Chapter XXII: Introduction: To Lara

The MS. of _Lara_ is dated May 14, 1814. The opening lines, which were not prefixed to the published poem, and were first printed in _Murray's Magazine_ (January, 1887), are of the nature of a Dedication. They were probably written a few days after the well-known song, "I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name," which was enclosed to Moore in a letter dated May 4, 1814. There can be little doubt that both song and dedication were addressed to Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster, and that _Lara_, like the _Corsair_ and the _Bride of Abydos_, was written _con amore_, and because the poet was "eating his heart away."

By the 14th of June Byron was able to announce to Moore that "_Lara_ was finished, and that he had begun copying." It was written, owing to the length of the London season, "amidst balls and fooleries, and after coming home from masquerades and routs, in the summer of the sovereigns" (Letter to Moore, June 8, 1822, _Life_, p. 561).

By way of keeping his engagement--already broken by the publication of the _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_--not to "trespass on public patience," Byron began by protesting (June 14) that _Lara_ was not to be published separately, but "might be included in a third volume now collecting." A fortnight later (June 27) an interchange of unpublished poems between himself and Rogers, "two cantos of darkness and dismay" in return for a privately printed copy of _Jacqueline_, who is "all grace and softness and poetry" (Letter to Rogers, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 101), suggested another and happier solution of the difficulty, a coalescing with Rogers, and, if possible, Moore (_Life_, 1892, p. 257, note 2), "into a joint invasion of the public" (Letter to Moore, July 8, 1814, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 102). But Rogers hesitated, and Moore refused to embark on so doubtful a venture, with the result that, as late as the 3rd of August, Byron thought fit to remonstrate with Murray for "advertising _Lara and Jacqueline_," and confessed to Moore that he was "still demurring and delaying and in a fuss" (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 115, 119). Murray knew his man, and, though he waited for Byron's formal and ostensibly reluctant word of command, "Out with Lara, since it must be" (August 5, 1814, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 122), he admitted (August 6, _Memoir of John Murray_, 1891, i. 230) that he had "anticipated his consent," and "had done everything but actually deliver the copies of _Lara_." "The moment," he adds, "I received your letter, for for it I waited, I cut the last cord of my aerial work, and at this instant 6000 copies are sold." _Lara, a Tale_; _Jacqueline, a Tale_, was published on Saturday, August 6, 1814.

_Jacqueline_ is a somewhat insipid pastoral, betraying the influence of the Lake School, more especially Coleridge, on a belated and irresponsive disciple, and wholly out of place as contrast or foil to the melodramatic _Lara_.

No sooner had the "lady," as Byron was pleased to call her, played her part as decoy, than she was discharged as _emerita_. A week after publication (August 12, 1814, _Letters_, iii. 125) Byron told Moore that "Murray talks of divorcing Larry and Jacky--a bad sign for the authors, who will, I suppose, be divorced too.... Seriously, I don't care a cigar about it." The divorce was soon pronounced, and, contrary to Byron's advice (September 2, 1814, _Letters_, iii. 131), at least four separate editions of _Lara_ were published during the autumn of 1814.

The "advertisement" to _Lara and Jacqueline_ contains the plain statement that "the reader ... may probably regard it [_Lara_] as a sequel to the _Corsair_"--an admission on the author's part which forestalls and renders nugatory any prolonged discussion on the subject. It is evident that Lara is Conrad, and that Kaled, the "darkly delicate" and mysterious page, whose "hand is femininely white," is Gulnare in a transparent and temporary disguise.

If the facts which the "English Gentleman in the Greek Military Service" (_Life, Writings, etc., of Lord Byron_, 1825, i. 191-201) gives in detail with regard to the sources of the _Corsair_ are not wholly imaginary, it is possible that the original Conrad's determination to "quit so horrible a mode of life" and return to civilization may have suggested to Byron the possible adventures and fate of a _grand seigneur_ who had played the pirate in his time, and resumed his ancestral dignities only to be detected and exposed by some rival or victim of his wild and lawless youth.

_Lara_ was reviewed together with the _Corsair_, by George Agar Ellis in the _Quarterly Review_ for July, 1814, vol. xi. p. 428; and in the _Portfolio_, vol. xiv. p. 33.

LARA.[jb]