ner."
It was not, however, ventured on; and the nondescript animal was still
confined to the windows of "the Macaroni print shops." It was,
however, the bloom of the author's fancy, and promised all the mellow
fruits it afterwards produced.
In September this ardour did not abate:--
"The proposals are issued; the subscriptions in the booksellers' shops
astonish; correspondents flock in; and, what will surprise you, the
timid proprietors of the 'Scots' Magazine' have come to the resolution
of dropping their work. You stare at all this, and so do I too."
Thus he flatters himself he is to annihilate his rival, without even
striking the first blow. The appearance of his first number is to be
the moment when their last is to come forth. Authors, like the
discoverers of mines, are the most sanguine creatures in the world:
Gilbert Stuart afterwards flattered himself Dr. Henry was lying at the
point of death from the scalping of his tomahawk pen; but of this
anon.
On the publication of the first number, in November, 1773, all is
exultation; and an account is facetiously expected that "a thousand
copies had emigrated from the Row and Fleet-street."
There is a serious composure in the letter of December, which seems to
be occasioned by the tempered answer of his London correspondent. The
work was more suited to the meridian of Edinburgh; and from causes
sufficiently obvious, its personality and causticity. Stuart, however,
assures his friend that "the second number you will find better than
the first, and the third better than the second."
The next letter is dated March 4, 1774, in which I find our author
still in good spirits:--
"The Magazine rises, and promises much, in this quarter. Our artillery
has silenced all opposition. The rogues of the 'uplifted hands'
decline the combat." These rogues are the clergy, and some others, who
had "uplifted hands" from the vituperative nature of their adversary;
for he tells us that, "now the clergy are silent, the town-council
have had the presumption to oppose us; and have threatened Creech (the
publisher in Edinburgh) with the terror of making him a constable for
his insolence. A pamphlet on the abuses of Heriot's Hospital,
including a direct proof of perjury in the provost, was the punishment
inflicted in return. And new papers are forging to chastise them, in
regard to the poors' rate, which is again started; the improper choice
of professors; and violent stretches of t
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