e, the magical WE would have little effect, and your _Review_
would be absolutely despised--_omne ignotum pro mirifico_. I suppose I
shall see you about twelve on Tuesday. Could you not get me a gay light
article or two? If I am to _edit_ for you, I cannot find time to
_contribute_. Madame Campan's poem will more than expend my leisure. I
came here for a little recreation, and I am all day at the desk as if I
were at the Admiralty. This Peninsular article has cost me two days'
hard work, and is, after all, not worth the trouble; but we must have
something about it, and it is, I suppose, too late to expect anything
better. Mr. Williams's article on Sir W. Scott [Lord Stowell] is
contemptible, and would expose your _Review_ to the ridicule of the
whole bar; but it may be made something of, and I like the subject. I
had a long and amusing talk with the Chancellor the night before last,
on his own and his brother's judgments; I wish I had time to embody our
conversation in an article.

Yours ever,

J.W.C.

Southey is _very_ long, but as good as he is long--I have nearly done
with him. I write _very slowly_, and cannot write long. This letter is
written at three sittings.

No sooner had Croker got No. 56 of the _Review_ out of his hands than he
made a short visit to Paris. On this Mr. Barrow writes to Murray;

_Mr. Barrow to John Murray_.

_April_ 2, 1823.

"Croker has run away to Paris, and left poor Gifford helpless. What will
become of the _Quarterly?_ ... Poor Gifford told me yesterday that he
felt he _must_ give up the Editorship, and that the doctors had
_ordered_ him to do so."

Some months later, Barrow wrote to Murray saying that he had seen
Gifford that morning:

_Mr. Barrow to John Murray_.

_August_ 18, 1823.

"I told him to look out for some one to conduct the _Review_, but he
comes to no decision. I told him that you very naturally looked to him
for naming a proper person. He replied he had--Nassau Senior--but that
you had taken some dislike to him. [Footnote: This, so far as can be
ascertained, was a groundless assumption on Mr. Gifford's part.] I then
said, 'You are now well; go on, and let neither Murray nor you trouble
yourselves about a future editor yet; for should you even break down in
the midst of a number, I can only repeat that Croker and myself will
bring it round, and a second number if necessary, to give him time to
look out for and fix upon a proper person, but that the work should