He wrote a tribute to her father, the Duke of
Brunswick, in the introduction to one of the cantos of _Marmion_, and
received from the Princess a silver vase in acknowledgment of this
passage in the poem. Scott's relations with the Prince Regent seem to
have begun in an offer to Scott of the Laureateship in the summer of
1813, an offer which Scott would have found it very difficult to
accept, so strongly did his pride revolt at the idea of having to
commemorate in verse, as an official duty, all conspicuous incidents
affecting the throne. But he was at the time of the offer in the thick
of his first difficulties on account of Messrs. John Ballantyne and
Co., and it was only the Duke of Buccleuch's guarantee of 4000_l._--a
guarantee subsequently cancelled by Scott's paying the sum for which
it was a security--that enabled him at this time to decline what,
after Southey had accepted it, he compared in a letter to Southey to
the herring for which the poor Scotch clergyman gave thanks in a grace
wherein he described it as "even this, the very least of Providence's
mercies.
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