ginning of the business. Such
prejudices I cannot hope to overcome, except by doing well what has been
entrusted to me, and after all I should like to know what man could have
been put at the head of the _Quarterly Review_ at my time of life
without having the Doctors uttering doctorisms on the occasion. If you
but knew it, you yourself personally could in one moment overcome and
silence for ever the whole of these people. As for me, nobody has more
sincere respect for them in their own different walks of excellence than
myself; and if there be one thing that I may promise for myself, it is,
that age, experience, and eminence, shall never find fair reason to
accuse me of treating them with presumption. I am much more afraid of
falling into the opposite error. I have written at some length on these
matters to Mr. Croker, Mr. Ellis, and Mr. Rose--and to no one else; nor
will I again put pen to paper, unless someone, having a right to put a
distinct question to me, does put it.

_Mr. Lockhart to John Murray_.

_Sunday_, CHIEFSWOOD, _November_ 27, 1825.

My Dear Murray,

I have read the letter I received yesterday evening with the greatest
interest, and closed it with the sincerest pleasure. I think we now
begin to understand each other, and if we do that I am sure _I_ have no
sort of apprehension as to the result of the whole business. But in
writing one must come to the point, therefore I proceed at once to your
topics in their order, and rely on it I shall speak as openly on every
one of them as I would _to my brother_.

Mr. Croker's behaviour has indeed distressed me, for I had always
considered him as one of those bad enemies who make excellent friends. I
had not the least idea that he had ever ceased to regard you personally
with friendship, even affection, until B.D. told me about his
trafficking with Knight; for as to the little hints you gave me when in
town, I set all that down to his aversion for the notion of your setting
up a paper, and thereby dethroning him from his invisible predominance
over the Tory daily press, and of course attached little importance to
it. I am now satisfied, more particularly after hearing how he behaved
himself in the interview with you, that there is some deeper feeling in
his mind. The correspondence that has been passing between him and me
may have been somewhat imprudently managed on my part. I may have
_committed_ myself to a certain extent in it in more ways than one. I