[Footnote 52: For the story of Billy Havard's tragedy, see Davies's 'Life of Garrick'. I believe it is 'Regulus', or 'Charles the First' [Lincoln's Inn Fields, March 1, 1737]. The moment it was known to be his the theatre thinned, and the book-seller refused to give the customary sum for the copyright. [See 'Life of Garrick', by Thomas Davies (1808), ii. 205.] [Footnote 53: Thomas Erskine (third son of the fifth Earl of Buchan) afterwards Lord Erskine (1750-1823), Lord Chancellor (1806-7), an eloquent orator, a supremely great advocate, was, by comparison, a failure as a judge. His power over a jury, "his little twelvers," as he would sometimes address them, was practically unlimited. (See 'Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers' (1856), p. 126.)]] [Footnote 54: Lines 589-626 are not in the 'Murray MS'., nor in either of the 'Lovelace MSS'.]] [Footnote 55: To the Eclectic or Christian Reviewers I have to return thanks for the fervour of that charity which, in 1809, induced them to express a hope that a thing then published by me might lead to certain consequences, which, although natural enough, surely came but rashly from reverend lips. I refer them to their own pages, where they congratulated themselves on the prospect of a tilt between Mr. Jeffrey and myself, from which some great good was to accrue, provided one or both were knocked on the head. Having survived two years and a half those "Elegies" which they were kindly preparing to review, I have no peculiar gusto to give them "so joyful a trouble," except, indeed, "upon compulsion, Hal;" but if, as David says in 'The Rivals', it should come to "bloody sword and gun fighting," we "won't run, will we, Sir Lucius?" [Byron, writing at Athens, away from his books, misquotes 'The Rivals'. The words, "Sir Lucius, we--we--we--we won't run," are spoken by Acres, not by David.] I do not know what I had done to these Eclectic gentlemen: my works are their lawful perquisite, to be hewn in pieces like Agag, if it seem meet unto them: but why they should be in such a hurry to kill off their author, I am ignorant. "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong:" and now, as these Christians have "smote me on one cheek," I hold them up the other; and, in return for their good wishes, give them an opportunity of repeating them. Had any other set of men expressed such sentiments, I should have smiled, and left them to the "recording angel;" but from the pharisees of Christianity decency might be expected. I can assure these brethren, that, publican and sinner as I am, I would not have treated "mine enemy's dog thus." To show them the superiority of my brotherly love, if ever the Reverend Messrs. Simeon or Ramsden should be engaged in such a conflict as that in which they requested me to fall, I hope they may escape with being "winged" only, and that Heaviside may be at hand to extract the ball.