TO
SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.,
THIS MYSTERY OF CAIN
IS INSCRIBED,
BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND
AND FAITHFUL SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.[O 1]
- ↑ [On the 13th December [1821] Sir Walter received a copy of Cain, as yet unpublished, from Murray, who had been instructed to ask whether he had any objection to having the "Mystery" dedicated to him. He replied in these words— "Edinburgh, 4th December, 1821. "My Dear Sir,—I accept, with feelings of great obligation, the flattering proposal of Lord Byron to prefix my name to the very grand and tremendous drama of 'Cain.'[I 1] I may be partial to it, and you will
- ↑ ["However, the praise often given to Byron has been so exaggerated as to provoke, perhaps, a reaction in which he is unduly disparaged. 'As various in composition as Shakespeare himself, Lord Byron has embraced,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'every topic of human life, and sounded every string on the divine harp, from its slightest to its most powerful and heart-astounding tones.... In the very grand and tremendous drama of Cain,' etc.... 'And Lord Byron has done all this,' Scott adds, 'while managing his pen with the careless and negligent ease of a man of quality.'"—Poetry of Byron, chosen and arranged by Matthew Arnold, 1881, p. xiii. Scott does not add anything of the kind. The comparison with Shakespeare was written after Byron's death in May, 1824; the appreciation of Cain in December, 1821 (vide supra); while the allusion to "a man of quality" is to be found in an article contributed to the Quarterly Review in 1816!]
