"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.]
* * * * *
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:--