The letter that follows was in answer to one received from Mr. Murray, in which that gentleman had enclosed him a draft for a thousand guineas for the copyright of his two poems, The Siege of Corinth and Parisina:—­

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LETTER 236.  TO MR. MURRAY.

     “January 3. 1816.

“Your offer is liberal in the extreme, (you see I use the word to you and of you, though I would not consent to your using it of yourself to Mr. * * * *,) and much more than the two poems can possibly be worth; but I cannot accept it, nor will not.  You are most welcome to them as additions to the collected volumes, without any demand or expectation on my part whatever.  But I cannot consent to their separate publication.  I do not like to risk any fame (whether merited or not), which I have been favoured with, upon compositions which I do not feel to be at all equal to my own notions of what they should be, (and as I flatter myself some have been, here and there,) though they may do very well as things without pretension, to add to the publication with the lighter pieces.

“I am very glad that the handwriting was a favourable omen of the morale of the piece:  but you must not trust to that, for my copyist would write out any thing I desired in all the ignorance of innocence—­I hope, however, in this instance, with no great peril to either.

“P.S.  I have enclosed your draft torn, for fear of accidents by the way—­I wish you would not throw temptation in mine.  It is not from a disdain of the universal idol, nor from a present superfluity of his treasures, I can assure you, that I refuse to worship him; but what is right is right, and must not yield to circumstances.”

[Footnote 98:  Had he not erred, he had far less achieved.]

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Notwithstanding the ruinous state of his pecuniary affairs, the resolution which the poet had formed not to avail himself of the profits of his works still continued to be held sacred by him; and the sum thus offered for the copyright of The Siege of Corinth and Parisina was, as we see, refused and left untouched in the publisher’s hands.  It happened that, at this time, a well-known and eminent writer on political science had been, by some misfortune, reduced to pecuniary embarrassment; and the circumstance having become known to Mr. Rogers and Sir James Mackintosh, it occurred to them that a part of the sum thus unappropriated by Lord Byron could not be better bestowed than in relieving the necessities of this gentleman.  The suggestion was no sooner conveyed to the noble poet than he proceeded to act upon it; and the following letter to Mr. Rogers refers to his intentions:—­

LETTER 237.  TO MR. ROGERS.