Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

SECOND ONLY TO SCOTT. 475
only good, but they gave promise of greater things ; and I
should not be surprised, if the author will but be a little care-
ful in what he does, and if he will not expend his vigour in
dragging a Steamboat ^ against the stream, to find him acknow-
ledged hereafter as second, and only second, to the great Ouddes
of Waverley. This I know may look like an extravagant
anticipation ; but there hie pages in the ' Annals ' and spots
in th6 ' Legatees ' which would be shining places in the ' Pirate.'
If he be a young author he may scatter his wild oats about
but if he be anything like a veteran, he should husband
his resources and make not more than one great effort per
annum.
You generally put Mr Hook's Magazine under my cover,
but by this means he never gets it till very late. He seldom
calls, and still less often is willing to carry off a parcel in his
fashionable pockets. He lives five miles off, and the twopenny
post will not accept such voluminous packets as your Magazine.
I would therefore suggest your forwarding the future numbers
to him by your regular channel. His address is No 1 Kentish
Town, or at least was when I last heard of him ; but he was
talking of flitting, and I believe he has been for the last three
weeks with his brother at Winchester.
You will see that I have in a true spirit of trade answered
your double present with a double sheet of acknowledgment.
The double sheets are gilt-edged, heavy, and of
thick paper, as if to show the ostentatious freedom of
a man who possessed the power of franking his letter,
over the ordinary mortals who crammed one poor
sheet to the point of suffocation, writing on every
available morsel of space in order to avoid a second
page and a double postage.
Mr Croker repeated the same sort of commentary
on another occasion at less length. He says, in the
very spirit of those good-natured friends who love to
1 The voyage of a Steamboat, with the various characters and conver-
sations thereon, was one of Gait's series in the Magazine.
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