leridge claimed to
have foretold the restoration of the Bourbons (see _Biographia
Literaria_, cap. x.).]

[328] {436} ["The Friend who favoured us with the following lines, the
poetical spirit of which wants no trumpet of ours, is aware that they
imply more than an impartial observer of the late period might feel, and
are written rather as by Frenchman than Englishman;--but certainly,
neither he nor any lover of liberty can help feeling and regretting that
in the latter time, at any rate, the symbol he speaks of was once more
comparatively identified with the cause of Freedom."--_Examiner_. April
7, 1816.]

[329] {437} The tricolor.

THE SIEGE OF CORINTH

"Guns, Trumpets, Blunderbusses, Drums and Thunder."

Pope, _Sat._ i. 26.[330]

INTRODUCTION TO _THE SIEGE OF CORINTH_.

In a note to the "Advertisement" to the _Siege of Corinth_ (_vide post_,
p. 447), Byron puts it on record that during the years 1809-10 he had
crossed the Isthmus of Corinth eight times, and in a letter to his
mother, dated Patras, July 30, 1810, he alludes to a recent visit to the
town of Corinth, in company with his friend Lord Sligo. (See, too, his
letter to Coleridge, dated October 27, 1815, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 228.)
It is probable that he revisited Corinth more than once in the autumn of
1810; and we may infer that, just as the place and its surroundings--the
temple with its "two or three columns" (line 497), and the view across
the bay from Acro-Corinth--are sketched from memory, so the story of the
siege which took place in 1715 is based upon tales and legends which
were preserved and repeated by the grandchildren of the besieged, and
were taken down from their lips. There is point and meaning in the
apparently insignificant line (stanza xxiv. line 765), "We have heard
the hearers say" (see _variant_ i. p. 483), which is slipped into the
description of the final catastrophe. It bears witness to the fact that
the _Siege of Corinth_ is not a poetical expansion of a chapter in
history, but a heightened reminiscence of local tradition.

History has, indeed, very little to say on the subject. The anonymous
_Compleat History of the Turks_ (London, 1719), which Byron quotes as an
authority, is meagre and inaccurate. Hammer-Purgstall (_Histoire de
l'Empire Ottoman_, 1839, xiii. 269), who gives as his authorities
Girolamo Ferrari and Raschid, di