This interview was accidental. I never went to the levée; for having seen the courts of Mussulman and Catholic sovereigns, my curiosity was sufficiently allayed; and my politics being as perverse as my rhymes, I had, in fact, "no business there." To be thus praised by your Sovereign must be gratifying to you; and if that gratification is not alloyed by the communication being made through me, the bearer of it will consider himself very fortunately and sincerely,
Your obliged and obedient servant,
Byron
.
P.S.—Excuse this scrawl, scratched in a great hurry, and just after a journey.
The correspondence which begins with this letter laid the foundation of a firm friendship between the two poets. Scott was naturally annoyed by the attack upon him in
English Bards, etc
. (lines 171-174), made by "a young whelp of a Lord Byron." Though