“I give you heartily joy of the success of the Tales, although I do not claim that
paternal interest in them which my friends do me the credit to assign me. I
assure you I have never read a volume of them until they were printed, and can
only join with the rest of the world in applauding the true and striking
portraits which they present of old Scottish manners. I do not expect implicit
reliance to be placed on my disavowal, because I know very well that he who is
disposed not to own a work must necessarily deny it, and that otherwise his
secret would be at the mercy of all who choose to ask the question, since
silence in such a case must always pass for consent, or rather assent. But I
have a mode of convincing you that I am perfectly serious in my denial—pretty
similar to that by which Solomon
distinguished the fictitious from the real mother—and that is, by reviewing the
work, which I take to be an operation equal to that of quartering the child.
But this is only on condition I can have Mr
Erskine’s assistance, who admires the work greatly more
than I do, though I think the painting of the second tale both true and powerful. I knew
Old Mortality very well; his name
was Pater-
| LETTER TO MURRAY—DEC. 1816. | 33 |
“Constable wrote to me about two months since, desirous of having a new edition of Paul; but not hearing from you, I conclude you are still on hand. Longman’s people had then only sixty copies.
“Kind compliments to Heber, whom I expected at Abbotsford this summer; also to Mr Croker and all your four o’clock visitors. I am just going to Abbotsford to make a small addition to my premises there. I have now about 700 acres, thanks to the booksellers and the discerning public. Yours truly,
“P.S. I have much to ask about Lord Byron, if I had time. The third canto of the Childe is inimitable. Of the last poems, there are one or two which indicate rather an irregular play of imagination.* What a pity that a man of such exquisite genius will not be contented to be happy on the ordinary terms! I declare my heart bleeds when I think of him, self-banished from the country to which he is an honour.”
