 expected or hoped to disguise my connection
with these Novels from any one who lived on terms of intimacy with me. The
number of coincidences which necessarily existed between narratives recounted,
modes of expression, and opinions broached in these Tales, and such as were used
by their author in the intercourse of private life, must have been far too great
to permit any of my familiar acquaintances to doubt the identity betwixt their
friend and the Author of Waverley; and I believe they were all morally convinced
of it. But while I was myself silent, their belief could not weigh much more
with the world than that of others; their opinions and reasoning were liable to
be taxed with partiality, or confronted with opposing arguments and opinions;
and the question was not so much, whether I should be generally acknowledged to
be the author, in spite of my own denial, as whether even my own avowal of the
works, if such should be made, would be sufficient to put me in undisputed
possession of that character.
    I have been often asked concerning supposed cases, in which I was said to
have been placed on the verge of discovery; but as I maintained my point with
the composure of a lawyer of thirty years' standing, I never recollect being in
pain or confusion on the subject. In Captain Medwyn's Conversations of Lord
Byron, the reporter states himself to have asked my noble and highly gifted
friend, »If he was certain about these Novels being Sir Walter Scott's?« To
which Lord Byron replied, »Scott as much as owned himself the Author of Waverley
to me in Murray's shop. I was talking to him about that novel, and lamented that
its author had not carried back the story nearer to the time of the Revolution -
Scott, entirely off his guard, replied, Ay, I might have done so; but - there he
stopped. It was in vain to attempt to correct himself; he looked confused, and
relieved his embarrassment by a precipitate retreat.« I have no recollection
whatever of this scene taking place, and I should have thought that I was more
likely to have laughed than to appear confused, for I certainly never hoped to
impose upon Lord Byron in a case of the kind; and from the manner in which he
uniformly expressed himself, I knew his opinion was entirely formed, and that
any disclamations of mine would only have savoured of affectation. I do not mean
to insinuate that the incident did not happen, but only that it could hardly
have occurred exactly under the circumstances narrated, without my recollecting
something positive on the subject
