present to witness it."

For some time before and after the poem appeared, Byron was, as he told
Leigh Hunt (February 9, 1814; _Letters_, 1899, iii. 27), "snow-bound and
thaw-swamped in 'the valley of the shadow' of Newstead Abbey," and it
was not till he had returned to town that he resumed his journal, and
bethought him of placing on record some dark sayings with regard to the
story of the _Corsair_ and the personality of Conrad. Under date
February 18, 1814, he writes--

"The _Corsair_ has been conceived, written, published, etc., since
I last took up this journal [?last day but one]. They tell me it
has great success; it was written _con amore_ [i.e. during the
reign of Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster], and much from
_existence_."

And again, _Journal_, March 10 (_Letters_, 1898, ii. 399),

"He [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 privacy [_sic;_?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--nor--nor--nor--however, it is a lie--but, 'I doubt the
equivocation of the fiend that lies like truth.'"

Very little weight can be attached to these "I could an I would"
pronouncements, deliberately framed to provoke curiosity, and destined,
no doubt, sooner or later to see the light; but the fact remains that
Conrad is not a mere presentation of Byron in a fresh disguise, or "The
Pirate's Tale" altogether a "painting of the imagination."

That the _Corsair_ is founded upon fact is argued at some length by the
author (an "English Gentleman in the Greek Military Service") of the
_Life, Writings, Opinions, and Times of the R. H. George Gordon Noel
Byron_, which was published in 1825. The point of the story (i.
197-201), which need not be repeated at length, is that Byron, on
leaving Constantinople and reaching the island of Zea (July, 1810),
visited ["strolled about"] the islands of the Archipelago, in company
with a Venetian gentleman who had turned buccaneer _malgre lui_, and
whose history and adventures, amatory and piratical, prefigured and
inspired the "gestes" of Conrad. The tale must be taken for what it is
worth; but it is to be remarked that it affords a clue to Byron's
mysterious entries in a journal which did not see the light