Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

APPEAL TO SCOTT. 145
method of approaching and attaching Scott than any
his correspondents suggested, and happily it was one
which had been put in operation before the necessity
arose. It was well known, and indeed too seriously
proved in the case of the Ballantynes, that for his
friends, and especially those who could in any way
be called his dependants, Scott's generosity was bound-
less, and that there was no trouble which he was not
ready to take to promote their interests. On the
occasion of beginning the new series of the Magazine,
Blackwood had at once resorted to the greatest of
living authorities on literature for his help.
Anything from you, whether in prose or verse [he wrote
to Scott], would be perfectly invaluable to me at present. I
hope you may have something lying past you which you may
not be intending to use otherwise, and which you may perhaps
honour me with. There is no sum I could offer that would be
proportionate to the value to me of any communication from
you, however short ; but should you do me this singular favour,
I hope you will permit me to present you with something as
an expression of my sense of the obligation.
These were the days, as I have hinted before, in
which remuneration was suggested with delicacy, as
beneath the exquisite feelings and purpose of a writer,
notwithstanding the large sums which were paid to
the great authors of the day. In a later letter the
astute bookseller puts his bait upon the hook :
W. Blackwood to Walter Scott.
I have heard my friend, Mr Hogg, frequently speaking in
very high terms of a Mr Laidlaw, in whom, he told me, you
took an interest. I do not know his address, else I would
write to him with regard to communications on rural affairs,
with which I understand he is well acquainted. This was to
have been, as announced in my Prospectus, one of the branches
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