nt the packet containing them to Mr. Murray. They had
been copied in the legible hand of Lady Byron. On receiving the poems
Mr. Murray wrote to Lord Byron as follows:

_John Murray to Lord Byron_.

_December_, 1815.

My Lord,

I tore open the packet you sent me, and have found in it a Pearl. It is
very interesting, pathetic, beautiful--do you know, I would almost say
moral. I am really writing to you before the billows of the passions you
excited have subsided. I have been most agreeably disappointed (a word I
cannot associate with the poem) at the story, which--what you hinted to
me and wrote--had alarmed me; and I should not have read it aloud to my
wife if my eye had not traced the delicate hand that transcribed it.

Mr. Murray enclosed to Lord Byron two notes, amounting to a thousand
guineas, for the copyright of the poems, but Lord Byron refused the
notes, declaring that the sum was too great.

"Your offer," he answered (January 3, 1816), "is _liberal_ in the
extreme, and much more than the poems can possibly be worth; but I
cannot accept it, and will not. You are most welcome to them as
additions to the collected volumes, without any demand or expectation on
my part whatever.... I am very glad that the handwriting was a
favourable omen of the _morale_ of the piece; but you must not trust to
that, as my copyist would write out anything I desired in all the
ignorance of innocence--I hope, however, in this instance, with no great
peril to either."

The money, therefore, which Murray thought the copyright of the "Siege
of Corinth" and "Parisina" was worth, remained untouched in the
publisher's hands. It was afterwards suggested, by Mr. Rogers and Sir
James Mackintosh, to Lord Byron, that a portion of it (L600) might be
applied to the relief of Mr. Godwin, the author of "An Enquiry into
Political Justice," who was then in difficulties; and Lord Byron himself
proposed that the remainder should be divided between Mr. Maturin and
Mr. Coleridge. This proposal caused the deepest vexation to Mr. Murray,
who made the following remonstrance against such a proceeding.

_John Murray to Lord Byron_.

ALBEMARLE STREET, _Monday_, 4 o'clock.

My Lord,

I did not like to detain you this morning, but I confess to you that I
came away impressed with a belief that you had already reconsidered this
matter, as it refers to me--Your Lordship will pardon me if I cannot
avoid looking upon it as a species of cruelty, after what