No one ever more persistently converted the incidents of travel into
poetic material; but sometimes in doing so he borrowed more largely from
his imagination than his memory, as in the description of the seraglio, of
which there is reason to doubt his having seen more than the entrance.
Byron and Hobhouse set sail from Constantinople on the 14th July,
1810--the latter to return direct to England, a determination which, from
no apparent fault on either side, the former did not regret. One incident
of the passage derives interest from its possible consequence. Taking up,
and unsheathing, a yataghan which he found on the quarter deck, ho
remarked, "I should like to know how a person feels after committing a
murder." This harmless piece of melodrama--the idea of which is expanded
in Mr. Dobell's _Balder_, and parodied in _Firmilian_--may have been the
basis of a report afterwards circulated, and accepted among others by
Goethe, that his lordship had committed a murder; hence, obviously, the
character of _Lara_, and the mystery of _Manfred!_ The poet parted from
his friend at Zea, (Ceos): after spending some time in solitude on the
little island, he returned to Athens, and there renewed acquaintance with
his school friend, the Marquis of Sligo, who after a few days accompanied
him to Corinth.
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