Memoir of John Murray
James Hogg to John Murray, 20 February 1819
Edinburgh, February 20th, 1819.
My dear Sir,
I arrived here the day before yesterday for my spring campaign
in literature, drinking whiskey, &c., and as I have not heard a word of you
or from you since we parted on the top of the hill above Abbotsford, I dedicate
my first letter from the metropolis to you. And first of all, I was rather
disappointed in getting so little cracking with you at that time. Scott and you had so much and so many people to
converse about, whom nobody knew anything of but yourselves, that you two got
all to say, and some of us great men, who deem we know everything at home,
found that we knew nothing. You did not even tell me what conditions you were
going to give me for my ‘Jacobite Relics of Scotland,’ the first part of which will
16 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY | |
make its appearance this spring, and I think bids fair to
be popular. . . . Our worthy friend, Scott, has again had
an attack of the cramp in his stomach, and yesterday when I saw him he was very
far from being well. He spoke in the very highest terms of both the Quarterly and
the Magazine.
Believe me, yours very faithfully,
George D'Oyly (1778-1846)
English theologian and domestic chaplain to the archbishop of Canterbury who entered into
controversy with Sir William Drummond regarding
Oedipus Judaicus; he
contributed to the
Quarterly Review.
James Hogg [The Ettrick Shepherd] (1770-1835)
Scottish autodidact, poet, and novelist; author of
The Queen's
Wake (1813) and
Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified
Sinner (1824).
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. (1817-1980). Begun as the
Edinburgh Monthly Magazine,
Blackwood's assumed the name of its proprietor, William Blackwood after the sixth
number. Blackwood was the nominal editor until 1834.
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.