150 MEMOIR OF JOnN WILSON. 



" Now, pray, do not refuse me rashly. I am not without impa- 

 tience for your answer, but I would rather not have it for a day or 

 two, if your first impression is that it would be unfavorable. If you 

 are in a complying mood, the sooner I hear it the better. 



" Independent of all this, will you allow me again to say, that I 

 am very sincerely desirous of being better acquainted with you, and 

 regret very much that my many avocations and irregular way of 

 life have forced me to see so little of you. Could you venture to 

 dine here without a party any day next week that you choose to 

 name, except Saturday ? If you have no engagement, will you come 

 on Monday or Tuesday ? Any other clay that may be more conve- 

 nient. If you take my proposal into kind consideration, we may 

 talk a little of the drama ; if not, we will fall on something else. 

 Believe me always very faithfully yonrs, " F. Jeffrey. 



" Send your answer to George Street." 



The fact that my father agreed to contribute to an organ which 

 soon after became the object of determined hostility in the periodical 

 to which he chiefly devoted his services, will not, I imagine, be now 

 regarded in the same light as it was by the Edinburgh Whigs of 

 1817. The practice of writing on different subjects in organs of 

 the most hostile opinions is one which is now so universal among 

 men of the highest character in the world of letters, that it needs no 

 vindication here. At the time, too, when my father received this 

 friendly overture from Jeffrey, the Magazine had not assumed that 

 position as a representative of high Tory principles which by and by 

 placed it in direct antagonism to the Review. The subjects on 

 which he agreed to contribute were purely literary, and he was, no 

 doubt, very glad to get the opportunity of expressing his views on 

 poetry in an organ where that subject had not been treated in a style 

 which he could consider satisfactory. It would appear that he had 

 offered to review Coleridge in a friendly manner, which, taken in 

 connection with the fact that a fierce onslaught on that poet appeared 

 in the Number of Blackwood at that very time in the press, may 

 furnish matter for unfavorable judgment to any sympathizers in the 

 angry feelings of that period. I have no fear, however, that this 

 circumstance will lead to uncharitable conclusions in the minds of 

 any whose opinion I value. I am content to risk the reader's esti- 

 mate of my father's generosity and kindliness of nature on the real 



