ir is the island off
Cape Colonna. It is a rude, rocky mass. I know not to what
particular Coron, if there be more than one, the poet alludes; for
the Coron of the Morea is neighbour to, if not in, the Mainote
territory, a tract of country which never submitted to the Turks, and
was exempted from the jurisdiction of Mussulman officers by the
payment of an annual tribute. The Mainotes themselves are all
pirates and robbers. If it be in that Coron that Byron has placed
Seyd the pasha, it must be attributed to inadvertency. His Lordship
was never there, nor in any part of Maina; nor does he describe the
place, a circumstance which of itself goes far to prove the
inadvertency. It is, however, only in making it the seat of a
Turkish pasha that any error has been committed. In working out the
incidents of the poem where descriptions of scenery are given, they
relate chiefly to Athens and its neighbourhood. In themselves these
descriptions are executed with an exquisite felicity; but they are
brought in without any obvious reason wherefore. In fact, they
appear to have been written independently of the poem, and are
patched on "shreds of purple" which could have been spared.

The character of Conrad the Corsair may be described as a combination
of the warrior of Albania and a naval officer--Childe Harold mingled
with the hero of The Giaour.

A man of loneliness and mystery,
Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh;
Robust, but not Herculean, to the sight,
No giant frame sets forth his common height;
Yet in the whole, who paused to look again
Saw more than marks the crowd of vulgar men:
They gaze and marvel how, and still confess
That thus it is, but why they cannot guess.
Sun-burnt his cheek, his forehead high and pale,
The sable curls in wild profusion veil.
And oft perforce his rising lip reveals
The haughtier thought it curbs, but scarce conceals:
Though smooth his voice, and calm his general mien,
Still seems there something he would not have seen.
His features' deepening lines and varying hue
At times attracted, yet perplex'd the view,
As if within that murkiness of mind
Work'd feelings fearful, and yet undefined:
Such might he be that none could truly tell,
Too close inquiry his stern glance could quell.
There breathed but few whose aspect could defy
The full encounter of his searching eye;
He had the skill, when cunning gaze to seek
To probe his heart and watch his changing cheek,
At once