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,1 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 such a place 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,

1. 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, Poros, etc., and the coast of the Continent.

["Independently of the suitableness of such an event to the power of Lord Byron's genius, the Fall of Corinth afforded local attractions, by the intimate knowledge which the poet had of the place and surrounding objects. . . . Thus furnished with that topographical information which could not be well obtained from books and maps, he was admirably qualified to depict the various operations and progress of the siege."-Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Right Honourable Lord Byron, London, 1822, p. 222.]

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 fury, that they took it, and put most of the garrison, with Signior Minotti, the governor, to the sword. The rest, with Signior or Antonio Bembo, Proveditor Extraordinary, were made prisoners of war."-A Compleat History of the Turks [London, 1719], iii. 151.

NOTE ON THE MS. OF THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.

THE original MS. of the Siege of Corinth (now in the possession of Lord Glenesk) consists of sixteen folio and nine quarto sheets, and numbers fifty pages. Sheets 1-4 are folios, sheets 5-10 are quartos, sheets 11-22 are folios, and sheets 23-25 are quartos.

To judge from the occasional and disconnected pagination, this MS. consists of portions of two or more fair copies of a number of detached scraps written at different times, together with two or three of the original scraps which had not been transcribed.

The water-mark of the folios is, with one exception (No. 8, 1815), 1813; and of the quartos, with one exception (No. 8, 1814), 1812.

Lord Glenesk's MS. is dated January 31, 1815. Lady Byron's transcript, from which the Siege of Corinth was printed, and which is in Mr. Murray's possession, is dated November 2, 1815.

THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.

In the year since Jesus died for men,1
Eighteen hundred years and ten,2
We were a gallant company,

Riding o'er land, and sailing o'er sea.

Oh! but we went merrily ! 3

We forded the river, and clomb the high hill,
Never our steeds for a day stood still;

1. [The introductory lines, 1-45, are not included in the copy of the poem in Lady Byron's handwriting, nor were they published in the First Edition. On Christmas Day, 1815, Byron, enclosing this fragment to 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 headed in the MS., "The Stranger's Tale," October 23rd. First published in Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 638, they were included among the Occasional Poems in the edition of 1831, and first prefixed to the poem in the edition of 1832.]

2. [The metrical rendering of the date (miscalculated from the death instead of the birth of Christ) may be traced to the opening lines of an old ballad (Kölbing's Siege of Corinth, p. 53)—

66

Upon the sixteen hunder year

Of God, and fifty-three,

From Christ was born, that bought us dear,

As writings testifie," etc.

See "The Life and Age of Man" (Burns' Selected Poems, ed. by J. L. Robertson, 1889, p. 191).]

3. [Compare letter to Hodgson, July 16, 1809: "How merrily we lives that travellers be!"-Letters, 1898, i. 233.]

VOL. III.

2 G

Whether we lay in the cave or the shed,
Our sleep fell soft on the hardest bed;
Whether we couched in our rough capote,1
On the rougher plank of our gliding boat,

Or stretched on the beach, or our saddles spread,
As a pillow beneath the resting head,

Fresh we woke upon the morrow :

All our thoughts and words had scope,
We had health, and we had hope,

Toil and travel, but no sorrow.
We were of all tongues and creeds ;-
Some were those who counted beads,
Some of mosque, and some of church,
And some, or I mis-say, of neither;
Yet through the wide world might ye search,
Nor find a motlier crew nor blither.

But some are dead, and some are gone,

And some are scattered and alone,

And some are rebels on the hills 2

IO

20

That look along Epirus' valleys,

Where Freedom still at moments rallies,

And pays in blood Oppression's ills;

And some are in a far countree,

And some all restlessly at home;

But never more, oh! never, we

Shall meet to revel and to roam.

30

1. [For "capote," compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza lii. line 7, and Byron's note (24.B.), Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 132, 181. Compare, too, letter to Mrs. Byron, November 12, 1809 (Letters, 1899, i. 253): "Two days ago I was nearly lost in a Turkish ship of war. I wrapped myself up in my Albanian capote (an immense cloak), and lay down on deck to wait the worst."]

2. The last tidings recently heard of Dervish (one of the Arnauts 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.

But those hardy days flew cheerily !.
And when they now fall drearily,

My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main,1
And bear my spirit back again

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, ii.
To follow me so far away.

Stranger, wilt thou follow now,

And sit with me on Acro-Corinth's brow?

And Tempest's breath, and Battle's rage,
Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands,

A fortress formed to Freedom's hands.iv.

40

The Whirlwind's wrath, the Earthquake's shock, 50
Have left untouched her hoary rock,

The keystone of a land, which still,

Though fall'n, looks proudly on that hill,

The landmark to the double tide

That purpling rolls on either side,
As if their waters chafed to meet,

Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet.

ii. The kindly few who love my lay.-[MS.]

iii. Many a year, and many an age.—[MS. G. Copy.]

iv. A marvel from her Moslem bands.-[MS. G.]

1. [Compare Kingsley's Last Buccaneer

"If I might but be a sea-dove, I'd fly across the main—
To the pleasant isle of Avès, to look at it once again."]

2. [The MS. is dated Jy (January) 31, 1815. Lady Byron's copy is dated November 2, 1815.]