Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

476 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
let their victim know the worst that is said of him,
and in the true spirit of Disraeli's caricature :
—
I think the most friendly thing I can do by you is to tell
you honestly what I think of your ' Magazine.' I think from
the cursory view which I have taken of it that it is not so good
as the last, though it is better than the former. You must
endeavour to make your articles shorter and more various
more in the style of the 'Gentleman's Magazine.'
This last touch would have been insupportable if
it had not been so absurd. " I shall always be glad
to hear from you when you have any literary news to
communicate," adds Mr Rigby, true to the wonderful
portrait of him which was at that time still in young
Disraeli's brain.
Though these letters are quoted simply as a pleasant
alteration from the usual panegyrics of the Magazine,
I may add here another note in Croker's hand, which
will be interesting to those who know him better as
the victim of Macaulay's review than in his own im-
portant person. It is dated 13th October 1831 :
J. Wilson Croker to W. Blackwood.
If your editor should be disposed to notice the Edinburgh
' review of my Boswell,' I enclose you some materials. If you
should not think the thing worth the trouble, pray return me
the notes, which you receive under separate covers. I knoio
the review was concocted at Holland House, and Murray says
by Macaulay and Atheist Allen. Many errors, much too many,
I have myself made, chiefly from the bad habit of trusting
to memory, and when I attain the substance neglecting the
details. But in the more important passages I think the notes
will show you that the Reviewer is not only wrong, but sometimes
grossly wrong. If you print my notes, I think it would
be well to print the review in one column and the answer in
another : that method has an excellent effect when the answers
are complete, as some of ours certainly are.
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