January 22, 1816. The Siege of Corinth." TO JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ. BY HIS FRIEND. ADVERTISEMENT. "THE grand army of the Turks (in 1715), under the Prime Vizier, to open to themselves a way into the heart of the Morea, and to form the siege of Napoli di Romania, the most considerable place in all that country, (2) thought it best in the first place to attack Corinth, upon which they made several storms. The garrison being weakened, and the governor seeing it was impossible to hold out against so mighty a force, thought it fit to beat a parley: but while they were treating about the articles, one of the magazines in the Turkish camp, wherein they had six hundred barrels of powder, blew up by accident, whereby six or seven hundred men were killed; which so enraged the infidels, that they would not grant any capitulation, but stormed the place with so much (1) The Siege of Corinth, which appears, by the original MS. to have been begun in July, 1815, made its appearance in January, 1816. Mr. Murray having enclosed Lord Byron a thousand guineas for the copyright of this poem and of Parisina, he replied,-" Your offer is liberal in the extreme, and much more than the two poems can possibly be worth; but I cannot accept it, nor will not. You are most welcome to them, as additions to the collected volumes; but I cannot consent to their separate publication. I do not like to risk any fame (whether merited or not) which I have been favoured with upon compositions which I do not feel to be at all equal to my own notions of what they should be: though they may do very well as things without pretension, to add to the publication with the lighter pieces. I have enclosed your draft torn, for fear of accidents by the wayI wish you would not throw temptation in mine. It is not from a disdain of the universal idol, nor from a present superfluity of his treasures, I can assure you, that I refuse to worship him; but what is right is right, and must not yield to circumstances. I am very glad that the hand-writing was a favourable omen of the morale of the piece; but you must not trust to that, for my copyist would write out any thing I desired, in all the ignorance of innocence-I hope, however, in this instance, with no great peril to either." The copyist was Lady Byron. Lord Byron gave Mr Gifford carte-blanche to strike out or alter any thing at his pleasure in this poem, as it was passing through the press; and the reader will be amused with the varia lectiones which had their origin in this extraordinary confidence. Mr. Gifford drew his pen, it will be seen, through at least one of the most admired passages.-L. E. (2) Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerable place in the Morea, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and maintains his government. Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three in 1810-11; and, in the course of journeying through the country from my first arrival in 1809, I crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains; or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes are picturesque and beautiful, though very different that by sea has more sameness; but the voyage being always within sight of land, and often very near it, presents many attractive views of the islands Salamis, Ægina, Poro, etc. and the coast of the Continent. fury, that they took it, and put most of the garrison, with Signior Minotti, the governor, to the sword. The rest, with Antonio Bembo, proveditor extraordinary, were made prisoners of war."-History of the Turks, vol. iii. p. 151. THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.(3) In the year since Jesus died for men, (4) We forded the river, and clomb the high hill, (3) "With regard to the observations on carelessness, etc.," wrote Lord Byron to a friend, "I think, with all humility, that the gentle reader has considered a rather uncommon, and decidedly irregular, versification for haste and negligence. The measure is not that of any of the other poems, which (I believe) were allowed to be tolerably correct, according to Byshe and the fingers-or-ears-by which bards write, and readers reckon. Great part of the Siege is in (I think) what the learned call anapests, (though I am not sure, being heinously forgetful of my metres and my Gradus,) and many of the lines intentionally longer or shorter than its rhyming companion; and the rhyme also occurring at greater or less intervals of caprice or convenience. I mean not to say that this is right or good, but merely that I could have been smoother, had it appeared to me of advantage; and that I was not otherwise without being aware of the deviation, though I now feel sorry for it, as I would undoubtedly rather please than not. My wish has been to try at something different from my former efforts; as I endeavoured to make them differ from each other. The versification of The Corsair is not that of Lara; nor the Giaour that of the Bride: Childe Harold is, again, varied from these; and I strove to vary the last somewhat from all of the others. Excuse all this nonsense and egotism. The fact is, that I am rather trying to think on the subject of this note, than really think. ing on it. "-B. Letters, Feb. 1816.-L. E. (4) On Christmas day, 1815, Lord Byron, enclosing this fragment to Mr. Murray, says,-"I send some lines, written some time ago, and intended as an opening to the Siege of Corinth. I had forgotten them, and am not sure that they had not better be left out now;-on that, you and your synod can determine."-" They are written," says Moore, "in the loosest form of that rambling style of metre, which his admiration of Mr. Coleridge's Christabel led him, at this time, to adopt." It will be seen, hereafter, that the poet had never read Christabel at the time when he wrote these lines; he had, however, the Lay of the Last Minstrel. With regard to the character of the species of versification at this time so much in favour, it may be observed that feeble imitations have since then vulgarised it a good deal to the general ear; but that, in the hands of Mr. Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, and Lord Byron himself, it has often been employed with the most happy effect. Its irregularity, when moulded under the guidance of a delicate taste, is more to Whether we lay in the cave or the shed, All our thoughts and words had scope, And some, or I mis-say, of neither; But some are dead, and some are gone, That look along Epirus' valleys, But those hardy days flew cheerily! My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main, Over the earth, and through the air, A wild bird and a wanderer. "Tis this that ever wakes my strain, And oft, too oft, implores again The few who may endure my lay, Stranger-wilt thou follow now, And sit with me on Acro-Corinth's brow? the eye than to the ear, and in fact not greater than was admitted in some of the most delicious of the lyrical measures of the ancient Greeks.-L. E. (1) In one of his sea excursions, Lord Byron was nearly lost in a Turkish ship of war, owing to the ignorance of the captain and crew. "Fletcher," he says, "yelled; the Greeks called on all the saints; the Mussulmans on Alla; while the captain burst into tears, and ran below deck. i did what I could to console Fletcher; but finding him in. corrigible, I wrapped myself up in my Albanian capote, and lay down to wait the worst." This striking instance of the poet's coolness and courage is thus confirmed by Mr. Hobhouse :-"Finding that, from his lameness, he was unable to be of any service in the exertions which our very serious danger called for, after a laugh or two at the panic of his valet, he not only wrapped himself up and lay down, in the manner he has described, but when our difficulties were terminated was found fast asleep."-L. E. (2) The last tidings recently heard of Dervish (one of the Arnaouts who followed me) state him to be in revolt upon the mountains, at the head of some of the bands common in that country in times of trouble. (3) In the original MS — "A marvel from her Moslem bands."—L. E. (4) Timoleon, who had saved the life of his brother Timophanes in battle, afterwards killed him for aiming at the supreme power in Corinth, preferring his duty to his country to all the obligation of blood. Dr. Warton says, that Pope once intended to write an epic poem on the story, and that Dr. Akenside had the same design.-L. E. (5) "The Giaour, the Bride of Abydos, the Corsair, Lara, the Siege of Corinth, followed each other with a celerity, which was only rivalled by their success; and if at times the author seemed to pause in his poetic career, with the 1. Many a vanish'd year and age, And tempest's breath, and battle's rage, The keystone of a land, which still, More mountain-like, through those clear skies, Which seems the very clouds to kiss. (5) II. On dun Citharon's ridge appears And there his steed the Tartar wheels; threat of forbearing further adventure for a time, the public eagerly pardoned the breach of a promise by keeping which they must have been sufferers. Exquisitely beautiful in themselves, these tales received a new charm from the romantic climes into which they introduced us, and from the oriental costume so strictly preserved and so pictu resquely exhibited. Greece, the cradle of the poetry with which our earliest studies are familiar, was presented to us among her ruins and her sorrows. Her delightful scenery, once dedicated to those deities who, though dethroned from their own Olympus, still preserve a poetical empire, was spread before us in Lord Byron's poetry, varied by all the moral effect derived from what Greece is and what she has been, while it was doubled by comparisons, perpetually excited, between the philosophers and heroes who formerly inhabited that romantic country, and their descendants, who either stoop to their Scythian conquerors, or maintain, among the recesses of their classical mountains, an inde pendence as wild and savage as it is precarious. The oriental manners, also, and diction, so peculiar in their picturesque effect that they can cast a charm even over the absurdities of an eastern tale, had here the more honourable occupation of decorating that which in itself was beautiful, and enhancing by novelty what would have been captivating without its aid. The powerful impression produced by this peculiar species of poetry confirmed us in a principle, which, though it will hardly be challenged when stated as an axiom, is very rarely complied with in practice. It is, that every author should, like Lord Byron, form to himself, and communicate to the reader, a precise, defined, and distinct view of the landscape, sentiment, or action, which he intends to describe to the reader." Sir Walter Scott.-L. E. (6) Turkish holders of military fiefs which oblige them to join the army, mounted at their own expense. — L., E. The Turcoman hath left his herd, (1) III. But near and nearest to the wall IV. From Venice-once a race of worth (1) The life of the Turcomans is wandering and patriarchal: they dwell in tents. (2) Ali Coumourgi, the favourite of three Sultans, and Grand Vizier to Achmet III., after recovering Peloponnesus from the Venetians in one campaign, was mortally wounded in the next, against the Germans, at the battle of Peterwaradin (in the plain of Carlowitz), in Hungary, endeavouring to rally his guards. He died of his wounds next day. 'Gainst which he rear'd the crescent high, And battled to avenge or die. V. Coumourgi (2)-he whose closing scene Adorn'd the triumph of Eugene, When on Carlowitz' bloody plain, The last and mightiest of the slain, He sank, regretting not to die, But cursed the Christian's victoryCoumourgi-can his glory cease, That latest conqueror of Greece, Till Christian hands to Greece restore The freedom Venice gave of yore? A hundred years have roll'd away Since he refix'd the Moslem's sway, And now he led the Mussulman, And gave the guidance of the van To Alp, who well repaid the trust By cities levell'd with the dust; And proved, by many a deed of death, How firm his heart in novel faith. VI. The walls grew weak; and fast and hot And here and there some crackling dome VII. But not for vengeance, long delay'd, Whose heart, refused him in its ire, He glitter'd through the carnival; His last order was the decapitation of General Breuner, and some other German prisoners; and his last words, "Oh that I could thus serve all the Christian dogs!" a speech and act not unlike one of Caligula. He was a young man of great ambition and unbounded presumption: on being told that Prince Eugene, then opposed to him, "was a great general," he said, "I shall become a greater, and at his expense." And tuned the softest serenade That e'er on Adria's waters play'd At midnight to Italian maid. (1) VIII. And many deem'd her heart was won; IX. Sent by the state to guard the land, Bespangled with those isles of light, Save where the watch his signal spoke, A cry prophetic of their fall: Wakes, though but for a stranger's knell. (3) XII. The tent of Alp was on the shore; (3) In the MS. "Which rings a deep internal knell, A visionary passing-bell."-L. E. He stood alone-a renegade They did not know how pride can stoop, So lions o'er the jackal sway; The jackal points, he fells the prey, (1) XIII. His head grows fever'd, and his pulse Than now might yield a warrior's bed, He felt his soul become more light Lepanto's gulf; and, on the brow Not mindless of these mighty times The chiefs whose dust around him slumber'd; The very gale their names seem'd sighing: "Immortal-boundless-undecay'd; (4) In the MS. "Where Freedom loveliest may be won."-L. E. |