With the genuine literary thrift that marked all of Byron's career, he preserved a copy of the lines, and some years after recast them, touched them up a bit, included the stuff in a book—and there you are.
The other incident is that of Hobhouse recording in his journal the bare and barren fact that outside the city wall in Persia they once saw two dogs gnawing a human body. Byron saw the sight, but made no mention of it at the time. He waited, the scene sealed up in his brain-cells. Years after he wrote thus:
"And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall,
Hold o'er the dead their carnival;
Gorging and growling o'er carcass and limb,
They were too busy to bark at him.
From a Tartar's skull they stripped the flesh,
As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh;
And their white tusks crunched on the whiter skull,
As it slipped through their jaws when the edge grew dull."
And this only proves that Hobhouse was not a poet and Byron was. The poet is never content to state the mere facts—facts are only valuable as suggestions for poetry.
Travel often excites the spirit to the point of expression. Good travelers carry pads and pencils. Byron reached England with fragments of marbles, skulls, pictures, shells, spears, guns, curios beyond count, and many manuscripts in process.
Upon arriving on the English coast the first news that reached him was that his mother had just died. He hastened to Newstead and reached there in time to attend the funeral, but refrained from following the cortege to the grave because he could not master his emotions. Their quarrels were at last ended.
A diversion to his feelings came soon after, in the way of a blunt letter from Tom Moore demanding if Lord Byron was the author of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers."
Byron replied very stiffly that he was, but he really had intended no insult to Mr. Moore, with whom he had not the honor of being acquainted. Furthermore, if Mr. Moore felt himself aggrieved, why, the author of "English Bards" was at his service to supply him such satisfaction as he required.
The irate Irishman accepted "the apology," a genial reply followed, and soon the poets met at the house of a friend, and there began that lifelong friendship, with the result that Moore wrote Byron's "Life" and used much needless whitewash.
While abroad Byron had gotten into shape for publication one piece of manuscript. This was "Hints From Horace," and the matter was placed in the hands of Mr. Dallas, his businessman, very soon after his arrival. Dallas read the poem and did not like it.