* * * * *

During the month of January and part of February, his poems of The Siege of Corinth and Parisina were in the hands of the printers, and about the end of the latter month made their appearance.  The following letters are the only ones I find connected with their publication.

LETTER 240.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “February 3. 1816.

“I sent for ‘Marmion,’ which I return, because it occurred to me, there might be a resemblance between part of ‘Parisina’ and a similar scene in Canto 2d of ‘Marmion.’  I fear there is, though I never thought of it before, and could hardly wish to imitate that which is inimitable.  I wish you would ask Mr. Gifford whether I ought to say any thing upon it;—­I had completed the story on the passage from Gibbon, which indeed leads to a like scene naturally, without a thought of the kind:  but it comes upon me not very comfortably.

     “There are a few words and phrases I want to alter in the MS., and
     should like to do it before you print, and will return it in an
     hour.

     “Yours ever.”

* * * * *

LETTER 241.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “February 20. 1816.

“To return to our business—­your epistles are vastly agreeable.  With regard to the observations on carelessness, &c.  I think, with all humility, that the gentle reader has considered a rather uncommon, and designedly 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 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 d——­d nonsense and egotism.  The fact is, that I am rather trying to think on the subject of this note, than really thinking on it.—­I did not know you had called:  you are always admitted and welcome when you choose.

     “Yours, &c. &c.