Note 356 — THE SIEGE OF CORINTH

[Gifford has drawn his pen through lines 456-478. If, as the editor of The Works of Lord Byron, 1832 (x. 100), maintains, "Lord Byron gave Mr. Gifford carte blanche to strike out or alter anything at his pleasure in this poem as it was passing through the press," it is somewhat remarkable that he does not appear to have paid any attention whatever to the august "reader's" suggestions and strictures. The sheets on which Gifford's corrections are scrawled are not proof-sheets, but pages torn out of the first edition; and it is probable that they were made after the poem was published, and with a view to the inclusion of an emended edition in the collected works. See letter to Murray, January 2, 1817.]