n'd to the lightning, as it flash'd
And sparkled on these fetters."

I have since been informed by Mr. Sotheby that, though not published,
these lines had been written long before the appearance of Lord Byron's
poem.]

* * * * *

LETTER 225. TO MR. TAYLOR.

"13. Terrace, Piccadilly, September 25. 1815.

"Dear Sir,

"I am sorry you should feel uneasy at what has by no means troubled
me.[85] If your editor, his correspondents, and readers, are
amused, I have no objection to be the theme of all the ballads he
can find room for,--provided his lucubrations are confined to _me_
only.

"It is a long time since things of this kind have ceased to 'fright
me from my propriety;' nor do I know any similar attack which would
induce me to turn again,--unless it involved those connected with
me, whose qualities, I hope, are such as to exempt them in the eyes
of those who bear no good-will to myself. In such a case, supposing
it to occur--to _reverse_ the saying of Dr. Johnson,--'what the law
could not do for me, I would do for myself,' be the consequences
what they might.

"I return you, with many thanks, Colman and the letters. The poems,
I hope, you intended me to keep;--at least, I shall do so, till I
hear the contrary. Very truly yours."

[Footnote 85: Mr. Taylor having inserted in the Sun newspaper (of which
he was then chief proprietor) a sonnet to Lord Byron, in return for a
present which his Lordship had sent him of a handsomely bound copy of
all his works, there appeared in the same journal, on the following day
(from the pen of some person who had acquired a control over the paper),
a parody upon this sonnet, containing some disrespectful allusion to
Lady Byron; and it is to this circumstance, which Mr. Taylor had written
to explain, that the above letter, so creditable to the feelings of the
noble husband, refers.]

* * * * *

TO MR. MURRAY.

"Sept. 25. 1815.

"Will you publish the Drury Lane 'Magpie?' or, what is more, will
you give fifty, or even forty, pounds for the copyright of the
said? I have undertaken to ask you this question on behalf of the
translator, and wish you would. We can't get so much for him by ten
pounds from any body else, and I, knowing your magnificence, would
be glad of an answer. Ever," &c.