He received Murray with great cordiality, and made
many enquiries as to Lord Byron, to whom Murray wrote on his return to
London:
_John Murray to Lord Byron_.
"Walter Scott commissioned me to be the bearer of his warmest greetings
to you. His house was full the day I passed with him; and yet, both in
corners and at the surrounded table, he talked incessantly of you.
Unwilling that I should part without bearing some mark of his love (a
poet's love) for you, he gave me a superb Turkish dagger to present to
you, as the only remembrance which, at the moment, he could think of to
offer you. He was greatly pleased with the engraving of your portrait,
which I recollected to carry with me; and during the whole dinner--when
all were admiring the taste with which Scott had fitted up a sort of
Gothic cottage--he expressed his anxious wishes that you might honour
him with a visit, which I ventured to assure him you would feel no less
happy than certain in effecting when you should go to Scotland; and I am
sure he would hail your lordship as 'a very brother.'"
After all his visits had been paid, and he had made his arrangements
with his printers and publishers, Mr.
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