Advocate’s desire, a very voluminous letter on the subject.  Now, should this plan succeed, you must hang your birding-piece on its hook, take down your old Anti-Jacobin armour, and “remember your swashing blow.”  It is not that I think this projected Review ought to be exclusively or principally political; this would, in my opinion, absolutely counteract its purpose, which I think should be to offer to those who love their country, and to those whom we would wish to love it, a periodical work of criticism conducted with equal talent, but upon sounder principles.  Is not this very possible?  In point of learning, you Englishmen have ten times our scholarship; and, as for talent and genius, “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than any of the rivers in Israel?” Have we not yourself and your cousin, the Roses, Malthus, Matthias, Gifford, Heber, and his brother?  Can I not procure you a score of blue-caps who would rather write for us than for the Edinburgh Review if they got as much pay by it?  “A good plot, good friends, and full of expectation—­an excellent plot, very good friends!”

Heber’s fear was lest we should fail in procuring regular steady contributors; but I know so much of the interior discipline of reviewing as to have no apprehension of that.  Provided we are once set a-going by a few dashing numbers, there would be no fear of enlisting regular contributors; but the amateurs must bestir themselves in the first instance.  From the Government we should be entitled to expect confidential communications as to points of fact (so far as fit to be made public) in our political disquisitions.  With this advantage, our good cause and St. George to boot, we may at least divide the field with our formidable competitors, who, after all, are much better at cutting than parrying, and whose uninterrupted triumph has as much unfitted them for resisting a serious attack as it has done Buonaparte for the Spanish war.  Jeffrey is, to be sure, a man of the most uncommon versatility of talent, but what then?

“General Howe is a gallant commander,
There are others as gallant as he.”

Think of all this, and let me hear from you very soon on the subject.  Canning is, I have good reason to know, very anxious about the plan.  I mentioned it to Robert Dundas, who was here with his lady for a few days on a pilgrimage to Melrose, and he highly approved of it.  Though no literary man, he is judicious, clair-voyant, and uncommonly sound-headed, like his father, Lord Melville.  With the exceptions I have mentioned, the thing continues a secret....

Ever yours,

Walter Scott.”

Mr. Scott to John Murray.

November 2, 1808.

I transmitted my letter to Mr. Gifford through the Lord Advocate, and left it open that Mr. Canning might read it if he thought it worth while.  I have a letter from the Advocate highly approving my views, so I suppose you will very soon hear from Mr. Gifford specifically on the subject.  It is a matter of immense consequence that something shall be set about, and that without delay....