feeling
whatever. He could know nothing of me but from flying rumours, for the
nature of which _he_ could in no shape be answerable. As for poor Rose's
well-meant hints about my "identifying myself perhaps in the mind of
society with the scavengers of the press," "the folly of _your_ risking
your name on a _paper_," etc., etc., of course we shall equally
appreciate all this. Rose is a timid dandy, and a bit of a Whig to boot.
I shall make some explanation to him when I next have occasion to write
to him, but that sort of thing would come surely with a better grace
from you than from me. I have not a doubt that he will be a daily
scribbler in your paper ere it is a week old.

To all these people--Croker as well as the rest--John Murray is of much
more importance than they ever can be to him if he will only _believe_
what I _know_, viz. that his own name in _society_ stands miles above
any of theirs. Croker _cannot_ form the nucleus of a literary
association which you have any reason to dread. He is hated by the
higher Tories quite as sincerely as by the Whigs: besides, he has not
_now-a-days_ courage to strike an effective blow; he will not come
forward.

I come to pleasanter matters. Nothing, indeed, can be more handsome,
more generous than Mr. Coleridge's whole behaviour. I beg of you to
express to him the sense I have of the civility with which he has been
pleased to remember and allude to _me_, and assure him that I am most
grateful for the assistance he offers, and accept of it to any extent he
chooses.

In this way Mr. Lockhart succeeded to the control of what his friend
John Wilson called "a National Work"; and he justified the selection
which Mr. Murray had made of him as editor: not only maintaining and
enhancing the reputation of the _Review_, by securing the friendship of
the old contributors, but enlisting the assistance of many new ones. Sir
Walter Scott, though "working himself to pieces" to free himself from
debt, came to his help, and to the first number which Lockhart edited he
contributed an interesting article on "Pepys' Memoirs."

Lockhart's literary taste and discernment were of the highest order; and
he displayed a moderation and gentleness, even in his adverse
criticism, for which those who knew him but slightly, or by reputation
only, scarce gave him credit. There soon sprang up between him and his
publisher an intimacy and mutual confidence which lasted till Murray's
death; and Lockhart cont