Stephenson: The Ettrick Shepherd 81 



ship with the editor, saving, perhaps, now and then a trivial 

 exchange of temper. In 1832, however, they had a serious 

 quarrel. In this year Hogg published his Autobiography 

 again as introduction to The Altrive Tales. It contained the 

 following passage which has been omitted from subsequent 

 editions : 



In the spring of 1829 I first mentioned the plan of The Altrive Tales 

 to Mr. Blackwood in a letter. He said in answer that the publication of 

 them would be playing a sure card if Mr. Lockhart would edit them. He 

 and I waited on Mr. Lockhart subsequently at Chiefswood and proposed 

 the plan to him. He said that he would cheerfully assist me both in the 

 selection and the correction, but that it was altogether without a prece- 

 dent for one author to publish an edition of the works of another while 

 the latter was still alive, and better qualified than any other person to 

 supervise the work. Blackwood then requested me to begin writing and 

 arranging forthwith that we might begin publishing about the end of the 

 year. But when the end of the year came he put me off until the next 

 spring, and then desired me to continue my labors till November next, 

 as I should still be making the work better, and would ultimately profit 

 by so doing. Then when last November came he answered a letter of 

 mine in very bad humor, stating that he would neither advance me money 

 on the work that had laid a year unpublished, nor commence a new work 

 in a time of such agitation, and that I must not think of it for another 

 year at least. 



I then began to suspect that the whole pretense had all along been 

 only a blind to keep me from London, whither I had proposed going, and 

 keep me entirely in his own power. So rather than offer the series to 

 any other Scottish bookseller, I carried it at once to London, where it was 

 cordially accepted on my own terms without the intervention or the assist- 

 ance of anybody. It was not without the greatest reluctance that I left 

 my family in the wilderness, but I had no alternative. It behooved me 

 either to remain there and starve or try my success in the metropolis of 

 the empire, where I could have the assistance of more than one friend 

 on whose good taste and critical discernment I could implicitly rely. 



The Autobiography also contains the following note con- 

 cerning Blackwood's dealing : 



I confess that there was a good deal of wrangling between Mr. Black- 

 wood and me with regard to a hundred-pound bill of Messrs. Longman & 

 Co.'s advanced on the credit of these works. When Mr. Blackwood came 

 to be a sharer in them, and to find that he was likely to be a loser of that 

 sum, or a great part of it, he caused me to make over a bill to him of 

 the same amount, which he afterwards charged me with, and deducted 

 from our subsequent transactions: — so that, as far as ever I could be 

 made to understand the matter, after many letters and arguments, I 

 never received into my own hand one penny for these two works. I do not 

 accuse Mr. Blackwood of dishonesty; on the contrary, with all his faults, 



G— 21943 



