rendered it a juncture the least favorable that could well be conceived for the first launch into print of so light and costly a venture as Lalla Rookh. Feeling conscious, therefore, that under such circumstances I should act but honestly in putting it in the power of the Messrs. Longman to reconsider the terms of their engagement with me — leaving them free to postpone, modify, or even, should such be their wish, relinquish it altogether, I wrote them a letter to that effect, and received the following answer: “We shall be most happy in the pleasure of seeing you in February. We agree with you, indeed, that the times are most inauspicious for “poetry and thousands ; ' but we believe that your poetry would do more than that of any other living poet at the present moment." 1 The length of time I employed in writing the few stories strung together in Lalla Rookh will appear, to some persons, much more than was necessary for the production of such easy and light o’ love fictions. But, besides that I have been, at all times, a far more slow and painstaking workman than would ever be guessed, I fear, from the result, I felt that, in this instance, I had taken upon myself a more than ordinary responsibility, from the immense stake risked by others on my chance of success. For a long time, therefore, after the agreement had been concluded, though generally at work with a view to this task, I made but very little progress in it; and , 1 November 9, 1816. I have still by me the beginnings of several stories continued, some of them, to the length of three or four hundred lines, which, after in vain endeavoring to mould them into shape, I threw them aside, like the tale of Cambuscan, “left half-told.” One of these stories, entitled The Peri's daughter, was meant to relate the loves of a nymph of this aërial extraction with a youth of mortal race, the rightful Prince of Ormuz, who had been, from his infancy, brought up in seclusion, on the banks of the river Amou, by an aged guardian named Mohassan. The story opens with the first meeting of these destined lovers, then in their childhood; the Peri having wafted her daughter to this holy retreat, in a bright, enchanted boat, whose first appearance is thus described : For, down the silvery tide afar, As shines, in heav'n, some pilgrim-star, “ It comes, it comes," young Orian cries, Within the boat a baby slept, While one, who seem'd of riper years, But not of earth, or earth-like spheres, The feathers of some holy bird, With which, from time to time, she stirr'd The butterflies that, bright and blue Around the sleeping infant flew. And now the fairy boat hath stopp'd A song is sung by the Peri in approaching, of which the following forms a part : My child she is but half divine, Sea-weeds twine His funeral shrine, To my own sweet bowers of Peristan; For the eyes of a baby born of man. Stranger, spread Thy leafiest bed, In another of these inchoate fragments, a proud female saint, named Banou, plays a principal part; and her progress through the streets of Cufa, on the night of a great illuminated festival, I find thus described : It was a scene of mirth that drew So filled with zeal, by many a draught There are yet two more of these unfinished sketches, one of which extends to a much greater length than I was aware of; and, as far as I can judge from a hasty renewal of my acquaintance with it, is not incapable of being yet turned to account. In only one of these unfinished sketches, the tale of The Peri's Daughter, had I yet ventured to invoke that most home-felt of all my inspirations, which has lent to the story of The Fire-worshippers its main attraction and interest. That it was my intention, in the concealed Prince of Ormuz, to shadow out some impersonation of this feeling, I take for granted from the prophetic words supposed to be addressed to him by his aged guardian: Bright child of destiny ! even now In none of the other fragments do I find any trace of this sort of feeling, either in the subject or the personages of the intended story; and this was the reason, doubtless, though hardly known, at the time, |