THE CORSAIR:'

A TALE.

"I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno." TASSO, Gerusalemme Liberata, canto x.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE CORSAIR.

"THE CORSAIR" was completed on the 31st of December, 1813, having been composed in ten days, at the rate of 200 lines a day. When the wonderful merit of the Tale is considered, the feat is without a parallel in the history of poetry. The only additions to the original draught were the fifth, seventeenth, and twenty-third sections of Canto III. Medora was a portrait of an acquaintance, and is called Francesca in the manuscript. Lord Byron had tried the heroic couplet in one of the paragraphs of "The Bride of Abydos," and the admiration lavished upon it, may have induced him to adopt that measure in "The Corsair." Though no metre was so hackneyed, it assumed in his hands a distinctive character. There are lines which recall his deep study of Pope, but, with much of Pope's terseness, there is far greater freedom; and, with less negligence than Dryden, there is even more than Dryden's ease and spirit. The stream of the narrative bounds along in a rapid and sparkling current; and, notwithstanding the fetters of a monotonous metre, and the exigencies of rhyme, all the varieties of incident and emotion, assume their natural and ever-changing expression. Without one feeble passage-and hardly a feeble couplet-there are gems which shine conspicuous amid the general blaze. Myriads of partings have been painted in poetry, but the parting of Conrad and Medora is the masterpiece of them all. Nor can anything be truer to nature than the instant exchange of feminine tenderness for martial enthusiasm in the Pirate's breast, when nearing the vessel he sees his flag, and hears the animating hum of preparation. The unrivalled scene in which the Corsair throws off his disguise, is needless to be specified, and from the second visit of Gulnare to his cell, up to her final dismissal, is one glorious flow of passionate verse. Lord Byron has informed us that the tale "was written con amore, and much from existence." A few days later, and he makes in his journal this singular entry: "Hobhouse told me an odd report,that I am the actual Conrad, the veritable Corsair, and that part of my travels are supposed to have passed in piracy. Um!-people sometimes hit near the truth, but never the whole truth. H. don't know what I was about the year after he left the Levant; nor does any one-nornor-nor-however, it is a lie-but 'I doubt the equivocation of the fiend that lies like truth!'" He mentioned the report to a female acquaintance, who replied, "I don't wonder, Conrad is so like," upon which he remarks that if she knew nothing, no one else could. Whatever may be the meaning of these dark allusions, the figure, the features, and the spare diet of Conrad, had their counterpart in Lord Byron; and in his supercilious smile, in his haughty and melancholy mien, in his low opinion of mankind, and in his self-reproachful and uneasy soul, "that man of loneliness and mystery was the poet in his sombre and unbending moods. The success of the poem was immense. Sir James Mackintosh mentioned, as a proof of Lord Byron being the author of the time, that 6,000 copies of "The Bride of Abydos" were sold within a month, but of "The Corsair" 14,000 were sold in a day. Lord Byron presented the copyright to Mr. Dallas, who disposed of it for 500 guineas.

ΤΟ

THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.

MY DEAR MOORE,

I DEDICATE to you the last production with which I shall trespass on public patience, and your indulgence, for some years; and I own that I feel anxious to avail myself of this latest and only opportunity of adorning my pages with a name, consecrated by unshaken public principle, and the most undoubted and various talents. While Ireland ranks you among the firmest of her patriots; while you stand alone the first of her bards in her estimation, and Britain repeats and ratifies the decree, permit one, whose only regret, since our first acquaintance, has been the years he had lost before it commenced, to add the humble but sincere suffrage of friendship, to the voice of more than one nation. It will at least prove to you, that I have neither forgotten the gratification derived from your society, nor abandoned the prospect of its renewal, whenever your leisure or inclination allows you to atone to your friends for too long an absence. It is said among those friends, I trust truly, that you are engaged in the composition of a poem whose scene will be laid in the East; none can do those scenes so much justice. The

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wrongs of your own country,* the magnificent and fiery spirit of her sons, the beauty and feeling of her daughters, may there be found; and Collins, when he denominated his Oriental his Irish Eclogues, was not aware how true, at least, was a part of his parallel. Your imagination will create a warmer sun, and less clouded sky; but wildness, tenderness, and originality, are part of your national claim of oriental descent, to which you have already thus far proved your title more clearly than the most zealous of your country's antiquarians.

May I add a few words on a subject on which all men are supposed to be fluent, and none agreeable ?—Self. I have written much, and published more than enough to demand a longer silence than I now meditate; but, for some years to come, it is my intention to tempt no further the award of "Gods, men, nor columns." In the present composition I have attempted not the most difficult, but, perhaps, the best adapted measure to our language, the good old and now neglected heroic couplet. The stanza of Spenser is perhaps too slow and dignified for narrative; though, I confess, it is the measure most after my own

* [This political allusion having been objected to by a friend, Lord Byron sent a second dedication to Mr. MOORE, with a request that he would "take his choice." It ran as follows:

"MY DEAR MOORE,

January 7th, 1814.

"I had written to you a long letter of dedication, which I suppress, because, though it contained something relating to you, which every one had been glad to hear, yet there was too much about politics and poesy, and all things whatsoever, ending with that topic on which most men are fluent, and none very amusing,-one's self. It might have been re-written; but to what purpose? My praise could add nothing to your well-earned and firmly established fame; and with my most hearty admiration of your talents, and delight in your conversation, you are already acquainted. In availing myself of your friendly permission to inscribe this poem to you, I can only wish the offering were as worthy your acceptance, as your regard is dear to "Yours, most affectionately and faithfully, "BYRON."]

heart: Scott alone,* of the present generation, has hitherto completely triumphed over the fatal facility of the octosyllabic verse; and this is not the least victory of his fertile and mighty genius: in blank verse, Milton, Thomson, and our dramatists, are the beacons that shine along the deep, but warn us from the rough and barren rock on which they are kindled. The heroic couplet is not the most popular measure certainly; but as I did not deviate into the other from a wish to flatter what is called public opinion, I shall quit it without further apology, and take my chance once more with that versification, in which I have hitherto published nothing but compositions whose former circulation is part of my present, and will be of *my future regret.

With regard to my story, and stories in general, I should have been glad to have rendered my personages more perfect and amiable, if possible, inasmuch as I have been sometimes criticised, and considered no less responsible for their deeds and qualities than if all had been personal. Be it so if I have deviated into the gloomy vanity of "drawing from self," the pictures are probably like, since they are unfavourable; and if not, those who know me are undeceived, and those who do not, I have little interest in undeceiving. I have no particular desire that any but my acquaintance should think the author better than the beings of his imagining; but I cannot help a little surprise, and perhaps amusement, at some odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when I see several bards (far more deserving, I allow) in very reputable plight, and quite exempted from all participation in the faults of those heroes, who, nevertheless, might be found with little more morality than "The Giaour," and perhaps -but no-I must admit Childe Harold to be a very

* [After the words "Scott alone," Lord Byron had inserted, in a parenthesis-"He will excuse the Mr.'-we do not say Mr. Cæsar."]