Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

"two beastly books." 205
I have run over the Doctor, and added a few pages, as you
see, which will make it do very well for a continuation of
Timothy—not a P.S. I really have not read the poem, but
dipping here and there, it seems worthy of all that Maginn
says. Send it back, if you please, by your next parcel. ' Maga
this time will be worthy of herself.
If you have spare room', I am by no means sure that you
should not clap in the ' Noctes,' short as they are. The topics
will lose something in another month. I would not, however,
give motto, &c., but just " Noctes, No. VII. ; a fragment."
I return the two beastly books of Col. Brown and Dr Poole.
The Review in the former consists, I opine, of some hints of
old Mackenzie, dressed up by the chief Blockhead, who evi-
dently works in a muzzle. Old M. had been disgusted with
your not inserting his affair on ' Lights and Shadows,' and your
mutilations of his review of Miss Lyndsay.^
I am delighted with Cobbett, so much so that I wish you
would order some of his books by your steam parcel—viz.,
' English Grammar,' 3s. ;
' Year's Eesidence in America,' 5s.
Cobbett's Sermons, 3s 6d., to be got at 183 Fleet Street. I
really would like to see these, and think the sermons in par-
ticular would be famous materials for the article I propose to
give you on his late writings next month. You will of course
send the 'Edinburgh Review' quam primum, and anything that
occurs; a stray paper or the like will always be exceedingly
welcome. Leigh Hunt's new Indicator is just the old trash
over again, and will die in two months, or rather will not live
at all. Oh Lord ! if it were worth while to touch Dr Poole
but on the whole I am decidedly of opinion that you would do
him more good than harm. Jemmy Simpson's review of the
Flood of Thessaly is just yours, done into Poolism and Prose.
Not one idea but what is palpably and boldly stolen. What
cats!
P.S.—Don't send these reviews to the Professor—they will
only annoy him if he be in a nervous state ; but judge for
yourself.
^ Both works by Professor Wilson. The articles in question will be
found fully discussed in the next chapter.
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