Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing (CMSW) - www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/cmsw/ Document : 218 Title: Letter from Hogg to Murray, 20 Feb 1819 Author(s): Hogg, James Edinr. Febr. 20th 1819 My dear Sir I arrived here the day before yesterday for my spring campaign in literature drinking whisky &c and as I have not heard a word of you nor from you since we parted on the top of the hill above Abbotsford I dedicate my first letter from the Metropolis to you And first of all I was rather dissapointed in getting so little [cracking] with you at that time, Scott and you had so much and so many people to converse about whom no body knew any thing of but yourselves that you two got all to say and some of we great men who deem we know every thing at home found that we knew nothing. You did not even tell me what conditions you were going to give me for my Jacobite Relics of Scotland the first part of which will make its appearance this spring and I think bids fair to be popular, it is under the patronage and inscribed to the London Highland Society and each of the members takes a copy. I suppose we must be sharers in the profits of the edition as usual. Blackwood is willing to do any way that you charge but he bid me write and ask yourself for that you would do the thing for me that you would not do for him The Queen's Wake will be published Boyde says by the middle of next month. A gentleman in the Musical line has a good number of subscribers in London. If he give them in to you take care how you deliver them for I suspect he is not much to lissen to. I wish you could induce some friendly Scotsman in London to interest himself in it. It is a pity but that I had as many subscribers as would take off the Royal copies at once that the sale copies might be put in circulation in the spring if you can think of any one I will write to him I have read both the Review and No 23 of the Magazine and never did I read any works with so much interest Though quite different [messes] they are both exquisite in kind, a part of [fat] things. No previous number of the Review has been better; no one of the Magazine has been near so good; for some months past I felt as if I suspected a falling off, but this must give it a [leese] again else originality of conception has lost its value — There has been a considerable [fume] among the trade about a new journal of science that Blackwood is setting a going I find that he (the said man whose name is as ebony) is very much vexed and chagrined that he has missed your acquiescence and support in it and I overheard a conversation yesterday in which it was plotted that you should yet have a share of it and he induced to give up some other thing of the same nature which they agreed to be a bad concern. I wonder that you should be so shy in running shares with Ebony I am sure he is any thing but a rash or sanguine man ; and as far as my little experience goes there is not a more reasonable man living if one will be reasonable with him He has only one great fault he never will confess that he has been in the wrong. Whether this proceeds from a consciousness of rectitude I know not but I am sure that it must do him hurt sometimes in transacting business especially when he meets with a hot headed Athol highlander like yourself — But I have nothing to do with these things only I cannot help when writing to a friend of saying whatever is uppermost our worthy friend Scott has again had an attack of the cramp in his stomach and yesterday when I saw him was very far from being well He spoke in the very highest terms of both the Quarterly and the Magazine. I have no more news that I think of pray write to me before you fling this by among your thousands of business letters and forget. If it were but five lines to tell me how you are? What you deem the impression of of the Jacobite songs ought to be ? What the fairest condition should be between friends ? and if you know of any friendly enthusiastic gentlemen to whom I could apply or to whom you could apply to procure me a few subscriptions for the Wake And believe me ever Yours very faithfully James Hogg To John Murray Esq. John Murray Esq Albemarle Street London 1819 Feb 20 Hogg, Jas