[177] See Letters, ii., 413 (Appendix i.).
[178] Letters, ii., 379; ii, 403.
[179] See Fuhrman’s Die Belesenheit des jungen Byron, Berlin, 1903.
[180] Letters, iii., 19.
[181] Letters, v., 70.
[182] Life of Byron, iv., 237.
[183] Frere was well known in 1817 as a prominent London wit. His career as a diplomat, which apparently promised him high preferment, had been cut short by some unlucky transactions leading to his being held partly responsible for the failure of the Peninsular campaign, and he had been recalled in 1809 from his position as envoy to Ferdinand VII. of Spain. The incident drew upon him Byron’s lines on “blundering Frere” in some expunged stanzas of Childe Harold, I. Piqued by the action of the government and constitutionally inclined to inactivity, Frere had since led an indolent and self-indulgent existence as scholar and clubman.
[184] Dr. Eichler finds that Frere drew something from Aristophanes and Cervantes, but more from Pulci, Berni, and Casti. For Frere’s indebtedness to the Italians, see Eichler’s Frere, 115.
[185] Letters, iv., 172.
[186] Letters, iv., 176.