Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/48

 WHEN LALLA ROOKH WAS YOUNG

" to the East," wrote Byron to Moore, in 1813. "The oracle, Staël, told me it was the only poetic policy. The North, South, and West have all been exhausted; but from the East we have nothing but Southey's unsaleables, and these he has contrived to spoil by adopting only their most outrageous fictions. His personages don't interest us, and yours will. You will have no competitors; and, if you had, you ought to be glad of it. The little I have done in that way is merely a 'voice in the wilderness' for you; and if it has had any success, that also will prove that the public are orientalizing, and pave the way for you."

There is something admirably business-like in this advice. Byron, who four months before had sold the "Giaour" and the "Bride of Abydos" to Murray for a thousand guineas, was beginning to realize the commercial value of