“I have just been honoured with your letter.—I feel
sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the evil works of
my nonage, as the thing is suppressed voluntarily, and
your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The Satire was written when I was very young and
very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now I am
haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. I cannot sufficiently thank
you for your praise; and now, waiving myself, let me talk to you of the
Prince Regent. He ordered me to be
presented to him at a ball: and after some sayings, peculiarly pleasing from
royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your
immortalities; he preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which
of your works pleased me most. It was a difficult question. I answered, I
thought the Lay. He said his own
opinion was nearly similar. In speaking of the others, I told him that I
thought you more particularly the poet of Princes, as
they never appeared more fascinating than in Marmion and the Lady of the Lake. He was pleased to
coincide, and to dwell on the description of your Jameses as no less royal than
poetical. He spoke alternately of Homer and
yourself, and seemed well acquainted with both; so that (with the exception of
the Turks and your humble servant) you were in very good company. I defy
Murray to have exaggerated his
| 402 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“This interview was accidental. I never went to the levee; for having seen the courts of Mussulman and Catholic sovereigns, my curiosity was sufficiently allayed: and my politics being as perverse as my rhymes, I had, in fact, no business there. To be thus praised by your Sovereign must be gratifying to you; and if that gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately, and sincerely, your obliged and obedient servant,
