Chapter 1

"January 6. 1814.

"I have got a devil of a long story in the press, entitled 'The Corsair,' in the regular heroic measure. It is a pirate's isle, peopled with my own creatures, and you may easily suppose they do a world of mischief through the three cantos. Now for your dedication--if you will accept it. This is positively my last experiment on public _literary_ opinion, till I turn my thirtieth year,--if so be I flourish until that downhill period. I have a confidence for you--a perplexing one to me, and, just at present, in a state of abeyance in itself.

"However, we shall see. In the mean time, you may amuse yourself with my suspense, and put all the justices of peace in requisition, in case I come into your county with 'hackbut bent.'

"Seriously, whether I am to hear from her or him, it is a _pause_, which I shall fill up with as few thoughts of my own as I can borrow from other people. Any thing is better than stagnation; and now, in the interregnum of my autumn and a strange summer adventure, which I don't like to think of, (I don't mean * *'s, however, which is laughable only,) the antithetical state of my lucubrations makes me alive, and Macbeth can 'sleep no more:'--he was lucky in getting rid of the drowsy sensation of waking again.

"Pray write to me. I must send you a copy of the letter of dedication. When do you come out? I am sure we don't _clash_ this time, for I am all at sea, and in action,--and a wife, and a mistress, &c.

"Thomas, thou art a happy fellow; but if you wish us to be so, you must come up to town, as you did last year: and we shall have a world to say, and to see, and to hear. Let me hear from you.

"P.S. Of course you will keep my secret, and don't even talk in your sleep of it. Happen what may, your dedication is ensured, being already written; and I shall copy it out fair to-night, in case business or amusement--_Amant alterna Camænæ_."

* * * * *

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Jan. 7. 1814.

"You don't like the dedication--very well; there is another: but you will send the other to Mr. Moore, that he may know I _had_ written it. I send also mottoes for the cantos. I think you will allow that an elephant may be more sagacious, but cannot be more docile.

"Yours, BN.

"The _name_ is again altered to _Medora_"[7]

[Footnote 7: It had been at first Genevra,--not Francesca, as Mr. Dallas asserts.]

* * * * *