the following day brought it back, having inserted in it the two opening stanzas on Waterloo forming part of canto 3 of Childe Harold—from

"Stop, for thy tread is on an empire's dust," to "He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain"]

May 6.—Mr. G[ordon] and son came while at breakfast; gave us letters, etc. Saw the little child again; B[yron] gave it a doll.

[It may be excusable to suppose that this trifling incident is not wholly foreign to a stanza, 54, in the 3rd canto of Childe Harold. This stanza comes immediately after Byron has begun to speak of the Rhine, and incidentally of the affection which his half-sister bore him. Then he proceeds—

And he had learn'd to love—I know not why, For this in such as him seems strange of mood— The helpless looks of blooming infancy. Even in its earliest nurture. What subdued,