Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

134 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
lisher's ears when his attention was called to the still
more serious threat from London of an action on the
part of Hunt. Lockhart himself did not hesitate to
allow that the attack was actionable, and it evidently
assumed a much more grave aspect than the other,
with many anxious questions whether the case would
be tried in London or in Edinburgh,—a libel in the
former place being tried before a jury, and therefore
with a result more likely to be detrimental. The first
news of this came in an alarmed and troubled letter
from the respectable firm of Messrs Baldwin, Cradock, &
Co., in London, honest booksellers, with no more to do
with the compounding of the literary wares they dealt
in than a grocer has to do with the growing of his
tea. One cannot but sympathise with the feelings of
these good people when there arrived by the peaceable
post a red-hot cartel, not unlike a summons to deadly
combat, demanding that they should instantly give
up the name of a writer in ' Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine,' signing himself Z, who had given vent " to
the most false, malignant, and altogether infamous
aspersion on the character of Mr Leigh Hunt, editor
of the ' Examiner.' " These excellent booksellers had
their name as Mr Blackwood's correspondents upon
his Magazine, without the faintest idea that they
were thus placing themselves on the nest of a cocka-
trice. The discomfort, confusion, and disapproval of
their letter is almost amusing :
—
Messrs Baldwin, Cradock, & Go. to W. Blackwood.
London, Nov. 3, 1817.
We were much surprised and hurt this morning at receiving
a visit from Mr John Hunt, complaining on behalf of his brother
of an article in your new Magazine signed Z. Not having had