give their reasons with a complacent
delight in their own sagacity, I think to myself, how
often must I have talked as much wise nonsense upon
subjects which I knew nothing about."--_Familiar
Letters_, vol. ii. p. 11.]]

Scott, however, had not waited for this new burst of applause. As soon
as he came within view of the completion of Rob Roy, he desired John
Ballantyne to propose to Constable and Co. a second series of the
Tales of my Landlord, to be comprised, like the first, in four
volumes, and ready for publication by "the King's birthday;" that is,
the 4th of June, 1818. "I have hungered and thirsted," he wrote, "to
see the end of those shabby borrowings among friends; they have all
been wiped out except the good Duke's L4000--and I will not suffer
either new offers of land or anything else to come in the way of that
clearance. I expect that you will be able to arrange this resurrection
of Jedediah, so that L5000 shall be at my order."

Mr. Rigdum used to glory in recounting that he acquitted himself on
this occasion with a species of dexterity not contemplated in his
commission. He well knew how sorely Constable had been wounded by
seeing the first Tales of Jedediah published by Murray and
Blackwood--and that the utmost success of Rob Roy would only double
his anxiety to keep them out of the field, when the hint should be
dropt that a second MS. from Gandercleuch might shortly be looked for.
John therefore took a convenient opportunity to mention the new scheme
as if casually--so as to give Constable the impression {p.204} that
the author's purpose was to divide the second series also between his
old rival in Albemarle Street, of whom his jealousy was always
sensitive, and his neighbor Blackwood, whom, if there had been no
other grudge, the recent conduct and rapidly increasing sale of his
Magazine would have been sufficient to make Constable hate with a
perfect hatred. To see not only his old "Scots Magazine" eclipsed, but
the authority of the Edinburgh Review itself bearded on its own soil
by this juvenile upstart, was to him gall and wormwood; and, moreover,
he himself had come in for his share in some of those grotesque _jeux
d'esprit_ by which, at this period, Blackwood's young Tory wags
delighted to assail their elders and betters of the Whig persuasion.
To prevent the proprietor of this new journal from acquiring anything
like a hold on the author of