Ezzelin had both sprung from one spot, when he says,

"I pledge myself for thee, as not unknown,
Though like Count Lara now return'd alone
From other lands, almost a stranger grown."

The 9th section of canto 1. is a description of Byron himself at
Newstead (the two poems are merely vehicles of their authors' own
feelings), with the celebrated skull, since made into a drinking cup,
beside him. The succeeding section is a picture {444} of "our own dear
lake." That Medora was a gentlewoman, and not from the slave-market, is
shown by Conrad's appreciation of her in the 12th section of the first
canto of the "Corsair;" and why not formerly beloved by Ezzelin, and
thus alluded to by him in the quarrel scene?

"And deem'st thou me unknown too? Gaze again!
At least thy memory was not given in vain,
Oh! never canst thou cancel half _her_ debt,
Eternity forbids thee to forget."

The accents, muttered in a foreign tongue by Lara, on recovering from
his swoon in the gallery,--

"And meant to meet an ear
That hears him not--alas! that cannot hear"--

were addressed, I think, to Medora; and I am only the more disposed to
this opinion by their effect on Kaled. (See canto 1. sec. 14.)

I quite agree with "EMDEE" in esteeming "Lara" a magnificent poem.