Mr. Scott to John Murray.

February, 1809.

I enclose the promised “Swift,” and am now, I think, personally out of your debt, though I will endeavour to stop up gaps if I do not receive the contributions I expect from others.  Were I in the neighbourhood of your shop in London I could soon run up half a sheet of trifling articles with a page or two to each, but that is impossible here for lack of materials.

When the Ballantynes open shop you must take care to have them supplied with food for such a stop-gap sort of criticism.  I think we will never again feel the pressure we have had for this number; the harvest has literally been great and the labourers few.

Yours truly,

W.S.

Mr. James Ballantyne. to John Murray.

January 27, 1809.

“I see or hear of nothing but good about the Review.  Mr. Scott is at this moment busy with two articles, besides the one he has sent.  In conversation a few days since, I heard a gentleman ask him, ’Pray, sir, do you think the Quarterly Review will be equal to the Edinburgh?’ His answer was, ’I won’t be quite sure of the first number, because of course there are difficulties attending the commencement of every work which time and habit can alone smooth away.  But I think the first number will be a good one, and in the course of three or four, I think we’ll sweat them!’”

The first number of the Quarterly Review was published at the end of February, 1809.  Like most first numbers, it did not entirely realize the sanguine views of its promoters.  It did not burst like a thunder-clap on the reading public; nor did it give promise to its friends that a new political power had been born into the world.  The general tone was more literary than political; and though it contained much that was well worth reading, none of its articles were of first-rate quality.

Walter Scott was the principal contributor, and was keenly interested in its progress, though his mind was ever teeming with other new schemes.  The allusion in the following letter to his publication of “many unauthenticated books,” if unintentional, seems little less than prophetic.

Mr. Scott to John Murray.

Edinburgh, February 25, 1809.

Dear Sir,

I see with pleasure that you will be out on the first.  Yet I wish I could have seen my articles in proof, for I seldom read over my things in manuscript, and always find infinite room for improvement at the printer’s expense.  I hope our hurry will not be such another time as to deprive me of the chance of doing the best I can, which depends greatly on my seeing the proofs.  Pray have the goodness to attend to this.

I have made for the Ballantynes a little selection of poetry, to be entitled “English Minstrelsy”; I also intend to arrange for them a first volume of English Memoirs, to be entitled—­“Secret History of the Court of James I.”  To consist of: