who dared venture even an anonymous word in my favour just then: and that, of those three, I had never seen one at all — of the second much less than I desired — and that
the third was under no kind of obligation to me, whatever; while the other two had been actually attacked by me on a former occasion; one, indeed, with some provocation, but the other wantonly enough. So you see you have been heaping "coals of fire," etc., in the true
gospel manner, and I can assure you that they have burnt down to my very heart.
I am glad that you accepted the Inscription. I
I. Sir Walter Scott accepted the Dedication of Cain in the following letter to Murray: —
""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 may be partial to " it, and you will allow I have cause; but I do not know that his " Muse has ever taken so lofty a flight amid her former soarings. " He has certainly matched Milton on his own ground. Some part " of the language is bold, and may shock one class of readers, whose " line will be adopted by others out of affectation or envy. But " then they must condemn the Paradise Lost, if they have a mind to "be consistent. The fiend-like reasoning and bold blasphemy of " the fiend and of his pupil lead exactly to the point which was to "be expected,— the commission of the first murder, and the ruin "and despair of the perpetrator.
"I do not see how any one can accuse the author himself of " Manicheism. The Devil talks the language of that sect, doubt- "less; because, not being able to deny the existence of the Good "Principle, he endeavours to exalt himself— the Evil Principle— "to a seeming equality with the Good ; but such arguments, in the "mouth of such a being, can only be used to deceive and to betray. " Lord Byron might have made this more evident, by placing in the " mouth of Adam, or some good and protecting spirit, the reasons "which render the existence of moral evil consistent with the "general benevolence of the Deity. The great key to the mystery "is, perhaps, the imperfection of our own faculties, which see and "feel strongly the partial evils which press upon us, but know too "little of the general system of the universe to be aware how the "existence of these is to be reconciled with the benevolence of the "great Creator.
" Yours, my dear Sir, very truly,
"Walter Scott."
