Note 2 — CONCERNING

The poet has here, by that bold license which only genius can venture upon, surmounted the extreme difficulty of introducing any particular Turk, by assuming a fore-gone conclusion in the reader's mind, and adverting in a casual, careless way to a Turk unknown, as to an old acquaintance. "

This

Turk he had—" We have heard of no Turk before, and yet this familiar introduction satisfies us at once that we know him well. He was a pirate, no doubt, of a cruel and savage disposition, entertaining a hatred of the Christian race, and accustomed to garnish his trees and vines with such stray professors of Christianity as happened to fall into his hands. "This Turk he had—" is a master-stroke—a truly Shakspearian touch. There are few things like it in the language.