"The evil news of Sir Walter's losses came on me like an invasion. I wish the world would do for him now what it will do in fifty years, when it puts up his statue in every town--let it lay out its money in purchasing an estate, as the nation did to the Duke of Wellington, and money could never be laid out more worthily.--I remain, dear James, your very faithful friend,
One of the parties chiefly aggrieved in the matter of the Chaldee MS. was Thomas Pringle, one of the original editors of _Blackwood_. This ingenious person had lately returned from a period of residence in Southern Africa, and established himself in London as secretary to the Slave Abolition Society, and a man of letters. Forgetting past differences, he invited the Shepherd, in the following letter, to aid him in certain literary enterprises:--
"My dear Sir,--I wrote you a hasty note some time ago, to solicit your literary aid for the projected work of Mr Fraser. I now address you on behalf of two other friends of mine, who are about to start a new weekly publication, something in the shape of the _Literary Gazette_, to be entitled _The London Review_. The editors are Mr D. L. Richardson, the author of a volume of poems chiefly written in India, and a Mr St John, a young gentleman of very superior talents, whose name has not yet been (so far as I know) before the public, though he has been a contributor to several of the first-rate periodicals. I have no other interest in the work myself than that of a friend and contributor. The editors, knowing that I have the pleasure of your acquaintance, have requested me to solicit your aid to their work, either in verse or prose, and they will consider themselves pledged to pay for any contributions with which you may honour them at the same rate as _Blackwood_. May I hope, my dear sir, that you will, at all events, stretch a point to send them something for their first number, which is to appear in the beginning of June....
"I always read your '_Noctes_,' and have had many a hearty laugh with them in the interior of Southern Africa; for though I detest _Blackwood's_ politics, and regret to see often such fine talents so sadly misapplied (as I see the matter), yet I have never permitted my own political predilections, far less any reminiscences of old magazine squabbles, to blind me to the exuberant flow of genius which pervades and beautifies so many delightful articles in that magazine.... Believe me always, dear Hogg, yours very truly,