Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/247

WILLIAM BLA CK WO OD, 211 Hogg's claim, " on the best authority (that of the man who did write it), that there is no foundation what- ever for any such pretext. The hare was started by Wilson at one of those symposia which preceded and perhaps suggested the Nodes. The idea was caught up with avidity by Hogg, and some half-dozen verses were suggested by him on the ensuing day ; but we are, we believe, correct in affirming that no part of his cbauche appeared in the original or any other draft of the article." It is to be wished that this writer, whose article evidently exhibits personal knowledge, and, apart from a running attack upon Hogg, due imparti- ality, had, in putting forward a new version of the story, in contradiction to those already given, been en- abled to give us the name of the writer, apparently, from the wording of the context, a new claimant. Not only were Blackwood's " enemies" discomforted, but even his friends were sore dismayed. The first num- ber of Blackivood bore the imprint of John Murray, but the " Caldee MS." caused him to withdraw his name, but after passing through the hands of three different London agents, the sixth again appeared under his countenance. This number, however, contained some unpalatable strictures on Gififord and the Quarterly Reveiivers, and the Albemarle Street patronage was again withdrawn, only to be renewed in the eleventh number ; but by the time it reached the seventeenth he washed his hands of it entirely, and in future it ap- peared without the ornamental appendage of any Lon- don bookseller's name ; the agency, distinctly one of sale only, was given to Cadell and Davies, who found it profitable enough to occupy the greater part of their attention. Cadell, naturally as nervous as Murray of giving, or being in any way instrumental in giving,