Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

172 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
better than he did theirs, which is a thing that even
the wisest are slow to perceive.
After this, however, the union was not too cordial
between Edinburgh and London. A good deal of
troubled correspondence went on, Mr Murray a little
fretful and anxious for his own spotless reputation,
while Mr Blackwood and his merry men, who were
always more or less unruly, apologised or sometimes
laughed a little in their sleeve, satisfied with the
sweep of their own going, and not to be controlled.
In January 1819, however, matters came to a crisis.
Murray's name disappeared from the Magazine, and
the bond was broken.
I find a curious letter in the course of the same
year from Mr Murray to Mr Thomas Blackwood,
who would seem to have sent him a note for £1000,
apparently in reply to some complaints as to the
delay of business settlements, that being the exact
sum which he had invested in the Magazine. Murray
returned the note, with a declaration that he wanted
no payment or security for payment which was not
in the usual way of business, but adding a somewhat
querulous list of complaints against his former
partner.
J. Murray to Thomas Blackwood.
When your brother was in London on the occasion of my
secession from his Magazine, we agreed that this circumstance
was to make no alteration in the understanding on which our
other transactions had been hitherto conducted. Since which
he has not performed his part of a written agreement respecting
the Magazine : he refused to sell one ^ of the works which I
sent to him ; he has not sent his publications, or made the offer
^ Don Juan : humorous explanation of the same afterwards given, p. 380.