Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

MAKING A 'NOCTES.' 243
1829.
The Doctor and I have dined again at the Salopian, and made
out the plan, which shall be filled up fitly and sent ofif by mail
on Thursday next. I hope this will do. We are to give you
our " Mr Theodore " as an interlocutor and improvisatore.
But wait until Southey's new book has been properly puffed
in the ' Quarterly,' and then for a grand ' Noctes ' indeed. I
mean to call up the shade of George Buchanan and introduce
him to Hogg, who (Hogg) shall enlighten George, after the
fashion of the Laureate enlightening Sir Thomas More, as to
the history of the last two or three centuries, and the present
state of politics and literature. I think Hogg explaining the
steam-engine to Buchanan will answer.
I expect at your hands efficient support of the Family
Library, which if it turn out well may be a valuable property
to me. I think I told you I have the third of it. We have
now put the Napoleon to press again, having sold all the 6500
printed originally of the first vol. and all but 200 of the second.
" You have, indeed, gloriously performed your
promise," says Mr Blackwood in reply, " and the
' Noctes ' has even gone beyond what I expected.
I am so glad, too, that the Doctor has again made
an exertion, and done what is worthy of himself.
The whole will make no little sensation." In this
case it seems also that the labourers were satisfied
with their reward.
J. G. Zockhart to W. Blackwood.
June 5, 1829.
Pardon for not answering sooner and acknowledging your
enclosure, which the Doctor and I halved, and swore was
munificent. Your No. is a good one. Do you want another
' Noctes ' ? If so, speak, and we shall have another dinner at
the Salopian—that's all.
Here is Gait, as large as life and as pompous as ever, full
of title-pages and unwritten books, the * Tyger,' the ' Squaws,'
and, I am sorry to add, his own personal troubles, which are
neither few nor trivial.