The present is so very magnificent, that—­in short, I leave Lady Byron to thank you for it herself, and merely send this to apologise for a piece of apparent and unintentional neglect on my own part.  Yours,” &c.

[Footnote 80:  Mr. Murray had presented Lady Byron with twelve drawings, by Stothard, from Lord Byron’s Poems.]

* * * * *

LETTER 222.  TO MR. MOORE.[81]

     “13.  Piccadilly Terrace, June 12. 1815.

“I have nothing to offer in behalf of my late silence, except the most inveterate and ineffable laziness; but I am too supine to invent a lie, or I certainly should, being ashamed of the truth.  K * *, I hope, has appeased your magnanimous indignation at his blunders.  I wished and wish you were in the Committee, with all my heart.[82] It seems so hopeless a business, that the company of a friend would be quite consoling,—­but more of this when we meet.  In the mean time, you are entreated to prevail upon Mrs. Esterre to engage herself.  I believe she has been written to, but your influence, in person or proxy, would probably go further than our proposals.  What they are, I know not; all my new function consists in listening to the despair of Cavendish Bradshaw, the hopes of Kinnaird, the wishes of Lord Essex, the complaints of Whitbread, and the calculations of Peter Moore,—­all of which, and whom, seem totally at variance.  C. Bradshaw wants to light the theatre with gas, which may, perhaps (if the vulgar be believed), poison half the audience, and all the dramatis personae.  Essex has endeavoured to persuade K * * not to get drunk, the consequence of which is, that he has never been sober since.  Kinnaird, with equal success, would have convinced Raymond, that he, the said Raymond, had too much salary.  Whitbread wants us to assess the pit another sixpence,—­a d——­d insidious proposition,—­which will end in an O.P. combustion.  To crown all, R * *, the auctioneer, has the impudence to be displeased, because he has no dividend.  The villain is a proprietor of shares, and a long lunged orator in the meetings.  I hear he has prophesied our incapacity,—­’a foregone conclusion,’ whereof I hope to give him signal proofs before we are done.

     “Will you give us an opera?  No, I’ll be sworn; but I wish you
     would.

“To go on with the poetical world, Walter Scott has gone back to Scotland.  Murray, the bookseller, has been cruelly cudgelled of misbegotten knaves, ‘in Kendal green,’ at Newington Butts, in his way home from a purlieu dinner,—­and robbed—­would you believe it?—­of three or four bonds of forty pound a piece, and a seal-ring of his grandfather’s, worth a million!  This is his version,—­but others opine that D’Israeli, with whom he dined, knocked him down with his last publication, ‘The Quarrels of Authors,’ in a dispute about copyright.