"He afterwards looked in [at 32, Fleet Street] from time to time, while the sheets [of _Childe Harold_] were passing through the press, fresh from the fencing rooms of Angelo and Jackson. He used to amuse himself by renewing his practice of _Carte et Tierce_, with his walking-cane directed against the book-shelves, while Murray was reading passages from the poem with occasional ejaculations of admiration, on which Byron would say, 'You think that a good idea, do you, Murray?' Then he would fence and lunge with his walking stick at some special book which he had picked out on the shelves before him. As Murray afterwards said, 'I was often very glad to get rid of him!'"
The poem, that is, two Cantos of it, was published March 1, 1812, in an edition of five hundred copies, which were all sold in three days. We hear from Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire, that "the subject of conversation, of curiosity, of enthusiasm, almost, one might say, of the moment is not Spain, or Portugal, Warriors or Patriots, but Lord Byron!" "He returned," she continues, "sorry for the severity of some of his lines (in the _English Bards_), and with a new poem, _Childe Harold_, which he published. This poem is on every table, and himself courted, visited, flattered, and praised whenever he appears. He has a pale, sickly, but handsome countenance, a bad figure, and, in short, he is really the only topic almost of every conversation--the men jealous of him, the women of each other."
Thomas Davison, the printer of the book, was also responsible for many of the volumes of Campbell, Moore and Wordsworth, but he is known chiefly for his fine edition of Whitaker's _History of Richmondshire_, Rogers's _Italy_, and Dugdale's _Monasticon Anglicanum_. Timperley speaks of the singular beauty and correctness of his works, which brought about him a "connection" of the most respectable publishers of the day, and he adds: "By improvements which he made in printing ink, (a secret of which he had for a long time the exclusive possession) and other merits, he acquired great celebrity; and few indeed of his competitors, could approach the characters of what issued from his press."
"For equal accuracy and beauty, let the palm be extended to Davison and Moyes," cries Mr. Dibdin in _The Bibliographical Decameron_. In a note he adds: "Mr. Davison is both an excellent and an elegant printer. His _Gil Blas_, published by Messrs. Longman, Hurst, and Co. is quite worthy of the beautiful engravings with which that edition is adorned: but his _Arabian Nights_, by Scott, 1811, in 6 octavo volumes, is, to my eye, a more exquisite performance."