venerabile nomen of Sir Walter Scott! From that distinguished
writer, whose transcendent talents were only to be equalled by his
virtues and his amiability, we received favours and notice, both
public and private, which it will be difficult to forget, because we
had not the smallest claim upon his kindness. "I certainly must have
written this myself!" said that fine-tempered man to one of the
authors, pointing to the description of the Fire, "although I forget
upon what occasion." Lydia White, {6} a literary lady who was prone
to feed the lions of the day, invited one of us to dinner; but,
recollecting afterwards that William Spencer {7} formed one of the
party, wrote to the latter to put him off, telling him that a man was
to be at her table whom he "would not like to meet." "Pray, who is
this whom I should not like to meet?" inquired the poet. "O!"
answered the lady, "one of those men who have made that shameful
attack upon you!" "The very man upon earth I should like to know!"
rejoined the lively and careless bard. The two individuals
accordingly met, and have continued fast friends ever since. Lord
Byron, too, wrote thus to Mr. Murray from Italy--"Tell him I forgive
him, were he twenty times over our satirist."

It may not be amiss to notice, in this place, one criticism of a
Leicestershire clergyman, which may be pronounced unique: "I do not
see why they should have been rejected," observed the matter-of-fact
annotator; "I think some of them very good!" Upon the whole, few
have been the instances, in the acrimonious history of literature,
where a malicious pleasantry like the Rejected Addresses--which the
parties ridiculed might well consider more annoying than a direct
satire--instead of being met by querulous bitterness or petulant
retaliation, has procured for its authors the acquaintance, or
conciliated the good-will, of those whom they had the most