_Stanzas in "Childe Harold"_ (Vol. iv. _passim_).--This stanza has
already occupied too many of your pages; will you, however, allow me to
put a ryder on it, by referring your correspondents to Lord Byron's _own_
ignorance of the meaning of an expression in this stanza, expressed in a
letter to Murray, published in Moore's _Life_, Letter 323, dated Venice,
24th September, 1818, when, after pointing out an error in the same
canto, he says:
"What does 'thy waters _wasted_ them' mean? _That is not me._
Consult the MS. always."
And in a note by Moore on this letter, he says, "This passage retains
_also_ uncorrected."
At the end of this letter Byron writes, "_I saw the canto by accident._"
Query: If Byron only saw his cantos by "accident," would not a new
edition of his works collated with his MSS. be "a consummation devoutly
to be wished."