INTRODUCTION TO LARA. IN the Dedication to "The Corsair" (Jan. 2, 1814), Lord Byron announced that he should publish nothing further for several years. For a time the resolution increased in strength, and in the April following he came to the most extraordinary decision that ever entered the mind of a successful author, which was not only to write no more in future, but to recall every line he had already penned. He sent Mr. Murray a draft for the sum which had been paid for the copyrights, and an appeal to his good nature from the publisher, alone prevented the execution of the scheme. While Europe rang with his fame, the hisses of envy, hatred, and malice made themselves heard amid the loud applause. His friends, who acknowledged that no one wrote so well, feared he would write too much; and he himself doubted the solid worth of what he wrote so fast. Under the united influence of these impressions he resolved to lay by, and meant, perhaps, in the interval, to gather himself up for a mighty spring, when the appetite of the public was increased by abstinence. But he might have detirmined not to breathe with an equal chance of keeping his vow. Before the end of May "Lara" was begun, and was carried on chiefly while the author undressed after balls and masquerades. It was published, anonymously, in August, in the same volume with the "Jacqueline" of Rogers, a conjunction too unnatural to last beyond the hour. An acquaintance of Lord Byron, who was reading the book in the Brighton coach, was asked by a passenger the name of the author, and on replying that they were two, "Ay, Ay," rejoined the querist," a joint concern, I suppose,-summot like Sternhold and Hopkins." The "vile comparison" delighted Lord Byron, always pleased with any ludicrous absurdity which struck at literary fame. It is evident that the tale is the sequel of "The Corsair" -that Lara is Conrad; Kaled, Gulnare, and that Medora was snatched from Sir Ezzelin and fled with her lover to the Pirate's Island. A few months after the appearance of the poem Lord Byron pronounced that it was "his most unpopular effervescence, being too little narrative, and too metaphysical to please the majority of readers." The continuation is certainly tame in comparison with "The Corsair." The character of Lara-in which Lord Byron drew again from his personal history-is rather tediously minute; and, with much fine verse, there is not the former living language, and hurrying action, to bear us onward with breathless haste. George Ellis objected that the mysterious vision, which appears to Lara in his antique hall, was an excrescence on the poem, and it is now obvious that the connection was not with the story, but with the author's recollections of his own old haunted Gothic Abbey. The skull, too, placed beside Lara's book was part of the cherished furniture of Newstead; and, at one period of Lord Byron's history, the woman, disguised like a page, was also there, to complete the picture. The conclusion of the second canto, commencing from the sixteenth section, is full of spirit and pathos, and many of the elegant and elaborate descriptions only disappoint from the inevitable contrast with the more brilliant "Corsair." Lord Byron fancied he had varied the couplet of "Lara" from that of its predecessor, but, except that the latter is more antithetical, we have not been able to detect the difference. Seven hundred pounds was the price of the copyright. CANTO THE FIRST. I. THE Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain, And gay retainers gather round the hearth, II. The chief of Lara is return'd again : And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main? M III. And Lara left in youth his father-land; But from the hour he waved his parting hand His sire was dust, his vassals could declare, IV. He comes at last in sudden loneliness, And whence they know not, why they need not guess; They more might marvel, when the greeting's o'er, Not that he came, but came not long before: No train is his beyond a single page, Of foreign aspect, and of tender age. Years had roll'd on, and fast they speed away He lives, nor yet is past his manhood's prime, V. And they indeed were changed-'t is quickly seen, The stinging of a heart the world hath stung, And makes those feel that will not own the wound; That some can conquer, and that all would claim, VI. Not much he loved long question of the past, VII. Not unrejoiced to see him once again, He did not follow what they all pursued And things more timid that beheld him near VIII. 'Twas strange-in youth all action and all life, To curse the wither'd heart that would not break. IX. Books, for his volume heretofore was Man, Through night's long hours would sound his hurried tread In rude but antique portraiture around: They heard, but whisper'd-" that must not be knownThe sound of words less earthly than his own. |