ABSTRACT
Byron, Childe Harold, IV (1818); review by Walter Scott, Quarterly Review, XIX (April 1818), 215–232. [Issue appeared September 1818.] Scott continues the sensitive analysis he began in the review of Childe Harold, III. Noticeably, though he remains critical of Byron’s skeptical viewpoint, he expresses opinions, such as his hope for a united Italy (p. 223) and his conviction that “each man .. . possesses a portion of the ethereal flame” (p. 229), that were shared by Byron and Shelley. In spite of his closing attack on Hobhouse, Scott shows himself to be a product of the same forces of liberalizing opinion, and petty party differences fade before a similarity in humane outlook.
