Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

432 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
eater. This letter is written from Grasmere on March
3, 1830 :—
T. De Quincei/ to W. Blackwood.
I should wish if it were possible to be anonymous for this
first ddhut—that is, anonymous on the title-page ; for otherwise
it would be easy to you, with your command of all avenues to
the public ear, to make the authorship effectually known,
though not so formally as by this distinct acknowledgment on
the title. Do not suppose that I am underwriting myself. I
neither ever did, nor do I think I could, underwrite myself on
any subject whatever; for in order to write at all, I find it neces-
sary to create for myself a real interest in my theme. Neither,
again, have I any nervous tremors connected with the act of
appearing before the public. But simply on politic considera-
tions, looking forward to the possibility that I might not realise
the whole of what was expected from me, it seems prudent in
a first attempt—first I mean in this department of literature
—to provide the means of retreat by coming forward in a
masque.
' My Canterbury Tales ' finished, I have several papers in a
state of forwardness for ' Maga,' which I am inclined to think
will suit you. In particular
—
1. One on the flight of the Calmuck TS.tars from Eussia to
the frontier of China.
2. One on the celebrated work (if a work so little known,
and of which only two copies are said to survive, can properly
be called so) of Giordano Bruno, called 'Spaccio della Bestia
Triomfante.' A copy which occurred in an auction in Queen
Anne's time, and drew public attention by the price which it
fetched (viz., £50), is noted by Steele (as perhaps you may
remember) in No. 389 of the ' Spectator,' but with great in-
accuracy. I have Dr Farmer's transcript of that copy which
exists in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. I am also
rich in other works of Giord. Bruno, bought at the Eoxburgh
sale in 1812, and have really read the books, which all the
German Historians of Philosophy (Buhle, Termenon, and
others) are compelled to sigh for as jewels unattainable even
by princes.