e than could be
endured:

"My respected friend your predecessor had some difficulty with me
in adjusting the respective prerogatives of Author and Editor, for
though not, as I hope, insensible to fair reason, I used sometimes
to rebel against what I reckoned mere authority, and this partly
perhaps as a matter of literary conscience; being wont to write
nothing without studying it if possible to the bottom, and writing
always with an almost painful feeling of scrupulosity, that light
editorial hacking and hewing to right and left was in general
nowise to my mind."

But we feel that the fault must have lain with Jeffrey; the
qualifications that Lord Cockburn admired so much were not likely to
be to the taste of a man of Mr. Carlyle's grit. That did not prevent
the most original of Mr. Napier's contributors from being one of the
most just and reasonable.

"I have, barely within my time, finished that paper
['Characteristics'], to which you are now heartily welcome, if you
have room for it. The doctrines here set forth have mostly long
been familiar convictions with me; yet it is perhaps only within
the last twelvemonth that the public utterance of some of them
could have seemed a duty. I have striven to express myself with
what guardedness was possible; and, as there will now be no time
for correcting proofs, I must leave it wholly in your editorial
hands. Nay, should it on due consideration appear to you in your
place (for I see that matter dimly, and nothing is clear but my
own mind and the general condition of the world), unadvisable to
print the paper at all, then pray understand, my dear Sir, now and
always, that I am no unreasonable man; but if dogmatic enough (as
Jeffrey used to call it) in my own beliefs, also truly desirous to
be just towards those of others. I shall, in all sincerity, beg of
you to do, without fear of offence (for in _no_ point of view will
there be any), what you yourself see good. A mighty work lies
before the writers of this time."

It is always interesting, to the man of letters at any rate if not
to his neighbours, to find what was first thought by men of admitted
competence of the beginnings of writers who are now seen to have made
a mark on the world. "When the reputation of authors is made," said
Sainte-Beuve, "it is easy to speak of them _convenablement_: we have
only to guid