Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

THE FAST FEIEND OF
' MAGA.' 225
you have not had a good reviewer of literary works but myself
and Wilson, in our separate styles, for the Doctor has scarcely
tried.) Secondly, I do think that a person who does so much
for your book ought to make more by doing so; and that,
having entire confidence in your general liberality and the
most perfect reliance on your kindly feelings to me personally,
I am therefore under the necessity of considering ' Maga ' as by
no means in a flourishing condition.
What I can in justice to myself do for ' Maga ' shall be done,
because I am your fast friend and hers ;
but I cannot go so far
as to think it probable, with this Shakespeare on my hands,
that I shall be able to do so much for some time to come as I
have recently been in the custom of doing. I earnestly hope,
therefore, since the Professor appears to be in such an indolent
if not indifferent key, you will be enabled to get Maginn to do
more—a great deal more—for you this summer than hitherto
he has done. Do persuade him to give you more of his mind,
and his beautiful scholarship.
I shall perhaps say something more as to all this soon.
These were the happy days when Magazine writers
were not as plentiful as blackberries, and when a
writer could address his publisher in this way with-
out receiving a polite answer next morning in the
words of King Henry when he heard of the slaughter
of Percy at Chevy Chase
—
" I have a hundred captains in England
As good as ever was he."
No man is indispensable, the proverb says : and cer-
tainly nowadays no man is so indispensable to a periodical
as Lockhart believed himself to be, and to some
extent was. He followed up this letter, presumably,
for still we have no dates to guide us, with the fol-
lowing, which evidently refers to some very special
and carefully written article :
I think you will not accuse me of any impropriety when I
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VOL. I. P