in his study,
these stanzas were produced--the tears, as he said, falling fast over
the paper as he wrote them" (_Life_, p. 302).

With whatever purpose, or under whatever emotion the lines were written,
Byron did not keep them to himself. They were shown to Murray, and
copies were sent to "the initiated." "I have just received," writes
Murray, "the enclosed letter from Mrs. Maria Graham [1785-1842, _nee_
Dundas, authoress and traveller, afterwards Lady Callcott], to whom I
had sent the verses. It will show you that you are thought of in the
remotest corners, and furnishes me with an excuse for repeating that I
shall not forget you. God bless your Lordship. Fare _Thee_ Well" [MSS.
M.].

But it does not appear that they were printed in their final shape (the
proof of a first draft, consisting of thirteen stanzas, is dated March
18, 1816) till the second copy of verses were set up in type with a view
to private distribution (see _Letters_, 1899, iii. 279). Even then there
was no thought of publication on the part of Byron or of Murray, and, as
a matter of fact, though _Fare Thee Well_ was included in the "Poems" of
1816, it was not till both poems had appeared in over twenty pirated
editions that _A Sketch_ was allowed to appear in vol. iii. of the
Collected Works of 1819. Unquestionably Byron intended that the
"initiated," whether foes or sympathizers, should know that he had not
taken his dismissal in silence; but it is far from certain that he
connived at the appearance of either copy of verses in the public press.
It is impossible to acquit him of the charge of appealing to a limited
circle of specially chosen witnesses and advocates in a matter which lay
between himself and his wife, but the aggravated offence of rushing into
print may well be attributed to "the injudicious zeal of a friend," or
the "malice prepense" of an enemy. If he had hoped that the verses would
slip into a newspaper, as it were, _malgre lui_, he would surely have
taken care that the seed fell on good ground under the favouring
influence of Perry of the _Morning Chronicle_, or Leigh Hunt of the
_Examiner_. As it turned out, the first paper which possessed or
ventured to publish a copy of the "domestic pieces" was the _Champion_,
a Tory paper, then under the editorship of John Scott (1783-1821), a man
of talent and of probity, but, as Mr. Lang puts it (_Life and Letters_
of John Gibson Lockhart, 1897, i. 256), "Scotch, and a professed
moralist