[247] {198}[Byron repented, or feigned to repent, this somewhat provocative eulogy of the Great Republic: "Somebody has sent me some American abuse of _Mazeppa_ and 'the Ode;' in future I will compliment nothing but Canada, and desert to the English."--Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 410. It is possible that the allusion is to an article, "Mazeppa and Don Juan," in the _Analectic Magazine_, November, 1819, vol. xiv, pp. 405-410.] MAZEPPA. INTRODUCTION TO _MAZEPPA_ _Mazeppa_, a legend of the Russian Ukraine, or frontier region, is based on the passage in Voltaire's _Charles XII_. prefixed as the "Advertisement" to the poem. Voltaire seems to have known very little about the man or his history, and Byron, though he draws largely on his imagination, was content to take his substratum of fact from Voltaire. The "true story of Mazeppa" is worth re-telling for its own sake, and lends a fresh interest and vitality to the legend. Ivan Stepanovitch Mazeppa (or Mazepa), born about the year 1645, was of Cossack origin, but appears to have belonged, by descent or creation, to the lesser nobility of the semi-Polish Volhynia. He began life (1660) as a page of honour in the Court of King John Casimir V. of Poland, where he studied Latin, and acquired the tongue and pen of eloquent statesmanship. Banished from the court on account of a quarrel, he withdrew to his mother's estate in Volhynia, and there, to beguile the time, made love to the wife of a neighbouring magnate, the _pane_ or Lord Falbowski. The intrigue was discovered, and to avenge his wrongs the outraged husband caused Mazeppa to be stripped to the skin, and bound to his own steed. The horse, lashed into madness, and terror-stricken by the discharge of a pistol, started off at a gallop, and rushing "thorough bush, thorough briar," carried his torn and bleeding rider into the courtyard of his own mansion!