“My dear Moore,—A thousand thanks to you for the kind things which you have said of me in your ‘Life of Lord Byron,’—but forgive me for animadverting to what his lordship says, at page 463 of your first volume.—It is not every day that one is mentioned in such joint pages as those of Moore and Byron.
“Lord Byron there
states that, one evening at Lord
Holland’s, I was nettled at
something, and the whole passage, if believed, leaves it to be inferred that I
was angry, envious, and ill-mannered.—Now I never envied Lord
Byron, but, on the contrary, rejoiced in his fame; in the first
place from a sense of justice, and in the next place, because, as a poetical
critic, he was my beneficent friend.—I never was nettled in Lord
| 162 | THOMAS CAMPBELL. |
“What feeling but that of kindness could I have towards
Lord Byron?—He was always affectionate
towards me, both in his writings and in his personal interviews. How strange
that he should misunderstand my manner on the occasion alluded to—and what
temptation could I have to show myself pettish and envious before my
inestimable friend Lord Holland. The whole
scene, as described by Lord Byron, is a phantom of his own
imagination. Ah, my dear Moore, if we
had him but back again, how easily could we settle these matters. But I have
| THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 163 |
