According to Hogg, he had the honor of being the projector and commencer of no less a periodical than Blackwood's Magazine. This is his account of it. "From the time I gave up 'The Spy,' I had been planning with my friends to commence the publication of a magazine on a new plan; but for several years we only conversed about the utility of such a work, without doing any thing further. At length, among others, I chanced to mention it to Mr. Thomas Pringle; when I found that he and his friends had a plan in contemplation of the same kind. We agreed to join our efforts, and try to set it a-going; but as I declined the editorship, on account of residing mostly on my farm at a distance from town, it became a puzzling question who was the best qualified among our friends for that undertaking. We at length fixed on Mr. Gray as the fittest person for a principal department, and I went and mentioned the plan to Blackwood, who, to my astonishment, I found had likewise long been cherishing a plan of the same kind. He said he knew nothing about Pringle, and always had his eye on me as a principal assistant; but he would not begin the undertaking till he saw that he could do it with effect. Finding him, however, disposed to encourage such a work, Pringle, at my suggestion, made out a plan in writing, with a list of his supporters, and sent it in a letter to me. I inclosed it in another, and sent it to Mr. Blackwood, and not long after that period Pringle and he came to an arrangement. Thus I had the honor of being the beginner and almost sole instigator of that celebrated work--'Blackwood's Magazine.'"