Had I been disposed to trespass upon your kindness in this way, it would have been before now; but I am not sorry to have an opportunity of declining it, as it sets my opinion of you, and indeed of human nature, in a different light from that in which I have been accustomed to consider it." Meanwhile Lord Byron had completed his "Siege of Corinth" and "Parisina," and sent the packet containing them to Mr.Murray.They had been copied in the legible hand of Lady Byron.

On receiving the poems Mr.Murray wrote to Lord Byron as follows: _John Murray to Lord Byron_.
_December_, 1815.
My Lord, I tore open the packet you sent me, and have found in it a Pearl.

It is very interesting, pathetic, beautiful--do you know, I would almost say moral.

I am really writing to you before the billows of the passions you excited have subsided.

I have been most agreeably disappointed (a word I cannot associate with the poem) at the story, which--what you hinted to me and wrote--had alarmed me; and I should not have read it aloud to my wife if my eye had not traced the delicate hand that transcribed it.
Mr.Murray enclosed to Lord Byron two notes, amounting to a thousand guineas, for the copyright of the poems, but Lord Byron refused the notes, declaring that the sum was too great.
"Your offer," he answered (January 3, 1816), "is _liberal_ in the extreme, and much more than the poems can possibly be worth; but I cannot accept it, and will not.