ABSTRACT
Probably composed July or early August 1810. The poem first appeared in V&C (completed 10 August 1810), and was probably then a recent composition, as it was included in ch. i of St Irvyne (published 18 December 1810), where the high-born Wolfstein, who has just joined a band of Alpine banditti, inscribes ‘on a tablet the following lines: for the inaccuracy of which, the perturbation of him who wrote them, may account.’ (He then tears the poem up.) It is explained only that ‘before he had become an associate with the band of robbers, the conscience of Wolfstein had been clear; clear, at least, from the commission of any wilful and deliberate crime’, but that ‘an event almost too dreadful for narration, had compelled him to quit his native country.’ Wolfstein’s lines are untitled; the present title is taken from V&C; all other titles are editorial. Verbal differences only from V&C are recorded.
