LITERARY AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 369 



should still be paid for, and Mr. Blackwood, I have no doubt, 

 would at once agree to that, so that at the end of the year Mr. 

 Hogg would have received his £100 or more, without any objec- 

 tionable condition, and on reasonable exertions. 



" And now a few words about myself. The Shepherd, in his let- 

 ter to me (which you have seen, I believe), seems to say that I 

 ought to settle the £100 a year on him, and that he is willing to 

 receive it from me, if I think it will be for my own benefit. I have 

 said nothing about this to him, but to you I merely say that I never 

 did and never will interfere in any way with the pecuniary concerns 

 of the Magazine, that being the affair of Mr. Blackwood ; secondly, 

 that of all the writers in it, I have done most for the least remu- 

 neration, though Mr. B. and I have never once had one word of 

 disagreement on that subject; and thirdly, that it is a matter of 

 the most perfect indifference to me, whether or not I ever again 

 write another ' Noctes,' for all that I write on any subject seems to 

 be popular far above its deserts ; and considering the great num- 

 ber of ' Noctes' I have written, I feel very much indisposed ever 

 to resume them.* My own personal gain or loss, therefore, must 

 be put out of sight entirely in this question ; as I can neither gain 

 nor lose bv any arrangement between Mr. B. and Mr. Hoccs:, though 

 the Shepherd thinks otherwise. 



" This, likewise, must and will be considered by Mr. Blackwood, 

 whether the 'Noctes' can be resumed, for if the public supposed 

 that I were influenced by a regard to my own interests in resuming 

 them, I most certainly never would ; and were I to resume them, 

 and Mr. Hogg again to prove wilful, and order them to be discon- 

 tinued, I should feel myself placed in a condition unworthy of me. 

 I wrote the ' Noctes' to benefit and do honor to Mr. Hogg, much 

 more than to benefit myself; and but for them, he with all his ex- 

 traordinary powers would not have been universally known as he 

 now is ; for poetical fame, you well know, is fleeting and precarious. 

 After more than a dozen years' acquiescence and delight in the 

 ' Noctes,' the Shepherd, because he quarrelled with Mr. Blackwood 

 on other grounds, puts an end to them, which by the by he had no 

 right to do. It is for me to consider whether I can resume them ; 

 but if I do, it must be clearly understood that I am not influenced 

 by self-interest, but merely by a desire to bring back things as they 



* My father never wrote another " Noctes" after the Shepherd's death, which took place in 1S35. 



