tter to Murray, February 28) or,
more probably, the climate and insanitary "palaces" of Venice were
responsible. Some weeks went by before there was either leisure or
inclination for the task of correction, but at Rome the _estro_ returned
in full force, and on May 5 a "new third act of _Manfred_--the greater
part rewritten," was sent by post to England. _Manfred, a Dramatic
Poem_, was published June 16, 1817.

_Manfred_ was criticized by Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_ (No. lvi.,
August, 1817, vol. 28, pp. 418-431), and by John Wilson in the
_Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_ (afterwards _Blackwood's, etc._) (June,
1817, i. 289-295). Jeffrey, as Byron remarked (Letter to Murray, October
12, 1817), was "very kind," and Wilson, whose article "had all the air
of being a poet's," was eloquent in its praises. But there was a fly in
the ointment. "A suggestion" had been thrown out, "in an ingenious paper
in a late number of the _Edinburgh Magazine_ [signed H. M. (John
Wilson), July, 1817], that the general conception of this piece, and
much of what is excellent in the manner of its execution, have been
borrowed from the _Tragical History of Dr. Faustus_ of Marlow (_sic_);"
and from this contention Jeffrey dissented. A note to a second paper on
Marlowe's _Edward II_. (_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, October, 1817)
offered explanations, and echoed Jeffrey's exaltation of _Manfred_ above
_Dr. Faustus_; but the mischief had been done. Byron was evidently
perplexed and distressed, not by the papers in _Blackwood_, which he
never saw, but by Jeffrey's remonstrance in his favour; and in the
letter of October 12 he is at pains to trace the "evolution" of
_Manfred_. "I never read," he writes, "and do not know that I ever saw
the _Faustus_ of Marlow;" and, again, "As to the _Faustus_ of Marlow, I
never read, never saw, nor heard of it." "I heard Mr. Lewis translate
verbally some scenes of Goethe's _Faust_ ... last summer" (see, too,
Letter to Rogers, April 4, 1817), which is all I know of the history of
that magical personage; and as to the germs of _Manfred_, they may be
found in the Journal which I sent to Mrs. Leigh ... when I went over
first the Dent, etc., ... shortly before I left Switzerland. I have the
whole scene of _Manfred_ before me."

Again, three years later he writes (_a propos_ of Goethe's review of
_Manfred_, which first appeared in print in his paper _Kunst und
Alterthum_, June, 1820, and is republished in Goethe's _S