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Indiana University Studies 



I know the advice to be quiet under injury is hard to flesh and blood. 

 But nevertheless, I give it under the firmest conviction that it is the best 

 for your peace, happiness and credit. The public has shown their full 

 sense of your original genius, and I think this unjust aggression and 

 extravagant affectation of depreciating you will make no impression on 

 their feelings. I would also distrust the opinions of those friends who 

 urge you to hostilities. They may be over-zealous in your behalf and 

 overlook the preservation of your ease and your comforts, like the brew- 

 er's man who pushed his guest into the boiling vat that he might be sure 

 to give him drink enough, or they may be a little malicious and have no 

 objection (either from personal motives or for the mere fun's sake) to 

 egg on and encourage a quarrel. In all the literary quarrels of my time, 

 and I have seen many, I remember none in which both parties did not 

 come off with injured peace of mind and diminished reputation. It is 

 as if a decent man was seen boxing in the street. 



It is therefore my earnest advice to you to look on the whole matter 

 with contempt, and never in one way or other take any notice of it. ( Gol- 

 die's publication might with some people have a bad effect, because he 

 certainly had reason to complain.) But this absurd piece of extrava- 

 gance can have none — it leaves you, in every respect, the same James 

 Hogg it found you, or if otherwise, it arms in your favor those generous 

 feelings which revolt at seeing your parts and talents made the subject 

 of ill-natured ridicule. 



I am sure I feel for Mrs. Hogg on the occasion, because as an affec- 

 tionate wife, I am sure she must feel hurt and angry on your behalf. But 

 then she must as a woman of sense reconcile herself to the course most 

 favorable to your peace of mind, your private fortunes and the safety of 

 your person. . . . But if you come here agreeable to what is re- 

 quested in the enclosed we will be most heartily glad to see you, and will 

 consider what can be done in that part of the matter. 



I have only to add that I myself, in similar circumstances, should 

 take no notice of any piece of scurrilous railery which appeared anony- 

 mously in periodical publications, and that I should conceive my honor 

 much more hurt in descending to such a contest than in neglecting or 

 condemning the injury. Yours very truly, 



W SCOTT 



Abbotsford, Saturday. 



Hogg was of a very forgivable disposition and his anger 

 soon passed away. Says Mrs. Garden: 



Among others, Mrs. Hogg felt deeply hurt at these representations, 

 and, although her husband used to peruse them with merry laughter as 

 each new number of Maga made its appearance, her heart used to quicken 

 its beat and her gentle spirit was wounded, because her kind husband 

 was, to her thinking, turned into heartless ridicule in these horrid 

 Nodes. Occasionally and wisely she refused to read them. 



For some years Hogg continued to contribute regularly to 

 Blackwood's Magazine, and remained upon terms of friend- 



