Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

148 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
economical, of France about sixty years since, and I daresay I
can find some other quodlibets for your starting number if you
think my plan likely to answer.
I am glad there is a chance of our seeing Mr Moore, and
sincerely happy that Mr Irving liked Abbotsford as much as its
inhabitants liked him.
Laidlaw—the well-beloved Willie Laidlaw of Scott's
Life — also answered with expedition, but evident
trepidation, as follows :
—
W. Laidlaw to W. Blackwood.
Mr Scott has made me acquainted with a correspondence
between you and himself respecting my co-operation in the
new series of your Magazine. It is, as you say, somewhat
like a new work, and really I must say that your proposal
of a tryst for six months appears to me reasonable in
several views. For, notwithstanding whatever Mr Scott's
partiality may lead him to think, my experience in literary
labour has assuredly not been much. I am apt to judge
that a monthly report of rural affairs cannot be made very
interesting, and rarely useful, especially during the summer
months : perhaps a short notice of the weather and its
probable effects would be enough, and I would do my best
to put together a respectable quarterly report. I have one or
two articles in view that might be rendered not uninteresting,
particularly one addressed some time ago to Mr Scott, and
which he has often honoured by his approbation. It is upon
the best way of laying down his higher grounds in improved
and permanent pasture. As whatever I send will have the
honour of passing through Mr Scott's hands, I beg to throw
myself on his judgment likewise for what emolument I ought
to have for the six months.
Some short time later we have another cheerful and
lively letter from Scott, giving his opinion of the first
of some articles on the authentic history of Bob Roy,
which had a special interest at the moment from the