of July, fifty-six were accomplished by the
9th, "ninety and eight" by the 13th, and on July 20 he announces "the
completion of the fourth and ultimate canto of _Childe Harold_. It
consists of 126 stanzas." One stanza (xl.) was appended to the fair
copy. It suggested a parallel between Ariosto "the Southern Scott," and
Scott "the Northern Ariosto," and excited some misgiving.

In commending his new poem to Murray (July 20, August 7), Byron notes
three points in which it differed from its predecessors: it is "the
longest of the four;" "it treats more of works of art than of nature;"
"there are no metaphysics in it--at least, I think not." In other words,
"The Fourth Canto is not a continuation of the Third. I have parted
company with Shelley and Wordsworth. Subject-matter and treatment are
alike new."

The poem as it stood was complete, and, as a poem, it lost as well as
gained by the insertion of additional stanzas and groups of stanzas,
"purple patch" on "purple patch," each by itself so attractive and so
splendid. The pilgrim finds himself at Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs."
He beholds in a vision the departed glories of "a thousand years." The
"long array of shadows," the "beings of the mind," come to him "like
truth," and repeople the vacancy. But he is an exile, and turns homeward
in thought to "the inviolate island of the sage and free." He is an
exile and a sufferer. He can and will endure his fate, but "ever and
anon" he feels the prick of woe, and with the sympathy of despair would
stand "a ruin amidst ruins," a desolate soul in a land of desolation and
decay. He renews his pilgrimage. He passes Arqua, where "they keep the
dust of Laura's lover," lingers for a day at Ferrara, haunted by
memories of "Torquato's injured shade," and, as he approaches "the fair
white walls" of Florence, he re-echoes the "Italia! oh, Italia!" of
Filicaja's impassioned strains. At Florence he gazes, "dazzled and drunk
with beauty," at the "goddess in stone," the Medicean Venus, but
forbears to "describe the indescribable," to break the silence of Art by
naming its mysteries. Santa Croce and the other glories "in Arno's dome
of Art's most princely shrine," he passes by unsung, if not unseen; but
Thrasymene's "sheet of silver," the "living crystal" of Clitumnus'
"gentlest waters," and Terni's "matchless cataract," on whose verge "an
Iris sits," and "lone Soracte's ridge," not only call forth his spirit's
homage, but receive the homag