"'To the sight No giant frame sets forth his common height; * * * * * Sun-burnt his cheek, his forehead high and pale The sable curls in wild profusion veil....'" Canto I. stanza ix. --Sir Walter Scott, _Quart. Rev_., No. xxxi. October, 1816.] [197] {227} The time in this poem may seem too short for the occurrences, but the whole of the Ægean isles are within a few hours' sail of the continent, and the reader must be kind enough to take the _wind_ as I have often found it. [198] [Compare--"Survey the region, and confess her home." _Windsor Forest_, by A. Pope, line 256.] [hk] {228} _Protract to age his painful doting day_.--[MS. erased.] [hl] {230} _Her nation--flag--how tells the telescope_.--[MS.] [199] [Compare _The Isle of Palms_, by John Wilson, Canto I. (1812, p. 8)-- "She sailed amid the loveliness Like a thing with heart and mind."] [hm] {231} _Till creaks her keel upon the shallow sand_.--[MS.] [hn] {234} _The haughtier thought his bosom ill conceals_.--[MS.] [ho] _He had the skill when prying souls would seek,_ _To watch his words and trace his pensive cheek_.--[MS.] _His was the skill when prying, etc_.--[Revise.] [200] {235} That Conrad is a character not altogether out of nature, I shall attempt to prove by some historical coincidences which I have met with since writing _The Corsair_. "Eccelin, prisonnier," dit Rolandini, "s'enfermoit dans un silence menaçant; il fixoit sur la terre son visage féroce, et ne donnoit point d'essor à sa profonde indignation. De toutes partes cependant les soldats et les peuples accouroient; ils vouloient voir cet homme, jadis si puissant ... et la joie universelle éclatoit de toutes partes.... Eccelino étoit d'une petite taille; mais tout l'aspect de sa personne, tous ses mouvemens, indiquoient un soldat. Son langage étoit amer, son déportement superbe, et par son seul regard, il faisoit trembler les plus hardis."--Simonde de Sismondi, _Histoire des Républiques Italiennes du Moyen Age_, 1809, iii. 219. Again, "Gizericus [Genseric, king of the Vandals, the conqueror of both Carthage and Rome] ... staturâ mediocris, et equi casu claudicans, animo profundus, sermone ratus, luxuriæ contemptor, irâ turbidus, habendi cupidus, ad sollicitandas gentes providentissimus," etc., etc.--Jornandes, _De Getarum Origine_ ("De Rebus Geticis"), cap. 33, _ed._ 1597, p. 92. I beg leave to quote those gloomy realities to keep in countenance my Giaour and Corsair.--[Added to the Ninth Edition.] [201] [Stanza x. was an after-thought. It is included in a sixth revise, in which lines 244-246 have been erased, and the present reading superscribed. A seventh revise gives the text as above.] [hp] {236} _Released but to convulse or freeze or glow!_ _Fire in the veins, or damps upon the brow_.--[MS.]