Letter from William Hayley, Felpham, to Sir Walter Scott, 1813 January 21 : autograph manuscript copy signed.

Thanking him for the gift of Rokeby; saying "Before you arrive at the close of this hasty Letter of Thanks (most hearty Thanks!) you shall find some little Explanation of its mysterious Words; but at present I will proceed to tell you, that in the very few Days, since your recent Volume entered this apartment, I have read it twice through with encreasing Transport & applause : yet not without finding some occasion to play the old Monitor, & lecture the younger transcendent Poet - For Instance -;" inserting a poem as follows: "Shall Walter wish for Geoffrey's Lyre? / No! In his own true Muse of Fire / Thankful let Him confide! / and, while his towering Laurels bloom / Let Him, as Horace bids assume / Merit's ingenuous Pride! / If Envy hints, with Leer malign, / 'His Talents, his Renown decline' Haste, Rokeby! to display / Thy Scenes, that charm with tragic Breath, / Where Retribution's Pomp of Death / Exalts the moral Lay! / Thy Landscapes let Delight applaud, / That of Salvator, and of Claude / The double Powers embrace! / Thy Figures pierce, or win the Heart / With Angelo's sublimest Art, / and with Corregio's Grace / In Genius blest, and blest in Love, / Happy, dear Walter, ever prove / In Man's most noble aim! / May Heaven and Earth confirm to Thee, / and each in its supreme Degree, / Felicity, and Fame! ;" continuing with his letter saying "To my fervent wishes for your Prosperity & Happiness, my excellent Friend, let me add a Continuance of that confidential Frankness, with which I formerly made you acquainted with some marvellous Circumstances of my first connubial Infelicity. It has pleased Heaven to form my Destiny of mighty Joy & mighty Wo - I was singularly blest in the virtues, & in the affection both of my Mother, & of my Son : But marriage has repeatedly proved to me a Source of very bitter, & I hope, I may add, very rare affliction - Were it a proper season to unfold to you a long story of my recent Troubles, you might justly esteem it a strong proof of genuine poetical magic in your Rokeby, that it banished, for a Time, all sense of my fresh misfortune. - and what is this new Misfortune? you say - hear it in Epitome! & bless your happier Stars! - It is a strange series of domestic Treachery - continued Invasion of private Papers by stolen Keys - a mass of Hypocrisy, Fraud, & Falshood, yet not such, as admits of legal Redress - Pazienza e Coraggio! - pity & pray for them, my Friend of exquisite Feelings, & most admirable mental powers! - accept my repeated Thanks & Benedictions & now & than comfort, by a kind Letter."