I ought to tell you that I had scarcely reached Paris when I received a letter containing a very urgent application from a very respectable quarter.  I was desired to write a sketch, in one volume, of the late Revolution here.  Now, I really hesitated whether I should not make my excuses to you, and accept this proposal,—­not on account of the pecuniary terms, for about these I have never much troubled myself—­but because I should have had ampler space for this noble subject than the Review would have afforded.  I thought, however, that this would not be a fair or friendly course towards you.  I accordingly told the applicants that I had promised you an article, and that I could not well write twice in one month on the same subject without repeating myself.  I therefore declined; and recommended a person whom I thought quite capable of producing an attractive book on these events.  To that person my correspondent has probably applied.  At all events I cannot revive the negotiation.  I cannot hawk my rejected articles up and down Paternoster Row.

I am, therefore, a good deal vexed at this affair; but I am not at all surprised at it.  I see all the difficulties of your situation.  Indeed, I have long foreseen them.  I always knew that in every association, literary or political, Brougham would wish to domineer.  I knew also that no Editor of the Edinburgh Review could, without risking the ruin of the publication, resolutely oppose the demands of a man so able and powerful.  It was because I was certain that he would exact submissions which I am not disposed to make that I wished last year to give up writing for the Review.  I had long been meditating a retreat.  I thought Jeffrey’s abdication a favourable time for effecting it; not, as I hope you are well assured, from any unkind feeling towards you; but because I knew that, under any Editor, mishaps such as that which has now occurred would be constantly taking place.  I remember that I predicted to Jeffrey what has now come to pass almost to the letter.

My expectations have been exactly realised.  The present constitution of the Edinburgh Review is this, that, at whatever time Brougham may be pleased to notify his intention of writing on any subject, all previous engagements are to be considered as annulled by that notification.  His language translated into plain English is this:  “I must write about this French Revolution, and I will write about it.  If you have told Macaulay to do it, you may tell him to let it alone.  If he has written an article, he may throw it behind the grate.  He would not himself have the assurance to compare his own claims with mine.  I am a man who act a prominent part in the world; he is nobody.  If he must be reviewing, there is my speech about the West Indies.  Set him to write a puff on that.  What have people like him to do, except to eulogise people like me?” No man likes to be reminded of his inferiority in such a way, and there are some particular circumstances