e Servant,

WALTER SCOTT.

This episode led to the opening of an agreeable correspondence between
Scott and Byron, and to a lasting friendship between the two poets.

The fit of inspiration was now on Lord Byron. In May 1813 appeared "The
Giaour," and in the midst of his corrections of successive editions of
it, he wrote in four nights his second Turkish story, "Zuleika,"
afterwards known as "The Bride of Abydos."

With respect to the business arrangement as to the two poems, Mr. Murray
wrote to Lord Byron as follows:

_John Murray to Lord Byron_.

_November_ 18, 1813.

MY DEAR LORD,

I am very anxious that our business transactions should occur
frequently, and that they should be settled immediately; for short
accounts are favourable to long friendships.

I restore "The Giaour" to your Lordship entirely, and for it, the "Bride
of Abydos," and the miscellaneous poems intended to fill up the volume
of the small edition, I beg leave to offer you the sum of One Thousand
Guineas; and I shall be happy if you perceive that my estimation of your
talents in my character of a man of business is not much under my
admiration of them as a man.

I do most heartily accept the offer of your portrait, as the most noble
mark of friendship with which you could in any way honour me. I do
assure you that I am truly proud of being distinguished as your
publisher, and that I shall ever continue,

Your Lordship's faithful Servant,

JOHN MURRAY.

With reference to the foregoing letter we read in Lord Byron's Diary:

"Mr. Murray has offered me one thousand guineas for 'The Giaour' and
'The Bride of Abydos.' I won't. It is too much: though I am strongly
tempted, merely for the say of it. No bad price for a fortnight's (a
week each) what?--the gods know. It was intended to be called poetry."

The "Bride of Abydos" was received with almost as much applause as the
"Giaour." "Lord Byron," said Sir James Mackintosh, "is the author of the
day; six thousand of his 'Bride of Abydos' have been sold within a
month."

"The Corsair" was Lord Byron's next poem, written with great vehemence,
literally "struck off at a heat," at the rate of about two hundred lines
a day,--"a circumstance," says Moore, "that is, perhaps, wholly without
a parallel in the history of genius." "The Corsair" was begun on the
18th, and finished on the 31st of December, 1813.

A sudden impulse induced Lord Byron to present the copyright of this
poem also to Mr.