om I can have no complaint. But I am much
more indebted to the tale than I can ever be to the most partial reader;
as it wrung my thoughts from reality to imagination--from selfish
regrets to vivid recollections--and recalled me to a country replete
with the _brightest_ and _darkest_, but always most _lively_ colours of
my memory" (_Journal_, December 5, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 291,
361).]

THE CORSAIR:

A TALE.

----"I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno."

Tasso, _Gerusalemme Liberata_, Canto X. [stanza lxxviii. line 8].

INTRODUCTION TO _THE CORSAIR_.

A seventh edition of the _Giaour_, including the final additions, and
the first edition of the _Bride of Abydos_, were published on the
twenty-ninth of November, 1813. In less than three weeks (December 18)
Byron began the _Corsair_, and completed the fair copy of the first
draft by the last day of the year. The _Corsair_ in all but its final
shape, together with the sixth edition of the _Bride of Abydos_, the
seventh of _Childe Harold_, and the ninth of the _Giaour_, was issued on
the first of February, 1814.

A letter from John Murray to Lord Byron, dated February 3, 1814 (_Memoir
of John Murray_, 1891, i. 223), presents a vivid picture of a great
literary triumph--

"My Lord,--I have been unwilling to write until I had something to
say.... I am most happy to tell you that your last poem _is_--what
Mr. Southey's is _called_--a _Carmen Triumphale_. Never in my
recollection has any work ... excited such a ferment ... I sold on
the day of publication--a thing perfectly unprecedented--10,000
copies.... Mr. Moore says it is masterly--a wonderful performance.
Mr. Hammond, Mr. Heber, D'Israeli, every one who comes ... declare
their unlimited approbation. Mr. Ward was here with Mr. Gifford
yesterday, and mingled his admiration with the rest ... and Gifford
did, what I never knew him do before--he repeated several stanzas
from memory, particularly the closing stanza--

"'His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known.'

"I have the highest encomiums in letters from Croker and Mr. Hay;
but I rest most upon the warm feeling it has created in Gifford's
critic heart.... You have no notion of the sensation which the
publication has occasioned; and my only regret is that you were not