Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/353

Rh mysterious page, whose "hand is femininely white," is Gulnare, despite his raven and her auburn hair.

If the facts which the "EngHsh 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 Ellis in the Quarterly Review for July, 1814, vol. xi. p. 428; and in the Portfolio, vol. xiv. p. 33.

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