flatter myself that the writer, whoever he may be (and I have no guess), will not regret that the perusal of this has given me as much gratification as any composition of that nature could give, and more than any has given—­and I have had a good many in my time of one kind or the other.  It is not the mere praise, but there is a tact and a delicacy throughout, not only with regard to me but to others, which, as it had not been observed elsewhere, I had till now doubted whether it could be observed anywhere.”

“When I tell you,” Lord Byron wrote to Moore a week later, “that Walter Scott is the author of the article in the Quarterly, you will agree with me that such an article is still more honourable to him than to myself.”

We conclude this episode with the following passage from a letter from Scott to Murray: 

“I am truly happy Lord Byron’s article meets your ideas of what may make some impression on his mind.  In genius, poetry has seldom had his equal, and if he has acted very wrong in some respects, he has been no worse than half the men of his rank in London who have done the same, and are not spoken of because not worth being railed against.”

Lady Byron also wrote to Mr. Murray: 

I am inclined to ask a question, which I hope you will not decline answering, if not contrary to your engagements.  Who is the author of the review of “Childe Harold” in the Quarterly?  Your faithful Servant, A. I. BYRON.

Among other ladies who wrote on the subject of Lord Byron’s works was Lady Caroline Lamb, who had caricatured him (as he supposed) in her “Glenarvon.”  Her letter is dated Welwyn, franked by William Lamb: 

Lady Caroline Lamb to John Murray.

November 5, 1816.

“You cannot need my assuring you that if you will entrust me with the new poems, none of the things you fear shall occur, in proof of which I ask you to enquire with yourself, whether, if a person in constant correspondence and friendship with another, yet keeps a perfect silence on one subject, she cannot do so when at enmity and at a distance.”

This letter, to which no reply seems to have been sent, is followed by another, in which her Ladyship says: 

I wish to ask you one question:  are you offended with me or my letter?  If so, I am sorry, but depend upon it if after seven years’ acquaintance you choose to cut off what you ever termed your left hand, I have too much gratitude towards you to allow of it.  Accept therefore every apology for every supposed fault.  I always write eagerly and in haste, I never read over what I have written.  If therefore I said anything I ought not, pardon it—­it was not intended; and let me entreat you to remember a maxim I have found very useful to me, that there is nothing in this life worth quarrelling about, and that half the people we are offended with never intended to give us cause.