JOHN MURRAY.

With reference to the foregoing letter we read in Lord Byron's Diary:

"Mr. Murray has offered me one thousand guineas for 'The Giaour' and
'The Bride of Abydos.' I won't. It is too much: though I am strongly
tempted, merely for the say of it. No bad price for a fortnight's (a
week each) what?--the gods know. It was intended to be called poetry."

The "Bride of Abydos" was received with almost as much applause as the
"Giaour." "Lord Byron," said Sir James Mackintosh, "is the author of the
day; six thousand of his 'Bride of Abydos' have been sold within a
month."

"The Corsair" was Lord Byron's next poem, written with great vehemence,
literally "struck off at a heat," at the rate of about two hundred lines
a day,--"a circumstance," says Moore, "that is, perhaps, wholly without
a parallel in the history of genius." "The Corsair" was begun on the
18th, and finished on the 31st of December, 1813.

A sudden impulse induced Lord Byron to present the copyright of this
poem also to Mr. Dallas, with the single stipulation that he would offer
it for publication to Mr. Murray, who eventually paid Mr. Dallas five
hundred guineas for the copyright, and the work was published in
February 1814. The following letters will give some idea of the
reception it met with.

_John Murray to Lord Byron_.

_February_ 3, 1814.