"'Scott,' his friend says, 'more correctly than any other man I ever knew, appreciated the value of that apparently enthusiastic _engouement_ which the world of London shows to the fashionable wonder of the year. During the sojourn of 1809, the homage paid him would have turned the head of any less gifted man of eminence. It neither altered his opinions, nor produced the affectation of despising it; on the contrary, he received it, cultivated it, and repaid it in his own coin. 'All this is very flattering,' he would say, 'and very civil; and if people are amused with hearing me tell a parcel of old stories, or recite a pack of ballads to lovely young girls and gaping matrons, they are easily pleased, and a man would be very ill-natured who would not give pleasure so cheaply conferred.' If he dined with us, and found any new faces, 'Well, do you want me to play lion to-day?' was his usual question; 'I will roar, if you like it, to your heart's content.' He would, indeed, in such cases, put forth all his inimitable powers of entertainment; and day after day surprised me by their unexpected extent and variety. Then, as the party dwindled, and we were left alone, he laughed at himself, quoted, 'Yet know that I one Snug the joiner am--no lion fierce,' etc.,--and was at once himself again. "He often lamented the injurious effects for literature and genius resulting from the influence of London celebrity on weaker minds, especially in the excitement of ambition for this subordinate and ephemeral _reputation du salon_. 'It may be a pleasant gale to sail with,' he said, 'but it never yet led to a port that I should like to anchor in.'" In relation to the delightful introductory epistles to Marmion, we find the following: "He frequently wandered far from home, attended only by his dog, and would return late in the evening, having let hours after hours slip away among the soft and melancholy wildernesses where Yarrow creeps from her fountains. The lines, 'Oft in my mind such thoughts awake, By lone Saint Mary's silent lake,' &c. paint a scene not less impressive than what Byron found amidst the gigantic pines of the forest of Ravenna; and how completely does he set himself before us in the moment of his gentler and more solemn inspiration, by the closing couplet, 'Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, So stilly is the solitude.'