ABSTRACT
Byron, Childe Harold, III (1816) and Prisoner of Chillan (1816); review by Walter Scott, Quarterly Review, XVI (Oct. 1816), 172–208. [Issue appeared February 11, 1817.] George Ellis, who had in the early Quarterly reviews of Byron steadfastly refused to identify the poet with his hero, was dead. Walter Scott breaks with his friend’s urbane impersonality and turns the focus on the poet rather than the poem. But in this remarkably cogent review there is also an astute discussion (from the Tory viewpoint) of the usefulness to Great Britain of having France ruled by Louis XVIII rather than Napoleon (pp. 191–194), Scott’s confession of his dislike of Rousseau’s Julie amid the general praise of it (p. 198), a perceptive thematic analysis of The Prisoner of Chillon (pp. 200 ff.), and an eloquent personal appeal from one whom Byron admired and respected (pp. 206–208). Byron himself praised the review highly.
