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Note 41, page 127, line 3.

The loud Wul-wulleh warn his distant ear.

The death-song of the Turkish women. The "silent slaves" are the men whose notions of decorum forbid complaint in public.

"Where?"

Note 42, page 128, line 13. "Where is my child?-an Echo answers— "I came to the place of my birth and cried, "The friends "of my youth, where are they?' and an Echo answered, "Where are they?'" From an Arabic MS.

The above quotation (from which the idea in the text is taken) must be already familiar to every reader—it is given in the first annotation, p. 67, of "The Pleasures of Memory ;" a poem so well known as to render a reference almost superfluous; but to whose pages all will be delighted to recur.

Note 43, page 130, line 14.

Into Zuleika's name.

"And airy tongues that syllable men's names.'

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MILTON.

For a belief that the souls of the dead inhabit the form of birds, we need not travel to the East. Lord Lyttleton's ghost story, the belief of the Duchess of Kendal, that George I. flew into her window in the shape of a raven (see Orford's Reminiscences), and many other instances, bring this superstition nearer home. The most singular was the whim of a Worcester lady, who believing her daughter to exist in the shape of a singing bird, literally furnished her pew in the cathedral with cages-full of the kind; and as she was rich, and a benefactress in beautifying the church, no objection was made to her harmless folly.-For this anecdote, see Orford's Letters.

THE CORSAIR,

A TALE.

I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno."
Tasso, Canto decimo, Gerusalemme Liberata.

то

THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.

MY DEAR MOORE,

I DEDICATE to you the last production with which I shall trespass on public patience, and your indulgence, for some years; and I own that I feel anxious to avail myself of this latest and only opportunity of adorning my pages with a name, consecrated by unshaken public principle, and the most undoubted and various talents. While Ireland ranks you among the firmest of her patriots; while you stand alone the first of her bards in her estimation, and Britain repeats and ratifies the decree, permit one, whose only regret, since our first acquaintance, has been the years he had lost before it commenced, to add the humble, but sincere suffrage of friendship, to the voice of more than one nation. It will at least

prove to that I have neither forgotten the gra

you,

tification derived from your society, nor abandoned the prospect of its renewal, whenever your leisure or inclination allows you to atone to your friends

VOL. III.

L

for too long an absence. It is said among those friends, I trust truly, that you are engaged in the composition of a poem whose scene will be laid in the East; none can do those scenes so much justice. The wrongs of your own country, the magnificent and fiery spirit of her sons, the beauty and feeling of her daughters, may there be found; and Collins, when he denominated his Oriental his Irish Eclogues, was not aware how true, at least, was a part of his parallel. Your imagination will create a warmer sun, and less clouded sky; but wildness, tenderness, and originality are part of your national claim of oriental descent, to which you have already thus far proved your title more clearly than the most zealous of your country's antiquarians.

May I add a few words on a subject on which all men are supposed to be fluent, and none agreeable?-Self. I have written much, and published more than enough to demand a longer silence than I now meditate; but for some years to come it is my intention to tempt no further the award of "Gods, men, nor columns." In the present composition I have attempted not the most difficult, but, perhaps, the best adapted measure to our language, the good old and now neglected heroic couplet. The stanza of Spenser is perhaps too slow and dignified

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