"Waverley is the best and most interesting novel I have redde since--I don't know when. I like it as much as I hate * *, and * *, and * *, and all the feminine trash of the last four months. Besides, it is all easy to me, I have been in Scotland so much (though then young enough too), and feel at home with the people, Lowland and Gael. "A note will correct what Mr. Hobhouse thinks an error (about the feudal system in Spain);--it is _not_ Spain. If he puts a few words of prose any where, it will set all right. "I have been ordered to town to vote. I shall disobey. There is no good in so much prating, since 'certain issues strokes should arbitrate.' If you have any thing to say, let me hear from you. "Yours," &c. [Footnote 43: Alluding to Lara.] * * * * * LETTER 191. TO MR. MURRAY. "August 3. 1814. "It is certainly a little extraordinary that you have not sent the Edinburgh Review, as I requested, and hoped it would not require a note a day to remind you. I see _advertisements_ of Lara and Jacqueline; pray, _why?_ when I requested you to postpone publication till my return to town. "I have a most amusing epistle from the Ettrick bard--Hogg; in which, speaking of his bookseller, whom he denominates the 'shabbiest' of the _trade_ for not 'lifting his bills,' he adds, in so many words, 'G----d d----n him and them both.' This is a pretty prelude to asking you to adopt him (the said Hogg); but this he wishes; and if you please, you and I will talk it over. He has a poem ready for the press (and your _bills_ too, if '_lift_able'), and bestows some benedictions on Mr. Moore for his abduction of Lara from the forthcoming Miscellany.[44] "P.S. Sincerely, I think Mr. Hogg would suit you very well; and surely he is a man of great powers, and deserving of encouragement. I must knock out a Tale for him, and you should at all events consider before you reject his suit. Scott is gone to the Orkneys in a gale of wind; and Hogg says that, during the said gale, 'he is sure that Scott is not quite at his ease, to say the best of it.' Ah! I wish these home-keeping bards could taste a Mediterranean white squall, or 'the Gut' in a gale of wind, or even the 'Bay of Biscay' with no wind at all." [Footnote 44: Mr. Hogg had been led to hope that he should be permitted to insert this poem in a Miscellany which he had at this time some thoughts of publishing; and whatever advice I may have given against such a mode of disposing of the work arose certainly not from any ill will to this ingenious and remarkable man, but from a consideration of what I thought most advantageous to the fame of Lord Byron.] * * * * * LETTER 192. TO MR. MOORE. "Hastings, August 3. 1814.