241—To Walter Scott[1]
St. James's Street, July 6, 1812.
Sir
,—I have just been honoured with your letter.—I feel sorry that you should have thought it worth while to notice the "evil works of my nonage," as the thing is suppressed
voluntarily
, and your explanation is too kind not to give me pain. The Satire was written when I was very young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit, and now I am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. I cannot sufficiently thank you for your praise; and now, waving myself, let me talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips, as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities: he preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which of your works pleased me most. It was a difficult question. I answered, I thought the
Lay