to fly or fall abroad.

It deserves no better than the first, as the work of a week, and
scribbled 'stans pede in uno' (by the by, the only foot I have to
stand on); and I promise never to trouble you again under forty
Cantos, and a voyage between each. Believe me ever

"Your obliged and affectionate servant,

"BYRON."

* * * * *

The following letters and notes, addressed to Mr. Murray at this time,
cannot fail, I think, to gratify all those to whom the history of the
labours of genius is interesting:--

LETTER 145. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Nov. 12. 1813.

"Two friends of mine (Mr. Rogers and Mr. Sharpe) have advised me
not to risk at present any single publication separately, for
various reasons. As they have not seen the one in question, they
can have no bias for or against the merits (if it has any) or the
faults of the present subject of our conversation. You say all the
last of 'The Giaour' are gone--at least out of your hands. Now, if
you think of publishing any new edition with the last additions
which have not yet been before the reader (I mean distinct from the
two-volume publication), we can add 'The Bride of Abydos,' which
will thus steal quietly into the world: if liked, we can then throw
off some copies for the purchasers of former 'Giaours;' and, if
not, I can omit it in any future publication. What think you? I
really am no judge of those things, and with all my natural
partiality for one's own productions, I would rather follow any
one's judgment than my own.

"P.S. Pray let me have the proofs I sent _all_ to-night. I have
some alterations that I have thought of that I wish to make
speedily. I hope the proof will be on separate pages, and not all
huddled together on a mile-long ballad-singing sheet, as those of
The Giaour sometimes are; for then I can't read them distinctly."

* * * * *

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Nov. 13. 1813.

"Will you forward the letter to Mr. Gilford with the proof? There
is an alteration I may make in Zuleika's speech, in second Canto
(the only one of hers in that Canto). It is now thus:

"And curse, if I could curse, the day.

It must be--

"And mourn--I dare not curse--the day
That saw my solitary birth, &c. &c.

"Ever yours,