However, I would not make a
light thing of so good a matter as I mean my enthusiasm to be, and
intend, before I have done, that you shall have as sound a regard for
it, as I have for the feelings on your Lordship's part that have
called it forth.
"Yours, my dear Lord, most sincerely and cordially,
"Leigh Hunt.
"Surrey Jail, 2'd Dec'r., 1813."]
* * * * *
368.--To John Murray.
Dec. 3, 1813.
I send you a _scratch_ or _two_, the which _heal_. The _Christian
Observer_ [1] is very savage, but certainly uncommonly well written--and
quite uncomfortable at the naughtiness of book and author. I rather
suspect you won't much like the _present_ to be more moral, if it is to
share also the usual fate of your virtuous volumes.
Let me see a proof of the _six_ before _incorporation_.
[Footnote 1: The 'Christian Observer' for November, 1813 (pp. 731-737)
felt compelled to review 'The Giaour', because of its extraordinary
popularity; but it found that some of the passages savoured "too much of
Newgate and Bedlam for our expurgated pages." It acknowledged one
obligation to Byron.
"He never attempts to deceive the world by representing the profligate
as happy.... And his testimony is of the more value, as his situation
in life must have permitted him to see the experiment tried under the
most favourable circumstances. He has probably seen more than one
example of young men of high birth, talents, and expectancies, .
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