(by Sir John Barrow), 1831, pp.
205-244.)

The story, which runs through the second, third, and fourth cantos, may
possibly owe some of its details to a vague recollection of incidents
which happened, or were supposed to happen, at Tahiti, in the interval
between the final departure of the _Bounty_, September 21, 1789, and the
arrival of the _Pandora_, March 23, 1791; but, as a whole, it is a work
of fiction.

With the exception of the fifteenth and sixteenth cantos of _Don Juan_,
_The Island_ was the last poem of any importance which Byron lived to
write, and the question naturally suggests itself--Is the new song as
good as the old? Byron answers the question himself. He tells Leigh Hunt
(January 25, 1823) that he hopes the "poem will be a little above the
ordinary run of periodical poesy," and that, though portions of the
Toobonai (_sic_) islanders are "pamby," he intends "to scatter some
_un_common places here and there nevertheless." On the whole, in point
of conception and execution, _The Island_ is weaker and less coherent
than the _Corsair_; but it contains lines and passages (_e.g._ Canto I.
lines 107-124, 133-140; Canto II. lines 272-297; Canto IV. lines 94-188)
which display a finer feeling and a more "exalted wit" than the "purple
patches" of _The Turkish Tales_.

The poetic faculty is somewhat exhausted, but the poetic vision has been
purged and heightened by suffering and self-knowledge.

_The Island_ was reviewed in the _Monthly Review_, July, 1823, E.S.,
vol. 101, pp. 316-319; the _New Monthly Magazine_, N.S., 1823, vol. 8,
pp. 136-141; the _Atlantic Magazine_, April, 1826, vol. 2, pp. 333-337;
in the _Literary Chronicle_, June 21, 1823; and the _Literary Gazette_,
June 21, 1823.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The foundation of the following story will be found partly in Lieutenant
Bligh's "Narrative of the Mutiny and Seizure of the Bounty, in the South
Seas (in 1789);" and partly in "Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands."

GENOA, 1823.

THE ISLAND

CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

The morning watch was come; the vessel lay
Her course, and gently made her liquid way;[ex]
The cloven billow flashed from off her prow
In furrows formed by that majestic plough;
The waters with their world were all before;
Behind, the South Sea's many an islet shore.
The qu