Note 15 — POEMS 1809-1813.

{19} [These lines are copied from a leaf of the original MS. of the Second Canto of Childe Harold. They are headed, "Lines written beneath the Picture of J.U.D."

In a curious work of doubtful authority, entitled, The Life, Writings, Opinions and Times of the Right Hon. G. G. Noel Byron, London, 1825 (iii. 123-132), there is a long and circumstantial narrative of a "defeated" attempt of Byron's to rescue a Georgian girl, whom he had bought in the slave-market for 800 piastres, from a life of shame and degradation. It is improbable that these verses suggested the story; and, on the other hand, the story, if true, does afford some clue to the verses.]