Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

A ROMANCE OF CONVERSATION. 241
right or fair in me to assist in the Magazine while I have the
Eeview on my hands, and I have a feeling on the subject that
I can't well express ; but I do not understand Murray having
any suspicion that I was not doing whatever I did in the
periodical line for the * Quarterly.' Besides, your political
tone must not be mine. I think it is wrong in all points of
view, and particularly in the personal style in which Canning
has been attacked in a work to which Wilson is an avowed
contributor of the first importance. Others may point the
dart ; so it is. But who gives the shaft its wings ? But for
Wilson's wit, how few would read E.'s declamations, however
clever
!
But now to my business. The same feeling which withholds
me from publishing essays in ' Maga,' or a kindred one, pre-
vents my wishing to have anything whatever to do with
Murray out o^ his Eeview. We could not meet on fair terms.
Old friends who had perfect confidence in each other, as I
hope is the case with us, might no doubt do so; but verhum
sat. to you. I have enough to manage without quarrels
already.
of
—
I have in short a couple of post 8vos (peut-etre 3) to dispose
i.e., shall have by the end of the year. The plan is this
I make an English lord (something like Dudley and Ward)
take a place like Mar Lodge for the autumn. He brings down
in his train the usual appendages of these great establish-
ments—a character not unlike Coleridge for one, a sort of
Croker for another, a Eogers for a third, perhaps a little of
Hook, &c. I bring these Southerners into close communica-
tion with a set of your Northern lights—disguises of Scott,
Jeffrey, and so forth; make them discuss the differences be-
tween England and Scotland in various points of manners,
feelings, education, &c., &c., and illustrate their respective
views with tales, all of them founded on fact, some comic,
some tragic. I think to call the book 'Diversions of say
Glenmar,' a little romance of conversation.
Tell me frankly what you think of all this. I have certainly
no ambition to make one of Colburn's authors, but I am well
aware that you may be far from anxious to publish much at
present, and may have your hands full. I expect that you will
VOL. I. Q
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