This let the armourer with speed dispose;
Last time, it more fatigued my arm than foes:"
I exclaimed, like T. W., "What! his sword fatigued his foes? What a most absurd expression! To be sure, one may imagine that when Conrad was killing his enemies one after another without stopping, they would say, What a tiresome man he is! but this does not seem to be in the vein of the narration." And then, reading the passage again, and considering that the pirate complains of the guard of his sword being too narrow, I saw plainly that, with whatever damage to the rhythm, the verse was to be read—
"Last time, it more fatigued my arm than foes" (did).
My sword, by its not fitting to my hand, fatigued my arm more than all the resistance that foes could offer.
I will give another example of the same kind, again taken from the Pirate. In the enthusiastic description of a ship, he says:
"Who would not brave the battle-fire—the wreck—
To move the monarch of her peopled deck?"
"Who?" I exclaimed; "but who wants to move him? This monarch is, I suppose, the captain; but why should men in general wish to move him?" I suppose most of your readers see at the first what I saw at the second glance, that Byron meant "to move as the monarch of this deck," that is, to be the captain.
If I have satisfied T. W. and the rest of your readers of the construction of the first passage, I have, I think, also shown that the tendency to such transient mistakes in reading Byron is not uncommon.