cready wrote, "On arriving at my
chambers ... I found a letter without a signature; the seal was the head
of Byron, and in the envelope was a folded sheet with merely the words,
'Werner, Nov., 1830. Byron, Ravenna, 1821,' and 'Sardanapalus, April
10th, 1834.' Encircling the name of Byron, etc., was a lock of grey hair
fastened by a gold thread, which I am sure was Byron's, ... it surprised
and pleased me."]

_Sardanapalus, King of Assyria_, was produced at the Princess's Theatre,
June 13, 1853, and played till September 2, 1853. Charles Kean appeared
as "Sardanapalus," Miss Heath as "Zarina," and Mrs. Charles Kean as
"Myrrha."

_Sardanapale, Opera en Trois Actes_, par M. Henry Becque, Musique de M.
Victorin Joncieres, was performed for the first time at the Theatre
Imperial-Lyrique, February 8, 1867.

_Lord Byron's Tragedy of Sardanapalus_, in four acts, was performed at
the Theatre Royal, Manchester, March 31-April 28, 1877. Charles Calvert
(the adapter) played "Sardanapalus," Miss Hathaway "Zarina," and Miss
Fanny Ensor "Myrrha;" and June 26-July 27, 1877, at the Royal Alexandra
Theatre, Liverpool. Calvert's adaptation was also performed at Booth's
Theatre, New York.]

INTRODUCTION TO _SARDANAPALUS_

Byron's passion or infatuation for the regular drama lasted a little
over a year. _Marino Faliero_, _Sardanapalus_, and the _Two Foscari_,
were the fruits of his "self-denying ordinance to dramatize, like the
Greeks ... striking passages of history" (letter to Murray, July 14,
1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 323). The mood was destined to pass, but for a
while the neophyte was spell-bound.

_Sardanapalus, a Tragedy_, the second and, perhaps, the most successful
of these studies in the poetry of history, was begun at Ravenna, January
13, 1821, "with all deliberate speed;" but, for a time, from laziness or
depression of spirits, or, perhaps, from the counter-excitement of "the
poetry of politics" (_Letters_, 1901, v. 205), that is, the
revolutionary drama which had begun to run its course, a month went by
before he had finished the first act (February 15). Three months later
(May 28) he announces the completion of the drama, the last act having
been "dashed off" in two or three days (_Letters_, 1901, v. 300).

For the story of Sardanapalus, which had excited his interest as a
schoolboy, Byron consulted the pages of Diodorus Siculus (_Bibliothecae
Historicae_, lib. ii. pp. 78, sq., ed. 1604),