"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,

"Tho. Pringle."

A similar request for contributions was made the year following by
William Howitt. His letter is interesting, as exhibiting the epistolary
style of a popular writer. Howitt, it will be perceived, is a member of
the Society of Friends.

"Nottingham, _12th mo., 20th, 1828._

"Respected Friend,--Herewith I forward, for thy
acceptance, two small volumes, as a trifling testimony
of the high estimation in which we have long held thy
writings. So great was our desire to see thee when my
wife and I were, a few springs ago, making a ramble on
foot