"Once more I thank you for the gratification you have afforded me.
"Believe me, ever yours most truly,
"E. D. CLARKE."]
[Footnote 2: In Clarke's 'Travels' (Part II. sect. i. chap, xii.,
"Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land") will be found an account of Djezzar
Pasha, who fortified Acre in 1775, and with Sir Sidney Smith, defended
it against Buonaparte, March 16 to May 20, 1799. Clarke ('ibid'.)
mentions the Druses detained by Djezzar as hostages.]
* * * * *
241.--To Walter Scott. [1]
St. James's Street, July 6, 1812.
SIR,--I have just been honoured with your letter.--I feel sorry that you
should have thought it worth while to notice the "evil works of my
nonage," as the thing is suppressed _voluntarily_, and your explanation
is too kind not to give me pain. The Satire was written when I was very
young and very angry, and fully bent on displaying my wrath and my wit,
and now I am haunted by the ghosts of my wholesale assertions. I cannot
sufficiently thank you for your praise; and now, waving myself, let me
talk to you of the Prince Regent. He ordered me to be presented to him
at a ball; and after some sayings peculiarly pleasing from royal lips,
as to my own attempts, he talked to me of you and your immortalities: he
preferred you to every bard past and present, and asked which of your
works pleased me most. It was a difficult question. I answered, I
thought the 'Lay'. He said his own opinion was nearly similar.
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