Thus was Corinth lost and won![410]

FOOTNOTES:

[330] "With Gun, Drum, Trumpet, Blunderbuss, and Thunder."

[331] {447} Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerable place in
the Morea, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and maintains his
government. Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three in 1810-11; and,
in the course of journeying through the country from my first arrival in
1809, I crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from Attica to the
Morea, over the mountains; or in the other direction, when passing from
the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes are picturesque
and beautiful, though very different: that by sea has more sameness; but
the voyage, being always within sight of land, and often very near it,
presents many attractive views of the islands Salamis, AEgina, Poros,
etc., and the coast of the Continent.

["Independently of the suitableness of such an event to the power of
Lord Byron's genius, the Fall of Corinth afforded local attractions, by
the intimate knowledge which the poet had of the place and surrounding
objects.... Thus furnished with that topographical information which
could not be well obtained from books and maps, he was admirably
qualified to depict the various operations and progress of the
siege."--_Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Right Honourable Lord
Byron_, London, 1822, p. 222.]

[332] {449} [The introductory lines, 1-45, are not included in the copy
of the poem in Lady Byron's handwriting, nor were they published in the
First Edition. On Christmas Day, 1815, Byron, enclosing this fragment to
Murray, says, "I send some lines written some time ago, and intended as
an opening to the _Siege of Corinth_. I had forgotten them, and am not
sure that they had not better be left out now;--on that you and your
Synod can determine." They are headed in the MS., "The Stranger's Tale,"
October 23rd. First published in _Letters and Journals_, 1830, i. 638,
they were included among the _Occasional Poems_ in the edition of 1831,
and first prefixed to the poem in the edition of 1832.]

[333] [The metrical rendering of the date (miscalculated from the death
instead of the birth of Christ) may be traced to the opening lines of an
old ballad (Koelbing's _Siege of Corinth_, p. 53)--

"Upon the sixteen hunder year
Of God, and fifty-three,
From Christ was born, that bought us dear,
As writings testifie," etc.

See "The Life and Age of Ma