Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

350 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
like slaughtering the long ago dead and buried. In the next
place, Constable has long been away from business and in bad
health: and being your publisher, it would neither be good
taste nor good feeling in you to attack him or any of his con-
cerns. Your worst enemy could not desire a fitter occasion for
running you down than your publishing what would be cried
out upon as a vile personal attack, &c., &c. For as to no key
being given, that is sheer nonsense, as there are plenty of
people who could at once give a key and proclaim you to be the
author. Could anybody mistake Cobby, as you call him ?
I have thus given you my opinion very frankly, and I hope
when you consider the matter coolly you will agree with me.
But if not, I cannot help it, for the Magazine is now too serious
a concern to be trifled with. It has got quite above attacks
and malignities, and I shall take good care never again to give
them any handle for saying that they were entitled to speak of
it as they once did.
The distinction between the man v^^ho profits by
experience, and him w^ho does not, could not be better
shown. Hogg seems to have been sufficiently well
advised not again to lose his temper, notwithstanding
the plainness of speech with which he is addressed.
During the years that follow his letters continue
dropping in from time to time, often bearing signs of
the persistent failure which accompanied all his
effi)rts— sometimes confident as of old. There is a
" Shepherd's Calendar " of which he sends number
after number.^ " I suppose it will meet the same
fate as all my late attempts to serve you," says the
unfortunate author ; " but if it should, I shall not
regard it at all. These trifles may come to be of
value some time, with a little brushing up. I am
sorry I have done so little to liquidate the debt, which
I believe falls due next month. I will, however, come
1 The series began in *Maga' of April 1827.