v.]

LETTER FROM SCOTT.

459

APPENDIX V.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH WALTER SCOTT.

THE following is Walter Scott's reply to Byron's letter of July 6, 1812 :

"Abbotsford, near Melrose, 16th July, 1812.

"MY LORD,—I am much indebted to your Lordship for your kind and friendly letter; and much gratified by the Prince Regent's good opinion of my literary attempts. I know so little of courts or princes, that any success I may have had in hitting off the Stuarts is, I am afraid, owing to a little old Jacobite leaven which I sucked in with the numerous traditionary tales that amused my infancy. It is a fortunate thing for the Prince himself that he has a literary turn, since nothing can so effectually relieve the ennui of state, and the anxieties of power.

"I hope your Lordship intends to give us more of Childe Harold. I was delighted that my friend Jeffrey-for such, in despite of many a feud, literary and political, I always esteem him-has made so handsomely the amende honorable for not having discovered in the bud the merits of the flower; and I am happy to understand that the retractation so handsomely made was received with equal liberality. These circumstances may perhaps some day lead you to revisit Scotland, which has a maternal claim upon you, and I need not say what pleasure I should have in returning my personal thanks for the honour you have done me. I am labouring here to contradict an old proverb, and make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, namely, to convert a bare haugh and brae, of about 100 acres, into a comfortable farm. Now, although I am living in a gardener's hut, and although the adjacent ruins of Melrose have little to tempt one who has seen those of Athens, yet, should you take a tour which is so fashionable at this season, I should be very happy to have an opportunity of introducing you to anything remarkable in my fatherland. My neighbour, Lord Somerville, would, I am sure, readily supply the accommodations which I want, unless you prefer a couch in a closet, which is the utmost hospitality I have at present to offer. The fair, or shall I say the sage, Apreece that was, Lady Davy that is, is soon to show us how much science she leads captive in Sir Humphrey; so your Lordship sees, as the citizen's wife says

in the farce, Thread-needle Street has some charms,' since they procure us such celebrated visitants. As for me, I would rather cross-question your Lordship about the outside of Parnassus, than learn the nature of the contents of all the other mountains in the world. Pray, when under its cloudy canopy' did you hear anything of the celebrated Pegasus? Some say he has been brought off with other curiosities to Britain, and now covers at Tattersal's. I would fain have a cross from him out of my little moss-trooper's Galloway, and I think your Lordship can tell one how to set about it, as I recognise his true paces in the high-mettled description of Ali Pacha's military court.

"A wise man said—or, if not, I, who am no wise man, now say -that there is no surer mark of regard than when your correspondent ventures to write nonsense to you. Having, therefore, like Dogberry, bestowed all my tediousness upon your Lordship, you are to conclude that I have given you a convincing proof that I am very much

"Your Lordship's obliged and very faithful servant,

"WALTER SCOTT."

VI.]

REPLY TO MOORE'S SQUIB.

461

APPENDIX VI.

"THE GIANT AND THE DWARF."

THE reply of Leigh Hunt's friends to Moore's squib, "The 'Living Dog' and the 'Dead Lion'" (see Letter 291, p. 205, note 1), ran as follows:

"THE GIANT AND THE Dwarf.

"Humbly inscribed to T. Pidcock, Esq., of Exeter 'Change.

"A Giant that once of a Dwarf made a friend,

(And their friendship the Dwarf took care shouldn't be hid), Would now and then, out of his glooms, condescend To laugh at his antics,-as every one did.

"This Dwarf-an extremely diminutive Dwarf,

In birth unlike G-y, though his pride was as big,
Had been taken, when young, from the bogs of Clontarf,
And though born quite a Helot, had grown up a Whig.

"He wrote little verses-and sung them withal,

And the Giant's dark visions they sometimes could charm, Like the voice of the lute which had pow'r over Saul,

And the song which could Hell and its legions disarm.

"The Giant was grateful, and offered him gold,

But the Dwarf was indignant, and spurn'd at the offer: 'No, never!' he cried, 'shall my friendship be sold For the sordid contents of another man's coffer!

"What would Dwarfland, and Ireland, and every land say?
To what would so shocking a thing be ascribed?
My Lady would think that I was in your pay,

And the Quarterly say that I must have been bribed.

"You see how I'm puzzled; I don't say it wouldn't
Be pleasant just now to have just that amount:
But to take it in gold or in bank-notes !-I couldn't,
I wouldn't accept it-on any account.

"But couldn't you just write your Autobiography,
All fearless and personal, bitter and stinging?
Sure that, with a few famous heads in lithography,
Would bring me far more than my Songs or my singing.

""You know what I did for poor Sheridan's Life ;
Your's is sure of my very best superintendence;
I'll expunge what might point at your sister or wife,—
And I'll thus keep my priceless, unbought independence !'

"The Giant smiled grimly: he couldn't quite see

What diff'rence there was on the face of the earth, Between the Dwarf's taking the money in fee,

And his taking the same thing in that money's worth.

"But to please him he wrote; and the business was done :
The Dwarf went immediately off to 'the Row;'

And ere the next night had pass'd over the sun,
The MEMOIRS were purchas'd by Longman and Co.

"W. GYNGELL, Showman, Bartholomew Fair."

VII.]

THE COURIER.

463

APPENDIX VII.

ATTACKS UPON BYRON IN THE NEWSPAPERS FOR FEBRUARY AND MARCH, 1814.

I. THE COURIER.

(1) LORD BYRON (The Courier, February 1, 1814). A NEW Poem has just been published by the above Nobleman, and the Morning Chronicle of to-day has favoured its readers with his Lordship's Dedication of it to THOMAS MOORE, Esq., in what that paper calls "an elegant eulogium." If the elegance of an eulogium consist in its extravagance, the Chronicle's epithet is well chosen. But our purpose is not with the Dedication, nor the main Poem, The Corsair, but with one of the pieces called Poems, published at the end of the Corsair. Nearly two years ago (in March, 1812), when the REGENT was attacked with a bitterness and rancour that disgusted the whole country; when attempts were made day after day to wound every feeling of the heart; there appeared in the Morning Chronicle an anonymous Address to a Young Lady weeping, upon which we remarked at the time (Courier of March 7, 1812), considering it as tending to make the Princess CHARLOTTE of WALES view the PRINCE REGENT her father as an object of suspicion and disgrace. Few of our readers have forgotten the disgust which this address excited. The author of it, however, unwilling that it should sleep in the oblivion to which it had been consigned with the other trash of that day, has republished it, and, placed the first of what are called Poems at the end of this newly published work the Corsair, we find this very address :