Gifford's verdict on the first act was that it was "wonderfully poetical" and "merited publication," but, as Byron had foreseen, he did not "by any means like" the third act. It was, as its author admitted (Letter to Murray, April 14) "damnably bad," and savoured of the "dregs of a fever," for which the Carnival (Letter to Murray, February 28) or, more probably, the climate and insanitary "palaces" of Venice were responsible. Some weeks went by before there was either leisure or inclination for the task of correction, but at Rome the _estro_ returned in full force, and on May 5 a "new third act of _Manfred_--the greater part rewritten," was sent by post to England. _Manfred, a Dramatic Poem_, was published June 16, 1817.
_Manfred_ was criticized by Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_ (No. lvi., August, 1817, vol. 28, pp. 418-431), and by John Wilson in the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_ (afterwards _Blackwood's, etc._) (June, 1817, i. 289-295). Jeffrey, as Byron remarked (Letter to Murray, October 12, 1817), was "very kind," and Wilson, whose article "had all the air of being a poet's," was eloquent in its praises. But there was a fly in the ointment. "A suggestion" had been thrown out, "in an ingenious paper in a late number of the _Edinburgh Magazine_ [signed H. M. (John Wilson), July, 1817], that the general conception of this piece, and much of what is excellent in the manner of its execution, have been borrowed from the _Tragical History of Dr. Faustus_ of Marlow (_sic_);" and from this contention Jeffrey dissented. A note to a second paper on Marlowe's _Edward II_. (_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, October, 1817) offered explanations, and echoed Jeffrey's exaltation of _Manfred_ above _Dr. Faustus_; but the mischief had been done. Byron was evidently perplexed and distressed, not by the papers in _Blackwood_, which he never saw, but by Jeffrey's remonstrance in his favour; and in the letter of October 12 he is at pains to trace the "evolution" of _Manfred_. "I never read," he writes, "and do not know that I ever saw the _Faustus_ of Marlow;" and, again, "As to the _Faustus_ of Marlow, I never read, never saw, nor heard of it." "I heard Mr. Lewis translate verbally some scenes of Goethe's _Faust_ ... last summer" (see, too, Letter to Rogers, April 4, 1817), which is all I know of the history of that magical personage; and as to the germs of _Manfred_, they may be found in the Journal which I sent to Mrs. Leigh ... when I went over first the Dent, etc., ... shortly before I left Switzerland. I have the whole scene of _Manfred_ before me."