The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart
Chapter 19: 1828-48
Thomas Carlyle to John Gibson Lockhart, 11 December 1839
“5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea,
December 11, 1839.
“My dear Sir,—There
are two books of yours here; which I beg you to understand are not meant to be
kept as black-mail, but to be returned with thanks. I
retain them only till the Chartism concern be
printed—till I can send you a copy of that along with them.
“However, the reason of my writing is not these
books, which are probably of no value at all to you; but a reflection I made
yesterday on the irritable nature of authors—on the doubts you may by
possibility have about my being irritated! God knows I am much gratified, by
your praise of me especially, which I believe to have much more sincerity in it
than praise usually has. For the rest, I consider ![]()
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that your decision about that wild piece
as an article for the Quarterly was altogether what it should have been, what on
the whole I expected it to be. Fraser is
printing the thing now as a separate pamphlet. Your negative was necessary to
decide me as to that step. The Westminster people were willing to have taken
the thing after you; but I was not willing to appear with it there. And so it
comes out in the pamphlet way—quod bonum
sit! One has an equation with more than one unknown
quantity in it: eliminate the Quarterly y, there remains x—printing as a pamphlet.
“With many kind regards, and a hope to fall in with
you again by-and-by,—I remain, my dear Sir, yours very truly always,
T. Carlyle.”
James Fraser (1805 c.-1841)
Of Regent Street, London bookseller; from 1830 he published
Fraser's
Magazine for Town and Country.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
The Westminster Review. (1824-1914). A radically-inclined quarterly founded by James Mill in opposition to the
Edinburgh Review and
Quarterly Review.
