Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

ROBERT SOUTHEY. 65
unnecessary for you to propose anew my publishing * Kirkton.'
I should never be able duly to appreciate the " distinctions of
society " and the " punctilios," which really I was not aware of.
My mode of conducting business is uniform, and I hope will
always be found correct as well as honourable. As I am to pay
you for your labour it mattered not to me, nor did I ever think
for a moment whether you were, as you term it, an author by
profession. Your choosing another publisher puts me to no
inconvenience whatever, except that on the faith of our agreement
I had ordered paper, and engaged with a printer, who
ordered type on purpose for the book ; but it surely can be no
matter of difficulty with you to make it a condition with your
new publisher that he should employ Mr Cleast, and take the
paper from Messrs Cowan.
It may have been—who can tell ?—this passage of
arms which made Kirkpatrick Sharpe figure in the
Chaldee Manuscript ; but no doubt the young men
had their grievances against him too.
To show that Blackwood's suggestions were very
differently received in some quarters, and that his
correspondence was already extensive, I may quote
here the following note :
W. Blackwood to M. Southey.
—
Edinburgh, Jidy 5, 1816.
A few weeks ago I took the liberty of sending you a small
packet, which I hope you have received. I now beg leave to
enclose my friend Dr M'Crie's report concerning the Protestants
in the South of France. I have always been expecting to see
an article on this interesting subject in the ' Quarterly Keview,'
and I hope it will yet be taken up. I trust you will pardon
me, almost a stranger to you, for venturing to suggest the
subject.
The suggestion bore fruit : we
find an allusion to it
in one of Murray's letters, in which the London publisher
thanks the Edinburgh one for the idea, and