A fortnight's complete abstraction from all sublunary cares has
done me much good, and I am now ready to put on my spectacles and look
about me.... Hoppner is here, and has been at Death's door. The third
day after his arrival, he had an apoplectic fit, from which blisters,
etc., have miraculously recovered him.... This morning I received a
letter from Mr. Erskine. He speaks very highly of the second number, and
of the Austrian article, which is thought its chief attraction.
Theology, he says, few people read or care about. On this, I wish to say
a word seriously. I am sorry that Mr. E. has fallen into that notion,
too general I fear in Scotland; but this is his own concern. I differ
with him totally, however, as to the few readers which such subjects
find; for as far as my knowledge reaches, the reverse is the fact. The
strongest letter which I have received since I came down, in our favour,
points out the two serious articles as masterly productions and of
decided superiority. We have taught the truth I mention to the
_Edinburgh Review_, and in their last number they have also attempted to
be serious, and abstain from their flippant impiety. It is not done with
the best grace, but it has done them credit, I hear.... When you make up
your parcel, pray put in some small cheap 'Horace,' which I can no more
do without than Parson Adams _ex_ 'Aeschylus.' I have left it somewhere
on the road. Any common thing will do."

Mr. Murray sent Gifford a splendid copy of "Horace" in the next parcel
of books and manuscripts. In his reply Gifford, expostulating, "Why, my
dear Sir, will you do these things?" thanked him warmly for his gift.

Mr. George Ellis was, as usual, ready with his criticism. Differing from
Gifford, he wrote:

"I confess that, to my taste, the long article on the New Testament is
very tedious, and that the progress of Socinianism is, to my
apprehension, a bugbear which _we_ have no immediate reason to be scared
by; but it may alarm some people, and what I think a dull prosing piece
of orthodoxy may have its admirers, and promote our sale."

Even Constable had a good word to say of it. In a letter to his partner,
Hunter, then in London, he said:

"I received the _Quarterly Review_ yesterday, and immediately went and
delivered it to Mr. Jeffrey himself. It really seems a respectable
number, but what then? Unless theirs improves and ours falls off it
cannot harm us, I think. I observe that Nos. 1 and 2 extend t