that I am not quite sure but
it is an affront to a Professor to presume that he has any connection
as contributor, or anything else, to any work which he does not
publicly avow as his organ for communicating with the world of
letters. He answers that it would be so in him,--but that an old
friend may write _sub rosa_. I rejoin that I know not but you may have
cut Blackwood--even as a subscriber--a whole lustrum ago. He rebuts,
by urging a just compliment paid to you, as a supposed contributor, in
the _News of Literature and Fashion_, but a moon or two ago.
Seriously, I have told him that I know not what was the extent of your
connection with Blackwood at _any_ time; and that I conceive the
labours of your Chair in the University must now leave you little
leisure for any but occasional contributions, and therefore for no
regular cognizance of the work as director, etc. However, as all that
he wishes--is simply an interference to save him from any very severe
article, and not an article in his favour, I have ventured to ask of
you if you hear of any such thing, to use such influence as must
naturally belong to you in your general character (whether maintaining
any connection with Blackwood or not) to get it softened. On the
whole, I suppose no such article is likely to appear. But to oblige
Hill I make the application. He has no _direct_ interest in the
prosperity of Hazlewood; he is himself a barrister in considerable
practice, and of some standing, I believe; but he takes a strong
paternal interest in it, all his brothers (who are accomplished young
men, I believe) being engaged in it. They have already had one shock
to stand: a certain Mr. Place, a Jacobin friend of the School till
just now, having taken the pet with it--and removed his sons. Now this
Mr. Place, who was formerly a tailor--leather-breeches maker and
habit-maker,--having made a fortune and finished his studies,--is
become an immense authority as a political and reforming head with
Bentham, etc., as also with the _Westminster Review_, in which quarter
he is supposed to have the weight of nine times nine men; whence, by
the way, in the "circles" of the booksellers, the Review has got the
name of the _Breeches Review_.' ... [The writer then passes on to
details of his own plans and prospects, and thus concludes.]

'I beg my kind regards to Mrs. Wilson and my young friends, whom I
remember with so much interest as I last saw them at Elleray.--I am,
my dear