oposed, swear that I never
experienced such great and unmixed pleasure in all my life as the
reading of this exquisite work has afforded me; and if you witnessed the
wet eyes and grinning cheeks with which, as the author's chamberlain, I
receive the unanimous and vehement praise of them from every one who has
read them, or heard the curses of those whose needs my scanty supply
would not satisfy, you might judge of the sincerity with which I now
entreat you to assure the author of the most complete success. After
this, I could throw all the other books which I have in the press into
the Thames, for no one will either read them or buy. Lord Holland said,
when I asked his opinion: "Opinion? we did not one of us go to bed all
night, and nothing slept but my gout." Frere, Hallam, and Boswell; Lord
Glenbervie came to me with tears in his eyes. "It is a cordial," he
said, "which has saved Lady Glenbervie's life." Heber, who found it on
his table on his arrival from a journey, had no rest till he had read
it. He has only this moment left me, and he, with many others, agrees
that it surpasses all the other novels. Wm. Lamb also; Gifford never
read anything like it, he says; and his estimate of it absolutely
increases at each recollection of it. Barrow with great difficulty was
forced to read it; and he said yesterday, "Very good, to be sure, but
what powerful writing is _thrown away_." Heber says there are only two
men in the world, Walter Scott and Lord Byron. Between you, you have
given existence to a third.

Ever your faithful servant,

JOHN MURRAY.

This letter did not effectually "draw the badger." Scott replied in the
following humorous but Jesuitical epistle:

_Mr. Scott to John Murray_.

_December 18, 1816_.

MY DEAR SIR,

I give you hearty 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 to me. I assure you I have never read a volume of them till
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 chose to ask the question, since silence in such a case must
always pass for consent, or rather assent. But I have