"If I may be permitted, I would suggest that there never was such
an opening for tragedy. In Kean, there is an actor worthy of
expressing the thoughts of the characters which you have every
power of embodying; and I cannot but regret that the part of
Ordonio was disposed of before his appearance at Drury Lane. We
have had nothing to be mentioned in the same breath with 'Remorse'
for very many years; and I should think that the reception of that
play was sufficient to encourage the highest hopes of author and
audience. It is to be hoped that you are proceeding in a career
which could not but be successful. With my best respects to Mr.
Bowles, I have the honour to be

"Your obliged and very obedient servant,

"Byron.

"P.S. You mention my 'Satire,' lampoon, or whatever you or others
please to call it. I can only say, that it was written when I was
very young and very angry, and has been a thorn in my side ever
since; more particularly as almost all the persons animadverted
upon became subsequently my acquaintances, and some of them my
friends, which is 'heaping fire upon an enemy's head,' and
forgiving me too readily to permit me to forgive myself. The part
applied to you is pert, and petulant, and shallow enough; but,
although I have long done every thing in my power to suppress the
circulation of the whole thing, I shall always regret the
wantonness or generality of many of its attempted attacks."

* * * * *

It was in the course of this spring that Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott
became, for the first time, personally acquainted with each other. Mr.
Murray, having been previously on a visit to the latter gentleman, had
been intrusted by him with a superb Turkish dagger as a present to Lord
Byron; and the noble poet, on their meeting this year in London,--the
only time when these two great men had ever an opportunity of enjoying
each other's society,--presented to Sir Walter, in return, a vase
containing some human bones that had been dug up from under a part of
the old walls of Athens. The reader, however, will be much better
pleased to have these particulars in the words of Sir Walter Scott
himself, who, with that good-nature which renders him no less amiable
than he is admirable, has found time, in the midst of all his
marvellous labours for the world, to favour