conjecture. But the latitude given to the taste and genius of their
performers has been the means of engrafting on the original
Melodies a certain wildness and pathos, which have at length become
the chief characteristics of the sacred songs of the Jews....

"Of the poetry it is necessary to speak, in order thus publicly to
acknowledge the kindness with which Lord Byron has condescended to
furnish the most valuable part of the work. It has been our
endeavour to select such melodies as would best suit the style and
sentiment of the poetry."

Moore, for whose benefit the Melodies had been rehearsed, was by no
means impressed by their "wildness and pathos," and seems to have
twitted Byron on the subject, or, as he puts it (_Life_, p. 276), to
have taken the liberty of "laughing a little at the manner in which some
of the Hebrew Melodies had been set to music." The author of _Sacred
Songs_ (1814) set to airs by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, etc., was a
critic not to be gainsaid, but from the half-comical petulance with
which he "curses" and "sun-burns" (Letters to Moore, February 22, March
8, 1815, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 179, 183) Nathan, and his "vile Ebrew
nasalities," it is evident that Byron winced under Moore's "chaff."

Apart from the merits or demerits of the setting, the title _Hebrew
Melodies_ is somewhat misleading. Three love-songs, "She walks in Beauty
like the Night," "Oh! snatched away in Beauty's Bloom," and "I saw thee
weep," still form part of the collection; and, in Nathan's folio (which
does not contain "A spirit passed before me"), two fragments, "It is the
hour when from the boughs" and "Francesca walks in the shadow of night,"
which were afterwards incorporated in _Parisina_, were included. The
_Fugitive Pieces_, 1829, retain the fragments from _Parisina_, and add
the following hitherto unpublished poems: "I speak not, I trace not,"
etc., "They say that Hope is Happiness," and the genuine but rejected
Hebrew Melody "In the valley of waters we wept on the day."

It is uncertain when Murray's first edition appeared. Byron wrote to
Nathan with regard to the copyright in January, 1815 (_Letters_, 1899,
iii. 167), but it is unlikely that the volume was put on the market
before Nathan's folio, which was advertised for the first time in the
_Morning Chronicle_, April 6, 1815; and it is possible that the first
public announcement of the _Hebrew Melodies_, as a separate is