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lackwood sent Hazlitt's threatening letter to Murray, with his remarks: _Mr. Blackwood to John Murray_. _September_ 22, 1818. "I suppose this fellow merely means to make a little bluster, and try if he can pick up a little money. There is nothing whatever actionable in the paper.... The article on Hazlitt, which will commence next number, will be a most powerful one, and this business will not deprive it of any of its edge." _September_ 25, 1818. "What are people saying about that fellow Hazlitt attempting to prosecute? There was a rascally paragraph in the _Times_ of Friday last mentioning the prosecution, and saying the magazine was a work filled with private slander. My friends laugh at the idea of his prosecution." Mr. Murray, however, became increasingly dissatisfied with this state of things; he never sympathised with the slashing criticisms of _Blackwood_, and strongly disapproved of the personalities, an opinion which was shared by most of his literary friends. At the same time his name was on the title-page of the magazine, and he was jointly responsible with Blackwood for the articles which appeared there. In a long letter dated September 28, 1818, Mr. Murray deprecated the personality of the articles in the magazine, and entreated that they be kept out. If not, he begged that Blackwood would omit his name from the title-page of the work. A long correspondence took place during the month of October between Murray and Blackwood: the former continuing to declaim against the personality of the articles; the latter averring that there was nothing of the sort in the magazine. If Blackwood would only keep out these personal attacks, Murray would take care to send him articles by Mr. Frere, Mr. Barrow, and others, which would enhance the popularity and respectability of the publication. In October of this year was published an anonymous pamphlet, entitled "Hypocrisy Unveiled," which raked up the whole of the joke contained in the "Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript," published a year before. The number containing it had, as we have already seen, been suppressed, because of the offence it had given to many persons of celebrity, while the general tone of bitterness and personality had been subsequently modified, if not abandoned. Murray assured Blackwood that his number for October 1818 was one of the best he had ever read, and he desired him to "offer to his friends his very best thanks
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