The Prince Regent, it may be added, showed his appreciation of Scott's
poetry by offering him, on the death of Pye, the post of poet laureate.
Scott refused, on the ground, apparently, that the office had been made
ridiculous by the previous holder.
"At the time when Scott and Byron were the two 'lions' of London,
Hookham Frere observed, 'Great poets formerly (Homer and Milton) were
blind; now they are lame'"
('Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers', P. 194).]
[Footnote 2: The Turkish ambassador and suite were at the ball.]
[Footnote 3: Byron had already written his "Stanzas to a Lady Weeping,"
suggested by the rumour that Princess Charlotte had burst into tears, on
being told that there would be no change of Ministry when the Prince of
Wales assumed the Regency. They appeared anonymously in the 'Morning
Chronicle' for March 7, 1812, under the title of a "Sympathetic
'Address' to a Young Lady." They were published, as Byron's work, with
'The Corsair', in February, 1814. The verses rather betray the influence
of Moore than express his own feelings at the time. In 'Don Juan' (Canto
XII. stanza lxxxiv.) he thus speaks of the Regent:
"There, too, he saw (whate'er he may be now)
A Prince, the prince of princes at the time,
With fascination in his very bow,
And full of promise, as the spring of prime.
Though royalty was written on his brow,
He had 'then' the grace, too, rare in every clime,
Of being, without alloy of fop or beau,
A finish'd gentleman from top to toe.
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