“The Hebers are engaged, item Rogers, Southey, Moore (Anacreon), and others whose reputations Jeffrey has murdered, and who are rising to cry woe upon him, like the ghosts in ‘King Richard.’”

Scott’s letter to Gilford, the intended editor, was full of excellent advice.  It was dated “Edinburgh, October 25, 1808.”  We quote from it several important passages: 

“John Murray, of Fleet Street,” says Scott, “a young bookseller of capital and enterprise, and with more good sense and propriety of sentiment than fall to the share of most of the trade, made me a visit at Ashestiel a few weeks ago; and as I found he had had some communication with you upon the subject, I did not hesitate to communicate my sentiments to him on this and some other points of the plan, and I thought his ideas were most liberal and satisfactory.

“The office of Editor is of such importance, that had you not been pleased to undertake it, I fear the plan would have fallen wholly to the ground.  The full power of control must, of course, be vested in the editor for selecting, curtailing, and correcting the contributions to the Review.  But this is not all; for, as he is the person immediately responsible to the bookseller that the work (amounting to a certain number of pages, more or less) shall be before the public at a certain time, it will be the editor’s duty to consider in due turn the articles of which each number ought to consist, and to take measures for procuring them from the persons best qualified to write upon such and such subjects.  But this is sometimes so troublesome, that I foresee with pleasure you will soon be obliged to abandon your resolution of writing nothing yourself.  At the same time, if you will accept of my services as a sort of jackal or lion’s provider, I will do all in my power to assist in this troublesome department of editorial duty.

“But there is still something behind, and that of the last consequence.  One great resource to which the Edinburgh editor turns himself, and by which he gives popularity even to the duller articles of his Review, is accepting contributions from persons of inferior powers of writing, provided they understand the books to which their criticisms relate; and as such are often of stupefying mediocrity, he renders them palatable by throwing in a handful of spice, namely, any lively paragraph or entertaining illustration that occurs to him in reading them over.  By this sort of veneering he converts, without loss of time or hindrance to business, articles, which in their original state might hang in the market, into such goods as are not likely to disgrace those among which they are placed.  This seems to be a point in which an editor’s assistance is of the last consequence, for those who possess the knowledge necessary to review books of research or abstruse disquisitions, are very often unable to put the criticisms into a readable, much more a pleasant and captivating form; and as their science cannot be attained ‘for the nonce,’ the only remedy is to supply their deficiencies, and give their lucubrations a more popular turn.